LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Development of Two Barthel Index-Based Supplementary Scales for Patients with Stroke

BACKGROUND
The Barthel Index (BI) assesses actual performance of activities of daily living (ADL). However, comprehensive assessment of ADL functions should include two other constructs: self-perceived difficulty and ability.


OBJECTIVE
The aims of this study were to develop two BI-based Supplementary Scales (BI-SS), namely, the Self-perceived Difficulty Scale and the Ability Scale, and to examine the construct validity of the BI-SS in patients with stroke.


METHOD
The BI-SS was first developed by consultation with experts and then tested on patients to confirm the clarity and feasibility of administration. A total of 306 participants participated in the construct validity study. Construct validity was investigated using Mokken scale analysis and analyzing associations between scales. The agreement between each pair of the scales' scores was further examined.


RESULTS
The Self-perceived Difficulty Scale consisted of 10 items, and the Ability Scale included 8 items (excluding both bladder and bowel control items). Items in each individual scale were unidimensional (H ≥ 0.5). The scores of the Self-perceived Difficulty and Ability Scales were highly correlated with those of the BI (rho = 0.78 and 0.90, respectively). The scores of the two BI-SS scales and BI were significantly different from each other (p<.001). These results indicate that both BI-SS scales assessed unique constructs.


CONCLUSIONS
The BI-SS had overall good construct validity in patients with stroke. The BI-SS can be used as supplementary scales for the BI to comprehensively assess patients' ADL functions in order to identify patients' difficulties in performing ADL tasks, plan intervention strategies, and assess outcomes.
Emoticons and social interaction on the Internet: the importance of social context

The present study examines the influence of social context on the use of emoticons in Internet communication. Secondary school students (N = 158) responded to short internet chats. Social context (task-oriented vs. socio-emotional) and valence of the context (positive vs. negative) were manipulated in these chats. Participants were permitted to respond with text, emoticon or a combination of both. Results showed that participants used more emoticons in socio-emotional than in task-oriented social contexts. Furthermore, students used more positive emoticons in positive contexts and more negative emoticons in negative contexts. An interaction was found between valence and kind of context; in negative, task-oriented contexts subjects used the least emoticons. Results are related to research about the expression of emotions in face-to-face interaction. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Omalizumab improves asthma-related quality of life in children with allergic asthma.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE
Omalizumab is a recombinant, humanized, monoclonal anti-immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibody, developed for the treatment of IgE-mediated diseases. In children with allergic asthma, it was shown to reduce the requirement for inhaled corticosteroids while protecting against disease exacerbation. Here we report the effects of treatment with omalizumab on asthma-related quality of life (AQoL) in children with allergic asthma.


METHODS
This evaluation was part of a previously reported 28-week, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study to assess the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of omalizumab (at least 0.016 mg/kg/IgE [IU/mL] per 4 weeks) in children with allergic asthma who were well controlled on daily treatment with inhaled corticosteroids. Dosage of beclomethasone dipropionate was kept constant for 16 weeks (steroid-stable phase), then reduced over 8 weeks to the minimum effective dose (steroid-reduction phase). This dose was then maintained for the final 4 weeks. The Pediatric Asthma Quality of Life Questionnaire (PAQLQ) was administered at baseline, week 16, and week 28.


RESULTS
Baseline demographics, PAQLQ scores, and other data were comparable for the 2 treatment groups. At the end of the steroid-reduction phase, patients in the omalizumab-treated group reported significant improvements in the "activities" and "symptoms" domain scores as well as overall AQoL compared with placebo. More patients in the omalizumab group achieved clinically relevant (> or =0.5) changes in PAQLQ scores during the course of the study, and this difference was significant for activities and overall AQoL.


CONCLUSION
Omalizumab improves AQoL in children with allergic asthma.
Similar hormonal responses to concentric and eccentric muscle actions using relative loading

Conventional resistance exercise is performed using sequential concentric (CON) and eccentric (ECC) contractions, utilizing the same muscle load. Thus, relative to maximal CON and ECC resistance, the ECC contraction is loaded to a lesser degree. We have recently shown that at the same absolute load, CON contractions are associated with greater growth hormone (GH) but similar total testosterone (TT) and free testosterone (FT) responses compared with ECC contractions and attributed the larger GH response to greater relative CON loading. In the present study, we have examined the same endocrine parameters to six different upper and lower body exercises using relative loading rather than absolute loading, hypothesizing that GH responses would be similar for CON and ECC actions, but TT and FT responses would be greater after ECC contractions. Seven young men with recreational weight training experience completed an ECC and CON muscle contraction trial on two different occasions in a counterbalanced fashion. The exercises consisted of four sets of 10 repetitions of lat pull-down, leg press, bench press, leg extension, military press, and leg curl exercises at 65% of an ECC or CON 1–RM with 90 s between sets and exercises. CON and ECC actions were performed at the same speed. ECC 1-RMs were considered to be 120% of the CON 1-RM for the same exercise. Blood samples were collected before, immediately after, and 15 min after the exercise. GH significantly increased across both trials but was not different between the two trials. Total testosterone was not significantly altered in response to either trial; however, free testosterone concentrations increased in response to both ECC and CON trials. Data suggest that CON and ECC muscle contractions produce similar GH, T, and free testosterone responses with the same relative loading.
Alcoholic marriage: later start, sooner end.

BACKGROUND
Although associations between drinking behavior and marital status are well documented, timing of marital transitions as a function of alcohol use or disorder has received limited empirical attention.


METHODS
We examine the relationship between lifetime history of alcohol dependence (AD) and timing and survival of first marriages in a sample of 3,575 female and 1,845 male adult Australian twins born mostly between 1940 and 1964. Survival analyses were conducted using Cox proportional hazards regression models.


RESULTS
Results indicate moderate delays in marriage associated with AD for both women and men. Among ever-married respondents, AD was strongly predictive of early separation, with similar effects observed for women and men. Heritable sources of covariation were also documented. For women, genetic influences shared between early-onset AD and marital timing were found. Genetic influences shared between AD and marital survival were observed for women without regard to onset and for men with later-onset AD.


CONCLUSIONS
Results confirm the importance of AD as a predictor of both timing and survival of first marriages, with genetic influences contributing to observed associations.
Normalization of non-standard words

In addition to ordinary words and names, real text contains non-standard “words” (NSWs), including numbers, abbreviations, dates, currency amounts and acronyms. Typically, one cannot find NSWs in a dictionary, nor can one find their pronunciation by an application of ordinary “letter-to-sound” rules. Non-standard words also have a greater propensity than ordinary words to be ambiguous with respect to their interpretation or pronunciation. In many applications, it is desirable to “normalize” text by replacing the NSWs with the contextually appropriate ordinary word or sequence of words. Typical technology for text normalization involves sets of ad hoc rules tuned to handle one or two genres of text (often newspaper-style text) with the expected result that the techniques do not usually generalize well to new domains. The purpose of the work reported here is to take some initial steps towards addressing deficiencies in previous approaches to text normalization. We developed a taxonomy of NSWs on the basis of four rather distinct text types—news text, a recipes newsgroup, a hardware-product-specific newsgroup, and real-estate classified ads. We then investigated the application of several general techniques including n-gram language models, decision trees and weighted finite-state transducers to the range of NSW types, and demonstrated that a systematic treatment can lead to better results than have been obtained by the ad hoc treatments that have typically been used in the past. For abbreviation expansion in particular, we investigated both supervised and unsupervised approaches. We report results in terms of word-error rate, which is standard in speech recognition evaluations, but which has only occasionally been used as an overall measure in evaluating text normalization systems. c © 2001 Academic Press Author for correspondence: AT&T Labs–Research, Shannon Laboratory, Room B207, 180 Park Avenue, PO Box 971, Florham Park, NJ 07932-0000, U.S.A. E-mail: rws@research.att.com 0885–2308/01/030287 + 47 $35.00/0 c © 2001 Academic Press
Study on harmonic resonance of traction line in electrified high-speed traction system

Modern pulse width-modulated (PWM) converter-fed locomotives generate current harmonics which propagate along traction line. The traction line is distributed at high frequencies, so the injected harmonics may cause resonances. This paper presents a way for analyzing resonance in electrified high-speed traction system, by calculating the harmonic current along the traction line. According to harmonic voltage generation process and distributed characteristics of traction line, the formulas representing the harmonic spectra of PWM converter input voltage and harmonic impedance of traction system are presented. Frequency spectrum characteristics of traction voltage and current are simulated and analyzed while the locomotive runs along the traction line. Results indicate that properties of both harmonic current and voltage vary, the former has greater variation; series-resonances occur at some frequency and the position depends on locomotive position along the line; harmonic current contents are small, the mains are 3–9th harmonics and series resonances ones.
Pregnancy in spinal cord-injured women, a cohort study of 37 pregnancies in 25 women

Study design:A retrospective observational study.Objective:To describe specificities of pregnancy in a traumatic spinal cord-injured (SCI) population managed by a coordinated medical care team involving physical medicine and rehabilitation (PMR) physicians, urologists, infectious diseases' physicians, obstetricians and anaesthesiologists.Setting:NeuroUrology Department in a University Hospital, France.Methods:All consecutive SCI pregnant women managed between 2001 and 2014 were included. A preconceptional consultation was proposed whenever possible. Obstetrical and urological outcomes, delivery mode and complications were reported.Results:Overall, thirty-seven pregnancies in 25 women, of a mean age of 32±4 years, were included. Thirty-five children were born alive (three miscarriages, a twin pregnancy) without complications except for a case of neonatal respiratory distress in premature twins born at 33 weeks. The mean birth weight was 2979±599 g. Twenty-one (57%) pregnancies benefited from preconceptional care. A weekly oral cyclic antibiotic programme was prescribed in 28 (75%) pregnancies. The main complications during pregnancy included pyelonephritis (30%), lower urinary tract infections (UTI) (32%), pressure sores (8.8%) and prematurity (12% deliveries before 37 weeks, with only one delivery before 36 weeks). Two patients suffered from autonomic dysreflexia, one with serious complication (brain haematoma). Caesarean sections were performed for 68% of deliveries (23/34) to prevent syringomyelia deterioration (n=10), stress urinary incontinence aggravation (n=3) or for obstetrical reasons (n=7).Conclusions:Mothers’ and infants’ outcomes were satisfying after pregnancy in SCI women, but required many adjustments. Pregnancy must be prepared by a preconceptional consultation, and managed by a multidisciplinary team involving specialists of neurological disability and pregnancy.
Use of an 'evidence-based implementation' strategy to implement evidence-based care of asthma into rural district hospital emergency departments.

INTRODUCTION
To determine if an evidence-based implementation (EBI) could lead to the successful implementation of evidence based care for adult asthma in small rural district hospitals.


METHODS
A controlled trial involving eight small rural hospitals (four each in the study and control groups) was conducted. Retrospective pre-intervention audits were conducted at all eight hospitals for 7 months (1 January 2004 to 31 July 2004) and evidence-practice gaps identified. An EBI was then used to implement established guidelines for the management of asthma in the study hospitals. Post-intervention audits were then performed over a period of 7 months (1 October 2004 to 31 April 2005).


RESULTS
There were 52 presentations of asthma in the study hospitals in the pre-implementation phase and 47 post-implementation. The corresponding numbers for the control hospitals were 46 and 42 respectively. There were no statistically significant differences in the severity between the groups. Following the EBI there were significant improvements at the study hospitals for the documentation of severity (8% to 62%, p <0.001), use of spirometry (12% to 62%, p <0.001) and the use of written short-term asthma plans (9% to 26%, p = 0.05). There was a decrease in use of ipratropium in mild asthma (44% to 30%, p = 0.228), an increase in the use of systemic steroids (61% to 72%, p = 0.255) and no change in prescribing antibiotics for afebrile patients with asthma (21% to 21% p = 0.956). There was no significant change in practice at the control hospitals except for a decrease in the use of systemic steroids (48% to 21%, p = 0.011). For the six clinical indicators aggregate there was a significant increase in compliance with guidelines at the study hospitals (36% to 62%, p < 0.001) but no change at the control hospitals (31% to 31%, p = 0.970).


CONCLUSION
The pre-intervention audits demonstrated low levels of compliance with asthma guidelines across six clinical indicators. An EBI significantly improved compliance across these six indicators, and no improvement was noted in the control hospitals. This study demonstrates that an EBI can alter clinical practice in small rural district hospitals.
Simplified Feature Set for Arabic Named Entity Recognition

This paper introduces simplified yet effective features that can robustly identify named entities in Arabic text without the need for morphological or syntactic analysis or gazetteers. A CRF sequence labeling model is trained on features that primarily use character n-gram of leading and trailing letters in words and word n-grams. The proposed features help overcome some of the morphological and orthographic complexities of Arabic. In comparing to results in the literature using Arabic specific features such POS tags on the same dataset and same CRF implementation, the results in this paper are lower by 2 F-measure points for locations, but are better by 8 points for organizations and 9 points for persons.
Impact of Surgery on Relationship Quality in Patients With Ulcerative Colitis and Their Partners.

BACKGROUND
Although social support is important for quality of life in patients undergoing surgery for ulcerative colitis, the impact of surgery on patient relationships is not known.


OBJECTIVE
We examined relationship parameters in patients with ulcerative colitis and their partners before and 6 months after surgery.


DESIGN
This was a prospective cohort in which we performed an exploratory analysis.


SETTINGS
Patients were enrolled from an academic medical center.


PATIENTS
Surgical patients with ulcerative colitis and their partners were invited to participate.


INTERVENTIONS
Patients underwent proctocolectomy in 1, 2, or 3 stages.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
We measured quality of life and sexual function in patients, as well as relationship quality, empathy, and sexual satisfaction in patients and partners before and 6 months after surgery using validated questionnaires.


RESULTS
The study sample consisted of 74 participants, including 37 patients (25 men and 12 women) and their opposite-sex partners. Quality of life improved significantly in male and female patients after surgery. Sexual function scores also improved after surgery in male and female patients; however, the changes reached statistical significance in male patients only. Sexual satisfaction scores improved significantly after surgery in female patients and their partners. There was little change in relationship quality or empathy after surgery, with the exception of slightly improved relationship quality reported by male partners. In general, patients and partners reported levels of relationship quality and empathy similar to normative populations.


LIMITATIONS
This study included a small, highly selected sample.


CONCLUSIONS
Male and female patients with ulcerative colitis have high-quality relationships that are not negatively affected by surgical treatment. Changes in sexual function do not necessarily coincide with changes in sexual satisfaction in this patient population. Future studies should evaluate the effect of high-quality relationships on surgical outcomes.
Polynomially parameter-dependent Lyapunov functions for robust stability of polytopic systems: an LMI approach

In this note, robust stability of state-space models with respect to real parametric uncertainty is considered. Specifically, a new class of parameter-dependent quadratic Lyapunov functions for establishing stability of a polytope of matrices is introduced, i.e., the homogeneous polynomially parameter-dependent quadratic Lyapunov functions (HPD-QLFs). The choice of this class, which contains parameter-dependent quadratic Lyapunov functions whose dependence on the uncertain parameters is expressed as a polynomial homogeneous form, is motivated by the property that a polytope of matrices is stable if and only there exists an HPD-QLF. The main result of the note is a sufficient condition for determining the sought HPD-QLF, which amounts to solving linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) derived via the complete square matricial representation (CSMR) of homogeneous matricial forms and the Lyapunov matrix equation. Numerical examples are provided to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Temperature and evolutionary novelty as forces behind the evolution of general intelligence

How did human intelligence evolve to be so high? Lynn [Lynn, R. (1991). The evolution of race differences in intelligence. Mankind Quarterly, 32, 99–173] and Rushton [Rushton, J.P. (1995). Race, evolution, and behavior: A life history perspective. New Brunswick: Transaction] suggest that the main forces behind the evolution of human intelligence were the cold climate and harsh winters, which selected out individuals of lower intelligence. In contrast, Kanazawa [Kanazawa, S. (2004). General intelligence as a domain-specific adaptation. Psychological Review, 111, 512–523] contends that it is the evolutionary novelty of the environment which increased general intelligence. Multiple regression analyses support both theories. Annual mean temperature and evolutionary novelty (measured by latitude, longitude, and distance from the ancestral environment) simultaneously have independent effects on average intelligence of populations. Temperature and evolutionary novelty together explain half to twothirds of variance in national IQ. © 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
A Numerical Investigation of the Incompressible Flow through a Butterfly Valve Using CFD

The results of a numerical investigation of a butterfly valve under incompressible flow conditions are reported. The commercial CFD code Fluent was used for the study, and the standard K-ε turbulence model was selected. The simulations provided insight into the flow field characteristics of the valve. The valve performance factors such as the flow coefficient and hydrodynamic flow coefficient were computed for different valve opening angles. The results were compared with experimental data and good agreement was found. The results demonstrated the importance of CFD as a valuable tool in visualizing the complex structures in the flow field of the valve. The pressure drop across the valve and the valve flow coefficient were found to be directly dependent on the opening angle of the valve disk. The hydrodynamic torque coefficient curve was computed at different valve opening angles, and the angle at which maximum torque coefficient occurs was identified. Keywords— Butterfly Valve, Control Valve, Computational Fluid Dynamics, CFD, Numerical Analysis, Turbulence.
Aortic valve replacement with the freestyle stentless bioprosthesis: five-year experience.

BACKGROUND
Stentless aortic valves were designed to provide a more physiological flow pattern and lower transvalvular gradient, which may have an important bearing on postoperative left ventricular function and remodeling. In this study, we prospectively analyzed the 5-year clinical results with the Freestyle valve (Medtronic, Inc) and its hemodynamic performance by serial echocardiography.


METHODS AND RESULTS
Between January 1993 and August 1997, 95 patients with a mean age of 75 years underwent aortic valve replacement with the Freestyle prosthesis. Sixty-four percent of patients received valves </=23 mm, and 37% had concomitant coronary artery bypass grafting. Average follow-up was 44+/-18 months (mean+/-SD), and echocardiography was performed preoperatively, at discharge, at 3 to 6 months, and annually thereafter. The 30-day operative mortality rate was 3%, with an overall actuarial survival rate of 80+/-6% (mean+/-SEM) at 5 years. Of the 10 late deaths, only 2 were cardiac related, thereby yielding a freedom from cardiac mortality of 94+/-3% after 5 years. No patient required reoperation on the aortic valve for any reason, including structural degeneration, nonstructural dysfunction, or prosthetic valve endocarditis. There were 9 thromboembolic and 3 anticoagulant-related bleeding events, none of which was fatal. The actuarial freedom from valve-related morbidity and mortality was 79+/-4% at 5 years. Hemodynamically, the mean transvalvular gradient significantly decreased after valve replacement and was reduced further by 41% by 6 months with a corresponding increase in effective orifice area. Left ventricular mass index fell to 75% of the preoperative value by 2 years.


CONCLUSIONS
The Freestyle stentless valve can be implanted safely in the elderly with excellent midterm clinical results. It has superb hemodynamics in terms of residual transvalvular gradient, effective orifice area, and regression of left ventricular hypertrophy.
Morris Library Research Guides. Saluki First Year 2013-2014 - Water. Water Sustainability & Conservation.

This library guide is designed to support SIU 2013-2014 first year students' projects about water.