Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Effect of Coping Skills Training on Alcohol Consumption in Heavy Social Drinking

This study, designed to evaluate a relapse prevention technique, is based on Swedish “heavy” social drinkers who wanted to drink less or quit completely. They were recruited by advertisement in national Swedish newspapers and were randomly assigned into a control group and a coping skill training group (treatment group). Data were collected during the period 1989–1991. Subjects in the coping skills training group were taught methods to cope with the craving for alcohol, and subjects in the control group had a conventional discussion about their problems and the future. All participants also had to set a goal to be reached after the treatment. Subjects were asked about their alcohol consumption and dependence of alcohol and other alcohol-related behaviors, before, six months, and 18 months after treatment. The coping skills training did not prove more efficient than nonspecific treatment received in the control group. Instead alcohol consumption decreased as a function of the subjects’ initial goals, independent of treatment and a wish to control drinking seemed more efficient than to try to quit drinking completely.
Producing Knowledge: The Use of the Project Team as a Vehicle for Knowledge and Skill Acquisition for Software Employees

This article ands that a considerable proportion of learning and skills development for software workers occurs through learning from colleagues and other software professionals. Although the authors observed that employees were generally satis.ed with the formal training they received, very little knowledge acquisition actually takes place as part of a recognized training programme. Knowledge is frequently gained through project-based work both from other team members and the team or project work necessitating individuals to update their skills set. The data used within this article were collected using a combination of quantitative and qualitative techniques within ve software organizations in Scotland.
Formate protects stationary‐phase Escherichia coli and Salmonella cells from killing by a cationic antimicrobial peptide

For a sustained infection, enteric bacterial pathogens must evade, resist or tolerate a variety of antimicrobial host defence peptides and proteins. We report here that specific organic acids protect stationary‐phase Escherichia coli and Salmonella cells from killing by a potent antimicrobial peptide derived from the human bactericidal/permeability‐increasing protein (BPI). BPI‐derived peptide P2 rapidly halted oxygen consumption by stationary‐phase cells preincubated with glucose, pyruvate or malate and caused a 109‐fold drop in cell viability within 90 min of addition. In marked contrast, O2 consumption and viability were not significantly affected in stationary‐phase cells preincubated with formate or succinate. Experiments with fdhH, fdoG, fdnG, selC and sdhO mutants indicate that protection by formate and succinate requires their oxidation by the Fdh‐N formate dehydrogenase and succinate dehydrogenase respectively. Protection was also dependent on the BipA GTPase but did not require the RpoS sigma factor. We conclude that the primary lesion caused by this cationic peptide is not gross permeabilization of the bacterial cytoplasmic membrane but may involve specific disruption of the respiratory chain. Because P2 shares sequence similarity with a range of other antimicrobial peptides, its cytotoxic mechanism has broader significance. Additionally, protective quantities of formate are secreted by E. coli and Salmonella during growth suggesting that such compounds are important determinants of bacterial survival in the host.
The comparative histopathology of primary and secondary lesions in murine salmonellosis.

In a primary infection, Swiss-Webster mice were injected i.p. with 10(2) or 10(3) virulent Salmonella typhimurium. Multiple microscopic acute abscesses with predominantly polymorphonuclear leucocytes (PMNs) were seen in the liver and the spleen beginning on the 4th day after infection. By the 7th day, these lesions had become enlarged and were gradually transformed into granulomas with central necrosis and peripheral mononuclear cells. The animals usually died within 12 days with massive systemic infection and degeneration of the tissues. In contrast, it was necessary to inoculate 10(6) virulent salmonella i.v. into mice immunized with avirulent S. thphimurium in order to initiate microscopically observable lesions in the liver and the spleen. These secondary lesions were characterized by the early appearance of minute granulomas composed almost entirely of histiocytic cells. They remained small and isolated, usually without central necrosis. Subsequent regression of the lesions and regeneration of normal tissue occurred after the 2nd week following infection. The animals usually survived such a challenge infection.
The Female Sexual Distress Scale (FSDS): Initial Validation of a Standardized Scale for Assessment of Sexually Related Personal Distress in Women

Recent consensus-based characterizations of female sexual dysfunction have emphasized personal distress as an essential component of their definition. To assist researchers and clinicians, we developed a new scale, the Female Sexual Distress Scale, to measure sexually related personal distress in women. In this article, we describe the initial stages in the development and validation of this instrument. Three studies involving a total of approximately 500 women were performed to evaluate the reliability and validity of the scale in different samples of sexually functional and dysfunctional women. Results indicated a unidimensional factor structure in both the original 20-item version and in a "polished" 12-item version. We observed a high degree of internal consistency and test-retest reliability in both versions across all three studies. Additionally, the scale showed a high degree of discriminative ability to distinguish between sexually dysfunctional and functional women in each of the studies. One study also showed a strong sensitivity to treatment response. Finally, we observed moderate positive correlations with other conceptually related nonsexual measures of distress, supporting the construct validity of the scale. Overall, these findings provide solid support for the FSDS as a valid and reliable measure for assessing sexually related personal distress in women.
Policy Options for Improving Market Participation and Sales of Smallholder Livestock Producers: A case study of Ethiopia

Market access plays an essential role in assuring better income and welfare levels for smallholder livestock producers, and thus contributes to poverty alleviation. This is even more so in the Ethiopian context where livestock play an essential role in the economy. Making use of the Heckman estimation procedure, this paper identifies policy and technology options to increase participation and sales of smallholder producers in livestock markets in Ethiopia, based on data from 934 household surveys conducted between 1999 and 2001 in the highlands of Tigray and Amhara regions in northern Ethiopia. The analysis demonstrates that physical capital (ownership of different species of livestock and landholding) and financial capital (crop income and non-farm income) are the main factors influencing market participation and sales. Education was also found to positively affect value of sales of dairy products. Distance to markets and towns were not found to be significant. We conclude that in the case of Ethiopia, constraints to production of livestock and livestock products (e.g. capital to purchase animals, feed, and processing equipment) are the main factors limiting participation and sales in livestock markets.
India in Transition: Freeing the Economy

Jagdish Bhagwati, one of the world's leading economists, offers a fascinating overview of the policies that produced India's sorry economic performance over a third of a century. His analysis puts into sharp focus the crippling effects of the inward-looking, bureaucratic regime that grew to Kafkaesque dimensions, starting in the early 1950s. It provides a coherent and convincing rationale for the economic reforms begun in June 1991 by the new government of Prime Minister Rao. These reforms, also discussed by Professor Bhagwati, are thus set into historical and analytical perspective. Written with wit and elegance, this text of the 1992 Radhakrishnan Lectures at Oxford has quickly gained a wide readership.
Gambling and nonexpected utility: the perils of the power function

The use of the power utility function is problematic in expected utility theory. We show that, this is also the case in cumulative prospect theory, where the power function violates the assumption of loss-aversion at small stake levels, so that an optimal model of gambling is precluded. In the case of rank-dependent expected utility it has the counterfactual implication that agents will gamble all of their wealth at actuarially unfair odds.
Carbon emissions and the cost of capital: Australian evidence

Purpose - – The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potential impact of the approved Australian carbon emissions reduction plan on the cost of capital and the association between companies’ carbon emission intensity and the cost of capital. Design/methodology/approach - – A sample of Australian Stock Exchange 200 (ASX 200)-indexed companies from 2006 to 2010 is used. Hypotheses are tested based on Heckman’s two-stage approach. Three regression models are developed to examine the association between carbon emissions and the cost of capital. Findings - – Using a sample of ASX 200-indexed listed companies, the paper finds that the cost of capital, including the cost of debt and the cost of equity, will increase for emissions-liable companies. Results also show that the cost of debt is positively correlated with a company’s emission intensity. However, little evidence supports that the emission intensity affects the cost of equity. Originality/value - – As it is evident that the emissions reduction plan will adversely affect corporate entities’ cost of capital, this study suggests that companies, investors and lenders need to include carbon emission in risk analysis. An emissions-liable company should establish strategies to combat the impact of the Plan on rising cost that comes with the enforcement of the Plan. Government assistance is essential in the transitional period.
Leveraging Resources in Global Software Development

Leveraging global resources for software development is rapidly becoming the norm at Motorola, which has over 25 software development centers worldwide. Our project, called the 3G Trial (Third Generation Cellular System), was the first of its scope and significance developed by a global engineering team at Motorola. Staffing was the most significant issue we encountered in the 3G Trial. We had only about 20 percent of the required staff available at our division headquarters in Burlington Heights, Ill. , US, and needed to find the other 80 percent to successfully complete the project. Early on, we concluded that our only means to staff the project was to rely on software development engineers from Motorola's worldwide software centers. We developed the system with staffing from six different countries. Next, we had to integrate the people into a team. While addressing this challenge, we identified key risk factors and developed approaches to reduce them. We separated the project risk factors into the five categories Carmel (1999) describes as the centrifugal forces that pull global projects apart. To pass on the lessons we learned from this project, this article sets out the global development issues we faced, our approaches to resolving them, and our findings compared to other research.
Interaction between monetary policy and stock prices: a comparison between the Caribbean and the US

We analyse the interaction between monetary policy and stock prices in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago (T&T), both individually and jointly as the Caribbean countries using structural VARs, as proposed in Bjornland and Leitemo (2009). Annual and monthly frequencies are used for Barbados while, due to data availability constraints, only annual data is employed for Jamaica and T&T. First, our results show that in Barbados, with monthly (and annual) data, a monetary policy shock that increases the Treasury bill rate by 100 basis points causes stock prices to increase by 0.038% (and fall by 0.06%), while a stock price shock that increases stock prices by 1% results in an increase in the Treasury bill rate of 30 (and 190) basis points, respectively. For Jamaica, a monetary policy shock causes stock prices to fall by 0.3%, while a stock price shock that increases stock prices by 1% results in an increase in the Treasury bill rate of 400 basis points. Likewise for T&T, a shock to monetary policy causes stock prices to fall by 0.1% and a shock leading to a 1% increase in real stock prices causes the Treasury bill to increase by 330 basis points. When we analyse the three Caribbean countries jointly, a positive 1% stock price shock causes the Treasure bill rate to increase by 700 basis points and a positive monetary policy shock cause stock price to fall by 0.027%. Therefore, our results in relation to the signs of the relationships with annual data are similar to those of the US in Bjornland and Leitemo (2009), however the magnitudes are substantially different. The effect of a monetary policy shock is greater in the US, while the effect of a stock price shock is smaller in the US than in our Caribbean economy. We argue that this reflects clear differences between the US and Caribbean economies. Caribbean countries have slower information channels, for example, by targeting the 30-day Certificate of Deposit (COD) rate instead of the overnight Treasury bill rate as in the US. This supports our results that only with annual data we find similar relationships as in the US with monthly data. Moreover, the higher economic instability in the Caribbean is clearly observed in the larger effect that a stock price increase has on interest rates versus the USA.
Changes in Earnings Instability and Job Loss

This paper examines the contribution of job loss or displacement to increasing male earnings instability between 1970 and 1991. Earnings instability increased among both displaced and not-displaced men, so changes associated with job loss cannot fully explain rising instability. Changes in the incidence and consequences of job loss did, however, add substantially to growing earnings instability and to the overall variance of earnings. There is evidence that displacement substantially raised earnings volatility for several years after job loss. That effect, combined with increased numbers of recently displaced workers in the 1980s relative to the previous decade, contributed to rising overall earnings instability.
Firm size distributions in an industry with constrained resources

We propose an equilibrium model for firm size distribution in an industry with a constrained essential input. The model applies when the population of firms is small and homogeneous and the supply of the necessary input factor is perfectly inelastic. We argue that although the Gibrat assumption obtains, this does not result in the lognormal distribution because of the entries, exits and mergers of firms competing for the inelastic essential resource. Using our own 32-year database of firms, we test the broken-stick, or random-ordered-interval, model that we call the Whitworth distribution, successfully applied by others to a number of data sets, including the abundances of bird species. We propose the Whitworth as the basic model of the equilibrium distribution of firm sizes for such supply-constrained industries, and find it fits our 31-year database best.
Transformable lung positioner for thoracoscopic surgery

This paper proposes a transformable lung positioner that can pick up a lobe of a lung, which is a necessary action during thoracoscopic surgery for lung cancer. A grasping forceps is currently used for the surgery. However, it is not appropriate because of its small size contact area. The proposed transformable lung positioner has three links, each of which has a sucker attached. The links form a line in the initial position and can be inserted through a trocar. They can be transformed into a triangle inside the thoracic cavity. We conducted experiments for the validation of the transformation and suction of the positioner. In addition, we discuss the possibility of assemblable vacuum devices. We have proposed assemblable surgical devices that can be assembled inside a body cavity. Assembly enables us to design novel vacuum devices/hands that can grasp/ manipulate large internal organs with suckers.
A Survey of Policy Refinement Methods as a Support for Sustainable Networks

Green sustainability-oriented features have become common in network nodes and protocols. Running a network in an energy-efficient way is an important concern of network operators and datacenter networks. The implementation and coordination of the myriad of existing network features poses a challenging task. The energy efficiency capabilities must be selected according to the network conditions and can be combined to increase energy savings. However, they can conflict if not orchestrated in a proper manner. Policy-Based Network Management is a well-known approach to addressing the complexity of network management tasks. In conjunction with a refinement process to translate high-level policies down to low-level policies, it can bring business directives to the network, including sustainability goals. In this survey, we identify the major characteristics of sustainability-oriented policies, as well as the requirements a policy refinement method for such type of policies has to fulfill, including energy efficiency capabilities orchestration. We then analyze existing policy refinement techniques and discuss the challenges on how they address or need to be modified in order to be applicable to sustainability-oriented policies.
Teacher Licensing in U.S. Public Schools: The Case for Simplicity and Flexibility

Discussions of teacher quality in U.S. public schools have tended to focus on teacher licensing. Reformers from diverse perspectives have proposed "raising the bar" for licensing by various means (e.g., harder licensing exams, more coursework, graduation from the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education teacher-training programs, elimination of emergency or provisional licensing). However, all of these proposals assume that teacher licensing plays an important role in determining teacher quality and performance. In this article I argue the contrary. Raising the bar for teacher licensing in ways that have been proposed is unlikely to have any significant short- or long-term effects on student achievement. Moreover, by shrinking the applicant pool for vacancies, these restrictive proposals may have the perverse effect of lowering average teacher quality, particularly for high-poverty or rural districts that already face thin applicant pools. A preferred approach is to swap regulation of inputs for accountability for outputs, that is, a more flexible licensing regime that relaxes entry barriers combined with greater accountability for student achievement gains. Such a proposal is based on a simple economic principle: Welfare is more likely to be improved if state regulators focus on what they can measure (student achievement), not what they cannot (teacher quality).
Nonlocal SAR Interferometric Phase Filtering Through Higher Order Singular Value Decomposition

Interferometric phase filtering is an indispensable step to obtain accurate measurement of digital elevation model and surface displacement. In the case of low-correlation or complicated topography, traditional phase filtering methods fail in balancing noise elimination and phase preservation, which leads to inaccurate interferometric phase. A new nonlocal interferometric phase filtering method taking advantage of higher order singular value decomposition (HOSVD) is proposed in this letter. For each pixel of the interferometric phase, a 3-D data array is established, and shrinkage is applied after HOSVD. A Wiener filter is used to improve the denoising performance in the end. Simulated and real data are employed to validate that the proposed method outperforms other traditional methods and some of the state-of-the-art nonlocal methods.
Cryptosporidiosis in Children Following Solid Organ Transplantation

Background: Cryptosporidium parvum is a common cause of diarrhea. In immunocompetent individuals, spontaneous recovery is the rule. In immunocompromised patients, it may cause a serious disease. Data on cryptosporidiosis in children after solid organ transplantation are few. We report on 6 pediatric solid organ recipients with gastroenteritis caused by Cryptosporidium. Patients and Methods: All episodes of gastroenteritis in solid organ transplant recipients hospitalized in Schneider Children’s Medical Center from January 2008 to August 2011 were identified. Data on the episodes with positive staining for Cryptosporidium antigen in stool were reviewed. Results: Fifty-seven episodes of gastroenteritis were recorded. In 6 (11%) patients (4 kidney recipient, 1 liver and kidney recipient and 1 heart transplant recipient) Cryptosporidium antigen was detected in stool. Mean age at transplantation was 3.7 ± 2 years, mean time between transplantation and cryptosporidial disease was 39 ± 53.9 months. Symptoms included prolonged diarrhea, fever, abdominal pain and weight loss. Mean duration of symptoms before diagnosis was 10.5 ± 8.7 days. In 5 children, kidney function deteriorated, blood concentrations of tacrolimus increased in 5 patients and abnormal values of liver enzymes were detected in 4 patients. All patients were hospitalized and received intravenous fluid replacement and were treated with nitazoxanide for 5–21 days. Two patients had recurrence of symptoms after short course (5 days) therapy. All patients recovered eventually from the disease. Conclusion: Cryptosporidium should be routinely tested in solid organ transplant recipients with diarrhea. Delay in initiation of treatment can result in serious complications including acute renal failure. Long-term therapy with nitazoxanide (at least 14 days) may facilitate recovery.
An Iterative Maximum Entropy Thresholding Algorithm

In this work, an iterative maximum entropy thresholding algorithm is proposed, due to the fact that the thresholds derived from the maximum entropy method are nonoptimal. Firstly, the maximum entropy thresholding algorithm is applied to the grey images which are roughly grouped into background and object. Secondly, two Gaussian distributions are fitted according to the mean and variance of each group. Because the optimal threshold is located at their intersection of two Gaussian populations, the presented scheme optimizes thresholds using an iterative scheme until converging to the optimal position. Finally, extensive experiments are performed, and the results show that the thresholds derived from the maximum entropy scheme using the proposed iterative threshold optimization approach can be converged to the optimal position.