LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Influence of DDD rate response pacing with integrated double sensors on physical efficiency and quality of life.

AIMS
The aim of this study was to evaluate whether the use of a double sensor gives additional benefits for patients in improving physical efficiency as well as quality of life (QoL) as compared to the accelerometer sensor alone.


METHODS AND RESULTS
The presented research is a prospective, randomized, single-blind clinical trial. Double-sensor (accelerometer and minute-ventilation) pacemakers (Guidant, Pulsar Max DR) were implanted in 20 patients with sinus node dysfunction (SND) and chronotropic incompetence. After randomization, patients were placed in one of two groups: 1, only the accelerometer sensor was activated; 2, both sensors were activated. After a 3-month follow-up, an initial cardio-pulmonary exercise test was performed, after which the patients were placed in the opposite group for a further 3 months. Finally, the second tests were performed. In 75% of the patients an improvement in QoL was observed in the double-sensor group (P = 0.0242) when compared with the single-sensor group. The addition of a ventilating sensor had no influence on the duration of exercise test (A: 11 +/- 3.19 vs. B: 11 +/- 2.92 P = 1.0000). The parameters of cardio-pulmonary exercise tests recorded in situations A and B before exertion, and 6 minutes after exertion were not statistically different.


CONCLUSION
The use of double-sensor pacemakers does not improve physical efficiency; however, it does improve QoL.
A Dynamic Model for Prediction of Psoriasis Management by Blue Light Irradiation

Clinical investigations prove that blue light irradiation reduces the severity of psoriasis vulgaris. Nevertheless, the mechanisms involved in the management of this condition remain poorly defined. Despite the encouraging results of the clinical studies, no clear guidelines are specified in the literature for the irradiation scheme regime of blue light-based therapy for psoriasis. We investigated the underlying mechanism of blue light irradiation of psoriatic skin, and tested the hypothesis that regulation of proliferation is a key process. We implemented a mechanistic model of cellular epidermal dynamics to analyze whether a temporary decrease of keratinocytes hyper-proliferation can explain the outcome of phototherapy with blue light. Our results suggest that the main effect of blue light on keratinocytes impacts the proliferative cells. They show that the decrease in the keratinocytes proliferative capacity is sufficient to induce a transient decrease in the severity of psoriasis. To study the impact of the therapeutic regime on the efficacy of psoriasis treatment, we performed simulations for different combinations of the treatment parameters, i.e., length of treatment, fluence (also referred to as dose), and intensity. These simulations indicate that high efficacy is achieved by regimes with long duration and high fluence levels, regardless of the chosen intensity. Our modeling approach constitutes a framework for testing diverse hypotheses on the underlying mechanism of blue light-based phototherapy, and for designing effective strategies for the treatment of psoriasis.
Radiographs and low field MRI (0.2T) as predictors of efficacy in a weight loss trial in obese women with knee osteoarthritis

BACKGROUND
To study the predictive value of baseline radiographs and low-field (0.2T) MRI scans for the symptomatic outcome of clinically significant weight loss in obese patients with knee osteoarthritis.


METHODS
In this study we hypothesize that imaging variables assessed with radiographs and MRI scans pre-treatment can predict the symptomatic changes following a recommended clinically significant weight reduction Patients were recruited from the Department of Rheumatology, Frederiksberg Hospital, Denmark. Eligibility criteria were: age >18 years; primary osteoarthritis according to ACR; BMI > 28 kg/m2; motivation for weight loss. Subjects were randomly assigned to either intervention by low-energy diet (LED) for 8 weeks followed by another 24 weeks of dietary instruction or control-group. MRI scans and radiographs were scored for structural changes and these parameters were examined as independent predictors of changes in osteoarthritis symptoms after 32 weeks. The outcome assessor and statistician were blinded to group allocation.


RESULTS
No significant correlations were found between imaging variables and changes in Western Ontario and McMaster Universities Index of Osteoarthritis (Spearman's test, r < 0.33 and P > 0.07).Only the LED group achieved a weight loss, with a mean difference of 16.3 kg (95%CI: 13.4-19.2;P < 0.0001) compared to the control group. The total WOMAC index showed a significant difference favouring LED, with a group mean difference of - 321.3 mm (95%CI: -577.5 to -65.1 mm; P = 0.01). No significant adverse events were reported.


CONCLUSION
Stage of joint destruction, assessed on either radiographs or low-field MRI (0.2T), does not preclude a symptoms relief following a clinically relevant weight loss in elderly obese female patients with knee osteoarthritis.
Mindfulness meditation and physical activity: Evidence from 2012 National Health Interview Survey.

OBJECTIVE
Physical activity is critical for health, yet only about half of the U.S. adult population meets basic aerobic physical activity recommendations and almost a third are inactive. Mindfulness meditation is gaining attention for its potential to facilitate health-promoting behavior and may address some limitations of existing interventions for physical activity. However, little evidence exists on mindfulness meditation and physical activity. This study assessed whether mindfulness meditation is uniquely associated with physical activity in a nationally representative sample.


METHOD
Cross-sectional data from the adult sample (N = 34,525) of the 2012 National Health Interview Survey were analyzed. Logistic regression models tested whether past-year use of mindfulness meditation was associated with (a) inactivity and (b) meeting aerobic physical activity recommendations, after accounting for sociodemographics, another health-promoting behavior, and 2 other types of meditation. Data were weighted to represent the U.S. civilian, noninstitutionalized adult population.


RESULTS
Accounting for covariates, U.S. adults who practiced mindfulness meditation in the past year were less likely to be inactive and more likely to meet physical activity recommendations. Mindfulness meditation showed stronger associations with these indices of physical activity than the 2 other types of meditation.


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that mindfulness meditation specifically, beyond meditation in general, is associated with physical activity in U.S adults. Future research should test whether intervening with mindfulness meditation-either as an adjunctive component or on its own-helps to increase or maintain physical activity. (PsycINFO Database Record
Systemic and immune manifestations in myelodysplasia: a multicenter retrospective study.

OBJECTIVE
The presence of systemic and/or immune manifestations in myelodysplasia has been currently reported. The influence of these manifestations on the natural outcome of myelodysplastic syndrome has to be considered. We present a multicenter retrospective study (2002-2009) of patients with myelodysplastic syndrome disclosing systemic and/or immune manifestations.


METHODS
Forty-six patients with myelodysplasia presenting with systemic and/or immune manifestations were compared in terms of survival with 189 patients with myelodysplasia lacking these features.


RESULTS
The clinical picture in these cases consisted of fever (13%), arthralgia or arthritis (13%), and cutaneous manifestations (67%). Four cases of systemic vasculitis have been reported in our series, and they have a worse prognosis. Immune anomalies were recorded in 29% of the cases, and the presence of cryoglobulins was also associated with a worse prognosis.


CONCLUSION
A difference in survival between patients with myelodysplastic syndrome with systemic manifestations and patients lacking these manifestations has been observed in the presence of systemic vasculitis and/or cryoglobulins.
A rule-based Home Energy Management System using the Rete algorithm

In this paper, we propose a rule-based Home Energy Management System (HEMS) using the Rete algorithm. In the proposed system, rules for managing energy are processed by smart taps in network, and the loads for processing rules and collecting data are distributed to smart taps. In addition, the number of processes and collecting data are reduced by processing rules based on the Rete algorithm.
Thirty Years of Conjoint Analysis: Reflections and Prospects

Paul Green has been in or around marketing research for over fifty years, both in industry and academia. He's still tolerated by his younger colleagues. His off-hours are spent either on the ski slopes or playing the piano at local nursing homes [he's too old to play in bars anymore]. Abba Krieger is equally at home in statistics, operations research, computer science, and marketing. He is clearly a man for all seasons. He's a devoted family man with five children, who somehow manages to spend quality time at home despite a hectic teaching schedule and extensive service to the Wharton School. Jerry Wind is also multi-talented – academic, consultant, educator, and all-round catalyst for developing new academic programs and initiating new directions for the Wharton School. No one can figure out how he seems to thrive on 18-hour workdays. Somehow he still manages to play tennis regularly and see the latest Broadway shows and art exhibitions. Abstract Conjoint analysis is marketers' favorite methodology for finding out how buyers make trade-offs among competing products and suppliers. Conjoint analysts develop and present descriptions of alternative products or services that are prepared from fractional factorial, experimental designs. They use various models to infer buyers' partworths for attribute levels. and enter the partworths into buyer choice simulators to predict how buyers will choose among products and services. Easy-to-use software has been important for applying these models. Thousands of applications of conjoint analysis have been carried out over the past three decades.
STRATEGIC-1: A multiple-lines, randomized, open-label GERCOR phase III study in patients with unresectable wild-type RAS metastatic colorectal cancer

The management of unresectable metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC) is a comprehensive treatment strategy involving several lines of therapy, maintenance, salvage surgery, and treatment-free intervals. Besides chemotherapy (fluoropyrimidine, oxaliplatin, irinotecan), molecular-targeted agents such as anti-angiogenic agents (bevacizumab, aflibercept, regorafenib) and anti-epidermal growth factor receptor agents (cetuximab, panitumumab) have become available. Ultimately, given the increasing cost of new active compounds, new strategy trials are needed to define the optimal use and the best sequencing of these agents. Such new clinical trials require alternative endpoints that can capture the effect of several treatment lines and be measured earlier than overall survival to help shorten the duration and reduce the size and cost of trials. STRATEGIC-1 is an international, open-label, randomized, multicenter phase III trial designed to determine an optimally personalized treatment sequence of the available treatment modalities in patients with unresectable RAS wild-type mCRC. Two standard treatment strategies are compared: first-line FOLFIRI-cetuximab, followed by oxaliplatin-based second-line chemotherapy with bevacizumab (Arm A) vs. first-line OPTIMOX-bevacizumab, followed by irinotecan-based second-line chemotherapy with bevacizumab, and by an anti-epidermal growth factor receptor monoclonal antibody with or without irinotecan as third-line treatment (Arm B). The primary endpoint is duration of disease control. A total of 500 patients will be randomized in a 1:1 ratio to one of the two treatment strategies. The STRATEGIC-1 trial is designed to give global information on the therapeutic sequences in patients with unresectable RAS wild-type mCRC that in turn is likely to have a significant impact on the management of this patient population. The trial is open for inclusion since August 2013. STRATEGIC-1 is registered at Clinicaltrials.gov: NCT01910610 , 23 July, 2013. STRATEGIC-1 is registered at EudraCT-No.: 2013-001928-19, 25 April, 2013.
Knowledge creation and flexibility of distribution of information

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to increase knowledge about the four modes of knowledge conversion (SECI model: Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization) and their impact on flexibility of distribution of information and performance. Design/methodology/approach – Based on a survey of 284 Spanish firms, the paper performs an empirical analysis using structural equation modelling. Findings – The results of the research confirm that the four modes of knowledge conversion have positive direct and indirect influences on the flexibility of distribution of information in the organization and therefore improve the company’s performance. Practical implications – The structural equation model provides useful information for managers and researchers concerning how knowledge creation enhances flexibility and performance of the organization. Through better processes and tools for updating the organization’s concepts or methods, flexibility programs, cross functional and self-directed teams, autonomy, participation, cooperation and coordination in the firm improve the flow of information and performance and reduce uncertainty in changing environments. Originality/value – The paper illustrates the effects of the four modes of knowledge creation on flexibility of distribution of information and demonstrates that these four modes of knowledge creation affect flexibility of distribution of information positively, thereby improving organizational performance.
High-performance short sequence alignment with GPU acceleration

Sequence alignment is a fundamental task for computational genomics research. We develop G-Aligner, which adopts the GPU as a hardware accelerator to speed up the sequence alignment process. A leading CPU-based alignment tool is based on the Bi-BWT index; however, a direct implementation of this algorithm on the GPU cannot fully utilize the hardware power due to its irregular algorithmic structure. To better utilize the GPU hardware resource, we propose a filtering-verification algorithm employing both the Bi-BWT search and direct matching. We further improve this algorithm on the GPU through various optimizations, e.g., the split of a large kernel, the warp based implementation to avoid user-level synchronization. As a result, G-Aligner outperforms another state-of-the-art GPU-accelerated alignment tools SOAP3 by 1.8–3.5 times for in-memory sequence alignment.
Divergent Validity of Measures of Cognitive Distortions, Impulsivity, and Time Perspective in Pathological Gambling

The present study assessed the divergent validity of several self-report and objective behavioral measures for assessing pathological gambling using three samples divided by South Oaks Gambling Scale score [Lesieur, & Blume (1987). American Journal of Psychiatry, 144, 1184–1188]: pathological gamblers, potential pathological gamblers, and non-pathological gamblers. Self-report measures included the Gamblers’ Beliefs Questionnaire [GBQ; Steenbergh, Meyers, May, & Whelan (2002). Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 16, 143–149], the Gambling Passion Scale [GPS; Rousseau, Vallerand, Ratelle, Mageau, & Provencher, (2002). Journal of Gambling Studies, 18, 45–66], the Eysenck Impulsivity Questionnaire [EIQ; Eysenck, & Eysenck (1978). Psychological Reports, 43, 1247–1255], and the Stanford Time Perspective Inventory [STPI; Zimbardo, & Boyd (1999). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77, 1271–1288]. Behavioral tasks included the delay discounting task [Madden, Petry, Badger, & Bickel (1997). Experimental & Clinical Psychopharmacology, 5, 256–263] and the Future Time Perspectives [FTP; Wallace (1956). Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 52, 240–245]. The GBQ, GPS, Impulsivity subscale of the EIQ, and DDT all exhibited robust divergent validity, however, neither measure of time perspective discriminated between groups. Applications of these findings to etiological research and clinical contexts are discussed.
Dermatitis by Tropical Rat Mite, Ornithonyssus bacoti (Mesostigmata, Macronyssidae) in Italian city-dwellers: a diagnostic challenge.

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Angiotensin II in septic shock

This article is one of ten reviews selected from the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine 2015 and co-published as a series in Critical Care. Other articles in the series can be found online at http://ccforum.com/series/annualupdate2015. Further information about the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine is available from http://www.springer.com/series/8901.
Spectral Efficiency Increase for Passive Backscatter Communication Based on Discrete Pulse Shaping

The Internet of Things comprises the network of billions of devices. The need for wireless systems is leading to bandwidth becoming an extremely limited resource. For this reason, the spectral efficiency of radio systems is playing an increasingly important role. While active radios already use pulse shaping techniques to improve the efficiency, passive systems still make a little use of them. The reason for this is that the energy available for shaping is very low and would, therefore, massively influence the range. This paper presents a concept that enables pulse shaping especially for passive ”ultra-high-frequency radio frequency identification” transponders without significantly reducing the range at the same time. For this purpose, all approaches were designed to meet the requirements for chip integration. A 41-stage discrete Gaussian pulse was used which can be generated by a field-effect transistor. The transistor is controlled by a simple voltage divider which is operated by the digital part of the transponder. The total power consumption of the concept with simultaneously acceptable space requirement is estimated with 200 nW. The results of both the simulation and the measurements show that even a small number of steps improve the spectral efficiency. In adjacent channels, less energy is radiated compared with a rectangular pulse. According to the measurements, the adjacent channel power ratio in the directly adjacent channel for the discrete Gaussian is 7.5 dBc lower than for the rectangular shape. This effect is more pronounced with an increasing distance and is already 32 dBc for the fourth adjacent channel.
Very High Force Hydraulic McKibben Artificial Muscle with a p-Phenylene-2, 6-benzobisoxazole Cord Sleeve

Small and lightweight actuators that generate high force and high energy are strongly required for realizing powerful robots and tools. By applying ultra-high-strength p-phenylene-2,6-benzobisoxazole fiber sleeves to McKibben artificial muscles, new hydraulic artificial muscles have been developed. While conventional McKibben muscles are driven by a maximum pneumatic pressure of 0.7 MPa, the newly developed muscles are driven by a maximum water hydraulic of pressure of 4 MPa, resulting in very high force capability. This paper presents the materials and structure of the new artificial muscle and the experimental results. The developed muscles are evaluated by four parameters — force density per volume (FDV), force density per mass (FDM), energy density per volume (EDV) and energy density per mass (EDM) — for comparisons with other conventional linear actuators. The prototype artificial muscle, which is 40 mm in diameter and 700 mm in length, can achieve a maximum contracting force of 28 kN, FDV of 32.3 × 10−3 N/mm3, FDM of 9.44 × 103 N/kg, EDV of 2600 × 10−3 J/mm3 and EDM of 762 × 103 J/kg. These values are 1.7 to 33 times larger than those of the typical conventional actuators. As the result, a high force artificial muscle of 40 mm in diameter that generates 28-kN contracting force has been developed successfully. © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden and The Robotics Society of Japan, 2010
Resilience : The emergence of a perspective for social – ecological systems analyses

The resilience perspective is increasingly used as an approach for understanding the dynamics of social–ecological systems. This article presents the origin of the resilience perspective and provides an overview of its development to date. With roots in one branch of ecology and the discovery of multiple basins of attraction in ecosystems in the 1960–1970s, it inspired social and environmental scientists to challenge the dominant stable equilibrium view. The resilience approach emphasizes non-linear dynamics, thresholds, uncertainty and surprise, how periods of gradual change interplay with periods of rapid change and how such dynamics interact across temporal and spatial scales. The history was dominated by empirical observations of ecosystem dynamics interpreted in mathematical models, developing into the adaptive management approach for responding to ecosystem change. Serious attempts to integrate the social dimension is currently taking place in resilience work reflected in the large numbers of sciences involved in explorative studies and new discoveries of linked social–ecological systems. Recent advances include understanding of social processes like, social learning and social memory, mental models and knowledge–system integration, visioning and scenario building, leadership, agents and actor groups, social networks, institutional and organizational inertia and change, adaptive capacity, transformability and systems of adaptive governance that allow for management of essential ecosystem services. r 2006 Published by Elsevier Ltd.