Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diagnostic Value of 18F-FDG PET for Evaluation of Paraaortic Nodal Metastasis in Patients with Cervical Carcinoma: A Metaanalysis

We assessed the diagnostic performance of 18F-FDG PET in detecting paraaortic lymph node (PALN) metastasis in patients with cervical cancer. Methods: Through a search of MEDLINE and EMBASE (1980 to March 2009), we performed a random-effects metaanalysis. A summary receiver-operating-characteristic curve was constructed using hierarchical regression models. To identify other sources of heterogeneity, regression metaanalysis was performed. Results: Patients (n = 385) from 10 studies were analyzed. Although specificity of 18F-FDG PET was consistent (97%; 95% confidence interval [CI], 93%−99%), sensitivity was low and heterogeneous among the studies (34%; 95% CI, 10%−72%). Although regression metaanalysis did not identify any source to which heterogeneity could be attributed, it revealed a trend of increasing sensitivity according to an increase in the prevalence of PALN metastasis (P = 0.001). In the 5 studies with prevalence greater than 15%, estimated sensitivity and specificity were 73% (95% CI, 53%−87%) and 93% (95% CI, 86%−97%), respectively. With the diagnostic performance, assuming the prevalence of 15%, the calculated false-positive and -negative rates were 35% and 5%, respectively. Conclusion: In detecting PALN metastasis, PET performs acceptably only in populations with a relatively high probability of PALN metastasis. Otherwise, we found no evidence to justify the evaluation of PALN based solely on PET in cervical cancer.
Fixed Exchange Rates, Independent Central Banks and Price Stability in Postcommunist Countries: Conservatism and Credibility

type="main" xml:id="ecpo12030-abs-0001"> Central bank independence (CBI) and fixed exchange rates are used by governments to achieve stable prices. This article analyzes the mechanisms through which the two monetary institutions could work: Indirectly via a disciplinary effect on money growth rates or via an additional credibility effect on inflation expectations and the cost of capital. I further explain how both discipline and credibility are affected by the distinct flaws of independent central banks and fixed exchange rates: central banks lack transparency and fixed exchange rates take many shapes and are routinely devalued. The argument is tested with quarterly data from postcommunist countries for years 1991 to 2007. The findings show a strong disciplinary effect of monetary institutions on rates of M2 change and an effect on inflation controlling for money growth, but credibility does not extend to lower real short-term market interest rates. Political institutions do condition the effect of central bank independence, while the types of fixed exchange rates affect money growth rates and inflation to different degrees.
A Low power 10bit 500kS/s delta-modulated SAR ADC (DMSAR ADC) for implantable medical devices

An architecture of SAR ADC called the delta-modulated SAR ADC (DMSAR ADC) is proposed and designed for medical device applications. In the proposed DMSAR ADC, only the voltage difference between two successive samples is resolved to reduce the conversion steps and decrease the power consumption per channel up to 66%. The experimental chip is implemented in 0. 18μm CMOS technology. At the digital supply voltage of 1.35V and Vref=1.00V, the measured power consumption per channel is 1. 38μW (2.71μW) and the measured SNDR is 56.68dB (53.89 dB) for Fin=10Hz (7kHz). The ENOB is 9.12b and FoM is 39.54fJ/step.
Revenue Generation Capacity in Developing Countries: Implications for Physical and Human Capital Development in Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda

This paper is an attempt to investigate the effects of tax revenue generation capacity on public spending in Sub-Saharan Africa drawing empirical lessons from three East African countries-Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda. It employs the co-integration and error-correction modeling framework to analyze the effects of erratic and inadequate revenue generation on physical and human capital development in Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda using time-series data over the period 1970-2005.The results unambiguously demonstrate that changes in tax revenue have strong impacts on physical and human capital development spending in the three countries. The policy lessons that can be drawn from the findings of this paper is that the three countries should strike a balance of the composition of government expenditure; reprioritize public expenditure into productive spending and strive to generate sufficient tax revenue to finance budget expenditures on physical and human capital development in order to reduce poverty and promote long-run economic development. Key words : Tax Revenue Generation Capacity; Physical infrastructure; Human Capital, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda
Links between the Indian, U.S. and Chinese Stock Markets

This study examines the bilateral relations between three pairs of stock markets, namely India-U.S., India-China and China-U.S. We use a Fractionally Integrated Vector Error Correction Model (FIVECM) to examine the cointegration mechanism between markets. By augmenting the FIVECM with a multivariate GARCH formulation, we study the first and second moment spillover effects simultaneously. Our empirical results show that all three pairs of stock markets are fractionally cointegrated. The U.S. stock market plays a dominant role in the relations with the other two markets, whereas there is an interactive relationship between the Indian and Chinese stock markets. In particular, the Indian stock market dominates the first moment feedback with the Chinese market, while the latter dominates the second moment feedback with the former.
Testing Price Pressure, Information, Feedback Trading, and Smoothing Effects for Energy Exchange Traded Funds

This paper examines the relationships between flows and returns for five Exchange Traded Funds (ETF) in the U.S. energy sector. Four alternative hypotheses are tested, including the price pressure hypothesis, information (or price release) hypothesis, feedback trading hypothesis, and smoothing hypothesis. The five ETF are the Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE), iShares U.S. Energy ETF (IYE), iShares Global Energy ETF (IXC), Vanguard Energy ETF (VDE), and PowerShares Dynamic Energy Exploration & Production Portfolio (PXE). A Vector Autoregressive (VAR) model is used to analyze the relationships between energy flows and returns. The empirical results show that energy returns and subsequent energy ETF flows have a negative relationship, thereby supporting the smoothing hypothesis. Moreover, the smoothing effect exists for XLE and IYE during the global financial crisis. Regardless of whether the whole sample period or the sub-samples before, during and after the global financial crisis are used, no evidence is found in support of the price pressure hypothesis, information hypothesis, or feedback trading hypothesis.
Most Teens Bounce Back

Cross-sectional research suggests that online risk exposure (e.g., cyberbullying, sexual solicitations, and explicit content) may negatively impact teens, increasing concerns over the risks teens are exposed to online. Yet, there has been little research as to how these experiences impact teens' mood over time, or how long these effects may last. To examine the effects of online risk exposure on mood, we asked 68 teens to report their weekly online risk experiences, emotions, and sense of well-being for two months. We found that teens experienced more negative emotions the week that they reported cyberbullying and exposure to explicit content, but these effects were gone one week later. In addition, teens reported a slight in crease in positive emotions and mental well-being during weeks they were exposed to other risks. Our results suggest that most of the risks teens in our study experienced online only pose brief negative effects, if any, and initiates a discussion on how our society may overly problematize the negative effects of online risk exposure on teens.
Use of Virtual Environments to Investigate Development of Spatial Behavior and Spatial Knowledge of School-Age Children

This review aims to show the potential of using virtual environments in developmental spatial cognition research to advance empirical knowledge and theoretical insight. The facility for easy and economic variations of environmental features, the active, self-determined exploration, and the reliable registration of the navigation behavior using virtual environments allow investigating the development of spatial behavior and spatial knowledge in more detail. As a consequence, a dissociation between spatial behavior and spatial knowledge was observed, leading to the conclusion that spatial context has to be integrated further in any theoretical model regarding development of spatial cognition.
Institutions and policy processes: the means to the ends of adaptation

Institutions and institutional change are mentioned often but rarely specified in discussions of climate adaptation. Policy change is proposed, but the detail of policy processes less often discussed. Adaptation to increased climate change and variability will require policy interventions to change behaviors across multiple sectors, requiring policy processes constrained or enabled by institutional settings. Detailed discussion of how to redesign policy processes and institutions are especially rare at the crucial jurisdictional scales of national and sub‐national policy and planning. We review coverage of policy and institutions in the adaptation literature and clarify key issues by drawing on the domains of public policy, institutional change, and sustainable development. The distinction between, but close dependencies among, institutions, institutional systems, organizations, policy processes, policy instruments, and management are emphasized. We propose that the climate policy literature has rapidly become large enough that a tendency of self‐referencing has developed, and that insights can be gained from other areas. Within existing parameters of law, politics, and governance, options are identified that could embed considerations of climate adaptation into policy processes and institutional systems, with focus on enabling cross‐sectoral policy integration (‘mainstreaming’), decision making under conditions of uncertainty, vertical (‘cross‐scale’) policy coordination, issues of capacity and devolution, and policy evaluation and learning. The value of seeking lessons from past policy interventions and from cognate policy sectors is explored. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Asymmetric Effects of Oil Price Shocks in Oil‐Exporting Countries: The Role of Institutions

Many empirical studies on the oil price shock effects on the economies of oil-exporting countries have assumed a linear relationship between the shocks and macroeconomic variables, offering no insights on the dynamics of different types of shocks. The literature also assumes a homogeneous response to oil price shocks by oil-exporting countries. This paper investigates the non-linear effects of oil price shock on macroeconomic performance in the context of two groups of oil-exporting countries using a VAR model with price shocks estimated by a GARCH method. The model consists of oil price shocks and economic growth as two major variables of interest as well as intermediate variables such as investment, exchange rate, and inflation rate. The sample includes nine major oil-exporting countries, six developing and three developed countries, for the period 1970–2010. The results indicate that not all oil-exporting countries are alike in responding to oil shocks. While oil shocks have asymmetric effects in oil-exporting developing countries; lower oil prices lead to major revenue cuts and ensuing stagnation in the economy, but higher oil prices and accompanying higher revenues do not translate into sustained economic growth; they do not have significant effect on economic growth in oil-exporting developed countries. The panel data estimation results also suggest that heterogeneous responses to oil price shocks in oil-exporting countries can be explained by differences in their institutional quality, particularly government effectiveness.
Simultaneous determination of azathioprine and its metabolite 6-mercaptopurine in human plasma using solid phase extraction-evaporation and liquid chromatography-positive electrospray tandem mass spectrometry

A simple, rapid, specific, sensitive and liquid chromatography coupled with tandem mass spectrophotometric method was developed and validated for the estimation of azathioprine and its metabolite 6-mercaptopurine in human plasma by using lamivudine and 6-mercaptopurine D3 as the internal standard. Azathioprine and 6-mercaptopurine were extracted from human plasma by solid-phase extraction (SPE)-Evaporation method, using Oasis MCX cartridge for cleaning procedure. The stationary phase was chromatographed on a ZORBAX SB CN, (75X50 mm, 5 µ) column where as mobile phase constitutes of acetonitrile: 2mM ammonium acetate (70:30 v/v) at a flow rate of 0.800 ml/min. The detection was performed with an Applied Biosystems Sciex API 4000 mass spectrometer by multiple reaction monitoring (MRM). The method validation proofs were carried out as per the USFDA guidelines as described, showing a linearity system (r 2 > 0.99) over a range of 2.455 ng/mL to 106.568 ng/mL for azathioprine and 1.165 ng/mL to 101.143 ng/mL concentrations for 6-mercaptopurine and a recovery shows 99.36% and 100.44% for azathioprine and 6-mercaptopurine respectively. The results show that this proposed approach is effective and can be applied to the extraction and analysis of other pharmaceutical compounds. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.3329/icpj.v1i11. 12059 International Current Pharmaceutical Journal 2012, 1(11): 342-352
Author contacts for retrieval of data for a meta-analysis on exercise and diet restriction

Objectives: The mode of contact and response levels of authors who had been asked to provide missing or incomplete data for a systematic review on diet and exercise interventions for weight loss was examined. Methods: We contacted authors by electronic mail, letter, or both. Survival analyses were performed with the Kaplan–Meier method to determine differences in the proportion of responders over time among the different modes of contact and to determine whether response rates differed between authors from the United States and those from other countries. Logistic regression was used to determine whether the number of items requested and publication date influenced the likelihood of response. Results: Two hundred forty-one (39.9 percent) studies had missing or incomplete data (e.g., sample size, age, caloric restriction, exercise amount, and so on). We were unable to locate ninety-five authors (39.4 percent). Of the remaining authors, forty-six authors (31.5 percent) responded to information requests. Time to respond differed by contact method (p<.05): e-mail (3 ± 3 days), letter (27 ± 30 days), and both (13 ±12 days). Response rates from U.S. authors did not differ from those of other countries. Conclusions: Our study suggests poor success in the acquisition of essential information. Given considerable time and resources, weight loss studies require improved reporting standards to minimize the relatively unsuccessful attempt to contact authors for important and necessary information.
Underwater acoustic network node design and anechoic pool network experimentation with five nodes

In this paper, an underwater acoustic network system is presented and produced, which consists of five underwater acoustic node devices with a networking capability. The underwater acoustic network system adopts the high speed hardware architecture of DSP plus FPGA, and utilizes a Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) mechanism when networking. The system could not only supply quick and reliable underwater acoustic communication at a physical layer, but also complete stable networking at higher layer based on TDMA. At the physical layer, a one-hop underwater acoustic communication rate of 500 bit/s at the range of 2000m is achieved. And the system could complete node localization of the network through a ranging method between neighbouring nodes. At the upper layer, a TDMA medium access control mechanism is produced in the presented underwater acoustic network system. Finally an anechoic pool experiment has proved the stability and validity of the proposed underwater acoustic network system.
Do Words Speak Louder than Actions? The Conduct of Monetary Policy at the Bundesbank

This paper proposes that an important tenet of monetary policy, as practiced by the Bundesbank, is how it communicates with the public. The results have implications for the conduct of monetary policy more generally. Indeed, recent Fed behavior may also be likened to the experience of the Bundesbank. We argue that communication by senior central bank officials represents an instrument of monetary policy which supplements discount rate changes or announcements of target growth rates for the money supply. Moreover, the communications instrument can help exlain how a central bank can deal with the uncertainties inherent in monetary policy not transmitted via frequent changes in in interest rates or money growth targets. Empirical evidence, using monthly data, shows how speeches, especially by the Bundesbank's President, are linked to interest rate behavior.
Inequality and Economic Growth: A Global View Based on Measures of Pay

This paper discusses two issues in the relationship between inequality and economic growth: the data and the econometrics. We first review the income inequality data set of Deininger and Squire (D&S), which, we argue, fails to provide either adequate or accurate coverage, whether through time or across countries. We then introduce our own measures of the inequality of manufacturing pay, based on UNIDO's Industrial Statistics. These provide indicators of pay inequality that are more stable, more reliable and in our view also more comparable across countries, than the D&S data. Turning to the fabled "Kuznets" relationship between inequality and economic development, we diagnose several common econometric problems in the literature, including measurement error and omitted variable bias. By taking steps to account for these problems, and by introducing a more complete panel data set based on pay inequalities, we seek more reliable inferences concerning the relationship between inequality, national income and economic growth. We find evidence that generally supports Kuznets' specification for industrializing countries: pay inequality tends to decline as per capita income increases, though with some tendency for the relationship to curve up for the richest countries. After 1981 two findings emerge. First, per capita GDP growth slowed dramatically in most countries, increasing inequality along the augmented Kuznets curve. Second, there is a global and macroeconomic effect that produces rising inequality in our data, independent of GDP or its changes. The timing of this effect suggests a link to the high real interest rates and global debt crisis of the period beginning in 1982. (JEL C23, D31, J31, O11)
International Business Cycles: How Do They Relate to Switzerland?

This paper first discusses concepts, definitions and theoretical explanations for international business cycles. This is followed by an overview of previous empirical studies. We then argue that for ex post analyses the output gap is a univariate quantification of the business cycle that is comparable across space and time and readily available (or rather computable from GFP series), which recommends its use for our purposes. Based on an unbalanced panel of quarterly output gap series in a panel of 40 countries from 1960q1 to 2011q3, we then test a number of hypotheses regarding the imbeddedness of the Swiss economy into international business cycles and possible changes thereof over the recent years. The results identify layers of international business cycles, where the integration of Switzerland is pronounced. Moreover it markedly deepened after 1994. A case for Switzerland being ‘special’ can hence not be made in terms of its recent business cycle pattern.
Synthesis of linear arrays using particle swarm optimisation

The usefulness and limitations of several real-valued particle swarm optimisation (PSO) based schemes when applied to linear array synthesis are presented in this work. PSO with synchronous and asynchronous updates of the swarm as well as both, global and local topologies, have been considered for the algorithm. First of all, the synthesis problem considering both, isotropic and directive element patterns was presented, along with a short description of the four PSO based schemes investigated. Results of a parametric study carried out to compare the whole set of PSO alternatives are also reported and discussed, showing the PSO with global topology and asynchronous updates of the swarm as the best choice for the electromagnetic design problem at hand. Finally, results considering complex, amplitude-only and phase-only synthesis using as reference the global PSO with asynchronous updates are included to demonstrate the capabilities of this relatively new heuristic high-performance optimiser.
Salmonella Dublin patients in Denmark and their distance to cattle farms

Abstract Background: The Salmonella serotype Dublin is specifically adapted to cattle but may infect humans leading to severe disease. We described human S. Dublin cases and investigated a potential spatial relation between their addresses and cattle farms in Denmark. Methods: We extracted S. Dublin patient surveillance data, 2000–2014, and performed descriptive analyses. We geocoded residential and cattle farm addresses and mapped their incidence by region, province and municipality. We used linear correlation and spatial autocorrelation analysis at the municipality level and calculated the direct network distance from the nearest farm to the residential address of cases and 20,000 randomly selected citizens representing the background population. Results: We identified 484 S. Dublin cases, 57% were male, median age 65 years. Seven patients (1%) acquired their infection abroad. The 30 days all-cause mortality was 13%. Overall, cumulative incidence was 8.0 per 100,000 inhabitants. Cattle farms were located predominantly in the western part of the country. Neither visual inspection nor correlation analysis indicated a relationship between municipalities with high incidences of human cases and cattle farms. Global Moran’s Index analysis showed municipalities with high incidence of cases to be randomly distributed. We found equal direct network distances between cattle farms and both addresses of S. Dublin cases and the background population. Conclusions: We found S. Dublin infections in Denmark to affect the elderly, be serious and acquired domestically. Our findings indicate that the risk of infection with S. Dublin in Denmark is independent of living in the proximity to cattle farms.
Asymmetric correlations in equity returns: a fundamental-based explanation

Many studies have shown that the correlation of stock portfolio returns is higher during market downturns, while very few of them offer an explanation for the causes of such an asymmetry. This article examines potential fundamental causes for the phenomenon. We find that such an asymmetry is caused by the following sources during market downturns: increasing common fundamental risk, higher correlation of individual fundamental risk and more sensitive loadings of these risk factors. We also find that these fundamental factors can only partially explain the asymmetric correlation. Possible mechanisms for these sources to drive the asymmetry are also discussed in the article.