LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
A method for generating an illusion of backwards time travel using immersive virtual reality—an exploratory study

We introduce a new method, based on immersive virtual reality (IVR), to give people the illusion of having traveled backwards through time to relive a sequence of events in which they can intervene and change history. The participant had played an important part in events with a tragic outcome-deaths of strangers-by having to choose between saving 5 people or 1. We consider whether the ability to go back through time, and intervene, to possibly avoid all deaths, has an impact on how the participant views such moral dilemmas, and also whether this experience leads to a re-evaluation of past unfortunate events in their own lives. We carried out an exploratory study where in the "Time Travel" condition 16 participants relived these events three times, seeing incarnations of their past selves carrying out the actions that they had previously carried out. In a "Repetition" condition another 16 participants replayed the same situation three times, without any notion of time travel. Our results suggest that those in the Time Travel condition did achieve an illusion of "time travel" provided that they also experienced an illusion of presence in the virtual environment, body ownership, and agency over the virtual body that substituted their own. Time travel produced an increase in guilt feelings about the events that had occurred, and an increase in support of utilitarian behavior as the solution to the moral dilemma. Time travel also produced an increase in implicit morality as judged by an implicit association test. The time travel illusion was associated with a reduction of regret associated with bad decisions in their own lives. The results show that when participants have a third action that they can take to solve the moral dilemma (that does not immediately involve choosing between the 1 and the 5) then they tend to take this option, even though it is useless in solving the dilemma, and actually results in the deaths of a greater number.
Effect of pain control in suspected acute appendicitis on the diagnostic accuracy of surgical residents.

OBJECTIVE
To determine the influence of early pain relief for patients with suspected appendicitis on the diagnostic performance of surgical residents.


METHODS
A prospective randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial was conducted for patients with suspected appendicitis. The patients were randomized to receive placebo (normal saline intravenous [IV]) infusions over 5 minutes or the study drug (morphine 5 mg IV). All of the clinical evaluations by surgical residents were performed 30 minutes after administration of the study drug or placebo. After obtaining the clinical probability of appendicitis, as determined by the surgical residents, abdominal computed tomography was performed. The primary objective was to compare the influence of IV morphine on the ability of surgical residents to diagnose appendicitis.


RESULTS
A total of 213 patients with suspected appendicitis were enrolled. Of these patients, 107 patients received morphine, and 106 patients received placebo saline. The negative appendectomy percentages in each group were similar (3.8% in the placebo group and 3.2% in the pain control group, p=0.62). The perforation rates in each group were also similar (18.9% in the placebo group and 14.3% in the pain control group, p=0.75). Receiver operating characteristic analysis revealed that the overall diagnostic accuracy in each group was similar (the area under the curve of the placebo group and the pain control group was 0.63 v. 0.61, respectively, p=0.81).


CONCLUSIONS
Early pain control in patients with suspected appendicitis does not affect the diagnostic performance of surgical residents.
Bringing forward reperfusion with oxygenated blood perfusion beyond arterial occlusion during endovascular procedures in patients with acute ischemic stroke.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
High recanalization rates achieved with endovascular procedures are not always followed by the expected clinical improvement. These time-consuming procedures imply a delayed reperfusion despite the capacity of earlier intravascular microcatheter bypass to the ischemic tissue beyond the clot. We aimed to explore the safety and feasibility of MOB beyond the clot.


MATERIALS AND METHODS
We studied patients with stroke undergoing endovascular procedures. The timing of procedural steps was recorded. We then explored the safety and feasibility of repeated femoral artery MOB injections beyond the occlusion every time the clot was crossed in 17 patients. Pre- and postocclusion flow was continuously monitored with TCD.


RESULTS
We studied 60 patients (mean age, 70 ± 11 years; median NIHSS score, 20; IR, 18-21). Of them, 33 (55%) received IV-tPA before the endovascular procedure. The following arteries were occluded: the MCA (63.3%, n = 38) and the ICA (36.6%, n = 22). The TSO to arterial puncture was 193 ± 77 minutes. The occluding clot was successfully crossed with the microcatheter in 46 patients (76.6%; mean TSO, 228 ± 82 minutes). Recanalization was achieved in 44 patients (73.2%; mean TSO, 328 ± 144 minutes). Repeated MOB injections were performed in 17 patients. Patients with/without MOB presented with similar baseline characteristics. The median number of MOB injections was 2 (IR, 2-3), and the median injected blood volume was 40 mL (IR, 27.5-50). The mean time from first MOB to arterial recanalization was 136 ± 86 minutes. During MOB, a nonpulsatile flow appeared in previously nonvisible distal branches on TCD.


CONCLUSIONS
In this small series, oxygenated blood delivered through a microcatheter positioned distal to the site of occlusion was feasible and safe. Until final recanalization is achieved, MOB injections may generate intermittent reperfusion for up to 2 hours.
A Report on the IJCAI-07 Program

We report on the main features of the IJCAI’07 program, including its theme, and its schedule and organization. In particular, we discuss an effective and novel presentation format at IJCAI in which oral and poster papers were presented in the same sessions categorized by topic area.
Comparing the efficacy of low-dose vs high-dose cyclophosphamide regimen as induction therapy in the treatment of proliferative lupus nephritis: a single center study

Cyclophosphamide (CYC) has been the backbone immunosuppressive drug to achieve sustained remission in lupus nephritis (LN). The aim was to evaluate the efficacy and compare adverse effects of low and high dose intravenous CYC therapy in Indian patients with proliferative lupus nephritis. An open-label, parallel group, randomized controlled trial involving 75 patients with class III/IV LN was conducted after obtaining informed consent. The low dose group (n = 38) received 6 × 500 mg CYC fortnightly and high dose group (n = 37) received 6 × 750 mg/m2 CYC four-weekly followed by azathioprine. The primary outcome was complete/partial/no response at 52 weeks. The secondary outcomes were renal and non-renal flares and adverse events. Intention-to-treat analyses were performed. At 52 weeks, 27 (73%) in high dose group achieved complete/partial response (CR/PR) vs 19 (50%) in low dose (p = 0.04). CR was higher in the high dose vs low dose [24 (65%) vs 17 (44%)], although not statistically significant. Non-responders (NR) in the high dose group were also significantly lower 10 (27%) vs low dose 19 (50%) (p = 0.04). The change in the SLEDAI (Median, IQR) was also higher in the high dose 16 (7–20) in contrast to the low dose 10 (5.5–14) (p = 0.04). There was significant alopecia and CYC-induced leucopenia in high dose group. Renal relapses were significantly higher in the low dose group vs high dose [9 (24%) vs 1(3%), (p = 0.01)]. At 52 weeks, high dose CYC was more effective in inducing remission with decreased renal relapses in our population. Trial Registration: The study was registered at http://www.clintrials.gov. NCT02645565.
Children at risk: the association between perceived weight status and suicidal thoughts and attempts in middle school youth.

BACKGROUND
Suicide is one of the most common causes of death among young people. A report from the US Surgeon General called for strategies to prevent suicide, including increasing public awareness of suicide and risks factors, and enhancing research to understand risk and protective factors. Weight perception has been linked to depression and poor self-esteem in adolescents. The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between perceived weight status and suicidal thoughts and actions by gender in middle school youth.


METHODS
All public middle school students in 4 eastern North Carolina counties presented, and with parental permission (n = 5174), completed the Youth Risk Behavior Survey: Middle School Questionnaire. The 3 dependent variables were self-reported thinking, planning, and attempting suicide. Bivariate analyses describe suicidal thoughts and actions; multiple logistic regression models examined the relationship between weight description and suicidal thoughts and actions controlling for age, race, household composition, grades on report cards, and parents' education.


RESULTS
Significantly more females than males reported thinking (26% vs 19%), planning (12% vs 9%), and attempting (11% vs 8%) suicide. For females, those who perceived themselves as overweight were significantly more likely to report suicidal thoughts and actions; while for males, perceptions of overweight and underweight were significantly associated with suicidal thoughts and actions.


CONCLUSIONS
Controlling for personal and family characteristics, perceived weight status was significantly associated with suicidal thoughts and actions in middle school boys and girls.
Verification of Erlang Programs using Abstract Interpretation and Model Mhecking

We present an approach for the verification of Erlang programs using abstract interpretation and model checking. In general model checking for temporal logics like LTL and Erlang programs is undecidable. Therefore we define a frame-work for abstract interpretations for a core fragment of Erlang. In this framework it is guaranteed, that the abstract operational semantics preserves all paths of the standard operational semantics. We consider properties that have to hold on all paths of a system, like properties in LTL. If these properties can be proved for the abstract operational semantics, they also hold for the Erlang program. They can be proved with model checking if the abstract operational semantics is a finite transition system. Therefore we introduce a example abstract interpretation, which has this property. We have implemented this approach as a prototype and were able to prove properties like mutual exclusion or the absence of deadlocks and lifelocks for some Erlang programs.
Graph Drawing Aesthetics—Created by Users, Not Algorithms

Prior empirical work on layout aesthetics for graph drawing algorithms has concentrated on the interpretation of existing graph drawings. We report on experiments which focus on the creation and layout of graph drawings: participants were asked to draw graphs based on adjacency lists, and to lay them out "nicely.” Two interaction methods were used for creating the drawings: a sketch interface which allows for easy, natural hand movements, and a formal point-and-click interface similar to a typical graph editing system. We find, in common with many other studies, that removing edge crossings is the most significant aesthetic, but also discover that aligning nodes and edges to an underlying grid is important. We observe that the aesthetics favored by participants during creation of a graph drawing are often not evident in the final product and that the participants did not make a clear distinction between the processes of creation and layout. Our results suggest that graph drawing systems should integrate automatic layout with the user's manual editing process, and provide facilities to support grid-based graph creation.
Diagnosis and management of idiopathic childhood constipation: summary of NICE guidance.

Diagnosing idiopathic constipation If the child or young person has constipation take a history and exclude underlying causes. • “Red flag” findings and diagnostic clues to an underlying condition: constipation reported from birth or first few weeks of life, failure to pass meconium or delay in passing meconium (more than 48 hours after birth in term baby), long narrow ribbon-like stools (more likely in a child under 1 year), previously unknown or undiagnosed weakness in legs, locomotor delay, and abdominal distension with vomiting. • Diagnostic clues to idiopathic constipation: constipation that starts after a few weeks of life with obvious precipitating factors (fissure, change of diet, or infections in children under 1 year; fissure, change of diet, timing of potty or toilet training, and an acute event such as infection, moving house, starting nursery or school, fears and phobias, major change in family, taking medicine in children over 1 year); normal passage of meconium (within 48 hours after birth in term baby); child generally well, with normal weight and height; no neurological problems in legs; normal locomotor development; history of poor diet or insufficient fluid intake (or both); and changes in infant formula or weaning in child under 1 year. Perform a physical examination and exclude underlying causes. GuIdElInEs
Total anal sphincter saving technique for fistula-in-ano; the ligation of intersphincteric fistula tract.

OBJECTIVE
To describe a new technique for fistula-in-ano surgery aimed at total sphincter preservation, and evaluate the preliminary results concerning non-healing and intact anal function.


MATERIAL AND METHOD
A prospective observational study in eighteen fistula-in-ano patients treated by ligation of intersphincteric fistula tract (LIFT) technique, from January to June 2006.


RESULTS
Fistula-in-ano in seventeen patients healed primarily (94.4%). There was one non-healing case (5.6%). The mean healing time was four weeks. None had disturbances in clinical anal continence.


CONCLUSION
The early outcome of the LIFT technique is quite impressive. Results warrant a larger study with long-term evaluation. This technique has the potential to become a viable option for fistula-in-ano surgery.
Classification with scattering operators

A scattering vector is a local descriptor including multiscale and multi-direction co-occurrence information. It is computed with a cascade of wavelet decompositions and complex modulus. This scattering representation is locally translation invariant and linearizes deformations. A supervised classification algorithm is computed with a PCA model selection on scattering vectors. State of the art results are obtained for handwritten digit recognition and texture classification.
The impact of municipal solid waste management on greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

Technological advancements, environmental regulations, and emphasis on resource conservation and recovery have greatly reduced the environmental impacts of municipal solid waste (MSW) management, including emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs). This study was conducted using a life-cycle methodology to track changes in GHG emissions during the past 25 years from the management of MSW in the United States. For the baseline year of 1974, MSW management consisted of limited recycling, combustion without energy recovery, and landfilling without gas collection or control. This was compared with data for 1980, 1990, and 1997, accounting for changes in MSW quantity, composition, management practices, and technology. Over time, the United States has moved toward increased recycling, composting, combustion (with energy recovery) and landfilling with gas recovery, control, and utilization. These changes were accounted for with historical data on MSW composition, quantities, management practices, and technological changes. Included in the analysis were the benefits of materials recycling and energy recovery to the extent that these displace virgin raw materials and fossil fuel electricity production, respectively. Carbon sinks associated with MSW management also were addressed. The results indicate that the MSW management actions taken by U.S. communities have significantly reduced potential GHG emissions despite an almost 2-fold increase in waste generation. GHG emissions from MSW management were estimated to be 36 million metric tons carbon equivalents (MMTCE) in 1974 and 8 MMTCE in 1997. If MSW were being managed today as it was in 1974, GHG emissions would be approximately 60 MMTCE.
An open platform for developing multiprocessor SoCs

Nanometer technologies integrate hundreds of millions of transistors in a single chip. Opportunities provided by these technologies, combined with the consolidation of platform-based design approaches, the evolution toward multiprocessor architectures, and consideration of the network-on-chip (NoC) paradigm suggest new methods for designing and verifying embedded systems. Clearly, a pure software simulation platform can't provide the performance required for developing multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC) designs. One of the main design risks for today's systems is the architecture, which developers must validate as early as possible in the overall system design cycle because it has the biggest impact on system dimensioning and performance. To solve these problems, we've studied a reconfigurable MPSoC emulation platform and developed the main emulation subsystem and board. A low-cost modular approach that uses emulation offers an alternative to software simulation for the design and verification of complex multiprocessor system-on-chip (MPSoC) designs.
Models and algorithms for three-stage two-dimensional bin packing

We consider the three-stage two-dimensional bin packing problem (2BP) which occurs in real-world applications such as glass, paper, or steel cutting. We present new integer linear programming formulations: Models for a restricted version and the original version of the problem are developed. Both involve polynomial numbers of variables and constraints only and effectively avoid symmetries. Those models are solved using CPLEX. Furthermore, a branch-and-price (B&P) algorithm is presented for a set covering formulation of the unrestricted problem. We consider stabilizing the column generation process of the B&P algorithm using dual-optimal inequalities. Fast column generation is performed by applying a hierarchy of four methods: (a) a fast greedy heuristic, (b) an evolutionary algorithm, (c) solving a restricted form of the pricing problem using CPLEX, and finally (d) solving the complete pricing problem using CPLEX. Computational experiments on standard benchmark instances document the benefits of the new approaches: The restricted version of the ILP model can be used for quickly obtaining nearly optimal solutions. The unrestricted version is computationally more expensive. Column generation provides a strong lower bound for 3-stage 2BP. The combination of all four pricing algorithms and column generation stabilization in the proposed B&P framework yields the best results in terms of the average objective value, the average run-time, and the number of instances solved to proven optimality. 1 This work is supported by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) under grant P16263-N04. Preprint submitted to Elsevier Science 30 September 2004
A computer vision approach for weeds identification through Support Vector Machines

Keywords: Support Vector Machines Machine vision Weed identification Image segmentation Decision making This paper outlines an automatic computer vision system for the identification of avena sterilis which is a special weed seed growing in cereal crops. The final goal is to reduce the quantity of herbicide to be sprayed as an important and necessary step for precision agriculture. So, only areas where the presence of weeds is important should be sprayed. The main problems for the identification of this kind of weed are its similar spectral signature with respect the crops and also its irregular distribution in the field. It has been designed a new strategy involving two processes: image segmentation and decision making. The image segmentation combines basic suitable image processing techniques in order to extract cells from the image as the low level units. Each cell is described by two area-based attributes measuring the relations among the crops and weeds. The decision making is based on the Support Vector Machines and determines if a cell must be sprayed. The main findings of this paper are reflected in the combination of the segmentation and the Support Vector Machines decision processes. Another important contribution of this approach is the minimum requirements of the system in terms of memory and computation power if compared with other previous works. The performance of the method is illustrated by comparative analysis against some existing strategies.
Wireless Esophageal pH Monitoring Is Better Tolerated than the Catheter-Based Technique: Results from a Randomized Cross-Over Trial

OBJECTIVES:Esophageal pH monitoring using a wireless pH capsule has been suggested to generate less adverse symptoms resulting in improved patient acceptance compared with the catheter-based method although evidence to support this assumption is lacking. The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the subjective experience of patients undergoing both techniques for esophageal pH monitoring.METHODS:Using a randomized study design, patients referred for esophageal pH testing underwent both wireless and traditional catheter-based 24-h pH recording with a 7-day interval. The wireless pH capsule was placed during endoscopy and followed by 48-h pH recording. All patients answered a questionnaire, including a 10-cm visual analog scale (VAS), which described the perceived severity of symptoms and the degree of interference with normal daily activities during the pH tests.RESULTS:Thirty-one patients, 16 women and 15 men, were included in the analysis. The severity of all adverse symptoms associated with the wireless technique was significantly lower compared with the catheter-based technique (median VAS 2.1 vs 5.1, P < 0.001). Wireless pH recording was associated with less interference with off-work activities and normal daily life, median VAS 0.6 and 0.7 compared with 5.0 and 5.7, respectively, for the catheter-based technique (P < 0.0001). Patients actively working during both tests reported less interference with normal work during the capsule-based test than during the catheter-based pH test (median VAS 0.3 vs 6.8, P = 0.005). Twenty-seven patients (87%) stated that, if they had to undergo esophageal pH monitoring again, they preferred the wireless test over the catheter-based pH test (P < 0.0001).CONCLUSIONS:This randomized study showed that a significant majority of patients undergoing esophageal pH monitoring preferred the wireless pH capsule over the traditional catheter-based technique because of less adverse symptoms and less interference with normal daily life.