Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reemergence of Rickettsiosis in Oran, Algeria

Abstract: The presumptive cases of Mediterranean spotted fever have been identified in 1993 and since that time, its frequency has steadily increased. The prospective study, in summer 2004, was conducted in order to present the descriptive clinic and epidemiology, to identify more severe forms, the presence of the multiple eschars, and different rickettsial strains caused the disease in our region. In Oran, the cases were diagnosed clinically. In Marseille, serum specimens were tested by IFA using the panel of eight rickettsial antigen; Western blot and cross‐adsorption studies were also performed in order to confirm the diagnosis. Ninety‐three patients clinically diagnosed were recorded from July 3 to October 28, 2004. Eighty percent were male, the mean age was 44.3 years, 90% were exposed to dog and 32% reported tick bites. Clinical signs were as follow: presence of underlying disease (44%), sudden onset (78%), fever (100%), loss of weight (63%), conjunctivitis (43%), and a tache noire was noticed in 70%. Interestingly, two patients had two and three eschars, respectively. The rash was maculopapular (palm and sole) and purpuric in nine cases. Doxycycline was the most antibiotic (91%) with favourable outcome in 91% of the cases. Malignant form with death is reported for three patients (3.2%). Among the 93 patients, 104 serum from 65 patients were tested (serums of others patients were lost or ticket not found on tube. Sixty‐three patients out of 65 had a positive serology by IFA with cross‐reactive antibodies especially between R. conorii, R. felis and/or R. typhi. Two others negative serology were: one precocious serum and second from the patient, which presented symptoms of MSF and tested two serums, Western blot and cross‐adsorption.
Multicenter Study of the Safety and Efficacy of a 585 nm Pulsed‐Dye Laser for the Nonablative Treatment of Facial Rhytides

OBJECTIVE The objective of this study was to assess the safety and efficacy of a 585 nm flashlamp pulsed-dye laser for the nonablative treatment of facial rhytides. METHODS A multicenter prospective randomized controlled study on 58 volunteers was performed. A split-face approach was adopted, with one periorbital region acting as a control and the other receiving either one or two treatments. Patients were photographed and imaged three-dimensionally before and after treatment. Histologic sections were analyzed. RESULTS Three-dimensional topographic evaluation showed improvements of 9.8% (p= .0022) and 15% (p= .0029) in surface roughness for single and double treatments, respectively. Histology revealed an increase in type I collagen messenger ribonucleic acid expression, type III procollagen, chondroitin sulfate, and grenz zone thickness. Two treatments resulted in greater improvement than one treatment. CONCLUSION Clinical improvement was achieved following a single treatment. Further improvement was observed following a second treatment. The subjective evaluation of clinical improvement was consistent with both histologic and topographic quantitative measurements.
SECURITY ECONOMICS: A GUIDE FOR DATA AVAILABILITY AND NEEDS

The rapid and accelerating development of security economics has generated great demand for more and better data, to accommodate the empirical research agenda. The present paper serves as a guide to policy makers and researchers for security‐related databases. The paper focuses on two main issues. First, it takes stock of the existing databases and highlights their main components. Second, it discusses data shortages and needs that are considered essential for enhancing our understanding of the complex phenomenon of terrorism, as well as designing and evaluating policy.
INFORMATIVE PRICE ADVERTISING IN A SEQUENTIAL SEARCH MODEL

The purpose of this paper is to study the role and implications of price advertising when shopping trips are costly to consumers. To do so, we introduce advertising into an optimal sequential search model. Information about prices is both gathered by consumers and disseminated by firms. Consumers search sequentially and stores advertise (with various intensity) when it is in their interest to do so. Our model has a unique equilibrium exhibiting priee dispersion. The model generates predictions about the shape of the price distribution and firms' advertising behavior. We explore the effects of entry, and find that when initial advertising costs (at zero level of effort) are precisely zero, entry drives the equilibrium to the perfectly competitive outcome. However, when initial marginal advertising costs are positive, entry drives prices higher, and while the informed consumers almost surely locate competitive prices, welfare does not necessarily increase. Finally, we compare the effectiveness of the two informational channels. When advertising costs shrink, prices become competitive; however, when search costs shrink, prices remain bounded above marginal production costs.
How Do Front and Back Package Labels Influence Beliefs About Health Claims?

Our dilemma with health claims is that too much information can confuse consumers and too little information can mislead them. A controlled study is used to examine the effectiveness of various front-sided health claims when used in combination with a full health claim on the back of a package. The results indicate that combining short health claims on the front of a package with full health claims on the back of the package leads consumers to more fully process and believe the claim. The basic finding that using two sides of a package (short claim on front; long on back) increases the believability of health claims is relevant for policymakers, consumers, and researchers.
Corporate Lobbying on Accounting Standards: Methods, Timing and Perceived Effectiveness

There is a long‐standing concern in the literature about the potential importance of non‐observable forms of lobbying that may be used by corporate managers to influence accounting standard setting bodies. To date, however, no study has documented their nature or their volume. This study provides such evidence in the context of the U.K.'s Accounting Standards Board (ASB) standard setting process for the period 1991–96. It also provides evidence with respect to the timing at which lobbying activity takes place and its perceived effectiveness by corporate managers. The findings suggest that companies use a variety of lobbying methods, including appeals to their auditors and private meetings with ASB members and staff. Importantly, however, the use of these methods is significantly associated with the use of comment letters; companies which submit comment letters are much more likely to use other methods than companies which do not. Other findings suggest that more companies lobby during the stages of the ASB process at which public consultation takes place (e.g., exposure period of a discussion paper) than at the earlier stages of the process (e.g., agenda formation) which are considered in the literature as the stages at which lobbying can be most effective. With respect to the perceived effectiveness of lobbying, companies which lobbied the ASB considered lobbying to be more effective than companies which did not.
Hierarchical tone mapping based on image colour appearance model

To solve the problem of low efficiency and poor effect of the current tone mapping methods for the high dynamic range images, the authors propose a hierarchical tone mapping algorithm based on colour appearance model. The discrete Gaussian kernel is used to speed up the bilateral filter. The operation of tone compression in RGB colour space is adopted to correct the colour casts. The extreme values of the pixels are also adjusted in the detail layer. Moreover, after the tone mapping, the colour saturation is enhanced in the image regions of rich details and sharp edges. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithm with less computational cost reduces the halo effect significantly, and achieves the natural colour and the rich details. It outperforms the state-of-the-art methods in terms of visual quality and objective indicators.
Selecting the correct intravenous device: nursing assessment.

This article provides information for nursing and medical teams involved in the selection of intravenous (i.v.) devices for patients requiring venous access. For more than 25 years central venous access has been the mainstay for delivery of a variety of i.v. therapies. However, although the use of central venous access has facilitated innovative patient care, it has also precipitated many complications arising from inappropriate catheter selection. The information contained in this article is not intended to replace local policies but is offered as a reference for those involved in developing protocols for assessment of patients requiring therapies via the i.v. route. It aims to assist nurses in relation to matching an appropriate access device to individual patient requirements.
Dynamic skeletogenesis in fishes: Insight of exercise training on developmental plasticity

Background: Through developmental and evolutionary time, organisms respond variably to their environment not only in terms of size and shape but also in terms of timing. Developmental plasticity can potentially act on various aspects of the timing of developmental events (i.e., appearance, cessation, duration, sequence). In this study, we address the developmental plasticity of median fin endoskeleton by using exercise training on newly‐hatched Arctic charr (Salvelinus alpinus). Results: Developmental progress of cartilage formation (i.e., chondrification) in all fins is less influenced than ossification by an increase of water velocity. The most responsive elements, meaning those elements with greater onset plasticity owing to a water velocity increase, differ in terms of early versus late developmental events. The most responsive elements are those that chondrify and to a greater extent ossify later in the development. Conclusions: Plasticity is documented for the timing of appearance (i.e., onset) and the timing of transition from cartilage to bone (i.e., transitions of skeletal states) rather than the order of events within a sequence. Similarities of plastic response in developmental patterns could be used as a powerful criterion to strengthen the identification of phenotypic modules. Developmental Dynamics 241:1507–1524, 2012. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
100 Gigabit Ethernet from a Carrier's Perspective

The need for 100 Gb/s Ethernet is clearly established because 1. this increased traffic is all IP- based, 2. nearly all these IP packets are encapsulated within Ethernet frames somewhere along their journey from origin to destination, 3. the need for the classic TDM channelization features provided by SONET/SDH have run their course, and 4. Ethernet encapsulation is simpler and less expensive than SONET/SDH encapsulation. This talk will touch on some of these technical issues, but the ultimate decision will be made based on economics, something which will need equipment development and testing to address.
Tribal-State Gaming Compacts and Revenue Sharing: A California Case Study

347 IN JANUARY 2003, California Governor Gray Davis set forth his proposed budget for fiscal year 2003–2004.1 In the budget, he anticipated that new revenue-sharing agreements with California’s Indian tribes, of which only one has been negotiated to date, would generate $1.5 billion in new revenue for the state. However, the governor does not explain how he arrived at the $1.5 billion revenue figure. After much criticism, he reduced his expectation to $680 million. The goal of this article is to evaluate the governor’s revenue-sharing expectations and provide general insights into revenue sharing as a part of Tribal-State Gaming Compacts.2
What Can We Learn for Today from 300-Year-Old Writings about Stock Markets?

��� In this article I catalog how historical analysis using a variety of writings on stock markets from around the early eighteenth century can help inform our understanding of financial market institutions and behavior. In so doing, I hope to suggest how the history of economic thinking can have direct value for today’s financial economist. Old writings, of course, are a trove of interesting vignettes. For example, the term bear to describe a stock-market pessimist derives from the seventeenth-century slang for short-sellers, a reference to risk-addled speculators who dared to sell the bear’s skin before catching the bear; John Burr Williams, who is frequently credited with inventing the dividend discount model in his Theory of Investment Value (1938), was nonetheless writing well over 200 years after the widespread use of such valuation techniques; and the explosion in the use of put and call options in the 1970s occurred nearly 300 years after their use swept the Amsterdam and then London stock exchanges in the late 1600s. But more importantly, the historical record is also a source of institutional detail and substance. For instance, that record reveals how investors relied on a trader’s reputation to honor Correspondence may be e-mailed to paul.harrison@frb.gov or addressed to the author at the Federal Reserve Board, 20th and C Street NW, Washington, D.C. 20551. I thank Dan Covitz and Neil De Marchi for detailed comments and suggestions, and Craufurd Goodwin, Roy Weintraub, and seminar participants at Duke University for helpful discussion. Some of the background text for this article is drawn directly from Harrison 2001. Naturally, the views expressed here are mine and not those of the Federal Reserve or the Board of Governors. This article is, to a large extent, a summary of an ongoing research project of mine and so draws directly on previous published and unpublished research where some of the points are made in more detail.
Transnational Capital, Urban Globalisation and Cross-Border Solidarity: The Case of the South African Municipal Workers

The article discusses the redefinition of strategies of international solidarity and action in South African organised labour, with particular regard to the South African Municipal Workers' Union (SAMWU). SAMWU has recently been challenged by the pervasive penetration of global capital and multinational corporations in schemes of “PublicAPrivate partnership” in the delivery of municipal infrastructures. These developments carry potential dangers for trade union organisation and for public services in a context of extreme inequality. SAMWU has identified international action against global capitalism as a decisive terrain of struggle for workers' and citizens' rights. However, the union's difficulties in articulating an effective confrontation at this level reflects broader problems in internationalist approaches adopted by South African labour. These refer primarily to a problematic conceptualisation of new subjects of opposition and of alliances with emerging global social movements.
Clinical significance of atypical glandular cells in cervical Papanicolaou smears.

OBJECTIVE To determine the prevalence and the rate of clinically significant lesions in women with atypical glandular cells in cervical Papanicolaou smears. MATERIAL AND METHOD A retrospective study was performed from the cytologic database of Charoenkrung Pracharak Hospital. All cervical cytologic examinations with a diagnosis of atypical glandular cells (AGC) between January 2002 and December 2009 were identified. Medical records were reviewed to determine the clinical data. Cytologic and histologic follow-up was obtained to establish the presence of clinically significant lesions. RESULTS One hundred eleven AGC Pap smears were identified from 47,347 Pap smears. The prevalence of AGC was 0.23% over the eight years of the period studied. Clinically significant lesions were diagnosed in 32.4% of the women, including invasive cancer in 18.3%. Women with AGC favor neoplasia were more likely to have clinically significant lesions (53.8%) than women with AGC not otherwise specified (20%, p = 0.003). The rate of clinically significant lesions in women aged 35 years or older (35.7%) was not statistically significant different from women younger than 35 years of age (20%, p = 0.356). All cases of invasive cancer were found in women aged 35 years or older Cervical adenocarcinoma was the most common invasive cancer found in the present study. CONCLUSION Women with atypical glandular cells on Papanicolaou smears were correlated with significant risk for clinically significant lesions, including invasive cancer Initial evaluation should include colposcopy, directed biopsy, and endocervical curettage. Women with risk factors for endometrial cancer should have an endometrial sampling.
The importance of poverty early in childhood

Introduction: Using a poverty line set at 60% of New Zealand’s median national income, nearly one in five New Zealand children (19%) was poor in 2011. This poverty rate is considerably less than that of the United States and Canada, similar to that of Australia, the United Kingdom, Germany and France, and much greater that in Scandinavian countries. These rates are far from immutable; New Zealand’s child poverty rate was much higher in 2004 before social policies were enacted which focused, in part, on the country’s child poverty problem.
Application of Spatial Spectrum Estimation Technique in Multibaseline SAR for Layover Solution

Spatial spectrum estimation technique is applied to resolve layover effect with multi-baseline synthetic aperture radar (SAR) in the paper. Based on the signal model of multi-baseline SAR, the mathematical principle of layover solution with spectrum estimation is derived. The main steps of spatial spectrum estimation technique for layover solution in multi-baseline SAR are obtained. In order to deal with the spectrum ambiguity problem generated by FFT method under limited multi-baseline SAR data, we introduce the Yule-Walker method for spectrum estimation to resolve layover effect. We analyze the principle of Yule-Walker method for performance improvement, and give the processing steps using Yule-Walker method for layover solution in detail. The simulation results for layover solution with FFT method and Yule-Walker method are realized and compared.
The Influence of Retailer Enterprise Marketing Information System on Bullwhip Effect

This study aims to investigate the influence of utilizing enterprise level marketing information system in the form of adopting a combination of software tools on the reduction of bullwhip effect. In order to formulate our research hypothesis, we revised the literature extensively. The empirical study findings indicated a positive influence and relationship between the Enterprise Marketing Information System in the form of ERP software, Social Media Monitoring Tools, Business Intelligence Tools and Reduction in Bullwhip Effect.
Cladribine tablets for the treatment of relapsing–remitting multiple sclerosis

Introduction: Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic immune-mediated disorder of the central nervous system leading to progressive neurodegeneration and disability. Until 2010, all approved disease-modifying drugs for MS required parenteral administration, which is associated with suboptimal adherence. It was anticipated that new approaches to treatment, including oral agents such as cladribine tablets, may improve adherence. In 2011, the development of cladribine tablets was stopped following negative feedback from the EMA and FDA. Areas covered: This article provides an overview of the chemistry, mechanism of action and pharmacological properties of cladribine tablets therapy, and highlights the rationale for its development as an oral treatment for MS. Key efficacy and safety data from the pivotal Phase III CLARITY study are presented, providing context for the opinion received from the regulatory agencies. Expert opinion: Despite the promising efficacy data observed in the cladribine tablets clinical trial program, regulatory agencies identified a potential risk of increased malignancies, and raised concerns about the implications of sustained lymphocyte depletion. Following the feedback received from the regulatory agencies, Merck Serono made the decision to withdraw the agent from the regulatory approval process. The experience gained will benefit other research efforts to address the outstanding unmet treatment needs of patients with relapsing MS.
Temporal Trends in Pediatric Mental Health Visits: Using Longitudinal Data to Inform Emergency Department Health Care Planning

Objective Understanding the temporality of mental health presentations to the emergency department (ED) during the 24-hour cycle, day of the week, and month of the year may facilitate strategic planning of ED-based mental health services. Methods Data on 30,656 ED presentations for mental illness, substance use, or intentional self-harm by 20,956 patients (⩽17 years) were examined. We studied patient demography, discharge diagnosis, and time and date of presentation. Results Most pediatric mental health ED visits (66.0%) occurred after the average work and school day (after 5 PM). Presentations related to substance use and intentional self-harm steadily increased in the evening. Emergency department visits related to substance use peaked on Friday through Sunday (4723/7475; 63.2%), whereas visits for mood disorders (4127/5093; 81.0%), neurotic/stress-related disorders (5960/7989; 74.6%), and behavioral/emotional disorders (237/304; 78%) were highest during the work/school week (Monday to Friday). Visits for intentional self-harm peaked following the weekend (Monday: 771/4676; 16.5%). Summer months had fewer visits (6862/30,656; 22.4%), whereas March to May (range: 2752–2912 visits) and October to November (range: 2701–2751 visits) showed more steady peaks in volume. Most presentations by diagnostic group decreased in volume during the winter months (December to February) to increase again in the spring (March to May). Conclusions Peak times for pediatric mental health presentations to the ED are evenings throughout the week, suggesting that mental health services for children, adolescents, and their families should be available after work and school hours, 7 days a week.
Adaptive Transmission Control for Improving Throughput Performance in Multi-Packet Reception-Enabled Wireless Networks

Multi-packet reception (MPR) technology makes it possible for wireless nodes to successfully receive multiple packets from simultaneous transmitters in wireless networks. As it can provide more transmission opportunities, the network throughput performance can be dramatically improved. In this paper, we propose a transmission chance adaptation strategy, which decides an appropriate level of channel access probability for each node in wireless networks. With the appropriate setting of channel access probability, the number of concurrent trans-missions would be close to MPR capability such that the throughput performance can be improved. Through extensive simulations, we show that the proposed transmission protocol outperforms the conventional IEEE 802.11 DCF mode in terms of the aggregate throughput.