LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Haline hurricane wake in the Amazon/Orinoco plume: AQUARIUS/SACD and SMOS observations

[1] At its seasonal peak the Amazon/Orinoco plume covers a region of 10 km in the western tropical Atlantic with more than 1 m of extra freshwater, creating a near-surface barrier layer (BL) that inhibits mixing and warms the sea surface temperature (SST) to >29 C. Here new sea surface salinity (SSS) observations from the Aquarius/SACD and SMOS satellites help elucidate the ocean response to hurricane Katia, which crossed the plume in early fall, 2011. Its passage left a 1.5 psu high haline wake covering >10 km (in its impact on density, the equivalent of a 3.5 C cooling) due to mixing of the shallow BL. Destruction of this BL apparently decreased SST cooling in the plume, and thus preserved higher SST and evaporation than outside. Combined with SST, the new satellite SSS data provide a new and better tool to monitor the plume extent and quantify tropical cyclone upper ocean responses with important implications for forecasting. Citation: Grodsky, S. A., N. Reul, G. Lagerloef, G. Reverdin, J. A. Carton, B. Chapron, Y. Quilfen, V. N. Kudryavtsev, and H.-Y. Kao (2012), Haline hurricane wake in the Amazon/Orinoco plume: AQUARIUS/SACD and SMOS observations, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L20603, doi:10.1029/ 2012GL053335.
Rare inguinal hernia forms in children

Rare inguinal hernia forms are encountered more frequently in the laparoscopic technique than in the open approach. The reasons are subject to speculation. The incidence of unusual inguinal hernia forms was studied in a series of inguinal hernias corrected laparoscopically in 452 children (334 boys and 118 girls aged 4 days–14 years, median age 1.6 years). The videos were retrospectively evaluated. Direct hernias were found in 10 children (2.2%), femoral hernias in five (1.1%), hernias en pantalon in three (0.7%), and a combination of indirect and femoral hernia and a combination of indirect, direct, and femoral hernia in one child each (0.2%). Routine videorecording during laparoscopy provides for the first time an objective and absolute picture of the true incidence of these unusual hernia forms.
Higher Education or Vocational Training? An Empirical Test of the Rational Action Model of Educational Choices Suggested by Breen and Goldthorpe and Esser

Our aim in this article is to reveal crucial factors affecting the access to higher education claimed in rational action theories in Germany. Data on the educational choices of high school graduate...
Vehicle control system coordinated between cloud and mobile edge computing

One of the challenges in autonomous driving is limited sensing from a single vehicle that causes spurious warnings and dead-lock situations. We posit that cloud-based vehicle control system[1] is promising when a number of vehicles must be controlled, since we can collect information from sensors across multiple vehicles for coordination. However, since cloud based control has inherent challenge in long-haul communication susceptible to prolonged latency and packet loss caused by congestion, mobile edge computing (MEC)[2] recently attracts attention in ITS in the next generation mobile network such as 5G. Although edge servers can perform data processing from the vehicles in ultra low latency in MEC, computational resources at edge servers are limited compared to cloud. Therefore, dynamic resource allocation and coordination between edge and cloud servers are necessary. In this paper, we propose infrastructure-based vehicle control system that shares internal states between edge and cloud servers, dynamically allocates computational resources and switches necessary computation on collected sensors according to network conditions in order to achieve safe driving. We implement a prototype system using micro-cars and evaluate the stability of infrastructure-based vehicle control. We show that proposed system mitigates instability of cloud control caused by latency fluctuation. As a result, when controlled from the cloud with 150ms latency, micro-cars deviate by over 0.095m from the course for the 40% of the entire trajectory possibly causing car accidents. On the other hand, MEC-based control stabilizes the driving trajectory. Also, our proposed system automatically switches control from cloud and from edge server according to the network condition without degrading the stability in driving trajectory. Even when the ratio of time of control by edge server to that by cloud is suppressed to 54%, we can achieve almost the same stability as in full control by edge controller.
Effect of propranolol on word fluency in autism.

OBJECTIVE AND BACKGROUND
Autism is characterized by repetitive behaviors and impaired socialization and communication. Preliminary evidence showed possible language benefits in autism from the β-adrenergic antagonist propranolol. Earlier studies in other populations suggested propranolol might benefit performance on tasks involving a search of semantic and associative networks under certain conditions. Therefore, we wished to determine whether this benefit of propranolol includes an effect on semantic fluency in autism.


METHODS
A sample of 14 high-functioning adolescent and adult participants with autism and 14 matched controls were given letter and category word fluency tasks on 2 separate testing sessions; 1 test was given 60 minutes after the administration of 40 mg propranolol orally, and 1 test was given after placebo, administered in a double-blinded, counterbalanced manner.


RESULTS
Participants with autism were significantly impaired compared with controls on both fluency tasks. Propranolol significantly improved performance on category fluency, but not letter fluency among autism participants. No drug effect was observed among controls. Expected drug effects on heart rate and blood pressure were observed in both the groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Results are consistent with a selective beneficial effect of propranolol on flexibility of access to semantic and associative networks in autism, with no observed effect on phonological networks. Further study will be necessary to understand potential clinical implications of this finding.
Bevacizumab and irinotecan in children with recurrent or refractory brain tumors: toxicity and efficacy trends.

BACKGROUND
Bevacizumab, a monoclonal antibody targeting the vascular endothelial growth factor, has proven efficacy in some adult tumors; it is now proposed as a new therapeutic strategy for refractory or recurrent brain tumors in some children, either alone or combinated.


PROCEDURE
We retrospectively analyzed 28 children who received bevacizumab on a compassionate basis for refractory or recurrent brain tumors between June 2007 and August 2010 in 7 French centers. Among them, 12 had high-grade gliomas, 7 low-grade gliomas, 4 ependymomas, 2 primitive neurectodermal tumors, 3 neuroglial tumors. The median age at start of bevacizumab was 11.0 years. Bevacizumab was administered at 5-10 mg/kg every 2 weeks, with concomitant chemotherapy for 27 patients.


RESULTS
Bevacizumab was used in combination with irinotecan in 27 patients. Bevacizumab-related toxicity was mild. Toxicities reported were grade I-II hypertension (n = 4), proteinuria (n = 1), lymphopenia (n = 2), wound healing delay (n = 2). Whereas tumor reduction could be observed in 6:7 patients with low-grade gliomas, no efficacy could be documented in patients with high-grade glioma, nor PNET nor ependymoma.


CONCLUSION
Bevacizumab-related acute toxicity appears to be low in children, even in combination with irinotecan. Further prospective trials are required to confirm the hypothetical efficacy of bevacizumab and to assess the risk of long-term toxicity especially in the youngest children.
Placebo treatment in acute stroke trials : benefit or harm to patients?

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Some stroke patients and their families express reservations about participating in trials of experimental therapies for acute stroke. Among many reasons given for this is the concern that by participating, patients may be deprived of some component of routine care. We sought to determine the effect on outcome of participating in a clinical stroke trial while being treated with placebo.


METHODS
Prospective clinical information was collected for all patients admitted with acute ischemic stroke between July 1995 and July 1996. A subgroup of these patients was enrolled in a clinical trial of acute stroke therapy and had been randomly assigned to the placebo group. The control group was selected from concurrent stroke patients who were not enrolled in any clinical trial. The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) was performed on admission and on day 7 after admission. The Glasgow Outcome Scale (GOS) was also performed at discharge. Stroke severity was classified as "severe" if NIHSS was >/=9 or GOS >/=3. Group comparisons were performed with chi(2) tests.


RESULTS
One hundred twenty-six patients were evaluated. Forty-seven were placebo patients, and 79 were selected as control subjects. There were no significant differences between the groups with respect to age, sex, hematocrit, blood glucose level, history of hypertension, diabetes, smoking, or initial NIHSS. In addition, there was no difference between groups in terms of the frequency of baseline stroke subtype. Among our controls, 55 patients (70%) were on antithrombotic treatment during hospitalization, whereas none of our placebo patients were on any antithrombotic treatment. For the GOS at follow-up, a good outcome was attained by 76% of the control subjects and 72% of placebo patients (not significant). A severe NIHSS (>9) at follow-up, however, was documented in 15% of controls and 59% of placebo patients (P<0.001). There was a trend toward a higher ("worse") mean follow-up NIHSS among placebo patients (mean NIHSS, 11) versus controls (mean NIHSS, 6) (P=0.09).


CONCLUSIONS
Patients enrolled in the placebo arms of some acute clinical stroke trials have similar functional outcomes but more severe neurological deficits at 1 week than did a control group. These findings might be partially explained by the withholding of antithrombotic medication and the exclusion criteria inherent in most trials. Vigilance is required to ensure that all patients participating in stroke studies be guaranteed optimal known medical therapy.
Prepubertal girl with vaginal bleeding.

BACKGROUND
Prepubertal children with vaginal bleeding are frequently brought in to the Emergency Department (ED) for evaluation with the primary concern of sexual abuse. Appropriate history and physical examination can help recognize the specific cause and allay anxiety of parents and reduce unnecessary work-up.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this report is to describe a frequently unrecognized cause of vaginal bleeding that is unrelated to sexual abuse.


CASE REPORT
We report the case of a 6-year-old African-American girl referred to our ED as a case of vaginal bleeding with suspicion of sexual abuse. She was clinically diagnosed to have urethral prolapse.


CONCLUSION
In prepubertal girls with vaginal bleeding, urethral prolapse should be strongly considered as a diagnostic possibility. Increased physician awareness and early recognition of urethral prolapse avoids unnecessary examinations and patient anxiety and prevents misdiagnosis as sexual abuse.
Regional variations of low-density lipoprotein oxidizability in hemodialysis patients may explain discrepancies in interventional therapy on oxidative profile.

BACKGROUND/AIMS
This study aimed at evaluating oxidative stress (OS) markers (i) in a cross-sectional study of hemodialysis (HD) patients to investigate potential regional effects of these markers and (ii) in a prospective crossover study to evaluate vitamin E-coated membrane (VE) effects.


METHODS
At baseline, OS parameters including low-density lipoprotein (LDL) oxidizability were measured in HD patients from five dialysis facilities. Patients were then randomly assigned to two treatment groups: group I patients (n = 33) switching to VE, and group II patients (n = 29) still using reference polysulfone (PS) membrane. After 3 months, patients were switched from VE to PS and vice versa for 6 months. The same OS parameters were measured after each period.


RESULTS
At baseline, the cross-sectional analysis of LDL oxidizability showed a regional effect. By contrast, the crossover study did not show beneficial effects of VE on this parameter.


CONCLUSION
Regional variations of LDL oxidizability in HD patients exist and may explain discrepancies in interventional therapy on OS.
A Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Study of High-Dose Baclofen in Alcohol-Dependent Patients-The ALPADIR Study.

Aims
Alcohol dependence is a major public health issue with a need for new pharmacological treatments. The ALPADIR study assessed the efficacy and safety of baclofen at the target dose of 180 mg/day for the maintenance of abstinence and the reduction in alcohol consumption in alcohol-dependent patients.


Methods
Three hundred and twenty adult patients (158 baclofen and 162 placebo) were randomized after alcohol detoxification. After a 7-week titration, the maintenance dose was provided for 17 weeks, then progressively decreased over 2 weeks before stopping.


Results
The percentage of abstinent patients during 20 consecutive weeks (primary endpoint) was low (baclofen: 11.9%; placebo: 10.5%) and not significantly different between groups (OR 1.20; 95%CI: 0.58 to 2.50; P = 0.618). A reduction in alcohol consumption was observed from month 1 in both groups, but the difference of 10.9 g/day at month 6 between groups, in favour of baclofen, was not statistically significant (P = 0.095). In a subgroup of patients with high drinking risk level at baseline, the reduction was greater with a difference at month 6 of 15.6 g/day between groups in favour of baclofen (P = 0.089). The craving assessed with Obsessive-Compulsive Drinking Scale significantly decreased in the baclofen group (P = 0.017). No major safety concern was observed.


Conclusions
This study did not demonstrate the superiority of baclofen in the maintenance of abstinence at the target dose of 180 mg/day. A tendency towards a reduction in alcohol consumption and a significantly decreased craving were observed in favour of baclofen.


Short summary
Baclofen was assessed versus placebo for maintenance of abstinence and reduction in alcohol consumption in alcohol-dependent patients. This study did not demonstrate the superiority of baclofen in the maintenance of abstinence. A tendency towards a reduction in alcohol consumption and a significantly decreased craving were observed in favour of baclofen.
Study of whole genome linkage disequilibrium in Nellore cattle

Knowledge of the linkage disequilibrium (LD) between markers is important to establish the number of markers necessary for association studies and genomic selection. The objective of this study was to evaluate the extent of LD in Nellore cattle using a high density SNP panel and 795 genotyped steers. After data editing, 446,986 SNPs were used for the estimation of LD, comprising 2508.4 Mb of the genome. The mean distance between adjacent markers was 4.90 ± 2.89 kb. The minor allele frequency (MAF) was less than 0.20 in a considerable proportion of SNPs. The overall mean LD between marker pairs measured by r2 and |D'| was 0.17 and 0.52, respectively. The LD (r2) decreased with increasing physical distance between markers from 0.34 (1 kb) to 0.11 (100 kb). In contrast to this clear decrease of LD measured by r2, the changes in |D'| indicated a less pronounced decline of LD. Chromosomes BTA1, BTA27, BTA28 and BTA29 showed lower levels of LD at any distance between markers. Except for these four chromosomes, the level of LD (r2) was higher than 0.20 for markers separated by less than 20 kb. At distances < 3 kb, the level of LD was higher than 0.30. The LD (r2) between markers was higher when the MAF threshold was high (0.15), especially when the distance between markers was short. The level of LD estimated for markers separated by less than 30 kb indicates that the High Density Bovine SNP BeadChip will likely be a suitable tool for prediction of genomic breeding values in Nellore cattle.
Five-level inverter scheme for an induction motor drive with simultaneous elimination of common-mode voltage and DC-link capacitor voltage imbalance

Abstract: The simultaneous elimination of common-mode voltage and DC-link capacitor voltage imbalance is achieved in a five-level inverter scheme for an induction motor drive throughout its operating range. A dual five-level inverter-fed open-end-winding induction motor structure is used for the proposed drive. Initially, the operating limitations of achieving this dual task for the fivelevel inverter configuration are investigated for a single DC power supply. Subsequently, a switching strategy for a five-level inverter topology with two DC power supplies is proposed to achieve the dual task over the entire speed range of the drive. The proposed drive offers a simple power-bus structure with more redundant switching combinations for inverter voltage vectors, and requires a lower voltage-blocking capacity of the power devices as compared with the conventional single five-level inverter-fed drive. As only the availability of redundant switching combinations for inverter voltage vectors is exploited, the dual task is achieved without disturbing the fundamental component of the inverter output voltage and the scheme does not need any extra control circuit hardware. Experimental verification of the proposed scheme is done on a 1.5kW induction motor drive in the linear as well as overmodulation range.
Is mad cow disease caused by a bacteria?

Transmissible spongioform enchephalopathies (TSE's), include bovine spongiform encephalopathy (also called BSE or "mad cow disease"), Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans, and scrapie in sheep. They remain a mystery, their cause hotly debated. But between 1994 and 1996, 12 people in England came down with CJD, the human form of mad cow, and all had eaten beef from suspect cows. Current mad cow diagnosis lies solely in the detection of late appearing "prions", an acronym for hypothesized, gene-less, misfolded proteins, somehow claimed to cause the disease. Yet laboratory preparations of prions contain other things, which could include unidentified bacteria or viruses. Furthermore, the rigors of prion purification alone, might, in and of themselves, have killed the causative virus or bacteria. Therefore, even if samples appear to infect animals, it is impossible to prove that prions are causative. Manuelidis found viral-like particles, which even when separated from prions, were responsible for spongiform STE's. Subsequently, Lasmezas's study showed that 55% of mice injected with cattle BSE, and who came down with disease, had no detectable prions. Still, incredibly, prions, are held as existing TSE dogma and Heino Dringer, who did pioneer work on their nature, candidly predicts "it will turn out that the prion concept is wrong." Many animals that die of spongiform TSE's never show evidence of misfolded proteins, and Dr. Frank Bastian, of Tulane, an authority, thinks the disorder is caused by the bacterial DNA he found in this group of diseases. Recently, Roels and Walravens isolated Mycobacterium bovis it from the brain of a cow with the clinical and histopathological signs of mad cow. Moreover, epidemiologic maps of the origins and peak incidence of BSE in the UK, suggestively match those of England's areas of highest bovine tuberculosis, the Southwest, where Britain's mad cow epidemic began. The neurotoxic potential for cow tuberculosis was shown in pre-1960 England, where one quarter of all tuberculous meningitis victims suffered from Mycobacterium bovis infection. And Harley's study showed pathology identical to "mad cow" from systemic M. bovis in cattle, causing a tuberculous spongiform encephalitis. In addition to M. bovis, Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (fowl tuberculosis) causes Johne's disease, a problem known and neglected in cattle and sheep for almost a century, and rapidly emerging as the disease of the new millennium. Not only has M. paratuberculosis been found in human Crohn's disease, but both Crohn's and Johne's both cross-react with the antigens of cattle paratuberculosis. Furthermore, central neurologic manifestations of Crohn's disease are not unknown. There is no known disease which better fits into what is occurring in Mad Cow and the spongiform enchephalopathies than bovine tuberculosis and its blood-brain barrier penetrating, virus-like, cell-wall-deficient forms. It is for these reasons that future research needs to be aimed in this direction.
High school students' attitudes, practices and knowledge of contraception in Jozini, KwaZulu-Natal

This study assessed the knowledge, attitudes and practices of contraception and sexual awareness amongst high school pupils in rural KwaZulu-Natal. Two hundred males and 200 females from five high schools in the Jozini district completed confidential, self-administered questionnaires in isiZulu. Almost two-thirds (61%) of the males and only 34.5% of the females indicated that they had girlfriends or boyfriends. Many more males (61.6%) than females (27.8%) indicated that they had engaged in sexual intercourse. The average age of first sexual intercourse was 15.4 years for the males and 16.4 years for the females. The most common contraceptive used among the males was a condom (81.4%) and among females it was the injection (65.4%). There was a high rate of unprotected sexual activity among the respondents, with 75.2% of the males and 61.5% of the females indicating that they had had sex without contraception. Most respondents received contraceptive information from the media. The preferred source of information was a doctor (45% male, 36.5% female). Only 29.1% of the males and 26.4% of the females indicated that their parents had discussed contraception with them. The high level of sexual activity and low contraceptive use put these adolescents at risk of pregnancy and STD infections. This study indicates that adolescents want to receive information on sexuality and contraception from their doctors. (SA Fam Pract 2005;47(6): 54-57)