Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A Study of Personal Financial Planning Process and Socio-Economic Decision-Making in Households

In the current era, planning of finance is assuming extreme importance as myriad financial products are available and individuals’ demands are increasing. Personal financial planning is a process which outlines one’s financial objectives and takes financial decisions in a manner that his goals are achieved. The process of financial planning and decision-making in household has been studied independently by various researchers. However, these are essentially intertwined in nature. In view of this, the researchers have undertaken the task of understanding whether individuals followed the Personal Financial Planning process consciously and whether this was linked to household decision-making, especially in the social and economic areas. This paper also examines gender inequality in household decision-making and how household decision-making evolves with time. The study was conducted in the Ahmedabad district of Gujarat, and a sample size of 196 respondents was selected on judgmental basis to meet the objective of the study. The response rate was 78% (n=150) which is considered to be acceptable for a research study. The sample size was equally split between males and females. The survey was carried out in June- July, 2014.Analysis has been done by using Analysis of Variance (ANOVA), Binary Logistic Regression and Chi-square. It was found that age influences components of Personal financial planning (PFP) like determining one’s financial objectives, knowledge of finance, satisfaction regarding current economic status, and retirement planning. Likewise, gender, income, education, profession and marital status affect various components of PFP. It was also found that household economic and social decisions were related to income and investment of the respondent. Further, it could be inferred that in a household, males held more bargaining power in taking economic decisions, while females exerted more influence in taking social decisions.
Marginalised stack denoising autoencoders for metagenomic data binning

Shotgun sequencing has facilitated the analysis of complex microbial communities. Recently we have shown how local binary patterns (LBP) from image processing can be used to analyse the sequenced samples. LBP codes represent the data in a sparse high dimensional space. To improve the performance of our pipeline, marginalised stacked autoencoders are used here to learn frequent LBP codes and map the high dimensional space to a lower dimension dense space. We demonstrate its performance using both low and high complexity simulated metagenomic data and compare the performance of our method with several existing techniques including principal component analysis (PCA) in the dimension reduction step and fc-mer frequency in feature extraction step.
15. Smartphone for social networking: methodological aspects

: In this chapter we parsed methodological aspects in studying behavior with mobile social networking sites like Facebook by using physiological measures. Current computational methods and the huge availability of sources and devices for psychophysiological recording allowed a deeper understanding of complex behaviors and an even more detailed knowledge of human emotions. These methods can be applied to understand the user navigation experience.
Exposure to influenza virus aerosols during routine patient care.

BACKGROUND Defining dispersal of influenza virus via aerosol is essential for the development of prevention measures. METHODS During the 2010-2011 influenza season, subjects with influenza-like illness were enrolled in an emergency department and throughout a tertiary care hospital, nasopharyngeal swab specimens were obtained, and symptom severity, treatment, and medical history were recorded. Quantitative impaction air samples were taken not ≤0.305 m (1 foot), 0.914 m (3 feet), and 1.829 m (6 feet) from the patient's head during routine care. Influenza virus was detected by rapid test and polymerase chain reaction. RESULTS Sixty-one of 94 subjects (65%) tested positive for influenza virus. Twenty-six patients (43%) released influenza virus into room air, with 5 (19%) emitting up to 32 times more virus than others. Emitters surpassed the airborne 50% human infectious dose of influenza virus at all sample locations. Healthcare professionals (HCPs) were exposed to mainly small influenza virus particles (diameter, <4.7 µm), with concentrations decreasing with increasing distance from the patient's head (P < .05). Influenza virus release was associated with high viral loads in nasopharyngeal samples (shedding), coughing, and sneezing (P < .05). Patients who reported severe illness and major interference with daily life also emitted more influenza virus (P < .05). CONCLUSIONS HCPs within 1.829 m of patients with influenza could be exposed to infectious doses of influenza virus, primarily in small-particle aerosols. This finding questions the current paradigm of localized droplet transmission during non-aerosol-generating procedures.
Conceptions about palliative care : literature review

This literature review study aimed to identify the conceptions of palliative care mentioned in Brazilian journals. The databases LILACS, SciELO and BDENF were used. In total, 47 articles were selected, published from 2000 to 2006. The conceptions found refer to the concept of palliative care, understood as integral care for individuals in terminal conditions, emphasizing the physical, psychosocial and spiritual aspects of the individual and the family; quality of life; care based on a humanistic approach and valuation of life; pain and symptom control; ethical issues about life and death; multidisciplinary approach; dying as a natural process; the priority of care over cure; communication, spirituality and mourning support. These conceptions are considered highly important in palliative care; however, there is a lack of services and centers to deliver these types of care.
Economic structures, the nature of shocks and the role of exchange rate in the monetary policy formation in the emerging countries of East-Asia

This thesis investigates the role of exchange rate in a small open economy policy framework. Focusing the analysis on the crisis-hit East-Asian countries, the main objective of this thesis is to investigate the necessity of the monetary authority to concern about the exchange rate stability by reacting directly to the exchange rate movements under the flexible exchange rate regime. This thesis conducts both numerical simulations and empirical analyses and it is organized in six chapters. Chapter One is the introduction about the content of each chapter and the summary of the main findings. Chapter Two is the overview about the economic and monetary policy of East-Asian countries. Chapter Four applies a model of Linde, Nessen & Soderstrom (2004) and conducts simulations to compare the performances of various policy rules in terms of policy loss and variations. The remaining chapters are about the empirical analyses, i.e. Chapter Three applies GMM technique and SUR model to estimate the degree of exchange rate pass-through in East-Asia in the pre- and post-crisis of 1997/98, Chapter Five applies GMM technique to estimate the policy reaction function for East-Asia and the last chapter conducts a SVAR model to investigate the change in the economic structure, the dynamic of shocks and the performances of the policy regimes in East-Asian countries. The simulations reveal some evidences on more effective monetary policy rules/ regimes that react directly to the exchange rate terms, taking into account for different degrees of exchange rate pass-through, trade openness, policy objective, the source and persistency of shocks. However, the size of improvements depends on country specific factors. Empirical results report different results for the degree of exchange rate pass-through along the pricing chain, over time and across countries. Besides, there are empirical evidences that the monetary authorities in East-Asian countries influence the exchange rate movements through short-term interest rate adjustments and foreign market intervention under the floating regime aftermath the crisis. Empirical findings indicate that the policy regimes aftermath the crisis is more effective. The source of shocks and the change in the economic structure matters in determining the performances of policy regimes. The empirical results are in line with the theoretical outcomes that favor the reaction to the exchange rate movements under the flexible exchange rate regime in the emerging countries of East-Asia.
Diagnostic criteria for persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD): Consensus document of the committee for the Classification of Vestibular Disorders of the Bárány Society

This paper presents diagnostic criteria for persistent postural-perceptual dizziness (PPPD) to be included in the International Classification of Vestibular Disorders (ICVD). The term PPPD is new, but the disorder is not. Its diagnostic criteria were derived by expert consensus from an exhaustive review of 30 years of research on phobic postural vertigo, space-motion discomfort, visual vertigo, and chronic subjective dizziness. PPPD manifests with one or more symptoms of dizziness, unsteadiness, or non-spinning vertigo that are present on most days for three months or more and are exacerbated by upright posture, active or passive movement, and exposure to moving or complex visual stimuli. PPPD may be precipitated by conditions that disrupt balance or cause vertigo, unsteadiness, or dizziness, including peripheral or central vestibular disorders, other medical illnesses, or psychological distress. PPPD may be present alone or co-exist with other conditions. Possible subtypes await future identification and validation. The pathophysiologic processes underlying PPPD are not fully known. Emerging research suggests that it may arise from functional changes in postural control mechanisms, multi-sensory information processing, or cortical integration of spatial orientation and threat assessment. Thus, PPPD is classified as a chronic functional vestibular disorder. It is not a structural or psychiatric condition.
Optimum-Path Forest Applied for Breast Masses Classification

In Computer-Aided Diagnosis-based schemes in mammography analysis each module is interconnected, which directly affects the system operation as a whole. The identification of mammograms with and without masses is highly needed to reduce the false positive rates regarding the automatic selection of regions of interest for further image segmentation. This study aims to evaluate the performance of three techniques in classifying regions of interest as containing masses or without masses (without clinical findings), as well as the main contribution of this work is to introduce the Optimum-Path Forest (OPF) classifier in this context, which has never been done so far. Thus, we have compared OPF against with two sorts of neural networks in a private dataset composed by 120 images: Radial Basis Function and Multilayer Perceptron (MLP). Texture features have been used for such purpose, and the experiments have demonstrated that MLP networks have been slightly better than OPF, but the former is much faster, which can be a suitable tool for real-time recognition systems.
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in India: Responsibility-Cum-Advantage

A man is a social being therefore, he needs society, environment, other fellow beings, etc. similarly a corporate too needs society to expand and explore; environment to use resources; human resource to run business, etc. In return it becomes responsibility of the corporate to develop the society and environment around it for its own improvement as well. However in India, CSR had been a voluntary move till 19th century, during the independence movement, it was taken as a symbol of trusteeship and then in the Companies Act, 2013, it turned into a legal framework. Since the clause 135 in the Companies Act, 2013 came into existence; it has become necessary for almost all the medium scale enterprises and for a few small scale enterprises to take CSR into consideration. As in the clause 135, still a room is left for giving the reasons in case company does not spend the required amount of CSR to be spent by it, the mostly companies can take benefit of it and they may also use CSR as a tool to enlarge their profit volume. Therefore, there is a need to examine it. The present paper deals with the analysis of the reasons given by the companies in their annual report for not meeting the minimum ground of CSR expenditure. It is also meant to examine the before-and-after effect of CSR provisions on their sales volume and in this regard first correlation has been sought and then paired sample t-test has been used. For the present study, sample of 10 mid-cap companies listed in NIFTY 150 dealing in service industry has been chosen. The study is based on secondary data and is analytical in nature.
Predictors of indigenous healer use among Samoans.

OBJECTIVE To determine the utilization of alternative modalities of care (i.e., indigenous healers or fofo) by Samoans, the indigenous peoples of the US Territory of American Samoa and examine predictors (i.e., socio-demographic, access to care, health status, culture-specific beliefs about disease etiology and treatment, and intentions to use healers) of utilization of fofo. DESIGN A cross-sectional design, with systematic, random sampling procedures. SUBJECTS 1,834 adult Samoan men and women residing in American Samoa, Hawaii, and Los Angeles. OUTCOME MEASURE Prevalence and predictors of utilization of fofo. Multivariate logistic regression was performed to determine independent predictors of utilization of fofo. RESULTS The prevalence of use of fofo across the three study sites was 41.0%. The following variables emerged as significant predictors of use of fofo: older age (odds ratio [OR] = 1.60; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.25-2.06), resident of American Samoa (OR = 1.69, CI = 1.29-2.21), belief that indigenous healers can treat cancer (OR = 1.79, CI = 1.40-2.30), belief that some illnesses afflict only Samoans (OR = 2.15, CI = 1.72-2.70), and greater intentions to use a fofo (OR = 2.27, CI = 1.81-2.85). Some of the more common medical conditions for which Samoans used fofo were biomedically defined musculoskeletal and neurologic problems, and Samoan sicknesses (ma'i Samoa). CONCLUSIONS Population-based estimates of use of alternative modalities of care by Samoans are comparable to that reported for the general US population. However, the predictors of utilization of indigenous healers are more likely to be culture-specific health beliefs about disease etiology and treatment. There is a need to better understand Samoan traditional medicine and help-seeking behavior and explore whether indigenous Samoan healers can assist in the delivery of clinically proven and culturally sensitive health interventions to positively impact both disease management and preventative behaviour in this minority Polynesian population.
A new anthraquinone from seed of Cassia obtusifolia

Seeds of Cassia obtusifolia L. are known as homology of medicine and food material, which is a commonly consumed beverage in China. One new compound, 8-hydroxy-1,7-dimethoxy-3-methylanthracene-9,10-dione-2-O-β-d-glucoside (1), together with 11 known compounds, including seven anthraquinones (2–8), was isolated from the seeds. The 2D NMR data of compound 2 are reported for the first time. The structures of the compounds were established on the basis of 1D and 2D NMR, IR and HR-ESI-MS spectra. The cytotoxic activities of all the compounds against five cell lines (LO2, HCT-116, A549, HepG2 and SGC7901) were evaluated by using CCK8 methods. Compounds 1, 3 and 7 show moderate cytotoxicity towards HCT-116 cells compared with oxaliplatin.
Vigorous physical activity and vagal modulation in young adults

Background Aerobic exercise leads to reduced sympathetic and increased cardiac vagal modulation, providing an antiarrhythmic effect. The optimal exercise intensity to promote this adaptation remains undefined. The aims of the present investigation were twofold. First, to examine differences in heart rate variability (HRV) measures in participants with different levels of objectively measured physical activity (PA). Second, to identify the characteristic of PA which most influences the cardiac autonomic nervous system (cANS) function in young adults. Methods Cross-sectional evaluation of 84 adults examining relationships between PA amount and intensities, measured by accelerometry, cANS function derived from HRV. Groups were created based on tertiles of PA and analysis of covariance was used to assess between-group differences in HRV. Stepwise regression analysis was used to determine the characteristic of PA, which best predicted vagal HRV indices. Results There were significantly higher levels of vagal HRV indices in the most active group compared with the least active group. Regression analysis revealed that the number of bouts of vigorous PA undertaken was the best predictor of the vagal HRV indices assessed. Conclusion This study suggests that vagal modulation is enhanced with high levels of PA and that it is the number of bouts of vigorous PA that is most closely associated with cANS function.
Dietary Polyunsaturated Fatty Acids Alter Myocardial Protein Kinase C Expression and Affect Cardioprotection Induced by Chronic Hypoxia

We examined the influence of dietary fatty acid (FA) classes on the expression of protein kinase C (PKC) δ and ε in relation to the cardioprotective effects of chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH). Adult male Wistar rats were fed a nonfat diet enriched with 10% lard (saturated FA [SFA]), fish oil (n-3 polyunsaturated FA [n-3 PUFA]), or corn oil (n-6 PUFA) for 10 weeks. After 4 weeks on the diet, each group was divided into two subgroups that were either exposed to CIH in a barochamber (7000 m, 8 hrs/ day) or kept at normoxia for an additional 5–6 weeks. A FA phospholipid profile and Western blot analysis of PKC were performed in left ventricles. Infarct size was assessed in anesthetized animals subjected to 20-min coronary artery occlusion and 3-hr reperfusion. CIH decreased the n-6/n-3 PUFA ratio in all groups by 23% independently of the initial value set by various diets. The combination of n-3 diet and CIH had a stronger antiarrhythmic effect during reperfusion than the n-3 diet alone; this effect was less pronounced in rats fed the n-6 diet. The normoxic n-6 group exhibited smaller infarctions (by 22%) than the n-3 group. CIH decreased the infarct size in n-3 and SFA groups (by 20% and 23%, respectively) but not in the n-6 group. Unlike PKCε, the abundance of PKCδ in the myocardial particulate fraction was increased by CIH except for the n-6 group. Myocardial infarct size was negatively correlated (r = − 0.79) with the abundance of PKCδ in the particulate fraction. We conclude that lipid diets modify the infarct size–limiting effect of CIH by a mechanism that involves the PKCδ-dependent pathway.
Rationale for the use of angiotensin ii receptor blockers in patients with left ventricular dysfunction (part I of II)

Almost 5 million individuals in the United States are diagnosed with chronic heart failure (HF), and the prevalence is increasing. Angiotensin‐converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and beta blockers, neurohormonal antagonists that block the renin‐angiotensin system (RAS) and the sympathetic nervous system, respectively, have been shown in clinical trials to reduce morbidity and mortality in patients with HF, and these therapies are now integral components of standard HF treatment. Yet, morbidity and mortality rates in HF remain unacceptably high, and the limitations of current standard therapies are becoming increasingly apparent. About 10% of patients with HF are unable to tolerate ACE inhibitors, often because of cough. In addition, ACE inhibition may not completely block the RAS because angiotensin II, the main end product of the RAS, can be generated via non‐ACE enzymatic pathways. Angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) may exert more complete RAS blockade than ACE inhibitors by interfering with the binding of angiotensin II at the receptor level, regardless of the enzymatic pathway of production. They are also better tolerated than ACE inhibitors and have been shown to improve symptoms and function in clinical trials in patients with HF. These factors provide a strong rationale for the study of the clinical effects of ARBs in patients with HF.
Aggressive venous thromboembolism prophylaxis reduces VTE events in vascular surgery patients

Objective Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a potentially preventable complication following surgery. There is variation with regard to the most effective mode of prophylaxis. We sought to determine if an aggressive approach to VTE prophylaxis would reduce VTE rates on the inpatient vascular surgical service. Methods Vascular inpatients from a single institution from July 2010 to March 2013 were included in the analysis. A protocol for VTE prophylaxis was implemented on the inpatient vascular surgical service in November 2011. This included subcutaneous (SQ) heparin initiation within 24 h of admission unless deemed inappropriate by the attending, as well as intermittent compression devices (ICD) and compression stockings (CS). The rate of VTE was compared prior to and following the intervention. Patients were compared using AHRQ comorbidity categories, APR-DRG severity of illness, insurance status, and principle procedure. T-tests were used to compare continuous variables and chi-square analysis used to compare categorical variables. Results There were 1483 vascular patients in the pre-intervention group and 1652 patients in the post-intervention group. The rate of pharmacologic prophylaxis was 52.57% pre-intervention compared to 69.33% post-intervention (p < 0.001). The rate of pharmacologic or mechanical prophylaxis was 91.76% pre-intervention compared to 93.10% post-intervention (p = 0.54). The overall rate of VTE prior to the intervention was 1.49% compared to after intervention which was 0.38% (p = 0.033). The DVT rate prior to intervention was 1.09% vs 0.189% after intervention (p = 0.0214). The rate of pulmonary embolism trended towards a significant reduction with the intervention (0.681% vs 0.189%, p = 0.095). There were no statistically significant differences in patient groups based on gender, comorbidity category, severity of illness, or insurance type. Conclusions The overall rate of VTE was reduced by 75% after the initiation of a standard protocol for pharmacologic VTE prophylaxis. These findings justify an aggressive approach to VTE prophylaxis in vascular surgery patients.
Reducing inequities in colorectal cancer screening in North America

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is an important cause of mortality and morbidity in North America. Screening using a fecal occult blood test, flexible sigmoidoscopy, or colonoscopy reduces CRC mortality through the detection and treatment of precancerous polyps and early stage CRC. Although CRC screening participation has increased in recent years, large inequities still exist. Minorities, new immigrants, and those with lower levels of education or income are much less likely to be screened. This review provides an overview of the commonly used tests for CRC screening, disparities in CRC screening, and promising methods at the individual, provider, and system levels to reduce these disparities. Overall, to achieve high CRC participation rates and reduce the burden of CRC in the population, a multi-faceted approach that uses strategies at all levels to reduce CRC screening disparities is urgently required.