Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interobserver Reliability of the International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine (ISAKOS) Classification of Meniscal Tears

Background: Consistency of arthroscopic evaluation and documentation in meniscal tears between investigators is essential to the validity of multicenter studies. A group of experts developed a classification of meniscal tears that may be used internationally. Hypothesis: The International Society of Arthroscopy, Knee Surgery and Orthopaedic Sports Medicine (ISAKOS) classification of meniscal tears provides sufficient interobserver reliability for pooling of data from international clinical trials designed to evaluate the outcomes of treatment for meniscal tears. Study Design: Cohort study (diagnosis); Level of evidence, 1. Methods: A pilot study was performed by having 8 members of the committee grade 10 arthroscopic videos for classification of tear depth, rim width, location, tear pattern, and quality of the tissue. The results of the pilot study were used to change the instruction sheet and evaluation form. International interobserver reliability was determined by having 8 orthopaedic surgeons who practice in different countries evaluate 37 arthroscopic videos selected to represent different meniscal tear characteristics. The Spearman ρ correlation coefficient was used to compare the area of the meniscus excised, as drawn on the diagram, with the numeric percentage of meniscus excised. Results: There was an 87% agreement for anterior-posterior location of the tear (κ = .65); 79% agreement for tear pattern (κ = .72); 88% agreement for tear depth (κ = .52); 68% agreement for anterior, middle, and posterior location of the tear (κ = .46); and 72% agreement for tissue quality (κ = .47). There was 54% agreement for the rim width (κ = .25) and 67% agreement if the tear was central to the popliteal hiatus (κ = .36). Based on the Landis and Koch criteria for κ coefficients, there was substantial agreement for anterior-posterior location of the tear and tear pattern; moderate agreement for tear depth, anterior, middle, and posterior location of the tear, and tissue quality; and fair agreement for rim width and if the tear was central to the popliteal tear. Interobserver reliability based on the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) was good for tear length (ICC = .83) and moderate for percentage of meniscus that was excised (ICC = .65). The mean ρ for all raters was . 92 (95% confidence interval [CI], .89-.94) comparing the values for percentage of meniscus excised with the area on the diagrams. Conclusion: The ISAKOS classification of meniscal tears provides sufficient interobserver reliability for pooling of data from international clinical trials designed to evaluate the outcomes of treatment for meniscal tears.
FINANCIAL REWARDS CLIMATE AND ITS IMPACT ON EMPLOYEE ATTITUDES TOWARDS JOB SATISFACTION IN THE RETAIL ORGANIZATIONS

Job satisfaction is an attitudinal variable that reflects how people feel about their jobs overall. All aspects of the particular job, good or bad, Positive or negative, are likely to contribute to the development of feelings of satisfaction or dissatisfaction. The endeavor of this research was to find out whether financial rewards have an influence on the attitudes and feeling of employees. A questionnaire was constructed, analyzed and managed a total of 172 employees in the retail organization. Thus 172 usable surveys were analyzed the attitudes of employees on different aspects of their job. Findings showed that financial rewards caused positive job satisfaction of employees and boosted their commitment and increase the output of the organization. However, a high level of employee dissatisfaction was recorded in employee compensation and the amount of work they perform and the amount of responsibilities they accept. The result of this study highlights the role of job satisfaction of employees' and responsibilities of organizations in the promotion of good quality practices of HRM in retail business, and offers a substitute alleyway for employees' satisfaction and performance.
Health system changes in the absence of national reform.

W hen Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell, D-ME, pulled the plug on the healthcare reform debate September 26, it marked the end of a long, contentious, expensive legislative battle—for now. Many analysts in Washington, DC, believe this debate is far from over. However, politics and the need to return home to campaign for midterm elections have won out in the near term. The continuing pressures on the U.S. healthcare system will keep healthcare reform simmering close to the front burner. "Rising costs, adverse selection, cost shifting, and the growing number of uninsured Americans will force legislative action in the not too distant future," predicted William J. Cox, \ice president of government services. Catholic Health Association (CHA). If Republicans win the Senate and perhaps the House in November, nothing will happen during the next two years except "a long, bloody political prelude to the next presidential election," he added.
Somatostatin analogs and prednisone in advanced refractory thymic tumors

Therapeutic options to cure advanced, recurrent, and metastatic thymic tumors are limited. Evidence of a high uptake of indium‐labeled octreotide (111In‐DTPA‐D‐Phe1‐octreotide) in thymic tumors and the curative application of somatostatin analogs and prednisone in one patient with thymoma and pure red cell aplasia led the authors to start a Phase II study.
The influence of entry mode decisions on international marketing policies. A framework

Several studies on firms' marketing strategy in foreign markets revealed inconsistent results regarding the relationship between entry mode strategies and the adoption of marketing policies. This inconsistency was due to the diversity of assumptions used for the conceptualization of the influence of entry modes on marketing strategies. The purpose of this paper is to offer a conceptual model that can support the analysis of how the firm’s choice of entry mode may influence the adoption of marketing tools in the selected market.
Bactericidal antibody recognition of a PorA epitope of Neisseria meningitidis: Crystal structure of a Fab fragment in complex with a fluorescein‐conjugated peptide

Class 1 outer membrane protein PorA of Neisseria meningitidis is a vaccine candidate against bacterial meningitis. Antibodies against PorA are able to induce complement‐mediated bacterial killing and thereby play an important role in protection against meningococcal disease. Bactericidal antibodies are all directed against variable regions VR1 and VR2 of the PorA sequence, corresponding to loops 1 and 4 of a two‐dimensional topology model of the porin with eight extracellular loops. We have determined the crystal structure to 2.6 Å resolution of the Fab fragment of bactericidal antibody MN12H2 against meningococcal PorA in complex with a linear fluorescein‐conjugated peptide TKDTNNNL derived from the VR2 sequence of sero‐subtype P1.7,16 (residues 180–187) from meningococcal strain H44/76. The peptide folds deeply into the binding cavity of the Fab molecule in a type I β‐turn, with the minimal P1.16 epitope DTNNN virtually completely buried. The structure reveals H‐bonds and van der Waals interactions with all minimal epitope residues and one essential salt bridge between Asp‐182 of the peptide and His‐31 of the MN12H2 light chain. The key components of the recognition of PorA epitope P1.16 by bactericidal antibody MN12H2 correspond well with available thermodynamic data from binding studies. Furthermore, they indicate the structural basis of an increased endemic incidence of infection by group B meningococci in England and Wales since 1981 associated with the occurrence of an Neisseria meningitidis escape mutant (strain MC58). The observed three‐dimensional conformation of the peptide provides a rationale for the development of a synthetic peptide vaccine against meningococcal disease. Proteins 29:113–125, 1997. © 1997 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
The Choice of Payment Method in European Mergers and Acquisitions

We study merger and acquisition (M&A) payment choices of European bidders for publicly and privately held targets in the 1997–2000 period. Europe is an ideal venue for studying the importance of corporate governance in making M&A payment choices, given the large number of closely held firms and the wide range of capital markets, institutional settings, laws, and regulations. The tradeoff between corporate governance concerns and debt financing constraints is found to have a large bearing on the bidder's payment choice. Consistent with earlier evidence, we find that several deal and target characteristics significantly affect the method of payment choice.
Effect of Cochlear Implantation on Nasality in Children

Hypernasality is a commonly perceived characteristic of speech in deaf adults and children, but the mechanism of this abnormal nasal resonance is poorly understood. The impact of cochlear implantation on nasalance measures in children with severe auditory deprivation has not been previously reported. We conducted a study of nasality in 6 deaf children who had undergone cochlear implantation. Voice recordings were obtained before surgery and 6 months after activation of the implants. The MacKay-Kummer SNAP Test—which consists of a syllable-repetition subtest and a picture-cued subtest—was used to obtain nasalance scores for oral (bilabial, alveolar, velar, and sibilant) and nasal phonemes. Before cochlear implantation, mean nasalance scores were significantly higher than normal during the production of oral phonemes for both subtests (p ≤ 0.05). Six months after activation, the nasalance measures for all components of the syllable-repetition subtest had been restored to within 1 standard deviation of normal. For all oral phonemes of the picture-cued subtest, the elevated nasalance scores were consistently lower after cochlear implant activation, although the difference was statistically significant only for velar tasks. Nasalance scores for nasal phonemes were within 1 standard deviation of normal both before and after implant activation. Our study showed that cochlear implantation partially corrects elevated nasalance measures. Disturbances in nasal resonance may be caused in part by the inability of deaf speakers to monitor velopharyngeal valving with auditory feedback. The trend toward improved nasalance scores after implantation highlights the role of auditory feedback in monitoring velopharyngeal function. Visual biofeedback may be required to further normalize hypernasal speech in profoundly deaf children.
Laparoscopic total gastrectomy compared with open resection for gastric carcinoma: a case-matched study with long-term follow-up.

PURPOSE This study was designed to compare the long-term outcomes of patients with gastric carcinoma after open or laparoscopic total gastrectomy. METHODS A case-matched controlled prospective analysis of 136 patients who underwent laparoscopic total gastrectomy for stage I-III gastric carcinoma from 2007 to 2014 was performed. Patients who at the same period underwent open total gastrectomy were matched to the laparoscopy group at the ratio of 1:1 for comparison. The perioperative clinical outcomes, postoperative pathology, and survival were compared between the 2 groups RESULTS The patient characteristics between the two groups were comparable. Laparoscopic resection resulted in less blood loss, shorter postoperative hospital stay, and longer operating time. The two groups had similar complication rates. Pathological data were similar for both procedures. Cumulative incidence of recurrence, disease-free, or overall survival rates were statistically similar. CONCLUSION This study showed that laparoscopic total gastrectomy for gastric carcinoma is acceptable in terms of short-term clinical outcomes and long-term survival results.
Speech Enhancement for Distributed Speech Recognition in Mobile Devices

The issue of robustness in the presence of noise is regarded as a significant bottleneck in the commercialisation of speech recognition products, particularly in mobile environments. This paper examines the use of an auditory model combined with a speech enhancement algorithm as a robust front-end for a distributed speech recognition (DSR) system, whereby front-end functionality is implemented on a limited- resource consumer device like a mobile phone, while back-end classifier functionality is carried out by a remote server.
Weather observers: a manipulative augmented reality system for weather simulations at home, in the classroom, and at a museum

This study focused on how to enhance the interactivity and usefulness of augmented reality (AR) by integrating manipulative interactive tools with a real-world environment. A manipulative AR (MAR) system, which included 3D interactive models and manipulative aids, was designed and developed to teach the unit “Understanding Weather” in a natural science course, and to bridge a formal learning environment (i.e. school), non-formal (i.e. at a museum), and informal learning environments (i.e. home). Sixty-four sixth-grade students (12–13 years old) from four classes in Taipei City were enrolled in a seven-week general studies course entitled “Natural and Life Science and Technology”, and they were divided into an experimental group (31 students who used the MAR system) and a control group (33 students who used multimedia teaching resources). After seven weeks of experiments, the results revealed that integrating the MAR system into inquiry-based field study made a greater positive impact on the students' academic achievement and motivation compared to the multimedia teaching resources installed on a tablet PC. Additionally, there were two interesting findings: (1) the MAR system offered effective learning materials relative to the multimedia teaching resources and (2) manipulative aids were an effective learning tool for interactivity and usefulness of AR. Besides, there were two meaningful suggestions associated with designing and developing the AR educational system for future researchers and designers, namely make it easy to use and include manipulative aids.
Highly Selective Molecularly Imprinted Overoxidized Polypyrrole Colloids: One-Step Preparation Technique

A convenient “one step” preparation process of molecularly imprinted overoxidized-polypyrrole (oPPy) colloids by chemical polymerization and their high uptake ability and enantioselectivity are described. Since an oxidizing agent gives a different standard redox potential and rate of polymerization, the property of the resulting oPPy colloid can be controlled by the kind and concentration of the oxidizing agent. At higher concentrations of (NH_4)_2S_2O_8 (0.3 M), the overoxidation of PPy colloid automatically occurred. The extraction of l -lactate as a dopant has created a shape-complementary cavity on the surface of the oPPy colloid through overoxidation following polymerization. The oPPy colloid exhibited an excellent selectivity not only on the alanine enantiomer but also on the difference in the side-chain size of amino acids. The uptake of oPPy colloid towards l -alanine over D-alanine was 11.3 µmol/g-colloid against 3.6 µmol/g. The molecularly imprinted cavity can also recognize the existences of the OH or CH_3 substituents.
Impact of supply chain agility on long term relationship in service industry

Supply Chain Management (SCM) has become a successful strategy that effectively links partners along a business process. It ensures effective cost and time management within the process flows and has become popular in a wide range of industries. Technology plays a very important role within the SCM system, as it allows the system to be flexible yet agile, providing a quick response time at the same time, a very important attribute during this day and age. In this paper we analyze the impact of the SC agility on long term (LT) relationship in the service industry. A sample of 60 call centers operating for outbound and inbound calls in Tunisia has been selected for this study. As regards inputs for the SC agility, IS flexibility shows a more positive impact than HR flexibility on the company’s long term relationship with its customers. However, SC agility seems to have a negative effect on LT trading with customers within this sector. Indeed, results show that customers are more likely to give priority to the extent of which their demands have been answered rather than the actual response time itself. Customer orientation and competitive priorities for customer service proved to have a significant impact on a long established business in this field as well. Both theoritical and practical implications are provided. Limitations to this study are also discussed and directions for future research are suggested.
The Impact of Financing Decision on the Shareholder Value Creation

The purpose of this paper is to explore an optimal capital structure to maximize the shareholder wealth, also we try to determine the most significant determinants for shareholder value creation. Using a sample of French firms introduced on the stock exchange and belonging to SBF 250 index over a period from 1999 to 2005. We use in the paper a panel data. It provides the researcher a large number of data points, increasing the degrees of freedom and reducing the colinearity among explanatory variables, hence improving the efficiency of econometric estimates. Our result shows that the estimation of both empirical models explaining the shareholder value, we notice that the self-financing explains positively and significantly the shareholder value creation for both measure (EVA and MVA). The equity issue supply’s to explain negatively and significantly the shareholder value for both measure. The financial debt contributes to explain positively and significantly the EVA. But it’s negatively related to MVA. The impact of financial factors on shareholder value depends to measure taken and the financial structure added to the model. Several authors have investigated how shareholder value creation can be increased, Rappaport (1987) has defined the value drivers as financial factors. The relationship between capital structure and firm value has been the subject of considerable debate. Indeed, the Pecking Order Theory and the Static Trade-off Theory found contradictory predictions in term of the impact of the financial structure on the shareholder value creation.
Investors’ Confidence Index (IC Index) as an Investment Determinant in Dhaka Stock Exchange

Investors’ psychology, sentiment, attitude towards risk, degree of risk tolerance or aversion and other risk characteristics largely influence the investment decision which is empirically observed by Deck et al. (2008). Lashgari (2000), Dennis and Mayhew (2002), Suk and Tully (2003), and Wurgler (2006) have used general and risk characteristics of investors to developed models on confidence index on stock markets. This study, in line with those efforts, tries to measure the individual investors’ level of confidence on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) of Bangladesh as a determinant of investment. The Investor Confidence Index indicates a large portion of these individual investors have low confidence on the stock market of Bangladesh with none found to be positive in favor of a better immediate future.
Classification of N-Screen Services and its standardization

By the advent of IPTV and smart TV, the broadcasting is transmitted using Internet. Bi-directional programs are appeared on broadcasting services. The convergence service combining with communication, information and web service are appeared too. N-Screen service is a killer service of smart TV. It uses several terminals, either fixed or mobile, to provide bi-directional, convergence and personal services with broadcasting service. N-Screen service can be classified into three categories: first, OSMU (One Source Multi Use) case, providing same contents to terminals having different capabilities such as screen size, CPU speed, memory, codec, network speed, etc. Second case is a vertical handover, continuous watching of content using different terminal. Third case is a collaborative service among multiple terminals. For example, a customer is watching soap opera using TV, while watching a specific scene related information or advertisement using his PAD or smart phone. In ITU-T SG13, the Y.sof (Service Scenario over FMC) was standardized. It defined detailed overall service scenarios using feature extraction of seamless mobile convergence service on several networks such as WiFi, 3G, WiMAX/WiBro. This standard extracts key features of five key elements: person, terminal, network, content, and service. Then, it analyzes relationships among key elements and suggests overall service scenario model. The service scenario model can be easily adopted on describing N-Screen service scenario because Y.sof handles scenario cases among several fixed or mobile terminals. In this paper, I will introduce Y.sof and classification of N-Screen service scenarios described using the standard. Also I will refer the standardization issues of N-Screen and its technologies.
Monetary Ease: A Factor behind Financial Crises? Some Evidence from OECD Countries

Abstract This paper addresses the question of whether and how easy monetary policy may lead to excesses in financial and real asset markets and ultimately result in financial dislocation. It presents evidence suggesting that periods when short-term interest rates were persistently and significantly below what Taylor rules would prescribe are correlated with increases in asset prices, especially as regards housing, though no systematic effects are identified on equity markets. Significant asset price increases, however, can also occur when interest rates are in line with Taylor rules, possibly associated with periods of financial deregulation and/or innovation. Finding also some support for a link of countries’ pre-crisis monetary stance with the extent to which their financial sectors were hit during the recent crisis, the paper argues that accommodating monetary policy over the period 2002–2005, probably in combination with rapid financial market innovation, would, in retrospect, seem to have been among the factors behind the run-up in asset prices and financial imbalances—the (partial) unwinding of which helped trigger the recent financial market crisis.