LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
A prospective study on the impact of heart rate control achieved with metoprolol on cardiac performance, motor function and quality of life in Chinese chronic heart failure patients.

BACKGROUND
To prospectively evaluate the impact of metoprolol achieved heart rate (HR) on cardiac-motor function and quality of life (QoL) in chronic heart failure (CHF) patients.


METHODS AND RESULTS
Between February 2013 to April 2016, association of HR reduction with haemodynamic indices, motor function and QoL in CHF patients with HR>80bpm receiving metoprolol 23.75mg or 47.5mgq.d was studied. Overall, 154 patients (median age, 66.39years; males, n=101; females, n=53) were enrolled, whose average resting HR decreased significantly from baseline value of 82.72±6.73 to 69.38±3.57, 67.72±2.61, 66.50±3.14 and 64.86±3.21bpm in the 1st, 3rd, 6th and 12th months post metoprolol intervention, respectively (P<0.0001). Similarly, the ejection fraction (r=-0.6461, P<0.0001), cardiac output (r=-0.5238, P<0.0001), cardiac index (r=-0.5378, P<0.0001) and veterans specific activity questionnaire scores (r=-0.4088, P<0.0001) were significantly associated with the reduction in HR after 12months. The improvement in 6-min walk test was independent of HR reduction (P=0.005). Similarly, QoL as measured by short form-8 questionnaire (SF-8) but not Minnesota Living with Heart Failure was significantly improved at the 12th-month. However, this was not associated with the reductions in HR.


CONCLUSION
Metoprolol achieved HR control was associated with improvement in cardiac performance and motor function but not QoL in patients with CHF.
Learner support in distance and networked learning environments: Ten

How do educators and instructional designers assess the effectiveness of the learning environments they design? One important means of ensuring the effectiveness of instruction in distance and face-to-face settings is through provision of learner support. Increasingly, as learners utilize the World Wide Web for collaborative learning, support systems contribute to the processes of learning and assist the learner in developing competencies and con dence in self-regulated learning and social interaction. Originating in the socio-cultural perspective of Vygotskyan theory, the term scaffolding refers to learning support based on social constructivist models of learning. As the World Wide Web becomes increasingly integrated into the delivery of learning experiences at primary, tertiary and secondary levels, the concept of scaffolding needs to be reconsidered because it is not readily translated into contexts where the teacher is not present, such as in online learning environments. The aim of this paper is to offer a conceptualization of the term scaffolding in distance learning, to provide examples of how learners can be supported in the processes of constructivist inquiry in a range of learning settings, and to offer principles for the design of learning support that can be applied across a range of instructional settings. Why Do We Need Learning Supports? Educators are the  rst to admit that not all learners are willing to execute the tasks and activities that lead to successful learning, and that learners need support and structured learning experiences (Collis, 1998; Laurillard, 2002). The recognition that teaching has a supportive dimension has long been recognized (Biggs, 1999). Scaffolding is the term widely used to describe effective learning support with an interesting history. Wood, Bruner and Ross (1976) originally coined the term scaffolding as a metaphor to describe the effective intervention by a peer, adult or competent person in the learning of another person. The term can be traced to Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of proximal development, which refers to a learner’s optimal developmental potential, if assistance that is timely and appropriate is provided by another person (Vygotsky, 1978). The appeal of the concept of scaffolding lies in the fact that it directs attention to the need for support in the learning process, and does so in a way that emphasizes that good teaching is necessarily responsive to the state of understanding achieved by particular learners. In distance learning settings, the metaphor of scaffolding is appealing in principle, yet elusive and problematic. With reference to distance learning, Garrison and Baynton (1987) ISSN 0158-7919 print; 1475-0198 online/02/020149-14 Ó 2002 Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia, Inc. DOI: 10.1080/0158791022000009178
Watch, attend and parse: An end-to-end neural network based approach to handwritten mathematical expression recognition

Machine recognition of a handwritten mathematical expression (HME) is challenging due to the ambiguities of handwritten symbols and the two-dimensional structure of mathematical expressions. Inspired by recent work in deep learning, we present Watch, Attend and Parse (WAP), a novel end-to-end approach based on neural network that learns to recognize HMEs in a two-dimensional layout and outputs them as one-dimensional character sequences in LaTeX format. Inherently unlike traditional methods, our proposed model avoids problems that stem from symbol segmentation, and it does not require a predefined expression grammar. Meanwhile, the problems of symbol recognition and structural analysis are handled, respectively, using a watcher and a parser. We employ a convolutional neural network encoder that takes HME images as input as the watcher and employ a recurrent neural network decoder equipped with an attention mechanism as the parser to generate LaTeX sequences. Moreover, the correspondence between the input expressions and the output LaTeX sequences is learned automatically by the attention mechanism. We validate the proposed approach on a benchmark published by the CROHME international competition. Using the official training dataset, WAP significantly outperformed the state-of-the-art method with an expression recognition accuracy of 46.55% on CROHME 2014 and 44.55% on CROHME 2016. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Challenges in clinical natural language processing for automated disorder normalization

BACKGROUND
Identifying key variables such as disorders within the clinical narratives in electronic health records has wide-ranging applications within clinical practice and biomedical research. Previous research has demonstrated reduced performance of disorder named entity recognition (NER) and normalization (or grounding) in clinical narratives than in biomedical publications. In this work, we aim to identify the cause for this performance difference and introduce general solutions.


METHODS
We use closure properties to compare the richness of the vocabulary in clinical narrative text to biomedical publications. We approach both disorder NER and normalization using machine learning methodologies. Our NER methodology is based on linear-chain conditional random fields with a rich feature approach, and we introduce several improvements to enhance the lexical knowledge of the NER system. Our normalization method - never previously applied to clinical data - uses pairwise learning to rank to automatically learn term variation directly from the training data.


RESULTS
We find that while the size of the overall vocabulary is similar between clinical narrative and biomedical publications, clinical narrative uses a richer terminology to describe disorders than publications. We apply our system, DNorm-C, to locate disorder mentions and in the clinical narratives from the recent ShARe/CLEF eHealth Task. For NER (strict span-only), our system achieves precision=0.797, recall=0.713, f-score=0.753. For the normalization task (strict span+concept) it achieves precision=0.712, recall=0.637, f-score=0.672. The improvements described in this article increase the NER f-score by 0.039 and the normalization f-score by 0.036. We also describe a high recall version of the NER, which increases the normalization recall to as high as 0.744, albeit with reduced precision.


DISCUSSION
We perform an error analysis, demonstrating that NER errors outnumber normalization errors by more than 4-to-1. Abbreviations and acronyms are found to be frequent causes of error, in addition to the mentions the annotators were not able to identify within the scope of the controlled vocabulary.


CONCLUSION
Disorder mentions in text from clinical narratives use a rich vocabulary that results in high term variation, which we believe to be one of the primary causes of reduced performance in clinical narrative. We show that pairwise learning to rank offers high performance in this context, and introduce several lexical enhancements - generalizable to other clinical NER tasks - that improve the ability of the NER system to handle this variation. DNorm-C is a high performing, open source system for disorders in clinical text, and a promising step toward NER and normalization methods that are trainable to a wide variety of domains and entities. (DNorm-C is open source software, and is available with a trained model at the DNorm demonstration website: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/CBBresearch/Lu/Demo/tmTools/#DNorm.).
Mobile robotics in arable lands: Current state and future trends

This paper presents a summary of the current state of mobile robotics oriented to perform precision agricultural tasks on arable lands. Two approaches of robot configurations are identified and some relevant examples are mentioned in addition to identifying the trend of robotics in agriculture, the current limitations, and the following steps as understood by the authors for reducing the gap for increased inclusion of robotics in everyday agricultural tasks.
Optimization of surface roughness in CNC end milling using response surface methodology and genetic algorithm

Pre-hardened steel (P20) is a widely used material in the production of moulds/dies due to less wear resistance and used for large components. In this study, minimization of surface roughness has been investigated by integrating design of experiment method, Response surface methodology (RSM) and genetic algorithm. To achieve the minimum surface roughness optimal conditions are determined. The experiments were conducted using Taguchi’s L50 orthogonal array in the design of experiments (DOE) by considering the machining parameters such as Nose radius (R), Cutting speed (V), feed (f), axial depth of cut (d) and radial depth of cut(rd). A predictive response surface model for surface roughness is developed using RSM. The response surface (RS) model is interfaced with the genetic algorithm (GA) to find the optimum machining parameter values.
A Large-Scale SUMO-Based Emulation Platform

A hardware-in-the-loop simulation platform for emulating large-scale intelligent transportation systems is presented. The platform embeds a real vehicle into SUMO, a microscopic road traffic simulation package. Emulations, consisting of the real vehicle, and potentially thousands of simulated vehicles, are run in real time. The platform provides an opportunity for real drivers to gain a feel of being in a large-scale connected vehicle scenario. Various applications of the platform are presented.
Review : Steganography – Bit Plane Complexity Segmentation ( BPCS ) Technique

Steganography is an ancient technique of data hiding. Steganography is a technique in which secret data is hidden into vessel image without any suspicion. All other traditional techniques have limited data hiding capacity and can hide up to 15% of data amount of vessel image. This paper focuses on basic steganography and various characteristics necessary for data hiding. More importantly, the paper implements a steganographic technique that has hiding capacity up to 50 – 60% [8] [9]. This technique is called Bit Plane Complexity Segmentation (BPCS) Steganography. The main principle of BPCS technique is that, the binary image is divided into informative region and noise-like region. The secret data is hidden into noise-like region of the vessel image without any deterioration. In our experiment, we used the BPCS Principle by “Eiji Kawaguchi & Richard O. Eason” and experimented by using two images i) vessel image of 512 x 512 size ii) secret image of 256 x 256 size. We performed this experiment for 3 different sets of images and calculated image hiding capacity.
Excerpt from FRACTAL SPACE-TIME AND MICROPHYSICS Towards a Theory of Scale Relativity

Let us now come to our first attempts to define fractals in an intrinsic way and to deal with infinities and with their non-differentiability. We first consider the case of fractal curves drawn in a plane. The von Koch construction may be generalized in the complex plane by first giving ourselves a base (or “generator”) F1 made of p segments of length 1/q. The coordinates of the p points Pj of F1 are given, either in Cartesian or in polar coordinates (see Figs. 3.5 and 3.6) by:
Student Performance and Attitudes Using Personalized Mathematics Instruction

This study investigated the effects of personalized instruction on the achievement and attitudes of Taiwanese students on two-step mathematics word problems. A total of 136 fourth-graders in a Taiwanese public school participated in the study. Subjects initially completed a Student Survey on which they chose their favorite foods, sports, stores, classmates, and other selections. The most popular items were then used to create personalized math word problems for the pretest, personalized instructional program, and posttest. Subjects were blocked by ability based on their pretest scores and were randomly assigned within ability levels to either a personalized or nonpersonalized version of the print-based instructional program. After finishing the program, subjects completed a student attitude survey and the posttest. A repeated-measures univariate analysis of variance revealed that subjects in the personalized treatment made significantly greater pretest-to-posttest gains than those in the nonpersonalized treatment. Subjects also performed significantly better on the personalized pretest and posttest problems than on the nonpersonalized problems. Personalized subjects and higher-ability students both had significantly more positive attitudes toward the instructional program than did their nonpersonalized and lower-ability counterparts. Data from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (1992a, 1992b) indicate that mathematics word problems are difficult for students at all age levels in elementary and secondary schools. A major cause of the difficulty appears to be student inability to convert the problems into the math operations that must be performed to solve them (Hart, 1996). Some researchers have also noted that lack of familiarity with word problem structures may also contribute to poor student performance (Mayer, 1982; Rosen, 1984).
Biweekly XELOX (capecitabine and oxaliplatin) as first-line treatment in elderly patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

OBJECTIVE
The combination of oxaliplatin and oral capecitabine (XELOX) has shown to be an active regimen in metastatic colorectal cancer (MCRC). However, the experience with XELOX in elderly patients is limited. This study aimed to evaluate the efficacy and safety of XELOX as first-line treatment in elderly patients with MCRC.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
Patients aged ≥70years with previously untreated MCRC received oxaliplatin 85mg/m(2) on day 1, every 2weeks plus capecitabine 1000mg/m(2) (or capecitabine 750mg/m(2) if creatinine clearance was 30-50mL/min) twice daily on days 1-7, every 2weeks. Treatment was continued until progression, intolerable toxicity, or for a maximum of 12cycles.


RESULTS
Thirty-five patients were enrolled. Median age was 78years (range, 70-83). Patients received a median of 11cycles of treatment. The objective response rate (ORR) was 49% and the tumor control rate was 86%. Median time to progression and overall survival were 8.6 (95% CI: 5.5-11.7) and 15.5 (95% CI: 9.6-21.3) months, respectively. Toxicities were generally mild to moderate. Major grade 1-2 toxicities were asthenia (40%), nausea (43%), and diarrhea (40%). No grade 4 toxicity was detected and grade 3 toxicities were reported in 17% of patients. There was no treatment-related death.


CONCLUSION
Our findings show that the biweekly XELOX regimen represents an effective and tolerable first-line treatment option for elderly patients with MCRC.
A pilot study of protracted topotecan dosing using a pharmacokinetically guided dosing approach in children with solid tumors.

PURPOSE
To assess the use of a pharmacokinetically guided topotecan strategy and evaluate the toxicity of protracted i.v. topotecan in children with recurrent solid tumors.


EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN
Fifteen children with measurable relapsed or refractory solid tumors received topotecan i.v. over 30 min 5 days a week for two consecutive weeks. Doses were individualized based on the patient's topotecan systemic clearance to attain a single day topotecan lactone area under the plasma concentration time curve (AUC) of 120-180 ng/ml x h (cohort 1) or 80-120 ng/ml x h (cohort 2). Clinical responses and toxicity were assessed by standard criteria.


RESULTS
Twenty-nine courses of topotecan were administered, 11 in cohort 1 and 18 in cohort 2. The median topotecan dosages required to achieve the target AUCs for cohorts 1 and 2 were 4 mg/m(2) (range, 2.6-6) and 3 mg/m(2) (range, 2.6-4.2), respectively. The intersubject variance for topotecan clearance exceeded the intrasubject variance by 2-fold. With the pharmacokinetic targeting approach, we observed that 78% (46 of 59) of the measured AUC values were within the target range. The median number of days to an absolute neutrophil count >/=500/mm(3) was similar between the two cohorts; however, febrile neutropenia and serious infections limited our ability to deliver drug dosages needed to secure the higher systemic exposure (cohort 1). Five partial responses were observed.


CONCLUSION
Protracted topotecan dosing using a pharmacokinetic strategy was possible in this heavily pretreated group of children.
Can procalcitonin measurement help the diagnosis of osteomyelitis and septic arthritis? A prospective trial

OBJECTIVES
Procalcitonin (PCT) is an accurate marker for differentiating bacterial infection from non-infective causes of inflammation or viral infection. However, there is only one study in children which tested procalcitonin as a diagnostic aid in skeletal infections. With this study we sought to evaluate the sensitivity, specificity and predictive values of procalcitonin for identifying bone and joint infection in children evaluated in the emergency department for non traumatic decreased active motion of a skeletal segment.


METHODS
Patients aged 1 month to 14 years were prospectively included in the emergency department when suspected for osteomyelitis or septic arthritis. Procalcitonin levels, C reactiv protein, white blood cell count were measured and bacteriological samples were collected before initiation of antibiotic treatment. Patients were assigned to 3 groups according to the degree of suspected infection: group 1 confirmed infection, group 2 presumed infection and group 3 non infected patients.


RESULTS
Three hundred thirty nine patients were included (118 girls and 221 boys). Group 1 comprised 8 patients (2 had PCT levels > 0.5 ng/ml). Two had osteomyelitis and 6 septic arthritis. Forty children were incuded in group 2 (4 had PCT levels > 0.5 ng/ml). Eighteen had presumed osteomyelitis and 22 presumed septic arthritis. Group 3 comprised 291 children (9 PCT levels > 0.5 ng/ml) who recovered without antibiotic treatment. The specificity of the PCT as a marker of bacterial infection (comparing Group 1 and Group 3) was 96.9% [95% CI, 94.2-98.6], the sensitivity 25% [95% CI, 3.2-65.1], the positive predictive value (PPV) 18.2% [95% CI, 2.3-51.8] and the negative predictive value (NPV) 97.9% [95% CI, 95.5-99.2].


CONCLUSION
PCT is not a good screening test for identifying skeletal infection in children. Larger studies are needed to evaluate still more the place of PCT measurements in the diagnosis of osteomyelitis and septic arthritis.
Multiple performance characteristics optimization for Al 7075 on electric discharge drilling by Taguchi grey relational theory

Electric discharge drill machine (EDDM) is a spark erosion process to produce micro-holes in conductive materials. This process is widely used in aerospace, medical, dental and automobile industries. As for the performance evaluation of the electric discharge drilling machine, it is very necessary to study the process parameters of machine tool. In this research paper, a brass rod 2 mm diameter was selected as a tool electrode. The experiments generate output responses such as tool wear rate (TWR). The best parameters such as pulse on-time, pulse off-time and water pressure were studied for best machining characteristics. This investigation presents the use of Taguchi approach for better TWR in drilling of Al-7075. A plan of experiments, based on L27 Taguchi design method, was selected for drilling of material. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows the percentage contribution of the control factor in the machining of Al-7075 in EDDM. The optimal combination levels and the significant drilling parameters on TWR were obtained. The optimization results showed that the combination of maximum pulse on-time and minimum pulse off-time gives maximum MRR.
ZCS: A Zeroth Level Classifier System

A basic classifier system, ZCS, is presented that keeps much of Holland's original framework but simplifies it to increase understandability and performance. ZCS's relation to Q-learning is brought out, and their performances compared in environments of two difficulty levels. Extensions to ZCS are proposed for temporary memory, better action selection, more efficient use of the genetic algorithm, and more general classifier representation.
Home-based exercise therapy in patients awaiting liver transplantation: protocol for an observational feasibility trial

INTRODUCTION
Liver disease is the third most common cause of premature mortality in the UK. Liver failure accelerates frailty, resulting in skeletal muscle atrophy, functional decline and an associated risk of liver transplant waiting list mortality. However, there is limited research investigating the impact of exercise on patient outcomes pre and post liver transplantation. The waitlist period for patients listed for liver transplantation provides a unique opportunity to provide and assess interventions such as prehabilitation.


METHODS AND ANALYSIS
This study is a phase I observational study evaluating the feasibility of conducting a randomised control trial (RCT) investigating the use of a home-based exercise programme (HBEP) in the management of patients awaiting liver transplantation. Twenty eligible patients will be randomly selected from the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital Birmingham liver transplant waiting list. Participants will be provided with an individually tailored 12-week HBEP, including step targets and resistance exercises. Activity trackers and patient diaries will be provided to support data collection. For the initial 6 weeks, telephone support will be given to discuss compliance with the study intervention, achievement of weekly targets, and to address any queries or concerns regarding the intervention. During weeks 6-12, participants will continue the intervention without telephone support to evaluate longer term adherence to the study intervention. On completing the intervention, all participants will be invited to engage in a focus group to discuss their experiences and the feasibility of an RCT.


ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION
The protocol is approved by the National Research Ethics Service Committee North West - Greater Manchester East and Health Research Authority (REC reference: 17/NW/0120). Recruitment into the study started in April 2017 and ended in July 2017. Follow-up of participants is ongoing and due to finish by the end of 2017. The findings of this study will be disseminated through peer-reviewed publications and international presentations. In addition, the protocol will be placed on the British Liver Trust website for public access.


TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER
NCT02949505; Pre-results.