LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Using Dempster-Shafer's Evidence Theory for Query Expansion Based on Freebase Knowledge

Query expansion is generally a useful technique in improving search performance. However, some expanded query terms obtained by traditional statistical methods (e.g., pseudo-relevance feedback) may not be relevant to the user’s information need, while some relevant terms may not be contained in the feedback documents at all. Recent studies utilize external resources to detect terms that are related to the query, and then adopt these terms in query expansion. In this paper, we present a study in the use of Freebase [6], which is an open source general-purpose ontology, as a source for deriving expansion terms. FreeBase provides a graphbased model of human knowledge, from which a rich and multi-step structure of instances related to the query concept can be extracted, as a complement to the traditional statistical approaches to query expansion. We propose a novel method, based on the well-principled DempsterShafer’s (D-S) evidence theory, to measure the certainty of expansion terms from the Freebase structure. The expanded query model is then combined with a state of the art statistical query expansion model – the Relevance Model (RM3). Experiments show that the proposed method achieves significant improvements over RM3.
Impact of Alzheimer’s Disease on Caregiver Questionnaire: internal consistency, convergent validity, and test-retest reliability of a new measure for assessing caregiver burden

BACKGROUND
There is a lack of validated instruments to measure the level of burden of Alzheimer's disease (AD) on caregivers. The Impact of Alzheimer's Disease on Caregiver Questionnaire (IADCQ) is a 12-item instrument with a seven-day recall period that measures AD caregiver's burden across emotional, physical, social, financial, sleep, and time aspects. Primary objectives of this study were to evaluate psychometric properties of IADCQ administered on the Web and to determine most appropriate scoring algorithm.


METHODS
A national sample of 200 unpaid AD caregivers participated in this study by completing the Web-based version of IADCQ and Short Form-12 Health Survey Version 2 (SF-12v2™). The SF-12v2 was used to measure convergent validity of IADCQ scores and to provide an understanding of the overall health-related quality of life of sampled AD caregivers. The IADCQ survey was also completed four weeks later by a randomly selected subgroup of 50 participants to assess test-retest reliability. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was implemented to test the dimensionality of the IADCQ items. Classical item-level and scale-level psychometric analyses were conducted to estimate psychometric characteristics of the instrument. Test-retest reliability was performed to evaluate the instrument's stability and consistency over time.


RESULTS
Virtually none (2%) of the respondents had either floor or ceiling effects, indicating the IADCQ covers an ideal range of burden. A single-factor model obtained appropriate goodness of fit and provided evidence that a simple sum score of the 12 items of IADCQ can be used to measure AD caregiver's burden. Scales-level reliability was supported with a coefficient alpha of 0.93 and an intra-class correlation coefficient (for test-retest reliability) of 0.68 (95% CI: 0.50-0.80). Low-moderate negative correlations were observed between the IADCQ and scales of the SF-12v2.


CONCLUSIONS
The study findings suggest the IADCQ has appropriate psychometric characteristics as a unidimensional, Web-based measure of AD caregiver burden and is supported by strong model fit statistics from CFA, high degree of item-level reliability, good internal consistency, moderate test-retest reliability, and moderate convergent validity. Additional validation of the IADCQ is warranted to ensure invariance between the paper-based and Web-based administration and to determine an appropriate responder definition.
Effect of focal/grid photocoagulation on visual acuity and retinal thickening in eyes with non-center-involved diabetic macular edema.

PURPOSE
To report visual acuity and anatomic changes from baseline to 12 months after modified Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study (ETDRS)-style (focal/grid) photocoagulation in eyes with non-center-involved (non-CI) clinically significant macular edema.


METHODS
Visual acuity, optical coherence tomography, fluorescein angiography, and fundus photography data were analyzed from eyes with non-CI clinically significant macular edema treated with modified ETDRS-style (focal/grid) photocoagulation in a Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network trial.


RESULTS
Among the 22 eyes (of 22 patients) with 12-month follow-up, median visual acuity letter score remained within 1 letter of baseline over 12 months. The median central subfield retinal thickness decreased by 10 mum, median total macular volume decreased by 0.2 mm, and median fluorescein leakage area within the grid decreased by 0.7 disk areas.


CONCLUSION
We are unaware of any other systematic evaluation of eyes with non-CI clinically significant macular edema since the ETDRS. Focal/grid laser in these non-CI eyes was associated with relatively stable visual acuity and retinal thickness measurements, and decreased fluorescein leakage area at 1 year. One-year visual acuity results are consistent with those published by the ETDRS, despite the intervening significant differences in the management of diabetes. Although this was a small study without a concurrent control group, the ETDRS recommendation to consider focal/grid laser in eyes with non-CI clinically significant macular edema still seems appropriate.
Semantic Object Maps for robotic housework - representation, acquisition and use

In this article we investigate the representation and acquisition of Semantic Objects Maps (SOMs) that can serve as information resources for autonomous service robots performing everyday manipulation tasks in kitchen environments. These maps provide the robot with information about its operation environment that enable it to perform fetch and place tasks more efficiently and reliably. To this end, the semantic object maps can answer queries such as the following ones: “What do parts of the kitchen look like?”, “How can a container be opened and closed?”, “Where do objects of daily use belong?”, “What is inside of cupboards/drawers?”, etc. The semantic object maps presented in this article, which we call SOM+, extend the first generation of SOMs presented by Rusu et al. [1] in that the representation of SOM+ is designed more thoroughly and that SOM+ also include knowledge about the appearance and articulation of furniture objects. Also, the acquisition methods for SOM+ substantially advance those developed in [1] in that SOM+ are acquired autonomously and with low-cost (Kinect) instead of very accurate (laser-based) 3D sensors. In addition, perception methods are more general and are demonstrated to work in different kitchen environments.
The landscape approach of Bernard Lassus: Part II

Abstract In an earlier issue of the Journal of Garden History, 3 (1983), pp. 79–107, five texts were brought together to illustrate ‘The Landscape Approach of Bernard Lassus’. These texts ranged from his first comprehensive garden design, The Garden of the Anterior (1975), to his entry for the notorious competition for the Parc de la Villette, The Garden of the Planets (1980). The great interest of these schemes, and of the three intervening projects, lay in the fact that they implied nothing less than a new poetics of landscape. Concepts like the demesurable, or ‘demeasurable’, were invoked to emphasize the supreme importance of the imagination in formulating new ideas of space. Contemporary reference points, like the landing of Apollo on the Moon, were adduced to prove the point that garden design was bound to follow the radical revision of our notions of distance and ‘wildness’ that had accompanied the arrival of an age of mass tourism and global travel.
The prevalence and correlates of symptom distress and quality of life in Chinese oesophageal cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy after radical oesophagectomy.

PURPOSE
The current study was designed to describe the symptom distress and quality of life (QoL) in Chinese oesophageal cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy after radical oesophagectomy and to identify the factors that influenced symptom distress and the relationship between symptom distress and QoL.


METHODS
The sample consisted of 102 oesophageal cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy after radical oesophagectomy. The patients completed the Chinese versions of the M.D. Anderson Symptom Inventory (MDASI, an instrument that measures symptom distress), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), the Medical Coping Modes Questionnaire (MCMQ) and the Functional Assessment of Cancer Treatment-General (FACT-G, an instrument that measures QoL).


RESULTS
The symptoms and symptom interference scores of the patients in the current research were 3.62 (SD 1.66) and 2.94 (SD 1.76), respectively. Occupation after illness, anxiety, types of surgery, whether chemotherapy was on schedule and confrontation coping strategies were factors that influenced symptom distress. There was a negative relationship between symptom distress and QoL scores.


CONCLUSION
Oesophageal cancer patients receiving chemotherapy suffer many limitations due to symptom distress and disruptions in their QoL. Oesophageal cancer patients should be assessed regularly and should be supported on an ongoing basis.
Data quality assessment

How good is a company's data quality? Answering this question requires usable data quality metrics. Currently, most data quality measures are developed on an ad hoc basis to solve specific problems [6, 8], and fundamental principles necessary for developing usable metrics in practice are lacking. In this article, we describe principles that can help organizations develop usable data quality metrics.
Ten-year results of a randomized trial comparing tacrolimus versus cyclosporine a in combination with mycophenolate mofetil after heart transplantation.

BACKGROUND
Long-term results of prospective randomized trials comparing triple immunosuppressive strategies combining tacrolimus (TAC) or cyclosporine A (CsA) with mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) and steroids after heart transplantation (HTX) are rarely published. Therefore, we collected long-term follow-up data of an intervention cohort 10 years after randomization.


METHODS
Ten-year follow-up data of 60 patients included in a prospective, randomized trial between 1998 and 2000 were analyzed as intention-to-treat (TAC-MMF n=30; CsA-MMF n=30). Baseline characteristics were well balanced. Cardiac allograft vasculopathy (CAV) was graduated in accordance with the new ISHLT classification.


RESULTS
Survival at 1, 5, and 10 years was 96.7%, 80.0%, and 66.7% for TAC-MMF and 90.0%, 83.3%, and 80.0% for CsA-MMF (P=ns). Freedom from acute rejection (AR) was significantly higher in TAC-MMF versus CsA-MMF (65.5% vs. 21.7%, log-rank 8.3, P=0.004). Freedom from ISHLT≥CAV1 after 5 and 10 years was in TAC-MMF 64.0% and 45.8%, and in CsA-MMF 36.0% (log-rank 3.0, P=0.085) and 8.0% (log-rank 9.0, P=0.003). No difference in long-term results for freedom from coronary angioplasty or stenting, renal dysfunction, diabetes mellitus, CMV infection, or malignancy was detected.


CONCLUSION
Cross-over effects because of treatment switch may result in impairment of significance between the groups. The long-term analysis resulted in a significant difference in manifestation of CAV between the groups after 10 years. Less rejection in the TAC-group might have contributed to the lower incidence of CAV. Superior freedom from AR and CAV in the TAC-MMF group did not result in better long-term survival.
Implementation of coordinated global serotype 2 oral poliovirus vaccine cessation: risks of inadvertent trivalent oral poliovirus vaccine use

BACKGROUND
The endgame for polio eradication includes coordinated global cessation of oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), starting with the cessation of vaccine containing OPV serotype 2 (OPV2) by switching all trivalent OPV (tOPV) to bivalent OPV (bOPV). The logistics associated with this global switch represent a significant undertaking, with some possibility of inadvertent tOPV use after the switch.


METHODS
We used a previously developed poliovirus transmission and OPV evolution model to explore the relationships between the extent of inadvertent tOPV use, the time after the switch of the inadvertent tOPV use and corresponding population immunity to serotype 2 poliovirus transmission, and the ability of the inadvertently introduced viruses to cause a serotype 2 circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV2) outbreak in a hypothetical population. We then estimated the minimum time until inadvertent tOPV use in a supplemental immunization activity (SIA) or in routine immunization (RI) can lead to a cVDPV2 outbreak in realistic populations with properties like those of northern India, northern Pakistan and Afghanistan, northern Nigeria, and Ukraine.


RESULTS
At low levels of inadvertent tOPV use, the minimum time after the switch for the inadvertent use to cause a cVDPV2 outbreak decreases sharply with increasing proportions of children inadvertently receiving tOPV. The minimum times until inadvertent tOPV use in an SIA or in RI can lead to a cVDPV2 outbreak varies widely among populations, with higher basic reproduction numbers, lower tOPV-induced population immunity to serotype 2 poliovirus transmission prior to the switch, and a lower proportion of transmission occurring via the oropharyngeal route all resulting in shorter times. In populations with the lowest expected immunity to serotype 2 poliovirus transmission after the switch, inadvertent tOPV use in an SIA leads to a cVDPV2 outbreak if it occurs as soon as 9 months after the switch with 0.5 % of children aged 0-4 years inadvertently receiving tOPV, and as short as 6 months after the switch with 10-20 % of children aged 0-1 years inadvertently receiving tOPV. In the same populations, inadvertent tOPV use in RI leads to a cVDPV2 outbreak if 0.5 % of OPV RI doses given use tOPV instead of bOPV for at least 20 months after the switch, with the minimum length of use dropping to at least 9 months if inadvertent tOPV use occurs in 50 % of OPV RI doses.


CONCLUSIONS
Efforts to ensure timely and complete tOPV withdrawal at all levels, particularly from locations storing large amounts of tOPV, will help minimize risks associated with the tOPV-bOPV switch. Under-vaccinated populations with poor hygiene become at risk of a cVDPV2 outbreak in the event of inadvertent tOPV use the soonest after the tOPV-bOPV switch and therefore should represent priority areas to ensure tOPV withdrawal from all OPV stocks.
Symbolic methods applied to formal verification and synthesis in embedded systems design

Inmany of today’s technical appliances, embedded systems are deployed on an increasing scale. This trend is expected to massively gain in importance, especially for applications in consumer and automotive electronics, telecommunications, medical engineering, and avionics. Embedded systems can be characterized as follows: • They mostly consist of both hardware and software and perform control or communication tasks within an overall system, to which they are connected via networks, sensors, and actors. • In general, they are heterogeneous, often distributed systems with realtime requirements which may work on both transformative and reactive domains. • They typically are not directly visible to the user who interacts unconciously with them. The design of embedded systems poses significant challenges since system complexity grows rapidly. In particular, very elaborate design methods are necessary, and quality requirements are high because embedded systems often realize safety-critical functions. Hence the use of design automation tools has become indispensable. These can—based on a formal representation—analyze system properties and prove the correctness of the design. Then the implementation can be synthesized by automatically generating hardware and software descriptions. This enables a more flexible, faster, and less expensive design process than without automation. Within this context, the following topics are subject of this monograph: • A formal representation model called FunState is introduced which is especially suited to support embedded systems design. FunState serves as an internal design representation and can be used for modeling mixed hardware/software systems for analysis and synthesis purposes. • Based on FunState , a formal verification approach is presented which makes it possible to automatically check whether desired system properties are satisfied. In contrast to conventional verification techniques, formal verification can prove the correctness of a system’s model mathematically. ii Abstract ............................................................................................................................ • In order to generate an implementation, the execution order of functional parts within the system has to be determined, often in compliance with additional constraints. A novel, FunState-based approach to this so-called scheduling is explained. For the above-mentioned applications, mainly symbolic methods based on interval diagram techniques are suggested in this work. These new techniques can be used for enhancing the efficiency of existing approaches. One of the main challenges facing design methods is to cope with extraordinarily large state spaces of the system which have to be traversed. During the last years, symbolic methods have attracted great attention in this regard. By means of implicit enumeration, they can achieve significant savings in terms of the computational resources required during the design process.
Procrastination , Academic Success and the Effectiveness of a Remedial Program

Procrastination, Academic Success and the Effectiveness of a Remedial Program Procrastination produces harmful effects for human capital investments and studying activities. Using data from a large sample of Italian undergraduates, we measure procrastination with the actual behaviour of students, considering the delay in finalizing their university enrolment procedure. We firstly show that procrastination is a strong predictor of students’ educational achievements. This result holds true controlling for quite reliable measures of cognitive abilities, a number of background characteristics and indicators of students’ motivation. Secondly, we investigate, using a Regression Discontinuity Design, the effects of a remedial program in helping students with different propensity to procrastinate. We show that the policy especially advantages students who tend to procrastinate, suggesting that also policies not directly aimed at handling procrastination can help to solve self-control problems. JEL Classification: D03, I21, D91, J01, J24
Effect of oral contraceptive with and without associated estriol on ultrasound measurements of breast fi broadenoma : randomized clinical trial

Sao Paulo Med J. 2007;125(5):275-80. O R IG IN A L A R T IC L E Rodrigo Augusto Fernandes Estevão Afonso Celso Pinto Nazário Edmund Chada Baracat Effect of oral contraceptive with and without associated estriol on ultrasound measurements of breast fi broadenoma: randomized clinical trial Mastology Sector, Department of Gynecology, Universidade Federal de São Paulo — Escola Paulista de Medicina (Unifesp-EPM), São Paulo, Brazil CONTEXT AND OBJECTIVE: Fibroadenomas are the most common benign tumors of the female breast. The aim of this study was to evaluate the proliferative activity of breast fi broadenoma as shown by ultrasound measurements, following administration of oral contraceptives with and without associated estriol. DESIGN AND SETTING: This was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial carried out in the Mastology Sector, Department of Gynecology, Universidade Federal de São Paulo. METHODS: We studied 33 women with fi broadenomas. Ten were placed in group 1 and took an oral contraceptive consisting of levonorgestrel and ethinyl estradiol together with placebo material in the same capsule, for four consecutive cycles with a seven-day interval between them. The other 23 patients constituted group 2 and took the oral contraceptive as above together with estriol in the same capsule, in the same way as done by the group 1 patients. We took ultrasound measurements of their tumors (in three dimensions) before and after the intake of medication. At the end of the study, all the patients had their tumors removed by surgery. RESULTS: We observed decreased fibroadenoma width among the users of oral contraceptives with placebo, and this decrease was statistically signifi cant. In the other group, we did not observe any changes (in width, length or height). CONCLUSION: The results confi rm that estriol may block the protective effect of oral contraceptives on fi broadenomas, since we observed decreased fi broadenoma width among the group 1 patients but not the group 2 patients.
Evaluation of the acceptability, feasibility and effectiveness of two methods of involving patients with disability in developing clinical guidelines: study protocol of a randomized pragmatic pilot trial

BACKGROUND
Despite growing interest in the importance of, and challenges associated with the involvement of patient and population (IPP) in the process of developing and adapting clinical practice guidelines (CPGs), there is a lack of knowledge about the best method to use. This is especially problematic in the field of rehabilitation, where individuals with disabilities might face many barriers to their involvement in the guideline development and adaptation process. The goal of this pilot trial is to document the acceptability, feasibility and effectiveness of two methods of involving patients with a disability (traumatic brain injury) in CPG development.


METHODS/DESIGN
A single-blind, randomized, crossover pragmatic trial will be performed with 20 patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI). They will be randomized into two groups, and each will try two alternative methods of producing recommendations; a discussion group (control intervention) and a Wiki, a webpage that can be modified by those who have access to it (experimental intervention). The participants will rate the acceptability of the two methods, and feasibility will be assessed using indicators such as the number of participants who accessed and completed the two methods, and the number of support interventions required. Twenty experts, blinded to the method of producing the recommendations, will independently rate the recommendations produced by the participants for clarity, accuracy, appropriateness and usefulness.


DISCUSSION
Our trial will allow for the use of optimal IPP methods in a larger project of adapting guidelines for the rehabilitation of individuals with TBI. Ultimately the results will inform the science of CPG development and contribute to the growing knowledge about IPP in rehabilitation settings.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
Clinical trial KT Canada 87776.
Toward Reference Models of Requirements Traceability

ion in Rationale Models. The design goal of KBSA-ADM was to offer a coherent series of rationale models based on results of the REMAP project (Ramesh and Dhar 1992) for maintaining rationale at different levels of detail. Figure 19: Simple Rationale Model The model sketched in Figure 19 is used for capturing rationale at a simple level of detail. It links an OBJECT with its RATIONALE. The model in Figure 19 also provides for the explicit representation of ASSUMPTIONS and DEPENDENCIES among them. Thus, using this model, the assumptions providing justifications to the creation of objects can be explicitly identified and reasoned with. As changes in such assumptions are a primary factor in the