LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Determining Optimal MRI Follow-up after Transsphenoidal Surgery for Pituitary Adenoma: Scan at 24 Hours Postsurgery Provides Reliable Information

  There is no agreed-upon schedule for MRI follow-up after pituitary adenoma removal via the transsphenoidal approach. Our aim was to establish a plan for MRI follow-up after pituitary surgery.  Eighty pituitary adenoma cases (25 microadenomas, 30 macroadenomas that did not infiltrate the cavernous sinus, and 25 macroadenomas with cavernous sinus infiltration) were prospectively studied with MRI following tumor resection via the transsphenoidal approach. Each patient was imaged at 24 hours, at 3, 6 and 9 months, and at 1 year or more postsurgery. The parameters studied were residual tumor, synthetic packing material (Gelfoam) versus fat graft, and normal pituitary, hypophyseal stalk and optic chiasma. The size of the pituitary structure as a whole was also measured. The latter was studied quantitatively, and the findings for the rest of the parameters were evaluated qualitatively, based on the examiners' confidence in their assessment. The final MRI study, done at least 1 year postsurgery in all cases, was considered the reference MRI for all scans.  MRI performed 24 hours after surgery was diagnostically accurate for residual tumor and valuable for visualizing normal sellar structures. The findings also showed that fat packing takes longer to resorb than Gelfoam, but produces no potentially confounding contrast enhancement. An algorithm based on the results is presented for postsurgical MRI assessment of pituitary adenoma patients in which the scan at 24 hours postsurgery is the major factor that determines the timing of later rechecks.
Unmet Needs and Their Relationship with Quality of Life among Women with Recurrent Breast Cancer

PURPOSE
This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence and the effects of unmet needs on quality of life (QOL) among recurrent breast cancer survivors.


METHODS
Completed questionnaires were collected from 52 women with recurrent breast cancer. Clinical and socio-demographic characteristics were reviewed, and the Supportive Care Needs Survey, Functional Assessment of Cancer Therapy-Breast Cancer Instrument, and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) were administered. The frequency of unmet needs and the mean differences by patient characteristics and BDI scores were analyzed. The predictive value of unmet needs on QOL, controlling for socio-demographic variables and then for clinical variables, was analyzed in hierarchical regression models.


RESULTS
The most common unmet needs belonged to the health system and information domain. The depressive group had greater unmet needs in the psychological domain (p<0.001), physical and daily living domain (p=0.001), and health and information domain (p=0.002). Patients with lower education attainment and those with lower performance status had greater unmet needs in the psychological needs (p=0.002) and in the physical and daily living needs domain (p=0.002), respectively. Unmet needs in the psychological domain (p=0.008), physical and daily living domain (p=0.022), and sexuality domain (p=0.040) strongly predicted QOL of women with recurrent breast cancer.


CONCLUSION
Unmet needs were strong predictors for QOL among recurrent breast cancer patients. This suggests that QOL of women with recurrent breast cancer is possibly more affected by unmet needs than by patient's socio-demographic or clinical characteristics. Intervention strategies could be developed based on the identified needs of women with recurrent breast cancer in order to improve their QOL. Further longitudinal and prospective studies will be necessary to confirm the independent impact of unmet needs on QOL.
Disruption of a mitochondrial protease machinery in Plasmodium falciparum is an intrinsic signal for parasite cell death

The ATP-dependent ClpQY protease system in Plasmodium falciparum is a prokaryotic machinery in the parasite. In the present study, we have identified the complete ClpQY system in P. falciparum and elucidated its functional importance in survival and growth of asexual stage parasites. We characterized the interaction of P. falciparum ClpQ protease (PfClpQ) and PfClpY ATPase components, and showed that a short stretch of residues at the C terminus of PfClpY has an important role in this interaction; a synthetic peptide corresponding to this region antagonizes this interaction and interferes with the functioning of this machinery in the parasite. Disruption of ClpQY function by this peptide caused hindrance in the parasite growth and maturation of asexual stages of parasites. Detailed analyses of cellular effects in these parasites showed features of apoptosis-like cell death. The peptide-treated parasites showed mitochondrial dysfunction and loss of mitochondrial membrane potential. Dysfunctioning of mitochondria initiated a cascade of reactions in parasites, including activation of VAD–FMK-binding proteases and nucleases, which resulted in apoptosis-like cell death. These results show functional importance of mitochondrial proteases in the parasite and involvement of mitochondria in programmed cell death in the malaria parasites.
On dominator colorings in graphs

Given a graph G, the dominator coloring problem seeks a proper coloring of G with the additional property that every vertex in the graph dominates an entire color class. We seek to minimize the number of color classes. We study this problem on several classes of graphs, as well as finding general bounds and characterizations. We also show the relation between dominator chromatic number, chromatic number, and domination number.
Demographic Dialectal Variation in Social Media: A Case Study of African-American English

Though dialectal language is increasingly abundant on social media, few resources exist for developing NLP tools to handle such language. We conduct a case study of dialectal language in online conversational text by investigating African-American English (AAE) on Twitter. We propose a distantly supervised model to identify AAE-like language from demographics associated with geo-located messages, and we verify that this language follows well-known AAE linguistic phenomena. In addition, we analyze the quality of existing language identification and dependency parsing tools on AAE-like text, demonstrating that they perform poorly on such text compared to text associated with white speakers. We also provide an ensemble classifier for language identification which eliminates this disparity and release a new corpus of tweets containing AAE-like language. Data and software resources are available at: http://slanglab.cs.umass.edu/TwitterAAE (This is an expanded version of our EMNLP 2016 paper, including the appendix at end.)
Metaanalysis of the epidemiology and clinical manifestations of odontomas.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the epidemiological and clinical aspects of the different types of odontomas.


STUDY DESIGN
A metaanalysis was made of 3065 odontomas obtained from a literature review of 30 articles published in recent years.


RESULTS
Odontomas show no gender predilection, and are most often diagnosed in the second decade of life. They are preferentially located in the upper maxilla, particularly in the anterior sector. Compound odontomas are more prevalent than complex odontoma, and show no predilection in terms of patient gender, age or location. Most such lesions are asymptomatic and constitute casual findings in X-ray studies indicated for other reasons. The most common clinical manifestations are the retention of permanent teeth and the presence of a tumor. Treatment consists of surgical removal of the lesion. The prognosis is very good, with a scant tendency towards relapse.


CONCLUSIONS
Odontomas are the most common odontogenic tumors. Their most significant characteristics comprise alterations in tooth eruption, and the diagnosis is casually established in the course of routine X-ray studies.
AN ALGEBRAIC METHOD FOR PUBLIC-KEY CRYPTOGRAPHY

Algebraic key establishment protocols based on the difficulty of solving equations over algebraic structures are described as a theoretical basis for constructing public–key cryptosystems.
Endogenous κ-opioid systems in opiate withdrawal: role in aversion and accompanying changes in mesolimbic dopamine release

The κ-opioid receptor antagonist nor-binaltor-phimine (nor-BNI) was recently shown to potentiate certain overt withdrawal signs in morphine-dependent rats. The present study sought to further assess this phenomenon by examining the influence of nor-BNI treatment upon the conditioned place aversion associated with the naloxone-precipitated withdrawal syndrome. In addition, in vivo microdialysis studies were conducted in morphine-dependent rats to determine whether nor-BNI treatment can modify withdrawal-induced changes in basal dopamine (DA) release within the mesolimbic system. Rats were pretreated with either saline or a single dose of nor-BNI and then received ascending doses of morphine for 10 days. A withdrawal syndrome was then precipitated by the administration of naloxone (1 mg/kg SC). In rats which received chronic morphine injections, administration of naloxone produced a characteristic withdrawal syndrome and a marked aversion for an environment previously associated with naloxone-precipitated withdrawal. Nor-BNI treatment potentiated most overt signs of physical dependence. This treatment also resulted in a greater withdrawal-induced place aversion. Morphine-dependent rats exhibited a marked reduction in basal mesolimbic DA release. An even greater decrease in basal DA release was observed in nor-BNI treated rats. These results suggest that endogenous κ-systems are important in the modulation of mesolimbic DA release and the accompanying place aversion which occurs during opiate withdrawal.
General geology and petrology of some Precambrian crystalline rocks from the Vijayan Complex of Sri Lanka

Abstract Detailed field studies of the Precambrian Vijayan Complex terrain, Sri Lanka, reveal the occurrence of granites, gneisses and migmatites in association with calc-silicate gneisses, quartzites and dolerites. Microcline-rich granites and gneisses show both sharp and gradational contacts with the adjacent migmatites. Petrological observations favor a magmatic origin for the granites and gneisses. These bodies seem to have intruded into pre-existing metasedimentary rocks which were subsequently subjected to retrograde metamorphism under amphibolite facies conditions.
The barbs (Barbus spp.) of Lake Tana: a forgotten species flock?

In October–December 1990, the large barbs (Barbus) that contribute more than 35% of the catch in lake Tana (northern Ethiopia) were studied. Previous authors (Rüppell 1837, Boulenger 1902,1911, Bini 1940) described from 6 to 23 (sub)species for the lake. Banister (1973) lumped all of these into one subspecies: Barbus intermedius intermedius Rüppell,1837. We found that the Lake Tana Barbus could be readily categorized in at least 13 discrete morphotypes, some of which were already distinguished by local fishermen. None of the known descriptions are adequate to distinguish the barbs unambiguously, which is important for monitoring and management of developing fisheries. Intermediates between morphotypes were rare (< 10%). By applying canonical discriminant analysis on a set of 17 morphometric characters (including some directly associated with feeding) our initial morphotype-distinction was confirmed. Also, differences between the morphotypes in distribution, related to depth and substratum were found, as well as differences in intestinal contents, a key to the food-niche. The high number of piscivorous morphotypes (8 out of 13) was striking as piscivory is relatively rare among cyprinids. Piscivory was found to be highly correlated with morphological (feeding related) characters. The presence of discrete morphotypes, that also differ in food-niche and distribution, strongly suggests that several distinct populations exist, that may be (partly or completely) reproductively segregated. Knowledge about these populations, that may represent separate units of fish stock, is of crucial importance for the management of sustainable fisheries and protection of the biodiversity in Lake Tana. It is possible that several species or even a unique cyprinid species flock are present, that urgently need protection.
Clinical, Pathological, and Surgical Outcomes for Adult Pineoblastomas.

INTRODUCTION
Pineoblastomas are uncommon primitive neuroectodermal tumors that occur mostly in children; they are exceedingly rare in adults. Few published reports have compared the various aspects of these tumors between adults and children.


METHODS
The authors report a series of 12 pineoblastomas in adults from 2 institutions over 24 years. The clinical, radiologic, and pathologic features and clinical outcomes were compared with previously reported cases in children and adults.


RESULTS
Patient age ranged from 24 to 81 years, and all but 1 patient exhibited symptoms of obstructive hydrocephalus. Three patients underwent gross total resection, and subtotal resection was performed in 3 patients. Diagnostic biopsy specimens were obtained in an additional 6 patients. Pathologically, the tumors had the classical morphologic and immunohistochemical features of pineoblastomas. Postoperatively, 10 patients received radiotherapy, and 5 patients received chemotherapy. Compared with previously reported cases, several differences were noted in clinical outcomes. Of the 12 patients, only 5 (42%) died of their disease (average length of survival, 118 months); 5 patients (42%) are alive with no evidence of disease (average length of follow-up, 92 months). One patient died of unrelated causes, and one was lost to follow-up. Patients with subtotal resections or diagnostic biopsies did not suffer a worse prognosis. Of the 9 patients with biopsy or subtotal resection, 4 are alive, 4 died of their disease, and 1 died of an unrelated hemorrhagic cerebral infarction.


CONCLUSIONS
Although this series is small, the data suggest that pineoblastomas in adults have a less aggressive clinical course than in children.
Female ‘groin’ hernia: totally extraperitoneal (TEP) endoscopic repair seems the most appropriate treatment modality

About 30% of all female ‘groin’ hernias are femoral hernias, although often only diagnosed during surgery. A Lichtenstein repair though, as preferred treatment modality according to guidelines, would not diagnose and treat femoral hernias. Totally extraperitoneal (TEP) hernia repair, however, offers the advantage of being an appropriate modality for the diagnosis and subsequent treatment of both inguinal and femoral hernias. TEP therefore seems an appealing surgical technique for women with groin hernias. This study included all female patients ≥18 years operated for a groin hernia between 2005 and 2009. A total of 183 groin hernias were repaired in 164 women. TEP was performed in 85% of women; the other 24 women underwent an open anterior (mesh) repair. Peroperatively, femoral hernias were observed in 23% of patients with primary hernias and 35% of patients with recurrent hernias. There were 30 cases (18.3%) of an incorrect preoperative diagnosis. Peroperatively, femoral hernias were observed in 17.3% of women who were diagnosed with an inguinal hernia before surgery. In addition, inguinal hernias were found in 24.0% of women who were diagnosed with a femoral hernia preoperatively. After a follow-up of 25 months, moderate to severe (VAS 4-10) postoperative pain was reported by 8 of 125 patients (6.4%) after TEP and 5 of 23 patients (21.7%) after open hernia repair (P = 0.03). Five patients had a recurrent hernia, two following TEP (1.4%) and three following open anterior repair (12.5%, P = 0.02). Two of these three patients presented with a femoral recurrence after a previous repair of an inguinal hernia. Femoral hernias are common in women with groin hernias, but not always detected preoperatively; this argues for the use of a preperitoneal approach. TEP hernia repair combines the advantage of a peroperative diagnosis and subsequent appropriate treatment with the known good clinical outcomes.
A Novel RFID-Based Outdoor Billboard Management System

A billboard is a large board that shows advertisements. In China, billboard management relates to several government departments. The inspection staff must records status of specific billboards and compares the status with register information manually. This paper proposes a novel RFID-based billboard management system. At first, the paper analyzes the system framework and its application. The authors analyze requirements, design entity-relations of database, and implement the proposed system. The demonstration shows that the system makes billboard management efficiently. Keywordsbillboard; RFID; management system
Requirements and Design Strategies of Chronic Disease Mobile Applications

Despite the huge amount of currently available chronic disease applications, the functionalities offered are limited and do not capture the real users’ requirements. Patients and physicians should be directly involved in the application development to tackle the lack of usability and users’ requirements especially for the chronic illness target group. Even though, the use of mobile applications to monitor health and chronic health conditions is gaining popularity but their effectiveness in managing disease is still lacking. Consequently, such applications are usually being misused or underutilized, which lead to the failure of meeting the development objective. Nevertheless, it is believed that the future of the mobile health applications development is presumably optimistic. Therefore, the objective of this study is to identify the related requirements and design strategies which are often neglected while designing the chronic disease mobile applications. A systematic literature review (SLR) has been conducted based on 60 journal and conference proceeding articles from various established journal and conferences proceeding such as IEEE, ACM, Science Direct, JMIR and other established medical journals. To strengthen the findings form the SLR, real users were also interviewed to ensure the usability and requirements of the chronic disease applications follow accordingly to the users’ needs. The merging of these two strategies helps to determine the usability dimensions which provide the basis for developing a usability evaluation model as the next part of this study.
Scalable Database Logging for Multicores

Modern databases, guaranteeing atomicity and durability, store transaction logs in a volatile, central log buffer and then flush the log buffer to non-volatile storage by the write-ahead logging principle. Buffering logs in central log store has recently faced a severe multicore scalability problem, and log flushing has been challenged by synchronous I/O delay. We have designed and implemented a fast and scalable logging method, ELEDA, that can migrate a surge of transaction logs from volatile memory to stable storage without risking durable transaction atomicity. Our efficient implementation of ELEDA is enabled by a highly concurrent data structure, GRASSHOPPER, that eliminates a multicore scalability problem of centralized logging and enhances system utilization in the presence of synchronous I/O delay. We implemented ELEDA and plugged it to WiredTiger and Shore-MT by replacing their log managers. Our evaluation showed that ELEDA-based transaction systems improve performance up to 71ˆ, thus showing the applicability of ELEDA. PVLDB Reference Format: Hyungsoo Jung, Hyuck Han, and Sooyong Kang. Scalable Database Logging for Multicores. PVLDB, 11(2): 135 148, 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.14778/3149193.3149195
Phytochemical Investigation of the Ethanol, Methanol and Ethyl Acetate Leaf Extracts of Six Cassia Species

Establishment of pharmacognostic profile of the leaves will assist in standardization of quality, purity and sample identification. A comparative study of the secondary metabolites was performed on Cassia alata, Cassia surratensis, Cassia occidentalis, Cassia auriculata, Cassia sericea and Cassia tora. Evaluation of the leaf extracts using various solvents like ethanol, methanol and ethyl acetate was carried out to detect the presence of active components. Qualitative analysis was done for various constituents like alkaloids, tannins, saponins, anthraquinones, anthocyanosides, phenolic flavonoids, flavonoids, carbohydrates, proteins, saponins, tannins, cardiacglycosides and phlobatannins. The phytochemical screening revealed the presence of all the above chemicals except saponins, anthraquinones, anthocyanosides and phenolic flavonoids in some extracts.
Air quality during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games

China is taking major steps to improve Beijing’s air quality for the 2008 Olympic Games. However, concentrations of fine particulate matter and ozone in Beijing often exceed healthful levels in the summertime. Based on the US EPA’s Models-3/CMAQ model simulation over the Beijing region, we estimate that about 34% of PM2.5 on average and 35–60% of ozone during high ozone episodes at the Olympic Stadium site can be attributed to sources outside Beijing. Neighboring Hebei and Shandong Provinces and the Tianjin Municipality all exert significant influence on Beijing’s air quality. During sustained wind flow from the south, Hebei Province can contribute 50–70% of Beijing’s PM2.5 concentrations and 20–30% of ozone. Controlling only local sources in Beijing will not be sufficient to attain the air quality goal set for the Beijing Olympics. There is an urgent need for regional air quality management studies and new emission control strategies to ensure that the air quality goals for 2008 are met. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Combining Fasting Plasma Glucose with Gamma-glutamyl Transferase Improves the Sensitivity to Predict Incident Diabetes in Asian Indian Men with Impaired Glucose Tolerance.

OBJECTIVE
To study the associations of baseline gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) and alanine transaminase (ALT) with incident diabetes among Asian Indian men with impaired glucose tolerance (IGT).


METHODS
In a 2 year prospective, randomised, controlled primary prevention study of diabetes, among 537 IGT men aged 35-55 years, 123 incident diabetes (DM) cases occurred. Anthropometric {body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC)}, and laboratory measurements (fasting, 30 min and 2 hr plasma glucose (2 hr PG), HbA1c and plasma insulin, lipid profile, ALT, GGT) were estimated at baseline (Clinical Trial Identification No: NCT00819455). Predictive associations of baseline GGT and ALT values during the study were assessed using appropriate statistical methods.


RESULTS
Baseline GGT but not ALT was significantly higher in incident diabetes cases. Mean (95% CI) GGT decreased in subjects who reverted to normal glucose tolerance (NGT), whereas it increased in subjects who deteriorated to diabetes (NGT:-3.5 (-6.4 to -0.6); IGT:0.3 (-3.0 to 2.4); DM:8.3 (3.6 to 13.0) UL(-1); P < 0.0001). The risk of DM significantly increased with increasing baseline GGT after adjusting for confounders such as BMI, alcohol drinking, 2 hr PG and insulin resistance (2.02[1.35-3.02]; P = 0.001). Receiver operating characteristic curve showed that the model comprising of baseline fasting plasma glucose (FPG) and GGT (area-under-curve(AUC)[95% CI]: 0.668 [0.613-0.722]; P < 0.0001) was equally sensitive in identifying subjects with risk of diabetes as compared to 2 hr PG (AUC [95% CI]: 0.670 [0.614-0.725]; P < 0.0001) and HbA1c (AUC [95% CI]: 0.677 [0.619-0.734]; P < 0.0001) alone.


CONCLUSIONS
GGT was an independent predictor of incident diabetes. Combination of GGT and FPG offers a simple and sensitive tool to identify subjects at high risk of developing diabetes.