LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Retreatment of hepatitis C non-responsive to Interferon. A placebo controlled randomized trial of Ribavirin monotherapy versus combination therapy with Ribavirin and Interferon in 121 patients in the Benelux [ISRCTN53821378]

BACKGROUND
Evidence based medicine depends on unbiased selection of completed randomized controlled trials. For completeness it is important to publish all trials. This report describes the first large randomised controlled trial where combination therapy was compared to placebo therapy and to ribavirin monotherapy, which has not been published until now.


METHODS
One hundred and twenty one patients with chronic hepatitis C and elevated transaminases who did not respond to previous treatment with standard interferon monotherapy, were included from 16 centers in Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg between 1992 and 1996. Patient poor-response characteristics were: genotype 1 (69%), HCV RNA above 2 x 10(6) copies/ml (55%) and cirrhosis (38%). Patients were randomized to 6 months combination therapy with interferon alpha-2b (3 MU tiw) and ribavirin (1000-1200 mg/day), 6 months ribavirin monotherapy (1000-1200 mg/day) or 6 months ribavirin placebo. The study was double blinded for the ribavirin/placebo component. One patient did not fit the entry criteria, and 3 did not start. All 117 patients who received at least one dose of treatment were included in the intention to treat analysis.


RESULTS
At the end of treatment, HCV RNA was undetectable in 35% of patients on combination therapy and in none of the patients treated with ribavirin monotherapy or placebo. The sustained virological response rate at 6 months after therapy was 15% for patients treated with interferon and ribavirin. During the 6 months treatment period 13% of patients on interferon ribavirin combination therapy, 13% of patients on ribavirin monotherapy and 11% of patients on placebo withdrew due to side effects or noncompliance. At 24 weeks of treatment the mean Hb level was 85% of the baseline value, which means a mean decrease from 9.1 mmol/l to 7.8 mmol/l. The Hb levels at the end of treatment were not significantly different from patients treated with ribavirin monotherapy (p = 0.76). End of treatment WBC was significantly lower in patients treated with combination therapy, compared to ribavirin (p < 0.01) as well as for patients treated with ribavirin monotherapy compared to placebo (p < 0.01).


DISCUSSION
This belated report on the only placebo controlled study of interferon ribavirin combination therapy in non responders to standard doses of interferon monotherapy documents the effectiveness, be it limited, of this approach as well as the dynamics of the effects on blood counts.
A machine learning approach to assessing knowledge sharing during collaborative learning activities

Students bring to a collaborative learning situation a great deal of specialized knowledge and experiences that undoubtedly shape the collaboration and learning processes. How effectively this unique knowledge is shared and assimilated by the group affects both the process and the product of the collaboration. In this paper, we describe a machine learning approach, Hidden Markov Modeling, to analyzing and assessing on-line knowledge sharing conversations. We show that this approach can determine the effectiveness of knowledge sharing episodes with 93% accuracy, performing 43% over the baseline. Understanding how members of collaborative learning groups share, assimilate, and build knowledge together may help us identify situations in which facilitation may increase the effectiveness of the group interaction.
A systematic review of the effectiveness of mental health promotion interventions for young people in low and middle income countries

BACKGROUND
This systematic review provides a narrative synthesis of the evidence on the effectiveness of mental health promotion interventions for young people in low and middle-income countries (LMICs). Commissioned by the WHO, a review of the evidence for mental health promotion interventions across the lifespan from early years to adulthood was conducted. This paper reports on the findings for interventions promoting the positive mental health of young people (aged 6-18 years) in school and community-based settings.


METHODS
Searching a range of electronic databases, 22 studies employing RCTs (N = 11) and quasi-experimental designs conducted in LMICs since 2000 were identified. Fourteen studies of school-based interventions implemented in eight LMICs were reviewed; seven of which included interventions for children living in areas of armed conflict and six interventions of multicomponent lifeskills and resilience training. Eight studies evaluating out-of-school community interventions for adolescents were identified in five countries. Using the Effective Public Health Practice Project (EPHPP) criteria, two reviewers independently assessed the quality of the evidence.


RESULTS
The findings from the majority of the school-based interventions are strong. Structured universal interventions for children living in conflict areas indicate generally significant positive effects on students' emotional and behavioural wellbeing, including improved self-esteem and coping skills. However, mixed results were also reported, including differential effects for gender and age groups, and two studies reported nonsignficant findings. The majority of the school-based lifeskills and resilience programmes received a moderate quality rating, with findings indicating positive effects on students' self-esteem, motivation and self-efficacy. The quality of evidence from the community-based interventions for adolescents was moderate to strong with promising findings concerning the potential of multicomponent interventions to impact on youth mental health and social wellbeing.


CONCLUSIONS
The review findings indicate that interventions promoting the mental health of young people can be implemented effectively in LMIC school and community settings with moderate to strong evidence of their impact on both positive and negative mental health outcomes. There is a paucity of evidence relating to interventions for younger children in LMIC primary schools. Evidence for the scaling up and sustainability of mental health promotion interventions in LMICs needs to be strengthened.
An Empirical Investigation of an e-commerce Adoption-Capability Model in Small Businesses in New Zealand

The current research attempted to investigate the significance of an adoption-capability model of e-commerce technologies (EC) in Small to Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in New Zealand (NZ). The research model hypothesised ten factors as significantly influencing EC adoption in SMEs: relative advantage, cost, compatibility, size, information intensity of products, support from technology vendors, pressure from suppliers/buyers, competition, CEO’s innovativeness, and CEO’s involvement. Further, the model attempted to differentiate between adopters and non-adopters in terms of the adopted EC and hence, categorized them into three clusters of adoption: starters, adopters and extended adopters. It was believed that such classifications could assist this research in identifying innovative and EC capabilities among the SMEs in NZ. The research findings indicated that: (1) starters: the adoption of the Internet and external email was dependent on the innovativeness of the CEO; (2) innovators: the adoption of any of the EC Infrastructure technologies (ECIT): Intranet, Extranet, Internet-EDI and websites was dependent on CEO’s innovativeness, organization size, and compatibility; and (3) extended innovators: the adoption of more than one ECIT was dependent on organization size, compatibility, CEO’s innovativeness, support from technology vendors, and competition. It was observed that adopters and extended adopters started to witness the significant effect of different factors on their adoption decision of different EC technologies. The research pointed to other significant influences and anomalies in the research model and addressed implications pertaining to theory and to practice in SMEs in NZ.
Tracking and Retexturing Cloth for Real-Time Virtual Clothing Applications

In this paper, we describe a dynamic texture overlay method from monocular images for real-time visualization of garments in a virtual mirror environment. Similar to looking into a mirror when trying on clothes, we create the same impression but for virtually textured garments. The mirror is replaced by a large display that shows the mirrored image of a camera capturing e.g. the upper body part of a person. By estimating the elastic deformations of the cloth from a single camera in the 2D image plane and recovering the illumination of the textured surface of a shirt in real time, an arbitrary virtual texture can be realistically augmented onto the moving garment such that the person seems to wear the virtual clothing. The result is a combination of the real video and the new augmented model yielding a realistic impression of the virtual piece of cloth.
Resynchronization of the left ventricular contraction by tailored programming of right and left ventricular pacing.

AIMS
The prerequisite and the rationale for the benefit of cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT) is that it is able to resynchronize left ventricular (LV) walls that have a delayed activation.


METHODS AND RESULTS
In 69 consecutive patients who underwent biventricular (BIV) pacemaker implantation, we assessed the magnitude of intraventricular resynchronization achieved by means of simultaneous (BIV 0) and sequential BIV pacing (with an individually optimized VV interval value among +80 ms and -80 ms) using pulsed-wave tissue Doppler imaging techniques and in particular the measurement of the intra-LV electromechanical delay. The intra-LV delay was defined as the difference between the longest and the shortest activation time in the six basal segments of the LV. An abnormal intra-LV delay was defined as a value >41 ms. The intra-LV delay was 63 +/- 28 ms baseline, decreased to 44 +/- 26 ms with BIV 0 and to 26 +/- 15 ms with optimized BIV (P = 0.001). BIV 0 determined the shortest delay in 28 (41%) patients (23 +/- 12 ms). In 41 (59%) patients, a better resynchronization was achieved with optimized VV intervals (LV first in 32 and RV first in 5) or single-chamber pacing (LV in 3 and RV in 1). With BIV 0, the intra-LV delay remained abnormal in 41% and was longer than baseline in 30% of patients compared with 9 and 12% with optimized BIV, respectively (P = 0.001).


CONCLUSION
A sub-optimal resynchronization is achieved with simultaneous BIV pacing in most patients. A tailored programming of the relative contribution of RV and LV pacing forms the prerequisite for improving CRT results.
Driving behaviors in early stage dementia: a study using in-vehicle technology.

According to the Alzheimer's Association (2011), (1) in 8 people age 65 and older, and about one-half of people age 85 and older, have Alzheimer's disease in the United States (US). There is evidence that drivers with Alzheimer's disease and related dementias are at an increased risk for unsafe driving. Recent advances in sensor, computer, and telecommunication technologies provide a method for automatically collecting detailed, objective information about the driving performance of drivers, including those with early stage dementia. The objective of this project was to use in-vehicle technology to describe a set of driving behaviors that may be common in individuals with early stage dementia (i.e., a diagnosis of memory loss) and compare these behaviors to a group of drivers without cognitive impairment. Seventeen drivers with a diagnosis of early stage dementia, who had completed a comprehensive driving assessment and were cleared to drive, participated in the study. Participants had their vehicles instrumented with a suite of sensors and a data acquisition system, and drove 1-2 months as they would under normal circumstances. Data from the in-vehicle instrumentation were reduced and analyzed, using a set of algorithms/heuristics developed by the research team. Data from the early stage dementia group were compared to similar data from an existing dataset of 26 older drivers without dementia. The early stage dementia group was found to have significantly restricted driving space relative to the comparison group. At the same time, the early stage dementia group (which had been previously cleared by an occupational therapist as safe to drive) drove as safely as the comparison group. Few safety-related behavioral errors were found for either group. Wayfinding problems were rare among both groups, but the early stage dementia group was significantly more likely to get lost.
Hyper-minimizing minimized deterministic finite state automata

We present the first (polynomial-time) algorithm for reducing a given deterministic finite state automaton (DFA) into a hyperminimized DFA, which may have fewer states than the classically minimized DFA. The price we pay is that the language recognized by the new machine can differ from the original on a finite number of inputs. These hyper-minimized automata are optimal, in the sense that every DFA with fewer states must disagree on infinitely many inputs. With small modifications, the construction works also for finite state transducers producing outputs. Within a class of finitely differing languages, the hyper-minimized automaton is not necessarily unique. There may exist several non-isomorphic machines using the minimum number of states, each accepting a separate language finitely-different from the original one. We will show that there are large structural similarities among all these smallest automata. Mathematics Subject Classification. 68Q70.
Cautious Classifiers

The evaluation and use of classifiers is based on the idea that a classifier is defined as a complete function from instances to classes. Even when probabilistic classifiers are used, these are ultimately converted into categorical classifiers that must choose one class (with more or less confidence) from a set of classes. Evaluation metrics such as accuracy/error, global cost, precision, recall, f-score, specificity, sensitivity, effectiveness, macro-average, logloss, MSE or the Area Under the ROC Curve (AUC) are usually defined for “complete” classifiers. In this paper we pursue the usefulness and evaluation of “cautious” or “partial” classifiers. A cautious classifier adds an extra class “unknown” to the set of the original classes. This “unknown” class represents the cases where the prediction is uncertain or not reliable. Now, in a cost-insensitive context, accuracy and error will not be directly related but indirectly, through the coverage index. We develop new measures, efficacy and capacity, which find a compromise between reducing the number of misclassified data (error) and reducing the number of unclassified data (abstention). Inspired by ROC analysis we introduce several techniques to choose from a set of cautious classifiers. For probabilistic classifiers we define a discretisation method for converting them into cautious classifiers by using a “caution window”. We develop new response graphs to show the way in which different classifiers behave according to the size of the window and the class bias. In a cost-sensitive context, cost matrices and confusion matrices can be directly extended to account for this new class. Moreover, we extend ROC analysis and AUC evaluations to these classifiers, by considering the degree of abstention as an additional dimension.
Genomic predictors of response to doxorubicin versus docetaxel in primary breast cancer

Taxanes and anthracyclines improve the outcome of early breast cancer, although the benefit is limited to a small proportion of patients and are toxic. We prospectively looked for predictors of response to these drugs. Experimental design: Four cycles of doxorubicin (75 mg/m2) or docetaxel (100 mg/m2) were compared as presurgical chemotherapy for breast cancer. Biomarkers were determined by immunohistochemistry and fluorescent in situ hybridization using prechemotherapy core biopsies. Tumors were also classified into one of the molecular intrinsic subtypes using an immunohistochemical panel of five biomarkers and genomic profiles. Single genes and intrinsic subtypes were correlated with response to doxorubicin versus docetaxel. Among the 204 evaluable patients, significant predictors of sensitivity in multivariate analysis were low topo2a expression and ER-negative status for doxorubicin and small tumor size and ER-negative status for docetaxel. Predictors of resistance in multivariate analysis were triple-negative status (ER/PgR/HER2 negative by IHC/FISH) for doxorubicin, and high TNM stage for docetaxel. Triple-negative tumors were associated with topo2a overexpression more than the other subtypes. In 94 patients with gene expression profiles, docetaxel was superior to doxorubicin in the basal-like subtype (good pathological response rate − PCR + class I of 56 vs. 0%; P = 0.034); no significant differences were observed in the other subtypes when comparing these two drugs. Low topo2a expression and ER-negative status were predictors of response to doxorubicin, while small tumor size and ER-negative status predicted response to docetaxel. Docetaxel was superior to doxorubicin in triple-negative/basal-like tumors, while no significant differences were seen in the remaining intrinsic subtypes.
Learning Representations for Automatic Colorization

We develop a fully automatic image colorization system. Our approach leverages recent advances in deep networks, exploiting both low-level and semantic representations. As many scene elements naturally appear according to multimodal color distributions, we train our model to predict per-pixel color histograms. This intermediate output can be used to automatically generate a color image, or further manipulated prior to image formation. On both fully and partially automatic colorization tasks, we outperform existing methods. We also explore colorization as a vehicle for self-supervised visual representation learning. Fig. 1: Our automatic colorization of grayscale input; more examples in Figs. 3 and 4.
The use of multi-frequency impedance to determine total body water and extracellular water in obese and lean female individuals

OBJECTIVE: To validate the assessment of total body water (TBW) and extracellular water (ECW) by multi-frequency bioelectrical impedance. SUBJECTS: Twenty-five overweight but otherwise healthy subjects and 20 lean subjects. DESIGN: Cross-sectional. MEASUREMENTS: TBW and ECW were determined by dilution techniques. Prediction equations from the literature were used to calculate TBW and ECW from measured impedance at 100 and 50 kHz or 1 and 5 kHz, respectively. In 18 of the obese subjects, impedance was also measured with the electrodes placed at proximal sites. RESULTS: In lean and obese subjects, significant correlations were observed between the impedance index (H2/Z) at high frequencies with TBW (r=0.90, P<0.001 in lean and r=0.80, P<0.001 in obese subjects) and at low frequencies with ECW (r=0.87, P<0.001 and r=0.77, P<0.001 respectively). Proximal placement of electrodes slightly im- proved the correlation between the impedance index and TBW (from r=0.83 to r=0.90 at 50 kHz and from r=0.85 to r=0.90 at 100 kHz) and ECW (from r=0.77 to r=0.83 at 1 kHz and from r=0.79 to r=0.85 at 5 kHz). The association of ECW and TBW with H2/Z was different for obese and lean subjects: in obese subjects a given amount of TBW or ECW corresponded with a lower index. An equation consisting only of the impedance index could predict TBW and ECW with small mean errors in lean (1.3 and 0.8 kg respectively) and obese subjects (0.1 and 0.0 kg respectively). Applying a more specific equation, including other subject characteristics, resulted in larger prediction errors in obese subjects, illustrating the population specificity of prediction equations. Furthermore an association was observed of the prediction bias of TBW and ECW with TBW (r=0.48, P<0.01) and ECW (r=0.70, P<0.001) respectively, and with body water distribution (r=−0.38 and r=0.33 respectively, P<0.05). TBW and ECW were also associated with weight (r=0.76 and r=0.71 respectively, P<0.001) and body mass index (BMI) (r=0.54 and r=0.53 respectively, P<0.001). CONCLUSION: It appeared from this study that the accuracy of TBW and ECW estimation with the impedance technique is dependent on the absolute amount of TBW and ECW. A higher amount of TBW and ECW in obese subjects may contribute to a difference in prediction error between lean and obese individuals.
Treatment of recurrent HCV infection following liver transplantation: results of a multicenter, randomized, versus placebo, trial of ribavirin alone as maintenance therapy after one year of PegIFNα-2a plus ribavirin.

BACKGROUND & AIMS
We aimed at determining the effect of maintenance therapy with ribavirin alone, after a year of combined peginterferon-alfa 2a (PegIFNα-2a) and ribavirin therapy, on viral response and liver histology after liver transplantation (LT).


METHODS
Hundred and one patients with recurrent HCV and a minimum of stage 1 fibrosis (METAVIR scoring), 1-5years after LT, were enrolled. PegIFNα-2a and ribavirin were initiated at 90 μg/wk and 600 mg/d, respectively, then increased or adjusted as a function of tolerance. At 12 months, combination therapy was discontinued and patients were randomized to ribavirin or placebo for a further 12 months. Growth factor use was permitted.


RESULTS
At 18 months, a sustained virological response (SVR) was obtained in 47.9% of patients in Per Protocol (PP) analysis, and was higher in patients with genotype 2 or 3 than in patients with genotype 1 or 4, in patients with genotypes 1+4 receiving ciclosporine than in those receiving tacrolimus, in patients with worse renal function, in those having received EPO, in patients with lower weight, and in those with lower viral load at 3 months. Using logistic regression, only the early viral response, recipient weight and renal function were independently associated with better SVR. SVR, viral load, activity, and fibrosis scores were similar, at M18 and M30, in patients randomized to ribavirin, or to placebo.


CONCLUSIONS
A PP SVR was achieved in 47.9% of patients with established recurrent hepatitis C after LT. Maintenance therapy with ribavirin alone does not improve the virological response or the histological parameters.
Analysis of resource-constrained processes with colored petri nets

Formal models of business processes support the performance analysis of processes and the evaluation of redesign alternatives. This paper presents a formal model to analyze the behavior of resource-constrained processes. The model is developed using Colored Petri Nets (CPN or CP nets) and the supporting software package CPN Tools. In our approach, a business process consists of tasks and resources able to perform one or more tasks in the process. We developed a task building block to model tasks and a resource module to model the allocation of resources with different allocation methods. The opening of a bank account is used as an example process to investigate two so-called “best practices” while using the simulation facility of CPN Tools. First, we explore the specialist-generalist trade-off, i.e., finding the optimal ratio of specialists and generalists. Then we explore the flexible assignment policy, i.e., a strategy to deploy specialists first to preserve operational flexibility.