Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
People ageing with spinal cord injury in New Zealand: a hidden population? The need for a spinal cord injury registry.

AIMS To identify and establish a research database of ageing New Zealand people who sustained a traumatic or non-traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) before 1990. METHODS All living New Zealand residents incurring a SCI before 1 January 1990 were eligible. A co-ordinated consultation with apposite New Zealand organisations was undertaken to identify and access existing SCI databases, and remove duplicate or ineligible records. RESULTS 1,400 people were identified. Using the national patient information management system to determine eligibility, 1,174 people remained after exclusions; 600 (51.1%) through the Auckland Spinal Rehabilitation Unit and 574 (48.9%) through the Burwood Spinal Unit. Common to both databases were people's National Health Index number, contact details, basic demographic data, date of injury, and neurological level of SCI. CONCLUSIONS An unexpectedly large SCI population was uncovered; a population largely hidden due to the uncoordinated, fragmented and inconsistently collected information held within different organisations. As life expectancy rapidly increases for those with SCI, coupled with an accelerated ageing general population, this hidden SCI population can be expected to grow. A single, well-managed and coordinated national SCI registry is urgently needed in New Zealand for planning and delivery of services, especially for those developing age-related complex interwoven secondary conditions.
Robust Design of a Solid-State Pulsed Power Modulator Based on Modular Stacking Structure

This paper describes the design of a robust high-voltage solid-state pulsed power modulator (SSPPM), which requires reliable series stacking and driving of a number of semiconductor switches. For voltage balancing against overvoltage during both at transient and at steady-state, the power-cell-based modular stacking structure consists of an energy storage capacitor, bypass diode, and switching device (such as an insulated-gate bipolar transistor or a metal-oxide-semiconductor field-effect transistor (mosfet)). In addition to the reliable voltage balancing of each switching device, the modular power cell stacking structure provides a fault-tolerant design by allowing individual protection circuit for each switching device. In this paper, the inclusion of a compensating third winding is proposed. This compensating third winding solves the voltage unbalance issue, which results from difference of leakage inductance of separate located transformer core, using magnetic flux compensation. A protection method using this compensating winding is also suggested to detect abnormal occurrences in each power cell under operating conditions. Additionally, an arc current protection circuit to ensure continuous operation of the SSPPM is designed. Through simulation and experimental results of tests on the SSPPM with the structure outlined earlier, it is verified that the proposed design can be used effectively, as it exhibits both robustness and reliability.
Competitiveness and Wage Bargaining Reform in Italy

The growth of Italian exports has lagged that of euro area peers. Against the backdrop of unit labor costs that have risen faster than those in euro area peers, this paper examines whether there is a competitiveness challenge in Italy and evaluates the framework of wage bargaining. Wages are set at the sectoral level and extended nationally. However, they do not respond well to firm-specific productivity, regional disparities, or skill mismatches. Nominally rigid wages have also implied adjustment through lower profits and employment. Wage developments explain about 45 percent of the manufacturing unit labor cost gap with Germany. In a search-and-match DSGE model of the Italian labor market, this paper finds substantial gains from moving from sectoral- to firm-level wage setting of at least 3.5 percentage points lower unemployment (or higher employment) rate and a notable improvement in Italy’s competitiveness over the medium term.
A transform-and-forward scheme for relay networks

We present a new means of implementing distributed space-time block codes (STBC) for wireless amplify-and-forward (AF) relay networks. In the proposed method, each source antenna transmits one column of an STBC matrix derived from a generalized complex orthogonal design (GCOD). Such designs were originally intended for single hop environments. At each relay antenna, a precoding matrix and a fixed gain amplification factor are applied before the resulting signal is forwarded to the next set of nodes. The precoding operation at the relays rearranges the elements of the received vector in such a way that the equivalent STBC code observed at the destination is quasi-orthogonal. The characteristics and one structure for the precoding matrices are proposed. Initially, a dual hop system is considered for convenience. We then demonstrate how the scheme can be readily extended to multihop networks. We refer to this type of relay system as the transform-and-forward scheme. Simulation results demonstrate the performance of the technique over an existing approach.
Biochemical and Serological Characterization of Hydrogen Sulfide-Positive Variants of Escherichia coli

Over 200 H2S-positive, gram-negative rods have been characterized by standard biochemical and serological techniques. The results indicate that the isolates are H2S-positive variants of Escherichia coli. Comparison of the variants with biochemically typical E. coli suggests that they represent a rather limited subgroup within the species. The H2S-positive strains were more resistant to antibiotics than the typical strains; 54% of the H2S-positive isolates were resistant to three or more antibiotics compared with only 25% of the typical strains. Similar differences were also seen in the distribution of O and H antigens and in the results of certain biochemical tests.
BLV and HTLV-I: their unique genomic structures and evolutionary relationship.

We have compared the sequences of the entire genomes of bovine leukemia virus (BLV) and human T-cell leukemia virus type I (HTLV-I). Both the gag and pol genes show overall strong homologies between the two retroviruses, indicating their close evolutionary relationship. However, a surface glycoprotein portion of the env gene shows little if any homology, probably reflecting a difference in their host range. These retroviruses appear to harbour a gag precursor-cleaving protease, a not yet experimentally identified viral protein, between their gag and pol genes. Most interestingly, the 3' end portion of the BLV genome (designated pXBL) contains a long open reading frame that has a typical protein-coding property. The product of this open reading frame has now been identified as a protein of 38,000 daltons, which is produced by a spliced mRNA. We note that its amino acid sequence shows appreciable homology, especially in its N-terminal quarter, to that of the HTLV-I counterpart (pX), and we thus suggest that BLV pXBL and HTLV-I pX has diverged from a common ancestral gene. Finally and very importantly, comparisons of the best conserved pol sequences and overall genomic organizations between BLV and several other oncoviruses allow us to propose that BLV and HTLV-I constitute a novel group of Oncovirinae, designated here as type "E. "
The Memory Cytotoxic T-Lymphocyte (CTL) Response to Human Cytomegalovirus Infection Contains Individual Peptide-Specific CTL Clones That Have Undergone Extensive Expansion In Vivo

ABSTRACT Human cytomegalovirus (HCMV)-specific CD8+ cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTL) appear to play an important role in the control of virus replication and in protection against HCMV-related disease. We have previously reported high frequencies of memory CTL precursors (CTLp) specific to the HCMV tegument protein pp65 in the peripheral blood of healthy virus carriers. In some individuals, the CTL response to this protein is focused on only a single epitope, whereas in other virus carriers CTL recognized multiple epitopes which we identified by using synthetic peptides. We have analyzed the clonal composition of the memory CTL response to four of these pp65 epitopes by sequencing the T-cell receptors (TCR) of multiple independently derived epitope-specific CTL clones, which were derived by formal single-cell cloning or from clonal CTL microcultures. In all cases, we have observed a high degree of clonal focusing: the majority of CTL clones specific to a defined pp65 peptide from any one virus carrier use only one or two different TCRs at the level of the nucleotide sequence. Among virus carriers who have the same major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I allele, we observed that CTL from different donors that recognize the same peptide-MHC complex often used the same Vβ segment, although other TCR gene segments and CDR3 length were not in general conserved. We have also examined the clonal composition of CTL specific to pp65 peptides in asymptomatic human immunodeficiency virus-infected individuals. We have observed a similarly focused peptide-specific CTL response. Thus, the large population of circulating HCMV peptide-specific memory CTLp in virus carriers in fact contains individual CTL clones that have undergone extensive clonal expansion in vivo.
Bank Competition, Financial Development and Growth of Financially Dependent Industries: Fresh Evidence from China

Abstract We empirically examine the role of the banking market structure and financial development for the growth of manufacturing and the financially dependent industries in China over the period of 1999–2014. We use both structural and non-structural approaches to assess the banking market structure and relate them to the growth of the manufacturing industries. The results of the study indicate that bank competition inspires industrial growth, particularly the growth of the financially dependent industries. Our findings further suggest that bank concentration undermines the growth of manufacturing industries in general and growth of the financially dependent industries in particular. These results are consistent across a number of sensitivity checks covering alternative measures of financial dependence, institutional factors such as property rights, quality of accounting standards and bank ownership and endogeneity consideration.
Instabilities in current-mode controlled switching voltage regulators

A survey of the instabilities of switching voltage regulators with different types of current-mode controllers (including LC3 or constant-hysteresis; MC2 or constant-frequency and constant off-time versions) is presented. Apart from the well-known open-loop oscillation of the constant frequency regulator above 50% duty ratio, other instabilities can also arise by increasing the ac loop-gain. At the constant-hysteresis controller the operating frequency changes, at the other types continuously or hysteretically arising subharmonic oscillation appears. These phenomena can be analysed by taking into account the effect of the amplified and fed-back ripple voltage to the operation of the current comparator. Calculations were accomplished in order to establish maximum usable ac gains for the three basic power converter topologies (buck, boost and buck-boost) and for the above mentioned controllers. Experiments were also carried out for several particular power circuit and controller combinations showing close correspondence to theoretical results.
Single Gene–Mediated Shift in Pollinator Attraction in Petunia[W]

Animal-mediated pollination is essential in plant reproductive biology and is often associated with pollination syndromes, sets of floral traits, such as color, scent, shape, or nectar content. Selection by pollinators is often considered a key factor in floral evolution and plant speciation. Our aim is the identification and characterization of the genetic changes that caused the evolution of divergent pollination syndromes in closely related plant species. We focus on ANTHOCYANIN2 (AN2), a well-defined myb-type transcription factor that is a major determinant of flower color variation between Petunia integrifolia and Petunia axillaris. Analysis of sequence variation in AN2 in wild P. axillaris accessions showed that loss-of-function alleles arose at least five times independently. DNA sequence analysis was complemented by functional assays for pollinator preference using genetic introgressions and transgenics. These results show that AN2 is a major determinant of pollinator attraction. Therefore, changes in a single gene cause a major shift in pollination biology and support the notion that the adaptation of a flowering plant to a new pollinator type may involve a limited number of genes of large effect. Gene identification and analysis of molecular evolution in combination with behavioral and ecological studies can ultimately unravel the evolutionary genetics of pollination syndromes.
Membranes for bioelectrochemical systems: challenges and research advances

Increasing energy demand has been a big challenge for current society, as the fossil fuel sources are gradually decreasing. Hence, development of renewable and sustainable energy sources for the future is considered one of the top priorities in national strategic plans. Bioenergy can meet future energy requirements – renewability, sustainability, and even carbon-neutrality. Bioenergy production from wastes and wastewaters is especially attractive because of dual benefits of energy generation and contaminant stabilization. There are several bioenergy technologies using wastes and wastewaters as electron donor, which include anaerobic digestion, dark biohydrogen fermentation, biohydrogen production using photosynthetic microorganisms, and bioelectrochemical systems (BESs). Among them BES seems to be very promising as we can produce a variety of value-added products from wastes and wastewaters, such as electric power, hydrogen gas, hydrogen peroxide, acetate, ethanol etc. Most of the traditional BES uses a membrane to separate the anode and cathode chamber, which is essential for improving microbial metabolism on the anode and the recovery of value-added products on the cathode. Performance of BES lacking a membrane can be seriously deteriorated, due to oxygen diffusion or substantial loss of synthesized products. For this reason, usage of a membrane seems essential to facilitate BES performance. However, a membrane can bring several technical challenges to BES application compared to membrane-less BES. These challenges include poor proton permeability, substrate loss, oxygen back diffusion, pH gradient, internal resistance, biofouling, etc. This paper aims to review the major technical barriers associated with membranes and future research directions for their application in BESs.
Boosting the Fertilizer Production in Kenya: a CGE analysis

Food security remains a key challenge in many Sub-Saharan African countries and in Kenya in particular. Kenya addresses this concern with a noteworthy policy mix, aiming at giving to the agricultural sector a leading task in improving food security. In this paper, through a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model specifically modified for the context of developing country analyses, we address the impacts of the construction of a new fertilizer plant on the agricultural sector and the rest of the economy. For the purpose of the study, a desegregated version of a 2014 Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) has been developed. Results suggests that increasing domestic production of fertilizers do not fully achieve the objectives of reducing rural poverty and increasing agricultural production without complementary policies that help small-holder farmers to overcome the backward technology trap and give them better access to input and output markets.
Indikator Makroekonomi dan Pengaruhnya Terhadap Indeks Saham Syariah di Indonesia

This study aimed to analyze the influence of variables of money supply (M2), constumer price index (CPI), exchange rate (ER), BI Rate (BIRATE), Sertifikat Bank Indonesia Syariah (SBIS) with Shari'ah Indonesia Stock Index (ISSI). To see that effect will be made by the tests in stages Vector Autoregression. The data used in this research is secondary data during the period January 2012 until December 2016. The finding in long run shows that ISSI is positively significantly affected by CPI and it is negatively significantly affected by M2, ER and BIRATE. Granger-Causality test resulth shows that there are causality between CPI with BIRATE and CPI with SBIS, but there are three undirectional relationship which includes ISSI to ER, M2 to BIRATE and SBIS to BIRATE. DOI: 10.15408/ess.v8i2. 7219
Arrangement of late RNAs transcribed from a 7.1-kilobase EcoRI vaccinia virus DNA fragment

Three late transcripts have been mapped to the vaccinia virus 7.1-kilobase (kb) EcoRI F fragment, which is located approximately 85 kb from the left end of the viral genome. Hybrid selection and translation of RNA have demonstrated that these mRNAs encode three polypeptides with apparent molecular weights of 32,000 (32K), 26K, and 19K. The transcripts encoding the 32K and 19K polypeptides are synthesized in a leftward direction and overlap each other as well as the RNA encoding the early 110K polypeptide. In addition, the RNA encoding the 32K polypeptide also overlaps an early transcript of 1.35 kb (see accompanying paper). The transcript encoding the 26K polypeptide overlaps the early 2.45-, 0.6- to 0.7-, and 1.7-kb RNAs, and all four mRNAs are transcribed from left to right. The protein coding sequences for the 26K and 32K polypeptides lie outside the 7.1-kb DNA fragment. Due to their heterogeneity in size, each of the three late transcripts is undetectable as a distinct size by filter hybridization. In addition, although S1 mapping has detected the 5' terminus of the late RNA which maps entirely within this fragment, it has been unable to size and locate the 3' ends of all three transcripts, and this result indicates that the heterodisperse size of the RNAs is due to heterogeneity at the 3' ends of these transcripts. The cause of this heterogeneity in termination of transcription is not known.
Extreme Web Caching for Faster Web Browsing

Modern web pages are very complex; each web page consists of hundreds of objects that are linked from various servers all over the world. While mechanisms such as caching reduce the overall number of end-to-end requests saving bandwidth and loading time, there is still a large portion of content that is re-fetched -- despite not having changed. In this demo, we present Extreme Cache, a web caching architecture that enhances the web browsing experience through a smart pre-fetching engine. Our extreme cache tries to predict the rate of change of web page objects to bring cacheable content closer to the user.
CURRENT KNOWLEDGE AND TRENDS IN AGE-RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION: Genetics, Epidemiology, and Prevention

Purpose: To address the most dynamic and current issues concerning human genetics, risk factors, pharmacoeconomics, and prevention regarding age-related macular degeneration. Methods: An online review of the database Pubmed and Ovid was performed, searching for the key words: age-related macular degeneration, AMD, pharmacoeconomics, risk factors, VEGF, prevention, genetics and their compound phrases. The search was limited to articles published since 1985 to date. All returned articles were carefully screened and their references were manually reviewed for additional relevant data. The webpage www.clinicaltrials. gov was also accessed in search of relevant research trials. Results: A total of 366 articles were reviewed, including 64 additional articles extracted from the references and 25 webpages and online databases from different institutions. At the end, only 244 references were included in this review. Conclusion: Age-related macular degeneration is a complex multifactorial disease that has an uneven manifestation around the world but with one common denominator, it is increasing and spreading. The economic burden that this disease poses in developed nations will increase in the coming years. Effective preventive therapies need to be developed in the near future.
The Changing Role of Non-Opioid Analgesic Techniques in the Management of Postoperative Pain

Given the expanding role of ambulatory surgery and the need to facilitate an earlier hospital discharge, improving postoperative pain control has become an increasingly important issue for all anesthesiologists. As a result of the shift from inpatient to outpatient surgery, the use of IV patient-controlled analgesia and continuous epidural infusions has steadily declined. To manage the pain associated with increasingly complex surgical procedures on an ambulatory or short-stay basis, anesthesiologists and surgeons should prescribe multimodal analgesic regimens that use non-opioid analgesics (e.g., local anesthetics, nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs, cyclooxygenase inhibitors, acetaminophen, ketamine, α 2-agonists) to supplement opioid analgesics. The opioid-sparing effects of these compounds may lead to reduced nausea, vomiting, constipation, urinary retention, respiratory depression and sedation. Therefore, use of non-opioid analgesic techniques can lead to an improved quality of recovery for surgical patients.
Abdominal obesity and subclinical vascular damage in the elderly

Objective The aim of the present study was to assess the relationships between metabolic syndrome, its components and arterial stiffness as well as evaluate the waist measurement that would accurately identify subclinical vascular damage. Methods Ninety-one participants (16 men) free of cardiovascular diseases with mean age 68.5 ± 5.1 (range 60–80 years) and a BMI of 27.73 ± 3.89 were included in the study. In each participant, we evaluated BMI, waist circumference, SBP and DBP, fasting glucose, cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, triglycerides and body composition by dual energy X-ray absorptiometry. Arterial stiffness was assessed by carotid-femoral and carotid-radial pulse wave velocity. We defined subclinical vascular damage as pulse wave velocity higher than 12 m/s. Metabolic syndrome was defined using both International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) criteria. Results Significant associations were observed between age, triglycerides, waist circumference, trunk fat, SBP and DBP and carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity. Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity but not carotid-radial pulse wave velocity was significantly higher in patients with metabolic syndrome than in those without metabolic syndrome, independently of its definition (IDF or NCEP). By using waist circumference cut-off suggested by IDF, it was possible to recognize a higher percentage of patients with subclinical vascular damage than by using those suggested by NCEP (88.5 vs. 50%, P = 0.01 and 0.35, respectively). Conclusion These data show that in apparently healthy elderly, metabolic syndrome is strongly associated with subclinical vascular damage. Abdominal obesity and hypertriglyceridemia are also significant predictors of vascular damage. More conservative values of waist cut-off, as suggested by IDF, seem to be able to identify a larger group of patients with subclinical vascular damage, who should be better taken in consideration for treatment.