LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Localization through fusion of discrete and continuous epipolar geometry with wheel and IMU odometry

This paper describes a novel sensor fusion implementation to improve the accuracy of robot localization by combining multiple visual odometry approaches with wheel and IMU odometry. Discrete and continuous Homography Matrices are used to recover position, orientation, and velocity from image sequences of tracked feature points. An Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU) and wheel encoders also measure linear and angular velocity of mobile robot. A Kalman filter fuses the measurements from the visual and inertial measurement systems. Time varying matrices in the Kalman filter allow each sensor to receive higher or lower weight in situations where each is more or less accurate. Experiments are performed with a camera and a IMU (Wiimote controller) mounted on a mobile robot.
Drug-Eluting Stent vs Percutaneous Transluminal Angioplasty for Treatment of Femoropopliteal In-Stent Restenosis: Results From a Retrospective 1-Year Multicenter Study.

PURPOSE
To compare drug-eluting stent (DES) implantation with percutaneous transluminal angioplasty (PTA) in the treatment of femoropopliteal in-stent restenosis (ISR).


METHODS
A comparison was performed of data from 112 ZEPHYR registry patients (mean age 74±9 years; 60 men) with 119 femoropopliteal ISR lesions treated with a drug-eluting stent (Zilver PTX) with historical data from 116 patients (mean age 72±8 years; 83 men) with 133 lesions treated with PTA. The patients were stratified for analysis by lesions with (101/252, 40%) and without (n=151) in-stent occlusion. The primary outcome measure was the 1-year incidence of recurrent restenosis; the secondary outcome was major adverse limb events (MALE). Multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to look for any independent association of DES implantation with 1-year recurrent restenosis in the respective subgroups; results are presented as the odds ratio (OR) and 95% confidence interval (CI).


RESULTS
In the subgroup without in-stent occlusion, there was no significant difference between DES and PTA in the 1-year incidence of recurrent restenosis (40.5% vs 45.7%, p=0.583, respectively) or MALE (27.8% vs 20.7%, p=0.322, respectively). However, in the subgroup with in-stent occlusion, DES implantation was associated with significantly lower incidences of recurrent restenosis (44.1% vs 90.3% for PTA, p<0.001) and MALE (25.5% vs 53.6% for PTA, p<0.001). Multivariate analysis confirmed that DES implantation had a significant independent negative association with the risk of recurrent restenosis in the subgroup with occlusion (OR 0.2, 95% CI 0.1 to 0.6, p=0.006).


CONCLUSION
DES implantation may be more effective than PTA in the management of femoropopliteal ISR with occlusion, but equally effective to PTA in nonocclusive ISR lesions. These results require confirmation in prospective randomized studies.
Individual active treatment combined with group exercise for acute and subacute low back pain.

STUDY DESIGN
Randomized controlled trial.


OBJECTIVE
To compare two fast-access evidence-based interventions for the treatment of simple low back pain.


SUBJECTS
People aged 18-65 with a new episode of simple back pain causing them to be off work or on modified work for less than 1 year.


SETTING
A district general hospital using a consultation/treatment room and a rehabilitation gym.


METHODS
One group received a back advice booklet and one session of advice and then followed the normal route of care as directed by their general practitioner. The other group received the back booklet and one session of advice and also a back program. The back program consisted of a full assessment, immediately followed by one individual treatment, and then exercise classes over 1 to 2 weeks.


OUTCOME MEASURES
(1) Rate of return to work, (2) pain scores and health status, and (3) cost effectiveness of interventions versus the financial cost to the individual or employer.


RESULTS
On average, those receiving the individual treatment and group exercise took 7 days less off work. This represented a 35% reduction in the amount of time taken off work since study entry. The estimated cost saving of providing the extra service of a simple back program ranged between 250 pound (367 US dollars, 300 euro) and 578 pound (850 US dollars, 694 euro) for each patient.


CONCLUSION
The results indicate that the costs of this active back program are more than reimbursed as a consequence of earlier return to work.
A new metaheuristic algorithm for continuous engineering optimization : harmony search theory and practice

Most engineering optimization algorithms are based on numerical linear and nonlinear programming methods that require substantial gradient information and usually seek to improve the solution in the neighborhood of a starting point. These algorithms, however, reveal a limited approach to complicated real-world optimization problems. If there is more than one local optimum in the problem, the result may depend on the selection of an initial point, and the obtained optimal solution may not necessarily be the global optimum. This paper describes a new harmony search (HS) meta-heuristic algorithm-based approach for engineering optimization problems with continuous design variables. This recently developed HS algorithm is conceptualized using the musical process of searching for a perfect state of harmony. It uses a stochastic random search instead of a gradient search so that derivative information is unnecessary. Various engineering optimization problems, including mathematical function minimization and structural engineering optimization problems, are presented to demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the HS algorithm. The results indicate that the proposed approach is a powerful search and optimization technique that may yield better solutions to engineering problems than those obtained using current algorithms. 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Aesthetic preformed paediatric crowns: systematic review.

BACKGROUND
Different aesthetic preformed crowns (APC) are proposed to restore decayed and damaged primary teeth because the stainless steel crowns (SSCs) do not satisfy parents concerned about aesthetic.


AIM
The objective was to evaluate the clinical effectiveness of all types of APC for restoring primary teeth compared with conventional filling materials or other types of crowns.


DESIGN
Relevant articles were searched in electronic databases of PubMed via MEDLINE and the Cochrane central register of controlled trials. Two review authors independently assessed the risk of bias in the included articles and extracted data.


RESULTS
From 555 potentially eligible articles, seven relevant articles were included. The overall risk of bias was high for all the studies. SCCs cannot be replaced by APC, such as the open-faced SSCs and the pre-veneered SCCs, for restoring badly decayed primary molars. Zircon crowns were assessed only in primary incisors and compared with pre-veneered SCCs and resin composite strip crowns. After a follow-up of only 6 months, Zircon crowns gave significantly better results than the others with regard to gingival health and crown fractures.


CONCLUSION
Due to the small number of RCTs on this topic and their risk of bias, future RCTs should be carried out in primary teeth.
The Global Kernel  $k$-Means Algorithm for Clustering in Feature Space

Kernel k-means is an extension of the standard k-means clustering algorithm that identifies nonlinearly separable clusters. In order to overcome the cluster initialization problem associated with this method, we propose the global kernel k-means algorithm, a deterministic and incremental approach to kernel-based clustering. Our method adds one cluster at each stage, through a global search procedure consisting of several executions of kernel k-means from suitable initializations. This algorithm does not depend on cluster initialization, identifies nonlinearly separable clusters, and, due to its incremental nature and search procedure, locates near-optimal solutions avoiding poor local minima. Furthermore, two modifications are developed to reduce the computational cost that do not significantly affect the solution quality. The proposed methods are extended to handle weighted data points, which enables their application to graph partitioning. We experiment with several data sets and the proposed approach compares favorably to kernel k-means with random restarts.
Problems Deciding: How the Structure of Make-or-Buy Decisions Leads to Transaction Misalignment

This paper explores how the structure of decision making affects the way that firms manage their boundaries. Achieving transaction alignment requires firms to balance multiple goals. Drawing on the behavioral theory of the firm, I note that firms often assign different goals to different organizational units. As a consequence, simple problems about whether to make or buy can be affected by multiple decisions taken by multiple, locally rational units. I use a case study of the management of IT consultants in a financial services firm to explore how make-or-buy decisions are made. I find that senior managers at the firm focused on cost and organizational flexibility, whereas frontline managers concentrated on exploiting workers’ existing knowledge. The narrow focus of these two groups interacted with the complex demands of transaction alignment to create three problems: separation of related decisions about internal capacity and project staffing, incomplete information when deciding on organizational capacity, and incentive misalignment in staffing consultants. These problems led the firm to become dependent on its consultants. I build on the case study to develop theoretical propositions about the characteristics of decisions and organizational structure that are most likely to lead boundary decisions to deviate from existing predictions.
Interventions for melasma.

BACKGROUND
Melasma is an acquired symmetrical pigmentary disorder where confluent grey-brown patches typically appear on the face. Available treatments for melasma are unsatisfactory.


OBJECTIVES
To assess interventions used in the management of all types of melasma: epidermal, dermal, and mixed.


SEARCH STRATEGY
In May 2010 we searched the Cochrane Skin Group Specialised Register, the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (Clinical Trials) in The Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, EMBASE, PsycINFO, and LILACS. Reference lists of articles and ongoing trials registries were also searched.


SELECTION CRITERIA
Randomised controlled trials that evaluated topical and systemic interventions for melasma.


DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
Study selection, assessment of methodological quality, data extraction, and analysis was carried out by two authors independently.


MAIN RESULTS
We included 20 studies with a total of 2125 participants covering 23 different treatments. Statistical pooling of the data was not possible due to the heterogeneity of treatments. Each study involved a different set of interventions. They can be grouped into those including a bleaching agent such as hydroquinone, triple-combination creams (hydroquinone, tretinoin, and fluocinolone acetonide), and combination therapies (hydroquinone cream and glycolic acid peels), as well as less conventional therapies including rucinol, vitamin C iontophoresis, and skin-lightening complexes like Thiospot and Gigawhite.Triple-combination cream was significantly more effective at lightening melasma than hydroquinone alone (RR 1.58, 95% CI 1.26 to 1.97) or when compared to the dual combinations of tretinoin and hydroquinone (RR 2.75, 95% CI 1.59 to 4.74), tretinoin and fluocinolone acetonide (RR 14.00, 95% CI 4.43 to 44.25), or hydroquinone and fluocinolone acetonide (RR 10.50, 95% CI 3.85 to 28.60).Azelaic acid (20%) was significantly more effective than 2% hydroquinone (RR 1.25, 95% CI 1.06 to 1.48) at lightening melasma but not when compared to 4% hydroquinone (RR 1.11, 95% CI 0.94 to 1.32).In two studies where tretinoin was compared to placebo, participants rated their melasma as significantly improved in one (RR 13, 95% CI 1.88 to 89.74) but not the other. In both studies by other objective measures tretinoin treatment significantly reduced the severity of melasma.Thiospot was more effective than placebo (SMD -2.61, 95% CI -3.76 to -1.47).The adverse events most commonly reported were mild and transient such as skin irritation, itching, burning, and stinging.


AUTHORS' CONCLUSIONS
The quality of studies evaluating melasma treatments was generally poor and available treatments inadequate. High-quality randomised controlled trials on well-defined participants with long-term outcomes to determine the duration of response are needed.
Ten Lectures on Wavelets (Ingrid Daubechies)

The resulting semigroup V is of class AK, and upper bounds are given for the Hausdorff dimension and fractal dimension of a compact invariant set associated with V. One who wishes to study Ladyzhenskaya’s book more carefully will wish to consult other sources. A good new source for Hausdorff dimension and related topics is the elegant text of Evans and Gariepy [3]. Ladyzhenskaya’s bibliography contains only sixteen items. This review has concentrated on the Navier-Stokes equations, but her book is more comprehensive than that alone. There is a huge literature on the ODE approach to PDE, and Ladyzhenskaya’s book is largely in this spirit. The recent books of Hale [4], Ruelle [5], and Temam [6] are good places to get much additional information and references. One should also consult Ladyzhenskaya’s recent paper [7], which gives "complements and corrections" to her previous work. These include estimates of Hausdorff and fractal dimensions. The reviewer is indebted to Craig Evans for this reference.
Treatment-emergent adverse events after infusion of adherent stem cells: the MiSOT-I score for solid organ transplantation

BACKGROUND
Cellular therapy after organ transplantation is emerging as an intriguing strategy to achieve dose reduction of classical immunosuppressive pharmacotherapy. Here, we introduce a new scoring system to assess treatment-emergent adverse events (TEAEs) of adherent stem cell therapies in the clinical setting of allogeneic liver transplantation (for example, the MiSOT-I trial Eudract CT: 2009-017795-25).


METHODS
The score consists of three independent modalities (set of parameters) that focus on clinically relevant events early after intravenous or intraportal stem cell infusion: pulmonary toxicity, intraportal-infusional toxicity and systemic toxicity. For each modality, values between 0 (no TEAE) and 3 (severe TEAE) were defined. The score was validated retrospectively on a cohort of n=187 recipients of liver allografts not receiving investigational cell therapy between July 2004 and December 2010. These patients represent a control population for further trials. Score values were calculated for days 1, 4, and 10 after liver transplantation.


RESULTS
Grade 3 events were most commonly related to the pulmonary system (3.5% of study cohort on day 4). Almost no systemic-related TEAEs were observed during the study period. The relative frequency of grade 3 events never exceeded 5% over all modalities and time points. A subgroup analysis for grade 3 patients provided no descriptors associated with severe TEAEs.


CONCLUSION
The MiSOT-I score provides an assessment tool to score specific adverse events that may occur after adherent stem cell therapy in the clinical setting of organ transplantation and is thus a helpful tool to conduct a safety study.
SDN-Based Smart Gateways (Sm-GWs) for Multi-Operator Small Cell Network Management

Small wireless cells have the potential to overcome bottlenecks in wireless access through the sharing of spectrum resources. However, current backhaul networks statically allocate resources, resulting in minuscule allocations when many small cells are connected to cellular operators with given resources. We introduce a novel access backhaul network architecture based on a smart gateway (Sm-GW) between the small cell base stations, e.g., long term evolution (LTE) enhanced Nodes B (eNBs), and the conventional backhaul gateways, e.g., LTE servicing/packet gateways (S/P-GWs). We specify the modest LTE protocol modifications that integrate the Sm-GW into the conventional LTE network. The Sm-GW flexibly schedules uplink transmissions for the eNBs. Our simulation evaluations indicate that the Sm-GW scheduling can fairly allocate uplink transmission bitrates to the eNBs and reduce packet delays. Based on software defined networking (SDN), we introduce a management mechanism that allows multiple operators, i.e., multiple S/P-GWs, to flexibly inter-operate via multiple Sm-GWs with a multitude of small cells. An SDN orchestrator coordinates the adaptive allocation of uplink transmission bitrates to Sm-GWs (which in turn allocate the uplink transmission bitrates to eNBs based on their demands). We formulate optimization problems for the operator (S/P-GW) resource allocation to Sm-GWs without and with sharing among operators. Our numerical evaluations indicate that the flexible SDN orchestration substantially increases the network throughput compared to the current static resource allocations.
Direct-to-consumer genetic testing for predicting sports performance and talent identification: Consensus statement

The general consensus among sport and exercise genetics researchers is that genetic tests have no role to play in talent identification or the individualised prescription of training to maximise performance. Despite the lack of evidence, recent years have witnessed the rise of an emerging market of direct-to-consumer marketing (DTC) tests that claim to be able to identify children's athletic talents. Targeted consumers include mainly coaches and parents. There is concern among the scientific community that the current level of knowledge is being misrepresented for commercial purposes. There remains a lack of universally accepted guidelines and legislation for DTC testing in relation to all forms of genetic testing and not just for talent identification. There is concern over the lack of clarity of information over which specific genes or variants are being tested and the almost universal lack of appropriate genetic counselling for the interpretation of the genetic data to consumers. Furthermore independent studies have identified issues relating to quality control by DTC laboratories with different results being reported from samples from the same individual. Consequently, in the current state of knowledge, no child or young athlete should be exposed to DTC genetic testing to define or alter training or for talent identification aimed at selecting gifted children or adolescents. Large scale collaborative projects, may help to develop a stronger scientific foundation on these issues in the future.
Approximation algorithms for the unit disk cover problem in 2D and 3D

Given a set P of n points in the plane, we consider the problem of covering P with a minimum number of unit disks. This problem is known to be NP-hard. We present a simple 4-approximation algorithm for this problem which runs in O(n log n)-time. We also show how to extend this algorithm to other metrics, and to three dimensions.
CRP reduction following gastric bypass surgery is most pronounced in insulin-sensitive subjects

OBJECTIVE:Obesity is frequently associated with insulin resistance, dyslipidemia, hypertension and an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, reflected in elevated markers of inflammation, in particular C-reactive protein (CRP). To what extent the insulin resistance or the obesity per se contributes to increased CRP levels is unclear. In morbidly obese patients, gastric bypass surgery causes marked changes in body weight and improves metabolism, thereby providing informative material for studies on the regulation of inflammatory markers.DESIGN:Prospective, surgical intervention study of inflammatory markers in morbidly obese subjects.SUBJECTS:In total, 66 obese subjects with mean age 39 y and mean body mass index (BMI) 45 kg/m2 were studied prior to and 6 and 12 months following Roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGBP) surgery.MEASUREMENTS:Serum concentrations of high sensitivity CRP, serum amyloid A (SAA) and interleukin-6 (IL-6), as well as markers of glucose and lipid metabolism.RESULTS:Prior to surgery, CRP levels were elevated compared to the reference range of healthy, normal-weight subjects. CRP correlated with insulin sensitivity, as reflected by the homeostatic model assessment (HOMA) index, but not BMI, when corrected for age and gender. Surgery reduced BMI from 45 to 31 kg/m2 and lowered CRP, SAA and IL-6 levels by 82, 57 and 50%, respectively, at 12 months. The reduction in CRP was inversely related to HOMA at baseline independently of the change in body weight (r=−0.36, P=0.005). At 12 months, 140 and 40% reductions in CRP were seen in subjects with HOMA < 4 (insulin sensitive) and HOMA>9 (insulin resistant) despite similar reductions in BMI. Reductions in SAA and IL-6 tended to parallel the changes in CRP, but were less informative.CONCLUSION:In morbidly obese subjects, gastric bypass surgery lowers energy intake, reduces inflammatory markers and improves insulin sensitivity. Despite a marked reduction in body weight, only a small effect on CRP levels was seen in insulin-resistant patients, indicating that flexibility of circulating CRP levels is primarily dependent upon insulin sensitivity rather than energy supply.
The antibody response to an HLA mismatch: a model for nonself-self discrimination in relation to HLA epitope immunogenicity.

Antibodies to HLA mismatches are specific for epitopes rather than antigens. HLAMatchmaker considers each HLA antigen as a string of eplets that represent key elements of epitopes. Certain antibodies are specific for single eplets, but recent studies have demonstrated that epitopes defined by eplet pairs always involve one nonself-eplet and a self-eplet shared between the immunizing antigen and the antibody producer. This suggests an autoreactive component of the alloantibody response to an HLA mismatch and this report expands this concept. During B-cell development, V(H) and V(L) gene rearrangements produce a diversity of Ig receptors that can recognize epitopes on autologous proteins. It is hypothesized that B cells carry low-affinity receptors for self-HLA antigens. Their interactions with self-HLA proteins will not lead to B-cell activation or antibody production. In contrast, exposure to HLA mismatches induces often strong alloantibody responses. The activation of self-HLA-specific B cell by a nonself-eplet may require that the remainder of the structural epitope of the immunizing antigen has considerable structural similarity with one of the antibody producer's alleles. This hypothesis has been tested in molecular modelling studies with six epitopes defined by human monoclonal antibodies. In each case, one allele of the antibody producer had no or few differences with the immunizing allele in antibody-accessible positions defined by a 15 Ångstrom radius of the mismatched eplet. The other alleles of the antibody producer showed significantly greater numbers of residue differences with the immunizer (5.8 ± 2.0 versus 1.0 ± 0.6, P < 0.0001). These data support the concept that HLA antibodies originate from B cells with self-HLA immunoglobulin receptors that recognize mismatched eplets as nonself entities on immunizing antigens. The nonself-self paradigm provides a new insight of HLA epitope immunogenicity and may explain why sensitized patients have antibodies to a restricted number of mismatched epitopes.