LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
C-reactive protein and prediction of 1-year mortality in prevalent hemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Measurement of C-reactive protein (CRP) levels remains uncommon in North America, although it is now routine in many countries. Using Dialysis Outcomes and Practice Patterns Study data, our primary aim was to evaluate the value of CRP for predicting mortality when measured along with other common inflammatory biomarkers.


DESIGN, SETTING, PARTICIPANTS, & MEASUREMENTS
We studied 5061 prevalent hemodialysis patients from 2005 to 2008 in 140 facilities routinely measuring CRP in 10 countries. The association of CRP with mortality was evaluated using Cox regression. Prediction of 1-year mortality was assessed in logistic regression models with differing adjustment variables.


RESULTS
Median baseline CRP was lower in Japan (1.0 mg/L) than other countries (6.0 mg/L). CRP was positively, monotonically associated with mortality. No threshold below which mortality rate leveled off was identified. In prediction models, CRP performance was comparable with albumin and exceeded ferritin and white blood cell (WBC) count based on measures of model discrimination (c-statistics, net reclassification improvement [NRI]) and global model fit (generalized R(2)). The primary analysis included age, gender, diabetes, catheter use, and the four inflammatory markers (omitting one at a time). Specifying NRI ≥5% as appropriate reclassification of predicted mortality risk, NRI for CRP was 12.8% compared with 10.3% for albumin, 0.8% for ferritin, and <0.1% for WBC.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings demonstrate the value of measuring CRP in addition to standard inflammatory biomarkers to improve mortality prediction in hemodialysis patients. Future studies are indicated to identify interventions that lower CRP and to identify whether they improve clinical outcomes.
Kirchhoff’s Problem of Helical Equilibria of Uniform Rods

It is demonstrated that a uniform and hyperelastic, but otherwise arbitrary, nonlinear Cosserat rod subject to appropriate end loadings has equilibria whose center lines form two-parameter families of helices. The absolute energy minimizer that arises in the absence of any end loading is a helical equilibrium by the assumption of uniformity, but more generally the helical equilibria arise for non-vanishing end loads. For inextensible, unshearable rods the two parameters correspond to arbitrary values of the curvature and torsion of the helix. For non-isotropic rods, each member of the two-dimensional family of helical center lines has at least two possible equilibrium orientations of the director frame. The possible orientations are characterized by a pair of finite-dimensional, dual variational principles involving pointwise values of the strain-energy density and its conjugate function. For isotropic rods, the characterization of possible equilibrium configurations degenerates, and in place of a discrete number of two-parameter families of helical equilibria, typically a single four-parameter family arises. The four continuous parameters correspond to the two of the helical center lines, a one-parameter family of possible angular phases, and a one-parameter family of imposed excess twists. Mathematics Subject Classifications (2000): 74K10.
EROS: Ensemble rough subspaces

Ensemble learning is attracting much attention from pattern recognition and machine learning domains for good generalization. Both theoretical and experimental researches show that combining a set of accurate and diverse classifiers will lead to a powerful classification system. An algorithm, called FS-PP-EROS, for selective ensemble of rough subspaces is proposed in this paper. Rough set-based attribute reduction is introduced to generate a set of reducts, and then each reduct is used to train a base classifier. We introduce an accuracy-guided forward search and post-pruning strategy to select part of the base classifiers for constructing an efficient and effective ensemble system. The experiments show that classification accuracies of ensemble systems with accuracy-guided forward search strategy will increase at first, arrive at a maximal value, then decrease in sequentially adding the base classifiers. We delete the base classifiers added after the maximal accuracy. The experimental results show that the proposed ensemble systems outperform bagging and random subspace methods in terms of accuracy and size of ensemble systems. FS-PP-EROS can keep or improve the classification accuracy with very few base classifiers, which leads to a powerful and compact classification system. 2007 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Time Heals All Wounds: Resisting the Authority of History in the Concepts of Nation and Nationalism

Introduction Nations, in contrast with states, are generally recognized within the intellectual community as more or less artificially created entities. And while this view seems to contradict the way in which many people actually think about their own particular nations—perceiving them as natural units, somewhat like families, to which they often feel deep ties—the arguments supporting the view of nations as “invented” are compelling and long-standing. As early as 1882, for example, Ernest Renan—rejecting the claims of race, language, economic interest, religious affinities, geography and military necessity—declared in his lecture “Qu’est qu’une nation” (“What is a Nation?”), delivered at the Sorbonne, that “A nation is a soul, a spiritual principle.”  People are members of a nation, he asserted, largely because—at least in theory—they want to be; and the very existence of a nation, he stated, is “an everyday plebiscite” ([1882] 1996 : 240 & 241). 1 In La Tentation de l’Occident ( The Temptation of the West ), published in 1926, Andre Malraux expressed a similar conception of the nation: “The mind creates the idea of a nation, but what gives it its sentimental force is a community of dreams. Our brothers are those whose childhood was played out to the rhythm of the same epics and legends that dominated our own” ([1926] 1984 : 97). 2 The reality of a nation, thus, is, to a great extent—and indeed somewhat ironically—in
Prototype Optimization for Temporarily and Spatially Distorted Time Series

An important issue in time series classification problems is to find representative prototypes. Especially for roughly segmented time series with spatial distortions, such as human gestures, it is complicated to find templates, which optimally represent signal classes. In this paper we present an approach to find optimal time series prototypes in subseries of class templates. Our optimization approach is based on separability measures for prototype candidates and utilizes (but is not limited to) DTW in order to tackle the problem of spatial and temporal distortions. The search for prototypes in the target space is performed by means of a brute force search as well as an evolution strategy. In our experiments with an artificial dataset we show that brute force search optimization is able to improve the time series classification result and that the application of an evolution strategy yields comparable target function scores while reducing computing time.
FlashPower: A detailed power model for NAND flash memory

Flash memory is widely used in consumer electronics products, such as cell-phones and music players, and is increasingly displacing hard disk drives as the primary storage device in laptops, desktops, and even servers. There is a rich microarchitectural design space for flash memory and there are several architectural options for incorporating flash into the memory hierarchy. Exploring this design space requires detailed insights into the power characteristics of flash memory. In this paper, we present FlashPower, a detailed analytical power model for Single-Level Cell (SLC) based NAND flash memory, which is used in high-performance flash products. We have integrated FlashPower with CACTI 5.3, which is widely used in the architecture community for studying memory organizations. FlashPower takes as input device technology and microarchitectural parameters to estimate the power consumed by a flash chip during its various operating modes. We have validated FlashPower against published chip power measurements and show that they are comparable.
Cooperation between the colleges and the industries in research

E. B. Paine: The Engineering Experiment Station of the University of Illinois was established December 8, 1903. The object of this experiment station was stated to be the encouragement of training in engineering and the study of problems of special importance to professional engineers and to engineering industries.
Automatic landmark annotation and dense correspondence registration for 3D human facial images

Traditional anthropometric studies of human face rely on manual measurements of simple features, which are labor intensive and lack of full comprehensive inference. Dense surface registration of three-dimensional (3D) human facial images holds great potential for high throughput quantitative analyses of complex facial traits. However there is a lack of automatic high density registration method for 3D faical images. Furthermore, current approaches of landmark recognition require further improvement in accuracy to support anthropometric applications. Here we describe a novel non-rigid registration method for fully automatic 3D facial image mapping. This method comprises two steps: first, seventeen facial landmarks are automatically annotated, mainly via PCA-based feature recognition following 3D-to-2D data transformation. Second, an efficient thin-plate spline (TPS) protocol is used to establish the dense anatomical correspondence between facial images, under the guidance of the predefined landmarks. We demonstrate that this method is highly accurate in landmark recognition, with an average RMS error of ~1.7 mm. The registration process is highly robust, even for different ethnicities. This method supports fully automatic registration of dense 3D facial images, with 17 landmarks annotated at greatly improved accuracy. A stand-alone software has been implemented to assist high-throughput high-content anthropometric analysis.
A Byzantine Fault-Tolerant Ordering Service for the Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain Platform

We briefly describe the preliminary work on the design, implementation and evaluation of a Byzantine-fault tolerant ordering service for the Hyperledger Fabric Blockchain platform using the BFT-SMaRt replication library.
Nash Q-Learning for General-Sum Stochastic Games

We extend Q-learning to a noncooperative multiagent context, using the framework of generalsum stochastic games. A learning agent maintains Q-functions over joint actions, and performs updates based on assuming Nash equilibrium behavior over the current Q-values. This learning protocol provably converges given certain restrictions on the stage games (defined by Q-values) that arise during learning. Experiments with a pair of two-player grid games suggest that such restrictions on the game structure are not necessarily required. Stage games encountered during learning in both grid environments violate the conditions. However, learning consistently converges in the first grid game, which has a unique equilibrium Q-function, but sometimes fails to converge in the second, which has three different equilibrium Q-functions. In a comparison of offline learning performance in both games, we find agents are more likely to reach a joint optimal path with Nash Q-learning than with a single-agent Q-learning method. When at least one agent adopts Nash Q-learning, the performance of both agents is better than using single-agent Q-learning. We have also implemented an online version of Nash Q-learning that balances exploration with exploitation, yielding improved performance.
Music Information Retrieval 1.1 Introduction

Volume II of the subject guide for 2910227, Interactive Multimedia introduced the very basics of metadata-and content-based mutimedia information retrieval. This chapter expands on that introduction in the specific context of music, giving an overview of the field of music information retrieval, some currently existing systems (whether research prototypes or commercially-deployed) and how they work, and some examples of problems yet unsolved. Figure 1.1 enumerates a number of tasks commonly attempted in the field of Music Information Retrieval, arranged by 'specificity', which can be thought of as how discriminating a particular task is, or how clear is the demarcation between relevant and non-relevant (or 'right' and 'wrong') retrieval results. As will become clear through the course of this chapter, these and other tasks in Music Information Retrieval have applications in domains as varied digital libraries, consumer digital devices, content delivery and musical performance. specificity high low music identification rights management, plagiarism detection multiple version handling melody extraction and retrieval performer or composer identification recommender systems style, mood, genre detection music-speech segmentation Figure 1.1: An enumeration of some tasks in the general field of Music Information Retrieval, arranged on a scale of 'specificity' after Byrd (2008); Casey et al. (2008). The specificity of a retrieval task relates to how much acoustic and musical material a retrieved result must share with a query to be considered relevant, and how many documents in total could be considered relevant retrieval results. This chapter includes a number of references to the published scientific literature.
Can Mobile Phone Apps Influence People’s Health Behavior Change? An Evidence Review

BACKGROUND
Globally, mobile phones have achieved wide reach at an unprecedented rate, and mobile phone apps have become increasingly prevalent among users. The number of health-related apps that were published on the two leading platforms (iOS and Android) reached more than 100,000 in 2014. However, there is a lack of synthesized evidence regarding the effectiveness of mobile phone apps in changing people's health-related behaviors.


OBJECTIVE
The aim was to examine the effectiveness of mobile phone apps in achieving health-related behavior change in a broader range of interventions and the quality of the reported studies.


METHODS
We conducted a comprehensive bibliographic search of articles on health behavior change using mobile phone apps in peer-reviewed journals published between January 1, 2010 and June 1, 2015. Databases searched included Medline, PreMedline, PsycINFO, Embase, Health Technology Assessment, Education Resource Information Center (ERIC), and Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL). Articles published in the Journal of Medical Internet Research during that same period were hand-searched on the journal's website. Behavior change mechanisms were coded and analyzed. The quality of each included study was assessed by the Cochrane Risk of Bias Assessment Tool.


RESULTS
A total of 23 articles met the inclusion criteria, arranged under 11 themes according to their target behaviors. All studies were conducted in high-income countries. Of these, 17 studies reported statistically significant effects in the direction of targeted behavior change; 19 studies included in this analysis had a 65% or greater retention rate in the intervention group (range 60%-100%); 6 studies reported using behavior change theories with the theory of planned behavior being the most commonly used (in 3 studies). Self-monitoring was the most common behavior change technique applied (in 12 studies). The studies suggest that some features improve the effectiveness of apps, such as less time consumption, user-friendly design, real-time feedback, individualized elements, detailed information, and health professional involvement. All studies were assessed as having some risk of bias.


CONCLUSIONS
Our results provide a snapshot of the current evidence of effectiveness for a range of health-related apps. Large sample, high-quality, adequately powered, randomized controlled trials are required. In light of the bias evident in the included studies, better reporting of health-related app interventions is also required. The widespread adoption of mobile phones highlights a significant opportunity to impact health behaviors globally, particularly in low- and middle-income countries.
Gender-Typed Play Behavior in Early Childhood: Adopted Children with Lesbian, Gay, and Heterosexual Parents.

This study examined whether the gender-typed play of young children varies as a function of family structure. Using a sample of 126 couples (44 lesbian couples, 34 gay male couples, and 48 heterosexual couples) located throughout the United States, with an adopted child between the age of 2 and 4 years old (mean = 2.5 years), we examined parent reports of children's gender-typed play behavior utilizing the Pre-School Activities Inventory (PSAI; Golombok & Rust, 1993). Findings revealed that the perceived play behaviors of boys and girls in same-gender parent families were more similar (i.e., less gender-stereotyped) than the perceived play behavior of boys and girls in heterosexual-parent families (which were more divergent; that is, gender-stereotyped). Sons of lesbian mothers were less masculine in their play behavior than sons of gay fathers and sons of heterosexual parents. Our findings have implications for researchers who study gender development in children and adolescents.
Response to Rituximab and Timeframe to Relapse in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients

Objective: Rituximab is used to deplete B cells and control disease activity, mainly in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) who have not responded to anti-tumor necrosis factor (TNF) therapy. Response rates and time to relapse vary significantly among treated individuals. The objective of this study was to monitor the response of seropositive and seronegative RA patients to rituximab and correlate relapse with B-cell markers in the two groups. Methods: Seventeen RA patients (eight seropositive for rheumatoid factor [RF+] and nine seronegative [RF-]) were treated with two cycles of rituximab. After treatment, all patients were re-evaluated at the outpatient clinic, and rituximab was readministered when disease relapse was confirmed by clinical-laboratory measures (Disease Activity Score [DAS]-28). CD20+ cells and CD20 receptor expression levels were estimated at initiation, relapse, and re-evaluation timepoints, and were compared between the two groups. Results: Seropositive patients responded favorably to treatment compared with the seronegative group. The mean time to relapse was 337.5±127.0 days for the RF+ patients versus 233.3 ± 59.6 days for the RF-patients (p = 0.043), despite more aggressive concomitant treatment in the seronegative group. The DAS28 decrease 3 months after treatment was 1.695 ± 1.076 in seropositive patients versus 0.94±1.62 in seronegative patients. At relapse, CD20 receptor expression (molecules/cell) was higher in RF+ patients than in their RF-counterparts, despite a significantly lower percentage of CD20+ cells. Conclusion: Rituximab treatment is efficient in both seropositive and seronegative RA. However, seropositive RA patients tend to respond favorably compared with seronegative patients. The differential CD20 receptor expression in the two groups at relapse potentially suggests a different pathogenetic mechanism of relapse and merits further investigation.
Cardiac Efficiency

Efficiency is defined as the ratio of the energy delivered by a system to the energy supplied to it. Depending on the particular question being addressed, there exist a plethora of definitions of efficiency in medical texts, thus hampering their comparison. If only the ventricular work seen by the arterial system is under investigation, pressure-volume work will serve as a useful numerator. If, on the other hand, external and internal work together, i.e. the total mechanical work, is of interest, the pressure-volume area might be employed. Total myocardial oxygen consumption (MVO2) will be a useful denominator in the case of aerobic energy production. The MVO2 for the unloaded contraction must be assessed if, as in other energy transfer systems, net efficiency is to be addressed. If even smaller steps in the chain of energy transfer are to be investigated MVO2 for the arrested heart must be assessed. With an appropriate therapy, hemodynamic determinants can be varied, to improve cardiac efficiency. Nonetheless, measurement of all variables necessary for the calculation of efficiency remains a challenge, in particular in the clinical setting. Separation of the direct effects of drugs on efficiency is even more difficult, since hemodynamic conditions can hardly be controlled throughout the observation period, and changes in efficiency might be secondary to changes in hemodynamics. Whether the heart by itself employs mechanisms to improve its efficiency is still a matter of discussion: there is evidence that when oxygen supply decreases, the heart can switch from one substrate to a less costly one, or possibly can improve efficiency through better use of oxygen. Moreover, the heart seems to “sense” an even more decreased oxygen supply and reduce function in response. Myocardial stunning could be regarded as a protective mechanism as well, with function remaining depressed and the oxygen supply being normal or close to normal. One may conclude from the decreased efficiency that the excess oxygen consumption is used up for repair processes. The improved efficiency found in hypertrophied hearts represents another adaptive process. The underlying mechanism is unclear: a shift towards isomyosin V3 or some undefined shift in metabolic pathway is discussed. It is also still a moot question towards which objective the efficiency of the heart is adjusted. It has been described that under physiologic conditions, the efficiency of both the left and the right ventricle ought to be maximized. The alternative finding that the heart and the arterial system are adjusted to maximize stroke work is only a serious contrast if both maxima are narrow and clearly separated from each other.
Comparison of pixantrone-based regimen (CPOP-R) with doxorubicin-based therapy (CHOP-R) for treatment of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma.

BACKGROUND
Pixantrone is an aza-anthracenedione with enhanced, preclinical antitumor activity and reduced cardiotoxicity compared with doxorubicin.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
We compared the efficacy and toxic effect of CPOP-R (substituting pixantrone for doxorubicin) against CHOP-R in untreated, diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL) patients. The primary objective was to demonstrate non-inferiority of CPOP-R by complete response/complete response unconfirmed (CR/CRu) rate.


RESULTS
The CR/CRu rate for CPOP-R was 75% versus 84% for CHOP-R. Three-year overall survival was lower for CPOP-R (69% versus 85%) (P = 0.029). Median progression-free survival (PFS) was not reached for CPOP-R and was 40 months for CHOP-R [HR 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.02 (0.60, 1.76), P = 0.934]. Fewer CPOP-R patients developed congestive heart failure (CHF) (0% versus 6%, P = 0.120), ≥ 20% declines in ejection fraction (2% versus 17%, P = 0.004), or elevations in troponin-T (P = 0.003).


CONCLUSIONS
CPOP-R is an active regimen with modestly lower response rates than CHOP-R but similar PFS and event-free survival. This study demonstrates a substantially lower cardiotoxicity of pixantrone compared with doxorubicin when used as first-line therapy in DLBCL.