Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Preparation and controlled release of mesoporous MCM-41/propranolol hydrochloride composite drug

This article used MCM-41 as a carrier for the assembly of propranolol hydrochloride by the impregnation method. By means of chemical analysis, powder X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy and low-temperature N2 adsorption–desorption at 77 K, the characterization was made for the prepared materials. The propranolol hydrochloride guest assembly capacity was 316.20 ± 0.31 mg/g (drug/MCM-41). Powder XRD test results indicated that during the process of incorporation, the frameworks of the MCM-41 were not destroyed and the crystalline degrees of the host–guest nanocomposite materials prepared still remained highly ordered. Characterization by SEM and TEM showed that the composite material presented spherical particle and the average particle size of composite material was 186 nm. FT-IR spectra showed that the MCM-41 framework existed well in the (MCM-41)–propranolol hydrochloride composite. Low-temperature nitrogen adsorption–desorption results at 77 K showed that the guest partially occupied the channels of the molecular sieves. Results of the release of the prepared composite drug in simulated body fluid indicated that the drug can release up to 32 h and its maximum released amount was 99.20 ± 0.11%. In the simulated gastric juice release pattern of drug, the maximum time for the drug release was discovered to be 6 h and the maximum cumulative released amount of propranolol hydrochloride was 45.13 ± 0.23%. The drug sustained-release time was 10 h in simulated intestinal fluid and the maximum cumulative released amount was 62.05 ± 0.13%. The prepared MCM-41 is a well-controlled drug delivery carrier.
Cholinergic Modulation of Cortical Microcircuits Is Layer-Specific: Evidence from Rodent, Monkey and Human Brain

Acetylcholine (ACh) signaling shapes neuronal circuit development and underlies specific aspects of cognitive functions and behaviors, including attention, learning, memory and motivation. During behavior, activation of muscarinic and nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (mAChRs and nAChRs) by ACh alters the activation state of neurons, and neuronal circuits most likely process information differently with elevated levels of ACh. In several brain regions, ACh has been shown to alter synaptic strength as well. By changing the rules for synaptic plasticity, ACh can have prolonged effects on and rearrange connectivity between neurons that outlasts its presence. From recent discoveries in the mouse, rat, monkey and human brain, a picture emerges in which the basal forebrain (BF) cholinergic system targets the neocortex with much more spatial and temporal detail than previously considered. Fast cholinergic synapses acting on a millisecond time scale are abundant in the mammalian cerebral cortex, and provide BF cholinergic neurons with the possibility to rapidly alter information flow in cortical microcircuits. Finally, recent studies have outlined novel mechanisms of how cholinergic projections from the BF affect synaptic strength in several brain areas of the rodent brain, with behavioral consequences. This review highlights these exciting developments and discusses how these findings translate to human brain circuitries.
Examining the Behaviour of Individual UK Consumer Prices

This article examines how UK consumer prices behave, using two databases with millions of price observations: the microdata that underpin official Consumer Prices Index data and a database of supermarket prices. Prices do not change continuously but our key finding is the marked heterogeneity in the data. That is not consistent with standard microeconomic foundations that typically form the basis of macroeconomic policy models. Declining hazard functions and the distribution of price changes also argue against representative agent models. Our results suggest further work is needed to find a model of price‐setting that genuinely corresponds to how individual UK consumer prices behave.
Wound Classification is More Important Than Site of Ulceration in the Outcome of Diabetic Foot Ulcers

The importance of wound classification and site of ulceration was evaluated in 314 consecutive diabetic patients with foot ulcers. The ulcers were classified as superficial (through the full thickness of the dermis; n=150), deep (n=50), osteomyelitis and/or abscess (n=46), minor gangrene (n=39) or major gangrene (n=29). Wound healing was defined as intact skin for at least 6 months. In patients with superficial and deep ulcers, primary healing occurred in 88% and 78%, respectively, compared with 57% in those patient who developed an abscess and/or osteomyelitis. Only 2 out of 68 patients with gangrene healed (through mummification) without amputation. Patients with gangrene had lower ankle and toe blood pressure than patients with all other types of ulcers. There were only marginal differences in primary healing rate between different ulcer sites. The highest rate was seen in ulcers localized to the metatarsal heads (78%). Patients with multiple ulcers had the lowest primary healing rate (5%) compared with single ulcers at all sites. These differences were probably due to circulatory factors, since patients with multiple ulcers had lower distal perfusion pressures compared with all other groups.
What are we Gaining from Stakeholder Involvement? Observations from Environmental Planning in the Great Lakes

Attention to the need for greater stakeholder involvement in environmental decisionmaking has been increasing in recent years. The authors draw on a number of cases of environmental planning in the Great Lakes Region in an attempt to understand the possible benefits stakeholder processes can bring to environmental decisionmaking. They outline benefits in four areas: (1) the quality of decisions, (2) the relationships among important players in the decisionmaking process, (3) the capacity for managing environmental problems, and (4) improvements in environmental quality. Although the research suggests that in a number of the cases studied there was a good outcome in the first three areas, there did not appear to be an obvious link between good participation and improvements in environmental quality through implementation of cleanup and restoration activities.
Best-First Width Search: Exploration and Exploitation in Classical Planning

It has been shown recently that the performance of greedy best-first search (GBFS) for computing plans that are not necessarily optimal can be improved by adding forms of exploration when reaching heuristic plateaus: from random walks to local GBFS searches. In this work, we address this problem but using structural exploration methods resulting from the ideas of width-based search. Width-based methodsseek novel states, are not goal oriented, and their power has been shown recently in the Atari and GVG-AI video-games. We show first that width-based exploration in GBFS is more effective than GBFS with local GBFS search (GBFS-LS), and then proceed to formulate a simple and general computational framework where standard goal-oriented search (exploitation) and width-based search (structural exploration) are combined to yield a search scheme, best-first width search, that is better than both and which results in classical planning algorithms that outperform the state-of-the-art planners.
Evaluating the economic returns to childbearing in Côte d'Ivoire

While it has been often suggested, most notably by Caldwell, that high fertility in developing countries is motivated by the positive economic returns that children contribute to their parents, empirical evidence to support the hypothesis is limited. This paper describes a method of measuring the economic returns from the average child over the entire parental life-cycle. The method is then applied to detailed household economic data from Cote d'Ivoire. The results indicate that parents give more to their children than they receive and that the economic returns from children are negative. Overall, we estimate that the average child provides an annual rate of return of roughly –8 per cent. Our results shed light on how the returns from childbearing vary according to the age of the parents at time of birth. The results also offer a potential economic explanation of why older couples are often first to adopt modern contraception.
Gender Mainstreaming in Community-Oriented Wildlife Conservation: Experiences from Nongovernmental Conservation Organizations in India

Gender mainstreaming (GM) is the promotion of gender equity and women's empowerment in institutional policy and practice. GM can potentially improve community-oriented conservation outcomes because gender roles often shape values, knowledge, use, and access/control of environmental resources. Through a mixed-methods study of 52 nongovernmental organization (NGO)-based, community-oriented wildlife conservation projects in India, this article examines supervisors’ perceptions of the effectiveness of GM in achieving conservation outcomes. While many projects did include elements of GM (specifically, gender analysis and support for women's empowerment), approaches tended to be ad hoc and not empirically grounded. To overcome obstacles to integration of GM in conservation, NGOs would benefit from the creation of formal gender policies to guide baseline data collection and analysis, professional development, and related empirical research. Ultimately, the study illustrates various ways in which gender and conservation issues intersect, and helps to demonstrate when a GM approach can promote the success of specific conservation projects.
PURE: Scalable Phase Unwrapping with Spatial Redundant Arcs

Phase unwrapping is a key problem in many coherent imaging systems, such as synthetic aperture radar (SAR) interferometry. A general formulation for redundant integration of finite differences for phase unwrapping (Costantini et al., 2010) was shown to produce a more reliable solution by exploiting redundant differential estimates. However, this technique requires a commercial linear programming solver for large-scale problems. For a linear cost function, we propose a method based on Dual Decomposition that breaks the given problem defined over a non-planar graph into tractable sub-problems over planar subgraphs. We also propose a decomposition technique that exploits the underlying graph structure for solving the sub-problems efficiently and guarantees asymptotic convergence to the globally optimal solution. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach is comparable to the existing state-of-the-art methods in terms of the estimate with a better runtime and memory footprint.
Association between smoking and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms in a population-based sample of young adults.

CONTEXT Attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has been associated with increased risk of smoking, and some studies have suggested that inattentive symptoms specifically may underlie this risk. Few studies, however, have examined ADHD symptoms in nonclinical samples to determine the extent to which the number of symptoms-independent of the full diagnosis-confer risk for smoking-related outcomes. OBJECTIVE To evaluate the relation between smoking-related variables and the number of retrospectively reported ADHD inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms in a population-based sample of young adults. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS The study population consists of 15 197 eligible participants from wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, a nationally representative sample of adolescents followed from 1995 to 2002. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Logistic regression was used to examine the relation between self-reported ADHD symptoms and the lifetime likelihood of being a regular smoker, defined by having smoked at least 1 cigarette a day for 30 days. For individuals reporting regular smoking, we also examined the extent to which ADHD symptoms predicted age at onset of regular smoking and number of cigarettes smoked. RESULTS A linear relation was identified between the number of self-reported inattentive and hyperactive/impulsive symptoms and smoking outcome measures (P<.001 for each symptom domain). Controlling for demographic and conduct disorder symptoms, each reported inattention and hyperactivity/impulsivity symptom significantly increased the likelihood of ever regular smoking (odds ratio [OR], 1.11; 95% confidence interval [CI], 1.08-1.14 and OR, 1.16; 95% CI, 1.13-1.19, respectively). For those reporting lifetime regular smoking, reported symptoms decreased the estimated age at onset and increased the number of cigarettes smoked. CONCLUSIONS Self-reported ADHD symptoms were found to be associated with adult smoking outcome variables in this nationally representative sample, providing further evidence of a likely link between ADHD symptoms and risk for tobacco use.
The Balkan Economies c.1800-1914: Evolution without Development

List of Tables Preface Part I. The Balkan Economies during the Ottoman Period to 1878: 1. Balkan population 1790-1914 2. The Balkans under the Ottomans 1800-1860s: institutional change and economic progress 3. Agriculture and industry in Ottoman Bulgaria in the twilight of Ottoman rule 4. Serbia 1815-75: institutions, resources and market forces 5. Bosnia and Montenegro before 1878 6. The Ottoman Balkans and free Serbia: economic conditions and 'renascence' Part II. Economic Decline and Political Freedom 1878-1914: 7. Bulgaria after 1878: origins of productive decline 8. Bosnia and Montenegro: political change and economic development 1878-1914 9. The Balkan textile industries 1878-1914: markets, technology, labour 10. Serbia and Bulgaria 1878-1914: modernization and productive decline 11. Economic change in Macedonia and Thrace 1878-1914 12. Summary and conclusions Bibliography.
UG^2: A Video Benchmark for Assessing the Impact of Image Restoration and Enhancement on Automatic Visual Recognition

Advances in image restoration and enhancement techniques have led to discussion about how such algorithms can be applied as a pre-processing step to improve automatic visual recognition. In principle, techniques like deblurring and super-resolution should yield improvements by de-emphasizing noise and increasing signal in an input image. But the historically divergent goals of computational photography and visual recognition communities have created a significant need for more work in this direction. To facilitate new research, we introduce a new benchmark dataset called UG2, which contains three difficult real-world scenarios: uncontrolled videos taken by UAVs and manned gliders, as well as controlled videos taken on the ground. Over 150,000 annotated frames for hundreds of ImageNet classes are available, which are used for baseline experiments that assess the impact of known and unknown image artifacts and other conditions on common deep learning-based object classification approaches. Further, current image restoration and enhancement techniques are evaluated by determining whether or not they improve baseline classification performance. Results show that there is plenty of room for algorithmic innovation, making this dataset a useful tool going forward.
Similar, But Still Different: How US Multinational Companies in Germany and Switzerland Use Host‐Country Training and Skill Practices

We examine in how far US subsidiaries in Germany and Switzerland display characteristics of a strategic fit with their host country and mostly find support for our predictions. Subsequently we determine each subsidiary's host‐country fit and test for within country differences in using local training and skill practices. We find the extent of continuing vocational education and training and the extent to which training on the job is important to vary with host‐country fit in Germany, while in Switzerland, as predicted, we find no such relations.
Adjustment of Chinese mainland vs. Western business expatriates assigned to Hong Kong

Business expatriates from the PRC mainland and Western countries assigned to Hong Kong were surveyed assessing their sociocultural and psychological adjustment. Despite their common cultural heritage, the results showed that Chinese mainland business expatriates were less well adjusted to work and life in Hong Kong than their Western counterparts. Implications of these findings are discussed and future avenues for improving and extending this kind of exploratory research are examined.
Market Efficiency and Volatility Spill over in Spot & Futures Currency Market (w.r.t $ and Rupee)

The present study has analysed the long term relationship between spot and future prices of currency (dollar) for the period of study between 01/06/2009 and 10/07/2013. The spot and future prices of the currency is found to have long term relationship which is supported by the existence of an error correction mechanism called arbitrage. The error correction mechanism restores the equilibrium relationship whenever disequilibrium takes place between the two markets. It is the spot price which corrects the disequilibrium in the market. The study also finds the presence of unidirectional causality in the currency market wherein the spot causes the future. Using Impulse response function, it is found that significant and higher response of future price to the spot price shocks of dollar and also Volatility spill over was from the spot price to the future price whereas, there was no evidence of volatility spill over from future to spot price.
Risk factors for locoregional disease recurrence after breast‐conserving therapy in patients with breast cancer treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy: An international collaboration and individual patient meta‐analysis

Several studies have reported a high risk of local disease recurrence (LR) and locoregional disease recurrence (LRR) in patients with breast cancer after neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NCT) and breast‐conserving therapy (BCT). The objective of the current study was to identify potential risk factors for LR and LRR after NCT and BCT.
Business Leadership Lessons from the Cleveland Turnaround

The rescue and revitalization of Cleveland provides a benchmarking opportunity for how business leaders can help meet the challenge of renewing our cities. This article addresses four questions: What is the role of business leaders in urban revitalization? How can business leaders organize themselves effectively for collective action? What are the key considerations in formulating a community development strategy? How can such a strategy be best implemented? These questions are examined by focusing on the experience of the business CEO organization "Cleveland Tomorrow," which has played a major role for over two decades in the rebirth of Cleveland.
Advertising and aggregate consumption in Italy: 1981-1993

The paper focuses on the relationship between advertising and aggregate consumption in Italy during the '80s and the first half of the '90s. Using the Engle and Granger approach for the cointegration analysis and the Granger-Sims test for causality we find non-causality in the long-run but short-run causality from consumption to advertising. This implies that advertising is pro-cyclical, and that the strong growth of advertising in Italy during the Eighties finds its roots in the rise of oligopolistic competition and in the structural change of the media industry.
An 8.5-Gb/s Fully Integrated CMOS Optoelectronic Receiver Using Slope-Detection Adaptive Equalizer

An 8.5-Gb/s single-chip optoelectronic integrated circuit (OEIC) for short-distance optical communications is realized in a 0.13-μm CMOS process. The OEIC consists of an on-chip silicon photodiode, a transimpedance amplifier with modified regulated cascode input configuration, an adaptive equalizer based upon slope-detection algorithm, and a limiting amplifier with merged negative impedance circuits. The proposed slope-detection adaptive equalizer compensates the limited bandwidth and the temperature variation of the integrated silicon photodiode. Measured results demonstrate 120-dB Ω transimpedance gain, 5.9-GHz bandwidth, -3.2-dBm optical sensitivity for 10-12 BER, and 47-mW power dissipation from a single 1.5-V supply. The OEIC chip core occupies the area of 0.1 mm2.
GLUT4 Gene Regulation and Manipulation*

A decade has passed since the cloning of the insulin-responsive glucose transporter, GLUT4. Numerous studies have demonstrated the complex hormonal and metabolic regulation of GLUT4 gene expression in adipose tissue and muscle. Careful dissection of the regulatory elements in the GLUT4 promoter has provided insight into the intricate control of this central gene of glucose homeostasis. Genetic manipulation of mice has provided further insight into the role of GLUT4 in carbohydrate and lipid metabolism at the whole body and tissue-specific levels. Analysis of GLUT41/2, GLUT4 null, and muscle-complemented GLUT4 knockout mice has furthered our understanding of peripheral insulin sensitivity. Additional studies on GLUT4 gene regulation and GLUT4 knockout models are likely to lead to novel therapies for type II diabetes and other diseases of insulin resistance.
A Six Sigma quality approach to workplace evaluation

This paper reviews post‐occupancy evaluation (POE) research methods and discusses how these methods can be deployed within the context of a Six Sigma quality framework. The paper outlines the importance of conducting POEs to support the creation and management of optimal spaces for office workers. The authors review a variety of existing POE approaches and discuss their approach to using POEs as part of an ongoing quality framework. The results of a pilot programme using their approach, and application of these POE and quality tools, are discussed in this paper.
Determinants of Successful Entrepreneurship

Ondernemerschap staat hoog in de belangstelling van wetenschappers en beleidsmakers. Bij het stimuleren van ondernemerschap is het van belang onderscheid te kunnen maken tussen degenen die na het starten van hun bedrijf succes zullen hebben als ondernemer en degenen die vroegtijdig zullen moeten afhaken. De resultaten van de ondernemers worden gevat in drie maten van succes, te weten de behaalde winst, de gecreeerde werkgelegenheid en de overlevingsduur van het bedrijf. De effecten van determinanten op het behaalde resultaat kunnen hierbij verschillen per succesmaat. De onderscheiden determinanten worden gecategoriseerd in human capital, financial capital, social capital en enkele controlevariabelen. Tevens worden strategieen van ondernemers om op de hoogte te blijven met bedrijfsrelevante ontwikkelingen onderscheiden.
The Nile Basin: tapping the unmet agricultural potential of Nile waters

This paper provides an overview of poverty levels, hydrology, agricultural production systems and water productivity in the Nile Basin. There are opportunities to manage water better in the basin for use in agriculture to improve food security, livelihoods and economic growth by taking into account not only the water in the river, but also by improving management of the rain water. Crops, livestock, fisheries and aquaculture have long been important in the Nile but do not feature in the water discourse.