Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Familial Danish Dementia

Familial Danish dementia is an early onset autosomal dominant neurodegenerative disorder linked to a genetic defect in the BRI2 gene and clinically characterized by dementia and ataxia. Cerebral amyloid and preamyloid deposits of two unrelated molecules (Danish amyloid (ADan) and β-amyloid (Aβ)), the absence of compact plaques, and neurofibrillary degeneration indistinguishable from that observed in Alzheimer disease (AD) are the main neuropathological features of the disease. Biochemical analysis of extracted amyloid and preamyloid species indicates that as the solubility of the deposits decreases, the heterogeneity and complexity of the extracted peptides exponentially increase. Nonfibrillar deposits were mainly composed of intact ADan-(1-34) and its N-terminally modified (pyroglutamate) counterpart together with Aβ-(1-42) and Aβ-(4-42) in ∼1:1 mixture. The post-translational modification, glutamate to pyroglutamate, was not present in soluble circulating ADan. In the amyloid fractions, ADan was heavily oligomerized and highly heterogeneous at the N and C terminus, and, when intact, its N terminus was post-translationally modified (pyroglutamate), whereas Aβ was mainly Aβ-(4-42). In all cases, the presence of Aβ-(X-40) was negligible, a surprising finding in view of the prevalence of Aβ40 in vascular deposits observed in sporadic and familial AD, Down syndrome, and normal aging. Whether the presence of the two amyloid subunits is imperative for the disease phenotype or just reflects a conformational mimicry remains to be elucidated; nonetheless, a specific interaction between ADan oligomers and Aβ molecules was demonstrated in vitro by ligand blot analysis using synthetic peptides. The absence of compact plaques in the presence of extensive neuro fibrillar degeneration strongly suggests that compact plaques, fundamental lesions for the diagnosis of AD, are not essential for the mechanism of dementia.
Changing reasons for public–private partnerships (PPPs)

This article considers the micro- and macro-economic benefits and costs of PPPs and some implications of implementing new international accounting standards. If public sector financial costs are forced to move ‘on balance sheet’, then there are likely to be impacts on the use in PPPs by governments and other public bodies. This may move the basis of PPP choice towards a more level playing-field with other financing sources, potentially give a more realistic measure of future public commitments and liabilities and reduce incentives to use PPPs for budget enlargement. There may be a refocusing upon the potential efficiency gains of PPPs and a reduction in their use, in some cases.
GPS Antenna Height and Its Influence on Pseudorange Multipath

The GPS antenna is the connecting component between the GPS satellite and the GPS receiver. Its function is to transfer the satellite signal propagation to the receiver with minimum interruption. A satisfactory process is expected to result in an accurate and reliable performance of the GPS receiver. Multipath error is a dominant error source connected with GPS positioning. Mitigation of such errors can be achieved by improving signal processing and a better antenna design.
Limited dependent variables in willingness to pay studies: applications in health care

The appropriate technique for econometric analysis of WTP (willingness to pay) data is an issue which has not been addressed in many studies of WTP for health and health care. This paper argues that, whether an open-ended question or a payment scale approach is adopted, the way in which WTP is recorded means that limited dependent variable models are more appropriate than standard regression analysis. Data from an open ended question on WTP for maternity care contain a large proportion of zeros and the evidence suggests that a two-part specification performs better than OLS or a standard Tobit model. If the payment scale method is adopted, our argument suggests that grouped data regression is an appropriate econometric technique. In practice, with data from a study in Northern Norway, the results from OLS and grouped data regression are broadly similar.
Measuring anxiety and depression in the oncology setting using visual-digital scales

We investigated the feasibility of using single-item visual-digital scales for measuring anxiety and depression for research purposes within the oncology and palliative care setting. Data were retrieved from five nationwide postal questionnaires comprising 3030 individuals (response rate 76%): cancer patients, widows/parents who had lost their husband/child to cancer and population controls. All questionnaires contained the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression scale (CES-D) and Spielberger's State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-T) as well as seven-point Visual-Digital Scales (VDS) assessing anxiety and depression. Each stepwise increased score on the VDS-depression provided a statistically significant increase in the mean score on CES-D (Spearman's r=0.582). The VDS-anxiety correlated with mean scores on STAI-T (Spearman's r=0.493), however, not all stepwise increased scores on the VDS-anxiety gave a statistically significant increase on the STAI-T. Positive- and negative predictive values were 51% and 91% for VDS-depression and 64% and 80% for VDS-anxiety. Missing data for STAI-T were 7% and 9% for CES-D; the corresponding figures were 2% for the VDS-depression and 3% for VDS-anxiety. With low attrition and agreement with psychometric scales, the Visual-Digital Scales are a feasible alternative for research in the oncology setting. However, the high negative predictive value and the low positive predictive value suggest that the visual- digital scales mainly detect the absence of the symptoms.
A novel power system in package with 3D chip on chip interconnections of the power transistor and its gate driver

Currently, most industrial power modules, even IPEMs (Intelligent Power Electronics Modules), are interconnected in a planar way, and interconnections are made with bonding wires. This paper presents a three dimensional interconnection solution based on the idea to flip chip the gate driver directly on the surface of the power device, simplifying and optimizing the packaging and the interconnections among the two devices and improving the overall performances. Various approaches and interconnection solutions will be presented in this paper, and the advantages of the chosen approach will be discussed. Then the technological process for the realization of the interconnections will be explained, and practical realizations will be shown.
Managerial attitudes towards environmental management among small and medium hotels in Kuala Lumpur

Empirical work on the acceptance of environmental impacts and responsibilities by hotels in developing countries is still relatively rare. There is also little work on understanding the relationship between business and environment among small and medium hotel companies. This research helps fill the knowledge gap by providing information on the responsiveness of small and medium hotels towards environmental management within the context of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, It explores the awareness and attitudes of small and medium hotel managers towards environmental management and their opinion on how things can be improved. Questionnaires containing Likert scale questions, supplemented by open-ended questions, were personally administered to willing participants. The findings indicate that respondents generally tend to provide positive response to the Likert scale questions, but refused or were unable to give clear answers to the open-ended questions which were designed to explore further the answers they provided. In practice, managers also did not go beyond the basic common sense of cutting their water and energy costs. These indicate a lack of clear and adequate knowledge about environmental management, and their tendency to be “politically correct” in relation to environmental issues. The paper ends with recommendations on how to improve the environmental management knowledge and know-how among managers of small and medium hotels.
Employment Protection Legislation: Evolution, Effects, Winners and Losers

Contents: Foreword by Assar Lindbeck Preface 1. Introduction 2. The Design and Evolution of Employment Protection Legislation 3. What Conceivable Effects of Employment Protection Legislation? 4. Why Legislation? 5. Empirical Studies on the Effects of Employment Protection Legislation 6. Conclusions and Discussion Appendix Bibliography Index
Incentives for the use of forest biomass: a comparative analysis of Kyoto Protocol accounting pre- and post-2012

This article focuses on differences between incentives of current and post-2012 Kyoto Protocol land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF) accounting rules. Three changes to the LULUCF accounting rules were agreed to in Durban. These changes alter national-level incentives for retaining wood in forests, using wood for products or using it for energy. Post-2012, accounting for emissions from managed forests will be mandatory rather than voluntary, as is currently the case. Reference levels, rather than historical carbon stock levels, will be used to measure these emissions. Finally, increases and decreases in harvested wood products (HWP) pools will be reported. These changes provide national-level incentives to increase forest carbon stocks and to use nationally harvested wood for products. However, the rule that no emissions are counted at the point of combustion of biomass remains unaltered. This gives entities with greenhouse gas (GHG) obligations under the EU Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS) an incentive to use wood for energy, counteracting the national-level incentives. Use of additionally harvested wood for energy may increase national emissions within commitment period time-frames because combustion of biomass, in most cases, results in higher carbon dioxide emissions per unit of energy supplied than combustion of the fossil fuels it replaces. In contrast, retention of wood in forests or use of domestic wood for products, will, particularly under the post-2012 rules, tend to result in lower national-level emissions being accounted. However, neither retention of wood in forests nor increases in the HWP pool results in benefits to individual entities, as currently there is no EU scheme under which the entities involved face GHG obligations.
Numerical simulation of electrocardiograms for full cardiac cycles in healthy and pathological conditions

This work is dedicated to the simulation of full cycles of the electrical activity of the heart and the corresponding body surface potential. The model is based on a realistic torso and heart anatomy, including ventricles and atria. One of the specificities of our approach is to model the atria as a surface, which is the kind of data typically provided by medical imaging for thin volumes. The bidomain equations are considered in their usual formulation in the ventricles, and in a surface formulation on the atria. Two ionic models are used: the Courtemanche–Ramirez–Nattel model on the atria and the ‘minimal model for human ventricular action potentials’ by Bueno‐Orovio, Cherry, and Fenton in the ventricles. The heart is weakly coupled to the torso by a Robin boundary condition based on a resistor–capacitor transmission condition. Various electrocardiograms (ECGs) are simulated in healthy and pathological conditions (left and right bundle branch blocks, Bachmann's bundle block, and Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome). To assess the numerical ECGs, we use several qualitative and quantitative criteria found in the medical literature. Our simulator can also be used to generate the signals measured by a vest of electrodes. This capability is illustrated at the end of the article. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Alice in Euroland

The article contains a detailed critique of the common currency arrangements of the Economic and Monetary Union, embodied in the laws and emerging procedural arrangements that govern the actions of its key institutions: the European Central Bank and the European System of Central Banks. The main message here is, ‘Great idea, shame about the execution’. A number of improvements are then proposed. Some of these require amending the Treaty, including an end to the rule that each EMU member’s national central bank has a seat on the Governing Council or the removal of the power of the Council of Ministers to give ‘general orientations’ for exchange rate policy. Others, notably in the areas of accountability, openness and transparency, could be implemented immediately, including publication of voting records, minutes and the inflation forecast. Improved arrangements are also advocated for the co‐ordination of monetary and fiscal policy. And the article calls for a European Parliament that can both bark and bite.
Metas de inflación ¿qué hay de nuevo bajo el sol?

Inlfation targeting is a relatively new way to administer the monetary policy, since the velocity of money revealed unstable and hard pegs unsustainable. The new regime is one of flexible exchange rates, and the target of the monetary policy becomes the rate of inflation itself, instead of any monetary aggregate or rate of interest. This paper is a conceptual discussion on the issue, and a review of the international discussion and experience in recent years.
An Empirical Study of Audit 'Expectation Gap' in The People's Republic of China

The audit 'expectation gap' is a crucial issue associated with the independent auditing function and has significant implications on the development of auditing standards and practices. Through a questionnaire survey, this study investigated the rise of 'expectation gap' and related auditing issues under business and auditing environment in the People's Republic of China. The results reveal that the role and benefits of public accounting (independent auditing) had been positively recognized by Chinese audit beneficiaries and auditors, and there were increasing demands for expanding the applicability of public accounting. This study obtained substantial evidence on the emergence of audit 'expectation gap' in China, with respect to audit objectives, auditor's obligation to detect and report fraud, auditor independence, and third party liability of auditors. The causes and practical implications of the 'expectation gap' are therefore analyzed contextual to the present practices of public accounting in changing Chinese social and economic conditions. This study should cast light on understanding of the institutional setting and recent development of independent audits in China.
Performance Targets and Public Service Improvement

Theories of rational planning suggest that organizational performance improves if targets for future achievements are set. We test this proposition using panel data for 147 English local education authorities between 1998 and 2003. The dependent variables in the analysis are exam results for school pupils. We find that, controlling for other variables, the extent of performance improvement is influenced positively by the presence of a target. Thus, the results are consistent with the view that clear and quantified strategic priorities lead to better organizational outcomes.
The Idea of an Ideal Liberal Arts College

Outlines a program of success for the liberal arts college including administrators and faculty that share a common view of what the goals of the college should be, a president with the skills to focus all contending interests on the campus on the common goals, academic integrity, a clearly defined system of values, personalization in administering, teaching and learning, the avoidance of the 'either.or' fallacy, and a commitment to a traditional liberal arts curriculum.
An Economic Analysis of the Law of False Advertising

THE past twenty years have produced a substantial literature suggesting the relevance of economic principles to the analysis of legal processes. ' A seminal line of inquiry has evaluated the proposition that the common law, despite its diversity, is founded upon a unifying principle: courts behave rationally as if to achieve economic efficiency.2 To explain why these efficient outcomes are likely, Rubin,3 Landes and Posner,4 and Goodman5 have proposed evolutionary models where efficiency is most likely to result if the opposing parties have symmetric, ongoing interests in cases of the sort being disputed.6 Disputes between competitors, characterized by the law as "unfair competition," would appear to be an area where the litigants would have the kind of ongoing interest which provides economic incentive to litigate to an efficient outcome. But in apparent contradiction to this expectation, the common law relating to false advertising has been criticized as being inefficient. Assume, for example, that firm A makes false claims about its product and, due to the deception, some consumers purchase the product. Although each consumer may well have a legal action against the seller, no
The Shortfall in Domestic Savings

Even if debt is not explosive, a persistent structural deficit in the neighborhood of 5 percent of GNP-as projected by the CBO poses a serious threat to long-term economic growth. The danger stems from the current imbalance between domestic savings and credit demands an imbalance that is likely to continue. Historically, the private domestic savings rate has been stable, and impervious to the level of interest rates and credit demands of the federal government. In this situation, any large increase in federal credit demands must be met either by an increase in foreign savings (a net capital inflow) or by a decline in private credit demands. The present concern is that federal demands will crowd out private credit demands and thereby stifle private investment. So far this has not happened because the shortfall in domestic savings has been met by a sharp increase in the net inflow of foreign savings. In the past year alone, this net inflow approached $100 billion, amounting to almost one-third of the net private domestic savings and to more than one-half the budget deficit.
Warm-up intensity and duration's effect on traditional rowing time-trial performance.

UNLABELLED The warm-up procedure in traditional rowing usually involves continuous low-intensity rowing and short bouts of intense exercise, lasting about 60 min. PURPOSE To compare the effects of a traditional and an experimental 30-min warm-up of lower intensity on indoor rowing time-trial performance. METHODS Fourteen highly trained male rowers (age 25.9 ± 5.3 y, height 1.86 ± 0.06 m, mass 80.4 ± 5.2 kg, peak aerobic power 352.0 ± 24.4 W; mean ± SD) performed 2 indoor rowing trials 12 d apart. Rowers were randomly assigned to either LONG or SHORT warm-ups using a crossover design, each followed by a 10-min all-out fixed-seat rowing-ergometer time trial. RESULTS Mean power output during the time trial was substantially higher after SHORT (322 ± 18 vs 316 ± 17 W), with rowers generating substantially more power in the initial 7.5 min of the time trial after SHORT. LONG elicited substantially higher mean warm-up heart rate than SHORT (134 ± 11 vs 121 ± 13 beats/min), higher pre-time-trial rating of perceived exertion (10.2 ± 1.4 vs 7.6 ± 1.7) and blood lactate (1.7 ± 0.4 mM vs 1.2 ± 0.2 mM), but similar heart rate (100 ± 14 vs 102 ± 9 beats/min). No substantial differences were observed between LONG and SHORT in stroke rate (39.4 ± 2.0 vs 39.4 ± 2.2 strokes/min) or mean heart rate (171 ± 6 vs 171 ± 8 beats/min) during the time trial, nor in blood lactate after it (11.8 ± 2.5 vs 12.1 ± 2.0 mM). CONCLUSION A warm-up characterized by lower intensity and shorter duration should elicit less physiological strain and promote substantially higher power production in the initial stages of a rowing time trial.
Distributional Effects of Environmental and Energy Policy: An Introduction

This chapter reviews literature on the distributional effects of environmental and energy policy. In particular, many effects of such policy are likely regressive. First, it raises the price of fossil-fuel-intensive products, expenditures on which are a high fraction of low-income budgets. Second, if abatement technologies are capital-intensive, then any mandate to abate pollution may induce firms to use more capital. If demand for capital is raised relative to labor, then a lower relative wage may also hurt low-income households. Third, pollution permits handed out to firms bestow scarcity rents on well-off individuals who own those firms. Fourth, low-income individuals may place more value on food and shelter than on incremental improvements in environmental quality. If high-income individuals get the most benefit of pollution abatement, then this effect is regressive as well. Fifth, low-income renters miss out on house price capitalization of air quality benefits. Well-off landlords may reap those gains. Sixth, transition effects could well hurt the unemployed who are already at some disadvantage. These six effects might all hurt the poor more than the rich. This paper discusses whether these fears are valid, and whether anything can be done about them.
Total contact cast for neuropathic diabetic foot ulcers.

OBJECTIVE To determine the outcome of diabetic neuropathic foot ulcers treated with Total Contact Cast (TCC) in terms of percentage of ulcers healed and time to heal. STUDY DESIGN Analytical study. PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Abbasi Shaheed Hospital, Karachi Medical and Dental College, from April 2005 to March 2007. METHODOLOGY The study included diabetic patients with non-ischemic neuropathic foot ulcers of upto grade 2 of Wagner's classification. Ulcers were debrided off necrotic tissues and Total Contact Cast (TCC) was applied. TCC was renewed every 2 weeks till healing. Cases were labeled as cast failure when there was no reduction in wound size in 4 consecutive weeks or worsening to a higher grade. Main outcome measures were the percentage of ulcers healed and time to heal in the cast. RESULTS Thirty four (87.17%) patients were males and 5(12.82%) were females. The mean age was 62 +/- 13.05 years. All patients had NIDDM. Out of the 52 ulcers, 41(78.84%) healed with TCC in an average 2 casts duration (mean 32 days). There were 11(21.15%) cast failure. Majority (63.63%) of cast failure ulcers were located on pressure bearing area of heel. Most (90%) of the ulcers on forefoot and midsole region healed with TCC (p < 0.001). Longer ulcer duration (mean 57.45 +/- 29.64 days) significantly reduced ulcer healing (p < 0.001). CONCLUSION Total contact cast was an effective treatment modality for neuropathic diabetic foot ulcers of Wagner's grade 2, located on forefoot and midsole region.
Semiparametric Estimation of the Intercept of a Sample Selection Model

This paper provides a consistent and asymptotically normal estimator for the intercept of a semiparametrically estimated sample selection model. The estimator uses a decreasingly small fraction of all observations as the sample size goes to infinity, as in Heckman (1990). In the semiparametrics literature, estimation of the intercept has typically been subsumed in the nonparametric sample selection bias correction term. The estimation of the intercept, however, is important from an economic perspective. For instance, it permits one to determine the "wage gap" between unionized and nonunionized workers, decompose the wage differential between different socioeconomic groups (e.g. male-female and black-white), and evaluate the net benefits of a social programme.