LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Unsupervised Change Detection in Multitemporal SAR Images Over Large Urban Areas

Unsupervised change detection in multitemporal single-polarization synthetic aperture radar (SAR) images often involves thresholding of the image change indicator. If one class, which is usually the unchanged class, comprises a disproportionately large part of the scene, the image change indicator may have a unimodal histogram. Image thresholding of such a change indicator is a challenging task. In this paper, we present an automatic and effective approach to the thresholding of the log-ratio change indicator whose histogram may have one mode or more than one mode. A bimodality test is performed to determine whether the histogram of the log-ratio image is unimodal or not. If it has more than one mode, the generalized Kittler and Illingworth thresholding (GKIT) algorithm based on the generalized Gaussian model (GG-GKIT) is used to detect the optimal threshold values. If it is unimodal, the log-ratio image is divided into small regions and a multiscale region selection process is carried out to select regions which are a balanced mixture of unchanged and changed classes. The selected regions are combined to generate a new histogram. The optimal threshold value obtained from the new histogram is then used to separate unchanged pixels from changed pixels in the log-ratio image. Experimental results obtained on multitemporal SAR images of Toronto and Beijing demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Pricing of common cosmetic surgery procedures: local economic factors trump supply and demand.

BACKGROUND
The pricing of cosmetic surgery procedures has long been thought to coincide with laws of basic economics, including the model of supply and demand. However, the highly variable prices of these procedures indicate that additional economic contributors are probable.


OBJECTIVES
The authors sought to reassess the fit of cosmetic surgery costs to the model of supply and demand and to determine the driving forces behind the pricing of cosmetic surgery procedures.


METHODS
Ten plastic surgery practices were randomly selected from each of 15 US cities of various population sizes. Average prices of breast augmentation, mastopexy, abdominoplasty, blepharoplasty, and rhytidectomy in each city were compared with economic and demographic statistics.


RESULTS
The average price of cosmetic surgery procedures correlated substantially with population size (r = 0.767), cost-of-living index (r = 0.784), cost to own real estate (r = 0.714), and cost to rent real estate (r = 0.695) across the 15 US cities. Cosmetic surgery pricing also was found to correlate (albeit weakly) with household income (r = 0.436) and per capita income (r = 0.576). Virtually no correlations existed between pricing and the density of plastic surgeons (r = 0.185) or the average age of residents (r = 0.076).


CONCLUSIONS
Results of this study demonstrate a correlation between costs of cosmetic surgery procedures and local economic factors. Cosmetic surgery pricing cannot be completely explained by the supply-and-demand model because no association was found between procedure cost and the density of plastic surgeons.
Associations of depression with impaired glucose regulation, newly diagnosed diabetes and previously diagnosed diabetes in Chinese adults.

AIM
To examine the association between depression and impaired glucose regulation, newly diagnosed diabetes and previously diagnosed diabetes in middle-aged and elderly Chinese people, and whether depression was associated with different treatment regimens or durations of diabetes.


METHODS
A cross-sectional study was performed among 229,047 adults living in the community aged ≥ 40 years from 25 centres in China. The self-reported depression rating scale Patient Health Questionnaire 9 (PHQ-9) was used to diagnose probable and sub-threshold depression. Glucose metabolism status was determined according to World Health Organization 1999 diagnostic criteria.


RESULTS
The numbers of participants with normal glucose regulation, impaired glucose regulation, newly diagnosed diabetes and previously diagnosed diabetes were 120,458, 59,512, 24,826 and 24,251, respectively. The prevalence of sub-threshold depression in the total sample of participants was 4.8% (4.8%, 4.8%, 4.4% and 5.6% from normal glucose regulation to previously diagnosed diabetes, respectively), and the prevalence of probable depression was 1.1% (1.1%, 1.0%, 0.9% and 1.8% from normal glucose regulation to previously diagnosed diabetes, respectively). Compared with participants with normal glucose regulation, those with previously diagnosed diabetes had increased odds of probable depression [odds ratio (OR) = 1.61, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.39-1.87] and sub-threshold depression (OR = 1.14, 95% CI 1.06-1.24), after adjustment for multiple confounding factors. Newly diagnosed diabetes or impaired glucose regulation was not associated with depression. Among those with previously diagnosed diabetes, insulin treatment was associated with greater odds of depression compared with no treatment or oral anti-diabetic medicine.


CONCLUSION
Previously diagnosed diabetes, but not newly diagnosed diabetes or impaired glucose regulation, was associated with a higher prevalence of depression. Patients receiving insulin were more likely to have depression than those not receiving treatment or being treated with oral anti-diabetic medicine.
N-queens problem by efficient non-backtracking algorithm using local search, heuristics and Tabu search elements

This paper presents an efficient algorithm using Local search, various heuristics and Tabu search elements, which is capable to find solution for huge instances of the n-queens (hundreds of millions n). The algorithm returns random solutions in short time even on an ordinary personal computer. There is no other faster algorithm in n-Queens bibliography as our presented algorithm so far.
The costs and benefits of leaving the EU: trade effects

This paper estimates the welfare effects of Brexit, focusing on trade and fiscal transfers. We use a standard quantitative general equilibrium trade model with many countries and sectors and trade in intermediates, as in Costinot and Rodŕıguez-Clare (2014). We simulate a range of counterfactuals reflecting alternative options for EU-UK relations following Brexit. Welfare losses for the average UK household are 1.3% if the UK remains in the EU’s Single Market like Norway (a “soft Brexit”). Losses rise to 2.7% if the UK trades with the EU under World Trade Organization rules (a “hard Brexit”). A reduced form approach that captures the dynamic effects of Brexit on productivity more than triples these losses and implies a decline in average income per capita of between 6.3% and 9.4%, partly via falls in foreign investment. These negative effects are widely shared across the entire income distribution and are unlikely to be offset from new trade deals.
VARU Framework: Enabling Rapid Prototyping of VR, AR and Ubiquitous Applications

Recent advanced interface technologies allow the user to interact with different spaces such as virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and ubiquitous computing (UC) spaces. Previously, human computer interaction (HCI) issues in VR, AR and UC have been largely carried out in separate communities. Here, we combine these three interaction spaces into a single interaction space, called tangible space. We propose the VARU framework which is designed for rapid prototyping of a tangible space application. It is designed to provide extensibility, flexibility and scalability. Depending on the available resources, the user could interact with either the virtual, physical or mixed environment. By having the VR, AR and UC spaces in a single platform, it gives us the possibility to explore different types of collaboration across the different spaces. As a result, we present our prototype application which is built using the VARU framework.
Racial/Ethnic differences in longitudinal risk of intracranial hemorrhage in brain arteriovenous malformation patients.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Race/ethnicity is associated with overall incidence of intracranial hemorrhage (ICH), but its impact in patients with brain arteriovenous malformation is unknown. We evaluated whether race/ethnicity was a risk factor for ICH in the natural course in a large, multiethnic cohort of patients with brain arteriovenous malformation followed longitudinally.


METHODS
Data were collected prospectively for patients with brain arteriovenous malformation evaluated at the University of California, San Francisco (n=436) and retrospectively through databases and chart review in the 20 hospitals of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program (n=1028). Multivariate Cox regression was performed to assess the influence of race/ethnicity on subsequent ICH, adjusting for risk factors. Cases were censored at first treatment, loss to follow-up, or death.


RESULTS
Average follow up was 4.7+/-8.0 years for Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program patients and 2.8+/-7.3 years for University of California, San Francisco patients with no difference in time to ICH between cohorts (log rank P=0.57). The annualized 5-year ICH rate was 2.1% (3.7% for ruptured at presentation; 1.4% for unruptured). Initial ICH presentation (hazard ratio: 3.0, 95% CI: 1.9 to 4.9, P<0.001) and Hispanic race/ethnicity (hazard ratio: 1.9, 95% CI: 1.1 to 3.3, P=0.02) were independent predictors of ICH, adjusting for age, gender, cohort, and a cohort-age interaction. The ICH risk for Hispanics versus whites increased to 3.1 (95% CI: 1.3 to 7.4, P=0.013) after further adjusting for arteriovenous malformation size and deep venous drainage in a subset of cases with complete data. Similar trends were observed for blacks (hazard ratio: 2.1, 95% CI: 0.9 to 4.8, P=0.09) and Asians (hazard ratio: 2.4, 95% CI: 0.8 to 7.1, P=0.11), although nonsignificant.


CONCLUSIONS
This study reports the first description of race/ethnic differences in brain arteriovenous malformation, with Hispanics at an increased risk of subsequent ICH compared with whites.
Locating the Optic Disc in Retinal Images

We present a method to automatically outline the optic disc in a retinal image. Our method for finding the optic disc is based on the properties of the optic disc using simple image processing algorithms which include thresholding, detection of object roundness and circle detection by Hough transformation. Our method is able to recognize the retinal images with general properties and the retinal images with variance of unusual properties since the parameters of our method can be flexibly changed by the unusual properties
Psychosocial Outcomes in StrokE: the POISE observational stroke study protocol

BACKGROUND
Each year, approximately 12,000 Australians of working age survive a stroke. As a group, younger stroke survivors have less physical impairment and lower mortality after stroke compared with older survivors; however, the psychosocial and economic consequences are potentially substantial. Most of these younger stroke survivors have responsibility for generating an income or providing family care and indicate that their primary objective is to return to work. However, effective vocational rehabilitation strategies to increase the proportion of younger stroke survivors able to return to work, and information on the key target areas for those strategies, are currently lacking.


METHODS/DESIGN
This multi-centre, three year cohort study will recruit a representative sample of younger (< 65 years) stroke survivors to determine the modifiable predictors of subsequent return to work. Participants will be recruited from the New South Wales Stroke Services (SSNSW) network, the only well established and cohesively operating and managed, network of acute stroke units in Australia. It is based within the Greater Metropolitan area of Sydney including Wollongong and Newcastle, and extends to rural areas including Wagga Wagga. The study registration number is ACTRN12608000459325.


DISCUSSION
The study is designed to identify targets for rehabilitation-, social- and medical-intervention strategies that promote and maintain healthy ageing in people with cardiovascular and mental health conditions, two of the seven Australian national health priority areas. This will rectify the paucity of information internationally around optimal clinical practice and social policy in this area.
Suboptimal performance of simple noninvasive tests for advanced fibrosis in Chinese patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the diagnostic accuracy of some noninvasive fibrosis models in Chinese patients with nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD).


METHODS
Consecutive biopsy-proven NAFLD patients were recruited from a single center from January 2005 to December 2010. Advanced fibrosis (stage 3 and 4) was defined using Kleiner criteria. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUROC) was used to compare the diagnostic accuracy of the NAFLD fibrosis score (NFS), FIB-4 index, aspartate transaminase (AST)/platelet ratio index (APRI), AST/alanine transaminase (ALT) ratio (AAR) and body mass index (BMI)-AAR-Diabetes (BARD) score.


RESULTS
Of the patients with NAFLD, 79.6% were males with a mean age of 37.1 years, mean BMI of 26.1 kg/m(2) and 41.4% of them had nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, and 24 (15.8%) had advanced fibrosis. The AUROC of the FIB-4 index, APRI, AAR, NFS and BARD score for advanced fibrosis were 0.756, 0.742, 0.670, 0.653 and 0.642 (P < 0.05 for all), respectively. A concordant negative predictive value of approximately 90% was indicated whereas the positive predictive values were modest for all tests, and only the FIB-4 index yielded a higher positive likelihood ratio of 7.65. Using these cut-off values of tests for excluding advanced fibrosis could reduce the use of liver biopsy in 56.6-74.3% of the patients, with a minor false negative rate of 5.3-9.9%.


CONCLUSIONS
Although slightly less accurate than liver biopsy, simple noninvasive tests can reliably exclude advanced fibrosis in Chinese NAFLD patients in our center. FIB-4 index performs better than the other tests under examination.
Comparison of high dose inhaled steroids, low dose inhaled steroids plus low dose theophylline, and low dose inhaled steroids alone in chronic asthma in general practice.

BACKGROUND
Theophylline is widely used in the treatment of asthma, and there is evidence that theophylline has anti-inflammatory or immunomodulatory effects. A study was undertaken to determine whether theophylline added to low dose inhaled steroids would be as efficacious as high dose inhaled steroids in asthma.


METHODS
In a study in general practice of 155 recruited asthmatic patients with continuing symptomatic asthma while on 400 microgram beclomethasone dipropionate (BDP) daily and inhaled beta(2) agonist as required, the effect of (1) continuing low dose inhaled steroids alone (LDS, 200 microgram BDP twice daily), (2) low dose inhaled steroids plus low dose theophylline (LDT, 400 mg daily), or (3) high dose inhaled steroids (HDS, 500 microgram BDP) over a six month period was examined.


RESULTS
One hundred and thirty patients completed the study. Between group comparison using analysis of variance showed no overall differences in peak flow measurements, diurnal variation, and symptom scores. Changes in evening peak flows approached significance at the 5% level (p=0.077). The mean improvement in evening peak flow in the LDT compared with the LDS group was 20.6 l/min (95% confidence interval (CI) -2.5 to 38.8). In the LDT group there was an increase in evening peak flows at the end of the study compared with entry values (22.5 l/min), while in the LDS and HDS groups evening peak flows increased by 1.9 and 8.3 l/min, respectively. There was no significant difference in exacerbations or in side effects.


CONCLUSION
There were no overall significant differences between the low dose steroid, low dose steroid with theophylline, and the high dose steroid groups. The greatest within-group improvement in evening peak flows was found after theophylline. A larger study may be necessary to show significant effects.
Taxing unhealthy food and drinks to improve health.

Oliver T Mytton, academic clinical fellow, Dushy Clarke, researcher, Mike Rayner, director Author Affiliations 1British Heart Foundation Health Promotion Research Group, Department of Public Health, University of Oxford, Oxford OX3 7LF, UK Correspondence to: O T Mytton oliver.mytton@dph.ox.ac.uk Accepted 2 April 2012 An increasing number of countries are introducing taxes on unhealthy food and drinks, but will they improve health? Oliver Mytton, Dushy Clarke, and Mike Rayner examine the evidence In the past year Denmark has introduced a “fat tax,” Hungary a “junk food tax,” and France a tax on sweetened drinks.1 2 Peru has announced plans to tax junk food, and other countries, notably Ireland, are also considering such taxes. Last year’s UN high level summit on non-communicable disease recognised a role for food taxes,3 and the UK prime minster, David Cameron has said the UK should consider them.4 Despite this recent interest among policy makers there has been relatively little critical analysis. Discussion of the evidence of health effects and the important question of what to tax has often been lacking. Government intervention in the food market, in the form of agricultural subsidies and taxation that is unrelated to health, is often overlooked. Taxing unhealthy food and drinks to improve health | BMJ http://www.bmj.com.proxy.library.vcu.edu/content/344/bmj.e2931
EXTENDED INTEGRABILITY REGIME FOR THE SUPERSYMMETRIC U MODEL

An extension of the supersymmetric U model for correlated electrons is given and integrability is established by demonstrating that the model can be constructed through the quantum inverse scattering method using an R-matrix without the difference property. Some general symmetry properties of the model are discussed and from the Bethe ansatz solution an expression for the energies is presented.
Increased oxidative stress and platelet activation in patients with hypertension and renovascular disease.

BACKGROUND
Hypertensive patients with renovascular disease (RVD) may be exposed to increased oxidative stress, possibly related to activation of the renin-angiotensin system.


METHODS AND RESULTS
We measured the urinary excretion of 8-iso-prostaglandin (PG) F2alpha and 11-dehydro-thromboxane (TX) B2 as indexes of in vivo lipid peroxidation and platelet activation, respectively, in 25 patients with RVD, 25 patients with essential hypertension, and 25 healthy subjects. Plasma renin activity in peripheral and renal veins, angiotensin II in renal veins, cholesterol, glucose, triglycerides, homocysteine, and antioxidant vitamins A, C, and E were also determined. Patients were also studied 6 months after a technically successful angioplasty of the stenotic renal arteries. Urinary 8-iso-PGF2alpha was significantly higher in patients with RVD (median, 305 pg/mg creatinine; range, 124 to 1224 pg/mg creatinine) than in patients with essential hypertension (median, 176 pg/mg creatinine; range, 48 to 384 pg/mg creatinine) or in healthy subjects (median, 123 pg/mg creatinine; range, 58 to 385 pg/mg creatinine). Urinary 11-dehydro-TXB2 was also significantly higher in RVD patients compared with healthy subjects. In RVD patients, urinary 8-iso-PGF2alpha correlated with 11-dehydro-TXB2 (r(s)=0.48; P<0.05) and renal vein renin (r(s)=0.67; P<0.005) and angiotensin II (r(s)=0.65; P=0.005) ratios. A reduction in 8-iso-PGF2alpha after angioplasty was observed in RVD patients with high baseline levels of lipid peroxidation. Changes in 8-iso-PGF2alpha were related to baseline lipid peroxidation (r(s)=-0.73; P<0.001), renal vein angiotensin II (r(s)=-0.70; P<0.01) and renin (r(s)=-0.63; P<0.05) ratios.


CONCLUSIONS
Lipid peroxidation is markedly enhanced in hypertensive patients with RVD and is related to activation of the renin-angiotensin system. Moreover, persistent platelet activation triggered or amplified by bioactive isoprostanes may contribute to the progression of cardiovascular and renal damage in this setting.
Effect of vitamin supplementation to HIV-infected pregnant women on the micronutrient status of their infants

Objective:We examined whether supplementation with vitamin A and/or vitamins B, C, and E to HIV-infected women during pregnancy and lactation is related to increased concentrations of vitamins A, B12, and E in their infants during the first 6 months of life.Design:We carried out a randomized clinical trial among 716 mother–infant pairs in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Women were randomly allocated to receive a daily oral dose of one of four regimens: vitamin A, multivitamins (B, C, and E), multivitamins including A, or placebo. Supplementation started at first prenatal visit and continued after delivery throughout the breastfeeding period. The serum concentration of vitamins A, E and B12 was measured in infants at 6 weeks and 6 months postpartum.Results:Maternal vitamin A supplementation increased serum retinol in the infants at 6 weeks (mean difference=0.09 μmol/l, P<0.0001) and 6 months (mean difference=0.06 μmol/l, P=0.0002), and decreased the prevalence of vitamin A deficiency, but had no impact on serum vitamins E or B12. Multivitamins increased serum vitamin B12 at 6 weeks and 6 months (mean differences=176 pmol/l, P<0.0001 and 127 pmol/l, P<0.0001, respectively) and vitamin E (mean differences=1.8 μmol/l, P=0.0008 and 1.1 μmol/l, P=0.004, respectively) and decreased the prevalence of vitamin B12 deficiency.Conclusions:Vitamin supplementation to HIV-1-infected women is effective in improving the vitamin status of infants during the first 6 months of age.
Argument Mining on Twitter: Arguments, Facts and Sources

Social media collect and spread on the Web personal opinions, facts, fake news and all kind of information users may be interested in. Applying argument mining methods to such heterogeneous data sources is a challenging open research issue, in particular considering the peculiarities of the language used to write textual messages on social media. In addition, new issues emerge when dealing with arguments posted on such platforms, such as the need to make a distinction between personal opinions and actual facts, and to detect the source disseminating information about such facts to allow for provenance verification. In this paper, we apply supervised classification to identify arguments on Twitter, and we present two new tasks for argument mining, namely facts recognition and source identification. We study the feasibility of the approaches proposed to address these tasks on a set of tweets related to the Grexit and Brexit news topics.
A Frequency Agile Microstrip Patch Phased Array Antenna With Polarization Reconfiguration

A novel multifunctional 1×4 phased array antenna employing wideband frequency agile microstrip patches with simultaneous polarization reconfiguration has been designed and experimentally verified. Each radiating element consists of a circular microstrip patch connected to an annular microstrip ring via four varactor diodes for achieving frequency agility between 1.5 and 2.4 GHz (frequency agility bandwidth ≈46%, S11 ≤ -10 dB). Employing two feed points per radiator enables switching among four polarization senses (two linear and two circular polarizations) using a polarization feed network (PFN). For realizing beam steering, the optimum amplitude and phase excitation coefficients for each radiating element were calculated using projection matrix method based on active element pattern, which is then applied to each corresponding radiating element using programmable digital phase shifters, low noise amplifiers, and attenuators arranged in a beam forming network. Measurement shows ±52° beam peak steering at 1.5 GHz and ±28° beam peak steering at 2.4 GHz based on 3 dB gain variation criteria for both the linear and circular polarizations. The simulated and measured results agree reasonably well.