LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Antipsychotics and diabetes: review of non-prospective data.

BACKGROUND
Much of the existing data regarding the relationship between antipsychotic medications and diabetes mellitus are non-prospective.


AIMS
To review critically non-prospective studies examining antipsychotic medications as risk factors for diabetes mellitus.


METHOD
Database and manual searches.


RESULTS
Anecdotal reports indicate that conventional and atypical antipsychotics can cause diabetes mellitus. However, retrospective studies cannot reliably quantify this association, as they do not adequately control for confounding risk factors for diabetes, or for variation in detection and diagnosis of this illness. Most studies report a higher rate of diabetes in patients who use antipsychotic medication than in non-users, and in patients taking atypical v. conventional antipsychotics. Studies assessing the relative risks of diabetes between individual atypical antipsychotics are contradictory.


CONCLUSIONS
Retrospective data are of limited value. Well-designed prospective studies, which account for potential confounders, are needed to investigate the true association between antipsychotic medications and diabetes.
LibGuides: Data Resources for Sociologists: Social Indicators

This guide is a collection of links to commonly-used data resources favored by Sociologists.
Safety and tolerability of the γ-secretase inhibitor avagacestat in a phase 2 study of mild to moderate Alzheimer disease.

OBJECTIVE
To assess the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic effects of the -secretase inhibitor avagacestat in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer disease (AD).


DESIGN
Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled,24-week phase 2 study.


SETTING
Global, multicenter trial.


PATIENTS
A total of 209 outpatients with mild to moderate AD were randomized into the double-blind treatment phase. The median age of the patients was 75 years,58.9% were APOE ε4 carriers, and baseline measures of disease severity were similar among groups.


INTERVENTION
Avagacestat, 25, 50, 100, or 125 mg daily,or placebo administered orally daily.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Safety and tolerability of avagacestat.


RESULTS
Discontinuation rates for the 25-mg and 50-mg doses of avagacestat were comparable with placebo but were higher in the 100-mg and 125-mg dose groups.Trends for worsening cognition, as measured by change from baseline Alzheimer Disease Assessment Scale cognitive subscale score, were observed in the 100-mg and125-mg dose groups. Treatment-emergent serious adverse events were similar across placebo and treatment groups. The most common reason for discontinuation was adverse events, predominantly gastrointestinal anddermatologic. Other adverse events occurring more frequentlyin patients undergoing treatment included reversibleglycosuria (without associated serum glucose changes), nonmelanoma skin cancer, and asymptomaticmagnetic resonance imaging findings. Exploratory cerebrospinal fluid amyloid isoforms and tau biomarker analysis demonstrated dose-dependent but not statistically significant reductions in a small subset of patients.


CONCLUSIONS
Avagacestat dosed at 25 and 50 mg daily was relatively well tolerated and had low discontinuation rates. The 100-mg and 125-mg dose arms were poorly tolerated with trends for cognitive worsening. Exploratory cerebrospinal fluid biomarker substudies provide preliminary support for -secretase target engagement,but additional studies are warranted to better characterize pharmacodynamic effects at the 25- and 50-mg doses.This study establishes an acceptable safety and tolerability dose range for future avagacestat studies in AD.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier: NCT00810147
Optimizing R with SparkR on a commodity cluster for biomedical research

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
Medical researchers are challenged today by the enormous amount of data collected in healthcare. Analysis methods such as genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are often computationally intensive and thus require enormous resources to be performed in a reasonable amount of time. While dedicated clusters and public clouds may deliver the desired performance, their use requires upfront financial efforts or anonymous data, which is often not possible for preliminary or occasional tasks. We explored the possibilities to build a private, flexible cluster for processing scripts in R based on commodity, non-dedicated hardware of our department.


METHODS
For this, a GWAS-calculation in R on a single desktop computer, a Message Passing Interface (MPI)-cluster, and a SparkR-cluster were compared with regards to the performance, scalability, quality, and simplicity.


RESULTS
The original script had a projected runtime of three years on a single desktop computer. Optimizing the script in R already yielded a significant reduction in computing time (2 weeks). By using R-MPI and SparkR, we were able to parallelize the computation and reduce the time to less than three hours (2.6 h) on already available, standard office computers. While MPI is a proven approach in high-performance clusters, it requires rather static, dedicated nodes. SparkR and its Hadoop siblings allow for a dynamic, elastic environment with automated failure handling. SparkR also scales better with the number of nodes in the cluster than MPI due to optimized data communication.


CONCLUSION
R is a popular environment for clinical data analysis. The new SparkR solution offers elastic resources and allows supporting big data analysis using R even on non-dedicated resources with minimal change to the original code. To unleash the full potential, additional efforts should be invested to customize and improve the algorithms, especially with regards to data distribution.
Deep learning for pharmacovigilance: recurrent neural network architectures for labeling adverse drug reactions in Twitter posts

Objective
Social media is an important pharmacovigilance data source for adverse drug reaction (ADR) identification. Human review of social media data is infeasible due to data quantity, thus natural language processing techniques are necessary. Social media includes informal vocabulary and irregular grammar, which challenge natural language processing methods. Our objective is to develop a scalable, deep-learning approach that exceeds state-of-the-art ADR detection performance in social media.


Materials and Methods
We developed a recurrent neural network (RNN) model that labels words in an input sequence with ADR membership tags. The only input features are word-embedding vectors, which can be formed through task-independent pretraining or during ADR detection training.


Results
Our best-performing RNN model used pretrained word embeddings created from a large, non-domain-specific Twitter dataset. It achieved an approximate match F-measure of 0.755 for ADR identification on the dataset, compared to 0.631 for a baseline lexicon system and 0.65 for the state-of-the-art conditional random field model. Feature analysis indicated that semantic information in pretrained word embeddings boosted sensitivity and, combined with contextual awareness captured in the RNN, precision.


Discussion
Our model required no task-specific feature engineering, suggesting generalizability to additional sequence-labeling tasks. Learning curve analysis showed that our model reached optimal performance with fewer training examples than the other models.


Conclusion
ADR detection performance in social media is significantly improved by using a contextually aware model and word embeddings formed from large, unlabeled datasets. The approach reduces manual data-labeling requirements and is scalable to large social media datasets.
Occupational risk factors for asthma among nurses and related healthcare professionals in an international study.

OBJECTIVE
The authors examined the relations between self-reported work tasks, use of cleaning products and latex glove use with new-onset asthma among nurses and other healthcare workers in the European Community Respiratory Health Survey (ECRHS II).


METHODS
In a random population sample of adults from 22 European sites, 332 participants reported working in nursing and other related healthcare jobs during the nine-year ECRHS II follow-up period and responded to a supplemental questionnaire about their principal work settings, occupational tasks, products used at work and respiratory symptoms. Poisson regression models with robust error variances were used to compare the risk of new-onset asthma among healthcare workers with each exposure to that of respondents who reported professional or administrative occupations during the entire follow-up period (n = 2481).


RESULTS
Twenty (6%) healthcare workers and 131 (5%) members of the referent population reported new-onset asthma. Compared to the referent group, the authors observed increased risks among hospital technicians (RR 4.63; 95% CI 1.87 to 11.5) and among those using ammonia and/or bleach at work (RR 2.16; 95% CI 1.03 to 4.53).


CONCLUSIONS
In the ECRHS II cohort, hospital technicians and other healthcare workers experience increased risks of new-onset current asthma, possibly due to specific products used at work.
Effect of penile-extender device in increasing penile size in men with shortened penis: preliminary results.

INTRODUCTION
It has been suggested that the application of penile-extender devices increases penile length and circumference. However, there are a few scientific studies in this field.


AIMS
The aim of this study was to assess the efficacy of a penile-extender (Golden Erect(®) , Ronas Tajhiz Teb, Tehran, Iran) in increasing penile size.


METHODS
This prospective study was performed on subjects complaining about "short penis" who were presented to our clinic between September 15, 2008 and December 15, 2008. After measuring the penile length in flaccid and stretched forms and penile circumference, patients were instructed to wear Golden Erect(®) , 4-6 hours per day during the first 2 weeks and then 9 hours per day until the end of the third month. The subjects were also trained how to increase the force of the device during determined intervals. The patients were visited at the end of the first and third months, and penile length and circumference were measured and compared with baseline.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
The primary end point of the study was changes in flaccid and stretched penile lengths compared with the baseline size during the 3 months follow-up.


RESULTS
Twenty-three cases with a mean age of 26.5 ± 8.1 years entered the study. The mean flaccid penile length increased from 8.8 ± 1.2 cm to 10.1 ± 1.2 cm and 10.5 ± 1.2 cm, respectively, in the first and third months of follow-up, which was statistically significant (P < 0.05). Mean stretched penile length also significantly increased from 11.5 ± 1.0 cm to, respectively, 12.4 ± 1.3 cm and 13.2 ± 1.4 cm during the first and second follow-up (P < 0.05). No significant difference was found regarding proximal penile girth. However, it was not the same regarding the circumference of the glans penis (9.3 ± 0.86 cm vs. 8.8 ± 0.66 cm, P < 0.05).


CONCLUSION
Our findings supported the efficacy of the device in increasing penile length. Our result also suggested the possibility of glans penis girth enhancement using penile extender. Performing more studies is recommended.
Design of a Novel Reversible Multiplier Circuit Using HNG Gate in Nanotechnology

Reversible logic circuits are of interests to power minimization having applications in low power CMOS design, optical information processing, DNA computing, bioinformatics, quantum computing and nanotechnology. In this paper we propose a novel 4x4 bit reversible multiplier circuit. The proposed reversible multiplier is faster and has lower hardware complexity compared to the existing counterparts. It is also better than the existing counterparts in term of number of gates, garbage outputs and constant inputs. Haghparast and Navi recently proposed a 4x4 reversible gate called "HNG". The reversible HNG gate can work singly as a reversible full adder. In this paper we use HNG gates to construct the reversible multiplier circuit. The proposed reversible multiplier circuit using HNG gate can multiply two 4-bits binary numbers. The proposed reversible 4x4 multiplier circuit can be generalized for NxN bit multiplication. We can use it to construct more complex systems in nanotechnology.
[Effects of teaching method using standardized patients on nursing competence in subcutaneous injection, self-directed learning readiness, and problem solving ability].

PURPOSE
The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of teaching method using Standardized Patients (SPs) on nursing competence, self-directed learning readiness, and problem solving ability-focusing on subcutaneous insulin injection.


METHODS
This research was a nonequivalent control group non-synchronized post-test design. The subjects consisted of 62 junior nursing students at E University. Scenarios to train SPs and checklists to evaluate the students' competence were developed by our research team. The experimental group (n=31) participated in the teaching class using SPs. The control group (n=31) received traditional practice education. The collected data were analyzed with descriptive analysis, X(2)/Fisher's exact test, t-test, Pearson's correlation coefficient, and Cronbach's alpha using SPSS WIN 14.0 Program.


RESULTS
The mean scores of competence, self-directed learning readiness, and problem solving were significantly higher in the experimental group than the control group.


CONCLUSION
As confirmed by this research findings, the teaching method using SPs was more effective than the traditional method to improve junior nursing students' competence, self-directed learning readiness, and problem solving. Therefore, It is necessary to develop a various of scenarios and to testify their effectiveness.
Use of antimicrobials in food-producing animals in Switzerland and in the European Union (EU)

A new era in human medicine began in the 1930’s with the discovery of antimicrobial agents. Sulfonamides were the first antibiotics introduced into the hospital. Although penicillin was first discovered in 1929, this drug has only been deployed for therapy of bacterial diseases in humans since 1940. In the following decades, a wide variety of antibiotics such as streptomycin, chloramphenicol, tetracycline, erythromycin and quinolones have been developed. Soon after their introduction in human medicine, antibiotics were also used in veterinary medicine to treat and to prevent infectious diseases in animals. Additionally, subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics were used as feed additives to improve growth rate in animals. However, infectiology soon became confronted with bacteria that developed antibiotic resistances, which since the 1980’s led to severe problems in antibiotics therapy (1). Moreover, since that time, the development of antibiotics consisted solely of modifications and improvements of existing drugs, but not of the discovery of a new class of antibiotics. Important pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella, Escherichia coli, Campylobacter, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, staphylococci, enterococci and Pseudomonas species are today resistant to many antibiotics. Bacteria possess several mechanisms to fight back at antibiotics thereby developing resistances. This results from either specific DNA mutations that modify targets or from the acquisition of antibiotic resistance genes that specify for enzymes that can inactivate antibiotics, prevent their access to their targets or generate their removal out of the cell. Such genes can be found on transmissible genetic elements like plasmids, transposons or integrons that can be exchanged between bacteria (2). In Europe, many antibiotics that have been used as growth promoters have belonged to the same classes as important antibiotics used in human medicine. Thereby, antibiotic resistant bacteria from animal origin were selected for and turned out to show cross resistance against antibiotics currently used in human med-
Determinants of Adherence to Treatment in Hypertensive Patients of African Descent and the Role of Culturally Appropriate Education

BACKGROUND
In Western countries, better knowledge about patient-related determinants of treatment adherence (medication and lifestyle) is needed to improve treatment adherence and outcomes among hypertensive ethnic minority patients of African descent.


OBJECTIVE
To identify patient-related determinants of adherence to lifestyle and medication recommendations among hypertensive African Surinamese and Ghanaian patients with suboptimal treatment results (SBP≥140) living in the Netherlands and how culturally appropriate hypertension education (CAHE) influenced those determinants.


METHODS
This study analysed data of 139 patients who participated in the CAHE trial. Univariate logistic regression analysis was used to measure the association between patient-related determinants (medication self-efficacy, beliefs about medication and hypertension, social support, and satisfaction with care) and treatment adherence. We also tested whether CAHE influenced the determinants.


RESULTS
Medication self-efficacy and social support were associated with medication adherence at baseline. At six months, more medication self-efficacy and fewer concerns about medication use were associated with improved medication adherence. Self-efficacy was also associated with adherence to lifestyle recommendations at baseline. CAHE influenced patients' illness perceptions by creating more understanding of hypertension, its chronic character, and more concerns about the associated risks.


CONCLUSION
In this high-risk population, health care providers can support medication adherence by paying attention to patients' medication self-efficacy, the concerns they may have about medication use and patients' perceptions on hypertension. The CAHE intervention improved patients' perception on hypertension.
Psychosocial therapy and causes of death after deliberate self-harm: a register-based, nationwide multicentre study using propensity score matching.

BACKGROUND
Psychosocial therapy after deliberate self-harm might be associated with reduced risk of specific causes of death.


METHOD
In this matched cohort study, we included patients, who after an episode of deliberate self-harm received psychosocial therapy at a Suicide Prevention Clinic in Denmark between 1992 and 2010. We used propensity score matching in a 1:3 ratio to select a comparison group from 59 046 individuals who received standard care. National Danish registers supplied data on specific causes of death over a 20-year follow-up period.


RESULTS
At the end of follow-up, 391 (6.9%) of 5678 patients in the psychosocial therapy group had died, compared with 1736 (10.2%) of 17 034 patients in the matched comparison group. Lower odds ratios of dying by mental or behavioural disorders [0.54, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.37-0.79], alcohol-related causes (0.63, 95% CI 0.50-0.80) and other diseases and medical conditions (0.61, 95% CI 0.49-0.77) were noted in the psychosocial therapy group. Also, we found a reduced risk of dying by suicide as well as other external causes, however, not by neoplasms and circulatory system diseases. Numbers needed to treat were 212.9 (95% CI 139.5-448.4) for mental or behavioural disorders as a cause of death, 111.1 (95% CI 79.2-210.5) for alcohol-related causes and 96.8 (95% CI 69.1-161.8) for other diseases and medical conditions.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings indicate that psychosocial therapy after deliberate self-harm might reduce long-term risk of death from select medical conditions and external causes. These promising results should be tested in a randomized design.
Conceptual Design and Mission Analysis for a Geared Turbofan and an Open Rotor Configuration

In this multidisciplinary study a geared open rotor configuration is assessed and compared to an ultra high bypass ratio geared turbofan engine. Both designs assume a 2020 entry into service level of technology. The specific thrust level for minimizing block fuel and the resulting engine emissions for a given mission is sought. The tool used contains models that effectively capture: engine performance, mechanical and aerodynamic design, engine weight, emissions, aircraft design and performance as well as direct operating costs. The choice of specific thrust is a complex optimization problem and several disciplines need to be considered simultaneously. It will be demonstrated, through multidisciplinary analysis, that the open rotor concept can offer a substantial fuel saving potential, compared to ducted fans, for a given set of design considerations and customer requirements. NOMENCLATURE ∆h0 Stagnation enthalpy change ηpol Polytropic efficiency A Annulus area AR Axial Aspect Ratio BPR Bypass Ratio CO2 Carbon dioxide D Propeller diameter [m] DDTF Direct Drive Turbo Fan DOC Direct Operating Cost DREAM valiDation of Radical Engine Architecture systeMs EINOx Nitrogen Oxides Emissions Index EIS Entry Into Service FAR Federal Aviation Regulations FB Fuel Burn FL Flight Level FP7 Seventh Framework Program FPR Fan Pressure Ratio GOR Geared Open Rotor GTF Geared TurboFan GTFSR Short Range Geared TurboFan hb Blade height HPC High Pressure Compressor HPT High Pressure Turbine ICAO International Civil Aviation Organization IPC Intermediate Pressure Compressor ISA International Standard Atmosphere IPT Intermediate Pressure Turbine K Blade volume factor LT Long Term LTO Landing and Take-Off LR Long Range MT Medium Term N Rotational speed NOx Nitrogen Oxides OEM Original Equipment Manufacturer OPR Overall Pressure Ratio PW Power RQL Rich-burn/Quick-quench/Lean-burn SFC Specific Fuel Consumption SLS Sea Level Static SR Short Range T4 Burner exit temperature T/O Take-Off TEC Turbine Exhaust Case TET Turbine Entry Temperature Umid Mid section blade speed UHBR Ultra High Bypass Ratio UDF Un-Ducted Fan
VTEAM: A General Model for Voltage-Controlled Memristors

Memristors are novel electrical devices used for a variety of applications, including memory, logic circuits, and neuromorphic systems. Memristive technologies are attractive due to their nonvolatility, scalability, and compatibility with CMOS. Numerous physical experiments have shown the existence of a threshold voltage in some physical memristors. Additionally, as shown in this brief, some applications require voltage-controlled memristors to operate properly. In this brief, a Voltage ThrEshold Adaptive Memristor (VTEAM) model is proposed to describe the behavior of voltage-controlled memristors. The VTEAM model extends the previously proposed ThrEshold Adaptive Memristor (TEAM) model, which describes current-controlled memristors. The VTEAM model has similar advantages as the TEAM model, i.e., it is simple, general, and flexible, and can characterize different voltage-controlled memristors. The VTEAM model is accurate (below 1.5% in terms of the relative root-mean-square error) and computationally efficient as compared with existing memristor models and experimental results describing different memristive technologies.