LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Tablet PCs – An Assistive Technology for Students with Reading Difficulties?

This paper presents the results of a descriptive case study concerning adoption of iPad or other tablets as assistive technology. Two pilot studies concerning the adoption and use of the iPad for active reading in a teaching/learning situation have recently been conducted at elementary school level and at university level. In the course of both studies, students with reading difficulties were encountered. For each group of students, a key case has been chosen. The paper presents our findings regarding adjustments that needed to be made for these students and initial research on iPad usability for students with special education needs. By describing two instances, one involving a university student and the other two elementary school children, we hope to bring attention to application of ICT for students with reading difficulties. Students with this kind of impairment are often neglected in comparison to students with visual impairments or other disabilities. In one case, the iPad has been successfully integrated into students’ life as an assistive technology. The cases may be both instructive and inspirational for educational situations involving students with similar disabilities as adjustments and applications used to help students do not involve any large investments in software or devices. Keywords-assistive technology; iPad; reading difficulties; tablet PC; technology adoption
Effectiveness of practices to reduce blood culture contamination: a Laboratory Medicine Best Practices systematic review and meta-analysis.

OBJECTIVES
This article is a systematic review of the effectiveness of three practices for reducing blood culture contamination rates: venipuncture, phlebotomy teams, and prepackaged preparation/collection (prep) kits.


DESIGN AND METHODS
The CDC-funded Laboratory Medicine Best Practices Initiative systematic review methods for quality improvement practices were used.


RESULTS
Studies included as evidence were: 9 venipuncture (vs. versus intravenous catheter), 5 phlebotomy team; and 7 prep kit. All studies for venipuncture and phlebotomy teams favored these practices, with meta-analysis mean odds ratios for venipuncture of 2.69 and phlebotomy teams of 2.58. For prep kits 6 studies' effect sizes were not statistically significantly different from no effect (meta-analysis mean odds ratio 1.12).


CONCLUSIONS
Venipuncture and the use of phlebotomy teams are effective practices for reducing blood culture contamination rates in diverse hospital settings and are recommended as evidence-based "best practices" with high overall strength of evidence and substantial effect size ratings. No recommendation is made for or against prep kits based on uncertain improvement.
An implementation and evaluation of the MPI 3.0 one-sided communication interface

The Message Passing Interface (MPI) 3.0 standard includes a significant revision to MPI’s remote memory access (RMA) interface, which provides support for one-sided communication. MPI-3 RMA is expected to greatly enhance the usability and performance of MPI RMA. We present the first complete implementation of MPI-3 RMA and document implementation techniques and performance optimization opportunities enabled by the new interface. Our implementation targets messaging-based networks and is publicly available in the latest release of the MPICH MPI implementation. Using this implementation, we explore the performance impact of new MPI-3 functionality and semantics. Results indicate that the MPI-3 RMA interface provides significant advantages over the MPI-2 interface by enabling increased communication concurrency through relaxed semantics in the interface and additional routines that provide new window types, synchronization modes, and atomic operations. Copyright c © 0000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
In women with symptoms of cardiac ischemia, nonobstructive coronary arteries, and microvascular dysfunction, angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition is associated with improved microvascular function: A double-blind randomized study from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute Women's Ischemia

BACKGROUND
We investigated the role of the renin-angiotensin system in women with signs and symptoms of ischemia without obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD). Although microvascular dysfunction has been suggested to explain this syndrome and recently was found to predict adverse outcomes, the mechanisms and treatments remain unclear.


METHODS
In a substudy within the WISE, 78 women with microvascular dysfunction (coronary flow reserve [CFR] <3.0 following adenosine) and no obstructive CAD were randomly assigned to either an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibition (ACE-I) with quinapril or a placebo treatment group. The primary efficacy parameter was CFR at 16 weeks adjusted for baseline characteristics and clinical site. The secondary response variable was freedom from angina symptoms assessed using the Seattle Angina Questionnaire.


RESULTS
A total of 61 women completed the 16-week treatment period with repeat CFR measurements, and treatment was well tolerated. For the primary outcome, at 16 weeks, CFR improved more with ACE-I than placebo (P < .02). For the secondary outcome of symptom improvement, ACE-I treatment (P = .037) and CFR increase (P = .008) both contributed.


CONCLUSIONS
Microvascular function improves with ACE-I therapy in women with signs and symptoms of ischemia without obstructive CAD. This improvement is associated with reduction in angina. The beneficial response of the coronary microvasculature was limited to women with lower baseline CFR values, suggesting that the renin-angiotensin system may be more involved among women with more severe microvascular defects.
An Approximation Algorithm for Minimum Convex Cover with Logarithmic Performance Guarantee

The problem Minimum Convex Cover of covering a given polygon with a minimum number of (possibly overlapping) convex polygons is known to be NP -hard, even for polygons without holes [3]. We propose a polynomial-time approximation algorithm for this problem for polygons with or without holes that achieves an approximation ratio of O(log n), where n is the number of vertices in the input polygon. To obtain this result, we first show that an optimum solution of a restricted version of this problem, where the vertices of the convex polygons may only lie on a certain grid, contains at most three times as many convex polygons as the optimum solution of the unrestricted problem. As a second step, we use dynamic programming to obtain a convex polygon which is maximum with respect to the number of “basic triangles” that are not yet covered by another convex polygon. We obtain a solution that is at most a logarithmic factor off the optimum by iteratively applying our dynamic programming algorithm. Furthermore, we show that Minimum Convex Cover is APX-hard, i.e., there exists a constant δ > 0 such that no polynomial-time algorithm can achieve an approximation ratio of 1 + δ. We obtain this result by analyzing and slightly modifying an already existing reduction [3].
Dose-dependent effects of the once-daily GLP-1 receptor agonist lixisenatide in patients with Type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled with metformin: a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial

AIMS
To evaluate the dose-response relationship of lixisenatide (AVE0010), a glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist, in metformin-treated patients with Type 2 diabetes.


METHODS
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, 13 week study of 542 patients with Type 2 diabetes inadequately controlled [glycated haemoglobin (HbA(1c)) > or = 7.0 and < 9.0% (> or = 53 and < 75 mmol/mol)] on metformin (> or = 1000 mg/day) treated with subcutaneous lixisenatide doses of 5, 10, 20 or 30 microg once daily or twice daily or placebo. The primary end-point was change in HbA(1c) from baseline to 13 weeks in the intent-to-treat population.


RESULTS
Lixisenatide significantly improved mean HbA(1c) from a baseline of 7.55% (59.0 mmol/mol); respective mean reductions for 5, 10, 20 and 30 microg doses were 0.47, 0.50, 0.69 and 0.76% (5.1, 5.5, 7.5 and 8.3 mmol/mol), on once-daily and 0.65, 0.78, 0.75 and 0.87% (7.1, 8.5, 8.2 and 9.5 mmol/mol) on twice-daily administrations vs. 0.18% (2.0 mmol/mol) with placebo (all P < 0.01 vs. placebo). Target HbA(1c) < 7.0% (53 mmol/mol) at study end was achieved in 68% of patients receiving 20 and 30 microg once-daily lixisenatide vs. 32% receiving placebo (P < 0.0001). Dose-dependent improvements were observed for fasting, postprandial and average self-monitored seven-point blood glucose levels. Weight changes ranged from -2.0 to -3.9 kg with lixisenatide vs. -1.9 kg with placebo. The most frequent adverse event was mild-to-moderate nausea.


CONCLUSIONS
Lixisenatide significantly improved glycaemic control in mildly hyperglycaemic patients with Type 2 diabetes on metformin. Dose-response relationships were seen for once- and twice-daily regimens, with similar efficacy levels, with a 20 microg once-daily dose of lixisenatide demonstrating the best efficacy-to-tolerability ratio. This new, once-daily GLP-1 receptor agonist shows promise in the management of Type 2 diabetes to be defined further by ongoing long-term studies.
Impact of preoperative and intraoperative factors in cataract surgery.

BACKGROUND
Cataract surgery is the most common procedure in ophthalmology. However the surgical outcome depends on various factors. The impact of preoperative and intraoperative factors on the surgical procedure were investigated.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
Prospective consecutive study of eyes that underwent cataract surgery. The studied parameters included: age, body mass index (BMI), medical history, type of anaesthesia, preoperative patient's anxiety level (scale from 0 to 10), spherical equivalent (SE), keratometry, axial length (AL), time and percentage of ultrasounds (US), intraoperative complications, duration of surgery. The eyes were separated into two groups: the "no complication group" and the "complication group".


RESULTS
529 eyes were included. Age averaged 75.5 years old (44; 100), mean BMI (kg/m2) was 26.3 (13.7; 45.2), patients had cardiovascular history in 61.05% of cases, the type of anaesthesia used was topical in 93.4%, subtenon in 4.7% and general in 1.9% of cases. Mean preoperative anxiety was 4.04 (0; 10), mean preoperative SE was -0.12 (-10; 7.5), mean keratometry (diopters) was 43.88 (39.5; 49), mean AL (mm) was 23.29 (20.91; 29.78), mean time of US (minutes) was 1.89 (0.08; 9.2), mean percentage of US was 10.5 (2; 30) and mean surgical duration (minutes) was 17.15 (5; 50). There was a statistically significant difference (p < 0.0001 in all cases) between both groups in the preoperative anxiety, the time of US and the duration of surgery. The "complication group" had higher scores in all cases as well as more proportion of patients with cardiovascular history. There was no statistically significant difference between both groups for the BMI, SE, AL, keratometry and percentage of US.


CONCLUSIONS
The preoperative anxiety level and a cardiovascular medical history together with a prolonged time of US and a longer surgical duration seem to provide more complications during the surgery. The BMI, SE, AL and keratometry did not influence the surgical procedure.
Effectiveness of focused meditation for patients with chronic low back pain-A randomized controlled clinical trial.

OBJECTIVES
We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of an 8-week meditation program (focused meditation) in patients with chronic low-back pain.


DESIGN
A randomized clinical trial was conducted on 68 patients (55 years;75% female) with chronic low-back pain who scored >40mm on a 100mm Visual-Analogue-Scale. Subjects were allocated to an 8-week meditation program (focused meditation) with weekly 75min classes or to a self-care exercise program with a wait-list offer for meditation. Both groups were instructed to practice at home. Outcomes were assessed baseline and after 4 and 8 weeks. The primary outcome measure was the change in mean back pain at rest after 8 weeks. Secondary outcomes included function, pain-related bothersomeness, perceived stress, quality-of-life (QOL), and psychological outcomes.


RESULTS
Twelve (meditation) and 4 (exercise) patients were lost to follow-up. The primary outcome, pain at rest after 8 weeks, was reduced from 59.3±13.9mm to 40.8±21.8mm with meditation vs. 52.9±11.8mm to 37.3±18.2mm with exercise (adjusted group difference: -1.4 (95%CI:11.6;8.8;p=n.s.) Perceived stress was significantly more reduced with meditation (p=0.011). No significant treatment effects were found for other secondary outcomes as pain-related bothersomeness, function, quality-of-life and psychological scores, although the meditation group consistently showed non-significant better improvements compared to the exercise group.


CONCLUSIONS
Focused meditation and self-care exercise lead to comparable, symptomatic improvements in patients with chronic low back pain. Future studies should include longer-term follow-ups and develop guided meditation programs to support compliance.
Anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive activities A of eugenol essential oil in experimental animal models

Eugenia caryophyllata, popular name “clove”, is grown naturally in Indonesia and cultivated in many parts of the world, including Brazil. Clove is used in cooking, food processing, pharmacy; perfumery, cosmetics and the clove oil (eugenol) have been used in folk medicine for manifold conditions include use in dental care, as an antiseptic and analgesic. The objective of this study was evaluated the anti-inflammatory and antinociceptive activity of eugenol used for dentistry purposes following oral administration in animal models in vivo. The anti-inflammatory activity of eugenol was evaluated by inflammatory exudates volume and leukocytes migration in carrageenan-induced pleurisy and carrageenan-induced paw edema tests in rats. The antinociceptive activity was evaluated using the acetic acid-induced writhing and hot-plate tests in mice. Eugenol (200 and 400 mg/kg) reduced the volume of pleural exudates without changing the total blood leukocyte counts. At dose of 200 mg/kg, eugenol significantly inhibited carrageenan-induced edema, 2-4 h after injection of the flogistic agent. In the hot-plate test, eugenol administration (100 mg/kg) showed unremarkable activity against the time-todiscomfort reaction, recorded as response latency, which is blocked by meperidine. Eugenol at doses of 50, 75 and 100 mg/kg had a significant antinociceptive effect in the test of acetic-acidinduced abdominal writhing, compared to the control animals. The data suggest that eugenol possesses anti-inflammatory and peripheral antinociceptive activities.
Robot-learning - Three case studies in robotics and machine learning

ABSTRACT This paper describes methodologies applied and results achieved in the framework of the ESPRIT Basic Research Action B-Learn II (project no. 7274). B-Learn II is one of the rst projects working towards an application of Machine Learning techniques in elds of industrial relevance, which are much more complex than the domains usually treated in ML research. In particular, B-Learn II aims at easing the programming of robots and enhancing their ability to cooperate with humans. The paper gives a short introduction to learning in robotics and to the three applications under consideration in B-Learn II. Afterwards, learning methodologies used in each of the applications, the experimental setups, and the results obtained are described. In general, it can be found that providing good examples and a good interface between the learning and the performance components is crucial for success, so the extension of the "Programming by Demonstration" paradigm to robotics has become one of the key aspects of B-Learn II.
A platform for affective agent research

Accurately interpreting and expressing affect is fundamental to empathetic relationships. A platform for sensing and interpreting several aspects of users’ nonverbal affective information and responding through an expressive agent has been developed. The platform includes integration of multi-modal affective sensors with a real time inference engine, a behavior engine, and a 3d scriptable expressive humanoid agent within a graphical virtual environment. Currently the sensors include a pressure-sensitive mouse, a BlueTooth wireless skin conductivity sensor, a TekScan pressure sensor on a chair, and a stereo head tracking system as well as an IBM Blue Eyes infrared-sensitive camera. These sensors feed into custom algorithms for analysis of individual channels of information, such as postural and facial expressions, which in turn are combined with additional channels of information to make an inference about the user’s affective state. The system further synchronizes this sensor data with the agent behaviors and with video of the user and his or her on-screen activity. This platform is seen as a generalpurpose tool applicable to research in several areas, including how to design an affective learning companion, and how to further basic understanding of empathy and emotion contagion in human-agent interaction. 1. ACM classification keywords Agent architectures, Agent programming languages and environments, Sensors, Emotion, Affective user interface, Agent and intelligent systems, E-Learning and education, children, Pedagogical agents.
The impact of poverty on the development of brain networks

Although the study of brain development in non-human animals is an old one, recent imaging methods have allowed non-invasive studies of the gray and white matter of the human brain over the lifespan. Classic animal studies show clearly that impoverished environments reduce cortical gray matter in relation to complex environments and cognitive and imaging studies in humans suggest which networks may be most influenced by poverty. Studies have been clear in showing the plasticity of many brain systems, but whether sensitivity to learning differs over the lifespan and for which networks is still unclear. A major task for current research is a successful integration of these methods to understand how development and learning shape the neural networks underlying achievements in literacy, numeracy, and attention. This paper seeks to foster further integration by reviewing the current state of knowledge relating brain changes to behavior and indicating possible future directions.
Tutorial: Introduction to Social Media Network Analysis with NodeXL

This introductory overview tutorial on social network analysis (SNA) demonstrates through theory and practical case studies applications to research, particularly on social media, digital interaction and behavior records. NodeXL provides an entry point for non-programmers to access the concepts and core methods of SNA and allows anyone who can make a pie chart to now build, analyze and visualize complex networks.
Effects of disinhibitory transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation and therapeutic exercise on sagittal plane peak knee kinematics and kinetics in people with knee osteoarthritis during gait: a randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE
to determine whether sensory transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) augmented with therapeutic exercise and worn for daily activities for four weeks would alter peak gait kinetics and kinematics, compared with placebo electrical stimulation and exercise, and exercise only.


DESIGN
randomized controlled trial.


SETTING
motion analysis laboratory.


SUBJECTS
thirty-six participants with radiographically assessed knee osteoarthritis and volitional quadriceps activation below 90% were randomly assigned to electrical stimulation, placebo and comparison (exercise-only) groups.


INTERVENTIONS
participants in all three groups completed a four-week quadriceps strengthening programme directed by an experienced rehabilitation clinician. Active electrical stimulation units and placebo units were worn in the electrical stimulation and placebo groups throughout the rehabilitation sessions as well as during all activities of daily living.


MAIN MEASURES
peak external knee flexion moment and angle during stance phase were analysed at a comfortable walking speed before and after the intervention.


FINDINGS
Comfortable walking speed increased for all groups over time (TENS 1.16 ± 0.15 versus 1.32 ± 0.16 m/s; placebo 1.21 ± 0.34 versus 1.3 ± 0.24 m/s; comparison 1.27 ± 0.18 versus 1.5 ± 0.14 m/s), yet no group differences in speed were found. No differences were found for peak flexion moment or angle between groups overtime.


CONCLUSIONS
TENS in conjunction with therapeutic exercise does not seem to affect peak flexion moment and angle during stance over a four-week period in participants with tibiofemoral osteoarthritis.
Physical activity/exercise and type 2 diabetes: a consensus statement from the American Diabetes Association.

For decades, exercise has been considered a cornerstone of diabetes management, along with diet and medication. However, high-quality evidence on the importance of exercise and fitness in diabetes was lacking until recent years. The present document summarizes the most clinically relevant recent advances related to people with type 2 diabetes and the recommendations that follow from these. Our recently published technical review on physical activity/ exercise and type 2 diabetes (1) includes greater detail on individual studies, on prevention of diabetes, and on the physiology of exercise. The present statement focuses on type 2 diabetes. Issues primarily germane to type 1 diabetes will be covered in a subsequent technical review and ADA Statement. The levels of evidence used are defined by the ADA in ref. 2.
Clinical translation of a PSMA inhibitor for 99mTc-based SPECT.

BACKGROUND
Prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) is highly over-expressed in advanced prostate cancers. 68Ga-labeled PSMA inhibitors (iPSMA) are currently used for prostate cancer detection by PET imaging. The availability of simple, efficient and reproducible radiolabeling procedures is essential for developing new SPECT radiopharmaceuticals for clinical translation. The aim of this research was to prepare 99mTc-EDDA/HYNIC-Lys(Nal)-Urea-Glu (99mTc-EDDA/HYNIC-iPSMA) obtained from lyophilized kit formulations and evaluate the in vitro and in vivo radiopharmaceutical binding to prostate cancer cells over-expressing PSMA, as well as the 99mTc-EDDA/HYNIC-iPSMA normal biodistribution in humans and the preliminary uptake in patients with prostate cancer.


METHODS
99mTc labeling was performed by adding sodium pertechnetate solution and a 0.2M phosphate buffer (pH 7.0) to a lyophilized formulation containing HYNIC-iPSMA, EDDA, tricine, mannitol and stannous chloride. The radiochemical purity was evaluated by reversed-phase HPLC and ITLC-SG analyses. Stability studies in human serum were performed by size-exclusion HPLC. In vitro cell uptake was tested using prostate cancer cells (LNCaP) with blocked and non-blocked receptors. Biodistribution and tumor uptake were determined in LNCaP tumor-bearing nude mice with blocked and non-blocked receptors, and images were obtained using a micro-SPECT/CT. Whole-body images from three healthy men and two patients with histologically-confirmed prostate cancer (one of them with a previous 68Ga-PSMA-617scan) were acquired at 1h and 3h after 99mTc-EDDA/HYNIC-iPSMA administration with radiochemical purities of >98%.


RESULTS
In vitro and in vivo studies showed high radiopharmaceutical stability in human serum, specific recognition for PSMA, high tumor uptake (10.22±2.96% ID/g at 1h) with rapid blood clearance and mainly kidney elimination. Preliminary images in patients demonstrated the ability of 99mTc-EDDA/HYNIC-iPSMA to detect tumors and metastases of prostate cancer as well as 68Ga-PSMA-617 does.


CONCLUSIONS
The results obtained in this study warrant further dosimetry and clinical studies to determine the specificity and sensitivity of 99mTc-EDDA/HYNIC-iPSMA.