Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Issues in the Provision of Health Care in India: An Overview

After reviewing health outcomes and policy in India, this paper concludes that there are at least six sets of issues to be addressed about improving the quantity and quality of health services, and ipso facto improving health outcomes, in India. First, the amount of resources earmarked for health needs to increase. Second, health resources need to be used in a fair and just manner and, in particular, complaints relating to egregious health outcomes need to be addressed. Predominant in this set of issues is oversight and regulation of private-sector health provision. The third set of issues relates to the allocation of health resources and, in particular, to the imbalance in the allocation of health resources between towns and villages. A fourth issue is the accessibility of rural areas since it is the most remote areas that have the lowest density of health workers. Another issue is the more efficient use of health workers in order to make them more productive. Finally, Indian health policy is stronger on rhetoric and aspiration than it is on action and implementation. The successful implementation of the policy requires the explicit recognition that objectives are often competing (primary versus tertiary care) and the acknowledgement that, with budgetary constraints, one cannot have more of one without having less of the other. The first role of policy is to then choose the optimal mix of objectives with respect to these trade-offs. Secondly, policies come up against vested interests which agitate (often with the support of opposition politicians) and litigate against proposed changes. Lastly, policies in India are made against a background of poor governance with the predatory presence of corruption looming over every policy initiative. In implementing, rather than simply articulating, a policy it is important to address these governance issues. JEL: I10, I11, I13, I14, I15
Financialization of Non-financial Industries, United States, 1980-2006

Non-financial firms have become substantially dependent on financial revenues. However, the timing and intensity of financialization vary by industry. We investigate variation in the level of financialization among different non-financial industries in the United States from 1980 to 2006. We first illustrate how unique incidents and regulatory changes influenced different industries’ financialization trajectories. We also conduct a statistical analysis to examine three types of industry-level determinants: profitability, uncertainty, and factor intensity. We find that these determinants have high explanatory power regarding interindustry variation in financialization. An industry-level analysis allows us to better understand the role of historical, institutional, and industrial factors in the financialization process which have been overlooked in structure-oriented research.
Algorithmic social media use and its relationship to attitude reinforcement and issue-specific political participation – The case of the 2015 European immigration movements

ABSTRACT Selective exposure to likeminded political viewpoints on algorithmic social media platforms is considered a potential source of polarization of public opinion. We still know little about the proposed mechanism or how potential reinforcement of specific attitudes affects citizens’ political behavior, especially in a nonelectoral context. Focusing on the issue of immigration during the refugee influx to Europe in autumn 2015, this study investigates the effects of social media usage on attitude reinforcement, connecting it to political participation in refugee-related activities. A panel study conducted among Danish citizens (n = 847) reveals that frequent social media usage reinforces existing attitudes and mobilizes political participation. However, citizens who become more extreme in their attitude toward immigration over time are found to be less likely to become politically active regarding this specific issue.
Jockey Career Length and Risk Factors for Loss from Thoroughbred Race Riding

Professional thoroughbred racing jockeys repeatedly work close to physiological capacity during races, whilst maintaining low body weights, on a daily basis with no off-season. The effects of this on their career length is unknown. The aim of this study was to examine the career lengths and reasons for loss from the industry of 674 jockeys and apprentices who rode over 14 racing seasons and 421,596 race day starts in New Zealand. Descriptors were compared between jockeys in short (1–2 years), middle (3–9 years) and long (>10 years) career cohorts with descriptive statistics and Kaplan–Meier survival curves. The median career length for jockeys was 2 years (IQR 1–6). Long career cohort jockeys (11%) had lower carried weights (IQR 56–57 kg, p = 0.03), 40 times the median number of rides per season (248, IQR 61–434, p < 0.001), half the rate per 1000 rides of falling (1.1, 95% CI 1.0–1.2, p = 0.009) and 1.3 times the rate of winning (100, 95% CI 99–101, p < 0.01) than jockeys in the short career cohort. Jockeys who rode over 200 races per season had careers three times longer than jockeys with fewer races per season (p < 0.001). Half of the 40% of jockeys who failed to complete their apprenticeship were lost from the industry in their first year of race riding. In conclusion, most jockeys had short careers where the workload of a jockey and their ability to obtain rides had greater impact on career longevity than their performance.
A Characteristic Chest Radiographic Pattern in the Setting of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Purpose To determine the utility of chest radiography in aiding clinical diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) utilizing reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) as the standard of comparison. Materials and Methods A retrospective study was performed of persons under investigation for COVID-19 presenting to this institution during the exponential growth phase of the COVID-19 outbreak in New Orleans (March 13–25, 2020). Three hundred seventy-six in-hospital chest radiographic examinations for 366 individual patients were reviewed along with concurrent RT-PCR tests. Two experienced radiologists categorized each chest radiograph as characteristic, nonspecific, or negative in appearance for COVID-19, utilizing well-documented COVID-19 imaging patterns. Chest radiograph categorization was compared against RT-PCR results to determine the utility of chest radiography in diagnosing COVID-19. Results Of the 366 patients, the study consisted of 178 male (49%) and 188 female (51%) patients with a mean age of 52.7 years (range, 17 to 98 years). Of the 376 chest radiographic examinations, 37 (10%) exhibited the characteristic COVID-19 appearance; 215 (57%) exhibited the nonspecific appearance; and 124 (33%) were considered negative for a pulmonary abnormality. Of the 376 RT-PCR tests evaluated, 200 (53%) were positive and 176 (47%) were negative. RT-PCR tests took an average of 2.5 days ± 0.7 to provide results. Sensitivity and specificity for correctly identifying COVID-19 with a characteristic chest radiographic pattern was 15.5% (31/200) and 96.6% (170/176), with a positive predictive value and negative predictive value of 83.8% (31/37) and 50.1% (170/339), respectively. Conclusion The presence of patchy and/or confluent, bandlike ground-glass opacity or consolidation in a peripheral and mid to lower lung zone distribution on a chest radiograph obtained in the setting of pandemic COVID-19 was highly suggestive of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection and should be used in conjunction with clinical judgment to make a diagnosis. © RSNA, 2020
Elevational environmental stress modulating species cohabitation in nests of a social insect

Termite nests may offer shelter to a number of species, alleviating the effects of environmental harshness. Certain elevational gradients provide variation on edaphoclimatic features, possibly generating harsh environmental conditions and boosting the number of immigrants seeking shelter within termitaria. Therefore, it is expected that metrics describing the community of termitaria cohabitants would correlate with elevation. To test this hypothesis, we surveyed the termitophiles inhabiting 20 nests of Nasutitermes coxipoensis along an elevational gradient in a tropical mountain in Brazil. We assessed the richness, abundance, and composition (β‐diversity) of termite nests' cohabitants, testing nest volume and elevational position as explanatory covariates. We found a positive correlation between the elevation at which termitaria were located and the richness and abundance of cohabiting termitophiles. Additionally, no correlation was found between elevational distance and dissimilarity of cohabitant communities between termitaria. Hence, the understanding that termitaria work as an ‘oasis’ of favorable microclimate is reinforced by our findings that the composition changed but was not correlated to elevation. In short, environmental harshness boosts the establishment of distinct species of termitophiles in termitaria and it does so regardless of the invading species identity.
Investigation of nematocysts in stylasterids (Cnidaria: Hydrozoa: Stylasteridae)

ABSTRACT The type, size, shape and distribution of nematocysts represent important taxonomic characters that help to identify many hydrozoan species. The Stylasteridae is one of the most species-rich hydroid families. Nevertheless, information about the soft tissue and especially data about the nematocysts are still very scant. Scattered data about nematocysts are available in several taxonomic papers, but unfortunately without the type identification or shape description, this information is not very useful. Therefore, several questions still need answers. What types of nematocysts are present in the stylasterid family? Do nematocysts have a particular distribution in the soft tissue? Could they be considered a useful taxonomic character for the family? Is it possible to hypothesize their functions? In order to answer these questions, we analysed 15 stylasterid species belonging to seven genera. Euryteles, desmonemes, isorhizas and probably also mastigophores were identified. All examined species have euryteles and desmonemes, while isorhizas are recorded in two genera and mastigophores in only one genus. Moreover, the shape of the nematocysts in some species is very distinct. The distribution of nematocysts shows that each species contains, in the coenosarc, all nematocysts of its cnidome, while in the polyps there are only euryteles and desmonemes. Our study showed that in integrating the information about nematocyst type, size, shape and distribution, each species investigated herein has a specific cnidome. Therefore, nematocysts have a taxonomic value for stylasterids and, whenever possible, nematocysts should be included in the species descriptions. Moreover, the possible functions of stylasterid nematocysts are given in relation to their type and distribution.
Loss of Adenylyl Cyclase 6 in Leptin Receptor‐Expressing Stromal Cells Attenuates Loading‐Induced Endosteal Bone Formation

Bone marrow stromal/stem cells represent a quiescent cell population that replenish the osteoblast bone‐forming cell pool with age and in response to injury, maintaining bone mass and repair. A potent mediator of stromal/stem cell differentiation in vitro and bone formation in vivo is physical loading, yet it still remains unclear whether loading‐induced bone formation requires the osteogenic differentiation of these resident stromal/stem cells. Therefore, in this study, we utilized the leptin receptor (LepR) to identify and trace the contribution of bone marrow stromal cells to mechanoadaptation of bone in vivo. Twelve‐week‐old Lepr‐cre;tdTomato mice were subjected to compressive tibia loading with an 11 N peak load for 40 cycles, every other day for 2 weeks. Histological analysis revealed that Lepr‐cre;tdTomato+ cells arise perinatally around blood vessels and populate bone surfaces as lining cells or osteoblasts before a percentage undergo osteocytogenesis. Lepr‐cre;tdTomato+ stromal cells within the marrow increase in abundance with age, but not following the application of tibial compressive loading. Mechanical loading induces an increase in bone mass and bone formation parameters, yet does not evoke an increase in Lepr‐cre;tdTomato+ osteoblasts or osteocytes. To investigate whether adenylyl cyclase‐6 (AC6) in LepR cells contributes to this mechanoadaptive response, Lepr‐cre;tdTomato mice were further crossed with AC6fl/fl mice to generate a LepR+ cell‐specific knockout of AC6. These Lepr‐cre;tdTomato;AC6fl/fl animals have an attenuated response to compressive tibia loading, characterized by a deficient load‐induced osteogenic response on the endosteal bone surface. This, therefore, shows that Lepr‐cre;tdTomato+ cells contribute to short‐term bone mechanoadaptation. © 2020 The Authors. JBMR Plus published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of American Society for Bone and Mineral Research.
Appraisal of management and biosecurity practices on pig farms in Makurdi, Benue State, North Central Nigeria

The role of biosecurity at farm level is to reduce the risk of introduction of diseases in pig farms and prevent the disease transmission between animals on farms. It is an important management practice that impacts the profitability of pig production ventures. A survey was conducted to assess the biosecurity practices in 50 farms in Makurdi, Benue State, Nigeria, using a structured questionnaire and assessments through direct observations. Descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages and tables were used to analyse and present data generated. The results revealed that majority of the farms were semi-intensive (54%), small scale producers keeping between 1 and 50 pigs formed 96% of surveyed farms and essentially raising indigenous and crossbreed (72%). Only 12% of the farms were fenced and had gates closed to control unwanted visitors and stray animals. Most of the farms (76%) had no footbaths indicating that the risk of disease introduction was high in such farms. The use of protective clothings and foot wears by employees was only observed on 24% of the farms. Isolation of sick animal was practiced by 38% of respondents while 24% of respondents quarantined new animals to the farm. The use of disinfectants to clean the barns was practiced on 18% of the farms. Overall, there was a low level of farm biosecurity in the study area. Extension services to create awareness on the importance of biosecurity would help limit infections and boost pig production and profitability. Key words: Biosecurity, diseases, Nigeria, pig farmers, production system.
Application of Porphyrins in Antibacterial Photodynamic Therapy

Antibiotics are commonly used to control, treat, or prevent bacterial infections, however bacterial resistance to all known classes of traditional antibiotics has greatly increased in the past years especially in hospitals rendering certain therapies ineffective. To limit this emerging public health problem, there is a need to develop non-incursive, non-toxic, and new antimicrobial techniques that act more effectively and quicker than the current antibiotics. One of these effective techniques is antibacterial photodynamic therapy (aPDT). This review focuses on the application of porphyrins in the photo-inactivation of bacteria. Mechanisms of bacterial resistance and some of the current ‘greener’ methods of synthesis of meso-phenyl porphyrins are discussed. In addition, significance and limitations of aPDT are also discussed. Furthermore, we also elaborate on the current clinical applications and the future perspectives and directions of this non-antibiotic therapeutic strategy in combating infectious diseases.
Human activity recognition using improved dynamic image

: In action recognition, the dynamic image (DI) approach is recently proposed to code a video signal to a still image. Since DI descriptor is strongly dependent on first frames, it cannot extract dynamics that do not occur in the first frames or even long dynamics. On the other hand, most of the video frames are not informative for the task of action recognition. Therefore, the authors' intuition is that the process of representing a video using all frames is inefficient. Thus, in this study, they proposed to remove the existing redundancy inside the frames and extract some processed informative images based on the information theory which are called key frames. The proposed method is capable enough to extract sufficient frames regardless of the duration and the position of frames in the entire video. Motivated by this method and DI, they proposed a novel key frames dynamic image (KFDI) approach. Experimental results on popular UCF11, Olympic Sports, and J-HMDB datasets show the superiority of the proposed KFDI approach compared to the DI in capturing long dynamics of videos for action recognition. Their experiments show KFDI improves the accuracy 2–6% compared to DI.
Effects of mate removal on the fecundity of common eider Somateria mollissima females

Behavioural observations, measurements of male and female reproductive success, and DNA microsatellite loci were used to investigate parentage of common eider Somateria mollissima clutches and productivity of widowed females in Finland. In an experimental study simulating spring harvest of male eiders, a total of 20 males were shot while attending 16 females (four males after rematings, 16 initial males) during the pre-laying and laying period in 1994. Of the 16 widowed females, 11 nested and five did not. Mean clutch size of breeding widows (4.55) did not differ from that of control females in the same year (4.47; N = 32). However, the hatching success of widows was significantiy lower than that of control females (53 vs 81%) because of a greater proportion of addled eggs and dead embryos (38% vs 11%). Male removal also appeared to change male and female behaviours resulting in higher incidence of intra-specific brood parasitism and mate replacement. Occurrence of foreign eggs averaged 9.5% during the treatment year but was not observed during a year without disturbance during mating and egg laying (1997). Behaviours of widowed females related to remating attempts varied from active seeking of new mates to total rejection of courting males. Rematings did not lead to full clutch fertilisation among widowed females. Neither did we observe evidence of immigration of new males into the hunting area to court the widows. Male removal clearly lowered the fecundity of eider females, reducing nesting success by 35% of long-term averages. The potential for remating appears to be reduced by the female-biased sex ratio caused by simulated male-only harvest.
THE EFFECT OF ESSENTIAL OIL MIXTURES ON MORTALITIES AND OVIPOSITION DETERRENTS OF Crocidolomia pavonana AND Helopeltis antonii

Essential oil, such as citronella, lemongrass, ageratum, and clove are known to be toxic and repel certain pests. Mixing two or more essential oils are expected increasing their insecticidal properties. The experiments aimed to examine the effect of essential oils mixtures (EOs) on mortalities and oviposition deterrents of Crocidolomia pavonana and Helopeltis antonii . The experiments were conducted at the laboratory and green house of the Indonesian Spices and Medicinal Crops Research Institute. The tested mixtures were citronella and clove (CiC); lemongrass and clove (LC); ageratum and clove (AC); individual EO; control 1 (water + emulsifier); control 2 (water) at 0.5% concentration for all treatments. The ratio used were 1:1, 1:2, 1:4, 2:1 and 4:1. Parameters observed were the mortalities of C. pavonana larvae and H. antonii nymphs; and the ovipositions deterrents of both insects. The CiC and LC mixtures gave low mortality ( 60% and the individual ageratum oil caused 77.5% mortalities. The CiC 1:1 and LC (1:1, 1:2, and 4:1) showed >40% mortalities of H. antonii, whereas the AC in all ratios enhanced the nymph mortalities. The number of eggs laid by C. pavonana at CiC and LC in all ratios were around 50-60% lower than individual EO. The mixture of AC 1:4 and 4:1 produced eggs nearly 50% lower than clove treatment. The CiC and LC at 1:1 produced the lowest numbers of egg laid by H. antonii , while AC 1:4 reduced 70% eggs laid compared to individual EO.
Creating a Theoretical Model to Explore Online Video User Satisfaction and Continuous Usage Intention

The purpose of this study is to identify realistic and verified factors that influence on-line video service user satisfaction and their continuous use intention in order to build an applicable model to explain the causal relations among these factors. The study reviewed the key theoretical frameworks in uses and gratifications approach (UGA) and the technological acceptance model (TAM). To find applications for them, this study analyzes recent relevant replication studies and their main research findings by using a meta-analysis. After careful reviews of the two theoretical models and frameworks as well as a meta-analysis of selected 35 recent studies, the following results and implications were found. First, A number of studies supported combined or hybrid theoretical assumptions of the two frameworks assumed and tested by the UGA and the TAM. Second, there have been a number of specific and useful variables for measuring the core factors impacting user satisfaction and actual use of on-line media. Based on these results, a hypothetical hybrid model was then created by combining the two frameworks into one based on the TAM. This was done by eliminating the ‘ease of use’ factor and by including the UGA factors.
Healthcare professionals' trust in patients: A review of the empirical and theoretical literatures

Disclaimer/Complaints regulations If you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: https://uba.uva. nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible.