LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Cognitive impairment in first-episode mania: a systematic review of the evidence in the acute and remission phases of the illness

There is evidence of cognitive impairment that persists in the remission phase of bipolar disorder; however, the extent of the deficits that occur from the first onset of the disorder remains unclear. This is the first systematic review on cognitive functioning in the early stages of bipolar I disorder. The aim of the study was to identify the patterns and degree of cognitive impairment that exists from first-episode mania. Three electronic databases (MEDLINE, PsycINFO and PubMed) were systematically searched for studies published from January 1980 to June 2014. Eligible studies were separated into two groups: acute and remission. The Newcastle-Ottawa quality assessment scale was utilised to measure the quality of the included studies. A total of seven studies (three acute and four remission), including 230 first-episode mania and 345 healthy control participants, were eligible for the review. The studies in the acute phase only examined aspects of executive functioning, with impairments identified in cognitive flexibility, though not in response inhibition and verbal fluency relative to healthy controls. The most consistent finding during the remission phase was a deficit in working memory, whereas in the other domains, the findings were equivocal. Non-verbal memory and verbal fluency were not impacted in remission from first-episode mania. In conclusion, deficits are present in some but not all areas of cognitive functioning during the early stages of bipolar I disorder. Further research is warranted to understand the longitudinal trajectory of change from first-episode mania.
Phase II multicentre trial of oral quisinostat, a histone deacetylase inhibitor, in patients with previously treated stage IB-IVA mycosis fungoides/Sézary syndrome.

BACKGROUND
Quisinostat is a hydroxamate, second-generation, orally available pan-histone deacetylase inhibitor.


OBJECTIVES
To evaluate the efficacy and safety of oral quisinostat in patients with previously treated cutaneous T-cell lymphoma (CTCL).


METHODS
Patients received quisinostat 8 mg or 12 mg on days 1, 3 and 5 of each week in 21-day treatment cycles. Primary efficacy end point was cutaneous response rate (RR) based on the modified Severity Weighted Assessment Tool (mSWAT). Secondary end points included global RR, duration of response (DOR) in skin, progression-free survival (PFS), pruritus relief, safety and pharmacodynamic markers.


RESULTS
Eight of 26 (25 evaluable) patients achieved ≥ 50% reduction in mSWAT score at least once, with confirmed cutaneous response in six (RR 24%). There was a low global RR of 8%. DOR in skin ranged from 2·8 to 6·9 months. Median PFS was 5·1 months. Pruritus relief was more frequent in cutaneous responders (67%) than nonresponders (32%). Serial tumour biopsies revealed an increase in acetylated tubulin, indicating a target effect of histone deacetylase 6. Twenty-one of 26 (81%) patients were withdrawn from the study before or at clinical cut-off; five (19%) continued to receive treatment with quisinostat. The most common drug-related adverse events were nausea, diarrhoea, asthenia, hypertension, thrombocytopenia and vomiting. Grade 3 drug-related adverse events included hypertension, lethargy, pruritus, chills, hyperkalaemia and pyrexia.


CONCLUSIONS
Quisinostat 12 mg three times weekly is active in the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory CTCL, with an acceptable safety profile. Combination therapy with other drugs active in CTCL may be appropriate.
Immunohistochemical light and electron microscopy of basal laminar deposit

The formation of basal laminar deposit (BLD) is one of the histopathologic changes in the aging human macula. BLD is assumed to be an early stage of age-related macular degeneration. The location of BLD, between the RPE plasma membrane and its basement membrane and in the outer collagenous zone of Bruch's membrane, and its ultrastructure suggest that it is composed of excessive amounts of basement membrane material. The main components of basement membranes are type IV collagen, heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPG) and laminin. Labeled antibodies against these components can therefore be used for the identification and localization of basement membrane material by means of immunohistochemical techniques. In this study the presence of type IV collagen, laminin and HSPG was determined in aged human maculae by immunohistochemistry and immunoelectron microscopy. Tests for the presence of type VI collagen and fibronectin were also performed. We obtained 76 eyes from 68 human subjects at autopsy or after surgical enucleation for anteriorly located choroidal melanomas. The finely granular component of BLD stained positive with antibodies against type IV collagen, HSPG and laminin, but the long-spacing collagen component of BED did not. Neither component of BED was stained with antibodies against type VI collagen or fibronectin. We conclude that BLD consists partly of excess basement membrane material.
Transcranial Doppler versus angiography in patients with vasospasm due to a ruptured cerebral aneurysm: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Transcranial Doppler (TCD) is used for diagnosis of vasospasm in patients with subarachnoid hemorrhage due to a ruptured aneurysm. Our aim was to evaluate both the accuracy of TCD compared with angiography and its usefulness as a screening method in this setting.


METHODS
A search (MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, bibliographies, hand searching, any language, through January 31, 2001) was performed for studies comparing TCD with angiography. Data were critically appraised using a modified published 10-point score and were combined using a random-effects model.


RESULTS
Twenty-six reports compared TCD with angiography. Median validity score was 4.5 (range 1 to 8). Meta-analyses could be performed with data from 7 trials. For the middle cerebral artery (5 trials, 317 tests), sensitivity was 67% (95% CI 48% to 87%), specificity was 99% (98% to 100%), positive predictive value (PPV) was 97% (95% to 98%), and negative predictive value (NPV) was 78% (65% to 91%). For the anterior cerebral artery (3 trials, 171 tests), sensitivity was 42% (11% to 72%), specificity was 76% (53% to 100%), PPV was 56% (27% to 84%), and NPV was 69% (43% to 95%). Three of these 7 studies reported on the same patients, each on another artery, and for 4, data recycling could not be disproved. Other arteries were tested in only 1 trial each.


CONCLUSIONS
For the middle cerebral artery, TCD is not likely to indicate a spasm when angiography does not show one (high specificity), and TCD may be used to identify patients with a spasm (high PPV). For all other situations and arteries, there is either lack of evidence of accuracy or of any usefulness of TCD. Most of these data are of low methodological quality, bias cannot not be ruled out, and data reporting is often uncritical.
The patterns business: impressions from PLoP-94

Monticello - Illinois was the place that hosted PLoP-94 (The first Conference on Pattern Languages of Programs) 4th - 6th August 1994. Here I'll summarize the insights into the nature of 'Patterns' and 'Pattern Languages' I gained. The intended reader works with software development but is more generally anybody trying to improve the quality of intellectual tasks.
Extent and distribution of white matter hyperintensities in normal aging, MCI, and AD.

OBJECTIVE
To analyze the extent and spatial distribution of white matter hyperintensities (WMH) in brain regions from cognitively normal older individuals (CN) and patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer disease (AD).


METHODS
We studied 26 mild AD, 28 MCI, and 33 CN. MRI analysis included quantification of WMH volume, nonlinear mapping onto a common anatomic image, and spatial localization of each WMH voxel to create an anatomically precise frequency distribution map. Areas of greatest frequency of WMH from the WMH composite map were used to identify 10 anatomic regions involving periventricular areas and the corpus callosum (CC) for group comparisons.


RESULTS
Total WMH volumes were associated with age, extent of concurrent vascular risk factors, and diagnosis. After correcting for age, total WMH volumes remained significantly associated with diagnosis and extent of vascular risk. Regional WMH analyses revealed significant differences in WMH across regions that also differed significantly according to diagnosis. In post-hoc analyses, significant differences were seen between CN and AD in posterior periventricular regions and the splenium of the CC. MCI subjects had intermediate values at all regions. Repeated measures analysis including vascular risk factors in the model found a significant relationship between periventricular WMH and vascular risk that differed by region, but regional differences according to diagnosis remained significant and there was no interaction between diagnosis and vascular risk.


CONCLUSIONS
Differences in white matter hyperintensities (WMH) associated with increasing cognitive impairment appear related to both extent and spatial location. Multiple regression analysis of regional WMH, vascular risk factors, and diagnosis suggest that these spatial differences may result from the additive effects of vascular and degenerative injury. Posterior periventricular and corpus callosum extension of WMH associated with mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer disease indicate involvement of strategic white matter bundles that may contribute to the cognitive deficits seen with these syndromes.
Pose Discriminiation and Eye Detection Using Support Vector Machines (SVM)

Most face recognition systems assume that the geometry of the image formation process is frontal. If additional poses, beyond the frontal one, are possible, then it becomes necessary to estimate the actual imaging pose. Once a face is detected and its pose is estimated one proceeds by normalizing the face images to account for geometrical and illumination changes, possibly using information about the location and appearance of facial landmarks such as the eyes. This paper describes a novel approach for the problem of pose estimation and eye detection using Support Vector Machines (SVM). Experimental results using frontal, and 33.75o rotated left and right poses, respectively, demonstrate the feasibility of our approach for pose estimation. The image (face) data comes from the standard FERET data base, the training set consists of 150 images equally distributed among frontal, 33.75o rotated left and right poses, respectively, and the test set consists of 450 images again equally distributed among the three different types of poses. The accuracy observed on test data, using both polynomials of degree 3 and Radial Basis Functions (RBFs) as kernel approximation functions, to determine the SVM separating hyperplanes, has been 100%. On the eye detection task, the training data consisted of 186 eye images and 186 non-eye images. SVM was tested against 200 test examples (eye and non-eye). The best generalization performance of 4% was achieved using polynomial kernels of second degree as the set of approximating functions. SVM appear to be robust classification schemes and this suggests their use for additional face recognition tasks, such as surveillance.
Association between Health Systems Performance and Treatment Outcomes in Patients Co-Infected with MDR-TB and HIV in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa: Implications for TB Programmes

OBJECTIVE
To improve the treatment of MDR-TB and HIV co-infected patients, we investigated the relationship between health system performance and patient treatment outcomes at 4 decentralised MDR-TB sites.


METHODS
In this mixed methods case study which included prospective comparative data, we measured health system performance using a framework of domains comprising key health service components. Using Pearson Product Moment Correlation coefficients we quantified the direction and magnitude of the association between health system performance and MDR-TB treatment outcomes. Qualitative data from participant observation and interviews analysed using systematic text condensation (STC) complemented our quantitative findings.


FINDINGS
We found significant differences in treatment outcomes across the sites with successful outcomes varying from 72% at Site 1 to 52% at Site 4 (p<0.01). Health systems performance scores also varied considerably across the sites. Our findings suggest there is a correlation between treatment outcomes and overall health system performance which is significant (r = 0.99, p<0.01), with Site 1 having the highest number of successful treatment outcomes and the highest health system performance. Although the 'integration' domain, which measured integration of MDR-TB services into existing services appeared to have the strongest association with successful treatment outcomes (r = 0.99, p<0.01), qualitative data indicated that the 'context' domain influenced the other domains.


CONCLUSION
We suggest that there is an association between treatment outcomes and health system performance. The chance of treatment success is greater if decentralised MDR-TB services are integrated into existing services. To optimise successful treatment outcomes, regular monitoring and support are needed at a district, facility and individual level to ensure the local context is supportive of new programmes and implementation is according to guidelines.
Sports participation and health-related behaviors among US youth.

OBJECTIVE
To examine the relationship between sports participation and health-related behaviors among high school students.


DESIGN
Cross-sectional design using data from the 1997 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior Survey.


PARTICIPANTS
A nationally representative sample of 14,221 US high school students.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Prevalence of sports participation among males and females from 3 ethnic groups and its associations with other health behaviors, including diet, tobacco use, alcohol and illegal drug use, sexual activity, violence, and weight loss practices.


RESULTS
Approximately 70% of male students and 53% of female students reported participating on 1 or more sports teams in school and/or nonschool settings; rates varied substantially by age, sex, and ethnicity. Male sports participants were more likely than male nonparticipants to report fruit and vegetable consumption on the previous day and less likely to report cigarette smoking, cocaine and other illegal drug use, and trying to lose weight. Compared with female nonparticipants, female sports participants were more likely to report consumption of vegetables on the previous day and less likely to report having sexual intercourse in the past 3 months. Among white males and females, several other beneficial health behaviors were associated with sports participation. A few associations with negative health behaviors were observed in African American and Hispanic subgroups.


CONCLUSION
Sports participation is highly prevalent among US high school students, and is associated with numerous positive health behaviors and few negative health behaviors.
Situated Engineering Learning: Bridging Engineering Education Research and the Learning Sciences

PURPOSE This article summarizes prior work in the learning sciences and discusses one perspective—situative learning—in depth. Situativity refers to the central role of context, including the physical and social aspects of the environment, on learning. Furthermore, it emphasizes the socially and culturally negotiated nature of thought and action of persons in interaction. The aim of the article is to provide a foundation for future work on engineering learning and to suggest ways in which the learning sciences and engineering education research communities might work to their mutual benefit.
Development of an Intelligent PDA-based Wearable Digital Phonocardiograph

Last year at the EMBC 2004 in San Francisco, we presented a paper entitled: "Digital Phonocardiography: a PDA-based Approach", which introduced the development of a PDA-based biomedical instrument capable of acquiring, processing, and analysis of heart sounds. In this paper we present a system, which is not only able to record and display the heart sounds in a pocket PC but also apply several signal processing and statistical techniques to segment the these signals into four parts (the first heart sound, the systole, the second heart sound and the diastole) and implement feature extraction methods for classification purposes. Classification has been achieved using a multilayer perceptron (MLP) artificial neural network (ANN). The system was used to classify a number of normal and abnormal heart sounds (normal, aortic regurgitation, aortic stenosis, mitral regurgitation and mitral stenosis) and validate the effectiveness of the statistical segmentation and the feature extraction methods in this environment
Formulation and Evaluation of Transdermal Films of Salbutamol Sulphate

Transdermal drug delivery systems of salbutamol sulphate using eudragit RL100 and PVP were developed by solvent casting technique employing mercury as a substrate. Propylene glycol was used as a plasticizer. The prepared films exhibited satisfactory physico-chemical characteristics. In vitro permeation profiles across the guinea-pig dorsal skin using K-C diffusion cell are reported. Incorporating PEG-400 and tween 60 into the films enhanced the permeation across guinea-pig skin; permeation rate was greater with films containing PEG-400. The permeation followed zero order kinetics and mechanism was found to be matrix diffusion.
"The unpredictable death"-The last year of life for patients with advanced COPD: Relatives' stories.

OBJECTIVE
The end stage of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is described as prolonged, and the symptom burden for patients with COPD is often high. It progresses slowly over several years and can be punctuated by abrupt exacerbations that sometimes end in sudden death or a recovery of longer or shorter duration. This makes it difficult to identify the critical junctures in order to prognosticate the progress and time of death. Patients with COPD often express a fear that the dying process is going to be difficult. There is a fear that the dyspnea will worsen and lead to death by suffocation. The present article aimed to retrospectively describe the final year of life for patients with advanced COPD with a focus on death and dying from the perspective of relatives.


METHOD
Interviews were conducted with the relatives of deceased family members who had advanced COPD. In total, 13 interviews were conducted and analyzed by means of content analysis.


RESULT
All relatives described the patients as having had a peaceful death that did not correspond with the worry expressed earlier by both the patients and themselves. During the final week of life, two different patterns in the progress of the illness trajectory emerged: a temporary improvement where death was unexpected and a continued deterioration where death was inevitable.


SIGNIFICANCE OF RESULTS
The patients and their relatives lived with uncertainty up until the time of death. Little support for psychosocial and existential needs was available. It is essential for the nurse to create relationships with patients and relatives that enable them to talk about dying and death on their own terms.
Haemodialysis catheters increase mortality as compared to arteriovenous accesses especially in elderly patients.

BACKGROUND
Catheter use has been associated with an increased mortality risk in haemodialysis patients. However, differences in the all-cause and cause-specific mortality risk between catheter use and arteriovenous access use in young and elderly haemodialysis patients have not yet been investigated.


METHODS
In this prospective cohort study of 1109 incident haemodialysis patients from 38 centres in the Netherlands, hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were calculated for 2-year all-cause, infection-related and cardiovascular mortality in patients with a catheter as compared to patients with an arteriovenous access stratified for age (< 65 years and ≥ 65 years).


RESULTS
Of the 1109 patients, 919 had an arteriovenous access and 190 had a catheter. The mortality rate was 76 per 1000 person-years in young patients with an arteriovenous access, 129 per 1000 person-years in young patients with a catheter, 222 per 1000 person-years in elderly patients with an arteriovenous access and 427 per 1000 person-years in elderly patients with a catheter. The adjusted HR was 3.15 (95% CI: 2.09-4.75) for elderly patients with a catheter as compared to young patients with an arteriovenous access. The adjusted HRs in elderly patients with a catheter as compared to elderly patients with an arteriovenous access were 1.54 (95% CI: 1.13-2.12) for all-cause mortality, 1.60 (95%: CI 0.62-4.19) for infection-related mortality and 1.67 (95% CI: 1.04-2.68) for cardiovascular mortality.


CONCLUSIONS
Especially, elderly haemodialysis patients with a catheter have an increased all-cause, infection-related and cardiovascular mortality risk as compared to patients with an arteriovenous access.
Quantum Cosmology and the Arrow of Time

Although most fundamental laws are invariant under time reversal, experience exhibits the presence of irreversible phenomena -- the arrows of time. Their origin lies in cosmology, and I argue that only quantum cosmology can provide the appropriate formal framework. After briefly reviewing the formalism, I discuss how a simple and natural boundary condition can lead to the observed arrows of time. This yields at the same time interesting consequences for black holes.
A Connectionist Approach to Embodied Conceptual Metaphor

A growing body of data has been gathered in support of the view that the mind is embodied and that cognition is grounded in sensory-motor processes. Some researchers have gone so far as to claim that this paradigm poses a serious challenge to central tenets of cognitive science, including the widely held view that the mind can be analyzed in terms of abstract computational principles. On the other hand, computational approaches to the study of mind have led to the development of specific models that help researchers understand complex cognitive processes at a level of detail that theories of embodied cognition (EC) have sometimes lacked. Here we make the case that connectionist architectures in particular can illuminate many surprising results from the EC literature. These models can learn the statistical structure in their environments, providing an ideal framework for understanding how simple sensory-motor mechanisms could give rise to higher-level cognitive behavior over the course of learning. Crucially, they form overlapping, distributed representations, which have exactly the properties required by many embodied accounts of cognition. We illustrate this idea by extending an existing connectionist model of semantic cognition in order to simulate findings from the embodied conceptual metaphor literature. Specifically, we explore how the abstract domain of time may be structured by concrete experience with space (including experience with culturally specific spatial and linguistic cues). We suggest that both EC researchers and connectionist modelers can benefit from an integrated approach to understanding these models and the empirical findings they seek to explain.