LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
The European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer QLQ-C30: a quality-of-life instrument for use in international clinical trials in oncology.

BACKGROUND
In 1986, the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC) initiated a research program to develop an integrated, modular approach for evaluating the quality of life of patients participating in international clinical trials.


PURPOSE
We report here the results of an international field study of the practicality, reliability, and validity of the EORTC QLQ-C30, the current core questionnaire. The QLQ-C30 incorporates nine multi-item scales: five functional scales (physical, role, cognitive, emotional, and social); three symptom scales (fatigue, pain, and nausea and vomiting); and a global health and quality-of-life scale. Several single-item symptom measures are also included.


METHODS
The questionnaire was administered before treatment and once during treatment to 305 patients with nonresectable lung cancer from centers in 13 countries. Clinical variables assessed included disease stage, weight loss, performance status, and treatment toxicity.


RESULTS
The average time required to complete the questionnaire was approximately 11 minutes, and most patients required no assistance. The data supported the hypothesized scale structure of the questionnaire with the exception of role functioning (work and household activities), which was also the only multi-item scale that failed to meet the minimal standards for reliability (Cronbach's alpha coefficient > or = .70) either before or during treatment. Validity was shown by three findings. First, while all interscale correlations were statistically significant, the correlation was moderate, indicating that the scales were assessing distinct components of the quality-of-life construct. Second, most of the functional and symptom measures discriminated clearly between patients differing in clinical status as defined by the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group performance status scale, weight loss, and treatment toxicity. Third, there were statistically significant changes, in the expected direction, in physical and role functioning, global quality of life, fatigue, and nausea and vomiting, for patients whose performance status had improved or worsened during treatment. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire were highly consistent across the three language-cultural groups studied: patients from English-speaking countries, Northern Europe, and Southern Europe.


CONCLUSIONS
These results support the EORTC QLQ-C30 as a reliable and valid measure of the quality of life of cancer patients in multicultural clinical research settings. Work is ongoing to examine the performance of the questionnaire among more heterogenous patient samples and in phase II and phase III clinical trials.
AUTOMATIC RETINAL IMAGE REGISTRATION

In this paper, different automatic registration schemes base d on different optimization techniques in conjunction with different similarity measures are compared in term s of accuracy and efficiency. Results from every optimizat ion procedure are quantitatively evaluated with respect to t he manual registration, which is the standard registration method used in clinical practice. The comparison has shown automatic regi st ation schemes based on CD consist of an accurate and reliable method that can be used in clinical ophthalmology, as a satisfactory alternative to the manual method. Key-Words: multimodal image registration, optimization algorithms, sim ilarity metrics, retinal images
Understanding the spatial distribution of crime based on its related variables using geospatial discriminative patterns

Crime tends to clust er geographi cally. This has led to the wide usage of hotspot analysis to identify and visualize crime. Accurately identified crime hotspots can greatly benefit the public by creating accurate threat visualizations, more efficiently allocating police resources, and predicting crime. Yet existing mapping methods usually identify hotspots without considering the underlying correlates of crime. In this study, we introduce a spatial data mining framework to study crime hotspots through their related variables. We use Geospatial Discriminative Patterns (GDPatterns) to capture the significant difference between two classes (hotspots and normal areas) in a geo-spatial dataset. Utilizing GDPatterns, we develop a novel model—Hotspot Optimization Tool (HOT)—to improve the identification of crime hotspots. Finally, based on a similarity measure, we group GDPattern clusters and visualize the distribution and characteristics of crime related variables. We evaluate our approach using a real world dataset collected from a northeast city in the United States. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Stochastic Kriging for Efficient Nested Simulation of Expected Shortfall

We use stochastic kriging, a metamodeling technique, to speed up nested simulation of expected shortfall, a portfolio risk measure. Evaluating a risk measure of a portfolio that includes derivative securities may require nested Monte Carlo simulation. The outer level simulates financial scenarios and the inner level of simulation estimates the portfolio value given a scenario. Spatial metamodeling enables inference about portfolio values in a scenario based on inner-level simulation of nearby scenarios, reducing the required computational effort: it is not necessary to perform inner-level simulation in every scenario. Because expected shortfall involves the scenarios that entail the largest losses, our procedure adaptively allocates more computational effort to inner-level simulation of those scenarios, which also improves computational efficiency.
Raloxifene pharmacokinetics in males with normal and impaired renal function.

AIMS
To compare raloxifene pharmacokinetics between renally impaired and healthy subjects.


METHODS
Raloxifene 120 mg was administered to 10 males with renal impairment (creatinine 2-4 mg dl(-1)) and to 10 healthy males. Data were analysed by two noncompartmental and one compartmental nonlinear regression methods.


RESULTS
The medians (95% confidence interval) of the area under the curves (AUC) were 35.1 (25.8, 74) and 20.5 (16.8, 28.0) h ng ml(-1) per mg kg(-1), P < 0.01, and of the clearances (CL/F) were 28.5 (13.5, 38.8) and 48.8 (35.8, 59.4) l h(-1) kg(-1), P < 0.01, in renally impaired and healthy subjects, respectively. 95% Confidence intervals on the differences for AUC and CL/F were 6.5-44.1 and -35.1 to -7.9, respectively.


CONCLUSION
Exposure to raloxifene was twice as high in males with renal impairment compared with healthy subjects.
Reciprocal collision avoidance for quadrotors using on-board visual detection

In this paper we present a collision avoidance system based on visual detection. Our hardware consists of a Hummingbird quadrotor equipped with a large red marker with two built-in fish-eye cameras. Fusion of the measurements from the two cameras is done using a Gaussian-mixture probability hypothesis density filter, which allows for tracking several aircrafts at the same time. Our collision avoidance algorithm is based on navigation functions designed to cope with cameras characterized by limited field of view. Its mathematical correctness has been proven in a former paper [1]. The collision avoidance maneuver is performed without the vehicles explicitly exchanging information via communication but instead relying solely on on-board sensors. Our system has been validated in an indoor space with four different collision scenarios. Trajectory data was recorded with an external motion capture system and demonstrate good robustness against sensing noise.
A large single-center experience with allogeneic stem-cell transplantation for peripheral T-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma and advanced mycosis fungoides/Sezary syndrome.

BACKGROUND
The prognosis for patients with most forms of T-cell lymphoma is poor. Allogeneic hematopoietic stem-cell transplantation (HSCT) may improve the outcome.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
This study examines the outcome of 52 patients who underwent ablative or nonablative allogeneic HSCT for peripheral T-cell lymphoma (PTCL) or advanced mycosis fungoides/Sezary syndrome over a 12-year period at a single institution. We divided the patients into those with predominantly nodal histologies: peripheral T-cell not otherwise specified (PTCL NOS), angioimmunoblastic (AITL), or anaplastic large cell lymphoma, T/null type (systemic) (ALCL), and predominantly extranodal histologies: natural killer (NK)/T cell, enteropathy type, hepatosplenic, subcutaneous panniculitic, mycosis fungoides, or T cell or NK cell other.


RESULTS
Median follow-up of survivors is 49 months. Non-relapse mortality and relapse at 3 years was 27% and 43%, respectively. The incidence of grade II-IV acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) was 21%. The incidence of extensive chronic GVHD at 2 years was 27%. The 3-year progression-free survival was 30%: 45% in patients with predominantly nodal histologies (PTCL NOS, AITL, and ALCL) and 6% in patients with predominantly extranodal histologies (P = 0.016). Overall survival at 3 years was 41% for all patients.


CONCLUSION
Allogeneic HSCT can produce long-term remissions in relapsed/refractory T-cell lymphoma, especially those with nodal histologies.
Of microbes and men.

UNLABELLED
Moisture accumulation in building structures, the microbial ecology of water-damaged sites and human exposure to biological contaminants are complex phenomena and may result in various types of indoor air pollution and adverse health outcomes. Commonly reported are building-related irritation symptoms, respiratory infections and non-specific symptoms and occasionally neurological impairment. Various diseases have been associated with mold exposure, e.g. an increased risk of asthma development and exacerbation as well as clusters of hypersensitivity pneumonitis, pulmonary hemorrhage in infants and rheumatic diseases. The causal agents of these illnesses, still poorly understood, may be linked to the complex interactions between bacteria and fungi with environmental growth substrates and other microorganisms which lead to a wide diversity of exposures. Fungi and bacteria growing on building materials may produce toxic secondary metabolites, and the material appears to be a key determinant of metabolite production. Modern building technology has provided new ecological niches for microbes which readily exploit faults in moisture control. To better describe microbial exposures in buildings, current method development focuses on chemical markers of biomass and assays for specific genetic sequences.


PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS
Dampness and moisture phenomena in buildings, resulting microbial and chemical exposures and individual human responses are complex phenomena. While the causative links between exposing agents and health responses are still not well understood, the essential issue is to prevent the problems with good design, construction and maintenance.
Nanostructured silicon carbon thin films grown by plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition technique

Abstract Nanostructured silicon carbon thin films, composed of Si nanocrystallites embedded in hydrogenated amorphous silicon carbon matrix, have been prepared by varying rf power in ultra high vacuum plasma enhanced chemical vapour deposition system using silane and methane gas mixtures diluted in hydrogen. In this paper we have studied the compositional, structural and electrical properties of these films as a function of rf power. It is shown that with increasing rf power the atomic densities of carbon and hydrogen increase while the atomic density of silicon decreases, resulting in a reduction in the mass density. Further, it is demonstrated that carbon is incorporated into amorphous matrix and it is mainly bonded to silicon. The study has also revealed that the crystalline volume fraction decreases with increase in rf power and that the films deposited with low rf power have a size distribution of large and small crystallites while the films deposited with relatively high power have only small crystallites. Finally, the enhanced transport properties of the nanostructured silicon carbon films, as compared to amorphous counterpart, have been attributed to the presence of Si nanocrystallites.
Spatial structure of coral reef fish communities in the Ryukyu Islands, southern Japan

Coral reef fishes often exhibit a high degree of structure in their distribution and abundance, but the factors that influence their spatial arrangement are poorly understood. This study sought to explain the spatial structure of coral reef fish communities in the Ryukyu Archipelago, southern Japan. Visual surveys of coral reef fishes were conducted at multiple stations across the fringing reef (from the inner reef flat to the outer slope) at each of three different islands; Aka, Ishigaki and Sesoko. Spatial variation in fish communities (within and among reefs) was then compared to changes in environmental variables (water depth, distance from the shoreline, reef zone, coral abundance and coral richness). Despite being small islands, the total species richness of coral reef fishes in the Ryukyu Islands was very high (>87 species per reef). Mean abundance of reef fishes was also very high (x = 2.26 ± 0.20 S.E. fishes per m), but more than 80% of all fishes were from the family Pomacentridae. The structure of fish communities was very consistent among reefs, but varied greatly among zones within each reef. On the reef flat, the fish community was dominated by the pomacentrid Chrysiptera cyanea and the acanthurid Acanthurus nigrofuscus. In contrast, the reef slope community was characterised by high densities of the pomacentrids Pomacentrus lepidogenys and P. richardsoni, as well as high densities of the acanthurid Ctenochaetus striatus. Canonical correspondence analysis showed that the structure of the coral reef fish communities varied in relation to reef zone, water depth, and distance from the shoreline, but these changes were not related to spatial variation in either coral abundance or coral richness. © 2003 Éditions scientifiques et médicales Elsevier SAS and Ifremer/CNRS/IRD. All rights reserved.
Water-Level Fluctuations in Mediterranean Reservoirs: Setting a Dewatering Threshold as a Management Tool to Improve Water Quality

Water-level fluctuations, often linked to seasonal climatic trends, are a natural phenomenon which occur in almost all aquatic ecosystems. In some climatic regions, as the Mediterranean one, they are particularly wide due to the occurrence of two well separated periods: the rainy winter and the almost completely dry summer. Precipitation is concentrated in the first period, whereas in the second strong evaporation losses take place. According to these climatic features, and to ensure a continuous supply of water throughout the year, man-made lakes store water during winter and are subjected to dewatering during summer to compensate the lack of precipitation. These ecosystems are thus characterised by rather wide water level fluctuations which were observed to transform them from potentially warm monomictic lakes into polymictic or atelomictic ones. These changes deeply affect the biological structure and the functions of the water bodies impairing the response of some ecosystem properties, as resilience and resistance, since the impacts are immense enough to move the systems out of their homeostatic plateau of, respectively, deep or shallow lakes. In order to understand to what extent a reservoir can be “emptied” without changing its ecosystemic identity (deep or shallow lake sensu Padisák & Reynolds, 2003) and to set a “dewatering threshold”, the results from two different hydrological years, one with a dewatering so intense as to disrupt thermal stratification in midsummer, and the other one with water enough to allow the maintenance of the reservoir’s thermal structure throughout the summer, are compared. Former investigations have shown that the persistence of thermal stratification has a positive value in Sicilian reservoirs: a notable decrease in total phytoplankton biomass and in the relative occurrence of cyanoprokaryotes was observed in the high-level year with a stable thermal stratification. Although the solving of the external load problems causing eutrophication phenomena remain the main task to improve the water quality of this Mediterranean island, a management procedure, based on the maintaining of the ecosystem within its homeostatic plateau through the setting of a dewatering threshold, is suggested.
It’s Personal: Biology Instructors Prioritize Personal Evidence over Empirical Evidence in Teaching Decisions

Despite many calls for undergraduate biology instructors to incorporate active learning into lecture courses, few studies have focused on what it takes for instructors to make this change. We sought to investigate the process of adopting and sustaining active-learning instruction. As a framework for our research, we used the innovation-decision model, a generalized model of how individuals adopt innovations. We interviewed 17 biology instructors who were attempting to implement case study teaching and conducted qualitative text analysis on interview data. The overarching theme that emerged from our analysis was that instructors prioritized personal experience-rather than empirical evidence-in decisions regarding case study teaching. We identified personal experiences that promote case study teaching, such as anecdotal observations of student outcomes, and those that hinder case study teaching, such as insufficient teaching skills. By analyzing the differences between experienced and new case study instructors, we discovered that new case study instructors need support to deal with unsupportive colleagues and to develop the skill set needed for an active-learning classroom. We generated hypotheses that are grounded in our data about effectively supporting instructors in adopting and sustaining active-learning strategies. We also synthesized our findings with existing literature to tailor the innovation-decision model.
Experimental Software Engineering: A Report on the State of the Art

The goal of this session is to make the software engineering community aware of the opportunities that exist to pursue such an experimental approach. In the remainder of the essay, we describe an emerging model for empirical work and the language for discussing it. We then focus on the current state of experimental software engineering, the road blocks barring effective progress, and what developers and researchers can do to remove them.
A test of self-determination theory in school physical education.

BACKGROUND
Contemporary research conducted in the context of school physical education (PE) has increasingly embraced various tenets of self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985, 1991). Despite this increase in research attention, some postulates of the framework remain unexplored (e.g. impact of a need-supportive climate). As such, the present study sought to provide a more comprehensive test of self-determination theory. The present work also examined Deci and Ryan's claim that the motivational sequence embraced by their framework is invariant across gender.


AIMS
(i) To examine a model of motivation based on the tenets of self-determination theory, and (ii) explore the invariance of the model across gender.


SAMPLE
Participants were 950 British secondary school students (443 male, 490 female, 17 gender not specified)


METHOD
Participants completed a questionnaire that included measures of need support, need satisfaction, motivation, positive and negative affect, task challenge, and concentration.


RESULTS
Structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis revealed that students who perceived a need-supporting environment experienced greater levels of need satisfaction. Need satisfaction predicted intrinsic motivation, which, in turn, linked to adaptive PE-related outcomes. In contrast, need satisfaction negatively predicted amotivation, which, in turn, was positively predictive of feelings of unhappiness. Multisample SEM invariance testing revealed the model to be largely invariant for male and female students.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of the study provide support for self-determination theory and corroborate the application of the framework to the context of school PE. Further, we largely found support for the invariance of the motivational processes embraced by self-determination theory across gender.
Noncommutative Causality in Algebraic Quantum Field Theory

In the paper it will be argued that embracing noncommuting common causes in the causal explanation of quantum correlations in algebraic quantum field theory has the following two beneficial consequences: it helps (i) to maintain the validity of Reichenbach’s Common Causal Principle and (ii) to provide a local common causal explanation for a set of correlations violating the Bell inequality.
Evolution of condensin and cohesin complexes driven by replacement of Kite by Hawk proteins

Mitotic chromosome condensation, sister chromatid cohesion, and higher order folding of interphase chromatin are mediated by condensin and cohesin, eukaryotic members of the SMC (structural maintenance of chromosomes)-kleisin protein family. Other members facilitate chromosome segregation in bacteria [1]. A hallmark of these complexes is the binding of the two ends of a kleisin subunit to the apices of V-shaped Smc dimers, creating a tripartite ring capable of entrapping DNA (Figure 1A). In addition to creating rings, kleisins recruit regulatory subunits. One family of regulators, namely Kite dimers (Kleisin interacting winged-helix tandem elements), interact with Smc-kleisin rings from bacteria, archaea and the eukaryotic Smc5-6 complex, but not with either condensin or cohesin [2]. These instead possess proteins containing HEAT (Huntingtin/EF3/PP2A/Tor1) repeat domains whose origin and distribution have not yet been characterized. Using a combination of profile Hidden Markov Model (HMM)-based homology searches, network analysis and structural alignments, we identify a common origin for these regulators, for which we propose the name Hawks, i.e. HEAT proteins associated with kleisins.
Reach-scale river dynamics moderate the impact of rapid Holocene climate change on floodwater farming in the desert Nile

The relationship between climate change and the development of Old World riverine civilizations is poorly understood because inadequate dating control has hindered effective integration of archaeological, fl uvial, and climate records. This paper presents the most comprehensive and robustly dated archaeological and paleoenvironmental data sets yet compiled for the desert Nile. It focuses on the valley fl oor hinterland of the Kingdom of Kerma (2400–1450 B.C.) in northern Sudan. Kerma emerged as a rival to Egypt during Africa’s fi rst “Dark Age” drought. In contrast to other irrigation-based agriculturists in Egypt and Asia, Kerma fl ourished during the environmental crisis ca. 2200 B.C. We have studied the stratigraphy and archaeological records of paleochannels across an 80 km reach of the Nile upstream of Kerma using optically stimulated luminescence to date when channels fl owed and when they dried up. The dynamics of the local alluvial environment were critical in determining whether climatic fl uctuations and changes in river fl ow represented an opportunity for fl oodwater farmers (5000–3500 B.C.), a hazard that could be managed (2400–1300 B.C.), or an environmental catastrophe that resulted in settlement abandonment (after 1300 B.C.). GEOLOGY, June 2013; v. 41; no. 6; p. 695–698; Data Repository item 2013190 | doi:10.1130/G34037.1 | Published online 16 April 2013 © 2013 eological Society of America. For permission to copy, contact Copyright Permissions, GSA, or editing@geosociety.org. 0 50 km Sai Third Cataract Second Cataract