Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
[The effect of early goal-directed therapy on treatment of critical patients with severe sepsis/septic shock: a multi-center, prospective, randomized, controlled study].

OBJECTIVE To investigate the effect of early goal-directed therapy (EGDT) on treatment of critical patients with severe sepsis/septic shock. METHODS A multi-center, prospective, randomized, controlled study was deployed. Totally 314 critical patients, from eight comprehensive hospitals in Zhejiang Province admitted during January, 2005 to January, 2008, suffering from severe sepsis/septic shock were randomized into conventional treatment group (n=151) and EGDT group (n=163), the patients of the former underwent fluid resuscitation guided by central venous pressure (CVP), systolic blood pressure (SBP) or mean artery pressure (MAP) and urinary output (UO), and the latter guided by CVP, SBP or MAP and UO plus central venous oxygen saturation (ScvO2). The patients were treated with fluid, blood transfusions and cardiac stimulants in a period of 6 hours after enrollment to reach the goal. The difference of 28-day survival rate and intensive care unit (ICU) mortality (primary end points), the length of ICU stay, the duration of mechanical ventilation, duration of antibiotics treatment, incidence of newly occurred infection, and severity scores (secondary end points) were compared between two groups. RESULTS Finally, a total of 303 patients were eligible to enter this study, with 157 patients in EGDT group and 146 patients in conventional treatment group. In comparison with conventional treatment group, the 28-day survival rate of EGDT group was increased by 17.7% (75.2% vs. 57.5%, P=0.001) and the ICU mortality of EGDT group was decreased by 15.7% (35.0% vs. 50.7%, P=0.035), the acute physiology and chronic health evaluation II (APACHEII) score (14.4+/-8.5 vs. 18.0+/-7.1, P=0.043), multiple organ dysfunction syndrome (MODS) score (5.8+/-3.1 vs. 8.9+/-3.7, P=0.014) and sepsis-related organ failure assessment (SOFA) score (5.6+/-2.9 vs. 10.4+/-3.7, P=0.001) were significantly decreased in EGDT group. Meanwhile, a significant shortening of duration of using antibiotics was also found [(13.4+/-10.0) days vs. (19.7+/-13.5) days, P=0.004], with a lowering of incidence of occurrence of new infection (37.6% vs. 53.4%, P=0.014). There were no differences in other parameters for secondary end points. CONCLUSION EGDT improves 28-day survival rate and clinical scores, and it shows beneficial effects on outcome of critical patients with severe sepsis/septic shock.
Heavy metals and woody plants - biotechnologies for phytoremediation

Abstract: Soil contamination by heavy metals is among the most serious danger for the environment, and new methods for its containment and removal are claimed, in particular for agricultural soils. Phytoremediation is an emerging, potentially effective technology applicable to restoration of contaminated soils and waters. Besides hyperaccumulator herbaceous plants, several woody species are now considered of interest to this aim. Many woody plants are fast growing, have deep roots, produce abundant biomass, are easy to harvest, and several species revealed some capacity to tolerate and accumulate heavy metals. Biotechnologies are now available for investigating this potential and enlarge the possibilities of exploitation of trees for remediation. The use of in vitro cultures, the role of bacteria and mychorrhizas, the powerful tool of genetic engineering, are some of the aspects focused in this paper that open prospects of global relevance for a better understanding of the processes related to the uptake of heavy metals by woody plants. In recent years significant progress has been made in identifying native plants and developing genetically modified tree plants for the remediation of heavy-metal polluted environment. Despite the intensive research developed in the last years, few field trials demonstrated the feasibility of the approach described, therefore much efforts should be addressed to this goal.
Detection of Distributed Denial of Service Attacks Using Artificial Neural Networks

Distributed Denial of Services (DDoS) is a ruthless attack that targets a node or a medium with its false packets to decline the network performance and its resources. Neural networks is a powerful tool to defend a network from this attack as in our proposed solution a mitigation process is invoked when an attack is detected by the detection system using the known patters which separate the legitimate traffic from malicious traffic that were given to artificial neural networks during its training process. In this research article, we have proposed a DDoS detection system using artificial neural networks that will flag (mark) malicious and genuine data traffic and will save network from losing performance. We have compared and evaluated our proposed system on the basis of precision, sensitivity and accuracy with the existing models of the related work.
Revascularization and Parent Artery Occlusion for Giant Internal Carotid Artery Aneurysms in the Intracavernous Portion Using Intraoperative Monitoring of Cerebral Hemodynamics

OBJECTIVE:Therapeutic parent artery occlusion with or without revascularization is a useful surgical technique for the management of a giant aneurysm located in the intracavernous portion of the internal carotid artery (ICA). The purpose of the present study was to determine whether intraoperative cortical blood flow (CoBF) monitoring during surgical parent artery occlusion could identify patients who required bypass with a saphenous vein graft (high flow bypass). METHODS:Eleven patients with a giant aneurysm located in the intracavernous portion of the ICA underwent superficial temporal artery-middle cerebral artery bypass. CoBF was monitored intraoperatively in all patients using a thermal diffusion flow probe. The lowest CoBF during test occlusion of the ICA under functioning superficial temporal artery-middle cerebral artery bypass was determined, and the ratio of the value to the CoBF immediately before test occlusion of the ICA was calculated in the frontal and temporal lobes. When the CoBF ratio in the frontal or temporal lobe was less than 0.9, high flow bypass grafting was elected. RESULTS:Of the eleven patients undergoing superficial temporal artery-middle cerebral artery bypass, five patients underwent concomitant high flow bypass grafting. Postoperative cerebral ischemic events did not occur in any patient over a follow-up period ranging from 3 to 60 months. Postoperative cerebral angiography showed resolution of the aneurysm and patency of the bypass in all patients. CONCLUSION:Intraoperative CoBF monitoring using a thermal diffusion flow probe during surgical parent artery occlusion for giant intracavernous carotid artery aneurysms can identify patients who require concomitant high flow bypass grafting.
Gravitational radiation from a particle in circular orbit around a black hole. IV. Analytical results for the slowly rotating case.

A particle of mass μ moves on a circular, equatorial orbit around a slowly rotating black hole of mass M. If μ << M, the gravitational waves emitted by the particle can be computed using the Teukolsky perturbation formalism. If, further, the orbital frequency Ω is such that υ ≡ (MΩ) 1/3 is small, then the Teukolsky equation can be integrated analytically. I present such calculations here, and derive corrections to the gravitational waveforms and luminosity due to the slow rotation of the black hole. The results are in agreement with a more general analysis, based on post-Newtonian theory, by Kidder, Will, and Wiseman
Modeling of Piezoelectric Actuators Based on Bayesian Regularization Back Propagation Neural Network

Problem statement: Piezoelectric actuator is a kind of key driving components for micropositioning stages, micropumps, micro valves, micro gripper and so on in the fields of micro/nano technology such as integrated circuit manufacturing, precision instruments, ultra precision fabrication, biomedical manipulation. It has lots of advantages including high stiffness, fast response times, less heat generating, low power consumption and large force output. But the hysteresis nonlinearity seriously affects working performance of actuators. So a lot of models were proposed to describe the hysteresis nonlinearity. A popular model which was widely used is the Preisach model. In order to obtain accurate displacement output corresponding to arbitrary input voltage with the Preisach model, function output approximation is needed. Approach: In this study, firstly the Preisach model was introduced. Then the function modeling of Preisach model based on a Bayesian Regularization Back Propagation Neural (BRBPNN) was presented and a three layers BPNN was designed. Finally, the BRBPNN was trained in Neural Network toolbox of MATLAB6.0. The Preisach function values not at equal diversion points were calculated by the trained network and the actual displacement outputs and theoretical values corresponding to random voltages input were compared. Results: Experimental results indicate that theoretical displacements and measured displacements agree with very well, the maximum displacement error is 0. 35μm and the standard deviation is 0.24 μm. Conclusion: The BRBPNN could realize function approximation in Preisach modeling accurately and could meet the precision requirement in the field of modeling and controlling of piezoelectric actuators.
Structure–function analysis of human Spt4: evidence that hSpt4 and hSpt5 exert their roles in transcriptional elongation as parts of the DSIF complex

Background: The human Spt4/Spt5 complex, termed DRB‐sensitivity inducing factor (DSIF) is a dual regulator of transcription that stimulates, or, when cooperating with negative elongation factor (NELF), represses RNA polymerase II (RNAPII) elongation. Spt4 and Spt5 are also thought to be involved in mRNA capping, homologous DNA recombination, and transcription‐coupled DNA repair. As a first step to understanding how these proteins regulate diverse cellular processes, we investigated the structure and function of hSpt4 in vitro.
Trees and nest structures

This paper is a sequel to [1]. Our purpose is to exhibit certain basic relationships between (ordered dyadic) trees and regular nest structures. We introduce the notion of a tree being isomorphic to a nest structure, and we study some necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such isomorphisms. By virtue of some of our results, Kónig's lemma on infinite trees, and our fundamental lemma of [1] concerning infinite regular nest structures become intimately related — either yields an alternative proof of the other.
MR imaging and outcome of term neonates with perinatal asphyxia: value of diffusion-weighted MR imaging and ¹H MR spectroscopy.

PURPOSE To compare the association between neurodevelopmental outcome in neonates with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy following perinatal asphyxia and (a) apparent diffusion coefficients (ADCs) in the thalamus and basal ganglia at diffusion-weighted (DW) magnetic resonance (MR) imaging and (b) hydrogen 1 (¹H) MR spectroscopic measurements in the basal ganglia. MATERIALS AND METHODS This retrospective study was approved by the local ethics committee, and the requirement to obtain informed consent was waived. Eighty-one term neonates with perinatal asphyxia underwent conventional and DW cranial MR imaging (median age, 4 days; age range, 1-14 days); 51 neonates also underwent ¹H MR spectroscopy. Neurodevelopment was assessed from 18 to 46 months. Patients with favorable and adverse outcomes were compared. Receiver operating characteristics analysis was performed in all patients, and uni- and multivariate logistic regression analyses were performed in 44 patients examined within 7 days of birth by using MR imaging scores, ADCs in the basal ganglia and thalamus, and ¹H MR spectroscopic measurements in the basal ganglia. RESULTS An adverse outcome was seen in 28 of all 81 neonates (20 died, seven developed cerebral palsy, and one had severe mental retardation) and 22 of the 44 neonates examined within 7 days of birth with both ADC and ¹H MR spectroscopy. Poor outcome was associated with (a) lower ADCs in the basal ganglia (P < .001) and thalamus (P = .001) of neonates examined within 7 days of birth and (b) a higher lactate (Lac)-N-acetylaspartate (NAA) ratio in the basal ganglia (P < .001). Multivariate analysis showed that MR imaging score combined with Lac/NAA ratios or ADCs in the basal ganglia within the 1st week of life had a better association with outcome than did MR imaging alone (P = .006, area under the receiver operating characteristic curve [AUC] = 0.85 with Lac/NAA ratio; P < .0001, AUC = 0.93 with ADCs in basal ganglia). CONCLUSION The combination of MR imaging score with ADCs or Lac/NAA ratios in the basal ganglia has a better association with outcome of asphyxiated term neonates than does MR imaging alone.
Contract Design for Traffic Offloading and Resource Allocation in Heterogeneous Ultra-Dense Networks

In heterogeneous ultra-dense networks (HetUDNs), the software-defined wireless network (SDWN) separates resource management from geo-distributed resources belonging to different service providers. A centralized SDWN controller can manage the entire network globally. In this paper, we focus on mobile traffic offloading and resource allocation in SDWN-based HetUDNs, constituted of different macro base stations and small-cell base stations (SBSs). We explore a scenario where SBSs’ capacities are available, but their offloading performance is unknown to the SDWN controller: this is the information asymmetric case. To address this asymmetry, incentivized traffic offloading contracts are designed to encourage each SBS to select the contract that achieves its own maximum utility. The characteristics of large numbers of SBSs in HetUDNs are aggregated in an analytical model, allowing us to select the SBS types that provide the off-loading, based on different contracts which offer rationality and incentive compatibility to different SBS types. This leads to a closed-form expression for selecting the SBS types involved, and we prove the monotonicity and incentive compatibility of the resulting contracts. The effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed contract-based traffic offloading mechanism, and its overall system performance, are validated using simulations.
On the ellipsoidal invariant set of fractional order systems subject to actuator saturation

This paper investigates the method for estimating the domain of attraction of the origin for a class of fractional order system subject to actuator saturation with the fractional order 0 <; α <; 1. The sufficient condition on the asymptotic stability are obtained using Lyapunov direct approach and fractional order inequality. The method for the estimation on the contractively invariant ellipsoid is derived in terms of linear matrix inequalities (LMIs), and hence can be easily adopted for controller synthesis. Two numerical examples are provided to illustrate the effectiveness of the developed method.
Some industrial aspects of the enzymic degradation of starch.

The physical and chemical characteristics of a starch depend uniquely on the botanical sources, and consequently a wide diversity of starches is found in vegetables. The fundamental properties of typical vegetable starches will be outlined, including the amylose/amylopectin ratio, the changes that occur during growth of the plant and the susceptibility of the granule to enzymic attack, and the ease with which dispersion of the resultant starch components will be discussed. The features of these typical vegetable starches, which differ from the cereal starches, will be outlined.
Time-resolved dual-beam two-photon interferences with high visibility.

We perform a two-photon interference experiment in a Michelson interferometer with photon pairs produced by spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The interferometer is set to a path difference much larger than the coherence length of the light field. Application of a time-resolved coincidence detection scheme reveals two-photon interference fringes with a visibility of 87%. This high visibility clearly demonstrates the nonclassical nature of the observed interference and should allow further spinfree tests of Bell's inequalities
An Approach for the Realization of Threshold Functions of Order r

In this paper we shall study the problem of nonlinear separation. As usual, a Boolean function F of n binary variables, x<inf>l</inf>,. , x<inf>n</inf>, x<inf>i</inf>Σ{1,0}, i=1,. , n, will be represented by a set of vertices C in the n-dimensional Euclidean space E<sup>n</sup>where each vertex has n binary-valued components, {1,0}.
Hypermedia-Konzepte zur Verarbeitung multimedialer Information

A connector sleeve for polyolefin pipe ends for connecting butted pipe ends by a coupling. The connector sleeve is metallic and has a pair of internal circumferential ribs mated in external grooves of the pipe end which is press-fitted within the sleeve in sealing relation. The connector sleeve has a pair of external grooves registering with the ribs formed by a pressing or rolling operation. Butted pipe ends with their fitted connector sleeves are connected by a coupling engaging the connector sleeves. The connector sleeve and pipe end have registering bevelled ends and in the fitting operation the sleeve and pipe end are axially aligned and forcefully engaged whereby the bevelled end of the connector sleeve causes the pipe end to be internally deflected and compressed in mating engagement with said connector sleeve.
Incidence of physician-diagnosed primary Sjögren syndrome in residents of Olmsted County, Minnesota.

OBJECTIVES To estimate the incidence of physician-diagnosed primary Sjögren syndrome (SS) among residents of Olmsted County, Minnesota, in the setting of usual medical care and to determine how often objective criteria are available in the medical records of such patients. PATIENTS AND METHODS We reviewed all medical records of residents in Olmsted County with physician-diagnosed SS from 1976 to 1992 to determine whether they had undergone objective tests for keratoconjunctivitis sicca, salivary dysfunction, or serologic abnormality. Confounding illnesses were excluded. To identify misclassified cases, all records from patients with xerostomia or keratoconjunctivitis sicca were also reviewed. The average annual SS incidence rates were calculated by considering the entire population to be at risk. RESULTS Of 75 patients with onset of SS during the study period, 53 had primary SS. All patients were white, 51 (96.2%) were women, and the mean +/- SD age was 59+/-15.8 years. The age- and sex-adjusted annual incidence was 3.9 per 100,000 population (95% confidence interval, 2.8-4.9) for patients with primary SS. Eleven patients (20.8%) with physician-diagnosed SS had no documentation of objective eye, mouth, or laboratory abnormalities. Objective evaluations performed most frequently were laboratory and ocular tests and least often were investigations of xerostomia. CONCLUSIONS The average annual incidence rate for physician-diagnosed primary SS in Olmsted County is about 4 cases per 100,000 population. These data probably underestimate the true incidence because they are based on usual medical care of patients with SS in a community setting, rather than on a case-detection survey. In the future, a true incidence may be possible with a higher index of suspicion, greater attention to objective tests, and increased awareness of new classification criteria for SS. For epidemiological studies based on existing data, application of current criteria may not be feasible, and consensus on criteria for such studies would be useful.
Solving the asymmetric traveling salesman problem with periodic constraints

In this article we describe a heuristic algorithm to solve the asymmetrical traveling salesman problem with periodic constraints over a given m‐day planning horizon. Each city i must be visited ri times within this time horizon, and these visit days are assigned to i by selecting one of the feasible combinations of ri visit days with the objective of minimizing the total distance traveled by the salesman. The proposed algorithm is a heuristic that starts by designing feasible tours, one for each day of the m‐day planning horizon, and then employs an improvement procedure that modifies the assigned combination to each of the cities, to improve the objective function. Our heuristic has been tested on a set of test problems purposely generated by slightly modifying known test problems taken from the literature. Computational comparisons on special instances indicate encouraging results. © 2004 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. NETWORKS, Vol. 44(1), 31–37 2004
Tunable recognition of the steroid α-face by adjacent π-electron density

We report a previously unknown recognition motif between the α-face of the steroid hydrocarbon backbone and π-electron-rich aromatic substrates. Our study is based on a systematic and comparative analysis of the solid-state complexation of four steroids with 24 aromatic molecules. By using the solid state as a medium for complexation, we circumvent solubility and solvent competition problems that are inherent to the liquid phase. Characterization is performed using powder and single crystal X-ray diffraction, infrared solid-state spectroscopy and is complemented by a comprehensive cocrystal structure prediction methodology that surpasses earlier computational approaches in terms of realism and complexity. Our combined experimental and theoretical approach reveals that the α⋯π stacking is of electrostatic origin and is highly dependent on the steroid backbone’s unsaturated and conjugated character. We demonstrate that the α⋯π stacking interaction can drive the assembly of molecules, in particular progesterone, into solid-state complexes without the need for additional strong interactions. It results in a marked difference in the solid-state complexation propensities of different steroids with aromatic molecules, suggesting a strong dependence of the steroid-binding afﬁnity and even physicochemical properties on the steroid’s A-ring structure. Hence, the hydrocarbon part of the steroid is a potentially important variable in structure-activity relationships for establishing the binding and signaling properties of steroids, and in the manufacture of pharmaceutical cocrystals.
Flexible distribution modeling with the generalized lambda distribution

We consider the use of the generalized lambda distribution (GLD) family as a flexible distribution with which to model financial data sets. The GLD can assume distributions with a large range of shapes. Analysts can therefore work with a single distribution to model almost any class of financial assets, rather than needing several. This becomes especially useful in the estimation of risk measures, where the choice of the distribution is crucial for accuracy. We introduce a new parameterization of the GLD, wherein the location and scale parameters are directly expressed as the median and interquartile range of the distribution. The two remaining parameters characterize the asymmetry and steepness of the distribution. Conditions are given for the existence of its moments, and for it to have the appropriate support. The tail behavior is also studied. The new parameterization brings a clearer interpretation of the parameters, whereby the distribution's asymmetry can be more readily distinguished from its steepness. This is in contrast to current parameterizations of the GLD, where the asymmetry and steepness are simultaneously described by a combination of the tail indices. Moreover, the new parameterization can be used to compare data sets in a convenient asymmetry and steepness shape plot.