LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Impaired decision-making under risk in individuals with alcohol dependence.

BACKGROUND
Alcohol dependence is associated with poor decision-making under ambiguity, that is, when decisions are to be made in the absence of known probabilities of reward and loss. However, little is known regarding decisions made by individuals with alcohol dependence in the context of known probabilities (decision under risk). In this study, we investigated the relative contribution of these distinct aspects of decision-making to alcohol dependence.


METHODS
Thirty recently detoxified and sober asymptomatic alcohol-dependent individuals and 30 healthy control participants were tested for decision-making under ambiguity (using the Iowa Gambling Task[IGT]) and decision-making under risk (using the Cups Task and Coin Flipping Task). We also tested their capacities for working memory storage (digit span forward) and dual tasking (operation span task).


RESULTS
Compared to healthy control participants, alcohol-dependent individuals made disadvantageous decisions on the IGT, reflecting poor decisions under ambiguity. They also made more risky choices on the Cups and Coin Flipping Tasks reflecting poor decision-making under risk. In addition, alcohol-dependent participants showed some working memory impairments, as measured by the dual tasking, and the degree of this impairment correlated with high-risk decision-making, thus suggesting a relationship between processes subserving working memory and risky decisions.


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that alcohol-dependent individuals are impaired in their ability to decide optimally in multiple facets of uncertainty (i.e., both risk and ambiguity) and that at least some aspects of these deficits are linked to poor working memory processes.
A critical review of the risks to water resources from unconventional shale gas development and hydraulic fracturing in the United States.

The rapid rise of shale gas development through horizontal drilling and high volume hydraulic fracturing has expanded the extraction of hydrocarbon resources in the U.S. The rise of shale gas development has triggered an intense public debate regarding the potential environmental and human health effects from hydraulic fracturing. This paper provides a critical review of the potential risks that shale gas operations pose to water resources, with an emphasis on case studies mostly from the U.S. Four potential risks for water resources are identified: (1) the contamination of shallow aquifers with fugitive hydrocarbon gases (i.e., stray gas contamination), which can also potentially lead to the salinization of shallow groundwater through leaking natural gas wells and subsurface flow; (2) the contamination of surface water and shallow groundwater from spills, leaks, and/or the disposal of inadequately treated shale gas wastewater; (3) the accumulation of toxic and radioactive elements in soil or stream sediments near disposal or spill sites; and (4) the overextraction of water resources for high-volume hydraulic fracturing that could induce water shortages or conflicts with other water users, particularly in water-scarce areas. Analysis of published data (through January 2014) reveals evidence for stray gas contamination, surface water impacts in areas of intensive shale gas development, and the accumulation of radium isotopes in some disposal and spill sites. The direct contamination of shallow groundwater from hydraulic fracturing fluids and deep formation waters by hydraulic fracturing itself, however, remains controversial.
A comparative investigation of flexion relaxation phenomenon in healthy and chronic neck pain subjects

The cervical flexion relaxation phenomenon (FRP) is a neck extensor myoelectric “silence” that occurs during complete cervical and lumbar flexion. In contrast to low back pain, the changes that occur during FRP in chronic neck pain (CNP) patients are still not clear. The aim of this study was to assess the characteristics of this phenomenon in the cervical region in CNP patients and controls. Twenty-two women (23 ± 2.62 years) with chronic non-specific neck pain and 21 healthy women (23.4 ± 1.68 years) participated in this study. They accomplished a cervical flexion and extension from neutral position. Neck angle and surface electromyographic activity of cervical erector spinae (CES) and upper trapezius muscles were recorded. Appearance, onset and offset angle of the FRP were analysed and compared between the two groups. There were significant differences in the appearance of FRP between the two groups (P ≤ 0.001). The FRP in the CES muscles was observed in 85.7 % of healthy subjects and in 36.3 % of CNP patients, and no FRP was observed in the upper trapezius. Results of this study show that the onset and offset of FRP parameters were significantly different between the two groups (P ≤ 0.001). The results of the present study indicate that FRP in CNP patients was seen less than the healthy subjects, and moreover the FRP period was reduced in CNP patients. Our results also suggest that the changes in FRP of CNP patients may be due to the increased CES activity in these patients.
Quantum Circuits with Mixed States

Current formal models for quantum computation deal only with unitary gates operating on “pure quantum states”. In these models it is difficult or impossible to deal formally with several central issues: measurements in the middle of the computation; decoherence and noise, using probabilistic subroutines, and more. It turns out, that the restriction to unitary gates and pure states is unnecessary. In this paper we generalize the formal model of quantum circuits to a model in which the state can be a general quantum state, namely a mixed state, or a “density matrix”, and the gates can be general quantum operations, not necessarily unitary. The new model is shown to be equivalent in computational power to the standard one, and the problems mentioned above essentially disappear. The main result in this paper is a solution for the subroutine problem. The general function that a quantum circuit outputs is a probabilistic function. However, the question of using probabilistic functions as subroutines was not previously dealt with, the reason being that in the language of pure states, this simply can not be done. We define a natural notion of using general subroutines, and show that using general subroutines does not strengthen the model. As an example of the advantages of analyzing quantum complexity using density matrices, we prove a simple lower bound on depth of circuits that compute probabilistic functions. Finally, we deal with the question of inaccurate quantum computation with mixed states. Using the so called “trace metric” on density matrices, we show how to keep track of errors in the new model. Institutes of Physics and Computer science, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel L.D.Landau Institute for Theoretical Physics,Moscow, Russia Institute of Computer science, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel
Paul E Mason

The unique combination of playful, almost toy-like scale and modelling and serious content in artist Paul E. Mason's sculptural forms exhibited at the 'Critical Vehicles 3' exhibition is discussed. The political/social commentary suggested through his works such as 'Homeland Vehicle' 'Siege Towers', 'Bi catch' and the 'Direktor' series is analysed.
Low numeracy is associated with increased odds of 30-day emergency department or hospital recidivism for patients with acute heart failure.

BACKGROUND
More than 25% of Medicare patients hospitalized for heart failure are readmitted within 30 days. The contributions of numeracy and health literacy to recidivism for patients with acute heart failure (AHF) are not known.


METHODS AND RESULTS
A cohort of patients with acute heart failure who presented to 4 emergency departments between January 2008 and September 2011. Research assistants administered subjective measures of numeracy and health literacy; 30-day follow-up was performed by phone interview. Recidivism was defined as any unplanned return to the emergency department or hospital within 30 days of the index emergency department visit for AHF. Multivariable logistic regression adjusting for patient age, sex, race, insurance status, hospital site, days eligible for recidivism, chronic kidney disease, abnormal hemoglobin, and low ejection fraction evaluated the relation between numeracy and health literacy with 30-day recidivism. Of the 709 patients included in the analysis, 390 (55%) had low numeracy skills and 258 (37%) had low literacy skills. Low numeracy was associated with increased odds of recidivism within 30 days (adjusted odds ratio, 1.41; 95% confidence interval, 1.00-1.98; P=0.048). For low health literacy, adjusted odds ratio of recidivism was 1.17 (95% confidence interval, 0.83-1.65; P=0.37).


CONCLUSIONS
Low numeracy was associated with greater odds of 30-day recidivism. Further investigation is warranted to determine whether addressing numeracy and health literacy may reduce 30-day recidivism for patients with acute heart failure.
Contracts and externalities: How things fall apart

A single principal interacts with several agents, offering them contracts. The crucial assumption of this paper is that the outside-option payoffs of the agents depend positivelyon howmany uncontracted or “free” agents there are. We study how such a principal, unwelcome though he may be, approaches the problem of contract provision to agents when coordination failure among the latter group is explicitly ruled out. Two variants are considered. When the principal cannot re-approach agents, there is a unique equilibrium, in which contract provision is split up into two phases. In phase 1, simultaneousoffers at good (though varying) terms are made to a number of agents. In phase 2, offers must be madesequentially, and their values are “discontinuously” lower: they are close to the very lowest of all the outside options. When the principal can repeatedly approach the same agent, there is a multiplicity of equilibria. In some of these, the agents have the power to force delay. They can hold off the principal’s overtures temporarily, but they mustsuccumb in finite time. In both models, despite being able to coordinate their actions, agents cannot resist an “invasion” by the principal and hold to their best payoff. It is in this sense that “things [eventually] fall apart”. © 2005 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. JEL classification:D0; C7; L1; 017
PREPARE / ENRICH Program : Version 2000

This paper describes a program that enhances one of the most important and challenging tasks of life: staying happily married for a lifetime. The PREPARE/ENRICH Couple Program is a program for premarital and married couples who want to get their marriage off to a good start or enrich their marriage. The couple inventories and program have high levels of reliability, validity and clinical utility. A typology of couples identifies four premarital types (vitalized, harmonious, traditional and conflicted) and a fifth marital type (devitalized). A Couple and Family Map is used to describe the couple relationship and family of origin. Four personality scales (assertiveness, self-confidence, avoidance and partner dominance) are included in Version 2000. This paper describes the couple assessment scales (PREPARE, PREPARE-MC, ENRICH and MATE), materials provided to the couple and to the counselor, six goals of the program and integrated couple exercises.
Prevention of pericardial constriction by transcatheter intrapericardial fibrinolysis with urokinase.

OBJECTIVE
To investigate whether intrapericardial urokinase irrigation along with pericardiocentesis could prevent pericardial constriction in patients with infectious exudative pericarditis.


METHODS
A total of 94 patients diagnosed as infectious exudative pericarditis (34 patients with purulent pericarditis and 60 with tuberculous pericarditis, the disease courses of all patients were less than 1 month), 44 males and 50 females, aged from 9 to 66 years (mean 45.4 +/- 14.7 years), were consecutively recruited from 1993 to 2002. All individuals were randomly given either intrapericardial urokinase along with conventional treatment in study group, or conventional treatment alone (including pericardiocentesis and drainage) in control group. The dosage of urokinase ranged from 200000 to 600000 U (mean 320000 +/- 70000 U). The immediate effects were detected by pericardiography with sterilized air and diatrizoate meglumine as contrast media. The long-term investigation depended on the telephonic survey and echocardiographic examination. The duration of following-up ranged from 8 to 120 months (mean 56.8 +/- 29.0 months).


RESULTS
Percutaneous intrapericardial urokinase irrigation promoted complete drainage of pericardial effusion, significantly reduced the thickness of pericardium (from 3.1 +/- 1.6 mm to 1.6 +/- 1.0 mm in study group, P < 0.001; from 3.4 +/- 1.6 mm to 3.2 +/- 1.8 mm in control group, P > 0.05, respectively), and alleviated the adhesion. Intrapericardial bleeding related to fibrinolysis was found in 6 of 47 patients with non-blood pericardial effusion and no systemic bleeding and severe puncture-related complication was observed. In follow-up, there was no cardiac death, and pericardial constriction events were observed in 9 (19.1%) of study group and 27 (57.4%) of control group. Cox analysis illustrated that urokinase could significantly reduce the occurrence of pericardial constriction (relative hazard coefficient = 0.185, P < 0.0001).


CONCLUSION
The early employment of intrapericardial fibrinolysis with urokinase and pericardiocentesis appears to be safe and effective in preventing the development of pericardial constriction in patients with infectious exudative pericarditis.
Picosecond imaging circuit analysis

A newly developed optical method for noninvasively measuring the switching activity of operating CMOS integrated circuit chips is described. The method, denoted as picosecond imaging circuit analysis (PICA) can be used to characterize the gate-level performance of such chips and identify the locations and nature of their operational faults. The principles underlying PICA and examples of its use are discussed.
The effectiveness of brief alcohol interventions delivered by community pharmacists: randomized controlled trial.

BACKGROUND AND AIMS
To undertake the first randomized controlled trial to evaluate the effectiveness of a brief intervention delivered by community pharmacists to reduce hazardous or harmful drinking.


DESIGN
This parallel group randomized trial allocated participants individually to brief alcohol intervention (n = 205) or a leaflet-only control condition (n = 202), with follow-up study after 3 months.


SETTING
Sixteen community pharmacies in one London Borough, UK.


PARTICIPANTS
A total of 407 pharmacy customers (aged 18 years or over) with Alcohol Use Disorder Identification Test (AUDIT) scores 8-19, inclusive.


INTERVENTION
A brief motivational discussion of approximately 10 minutes' duration, for which 17 pharmacists received a half-day of training.


MEASUREMENTS
Hazardous or harmful drinking was assessed using the AUDIT administered by telephone by a researcher blind to allocation status. The two primary outcomes were: (1) change in AUDIT total scores and (2) the proportions no longer hazardous or harmful drinkers (scoring < 8) at 3 months. The four secondary outcomes were: the three subscale scores of the AUDIT (for consumption, problems and dependence) and health status according to the EQ-5D (a standardized instrument for use as a measure of health outcome).


FINDINGS
At 3 months 326 (80% overall; 82% intervention, 78% control) participants were followed-up. The difference in reduction in total AUDIT score (intervention minus control) was -0.57, 95% confidence interval (CI) = -1.59 to 0.45, P = 0.28. The odds ratio for AUDIT ˂ 8 (control as reference) was 0.87, 95% CI = 0.50 to 1.51, P = 0.61). For two of the four secondary outcomes (dependence score: -0.46, 95% CI = -0.82 to -0.09, P = 0.014; health status score: -0.09, 95% CI = -0.16 to -0.02, P = 0.013) the control group did better, and in the other two there were no differences (consumption score: -0.05, 95% CI = -0.54 to 0.44, P = 0.85; non-dependence problems score: -0.13, 95% CI = -0.66 to 0.41). Sensitivity analyses did not change these findings.


CONCLUSIONS
A brief intervention delivered by community pharmacists appears to have had no effect in reducing hazardous or harmful alcohol consumption.
Do patients with advanced cognitive impairment admitted to hospitals with higher rates of feeding tube insertion have improved survival?

CONTEXT
Research is conflicting on whether receiving medical care at a hospital with more aggressive treatment patterns improves survival.


OBJECTIVES
The aim of this study was to examine whether nursing home residents admitted to hospitals with more aggressive patterns of feeding tube insertion had improved survival.


METHODS
Using the 1999-2007 Minimum Data Set matched to Medicare claims, we identified hospitalized nursing home residents with advanced cognitive impairment who did not have a feeding tube inserted prior to their hospital admissions. The sample included 56,824 nursing home residents and 1773 acute care hospitals nationwide. Hospitals were categorized into nine groups based on feeding tube insertion rates and whether the rates were increasing, staying the same, or decreasing between the periods of 2000-2003 and 2004-2007. Multivariate logit models were used to examine the association between the hospital patterns of feeding tube insertion and survival among hospitalized nursing home residents with advanced cognitive impairment.


RESULTS
Nearly one in five hospitals (N=366) had persistently high rates of feeding tube insertion. Being admitted to these hospitals with persistently high rates of feeding tube insertion was not associated with improved survival when compared with being admitted to hospitals with persistently low rates of feeding tube insertion. The adjusted odds ratios were 0.93 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.87, 1.01) and 1.02 (95% CI: 0.95, 1.09) for one-month and six-month posthospitalization survival, respectively.


CONCLUSION
Hospitals with more aggressive patterns of feeding tube insertion did not have improved survival for hospitalized nursing home residents with advanced cognitive impairment.
Vehicular Cloud Computing : Trends and Challenges

Recently, Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks (VANET) have attracted the attention of research communities, leading car manufacturers, and governments due to their potential applications and specific characteristics. Their research outcome was started with awareness between vehicles for collision avoidance and Internet access and then expanded to vehicular multimedia communications. Moreover, vehicles’ high computation, communication, and storage resources set a ground for vehicular networks to deploy these applications in the near future. Nevertheless, on-board resources in vehicles are mostly underutilized. Vehicular Cloud Computing (VCC) is developed to utilize the VANET resources efficiently and provide subscribers safe infotainment services. In this chapter, the authors perform a survey of state-of-the-art vehicular cloud computing as well as the existing techniques that utilize cloud computing for performance improvements in VANET. The authors then classify the VCC based on the applications, service types, and vehicular cloud organization. They present the detail for each VCC application and formation. Lastly, the authors discuss the open issues and research directions related to VANET cloud computing. Kayhan Zrar Ghafoor Koya University, Iraq Marwan Aziz Mohammed Koya University, Iraq Kamalrulnizam Abu Bakar Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia Ali Safa Sadiq Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia Jaime Lloret Universidad Politecnica de Valencia, Spain DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-4781-7.ch014
Modeling Syntactic Context Improves Morphological Segmentation

The connection between part-of-speech (POS) categories and morphological properties is well-documented in linguistics but underutilized in text processing systems. This paper proposes a novel model for morphological segmentation that is driven by this connection. Our model learns that words with common affixes are likely to be in the same syntactic category and uses learned syntactic categories to refine the segmentation boundaries of words. Our results demonstrate that incorporating POS categorization yields substantial performance gains on morphological segmentation of Arabic. 1
Diagnosis of pancreatic cancer by detecting telomerase activity in pancreatic juice: comparison with K-ras mutations

OBJECTIVE:Telomerase activity is reported to be specific and very frequent in human malignancy. K-ras mutations are also very frequently detected in pancreatic cancer, but their specificity for pancreatic cancer is controversial. We examined the telomerase activity and K-ras mutations in pancreatic juice from patients with pancreatic disease.METHODS:Pancreatic juice was obtained endoscopically at endoscopic retrograde pancreatography from 10 patients with pancreatic cancer, three with chronic pancreatitis, and three with a normal pancreas. The telomerase activity in pancreatic juice was assayed by telomeric repeat amplification protocol. K-ras mutations in exon 1 codon 12 were examined by the two-step polymerase chain reaction combined with restriction enzyme digestion, followed by single-strand conformation polymorphism analysis and direct sequencing.RESULTS:Telomerase activity of >5.0 was detected in eight of 10 (80%) subjects with pancreatic cancer, but in none with chronic pancreatitis or normal pancreas. K-ras mutations were detected not only in eight of 10 (80%) subjects with pancreatic cancer but also in two of three with chronic pancreatitis and in one of three with a normal pancreas.CONCLUSIONS:It was shown that the detection of telomerase activity in pancreatic juice is a more useful diagnostic tool for pancreatic cancer than that of K-ras mutations.
Validation of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center Nomogram to Predict Disease-Specific Survival after R0 Resection in a Chinese Gastric Cancer Population

BACKGROUND
Prediction of disease-specific survival (DSS) for individual patient with gastric cancer after R0 resection remains a clinical concern. Since the clinicopathologic characteristics of gastric cancer vary widely between China and western countries, this study is to evaluate a nomogram from Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) for predicting the probability of DSS in patients with gastric cancer from a Chinese cohort.


METHODS
From 1998 to 2007, clinical data of 979 patients with gastric cancer who underwent R0 resection were retrospectively collected from Peking University Cancer Hospital & Institute and used for external validation. The performance of the MSKCC nomogram in our population was assessed using concordance index (C-index) and calibration plot.


RESULTS
The C-index for the MSKCC predictive nomogram was 0.74 in the Chinese cohort, compared with 0.69 for American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system (P<0.0001). This suggests that the discriminating value of MSKCC nomogram is superior to AJCC staging system for prognostic prediction in the Chinese population. Calibration plots showed that the actual survival of Chinese patients corresponded closely to the MSKCC nonogram-predicted survival probabilities. Moreover, MSKCC nomogram predictions demonstrated the heterogeneity of survival in stage IIA/IIB/IIIA/IIIB disease of the Chinese patients.


CONCLUSION
In this study, we externally validated MSKCC nomogram for predicting the probability of 5- and 9-year DSS after R0 resection for gastric cancer in a Chinese population. The MSKCC nomogram performed well with good discrimination and calibration. The MSKCC nomogram improved individualized predictions of survival, and may assist Chinese clinicians and patients in individual follow-up scheduling, and decision making with regard to various treatment options.