LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
A phase I pharmacokinetic study of ursolic acid nanoliposomes in healthy volunteers and patients with advanced solid tumors

BACKGROUND
Ursolic acid is a promising anticancer agent. The current study aims to evaluate the single- and multiple-dose pharmacokinetics (PK) as well as the safety of ursolic acid nanoliposomes (UANL) in healthy volunteers and in patients with advanced solid tumors.


METHODS
Twenty-four healthy volunteers in the single-dose PK study were divided into three different groups, which received 37, 74, and 98 mg/m(2) of UANL. Eight patients in the multiple-dose PK study were administered with 74 mg/m(2) of UANL daily for 14 days. The UA plasma concentrations were determined using ultra-performance liquid chromatograph-tandem mass spectrometry.


RESULTS
The plasma concentration profiles of all subjects were characterized by a biexponential decline after infusion. The mean peak plasma concentration (C(max)) increased linearly as a function of the dose (r = 0.999). The mean area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC) from 0 to 16 hours also increased proportionally with dose escalation (r = 0.998). However, the clearance was constant over the specific dose interval. In the multiple-dose PK study, the trough and average concentrations remained low. The mean AUC, half-life, C(max), time to C(max), and the volume of distribution on the first day were similar to those on the last day. All subjects tolerated the treatments well. Most UANL-associated adverse events varied from mild to moderate.


CONCLUSIONS
UANL exhibits relatively linear PK behavior with dose levels from 37 mg/m(2) to 98 mg/m(2). No drug accumulation was observed with repeated doses of UANL. The intravenous infusion of UANL was well tolerated by healthy volunteers and patients with advanced tumors.
Affective Transitions in Narrative-Centered Learning Environments

Affect has been the subject of increasing attention in cognitive accounts of learning. Many intelligent tutoring systems now seek to adapt pedagogy to student affective and motivational processes in an effort to increase the effectiveness of tutorial interaction and improve learning outcomes. To this end, recent work has begun to investigate the emotions experienced during learning in a variety of environments. In this paper we extend this line of research by investigating the affective transitions that occur throughout narrative-centered learning experiences. Further analysis differentiates the likelihood of affective transitions stemming from pedagogical agent empathetic responses to student affect.
Fabrication and Characterization of thin Ceramic Films by Spray Pyrolysis

Abstract Results are presented of the application and process parameter optimization of the technique of solution spray pyrolysis for the fabrication of functional films of the type Cu-CeO 2 και La 0.75 Sr 0.25 MnO 3 (LSM) on dense pellets of yttria-stabilized zirconia (YSZ). The first type of deposited film constitutes a cermet (ceramic-metal composite) that combines the properties of an inert electronic conductor (Cu) and a catalyst while the second is a typical perovskite that exhibits mixed (i.e. ionic and electronic) conductivity. Both types of electrodes find wide use in ceramic fuel cells, gas sensors and catalytic processes.
Is quantum Einstein gravity nonperturbatively renormalizable

We find considerable evidence supporting the conjecture that four-dimensional Quantum Einstein Gravity is “asymptotically safe” in Weinberg’s sense. This would mean that the theory is likely to be nonperturbatively renormalizable and thus could be considered a fundamental (rather than merely effective) theory which is mathematically consistent and predictive down to arbitrarily small length scales. For a truncated version of the exact flow equation of the effective average action we establish the existence of a non-Gaussian renormalization group fixed point which is suitable for the construction of a nonperturbative infinite cutoff-limit. The truncation ansatz includes the Einstein-Hilbert action and a higher derivative term. Classical General Relativity, based upon the Einstein-Hilbert action SEH = 1 16πG ∫ dx √−g {−R + 2Λ} , (1) is known to be a phenomenologically very successful theory at length scales ranging from terrestrial scales to solar system and cosmological scales. However, it is also known that quantized General Relativity is perturbatively nonrenormalizable. This has led to the widespread believe that a straightforward quantization of the metric degrees of freedom cannot lead to a mathematically consistent and predictive fundamental theory valid down to arbitrarily small spacetime distances. Einstein gravity is rather considered merely an effective theory whose range of applicability is limited to a phenomenological description of gravitational effects at distances much larger than the Planck length. In particle physics one usually considers a theory fundamental if it is perturbatively renormalizable. The virtue of such models is that one can “hide” their infinities in only finitely many basic parameters (masses, gauge couplings, etc.) which are intrinsically undetermined within the theory and whose value must be taken from the experiment. All higher couplings are then well-defined computable functions of those few parameters. In nonrenormalizable effective theories, on the other hand, the divergence structure is such that increasing orders of the loop expansion require an increasing number of new counter terms and, as a consequence, of undetermined free parameters. Typically, at high energies, all these unknown parameters enter on an equal footing so that the theory looses all its predictive power. However, there are examples of field theories which “exist” as fundamental theories despite their perturbative nonrenormalizability [1, 2]. These models are “nonperturbatively renormalizable” along the lines of Wilson’s modern formulation of renormalization theory [1]. They are constructed by performing the limit of infinite ultraviolet cutoff (“continuum limit”) at a non-Gaussian renormalization group fixed point g∗i in the space {gi} of all (dimensionless, essential) couplings gi which parametrize a general action functional. This has to be contrasted with the standard perturbative renormalization which, at least
LC-MS/MS for the simultaneous analysis of arachidonic acid and 32 related metabolites in human plasma: Basal plasma concentrations and aspirin-induced changes of eicosanoids.

Eicosanoids play an important role in various biological responses and can be used as biomarkers for specific diseases. Therefore, we developed a highly selective, sensitive, and robust liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometric method to measure arachidonic acid and its 32 metabolites in human plasma. Sample preparation involved solid phase extraction, which efficiently removed sources of interference present in human plasma. Chromatographic separation was performed using a Luna C(8)-column with 0.5mM ammonium formate buffer and acetonitrile as the mobile phase under gradient conditions. Detection was performed using tandem mass spectrometry equipped with an electrospray ionization interface in negative ion mode. The matrix did not affect the reproducibility and reliability of the assay. All analytes showed good linearity over the investigated concentration range (r>0.997). The validated lower limit of quantitation for the analytes ranged from 10 to 400pg/mL. Intra- and inter-day precision (RDS%) over the concentration ranges for all eicosanoids were within 16.8%, and accuracy ranged between 88.1 and 108.2%. This assay was suitable for the determination of basal plasma levels of eicosanoids and the evaluation of effect of aspirin on eicosanoid plasma levels in healthy subjects.
To lead and to be led in municipal elderly care in Sweden as perceived by registered nurses.

AIM
To describe registered nurses' (RNs) perceptions of their own leadership and of their immediate line management, as well as leadership's organizational prerequisites in municipal elderly care.


BACKGROUND
Nursing leadership is a main factor influencing care quality. In spite of this, there is a leadership crisis in municipal elderly care.


METHOD
A descriptive design utilizing a questionnaire. The setting was 60 residential care homes in Sweden with 213 participating nurses. The response rate was 62%.


RESULTS
Most nurses (59%) viewed themselves as leaders of a smaller group, whereas 28% did not consider themselves as leaders at all. Few nurses had the will to develop their leadership competence. In all, 25% of the nurses had unresolved serious conflicts with their immediate line management. Half perceived receiving no or little feedback from their immediate line management. A majority had no organized supervision. They perceived, on average, organizational prerequisites as unclear, with few possibilities for leadership competence development.


CONCLUSIONS
Nurses need to be more willing to develop their leadership skills. Nurses need managers to support them in their leadership roles. They need distinct and supportive organizational prerequisites for leadership.


IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT
It is crucial to provide distinct and supportive organizational prerequisites for nursing leadership.
The Impact of Human Resource Development on Organisational Performance: Test of a Causal Model

Although a number of studies have recognized the relationship between human resource development (HRD), and organisational performance, the mechanisms through which HRD leads to organisational performance remain still unexplored. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the pathways leading from HRD to organisational performance by using structural equation modelling. Specifically, we used this analytical tool to test a research framework that is constituted by a set of causal relationships between organisational and other contingencies, resourcing and HRD, skills, attitudes and behaviour, and organisational performance. Employing data from organisations operating in the Greek manufacturing sector, results indicate that the impact of HRD on organisational performance is positive and serially mediated through skills, attitudes and behaviour, and moderated by resourcing, organisational context and other contingencies. Thus, the paper not only supports that HRD has a positive impact on organisational performance but also explains the mechanisms through which HRD improves organisational performance.
Computed Tomographic Pulmonary Angiographic Findings Can Predict Short-Term Mortality of Saddle Pulmonary Embolism: A Retrospective Multicenter Study.

OBJECTIVE
In patients with saddle pulmonary embolism (PE), the correlation between computed tomographic pulmonary angiographic (CTPA) findings and short-term outcome remains unclear. The purpose is to determine if CTPA findings predict 1-month mortality of patients with saddle PE.


METHODS
This is a multicenter, retrospective study of saddle PE. Computed tomographic pulmonary angiographic findings of 115 consecutive patients (male-to-female ratio, 65:50; mean age, 64.3 ± 16.3 years) with saddle PE were evaluated. One-month mortality after diagnosis was the primary end point.


RESULTS
Twenty-four patients died within 1 month. Among CTPA findings, quantitative parameters including right/left ventricular area ratios (RVa/LVa), right/left atrial diameter ratios, Cobb angle, and Mastora score were significantly enlarged in survivors. Also, qualitative findings including contrast agent reflux into the azygos vein and pericardial effusion were significantly different between survivors and nonsurvivors. Areas under the curve on receiver operating characteristic curves revealed the cutoff values for predicting early mortality of saddle PE using right/left atrial diameter ratios, RVa/LVa, Mastora score, and Cobb angle, respectively, were 2.15, 2.00, 69%, and 58°. Logistic regression analysis suggested that both RVa/LVa (odds ratio, 5.100; P = 0.0004) and Cobb angle (odds ratio, 1.596; P = 0.0321) were independent predictors of early mortality. The combination of RVa/LVa and Cobb angle increased the area under the curve to 0.882, but the difference did not reach significance compared with RVa/LVa or Cobb angle, alone (P > 0.05).


CONCLUSION
In patients with saddle PE, RVa/LVa and Cobb angle seem valuable in predicting short-term mortality.
Mind Wandering Behind the Wheel: Performance and Oculomotor Correlates

OBJECTIVE
An experiment studied the frequency and correlates of driver mind wandering.


BACKGROUND
Driver mind wandering is associated with risk for crash involvement. The present experiment examined the performance and attentional changes by which this effect might occur.


METHOD
Participants performed a car-following task in a high-fidelity driving simulator and were asked to report any time they caught themselves mind wandering. Vehicle control and eye movement data were recorded.


RESULTS
As compared with their attentive performance, participants showed few deficits in vehicle control while mind wandering but tended to focus visual attention narrowly on the road ahead.


CONCLUSION
Data suggest that mind wandering can engender a failure to monitor the environment while driving.


APPLICATION
Results identify behavioral correlates and potential risks of mind wandering that might enable efforts to detect and mitigate driver inattention.
Cross Lingual Syntax Projection for Resource-Poor Languages Vamshi Ambati

Over the past few decades, supervised learning in structured spaces has been quite successful in syntactic analysis problems in natural language processing. These learning techniques exploit large amounts of annotated data to learn models that can perform linguistic analysis on unseen data. Acquiring such supervised linguistic annotations for a language is important for natural language processing and it usually involves significant human efforts. The quantities of the annotated data are far from being sufficient for the majority of the languages. Languages like English have been well supported in the linguistics community, and therefore there is a wealth of language analysis tools for them. We also have large amounts of annotated data available. This makes English a resource-rich language and attractive for computational linguists to work on. There are only a few more languages in the world that enjoy the status of a resource-rich language. Many other languages either do not have analysis tools or do not have annotated data from which state-of-the-art tools can be induced. This makes these languages resourcepoor both in terms of data and tools. Even after 50 years of notable contributions made in the area of computational linguistics, we are still far from being able to deal with many other languages. The advent of the World Wide Web and the advances in the digital media world have helped the language community immensely. We now see a lot of data on the internet and a lot of parallel data for various languages pairs. There are also known techniques for harvesting parallel texts from the World Wide Web (Resnik and Smith 2003). A pair of texts is parallel when a document in one language, often the source language, has an identified mapping with another document in the second language, called the target language, and one is an equivalent translation of the other. The availability of parallel data has opened various research ideas for the creation of multilingual applications, in particular for the resource-poor languages. One approach is to project syntactic annotations and structures from the resource-rich source language to the target language which is resource-poor. This is often called "projection of annotation" or simply "syntax projection". The goal of syntax projection is to induce multilingual text analysis tools automatically for a target language. This problem can be complicated because of the differences in syntactic structures between the source and target languages. Usually, the projection is not merely a one-to-one mapping. Rather, syntactic relations can also be one-to-many, many-to-one, many-to-many or even unmapped. Annotated data that we get from direct projection using parallel corpora contains errors. Thus, training accurate stochastic text analyzers from noisy data becomes a challenging task. Many efforts have been developed and put into practice in the last 10 years to solve the challenges faced by syntax projection (Yarowsky, Ngai, and Wicentowski 2001; Hwa
Does the use of a volatile anesthetic regimen attenuate the incidence of cardiac events after vascular surgery?

OBJECTIVE
To compare the effects of a volatile anesthetic to a non-volatile anesthetic regimen on the incidence of postoperative cardiac events, including the postoperative elevation of troponin I values after arterial vascular surgery in high risk patients.


DESIGN
Retrospective analysis of data of a phase II study that compared the Na+/H+ exchanger type II inhibitor, zoniporide to placebo on the occurrence of cardiac events.


SETTING
Multicenter study conducted in 105 sites throughout the United States, South America, Europe and Asia.


PARTICIPANTS
784 subjects scheduled for urgent or elective major arterial vascular surgery and a history of at least 3 of the following: age > or = 65 years, hypertension, documented stroke or transient ischemic attack, previous myocardial infarction, active angina pectoris diabetes mellitus, congestive heart failure, or symptomatic cardiac arrhythmia.


INTERVENTIONS
Type of anesthesia was retrospectively retrieved from the database and patients were subdivided in two groups: inhalational (group A) vs non-inhalational anesthetic regimen (group B). Incidence of postoperative cardiac events was compared between the two groups.


MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS
The incidence of postoperative cardiac events was not different between the two groups. Maximum postoperative troponin I levels was not different between the two groups in the total population and in the patients undergoing peripheral arterial surgery. In patients undergoing aortic surgery the incidence of elevated troponin levels higher than 1.5 and 4 ng x mL(-1) tended to be lower in group A than in group B in the aortic surgery (28% vs 18% and 30% vs 20% respectively) but this difference did not reach statistical significance.


CONCLUSION
The results of this hypothesis-generating study suggest that potential beneficial effects on extent of postoperative myocardial damage in high risk patients undergoing arterial surgery will probably be more apparent in abdominal aortic surgery than in peripheral vascular surgery. Further sufficiently powered studies using a standardized protocol should now be performed to definitively address this question.
Clinical trial of bleaching treatment with 10% all-trans retinol gel.

BACKGROUND
Although an aggressive use of tretinoin along with hydroquinone enables an efficient treatment of hyperpigmented skin lesions, irritant dermatitis remains to be solved.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the efficiency and adverse effects of 10% all-trans retinol (ROL) gel for improvement of skin hyperpigmentation.


METHODS
Ten-percent ROL gel was used instead of 0.1% tretinoin gel in our two-phased bleaching protocol (bleaching and healing phases); 5% hydroquinone and 7% lactic acid ointment were used along with ROL gel in the bleaching phase (2 to 6 weeks). Five-percent hydroquinone and 7% ascorbic acid ointment were used alone during the healing phase (4 to 6 weeks). Twenty-one Japanese patients with hyperpigmented lesions on the face were enrolled in this study, and 18 patients who were followed for more than 10 weeks were analyzed.


RESULTS
Improvement of pigmentation was seen in 16 of 18 patients after an average treatment period of 11.3 weeks, and in 6 patients, pigmentation was almost eliminated after treatment. Erythema and scaling were seen, however, during the bleaching phase as well as the bleaching treatment with tretinoin gel.


CONCLUSION
ROL can improve skin hyperpigmentation to a similar extent to tretinoin when used at high concentration, whereas it induces irritant dermatitis as well.
Interpretation and aggregation of marks in classroom learning partner

This thesis explores the mark understanding problem in the context of a Tablet-PC-based classroom interaction system. It presents a novel method for interpreting digital ink strokes on background images, and aggregating those interpretations. It addresses complexity of mark interpreters and development and acquisition of a representation of a contextual background. It details the design, implementation, testing, and plans for future extension of a mark interpreter and aggregator in the Classroom Learning Partner, our classroom interaction system. Thesis Supervisor: Kimberle Koile, Ph.D. Title: Research Scientist
ST-elevation myocardial infarction diagnosed after hospital admission.

BACKGROUND
Treatment times for ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients presenting to percutaneous coronary intervention hospitals have improved dramatically over the past 10 years, particularly for patients using emergency medical services. Limited data exist regarding treatment times and outcomes for patients who develop STEMI after hospital admission.


METHODS AND RESULTS
With the use of a comprehensive prospective regional STEMI program database, we evaluated the characteristics and outcomes for patients who develop STEMI after hospital admission. Of the 3795 consecutive STEMI patients treated by the use of the Minneapolis Heart Institute regional STEMI program from March 2003 to January 2013, 990 (26.1%) presented initially to the percutaneous coronary intervention facility, including 640 arriving via emergency medical services, 267 self/family driven, and 83 already admitted to the hospital. Patients with in-hospital presentation were older with higher body mass indexes, were more likely to have hypertension, and to present with pre-percutaneous coronary intervention cardiac arrest and cardiogenic shock. Door-to-balloon times (diagnostic ECG-to-balloon for in-hospital patients) were longer than for patients using emergency medical services (76 versus 51 minutes; P<0.001), but similar to self/family-driven patients (76 versus 66 minutes; P=0.13). In-hospital patients had longer lengths of stay (5 versus 3 versus 3 days; P<0.001) and higher 1-year mortality (16.9% versus 10.3% versus 7.1%; P=0.032). These patients frequently had high-risk and complex reasons for admission, including 30.1% with acute coronary syndrome, 22.9% postsurgery, 13.3% respiratory failure, and 8.4% ventricular fibrillation.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients who develop STEMI while in-hospital represent a unique, high-risk subset of patients. They have increased treatment time and lengths of stay and higher mortality rates than the patients presenting via emergency medical services or who are self/family driven.