Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Enteral nutrition-related gastrointestinal complications in critically ill patients: a multicenter study. The Nutritional and Metabolic Working Group of the Spanish Society of Intensive Care Medicine and Coronary Units.

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the frequency of gastrointestinal complications (GICs) in a prospective cohort of critically ill patients receiving enteral nutrition and to assess its effect on nutrient administration and its relationship to the patient's outcome. DESIGN Multicenter, prospective cohort study. SETTING Thirty-seven multidisciplinary intensive care units (ICUs) in Spain. PATIENTS Prospective cohort of 400 consecutive patients admitted to the ICU and receiving enteral nutrition. INTERVENTIONS Noninterventional, follow-up study. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS Enteral nutrition-related GICs and their management were defined by consensus before data collection. A set of variables related to enteral nutrition administration and the presence of GICs was recorded. During the 1-month study period, 400 patients were enrolled, and a total of 3,778 enteral feeding days were analyzed. The mean time of enteral nutrition was 9.6+/-0.4 days. Mean elapsed time from ICU admission to the start of enteral feeding was 3.1+/-0.2 days. A total of 265 patients (66.2%) received a standard polymeric formula, and 132 (33.8%) received a disease-specific one. Enteral feeds were administered mainly through a nasogastric tube (91%). One or more GICs were presented by 251 patients (62.8%) during the feeding course. The frequency of each particular GIC was as follows: high gastric residuals, 39%; constipation, 15.7%; diarrhea, 14.7%; abdominal distention, 13.2%; vomiting, 12.2%; and regurgitation, 5.5%. Enteral nutrition withdrawal as a consequence of noncontrollable GICs occurred in 15.2% of patients. The volume ratio (expressed as the ratio between administered and prescribed volumes) was calculated daily and was used as an index of diet administration efficacy. Patients with GICs had a lower volume ratio than did patients without GICs (63.1+/-1.20% vs. 93.3+/-0.3%) (p < .001), a longer length of stay (20.6+/-1.2 vs. 15.2+/-1.3 days) (p < .01), and higher mortality (31% vs. 16.1%) (p < .001). CONCLUSIONS The frequency of enteral nutrition-related GICs in critically ill patients is high. High gastric residuals is the most frequent GIC. These complications decreased nutrient intake and, if persistent, could expose the patients to undernutrition. Enteral feeding gastrointestinal intolerance seems to have an evolutive effect in prolonging the ICU stay and increasing patient mortality.
Identifying different technologies using a latent class model: extensive versus intensive dairy farms

In this article, we use a stochastic frontier latent class model to estimate the technology of dairy farms according to their degree of intensification. The results are compared with a model which assumes that the technology is common to all farms. The empirical analysis uses data on a balanced panel of 130 Spanish dairy farms over the period 1999--2006. We find that the intensive technology is more productive than the extensive one and that intensive farms are more technically efficient than extensive farms. Oxford University Press and Foundation for the European Review of Agricultural Economics 2010; all rights reserved. For permissions, please email journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org, Oxford University Press.
Business Intelligence & Analytics Education: An Exploratory Study of Business & Non-Business School IS Program Offerings

Business intelligence (BI) has been recognized as the most essential and valuable technology for business. CIOs surveyed by the Society for Information Management have consistently ranked it as one of the most important business applications for the past ten years. BI has become incredibly important to an organization’s decision-making process. There is, however, uncertainty regarding whether there is enough being done to prepare college students to enter the work force with adequate technical and analytical skills to meet the current need for BI analysts. In this paper we examine whether there is a difference in the proportion of schools offering either BI coursework or BI degrees in a Business vs. Non-Business IS program. The results indicate differences in the proportion of schools offering BI courses and BI degrees located in Colleges of Business or Non-Colleges of Business. Although the research is exploratory we provide implications for the findings.
Emergence of NDM-1 in Association with OXA-48 in Klebsiella pneumoniae from Tunisia

The carbapenemase New Delhi metallo-β-lactamase-1 (NDM-1), initially identified in Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae in 2008 in a Swedish patient who was repatriated to Sweden from India ([1][1]), is spreading rapidly worldwide except in Central and South America. Most of the reported
Evaluating the Economic and Spatial Effects of an Event: The Case of the World Medical and Health Games

ABSTRACT This paper examines the spatial implications of the hosting of a special event in 2003 in the City of Stirling, the World Medical and Health Games. This was the first event hosted in the city since it received City status and was an attempt to assess the extent to which the city could accommodate a medium-sized event while utilizing the sport infrastructure in the wider region to support event development. The paper argues that the use of generalized multiplier analysis does not offer sufficient precision or detail when looking at the impact of events. This paper uses a business survey technique to assess the effects on local businesses to understand in detail how an event can affect the space economy of a region during an event.
What determines rm performance? The role of demand and TFP shocks

We use a unique dataset containing information on producer-level prices for a representative sample of Italian manufacturing firms to separately identify the impact of idiosyncratic demand and productivity shocks on firms’ performance. We explicitly analyze firm demand to isolate demand shocks. Productivity shocks are recovered using a modified Olley and Pakes (1996) procedure that allows for non scalar unobservables. Introducing heterogeneity in demand brings interesting insights on firm dynamic. Whereas profitability is mainly driven by improvements in productivity; we find that demand shocks are more important in explaining firm growth. Since the latter result is at odds with the predictions of standard models of monopolistic competition, we investigate its determinants. We provide evidence that firms adjust their prices sluggishly in response to shocks. This magnifies the impact effect of idiosyncratic demand on firm growth and dampens that of productivity. Once sluggish adjustment is taken into account, productivity and demand have comparable effects on firm growth. JEL
Smoking and Improvement after Nasal Surgery in Snoring Men

Background The aim of this study was to compare subgroups of smokers and nonsmokers undergoing nasal surgery and to evaluate improvement of nasal stuffiness, snoring, and symptoms related to sleep-disordered breathing after nasal surgery. Methods A cross-sectional prospective study was performed. The study population included 40 consecutive snoring men scheduled for surgical treatment of nasal obstruction. The patients completed nasal and sleep questionnaires, an Epworth sleepiness scale, and a visual analog scale of snoring intensity. They underwent polysomnography, anterior rhinomanometry, acoustic rhinometry, and cephalometric analysis. Results The smokers were younger, they snored longer and louder, and they had higher nasal resistance with decongestion and longer soft palates than the nonsmokers. Nasal stuffiness improved well after surgery, but a decrease of nasal resistance was not related to improvement of subjective snoring. Conclusion Smoking was associated with increased snoring, nasal obstruction, and pharyngeal soft tissue volume. Expectations of patients may influence subjective assessment of snoring after nasal surgery.
Does the Long-Run PPP Hypothesis Hold for Africa?: Evidence from Panel Co-Integration Study

This paper addresses whether parallel market exchange rates in Africa behave in the long run in a manner consistent with the purchasing power parity (PPP) hypothesis. A recent econometric method, the panel co-integration test, enables us to examine the long-run PPP hypothesis by pooling the time-series data of several countries. This approach is particularly useful when analyzing African countries, which often do not have long time series. Using pooled data for 16 African countries, the study concludes that the behavior of parallel market exchange rates in Africa is consistent with the long-run PPP hypothesis.
Promoting Cooperation by the Social Incentive Mechanism in Mobile Crowdsensing

An incentive mechanism is important for mobile crowdsensing to recruit sufficient participants to complete large-scale sensing tasks with high quality. Previous incentive mechanisms have focused on quantifying participants' contribution to the quality of sensing and provide incentives directly to them. In this article, we introduce a novel approach, called the social incentive mechanism, which, surprisingly, incentivizes the social friends of the participants who perform the sensing tasks. The basic idea is to leverage the social ties among participants to promote global cooperation. Since the incentive that a participant receives largely relies on the behaviors of his/her social friends, participants have the motivation to impact their friends' behaviors through their social relationships in order to gain a higher payoff. This approach is applicable to many scenarios where the contributions to the quality of sensing among participants are interdependent, such as data aggregation. We have provided a case study which shows that the social incentive mechanism is more cost-effective than traditional incentive mechanisms.
Social Engineering and Crime Prevention in Cyberspace

This paper highlights methods of syntactic and semantic social engineering attacks (human-based and computer-based) that are currently prevalent in the cyber community. It will also discuss emerging trends and, the likely future direction cyber-crime will take with respect to social engineering. The risks of deception in the on-line environment appear to be increasing and with the rapid growth of internet access a large pool of people are likely to be exposed to manipulation. The legal response to on-line forms of deception or social engineering remains fragmented and inadequate failing to recognize the increased potential of organized criminal activity.
A DCM-Only Buck Regulator With Hysteretic-Assisted Adaptive Minimum-On-Time Control for Low-Power Microcontrollers

A 40-mA buck regulator operating in the inherently stable Discontinuous Conduction Mode (DCM) for the entire load range is presented. A pulse frequency modulation control scheme is implemented using a proposed hysteretic-assisted adaptive minimum-on-time controller to automatically adapt the regulator to a wide range of operating scenarios in terms of input, output, and passive component values while ensuring compensationless DCM operation with minimized inductor peak current. Thus, compact silicon area, low quiescent current, high efficiency, and robust performance across all possible scenarios can be achieved without any calibration. Moreover, power gating is employed in the analog circuits of the proposed controller to further improve efficiency at sub-mA loads. The regulator is integrated within a low-power microcontroller in 90-nm CMOS to power its digital core while allowing maximum flexibility in the powering options of the microcontroller and the choice of the passive components. It occupies 0.1 mm2 and achieves 92% peak efficiency, and 78.5% and 86% efficiency at 200-μA and 40-mA loads, respectively. It handles an input in the range of 1.8-4.2 V, an output in the range of 0.9-1.4 V, an inductor in the range of 4.7-10 μH, and an output capacitor in the range of 2.2-10 μF without any calibration or reoptimization.
Antibody-driven design of a human cytomegalovirus gHgLpUL128L subunit vaccine that selectively elicits potent neutralizing antibodies

Significance To design an effective subunit vaccine, it is essential to identify the most relevant protective antigen. One way to achieve this goal is to analyze, at the clonal level, the human antibody response and identify the molecules targeted by the most effective neutralizing antibodies. Here we provide an example of this approach in the case of human cytomegalovirus (HCMV), a pathogen causing severe disease in newborns and immunosuppressed individuals. Through the analysis of the human antibody response to HCMV, we identified the gHgLpUL128L pentamer as the target of the most potent neutralizing antibodies and demonstrated that a pentamer vaccine elicited in mice extremely high levels of HCMV neutralizing antibodies. This example illustrates a general approach to develop subunit vaccines against complex pathogens. The use of neutralizing antibodies to identify the most effective antigen has been proposed as a strategy to design vaccines capable of eliciting protective B-cell immunity. In this study, we analyzed the human antibody response to cytomegalovirus (human cytomegalovirus, HCMV) infection and found that antibodies to glycoprotein (g)B, a surface glycoprotein that has been developed as a HCMV vaccine, were primarily nonneutralizing. In contrast, most of the antibodies to the complex formed by gH, gL, protein (p)UL128, pUL130, and pUL131 (the gHgLpUL128L pentamer) neutralized HCMV infection with high potency. Based on this analysis, we developed a single polycistronic vector encoding the five pentamer genes separated by “self-cleaving” 2A peptides to generate a stably transfected CHO cell line constitutively secreting high levels of recombinant pentamer that displayed the functional antigenic sites targeted by human neutralizing antibodies. Immunization of mice with the pentamer formulated with different adjuvants elicited HCMV neutralizing antibody titers that persisted to high levels over time and that were a hundred- to thousand-fold higher than those found in individuals that recovered from primary HCMV infection. Sera from mice immunized with the pentamer vaccine neutralized infection of both epithelial cells and fibroblasts and prevented cell-to-cell spread and viral dissemination from endothelial cells to leukocytes. Neutralizing monoclonal antibodies from immunized mice showed the same potency as human antibodies and targeted the same as well as additional sites on the pentamer. These results illustrate with a relevant example a general and practical approach of analytic vaccinology for the development of subunit vaccines against complex pathogens.
Supply and Demand of Electricity in the Developing World

This paper reviews the literature that has sought to quantify the determinants of electricity demand and supply efficiency in developing countries. We examine the causal relationship between electricity consumption and economic growth, price and income elasticities of demand, and the barriers to adoption of energy-efficient equipment. We also examine the performance outcomes of economic policies affecting the electricity sector, including institutional reforms such as privatization and regulation. We find that electricity demand is driven by GDP, prices, income, the level and characteristics of economic activity/urbanization, and seasonal factors. The magnitude of their effects differs across countries, time periods, and studies even for the same country. These demand studies suffer from a number of limitations, including data availability and price distortions that limit responsiveness of demand to price signals. The literature is inconclusive on whether reforms, particularly privatization, improved supply efficiency. Effective regulation, competitive markets, and appropriate sequencing of reforms are important factors that influence the outcomes of privatization. There is a need for more quantitative analysis of the social welfare and distributional impacts of privatization of the electricity sector in developing countries.
Revitalizing the Concept of Sociotechnical Systems in Social Studies of Technology

The concept of sociotechnical systems concerns the complex associations between humans and instruments. This concept has been widely used to examine the construction of technology and the effect technologies have on our social practices, the organization of work and society. In this article, I draw on prior conceptualizations and a number of contemporary studies on technology to develop a novel theoretical model for the study of sociotechnical systems. This model reexamines the significance of this concept focusing on a set of characteristics that describe the sociotechnical systems’ operation: these systems’ collective behavior, distributed cognition, processing of information, meaning structure configuration and coupling patterns. The contributions of the concept of sociotechnical systems to the growing field of science and technology, and the theoretical implications and potential research extensions of my proposed analytical model are explored and discussed.
Health impacts of education: a review.

This review is the fourth in a series and illustrates how education impacts on health. It shows how education influences health through a range of interconnecting pathways and identifies the ways in which social, economic and cultural differences within the population impact on the experience of and outcomes from education with subsequent implications for health. This document is aimed at a wide audience, including policy-makers and practitioners in health and education and those working in the community. It will help inform debate about the links between education and health and be a useful resource for those working to influence public policy for health at local and national level across the island.
Cancer Mortality, Early Detection and Treatment among Adult New Zealanders: Changes in Perceptions between 2001 and 2014/5

Background: Beliefs about cancer risk and experience of early detection and treatment can impact on willingness to engage with these initiatives. This study describes changes in perceptions of cancer mortality, early detection and treatment among adult New Zealanders (NZ) between two cross-sectional studies conducted in 2001 and 2014/5. Methods: Data was collected via telephone interviews conducted by trained interviewers in 2001 (231 females and 207 males, 64% response rate) and 2014/5 (588 females and 476 males, 64% response rate). Participants were asked to identify the most common three causes of cancer mortality among women and then men. They were also asked to note their agreement or otherwise with statements about early detection and treatment of cancer. Results: There was an increase in proportions of men who correctly identified prostate cancer as one of the top three causes of cancer mortality among men, and also an increase among women who correctly identified bowel cancer as one of the top three. Most participants agreed that there were benefits from early detection for cancer outcomes. Over time, there was a significant decline in proportions which felt that most cancer treatment is “so terrible it is worse than death” and that alternative therapy has an “equal or better chance of curing cancer. ” Conclusion: Internationally, there is little information available about changes in cancer perceptions over time, these findings suggest some changes in perceptions of treatment and awareness of types of cancer with the highest mortality in NZ, which should support timely engagement with early detection and treatment services.
Role of the xenobiotic receptor in inflammatory bowel disease

Background: Gene‐environment interplay modulates inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD). Dioxin‐like compounds can activate the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) and alter macrophage function as well as T‐cell polarization. We hypothesized that attenuation of the AhR signaling pathway will ameliorate colitis in a murine model of IBD. Methods: Dextran sulfate sodium (DSS) colitis was induced in C57BL/6 AhR null mice (AhR−/−), heterozygous mice (AhR−/+), and their wildtype (WT) littermates. Clinical and morphopathological parameters were used to compare the groups. Patients: AhR pathway activation was analyzed in biopsy specimens from 25 IBD patients and 15 healthy controls. Results: AhR−/− mice died before the end of the treatment. However, AhR−/+ mice exhibited decreased disease activity compared to WT mice. The AhR−/+ mice expressed less proinflammatory cytokines such as tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF‐&agr;) (6.1‐ versus 15.7‐fold increase) and IL17 (23.7‐ versus 67.9‐fold increase) and increased antiinflammatory IL‐10 (2.3‐fold increase) compared with the AhR+/+ mice in the colon. Colonic macrophage infiltration was attenuated in the AhR−/+ group. AhR and its downstream targets were significantly upregulated in IBD patients versus control (CYP1A1 −19.9, and IL8‐ 10‐fold increase). Conclusions: Attenuation of the AhR receptor expression resulted in a protective effect during DSS‐induced colitis, while the absence of AhR exacerbated the disease. Abnormal AhR pathway activation in the intestinal mucosa of IBD patients may promote chronic inflammation. Modulation of AhR signaling pathway via the diet, cessation of smoking, or administration of AhR antagonists could be viable strategies for the treatment of IBD. (Inflamm Bowel Dis 2010;)
Targeting the Kinetochore for Mitosis-Specific Inhibitors

Microtubule poisons such as taxol and vinblastine are widely used to treat a variety of cancers. These drugs are believed to kill cells by blocking mitosis. However, there is a critical need to identify new drugs because tumors can often become refractile to treatment with existing drugs. Studies over the past decade on chromosome segregation have uncovered a plethora of novel proteins that function specifically in mitosis. Centrosomes and kinetochores are two organelles that specify formation of the spindle and the attachment of chromosomes to the spindle, respectively. The focus of this review is to highlight the kinetochore as a rich source of targets for the development of mitosis-specific drugs.
A 1-V, 9.7mW CMOS frequency synthesizer for WLAN 802.11a transceivers

A 1-V CMOS frequency synthesizer is proposed by using a transformer-feedback VCO for low voltage and a stacked divider for low power. Implemented in 0.18-/spl mu/m CMOS process, the synthesizer is operated with a 1 V supply while consuming 10mW and occupying an area of 1.28mm/sup 2/. It measures a phase noise of -139dBc/Hz at an offset of 20MHz with a center frequency of 4.256GHz. The frequency tuning range of the frequency synthesizer is measured from 4.114-4.352GHz with a total number of 16 channels.
Paralleling high power dual modules: A challenge for application engineers and power device manufacturers

This paper discusses the challenges of paralleling dual modules with special focus on the currently introduced dual modules like LinPak, nHPD2, XHP, LV/HV100, etc. Compared with IHM/IHV Modules 3 to 4 times as many modules have to be paralleled to achieve the same output power. Therefore the parallel connection will play a major role in designing high power converters, used e.g. in traction applications. This paper explains the reasons of current mismatch in parallel connection of IGBT modules and gives suggestions how to minimize current imbalance.