Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
What should the blood pressure be in patients with chronic kidney disease?

The Modification of Diet in Renal Disease (MDRD) Study randomized 840 patients, with nondiabetic stage 3 to 4 chronic kidney disease to a blood pressure of less than 140/90 mmHg or to a blood pressure of 125/75 mmHg (1,2). The blood pressures achieved in this study were 133/80 mmHg versus 126/77 mmHg. The mean followup was 2.2 years. This study did not show a difference in death and in kidney failure between the 2 blood pressure groups. However, this study showed that in patients with proteinuria greater than 1,000 mg per day, the lower blood pressure group had a significant slower rate of decline in glomerular filtration rate (1,2).
Clinical Assessment of Irritability, Aggression, and Apathy in Huntington and Alzheimer Disease

Thirty-one patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) and 26 patients with Huntington disease (HD) were assessed using new scales to measure apathy and irritability. An existing scale was used to assess aggression. A similar prevalence of apathy and irritability was found in the two groups. The HD patients were more aggressive than the AD patients. In a subsample of the two groups, matched for degree of cognitive impairment, the HD patients were found to be more apathetic than the AD group. Irritability was related to be the premorbid trait of “bad temper” in HD but not in AD. There was no interrelationship among the three symptoms in either group. The scales for irritability and apathy have both interrater and test-retest reliability. They are able to differentiate patients with AD and HD from normal, disease-free control subjects. The usefulness of these scales, in relation to preexisting scales, is discussed.
Congestion Control Protocol Based on Delay Parameters for Layered Multicast Communication

This paper focuses on the congestion control mechanism to be used in receiver-driven layered multicast. Since delay infers the transmission performances of jitter, bandwidth and throughput, it is necessary to concern delay properties in real-time multimedia transmission. In this paper, by analyzing the relationship between arrival delay intervals and network congestion, the congestion control parameter Interval_vari is obtained. By using delay parameters SRdeg and SRdet , the path's available bandwidth can be estimated for the decision of layer join. By using the available bandwidth estimation results, Interval_vari and the packet-loss event Lostdeg, a new layered multicast congestion control protocol BDP is proposed. The ns2 simulation results show that BDP can achieve scalability, stability, fast convergence and TCP-fairness.
Overexpression of Calreticulin Increases Intracellular Ca Storage and Decreases Store-operated Ca Influx (*)

The widely distributed and highly conserved Ca-binding protein calreticulin has been suggested to play a role as a Ca storage protein of intracellular Ca stores. To test this hypothesis, we have generated a mouse L fibroblast cell line stably transfected with a calreticulin expression vector. The calreticulin content of the overexpressers was increased by 1.6 ± 0.2-fold compared with mock-transfected cells. The total cellular Ca content of calreticulin-overexpressing and control cells, as assessed by equilibrium Ca uptake, was 141 ± 8 and 67 ± 6 pmol of Ca/106 cells, respectively (i.e. a 2.1 ± 0.2-fold increase in the Ca content of calreticulin-overexpressing cells). Over 80% of the increased Ca content was found within thapsigargin-sensitive Ca stores. The pattern of calreticulin distribution, revealed by immunofluorescence microscopy, showed an endoplasmic reticulum-like pattern and was identical in overexpressers and control cells. In overexpressers, cytosolic free [Ca] elevations due to Ca release were enhanced when either ATP or a combination of ionomycin and thapsigargin was used as a stimulus. In contrast, thapsigargin-induced Ca and Mn influxes from the extracellular space were markedly diminished in calreticulin-overexpressing cells, suggesting an active involvement of calreticulin in the regulation of store-operated Ca influx.
BIS and Entropy in the elderly

The interaction of many poorly defined, physiological, pharmacological, and pathological factors make titration of general anaesthesia in the elderly difficult. There may be a potential clinical benefit using the processed electroencephalogram (EEG) to monitor hypnotic level in this population. We prospectively studied 16 patients aged over 65 years having hip fractures repaired under general anaesthesia by experienced anaesthetists blinded to Bispectral Index (BISXP) and Entropy values. Pre‐induction EEG indices did not correlate with age or mini‐mental state examination (MMSE). During maintenance of anaesthesia, BISXP and Response Entropy (RE) values were within the recommended range of 40–60, 45% and 32% of the total time, respectively. BISXP and Response Entropy (RE) values were above 60 for 11% and 13% of the total time, respectively, and below 40 for 44% and 55% of the total time, respectively. BISXP correlated well with RE in 12 patients, but in the other four patients there was a difference of more than 20 points between BISXP and RE.
Identifying the Motives for User Participation in Information System Projects

The importance of user participation in information systems development has received a lot of attention from researchers. While prior research efforts have clarified many issues related to user participation, the reasons behind user’s participation in IS projects are still unexplored. The study raises the question of what are the different motives for user participation in IS project. The investigation uses multivariate data analysis techniques to propose a dimensional representation of user participation motives in the context of IS projects. The results identify five user participation motives i.e. nature of association, techno centric activity, user centric activity, user interest, and project importance. The results of the study contribute to both theory and practice by segregating the different dimensions of user participation motives that may serve as cues in designing effective user integration mechanisms.
Public Opinions Dissemination of Microblog on Complex Network

With the rapid development of Internet and Web2.0 Technology, the fast transmission of information under microblog has become more and more popular with the wide netizens, and the microblog platform has already become a significant place for net citizens to express their opinions. Therefore, the study on the dissemination of public opinions in network is of great significance. In order to explore network public opinions dissemination mechanism of microblog, this paper discusses characteristics of the microblog social network structure and influence they made on information transmitting and sharing in microblog through complex network analysis combined with data obtained from Sina Weibo. This paper presents a mechanism building the microblog social network model, and discusses the scale-free property, small-world effect and centrality property of microblog network through complex network analysis. At last, this paper discusses the public opinions dissemination mechanism in microblog social network with a network event case.
MULTICENTER TRIAL OF TOWNE STRAIN ATTENUATED VIRUS VACCINE IN SERONEGATIVE RENAL TRANSPLANT RECIPIENTS

The Towne strain of attenuated CMV vaccine was compared with placebo in seronegative renal transplants who later received kidneys from seropositive donors. This was a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial conducted at 3 different institutions. The results were consistent with 2 prior studies, in that whereas mild CMV disease was only slightly and insignificantly reduced in vaccine recipients, severe disease was markedly reduced. In the current study, all 4 severe cases of CMV disease occurred in placebo recipients, for an incidence of 17%, versus 0% in vaccine recipients (P<0.03). Thus, prior immunization rendered seronegative patients more resistant to the effects of CMV infection.
Captive Offshoring Services for SMEs in Poland : the Role of Mutual Trust and Cultural Aspects

The study examines one of the governance models of offshoring and empirically tests relationships and differences in culture between employees within one company, from two different countries. The study outlines the current position of Poland as an example of destination for entrepreneurs deciding to offshore their services. This research joins case study method, together with surveys and personal observation. The qualitative method aims to investigate relations within the company and examine frequencies of employees’ behaviours. Quantitative research method is used to identify the frequencies of qualitative results. The study proved that building common goals and positive relations facilitates working relations. Regular communication and maintaining trust between the countries is a crucial factor for the effective offshoring process. The originality of this work lies in focusing on cultural aspects of offshoring such as cultural distance and cross-culture communication. Further research into the issue of mutual trust in the context of offshoring processes is recommended.
CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TIME DEDICATED BY THE STUDENTS AND THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN A COURSE ON DIGITAL ELECTRONICS

The delivery of new degree courses at the university means that subjects are designed so that students will spend a certain period of study, according to the credits which are assigned. The course Digital Circuits and Systems, which is taught in the first semester of second year degrees of Telecommunication Systems and Telematics Engineering at the EETAC (Escola d’Enginyeria de Telecomunicacio i Aeronautica de Castelldefels), has 6 ECTS, equivalent to about 150 hours of student’s work. In this paper we discuss the results that we have observed after having surveyed weekly (for a period of 14 weeks) the time devoted by the students to the subject. It includes presential class time, cooperative work time outside the classroom and individual work time outside the classroom. This experience has been applied to 41 students in the spring semester of 2012. The development of this subject consists on applying PBL and cooperative techniques, which permit that students solve several complex problems around digital systems, while the teacher acts as a guide of the learning process. After comparing the time spent respect to the overall performance obtained in the course by the students, we can conclude that, with few exceptions, there is a correlation between these variables, using both, parametric and non parametric statistical analysis. The paper includes some recommendations to be taken into account in the design and planning of the exercises that have been solved during the course, in order to improve the study efficiency.
NH Hotel Group and the challenges of the hotel sector in Spain: economic and financial analysis of the company and its major competitor in the sector

The numerous difficulties and challenges brought on by the economic and financial crisis for tourism in Spain, a key industry for the Spanish economy because of its great contribution to the GDP, makes it very interesting to examine what is the current environment and future perspectives of tourism in Spain and, more specifically, of the hotel sector due to its great relevance and economic impact. Once established this framework, the main objective of this graduate thesis is to conduct a review of the internal situation of NH Hotel Group, one of the two listed companies of the hotel sector in Spain. The methodology applied has been conducting an economic and financial analysis of the company by studying in depth its annual accounts along with the calculation and interpretation of relevant ratios, based on information obtained from the CNMV, the SABI database, and the consolidated financial statements of the company covering the period 2007-2014 (latest publication of its annual accounts at the starting date of this paper). After performing this analysis it can be concluded that the results of NH do not reflect the positive trend of the tourism industry in Spain, and that despite having improved its performance over the last two years, the future evolution of the company is unclear since it has been forced to slow down its international expansion projects and has not yet managed to reduce its very high costs which place a heavy burden on its results.
Forgotten alternatives in skill and work-load.

Abstract This paper suggests that the nature of process control skill lies in the changed decision making made possible with increased knowledge of process behaviour. During learning, feedback about process output indicates that the process needs correcting, and also that the operator must adjust his choice of action. An experienced operator knows the correct error-action alignment, so has less need to check and correct both the process and his own behaviour. He has a lower work-load and a larger task capacity. Choice of appropriate control actions requires knowledge of the effects of his own behaviour as well as that of the process, and assessment of the task context, If behaviour is chosen to maintain the operator's mental and physical state, as well as to maintain the process, this requires further knowledge about his own potential behaviour, his internal state, and criteria for acceptability of his own state. High task demands may lead to performance breakdown because they cause unfamiliar decision si.
Strategies of antigen-specific T-cell-based immunotherapy for cancer.

The critical role of antigen-specific T-cells in the eradication of cancer has been demonstrated in numerous animal models, while significant challenges need to be conquered before antigen-specific T-cell immunotherapy can achieve true success in clinical practice. These challenges include: (1) weak or nonimmunogenicity of spontaneous tumors, (2) negative immune regulation mechanisms of the host immune system, (3) immune inhibition exerted by tumor cells, (4) physical barrier in solid tumor, and (5) escape or resistance to immune attack by tumor cells. Nonetheless, significant success has been achieved in several clinical trials recently, highlighting the possibility of successful manipulation of the immune system for control and elimination of tumor. We focused our study on summarizing the current knowledge and corresponding strategies for improving autologous cytotoxic T-cell (CTL)-based cancer immunotherapy, which include the following aspects: (1) the selection of tumor antigens for stimulation of CTL, (2) strategies of enhancing maturation and antigen presentation activity of dendritic cells (DC), (3) strategies of activation and maintenance of CTL response, and (4) recruitment of suitable immune effector cells to tumor sites. The successful manipulation of the immune system, based on the more and more detailed knowledge of tumor immunology, may finally reach the goal of "immune surveillance of malignancy. "
N-Gram Analysis of Historic Development of Fundamental Terms Regarding Corporate Sustainability

Sustainability is a rising concept. It is important to set forth the development process of the term and to reveal the topics which are stressed by the specialists in order to understand the concept correctly. With this study, all the books written in English and saved in 'Google Books' database starting from the 1900s to the recent years have been scanned with N-gram analysis and the evolution of corporate sustainability concept has been investigated. From 19 experts 15 key words about corporate sustainability were asked. Total 236 entries have been categorized in 62 themes and among them 17 keywords which have the highest frequencies were identified and used in N-gram analysis. This study is especially important to show which term is started to flourish on literature on which time period. It is meaningful that some terms show co-changes. This may be helpful to show the relations between these terms.
A novel model analysing the response of transmission line excited by electromagnetic field

A novel transmission line model was deduced based on the Taylor model. These models are all applied to analysis the induced voltage and current along lines in the field-transmission line coupling problems. Differenting from the former conventional transmission line models, the distributed excitation source terms in this modified model are expressed in total field components rather than incident field ones, which means that we don't have to know any information of the incident field in advance. This will be a great favour in complex circumstance where there are perhaps many interfering sources and it is difficult or impossible to get the incident fields' information. The relationship between the new model and Taylor model is also discussed. To illustrate how this model be carried out in practice, we compute the terminal voltage of a line above the ground in a given representative field-transmission line coupling circumstance.
Two novel soft-switched, high frequency, high-efficiency, non-isolated Voltage Regulators-the phase-shift buck converter and the matrix-transformer phase-buck converter

Microprocessors in today's computers continue to get faster and more powerful. From the Intel 80/spl times/86 series to today's Pentium IV, CPUs have greatly improved the performance. Accordingly, their power consumption has increased dramatically , . To reduce the power loss, an evolution began when the high-performance Pentium processor was driven by a nonstandard, less-than-5-V power supply, instead of drawing its power from the 5-V plane on the system board. In order to provide the power as quickly as possible, the voltage regulator (VR), a dedicated dc-dc converter, is placed in close proximity to power the processor. In the beginning, VRs drew power from the 5-V output of the silver box. As the power delivered through the VR increased so dramatically, it became no longer efficient to use the 5-V bus. Then for desktop and workstation applications, the VR input voltage moved to the 12-V output of the silver box. This trend began when Pentium II processors emerged. Today's Pentium IV processors use 12-V-input VRs.
Contribution of the MexXY Multidrug Transporter to Aminoglycoside Resistance in Pseudomonas aeruginosa Clinical Isolates

ABSTRACT MexXY is an aminoglycoside-inducible multidrug transporter shown to contribute to intrinsic and acquired aminoglycoside resistance in laboratory isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. To assess its contribution to aminoglycoside resistance in 14 clinical isolates demonstrating a panaminoglycoside resistance phenotype unlikely to be explained solely by aminoglycoside modification, expression of mexXY by these isolates was examined by reverse transcription-PCR. Elevated levels of mexXY expression were evident for most strains compared with those detected for an aminoglycoside-susceptible control strain, although there was no correlation between mexXY levels and the aminoglycoside MICs for the resistant strains, indicating that if MexXY was playing a role, other factors were also contributing. Deletion of mexXY from 9 of the 14 isolates resulted in enhanced susceptibilities to multiple aminoglycosides, confirming the contribution of this efflux system to the aminoglycoside resistance of these clinical isolates. Still, the impact of MexXY loss varied, with some strains clearly more or less dependent on MexXY for aminoglycoside resistance. Expression of mexXY also varied in these strains, with some showing high-level expression of the efflux genes independent of aminoglycoside exposure (aminoglycoside-independent hyperexpression) and others showing hyperexpression of the efflux genes that was to a greater or lesser degree aminoglycoside dependent. None of these strains carried mutations in mexZ, which encodes a negative regulator of mexXY expression, or in the mexZ-mexXY intergenic region. Thus, mexXY hyperexpression in aminoglycoside-resistant clinical isolates occurs via mutation in one or more as yet unidentified genes.
Subtype-specific addiction of the activated B-cell subset of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma to FOXP1

Significance We demonstrate that forkhead box P1 (FOXP1) is a central transcriptional regulator of the most aggressive activated B cell (ABC) subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the most prevalent non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma worldwide. We used a variety of methods to identify and functionally confirm FOXP1 target genes in DLBCL cell lines and primary clinical isolates. We found that FOXP1 target genes are sufficient to segregate ABC-DLBCL from the more indolent germinal center B-cell (GCB)-DLBCL subtype as well as to identify both hallmark and previously unidentified pathways underlying DLBCL pathology. Our findings extend the role of FOXP1 from a prognostic indicator of unknown mechanism to a driver of ABC-DLBCL neoplasia. High expression of the forkhead box P1 (FOXP1) transcription factor distinguishes the aggressive activated B cell (ABC) diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) subtype from the better prognosis germinal center B-cell (GCB)-DLBCL subtype and is highly correlated with poor outcomes. A genetic or functional role for FOXP1 in lymphomagenesis, however, remains unknown. Here, we report that sustained FOXP1 expression is vital for ABC-DLBCL cell-line survival. Genome-wide analyses revealed direct and indirect FOXP1 transcriptional enforcement of ABC-DLBCL hallmarks, including the classical NF-κB and MYD88 (myeloid differentiation primary response gene 88) pathways. FOXP1 promoted gene expression underlying transition of the GCB cell to the plasmablast—the transient B-cell stage targeted in ABC-DLBCL transformation—by antagonizing pathways distinctive of GCB-DLBCL, including that of the GCB “master regulator,” BCL6 (B-cell lymphoma 6). Cell-line derived FOXP1 target genes that were highly correlated with FOXP1 expression in primary DLBCL accurately segregated the corresponding clinical subtypes of a large cohort of primary DLBCL isolates and identified conserved pathways associated with ABC-DLBCL pathology.
Multimaterial and Multilayer Direct Digital Manufacturing of 3-D Structural Microwave Electronics

Direct digital manufacturing (DDM) is an emerging technology that is finding its place across a wide array of industries and applications as a cost-effective solution for low volume and mass customizable production. This technology encompasses a class of digital manufacturing techniques which can be combined to enable multimaterial fabrication and postprocessing. One of the promising applications for DDM is structural electronics, where lightweight printed plastics provide mechanical support as a fixture, package, or structural member and also host the electrical interconnects and devices, all in a contiguous fashion. Microwave structural electronics is a specific class of such systems for which the printing resolution as well as electrical and surface properties of the materials are especially important. This paper presents the current state of DDM technology, fundamental research into the electrical and mechanical properties of as-printed structures, and novel 3-D printed structures operating from C-band through Ku-band.
Quad-Band Monopole Antenna Including LTE 700 MHz With Magneto-Dielectric Material

A magneto-dielectric (MD) material, which has allowably low magnetic loss and moderate permeability for the wireless communication band, is presented. A quad-band monopole antenna with the MD material is proposed and compared to an antenna with a dielectric material. It is demonstrated that the MD material is advantageous for an antenna miniaturization and bandwidth expansion for the LTE 700 MHz. Measured results of the total efficiencies and envelope correlation coefficients for the multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) antenna with the MD materials are presented. It is demonstrated that the MD antenna has relatively higher efficiencies at the band edges and wider impedance bandwidth than the dielectric antenna for the LTE Band 17, and the developed MD material can be practically applicable to the wireless communication systems.