Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reliability of chest wall mobility and its correlation with pulmonary function in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

BACKGROUND Measurements of chest wall circumference are commonly used by physical therapists in clinical practice in order to determine chest wall mobility. However, the variability in the method for measuring this has not been reported previously among patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. OBJECTIVE To analyze the reliability and accuracy of chest wall mobility measurements and to investigate the association between chest wall mobility and inspiratory capacity. METHODS Twenty-six patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (forced expiratory volume in the first second = 45 +/- 14% of predicted) were evaluated over 2 visits. Spirometry was performed during the first visit, to characterize the sample. At each visit, 2 independent observers made chest wall mobility measurements twice, at the levels of the axillary, xiphisternal, and abdominal regions (total of 4 measurements), using a measuring tape. RESULTS Despite high variability at all levels, the main results were that (1) two measurements made on the same day by the same observer showed good reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.84-0.95); (2) two independent observers making the measurements on the same day showed fair-good reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.69-0.89); (3) the same observer making the measurements at different visits, at least 2 days apart, showed good reliability (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.64-0.84); (4) inspiratory capacity was not associated with axillary and xiphisternal mobility, but it was closely related to measurements taken at the abdominal level. CONCLUSIONS In summary, despite high reliability of intra-observer and inter-observer measurements, both within and between visits, high variability was observed in all chest wall mobility measurements. Although there was an association between inspiratory capacity and measurements made at the abdominal level, chest wall mobility did not correlate with pulmonary function.
Prevalence of urinary incontinence in relation to self-reported depression, intake of serotonergic antidepressants, and hormone therapy in middle-aged women: a report from the Women's Health in the Lund Area study

Objective:To study a perceived relationship of urinary incontinence with self-reported depression among middle-aged women, and to outline whether hormone therapy, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or serotonin norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors influence the prevalence of urinary incontinence. Design:A population-based cross-sectional study of 6,642 women from the Lund area, Sweden, aged 50 to 64 years, who answered questions on urinary incontinence. We obtained information on urinary incontinence, self-reported depression, and medication by questionnaire and personal interviews between December 1995 and February 2000. Results:Thirty-one percent of the women reported urinary incontinence of various severities and 52% reported episodes of depression. Urinary incontinence and self-reported depression were significantly associated [odds ratio (OR) 1.37; 95% CI, 1.23-1.52; P < 0.001]. Among women with self-reported depression, the use of serotonergic antidepressants was statistically associated with urinary incontinence (OR 1.78; 95% CI, 1.33-2.38; P < 0.001). Among women not reporting depression, hormone therapy was significantly associated with urinary incontinence (OR 1.45; 95% CI, 1.22-1.70; P < 0.001). After adjustment for other potential risk factors, serotonergic antidepressants and hormone therapy use were no longer associated with urinary incontinence in women with self-reported depression. However, among women not reporting depression, hormone therapy was still significantly more common in women with urinary incontinence. Conclusions:Urinary incontinence and self-reported depression seemed to be associated in middle-aged women. Use of serotonergic antidepressants or hormone therapy does not seem to be associated with a lower prevalence of urinary incontinence.
Combining Service Blueprint and FMEA for Service Design

This paper aims at combining the service blueprint and Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) to assist service designers in designing a failure-free service system. In the proposed approach, a blueprint of a service system should be, first, developed to identify the potential fail points and failure modes for both front office and back office service activities. Based on the blueprint, the FMEA tool is then applied to prioritise the critical potential failure modes of the service system and take the required actions to ensure service design performance. An example of a hypermarket service system was used to demonstrate the proposed approach. The example not only identifies the most likely failure modes but also provides the effects and possible causes for each of the most critical failure modes. This implies that the actions to prevent these failures from occurring should be the main focus in the service design stage of the example company. Some managerial implications are also provided.
Valuing Corporate Securities: Some Effects of Bond Indenture Provisions

IN A RECENT PAPER Black and Scholes [3] presented an explicit equilibrium model for valuing options. In this paper they indicated that a similar analysis could potentially be applied to all corporate securities. In other papers, both Merton [8] and Ross [11] noted the broad applicability of option pricing arguments. At the same time Black and Scholes also pointed out that actual security indentures have a variety of conditions that would bring new features and complications into the valuation process. Our objective in this paper is to make some general statements on this valuation process and then turn to an analysis of certain types of bond indenture provisions which are often found in practice. Specifically, we will look at the effects of safety covenants, subordination arrangements, and restrictions on the financing of inter
Microlensing evidence for super-Eddington disk accretion in quasars

Abstract Gravitational microlensing by the stellar population of lensing galaxies provides an important opportunity to spatially resolve the accretion disk structure in strongly lensed quasars. Some of the objects (like Einstein's cross) are reasonably consistent with the predictions of the standard accretion disk model. In other cases, the size of the emitting region is larger than predicted by the standard thin disk theory and practically independent on wavelength. This may be interpreted as an observational manifestation of an optically-thick scattering envelope possibly related to super-Eddington accretion with outflows.
The use of near-infrared spectroscopy in understanding skeletal muscle physiology: recent developments

This article provides a snapshot of muscle near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) at the end of 2010 summarizing the recent literature, offering the present status and perspectives of the NIRS instrumentation and methods, describing the main NIRS studies on skeletal muscle physiology, posing open questions and outlining future directions. So far, different NIRS techniques (e.g. continuous-wave (CW) and spatially, time- and frequency-resolved spectroscopy) have been used for measuring muscle oxygenation during exercise. In the last four years, approximately 160 muscle NIRS articles have been published on different physiological aspects (primarily muscle oxygenation and haemodynamics) of several upper- and lower-limb muscle groups investigated by using mainly two-channel CW and spatially resolved spectroscopy commercial instruments. Unfortunately, in only 15 of these studies were the advantages of using multi-channel instruments exploited. There are still several open questions in the application of NIRS in muscle studies: (i) whether NIRS can be used in subjects with a large fat layer; (ii) the contribution of myoglobin desaturation to the NIRS signal during exercise; (iii) the effect of scattering changes during exercise; and (iv) the effect of changes in skin perfusion, particularly during prolonged exercise. Recommendations for instrumentation advancements and future muscle NIRS studies are provided.
The N-terminal Domain Anchors Human Topoisomerase I at Fibrillar Centers of Nucleoli and Nucleolar Organizer Regions of Mitotic Chromosomes*

DNA topoisomerase I releases torsion stress created by DNA transcription. In principle, this activity is required in the nucleoplasm for mRNA synthesis and in the nucleoli for rRNA synthesis. Yet, topoisomerase I is mostly a nucleolar protein. Current belief holds that this preference is triggered by the N-terminal domain of the enzyme, which constitutes a nucleolar import signal. Contradicting this view, we show here that nucleolar accumulation of various fragments of topoisomerase I is correlated with their lesser mobility in this compartment and not with the N-terminal domain being intact or present. Therefore, the N-terminal domain is not likely a nucleolar import signal. We show that it rather serves as an adaptor that anchors a subpopulation of topoisomerase I at fibrillar centers of nucleoli and nucleolar organizer regions of mitotic chromosomes. Thus, it provides a steady association of topoisomerase I with the rDNA and with RNA polymerase I, which is maintained in a living cell during the entire cell cycle.
The concept of multi-port structural antenna system for HF naval communications

This paper focuses on the possibility to obtain a broad-band naval structural antenna as integration of one or more wire radiating elements together with an existing super-structure such as the funnel or a big mast which are rather common in many ship scenarios. The funnel in particular, has typically cylindrical, pyramidal as well as conical shape, and diameter (5 m-10 m) and height (10 m-25 m) comparable with HF wavelengths. Such a structure is therefore a good candidate to host antennas or even to become part of a radiating system. The integration solution which is here proposed potentially yields a broadband structural antenna for HF naval communication. Such a system has the possibility to be driven by one or multiple-sources and to communicate along the horizon and by near vertical-incidence sky-wave (NVIS at 2-7 MHz) depending on the frequency used and on the particular service to be carried out. A structural solution also offers the advantages of limited space requirements and the intrinsic compensation of the pattern distortion due to the presence of the naval environment, which is instead partly embedded into the antenna system
Intrinsic Properties Inhibit Axonal Outgrowth from Neonatal Rat Spinal Cord Explant

Lumbar spinal cord explants, harvested from neonatal rat pups aged between postnatal day 0 (P0) and P6, were cultured for a period of 48hrs in the chemically defined medium R 12 on a poly-ethylene-imine (PEI) and on poly-D-lysin (PDL) coated surface. The outgrowth outside the explant was quan-tified. Lumbar explants from the same rat and embedded in a collagen matrix, and cortical explants from a P0 rat were used as controls. Statistical analysis demonstrated a clear relation between age-at-explantation and the number of neurites in the corona surrounding the explant. The number of outgrowing neurites decreased sharply with age-at-explantation. The average number of neurites per explant obeyed to the expression log (n) = -0.736 x + 3.294 on PEI, and log (n) = -0.721 x + 2.295 on PDL; x ? [P0 - P6] (n, the number of neurites per explant; x, the age-at-explantation expressed in postnatal days). A similar observed age-related decrease of outgrowth has been described when culturing the lumbar explant inside a collagen matrix. The phenomenon appears to be an intrinsic property of the explant. We review growth inhibitory properties in different models and propose that the phenomenon occurs here at the interface explant-world.
Nationalism and historiography : the case of nineteenth-century Lithuanian historicism

By the eighteenth century, Poland had assimilated Lithuania to the point where Lithuanians needed to either invent a history based on ethnicity or be lost forever. The book details the Lithuanians successes at redefining their nationalism in ethnic terms and recounts their fight for identity against the Polonized Lithuanian elites who held loyalty to the history of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. As the first published work dealing with Lithuanian historiography, Krapauskas provides an English speaking audience with information previously available only to Lithuanians and scholars of Lithuania.
Ghanaian BSW Students' Perceptions of Poverty and Social Welfare Policies in Ghana

In August 2010, data for this exploratory study were drawn from a sample of 185 undergraduate social work students from a public university in Ghana. Ordinal logistic regressions were run to analyze the relationship between social work students’ demographic variables and their perceptions toward poverty and social welfare policies in Ghana. The results of this study found that social work students’ age, gender, marital status, number of children, socioeconomic status, and area of concentration affected their perception toward poverty and social welfare policies in Ghana. The findings of this study point to several areas for consideration when developing or revising social work education curricula in Ghana.
Precarious Positions: Native Hawaiians and US Federal Recognition

This essay examines the politics of the controversial proposal for US federal recognition for Native Hawaiians. It explores a range of historical and legal issues that shed light on the multiple claims that constitute the complex terrain of Hawaiian sovereignty politics. The article provides a historical overview of the events that impact the current situation and then discusses a particular set of contemporary conditions that serve as key elements in catalyzing widespread support for federal recognition—namely, the implications of the recent US Supreme Court ruling in Rice v Cayetano and subsequent legal challenges to Native Hawaiian programs and funding by the US government. It also highlights difficulties with the promise of federal recognition as a solution to "the Hawaiian problem" by looking at lessons from Indian Country, Native Alaska, and the Pacific—especially the US unincorporated territories. Finally, the essay explores the independence movement as an alternative to domestic dependent nationhood.
Adjusting to an Aging Labor Force

Demographic changes in the labor force will imply that firms must change their labor policies in the coming decades. My estimates suggest that the labor force will get older and more female. The aging will not be as pronounced for males as for females because the trend toward early retirement among males will offset demographic changes. The size of the labor force will grow until around 2015 and then will decline. Given these changes, there are a number of issues that face employers. First, the aging workforce may mean an increase in the size of the firm's current deficit, defined as the difference between sales and labor cost. Second, under these circumstances, firms may do well to invest in assets that are highly correlated with the nominal wage bill liability. Short-term treasury bills are a good candidate, as is, paradoxically, putting pension assets back in the capital of the firm itself. This strategy can reduce the risk of bankruptcy. Third, explicit buyouts are the easiest way to reduce the size of the elderly workforce. But this will not help the individual firm's deficit problem. Fourth, declining ages of retirement among males can be reversed by changes in social security policy. A decline in real benefits and increase in the age of entitlement are likely to have the largest effects on raising the retirement age.
Drug discovery for a new generation of covalent drugs

Introduction: The design of target-specific covalent inhibitors is conceptually attractive because of increased biochemical efficiency through covalency and increased duration of action that outlasts the pharmacokinetics of the agent. Although many covalent inhibitors have been approved or are in advanced clinical trials to treat indications such as cancer and hepatitis C, there is a general tendency to avoid them as drug candidates because of concerns regarding immune-mediated toxicity that can arise from indiscriminate reactivity with off-target proteins. Areas covered: The review examines potential reason(s) for the excellent safety record of marketed covalent agents and advanced clinical candidates for emerging therapeutic targets. A significant emphasis is placed on proteomic techniques and chemical/biochemical reactivity assays that aim to provide a systematic rank ordering of pharmacologic selectivity relative to off-target protein reactivity of covalent inhibitors. Expert opinion: While tactics to examine selective covalent modification of the pharmacologic target are broadly applicable in drug discovery, it is unclear whether the output from such studies can prospectively predict idiosyncratic immune-mediated drug toxicity. Opinions regarding an acceptable threshold of protein reactivity/body burden for a toxic electrophile and a non-toxic electrophilic covalent drug have not been defined. Increasing confidence in proteomic and chemical/biochemical reactivity screens will require a retrospective side-by-side profiling of marketed covalent drugs and electrophiles known to cause deleterious toxic effects via non-selective covalent binding.
Influence of salinity and organic nutrient concentration on survival and growth of Vibrio cholerae in aquatic microcosms

Laboratory microcosms were employed to evaluate the influence of selected environmental parameters, organic nutrient concentration, and salinity on the growth and survival of a toxigenic strain of Vibrio cholerae LA4808. Over the range conditions tested, this strain of V. cholerae showed maximum response as determined by increased plate counts and direct microscopic counts in microcosms prepared with a chemically defined sea salts solution at a salinity of 25%, but with lower or higher salinity levels, the maximum population size declined. When added organic concentrations of less than 1,000 micrograms/liter were present, a marked salinity effect on the growth of V. cholerae was detected. However, at or above an organic nutrient concentration of 1,000 micrograms/liter, the need for an optimum salinity level was spared. From the results of this study, it is concluded that V. cholerae can grow under conditions of organic nutrient concentration and salinity typical of estuaries. Results obtained support the hypothesis that V. cholerae is an autochthonous member of the estuarine microbial community.
Multifactor Efficiency and Bayesian Inference

This paper reinvestigates the performance of risk-based multifactor models. In particular, we generalize the Bayesian methodology of Shanken (1987b) and Kandel, McCulloch and Stambaugh (1995) from mean-variance efficiency to the ICAPM notion of multifactor efficiency. This methodology uses informative priors and provides a flexible framework to deal with the severe small sample problems that arise when estimating performance measures. We also introduce and theoretically justify a new inefficiency metric that measures the maximum correlation between the market portfolio and any multifactor efficient portfolio, which is used in conjunction with three other existing inefficiency measures. Finally, we present new empirical evidence that neither the two additional Fama-French (1992) factors nor the momentum factor move the market portfolio robustly closer to being multifactor efficient or robustly decrease pricing errors relative to the CAPM.
Red Jacket and the Decolonization of Republican Virtue

History has not always been kind to Sagoyewatha, or, as he is more commonly known, Red Jacket. One of the most eloquent spokesmen for Native sovereignty in the early national period, Sagoyewatha was nonetheless accused by his peers of cowardice, alcoholism, and egotism. Although none of these character allegations damage his contributions to Indian nationalism (many of the charges originated in political rivalry), the more insidious argument about Red Jacket's life treats him like one of James Fenimore Cooper's vanishing race. An influential Seneca leader after 1790, Sagoyewatha is generally recognized as a principal engineer of the 1794 Treaty of Canandaigua, which guaranteed Indian sovereignty over four million acres of upstate New York. In other achievements, he defended arrested Senecas from state prosecution, made numerous trips to Washington, D.C., to lobby for Seneca rights, and he stridently opposed missionary presence on Indian lands after 1803. Echoing the social opinions of the late 1820s, however, Euroamerican and Indian historians alike have characterized him as the "last" of the Senecas, a tragic figure who represented the final days of his nation. ' Fortunately, this picture is beginning to change. Christopher Densmore's recent biography has helped to clear away the cloud of demonization that obscured Red Jacket's life. Literary scholars and historians, such as Maureen Konkle and Matthew Dennis, have begun to frame Sagoyewatha's career as an influential contribution to discourse about Native sovereignty. Furthermore, given the existence of a large number of Red Jacket speeches with good provenance, his work provides an archive of Indigenous political thought and action that has yet to receive the study it deserves.2
Association between Hypertension and Epistaxis: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Objective Whether there is an association or a cause-and-effect relationship between epistaxis and hypertension is a subject of longstanding controversy. The objective of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to determine the association between epistaxis and hypertension and to verify whether hypertension is an independent risk factor of epistaxis. Data Sources A comprehensive search was performed using the MEDLINE, EMBASE, and Cochrane Library databases. Review Methods The review was performed according to the Meta-analysis of Observational Studies in Epidemiology guidelines and reported using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-analysis guidelines. Results We screened 2768 unique studies and selected 10 for this meta-analysis. Overall, the risk of epistaxis was significantly increased for patients with hypertension (odds ratio, 1.532 [95% confidence interval (CI), 1.181-1.986]; number needed to treat, 14.9 [95% CI, 12.3-19.0]). Results of the Q test and I2 statistics suggested considerable heterogeneity ( P χ 2 = 0.038, I2 = 49.3%). The sensitivity analysis was performed by excluding 1 study at a time, and it revealed no change in statistical significance. Conclusion Although this meta-analysis had some limitations, our study demonstrated that hypertension was significantly associated with the risk of epistaxis. However, since this association does not support a causal relationship between hypertension and epistaxis, further clinical trials with large patient populations will be required to determine the impact of hypertension on epistaxis.