LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Prevention of tolerance to hemodynamic effects of nitrates with concomitant use of hydralazine in patients with chronic heart failure.

OBJECTIVES
This study was designed to determine the effect of oral hydralazine on the development of nitrate tolerance in patients with chronic congestive heart failure.


BACKGROUND
Early development of nitrate tolerance with either continuous administration of intravenous or topical nitrate preparations or frequent dosing of oral nitrates leads to significant attenuation of nitrate-mediated hemodynamic and anti-ischemic effects. In recent animal experiments, prevention of nitroglycerin-induced hemodynamic tolerance with a concomitant use of hydralazine was demonstrated. This finding may have important clinical relevance.


METHODS
Twenty-eight patients with chronic heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction were randomized to receive either a continuous infusion (24 h) of nitroglycerin alone (group I, 14 patients) or concomitantly with oral hydralazine (75 mg four times a day [group II, 14 patients]). The effect of nitroglycerin in each group was evaluated by analysis of variance for repeated measures. The power of the analysis to detect a 5.4-mm Hg (20%) change in mean pulmonary artery wedge pressure was 90%.


RESULTS
Baseline hemodynamic variables as well as the initial hemodynamic response to nitroglycerin were comparable in both groups. Compared with the initial response to nitroglycerin, a significant attenuation of effect was found in group I at 24 h in mean (+/- SE) pulmonary artery pressure (27 +/- 4% vs. 10 +/- 3%, p < 0.05) and mean pulmonary artery wedge pressure (40 +/- 4% vs. 16 +/- 4%, p < 0.05). In group II, conversely, oral hydralazine prevented nitroglycerin-induced hemodynamic tolerance and resulted in a persistent effect on mean pulmonary artery and wedge pressures throughout the study period (31 +/- 3% vs. 27 +/- 4%, p = 0.13 and 37 +/- 4% vs. 34 +/- 6%, p = 0.40, respectively). In addition, the initial effect on blood pressure was attenuated at 24 h in group I (5 +/- 2% vs. 12 +/- 3%, p < 0.05) but not in group II (15 +/- 3% vs. 17 +/- 2%, p = 0.46).


CONCLUSIONS
In patients with chronic heart failure due to left ventricular systolic dysfunction, the concomitant use of oral hydralazine prevents early development of nitrate tolerance and results in a persistent nitrate-mediated hemodynamic effect on systemic and pulmonary artery and left ventricular filling pressures. These data may support the concurrent use of hydralazine in patients with heart failure treated with organic nitrates.
Avulsion of the Hamstring Muscle Group: A Follow-Up of 6 Adult Non-Athletes with Early Operative Treatment: A Brief Report

Complete proximal avulsions of the hamstring muscle group may cause significant morbidity and loss of function. These pelvis-near musculoskeletal injuries are mostly acquired during sports activities in a hip flexion and knee extension. Here we present a study group of 6 middle-aged to elderly patients suffering a complete proximal hamstring avulsion and following early surgical refixation. Early surgical refixation leads to complete resumption of the activities of daily life without loss of function. The 6 patients (3 men and 3 women) included in this study had an average age of 59.07 ± 4.47 years at the time of injury. All of them suffered a complete avulsion of the hamstring muscle group. Surgical refixation was accomplished with the corkscrew anchor refixation system (Arthrex Manufacturing, Inc., Naples, FL). The cases were retrospectively analyzed using a hip joint evaluation system, the Harris Hip Score, and radiological follow-up by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Data are given as mean ± SEM. Student’s t-test was used for normal distribution of the data. The mean follow-up time was 31.83 ± 18.9 months (range: 10–118 months). All patients were rated not to have a significant difference in function compared with the uninjured side. None of the patients suffered any handicaps resulting from surgery or the injury. A complete consolidation in all patients was observed in the follow-up MRI. Early surgical intervention and subsequent therapy in a complete hamstring avulsion injury may prevent loss of hip-joint stability and prevent the sequalae of degradative hip or vertebral events.
Cycle-to-cycle modeling and sliding mode control of blended-fuel HCCI engine

Fast and robust control of combustion phasing is an important challenge for real-time modelbased control of Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI). In this paper a new discrete Control Oriented Model (COM) for predicting HCCI combustion phasing on a cycle-to-cycle basis is outlined and validated against experimental data from a single cylinder Ricardo engine. The COM has sufficient accuracy for real-time HCCI control and can be implemented in realtime. A Discrete Sliding Mode Controller (DSMC) coupled with a Kalman filter is designed to control combustion phasing by adjusting the ratio of two Primary Reference Fuels (PRFs). The results indicate the DSMC maintains the stability of the engine operation in a wide range of loads and speeds. The DSMC is compared with an empirical Proportional Integral (PI) controller. The results show the SMC outperforms a PI controller particularly in rejecting disturbances while maintaining HCCI combustion phasing in its desired range.
Synthesizing Training Data for Object Detection in Indoor Scenes

Detection of objects in cluttered indoor environments is one of the key enabling functionalities for service robots. The best performing object detection approaches in computer vision exploit deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) to simultaneously detect and categorize the objects of interest in cluttered scenes. Training of such models typically requires large amounts of annotated training data which is time consuming and costly to obtain. In this work we explore the ability of using synthetically generated composite images for training state-ofthe-art object detectors, especially for object instance detection. We superimpose 2D images of textured object models into images of real environments at variety of locations and scales. Our experiments evaluate different superimposition strategies ranging from purely image-based blending all the way to depth and semantics informed positioning of the object models into real scenes. We demonstrate the effectiveness of these object detector training strategies on two publicly available datasets, the GMUKitchens [5] and the Washington RGB-D Scenes v2 [11]. As one observation, augmenting some hand-labeled training data with synthetic examples carefully composed onto scenes yields object detectors with comparable performance to using much more hand-labeled data. Broadly, this work charts new opportunities for training detectors for new objects by exploiting existing object model repositories in either a purely automatic fashion or with only a very small number of human-annotated examples.
Combination Therapy with Metolazone and Loop Diuretics in Outpatients with Refractory Heart Failure: An Observational Study and Review of the Literature

Metolazone is a potent thiazide-like diuretic. It is recommended in severe congestive heart failure (HF). We conducted a review of the existing literature and found that the available information on the use of metolazone in HF is based on studies containing less than 250 patients in total. Nevertheless, metolazone is widely used, often in combination with a loop diuretic. Absorption of metolazone seems to be reduced in HF. Metolazone produces a diuretic response despite a low glomerular filtration rate. A wide dose range of metolazone has been investigated (≤2.5 to 200 mg), leaving no clear dosing recommendation. However, in most studies a low starting dose (≤5 mg) was used. We further report an observational study on 21 patients with refractory systolic HF from our specialized outpatient HF clinic. The aim was to evaluate the effects of metolazone in combination with a loop diuretic in contemporary HF patients. Results: We registered 42 episodes of treatment with metolazone. The maximal dose of metolazone was 5 mg. NYHA functional class improved. A significant reduction during treatment in weight, blood pressure, plasma-sodium and –potassium was seen whereas plasma-BUN and –creatinine increased significantly. Clinically important hypokalemia (<2.5 mM) or hyponatremia (<125 mM) were observed during 10% of the treatment episodes. Conclusion: The literature review and the observational study support the use of low-dose metolazone (≤5 mg) on top of oral loop diuretics, as an effective and relatively safe treatment in contemporary outpatients with refractory HF.
Directivity and apparent velocity of the coseismic ionospheric disturbances observed with a dense GPS array

Coseismic disturbances in ionosphere have been observed after recent thrust earthquakes off the Pacific coast of Japan, with a dense Global Positioning System array. Positive pulses in electron content, as large as several times 10 electrons/m and as long as 4-5 minutes, emerge ~10 minutes after earthquakes and propagate horizontally with apparent velocity of ~1 km/sec, close to the sound velocity at the ionospheric height. They may have been excited by coseismic uplifts of the sea surface initially as upward propagating compressive pulses of atmosphere, which were gradually refracted to propagate horizontally in ionosphere. The propagation has strong north-south asymmetry, and interaction between the movements of charged particles in acoustic waves and geomagnetic fields might have selectively attenuated the northward propagating disturbances.
Prospective study on physical activity and risk of in situ breast cancer.

BACKGROUND
Physical activity has been identified as protective factor for invasive breast cancer risk, whereas comparable studies on in situ carcinoma are rare.


METHODS
The study included data from 283,827 women of the multinational European Prospective Investigation into C7ancer and Nutrition (EPIC)-cohort study. Detailed information on different types of physical activity conducted during the prior year, such as occupational, recreational, and household activity, as well as on important cofactors, was assessed at baseline. Adjusted HRs for in situ breast cancer were estimated by Cox proportional hazards models.


RESULTS
During a median follow-up period of 11.7 years, 1,059 incidents of breast carcinoma in situ were identified. In crude and adjusted multivariable models, no associations were found for occupational, household, and recreational physical activity. Furthermore, total physical activity was not associated with risk of in situ breast cancer. Comparing moderately inactive, moderately active, and active participants with inactive study participants resulted in adjusted HRs of 0.99 [95% confidence interval (CI), 0.83-1.19], 0.99 (95% CI, 0.82-1.20), and 1.07 (95% CI, 0.81-1.40), respectively (P value of trend test: 0.788). No inverse associations were found in any substrata defined by age at diagnosis or body mass index (BMI) status.


CONCLUSIONS
In this large prospective study, we did not find any evidence of an association between physical activity and in situ breast cancer risk. If not by chance, the contrast between our results for carcinoma in situ and the recognized inverse association for invasive breast cancer suggests that physical activity may have stronger effects on proliferation and late stage carcinogenesis.
Graph Metrics for Temporal Networks

Temporal networks, i.e., networks in which the interactions among a set of elementary units change over time, can be modelled in terms of timevarying graphs, which are time-ordered sequences of graphs over a set of nodes. In such graphs, the concepts of node adjacency and reachability crucially depend on the exact temporal ordering of the links. Consequently, all the concepts and metrics proposed and used for the characterisation of static complex networks have to be redefined or appropriately extended to time-varying graphs, in order to take into account the effects of time ordering on causality. In this chapter we V. Nicosia ( ) Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 15 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FD, UK e-mail: V.Nicosia@qmul.ac.uk Laboratorio sui Sistemi Complessi, Scuola Superiore di Catania, Via Valdisavoia 9, 95123 Catania, Italy J. Tang C. Mascolo Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 15 JJ Thomson Avenue, Cambridge CB3 0FD, UK M. Musolesi ( ) School of Computer Science, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK e-mail: m.musolesi@cs.bham.ac.uk G. Russo Dipartimento di Matematica e Informatica, Universitá di Catania, Via S. Sofia 64, 95123 Catania, Italy V. Latora Laboratorio sui Sistemi Complessi, Scuola Superiore di Catania, Via Valdisavoia 9, 95123 Catania, Italy School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary, University of London, E1 4NS London, UK Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia and INFN, Universitá di Catania, Via S. Sofia 64, 95123 Catania, Italy P. Holme and J. Saramäki (eds.), Temporal Networks, Understanding Complex Systems, DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-36461-7 2, © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013 15 16 V. Nicosia et al. discuss how to represent temporal networks and we review the definitions of walks, paths, connectedness and connected components valid for graphs in which the links fluctuate over time. We then focus on temporal node–node distance, and we discuss how to characterise link persistence and the temporal small-world behaviour in this class of networks. Finally, we discuss the extension of classic centrality measures, including closeness, betweenness and spectral centrality, to the case of time-varying graphs, and we review the work on temporal motifs analysis and the definition of modularity for temporal graphs.
Describing primary care encounters: the Primary Care Network Survey and the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to describe clinical encounters in primary care research networks and compare them with those of the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey (NAMCS).


METHODS
Twenty US primary care research networks collected data on clinicians and patient encounters using the Primary Care Network Survey (PRINS) Clinician Interview (PRINS-1) and Patient Record (PRINS-2), which were newly developed based on NAMCS tools. Clinicians completed a PRINS-1 about themselves and a PRINS-2 for each of 30 patient visits. Data included patient characteristics; reason for the visit, diagnoses, and services ordered or performed. We compared PRINS data with data obtained from primary care physicians during 5 cycles of NAMCS (1997-2001). Data were weighted; PRINS reflects participating networks and NAMCS provides national estimates.


RESULTS
By discipline, 89% of PRINS clinicians were physicians, 4% were physicians in residency training, 5% were advanced practice nurses/nurse-practitioners, and 2% were physician's assistants. The majority (53%) specialized in pediatrics (34% specialized in family medicine, 9% in internal medicine, and 4% in other specialties). All NAMCS clinicians were physicians, with 20% specializing in pediatrics. When NAMCS and PRINS visits were compared, larger proportions of PRINS visits involved preventive care and were made by children, members of minority racial groups, and individuals who did not have private health insurance. A diagnostic or other assessment service was performed for 99% of PRINS visits and 76% of NAMCS visits (95% confidence interval, 74.9%-78.0%). A preventive or counseling/education service was provided at 64% of PRINS visits and 37% of NAMCS visits (95% confidence interval, 35.1%-38.0%).


CONCLUSIONS
PRINS presents a view of diverse primary care visits and differs from NAMCS in its methods and findings. Further examinations of PRINS data are needed to assess their usefulness for describing encounters that occur in primary care research networks.
Multiethnic genome-wide association study of cerebral white matter hyperintensities on MRI.

BACKGROUND
The burden of cerebral white matter hyperintensities (WMH) is associated with an increased risk of stroke, dementia, and death. WMH are highly heritable, but their genetic underpinnings are incompletely characterized. To identify novel genetic variants influencing WMH burden, we conducted a meta-analysis of multiethnic genome-wide association studies.


METHODS AND RESULTS
We included 21 079 middle-aged to elderly individuals from 29 population-based cohorts, who were free of dementia and stroke and were of European (n=17 936), African (n=1943), Hispanic (n=795), and Asian (n=405) descent. WMH burden was quantified on MRI either by a validated automated segmentation method or a validated visual grading scale. Genotype data in each study were imputed to the 1000 Genomes reference. Within each ethnic group, we investigated the relationship between each single-nucleotide polymorphism and WMH burden using a linear regression model adjusted for age, sex, intracranial volume, and principal components of ancestry. A meta-analysis was conducted for each ethnicity separately and for the combined sample. In the European descent samples, we confirmed a previously known locus on chr17q25 (P=2.7×10(-19)) and identified novel loci on chr10q24 (P=1.6×10(-9)) and chr2p21 (P=4.4×10(-8)). In the multiethnic meta-analysis, we identified 2 additional loci, on chr1q22 (P=2.0×10(-8)) and chr2p16 (P=1.5×10(-8)). The novel loci contained genes that have been implicated in Alzheimer disease (chr2p21 and chr10q24), intracerebral hemorrhage (chr1q22), neuroinflammatory diseases (chr2p21), and glioma (chr10q24 and chr2p16).


CONCLUSIONS
We identified 4 novel genetic loci that implicate inflammatory and glial proliferative pathways in the development of WMH in addition to previously proposed ischemic mechanisms.
A Novel Ultra-Low Power (ULP) Low Noise Amplifier using Differential Inductor Feedback

A novel ultra-low power (ULP) low noise amplifier (LNA) is proposed for low-power radio-frequency (RF) wireless radios. Using the differential inductor feedback structure along with the neutralizing capacitor, this configuration doubles the effective gm of the input transistor, while canceling out the feed forward and LO leakage through the gate-drain capacitor. In this design, the input device is biased to operate in moderate inversion region to achieve microwatt power dissipation. Experimental results indicate a power dissipation of 100muW, a noise-figure (NF) of 3.9dB, and a forward gain of 16.8dB. The LNA also exhibits an 1IP3 of -11.2dBm and the input referred -1dB compression point of -21dBm. The circuit was fabricated in Jazz Semiconductor's CMOS 0.18mum process and was powered up using a supply voltage of 1V. For comparison purpose, a ULP common-gate LNA was also designed and fabricated using the same process. Experimental results show that the proposed LNA exhibits higher gain, lower NF, and better linearity
Effects of Long-Term Acupuncture Treatment on Resting-State Brain Activity in Migraine Patients: A Randomized Controlled Trial on Active Acupoints and Inactive Acupoints

BACKGROUND
Acupuncture has been commonly used for preventing migraine attacks and relieving pain during a migraine, although there is limited knowledge on the physiological mechanism behind this method. The objectives of this study were to compare the differences in brain activities evoked by active acupoints and inactive acupoints and to investigate the possible correlation between clinical variables and brain responses.


METHODS AND RESULTS
A randomized controlled trial and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) were conducted. A total of eighty migraineurs without aura were enrolled to receive either active acupoint acupuncture or inactive acupoint acupuncture treatment for 8 weeks, and twenty patients in each group were randomly selected for the fMRI scan at the end of baseline and at the end of treatment. The neuroimaging data indicated that long-term active acupoint therapy elicited a more extensive and remarkable cerebral response compared with acupuncture at inactive acupoints. Most of the regions were involved in the pain matrix, lateral pain system, medial pain system, default mode network, and cognitive components of pain processing. Correlation analysis showed that the decrease in the visual analogue scale (VAS) was significantly related to the increased average Regional homogeneity (ReHo) values in the anterior cingulate cortex in the two groups. Moreover, the decrease in the VAS was associated with increased average ReHo values in the insula which could be detected in the active acupoint group.


CONCLUSIONS
Long-term active acupoint therapy and inactive acupoint therapy have different brain activities. We postulate that acupuncture at the active acupoint might have the potential effect of regulating some disease-affected key regions and the pain circuitry for migraine, and promote establishing psychophysical pain homeostasis.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
Chinese Clinical Trial Registry ChiCTR-TRC-13003635.
Hidden semi-Markov models

Article history: Received 14 April 2009 Available online 17 November 2009
Detection and localization of sybil nodes in VANETs

Sybil attacks have been regarded as a serious security threat to ad hoc networks and sensor networks. They may also impair the potential applications of VANETs (Vehicular Ad hoc Networks) by creating an illusion of traffic congestion. In this paper, we present a lightweight security scheme for detecting and localizing Sybil nodes in VANETs, based on statistic analysis of signal strength distribution. Our scheme is a distributed and localized approach, in which each vehicle on a road can perform the detection of potential Sybil vehicles nearby by verifying their claimed positions. We first introduce a basic signal-strength-based position verification scheme. However, the basic scheme proves to be inaccurate and vulnerable to spoof attacks. In order to compensate for the weaknesses of the basic scheme, we propose a technique to prevent Sybil nodes from covering up for each other. In this technique, traffic patterns and support from roadside base stations are used to our advantage. We, then, propose two statistic algorithms to enhance the accuracy of position verification. The algorithms can detect potential Sybil attacks by observing the signal strength distribution of a suspect node over a period of time. The statistic nature of our algorithms significantly reduces the verification error rate. Finally, we conduct simulations to explore the feasibility of our scheme.
Teaching intonation in discourse using speech visualization technology

Intonation, long thought to be a key to effectiveness in spoken language, is more and more commonly addressed in English language teaching through the use of speech visualization technology. While the use of visualization technology is a crucial advance in the teaching of intonation, such teaching can be further enhanced by connecting technology to an understanding of how intonation functions in discourse. This study examines the intonation of four readers reading out-of-context sentences and then the same sentences as part of coherent discourse-level texts. Two discourse-level uses of intonation, the use of intonational paragraph markers (paratones) and the distribution of tonal patterns, are discussed and implications for teaching intonation are addressed. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.