Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Surgical Management of the Non-functional Larynx after Organ Preservation Therapy

Surgical Management of the Non-functional Larynx after Organ Preservation Therapy Objective: Removal of the larynx for laryngeal malignancy is a curative procedure in the setting of resectable cancer. In the era of organ preservation, the use of radiation to treat head and neck cancer is often the first line of treatment. However, late complications are frequently seen, including laryngeal dysfunction, aspiration, and chondroradionecrosis. The goal of our study was to review our surgical experience with laryngectomy for patients with nonfunctional larynges. Data sources: Twenty-four disease-free head and neck cancer survivors who underwent total laryngectomy (TL) for laryngopharyngeal dysfunction from 1/2003 to 12/2008 at a tertiary referral center.
Evaluation of 2 techniques of epithelial removal in subepithelial connective tissue graft surgery: a comparative histological study

Purpose Subepithelial connective tissue grafts (SCTGs) are commonly performed for the treatment of gingival recession due to their high predictability. This study evaluated and histologically compared connective tissue grafts in terms of the presence of epithelial remnants and composition of the tissue types that were present (epithelium, lamina propria, and submucosa). Methods Ten patients underwent epithelium removal using 2 different techniques: the use of a blade (group B) and through abrasion (group A). Twenty samples were collected and each tissue type was analyzed histologically in terms of its area, thickness, and proportion of the total area of the graft. Results In 4 samples (40%) from group B (n=10) and 2 samples (20%) from group A (n=10), the presence of an epithelial remnant was observed, but the difference between the groups was not statistically significant (P>0.05). Likewise, no statistically significant differences were observed between the groups regarding the area, mean thickness, or proportion of the total area for any of the tissue types (P>0.05). Conclusions Histologically, SCTGs did not show statistically significant differences in terms of their tissue composition depending on whether they were separated from the epithelial tissue by abrasion or by using a blade.
Diatom assemblages of the brackish Bolshaya Samoroda River (Russia) studied via light microscopy and DNA metabarcoding

Diatoms are highly diverse and widely spread aquatic photosynthetic protists. Studies of regional patterns of diatom diversity are substantial for understanding taxonomy and biogeography of diatoms, as well as for ecological perspectives and applied purposes. DNA barcoding is a modern approach, which can resolve many problems of diatoms identification and can provide valuable information about their diversity in different ecosystems. However, only few studies focused on diatom assemblages of brackish rivers and none of them applied the genetic tools. Herein, we analyzed taxonomic composition and abundance of diatom assemblages in the brackish mixohaline Bolshaya Samoroda River flowing into the Elton Lake (Volgograd region, Russia) using light microscopy and high-throughput sequencing of the V4 region of the 18S rDNA gene amplicons. In total, light microscopy of the samples taken in 2011–2014 and 2018 allowed to distinguish 39 diatom genera, represented by 76 species and infraspecies taxa. Twenty three species of diatoms were recorded in the river for the first time. Next-generation sequencing revealed a larger number of diatom taxa (26 genera and 47 OTUs in two samples vs. 20 genera and 37 species estimated by light microscopy). As a result, sequences of Haslea, Fistulifera, Gedaniella were recorded in the river for the first time. Significant differences in the data obtained with molecular and light microscopy approaches are discussed. Some V4 18S rDNA sequences were characterized by a low similarity with homologues from the reference database. We revealed high spatial-temporal heterogeneity of the diatom assemblages, occurrence of freshwater species together with brackish and marine ones, and predominance of benthic and plankto-benthic species. Thus, investigations of diatoms in brackish rivers based on both morphological and molecular approaches provide a good chance of improving an understanding of diversity, ecology and biogeography of Bacillariophyta.
The Formation Mechanism and Characterization of Al-Si Master Alloys from Sodium Fluosilicate

A modified Al-Si alloy containing up to 15 wt. % Si has been obtained from the reaction of sodium fluosilicate (Na2SiF6) with molten aluminum. This work attempted to estimate the mechanism of the reaction of Na2SiF6 with molten aluminum to produce Al-Si alloys. The effect of temperature, Na2SiF6/Al Wt ratio and reaction time on the formation of Al-Si alloy were investigated. The thermodynamic data, kinetic and rate of the reaction were studied. The results showed the possibility of the reaction between Na2SiF6 and molten aluminum thermodynamically, and that this reaction might be controlled chemically. The current study aims to optimize the factors that affecting the preparation of a modified Al-Si alloy from a reduction of sodium fluosilicate using molten aluminium. Temperature 950 oC, reaction time 20 – 25 min and Na2SiF6/Al Wt ratio related to the applied Si percentage. The prepared alloys could be modified due to the presence of Na2SiF6 in the used material as a source of sodium in response to modifying the produced Al-Si alloys. The microstructure by using LOM, SEM, and EDX proved that the needle-like silicon converts to fine fibrous. The volume fraction of primary Si reduces and the eutectic point moves to a higher silicon concentration. The modification improves the wear characteristics and increases the tensile and hardness.
Emergy Analysis of the Prehistoric Global Nitrogen Cycle

In this analysis of the prehistoric global nitrogen cycle, relationships between the emergy per unit mass and the mass concentration of nitrogen were examined. A monotonic increase in the emergy per unit mass (the specific emergy) as a function of increasing material concentrations is predicted by energy hierarchy principles and was observed in the data. This pattern is expected when energy transformation is accompanied by an increase in the concentration of material in higher transformity units. Among nitrogen species in the troposphere a different pattern was observed, where transformity and the emergy per unit mass are greater for the more reactive but lower concentration nitrogen species. In this case, lightning discharges create nitrogen species of higher transformity by breaking the stable triple bond of diatomic nitrogen and increasing its chemical reactivity. The nitrogen flows through living systems are arranged in an energy capturing order-disorder loop upon which a trophic hierarchy is built. The emergy per unit mass increases as energy is transformed and nitrogen is concentrated through the trophic web. Planetary nitrogen flows through living systems are large compared to geochemical fluxes and as a consequence they have lower specific emergies. In general living systems have greater mass concentrations of nitrogen which supports the hypothesis that emergent properties of an element or elements ,e.g., life, arise when a threshold of mass concentration is exceeded. Energy principles and the data on global nitrogen flows indicate that the specific emergy of pathway flows may approach a minimum value as the system approaches a state of maximum empower.
Investor Sentiment, Corporate Governance and Downside risk

The research examines the effect of investor sentiment on downside total risk with the interplay of corporate governance mechanism. The investor sentiment is measured through six proxies proposed by Baker and Wurgler (2006, 2007). Corporate governance mechanism comprises of board structure, ownership structure and audit quality. Whereas, downside risk is estimated using methodology suggested by Estrada (2002) based on sample of 233 non-financial firms from 2004 to 2014. The analysis is carried for full sample, small size firms and big size firms. Further, the persistency of model is also examined across major industries through static regression estimation. Theoretically, findings mainly support noise trader theory. Consistent with previous studies, results show the positive effect of investor sentiment on downside total risk. Moreover, as per the agency theory, results reveal that corporate governance weakens the relationship between investor sentiment and risk.
Compression-Based Parts-of-Speech Tagger for The Arabic Language

This paper explores the use of Compression-based models to train a Part-of-Speech (POS) tagger for the Arabic language. The newly developed tagger is based on the Prediction-by-Partial Matching (PPM) compression system, which has already been employed successfully in several NLP tasks. Several models were trained for the new tagger, the first models were trained using a silver-standard data from two different POS Arabic taggers, and the second model utilised the BAAC corpus, which is a 50K term manually annotated MSA corpus, where the PPM tagger achieved an accuracy of 93.07%. Also, the tag-based models were utilised to evaluate the performance of the new tagger by first tagging different Classical Arabic corpora and Modern Standard Arabic corpora then compressing the text using tag-based compression models. The results show that the use of silver-standard models has led to a reduction in the quality of the tagbased compression by an average of 0.43%, whereas the use of the gold-standard model has increased the tag-based compression quality by an average of 4.61% when used to tag Modern Standard Arabic text.
Diabetes Mellitus Complications and Associated Factors Among Adult Diabetic Patients in Selected Hospitals of West Ethiopia

Background / Introduction: The prevalence of type 1 and type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) is increasing worldwide. The prevalence might even be higher in low-income countries. As a result, type 1 and type 2 DM and their complications are imposing a high burden on patients (e.g. hospitalization, disability and death). In Ethiopia, there are limited studies focusing on the complications of type 1 and type 2 DM. Thus, we assessed the prevalence of type 1 and type 2 DM complications and associated factors in selected hospitals in western Ethiopia.
The Combined Effects of Public and Private Investments on Economic Growth in the CEMAC Zone

Article history Received: 23 July 2019 Accepted: 20 September 2019 Published Online: 31 December 2019 This study evaluates the simultaneous impact of public and private investments on economic growth in the CEMAC zone between 1984 and 2017. To attain this aim, we use the Vector Error Correction Model (VECM) to test the direction of causality between the three variables above at the level of each country. We find that the direction of causality is not the same in all the countries both in the short as in long-run. We then develop an ideal model going from the Cobb Douglas production function which we quantitatively validate using panel data estimation through the method of Pool Mean Group which takes into account individual specificities. It arises that contrary to economic theory, private sector investments have positive and significant effects in short-run. However, the impact of public investments is negative and significant. In the long-run, the effects are reversed and call on the authorities of the CEMAC zone to reinforce the political risk to strengthen the public-private partnership in the process of sustainable growth.
L’Institut bénéficie du soutien financier de l’Autorité des marchés financiers ainsi que du ministère des Finances du Québec Document de recherche

New pricing and hedging strategies are proposed for a non-affine auto-regressive stochastic factor model with non-predictable drift which allows to account for leverage effects. We consider a volatility dependent exponential linear pricing kernel with stochastic risk aversion parameters and implement both pricing and hedging for these models estimated via the hierarchical-likelihood method. This technique proves to outperform standard GARCH and Heston-Nandi based strategies in terms of a variety of considered criteria in an empirical exercise using historical returns and options data.
The Welfare Cost of Monetary Policy Loss after the Euro Adoption in Poland∗

One of the most important aspects associated with the Eurozone accession of Poland is the macroeconomic impact of the loss of autonomous monetary policy. In order to analyze this issue, we build a two country DSGE model with sticky prices. We begin by evaluating performance of our model. Next, we investigate how joining the Eurozone will a ect the business cycle behavior of the main macroeconomic variables in Poland. We nd that the Euro adoption will have a noticeable impact on the Polish economic uctuations. In particular, volatility of domestic output increases and volatility of in ation decreases. Also, in order to quantify the e ect of the Euro adoption, we compute the welfare e ect of this monetary policy change. Our ndings suggest that the welfare cost is not large.
Author’s response to reviews Title: Development of a Greek Oral Health Literacy Measurement Instrument: GROHL Authors: konstantina

Reviewers’ comments; authors’ responses in blue; specific manuscript changes in italics and highlighted yellow in-text. Reviewer #1 1.1Introduction A critical review of the background of the development of oral health literacy instrument is needed. What are the limitations and recommendations found in the systematic reviews? Systematic reviews, such as "Efficacy of instruments measuring oral health literacy: a systematic review. Oral Health Prev Dent. 2014;12(3):201-7",are suggested to be included in the Introduction section.
Hedging Pressure and Returns in Futures: Evidence Across Asset Classes

The hedging pressure hypothesis contends that commodity futures prices depend on the net positions of hedgers. This paper adopts a time-series and cross-sectional analysis to revisit this hypothesis in the context of commodity markets and additionally to test its empirical validity in equity, currency and fixed income futures markets. Our analysis provides evidence of a significant hedging pressure risk premium in commodity, equity and currency futures markets. The premium correlates with general market movements and with the well-known momentum and carry factors and increases in economic conditions, consistent with the concurrence of greater hedging demand and a lessening of speculator capital flows. In contrast with the currency and fixed income factors, we find that the commodity and equity hedging pressure factors have crosssectional pricing ability across asset classes, beyond traditional risk factors. JEL classifications: G13, G14
Nonlinearities in CDS-Bond Basis Kurmaş Akdoğan

Theoretically, the risk premium captured by Credit Default Swap (CDS) and bond yield spreads should be equal. However, data reveals a significant difference between the two spreads. We explore the presence of a mean-reverting behavior in this difference (CDS-bond basis), for selected emerging markets, employing alternative threshold models (TAR, TAR-GARCH and ESTAR). Our results indicate a positive relationship between the speed of adjustment and the trading frequency of the sovereign CDS’s and bonds. The TAR-GARCH model suggests that the adjustment of the CDS-bond basis is immediate for economies with more liquid CDS’s and bonds, such as Argentina, Brazil and Mexico. The ESTAR model indicates that the adjustment displays a gradual pattern for the basis of the economies with less frequently traded bonds and CDS’s. JEL Classification: C32, G12
Hardness Characterisations and Size-Width Lower Bounds for QBF Resolution

We provide a tight characterisation of proof size in resolution for quantified Boolean formulas (QBF) by circuit complexity. Such a characterisation was previously obtained for a hierarchy of QBF Frege systems (Beyersdorff & Pich, LICS 2016), but leaving open the most important case of QBF resolution. Different from the Frege case, our characterisation uses a new version of decision lists as its circuit model, which is stronger than the CNFs the system works with. Our decision list model is well suited to compute countermodels for QBFs. Our characterisation works for both Q-Resolution and QU-Resolution, which we show to be polynomially equivalent for QBFs of bounded quantifier alternation. Using our characterisation we obtain a size-width relation for QBF resolution in the spirit of the celebrated result for propositional resolution (Ben-Sasson & Wigderson, J. ACM 2001). However, our result is not just a replication of the propositional relation --- intriguingly ruled out for QBF in previous research (Beyersdorff et al., ACM ToCL 2018) ---but shows a different dependence between size, width, and quantifier complexity. We demonstrate that our new technique elegantly reproves known QBF hardness results and unifies previous lower-bound techniques in the QBF domain.
The Global Impact of Brexit Uncertainty

Using tools from computational linguistics, we construct new measures of the impact of Brexit on listed firms in the United States and around the world: the share of discussions in quarterly earnings conference calls on costs, benefits, and risks associated with the UK’s intention to leave the EU. Using this approach, we identify which firms expect to gain or lose from Brexit and which are most affected by Brexit uncertainty. We then estimate the effects of these different kinds of Brexit exposure on firm-level outcomes. We find that concerns about Brexit-related uncertainty extend far beyond British or even European firms. US and international firms most exposed to Brexit uncertainty have lost a substantial fraction of their market value and have reduced hiring and investment. In addition to Brexit uncertainty (the second moment), we find that international firms overwhelmingly expect negative direct effects of Brexit (the first moment), should it come to pass. Most prominently, firms expect difficulties resulting from regulatory divergence, reduced labor mobility, trade access, and the costs of adjusting their operations post-Brexit. Consistent with the predictions of canonical theory, this negative sentiment is recognized and priced in stock markets but has not yet had significant effects on firm actions.
An analysis of the Brazilian dairy industry efficiency level

Milk is one of the most consumed agricultural products in Brazil, and its processing industry has a key role in absorbing its raw material, providing milk products, and generating jobs and income. Therefore, this study investigates the technical and scale efficiency levels of the Brazilian dairy industry from a multi-input perspective. Primary data from 40 dairy establishments distributed among the Brazilian regions was collected from online surveys. An exploratory analysis was performed to sample the characterization, using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) with input-orientation to obtain the technical and scale efficiency scores of the Brazilian dairy industry based on the use of the inputs: energy (thermal and electrical), raw material (milk), and income generation (product). The results showed that the Brazilian dairy industry has 64.7% of pure technical efficiency and 73.8% of scale efficiency. In general, the main inefficiency is associated with the energy use (23.2%) and raw material (24.1%). These results should be considered essential for this industry as dairy establishments have demonstrated greater efficiency in adopting the most appropriate production scale (scale efficiency), and that they can be more efficient, especially by reducing their energy consumption, their processing losses, and increasing the raw milk earned value.
How Social Capital Effects the Internationalization Process of SME in Zhejiang

This study attempts to take a look at the effects of social capital on internationalization speed and performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in China. Based on social capital theory and international entrepreneurship literature, this study proposes different hypotheses concerning various aspects of social capital and discusses their effects on both internationalization speed and performance of SMEs. The hypotheses are tested on a sample of SMEs located in the province Zhejiang in China. The representative sample covers a wide range of manufacturing enterprises in the relevant region. The findings point out that some aspects of social capital lead to faster internationalization speed or higher performance. The results can be used by managers or owner of SMEs as well as the political policy makers to select a right strategy to foster the internationalization process of SMEs.
The Impact of SPY Angiography on Intraoperative Decision Making and Outcomes for Post-Mastectomy Reconstruction

Objective: While the use of intraoperative laser angiography (SPY) is increasing in mastectomy patients, its impact in the operating room to change the type of reconstruction performed has not been well described. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether SPY angiography influences post-mastectomy reconstruction decisions and outcomes. Methods and materials: A retrospective analysis of mastectomy patients with reconstruction at a single institution was performed from 2015-2017.All patients underwent intraoperative SPY after mastectomy but prior to reconstruction. SPY results were defined as ‘good’, ‘questionable’, ‘bad’, or ‘had skin excised’. Complications within 60 days of surgery were compared between those whose SPY results did not change the type of reconstruction done versus those who did. Preoperative and intraoperative variables were entered into multivariable logistic regression models if significant at the univariate level. A p-value <0.05 was considered significant. Results: 267 mastectomies were identified, 42 underwent a change in the type of planned reconstruction due to intraoperative SPY results. Of the 42 breasts that underwent a change in reconstruction, 6 had a ‘good’ SPY result, 10 ‘questionable’, 25 ‘bad’, and 2 ‘had areas excised’ (p<0.01). After multivariable analysis, predictors of skin necrosis included patients with ‘questionable’ SPY results (p<0.01, OR: 8.1, 95%CI: 2.06 – 32.2) and smokers (p<0.01, OR:5.7, 95%CI: 1.5 – 21.2). Predictors of any complication included a change in reconstruction (p<0.05, OR:4.5, 95%CI: 1.4-14.9) and ‘questionable’ SPY result (p<0.01, OR: 4.4, 95%CI: 1.6-14.9). Conclusion: SPY angiography results strongly influence intraoperative surgical decisions regarding the type of reconstruction performed. Patients most at risk for flap necrosis and complication post-mastectomy are those with questionable SPY results.