Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Predicting Early Mortality After Hip Fracture Surgery: The Hip Fracture Estimator of Mortality Amsterdam

Objectives: Early mortality after hip fracture surgery is high and preoperative risk assessment for the individual patient is challenging. A risk model could identify patients in need of more intensive perioperative care, provide insight in the prognosis, and allow for risk adjustment in audits. This study aimed to develop and validate a risk prediction model for 30-day mortality after hip fracture surgery: the Hip fracture Estimator of Mortality Amsterdam (HEMA). Methods: Data on 1050 consecutive patients undergoing hip fracture surgery between 2004 and 2010 were retrospectively collected and randomly split into a development cohort (746 patients) and validation cohort (304 patients). Logistic regression analysis was performed in the development cohort to determine risk factors for the HEMA. Discrimination and calibration were assessed in both cohorts using the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC), the Hosmer–Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test, and by stratification into low-, medium- and high-risk groups. Results: Nine predictors for 30-day mortality were identified and used in the final model: age ≥85 years, in-hospital fracture, signs of malnutrition, myocardial infarction, congestive heart failure, current pneumonia, renal failure, malignancy, and serum urea >9 mmol/L. The HEMA showed good discrimination in the development cohort (AUC = 0.81) and the validation cohort (AUC = 0.79). The Hosmer–Lemeshow test indicated no lack of fit in either cohort (P > 0.05). Conclusions: The HEMA is based on preoperative variables and can be used to predict the risk of 30-day mortality after hip fracture surgery for the individual patient. Level of Evidence: Prognostic Level II. See Instructions for Authors for a complete description of levels of evidence.
The Sting of Social: How Emphasizing Social Consequences in Warning Messages Influences Perceptions of Risk

This research examines the effects of warning messages that emphasize the social consequences of negative health outcomes. The authors demonstrate that highlighting social (vs. health) consequences leads to greater perceived temporal proximity of and increased perceived vulnerability to the outcome, thereby affecting risk perceptions, behavioral intentions, and customer perceptions of actual experience. They document this effect across five studies in different health domains including flossing (Study 1), soda consumption (Study 2), smoking (Study 3), and unprotected ultraviolet light exposure (Studies 4 and 5). These findings point to the important role of the consequence type highlighted in warning messages, which can have a significant impact on risk perceptions and consumer experiences.
Lateral chest X-ray for physicians.

Despite advances in radiology, the chest X-ray (CXR) has survived as the most frequently requested examination. About 6.7 million are performed each year in the UK.1 The radiation dose of a frontal CXR is equivalent to only three days' exposure to natural background radiation (effective dose 0.02 mSv.2 The lateral CXR is less frequently requested and more difficult to interpret. Nevertheless it contains much information on the thoracic cage, pleura, lungs, pericardium, heart, mediastinum and upper abdomen. Many junior doctors, at ease with the frontal CXR, seem intimidated by the lateral film. Uncertain when to request or how to interpret, they may retreat expensively and unnecessarily into computerized tomography. The lateral CXR is performed with the side of interest closer to the X-ray film, giving an effective dose of 0.05 mSv. If the side is not specified, a left lateral is usually taken. In this paper we offer a brief guide to demystify and clarify this cheap and useful investigation. Essentially there are four indications and four main abnormalities to interpret.
The impact of context and model choice on the determinants of strategic alliance formation: Evidence from a staged replication study

Research summary: Endogenous characteristics of alliance network structure have repeatedly been shown to predict future alliance ties in the strategic management literature. Specifically, the concepts and measures of relational, structural, and positional embeddedness (per Gulati and Gargiulo, 1999), as well as interdependence, are foundational for many studies. We explore these determinants of alliance formation by replicating the baseline analyses of Ahuja, Polidoro, and Mitchell's, 2009 SMJ article. We examine the impact of empirical choices with respect to time period, underlying data generating model, and industry by isolating each effect in turn. We demonstrate that while geographic similarity and product-market similarity each robustly predict the interdependence effect, the effects of both technological similarity as well as the embeddedness predictors are sensitive to context and/or method. Managerial summary: Our examination of alliance formation in the chemical and semiconductor industries during the 1990s demonstrates how new alliances may be predicted by both the technical, geographic, and product-market fit of potential partners as well as characteristics of each partner's previous network participation. Comparing our results to an earlier study, we find that geographic and product-market similarity predict alliance formation across both industries and time frames while prior ties between partners predict alliance formation only when these industries are less mature. Other network participation indicators generate nuanced effects, which underscore the importance of quasi-replications of alliance formation across industries and time periods in building evidence-based management theories. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Signs of intelligence in cross-fostered chimpanzees.

In cross-fostering, the young of one species are reared by adults of another, as in the classical ethological studies of imprinting and song-learning. In our laboratory, infant chimpanzees were reared under human conditions that included two-way communication in American Sign Language (A.S.L.), the gestural language of the deaf in North America. A large body of evidence from five chimpanzees demonstrated stage by stage replication of basic aspects of the acquisition of speech and signs by hearing and deaf children. Here we review evidence that, under double-blind conditions: (i) the chimpanzees communicated information in A.S. L. to human observers; (ii) independent human observers agreed in their identification of the chimpanzee signs, (iii) the chimpanzees could use the signs to refer to natural language categories: DOG for any dog, FLOWER for any flower, SHOE for any shoe.
The influence of Antarctica on the momentum budget of the southern extratropics

The antarctic plateau acts as a strong heat sink for the global climate, cooling the atmosphere and radiating energy to space. A cold dense atmospheric boundary layer is formed. Strong surface winds are formed as the boundary layer drains off the plateau. These drainage winds and the eddy fluxes necessary to maintain them are analysed in a general circulation model (GCM). The drainage flow is well represented in the GCM. The associated mean meridional circulation is analysed in isentropic coordinates. The momentum budget over Antarctica reveals a balance between the Eliassen-Palm flux convergence and the Coriolis torque exerted by the mean meridional mass flux. Both vertical and horizontal components of the Eliassen-Palm flux contribute, the vertical component being the greater.
Analysis of growth curves of indigenous male Venda and Naked Neck chickens

The objective of this work was to estimate and compare the growth curve parameters for live weight of indigenous Venda and Naked Neck chickens and carry out some analyses to test the existence of differences in the growth pattern between these breeds. The data were collected from the two breeds of chickens that were reared from day-old to 21 weeks of age. Two hundred chickens (100 of each breed) were used. Three different non-linear models, namely Gompertz, Logistic and Richards, were used to define the growth curves of the chickens. Models were compared using Coefficients of determination (R 2 values), A parameter values, the Durbin-Watson Statistic (DW) test for autocorrelation, computing difficulty based on the number of iterations needed for convergence and size of residual variances. The R 2 were high for all models: 0.996, 0.990 and 0.997 for Gompertz, Logistic and Richards, respectively. Residual variances were 2240, 5924 and 1154 for Gompertz, Logistic and Richards, respectively. The Gompertz model was observed to be suitable for explaining the growth of the chickens. Breed differences were observed in the growth parameters of chickens. The Venda breed was observed to be late maturing and heavier at maturity while the Naked Neck was shown to have a higher growth rate, reaching maturity earlier but attaining a lighter mature weight. Keywords : Growth parameters, growth models, breed differences South African Journal of Animal Science Vol. 37 (1) 2007: pp. 21-26
THE DYNAMICS OF CEO COMPENSATION AND FIRM PERFORMANCE: ARE EXECUTIVE COMPENSATIONS EXCESSIVE?

We evaluate the dynamics of executive compensation and shareholder returns. In observing the level of compensation, we notice that CEOs’ salaries, bonuses, annual stock options, and accumulation of stock options all showed strong or explosive growth. We postulate that the marginal productivity of CEO compensation diminishes over the sample period due to this substantial growth. Our empirical results support this hypothesis. Using both single equation and simultaneous equation models, we find the marginal effect of compensation on total shareholder returns declines substantially. The results support the concerns that the public has expressed about the levels of CEO compensation.
A Study on High Quality and Low Cost Peer to Peer Live Streaming over Internet

Recently, Peer to Peer (P2P) systems have been widely leveraged to broadcast a live video stream to a large number of viewers. In P2P live streaming, peers (viewers) not only watch the stream but also contribute their resources such share it. As a result, this collaborative approach reduces the cost and improves the scalability of traditional client-server live streaming systems. However, P2P systems work in a best-effort manner and depend on the voluntary contribution of peers. Hence, it is challenging to provide a high quality streaming service (i.e., smooth playback and short delay) in the P2P live streaming. In order to achieve that, it is important to solve two key issues as follows: 1) how to maximally utilize resources of participant peers to share a live stream, and 2) how to improve the reliability of P2P systems by the assistance of reliable servers with a low cost. In this thesis, we tackled the above-mentioned two issues and provided answers for them. At first, a scheme is proposed to maximally utilize resources of participant peers. By that, the utmost level of available resources is utilized which either can improve the quality of service or reduce the server cost or a trade-off between that. The scheme allows all peers to be engaged in the live stream distribution process. It is achieved by developing an efficient peering and content scheduling strategy that takes both upload bandwidth bottleneck and content bottleneck issues of P2P systems into account. The scheme is able to construct an efficient overlay structure with a short hopcount delay and attain a maximal streaming rate. Secondly, the P2P system is assisted by the reliable cloud computing, having a hybrid cloud-P2P, to provide a guaranteed quality of service. Such assistance overcomes the reliability issue of a pure P2P where peers join/leave the system or fail dynamically (peer churns). In the proposed cloud-P2P model, cloud storage and cloud content delivery network services are exploited to help the peers to maintain a smooth playback. Moreover, peers are referenced to the cloud storage service to recover the overlay quickly in case of peer churns. As cloud services are not free, the model is designed to incur as low cost as possible while guaranteeing the quality of service.
Squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC Ag) in the diagnosis and prognosis of lung cancer.

OBJECTIVE We have studied the usefulness of squamous cell carcinoma antigen (SCC Ag) in diagnosis and prognosis of lung cancer (LC). MATERIAL AND METHODS We have measured the serum SCC Ag levels in 388 subjects: 69 healthy persons; 103 with nonmalignant lung diseases (NMLD); 24 with lung metastasis of extrapulmonary origin (LMEO); and 192 with LC (88, with squamous cell carcinoma [SCC] type). In 55 with SCC, we analyzed the survival time. RESULTS Serum SCC Ag was above 2.5 ng/ml in 1.4 percent of healthy persons; 2.9 percent of those with NMLD; 8.3 percent of those with LMEO; and 27.6 percent of those with LC. Such percentage was 47.7 percent in SCC. In this type, there were significant differences according to the extent of disease (61.6 percent in advanced stages, and 26.5 percent in localized stages, p = 0.002). In the other types, the sensitivity was substantially lower. The initial SCC Ag has prognostic significance (p = 0.02) in the univariate analysis, but it loses such significance in a multivariate model, including the stage. CONCLUSIONS Therefore, we do not recommend this marker in the clinical management of patients with LC, even it can be useful in the differential diagnosis if used in combination with other markers.
Survey of Pupils in Schools for Physically Handicapped in London

and personality, length of stay in hospital, family care, availability of day and boarding "special" schools, transport, size of classes, and types of buildings of near by " ordinary " schools. In recent years there has been a demand for the admission to ordinary schools of children who would previously have been regarded as too severely handicapped for anything but a special school. At the same time there are now in the special schools many children who in previous years would have been regarded as too seriously crippled for life out
Afobazole Activation of σ-1 Receptors Modulates Neuronal Responses to Amyloid-β25–35

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by a continual decline of cognitive function. No therapy has been identified that can effectively halt or reverse its progression. One hallmark of AD is accumulation of the amyloid-β peptide (Aβ), which alone induces neuronal injury via various mechanisms. Data presented here demonstrate that prolonged exposure (1–24 hours) of rat cortical neurons to Aβ25–35 results in an increase in basal intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i), and that coincubation with the compound afobazole inhibits these [Ca2+]i increases. The effect of afobazole on [Ca2+]i is due to activation of σ-1 receptors but could not be mimicked by a second pan-selective σ receptor agonist, 1,3-di-o-tolylguanidine (DTG). Afobazole was also found to lessen nitric oxide (NO) production in response to Aβ25–35 application but did not affect elevations in reactive oxygen species elicited by the Aβ fragment. The reductions in [Ca2+]i and NO perturbation produced by afobazole were associated with a decrease in neuronal cell death, whereas DTG failed to enhance cell survival. Examining the molecular mechanisms involved in the increased neuronal survival demonstrates that afobazole incubation results in lower expression of the proapoptotic protein Bax and the death protease caspase-3, while at the same time increasing expression of the antiapoptotic protein, Bcl-2. Given the importance of Aβ neurotoxicity in AD etiology, the findings reported here suggest that afobazole may be an effective AD therapeutic agent. Furthermore, σ-1 receptors may represent a useful target for AD treatment, although not all σ ligands appear to be equally beneficial.
Antimicrobial, Antioxidant and Cytotoxic Activities of Cleoma viscosa Linn. Crude Extracts

 Abstract — The bioactivity studies from the weed ethanolic crude extracts from leaf, stem, pod and root of wild spider flower; Cleoma viscosa Linn. were analyzed for the growth inhibition of 6 bacterial species; Salmonella typhimurium TISTR 5562, Pseudomonas aeruginosa ATCC 27853, Staphylococcus aureus TISTR 1466, Streptococcus epidermidis ATCC 1228, Esc herichia coli DMST 4212 and Bacillus subtilis ATCC 6633 with initial concentration crude extract of 50 mg/ml. The agar well diffusion results found that the extracts inhibit only gram positive bacteria species; S. aureus, S. epidermidis and B. subtilis . The minimum inhibition concentration study with gram positive strains revealed that leaf crude extract give the best result of the lowest concentration compared with other plant parts to inhibit the growth of S. aureus , S. epidermidis and B. subtilis at 0.78, 0.39 and lower than 0.39 mg/ml, respectively. The determination of total phenolic compounds in the crude extracts exhibited the highest phenolic content was 10.41 mg GAE/g dry weight in leaf crude extract. Analyzed the efficacy of free radical scavenging by using DPPH radical scavenging assay with all crude extracts showed value of IC 50 of leaf, stem, pod and root crude extracts were 8.32, 12.26, 21.62 and 35.99 mg/ml, respectively. Studied cytotoxicity of crude extracts on human breast adenocarcinoma cell line by MTT assay found that pod extract had the most cytotoxicity CC 50 value, 32.41 µg/ml. Antioxidant activity and cytotoxicity of crude extracts exhibited that the more increase of extract concentration, the more activities indicated. According to the bioactivities results, the leaf crude extract of Cleoma viscosa Linn. is the most interesting plant part for further work to search the beneficial of this weed.
Discussion paper 24 / 08 INTRAGROUP TRANSFERS AND GROUP FORMATION

In this paper we consider different forms of intra-group transfers and the resulting type of group formation. We introduce the concept of partial joint liability and revenue sharing and show that this form of intra-group transfer may result in heterogeneous group formation. Its uniqueness is established by the fact that other transfer schemes always result in homogenous group formation. JEL codes: O12, O16.
Tribes in Karnataka: Status of health research

The south Indian State of Karnataka, once part of several kingdoms and princely states of repute in the Deccan peninsula, is rich in its historic, cultural and anthropological heritage. The State is the home to 42,48,987 tribal people, of whom 50,870 belong to the primitive group. Although these people represent only 6.95 per cent of the population of the State, there are as many as 50 different tribes notified by the Government of India, living in Karnataka, of which 14 tribes including two primitive ones, are primarily natives of this State. Extreme poverty and neglect over generations have left them in poor state of health and nutrition. Unfortunately, despite efforts from the Government and non-Governmental organizations alike, literature that is available to assess the state of health of these tribes of the region remains scanty. It is however, interesting to note that most of these tribes who had been original natives of the forests of the Western Ghats have been privy to an enormous amount of knowledge about various medicinal plants and their use in traditional/folklore medicine and these practices have been the subject matter of various scientific studies. This article is an attempt to list and map the various tribes of the State of Karnataka and review the studies carried out on the health of these ethnic groups, and the information obtained about the traditional health practices from these people.
Young People and Leadership: Questions of Access in Secondary Schools

There is seemingly an abundance of leadership opportunities available to youth within school environments, including sport captaincy, sport coaching, prefect roles, and assigned arts or cultural leadership. For many students, the opportunity to captain a sports team, or lead an event or activity is perceived as their first taste of leadership action. However, as evidenced in a growing body of literature (Jackson & Parry, 2011), leadership is increasingly being conceived as much more than an assigned formal position. Furthermore, there is some evidence to suggest that formal leadership roles may be presenting barriers for students wishing to access leadership opportunities in a more informal capacity (McNae, 2011). In this conceptual article, we examine the value and nature of informal leadership practices, and from this, identify questions of access to leadership for youth in secondary school settings. Specifically, the aim of our paper is to advance current conceptualisations about youth leadership and to offer future research directions (via questions) to establish a deeper evidence base for better understanding access to leadership for youth. To achieve this, we explore three interrelated themes: leadership practices and accessibility for youth; learning through leadership for youth; youth access and the notion that leadership belongs to everybody. As a result of the platform provided by our conceptualising, a series of questions are presented for future research. Directions for future research relate to understanding more about formal and informal leadership opportunities in the secondary school context, what we will hear when we listen to the student’s voice about access to these opportunities, and how informal leadership opportunities might influence overall access to leadership for students.
Hyperhomoysteinemia as a risk factor for coronary heart diseases in chronic hepatitis C patients

Hepatitis C virus is one of the major health problems worldwide. It affects mainly the liver but several extrahepatic manifestations are also accounted. Chronic hepatitis C patients are at an increased risk of developing hepatic steatosis, which share many clinical features with the metabolic syndrome. Hepatic steatosis has also been associated with elevated levels of markers of inflammation such as homocysteine, identified as hyperhomocysteinemia (HHC). HHC due to Methylenetetrahydrofolate Reductase (MTHFR) gene, in particular the C677T polymorphism, was recently associated with coronary heart diseases (CHD) in chronic hepatitis C (CHC) patients. Homocysteine is an intermediate in methionine metabolism, which takes place mainly in the liver metabolism. Deficiencies of micronutrients (folate, vitamin B 6 and possibly vitamin B 12) along with mild hyperhomocysteinemia, perhaps, act synergistically with other classical risk factors to further increase the risk of CHD. Clinical data indicate that HHC is associated with an increased incidence of CHD as well as with the severity of the disease in CHC patients. In conclusion, HHC might be a potential aetiological factor of CHD in CHC patients. The aim of this review is to investigate the progression of coronary heart diseases in chronic hepatitis C patients and correlate with levels of homocysteine in concurrence to genetic defects and nutrient deficiencies. However, future studies need to clarify the mechanistic role of HHC in CHD and CHC as a useful paradigm with most interesting therapeutic implications.