LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Caregiver burden, patients' self-perceived burden, and preference for palliative care among cancer patients and caregivers.

OBJECTIVE
Recently, caregiver burden (CB) has emerged as an important issue in the area of palliative medicine. However, patients' feelings related to being a burden to their families (i.e., self-perceived burden [SPB]) is also a significant issue. We evaluated the relation of CB and SPB as preference for palliative care.


METHODS
A national, multicenter, cross-sectional survey of 326 patient-caregiver dyads was performed. A set of paired questionnaires evaluating CB and SPB (five domain items assessed on a four-point Likert scale) were independently administered to patients and their caregivers. Among the respondents, only the patients with distant stage cancer and their caregivers were included. Multivariate analyses were conducted to identify the associations between CB and SPB and preference for palliative care.


RESULTS
Caregivers and patients who preferred palliative care to life sustaining treatment reported higher CB and SPB scores, respectively. Caregivers who felt more of a burden were more likely to prefer palliative care over life sustaining treatment for their patients (adjusted odds ratio [aOR] = 1.67, 95% CI: 1.21-2.31). In addition, patients who perceived their caregivers' burden as large tended to prefer palliative care (aOR = 1.61, 95% CI: 1.16-2.22).


CONCLUSIONS
Both CB and SPB increased preference for palliative care. This could be interpreted that high CB can lead to preference for palliative care in both patients and their caregivers, potentially threatening patient autonomy. Efforts to relieve CB and SPB are needed.
Camera space volumetric shadows

We transform irregularly sampled shadow map data to deep image buffers in camera space, which are then used to create volumetric shadows in a deep compositing workflow. Our technique poses no restrictions on the sample locations of the shadow map and can thus be used with a variety of adaptive approaches to produce more precise shadows closer to the camera. To construct watertight shafts towards the light source forming crepuscular rays, we use a two-dimensional quad tree in light space. This structure is constructed from the shadow samples independent of the camera position, making stereo renders and camera animations for static light sources and geometry more efficient. The actual integration of volumetric light transport is then left to a fast image space deep compositing workflow, enabling short turnaround times for cinematic lighting design. We show a simple scalable ray tracing kernel to convert the quad tree representation to a deep image for each camera, where ray tracing takes only 25% of the processing time.
A survey of content-based image retrieval with high-level semantics

In order to improve the retrieval accuracy of content-based image retrieval systems, research focus has been shifted from designing sophisticated low-level feature extraction algorithms to reducing the ‘semantic gap’ between the visual features and the richness of human semantics. This paper attempts to provide a comprehensive survey of the recent technical achievements in high-level semantic-based image retrieval. Major recent publications are included in this survey covering different aspects of the research in this area, including low-level image feature extraction, similarity measurement, and deriving high-level semantic features. We identify five major categories of the state-of-the-art techniques in narrowing down the ‘semantic gap’: (1) using object ontology to define high-level concepts; (2) using machine learning methods to associate low-level features with query concepts; (3) using relevance feedback to learn users’ intention; (4) generating semantic template to support high-level image retrieval; (5) fusing the evidences from HTML text and the visual content of images for WWW image retrieval. In addition, some other related issues such as image test bed and retrieval performance evaluation are also discussed. Finally, based on existing technology and the demand from real-world applications, a few promising future research directions are suggested. 2006 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
"Sleepiness" is serious in adolescence: Two surveys of 3235 Canadian students

BACKGROUND
Evidence is growing that sleep problems in adolescents are significant impediments to learning and negatively affect behaviour, attainment of social competence and quality of life. The objectives of the study were to determine the level of sleepiness among students in high school, to identify factors to explain it, and to determine the association between sleepiness and performance in both academic and extracurricular activities


METHODS
A cross-sectional survey of 2201 high school students in the Hamilton Wentworth District School Board and the Near North District School Board in Ontario was conducted in 1998/9. A similar survey was done three years later involving 1034 students in the Grand Erie District School Board in the same Province. The Epworth Sleepiness Scale (ESS) was used to measure sleepiness and we also assessed the reliability of this tool for this population. Descriptive analysis of the cohort and information on various measures of performance and demographic data were included. Regression analysis, using the generalised estimating equation (GEE), was utilized to investigate factors associated with risk of sleepiness (ESS>10).


RESULTS
Seventy per cent of the students had less than 8.5 hours weeknight sleep. Bedtime habits such as a consistent bedtime routine, staying up late or drinking caffeinated beverages before bed were statistically significantly associated with ESS, as were weeknight sleep quantity and gender. As ESS increased there was an increase in the proportion of students who felt their grades had dropped because of sleepiness, were late for school, were often extremely sleepy at school, and were involved in fewer extracurricular activities. These performance measures were statistically significantly associated with ESS. Twenty-three percent of the students felt their grades had dropped because of sleepiness. Most students (58-68%) reported that they were "really sleepy" between 8 and 10 A.M.


CONCLUSION
Sleep deprivation and excessive daytime sleepiness were common in two samples of Ontario high school students and were associated with a decrease in academic achievement and extracurricular activity. There is a need to increase awareness of this problem in the education and health communities and to translate knowledge already available to strategies to address it.
The French-Canadian validation of a disease-specific, patient-reported outcome measure for lupus.

OBJECTIVES
The objective of this paper is to perform the cross-cultural validation of the French version of the LupusPRO, a disease-targeted patient-reported outcome measure, among systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) patients in Canada.


METHODS
The French version of the LupusPRO and the MOS SF-36 were administered; demographic, clinical and serological characteristics were obtained. Disease activity (SELENA-SLEDAI and the Lupus Foundation of America definition of flare) and damage (SLICC/ACR SDI) were assessed. Physician disease activity and damage assessments were ascertained using visual analog scales. Internal consistency reliability (ICR), test-retest reliability (TRT), convergent and discriminant validity (against corresponding domains of the SF-36), criterion validity (against disease activity, damage or health status) and known group validity were tested.


RESULTS
A total of 99 French-Canadian SLE patients participated (97% women, mean (SD) age 45.2 (14.5) years). The median (IQR) SELENA-SLEDAI and SDI were 3.5 (6.0) and 1.0 (2.0), respectively. The ICR of the LupusPRO domains ranged from 0.81 to 0.93 (except for lupus symptoms, procreation and coping), while TRT ranged from 0.72 to 0.95. Convergent and discriminant validity, criterion validity and known group validity against disease activity, damage and health status measures were observed. Confirmatory factor analysis showed a good fit.


CONCLUSION
The LupusPRO has fair psychometric properties among French-Canadian patients with SLE.
From “classic” child abuse and neglect to the new era of maltreatment

The evolution of the concept of child abuse leads to consider new types of maltreatment that in the future will certainly be taken into account with a new era of social pediatrics.Pediatric care has been based on the increased awareness of the importance of meeting the psychosocial and developmental needs of children and of the role of families in promoting the health.
Plagiarism Detection: A Tool Survey and Comparison

We illustrate the state of the art in software plagiarism detection tools by comparing their features and testing them against a wide range of source codes. The source codes were edited according to several types of plagiarism to show the tools accuracy at detecting each type. The decision to focus our research on plagiarism of programming languages is two fold: on one hand, it is a challenging case-study since programming languages impose a structured writing style; on the other hand, we are looking for the integration of such a tool in an Automatic-Grading System (AGS) developed to support teachers in the context of Programming courses. Besides the systematic characterisation of the underlying problem domain, the tools were surveyed with the objective of identifying the most successful approach in order to design the aimed plugin for our AGS. 1998 ACM Subject Classification I.5.4 Applications, Text processing
Thick fetal corpus callosum: an ominous sign?

OBJECTIVE
Anomalies of the corpus callosum are frequently diagnosed during pregnancy, but a thick corpus callosum is a rare finding and its significance is not clear. We aimed to assess the significance of thick fetal corpus callosum by reviewing our experience of such cases.


METHODS
The records of all fetuses with anomalies of the corpus callosum referred to the prenatal diagnosis units of two university hospitals from 2000 to 2007 were reviewed. Nine fetuses with a thick corpus callosum were identified.


RESULTS
In all cases there were associated abnormalities: macrocephaly, ventriculomegaly, vermian agenesis, abnormal sulcation or encephalocele. Four pregnancies were terminated and in each of these cases the autopsy confirmed dysmorphic features and additional brain abnormalities. Five infants were delivered; two died shortly after birth, one suffers from mental retardation, one had neonatal convulsions and one is developing normally.


CONCLUSIONS
A thick fetal corpus callosum is usually associated with other brain anomalies and is part of a neurogenetic syndrome in most cases.
Stock Market and Economic Development: A Causality Test

An attempt has been made in this paper to examine the existence of causality relationship between stock market and economic growth based on the time series data for the year 1988 to 2005 using Granger causality test. The study finds the empirical evidence of long-run integration and causality of macroeconomic variables and stock market indicators even in a small capital market of Nepal. The causality has been observed only in real terms but not in nominal variables. In econometric sense, it depicts that the stock market plays significant role in determining economic growth and vice versa. Interestingly, the causation is evident with a lag of 3 to 4 years. Also, the paper reveals the importance of stock market development for fostering economic development.
Effect of folic acid intervention on the change of serum folate level in hypertensive Chinese adults: do methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase and methionine synthase gene polymorphisms affect therapeutic responses?

OBJECTIVES
To assess the influence of individual methylenetetrahydrofolate reductase (MTHFR) C677T and methionine synthase A2756G polymorphisms on the change of serum folate concentration in response to different dosages and durations of folic acid (FA) supplementation in hypertensive Chinese adults.


METHODS
A total of 480 patients with mild or moderate essential hypertension were randomly assigned to three treatment groups: (a) enalapril only (10 mg, control group); (b) enalapril FA tablet [10 : 0.4 mg (10 mg of enalapril combined with 0.4 mg of FA), low-FA group]; (c) enalapril FA tablet (10 : 0.8 mg, high-FA group), once daily for 8 weeks. Individual serum folate levels were measured at baseline, and at 4 and 8 weeks posttreatment.


RESULTS
After 4 or 8 weeks of treatment, increases in serum folate were seen across all genotypes and FA dosage groups. However, compared with patients with 677CC genotype, those with CT or TT genotype in the low-FA group and TT genotype in the high-FA group still had significantly lower folate concentrations, particularly women. In the low-FA group, patients with CT or TT genotype showed an attenuated response compared with those with CC genotype (median ratio of folate at week 8 to that at baseline: CC,1.953 vs. CT,1.755 or TT,1.637, P<0.01 for both). Such an attenuated response was not observed in the high-FA group. Yet, only in the high-FA group did serum folate appear to reach a plateau after 4 weeks of treatment in all three MTHFR 677 genotypes and the methionine synthase 2756 AG/GG genotype.


CONCLUSION
We demonstrated that MTHFR C677T polymorphisms can not only affect serum folate levels at the baseline and post-FA treatment, but also therapeutic responses to various dosages and durations of FA supplementation.
CS364A: Algorithmic Game Theory Lecture #3: Myerson's Lemma

Last time, we introduced the Vickrey auction and proved that it enjoys three desirable and different guarantees: (1) [strong incentive guarantees] DSIC. That is, truthful bidding should be a dominant strategy (and never leads to negative utility). Don't forget the two reasons we're after the DSIC guarantee. First, such an auction is easy to play for bidders — just play the obvious dominant strategy. Second, assuming only that bidders will play a dominant strategy when they have one, we can confidently predict the outcome of the auction. (2) [strong performance guarantees] Social surplus maximization. That is, assuming truthful bids (which is justified by (1)), the allocation of goods to bidders should maximize n i=1 v i x i , where x i the amount of stuff allocated to bidder i. (3) [computational efficiency] The auction can be implemented in polynomial (indeed, linear) time. To extend these guarantees beyond single-item auctions to more complex problems, like the sponsored search auctions introduced last lecture, we advocated a two-step design approach. Step 1: Assume, without justification, that bidders bid truthfully. Then, how should we assign bidders to slots so that the above properties (2) and (3) hold? Step 2: Given our answer to Step 1, how should we set selling prices so that the above property (1) holds? * c 2013, Tim Roughgarden. These lecture notes are provided for personal use only. See my book Twenty Lectures on Algorithmic Game Theory, published by Cambridge University Press, for the latest version.
Resource niche overlap promotes stability of bacterial community metabolism in experimental microcosms

Decomposition of organic matter is an important ecosystem process governed in part by bacteria. The process of decomposition is expected to benefit from interspecific bacterial interactions such as resource partitioning and facilitation. However, the relative importance of resource niche breadth (metabolic diversity) and resource niche overlap (functional redundancy) on decomposition and the temporal stability of ecosystem processes received little scientific attention. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the effect of an increase in bacterial community resemblance on both decomposition and the stability of bacterial metabolism in aquatic sediments. To this end, we performed laboratory microcosm experiments in which we examined the influence of bacterial consortia differing in number and composition of species on bacterial activity (Electron Transport System Activity, ETSA), dissolved organic carbon production and wavelet transformed measurements of redox potential (Eh). Single substrate affinities of the individual bacterial species were determined in order to calculate the metabolic diversity of the microbial community. Results presented here indicate that bacterial activity and organic matter decomposition increase with widening of the resource niche breadth, and that metabolic stability increases with increasing overlap in bacterial resource niches, hinting that resource niche overlap can promote the stability of bacterial community metabolism.
Transcending the Boundaries of the ‘isms’: Pursuing Modernity through the Machine in 1920s and 1930s Japanese Avant-Garde Art

Japanese art critics and artists viewed the machine as an important element in the development of different 'isms' in the history of avant-garde art. This chapter first examines how the machine was discussed, portrayed, and elaborated across different artistic 'isms', and how the focus and emphasis of these conceptions changed over time to adjust to contemporary social or political exigencies. It explores how the machine provided a new format, new subject matter, or new theoretical lens for refining and redirecting preexisting concepts of art and artistic genres. The machine provides a 'healthy' and 'fresh' new model for art in modern society. Moving beyond how the machine was conceptualized within the discourses of art and literary theory, the remainder of the chapter examines how images of the machine and the mechanical were actually deployed within artworks produced in Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. Keywords: avant-garde art; Japanese art critics; literary theory; modern machine
Assessing the Long-Run Economic Impact of Labour Law Systems: A Theoretical Reappraisal and Analysis of New Time Series Data

Standard economic theory sees labour law as an exogenous interference with market relations and predicts mostly negative impacts on employment and productivity. We argue for a more nuanced theoretical position: labour law is, at least in part, endogenous, with both the production and the application of labour law norms influenced by national and sectoral contexts, and by complementarities between the institutions of the labour market and those of corporate governance and financial markets. Legal origin may also operate as a force shaping the content of the law and its economic impact. Time-series analysis using a new dataset on legal change from the 1970s to the mid-2000s shows evidence of positive correlations between regulation and growth in employment and productivity, at least for France and Germany. No relationship, either positive or negative is found for the UK and although the US shows a weak negative relationship between regulation and employment growth, this is offset by productivity gains.
Haloperidol prophylaxis for elderly hip-surgery patients at risk for delirium: a randomized placebo-controlled study.

OBJECTIVES
To study the effectiveness of haloperidol prophylaxis on incidence, severity, and duration of postoperative delirium in elderly hip-surgery patients at risk for delirium.


DESIGN
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.


SETTING
Large medical school-affiliated general hospital in Alkmaar, The Netherlands.


PARTICIPANTS
A total of 430 hip-surgery patients aged 70 and older at risk for postoperative delirium.


INTERVENTION
Haloperidol 1.5 mg/d or placebo was started preoperatively and continued for up to 3 days postoperatively. Proactive geriatric consultation was provided for all randomized patients.


MEASUREMENTS
The primary outcome was the incidence of postoperative delirium (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fourth Edition, and Confusion Assessment Method criteria). Secondary outcomes were the severity of delirium (Delirium Rating Scale, revised version-98 (DRS-R-98)), the duration of delirium, and the length of hospital stay.


RESULTS
The overall incidence of postoperative delirium was 15.8%. The percentage of patients with postoperative delirium in the haloperidol and placebo treatment condition was 15.1% and 16.5%, respectively (relative risk=0.91, 95% confidence interval (CI)=0.6-1.3); the mean highest DRS-R-98 score+/-standard deviation was 14.4+/-3.4 and 18.4+/-4.3, respectively (mean difference 4.0, 95% CI=2.0-5.8; P<.001); delirium duration was 5.4 versus 11.8 days, respectively (mean difference 6.4 days, 95% CI=4.0-8.0; P<.001); and the mean number of days in the hospital was 17.1+/-11.1 and 22.6+/-16.7, respectively (mean difference 5.5 days, 95% CI=1.4-2.3; P<.001). No haloperidol-related side effects were noted.


CONCLUSION
Low-dose haloperidol prophylactic treatment demonstrated no efficacy in reducing the incidence of postoperative delirium. It did have a positive effect on the severity and duration of delirium. Moreover, haloperidol reduced the number of days patients stayed in the hospital, and the therapy was well tolerated.
Big Graph Analytics Systems

In recent years we have witnessed a surging interest in developing Big Graph processing systems. To date, tens of Big Graph systems have been proposed. This tutorial provides a timely and comprehensive review of existing Big Graph systems, and summarizes their pros and cons from various perspectives. We start from the existing vertex-centric systems, which which a programmer thinks intuitively like a vertex when developing parallel graph algorithms. We then introduce systems that adopt other computation paradigms and execution settings. The topics covered in this tutorial include programming models and algorithm design, computation models, communication mechanisms, out-of-core support, fault tolerance, dynamic graph support, and so on. We also highlight future research opportunities on Big Graph analytics.
Plasma brain natriuretic peptide as a prognostic indicator in patients with primary pulmonary hypertension.

BACKGROUND
Plasma brain natriuretic peptide (BNP) level increases in proportion to the degree of right ventricular dysfunction in pulmonary hypertension. We sought to assess the prognostic significance of plasma BNP in patients with primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH).


METHODS AND RESULTS
Plasma BNP was measured in 60 patients with PPH at diagnostic catheterization, together with atrial natriuretic peptide, norepinephrine, and epinephrine. Measurements were repeated in 53 patients after a mean follow-up period of 3 months. Forty-nine of the patients received intravenous or oral prostacyclin. During a mean follow-up period of 24 months, 18 patients died of cardiopulmonary causes. According to multivariate analysis, baseline plasma BNP was an independent predictor of mortality. Patients with a supramedian level of baseline BNP (>/=150 pg/mL) had a significantly lower survival rate than those with an inframedian level, according to Kaplan-Meier survival curves (P<0.05). Plasma BNP in survivors decreased significantly during the follow-up (217+/-38 to 149+/-30 pg/mL, P<0. 05), whereas that in nonsurvivors increased (365+/-77 to 544+/-68 pg/mL, P<0.05). Thus, survival was strikingly worse for patients with a supramedian value of follow-up BNP (>/=180 pg/mL) than for those with an inframedian value (P<0.0001).


CONCLUSIONS
A high level of plasma BNP, and in particular, a further increase in plasma BNP during follow-up, may have a strong, independent association with increased mortality rates in patients with PPH.