Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Factors associated with telemonitoring use among patients with chronic heart failure

Background In adults with chronic heart failure (HF; defined as people with previously diagnosed left ventricular dysfunction) telemonitoring randomized controlled trials (RCTs) failed to consistently demonstrate improved clinical outcomes. We aimed to examine if patient and HF characteristics are associated with device preferences and use. Methods Using a cross-sectional, multicenter, international design, ambulatory and hospitalized adults with HF in Ohio, California, and Denmark viewed a six-minute video of telemonitoring configurations (tablet, smart phone, and key fob) and completed questionnaires. Comparative analyses were performed and when significant, pairwise comparisons were performed using Bonferroni-adjusted significance levels. Results Of 206 participants, 48.2% preferred smart phones for telemonitoring, especially when traveling (54.8%), with new/worsening symptoms (50%), for everyday use (50%), and connecting with doctors (48.5%). Participants preferred two-way communication and a screen with words over voice or number pads. Of device purposes, allowing for nurse communication ranked highest, followed by maintaining overall health. Very few patient and HF factors were associated with device preferences. Patients with higher health literacy (p = 0.007), previous/current device use history (p = 0.008), higher education level (p = 0.035), and married/cohabitating status (p = 0.023) had higher perceptions of ease of using devices. Those who were asymptomatic or had mild HF had higher self-confidence for health devices (p = 0.024) and non-white patients perceived devices as more useful (p = 0.033). Conclusion Telemonitoring use may be enhanced by simple plug-and-play type devices, two-way communication, and features that meet patients’ personal learning and use needs.
A comparison of auditors’ legal liability in the USA and selected European countries

Compares auditors’ legal liability to third parties in several major countries, with principal emphasis on comparisons between the USA and the UK. Public accountants claim that they are being adversely affected by lawsuits brought by shareholders, creditors and other third parties. It has been asserted, without any specific evidence, that increased exposure to legal liability has caused public accounting firms to cease the practice of auditing or go out of business entirely. Details auditors’ legal liability to third parties in the USA and Europe and, in particular, the UK. Concludes by reviewing certain positions taken by the Federation des Experts Comptables Europeens with respect to auditors’ legal liability in the face of European economic and political union.
Cholesterol and Cholate Components of an Atherogenic Diet Induce Distinct Stages of Hepatic Inflammatory Gene Expression*

Atherosclerosis in inbred mouse strains has been widely studied by using an atherogenic (Ath) diet containing cholesterol, cholic acid, and fat, but the effect of these components on gene expression has not been systematically examined. We employed DNA microarrays to interrogate gene expression levels in liver of C57BL/6J mice fed the following five diets: mouse chow, the Ath diet, or modified versions of the Ath diet in which either cholesterol, cholate, or fat were omitted. Dietary cholesterol and cholate produced discrete gene expression patterns. Cholesterol was required for induction of genes involved in acute inflammation, including three genes of the serum amyloid A family, three major histocompatibility class II antigen genes, and various cytokine-related genes. In contrast, cholate induced expression of genes involved in extracellular matrix deposition in hepatic fibrosis, including five collagen family members, collagen-interacting proteins, and connective tissue growth factor. The gene expression findings were confirmed by biochemical measurements showing that cholesterol was required for elevation of circulating serum amyloid A, and cholate was required for accumulation of collagen in the liver. The possibility that these gene expression changes are relevant to atherogenesis in C57BL/6J mice was supported by the observation that the closely related, yet atherosclerosis-resistant, C57BL/6ByJ strain was largely resistant to dietary induction of the inflammatory and fibrotic response genes. These results establish that cholesterol and cholate components of the Ath diet have distinct proatherogenic effects on gene expression and suggest a strategy to study the contribution of acute inflammatory response and fibrogenesis independently through dietary manipulation.
Risk-return relationships in the Hong Kong stock market: revisit

This study revisits the risk-return relationships in the Hong Kong stock market using a conditional model based on up and down markets. Beta is found significantly and positively (negatively) related to realized returns when the market excess returns are positive (negative). The same results are found for unsystematic risk, total risk and kurtosis of stock returns during up and down markets when they are added to the model. Furthermore, skewness is significantly but negatively (positively) related to realized returns during up (down) markets. These results indicate that other risk measures in addition to beta are also important in pricing risky assets and investors do not hold diversified portfolios in this market. Moreover, the results support investors’ preference that they prefer positive skewness but dislike kurtosis.
Toxicity of Mycotoxins from Contaminated Corn with or withoutYeast Cell Wall Adsorbent on Broiler Chickens

This study investigated the effects of feeds naturally contaminated with mycotoxins on growth performance, serum biochemical parameters, carcass traits, and splenic heat shock protein 70 (Hsp70) mRNA expression levels in broiler chickens. The efficacy of yeast cell wall (YCW) adsorbent in preventing mycotoxicosis was also evaluated. Three hundred 1-d-old Arbor Acres broiler chicks were randomly allotted to 3 treatments in completely randomized design for 42 d. Each treatment group had 5 replicate pens with 20 birds. The treatments were as follows: i) basal diet (control), ii) naturally contaminated diet (NCD), and iii) NCD+0.2% YCW adsorbent (NCDD). The NCD decreased average daily gain (ADG) (p<0.01) of 0 to 21 d, 22 to 42 d, and 0 to 42 d, and increased feed conversion ratio (p<0.01) of 22 to 42 d and 0 to 42 d. Both the breast meat percentage and thigh meat percentage of the NCD group were significantly higher (p<0.01) than that of the control group on d 21. The NCD group showed significantly increased levels of triglycerides (p<0.05) and cholesterol (p<0.05) on both d 21 and d 42 compared to the control group. However, the NCD significantly reduced (p<0.01) the high-density lipoprotein (HDL) on d 42 compared to controls. Compared with the NCD, supplementation with YCW significantly improved (p<0.01) the ADG of 0 to 21 d and 0 to 42 d, and increased (p<0.01) concentrations of HDL on d 42, and on d 21, and triglycerides (p<0.05) on d 21 and d 42. Supplementation with YCW reduced (p<0.01) the breast meat percentage, the thigh meat percentage, the concentrations of cholesterol (p<0.01) and the low-density lipoprotein (p<0.05) on d 21, and improved (p<0.01) the splenic Hsp70 mRNA expression levels compared with the NCD group. The results of this study indicated that feeding NCD for 42 d had adverse effects on broiler chickens, and that YCW might be beneficial in counteracting the effects of mycotoxins.
Strict identifiability of multiple FIR channels driven by an unknown arbitrary sequence

The problem of blind identification of multiple finite impulse response (FIR) channels driven by a common input arises in a wide range of applications. It has received increasing attention in the signal processing community. A system of multiple FIR channels driven by an unknown input is said to be strictly identifiable if, in the absence of noise, the given channel outputs can only be realized by a unique (up to a constant) system impulse response and a unique input sequence. We show necessary and sufficient conditions for strict identifiability, and establish a connection among strict identifiability, a cross-relation-based (CR-based) identifiability and a Fisher information-based (FI-based) identifiability.
Fiscal Federalism, Democracy and Trade Integration. The Case of Brazilian VAT

In a context of generalization of decentralization in the world going "hand in hand" with democratization and globalization, Brazil qualifies the universality of this process, at least in matter of fiscal federalism. In the paper, we firstly adopt a comparative perspective relative to an important component of fiscal revenue: VAT. The main differences between the two fiscal system –VAT in EU and ICMS in Brazil- is the "rule of origin" prominent in intra-Brazilian trade vs the "rule of destination" dominant in intra-European trade. We show how the Brazilian system induces distortions as well in trade between States as foreign trade. It can drive to fiscal wars between States. We confirm that if exports have no impact on VAT revenues, imports increase them. Even non-equalitarian, we show a trend in favor of convergence in VAT revenues between Brazilian states.
Post-Cairo reproductive health policies and programs: a comparative study of eight countries.

This report presents case studies of reproductive health (RH) and family planning programs and policies in Bangladesh India Nepal Ghana Jordan Senegal Jamaica and Peru. Data were obtained from in-depth interviews among 20-44 individuals in each country who were key representatives of population and RH government ministries parliaments academia nongovernmental organizations womens groups donor agencies and health care staff. Findings focus on the following topics: RH context; the policy process; participation support and opposition; policy implementation; financial resources; and general implementation. Progress is gauged based on improving knowledge of stakeholders; planning for integrated and decentralized services; developing human resources; improving quality of care; addressing legal social and regulatory issues; clarifying donors role; and maintaining long-term aims. All countries made considerable though limited progress according to the mandates of the 1994 Cairo Plan of Action. Population size ranges from 2.6 million in Jamaica to nearly 1 billion in India. The countries vary in level of urbanization literacy fertility contraceptive prevalence infant mortality maternal mortality and prenatal care and delivery. Although the social cultural and economic contexts vary all countries have a subordinate role for women. All countries struggled with setting priorities financing and implementation. Bangladesh made the greatest progress. Jordan still emphasizes mostly family planning. India Nepal Jordan Senegal and Peru will need donor funding to advance a broad constellation of services.
Power of genome‐wide association studies in the presence of interacting loci

Though multiple interacting loci are likely involved in the etiology of complex diseases, early genome‐wide association studies (GWAS) have depended on the detection of the marginal effects of each locus. Here, we evaluate the power of GWAS in the presence of two linked and potentially associated causal loci for several models of interaction between them and find that interacting loci may give rise to marginal relative risks that are not generally considered in a one‐locus model. To derive power under realistic situations, we use empirical data generated by the HapMap ENCODE project for both allele frequencies and linkage disequilibrium (LD) structure. The power is also evaluated in situations where the causal single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) may not be genotyped, but rather detected by proxy using a SNP in LD. A common simplification for such power computations assumes that the sample size necessary to detect the effect at the tSNP is the sample size necessary to detect the causal locus directly divided by the LD measure r2 between the two. This assumption, which we call the “proportionality assumption”, is a simplification of the many factors that contribute to the strength of association at a marker, and has recently been criticized as unreasonable (Terwilliger and Hiekkalinna [2006] Eur J Hum Genet 14(4):426–437), in particular in the presence of interacting and associated loci. We find that this assumption does not introduce much error in single locus models of disease, but may do so in so in certain two‐locus models. Genet. Epidemiol. 2007. © 2007 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Energy Management for Households With Solar Assisted Thermal Load Considering Renewable Energy and Price Uncertainty

In this paper, we investigate the energy scheduling problem for a household equipped with a solar assisted heating, ventilation, and air conditioning, and water heating system in the real-time pricing environment. Our objective is to minimize the electricity cost while maintaining user's thermal comfort requirements. We consider different types of loads with different characteristics, detailed modeling of thermal dynamics, and uncertainty in electricity price and solar energy. The advantage of the proposed design lies in the exploitation of the solar assisted thermal system that can flexibly utilize the energy from the solar source or from the grid during low-price periods to support the home hot water demand, user thermal indoor temperature preference while reducing the electricity cost. We present numerical results to illustrate the effectiveness of our proposed design. Specifically, we show that the proposed design can achieve significant cost saving, allow flexible tradeoff between user comfort tolerance and electricity cost reduction, and efficiently adjust the electricity consumption load profile. We also analyze the influence of solar assisted thermal system factors such as the water tank temperature limit, solar collector size, and weather condition on the achievable cost.
REGENERATION IN CELLULAR AND ACELLULAR AUTOGRAFTS IN THE PERIPHERAL NERVOUS SYSTEM

The regeneration that occurs in cellular autografts of sciatic nerve has been compared with that seen in acellular models prepared either by cycles of alternating freezing and thawing, or by detergent‐extraction. The responses to either fresh or pre‐degenerate grafts (cellular and acellular) have been examined electron microscopically. It was found that whereas neurites grew into a fresh autograft and rapidly re‐established functional relationships with vital Schwann cells lying in bands of Biingner within the graft, penetration of acellular grafts was less efficient. Many basal lamina tubes in the acellular grafts remained either empty or filled with debris‐laden macrophages for the first 2 weeks after suture, although subsequently reinnervation did occur. The roles of Schwann cells, macrophages and basal laminae during reinnervation are discussed.
Creating the Black Ghetto

Were black ghettos a product of white reaction to the Great Migration in the 1920s and 1930s, or did the ghettoization process have earlier roots? This article takes advantage of recently available data on black and white residential patterns in several major northern cities in the period 1880–1940. Using geographic areas smaller than contemporary census tracts, we trace the growth of black populations in each city and trends in the level of isolation and segregation. In addition we analyze the determinants of location: which blacks lived in neighborhoods with higher black concentrations, and what does this tell us about the ghettoization process? We find that the development of ghettos in an embryonic form was well underway in 1880, that segregation became intense prior to the Great Migration, and that in this whole period blacks were segregated based on race rather than class or southern origin.
A Research on Service Recognition

Service exists in the service provider and the service receiver. They can produce the contractual relationship which is value and trust mutually. People can obtain the different intension of service with different knowledge background and technique. In this paper, service is recognized in the views of 12 levels. Through the description and analysis of these 12 levels, the method for existing services is summarized. Thereby the important impact on service science is elaborated in the modern economy.
LEASE REVENUE REPORTING ON THE SIDE OF LESSOR IN CONNECTION WITH TRANSFER OF RIGHT TO USE ASSETS (RTU) TO LESSEE

SVOBODA, P. : Lease revenue reporting on the side of lessor in connection with transfer of right to use assets (RTU) to lessee. Acta univ. agric. et silvic. Mendel. Brun. , 2011, LIX, No. 7, pp. 403–414 The paper analyzed some of the approaches whose application is eligible for the recording of lease contracts on the side of lessor so that this recording display as closely as possible the essence of the lease relationship and at the same time it would be symmetrical to the way of recording on the side of lessee resulting not from value of transferred physical assets but from the evaluated right to use this asset. Impacts of individual variants of approaches into the income statement and statement of fi nancial position are analyzed. It turns out that apparently it is not possible to apply only one approach (as it is in the case of lessee), without gross distortion of the fi nancial position of the lessor. Some of the options of derecognition approach truly shows the situation, especially in long-term leases and leases where the risks and rewards associated with the lease are transferred to the lessee, for the other leases it is recommended sometimes to use underecognition property from the assets of the lessor during the lease period, but rather report a liability to leave to lessee to use (performance obligations approach). Compared with the current method of recording an operating lease, this approach without taking into account the cost of maintenance leads to another course of reporting profi ts (rise in the early stages against the growth in the fi nal stages), but also brings a more fundamental problem, and it is overvaluation of lessor’s assets. In addition, it is possible to doubt about the correctness to report such liability as an unconditional liability. The approach is also not consistent with the IASB and the FASB project that is devoted to the recognition of revenues. The possible way, according to author’s opinion, might be regulation of existing model of reporting operating lease or derecognition approach.
Market Orientation and Business Performance

Abstract The purpose of this study was to conduct an investigation into the link between market orientation and business performance using sample data from firms operating in Mainland China, a communist country undergoing economic transformation from a planned economy to a market economy. The study found that market orientation was positively and significantly associated with sales growth, customer retention and overall performance. Implications of our findings were discussed and limitations of the study as well as future research directions were addressed.
Brain‐derived neurotrophic factor and tyrosine kinase receptor TrkB in rat brain are significantly altered after haloperidol and risperidone administration

The antipsychotics haloperidol and risperidone are widely used in the therapy of schizophrenia. The former drug mainly acts on the dopamine (DA) D2 receptor whereas risperidone binds to both DA and serotonin (5HT) receptors, particularly in the neurons of striatal and limbic structures. Recent evidence suggests that neurotrophins might also be involved in antipsychotic action in the central nervous system (CNS). We have previously reported that haloperidol and risperidone significantly affect brain nerve growth factor (NGF) level suggesting that these drugs influence the turnover of endogenous growth factors. Brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) supports survival and differentiation of developing and mature brain DA neurons. We hypothesized that treatments with haloperidol or risperidone will affect synthesis/release of brain BDNF and tested this hypothesis by measuring BDNF and TrkB in rat brain regions after a 29‐day‐treatment with haloperidol or risperidone added to chow. Drug treatments had no effects on weight of brain regions. Chronic administration of these drugs, however, altered BDNF synthesis or release and expression of TrkB‐immunoreactivity within the brain. Both haloperidol and risperidone significantly decreased BDNF concentrations in frontal cortex, occipital cortex and hippocampus and decreased or increased TrkB receptors in selected brain structures. Because BDNF can act on a variety of CNS neurons, it is reasonable to hypothesize that alteration of brain level of this neurotrophin could constitute one of the mechanisms of action of antipsychotic drugs. These observations also support the possibility that neurotrophic factors play a role in altered brain function in schizophrenic disorders. J. Neurosci. Res. 60:783–794, 2000. © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Expatriate performance management and firm internationalization: Australian multinationals in China:

This paper presents the results of an empirical study exploring the expatriate performance management systems of 16 Australian multinational firms operating in China. The results show that highly internationalized firms tend to be better at deploying the ‘hard’ components of performance management (goal-setting and performance appraisals), and yet most firms, and in particular highly internationalized ones, are poor at managing ‘soft’ control mechanisms like training and mentoring. The results give some support for the notion that expatriate performance management takes on increased importance as a firm's international operations become more dispersed; however, it also suggests a lack of appreciation of the value of soft control mechanisms in achieving this. The study contributes to international human resource management literature by identifying the relationship between the degree of internationalization of firms and the nature of expatriate performance management.
Daily Business and External Condition Indices for the Australian Economy

We estimate an unobservable domestic business conditions index for Australia using a variety of observable macroeconomic and financial variables, relating it to an unobservable external index involving external variables relevant to Australia. Our small open economy, dynamic factor model uses stock and flow variables arriving at mixed frequencies. We find important links between the domestic and external indices, consistent with the small open economy assumption.
Aerosol optical depth retrieval from recalibrated AVHRR data for China mainland in 1998

The retrieval of the distribution of aerosol properties and determination of trends in their temporal variation can only be achieved by the use of long-term satellite measurements. The Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) carried on board the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the EUMETSAT Meteorological Operational Satellite (Metop) polar orbiting satellites offers more than 35 years of satellite data since 1978 which makes it worthwhile to explore their use for the analysis of aerosols on a daily basis. So in this paper we applied the algorithm for the land aerosol and bidirectional reflectance inversion by times series technique (LABITS) to data from AVHRR Channel 1 on the NOAA-12 and NOAA-14 satellites using a model for the earth-atmosphere system which couples an atmospheric radiative transfer model with the Ross - Thick - Li-sparse bidirectional reflectance factor (BRF) model. Preliminary results show that LABITS provides good results over China for different surface type. Comparing our results with the with SeaWiFS (Sea-Viewing Wide Field-of-View Sensor) aerosol product AOD products shows good agreement. The algorithm has the potential to retrieve global AOD over land for long time series of NOAA AVHRR data going back to the 1980s, which are urgently needed for studies on aerosol climatology and global climate change.