Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality of Life as Medicine: A Pilot Studyof Patients with Chronic Illness and Pain

An intensive 5-day quality-of-life (QoL) session was constructed based on a psychosomatic model. The session was comprised of teaching on philosophy of life, psychotherapy, and body therapy. The three elements were put together in such a way that they mutually supported each other. The synergy attained was considerable. The pilot study demonstrated that in the course of only 1 week, patients had time to revise essential life-denying views and to integrate important, unfinished life events involving negative feelings. Consequently, the patients became more present in the body’s blocked-off areas and subjectively healthier. Nineteen persons with chronic illness and pain (fibromyalgia, chronic tiredness, whiplash, mild depression, and problems involving pain in arms and legs including osteoarthritis), and unemployed for 5–7 years attended the course. In the week before and after the 5-day course, the participants completed the validated SEQOL (Self-Evaluation of Quality of Life Questionnaire) including questions on self-evaluated health and the unvalidated “Self-Evaluation of Working-Life Quality Questionnaire” (SEQWL). This pilot study was without a control group or clinical control. As far as diagnoses were concerned, the group was inhomogeneous. Common for the group was a low QoL, poor quality of working life QWL, and numerous health problems. The study showed an 11.2% improvement in QoL (p < 0.05), a 6.3% improvement in QWL (p < 0.05), and a 12.0% improvement in self-perceived physical health (p = 0.08). There was a 17.3% improvement in self-perceived psychological health (p < 0.05) and satisfaction with health in general improved by 21.4% (p < 0.05). Symptoms like pain were almost halved and several of the participants were free of pain for the first time in years. In conclusion it seemed that the combination of training in philosophy of life, psychotherapy, and body therapy can give patients a large, fast, and efficient improvement in QoL, QWL, and health. It is not known if these changes will be permanent and if all kinds of patients with different health problems will gain from this cure. Further research should be conducted.
Econometrics of Financial Models and Market Microstructure Effects

Abstract This paper addresses the problem of testing financial models in the presence of market micro structure effects. The moment restrictions implied by the financial and market microstructure models are jointly tested using Hansen's (1982) GMM approach. To illustrate the methodology, I consider the random walk model in combination with the bid-ask price effect model of Blume and Stambaugh (1983). Within this sufficiently simple framework, I obtain closed-form expressions for the estimators, standard errors of the estimators, and the test statistic, which affords an opportunity to examine the precision of the estimators and the power of the test as the return interval increases. I show that apparent rejections of the random walk model cannot be sustained when tests of the model are adjusted for market micro structure effects, and I discuss other applications of the methodology.
Wavelet decomposition for intra-day volume dynamics

In a follow up to a previous paper where a model was presented for intra-day volume dynamics, we use wavelet decomposition for model parameter estimation. We run Monte-Carlo simulations of the model with these estimated parameters and compare with observed volume curves. This model in its calibrated form can be used for various execution strategies, e.g. in estimation of potential slippage deviations from VWAP benchmarks.
Co‐ordinate regulation of Salmonella typhimurium invasion genes by environmental and regulatory factors is mediated by control of hilA expression

During infection of their hosts, salmonellae enter intestinal epithelial cells. It has been proposed that when Salmonellatyphimurium is present in the intestinal lumen, several environmental and regulatory conditions modulate the expression of invasion factors required for bacterial entry into host cells. We report here that the expression of six different S. typhimurium invasion genes encoded on SPI1 (Salmonella pathogenicity island 1) is co‐ordinately regulated by oxygen, osmolarity, pH, PhoPQ, and HilA. HilA is a transcriptional activator of the OmpR/ToxR family that is also encoded on SPI1. We have found that HilA plays a central role in the co‐ordinate regulation of invasion genes by environmental and regulatory conditions. HilA can activate the expression of two invasion gene–lacZY fusions on reporter plasmids in Escherichia coli, suggesting that HilA acts directly at invasion‐gene promoters in S. typhimurium. We have found that the regulation of invasion genes by oxygen, osmolarity, pH, and PhoPQ is indirect and is mediated by regulation of hilA expression by these environmental and regulatory factors. We hypothesize that the complex and co‐ordinate regulation of invasion genes by HilA is an important feature of salmonella pathogenesis and allows salmonellae to enter intestinal epithelial cells.
The Agency Costs of Free Cash Flow: Acquisition Activity and Equity Issues

Michael C. Jensen argues that there are agency costs associated with free cash flow. This study extends that argument and posits that shareholders condition their valuation decisions on firms' reputations regarding free cash flow abuse. The authors test this notion by examining share price responses to equity offers, which generally exacerbate the cash flow problem, for firms differentiated by their recent acquisitive behavior. The results suggest that shareholders react more favorably to equity issue announcements if firms have acquired only assets related to their core business than to other equity issue announcements. Copyright 1991 by University of Chicago Press.
Management interventions as conditions for motivation crowding of motivation in the European commission : a mediational analysis of basic needs satisfaction. Paper

Motivation of employees is crucial to achieve results within any organization, be it a public or a private organization (Rainey and Steinbauer 1999; Kojasteh 1993). It therefore can be considered to be one of the big questions in current public administration research (Behn 1995). Despite its importance, motivation is not easily grasped, being a multi-faceted and dynamic phenomenon. Nevertheless, recent efforts have provided openings to more fully understand the motivational processes of public servants. In particular, the current surge of public service motivation research (Perry and Hondeghem 2008) has been helpful in explaining why and how public servants are motivated by the idea of contributing to society. The state of affairs in public service motivation research highlights the impact of institutions in explaining public service motivation, the international incidence of public service motivation and conditions in which public service motivations resorts effect. However, public service motivation is not the only motivation that plays a role in motivating people to be employed, to perform and to retain in/with the public sector. This amalgam of motivations, of which public service motivation is only one, but which includes, among others, salary, work-life balance, tenure or pension rights, is generally considered as public sector motivation (Vandenabeele and Ban 2009). Little is known about the interaction of public service motivation with these other elements of public sector motivation.
Common trajectories, variable paces, divergent outcomes? Models of European capitalism under conditions of complex economic interdependence

Globalization is widely held to circumscribe the parameters of political and economic choice in contemporary Europe, just as it has come to circumscribe the parameters of debate on the future of European models of capitalism. Yet opinions on the question of convergence nonetheless vary markedly, with proponents of the hyperglobalization thesis pointing to a simple and inexorable process of neoliberal convergence while an increasingly influential school of neo-institutionalists point to a rather more complex process of ‘dual’ or ‘co-convergence’, reinforcing the distinctiveness of liberal and coordinated market economies. In both accounts, the exhibited pattern of convergence (dual or otherwise) is seen to be driven by globalization. In this paper I provide a theoretical and empirical critique of this important literature, challenging the contextualization of the question of convergence with respect to globalization which both perspectives share. I advance a distinctive variant of the new institutionalism which emphasizes: (i) the contingency of any process of convergence observed; (ii) the frequently political as opposed to economic nature of convergent tendencies; (iii) the counter-tendencies which might be mobilized to such tendencies; and (iv) the invariably far greater significance, in the establishment of common trajectories, of regional rather than genuinely global processes of integration. Though common trajectories are discernible within contemporary Europe, associated in particular with the institutional architecture of EMU and an accelerating process of European economic integration, they have been embraced more or less enthusiastically and at variable paces, leading not to convergent but to divergent outcomes.
Style Chasing by Hedge Fund Investors

This paper examines whether investors chase hedge fund investment styles. We find that better-performing and more popular styles are rewarded with higher inflows in subsequent periods. This indicates that investors compare hedge fund styles in terms of recent performance and popularity, and they subsequently reallocate funds from less successful to more successful styles. Furthermore, we find evidence of competition between individual hedge funds of the same style. Funds outperforming the other funds in their styles and funds whose inflows exceed the average flows in their styles experience higher inflows in subsequent periods. One of the reasons for competition among same-style funds is investors’ search for the best managers. The high minimum investment required to invest in a hedge fund limits investors’ diversification opportunities and makes this search particularly important. Finally, we show that hedge fund investors’ implementation of style chasing in combination with intra-style fund selection represents a smart strategy.
Magnetic Studies of Rocks and Sediments Obtained by Deep Drilling

THE MAGNETIC PROPERTIES of the crustal mater ials which may be drilled in Project Mohol e should have man y poi nts of geochemical interest. For example, the magn etic susceptibility, the Curie temp erature, the magn etic hysteresis, and the magnetic anisotropy may reflect pressure, temperature, and chemica l relationship s in the crust and upper mantle. In addition, the rocks and sediments may be expected to have a rema nent magnetism which has been acquired in the earth's field and may have paleomagnetic significance. Inasmuch as the average heat flow value in the area of the proposed drilling site is normal, an average conductivity figure of 2 X 10-3 Cal;oC sec yields a thermal grad ient value of 70°C/km. Thus, the dep th to the magnetic Curie isoth erm typical for oceanic basalts can be expected to lie more than 8 km below the surface of the sediments-too deep to be reached by the drilling operation. For most of the material encountered during drilling, we can therefore expect a remanent magnetism which is controlled by the cooling of the material through the Curie point as it formed, that is to say, a thermo-remanent magnetization. In the sediment overlying the crustal rock there may be such magnetizations produ ced by heating from below, but , in addition, there will be some sedimentary acquired magnetism. Previous work of the wri ter on exactly such mate rial has shown that it may be of great importance to our understanding of past changes in the geomagnetic field. Many workers have contribu ted to studies of ancient magne tizations in igneous rocks. In Hawaii, Doell and Cox ( 1961a) and Tarling and McDougall ( 1963) have mad e measurements of the magnetism remanent in several lava flows. The Hawaii Institute of Geophysics is preparing to extend such measurements during the coming year. To illustrate how studies such
Blocking C5aR signaling promotes the anti-tumor efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade

ABSTRACT Anti-PD-1/PD-L1 therapy has achieved great success in the clinic; however, only a small fraction of cancer patient benefit from PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapy, and overcoming resistance to PD-1/PD-L1 blockade has thus become a primary priority. In this study, we demonstrated that administration of PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies resulted in the activation of the complement system and massive generation of C5a. Generation of C5a did not change the accumulation of MDSCs in either the tumor or spleen but enhanced their inhibitory potential. In addition, blockade of C5a-C5aR signaling in combination with PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies greatly enhanced the anti-tumor efficacy of PD-1/PD-L1 antibodies. Overall, these data indicate an immunosuppressive role of C5a in the context of PD-1/PD-L1 blockade therapy and provide a strong incentive to clinically explore combination therapies using a C5a antagonist.
Forkhead box protein C2 contributes to invasion and metastasis of extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma, resulting in a poor prognosis

Extrahepatic cholangiocarcinoma (EHCC) is a cancer with a poor prognosis, and the postoperative survival of patients depends on the existence of invasion and metastasis. The epithelial‐to‐mesenchymal transition (EMT) is an important step in EHCC invasion and metastasis. Forkhead box protein C2 (FOXC2) is a transcription factor that has been reported to induce the EMT. Therefore we examined the correlation between FOXC2 expression and clinical pathological factors, and analysed the function of FOXC2. The expression of FOXC2 in 77 EHCC cases was investigated by immunohistochemical staining, and the relationship between FOXC2 expression and clinicopathological factor was assessed. Knockdown by small interfering RNA (siRNA) was performed to determine the roles of FOXC2 in EHCC cell line. FOXC2 expression correlated with lymph node metastasis (P = 0.0205). Patients in the high FOXC2 expression group had a poorer prognosis than the patients in the low FOXC2 expression group. Moreover, FOXC2 knockdown inhibited cell motility and invasion, and decreased the expression of EMT markers (N‐cadherin, and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) ‐2) and Angiopietin‐2 (Ang‐2). The EMT inducer FOXC2 contributes to a poor prognosis and cancer progression. FOXC2 may be a promising molecular target for regulating EHCC metastasis.
Tests for Parameter Instability in Regressions with I(1) Processes

This article derives the large-sample distributions of Lagrange multiplier (LM) tests for parameter instability against several alternatives of interest in the context of cointegrated regression models. The fully modified estimator of Phillips and Hansen is extended to cover general models with stochastic and deterministic trends. The test statistics considered include the SupF test of Quandt, as well as the LM tests of Nyblom and of Nabeya and Tanaka. It is found that the asymptotic distributions depend on the nature of the regressor processes—that is, if the regressors are stochastic or deterministic trends. The distributions are noticeably different from the distributions when the data are weakly dependent. It is also found that the lack of cointegration is a special case of the alternative hypothesis considered (an unstable intercept), so the tests proposed here may also be viewed as a test of the null of cointegration against the alternative of no cointegration. The tests are applied to three data se.
[Siblings of early onset cerebellar ataxia with hypoalbuminemia].

Recently, a new syndrome of early onset cerebellar ataxia with hypoalbuminemia (EOCA-HA) was reported in Japan. The clinical features of EOCA-HA overlap with those of Friedreich's ataxia (FA), and primary hypoalbuminemia is a characteristic laboratory finding of this syndrome. Genetic linkage analysis of EOCA-HA including this newly reported family revealed that the gene for EOCA-HA is located on the long arm of chromosome 9 as FA. However, several recombination events were observed between D9S15 in EOCA-HA, whereas no recombination events were seen in FA. We report on two siblings with EOCA-HA and discuss the clinical and laboratory features. The patients were a 25-year-old man (patient 1) and a 23-year-old man (patient 2). Their parents marriage was non-consanguineous. The mode of inheritance is compatible with autosomal recessive mode. Clinically, they showed cerebellar ataxia as the initial symptom in the late infantile period and subsequently showed choreoathetosis and ocular motor apraxia at the age of approximately fifteen years. Deep tendon reflexes were reduced in late infancy and finally disappeared. Amyotrophy and sensory impairment of the legs developed at approximately twenty. Abnormal electrocardiogram and diabetes mellitus were not observed. On X-ray CT scan or MRI, the cerebella of both patients were mildly atrophic. Clinical features in these siblings were indistinguishable from those of ataxia telangiectasia, but immunodeficiency syndrome was absent. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE INTEGRATION OF A SCROLL EXPANDER INTO A HEAT RECOVERY RANKINE CYCLE

This study investigates the possibility to associate a scroll expander to a heat recovery Rankine cycle, working with water. In view to develop such a scroll expander, three scroll compressors are adapted to be run in expander mode. The three tested expanders are fed with water steam and air. Two of them need to be lubricated. The third expander is also fed with a binary mixture of water and propylene glycol. A model of scroll expander is proposed and validated.
The effectiveness of tumor necrosis factor alpha antibody (infliximab) in treating recalcitrant psoriasis: a report of 2 cases.

BACKGROUND Psoriasis is being recognized as an autoimmune disease in which immunocyte-derived cytokines are thought to drive the development of the altered keratinocyte phenotype. Although the role of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-alpha) in psoriasis is not completely understood, it may underlie many of the key steps that lead to induction and maintenance of the disease. Infliximab is an immunoglobulin monoclonal antibody that binds and inactivates TNF-alpha and has been successfully used in the management of TNF-alpha-mediated diseases, such as Crohn disease and rheumatoid arthritis. OBSERVATIONS Two patients with recalcitrant psoriasis that was unresponsive to multiple skin-directed and systemic therapies were treated with a single infusion of infliximab. The treatments resulted in rapid and complete clearing of psoriatic erythroderma and resolution of symptoms of arthritis in one case and complete clearing of widespread psoriatic plaques and improvement of symptoms of arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease in the other. The single treatments with infliximab were well tolerated with no immediate or long-term adverse effects noted. CONCLUSION A single infusion of infliximab at 5 to 10 mg/kg resulted in the rapid and complete clearing of recalcitrant psoriatic plaques and erythroderma with a disease-free interval of 3 to 4 months in these 2 patients and improved the symptoms of psoriatic arthritis.
Influence of the AMF Arc Control on Voltage Distribution of Double-Break VCBs

This paper investigates the influence of the axial magnetic field (AMF) arc control on voltage distribution (VD) of double-break vacuum circuit breakers (VCBs) in order to gain balanced VD, and thus enhance the breaking capacity. The interaction of vacuum arc plasma, postarc current (PAC), and AMF is discussed. We conduct the breaking test of double-break VCBs with externally applied AMF of a different pulsewidth, magnitude, and a different moment. The PAC, postarc charge, and the VD are measured to analyze the relationship between the AMF arc control and the VD. The optimal AMF arc control and the relationship between the AMF magnitude and the unbalanced voltage ratio are gained when the grading capacitors were 400 pF. The experimental test showed that the proper AMF arc control can improve the unbalanced VD. The mechanism is that the proper AMF arc control can make the postarc charge small and stable, so the unbalanced postarc charge, which caused the unbalanced VD is limited.
The Profitability Of Technical Trading Rules: A Combined Signal Approach

The focus of this paper is to determine the profitability of technical trading rules by evaluating their ability to outperform the naive buy-and-hold trading strategy. Moving average cross-over rules, filter rules, Bollinger Bands, and trading range break-out rules are tested on the S&P/TSX 300 Index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average Index, NASDAQ Composite Index, and the Canada/U.S. spot exchange rate . After accounting for transaction costs, excess returns are generated by the moving average cross-over rules and trading range break-out rules for the S&P/TSX 300 Index , NASDAQ Composite Index and the Canada/U.S. spot exchange rate . Filter rules also earn excess returns when applied on the Canada/U.S. spot exchange rate. The bootstrap methodology is used to determine the statistical significance of the results. The profitability of the technical trading rules is further enhanced with a combined signal approach.
Leeway for the Loyal: A Model of Employee Discretion

This article examines the factors underlying task discretion from an economist's perspective. It argues that the key axis for understanding discretion is the trade‐off between the positive effects of discretion on potential output per employee and the negative effects of greater leeway on work effort. In empirical analysis using matched employer–employee data, it is shown that discretion is strongly affected by the level of employee commitment. In addition, discretion is generally greater in high‐skilled jobs, although not without exceptions, and lower where employees are under‐skilled. Homeworking and flexitime policies raise employee discretion. The impact of teamworking is mixed. In about half of cases team members do not jointly decide about work matters, and the net effect of teams on task discretion in these cases is negative. In other cases, where team members do decide matters jointly, the impact is found to be neutral according to employees' perceptions, or positive according to managers' perceptions. There are also significant and substantial unobserved establishment‐level factors which affect task discretion.
Potential biases in estimates of hepatitis C RNA clearance in newly acquired hepatitis C infection among a cohort of injecting drug users

Estimates of hepatitis C virus (HCV) clearance following acute infection range from 14 to 46%. This wide range is likely to be due to the characteristics of the populations studied and analysis methods. This paper examines how differing definitions of clearance parameters affect estimates of viral clearance in a cohort of 85 injecting drug users with newly acquired HCV infection. Kaplan–Meier estimates of time to HCV clearance were determined using varying definitions of eligible cohort, viral clearance, date of infection and date of clearance. Based on which combinations of definitions were used, the number of subjects eligible for analysis ranged from 27 to 75, clearance rate ranged from 14 to 68% and time to achieving 25% clearance ranged from approximately 5 months to 14 months. Standardized definitions and methodologies are required to enable valid comparisons of rates of clearance across newly acquired HCV infection natural history studies.