LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Culture-negative subacute bacterial endocarditis masquerades as granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Wegener’s granulomatosis) involving both the kidney and lung

BACKGROUND
Subacute bacterial endocarditis (SBE) occasionally exhibits positive cytoplasmic anti-neutrophil cytoplasmic antibody (c-ANCA) of the anti-proteinase-3 (PR-3) type. Clinically, it mimics ANCA-associated vasculitis, such as Wegener's disease with glomerulonephritis. Lung abscesses are the most common manifestation of lung involvement. We herein report a case of culture-negative SBE strongly c-ANCA/PR3-positive accompanied by pulmonary involvement and glomerulonephritis. In this case, we took biopsies of both the lung and kidney, although renal biopsy is usually preferred over lung biopsy. The lung biopsy showed severe alveolar capillaritis, suggesting vasculitis consistent with polyangiitis. The renal biopsy revealed glomerulonephritis with a membranoproliferative pattern. To our knowledge, this is the first such reported case.


CASE PRESENTATION
A 68-year-old Chinese male patient presented to our hospital with a fever, cough, chest pain, and recurrent peripheral edema. He had a past medical history significant for treated schistosomiasis 20 years previously. Physical examination revealed palpable purpura, mild hypertension, hepatosplenomegaly, and a holosystolic cardiac murmur (Levine 2/6). Echocardiography showed tricuspid valve vegetations with moderate to severe regurgitation. Serum c-ANCA/PR3 and cryoglobulin were strongly positive. Renal biopsy results indicated membranoproliferative glomerulonephritis with several crescents. Chest CT revealed multiple intraparenchymal and subpleural nodules, and lung biopsy showed polyangiitis. The patient's ANCA titers, glomerulonephritis, and pulmonary injury all resolved after antibiotic therapy.


CONCLUSION
SBE may present with positive c-ANCA/PR3, multiple pulmonary nodules, pulmonary polyangiitis, and glomerulonephritis clinically mimicking granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Wegener's granulomatosis).
Business Process Re-engineering (BPR): A Tool for Improved Customer Service in Municipalities

Executive Summary This Paper attempts to identify the theoretical and conceptual concepts regarding the appropriateness of a private sector change management tool known as business process re-engineering (BPR) in local government. It will provide the reader with an understanding of the issues that may be involved in implementing business process re-engineering, a process originally developed in a private sector business context, in a public sector municipal context. Based upon an analysis of secondary and primary research, the Paper has identified evaluation criteria that can be used to measure the success or failure of business process re-engineering in the municipal context. Next the writer examines the relevancy and adaptability of business process re-engineering to local government based on case study findings. Given the primary and secondary research collected this Paper has drawn several conclusions about the factors that may contribute to the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of business process re-engineering in Ontario municipalities. A survey of 26 municipalities has shown that no clearly defined process or format exists for conducting re-engineering in Ontario municipalities. Although much of the secondary research pointed towards the failure of business process re-engineering at the public sector level, this writer could find little primary research evidence to support this theory. More research is required to determine if in fact the change processes that have occurred to date in municipalities that are perceived as having undergone a BPR are in fact a version of the traditional BPR. The analysis of whether the BPR model works in local government is still inconclusive and requires more research. One key finding from the four case studies was that the BPR processes resulted in a process improvement or process redesign rather than an organizational / transformation. Mississauga were using a similar process for conducting their BPR project. The challenges experienced by these municipalities were very similar to the issues identified in the private sector. Those municipalities who had completed the BPR identified numerous cost savings, efficiencies and improved customer service. The structure of this paper is as follows: Chapter 1 provides the research objectives and methodology; and the context, rationale and relevancy of the research topic to local government. Chapter 2 investigates the theoretical origins and definitions of BPR. Chapter 3 presents an overview of the BPR process, and it includes case studies and evaluation criteria to determine the success or failure of BPR project. Chapter 4 provides an analysis of the …
Pattern and consequences of krathom (Mitragyna speciosa Korth.) use among male villagers in southern Thailand: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND
Krathom is currently the most popular illicit substance in use in southern Thailand. Research regarding its effects and health impacts is scarce. This study explored the pattern of krathom use and users' perceptions of the consequences of its use.


METHODS
An in-depth qualitative interview. A group of 34 self-identified regular users, occasional users, non-users and ex-users of krathom was used in this study. Health volunteer as a key-contact person helped the researcher to invite villagers to participate in the study using snowballing technique. The process of data analysis was guided by Strauss and Corbin's grounded theory.


RESULTS
The core category, 'Understanding krathom use', was generated from three inter-related categories: (i) reasons for continuing krathom use, (ii) the way of applying krathom, and (iii) perceiving positive and realizing the negative effects of krathom use and their 18 subcategories.


CONCLUSIONS
The study findings reveal the importance of considering krathom use from the perspective and belief of the villagers. Krathom is addictive with its own characteristic symptoms and signs. The results provide support for policy interventions to control the availability of krathom according to the community context. In addition, krathom misuse by adolescents must be considered.
Transdermal scopolamine for the prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting: a systematic review and meta-analysis.

BACKGROUND
Transdermal scopolamine (TDS) is a potential long-acting prophylactic antiemetic initially developed to prevent motion sickness. TDS is a centrally acting anticholinergic agent that was approved in 2001 by the US Food and Drug Administration for the prevention of postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV). Although TDS has been reported to be clinically efficacious in the prevention of PONV, several adverse events (AEs), such as sedation, dry mouth, blurred vision, central cholinergic syndrome, and confusion (particularly in elderly patients with mild cognitive impairment), are potential concerns.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to explore the efficacy and tolerability of TDS in the prevention of PONV in adults.


METHODS
A systematic search of PubMed, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library for randomized controlled trials in adults that compared the effects of TDS and placebo on postoperative nausea, vomiting, and PONV was conducted in March 2009, and an update was conducted in July 2010. Without any language restrictions, a search with the following terms was performed: postoperative, postoperative, postanesthe*, postanaesthe*, post-anesthe*, post-anaesthe*, anesthesia, anaesthesia, surgery, surgeries, surgical, nausea, vomiting, emesis, retching, scopolamine, and hyoscine. Identified studies were then hand-searched for further relevant literature.


RESULTS
Data from 25 randomized controlled trials were analyzed (N = 3298). In the postanesthesia care unit, TDS was associated with a significantly reduced risk for postoperative nausea compared with placebo (relative risk [RR] = 0.77; 95% CI, 0.61-0.98; P = 0.03). TDS was also associated with a significantly reduced risk for postoperative nausea (RR = 0.59; 95% CI, 0.48-0.73; P < 0.001), postoperative vomiting (RR = 0.68; 95% CI, 0.61-0.76; P < 0.001), and PONV (RR = 0.73; 95% CI, 0.60-0.88; P = 0.001) during the first 24 hours after the start of anesthesia. TDS appeared to be effective compared with placebo in the prevention of postoperative nausea when treatment was initiated the night before (early application) (RR = 0.56; 95% CI, 0.41-0.75; P < 0.001) or on the day of surgery (late application) (RR = 0.61; 95% CI, 0.47-0.79; P < 0.001). TDS was associated with a higher prevalence of visual disturbances at 24 to 48 hours compared with placebo (RR = 3.35; 95% CI, 1.78-6.32). Analyses of confusion and other AEs did not show a significant association with TDS.


CONCLUSIONS
In this systematic review and metaanalysis, TDS was associated with significant reductions in PONV with both early and late patch application during the first 24 hours after the start of anesthesia. TDS was associated with a higher prevalence of visual disturbances at 24 to 48 hours after surgery, but no other AEs, compared with placebo.
An external validation study of nomograms designed to predict isolated loco-regional and distant endometrial cancer recurrences: how applicable are they?

Background:To externally validate and assess the robustness of two nomograms to predict the recurrence risk of women with endometrial cancer (EC).Methods:Using an independent, multicentre external patient cohort we assessed the discrimination and calibration of two nomograms – the 3-year isolated loco-regional (ILRR) and distant (DR) recurrence nomograms – in women with surgically treated stage I–III EC.Results:Two hundred and seventy one eligible women were identified from two university hospital databases and the Senti-Endo trial. The median follow-up and initial recurrence time were 38.1 (range: 12–69) and 22.0 (range: 8.3–55) months, respectively. The overall recurrence rate was 13.8% (37 out of 271). Predictive accuracy according to the discrimination was 0.69 (95% CI, 0.58–0.79) and 0.66 (95% CI, 0.60–0.71) for the 3-year ILRR and DR nomograms, respectively. The correspondence between observed recurrence rate and the nomogram predictions suggests a moderate calibration of the nomograms in the validation cohort.Conclusion:The nomograms were externally validated and shown to be partly generalisable to a new and independent patient population. The tools need to be improved by including information on the lymph node status and adjuvant therapies.
How to gamify software engineering

Software development, like any prolonged and intellectually demanding activity, can negatively affect the motivation of developers. This is especially true in specific areas of software engineering, such as requirements engineering, test-driven development, bug reporting and fixing, where the creative aspects of programming fall short. The developers' engagement might progressively degrade, potentially impacting their work's quality.
FPGA partial reconfiguration via configuration scrubbing

SRAM-based FPGA devices are susceptible to single event effects (SEE) including single event upsets (SEU) within the configuration memory. Configuration scrubbing along with TMR or other hardware redundancy techniques are often used to mitigate the effects of these SEUs. However, the use of traditional configuration scrubbing prevents the ability to reconfigure the FPGA dynamically or to perform partial reconfiguration. This paper presents a novel technique that allows partial reconfiguration to be used with configuration scrubbing. A self scrubber, utilizing a small portion of the FPGA, performs the necessary operations to reconfigure a portion of the design while continuously scrubbing the entire FPGA.
Does osteoporosis increase complication risk in surgical fracture treatment? A protocol combining new endpoints for two prospective multicentre open cohort studies

BACKGROUND
With an ever-increasing elderly population, orthopaedic surgeons are faced with treating a high number of fragility fractures. Biomechanical tests have demonstrated the potential role of osteoporosis in the increased risk of fracture fixation complications, yet this has not been sufficiently proven in clinical practice. Based on this knowledge, two clinical studies were designed to investigate the influence of local bone quality on the occurrence of complications in elderly patients with distal radius and proximal humerus fractures treated by open reduction and internal fixation.


METHODS/DESIGN
The studies were planned using a prospective multicentre open cohort design and included patients between 50 and 90 years of age. Distal radius and proximal humerus fractures were treated with locking compression 2.4 mm and proximal humerus internal locking plates, respectively. Follow-up examinations were planned for 6 weeks, 3 and 12 months as well as a telephone interview at 6 months. The primary outcome focuses on the occurrence of at least one local bone quality related complication. Local bone quality is determined by measuring bone mineral density and bone mineral content at the contralateral radius. Primary complications are categorised according to predefined factors directly related to the bone/fracture or the implant/surgical technique. Secondary outcomes include the documentation of soft tissue/wound or general/systemic complications, clinical assessment of range of motion, and patient-rated evaluations of upper limb function and quality of life using both objective and subjective measures.


DISCUSSION
The prospective multicentre open cohort studies will determine the value of local bone quality as measured by bone mineral density and content, and compare the quality of local bone of patients who experience a complication (cases) following surgery with that of patients who do not (controls). These measurements are novel and objective alternatives to what is currently used.


TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBERS
Clinical Trials.gov NCT01144208 and NCT01143675.
Activity Classification using Smartphone Accelerometer Data

There have been some research efforts into identifying activities from smartphone accelerometer data. Kwapisz et al. [1] mined data from smartphone sensors of different users doing different activities, and extracted statistics like the average, standard deviation, and time between peaks from portions of the data. With the features they used, they achieved 91.7% precision overall using Multilayer Perceptron. Ravi et al. [2] attempted to classify similar activities using the mean, standard deviation, energy of the Fourier Transform and correlation between signals on each axis. On a dataset similar to Kwapisz et al., they achieved 72% accuracy using Boosted SVM.
Effect of Bariatric Surgery vs Medical Treatment on Type 2 Diabetes in Patients With Body Mass Index Lower Than 35: Five-Year Outcomes.

IMPORTANCE
It has been well recognized that metabolic surgery has short-term benefits for mildly obese patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), but how long these effects can be sustained is uncertain.


OBJECTIVE
To compare the 5-year efficacy between gastrointestinal metabolic surgery and medical treatment on glycemic control and diabetes remission in patients with T2DM and body mass index (BMI; calculated as weight in kilograms divided by height in meters squared) lower than 35.


DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
This retrospective cohort study compares long-term outcomes for mildly obese patients with T2DM receiving metabolic surgery (n = 52) vs medical treatment (n = 299). The surgical group, enrolled from August 20, 2007, to June 25, 2008, and followed up through December 31, 2013, received standard sleeve gastrectomy (n = 19) or bypass (n = 33) procedures in a regional hospital. The medical group, selected from a nationwide community cohort that was recruited from August 27, 2003, to December 31, 2005, and followed up through December 31, 2012, was matched with the surgical group by age, BMI, and diabetes duration.


MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
Glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) reduction and prolonged complete and partial diabetes remission (defined as HbA1c <6.0% and 6.0%-6.5% of total hemoglobin [Hb; to convert to proportion of total Hb, multiply by 0.01], respectively, for those who were exempted from any antidiabetic drugs for 5 years).


RESULTS
At the end of the fifth year, the surgical group had a mean weight loss of 21.0% (from a mean [SD] BMI of 31.0 [2.4] to 24.5 [2.7]), their mean (SD) HbA1c decreased from 9.1% (2.1%) to 6.3% (1.1%) of total Hb, 18 participants (36.0%) had complete remission, 14 (28.0%) had partial remission, 1 (1.9%) died, and 1 (1.9%) had end-stage renal disease. In the same follow-up period in the medical group, 3 (1.2%) had complete remission, 4 (1.6%) had partial remission, 9 (3.0%) died, and 2 (0.7%) had end-stage renal disease; their mean HbA1c remained around 8% of total Hb (mean [SD], 8.1% [1.8%] of total Hb at baseline and 8.0% [1.6%] of total Hb at 5 years), and BMI also stayed similar (mean [SD], 29.1 [2.4] at baseline and 28.8 [2.6] at 5 years). The HbA1c reduction and complete and partial remission rates were all significantly larger in the surgical group as compared with the medical group (all P < .001). However, the mortality rate and end-stage renal disease incidence were not significantly different in these 2 comparison groups (P = .66 and .37, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
For mildly obese patients with T2DM, the improvement in glycemic control from metabolic surgery lasts at least 5 years. However, the survival benefit and lifelong adverse outcomes require more than 5 years to be established.
Factors associated with compliance to lipid-lowering treatment in China.

BACKGROUND
There are an estimated 200 million people in China with dyslipidaemia. We sought to explore factors that influence compliance to treatment of dyslipidaemia, using a multi-centre sample in China.


METHODS
Through review of medical notes and direct interviews at two points in time (2006 and 2007) of 2094 patients in 27 hospitals receiving lipid-lowering therapy since 2004, 1890 patients were recruited who had been on treatment for more than one year. Good compliance (GC) was defined as days taking lipid-lowering drugs/total days of follow-up ≥ 80%. Logistic regression models were used to assess factors associated with GC.


RESULTS
In patients with one, two and three years of treatment respectively, GC was greater in those with higher versus lower medical insurance cover - odds ratios 2.8 (95%CI 2.2-3.7), 2.0 (1.5-2.7), 4.3 (2.3-8.1); in patients in province-level versus county-level hospitals-2.0 (1.5-2.6), 2.9 (2.0-4.1), 4.6 (1.8-12.0); in patients treated by non-cardiology physicians compared to cardiologists -1.7 (1.1-2.5), 2.0 (1.3-3.0), 4.0 (1.5-10.3) and in patients using a statin versus other forms of medication for dyslipidaemia -1.7 (1.2-2.2), 1.7 (1.2-2.3), 4.4 (2.3-8.5).


CONCLUSIONS
Better medical insurance cover, care in a province-level hospital rather than county-level hospital, treatment by a non-cardiologist and use of a statin were associated with better compliance to lipid-lowering treatment.
The multidimensional 0-1 knapsack problem: An overview

The multidimensional 0–1 knapsack problem is one of the most well-known integer programming problems and has received wide attention from the operational research community during the last four decades. Although recent advances have made possible the solution of medium size instances, solving this NP-hard problem remains a very interesting challenge, especially when the number of constraints increases. This paper surveys the main results published in the literature. The focus is on the theoretical properties as well as approximate or exact solutions of this special 0–1 program. 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Liraglutide improves metabolic parameters and carotid intima-media thickness in diabetic patients with the metabolic syndrome: an 18-month prospective study

BACKGROUND
Liraglutide, a GLP-1 analogue, exerts several beneficial non-glycemic effects in patients with type-2 diabetes (T2DM), such as those on body weight, blood pressure, plasma lipids and inflammation markers. However, the effects of liraglutide on cardiovascular (CV) risk markers in subjects with the metabolic syndrome (MetS) are still largely unknown. We herein explored its effects on various cardio-metabolic risk markers of the MetS in subjects with T2DM.


METHODS
We performed an 18-month prospective, real-world study. All subjects had T2DM and the MetS based on the AHA/NHLBI criteria. Subjects with a history of a major CV event were excluded. One hundred-twenty-one subjects (71 men and 50 women; mean age: 62 ± 9 years) with T2DM and the MetS, who were naïve to incretin-based therapies and treated with metformin only, were included. Liraglutide (1.2 mg/day) was added to metformin (1500-3000 mg/day) for the entire study. Fasting plasma samples for metabolic parameters were collected and carotid-intima media thickness (cIMT) was assessed by B-mode real-time ultrasound at baseline and every 6 months thereafter.


RESULTS
There was a significant reduction in waist circumference, body mass index, fasting glycemia, HbA1c, total- and LDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, and cIMT during the 18-month follow-up. Correlation analysis showed a significant association between changes in cIMT and triglycerides (r = 0.362; p < 0.0001). The MetS prevalence significantly reduced during the study, and the 26% of subjects no longer fulfilled the criteria for the MetS after 18 months.


CONCLUSIONS
Liraglutide improves cardio-metabolic risk factors in subjects with the MetS in a real-world study. Trial Registration ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT01715428.
Understanding Deep Convolutional Networks

Deep convolutional networks provide state-of-the-art classifications and regressions results over many high-dimensional problems. We review their architecture, which scatters data with a cascade of linear filter weights and nonlinearities. A mathematical framework is introduced to analyse their properties. Computations of invariants involve multiscale contractions with wavelets, the linearization of hierarchical symmetries and sparse separations. Applications are discussed.