Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Thrombosis of an Ectatic Torcular Herophili: Anatomic Localization Using Fetal Neurosonography

To the Editor: Thrombosis of the torcular herophili is only rarely diagnosed antenatally. Several authors have published their experience in using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to aid in the diagnosis.1–7 We describe how dedicated 2-dimensional (2D)/3-dimensional (3D) neuro sonography with power Doppler imaging accurately diagnosed this lesion in the third trimester. In addition, we present the findings of the pathologist’s examination, which may shed light on the pathophysiologic mechanisms of this lesion. A 32-year-old primiparous woman was referred to our institution at a gestational age of 35 weeks 5 days for evaluation of a fetal intracranial mass. The mass was first visualized during a routine growth scan at 34+ weeks. Her antenatal course was notable for hyperemesis gravidarum as well as for an Rh-negative status for which she received Rho(D) immune globulin. The remainder of her history was unremarkable. Our sonographic examination revealed a viable symmetrically grown singleton. A limited anatomic survey was remarkable only for a heterogeneous mass (4.6 × 3.7 × 2.7 cm) in the posterior fossa just above the tentorial membrane. Color Doppler imaging revealed no blood flow within the mass. Two-dimensional and 3D imaging revealed anterior deviation of the subdural veins (Figures 1 and 2). At this time, the working diagnosis was a subdural thrombus in the region of the torcular herophili. Percutaneous umbilical cord blood sampling revealed a normal fetal platelet count and blood gas value. After the procedure, an emergent cesarean delivery was performed because of persistent bradycardia. The neonate had Apgar scores of 3, 5, and 7 at 1, 5, and 10 minutes, respectively, but had progressive acidosis and bradycardia and died 5 hours later. The autopsy was remarkable for a thrombus (5 × 3 × 3 cm) occupying the confluence of the sinuses (torcular) and extending into the sagittal sinus. The character of the mass was confirmed by microscopy, which also showed abnormal dilatation of the torcular (Figure 3). Recently, antenatal thrombosis of the torcular herophili has become recognized as a clinical entity. Fetal MRI is often used to confirm the diagnosis.1–8 The authors of the largest series of antenatal cases (n = 13) believe that “the characteristic dural location . is exquisitely depicted by MR, and no other differential diagnosis . could be suggested. ”8 Our case illustrates that Letters to the Editor
Do U.S. Macroeconomic Surprises Influence Equity Returns? An Exploratory Analysis of Developed Economies

Given the dominant role the U.S. economy plays in global trade, we explore how U.S. macroeconomic surprises affect stock markets in ten major developed economies as well as in China and India. We do not find strong enough evidence to conclude that U.S. macro shocks materially and consistently influence equity returns and volatilities in the economies studied. Consistent with previous research, it appears that only in few markets are return levels materially influenced by macro surprises generated in the U.S. Also, only a small number of macro shocks seem to be of any consistent significance. For returns levels, inflation, productivity, consumer confidence, and retail sales seem to matter. At the same time, conditional volatilities appear to be influenced by inflation, retail sales, durable goods, industrial production, consumer confidence, gross domestic product, and trade balance surprises. Finally, our exploratory analysis indicates that the degree of bilateral trade connectedness may partially explain the extent to which macroeconomic surprises are transmitted across countries.
Personnel Constraints in Public Organizations: The Impact of Reward and Punishment on Organizational Performance

In recent years, many public sector reforms have attempted to loosen personnel constraints on the assumption that more managerial flexibility will increase organizational performance. The authors mount an empirical study to test this assumption using data taken from English local government authorities. Personnel constraints are operationalized using Rainey's long-standing measures of the concept. Statistical results from multiple regression analyses indicate that “difficulty in removing poor managers” is harmful to organizational performance, but “difficulty in rewarding good managers” has no effect. The authors delve inside the organizational hierarchy and find that attitudes toward personnel constraints vary by organizational level and managerial rank: for example, frontline managers feel more constrained overall, while senior managers’ perceptions of constraints are more closely linked to organizational performance but in some unexpected ways. The implications of these findings, including the fact that personnel constraints have varying impacts on organizational performance, are considered.
Dimension reduction and multiscaling law through source extraction

Through the empirical analysis of financial return generating processes one may find features that are common to other research fields, such as internet data from network traffic, physiological studies about human heart beat, speech and sleep recorded time series, geophysics signals, just to mention well-known cases of study. In particular, long range dependence, intermittency, heteroscedasticity are clearly appearing, and consequently power laws and multi-scaling behavior result typical signatures of either the spectral or the time correlation diagnostics. We study these features and the dynamics underlying financial volatility, which can respectively be detected and inferred from high frequency realizations of stock index returns, and show that they vary according to the resolution levels used for both the analysis and the synthesis of the available information. Discovering whether the volatility dynamics are subject to changes in scaling regimes requires the consideration of a model embedding scale-dependent information packets, thus accounting for possible heterogeneous activity occurring in financial markets. Independent component analysis result to be an important tool for reducing the dimension of the problem and calibrating greedy approximation techniques aimed to learn the structure of the underlying volatility.
Lipoxygenase interactions with natural flavonoid, quercetin, reveal a complex with protocatechuic acid in its X‐ray structure at 2.1 Å resolution

PUFA metabolites have a profound effect on inflammatory diseases and cancer progression. Blocking their production by inhibiting PUFA metabolizing enzymes (dioxygenases: cyclooxygenases and LOXs) might be a successful way to control and relieve such problems, if we learn to better understand their actions at a molecular level. Compounds with strong antioxidative and free radical scavenging properties, such as polyphenols, could be effective in blocking PUFA activities, and natural flavonoids possess such qualities. Quercetin belongs to the group of natural catecholic compounds and is known as a potent, competitive inhibitor of LOX. Structural analysis reveals that quercetin entrapped within LOX undergoes degradation, and the resulting compound has been identified by X‐ray analysis as protocatechuic acid (3,4‐dihydroxybenzoic acid) positioned near the iron site. Its C3‐OH group points toward His523, C4‐OH forms a hydrogen bond with OC from the enzyme's C‐terminus, and the carboxylic group is incorporated into the hydrogen bonding network of the active‐site neighborhood via Gln514. This unexpected result, together with our previous observations concerning other polyphenols, yields new evidence about the metabolism of natural flavonoids. These compounds might be vulnerable to the co‐oxidase activity of LOX, leading to enzyme‐stimulated oxidative degradation, which results in an inhibitor of a lower molecular weight. Proteins 2004;54:000–000. © 2003 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Cardiovascular-risk prediction and type of event.

A ssessment of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk based on a single risk factor can be misleading, and hypertension is not an exception. Because hypertension usually clusters with other major risk factors, the physician should routinely screen for the presence of these other factors. A global approach in evaluating the risk factors provides the best opportunity to identify individuals at risk for CVD over a time interval that usually ranges from a few years to a decade [1,2]. Age, sex, SBP, smoking, total cholesterol, HDL-cholesterol, and diabetes mellitus are the factors commonly used to estimate the risk for a first coronary heart disease (CHD) event [3]. There seems to be some consensus in the scientific community that hypertensive patients are more appropriately targeted for therapy by using CVD risk stratification, and that the main goal of the therapy is to reduce the absolute CVD risk [1,4,5]. A number of risk equations are available for various CVD outcomes associated with hypertension, to enable physicians to pool all the relevant risk factor information so as to arrive at a risk estimate [3,6–10]. One barrier in the use of CVD-risk equations is the multiplicity of outcomes considered by the different guidelines. On the basis of the experience of the Framingham Study, prediction algorithms used total CHD [3] or hard CHD (myocardial infarction or CHD death) [8], and more recently an inclusive definition of CVD encompassing the first occurrence of CHD, stroke, peripheral artery disease, and heart failure [3,6]. In addition, the Systematic Coronary Risk Estimation (SCORE) project developed 10-year cardiovascular mortality risk equations for European countries [7], which have been adopted by the 2012 European guidelines on CVD prevention [4]. Other developments, such as the Prospective Cardiovascular Münster study in Germany used hard CHD [9], and the British National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines support the cardiovascular disease risk score (QRISK), which includes CHD and stroke outcomes [10].
Review article: The role of adipose tissue in uraemia‐related insulin resistance

SUMMARY: Adipose tissue is no longer considered to be an inert tissue of which function is to store fat. It actively secretes a number of biologic active compounds that are involved in the regulation of many processes like food intake, energy expenditure, metabolism homeostasis, immunity and blood pressure homeostasis. General metabolism alteration in patients with chronic kidney disease has a profound impact on biology of adipocytes. Chronic renal failure is a pathological condition, of which two major hallmarks are chronic inflammation and insulin resistance. In uraemic patients, adipose tissue became an important source of molecules that are responsible, at least in part, for the metabolic disturbances seen in these patients. Some of these molecules act as pro‐inflammatory agents contributing to the maintenance and enhancement of the chronic inflammatory response. These pro‐inflammatory molecules, along with other molecules secreted by the adipose tissue, have a central position in the aetiology of uraemia‐associated insulin resistance. In this review, we intend to summarize some aspects of the biology of adipokines in uraemia, with emphasis on the link between these molecules and insulin resistance.
Commentary essay on “blueprinting the service company – managing service processes efficiently”

ABSTRACT In 2004, our article “Blueprinting the service company – managing service processes efficiently” was published in the Journal of Business Research. We were invited by the editor, Arch G. Woodside, to comment on the success of the article and the further development of the topics addressed, which we are most happy to do. The comment is organized as follows: first, we will summarize the main contributions of our original work. In the second part, we will address further developments of the original article’s central issues, thus, highlighting the evolution of the service blueprinting method. In the third and final part, we will discuss the relevance of service blueprinting in the light of recent developments in service theory.
High performance work system and collective OCB: a collective social exchange perspective

Despite an increasing number of studies showing a positive relationship between collective organisational citizenship behaviour (OCB) and unit or organisational performance, relatively little is known about the antecedents of collective OCB. In this study, we developed a collective social exchange approach to collective OCB. We hypothesised that a high performance work system (HPWS) is positively related to collective OCB through collective affective commitment (AC). We obtained data on HPWS, collective AC and collective OCB, all at the middle management group level, from 454 firms in China. Empirical results support the hypotheses.
Migration Patterns in Male Great Bustards (Otis tarda)

The Great Bustard (Otis tarda) is distributed from Iberia and Morocco in the west to China in the east and has been considered sedentary in all but the northern and eastern parts of its range (Gewalt 1959, Glutz et al. 1973, Cramp and Simmons 1980). However, some studies have reported seasonal changes in population numbers in different areas in the Iberian Peninsula (Hidalgo and Carranza 1990, Alonso et al. 1995), suggesting that the species is a partial migrant (sensu Terrill and Able 1988) in this region. We describe seasonal movements of marked adult male Great Bustards and discuss observed patterns in relation to the following questions: (1) Do migratory males display interannual fidelity to breeding and postbreeding areas? (2) Do males travel significantly farther than females in their seasonal movements? We also suggest several hypotheses that could explain patterns of partial and differential migration in male Great Bustards. Methods. —Our study was carried out in the Wildlife Reserve of Villafafila (41 50 N, 5 35 W; ca. 700 m elevation), which extends over 32,682 ha of dry, treeless and gently undulating farmland in the Province of Zamora, northwestern Spain. The land is almost entirely cultivated with wheat and barley. The remaining surface (ca. 9%) is occupied by natural grassland used for sheep grazing. The Reserve holds the world’s densest population of Great Bustards (Alonso et al. 1995), which are ground-dwelling lekking birds that inhabit natural and cultivated grasslands. The Great Bustard is endangered in most of its range except for the Iberian Peninsula, which is the main stronghold for the species (Alonso and Alonso 1996). It exhibits one of the highest amounts of sexual size dimorphism of all vertebrates, and males and females generally occur in separate flocks. Between late winter and early spring, males concentrate at traditional arenas where they fight to establish rank and display in an exploded-lek mating system (see Hoglund and Alatalo 1995). Juvenile males usually disperse after independence. From their third year on, they begin to establish territories at
Sustainability and Stakeholder Management: the Need for New Corporate Performance Evaluation and Reporting Systems

Corporate sustainability, that is the capacity of a firm to continue operating over a long period of time, depends on the sustainability of its stakeholder relationships. This new stakeholder view of the firm goes beyond previous work on the triple bottom line and balanced scorecard. Companies need appropriate systems to measure and control their own behaviour in order to assess whether they are responding to stakeholder concerns in an effective way and to communicate the results achieved. These sustainability accounting systems should have the purpose of broadening and integrating the traditional financial approaches to corporate performance measurement, taking stakeholder needs into due account. This article presents the sustainability evaluation and reporting system (SERS), an integrated methodology aimed at monitoring and tracking from a qualitative and quantitative viewpoint the overall corporate performance according to a stakeholder framework, in line with small and medium-sized enterprises' managerial requirements. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.
Macroeconomic variables and income inequality in New Zealand: An exploration using conditional mixture distributions

This paper explores a method of examining the effects of macroeconomic variables on the personal distribution of income over time. The approach involves modelling the complete distribution of income in each year using a conditional mixture distribution. The parameters of the distribution are specified as functions of the macroeconomic variables. The paper shows how comparative static analysis, involving the Atkinson inequality measure, can be performed. The method is applied to male New Zealand income distribution data for wage and salary earners over the period 1985 to 1994. It appears that cyclical variations in unemployment and GDP contributed substantially to the observed increase in inequality over the period 1987 to 1991 and the reduction in inequality during the years 1993 and 1994.
Advanced architectures for self-interference cancellation in full-duplex radios: Algorithms and measurements

In this paper, we describe an advanced real-time cancellation architecture for efficient digital-domain suppression of self-interference in inband full-duplex devices. The digital canceller takes into account the nonlinear distortion produced by the transmitter power amplifier, and is thereby a robust solution for low-cost implementations. The developed real-time digital canceller implementation is then evaluated with actual RF measurements, where it is complemented with a real-time adaptive RF canceller. The obtained results show that the RF canceller and the developed digital canceller implementation can together cancel the residual self-interference below the receiver noise floor in real-time for a 20 MHz cancellation bandwidth.
At speed digital gain error calibration of pipelined ADCs

This paper proposes a full speed digital gain error calibration technique for pipelined ADCs. The calibration takes care of both finite op-amp gain and capacitor mismatch. Unlike previous calibration techniques that use resistor ladder to generate the calibration signal, the proposed technique uses capacitors switching to reference voltages to eliminate the large RC time constants associated with resistor ladder. The proposed technique also facilitates the calibration to happen at full speed overcoming the drawbacks of existing foreground calibration techniques. 12-bit ADCs with first stage resolution of 1.5-bit, 2.5-bit, 3.5-bit, and 2-bit, followed by an ideal back-end ADC were simulated in system level using MATLAB and then at circuit level in Cadence. The circuit simulations incorporate various non-idealities like finite op-amp gain, op amp settling, and capacitor mismatch. Circuit level simulations in Global Foundry's (GF) 55-nm process with an an open loop op amp gain of 50 dB and capacitor mismatch of ±3% show that the calibration method improves the SFDR by more than 30 dB and SNDR by more than 25 dB.
Evaluating Branded Advertising of Fluid Milk Products in Taiwan

Abstract This study utilized the LA/AIDS model to estimate the effects of branded fluid milk advertising that appeared on different media in Taiwan. Television advertising of branded milk products significantly increased consumption of each type of the milk products. Branded milk advertisements appearing in newspapers/magazines were not found to be effective. Compared to price and expenditure elasticities, the advertising elasticities were relatively small. Therefore, pricing strategies may be more effective than advertising in increasing sale volumes of fluid milk products.
Heterologous Expression of the Lactococcus lactis Bacteriocin, Nisin, in a Dairy Enterococcus Strain

ABSTRACT The bacteriocin nisin is produced only by some strains of Lactococcus lactis, and to date production in other lactic acid bacteria has not been achieved. Enterococcus sp. strain N12β is a nisin-immune transconjugant obtained from a nisin-producing donor (L. lactis ATCC 11454) and a dairy recipient (Enterococcus sp. strain S12β), but it does not produce nisin. In this study, using PCR amplification, we confirmed that the whole nisin operon is likely present in Enterococcus sp. strain N12β. Northern hybridization of total RNA from strain N12β with a nisA probe and the results of reverse transcriptase PCR showed the lack of nisA transcription in this strain. However, nisA transcription was partially restored in strain N12β upon growth in the presence of exogenous nisin, and the nisA transcription signal was intensified after an increase in the external nisin level. Furthermore, bioassays showed that active nisin was produced in a dose-dependent fashion by strain N12β following induction by exogenous nisin. These results indicated that expression of the nisin genes in Enterococcus sp. strain N12β depended on autoinduction via signal transduction. However, the amount of external inducing signal required was significantly greater than the amount needed for autoinduction in L. lactis.
A Single DC-DC Converter Based Multiple Output SMPS with Fully Regulated and Isolated Outputs

Many electronic appliances such as personal computers and medical electronic equipment require Switched Mode Power supplies (SMPS) with multiple regulated outputs for powering up. Normally, a multiple output SMPS requires several DC-DC converters for regulating all the outputs, which increases the cost and decreases the reliability of the power supply. In this paper, an effort has been made to develop a multiple output SMPS based on a single DC-DC converter with integrated magnetics to yield multiple regulated and isolated outputs. Attention has been paid to improve the power quality at the utility side and to regulate all the outputs by using a weighted error approach. The design of the SMPS has been made using a Cuk as well as a SEPIC converter and the performances have been compared in terms of their input power quality and the output voltage regulation to bring out the relative merits of one over the other.