LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
A tailored, dialogue-based health communication application for patients with chronic low back pain: study protocol of a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND
Chronic low back pain is a common chronic condition whose treatment success can be improved by active involvement of patients. Patient involvement can be fostered by web-based applications combining health information with decision support or behaviour change support. These so-called Interactive Health Communication Applications (IHCAs) can reach great numbers of patients at low financial cost and provide information and support at the time, place and learning speed patients prefer. However, high attrition often seems to decrease the effects of web-based interventions. Tailoring content and tone of IHCAs to the individual patient ́s needs might improve usage and therefore effectiveness. This study aims to evaluate a tailored IHCA for people with chronic low back pain combining health information with decision support and behaviour change support.


METHODS/DESIGN
The tailored IHCA will be tested regarding effectiveness and usage against a standard website with identical content in a single-blinded randomized trial with a parallel design. The IHCA contains information on chronic low back pain and its treatment options including health behaviour change recommendations. In the intervention group the content is delivered in dialogue form, tailored to relevant patient characteristics (health literacy, coping style). In the control group there is no tailoring, a standard web-page is used for presenting the content. Participants are unaware of group assignment. Eligibility criteria are age ≥ 18 years , self- reported chronic low back pain, and Internet access. To detect the expected small effect (Cohen's d = 0.2), the sample aims to include 414 patients, with assessments at baseline, directly after the first on-page visit, and at 3-month follow-up using online self-report questionnaires. It is expected that the tailored IHCA has larger effects on knowledge and patient empowerment (primary outcomes) compared to a standard website. Secondary outcomes are website usage, preparation for decision making, and decisional conflict.


DISCUSSION
IHCAs can be a suitable way to promote knowledge about chronic low back pain and self-management competencies. Results of the study can increase the knowledge on how to develop IHCAs which are more useful and effective for people suffering from chronic low back pain.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
International Clinical Trials Registry DRKS00003322.
Capacitated location of collection sites in an urban waste management system.

Urban waste management is becoming an increasingly complex task, absorbing a huge amount of resources, and having a major environmental impact. The design of a waste management system consists in various activities, and one of these is related to the location of waste collection sites. In this paper, we propose an integer programming model that helps decision makers in choosing the sites where to locate the unsorted waste collection bins in a residential town, as well as the capacities of the bins to be located at each collection site. This model helps in assessing tactical decisions through constraints that force each collection area to be capacitated enough to fit the expected waste to be directed to that area, while taking into account Quality of Service constraints from the citizens' point of view. Moreover, we propose an effective constructive heuristic approach whose aim is to provide a good solution quality in an extremely reduced computational time. Computational results on data related to the city of Nardò, in the south of Italy, show that both exact and heuristic approaches provide consistently better solutions than that currently implemented, resulting in a lower number of activated collection sites, and a lower number of bins to be used.
Hepatitis B in Rondônia (Western amazon region, Brazil): descriptive analysis and spatial distribution.

BACKGROUND
The Amazon is one of the regions who have the highest rates of infection by the hepatitis B virus in the world. Objectives This study aimed to evaluate the epidemiological data and spatial distribution of hepatitis B cases reported between 2002 and 2012 in the Brazilian State of Rondônia.


METHODS
Social and clinical data of these individuals were studied through the Information System for Notifiable Diseases (SINAN), including the following variables: gender, age group, vaccination, contact with a known patient with HBV, exposure to risk factors, source of infection, and clinical status.


RESULTS
There were 7,132 cases reported in Rondônia, with an average incidence rate of 42/100,000 inhabitants per year. The municipalities with the highest incidence rates were Monte Negro (187.6/100,000 inhabitants) and Ariquemes (157.2/100,000 inhabitants). The 20-39 year-old age group had the highest number of cases (n = 3,834), and 69.9% of patients were likely infected via sexual contact. Regarding the clinical disease status, most of the patients (80.7%) were in the chronic phase.


CONCLUSIONS
There was a recent 402% increase in the diagnosis of hepatitis B, which is likely owing to the improvements in the public diagnostic system. This highlights the need for public policies to prevent and control the disease.
Identification of lutein and zeaxanthin oxidation products in human and monkey retinas.

PURPOSE
To characterize fully all the major and minor carotenoids and their metabolites in human retina and probe for the presence of the oxidative metabolites of lutein and zeaxanthin.


METHODS
Carotenoids of a composite of 58 pairs of human retinas and a monkey retina were elucidated by comparing their high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-ultraviolet/visible absorption spectrophotometry (UV/Vis)-mass spectrometry (MS) profile with those of authentic standards prepared by organic synthesis.


RESULTS
In addition to lutein and zeaxanthin, several oxidation products of these compounds were present in the extracts from human retina. A major carotenoid resulting from direct oxidation of lutein was identified as 3-hydroxy-beta, epsilon-caroten-3'-one. Minor carotenoids were identified as: 3'-epilutein, epsilon,epsilon-carotene-3,3'-diol, epsilon,epsilon-carotene-3,3'-dione, 3'-hydroxy-epsilon,epsilon-caroten-3-one, and 2,6-cyclolycopene-1,5-diol. Several of the geometric isomers of lutein and zeaxanthin were also detected at low concentrations. These were as follows: 9-cis-lutein, 9'-cislutein, 13-cis-lutein, 13'-cis-lutein, 9-cis-zeaxanthin, and 13-cis-zeaxanthin. Similar results were also obtained from HPLC analysis of a freshly dissected monkey retina.


CONCLUSIONS
Lutein, zeaxanthin, 3'-epilutein, and 3-hydroxy-beta,epsilon-caroten-3'-one in human retina may be interconverted through a series of oxidation-reduction reactions similar to our earlier proposed metabolic transformation of these compounds in humans. The presence of the direct oxidation product of lutein and 3'-epilutein (metabolite of lutein and zeaxanthin) in human retina suggests that lutein and zeaxanthin may act as antioxidants to protect the macula against short-wavelength visible light. The proposed oxidative-reductive pathways for lutein and zeaxanthin in human retina, may therefore play an important role in prevention of age-related macular degeneration and cataracts.
TTS synthesis with bidirectional LSTM based recurrent neural networks

Feed-forward, Deep neural networks (DNN)-based text-tospeech (TTS) systems have been recently shown to outperform decision-tree clustered context-dependent HMM TTS systems [1, 4]. However, the long time span contextual effect in a speech utterance is still not easy to accommodate, due to the intrinsic, feed-forward nature in DNN-based modeling. Also, to synthesize a smooth speech trajectory, the dynamic features are commonly used to constrain speech parameter trajectory generation in HMM-based TTS [2]. In this paper, Recurrent Neural Networks (RNNs) with Bidirectional Long Short Term Memory (BLSTM) cells are adopted to capture the correlation or co-occurrence information between any two instants in a speech utterance for parametric TTS synthesis. Experimental results show that a hybrid system of DNN and BLSTM-RNN, i.e., lower hidden layers with a feed-forward structure which is cascaded with upper hidden layers with a bidirectional RNN structure of LSTM, can outperform either the conventional, decision tree-based HMM, or a DNN TTS system, both objectively and subjectively. The speech trajectory generated by the BLSTM-RNN TTS is fairly smooth and no dynamic constraints are needed.
Associations of uric acid and gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) with obesity and components of metabolic syndrome in children and adolescents.

BACKGROUND
The combined effect of uric acid, gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) and cardiovascular risk factors clustering in the youth remains under-explored.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to examine the association between uric acid, GGT, obesity and the individual components of metabolic syndrome in children and adolescents.


METHODS
We performed a cross-sectional observational study of 2067 children and adolescents (875 boys and 1192 girls) aged 6-20 years who were healthy volunteers and were recruited from primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong between 2007 and 2008. Subjects were divided into two strata (75th percentile as cut-off) for comparison between odds of cardiovascular risk factors.


RESULTS
After adjustment by multivariable logistic regression, subjects in upper stratum, i.e., >75th percentile, of either serum uric acid or GGT levels were associated with obesity, low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) level and high blood pressure (adjusted odds ratios [AOR] ranged from 1.63 to 5.82, all P < 0.005) compared with those in the lower stratum. There were combined effect for upper stratum of both uric acid and GGT in the association with obesity, low HDL-C and high blood pressure (AOR ranged from 2.60 to 10.69, all P < 0.05) after adjustment for age, sex and body mass index z-score (except for obesity status) as well as body height (for high blood pressure).


CONCLUSION
Uric acid and GGT have combined effect in association with obesity and other cardiovascular risk factors in children and adolescents.
Expected energy consumption minimization in DVS systems with discrete frequencies

Energy-efficiency has been an important system issue in hardware and software designs to extend operation duration or out power bils. This research explores systems with probabilistic distribution on the execution time of real-time tasks for systems with discrete frequencies. Most previous studies consider DVS systems with continuous frequencies for the minimization of expected energy consumption under timing constraints. However, these approaches cannot guarantee the minimization of expected energy consumption when only discrete frequencies are available. This paper presents new approaches to minimize the expected energy consumption. By applying intra-task frequency scheduling, we develop an efficient algorithm to derive optimal frequency scheduling for a single task. The algorithm is then extended to cope with periodic real-time tasks with different power characteristics. With inter-task and intra-task frequency scheduling, we present a linear-programming approach to derive optimal solutions for frame-based real-time tasks and an on-line algorithm for periodic real-time tasks. Experimental results show that the proposed algorithms can effectively reduce the expected energy consumption.
Depression and poor glycemic control: a meta-analytic review of the literature.

OBJECTIVE
Depression is common among patients with diabetes, but its relationship to glycemic control has not been systematically reviewed. Our objective was to determine whether depression is associated with poor glycemic control.


RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
Medline and PsycINFO databases and published reference lists were used to identify studies that measured the association of depression with glycemic control. Meta-analytic procedures were used to convert the findings to a common metric, calculate effect sizes (ESs), and statistically analyze the collective data.


RESULTS
A total of 24 studies satisfied the inclusion and exclusion criteria for the meta-analysis. Depression was significantly associated with hyperglycemia (Z = 5.4, P < 0.0001). The standardized ES was in the small-to-moderate range (0.17) and was consistent, as the 95% CI was narrow (0.13-0.21). The ES was similar in studies of either type 1 or type 2 diabetes (ES 0.19 vs. 0.16) and larger when standardized interviews and diagnostic criteria rather than self-report questionnaires were used to assess depression (ES 0.28 vs. 0.15).


CONCLUSIONS
Depression is associated with hyperglycemia in patients with type 1 or type 2 diabetes. Additional studies are needed to establish the directional nature of this relationship and to determine the effects of depression treatment on glycemic control and the long-term course of diabetes.
FINANCING OPTIONS FOR SMALL AND MEDIUM ENTERPRISES (SMEs) IN NIGERIA

Small and Medium enterprises act as catalysts in the economic development of the developed and developing countries. Developing countries like Nigeria that require sustained economic growth in their economies must pay attention to the SME sector and harness the great potential to generate employment, improved local technology, output diversification, developed indigenous entrepreneurship and forward integration with large-scale industries that can be provided by the sector. Unfortunately, the SMEs in Nigeria have underperformed despite the fact that the SMEs in Nigeria constitute more than 90% of Nigerian businesses, their contribution to the nation’s GDP is below 10%. This very low percentage contribution of the SMEs to Nigeria’s GDP could be attributed to amongst others; unfriendly business environment, poor funding, low management skills and lack of assess to modern technology. However, this paper focuses on adequate funding which will take care of some of the problems such as provision of modern technology and low managerial skills. It examines the financing of SMEs in Nigeria and the various financing options available to the SMEs. This involved looking at debt financing by considering the role commercial, microfinance banks, co-operatives and other finance institutions play in the financing of SMEs in Nigeria. It also considered the role of equity financing through Venture capital and Business angels financing. It concluded that funding of SMEs in Nigeria is very critical if they are to perform their role of growth and development of the nation’s economy.
Drug-refractory aggression, self-injurious behavior, and severe tantrums in autism spectrum disorders: a chart review study.

Aggression, self-injurious behavior, and severe tantrums are impairing symptoms frequently experienced by individuals with autism spectrum disorders. Despite US Food and Drug Administration approval of two atypical antipsychotics targeting these symptoms in youth with autistic disorder, they remain frequently drug refractory. We define drug-refractory aggression, self-injurious behavior, and severe tantrums in people with autism spectrum disorders as behavioral symptoms requiring medication adjustment despite previous trials of risperidone and aripiprazole or previous trials of three psychotropic drugs targeting the symptom cluster, one of which was risperidone or aripiprazole. We reviewed the medical records of individuals of all ages referred to our clinic for autism spectrum disorder diagnostic evaluation, as well as pharmacotherapy follow-up notes for all people meeting autism spectrum disorder criteria, for drug-refractory symptoms. Among 250 consecutively referred individuals, 135 met autism spectrum disorder and enrollment criteria, and 53 of these individuals met drug-refractory symptom criteria. Factors associated with drug-refractory symptoms included age 12 years or older (p < 0.0001), diagnosis of autistic disorder (p = 0.0139), and presence of intellectual disability (p = 0.0273). This pilot report underscores the significance of drug-refractory aggression, self-injurious behavior, and severe tantrums; suggests the need for future study clarifying factors related to symptom development; and identifies the need for focused treatment study of this impairing symptom domain.
Effectiveness of home blood pressure monitoring, Web communication, and pharmacist care on hypertension control: a randomized controlled trial.

CONTEXT
Treating hypertension decreases mortality and disability from cardiovascular disease, but most hypertension remains inadequately controlled.


OBJECTIVE
To determine if a new model of care that uses patient Web services, home blood pressure (BP) monitoring, and pharmacist-assisted care improves BP control.


DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
A 3-group randomized controlled trial, the Electronic Communications and Home Blood Pressure Monitoring study was based on the Chronic Care Model. The trial was conducted at an integrated group practice in Washington state, enrolling 778 participants aged 25 to 75 years with uncontrolled essential hypertension and Internet access. Care was delivered over a secure patient Web site from June 2005 to December 2007.


INTERVENTIONS
Participants were randomly assigned to usual care, home BP monitoring and secure patient Web site training only, or home BP monitoring and secure patient Web site training plus pharmacist care management delivered through Web communications.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Percentage of patients with controlled BP (<140/90 mm Hg) and changes in systolic and diastolic BP at 12 months.


RESULTS
Of 778 patients, 730 (94%) completed the 1-year follow-up visit. Patients assigned to the home BP monitoring and Web training only group had a nonsignificant increase in the percentage of patients with controlled BP (<140/90 mm Hg) compared with usual care (36% [95% confidence interval {CI}, 30%-42%] vs 31% [95% CI, 25%-37%]; P = .21). Adding Web-based pharmacist care to home BP monitoring and Web training significantly increased the percentage of patients with controlled BP (56%; 95% CI, 49%-62%) compared with usual care (P < .001) and home BP monitoring and Web training only (P < .001). Systolic BP was decreased stepwise from usual care to home BP monitoring and Web training only to home BP monitoring and Web training plus pharmacist care. Diastolic BP was decreased only in the pharmacist care group compared with both the usual care and home BP monitoring and Web training only groups. Compared with usual care, the patients who had baseline systolic BP of 160 mm Hg or higher and received home BP monitoring and Web training plus pharmacist care had a greater net reduction in systolic BP (-13.2 mm Hg [95% CI, -19.2 to -7.1]; P < .001) and diastolic BP (-4.6 mm Hg [95% CI, -8.0 to -1.2]; P < .001), and improved BP control (relative risk, 3.32 [95% CI, 1.86 to 5.94]; P<.001).


CONCLUSION
Pharmacist care management delivered through secure patient Web communications improved BP control in patients with hypertension. Trial Registration clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00158639.
An overview of cardiovascular risk factor burden in sub-Saharan African countries: a socio-cultural perspective

BACKGROUND
Sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries are currently experiencing one of the most rapid epidemiological transitions characterized by increasing urbanization and changing lifestyle factors. This has resulted in an increase in the incidence of non-communicable diseases, especially cardiovascular disease (CVD). This double burden of communicable and chronic non-communicable diseases has long-term public health impact as it undermines healthcare systems.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this paper is to explore the socio-cultural context of CVD risk prevention and treatment in sub-Saharan Africa. We discuss risk factors specific to the SSA context, including poverty, urbanization, developing healthcare systems, traditional healing, lifestyle and socio-cultural factors.


METHODOLOGY
We conducted a search on African Journals On-Line, Medline, PubMed, and PsycINFO databases using combinations of the key country/geographic terms, disease and risk factor specific terms such as "diabetes and Congo" and "hypertension and Nigeria". Research articles on clinical trials were excluded from this overview. Contrarily, articles that reported prevalence and incidence data on CVD risk and/or articles that report on CVD risk-related beliefs and behaviors were included. Both qualitative and quantitative articles were included.


RESULTS
The epidemic of CVD in SSA is driven by multiple factors working collectively. Lifestyle factors such as diet, exercise and smoking contribute to the increasing rates of CVD in SSA. Some lifestyle factors are considered gendered in that some are salient for women and others for men. For instance, obesity is a predominant risk factor for women compared to men, but smoking still remains mostly a risk factor for men. Additionally, structural and system level issues such as lack of infrastructure for healthcare, urbanization, poverty and lack of government programs also drive this epidemic and hampers proper prevention, surveillance and treatment efforts.


CONCLUSION
Using an African-centered cultural framework, the PEN3 model, we explore future directions and efforts to address the epidemic of CVD risk in SSA.
Combinatorial engineering of ldh-a and bcl-2 for reducing lactate production and improving cell growth in dihydrofolate reductase-deficient Chinese hamster ovary cells

In Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) cells, rapid glucose metabolism normally leads to inefficient use of glucose, most of which is converted to lactate during cell cultures. Since lactate accumulation during the culture often exerts a negative effect on cell growth and valuable product formation, several genetic engineering approaches have been developed to suppress lactate dehydrogenase-A (LDH-A), the enzyme converting pyruvate into lactate. However, despite the reduced lactate accumulation, such cell cultures are eventually terminated in the late period of the culture, mainly due to apoptosis. Therefore, we developed an apoptosis-resistant, less lactate-producing dhfr − CHO cell line (CHO-Bcl2-LDHAsi) by overexpressing Bcl-2, one of the most well-known anti-apoptotic proteins, and by downregulating LDH-A in a dhfr − CHO cell line. When the dhfr − CHO-Bcl2-LDHAsi cell line was used as a host cell line for the development of recombinant CHO (rCHO) cells producing an Fc-fusion protein, the culture longevity of the rCHO cells was extended without any detrimental effect of genetic engineering on specific protein productivity. Simultaneously, the specific lactate production rate and apparent yield of lactate from glucose were reduced to 21–65% and 37–78% of the control cells, respectively. Taken together, these results show that the use of an apoptosis-resistant, less lactate-producing dhfr − CHO cell line as a host cell line saves the time and the effort of establishing an apoptosis-resistant, less lactate-producing rCHO cells for producing therapeutic proteins.
Road slope and vehicle dynamics estimation

Driving safely can be achieved by the prevention of risky situations which may require the knowledge of vehicle dynamic state as well as road geometry. It is thus essential to have in real-time a good estimation of the related variables and parameters. Among the parameters of the road that are influencing vehicle longitudinal motion one can find the slope which can not be measured with reduced cost sensor. Vehicle lateral motion is mainly affected by the value of the lateral speed which can not simply measured too. In this paper, an observer based method for the estimation of the vehicle dynamics using a nonlinear vehicle model is proposed. It uses a combination of Extended Kalman filter (EKF) and Luenberger Observer (LO). The observers use several standard measurements such as : the yaw rate, the steering angle and the rotational velocity of the four tires. Experimental tests conducted with a prototype vehicle prove the effectiveness of the proposed approach.