LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Phase II study of monthly pasireotide LAR (SOM230C) for recurrent or progressive meningioma.

OBJECTIVE
A subset of meningiomas recur after surgery and radiation therapy, but no medical therapy for recurrent meningioma has proven effective.


METHODS
Pasireotide LAR is a long-acting somatostatin analog that may inhibit meningioma growth. This was a phase II trial in patients with histologically confirmed recurrent or progressive meningioma designed to evaluate whether pasireotide LAR prolongs progression-free survival at 6 months (PFS6). Patients were stratified by histology (atypical [World Health Organization grade 2] and malignant [grade 3] meningiomas in cohort A and benign [grade 3] in cohort B).


RESULTS
Eighteen patients were accrued in cohort A and 16 in cohort B. Cohort A had median age 59 years, median Karnofsky performance status 80, 17 (94%) had previous radiation therapy, and 11 (61%) showed high octreotide uptake. Cohort B had median age 52 years, median Karnofsky performance status 90, 11 (69%) had previous radiation therapy, and 12 (75%) showed high octreotide uptake. There were no radiographic responses to pasireotide LAR therapy in either cohort. Twelve patients (67%) in cohort A and 13 (81%) in cohort B achieved stable disease. In cohort A, PFS6 was 17% and median PFS 15 weeks (95% confidence interval: 8-20). In cohort B, PFS6 was 50% and median PFS 26 weeks (12-43). Treatment was well tolerated. Octreotide uptake and insulin-like growth factor-1 levels did not predict outcome. Expression of somatostatin receptor 3 predicted favorable PFS and overall survival.


CONCLUSIONS
Pasireotide LAR has limited activity in recurrent meningiomas. The finding that somatostatin receptor 3 is associated with favorable outcomes warrants further investigation.


CLASSIFICATION OF EVIDENCE
This study provides Class IV evidence that in patients with recurrent or progressive meningioma, pasireotide LAR does not significantly increase the proportion of patients with PFS at 6 months.
A review of gas sensors employed in electronic nose applications

This paper reviews the range of sensors used in electronic nose (e-nose) systems to date. It outlines the operating principles and fabrication methods of each sensor type as well as the applications in which the different sensors have been utilised. It also outlines the advantages and disadvantages of each sensor for application in a cost-effective low-power handheld e-nose system.
Towards a theory of natural language interfaces to databases

The need for Natural Language Interfaces (NLIs) to databases has become increasingly acute as more nontechnical people access information through their web browsers, PDAs and cell phones. Yet NLIs are only usable if they map natural language questions to SQL queries correctly. We introduce the Precise NLI [2], which reduces the semantic interpretation challenge in NLIs to a graph matching problem. Precise uses the max-flow algorithm to efficiently solve this problem. Each max-flow solution corresponds to a possible semantic interpretation of the sentence. precise collects max-flow solutions, discards the solutions that do not obey syntactic constraints and retains the rest as the basis for generating SQL queries corresponding to the question q. The syntactic information is extracted from the parse tree corresponding to the given question which is computed by a statistical parser [1]. For a broad, well-defined class of semantically tractable natural language questions, Precise is guaranteed to map each question to the corresponding SQL querySemantically tractable questions correspond to a natural, domain-independent subset of English that can be efficiently and accurately interpreted as nonrecursive Datalog clauses. Precise is transportable to arbitrary databases, such as the Restaurants,Jobs and Geography databases used in our implementation. Examples of semantically tractable questions include: "What Chinese restaurants with a 3.5 rating are in Seattle?", "What are the areas of US states with large populations?", "What jobs require 4 years of experience and desire a B.S.CS degree?".Given a question which is not semantically tractable, Precise recognizes it as such and informs the user that it cannot answer it.Given a semantically tractable question, Precise computes the set of non-equivalent SQL interpretations corresponding to the question. If a unique such SQL interpretation exists, Precise outputs it together with the corresponding result set obtained by querying the current database. If the set contains more than one SQL interpretation, the natural language question is ambiguous in the context of the current database. In this case, Precise asks for the user's help in determining which interpretation is the correct one.Our experiments have shown that Precise has high coverage and accuracy over common English questions. In future work, we plan to explore increasingly broad classes of questions and include Precise as a module in a full-fledged dialog system. An important direction for future work is helping users understand the types of questions Precise cannot handle via dialog, enabling them to build an accurate mental model of the system and its capabilities. Also, our own group's work on the EXACT natural language interface [3] builds on Precise and on the underlying theoretical framework. EXACT composes an extended version of Precise with a sound and complete planner to develop a powerful and provably reliable interface to household appliances
Development of a novel direct-drive tubular linear brushless permanent-magnet motor

This paper presents a novel design for a tubular linear brushless permanent-magnet motor. In this design, the magnets in the moving part are oriented in an NS-NS—SN-SN fashion which leads to higher magnetic force near the like-pole region. An analytical methodology to calculate the motor force and to size the actuator was developed. The linear motor is operated in conjunction with a position sensor, three power amplifiers, and a controller to form a complete solution for controlled precision actuation. Real-time digital controllers enhanced the dynamic performance of the motor, and gain scheduling reduced the effects of a nonlinear dead band. In its current state, the motor has a rise time of 30 ms, a settling time of 60 ms, and 25% overshoot to a 5-mm step command. The motor has a maximum speed of 1.5 m/s and acceleration up to 10 g. It has a 10-cm travel range and 26-N maximum pull-out force. The compact size of the motor suggests it could be used in robotic applications requiring moderate force and precision, such as robotic-gripper positioning or actuation. The moving part of the motor can extend significantly beyond its fixed support base. This reaching ability makes it useful in applications requiring a small, direct-drive actuator, which is required to extend into a spatially constrained environment.
Management of adolescents with very poorly controlled type 1 diabetes by nurses: a parallel group randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUNDS
Fluctuation in glycemia due to hormonal changes, growth periods, physical activity, and emotions make diabetes management difficult during adolescence. Our objective was to show that a close control of patients' self-management of diabetes by nurse-counseling could probably improve metabolic control in adolescents with type 1 diabetes.


METHODS
We designed a multicenter, randomized controlled, parallel group, clinical trial. Seventy seven adolescents aged 12-17 years with A1C >8% were assigned to either an intervention group (pediatrician visit every 3 months + nurse visit and phone calls) or to the control group (pediatrician visit every 3 months). The primary outcome was the evolution of the rate of A1C during the 12 months of follow-up. Secondary outcomes include patient's acceptance of the disease (evaluated by visual analog scale), the number of hypoglycemic or ketoacidosis episodes requiring hospitalization, and evaluation of A1C rate over time in each group.


RESULTS
Seventy-seven patients were enrolled by 10 clinical centers. Seventy (89.6%) completed the study, the evolution of A1C and participants satisfaction over the follow-up period was not significantly influenced by the nurse intervention.


CONCLUSION
Nurse-led intervention to improve A1C did not show a significant benefit in adolescents with type 1 diabetes because of lack of power. Only psychological management and continuous glucose monitoring have shown, so far, a slight but significant benefit on A1C. We did not show improvements in A1C control in teenagers by nurse-led intervention.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
Clinical Trials.gov registration number: NCT00308256, 28 March 2006.
Final Report on the Safety Assessment of Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate

Sodium and Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate are anionic surfactants used in cosmetics as cleansing agents. In absorption, metabolism, and excretion studies, Sodium Lauryl Sulfate had a degenerative effect on the cell membranes because of its protein denaturing properties. Low levels of skin penetration may occur at high use concentration. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate had an LD50 of 0.8 to 1.10 g/kg in rats. A formulation containing 15% Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate caused depression, labored breathing, diarrhea, and death in four out of 20 animals. In acute ocular tests, 10% Sodium Lauryl Sulfate caused cornea1 damage to the rabbits’ eyes if not irrigated, or if irrigation was delayed. A Draize test of a product containing 5.1% Sodium Lauryl Sulfate caused mild irritation, and products containing 21% detergent were severely irritating with no rinse, and mildly irritating when rinsed. Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate solutions containing 1.25%-27.4% detergent showed increasing irritation with increasing concentration; rinsing decreased irritation. Acute animal skin irritation studies of 0.5%-10% Sodium Lauryl Sulfate caused slight to moderate irritation. Applications of lo%-30% detergent caused skin corrosion and severe irritation. Solutions of 2%, lo%, and 20% Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate were highly irritating and dangerous. One percent and 5% Sodium Lauryl Sulfate produced a significant number of comedones when applied to the pinna of albino rabbits. A chronic oral feeding study in rats of 0.25%, 0.5%, and 1.0% Sodium Lauryl Sulfate in the diet for two years produced no abnormalities. A 91-day percutaneous toxicity study of a shampoo containing 17.5% Ammonium Lauryl Sulfate had no treatment-related abnormalities except for moderate to severe dermal effects. In mutagenesis studies, rats fed 1.13% and 0.56% Sodium Lauryl Sulfate in the diet for 90 days produced no more chromosomal aberrations or clastogenic effects than did a control diet. Sodium Lauryl Sulfate was tested for human skin irritation in concentrations ranging from 0.1% to 10%. Open patches were less irritating than closed patches, and irritation increased directly with concentration. Similar results
A Nonlinear Primal-Dual Method for Total Variation-Based Image Restoration

We present a new method for solving total variation (TV) minimization problems in image restoration. The main idea is to remove some of the singularity caused by the nondifferentiability of the quantity |∇u| in the definition of the TV-norm before we apply a linearization technique such as Newton’s method. This is accomplished by introducing an additional variable for the flux quantity appearing in the gradient of the objective function, which can be interpreted as the normal vector to the level sets of the image u. Our method can be viewed as a primal-dual method as proposed by Conn and Overton [A Primal-Dual Interior Point Method for Minimizing a Sum of Euclidean Norms, preprint, 1994] and Andersen [Ph.D. thesis, Odense University, Denmark, 1995] for the minimization of a sum of Euclidean norms. In addition to possessing local quadratic convergence, experimental results show that the new method seems to be globally convergent.
A new factorization technique using quadratic forms

The paper presents a practical method for factoring an arbitrary N by representing N or \N by one of at most three quadratic forms: XAf = s2 — Dy2, X = 1, — 1, 2, D = — 1, ±2, ±3, ±6. These three forms appropriate to N, together with inequalities for y, are given for all N prime to 6. Presently available sieving facilities make the method quite effective and economical for numbers N having 20 to 25 digits. Four examples arising from aliquot series are discussed in detail. It is the purpose of this paper to present and illustrate a new procedure for factoring numbers N of no special form which in the present state of the art is particularly effective for numbers having from 20 to 25 decimal digits. The implementation of the method was the result of three circumstances: (a) a decision to assist Richard Guy and John Selfridge in their survey of aliquot series, i.e., sequences of iterates of the sum of the proper divisors of a number, a source of many numbers TV of the abovementioned magnitude; (b) the elimination of idle time at the Computer Center of the University of California, Berkeley campus, which made direct search for the factors of N prohibitively expensive; and (c) the availability of the Delay Line Sieve, DLS-157 at no cost [5]. It is hoped that those readers who have unlimited access to the virtuosity of an expensive computer system may also find the method of some use although circumstances (a), (b) and (c) may all fail to exist, since the sieving part of the procedure can easily be done inside the system [6], even if at a slower rate than the million per second rate of the off line DLS-157. The present method is a modification of much older ones depending on the representation of N, or a chosen multiple of N, by a binary quadratic form. Such methods began with Fermât, 1643, [3] who suggested solving (1) N = s2 / = (s y)ix + y) for x and y. One such representation of N with s < (N + l)/2 suffices to factor N, and the nonexistence of a solution is a proof of the primality of N. In recent decades, the Fermât method has been extensively used in the case where jV is known to have all its factors of the form ax + 1. The method is also a good second step following a disappointing direct search for factors of N below some fairly high limit. The drawback of Fermat's method in the general case is its great average expense, which is OiN). This is to be contrasted with that of the present method which is only 0(\/N). In 1647, Mersenne [3] noted that N is composite if N is the sum of two squares in two really different ways. Thus, the use of quadratic forms, other than Fermat's degenerate (1), has a long history. Euler, Legendre, Gauss, Chebyshev [3] and a Received March 30, 1973, revised July 2, 1973. AMS (MOS) subject classifications (1970). Primary 05B30, 10A25, 10B05, 10C05, 12A50.
A Simple Algorithm for Fitting a Gaussian Function [DSP Tips and Tricks]

Gaussian functions are suitable for describing many processes in mathematics, science, and engineering, making them very useful in the fields of signal and image processing. For example, the random noise in a signal, induced by complicated physical factors, can be simply modeled with the Gaussian distribution according to the central limit theorem from the probability theory.
Clinical and economic impact of non-adherence in COPD: a systematic review.

BACKGROUND
Medication for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) has shown to substantially reduce symptoms and slow progression of disease. However, non-adherence to medication is common and associated with worsened clinical and economic outcomes.


OBJECTIVE
The objective of this study was to perform a systematic review of published literature to assess the impact of non-adherence to COPD medication on clinical and economic outcomes.


METHODS
A search in PubMed and Web of Science databases was conducted of original studies published from database inception to 2012. Studies must report on the association between adherence to COPD medication and outcomes, published in English in peer-reviewed journals and full texts needed to be available.


RESULTS
Twelve full articles were included in the review. Most studies were retrospective database studies. Seven studies reported on the association between adherence and clinical outcomes, two on mortality, three on costs, four on quality of life and one on work productivity. Results indicated a clear association between adherence and both clinical and economic outcomes. Evidence from studies revealed increased hospitalizations, mortality, quality of life and loss of productivity among non-adherent patients.


CONCLUSION
This review revealed a clear association between non-adherence to COPD medication and worsened clinical and economic outcomes making non-adherent patients a priority for cost-effective interventions.
Cash Flow in Predicting Financial Distress and Bankruptcy

Purpose of this study is to determine whether cash flow impacts business failure prediction using the BP models (Altman z-score, or Neural Network, or any of the BP models which could be implemented having objective to predict the financial distress or more complex financial failure-bankruptcy of the banks or companies). Units of analysis are financial ratios derived from raw financial data: B/S, P&L statements (income statements) and cash flow statements of both failed and non-failed companies/corporates that have been collected from the auditing resources and reports performed. A number of these studies examined whether a cash flow improve the prediction of business failure. The authors would have the objective to show the evidence and usefulness and efficacy of statistical models such as Altman Z-score discriminant analysis bankruptcy predictive models to assess client on going concern status. Failed and non-failed companies were selected for analysis to determine whether the cash flow improves the business failure prediction aiming to proof that the cash flow certainly makes better financial distress and bankruptcy prediction possible. Key-Words: bankruptcy prediction, financial distress, financial crisis, transition economy, auditing statement, balance sheet, profit and loss accounts, income statements
A Reply to Lam and Yang

Additional support is given for assertions that the Hong Kong Chinese (a) are materialistic, (b) have stricter standards for nonmarital sexual behavior; and (c) do not have a feminist movement as such. Allegations of sarcasm are denied, as is any intention to denigrate the Chinese. The difficulties of contrasting two cultures are discussed.
Meta-analysis of chemotherapy in head and neck cancer (MACH-NC): an update on 93 randomised trials and 17,346 patients.

BACKGROUND
Our previous individual patient data (IPD) meta-analysis showed that chemotherapy improved survival in patients curatively treated for non-metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), with a higher benefit with concomitant chemotherapy. However the heterogeneity of the results limited the conclusions and prompted us to confirm the results on a more complete database by adding the randomised trials conducted between 1994 and 2000.


METHODS
The updated IPD meta-analysis included trials comparing loco-regional treatment to loco-regional treatment+chemotherapy in HNSCC patients and conducted between 1965 and 2000. The log-rank-test, stratified by trial, was used to compare treatments. The hazard ratios of death were calculated.


RESULTS
Twenty-four new trials, most of them of concomitant chemotherapy, were included with a total of 87 trials and 16,485 patients. The hazard ratio of death was 0.88 (p<0.0001) with an absolute benefit for chemotherapy of 4.5% at 5 years, and a significant interaction (p<0.0001) between chemotherapy timing (adjuvant, induction or concomitant) and treatment. Both direct (6 trials) and indirect comparisons showed a more pronounced benefit of the concomitant chemotherapy as compared to induction chemotherapy. For the 50 concomitant trials, the hazard ratio was 0.81 (p<0.0001) and the absolute benefit 6.5% at 5 years. There was a decreasing effect of chemotherapy with age (p=0.003, test for trend).


CONCLUSION
The benefit of concomitant chemotherapy was confirmed and was greater than the benefit of induction chemotherapy.
Risk factors for hospital admission among older persons with newly diagnosed heart failure: findings from the Cardiovascular Health Study.

OBJECTIVES
This study sought to identify risk factors for the occurrence of all-cause hospital admissions among older persons after heart failure diagnosis, and to determine whether geriatric conditions would emerge as independent risk factors for admission when evaluated in the context of other relevant clinical data.


BACKGROUND
Efforts to reduce costs in heart failure have focused on hospital utilization, yet few studies have examined how geriatric conditions affect the long-term risk for hospital admission after heart failure diagnosis. With the aging of the population with heart failure, geriatric conditions such as slow gait and muscle weakness are becoming increasingly common.


METHODS
The study population included participants with a new diagnosis of heart failure in the Cardiovascular Health Study, a longitudinal study of community-living older persons. Data were collected through annual examinations and medical-record reviews. Geriatric conditions assessed were slow gait, muscle weakness (defined as weak grip), cognitive impairment, and depressive symptoms. Anderson-Gill regression modeling was used to determine the predictors of hospital admission after heart failure diagnosis.


RESULTS
Of the 758 participants with a new diagnosis of heart failure, the mean rate of hospital admission was 7.9 per 10 person-years (95% CI: 7.4 to 8.4). Independent risk factors for hospital admission included diabetes mellitus (HR: 1.36; 95% CI: 1.13 to 1.64), New York Heart Association functional class III or IV (HR: 1.32; 95% CI: 1.11 to 1.57), chronic kidney disease (HR: 1.32; 95% CI: 1.14 to 1.53), slow gait (HR: 1.28; 95% CI: 1.06 to 1.55), depressed ejection fraction (HR: 1.25; 95% CI: 1.04 to 1.51), depression (HR: 1.23; 95% CI: 1.05 to 1.45), and muscle weakness (HR: 1.19; 95% CI: 1.00 to 1.42).


CONCLUSIONS
Geriatric conditions are important, and potentially modifiable, risk factors for hospital admission in heart failure that should be routinely assessed at the time of heart failure diagnosis.