Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Beneficial effects of the "open lung approach" with low distending pressures in acute respiratory distress syndrome. A prospective randomized study on mechanical ventilation.

Alveolar overdistention and cyclic reopening of collapsed alveoli have been implicated in the lung damage found in animals submitted to artificial ventilation. To test whether these phenomena are impairing the recovery of patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) submitted to conventional mechanical ventilation (MV), we evaluated the impact of a new ventilatory strategy directed at minimizing "cyclic parenchymal stretch. " After receiving pre-established levels of hemodynamic, infectious, and general care, 28 patients with early ARDS were randomly assigned to receive either MV based on a new approach (NA, consisting of maintenance of end-expiratory pressures above the lower inflection point of the P x V curve, VT < 6 ml/kg, peak pressures < 40 cm H2O, permissive hypercapnia, and stepwise utilization of pressure-limited modes) or a conventional approach (C = conventional volume-cycled ventilation, VT = 12 ml/kg, minimum PEEP guided by FIO2 and hemodynamics and normal PaCO2 levels). Fifteen patients were selected to receive NA, exhibiting a better evolution of the PaO2/FIO2 ratio (p < 0.0001) and of compliance (p = 0.0018), requiring shorter periods under FIO2 > 50% (p = 0.001) and a lower FIO2 at the day of death (p = 0.0002). After correcting for baseline imbalances in APACHE II, we observed a higher weaning rate in NA (p = 0.014) but not a significantly improved survival (overall mortality: 5/15 in NA versus 7/13 in C, p = 0.45). We concluded that the NA ventilatory strategy can markedly improve the lung function in patients with ARDS, increasing the chances of early weaning and lung recovery during mechanical ventilation.
Life Cycle–based Assessment of Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions in Almond Production, Part I: Analytical Framework and Baseline Results

This first article of a two‐article series describes a framework and life cycle–based model for typical almond orchard production systems for California, where more than 80% of commercial almonds on the world market are produced. The comprehensive, multiyear, life cycle–based model includes orchard establishment and removal; field operations and inputs; emissions from orchard soils; and transport and utilization of co‐products. These processes are analyzed to yield a life cycle inventory of energy use, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, criteria air pollutants, and direct water use from field to factory gate. Results show that 1 kilogram (kg) of raw almonds and associated co‐products of hulls, shells, and woody biomass require 35 megajoules (MJ) of energy and result in 1.6 kg carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2‐eq) of GHG emissions. Nitrogen fertilizer and irrigation water are the dominant causes of both energy use and GHG emissions. Co‐product credits play an important role in estimating the life cycle environmental impacts attributable to almonds alone; using displacement methods results in net energy and emissions of 29 MJ and 0.9 kg CO2‐eq/kg. The largest sources of credits are from orchard biomass and shells used in electricity generation, which are modeled as displacing average California electricity. Using economic allocation methods produces significantly different results; 1 kg of almonds is responsible for 33 MJ of energy and 1.5 kg CO2‐eq emissions. Uncertainty analysis of important parameters and assumptions, as well as temporary carbon storage in orchard trees and soils, are explored in the second article of this two‐part article series.
Actuator switching for vibration control of spatially distributed systems

In this paper we define a switching strategy for hybrid systems where both the actuating devices and the corresponding control signals are changing at the onset of a given time interval. This actuator-plus-controller switching is dictated by the need to address spatiotemporally varying disturbances in spatially distributed systems. Stability measures utilizing Lyapunov functions are employed to define the switching strategy at each time interval. To introduce a certain level of optimality, these Lyapunov functions are chosen as the optimal values of associated linear quadratic regulator functionals. To avoid the computational burden associated with an optimal strategy for a finite horizon quadratic functional, a suboptimal quadratic index is considered instead which takes the form of a cost-to-go of an infinite horizon index with a changing lower limit. This immediately imposes the solution to algebraic as opposed to differential Riccati equations. Due to this suboptimal measures, the proposed policy is applicable to linear systems with spatiotemporally varying disturbances. To validate the proposed switching policy, a flexible structure with multiple piezoceramic patches as actuators is considered. The objective then becomes that of suppressing the plate vibration that is subjected to spatiotemporally varying disturbances. Extensive simulation studies are performed to exhibit the viability of using actuator-plus-controller switching to minimize the effects of spatiotemporally varying disturbances.
Entrepreneurial Orientation, Managerial Networking, and New Venture Performance in China

Based on institutional theory, this study investigates the moderating effects of different types of managerial networking (political networking, financial networking, and business networking) on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation () and new venture performance in hina. The study finds that political networking has a negative moderating effect on the positive relationship between and new venture performance, financial networking has an inverse ‐shaped impact, and business networking has a positive effect. The findings not only enrich our understanding of the impact of managerial networking on the performance implication of in new ventures, but also offer new ventures some guidance on how to use and different types of managerial networking to enhance performance in hina's transition economy.
Radio‐guided sentinel node detection for gastric cancer

Radio‐guided detection of sentinel nodes (SNs) has been used to predict regional metastases in patients with malignant melanoma and breast cancer. However, the validity of the SN hypothesis is still controversial for gastrointestinal cancers including gastric cancer. The aim of this study was to test the feasibility and accuracy of radio‐guided mapping of SNs for gastric cancer.
Trade Union Responses to Precarious Employment in Germany

Since the mid-1980s Germany saw a continuing increase of precarious employment which now amounts to about one third of the total labour force. Considering the negative social side-effects of this development, the voices which call for a re-regulation of the labour market have become more prominent in recent years. The study analyses strategic responses of German trade unions to the increase of precarious employment. Hereby, it distinguishes between four different approaches: First, unions can demand and lobby for changes in legislation in order to limit, prevent or even forbid certain forms of precarious employment. Secondly, the unions can conclude collective agreements to improve the conditions of precarious employment and to limit its use at sectoral or company level. Thirdly, union can develop practical help and assistance to precarious workers and recruit them as union members. Finally, the unions can promote their own vision of good work as a counter model against precarious employment.After a general overview on the different union strategies the study presents details in four case-studies of how the unions act in the following areas: - low wages - temporary agency work - dependent self-employed workers - apprentices - The study is part of a European project Bargaining for Social Rights (BARSORI) which is financed by the European Commission (Agreement Ref. VS/2010/0811).
Time-Course of Hypothalamic CRH and Pituitary ACTH Contents, and Pituitary Responsiveness to CRH Stimulation After Bilateral Adrenalectomy

The pituitary ACTH and hypothalamic CRH alterations at different periods after adrenalectomy (ADX) or Sham ADX were studied by measurement of ACTH and CRH contents by radioimmunoassay (RIA) in rats. We also studied the corticotroph alterations by immunohistochemistry and the in vitro pituitary responsiveness to CRH. Plasma ACTH presented a triphasic response after ADX. Anterior pituitary (AP) ACTH content decreased 3 h and 1 day after surgery, then rose over this period. Immunohistochemistry demonstrated an initial degranulation of the corticotrophs with a progressive increase in cells immunostained for ACTH and a positive correlation (r = 0.88) with AP ACTH content measured by RIA. Hypothalamic CRH content decreased after ADX, but returned to sham value 3 weeks later. Basal ACTH secretion in incubation medium was correlated with the AP ACTH content observed in vivo. The pituitary responsiveness to CRH was not the same at all times after ADX. It was absent 1 day after, presented an increase of 51%, 117% and 26% when compared with the basal ACTH output 3 h, 3 and 14 days after ADX, respectively. Our data suggest that after ADX the corticotroph undergoes a transitory decrease in ability to secrete ACTH after store depletion. During a later phase, however, there is a relative hyporesponsiveness of the corticotroph to CRH stimulation. These data indicate that CRH may be acting on a down-regulated pituitary or more additional factors play a role in the sensitization of the pituitary after ADX.
Causes of Death in Schizophrenia and Manic-Depression

Summary Causes of death were studied in a cohort of 200 schizophrenic, 100 manic, and 225 depressive patients who were followed in a historical prospective study. These patients were admitted between 1934 and 1944 and were studied 30 to 40 years later. Five cause of death categories were considered in this analysis: (1) unnatural deaths, (2) neoplasms, (3) diseases of the circulatory system, (4) infective and parasitic diseases, and (5) other causes. For each cause of death, the expected number of deaths was calculated from vital statistics for the State of Iowa for the time period of follow-up. Observed numbers of deaths were contrasted with expected numbers of deaths to assess statistical significance for each diagnostic group. There was a significant excess of unnatural deaths in all diagnostic groups in both sexes, with the exception of female manics. This group, however, did show a significant excess of circulatory system deaths. Both male and female schizophrenics showed a substantial excess of infective disorder deaths.
An Efficient, Expressive and Local Minima-Free Method for Learning Controlled Dynamical Systems

We propose a framework for modeling and estimating the state of controlled dynamical systems, where an agent can affect the system through actions and receives partial observations. Based on this framework, we propose Predictive State Representation with Random Fourier Features (RFF-PSR). A key property in RFF-PSRs is that the state estimate is represented by a conditional distribution of future observations given future actions. RFFPSRs combine this representation with moment-matching, kernel embedding, and local optimization to achieve a method that enjoys several favorable qualities: It can represent controlled environments which can be affected by actions, it has an efficient and theoretically justified learning algorithm, it uses a non-parametric representation that has expressive power to represent continuous non-linear dynamics. We provide a detailed formulation, a theoretical analysis and an experimental evaluation that demonstrates the effectiveness of our method.
Soil carbon management in large-scale Earth system modelling: implications for crop yields and nitrogen leaching

Croplands are vital ecosystems for human well-being and provide important ecosystem services such as crop yields, retention of nitrogen and carbon storage. On large (regional to global)-scale levels, assessment of how these different services will vary in space and time, especially in response to cropland management, are scarce. We explore cropland management alternatives and the effect these can have on future C and N pools and fluxes using the land-use-enabled dynamic vegetation model LPJ-GUESS (Lund-Potsdam-Jena General Ecosystem Simulator). Simulated crop production, cropland carbon storage, carbon sequestration and nitrogen leaching from croplands are evaluated and discussed. Compared to the version of LPJ-GUESS that does not include land-use dynamics, estimates of soil carbon stocks and nitrogen leaching from terrestrial to aquatic ecosystems were improved. Our model experiments allow us to investigate trade-offs between these ecosystem services that can be pro- vided from agricultural fields. These trade-offs are evaluated for current land use and climate and further explored for future conditions within the two future climate change scenarios, RCP (Representative Concentration Path- way) 2.6 and 8.5. Our results show that the potential for carbon sequestration due to typical cropland management practices such as no-till management and cover crops proposed in previous studies is not realised, globally or over larger climatic regions. Our results highlight important considerations to be made when modelling C-N in- teractions in agricultural ecosystems under future environmental change and the effects these have on terrestrial biogeochemical cycles.
A Comparative Study on TID Influenced Lateral Diffusion of Group 11 Metals Into GexS1−x and GexSe1−x Systems: A Flexible Radiation Sensor Development Perspective

The impact of varying: 1) metals used to form contact electrodes and 2) chalcogenide glass atomic ratio/chemical composition on the performance of our recently developed flexible radiation detection sensors has been investigated. For electrodes, three group 11 elements (i.e., copper, silver, and gold) were used. For chalcogenide glass film, either Ge<sub><italic>x</italic></sub>S<sub>1−<italic>x</italic></sub> or Ge<sub><italic>x</italic></sub>Se<sub>1−<italic>x</italic></sub> was used where the atomic ratio of the chalcogen atoms (i.e., sulfide or selenide) was varied from device to device. Selenide systems with Ag electrodes were found to be very promising, since the limit of detection of the sensors showed clear dependence on the Se atomic ratio in the chalcogenide glass film. The other selenide and sulfide systems with different group 11 metal electrodes were not as suitable for the present lateral diffusion-based design due to either their control instability or very slow diffusion caused by <inline-formula> <tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\gamma $ </tex-math></inline-formula> irradiation from a <sup>60</sup>Co source.
Differential Diagnosis of Pancreatic Tumors by Molecular Analysis of Clinical Specimens

Objective: To describe the capabilities and limitations of the current state of the art in pancreatic cancer diagnostics and to discuss recent progress in the development of novel, highly accurate molecular diagnostic approaches. Results: Molecular analyses currently under evaluation as novel diagnostic tests include detection of point mutations, genomic imbalances, aberrant methylation patterns and gene expression changes on the mRNA and protein levels in pancreatic juice, fine needle aspiration biopsies and brush cytologies. Conclusions: In exploratory studies, several candidate molecular markers show great potential to serve as general indicators of malignancy, but need to be validated in large, controlled, prospective studies. Multiplexing of diagnostic tests, e.g. in the form of specialized DNA microarrays, may provide more differentiated diagnoses such as the distinction of various tumor types or prognostic information for individual patients. The MolDiag-Paca consortium is strongly engaged in advancing these developments on a European level.
Relationship between sexual interactions and the timing of the fertile phase in captive female Japanese macaques (Macaca fuscata)

Japanese macaques live in multi‐male/multi‐female social groups in which competition between males, female mate choice, and alternative male mating strategies are important determinants of mating and reproductive success. However, the extent to which adult males rely on female behavior to make their mating decisions as well as the effect of social rank on mating success are not clear as results are inconclusive, varying from study to study. In this study, we combined behavioral and endocrine data of 14 female Japanese macaques to examine the relationship between ovarian cycle phase and frequency of sexual behaviors, and to investigate how social rank influences sexual behavior in this species. We found that there was no increase in female proceptive behaviors during the fertile phase of the ovarian cycle, suggesting that female behaviors did not clearly signal the probability of conception. In spite of that, the frequencies of ejaculatory copulations were highest during this phase, indicating that the attractivity of females increased significantly during the period with higher probability of conception. Males, and especially the highest ranking male, were able to discriminate females nearing ovulation and to concentrate their mating effort, implying that the timing of ovulation was not concealed from them. The α male seemed able to monopolize most female matings, which is probably due in part to the low number of females simultaneously ovulating and to the limited number of inconspicuous places that the lower ranking males have to mate with females and avoid α male aggression. All together, these results suggest that different males may have access to different signals of ovulation and/or are differentially restrained as to how they can act on that information. The exact nature of the estrogen‐related cues males use to recognize female reproductive status, and to what extent males use them warrants further investigation. Am. J. Primatol. 71:868–879, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Electoral System Reform in Democracy's Grey Zone: Lessons from Putin's Russia

Abstract Besides seat maximization, what factors motivate an incumbent regime in the grey zone between democracy and dictatorship to alter a relatively institutionalized parliamentary electoral system? To answer this question, this article seeks to uncover the rationale guiding the 2005 changes to Russia's electoral system. It presents evidence to suggest that the same strategies that allowed Russia's current party of power to use the existing electoral system to its advantage in the 2003 Duma election, threatened to spoil the fruits of that advantage in the years to come. Yet it also points out that moving from a mixed electoral system to a purely proportional system could be good for Russian democracy in the future. As a result, the work contends that seemingly authoritarian incumbents will promote reforms that aid the future cause of democracy when these same reforms serve their more immediate interests.
ATA: the Artificial Technical Analyst. Building intra-day market strategies

A trading system based on artificial neural networks is presented: the Artificial Technical Analyst (ATA) is part of a project focusing on the capabilities of variants of self-organising maps (SOMs) as pattern recognition tools, as well as on their perspective use as forecasters. The basic idea is to take advantage of the analogies shared by SOMs and human technical traders, i.e. their common search for known patterns through which they extrapolate useful knowledge to forecast future price movements. The project is depicted in terms of its guidelines, discussing experimental results over S&P500 intra-day futures market contract prices.
Designing a Predictive Performance Measurement and Control System to Maximize Customer Relationship Management Success

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) performance measurement is reviewed with two main intentions: (a) to encourage theoretical and empirical research and (b) to provide a useful predictive measurement system that is easy to implement. Special emphasis is placed on Balanced Scorecard methodologies as measurement systems to both evaluate and predict CRM performance. The use of a Balanced Scorecard (BSC) methodology to design CRM predictive performance measurement and control systems (PMCS) may provide several benefits to firms since (a) it reduces the risk and the uncertainty associated with the decision-making processes related to a CRM strategy and (b) it provides a strategic resource to the development of competitive advantages. The article concludes by proposing an holistic measuring system in the CRM field, including accountable, leading, repeatable, and linked metrics over the following areas and dimensions: strategy (business orientation, business atmosphere, and competitive strategy); resources (financial, human, and technological), business processes (integration and innovation); products and services (superiority and product/company synergy), customers (prospective and current); and external factors (competition and market).
ANTI-SILENCING FUNCTION 1 Proteins Are Involved in Ultraviolet-Induced DNA Damage Repair and Are Cell Cycle Regulated by E 2 F Transcription Factors in Arabidopsis 1

Centro de Estudios Fotosintéticos y Bioquímicos, Universidad Nacional de Rosario, 2000 Rosario, Argentina (L.D.L., C.P.S., P.C.); Centro de Biotecnología y Genómica de Plantas, Instituto Nacional de Investigación y Tecnología Agraria y Alimentaria, Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Campus de Montegancedo, 28049 Madrid, Spain (E.R.-P.); and Centro de Biología Molecular “Severo Ochoa,” Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Cantoblanco, 28049 Madrid, Spain (C.G.)
Multi-Label Community-Based Question Classification via Personalized Sequence Memory Network Learning

Multi-label community-based question classification is a challenging problem in Community-based Question Answering (CQA) services, arising in many real applications such as question navigation and expert finding. Most of the existing approaches consider the problem as content-based tag suggestion task, which suffers from the textual sparsity issue. Unlike the previous studies, we consider the problem of multi-label community-based question classification from the viewpoint of personalized sequence learning. We introduce the personalized sequence memory network that leverages not only the semantics of questions but also the personalized information of askers to provide the sequence tag learning function to capture the high-order tag dependency. The experiment on real-world dataset shows the effectiveness of our method.
The molecular structures of Thiele's and Chichibabin's hydrocarbons.

Le premier compose cristallise dans le systeme triclinique, groupe d'espace P1 et sa structure est affinee jusqu'a R=0,038. Le second compose cristallise le systeme monoclinique, groupe P2 1 /n et sa structure est affinee a trois temperatures differentes
The Impact of Participatory Ergonomics on Working Conditions, Quality, and Productivity

A participatory ergonomics model was designed for improving working conditions, quality, and productivity in a medium-sized manufacturing enterprise by making use of a Supportive Expert Team (SET). In order to implement the model, a team-based structure consisting of a Steering Committee (SC) and 2 Action Groups (AGs) was designed and a 5-phase methodology followed. To validate the model, a similar factory was selected as control. Performance of the model was successful throughout the project. AGs under the supervision of the SC and the support of the SET designed and implemented several ergonomics solutions using local resources. Our findings showed that, in comparison with the control factory, application of such a model could be considered as a provider of a more humanized work environment as well as a more efficient and cost-effective approach.