LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Batch sequential design to achieve predictive maturity with calibrated computer models

Sequential experiment design strategies have been proposed for efficiently augmenting initial designs to solve many problems of interest to computer experimenters, including optimization, contour and threshold estimation, and global prediction. We focus on batch sequential design strategies for achieving maturity in global prediction of discrepancy inferred from computer model calibration. Predictive maturity focuses on adding field experiments to efficiently improve discrepancy inference. Several design criteria are extended to allow batch augmentation, including integrated and maximum mean square error, maximum entropy, and two expected improvement criteria. In addition, batch versions of maximin distance and weighted distance criteria are developed. Two batch optimization algorithms are considered: modified Fedorov exchange and a binning methodology motivated by optimizing augmented fractional factorial skeleton designs. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Random Matrix Theory , Numerical Computation and Applications

This paper serves to prove the thesis that a computational trick can open entirely new approaches to theory. We illustrate by describing such random matrix techniques as the stochastic operator approach, the method of ghosts and shadows, and the method of “Riccatti Diffusion/Sturm Sequences,” giving new insights into the deeper mathematics underneath random matrix theory.
Statically Fused Converted Position and Doppler Measurement Kalman Filters

The work presented in this paper makes two contributions for exploiting Doppler (range rate) measurements in tracking systems. First, a new linear filter, the converted Doppler measurement Kalman filter (CDMKF), is presented to extract nonlinear pseudostates from converted Doppler measurements (i.e., the product of the range measurements and Doppler measurements). The pseudostates are constructed from the converted Doppler and its derivatives. The linearly evolving equations of the pseudostates are derived for common target motion models. The second contribution of this paper is using the CDMKF along with the converted position measurement Kalman filter (CPMKF), in which only the position measurements are used, to establish a new filtering structure, statically fused converted measurement Kalman filters (SF-CMKF). The resulting states of CPMKF and CDMKF are combined by a static minimum mean squared error (MMSE) estimator, where the nonlinearity and correlation between the pseudostates and the Cartesian states are handled simultaneously, to yield the final state estimates. The dynamic nonlinear estimation problem is converted into dynamic linear estimation followed by static nonlinear fusion. The estimation accuracy can be enhanced by incorporating the Doppler measurements via the linear CDMKF, while the filtering stability can be improved by dealing with nonlinearity outside the filtering recursions. Monte Carlo simulations and comparison with the posterior Cramer-Rao bound demonstrate the effectiveness of the CDMKF and SF-CMKF.
The Canadian STOP-PAIN project - Part 1: Who are the patients on the waitlists of multidisciplinary pain treatment facilities?

PURPOSE
The Canadian STOP-PAIN Project assessed the human and economic burden of chronic pain in individuals on waitlists of Multidisciplinary Pain Treatment Facilities (MPTF). This article presents the patients' bio-psycho-social profile.


METHODS
A sample of 728 patients was recruited from waitlists of eight university-affiliated MPTFs across Canada. Subjects completed validated questionnaires to: 1) assess the characteristics and impact of their pain; and 2) evaluate their emotional functioning and quality of life (QoL). Follow-up questionnaires were completed by a subgroup of 271 patients three months later.


RESULTS
Close to 2/3 of the participants reported severe pain (> or = 7/10) that interfered substantially with various aspects of their daily living and QoL. Severe or extremely severe levels of depression were common (50.0%) along with suicidal ideation (34.6%). Patients aged > 60 yr were twice as likely to experience severe pain (> or = 7/10) as their younger counterparts (P = 0.002). Patients with frequent sleep problems were more at risk of reporting severe pain (P < or = 0.003). Intense pain was also associated with a greater tendency to catastrophize (P < 0.0001) severe depressive symptoms (P = 0.003) and higher anger levels (P = 0.016). Small but statistically significant changes in pain intensity and emotional distress were observed over a three-month wait time (all P < 0.05).


CONCLUSION
This study highlights the severe impairment that patients experience waiting for treatment in MPTFs. Knowing that current facilities cannot meet the clinical demand, it is clear that effective prevention/treatment strategies are needed earlier in primary and secondary care settings to minimize suffering and chronicity.
Molecular and clinical aspects of drug-induced gingival overgrowth.

Drug-induced gingival overgrowth is a tissue-specific condition and is estimated to affect approximately one million North Americans. Lesions occur principally as side-effects from phenytoin, nifedipine, or ciclosporin therapy in approximately half of the people who take these agents. Due to new indications for these drugs, their use continues to grow. Here, we review the molecular and cellular characteristics of human gingival overgrowth lesions and highlight how they differ considerably as a function of the causative drug. Analyses of molecular signaling pathways in cultured human gingival fibroblasts have provided evidence for their unique aspects compared with fibroblasts from the lung and kidney. These findings provide insights into both the basis for tissue specificity and into possible therapeutic opportunities which are reviewed here. Although ciclosporin-induced gingival overgrowth lesions exhibit principally the presence of inflammation and little fibrosis, nifedipine- and especially phenytoin-induced lesions are highly fibrotic. The increased expression of markers of gingival fibrosis, particularly CCN2 [also known as connective tissue growth factor (CTGF)], markers of epithelial to mesenchymal transition, and more recently periostin and members of the lysyl oxidase family of enzymes have been documented in phenytoin or nifedipine lesions. Some oral fibrotic conditions such as leukoplakia and oral submucous fibrosis, after subsequent additional genetic damage, can develop into oral cancer. Since many pathways are shared, the study of gingival fibrosis and comparisons with characteristics and molecular drivers of oral cancer would likely enhance understandings and functional roles of molecular drivers of these oral pathologies.
CYUT Short Text Conversation System for NTCIR-12 STC

In this paper, we report how we build the system for Chinese subtask in NTCIR12 Short Text Conversation (STC) shared task. Our approach is to find the most related sentences for a given input sentence. The system is implemented based on the Lucene search engine. The result shows that our system can deal with the conversation that involves related sentences.
Optimal maintenance policies under different operational schedules

In the reliability literature, maintenance time is usually ignored during the optimization of maintenance policies. In some scenarios, costs due to system failures may vary with time, and the ignorance of maintenance time will lead to unrealistic results. This paper develops maintenance policies for such situations where the system under study operates iteratively at two successive states: up or down. The costs due to system failure at the up state consist of both business losses & maintenance costs, whereas those at the down state only include maintenance costs. We consider three models: Model A, B, and C: /spl middot/ Model A makes only corrective maintenance (CM). /spl middot/ Model B performs imperfect preventive maintenance (PM) sequentially, and CM. /spl middot/ Model C executes PM periodically, and CM; this PM can restore the system as good as the state just after the latest CM. The CM in this paper is imperfect repair. Finally, the impact of these maintenance policies is illustrated through numerical examples.
Preoperative thresholds for pulmonary valve replacement in patients with corrected tetralogy of Fallot using cardiovascular magnetic resonance.

BACKGROUND
To facilitate the optimal timing of pulmonary valve replacement, we analyzed preoperative thresholds of right ventricular (RV) volumes above which no decrease or normalization of RV size takes place after surgery.


METHODS AND RESULTS
Between 1993 and 2006, 71 adult patients with corrected tetralogy of Fallot underwent pulmonary valve replacement in a nationwide, prospective follow-up study. Patients were evaluated with cardiovascular magnetic resonance both preoperatively and postoperatively. Changes in RV volumes were expressed as relative change from baseline. RV volumes decreased with a mean of 28%. RV ejection fraction did not change significantly after surgery (from 42+/-10% to 43+/-10%; P=0.34). Concomitant RV outflow tract reduction resulted in a 25% larger decrease of RV volumes. After correction for surgical RV outflow tract reduction, higher preoperative RV volumes (mL/m2) were independently associated with a larger decrease of RV volumes (RV end-diastolic volume: beta=0.41; P<0.001). Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed a cutoff value of 160 mL/m2 for normalization of RV end-diastolic volume or 82 mL/m2 for RV end-systolic volume.


CONCLUSIONS
Overall, we could not find a threshold above which RV volumes did not decrease after surgery. Preoperative RV volumes were independently associated with RV remodeling and also when corrected for a surgical reduction of the RV outflow tract. However, normalization could be achieved when preoperative RV end-diastolic volume was <160 mL/m2 or RV end-systolic volume was <82 mL/m2.
Randomized trial of mediastinal lymph node sampling versus complete lymphadenectomy during pulmonary resection in the patient with N0 or N1 (less than hilar) non-small cell carcinoma: results of the American College of Surgery Oncology Group Z0030 Trial.

OBJECTIVE
To determine whether mediastinal lymph node dissection improves survival compared with mediastinal lymph node sampling in patients undergoing resection for N0 or nonhilar N1, T1, or T2 non-small cell lung cancer.


METHODS
Patients with non-small cell lung cancer underwent sampling of 2R, 4R, 7, and 10R for right-sided tumors and 5, 6, 7, and 10L for left-sided tumors. If all tumors were negative for malignancy, patients were randomized to no further lymph node sampling (mediastinal lymph node sampling) or complete mediastinal lymph node dissection.


RESULTS
Of 1111 patients randomized, 1023 (mediastinal lymph node sampling in 498, mediastinal lymph node dissection in 525) were eligible and evaluable. There were no significant differences between the 2 groups in terms of demographics, Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group status, histology, cancer location, type or extent of resection, and pathologic stage. Occult N2 disease was found in 21 patients in the mediastinal lymph node dissection group. At a median follow-up of 6.5 years, 435 patients (43%) have died: mediastinal lymph node sampling in 217 (44%) and mediastinal lymph node dissection in 218 (42%). The median survival is 8.1 years for mediastinal lymph node sampling and 8.5 years for mediastinal lymph node dissection (P = .25). The 5-year disease-free survival was 69% (95% confidence interval, 64-74) in the mediastinal lymph node sampling group and 68% (95% confidence interval, 64-73) years in the mediastinal lymph node dissection group (P = .92). There was no difference in local (P = .52), regional (P = .10), or distant (P = .76) recurrence between the 2 groups.


CONCLUSIONS
If systematic and thorough presection sampling of the mediastinal and hilar lymph nodes is negative, mediastinal lymph node dissection does not improve survival in patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer, but these results are not generalizable to patients staged radiographically or those with higher stage tumors.
DEVELOPMENT AND VALIDATION OF LC-MS/MS METHOD FOR DETERMINATION OF DARUNAVIR IN HUMAN PLASMA FOR APPLICATION OF CLINICAL PHARMACOKINETICS

A simple, rapid, sensitive, selective and high performance liquid chromatography method with MS/MS was developed and validated for determination of Darunavir (DRV) in human plasma. Extraction from the plasma was by solid phase extraction (SPE) extraction procedure. Carbamezepine was used as an internal standard (IS). The chromatographic separation was performed by Thermo Hypurity, advance column (50 X 4.6mm, 5μ) with mobile phase comprising of 5mM ammonium acetate: acetonitrile (15:85% v/v). Quantification was performed using multiple reactions monitoring (MRM) of the transition m/z 548.20 (parent ion) → m/z 392.30 (product ion); m/z 273.20 (parent ion) → m/z 194.10 (product ion) for DRV and IS respectively. The assay linearity ranged 50.14 to 2007.43 ng/mL and the lower limit of quantitation is 50.14 ng/mL. Frequently co-administered drugs did not interfere with the described methodology. The validated method is suitable to support a wide range of therapeutic drug monitoring and pharmacokinetic studies.
A performance evaluation protocol for symbol spotting systems in terms of recognition and location indices

Symbol spotting systems are intended to retrieve regions of interest from a document image database where the queried symbol is likely to be found. They shall have the ability to recognize and locate graphical symbols in a single step. In this paper, we present a set of measures to evaluate the performance of a symbol spotting system in terms of recognition abilities, location accuracy and scalability. We show that the proposed measures allow to determine the weaknesses and strengths of different methods. In particular we have tested a symbol spotting method based on a set of four different off-the-shelf shape descriptors.
Iron-core superconducting magnet design and test results for Maglev application

Design and test results are presented for a superconducting electromagnet for levitating and propelling Maglev vehicles at high velocities. A U-shaped iron core carries a superconducting magnet around its back leg and a normal control coil around each leg of the U-core. The open side of the U-core is bridged by an iron rail through a large airgap between the poles of the U-core and the iron rail. The superconducting magnet is nominally designed to operate in a steady-state DC mode with current variations limited to rates less than 1 Hz. Faster flux variations due to gap changes are accommodated by current changes in the normal control coils. A feedback controller using the airgap and acceleration inputs controls current variations in the superconducting coil. Grumman has designed, fabricated and tested such an electromagnet. This test magnet is 2/3 of the full-size magnet that Grumman specified in their 1992 Concept Definition Study for the National Maglev Initiative. The purpose of these tests is to demonstrate the feasibility of operating and controlling a superconducting electromagnet in the specified environment. This paper discusses static magnet levitation characteristics as functions of airgap length and superconducting magnet excitation. Good correlation is observed between the calculated and measured performance.<<ETX>>
Common skin disorders in the elderly

Ageing causes a decline in the function of human skin, while factors such as medical conditions, drugs and environmental irritants add to the compromised skin and predispose it to certain conditions. Superimposed on the changes of physiological ageing are changes characterised by chronic sun exposure. Skin neoplasia, whether benign, premalignant or malignant, is more common in the elderly. It is important to identify benign conditions, as it is crucial that lesions with a malignant potential be recognised so that timeous treatment can prevent serious malignancies. Ultraviolet radiation is the major aetiologic factor for the development of skin cancer. Pruritic conditions result from a combination of a declining barrier function and the effects of environmental irritants. Pruritus due to scabies is common in institutionalised older persons. Infective conditions as a result of a combination of altered immunity, predisposing medical conditions (e.g. diabetes) and a variety of drugs used to treat these conditions may affect immune function and homeostasis. Regular scrutiny of the skin will ensure early identification of problems and implementation of a good skin care plan can compensate for failing physiologic function. INTRODUCTION Population ageing and a drive to maintain a youthful appearance have spurred research on the physiological processes of skin ageing. An important outcome of these efforts has been greater insight into skin cancer. Tremendous strides have also been made in the last decade in understanding the molecular basis of ageing. The free radical theory states that ageing results from an accumulation of cellular damage caused by excess reactive oxygen species generated by oxidative metabolism.
VARACTOR LOADED TUNABLE PRINTED PIFA

Varactor tuned printed planar inverted-F antennas (PIFA) are investigated. The low-profile printed antennas are fabricated together with the layouts of its DC control circuits and other RF/baseband circuit footprints. A surface mounted (SMT) varactor is applied as a frequency-tuning element at the middle of the long radiating arm in PIFA. Passive lumped DC bias circuits are implemented with good isolation. Both single and dual-band varactor tuned PIFA antennas are investigated. For a single-band PIFA, prototype designs show the in-band frequency (return loss is <10 dB) is tunable from 1.6GHz to 2.3 GHz when the bias voltage varies from 0 V to 9.5 V. Measured results show about 70∼75% efficiency and 2∼3 dB maximum gain. For a dual band PIFA with two varactor loadings, both the 800∼900MHz and 1.7∼2.2GHz bands are tuned individually by a varactor. By varying low-band capacitance, the operation frequency is tuned from 780MHz to 1020 MHz, with little change on the higher frequency band. By varying high-band capacitance, the operation frequency is tuned from 1700 MHz to 2140MHz, with little change on the lower frequency. Measurement shows antenna radiation efficiencies within operation bands are about 55% at the low band and about 45% at the high band. The proposed frequency reconfigurable antennas could be useful for personal mobile terminal applications.
A phase 2 autologous cellular therapy trial in patients with acute, complete spinal cord injury: pragmatics, recruitment, and demographics

Study design:Post hoc analysis from a randomized controlled cellular therapy trial in acute, complete spinal cord injury (SCI).Objectives:Description and quantitative review of study logistics, referral patterns, current practice patterns and subject demographics.Setting:Subjects were recruited to one of six international study centers.Methods:Data are presented from 1816 patients pre-screened, 75 participants screened and 50 randomized.Results:Of the 1816 patients pre-screened, 53.7% did not meet initial study criteria, primarily due to an injury outside the time window (14 days) or failure to meet neurological criteria (complete SCI between C5 motor/C4 sensory and T11). MRIs were obtained on 339 patients; 51.0% were ineligible based on imaging criteria. Of the 75 participants enrolled, 25 failed screening (SF), leaving 50 randomized. The primary reason for SF was based on the neurological exam (51.9%), followed by failure to meet MRI criteria (22.2%). Of the 50 randomized subjects, there were no significant differences in demographics in the active versus control arms. In those participants for whom data was available, 93.8% (45 of 48) of randomized participants received steroids before study entry, whereas 94.0% (47 of 50) had spine surgery before study enrollment.Conclusion:The ‘funnel effect’ (large numbers of potentially eligible participants with a small number enrolled) impacts all trials, but was particularly challenging in this trial due to eligibility criteria and logistics. Data collected may provide information on current practice patterns and the issues encountered and addressed may facilitate design of future trials.
Measuring the time-inconsitency of US monetary policy.

This paper offers an alternative explanation for the behaviour of post-war US inflation by measuring a novel source of monetary policy time-inconsistency due to Cukierman (2002). In the presence of asymmetric preferences, the monetary authorities end up generating a systematic inflation bias through the private sector expectations of a larger policy response in recessions than in booms. Reduced-form estimates of US monetary policy rules indicate that while the inflation target declines from the pre-to the post-Volcker regime, the average inflation bias, which is about one per cent before 1979, tends to disappear over the last two decades. This result can be rationalized in terms of the preference on output stabilisation, which is found to be large and asymmetric in the former but not in the latter period. JEL Classification: E52, E58 (This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)
Intralesional injection therapy for Peyronie's disease.

FIGURE 1 Peyronie’s disease has been described as a scarring connective tissue disorder of the tunica albuginea that leads to formation of a collagenous plaque. Since its discovery by Francois Gigot de la Peyronie in 1743, its etiology remains unknown but is thought to evolve primarily from penile trauma during erection and/or genetic predisposition. It affects nearly 3% of men with a variety of presentations on erection: pain, curvature, loss of length, and loss of width. Normal penis
Drug cue induced overshadowing: selective disruption of natural reward processing by cigarette cues amongst abstinent but not satiated smokers.

BACKGROUND
Addicts show both reward processing deficits and increased salience attribution to drug cues. However, no study to date has demonstrated that salience attribution to drug cues can directly modulate inferences of reward value to non-drug cues. Associative learning depends on salience: a more salient predictor of an outcome will 'overshadow' a less salient predictor of the same outcome. Similarly, blocking, a demonstration that learning depends on prediction error, can be influenced by the salience of the cues employed.


METHOD
This study investigated whether salient drug cues might interact with neutral cues predicting financial reward in an associative learning task indexing blocking and overshadowing in satiated smokers (n=24), abstaining smokers (n=24) and non-smoking controls (n=24). Attentional bias towards drug cues, craving and expired CO were also indexed.


RESULTS
Abstaining smokers showed drug cue induced overshadowing, attributing higher reward value to drug cues than to neutral cues that were equally predictive of reward. Overshadowing was positively correlated with expired CO levels, which, in turn, were correlated with craving in abstainers. An automatic attentional bias towards cigarette cues was found in abstainers only.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings provide the first evidence that drug cues interact with reward processing in a drug dependent population.