LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Long-term results of a prospective multicenter phase II study to preserve the larynx function using concomitant boost radiochemotherapy with Carboplatin.

PURPOSE
This prospective phase II study was undertaken to assess the feasibility of a larynx preservation protocol with simultaneous radiochemotherapy.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
Between 3/1998 and 10/2000, 42 patients with moderately advanced cancer of the larynx (n=25) and hypopharynx (n=17) eligible for total laryngectomy (LE) were treated in a prospective larynx preservation study. The study protocol scheduled 66Gy in 5 weeks using a concomitant boost technique and 70mg/m(2) Carboplatin on days 1-5 in weeks 1 and 5.


RESULTS
The median follow-up time of the censored study patients was 41 months (9-95 months). The 5-year overall survival was 0.66 (95% CI 0.48-0.84), the 5-year laryngectomy-free survival 0.60 (95% CI 0.42-0.78), and the laryngeal preservation rate at 5 years 0.67 (95% CI 0.49-0.85). Cox multivariate regression analysis showed the total tumor volume to be the only statistically significant factor on locoregional failure-free survival. Six of 23 tumor-free long-term survivors received a tracheotomy because of late laryngeal toxicity associated with dysphagia 30-79 months after radiochemotherapy.


CONCLUSIONS
Due to the late laryngeal toxicity observed the value of this regimen for larynx preservation is limited.
A randomised evaluation of CollAborative care and active surveillance for Screen-Positive EldeRs with sub-threshold depression (CASPER): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND
Depression accounts for the greatest burden of disease among all mental health problems, and is expected to become the second-highest amongst all general health problems by 2020. By the age of 75, 1 in 7 older people meet formal diagnostic criteria for depression. Efforts to ameliorate the burden of illness and personal suffering associated with depression in older people have focussed on those with more severe depressive syndromes. Less attention has been paid to those with mild disorders/sub-threshold depressive syndromes but these patients also suffer impairments in their quality of life and level of functioning.


METHODS/DESIGN
The CASPER study has been designed to assemble an epidemiological cohort of people over 75 years of age (the CASPER cohort), from which we will identify those eligible to participate in a trial of collaborative care for sub-threshold depression (the CASPER trial).We aim to undertake a pragmatic randomised controlled multi-centre trial evaluating the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of collaborative care; a low intensity psychological intervention in addition to usual general practitioner care versus usual general practitioner care alone. General practitioners from practices based in the North of England will be asked to identify potentially eligible patients over the age of 75 years. Patients will be sent a letter inviting them to participate in the study.We aim to recruit approximately 540 participants for the CASPER trial. A diagnostic interview will be carried out to ascertain trial eligibility with the major depressive episode module of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.), eligible participants randomised to either the intervention or usual care. The primary outcome will be measured with the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and additional quality of life measures will be collected. Data will be collected at baseline, 4 and 12 months for both trial and cohort participants.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
ISRCTN: ISRCTN02202951.
Celecoxib versus diclofenac and omeprazole in reducing the risk of recurrent ulcer bleeding in patients with arthritis.

BACKGROUND
Current guidelines recommend that patients at risk for ulcer disease who require treatment for arthritis receive nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) that are selective for cyclooxygenase-2 or the combination of a nonselective NSAID with a proton-pump inhibitor. We assessed whether celecoxib would be similar to diclofenac plus omeprazole in reducing the risk of recurrent ulcer bleeding in patients at high risk for bleeding.


METHODS
We studied patients who used NSAIDs for arthritis and who presented with ulcer bleeding. After their ulcers had healed, we randomly assigned patients who were negative for Helicobacter pylori to receive either 200 mg of celecoxib twice daily plus daily placebo or 75 mg of diclofenac twice daily plus 20 mg of omeprazole daily for six months. The end point was recurrent ulcer bleeding.


RESULTS
In the intention-to-treat analysis, which included 287 patients (144 receiving celecoxib and 143 receiving diclofenac plus omeprazole), recurrent ulcer bleeding occurred in 7 patients receiving celecoxib and 9 receiving diclofenac plus omeprazole. The probability of recurrent bleeding during the six-month period was 4.9 percent (95 percent confidence interval, 3.1 to 6.7) for patients who received celecoxib and 6.4 percent (95 percent confidence interval, 4.3 to 8.4) for patients who received diclofenac plus omeprazole (difference, -1.5 percentage points; 95 percent confidence interval for the difference, -6.8 to 3.8). Renal adverse events, including hypertension, peripheral edema, and renal failure, occurred in 24.3 percent of the patients receiving celecoxib and 30.8 percent of those receiving diclofenac plus omeprazole.


CONCLUSIONS
Among patients with a recent history of ulcer bleeding, treatment with celecoxib was as effective as treatment with diclofenac plus omeprazole, with respect to the prevention of recurrent bleeding. Renal toxic effects are common in high-risk patients receiving celecoxib or diclofenac plus omeprazole.
The differential impacts of federally assisted housing programs on nearby property values: A philadelphia case study

Prior research has found negative impacts of public housing on neighborhood quality. Few studies have examined the impact of public and other assisted housing programs on real estate prices, particularly differential impact by program type. In this study, federally assisted housing units by program type are aggregated by 1/8or 1/4-mile radii around individual property sales and regressed on sales prices from 1989 through 1991, controlling for area demographic, housing, and amenity variables. Results show that public housing developments exert a modest negative impact on property values. Scatteredsite public housing and units rented with Section 8 certificates and vouchers have slight negative impacts. Federal Housing Administration–assisted units, public housing homeownership program units, and Section 8 New Construction and Rehabilitation units have modest positive impacts. Low-Income Housing Tax Credit sites have a slight negative effect. Results suggest that homeownership programs and new construction/ rehabilitation programs have a more positive impact on property values.
Spatial variation, environmental assessment and source identification of heavy metals in sediments of the Yangtze River Estuary.

In order to analyze the spatial distribution patterns, pollution sources and ecological risks of heavy metals (As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Mn, Ni, Pb and Zn), 30 sediment samples were taken from in the Yangtze River Estuary (YRE). The results indicated that the contamination ranking of heavy metals was As>Cr>Cd>Ni>Mn>Pb>Zn>Cu. In the various areas, the pollution magnitude decreased as follows: adjacent sea>river mouth>inner-region. Compared to data published for other regions, the YRE data indicated that the sediment was not severely contaminated by heavy metals. In the YRE, natural and anthropogenic inputs dominated the distribution patterns of the heavy metals. Beyond that, the hydrodynamic conditions, such as the Taiwan warm current, coastal current and Yangtze diluted water, also caused distribution variations in the study areas.
Supplier selection based on hierarchical potential support vector machine

Supplier selection is an important and widely studied topic since it has significant impact on purchasing management in supply chain. Recently, support vector machine has received much more attention from researchers, while studies on supplier selection based on it are few. In this paper, a new support vector machine technology, potential support vector machine, is introduced and then combined with decision tree to address issues on supplier selection including feature selection, multiclass classification and so on. So, hierarchical potential support vector machine and hierarchical system of features are put forward in the paper, and experiments show the proposed methodology has much better generalization performance and less computation consumptions than standard support vector machine. 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Efficacy of early postoperative enteral nutrition in supporting patients after esophagectomy.

AIM
This study aims to investigate and evaluate the efficacy and safety of early enteral nutrition (EN) in maintaining and improving the postoperative nutritional status in patients undergoing esophagectomy.


METHODS
A randomized, controlled clinical trial was conducted in 120 adult patients with esophageal cancer and undergoing esophagectomy. Patients were randomly divided into two groups receiving either EN (N.=64) or parenteral nutrition (PN) (N.=56) postoperatively. The nutritional intake was isonitrogenic and isocalorie for both groups. Nutritional status was evaluated preoperatively as well as on postoperative day I and day 8. Daily nitrogen balance was measured and 7-day cumulative nitrogen balance was calculated. The levels of serum markers including d-lactate, diamine oxidase (DAO), and endotoxin were determined on 1st, 4th and 8th postoperative day for analyzing intestinal barrier function. Postoperative infection rate and the incidence of nutrition support-related complications were examined.


RESULTS
The concentrations of serum albumin and prealbumin in patients of EN group were significantly higher than those in PN group and the concentrations of blood glucose, γ-GT, AKP, TB, and DB were significantly lower compared to those in the PN group (P<0.05). Both daily nitrogen balance and cumulative nitrogen balance of EN group were better than those of PN group since postoperative day III. The serum levels of d-lactate, DAO, and endotoxin of EN group were significantly lower than those of PN group on postoperative day VIII (P<0.01). The incidence of postoperative infections in blood, lung, and intestinal tract in EN group was lower compared to PN group (P<0.05). No severe complications associated with nutritional support occurred in EN group. The time to flatus passage in EN group was significantly shorter, and the cost of nutritional support was significantly less compared to PN group (P<0.05).


CONCLUSION
Postoperative early enteral nutrition was safe and feasible for patients undergoing esophagectomy. Compared to PN, EN more efficiently ameliorated postoperational nutritional status of the patients undergoing esophagectomy, played an important role in restoring intestinal barrier function postoperatively, reduced the incidence of postoperative infection, and decreased the cost of hospital stay.
An Interactive Visual Language for Term Subsumption Languages

A visual language is defined equivalent in expressive power to term subsumption languages expressed in textual form. To each knowledge representation primitive there corresponds a visual form expressing it concisely and completely. The visual language and textual languages are intertranslatable. Expressions in the language are graphs of labeled nodes and directed or undirected arcs. The nodes are labeled textually or iconically and their types are denoted by six different outlines. Computer-readable expressions in the language may be created through a structure editor that ensures that syntactic constraints are obeyed. The editor exports knowledge structures to a knowledge representation server computing subsumption and recognition, and maintaining a hybrid knowledge base of concept definitions and individual assertions. The server can respond to queries graphically displaying the results in the visual language in editable form. Knowledge structures can be entered directly in the editor or imported from knowledge acquisition tools such as those supporting repertory grid elicitation and empirical induction. Knowledge structures can be exported to a range of knowledge-based systems.
A new look at cold comp

The management of time and money in the production of printed material is the foremost concern of the publications field today. In our complex, busy, space-age society we must communicate; and the printed word remains one of man's most important methods of doing so. It is essential, therefore, that we find a way to produce the volume of primed material quickly and economically.
Intraoperative monitoring of carotid endarterectomy by transcranial motor evoked potential: A multicenter study of 600 patients

OBJECTIVE
This study was to investigate the utility of motor evoked potential monitoring elicited by transcranial electrical stimulation (tcMEP) during CEA in addition to the established median nerve somatosensory evoked potentials (mSSEPs).


METHODS
We retrospectively reviewed data from 600 patients undergoing CEA under general anesthesia with monitoring of mSSEPs and tcMEPs in a multicenter study. MSSEP and tcMEP parameters were recorded during internal carotid artery (ICA) cross clamping and compared with the postoperative motor outcome, demographic and patient history data.


RESULTS
The intraoperative monitoring of tcMEPs was successful in 594 of the patients (99%) and selective shunt was performed in 29 of them (4.83%). Nine of the patients showed a transient contralateral loss of tcMEPs, without changes in mSSEPs and required intervention (1.5% "false-negative"). Three of them showed postoperative motor deficits. The time period from tcMEP loss to intervention was significantly longer (p = 0.01) in this group compared to the patients without postoperative motor deficit.


CONCLUSION
TcMEPs during CEA may be an adjunct to mSSEP monitoring to avoid "false-negative" mSSEP results, as mSSEPs seem to lack specificity for detecting isolated ischemia of corticospinal pathway.


SIGNIFICANCE
TcMEPs seem to improve postoperative outcome, especially in case of a timely correction of cerebral ischemia.
Close proximity detection interference with acoustic telemetry: the importance of considering tag power output in low ambient noise environments

When employing acoustic telemetry to study aquatic species, understanding the functional dynamics of the monitoring system is essential for effective study design, data interpretation, and analysis. Typically, researchers are concerned with maximum effective detection range and consequently tend to employ the largest most powerful tags the study species can carry without considerable energetic burden. In ideal acoustic conditions of low ambient noise environments, low attenuation, and reflective structure, higher powered tags can be detected at larger distances from the receiver, but they can also be subject to the phenomenon ‘Close Proximity Detection Interference’ (CPDI). This occurs when reflective barriers, such as a calm water surface and/or hard substrate, result in strong transmission echoes that interfere with the transmission sequence. As a result, transmissions in close proximity to the receiver are not effectively decoded and logged. CPDI was assessed from the results of three detection range tests conducted using the Vemco 69 kHz telemetry system in three contrasting study systems: a sheltered marine Arctic embayment, a temperate freshwater lake, and an exposed marine sub-tropical reef line. For the Arctic embayment, CPDI was absent with the lower power V9 tag (90% of transmissions received at 55 m) but was recorded for the V13 tag and was most prevalent for the highest power V16 tag (18% and 8% of transmissions received at 55 m, respectively). Comparing V16 tag detection profiles between study systems, CPDI was evident in the low ambient noise Arctic embayment and temperate freshwater lake (highest transmission proportions recorded at 370 and 207 m, respectively) but was absent on the high ambient noise sub-tropical reef line. Functional examples highlight the ways in which CPDI can affect different study designs if not acknowledged or accounted for. CPDI was shown to be the most prominent in low ambient noise study systems and should be considered when choosing tag type/power during study design. If unaccounted for, CPDI could lead to misinterpretation during the analysis of acoustic telemetry data. The identification of CPDI highlights the complexities associated with the functionality of acoustic telemetry systems and supports recommendations for thorough detection range testing.
Better compliance to antihypertensive medications reduces cardiovascular risk.

OBJECTIVE
The effect of compliance with antihypertensive medications on the risk of cardiovascular outcomes in a population without a known history of cardiovascular disease has been addressed by a large population-based prospective, cohort study carried out by linking Italian administrative databases.


METHODS
The cohort of 242 594 patients aged 18 years or older, residents in the Italian Lombardy Region, who were newly treated for hypertension during 2000-2001, was followed from index prescription until 2007. During this period patients who experienced a hospitalization for coronary or cerebrovascular disease were identified (outcome). Exposure to antihypertensive drugs from index prescription until the date of hospitalization or censoring was assessed. Proportional hazards models were fitted to assess the association between persistence on and adherence with antihypertensive drug therapy and outcome. Data were adjusted for several covariates.


RESULTS
During an average follow-up of 6 years, 12 016 members of the cohort experienced the outcome. Compared with patients who experienced at least one episode of treatment discontinuation, those who continued treatment had a 37% reduced risk of cardiovascular outcomes (95% confidence interval 34-40%). Compared with patients who had very low drug coverage (proportion of days covered ≤ 25%), those at intermediate (from 51 to 75%) and high coverage (>75%) had risk reductions of 20% (16-24%) and 25% (20-29%), respectively. Similar effects were observed when coronary and cerebrovascular events were considered separately.


CONCLUSIONS
In the real life setting, fulfillment compliance with antihypertensive medications is effective in the primary prevention of cardiovascular outcomes.
The Child and Reality

Spend your few moment to read a book even only few pages. Reading book is not obligation and force for everybody. When you don't want to read, you can get punishment from the publisher. Read a book becomes a choice of your different characteristics. Many people with reading habit will always be enjoyable to read, or on the contrary. For some reasons, this the child and reality tends to be the representative book in this website.
A Heuristic Asymptotic Formula Concerning the Distribution of Prime Numbers

Suppose fx, h , ■ • ■ , fk are polynomials in one variable with all coefficients integral and leading coefficients positive, their degrees being h\ , h2, •• -, A* respectively. Suppose each of these polynomials is irreducible over the field of rational numbers and no two of them differ by a constant factor. Let Q(fx ,f2, • • • ,fk ; N) denote the number of positive integers n between 1 and N inclusive such that /i(n), f2(n), • ■ ■ , fk(n) are all primes. (We ignore the finitely many values of n for which some /,(n) is negative.) Then heuristically we would expect to have for N large
Motivation in the Learning of Mathematics

This study focuses on students’ motivation in solving mathematical problems. Objectives of the study are to (i) identify students’ level of effort, self efficacy and worry in solving mathematical problems based on gender, current cumulative grade point average (CGPA) and year of study; (ii) students’ level of motivation in solving mathematical problems based on gender, current cumulative grade point average (CGPA) and year of study; and (iii) establish relationship between levels of motivation and students’ mathematics achievement. The subscales used in the measurement of motivation are effort, self-efficacy, and worry. Data was gathered through a descriptive survey using questionnaires. Overall, students’ motivations was found to be high and majority of the respondents were in the high level for effort but were only moderate for self efficacy. Significant difference was established in overall motivation scores between the female and male respondents, but not for the subscales effort, self-efficacy and worry. Respondents with higher CGPA obtained higher overall scores for motivation. Significant positive correlations were established between effort, self-efficacy, and overall motivation with students’ overall academic achievement. Likewise, significant positive correlations were established between effort, self-efficacy, worry, and overall motivation with students’ average mathematics achievement.
Effects of multicomponent exercise on cognitive function in older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment: a randomized controlled trial

UNLABELLED



BACKGROUND
To examine the effects of a multicomponent exercise program on the cognitive function of older adults with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI).


METHODS



DESIGN
Twelve months, randomized controlled trial;


SETTING
Community center in Japan;


PARTICIPANTS
Fifty older adults (27 men) with aMCI ranging in age from 65 to 93 years (mean age, 75 years);


INTERVENTION
Subjects were randomized into either a multicomponent exercise (n = 25) or an education control group (n = 25). Subjects in the multicomponent exercise group exercised under the supervision of physiotherapists for 90 min/d, 2 d/wk, for a total of 80 times over 12 months. The exercises included aerobic exercises, muscle strength training, and postural balance retraining, and were conducted using multiple conditions to stimulate cognitive functions. Subjects in the control group attended three education classes regarding health during the 12-month period. MEASUREMENTS were administered before, after the 6-month, and after the 12-month intervention period;


MEASUREMENTS
The performance measures included the mini-mental state examination, logical memory subtest of the Wechsler memory scale-revised, digit symbol coding test, letter and categorical verbal fluency test, and the Stroop color word test.


RESULTS
The mean adherence to the exercise program was 79.2%. Improvements of cognitive function following multicomponent exercise were superior at treatment end (group × time interactions for the mini-mental state examination (P = 0.04), logical memory of immediate recall (P = 0.03), and letter verbal fluency test (P = 0.02)). The logical memory of delayed recall, digit symbol coding, and Stroop color word test showed main effects of time, although there were no group × time interactions.


CONCLUSIONS
This study indicates that exercise improves or supports, at least partly, cognitive performance in older adults with aMCI.