LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
2016 Annual Report of The Society of Thoracic Surgeons/American College of Cardiology Transcatheter Valve Therapy Registry.

BACKGROUND
The Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS)/American College of Cardiology Transcatheter Valve Therapy (TVT) Registry captures all procedures with Food and Drug Administration-approved transcatheter valve devices performed in the United States, and is mandated as a condition of reimbursement by the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services.


OBJECTIVES
This annual report focuses on patient characteristics, trends, and outcomes of transcatheter aortic and mitral valve catheter-based valve procedures in the United States.


METHODS
We reviewed data for all patients receiving commercially approved devices from 2012 through December 31, 2015, that are entered in the TVT Registry.


RESULTS
The 54,782 patients with transcatheter aortic valve replacement demonstrated decreases in expected risk of 30-day operative mortality (STS Predicted Risk of Mortality [PROM]) of 7% to 6% and transcatheter aortic valve replacement PROM (TVT PROM) of 4% to 3% (both p < 0.0001) from 2012 to 2015. Observed in-hospital mortality decreased from 5.7% to 2.9%, and 1-year mortality decreased from 25.8% to 21.6%. However, 30-day post-procedure pacemaker insertion increased from 8.8% in 2013 to 12.0% in 2015. The 2,556 patients who underwent transcatheter mitral leaflet clip in 2015 were similar to patients from 2013 to 2014, with hospital mortality of 2% and with mitral regurgitation reduced to grade ≤2 in 87% of patients (p < 0.0001). The 349 patients who underwent mitral valve-in-valve and mitral valve-in-ring procedures were high risk, with an STS PROM for mitral valve replacement of 11%. The observed hospital mortality was 7.2%, and 30-day post-procedure mortality was 8.5%.


CONCLUSIONS
The TVT Registry is an innovative registry that that monitors quality, patient safety and trends for these rapidly evolving new technologies.
Personal and Social-Contextual Factors in K–12 Academic Performance: An Integrative Perspective on Student Learning

Our extensive literature review in the fields of educational, social, and cognitive psychology has led us to identify about a dozen variables that demonstrate direct empirical links to academic achievement at the K–12 level. Those variables are grouped into four major categories: student engagement, learning strategies, school climate, and social-familial influences. We then categorize the first two variables as personal factors and the latter two as social-contextual factors. We document empirical findings that have shown particular relationships between the reviewed personal and social-contextual factors and academic achievement, mainly in the areas of reading and mathematics. Based on our conceptualization, we propose an integrated perspective that students’ personal factors in the domains of behavior, affect, attitude, and cognition as well as their social-contextual environment have to work in concert to produce optimal school performance. We conclude with a discussion on educational implications and future research to be addressed.
The role of acrylic acid impurity as a sensitizing component in electrocardiogram electrodes.

BACKGROUND
Allergic contact dermatitis caused by (meth)acrylates is well known, both in occupational and in non-occupational settings. Contact hypersensitivity to electrocardiogram (ECG) electrodes containing (meth)acrylates is rarely reported.


OBJECTIVE
To report the first case of contact dermatitis caused by acrylic acid impurity in ECG electrodes.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
Patch tests were performed with separate components of electrodes and some (meth)acrylates. This was followed by high-performance liquid chromatography of electrode hydrogel.


RESULTS
The patient was contact-allergic to electrode hydrogel but not to its separate constituents. Positive reactions were observed to 2-hydroxyethyl methacrylate (2-HEMA), 2-hydroxypropyl methacrylate (2-HPMA) and ethyleneglycol dimethacrylate (EGDMA). Subsequent analysis showed that the electrode hydrogel contained acrylic acid as an impurity. The latter was subsequently patch tested, with a positive result.


CONCLUSION
The sensitization resulting from direct contact with ECG electrodes was caused by acrylic acid, present as an impurity in ECG electrodes. Positive reactions to 2-HEMA, 2-HPMA and EGDMA are considered to be cross-reactions.
Relapse of hepatitis B in HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B patients who discontinued successful entecavir treatment: the case for continuous antiviral therapy.

BACKGROUND/AIMS
To evaluate the off-treatment durability of response in HBeAg-negative chronic hepatitis B patients who achieved a protocol-defined 'Response' (HBV-DNA<0.7MEq/mL and ALT<1.25xULN) with entecavir at 48 weeks and the efficacy of entecavir in patients treated beyond one year.


METHODS
Entecavir-treated and lamivudine-treated patients who achieved a protocol-defined 'Response' were evaluated off-treatment for HBV-DNA<300copies/mL and ALT normalisation. Entecavir- and lamivudine-treated patients who achieved a protocol-defined 'Virological Response' (HBV-DNA<0.7MEq/mL but ALT1.25xULN) at 48 weeks, continued blinded treatment until they achieved Response or 96 weeks, whichever came first.


RESULTS
Among 'Responders' who discontinued treatment after 48 weeks, 7/257 (3%) entecavir-treated and 10/201 (5%) lamivudine-treated patients sustained HBV-DNA below 300copies/mL at 24-weeks off-treatment. Among the 54 patients who continued blinded treatment in the second year, 7/26 (27%) entecavir-treated and 6/28 (21%) lamivudine-treated patients normalised ALT and 22/26 (85%) entecavir-treated and 16/28 (57%) lamivudine-treated patients maintained HBV-DNA<300copies/mL at end-of-dosing. The safety profiles of both drugs remained comparable through a second year of treatment.


CONCLUSIONS
The majority of protocol-defined Responders relapsed after 1 year when treatment was discontinued. Treatment with entecavir beyond 1 year provided continued virological and biochemical benefit.
THE TERROR OF NORMALITY IN JERZY KOSINSKI'S "THE PAINTED BIRD"

The Painted Bird, originally published in 1965, was greeted as a Holocaust classic, another personal, autobiographical testimony to be included in bibliographies of Holocaust writing. However, other readers and critics soon pointed out the novel's allegorical and mythological character, seeing in Kosinski's work an attempt to break away from the dominating realistic convention or even an example of postmodernist aesthetics which, far from offering a documentary account of history, problematizes the issue of representation. (Charles Russell saw Kosinski in the company of other postmodernist writers such as Thomas Pynchon, Richard Brautigan, Ronald Sukenick and Donald Barthelme,1 a critical context explored at greater length by Jerome Klinkowitz in his various studies of contemporary authors.) As if in support of this parabolic interpretation of the novel, the cover of the Bantam Books edition of The Painted Bird'bore a fragment of Hieronymus Bosch's painting Das Jiingste Gericht. The commentaries quoted in the book also encouraged this kind of reading: Anai's Nin emphasized the novel's success in lifting "the entire experience to the philosophic, mythological realms of knowledge," and Luis Bunuel observed that the novel moves beyond realism, being "a trip into the world of nightmare and anxiety." Polish responses to the novel, at first almost unanimously hostile, attacked it for the supposedly biased, distorted picture of life in Nazi-occupied Poland, the charge clearly based on an assumption of the documentary, autobiographical character of The Painted Bird. Critical works such as Joanna Siedlecka's book Czarnyptasio? accused Kosinski of falsifying his own biography and revealed the details of the writer's life during the war, supposedly at odds with the events described in the novel.
PackMerger: A 3D Print Volume Optimizer

We propose an optimization framework for 3D printing that seeks to save printing time and the support material required to print 3D shapes. Three-dimensional printing technology is rapidly maturing and may revolutionize how we manufacture objects. The total cost of printing, however, is governed by numerous factors which include not only the price of the printer but also the amount of material and time to fabricate the shape. Our PackMerger framework converts the input 3D watertight mesh into a shell by hollowing its inner parts. The shell is then divided into segments. The location of splits is controlled based on several parameters, including the size of the connection areas or volume of each segment. The pieces are then tightly packed using optimization. The optimization attempts to minimize the amount of support material and the bounding box volume of the packed segments while keeping the number of segments minimal. The final packed configuration can be printed with substantial time and material savings, while also allowing printing of objects that would not fit into the printer volume. We have tested our system on three different printers and it shows a reduction of 5–30% of the printing time while simultaneously saving 15–65% of the support material. The optimization time was approximately 1 min. Once the segments are printed, they need to be assembled.
Posterior compartment prolapse on two-dimensional and three-dimensional pelvic floor ultrasound: the distinction between true rectocele, perineal hypermobility and enterocele.

OBJECTIVES
Posterior compartment descent may encompass perineal hypermobility, isolated enterocele or a 'true' rectocele due to a rectovaginal septal defect. Our objective was to determine the prevalence of these conditions in a urogynecological population.


METHODS
One hundred and ninety-eight women were clinically evaluated for prolapse and examined by translabial ultrasound, supine and after voiding, using three-dimensional capable equipment with a 7-4-MHz volume transducer. Downwards displacement of rectocele or rectal ampulla was used to quantify posterior compartment prolapse. A rectovaginal septal defect was seen as a sharp discontinuity in the ventral anorectal muscularis.


RESULTS
Clinically, a rectocele was diagnosed in 112 (56%) cases. Rectovaginal septal defects were observed sonographically in 78 (39%) women. There was a highly significant relationship between ultrasound and clinical grading (P < 0.001). Of 112 clinical rectoceles, 63 (56%) cases showed a fascial defect, eight (7%) showed perineal hypermobility without fascial defect, and in three (3%) cases there was an isolated enterocele. In 38 (34%) cases, no sonographic abnormality was detected. Neither position of the ampulla nor presence, width or depth of defects correlated with vaginal parity. In contrast, age showed a weak association with rectal descent (r = -0.212, P = 0.003), the presence of fascial defects (P = 0.002) and their depth (P = 0.02).


CONCLUSIONS
Rectovaginal septal defects are readily identified on translabial ultrasound as a herniation of rectal wall and contents into the vagina. Approximately one-third of clinical rectoceles do not show a sonographic defect, and the presence of a defect is associated with age, not parity.
Glimepiride versus metformin as monotherapy in pediatric patients with type 2 diabetes: a randomized, single-blind comparative study.

OBJECTIVE
To compare the efficacy and safety of glimepiride versus metformin in pediatric subjects with type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled with diet and exercise alone or oral monotherapy.


RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
This 26-week, single-blind, active-controlled, multinational study randomized 285 subjects to receive glimepiride (1-8 mg once daily) or metformin (500-1000 mg twice daily) for 24 weeks. The primary end point was mean change in A1C from baseline to week 24. Safety was assessed by incidence of hypoglycemia and other adverse events.


RESULTS
Significant reductions from baseline A1C were seen in both the glimepiride (-0.54%, P = 0.001) and metformin (-0.71%, P = 0.0002) groups. A total of 42.4% (56 of 132) and 48.1% (63 of 131) of subjects in the glimepiride and metformin groups, respectively, in the intent-to-treat population achieved A1C <7.0% at week 24. No significant differences were observed between groups in reductions in A1C and self-monitored blood glucose levels, changes in serum lipid concentrations, or hypoglycemia incidence. Significant differences were observed in mean changes from baseline in BMI between groups (0.26 kg/m(2) for glimepiride and -0.33 kg/m(2) for metformin; P = 0.003). The adjusted mean body weight increase was 1.97 kg for glimepiride and 0.55 kg for metformin (P = 0.005). A hypoglycemic episode with blood glucose <50 mg/dl (<2.8 mmol/l) was experienced by 4.9 and 4.2% of glimepiride- and metformin-treated subjects, respectively. A single severe hypoglycemic event occurred in each group.


CONCLUSIONS
Glimepiride reduced A1C similarly to metformin with greater weight gain, and there was comparable safety over 24 weeks in the treatment of pediatric subjects with type 2 diabetes.
The long shadow of public policy; Barriers to a value-based approach in healthcare procurement

Abstract Procurement in the UKs National Health Service (NHS) is facing its most significant financial challenge. Despite the sheer scale and complexities of the public healthcare sector, the Government's solutions are all too often packaged as "collaborate more", "standardise products" and "leverage spend". Unfortunately, these over simplistic solutions take a myopic view of market drivers, conflate spend with potential savings and fail to deliver value. Many contracts have already been commercially optimised yet the funding crisis continues to deepen. New value-based procurement approaches are needed to drive longer-term innovation and cost reduction and to move debates from efficiencies to embrace effectiveness in integrated supply chains. In this research, we adopt the resource-based view (RBV) as a lens to explore the extent to which NHS resources support the strategic adoption of value-based approaches. An empirical case study on a regional cluster of six NHS Trusts in England, confirms the dominance of narrow price-based approaches that create barriers to moving towards longer-term, valuebased procurement. The antecedent roots of price-based approaches are unpicked through a hermeneutic analysis of recent Government commissioned reports to show how these have set the tone, culture and priorities for healthcare procurement in the UK. The analysis provides explanatory power to the case study by illustrating how Government reports have led to, and legitimised the dominance of price-based approaches and caused relational and resource-based barriers to adopting value-based procurement, despite stakeholder enthusiasm. The findings provide unique insights into why public procurement has struggled to reach beyond its traditional cost orientated scope. We contribute to an extended consideration of the RBV in public organisations through identifying the role of the policy environment in determining and legitimatising an organisation's strategic direction.
Predictors of fluoxetine remission for hospitalized patients with major depressive disorder.

AIM
The goal of treating major depressive disorder is to achieve remission. This prospective study aimed to identify predictors of remission in a cohort of depressive inpatients who received fluoxetine.


METHODS
A total of 131 newly hospitalized patients with major depressive disorder received a fixed dose of 20 mg/day (the recommended dose from the literature) of fluoxetine for 6 weeks. Symptom severity was assessed using the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale at weeks 0, 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6. Remission was defined as a score of ≤7 on the 17-item Hamilton Depression Rating Scale after 6 weeks of treatment. We compared the remitters and non-remitters in terms of baseline variables. The Short-Form-36 pain interference item was used to assess pain. It was classified as high (score ≥ 3) or low (score < 3).


RESULTS
A total of 31 (27.7%) of 112 completers remitted after 6 weeks of treatment. The remitters and non-remitters did not differ in baseline variables, except pain interference, baseline depression severity, and depression improvement at week 1.


CONCLUSION
These findings obtained from newly hospitalized major depression patients support the previous notion that pain interference, depression severity, and early improvement can be the predictors for remission. Patients with high pain interference, a greater depression severity or a less early improvement are likely to require aggressive treatment early. These data require confirmation and extension to outpatients and other antidepressants.
Prototype-Based Reasoning: An Integrated Approach to Solving Large Novel Problems

Two important computational approaches to problem solving are model-based reasoning (MBR) and case-based reasoning (CBR). MBR, since it reasons from first principles, is especially suited for solving novel problems. CBR, since it reasons from previous experience, is especially suited for solving frequently encountered problems. However, large novel problems pose difficulties for both approaches-MBR rapidly grows intractable and CBR fails to find a relevant previous case. In this paper we describe an approach called prototypebased reasoning that integrates both approaches to solve such problems. Prototype-based reasoning treats a large novel problem as a novel combination of several familiar subproblems. It uses CBR to find and solve the subproblems, formulates a new problem by combining these individual solutions, and uses MBR to solve this new problem. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this method on several examples involving the causal simulation of complex electronic circuits.
Feasibility and preliminary outcomes of a school-based intervention for inner-city, ethnic minority adolescents with undiagnosed asthma.

OBJECTIVE
To describe and test the feasibility of asthma self-management for adolescents with undiagnosed asthma (ASMA-Undx), an 8-week school-based intervention for urban adolescents comprised of three group and five individual coaching sessions, and academic detailing for their primary care providers (PCPs).


METHODS
Thirty high school students (mean age 15.9; 92% female; 72% Latino/a) who reported symptoms of persistent asthma, but no diagnosis were randomized to ASMA-Undx or a no-treatment control group. Interviews were conducted pre- and post-intervention.


RESULTS
All intervention students participated in the three group sessions; 64% received all five individual coaching sessions. Academic detailing telephone calls made by a pediatric pulmonologist reached 83% of the students' PCPs. Relative to controls, a significantly greater proportion of ASMA-Undx students were diagnosed (79% versus 6%, respectively), and prescribed asthma medication (57% versus 6%, respectively). Barriers to diagnosis and treatment included students' and parents' lack of knowledge about asthma.


CONCLUSION
ASMA-Undx is a feasible and promising intervention to assist urban adolescents with undiagnosed asthma obtain a diagnosis and treatment.


PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS
ASMA-Undx has the potential to reach many adolescents because it is school-based. It can serve as a model for interventions targeting other pediatric illnesses.
A review of Parkinson's disease.

INTRODUCTION
Parkinson's disease (PD) is one of the most common neurodegenerative disorders. Sources of data Literature search using Medline with keywords Parkinson's disease supplemented with previously published papers known to the author.


AREAS OF AGREEMENT
There have been significant recent advances in the understanding of the pathogenesis of the disease. There has also been a greater realization that the disorder may be associated with significant non-motor disturbances in addition to the more commonly recognized motor complications.


AREAS OF CONTROVERSY
Although there is growing circumstantial evidence, it remains to be proven whether any of the current treatments for PD have a neuroprotective effect.


AREAS TIMELY FOR DEVELOPING RESEARCH
Although there is no cure, there are several management options for the early treatment of PD. As the disease progresses, further treatment options are available; however, the management of late-stage motor complications and non-motor symptoms remains particularly challenging and will benefit from further clinical research.
Representation learning with complete semantic description of knowledge graphs

Representation Learning (RL) of knowledge graphs aims to project both entities and relations into a continuous low dimensional space. There exits two kinds of representation methods for entities in Knowledge Graphs (KGs), including structure-based representation and description-based representation. Most methods represent entities with fact triples of KGs through translating embedding models, which can't integrate the rich information in entities descriptions with triple structure information. In this paper, we propose a novel RL method named as Representation Learning with Complete semantic Description of Knowledge Graphs (RLCD), which can exploit all semantic information of entity descriptions and fact triples of KGs, to enrich the semantic representations of KGs. More specifically, we explore Doc2Vec encoder model to encode all semantic information of entity descriptions without losing the relevance in the context of entities descriptions, and further learn knowledge representations from triples with entity descriptions. The experiment results show that RLCD gets better performance that state-of-the-art method DKRL, in terms of mean rank value and HITS. Moreover, RLCD is much faster than DKRL.
[Fiability Study of Diabetes Empowerment Scale: Short Version].

PURPOSE
To compare the final score of the scale to the levels of HbA1c.


MATERIAL AND METHODS
Cross-sectional observational study by applying the Diabetes Empowerment Scale-Short Form to diabetics at three primary care units in the central region of Portugal. The test-retest (in writing first and, five minutes later, orally) was performed to access Cronbach's alpha in 20 patients not studied in the next phase. Then, the scale was applied to diabetic patients after nursing consultation and prior to entering the medical consultation. Descriptive and inferential statistics after checking for the normality of the data were performed.


RESULTS
In the first phase Cronbach's alpha was 0.90 to 1.00 in all of eight scale items. The average result obtained in the written phase was 3.78 ± 0.71 and in the oral 3.79 ± 0.64, p = 0.629. The sample of the second stage was of 81 diabetic patients, 55.6% male. Sample's mean age was 68.5 ± 1.1 years, mean HbA1c of 6.8 ± 0.2 and mean time from diagnosis of 9.2 ± 0.9 years. The average final score of the scale was 4.1± 0.8. There was significant correlation between the final score and HbA1c levels (p= -0.114; p = 0.312).


CONCLUSION
The Portuguese version of the Diabetes Empowerment Scale-Short Form proved to be a reliable scale to measure empowerment in diabetic patients in Portugal. It was evident the presence of a statistically significant correlation between the results obtained at the end of the scale and HbA1c.