Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
OUTCOME AND RISK FACTORS FOR MORTALITY IN PEDIATRIC PERITONEAL DIALYSIS

♦ Background: The mortality rate among children requiring renal replacement therapy is higher than in children without end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Some factors, such as hypoalbuminemia, high peritoneal transport rate, age, malnutrition, cardiovascular disease, and recurrent peritonitis, appear to be associated with lower survival in adult peritoneal dialysis patients. Data regarding risk factors of mortality in children with continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis (CAPD) are limited. The aims of this study were to analyze the clinical characteristics of patients and investigate if routinely used laboratory and clinical variables are independent risk factors for mortality in children on CAPD. ♦ Methods: We performed a retrospective chart analysis of pediatric ESRD patients on CAPD between January 1997 and September 2008. 29 patients undergoing CAPD for more than 3 months were enrolled. An analysis was performed on clinical and biochemical variables for survivors and nonsurvivors to identify potential risk factors for mortality. ♦ Results: Mean age was 12.18 ± 4.57 years. During the follow-up period, 8 patients transferred to hemodialysis and 13 patients received deceased donor renal transplantation. By the end of the study, 5 patients had died. Actuarial survival rate at 2 and 5 years was 96.55% and 91.19% respectively. The major complication during therapy was peritonitis (1 episode/57.79 patient-months). In the univariate analysis, younger age at initiation of dialysis, presence of comorbid disease, higher peritoneal transport rate, increased protein losses through peritoneal dialysis, high total daily protein loss, hypoalbuminemia, and hypophosphatemia were variables associated with mortality in pediatric CAPD patients. However, in the multivariate analysis, only low serum albumin (b = –2.089, p = 0.006; hazard ratio 8.06, 95% confidence interval 0.028 – 0.546) was independently associated with mortality. ♦ Conclusion: Mortality was low in our pediatric patients receiving CAPD. Hypoalbuminemia showed a significant association with death in CAPD patients.
Regulation of lipid droplet size and phospholipid composition by stearoyl-CoA desaturase

Fatty acid desaturation regulates membrane function and fat storage in animals. To determine the contribution of stearoyl-CoA desaturase (SCD) activity on fat storage and development in the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, we analyzed the lipid composition and lipid droplet size in the fat-6;fat-7 desaturase mutants independently and in combination with mutants disrupted in conserved lipid metabolic pathways. C. elegans with impaired SCD activity displayed both reduced fat stores and decreased lipid droplet size. Mutants in the daf-2 (insulin-like growth factor receptor), rsks-1 (homolog of p70S6kinase, an effector of the target of rapamycin signaling pathway), and daf-7 (transforming growth factor β) displayed high fat stores, the opposite of the low fat observed in the fat-6;fat-7 desaturase mutants. The metabolic mutants in combination with fat-6;fat-7 displayed low fat stores, with the exception of the daf-2;fat-6;fat-7 triple mutants, which had increased de novo fatty acid synthesis and wild-type levels of fat stores. Notably, SCD activity is required for the formation of large-sized lipid droplets in all mutant backgrounds, as well as for normal ratios of phosphatidylcholine (PC) to phosphatidylethanolamine (PE). These studies reveal previously uncharacterized roles for SCD in the regulation of lipid droplet size and membrane phospholipid composition.
Testing the "cytokine-ome" theory: a longitudinal pilot study in renal transplant recipients.

Cytokines function within a complex network. Their function relates to specific immunological processes that also promote autoimmunity, alloimmunity, chronic inflammation, and tissue destruction (1– 6). Here, we tested the hypothesis that stable cytokine milieus (“cytokine-omes”) might define “signatures” of the cytokine network associated with pathology. To do so, we first measured the frequency of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) secreting the regulatory cytokine interleukin (IL)-10 in 10 healthy blood donors (7, 8). Two of 10 healthy individuals had a frequency of IL-10-secreting PBMCs of 1300/10 cells, and 8 of 10 healthy individuals had a frequency 600/10 cells (Fig. 1A). Next, the frequency of IL10-secreting PBMCs was related to levels of homeostatic secretion of the inflammatory cytokines IL-1 , IL-8, IL-12, tumor necrosis factor (TNF), and IL-2 (8). Secretion of these cytokines, with the exception of IL-8, was very low, and no co-segregation of IL-8 with the frequency of IL-10 secreting PBMCs was observed (data not shown). We then assessed the frequency of spontaneously IL-10-secreting PBMCs in a cohort of kidney transplant recipients. Patient characteristics relevant to this study are summarized in Supplementary Table 1, available for viewing online only. In these experiments, the following observations were made: (1) analogous to healthy donors, 4 of 12 patients had a pretransplant frequency of IL-10-secreting PBMCs of 1300/10 cells and 8 of 12 patients a pretransplant frequency 600/10 cells, (2) in each of the 4 transplant recipients with a high frequency of IL-10-secreting PBMCs, the frequency decreased after transplantation but remained high (posttransplant frequency: always 1300/10 cells), and (3) transplant recipients with a low frequency of IL-10-secreting PBMCs before transplantation had a stable and low frequency after transplantation (Fig. 1A). No association between the
Are Public Sector Workers More Risk Averse Than Private Sector Workers?

Available evidence suggests that stability of employment is greater in the public sector than in the private sector. The value that individuals place on this stability depends on the individual's degree of risk aversion. Economic reasoning suggests that, other things equal, those individuals with a high degree of aversion to risk will be more likely than others to seek employment in the public sector. This paper tests that hypothesis through the use of probit analysis and a measure of risk aversion developed in the University of Michigan's Panel Study of Income Dynamics. The results tend to confirm the hypothesis, implying that a policy of intersectoral equality of pay for comparable jobs would result in an excess supply of workers to the public sector.
Privacy-Preserving Similarity Joins Over Encrypted Data

Similarity search on high-dimensional data has been intensively studied for data processing and analytics. Despite its broad applicability, data security and privacy concerns along the trend of data outsourcing have not been fully addressed. In this paper, we investigate privacy-preserving similarity join queries, i.e., a pivotal primitive of similarity search that finds pairwise similar data points across two data sets. We start from locality-sensitive hashing and searchable symmetric encryption, i.e., the most practical techniques for similarity search and encrypted search, respectively. However, the immediate combination of two techniques discloses the distribution of the query set, which is exploitable to compromise the confidentiality of queries. To enhance the security, we propose the frequency hiding query scheme, which allows the server to see the flattened query distribution only. To improve the scalability, we further design the result sharing query scheme, which processes a small portion of query points and shares the results with other nearby points. Besides, we set up a strict constraint to carefully select query points to achieve “as-strong-as-possible” guarantees. We formalize the leakage functions in the context of similarity joins, and conduct rigorous security analysis. We implement and evaluate the proposed query schemes on Azure cloud. Experimental results indicate that they have different tradeoffs on security, efficiency, and accuracy, which can flexibly be used for different deployment scenarios.
Beliefs, Bias, and Regime Uncertainty after Hurricane Katrina

This essay explores the relationship between beliefs and economic policy in the context of gasoline prices after Hurricane Katrina. Evidence of "anti-market bias" is identified in polling data, press releases, and legislation, and it is argued that the uncertainty emanating from statutes restricting "price gouging" may reduce investment in the provision of "necessary goods and services" after natural disasters.
Determinants of Trading Activity on theSingle-Stock Futures Market: Evidence from the Eurex Exchange

Futures contracts on stock indexes, both broad and narrow, have been traded for a long time in many countries, but single-stock futures (SSFs) were more controversial, and their introduction was delayed by regulatory authorities. SSFs did not begin trading until 2002 in the U.S. and 2005 at the Eurex. As is normal for new contracts, success in the marketplace has differed across names. In this article, the authors examine what factors contribute to open interest and trading volume for 420 single-stock futures contracts. Important variables contributing to high trading activity include factors relating to the market for the underlying stock, such as trading volume, market capitalization, and volatility; characteristics of the futures contract, including tick and contract size; characteristics of the firm’s home country; and such other factors as the degree of institutional ownership of the underlying stock and the extent of arbitrage opportunities due to futures mispricing. The results confirm the importance of most of the hypothesized relationships. In addition, the authors look closely at a specific dividend capture strategy using SSFs that should be especially attractive to German investors. They find that the behavior of SSFs around ex-dividend days shows clear evidence that a substantial volume of trading activity appears to be generated by traders implementing this strategy.
The benefits of immigrants to Canada: evidence on tax and public services.

The life-cycle theory implication that immigrants, being young at the time of arrival, should benefit the native-born population in a tax-transfer system is analyzed for Canada. Microdata from the 1981 Canadian Census of Population are used. Consumption of major public services and payment of major taxes by the average immigrant and non-immigrant households are considered. It is observed that even after they have stayed for 35 years in Canada, immigrant households are a source of public fund transfers to non-immigrants. This confirms the life-cycle net benefit hypothesis. Implications for public policy with respect to immigration policy are suggested.
All adrift: aviation, shipping, and climate change policy

All sectors face decarbonization for a 2 °C temperature increase to be avoided. Nevertheless, meaningful policy measures that address rising CO2 from international aviation and shipping remain woefully inadequate. Treated with a similar approach within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), they are often debated as if facing comparable challenges, and even influence each others’ mitigation policies. Yet their strengths and weaknesses have important distinctions. This article sheds light on these differences so that they can be built upon to improve the quality of debate and ensuing policy development. The article quantifies ‘2 °C’ pathways for these sectors, highlighting the need for mitigation measures to be urgently accelerated. It reviews recent developments, drawing attention to one example where a change in aviation mitigation policy had a direct impact on measures to cut CO2 from shipping. Finally, the article contrasts opportunities and barriers towards mitigation. The article concludes that there is a portfolio of opportunities for short- to medium-term decarbonization for shipping, but its complexity is its greatest barrier to change. In contrast, the more simply structured aviation sector is pinning too much hope on emissions trading to deliver CO2 cuts in line with 2 °C. Instead, the solution remains controversial and unpopular – avoiding 2 °C requires demand management. Policy relevance The governance arrangements around the CO2 produced by international aviation and shipping are different from other sectors because their emissions are released in international airspace and waters. Instead, through the Kyoto Protocol, the International Civil Aviation Authority (ICAO) and the International Maritime Organization (IMO) were charged with developing policies towards mitigating their emissions. Slow progress to date, coupled with strong connections with rapidly growing economies, has led to the CO2 from international transport growing at a higher rate than the average rate from all other sectors. This article considers this rapid growth, and the potential for future CO2 growth in the context of avoiding a 2 °C temperature rise above pre-industrial levels. It explores similarities and differences between these two sectors, highlighting that a reliance on global market-based measures to deliver required CO2 cuts will likely leave both at odds with the overarching climate goal.
Modelling the dynamic performance of a construction organization

The Asian financial crisis has adversely affected many of the domestic construction organizations in Malaysia, bringing some organizations to the brink of insolvency. It demonstrates that a construction organization's performance is sensitive to the prevailing economic conditions. This paper seeks to model the dynamic performance of a publicly listed construction organization in Malaysia. First, a diagrammatic model consisting of two interconnected causal loop diagrams is developed to represent the organization's capacity and its financial balance sheet. The diagrams provide a clearer understanding of the interactions between the country's construction market and the organization's financial, technical and managerial capabilities. Next, the causal loop diagrams are converted into a mathematical model using specialized software. Simulation results from the model are validated against historical time series data. Graphical plots of the simulation model and results from sensitivity analysis indicate that the model is capable of replicating the general behaviour of the organization.
A spatiotemporal approach to N170 detection with application to brain-computer interfaces

Over the past decade, many laboratories have begun to explore brain-computer interface (BCI) technology as a radically new communication option. BCI can help users send messages and commands to the external world without using their brain's normal output channels or muscles. The central element in each BCI system is to find a reliable method to detect the specific feature patterns extracted from the raw brain signals, and then translate it into usable control signals. In this paper, we introduce our approach to detect N170 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP) based on its spatiotemporal patterns in single-trial EEG signals. Common spatial pattern (CSP) method and machine-learning technique support vector machine (SVM) are adopted for N170 feature extraction and translation, i.e. they convert electrophysiological input from the user into on-off signal to control external devices. Our results indicate that the CSP can effectively extract discriminatory information, and SVM has an efficient performance for N170 classification. Comparing to several other methods, high performances of our framework show that the temporal and spatial features of N170 are very stable and it is promising for new type BCI applications.
International Migration at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century: The Role of the State

This note reviews recent theoretical and empirical work on the determinants and efficacy of state immigration policies to draw conclusions about the future direction of policy regimes throughout the globe and their likely effects. An age of increasingly restrictive immigration policies is emerging, but it is still unclear how effective these policies will be in controlling the volume and composition of international migration. States can be located along a continuum of efficacy with respect to the imposition of restrictive policies. Unfortunately virtually all research done to date has focused on the effectiveness of restrictive policies in major immigrant-receiving developed countries. More research needs to be done to determine just how effective restrictive immigration policies can be under varying degrees of state capacity. Copyright 1999 by The Population Council, Inc.
Hepatic ATP Reserve and Efficiency of Replenishing: Comparison Between Obese and Nonobese Normal Individuals

OBJECTIVE:Although obesity-associated fatty liver disease is emerging as one of the most common diseases in hepatology practice, it is unclear why liver disease prevalence increases with obesity. Because impaired energy homeostasis enhances the susceptibility of hepatocytes to injury, the aim of this study was to determine whether increased body mass index (BMI) is associated with decreased basal hepatic adenosine triphosphate (ATP) stores or impaired recovery from fructose-induced hepatic ATP depletion.METHODS:Hepatic ATP stores were assessed by nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy in 19 healthy subjects with varying BMI. After obtaining the baseline spectra, 0.5 ml/kg of 50% fructose solution was administered to all subjects to deplete the ATP reserve, and follow-up nuclear magnetic resonance spectra was obtained at 5-min intervals for the ensuing hour. AST and ALT were determined at 24 h to assess whether ATP depletion caused any appreciable hepatocyte injury.RESULTS:Among the 19 subjects who participated in the study, five had BMI of ≤25, seven had BMI between 25–30, and seven had BMI of >30. The baseline ATP content was inversely related to BMI (correlation coefficient −0.63, p = 0.02), decreasing steadily with increasing BMI. Fructose injection decreased hepatic ATP stores in all subjects and did not increase transaminases in anyone. Neither the postfructose ATP nadir values nor the extent of ATP recovery correlated with BMI.CONCLUSIONS:Reduced hepatic ATP stores are more prevalent in overweight and obese subjects than in lean subjects. However, a cause–effect relationship between these abnormalities was not demonstrated by our study.
The Firm as Association Versus the Firm as Commodity

Recent years have seen the flowering of a new literature on the economic nature of firms marked by a concern with their internal organization and contractual characteristics. Related literatures on the principal-agent problem and the theory of financial markets have also contributed to a better understanding of firms as economic institutions. However, the place of the concept of the ownership of the firm is poorly developed in most of this literature, with many writers either ignoring the concept entirely or arguing that it is of no importance. The purpose of the present article is to point out that the concept of ownership of firms is crucial to an understanding of internal governance issues. Most economists implicitly presume that firms must be ownable and saleable if they are to be operated efficiently, and recently this viewpoint has been made more explicit by writers such as Jensen and Fama and Williamson. Their point of view is to some degree at odds with views of the firm as a coalition, which frequently appear in the same literature, and even more fundamentally in conflict with conceptions of the firm as an association or polity within which greater or lesser degrees of democracy in governance may be pursued. The first purpose of this article is to show that the incompletely articulated position of the leading authors on the economics of organization is that the firm is a commodity and must be so for purposes of efficiency.
Business visualization: a new way to communicate financial information

Purpose – This article introduces a new way of presenting financial results, information and priorities as a dynamic three‐dimensional, colorful and live landscape that provides a rich, deep understanding of business on a conceptual level.Design/methodology/approach – The article demonstrates how business visualization facilitates the communication of the financial results for individual companies, as well as for comparing companies and for following a company through time.Findings – Business visualization does not replace the use of traditional financial statements, but complements them to give a sense of relationships and priorities. It provides the tangible, concrete representation people need for a conceptual grasp of the big picture as a prerequisite for understanding the meaning inherent in abstract numbers.Practical implications – Business visualization makes big‐picture financial information understandable to everyone, promoting buy‐in, credibility, effective decision‐making and training. It facil.
Remote electronics lab within a MOOC: Design and preliminary results

This paper describes the design and development of a novel Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) on industrial electronics circuits. It is the first MOOC that, besides the usual features of these courses, includes the extensive use of a real remote laboratory dedicated to practices in electronic circuits. Although the nature of a MOOC is completely open, this course targets especially people with at least basic circuits knowledge, related with the demand on industrial sector of labour markets. As said, the core objective of the course is to learn practical competences in basic electronic circuits. This is possible by implementing the remote laboratory for electronic circuits' practices VISIR (Virtual Instrument Systems in Reality) within the MOOC to allow online, real time, delivery of such practices-which makes this MOOC a first of its kind. The paper presents the design and development of the MOOC. We show also some preliminary results in the middle of the course that is running, with more than 2200 students enrolled, during 5 months since May.
REFORM OF HIGHER EDUCATION AND SOCIAL GRADIENTS IN UNIVERSITY GRADUATES ' OUTCOMES *

In 2001 a university reform (also known as the “3+2”) shortening the length of undergraduate studies in most college majors was introduced in Italy. We use the 2004 cohort of university leavers to investigate differences in social gradients between university graduates from “short” (3-year) and “long” (prereform) degrees in some educational and employment outcomes. Our analysis shows that social gradients are not evident neither on degree performance nor on hourly wages conditional on employment, irrespective of degree duration. However, after the introduction of the “3+2” reform individuals with low socio-economic status are relatively less likely to continue in postgraduate education and more likely to have switched to short degrees, which are also the degrees paying lower wages irrespective of social status. We conclude that, as shown by other studies, the reduction of degree length might have increased participation into HE but does not appear to have had an equally effective role in reducing labor market inequalities among university graduates with different socio-economic status.
Some Even More Unpleasant Monetarist Arithmetic

Does monetizing a deficit always result in a higher rate of inflation than bond financing the same deficit? T. J. Sargent and N. Wallace (1981) produced conditions under which the answer was negative ('unpleasant monetarist arithmetic'). Subsequent authors have challenged the empirical validity of these conditions. The authors develop a model similar to that of Sargent and Wallace and modify it to allow for financial intermediation. In the presence of reserve requirements, unpleasant arithmetic arises even when the real rate of growth exceeds the real return on bonds. Moreover, under empirically plausible restrictions, there exists a unique equilibrium; no Laffer curve considerations arise.