Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Parenteral calcium for intensive care unit patients.

BACKGROUND Hypocalcemia is prevalent among critically ill patients requiring intensive care. Several epidemiological studies highlight a direct association between hypocalcemia and mortality. These data provide the impetus for current guidelines recommending parenteral calcium administration to normalize serum calcium. However, in light of the considerable variation in the threshold for calcium replacement, the lack of evidence to support a causal role of hypocalcemia in mortality, and animal studies illustrating that calcium supplementation may worsen outcomes, a systematic review is essential to evaluate whether or not the practice of calcium supplementation for intensive care unit (ICU) patients provides any benefit. OBJECTIVES To assess the effects of parenteral calcium administration in ICU patients on the following outcomes: mortality, multiple organ dysfunction, ICU and hospital length of stay, costs, serum ionized calcium concentration, and complications of parenteral calcium administration. SEARCH STRATEGY We searched The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, Current Controlled Trials, and the National Research Register. We hand-searched conference abstracts from the Society of Critical Care Medicine, the European Society of Intensive Care Medicine, the American Thoracic Surgery, the American College of Surgeons, the American College of Chest Physicians, the American College of Physicians, and the International Consensus Conference in Intensive Care Medicine. We checked references of publications and attempted to contact authors to identify additional published or unpublished data. SELECTION CRITERIA Randomised controlled and controlled clinical trials of ICU patients comparing parenteral calcium chloride or calcium gluconate administration with no treatment or placebo. DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS Two reviewers independently applied eligibility criteria to trial reports for inclusion and extracted data. MAIN RESULTS There are no identifiable studies that have evaluated the association between parenteral calcium supplementation in critically ill ICU patients and the following outcomes: mortality, multiple organ dysfunction, ICU and hospital length of stay, costs, and complications of calcium administration. Serum ionized calcium concentration was reported in 5 studies (12 trial arms, 159 participants). These trials showed a small but significant increase in serum ionized calcium concentration after calcium administration. These trials showed considerable statistical heterogeneity and differed extensively in the population studied (adult versus neonate), the indication (hypocalcemia versus prophylaxis) and threshold of hypocalcemia for which parenteral calcium was administered, and the timing of subsequent measurement of serum ionized calcium concentration to the extent that we consider a pooled estimate almost inappropriate. AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS There is no clear evidence that parenteral calcium supplementation impacts the outcome of critically ill patients.
Moderating Variables On SMEs Strategies And Competitiveness For International Trade: A Survey Of Horticultural Traders In Urban And Peri-Urban Areas In Kenya

Small and Medium sized Enterprises (SME) strategy and competitiveness in international trade in developing countries context have not been fully explored. This paper posits that SMEs competitiveness as a result of its strategy is moderated by an array of internal and external factors. Accordingly, this paper examines key moderating variables on the SMEs strategies as a construct that influence enterprise competitiveness. The objectives of the paper are three fold: to identify the moderating factors on SME strategies and competitiveness, to evaluate the level and extent of moderation of such variables and to evaluate the relationship between enterprise strategy and competitiveness. The hypotheses were developed and tested using data collected using survey of traders in the urban and peri-urban areas of Uasin Gishu District, Kenya. Systematic random sampling technique was used to pick 50 of the 200 traders in the market. Data was collected using self-administered structured questionnaire to the respondents. Factor analysis was used to extract latent factors and provide an understanding of structures and identify the moderating factors. Further, linear multiple regression analysis was performed on the extracted factors against sales volume as a measure of competitiveness. This was used in the assessment of various dimensions of the enterprise performance of SMES. Ten factors with high eigen values of more than one were extracted. The regression model could not provide conclusive results on the effect of strategy on competitiveness, but could be indicative of the complexity of the underlying interactions.
UKF based filtering and curve fitting for estimating the joint stiffness of stewart platform

In order to improve the precision of most control method for the stewart platform, this paper gives a novel method to determine the joint stiffness to avoid the negative effect of the actuated joint deformation. We establish the transfer function of the linearized model between the theoretical and the real value of joint deforming length so as to estimate the joint stiffness. At the same time, in view of the special noise of the distance measuring sensor output, the unscented Kalman filter is used in signal processing. The experimental results show that this method can obtain the joint stiffness parameters effectively.
Collaborative filtering by sequential user-item co-cluster extraction from rectangular relational data

Collaborative filtering is a basic technique for tackling information overloads and is composed of task of relating a promising item to an active user. In this paper, a new approach to user-item co-cluster extraction from rectangular relational data is proposed based on the structural balancing concept, and the clustering method is applied to collaborative filtering tasks. In the process, user-item rectangular relational matrix given in an alternative process of 'liking or not' is first transformed into a square adjacency matrix and then co-clusters are sequentially extracted by using a weighted aggregation criterion. In a numerical experiment, the proposed collaborative filtering model is applied to a purchase history data set in order to demonstrate the recommendation ability of the model.
Time and Antigen-Stimulation History Influence Memory CD8 T Cell Bystander Responses

Memory CD8 T cells can be activated and induced to produce cytokines and increase stores of cytolytic proteins not only in response to cognate antigen (Ag) but also in response to inflammatory cytokines (bystander responses). Importantly, bystander memory CD8 T cell functions have been shown to be dependent upon memory CD8 T cell fitness, since exhausted CD8 T cells have diminished capacity to respond to inflammatory cues. While it is known that memory CD8 T cell functional abilities, including ability to produce cytokines in response to cognate Ag, change with time after initial Ag encounter and upon multiple Ag stimulations (e.g., primary vs. tertiary CD8 T cell responses), it is unknown if bystander memory CD8 T cell responses are influenced by time or by Ag-exposure history. Here, we examined time and Ag-stimulation history-dependent alterations in virus-specific memory CD8 T cell bystander functions in response to inflammatory cytokines and unrelated bacterial infection. We found that expression of cytokine receptors and ability to produce IFN-γ following heterologous infection or incubation with inflammatory cytokines decreases with time following initial Ag encounter and increases with additional Ag encounters, suggesting that the ability to sense inflammation and respond with bystander cytokine production is dependent on age and Ag-stimulation history of memory CD8 T cells. These data shed further light on the regulation of memory CD8 T cell effector functions and have important implications for the development of vaccines designed to elicit protective memory CD8 T cells.
Menopause Symptoms' Predictors: The Influence of Lifestyle, Health- and Menopause-Related, and Sociodemographic Characteristics

This research explores a causal model of menopausal symptoms in peri- and postmenopausal women. A community sample of 710 women was assessed regarding menopausal symptoms, and sociodemographic, health- and menopause-related, and lifestyle characteristics. Structural equation modelling was used. Menopausal status predicted skin/facial hair changes (β = .156; p <.001), vasomotor (β = .122; p <.001) and sexual symptoms (β = .158; p <.001). Age was significantly associated with cognitive impairment (β = .087; p = .003), aches/pain (β = .072; p = .006), urinary (β = .115; p = .004) and also sexual symptoms (β = .107; p = .021). Several menopausal symptoms are predicted, not only by menopausal status, but also by age progression, among other variables; this should be considered in the context of a well-adapted menopausal transition.
Enemy evaluation AI for 2D action-platform game

Enemy plays an important role in providing challenge in action-platform games. Our intention is to generate enemies automatically. To ensure that our enemies can be used in actual games, we need to evaluate their qualities. Using human players for the evaluation is not feasible if we generate a lot of enemies or if we are going to use the algorithm in actual games. Our approach is to create a player AI that can play action-platform games with the same performance as human players. That AI's battle performance will then be used to evaluate the generated enemies. This paper presents the definition of battle performance and the AI implementation, combining FSM, search and rule-based heuristics. The AI is shown to perform similar to human players.
Clonality and Antimicrobial Resistance Gene Profiles of Multidrug- Resistant Salmonella enterica Serovar Infantis Isolates from Four Public Hospitals in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

ABSTRACT In Brazil, Salmonella enterica serovar Infantis resistant to various antimicrobials, including cephalosporins, has been identified as an etiological agent of severe gastroenteritis in hospitalized children since 1994. In this study, 35 serovar Infantis strains, isolated from children admitted to four different Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, hospitals between 1996 and 2001, were characterized by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) and antimicrobial susceptibility testing in order to determine their genetic relatedness and antimicrobial resistance profiles. Thirty-four serovar Infantis strains were resistant to at least two antibiotic classes, and all 35 strains were susceptible to fluoroquinolones, cephamycin, and carbapenem. Extended-spectrum beta-lactamase (ESBL) screening by double-disk diffusion indicated that 32 serovar Infantis strains (91.4%) produced beta-lactamases that were inhibited by clavulanic acid. Antimicrobial resistance gene profiles were determined by PCR for a subset of 11 multidrug-resistant serovar Infantis strains, and putative ESBLs were detected by isoelectric focusing. Ten serovar Infantis strains carried blaTEM, catI, ant(3")Ia and/or ant(3")Ib, sulI and/or sulII, and tet(D) genes as well as an integron-associated aac(6′)-Iq cassette. Eight strains possessed at least four different beta-lactamases with pI profiles that confirmed the presence of both ESBLs and non-ESBLs. Our PFGE profiles indicated that 33 serovar Infantis strains isolated from Rio de Janeiro hospitals came from the same genetic lineage.
Producing Monolingual and Parallel Web Corpora at the Same Time - SpiderLing and Bitextor’s Love Affair

This paper presents an approach for building large monolingual corpora and, at the same time, extracting parallel data by crawling the top-level domain of a given language of interest. For gathering linguistically relevant data from top-level domains we use the SpiderLing crawler, modified to crawl data written in multiple languages. The output of this process is then fed to Bitextor, a tool for harvesting parallel data from a collection of documents. We call the system combining these two tools Spidextor, a blend of the names of its two crucial parts. We evaluate the described approach intrinsically by measuring the accuracy of the extracted bitexts from the Croatian top-level domain “. hr” and the Slovene top-level domain “. si”, and extrinsically on the English-Croatian language pair by comparing an SMT system built from the crawled data with third-party systems. We finally present parallel datasets collected with our approach for the English-Croatian, English-Finnish, English-Serbian and English-Slovene language pairs.
RNase 7, a Novel Innate Immune Defense Antimicrobial Protein of Healthy Human Skin*

We analyzed healthy human skin for the presence of endogenous antimicrobial proteins that might explain the unusually high resistance of human skin against infections. A novel 14.5-kDa antimicrobial ribonuclease, termed RNase 7, was isolated from skin-derived stratum corneum. RNase 7 exhibited potent ribonuclease activity and thus may contribute to the well known ribonuclease activity of human skin. RNase 7 revealed broad spectrum antimicrobial activity against many pathogenic microorganisms and remarkably potent activity (lethal dose of 90% < 30 nm) against a vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus faecium. Molecular cloning from skin-derived primary keratinocytes and purification of RNase 7 from supernatants of cultured primary keratinocytes indicate that keratinocytes represent the major cellular source in skin and that RNase 7 is secreted. RNase 7 mRNA expression was detected in various epithelial tissues including skin, respiratory tract, genitourinary tract, and at a low level, in the gut. In addition to a constitutive expression, RNase 7 mRNA was induced in cultured primary keratinocytes by interleukin-1β, interferon-γ, and bacterial challenge. This is the first report demonstrating RNases as a novel class of epithelial inducible antimicrobial proteins, which may play an important role in the innate immune defense system of human epithelia.
Evaluation of experimental spinal cord injury using cortical evoked potentials.

✓ Experiments were performed to determine if changes in cortical evoked responses could be used to predict the extent of the neurological deficits following spinal cord injury by sudden inflation of a Fogarty balloon in the epidural space cephalad to a laminectomy. The cortical responses to stimulation of the posterior tibial nerve were recorded over the sigmoid gyrus at various times following the lesion and compared with the control response. Severe, irreversible neurological deficits occurred in cats in which the cortical response either could not be evoked immediately after injury or disappeared rapidly during this period. At the end of at least 6 weeks following injury, all of these animals were paraplegic and showed severe cystic degeneration of the spinal cord. In animals in which the post-injury cortical response did not completely disappear, only mild changes were observed in a spinal cord 6 weeks following injury. This technique may be helpful in ascertaining the severity and irreversibility of .
"Implicit search feature based approach to assist users in exploratory search tasks" by Chathra Hendahewa, with Prateek Jainas as coordinator

Chathra Hendahewa is a Ph.D. candidate in Department of Computer Science at Rutgers University in New Jersey, currently finishing up her dissertation (Expected Graduation Date: Jan 2016) under the guidance of Prof. Chirag Shah. Her major research interests lie in user search behavior analysis, data mining/machine learning for user interaction analysis and time series analysis. She has published and presented her research work at reputable conferences such as SIGIR, WSDM and ICMLA and also co-authored multiple journal papers published in ACM TOIS, IP&M and JASIST. She holds a Master of Science in Computer Science from Rutgers University, USA (Jan 2013). Before joining Rutgers, she received her Bachelors in Information Technology from University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka (Jan 2007), where she was awarded the best information technology graduate award. Chathra was a recipient of the International Fulbright Science and Technology Award (2008-2011) to pursue her doctoral studies. For more information see: http://paul.rutgers. edu/~chathrah/
How Do Cytotoxic Lymphocytes Kill Cancer Cells?

In the past few years, cancer immunotherapy has emerged as a safe and effective alternative for treatment of cancers that do not respond to classical treatments, including those types with high aggressiveness. New immune modulators, such as cytokines, blockers of CTLA-4 (cytotoxic T-lymphocyte-associated protein 4) and PD-1(programmed cell death protein 1)/PD-L1 (programmed death-ligand 1), and interaction or adoptive cell therapy, have been developed and approved to treat solid and hematologic carcinomas. In these scenarios, cytotoxic lymphocytes (CL), mainly cytotoxic T cells (Tc) and natural killer (NK) cells, are ultimately responsible for killing the cancer cells and eradicating the tumor. Extensive studies have been conducted to assess how Tc and NK cells get activated and recognize the cancer cell. In contrast, few studies have focused on the effector molecules used by CLs to kill cancer cells during cancer immunosurveillance and immunotherapy. In this article, the two main pathways involved in CL-mediated tumor cell death, granule exocytosis (perforin and granzymes) and death ligands, are briefly introduced, followed by a critical discussion of the molecules involved in cell death during cancer immunosurveillance and immunotherapy. This discussion also covers unexpected consequences of proinflammatory and survival effects of granzymes and death ligands and recent experimental evidence indicating that perforin and granzymes of CLs can activate nonapoptotic pathways of cell death, overcoming apoptosis defects and chemoresistance. The consequences of apoptosis versus other modalities of cell death for an effective treatment of cancer by modulating the patient immune system are also briefly discussed. Clin Cancer Res; 21(22); 5047–56. ©2015 AACR. See all articles in this CCR Focus section, “Cell Death and Cancer Therapy. ”
Consumers preferences for plant size, type of plant material and design sophistication in residential landscaping.

Abstract How much value do consumers place on a good landscape? Self-selected attendees to a Detroit, MI, flower show indicated that plant size was the most important factor in the perceived value of a landscape. Holding other factors equal, increasing from the smallest size plant generally available for installation to the largest size defined in our study increased perceived home value by 5.0%. Design sophistication was almost as important as size. Holding other factors equal, upgrading from a traditional foundation planting to a sophisticated design that incorporated multiple bed and curved bedlines increased perceived home value by 4.5%. The type of plant material used was the least important. The relative importance of plant material selection as a factor contributing value added to the home by the landscape was almost half that of plant size and over 40% less than design sophistication. The conjoint model produced from 158 survey responses predicted that from the least valued landscape to the most v.
Water Relations of Chusquea ramosissima and Merostachys claussenii in Iguazu National Park, Argentina1

Bamboos are prominent components of many tropical ecosystems, yet little is known about the physiological mechanisms utilized by these gigantic forest grasses. Here, we present data on the water transport properties of Chusquea ramosissima and Merostachys claussenii, monocarpic bamboo grasses native to the subtropical Atlantic forests of Argentina. C. ramosissima and M. claussenii differed in their growth form and exhibited contrasting strategies of water transport. Maximum xylem hydraulic conductivity of C. ramosissima culms was 2-fold higher than that of M. claussenii. C. ramosissima cavitated at relatively high water potentials (50% loss of conductivity at ≥1 MPa), whereas M. claussenii was more drought tolerant (50% loss at ≤3 MPa). Both species exhibited significant loss of hydraulic conductivity during the day, which was reversed overnight due to the generation of root pressure. The photosynthetic capacities of both bamboo species, estimated based on electron transport rates, were moderate, reflecting both the large amount of leaf area supported by culms and diurnal loss of hydraulic conductivity due to cavitation. Leaf hydraulic conductance was also relatively low for both species, congruent with their modest photosynthetic capacities. Within its native range, C. ramosissima is highly invasive due to its ability to colonize and persist in both forest gaps and land cleared for agriculture. We propose that a highly vulnerable vasculature, coupled with diurnal root pressure and an allometry that allows substantial leaf area to be supported on relatively slender culms, are key traits contributing to the ecological success of C. ramosissima.
A Cytological and Genetical Study of Progenies of Triploid Tomatoes.

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The Use of Internet-Based Groupware in New Product Forecasting

New product development is a risky business. Companies can use a number of methods to assess the viability of a new product and reduce the risks associated with it. Judgmental new product forecasting is one of the widely used methods. Previous studies outline numerous ways of eliciting judgmental group forecasts with their advantages and disadvantages. With the rapid growth of the Internet, there are now also a few Internet-based group discussion tools that can offer valuable opportunities for judgmental new product forecasting. This paper presents an application of Internet-based groupware in judgmentally forecasting the adoption of two Internet services. The results showed that the participants found the method to be easy, reasonable and interesting and felt confident about their contributions to the group discussions. The findings also showed that the predictions based on this method were reasonably accurate with absolute errors of 4% to 5%.
Determinants of the corporate identity construct: a review of the literature

Corporate identity has received significant attention from both academics and practitioners in the last 25 years. Despite many articles written in this area a definitive construct of corporate identity and its measurements does not yet exist. The objective of this paper is therefore to provide a review of the literature on the corporate identity construct and its components and also to present the academic and managerial implications of this study.
The impact of a distributor's trust in a supplier and use of control mechanisms on relational value creation in marketing channels

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore empirically how a distributor's trust in a supplier and its use of control mechanisms affect the values it gains from the relationship.Design/methodology/approach – Factor analysis and a structural equation model were used to test the framework in a sample of 251 distributors in the household appliances industry in China.Findings – The findings show that a distributor's honesty trust in a supplier enhances the direct value gained through the use of both contract and relational norms, but hinders and promotes the indirect value gained through the use of contract and relational norms respectively. A distributor's benevolence trust promotes the direct and indirect value gained through the use of relational norms, but impedes the direct value and enhances the indirect value gained through the use of contracts.Research limitations/implication – A distributor's trust in a supplier may involve competence trust besides honesty trust and benevolence trust. Hence, t.