LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Process evaluation of a multicomponent dyadic intervention study with exercise and support for people with dementia and their family caregivers

BACKGROUND
A randomized controlled trial of a multicomponent dyadic intervention (a translated and adapted version of an intervention that has been shown to be effective for people with dementia in the USA) was performed. The exercise and support intervention was intended to reduce depressive symptoms of people with dementia and their caregivers. The purpose of this process evaluation is to create in-depth insight into the delivery of the intervention and the effect analysis, to prevent drawing inappropriate conclusions on the efficacy or effectiveness of the intervention, and to formulate recommendations for future studies on complex geriatric interventions.


METHODS
Qualitative and quantitative data were collected. The process evaluation was performed according to the model presented by Reelick and colleagues, which encompasses the following three process components: (1) success rate of recruitment and quality of the study population; (2) the quality of execution of the complex intervention; and (3) the process of acquisition of the data.


RESULTS
The study design met high research standards and the intervention was carefully delivered. Evaluation of the study population quality revealed a profound recruitment process resulting in a reasonable sample size. Attrition rate during follow-up was acceptable. With regard to the evaluation of the intervention quality, most interviewed participants experienced benefits of the intervention. Attendance at the home visits was high and attrition to homework was moderate. Evaluation of the data acquisition showed the positive value of the use of a mixed design; qualitative analysis of the intervention revealed outcomes not measured in the quantitative analysis.


CONCLUSIONS
The process evaluation revealed a carefully and soundly performed study. The mixed design contributed to valuable insights. However, there were some restrictions worth considering. The intervention components may have a different feasibility by moderate attrition to homework and some negative experiences of participants, which may be an indication of too intensive an intervention for this frail population in this specific country. As a result, the results of the statistical effect analysis should be interpreted with caution.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
The study has been registered at the Netherlands National Trial Register: NTR1802, registration date 6 May 2009.
Increasing the synthesis of bioactive abietane diterpenes in Salvia sclarea hairy roots by elicited transcriptional reprogramming

Transcriptional activation of genes belonging to the plastidial MEP-derived isoprenoid pathway by elicitation with methyl jasmonate and coronatine enhanced the content of bioactive abietane diterpenes in Salvia sclarea hairy roots. We have shown that aethiopinone, an abietane diterpene synthesized in Salvia sclarea roots is cytotoxic and induces apoptosis in human melanoma cells. To develop a production platform for this compound and other abietane diterpenes, hairy root technology was combined with the elicitation of methyl jasmonate (MeJA) or the phytotoxin coronatine (Cor). Both MeJA and Cor induced a significant accumulation of aethiopinone, but prolonged exposure to MeJA irremediably caused inhibition of hairy root growth, which was unaffected by Cor treatment. Considering together the fold increase in aethiopinone content and the final hairy root biomass, the best combination was a Cor treatment for 28 days, which allowed to obtain up to 105.34 ± 2.30 mg L−1 of this compound to be obtained, corresponding to a 24-fold increase above the basal content in untreated hairy roots. MeJA or Cor elicitation also enhanced the synthesis of other bioactive abietane–quinone diterpenes. The elicitor-dependent steering effect was due to a coordinated transcriptional activation of several biosynthetic genes belonging to the plastidial MEP-derived isoprenoid pathway. High correlations between aethiopinone content and MeJA or Cor-elicited level of gene transcripts were found for DXS2 (r 2 = 0.99), DXR (r 2 = 0.99), and GGPPS (r 2 = 0.98), encoding enzymes acting upstream of GGPP, the common precursor of diterpenes and other plastidial-derived terpenes, as well as CPPS (r 2 = 0.99), encoding the enzyme involved in the first cyclization steps leading to copalyl-diphosphate, the precursor of abietane-like diterpenes. These results point to these genes as possible targets of metabolic engineering approaches to establish a more efficient production platform for such promising anti-proliferative plant-derived compounds.
Characterization of trans-septal activation during septal pacing: criteria for identification of intramural ventricular tachycardia substrate in nonischemic cardiomyopathy.

BACKGROUND
Identification of intramural basal-septal ventricular tachycardia (VT) substrate is challenging in nonischemic cardiomyopathy. We sought to (1) characterize normal/abnormal trans-septal right ventricular (RV) to left ventricular activation; (2) assess the effect of opposite RV pacing on left ventricular septal bipolar electrograms (EGMs); and (3) establish criteria for the identification of intramural septal VT substrate.


METHODS AND RESULTS
Endocardial activation mapping and local EGM assessment of the left interventricular septum was performed during RV basal septal pacing in 40 patients undergoing VT ablation with no evidence of septal scar (group 1, n=14) and with septal scar (group 2, n=26) defined by low septal unipolar voltage (<8.3 mV) and delayed enhancement on cardiac MRI with/without abnormal bipolar voltage (<1.5 mV) in sinus rhythm. Left ventricular trans-septal activation time was prolonged in Group 2 compared with Group 1 (55.3±33.0 versus 25.7±8.8 ms; P=0.003). In 6 group 2 patients, left ventricular septal breakthrough was displaced to the scar border. During RV pacing, group 2 had fractionated (8.8%), late (2.8%), and split (5.7%) EGMs not seen in group 1. Trans-septal activation >40 ms (sensitivity 60%, specificity 100%; P<0.001) and EGM duration >95 ms during pacing (sensitivity 22%, specificity 91%; P<0.001) identified septal scar (13/26 pts).


CONCLUSIONS
In patients with nonischemic cardiomyopathy, VT and septal scar, delayed transmural conduction time (>40 ms) and fractionated, late, split, and wide (>95 ms) bipolar EGMs during RV basal pacing identify intramural VT substrate. In select cases, the basal septum appears compartmentalized as the stimulated wavefront is rerouted to the scar border.
Cost of illness and its predictors for Parkinson’s disease in Germany

Objective: To prospectively evaluate the health economic burden of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD) in Germany over a 6-month observation period and to identify the predictors of these costs. Study design and methods: Direct and indirect costs were evaluated in 145 patients with PD (mean age 67.3 ± 9.6 years). PD patients were recruited from an outpatient department for movement disorders, a specialised PD clinic, two office-based neurologists and general practitioners, all located in Germany, and were enrolled between January and June 2000. Relevant economic data were documented in a patient diary over the 6-month period. Clinical evaluations (Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale [UPDRS]) were performed at baseline and at 3 and 6 months. Costs were derived from various German medical economic resources. Costs were calculated from the perspective of healthcare and transfer payment providers and the individual patient. Indirect costs for lost productivity were also calculated. Costs are presented as means ± standard deviation (SD). Multivariate regression analyses were performed to identify independent cost predictors. Costs are in year 2000–02 values. Results: We estimated average per patient direct, indirect and total costs for the 6-month observation period. The costs from the perspective of statutory health insurance (Gesetzliche Krankenkversicherung [GKV]) consisted of direct medical costs €1370 ± €3240, including rehabilitation (€420 ± €1630), hospitalisation (€710 ± €2520), outpatient treatment (€40 ± €30), ancillary treatment (€190 ± €280) and ambulatory diagnostic procedures (€10 ± €30). In addition, parkinsonian drug costs were €1520 ± €1250. Non-medical direct costs calculated from the GKV perspective were estimated to be €480 ± €1710, which included transportation (€10 ± €20), special equipment (€420 ± €1640), social/home-help services (€10 ± €110) and sickness benefit (€40 ± €540). The total medical (including drug costs) and non-medical direct costs for the GKV were €3380 ± €4230. Univariate predictors for GKV direct costs included occurrence of motor complications and falls, disease severity, nightmares and dementia. However, multivariate analyses only suggested disease severity and health-related quality of life as significant predictors. For nursing insurance, payments of €1330 ± €2890 were calculated. For retirement insurance, payments were €650 ± €1510 and there were patient (or caregiver) costs of €1490 ± €2730. Total indirect costs amounted to €3180 ± €6480. Conclusion: According to our study, PD puts a high financial burden on society and underscores the need for further economic and medical research to optimise treatment for PD.
What to Do about Being Overwhelmed: Graduate Students, Stress and University Services.

Few studies have examined graduate students and stress. At a large, Southeastern university, 223 graduate students completed a survey about factors contributing their stress, current coping strategies and related university services. A majority felt stressed (48.9%) or very stressed (24.7%). There were significant differences in coping strategies of males and females. Many were interested in learning about and using new coping strategies such as massage, yoga and meditation. Additionally, affordable health insurance, improving the physical environment (i.e., parking), and increasing communication in the academic context could reduce stress levels. Discussion about how health centers, counseling centers and other Student Affairs departments can help the university address these issues to reduce overall graduate student stress is included.
Vulvar cancer: epidemiology, clinical presentation, and management options

EPIDEMIOLOGY
Vulvar cancer can be classified into two groups according to predisposing factors: the first type correlates with a HPV infection and occurs mostly in younger patients. The second group is not HPV associated and occurs often in elderly women without neoplastic epithelial disorders.


HISTOLOGY
Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the most common malignant tumor of the vulva (95%).


CLINICAL FEATURES
Pruritus is the most common and long-lasting reported symptom of vulvar cancer, followed by vulvar bleeding, discharge, dysuria, and pain.


THERAPY
The gold standard for even a small invasive carcinoma of the vulva was historically radical vulvectomy with removal of the tumor with a wide margin followed by an en bloc resection of the inguinal and often the pelvic lymph nodes. Currently, a more individualized and less radical treatment is suggested: a radical wide local excision is possible in the case of localized lesions (T1). A sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy may be performed to reduce wound complications and lymphedema.


PROGNOSIS
The survival of patients with vulvar cancer is good when convenient therapy is arranged quickly after initial diagnosis. Inguinal and/or femoral node involvement is the most significant prognostic factor for survival.
Structures of telomerase subunits provide functional insights.

BACKGROUND
Telomerase continues to generate substantial attention both because of its pivotal roles in cellular proliferation and aging and because of its unusual structure and mechanism. By replenishing telomeric DNA lost during the cell cycle, telomerase overcomes one of the many hurdles facing cellular immortalization. Functionally, telomerase is a reverse transcriptase, and it shares structural and mechanistic features with this class of nucleotide polymerases. Telomerase is a very unusual reverse transcriptase because it remains stably associated with its template and because it reverse transcribes multiple copies of its template onto a single primer in one reaction cycle.


SCOPE OF REVIEW
Here, we review recent findings that illuminate our understanding of telomerase. Even though the specific emphasis is on structure and mechanism, we also highlight new insights into the roles of telomerase in human biology.


GENERAL SIGNIFICANCE
Recent advances in the structural biology of telomerase, including high resolution structures of the catalytic subunit of a beetle telomerase and two domains of a ciliate telomerase catalytic subunit, provide new perspectives into telomerase biochemistry and reveal new puzzles.
Multiple imputation of missing values: Update of ice

Associate Editors Christopher Baum Boston College Rino Bellocco Karolinska Institutet David Clayton Cambridge Inst. for Medical Research Mario A. Cleves Univ. of Arkansas for Medical Sciences William D. Dupont Vanderbilt University Charles Franklin University of Wisconsin, Madison Joanne M. Garrett University of North Carolina Allan Gregory Queen’s University James Hardin University of South Carolina Ben Jann ETH Zurich, Switzerland Stephen Jenkins University of Essex Ulrich Kohler WZB, Berlin Jens Lauritsen Odense University Hospital Stanley Lemeshow Ohio State University J. Scott Long Indiana University Thomas Lumley University of Washington, Seattle Roger Newson King’s College, London Marcello Pagano Harvard School of Public Health Sophia Rabe-Hesketh University of California, Berkeley J. Patrick Royston MRC Clinical Trials Unit, London Philip Ryan University of Adelaide Mark E. Schaffer Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh Jeroen Weesie Utrecht University Nicholas J. G. Winter Cornell University Jeffrey Wooldridge Michigan State University
A hybrid deep learning CNN-ELM for age and gender classification

Automatic age and gender classification has been widely used in a large amount of applications, particularly in human-computer interaction, biometrics, visual surveillance, electronic customer, and commercial applications. In this paper, we introduce a hybrid structure which includes Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and Extreme Learning Machine (ELM), and integrates the synergy of two classifiers to deal with age and gender classification. The hybrid architecture makes the most of their advantages: CNN is used to extract the features from the input images while ELM classifies the intermediate results. We not only give the detailed deployment of our structure including design of parameters and layers, analysis of the hybrid architecture, and the derivation of back-propagation in this system during the iterations, but also adopt several measures to limit the risk of overfitting. After that, two popular datasets, such as, MORPHII and Adience Benchmark, are used to verify our hybrid structure. Experimental results show that our hybrid architecture outperforms other studies on the same datasets by exhibiting significant performance improvement in terms of accuracy and efficiency. © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Understanding Virtual Reality Technology: Advances and Applications

Virtual Reality (VR) is not an entirely new concept; it has existed in various forms since the late 1960s. It has been known by names such as synthetic environment, cyberspace, artificial reality, simulator technology and so on and so forth before VR was eventually adopted. The latest manifestation of VR is desktop VR. Desktop VR is also known by other names such as Window on World (WoW) or non-immersive VR (Onyesolu, 2006). As a result of proliferation of desktop VR, the technology has continued to develop applications that are less than fully immersive. These non-immersive VR applications are far less expensive and technically daunting and have made inroads into industry training and development. VR has perhaps at last come within the realm of possibility for general creation and use most especially in education where computer-based virtual learning environments (VLE) are packaged as desktop VR. This, in turn, points the way for its inclusion in educational programs (Ausburn & Ausburn, 2004). These computer-based virtual learning environments (VLEs) have opened new realms in the teaching, learning, and practice of medicine, physical sciences and engineering among others. VLEs provide students with the opportunity to achieve learning goals. VLE-based applications have thus emerged in mainstream education in schools and universities as successful tools to supplement traditional teaching methods. These learning environments have been discovered to have greater pedagogical effectiveness on learners. Virtual learning environments provide three-dimensional (3D) insights into the structures and functions of any system desired. Students can thereby learn the principles of such system in a fast, effective and pleasurable way by interacting with and navigating through the environment created for such system (Onyesolu, 2009a; Onyesolu, 2009b). It is known that VR can make the artificial as realistic as, and even more realistic than, the real (Negroponte, 1995).
The Effect of Legalized Gambling on State Government Revenue

Legalized gambling is an attractive option to state governments facing tightening fiscal constraints. Yet, the empirical evidence on the effect of gambling on state revenues is limited. Most studies examine a single industry in a single state, and for a relatively short period of time. This study provides a more general analysis of gambling industries and their effects on state revenues. We use data on gambling volume and state government revenues net of federal government transfers for all 50 states from 1985 to 2000. We find that lotteries and horse racing tend to increase state revenues, while casinos and greyhound racing tend to decrease state revenues. (JEL H2, H7, L8)
Postural sway reduction in aging men and women: Relation to brain structure, cognitive status, and stabilizing factors

Postural stability becomes compromised with advancing age, but the neural mechanisms contributing to instability have not been fully explicated. Accordingly, this quantitative physiological and MRI study of sex differences across the adult age range examined the association between components of postural control and the integrity of brain structure and function under different conditions of sensory input and stance stabilization manipulation. The groups comprised 28 healthy men (age 30-73 years) and 38 healthy women (age 34-74 years), who completed balance platform testing, cognitive assessment, and structural MRI. The results supported the hypothesis that excessive postural sway would be greater in older than younger healthy individuals when standing without sensory or stance aids, and that introduction of such aids would reduce sway in both principal directions (anterior-posterior and medial-lateral) and in both the open-loop and closed-loop components of postural control even in older individuals. Sway reduction with stance stabilization, that is, standing with feet apart, was greater in men than women, probably because older men were less stable than women when standing with their feet together. Greater sway was related to evidence for greater brain structural involutional changes, indexed as ventricular and sulcal enlargement and white matter hyperintensity burden. In women, poorer cognitive test performance related to less sway reduction with the use of sensory aids. Thus, aging men and women were shown to have diminished postural control, associated with cognitive and brain structural involution, in unstable stance conditions and with diminished sensory input.
The relationship between sensory sensitivity and autistic traits in the general population.

Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) tend to have sensory processing difficulties (Baranek et al. in J Child Psychol Psychiatry 47:591-601, 2006). These difficulties include over- and under-responsiveness to sensory stimuli, and problems modulating sensory input (Ben-Sasson et al. in J Autism Dev Disorders 39:1-11, 2009). As those with ASD exist at the extreme end of a continuum of autistic traits that is also evident in the general population, we investigated the link between ASD and sensory sensitivity in the general population by administering two questionnaires online to 212 adult participants. Results showed a highly significant positive correlation (r = .775, p < .001) between number of autistic traits and the frequency of sensory processing problems. These data suggest a strong link between sensory processing and autistic traits in the general population, which in turn potentially implicates sensory processing problems in social interaction difficulties.
Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures: From Chess to Role-Playing Games

Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures: From Chess to Role-Playing Games Jon Peterson San Diego: Unreason Press LLC, 2012. Introduction, contents, images. 698 pp. $34.95 paper. ISBN: 9780615642048Jon Peterson's Playing at the World traces the history of the practices, ideas, and cultural forces that led to Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson's invention of the role-play- ing game Dungeons & Dragons (DD it has a clear narrative that covers the key historical events in the devel- opment of D&D. The next three chap- ters each explore in great detail a theme important to understanding the history of role-playing games. Chapter 2 traces the history of the medieval fantasy genre (such as the works of J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Robert Howard) and its rise to popularity in the middle of the twentieth century. Chapter 3 tells the history of war games, from the countless chess variants that led to Prussian kriegspiel in the early nineteenth century to the emergence of modern war games in the midtwentieth century. Chapter 4 examines the history of enacting fictional roles and characters. These three chapters provide copious details and testify to the author's years of dedicated research. Chapter 5 resumes the more narrative approach of chapter 1 and describes audiences' reactions to Dun- geons & Dragons. The epilogue discusses D&D's influence on early video gaming and concludes the book.I do not know how long Peterson spent writing this book, but the amount of research is staggering. In this respect, the book is an invaluable resource for schol- ars interested in the history and origins of games. However, the middle chapters' depth and detail will likely deter casual readers. On page 303, Peterson writes: "Readers in whom this justification does not spark an eagerness to explore the minutiae, however, should not hesitate to skim over the technical detail in the rest of this chapter." Reading this I laughed to myself, thinking this warning would have been better placed some two hun- dred pages earlier. The outer chapters are the most narratively driven, and I believe Peterson could use these three sections to create an abridged version better-suited to the casual reader. But this complaint is minor and should be taken as such.A key theme of simulation runs through the book. Peterson shows how game designers began the pursuit of "realism" in the early nineteenth century, which led to two design methods that still figure large in role-playing games. …