Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Do BPH Patients Have Neurogenic Detrusor Dysfunction? A Uro-Neurological Assessment

Introduction: Most men with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) are middle- aged and elderly. Neurogenic detrusor dysfunction (NDD) may also occur in these populations. We made an uro-neurological assessment in such patients in order to investigate the possibility of a concurrent NDD in patients diagnosed with BPH, and to correlate the presence of NDD with treatment outcome. Materials and Methods: 28 men, mean age 66.4 years, referred by urologists at the outpatient clinic as BPH (initial diagnosis: BPH alone, 24, BPH and NDD, 4) with regards to digital examination and lower urinary tract symptoms, underwent urodynamic study and neurological examination. MRI scans were performed to confirm the diagnosis. Results: Urodynamic study (except for 2, acontractile detrusor (AD)) showed equivocal obstruction (EO), 6; underactive detrusor (UD), 9 (voiding phase); detrusor overactivity (DO), 12; urethral relaxation, 1, and reduced sensation, 5 (filling phase). EO correlated with the presence of UD (p = 0.03). DO did not correlate with the prostate size or urodynamically-defined outlet obstruction. Reduced sensation was common in patients >65 years of age (p = 0.05). Neurological examination/imaging showed exaggerated reflexes, 1; decreased reflexes, 6; multiple cerebral infarction, 8; cervical spondylosis, 1 (in patients with DO); lumbar spondylosis, 5 (in patients with AD/UD), and the final diagnosis was made: definite BPH, 6; probable BPH, 9; BPH and NDD, 13, and NDD were common in the patients aged >65 years (p = 0.015). Transurethral prostatectomy and α-blocker were mostly successful, but the failure rate was reported in definite BPH, none, probable BPH, 29%, and BPH and NDD, 33%. Conclusions: BPH patients, particularly those >65 years of age, commonly have NDD. Multiple cerebral infarction (upper neuron disorder) and lumbar spondylosis (lower neuron disorder) might contribute to DO and UD, respectively. A uro-neurological assessment is important to select typical BPH patients for maximizing therapeutic benefit.
Autonomous System Confederations for BGP

The Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) is an inter-autonomous system routing protocol designed for Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) networks. BGP requires that all BGP speakers within a single autonomous system (AS) must be fully meshed. This represents a serious scaling problem that has been well documented in a number of proposals.
Defective localization of target in UWB radar applications

Ultra-wideband radar can be very useful for localization and tracking of moving persons under emergency situations. However, in the case of their applications in real environment, the effect of defective detection and localization of moving targets can result in incorrect evaluation of number and positions of the particular targets. Therefore, understanding of that effect is very important for the mentioned UWB radars applications. With regard to the importance of the defective detection and localization of moving targets effect, the explanation of the mentioned effect origin is presented in this paper.
The Influence Of Media On Attitudinal And Behavioral Changes: Acceptance Of Culture And Products

Culture affects every part of our lives, every day, from birth to death, and everything in between (Cateora, Gilly, and Graham 2011). This study discusses the way in which customers’ acceptance of cultures and products has been greatly affected by the media. This study also investigates how customers’ acceptance leads to attitudinal and behavioral changes. In particular, this study measures the impact of a cultural wave to examine the attitudinal and behavioral changes it causes. This study explores the causes that affect the willingness of people to change their behavior after exposure to the media. In particular, this study investigates 1) how a cultural wave influences product and cultural awareness, 2) the relationship between perceptions of a cultural wave and people’s attitudes and behavior, and 3) the relationship between the strength of people’s attitudes toward acculturation and changes in attitude and behavior. By applying various statistical analyses, this study identifies managerial and theoretical implications.
Societal Effect, Organizational Effect and Globalization

This paper argues that traditional contrasts between countries as depicted by the societal effect approach, among others, may have been over-emphasized. Diverse evidence suggests that aspects of work organization, government policies and training arrangements have changed substantially over the last decade or so, and multinational companies have been effective in diffusing best practices across borders. One implication is that organizational and globalization effects may complement or even counteract the societal effect. This suggests that some cases, where the presumption has been that societal effects are dominant, may be open to a modified analysis.
A calcium-dependent slow afterdepolarization recorded in rat dorsolateral septal nucleus neurons in vitro.

1. Conventional intracellular and single-electrode voltage-clamp recordings were obtained from rat brain slices containing dorsolateral septal nucleus (DLSN) neurons in vitro. 2. We observed a slow afterdepolarizing potential (slow-ADP) that lasted up to several seconds (half-decay time was in the range of 0.7-1.4 s) in almost 15% of DLSN neurons; these same neurons could exhibit burst firing activity. The amplitude of this slow-ADP was not affected by hyperpolarization of the membrane potential. 3. The slow-ADP was associated with an increased membrane conductance. Hybrid voltage clamping of the slow-ADP revealed a transient slow inward current (slow-ADC). The current-voltage relationship of the slow-ADC was linear between -40 and -100 mV and generated an extrapolated reversal potential of -30 mV. 4. We investigated the ionic mechanism of the slow-ADP in the rat DLSN. Slow-ADPs were not blocked by 1 microM tetrodotoxin (TTX) but were markedly depressed by 200 microM Cd2+, Ca2(+)-free, low-Na+ solutions, and the intracellular injection of ethylene glycol-bis(B-aminoethyl ether)-N,N,N',N'-tetraacetic acid (EGTA). Neither diltiazam (10 microM), an L-type Ca2+ channel blocker nor omega-conatoxin (0.2-2.5 microM), an N-type Ca2+ channel blocker affected the slow-ADP. Similarly, the slow-ADP was not affected in a low-Cl- solution. On the other hand, the slow-ADP was enhanced in a K(+)-free solution. In addition, the slow-ADP was not affected by 1 mM kynurenic acid, a broad-spectrum excitatory amino acid antagonist. 5. We conclude that the slow-ADP in the rat DLSN is mediated by a novel Ca2(+)-dependent, Na(+)-dependent, and nonsynaptic inward current that may be similar to the Ca2(+)-activated nonspecific cation channel currents (i.e., CAN-currents) described in various tissues. This current appears to underlie some forms of spontaneous bursting activity recorded from rat DLSN neurons. It may also be responsible for some types of bursting activity recorded in other CNS neurons.
When abstraction does not increase stereotyping: Preparing for intragroup communication enables abstract construal of stereotype-inconsistent information

Two experiments investigated when perceivers can construe stereotype-inconsistent information abstractly (i.e., interpret observations as generalizable) and whether stereotype-consistency delimits the positive relation between abstract construal level and stereotyping. Participants (N1 = 104, N2 = 83) prepared for intragroup communication or formed an individual impression without anticipating communication about a newspaper article describing outgroup members behaving stereotype-consistently or stereotype-inconsistently, and completed construal-level measures. Results supported our prediction that when people prepare communication, they prepare to share specific information (which may be stereotype-inconsistent) against the background of shared knowledge (often stereotypical). Communication thus creates the conditions for stereotype-inconsistent information to be processed abstractly. This effect occurred with centrally (Experiment 2) and peripherally (Experiment 1) presented stereotype-relevant informat.
Practical Issues in Large-Scale Computerized Adaptive Testing

Computerized adaptive testing, although well-grounded in psychometric theory, has had few large-scale applications in the past. This is now changing because the cost of computing has declined rapidly. As is always true at such junctures where theory is translated into practice, many practical issues arise that must now be addressed. In this article, we discuss a number of such issues and sketch out potential problems and potential solutions. Our purpose is to encourage further development of solutions to the issues presented as well as other practical issues facing measurement professionals involved with the implementation of adaptive testing.
Privacy Preserving Fuzzy Modeling for Secure Multiparty Computation

Many studies on privacy preserving of machine learning and data mining have been done in various methods by use of randomization techniques, cryptographic algorithms, anonymization methods, etc. Data encryption is one of typical approaches. However, its system requires both encryption and decryption for requests of client or user, so its complexity of computation is very high. Therefore, studies on secure computation using shared data are made to avoid secure risks being abused or leaked and to reduce computing cost. The secure multiparty computation (SMC) is one of these methods. So far, some studies have been done with SMC, but complex calculation processing such as machine learning has never proposed yet. In the previous paper, we proposed BP learning method for SMC on cloud computing system. In this paper, we propose learning method(Fuzzy modeling) of fuzzy inference system for SMC and prove the validity of it. Further, the performance of the proposed method is shown in numerical simulations.
Cytomegalovirus Tegument Proteins and the Development of Novel Antiviral Therapeutics

Cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a widespread pathogen that infects a majority of the world’s population by early adulthood with approximately 50-85% of individuals over 40 being seropositive [1,2]. CMV can establish a life-long infection with its host by becoming latent during the lysogenic stage of the viral life cycle in which the virus becomes dormant and the shedding and production of infectious virions ceases [3]. However, the virus can later re-enter the lytic stage of the viral life cycle when presented with certain environmental cues, such as stress, thereby triggering the production of viral progeny and resulting in an acute infection of the host. Immunocompetent individuals generally display no symptoms of acute CMV infection, but CMV can cause morbidity and mortality in those with weakened or not fully developed immune systems [4]. The clinical manifestations of CMV infections in those with weakened immune systems, include spiking fever, malaise, leucopenia, encephalitis, pneu‐ monitis, hepatitis, uveitis, retinitis, gastrointestinal disease and graft rejection [5,6]. If primary infection or reactivation of CMV occurs during pregnancy in women, serious complications will arise for the fetus or developing embryo. CMV is the leading cause of viral birth defects, including microcephaly, mental retardation, spastic paralysis, hepatosplenomegaly, anemia, thrombocytopenia, deafness, and optic nerve atrophy that subsequently leads to blindness [5, 7]. CMV is also responsible for 8% of infectious mononucleosis cases [8].
Multi-agent task allocation: learning when to say no

This paper presents a communication-less multi-agent task allocation procedure that allows agents to use past experience to make non-greedy decisions about task assignments. Experimental results are given for problems where agents have varying capabilities, tasks have varying difficulties, and agents are ignorant of what tasks they will see in the future. These types of problems are difficult because the choice an agent makes in the present will affect the decisions it can make in the future. Current task-allocation procedures, especially the market-based ones, tend to side-step the issue by ignoring the future and assigning tasks to agents in a greedy way so that short-term goals are met. It is shown here that these short-sighted allocation procedures work well in situations where the ratio of task length to team size is small, but their performance decreases as this ratio increases. The adaptive method presented here is shown to perform well in a wide range of task-allocation problems, and because it requires no explicit communication, its computational costs are independent of team size.
The Case of a Newly Implemented Modern Management Accounting System in a Multinational Manufacturing Company

Purpose Contemporary management accounting techniques (such as TQM, BSC, JIT) are widely lauded by academia but the proposed relevance to business has not necessarily the view held by industry (e.g. Burns & Vaivio, 2001; Chenhall & Langfield-Smith, 1998; Innes et al., 2000. The purpose of this article is to investigate the acquisition by a modern multi-national firm of a major IT-based management accounting program to assess the relevance and usefulness of its functionality by identifying the type(s) of systems that are utilised and the rationale for upgrading or modifying its system(s). Design/methodology/approach - This study relies on a single case based on two in-depth semi structured interviews with accounting and finance professionals in a multi-national manufacturing company that recently implemented a modern management accounting system. Findings - The findings indicate that despite demonstrating some relevance of the management accounting information, the manufacturer deactivated components of the system that were deemed irrelevant at particular levels of the organisation. Originality/value - This paper provides evidence about the non-reliance on management accounting information in a multinational company operating in Australia. The findings in the study imply that relevance is linked to implementation, planning and training will help managers to better prepare themselves in setting up contemporary management accounting systems.
Effectiveness of statin therapy in adults with coronary heart disease.

BACKGROUND We conducted a meta-analysis of patients with coronary heart disease (CHD) to determine the effectiveness of statin therapy; whether effectiveness varied according to patient characteristics, outcomes, or pretreatment low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) levels; and the optimal LDL-C goal and the level at which to initiate statin therapy. METHODS Randomized trials or systematic reviews for secondary prevention of CHD with statin therapy published between January 1966 and December 2002 were identified through MEDLINE and the Cochrane Library. Studies were included if they randomly assigned adults with CHD to statin therapy or control, enrolled at least 100 individuals per arm, reported clinical outcomes and LDL-C levels, and were published as full studies in English. Two reviewers abstracted data using a prospectively designed protocol. RESULTS Twenty-five studies enrolling 69 511 individuals were included. Participants in 19 placebo-controlled trials had a mean age of 63 years and a mean pretreatment LDL-C level of 149 mg/dL (3.85 mmol/L); 23% were women. Statin therapy reduced CHD mortality or nonfatal myocardial infarction 25% (relative risk [RR], 0.75; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.71-0.79), all-cause mortality 16% (RR, 0.84; 95% CI, 0.79-0.89), and CHD mortality 23% (RR, 0.77; 95% CI, 0.71-0.83). Beneficial effects were seen in women and the elderly. There were no data to determine whether lowering the LDL-C level to less than 100 mg/dL (<2.59 mmol/L) was superior to lowering it to 100 to 130 mg/dL (2.59-3.36 mmol/L). Meta-regression analyses revealed risk reductions for CHD mortality or nonfatal myocardial infarction and major vascular events across available pretreatment LDL-C levels. CONCLUSION Statin therapy reduces mortality and morbidity in adults with CHD, even at pretreatment LDL-C levels as low as 100 mg/dL (2.59 mmol/L).
nfxB as a Novel Target for Analysis of Mutation Spectra in Pseudomonas aeruginosa

nfxB encodes a negative regulator of the mexCD-oprJ genes for drug efflux in the opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Inactivating mutations in this transcriptional regulator constitute one of the main mechanisms of resistance to ciprofloxacin (Cipr). In this work, we evaluated the use of nfxB/Cipr as a new test system to study mutation spectra in P. aeruginosa. The analysis of 240 mutations in nfxB occurring spontaneously in the wild-type and mutator backgrounds or induced by mutagens showed that nfxB/Cipr offers several advantages compared with other mutation detection systems. Identification of nfxB mutations was easy since the entire open reading frame and its promoter region were sequenced from the chromosome using a single primer. Mutations detected in nfxB included all transitions and transversions, 1-bp deletions and insertions, >1-bp deletions and duplications. The broad mutation spectrum observed in nfxB relies on the selection of loss-of-function changes, as we confirmed by generating a structural model of the NfxB repressor and evaluating the significance of each detected mutation. The mutation spectra characterized in the mutS, mutT, mutY and mutM mutator backgrounds or induced by the mutagenic agents 2-aminopurine, cisplatin and hydrogen peroxide were in agreement with their predicted mutational specificities. Additionally, this system allowed the analysis of sequence context effects since point mutations occurred at 85 different sites distributed over the entire nfxB. Significant hotspots and preferred sequence contexts were observed for spontaneous and mutagen-induced mutation spectra. Finally, we demonstrated the utility of a luminescence-based reporter for identification of nfxB mutants previous to sequencing analysis. Thus, the nfxB/Cipr system in combination with the luminescent reporter may be a valuable tool for studying mutational processes in Pseudomonas spp. wherein the genes encoding the NfxB repressor and the associated efflux pump are conserved.
Trot Gait Locomotion of A Cat Sized Quadruped Robot

We are proposing and testing two model-free approaches for locomotion control of a light-weight, compliant, quadruped robot: open loop central pattern generators (CPG), and open and closed- loop dynamical movement primitives (DMP). We are presenting two different knee joint controllers, based on the hypothesis that the passive- compliant leg design might require less control effort for the knee joint control. CPG-control parameters are optimized applying extensive optimization runs using PSO, resulting trot gaits are evaluated for speed and robustness. One derived gait is selected as learning input for a gait controller based on DMP. We design the DMP-based trot gait controller both for open and closed-loop control. For the latter we are feeding back gyroscope and touch sensor signals to modulate the core phase pattern. Found CPG based trot gaits are up to 90cm/sec fast (more than 3 BL/sec). The joint controller assisting the passive compliant knee joint shows gaits with higher speed, and larger hip amplitude. Closed- loop DMP based gaits let the robot handle frontal and sideways slopes, step-downs, and random pushes to the robot’s COM more robustly.
Antiviral Chemistry & Chemotherapy's Current Antiviral Agents FactFile (2nd Edition): Retroviruses and Hepadnaviruses

There are at present exactly 25 compounds that have been formally approved for the treatment of retrovirus (that is HIV) infections: seven nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs), one nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NtRTI), four non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs), 10 protease inhibitors (PIs), one core-ceptor inhibitor (CRI), one fusion inhibitor (FI) and one integrase inhibitor (INI). Other compounds expected to be approved for the treatment of HIV infections in the near future are the NNRTI rilpivirine, the CRI vicriviroc and the INI elvitegravir. To obtain synergistic activity, enable lower dosage levels, thus minimizing toxic side effects, and particularly to reduce the risk of drug resistance development, common wisdom dictates that the HIV inhibitors should be used in drug combination regimens. Although, given the number of compounds available, the drug combinations that could be concocted are uncountable, only one triple-drug combination has so far been formulated as single pill to be taken orally once daily, namely Atripla® containing the NtRTI tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, the NRTI emtricitabine and the NNRTI efavirenz. Here, we document these approved compounds along with other HIV-active compounds and, for the first time, compounds whose principal activity is against hepatitis B virus. The logic of this new division being the enzymatic similarity between the reverse transcriptase of HIV and hepatitis B virus; the strategies for the development of antiviral agents to combat them have much in common.
Using Wavelets to Obtain a Consistent Ordinary LeastSquares Estimator of the Long Memory

We develop an ordinary least squares estimator of the long memory parameter from a fractionally integrated process that is an alternative to the Geweke Porter-Hudak esti-mator. Using the wavelet transform from a fractionally integrated process, we establish a log-linear relationship between the wavelet coeecients' variance and the scaling parameter equal to the long memory parameter. This log-linear relationship yields a consistent ordinary least squares estimator of the long memory parameter when the wavelet coeecients' population variance is replaced by their sample variance. We derive the small sample bias and variance of the ordinary least squares estimator and test it against the Geweke Porter-Hudak estimator and the McCoy Walden maximum likelihood wavelet estimator by conducting a number of Monte Carlo experiments. Based upon the criterion of choosing the estimator which minimizes the mean squared error, the wavelet OLS approach was superior to the Geweke Porter-Hudak estimator, but inferior to the McCoy Walden wavelet estimator for the processes simulated. However, given the simplicity of programming and running the wavelet OLS estimator and its statistical inference of the long memory parameter we feel the general practitioner will be attracted to wavelet OLS estimator.