LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Validating biomarkers of treatable mechanisms in irritable bowel syndrome.

BACKGROUND
A valid biomarker is 'an indicator of normal biologic or pathogenic processes, or pharmacological responses to a therapeutic intervention'. There is no validated biomarker for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). The aim of the study was to assess ability of three quantitative traits to identify treatable processes to discriminate between IBS-diarrhea (IBS-D) patients, IBS-constipation (IBS-C) patients and healthy volunteers (HV).


METHODS
In 30 HV, 30 IBS-C patients and 64 IBS-D patients, we characterized bowel symptoms and quantitated pathophysiological mechanisms: bile acid (BA) synthesis (serum C4 and FGF19), fecal BA and fat, colonic transit (CT), and intestinal permeability (IP). We used multiple logistic regression and receiver-operating characteristic (ROCAUC ) to appraise three factors (fecal BA, CT, and IP) individually and in combination to identify discriminant targets for treatment in IBS.


KEY RESULTS
There were significant associations between the three subgroups and symptoms reflecting bowel function and the quantitative traits. There were significant associations between fecal BA and CT at 48 h (r = 0.43; p < 0.001) and between fecal BA and IP (r = 0.23; p = 0.015). Individually, fecal BA and CT48 (but not IP) were significant independent predictors for distinguishing HV from IBS. In combination, they discriminated HV from IBS-D patients (ROCAUC 0.70), HV from IBS-C patients (ROCAUC 0.73), and IBS-C patients from IBS-D patients (ROCAUC 0.86). Colonic transit and fecal BA excretion together discriminate between healthy volunteers and IBS-C patients or IBS-D patients, or between the IBS subgroups with 75-90% specificity at 60% sensitivity.


CONCLUSIONS & INFERENCES
Colonic transit and fecal BA individually and together constitute useful biomarkers to identify treatable mechanisms in IBS and to differentiate subgroups of IBS.
Mutlimodal Learning with Deep Boltzmann Machine for Emotion Prediction in User Generated Videos

Detecting emotions from user-generated videos, such as "anger" and "sadness", has attracted widespread interest recently. The problem is challenging as effectively representing video data with multi-view information (e.g., audio, video or text) is not trivial. In contrast to the existing works that extract features from each modality (view) separately followed by early or late fusion, we propose to learn a joint density model over the space of multi-modal inputs (including visual, auditory and textual modalities) with Deep Boltzmann Machine (DBM). The model is trained directly on the user-generated Web videos without any labeling effort. More importantly, the deep architecture enlightens the possibility of discovering the highly non-linear relationships that exist between low-level features across different modalities. The experiment results show that the DBM model learns joint representation complementary to the hand-crafted visual and auditory features, leading to 7.7% performance improvement in classification accuracy on the recently released VideoEmotion dataset.
The relation between EA effectiveness and stakeholder satisfaction

Enterprise Architecture (EA) is increasingly being used by large organizations to get a grip on the complexity of their business processes, information systems and technical infrastructure. Although seen as an important instrument to help solve major organizational problems, effectively applying EA seems no easy task. Active participation of EA stakeholders is one of the main critical success factors for EA. This participation depends on the degree in which EA helps stakeholders achieve their individual goals. A
Caloric restriction and L-carnitine administration improves insulin sensitivity in patients with impaired glucose metabolism.

BACKGROUND
Reduced circulating and tissue carnitine levels, possibly leading to impaired mitochondrial function, have been postulated to be involved in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance. However, whether L-carnitine administration may improve insulin sensitivity in patients with impaired fasting glucose (IFG) or type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM-2) is still controversial. The aim of the study was to explore the role of L-carnitine supplementation in influencing insulin sensitivity.


METHODS
A randomized controlled study involving adult outpatients was designed. Adult patients referred to the outpatient clinic and within 10 days of the diagnosis of IFG or DM-2 were consecutively enrolled. Exclusion criteria were concomitant antidiabetic therapy and modifications of lifestyle during the previous 4 weeks. Patients were randomly assigned to receive a hypocaloric diet for 10 days (group C; n = 8) or the same dietetic regimen in addition to oral L-carnitine (2 g twice daily) supplementation (group LC; n = 8). Oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT), fasting plasma insulin levels, and homeostasis model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) were assessed at the beginning and end of the study. Data were statistically analyzed using the Student t test for paired and unpaired data.


RESULTS
OGTT at 2 hours improved in both groups. Only in the L-carnitine-supplemented group did plasma insulin levels and HOMA-IR significantly decrease when compared to baseline values.


CONCLUSIONS
Considering the role of caloric restriction in increasing the intestinal uptake of carnitine, the results suggest that oral L-carnitine administration, when associated with a hypocaloric feeding regimen, improves insulin resistance and may represent an adjunctive treatment for IFG and DM-2.
Design Comparison of High-Power Medium-Voltage Converters Based on a 6.5-kV Si-IGBT/Si-PiN Diode, a 6.5-kV Si-IGBT/SiC-JBS Diode, and a 10-kV SiC-MOSFET/SiC-JBS Diode

In this paper, a comparative design study of high-power medium-voltage three-level neutral-point-clamped converters with a 6.5-kV Si-IGBT/Si-PiN diode, a 6.5-kV Si-IGBT/SiC-JBS diode, and a 10-kV SiC-MOSFET/SiC-JBS diode is presented. A circuit model of a 100-A power module, including packaging parasitic inductances, is developed based on device die SPICE-based circuit models for each power device. Switching waveforms, characteristics, and switching power and energy loss measurements of the power modules, including symmetric/asymmetric parasitic inductances, are presented. High-power converter designs and SPICE circuit simulations are carried out, and power loss and efficiencies are compared for a pulsewidth-modulated (PMW) 1-MW power converter at 1-, 5-, and 10-kHz switching frequencies for application in shipboard power system and a PWM vector-controlled and a line-frequency angle-controlled 20- to 40-MVA power converter at 60-Hz, 540-Hz, and 1-kHz switching frequencies for active mobile substation application. It is shown that the 6.5-kV Si-IGBT incorporating an antiparallel SiC-JBS diode, with its high efficiency performance up to 5-kHz switching frequency, is a strong candidate for megawatt-range power converters. The 10-kV SiC-MOSFET/SiC-JBS diode remains an option for higher switching frequency (5-10 kHz) high-power converters.
Servelle-Martorell syndrome with extensive upper limb involvement: a case report

INTRODUCTION
Angio-osteohypotrophic syndrome is also known as Servelle-Martorell angiodysplasia. It is characterized by venous or, rarely, arterial malformations, which may result in limb hypertrophy and bony hypoplasia. Extensive involvement of the upper limb is a rare feature of Servelle-Martorell syndrome. Cases with minimal upper limb involvement have been described in the literature.


CASE PRESENTATION
A young man presented with multiple separate swollen areas over the right upper limb and functional difficulty since birth. The arm muscles and muscles of the limb girdle were atrophic. The forearm and hand bones were hypoplastic and tender.


CONCLUSION
We report a case of Servelle-Martorell syndrome with extensive involvement of the entire upper limb and periscapular region. Servelle-Martorell syndrome is highlighted as one of the causes of angiodysplastic limb hypertrophy.
Additive value of severe diastolic dysfunction and contractile reserve in the identification of responders to cardiac resynchronization therapy.

AIM
The identification of responders remains challenging in cardiac resynchronization therapy (CRT). In this study we assessed the role of myocardial contractile reserve (CR) during dobutamine stress echocardiography (DSE) and resting severe diastolic dysfunction for identifying responders to CRT.


METHODS AND RESULTS
Sixty-nine patients (59% with ischaemic aetiology, ejection fraction: 26 ± 5%) referred for CRT underwent high-dose DSE. Contractile reserve was evaluated using a pressure-volume relationship, defined as systolic cuff pressure/end-systolic volume index difference between rest and peak DSE. We defined severe diastolic dysfunction as the presence of restrictive patterns and/or E/E' > 15. We divided the patients into four groups as follows: presence (CR+) or absence (CR-) of myocardial CR and presence (Diast+) or absence (Diast-) of severe diastolic dysfunction. Patients with CR+ Diast- showed higher percentage of clinical responders (91 vs. 46%, P= 0.002) and echocardiographic responders (90 vs. 25%, P= 0.001) to CRT, compared with patients with CR- Diast+. By log-rank analysis, event-free survival was significantly poorer in patients with CR- Diast+ (log rank = 18.36, P= 0.0004).


CONCLUSION
Heart failure patients with severe diastolic dysfunction and absence of myocardial CR during DSE had a poorer clinical and echocardiographic response to CRT. The associated evaluations of diastolic function and CR had an additive value in the identification of responders to CRT.
Web-based cognitive behavioral relapse prevention program with tailored feedback for people with methamphetamine and other drug use problems: protocol for a multicenter randomized controlled trial in Japan

BACKGROUND
Despite the effectiveness of psychosocial programs for recovery from drug use problems, there have been challenges in implementation of treatment. Internet-based and computerized approaches have been known to be effective in treatment dissemination. The study purpose is to assess the effects of a web-based psychosocial relapse prevention program with a multicenter randomized controlled trial.


METHODS
Recruitment began in January 2015 for outpatient participants diagnosed with drug abuse or dependence who have used a primary abused drug in the past year at psychiatric hospitals and a clinic. Participants are randomized either to a web-based relapse prevention program or a self-monitoring group. The intervention is a web-based relapse prevention program named "e-SMARPP" that consists of six relapse prevention program modules with tailored feedback from health care professionals and 8 weeks of self-monitoring. The content is adapted from a face-to-face relapse prevention program which is based on cognitive behavioral therapy and motivational enhancement. The primary outcomes are relapse risk assessed by the Stimulant Relapse Risk Scale (baseline, 2-, 5- and 8-month) and the longest duration of consecutive abstinent days from primary abused drug during the intervention. Secondary outcomes will include motivation to change, self-efficacy for drug use and craving, abstinent days in the past 28 or 56 days, quality of life, sense of coherence, cost of substance use, medical cost, retention of treatment and use of self-help group. Completion, usability and satisfaction of the program will be also assessed to explore feasibility. This study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of The University of Tokyo and each recruiting hospital and clinic.


DISCUSSION
To our knowledge, this study is the first clinical trial to assess the effects of a web-based therapeutic program for drug users in Japan. If successful, this program is a promising approach for drug user treatment in Japan, where the stigma toward drug users is strong. The results are also useful for researchers who want to know about programs for various substances, including methamphetamine.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
This trial was registered with the University Hospital Medical Information Network clinical trial registry: UMIN000016075 (Date of registration: January 5, 2015).
Memory Consistency and Event Ordering in Scalable Shared-Memory Multiprocessors

Scalable shared-memory multiprocessors distribute memory among the processors and use scalable interconnection networks to provide high bandwidth and low latency communication. In addition, memory accesses are cached, buffered, and pipelined to bridge the gap between the slow shared memory and the fast processors. Unless carefully controlled, such architectural optimizations can cause memory accesses to be executed in an order different from what the programmer expects. The set of allowable memory access orderings forms the memory consistency model or event ordering model for an architecture.
This paper introduces a new model of memory consistency, called release consistency, that allows for more buffering and pipelining than previously proposed models. A framework for classifying shared accesses and reasoning about event ordering is developed. The release consistency model is shown to be equivalent to the sequential consistency model for parallel programs with sufficient synchronization. Possible performance gains from the less strict constraints of the release consistency model are explored. Finally, practical implementation issues are discussed, concentrating on issues relevant to scalable architectures.
Printed Single-Strip Monopole Using a Chip Inductor for Penta-Band WWAN Operation in the Mobile Phone

A single-strip monopole capable of generating two wide operating bands at about 900 and 1900 MHz covering GSM850/900/1800/1900/UMTS penta-band WWAN operation in the mobile phone is presented. The monopole has a simple structure of an inverted-L shape to be printed on the no-ground region of the system circuit board of the mobile phone. By simply embedding a chip inductor at the proper position in the strip monopole, the first two resonant modes of the monopole can have a frequency ratio of about 1 to 2 (instead of 1 to 3 for the traditional monopole) to respectively cover the desired wide 900 and 1900 MHz bands. In addition, the total strip length can be less than the required 0.25 wavelength (about 0.17 wavelength in this design) for the fundamental resonant mode excitation of the proposed monopole; this behavior is owing to the embedded chip inductor compensating for the increased capacitance seen at the feeding point with the decreasing strip's resonant length. The SAR of the proposed monopole placed at the bottom position of the mobile phone is found to meet the SAR limit for practical applications.
Impressions of nursing before exposure to the field.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
This paper reports on non-mature general nursing students' perceptions of nursing as a career prior to their first clinical placement.


BACKGROUND
It is widely recognised that the first clinical practice experience serves a dual role, that of validating students' choice of career and shaping their perceptions of nursing. This study sought to explore 23 first year non-mature (<23 years) nursing students' perceptions of nursing as a career prior to their first clinical exposure. The students accessed the programme via two different modes of recruitment.


METHOD
This qualitative descriptive study used focus group interviews as a means of data collection. Interviews were held within 10 weeks of entry into nursing. Data were analysed using the five stages of framework analysis. Ethical approval was obtained.


RESULTS
Mode of recruitment did not influence students' perceptions of nursing. The students unanimously identified caring as the essence of nursing. They also acknowledged the role of the media in shaping theirs and society's perception of nursing. Male students expressed concern regarding the negative connotations associated with their career choice. Student participants could not appreciate the totality of the curriculum content at this stage of their course.


CONCLUSIONS
Caring remains the essence of nursing. Educators need to take cognisance of first year students' abilities to appreciate the link between theory and practice. This may be enhanced by the employment of teaching strategies that role-model this link for students. Recruiters must be proactive in addressing the challenges facing males in choosing nursing as a career.


RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE
An insight into how nursing students perceive nursing prior to their first clinical placement is important for clinicians. This information is valuable in terms of providing registered nurses with an understanding of the students' perspective and the associated supports required by nursing students on first clinical placements.
Cooperative and noncooperative spectrum sensing techniques using Welch’s periodogram in cognitive radios

Radio spectrum deployment is growing considerably. With this respect finding unutilized frequency channels for new applications has become much more challenging. The problem can be solved by letting unlicensed systems to dynamically use unexploited licensed bands. This kind of flexible spectrum usage requires telecommunication systems to be equipped by an ability to specify unoccupied parts of radio spectrum. One method to identify temporarily unused parts of radio spectrum is spectrum sensing. In this paper, we focus on spectrum sensing using Welch's periodogram. In particular, we generalize and apply the theoretical analysis of the energy detection to the Welch's periodogram. Furthermore, we extend our study to cooperative spectrum sensing. The results indicate that the cooperation between two radios provides the highest cooperation gain.
Nanodrug delivery in reversing multidrug resistance in cancer cells

Different mechanisms in cancer cells become resistant to one or more chemotherapeutics is known as multidrug resistance (MDR) which hinders chemotherapy efficacy. Potential factors for MDR includes enhanced drug detoxification, decreased drug uptake, increased intracellular nucleophiles levels, enhanced repair of drug induced DNA damage, overexpression of drug transporter such as P-glycoprotein(P-gp), multidrug resistance-associated proteins (MRP1, MRP2), and breast cancer resistance protein (BCRP). Currently nanoassemblies such as polymeric/solid lipid/inorganic/metal nanoparticles, quantum dots, dendrimers, liposomes, micelles has emerged as an innovative, effective, and promising platforms for treatment of drug resistant cancer cells. Nanocarriers have potential to improve drug therapeutic index, ability for multifunctionality, divert ABC-transporter mediated drug efflux mechanism and selective targeting to tumor cells, cancer stem cells, tumor initiating cells, or cancer microenvironment. Selective nanocarrier targeting to tumor overcomes dose-limiting side effects, lack of selectivity, tissue toxicity, limited drug access to tumor tissues, high drug doses, and emergence of multiple drug resistance with conventional or combination chemotherapy. Current review highlights various nanodrug delivery systems to overcome mechanism of MDR by neutralizing, evading, or exploiting the drug efflux pumps and those independent of drug efflux pump mechanism by silencing Bcl-2 and HIF1α gene expressions by siRNA and miRNA, modulating ceramide levels and targeting NF-κB. "Theragnostics" combining a cytotoxic agent, targeting moiety, chemosensitizing agent, and diagnostic imaging aid are highlighted as effective and innovative systems for tumor localization and overcoming MDR. Physical approaches such as combination of drug with thermal/ultrasound/photodynamic therapies to overcome MDR are focused. The review focuses on newer drug delivery systems developed to overcome MDR in cancer cell.
Collective Entity Disambiguation with Structured Gradient Tree Boosting

We present a gradient-tree-boosting-based structured learning model for jointly disambiguating named entities in a document. Gradient tree boosting is a widely used machine learning algorithm that underlies many topperforming natural language processing systems. Surprisingly, most works limit the use of gradient tree boosting as a tool for regular classification or regression problems, despite the structured nature of language. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the first one that employs the structured gradient tree boosting (SGTB) algorithm for collective entity disambiguation. By defining global features over previous disambiguation decisions and jointly modeling them with local features, our system is able to produce globally optimized entity assignments for mentions in a document. Exact inference is prohibitively expensive for our globally normalized model. To solve this problem, we propose Bidirectional Beam Search with Gold path (BiBSG), an approximate inference algorithm that is a variant of the standard beam search algorithm. BiBSG makes use of global information from both past and future to perform better local search. Experiments on standard benchmark datasets show that SGTB significantly improves upon published results. Specifically, SGTB outperforms the previous state-of-the-art neural system by near 1% absolute accuracy on the popular AIDA-CoNLL dataset.1
Characteristics of hospital inpatient falls across clinical departments.

BACKGROUND
Hospital inpatient falls are common and may lead to injuries and prolonged hospitalization. Although hospital studies have reported overall fall rates and injuries associated with falls, few have addressed population characteristics and circumstances of falls across clinical departments within a hospital setting.


OBJECTIVE
To determine inpatient fall rates in an urban public hospital and to explore associated characteristics across clinical departments.


METHODS
The study was conducted in a 300-bed urban public hospital in Switzerland from 1999 to 2003. Patient data and data from the hospital's standardized fall reporting system on hospital inpatients' first falls, along with associated characteristics, across the departments of internal medicine, geriatrics and surgery, were analyzed. Descriptive statistics and statistical tests: chi(2) and ANOVA tests with multiple comparisons tests (post-hoc analysis) were used.


RESULTS
Over this 5-year period, 34,972 patients were hospitalized (female 53.6%; mean age 67.3 +/- 19.3 years; mean length of stay 11.9 +/- 13.2 days) including 2,512 patients (7.5%) who experienced at least one fall during their hospitalization (geriatrics 24.8%; internal medicine 8.8%; surgery 1.9%). The fall rates per 1,000 patient (adjusted for age) days differed significantly between all of the departments (geriatrics 10.7; internal medicine 9.6; surgery: 3.2) (p < 0.001). Overall, 30.1% of the patients who fell experienced minor injuries and 5.1% major injuries. In geriatrics, fall-related circumstances such as transferring were more common (40.4%) than in medicine (33%) or surgery (30.4%) (p < 0.001), whereas falling out of bed was rarer (16.4%) (surgery 27.1%; internal medicine 20.5%) (p < 0.001). In addition, the prevalence of risk factors among patients who fell varied significantly among clinical departments, except for impaired cognition and narcotic use.


CONCLUSION
In the hospital studied, inpatient falls are significantly more common in departments of geriatrics and internal medicine than in surgical departments. Fall rates, related injuries and circumstances of inpatient falls varied significantly among clinical departments, probably due to differences in patient characteristics. When monitoring falls, hospitals should therefore consider differences in characteristics associated with patient falls across clinical departments. High priorities should be allocated in view of identifying patients at risk of falling and implementing fall prevention strategies and interventions.