LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Physical activity program for patients with dementia and their relative caregivers: randomized clinical trial in Primary Health Care (AFISDEMyF study)

BACKGROUND
The aging of the population has led to the increase of chronic diseases, especially dementia and cardiovascular diseases, and it has become necessary for their relatives to dedicate more time in caregiving.The objective in the first phase of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of a Primary Health Care procedure to increase the physical activity of people with dementia and their relative caregivers. Also the effect on the cognitive state and cardiovascular risk will be assessed.


METHODS/DESIGN



DESIGN
Clinical, multicentric and randomized trial. A simple random sampling to select 134 patients diagnosed with dementia will be carried out. After contacting their relatives, his/her participation in the trial will be requested. A basal assessment will be made and the participants will be asigned to control or intervention group (1:1).


VARIABLES
The main measure will be the assessment of physical activity (podometer and 7-PAR) in patients and caregivers. In patients with dementia: ADAS-cog, functional degree and cardiovascular risk. In caregivers: cardiovascular risk, general health and quality of life.


INTERVENTION
For 3 months, participants will receive instructions to do physical activity with an adapted program. This program will be designed and applied by Primary Health Care professionals in patients with dementia and their caregivers. The control group will receive regular care.


ANALYSIS
An intention-to-treat analysis will be carried out by comparing the observed differences between basal, 6 and 12 months measures. Change in the mean of daily steps assessed with the podometer and 7-PAR will be the main result.


DISCUSSION
If the main hypothesis is confirmed, it could be useful to improve the cognitive state of patients with dementia, as well as the cardiovascular risk of all of them. The results can be good to improve technical features of the devices that register the physical activity in the patients with dementia, and it could facilitate its commercialization.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
Clinical Trials.gov Identifier: NCT02044887.
Triptolide in the treatment of psoriasis and other immune-mediated inflammatory diseases.

Apart from cancer chronic (auto)immune-mediated diseases are a major threat for patients and a challenge for physicians. These conditions include classic autoimmune diseases like systemic lupus erythematosus, systemic sclerosis and dermatomyositis and also immune-mediated inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and psoriasis. Traditional therapies for these conditions include unspecific immunosuppressants including steroids and cyclophosphamide, more specific compounds such as ciclosporin or other drugs which are thought to act as immunomodulators (fumarates and intravenous immunoglobulins). With increasing knowledge about the underlying pathomechanisms of the diseases, targeted biologic therapies mainly consisting of anti-cytokine or anti-cytokine receptor agents have been developed. The latter have led to a substantial improvement of the induction of long term remission but drug costs are high and are not affordable in all countries. In China an extract of the herb Tripterygium wilfordii Hook F. (TwHF) is frequently used to treat autoimmune and/or inflammatory diseases due to its favourable cost-benefit ratio. Triptolide has turned out to be the active substance of TwHF extracts and has been shown to exert potent anti-inflammatory and immunosuppressive effects in vitro and in vivo. There is increasing evidence for an immunomodulatory and partly immunosuppressive mechanism of action of triptolide. Thus, compounds such as triptolide or triptolide derivatives may have the potential to be developed as a new class of drugs for these diseases. In this review we summarize the published knowledge regarding clinical use, pharmacokinetics and the possible mode of action of triptolide in the treatment of inflammatory diseases with a particular focus on psoriasis.
Is there an advantage over SF-36 with a quality of life measure that is specific to systemic lupus erythematosus?

OBJECTIVE
To assess whether the Lupus Quality of Life (LupusQoL) questionnaire contributed additional information not obtained using the Medical Outcomes Study Short-Form 36 questionnaire (SF-36) in a cohort of patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).


METHODS
Forty-one patients seen at a single center were followed at monthly intervals for 12 months. The LupusQoL and the SF-36 questionnaires were coadministered monthly. Disease activity was determined by the Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Disease Activity Index 2000 (SLEDAI-2K) every 30 days. We determined the correlation of the 4 comparable domains of both questionnaires. For the 4 noncomparable domains of the LupusQoL we determined the correlation between each domain with the Physical Component Summary scores (PCS) and the Mental Component Summary scores (MCS) of the SF-36. The effect size (ES) and the standardized response mean (SRM) were used to compare the responsiveness of both questionnaires when a clinically significant change in disease activity occurred as determined by SLEDAI-2K.


RESULTS
Three hundred seventy-six patient visits were recorded. There was a strong correlation between comparable domains in both questionnaires. For the 4 noncomparable domains of the LupusQoL, there was a correlation with the MCS and PCS of SF-36. The mean scores for comparable domains in both questionnaires were similar. Both questionnaires displayed responsiveness, as determined by ES and SRM among patients who flared and improved, but not among patients in remission, when compared to the previous visit.


CONCLUSION
LupusQoL and SF-36 were equivalent in assessing quality of life over time in this group of patients. Both questionnaires are responsive measures of quality of life in patients with SLE flares and improvement.
A new optical music recognition system based on combined neural network

This is a PDF file of an unedited manuscript that has been accepted for publication. As a service to our customers we are providing this early version of the manuscript. The manuscript will undergo copyediting, typesetting, and review of the resulting proof before it is published in its final form. Please note that during the production process errors may be discovered which could affect the content, and all legal disclaimers that apply to the journal pertain. Highlights • We propose a new OMR system to recognize the music symbols without segmentation. • A new classifier named Combined Neural Network(CNN) is presented. • Tests conducted on fifteen pages of music sheets show that the proposed method constitutes an interesting contribution to OMR. • The Combined Neural Network(CNN) offers superior classification capability. Optical Music Recognition (OMR) is an important tool to recognize a scanned page of music sheet automatically, which has been applied to preserving music scores. In this paper, we propose a new OMR system to recognize the music symbols without segmentation. We present a new classifier named Combined Neural Network(CNN) that offers superior classification capability. We conduct tests on fifteen pages of music sheets, which are real and scanned images. The tests show that the proposed method constitutes an interesting contribution to OMR.
The impact of diabetes on the outcomes of surgical and nonsurgical treatment of patients in the spine patient outcomes research trial.

STUDY DESIGN
A secondary analysis comparing diabetic patients with nondiabetic patients enrolled in the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT).


OBJECTIVE
To compare surgical outcomes and complications between diabetic and nondiabetic spine patients.


SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA
Patients with diabetes are predisposed to comorbidities that may confound the diagnosis and treatment of patients with spinal disorders.


METHODS
Baseline characteristics and outcomes of 199 patients with diabetes were compared with those of the nondiabetic population in a total of 2405 patients enrolled in the Spine Patient Outcomes Research Trial for the diagnoses of intervertebral disc herniation (IDH), spinal stenosis (SpS), and degenerative spondylolisthesis (DS). Primary outcome measures include the 36-Item Short Form Health Survey (SF-36) Health Status questionnaire and the Oswestry Disability Index.


RESULTS
Patients with diabetes were significantly older and had a higher body mass index than nondiabetic patients. Comorbidities, including hypertension, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and joint disease, were significantly more frequent in diabetic patients than in nondiabetic patients. Patients with diabetes and IDH did not make significant gains in pain and function with surgical intervention relative to diabetic patients who underwent nonoperative treatment. Diabetic patients with SpS and DS experienced significantly greater improvements in pain and function with surgical intervention when compared with nonoperative treatment. Among those who had surgery, nondiabetic patients with SpS achieved marginally significantly greater gains in function than their diabetic counterparts (SF-36 physical function, P = 0.062). Among patients who had surgery for DS, diabetic patients did not have as much improvement in pain or function as did the nondiabetic population (SF-36 bodily pain, P = 0.003; physical function, P = 0.002). Postoperative complications were more prevalent in patients with diabetes than in nondiabetic patients with SpS (P = 0.002). There was an increase in postoperative (P = 0.028) and intraoperative (P = 0.029) blood replacement in DS patients with diabetes.


CONCLUSION
Diabetic patients with SpS and DS benefited from surgery, though older SpS patients with diabetes have more postoperative complications. IDH patients with diabetes did not benefit from surgical intervention.
Treatment of moderate to severe restless legs syndrome: 2-year safety and efficacy of rotigotine transdermal patch

BACKGROUND
Rotigotine is a unique dopamine agonist with activity across D1 through D5 receptors as well as select adrenergic and serotonergic sites. This study reports the 2-year follow-up safety and efficacy data of an ongoing open-label multicenter extension study (NCT00498186) of transdermal rotigotine in patients with moderate to severe restless legs syndrome (RLS).


METHODS
Patients received a once-daily patch application of an individually optimized dose of rotigotine between 0.5 mg/24 h to 4 mg/24 h. Safety assessments included adverse events (AEs) and efficacy was measured by the International RLS Study Group Severity Rating Scale (IRLS), RLS-6 scales and Clinical Global Impression (CGI). Quality of life (QoL) was measured by QoL-RLS.


RESULTS
Of 310 patients who completed a 6-week placebo-controlled trial (SP709), 295 (mean age 58 ± 10 years, 66% females) were included in the open-label trial SP710. 64.7% (190/295 patients) completed the 2-year follow-up; 29 patients discontinued during the second year. Mean daily rotigotine dose after 2 years was 2.93 ± 1.14 mg/24 h with a 2.9% dose increase from year 1. Rotigotine was generally well tolerated. The rate of typical dopaminergic side effects, nausea and fatigue, was low (0.9% and 2.3%, respectively) during the second year; application site reactions were frequent but lower than in year 1 (16.4% vs. 34.5%). The IRLS total score improved from baseline of SP709 (27.8 ± 5.9) by 17.2 ± 9.2 in year 2 completers. Similar improvements were observed in RLS-6 scales, CGI scores and QoL-RLS. The responder rate in the CGI change item 2 ("much" and "very much" improved) was 95% after year 2.


CONCLUSIONS
Transdermal rotigotine is an efficacious and well-tolerated long-term treatment option for patients with moderate to severe RLS with a high retention rate during 2 years of therapy.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
NCT00498186.
Clinical research informatics and electronic health record data.

OBJECTIVES
The goal of this survey is to discuss the impact of the growing availability of electronic health record (EHR) data on the evolving field of Clinical Research Informatics (CRI), which is the union of biomedical research and informatics.


RESULTS
Major challenges for the use of EHR-derived data for research include the lack of standard methods for ensuring that data quality, completeness, and provenance are sufficient to assess the appropriateness of its use for research. Areas that need continued emphasis include methods for integrating data from heterogeneous sources, guidelines (including explicit phenotype definitions) for using these data in both pragmatic clinical trials and observational investigations, strong data governance to better understand and control quality of enterprise data, and promotion of national standards for representing and using clinical data.


CONCLUSIONS
The use of EHR data has become a priority in CRI. Awareness of underlying clinical data collection processes will be essential in order to leverage these data for clinical research and patient care, and will require multi-disciplinary teams representing clinical research, informatics, and healthcare operations. Considerations for the use of EHR data provide a starting point for practical applications and a CRI research agenda, which will be facilitated by CRI's key role in the infrastructure of a learning healthcare system.
High fat diet enhances stemness and tumorigenicity of intestinal progenitors

In Fig. 4e of this Article, the labels for ‘Control’ and ‘HFD’ were reversed (‘Control’ should have been labelled blue rather than purple, and ‘HFD’ should have been labelled purple rather than blue). Similarly, in Fig. 4f of this Article, the labels for ‘V’ and ‘GW’ were reversed (‘V’ should have been labelled blue rather than purple, and ‘GW’ should have been labelled purple instead of blue). The original figure has been corrected online.
A multi-document summarization system based on statistics and linguistic treatment

The massive quantity of data available today in the Internet has reached such a huge volume that it has become humanly unfeasible to efficiently sieve useful information from it. One solution to this problem is offered by using text summarization techniques. Text summarization, the process of automatically creating a shorter version of one or more text documents, is an important way of finding relevant information in large text libraries or in the Internet. This paper presents a multi-document summarization system that concisely extracts the main aspects of a set of documents, trying to avoid the typical problems of this type of summarization: information redundancy and diversity. Such a purpose is achieved through a new sentence clustering algorithm based on a graph model that makes use of statistic similarities and linguistic treatment. The DUC 2002 dataset was used to assess the performance of the proposed system, surpassing DUC competitors by a 50% margin of f-measure, in the best case. 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Possible association of ACE gene I/D polymorphism with blood pressure--lowering response to hydrochlorothiazide.

OBJECTIVE
To explore the association between polymorphism in the ACE I/D gene and blood pressure-lowering response to hydrochlorothiazide (HCTZ) in 829 patients.


METHODS
HCTZ 12.5 mg was taken once a day for six weeks. The blood pressure reduction and ratio reaching target blood pressure were compared in different ACE genotype groups.


RESULTS
The reduction in SBP of patients carrying DD was greater than that in other groups carrying II or ID (12.2 mmHg versus 5.4 mmHg, 12.2 mmHg versus 4.4 mmHg, respectively, P<0.05). The reduction in MAP of patients carrying DD was also greater than that in other groups carrying II or ID (6.9 mmHg versus 3.9 mmHg, 6.9 mmHg versus 3.6 mmHg, respectively, P<0.05). The ratio reaching target blood pressure in DD groups was significantly higher than that in II or ID groups (P<0.05). The pre-treatment SBP, DD genotype, aldosterone levels entered the multi-linear regression model significantly and might affect the reduction of SBP. The pre-treatment DBP, aldosterone levels, DD genotype entered the multi-linear regression model significantly and might affect the reduction of DBP. The pre-treatment MAP, DD genotype, aldosterone levels entered the multi-linear regression model significantly and might affect the reduction of MAP.


CONCLUSION
ACE genotyping is associated with blood pressure-lowering response to HCTZ. Specific genotypes might be associated with the response to specific antihypertensive treatment.
Flow injection chemiluminescence sensor based on core-shell magnetic molecularly imprinted nanoparticles for determination of sulfadiazine.

A novel flow injection chemiluminescence (FI-CL) sensor for determination of sulfadiazine (SDZ) using core-shell magnetic molecularly imprinted polymers (MMIPs) as recognition element is developed. Briefly, a hydrophilic MMIPs layer was produced at the surface of Fe(3)O(4)@SiO(2) magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) via combination of molecular imprinting and reversible stimuli responsive hydrogel. And it provided the MMIPs with excellent adsorption capacity and rapid adsorption rate due to the imprinted sites mostly situated on the surface of MMIPs. Then the prepared SDZ-MMIPs were packed into flow cell to establish a novel FI-CL sensor. The sensor provided a wide linear range for SDZ of 4.0×10(-7) to 1.0×10(-4) mol L(-1) with a detection limit of 1.54×10(-7) mol L(-1). And the relative standard deviation (RSD) for the determination of 1.0×10(-6) mol L(-1) SDZ was 2.56% (n=11). The proposed method was applied to determine SDZ in urine samples and satisfactory results were obtained.
Reproductive health and domestic violence: Are the poorest women uniquely disadvantaged?

We use Demographic and Health Survey data from Cambodia, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti to compare women in different poverty and violence categories in terms of their experience of selected reproductive health outcomes. “Poor” women are those who belong to the bottom quintile of households arrayed according to a widely accepted asset-based wealth index. The results suggest that women who are both poor and have experienced violence are not unique in their reproductive health disadvantage. In particular, for all three reproductive health outcomes we consider, the negative association with having experienced violence cuts across all women, poor and wealthy.
Repair of erosions occurs almost exclusively in damaged joints without swelling.

BACKGROUND
Negative radiographic change scores obtained under blinded time-sequence conditions suggest that repair of joints may indeed occur. It is likely that, if repair truly exists, it would be preferentially seen in clinically inactive joints from patients treated with drugs with well-known structural efficacy.


OBJECTIVE
To determine whether repair is associated with both the absence or improvement of swelling and with treatment.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
Radiographs from patients of the TEMPO trial were scored twice by two readers according to the Sharp-van der Heijde score, blinded to both treatment and true time sequence. Single-joint change scores in erosions were coupled with single-joint swelling scores obtained from clinical examination. Consistency of observed improvement across readers and repeat reads was described, and factors expected to increase the likelihood of occurrence of both worsening and improvement of erosion were tested by generalised estimating equations (GEE) modelling.


RESULTS
In all of the four independent reads, the mean change in erosion score was statistically significantly negative only in the subgroup of joints with absent or improved swelling, when erosions were present at baseline. Multivariate analysis showed that worsening of the erosion score in a joint was significantly increased if that joint was already damaged at study entry, clinical swelling persisted and methotrexate was used instead of etanercept. Repair was associated with improvement of swelling and use of etanercept (p<or=0.007 for all associations).


CONCLUSION
Repair of erosions almost exclusively occurs in joints with improvement or absence of swelling, in patients treated with etanercept. Progression is seen more frequently in joints with persistent swelling, in patients receiving methotrexate monotherapy, primarily if damage is already present.
The Economics and Management of Intellectual Property

This unique book – informed by ten years’ research – focuses on intellectual property and charts the global transition towards intellectual capitalism with technology-based corporations as prime movers. The book gives a comprehensive overview of the history and fundamentals of intellectual property as well as a textbook introduction to the
Perfusion pressure does not affect neurologic outcome in axillary artery side graft cannulation in type a aortic dissection.

OBJECTIVE
Antegrade selective cerebral perfusion (ASCP) through the right axillary is a safe and effective method for cerebral protection in aortic surgery. In the present study, we evaluated whether or not pressure control in ASCP affected the neurologic outcome.


METHOD
Sixty-two patients (17 female, 45 male) with a mean age of 53.9 +/- 9.4 years (range, 23-74 years) with a diagnosis of Type A aortic dissection were operated on by using the right axillary artery side graft cannulation technique. ASCP with pressure control was used in the first 37 (59.6%) patients (group 1), whereas ASCP with flow control was used in the consecutive 25 patients (39.4%) (group 2). The groups were compared according to postoperative neurologic outcomes.


RESULTS
The hospital mortality rate was 9.7% with 6 patients. The mean ASCP flows of group 1 was 663 +/- 76 mL/min and 692 +/- 51 mL/min in group 2. This difference was not statistically significant (P = .120). The neurological dysfunction rates were 2.7% in group 1 with 1 patient and 8% in group 2 with 2 patients (P = .560).


CONCLUSION
In this study, we could not find a statistically significant difference in patients treated with ASCP through the right axillary applicated with pressure control versus flow control.
Dynamics of cardiovascular and all-cause mortality in Western and Eastern Europe between 1970 and 2000.

AIMS
Important changes in cardiovascular and all-cause mortality rates are occurring in Western and Eastern Europe, each with their own dynamics. Differences in trends will be analysed and possible causes are discussed.


METHODS AND RESULTS
Mortality data for cardiovascular and all-cause mortality rates from different countries were obtained from WHO and were analysed for the period 1970-2000. The annual changes in cause-specific mortality rates were calculated using linear and polynomial regression models. Mortality rates declined almost linearly for ischaemic heart disease, stroke, and total cardiovascular diseases between 1970 and 2000 in Western Europe. In both men and women, the decline for these diseases varied between 50 and 65% or approximately 2%/year in this period. In contrast, in Eastern Europe cardiovascular mortality rates reached a maximum in the period 1990-94, followed by a decline of approximately 3%/year in Poland, 2%/year in Hungary, and 5%/year in the Baltic states. The changes in cardiovascular mortality rates were reflected in all-cause mortality rates in both Western and Eastern Europe.


CONCLUSION
Over the past 30 years, mortality rates in cardiovascular diseases increased or decreased very rapidly. The causes are complex but changes in diet appear to play a major role. The more recent declines in Western Europe also reflect improvements in modern cardiovascular treatment.