LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Robot-assisted stereotactic laser ablation in medically intractable epilepsy: operative technique.

BACKGROUND
Stereotactic laser ablation offers an advantage over open surgical procedures for treatment of epileptic foci, tumors, and other brain pathology. Robot-assisted stereotactic laser ablation could offer an accurate, efficient, minimally invasive, and safe method for placement of an ablation catheter into the target.


OBJECTIVE
To determine the feasibility of placement of a stereotactic laser ablation catheter into a brain lesion with the use of robotic assistance, via a safe, accurate, efficient, and minimally invasive manner.


METHODS
A laser ablation catheter (Visualase, Inc) was placed by using robotic guidance (ROSA, Medtech Surgical, Inc) under general anesthesia into a localized epileptogenic periventricular heterotopic lesion in a 19-year-old woman with 10-year refractory focal seizure history. The laser applicator (1.65 mm diameter) position was confirmed by using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Ablation using the Visualase system was performed under multiplanar imaging with real-time thermal imaging and treatment estimates in each plane. A postablation MRI sequence (T1 postgadolinium contrast injection) was used to immediately confirm the ablation.


RESULTS
MRI showed accurate skin entry point and trajectory, with the applicator advanced to the lesion's distal boundary. Ablation was accomplished in less than 3 minutes of heating. The overall procedure, from time of skin incision to end of last ablation, was approximately 90 minutes. After confirmation of proper lesioning by using a T1 contrast-enhanced MRI, the applicator was removed, and the incision was closed using a single stitch. No hemorrhage or other untoward complication was visualized. The patient awoke without any complication, was observed overnight after admitting to a regular floor bed, and was discharged to home the following day.


CONCLUSION
This technique, using a combination of Visualase laser ablation, ROSA robot, and intraoperative MRI, facilitated a safe, efficacious, efficient, and minimally invasive approach that could be used for placement of 1 or multiple electrodes in the future.
Feasible Formation of Coalitions among Autonomous Agents in Nonsuperadditve Environments

Cooperating and sharing resources by creating coalitions of agents are an important way for autonomous agents to execute tasks and to maximize payo . Such coalitions will form only if each member of a coalition gains more if it joins the coalition than it could gain otherwise. There are several ways of creating such coalitions and dividing the joint payo among the members. In this paper we present algorithms for coalition formation and payo distribution in non-super-additive environments. We focus on a low-complexity kernel-oriented coalition formation algorithm. The properties of this algorithm were examined via simulations. These have shown that the model increases the bene ts of the agents within a reasonable time period, and more coalition formations provide more bene ts to the agents.
Relationship of corporal punishment and antisocial behavior by neighborhood.

OBJECTIVES
To examine the relationship of corporal punishment with children's behavior problems while accounting for neighborhood context and while using stronger statistical methods than previous literature in this area, and to examine whether different levels of corporal punishment have different effects in different neighborhood contexts.


DESIGN
Longitudinal cohort study.


SETTING
General community.


PARTICIPANTS
1943 mother-child pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE
Internalizing and externalizing behavior problem scales of the Behavior Problems Index.


RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS
Parental use of corporal punishment was associated with a 0.71 increase (P<.05) in children's externalizing behavior problems even when several parenting behaviors, neighborhood quality, and all time-invariant variables were accounted for. The association of corporal punishment and children's externalizing behavior problems was not dependent on neighborhood context. The research found no discernible relationship between corporal punishment and internalizing behavior problems.
Near infrared spectroscopy for controlling the quality of distal leg perfusion in remote access cardiopulmonary bypass.

The prevention of leg ischemia is necessary in all patients undergoing femoral artery cannulation for extracorporeal circulation. Near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) is an established non-invasive method for measuring tissue oxygen saturation. Ten patients underwent robotically assisted endoscopic coronary surgery or ASD repair on the arrested heart using aortic endo-occlusion catheters. They were monitored by transcutaneous NIRS (placed on both lower legs) for quality control of distal leg perfusion during femoral access cardiopulmonary bypass. The baseline NIRS values were 61 (52-80) on the cannulated side versus 70 (53-80) on the contralateral leg (p=n.s.). During clamping of the femoral artery for installation of the remote access perfusion system the tissue oxygen saturation dropped to 38 (18-58) (p=0.001 vs baseline) while it remained stable on the contralateral leg. After successful implantation of the distal leg perfusion the NIRS values normalized to similar amounts on both legs. We conclude that transcutaneous NIRS of the lower legs might be a useful non-invasive tool for monitoring leg perfusion in patients undergoing extracorporeal circulation via the femoral vessels.
Successive matrix squaring algorithm for computing the Drazin inverse

This paper derives a successive matrix squaring (SMS) algorithm to approximate the Drazin inverse which can be expressed in the form of successive squaring of a composite matrix T. Given an n by n matrix A, the study shows that the Drazin inverse of A can be computed in parallel time ranging from O logn to O logn provided that there are enough processors to support matrix multiplication in time O logn. The SMS algorithm is generalized to higher-order schemes, where the composite matrix is repeatedly raised to an integer power l P 2. This form of expression leads to a simpli®ed notation compared to that of earlier methods, we argue that there is no obvious advantage in choosing l other than 2. Our derived error bound for the approximation of A is new. Ó 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. AMS: 15A09; 65F20; 65W05
Influences of posterior-located center of gravity on lumbar extension strength, balance, and lumbar lordosis in chronic low back pain.

BACKGROUND DATA
In patients with chronic low back pain, the center of gravity (COG) is abnormally located posterior to the center in most cases.


OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of posterior-located COG on the functions (lumbar extension strength, and static and dynamic balance) and structure (lumbar lordosis angle and lumbosacral angle) of the lumbar spine.


MATERIAL AND METHODS
In this study, the COG of chronic low back pain patients who complained of only low back pain were examined using dynamic body balance equipment. A total of 164 subjects participated in the study (74 males and 90 females), and they were divided into two groups of 82 patients each. One group (n=82) consisted of patients whose COG was located at the center (C-COG); the other group (n=82) consisted of patients whose COG was located posterior to the center (P-COG). The following measures assessed the lumber functions and structures of the two groups: lumbar extension strength, moving speed of static and dynamic COGs, movement distance of the static and dynamic COGs, lumbar lordosis angle, and lumbosacral angle. The measured values were analyzed using independent t-tests.


RESULTS
The group of patients with P-COG showed more decreases in lumbar extension strength, lumbar lordosis angle, and lumbosacral angle compared to the group of patients with C-COG. Also this group showed increases in moving speed and movement distance of the static COG. However, there were no differences in moving speed and movement distance of the dynamic COG between the two groups.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that chronic LBP patients with P-COG have some disadvantages to establish lumbar extension strength and static and dynamic balance, which require specific efforts to maintain a neutral position and to control posture.
An investigation into vocal expressions of emotions : the roles of valence, culture, and acoustic factors

This PhD is an investigation of vocal expressions of emotions, mainly focusing on non-verbal sounds such as laughter, cries and sighs. The research examines the roles of categorical and dimensional factors, the contributions of a number of acoustic cues, and the influence of culture. A series of studies established that naive listeners can reliably identify non-verbal vocalisations of positive and negative emotions in forced-choice and rating tasks. Some evidence for underlying dimensions of arousal and valence is found, although each emotion had a discrete expression. The role of acoustic characteristics of the sounds is investigated experimentally and analytically. This work shows that the cues used to identify different emotions vary, although pitch and pitch variation play a central role. The cues used to identify emotions in non-verbal vocalisations differ from the cues used when comprehending speech. An additional set of studies using stimuli consisting of emotional speech demonstrates that these sounds can also be reliably identified, and rely on similar acoustic cues. A series of studies with a pre-literate Namibian tribe shows that non-verbal vocalisations can be recognized across cultures. An fMRI study carried out to investigate the neural processing of non-verbal vocalisations of emotions is presented. The results show activation in pre-motor regions arising from passive listening to non-verbal emotional vocalisations, suggesting neural auditory-motor interactions in the perception of these sounds. In sum, this thesis demonstrates that non-verbal vocalisations of emotions are reliably identifi­ able tokens of information that belong to discrete categories. These vocalisations are recognisable across vastly different cultures and thus seem to, like facial expressions of emotions, comprise human universals. Listeners rely mainly on pitch and pitch variation to identify emotions in non­ verbal vocalisations, which differs with the cues used to comprehend speech. When listening to others’ emotional vocalisations, a neural system of preparatory motor activation is engaged.
Recognising Human-Object Interaction via Exemplar Based Modelling

Human action can be recognised from a single still image by modelling Human-object interaction (HOI), which infers the mutual spatial structure information between human and object as well as their appearance. Existing approaches rely heavily on accurate detection of human and object, and estimation of human pose. They are thus sensitive to large variations of human poses, occlusion and unsatisfactory detection of small size objects. To overcome this limitation, a novel exemplar based approach is proposed in this work. Our approach learns a set of spatial pose-object interaction exemplars, which are density functions describing how a person is interacting with a manipulated object for different activities spatially in a probabilistic way. A representation based on our HOI exemplar thus has great potential for being robust to the errors in human/object detection and pose estimation. A new framework consists of a proposed exemplar based HOI descriptor and an activity specific matching model that learns the parameters is formulated for robust human activity recognition. Experiments on two benchmark activity datasets demonstrate that the proposed approach obtains state-of-the-art performance.
Substance use trends among active duty military personnel: findings from the United States Department of Defense Health Related Behavior Surveys, 1980-2005.

AIMS
This study was designed to assess trends in cigarette, illicit drug, and heavy alcohol use among active-duty military personnel from 1980 to 2005 and to examine the influence of socio-demographic changes within the military on patterns of substance use.


DESIGN
Substance use prevalence rates were estimated from cross-sectional data obtained from nine self-report surveys administered to more than 150 000 active-duty service members world-wide over a 25-year period. Direct standardization was used to adjust for socio-demographic changes.


MEASUREMENTS
Measures included self-reported cigarette use, illicit drug use and heavy alcohol use in the 30 days prior to the survey. Heavy alcohol use was defined as drinking five or more drinks per typical drinking occasion at least once a week in the past 30 days.


FINDINGS
Cigarette and illicit drug use among military personnel declined sharply and significantly from 1980 to 1998. Heavy alcohol use decreased in the mid-1980s but was stable from 1988 to 1998. Both cigarette smoking and heavy alcohol use increased significantly between 1998 and 2002 and remained at those levels in 2005. Illicit drug use remained low. Logistic regression analyses indicated that trends were influenced by other factors besides socio-demographic changes across survey years.


CONCLUSIONS
The military has made notable progress in decreasing cigarette smoking and illicit drug use, but has made less progress in reducing heavy alcohol use. Additional emphasis should be placed on understanding recent increases in substance use and on planning effective interventions and prevention programs to reduce use in this high-risk population.
Language concordance and patient-physician communication regarding mental health needs.

Language-related communication barriers between minority patients and their physicians may contribute to racial and ethnic disparities in mental health care. Accordingly, the current study sought to examine whether perceived mental health needs and discussion of these needs differed as a function of race or ethnicity and language concordance in older Latinos and Asian and Pacific Islanders (APIs). Using the 2007 California Health Interview Survey, the analytical sample included Latinos and APIs aged 55 and older (N = 2,960) who reported having seen a primary care provider within the past 2 years. Multivariable logistic regression was used to examine differences according to race or ethnicity and language concordance status (three groups: English-language concordant, other-language concordant, language discordant) in perceived mental health needs and discussion of those needs with a physician, adjusting for respondents' sociodemographic characteristics and mental health status. There were no significant differences in respondents' perceptions of their mental health needs across race or ethnicity or level of language concordance status (Ps > .41), although there were significant differences in whether respondents had discussed their mental health needs with their physicians according to participant race or ethnicity and language concordance status (adjusted odds ratio = 0.47, P = .04). Specifically, Spanish language-concordant Latinos were just as likely to discuss their mental health needs with their physicians as English language-concordant Latinos. In contrast, Asian language-concordant APIs were less likely to discuss their mental health needs with their physicians than English language-concordant APIs. There were no significant differences between language-discordant and English language-concordant older adults in predicting discussion of mental health concerns. These findings underscore the importance of overcoming language-related and cultural barriers to improve patient-provider discussions of older adults' mental health needs.
Study of the anti-JCV antibody levels in a Spanish multiple sclerosis cohort.

BACKGROUND
One of the risk factor to develop progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) among natalizumab-treated patients is the presence and high levels of anti-JCV antibodies. Our purpose was to test the association of different clinical and demographic variables with the presence and levels of anti-JCV antibodies in a Spanish cohort of patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) during natalizumab treatment.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
All patients with MS from two hospitals with at least one measure of the anti-JCV antibodies levels (2011-2014) were recruited, among them were two PML cases. Anti-JCV antibody levels were assessed using two-step ELISA.


RESULTS
A total of 1061 patients (16·3% natalizumab-treated) participated in this study. The seropositivity rate of anti-JCV antibodies was 58·2%. It increased with age (Pcorrected = 0·00005) and was lower among HLA-DRB1*15:01 carriers (Pcorrected = 0·049). The two patients with PML were HLA-DRB1*15:01 carriers. We had at least three quarterly anti-JCV antibody measurements (index value) from 137 patients, whose levels did not increase during natalizumab treatment. However, 5·8% of these patients had an increase of the index value higher of one point in a maximum of 6 months, something that was more frequently observed (P = 0·054) among patients treated with immunosuppressant prior to natalizumab onset.


CONCLUSIONS
Old age and HLA-DRB1*15:01 were the factors that influence positively and negatively, respectively, our anti-JCV antibody prevalence, although our both PML cases were HLA-DRB1*15:01carriers. Most of our patients showed a stable anti-JCV antibody index values during natalizumab treatment.
DeepDTA: deep drug–target binding affinity prediction

Motivation
The identification of novel drug-target (DT) interactions is a substantial part of the drug discovery process. Most of the computational methods that have been proposed to predict DT interactions have focused on binary classification, where the goal is to determine whether a DT pair interacts or not. However, protein-ligand interactions assume a continuum of binding strength values, also called binding affinity and predicting this value still remains a challenge. The increase in the affinity data available in DT knowledge-bases allows the use of advanced learning techniques such as deep learning architectures in the prediction of binding affinities. In this study, we propose a deep-learning based model that uses only sequence information of both targets and drugs to predict DT interaction binding affinities. The few studies that focus on DT binding affinity prediction use either 3D structures of protein-ligand complexes or 2D features of compounds. One novel approach used in this work is the modeling of protein sequences and compound 1D representations with convolutional neural networks (CNNs).


Results
The results show that the proposed deep learning based model that uses the 1D representations of targets and drugs is an effective approach for drug target binding affinity prediction. The model in which high-level representations of a drug and a target are constructed via CNNs achieved the best Concordance Index (CI) performance in one of our larger benchmark datasets, outperforming the KronRLS algorithm and SimBoost, a state-of-the-art method for DT binding affinity prediction.


Availability and implementation
https://github.com/hkmztrk/DeepDTA.


Supplementary information
Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Late Quaternary floods and droughts in the Nile valley, Sudan: new evidence from optically stimulated luminescence and AMS radiocarbon dating

Our results show that the late Pleistocene Nile in northern Sudan was shifting position and actively aggrading at 145 20 kyr, 83 24 kyr, 32 8 kyr and 20.7 0.2 kyr and indicate, for the first time, a phase of high-energy flow in the White Nile at 27.8 3.2 kyr, with still high but somewhat reduced flow in that river at 13.3 kyr, 10 kyr and 4.8e4.0 kyr. Beach ridges associated with a 386 m strandline of the White Nile have OSL ages of 27.5 2.7 kyr and 14.5 1.6 kyr. The Holocene terraces and former channels of the main Nile have ages of 11 kyr, 6.5e5.0 kyr and 4.8e4.0 kyr, after which there was a general decline in flood discharge. The now arid main Nile valley in northern Sudan was significantly wetter during the early to middle Holocene, with a lake up to 450 km2 in area, fed by an overflow channel from the early Holocene Nile between 9.5 kyr and 7.5 kyr. Previously stable late Pleistocene dunes were reactivated at intervals during the Holocene, with five samples from the White Nile valley indicating brief phases of Holocene dune activity at 9.9 2.0 kyr, 9.0 2.8 kyr, 6.6 0.9 kyr, 4.8 0.9 kyr and 2.9 0.5 kyr, the earliest of which occurred within periods of generally wetter climate and higher Nile flow. The youngest freshwater shells on the Khor Abu Habl alluvial fan west of the White Nile correspond to a time of regionally wetter climate between 1.7 and 1.0 kyr. Our results suggest that millennial scale climatic instability may have been characteristic of Holocene climates in this region. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
On linear transformations preserving the P\'olya Frequency property

We prove that certain linear operators preserve the P\'olya frequency property and real-rootedness, and apply our results to settle some conjectures and open problems in combinatorics proposed by B\'ona, Brenti and Reiner-Welker.
Conhecimento local sobre cactáceas em comunidades rurais na mesorregião do sertão da Paraíba (Nordeste, Brasil)

Local knowledge about cacti in rural communities in the mesoregion of Paraíba State (Northeastern Brazil). The goal of this study was to record the uses and knowledge of cacti in the rural communities of Barroquinha and Besouro, in the municipality of Lagoa, in Paraíba, Brazil. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 52 informants (men and women). The cacti cited were organized into eight categories of use. Five species were identified in the communities: Cereus jamacaru DC., Melocactus sp., Pilosocereus chrysostele (Vaupel) Byles & G. D. Rowley, Nopalea cochenillifera (L.) Salm-Dyck and Pilosocereus gounellei (F.A.C. Weber) Byles & Rowley. We registered 201 citations of use in Barroquinha, which were placed in seven categories, and 76 citations in Besouro, which were placed in eight categories. In both communities, C. jamacaru was the most used specie and forage was the most common category of use. Within the communities, the men and women had similar knowledge about these plants. In relation to the transmission of knowledge, there was a predominance of a vertical transmission, from parents to children. Based on the categories applied to the species, the various uses recorded show that these cacti are important to the Besouro and Barroquinha communities.