813 research outputs found
The Great Tibetan Translator: Life and Works of rNgog Blo ldan shes rab (1059â1109)
Second only to the famous Rin chen bzang po (958â1055) in receiving the title of a âGreat Translatorâ (lo chen) during the period of the âLater Propagationâ (phyi dar) of Buddhism in Tibet, rNgog lo tsÄ ba Blo ldan shes rab (or rNgog lo) was one of the most influential figures in the establishment of Tibetan Buddhist scholasticism. After having devoted seventeen years of his life to the study of Sanskrit under scholars in Kashmir, India and Nepal, he became renowned for his more than fifty painstaking translations and revisions of Buddhist scriptures. Apart from being the foremost Tibetan translator of works on Buddhist logic and epistemology (PramÄáča), rNgog loâs activities as a commentator and teacher are regarded as fundamental for the later development of this field of learning in Tibet, and his tradition came to be well-known in Tibetan literature as the ârNgog traditionâ (rngog lugs). This book presents a detailed examination of rNgog loâs life based on the available Tibetan accounts, including his biography (rnam thar) written by Gro lung pa Blo gros âbyung gnas (fl. late 11th to 12th c.). Annotated translations of great parts from the latter work (one of the earliest surviving examples of the rnam thar genre, possibly unique regarding its complicated and elegant style) are included in the book. rNgog loâs oeuvre as a translator and writer is dealt with in detail, making the book an important source on this hitherto little studied scholar and his tradition
DNA nano-mechanics: how proteins deform the double helix
It is a standard exercise in mechanical engineering to infer the external
forces and torques on a body from its static shape and known elastic
properties. Here we apply this kind of analysis to distorted double-helical DNA
in complexes with proteins. We extract the local mean forces and torques acting
on each base-pair of bound DNA from high-resolution complex structures. Our
method relies on known elastic potentials and a careful choice of coordinates
of the well-established rigid base-pair model of DNA. The results are robust
with respect to parameter and conformation uncertainty. They reveal the complex
nano-mechanical patterns of interaction between proteins and DNA. Being
non-trivially and non-locally related to observed DNA conformations, base-pair
forces and torques provide a new view on DNA-protein binding that complements
structural analysis.Comment: accepted for publication in JCP; some minor changes in response to
review 18 pages, 5 figure + supplement: 4 pages, 3 figure
Are Treatment Preferences Relevant in Response to Serotonergic Antidepressants and Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy in Depressed Primary Care Patients? Results from a Randomized Controlled Trial Including a Patients' Choice Arm
Background Little is known about the influence of depressed patients' preferences and expectations about treatments upon treatment outcome We investigated whether better clinical outcome in depressed primary care patients is associated with receiving their preferred treatment Methods Within a randomized placebo-controlled single-centre 10-week trial with 5 arms (sertraline, placebo, cognitive-behavioral group therapy, CBT-G, moderated self-help group control, treatment with sertraline or CBT-G according to patients' choice), outcomes for 145 primary care patients with mild-to-moderate depressive disorders according to DSM-IV criteria were investigated Preference for medication versus psychotherapy was assessed at screening using a single item Post-baseline difference scores for the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD-17) were used to assess treatment outcome (mixed-model repeated-measures regression analysis) Results Depressed patients receiving their preferred treatment (n = 63), whether sertraline or CBT-G, responded significantly better than those who did not receive their preferred therapy (n = 54, p = 0 001) The difference in outcome between both groups was 8 0 points on the HAMD-17 for psychotherapy and 2 9 points on the HAMD-17 for treatment with antidepressants Results were not explained by differences in depression severity or dropout rates Conclusions Patients' relative preference for medication versus psychotherapy should be considered when offering a treatment because receiving the preferred treatment conveys an additional and clinically relevant benefit (HAMD-17 +2 9 points for drugs, +8 0 points for CBT-G) in outcome Copyright (C) 2010 S Karger AG Base
Detecting Quasars in Large-Scale Astronomical Surveys
We present a classification-based approach to identify quasi-stellar radio
sources (quasars) in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and evaluate its performance
on a manually labeled training set. While reasonable results can already be
obtained via approaches working only on photometric data, our experiments
indicate that simple but problem-specific features extracted from spectroscopic
data can significantly improve the classification performance. Since our
approach works orthogonal to existing classification schemes used for building
the spectroscopic catalogs, our classification results are well suited for a
mutual assessment of the approaches' accuracies.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, published in proceedings of 2010 Ninth
International Conference on Machine Learning and Applications (ICMLA) of the
IEE
Review of indicators for cross-sectoral optimization of nosocomial infection prophylaxis â a perspective from structurally- and process-oriented hygiene
In the care of patients, the prevention of nosocomial infections is crucial. For it to be successful, cross-sectoral, interface-oriented hygiene quality management is necessary. The goal is to apply the HACCP (Hazard Assessment and Critical Control Points) concept to hospital hygiene, in order to create a multi-dimensional hygiene control system based on hygiene indicators that will overcome the limitations of a procedurally non-integrated and non-cross-sectoral view of hygiene
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