Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survival in the Elderly with Acute Leukemia *

ABSTRACT: The natural history of acute leukemia in the elderly is not well understood. There is disagreement about the value of treatment other than by supportive measures. In this study, the survival predictive power of 9 variables was analyzed in 103 patients aged 70 or older for whom a bone‐marrow cytologic diagnosis of acute leukemia had been made at a referral hospital during the 30year period, 1947–1976. When given, treatment was uniformly conservative. Blood leukocyte and platelet counts and hematocrit values at the time of diagnosis, sex, treatment, and the calendar year of diagnosis were significant (P < 0.01) predictors of survival duration. Initial hematologic measurements, presumably reflecting the degree of leukemic cell infiltration of the bone marrow, were the strongest predictors of survival, whereas leukemic cell type had no predictive power. Survival increased significantly (P < 0.01) during the 30year period of the study, possibly more attributable to improved supportive care than to specific antileukemic therapy. Apparently survival is at least partly determined at the time of diagnosis, and conservative therapy often may be beneficial rather than detrimental.
Union Involvement in Workplace Change: A Comparative Study of Local Unions in Canada and Mexico

This paper examines the sources of local union power to cope with workplace change. Are workplace unions active participants, merely passengers, outright opponents, or entirely excluded from the change process? Drawing on 18 case studies and a survey conducted in the auto and metalworking industries in Mexico and Canada, the results suggest that greater internal solidarity, stronger articulation with other levels of union and community activity and the pursuit of an autonomous agenda all provide the basis for enhanced local union bargaining power in the context of globalization. This general conclusion applies to Canadian as well as Mexican local unions and suggests analytical paths for understanding the construction and renewal of union power.
The medium of instruction in Hong Kong: policy and practice in the new English and Chinese streams

In September 1998, Hong Kong's Education Department introduced the first stage of a controversial language policy which, when fully implemented, will bring about a fundamental change in the roles of the English and Chinese languages in the territory's education system at secondary level. The new policy, which was announced shortly after the transfer of sovereignty over Hong Kong from Britain to China in 1997, stipulates that the majority (around 300) of the territory's English-medium schools should adopt Chinese as the medium of instruction (MOI). Only 114 schools have been allowed to ‘continue’ teaching in English. In the community-wide debate which followed the announcement of the policy, reference was frequently made in the media to the fact that the select group of English schools would ‘retain’ English as the MOI, while those English schools which failed to receive permission to ‘continue’ using English would be forced to ‘switch’ from English to Chinese. This paper, which examines the language of oral communication in the English-medium stream prior to the introduction of the new policy, assesses the changes which teachers and students in the English schools and former English (i.e. now Chinese) schools will need to make in order to implement the new policy.
Atheory of Quality Competition in Newspaper Joint Operating Agreements

Newspaper Joint Operating Agreements (JOAs) are long-term, inflexible contracts between metropolitan daily newspapers in the same market. These contracts maintain two editorial voices while combining all business operations of the two competitors in order to capture many of the scale economies that have put an end to newspaper competition in most markets. The question we address is what, if anything, drives newspapers to compete editorially once a JOA is formed? With contract terms that run in the tens of years, one might reasonably question whether incentives exist to prod the partners to continue rigorous competition. Our study of JOA contracts indicates that the history of JOAs is filled with instances of unprogrammed renegotiations and that how the partners fare in these negotiations appears to be driven by each party's relative success in the market since the agreement was initiated. In essence, forming a JOA does not resolve the issue of which newspaper will remain in the marketplace once the JOA terminates. Editorial competition throughout the life of the JOA resolves this issue.
Factors associated with early diagnosis in pediatric vs adult nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract Objective: To improve understanding of the initial symptom between pediatric and adult nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and to improve the early diagnosis of NPC. Methods: This retrospective cohort study included all 353 patients with a primary diagnosis of NPC in the First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University from January 2010 to December 2016. Of these, 34 patients were 21 years or younger (pediatric); 319 patients, older than 21 years (adult). Data were analyzed after data collection. Results: We found no difference between pediatric and adult patients in terms of their sex distribution (p > .05). Type III, undifferentiated carcinoma is the most common subtype in Pediatric patients, while adult patients had more squamous cell tumors (p < .01). Pediatric patients were more likely to present with stage IV disease (p < .05). Of the 353 patients, 120 (34.0%) had only one presenting symptom initially; however, most patients presented two or more episodes. Neck mass was the most common presenting symptom initially in children and adolescents, while multiple ear symptoms in adult patients (p = .003). The median time from onset of the presenting symptom to diagnosis is three months, adult patient presented longer history (64.7% vs 44.55, p < .05). Of the 319 adult patients, there were 142 which the time from onset of the presenting symptom to diagnosis is less than 3 months and there were 177 more than 3 months, the difference was significant between the two groups (p < .05). There were no differences in the misdiagnosis rate between pediatric and adult (35.1 vs 31.0, p > .05). Among pediatric patients, 31 (91.2%) had positive EBV DNA in peripheral plasma. EBV DNA was significantly associated with stage (p < .05). Conclusions: Although uncommon, pediatric NPC appears to affect a different patient demographic relative to adult NPC. NPC in children is associated with undifferentiated carcinoma and more advanced disease presentation.
Growth Impact of Major Sporting Events

Abstract In this paper we analyse the impact of organizing major sporting events on economic growth. We present ex-post-cross-country event results for the Summer Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. Both descriptive statistics of the relation between the timing of events and economic growth and estimation results of a panel growth model that incorporates both regular growth determinants and the timing of major sports events are presented. We observe that the Summer Olympic Games stimulate per capita GDP (gross domestic product)-growth, while the FIFA World Cup does not.
Design of a Sliding-Mode-Controlled SEPIC for PV MPPT Applications

In this paper, the procedure for designing a sliding-mode controller for maximum power point tracking photovoltaic (PV) applications is proposed. It is applied to a single-ended primary inductor converter, thus to a fourth-order topology, but it can be extended to a wide class of converters suitable for PV applications. The reachability and existence conditions give rise to a number of design inequalities that add to the classical steady-state conditions in order to have the desired closed-loop converter's performances. The superiority of the control technique over the classical tracking methods is analytically demonstrated through the procedure proposed in this paper. The analytical results have been validated by means of both simulations and experiments.
The Structure of the Female/Male Wage Differential Is It Who You Are, What You Do, or Where You Work?

The efficacy of policies to narrow the male/female wage differential depends partly on the size of the portion(s) of the gap targeted. Previous research finds no between-sex wage gap within occupations within employer (job-cell). This is the first study to disentangle segregation by occupation from that based on employer or on job-cell. In five industries, controlling for other forms of segregation, occupational segregation produces a gap of 11 percent (manufacturing) to 26 percent (services). The wage gaps from establishment and job-cell segregation are about 6 percent each. Since comparable worth acts on the occupation and job-cell components, it has a potentially large impact.
Fourier coefficients for theta representations on covers of general linear groups

We show that the theta representations on certain covers of general linear groups support certain types of unique functionals. The proof involves two types of Fourier coefficients. The first are semi-Whittaker coefficients, which generalize coefficients introduced by Bump and Ginzburg for the double cover. The covers for which these coefficients vanish identically (resp. do not vanish for some choice of data) are determined in full. The second are the Fourier coefficients associated with general unipotent orbits. In particular, we determine the unipotent orbit attached, in the sense of Ginzburg, to the theta representations.
Treatment of Psoriasis with Efalizumab in Patients with Hepatitis C Viral Infection: Report of Five Cases

Background: Concomitant hepatitis C virus infection (HCV) needs caution when selecting systemic treatments in psoriasis patients as some agents confer a risk of liver toxicity and/or are immunosuppressant. Phototherapy may provide a therapeutic choice but it is not always a practical option. Limited evidence supports the use of cyclosporine or TNF-α blockers. No data are available concerning the safety of efalizumab in patients with HCV infection. Objective: To describe the clinical characteristics and evolution of 5 adult patients with severe chronic plaque psoriasis and concomitant HCV infection who were treated with efalizumab. Method: A retrospective clinical case report. Results: Five adult patients with severe chronic plaque psoriasis and concomitant HCV infection were treated successfully using efalizumab with no increased viral replication and progression of liver disease for a follow-up of 8–20 months. Conclusion: Although further confirmation is needed, this report provides preliminary evidence to support also a cautious use of efalizumab in patients with HCV infection.
Pay more get more? What buyers say

Purpose – This study investigated perceptions useful for pricing decisions. Buyers observing premium prices may believe that “you get what you pay for,” but do buyers seeing low prices believe that “you do not get what you do not pay for”? This research tested the idea that these two statements often prompt different perceptions.Design/methodology/approach – Data came from a questionnaire completed by 105 working professionals in an evening MBA program at a metropolitan university. A randomly selected half received one version, asking about the statement “you get what you pay for. ” The other half received an otherwise identical version asking about “you do not get what you do not pay for. ” All were asked whether they believed the statement, Yes or No, and then asked to offer an example from their own experience to support that answer.Findings – As expected, different examples were offered, depending on the statement. Examples agreeing that “you get what you pay for” disproportionately involved quality. Ex.
House Price Changes and Idiosyncratic Risk: The Impact of Property Characteristics

While the average change in house prices is related to changes in fundamentals or perhaps market-wide bubbles, not all houses in a market appreciate at the same rate. The primary focus of our study is to investigate the reasons for these variations in price changes among houses within a market. We draw on two theories for guidance, one related to the optimal search strategy for sellers of atypical dwellings and the other focusing on the bargaining process between a seller and potential buyers. We hypothesize that houses will appreciate at different rates depending on the characteristics of the property and the change in the strength of the housing market. These hypotheses are supported using data from three New Zealand housing markets.
Introduction of domestic buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) into Ethiopia would be feasible

Abstract Due to its high agro-ecological variation and favorable production environment, Ethiopia has been endowed with high diversity of animal genetic resources and huge livestock population. However, the per capita consumption of livestock products is among the least in the world. To increase this consumption level, Ethiopia needs to keep livestock species that would be able to thrive under sub-optimal management systems, while providing some amount of products and services. The domestic buffalo (Bubalus bubalis) is one of the large ruminants that contribute to the least developed world's food and agriculture production. Therefore, introduction of the riverine-type buffalo would support food and agriculture production in Ethiopia. Moreover, the existing high demand for milk and meat, and the agro-ecological conditions are in favor of introduction of the riverine-type buffalo. More specifically, the riverine buffalo excels over indigenous cattle in its milk yield and quality of milk components. It also has a long productive life, a special ability of converting poor-quality roughage into animal protein, docile temperament and a wide range of adaptation. The presence of wild buffalo also shows Ethiopia's suitability for domestic buffalo rearing. Therefore, even though it seems illogical to make direct comparison between the performance of the Ethiopian indigenous cattle and the domestic buffaloes kept elsewhere; the hardy nature of buffalo and its wide range of adaptation would indicate the adaptation of the riverine-type buffalo in Ethiopia. However, the introduced riverine-type buffalo needs to be handled on experimental stations until management expertise is developed.
Patient‐Controlled Analgesia for Acute Pain

An updated review of patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) for acute pain relief in the postoperative period is presented. The technique, becoming more and more popular with patients, surgeons, and nurses, is undergoing numerous clinical trials under a variety of clinical protocols that are currently being reviewed. Benefits found with PCA include the fact that it is individualized therapy, allowing optimum drug titration; it decreases a patient's anxiety in the post-operative period; and it is a safer and more efficient technique of acute pain relief than conventional therapy. However, PCA does have its logistic and medical limitations, which may make its implementation sometimes difficult. Contraindications to the technique and most current equipment in use are listed herein. Clinical experience with PCA at Georgetown University Medical Center has provided, as has been the case elsewhere, data showing the superiority of the technique and its wide acceptance as part of the Acute Pain Service. The anesthesiologist plays a vital role in coordinating the various people and aspects involved in PCA for postoperative pain relief.
Developmental potential of aged oocyte rescued by nuclear transfer following parthenogenetic activation and in vitro fertilization

Mouse oocyte aged in vitro cannot develop normally following activation. To investigate the roles of nucleus or cytoplasm elements in oocyte aged in vitro process and their subsequent development capability following activation, we reconstructed oocytes with MII chromosome spindle and cytoplasm from aged and fresh oocytes by nuclear transfer. The subsequent developmental potential after parthenogenetic activation (PA) or in vitro fertilization (IVF) was evaluated. After nuclear transfer, more than 75.6% of karyoplast and cytoplast pairs can be fused and reconstructed oocytes have a normal haploid karyotype. Following PA, aged oocytes cannot develop beyond four‐cell stage, reconstructed oocytes from fresh nucleus and aged cytoplasm developed to blastocyst with a low percentage (9.1%). Instead, blastocyst formation rate of reconstructed oocyte from aged nucleus and fresh cytoplasm was higher (60.0%). Following IVF, zygote with diploid karyotype can be formed from zona pellucida (ZP)‐free oocyte. After cultured in vitro, aged oocytes cannot develop beyond two‐cell; reconstructed oocytes from fresh nucleus and aged cytoplasm developed to blastocyst with low percentage (15.0%). However, high blastocyst formation rate (86.2%) can be obtained from reconstructed oocytes from aged nucleus and fresh cytoplasm. Furthermore, after embryo transfer, three viable pups have been obtained, although the efficiency is very low. These observation demonstrated that cytoplasm is more crucial than nucleus to aging process. Fresh cytoplasm could partly rescue nucleus susceptibility to apoptosis from aging in vitro. Mol. Reprod. Dev. 73: 1448–1453, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Regulation of HIV‐1 gene transcription: from lymphocytes to microglial cells

Transcription is a crucial step for human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV‐1) expression in all infected host cells, from T lymphocytes, thymocytes, monocytes, macrophages, and dendritic cells in the immune system up to microglial cells in the central nervous system. To maximize its replication, HIV‐1 adapts transcription of its integrated proviral genome by ideally exploiting the specific cellular environment and by forcing cellular stimulatory events and impairing transcriptional inhibition. Multiple cell type‐specific interplays between cellular and viral factors perform the challenge for the virus to leave latency and actively replicate in a great diversity of cells, despite the variability of its long terminal repeat region in different HIV strains. Knowledge about the molecular mechanisms underlying transcriptional regulatory events helps in the search for therapeutic agents that target the step of transcription in anti‐HIV strategies.
Testable Implications of Forecast Optimality

Evaluation of forecast optimality in economics and finance has almost exclusively been conducted on the assumption of mean squared error loss under which forecasts should be unbiased and forecast errors serially uncorrelated at the single period horizon with increasing variance as the forecast horizon grows. This paper considers properties of optimal forecasts under general loss functions and establishes new testable implications of forecast optimality. These hold when the forecaster's loss function is unknown but testable restrictions can be imposed on the data generating process, trading off conditions on the data generating process against conditions on the loss function. Finally, we propose flexible parametric estimation of the forecaster's loss function, and obtain a test of forecast optimality via a test of over-identifying restrictions.
Variations in the Use of mHealth Tools: The VA Mobile Health Study

Background Mobile health (mHealth) technologies exhibit promise for offering patients and their caregivers point-of-need tools for health self-management. This research study involved the dissemination of iPads containing a suite of mHealth apps to family caregivers of veterans who receive care from the Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Administration and have serious physical or mental injuries. Objective The goal of the study was to identify factors and characteristics of veterans and their family caregivers that predict the use of mHealth apps. Methods Veteran/family caregiver dyads (N=882) enrolled in VA’s Comprehensive Assistance for Family Caregivers program were recruited to participate in an mHealth pilot program. Veterans and caregivers who participated and received an iPad agreed to have their use of the apps monitored and were asked to complete a survey assessing Caregiver Preparedness, Caregiver Traits, and Caregiver Zarit Burden Inventory baseline surveys. Results Of the 882 dyads, 94.9% (837/882) of caregivers were women and 95.7% (844/882) of veteran recipients were men. Mean caregiver age was 40 (SD 10.2) years and mean veteran age was 39 (SD 9.15) years, and 39.8% (351/882) lived in rural locations. Most (89%, 788/882) of the caregivers were spouses. Overall, the most frequently used app was Summary of Care, followed by RX Refill, then Journal, Care4Caregivers, VA Pain Coach, and last, VA PTSD Coach. App use was significantly predicted by the caregiver being a spouse, increased caregiver computer skills, a rural living location, lower levels of caregiver preparedness, veteran mental health diagnosis (other than posttraumatic stress disorder), and veteran age. Conclusions This mHealth Family Caregiver pilot project effectively establishes the VA’s first patient-facing mHealth apps that are integrated within the VA data system. Use varied considerably, and apps that were most used were those that assisted them in their caregiving responsibilities.
Effect of Ascorbic Acid Nutriture on Blood Histamine and Neutrophil Chemotaxis in Guinea Pigs 1 Â » 2

Histamine suppresses certain immune responses, including neutrophil chemotaxis. The present study examined whether the histamine-lowering effect of ascorbate was accompanied by enhanced chemotaxis in guinea pigs. Animals were fed low ascorbate, adequate or high ascorbate diets (0.5, 2.0 or 50 mg ascor bate-100 g body wt-'-d"1) for 4 wk. Mean liver ascorbate paralleled dietary intake, and these values differed signif icantly. Blood histamine was significantly depressed in the high ascorbate group compared to the adequate and low ascorbate groups, and liver ascorbate was inversely correlated to blood histamine levels (r -0.64, P < 0.001). The random migration of neutrophils was not significantly affected by vitamin dosage. Leukocyte chemotaxis was significantly impaired in low ascorbate animals compared to that of animals with adequate as corbate nutriture. Leukocyte chemotaxis in high as corbate animals did not differ significantly from that in the adequate or low ascorbate groups. Furthermore, chemotaxis was significantly lower when cells extracted from animals with adequate ascorbate nutriture were incubated in low ascorbate or high ascorbate serum rather than in autologous serum. These data suggest that the histamine-lowering effect of supplemental as corbate does not appear to enhance leukocyte chemotaxis and that serum from guinea pigs fed low or high levels of ascorbate appears to contain factors that depress chemotaxis. J. Nutr. 121:126-130, 1991.
The Coordination Problem in a Structural Model of Peak-Period Congestion: An Experimental Study

The purpose of our paper is to generalize the model by Arnott et al. (1990a) to situations with a single origin and destination connected by two routes and to test the analytical results in an experiment with discrete time departure choices. The experimental evidence does not support the theoretical predictions: While the accumulated experience creates significant learning effects which imply a positive evolution of the empirical travel costs towards the equilibrium, the Nash hypothesis is still rejected and the commuting system shows substantial fluctuations until the end of the experiment.