Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The Role, Limits of, and Alternatives to Financial Education in Support of Retirement Saving in the OECD, Eastern Europe and beyond

The paper investigates the role, limits of, and alternatives to financial education in the support of retirement saving, with a focus on the experience of transition economies in Central and Eastern Europe. It starts out with a review of the role of and experience with financial education in OECD countries and concludes that financial literacy is low and financial education of limited effectiveness. Against this background, the paper explores the impact of other constraints on individual retirement saving behavior drawing on recent results from “behavioral finance” and investigates the role and limits of “default options”, one increasingly cherished approach to overcome information constraints and decision inertia. This information is used to assess the role of and experience with financial education in the new market economies in Central and Eastern Europe. Preliminary information based on a survey of key policy institutions suggests that financial and retirement education still needs major improvements. But these institutions share the view of an important role of default options for pension design and the role of government regulation and supervision in their determination.
Induction of a transient graft vs. leukemia effect following unrelated cord blood transplantation

Abstract: Umbilical cord blood (UCB) has become a frequent source of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cells for transplantation. Of theoretical concern is a potential decrease in the graft vs. leukemia (GvL) effect, given the lesser degree of graft vs. host disease (GvHD) with this donor source. We report a case of recurrent acute non‐lymphoblastic leukemia (ANLL) following stem cell transplantation with unrelated mismatched UCB, which responded to the induction of GvHD. The response was documented both morphologically and by evaluation of chimeric engraftment by molecular DNA techniques. In addition, WT‐1, a purported marker of minimal residual disease in acute leukemia, correlated with remission status in this patient. In summary, the GvL effect is seen with allogeneic UCB transplantation and has the potential to be induced along with GvHD.
A hybrid registration approach combining SLAM and elastic matching for automatic side-scan sonar mosaic

This paper introduces a hybrid registration approach to build mosaics from side-scan sonar images. Due to specific acquisition procedure during surveys, standard SLAM techniques may not be robust enough to globally take into account a complete survey and correct sensor trajectories in order to properly georeference every pixel from all these images. iSAM algorithm has been fed with real side-scan images and shows interesting capabilities to produce corrected sensor trajectories allowing relevant coarse image registration, based on landmarks extraction and pairing. These trajectories will then guide a block-matching procedure that will refine these trajectories by finely matching only sonar images relevant areas.
Serum vitamin D and the metabolic syndrome among osteoporotic postmenopausal female patients of a family practice clinic in Jordan.

BACKGROUND Vitamin D deficiency and insufficiency and the metabolic syndrome are two common health issues worldwide. The association between these two health problems is subject to debate. OBJECTIVES This study aims to investigate the association between vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency and the metabolic syndrome in a sample of osteoporotic postmenopausal women attending a family practice clinic in Amman-Jordan. MATERIAL AND METHODS This was an observational cross sectional study. It was carried out in the family practice clinic in Jordan University Hospital. The study included all postmenopausal osteoporotic women attending the clinic between June 2011 and May 2012, yielding a total of 326 subjects. The association between metabolic syndrome and serum vitamin D levels was investigated. RESULTS Waist circumference, body mass index, triglycerides and fasting blood sugar were significantly higher among postmenopausal women with metabolic syndrome, but HDL cholesterol was significantly lower (p<0.05). The prevalence of metabolic syndrome among all study participants was 42.9%. Triglycerides and LDL cholesterol were significantly higher among women deficiency or insufficiency (p<0.05). The prevalence of vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency was 45.7%. Among patients with metabolic syndrome, the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency or insufficiency was 50.7%. CONCLUSIONS Findings of the current study suggest a lack of relationship between serum vitamin D and metabolic syndrome. However, a significant inverse relationship was found between serum vitamin D levels and both serum triglycerides and LDL levels.
Acute Intoxication Caused by Overdose of Flunitrazepam and Triazolam: High Concentration of Metabolites Detected at Autopsy Examination

AbstractA 52-year-old woman was found dead on the floor of the living room on the first floor of a house, which belonged to the man with whom she shared the house. On visiting the site, her clothes were found to be undisturbed. Packages of flunitrazepam (Silece, 2 mg/tablet) and triazolam (Halcion, 0.25 mg/tablet) were found strewn around the victim. Toxicological analysis was performed, and the concentrations of flunitrazepam, triazolam, and their metabolites in the victim’s blood and urine were measured by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled with photodiode array and mass spectrometry. A high blood concentration of 7-aminoflunitrazepam was detected (1,270 ng/g), and further metabolites such as 7-acetamidoflunitrazepam, 7-acetamidodesmethylflunitrazepam, and 7-aminodesmethylflunitrazepam were detected in the blood and urine samples. In addition, 4-hydroxytriazolam and &agr;-hydroxytriazolam were detected in her urine at a concentration of 950 and 12,100 ng/mL, respectively.On the basis of the autopsy findings and toxicology results of high concentrations of both flunitrazepam and triazolam derivatives, the cause of death was determined to be acute intoxication from flunitrazepam and triazolam.
Sex offenders, sentencing laws and pharmaceutical treatment: a prescription for failure.

The phenomenon of adults who have sexual interests involving children as partners, or pedophiles, is considered among the most sociopathological of human conditions. Considerable literature is devoted to issues and problems associated with or related to pedophilia, including prevalence, etiology, treatment, and outcome studies. The sexual victimization of children, based upon data gathered from a number of sources, suggests an intractable problem that is national in scope. Recent manifestations of society's efforts to deal with the sexual victimization of children include the enactment of criminal sentencing laws that mandate the treatment of offenders with certain pharmaceutical agents, such as medroxy-progesterone acetate ("MPA"). Because sentencing laws as a rule vary widely from state to state, there is considerable variation as to who is subject to MPA treatment laws, and how such laws-including specific provisions, such as clinical criteria, if any, required for treatment; type and period of treatment plans; informed consent; etc-are implemented. Most important, these sentencing laws may have remarkably little relation to what is widely considered effective treatment for pedophilia disorders. We examine in detail the most recent sentencing laws pertaining to treatment of persons who have been convicted of sex offenses involving children as victims. Our critique may offer insight and suggestions as to how such sentencing laws can be more suitably tailored to the treatment needs of persons with pedophilia disorders.
Evaluation of bispectral index and auditory evoked potentials for hypnotic depth monitoring during balanced xenon anaesthesia compared with sevoflurane.

BACKGROUND None of the currently available hypnosis monitoring systems have evaluated balanced xenon anaesthesia. We investigated the performance of the bispectral index (BIS) and the composite A-line autoregressive index (cAAI) while comparing balanced xenon with sevoflurane anaesthesia. METHODS Sixty patients undergoing elective abdominal surgery participated in this registered double-blinded, controlled trial and-after written informed consent-were randomly assigned to one of the study groups (xenon, n=30; sevoflurane, n=30). After induction, general anaesthesia was maintained with xenon 60% or sevoflurane 2.0% in 30% O2. Remifentanil was titrated to clinical needs. BIS and cAAI values were recorded electronically and blinded to the performing physician. Emergence from anaesthesia was evaluated and during 12 h follow-up, patients were questioned twice for signs of recalls. RESULTS During induction and maintenance of anaesthesia, BIS values in the xenon group were comparable with sevoflurane anaesthesia and within the recommended range. Although the cAAI remained stable in the sevoflurane group, values increased during balanced xenon anaesthesia and exceeded the recommended upper limit after 65 min. Emergence from xenon anaesthesia was significantly faster than from sevoflurane (eye opening at 3.8 vs 10.3 min, P<0.001), and BIS values were concordant with the washout of both anaesthetics. No incident of recall was reported. CONCLUSIONS During surgery, xenon/remifentanil anaesthesia can be monitored using BIS and cAAI. However, cAAI values changed after about 1 h of anaesthesia. Further studies will be needed to address the question whether auditory signal processing is altered during extended xenon exposure.
Composite Hierarchical Antidisturbance Control for Magnetic Bearing System Subject to Multiple External Disturbances

This paper explores a composite hierarchical antidisturbance control (CHADC) scheme for the resonance vibration suppression of a high-speed rotor system supported by active magnetic bearings (AMBs) in the magnetically suspended double-gimbal control moment gyroscope (MSDGCMG). The rotor dynamics with a fictitious integral term is introduced to meet the steady-state performance requirements. Resonance disturbances caused by harmonic drive transmission and gyroscopic torque disturbances caused by gimbal motions are also analyzed. The augmented composite AMB system with two types of disturbances and nonlinear electromagnetic dynamics is developed. Then, a disturbance observer is constructed and a stability analysis of the closed-loop system is performed using a Lyapunov approach. Simulation results show that the exogenous disturbance can be estimated and compensated with the appropriate control parameters. Rotor run-up experiments demonstrate that the proposed method has a good performance for disturbance rejection of harmonic drive resonance vibrations under the excitation of coupling torques. The gyroscopic torque disturbances with the bounded norm can also be attenuated effectively.
Assessing the interplay between multigenic and environmental influences on adolescent to adult pathways of antisocial behaviors

Abstract The current investigation utilized a developmental psychopathology approach to test the hypothesis that multigenic (i.e., dopaminergic and serotonergic genes) and multienvironmental factors interactively contribute to developmental pathways of antisocial behavior (ASB). A sample of 8,834 Caucasian individuals from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) were used to (a) examine the developmental pathways of ASB from age 13 to 32 using growth mixture modeling, (b) compute weighted multigenic risk scores (Add Health MRS) for ASB from six well-characterized polymorphisms in dopamine and serotonin genes, and (c) test the interaction between the Add Health MRS and a measures of support (incorporating indicators of both positive and negative support from parents and schools). Four pathways of adolescent to adult ASB emerged from the growth mixture models: low, adolescence-peaked, high decline, and persistent. Add Health MRS predicted the persistent ASB pathway, but not other ASB pathways. Males with high Add Health MRS, but not low MRS, had significantly greater odds of being in the adolescence-peaked pathway relative to the low pathway at low levels of school connectedness. Nonfamilial environmental influences during adolescence may have a cumulative impact on the development of ASB, particularly among males with greater underlying genetic risks.
Comparing Word Processing Times in Naming, Lexical Decision, and Progressive Demasking: Evidence from Chronolex

We report performance measures for lexical decision (LD), word naming (NMG), and progressive demasking (PDM) for a large sample of monosyllabic monomorphemic French words (N = 1,482). We compare the tasks and also examine the impact of word length, word frequency, initial phoneme, orthographic and phonological distance to neighbors, age-of-acquisition, and subjective frequency. Our results show that objective word frequency is by far the most important variable to predict reaction times in LD. For word naming, it is the first phoneme. PDM was more influenced by a semantic variable (word imageability) than LD, but was also affected to a much greater extent by perceptual variables (word length, first phoneme/letters). This may reduce its usefulness as a psycholinguistic word recognition task.
Generalized frequency-domain synthetic aperture focusing technique for ultrasonic imaging of irregularly layered objects

In ultrasonic nondestructive testing (NDT), the phase shift migration (PSM) technique, as a frequency-domain implementation of the synthetic aperture focusing technique (SAFT), can be adopted for imaging of regularly layered objects that are inhomogeneous only in depth but isotropic and homogeneous in the lateral direction. To deal with irregularly layered objects that are anisotropic and inhomogeneous in both the depth and lateral directions, a generalized frequency- domain SAFT, called generalized phase shift migration (GPSM), is proposed in this paper. Compared with PSM, the most significant innovation of GPSM is that the phase shift factor is generalized to handle anisotropic media with lateral velocity variations. The generalization is accomplished by computer programming techniques without modifying the PSM model. In addition, SRFFT (split-radix fast Fourier transform) input/output pruning algorithms are developed and employed in the GPSM algorithm to speed up the image reconstructions. The experiments show that the proposed imaging techniques are capable of reconstructing accurate shapes and interfaces of irregularly layered objects. The computing time of the GPSM algorithm is much less than the time-domain SAFT combined with the ray-tracing technique, which is, at present, the common method used in ultrasonic NDT industry for imaging layered objects. Furthermore, imaging regularly layered objects can be regarded as a special case of the presented technique.
Tokophobia: An unreasoning dread of childbirth

Background Some women dread and avoid childbirth despite desperately wanting a baby. This is called tokophobia. Aims To classify tokophobia for the first time in the medical literature. Method Twenty-six women noted to have an unreasoning dread of childbirth were interviewed by the same psychiatrist, who was not the treating doctor. A qualitative analysis of these psychiatric interviews was performed. Results Phobic avoidance of pregnancy may date from adolescence (primary tokophobia), be secondary to atraumatic delivery (secondary tokophobia) or be a symptom of prenatal depression (tokophobia as a symptom of depression). Pregnant women with tokophobia who were refused their choice of delivery method suffered higher rates of psychological morbidity than those who achieved their desired delivery method. Conclusions Tokophobia is a specific and harrowing condition that needs acknowledging. Close liaison between the obstetrician and the psychiatrist in order to assess the balance between surgical and psychiatric morbidity is imperative with tokophobia.
Functional hypothalamic amenorrhoea: a partial and reversible gonadotrophin deficiency of nutritional origin

Functional hypothalamic amenorrhoea (FHA) is a consequence of low dietary intake as observed in two major pathophysiological conditions, anorexia nervosa and/or intensive physical exercise. The aim of the present study was to assess in women with FHA and normal body mass index (BMI) and apparently normal daily activities, the degree of impairment of GnRH secretion, its nutritional origin and its reversibility.
A Two-Stage Optimized Next-View Planning Framework for 3-D Unknown Environment Exploration, and Structural Reconstruction

In this paper, we present a solution for autonomous exploration and reconstruction in 3-D unknown environments without a priori knowledge of the environments. In our framework, a two-stage heuristic information gain-based next-view planning algorithm is performed to dynamically select and update candidate viewpoints, followed by immediate next-best-view extraction and corresponding motion planning. The two-stage planner consists of a frontier-based boundary coverage planner and a fixed start open travelling salesman problem solver, such that the planner returns an exploration path with the consideration of global optimality in the context of accumulated space information. The effectiveness of our work is evaluated with simulation and experimental tests. The results and comparisons prove our system is able to autonomously explore the 3-D unknown environments and reconstruct the structural model with improved exploration efficiency in terms of path quality and total exploration time.
Effects of Financial Development on Economic Growth and Food Processing Industry Based on Time Series Model

Financial development will promote the enterprise innovation to a certain extent, in this study, we analyze how financial development effect on economic growth, especially in food processing industry. The result shows that: First, financial development will promote the food processing industry in short time, but this effect will reduce gradually in the long time. Second, financial development is the granger reason to food processing industry and there exist a long-term equilibrium relationship between them. From the VAR model, we can get that financial development will promote food processing industry growth. LnFIR at lag 1 period increased one percentage can drive LnFPE growth by 1.361 percentage, LnFIR at lag 1 period increased one percentage can drive LnGDP growth by 0.942 percentage, so the effect of financial development on economic growth is obvious.
Local overexpression of adeno-viral IL-4 protects cartilage from metallo proteinase-induced destruction during immune complex-mediated arthritis by preventing activation of pro-MMPs.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether IL-4 protects against metalloproteinase-induced cartilage destruction during immune complex mediated arthritis and to elucidate its mechanism. METHODS Experimental immune complex arthritis (ICA) was raised by injecting lysozyme into the knee joints of mice which previously were given anti-lysozyme antibodies. Three days before ICA induction, mice were injected into the right knee joint with either IL-4 expressing or empty control recombinant human type 5 adenovirus. Joint inflammation and cartilage destruction (PG depletion, erosion) was measured by histology of total knee joints. Aggrecan breakdown in cartilage caused by metalloproteinases (MMPs) was studied by immunolocalization using anti-VDIPEN antibodies. RESULTS Four days after ICA induction, histological analysis showed comparable exudate and infiltrate in both groups. Depletion of proteoglycans as measured by loss of red staining was also comparable in both groups. IL-4 treatment inhibited MMP-mediated neoepitope expression by 90%. Moreover, cartilage matrix erosion was evident in all animals (10 out of 10 mice) in the control group and significantly diminished (only two out of ten mice) in the IL-4 treated group. Incubation of patellae with APMA, which activates latent MMPs resulted in VDIPEN expression which was not significantly different from control ICA indicating that comparable amounts of latent pro-MMPs are present in IL-4 treated arthritic knee joints. CONCLUSION This study indicates that during ICA, IL-4 largely prevents MMP-mediated aggrecan breakdown and severe cartilage erosion. IL-4 does not inhibit production of latent MMPs by the chondrocyte but predominantly interferes with its activation.
Determinants of the recommended phase 2 dose of molecular targeted agents

The recommended phase 2 dose (RP2D) of anticancer agents is determined traditionally by dose‐limiting toxicities. Nontoxicity or biological endpoints such as pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, and efficacy can also be used to identify RP2D, which may be relevant to molecularly targeted agents (MTAs).
Airflow limitation in morbidly obese, nonsmoking men.

STUDY OBJECTIVE To determine the effect of obesity on pulmonary function. DESIGN Case-control study, using nonobese, age- and height-matched [corrected] nonsmokers. SETTING Metabolic and obesity clinics of two major teaching hospitals. PATIENTS One hundred and three obese, lifelong nonsmokers without cardiopulmonary disease. CONTROLS One hundred and ninety healthy, nonobese nonsmokers recruited from among hospital personnel. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Complete pulmonary function measurements in all patients and controls. These measurements included maximum expiratory flow-volume curve, lung volumes and airway resistance using body plethysmograph, single-breath diffusing capacity for carbon monoxide, and total lung capacity using the helium dilution technique. Obese persons were found to have lower functional residual capacity, expiratory reserve volume, and total lung capacity by helium dilution than nonobese controls. In addition, residual volume and diffusing capacity were higher in the obese group. Finally, we found that obese men, but not women, had reduced maximum expiratory flow rates at 50% and 75% of exhaled vital capacity. CONCLUSION Obesity may contribute independently of smoking habits to chronic airflow limitation in men.
A role for gelsolin in stress fiber-dependent cell contraction.

Gelsolin is an abundant actin binding protein that mediates the rapid remodeling of cortical actin filaments through severing, capping, and nucleating activities. Most of the attention on the intracellular function of gelsolin has focused on the remodeling of the cortical actin meshwork but the localization of gelsolin to other regions of the cell suggests that it may have other important functions elsewhere. In cultured fibroblasts, gelsolin is heavily enriched in stress fibers, where its function in these contractile organelles is unknown. To study gelsolin function during stress fiber formation and cell contraction, we first assessed gelsolin levels in stress fiber preparations from lysophosphatidic acid (LPA)-treated human fibroblasts. LPA induced a large, time-dependent, calcium-independent increase of actin, gelsolin, alpha-actinin, and tropomyosin in stress fiber preparations. A microinjected gelsolin antibody that inhibits severing by gelsolin reduced stress fibers. Anti-sense-transfected gelsolin-depleted 3T3 cell lines treated with LPA after serum starvation required approximately 6 h to form stress fibers and focal adhesions, in contrast to control lines transfected with vector only, which formed stress fibers 15 min after addition of LPA. In cells microinjected with the gelsolin antibody that inhibits severing, Mg-ATP-induced cell contraction was greatly reduced in approximately 90% of injected cells compared to cells injected with an irrelevant antibody. Gelsolin-depleted cells were incapable of collagen gel contraction and showed no apparent Mg-ATP-induced cell contraction compared to cell lines transfected with vector only. The involvement of gelsolin in cell contraction and remodeling of collagen gels suggests a novel role for gelsolin in stress fiber-dependent cell function.