LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Genetic and pharmacologic disruption of interleukin-1β signaling inhibits experimental aortic aneurysm formation.

OBJECTIVE
Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) are common, but their exact pathogenesis remains unknown and no specific medical therapies are available. We sought to evaluate interleukin-1β (IL-1β) and interleukin-1 receptor (IL-1R) in an experimental AAA model to identify novel therapeutic targets for AAA treatment.


METHODS AND RESULTS
IL-1β mRNA and protein levels were significantly elevated in abdominal aortas of 8- to 12-week-old male C57Bl/6 mice after elastase aortic perfusion (wild-type [WT]) compared with saline perfusion. Mice with genetic deletion of IL-1β (IL-1β knockout [KO]) or IL-1R (IL-1R KO) that underwent elastase perfusion demonstrated significant protection against AAA formation, with maximal aortic dilations of 38.0±5.5% for IL-1β KO and 52.5±4.6% for IL-1R KO, compared with 89.4±4.0% for WT mice (P<0.005). Correspondingly, IL-1β KO and IL-1R KO aortas had reduced macrophage and neutrophil staining with greater elastin preservation compared with WT. In WT mice pretreated with escalating doses of the IL-1R antagonist anakinra, there was a dose-dependent decrease in maximal aortic dilation (R=-0.676; P<0.0005). Increasing anakinra doses correlated with decreasing macrophage staining and elastin fragmentation. Lastly, WT mice treated with anakinra 3 or 7 days after AAA initiation with elastase demonstrated significant protection against AAA progression and had decreased aortic dilation compared with control mice.


CONCLUSIONS
IL-1β is critical for AAA initiation and progression, and IL-1β neutralization through genetic deletion or receptor antagonism attenuates experimental AAA formation. Disrupting IL-1β signaling offers a novel pathway for AAA treatment.
Segmentation for MRC compression

Mixed Raster Content (MRC) is a standard for efficient document compression which can dramatically improve the compression/quality tradeoff as compared to traditional lossy image compression algorithms. The key to MRC’s performance is the separation of the document into foreground and background layers, represented as a binary mask. Typically, the foreground layer contains text colors, the background layer contains images and graphics, and the binary mask layer represents fine detail of text fonts. The resulting quality and compression ratio of a MRC document encoder is highly dependent on the segmentation algorithm used to compute the binary mask. In this paper, we propose a novel segmentation method based on the MRC standards (ITU-T T.44). The algorithm consists of two components: Cost Optimized Segmentation (COS) and Connected Component Classification (CCC). The COS algorithm is a blockwise segmentation algorithm formulated in a global cost optimization framework, while CCC is based on feature vector classification of connected components. In the experimental results, we show that the new algorithm achieves the same accuracy of text detection but with lower false detection of non-text features, as compared to state-of-the-art commercial MRC products. This results in high quality MRC encoded documents with fewer non-text artifacts, and lower bit rate.
A pilot phase-II prospective study to test the 'efficacy' and tolerability of a penile-extender device in the treatment of 'short penis'.

OBJECTIVE
To assess a commonly marketed brand of penile extender, the Andro-Penis(R) (Andromedical, Madrid, Spain), widely used devices which aim to increase penile size, in a phase II single-arm study powered to detect significant changes in penile size, as despite their widespread use, there is little scientific evidence to support their potential clinical utility in the treatment of patients with inadequate penile dimensions.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
Fifteen patients were required to test the efficacy of the device, assuming an effect size of >0.8. Eligible patients were counselled how to use the penile extender for at least 4 h/day for 6 months. Penile dimensions were measured at baseline and after 1, 3, 6 and 12 months (end of study). The erectile function (EF) domain of the International Index of EF was administered at baseline and at the end of the study. Treatment satisfaction was assessed using an institutional unvalidated five-item questionnaire.


RESULTS
After 6 months the mean gain in length was significant, meeting the goals of the effect size, at 2.3 and 1.7 cm for the flaccid and stretched penis, respectively. No significant changes in penile girth were detected. The EF domain scores improved significantly at the end of study. Treatment satisfaction scores were consistent with acceptable to good improvement in all items, except for penile girth, where the score was either 'no change' or 'mild improvement'.


CONCLUSIONS
Penile extenders should be regarded as a minimally invasive and effective treatment option to elongate the penile shaft in patients seeking treatment for a short penis.
Visual Translation Embedding Network for Visual Relation Detection

Visual relations, such as person ride bike and bike next to car, offer a comprehensive scene understanding of an image, and have already shown their great utility in connecting computer vision and natural language. However, due to the challenging combinatorial complexity of modeling subject-predicate-object relation triplets, very little work has been done to localize and predict visual relations. Inspired by the recent advances in relational representation learning of knowledge bases and convolutional object detection networks, we propose a Visual Translation Embedding network (VTransE) for visual relation detection. VTransE places objects in a low-dimensional relation space where a relation can be modeled as a simple vector translation, i.e., subject + predicate &#x2248; object. We propose a novel feature extraction layer that enables object-relation knowledge transfer in a fully-convolutional fashion that supports training and inference in a single forward/backward pass. To the best of our knowledge, VTransE is the first end-toend relation detection network. We demonstrate the effectiveness of VTransE over other state-of-the-art methods on two large-scale datasets: Visual Relationship and Visual Genome. Note that even though VTransE is a purely visual model, it is still competitive to the Lu&#x2019;s multi-modal model with language priors [27].
Prophylactic Nasogastric Decompression for Routine Gastrectomy.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the necessity of using nasogastric tubes for patients with gastrectomy.


STUDY DESIGN
A non-randomized controlled trial with two arms.


PLACE AND DURATION OF STUDY
Sichuan Provincial Peoples' Hospital, China, from February 2012 to January 2014.


METHODOLOGY
One hundred and twenty one patients undergoing gastrectomy were assigned into intubation group and control group based on patient's own will. The intubation group was intubated with a nasogastric tube before operation and extubated at the earliest evidence of passed flatus. Clinical outcomes, such as operation time, bleeding volume, time to passage of flatus, postoperative complications, and length of stay were recorded and compared between the two groups along with patient characteristics.


RESULTS
The two groups did not differ in patient characteristics with similar distribution of gender, age, diagnosis, tumor location and operation type. Nasogastric intubation before surgery was not associated with statistically significant difference in total surgery duration, bleeding volume of operation or postoperative complications. In addition, patients without nasogastric tubes resumed oral diet earlier (52.5 ± 14.1 vs.18.4 ± 2.0 hours, p < 0.05) and had shorter time to first passage of flatus (43.8 ± 11.2 vs. 49.0 ± 13.3 hours, p=0.02).


CONCLUSION
It is safe to give up nasogastric intubation for patients undergoing elective gastrectomy and may even result in a better patient outcome.
Rates of Complications andMortality in Older Patients With DiabetesMellitus The Diabetes and Aging Study

RESULTS Among older adults with diabetes of short duration, cardiovascular complications followed by hypoglycemia were the most common nonfatal complications. For example, among individuals aged 70 to79 years with a short duration of diabetes, coronary artery disease and hypoglycemia rates were higher (11.47 per 1000 person-years and 5.03 per 1000 person-years, respectively) compared with end-stage renal disease (2.60 per 1000 person-years), lower limb amputation (1.28 per 1000 person-years), and acute hyperglycemic events (0.82 per 1000 person-years). We observed a similar pattern among patients in the same age group with a long duration of diabetes, with some of the highest incidence rates in coronary artery disease and hypoglycemia (18.98 per 1000 person-years and 15.88 per 1000 person-years, respectively) compared with end-stage renal disease (7.64 per 1000 person-years), lower limb amputation (4.26 per 1000 person-years), and acute hyperglycemic events (1.76 per 1000 person-years). For a given age group, the rates of each outcome, particularly hypoglycemia and microvascular complications, increased dramatically with longer duration of the disease. However, for a given duration of diabetes, rates of hypoglycemia, cardiovascular complications, and mortality increased steeply with advancing age, and rates of microvascular complications remained stable or declined.
A prototype low-cost wakeup radio for the 868 MHz band

In many wireless sensor network scenarios, battery-powered nodes must operate for years, which necessitates the need for advanced power management of the radio. In this paper we pursue the idea of using a second, ultra low-power radio that can be used to trigger a remote interrupt, so that a receiver can fire up its primary radio to engage in efficient high-speed communication with the sender. Wakeup radio avoids the complex bookkeeping associated with energy-efficient MAC protocols, but at the price of additional hardware. We present the first design of a low-cost wakeup radio made out of standard components. Our working prototype implementation operates in the European license-free 868 MHz band, and includes a specialised low-power microcontroller filtering out interference (e.g., GSM signals), which makes it practical for use in many real-world settings.
Optical character recognition for model-based object recognition applications

This paper discusses the performance of Fourier descriptors and Hu’s seven moment invariants for an Optical Character Recognition (OCR) engine developed for 3D model-based object recognition applications.
Second-line oxaliplatin, folinic acid, and fluorouracil versus folinic acid and fluorouracil alone for gemcitabine-refractory pancreatic cancer: outcomes from the CONKO-003 trial.

PURPOSE
To assess the efficacy of a second-line regimen of oxaliplatin and folinic acid-modulated fluorouracil in patients with advanced pancreatic cancer who have experienced progression while receiving gemcitabine monotherapy.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
A randomized, open-label, phase III study was conducted in 16 institutions throughout Germany. Recruitment ran from January 2004 until May 2007, and the last follow-up concluded in December 2012. Overall, 168 patients age 18 years or older who experienced disease progression during first-line gemcitabine therapy were randomly assigned to folinic acid and fluorouracil (FF) or oxaliplatin and FF (OFF). Patients were stratified according to the presence of metastases, duration of first-line therapy, and Karnofsky performance status.


RESULTS
Median follow-up was 54.1 months, and 160 patients were eligible for the primary analysis. The median overall survival in the OFF group (5.9 months; 95% CI, 4.1 to 7.4) versus the FF group (3.3 months; 95% CI, 2.7 to 4.0) was significantly improved (hazard ratio [HR], 0.66; 95% CI, 0.48 to 0.91; log-rank P = .010). Time to progression with OFF (2.9 months; 95% CI, 2.4 to 3.2) versus FF (2.0 months; 95% CI, 1.6 to 2.3) was significantly extended also (HR, 0.68; 95% CI, 0.50 to 0.94; log-rank P = .019). Rates of adverse events were similar between treatment arms, with the exception of grades 1 to 2 neurotoxicity, which were reported in 29 patients (38.2%) and six patients (7.1%) in the OFF and FF groups, respectively (P < .001).


CONCLUSION
Second-line OFF significantly extended the duration of overall survival when compared with FF alone in patients with advanced gemcitabine-refractory pancreatic cancer.
Accuracy of urea breath tests tablets after 10 minutes compared with standard 30 minutes to diagnose and monitoring Helicobacter pylori infection: a randomized controlled trial.

REFERENCES 1. Prasad KK, Thapa BR, Nain CK, et al. Assessment of the diagnostic value of duodenal bulb histology in patients with celiac disease, using multiple biopsy sites. J Clin Gastroenterol. 2009;43:307–311 2. Hopper AD, Cross SS, Sanders DS. Patchy villous atrophy in adult patients with suspected gluten-sensitive enteropathy: is a multiple duodenal biopsy strategy appropriate? Endoscopy. 2008;40: 219–224. 3. Bonamico M, Thanasi E, Mariani P, et al. Duodenal bulb biopsies in celiac disease: a multicenter study. J Pediatr Gastroenterol Nutr. 2008;47:618–622.
Monitoring Wood Degradation during Weathering by Cellulose Crystallinity

The degree of crystallinity of cellulose was used for assessing the degradation level of coated and uncoated samples of pine wood after weathering. X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Fourier Transform Infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy measured the changes in the surface crystallinity of cellulose resulting from weathering, both natural and artificial. Both techniques revealed an increase in the crystallinity index (CI) of cellulose when wood was subjected to weathering. An increase in the size of crystallites was also observed by XRD measurements. These results were related to the reduction of the amorphous fractions of wood, and, consequently, to the enrichment of the relative crystalline content. Thanks to FT-IR analysis, the degradation of hemicellulose was observed for uncoated samples after exposure to artificial weathering. The effect of weathering was less evident on coated samples because of the protective action of the coating. A good correlation between the crystallinity indexes obtained from FT-IR and XRD was found. The experimental results proved that the proposed method may be a very useful tool for a rapid and accurate estimation of the degradation level of wood exposed to weathering. This methodology can find application in the field of conservation and restoration of wooden objects or in the industry of wood coatings.
Interaction Design - Beyond Human-Computer Interaction, 3rd Edition

Description: A revision of the #1 text in the Human Computer Interaction field, Interaction Design, the third edition is an ideal resource for learning the interdisciplinary skills needed for interaction design, human-computer interaction, information design, web design and ubiquitous computing. The authors are acknowledged leaders and educators in their field, with a strong global reputation. They bring depth of scope to the subject in this new edition, encompassing the latest technologies and devices including social networking, Web 2.0 and mobile devices. The third edition also adds, develops and updates cases, examples and questions to bring the book in line with the latest in Human Computer Interaction. Interaction Design offers a cross-disciplinary, practical and process-oriented approach to Human Computer Interaction, showing not just what principles ought to apply to Interaction Design, but crucially how they can be applied. The book focuses on how to design interactive products that enhance and extend the way people communicate, interact and work. Motivating examples are included to illustrate both technical, but also social and ethical issues, making the book approachable and adaptable for both Computer Science and non-Computer Science users. Interviews with key HCI luminaries are included and provide an insight into current and future trends.
Effect of an Online Video-Based Intervention to Increase HIV Testing in Men Who Have Sex with Men in Peru

BACKGROUND
Although many men who have sex with men (MSM) in Peru are unaware of their HIV status, they are frequent users of the Internet, and can be approached by that medium for promotion of HIV testing.


METHODS
We conducted an online randomized controlled trial to compare the effect of HIV-testing motivational videos versus standard public health text, both offered through a gay website. The videos were customized for two audiences based on self-identification: either gay or non-gay men. The outcomes evaluated were 'intention to get tested' and 'HIV testing at the clinic.'


FINDINGS
In the non-gay identified group, 97 men were randomly assigned to the video-based intervention and 90 to the text-based intervention. Non-gay identified participants randomized to the video-based intervention were more likely to report their intention of getting tested for HIV within the next 30 days (62.5% vs. 15.4%, Relative Risk (RR): 2.77, 95% Confidence Interval (CI): 1.42-5.39). After a mean of 125.5 days of observation (range 42-209 days), 11 participants randomized to the video and none of the participants randomized to text attended our clinic requesting HIV testing (p = 0.001). In the gay-identified group, 142 men were randomized to the video-based intervention and 130 to the text-based intervention. Gay-identified participants randomized to the video were more likely to report intentions of getting an HIV test within 30 days, although not significantly (50% vs. 21.6%, RR: 1.54, 95% CI: 0.74-3.20). At the end of follow up, 8 participants who watched the video and 10 who read the text visited our clinic for HIV testing (Hazard Ratio: 1.07, 95% CI: 0.40-2.85).


CONCLUSION
This study provides some evidence of the efficacy of a video-based online intervention in improving HIV testing among non-gay-identified MSM in Peru. This intervention may be adopted by institutions with websites oriented to motivate HIV testing among similar MSM populations.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
Clinicaltrials.gov NCT00751192.
Groupware Support for Requirements Management in New Product Development

Large high-technology companies operate in fiercely competitive international markets. To succeed they need to shorten the cycle time of new product development (NPD) while improving product quality and maintaining or reducing the total resources required. Their abilities to meet these business goals depend on how extensively and effectively they collect, analyze, and utilize requirements in their product development. Creating and sharing such knowledge is complicated partly because the NPD activities of large companies are geographically distributed. Groupware technologies allow knowledge to be created and shared more effectively. Thus they hold considerable potential as means of meeting the goals. Yet, little theory-based guidance is available to help design groupware-based requirements management systems (RMS) for large geographically distributed organizations. This paper draws on existing literature and experiences from large-scale distributed industrial development projects at Nokia to start building a design theory that answers the following question: What are the necessary and sufficient properties of RMS and how RMS should be designed and introduced in large high-technology companies to best achieve the business goals? The main contributions of the paper are (1) the creation of a generic set of requirements for RMS, (2) the development of the RMS design, and (3) the empirical validation of the design by analyzing instantiations of the design at various product lines of Nokia.
Challenges to design GREEN high rise building in IRAN

In recent years, the debate over tall buildings and their impact on the environment has been raised greatly. On the one hand, the need to build tall buildings for various reasons such as: economical, functional, and environmental and on the other hand, High consumption of resources because of tall buildings is a challenge. In recent years, there has been six main approach in the design of high-rise buildings: Hightech, Monolithic, Kinetic, Scenography, Media tic and Ecological. Ecological approach in the design of high-rise buildings, is realized by sustainable and green architecture. Ecological approach to architecture of high-rise buildings has led to not only the buildings less damage to the environment, but they also promote the quality of the environment. LEED standards at the late of twentieth century is used because of realization of these goals. In spite of a favorable environment for the use of renewable energy in Iran, there are four factors to reach green design: cultural, economic, technological and legal. Also in this condition there are some necessities to build green in high rise: saving energy (by solar panels, wind turbine, GHP system, CCHP), usage of green space in high rise, recycling water, healthy material and sustained construction, double skin façade, site development (green transport). In a case study of green high rise in Iran, renewal energies decreased usage of energy in building from 290kwh/m2 to 75kwh/m2. Also economic factors shows the rise of 1.21.4% in cost but 30-35% reduction in energy costs in green high rises. Compared to a conventional building, usage of renewal energies has 17.5% increase in Mechanical costs, 17% in Architecture & 37.5% in green spaces. With double skin façade, total cost increases about 8.2%-8.4% and without 1.2%-1.4%. In maximum condition it is 10% rise in cost compared with a conventional building. © 2014 Published by TMU (Tarbiat Modares University). * Corresponding author. Tel.: +98-915-517-7608; fax: +98-051-3766-9577. E-mail address: kamelnia@um.ac.ir. † [1] Howler, 2003 D ow nl oa de d fr om jo ur na ls .m od ar es .a c. ir at 1 3: 30 IR D T o n S un da y A ug us t 4 th 2 01 9 2 H. Kamelnia/ Naqshejahan 6-4 (2017) 039–055
The effect of ad rank on the performance of keyword advertising campaigns

The goal of this research is to evaluate the effect of ad rank on the performance of keyword advertising campaigns. We examined a large-scale data file comprised of nearly 7,000,000 records spanning 33 consecutive months of a major US retailer’s search engine marketing campaign. The theoretical foundation is serial position effect to explain searcher behavior when interacting with ranked ad listings. We control for temporal effects and use one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tamhane’s T2 tests to examine the effect of ad rank on critical keyword advertising metrics, including clicks, cost-per-click, sales revenue, orders, items sold, and advertising return on investment. Our findings show significant ad rank effect on most of those metrics, although less effect on conversion rates. A primacy effect was found on both clicks and sales, indicating a general compelling performance of top-ranked ads listed on the first results page. Conversion rates, on the other hand, follow a relatively stable distribution except for the top 2 ads, which had significantly higher conversion rates. However, examining conversion potential (the effect of both clicks and conversion rate), we show that ad rank has a significant effect on the performance of keyword advertising campaigns. Conversion potential is a more accurate measure of the impact of an ad’s position. In fact, the first ad position generates about 80% of the total profits, after controlling for advertising costs. In addition to providing theoretical grounding, the research results reported in this paper are beneficial to companies using search engine marketing as they strive to design more effective advertising campaigns.
A Survey of Arabic Text Representation and Classification Methods

In this paper we have presented a brief current state of the Art for Arabic text representation and classification methods. First we describe some algorithms applied to classification on Arabic text. Secondly, we cite all major works when comparing classification algorithms applied on Arabic text, after this, we mention some authors who proposing new classification methods and finally we investigate the impact of preprocessing on Arabic TC.