LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
The effectiveness of manual physical therapy and exercise for mechanical neck pain: a randomized clinical trial.

STUDY DESIGN
Randomized clinical trial.


OBJECTIVE
To assess the effectiveness of manual physical therapy and exercise (MTE) for mechanical neck pain with or without unilateral upper extremity (UE) symptoms, as compared to a minimal intervention (MIN) approach.


SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA
Mounting evidence supports the use of manual therapy and exercise for mechanical neck pain, but no studies have directly assessed its effectiveness for UE symptoms.


METHODS
A total of 94 patients referred to 3 physical therapy clinics with a primary complaint of mechanical neck pain, with or without unilateral UE symptoms, were randomized to receive MTE or a MIN approach of advice, motion exercise, and subtherapeutic ultrasound. Primary outcomes were the neck disability index, cervical and UE pain visual analog scales (VAS), and patient-perceived global rating of change assessed at 3-, 6-, and 52-weeks. Secondary measures included treatment success rates and post-treatment healthcare utilization.


RESULTS
The MTE group demonstrated significantly larger reductions in short- and long-term neck disability index scores (mean 1-year difference -5.1, 95% confidence intervals (CI) -8.1 to -2.1; P = 0.001) and short-term cervical VAS scores (mean 6-week difference -14.2, 95% CI -22.7 to -5.6; P = 0.001) as compared to the MIN group. The MTE group also demonstrated significant within group reductions in short- and long-term UE VAS scores at all time periods (mean 1-year difference -16.3, 95% CI -23.1 to -9.5; P = 0.000). At 1-year, patient perceived treatment success was reported by 62% (29 of 47) of the MTE group and 32% (15 of 47) of the MIN group (P = 0.004).


CONCLUSION
An impairment-based MTE program resulted in clinically and statistically significant short- and long-term improvements in pain, disability, and patient-perceived recovery in patients with mechanical neck pain when compared to a program comprising advice, a mobility exercise, and subtherapeutic ultrasound.
Evidence of protection against clinical and chronic hepatitis B infection 20 years after infant vaccination in a high endemicity region

Vaccination against hepatitis B virus (HBV) immediately after birth prevents neonatal infection by vertical transmission from HBV carrier mothers. There is an ongoing debate whether infant vaccination is sufficient to protect against infection when exposed to HBV later in life. We studied 222 Thai infants born to HBsAg -/+ and HBeAg -/+ mothers who were vaccinated with recombinant hepatitis B vaccine at 0-1-2-12 months of age. A subset of 100 subjects received a booster dose at age 5 years. Blood samples collected yearly for 20 years were examined for anti-HBs antibodies and serological markers of hepatitis B infection (anti-HBc, HBsAg, and in selected cases HBeAg, anti-HBe, HBV DNA). During the 20-year follow-up, no subject acquired new chronic HBV infection or clinical hepatitis B disease. During the first decade, possible subclinical breakthrough HBV infection (anti-HBc seroconversion) was only observed in subjects born to HBsAg +/HBeAg + mothers (6/49 [12.2%]). During the second decade, breakthrough HBV infections were detected in all groups (18/140 [12.8%]). Increases in anti-HBs concentrations that were unrelated to additional HBV vaccination or infection were detected in approximately 10% of subjects in each decade. Primary infant vaccination with a recombinant hepatitis B vaccine confers long-term protection against clinical disease and new chronic hepatitis B infection despite confirmed hepatitis B exposure.
Reliability of the Hazelbaker Assessment Tool for Lingual Frenulum Function

BACKGROUND
About 3% of infants are born with a tongue-tie which may lead to breastfeeding problems such as ineffective latch, painful attachment or poor weight gain. The Hazelbaker Assessment Tool for Lingual Frenulum Function (HATLFF) has been developed to give a quantitative assessment of the tongue-tie and recommendation about frenotomy (release of the frenulum). The aim of this study was to assess the inter-rater reliability of the HATLFF.


METHODS
Fifty-eight infants referred to the Breastfeeding Education and Support Services (BESS) at The Royal Women's Hospital for assessment of tongue-tie and 25 control infants were assessed by two clinicians independently.


RESULTS
The Appearance items received kappas between about 0.4 to 0.6, which represents "moderate" reliability. The first three Function items (lateralization, lift and extension of tongue) had kappa values over 0.65 which indicates "substantial" agreement. The four Function items relating to infant sucking (spread, cupping, peristalsis and snapback) received low kappa values with insignificant p values. There was 96% agreement between the two assessors on the recommendation for frenotomy (kappa 0.92, excellent agreement). The study found that the Function Score can be more simply assessed using only the first three function items (ie not scoring the sucking items), with a cut-off of </=4 for recommendation of frenotomy.


CONCLUSION
We found that the HATLFF has a high reliability in a study of infants with tongue-tie and control infants.
Is there a role for antiandrogen monotherapy in patients with metastatic prostate cancer?

Castration is the most widely used form of androgen ablation employed in the treatment of metastatic (M1) prostate cancer. Non-steroidal antiandrogen monotherapy is a potential alternative treatment option for men for whom castration is unacceptable or not indicated. Of the three non-steroidal antiandrogens, bicalutamide (‘Casodex’), flutamide and nilutamide, only bicalutamide has been compared with castration in large, controlled, randomised, Phase III trials in M1 patients. A post-hoc analysis of these studies indicated that bicalutamide 150 mg/day monotherapy may be of benefit to M1 patients with a prostate specific antigen (PSA) level ≤400 ng/ml. Significant advantages for M1 patients treated with bicalutamide were observed in subjective response rate, maintenance of sexual interest and physical capacity. Patients with a higher disease burden (PSA >400 ng/ml) may decide that quality of life and symptomatic benefits outweigh the slight survival disadvantage seen in clinical trials and opt for bicalutamide monotherapy as an alternative to castration..
Variations of HIV and STI prevalences within communities neighbouring new goldmines in Tanzania: importance for intervention design.

OBJECTIVES
To measure the prevalence of HIV and other STIs in communities neighbouring new large scale gold mines in northern Tanzania in order to inform the design of a targeted HIV/STI intervention programme.


METHODS
Cross sectional surveys were conducted in adults aged 16-54 years from different sectors of communities neighbouring two newly opened, large scale gold mines near Lake Victoria. Mine workers, men, women, and female food and recreational facility workers (FRFW) from the community were randomly selected for interview and HIV and STI testing.


RESULTS
207 male Tanzanian mine workers, 206 FRFW, 202 other male and 205 female community members were enrolled. Overall, 42% of FRFW were HIV positive, compared to 6% of male mine workers, and 16% and 18% of other community men and women respectively. HIV prevalence in FRFW was significantly associated with alcohol consumption (adjusted odds ratio (aOR) = 2.5, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1 to 5.5), past or present syphilis (TPPA+) (aOR = 2.7, 95% CI 1.4 to 5.1) and single status (aOR = 3.8, 95% CI 1.2 to 11.9). Among FRFW, 24% had active syphilis (RPR+, TPPA+), 9% Chlamydia trachomatis, and 4% Neisseria gonorrhoeae. Overall, 50% of FRFW and 50% of community men never used condoms during sex, and 55% mineworkers, 61% male, and 20% female community members reported receiving/giving payment for sex during the previous year.


CONCLUSIONS
There is a high prevalence of HIV and other STIs in communities around new goldmines in Tanzania, especially in FRFW. HIV and STI prevalence in the mining workforce is still relatively low, but high risk sexual behaviour is reported by all adult subgroups surveyed in this study. Programmes focusing on HIV/STI prevention, with targeted interventions for high risk women such as FRFW, will be extremely important in such high transmission communities where there is substantial recent in-migration of men and women seeking work. Such programmes have recently been initiated by a private/public/NGO partnership.
A theoretical argument for complex-valued convolutional networks

A complex-valued convolutional network (convnet) implements the repeated application of the following composition of three operations, recursively applying the composition to an input vector of nonnegative real numbers: (1) convolution with several complex-valued vectors followed by (2) taking the absolute value of every entry of the resulting vectors followed by (3) local averaging. For processing real-valued random vectors, complex-valued convnets can be viewed as “data-driven multiscale windowed power spectra,” “data-driven multiscale windowed absolute spectra,” “data-driven multiwavelet absolute values,” or (in their most general configuration) “data-driven nonlinear multiwavelet packets.” Indeed, complex-valued convnets can calculate multiscale windowed spectra when the convnet filters are windowed complex-valued exponentials. Standard real-valued convnets, using rectified linear units (ReLUs), sigmoidal (for example, logistic or tanh) nonlinearities, max. pooling, etc., do not obviously exhibit the same exact correspondence with data-driven wavelets (whereas for complex-valued convnets, the correspondence is much more than just a vague analogy). This note develops “data-driven multiscale windowed spectra” for certain stochastic processes that are common in the modeling of time series (such as audio) and natural images (including patterns and textures). We motivate the construction of such multiscale spectra in the form of “local averages of multiwavelet absolute values” or (in the most general configuration) “nonlinear multiwavelet packets” and connect these to certain “complex-valued convolutional networks.” A textbook treatment of all concepts and terms used above and below is given by [12]. Further information is available in the original work of [7], [15], [5], [4], [19], [16], [9], [20], and [18], for example. The work of [8], [13], [17], [2], and [3] also develops complex-valued convolutional networks (convnets). Renormalization group theory and its connection to convnets is discussed by [14]; this connection is incredibly insightful, though we leave further discussion to the cited work. Our exposition relies on nothing but the basic signal processing treated by [12]. For simplicity, we first limit consideration to the special case of a doubly infinite sequence of nonnegative random variables Xk, where k ranges over the integers. This input data will be the result of convolving an unmeasured independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) sequence Zk, where k ranges over the integers, with an unknown sequence of real numbers fk, where k ranges over the integers (this latter sequence is known as a “filter,” whereas the i.i.d. sequence is known as “white noise”): Xj = ∞
Anterior cervical corpectomy for cervical spondylotic myelopathy: Reconstruction with expandable cylindrical cage versus iliac crest autograft. A retrospective study

OBJECTIVES
To compare retrospectively the clinical and radiographic outcomes between cervical reconstruction with expandable cylindrical cage (ECC) and iliac crest autograft after one- or two-level anterior cervical corpectomy for spondylotic myelopathy.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
Forty-two patients underwent cervical reconstruction with either iliac crest autograft and plating (20 patients) or ECC and plating (22 patients). The average clinical and radiological follow-up period was 77.54 ± 44.28 months (range 14-155 months). The authors compared clinical parameters (Nurick Myelopathy Grade, modified Japanese Orthopedic Association (mJOA) scores), perioperative parameters (hospital stays, complications) and radiological parameters (Cobb's angles of the fused segments and C2-C7 segments, cervical subsidence, fusion rate). Fusion was assessed on flexion-extension X-ray films.


RESULTS
No significant differences between the two groups were found in demographics, neurological presentation, preoperative sagittal alignment, clinical improvement and length of hospitalization. Patients of the autograft group experienced more postoperative complications, although the difference between the two treatment groups was not statistically significant (15 versus 4.5%, p=0.232). The fusion rate was 100% in both groups. The average lordotic increase of the segmental angle was significantly greater in the ECC group (p<0.05). Other radiological parameters were not significantly different in the two groups.


CONCLUSION
Cervical reconstruction either with iliac crest autograft and plating or ECC and plating provides good clinical results and similar fusion rates after one- or two-level corpectomy for spondylotic myelopathy. However, the use of ECC obviates donor site complications and provides a more significant increase of lordosis in segmental angle.
A Flywheel Energy Storage System Based on a Doubly Fed Induction Machine and Battery for Microgrid Control

Microgrids are eco-friendly power systems because they use renewable sources such as solar and wind power as the main power source. However, the stochastic nature of wind and solar power is a considerable challenge for the efficient operation of microgrids. Microgrid operations have to satisfy quality requirements in terms of the frequency and voltage. To overcome these problems, energy storage systems for shortand long-term storage are used with microgrids. Recently, the use of short-term energy storage systems such as flywheels has attracted significant interest as a potential solution to this problem. Conventional flywheel energy storage systems exhibit only one control mode during operation: either smoothing wind power control or frequency control. In this paper, we propose a new flywheel energy storage system based on a doubly fed induction machine and a battery for use with microgrids. The new flywheel energy storage system can be used not only to mitigate wind power fluctuations, but also to control the frequency as well as the voltage of the microgrid during islanded operation. The performance of the proposed flywheel energy storage system is investigated through various simulations using MATLAB/Simulink software. In addition, a conventional flywheel energy storage system based on a doubly fed induction machine is simulated and its performance compared with that of the proposed one.
Kitsune: An Ensemble of Autoencoders for Online Network Intrusion Detection

Neural networks have become an increasingly popular solution for network intrusion detection systems (NIDS). Their capability of learning complex patterns and behaviors make them a suitable solution for differentiating between normal traffic and network attacks. However, a drawback of neural networks is the amount of resources needed to train them. Many network gateways and routers devices, which could potentially host an NIDS, simply do not have the memory or processing power to train and sometimes even execute such models. More importantly, the existing neural network solutions are trained in a supervised manner. Meaning that an expert must label the network traffic and update the model manually from time to time. In this paper, we present Kitsune: a plug and play NIDS which can learn to detect attacks on the local network, without supervision, and in an efficient online manner. Kitsune’s core algorithm (KitNET) uses an ensemble of neural networks called autoencoders to collectively differentiate between normal and abnormal traffic patterns. KitNET is supported by a feature extraction framework which efficiently tracks the patterns of every network channel. Our evaluations show that Kitsune can detect various attacks with a performance comparable to offline anomaly detectors, even on a Raspberry PI. This demonstrates that Kitsune can be a practical and economic NIDS. Keywords—Anomaly detection, network intrusion detection, online algorithms, autoencoders, ensemble learning.
A randomized trial of paliperidone palmitate and risperidone long-acting injectable in schizophrenia.

Paliperidone palmitate (PP) is a recently (USA) approved injectable new-generation antipsychotic. This 53-wk, Phase-III double-blind study was designed to assess the non-inferiority of PP to risperidone long-acting injectable (RIS-LAI) in schizophrenia treatment. Acutely symptomatic patients (n=749), with a Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) total score between 60 and 120 were randomly allocated to gluteal injections of either (a) PP: 50 mg eq. on days 1 and 8, and flexible dosing [25-100 mg eq. (i.e. 39-156 mg USA dosing)] once-monthly; or (b) RIS-LAI: bi-weekly injections of 25 mg on days 8 and 22, and flexible dosing (25-50 mg) starting from day 36, with allowed oral supplementation. Patients (n=747) were 59% men, 92% white, mean (s.d.) age of 41 (11.95) yr and 45% (n=339) completed the study. Mean (s.d.) change from baseline to endpoint in PANSS total score was: -11.6 (21.22) PP; and -14.4 (19.76) RIS-LAI (per-protocol analysis set, primary measure); least-squares means difference was -2.6 (95% CI -5.84 to 0.61), with a prespecified 5-point non-inferiority margin. PP's suboptimal dosing regimen (<150 mg eq. initial dose) resulted in lower median plasma levels of the active moiety in PP-treated vs. RIS-LAI-treated patients. Insomnia was the most common treatment-emergent adverse event, with a similar incidence in both groups (15%). PP did not demonstrate comparable efficacy to RIS-LAI, which may be attributable to the initiation dosing strategy employed. Tolerability of both treatments was comparable to previous studies, with no new safety signals detected.
Reinforcement Learning for RoboCup Soccer Keepaway

RoboCup simulated soccer presents many challenges to reinforcement learning methods, including a large state space, hidden and uncertain state, multiple independent agents learning simultaneously, and long and variable delays in the effects of actions. We describe our application of episodic SMDP Sarsa(λ) with linear tile-coding function approximation and variable λ to learning higher-level decisions in a keepaway subtask of RoboCup soccer. In keepaway, one team, “the keepers,” tries to keep control of the ball for as long as possible despite the efforts of “the takers.” The keepers learn individually when to hold the ball and when to pass to a teammate. Our agents learned policies that significantly outperform a range of benchmark policies. We demonstrate the generality of our approach by applying it to a number of task variations including different field sizes and different numbers of players on each team.
Barnidipine real-life tolerability in arterial hypertension: results from the BASIC-HT study.

INTRODUCTION
Blood pressure (BP) is generally poorly controlled in hypertensive patients. One cause is poor adherence to drugs, which can be improved by treatments combining good efficacy and tolerability. Barnidipine is a strong lipophilic calcium channel blocker (CCB) with efficacy similar to other dihydropyridines.


OBJECTIVE
BASIC HT is an observational study in a large population of patients with essential hypertension to evaluate the tolerability of barnidipine in a real-life setting.


METHODS
20479 patients were enrolled in the study. Tolerability and efficacy was assessed at 2 visits during a 3-month period. 20275 patients were included in the analysis.


RESULTS
Adverse events were reported by 10.6% of the patients, leading to treatment discontinuation in 3%. Events were those expected with CCBs. The drop-out rate was 8%. Mean systolic and diastolic pressure decreased from 159.6 to 138.2 and from 92.5 to 81.7 mmHg.


CONCLUSION
The decrease in BP, is probably due to stimulation of good adherence by barnidipine.
Prognostic value of hyponatremia in heart failure patients: an analysis of the Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes in the Relation with Serum Sodium Level in Asian Patients Hospitalized for Heart Failure (COAST) study

BACKGROUND/AIMS
Hyponatremia is a well-known risk factor for poor outcomes in Western studies of heart failure (HF) patients. We evaluated the predictive value of hyponatremia in hospitalized Asian HF patients.


METHODS
The Clinical Characteristics and Outcomes in the Relation with Serum Sodium Level in Asian Patients Hospitalized for Heart Failure (the COAST) study enrolled hospitalized patients with systolic HF (ejection fraction < 45%) at eight centers in South Korea, Taiwan, and China. The relationship between admission sodium level and clinical outcomes was analyzed in 1,470 patients.


RESULTS
The mean admission sodium level was 138 ± 4.7 mmol/L, and 247 patients (16.8%) had hyponatremia defined as Na(+) < 135 mmol/L. The 12-month mortality was higher in hyponatremic patients (27.9% vs. 14.6%, p < 0.001), and hyponatremia was an independent predictor of 12-month mortality (hazard ratio, 1.72; 95% confidence interval, 1.12 to 2.65). During hospital admission, 57% of hyponatremic patients showed improvement without improvement in their clinical outcomes (p = 0.620). The proportion of patients with optimal medical treatment was only 26.5% and 44.2% at admission and discharge, respectively, defined as the combined use of angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitor/angiotensin receptor blocker and β-blocker. Underuse of optimal medical treatment was more pronounced in hyponatremic patients.


CONCLUSIONS
In hospitalized Asian HF patients, hyponatremia at admission is common and is an independent predictor of poor clinical outcome. Furthermore, hyponatremic patients receive less optimal medical treatment than their counterparts.
TOU-Aware Energy Management and Wireless Sensor Networks for Reducing Peak Load in Smart Grids

The electricity grid is undergoing a major renovation and becoming a smart grid by integrating the advances in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). Current applications in energy generation, power distribution and its consumption need improvement in several ways, such as, making efficient use of green energy, increasing automation in distribution and enabling residential energy management. The existing grid does not provide sufficient mechanisms to manage the residential electricity consumption. However, interconnecting consumer devices with the home area networks, and at the same time, communicating with the utility networks through a home gateway facilitate residential energy management in smart grids. Residential energy management uses utility-driven price signals which vary depending on the time of the day. This is called as Time Of Use (TOU) pricing. In TOU pricing, electricity consumption during peak hours costs more than electricity consumption during off-peak hours. TOU prices reflect the variation in the actual cost of power during one day. Utilities run bas plants to supply power for the base load. In peak hours, demands of the consumers rise, and utilities bring peaker plants online to supply additional power. Peaker plants have higher operating costs and higher GreenHouse Gas (GHG) emission rates than base plants. Therefore, reducing peak load decreases the expenses for energy generation and it decreases the GHG emissions. Wireless sensor networks can play a key role in reducing the demand of the consumers in peak hours. In this paper, we employ TOU-aware energy management in a smart home with wireless sensor home area network and analyze the impact of this schemes on the peak load. We show that our scheme decreases the use of the appliances in peak hours and reduces the energy bills for consumers.