LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Atrial Electromechanical Properties in Coeliac Disease.

BACKGROUND
Coeliac disease (CD) is an autoimmune and inflammatory disorder of the small intestine. There is reasonable evidence linking inflammation to the initiation and continuation of atrial fibrillation (AF) in inflammatory conditions. Atrial electro-mechanic delay (EMD) was suggested as an early marker of AF in previous studies. The objectives of this study were to evaluate atrial electromechanical properties measured by tissue Doppler imaging and simultaneous electrocardiography (ECG) tracing in patients with CD.


METHODS
Thirty-nine patients with coeliac disease (CD), and 26 healthy volunteers, matched for age and sex, were enrolled in the study. Atrial electromechanical properties were measured by using transthoracic echocardiography and surface ECG. Interatrial electro-mechanic delay (EMD), left intraatrial EMD, right intratrial EMD were calculated.


RESULTS
There was no difference between CD patients and healthy volunteers in terms of basal characteristics. Patients with CD had significantly prolonged left and right intraatrial EMDs, and interatrial EMD compared to healthy controls (p= 0.03, p= 0.02, p<0.0001, respectively). Interatrial EMD was positively correlated with age, disease duration, anti-gliadin IgG, anti-endomysium and disease status. In multiple linear regression, interatrial EMD was independently associated with disease duration, anti-endomysium and disease status after adjusting for age and sex.


CONCLUSIONS
In the present study, atrial EMDs were found significantly higher in patients with CD compared with healthy individuals. Measurement of atrial EMD parameters might be used to predict the risk of development of AF in patients with CD.
2PI simulations in expanding backgrounds: Doing it anyway!

Abstract I set out the 2PI formalism for quantum fields in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker Universe. I show how one can solve self-consistently for the quantum field evolution and the evolution of the cosmological scale factor, using a renormalised semi-classical Friedmann equation. In a 2PI coupling expansion truncated at O ( λ 2 ) , I perform sample calculations demonstrating kinetic and chemical equilibration in this context.
Refactoring--Does It Improve Software Quality?

Software systems undergo modifications, improvements and enhancements to cope with evolving requirements. This maintenance can cause their quality to decrease. Various metrics can be used to evaluate the way the quality is affected. Refactoring is one of the most important and commonly used techniques of transforming a piece of software in order to improve its quality. However, although it would be expected that the increase in quality achieved via refactoring is reflected in the various metrics, measurements on real life systems indicate the opposite. We analyzed source code version control system logs of popular open source software systems to detect changes marked as refactorings and examine how the software metrics are affected by this process, in order to evaluate whether refactoring is effectively used as a means to improve software quality within the open source community.
Broadening of Operating Frequency Band of Magnetic-Type Radio Absorbers by FSS Incorporation

Problems of the theory of radio absorbers (RAs) involving frequency selective surfaces (FSSs) are considered. A design procedure for these RAs is described that takes into account the multiparameter character of the problem and allows one to determine the optimal characteristics of an FSS that provide the maximal operating bandwidth. RAs for a range of 1-17 GHz are obtained on the basis of polymer composites filled with carbonyl iron and Co2Z ferrite, into which an FSS in the form of a biperiodic array of thin metal rings is embedded. It is shown that the application of such an FSS allows one to increase the operating frequency bandwidth of a magnetic-type RA by a factor of more than 1.5 virtually almost without increasing the thickness of the absorber. Substantially, several types of FSS-based layered magnetodielectric RAs have been produced by compressing molding technique, including a 3-mm-thick RA with an operating bandwidth of 1.05-2.7 GHz, a 2-mm-thick RA with an operating bandwidth of 1.7-4.4 GHz, and a 1.6-mm-thick RA with an operating bandwidth of 6.7-16.1 GHz.
Challenging coopetitive branding alliances A study on how coopetitive branding affects consumers ’ brand image

Authors Oskar Gudmundsson and Joel Leteus Title Challenging coopetitive branding alliances -A study on how coopetitive branding affects consumer’s brand image Supervisor Alina Lidén Co-examiner Christian Koch Examiner Marina Jogmark
Preliminary report of a phase I study of combination chemotherapy and humanized A33 antibody immunotherapy in patients with advanced colorectal cancer.

PURPOSE
In previous studies, humanized A33 (huA33) demonstrated modest antitumor activity in chemotherapy-resistant colorectal cancer patients. In addition, unexpected major tumor responses were observed in patients treated with a specific chemotherapy regimen [carmustine, vincristine, fluorouracil, and streptozocin (BOF-Strep)] administered after huA33 protocols. We designed the present Phase I, open label, cohort, dose-escalation study of huA33 and a fixed dose of BOF-Strep to (a) determine the maximum tolerated dose of huA33 immunotherapy administered with chemotherapy, (b) determine whether chemotherapy modifies huA33 immunogenicity, and (c) develop preliminary information regarding antitumor activity.


EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
Stage IV fluorouracil/leucovorin and irinotecan-refractory colorectal cancer patients (n = 16) received escalating weekly doses of huA33 (5-40 mg/m(2)) with BOF-Strep chemotherapy.


RESULTS
Four patients requiring radiotherapy or surgery were removed early. Of 12 evaluable patients, grade 3 and 4 neutropenia (n = 2) and grade 3 thrombocytopenia (n = 1) were observed. Seven of 12 (58.3%) patients developed anti-huA33 activity. Three patients had radiographic partial responses for 7.5, 5.5, and 14 months with greater than 85% decline in serum carcinoembryonic antigen levels. One mixed response (4.5 months with a serum carcinoembryonic antigen decline of 38%) was also observed.


CONCLUSIONS
huA33 can be safely combined with BOF-Strep chemotherapy. The present report provides compelling evidence supporting our previous observations of major antitumor activity with the combination of huA33 and BOF-Strep chemotherapy. huA33 is still immunogenic when administered with chemotherapy. Future studies to evaluate the immunogenicity of new huA33 antibodies and identify which drugs in the BOF-Strep regimen are critical for enhanced antitumor efficacy are planned.
Compact Vectors of Locally Aggregated Tensors for 3D Shape Retrieval

During the last decade, a significant attention has been paid, by the computer vision and the computer graphics communities, to three dimensional (3D) object retrieval. Shape retrieval methods can be divided into three main steps: the shape descriptors extraction, the shape signatures and their associated similarity measures, and the machine learning relevance functions. While the first and the last points have vastly been addressed in recent years, in this paper, we focus on the second point; presenting a new 3D object retrieval method using a new coding/pooling technique and powerful 3D shape descriptors extracted from 2D views. For a given 3D shape, the approach extracts a very large and dense set of local descriptors. From these descriptors, we build a new shape signature by aggregating tensor products of visual descriptors. The similarity between 3D models can then be efficiently computed with a simple dot product. We further improve the compactness and discrimination power of the descriptor using local Principal Component Analysis on each cluster of descriptors. Experiments on the SHREC 2012 and the McGill benchmarks show that our approach outperforms the state-of-the-art techniques, including other BoF methods, both in compactness of the representation and in the retrieval performance.
Effects of dietary patterns on blood pressure: subgroup analysis of the Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) randomized clinical trial.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the effects of dietary patterns on blood pressure in subgroups.


METHODS
Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) was a randomized controlled feeding study conducted at 4 academic medical centers. Participants were 459 adults with untreated systolic blood pressure less than 160 mm Hg and diastolic blood pressure 80 to 95 mm Hg. For 3 weeks, participants were fed a "control" diet. They were then randomized to 8 weeks of (1) control diet; (2) a diet rich in fruits and vegetables; or (3) a combination diet rich in fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy foods, and reduced in saturated fat, total fat, and cholesterol (the DASH combination diet). Weight and salt intake were held constant. Change in diastolic blood pressure was the primary outcome variable, and systolic blood pressure a secondary outcome. Subgroups analyzed included race, sex, age, body mass index, years of education, income, physical activity, alcohol intake, and hypertension status.


RESULTS
The combination diet significantly lowered systolic blood pressure in all subgroups (P<.008), and significantly lowered diastolic blood pressure (P<.01) in all but 2 subgroups. The fruits-and-vegetables diet also reduced blood pressure in the same subgroups, but to a lesser extent. The combination diet lowered systolic blood pressure significantly more in African Americans (6.8 mm Hg) than in whites (3.0 mm Hg), and in hypertensive subjects (11.4 mm Hg) than in nonhypertensive subjects (3.4 mm Hg) (P<.05 for both interactions).


CONCLUSIONS
The DASH combination diet, without sodium reduction or weight loss, significantly lowered blood pressure in virtually all subgroups examined, and was particularly effective in African Americans and those with hypertension. The DASH combination diet may be an effective strategy for preventing and treating hypertension in a broad cross section of the population, including segments of the population at highest risk for blood pressure-related cardiovascular disease.
Clinical Alarms in Intensive Care Units: Perceived Obstacles of Alarm Management and Alarm Fatigue in Nurses.

OBJECTIVES
The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate the current situation of clinical alarms in intensive care unit (ICU), nurses' recognition of and fatigue in relation to clinical alarms, and obstacles in alarm management.


METHODS
Subjects were ICU nurses and devices from 48 critically ill patient cases. Data were collected through direct observation of alarm occurrence and questionnaires that were completed by the ICU nurses. The observation time unit was one hour block. One bed out of 56 ICU beds was randomly assigned to each observation time unit.


RESULTS
Overall 2,184 clinical alarms were counted for 48 hours of observation, and 45.5 clinical alarms occurred per hour per subject. Of these, 1,394 alarms (63.8%) were categorized as false alarms. The alarm fatigue score was 24.3 ± 4.0 out of 35. The highest scoring item was "always get bothered due to clinical alarms". The highest scoring item in obstacles was "frequent false alarms, which lead to reduced attention or response to alarms".


CONCLUSIONS
Nurses reported that they felt some fatigue due to clinical alarms, and false alarms were also obstacles to proper management. An appropriate hospital policy should be developed to reduce false alarms and nurses' alarm fatigue.
A retrospective audit of the outcome of composites used to restore worn teeth

Objectives The aim of this audit was to monitor the outcome of composite restorations placed at an increased vertical dimension in patients with severe tooth wear.Methods This convenience sample of patients were treated by 11 specialist trainees in prosthodontics, and restored with direct composites. Exclusion criteria included bruxism, poor medical health and a preference for monitoring rather than intervention. The restorations were placed between 2012 and 2016 and were placed over more than one appointment and the outcome monitored for up to 14 months. Failure was assessed at a binary level, either success or failure (minor or major).Results A total of 35 patients with a mean age of 45 years (range 24–86), 27 of whom were male, received 251 restorations placed from November 2012 to November 2016. The patients had a mean of 11.51 (range 4 to 16) occluding pairs of teeth. There was a total of 40 restoration failures (17%) which was an 83% success rate based on the total number of restorations. For the patient-based data, 14 patients (39%) had no chips or bulk factures while 22 (61%) patients had failures, of which 60% were chips and 40% bulk fractures.Conclusion Restoration of worn teeth with composites is associated with a high incidence of fractures.Clinical significance The restoration of worn teeth with composite can involve regular maintenance following fractures and patients need to be aware of this when giving consent.
Evaluation of four sensitive troponin assays for risk assessment in acute coronary syndromes using a new clinically oriented approach for comparison of assays.

BACKGROUND
Measurement of cardiac troponin T or I (cTnT; cTnI) is useful for risk prediction in acute coronary syndromes. The objective of the present study was to compare the prognostic capacity of four sensitive cardiac troponin assays using a new method for comparison.


METHODS
Cardiac troponin was analyzed in serum samples from 1335 patients with acute coronary syndrome using the Elecsys high sensitivity TnT (hs-cTnT), ARCHITECT STAT high sensitivity TnI (hs-cTnI), Access AccuTnI (Acc-cTnI) and Architect cTnI (Arc-cTnI) assays. All patients were followed for 30 days regarding death and acute myocardial infarction (AMI), and for 1 year regarding mortality.


RESULTS
By receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analyses, there were only minor differences in the area under the curves (AUC) between the assays. At a given sensitivity of 85% the hs-cTnT, Arc-cTnI and Acc-cTnI assays showed comparable specificities, while 90% or higher sensitivity was only possible to achieve with the hs-cTnT, hs-cTnI and Acc-cTnI assays. The highest odds ratios for death/AMI at 30 days and death at 1 year, respectively, were reached by cut-off levels yielding 95% sensitivity; these cut-off levels were below the respective 99th percentile levels.


CONCLUSIONS
By the adoption of a new method for the comparison of cardiac troponin assays we showed that the hs-cTnT, hs-cTnI and Acc-cTnI assays had comparable prognostic properties, while the Arc-cTnI assay had inferior prognostic sensitivity.
Measurement of nurse job satisfaction using the McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale.

BACKGROUND
Originally developed to rank rewards that nurses value and that encourage them to remain in their jobs, the McCloskey/Mueller Satisfaction Scale (MMSS) is being used extensively in research and practice to measure nurse job satisfaction. Since its original development in 1990, limited evidence of psychometric properties of the MMSS has been reported.


OBJECTIVE
To investigate and report the psychometric properties of the MMSS when used in 2003 to measure hospital nurse job satisfaction.


METHODS
Data from a survey of 8,456 nurses were used to establish psychometric properties of the MMSS. Dimensionality was tested using confirmatory and exploratory factor analyses. Validity of new MMSS factors was tested by investigating relationships of the new factors with theoretically related concepts and by testing ability of the new factors to predict nurses' intentions to remain employed in their hospitals. Reliability coefficients of the new factors are reported.


RESULTS
The original eight factors could not be replicated satisfactorily using confirmatory factor analysis. Exploratory factor analysis found a seven-factor model rather than the original eight factors previously reported. Validity of this new model was supported. However, similar to the original instrument, weak internal consistency reliability coefficients were found for three of the new MMSS factors.


DISCUSSION
From a research perspective, using an instrument with 23 items that measure 7 aspects of nurse job satisfaction is more desirable than an instrument with 31 items. However, MMSS items must be redeveloped to improve internal consistency of factors.
Cyber-physical systems: Milestones and research challenges

In the past decade, we have witnessed an unparalleled success of information and communication technologies (ICT), which is expected to be even more proliferating and ubiquitous in the future. Among many ICT applications, ICT components embedded into various devices and systems have become a critical one. In fact, embedded systems with communication capability span virtually every aspect of our daily life. An embedded system is defined as a computer system designed to perform dedicated specific functions, usually under real-time computing constraints. It is called ‘‘embedded’’ because it is embedded as a part of a complete device or system. By contrast, a general-purpose computer is designed to satisfy a wide range of user requirements. Embedded systems range from portable devices such as smart phones and MP3 players, to large installations like plant control systems. Recently, the convergence of cyber and physical spaces [1] has further transformed traditional embedded systems into cyberphysical systems (CPS), which are characterized by tight integration and coordination between computation and physical processes by means of networking. In CPS, various embedded devices with computational components are networked to monitor, sense, and actuate physical elements in the real world. Examples of CPS encompass a wide range of large-scale engineered systems such as avionics, healthcare, transportation, automation, and smart grid systems. In addition, the recent proliferation of smart phones and mobile Internet devices equipped with multiple sensors can be leveraged to enable mobile cyber-physical applications. In all of these systems, it is of critical importance to properly resolve the complex interactions between various computational and physical elements. In this guest editorial, we first provide an overview of CPS by introducing major issues in CPS as well as recent research efforts and future opportunities for CPS. Then, we summarize the papers in the special section by clearly describing their main contributions on CPS research. The remainder of the editorial is organized as follows: In Section 2, we provide an overview of CPS. We first explain the key characteristics of CPS compared to the traditional embedded systems. Then, we introduce the recent trend in CPS research with an emphasis on major research topics in CPS. We introduce recent CPS-related projects in Section 3. Summary of the papers in the special section follows in Section 4 by focusing on their contributions on CPS research. Finally, our conclusion follows in Section 5.
Addition of Simvastatin to Standard Therapy for the Prevention of Variceal Rebleeding Does Not Reduce Rebleeding but Increases Survival in Patients With Cirrhosis.

BACKGROUND & AIMS
The combination of β-blockers and band ligation is the standard approach to prevent variceal rebleeding, but bleeding recurs and mortality is high. The lipid-lowering drug simvastatin decreases portal pressure, improves hepatocellular function, and might reduce liver fibrosis. We assessed whether adding simvastatin to standard therapy could reduce rebleeding and death after variceal bleeding in patients with cirrhosis.


METHODS
We performed a multicenter, double-blind, parallel trial of 158 patients with cirrhosis receiving standard prophylaxis to prevent rebleeding (a β-blocker and band ligation) in Spain from October 2010 through October 2013. Within 10 days of bleeding, subjects were randomly assigned, but stratified by Child-Pugh class of A or B vs C, to groups given simvastatin (20 mg/d the first 15 days, 40 mg/d thereafter; n = 69) or placebo (n = 78). Patients were followed for as long as 24 months. The primary end point was a composite of rebleeding and death, and main secondary end points were the individual components of the composite (death and rebleeding).


RESULTS
The primary end point was met by 30 of 78 patients in the placebo group and 22 of 69 in the simvastatin group (P = .423). Seventeen patients in the placebo group died (22%) vs 6 patients in the simvastatin group (9%) (hazard ratio for adding simvastatin to therapy = 0.39; 95% confidence interval: 0.15-0.99; P = .030). Simvastatin did not increase survival of patients with Child-Pugh class C cirrhosis. Rebleeding occurred in 28% of patients in the placebo group and 25% in the simvastatin group (P = .583). Serious adverse events occurred in 53% of patients in the placebo group and 49% in the simvastatin group (P = .752); the percentages of serious adverse events related to therapy were 11% in the placebo group vs 8% in the in the simvastatin group (P = .599). Two patients in the simvastatin group, each with advanced liver disease, developed rhabdomyolysis.


CONCLUSIONS
In a randomized controlled trial, addition of simvastatin to standard therapy did not reduce rebleeding, but was associated with a survival benefit for patients with Child-Pugh class A or B cirrhosis. Survival was not the primary end point of the study, so these results require validation. The incidence of rhabdomyolysis in patients receiving 40 mg/d simvastatin was higher than expected. European Clinical Trial Database ID: EUDRACT 2009-016500-24; ClinicalTrials.gov ID: NCT01095185.
Six Challenges for Neural Machine Translation

We explore six challenges for neural machine translation: domain mismatch, amount of training data, rare words, long sentences, word alignment, and beam search. We show both deficiencies and improvements over the quality of phrasebased statistical machine translation.
N1-methylnicotinamide oxidation in a number of mammals.

Abstract Mammalian livers contain an enzyme system which can oxidize N1-methylnicotinamide to N1-methyl-4-pyridone-3-carboxamide (4-pyridone) and N1-methyl-2-pyridone-5-carboxamide (2-pyridone). Many of the properties of this enzyme system are similar to those which have been reported for rabbit liver aldehyde oxidase. Both pyridones are made in all the mammals examined, although in varying ratios. The ratio of the 2-pyridone to the 4-pyridone is constant for a a given species. The ratio characteristic of the oxidation of N1-methylnicotinamide by the enzyme system in the livers of mice and hogs is maintained under a variety of conditions including purification, heat denaturation, variation in type and amount of oxygen accepter, variation in substrate concentration, inhibition by cyanide, and loss of activity due to storage at -15°. These data have been taken as preliminary evidence in support of the concept that the two pyridones are synthesized from N1-methylnicotinamide by a single enzyme. The differential effects on the synthesis of the two pyridones exerted by Amytal and variation in the pH of the assay media have been observed. These findings may be indicative of different binding states or catalytic requirements for the two different oxidation processes or both. The gross similarities in the hog, mouse, and rabbit activities are compatible with all being attributable to aldehyde oxidases having similar but not identical structures.