Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Gamma-glutamyltransferase activity in patients with calcific aortic stenosis

Objectives: We evaluated gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) activity in patients with calcific aortic stenosis (AS) and investigated the association between GGT levels and the maximum and mean aortic gradients. Study design: The study included 34 patients (5 women, 29 men; mean age 63±13 years) with calcific AS. Thirtyeight subjects (8 women, 30 men; mean age 57±10 years) with echocardiographically normal aortic valves constituted the control group. Echocardiographic evaluation was performed in all the subjects and venous blood samples were obtained to determine plasma glucose, fibrinogen, total cholesterol, LDL and HDL cholesterol, triglyceride, and GGT levels. The activity of GGT was determined by the kinetic method. Associations were sought between GGT levels and the maximum and mean aortic gradients. Results: In the AS group, the mean maximum and mean gradients of the aortic valve were 74±15 mmHg and 39±9 mmHg, respectively. Fibrinogen concentrations differed significantly between the patient and control groups (3.9±1.7 mg/dl and 2.9±0.9 mg/dl, respectively; p 0.05). Compared to controls (21±14 U/l), the mean GGT level was significantly higher in the AS group (39±13 U/l; p=0.005). In linear regression analysis, weak but significant sex- and ageadjusted correlations were found between the GGT level and the maximum (r=0.20, p<0.001) and mean (r=0.17, p<0.001) aortic gradients. Conclusion: Patients with calcific AS have higher GGT levels compared to controls, suggesting the presence of a common etiologic mechanism for both calcific AS and coronary artery disease.
Serum potassium levels in Thai patients with T2DM and eGFR greater than or equal to 90 ml/min/1.73 m2

Background: Disturbances in potassium levels can occur in patients with renal dysfunction. This study’s aim is to describe the serum potassium (sK) levels in Thai patients with type 2 Diabetes (T2DM) with or without hypertension (HT) and with estimated glomerular filtration rates (eGFR) greater than or equal to 90 ml/ minute/1.73 m 2 . Methods : There was a cross sectional study performed throughout Thailand in 2016 for assessment on the quality of care among patients diagnosed with T2DM and HT. We selected a subgroup of patients who had data of sK levels and eGFR value greater than or equal to 90 ml/minute/1.73 m 2 for analyses. Results: There were 3,719 subjects who met the inclusion criteria. The mean (SD) eGFR was 102.59 (9.12) ml/minute/1.73m 2 . The mean (SD)sK level was 4.11 (0.52) mEq/L. The mean (SD) SBP and DBP were 130.86 (15.47) and 76.15 (10.14) mmHg, respectively. The sK levels were categorized into 3 groups: low, normal and high at <3.5, 3.5-5.0 and >5 mEq/L, respectively. The prevalence of hypokalemia was 6.7 % and level less than 3 mEq/L was found in 55.6% of the hypokalemic population. The percentage of hypokalemia was found to be high in the group with diuretic usage. The prevalence of hyperkalemia was 2.9% and levels more than 5.5 mEq/L was found in 21.7% of the hyperkalemic group. Conclusions : The hypokalemia and hyperkalemia in T2DM with or without hypertension and eGFR≥90 ml/minute/1.73 m 2 can be found. The sK levels less than 3 mEq/L could be related to diuretic usage. Therefore, patients who are prescribed diuretics or renin angiotensin aldosterone blockades should have sK levels regularly monitored.
Discontinuous Galerkin Immersed Finite Volume Element Method for Anisotropic Flow Models in Porous Medium

By choosing the trial function space to the immersed finite element space and the test function space to be piecewise constant function space, we develop a discontinuous Galerkin immersed finite volume element method to solve numerically a kind of anisotropic diffusion models governed by the elliptic interface problems with discontinuous tensor-conductivity. The existence and uniqueness of the discrete scheme are proved, and an optimal-order energy-norm estimate and -norm estimate for the numerical solution are derived.
M ay 2 01 3 Lingering Issues in Distributed Scheduling

Recent advances have resulted in queue-based algorithms for medium access control which operate in a distributed fashion, and yet achieve the optimal throughput performance of centralized scheduling algorithms. However, fundamental performance bounds reveal that the “cautious” activation rules involved in establishing throughput optimality tend to produce extremely large delays, typically growing exponentially in 1/(1−ρ), with ρ the load of the system, in contrast to the usual linear growth. Motivated by that issue, we explore to what extent more “aggressive” schemes can improve the delay performance. Our main finding is that aggressive activation rules induce a lingering effect, where individual nodes retain possession of a shared resource for excessive lengths of time even while a majority of other nodes idle. Using central limit theorem type arguments, we prove that the idleness induced by the lingering effect may cause the delays to grow with 1/(1−ρ) at a quadratic rate. To the best of our knowledge, these are the first mathematical results illuminating the lingering effect and quantifying the performance impact. In addition extensive simulation experiments are conducted to illustrate and validate the various analytical results.
Effects of oil prices on net private saving gap: 2001 crisis in Turkey

After the liberalization of capital account in 1989 in Turkey, speculative capital inflows have significantly come for the higher interest rates induced by incremental budget deficits in Turkey. While the budget standing has got closer to balance, current account deficit problem has kept its agenda. Thus, a new potential determinant of current account, namely the gap between private savings and investment is proposed recently. Therefore, the study explores the determinants of net private savings and investment gap along with the effect of oil price shocks on them before and after the 2001 crisis. The reason of introducing the oil price as an additional variable to the model is to explain the effect of oil prices on current account deficit through the private savings and investment gap. For this purpose, the bound testing approach to cointegration within an autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) framework and error-correction model (ECM) methodology, is applied for the period of 1990: Q1-2007:Q3. Expected empirical results provide evidence of the simultaneous effectiveness of interest rate for deposit, GDP growth, and oil price on net private savings rate in both short and long runs. Key words: Oil prices, savings - investment gap, autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL).
Compensation Philosophy Disclosure and CEO Equity Incentives

Compensation Philosophy Disclosure and CEO Equity Incentives Kim, Natalie Kyung Won Department of Business Administration The Graduate School Seoul National University Pay-for-Performance is frequently emphasized by firms in their Compensation Philosophy of the Compensation Discussion and Analysis (CD&A) disclosure. Using a sample of S&P 1500 firms that granted equity compensation in 2014, I analyze whether firms that emphasized pay-for-performance in their Compensation Philosophy granted equity compensation that was de facto more sensitive to performance, using as proxied by the equity compensation delta as a proxy for sensitivity. I find that on average, firms that mentioned pay-for-performance more frequently granted equity compensation with a lower delta. This negative result is driven by firms with weak governance or weak performance. Firms with strong governance or strong performance showed an insignificant relationship between the pay-for-performance phrase frequency and equity grant delta. These results
Service Quality of Online Shopping Platforms: A Case-Based Empirical and Analytical Study

Customer service is crucially important for online shopping platforms (OSPs) such as eBay and Taobao. Based on the well-established service quality instruments and the scenario of the specific case on Taobao, this paper focuses on exploring the service quality of an OSP with an aim of revealing customer perceptions of the service quality associated with the provided functions and investigating their impacts on customer loyalty. By an empirical study, this paper finds that the “fulfillment and responsiveness” function is significantly related to the customer loyalty. Further analytical study is conducted to reveal that the optimal service level on the “fulfillment and responsiveness” function for the risk averse OSP uniquely exists. Moreover, the analytical results prove that (i) if the customer loyalty is more positively correlated to the service level, it will lead to a larger optimal service level, and (ii) the optimal service level is independent of the profit target, the source of uncertainty, and the risk preference of the OSP.
Marketing communication and the performance of small and medium enterprises in Polokwane Local Municipality

This study investigated marketing communication and the performance of SMEs. Quantitative research methodology was used in this study. SMEs located in Polokwane Local Municipality in Limpopo Province, South Africa were considered for this study. The study used convenience sampling and snowball sampling methods because; there was no defined population frame of SMEs in the research area. One hundred and sixty SMEs participated in the study. The researcher used structured self-administered questionnaire to collect data. The questionnaire was developed by the researcher after a thorough review of literature on marketing communication strategies and SMEs. Pearson Chi-Square and descriptive statistics were used to analyse data. The Cronbach’s alpha test was used to measure reliability of the questionnaire items. This study revealed that the use of traditional marketing and the use of guerrilla marketing communication strategies increase the sales and profit of SMEs. However, it does not necessarily contribute to the employment of additional employees. The combination of the two marketing communication strategies yields better results for SMEs in terms of performance as compared to when used individually. Recommendations proposed included marketing subsidies from the government which have a potential to reduce unemployment because SMEs will now be able to employ marketing personnel using the financial resources from the government
Small Heat Shock Proteins, Big Impact on Protein Aggregation in Neurodegenerative Disease

Misfolding, aggregation, and aberrant accumulation of proteins are central components in the progression of neurodegenerative disease. Cellular molecular chaperone systems modulate proteostasis, and, therefore, are primed to influence aberrant protein-induced neurotoxicity and disease progression. Molecular chaperones have a wide range of functions from facilitating proper nascent folding and refolding to degradation or sequestration of misfolded substrates. In disease states, molecular chaperones can display protective or aberrant effects, including the promotion and stabilization of toxic protein aggregates. This seems to be dependent on the aggregating protein and discrete chaperone interaction. Small heat shock proteins (sHsps) are a class of molecular chaperones that typically associate early with misfolded proteins. These interactions hold proteins in a reversible state that helps facilitate refolding or degradation by other chaperones and co-factors. These sHsp interactions require dynamic oligomerization state changes in response to diverse cellular triggers and, unlike later steps in the chaperone cascade of events, are ATP-independent. Here, we review evidence for modulation of neurodegenerative disease-relevant protein aggregation by sHsps. This includes data supporting direct physical interactions and potential roles of sHsps in the stewardship of pathological protein aggregates in brain. A greater understanding of the mechanisms of sHsp chaperone activity may help in the development of novel therapeutic strategies to modulate the aggregation of pathological, amyloidogenic proteins. sHsps-targeting strategies including modulators of expression or post-translational modification of endogenous sHsps, small molecules targeted to sHsp domains, and delivery of engineered molecular chaperones, are also discussed.
Design and Experimental Implementation of a Hysteresis Algorithm to Optimize the Maximum Power Point Extracted from a Photovoltaic System

In the several last years, numerous Maximum Power Point Tracking (MPPT) methods for photovoltaic (PV) systems have been proposed. An MPPT strategy is necessary to ensure the maximum power efficiency provided to the load from a PV module that is subject to external environmental perturbations such as radiance, temperature and partial shading. In this paper, a new MPPT technique is presented. Our approach has the novelty that it is a MPPT algorithm with a dynamic hysteresis model incorporated. One of the most cited Maximum Power Point Tracking methods is the Perturb and Observer algorithm since it is easily implemented. A comparison between the approach presented in this paper and the known Perturb and Observer method is evaluated. Moreover, a new PV-system platform was properly designed by employing low cost electronics, which may serve as an academical platform for further research and developments. This platform is used to show that the proposed algorithm is more efficient than the standard Perturb and Observer method.
Long-term effects of early experience to supplementary feeding in sheep.

Merino lambs were given access (exposed) to wheat for one hour per day for periods varying from 5 to 20 days in the presence or absence of their mothers. All lambs were weaned at 10 weeks and tested for acceptance of wheat at 12 weeks of age. Sub-groups of these lambs were further tested at 6, 12, 24 and 34 months of age without having access to wheat between the initial test (12 weeks) and these final tests.
The impact of external institutional drivers and internal strategy on environmental performance

Purpose – Environmental sustainability literature provides extensive evidence that business organizations, societies, and governments all have a stake in green operations management. Despite the importance of a firm's effort to alleviate environmental damages and provide economic benefits to organizations, little is known about the external institutional drivers that enable firms to adopt internal proactive environmental strategies. This purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which an internal proactive environmental strategy (eco‐design) and external institutional drivers (government regulations and incentives, customer pressures) motivate firms to adopt eco‐deigns that influence environmental performance.Design/methodology/approach – Hypotheses are tested using data from a sample of 132 EMS ISO 14001 – certified manufacturing firms in Malaysia. Specifically, this study uses survey data to validate the major premises in our proposed model.Findings – Empirical tests of the hypotheses with struc.
Effects of natural phenomena and human activity on the species richness of endemic and non-endemic Heteroptera in the Canary Islands

Effects of natural phenomena and human activity on the species richness of endemic and non–endemic Heteroptera in the Canary Islands. — The geographical patterns of Heteroptera species diversity in the Canary Islands were analysed, and endemic and non–endemic species were studied both together and separately. Causal processes most likely controlling these patterns, as well as the theory of island biogeography, hypotheses about evolutionary time, habitat heterogeneity, climatic stability, intermediate disturbances, energy, environmental favourableness–severity, productivity and human influence were investigated. The combination of habitat heterogeneity and human influence accounted for the total number of species. However, when endemic and non–endemic species were analysed separately, habitat heterogeneity and favourableness–severity explained the richness of endemic species, whereas habitat heterogeneity and human influence explained that of non–endemic species.
Effects of Arctic stratospheric ozone changes on spring precipitation in the northwestern United States

Abstract. Using observations and reanalysis, we find that changes in April precipitation variations in the northwestern US are strongly linked to March Arctic stratospheric ozone (ASO). An increase in ASO can result in enhanced westerlies in the high and low latitudes of the North Pacific but weakened westerlies in the midlatitudes. The anomalous circulation over the North Pacific can extend eastward to western North America, decreasing the water vapor concentration in the air over the northwestern United States and enhancing downwelling in the northwestern US, which results in decreased precipitation there and vice versa for the decrease in ASO. Model simulations using the Whole Atmosphere Community Climate Model version 4 (WACCM4) support the statistical analysis of observations and reanalysis data and further reveal that the ASO influences circulation anomalies over the northwestern US in two ways. Stratospheric circulation anomalies caused by the ASO changes can propagate downward to the troposphere in the North Pacific and then eastward to influence the strength of the circulation anomalies over the northwestern US. In addition, sea surface temperature anomalies over the North Pacific, which may be related to the ASO changes, would cooperate with the ASO changes to modify the circulation anomalies over the northwestern US. Our results suggest that ASO variations could be a useful predictor of spring precipitation changes in the northwestern US.
THE EFFECT OF MOTIVATIONAL CLIMATE

All material supplied via JYX is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, and duplication or sale of all or part of any of the repository collections is not permitted, except that material may be duplicated by you for your research use or educational purposes in electronic or print form. You must obtain permission for any other use. Electronic or print copies may not be offered, whether for sale or otherwise to anyone who is not an authorised user. Relationships among perceived motivational climate, motivational regulations, enjoyment, and PA participation among Finnish physical education students Jaakkola, Timo; Yli-Piipari, Sami; Barkoukis, Vassilis; Liukkonen, Jarmo
Risk Assessment of Genetically Modified Crops by Direct Tracking Pollen Movement and Testing Crop Genetic Load Using Directly Transformed Brassica rapa with Bt cry1Ac and gfp Genes

Crop to weed transgene flow, which could result in more competitive weed populations, is a transgenic plant biosafety concern. Transgene expression, introgression of crop genes, and other ecological factors may alter the productivity of weed populations. Directly transformed weeds are apt comparisons for introgressed transgenic hybrids. Weedy Brassica rapa accessions were transformed with Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) cry1Ac and green fluorescence protein (GFP) transgenes using Agrobacterium to produce plants to be used in risk assessment research. Regenerated B. rapa events were characterized by Southern blot, Bt protein ELISA, and GFP expression assays. Productivity of transgenic B. rapa events was compared to Brassica crop-weed introgressed hybrids in greenhouse and field experiments. GFP expression level and Bt
Impact of audio degradation on music classification

Escola Tècnica Superior d’Enginyeria de Telecomunicació de Barcelona Departament de Teoria del Senyal i Comunicacions Telecommunications Engineering Impact of audio degradation on music classification by Francesc Capó Clar Music genre classification is an important part in the domain of Music Information Retrieval that tries to find several algorithms and audio analysis to classify audio tracks in different music styles or musical genres, like classical, rock or electronic, among others. The benchmark collections used to make the training model for the classifier tend to be based on high-quality studio recordings. Nevertheless, sometimes we need to classify audio coming from several recording ways or from a non high-quality audio recording, so this fact could have a direct impact on the genre classification. In this document we present extensive studies focused on the impact of distorted audio on the music genre classification. We intend to find which are the most robust and the weakest attributes of several feature sets against a variety of distortions in controlled settings, as well as their effect on the resulting classification.
Discovery of X-Rays from the Old and Faint Pulsar J1154–6250

We report on the first X-ray observation of the 0.28 s isolated radio pulsar PSR J1154–6250 obtained with the XMM-Newton observatory in 2018 February. A point-like source is firmly detected at a position consistent with that of PSR J1154–6250. The two closest stars are outside the 3σ confidence limits of the source position and thus unlikely to be responsible for the observed X-ray emission. The energy spectrum of the source can be fitted equally well either with an absorbed power law with a steep photon index Γ ≈ 3.3 or with an absorbed blackbody with temperature kT = 0.21 ± 0.04 keV and emitting radius RBB ≈ 80 m (assuming a distance of 1.36 kpc). The X-ray luminosity of 4.4 × 1030 erg s−1 derived with the power-law fit corresponds to an efficiency of , similar to those of other old pulsars. The X-ray properties of PSR J1154–6250 are consistent with an old age and suggest that the spatial coincidence of this pulsar with the OB association Cru OB1 is due to a chance alignment.
Small‐scale upper mantle convection and crustal dynamics in southern California

We present numerical modeling of the forces acting on the base of the crust caused by small‐scale convection of the upper mantle in southern California. Three‐dimensional upper mantle shear wave velocity structure is mapped to three‐dimensional density structure that is used to load a finite element model of instantaneous upper mantle flow with respect to a rigid crust, providing an estimate of the tractions acting on the base of the crust. Upwelling beneath the southern Walker Lane Belt and Salton Trough region and downwelling beneath the southern Great Valley and eastern and western Transverse Ranges dominate the upper mantle flow and resulting crustal tractions. Divergent horizontal and upward directed vertical tractions create a tensional to transtensional crustal stress state in the Walker Lane Belt and Salton Trough, consistent with transtensional tectonics in these areas. Convergent horizontal and downward directed vertical tractions in the Transverse Ranges cause approximately N–S crustal compression, consistent with active shortening and transpressional deformation near the “Big Bend” of the San Andreas fault. Model predictions of crustal dilatation and the forces acting on the Mojave block compare favorably with observations suggesting that small‐scale upper mantle convection provides an important contribution to the sum of forces driving transpressional crustal deformation in southern California. Accordingly, the obliquity of the San Andreas fault with respect to plate motions may be considered a consequence, rather than a cause, of contractional deformation in the Transverse Ranges, itself driven by downwelling in the upper mantle superimposed on shear deformation caused by relative Pacific–North American plate motion.
Bayesian analysis of the Hector's Dolphin data

In recent years there have been increasing concerns for many wildlife populations, due to decreasing population trends. This has led to the introduction of management schemes to increase the survival rates and hence the population size of many species of animals. We concentrate on a particular dolphin population situated off the coast of New Zealand, and investigate whether the introduction of a fishing gill net ban was effective in decreasing dolphin mortality. We undertake a Bayesian analysis of the data, in which we quantitatively compare the different competing biological hypotheses, determining the effect of the sanctuary upon the dolphin population.