Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
HIV risk and condom use in the adult heterosexual population in France between 1992 and 2001: return to the starting point?

Objective: The aim of this paper is to measure changes in protection behaviours from 1992 to 2001, in assessing trends in condom use over time in the heterosexual adult population. Design: These changes are measured through repeated AIDS KABP surveys comparing, over time, condom use during the 12 months prior to the surveys and condom use at first sexual intercourse before and after the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Method: National telephone surveys were conducted in 1992, 1994, 1998 and 2001. A total sample of 7026 heterosexual individuals, aged 18–54 years, was obtained. Results: Two temporal phases are highlighted in condom use. The first shows an increase in both condom use at first sexual intercourse from 1985 to 1998, and in condom use during the 12 months prior to the surveys between 1992 and 1998, suggesting that sexual health promotion messages may have increased HIV/AIDS preventive behaviours. The second phase shows a decrease in condom use. Compared with 1998, condom use at first sexual intercourse in the 2001 survey still remains high; however, condom use in the 12 months prior to the survey is clearly decreasing, particularly among those with multiple sexual partners during the past 12 months. Conclusions: Reasons for this relapse in condom use in the general population include changes in social and individual representation due to the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapy, the difficulties in sustaining long-term preventive behaviours, and a high level of awareness in the population and/or the decrease of large HIV prevention campaigns.
Weak-form market efficiency of an emerging Market: Evidence from Dhaka Stock Market of Bangladesh. 1

The vast majority of efficient market research to date has focused on the major United States and European securities market. Far fewer have investigated the developing and less developed countries markets; and no study on this area has been performed on the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE). The study seeks evidence supporting the existence of at least weak-form efficiency of the market. The sample includes the daily price indices of all the listed securities on the DSE for the period of 1988 to 1997. The hypothesis of the study is whether the Dhaka Stock Market is weakform efficient. The results of both non-parametric (Kolmogrov ‐Smirnov normality test and run test) test and parametric test ( Auto-correlation test, Auto-regression, ARIMA model ) provide evidence that the share return series do not follow random walk model and the significant autocorrelation co-efficient at different lags reject the null hypothesis of weak-form efficiency. The results are consistent in different sub-sample observations, without outlier and for individual securities. The issues are important to security analysts, investors and security exchange regulatory bodies in their policy making decisions to improve the market condition. This study deserves a continuous research on this area to reach an ultimate conclusion about the level of efficiency of less developed market.
DNase I mediates internucleosomal DNA degradation in human cells undergoing drug‐induced apoptosis

Internucleosomal DNA fragmentation following the activation of endonucleases is the common end point of apoptosis. DNase I, a Ca2+ / Mg2+‐dependent endonuclease ubiquitously expressed in mammalian tissues, is believed to play a role in this process. To analyze the in vivo function of this enzyme in human cells, we have generated a cell line with targeted disruption of the DNase I gene, as well as several stable cell lines which overexpress the DNase I gene. Inactivation of the human DNase I gene was obtained in the Jurkat T cell clone JA3, characterized by high susceptibility to apoptotic cell death induced by pharmacological stimuli. JA3 cells, after disruption of the DNase I gene, became resistant to apoptotic stimuli. DNase I was overexpressed in the human cell lines JA3, K562 (erythroleukemia), M 14 (melanoma) and CEM (T cell lymphoma). Remarkably, stable overexpression of DNase I gene resulted in accelerated apoptosis in JA3 cells and induced apoptosis in K562, CEM and M14 cell lines, which are otherwise resistant to internucleosomal DNA degradation following pharmacological stimuli. Our study provides the first in vivo evidence that DNase I mediates internucleosomal DNA degradation in human cells undergoing drug‐induced apoptosis.
PENGARUH BRAND EQUITY DAN PRICING TERHADAP PURCHASE INTENTION MASKAPAI LOW COST CARRIER DI JAKARTA

Low cost carrier flight industry has negative issues recently in Indonesia, for example pilots were identified for drugs problems, many flight cancellation and delay, issues of consumer convenience such as stiff padding and knee-knocking issues and other issues which affects the brand equity of the airline industry itself. Based on the theory, brand equity is an important and valuable asset to a company, since it can affect a long-term relationship between producers and consumers. Thus, bad branding-decision will destroy the business. Therefore, if the company is able to have a good branding, it will increase company’s performance. Customer based brand equity reflects on how customers think, feel, and appreciate a brand as well as price, market share, and the advantages given to a company's brand. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of brand awareness, brand association and price airline tickets low cost carrier flight in Jakarta on purchase intention. The method used was a descriptive correlation method based on hypothesis testing to determine the level of relationship variables as well as the magnitude of the relationship. Results from this study indicate that there is a significant influence of brand awareness, brand association and the price on the purchase intention. However, price has the greatest influence on the purchase intention (0.343) followed by brand association (0.248) and then brand awareness (0,211).
High-sensitivity C-reactive protein and the hypertriglyceridemic waist in patients with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.

BACKGROUND High-sensitivity C-reactive protein is an important biomarker of systemic inflammation. We studied the contribution to cardiovascular risk of increased high-sensitivity C-reactive protein in patients with type 2 diabetes with or without concomitant metabolic syndrome. MATERIAL/METHODS The series included 381 patients (199 men, 182 women; median age, 66 years; age range, 50-80 years) with a mean duration of type 2 diabetes of 9+/-8 years. Standard physical examinations and laboratory investigations were administered to all patients. Modified National Cholesterol Education Program III criteria for defining the metabolic syndrome were used. High-sensitivity C-reactive protein was estimated by immunoturbidimetry and other laboratory tests using standard methods. RESULTS High-sensitivity C-reactive protein correlated (Spearman's correlation) significantly positively with body mass index and waist size, fasting plasma triglyceride levels, apolipoprotein-B, gamma glutamyl transferase, homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance, and fibrinogen, and negatively with high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. However, only waist, fibrinogen, apolipoprotein-B, plasma glucose, and gamma glutamyl transferase levels appeared to be associated with high-sensitivity C-reactive protein on multiple logistic regression model analyses. In those diabetic patients with concomitant metabolic syndrome, the hypertriglyceridemic waist appeared to be a major factor for an increased high-sensitivity C-reactive protein concentration. CONCLUSIONS The hypertriglyceridemic waist contributes to the metabolic syndrome and most likely is an important factor increasing high-sensitivity C-reactive protein levels and consequently, relative coronary risk in patients with type 2 diabetes of any sex and age.
EFFECTS OF SEPSIS ON RECOVERY OF THE HEART FROM 50 MIN ISCHEMIA

Gram-negative sepsis as well as administration of agents that simulate or occur naturally subsequent to a septic challenge, can present as an oxidant stress to the myocardium. These stresses may then induce the development of protection of the heart from future stresses. This protection of the heart may occur in spite of the fact that sepsis itself induces myocardial dysfunction. In the present study we determined if sepsis is protective of a 50 min ischemic episode, one in which some degree of irreversible damage may occur. In addition we determined if sepsis-induced protection was still present when this ischemic challenge was imposed upon the heart of the alcoholic septic animal in which the chronic alcoholic state can lead to a potentiation of sepsis induced cardiac depression. Thus animals were fed an ethanol containing diet or a control diet for 8–10 weeks and were then made septic by the administration of Escherichia coli into the dorsal subcutaneous space. Control animals received sterile saline. The following day, hearts were studied in the isovolumic beating preparation and, after basal function was assessed, hearts were made globally ischemic for 50 min and reperfused for 30 min. Left ventricular pressure was continuously monitored and coronary flow was measured at specific intervals. After ischemia and reperfusion, hearts from control- and alcohol-fed animals that were nonseptic showed significantly decreased left ventricular performance. Ventricular pressure development of hearts from septic and alcoholic septic rats was not significantly decreased after ischemia and reperfusion compared to preischemia although preischemic function was significantly lower in the sepsis groups compared to their nonseptic control groups. Recovery of coronary flow tended to be more rapid in the two septic groups and to show a hyperemia compared to recovery of flow in the control and alcohol nonseptic groups. Thus sepsis-induced protection of the heart was effective even after 50 min ischemia.
Characterization and application of dichroic filters in the 0.1-3-THz region

Low-loss dichroic filters, a subgroup of frequency-selective components, have been characterized by terahertz time-domain spectroscopy in the region from 0.1 to 3 THz and with Fourier transform spectroscopy. The two data sets are fully consistent. The time-domain spectrometer is used to investigate the phase velocity behavior of dichroic filters. The dichroic filters have various applications in frequency mixing, multiplying, and diplexing experiments. In a novel application, cascaded filters were used to limit the terahertz pulse bandwidth and to monitor molecular transitions of atmospheric water vapor in a selected frequency band.
The financial crises of globalization

In the twentieth century there was a debate between Keynesian and the market neoliberal economy school and the Keyneysian model prevail until the arrival of contemporary globalization,that adopted the neoliberal paradigm. Instead of a productive globalization a financial globalization was first developed which has led to recurring crises since 1929; the last one erupted in 2008 and it is still having a negative impact on the economic environment of the planet. The result has been to produce a very slow market self-regulation of the neoliberal model by introducing again monitoring and follow-up mechanisms by States and international organisms for predicting the occurrence of such serious crises for world economy.
The Inter-Relationship between Initial Profits, Growth-Focused Firms and Profit-Focused Firms: Evidence from KSE 100-Index Pakistan

Profit and growth are considered as important goals in managing firms. This study tests the impact of initial profits on the growth and profit on a sample of firms listed at Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) for the period 2006 to 2011. In addition to initial profits the study also checked the impact of leverage, firm’s size and age on profitable growth. Logistic regression borrowed from the work of Davidsson et al. (2009) was used to find out whether profit at initial stages of the firm determines profitable growth for the firm. The average growth rate of the companies was calculated for the last three years. After calculating the average growth rate the firms were then classified into two groups based on the median value of the growth. High growth firms were further classified into low and high profits based on the median of ROA (Return on Assets). The findings showed that initial profits had a positive significant impact on profitable growth. While firm’s size, age and leverage had no impact on profitable growth of the sampled firms. In comparison to growth-focused firms, profit-focused firms are more likely to reach a state of high growth and high profits.
EducationOn The Specification and Estimation of The Production Function for Cognitive Achievement

This paper considers methods for modelling the production function for cognitive achievement in a way that captures theoretical notions that child development is a cumulative process depending on the history of family and school inputs and on innate ability. It develops a general modelling framework that accommodates many of the estimating equations used in the literatures. It considers different ways of addressing data limitations, and it makes precise the identifying assumptions needed to justify alternative approaches. Commonly used specifications are shown to place restrictive assumptions on the production technology. Ways of testing modelling assumptions and of relaxing them are discussed.
The observation capability reason of optical satellite sensor for soil moisture monitoring

The accuracy of soil moisture depends on these sensors' observation capability. Current methods have simple inference rules to provide obvious results for users, which have not clear connection between the sensors and specific application. This paper proposes an ontology and the reason rules of observation capability about optical satellite sensor, in order to mine deeper observation capability of sensors for soil moisture monitoring. The data in inversion model of soil moisture come from the information about band types in satellite sensors' images. So we define some rules of band type to make it available. We build and manipulate the ontology of sensors based on the SSN for inference. The reasoning was executed using the Jena rule engine. They were applied to some sensors and inversion models to reason the observation capabilities. We execute this method in the application for better selection based on available sensors.
Recommendations for the Generation, Quantification, Storage, and Handling of Peptides Used for Mass Spectrometry-Based Assays.

BACKGROUND For many years, basic and clinical researchers have taken advantage of the analytical sensitivity and specificity afforded by mass spectrometry in the measurement of proteins. Clinical laboratories are now beginning to deploy these work flows as well. For assays that use proteolysis to generate peptides for protein quantification and characterization, synthetic stable isotope-labeled internal standard peptides are of central importance. No general recommendations are currently available surrounding the use of peptides in protein mass spectrometric assays. CONTENT The Clinical Proteomic Tumor Analysis Consortium of the National Cancer Institute has collaborated with clinical laboratorians, peptide manufacturers, metrologists, representatives of the pharmaceutical industry, and other professionals to develop a consensus set of recommendations for peptide procurement, characterization, storage, and handling, as well as approaches to the interpretation of the data generated by mass spectrometric protein assays. Additionally, the importance of carefully characterized reference materials-in particular, peptide standards for the improved concordance of amino acid analysis methods across the industry-is highlighted. The alignment of practices around the use of peptides and the transparency of sample preparation protocols should allow for the harmonization of peptide and protein quantification in research and clinical care.
Global marketing managers

Purpose – Although a great deal of research has focused on global marketing strategy development and implementation, little research has focused on the global marketing managers charged with the responsibilities of developing and implementing such strategy. The aim of this paper is to develop a model that identifies a set of soft skills that have the ability to increase the effectiveness of global marketing managers in making the tactical adaptations necessary to develop and implement global marketing strategy in an increasingly complex and dynamic marketplace.Design/methodology/approach – A conceptual model is developed with coinciding propositions.Findings – The model developed theorizes that the ability of global marketing managers to make tactical adaptations to the firm's global marketing strategy (and thus enhance performance) is driven by the soft skills of tacit knowledge, experience, learning, unlearning, intuition, self‐confidence, flexibility, prioritization of problems, working under pressure .
Urinary output during induced labour in normotensive women: a prospective pilot study

All fluid intake and urine output were monitored and measured in 103 consecutive women with normal blood pressure and without a history of pre-existing renal disease during induced labour for various indications. Epidural analgesia was administered in all these women and labour was augmented with oxytocin infusion. All urine specimens passed were tested for specific gravity.The temperature of the labour rooms was between 25 and 27°C. Analysed results (from 50 women) shows that at a mean fluid intake of 75 ml/hour (standard deviation (SD) 21.84), oliguria (urine output <30 ml/hour) occurred in 42 (84%) of the women. There was a positive correlation between fluid intake and urinary output ( r 2 =0.8515, P <0.0001). Urinary specific gravity was high (>1010) in all the specimens throughout the study. This study suggests that oliguria may be a common component of labour managed in this manner and its interpretation in pre-eclamptics in labour may be viewed in this context. Oliguria may therefore be a poor indicator of renal function or worsening pre-eclampsia during labour and its management needs to be limited to the severe and persistent variety to avoid renal complications. We believe from this study that relevant urine and blood biochemistry are better correlates of renal function in labour.
Simultaneous Choice of Process and Product Innovation

This paper investigates the strategic decisions of two identical duopolists, who choose production technology as well as product differentiation through their R&D investment. The product market is characterized by heterogeneous Cournot competition. Firms have an incentive to invest in both process innovation and product innovation. The optimal division between these two kinds of R&D activities changes with market size. The higher consumers' willingness to pay, the more firms' investment is driven to product differentiation. If firms coordinate their R&D activities and share R&D costs, but remain rivals in the product market, they will reduce costs and differentiate their products more than under competition. The optimal proportion of R&D investment is driven more to product innovation than under R&D competition. It can be shown that welfare is increased if firms coordinate their research activities and share R&D costs. When firms cooperate, but do not share their R&D costs, welfare is only enhanced if product innovations are not too expensive.
Multi-structure whole brain registration and population average

We present here a novel method for whole brain magnetic resonance (MR) image registration that explicitly penalizes the mismatch of cortical and subcortical regions by simultaneously utilizing anatomic segmentation information from multiple cortical and subcortical structures, represented as volumetric images, with given T1-weighted MR image for registration. The registration is computed via variational optimization in the space of smooth velocity fields in the large deformation diffeomorphic metric matching (LDDMM) framework. We tested our method using a set of 10 manually labeled brains, and found quantitatively that subcortical and cortical alignment is improved over traditional single-channel MRI registration. We use this new method to generate a volumetric and cortical surface-based population average. The average grayscale image is found to be crisp, and allows the reconstruction and labeling of the cortical surface.
Serum vitamin D levels and hypogonadism in men

There is inconsistent evidence on a possible association of vitamin D and androgen levels in men. We therefore aim to investigate the association of 25‐hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) with androgen levels in a cohort of middle‐aged men. This cross‐sectional study included 225 men with a median (interquartile range) age of 35 (30–41) years. We measured 25(OH)D, total testosterone (TT) and SHBG concentrations. Hypogonadism was defined as TT <10.4 nmol/L. We found no significant correlation of 25(OH)D and androgen levels. Furthermore, androgen levels were not significantly different across 25(OH)D quintiles. The overall prevalence of hypogonadism was 21.5% and lowest in men within 25(OH)D quintile 4 (82–102 nmol/L). We found a significantly increased risk of hypogonadism in men within the highest 25(OH)D quintile (>102 nmol/L) compared to men in quintile 4 (reference) in crude (OR 5.10, 1.51–17.24, p = 0.009) as well as in multivariate adjusted analysis (OR 9.21, 2.27–37.35, p = 0.002). We found a trend towards increased risk of hypogonadism in men within the lowest 25(OH)D quintile (≤43.9 nmol/L). In conclusion, our data suggest that men with very high 25(OH)D levels (>102 nmol/L) might be at an increased risk of hypogonadism. Furthermore, we observed a trend towards increased risk of hypogonadism in men with very low vitamin D levels indicating a U‐shaped association of vitamin D levels and hypogonadism. With respect to risk of male hypogonadism, our results suggest optimal serum 25(OH)D concentrations of 82–102 nmol/L.
Teams in Organizations: Understanding the Disconnect between Available Team Resources and Organizational Struggles with Teams

In today‟s organizations, most of the productivity and innovation occur in teams (also called “groups”). Organizations possess a critical advantage when they are able to leverage the collective talents and contributions of employees working in teams. By nature, performance of the organization‟s teams equals performance of the organization. While the need for teams has grown dramatically, research and knowledge about teams have increased. A wide array of resources, training, and consultants are available to help organizations with their teams. Yet, most organizations report they struggle with maintaining effective teams. The purpose of the grounded theory study was to understand the disconnect between available team resources and the challenges organizations face with their teams. There were 18 interviews conducted with individuals who have experience in organizations with teams or experience helping organizations with their teams. The data indicated teams are impacted by the leadership and environment in the larger organization. Individual teams may achieve a satisfying level of performance for a period of time. Eventually, however, the organization‟s leadership and culture must support teams, or obstacles will surface beyond the scope and influence of its teams. Organizations that reported success with their teams had focused on developing the organization as a whole, i.e., the organization is the team. This included developing a functioning top leadership team, designing processes to maximize input and communication throughout the organization, and utilizing facilitation support through external consultants skilled in whole-scale organizational change methods. In those instances, the groups in the organizations were able to function effectively in an environment that supported teams.