Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exercise prehabilitation during neoadjuvant chemotherapy may enhance tumour regression in oesophageal cancer: results from a prospective non-randomised trial

Background There is increasing evidence for the use of exercise in cancer patients and data supporting enhanced tumour volume reduction following chemotherapy in animal models. To date, there is no reported histopathological evidence of a similar oncological benefit in oesophageal cancer. Methods A prospective non-randomised trial compared a structured prehabilitation exercise intervention during neoadjuvant chemotherapy and surgery versus conventional best-practice for oesophageal cancer patients. Biochemical and body composition analyses were performed at multiple time points. Outcome measures included radiological and pathological markers of disease regression. Logistic regression calculated ORs with 95% CI for the likelihood of pathological response adjusting for chemotherapy regimen and chemotherapy delivery. Results Comparison of the Intervention (n=21) and Control (n=19) groups indicated the Intervention group had higher rates of tumour regression (Mandard TRG 1–3 Intervention n=15/20 (75%) vs Control n=7/19 (36.8%) p=0.025) including adjusted analyses (OR 6.57; 95% CI 1.52 to 28.30). Combined tumour and node downstaging (Intervention n=9 (42.9%) vs Control n=3 (15.8%) p=0.089) and Fat Free Mass index were also improved (Intervention 17.8 vs 18.7 kg/m2; Control 16.3 vs 14.7 kg/m2, p=0.026). Differences in markers of immunity (CD-3 and CD-8) and inflammation (IL-6, VEGF, INF-y, TNFa, MCP-1 and EGF) were observed. Conclusion The results suggest improved tumour regression and downstaging in the exercise intervention group and should prompt larger studies on this topic. Trial registration number NCT03626610.
Agile Technologies in Open Source Development

The analysis of commonalities and differences between agile technology and open source software development is needed to understand how advancement approaches have evolved and whether they produce concrete benefits in terms of software quality and customer satisfaction. Agile Technologies in Open Source Development explores the overlap between open source and agile technologies, providing valuable strategies for advancement in software. This innovative publication presents a significant resource to assist project managers, engineers, and developers interested in experimenting with new approaches in software expansion.
Assessing Development Impacts Associated with Low Emission Development Strategies: Lessons Learned from Pilot Efforts in Kenya and Montenegro

Low emission development strategies (LEDS) articulate economy-wide policies and implementation plans designed to enable a country to meet its long-term development objectives while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. A development impact assessment tool was developed to inform an analytically robust and transparent prioritization of LEDS actions based on their economic, social, and environmental impacts. The graphical tool helps policymakers communicate the development impacts of LEDS options and identify actions that help meet both emissions reduction and development goals. This paper summarizes the adaptation and piloting of the tool in Kenya and Montenegro. The paper highlights strengths of the tool and discusses key needs for improving it.
Evaluation of BAU-Biofungicide and selected plant extractson yield and yield contributing characters of wheat cv. Kanchan

Efficacy of BAU-Biofungicide (a Trichoderma based preparation), aqueous extracts of Neem and Garlic clove and an inducer Bion were evaluated in the field as seed-treatment or seed-treatment along with foliar application to manage leaf blight disease of wheat caused by Biopolaris sorokiniana in cv. Kanchan from November, 2015 to April, 2018 in Dhynna Rampal Block, Tangail, Bangladesh. In addition, a chemical fungicide (Tilt) was used as positive control and an untreated negative control were included in the experiment.Three years of field trials, seed treatment with BAU-Biofungicide (3%) resulted significant effect in increasing seedlings emergence /10m 2 and reducing seedling mortality. Seed treatment with BAU-Biofungicide plus BAU-Biofungicide spray, yielded the highest plant height, number of effective tillers/m 2 and length of ear in comparable to Tilt and other treatments. According to final field experiment in the year 2017-18, BAUBiofungicide, yielded the highest plant height and length of ear in comparable to Tilt and other treatments. BAU-Biofungicide showed excellent effect in producing the number of healthy grains/ear (37.6), where Tilt produced (39.7). The highest grain yield (3.44 t/ha) were obtained by applying Tilt followed by seed treatment with BAU-Biofungicide plus BAU-Biofungicide spray resulting 3.18 t/ha which were 37.26% higher grain yield over control. In final field experiment in the year 2017-18, the highest Benefit –Cost Ratio (BCR) was obtained in 2.80:1 when plots were sprayed with Tilt followed by seed treatment with BAU-Biofungicide plus BAUBiofungicide spray in 2.58:1. BAU-Biofungicide may be successfully used by the farmers for obtaining higher yield and yield contributing characters viz., number of plants/m 2 , number of effective tillers/m 2 ,length of ear, number of healthy grains/ear, grain weight and grain yield etc.
The Level of Knowledge, Attitude and Practice of Healthy Lifestyle among the University Students in Kedah/Perlis

This study was conducted to enquire the level of knowledge, attitudes and practices of healthy lifestyles among students in Public Institutions of Higher Learning (IPTA) in Kedah and Perlis particularly at Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), Universiti Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Perlis branch and Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM). Data were collected from 422 students consists of 272 students of Universiti Malaysia Perlis (UniMAP), 87 students of Universiti Utara Malaysia (UUM) and 63 students of the University Teknologi Mara (UiTM) Perlis branch using a questionnaire that was adapted from Burton (1999 ). In general, the study shows that students in the UniMAP, UUM and UiTM possessed an adequate level of knowledge about healthy lifestyle. In addition, respondents also have a positive attitude towards the practice of healthy lifestyle.
Evaluating the Impacts of Ramp Configurations and Influential Factors on Freeway Exit Ramps

The primary objective of the study is to evaluate safety performances of different exit ramps used in Florida. More specific, the research objectives include: (1) to evaluate the impacts of different ramp configurations on safety performance; and (2) to identify the different factors contributing to the crashes happening on the exit ramp sections. 389 sites were investigated throughout Florida by four ramp configurations, diamond, out connection, free-flow loop and parclo loop. Cross-sectional comparisons and crash predictive model were used to quantify the impacts. The result shows that the out connection ramps appear to have the lowest average crash. The predictive model indicates that replacing an out connection exit ramp with a diamond, free-flow, and parclo loop will increase crashes counts by 26.90%, 68.47% and 48.72% respectively. This study will help transportation decision makers develop technical guidelines governing the selection of the optimum design on freeway exit ramps.
EFFECT OF LANDING SURFACE AND UPPER EXTREMITY CONSTRAINT ON BIOMECHANICS GRADED BY THE LANDING ERROR SCORING SYSTEM

The purpose of this study was to compare jump-landing biomechanics across 1) landing surface condition; and 2) upper extremity constraint condition as graded by the Landing Error Scoring System (LESS). Recreational athletes (N=40; 21M, 19F) performed three jump-landings with three surface (Grass (GS), Court (CS), and Tile (TS)) and upper extremity constraint conditions (unconstrained (UN), football (AF), and lacrosse stick (LS)). The jump-landings were recorded via 2D videography and graded using the LESS. No differences were observed by surface (GS=5.01±1.40; CS=4.83±1.31; TS=5.09±1.86, p=0.52) or constraint condition (UN=5.09±1.86; FB=4.76±1.65; LS=4.86±1.76; p=0.21). The results indicate that the LESS is a robust instrument biomechanical screening in different landing environments and with sports with different upper extremity equipment.
CD56 bright natural killer cells and response to daclizumab HYP in relapsing-remitting MS

Objective: To assess the relationship between CD56 bright natural killer (NK) cells and multiple sclerosis (MS) disease activity in patients with relapsing-remitting MS treated with daclizumab high-yield process (DAC HYP). Methods: Data were from patients enrolled in a 52-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-con-trolled study of DAC HYP and its extension study. Assessments included relationships of CD56 bright NK cell numbers (identified using fluorescence-activated cell sorting) at weeks 4 and 8 with the numbers of new or newly enlarging T2-hyperintense lesions between weeks 24 and 52 and the annualized relapse rate. Results: In DAC HYP – treated patients but not placebo-treated patients, the numbers of CD56 bright NK cells increased over 52 weeks of treatment, and their numbers at weeks 4 and 8 predicted the number of new or newly enlarging T2-hyperintense lesions between weeks 24 and 52 of treatment ( p # 0.005 for each comparison). Similar but nonsignificant trends were observed between CD56 bright NK cell counts and the annualized relapse rate in DAC HYP – treated patients. DAC HYP – treated patients who showed lower levels of expansion of CD56 bright NK cells still developed fewer new or newly enlarging T2-hyperintense lesions than placebo-treated patients during the first year of treatment. Conclusions: CD56 bright NK cells appear to mediate some of the treatment-related effects of DAC HYP, but their numbers do not account for the full effect of DAC HYP on MS-related outcomes.
FAKTOR PERLAMBATAN PERTUMBUHAN BANK SYARIAH DI INDONESIA DAN UPAYA PENANGANANNYA

Abstrak Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk mengetahui faktor internal dan eksternal yang mempengaruhi perlambatan pertumbuhan bank syariah di Indonesia dan bagaimana upaya penanganan yang perlu dilakukan bank syariah di Indonesia untuk meminimalisir dampak perlambatan pertumbuhan tersebut. Data penelitian diperoleh dari hasil wawancara (indepth interview) selama Juni s.d. Oktober 2015 terhadap pihak regulator yaitu BI, OJK, dan BEI, serta praktisi dari BMI, BSM, BNI Syariah, Bank Panin Syariah, dan BTPN Syariah. Data sekunder yang digunakan berupa laporan keuangan bank syariah di Indonesia bersumber dari website Statistik Perbankan Syariah OJK dan juga data indikator makro ekonomi Indonesia dari website BPS periode Januari 2013 s.d. Juni 2015. Metode penelitian yang digunakan selain deskriptif kualitatif juga menggunakan analisis regresi linier berganda (multilinear regression) untuk data yang bersifat kuantitatif. Faktor internal penyebab perlambatan pertumbuhan bank syariah adalah adanya dominasi oleh sektor retail khususnya UMKM dan akad murabahah pada segmentasi pembiayaan bank syariah, minimnyavariasi pembiayaan bank syariah, kurang efisiennya bank syariah dalam menjalankan kegiatan operasionalnya, dominasi dana deposito yang berbiaya mahal pada DPK bank syariah, kurang efisiennya bank syariah dalam kegiatan operasional, dan masih terbatasnya jumlah jaringan kantor bank syariah. Adapun faktor ekternal perlambatan terjadi disebabkan oleh kondisi ekonomi yang melambat di dunia termasuk di Indonesia dengan indikator nilai tukar Rupiah melemah terhadap US Dollar, turunnya IHSG, dan turunnya daya beli masyarakat. Jumlah pembiayaan UMKM, jumlah pembiayaan murabahah, dan banyaknya jaringan kantor menjadi faktor internal yang berpengaruh signifikan terhadap pertumbuhan bank syariah. Faktor eksternal yang berpengaruh adalah IHSG, kurs IDR/USD, dan tingkat inflasi. Upaya yang perlu dilakukan untuk menanggulangi perlambatan pertumbuhan yaitu; konsolidasi internal manajemen bank syariah untuk mengevaluasi kualitas pembiayaan dan biaya sumber dana; diversifikasi pembiayaan dalam segmentasi korporasi, pembiayaan mudharabah, dan pembiayaan pada sektor bisnis pertambangan, perkebunan dan pertanian, serta infrastruktur;penambahan jumlah jaringan, variasi produk dan layanan,serta pengembangan channeling ke kalangan konglomerat dan nasabah pemerintah; optimalisasi sumber pendanaan dengan cost of fund murah dari produk simpanan non deposito; efisiensi bisnis. Kata kunci: perlambatan pertumbuhan, pengaruh, penanganan
Kôngo and Hindu Perceptions of Reincarnation and their Reinterpretation of African Cultures

The issue of reincarnation has always been handled as an answer to the question: do Africans believe in reincarnation? This paper shows that the main issue should rather be: do Africans believe in the law of reincarnation? Through the analysis of the differential cosmological conceptions of reincarnation in Kôngo culture and Hinduism the author arrives to the conclusion that contrary to Hinduism reincarnation is not a law in the African Kôngo worldview. This conclusion leads the author to revisit what is assumed to be the doctrine of reincarnation or transmigration of soul, in some African cultures and to show that it alludes rather the transmigration of spirit, the natural means for an ancestor to come back through a sharing of his qualities with a newborn and even for being his protector.
Interband Transitions and Critical Points of Single‐Crystal Thoria Compared with Urania

The interband transitions of UO2 are validated independently through cathode luminescence. A picture emerges consistent with density functional theory. While theory is generally consistent with experiment, it is evident from the comparison of UO2 and ThO2 that the choice of functional can significantly alter the bandgap and some details of the band structure, in particular at the conduction band minimum. Strictly ab initio predictions of the optical properties of the actinide compounds, based on density functional theory alone, continue to be somewhat elusive.
Improving Road Segmentation in Challenging Domains using Similar Place Priors

Road segmentation in challenging domains, such as night, snow or rain, is a difficult task. Most current approaches boost performance using fine-tuning, domain adaptation, style transfer, or by referencing previously acquired imagery. These approaches share one or more of three significant limitations: a reliance on large amounts of annotated training data that can be costly to obtain, both anticipation of and training data from the type of environmental conditions expected at inference time, and/or imagery captured from a previous visit to the location. In this research, we remove these restrictions by improving road segmentation based on similar places. We use Visual Place Recognition (VPR) to find similar but geographically distinct places, and fuse segmentations for query images and these similar place priors using a Bayesian approach and novel segmentation quality metric. Ablation studies show the need to re-evaluate notions of VPR utility for this task. We demonstrate the system achieving state-of-the-art road segmentation performance across multiple challenging condition scenarios including night time and snow, without requiring any prior training or previous access to the same geographical locations. Furthermore, we show that this method is network agnostic, improves multiple baseline techniques and is competitive against methods specialised for road prediction.
Childcare Experiences of Teachers Handling Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities

: This paper presents a field study on the childcare experiences of childcare teachers for children with disabilities. An interview was conducted to find out how to improve the quality of childcare for children with disabilities by examining the experiences of childcare teachers. The participants were six childcare teachers working at a daycare center specializing in children with disabilities. The field experience questions of this study include work motives, job satisfaction, difficulties at work, childcare teacher qualification system, and improvement points for integrated childcare for disabled children. As a result of the study, it was found that the difficulties experienced by nursery teachers for infants and toddlers with disabilities include supporting integrated education, human relationships, and administrative concerns. Therefore, the difficulties and rewards experienced by childcare teachers with children having disabilities are described from the point of view of the education subject, and various meanings are presented to them by in-depth interpretation from the educational point of view. This study is intended to provide basic data for teacher qualification and evaluation for the qualitative development of childcare after the introduction of the childcare teacher system for children with disabilities. (24) or more for those who transferred or entered five days.
Surface energy balance fluxes in a suburban of Beijing: energy partitioning variability

Abstract. Measurements of radiative and turbulent heat fluxes for 16 months in suburban Miyun with a mix of buildings and agriculture allows the changing role of these fluxes to be assessed. Daytime turbulent latent heat fluxes (QE) are largest in summer and smaller in winter, consistent with the net all wave radiation (Q*). Whereas, the daytime sensible heat flux (QH) is greatest in spring but smallest in summer, rather than winter as commonly observed in suburban areas. The results have larger seasonal variability in energy partitioning compared to previous suburban studies. Daytime energy partitioning is between: 0.15–0.57 for QH /Q* (mean summer = 0.16, winter = 0.46); 0.06–0.56 for QE / Q* (mean summer = 0.52, winter = 0.10), and 0.26–7.40 for QH ⁄ QE (mean summer = 0.32; winter = 4.60). Compared to the literature for suburban aras, these are amongst the lowest and highest values. Results indicate that precipitation, irrigation, crop/vegetation growth activity and land use/cover all play critical roles in the energy partitioning. These results will help to enhance our understanding of surface–atmosphere energy exchanges over cities, and are critical to improving and evaluating urban canopy models needed to support integrated urban services, that include urban planning to mitigate the adverse effects of urban climate change.
Efficient deployment of multi‐UAV assisted mobile edge computing: A cost and energy perspective

An important issue for service providers to consider before building a mobile edge services network is the limited budget for edge server deployment. In addition, the geographic position of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) edge server will affect its energy consumption. Therefore, we have established a UAV‐assisted mobile edge computing (MEC) system. UAV acts as a mobile edge server to provide computing services for user equipment (UE). This system aim to minimize the total energy consumption and deployment cost required for the UAVs to complete offload tasks and hover. To optimize the total energy consumption and deployment cost of UAVs, we proposed an improved mean shift (IMS) algorithm, which jointly optimizing the location and number of UAV edge servers. Various simulation results show the effectiveness of our proposed scheme in reducing energy consumption compared to other deployment methods. Furthermore, our research is of great significance for service providers in control the trade‐off between investment cost and energy consumption.
Radiation-based, multi-modality therapy for elderly patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer: Utility, Rationale, and Efficacy

Muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC) typically affects older adults, with a median age at diagnosis of 73. Due to its aggressive disease course, definitive treatment is required. With curative-intent treatment, patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer have an overall survival ranging from 48-57% with a cancer-specific survival ranging from 52-71% at 5 years. Radical cystectomy (RC) +/- neoadjuvant chemotherapy (CHT) has been considered a standard of care for MIBC. However, RC carries a high incidence of perioperative complications, including a mortality rate of 1.5-3%. In addition, many elderly patients with bladder cancer suffer from additional comorbidities, prohibiting RC. These patients are often not offered other curative treatment options. Untreated patients with MIBC are at a very high risk of mortality, with five-year overall survival and cancer-specific survival of approximately 5% and 14%, respectively. Tri-modality therapy (TMT), incorporating maximal transurethral bladder tumor resection, radiotherapy, and CHT, is efficacious with a relatively low incidence of major toxicity for MIBC. As a result, TMT has been acknowledged as a viable alternative to RC, and an attractive option for elderly patients who often have major medical comorbidities and/or prefer bladder-preservation. The object of this review is to discuss the utility, rationale, and efficacy of TMT in elderly patients, which can offer a curative treatment for life-threatening MIBC but also safeguard the quality of life with organ-preservation.
Small Tourism Businesses Adapting to the New Normal

It is reasonable to state that the impact on Thailand’s economy has been severe due to the lack of international tourists. In particular, the mass-tourist destination Phuket has suffered economic consequences due to a plunge in the number of international passenger arrivals and inadequate domestic tourists to fill their places. This paper aims to identify inadequacies to help stakeholders more effectively manage tourism development amid COVID-19, as well as to contribute to the body of knowledge and establish a baseline that recommends a potential area of interest for future quantitative research. This case study utilizes a variety of primary and secondary data sources. The empirical data for this study were collected through a series of semi-structured interviews with local small business owners. After a rigorous review process, a total of 21 in-depth interviews were included in the content analysis. This research not only disclosed a high level of resilience amongst the small local business owner community but revealed that Phuket continues to depend strongly on international tourism to manage its local economy sustainably. This research offers insights into the recent tourism developments during the COVID-19 global pandemic and provides a baseline for future studies that seek to validate results through quantitative methods of inquiry. Furthermore, it offers guidance for policymakers that seek recommendations for implementing good governance strategies.
Advancing Theory and Practice on Managing Dysfunctional Turnover: Developing an Improved Measure of Turnover Reasons

We examine turnover reasons for dysfunctional (i.e., high-performing or high-competency) leavers versus functional (i.e., low-performing or low-competency) leavers. In a United States retail bank, high performers reported wanting better advancement or development opportunities as their top turnover reason, whereas low performers mentioned wanting different job tasks, job insecurity, work stress, problems with coworkers, and generic problems with management more frequently than high performers. In an Indian IT consultancy firm, job performance and competency level were positively related to reporting problems with leadership/upper management, whereas performance was negatively related to reporting a specific alternative job offer. Through these studies, we develop a novel turnover reason measure for scholars and practitioners that assesses reason importance, enables the vital accumulation of data across studies, and increases diagnostic potential in exit or stay interviews/surveys. Finally, we offer directions for building theory and improving the management of high-performer turnover.