Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Innovative working schedule: introducing one short nap during the night shift

In order to test the possible long-term effects of the implementation of a short nap during night shifts, an experiment was conducted over a period of 1 year with 12 volunteer shiftworkers operating in an industrial plant. They were authorized, under certain conditions, to use individual sleeping areas, for a maximum of 1 hour, between 23h30 and 3h30. The participants were asked to fill in a short questionnaire every day during the entire study. The questions concerned the schedule of the main sleep period, the afternoon nap and the night-time nap, if any, as well as the evaluation of mood and the quality of work. This daily questionnaire was supplemented by an extensive questionnaire applied every 2 months in order to assess the main changes introduced in the life of the participants by this new working schedule. Results showed that this new organization introduced a general satisfaction about the quality and the easiness of the work at night. The vigilance level was considered to be higher during the hours following the nap. The efficacy of the nap time progressively increased for most subjects. The general quality of life improved for most subjects. While a few of them considered that falling asleep was less easy on the following morning at home, the statistical analysis did not show any detrimental effect of the short rest period on the length of the immediately consecutive main sleep period. However, different statistical analyses allow us to reveal significant differences between the main sleep durations following the night shift compared with those following both the afternoon shift and the resting period. The main sleep duration following the night shift was not statistically different from that of the morning shift. These results are very encouraging. A short nap during the night shift can be considered as a positive way to counteract the low level of vigilance that normally occurs during the late part of the night.
Non-toxic Level of Acetaminophen Potentiates Carbon Tetrachloride-Induced Hepatotoxicity in Mice.

A wide range of medications are routinely used to maintain and improve human health. Hence, it is essential that we understand and predict adverse effects caused by the combined use of multiple medications. In the present study, we investigated whether the combination of carbon tetrachloride (CCl4) and acetaminophen (APAP) had a detrimental effect on the liver. Mice injected with APAP (100 mg/kg) showed no significant changes in hepatic injury markers (alanine aminotransferase and aspartate aminotransferase), histopathological findings, pro-inflammatory cytokine levels, or hepatic oxidative stress. In contrast, a single injection of CCl4 (15 mg/kg) led to a significant increase in hepatic injury, in addition to an increase in pro-inflammatory cytokine levels and oxidative stress. Co-administration of APAP and CCl4 resulted in exacerbation of these hepatic injuries. Our results suggest that a non-toxic dose of APAP has the potential to increase CCl4-induced liver damage and oxidative stress.
Diagnosis and management of gastro‐oesophageal reflux in preterm infants in neonatal intensive care units

Aim: There is relatively little published information regarding gastro‐oesophageal reflux (GOR) in preterm infants, therefore the aim of this study was to elucidate the incidence of GOR and management regimes employed for this condition in major neonatal intensive care units (NICUs). Methods: A standard questionnaire was sent to consultants in 77 level II (or secondary) and III (or tertiary) NICUs. Results: Seventy‐eight percent of consultants responded. Of babies born in these units, 40% were less than 34 wk gestational age and the estimated incidence of GOR in this group was 22%. GOR was diagnosed on a clinical basis alone in 42% of units, 8% used clinical features and/or investigations, and 50% used clinical features plus investigations and/or therapeutic trials. Intra‐oesophageal pH monitoring was available in 93% of units but used regularly in only 32% of suspected cases. Common treatment strategies for diagnosed GOR included non‐drug options—body positioning (98%) and placement on a slope (96%); and drugs—H2‐receptor antagonists (100%), feed thickeners (98%), antacids (96%), prokinetic agents (79%), proton‐pump inhibitors (65%) and dopamine‐receptor antagonists (53%). However, the frequency with which all of these treatments were used varied widely between units. Surgery was required in only 1% of cases.
Effects of an implicit mood prime on the accessibility of smoking expectancies in college women.

This study examined whether an implicit mood prime would differentially affect the accessibility of self-generated smoking expectancies in women. One hundred nine ever-smokers were randomly assigned to receive either a positive or negative musical mood induction or a no-music control condition. Participants self-generated smoking expectancies, and the 1st responses were categorized as positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, or negative consequence expectancies. Overall, participants generated mood-congruent smoking expectancies, suggesting that affect may act as a conditioned stimulus that elicits expectations of positive and negative reinforcement of smoking behavior. In addition, negative reinforcement expectancies were more frequently generated in current versus past smokers. Results are consistent with a situational-specificity hypothesis and memory-based models of affect and expectancies.
Communication and Country Clusters : A Study of Language and Leadership Preferences

This area of leadership-related communication is underresearched from the employees' perspective. In earlier research, leadership similarities across groups of countries generated a country cluster taxonomy argued to be based on country commonalities such as language similarities. The assumption is that employees in countries with similar languages will display similar preferences regarding leadership. This study examines whether these clusters can predict employees' interpersonal leadership communication preferences. Using a database of 15,000 employees in 16 countries across four country clusters, the analysis reveals that the country cluster taxonomy can be used to predict leadership preferences regarding empowering, coaching, and supervising, but not regarding general and personal communication, review of achievement, and positive feedback in the form of making people proud. Instead, six re-configured interpersonal communication clusters are presented. The results challenge an unreflected use of country clusters in international management and specifically indicate that language similarities do not imply similar communication preferences.
Nonlinear mode switching in lithium niobate nanowaveguides

Nanowaveguides (NWs), typically semiconductors, are used as nanolasers [1], as optical switching devices [2] and as imaging probes [3]. These applications can be further complemented by fully controlling the guided modes within the NW. Here, we select second-harmonic (SH) modes in the visible (VIS) and near-infrared (NIR) wavelength ranges by using SH modal phase-matching [4]. Therefore, only one SH mode is excited and waveguided within the lithium niobate (LiNbO3) NW. In this case, LiNbO3 is an appropiate material choice because of its strong nonlinear properties and its broad transparency in the VIS and NIR.
Th17 gene expression in psoriatic arthritis synovial fluid and peripheral blood compared to osteoarthritis and cutaneous psoriasis.

OBJECTIVES The IL-23/IL-17 axis is central to the pathogenesis of psoriatic arthritis (PsA). We aimed to identify Th17 signalling genes that are dysregulated in synovial fluid of PsA compared to osteoarthritis (OA) patients and to determine if differences in peripheral blood can distinguish PsA from psoriasis patients and controls. METHODS Synovial fluid cells (SFCs) from 14 PsA and 9 OA patients were obtained and stored in TRIzol reagent. RNA was isolated by phenol-chloroform extraction and purified with RNeasy miniprep kits. Total RNA was extracted from PAXgene whole blood from 20 PsA, 20 psoriasis without arthritis (PsC) and 11 controls. Quantitative RT-PCR arrays were used to profile expression of 84 genes related to the Th17 regulatory network. Fold change differences were compared by Mann-Whitney U-test with false discovery rate (FDR) correction (FDR<0.05). RESULTS In PsA compared to OA SFCs, a total of 33 genes were up-regulated and 27 genes were down-regulated. Signalling molecules (such as STAT3, FOXP3) were highly expressed in PsA SFCs, while cytokines (such as IL17F, IL6) were more predominant in OA SFCs after non-supervised hierarchal clustering. Nine genes (MMP3, CCL1, IL17C, CCL20, IL17F, IL3, CXCL5, IL6 and CX3CL1) had concordant expression in SFCs and in peripheral blood cells (PBCs) of PsA compared to PsC and/or controls. CONCLUSIONS We identified expression differences in Th17 signalling genes in PsA compared to OA SFCs, with an elevation of signalling molecules and attenuation of cytokine expression in PsA. A subset of genes was concordant in PBCs; these may thus be potential biomarkers of PsA.
Analysis of BAP1 Germline Gene Mutation in Young Uveal Melanoma Patients

Abstract Background: To evaluate the prevalence of BAP1 germline mutations in a series of young patients with uveal melanoma (UM), diagnosed before age 30. Materials and Methods: The study was carried out on 14 young uveal melanoma patients (average age 21.4 years, range 3 months to 29 years). Germline DNA was extracted from peripheral blood. BAP1 sequencing was carried out using direct sequencing of all exons and adjacent intronic sequences. We also tested for germline mutations in additional melanoma-associated candidate genes CDKN2A and CDK4 (exon 4). Results: We identified one patient with a pathogenic mutation (c. 1717delC, p.L573fs*3) in BAP1. This patient was diagnosed with UM at age 18 years and had a family history of a father with UM and a paternal grandfather with cancer of unknown origin. One additional patient had an intronic variant of uncertain significance (c.123-48T > G) in BAP1 while the remaining 12 patients had no alteration. None of the patients had CDKN2A or CDK4 (Exon 4) mutations. Family history was positive for a number of additional malignancies in this series, in particular for cutaneous melanoma, prostate, breast and colon cancers. There were no families with a history of mesothelioma or renal cell carcinoma. Conclusions: This study suggests that a small subset of patients with early onset UM has germline mutation in BAP1. While young patients with UM should be screened for germline BAP1 mutations, our results suggest that there is a need to identify other candidate genes which are responsible for UM in young patients.
Choice, deferral, and consistency

We report on two novel choice experiments with real goods where subjects in one treatment are forced to choose, as is the norm in economic experiments, while in the other they are not but can instead incur a small cost to defer choice. Using a variety of measures, we find that the active choices (i.e., those that exclude the deferral outside option) of subjects in the nonforced‐choice treatment are generally more consistent. We also find that the combined deferral and active‐choice behavior of subjects in that treatment is explained better by a model of dominant choice with incomplete preferences than it is by rational choice. Our results suggest that nonforced‐choice experiments and models can be helpful in separating people's rational, hesitant/not‐yet‐rational and genuinely irrational behavior, and can potentially offer important new insights in revealed preference analysis.
Central Vertigo and Dizziness: Epidemiology, Differential Diagnosis, and Common Causes

Background:Dizziness is a common complaint among patients seen by primary care physicians, neurologists, and otolaryngologists. The most common causes of dizziness are peripheral vestibular disorders, but central nervous system disorders must be excluded. This article provides an overview of the epidemiology of dizziness, differentiating between central and peripheral vertigo, and central causes of dizziness. Review Summary:Dizziness is among the most common complaints in medicine, affecting approximately 20% to 30% of persons in the general population. Dizziness is a general term for a sense of disequilibrium. Vertigo is a subtype of dizziness, defined as an illusion of movement caused by asymmetric involvement of the vestibular system. Central vestibular lesions affecting the pons, medulla, or cerebellum cause vertigo, nausea, vomiting, severe ataxia, multidirectional nystagmus that is not suppressed by optic fixation, and other neurologic signs. The other types of dizziness are dysequilibrium without vertigo, presyncope, and psychophysiologic dizziness, which is often associated with anxiety, depression, and panic disorder. Conclusions:Epidemiologic studies indicate that central causes are responsible for almost one-fourth of the dizziness experience by patients. The patient's history, neurologic examination, and imaging studies are usually the key to differentiation of peripheral and central causes of vertigo. The most common central causes of dizziness and vertigo are cerebrovascular disorders related to the vertebrobasilar circulation, migraine, multiple sclerosis, tumors of the posterior fossa, neurodegenerative disorders, some drugs, and psychiatric disorders.
Sympathetic Nervous System Activity and Ventricular Tachyarrhythmias: Recent Advances

Sympathetic nervous system activity (SNSA) is believed to participate in the genesis of ventricular tachyarrhythmias (VTA) but understanding has been impeded by the number and complexity of effects and the paucity of data from humans. New information from studies of genetic disorders, animal models, and spontaneous human arrhythmias indicates the importance of the temporal pattern of SNSA in arrhythmia development. The proarrhythmic effects of short‐term elevations of SNSA are exemplified by genetic disorders and include enhancement of early and delayed afterdepolarizations and increased dispersion of repolarization. The role of long‐term elevations of SNSA is suggested by animal models of enhanced SNSA signaling that results in apoptosis, hypertrophy, and fibrosis, and sympathetic nerve sprouting caused by infusion of nerve growth factor. Processes that overlap short‐ and long‐term effects are suggested by changes in R‐R interval variability (RRV) that precede VTA in patients by several hours. SNSA‐mediated alterations in gene expression of ion channels may account for some intermediate‐term effects. The propensity for VTA is highest when short‐, intermediate, and long‐term changes are superimposed. Because the proarrhythmic effects are related to the duration and intensity of SNSA, normal regulatory processes such as parasympathetic activity that inhibits SNSA, and oscillations that continuously vary the intensity of SNSA may provide vital antiarrhythmic protection that is lost in severe heart failure and other disorders. These observations may have therapeutic implications. The recommended use of β‐adrenergic receptor blockers to achieve a constant level of inhibition does not take into account the temporal patterns and regional heterogeneity of SNSA, the proarrhythmic effects of α‐adrenergic receptor stimulation, or the potential proarrhythmic effects of β‐adrenergic receptor blockade. Further research is needed to determine if other approaches to SNSA modulation can enhance the antiarrhythmic effects.
Estimation of a Set of Homothetic Production Functions: A Time Series Analysis of American Postwar Manufacturing

This study investigates several key parameters of the production process for the manufacturing sector of the United States. Attention is focused on the behavior as well as the magnitude of the elasticity of substitution, neutral and nonneutral technical progress (in a Hicksian sense), and the returns to scale. Several papers have been concerned with one or a combination of several of these parameters at the two-digit level of aggregation [7; 14; 16; 25]. However, this paper attempts a more comprehensive approach to production function estimation. By hypothesizing five relations in which the marginal rate of technical substitution is functionally dependent on the capital-labor ratio and nonneutral technical progress (i.e., the cost minimizing relation), a set of production functions is derived that includes the Cobb-Douglas and CES as well as four VES production functions. Estimating all five relations yields not only results on the elasticity of substitution and nonneutral technical progress, but it also enables us to determine the descriptive ability of each of the competing specifications. By incorporating the property of homotheticity, a set of transformations is introduced that allows for returns to scale to be constant or vary with the level of output. Homotheticity has been used in this context [3; 25]. However, estimation of an explicit homothetic transformation that allows us to determine the behavior of the returns to scale is an advancement. Estimation is based on time series data, * The author is an assistant professor of economics at Tulane University. I acknowledge the advice and criticism received from John R. Moroney, David B. Humphrey and an unknown referee. In addition, I thank Mark Schupack for making the data available. 1949-65, for the U. S. manufacturing sector aggregated according to the two-digit classification. Because the time series ends in a strong expansionary period, the problems associated with slack terminal years (and the resultant disequilibria) are avoided. In addition, the homothetic transformations are estimated twice; once with data adjusted for capacity utilization rates and again for unadjusted data.l A potentially significant source of measurement error is measurement of capital in existence (as is usual) when capital in use is required. By using both series, an estimate of the bias in estimating the homothetic transformation due to the capital data misspecification is obtainable. The plan of the paper is as follows. The theoretical relations are presented in Section I. Section II contains the econometric specifications as well as a discussion of the estimation procedure. Section III comprises results and analysis, and some concluding remarks appear in Section IV.
Can Monetary Policy Affect Economic Activity under Surplus Liquidity? Some Evidence from Macedonia

Surplus liquidity in the banking system changes the monetary transmission mechanism, reducing the effectiveness of the traditional instrument, the interest rate. In this paper we examine the real effects of several monetary-policy instruments in Macedonia, an economy characterized by surplus liquidity. We use regime-switching Vector Auto regressions and track the responses of different economic activity indicators to changes in the monetary policy instruments. Our findings suggest that the interest rate channel is weakly effective in Macedonia. The responses to the other instruments are not very sizeable, either, but are significant. This implies that monetary policy can affect economic activity through the reserve requirement and the offered amount of central bank bills. These findings have implications for both the analysis and the conduct of monetary policy in economies with surplus liquidity. Regarding analysis, the implication is that the traditional approach, which considers only the role of the interest rate, is likely to lead to wrong conclusions. Regarding conduct, the implication is that monetary authorities, besides on the price impact of the interest rate, should additionally rely on the reserve requirement and other available instruments producing volume impact.
Drives for Behavioral Intentions in Dining Services

Abstract This study examined differences in residents' evaluations of service quality, satisfaction, trust, commitment, and communication based on their relationship frequencies in continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs). This study surveyed independent living residents of two CCRCs in a Midwestern state. Significant influences were found in satisfaction with food, trust, commitment, and communication between frequent and occasional users in CCRCs without a meal requirement. Satisfaction with food influenced frequent users' intentions to eat more often in the dining room. Communication and satisfaction with food predicted occasional users' intentions to eat more often in the dining room. Dining service managers should identify specific strategies to enhance food quality and improve employee communication and interaction with residents.
Age differences in the prevalence of physical aggression among 5-11-year-old Canadian boys and girls.

It has been proven extremely difficult in the past to estimate the prevalence of physical aggression in children for two main reasons: (a) a heterogeneous sampling of behaviors (i.e., mix between physically aggressive and non-physically aggressive antisocial behaviors), and (b) a lack of a "gold standard" to identify children who exhibit physically aggressive behaviors on a frequent basis. The goal of this study was to test for age differences in the prevalence of physical aggression in the Canadian population of school-aged boys and girls, using cross-sectional data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY). The first wave of the NLSCY included a representative sample of 12,292 Canadian children aged 5-11 years. We used latent class analysis to identify children whose propensity to exhibit physically aggressive behaviors was much higher than that of other children of the same age and sex in the population. The prevalence of physical aggression was estimated at 3.7% in 5-11-year-old boys and ranged from . 5% to 2.3% in 11 and 5-year-old girls, respectively. Hence, the results show a decreasing trend in the prevalence of physical aggression with age for girls, but not for boys. These findings suggest the importance of considering the developmental pathways of physical aggression for boys and girls separately.
Choosing Open Innovation Intermediaries through their web-based platforms

This paper examines the services provided by Open Innovation Intermediaries (OIIs) through their web-based platforms, in order to understand how OIIs can effectively support innovation seekers in their innovation processes. Relying on the existing literature exploring the roles and functions of web-based OII platforms, we carried out an exploratory and comparative qualitative study to identify the services available, to classify them by the various phases of the innovation processes in which they can be beneficial, and to link them to general roles and functions. Our analysis of the services provided by OII platforms sheds light on the dynamics of innovation seekers’ choices, and gives meaningful insights that can help improve this information and these services, so that OIIs can improve their offer in terms of complementary resources and knowledge for the innovation processes.