Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The magnetism of suburban shopping centers: do size and Cineplex matter?

Purpose – This paper aims to address two questions related to the magnetism or drawing power of suburban malls: first, does physical size matter, and second, what is the externalities effect of housing a Cineplex within a shopping center? Design/methodology/approach – The study was carried out through an extensive survey covering 1,283 shoppers in nine selected suburban shopping centers in Singapore. The effects of physical size and the presence of Cineplex on the magnetism on the selected suburban shopping centers are evaluated using analysis of variance (ANOVA) tests. Their effect on shopping duration and expenditure pattern is also empirically tested using a recursive simultaneous equations model.Findings – The survey results affirm that both physical size and the presence of a Cineplex enhance the magnetism of suburban shopping centers. A larger shopping center can facilitate a greater variety of shops and create a more pleasant environment for the shoppers, thus enticing shoppers to visit and stay lon.
Decreases by magnesium of QT dispersion and ventricular arrhythmias in patients with acute myocardial infarction.

AIMS Magnesium treatment suppresses ventricular arrhythmias in acute myocardial infarction and possibly mortality after infarction, but the underlying mechanisms are inadequately understood. We tested whether the effect of magnesium could be attributed to an influence on the autonomic control of the heart, changes in disturbed repolarization, relief of ischaemia or limitation of myocardial injury. METHODS AND RESULTS Fifty-nine consecutive patients with acute myocardial infarction were randomized to receive 70 mmol of magnesium (n = 31) infused over 24 h or placebo (n = 26). Occurrence of ventricular arrhythmias and heart rate variability (SD of 5-min mean sinus beat intervals over a 24 h period, SDANN; low frequency/high frequency amplitude ratio, LF/HF ratio), and the number of ischaemic episodes on vectorcardiography were measured from the first day of treatment. QT dispersion corrected for heart rate was measured from the 12-lead ECG. Magnesium decreased the number of hourly ventricular premature beats (P < 0.001) and the number of ventricular tachycardias (P < 0.05). QT dispersion corrected for heart rate was decreased in both measurements at 24 h and 1 week (P < 0.001). SDANN and LF/HF ratio were unchanged. The number of ischaemic episodes on vectorcardiography were equal, and peak creatine kinase MB release did not differ between the groups. In testing the pathophysiological mechanisms, serum magnesium levels after infusion correlated with hourly ventricular premature beats (rs = -0.47; P < 0.01), ventricular tachycardias (rs = -0.26; P < 0.05), and QT dispersion corrected for heart rate (rs = -0.75; P < 0.001), but not with SDANN, LF/HF ratio or peak creatine kinase MB. QT dispersion corrected for heart rate correlated with hourly ventricular premature beats (rs = 0.48; P < 0.001) and ventricular tachycardias (rs = 0.27; P < 0.05). CONCLUSIONS Magnesium suppresses early ventricular arrhythmias in acute myocardial infarction. The decreased arrhythmicity is related to enhancement of homogeneity in repolarization, but not to attenuation of prevailing ischaemia, improvement of autonomic nervous derangements or myocardial salvage.
Analysis of Vaginal Acetic Acid in Patients Undergoing Treatment for Bacterial Vaginosis

ABSTRACT A “gold standard” method for the diagnosis of bacterial vaginosis (BV) is lacking. The clinical criteria described by the Amsel technique are subjective and difficult to quantify. Alternatively, the reading of Gram-stained vaginal smears by scoring techniques such as those that use the Nugent or Hay-Ison scoring systems is again subjective, requires expert personnel to perform the reading, and is infrequently used clinically. Recently, a new diagnostic device, the Osmetech Microbial Analyzer—Bacterial Vaginosis (OMA-BV), which determines a patient's BV status on the basis of measurement of the amount of acetic acid present in a vaginal swab specimen, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The present study uses the conducting polymer gas-sensing technology of OMA-BV to measure the concentration of acetic acid in the headspace above vaginal swab specimens from patients undergoing treatment for BV with metronidazole. In 97.8% of the cases the level of acetic acid detected fell sharply during the treatment period, crossing from above to below the diagnostic threshold of 900 ppm. The diagnosis obtained on the basis of the level of vaginal acetic acid was compared with the diagnoses obtained by use of the Amsel criteria and the Nugent scoring system both at the time of initial entry into the study and at the repeat samplings on days 7 and 14. The results obtained with OMA-BV showed overall agreements compared with the results of the Amsel and Nugent tests of 98 and 94%, respectively, for the 34 patients monitored through the treatment process. This provides further evidence that the measurement of vaginal acetic acid by headspace analysis with conducting polymer sensors is a valid alternative to present tests for the diagnosis of BV.
Maori Cultural Performances and Tourism

Cultural transformation of the visited societies is a frequently mentioned effect of tourism, especially from the so-called developed into the developing countries. The present study examined the extent to which Maori cultural performances have been changed over time by drawing on existing literature and interviews with a number of different. Maori groups. The results indicates that indeed the cultural performances have evolved over time although many of these changes came with the early exposures to tourists and different culture. The marae-based (village) performances tend to be more traditional in nature as compared to those performed in tourist venues par excellence, the hotels
New findings of metacestodes and a pentastomid from rodents in Mongolia

In this study, new findings of the immature-stage parasites of Mongolian rodents that require car- nivorous mammals or birds of prey to complete their life cycle are reported. Six species of parasites, including metacestode stages of 5 cestodes (Taenia mustelae, T. polyacantha, T. endothoracicus, Cladotaenia globifera, and Mesocestoides sp.) and nymphs of 1 pentastomid (Linguatula serrata), were found. Of these, 2 species (T. endothoracicus and L. serrata) are reported for the first time in Mongolia. The new host records include Microtus brandti for T. polyacantha, T. mustelae, C. globifera, and Mesocestoides sp. ; M. mongolicus for T. mustelae; Meriones meridianus for T. endothoracicus; and M. unguiculatus for T. endothoracicus and L. serrata. The geographic distribution, prevalences, and morphology of these parasites are reported. The helminths of predatory hosts include many parasites of environmental health, medi- cal, or veterinary importance. Many of these parasitize rodents as intermediate hosts. A re- view of the literature (Schumakovich, 1936; Galbadrah, 1972; Danzan, 1978; Daschzeveg et al., 1982; Suhbat and Ganzorig, 1988; Baatar and Handaa, 1989) indicates that 28 species of helminths have been reported in wild and do- mestic carnivores in Mongolia. Of those, 12 spe- cies, Alaria alata (Goeze, 1782); Taenia poly- acantha Leuckart, 1856; T. mustelae Gmelin, 1790; T. laeniaeformis Batsch, 1786; T. crassi- ceps (Zeder, 1880); T. pisiformis (Bloch, 1780); Mesocestoides lineatus (Goeze, 1782); Spiro- metra erinacei-europaei (Rudolphi, 1819); Ma- crae anthorhynchus catulinus Kostylew, 1927; Trichinella spiralis (Owen, 1835); Toxascaris leonina (Linstow, 1902); and Toxocara cati (Schrank, 1788), occur in the rodent intermedi- ate host. But, only Mesocestoides lineatus tet- rathyridia were reported from rodents in Mon- golia (Dubinin and Dubinina, 1951; Danzan, 1978). During 1994-1996, we conducted a field survey to determine the biodiversity of the hel- minths in Mongolia. Special attention was given to parasites that cause significant economic and public health problems. In the present paper, the results of the survey of the parasites that have
Conversational Model Adaptation via KL Divergence Regularization

In this study we formulate the problem of conversational model adaptation, where we aim to build a generative conversational model for a target domain based on a limited amount of dialogue data from this target domain and some existing dialogue models from related source domains. This model facilitates the fast building of a chatbot platform, where a new vertical chatbot with only a small number of conversation data can be supported by other related mature chatbots. Previous studies on model adaptation and transfer learning mostly focus on classification and recommendation problems, however, how these models work for conversation generation are still unexplored. To this end, we leverage a KL divergence (KLD) regularization to adapt the existing conversational models. Specifically, it employs the KLD to measure the distance between source and target domain. Adding KLD as a regularization to the objective function allows the proposed method to utilize the information from source domains effectively. We also evaluate the performance of this adaptation model for the online chatbots in Wechat platform of public accounts using both the BLEU metric and human judgement. The experiments empirically show that the proposed method visibly improves these evaluation metrics.
Hispanic Americans Baseline Alcohol Survey (HABLAS): alcohol-related problems across Hispanic national groups.

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to examine the prevalence and correlates of alcohol-related problems across four Hispanic national groups: Mexican Americans, Puerto Ricans, Cuban Americans, and South/Central Americans. METHOD Using a multistage cluster sample design, 5,224 individuals ages 18 years and older were selected from the household population of five U.S. metropolitan areas: Miami, New York, Philadelphia, Houston, and Los Angeles. RESULTS Cuban Americans had the lowest prevalence of alcohol-related problems. Significant differences across national group for zero versus two or more problems and for one versus two or more problems existed among men. Puerto Rican women were most likely to report two or more problems. The presence of zero versus two or more problems varied significantly across groups. There was variation in problem type across national groups among both men and women. Regression analyses showed that all groups were more likely than Cuban Americans to report two or more problems (vs zero) (Puerto Ricans: odds ratio [OR] = 2.02, p < .05; Mexican Americans: OR = 2.92, p < or = .01; South/Central Americans: OR = 2.12, p < or = .01). Being U.S. born (vs foreign born) increased the likelihood of experiencing one (OR = 1.57, p < .05) and two or more problems (OR = 1.95, p < or = .01). The volume of consumption was associated with problems (one problem: OR = 1.16, p < or = .01; two or more problems: OR = 1.31, p < or = .01). Heavy episodic drinking less than once a month was associated with two or more problems (OR = 6.15, p < or = .01). Heavy episodic drinking one or more times a month was associated with one problem (OR = 1.74, p < or = .01) and two or more problems (OR = 3.18, p < or = .01). CONCLUSIONS It is important to recognize that Hispanics are not a homogenous group.
Pricing and inventory decisions for deteriorating products under shipment consolidation

In this article, we consider a three-echelon supply chain including a manufacturer, a vendor and multiple retailers. That is a single-item inventory system which only produces deteriorating items with constant deteriorating rate. Demand in this chain is deterministic and price-sensitive, and lead time for replenishment is considered to be zero. The aim of this article is to determine the selling price, dispatch cycle length and replenishment quantity such that the total profit is maximized. In order to reduce transportation costs we use a kind of shipment group dispatching policy (time-based consolidation policy) in which shipments are consolidated to decrease the total costs. At the end, we present a numerical example to show the applicability of developed model and proposed solution method.
The Analysis and Valuation of Subscription-Based Enterprises

In this study we introduce a measure of customer equity for subscription-based enterprises and examine its use by equity investors. We find that our estimate of customer equity is significantly positively associated with stock price, controlling for accounting variables commonly used to model firm value. This positive association remains even after controlling for the inputs used to measure customer equity. Furthermore, we show that the measure is positively associated with future earnings, controlling for analysts’ forecast, and future returns. These findings suggest that the proposed measure of customer equity is an important valuation tool that quantifies and summarizes the main trends and factors underlying the performance of subscription-based enterprises. This study informs researchers and practitioners, highlighting the importance of analyzing a company’s business model as a value-generating mechanism.
The Seasonal Adjustment of Economic Time Series

THE SEASONAL ADJUSTMENT of economic time series has recently received a great deal of attention from statisticians. The reason for this is not hard to perceive. The economic policymaker faced with the problem of controlling the level of activity does not wish to mistake a seasonal movement for a long-term or medium-term change in the level of economic activity. Pressure is thus brought to bear on official statisticians for better estimates and this pressure filters through to the theorist. The paper by Shiskin and Eisenpress [9] describing methods of seasonal adjustment used by the U. S. Bureau of the Census provoked much of the ensuing discussion. The first paper to use modern spectral methods to discuss this problem seems to have been Hannan [2] and much recent work seems to have used these techniques. (See Hannan [3, 5], Nerlove [7], Nettheim [8] for example.) These methods seem particularly appropriate, for any model for the seasonal component will surely represent it as a sum of six narrow (frequency) band signals which are amplitude, phase, and possibly frequency modulated. (A more complete discussion of the model is, of course, given below.) To this is added "noise" and the narrow band nature of the signals means that, substantially, only the average noise level over these bands is of significant concern. Thus a spectral treatment of the noise will require the introduction of only relatively few parameters so that more special models add little or nothing in simplicity and efficiency, while they increase the risk of an invalid analysis. The main problem of seasonal adjustment undoubtedly arises from the fact that the seasonal pattern may be changing. The problem of estimating such a changing seasonal pattern is an aspect of one of the most immanent of all scientific problems. The difficulty of the problem is simple to perceive but must be understood. If we construct an estimation procedure which is sensitive to changes in the seasonal component, then we shall have one which is sensitive also to chance fluctuations, i.e., to noise effects. Given an initial model we can optimize. Such optimum solutions may be of great value both for their own sake and as standards against which to compare ad hoc procedures; however they should not be used uncritically as the unique optimal solutions, for no model upon which an optimization procedure can be based can represent the truth. In addition, of course, a suitable optimum criterion may not be easy to produce as it may have to reflect subjective elements difficult to quantify (e.g., the reluctance of an official institution to use methods which may require substantial later revisions of initial estimates). In the next section we describe a technique for dealing with a changing
Immigrants in Britain: A Study of the Indian Diaspora

Migration is a universal phenomenon and it is as old as humankind itself. In contemporary times, in an era of globalisation and with the growing social and economic interdependence of the world, migration has not only become more important, but it has also become a rather controversial issue. Thus, the movement of peoples across borders has resulted in adding complex social, cultural, and emotional dimensions to the seemingly simple economic consequence ofmigration. Peoplewhomove to different locations in search of work opportunities, improved security, and better living conditions are human beings with sets of socio-cultural characteristics that are quite diverse in nature. Indeed, they are the products of history and the culture of their particular societies. These groups of people or migrants collectively form what is known as a diaspora. Brubaker (2005, 1–9) refers to ‘diaspora’ as:
What Does ßSMB>0 Really Mean?

type="main" xml:lang="en"> A positive SMB coefficient in a Fama–French regression is often interpreted as signaling a portfolio weighted toward small-cap stocks. We present a very large portfolio, which has a positive SMB coefficient for all periods. We emphasize that this is associated with the coexistence of both “M”—the market—and “SMB”—the mimicking portfolio for size—in the Fama–French three-factor model. We explain why the model can attribute small size to large-cap stocks and portfolios. The results highlight how coefficients should be interpreted when a self-financing portfolio is used for portfolio attribution.
Hypoxia Induces Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor in Cultured Human Endothelial Cells (*)

Smooth muscle cells, macrophages, glial cells, keratinocytes, and transformed cells have been established as synthesis sites for vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). The modulating effects of VEGF are essentially limited to endothelial cells (ECs), the only cell type consistently shown to express VEGF receptors. VEGF has thus been considered to act exclusively via a paracrine pathway. We sought to determine whether the role of human ECs might, under selected conditions, extend beyond that of a target to involve contingency synthesis of VEGF. In both unstimulated human umbilical vein ECs (HUVECs) and human derma-derived microvascular ECs (HMECs), Northern analysis detected no VEGF transcripts. Phorbol-12-myristate 13-acetate (10M) treatment, however, induced VEGF mRNA expression in both HUVECs and HMECs, peaking at 3 and 6 h, respectively, and returning to undetectable levels by 12 h. In vitro exposure of HUVECs to a hypoxic environment (pO2 = 35 mm of mercury) for 12, 24, and 48 h and exposure of HMECs for 6, 12, 24, and 48 h induced VEGF mRNA in a time-dependent fashion. Re-exposure to normoxia (pO2 = 150 mm of mercury) for 24 h after 24 h of hypoxia returned VEGF mRNA transcripts to undetectable levels in HUVECs. Cobalt chloride and nickel chloride treatment each induced VEGF mRNA in ECs. Cycloheximide treatment further augmented expression of VEGF mRNA induced by cobalt chloride, nickel chloride, and hypoxia in HUVECs. VEGF protein production in hypoxic HUVECs was demonstrated immunohistochemically. Conditioned media from hypoxic HUVECs caused a 2-fold increase in the incorporation of tritiated thymidine. Finally, immune precipitates of anti-KDR probed with anti-Tyr(P) antibodies demonstrated evidence of receptor autophosphorylation in hypoxic but not normoxic HUVECs. These findings thus establish the potential for an autocrine pathway that may augment and/or amplify the paracrine effects of VEGF in stimulating angiogenesis.
Economy-wide benefits from water-intensive industries in South Africa: Quasi-input-output analysis of the contribution of irrigation agriculture and cultivated plantations in the Crocodile River catchment

A quasi-input-output framework was employed to measure and compare economy-wide benefits from irrigated crops and cultivated plantations in the Crocodile River catchment. The results of the analysis showed that it makes a huge difference to consider not only direct economic benefits from water-using activities, but also their economy-wide benefits and multisector linkages for evaluating water allocation regimes and policies. A completely opposite ranking of the compared activities was obtained when economy-wide effects (including indirect multipliers) were taken into account, compared with considering only direct benefits.
SIMULATING THE EFFECTS OF RAILROAD MERGERS

The purpose of this paper is to add to the empirical literature regarding merger simulation analysis by examining the effect of railroad mergers on railroad market power. This is done by measuring railroad profits and revenue/variable cost ratios corresponding to different degrees of intrarailroad competition for movements of Kansas export wheat to Houston, Texas. Two models are developed to achieve the objectives of the study. A network model of the wheat logistics system is used to identify the least cost transportation routes from the Kansas study area to the market at Houston. A profit improvement algorithm, which identifies Nash equilibrium prices, is developed to measure the amount by which railroads can profitably raise their prices above variable cost. The results of the study have implications for U.S. railroad merger policy. The paper indicates that railroad mergers do not necessarily increase railroad market power or make railroad shippers worse off. Instead, the study demonstrates that the impact of railroad mergers on shippers and railroads depends on factors that vary geographically, such as the degree of intrarailroad and intermodal competition in the area.
Home-Based HIV Testing and Counseling in Rural and Urban Kenyan Communities

Background:In sub-Saharan Africa, most people with HIV do not know they are infected. Methods:We conducted door-to-door home-based testing and counseling (HBTC) in rural western Kenya (Lwak) and an informal urban settlement in Nairobi (Kibera) in 2008. After consent, eligible persons (adults and adolescents aged 13 years or older and children aged 12 years or younger, whose biologic mother was HIV-infected or deceased) received parallel fingerstick HIV rapid testing and counseling. Persons newly diagnosed with HIV were referred to care services, fingerstick blood for CD4 testing was collected, and a one-month follow-up home visit was conducted. Results:Among 24,450 people who were offered HBTC, 19,966 (81.7%) accepted; 65.4% of whom were HIV-tested for the first time. Prevalence in adults aged 18 years or older being HIV-tested for the first time was 13.5% (12.6%, Kibera; 14.2%, Lwak). Among adults who reported a previously negative test, HIV prevalence was 7.4% (7.2%, Kibera; 7.6%, Lwak). Among all persons with HIV in these communities, two-thirds were newly diagnosed through HBTC. Median CD4 count among newly diagnosed adults was 403 [interquartile range (IQR) = 252–594]. Among couples, 38.0% in Kibera and 51.7% in Lwak were counseled together. Among HIV-infected people in a couple, 34.6% had an HIV-uninfected partner. Among newly diagnosed HIV-infected persons, at the one-month follow-up visit, 53.6% in Kibera and 43.6% in Lwak reported having visited an HIV patient support center. Conclusions:HBTC acceptance was high and most HIV-infected persons did not previously know they had HIV. HBTC can be an effective strategy for early HIV diagnosis and treatment referral.