Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparing Sex-Specific Outcomes After Rotator Cuff Repair: A Meta-analysis

Background: Rotator cuff repair (RCR) is a well-studied procedure. However, the impact of patient sex on outcomes after RCR has not been well studied. Purpose: To conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of sex-based differences in outcomes after RCR and to record what proportion of studies examined this as a primary or secondary purpose. Study Design: Systematic review; Level of evidence, 4. Methods: A systematic review was performed using multiple databases according to PRISMA (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses) guidelines. Studies were included if they were written in English, performed on humans, consisted of patients who underwent RCR, evaluated at least 1 of the selected outcomes based on patient sex, and had statistical analysis available for their sex-based claim. Excluded were case reports, review studies, systematic reviews, cadaveric studies, and studies that did not report at least 1 sex-specific outcome or included certain other injuries associated with a rotator cuff injury. Results: Of 9998 studies screened and 1283 full-text studies reviewed, 11 (0.11%) studies with 2860 patients (1549 male and 1329 female) were included for quantitative analysis. None of these 11 studies examined the impact of patient sex on outcomes after RCR as a primary outcome. Postoperative Constant-Murley scores were analyzed for 7 studies. Male patients had a postoperative Constant-Murley score of 76.77 ± 15.94, while female patients had a postoperative Constant-Murley score of 69.88 ± 17.02. The random-effects model showed that male patients had significantly higher scores than female patients, with a mean difference of 7.33 (95% CI, 5.21-9.46; P < .0001). Analysis of retear rates in 5 studies indicated that there was no difference in the retear rate between sexes (odds ratio, 0.91 [95% CI, 0.49-1.67]). Conclusion: Female patients had lower postoperative Constant-Murley scores compared with male patients, but there was no difference in the retear rate. However, these results were based on an analysis of only 11 studies. The paucity of studies examining the impact of sex suggests that more research is needed on the impact of patient sex on outcomes after RCR.
Cellular Immune Response after Vaccination with an Adjuvanted, Recombinant Zoster Vaccine in Allogeneic Hematopoietic Stem Cell Transplant Recipients

Hematopoietic stem cell transplant (HSCT) recipients have a high risk of developing primary varicella-zoster virus (VZV) infection and reactivation. VZV vaccination may prevent infection and reactivation. In the current study, recipients of allogeneic HSCT (34 females, 45 males) were vaccinated with adjuvanted, recombinant zoster vaccine Shingrix™, which contains the VZV glycoprotein E. Cellular immunity against various VZV antigens was analyzed by interferon-gamma ELISpot. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) of recipients with versus without prior shingles (n = 36 and n = 43, respectively) showed approximately twofold higher VZV-specific responses prior to and post vaccination. After the first and second vaccination, ELISpot responses towards the glycoprotein E were significantly higher in males versus females (median of spots increment 18 versus 1 and 17 versus 4, respectively, p ≤ 0.02 each). Multivariate analysis showed that shingles and sex both impacts significantly on VZV immunity. Whereas vaccination-induced changes could hardly be detected after stimulation with a whole VZV antigen, there was a significant increase in responses towards glycoprotein E after vaccination (p < 0.005). These data indicate that vaccination with Shingrix™ augmented cellular, VZV-specific immunity in HSCT recipients. Shingles and male sex could both be identified as factors leading to increased immunity.
Static and Free Vibration Studies on a Pulley-Belt System with Ground

The static and free vibration behavior of a pulley-belt system with ground stiffness is investigated using a nonlinear model based on Hamilton’s principle. In the equilibrium analysis a computational method based on boundary value problem solvers is adapted to obtain the numerical solution, whereas for free vibration analysis spatial discretization is done using the Galerkin’s method to evaluate the natural frequencies and vibration modes. The study indicates that there is a considerable decrease in equilibrium deflection due to ground stiffness, especially when it is larger than the belt bending stiffness and this effect is more pronounced for higher values of belt bending stiffness. Equilibrium deflections change reasonably with static span tension variation, but are more sensitive to variations of speed and longitudinal stiffness. The natural frequencies of the pulley-belt system increase with ground stiffness, but this is primarily restricted to the lower modes; higher
Assessing the Consequences of Dividend Policy on Financial Performance of Domestic Systemically Important Banks in Nigeria

In Nigeria, five banks have been designated as ‘too-big-to-fail’ given their critical importance to the wellbeing of the Nigerian economy. It is thus of critical importance to understand the factors that are important in ensuring that these Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs) continue to perform well financially for the foreseeable future. This importance is further heightened by the fact that at the end of 2020, the Central Bank of Nigeria voiced its concern regarding the decline in the capital adequacy ratio and the increase in the ratio of non-performing loans of Nigerian banks. It is against this backdrop that this study investigates the effect of dividend policy on all of Nigeria’s D-SIBs. It determined whether the influence was homogenous among the selected banks. It found that in the short run, the effect of dividend policy on profitability is heterogenous among banks. This study adopted an ex post facto research design, with dividend policy and bank performance data obtained from the audited financial statements and official annual reports of five D-SIBs (First Bank, GTB, Zenith Bank, UBA, and Access Bank) over a 10-year period (2011–2020). The data were analyzed using panel regression and pooled mean group (PMG) estimators. The study observed that dividend policy had significant impact on the profitability and efficiency of these five D-SIBs, a partial impact on their valuation, and no impact on their liquidity and solvency. Managers of D-SIBs in Nigeria must find a balance between how much dividends they pay to their shareholders and how much they retain to ensure continued profitability.
Needle-Warming Moxibustion plus Multirehabilitation Training to Improve Quality of Life and Functional Mobility of Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis after Medication

Objective Patients treated with medication for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) often improve but continue to have active diseases. The study aims to investigate whether needle-warming moxibustion (NWM) plus multirehabilitation training can improve quality of life (QoL) and functional mobility of RA patients after medication. Methods Eighty-four RA patients were selected as study participants, including 42 patients receiving medication (medication group) and 42 patients receiving NWM plus multirehabilitation training (NWM + MRT group). The scores of disease symptoms, pain (visual analogue scale (VAS)), sleep quality (Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI)), functional mobility (Fugl–Meyer assessment scale (FMAS)), self-rating anxiety scale (SAS), self-rating depression scale (SDS), and QoL (SF-36) were compared before and after treatment. When patients were discharged from the hospital, they were given a questionnaire for treatment satisfaction. Results After treatment, decreases in the scores of the VAS, PSQI, SAS, and SDS were observed in both cohorts, especially in the NWM + MRT group (P < 0.05). The FMAS scores of upper limbs and lower limbs were increased after treatment, which were higher in the NWM + MRT group in comparison with the medication group (P < 0.05). Of note, patients in the NWM + MRT group scored higher in various dimensions of the SF-36 scale (P < 0.05), showing better QoL. The satisfaction survey showed that the NWM + MRT group had a higher proportion of patients being satisfied and a lower proportion of patients being dissatisfied (P < 0.05). Conclusion NWM plus multirehabilitation training could significantly attenuate disease symptoms, improve QoL, recover functional mobility, and reduce the risk of anxiety and depression in RA patients.
Intelligent busbar protection scheme based on combination of support vector machine and S-transform

Differential protection is the main protective scheme of busbar in power systems but its operation degrades during current transformer (CT) saturation conditions. In this study, the busbar differential protection scheme is improved by the addition of a new feature extracted from differential current using S-transform analysis. S-transform as a powerful signal processing technique gives a complete visualisation of the signal in both time and frequency domains. The new extracted feature as well as the magnitude of the differential and restraint currents are utilised to increase the security of traditional busbar differential protection scheme. With the addition of this new feature, distinctive regions are created in the feature space which can be separated by an appropriate classifier. In this study, the well-known classifier, i.e. support vector machine is employed to effectively discriminate internal faults from external faults. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, a part of Iranian 400-kV power system grid is simulated in the PSCAD/EMTDC environment. The transient behaviour of CTs during saturation conditions is simulated based on the precise Jiles–Atherton model. The obtained results justify the superiority of the proposed method in terms of speed and security even in noisy conditions.
Mathematical modelling of worker interactions and the impact on workplace safety

This research involves applying mathematical modelling techniques coupled with data on work and safety practices to investigate workplace safety programs and improvement strategies. The thesis investigated the potential impact of different safety intervention programs prior to their implementation within the workplace. As there was a lack of mathematical modelling of the interactions between workers and workplace safety intervention programs and how these interactions and programs impacted the safety of the worker while at work, this research presents mathematical models that may be used as a basis for further investigation regarding Occupational Health and Safety.
Methods for Job Recommandation on Social Networks

We are entering a new era of data mining in which the main challenge is the storing andprocessing of massive data : this is leading to a new promising research and industry field called Big data. Data are currently a new raw material coveted by businesses of all sizes and all sectors. They allow organizations to analyze, understand, model and explain phenomen a such as the behavior of their users or customers. Some companies like Google, Facebook,LinkedIn and Twitter are using user data to determine their preferences in order to make targeted advertisements to increase their revenues.This thesis has been carried out in collaboration between the laboratory L2TI andWork4, a French-American startup that offers Facebook recruitment solutions. Its main objective was the development of systems recommending relevant jobs to social network users ; the developed systems have been used to advertise job positions on social networks. After studying the literature about recommender systems, information retrieval, data mining and machine learning, we modeled social users using data they posted on their profiles, those of their social relationships together with the bag-of-words and ontology-based models. We measure the interests of users for jobs using both heuristics and models based on machine learning. The development of efficient job recommender systems involved to tackle the problem of categorization and summarization of user profiles and job descriptions. After developing job recommender systems on social networks, we developed a set of systems called Work4 Oracle that predict the audience (number of clicks) of job advertisements posted on Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter. The analysis of the results of Work4 Oracle allows us to find and quantify factors impacting the popularity of job ads posted on social networks, these results have been compared to those of the literature of Human Resource Management. All our proposed systems deal with privacy preservation by only using the data that social network users explicitly allowed to access to ; they also deal with noisy and missing data of social network users and have been validated on real-world data provided by Work4.
of and Expression on Prognosis in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Objective: HPV and EGFR expression status may be utilized as an independent prognostic factor owing to the different clinical and demographic characteristics head and neck cancers. In the study, it was aimed to investigate the association between EGFR, p16 and ki67 expression and survival in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (SCC). Materials and Methods: A total of 43 patients with SCC of the head and neck region were included in the study. EGFR, p16 and Ki67 were examined by means of immunohistochemistry. The association between these markers and survival was investigated. Results: EGFR expression was detected in 14 cases (32.5%), Staining with p16 was positive in 20 cases (46.5%). Mean duration of follow up was 32 months. There was a statistically significant difference between ki67 proliferation indices of patients who survived and those who died (p=0.037). Survival was significantly shorter in EGFR positive patients compared to those negative for EGFR expressions (p=0.037). Mean survival was 30 months in the 20 p16 positive patients and 33.5 months in p16 negative patients (p=0.847). Conclusion: This study supports that EGFR and Ki67 may be important markers to predict prognosis and surviv- al in patients with head and neck SCC.
High-density lipoprotein cholesterol as a predictor of clinical outcomes in patients achieving low-density lipoprotein cholesterol targets with statins after percutaneous coronary intervention

Background A low level of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) is strongly associated with cardiovascular events. However, the signiﬁcance of HDL-C after statin therapy on the outcome of patients who have undergone percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) with drug eluting stents (DES) is unclear. Objectives To investigate the signiﬁcance of HDL-C after statin therapy on cardiovascular events in patients with coronary artery disease after DES implantation. including low follow-up HDL-C group had signiﬁcantly higher rates of MACE. Low follow-up HDL-C was a signiﬁcant independent predictor of MACE (adjusted HR 1.404, 95% CI 1.111 to 1.774, p ¼ 0.004). In further analysis with propensity scores matching, overall ﬁndings were consistent. Conclusions Raising HDL-C levels may be a subsequent goal after achieving target LDL-C levels in patients with DES implantation.
Digital Commons @ New Haven Digital Commons @ New Haven Determining the Interference of Lactate and Lactate Determining the Interference of Lactate and Lactate Dehydrogenase in an Ethanol Enzyme Assay Dehydrogenase in an Ethanol Enzyme Assay

Enzymatic ethanol assays are widely used to determine blood alcohol content for individuals admitted to a hospital. In some instances, this hospital data is later used as evidence in a court of law, most commonly in DUI cases. As the enzymatic assay targets, but does not exclusively measure ethanol, it is theoretically possible that interference could occur and produce a falsely elevated result, leading to wrongful convictions or other consequences. This project examined the potential of clinically relevant levels of one potential interferant, lactate and the hepatic enzyme lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) to cause significant and falsely elevated results. Threshold levels of lactate/LDH required and the magnitude of the false positive observed were investigated. False positives were investigated in systems containing no ethanol as well as systems containing high, medium, and low levels of ethanol. These objectives were accomplished by adding varying amounts of lactate, LDH, and ethanol to a simulated hospital assay on a UV-Vis spectrophotometer. The data from this experiment may be applied by forensic toxicologists and pathologists in the interpretation of hospital enzymatic alcohol assay results. This project had three aims: to successfully simulate and “scale up” a clinical enzyme assay normally performed on an automatic analyzer for use with a benchtop UV-Visible spectrophotomer, to determine the effect of lactate/lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) added to the assay with no ethanol present, and finally to determine the effect of lactate/LDH added to an assay with varying amounts of ethanol present. This study was limited to amounts of LDH and lactate corresponding to physiologically reasonable levels, both in terms of normal levels, and reasonable elevations that might be encountered in cases of trauma, hypoxia or disease.
The Immediate and Sustained Effects of Exercise-Induced Hemodynamic Response on Executive Function During Fine Motor-Cognitive Tasks Using Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy.

BACKGROUND Several studies have shown that acute exercise has a small positive effect on cognitive performance. However, it is still unclear what type of exercise has a sustained impact on cognitive performance during post-exercise recovery. Therefore, the purpose of our study was to investigate cognitive performance at the behavioral level, and their neural correlates after a 10-minute post-exercise recovery period with two different types of exercise intervention (high-intensity interval exercise (HIIE) vs. Moderate-intensity continuous exercise (MCE)). METHODS A total of 29 healthy young adults (7 women) between the ages of 19 and 33 with fair to good cardiovascular fitness were submitted to two different exercise protocols and a recovery session. Cognitive function was assessed using a digital Trail-Making-Test (dTMT). Cortical activity in the prefrontal and the motor cortex using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) was measured before, after acute exercise, and during recovery. The statistical analysis of fNIRS data was performed by comparing the slope and mean of the hemodynamic response. RESULTS High levels of hemodynamic responses were observed in the prefrontal and motor cortex on the brain during performing the dTMT while walking from pre- to post-exercise and decreased again in post-recovery, accompanied by improvement and maintenance of cognitive performance. Notably, a high hemodynamic response in the left motor area of the brain was maintained by HIIE in post-recovery compared with MCE. CONCLUSIONS The high cortical activation in the left motor area from post-exercise to recovery for the HIIE group may be due to the additional availability of neural resources for fine motor and postural control by high-intensity exercise-induced fatigue. Additionally, the improved cognitive performance may have effectively utilized the available neural resources in the frontal lobe, depending on the condition (sitting and walking) and the two types of exercise protocol (HIIE and MCE).
Trust Enhancement in Zakat Institutions using Blockchain Technology: A Qualitative Approach

— There is an indication that zakat institutions are inefficient and lack transparency in terms of distributing and managing their funds. This leads to a lack of trust between Muzakee and zakat institutions; hence, they prefer to pay zakat to Mustahiq directly. This means that zakat institutions may be collecting far less in zakat funds than the maximum amount that is potentially available. Meanwhile, the invention of blockchain technology has disrupted the financial sector as it offers transparency in transactions, meaning intermediaries are no longer needed. The use of blockchain in zakat management is important for improving transparency in the distribution of zakat. The objective of this paper is to explore the determinant factors that influence trust in zakat institutions using blockchain technology as a mediating effect. The results of the literature review revealed that these factors are reputation, satisfaction with zakat distribution, service quality and disclosure practice. This study expects that trust in zakat institutions can be enhanced through the use of blockchain technology.
Involvement of sub-national authorities in National Sustainable Development Strategy processes

This ESDN Quarterly Report (QR) focuses on the involvement of sub-national authorities (i.e. regions and municipalities) in the various processes related to National Sustainable Development Strategies (NSDSs). After outlining some general aspects of strategic public management of NSDSs and vertical integration, this QR presents an overview of sub-national involvement in NSDS processes in the EU Member States. The four identified types of sub-national involvement (general consultation processes, national sustainable development councils/commissions and inter-ministerial committees, institutionalised mechanisms for better coordination between national and sub-national levels, links between NSDSs and sub-national sustainable development activities) are then explored in more detailed by describing examples of their application in individual Member States. This is followed by an exploration of general findings of sub-national involvement in NSDS processes and by conclusions and recommendations. Substantive parts of this QR represent a summary of the study Contributions of regional and local authorities to sustainable development strategies which was commissioned by the Committee of the Regions (CoR) and conducted by the Research Institute for Managing Sustainability (RIMAS). Disclaimer: The presented ESDN Quarterly Report includes a summary of the study entitled, ‘Contributions of the Regional and Local Authorities to Sustainable Development Strategies’, conducted by RIMAS for the works of the Committee of the Regions of the European Union. The study does not represent the official views of the Committee of the Regions. and a concluding plenary session. In each workshop, one thematic area of the draft NSDS document was discussed. The interview partners from the sub-national level pointed out that the draft NSDS has been sent too short in advance of the conference to allow for proper analysis of the document and preparation of a sub-national position for the workshop. The sub-national interview partners described the impact of the autonomous regions on the final NSDS as limited. Although a significant amount of comments raised at the conference has been taken up in the final text of the NSDS, comments which would have required substantive revisions of the draft NSDS were not included. Therefore, the sub-national interview partners suggested a longer preparatory process with repeated opportunities for sub-national consultation in order to have an effective impact on the final NSDS documents and its objectives.