LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
A pilot study to assess the efficacy of biofeedback-assisted relaxation training as an adjunct treatment for pediatric functional dyspepsia associated with duodenal eosinophilia.

OBJECTIVES
To conduct a pilot study examining whether adding biofeedback-assisted relaxation training (BART) to medication treatment results in better clinical outcomes than medication treatment alone for children with functional dyspepsia (FD) associated with duodenal eosinophilia, a subgroup of children with recurrent abdominal pain.


METHODS
Twenty children were randomly assigned to receive a standardized medication treatment or medication plus 10 sessions of BART. Children and parents completed psychosocial functioning and quality of life measures at baseline, posttreatment, and 6 months. Children rated pain daily via PDA. Physicians provided biweekly assessments of clinical improvement.


RESULTS
Children receiving medication plus BART demonstrated better outcomes on pain intensity, duration of pain episodes, and clinical improvement than children receiving medication alone.


CONCLUSIONS
BART is a promising adjunctive treatment for pediatric FD associated with duodenal eosinophilia. Electronic daily diaries appear to be a useful approach to assessing changes in self-reported pain ratings in this population.
Assessment of Remote Heart Rhythm Sampling Using the AliveCor Heart Monitor to Screen for Atrial Fibrillation: The REHEARSE-AF Study.

BACKGROUND
Asymptomatic atrial fibrillation (AF) is increasingly common in the aging population and implicated in many ischemic strokes. Earlier identification of AF with appropriate anticoagulation may decrease stroke morbidity and mortality.


METHODS
We conducted a randomized controlled trial of AF screening using an AliveCor Kardia monitor attached to a WiFi-enabled iPod to obtain ECGs (iECGs) in ambulatory patients. Patients ≥65 years of age with a CHADS-VASc score ≥2 free from AF were randomized to the iECG arm or routine care (RC). iECG participants acquired iECGs twice weekly over 12 months (plus additional iECGs if symptomatic) onto a secure study server with overread by an automated AF detection algorithm and by a cardiac physiologist and/or consultant cardiologist. Time to diagnosis of AF was the primary outcome measure. The overall cost of the devices, ECG interpretation, and patient management were captured and used to generate the cost per AF diagnosis in iECG patients. Clinical events and patient attitudes/experience were also evaluated.


RESULTS
We studied 1001 patients (500 iECG, 501 RC) who were 72.6±5.4 years of age; 534 were female. Mean CHADS-VASc score was 3.0 (heart failure, 1.4%; hypertension, 54%; diabetes mellitus, 30%; prior stroke/transient ischemic attack, 6.5%; arterial disease, 15.9%; all CHADS-VASc risk factors were evenly distributed between groups). Nineteen patients in the iECG group were diagnosed with AF over the 12-month study period versus 5 in the RC arm (hazard ratio, 3.9; 95% confidence interval=1.4-10.4; P=0.007) at a cost per AF diagnosis of $10 780 (£8255). There was a similar number of stroke/transient ischemic attack/systemic embolic events (6 versus 10, iECG versus RC; hazard ratio=0.61; 95% confidence interval=0.22-1.69; P=0.34). The majority of iECG patients were satisfied with the device, finding it easy to use without restricting activities or causing anxiety.


CONCLUSIONS
Screening with twice-weekly single-lead iECG with remote interpretation in ambulatory patients ≥65 years of age at increased risk of stroke is significantly more likely to identify incident AF than RC over a 12-month period. This approach is also highly acceptable to this group of patients, supporting further evaluation in an appropriately powered, event-driven clinical trial.


CLINICAL TRIAL REGISTRATION
URL: https://www.isrctn.com. Unique identifier: ISRCTN10709813.
Complications of the neovagina in male-to-female transgender surgery: A systematic review and meta-analysis with discussion of management.

Gender-affirmation surgery is often the final gender-confirming medical intervention sought by those patients suffering from gender dysphoria. In the male-to-female (MtF) transgendered patient, the creation of esthetic and functional external female genitalia with a functional vaginal channel is of the utmost importance. The aim of this review and meta-analysis is to evaluate the epidemiology, presentation, management, and outcomes of neovaginal complications in the MtF transgender reassignment surgery patients. PUBMED was searched in accordance with PRISMA guidelines for relevant articles (n = 125). Ineligible articles were excluded and articles meeting all inclusion criteria went on to review and analysis (n = 13). Ultimately, studies reported on 1,684 patients with an overall complication rate of 32.5% and a reoperation rate of 21.7% for non-esthetic reasons. The most common complication was stenosis of the neo-meatus (14.4%). Wound infection was associated with an increased risk of all tissue-healing complications. Use of sacrospinous ligament fixation (SSL) was associated with a significantly decreased risk of prolapse of the neovagina. Gender-affirmation surgery is important in the treatment of gender dysphoric patients, but there is a high complication rate in the reported literature. Variability in technique and complication reporting standards makes it difficult to assess the accurately the current state of MtF gender reassignment surgery. Further research and implementation of standards is necessary to improve patient outcomes. Clin. Anat. 31:191-199, 2018. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
A Multimedia Semantic Recommender System for Cultural Heritage Applications

One of the most important challenge in the information access field is information overload. To cope with this problem, in this paper, we present a strategy for a semantic multimedia recommender system that computes customized recommendations using semantic contents and low-level features of multimedia objects, past behavior of individual users and behavior of the users' community as a whole. We have implemented a recommender prototype for browsing the Uffizi Gallery digital picture collection. Then, we investigated the effectiveness of the proposed approach, based on the users satisfaction. The obtained preliminary experimental results show that our approach is quite promising and encourages further research in this direction.
NOCEVE: Network on chip emulation and verification environment

We present in this paper NOCEVE an industrial Network on Chip (NoC) emulation and verification environment on industrial large scale multi-FPGA emulation platform for billion cycle application. It helps designer to improve system performance by the analysis of traffic distribution and balance through the network on chip. The hardware monitoring network is generated by another commercial NoC design tool. It consists of traffic collectors, which is reconfigurable to collect different traffic information such as packet latency and throughput. The statistic traffic information is collected during real application execution on FPGA platform and it is sent through monitoring network on FPGA and then PCI bright board back to host computer for real-time visualization or post-execution data analysis. NOCEVE is the first industrial NoC emulation and verification environment for billion cycle applications.
A dominant mutation in the gene encoding the erythroid transcription factor KLF1 causes a congenital dyserythropoietic anemia.

The congenital dyserythropoietic anemias (CDAs) are inherited red blood cell disorders whose hallmarks are ineffective erythropoiesis, hemolysis, and morphological abnormalities of erythroblasts in bone marrow. We have identified a missense mutation in KLF1 of patients with a hitherto unclassified CDA. KLF1 is an erythroid transcription factor, and extensive studies in mouse models have shown that it plays a critical role in the expression of globin genes, but also in the expression of a wide spectrum of genes potentially essential for erythropoiesis. The unique features of this CDA confirm the key role of KLF1 during human erythroid differentiation. Furthermore, we show that the mutation has a dominant-negative effect on KLF1 transcriptional activity and unexpectedly abolishes the expression of the water channel AQP1 and the adhesion molecule CD44. Thus, the study of this disease-causing mutation in KLF1 provides further insights into the roles of this transcription factor during erythropoiesis in humans.
The power of naive query segmentation

We address the problem of query segmentation: given a keyword query submitted to a search engine, the task is to group the keywords into phrases, if possible. Previous approaches to the problem achieve good segmentation performance on a gold standard but are fairly intricate. Our method is easy to implement and comes with a comparable accuracy.
A Quasi Shanker Distribution and its Applications

In the present paper, a two-parameter quasi Shanker distribution (QSD) which includes one parameter Shanker distribution introduced by Shanker [1] as a special case has been proposed. Its statistical and mathematical properties including moments and moments based measures, hazard rate function, mean residual life function, stochastic ordering, mean deviations, Bonferroni and Lorenz curves and stress-strength reliability have also been discussed. The method of maximum likelihood estimation has been discussed for estimating the parameters of QSD. Finally, the goodness of fit of the QSD has been discussed with two real lifetime data and the fit is quite satisfactory over one parameter exponential, Lindley and Shanker distributions.
Overview of Automated Hematology Analyzer XE-2100

The XE-2100 is a new automated hematology analyzer developed by Sysmex Corporation. With consideration of medical analyzer requirements for the 21st century, this unit was developed to satisfy the following concepts and to cope with diversified laboratory needs. 1) Electronic network communication 2) Presentation of high level value-added information 3) Contribution to test cost control 4) Pursuit of a user-friendly analyzer The XE-2100 provides integrated reticulocyte analysis, previously available only in a separate device, and has the ability to enumerate nucleated red blood cells. The instrumentÕs capacity for high throughput allows simultaneous determination of five-part white blood cell differential, nucleated red blood cell count at the rate of 150 samples per hour. These features contribute to a significant reduction in report turn-around-time (TAT). In addition, the instrument is designed to provide remote maintenance support and on-line quality control reporting through an electronic network, thus improving laboratory management. (Sysmex J 9 : 58 − 64, 1999)
Human-wildlife conflicts in a crowded airspace

Over the past century, humans have increasingly used the airspace for purposes such as transportation, energy generation, and surveillance. Conflict with wildlife may arise from buildings, turbines, power lines, and antennae that project into space and from flying objects such as aircrafts, helicopters, and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs, or drones) (see the figure) (1–3). The resulting collision and disturbance risks profoundly affect species ecology and conservation (1, 4, 5). Yet, aerial interactions between humans and wildlife are often neglected when considering the ecological consequences of human activities.
Controlled trial of physical training in chronic heart failure. Exercise performance, hemodynamics, ventilation, and autonomic function.

BACKGROUND
Many secondary abnormalities in chronic heart failure (CHF) may reflect physical deconditioning. There has been no prospective, controlled study of the effects of physical training on hemodynamics and autonomic function in CHF.


METHODS AND RESULTS
In a controlled crossover trial of 8 weeks of exercise training, 17 men with stable moderate to severe CHF (age, 61.8 +/- 1.5 years; left ventricular ejection fraction, 19.6 +/- 2.3%), increased exercise tolerance (13.9 +/- 1.0 to 16.5 +/- 1.0 minutes, p less than 0.001), and peak oxygen uptake (13.2 +/- 0.9 to 15.6 +/- 1.0 ml/kg/min, p less than 0.01) significantly compared with controls. Training increased cardiac output at submaximal (5.9-6.7 l/min, p less than 0.05) and peak exercise (6.3-7.1 l/min, p less than 0.05), with a significant reduction in systemic vascular resistance. Training reduced minute ventilation and the slope relating minute ventilation to carbon dioxide production (-10.5%, p less than 0.05). Sympathovagal balance was altered by physical training when assessed by three methods: 1) RR variability (+19.2%, p less than 0.05); 2) autoregressive power spectral analysis of the resting ECG divided into low-frequency (-21.2%, p less than 0.01) and high-frequency (+51.3%, p less than 0.05) components; and 3) whole-body radiolabeled norepinephrine spillover (-16%, p less than 0.05). These measurements all showed a significant shift away from sympathetic toward enhanced vagal activity after training.


CONCLUSIONS
Carefully selected patients with moderate to severe CHF can achieve significant, worthwhile improvements with exercise training. Physical deconditioning may be partly responsible for some of the associated abnormalities and exercise limitation of CHF, including abnormalities in autonomic balance.
Adversarial Scene Editing: Automatic Object Removal from Weak Supervision

Better shape priors improve the mask accuracy and reduce false removal. Moving down the table from the no prior case to the box priors and then to the class specific shape priors from the Pascal dataset masks the masks smaller, improves the mIoU and also reduces the false removal rate. Input image Global loss Local loss Qualitative comparison of global vs local loss. Local real-fake loss improves the in-painting results producing sharper, texture-rich images, compared to smooth blurry results obtained by the global loss. References
Rotational laxity after anatomical ACL reconstruction measured by 3-D motion analysis: a prospective randomized clinical trial comparing anatomic and nonanatomic ACL reconstruction techniques

To compare the ability of three different anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction techniques to normalize rotational knee stability 1 year after ACL reconstruction. Two of these techniques are so-called anatomic techniques. Three different ACL reconstruction techniques were tested for their ability to normalize rotational knee stability in a prospective randomized study. Forty-seven ACL-deficient (ACLD) patients were randomized to transtibial single-bundle (SB), anatomic SB, and double-bundle ACL reconstruction. Three-dimensional motion analysis was performed preoperatively and at 1-year follow-up to evaluate tibial rotation and rotational stiffness. Motion data were captured using an eight-camera motion analysis system. Tibial rotation was determined during walking, running, and a pivoting task. Other outcome parameters were KT-1000 knee laxity measurements and the subjective outcome scores KOOS and IKDC. Three-dimensional motion analysis demonstrated that the tibial internal rotation and the rotational stiffness did not differ between the ACL reconstruction techniques during walking, running, and pivoting at 1-year follow-up. Objective knee stability and subjective outcome scores did not differ between the reconstruction groups. No significant difference in rotational stability walking, running, and pivoting was seen between anatomic and nonanatomic ACL reconstruction techniques at 1-year follow-up. Therapeutic study, Level I.
Comparison of cost affecting parameters and costs of the "closed" and "open" in situ bypass technique.

OBJECTIVES
The "closed" in situ bypass results in a reduction of wound complications compared to the "open" technique. This advantage is partly diminished by extra costs for the "closed" procedure and a larger percentage of residual arteriovenous (AV)-fistulae. This aim of this study was to analyse costs related to "closed" and "open" procedures.


METHODS
The cost affecting parameters: (1) duration of operation; (2) length of hospital stay; and (3) number of treated residual AV-fistulae, were analysed in a randomised group of 73 patients (35 "closed" and 38 "open") in two centres. In addition, costs of the operation, nursing care and treatment of AV-fistulae were analysed.


RESULTS
The "closed" and "open" group showed a median duration of operation of 210 min (range 105-570) and 154 min (range 90-355) (p < 0.05), length of hospital stay of 16 days (range 5-51) and 25 days (range 12-65) (p < 0.01), and a percentage of patients treated for residual AV-fistulae of 40% and 5%, respectively (p < 0.01). The median "closed" operation was US$798 more expensive than the "open". Median postoperative care was US$2664 less for the "closed" group. Mean estimated costs for treatment of AV-fistulae was US$9 in the "open" and US$167 in the "closed" group.


CONCLUSION
The "closed" in situ vein bypass technique is cost-effective in comparison with the "open" technique.
Response Prediction in Chronic Hepatitis C by Assessment of IP-10 and IL28B-Related Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms

BACKGROUND
High baseline levels of IP-10 predict a slower first phase decline in HCV RNA and a poor outcome following interferon/ribavirin therapy in patients with chronic hepatitis C. Several recent studies report that single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) adjacent to IL28B predict spontaneous resolution of HCV infection and outcome of treatment among HCV genotype 1 infected patients.


METHODS AND FINDINGS
In the present study, we correlated the occurrence of variants at three such SNPs (rs12979860, rs12980275, and rs8099917) with pretreatment plasma IP-10 and HCV RNA throughout therapy within a phase III treatment trial (HCV-DITTO) involving 253 Caucasian patients. The favorable SNP variants (CC, AA, and TT, respectively) were associated with lower baseline IP-10 (P = 0.02, P = 0.01, P = 0.04) and were less common among HCV genotype 1 infected patients than genotype 2/3 (P<0.0001, P<0.0001, and P = 0.01). Patients carrying favorable SNP genotypes had higher baseline viral load than those carrying unfavorable variants (P = 0.0013, P = 0.029, P = 0.0004 respectively). Among HCV genotype 1 infected carriers of the favorable C, A, or T alleles, IP-10 below 150 pg/mL significantly predicted a more pronounced reduction of HCV RNA from day 0 to 4 (first phase decline), which translated into increased rates of RVR (62%, 53%, and 39%) and SVR (85%, 76%, and 75% respectively) among homozygous carriers with baseline IP-10 below 150 pg/mL. In multivariate analyses of genotype 1-infected patients, baseline IP-10 and C genotype at rs12979860 independently predicted the first phase viral decline and RVR, which in turn independently predicted SVR.


CONCLUSIONS
Concomitant assessment of pretreatment IP-10 and IL28B-related SNPs augments the prediction of the first phase decline in HCV RNA, RVR, and final therapeutic outcome.
Interpretative case studies on agile team productivity and management

Context: The management of software development productivity is a key issue in software organizations, where the major drivers are lower cost and shorter time-to-market. Agile methods, including Extreme Programming and Scrum, have evolved as “light” approaches that simplify the software development process, potentially leading to increased team productivity. However, little empirical research has examined which factors do have an impact on productivity and in what way, when using agile methods. Objective: Our objective is to provide a better understanding of the factors and mediators that impact agile team productivity. Method: We have conducted a multiple-case study for six months in three large Brazilian companies that have been using agile methods for over two years. We have focused on the main productivity factors perceived by team members through interviews, documentation from retrospectives, and non-participant observation. Results: We developed a novel conceptual framework, using thematic analysis to understand the possible mechanisms behind such productivity factors. Agile team management was found to be the most influential factor in achieving agile team productivity. At the intra-team level, the main productivity factors were team design (structure and work allocation) and member turnover. At the inter-team level, the main productivity factors were how well teams could be effectively coordinated by proper interfaces and other dependencies and avoiding delays in providing promised software to dependent teams. Conclusion: Teams should be aware of the influence and magnitude of turnover, which has been shown negative for agile team productivity. Team design choices remain an important factor impacting team productivity, even more pronounced on agile teams that rely on teamwork and people factors. The intra-team coordination processes must be adjusted to enable productive work by considering priorities and pace between teams. Finally, the revised conceptual framework for agile team productivity supports further tests through confirmatory studies.
Shifts in attention during mental fatigue: Evidence from subjective, behavioral, physiological, and eye-tracking data.

There is an increasing amount of evidence that during mental fatigue, shifts in motivation drive performance rather than reductions in finite mental energy. So far, studies that investigated such an approach have mainly focused on cognitive indicators of task engagement that were measured during controlled tasks, offering limited to no alternative stimuli. Therefore it remained unclear whether during fatigue, attention is diverted to stimuli that are unrelated to the task, or whether fatigued individuals still focused on the task but were unable to use their cognitive resources efficiently. With a combination of subjective, EEG, pupil, eye-tracking, and performance measures the present study investigated the influence of mental fatigue on a cognitive task which also contained alternative task-unrelated stimuli. With increasing time-on-task, task engagement and performance decreased, but there was no significant decrease in gaze toward the task-related stimuli. After increasing the task rewards, irrelevant rewarding stimuli where largely ignored, and task engagement and performance were restored, even though participants still reported to be highly fatigued. Overall, these findings support an explanation of less efficient processing of the task that is influenced by motivational cost/reward tradeoffs, rather than a depletion of a finite mental energy resource. (PsycINFO Database Record