LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Ipriflavone in the treatment of postmenopausal osteoporosis: a randomized controlled trial.

CONTEXT
Data on the efficacy and safety of ipriflavone for prevention of postmenopausal bone loss are conflicting.


OBJECTIVES
To investigate the effect of oral ipriflavone on prevention of postmenopausal bone loss and to assess the safety profile of long-term treatment with ipriflavone in postmenopausal osteoporotic women.


DESIGN AND SETTING
Prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, 4-year study conducted in 4 centers in Belgium, Denmark, and Italy from August 1994 to July 1998.


PARTICIPANTS
Four hundred seventy-four postmenopausal white women, aged 45 to 75 years, with bone mineral densities (BMDs) of less than 0.86 g/cm(2).


INTERVENTIONS
Patients were randomly assigned to receive ipriflavone, 200 mg 3 times per day (n = 234), or placebo (n = 240); all received 500 mg/d of calcium.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Efficacy measures included spine, hip, and forearm BMD and biochemical markers of bone resorption (urinary hydroxyproline corrected for creatinine and urinary CrossLaps [Osteometer Biotech, Herlev, Denmark] corrected for creatinine), assessed every 6 months. Laboratory safety measures and adverse events were recorded every 3 months.


RESULTS
Based on intent-to-treat analysis, after 36 months of treatment, the annual percentage change from baseline in BMD of the lumbar spine for ipriflavone vs placebo (0.1% [95% confidence interval (CI), -7.9% to 8.1%] vs 0.8% [95% CI, -9.1% to 10.7%]; P =.14), or in any of the other sites measured, did not differ significantly between groups. The response in biochemical markers was also similar between groups (eg, for hydroxyproline corrected for creatinine, 20.13 mg/g [95% CI, 18.85-21.41 mg/g] vs 20.67 mg/g [95% CI, 19.41-21.92 mg/g]; P =.96); urinary CrossLaps corrected for creatinine, 268 mg/mol (95% CI, 249-288 mg/mol) vs 268 mg/mol (95% CI, 254-282 mg/mol); P =.81. The number of women with new vertebral fracture was identical or nearly so in the 2 groups at all time points. Lymphocyte concentrations decreased significantly (500/microL (0.5 x 10(9)/L]) in women treated with ipriflavone. Thirty-one women (13.2%) in the ipriflavone group developed subclinical lymphocytopenia, of whom 29 developed it during ipriflavone treatment. Of these, 15 (52%) of 29 had recovered spontaneously by 1 year and 22 (81%) of 29 by 2 years.


CONCLUSIONS
Our data indicate that ipriflavone does not prevent bone loss or affect biochemical markers of bone metabolism. Additionally, ipriflavone induces lymphocytopenia in a significant number of women.
Patterned genital injury in cases of rape--a case-control study.

A pattern of genital injury that separates trauma seen in sexual assault cases from trauma seen following consensual sexual intercourse has been a matter of debate. This study aimed at clarifying the question by eliminating as many confounders as possible in a prospective, case-control setup. A total of 98 controls and 39 cases were examined using the naked eye, the colposcope and toluidine blue dye followed by colposcopy. The overall frequency of having at least one lesion was strikingly similar in the two groups, but cases had significantly more abrasions, a trend towards more haematomas and a higher frequency of multiple lesions. Cases had a higher frequency of lesions in locations other than the 6 o'clock position. Our data suggests that cases have larger, more complex lesions. In conclusion, this study has confirmed the existence of different patterns of genital lesions. Background data for detection of genital lesions using the three most commonly used techniques is provided. These results will aid in the interpretation of findings seen when examining sexual assault victims.
Brain Storm Optimization Algorithm

Human being is the most intelligent animal in this world. Intuitively, optimization algorithm inspired by human being creative problem solving process should be superior to the optimization algorithms inspired by collective behavior of insects like ants, bee, etc. In this paper, we introduce a novel brain storm optimization algorithm, which was inspired by the human brainstorming process. Two benchmark functions were tested to validate the effectiveness and usefulness of the proposed algorithm.
Lifetime Estimation of the Nanophosphate  $\hbox{LiFePO}_{4}\hbox{/C}$ Battery Chemistry Used in Fully Electric Vehicles

There are currently many different lithium ion (Li-ion) chemistries available on the market, and several new players are in the research and development process; however, none of them is superior to the other chemistries in all aspects. Relatively low price, long cycle and calendar lifetime, and intrinsic safety of the nanophosphate LiFePO4/C Li-ion chemistry make it possible to consider this chemistry for electric vehicle (EV) applications. This paper investigates the lifetime of the nanophosphate LiFePO4/C battery chemistry when it is used for full electrical vehicles. The investigation is performed considering a semiempirical calendar and cycle lifetime model, which was developed based on extended accelerated lifetime tests. Both capacity and power capability degradations during calendar and cycle life aging are considered and quantified. Finally, the developed battery cell lifetime model is used to study the capacity and power capability degradation behavior of the tested nanophosphate LiFePO4/C battery for two EV operational scenarios.
Home automation using GSM

In recent years, the home environment has seen a rapid introduction of network enabled digital technology. This technology offers new and exciting opportunities to increase the connectivity of devices within the home for the purpose of home automation. Moreover, with the rapid expansion of the Internet, there is the added potential for the remote control and monitoring of such network enabled devices. However, the adoption of home automation systems has been slow. This paper identifies the reasons for this slow adoption and evaluates the potential of Zig-Bee for addressing these problems through the design and implementation of flexible home automation architecture. Device control is a process that is done in the day to day life of mankind. Usually there are a number of devices associated with home and an efficient control of these systems is a tedious task. The rapidly advancing mobile communication technology and the decrease in costs make it possible to incorporate mobile technology into home automation systems.
Metabolic profile of high intensity intermittent exercises.

To evaluate the magnitude of the stress on the aerobic and the anaerobic energy release systems during high intensity bicycle training, two commonly used protocols (IE1 and IE2) were examined during bicycling. IE1 consisted of one set of 6-7 bouts of 20-s exercise at an intensity of approximately 170% of the subject's maximal oxygen uptake (VO2max) with a 10-s rest between each bout. IE2 involved one set of 4-5 bouts of 30-s exercise at an intensity of approximately 200% of the subject's VO2max and a 2-min rest between each bout. The accumulated oxygen deficit of IE1 (69 +/- 8 ml.kg-1, mean +/- SD) was significantly higher than that of IE2 (46 +/- 12 ml.kg-1, N = 9, p < 0.01). The accumulated oxygen deficit of IE1 was not significantly different from the maximal accumulated oxygen deficit (the anaerobic capacity) of the subjects (69 +/- 10 ml.kg-1), whereas the corresponding value for IE2 was less than the subjects' maximal accumulated oxygen deficit (P < 0.01). The peak oxygen uptake during the last 10 s of the IE1 (55 +/- 6 ml.kg-1.min-1) was not significantly less than the VO2max of the subjects (57 +/- 6 ml.kg-1.min-1). The peak oxygen uptake during the last 10 s of IE2 (47 +/- 8 ml.kg-1.min-1) was lower than the VO2max (P < 0.01). In conclusion, this study showed that intermittent exercise defined by the IE1 protocol may tax both the anaerobic and aerobic energy releasing systems almost maximally.
Multicenter randomized controlled trial of a home walking intervention after outpatient cardiac rehabilitation on health-related quality of life in women.

BACKGROUND
Poor health-related quality of life (HRQL) has been shown to be predictive of adverse outcomes in cardiac patients. As women with coronary heart disease have been shown to have lower HRQL than men with coronary heart disease, women are at greater risk of a poor clinical outcome. This study tested the effect of a 12-week home walking intervention after completion of outpatient cardiac rehabilitation (OCR) on HRQL and maintenance of physical activity among women.


DESIGN
Multicenter two-group randomized trial.


METHODS
After completion of OCR, participants were randomly allocated to the intervention or usual care groups. The outcomes were HRQL (assessed using the MacNew Heart Disease HRQL instrument) and self-reported physical activity (assessed using the Stages of Change model of exercise behavior) at 3, 6, and 12 months after OCR.


RESULTS
Seventy-two women were randomized to the intervention and 81 to usual care. Attrition was greater in the treatment group (13 vs. 1%). HRQL scores increased relative to the base level in both arms and were significantly higher in the intervention group at 6 months, but not at 3 or 12 months. Maintenance of physical activity declined over time in both groups, however, this decline was significantly reduced among women in the intervention group.


CONCLUSION
HRQL improved in both groups, but seemed to increase earlier among women in the intervention group. As maintenance of physical activity was higher among women in the intervention group, this minimal intervention could be used to facilitate women's progression from supervised to independent exercise.
Feedback on household electricity consumption : a tool for saving energy ?

Abstract Improved feedback on electricity consumption may provide a tool for customers to better control their consumption and ultimately save energy. This paper asks which kind of feedback is most successful. For this purpose, a psychological model is presented that illustrates how and why feedback works. Relevant features of feedback are identified that may determine its effectiveness: frequency, duration, content, breakdown, medium and way of presentation, comparisons, and combination with other instruments. The paper continues with an analysis of international experience in order to find empirical evidence for which kinds of feedback work best. In spite of considerable data restraints and research gaps, there is some indication that the most successful feedback combines the following features: it is given frequently and over a long time, provides an appliance-specific breakdown, is presented in a clear and appealing way, and uses computerized and interactive tools.
Rasch analysis of the Patient Rated Elbow Evaluation questionnaire

BACKGROUND
The Patient Rated Elbow Evaluation (PREE) was developed as an elbow joint specific measure of pain and disability and validated with classical psychometric methods. More recently, Rasch analysis has contributed new methods for analyzing the clinical measurement properties of self-report outcome measures. The objective of the study was to determine aspects of validity of the PREE using the Rasch model to assess the overall fit of the PREE data, the response scaling, individual item fit, differential item functioning (DIF), local dependency, unidimensionality and person separation index (PSI).


METHODS
A convenience sample of 236 patients (Age range 21-79 years; M: F- 97:139) with elbow disorders were recruited from the Roth│McFarlane Hand and Upper Limb Centre, London, Ontario, Canada. The baseline scores of the PREE were used. Rasch analysis was conducted using RUMM 2030 software on the 3 sub scales of the PREE separately.


RESULTS
The 3 sub scales showed misfit initially with disordered thresholds on17 out of 20 items), uniform DIF was observed for two items ("Carrying a 10lbs object" from specific activities subscale for age group; and "household work" from the usual activities subscale for gender); multidimensionality and local dependency. The Pain subscale satisfied Rasch expectations when item 2 "Pain - At rest" was split for age group, while the usual activities subscale readily stood up to Rasch requirements when the item 2 "household work" was split for gender. The specific activities subscale demonstrated fit to the Rasch model when sub test analysis accounted for local dependency. All three subscales of the PREE were well targeted and had high reliability (PSI >0.80).


CONCLUSION
The three subscales of the PREE appear to be robust when tested against the Rasch model when subject to a few alterations. The value of changing the 0-10 format is questionable given its widespread use; further Rasch-based analysis of whether these findings are stable in other samples is warranted.
Pharmacokinetics and antiviral activity of PHX1766, a novel HCV protease inhibitor, using an accelerated Phase I study design.

BACKGROUND
PHX1766 is a novel HCV NS3/4 protease inhibitor with robust potency and high selectivity in replicon studies (50% maximal effective concentration 8 nM). Two clinical trials investigated the safety, tolerability, pharmacokinetics and antiviral activity of PHX1766 in healthy volunteers (HV) and chronic hepatitis C patients, by use of a dose-adaptive overlapping clinical trial design.


METHODS
Two randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trials were conducted. Single doses of PHX1766 or placebo were administered to 25 HV and six HCV genotype 1-infected patients (50 mg once daily -1,000 mg once daily, 250 mg twice daily and 100 mg of a new formulation of PHX1766 once daily). Multiple doses of PHX1766 or placebo were administered to 32 HV and seven HCV genotype 1-infected patients (50 mg once daily -800 mg twice daily).


RESULTS
Oral administration of PHX1766 was safe and well tolerated at all dose levels with rapid absorption (time at which concentration maximum is reached of 1-4 h) and with mean terminal half-lives of 4-23 h. Multiple doses of PHX1766 800 mg twice daily in HCV patients produced an area under the plasma concentration-time curve from time of drug administration to the last time point with a measurable concentration after dosing accumulation ratio of 2.3. The mean maximal observed HCV RNA decline was 0.6 log(10) IU/ml in the first 24 h in the single-dose protocol and 1.5 log(10) IU/ml after 6 days of PHX1766 dosing.


CONCLUSIONS
An overlapping, dose-adaptive single-dose and multiple-dose escalating design in HV and HCV-infected patients proved to be highly efficient in identifying a therapeutic dose. Although in vitro replicon studies indicated a robust HCV RNA viral decline of PHX1766, the study in HCV patients demonstrated only modest viral load reduction.
Online Large-Margin Training of Dependency Parsers

We present an effective training algorithm for linearly-scored dependency parsers that implements online largemargin multi-class training (Crammer and Singer, 2003; Crammer et al., 2003) on top of efficient parsing techniques for dependency trees (Eisner, 1996). The trained parsers achieve a competitive dependency accuracy for both English and Czech with no language specific enhancements.
Differentiating ambiguity and ambiguity attitude

The objective of this paper is to show how ambiguity, and a decision maker (DM)’s response to it, can be modelled formally in the context of a very general decision model. We introduce relation derived from the DM’s preferences, called “unambiguous preference”, and show that it can be represented by a set of probability measures. We provide such set with a simple differential characterization, and argue that it represents the DM’s perception of the “ambiguity” present in the decision problem. Given the notion of ambiguity, we show that preferences can be represented so as to provide an intuitive representation of ambiguity attitudes. We then argue that these ideas can be applied, e.g., to obtain a behavioral foundation for the “generalized Bayesian” updating rule and for the “α-maxmin” expected utility model.
Changed nursing scheduling for improved safety culture and working conditions - patients' and nurses' perspectives.

AIM
To evaluate fixed scheduling compared with self-scheduling for nursing staff in oncological inpatient care with regard to patient and staff outcomes.


BACKGROUND
Various scheduling models have been tested to attract and retain nursing staff. Little is known about how these schedules affect staff and patients. Fixed scheduling and self-scheduling have been studied to a small extent, solely from a staff perspective.


METHOD
We implemented fixed scheduling on two of four oncological inpatient wards. Two wards kept self-scheduling. Through a quasi-experimental design, baseline and follow-up measurements were collected among staff and patients. The Safety Attitudes Questionnaire was used among staff, as well as study-specific questions for patients and staff.


RESULTS
Fixed scheduling was associated with less overtime and fewer possibilities to change shifts. Self-scheduling was associated with more requests from management for short notice shift changes. The type of scheduling did not affect patient-reported outcomes.


CONCLUSIONS
Fixed scheduling should be considered in order to lower overtime. Further research is necessary and should explore patient outcomes to a greater extent.


IMPLICATIONS FOR NURSING MANAGEMENT
Scheduling is a core task for nurse managers. Our study suggests fixed scheduling as a strategy for managers to improve the effective use of resources and safety.
BOEMIE: Reasoning-based Information Extraction

This paper presents a novel approach for exploiting an ontology in an ontology-based information extraction system, which substitutes part of the extraction process with reasoning, guided by a set of automatically acquired rules.
Introducing The Neuroscience Gateway

Last few decades have seen the emergence of computational neuroscience as a mature field where researchers are interested in modeling complex and large neuronal systems and require access to high performance computing machines and associated cyberinfrastructure to manage computational workflow and data. The neuronal simulation tools, used in this research field, are also implemented for parallel computers and suitable for high performance computing machines. But using these tools on complex high performance computing machines remain a challenge due to issues with acquiring computer time on these machines located at national supercomputer centers, dealing with complex user interface of these machines, dealing with data management and retrieval. The Neuroscience Gateway is being developed to alleviate all of these barriers to entry for computational neuroscientist. It hides or eliminates, from the point of view of the users, all the administrative and technical barriers and makes parallel neuronal simulation tools easily available and accessible on complex high performance computing machines and handles the running of jobs and data management and retrieval. This paper describes the architecture it is based on, how it is implemented, and how users can use this for computational neuroscience research using high performance computing at the back end. Keywords—computational neuroscience, science gateway, high performance computing
A preliminary framework for description, analysis and comparison of creative systems

I summarise and attempt to clarify some concepts presented in and arising from Margaret Boden’s (1990) descriptive hierarchy of creativity, by beginning to formalise the ideas she proposes. The aim is to move towards a model which allows detailed comparison, and hence better understanding, of systems which exhibit behaviour which would be called ‘‘creative’’ in humans. The work paves the way for the description of naturalistic, multi-agent creative AI systems, which create in a societal context. I demonstrate some simple reasoning about creative behaviour based on the new framework, to show how it might be useful for the analysis and study of creative systems. In particular, I identify some crucial properties of creative systems, in terms of the framework components, some of which may usefully be proven a priori of a given system. I suggest that Boden’s descriptive framework, once elaborated in detail, is more uniform and more powerful than it first appears. 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Inter-observer agreement on the interpretation of capsule endoscopy findings based on capsule endoscopy structured terminology: a multicenter study by the Korean Gut Image Study Group.

OBJECTIVE
Capsule endoscopy (CE) is a novel investigation for the diagnosis of small-bowel disease but its interpretation is highly subjective. We studied the inter-observer agreement and accuracy of the interpretation of CE findings based on capsule endoscopy structured terminology (CEST).


MATERIAL AND METHODS
Fifty-six CE video clips were collected from eight university hospitals in South Korea and were independently reviewed by 13 gastroenterology experts and 10 trainees. All investigators recorded their findings based on CEST. To determine the accuracy of individual viewers, we defined the 'gold standard' as a joint review by four experts.


RESULTS
The 56 CE video clips included five normal cases, 19 cases of protruding lesions, 21 cases of depressed lesions, three cases of flat lesions, one case of abnormal mucosa, six cases with blood in the lumen, and one case of stenotic lumen. The overall mean accuracies for the experts and trainees were 74.3% +/- 22.6% and 61.7% +/- 25.4%, respectively. The overall accuracy for the trainee group was significantly lower than that for the expert group (P < 0.001), especially in normal, tumor, venous structure, and ulcer cases. The accuracies of the two groups varied with the CE findings. The accuracies were higher in cases with more prominent intraluminal changes (e.g. active small-bowel bleeding, ulcer, tumor, stenotic lumen). In contrast, subtle mucosal lesions, such as erosion, angioectasia, and diverticulum, had lower accuracies. The mean kappa values for the experts and trainees were 0.61 (range 0.39-0.97) and 0.46 (range 0.17-0.66), respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results showed that there was substantial agreement between experts and moderate agreement between trainees. In order to achieve higher accuracies and better inter-observer agreement, we need not only more experience with CE but also consensus regarding CEST terminology.
Workflow Scheduling in Multi-Tenant Cloud Computing Environments

Multi-tenancy is one of the key features of cloud computing, which provides scalability and economic benefits to the end-users and service providers by sharing the same cloud platform and its underlying infrastructure with the isolation of shared network and compute resources. However, resource management in the context of multi-tenant cloud computing is becoming one of the most complex task due to the inherent heterogeneity and resource isolation. This paper proposes a novel cloud-based workflow scheduling (CWSA) policy for compute-intensive workflow applications in multi-tenant cloud computing environments, which helps minimize the overall workflow completion time, tardiness, cost of execution of the workflows, and utilize idle resources of cloud effectively. The proposed algorithm is compared with the state-of-the-art algorithms, i.e., First Come First Served (FCFS), EASY Backfilling, and Minimum Completion Time (MCT) scheduling policies to evaluate the performance. Further, a proof-of-concept experiment of real-world scientific workflow applications is performed to demonstrate the scalability of the CWSA, which verifies the effectiveness of the proposed solution. The simulation results show that the proposed scheduling policy improves the workflow performance and outperforms the aforementioned alternative scheduling policies under typical deployment scenarios.