LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Are shock index and adjusted shock index useful in predicting mortality and length of stay in community-acquired pneumonia?

BACKGROUND
Community Acquired Pneumonia (CAP) is a common infection which is associated with a significant mortality. Shock index, heart rate divided by blood pressure, has been shown to predict mortality in several conditions including sepsis, acute myocardial infarction and traumatic injuries. Very little is known about the prognostic value of shock index in community acquired pneumonia (CAP).


OBJECTIVE
To examine the usefulness of shock index (SI) and adjusted shock index (corrected to temperature) (ASI) in predicting mortality and hospital length of stay in patients admitted to hospital with CAP.


METHODS
A prospective study was conducted in three hospitals in Norfolk & Suffolk, UK. We compared risk of mortality and longer length of stay for low (=<1.0, i.e. heart rate =< systolic BP) and high (>1.0, i.e. heart rate > systolic BP) SI and ASI adjusting for age, sex and other parameters which have been shown to be associated with mortality in CAP.


RESULTS
A total of 190 patients were included (males=53%). The age range was 18-101 years (median=76 years). Patients with SI & ASI >1.0 had higher likelihood of dying within 6 weeks from admission. The adjusted odds ratio for 30 days mortality were 2.48 (1.04-5.92; p=0.04) for SI and 3.16 (1.12-8.95; p=0.03) for ASI. There was no evidence to suggest that they predict longer length of stay.


CONCLUSION
Both SI and ASI of >1.0 predict 6 weeks mortality but not longer length of stay in CAP.
Factors affecting completion of the SF-36 in older people.

OBJECTIVE
to examine the influence of specific clinical impairments and disabilities on the completion of the SF-36 health status measure among older people.


DESIGN
Prospective observational study.


SETTING/PARTICIPANTS
An SF-36 was administered to 245 subjects aged 65 years and older. Subjects were chosen by sampling from a variety of inpatient, outpatient and community sources to ensure a range of relevant disabilities.


MEASUREMENTS
response rates, overall rates of completion, completion of individual questions and time taken to complete.


RESULTS
severe functional impairment (Barthel index < or = 12) was found in 22.4% (51/228), cognitive impairment in 54.1% (132/244), depressed mood in 77.0% (151/196) and visuospatial dysfunction in 71.3% (134/188). The median number of impairments was three (interquartile range 1-4). Specific physical impairments were visual in 13.2% (31/235), hearing in 30.2% (74/245), impaired manual dexterity in 18.0% (44/245) and dysphasia in 23% (55/239). In multivariate analyses, global functional impairment (P = 0.006), cognitive impairment (P = 0.0001) and impaired manual dexterity (P = 0.005) were significantly associated with more dimensions uncompleted, whilst cognitive impairment (P = 0.001), age (P = 0.006) and visuospatial dysfunction (P = 0.0003) were significantly associated with longer completion times.


CONCLUSION
the most striking finding of the study was that global rather than specific physical and mental dysfunction was associated with the inability to complete the SF-36 questionnaire. The difficulty appears to lie in the performance of a complex task, rather than with specific aspects of the task which could be overcome by adaptation or aids. Our experience is that this relatively complex questionnaire does not adequately measure functional health status in disabled older people because of non-completion and may therefore overestimate the health of populations.
Cloud-computing based velocity profile generation for minimum fuel consumption: A dynamic programming based solution

This paper proposes a new framework to minimize the fuel consumed in a conventional vehicle over a given driving route by finding the optimal velocity profile. The optimization problem is solved in a remote cloud computing environment and assumes the vehicle route to be known a priori. A spatial domain dynamic programming optimization algorithm is used in this study to find the optimal velocity profile. The cloud-computing environment integrates information from GIS, road speed limits, into a vehicle simulator equipped with a fuel consumption model to predict fuel use along the desired route. The resulting global optimal velocity profile is sent back to the driver for velocity advisory.
Cut-Formulas in Propositional Logic

Cut formulas in propositional logic can speed up some proofs exponentially [S] (a cut-free system is used as reference when we talk about speed-ups); it is hence important to study proof systems with cut, types of cut formulas (atomic cuts versus general cuts) and also relations between cut and techniques which may speed up proofs. in Section 2, we try to explain the importance of atomic cut formulas. We study the resolution principle [3] and analysis trees [4] with atomic cut and conjecture that there are proofs by analysis trees with atomic cuts and refutations by resolution, such that transferring them to cut-free proofs will cause exponential increase of the proof length. We also study unit resolution and conclude that transferring refutations by unit resolution to cut-free proofs does not cause exponential increase of the proof length. In Section 3, we discuss using definitions in analysis trees and in resolution. We conclude that it corresponds to using abbreviations in analysis trees and to adding possibilities to use more complicated cut formulas in resolution.
Randomized Rumor Spreading

We investigate the class of so-called epidemic algorithms that are commonly used for the lazy transmission of updates to distributed copies of a database. These algorithms use a simple randomized communication mechanism to ensure robustness. Suppose players communicate in parallel rounds in each of which every player calls a randomly selected communication partner. In every round, players can generate rumors (updates) that are to be distributed among all players. Whenever communication is established between two players, each one must decide which of the rumors to transmit. The major problem (arising due to the randomization) is that players might not know which rumors their partners have already received. For example, a standard algorithm forwarding each rumor from the calling to the called players for rounds needs to transmit the rumor times in order to ensure that every player finally receives the rumor with high probability. We investigate whether such a large communication overhead is inherent to epidemic algorithms. On the positive side, we show that the communication overhead can be reduced significantly. We give an algorithm using only transmissions and rounds. In addition, we prove the robustness of this algorithm, e.g., against adversarial failures. On the negative side, we show that any address-oblivious algorithm (i.e., an algorithm that does not use the addresses of communication partners) needs to send messages for each rumor regardless of the number of rounds. Furthermore, we give a general lower bound showing that timeand communicationoptimality cannot be achieved simultaneously using random phone calls, that is, every algorithm that distributes a rumor Email: karp@icsi.berkeley.edu. International Computer Science Institute, Berkeley and University of California at Berkeley. Email: schindel@tcs.mu-luebeck.de, Institut für Theoretische Informatik, Med. Universität zu Lübeck. Parts of this work are supported by a stipend of the “Gemeinsames Hochschulsonderprogramm III von Bund und Länder” through the DAAD. Email: shenker@icsi.berkeley.edu. International Computer Science Institute, Berkley. Email: voecking@mpi-sb.mpg.de. Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik, Saarbrücken, Germany. in rounds needs transmissions.
Methyl jasmonate increases the production of valepotriates by transformed root cultures of Valerianella locusta

Transformed roots of V. locusta (Valerianaceae) were obtained through transformation with Agrobacterium rhizogenes strains A4 and ATCC 15834. Six known valepotriates, including diavaltrate, acevaltrate, didrovaltrate, IVHD-valtrate, isovaltrate, and valtrate were the major components detected. An LC/PDA method was used in the quantitation of these compounds in the transformed root extracts. The treatment of transformed roots with biotic (methyl jasmonate, salicylic acid, yeast extract) and abiotic elicitors (CuSO4, HgCl2, CaCl2) was used as a strategy to improve the production of valepotriates. Methyl jasmonate appeared to be the best elicitor for valepotriate production, yielding up to a 7-fold increase in total valepotriate content, while HgCl2 had the most deteriorating effect on the production of valepotriates. Salicylic acid-, CuSO4- and CaCl2-treated roots showed significant increases in the production at a short duration of exposure; the production decreased as the time of elicitation increased. The highest total valepotriate content achieved in this study was 139 mg g−1 DW (13.9%) from transformed roots treated for 10 days with 100 μM methyl jasmonate. This amount was >50- and 12-fold higher than the values reported from the cultivated plants and callus culture, respectively, and was comparable to the amount reported from the high valepotriate-producing species Valeriana thalictroides Graebn. The production of diavaltrate, acevaltrate, didrovaltrate, and isovaltrate were significantly higher, while the production of IVHD-valtrate was lower and that of valtrate was similar to that of the control. The IVAL/VAL production ratio was affected by the treatment with methyl jasmonate but not by other elicitors. The use of transformed root cultures in combination with the treatment with biotic and abiotic elicitors offer a new route for high valepotriate production.
Hollywood and the Culture Elite: How the Movies Became American

Introduction: How Film Became Art 1. Vachel Lindsay and the Universal Film Collection 2. Overlapping Publics: Hollywood and Columbia University, 1915 3. Mandarins and Marxists: Harvard and the Rise of Film Experts 4. Iris Barry, Hollywood Imperialism, and the Gender of the Nation 5. The Museum of Modern Art and the Roots of the Cultural Cold War 6. The Politics of Patronage: How the NEA (Accidentally) Created American Avant-Garde Film Conclusion: The End of the Studio System
Pharmacokinetics of doxorubicin in children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia: multi-institutional collaborative study.

BACKGROUND
In adults, it has been shown that the pharmacokinetics of doxorubicin are highly variable, despite standardization of the dose based on body surface area (BSA). The purpose of this study was to determine the plasma concentrations of doxorubicin and its active metabolite doxorubicinol in children treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL).


PROCEDURE
Children, 107 in number, aged 1.3-17.3 years, were studied at Day 1 of induction therapy according to the current Nordic protocol. Five infants, 3-9 months old, were also included. Plasma samples were drawn 23 hr after the start of a 24-hr infusion of doxorubicin 40 mg/m(2), and analyzed by reversed-phase liquid chromatography.


RESULTS
There was a more than 10-fold difference between patients in dose normalized plasma concentration of doxorubicin, median 62.8 ng/ml, range 22.6-334 ng/ml. The doxorubicin concentrations differed significantly between age groups (P = 0.003). Children aged 4-6 years had the highest doxorubicin concentrations, median 77.9 ng/ml, followed by 2-4-year-old children, median 64.3 ng/ml. Both younger and older children had median values of about 50 ng/ml. Patients with white blood cell (WBC) count > 50 x 10(9)/L at diagnosis had significantly lower doxorubicin concentrations, median 55.3 ng/ml, than those with WBC count < 10 x 10(9)/L, median 64.4 ng/ml (P = 0.015). There was no difference in doxorubicin concentration between boys and girls. No correlation was found between doxorubicin levels and serum aminotransferases or serum creatinine. The concentration of doxorubicinol was 13% (median value) of that of doxorubicin. Four infants, 7-9 months old, had plasma clearance between 350-431 ml/min/m(2), which is in the same range as in older children. A 3-month-old infant had a clearance of 181 ml/min/m(2).


CONCLUSIONS
The age groups who had the highest doxorubicin concentrations, (2-) 4-6-year-old children, are known to make up a large proportion of standard risk ALL cases with good prognosis. The correlation between doxorubicin plasma levels and clinical effect needs further study. The influence of age, body composition, and tumor burden on the pharmacokinetics of antineoplastic drugs should also be further explored, aiming at improvements in the current dosing regimen based on BSA.
Dictionary Pair Classifier Driven Convolutional Neural Networks for Object Detection

Feature representation and object category classification are two key components of most object detection methods. While significant improvements have been achieved for deep feature representation learning, traditional SVM/softmax classifiers remain the dominant methods for the final object category classification. However, SVM/softmax classifiers lack the capacity of explicitly exploiting the complex structure of deep features, as they are purely discriminative methods. The recently proposed discriminative dictionary pair learning (DPL) model involves a fidelity term to minimize the reconstruction loss and a discrimination term to enhance the discriminative capability of the learned dictionary pair, and thus is appropriate for balancing the representation and discrimination to boost object detection performance. In this paper, we propose a novel object detection system by unifying DPL with the convolutional feature learning. Specifically, we incorporate DPL as a Dictionary Pair Classifier Layer (DPCL) into the deep architecture, and develop an end-to-end learning algorithm for optimizing the dictionary pairs and the neural networks simultaneously. Moreover, we design a multi-task loss for guiding our model to accomplish the three correlated tasks: objectness estimation, categoryness computation, and bounding box regression. From the extensive experiments on PASCAL VOC 2007/2012 benchmarks, our approach demonstrates the effectiveness to substantially improve the performances over the popular existing object detection frameworks (e.g., R-CNN [13] and FRCN [12]), and achieves new state-of-the-arts.
Puccinia psidii infecting cultivated Eucalyptus and native myrtaceae in Uruguay

Eucalyptus or guava rust caused by Puccinia psidii is a serious disease of Eucalyptus and other Myrtaceae. In Uruguay, it has been previously found on Eucalyptus globulus and Psidium brasiliensis. Almost nothing is known regarding the occurrence of this pathogen on other Eucalyptus species or native Myrtaceae in that country. In this study, we determined the presence of P. psidii on Eucalyptus species and native Myrtaceae trees in Uruguay and evaluated the pathogenicity of specimens from native myrtaceous hosts on E. globulus and E. grandis. Phylogenetic analyses based on the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region of the nuclear ribosomal DNA operon were used to confirm pathogen identity. Comparisons of ITS sequences confirmed the identity of P. psidii on Eucalyptus globulus, E. grandis, Myrcianthes pungens, and Myrrhinium atropurpureum var. octandrum. This is the first report of P. psidii on M. atropurpureum var. octandrum. Pathogenicity tests showed that isolates from native Myrtaceae could infect both Eucalyptus species tested, indicating a strong biological relationship between both introduced and native Myrtaceae. This study supplies relevant field data, morphological information, molecular phylogenetic analyses and infection studies that contribute to a better understanding of an important and little studied pathogen.
On the intelligibility of fast synthesized speech for individuals with early-onset blindness

People with visual disabilities increasingly use text-to-speech synthesis as a primary output modality for interaction with computers. Surprisingly, there have been no systematic comparisons of the performance of different text-to-speech systems for this user population. In this paper we report the results of a pilot experiment on the intelligibility of fast synthesized speech for individuals with early-onset blindness. Using an open-response recall task, we collected data on four synthesis systems representing two major approaches to text-to-speech synthesis: formant-based synthesis and concatenative unit selection synthesis. We found a significant effect of speaking rate on intelligibility of synthesized speech, and a trend towards significance for synthesizer type. In post-hoc analyses, we found that participant-related factors, including age and familiarity with a synthesizer and voice, also affect intelligibility of fast synthesized speech.
The renin-angiotensin receptor blocker azilsartan medoxomil compared with the angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor ramipril in clinical trials versus routine practice: insights from the prospective EARLY registry

BACKGROUND
Patient characteristics and blood pressure-related outcomes in randomized clinical trials (RCTs) differ from clinical practice because of stringent selection criteria. The present study aimed to explore the relationship between clinical trials and clinical practice. We analyzed data from patients enrolled in the "Treatment with Azilsartan Compared to ACE-Inhibitors in Anti-Hypertensive Therapy" (EARLY) registry comparing blood pressure (BP) effects of the angiotensin receptor blocker (ARB) azilsartan medoxomil (AZL-M) with the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitor ramipril between patients who met the eligibility criteria of a previous RCT and those who did not.


METHODS
Patients with primary arterial hypertension were consecutively enrolled from primary care offices in Germany into the EARLY registry in a 7:3 ratio for treatment with AZL-M or an ACE inhibitor, provided that they met the following criteria at baseline: 1) no antihypertensive treatment prior to inclusion or a non-renin-angiotensin system (RAS) based monotherapy; 2) initiation of treatment with either AZL-M or an ACE inhibitor alone. Analyses were performed to evaluate BP effects for patients in the EARLY registry who met the selection criteria of a prior RCT (RCT+) versus those who did not (RCT-).


RESULTS
Out of 3,698 patients considered, 1,644 complied with the RCT criteria (RCT+) while 2,054 did not (RCT-). RCT- patients (55.5%) displayed a higher risk profile in terms of age and comorbidities, and a wider spectrum of BP values at baseline, as highlighted by the grades of hypertension and mean BP values. The proportion of patients who achieved target blood pressure control in the RCT+ group was significantly higher for AZL-M versus ramipril (64.1 versus 56.1%; P<0.01), in accordance with the result of the clinical trial. In the RCT- AZL-M group, the proportion of patients who met BP targets was lower (58.1%) than in the RCT+ AZL-M group (64.1%), whereas the proportion of patients with target BP values in the RCT- ramipril and the RCT+ ramipril groups was similar (57.7 versus 56.1%). Thus, in contrast to results for the RCT+ group, in the RCT- group, the target BP attainment rate for AZL-M was not significantly superior to that for ramipril. However, the tolerability profile of AZL-M and ramipril was comparable in both populations. At the 12-month follow-up, death and stroke rates were low (≤0.5%) and adverse events did not differ between the AZL-M and ramipril groups, irrespective of RCT eligibility.


CONCLUSIONS
These data confirm that the EARLY population comprised a broader spectrum of hypertensive patients than RCTs, and the differences in patient characteristics were accompanied by disparate rates of blood pressure goal attainment. Overall, the validity of the RCT was demonstrated and confirmed in clinical practice with a broader range of patients with various comorbidities.
Policy-driven autonomic management of multi-component systems

Policies have been proposed as a means to express required or desired behavior of systems and applications, and possible management actions for resolving violations, to an autonomic manager. In multi-component systems, such as e-commerce systems, independent sets of policies often deals with managing the behavior of the individual components. In turn, the autonomic management system uses the policies to make decisions on what actions to take per component when a policy is violated. During operation of these multi-component systems, however, these independent sets of policies may yield multiple directives from which the autonomic manager must select one or more appropriate actions. In this work we look at heuristics that an autonomic manager might use to select an action. We outline the design and implementation of an autonomic manager making use of these heuristics and describe our experiences with it in a dynamic Web server. Experimental results are reported comparing the effectiveness of the heuristics.
Theoretical and experimental comparison of total harmonic distortion factors for the evaluation of harmonic and interharmonic pollution of grid-connected photovoltaic systems

Grid-connected photovoltaic systems are increasingly used in electrical distribution systems. However, they inject distorted currents. Therefore, special attention must be paid to harmonic and interharmonic measurements. The new edition of IEC 61000-4-7 introduces the concept of harmonic and interharmonic groups, which implies new expressions for total harmonic distortion (THD) factors. In this paper, a theoretical and experimental comparison is made between the different THD factors in order to show which of the currently defined distortion factors is best suited to detect harmonic and interharmonic pollution. Experimental tests were carried out first by means of a calibrator and subsequently in a single-phase grid-connected photovoltaic system. In both cases, measurements were carried out with a PC-based instrument developed by the authors and able to calculate the distortion factors according to IEC 61000-4-7.
Patients overwhelmingly prefer inpatient boarding to emergency department boarding.

BACKGROUND
Boarding of admitted patients in the emergency department (ED) is a major cause of crowding. One alternative to boarding in the ED, a full-capacity protocol where boarded patients are redeployed to inpatient units, can reduce crowding and improve overall flow.


OBJECTIVE
Our aim was to compare patient satisfaction with boarding in the ED vs. inpatient hallways.


METHODS
We performed a structured telephone survey regarding patient experiences and preferences for boarding among admitted ED patients who experienced boarding in the ED hallway and then were subsequently transferred to inpatient hallways. Demographic and clinical characteristics, as well as patient preferences, including items related to patient comfort and safety using a 5-point scale, were recorded and descriptive statistics were used to summarize the data.


RESULTS
Of 110 patients contacted, 105 consented to participate. Mean age was 57 ± 16 years and 52% were female. All patients were initially boarded in the ED in a hallway before their transfer to an inpatient hallway bed. The overall preferred location after admission was the inpatient hallway in 85% (95% confidence interval 75-90) of respondents. In comparing ED vs. inpatient hallway boarding, the following percentages of respondents preferred inpatient boarding with regard to the following 8 items: rest, 85%; safety, 83%; confidentiality, 82%; treatment, 78%; comfort, 79%; quiet, 84%; staff availability, 84%; and privacy, 84%. For no item was there a preference for boarding in the ED.


CONCLUSIONS
Patients overwhelmingly preferred the inpatient hallway rather than the ED hallway when admitted to the hospital.