Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Oxidative variables in the rat brain after sepsis induced by cecal ligation and perforation

Objective:The underlying mechanisms of the changes in mental status, septic encephalopathy, and long-term cognitive symptoms in sepsis survivors have only been defined in part. The present study was undertaken to assess different variables of oxidative stress in several brain structures after cecal ligation and perforation in the rat. Design:Prospective animal study. Setting:Animal basic science laboratory. Subjects:Male Wistar rats, weighing 250–350 g. Interventions:Rats were subjected to cecal ligation and perforation (sepsis group) with saline resuscitation (at 50 mL/kg immediately and 12 hrs after cecal ligation and perforation) or sham operation (control group). Measurements and Main Results:Oxidative damage, assessed by the thiobarbituric acid reactive species and the protein carbonyl assays, occurred early (after 6 hrs) in the course of sepsis development in the hippocampus, cerebellum, and cortex. At longer times after sepsis induction (12–96 hrs), there was no evidence of oxidative damage in all analyzed structures. Except for the striatum, earlier in sepsis development (6 hrs) we demonstrated an increase in superoxide dismutase activity without a proportional increase in catalase activity with a consequent increase in the relation of superoxide dismutase/catalase. The balance between these enzymes was restored in the studied structures 12–96 hrs after sepsis induction. Conclusions:The short-term oxidative damage demonstrated here could participate in the development of central nervous system symptoms during sepsis development, or even septic encephalopathy. The alterations in the superoxide dismutase/catalase relation were temporally related to the occurrence or not of oxidative damage in the central nervous system.
Rumen bacterial interrelationships with plant tissue during degradation revealed by transmission electron microscopy.

The mode of rumen bacterial degradation of cell walls in coastal bermudagrass [Cynodon dactylon (L) Pers. ] differed with the plant tissue type. Bacteria degraded thin, primary cell walls of mesophyll and phloem apparently by extracellular enzymes and without prior attachment; thick-walled bundle sheath and epidermal cells apparently were degraded after bacterial attachment, in some types by an extracellular substance, to the plant cell walls. Rumen bacteria split the nondegraded cuticle from the epidermis by preferentially attacking the cell just underneath the cuticle. The propensity for bacterial attachment to lignified cells of the vascular tissue was low, and bacterial degradation of these cells did not occur after 72 h of incubation.
3-Path 5–6 GHz 0.25 μm SiGe BiCMOS power amplifier on thin substrate

This paper presents a fully integrated class-A mode Differential Power Amplifier (DPA) on a thin silicon substrate intended for being embedded into flexible electronic foil systems. A high-speed and cost-effective 95 GHz-fmax, 0.25 μm SiGe:C technology (IHP process SGB25V) is used. RF performance of DPA has been evaluated with the pre- and post-thinning measurement results at die level. The behavior of the PA has been optimized for 5–6 GHz frequency band and achieves 10.85 dB and 10 dB small-signal gain at 5.5 GHz before and after thinning, respectively. The measured large signal gain of amplifier at Pin 0 dBm is 10 dB before and 9.4 dB after thinning process. The simulated output referred 1 dB compression point is 10.76 dBm with a PAE of 15%. The PA consumes 50 mA under 1.5 V supply voltage. After thinning process, the supply current is lowered by 3 mA.
Fluoxetine is a safer alternative to fenfluramine in the medical treatment of obesity.

T combination of phentermine and fenfluramine hydrochloride is widely used for the treatment of exogenous obesity even though there has been only 1 full published study. 1 The therapy is cheap, highly successful, and well tolerated. Nevertheless, experience in Europe suggests that there is a grave risk of primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) from fenfluramine, whether dispensed as the racemic mixture or the pure D-isomer. 2 Even though the risk for PPH is small, the mortality is high, the results of treatment are uncertain, and there is no proven screening method. I have treated 557 patients with a variation of the "phen-fen" combination, in which fenfluramine was replaced with fluoxetine hydrochloride. The chemical structure of fluoxetine is similar to that of fenfluramine; both drugs are serotonin-promoting agents, and fluoxetine acts on the cerebral appestat as well as fenfluramine. My patients have lost 3645 kg in 2 years. Only 7 patients failed
Use of observational databases to evaluate the effectiveness of antiretroviral therapy for HIV infection: comparison of cohort studies with randomized trials. EuroSIDA, the French Hospital Database on HIV and the Swiss HIV Cohort Study Groups.

OBJECTIVES It is important to assess the extent of bias when comparing the clinical efficacy of antiretroviral regimens in observational databases because, with the current lack of planned large trials, such analyses may represent the only means of assessing the risk of serious clinical events associated with new regimens. We aimed to compare the results from observational databases with those from randomized trials. METHODS Three treatment comparisons from randomized trials [Delta, AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) 175, Community Programs for Clinical Research on AIDS (CPCRA) 007 and ACTC 320] were mimicked in cohorts: (i) zidovudine monotherapy versus combination regimens of two nucleoside analogues; (ii) zidovudine combined with either didanosine or zalcitabine; and (iii) a dual combination versus a triple regimen including a protease inhibitor. Data for over 10 000 patients from the French Hospital Database on HIV, the EuroSIDA study and the Swiss HIV cohort study were analysed for each of the comparisons. Progression to AIDS disease or death was analysed in Cox models, adjusting for baseline differences, and results compared with randomized trials. RESULTS For comparison (i) the adjusted relative risk estimates from cohorts were between 0.61 and 0.84, favouring combinations over monotherapy, compared with 0.57 to 0.63 for trials. For comparison (ii) relative risk estimates from cohorts ranged from 0.81 to 1.01 compared with 0.77 to 0.92 for trials. For comparison (iii), two of the cohorts showed similar results to the ACTG 320 trial but one indicated a higher risk of progression on triple therapy [relative risk 1.20, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.01-1.441, in direct contrast to the trial result (relative risk 0.50, 95% CI 0.33-0.76). CONCLUSION Serious biases can be present when comparing outcomes from the use of antiretroviral regimens in observational studies. However, such bias is not inevitable and careful interpretation of the results from several observational studies considered together is likely to be informative, guiding the design of new trials.
Entrepreneurship Under Pressure: Global Entrepreneuship Monitor 2002: The Netherlands

The Global Entrepreneurship Monitor(GEM)—designed to be a long-term, multinational project—examines therelationship between entrepreneurship and economic growth. Three key pointsunderpin the GEM research: (a) whether the level of entrepreneurial activityvaries between countries and, if so, to what extent; (b) whether the level ofentrepreneurial activity affects a country's rate of economic growth andprosperity; and (c) what makes a country entrepreneurial. The national teams ineach of the participating countries assemble three sets of data: (1)specially-designed surveys of the adult population in each GEM country; (2)in-depth interviews with experts on entrepreneurship in each country; and (3) awide selection of national economic and demographic data. This GEM report focuses on the Netherlands perspective, investigatingentrepreneurial activity in the country in 2002, in both global and Europeanperspective; the characteristics of the Dutch involved in entrepreneurialactivities; and the overall entrepreneurial climate in the Netherlands.The total entrepreneurship activity rate declined to 29%, lower than theEastern European rate (52%) or that of the ten other EU Member States (37%). Moreover, Dutch entrepreneurial activity compares unfavorably with otherEnglish-speaking countries (including New Zealand, Australia, Canada and theUSA). The Netherlands has a favorable entrepreneurial climate. Among thefindings:two in three persons entrepreneurially active are male, peakingbetween the ages 25 and 35 for men, and 35 to 45 for women.Mostentrepreneurial activities (50%) are in services. The market for informalentrepreneurship is weakly developed by international comparison. At the same time, the experts consulted underlined that negative attitudestoward failure and risk, as well as the insufficient attention toentrepreneurship in the educational system, are some of the major weaknesses ofthe Dutch entrepreneurial environment. Another problem, also signaled in the2001 report, is the limited RD in the long run, improving theattitude toward risk and failure and raising entrepreneurial awareness througheducation will be issues of concern. (CBS)
A Residue Logarithmic Number System ALU using interpolation and cotransformation

The Residue Logarithmic Number System (RLNS) uses the Residue Number System (RNS) to represent logarithms that represent real values. Multiplication and division are easy; reasonable-precision addition and subtraction have not been economical because of RNS sign-detection. This paper adapts novel interpolation (for addition) and cotransformation (for subtraction) to fit the sign-detection limits. Smaller than prior RLNS hardware, the novel ALU defers sign detection with two speculative datapaths.
COG-DICE: An Algorithm for Solving Continuous-Observation Dec-POMDPs

The decentralized partially observable Markov decision process (Dec-POMDP) is a powerful model for representing multi-agent problems with decentralized behavior. Unfortunately, current DecPOMDP solution methods cannot solve problems with continuous observations, which are common in many real-world domains. To that end, we present a framework for representing and generating Dec-POMDP policies that explicitly include continuous observations. We apply our algorithm to a novel tagging problem and an extended version of a common benchmark, where it generates policies that meet or exceed the values of equivalent discretized domains without the need for finding an adequate discretization.
Identification of Clinically Relevant Enterococcus Species by Direct Sequencing of groES and Spacer Region

ABSTRACT We determined the groESL sequences (groES, groEL, and the intergenic spacer) of 10 clinically relevant Enterococcus species and evaluated the feasibility of identifying Enterococcus species on the basis of these sequences. Seven common clinical Enterococcus species, E. faecalis, E. faecium, E. casseliflavus, E. gallinarum, E. avium, E. raffinosus, and E. hirae, and three less common Enterococcus species, E. cecorum, E. durans, and E. mundtii, were examined in this study. We found that the groES genes of these enterococcal species are identical in length (285 nucleotides) and contain an unusual putative start codon, GTG. The lengths and sequences of the intergenic regions (spacers between the groES and groEL genes) are quite variable (17 to 57 bp in length) among Enterococcus species but are conserved in strains within each species, with only a few exceptions. Considerable variation of groES or groEL sequences was also observed. The evolutionary trees of groES or groEL sequences revealed similarities among Enterococcus species. However, the overall intraspecies variation of groES was less than that of groEL. The high interspecies variation and low intraspecies variation indicate that the groES and spacer sequences are more useful than groEL for identification of clinically relevant Enterococcus species. The sequences of these two genetic traits, groES and spacer, can be determined by a single PCR and direct sequencing and may provide important information for the differentiation of closely related species of Enterococcus.
Dynamic distributed flow scheduling for effective link utilization in data center networks

Current static flow scheduling techniques such as Equal Cost Multi Path (ECMP) and Valiant Load Balancing (VLB) use randomization and hash based techniques to schedule the flow in Data Center Networks (DCN). In such flow scheduling techniques, the probability of allotment of the same path for different flows at a time is high. This causes collision of flows and at times can lead to unfair link utilization. On other hand, Dynamic flow scheduling techniques such as Global first fit use a centralized mechanism to schedule flows. Global first fit can introduce the problem of unfair link utilization and also vulnerable to a single point of failure. Effective flow scheduling is the key problem in fat-tree topology based DCNs mainly due to the bandwidth over-subscription ratio and bursty nature of traffic. In this paper, we propose a dynamic distributed flow scheduling mechanism for effective link utilization and load balancing. Moreover our proposed mechanism prevents the core switch saturation scenario by taking flow scheduling decisions at lower layers. Load measurement performed on aggregate switches for various data center traffic flow patterns reveals that the load factors across all the aggregate switches vary by at most 0.11 when dynamic distributed flow scheduling is applied without flowlet splitting. Further with flowlet splitting our dynamic distributed flow scheduling mechanism improved the load factor variation to 0.08. The load factor values signify there is considerable improvement in link utilization and the switches are fairly load balanced. The experiment scenario is simulated using Colored Petri Nets.
On evolutionary algorithms for Boolean functions minimization

This paper concerns evolutionary algorithms for minimization exclusive-or sum-of-products representations of Boolean functions. These representations are used in logic synthesis for certain class of circuits. Minimization is based on a decomposition for Boolean functions with parameter function. Selection of this function is a search task which can be solved with evolutionary algorithms. Algorithms for obtaining approximately minimal formulas for Boolean functions of up to 8 variables are proposed.
Factors Influencing the Intention for Online Purchasing: a Study among University Students in Malaysia

The purpose of this study is to identify the internal factors that influence online purchase intention among Malaysian university student which include trust, prior online purchase experience and self-efficacy. A quantitative approach was adopted and a questionnaire survey was distributed to 100 students in University Malaysia Kelantan who have experience on online purchase for the data collection purposes. As a brief, the findings showed that trust, prior online purchase experience and self-efficacy influence online purchase intention.
The Impact of Food Away from Home on Adult Diet Quality

Food away from home (FAFH) has been associated with poor diet quality in many studies. It is difficult, however, to measure the effect of FAFH on diet quality since many unobserved factors, such as food preferences and time constraints, influence not just our choice of where to eat but also the nutritional quality of what we eat. Using data from 1994-96 and 2003-04, this study applies fixed-effects estimation to control for such unobservable influences and finds that, for the average adult, FAFH increases daily caloric intake and reduces diet quality. The effects vary depending on which meals are consumed away from home. On average, breakfast away from home decreases the number of servings of whole grains and dairy consumed per 1,000 calories and increases the percent of calories from saturated and solid fat, alcohol, and added sugar (SoFAAS) in a day. Dinner away from home reduces the number of servings of vegetables consumed per 1,000 calories for the average adult. Breakfast and lunch away from home increase calories from saturated fat and SoFAAS on average more among dieters than among nondieters. Some of the overall negative dietary effects decreased between 1994-96 and 2003-04, including those on whole grain, sodium, and vegetable consumption.
Editorial THE MEDIUM AND THE MESSAGE: OPPORTUNITIES

Critical care was born in the belief that coupling clinical expertise with state-of-the-art technology for monitoring and care delivery would improve outcomes for the sickest patients. That promise has continued to be fulfilled, with additional improvements in care as clinical technologies have advanced dramatically. The movement to use technology to enhance providers’ abilities to care more effectively and efficiently for critically ill patients is exemplified by the electronic intensive care unit. Whereas technology for patient care has expanded rapidly, technology for research dissemination has proceeded at a much slower pace. The next frontier for critical care may be integration of new media technologies to enable better application of research at the bedside.
Importance of Symptomatic Cerebral Infarcts on Cognitive Performance in Patients with Alzheimer's Disease

The coexistence of cerebral infarcts and Alzheimer's disease (AD) is common, but the influence of symptomatic cerebral infarcts on cognition is uncertain in AD. We hypothesize that symptomatic cerebral infarcts may provide an additive cognitive factor contributing to dementia in the AD population. We studied 1,001 clinically probable or possible AD patients in the Alzheimer Disease Research Center (ADRC) database. Linear regression was used to evaluate for an association between symptomatic cerebral infarcts and memory, language, executive function, abstract reasoning, and visuospatial performance, separately. Models were adjusted for covariates including age, gender, education, ethnicity, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, heart disease, clinical dementia rating, the presence of silent cerebral infarcts, and multiplicity or location of infarcts. Clinical history of stroke was present in 107 patients, radiological infarcts in 308 patients, and 68 patients with both were considered to have symptomatic infarcts. Adjusting for all covariates, AD patients with symptomatic infarcts had more impairment of executive function (P < 0.05). The influence of cerebral infarcts is neither general nor diffuse, and the presence of clinical history may have a more important influence on executive performance in AD.
An analytical model for submicron dual material gate GaNMESFET including the temperature effects

In this paper, a temperature dependent analytical model of submicron Dual Material gate (DM) Gallium Nitride (GaN) MESFET suitable for high power applications is described. The model takes into account the effect of various temperature dependent device parameters in order to develop an accurate current-voltage model of the device under various high temperature (300K-500K) conditions. The model is then extended to evaluate the temperature dependence of transconductance and output conductance. The obtained results have been verified by its good agreement with 2D numerical simulations.
Not always co-creation: introducing interactional co-destruction of value in service-dominant logic

– Noting that a fundamental tenet of service‐dominant (S‐D) logic is the co‐creation of value‐in‐use, this paper aims to explore the theoretical possibility that the interactions between service systems cannot only co‐create value, but also have adverse consequences leading to actual value co‐destruction. , – This conceptual paper critically reviews the dominance of value co‐creation and value‐in‐use in S‐D logic. Noting the relative lack of research in the converse possibility, the study proposes and explores the implications of value co‐destruction as a new concept which should be introduced within the framework of S‐D logic. , – The study proposes a formal definition for the new proposed concept of value co‐destruction. It describes in detail the process by which it occurs, showing that value can be co‐destroyed through the interactions between different systems, resulting in value destruction‐through‐misuse. Indeed, value co‐destruction occurs when a service system accidentally or intentionally misuses resources (its own resources and/or those of another service system) by acting in an inappropriate or unexpected manner. , – This paper is purely conceptual and exploratory. Empirical examination of the theoretical findings regarding value‐co‐destruction is required. Possible avenues of interest for such empirical research of value co‐destruction are suggested. , – Limiting the occurrence of misuse by aligning the mutual expectations of interacting service systems should reduce the risks of value co‐destruction. Recovering from misuse should also be considered. , – This study is apparently the first to have introduced the notion of value co‐destruction into the conceptual framework of S‐D logic.
Offshoring of R&D activities by Multinational Corporations

This thesis attempts to extend the current understanding of the R&D offshoring process with specific focus on determinants of location choice for R&D activities. The literature dealing with the determinants of location choice is largely fragmented and hence this thesis attempts to integrate the different prevailing perspectives. Based on transactional cost economics, resource-based view and eclectic paradigm, this thesis adopts a multi-level approach to examine country, firm and project level factors of location choice decision. Moreover, this study investigates the difference between the degree of innovativeness and routineness of R&D activities offshored to developed and emerging countries. Furthermore, it also looks at the difference between the degree of innovativeness and routineness of R&D activities offshored to foreign affiliate and non-integrated suppliers.
Energetics of K+ permeability through Gramicidin A by forward‐reverse steered molecular dynamics

The estimation of ion channel permeability poses a considerable challenge for computer simulations because of the significant free energy barriers involved, but also offers valuable molecular information on the ion permeation process not directly available from experiments. In this article we determine the equilibrium free energy barrier for potassium ion permeability in Gramicidin A in an efficient way by atomistic forward‐reverse non‐equilibrium steered molecular dynamics simulations, opening the way for its use in more complex biochemical systems. Our results indicate that the tent‐shaped energetics of translocation of K+ ions in Gramicidin A is dictated by the different polarization responses to the ion of the external bulk water and the less polar environment of the membrane. Proteins 2008. © 2008 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.