Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Wide-range calibration of corneal backscatter analysis by in vivo confocal microscopy.

PURPOSE To report intra- and interinstrument calibration methods for corneal backscatter analysis by in vivo confocal microscopy. METHODS Applicability of two reference standards was evaluated for corneal backscatter calibration. Repeated measurements of four concentrations of AMCO Clear (GFS Chemicals, Inc., Powell, OH) suspension and three transparencies (26%, 49%, and 65%) of polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) slabs were performed to assess image intensity acquisition in a wide backscatter range. Intra- and intersession repeatability and lot-to-lot variation were determined for both standards. The effect of light intensity (LI) variation on image intensity acquisition was evaluated by examination of PMMA slabs with nonreference (60% and 80%) and reference (72%) LIs. Both reference standards were implemented in the protocol. Intrainstrument calibration was verified by measuring three normal corneas with 60%, 72%, and 80% LIs. Interinstrument calibration was tested by measuring PMMA slabs on a second, similar confocal microscope. RESULTS AMCO Clear was used to express image intensity in absolute scatter units (SU), whereas the 49% transparent PMMA slab showed best repeatability, without image saturation, to adjust for LI variation. Intrainstrument calibration for LI variation reduced mean differences from -38.3% to 1.7% (60% LI) and from 33.9% to -0.6% (80% LI). The mean difference between similar microscopes decreased from 18.4% to 1.2%, after calibration of the second microscope. CONCLUSIONS Large interinstrument differences necessitate calibration of corneal backscatter measurements. With AMCO Clear suspension and PMMA slabs, standardization was achieved in a wide backscatter range corresponding to normal and opaque corneas. These methods can easily be applied in ophthalmic practice.
Consequences of the choice of landmarks for visualization and biological interpretation of shape changes in 2-D geometric morphometrics : a study case

We compare shape changes in mandibles of marsupials, represented by 2-dimensional coordinates, using different subsets of landmarks. We show that use of Type III landmarks, often not recommended in geometric morphometric techniques, might permit a better interpretation of shape changes than use of Type I landmarks alone, or a combination of Types I and II. We suggest that the use of as many landmarks as necessary to cover the whole configuration of the studied structure, regardless of the type, will allow a better visualization of the biological forms without leading to a less clear discrimination among them.
Quantifying Neuromuscular Fatigue Induced by an Intense Training Session in Rugby Sevens.

PURPOSE To compare the sensitivity of a sprint vs a countermovement-jump (CMJ) test after an intense training session in international rugby sevens players, as well as analyze the effects of fatigue on sprint acceleration. METHODS Thirteen international rugby sevens players completed two 30-m sprints and a set of 4 repetitions of CMJ before and after a highly demanding rugby sevens training session. RESULTS Change in CMJ height was unclear (-3.6%; ±90% confidence limits 11.9%. Chances of a true positive/trivial/negative change: 24/10/66%), while a very likely small increase in 30-m sprint time was observed (1.0%; ±0.7%, 96/3/1%). A very likely small decrease in the maximum horizontal theoretical velocity (V0) (-2.4; ±1.8%, 1/4/95%) was observed. A very large correlation (r = -.79 ± .23) between the variations of V0 and 30-m-sprint performance was also observed. Changes in 30-m sprint time were negatively and very largely correlated with the distance covered above the maximal aerobic speed (r = -.71 ± .32). CONCLUSIONS The CMJ test appears to be less sensitive than the sprint test, which casts doubts on the usefulness of a vertical-jump test in sports such as rugby that mainly involve horizontal motions. The decline in sprint performance relates more to a decrease in velocity than in force capability and is correlated with the distance covered at high intensity.
LGBT Health in the Midlands: A Rural/Urban Comparison of Basic Health Indicators

Research into the health and wellbeing of rural lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) populations is limited. A community-based participatory research (CBPR) approach was used to develop an online survey for LGBT Nebraskans. The 770 participants replied to an array of questions on social determinants of health and basic health outcomes. Only significant differences in having health insurance were found between urban and rural participants. Social determinants of health were explored. Results of this study suggest that regional culture may be more salient to health for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons living in the Midwest than rural or urban residence.
THE MAKE-BUY DECISION AND MANAGING MARKETS: THE CASE OF MANAGEMENT BUY-OUTS

This paper attempts to develop the issue of the internalization of transactions (the make‐buy decision). Butler and Carney (1983) have developed the concept of managing markets where under certain conditions transactions will not be internalized. This paper, as well as attempting to complete this picture, also draws attention to a largely ignored aspect of organization theory ‐ the issue of when a transaction which is already internalized will be externalized. In examining the sale of subsidiaries by parent companies an attempt is made to draw the boundaries of Williamson's divisionalized form of organization. The necessary and sufficient conditions for sale to the management are developed in the theoretical discussion, followed in the second section by empirical evidence from a survey of management buy‐outs.
Change of perspective: a measurable and desired outcome of chronic disease self-management intervention programs that violates the premise of preintervention/postintervention assessment.

OBJECTIVE To determine if participants in chronic disease self-management courses have a change of perspective of their health status (a response shift), and if this is measurable with a paper-based questionnaire. METHODS Nine items were developed to measure potential benefits of self-management courses. These were based on the constructs of a previous questionnaire, the Health Education Impact Questionnaire (HEI-Q). Cognitive interviews elicited spontaneous statements about the reasons for paper-based answers. Sensitivity, specificity, and overall accuracy of items were calculated using the interview as a relative gold standard. Response shift can be negative (i.e., after the course, participants realize that, before the course, they were worse than they thought they were), positive (i.e., participants now realize they were better than they thought they were), or absent (no change). RESULTS Interviews (n = 39) reflected that true response shift occurred in approximately half the replies to questionnaire items. Of these, 31% were negative response shift, 20% were positive response shift. Response shift was absent in 32% of replies. Presence or absence of response shift could not be determined in 17% of replies across items. Significant concordance between questionnaires and cognitive interviews (average overall accuracy 0.79) indicated that the HEI-Q Perspective questionnaire detects response shift in participants of self-management courses. The questionnaire revealed that 87% of participants had response shift in at least 1 item. CONCLUSION This study suggests that preintervention/postintervention assessments of interventions such as self-management courses are confounded by a change in perspective of a large proportion of respondents. It also indicates response shift is a valuable outcome of self-management courses that can be measured with a paper-based questionnaire.
Modelling the Long Run Determinants of Private Investment in Senegal

This paper investigates the determinants of private investment in Senegal over the period of 1970-2000. It first tests the variables for unit root using two, relatively, new tests namely the Dickey-Fuller generalised least square de-trending test proposed by Elliot et al. (1996) and the Ng-Perron test following Ng and Perron (2001). The long run private investment equation is derived using the Johansen cointegration techniques (Johansen, 1988; Johansen and Juselius, 1990) and the newly developed bounds test approach proposed by Pesaran et al. (2001). In both cases, the results indicate that public investment, real income and foreign aid flows affect positively private investment, whilst the impact of credit to private sector and terms of trade is negative. JEL Classification: C22 C32 E22
Learning to expand queries using entities

A substantial fraction of web search queries contain references to entities, such as persons, organizations, and locations. Recently, methods that exploit named entities have been shown to be more effective for query expansion than traditional pseudorelevance feedback methods. In this article, we introduce a supervised learning approach that exploits named entities for query expansion using Wikipedia as a repository of high‐quality feedback documents. In contrast with existing entity‐oriented pseudorelevance feedback approaches, we tackle query expansion as a learning‐to‐rank problem. As a result, not only do we select effective expansion terms but we also weigh these terms according to their predicted effectiveness. To this end, we exploit the rich structure of Wikipedia articles to devise discriminative term features, including each candidate term's proximity to the original query terms, as well as its frequency across multiple article fields and in category and infobox descriptors. Experiments on three Text REtrieval Conference web test collections attest the effectiveness of our approach, with gains of up to 23.32% in terms of mean average precision, 19.49% in terms of precision at 10, and 7.86% in terms of normalized discounted cumulative gain compared with a state‐of‐the‐art approach for entity‐oriented query expansion.
Runaway production

This article examines the use of tax incentives by state and local governments to attract film and television production to their respective jurisdictions. Traditionally, the term “runaway production” is used to describe this phenomenon, which is typically framed as a negative force by national and local media. This begs the question: What is “runaway production? ” While definitions of runaway production vary, the following offers a sufficient description: “Runaway production refers to films that were conceptually developed in the United States, but filmed somewhere else. If the conversation is at the federal level, runaway production goes to other countries. If at the state level, production that goes to other states is runaway. ” 1 In general, there are three different categories of runaway productions—(1) artificial economic runaways, (2) natural economic runaways, and (3) artistic runaways:
A Severity Index Designed as an Indicator of Acuity in Palliative Care

Patients who are facing terminal illness frequently experience changes in health care settings which are necessitated by acute events during palliative care. This pilot study evaluates the reliability, criterion validity, and appropriateness of the San Diego Severity Index (SDSI) in a population of advanced cancer patients in different care settings. The SDSI includes diagnostic, acuity, and psychosocial assessments. Cancer patients were evaluated in an outpatient oncology clinic (SCRF), a hospice home care (HC) program, and an acute care hospital/hospice centre (ACC). Scores were lowest for SCRF (9.51 ± 3.7), HC was intermediate (24.04 ± 8.8), while patients at the ACC scored the highest (29.33 ± 7.0). Patients admitted to the ACC were significantly more acute, as assessed by the SDSI, than those utilizing outpatient services. This instrument may be useful as an indicator of appropriate transitions between health care settings.
Genetic Network Programming with Estimation of Distribution Algorithms for class association rule mining in traffic prediction

As an extension of Genetic Algorithm (GA) and Genetic Programming (GP), a new approach named Genetic Network Programming (GNP) has been proposed in the evolutionary computation field. GNP uses multiple reusable nodes to construct directed-graph structures to represent its solutions. Recently, many research has clarified that GNP can work well in data mining area. In this paper, a novel evolutionary paradigm named GNP with Estimation of Distribution Algorithms (GNP-EDAs) is proposed and used to solve traffic prediction problems using class association rule mining. In GNP-EDAs, a probabilistic model is constructed by estimating the probability distribution from the selected elite individuals of the previous generation to replace the conventional genetic operators, such as crossover and mutation. The probabilistic model is capable of enhancing the evolution to achieve the ultimate objective. In this paper, two methods are proposed based on extracting the probabilistic information on the node connections and node transitions of GNP-EDAs to construct the probabilistic model. A comparative study of the proposed paradigm and the conventional GNP is made to solve the traffic prediction problems using class association rule mining. The simulation results showed that GNP-EDAs can extract the class association rules more effectively, when the number of the candidate class association rules increases. And the classification accuracy of the proposed method shows good results in traffic prediction systems.
Foreign Direct Investment, Endogenous Tariffs, and Preferential Trade Agreements.

This paper examines the complementarity between international trade and investment policies, and argues that preferential trade agreements may be a particularly effective means for harnessing the tariff liberalizing potential of foreign direct investment. A simple two country model demonstrates that export-platform foreign investment induces unilateral tariff liberalization by the investment-source country, suggesting that international capital mobility may substitute partially for multilateral forums such as the WTO in achieving efficient tariffs. A multi-country extension of the model in which countries can compete for foreign investors via subsidies then develops an efficiency argument in favor of discriminatory tariff allowances such as Article XXIV of the GATT or the Generalized System of Preferences. When small countries can earn preferential tariff treatment from a large trading counterpart by encouraging local export-platform investment (or by discouraging import competing investment), the equilibrium tariff level will be lower when discriminatory tariffs are possible rather than when they are not.
Smartkuber: A Serious Game for Cognitive Health Screening of Elderly Players.

OBJECTIVE The goal of this study was to design and develop a serious game for cognitive health screening of the elderly, namely Smartkuber, and evaluate its construct, criteria (concurrent and predictive), and content validity, assessing its relationship with the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) test. Furthermore, the study aims to evaluate the elderly players' game experience with Smartkuber. SUBJECTS AND METHODS Thirteen older adults were enrolled in the study. The game was designed and developed by a multidisciplinary team. The study follows a mixed methodological approach, utilizing the In-Game Experience Questionnaire to assess the players' game experience and a correlational study, to examine the relationship between the Smartkuber and MoCA scores. The learning effect is also examined by comparing the mean game scores of the first and last game sessions of each player (Delta scores). RESULTS All 13 participants (mean age: 68.69, SD: 7.24) successfully completed the study. Smartkuber demonstrated high concurrent validity with the MoCA test (r = 0.81, P = 0.001) and satisfying levels of predictive and content validity. The Delta scores showed no statistically significant differences in scoring, thus indicating no learning effects during the Smartkuber game sessions. CONCLUSIONS The study shows that Smartkuber is a promising tool for cognitive health screening, providing an entertaining and motivating gaming experience to elderly players. Limitations of the study and future directions are discussed.
Inflation Perceptions and Expectations in the Euro Area and Portugal

In the last few de cades, the in creas ing in ter est of econ o mists in agents’ per cep tions and ex pec ta tions, in a con text of im prov ing data col lec tion and sta tis ti cal tech niques, is as so ci ated with a surge in busi ness and con sumer sur veys. Within the euro area, as well as in sev eral other coun tries, var i ous busi ness and con sumer sur veys are conducted on a monthly basis.
Network effects in the East Asia container ports industry

This paper proposes an integrated set of 4Cs indices, namely, centrality index, competition index, congestion index and concentration index to examine network effects in the East Asia container port industry. Empirical analysis confirms that larger ports enjoy greater direct network effects related to economies of scale, whereas, smaller ports leverage on indirect network effects to widen their scopes of influence to attract vessel calls. Ports tend to engage in more competitive interactions with their counterparts within the same region, even though cooperative relationships among ports across regions are beneficial. In the light of the empirical results, the paper proceeds to explain some important managerial and policy implications.
Ets homologous factor (EHF) has critical roles in epithelial dysfunction in airway disease

The airway epithelium forms a barrier between the internal and external environments. Epithelial dysfunction is critical in the pathology of many respiratory diseases, including cystic fibrosis. Ets homologous factor (EHF) is a key member of the transcription factor network that regulates gene expression in the airway epithelium in response to endogenous and exogenous stimuli. EHF, which has altered expression in inflammatory states, maps to the 5′ end of an intergenic region on Chr11p13 that is implicated as a modifier of cystic fibrosis airway disease. Here we determine the functions of EHF in primary human bronchial epithelial (HBE) cells and relevant airway cell lines. Using EHF ChIP followed by deep sequencing (ChIP-seq) and RNA sequencing after EHF depletion, we show that EHF targets in HBE cells are enriched for genes involved in inflammation and wound repair. Furthermore, changes in gene expression impact cell phenotype because EHF depletion alters epithelial secretion of a neutrophil chemokine and slows wound closure in HBE cells. EHF activates expression of the SAM pointed domain-containing ETS transcription factor, which contributes to goblet cell hyperplasia. Our data reveal a critical role for EHF in regulating epithelial function in lung disease.
Yeast Sequencing Reports

MSB2 was identified previously as a multicopy suppressor of a temperature-sensitive mutation in CDC24, a gene required for polarity establishment and bud formation in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. The inferred MSB2 product contains 1306 amino acids, 42% of which are Ser or Thr. Its Ser+ Thr-richness and hydrophobicity profile suggest that Msb2p may be an integral membrane protein containing a long, periplasmic, N-terminal domain and a short, cytoplasmic, C-terminal domain. Cells that lack MSB2 display no obvious mutant phenotypes. MSB2 is located between the centromere and KSSI on the right arm of chromosome VII. Although physical mapping suggests that MSB2 and LEU1 (on the left arm of chromosome VII) are approximately 40 kb apart, the genetic map distance observed between leu1 and an msb2:: URA3 marker was only 2.3 cM.
A Nonlinear Approach to the Factor Augmented Model: The FASTR Model

This research seeks to combine Factor Augmentation with Smooth Transition Regression, in order to be able to distinguish between regimes. Nine FASTR models are examined in the prediction of five stock excess returns and realized volatility. Statistical performance measures, such as the Directional Accuracy test, conclude positive significant accuracy for most time series. Excess returns achieved in portfolio optimization are up to 25.225%, with a Sharpe Ratio of 0.553. Expansions are added to the model, including the soft-thresholding method LARS, as well as factor selection. Results conclude the model with expansions performs even better on the Mean Squared Error and Correctly Predicted Signs tests.
Discussion of International Differences in the Timeliness, Conservatism, and Classification of Earnings

Pope and Walker examine differences in the timeliness and conservatism of U.S. and U.K. reported earnings. They conclude that the U.S. accounting regime appears significantly more conservative than the U.K. regime, when comparing earnings before extraordinary items. However, when comparing bottom-line earnings, they find the opposite. The paper contributes to research on international differences in accounting, and their causes and consequences. The conference discussion focused on accounting differences between the United Kingdom and the United States, the assumptions underlying the analyses in the paper, and the interpretation of the results. In the following sections, I discuss the authors' research design choices, examining, in turn, the motivation, research agenda, and specification issues.
Opening the black box of metagovernance: The roles of central government in local multilevel networks – the case of the local job centers in Flanders

In this article, we use the concept of metagovernance to explore how local service delivery networks involving public and private partners are shaped and managed by different governments involved. We address the following questions: What is the governance mix in cases of centrally designed local networks, with different public authorities involved in the network and focused on coordinated service delivery? How does that governance mix match the concept of metagovernance as we know it? What does this complexity of relationships and governing styles tell us about the self-governing capacity of local service delivery networks? We bring in the case of the local job centers in Flanders to deal with these questions empirically. We demonstrate the governance instrument mix used by the metagovernors, how dominant one public actor actually is in the network, and the effect thereof on the network dynamics. We also conclude that we need to rethink the concept of metagovernance when analyzing local multilevel networks.
Five decades on: some reflections on 50 years of Africa's independence

The South African sociologist, Omar Badsha in his book, Amulets and dreams: war, youth and change in Africa (2002) has drawn attention to a dilemma facing radical scholarship on Africa. For him the question is this: ‘. how does one represent Africa without extending the pervasive influence of Afro-pessimist? ’ (p. 3). By embarking on a critical reflection on 50 years of the nation state and governance in Africa, one runs the risk of being trapped in the web of another ‘African pathology’ and the risk of reinforcing pejorative external perceptions that Africans are incapable of governing modern states effectively. Yet, not to speak out against the failure of leadership in Africa would not only reiterate the objectification of African leadership, it can also invite the accusation of collaboration with those who created the conditions that made it impossible for freedom of expression to prevail, human rights to be respected and economic liberation to be realised. To some extent the dilemma is false and self-imposed by a social science, which Alvin Gouldner (1962) has described as a Minotaur, based on labyrinthian logic that seeks ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’; and what the late Nigerian political scientist, Claude Ake (1982) has referred to as ‘the most pernicious form of imperialism’.