LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
In-Plane Shielding for CT: Effect of Off-Centering, Automatic Exposure Control and Shield-to-Surface Distance

OBJECTIVE
To assess effects of off-centering, automatic exposure control, and padding on attenuation values, noise, and radiation dose when using in-plane bismuth-based shields for CT scanning.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
A 30 cm anthropomorphic chest phantom was scanned on a 64-multidetector CT, with the center of the phantom aligned to the gantry isocenter. Scanning was repeated after placing a bismuth breast shield on the anterior surface with no gap and with 1, 2, and 6 cm of padding between the shield and the phantom surface. The "shielded" phantom was also scanned with combined modulation and off-centering of the phantom at 2 cm, 4 cm and 6 cm below the gantry isocenter. CT numbers, noise, and surface radiation dose were measured. The data were analyzed using an analysis of variance.


RESULTS
The in-plane shield was not associated with any significant increment for the surface dose or CT dose index volume, which was achieved by comparing the radiation dose measured by combined modulation technique to the fixed mAs (p > 0.05). Irrespective of the gap or the surface CT numbers, surface noise increased to a larger extent compared to Hounsfield unit (HU) (0-6 cm, 26-55%) and noise (0-6 cm, 30-40%) in the center. With off-centering, in-plane shielding devices are associated with less dose savings, although dose reduction was still higher than in the absence of shielding (0 cm off-center, 90% dose reduction; 2 cm, 61%) (p < 0.0001). Streak artifacts were noted at 0 cm and 1 cm gaps but not at 2 cm and 6 cm gaps of shielding to the surface distances.


CONCLUSION
In-plane shields are associated with greater image noise, artifactually increased attenuation values, and streak artifacts. However, shields reduce radiation dose regardless of the extent of off-centering. Automatic exposure control did not increase radiation dose when using a shield.
Peano Structures and the Semantics of Iteration

In this paper closure theory is applied in order to obtain a uniform semantical treatment of both primitive and general iteration. In particular, the theory of Peano algebras has been extended to algebraic structures to inductively define both primitive and general iterates as structure homomorphisms, i.e. as fixed points of iteration equations.
Genome-wide analysis reveals characteristics of off-target sites bound by the Cas9 endonuclease

RNA-guided genome editing with the CRISPR-Cas9 system has great potential for basic and clinical research, but the determinants of targeting specificity and the extent of off-target cleavage remain insufficiently understood. Using chromatin immunoprecipitation and high-throughput sequencing (ChIP-seq), we mapped genome-wide binding sites of catalytically inactive Cas9 (dCas9) in HEK293T cells, in combination with 12 different single guide RNAs (sgRNAs). The number of off-target sites bound by dCas9 varied from ∼10 to >1,000 depending on the sgRNA. Analysis of off-target binding sites showed the importance of the PAM-proximal region of the sgRNA guiding sequence and that dCas9 binding sites are enriched in open chromatin regions. When targeted with catalytically active Cas9, some off-target binding sites had indels above background levels in a region around the ChIP-seq peak, but generally at lower rates than the on-target sites. Our results elucidate major determinants of Cas9 targeting, and we show that ChIP-seq allows unbiased detection of Cas9 binding sites genome-wide.
Maintenance of glycaemic control with the evening administration of a long acting sulphonylurea in male type 2 diabetic patients undertaking the Ramadan fast.

BACKGROUND
In Ramadan, misuse of hypoglycaemic agents, alterations in diet and hypoglycaemia are frequent. This study assessed whether switching to an evening administration of a long acting sulphonylurea during the 29-day, dawn to dusk fast, can maintain glycaemic control in patients with type 2 diabetes.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
Male type 2 diabetic patients from Bangladesh, Pakistan and India, under glycaemic control with gliclazide modified release (MR) 60 mg monotherapy, switched to evening administration of the same dose during Ramadan, and reverted to the morning schedule thereafter. The primary outcome was the difference in fasting plasma glucose (FPG) before and after Ramadan.


RESULTS
In 136 patients, mean (95% CI) FPG decreased by 0.01 mmol/l (0-0.2, p = 0.3) with evening medication by the end of the fast, and increased by 0.2 mmol/l (0.1-0.3, p = 0.01) after reverting to morning medication 20 days later. There were 5 (3.7%) hypoglycaemic episodes before, 3 (2.2%) during and 2 (1.5%) after Ramadan.


CONCLUSION
Male type 2 diabetic patients undertaking the Ramadan fast can safely maintain glycaemic control with evening administration of gliclazide MR 60 mg during the fast, and reverting to a morning schedule thereafter.
Coexistence of ZigBee-Based WBAN and WiFi for Health Telemonitoring Systems

The development of telemonitoring via wireless body area networks (WBANs) is an evolving direction in personalized medicine and home-based mobile health. A WBAN consists of small, intelligent medical sensors which collect physiological parameters such as electrocardiogram, electroencephalography, and blood pressure. The recorded physiological signals are sent to a coordinator via wireless technologies, and are then transmitted to a healthcare monitoring center. One of the most widely used wireless technologies in WBANs is ZigBee because it is targeted at applications that require a low data rate and long battery life. However, ZigBee-based WBANs face severe interference problems in the presence of WiFi networks. This problem is caused by the fact that most ZigBee channels overlap with WiFi channels, severely affecting the ability of healthcare monitoring systems to guarantee reliable delivery of physiological signals. To solve this problem, we have developed an algorithm that controls the load in WiFi networks to guarantee the delay requirement for physiological signals, especially for emergency messages, in environments with coexistence of ZigBee-based WBAN and WiFi. Since WiFi applications generate traffic with different delay requirements, we focus only on WiFi traffic that does not have stringent timing requirements. In this paper, therefore, we propose an adaptive load control algorithm for ZigBee-based WBAN/WiFi coexistence environments, with the aim of guaranteeing that the delay experienced by ZigBee sensors does not exceed a maximally tolerable period of time. Simulation results show that our proposed algorithm guarantees the delay performance of ZigBee-based WBANs by mitigating the effects of WiFi interference in various scenarios.
Knowledge, attitude and practices of healthcare providers towards deep vein thrombosis prophylaxis in five teaching hospitals of Rawalpindi.

BACKGROUND
Prophylaxis of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) is underutilised in Pakistan. This cross-sectional survey was designed to evaluate knowledge, attitude and practices of healthcare providers towards DVT prophylaxis in teaching hospitals in and around Rawalpindi.


METHODS
Knowledge, attitude and practices was assessed by a 12-item questionnaire filled-in by healthcare providers in five teaching hospitals. Eleven out of 12 questions were multiple-choice type and one was open ended.


RESULTS
One hundred-sixty-nine, out of 200 questionnaires were returned and were analysed. Total 43.2% of the respondents were house-officers. Although 98.8% agreed that DVT prophylaxis is clinically important, but 39.4% actually prescribed it themselves. Out of these, only 10.3% respondents did it routinely. Low molecular weight heparin (LMWH) was the preferred prophylaxis used (36.7%). Most of the respondents underestimated the prevalence and consequences of DVT in hospitalised patients.


CONCLUSION
Knowledge and practices of healthcare providers about DVT prophylaxis in hospitalised patients is less than ideal. Hospitals need to develop their own guidelines for DVT prophylaxis.
Inkjet-Printed Wideband Antenna on Resin-Coated Paper Substrate for Curved Wireless Devices

A low-cost, inkjet-printed multiband monopole antenna for conformal wireless applications is presented for the first time. The antenna is implemented on a low-cost resin-coated paper substrate which can be used for conformal devices. The antenna developed here is composed of four branch lines on the radiator and three L-shaped slots on the ground plane that help to generate multiple bands without increasing the size of the antenna. The antenna has a compact size, making it suitable for handheld and wearable wireless devices. Details of the inkjet printing fabrication processes and related issues are presented. The antennas were characterized under flat and bent conditions, and the results indicate that the antennas can cover most bands for mobile and wireless applications such as PCS, UMTS, GSM1900, and WLAN.
Reduction in operator radiation exposure during transradial catheterization and intervention using a simple lead drape.

BACKGROUND
Transradial access for cardiac catheterization and intervention is a recognized method for reducing complications and improving patient comfort. However, there are concerns over possible increased operator radiation exposure. We tested the hypothesis that a simple lead drape would reduce operator exposure in transradial procedures.


METHODS
Patients undergoing either diagnostic or interventional procedures using transradial access were assigned in an alternating manner to the use of a 0.5-mm lead apron across the patient's abdomen in addition to standard operator protection. Patients were divided into 4 groups: (left enhanced shielding vs left standard shielding; right enhanced shielding vs right standard shielding). Dosimeters were taped to the primary and secondary operators' left wrist and outside the thyroid guard. The operator exposure was measured for each site on every case in centigray.


RESULTS
In standard shielded patients, there was no increase in operator exposure between the left and right approach patients at any measurement site. Measured exposure was reduced with enhanced shielding at all dosimeter sites except the secondary operator's collar (both left and right) and the primary operator's collar from the right. There was no significant difference in fluoroscopy, air kerma, or dose area product between standard and enhanced shielded patients.


CONCLUSIONS
The use of a lead drape reduces the rate of operator radiation exposure at multiple measurement sites. Use of the left radial approach was not associated with an increase in operator exposure compared with the right radial approach.
Theorizing about gender and entrepreneurship: bridging the gap with social psychology

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to approach women's entrepreneurship from a social psychological perspective, with the aim of contributing to a better understanding of the entrepreneurial phenomena and to its development as a field of research.Design/methodology/approach – The gender aspect of entrepreneurship is essentially socio‐psychological in nature. First, the authors define the social psychology research scope and present a selection of social psychology theories that are particularly relevant to the domain of women's entrepreneurship. Concepts such as stereotypes, stereotype threat and role models are introduced. Second, the authors instantiate how the social psychology experimental method can address core questions in the women's entrepreneurship field, such as women's under‐representation in entrepreneurial positions.Findings – The conclusion of this paper is twofold: on the one hand, social psychology theories can address crucial issues in women's entrepreneurship and on the other hand, ...
Biological activities of Ocimum sanctum L. fixed oil--an overview.

Seeds of Ocimum sanctum L. (Labiatae; popularly known as 'Tulsi' in Hindi and 'Holy Basil' in English) contain a pale yellow colored fixed oil. The oil possesses antiinflammatory activity due to dual inhibition of arachidonate metabolism supplemented by antihistaminic activity. The antiinflammatory activity is not dependent on the pituitary adrenal axis. The oil possesses antipyretic activity due to prostaglandin inhibition and peripherally acting analgesic activity. The oil has been found to be effective against formaldehyde or adjuvant induced arthritis and turpentine oil induced joint edema in animals. Lipoxygenase inhibitory, histamine antagonistic and antisecretory activities of the oil contribute towards antiulcer activity. The oil can inhibit enhancement of vascular capillary permeability and leucocyte migration following inflammatory stimulus. The LD50 of the oil is 42.5 ml/kg and long-term use of oil at 3 ml/kg dose does not produce any untoward effects in rats. The oil contains a-linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid, which on metabolism produces eicosapentaenoic acid and the same appears to be responsible for the biological activity. The oil has hypotensive, anticoagulant and immunomodulatory activities. Antioxidant property of the oil renders metabolic inhibition, chemoprevention and hypolipidaemic activity. Presence of linolenic acid in the oil imparts antibacterial activity against Staphylococcus aureus. The oil alone or in combination with cloxacillin, a beta-lactamase resistant penicillin, has been found to be beneficial in bovine mastitis, an inflammatory disorder resulting from staphylococcal infection. Existence of anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antibacterial activities in single entity i.e. fixed oil appears to be unique.
Simultaneous ring voice-over-Internet phone system enables rapid physician elicitation of explicit informed consent in prehospital stroke treatment trials.

BACKGROUND
Cellular phone conversations between on-scene patients or their legally authorized representatives (LARs) and off-scene enrolling physician-investigators require immediate and reliable connection systems to obtain explicit informed research consent in prehospital treatment trials.


METHODS
The NIH Field Administration of Stroke Therapy-Magnesium (FAST-MAG) Trial implemented a voice-over-internet protocol (VOIP) simultaneous ring system (multiple investigator cell phones called simultaneously and first responder connected to call) to enable physician-investigators to elicit consent immediately from competent patients or LARs encountered by 228 ambulances enrolling patients in a multicenter prehospital stroke trial. For 1 month, the number, origin, duration, and yield of enrolling line calls were monitored prospectively.


RESULTS
Six investigators were connected to 106 enrolling line calls, with no identified unanswered calls. Thirty-five percent of new patient calls yielded an enrollment. The most common reasons for non-enrollment were last known well >2 h (n = 7) and unconsentable patient without LAR available (n = 7). No non-enrollments were directly attributable to the VOIP system. In enrollments, consent was provided by the patient in 67% and a LAR in 33%. The duration of enrollment calls (mean +/- SD: 8.4 +/- 2.5 min, range 6-14) was longer than non-enrollment calls (5.5 +/- 3.5, range 2-13; p < 0.001). The median interval from last known well to study agent start was 46 min, and 70% were enrolled within 60 min of onset.


CONCLUSIONS
The simultaneous ring system was reliable and effective, permitting enrollment of a substantial number of patients within the first hour after stroke onset. VOIP cellular networks with simultaneous ring are a preferred means of facilitating consent in prehospital treatment trials.
Effect of breakfast skipping on diurnal variation of energy metabolism and blood glucose.

Epidemiological studies suggest an association between breakfast skipping and body weight gain, insulin resistance or type 2 diabetes. Time when meal is consumed affects postprandial increase in energy expenditure and blood glucose, and breakfast skipping may reduce 24 h energy expenditure and elevate blood glucose level. The present study evaluated the effect of breakfast skipping on diurnal variation of energy metabolism and blood glucose. The skipped breakfast was compensated by following big meals at lunch and supper. In a randomized repeated-measure design with or without breakfast, eight males stayed twice in a room-size respiratory chamber. Blood glucose was recorded with a continuous glucose monitoring system. Breakfast skipping did not affect 24 h energy expenditure, fat oxidation and thermic effect of food, but increased overall 24 h average of blood glucose (83 ± 3 vs 89 ± 2 mg/dl, P < 0.05). Unlike 24 h glucose level, 24 h energy expenditure was robust when challenged by breakfast skipping. These observations suggest that changes in glucose homeostasis precede that of energy balance, in the potential sequence caused by breakfast skipping, if this dietary habit has any effect on energy balance.:
Classifying arguments by scheme

Argumentation schemes are structures or templates for various kinds of arguments. Given the text of an argument with premises and conclusion identified, we classify it as an instance of one of five common schemes, using features specific to each scheme. We achieve accuracies of 63–91% in one-against-others classification and 80–94% in pairwise classification (baseline = 50% in both cases).
Removal of structurally different dyes in submerged membrane fungi reactor—Biosorption/PAC-adsorption, membrane retention and biodegradation

The long-term performance of a submerged membrane fungi reactor was observed while a synthetic textile wastewater containing either or both of the two structurally different azo dyes was continuously fed. Compared to the Acid Orange II dye (simpler structure), higher biosorption but slower biodegradation of the polymeric dye (Poly S119) was observed in sterile batch tests. In the membrane bioreactor (MBR), although a relative abundance of fungi (66%) without any specific control of bacterial contamination could be maintained, unlike in pure fungus culture, enzymatic activity was below detection limit. Nevertheless, >99% removal of Poly S119 was consistently achieved under a dye loading of 0.1 g L−1 d−1 (HRT = 1 d). Comparison of the reactor-supernatant (SQ) and the membrane-permeate (PQ) qualities (31% improvement) revealed the significant contribution of the membrane to the overall removal (biosorption, cake layer filtration, biodegradation) of Poly S119. Contrary to the faster removal of Orange II in batch test, membrane-permeate quality revealed 93% removal of the dye in MBR (corresponding SQ = 82%). However, excellent (>99%) stable removal of Orange II or of both the dyes together, as well as stable enzymatic activity was observed following addition of powdered activated carbon (PAC) in the MBR. In accordance with real textile wastewater, dye contributed only 5% of the TOC loading (0.944 g L−1 d−1) in this study. In contrast to low TOC removal by fungi alone, the MBR containing mixed microbial community steadily achieved >98% removal, which improved further to >99% after PAC addition.
Automated Planning and Acting

action into more concrete ones. Each dashed arrow maps a task into a plan of actions. Cambridge University Press 978-1-107-03727-4 — Automated Planning and Acting Malik Ghallab , Dana Nau , Paolo Traverso Excerpt More Information www.cambridge.org © in this web service Cambridge University Press 1.2 Conceptual View of an Actor 7 above it, and decides what activities need to be performed to carry out those tasks. Performing a task may involve reining it into lower-level steps, issuing subtasks to other components below it in the hierarchy, issuing commands to be executed by the platform, and reporting to the component that issued the task. In general, tasks in different parts of the hierarchymay involve concurrent use of different types of models and specialized reasoning functions. This example illustrates two important principles of deliberation: hierarchical organization and continual online processing. Hierarchically organized deliberation. Some of the actions the actor wishes to perform do not map directly into a command executable by its platform. An action may need further reinement and planning. This is done online and may require different representations, tools, and techniques from the ones that generated the task. A hierarchized deliberation process is not intended solely to reduce the search complexity of ofline plan synthesis. It is needed mainly to address the heterogeneous nature of the actions about which the actor is deliberating, and the corresponding heterogeneous representations and models that such deliberations require. Continual online deliberation.Only in exceptional circumstances will the actor do all of its deliberation ofline before executing any of its planned actions. Instead, the actor generally deliberates at runtime about how to carry out the tasks it is currently performing. The deliberation remains partial until the actor reaches its objective, including through lexible modiication of its plans and retrials. The actor’s predictive models are often limited. Its capability to acquire and maintain a broad knowledge about the current state of its environment is very restricted. The cost of minor mistakes and retrials are often lower than the cost of extensive modeling, information gathering, and thorough deliberation. Throughout the acting process, the actor reines and monitors its actions; reacts to events; and extends, updates, and repairs its plan on the basis of its perception focused on the relevant part of the environment. Different parts of the actor’s hierarchy often use different representations of the state of the actor and its environment. These representations may correspond to different amounts of detail in the description of the state and different mathematical constructs. In Figure 1.2, a graph of discrete locations may be used at the upper levels, while the lower levels may use vectors of continuous coniguration variables for the robot limbs. Finally, because complex deliberations can be compiled down by learning into lowlevel commands, the frontier between deliberation functions and the execution platform is not rigid; it evolves with the actor’s experience.
Towards an integrated and synergized social policy: Concepts and strategies

Abstract In first reviewing the most recent trends of social policy in Western Europe, the present article argues that social policy is best conceived of as a plural action system that enhances the interactions between community care and intermediary welfare organizations and does this within the framework of a welfare state working as an Observation‐Diagnosis‐Guidance system. Social policies for the 1990s can be better understood, planned, and implemented if seen as a new way for steering social systems.
Application of the cross wavelet transform and wavelet coherence to geophysical time series

Many scientists have made use of the wavelet method in analyzing time series, often using popular free software. However, at present there are no similar easy to use wavelet packages for analyzing two time series together. We discuss the cross wavelet transform and wavelet coherence for examining relationships in time frequency space between two time series. We demonstrate how phase angle statistics can be used to gain confidence in causal relationships and test mechanistic models of physical relationships between the time series. As an example of typical data where such analyses have proven useful, we apply the methods to the Arctic Oscillation index and the Baltic maximum sea ice extent record. Monte Carlo methods are used to assess the statistical significance against red noise backgrounds. A software package has been developed that allows users to perform the cross wavelet transform and wavelet coherence (http://www.pol.ac.uk/home/research/waveletcoherence/ ).