Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
PancanQTL: systematic identification of cis-eQTLs and trans-eQTLs in 33 cancer types

Abstract Expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) analysis, which links variations in gene expression to genotypes, is essential to understanding gene regulation and to interpreting disease-associated loci. Currently identified eQTLs are mainly in samples of blood and other normal tissues. However, no database comprehensively provides eQTLs in large number of cancer samples. Using the genotype and expression data of 9196 tumor samples in 33 cancer types from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA), we identified 5 606 570 eQTL-gene pairs in the cis-eQTL analysis and 231 210 eQTL-gene pairs in the trans-eQTL analysis. We further performed survival analysis and identified 22 212 eQTLs associated with patient overall survival. Furthermore, we linked the eQTLs to genome-wide association studies (GWAS) data and identified 337 131 eQTLs that overlap with existing GWAS loci. We developed PancanQTL, a user-friendly database (http://bioinfo.life.hust.edu.cn/PancanQTL/), to store cis-eQTLs, trans-eQTLs, survival-associated eQTLs and GWAS-related eQTLs to enable searching, browsing and downloading. PancanQTL could help the research community understand the effects of inherited variants in tumorigenesis and development.
Competing demands from physical problems: effect on initiating and completing depression care over 6 months.

OBJECTIVE AND DESIGN To evaluate a cohort of patients with major depression to examine the effect of competing demands on depression care during multiple visits over 6 months. PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING Ninety-two patients with 5 or more symptoms of depression and no recent depression treatment were evaluated by 12 primary care physicians in 6 practices in the usual-care arm of an effectiveness trial of the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research Depression Guidelines. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE Treatment was considered to be initiated if the patient reported starting a guideline-concordant antidepressant medication or making a visit for specialty counseling. Treatment completion was defined as either a 3-month course of guideline-concordant antidepressant use or completion of 8 or more specialty counseling visits. RESULTS Among the 92 patients reporting no recent treatment at study enrollment, 57% reported starting and 17% reported completing a course of guideline-concordant antidepressant medication and or specialty counseling at the 6-month interview. The severity of physical problems among patients with high enthusiasm for depression treatment decreased the odds that patients would initiate depression therapy. Severity of physical problems had no observable effect on completing depression therapy in the group of patients who initiated treatment. CONCLUSIONS Physical problems compete with depression for attention over multiple visits in untreated patients who are enthusiastic about getting care for their emotional problems. Interventions are needed for this high-risk group, because depression treatment could potentially enhance patients' treatment of their physical problems. Arch Fam Med. 2000;9:1059-1064
Welfare Effects of Congestion Pricing and Transit Services in Multiclass Multimodal Networks

This paper analyzes the welfare effects of congestion pricing with the use of a general bimodal network with heterogeneous users. Transit service is modeled as a cheaper (because of its lower operating cost) and undesirable (because of the relatively long travel time) alternative to the highway network and is added to an origin–destination pair as an exclusive link. The analysis characterizes the critical users—those who suffer the greatest loss from pricing—as those who experience the least change in travel time after pricing. Accordingly, the paper shows that critical users could be rich, poor, or middle class, depending on their origin and destination. This finding highlights the spatial heterogeneity of distributional effects. Furthermore, numerical experiments indicate that (a) those with a low value of time tend to benefit more from greater coverage of transit services than those with intermediate values of time; (b) in the presence of poor transit coverage, users with access to transit may share a disproportionally greater burden for the congestion relief generated by an optimum toll for the system; and (c) the optimum toll for the system generally leads to a welfare gap between the rich and the poor larger than those of toll schemes that have proportionally lower magnitudes and achieve smaller efficiency improvements.
Determinants of Occupational Injury in Kombolcha Textile Factory, North-East Ethiopia

Background: Textile factory is among the most common manufacturing industries that has higher rate of work-related injuries. Knowing the associated factors of work-related injuries can be a critical step for improving the working condition of workers in the sector. Objective: To assess the major determinants of occupational injury among workers in Kombolcha textile factory, North-East Ethiopia. Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from April 1 to 15, 2013 on 455 randomly selected workers after stratification by working departments. The data was collected using a structured questionnaire through face-to-face interview by data collectors of 6 occupational health experts and 6 nurses. Results: Working >48 hrs/wk (aOR: 2.71, 95% CI: 1.18–6.24), handling objects >20 kg (aOR: 2.35, 95% CI: 1.24–4.45), visual concentration (aOR: 3.10, 95% CI: 1.42–6.75), timely maintenance of machine (aOR: 1.80, 95% CI: 1.11–2.93), and sleep disorder (aOR: 2.95, 95% CI: 1.47–5.92) were significant factors for the occurrence of occupational injuries. Conclusion: Many factors including working for a long time with accurate instruments and sleep disorders can cause occupational injury in textile industries.
A New Journal for a New Niche: Editorial Statement

The Journal of Social Media for Organizations (JSMO) aims to serve the public interest as the leading channel for open dissemination of scientific contributions on social media in commercial, governmental, and non-profit organizations. JSMO: • Is an open access journal for disseminating scientifically rigorous enquiry into the behavioral and technical aspects of social media used in organizations. • Adopts a systems-level approach, considering social media as systems in which people and technologies play significant roles. • Provides a balanced scientific publication for scholars and professionals to publish important findings that might not fit within existing publications of collaborative or social technologies, which often emphasize technology over people. • Aims to become an authoritative journal addressing technology-mediated collaboration and social interaction. This editorial statement describes the motivation and scope of the new journal, outlines the publication context in which it appears, explains the properties that differentiate it from existing publications, and describes how the journal will work. JOURNAL SCOPE
Endogenous Distribution and Equilibrium Growth: A Note

Does distributive conflict diminish during the course of economic development? This article outlines a model in which distribution, the tax rate and growth evolve endogenously over time. When voting occurs over a tax on capital, we show that the growth rate is maximized at the political equilibrium in the long run. When voting occurs over a general income tax, we show that the growth rate is maximized at the political equilibrium in both the short and long run. These results suggest that the transitional dynamics of growth models with redistributive politics lead to growth-maximizing outcomes, as distributive conflict diminishes in the course of development. This implies that the democratic process leads to greater consensus over policy choices, with a perfect convergence of interest across individuals with respect to the tax rate.
Operation Twist and the Effect of Large-Scale Asset Purchases

The Federal Reserve's current large-scale asset purchase program, dubbed "QE2," has a precedent in a 1961 initiative by the Kennedy Administration and the Federal Reserve known as "Operation Twist. " An analysis finds that four of six potentially market-moving Operation Twist announcements had statistically significant effects and that the program cumulatively caused a significant but moderate 0.15 percentage point reduction in longer-term Treasury yields. These results can be used to estimate QE2's effects.
Determinants of international university rankings scores

This article analyses the relationship between a university’s score in international university rankings, its expenditure per student and other factors such as university mission, size and productive inefficiency. We develop an economic model of rankings and universities and estimate this model with data on universities classified in the top 200 by the Times Higher Education Supplement ranking of 2007. We find that the elasticity of a university’s ranking score for the expenditure per student is between 4% and 9%, and that there are no clear signs of inefficiency in production among the top 200 universities. University mission and size are also significant predictors of ranking score. These results are especially interesting given the relevance attributed to rankings by government officials, university directors and students.
Assessing the Impact of Savings and Credit Cooperative Among Monthly Income Earners

The availability of microfinance providers is important for some business growth and improvement in the socio economic well being of the participants. However, the ability to determine the benefits or otherwise of such microfinance providers relied majorly on the responses of beneficiaries and/or clients of the microfinance institution. Data for this study were gathered through the use of survey questionnaire administered to 126 respondents who belong to the same category of financial cooperatives operating savings and credit microfinance scheme for her members alone. The questionnaire data were analysed quantitatively using Pearson correlation coefficient and t – calculated for test of significance. The findings show that participation in savings and credit cooperative organized by monthly income earners increase their purchasing power and thus assisted them to purchase household equipments and properties. Participants were also able to take advantage of loan facility to engage in direct and indirect investment in business activities while still retaining their jobs.
Physically Cross-Linked Polyvinyl Alcohol for the Topical Delivery of Fluconazole

The aim of this study was to develop fluconazole in an ultrapure polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) hydrogel able to deliver the drug in a sustained release pattern for local treatment of skin fungal infections. The topical fluconazole hydrogels were prepared using PVA hydrogels physically cross-linked by freeze–thaw technique. Polyethylene glycol (PEG) was added as a hydrophilic excipient as a release enhancer of fluconazole. The effects of PVA molecular weight, PEG molecular weight, and PEG concentration were studied using a 2 × 4 × 2 factorially designed experiment. The selected fluconazole hydrogel proved to be physically stable over a period of 6 months and to be effective in the topical treatment of cutaneous candidiasis. Therefore, it could be concluded that the formula composed of 10% PVA 205000 and 1.5% PEG 4000 and 2% fluconazole and prepared by three cycles of freezing, and thawing is very promising in the local treatment of skin fungal infection as an alternative to the systemic use of fluconazole.
Social Welfare when Needs Differ: An Axiomatic Approach

If the social welfare of households of different demographic type has to be evaluated, the author observes considerable disagreement about the way the composition of households is to be taken into account. This paper makes an attempt to differentiate some of the various approaches. It deals with four methods. In order to make their normative content transparent, an axiomatic approach is employed. The methods are completely characterized and some of their implications are demonstrated. Copyright 1997 by The London School of Economics and Political Science
Candy Elasticity: Halloween Experiments on Public Political Statements

type="main" xml:id="ecin12233-abs-0001"> We conducted experiments during trick-or-treating on Halloween in a predominantly liberal neighborhood in the weeks preceding the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections. We decorated one side of a house porch with McCain material in 2008 (Romney material in 2012) and the other side with Obama material. Children were asked to choose a side, with half receiving the same candy on either side and half receiving more candy to go to the McCain/Romney side. This yields a “candy elasticity” of children's political support. Results vary by age: children ages nine and older were two to three times more likely to choose the Republican candidate when offered double candy for voting Republican compared to when offered equal candy, whereas children ages eight and under were particularly sticky and did not waver in their choice of candidate despite the offer of double candy. (JEL C93, D72, D12)
Chemistry and mode of action of macrolides.

After the discovery of erythromycin and other natural compounds, including oleandomycin, spiramycin, josamycin and midecamycin, much research has been devoted to synthesizing derivatives or analogues with improved chemical, biological and pharmacokinetic properties. These new macrolides are semisynthetic molecules that differ from the original compounds in their substitution pattern of the lactone ring system. The chemical structure of macrolides is characterized by a large lactone ring containing from 12 to 16 atoms to which are attached, via glycosidic bonds, one or more sugars. The lactone ring is substituted by hydroxyl or alkyl groups, one ketone at C7 in 12-membered macrolides and at C9 in 14-membered macrolides, and one aldehyde group in 16-membered macrolides. The only compound with a 15-membered ring contains a tertiary amino group. Although the 12-membered macrolides have never become important in clinical practice, in recent years numerous new 14-membered macrolide derivatives of erythromycin A have shown improved pharmacokinetics due to chemical modifications of a hydroxyl group at C6, a proton at C8, or a ketone at C9. Derivatives, such as dirithromycin, roxithromycin, clarithromycin and flurithromycin, have all been synthesized with the aim of inhibiting their decomposition under acidic conditions to inactive anhydrohemiketal derivatives. A new 15-membered macrolide, azithromycin, with a methylated nitrogen inserted into the lactone ring shows good activity against Gram-negative bacteria. The efforts expended in chemical and biochemical modifications of 16-membered macrolides have been less successful, with only a few new molecules, such as rokitamycin and miocamycin, showing improved bioavailability and activity against some resistant micro-organisms. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
Management practices: An analysis of gender differences in the strategy execution

The paper sets out to investigate the difference between female and male managers in the context of strategy execution in their organizations with regard to the conceptual framework of leadership and performance. A survey questionnaire was administered to 322 managers to study the 5 dimensions regarding obstacles in strategy execution previously identified. The study primarily used principal component analysis (PCA) and then an analysis of variance (ANOVA) to examine the relationship between dimensions of strategy execution identified in previous research and also to assess empirical differences for socio-demographic variables such as personal and organizational perception of performance, number of years in the management position, number of workforce under supervision and number of years as an employee in the organization. The research found gender differences regarding strategy execution between men and women and confirmed the main hypothesis that there would be difference between men and women in matters of strategy execution. Additional work will be necessary to increase sample size and to specify sector of activity to generalize the findings. The study highlighted gender differences in terms of strategy execution and management practices. Key words: Gender management, strategy execution, women, organization, performance, leadership.
Evaluating levels of strategic integration and devolvement of human resource management in India

This paper analyses the levels of 'integration' of human resource management into corporate strategy and 'devolvement' of responsibility for HRM to line managers in India. The findings are based on a large questionnaire survey run in 137 firms in six manufacturing industries. The survey results are further supplemented by twenty-four in-depth interviews in the same companies. Results show a low level of integration and devolvement practised in Indian organizations. A number of contingent variables and organizational policies were found to determine the levels of integration and devolvement in Indian organizations. India is mapped on the integrationdevolvement matrix of ten European countries, showing similarities with the UK, Italy and Germany.
Long-Term Growth in Housing Prices and Stock Returns

A firm’s long-term stock returns are negatively related to past growth in housing prices in the state where the firm is located. The housing price effect is persistent, and robust to controlling for the long-term stock return reversal effect, changes in mortgage interest rates across the states, cyclicality in housing prices, and overall local economic conditions. There is no evidence that extant asset pricing models can adequately explain the effect. The study discusses potential explanations for, and the implications of, the cross-regional housing price effect.
A 3D dynamical biomechanical tongue model to study speech motor control

A 3D biomechanical dynamical model of human tongue is presented, that is elaborated in the aim to test hypotheses about speech motor control. Tissue elastic properties are accounted for in Finite Element Modeling (FEM). The FEM mesh was designed in order to facilitate the implementation of muscle arrangement within the tongue. Therefore, its structure was determined on the basis of accurate anatomical data about the tongue. Mechanically, the hypothesis of hyperelasticity was adopted with the Mooney-Rivlin formulation of the strain energy function. Muscles are modeled as general force generators that act on anatomically specified sets of nodes of the FEM structure. The 8 muscles that are known to be largely involved in the production of basic speech movements are modeled. The model and the solving of the Lagrangian equations of movement are implemented using the ANSYSTM software. Simulations of the influence of muscle activations onto the tongue shape are presented and analyzed.
Barriers to seeking treatment for sexual problems in primary care: a qualitative study with older people.

BACKGROUND Although it is known that only a small minority of people experiencing sexual problems seek treatment for these, barriers to treatment seeking remain relatively unexplored. This is particularly true for older people, whose perceived "asexuality" has led to them being excluded from sexual health research. OBJECTIVE The aim of the present study was to identify barriers experienced by older people in seeking treatment for sexual problems. METHODS Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 22 women and 23 men aged 50-92 years recruited from the age/sex register of a Sheffield general practice. A central component of the interviews involved exploring participants' attitudes towards, and experiences of, seeking help for sexual problems. Interviews were analyzed using the "framework" approach. RESULTS The GP was seen as the main source of professional help if sexual problems were experienced. However, several barriers were identified as inhibiting help being sought. These included the demographic characteristics of the GP, GP attitudes towards later life sexuality, the attribution of sexual problems to "normal ageing", shame/embarrassment and fear, perceiving sexual problems as "not serious" and lack of knowledge about appropriate services. Twenty-five participants had experienced recent sexual problems which informed their responses. CONCLUSION These findings indicate that many older people have sexual problems that they would like to discuss with their GP, but they feel unable to do so. GPs may need to be more proactive in raising sexual health issues in consultations if these needs are to be met.
Corporate social responsibility and corporate performance: evidence from a panel of US listed companies

We investigate whether inclusion and permanence in the domini social index (DSI) affects corporate performance on a sample of around 1000 firms in a 13-year interval by controlling for size, industry, business cycle and time invariant firm idiosyncratic characteristics. Our results find partial support to the hypothesis that corporate social responsibility is a move from the shareholders wealth to a multi-stakeholders welfare target. On the one side, permanence into the domini index (DI) is shown to increase (reduce) significantly total sales per employee (returns on equity but not when large and R&D investing firms are excluded from the sample). On the other side, lower returns on equity for Domini firms seem nonetheless to be accompanied by relatively lower conditional volatility and lower reaction to extreme shocks with respect to the control sample. An explanation for these findings, suggested by the inspection of Domini criteria, is that social responsibility implies, on the one side, decisions leading to higher cost of labour and of intermediate output, but may, on the other side, enhance involvement, motivation and identification of the workforce with company goals with positive effects on productivity.
The political economy of financial internationalization in the developing world

In the last decade a growing number of developing countries have opened their financial systems by liberalizing capital flows and the rules governing the international operations of financial intermediaries. One explanation of this rush toward greater financial internationalization is that increasing interdependence generates domestic and foreign political pressures for capital account liberalization. While we find evidence for that hypothesis, we find that the proximate cause in developing countries more frequently is found in balance of payments crises. Politicians perceive that financial openness in the face of crisis can increase capital inflows by indicating to foreign investors that they will be able to liquidate their investments and by signaling government intentions to maintain fiscal and monetary discipline. The argument is explored through case studies of Chile, Indonesia, Mexico, and South Korea.
posVibEditor: Graphical authoring tool of vibrotactile patterns

This paper presents an authoring tool, posVibEditor, for quick and easy design of vibrotactile patterns for vibration motors. The tool supports the drag-and-drop design paradigm so that novice users can easily learn and interact with the tool. Vibration patterns are managed in a database using XML formats in order to improve their reusability and extensibility. The multi-channel timeline interface is also developed for designing time-synchronized multiple vibrotactile patterns for multiple vibration motors. In addition, an internal vibration player is incorporated to allow the user to test and evaluate designed patterns immediately. The last unique feature is a module for perceptually transparent rendering that can guarantee the delivery of perceptually correct vibration effects. The authoring tool is suitable to mobile devices that contain a single vibration motor as well as applications in virtual reality and haptics that frequently employ multiple vibration motors.