Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is Barium Enema Prior to Ileostomy Closure Necessary

Purpose: A barium enema is frequently performed to check for healing prior to ileostomy closure, but there have been reports that ileostomy closure without a contrast study is safe in selected patients. The aim of this study was to assess the necessity of a routine barium enema prior to ileostomy closure. Methods: Between January 1994 and June 2005, 51 patients with a temporary loop ileostomy who had a barium enema prior to ileostomy closure at Chonbuk National University Hospital were retrospectively reviewed. These patients were divided into 2 groups, the protective ileostomy group and the ileostomy-after-leakage group. To examine the necessity of a routine barium enema prior to ileostomy closure, we assessed whether the barium enema results changed management and whether there were pelvic sepsis and obstructive symptoms following ileostomy closure. Results: In the protective ileostomy group (n=39), the barium enema was performed after a mean of 59 days (range: 27151 days). There were no abnormal findings at the barium enema, no schedule changes, no pelvic sepsis, and no obstructive symptoms following ileostomy closure. In the ileostomy-after-leakage group (n=12), the barium enema was performed after a mean of 54 days (range: 3082 days). In 2 patients, with barium enemas at 33 days and 36 days, an anastomotic leakage was found, and ileostomy closure was delayed. Conclusions: In patients with a protective ileostomy, a barium enema prior to ileostomy closure is unnecessary, but in patients with an ileostomy after leakage, barium enema should be considered.
Synthesis, characterization and evaluation of 1-monoacylglycerols of unsaturated fatty acids as potential bioactive lipids ; Síntesis, caracterización y evaluación de 1-monoacilgliceroles de ácidos grasos insaturados como potenciales lípidos bioactivos

The synthesis of 1-monoacylglycerols of selected unsaturated fatty acids and their antimicrobial and cytotoxicity activity is reported in the present study. The monoacylglycerols of fatty acids like undecenoic, oleic, linoleic and erucic acids were prepared by chemical esterification with solketal followed by deprotection. Fatty acids like alpha linolenic, gamma linolenic and ricinoleic acids were initially isolated from natural sources and further enriched in their respective methyl ester forms. The monoacylglycerols of ricinoleic and linolenic acid methyl esters were prepared by enzymatic transesterification with solketal using lipase from Candida antarctica followed by deprotection. The synthesized 1-monoacylglycerols were purified and characterized by spectral studies. The antimicrobial activity revealed that the monoacylglycerol of gamma linolenic acid was the most effective antibacterial followed by the monoacylglycerols of undecenoic and alpha linolenic acids. In the cytotoxicity assay against five cell lines, all the monoacylglycerols exhibited moderate activity but the activity was best against MCF7 Human Breast Adenocarcinoma cell lines.
Selection of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi for sugarcane in four soils with the presence of dark septate endophytes

The present study aimed to select efficient arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) for sugarcane growth and P nutrition in four soils that spontaneously contained dark septate endophytes (DSE). The effect of nine AMF isolates was evaluated individually in sugarcane presprouted seedlings (SP81-3250) grown under greenhouse conditions for a 120-day period. The isolates that stimulated plant growth in the soils with low P availability were Acaulospora colombiana (ACOL), Claroideoglomus etunicatum (CETU), Gigaspora margarita (GMAR), Rhizophagus clarus (RCLA) and Scutellospora calospora (SCAL). Compared to the Yellow Argisol, which had the highest P level, the Red-Yellow Argisol, with an intermediate P content, increased plant height. Compared to the other treatments, inoculation with ACOL, RCLA, and SCAL resulted in higher foliar P content in plants grown in soils with high to intermediate P levels. Root colonization by AMF and DSE was verified in the plants, with the coexistence of both fungal groups in the same plant and/or root fragment. However, AMF colonization was low compared to DSE colonization. The cooccurrence of DSE and AMF was higher in the plants inoculated with ACOL, RCLA, SCAL, and Dentiscutata heterogama. ACOL, CETU, GMAR, RCLA, and SCAL are AMF isolates that have the potential to establish a mycorrhizal inoculant for sugarcane that would be effective in several soils.
Spatial Perception of Sound Source Distribution in the Median Plane

Spatial perception of concurrently active sound sources was investigated in an exploratory listening experiment. Incoherent noise source distributions of varying spatial characteristics were presented from loudspeaker arrays in anechoic conditions. The arrays were coinciding with the ±45◦ angular sectors in the frontal median and horizontal planes. The task of the immobile subjects was to report the directions of loudspeakers they perceived emitting sound. The results from median plane distributions suggest that two concurrent sources located along the vertical midline can be perceived individually without resorting to head movements when they are separated in elevation by 60◦ or more. With source pairs separated by less than 60◦, and with more complex physical distributions, the distributions were perceived inaccurately, biased, and spatially compressed but nevertheless not as point-like auditory images.
Globalization , the Business Cycle , and Real-Time Macroeconomic Monitoring ∗

** PRELIMINARY DRAFT – FOR NBER ISOM DISTRIBUTION ONLY *** We propose and implement a framework for characterizing and monitoring the global business cycle in real-time. Our framework utilizes high-frequency data, allows us to account for a potentially large amount of missing observations, and facilitates real-time updating of global activity as data releases and revisions become available. We apply this framework to the G-7 countries and study various aspects of national and global business cycles. We report three main results. First, our measure of the global business cycle – the G-7 real activity factor – is able to capture a significant amount of common variation across countries and displays the major global cyclical events of the past forty years. Second, the G-7 and idiosyncratic country factors appear to play different roles at different points in time in shaping national economic activity. Finally, the degree of G-7 business cycle synchronization among country factors has changed over time.
The Role of Debris Cover in Catchment Runoff: A Case Study of the Hailuogou Catchment, South-Eastern Tibetan Plateau

Runoff from high-elevation, debris-covered glaciers is a crucial water supply in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and its surroundings, where insufficient debris thickness data make it difficult to analyze its influence. Here, we investigated the role of debris cover in runoff formation of the Hailuogou catchment in the south-eastern Tibetan Plateau for the 1988–2017 period, based on long-term observations combined with a physically based glacio-hydrological model. The catchment is characterized by extensive thin debris on the ablation zones of three debris-covered glaciers. An increasing trend in catchment runoff has been observed in the past three decades, more than 50% of which is attributed to glacier runoff in the last decade. With the exception of the influence of temperature rising and precipitation decreasing, our results underline the importance of debris cover and its spatial features in the glaciological and hydrological processes of the catchment, in which the acceleration effect of debris cover is dominant in the catchment. An experimental analysis indicated that the extraordinary excess meltwater in the catchment is generated from the debris-covered surface, especially the lower elevation region below 3600 m a.s. l.
Setting the Price Right: Evidence from Heating Price Reform in China

Inefficient energy pricing and the lack of incentives to conserve energy are common problems in developing countries and result in substantial allocative inefficiency. We evaluate a recent major reform in the residential heating system in China that replaced a non-metered fixed payment system with a two-part tariff, called consumption-based billing. We develop an event-study research design that exploits quasi-experimental variation in the staggered rollouts of the reform over ten years. Using household-level daily heating usage data before and after the reform, we find that the reform induced substantial reduction in heating usage, by 37 percent reduction in four years. We also find evidence of learning. Households reduced heating usage gradually over time, with larger reduction in warmer days (i.e. days when the value of heating was relatively low) in later years. We then use plant-level emission data to examine environmental benefits of the reform. The reduced heating usage was associated with 40 percent reduction in SO2 emission concentration, 26 percent in NOx concentration and 18 percent in Particulate Matter concentration. We use these results to calculate the reduction in deadweight loss that was produced by the policy. Our findings provide important implications for energy policy because a growing number of developing countries are in the process of implementing consumption-based energy billing in lieu of pre-existing inefficient fixed-charge billing. ∗Ito: Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago, and NBER (e-mail: ito@uchicago.edu). Zhang: Department of Economics, University of Colorado Boulder (e-mail: shuang.zhang@colorado.edu). For helpful comments, we thank Douglas Almond, Severin Borenstein, Lucas Davis, Larry Goulder, Michael Greenstone, Kelsey Jack, Ryan Kellogg, Catherine Wolfram, and seminar participants at SIEPR, Colorado Boulder and UC Berkeley Energy Camp. We thank Theodor Kulczycki, Jing Qian and Chenyu Qiu for excellent research assistance.
Comparative Study of English Learning Beliefs between Chinese and Korean College Students in Minority Region

Beliefs are a central construct in every discipline. Meanwhile, students’ beliefs about language learning play an important role in their language motivation, attitude and achievement. This study intends to explore the current situation of the English learning beliefs of College students in Minority Regions in China and then attempts to find out the similarities and differences in English learning beliefs between Chinese and Korean students. The results show that self-efficacy is the most important factor affecting non-English major sophomores of minority regions. And there are clear differences exist between two sub-scales of English learning beliefs.
Inequality and globalisation: Analysis of European countries

DOI: 10.14254/2071789X.2019/12-4/5 ABSTRACT. This paper examines the relationship between income inequality and globalisation in 29 European countries over the period of 2005-2015, the period including phases of both growth and economic recession. Unlike other studies which analyse variations in inequality in specific countries or in both developed and developing economies, this study focuses on European countries, that is, high-income countries with highly developed economies. It investigates the influence on inequality exerted by trade and financial globalisation and technological development over the ten years through panel data multiple regression analysis. The results indicate that both trade globalisation and the degree of technological development are associated with reduction in inequality, while financial globalisation, and particularly foreign direct investment inward, are associated with increase in inequality. Furthermore, strong associations can be observed between the dimensions of the study in function of the average salaries and GDP per capita of different countries, reflected through partial correlations.
Comparing the Effect of Suspended and Non-Suspended Core Stability Exercises on Static and Dynamic Balance and Muscular Endurance in Young Males With Down Syndrome

1. Department of Health and Sports Rehabilitation, Faculty of Sports Sciences and Health, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran. 2. Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of Hormozgan, Bandar Abbas, Iran. 3. Department of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, University of Amir Kabir, Tehran, Iran. 4. Department of Corrective Exercise and Sports Injuries, Faculty of Physical Education and Sports Sciences, Islamic Azad University of Karaj, Alborz, Iran.
Job satisfaction and subjective well-being in Europe

DOI: 10.14254/2071789X.2019/12-4/11 ABSTRACT. This paper addresses some recent developments in the field of management science and economics of well-being, trying to prove a link between working conditions and subjective well-being. Using the fifth round of the European Social Survey, which is the most recent set of data with a module focusing on the inter-relations between work, family and well-being, this paper uses an instrumental variable approach to estimate the effect of job satisfaction on subjective Well-being. The direction of the relationship between these two variables has always been controversial because of endogeneity. Results, also exploring the role of working contract and welfare systems, allow for isolating a considerable influence on job satisfaction in increasing people's subjective well-being. Results are robust even if the restriction condition is violated. Job satisfaction increases subjective well-being even if the instrumental variables are not uncorrelated with the error of the main equation.
The Mortality Impact of Fine Particulate Matter in China

We use county-level panel data to estimate the long-run effect of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) pollution on mortality in China. Causal inference relies on changes in local pollution correlated with demand shocks from export destinations amid the global economic crisis during the late 2000s. We find an economically and statistically significant impact of the long-term exposure to PM2.5 on cardiovascular and respiratory mortality. Mortality impacts are largest for those 65 years and older. Using the variability in pollution levels both across time and space, our analysis provides evidence of a concave dose-response, with diminishing marginal mortality impacts of pollution at levels beyond those in developed nations.
ESG disclosure and firm performance before and after IR

Purpose This paper aims to investigate the effect of environmental, social and governance disclosure (ESGD) on firm performance (FP) before and after the introduction of integrated reporting (IR) further to exploring a potential moderation effect of corporate governance mechanisms on this relationship. Design/methodology/approach Ordinary least squares and firm-fixed effects models were estimated based on data related to FTSE 350 between 2009 and 2018. The data has been mainly collected from Bloomberg and Capital IQ. This analysis was supplemented with applying a two-stage least squares (2 SLS) model to address any concerns regarding the expected occurrence of endogeneity problems. Findings The results show a positive and significant relationship between ESGD score and FP before and after 2013, among a sample of FTSE 350. Furthermore, the study is suggestive of a moderation effect of corporate governance mechanisms (i.e. ownership concentration, gender diversity and board size) on the ESGD-FP nexus. Additionally, this paper finds that firms voluntarily associated with IR have a tendency to achieve better firm financial performance. Practical implications The findings of the present study have several policy and practitioner implications. For example, managers may engage in ESGD to enhance their firms’ financial performance by the voluntary involvement in IR, which believed to help investors to rationalise their investment decisions. Likewise, the results reiterate the crucial need to integrate more social, environmental and economic regulations to promote sustainability in the UK. The paper also offers a systematic picture for policymakers in the UK as well as future researchers. Social implications The findings of this paper indicate that IR plays a significant role in the relationship between ESGD and FP, where IR firms seemed to be achieving better FP as compared with their non-IR counterparts. This implies that stakeholders may have played a magnificent effort to encourage firms’ voluntary engagement in IR in the UK. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to explore the potential moderating effect of ownership concentration, gender diversity and board size on the relationship between ESGD and FP and to examine whether firms’ voluntary involvement in IR can lead to better FP after the introduction of IR in 2013 in the UK.
The challenges of reconstruction after the October 2005 Kashmir earthquake

The 8th October 2005 Kashmir Earthquake was one the largest earthquakes in Northern Pakistan in its recorded history. It caused an unprecedented level of damage and destruction in Pakistan Administered Kashmir (PAK) and the North Western Frontier Province (NWFP). It damaged or collapsed more than 0.6 million buildings - leaving 3.5 million people shelter less as winter approached. A large part of the earthquake-affected area is difficult to access and highly snow-prone, with rugged terrain and scattered settlements. It posed unique challenges and efforts on a massive-scale for reconstruction. For residential buildings, the Pakistan government adopted a house-owner driven approach. The reconstruction policy stated that the government and other agencies would provide equal technical assistance and subsidy to each family, without differentiating between who lost what. To increase capacity in earthquake-resistant construction, large-scale training of artisans, technicians, engineers, and community mobilisers has been conducted. Campaigns to “build back better” have raised awareness in the communities. Local Housing Reconstruction Centres have been established for training, advice, and dissemination of earthquake-resistant technology. This decentralised approach has helped in achieving reconstruction smoothly. This paper will present the authors’ first-hand experience in the reconstruction effort, and the opportunities and unique challenges faced.
Behavioral response of parasitoid Acerophagus papayae Noyes and Schauff to papaya mealybug Paracoccus marginatus on different host plants

Acerophagus papayae Noyes and Schauff (Hymenoptera: Chalcidoidea: Encyrtidae), is the efficient parasitoid for the suppression of papaya mealybug Paracoccus marginatus Williams and Granara de Willink. Host plant volatiles are important cues in the parasitoid host selection process. Hence, parasitoids orientation behaviour towards different host plants of papaya mealybugs were tested using olfactometer. Results say in the experiment with healthy host plant leaves that parasitoids highly preferred for the papaya host plant followed by mulberry, parthenium, tapioca, brinjal and control with 2.67, 1.72, 0.83, 0.56, 0.39 and 0.11 number of parasitoids attracted, respectively. In addition, when infested host plant leaves with mealybugs were studied, the parasitoids highly preferred for the papaya host plant followed by mulberry, parthenium, tapioca, brinjal and control with 3.61, 2.11, 0.89, 0.61, 0.28 and 0.17 number of parasitoids attracted, respectively. Hence, the identification of volatile compounds in the preferred and non-preferred host plants is of future scope.
What were they thinking? Firms’ expectations on the availability of external finance

Using a large set of firm-level survey data from the euro area, we analyse how firms use their information to form expectations on the availability of bank finance. Our results suggest that firms update what otherwise look like adaptive expectations on the basis of the latest information in their information set. As in the previous literature, the hypothesis that expectations fulfil the (orthogonality) conditions of the rational expectations hypothesis is rejected by the data. We find evidence that this is not only due to information imperfections but also to some misspecification of the expectations’ model that firms are using. In particular, firms seem to have placed too much weight on the information most accessible to them, namely the development of their own sales and profitability as well as of the general economic environment. In addition, we find some evidence that companies that are less “exposed” to bank financing (e.g. they have not used it recently) tend to do worse at forecasting its availability next period. To test how policy announcements may affect expectations, we concentrate on the case study of the announcement of the European Central Bank’s Outright Monetary Transactions Program (OMT). We find some evidence of forward looking expectations. In particular, the forecasts shortly after the OMT announcement of at least the larger firms and firms more exposed to bank financing were more upbeat than it would have been expected given the rather grim reality at the time.
Local retinoic acid directs emergence of the extraocular muscle functional unit

Coordinated development of muscles, tendons, and their attachment sites ensures emergence of functional musculoskeletal units that are adapted to diverse anatomical demands among different species. How these different tissues are patterned and functionally assembled during embryogenesis is poorly understood. Here, we investigated the morphogenesis of extraocular muscles (EOMs), an evolutionary conserved cranial muscle group that is crucial for the coordinated movement of the eyeballs and for visual acuity. By means of lineage analysis, we redefined the cellular origins of periocular connective tissues interacting with the EOMs, which do not arise exclusively from neural crest mesenchyme as previously thought. Using 3D imaging approaches, we established an integrative blueprint for the EOM functional unit. By doing so, we identified a developmental time window where individual EOMs emerge from a unique muscle anlage and establish insertions in the sclera, which sets these muscles apart from classical muscle-to-bone type of insertions. Further, we demonstrate that the eyeballs are a source of diffusible retinoic acid that allow their targeting by the EOMs in a temporal and dose dependent manner. Using genetically modified mice and inhibitor treatments, we find that endogenous local variations in the concentration of retinoids contribute to the establishment of tendon condensations and attachment sites that precede the initiation of muscle patterning. Collectively, our results highlight how global and site-specific programs are deployed for the assembly of muscle functional units with precise definition of muscle shapes and topographical wiring of their tendon attachments.