LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Diagnostic value of the blind brush in mechanically ventilated patients with nosocomial pneumonia

Objectives: To check on the accuracy of a new protected blind brush (BB) inserted through an endotracheal tube to collect respiratory secretions to be used in the diagnosis of nosocomial pneumonia (NP) in ventilated patients.Design: Prospective study of patients who had undergone both BB and plugged telescoping catheter via fiberoptic bronchoscopy (PTC-FB) sample collection sessions.Setting: Intensive Care Unit of a referral-based University HospitalPatients: All patients (n=37) mechanically ventilated for more than 3 days with clinical and radiological criteria of NP between July 1990 and March 1991.Interventions: Randomized BB and PTC-FB sample collection sessions carried out less than 30 min apart.Measurements and main results: The two sampling procedures resulted in similar findings with both cultures either negative or positive and identified the same organism and colonies in 31 patients (83.7%). Agreement was 90% when the patients with right or bilateral pulmonary infiltrates were grouped together and 100% when only the right field was considered. Complications arising from BB sampling were much lower than those from the conventional PTC-FB technique.Conclusions: Our results, pending confirmation by other prospective studies, indicate that BB sampling is useful in the diagnosis of NP in ventilated patients with radiological evidence of either right or bilateral pulmonary infiltrates and that it could stand in for PTC-FB in ICU settings where this procedure is not available.
2 Improving Russia ’ s Policy on Foreign Direct Investment *

findings All countries—developing and developed alike—find it difficult to stay competitive without inflows of foreign direct investment (FDI). FDI brings to host countries not only capital, productive facilities, and technology transfers, but also employment, new job skills and management expertise. These ingredients are particularly important in the case of Russia today, where the pressure for firms to compete with each other remains low. With blunted incentives to become efficient, due to interregional barriers to trade, weak exercise of creditor rights and administrative barriers to new entrants—including foreign invested firms—Russian enterprises are still in the early stages of restructuring. This paper argues that the policy regime governing FDI in the Russian Federation is still characterized by the old paradigm of FDI, established before the Second World War and seen all over the world during the 1950s and 1960s. In this paradigm there are essentially only two motivations for foreign direct investment: access to inputs for production, and access to markets for outputs. These kinds of FDI are useful, but often based either on exports that exploit cheap labor or natural resources, or else aimed at protected local markets and not necessarily at world standards for price and quality. The fact is that Russia is getting relatively small amounts of these types of FDI, and almost none of the newer, more efficient kind—characterized by state-of-the-art technology and world-class competitive production linked to dynamic global (or regional) markets. The paper notes that Russia should phase out the three core pillars of the current FDI policy regime-(i) all existing high tariffs and non-tariff protection for the domestic market; (ii) tax preferences for foreign investors (including those offered in Special Economic Zones), which bring few benefits (in terms of increased FDI) but engender costs (in terms of foregone fiscal revenue); and (iii) the substantial number of existing restrictions on FDI (make them applicable only to a limited number of sectors and activities). This set of reforms would allow Russia to switch to a modern approach towards FDI. The paper suggests the following specific policy recommendations: (i) amend the newly enacted FDI law so as to give " national treatment " for both right of establishment and for post-establishment operations; abolish conditions that are inconsistent with the agreement on trade-related investment measures (TRIMs) of the WTO (such as local content restrictions); and make investor-State dispute resolution mechanisms more efficient, including giving foreign investors the opportunity to …
Crop type mapping in a highly fragmented and heterogeneous agricultural landscape: A case of central Iran using multi-temporal Landsat 8 imagery

Crop type mapping and studying the dynamics of agricultural fields in arid and semi-arid environments are of high importance since these ecosystems have witnessed an unprecedented rate of area decline during the last decades. Crop type mapping using medium spatial resolution imagery data has been considered as one of the most important management tools. Remotely sensed data provide reliable, cost and time effective information for monitoring, analyzing and mapping of agricultural land areas. This research was conducted to explore the utility of Landsat 8 imagery data for crop type mapping in a highly fragmented and heterogeneous agricultural landscape in Najaf-Abad Hydrological Unit, Iran. Based on the phenological information from long-term field surveys, five Landsat 8 image scenes (from March to October) were processed to classify the main crop types. In this regard, wheat, barley, alfalfa, and fruit trees have been classified applying inventive decision tree algorithms and Support Vector Machine was used to categorize rice, potato, vegetables, and greenhouse vegetable crops. Accuracy assessment was then undertaken based on spring and summer crop maps (two confusion matrices) that resulted in Kappa coefficients of 0.89. The employed images and classification methods could form a basis for better crop type mapping in central Iran that is undergoing severe drought condition. 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The Art of Describing: Dutch Art in the Seventeenth Century

Challenging the textual and iconographic approach to Dutch art which uses methods developed for understanding Italian art, the author claims that the art of 17th century Holland was rooted in a visual culture, reinforced by a new scientific emphasis. This received the Eugene M.Kayden Award in 1983.
Phishing Websites Detection Based on Web Source Code and URL in the Webpage

Major security issues for banking and financial institutions are Phishing. Phishing is a webpage attack, it pretends a customer web services using tactics and mimics from unauthorized persons or organization. It is an illegitimate act to steals user personal information such as bank details, social security numbers and credit card details, by showcasing itself as a truthful object, in the public network. When users provide confidential information, they are not aware of the fact that the websites they are using are phishing websites. This paper presents a technique for detecting phishing website attacks and also spotting phishing websites by combines source code and URL in the webpage. Keywords—Phishing, Website attacks, Source Code, URL.
A Theory and Model of Business Alliance Success

Abstract Business alliances, an important form of relationship marketing, are becoming ubiquitous. However, many alliances are unsuccessful. The authors provide an integrative model of alliance success based on sub-models that rely on the resource-based, competence-based, relational factors, and competitive advantage views of alliances. The authors then show how a theory of competition, “resource-advantage theory,” grounds the integrative model.
AlphaServer 4100 Performance Characterization

The performance analysis undertaken examined a number of workloads with different characteristics, including the SPEC95 benchmark suites (floating-point and integer), the LINPACK benchmark, AIM Suite VII (UNIX multiuser benchmark), the TPC-C transaction processing benchmark, image rendering, and memory latency and bandwidth tests. Note that both commercial (AIM and TPC-C) and technical/scientific (SPEC, LINPACK, and image rendering) classes of workloads were included in this analysis. The results of the analysis indicate that the major AlphaServer 4100 performance advantages result from the following server features:
Inflation from multiple flat directions

The paper has been withdrawn by authors. The issues studied in this paper were changed so much that we have published a new paper considering these issues. See hep-th/0406074
Levetiracetam in children with refractory epilepsy: Lack of correlation between plasma concentration and efficacy

PURPOSE
The goals of this study are to evaluate the efficacy and tolerability of levetiracetam (LEV) as add-on therapy in children with refractory epilepsies and to determine the value of LEV blood level monitoring in this population.


METHODS
Sixty-nine children (39 males and 30 females) treated with LEV between 2006 and 2007 were selected. Their medical files were reviewed for LEV efficacy and tolerability. In a subgroup of children currently taking LEV, plasma concentrations were determined by high performance liquid chromatography by ultraviolet detection (HPLC-UV) method and correlated with the given dose per kilo as well as clinical response.


RESULTS
Fifty-one patients (74%) had a more than 50% reduction in seizure frequency with 16 patients (23%) becoming seizure free on LEV. Eighteen (26%) patients had a less than 50% reduction in seizure frequency. Adverse events due to LEV ranged from mild to moderate in only 18 patients (26%). The most frequently observed were drowsiness, behavioral difficulties, increase in seizure frequency and headaches. The majority (60.5%) of the responders received doses between 10 and 50mg/kg/day and had a plasma concentration (PC) between 5 and 40microg/ml. However, we found no clear correlation between PC and efficacy.


CONCLUSION
Levetiracetam given twice a day in children with refractory epilepsy reduces seizure frequency in all types of epilepsy. In children, LEV is a broad spectrum anticonvulsant with a favourable safety profile.
IaaS Cloud Architecture: From Virtualized Datacenters to Federated Cloud Infrastructures

As a key component in a modern datacenter, the cloud operating system is responsible for managing the physical and virtual infrastructure, orchestrating and commanding service provisioning and deployment, and providing federation capabilities for accessing and deploying virtual resources in remote cloud infrastructures.
The Past and the Future of Historical Geography

It is commonly regarded in modern academical circles that historical geography can be traced back to geographical evolution and "The geographical Records" in 《Han Shu》 was it's first academic book. This article is to trace back its development in the past centuries and predict its prospects.
Software defined networking for security enhancement in wireless mobile networks

In recent years we have seen a fast change in the networking industry: leading by the Software Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm that separates the control plane from the data plane to enable programmability and centralized control of the network infrastructure, the SDN design not only simplifies the network management but also accelerates the innovation speed of deploying advanced network applications. Meanwhile, the landscape of the wireless and mobile industry is changing dramatically as well. Given the advance of wireless technologies such as 4G and WiFi offering a pervasive Internet access, the traffic growth from the smartphone-alike devices has placed an increasing strain on the mobile network infrastructure and infringed the profit. Since the demand is increasing together with the growth of mobile users, the incumbent legacy infrastructure is already calling for an upgrade to overcome its existing limitations in terms of network management and security. In this paper, we advocate that the way forward is to integrate SDN and fully utilize its feature to solve the problem. As the security issue has raise serious concern in the networking community recently, we focus on the security aspect and investigate how to enhance the security with SDN for the wireless mobile networks. Crown Copyright 2014 Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Maintenance treatment with quetiapine versus discontinuation after one year of treatment in patients with remitted first episode psychosis: randomised controlled trial 

OBJECTIVE
To study rates of relapse in remitted patients with first episode psychosis who either continued or discontinued antipsychotic drugs after at least one year of maintenance treatment.


DESIGN
12 month randomised, double blind, placebo controlled trial.


SETTING
Early psychosis outpatient clinics in Hong Kong.


PARTICIPANTS
178 patients with first episode psychosis who had received at least one year of antipsychotic drug treatment between September 2003 and July 2006 and had no positive symptoms of psychosis.


INTERVENTIONS
Patients received either maintenance treatment with quetiapine (400 mg/day) or placebo and were followed up for the next 12 months or until a relapse occurred.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Relapse assessed monthly and defined as re-emergence of psychotic symptoms (delusions, conceptual disorganisation, hallucinations, suspiciousness, and unusual thought content) according to predefined thresholds.


RESULTS
178 patients were randomised (89 to quetiapine and 89 to placebo). The Kaplan-Meier estimate of the risk of relapse at 12 months was 41% (95% confidence interval 29% to 53%) for the quetiapine group and 79% (68% to 90%) for the placebo group (P<0.001). Although quetiapine was generally well tolerated, the rate of discontinuation due to adverse or serious adverse events was greater in the quetiapine group (18%; 16/89) than in the placebo group (8%; 7/89) (relative risk 2.29, 95% confidence interval 0.99 to 5.28; chi(2)=3.20, df=1; P=0.07).


CONCLUSION
In a group of asymptomatic patients with first episode psychosis and at least one year of previous antipsychotic drug treatment, maintenance treatment with quetiapine compared with placebo resulted in a substantially lower rate of relapse during the following year. Trial registration Clinical trials NCT00334035.
Model predictive Control of Homogeneous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine dynamics

The homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) combustion principle lacks direct ignition timing control, instead the auto-ignition depends on the operating condition and fast combustion phasing control is necessary for reliable operation. A six-cylinder heavy-duty HCCI engine was controlled on a cycle-to-cycle basis in real time using a variety of sensors, actuators and control structures for control of the HCCI combustion in comparison. Combustion phasing control based on ion current was compared to feedback control based on cylinder pressure. Two actuators were compared, dual fuel and variable valve actuation (VVA). Model-based control synthesis requiring dynamic models of low complexity and HCCI combustion models were estimated by system identification and by physical modeling. The models identified by system identification were used to design model-predictive control (MPC) with several desirable features and today applicable to relatively fast systems. Both control of the combustion phasing and control of load-torque with simultaneous minimization of the fuel consumption and emissions were included
Intervention to improve psychological functioning for newly diagnosed patients with cancer.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES
To test the effects of a computer-based nursing intervention designed to provide patients and family caregivers with concrete, objective information on symptom management; provide education about disease and treatment; coordinate medical resources; and provide emotional support and counseling.


DESIGN
Two-site, randomized clinical trial.


SETTINGS
A large, urban, midwestern, tertiary-cancer center and a community-based cancer center in a medium-sized midwestern city.


SAMPLE
109 patients newly diagnosed with breast, colon, or lung cancer who were receiving chemotherapy; 54 received standard care, and 55 participated in the intervention group.


METHODS
Outcome data were collected via structured telephone interviews at three time points: baseline, midway through the intervention, and one month postintervention. The intervention consisting of nine visits, five in person and four by telephone, was conducted over 18 weeks by advanced practice oncology nurses.


MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES
Psychosocial functioning, anxiety, and depression.


FINDINGS
Patients who received the intervention had significantly less depression between baseline and the midway point, as well as less anxiety and greater improvement in the role-emotional and mental health subscales of the Medical Outcomes Study 36 Short Form.


CONCLUSIONS
Cancer-care nursing interventions can decrease psychosocial morbidity and improve quality of life for newly diagnosed patients with cancer undergoing treatment. Additional research is needed to understand who benefited most from the intervention.


IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING
This nurse-directed intervention resulted in improved mental health for patients; however, physical subscales were not changed. Further work is needed to determine why depression and mental health were affected yet physical health and symptoms did not differ between groups. Results support the important role of nurses in addressing mental health issues in patients and families experiencing cancer.
The effects of azathioprine on birth outcomes in women with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

AIM
To investigate the effects of azathioprine/6-mercaptopurine (AZA/6-MP) on birth outcomes in women with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).


METHODS
Details of pregnant women with IBD were obtained through an ObstetriX Database in 3 major teaching hospitals in Sydney from 1996 to 2006. Medical records were reviewed. Birth outcomes of interest were single live births, low birth weight (LBW) at term (<2500 g), preterm births (<37 weeks gestation), neonatal adverse outcomes, and congenital anomaly. Placental blood flow during third trimester of pregnancy was measured using arterial Doppler ultrasonography, where available.


RESULTS
All women had IBD diagnosed before pregnancy. 19 births were exposed to AZA/6-MP. 74 births that were never exposed to AZA/6-MP were selected as controls. Preterm birth was seen in 26.3% of the exposed group as compared to 13.5% of controls (p<0.001). However, in univariate analysis, preterm birth was not associated with AZA/6-MP (OR=2.28; CI: 0.67-7.73). There was 1 neonatal adverse outcome in the exposed group as compared to 4 in controls (5.3% vs 5.4%, p=0.97). One congenital anomaly was seen in each group (p=0.27). No LBW at term was seen in either group. Placental blood flow in 4 women exposed to AZA/6-MP was normal.


CONCLUSION
The use of AZA/6-MP during pregnancy in IBD women was not associated with an increased risk of preterm birth, LBW at term, neonatal adverse outcomes and congenital anomalies.
Antibacterial Activity, Antioxidant Effect and Chemical Composition of Propolis from the Región del Maule, Central Chile

Propolis is commercialized in Chile as an antimicrobial agent. It is obtained mainly from central and southern Chile, but is used for the same purposes regardless of its origin. To compare the antimicrobial effect, the total phenolic (TP), the total flavonoid (TF) content and the phenolic composition, 19 samples were collected in the main production centers in the Región del Maule, Chile. Samples were extracted with MeOH and assessed for antimicrobial activity against Gram (+) and Gram (-) bacteria. TP and TF content, antioxidant activity by the DPPH, FRAP and TEAC methods were also determined. Sample composition was assessed by HPLD-DAD-ESI-MS/MS. Differential compounds in the samples were isolated and characterized. The antimicrobial effect of the samples showed MICs ranging from 31.5 to > 1000 µg/mL. Propolis from the central valley was more effective as antibacterial than those from the coastal area or Andean slopes. The samples considered of interest (MIC ≤ 62.5 µg/mL) showed effect on Escherichia coli, Pseudomonas sp., Yersinia enterocolitica and Salmonella enteritidis. Two new diarylheptanoids, a diterpene, the flavonoids pinocembrin and chrysin were isolated and elucidated by spectroscopic and spectrometric means. Some 29 compounds were dereplicated by HPLC-MS and tentatively identified, including nine flavones/flavonol derivatives, one flavanone, eight dihydroflavonols and nine phenyl-propanoids. Propolis from the Región del Maule showed large variation in antimicrobial effect, antioxidant activity and composition. So far the presence of diarylheptanoids in samples from the coastal area of central Chile can be considered as a marker of a new type of propolis.
The Cerebral Microvasculature in Schizophrenia: A Laser Capture Microdissection Study

BACKGROUND
Previous studies of brain and peripheral tissues in schizophrenia patients have indicated impaired energy supply to the brain. A number of studies have also demonstrated dysfunction of the microvasculature in schizophrenia patients. Together these findings are consistent with a hypothesis of blood-brain barrier dysfunction in schizophrenia. In this study, we have investigated the cerebral vascular endothelium of schizophrenia patients at the level of transcriptomics.


METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS
We used laser capture microdissection to isolate both microvascular endothelial cells and neurons from post mortem brain tissue from schizophrenia patients and healthy controls. RNA was isolated from these cell populations, amplified, and analysed using two independent microarray platforms, Affymetrix HG133plus2.0 GeneChips and CodeLink Whole Human Genome arrays. In the first instance, we used the dataset to compare the neuronal and endothelial data, in order to demonstrate that the predicted differences between cell types could be detected using this methodology. We then compared neuronal and endothelial data separately between schizophrenic subjects and controls. Analysis of the endothelial samples showed differences in gene expression between schizophrenics and controls which were reproducible in a second microarray platform. Functional profiling revealed that these changes were primarily found in genes relating to inflammatory processes.


CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE
This study provides preliminary evidence of molecular alterations of the cerebral microvasculature in schizophrenia patients, suggestive of a hypo-inflammatory state in this tissue type. Further investigation of the blood-brain barrier in schizophrenia is warranted.
Compete to Compute

Local competition among neighboring neurons is common in biological neural networks (NNs). In this paper, we apply the concept to gradient-based, backprop-trained artificial multilayer NNs. NNs with competing linear units tend to outperform those with non-competing nonlinear units, and avoid catastrophic forgetting when training sets change over time.
Apoptosis, Necrosis, and Necroptosis in the Gut and Intestinal
Homeostasis

Intestinal epithelial cells (IECs) form a physiochemical barrier that separates the intestinal lumen from the host's internal milieu and is critical for electrolyte passage, nutrient absorption, and interaction with commensal microbiota. Moreover, IECs are strongly involved in the intestinal mucosal inflammatory response as well as in mucosal innate and adaptive immune responses. Cell death in the intestinal barrier is finely controlled, since alterations may lead to severe disorders, including inflammatory diseases. The emerging picture indicates that intestinal epithelial cell death is strictly related to the maintenance of tissue homeostasis. This review is focused on previous reports on different forms of cell death in intestinal epithelium.