Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
DDDT_A_214307 3181..3186

Laura Vollono Arianna Piccolo Caterina Lanna Maria Esposito Mauro Bavetta Elena Campione Luca Bianchi Laura Diluvio 1Dermatology Department, University of Rome, Tor Vergata, Italy; 2Dermatology Department, University of L’Aquila, L’Aquila, Italy Introduction: Omalizumab is a recombinant humanized anti-IgE monoclonal antibody, approved for patients affected by chronic spontaneous urticaria resistant to antihistamines. Although the clinical benefit of omalizumab has been established in several clinical trials, there are very little data about long-term treatment with this drug and real-life reports regarding its use in patients affected by comorbidities other than urticaria are lacking. Objectives: To assess omalizumab efficacy and safety in a heterogeneous population of patients affected by chronic spontaneous urticaria and several comorbidities in a real-world setting. Materials and methods: Patients affected by chronic spontaneous urticaria with weekly urticaria activity score >16 resistant to antihistamines were treated with omalizumab 300 mg injection as add-on to H1-antihistamines administered every 4 weeks for 6 months. Clinical assessment of weekly urticaria activity score, dermatology life quality index and blood tests were performed at baseline, 12, 24 and 52 weeks of treatment. Response was assessed based on reduction weekly urticaria activity score. Results: Thirty-two patients (22F; 10M) with a mean age of 52.4 years (range 27–72) affected by chronic spontaneous urticaria were enrolled. Comorbidities affecting our study population were divided into 6 categories: cardio-metabolic (77%), oncologic (19%), infectious (16%), allergic (45%) immunologic (41%) and others (18%). Omalizumab determined a satisfactory reduction of symptoms of chronic spontaneous urticaria and an amelioration of quality of life within our population. No relevant alterations regarding patients’ underlying conditions were encountered. This is the first study regarding the use of omalizumab for chronic spontaneous urticaria in a population of adult patients affected by several comorbidities, eg, cardio-metabolic, oncologic, infectious, allergic, immunologic and psychiatric diseases. Real-life data represent a valuable source of information about a drug’s safety and efficacy profile, especially in patients affected by different comorbidities that are widely diffused in Western countries.
file://C:\Documents and Settings\jronen\My Documents\RESEARCH\J

This study examines the effect of allowing directors to trade in a firm’s shares on the likelihood of earnings management, on the firm’s value, and on the stock price. We study these issues in a stylized principal-agent game wherein the directors induce earnings management by allowing managers flexibility in reporting. In contrast to Stein [Stein, J.C. , 1989. Efficient capital markets, inefficient firms: A model of myopic corporate behavior. Quarterly Journal of Economics 104 (4), 655–669], we show that earnings management distorts the stock price because the market cannot undo the bias in the accounting report. Furthermore, it reduces the firm’s value because of its unfavorable effect on the manager’s effort. These results stand in contrast to the previous literature on insider trading and have important policy implications. They support the OECD’s 2004 recommendation to prohibit insider trading.
Communication exposure of sub-assistant agriculture officers (SAAOs) towards e-agriculture in Khulna district of Bangladesh

Received: 25 August 2019 Revised received: 30 October 2019 Accepted: 20 November 2019 The purpose of this study was to determine the extent of communication exposure of the Sub-Assistant Agriculture Officers towards e-agriculture in Khulna district of Bangladesh. Study was conducted in the five selected upazilas of Khulna city viz., Rupsa, Dighalia, Phultala, Dumuria and Batiaghata which consist of 108 agricultural blocks. A sample of 100 Sub-Assistant Agriculture Officers (SAAOs) was selected from these blocks. Data were collected following a structured pretested interview schedule. Findings revealed that most 60% of the SAAOs had low communication exposures to e-agriculture. Correlation analysis indicates that age, income and service experience had negative significant relationship with communication exposures of SAAOs to e-Agriculture. T raining exposure and knowledge on e-agriculture had positive significant relationship with their communication exposures towards e-agriculture. The enter method of regression analysis revealed that knowledge on e-agriculture, training exposure and monthly income described 77.5 percent variation in the communication exposure of SAAOs. The estimates indicated that knowledge on e-Agriculture had strongest (β=0.479) contribution to the variance of communication exposure to e-Agriculture. On the other hand, monthly income had contributed to the variance of communication exposure of SAAOs towards e-Agriculture in negative direction (β=-0.156). Mobile phone was the highest preferred device in using e-Agricultural media by the SAAOs. “Unfamiliarity of extension workers with e-agriculture application” was the main personal constraint and “lack of training on e-agriculture” was the main organizational constraint which might have led to low communication exposure of SAAOs towards e-agriculture.
MAHALANOBIS BASED k -NEAREST NEIGHBOR FORECASTING VERSUS TIME SERIES FORECASTING METHODS

Foreign exchange (FX) rate forecasting is a challenging area of study. Various linear and nonlinear methods have been used to forecast FX rates. As the currency data are nonlinear and highly correlated, forecasting through nonlinear dynamical systems is becoming more relevant. The k -nearest neighbor ( k -NN) algorithm is one of the most commonly used nonlinear pattern recognition and forecasting methods that outperforms the available linear forecasting methods for the high frequency foreign exchange data. As the k neighbors are selected according to a a distance function, the choice of distance plays a key role in the k -NN procedure. The time series forecasting method, Auto Regressive Integrated Moving Average process (ARIMA) is considered as one of the superior forecasting method for time series data. In this work, we compare the performances of Mahalanobis distance based k -NN forecasting procedure with the traditional ARIMA based forecasting algorithm. In addition, the fore-casts were transformed into a technical trading strategy to create buy and sell signals. The two methods were evaluated for their forecasting accuracy and trading performances.
COPD_A_204190 1633..1638

Andreas Katsimigas Oliver Djurhuus Tupper Charlotte Suppli Ulrik 1Respiratory Research Unit, Department of Respiratory Medicine, Hvidovre Hospital, Hvidovre, Denmark; 2Institute of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark Objective: To investigate the prevalence and predictors of COPD in a large cohort of symptomatic smokers and ex-smokers in a primary care setting. Methods: General practitioners (n=390) consecutively recruited individuals ≥35 years, with current or previous tobacco exposure, at least one respiratory symptom, and no previous diagnosis of obstructive airways disease; and obtained data on tobacco exposure, body mass index (BMI), and dyspnea (Medical Research Council dyspnea scale). All individuals with airflow obstruction, ie, FEV1/FVC <0.70 at initial lung function test, had diagnostic spirometry, including bronchodilator reversibility test. COPD was defined as respiratory symptom(s), tobacco exposure, and nonreversible airflow limitation. Results: Of the 6,710 at-risk individuals screened with spirometry (52% male sex, mean age 58 years [SD 10.9]), 1,185 were diagnosed with COPD (17.7%). Apart from age and packyears, multivariate logistics regression analysis, adjusted for FEV1, revealed that BMI <25 kg/m (OR 4.2, 95% CI 3.0–5.9, p<0.001), BMI 35+ kg/m (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.2–2.3), selfreported dyspnea (OR 1.2, 95% CI 1.1–14, p=0.04), wheeze (OR 1.3, 95% CI 1.1–1.6, p=0.001), phlegm (OR 1.4, 95% CI 1.1–1.6, p<0.001), and MRC ≥3 (OR 1.6, 95% CI 1.2– 2.0, p=0.001) were associated with a significantly higher likelihood of being diagnosed with COPD. No association was found between sex, cough, and recurrent respiratory tract infections and a diagnosis of COPD. Conclusion: The prevalence of COPD is high among smokers and ex-smokers with one or more respiratory symptoms seen in primary care, and the presence of wheeze, phlegm and dyspnea, together with both low BMI and obesity identify a subgroup with an even higher likelihood of COPD.
Boundary expansion algorithm of a decision tree induction for an imbalanced dataset

A decision tree is one of the famous classifiers based on a recursive partitioning algorithm. This paper introduces the Boundary Expansion Algorithm (BEA) to improve a decision tree induction that deals with an imbalanced dataset. BEA utilizes all attributes to define non-splittable ranges. The computed means of all attributes for minority instances are used to find the nearest minority instance, which will be expanded along all attributes to cover a minority region. As a result, BEA can successfully cope with an imbalanced dataset comparing with C4.5, Gini, asymmetric entropy, top-down tree, and Hellinger distance decision tree on 25 imbalanced datasets from the UCI Repository.
DMSO_A_217127 2387..2394

Shuang Lin Lei Tang Ranhua Jiang Yu Chen 1 Sheng Yang Ling Li 1 Ping Li 1 1Department of Endocrinology, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, People’s Republic of China; 2Department of Cardiology, Zhongyi Northeast International Hospital, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, People’s Republic of China; 3Department of Endocrinology, Liaoyang Diabetes Hospital, Liaoyang, Liaoning Province, People’s Republic of China Aim: To investigate the relationship of the aspartate aminotransferase to alanine aminotransferase ratio (AST/ALT) and metabolic syndrome (MetS) in adolescents in northeast China. Methods: A stratified cluster random sample of 935 students 11–16 years of age in a city in the northeast of China were enrolled in 2010–2011. Participants were given a physical examination and a laboratory evaluation, and 93 participants were followed-up after 5 years. Results: AST/ALT was negatively correlated with waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio, body mass index (BMI), diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, low-density lipoprotein, uric acid, fasting insulin, and insulin resistance. It was positively correlated with highdensity lipoprotein. Multivariate logistic regression showed that the risk of MetS was 6.02 times greater in adolescents with the lowest, compared with the highest, AST/ALT. Central obesity was the MetS component most closely associated with low AST/ALT [odds ratio (OR) =5.13, 95% CI: 2.83, 9.28]. Five years later, baseline AST/ALT was negatively correlated with WC (r=−0.21, P=0.046), BMI (r=−0.29, P=0.005) and fasting plasma glucose (r=−0.25, P=0.017). Conclusion: In adolescents, AST/ALT was significantly associated with MetS and its components and predicted overweight/obesity in adulthood.
Process Innovation, Licensing and Coopetition under Uncertainty and Imperfect Appropriation Regime

We develop a model to examine the behavior of a process innovator that faces an uncertain demand and an imperfect appropriation regime that may allow a rival to license the new technology generated from its innovation effort. The innovator-licensor needs to choose its innovation effort in the initial stage and decide in the second stage whether to licence the technology to the rival and how to structure the licensing agreement (i.e., a fixed fee or a royalty) whereas the uncertain demand is realized only in the third stage. The model analyses how the level of uncertainty and the tightness of the appropriation regime affect the innovator’s effort and subsequent coopetition strategy vis-à-vis its rival.
Determining the orientation of a RGB camera embedded on an artiﬁcial eye

The eye has six extra-ocular muscles, but only needs two degrees of freedom to orient the fovea at any far position in the visual environment. However it’s not known how the brain determines which muscles to contract. Building a robotic eye can prove valuable to identify the fundamental mechanisms behind this behavior. A working mechanical model of a biologically inspired eye has been built in a previous project. An indispensable aspect of this prototype is determining its orientation with high accuracy, which is currently done by an IMU. However, this method suffers from signiﬁcant inaccuracy, due to drift. Hence, we investigated whether adding a RGB camera to estimate the eye’s 3D orientation could signiﬁcantly improve accuracy and precision of the measurements. The camera position on the prototype is such that when rotating the eye, there is also a translation associated to the movement, which is a ﬁxed function of the rotation. Despite the long literature on orientation estimation using a camera with naturalistic visual features, there is not much literature concerning this constraint. We compare two adapted state-of-the art algorithms, and present a novel algorithm that optimally makes use of this constraint. We validated the algorithms with a simulator and on the real eye prototype, showing promising results when compared to the IMU.
RESEARCH ON SEA LEVEL RISE DUE TO GLOBAL WARMING IN THE NORTHWESTERN PACIFIC USING A NON-BOUSSINESQ NUMERICAL MODEL

To study the seawater volume change due to the warming of the oceans, this work adapts the Modular Ocean Model Version 4 (MOM4) oceanic general circulation model, which does not consider the Boussinesq approximation, to regional model. Simulation data of Climate Model 2.1 (CM2.1), the Hadley Center Coupled Climate Model 3 (HADCM3), and the Model for Interdisciplinary Research on Climate 3.2 (MIROC3.2), provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), were used as initial and boundary values, and the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios (SRES) A1B and B1 were selected as the global warming scenarios. The Northwestern Pacific region, which includes Korea, was selected as the study area, and the Yellow Sea, which has a complex coastline, was expressed in detail by increasing the resolution. The average values of the results for the three experiments include a temperature/sea level increase of approximately 3 °C/35 cm from 2000 to 2100 in SRES A1B, and approximately 2 °C /27 cm in SRES B1. The East Sea experienced a larger change owing to the steric effect and showed a larger influence resulting from density changes as the temperature of the Tsushima Warm Current, which passes through the Korea Strait, increased. The result of the study that directly considered the steric effect predicted a higher sea level rise than that of indirect computation because the indirectly computed dynamic height was eliminated; sea level rise in a shallow area cannot be computed, and the unchanged volume serves as undersea pressure. Moreover, the Kuroshio Current, which is a major current in the Northwestern Pacific, showed a decrease in transport as global warming progressed. Despite the differences between models, a decrease of 4–5 SV in transport was observed for 2100; however, there was no notable change in the transport of the Tsushima Warm Current.
The second generation of The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children ( ALSPAC-G 2 ) : a cohort profile [ version 2 ; peer review : 2 approved ]

Background: The Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and ChildrenGeneration 2 (ALSPAC-G2) was set up to provide a unique multigenerational cohort. It builds on the existing ALSPAC resource, which recruited 14,541 pregnancies to women resident in the South West of England who were expected to deliver between 01/04/1991 and 31/12/1992. Those women and their partners (Generation 0; ALSPACG0) and their offspring (ALSPAC-G1) have been followed for the last 27 years. This profile describes recruitment and data collection on the next generation (ALSPAC-G2)—the grandchildren of ALSPAC-G0 and children of ALSPAC-G1. Recruitment: Recruitment began on the 6 th of June 2012 and we present details of recruitment and participants up to 30 th June 2018 (~6 years). We knew at the start of recruitment that some ALSPAC-G1 participants had already become parents and ALSPAC-G2 is an open cohort; we recruit at any age. We hope to continue recruiting until all ALSPAC-G1 participants have completed their families. Up to 30 th June 2018 we recruited 810 ALSPAC-G2 participants from 548 families. Of these 810, 389 (48%) were recruited during their mother’s pregnancy, 287 (35%) before age 3 years, 104 (13%) between 3-6 years and 30 (4%) after 6 years. Over 70% of those invited to early pregnancy, late pregnancy, second week of life, 6-, 12and 24-month Open Peer Review
Investor Sentiment and Time-varying Investor Sophistication: Evidence from the Mutual Fund Industry

This study shows that the representative fund investor’s sophistication is time-varying and related to investor sentiment. The representative investor’s price sensitivity, sensitivity to risk-adjusted returns, and fund selection ability is lower in high-sentiment periods. Fund sponsors launch new passive and active funds in high-sentiment periods which charge higher fees, underperform post-inception, and are less likely to survive relative to their peers. The sentiment effects are mainly discernible in the brokersold distribution channel. Together, the results suggest that investor sophistication is time-varying and fund sponsors exploit the “windows of opportunity” when the representative investor makes less sophisticated decisions in high-sentiment periods.
NDT_A_197030 1459..1468

*These authors contributed equally to this work Objective: This study aimed to investigate the neuroprotective effect of heme oxygenase-1 (HO-1) on the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway in rats with cerebral hemorrhage. Materials and methods: Adult male Sprague-Dawley rats were randomly divided into: a sham group, a model group and an HO-1 inhibitor group (ZnPP group). Functional defects after surgery were scored according to the Longa5 standard. Hemotoxylin and eosin staining was used to detect whether the model was constructed successfully. Superoxide dismutase (SOD) vitality and malondialdehyde (MDA) content were calculated by the xanthine oxidase method and thiobarbituric acid method, respectively. Blood-brain barrier permeability was measured by Evans Blue. Apoptosis was detected by terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferasemediated dUTP-biotin nick end labeling assay. The expression of Bcl-2 and BAX was evaluated by immunohistochemistry and the expression of PI3K, p-PI3K, AKT and p-AKT was tested by Western blotting. Results: The rat intracerebral hemorrhage model was successfully constructed. Compared with the model group, the bleeding in the ZnPP group was more serious, the cell edema and deformation were aggravated, and the neurological deficit score in the rat was significantly increased. In addition, the content of Evans blue, MDA, the number of apoptotic cells, the water content of brain tissue and the expression of BAX were significantly increased, while the SOD activity and the expressions of Bcl-2, p-PI3K and p-AKT protein were decreased. Conclusion: HO-1 could protect the nerves of rats with cerebral hemorrhage by regulating the PI3K/AKT signaling pathway.
From Principles to Practice

The importance of corporate social responsibility (CSR) issues both in terms of corporate reputation and their impact on a firm's ability to engage its stakeholders constructively is relatively well established. CSR is routinely addressed as a matter of strategic importance in developed-economy firms. There is, however, little known about the perceptions of CSR and CSR practices in eveloping economies. This paper reports on a study of CSR perceptions and practices in Pakistan. The study uses semistructured, questionnaire-based interviews ofCEOs/directors of Pakistani companies to explore issues related to social responsibility, the importance of different stakeholder groups and the varieties and types of CSR activity prevailing in the country. The study concludes that there is considerable divergence in CSR practice in the country but that most activities focus on employee welfare and corporate philanthropy. Western-style CSR is in a nascent but developing stage in Pakistan.
LOCAL ISOMETRIES OF L(X, C(K))

In this paper we study the structure of local isometries on L(X, C(K)). We show that when K is first countable and X is uniformly convex and the group of isometries of X∗ is algebraically reflexive, the range of a local isometry contains all compact operators. When X is also uniformly smooth and the group of isometries of X∗ is algebraically reflexive, we show that a local isometry whose adjoint preserves extreme points is a C(K)-module map.
University of Southern Denmark Atomistic fingerprint of hyaluronan-CD44 binding Vuorio,

Hyaluronan is a polyanionic, megadalton-scale polysaccharide, which initiates cell signaling by interacting with several receptor proteins including CD44 involved in cell-cell interactions and cell adhesion. Previous studies of the CD44 hyaluronan binding domain have identified multiple widespread residues to be responsible for its recognition capacity. In contrast, the X-ray structural characterization of CD44 has revealed a single binding mode associated with interactions that involve just a fraction of these residues. In this study, we show through atomistic molecular dynamics simulations that hyaluronan can bind CD44 with three topographically different binding modes that in unison define an interaction fingerprint, thus providing a plausible explanation for the disagreement between the earlier studies. Our results confirm that the known crystallographic mode is the strongest of the three binding modes. The other two modes represent metastable configurations that are readily available in the initial stages of the binding, and they are also the most frequently observed modes in our unbiased simulations. We further discuss how CD44, fostered by the weaker binding modes, diffuses along HA when attached. This 1D diffusion combined with the constrained relative orientation of the diffusing proteins is likely to influence the aggregation kinetics of CD44. Importantly, CD44 aggregation has been suggested to be a possible mechanism in CD44-mediated signaling.
The Dissemination of Multidrug Resistance (MDR) and Extensively Drug Resistant (XDR) among Uropathogenic E. coli (UPEC) Isolates from Urinary Tract Infection Patients in Babylon Province, Iraq

Antibiotic resistance is a problem of deep scientific concern both in hospital and community settings. Rapid detection in clinical laboratories is essential for the judicious recognition of antimicrobial resistant organisms. So, the growth of Uropathgenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) isolates with Multidrug-resistant (MDR) and Extensively Drug-resistant (XDR) profiles that thwart therapy for (UTIs) has been detected and has straight squeezed costs and extended hospital stays. This study aims to detect MDR- and XDR-UPEC isolates. Out of 42 UPEC clinical isolates were composed from UTI patients. The bacterial strains were recognized by standard laboratory protocols. Susceptibility to antibiotic was measured by the standard disk diffusion method Out of 42 Uropathogenic E. coli, 37 (88.09%) were found to be MDR while 5 isolates (11.90%) were XDR. The present study concluded high prevalence of uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) with Multidrug-resistant (MDR) isolated from urinary tract infection in Babylon province – Iraq.