Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Comparison of the Prehospital Trauma Life Support recommendations and the German national guideline on treatment of patients with severe and multiple injuries

BACKGROUND The Prehospital Trauma Life Support (PHTLS) concept is well established throughout the world. The aim is to improve prehospital care for patients with major trauma. In 2011, a German Level 3 (S3) evidence- and consensus-based guideline on the treatment of patients with severe and multiple injuries was published. The scope of this study was the systematic comparison between the educational content of the worldwide PHTLS concept and the German S3 Guideline. METHODS A total of 62 key recommendations of the German S3 Guideline were compared with the content of the English PHTLS manual (eighth edition). Depending on the level of agreement, the recommendations were categorized as (1) agreement, (2) minor variation, or (3) major variation. Comparison was done via a rating system by a number of international experts in the field of out-of-hospital trauma care. The Delphi method was used to get the final statements by indistinct or board-ranged ratings. RESULTS Overall, there was no conformity in 12%. In 68% a total agreement and in 88% conformity with slight differences of minor variations were found between the key recommendations of the guideline and the PHTLS manual. The PHTLS primary assessment has a large conformity for the following individual priorities: airway, 92%; breathing, 92%; circulation, 63%; disability, 100%; exposure, 89%. CONCLUSIONS According to our comparison, the PHTLS manual is largely compatible with the German S3 Guideline from 2011. The 12% divergent statements concern mainly fluid resuscitation. Minor deviations in the prehospital care are due to a national guideline with an emergency medical service with emergency physicians (S3 Guideline) and a global PHTLS concept.
The pro-inflammatory peptide LL-37 promotes ovarian tumor progression through recruitment of multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells

Bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells or multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) have been shown to engraft into the stroma of several tumor types, where they contribute to tumor progression and metastasis. However, the chemotactic signals mediating MSC migration to tumors remain poorly understood. Previous studies have shown that LL-37 (leucine, leucine-37), the C-terminal peptide of human cationic antimicrobial protein 18, stimulates the migration of various cell types and is overexpressed in ovarian, breast, and lung cancers. Although there is evidence to support a pro-tumorigenic role for LL-37, the function of the peptide in tumors remains unclear. Here, we demonstrate that neutralization of LL-37 in vivo significantly reduces the engraftment of MSCs into ovarian tumor xenografts, resulting in inhibition of tumor growth as well as disruption of the fibrovascular network. Migration and invasion experiments conducted in vitro indicated that the LL-37-mediated migration of MSCs to tumors likely occurs through formyl peptide receptor like-1. To assess the response of MSCs to the LL-37-rich tumor microenvironment, conditioned medium from LL-37-treated MSCs was assessed and found to contain increased levels of several cytokines and pro-angiogenic factors compared with controls, including IL-1 receptor antagonist, IL-6, IL-10, CCL5, VEGF, and matrix metalloproteinase-2. Similarly, Matrigel mixed with LL-37, MSCs, or the combination of the two resulted in a significant number of vascular channels in nude mice. These data indicate that LL-37 facilitates ovarian tumor progression through recruitment of progenitor cell populations to serve as pro-angiogenic factor-expressing tumor stromal cells.
Translating Regulatory Promise into Environmental Progress: Institutional Capacity and Environmental Regulation in China

A growing body of research attributes China's environmental problems to weak regulatory enforcement.Few studies,however,have explored the relationship between institutional capacity and regulatory enforcement.In this article,the authors draw upon the literature on state capacity and institutional analysis to fill this void.The article reveals that local environmental protection bureaus with greater human capital-though not necessarily greater financial resources-enforce regulations more rigorously.The article also shows that these efforts do not necessarily lead to cleaner air or water.Regions with industries that have a greater capacity to abate pollution tend to pollute more,offsetting the potentially beneficial effects of stronger regulatory enforcement. The authors therefore conclude that it may take more than just innovative regulations to translate regulatory promise into environmental progress.
A Global Look at Consumer Involvement and Use of Products

Respondents from fifteen countries reported their level of use and involvement with eight products and services: the countries were Argentina, Austria, Australia, Barbados, Canada, Chile, China, Columbia, England, Finland, France, Mexico, Sweden, the United States and Yugoslavia; the products and services were air travel, beer, blue jeans, eating at a restaurant, hair shampoo, going to the cinema, soft drinks and stereo sets. The results indicated that country accounted for eight to 45 per cent of the variation in product and service usage. Among regular product users, country accounts for one to 20 per cent of the variation in involvement levels across products and services.
Invasion dynamics of a non-indigenous bivalve clam; Venerupis aurea (Gmelin, 1791), in Lake Qarun, Egypt.

The invasive clam Venerupis aurea is native to the Mediterranean Sea. The species has now become established in Lake Qarun, Egypt. This is the first record of the establishment of this clam in the Lake. The histograms of the length-frequency distribution indicated multiple consecutive cohorts and the species is able to establish self-sustaining population. Total weight increased relatively slower than shell length in summer. Isometric growth pattern was recorded in other seasons. Negative allometric growth pattern during summer may explain spawning. The female to male ratio is 1: 0.87. Sexual maturity is attained at 11.8 mm shell length in summer and 16.6 mm shell length in winter. Histological studies revealed two different stages in both male and female clams namely, immature and developing. The results from these preliminary studies have indicated that V. aurea is able to reproduce and survive in Lake Qarun and has an important impact in the local community of the Lake.
Nucleic Acid Amplification of the opa Gene for Detection of Neisseria gonorrhoeae: Experience from a Diagnostic Laboratory

ABSTRACT We report results of Neisseria gonorrhoeae nucleic acid amplification testing (NAAT) with the Abbott m2000 PCR at a tertiary laboratory 6 months after its introduction. Of 5,475 specimens tested, 45 samples (0.82%) tested positive for N. gonorrhoeae. Eight were not cultured, but seven tested positive with a porA pseudogene NAAT.
On von-mises fisher mixture model in text-independent speaker identification

This paper addresses text-independent speaker identification (SI) based on line spectral frequencies (LSFs). The LSFs are transformed to differential LSFs (MLSF) in order to exploit their boundary and ordering properties. We show that the square root of MLSF has interesting directional characteristics implying that their distribution can be modeled by a mixture of von-Mises Fisher (vMF) distributions. We analytically estimate the mixture model parameters in a fully Bayesian treatment by using variational inference. In the Bayesian inference, we can potentially determine the model complexity and avoid overfitting problem associated with conventional approaches based on the expectation maximization. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed SI system.
A sensor network for predicting and maintaining occupant comfort

This paper describes a sensor network that has been designed and deployed to monitor the environmental conditions within a large multi-use building. The conditions measured across this network include temperature, humidity, light levels, ambient sound level, room occupancy and an informal survey of occupant comfort level. The nodes were designed to be low cost with the intention that a significant number of them could be deployed around large buildings. In the initial study described in this paper, a network comprising 17 prototypes nodes has been deployed in a multi-use university building. The sensor network is Ethernet based and uses the building's existing infrastructure for communication with a central server which stores the recorded data. Preliminary analysis of the data collected from this sensor network over a period of 10 months combined with data from a local meteorological station and data from the building's fiscal energy meters is presented. The overall goal of the project is to use the data from the network to find more energy efficient methods of heating the building while maintaining occupant comfort. In particular, it is anticipated that the data collected from the network will identify parameters, other than temperature, which are indicative of occupant comfort. To determine this, the current work is focussed on building a classifier to predict occupant comfort level, given the data measured by the sensor nodes combined with data from a local weather station and the building's smart energy meters. Analysis of the identified model should indicate which variables most influence occupant comfort. The project also aims to produce a dataset which may be used for future research and aid design of sensor networks.
Deblurring Using OCR Word Confidence

Objective of this paper is to propose a new Deblurring method for motion blurred textual images. This technique is based on estimating the blur kernel or the Point Spread Function of the motion blur using Blind Deconvolution method. Motion blur is either due to the movement of the camera or the object at the time of image capture. The point spread function of the motion blur is governed by two parameters length of the motion and the angle of the motion. In this approach we have estimated point spread function for the motion blur iteratively for different values of the length and angle of motion. For every estimated PSF we perform the Deconvolution operation with the blurred image to get the nonblurred or the latent image. Latent image obtained is then feed to an Optical character recognition so that the text in that image can be recognized. Then we calculate the Average Word Confidence for the recognized text. Thus for every estimated Point Spread Function and the obtained latent image we get the value of Average Word Confidence. The Point Spread Function with the highest Average Word Confidence value is the optimal Point Spread Function which can be used to deblur the given textual image. In this method we do not have any prior information about the PSF and only single image is used as an input to the system. This method has been tested with the naturally blurred image taken manually and through the internet as well as artificially blurred image for the evaluation of the results. The implementation of the proposed algorithm has been done in MATLAB.
Barriers to Predictive Analytics Use for Policy Decision-Making Effectiveness in Turbulent Times: A Case Study of Fukushima Nuclear Accident

Predictive analytics are data-driven software tools that draw on confirmed relationships between variables to predict future outcomes. Hence they may provide government with new analytical capabilities for enhancing policy decision-making effectiveness in turbulent environments. However, predictive analytics system use research is still lacking. Therefore, this study adapts the existing model of strategic decision-making effectiveness to examine government use of predictive analytics in turbulent times and to identify barriers to using information effectively in enhancing policy decision making effectiveness. We use a case study research to address two research questions in the context of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident. Our study found varying levels of proactive use of SPEEDI predictive analytics system during the escalating nuclear reactor meltdowns between Japan’s central government agencies and between the central and the state government levels. Using the model, we argue that procedural rationality and political behavior can be used to explain some observed variations.
Evaluation of the Equity of Primary Care Service Delivery Models in Ontario

Background: In health care services, equity is the delivery of similar care for similar needs (horizontal equity), and the delivery of more care for higher needs (vertical equity). This study assessed the extent to which primary care provision is equitable across gender, age and socioeconomic groups, and whether any observed disparity is associated with the type of primary care remuneration model to which a family practice belongs. Remuneration models include Fee For Service in which the physician is paid for each encounter, Salary where payment is fixed for the number of hours worked, and Capitation where payment is tied to the number of patients under the care of the provider, and very little or no additional compensation is provided for each patient encounter. Methods: This thesis used data from a cross sectional study of 5,361 patients receiving care from practices (n) in which primary care providers were remunerated by Fee For Service (35), Salary (35), or Capitation (68). Multi-level linear or logistic regressions were used to assess the impact of gender, age and socioeconomic strata on quality of care. The quality of health service delivery and health promotion were assessed through surveys based on the Primary Care Assessment Tool (n=5,111). The quality of preventive care (n=4,108) and chronic disease management (n-514) were evaluated through chart abstraction using the Canadian recommendations for care as the standard. The analyses were conducted stratified by remuneration model to allow the impact of the model on the extent of disparity in quality of care between social strata to be assessed. Results: Men and women reported similar quality of health service delivery. Women were significantly more likely to be up to date on their preventive care, but adherence to recommended guidelines for chronic disease management was better for men in the Fee For Service practices. Older individuals reported better health service delivery than younger ones. The quality of chronic disease management was also age dependent with better care delivered to individuals ages 60-69. Individuals of low income and education had better accessibility than those not disadvantaged in the Salaried model and Fee For Service, but not Capitation model. Despite their higher health risks, these individuals were not more likely to receive healthy lifestyle counseling. Conclusions: Significant inequalities in the care of patients were found across social strata. In some cases, these inequalities are deemed appropriate; a justifiable response to differing health care needs. In other cases, they are deemed inappropriate and representing inequities in the delivery of care. Some of the observed disparities were present in one remuneration model but not others, suggesting that the payment approach may be contributing to these differences. The results raise the concern that the capitation remuneration structure may compromise accessibility.
Improvised model for BoP healthcare in India: lessons from NRHM

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop an improvised sustainable health-care model by integrating best practices, innovations and new dimensions to the present public health-care system – National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) – for improving the health status of the bottom of pyramid (BoP) in India. Design/methodology/approach – The contribution of NRHM in ensuring the availability of health-care services and improving health indicators has been assessed. Some unique proven models of excellent health-care services and innovations have also been considered in designing an improvised health-care model. The empirical context takes the use of case study research methodology. The data have been extracted from various relevant papers, reports and websites. Findings – Despite substantial augmentation in health infrastructure and human resources, increased local engagement and technology integration, the progress in health indicators during the NRHM has not been fairly better than that before. The prese.
Rising Cigarette Prices and Rising Obesity: Coincidence or Unintended Consequence?

Economists have begun to debate if the rise in cigarette prices in the U.S. in recent decades has contributed to the nation's rise in obesity, reaching conclusions that are surprisingly sensitive to specification. I show that allowing for the effect to occur gradually over several years leads to the conclusion that a rise in cigarette prices is actually associated with a long-run reduction in body mass index and obesity. This result is robust to the different methodologies used in the literature. I also provide evidence that indirect effects on exercise and food consumption may explain the counterintuitive result.
Genetic structuring of Gopher Tortoise (Gopherus polyphemus) populations on the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA.

—Gopher Tortoises (Gopherus polyphemus) located on the Kennedy Space Center (KSC) in east-central Florida have been the subject of a long-term population study but little is known about the genetic structure of the population. Other studies across the species’ range have shown evidence that Gopher Tortoises have undergone population bottlenecks due to geographic isolation. We assessed the genetic diversity of Gopher Tortoises from five locations on KSC at six microsatellite loci in 96 individuals. Based on our analysis, the population does not subdivide into genetically distinct assemblages but appears to be one nearly continuous population (FST = 0.030). This suggests that natural movement and/or human relocation has maintained the population’s gene flow across sites on the KSC. In terms of population genetics, we recommend that the tortoises on KSC be managed as a single population until further genetic analyses are completed.
Annual risk reporting of listed companies in Malaysia

This study examines risk reporting in annual reports of Malaysian listed companies. The mandatory and voluntary disclosures of risk information are analyzed and the authors examine whether a relationship exists between company size, leverage, and industry type and risk disclosure levels. 150 listed companies from five industries are selected as sample. Content analysis and risk disclosure index of dichotomous measurement are used in data collection. Overall the results indicate that level of risk information disclosed in the annual reports is still minimal. OLS (Ordinary least squares) regression analysis indicates that the level of risk information disclosure is positively associated with size and not with leverage. However, a mixed result has been found for industry type; where only property industry shows a significant relationship with level of risk disclosure, and not for the other industries. This study contributes to financial reporting literature in relation to risk reporting, particularly the practice of Malaysian companies. Findings from this study are also useful to regulators and accounting standard setting body to assess the level of compliance to regulations and standards relating to risk reporting by these companies. More studies are required to further understand the importance of risk information disclosure, such as risk disclosure within specific industry, cross-country studies and usefulness of risk information disclosure from the stakeholders’ perspectives.
Evaluating Policy Layer Security Controls for Value Realisation in Secure Systems

A strategic question for any business is: What value do control frameworks give? The question concerns the costs associated with implementing and maintaining control frameworks compared with the benefits gained. Each control framework contains many controls that may or may not benefit a situation and this research is aimed at testing different selections and combinations of controls to forecast probable impacts on business outcomes. The scope of the research is limited to a representative set of security controls and the lesser question: What are the criteria for selecting the most effective and efficient security control configurations for best business value? We design a decision support tool (DSS), run a pilot study and begin to develop output sets as part of the exploratory research. The conclusion is that in controlled environments the security controls may be optimised to deliver the best business value and that the highest performing sets of controls can be forecasted once the interaction factors are known.
An experimental investigation of the role of face in service failure and recovery encounters

Purpose – The concept of face has been deeply embedded in Chinese culture. This paper aims to examine the role of face in service failure and recovery encounters, and to explore the factors that influence customer emotions, recovery satisfaction and behavioral intention based on a proposed conceptual model.Design/methodology/approach – The paper uses a scenario role‐play‐based experimental design to examine the proposed conceptual model in service failure and recovery encounters.Findings – The results show that face plays an important role in service failure and recovery encounters. Specifically, it is found that the utilitarian recovery and symbolic recovery customers receive in the service recovery encounter can both influence customer face restoration, which in turn affects customer emotions, and behavioral intention on service recovery. Customer emotions are significantly correlated to customer recovery satisfaction.Practical implications – The practical implications of this study are mainly two‐fold.
Generalized Cortico‐Reticular Epilepsies Some Considerations on the Pathophysiology of Generalized Bilaterally Synchronous Spike and Wave Discharge

Results of the intracarotid and intravertebral injection of metrazol and sodium amytal in patients with generalized seizures associated with generalized bilaterally synchronous spike and wave discharges, suggest that cortical mechanisms are very important for the physiopathogenesis of these seizures. It seems, however, unjustified to exclude reticular brain stem and thalamic mechanisms entirely, since the animal experimental evidence supporting their role in the mechanism of the generalized bilaterally synchronous spike and wave discharges is very strong.
Equity Issuance of Distressed Firms

Assuming benevolent managers, the debt-overhang problem suggests that distressed firms generally refrain from issuing equity. In contrast, agency theory predicts that distressed firm managers have strong self-interests to finance even deteriorating projects through equity issuance. This paper finds a robust positive relationship between distress and equity issuance data. In addition, companies with weaker corporate governance issue more equity when distressed. Moreover, distressed firms issuing the most equity have lower Tobin's Q, lower profitability, and non-increasing investments, which indicates that distressed firm managers subsidize losing operations. These findings collectively suggest that agency theory better predicts equity issuance patterns during distress.