LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Transcatheter aortic valve implantation: early results of the FRANCE (FRench Aortic National CoreValve and Edwards) registry.

AIMS
Transcatheter aortic valve implantation is a therapeutic alternative for high-surgical-risk patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis. Two models of prosthesis are currently commercialized in France, which can be implanted either via a transarterial or a transapical approach. The aim of the study was to evaluate in a national French registry the early safety and efficacy of transcatheter aortic valve replacement (AVR) using either the Edwards SAPIEN™ or CoreValve™ in high-surgical-risk patients with severe aortic stenosis.


METHODS AND RESULTS
The multicentre national registry was conducted in 16 centres between February 2009 and June 2009, under the authority of the French Societies of Cardiology and Thoracic and Cardio-Vascular Surgery. The primary endpoint was mortality at 1 month. Two hundred and forty-four high-surgical-risk patients (logistic EuroSCORE ≥20%, STS ≥10%, or contra-indication to AVR) were enrolled. Mean age was 82 ± 7 years and 43.9% were female. Edwards SAPIEN and CoreValve were implanted in 68 and 32% of patients, respectively. The approaches used were transarterial (transfemoral: 66%; subclavian: 5%) or transapical in 29%. Device success rate was 98.3% and 30-day mortality was 12.7%. Severe complications included stroke (3.6%), tamponade (2%), acute coronary occlusion (1.2%), and vascular complications (7.3%). Pacemaker was required in 11.8%. At 1 month, 88% of patients were in NYHA class II or less.


CONCLUSION
This prospective registry reflects the real-life experience of transcatheter aortic valve implantation in high-risk elderly patients in France. The early results are satisfactory in terms of feasibility, short-term haemodynamic and functional improvement, and safety. Longer term follow-up will be further assessed.
Exercise and diabetes.

Diet and exercise form the foundation of a healthy lifestyle. These are especially important for people living with diabetes mellitus, as they are the most practical non-pharmacological means by which patients may significantly improve their blood glucose levels. Exercise increases insulin sensitivity (both short and long term), lowers blood sugar levels, reduces body fat and improves cardiovascular (CV) function. Because of this, exercise offers enormous benefit to patients with diabetes. Blood glucose levels can significantly drop during and after physical activities, due to the increased utilisation of glucose as a fuel during exercise and the up-regulation of glucose transport into working muscles. Therefore, patients (especially those with type 1 diabetes) must account for the effects of exercise and adjust their medications and nutrition accordingly. Improvements in real-time continuous glucose monitoring and optimisation of basal insulin dosing may offer significant benefit to preventing hypoglycaemia in patients with type 1 diabetes who regularly exercise. Diverse exercise programmes and devices can also assist patients in monitoring their activities as well as motivating them to achieve their exercise goals. For patients with type 1 diabetes, questions such as how much, how long, how strenuous and what kind of exercise must be addressed in order for healthcare professionals to offer maximum benefit to their patients. Additionally, since patients with type 2 diabetes often have other significant co-morbidities such as obesity and CV disease, care providers must evaluate each patient's risk factors before designing an exercise programme. Several publications in the last year have addressed these issues and may serve as a valuable resource to provide safe and effective recommendations to patients and their healthcare providers. To be included in the Exercise and Diabetes chapter for the 2010 YEARBOOK, we reviewed leading peer-reviewed manuscripts that were published in the period July 2009 to June 2010. PubMed was used in the initial screening of articles.
Bayesian Learning with Dependency Structures via Latent Factors, Mixtures, and Copulas

Bayesian Learning with Dependency Structures via Latent Factors, Mixtures, and Copulas by Shaobo Han Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Duke University Date: Approved: Lawrence Carin, Supervisor
OpenPTrack: People Tracking for Heterogeneous Networks of Color-Depth Cameras

This paper introduces OpenPTrack, an open source software for multi-camera people tracking in RGB-D camera networks. OpenPTrack provides real-time people detection and tracking algorithms from 3D data coming from Microsoft Kinect and Mesa SwissRanger. The software is able to track people at 30 Hz with minimum latency. A user-friendly calibration procedure is also provided, so that the camera network can be calibrated in few seconds by moving a checkerboard in front of the cameras and seeing the calibration results in real time. The algorithms for people detection are executed in a distributed fashion for every sensor, while tracking is done by a single node which takes into account detections from all over the network. Algorithms based on RGB or depth are automatically enabled while the system is running, depending on the luminance properties of the image. OpenPTrack is based on the Robot Operating System and the Point Cloud Library and has been tested on networks composed of up to six sensors.
Extended shelf life refrigerated foods : Microbiological quality and safety

quality and safety. Extended shelf life refrigerated foods are foods that have received minimal processing or precooking and have an enhanced but limited shelf life; refrigeration is a key preservation measure. These foods include conventional products, such as luncheon meats and cured meats, as well as a new generation of partially processed refrigerated foods (NFPA, 1988) such as meat, seafood, egg, and vegetable salads, fresh pasta and pasta sauces, other sauces, soups, entrees, complete meals, and uncured meat and poultry items. Sous-vide foods, cooked inside a hermetically sealed plastic package under vacuum, are also included in this definition. If extended shelf life refrigerated foods are heat processed, the heat treatment is much less than that required for commercial sterility. Canned foods are, therefore, excluded from this food category. Sous-vide foods and others that receive a lower heat treatment than that used for Extended Shelf Life Refrigerated Foods: Microbiological Quality and Safety
Rising Tides or Rising Stars?: Dynamics of Shared Attention on Twitter during Media Events

"Media events" generate conditions of shared attention as many users simultaneously tune in with the dual screens of broadcast and social media to view and participate. We examine how collective patterns of user behavior under conditions of shared attention are distinct from other "bursts" of activity like breaking news events. Using 290 million tweets from a panel of 193,532 politically active Twitter users, we compare features of their behavior during eight major events during the 2012 U.S. presidential election to examine how patterns of social media use change during these media events compared to "typical" time and whether these changes are attributable to shifts in the behavior of the population as a whole or shifts from particular segments such as elites. Compared to baseline time periods, our findings reveal that media events not only generate large volumes of tweets, but they are also associated with (1) substantial declines in interpersonal communication, (2) more highly concentrated attention by replying to and retweeting particular users, and (3) elite users predominantly benefiting from this attention. These findings empirically demonstrate how bursts of activity on Twitter during media events significantly alter underlying social processes of interpersonal communication and social interaction. Because the behavior of large populations within socio-technical systems can change so dramatically, our findings suggest the need for further research about how social media responses to media events can be used to support collective sensemaking, to promote informed deliberation, and to remain resilient in the face of misinformation.
Impact of chemotherapy followed by aromatase inhibitors on bone health of women with ER-positive early breast cancer in real world clinical settings in Greece: Results of the POCHARBI trial conducted by the Hellenic Society of Breast Surgeons.

INTRODUCTION
The aim of this observational study was to assess the combined impact of chemotherapy (CT) and aromatase inhibitors (AI) therapy on bone mineral density (BMD) in postmenopausal women with estrogen receptor (ER)-positive early breast cancer.


METHODS
Patients were treated with a third generation AI, either as adjuvant therapy (HT cohort, n = 166) or as subsequent endocrine therapy after initial treatment with chemotherapy (CT cohort, n = 124), and were followed up for a 12-month period. BMD was evaluated at lumbar spine (LS) and total hip (HP) before CT, before AI therapy and after 12 months of AI therapy. The primary study objective was changes in LS BMD between pre CT treatment and post 12 months AI therapy in the CT cohort.


RESULTS
There were no statistically significant changes in LS BMD, either within CT or HT cohort. In the CT cohort, the mean LS BMD change was -0.72% (95% CI: -2.97%, +1.53%, p = 0.5526) between CT start and month 12 of AI therapy, while it was -0.19% (95% CI: -2.12%, +1.74%, p = 0.8309) and -0.59% (95% CI: -3.18%, +2.00%, p = 0.4759) between CT start and AI start and AI start and month 12 of AI therapy respectively. The mean change in LS BMD in the HT cohort (i.e. after 12 months of AI treatment) was +1.51% (95% CI: -0.96%, +3.98%, p = 0.7420).


CONCLUSIONS
The results of this study indicate that, under routine clinical practice, most postmenopausal patients who receive CT before AI therapy do not experience debilitating BMD consequences during the first year of AI treatment.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier NCT01298362.
Research Directions in Handheld AR

Handheld mobile devices are an exciting new platform for Augmented Reality (AR). Mobile phones and PDAs have the potential to provide AR experiences to hundreds of millions of consumers. However, before widespread use can occur there are some obstacles that must be overcome. In particular, developers must consider the hardware and software capabilities of mobile devices and how these can be used to provide an effective AR experience. They must also develop AR interaction metaphors suitable for handheld AR. In this paper we review current and previous research in the field, provide design guidelines and outline future research directions. Index Terms — Augmented Reality, Handheld, Cell phone
New Digital Forensics Investigation Procedure Model

In this paper, we presented a new digital forensics investigation procedure model which is as follows: investigation preparation, classifying cyber crime and deciding investigation priority, investigating damaged (victim) digital crime scene, criminal profiling consultant and analysis, tracking suspects, investigating injurer digital crime scene, summoning suspect, additional investigation, writing criminal profiling, writing report.
Three-dimensional endoscopic sinus surgery: feasibility and technical aspects.

The development of endoscopic techniques for a variety of sinonasal disorders has paralleled advances in technology and instrumentation including angled endoscopes, multi-chip cameras, and image guidance. Despite the progressive technological innovations in modern endoscopic surgery, the visualization that is currently used remains 2-dimensional (2D). This is associated with significant limitations, notably a lack of depth perception. Although visual and haptic cues allow for a surgeon to understand the spatial relationships of the various structures, current visualization technology fails to provide the 3-dimensional (3D) perspective that is available in open and microscopic surgery. The development of a miniature stereoscopic camera and its adaptation to rigid endoscopes allows for performance of 3D endoscopic sinus surgery. It is hypothesized that incorporation of 3D visualization may enhance the spatial resolution required in advanced endoscopic approaches with a theoretical potential to improve outcomes.
The future of physical geography: Disintegration or integration?

Abstract An attempt is made to identify the main trends in the development of physical geography as a distinctive discipline. In particular the relationship between physical and human geography is examined with a view to identifying possible paths for the future development of physical geography as an integrated discipline.
AARC Clinical Practice Guidelines. Endotracheal suctioning of mechanically ventilated patients with artificial airways 2010.

An electronic literature search for articles published between January 1990 and October 2009 was conducted by using MEDLINE, CINAHL, and Cochrane Library databases. The update of this clinical practice guideline is the result of reviewing a total of 114 clinical trials, 62 reviews and 6 meta-analyses on endotracheal suctioning. The following recommendations are made following the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) criteria: (1) It is recommended that endotracheal suctioning should be performed only when secretions are present, and not routinely; (2) It is suggested that pre-oxygenation be considered if the patient has a clinically important reduction in oxygen saturation with suctioning; (3) Performing suctioning without disconnecting the patient from the ventilator is suggested; (4) Use of shallow suction is suggested instead of deep suction, based on evidence from infant and pediatric studies; (5) It is suggested that routine use of normal saline instillation prior to endotracheal suction should not be performed; (6) The use of closed suction is suggested for adults with high F(I)O2, or PEEP, or at risk for lung de-recruitment, and for neonates; (7) Endotracheal suctioning without disconnection (closed system) is suggested in neonates; (8) Avoidance of disconnection and use of lung recruitment maneuvers are suggested if suctioning-induced lung de-recruitment occurs in patients with ; (9) It is suggested that a suction catheter is used that occludes less than 50% the lumen of the endotracheal tube in children and adults, and less than 70% in infants; (10) It is suggested that the duration of the suctioning event be limited to less than 15 seconds.
Antibiotic and Diagnostic Discordance Between ED Physicians and Hospitalists for Pediatric Respiratory Illness.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
Imperfect diagnostic tools make it difficult to know the extent to which a bacterial process is contributing to respiratory illness, complicating the decision to prescribe antibiotics. We sought to quantify diagnostic and antibiotic prescribing disagreements between emergency department (ED) and pediatric hospitalist physicians for children admitted with respiratory illness.


METHODS
Manual chart review was used to identify testing, diagnostic, and antibiotic prescribing decisions for consecutive children admitted for respiratory illness in a winter (starting February 20, 2012) and a summer (starting August 20, 2012) season to a tertiary, freestanding children's hospital. Respiratory illness diagnoses were grouped into 3 categories: bacterial, viral, and asthma.


RESULTS
A total of 181 children admitted for respiratory illness were studied. Diagnostic discordance was significant for all 3 types of respiratory illness but greatest for bacterial (P<.001). Antibiotic prescribing discordance was significant (P<.001), with pediatric hospitalists changing therapy for 93% of patients prescribed antibiotics in the ED, including stopping antibiotics altogether for 62% of patients.


CONCLUSIONS
Significant diagnostic and antibiotic discordance between ED and pediatric hospitalist physicians exists for children admitted to the hospital for respiratory illness.
Impartial division of a dollar

For impartial division, each participant reports only her opinion about the fair relative shares of the other participants, and this report has no effect on her own share. If a specific division is compatible with all reports, it is implemented. We propose a natural method meeting these requirements, for a division among four or more participants. No such method exists for a division among three participants.
International subarachnoid aneurysm trial of neurosurgical clipping versus endovascular coiling: subgroup analysis of 278 elderly patients.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
It is often thought that elderly patients in particular would benefit from endovascular aneurysm treatment. The aim of this analysis was therefore to compare the efficacy and safety of endovascular coiling (EVT) with neurosurgical clipping (NST) in the subgroup of elderly SAH patients in the International Subarachnoid Aneurysm Trial (ISAT).


METHODS
In the ISAT cohort 278 SAH patients, 65 years or older, were enrolled. The patients were randomly allocated EVT (n=138) or NST (n=140). The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with a modified Rankin scale score of 0 to 2 (independent survival) at 1 year after the SAH. The rates of procedural complications and adverse events were also recorded.


RESULTS
83 of 138 (60.1%) patients allocated EVT were independent compared to 78 of 140 (56.1%) allocated NST (N.S.). 36 of 50 (72.0%) patients with internal carotid and posterior communicating artery aneurysms allocated EVT were independent compared to 26 of 50 (52.0%) allocated NST (P<0.05). 10 of 22 (45.5%) patients with middle cerebral artery aneurysms allocated EVT were independent compared to 13 of 15 (86.7%) allocated NST (P<0.05). The epilepsy frequency was 0.7% in the EVT group compared to 12.9% in the NST group (P<0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
In good grade elderly SAH patients with small anterior circulation aneurysms, EVT should probably be the favored treatment for ruptured internal carotid and posterior communicating artery aneurysms, whereas elderly patients with ruptured middle cerebral artery aneurysms appear to benefit from NST. EVT resulted in a lower epilepsy frequency than NST.
Cardiac surgery in Indigenous Australians--how wide is 'the gap'?

BACKGROUND
Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of mortality in the Indigenous Australian population. Limited research exists in regards to cardiac surgery in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander (ATSI) population. We aimed to investigate risk profiles, surgical pathologies, surgical management and short term outcomes in a contemporary group of patients.


METHODS
Variables were assessed for 557 consecutive patients who underwent surgery at our institution between August 2008 and March 2010.


RESULTS
19.2% (107/557) of patients were of Indigenous origin. ATSI patients were significantly younger at time of surgery (mean age 54.1±13.23 vs. 63.1±12.46; p=<0.001) with higher rates of preventable risk factors. Rheumatic heart disease (RHD) was the dominant valvular pathology observed in the Indigenous population. Significantly higher rates of left ventricular impairment and more diffuse coronary artery disease were observed in ATSI patients. A non-significant trend towards higher 30-day mortality was observed in the Indigenous population (5.6% vs. 3.1%; p=0.244).


CONCLUSIONS
Cardiac surgery is generally required at a younger age in the Indigenous population with patients often presenting with more advanced disease. Despite often more advanced disease, surgical outcomes do not differ significantly from non-Indigenous patients. Continued focus on preventative strategies for coronary artery disease and RHD in the Indigenous population is required.
Credit Risk Models I : Default Correlation in Intensity Models

This report analyzes the modelling of default intensities and probabilities in single-firm reduced-form models, and reviews the three main approaches to incorporating default dependencies within the framework of reduced models. The first approach, the conditionally independent defaults (CID), introduces credit risk dependence between firms through the dependence of the firms’ intensity processes on a common set of state variables. Contagion models extend the CID approach to account for the empirical observation of default clustering. There exist periods in which the firms’ credit risk is increased and in which the majority of the defaults take place. Finally, default dependencies can also be accounted for using copula functions. The copula approach takes as given the marginal default probabilities of the different firms and plugs them into a copula function, which provides the model with the default dependence structure. After a description of copulas, we present two different approaches of using copula functions in intensity models, and discuss the issues of the choice and calibration of the copula function. ∗This report is a revised version of the Master’s Thesis presented in partial fulfillment of the 2002-2003 MSc in Financial Mathematics at King’s College London. I thank my supervisor Lane P. Hughston and everyone at the Financial Mathematics Group at King’s College, particularly Giulia Iori and Mihail Zervos. Financial support by Banco de España is gratefully acknowledged. Any errors are the exclusive responsibility of the author. CEMFI, Casado del Alisal 5, 28014 Madrid, Spain. Email: elizalde@cemfi.es.
Computer vision based fire detection in color images

In this paper, a generic rule-based color model is proposed for fire pixel detection. The proposed algorithm exploits the YCbCr color space to separate the luminance from the chrominance for effectively addressing the issue of illumination variations. A set of rules defined on the Y, Cb and Cr color components together with the developed chrominance model on the Cb-Cr color plane are used to detect the fire pixels in color images. The performance evaluation of the developed color model and rules was conducted on a set of color images, which consists of fire, non-fire and fire-like regions. The proposed rule-based color model achieves up to 99% correct fire detection rate with 31.5% false-alarm rate. The results are compared with two other color models and show higher correct detection rate and lower false-alarm rate.
Practical and Secure IoT Device Authentication Using Physical Unclonable Functions

Devices in the internet of things (IoT) are frequently (i) resource-constrained, and (ii) deployed in unmonitored, physically unsecured environments. Securing these devices requires tractable cryptographic protocols, as well as cost effective tamper resistance solutions. We propose and evaluate cryptographic protocols that leverage physical unclonable functions (PUFs): circuits whose input to output mapping depends on the unique characteristics of the physical hardware on which it is executed. PUF-based protocols have the benefit of minimizing private key exposure, as well as providing cost-effective tamper resistance. We present and experimentally evaluate an elliptic curve based variant of a theoretical PUF-based authentication protocol proposed previously in the literature. Our work improves over an existing proof-of-concept implementation, which relied on the discrete logarithm problem as proposed in the original work. In contrast, our construction uses elliptic curve cryptography, which substantially reduces the computational and storage burden on the device. We describe PUF-based algorithms for device enrollment, authentication, decryption, and digital signature generation. The performance of each construction is experimentally evaluated on a resource-constrained device to demonstrate tractability in the IoT domain. We demonstrate that our implementation achieves practical performance results, while also providing realistic security. Our work demonstrates that PUF-based protocols may be practically and securely deployed on low-cost resource-constrained IoT devices.