Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effect of mild hypothermia on cerebral oxygen uptake during gradual cerebral perfusion pressure decrease in piglets

Objective: To study the effect of mild hypothermia on cerebral oxygen metabolism and brain function in piglets during reduced cerebral blood flow because of gradual reduction of the effective cerebral perfusion pressure (CPP). Design: Comparison of two randomized treatment groups: normothermic group (NT; n = 7) and hypothermic group (HT; n = 7). Setting: Work was conducted in the research laboratory of the Institute for Pathophysiology, Friedrich Schiller University, Jena, Germany. Subjects: Fourteen piglets (14 days old) of mixed German domestic breed. Intervention: Animals were anesthetized and mechanically ventilated. An epidural balloon was gradually inflated to increase intracranial pressure to 25 mm Hg, 35 mm Hg, and 45 mm Hg every 30 mins at adjusted mean arterial blood pressures. After determination of baseline CPP (NT, 79 ± 14 mm Hg; HT, 84 ± 9 mm Hg), CPP was reduced to ∼70%, 50%, and 30% of baseline (NT, 38.1 ± 0.5°C; HT, 31.7 ± 0.5°C). Measurements and Main Results: Every 25 mins after the gradual CPP reductions. Mild hypothermia induced a reduction of the cerebral metabolic rate of oxygen (CMRO2) to 50% ± 15% of baseline values (baseline values, 352 ± 99 μmol·100 g−1·min−1) (p < .05). Moreover, the electrocorticogram was altered to a pattern of reduced delta activity (p < .05) but unchanged higher frequency activity. The cerebral oxygen balance in HT animals remained improved until CPP reduction to 50%, indicated by a reduced cerebral arteriovenous difference of oxygen but elevated brain tissue PO2 (p < .05). Further CPP reduction gave rise to a strong CMRO2 reduction (NT, 19 ± 21%; HT, 15 ± 15%; p < .05). However, the high‐frequency band of electrocorticogram was less reduced in hypothermic animals (p < .05). Conclusions: Mild whole body hypothermia improves cerebral oxygen balance by reduction of brain energy demand in juvenile piglets. The improvement of brain oxygen availability continues during a mild to moderate CPP decrease. A loss of the difference in CMRO2 between the hypothermic and normothermic piglets together with the fact that brain electrical activity was less suppressed under hypothermia during severe cerebral blood flow reduction indicates that hypothermic protection may involve some other mechanisms than reduction of brain oxidative metabolism.
A 10/30MHz PWM buck converter with an accuracy-improved ramp generator

In this paper, a 10/30MHz PWM buck converter with an accuracy-improved ramp generator is proposed. To extend the minimum duty ratio of the converter, the valley of the ramp signal is controlled to be larger than 0.2V by the threshold voltage of an NMOS transistor. To shorten the delay time of the comparator in the ramp generator, a high speed two-stage push-pull comparator is presented. Simulation results of the ramp generator with switching frequencies from 10MHz to 30MHz show that the error due to process variations for the ramp, clock and maximum duty ratio are not larger than 10%. To avoid the design of high speed current sensor and maximize the unity-gain frequency of the regulation loop, voltage mode control with type III compensation is adopted for the converter. Measurement results show that the proposed buck converter with 500mA of load range has good steady-state and transient performances for 10MHz and 30MHz of switching frequencies, respectively.
Enhancement of hyperthermia-induced apoptosis by sanazole in human lymphoma U937 cells

Sanazole has been tested clinically as a hypoxic cell radiosensitizer. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether sanazole enhances apoptosis induced by hyperthermia at 44°C for 20 min in human lymphoma U937 cells. Sanazole alone induced continuous increase in the intracellular superoxide generation in a time-dependent manner and transient increase in the peroxide formation, which further were enhanced at 1 hour after HT treatment. Moreover, when the cells were treated first with 10 mM sanazole for 40 min, exposed to HT at 44°C for 20 min and the cells were further treated with the drug at 37°C for 6 h, a significant enhancement of HT-induced apoptosis was evidenced by DNA fragmentation, morphological changes and phosphatidylserine externalization. Studying the apoptotic pathways involved in this enhancement, we found that loss of the mitochondrial membrane potential, release of cytochrome c from mitochondria to cytosol, and activation of caspase-3 and caspase-8 was enhanced significantly in the U937 cells after the combined treatment. Moreover, this combination enhanced activation of Bid, and down regulation of Hsp70. In addition, an increase in the intracellular Ca2+ concentration ([Ca2+]i), and externalization of Fas were observed immediately after sanazole and HT treatment. Our data indicate that sanazole can enhance the hyperthermia induced-apoptosis through the Fas-caspase-8- and [Ca2+]i-dependent apoptotic pathways. In addition, the down regulation of Hsp70 contributed to this enhancement.
A combined semantic-syntactic sentence analysis for students assessment

TutorJ is an Intelligent Tutoring System able to fulfill the requests of a student with a learning path inside didactical materials. To this aim, it must assess the level of training of the learner. In the first version of TutorJ this goal was reached through a conversational agent whose linguistic interaction enriched by a LSA-based text analysis. This approach suffers from the limitations of LSA as a bag-of-words approach. Next, morphosyntactic comparison of sentences' structures was implemented. In this paper we present a new version of the assessment procedure involving both semantic, and morphosyntactic analysis user's sentences.
Transforming Gender Relations through the Market: Smallholder Milk Market Participation and Women`s Intra-household Bargaining Power in Ethiopia

Abstract We study the relationship between smallholder milk market participation and women`s intra-household bargaining position in Ethiopia, using a quasi-experiment and propensity score matching. In market participant households, milk income is higher and its control has shifted from women to men. Our data also indicate that men transfer this income partly to their wives. Qualitative findings indicate that men see this as recognition for their wife’s household maintenance responsibility. Women argue however that transferring income is also men`s tactic for reducing intra-household conflict. Overall, dependency between husbands and wives seems higher and a woman’s bargaining position stronger in participant households.
The Paradox of End-of-Life Hospital Treatment Intensity among Black Patients: A Retrospective Cohort Study.

OBJECTIVE Black patients are more likely than white patients to die in the hospital with intensive care and life-sustaining treatments and less likely to use hospice. Regional concentration of high end-of-life (EOL) treatment intensity practice patterns may disproportionately affect black patients. We calculated and compared race-specific hospital-level EOL treatment intensity in Pennsylvania. METHODS We conducted a retrospective cohort analysis of Pennsylvania acute care hospital admissions, 2001-2007, among black and white admissions ≥21 years old at high probability of dying (HPD) (≥15% predicted probability of dying at admission). We calculated hospitals' race-specific observed, expected, and Bayes' shrunken observed-to-expected ratios of intensive care unit (ICU) admission, ICU length of stay (LOS), intubation/mechanical ventilation, hemodialysis, tracheostomy, and gastrostomy among HPD admissions; and an empirically weighted EOL treatment intensity index summing these ratios. RESULTS There were 35,609 black HPD admissions (27,576 unique patients) and 311,896 white HPD admissions (252,662 unique patients) to 182 hospitals. Among 95 hospitals with ≥30 black HPD admissions, 80% of black admissions were concentrated in 29 hospitals, where black-specific observed and expected EOL measures were usually higher than white-specific measures (p < 0.001 for all but 5/24 measures). Hospitals' black-specific and white-specific observed-to-expected ratios of ICU and life-sustaining treatment (LST) (rho 0.52-0.90) and EOL index (rho = 0.92) were highly correlated. However, black-specific observed-to-expected ratios and overall EOL intensity index were consistently lower than white-specific ratios (p < 0.001 for all except hemodialysis). CONCLUSIONS In Pennsylvania, black-serving hospitals have higher standardized EOL treatment intensity than nonblack-serving hospitals, contributing to black patients' relatively higher use of intensive treatment. However, conditional on being admitted to the same high-intensity hospital and after risk adjustment, blacks are less intensively treated than whites.
Analysis and control of discrete-time piecewise linear time-delay systems

This paper presents a method for analysis and control of discrete-time piecewise linear time-delay systems based on a piecewise Lyapunov functional. It is shown that the stability and stabilization conditions can be formulated and solved by a set of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) and the less conservative results can be obtained. Numerical examples are given to illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
An efficient pipeline execution of H.264/AVC intra 4×4 frame design

In this paper, we present an implementation of an optimized H.264 intra 4×4 algorithm in order to reduce the time of the intra 4×4 process. However the source of waste time in conventional architecture of intra 4×4 is the serialization of intra prediction and reconstruction of sixteen 4×4 blocks in one macroblock and the intra prediction of the current 4×4 block cannot be performed before the reconstruction of the previous 4×4 block. Therefore, for a high speed implementation we replaced the conventional one by a pipelined architecture while maintaining consistency with the standard. So we have studied ten alternative scanning orders based on rearranging order of intra 4×4 and we choose the best one which reduce dependencies between consecutively executed blocks without performance degradation. This order is implemented by a pipelined architecture using VHDL language. The VHDL code is verified to work at 100 MHz in an ALTERA Stratix II EP2S60F1020C3 FPGA. As a result, the processing time is reduced by 31.25% compared to the conventional implementation. So, it can be a good solution for real-time video application. The H.264 intra 4×4 hardware and software are demonstrated to work together on ALTERA NIOS-II development board with Stratix II EP2S60F1020C3 FPGA.
Knowledge sharing and innovation capability: Does absorptive capacity function as a mediator?

Knowledge is increasingly regarded as the critical resources of firms and has been advocated extensively in the management literature. Much recent attention has been focused on the importance of effective ldquoknowledge sharingrdquo and its relationship with firmspsila performance. A plethora of work has also found evidence to support the notion that absorptive capacity plays an important role in the firmpsilas ability to acquire knowledge and learn from various sources. This paper attempts to build an integrated framework, exploring the effects of knowledge sharing within firms on absorptive capacity and the relationship between these two constructs and innovation capability of firms. Based on the sample of 115 Chinese firms, this paper employs the structural equation modeling technique to empirically investigate the influence of knowledge sharing behavior on absorptive capacity and innovation capability, and the mediating effects of absorptive capacity. The managerial implications are inferred from the empirical results.
Type II (beta) errors in the hand literature: the importance of power.

When a study concludes that there is no difference between 2 treatments ("negative studies"), it is essential to determine whether the study has sufficient power to find a clinically significant difference. Insufficient power precludes an adequate assessment of therapeutic efficacy and may result in a type II error, an erroneous conclusion that the null hypothesis is correct. In evaluating 39 studies that highlighted negative findings in The Journal of Hand Surgery, we found that 32 (82%) papers had a power of less than . 80 to detect a 25% treatment effect and, when the treatment effect was increased to 50%, more than one half of the studies still had a power of 0.80. These "negative studies" frequently have inadequate statistical power to support their conclusions. These findings have important implications for researchers, editors, and readers.
Benefits of caloric restriction for cardiometabolic health, including type 2 diabetes mellitus risk

In the United States, life expectancy has markedly increased during the past century, and population ageing is expected to double within the next 25 years. The process of ageing in a population is associated with the development of chronic diseases, such as type 2 diabetes mellitus, that can be prevented, and even reversed, with the implementation of healthy lifestyle interventions. The evidence to date, consolidated by the numerous epidemiological studies and clinical trials conducted, suggests that caloric restriction is an effective nutritional intervention for preventing most of these age‐related conditions. At a metabolic level, caloric restriction with adequate nutrition has been shown to improve insulin sensitivity, reduce fasting glucose and insulin concentration and prevent obesity, type 2 diabetes, hypertension and chronic inflammation. The purpose of this article is to review current knowledge of the metabolic and clinical implications of caloric restriction with adequate nutrition for the prevention of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Standing Points of Innovation Capacity

Until the twenty one century, innovation and ideas have been a valuable asset to accelerate the process of technological catch-up, sustain productivity growth and competitiveness. To determine where innovation is standing up, countries and organizations need to adapt innovation capacity to overcome their economies’ defeats for the purpose of boosting the growth and economic performance of the economy. Therefore the aim of our research is to define the innovation capacity first, and then define an approach to assess it base on the countries characteristics. Further, this study highlights the most important indexes to estimate innovation capacity, and uses Porter’s model to facilitate the estimation of the innovation capacity and rank the countries depending on their category.
Utility of AdaBoost to Detect Sleep Apnea-Hypopnea Syndrome From Single-Channel Airflow

Goal: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the usefulness of the boosting algorithm AdaBoost (AB) in the context of the sleep apnea-hypopnea syndrome (SAHS) diagnosis. Methods: We characterize SAHS in single-channel airflow (AF) signals from 317 subjects by the extraction of spectral and nonlinear features. Relevancy and redundancy analyses are conducted through the fast correlation-based filter to derive the optimum set of features among them. These are used to feed classifiers based on linear discriminant analysis (LDA) and classification and regression trees (CART). LDA and CART models are sequentially obtained through AB, which combines their performances to reach higher diagnostic ability than each of them separately. Results: Our AB-LDA and AB-CART approaches showed high diagnostic performance when determining SAHS and its severity. The assessment of different apnea-hypopnea index cutoffs using an independent test set derived into high accuracy: 86.5% (5 events/h), 86.5% (10 events/h), 81.0% (15 events/h), and 83.3% (30 events/h). These results widely outperformed those from logistic regression and a conventional event-detection algorithm applied to the same database. Conclusion: Our results suggest that AB applied to data from single-channel AF can be useful to determine SAHS and its severity. Significance: SAHS detection might be simplified through the only use of single-channel AF data.
PRIVACY ENSURED FRAMEWORK FOR PERSONALIZED CRAWLING WITH KNOWLEDGE MINING

Personalized Web Search (PWS) is a general category of search techniques aiming at providing better search results, which are tailored for individual user needs. While there implicitly collected personal data can easily reveal the user's private life, privacy concerns have become the major barrier for wide proliferation of PWS services. The main concept to improve the search quality with the personalization utility of the user profile and they need to hide the privacy contents existing in the user profile, to place the privacy risk under control there were introduce a userspecified privacy framework . There purposed system has, privacy-preserving personalized web search framework UPS (User-Specified Privacy), which can generalize profiles for each query according to userspecified privacy requirements and runtime generalization. Relying on the definition of two conflicting metrics, namely personalization utility and privacy risk for hierarchical user profile. Effective generalization algorithms, GreedyDP and GreedyIL, to support runtime profiling. While the former tries to maximize the discriminating power (DP), and provide an online prediction mechanism for deciding whether personalizing a query is beneficial. It enhance stability of the search quality and avoid unnecessary exposure of user profile. Sophisticated method to build The user profile and better metrics to predict the performance of UPS.
Working towards a world free from violence against women: UNIFEM's contribution.

The UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) has been at the forefront of the campaign to end violence against women. The Fund's premise is that there can be no sustainable communities or development without the attainment of peace and women's human rights. The UNIFEM Trust Fund in Support of Actions to Eliminate Violence Against Women was established in 1997, and, to date, has supported 59 projects in 49 countries related to the human rights abuse of women within families, war crimes against women, violations of women's bodily integrity (e.g., female genital mutilation), economic discrimination and exploitation, and political and legal discrimination. Program strategies include education, capacity building, violence prevention, the reversal of ingrained attitudes, and action-oriented research. In addition, regional awareness campaigns are conducted to introduce the issue of violence against women to the agendas of world governments. Finally, a learning component for the Fund analyzes the results of Fund initiatives and identifies ways of shaping more effective strategies for combating violence against women. Future areas of work include strengthening enforcement mechanisms in response to violence against women, upgrading the capacity to use international legal instruments, and facilitating information exchange.
Overall trends in CD4 counts and plasma viremia in an urban clinic since the introduction of highly active antiretroviral therapies.

OBJECTIVE To assess whether the benefit of highly active antiretroviral therapies (HAART) is continuing, a longitudinal retrospective study of CD4 counts and viral load (VL) in a large group of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)-infected subjects was undertaken in Madrid. METHODS Consecutive plasma VL values and CD4+ T-lymphocyte counts were collected during a 3-month period yearly from 1996 to 2000 in one HIV/acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) reference institution, where currently around 1500 HIV-infected individuals are on regular follow-up. RESULTS VL values and CD4+ counts were collected at each time-point from an average of 375 and 391 patients, respectively. The proportion of subjects receiving HAART among those on any kind of antiretroviral treatment increased between 1996 (61%) and 2000 (95.1%) (P < 0.01). The number of subjects with undetectable VL (<500 HIV-RNA copies/mL) increased from 12% in 1996 to 64% in 2000 (P < 0.01). Accordingly, the proportion of individuals with CD4+ counts >500 cells/microL increased from 16% in 1997 to 54% in 2000 (P < 0.01). Notably, the number of subjects with VL values >10 000 copies/mL has declined over time, and currently represents only 17% of the population. Despite this favorable trend, the proportion of subjects with low CD4+ counts (<200 cells/microL) seems to have reached a plateau, in the range of 10%. CONCLUSIONS A dramatic virological and immunological benefit has followed the introduction of HAART in HIV-infected patients since 1996. This favorable trend seems to be maintained over time, despite the negative impact of drug-related toxicity and/or adherence issues. However, a subgroup of subjects seems to persist with low CD4 counts despite having good virological control. They should be managed with alternative treatment strategies, including immune stimulatory agents.
On the synchronization of linear heterogeneous multi-agent systems in cycle-free communication networks

This paper deals with the output synchronization problem for linear heterogeneous multi-agent systems. It is shown that in cycle-free communication networks, synchronization can be ensured by static state feedback laws under mild assumptions. Moreover, we present an observer-based strategy for the case that the agents have only access to relative output differences. While in general additional controller states must be communicated to synchronize the agents by observer-based methods, we prove that in cycle-free networks, only output differences are needed to achieve an observer-based synchronization.
Besov spaces with non-doubling measures

Suppose that μ is a Radon measure on R d , which may be non-doubling. The only condition on μ is the growth condition, namely, there is a constant C 0 > 0 such that for all x ∈ supp (μ) and r > 0, μ(B(x,r)) ≤ C 0 r n , where 0 0 is a real number which depends on the non-doubling measure μ, C 0 , n and d. The method used to define these spaces is new even for the classical case. As applications, the lifting properties of these spaces by using the Riesz potential operators and the dual spaces are obtained.
Solid-State Stability Issues of Drugs in Transdermal Patch Formulations

The transdermal patch formulation has many advantages, including noninvasiveness, an ability to bypass the first-pass metabolism, low dosage requirements, and prolonged drug delivery. However, the instability of solid-state drugs is one of the most critical problems observed in transdermal patch products. Therefore, a well-characterized approach for counteracting stability problems in solid-state drugs is crucial for improving the performance of transdermal patch products. This review provides insight into the solid-state stability of drugs associated with transdermal patch products and offers a comprehensive update on the various approaches being used for improving the stability of the active pharmaceutical ingredients currently being used.