LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Treatment of superficial cutaneous vascular lesions: experience with the KTP 532 nm laser

Whilst most facial telangiectasias respond well to short-pulse-duration pulsed dye laser therapy, studies have shown that for the treatment of larger vessels these short-duration pulses are sub-optimal. Long-pulse frequency-doubled neodymium:YAG lasers have been introduced with pulse durations ranging from 1–50 ms and treatment beam diameters of up to 4 mm. We report the results of KTP/532 nm laser treatment for superficial vascular skin lesions. The aim was to determine the efficacy of the KTP/532 nm laser in the treatment of superficial cutaneous vascular lesions at a regional dermatology centre in a 2 year retrospective analysis. Patients were referred from general dermatology clinics to a purpose-built laser facility. A test dose was performed at the initial consultation and thereafter patients were reviewed and treated at 6 week intervals. Outcome was graded into five classifications by the patient and operator independently based on photographic records: clear, marked improvement, partial response, poor response, and no change or worsening. Over the 2 year period, 204 patients with 246 diagnoses were treated [156 female; median age 41 (range 1–74) years; Fitzpatrick skin types I–III]. Equal numbers of spider angioma (102) and facial telangiectasia (102) were treated. Of those patients who completed treatment and follow up, 57/58 (98%) of spider angiomas and 44/49 (90%) of facial telangiectasia markedly improved or cleared. Satisfactory treatment outcomes, with one clearance and two partial responses, occurred in three of five patients with port-wine stain. Few patients experienced adverse effects: two declined further treatment due to pain, and a small area of minimal superficial scarring developed in one case. Two patients developed mild persistent post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation, and one subject experienced an episode of acute facial erythema, swelling and blistering after one treatment. The KTP/532 nm frequency-doubled neodymium:YAG laser is a safe and effective treatment for common superficial cutaneous vascular lesions in patients with Fitzpatrick skin types I–III.
Berkeley DB: A Retrospective

Berkeley DB is an open-source, embedded transactional data management system that has been in wide deployment since 1992. In those fifteen years, it has grown from a simple, non-transactional key-data store to a highly reliable, scalable, flexible data management solution. We trace the history of Berkeley DB and discuss how a small library provides data management solutions appropriate to disparate environments ranging form cell phones to servers.
A random variable shape parameter strategy for radial basis function approximation methods

Several variable shape parameter methods have been successfully used in Radial Basis Function approximation methods. In many cases variable shape parameter strategies produced more accurate results than if a constant shape parameter had been used. We introduce a new random variable shape parameter strategy and give numerical results showing that the new random strategy often outperforms both existing variable shape and constant shape strategies.
Familial Risk and Heritability of Cancer Among Twins in Nordic Countries.

IMPORTANCE
Estimates of familial cancer risk from population-based studies are essential components of cancer risk prediction.


OBJECTIVE
To estimate familial risk and heritability of cancer types in a large twin cohort.


DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
Prospective study of 80,309 monozygotic and 123,382 same-sex dizygotic twin individuals (N = 203,691) within the population-based registers of Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden. Twins were followed up a median of 32 years between 1943 and 2010. There were 50,990 individuals who died of any cause, and 3804 who emigrated and were lost to follow-up.


EXPOSURES
Shared environmental and heritable risk factors among pairs of twins.


MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
The main outcome was incident cancer. Time-to-event analyses were used to estimate familial risk (risk of cancer in an individual given a twin's development of cancer) and heritability (proportion of variance in cancer risk due to interindividual genetic differences) with follow-up via cancer registries. Statistical models adjusted for age and follow-up time, and accounted for censoring and competing risk of death.


RESULTS
A total of 27,156 incident cancers were diagnosed in 23,980 individuals, translating to a cumulative incidence of 32%. Cancer was diagnosed in both twins among 1383 monozygotic (2766 individuals) and 1933 dizygotic (2866 individuals) pairs. Of these, 38% of monozygotic and 26% of dizygotic pairs were diagnosed with the same cancer type. There was an excess cancer risk in twins whose co-twin was diagnosed with cancer, with estimated cumulative risks that were an absolute 5% (95% CI, 4%-6%) higher in dizygotic (37%; 95% CI, 36%-38%) and an absolute 14% (95% CI, 12%-16%) higher in monozygotic twins (46%; 95% CI, 44%-48%) whose twin also developed cancer compared with the cumulative risk in the overall cohort (32%). For most cancer types, there were significant familial risks and the cumulative risks were higher in monozygotic than dizygotic twins. Heritability of cancer overall was 33% (95% CI, 30%-37%). Significant heritability was observed for the cancer types of skin melanoma (58%; 95% CI, 43%-73%), prostate (57%; 95% CI, 51%-63%), nonmelanoma skin (43%; 95% CI, 26%-59%), ovary (39%; 95% CI, 23%-55%), kidney (38%; 95% CI, 21%-55%), breast (31%; 95% CI, 11%-51%), and corpus uteri (27%; 95% CI, 11%-43%).


CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
In this long-term follow-up study among Nordic twins, there was significant excess familial risk for cancer overall and for specific types of cancer, including prostate, melanoma, breast, ovary, and uterus. This information about hereditary risks of cancers may be helpful in patient education and cancer risk counseling.
An iterative method for computing the approximate inverse of a square matrix and the Moore-Penrose inverse of a non-square matrix

In this paper, an iterative scheme is proposed to find the roots of a nonlinear equation. It is shown that this iterative method has fourth order convergence in the neighborhood of the root. Based on this iterative scheme, we propose the main contribution of this paper as a new high-order computational algorithm for finding an approximate inverse of a square matrix. The analytical discussions show that this algorithm has fourth-order convergence as well. Next, the iterative method will be extended by theoretical analysis to find the pseudo-inverse (also known as the Moore–Penrose inverse) of a singular or rectangular matrix. Numerical examples are also made on some practical problems to reveal the efficiency of the new algorithm for computing a robust approximate inverse of a real (or complex) matrix. 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The cost-effectiveness of cardiac computed tomography for patients with stable chest pain.

OBJECTIVE
To assess the cost-effectiveness of cardiac CT compared with exercise stress testing (EST) in improving the health-related quality of life of patients with stable chest pain.


METHODS
A cost-utility analysis alongside a single-centre randomised controlled trial carried out in Northern Ireland. Patients with stable chest pain were randomised to undergo either cardiac CT assessment or EST (standard care). The main outcome measure was cost per quality adjusted life year (QALY) gained at 1 year.


RESULTS
Of the 500 patients recruited, 250 were randomised to cardiac CT and 250 were randomised to EST. Cardiac CT was the dominant strategy as it was both less costly (incremental total costs -£50.45; 95% CI -£672.26 to £571.36) and more effective (incremental QALYs 0.02; 95% CI -0.02 to 0.05) than EST. At a willingness-to-pay threshold of £20 000 per QALY the probability of cardiac CT being cost-effective was 83%. Subgroup analyses indicated that cardiac CT appears to be most cost-effective in patients with a likelihood of coronary artery disease (CAD) of <30%, followed by 30%-60% and then >60%.


CONCLUSIONS
Cardiac CT is cost-effective compared with EST and cost-effectiveness was observed to vary with likelihood of CAD. This finding could have major implications for how patients with chest pain in the UK are assessed, however it would need to be validated in other healthcare systems.


TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER
(ISRCTN52480460); results.
Analysis of Dual Functions

The purpose of this paper is to develop a theory, inspired from complex analysis, of dual functions. In detail, we introduce the notion of holomorphic dual functions and we establish a general representation of holomorphic dual functions. As an application, we generalize some usual real functions to the dual plane. Finally, we will define the integral trough curves of any dual functions as well as the dual primitive.
Drug-eluting stent, but not bare metal stent, accentuates the systematic inflammatory response in patients.

OBJECTIVE
The systematic pro-inflammatory responses after percutaneous coronary intervention with drug-eluting stents (DES) remain poorly defined. Therefore, we compared the systematic pro-inflammatory state of circulating mononuclear cells (MNCs) between DES and bare metal stent (BMS) implantation.


METHODS
Patients with indications for treatment with stents were randomized in a 1:1 ratio to placement of DES or BMS. The primary endpoint was a change of pro-inflammatory state at 12 weeks post-procedure.


RESULTS
Thirty-six consecutive patients received DES or BMS. At 12 weeks after stent implantation, the lipid profile and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) improved significantly in both groups. The mRNA levels and plasma concentrations of interleukin-6, tumor necrosis factor-α and matrix metalloproteinase-9 were significantly elevated in the DES group, which was not observed in the BMS group. An increase in NF-κB binding activity and a decrease in PPAR-γ expression in MNCs were observed in the DES group, along with increases in IκB phosphorylation and p50 expression. However, similar changes were not observed in the BMS group.


CONCLUSIONS
Systematic inflammatory responses were accentuated after the patients were treated percutaneously with DES, despite their improved lipid profile and hs-CRP. These data may provide fundamental information for optimizing therapeutic strategy in the era of DES.
Intertrack Interference Cancellation for Shingled Magnetic Recording

The intertrack interference in squeezed tracks of a magnetic hard disk drive is investigated based on captured waveforms. Specifically, extracted intertrack interference impulses and statistics are presented as a function of track squeeze and read offset. The bit-error-rate improvement of intertrack interference cancellation is shown based on simulations with captured drive waveforms. Architecture and implementation aspects for hard disk drives with intertrack interference cancellation are described.
Defining and assessing professional competence.

CONTEXT
Current assessment formats for physicians and trainees reliably test core knowledge and basic skills. However, they may underemphasize some important domains of professional medical practice, including interpersonal skills, lifelong learning, professionalism, and integration of core knowledge into clinical practice.


OBJECTIVES
To propose a definition of professional competence, to review current means for assessing it, and to suggest new approaches to assessment.


DATA SOURCES
We searched the MEDLINE database from 1966 to 2001 and reference lists of relevant articles for English-language studies of reliability or validity of measures of competence of physicians, medical students, and residents.


STUDY SELECTION
We excluded articles of a purely descriptive nature, duplicate reports, reviews, and opinions and position statements, which yielded 195 relevant citations.


DATA EXTRACTION
Data were abstracted by 1 of us (R.M.E.). Quality criteria for inclusion were broad, given the heterogeneity of interventions, complexity of outcome measures, and paucity of randomized or longitudinal study designs.


DATA SYNTHESIS
We generated an inclusive definition of competence: the habitual and judicious use of communication, knowledge, technical skills, clinical reasoning, emotions, values, and reflection in daily practice for the benefit of the individual and the community being served. Aside from protecting the public and limiting access to advanced training, assessments should foster habits of learning and self-reflection and drive institutional change. Subjective, multiple-choice, and standardized patient assessments, although reliable, underemphasize important domains of professional competence: integration of knowledge and skills, context of care, information management, teamwork, health systems, and patient-physician relationships. Few assessments observe trainees in real-life situations, incorporate the perspectives of peers and patients, or use measures that predict clinical outcomes.


CONCLUSIONS
In addition to assessments of basic skills, new formats that assess clinical reasoning, expert judgment, management of ambiguity, professionalism, time management, learning strategies, and teamwork promise a multidimensional assessment while maintaining adequate reliability and validity. Institutional support, reflection, and mentoring must accompany the development of assessment programs.
Human Tracking with a Mobile Robot using a Laser Range-Finder

Human tracking is a fundamental research issue for mobile robot, since coexistence of human and robots is expected in the near future. In this paper, we present a new method for real-time tracking of human walking around a robot using a laser range-finder. The method converts range data with r-θ coordinates to a 2D image with x-y coordinates. Then human tracking is performed using block matching between templates, i.e. appearances of human legs, and the input range data. The view-based human tracking method has the advantage of simplicity over conventional methods which extract local minima in the range data. In addition, the proposed tracking system employs a particle filter to robustly track human in case of occlusions. Experimental results using a real robot demonstrate usefulness of the proposed method.
Prognostic impact of day 15 blast clearance in risk-adapted remission induction chemotherapy for younger patients with acute myeloid leukemia: long-term results of the multicenter prospective LAM-2001 trial by the GOELAMS study group.

Early response to chemotherapy has a major prognostic impact in acute myeloid leukemia patients treated with a double induction strategy. Less is known about patients treated with standard-dose cytarabine and anthracycline. We designed a risk-adapted remission induction regimen in which a second course of intermediate-dose cytarabine was delivered after standard "7+3" only if patients had 5% or more bone marrow blasts 15 days after chemotherapy initiation (d15-blasts). Of 823 included patients, 795 (96.6%) were evaluable. Five hundred and forty-five patients (68.6%) had less than 5% d15-blasts. Predictive factors for high d15-blasts were white blood cell count (P<0.0001) and cytogenetic risk (P<0.0001). Patients with fewer than 5% d15-blasts had a higher complete response rate (91.7% vs. 69.2%; P<0.0001) and a lower induction death rate (1.8% vs. 6.8%; P=0.001). Five-year event-free (48.4% vs. 25%; P<0.0001), relapse-free (52.7% vs. 36.9%; P=0.0016) and overall survival (55.3% vs. 36.5%; P<0.0001) were significantly higher in patients with d15-blasts lower than 5%. Multivariate analyses identified d15-blasts and cytogenetic risk as independent prognostic factors for the three end points. Failure to achieve early blast clearance remains a poor prognostic factor even after early salvage. By contrast, early responding patients have a favorable outcome without any additional induction course. (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT01015196).
Early Catholic Responses to Darwin's Theory of Evolution

There are no simple conclusions to be drawn when exploring the historical relationships between religion and science. Those that present either a straightforward conflict or a perfectly harmonious collaboration run contrary to the evidence of history. This is especially true for analyses of the initial reactions of the Catholic Church to Darwin’s theory of evolution, as first thoroughly expounded in the Origin of Species. This paper will show that throughout the 19 th
Carvacrol ameliorates thioacetamide-induced hepatotoxicity by abrogation of oxidative stress, inflammation, and apoptosis in liver of Wistar rats.

The present study was designed to investigate the protective effects of carvacrol against thioacetamide (TAA)-induced oxidative stress, inflammation and apoptosis in liver of Wistar rats. In this study, rats were subjected to concomitant prophylactic oral pretreatment of carvacrol (25 and 50 mg kg(-1) body weight (b.w.)) against the hepatotoxicity induced by intraperitoneal administration of TAA (300 mg kg(-1) b.w.). Efficacy of carvacrol against the hepatotoxicity was evaluated in terms of biochemical estimation of antioxidant enzyme activities, histopathological changes, and expressions of inflammation and apoptosis. Carvacrol pretreatment prevented deteriorative effects induced by TAA through a protective mechanism in a dose-dependent manner that involved reduction of oxidative stress, inflammation and apoptosis. We found that the protective effect of carvacrol pretreatment is mediated by its inhibitory effect on nuclear factor kappa B activation, Bax and Bcl-2 expression, as well as by restoration of histopathological changes against TAA administration. We may suggest that carvacrol efficiently ameliorates liver injury caused by TAA.
Self-Configuration Fuzzy System for Inverse Kinematics of Robot Manipulators

Kinematics is the study of motion without regard to the forces that create it. Generally, kinematics for robot manipulators includes two problems, forward kinematics problem and inverse kinematics problem. Because of the complexity of inverse kinematics, it is difficult to find the solutions for it. This paper applies a self-configuration fuzzy system to finding the solutions for inverse kinematics of robot manipulators. In this paper, the problem of fuzzy approach for inverse kinematics is described first. Then a self-configuration fuzzy system is introduced. Based on a small group of given input-output pairs selected by covering its workspace, an initially simple fuzzy model for inverse kinematics is built, including some basic rules, the number and the parameters of membership functions. Then, by applying given input-output data pairs to this simple fuzzy model, approximating error can be calculated. Consequently, the optimum rule conclusion, optimized membership functions, and new structure can be obtained. Furthermore, an overall analysis in the domain of the whole function is carried out instead of concentrating on the subspace. After optimization problems are solved, a fuzzy system is well defined to solve the inverse kinematics. Finally, the simulation verifies this self-configuration fuzzy system for inverse kinematics of robot manipulators
Deploying secure multi-party computation for financial data analysis

We show how to collect and analyze financial data for a consortium of ICT companies using secret sharing and secure multiparty computation (MPC). This is the first time where the actual MPC computation on real data was done over the internet with computing nodes spread geographically apart. We describe the technical solution and present user feedback revealing that MPC techniques give sufficient assurance for data donors to submit their sensitive information.
A federated semantic metadata registry framework for enabling interoperability across clinical research and care domains

In order to enable secondary use of Electronic Health Records (EHRs) by bridging the interoperability gap between clinical care and research domains, in this paper, a unified methodology and the supporting framework is introduced which brings together the power of metadata registries (MDR) and semantic web technologies. We introduce a federated semantic metadata registry framework by extending the ISO/IEC 11179 standard, and enable integration of data element registries through Linked Open Data (LOD) principles where each Common Data Element (CDE) can be uniquely referenced, queried and processed to enable the syntactic and semantic interoperability. Each CDE and their components are maintained as LOD resources enabling semantic links with other CDEs, terminology systems and with implementation dependent content models; hence facilitating semantic search, much effective reuse and semantic interoperability across different application domains. There are several important efforts addressing the semantic interoperability in healthcare domain such as IHE DEX profile proposal, CDISC SHARE and CDISC2RDF. Our architecture complements these by providing a framework to interlink existing data element registries and repositories for multiplying their potential for semantic interoperability to a greater extent. Open source implementation of the federated semantic MDR framework presented in this paper is the core of the semantic interoperability layer of the SALUS project which enables the execution of the post marketing safety analysis studies on top of existing EHR systems.
Dynamic pose graph SLAM: Long-term mapping in low dynamic environments

Maintaining a map of an environment that changes over time is a critical challenge in the development of persistently autonomous mobile robots. Many previous approaches to mapping assume a static world. In this work we incorporate the time dimension into the mapping process to enable a robot to maintain an accurate map while operating in dynamical environments. This paper presents Dynamic Pose Graph SLAM (DPG-SLAM), an algorithm designed to enable a robot to remain localized in an environment that changes substantially over time. Using incremental smoothing and mapping (iSAM) as the underlying SLAM state estimation engine, the Dynamic Pose Graph evolves over time as the robot explores new places and revisits previously mapped areas. The approach has been implemented for planar indoor environments, using laser scan matching to derive constraints for SLAM state estimation. Laser scans for the same portion of the environment at different times are compared to perform change detection; when sufficient change has occurred in a location, the dynamic pose graph is edited to remove old poses and scans that no longer match the current state of the world. Experimental results are shown for two real-world dynamic indoor laser data sets, demonstrating the ability to maintain an up-to-date map despite long-term environmental changes.
Electrochemical deposition of barium titanate thin films on TiN/Si substrates

Abstract Barium titanate (BaTiO 3 ) films were synthesized on TiN-coated Si substrates by electrochemically anodic oxidation in mixed alkaline electrolytes of 0.5 M Ba(CH 3 COO) 2 and 2 M NaOH. A potentiostatic mode was conducted to make the films with the voltages ranging from 2 to 60 V at 70 °C for only 1 min. X-ray diffraction results show that cubic BaTiO 3 films were successfully prepared on TiN-coated substrates at the reaction voltages above 2 V. Field-emission scanning electron microscopy revealed that the obtained BaTiO 3 films possessed uniformly distributed spherical-particulate surface morphology with a nanolayered feature. The thickness of BaTiO 3 could reach about 4 μm after electrochemical oxidation with the voltage of 60 V. The growth rate of BaTiO 3 films synthesized by the electrochemical oxidation was much faster than that of the films prepared by the previously reported hydrothermal and hydrothermal–galvanic couple methods where only a single layer was produced. Potentiodynamic polarization reveals that the corrosion resistance of TiN-coated substrates was greatly improved by electrochemical deposition of the dense and thick BaTiO 3 films over the substrates.