Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survival of children with trisomy 13 and trisomy 18: A multi‐state population‐based study

Trisomy 13 (T13) and trisomy 18 (T18) are among the most prevalent autosomal trisomies. Both are associated with a very high risk of mortality. Numerous instances, however, of long‐term survival of children with T13 or T18 have prompted some clinicians to pursue aggressive treatment instead of the traditional approach of palliative care. The purpose of this study is to assess current mortality data for these conditions. This multi‐state, population‐based study examined data obtained from birth defect surveillance programs in nine states on live‐born infants delivered during 1999–2007 with T13 or T18. Information on children's vital status and selected maternal and infant risk factors were obtained using matched birth and death certificates and other data sources. The Kaplan–Meier method and Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate age‐specific survival probabilities and predictors of survival up to age five. There were 693 children with T13 and 1,113 children with T18 identified from the participating states. Among children with T13, 5‐year survival was 9.7%; among children with T18, it was 12.3%. For both trisomies, gestational age was the strongest predictor of mortality. Females and children of non‐Hispanic black mothers had the lowest mortality. Omphalocele and congenital heart defects were associated with an increased risk of death for children with T18 but not T13. This study found survival among children with T13 and T18 to be somewhat higher than those previously reported in the literature, consistent with recent studies reporting improved survival following more aggressive medical intervention for these children. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
Mapping impulse buying: a behaviour analysis framework for services marketing and consumer research

A deep understanding of how consumers engage in impulse buying (IB) would be extremely valuable to service providers when attempting to develop marketing strategies and messages that will effectively influence consumer purchasing. By systematically reviewing current research on impulsivity among a range of disciplines, the consumer behaviour analysis (CBA) framework is proposed as an integrative platform to synthesise existing empirical work in this field. The paper makes several contributions: it organises a currently disjointed field of IB research, connects consumer and marketing research to high-level theorisation of impulsive buying behaviour across three broad disciplines; it is the first to propose that CBA is a potential platform to integrate existing studies in the area, and it seeks to outline specific avenues for future research in this area.
Modelling the generation of Joule heating in defective thin oxide films

Thin oxide films are dominantly used as insulating materials in a wide range of CMOS electronic devices. Continuous scaling, governed by Moores Law, dictates that the thickness of oxides materials could be as thin as a few nanometers. Consequently, a generation of oxide defects, through field-driven and thermal-driven processes, presents a serious reliability challenge. On the other hand, a controllable formation of oxide defects in simple metal-insulator (oxide)-metal devices has recently attracted significant attention for the realization of Resistive RAMs (RRAMs) novel type of non-volatile memory technology that offers a low programming energy [1], a rapid switching [2], and a very high levels of integration [3]. In this paper we model the generating of Joule heating as a result of the current flow through a defective thin oxide layer. We use the representation of resistive network as well as the Fourier Heat Equation to simulate the oxide matrix and the heat flow. Our simulation demonstrates that temperatures generated by the Joule heating can easily reach the value of 900K or more after a few hundred microseconds. Precise control of the current flow timing is the key parameter to prevent the extensive heating and the oxide damage.
The institutional integration of an expanded EU: or: how 'new' European actors fit into 'old' European institutions

Abstract: This paper investigates the potential impact of the recent enlargement of the European Union to Central and Eastern Europe on the internal organization structure and functioning of the European Parliament. The analysis focuses on the differing cultures of political and partisan activity in the new member states in comparison to both the member-states in Western Europe and the European Parliament itself. Although the research presented is preliminary in nature, it suggests that the absorption of members from new member states into the existing supranational party structures may be difficult due to the variations in ideological perspectives and norms of internal party organization between East and West. There are, however, other aspects of the EP that may facilitate the integration of new members from the East into the EP as a whole. In particular, this research highlights the weakness of the national party systems and subsequent development of independent parliaments with strong and active committees in the enlargement countries. Both of these developments have led to a comparatively high level of independent legislative influence for both committees and rank-and-file members. In many ways this is similar to the situation in the EP (albeit for different reasons). This may ease the entry of the new members into the EP, while at the same time hindering their full integration within the more structured supranational party groups. ;
Immune surveillance against a solid tumor fails because of immunological ignorance.

Many peripheral solid tumors such as sarcomas and carcinomas express tumor-specific antigens that can serve as targets for immune effector T cells. Nevertheless, overall immune surveillance against such tumors seems relatively inefficient. We studied immune surveillance against a s.c. sarcoma expressing a characterized viral tumor antigen. Surprisingly, the tumor cells were capable of inducing a protective cytotoxic T cell response if transferred as a single-cell suspension. However, if they were transplanted as small tumor pieces, tumors readily grew. Tumor growth correlated strictly with (i) failure of tumor cells to reach the draining lymph nodes and (ii) absence of primed cytotoxic T cells. Cytotoxic T cells were not tolerant or deleted because a tumor antigen-specific cytotoxic T cell response was readily induced in lymphoid tissue by immunization with virus or with tumor cells even in the presence of large tumors. Established tumors were rejected by vaccine-induced effector T cells if effector T cells were maintained by prolonged or repetitive vaccination, but not by single-dose vaccination. Thus, in addition to several other tumor-promoting parameters, some antigenic peripheral sarcomas-and probably carcinomas-may grow not because they anergize or tolerize tumor-specific T cells, but because such tumors are immunologically dealt with as if they were in a so-called immunologically privileged site and are ignored for too long.
How to create madness in prison

It's worth pausing for a moment to consider how we created as much madness as exists today in our prisons. Perhaps, after exploring how we arrived at this dreadful state of affairs, we can strive to reverse the process and foster sanity, at the same time developing humane and effective prisons. In the era of mental asylums, when individuals suffering from serious mental illness were confined in large public psychiatric hospitals, institutional dynamics came under the spotlight. Erving Goffman, Thomas Scheff and other " sociologists of deviance " hypothesized that institutional dynamics had a big part in driving patients to regress into impotent and bizarre aggressive behaviours while clinicians were sidetracked into self-fulfilling biases in diagnostics. (1 Goffman E ,1962 Scheff T , 1966) An example of their theory: A young man is brought to the asylum by family members who consider him " crazy, " he protests loudly that he is not crazy and in fact it is the parents who want him locked up who are actually the crazy ones, the psychiatrist interprets his increasingly loud protests as signs of the very mental illness being ascribed to him, he is involuntarily admitted to the asylum, as he realizes he is being deprived of his freedom his protests become louder and more desperate, the staff take his emotional protests as further evidence confirming the diagnosis of psychosis, he is placed on a locked ward and deprived of most familiar means of expressing himself, he does something irrational such as throwing a chair through a window in order to express his outrage over being deprived of his
Is schizophrenia a neurodevelopmental disorder?

A well established fact about schizophrenia is that first degree relatives have an increased risk of the disorder. Few now doubt that schizophrenia has a genetic basis, yet its mode of inheritance has to be explained. Even the identical twin of a schizophrenic stands a better than 50% chance of escaping the illness. ' Genetic factors are not the whole story. Kraepelin, who derived the concept of schizophrenia, considered that both heredity and organic brain disease were implicated, but somehow the organic aspects were neglected until the publication of a study using computed tomography by Johnstone et al in 1976.2 A decade of such research has confirmed that the cerebral ventricles or cortical sulci are enlarged in many schizophrenics. Such changes are nonspecific and can follow head injury, intracranial infections, and alcoholism and other cerebral insults.3 As they are present in the earliest stage of schizophrenia and are not progressive they may be the sequelae of earlier events of aetiological importance. But what events-and how early? The epidemiology ofschizophrenia probably still holds the key. The disorder generally begins in early adult life, but the peak incidence in men is nearly a decade earlier than that in women.4 The reason for this is unclear. An equally puzzling but equally consistent finding is the small excess of births of schizophrenics in the cold winter months.5 This excess is not shared by the siblings of schizophrenics and is greater in those without a family history and in men with paranoid illness.67 The most likely explanation is that some environmental factor associated with winter birth causes neural damage in the fetus or neonate. The cause could be a viral infection or a seasonal difference in other complications that occur during pregnancy or delivery.8 9 Schizophrenics seem more likely than controls to have a history of obstetric complications,'0 11 and, despite the various events encompassed by the term, obstetric complications may increase the risk ofschizophrenia. Furthermore, increased ventricular size and other abnormalities seen on computed tomography are more common in those schizophrenics with a history of obstetric complications. "2 Much research implicates the left rather than the right cerebral hemisphere in schizophrenia. '3 There is evidence that schizophrenics are more likely to be left handed than controls,'4 and possibly the normal development of lateralised cerebral dominance can be disrupted by premature birth with a resultant increase in left handedness. '5 What mechanism could explain the relation between obstetric complications, abnormalities on computed tomo-
Testability Analysis and Improvements of Register-Transfer Level Digital Circuits

The paper presents novel testability analysis method applicable to register-transfer level digital circuits. It is shown if each module stored in a design library is equipped both with information related to design and information related to testing, then more accurate testability results can be achieved. A mathematical model based on virtual port conception is utilized to describe the information and proposed testability analysis method. In order to be effective, the method is based on the idea of searching two special digraphs developed for the purpose. Experimental results gained by the method are presented and compared with results of existing methods.
The CA 125 Gene: An Extracellular Superstructure Dominated by Repeat Sequences

CA 125 has long presented problems to both clinicians and investigators because there was no definitive information on its structure and function. Here, we describe our work on cloning the CA 125 gene with the anticipation that such information will provide the basis for understanding its structure and its physiologic role in both normal and malignant tissues. The CA 125 protein core is composed of a short cytoplasmic tail, a transmembrane domain and an extraordinarily large glycosylated extracellular structure. This structure is dominated by a repeat domain composed of 156 amino acid repeat units which encompass the epitope binding sites. The molecule also includes an amino terminal domain of serine/threonine-rich sequences which would account for most of the O-glycosylation known to be present in CA 125. CA 125 is an unusually large transmembrane glycoprotein. Its release from the surface of the cell is most probably dependent on cytoplasmic phosphorylation followed by proteolytic cleavage. The extracellular domain is characterized by a large number of repeat units (probably 60+) which encompass an interactive disulfide bridged cysteine-loop and the site of OC125 and M11 binding. Sequencing the gene provides us with the ability to initiate the quest to understand the biological function of CA 125.
Systemic Risk and Sentiment Chapter Contribution to Handbook on Systemic Risk Edited by Jean-Pierre Fouque and Joe Langsam

Regulators charged with monitoring systemic risk need to focus on sentiment as well as narrowly defined measures of systemic risk. This chapter describes techniques for jointly monitoring the co-evolution of sentiment and systemic risk. To measure systemic risk, we use Marginal Expected Shortfall. To measure sentiment, we apply a behavioral extension of traditional pricing kernel theory, which we supplement with external proxies. We illustrate the technique by analyzing the dynamics of sentiment before, during, and after the global financial crisis which erupted in September 2008. Using stock and options data for the S&P 500 during the period 2002–2009, our analysis documents the statistical relationship between sentiment and systemic risk.
Can gastric endoderm change the regionally specific inducing ability of presumptive small intestinal mesoderm?

This study was designed to establish the source of gut mesoderm's ability to induce regional pattern in the endoderm. The most obvious possibility is induction by the endoderm through epithelial‐mesenchymal interaction. To test this experimentally, reciprocal quail/chick combinations were prepared of early proventricular endoderm (that is already known to be regionally determined) and presumptive small intestinal mesoderm. The combinations were cultured for 7 days to allow for ‘programming’ of the mesoderm by the endoderm. After removal of the proventricular endoderm the mesoderm was combined with young gizzard endoderm. It is known that gizzard endoderm can be provoked to develop in either a proventricular or a small intestinal direction by association with the appropriate mesoderm. Thus, by combining intestinal mesoderm ‘programmed’ by association with proventricular endoderm with gizzard endoderm, the subsequent differentiation of the gizzard endoderm would indicate whether or not the inducing ability of the intestinal mesenchyme had been altered. In addition to such experimental grafts, three types of control graft were prepared. The results of the experiment, based on the morphology of the grafts and the immunocytochemical analysis of selected endocrine cell types, showed that in the majority of cases the gizzard endoderm developed the features of small intestine, not those of proventriculus. This indicates that at the stages studied, endoderm does not act to program mesoderm with which it is associated. If this does occur, it must take place at an earlier stage, i.e., before the time of explantation of the presumptive small intestinal mesoderm (1.25 days of incubation). © 2000 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
In from the Outer

Abstract This paper explores generational differences among gay men in their experience of, and narratives relating the process of, coming out. The interview data for 32 gay men living in Melbourne, Australia, is drawn from the Community, Attachment, Structures and the epidemic (CASE) Study. Narratives of coming out for three generational groups: pre-AIDS, peri-AIDS, and post-AIDS, are examined in terms of the experiences of disclosure to family and friends. A shift from narratives organised around crisis and disjunction to those organised around consolidation is matched by differences in the degree to which peer networks are maintained post-coming out.
Comparison of SERVQUAL and SERVPERF metrics: an empirical study

Purpose – The choice between SERVQUAL and SERVPERF metrics for service quality measurement is subjective and the research literature lacks evidence on whether these instruments differ in their outcomes significantly or concur with each other. Hence, empirical investigation regarding the concurrence or difference of the two instruments is the purpose of this paper.Design/methodology/approach – The research is qualitative (meta‐analysis of service quality literature) and quantitative (application of standard statistical procedures to test hypothesis). A pilot test of 35 students was conducted followed by a stratified random sampling of 84 students each for SERVQUAL and SERVPERF. Data collection was through a self‐administered questionnaire.Findings – The empirical study proves that there is a significant difference in the outcomes of the two metrics. The implications of the study are based on the combined use of the two instruments. The research identified that tangibles and reliability are the two dimensio.
Nasal continuous positive airway pressure versus nasal intermittent positive pressure ventilation for preterm neonates: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

Aim: To determine whether nasal intermittent positive pressure ventilation (NIPPV) is more effective in preterm infants than nasal continuous positive airway pressure (NCPAP) in reducing the rate of extubation failure following mechanical ventilation, and reducing the frequency of apnoea of prematurity and subsequent need for endotracheal intubation. Methods: Randomized trials of NIPPV versus NCPAP were sought and their data extracted and analysed independently by the authors using the methodology of the Cochrane Collaboration. The analysis used relative risk (RR), risk difference (RD) and number needed to treat (NNT) with 95% confidence intervals. Results: The three studies identified, comparing NIPPV with NCPAP in the postextubation period, all used synchronized NIPPV (SNIPPV), which was more effective than NCPAP in preventing failure of extubation [RR 0.21 (0.10, 0.45), RD ‐0.32 (‐0.45, ‐0.20), NNT 3 (2, 5)]. Two studies compared NIPPV versus NCPAP for the treatment of apnoea of prematurity. Although meta‐analysis was not possible one trial showed a reduction in apnoea frequency with NIPPV and the other a trend favouring NIPPV.
Random Sampling, Halfspace Range Reporting, and Construction of (<= k)-Levels in Three Dimensions

Given n points in three dimensions, we show how to answer halfspace range reporting queries in O(log n+k) expected time for an output size k. Our data structure can be preprocessed in optimal O(n log n) expected time. We apply this result to obtain the first optimal randomized algorithm for the construction of the $(\le k)$-level in an arrangement of n planes in three dimensions. The algorithm runs in O(n log n+nk2) expected time. Our techniques are based on random sampling. Applications in two dimensions include an improved data structure for "k nearest neighbors" queries and an algorithm that constructs the order-k Voronoi diagram in O(n log n+nk log k) expected time.
Leadership performance is significant to project success or failure: a critical analysis

Purpose - This paper seeks to review the current literature in order to explore how performance of leadership in project management determines project outcomes. The specific causes of project success or failure have been an area of much debate in the project management literature. Performance of leadership has been cited as a critical success factor, determining either the success or failure of a project. Design/methodology/approach - An extensive literature review has been undertaken to explore our understanding of how project leadership performance impacts on project outcome. Findings - The mechanisms through which leadership may impact on outcomes are considered. Implications include the need for project managers to prioritize training in leadership skills, and the need for continuous professional improvement to enhance leadership outcomes. No single leadership model is appropriate throughout the duration of the project. Performance, therefore, must be modified to align with the stages of the project duration. Research limitations/implications - While the literature has given meaningful insights into leadership of projects, there has been little research into performance management of project leadership. The work is the basis of developing a research agenda and establishing a conceptual framework. The opportunity exists, based on this work, for carrying out research on project leadership performance and its effect on project outcomes. Practical implications - Insightful learning has been achieved into project leadership and the failing of practitioners in appropriate training and development at various stages of the projects life cycle. Social implications - Projects and project-based management, delivered nationally and internationally, are of significant importance to organizations. Increasing understanding of the implications of leadership performance, therefore, is of critical importance. Originality/value - The literature review has identified significant limitation in project leadership performance management. It is anticipated that this work will trigger further research.
The Changing Face of the European Venture Capital Industry

The Survey of European Venture Capital (SEVeCa) is the largest academic study to date on the European venture capital industry, providing information on more than 1,300 investment companies, 400 venture partners, and 150 venture funds. The European venture capital industry is found to be more integrated than previously believed: 27% of all venture firms have an office in a foreign country, and 24% of investments are cross-border. Significant links to the U.S. lead to increasing emulation of U.S. investment practices. However, distinctively European aspects, such as the prominence of bank and corporate investors, do remain. The study also debunks the belief that all European venture capitalists are conservative and “hands-off. ” A majority of the deals are early stage, and involvement with portfolio companies is substantial. The experience and education of of venture partners (their “human capital”) is shown to play an important role in promoting an active investment style.
Beware ‘the Creative Class’. Creativity and Wealth Creation Revisited

In this article, the author draws on a long experience in research and consultancy in the ‘creative economy’ (which includes initiatives in Manchester and London in the 1980s and 1990s) to reflect on the current enthusiasm for the subject. The article begins by analysing recent theoretical developments that have thrown up misleading indices of creativity, and goes on to define the ‘creative economy’ and explain its importance. It ends by suggesting how cities should respond.