LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Effect of spinal manipulation on sensorimotor functions in back pain patients: study protocol for a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND
Low back pain (LBP) is a recognized public health problem, impacting up to 80% of US adults at some point in their lives. Patients with LBP are utilizing integrative health care such as spinal manipulation (SM). SM is the therapeutic application of a load to specific body tissues or structures and can be divided into two broad categories: SM with a high-velocity low-amplitude load, or an impulse "thrust", (HVLA-SM) and SM with a low-velocity variable-amplitude load (LVVA-SM). There is evidence that sensorimotor function in people with LBP is altered. This study evaluates the sensorimotor function in the lumbopelvic region, as measured by postural sway, response to sudden load and repositioning accuracy, following SM to the lumbar and pelvic region when compared to a sham treatment.


METHODS/DESIGN
A total of 219 participants with acute, subacute or chronic low back pain are being recruited from the Quad Cities area located in Iowa and Illinois. They are allocated through a minimization algorithm in a 1:1:1 ratio to receive either 13 HVLA-SM treatments over 6 weeks, 13 LVVA-SM treatments over 6 weeks or 2 weeks of a sham treatment followed by 4 weeks of full spine "doctor's choice" SM. Sensorimotor function tests are performed before and immediately after treatment at baseline, week 2 and week 6. Self-report outcome assessments are also collected. The primary aims of this study are to 1) determine immediate pre to post changes in sensorimotor function as measured by postural sway following delivery of a single HVLA-SM or LVVA-SM treatment when compared to a sham treatment and 2) to determine changes from baseline to 2 weeks (4 treatments) of HVLA-SM or LVVA-SM compared to a sham treatment. Secondary aims include changes in response to sudden loads and lumbar repositioning accuracy at these endpoints, estimating sensorimotor function in the SM groups after 6 weeks of treatment, and exploring if changes in sensorimotor function are associated with changes in self-report outcome assessments.


DISCUSSION
This study may provide clues to the sensorimotor mechanisms that explain observed functional deficits associated with LBP, as well as the mechanism of action of SM.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
This trial is registered in ClinicalTrials.gov, with the ID number of NCT00830596, registered on January 27, 2009. The first participant was allocated on 30 January 2009 and the final participant was allocated on 17 March 2011.
Effects of continuous combined hormone replacement therapy on inflammation in hypertensive and/or overweight postmenopausal women.

OBJECTIVE
We observed that estrogen did not show cardioprotective benefits in type 2 diabetic postmenopausal women. We hypothesized that hypertensive and/or overweight women may be less likely to realize cardiovascular benefits from estrogen.


METHODS AND RESULTS
We administered micronized progesterone (MP) 100 mg or medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) 2.5 mg with conjugated equine estrogen (CEE) 0.625 mg daily during 2 months to 35 hypertensive and/or overweight postmenopausal women with a randomized, double-blind, crossover design. With significant changes of lipoproteins, CEE+MP or MPA significantly improved flow-mediated dilation and reduced plasma E-selectin, intercellular adhesion molecule type-1, monocyte chemoattractant protein-1, and tumor necrosis factor-alpha levels (P<0.001, P<0.001, P=0.021, P<0.001, and P<0.001 by ANOVA, respectively), but not C-reactive protein and fibrinogen levels. Of note, there were no significant differences between each therapy regarding these effects. However, the magnitude of improvement of flow-mediated dilation in these women was less than in healthy postmenopausal women and more than in diabetic postmenopausal women reported by our previous studies. The effects of CEE+MP or MPA on inflammatory markers were comparable to healthy postmenopausal women, but not comparable to diabetic postmenopausal women.


CONCLUSIONS
Estrogen combined with synthetic progestin significantly improved flow-mediated brachial artery dilator response and reduced inflammation markers in hypertensive and/or overweight women, comparable to estrogen combined with natural progesterone.
8 Renewable Energy Opportunities in Water Desalination

Desalination is a water-treatment process that separates salts from saline water to produce potable water or water that is low in total dissolved solids (TDS). Globally, the total installed capacity of desalination plants was 61 million m3 per day in 2008 [1]. Seawater desalination accounts for 67% of production, followed by brackish water at 19%, river water at 8%, and wastewater at 6%. Figure 1 show the worldwide feed-water percentage used in desalination. The most prolific users of desalinated water are in the Arab region, namely, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain [2].
A Corpus-Based Approach to Automatic Compound Extraction

An automatic compound retrieval method is proposed to extract compounds within a text message. It uses n-gram mutual information, relative frequency count and parts of speech as the features for compound extraction. The problem is modeled as a two-class classification problem based on the distributional characteristics of n-gram tokens in the compound and the non-compound clusters. The recall and precision using the proposed approach are 96.2% and 48.2% for bigram compounds and 96.6% and 39.6% for trigram compounds for a testing corpus of 49,314 words. A significant cutdown in processing time has been observed. I n t r o d u c t i o n In technical manuals, technical compounds [Levi 1978] are very common. Therefore, the quality of their translations greatly affects the performance of a machine translation system. If a compound is not in the dictionary, it would be translated incorrectly in many cases; the reason is: many compounds are not compositional, which means that the translation of a compound is not the composite of the respective translations of the individual words [Chen and Su 1988]. For example, the translation of 'green house' into Chinese is not the composite of the Chinese ~anslations of 'green' and 'house'. Under such circumstances, the number of parsing ambiguities will also increase due to the large number of possible parts of speech combinations for the individual words. It will then reduce the accuracy rate in disambiguation and also increase translation time. In practical operations, a computer-translated • manual is usually concurrently processed by several posteditors; thus, to maintain the consistency of translated terminologies among different posteditors is very important, because terminological consistency is a major advaatage of machine translation over human translation. If all the terminologies can be entered into the dictionary before translation, the consistency can be automatically maintained, the translation quality can be greatly improved, and lots of postediting time and consistency maintenance cost can be saved. Since compounds are rather productive and new compounds are created from day to day, it is impossible to exhaustively store all compounds in a dictionary. Also, it is too costly and timeconsuming to inspect the manual by people for the compound candidates and update the dictionary beforehand. Therefore, it is important that the compounds be found and entered into the dictionary before translation without much human effort; an automatic and quantitative tool for extracting compounds from the text is thus seriously
A numerical model of nearshore waves, currents, and sediment transport

A two-dimensional numerical model of nearshore waves, currents, and sediment transport was developed. The multi-directional random wave transformation model formulated by Mase [Mase, H., 2001. Multi-directional random wave transformation model based on energy balance equation. Coastal Engineering Journal 43 (4) (2001) 317] based on an energy balance equation was employed with an improved description of the energy dissipation due to breaking. In order to describe surface roller effects on the momentum transport, an energy balance equation for the roller was included following Dally Brown [Dally, W. R., Brown, C. A., 1995. A modeling investigation of the breaking wave roller with application to cross-shore currents. Journal of Geophysical Research 100(C12), 24873]. Nearshore currents and mean water elevation were modeled using the continuity equation together with the depth-averaged momentum equations. Sediment transport rates in the offshore and surf zone were computed using the sediment transport formulation proposed by Camenen Larson [Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, 63 (2005) 249; Technical report ERDC/CHL CR07-1, US Army Engineer Research and Development Center, Vicksburg, MS. (2007); Journal of Coastal Research, 24(3) (2008) 615] together with the advection-diffusion
Internet use, videogame playing and cell phone use as predictors of children's body mass index (BMI), body weight, academic performance, and social and overall self-esteem

0747-5632/$ see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. A doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.10.019 ⇑ Corresponding author. Address: 308 Psycholog University, East Lansing, MI 48824, USA. Tel.: +1 517 2476. E-mail address: jackso67@msu.edu (L.A. Jackson). In this research we examined the prediction of children’s body mass index (BMI), body weight, academic performance, social self-esteem and overall self-esteem from their IT (information technology) use, specifically, their Internet use, cell phone use and videogame playing, after controlling for the effects of gender, race, age and household income on these measures. Participants were 482 children whose average age was 12 years old. One-third was African American and two-thirds were Caucasian American. Results indicated that IT use did not predict BMI or body weight, contrary to one previous survey and the widespread belief that screen time is responsible for the obesity epidemic among our nation’s children. Instead, BMI and body weight were higher for African Americans, older children and children from lower income households. The sole and strong positive predictor of visual–spatial skills was videogame playing, which also predicted lower grade point averages (GPAs). Gender and Internet use predicted standardized test scores in reading skills. Females and children who used the Internet more had better reading skills than did males and children who used the Internet less, respectively. Implications of these findings for future research on the benefits and liabilities of IT use are discussed. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Ada and Grace: Toward Realistic and Engaging Virtual Museum Guides

To increase the interest and engagement of middle school students in science and technology, the InterFaces project has created virtual museum guides that are in use at the Museum of Science, Boston. The characters use natural language interaction and have near photoreal appearance to increase and presents reports from museum staff on visitor reaction.
Identifying patients at risk for obstructive sleep apnea in a primary care practice.

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to determine ((1)) whether our review of systems (ROS) form facilitates identification of sleep complaints; ((2)) how frequently department physicians investigate these sleep complaints; ((3)) the prevalence of our family practice patients at increased risk for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA); and ((4)) how well ROS responses function as diagnostic tests to identify OSA risk.


METHODS
We used a prospectively collected sample of consecutive adult patients undergoing preventive examinations at 2 family medicine clinics. Patients completed ROS forms and the Berlin Questionnaire to determine OSA risk level. Physicians at only one site used ROS forms during care.


RESULTS
Two hundred forty-nine of 382 eligible patients (65%) completed forms and underwent examinations. Thirty-seven percent responded positively to sleep-related ROS questions. Physicians documented 24% of those complaints. ROS form use affected documentation (31% with use vs 5% without; P = .03). Thirty-three percent of all patients had increased OSA risk. Fifty-seven percent of high-risk patients responded affirmatively to an ROS question as opposed to 27% for those at lower risk (P < .001). ROS responses were 57% sensitive and 73% specific for increased OSA risk.


CONCLUSIONS
Sleep symptoms were common and were recognized significantly more often when our physicians used a ROS form. However, few complaints were investigated. Our current ROS sleep questions are not sufficiently sensitive to identify increased OSA risk. Physicians should prioritize evaluation of sleep dysfunction because of the association with OSA.
Attitudes and Perceptions towards Men in Nursing Education

Purpose: The aim of the current investigation was to compare and contrast societal perceptions and attitudes towards men in nursing as reported by male and female nursing and non-nursing university students. Methods: A comparative study design was employed to investigate societal attitudes and perceptions towards male nurses enrolled in school of nursing in a mid-sized university in Ontario, Canada. A convenience non-random sampling method was employed that consisted of undergraduate nursing (N = 82) and non-nursing (N = 67) students. Perceptions and attitudes towards men in nursing were assessed using the Attitudes Towards Men in Nursing Scale (ATMINS). Results: Sixty-seven non-nursing students partook in this investigation, including 36 males and 31 females. The non-nursing female students ranged in age from 19 to 25 years (mean = 21.6 +/standard deviation [S.D.] 4.9), and non-nursing male students ranged in age from 19 to 37 years (mean = 23.9 +/4.9 S.D.). The nursing female students ranged in age from 19 to 44 years (mean = 21.8 +/8.8 S.D.), and the male nursing students ranged in age from 19 to 46 years (mean = 28.9 +/8.8 S.D.). Overall, both female nursing and non-nursing students were found to have less favourable perceptions and negative attitudes towards male nursing students. Conclusions and Recommendations: Our findings suggest that there is a general perception in Canadian society that nursing is a more suitable career choice for women than men. Moreover, societal perceptions and stereotypes towards male nurses (e.g., they are gay, effeminate, less compassionate and caring than females nurses) prevail, which may negatively contribute to their recruitment and retention in nursing programs. Greater efforts need to be taken to recruit more positive male role models in clinical practice and academia. Furthermore, recruitment ads for nursing should make greater efforts to portray the male presence in the profession. These strategies will help to address in part the current national and global shortages for nurses and also help to encourage diversity in the profession.
Does the Extended Technology Acceptance Model Apply to Physicians

In previous studies, the technology acceptance model (TAM) [1] has been widely used by information technology researchers to gain a better understanding of information technology (IT) adoption and its use in organizations. While TAM has been applied and tested in academic and corporate settings, involving students, business managers, clerical and administrative types as subjects, few studies have evaluated TAM in the health care environment. This study examines the applicability of the extended Technology Acceptance Model (TAM2) [2] in the context of physicians’ intention to adopt Internet-based health applications. Data were collected in a survey of pediatricians to see how well the extended model, fits in the medical sector. Our results partially confirm the model, however significant theoretical aspects were not supported. One of the core perception variables, perceived ease of use, did not predict intention to use in this study. As theorized, the primary predictor variable perceived usefulness was a strong determinant of intention to use. This paper discusses the implications, limitations, and possible explanations for the inconsistencies within the model when applied to such professional users as physicians.
Automatic Handgun Detection Alarm in Videos Using Deep Learning

Current surveillance and control systems still require human supervision and intervention. This work presents a novel automatic handgun detection system in videos appropriate for both, surveillance and control purposes. We reformulate this detection problem into the problem of minimizing false positives and solve it by i) building the key training data-set guided by the results of a deep Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) classifier and ii) assessing the best classification model under two approaches, the sliding window approach and region proposal approach. The most promising results are obtained by Faster RCNN based model trained on our new database. The best detector shows a high potential even in low quality youtube videos and provides satisfactory results as automatic alarm system. Among 30 scenes, it successfully activates the alarm after five successive true positives in a time interval smaller than 0.2 s, in 27 scenes. We also define a new metric, Alarm Activation Time per Interval (AATpI), to assess the performance of a detection model as an automatic detection system in videos. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Optimization for dynamic ride-sharing: A review

Dynamic ride-share systems aim to bring together travelers with similar itineraries and time schedules on short-notice. These systems may provide significant societal and environmental benefits by reducing the number of cars used for personal travel and improving the utilization of available seat capacity. Effective and efficient optimization technology that matches drivers and riders in real-time is one of the necessary components for a successful dynamic ride-share system. We systematically outline the optimization challenges that arise when developing technology to support ride-sharing and survey the related operations research models in the academic literature. We hope that this paper will encourage more research by the transportation science and logistics community in this exciting, emerging area of public transportation. 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Linear Coupling: An Ultimate Unification of Gradient and Mirror Descent

First-order methods play a central role in large-scale machine learning. Even though many variations exist, each suited to a particular problem, almost all such methods fundamentally rely on two types of algorithmic steps: gradient descent, which yields primal progress, and mirror descent, which yields dual progress. We observe that the performances of gradient and mirror descent are complementary, so that faster algorithms can be designed by linearly coupling the two. We show how to reconstruct Nesterov’s accelerated gradient methods using linear coupling, which gives a cleaner interpretation than Nesterov’s original proofs. We also discuss the power of linear coupling by extending it to many other settings that Nesterov’s methods cannot apply to. 1998 ACM Subject Classification G.1.6 Optimization, F.2 Analysis of Algorithms and Problem Complexity
Atrial natriuretic peptide infusion and nitric oxide inhalation in patients with acute respiratory distress syndrome

AIM
To study the effects of infusion of atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) versus the inhalation of nitric oxide (NO) in patients with an early acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).


METHODS
Ten patients with severe ARDS were studied in a crossover study design, within 72 hours after starting mechanical ventilation. We studied the effects of ANP infusion (10 ng/kg/min for 1 hour) and of inhalation of NO (20 ppm for 1 hour) on hemodynamic and respiratory patient parameters, as well as the effects on plasma levels of ANP, guanosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate, nitrate and endothelin-1.


RESULTS
Despite an approximate 50% increase in mixed venous ANP plasma concentration (from 86 +/- 21 to 123 +/- 33 ng/l, P < 0.05) during ANP infusion, there were no changes in mean pulmonary artery pressure, pulmonary vascular resistance index, extravascular lung water index, or in pulmonary gas exchange. NO inhalation, in contrast, lowered mean pulmonary artery pressure (from 26 +/- 1.9 to 23.9 +/- 1.7 mmHg, P < 0.01), pulmonary vascular resistance index (from 314 +/- 37 to 273 +/- 32 dynes/cm5/m2, P < 0.05) and central venous pressure (from 8.2 +/- 1.2 to 7.3 +/- 1.1 mmHg, P < 0.02). Furthermore, NO inhalation improved pulmonary gas exchange, reflected by a decrease in alveolar-arterial oxygen gradient (from 41.9 +/- 3.9 to 40.4 +/- 3.6 kPa, P < 0.05), a small increase in oxygenation (PaO2/FiO2 from 17.7 +/- 1.4 to 19.7 +/- 1.1 kPa, P = 0.07) and a small decrease in venous admixture (Qs/Qt from 35.7 +/- 2.0 to 32.8 +/- 2.7%, P = 0.11).


CONCLUSION
This study shows that, in contrast to NO inhalation, infusion of ANP neither improves oxygenation nor attenuates pulmonary hypertension or pulmonary edema in patients with severe ARDS.
Data mining issues and opportunities for building nursing knowledge

Health care information systems tend to capture data for nursing tasks, and have little basis in nursing knowledge. Opportunity lies in an important issue where the knowledge used by expert nurses (nursing knowledge workers) in caring for patients is undervalued in the health care system. The complexity of nursing's knowledge base remains poorly articulated and inadequately represented in contemporary information systems. There is opportunity for data mining methods to assist with discovering important linkages between clinical data, nursing interventions, and patient outcomes. Following a brief overview of relevant data mining techniques, a preterm risk prediction case study illustrates the opportunities and describes typical data mining issues in the nontrivial task of building knowledge. Building knowledge in nursing, using data mining or any other method, will make progress only if important data that capture expert nurses' contributions are available in clinical information systems configurations.
Enhancing alphabet knowledge instruction: Research implications and practical strategies for early childhood educators

Alphabet knowledge is consistently recognized as the strongest, most durable predictor of later literacy achievement. Recent research offers practical implications for increased effectiveness of teaching alphabet knowledge to young children. In this article, we outline Enhanced Alphabet Knowledge instruction (EAK), a method of practical instruction that early childhood teachers can use to organize, plan, and teach the essential skills of alphabet knowledge. EAK emphasizes identifying the letter name and sound, recognizing the letter in text, and producing the letter form, through flexible, distributed cycles of review based on factors that influence acquisition of alphabet knowledge.