Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evaluation of Functionality and Growth Rates in Adrenal Incidentalomas: Single Center Experience

Amac: Bu calismada merkezimizde karsilastigimiz insidentaloma vakalarinin radyolojik, histopatolojik ozellikleri ve hormonal aktiviteleri yonunden gozlemsel verilerini aktarmayi, takipleri esnasinda buyume oranlarini retrospektif olarak incelemeyi amacladik. Gerec ve Yontem: Dahil edilme kriterlerine uyan 137 insidentaloma vakalari retrospektif olarak incelendi. Tum olgularin medikal kayitlarindan yas, cinsiyet bilgileri, hormonal tetkik ve goruntuleme sonuclari, kitlelerin fonksiyonellik durumlari, histopatolojik bulgulari ve takipleri boyunca adrenal kitle capindaki degisim bilgileri kaydedilerek istatistiksel yontemlerle analiz edildi. Bulgular: Hastalarin 97’si (%71) kadin, 40’i (%29) erkek idi. 99 (%72.3) hastaya nonfonksiyonel adenom (NFA), 21 (%15) hastaya subklinik Cushing sendromu (SCS), 9 (%6) hastaya feokromasitoma, 6 (%4) hastaya hiperaldosteronizm, 2 (%1) hastaya konjenital adrenal hiperplazi (KAH) tanisi koyuldu. Fonksiyonel kitleye sahip olan hastalar anlamli olarak daha genc saptandi (p:0,04). 6 (%4) hastada malignite saptandi. Hastalarin ortalama takip suresi 20.2±19.86 ay idi. Takipler sirasinda 24 hastada (%17) kitle boyutunda buyume saptandi. Kitlelerin 6’sinda (buyuyen kitlelerin %26, tum kitlelerin %4 u) 1 cm uzerinde buyume goruldu. Erkek hastalardaki kitlelerin buyume miktari, kadin hastalarin kitlelerdeki buyume miktarindan anlamli olarak daha yuksekti (p:0.031). Sonuc: Kitle buyume miktari ve malignite gorulme sikligi ileri yas ve erkek cinsiyette daha fazla saptanmistir. Insidentalomalarin fonksiyonellik ve malign donusum acisindan takibinde hastalarin yasi ve cinsiyeti goz onunde bulundurulmalidir.
Microsatellite Typing and Resistance Mechanism Analysis of Voriconazole-Resistant Aspergillus flavus Isolates in South Korean Hospitals

A recent surveillance study in South Korea revealed that 14% (7/50) of Aspergillus flavus clinical isolates had a voriconazole minimum inhibitory concentration of ≥4 μg/ml. Of seven non-wild-type (non-WT) isolates, six ear isolates from four hospitals shared the same microsatellite genotype. ABSTRACT A recent surveillance study in South Korea revealed that 14% (7/50) of Aspergillus flavus clinical isolates had a voriconazole minimum inhibitory concentration of ≥4 μg/ml. Of seven non-wild-type (non-WT) isolates, six ear isolates from four hospitals shared the same microsatellite genotype. None of the non-WT isolates showed cyp51 mutations associated with azole resistance. However, the mean expression levels of efflux pump (MDR2, atrF, and mfs1) and target (cyp51A) genes exhibited significant differences between non-WT and other isolates.
Recent developments on the water entry impact of wedges and projectiles

ABSTRACT In the scientific community, water entry impact study has been remained focus by various authors across the globe in past decades. This paper reviews different analytical, experimental and numerical techniques for water entry impact problem. In this article, water entry problems have been broadly categorised into two main groups i.e. water entry of wedges (focusing on hull slamming loads only) and water entry of projectiles (focusing on impact loads, trajectory calculations and cavity dynamics). The first part of the review commences with theoretical studies in the realm of water entry of wedges then overviews key accomplishments in experimental and numerical techniques. The later section discusses the theoretical, experimental and numerical work carried out on water impact of projectiles starting from background then reviews some major research studies from 2000 to most recent advances. In the end, review is summarised and some recommendations are presented for future work.
Human Capital Accumulation and the Evolution of Overconfidence

This paper studies the evolution of overconfidence over a cohort’s working life. To do this, the paper incorporates subjective assessments into a continuous time human capital accumulation model with a finite horizon. The main finding is that the processes of human capital accumulation, skill depreciation, and subjective assessments imply that overconfidence first increases and then decreases over the cohort’s working life. In the absence of skill depreciation, overconfidence monotonically increases over the cohort’s working life. The model generates four additional testable predictions. First, everything else equal, overconfidence peaks earlier in activities where skill depreciation is higher. Second, overconfidence is lower in activities where the distribution of income is more dispersed. Third, for a minority of individuals, overconfidence decreases over their working life. Fourth, overconfidence is lower with a higher market discount rate. The paper provides two applications of the model. It shows the model can help make sense of field data on overconfidence, experience, and trading activity in financial markets. The model can also explain experimental data on the evolution of overconfidence among poker and chess players.
Measuring future resilience: a multilevel index

Purpose For the purpose of applied research, we are interested in deriving and measuring multi-level future resilience, from a human capital perspective. This paper aims to set the theoretical foundations for a future resilience index to be launched in 2020. Design/methodology/approach Based on a review of the literature on individual, organisational and socio-ecological resilience, the researcher has distilled 10 elements of future resilience. These were elaborated into a 20-question index, which has been piloted with an anonymous organisation. Findings The 10 elements of future resilience, which the index will seek to measure include: emergency preparedness; creative adaptability; technological empowerment; dynamic employability; diversity cultivation; participative governance; systemic responsiveness; resource efficiency; purposeful motivation; and well-being orientation. Illustrative findings from the pilot show that organisational support for resilience across all 10 categories is seen as weaker than individuals’ perception of their own level of resilience. Practical implications The areas of strong versus weak performance revealed by the index, either individually or in terms of organisational support, give organisations a clear set of priorities for follow-up. Social implications This paper has demonstrated that future resilience is a highly relevant and useful concept for society, organisations and individuals in these rapidly changing times. Originality/value Through the future resilience index, being developed by Antwerp Management School in collaboration with Randstad, this paper wants to encourage behaviours and capacities amongst employees that will increase resilience at the individual, organisational and socio-ecological levels. This is the first multi-level resilience measurement instrument aimed at human capital measurement.
Victims of the Pandemic? European Far-Right Parties and COVID-19

Abstract It has become received wisdom that the pandemic has “exposed” the political incompetence of far-right parties in government and that far-right parties in opposition have become its (first) “victims. ” This is largely based on the generalization of one or two individual cases—most notably US president Donald Trump—who is the exception rather than the rule. This article provides a comparative analysis of far-right responses to the COVID-19 pandemic within the European Union. Based on theoretical insights from previous research, we expect the responses to reflect the main ideology and the internal heterogeneity of the contemporary far right as well as to show the increasing mainstreaming of its positions. We analyze four different, but related, aspects: (1) the narratives about COVID-19 from far-right parties; (2) the proposed solutions of far-right parties; (3) the electoral consequences of the pandemic for far-right parties; and (4) the success of far-right parties in dealing with the pandemic. Finally, in the discussion we shortly look ahead at the possible consequences of a highly likely second outbreak of COVID-19.
The role of top management teams in firm responses to performance shortfalls

Past research rooted in the Behavioral Theory of the Firm has extensively examined the impact of performance feedback on organizational change and risk taking, finding robust effects that performance shortfalls enhance the risk taking of firms. We argue that the strength of this effect is likely to be contingent on the attributes of the firm’s top management team. To enhance our understanding of which firms are more likely to be sensitive to performance cues, we draw on the Upper Echelon Theory to theorize that key structural attributes of the top management team—tenure and gender diversity, size, and pay disparity—affect how top executives interpret poor performance and act upon it through engagement in strategic risk taking. Results show that top management teams with greater tenure diversity, smaller size, and smaller pay disparity among members engage in more strategic risk taking following performance shortfalls.
Connect vs conquer? CEO gender and implicit motives

PurposeThis study examined gender differences in CEOs' expression of implicit achievement, power and affiliation motivation. Building on the role congruity account of sex differences and similarities in motivation and existing literature on implicit motives, the study tested whether female CEOs would express higher affiliation motivation than male CEOs and similar levels of achievement motivation. In addition, gender differences in power motivation were explored.Design/methodology/approachThe study used propensity score matching to generate a comparable sample of male and female CEOs from publicly traded companies. Subsequently, the authors content-coded CEO letters from annual reports using Winter's (1994) manual for scoring motive imagery in running text.FindingsOverall, CEOs expressed more achievement and power motivation than affiliation motivation. Comparisons between male and female CEOs showed that female CEOs expressed lower power and higher affiliation motivation than male CEOs.Research limitations/implicationsBy integrating implicit motive theory with social role theory and the role congruity account of motivation, this study provides a theoretical framework and novel demonstration that understanding social roles and gender roles can lend insights into motive expression by CEOs.Originality/valueThe study uses established theory and a validated scoring method in a novel way by analyzing implicit motives from CEO letters, a critical communication channel in the CEO–shareholder relationship. In doing so, this study adopts a sociocultural perspective. Informed by the role congruity account of motivation, the study demonstrates the importance of social roles and gender roles for motivational displays.
Impact of Renal Dysfunction on Outcomes after Left Ventricular Assist Device: A Systematic Review

Background and Objectives Renal dysfunction is a common comorbidity in patients with advanced heart failure who may benefit from left ventricular assist device (LVAD) therapy. The effect of preoperative renal dysfunction on clinical outcomes after LVAD implantation remains uncertain. We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to compare outcomes post-LVAD in patients with and without renal dysfunction. Methods PubMed, MEDLINE, and Embase databases were searched for studies comparing outcomes in patients with and without renal dysfunction who underwent LVAD implantation for advanced heart failure. The primary outcome of all-cause mortality was reported as random effects risk ratio (RR) with 95% confidence interval (CI). Results Our search yielded 5,229 potentially eligible studies. We included 7 studies reporting on 26,652 patients. Patients with renal dysfunction (glomerular filtration rate [GFR] <60 mL/min/1.73 m2) (n=4,630) had increased risk of all-cause mortality (RR, 2.21; 95% CI, 1.39–3.51; p<0.01) compared to patients with normal renal function (GFR >60 mL/min/1.73 m2) (n=22,019). Conclusions Patients with renal dysfunction have increased mortality after LVAD implantation when compared to patients with normal renal function. GFR can be used to risk stratify patients and guide decision making prior to LVAD therapy.
Integrating behaviour and ecology into global biodiversity conservation strategies

Insights into animal behaviour play an increasingly central role in species-focused conservation practice. However, progress towards incorporating behaviour into regional or global conservation strategies has been far more limited, not least because standardised datasets of behavioural traits are generally lacking at wider taxonomic or spatial scales. Here we make use of the recent expansion of global datasets for birds to assess the prospects for including behavioural traits in systematic conservation priority-setting and monitoring programmes. Using IUCN Red List classification for >9500 bird species, we show that the incidence of threat can vary substantially across different behavioural syndromes, and that some types of behaviour—including particular foraging, mating and migration strategies—are significantly more threatened than others. When all factors are included in a combined model, behavioural traits have a weaker effect than well-established geographical and ecological factors, including range size, body mass and human population pressures. We also show that the association between behavior and extinction risk is partly driven by correlations with these underlying factors. Overall, these results suggest that a multi-species approach at the scale of communities, continents and ecosystems can be used to identify and monitor threatened behaviours, and to flag up cases of latent extinction risk, where threatened status may currently be underestimated. Our findings also highlight the importance of comprehensive standardized descriptive data for ecological and behavioural traits, and point the way forward to a deeper integration of behaviour into quantitative conservation assessments.
Strengths and weaknesses of three Machine Learning methods for
pCO2 interpolation

Abstract. Using the Large Enemble Testbed, a collection of 100 members from four independent Earth system models, we test three general-purpose Machine Learning (ML) approaches to understand their strengths and weaknesses in statistically reconstructing full-coverage surface ocean pCO2 from sparse in situ data. To apply the Testbed, we sample the full-field model pCO2 as real-world pCO2 collected from 1982–2016 for each ensemble member. We then use ML approaches to reconstruct the full-field and compare with the original model full-field pCO2 to assess reconstruction skill. We use feed forward neural network (NN), XGBoost (XGB), and random forest (RF) approaches to perform the reconstructions. Our baseline is the NN, since this approach has previously been shown to be a successful method for pCO2 reconstruction. The XGB and RF allow us to test tree-based approaches. We perform comparisons to a test set, which consists of 20% of the real-world sampled data that are withheld from training. Statistical comparisons with this test set are equivalent to that which could be derived using real-world data. Unique to the Testbed is that it allows for comparison to all the "unseen" points to which the ML algorithms extrapolate. When compared to the test set, XGB and RF both perform better than NN based on a suite of regression metrics. However, when compared to the unseen data, degradation of performance is large with XGB and even larger with RF. Degradation is comparatively small with NN, indicating a greater ability to generalize. Despite its larger degradation, in the final comparison to unseen data, XGB slightly outperforms NN and greatly outperforms RF, with lowest mean bias and more consistent performance across Testbed members. All three approaches perform best in the open ocean and for seasonal variability, but performance drops off at longer time scales and in regions of low sampling, such as the Southern Ocean and coastal zones. For decadal variability, all methods overestimate the amplitude of variability and have moderate skill in reconstruction of phase. For this timescale, the greater ability of the NN to generalize allows it to slightly outperform XGB. Taking into account all comparisons, we find XGB to be best able to reconstruct surface ocean pCO2 from the limited available data.
Identifying key ecosystem service providing areas to inform national-scale conservation planning

Effectively conserving ecosystem services in order to maintain human wellbeing is a global need that requires an understanding of where ecosystem services are produced by ecosystems and where people benefit from these services. However, approaches to effectively identify key locations that have the capacity to supply ecosystem services and actually contribute to meeting human demand for those services are lacking at broad spatial scales. We developed new methods that integrate measures of the capacity of ecosystems to provide services with indicators of human demand and ability to access these services. We then identified important areas for three ecosystem services currently central to protected area management in Canada—carbon storage, freshwater, and nature-based recreation—and evaluated how these hotspots align with Canada’s current protected areas and resource development tenures. We find that locations of ecosystem service capacity overlap only weakly (27–36%) with actual service providing areas (incorporating human access and demand). Overlapping hotspots of provision for multiple ecosystem services are also extremely limited across Canada; only 1.2% (∼56 000 km2) of the total ecosystem service hotspot area in Canada consists of overlap between all three ecosystem services. Canada’s current protected area network also targets service capacity to a greater degree than provision. Finally, one-half to two-thirds of current ecosystem service hotspots (54–66%) overlap with current and planned resource extraction activities. Our analysis demonstrates how to identify areas where conservation and ecosystem service management actions should be focused to more effectively target ecosystem services to ensure that critical areas for ecosystem services that directly benefit people are conserved. Further development of these methods at national scales to assess ecosystem service capacity and demand and integrate this with conventional biodiversity and conservation planning information will help ensure that both biodiversity and ecosystem services are effectively safeguarded.
Does Green Banking Performance Pay Off? Evidence from a Unique Regulatory Setting in Bangladesh

Manuscript Type: Empirical<br><br>Research Question/Issue: A firm’s choice to ‘go green’ largely remains unregulated worldwide. This study uses an institutional setting in Bangladesh experiencing a green banking regulatory reform to examine whether banks’ green performance translates into improved financial performance and whether this is moderated by banks’ political connections. <br><br>Research Findings/Insights: Results based on a sample of 172 firm-year observations from 2008–2014 suggest that green banking performance is positively associated with a bank’s financial performance. Further analysis suggests that cost efficiency mainly drives this relationship. However, banks’ political connections negatively affect this relationship by counterbalancing green banking’s non-financial benefits. Our findings are robust to sensitivity tests which examine endogeneity concerns using difference-in-differences (DiD) and propensity score matching (PSM) analyses and Heckman’s (1979) two-stage analysis. <br><br>Theoretical/Academic Implications: Most prior studies on corporate social responsibility (CSR) were conducted in voluntary settings: however, our study utilises a unique regulatory setting in Bangladesh. With this exogenous shock to the banking industry, the regulatory setting helped to alleviate endogeneity concerns arising from voluntary motives behind CSR performance. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to examine any link between green banking performance in a regulatory setting and banks’ financial performance. <br><br>Practitioner/Policy Implications: This study’s findings suggest that sustainable business practices promoted through regulatory intervention can improve financial performance. A regulatory green banking initiative can be a win-win for all competing stakeholders. Our findings have significant policy implications for governments and regulatory agencies worldwide in the fight against global warming and climate change.
Characterization of actinobacteria with antifungal potential against Fusarium crown-rot pathogen.

Actinobacteria isolates recovered from soil were investigated for their antifungal properties towards Fusarium spp. , the causal agent of Fusarium crown rot disease in bananas. We isolated 33 isolates of Actinobacteria from soil and established that all of the isolates produced antifungal compounds able to inhibit the growth of Fusarium spp. in vitro, although with varying degrees of inhibition. Characterization based on cultural, morphological and biochemical characteristics revealed that 16 different genera of Actinobacteria were isolated. The most dominant genus from our diverse sample pool was Streptomyces with 8 isolates, followed by Nocardiopsis, Actinomadura and Saccharothrix, with 4, 3 and 3 isolates, respectively. Isolates with the most antifungal potential belonged to Streptomyces spp. (isolate 20C1), followed by another isolate of Streptomyces spp. (isolate 15Br2) and Saccharomonospora spp. (isolate 21A2), with 96, 90 and 78% inhibition, respectively. These isolates can be potentially developed as biocontrol agents for field application as crown rot disease is initiated in the field. Future applications may also include investigations into harvesting and applying the metabolites produced by these isolates as biofungicide introduced at the post-harvest stage. _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Combating anestrous problem in crossbred cattle by nutritional interventions in field conditions of Odisha

Through a survey in Kakatpur block, Odisha, twenty-one numbers of anestrous cattle were selected and equally divided in to three groups (T0, T1 and T2, n=7) for the experiment. T0 was kept as control (farmer’s practice), while T1 and T2 were provided with area specific mineral mixture (Ca, P, Mn, Cu, Zn) at 50g/day/animal and bypass fat at 100 g/day/animal, respectively for 60days. Average daily gain was significantly higher in T1 and T2 as compared to that of T0. Significant improvement in blood glucose, cholesterol, triglyceride and SGPT status was observed after various treatments. Due to mineral supplementation, all blood mineral status was improved. T1 and T2 groups exhibited better ovarian status and conception rate after treatment. Although, highest conception rate was observed in T2 group. Therefore, it can be concluded that supplementation of mineral mixture and bypass fat improved reproductive efficiency of anestrous animals along higher daily gain.