Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Neurocognitive and Psychotiform Behavioral Alterations and Enhanced Hippocampal Long-Term Potentiation in Transgenic Mice Displaying Neuropathological Features of Human α-Mannosidosis

Mice with α-mannosidase gene inactivation provide an experimental model for α-mannosidosis, a lysosomal storage disease with severe neuropsychological and psychopathological complications. Neurohistological alterations in these mice were similar to those in patients and included vacuolations and axonal spheroids in the CNS and peripheral nervous system. Vacuolation was most prominent and evenly distributed in neuronal perikarya of the hippocampal CA2 and CA3 regions, whereas CA1 and dentate gyrus were weakly or not affected. Field potential recordings from CA1 region in hippocampal slices showed enhanced theta burst-induced long-term potentiation (LTP) in α-mannosidase-deficient mice. Longitudinal assessment in age-matched α-mannosidase-deficient and wild-type littermates, using an extended test battery, demonstrated a neurocognitive and psychotiform profile that may relate to the psychopathological alterations in clinical α-mannosidosis. Brainstem auditory-evoked potentials and basic neuromotor abilities were not impaired and did not deteriorate with age. Exploratory and conflict tests revealed consistent decreases in exploratory activity and emotional blunting in the knock-out group. α-Mannosidosis mice were also impaired in aversively motivated learning and acquisition of signal-shock associations. Acquisition and reversal learning in the water maze task, passive avoidance learning in the step-through procedure, as well as emotional response conditioning in an operant procedure were all impaired. Acquisition or shaping of an appetitive instrumental conditioning task was unchanged. Appetitive odor discrimination learning was only marginally impaired during shaping, whereas both the discrimination and reversal subtasks were normal. We propose that prominent storage and enhanced LTP in hippocampus have contributed to these specific behavioral alterations in α-mannosidase-deficient mice.
Symptom clusters and their effect on the functional status of patients with cancer.

PURPOSE/OBJECTIVES To determine the effect of the symptom cluster of pain, fatigue, and sleep insufficiency on functional status during three cycles of chemotherapy. DESIGN Prospective, longitudinal. SETTING 23 outpatient offices and clinics. SAMPLE 93 patients with cancer. The typical participant was female (72%), married/partnered (65%), white (87%), and middle-aged (55.4 years), with an average of 14.8 years of education. METHODS The Quality of Life-Cancer (QOL-CA) version instrument and the Karnofsky Performance Scale (KPS) were completed by 93 outpatients receiving chemotherapy at baseline (Time 1) and at the end of the third cycle (Time 2). Three items (pain, tires easily, sleeps enough to meet needs) from the QOL-CA questionnaire were used to measure the symptom cluster. MAIN RESEARCH VARIABLES Symptom cluster, outcome, functional status, chemotherapy. FINDINGS A hierarchical multiple regression model explained 48.4% of the variance in functional status. The KPS at Time 1 explained 30.8% of the variance in KPS at Time 2 (p < 0.001). After KPS at Time 1 was partialled out from KPS at Time 2, the four independent variables entered in the next step were considered predictors of the change in functional status between Time 1 and Time 2. Age explained 11.8% of the change (p = 0.001), pain explained 10.7% of the change (p = 0.002), and fatigue explained 7.3% of the change (p = 0.011). Sleep insufficiency statistically was not significant, only explaining 1% of the change (p = 0.344). CONCLUSION This study provides beginning insights into the effect of a symptom cluster on patients' functional status. IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING PRACTICE Healthcare professionals need to be aware of the presence of symptom clusters and their possible synergistic adverse effect on patients' future morbidity.
Power-quality-oriented optimization in multiple three-phase adjustable speed drives

As an almost standardized configuration, Diode Rectifiers (DRs) and Silicon-Controlled Rectifiers (SCRs) are commonly employed as the front-end topology in three-phase Adjustable Speed Drive (ASD) systems. Features of this ASD configuration include: structural and control simplicity, small volume, low cost, and high reliability during operation. Yet, DRs and SCRs bring harmonic distortions in the mains and thus lowering the overall efficiency. Power quality standards/rules are thus released. For multiple ASD systems, certain harmonics of the total grid current can be mitigated by phase-shifting the currents drawn by SCR-fed drives, and thus it is much flexible to reduce the Total Harmonic Distortion (THD) level in such applications. However, the effectiveness of this harmonic mitigation scheme for multiple ASD systems depends on: a) the number of parallel drives, b) the power levels, and c) the phase-shifts (i.e., firing angles) for the corresponding SCR-fed drives. This paper thus adopts a particle swarm optimization algorithm to optimize the power levels and the firing angles for multi-drive systems considering a fixed number of drives when practically implemented. The optimization is done to minimize the THD level of the total current at the point of common coupling. Simulations with the optimized results are carried out and laboratory tests on a two-drive system are provided to demonstrate the phase-shifting harmonic mitigation scheme. Issues concerning the practical implementation of the optimal results in multi-drive systems are also addressed.
A preliminary psychometric evaluation of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) in 963 people livingwith a spinal cord injury

Abstract This study aimed to evaluate the preliminary psychometric properties of the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) in a community sample of adults living with a spinal cord injury (SCI). A cross-sectional design was used with 963 people living in the community with an SCI. Participants were recruited via three spinal centres in the United Kingdom. They completed the HADS and the Life Satisfaction Questionnaire. Psychometric analyses were conducted for the whole sample, by gender and level of injury. The HADS demonstrated good internal consistency, with promising content validity. Two factors, approximating to anxiety and depression were extracted via factor analysis for the whole sample, by gender and level of injury. In line with existing literature, females scored significantly higher than males on the anxiety subscale. Item 7 (“I can sit at ease and feel relaxed”) was found to be a complex item, with a potentially different meaning within this population. This study presents preliminary findings, which support the psychometric integrity of the HADS within an outpatient population with SCI. Items that included potential somatic components revealed a more complex factor loading profile. Recommendations are made to further investigate this measure with amendments to such items, incorporating inpatients and independent measures of anxiety and depression to address validity directly.
New active capacitor voltage balancing method for five-level stacked multicell converter

This paper proposes a new active capacitor voltage balancing method for five-level stacked multicell converter which is fully implemented using the logic-form equations. The proposed active voltage balancing method measures load current and flying capacitor voltages in order to generate the appropriate switching states to produce the required output voltage level as well as to balance the flying capacitor voltages at their reference values. Output voltage of the stacked multicell converter controlled with proposed active voltage balancing method can be modulated with any pulse-width-modulation techniques such as phase-shifted-carrier or level-shifted-carrier pulse-width-modulation. The advantage of the proposed active voltage balancing method in comparison with other control techniques is its simplicity without requiring complex computations. Simulation results of the five-level SM converters are presented to verify the performance of proposed active voltage balancing method.
Blast injury of the ear in a confined space explosion: auditory and vestibular evaluation.

BACKGROUND The ear is the most frequent organ affected during an explosion. Recognition of possible damage to its auditory and vestibular components, and particularly the recovery time of the incurred damage, may help in planning the optimal treatment strategies for the otologic manifestations of blast injury and preventing deleterious consequences. OBJECTIVE To report the results of the oto-vestibular initial evaluation and follow-up of 17 survivors of a suicide terrorist attack on a municipal bus. METHODS These 17 patients underwent periodic ear inspections and pure tone audiometry for 6 months. Balance studies, consisting of electronystagmography and computerized dynamic posturography were performed at the first time possible. RESULTS Complaints of earache, aural fullness and tinnitus resolved, whereas dizziness persisted in most of the patients. By the end of the follow-up, 15 (55.6%) of the eardrum perforations had healed spontaneously. Hearing impairment was detected in 33 of the 34 tested ears. Recovery of hearing was complete in 6 ears and partial in another 11. ENG and CDP were performed in 13 patients: 5 had abnormal results on CDP while the ENG was normal in all the patients. Of the seven patients who complained of vertigo, only one improved and was free of symptoms 1 month after the explosion. CONCLUSION Exposure to a high powered explosion in a confined space may result in severe auditory and vestibular damage. Awareness of these possible ear injuries may prevent many of the deleterious consequences of such injuries.
Migration Energy Aware Reconfigurations of Virtual Network Function Instances in NFV Architectures

Network function virtualization (NFV) is a new network architecture framework that implements network functions in software running on a pool of shared commodity servers. NFV can provide the infrastructure flexibility and agility needed to successfully compete in today’s evolving communications landscape. Any service is represented by a service function chain (SFC) that is a set of VNFs to be executed according to a given order. The running of VNFs needs the instantiation of VNF instances (VNFIs) that are software modules executed on virtual machines. This paper deals with the migration problem of the VNFIs needed in the low traffic periods to turn OFF servers and consequently to save energy consumption. Though the consolidation allows for energy saving, it has also negative effects as the quality of service degradation or the energy consumption needed for moving the memories associated to the VNFI to be migrated. We focus on cold migration in which virtual machines are redundant and suspended before performing migration. We propose a migration policy that determines when and where to migrate VNFI in response to changes to SFC request intensity. The objective is to minimize the total energy consumption given by the sum of the consolidation and migration energies. We formulate the energy aware VNFI migration problem and after proving that it is NP-hard, we propose a heuristic based on the Viterbi algorithm able to determine the migration policy with low computational complexity. The results obtained by the proposed heuristic show how the introduced policy allows for a reduction of the migration energy and consequently lower total energy consumption with respect to the traditional policies. The energy saving can be on the order of 40% with respect to a policy in which migration is not performed.
Sleeping With the Enemy: Sleep and Quality of Life in Patients With Lung Cancer

Background: Patients with lung cancer have the poorest sleep quality compared with other patients with cancer and noncancer control subjects. However, few studies have examined sleep longitudinally. Objective: The objective of this study was to characterize and correlate sleep quality, daytime sleepiness, sleep-wake actigraphy, and quality of life (QOL) before, during, and after chemotherapy for non–small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Methods: Using a prospective repeated-measures 1-group design, patients scheduled to receive chemotherapy for NSCLC were recruited. Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index, Epworth Sleepiness Scale, Functional Assessment of Cancer Treatment–Lung (FACT-L), and Motionlogger Actigraph were used for data collection. Results: Poor nocturnal sleep and QOL were evident among 29 patients with NSCLC before treatment. The FACT-L subscale scores worsened and then improved significantly from baseline through 2 rounds of chemotherapy. Objective sleep duration and sleep efficiency were positively associated with FACT-L scores, whereas objective sleep latency and wake after sleep onset were negatively associated with FACT-L scores. Sleepy patients had significantly worse FACT-L scores than did nonsleepy patients. The FACT-L subscale items that demonstrated significant worsening and then improvement over time were shortness of breath, weight loss, coughing, and chest tightness. Lung cancer patients experience early and middle insomnia before and during treatment. Conclusion: Poor sleep quality is common in patients receiving treatment for NSCLC and is related to poorer QOL and respiratory symptoms. Implication for Practice: Patients with NSCLC require routine screening for sleep disturbances. A positive screen for sleep disturbance warrants a thorough sleep assessment using practice guidelines and, if necessary, referral to a sleep specialist for diagnosis and treatment.
Business strategy, enterprise risk management and organizational performance

Purpose - This paper aims to identify the influence of business strategy on enterprise risk management (ERM) adoption and organizational performance (OP). In addition, the mediation effect of ERM on the relationship between business strategy and OP is assessed. Design/methodology/approach - A cross-sectional analysis of primary data gathered from 174 public listed companies in Malaysian Bourse through survey was conducted. Findings - Companies with cost leadership business strategy are more eager to implement ERM compared to companies with differentiation strategy. The results also indicate that ERM implementation has a significant positive impact on OP. Though ERM is a partial mediator of the relationship between cost leadership strategy and OP, it does not mediate the relationship between differentiation strategy and OP. Research limitations/implications - One of the limitations of this study was the small number of respondents, comprising only 174 public listed companies. In addition, the manifest variables adopted from previous studies may not be the best indicators to measure latent variables. Nonetheless, this study fills the gaps in ERM studies by determining the impact of different kinds of strategy on ERM adoption and investigating the mediating effect of ERM on the relationship between business strategy and OP. Practical implications - Although the trend in Malaysia seems to move toward ERM adoption, evidence shows that it is not widely practiced among Malaysian firms. Directors of Malaysian companies can understand better the impact of enterprise business strategy on the adoption of risk management and how ERM influences OP. The results of this study also provide valuable insights for the corporate governance regulatory authorities. Originality/value - This paper is among the few to assess the impact of firm’s strategy on ERM adoption and to determine the mediation effect of ERM on the relationship between business strategy and OP.
Analytical Expressions for Spatial-Domain Green’s Functions in Layered Media

Accurate and efficient formulas for computing spatial-domain Green's functions are presented in this paper. To apply the formulas, we only require a set of sample points of the spectral-domain Green's function (SDGF) on an integration path avoiding its singularities and an infinite domain tail path. Since the sampling is carried out for the integrand excluding the Bessel function, the number of sample points required is much smaller than the numerical integration method. This aspect of the proposed method proves to be very advantageous for evaluating closed-form Green's functions at large source observer distances. It is shown that the proposed formulas provide accurate results for both the near- and far-field regions as well as a wide range of material parameters such as lossless, lossy, left-handed materials as well as multilayered substrates.
Goal-Oriented Dynamic Business Processes in Service Environments: Models and Methods Applied in Finance Industry

Today companies have to adapt to the fast changing business environment. External and internal change factors cause that business processes need to be dynamic, especially in service environments. In service processes there is a trend to include external services into the own process, resulting in a service chain spanning several companies. Adapting the dynamic business process, goal-orientation in the process allows supporting governance, which is a major goal for business stakeholders. This paper shows how the combination of transparency and adaptability leads to goal-oriented dynamic processes in service environments. By introducing models and tools companies are guided towards this goal, depending on their current process management state. Industry specific additions ensure the applicability. The concept is applied to an insurance scenario.
A secure attribute based keyword search scheme against keyword guessing attack

To provide the privacy of the users who receive some computing services from the cloud, the users must encrypt their documents before outsourcing them to the cloud. Computation on outsourced encrypted data in the cloud rises some complexity to the system specially in the case when an entity would like to find some documents related to a special keyword. Searchable encryption is a tool for data owners to encrypt their data in a searchable manner. Generally, there exist two kinds of searchable encryption, namely symmetric (secret key) and asymmetric (public key) ones. Most of the public key searchable encryption schemes are vulnerable to the keyword guessing attack (KGA). In this paper we propose an attribute-based keyword search scheme which is proved to be secure against KGA.
The classical model of control in the accounting literature: 1900-1979

This paper outlines a classical management model of control based upon concepts identified in the writings of Frederick Taylor and Henry Fayol. The classical model's constituent concepts are found to be replicated in early accounting literature. The accounting model persisted right through the 1970s with only one conceptual change that reflected a concept discussed by Fayol. A number of factors which may have influenced the accounting model's replication of the classical management model are then considered. These include the linguistic derivation of the term “budget”, historical approaches to budgeting by governments, the scientific and efficiency orientation of accountants in the past and their perception of the corporate budget.
An Evaluation of Performance-Based Budget Reform in Asian Countries

ABSTRACT This article investigates the effects of performance-based budgeting (PBB) adoption on the spending of the central government in eleven Asian countries over an 18-year period. The theoretical argument is that PBB does not permanently change the spending structure for various reasons, including but not limited to the lack of clear linkages between performance results and resource allocation. This hypothesis is supported by the study’s results, which suggest that PBB temporarily changes the spending size in some programs. However, such changes are not permanent; there are no structural changes in the baseline budget. These findings suggest that PBB may not be different than other budget reforms.
Binding Analyses of Bacillus thuringiensis Cry δ-Endotoxins Using Brush Border Membrane Vesicles of Ostrinia nubilalis

ABSTRACT Transgenic corn expressing the Bacillus thuringiensisCry1Ab gene is highly insecticidal to Ostrinia nubilalis(European corn borer) larvae. We ascertained whether Cry1F, Cry9C, or Cry9E recognizes the Cry1Ab binding site on the O. nubilalis brush border by three approaches. An optical biosensor technology based on surface plasmon resonance measured binding of brush border membrane vesicles (BBMV) injected over a surface of immobilized Cry toxin. Preincubation with Cry1Ab reduced BBMV binding to immobilized Cry1Ab, whereas preincubation with Cry1F, Cry9C, or Cry9E did not inhibit BBMV binding. BBMV binding to a Cry1F-coated surface was reduced when vesicles were preincubated in Cry1F or Cry1Ab but not Cry9C or Cry9E. A radioligand approach measured 125I-Cry1Ab toxin binding to BBMV in the presence of homologous (Cry1Ab) and heterologous (Cry1Ac, Cry1F, Cry9C, or Cry9E) toxins. Unlabeled Cry1Ac effectively competed for 125I-Cry1Ab binding in a manner comparable to Cry1Ab itself. Unlabeled Cry9C and Cry9E toxins did not inhibit 125I-Cry1Ab binding to BBMV. Cry1F inhibited125I-Cry1Ab binding at concentrations greater than 500 nM. Cry1F had low-level affinity for the Cry1Ab binding site. Ligand blot analysis identified Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac, and Cry1F binding proteins in BBMV. The major Cry1Ab signals on ligand blots were at 145 kDa and 154 kDa, but a strong signal was present at 220 kDa and a weak signal was present at 167 kDa. Cry1Ac and Cry1F binding proteins were detected at 220 and 154 kDa. Anti-Manduca sexta aminopeptidase serum recognized proteins of 145, 154, and 167 kDa, and anti-cadherin serum recognized the 220 kDa protein. We speculate that isoforms of aminopeptidase and cadherin in the brush border membrane serve as Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac, and Cry1F binding proteins.
Effects of concurrent training on interleukin-6, tumour necrosis factor-alpha and C-reactive protein in middle-aged men

Abstract The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of moderate- to high-intensity resistance and concurrent training on inflammatory biomarkers and functional capacity in sedentary middle-aged healthy men. Participants were selected on a random basis for resistance training (n = 12), concurrent training (n = 11) and a control group (n = 13). They performed three weekly sessions for 16 weeks (resistance training: 10 exercises with 3 × 8–10 repetition maximum; concurrent training: 6 exercises with 3 × 8–10 repetition maximum, followed by 30 minutes of walking or running at 55–85% [Vdot]O2peak). Maximal strength was tested in bench press and leg press. The peak oxygen uptake ([Vdot]O2peak) was measured by an incremental exercise test. Tumour necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6 and C-reactive protein were determined. The upper- and lower-body maximal strength increase for both resistance (+42.52%; +20.9%, respectively) and concurrent training (+28.35%; +21.5%, respectively) groups (P = 0.0001). [Vdot]O2peak increased in concurrent training when comparing pre- and post-training (P = 0.0001; +15.6%). No differences were found in tumour necrosis factor-α and interleukin-6 for both groups after the exercise. C-reactive protein increased in resistance training (P = 0.004). These findings demonstrated that 16 weeks of moderate- to high-intensity training could improve functional capacity, but did not decrease inflammatory biomarkers in middle-aged men.