LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Impact of mucosal healing on long-term outcomes in ulcerative colitis treated with infliximab: a multicenter experience.

BACKGROUND
Mucosal healing can be achieved with infliximab (IFX).


AIM
To assess the impact of mucosal healing on long-term outcomes in patients with ulcerative colitis (UC) when treated with infliximab (IFX) beyond 1 year.


METHODS
All consecutive adult patients with refractory UC receiving maintenance treatment with IFX in five French referral centres were analysed retrospectively. Only patients who had endoscopic evaluation between 6 and 52 weeks following IFX initiation were included. According to their Mayo endoscopic sub-score, patients were categorised into mucosal healing (sub-score: 0-1) and no mucosal healing (2-3). Outcome measures were colectomy and IFX failure defined by drug withdrawal due to secondary failure among primary responders.


RESULTS
Of the 63 patients (30 women; median age: 38 years), 30 (48%) achieved mucosal healing. The median follow-up duration was 27 (3-79) months. Colectomy-free survival rates at 12, 24 and 36 months were, respectively, 100%, 96% and 96% in patients with mucosal healing. The corresponding figures were, respectively, 80%, 65% and 65% in patients without mucosal healing (P = 0.004). By multivariate analysis, mucosal healing was the only factor associated with colectomy-free survival, with an odds ratio of 18.01 (95%CI: 1.58-204.92). IFX failure-free survival rates at 12, 24 and 36 months were, respectively, 76%, 69% and 64% in patients with mucosal healing, and 44%, 25% and 21% in those without mucosal healing (P = 0.003).


CONCLUSION
Patients with refractory UC who achieved mucosal healing after IFX initiation had better long-term outcomes, with significantly less colectomy and less IFX failure.
Clinical features of colorectal cancer in Iran: a 15-year review.

OBJECTIVE
The increasing frequency of colorectal cancer in Asian countries, which have traditionally had a lower incidence than populations in developed countries, and a lower age of onset in Iran led us to perform a study on patients with colorectal cancer to investigate the clinical features of colorectal cancer in Iranians.


METHODS
We studied 977 consecutive cases of colorectal cancer in terms of age, gender, and anatomic location during a 15-year period (1989-2004). The patients were hospitalized in three referral hospitals affiliated to Shahid Beheshti Medical University in Tehran, Iran. Related data were extracted from the patients' medical records and processed using SPSS ver. 12. Most of our patients (251 cases or 25.6%) were between 60 and 69 years of age. We recorded 534 men (54.3%) and 443 women (45.7%). A total of 36% of patients were between 40 and 59 years and 306 patients (31.32%) had rectal cancer.


RESULTS
The highest frequency of colorectal cancer in our study belonged to an age group a decade younger than the range mentioned in the literature for populations in developed societies.


CONCLUSION
Regarding similar studies, it seems reasonable to adopt screening a decade earlier for Iranian patients.
Loan supply, credit markets and the euro area financial crisis

We use bank-level information on lending practices from the euro area Bank Lending Survey to construct a new indicator of loans JEL Classification: E51, E44, C32
Multi-Frequency and Dual-Mode Patch Antenna Based on Electromagnetic Band-gap (EBG) Structure

Microstrip patch antenna with multi-frequency and dual-mode is presented in this communication. The introduction of metamaterial substrate made of modified mushroom-type electromagnetic band-gap (EBG) structure enables the multi- functions. The composite right/left-handed transmission line (CRLH TL) theory and multi-conductor transmission line (MTL) theory are introduced to analyze and design this kind of antenna. Three modes including one monopolar radiation pattern in the n=0 mode and two patch-like radiation patterns in the n=-1, 1 modes respectively are analyzed and can be tuned by the parameters of the EBG structure. Since geometry of the radiating patch does not affect the infinite wavelength mode, circular polarization (CP) is obtained for the n=+1 mode by truncating the square radiating patch with linear polarization (LP) for the n=0 mode staying unchanged. Thus dual polarized antenna is obtained. Two prototypes of probe-fed patch antennas are fabricated to verify the theory analysis.
Restricted Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS) Herpesvirus Transcription in KS Lesions from Patients on Successful Antiretroviral Therapy

UNLABELLED
Kaposi's sarcoma (KS) is caused by Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV; human herpesvirus 8). KS is an AIDS-defining cancer, and it is changing in the post-antiretroviral therapy (post-ART) era. In countries with ready access to ART, approximately one-third of KS cases present in patients with undetectable HIV loads and CD4 counts of ≥200 cells/µl. This is in contrast to pre-ART era KS, which was associated with systemic HIV replication and CD4 counts of ≤200 cells/µl. Using primary patient biopsy specimens, we identified a novel molecular signature that characterizes AIDS KS lesions that develop in HIV-suppressed patients on ART: KSHV transcription is limited in HIV-suppressed patients. With one exception, only the canonical viral latency mRNAs were detectable. In contrast, early AIDS KS lesions expressed many more viral mRNAs, including, for instance, the viral G protein-coupled receptor (vGPCR).


IMPORTANCE
This is the first genomewide study of Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus (KSHV) transcription in KS lesions in the post-antiretroviral (post-ART) era. It shows that the gene expression of KSHV is altered in patients on ART, and it provides clinical evidence for active AIDS (as characterized by high HIV load and low CD4 counts) being a potential modulator of KSHV transcription. This implies a novel mode of pathogenesis (tightly latent KS), which may inform KS cancer treatment options in the post-ART era.
Global Encoding for Abstractive Summarization

Problems in the seq2seq (repetition and semantic irrelevance); Our global encoding mechanism: CNN and self attention; Improved performances on the benchmark datasets; Generate summaries with less repetition and higher semantic consistency to the source text. Sequence-to-Sequence as Baseline  Encoder: RNN is more popular, usually LSTM and GRU  Decoder: RNN for sequential decoding. Usually training is with teacher forcing.  Attention mechanism: additive attention or global attention for the relevant source-side information Example Problems in the seq2seq (repetition and semantic irrelevance); Experiments  Dataset: LCSTS and Gigaword Qualitative Analyses CNN (Inception-like structure), Self Attention and Gate Conclusion • Conventional Seq2Seq requires a mechanism to improve the source annotations so that they can provide summary-oriented information for the attention. • Global encoding can improve the quality of generated summaries, which is reflected in both the ROUGE evaluation and the case study. • It still requires future work to figure out what it filters and how it improves the performance of the model. Example Noise in the source context Relationship between the source and the target is different from the alignment in machine translation, and correct alignment does not indicate good summary. Source annotation at each time step lacks global information of the context, which may provide unnecessary information for summary. Global Encoding  Convolutional Neural Networks over the source annotations  Self attention for the connections to the global context.  Collaboratively build a gate for the original source annotations. Self Attention
Heart Rate Variability in Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome

ABSTRACT: Heart rate variability was assessed in 12 patients with congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS) and in age- and sex-matched controls using SD of time intervals between R waves (R-R intervals), R-R interval histograms, spectral analysis, and Poincaré plots of sequential R-R intervals over a 24-h period using ambulatory monitoring. Mean heart rates in patients with CCHS were 103.3 ± 17.7 SD and in controls were 98.8 ± 21.6 SD (p > 0.5, NS). SD analysis of R-R intervals showed similar results in both groups (CCHS 102.2 ± 36.0 ms versus controls 126.1 ± 43.3 ms; p > 0.1, NS). Spectral analysis revealed that, for similar epochs sampled during quiet sleep and wakefulness, the ratios of low-frequency band to high-frequency band spectral power were increased for 11 of 12 patients with CCHS during sleep, whereas a decrease in these ratios was consistently observed in all controls during comparable sleep states (χ2 = 20.31; p < 0.000007). During wakefulness, the ratios of low-frequency band to high-frequency band spectral power were similar in both patients with CCHS and controls. Poincaré plots displayed significantly reduced beat-to-beat changes at slower heart rates in the CCHS patients (χ2 = 24.0; p < 0.000001). The scatter of points in CCHS Poincare plots was easily distinguished from controls. AH CCHS patients showed disturbed variability with one or more measures. The changes in moment-to-moment heart rate variability suggest that, in addition to a loss of ventilatory control, CCHS patients exhibit a dysfunction in autonomic nervous system control of the heart.
Low risk for nephrogenic systemic fibrosis in nondialysis patients who have chronic kidney disease and are investigated with gadolinium-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
During the past decade, nephrogenic systemic fibrosis (NSF) has been reported in patients who have severe renal impairment and have been exposed to a gadolinium (Gd)-based contrast agent during magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). As a result of positive reporting bias, many suitable patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) are being denied a highly important form of investigation that can be safely undertaken. We analyzed the safety of Gd-MRI in patients with CKD and varying levels of estimated GFR (eGFR).


DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS
We performed a retrospective analysis of 2053 unselected patients who had CKD and had received Gd-MRI between 1999 and 2009, so as to determine the risk for NSF related to level of CKD, nature of Gd preparation, and Gd dosage.


RESULTS
Overall, 2053 patients (63.5% men; mean age 60.6 +/- 15.7 years) had 2278 Gd-MRI scans; their mean eGFR was 40.7 +/- 23.7 ml/min. A total of 918 (44.7%) patients had stage 3, 491 (23.9%) had stage 4, and 117 (5.7%) had predialysis stage 5 CKD. No cases of NSF were identified during an average follow-up period of 28.6 +/- 18.2 months.


CONCLUSIONS
In this study, no patients developed NSF during extended follow-up, even after multiple Gd doses in some. Gd-MRI can be safely undertaken in the majority of patients with CKD, but caution is merited for dialysis patients and those with acute kidney injury, with relative caution for predialysis patients with stage 5 CKD.
OUHANDS database for hand detection and pose recognition

In this paper we propose a publicly available static hand pose database called OUHANDS and protocols for training and evaluating hand pose classification and hand detection methods. A comparison between the OUHANDS database and existing databases is given. Baseline results for both of the protocols are presented.
Reamer-irrigator-aspirator bone graft and bi Masquelet technique for segmental bone defect nonunions: a review of 25 cases.

INTRODUCTION
Segmental bone loss, either from trauma, tumor or infection is a challenging clinical entity. Amputation is a possible outcome and part of the decision making process. Surgical management is almost always needed and can require several interventions to obtain bone union. A staged protocol of obtaining a clean viable soft tissue bed, placement of a PMMA antibiotic impregnated spacer to induce a neovascular and bioactive membrane followed by autogenous bone graft has been reported with good outcomes. Our study attempts to expand on this data by evaluating the use of RIA bone graft for the treatment of segmental bone loss nonunions following trauma and or infection.


METHODS
Following IRB approval, two orthopaedic trauma fellowship trained surgeons used one surgical protocol for the management of segmental bone defect nonunions. Femur RIA bone graft was used as the graft source when possible. We retrospectively evaluated patients with segmental bone loss of the lower extremity over a two year period. Our primary endpoint was clinical and radiographic bone union. A secondary endpoint was RIA related complications. Additionally, by using some known mathematical equations, we show a plausible way of quantifying the amount of bone loss from a long bone based on the shape of the bone, defect shape and the measured length of bone loss on plain radiograph.


RESULTS
25 patients with 27 segmental bone loss nonunions were evaluated. Nineteen were tibia bone loss and eight were femoral. 15 (56%) nonunions were open fractures with bone loss and 12(46%) were for bone loss related to infection or surgical debridement. The average deficit size was 5.8 cm in length (range 1-25 cm). At six months and 1 year post operative, 70% and 90% nonunions were healed clinically and radiographically respectively. There were no RIA related complications.


DISCUSSION
RIA bone graft has been shown to be a very bioactive material. Several studies support the use of this bone graft for the treatment of nonunion including one recent study evaluating 13 patients with segmental bone loss. Our study expands on this data by evaluating its use as the primary source of bone graft for the treatment of segmental bone loss nonunions in the lower extremity.


CONCLUSION
RIA bone graft for the treatment of segmental bone defect nonunion of the lower extremity appears safe and can yield predictable results when following sound surgical principles. 90% of our nonunions were healed at one year following a single bone graft procedure. Very large defects, once a formidable clinical dilemma can be managed successfully with the use of RIA bone graft.
A qualitative study of key stakeholders' perspectives on compassion in healthcare and the development of a framework for compassionate interpersonal relations.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
To report findings from a qualitative study of key stakeholders' perspectives on 'compassion' in the health care context. To present the 'Framework for Compassionate Interpersonal Relations'.


BACKGROUND
Although many research articles, health policies and health care strategies identify compassion as an underpinning value and key component of health care quality, identifying a unified definition of compassion is challenging. For Higher Education Institutions implementing 'values-based' recruitment processes, a clearer understanding of this core concept is vital.


DESIGN
Exploratory, qualitative design.


METHODS
Academic staff, health care students, clinicians and service users (n = 45), participated in nine focus groups where they were asked to define compassion in the context of health care. Data were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis.


RESULTS
Four overarching themes were drawn from the data. The first theme centred on the participants' definitions of compassion, while the second identified compassionate behaviours. The third theme related to the barriers and threats to compassionate practice and the fourth, focused on ways to support compassion in practice. Participants believed that the health care staff should be 'consistently compassionate', and were emphatic that compassion should not be substituted with a 'care without engagement' approach.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings concur with other research, which identifies the link between compassion and empathy and the importance of establishing meaningful connections with others. While participants in this study recognised the pressures of health care work and accepted that the expectation of 'consistent compassion' was not necessarily realistic, it was still seen as an important goal.


RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
Participants held clear expectations regarding practitioners' communication skills and used these as a proxy for compassionate practice. The 'Framework for Compassionate Inter-personal Relations' may be used to promote reflection on the implementation of compassionate practice. It may also be used to highlight areas of focus when conducting values-based recruitment activities.
Is cannabis an anti-antipsychotic? The experience in psychiatric intensive care.

BACKGROUND
Cannabis use is a major problem in inner cities and has been causally implicated in psychosis. Very few of the available hospital-based studies of the implications of cannabis usage have involved psychiatric intensive care units (PICU); but PICU receive many of the most challenging and resource-hungry-and incompletely understood-patients in the mental health system.


AIMS
To study the clinical impact of cannabis abuse in a PICU, and to compare the use of atypical and typical antipsychotics in this setting.


METHOD
115 patients admitted to a PICU consented to take part in an open label naturalistic study. BPRS, TCI-240, weight, length of admission and routine bloods were evaluated in all participants.


RESULTS
There was a high rate of cannabis abuse (71.3%) in the PICU population. Patients who abused cannabis spent longer in PICU because their psychoses were more severe. They were younger at first hospital admission. Cannabis also had metabolic implications, with higher blood glucose levels at admission and greater weight increase. Atypical antipsychotics were effective in treating psychosis inpatients positive to cannabis at admission.


CONCLUSION
Our findings suggest that cannabis abusers had a more severe psychotic illness, especially in schizophrenia. There are additional complications in terms of weight gain for cannabis users.
Subcutaneous Stimulation as ADD-ON Therapy to Spinal Cord Stimulation Is Effective in Treating Low Back Pain in Patients With Failed Back Surgery Syndrome: A Multicenter Randomized Controlled Trial.

OBJECTIVE
Suppression of back pain with traditional spinal cord stimulation (SCS) in failed back surgery syndrome patients is often insufficient. The objective of this study was to investigate the efficacy of subcutaneous stimulation (SubQ) as ADD-ON therapy to SCS in treating back pain in failed back surgery syndrome patients.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
Patients with a minimal pain score of 50 on a 100 mm visual analog scale for both leg and back pain were eligible. If pain reduction after trial SCS was ≥50% for the leg but <50% for the back, patients received additional SubQ leads and were randomized in a 1:1 ratio in a study arm with subcutaneous leads switched on (SubQ ADD-ON) and an arm with subcutaneous leads switched off (Control). The primary outcome was the percentage of the patients, at three months since implantation, with ≥50% reduction of back pain.


RESULTS
A total of 97 patients were treated with SCS for leg and back pain. Of these, 52 patients were randomized and allocated to the Control group (n = 24) or to the SubQ ADD-ON group (n = 28). The percentage of patients with ≥50% reduction of back pain was significantly higher in the SubQ ADD-ON group (42.9%) compared to the Control group (4.2%). Mean visual analog scale for back pain, at three months, was a statistically significant 28.1 mm lower in the SubQ ADD-ON group compared to the Control group.


CONCLUSION
Subcutaneous stimulation as an ADD-ON therapy to SCS is effective in treating back pain in failed back surgery syndrome patients where SCS is only effective for pain in the leg.
ECONOMIC EFFICIENCY AND CONSTRAINTS OF MAIZE PRODUCTION IN THE NORTHERN REGION OF BANGLADESH

Faruq Hasan M. 2008. Economic Efficiency and Constraints of Maize Production in the Northern Region of Bangladesh. j. innov.dev.strategy 1(1): 18-32 The study was conducted at the Sadar upazila of Dinajpur and Panchagarh to estimate the costs, returns and economic efficiency of maize production compared to Boro rice. The growth rate of maize in the country and constraints to maize production at farm level was also emphasized. The sample size of the study was 100 equally from each district. All the farmers used hybrid seeds for maize cultivation with an average yield of 6.27 ton/ha, which is higher in Dinajpur (6.35 ton/ha) compared to Panchagarh district (6.18 ton/ha). The returns of scale of the selected inputs were 0.72 and 0.68 for Dinajpur and Panchagarh respectively. The technical efficiency was found on an average 0.84 at Dinajpur and 0.80 at Panchagarh. It was also found that, farmers in the study area had scope to increase maize productivity by attaining full efficiency through reallocating the resources. Economic analysis of maize and maize-based cropping pattern in comparison to Boro rice and Boro-based cropping pattern indicates the high profitability of maize production system than that of Boro rice. Comparatively high growth rate was found in area, production as well as in yield of maize since 1987-88 to 2005-06 as the composite and hybrid varieties were introduced in this period. High seed price, low grain price, and unavailability of fertilizers at time when required are the top most three constraints as indicated by the maize farmers. It was suggested that, supply of inputs at fair price at time when required and an organized marketing system is essential for expanding the maize production in the country.
The effects of scapular stabilization based exercise therapy on pain, posture, flexibility and shoulder mobility in patients with shoulder impingement syndrome: a controlled randomized clinical trial

BACKGROUND
Dysfunction in the kinetic chain caused by poor scapula stabilization can contribute to shoulder injuries and Shoulder Impingement Syndrome (SIS). The purpose of this study was to compare the effectiveness of two treatment approaches scapular stabilization based exercise therapy and physical therapy in patients with SIS.


METHODS
The study is a randomized clinical trial in which 68 patients with SIS were randomly assigned in two groups of exercise therapy (ET) and physical therapy (PT) and received 18 sessions of treatment. Pain, shoulders' range of abduction and external rotation, shoulder protraction, scapular rotation and symmetry as well as postural assessment and Pectoralis minor length were evaluated pre and post intervention. The paired-sample t test and the independent sample t test were applied respectively to determine the differences in each group and between two groups.


RESULTS
Our findings indicated significant differences in abduction and external rotation range, improvement of forward shoulder translation and increase in the flexibility of the involved shoulder between the two groups (respectively ; p=0.024, p=0.001, p<0/0001, p<0/0001). No significant difference was detected in pain reduction between the groups (p=0.576). Protraction of the shoulder (p<0.0001), forward head posture (p<0/0001) and mid thoracic curvature (p<0.0001) revealed a significant improvement in the ET group. Apparent changes occurred in scapular rotation and symmetry in both groups but no significant differences were observed between the two groups (respectively; p=0.183, p=0.578).


CONCLUSION
The scapular stabilization based exercise intervention was successful in increasing shoulder range, decreasing forward head and shoulder postures and Pectoralis minor flexibility.
Hiding data in images by simple LSB substitution

In this paper, a data hiding scheme by simple LSB substitution is proposed. By applying an optimal pixel adjustment process to the stego-image obtained by the simple LSB substitution method, the image quality of the stego-image can be greatly improved with low extra computational complexity. The worst case mean-square-error between the stego-image and the cover-image is derived. Experimental results show that the stego-image is visually indistinguishable from the original cover-image. The obtained results also show a signi7cant improvement with respect to a previous work. ? 2003 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.