Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Autonomic dysfunction predicts mortality in patients with multiple organ dysfunction syndrome of different age groups*

Objective:Multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) is the sequential failure of several organ systems after a trigger event, like sepsis or cardiogenic shock. Mortality rate is high, up to 70%. Autonomic dysfunction may substantially contribute to the development of MODS. Our study aimed to characterize a) the spectrum of autonomic dysfunction of critically ill MODS patients; b) whether autonomic dysfunction is different in patients receiving sedation, mechanical ventilation, or catecholamines; c) the age dependency of autonomic dysfunction in MODS; and d) whether autonomic dysfunction predicts mortality in MODS. Design:Prospective cohort study. Setting:Twelve-bed medical intensive care unit in a university center. Patients:Ninety consecutively admitted score-defined MODS patients. Interventions:Assessment of heart rate variability, baroreflex sensitivity, and chemoreflex sensitivity as markers of autonomic dysfunction. The patients were followed for 28-day mortality. Measurements and Main Results:Baroreflex sensitivity, chemoreflex sensitivity, and almost all indexes of heart rate variability were attenuated in comparison to normal range data. There was no association between the assessed heart rate variability variables, baroreflex sensitivity or chemoreflex sensitivity, and the presence of sedation or catecholamine therapy. Except for frequency-domain variables, pNN50 (percentage of differences of successive RR intervals differing >50 msecs) and rMSSD (root mean square of successive difference of N-N intervals), none of the measured variables were related to the presence of mechanical ventilation. Age dependency was detected for baroreflex sensitivity but not for heart rate variability indexes or chemoreflex sensitivity (across ages 24–96 yrs). lnVLF predicted 28-day mortality best in the entire cohort of patients and in a subgroup of patients with cardiogenic-triggered MODS. Conclusions:Autonomic function of MODS patients is blunted, and this attenuation has prognostic implications. The extensive influence of MODS on autonomic function overwhelms and masks the well-known age dependency of autonomic function seen in healthy persons.
Social networking sites and political involvement

Social media, especially social networking sites (SNS) is an important platform for people to seek and share information. Its features of unique spread function, easy accessibility and wide content coverage attract more and more people to use it. Based on a dataset by the Pew Internet and American Life project, this research uses an ordered probit model and tries to find out whether there is a relationship between social networking sites use and offline political involvement. The findings indicate that the relationship depends on people‘s interests on politics. The paper classified the result into two groups – positively correlated group and negatively correlated group. The result shows that if people like to talk about politics, social networking sites have the positive effect letting them be more involved in offline politics. Differently, for people who are not interested in politics, social networking sites actually have a negative effect to people‘s offline political involvement. Even though this unexpected result may need further investigations, the overall result indicates social networking sites have a significant relationship to offline political involvement. These findings are also important for policy implications.
Economic Effects of Using Nepotism and Cronyism in the Employment Process in the Public Sector Institutions

This study aims to discern the role of nepotism and cronyism in the weakening of economic performance of the government institutions through exposure to this practice in the three Arab Countries; Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, The study relied on the analysis of what was stated in the related literature which illustrate the effect of using nepotism and Cronyism in the employment process in a governmental position, to result in a slowdown and stumbled in the delivery of government services to citizens. After analyzing how the practice of nepotism and cronyism in the three countries, the study found the following results:  Nepotism and cronyism are practiced not only in developing countries, but also in advanced countries.  Using nepotism and cronyism in employment process is unethical behavior.  The use of nepotism and cronyism in the public sector is much more than private sector.  Nepotism and cronyism can be considered as a part of the national culture in Arab countries.  Nepotism and cronyism have negative economic repercussions, both at the level of the national economy, or the per capita income level. Because the salaries paid to staff recruited through them considered as a burden on the state treasury. Also, the large number of times to visit the citizen government department, to get the same service, lead to the loss of his income as a transition expenses.  Nepotism and cronyism are from reasons of administrative corruption in the studied countries.
Schema Languages & Internationalization Issues: A survey

Many XML-related activities (e.g. the creation of a new schema) already address issues with different languages, scripts, and cultures. Nevertheless, a need exists for additional mechanisms and guidelines for more effective internationalization (i18n) and localization (l10n) in XML-related contents and processes. The W3C Internationalization Tag Set Working Group (W3C ITS WG) addresses this need and works on data categories, representation mechanisms and guidelines related to i18n and l10n support in the XML realm. This paper describes initial findings from the (W3C ITS WG). Furthermore, the paper discusses how these findings relate to specific schema languages, and complementary technologies like namespace sectioning, schema annotation and the description of processing chains. The paper exemplifies why certain requirements only can be met by a combination of technologies, and discusses these technologies.
Nonlinear noise amplification in optical transmission systems with optical phase conjugation

Taking into account the influence of group-velocity dispersion (GVD) and the nonlinear Kerr effect, the nonlinear amplification of the amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise in fiber transmission systems using optical phase conjugation (OPC) is studied. Under a path-averaged power approximation for long-haul transmission systems, an equivalent system is developed to evaluate ASE noise amplification and accumulation in OPC systems. Combining the theoretical analysis and numerical simulations, the noise suppression effect in OPC systems is demonstrated and discussed. By using the numerical calculation method, the power variation along the system is involved in the evaluation of noise amplification. It is shown that the power variation through the system results in an imperfect compensation of the modulation instability (MI) effect, which furthermore causes the degradation of the noise suppression performance in OPC systems with anomalous dispersion.
The Evolution of the Fresh-Start Policy in Israeli Bankruptcy Law

Permission Granted to Reprint from the Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law who is the copyright holder. This article appeared as Rafael Efrat,The Evolution of the Fresh-start Policy in Israeli Bankruptcy Law,31(1) VAND. J. TRANSNAT’L LAW p.49 1999.
A decision support system approach for accreditation & quality assurance council at higher education institutions in Yemen

Classification is used for discovery of a predictive learning function that classifies data item into one of several predefined classes. e.g., classify universities based on students number or based on offered programs, or classify cars based on gas mileage, and Presentation it by decision-tree, classification rule, neural network, and genetic algorithms, etc. It is noted that, there are large amount of data obtained from the universities. We need to evaluate the accurate assessment of the performance of any institution. Currently the decision in ministry of higher education and scientific research is taken randomly, not based on logical analysis. Moreover, the education towards to universal, the ministry of higher education in Yemen has to activate the council of accreditation, and support it to start quickly and effectively. In this paper, we have used approach to assist the council for accreditation to start automation for accreditation operations and mechanisms, that's proposed by using machine learning techniques, also to help decision makers for taking accurate and swift decisions. Our study is used to classify institution that wants to take a license from council to three classes: grant license of accreditation, grand license provided to improvement has done, or not granting accreditation license. We have used the intelligent algorithms for calculate probability of grand accreditation license based on degree of council standards, which we used to predict through a model building to classification by using Naïve Bayes algorithm. The proposed method is typically for evaluation the new institution by depends on evaluation of existing institutions. We experiment the proposed framework by flexible parameters and attributes with private training dataset, that's carefully generated and tested using real life applications. In addition, we implemented our proposed approach as a program.
Relationship between renal function and the risk of recurrent atrial fibrillation following catheter ablation

Background Although several clinical variables are associated with the recurrence of atrial fibrillation (AF) following catheter ablation, the influence of renal function remains to be determined. Objective To evaluate the association of renal function with the outcome of the paroxysmal AF ablation. Methods 224 patients underwent catheter ablation for paroxysmal AF. The relationship between the pre-procedural clinical valuables and ablation outcomes was evaluated. Results Over the course of 37.4±24.4 months of follow-up of catheter ablation procedures for AF (mean number of procedures 1.33±0.45), 91.1% of patients (204/224) became free from AF without antiarrhythmic drugs. The estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) was lower in patients with recurrent AF than in those without recurrence (66.6±17.5 vs 78.4±16.8 ml/min/1.73 m2, p=0.003). AF recurred more frequently in patients with low eGFR (<60 ml/min/1.73 m2) than in those with high eGFR (>60 ml/min/1.73 m2; 24.3% vs 6.7%, p=0.006). Among the various clinical factors, low eGFR (p=0.02) and left atrium (LA) dilatation (p=0.002) independently predicted the clinical outcome of ablation in patients with paroxysmal AF. Conclusion Low eGFR and LA dilatation independently influence the outcome of catheter ablation for paroxysmal AF.
Unexpected changes in tax revenues and the stabilisation function of fiscal policy: evidence for the European Union 1999-2008

This paper analyzes the size and the determinants of unexpected changes in EU countries' tax revenues and their impact on the ability of EU governments to use fiscal policy as a macroeconomic stabilisation device. We make use of information taken from the Stability and Convergence Programmes (SCP) setting countries' medium-term fiscal plans and focus on the period preceding the 2008/2009 global financial crisis. Tax revenue surprises are found to have fluctuated widely, alternating periods of sizeable windfalls and periods of substantial shortfalls. When analysing the determinants of these unexpected changes in tax revenues, we find that GDP growth surprises and, in some cases (i.e. Ireland, Spain the UK and Finland) asset prices fluctuations have exerted the most significant influence. In the sequel we provide evidence on the incidence of these unexpected changes in governments' tax revenues on the ability of governments to conduct counter-cyclical fiscal policies, which are desirable from a macroeconomic perspective. We find that countries that have experienced the largest tax revenue windfalls in the run-up to the 2008/2009 crisis have also tended to run more pro-cyclical fiscal policies although these results vary depending on the use of ex-post vs. real-time data and on the method used to calculate the cyclical position of the economy. Put differently, these results tend to indicate that while tax revenue windfalls may be good for the public purse during favourable times they may also (paradoxically) dwindle the ability of the countries concerned to run countercyclical fiscal policies when cyclical conditions revert. 1 The views expressed in this paper are not necessarily those of the Banca d'Italia nor of the European Commission. The authors are especially grateful to Lucio Pench, Sandro Momigliano and Jacopo Cimadomo for very useful comments and suggestions on previous versions of this paper. A previous version of the paper was presented at the ECB Public Finance Workshop Dec. 2008 under the title: "Governments' revenues windfalls and the stabilisation function of fiscal policies".
The "Curriculum for Excellence": a major change for Scottish science education

The Curriculum for Excellence and new National Qualifications offer innovative reform, based on widely supported ideas and aims, for Scottish preschool, primary and secondary education levels. 'Objectives and syllabuses' for science are replaced by 'experiences and outcomes'. Most strikingly, central prescription makes way for teacher autonomy in preparing young people to be responsible citizens as well as successful learners. This leads to diversity of provision and some uncertainties, with schools and parents recognising practical implementation problems. The success of the innovations should be enhanced by collaboration between different education sectors and the introduction of independent evaluation. The Government has, so far, resisted the latter.
Alcohol and breast cancer in women: a pooled analysis of cohort studies.

OBJECTIVE To assess the risk of invasive breast cancer associated with total and beverage-specific alcohol consumption and to evaluate whether dietary and nondietary factors modify the association. DATA SOURCES We included in these analyses 6 prospective studies that had at least 200 incident breast cancer cases, assessed long-term intake of food and nutrients, and used a validated diet assessment instrument. The studies were conducted in Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United States. Alcohol intake was estimated by food frequency questionnaires in each study. The studies included a total of 322647 women evaluated for up to 11 years, including 4335 participants with a diagnosis of incident invasive breast cancer. DATA EXTRACTION Pooled analysis of primary data using analyses consistent with each study's original design and the random-effects model for the overall pooled analyses. DATA SYNTHESIS For alcohol intakes less than 60 g/d (reported by >99% of participants), risk increased linearly with increasing intake; the pooled multivariate relative risk for an increment of 10 g/d of alcohol (about 0.75-1 drink) was 1.09 (95% confidence interval [CI], 1.04-1.13; P for heterogeneity among studies, .71). The multivariate-adjusted relative risk for total alcohol intakes of 30 to less than 60 g/d (about 2-5 drinks) vs nondrinkers was 1.41 (95% CI, 1.18-1.69). Limited data suggested that alcohol intakes of at least 60 g/d were not associated with further increased risk. The specific type of alcoholic beverage did not strongly influence risk estimates. The association between alcohol intake and breast cancer was not modified by other factors. CONCLUSIONS Alcohol consumption is associated with a linear increase in breast cancer incidence in women over the range of consumption reported by most women. Among women who consume alcohol regularly, reducing alcohol consumption is a potential means to reduce breast cancer risk.
The Pseudomonas aeruginosaQuorum-Sensing Signal MoleculeN-(3-Oxododecanoyl)-l-Homoserine Lactone Has Immunomodulatory Activity

ABSTRACT Diverse gram-negative bacterial cells communicate with each other by using diffusible N-acyl homoserine lactone (AHL) signal molecules to coordinate gene expression with cell population density. Accumulation of AHLs above a threshold concentration renders the population “quorate,” and the appropriate target gene is activated. In pathogenic bacteria, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, AHL-mediated quorum sensing is involved in the regulation of multiple virulence determinants. We therefore sought to determine whether the immune system is capable of responding to these bacterial signal molecules. Consequently the immunomodulatory properties of the AHLsN-(3-oxododecanoyl)-l-homoserine lactone (OdDHL) and N-(3-oxohexanoyl)-l-homoserine lactone (OHHL) were evaluated in murine and human leukocyte immunoassays in vitro. OdDHL, but not OHHL, inhibited lymphocyte proliferation and tumor necrosis factor alpha production by lipopolysaccharide-stimulated macrophages. Furthermore, OdDHL simultaneously and potently down-regulated the production of IL-12, a Th-1-supportive cytokine. At high concentrations (>7 × 10−5 M) OdDHL inhibited antibody production by keyhole limpet hemocyanin-stimulated spleen cells, but at lower concentrations (<7 × 10−5 M), antibody production was stimulated, apparently by increasing the proportion of the immunoglobulin G1 (IgG1) isotype. OdDHL also promoted IgE production by interleukin-4-stimulated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells. These data indicate that OdDHL may influence the Th-1–Th-2 balance in the infected host and suggest that, in addition to regulating the expression of virulence determinants, OdDHL may contribute to the pathogenesis of P. aeruginosa infections by functioning as a virulence determinant per se.
Interpersonal Pattern Dynamics and Adaptive Behavior in Multiagent Neurobiological Systems: Conceptual Model and Data

ABSTRACT Ecological dynamics characterizes adaptive behavior as an emergent, self-organizing property of interpersonal interactions in complex social systems. The authors conceptualize and investigate constraints on dynamics of decisions and actions in the multiagent system of team sports. They studied coadaptive interpersonal dynamics in rugby union to model potential control parameter and collective variable relations in attacker–defender dyads. A videogrammetry analysis revealed how some agents generated fluctuations by adapting displacement velocity to create phase transitions and destabilize dyadic subsystems near the try line. Agent interpersonal dynamics exhibited characteristics of chaotic attractors and informational constraints of rugby union boxed dyadic systems into a low dimensional attractor. Data suggests that decisions and actions of agents in sports teams may be characterized as emergent, self-organizing properties, governed by laws of dynamical systems at the ecological scale. Further research needs to generalize this conceptual model of adaptive behavior in performance to other multiagent populations.
Joint watermarking and lossless JPEG-LS compression for medical image security

In this paper, we present a new joint watermarking-compression scheme the originality of which stands in the combination of the lossless compression standard JPEG-LS with the bit substitution watermarking modulation. This scheme allows the access to watermarking-based security services without decompressing the image. It becomes possible to trace images or to verify their authenticity directly from their compressed bitstream. Performance of our scheme, expressed in terms of embedding capacity and distortion, are evaluated on ultrasound images. They show that the watermarked images do not perceptually differ from their original counterparts while offering a capacity large enough to support various security services.
A Robotic Ultrasound Scanner for Automatic Vessel Tracking and Three-Dimensional Reconstruction of B-Mode Images

Locating and evaluating the length and severity of a stenosis is very important for planning adequate treatment of peripheral arterial disease (PAD). Conventional ultrasound (US) examination cannot provide maps of entire lower limb arteries in 3-D. We propose a prototype 3D-US robotic system with B-mode images, which is nonionizing, noninvasive, and is able to track and reconstruct a continuous segment of the lower limb arterial tree between the groin and the knee. From an initialized cross-sectional view of the vessel, automatic tracking was conducted followed by 3D-US reconstructions evaluated using Hausdorff distance, cross-sectional area, and stenosis severity in comparison with 3-D reconstructions with computed tomography angiography (CTA). A mean Hausdorff distance of $0.97 \pm 0.46\;\text{mm}$ was found in vitro for 3D-US compared with 3D-CTA vessel representations. To evaluate the stenosis severity in vitro, 3D-US reconstructions gave errors of 3%-6% when compared with designed dimensions of the phantom, which are comparable to 3D-CTA reconstructions, with 4%-13% errors. The in vivo system's feasibility to reconstruct a normal femoral artery segment of a volunteer was also investigated. These results encourage further ergonomic developments to increase the robot's capacity to represent lower limb vessels in the clinical context.
Potential role of green tea catechins in various disease therapies: Progress and promise

Green tea (from the plant Camellia sinensis), a beverage whose consumption started 5000 years ago in China, has important biological and pharmacological properties. The beneficial effects of green tea have been attributed to the presence of phenolic compounds that are powerful anti‐oxidants and free iron scavengers. Of all the catechins found in green tea, namely (–)‐epicatechin‐3‐gallate, (–)‐epigallocatechin, (–)‐epicatechin and (–)‐epigallocatechin‐3‐gallate (EGCG), EGCG is the most abundant and powerful. It is widely believed that green tea may protect against death from all causes, especially cardiovascular diseases (coronary heart disease and stroke) owing to the presence of catechins associated with green tea consumption. Other health benefits include various types of cancer chemoprevention, weight loss and protective effects against neurodegenerative diseases (Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease). Thus far, numerous pharmacological activities regulating disease‐specific molecular targets have been reported in vitro for EGCG concentrations in the micromolar range, which are physiologically irrelevant. Although most of the studies have shown benefits with two to three cups of green tea per day, the optimal dose has not yet been established to enable any solid conclusions to be drawn regarding the various health benefits of green tea or its constituents in humans. With Phase I trials providing information on the safety profile and pharmacokinetics of EGCG, the window of opportunity is wider to undertake well‐controlled long‐term human studies to enable a full understanding of the protective effects of green tea catechins on various parameters in different settings.
Separase-dependent cleavage of pericentrin B is necessary and sufficient for centriole disengagement during mitosis

Centriole disengagement is considered an essential step for licensing a new round of centriole duplication in the next cell cycle. Separase is critical for centriole disengagement. Here, we showed that pericentrin B (PCNTB) is specifically cleaved by separase at the exit of mitosis. The cleavage-resistant PCNTB mutant blocks the centriole disengagement and duplication. We also observed that an artificial cleavage of PCNTB during M phase induced premature disengagement of centrioles. Based on these results, we concluded that the separase-dependent cleavage of PCNTB is necessary and sufficient for centriole disengagement during mitosis.