LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
C. elegans Germline-Deficient Mutants Respond to Pathogen Infection Using Shared and Distinct Mechanisms

Reproduction extracts a cost in resources that organisms are then unable to utilize to deal with a multitude of environmental stressors. In the nematode C. elegans, development of the germline shortens the lifespan of the animal and increases its susceptibility to microbial pathogens. Prior studies have demonstrated germline-deficient nematodes to have increased resistance to gram negative bacteria. We show that germline-deficient strains display increased resistance across a broad range of pathogens including gram positive and gram negative bacteria, and the fungal pathogen Cryptococcus neoformans. Furthermore, we show that the FOXO transcription factor DAF-16, which regulates longevity and immunity in C. elegans, appears to be crucial for maintaining longevity in both wild-type and germline-deficient backgrounds. Our studies indicate that germline-deficient mutants glp-1 and glp-4 respond to pathogen infection using common and different mechanisms that involve the activation of DAF-16.
Fully Differential Difference Amplifier (fdda) Based Active Filter 3.1 Differential Difference Amplifier (dda)

This chapter presents the realization of second order active low pass, high pass and band pass filter using fully differential difference amplifier (FDDA). The fully differential difference amplifier is a balanced output differential difference amplifier. It provides low output distortion and high output voltage swing as compared to the DDA. The filters realized with FDDA possess attractive features that do not exist in both traditional (discrete) and modern fully integrated Op-amp circuits. However the frequency range of operation of FDDA is same as that made of the DDA or Op-Amp. The proposed filters possess orthogonality between the cutoff/central frequency and the quality factor. In view of the orthogonality property, the proposed circuits have wide applications in the instrumentation, control systems and signal processing. All the filter realizations have low sensitivity to parameter variations. The first two sections of this chapter present the implementation of DDA and FDDA. Subsequent sections are devoted to the proposed realization filters and main results. The Differential Difference Amplifier (DDA) is an emerging CMOS analog building block. It has been used in a number of applications such as instrumentation amplifier, continuous time filter, implementation of fully differential switch MOS capacitor circuit, common mode detection circuit, telephone line adaption circuit, biomedical applications, floating resistors, sample and hold circuits and MEMs. [61-89]. Differential Difference Amplifier is an extension of the conventional operational amplifier. An operational amplifier employs only one differential input, whereas two differential inputs in DDA. The schematic diagram of DDA is shown in Figure 3.1. It is a five terminal device with four input terminals named as V pp , V pn , V np , and V nn and the output terminal denoted by V 0 .
Acute respiratory illness in patients with COPD and the effectiveness of influenza vaccination: a randomized controlled study.

STUDY OBJECTIVES
To determine the effectiveness of influenza vaccination on influenza-related acute respiratory illness (ARI) and overall ARI in patients with COPD, and its relationship to the degree of airflow obstruction.


DESIGN
Stratified, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.


SETTING
From June 1997 to November 1998 at a single university hospital.


PATIENTS AND INTERVENTIONS
One hundred twenty-five patients with COPD were stratified based on their FEV(1) as having mild, moderate, and severe COPD. Within each group, they were randomized to the vaccine group (62 patients who received purified, trivalent, split-virus vaccine) or the placebo group (63 patients).


MEASUREMENTS
The number of episodes and severity of total ARI, classified as outpatient treatment, hospitalization, and requirement of mechanical ventilation; and the number of episodes and severity of influenza-related ARI.


RESULTS
The incidence of influenza-related ARI was 28.1 per 100 person-years and 6.8 per 100 person-years in the placebo group and vaccine group, respectively (relative risk [RR], 0.24 [p = 0.005]; vaccine effectiveness, 76%). The incidences were 28.2, 23.8, and 31.2 per 100 person-years in the patients with mild, moderate, and severe COPD, respectively, in the placebo group, and 4.5, 13.2, and 4.6 per 100 person-years in the patients with mild, moderate, and severe COPD, respectively, in the vaccine group (RR, 0.16 [p = 0.06]; vaccine effectiveness, 84%; RR, 0.55 [p = 0.5]; vaccine effectiveness, 45%; and RR, 0.15 [p = 0.04]; vaccine effectiveness, 85%, in the patients with mild, moderate, and severe COPD, respectively). Bivariate analysis revealed that the effectiveness of influenza vaccination was not modified by the severity of COPD, comorbid diseases, age, gender, or current smoking status. There was no difference in the incidence or severity of total ARI between the placebo group and the vaccine group.


CONCLUSIONS
Influenza vaccination is highly effective in the prevention of influenza-related ARI regardless of the severity of COPD. Influenza vaccination does not prevent other ARIs unrelated to influenza. The effectiveness of influenza vaccination in the prevention of overall ARI in patients with COPD will depend on how much the proportion of influenza-related ARI contributes to the incidence of total ARI. Influenza vaccination should be recommended to all patients with COPD.
Genesis of the MP3 audio coding standard

In 1988 the International Standardization Organization (ISO) established the Motion Picture Expert Group (MPEG) to develop a digital coding standard for video and audio signals in order to enable interactive video and audio signals on digital storage media. The MPEG Audio Group started with members from 14 research institutions in order to develop a digital audio coding standard guided by a chairman. As a result the MPEG-1, Layer I, Layer II and Layer III coding standards have been developed and proposed for coding of stereo audio signals at 2 times 192 kbit/s, 2 times 128 kbit/s and 2 times 64 kbit/s in 1992. Later, the abbreviation "mp3" or "MP3" was introduced in order to substitute the long name of the successful MPEG-1, Layer III coding standard. This paper describes the development of the MP3 coding standard and its essential components as contributed by the members of the MPEG Audio Group
A prospective study of direct medical costs in a large cohort of consecutively enrolled patients with refractory epilepsy in Italy.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate direct medical costs and their predictors in patients with refractory epilepsy enrolled into the SOPHIE study (Study of Outcomes of PHarmacoresistance In Epilepsy) in Italy.


METHODS
Adults and children with refractory epilepsy were enrolled consecutively at 11 tertiary referral centers and followed for 18 months. At entry, all subjects underwent a structured interview and a medical examination, and were asked to keep records of diagnostic examinations, laboratory tests, specialist consultations, treatments, hospital admissions, and day-hospital days during follow-up. Study visits included assessments every 6 months of seizure frequency, health-related quality of life (Quality of Life in Epilepsy Inventory 31), medication-related adverse events (Adverse Event Profile) and mood state (Beck Depression Inventory-II). Cost items were priced by applying Italian tariffs. Cost estimates were adjusted to 2013 values.


RESULTS
Of 1,124 enrolled individuals, 1,040 completed follow-up. Average annual cost per patient was € 4,677. The highest cost was for antiepileptic drug (AED) treatment (50%), followed by hospital admissions (29% of overall costs). AED polytherapy, seizure frequency during follow-up, grade III pharmacoresistance, medical and psychiatric comorbidities, and occurrence of status epilepticus during follow-up were identified as significant predictors of higher costs. Age between 6 and 11 years, and genetic (idiopathic) generalized epilepsies were associated with the lowest costs. Costs showed prominent variation across centers, largely due to differences in the clinical characteristics of cohorts enrolled at each center and the prescribing of second-generation AEDs. Individual outliers associated with high costs related to hospital admissions had a major influence on costs in many centers.


SIGNIFICANCE
Refractory epilepsy is associated with high costs that affect individuals and society. Costs differ across centers in relation to the characteristics of patients and the extent of use of more expensive, second-generation AEDs. Epilepsy-specific costs cannot be easily differentiated from costs related to comorbidities.
Information Security Management Standards: Problems and Solutions

This paper critically analyses the foundations of three widely advocated information security management standards (BS7799, GASPP and SSE-CMM). The analysis reveals several fundamental problems related to these standards, casting serious doubts on their validity. The implications for research and practice, in improving information security management standards, are considered.
A 1V 2.3/spl mu/W Biomedical Signal Acquisition IC

A 1V 2.3uW biomedical signal acquisition IC is fabricated in a 0.35muum CMOS process. It consists of an LIMA and an 11b ADC. The OTA achieves an optimum trade-off between noise and power consumption with rail-to-rail output. A pseudo-S/H circuit is incorporated in the OTA. The modified successive-approximation ADC allows rail-to-rail inputs
Service oriented architecture for enterprise applications

While large organizations develop applications with new technologies, it is often necessary to leverage the investments made in legacy applications and reuse business functionality provided by them. Hence, such organizations need scalable distributed applications that are integrated based on an enterprise-wide strategy. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an answer to address these requirements. With the advent of web services, SOA based enterprise applications have become vendor independent to a large extent. The paper provides insights gathered through providing SOA based solutions in consulting engagements. It discusses the Strawman Architecture for Enterprise-Wide Service Oriented Architecture. Reference Architectures for SOA based Enterprise Applications on J2EE and .NET platforms, using Design Patterns, are detailed. It presents the SOA methodology recommended to customers. The solutions discussed in the paper are reusable across domains and the implementing organizations would benefit in terms of considerable time and cost savings. Key-Words: Service Oriented Architecture, Enterprise Application, Legacy Systems Integration, Enterprise Service Bus, Strawman Architecture, SOA Based Enterprise Applications, Design Patterns, Reference Architecture, SOA Best Practices.
A simple and effective solution for superior performance in two-level four-leg voltage source inverters: Predictive voltage control

In this paper predictive voltage control strategy is proposed to control the output voltage of a three phase four-leg inverter. The four-leg inverter is developed to deliver power to three-phase loads under light, heavy, balanced and unbalanced load and source conditions and it can produce three output voltages independently with one additional leg. To predict the voltage behavior for each valid switching state, discrete model of the converter and load is developed. The control method chooses a state with minimum error between the output voltages and their references. The performance of the proposed predictive voltage control scheme is compared with carrier-based PWM method which is an equivalent to the symmetrically aligned-class I 3-D SVPWM. The feasibility of the proposed method is verified by MATLAB/Simulink. These results show that the proposed method has good performance and the capacity to compensate disturbances compared to classical methods.
Variation of female prolactin levels with menopausal status and phase of menstrual cycle.

BACKGROUND
Prolactin is not commonly recognised as a hormone that changes significantly within the menstrual cycle or after menopause. The aim of this study was to determine the degree of variability of prolactin in these physiological states.


METHOD
Prolactin levels obtained from 6540 subjects between January 2006 and November 2008 were divided into five groups: men, postmenopausal women and premenopausal women in follicular/non-cycling, ovulatory and luteal phases. The median and 97.5th centile was determined for each group. The 97.5th centile was used to define the upper limit of prolactin.


RESULTS
The prolactin median and upper limits were not significantly different in men and postmenopausal women. They were significantly higher in premenopausal women compared to men and postmenopausal women. Within premenopausal women, the prolactin median and upper limits were significantly higher in ovulatory phase compared to follicular/non-cycling and luteal phases and in luteal phase compared to follicular/non-cycling phase.


CONCLUSIONS
Prolactin levels varied significantly throughout the menstrual cycle, and the utility and accuracy of prolactin testing may be improved by applying specific reference intervals for each phase of the menstrual cycle. Alternatively, a single reference interval could be used if prolactin is only measured in the follicular phase, well before midcycle. Prolactin levels in postmenopausal women and men were not significantly different, and a common prolactin reference interval may be appropriate. Further studies to confirm formal reference ranges for these groups may be clinically helpful.
Management of mammalian bites.

BACKGROUND
Mammalian bites are a significant public health problem in Australia, with the majority of bites coming from dogs. Complications include tissue damage from the bite itself, infection and post-traumatic stress disorder.


OBJECTIVE
This article describes the assessment and management of mammalian bites in the Australian general practice setting based on a PubMed search of the English language literature from the years 1966 to present.


DISCUSSION
General practitioners need to be familiar with the treatment of animal bites, pitfalls in management, and the need to educate patients on ways to avoid future bite injuries. Meticulous wound cleaning, irrigation, exploration and debridement is essential to bite wound healing. Recognition of complicating fractures with imaging is important. Risk of infection differs among animal species, although most infected bite wounds are polymicrobial.
Trends in Large-Scale Agile Development: A Summary of the 4th Workshop at XP2016

Large projects are increasingly adopting agile development practices, and this raises new challenges for research and practice. The fourth workshop on large-scale agile development focused on the following topics: Distributed large-scale development, inter-team coordination, knowledge sharing, large-scale agile transformations, multidisciplinary work, and new ways-of-organizing for advancing agile practices.
Outage Balancing in Downlink Nonorthogonal Multiple Access With Statistical Channel State Information

This paper considers a downlink nonorthogonal multiple access (NOMA) system where the source intends to transmit independent information to the users at target data rates under statistical channel state information. The outage balancing problem is studied with the issues of power allocation, decoding order selection, and user grouping being taken into account. Specifically, with regard to the max-min fairness criterion, we derive the optimal power allocation in closed form and prove the corresponding optimal decoding order for the elementary downlink NOMA system. By assigning a weighting factor for each user, the analytical results can be used to evaluate the outage performance of the downlink NOMA system under various fairness constraints. Furthermore, we investigate the case with user grouping, in which each user group can be treated as an elementary downlink NOMA system. The associated problems of intergroup power and resource allocation are solved. The implementation complexity issue of NOMA is also considered with focus on that caused by successive interference cancellation and user grouping. The complexity and performance tradeoff is analyzed by simulations, which provides fruitful insights for the practical application of NOMA. The simulation results substantiate our analysis and show considerable performance gain of NOMA when compared with orthogonal multiple access.
Enhancing Agricultural Productivity through Enhanced Water Use Efficiency

In the background of shrinking water resources and competition from other sectors, the share of water allocated to irrigation is likely to decrease by 10 to 15 per cent in the next two decades. One of the ways of alleviating water scarcity is by enhancing its use efficiency or productivity. Water use efficiency (WUE) is a broad concept that can be defined in many ways. For farmers and farm managers, WUE is the yield of harvested crop produce achieved from the available water to the crop from rainfall, irrigation and soil water storage. A survey of literature shows that average WUE of major crops in India varies from 0.28 to 1.60 kg m-3 with wide differences among crop species. Improving WUE by 40% on rainfed and irrigated lands would be required to compensate the need for additional withdrawals of irrigation over next 25 years to meet additional demand for food. Improving WUE in agriculture will require an increase in crop water productivity (an increase in marketable crop yield per unit of water used by plant) and reduction in water losses from the crop root zone. For a comprehensive improvement of WUE, it is necessary to raise the following ratios to their maximum: stored soil water content/ water received through rainfall and irrigation, water consumption/ soil water storage, transpiration/ water consumption, biomass yield/ transpiration, and economic benefit/ biomass yield. In this paper, we have discussed various ways of enhancing use efficiency and productivity of water in agricultural production system. These include: better utilization of stored soil moisture by adjusting time and method of sowing, reducing evaporation loss of soil moisture by mulching, supplemental and deficit irrigation provided to crops at critical growth stages, practice of mixed cropping systems involving deep rooted crops during kharif season and shallow rooted crops during rabi season, removal of nutrient constraints by supplying optimum fertilizer inputs, crop diversification in lowlands, reducing water use in rice cultivation, improved irrigation methods like sprinkler and drip irrigation, improved planting patterns, integrated farming systems for flood-prone lowland areas, and multi-uses of water in agriculture by combining different farm enterprises like cropping, fishery and dairy. We have also discussed on the need of favorable public policies to create conducive socio-economic environments for enhancing WUE in the agriculture sector.
The GYMSSA trial: a prospective randomized trial comparing gastrectomy, metastasectomy plus systemic therapy versus systemic therapy alone

BACKGROUND
The standard of care for metastatic gastric cancer (MGC) is systemic chemotherapy which leads to a median survival of 6-15 months. Survival beyond 3 years is rare. For selected groups of patients with limited MGC, retrospective studies have shown improved overall survival following gastrectomy and metastasectomies including peritoneal stripping with continuous hyperthermic peritoneal perfusion (CHPP), liver resection, and pulmonary resection. Median survival after liver resection for MGC is up to 34 months, with a five year survival rate of 24.5%. Similarly, reported median survival after pulmonary resection of MGC is 21 months with long term survival of greater than 5 years a possibility. Several case reports and small studies have documented evidence of long-term survival in select individuals who undergo CHPP for MGC.


DESIGN
The GYMSSA trial is a prospective randomized trial for patients with MGC. It is designed to compare two therapeutic approaches: gastrectomy with metastasectomy plus systemic chemotherapy (GYMS) versus systemic chemotherapy alone (SA). Systemic therapy will be composed of the FOLFOXIRI regimen. The aim of the study is to evaluate overall survival and potential selection criteria to determine those patients who may benefit from surgery plus systemic therapy. The study will be conducted by the Surgery Branch at the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. Surgeries and followup will be done at the NCI, and chemotherapy will be given by either the local oncologist or the medical oncology branch at NCI.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
ClinicalTrials.gov ID. NCT00941655.
Rail-to-rail low-power high-slew-rate CMOS analogue buffer

A low-power rail-to-rail CMOS analogue buffer is presented. The circuit is based on an input stage made up of two complementary class AB differential pairs, while a simple additional circuit allows rail-torail operation at the output terminal. The proposed circuit combines low static power consumption and high drive capability, resulting in suitability for applications with large capacitive loads. Simulated results are provided.
The role of budgets in organizations facing strategic change : an exploratory study

Recent attention in the general management literature has focused on mechanisms and processes used by organizations to respond and adapt to changes in their operating environment. There is, however, very little broad-based empirical research examining the role that management accounting control systems can play in shaping organizational change. Much of the empirical research to date has focused on the role of accounting as a diagnostic tool for assessing and rewarding managerial performance despite the recognition that accounting can serve as a dialogue, learning and idea creation machine (Burchell et al., 1980. Accounting Organisations and Society 5,5±27). The purpose of this study is to explore how accounting can serve this alternative role. We use (Simons, R. 1990.) Accounting Organisations and Society 15, 127±143). interactive/diagnostic classi®cation of management control systems to capture how accounting can be used as a learning machine in the formulation and implementation of strategic change. A theoretical model is developed to examine the relationship between strategic change, style of budget use and performance. It is argued that an interactive style of budget use can mitigate the disruptive performance eects of the strategic change process. The data, collected from Chief Executive Ocers in 63 public hospitals, provide results that are consistent with our expectations. # 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd.. All rights reserved.