LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Using pedometers to increase physical activity and improve health: a systematic review.

CONTEXT
Without detailed evidence of their effectiveness, pedometers have recently become popular as a tool for motivating physical activity.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the association of pedometer use with physical activity and health outcomes among outpatient adults.


DATA SOURCES
English-language articles from MEDLINE, EMBASE, Sport Discus, PsychINFO, Cochrane Library, Thompson Scientific (formerly known as Thompson ISI), and ERIC (1966-2007); bibliographies of retrieved articles; and conference proceedings.


STUDY SELECTION
Studies were eligible for inclusion if they reported an assessment of pedometer use among adult outpatients, reported a change in steps per day, and included more than 5 participants.


DATA EXTRACTION AND DATA SYNTHESIS
Two investigators independently abstracted data about the intervention; participants; number of steps per day; and presence or absence of obesity, diabetes, hypertension, or hyperlipidemia. Data were pooled using random-effects calculations, and meta-regression was performed.


RESULTS
Our searches identified 2246 citations; 26 studies with a total of 2767 participants met inclusion criteria (8 randomized controlled trials [RCTs] and 18 observational studies). The participants' mean (SD) age was 49 (9) years and 85% were women. The mean intervention duration was 18 weeks. In the RCTs, pedometer users significantly increased their physical activity by 2491 steps per day more than control participants (95% confidence interval [CI], 1098-3885 steps per day, P < .001). Among the observational studies, pedometer users significantly increased their physical activity by 2183 steps per day over baseline (95% CI, 1571-2796 steps per day, P < .0001). Overall, pedometer users increased their physical activity by 26.9% over baseline. An important predictor of increased physical activity was having a step goal such as 10,000 steps per day (P = .001). When data from all studies were combined, pedometer users significantly decreased their body mass index by 0.38 (95% CI, 0.05-0.72; P = .03). This decrease was associated with older age (P = .001) and having a step goal (P = .04). Intervention participants significantly decreased their systolic blood pressure by 3.8 mm Hg (95% CI, 1.7-5.9 mm Hg, P < .001). This decrease was associated with greater baseline systolic blood pressure (P = .009) and change in steps per day (P = .08).


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggest that the use of a pedometer is associated with significant increases in physical activity and significant decreases in body mass index and blood pressure. Whether these changes are durable over the long term is undetermined.
Magnetic-assisted triboelectric nanogenerators as self-powered visualized omnidirectional tilt sensing system

The triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) is a promising device in energy harvesting and self-powered sensing. In this work, we demonstrate a magnetic-assisted TENG, utilizing the magnetic force for electric generation. Maximum power density of 541.1 mW/m(2) is obtained at 16.67 MΩ for the triboelectric part, while the electromagnetic part can provide power density of 649.4 mW/m(2) at 16 Ω. Through theoretical calculation and experimental measurement, linear relationship between the tilt angle and output voltage at large angles is observed. On this basis, a self-powered omnidirectional tilt sensor is realized by two magnetic-assisted TENGs, which can measure the magnitude and direction of the tilt angle at the same time. For visualized sensing of the tilt angle, a sensing system is established, which is portable, intuitive, and self-powered. This visualized system greatly simplifies the measure process, and promotes the development of self-powered systems.
Building nation-wide information infrastructures in healthcare through modular implementation strategies

0963-8687/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V doi:10.1016/j.jsis.2011.03.006 ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +47 22852545; fax: E-mail addresses: margunn@ifi.uio.no (M. Aanes 1 Tel.: +45 38152455. Initiatives that seek to realize the vision of nation-wide information infrastructures (II) in healthcare have often failed to achieve their goals. In this paper, we focus on approaches used to plan, conduct, and manage the realization of such visions. Our empirical material describes two Danish initiatives, where a national project failed to deliver interoperable Electronic Patient Record (EPR) systems while a small, local solution grew and now offers a nation-wide solution for sharing patient record information. We apply II theory, specifically the five design principles proposed by Hanseth and Lyytinen, to contrast the organization and implementation strategies of the two projects. Our findings highlight how implementation strategies differ with respect to how stakeholders are mobilized. We argue that the realization of nation-wide IIs for healthcare not only requires a gradual transition of the installed base, which current II theory advocates. Here we articulate and exemplify a modular implementation strategy as an approach that also addresses the challenges related to mobilization and organization of multiple stakeholders. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
The Head-Teacher's Instructional Role in Academic Achievement in Secondary Schools in Vihiga District, Kenya.

The head teachers’ role is to promote academic performance. It is therefore important that the performance of a school is appraised against the performance of the person who leads it. The purpose of the study was to investigate the instructional role of the head-teacher in academic achievement in Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) examinations in Vihiga district of Western province. The population of the study comprised 84 head-teachers and 1,280 teachers serving in the 84 secondary schools. Saturated sampling technique was used to select a sample from the high and average performing schools, while stratified random sampling technique was used to select a sample from the low performing schools. The sample comprised 7 high performing schools, 17 average performing schools and 20 low performing schools. All the 44 head-teachers of the selected schools formed part of the sample for the study together with 8 teachers from each school sampled randomly. Data was collected by use of questionnaires, in-depth interviews and document analysis guide. Data was analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics of frequencies and percentages. The findings of the study showed that head-teachers’ instructional role included regular checking of teachers’ professional records, regular class supervision, and management plan for carrying out curriculum goals. Therefore, since the role of the head-teacher is associated with high student achievement, the study recommends that head-teachers should enhance internal supervision of teachers.
Efficient multi-channel wideband spectrum sensing technique using filter bank

As a growing interest in the cognitive radio technology has been taken based on the idea of opportunistic spectrum use, the spectrum sensing technique for dynamic channel environment is more and more important to ensure that cognitive radios would not interfere with primary systems while it achieves reasonable throughput opportunistically. Architecture based on filter bank allows to sense multi-channels simultaneously with low spectrum leakage from adjacent channels thanks to efficient implementation of bandpass filters. Therefore it is now attracting much interest. In this paper, we propose a framework of multi-channel sensing architecture based on polyphase DFT filter bank followed by energy detector with minimum complexity. The sensing performance is evaluated by numerical simulation as well as theoretical analysis comparing with the conventional periodogram spectral estimator and time domain sequential sensing.
Data structures in Java for matrix computations

In this paper we show how to utilize Java’s native arrays for matrix computations. The disadvantages of Java arrays used as a 2D array for dense matrix computation are discussed and ways to improve the performance are examined. We show how to create efficient dynamic data structures for sparse matrix computations using Java’s native arrays. This data structure is unique for Java and shown to be more dynamic and efficient than the traditional storage schemes for large sparse matrices. Numerical testing indicates that this new data structure, called Java Sparse Array, is competitive with the traditional Compressed Row Storage scheme on matrix computation routines. Java gives increased flexibility without losing efficiency. Compared with other object-oriented data structures Java Sparse Array is shown to have the same flexibility. Copyright c © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Patient and relative education in community psychiatry: a randomized controlled trial regarding its effectiveness

Background: Family psychoeducation has a well-documented effect on the short-term prognosis in schizophrenia. Less is known about the effectiveness of shorter programmes with the main focus on information for patients (patient education) or for patients and relatives (family education). Methods: A randomized study of the effectiveness of an eight-session psychoeducational programme for patients with schizophrenia and for their relatives was conducted in two community mental health centres, in Århus and Viborg (Denmark). Patient outcome measures were knowledge, relapse, compliance, insight and satisfaction, and relative outcome measures were knowledge and satisfaction. Postintervention outcome and follow-up evaluation 1 year after the start of the intervention are presented. Results: A statistically significant increase in knowledge of schizophrenia in both relatives and patients was demonstrated at postintervention and a non-significant trend at 1-year follow-up. Statistically significant changes in the Verona Service Satisfaction Scale Scores in the sub-dimension of satisfaction with Relatives involvement were demonstrated both for patients and relatives postintervention and for patients at 1-year follow-up. There was a tendency that time-to-relapse increased in the intervention group at postintervention and that the schizophrenia subscore of the Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale was reduced in the intervention group at 1-year follow-up. No differences were found between the groups regarding compliance, insight into psychosis, psychosocial function (General Assessment of Function) or in relatives' expressed emotion scores postintervention or at 1-year follow-up. Conclusion: A short patient and relative education programme seems to be able to influence knowledge and some aspects of satisfaction, but does not seem to be sufficient to influence important variables such as relapse, compliance, psychopathology, insight or psychosocial functioning.
Pre-cART Elevation of CRP and CD4+ T-Cell Immune Activation Associated With HIV Clinical Progression in a Multinational Case-Cohort Study.

BACKGROUND
Despite the success of combination antiretroviral therapy (cART), a subset of HIV-infected patients who initiate cART develop early clinical progression to AIDS; therefore, some cART initiators are not fully benefitted by cART. Immune activation pre-cART may predict clinical progression in cART initiators.


METHODS
A case-cohort study (n = 470) within the multinational Prospective Evaluation of Antiretrovirals in Resource-Limited Settings clinical trial (1571 HIV treatment-naive adults who initiated cART; CD4 T-cell count <300 cells/mm; 9 countries) was conducted. A subcohort of 30 participants per country was randomly selected; additional cases were added from the main cohort. Cases [n = 236 (random subcohort 36; main cohort 200)] had clinical progression (incident WHO stage 3/4 event or death) within 96 weeks after cART initiation. Immune activation biomarkers were quantified pre-cART. Associations between biomarkers and clinical progression were examined using weighted multivariable Cox-proportional hazards models.


RESULTS
Median age was 35 years, 45% were women, 49% black, 31% Asian, and 9% white. Median CD4 T-cell count was 167 cells per cubic millimeter. In multivariate analysis, highest quartile C-reactive protein concentration [adjusted hazard ratio (aHR), 2.53; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.02 to 6.28] and CD4 T-cell activation (aHR, 5.18; 95% CI: 1.09 to 24.47) were associated with primary outcomes, compared with lowest quartiles. sCD14 had a trend toward association with clinical failure (aHR, 2.24; 95% CI: 0.96 to 5.21).


CONCLUSIONS
Measuring C-reactive protein and CD4 T-cell activation may identify patients with CD4 T-cell counts <300 cells per cubic millimeter at risk for early clinical progression when initiating cART. Additional vigilance and symptom-based screening may be required in this subset of patients even after beginning cART.
Association of single nucleotide gene polymorphism at interleukin-1beta +3954, -511, and -31 in chronic periodontitis and aggressive periodontitis in Dravidian ethnicity.

BACKGROUND
Interleukin (IL)-1beta gene polymorphisms are considered a potential risk factor for periodontal disease. The aim of this study is to identify the association of IL-1beta gene polymorphisms with chronic periodontitis and aggressive periodontitis in a Malayalam-speaking Dravidian population from South India.


METHODS
The case-control study consisted of 43 patients with chronic periodontitis and 54 patients with aggressive periodontitis as cases, and the control group consisted of 101 healthy subjects. All subjects were genotyped for IL-1beta +3954, -511, and -31 loci by polymerase chain reaction amplification followed by restriction enzyme digestion and gel electrophoresis. Genotype, allele, and haplotype analyses were done.


RESULTS
Analyses for allele and genotypes showed a high frequency of the C allele and CC genotype for single nucleotide polymorphism IL-1beta +3954 in the group with chronic periodontitis and no difference for patients with aggressive periodontitis compared to controls (P <0.05). Haplotype analysis showed that IL-1beta -31 and -511 were in strong linkage disequilibrium in all groups. The IL-1beta -31 allele T was in linkage with allele T of IL-1beta +3954 in the control group.


CONCLUSIONS
In the Malayalam-speaking Dravidian population, allele C of IL-1beta +3954 appeared to be an important risk factor for chronic periodontitis. The IL-1beta -31 allele T was in linkage with allele T of IL-1beta +3954 in the control group. No gene polymorphisms were found in patients with aggressive periodontitis. More studies with a larger sample size involving the entire cluster of the IL-1beta gene are necessary to determine the exact role of IL-1beta gene polymorphisms in periodontal disease.
Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization with time variant inertia and acceleration coefficients

In this article we describe a novel Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) approach to multi-objective optimization (MOO), called Time Variant Multi-Objective Particle Swarm Optimization (TV-MOPSO). TV-MOPSO is made adaptive in nature by allowing its vital parameters (viz., inertia weight and acceleration coefficients) to change with iterations. This adaptiveness helps the algorithm to explore the search space more efficiently. A new diversity parameter has been used to ensure sufficient diversity amongst the solutions of the non-dominated fronts, while retaining at the same time the convergence to the Pareto-optimal front. TV-MOPSO has been compared with some recently developed multi-objective PSO techniques and evolutionary algorithms for 11 function optimization problems, using different performance measures. 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
The tooty fruity vegie project: changing knowledge and attitudes about fruits and vegetables.

OBJECTIVES
The Tooty Fruity Vegie (TFV) project was a multi-strategic, school-based intervention aimed at preventing the large decline in fruit and vegetable intake that typically starts during primary school.


METHODS
During 1999 and 2000, TFV was implemented in 10 volunteer primary schools across the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales. Surveys were conducted, in late 2000, with children, parents, teachers and principals across nine intervention and three matched control schools. Intervention schools' management teams also completed strategy implementation indexes indicating how often, how well and with how many people each major strategy was implemented.


RESULTS
Completed surveys from 613 parents (59%), 392 older children (65%), 50 teachers (81%) and all 10 intervention principals and school management teams showed the project was well implemented, achieved high reach and was very positively received. The project enhanced the quality, diversity and frequency of classroom fruit and vegetable-promoting activities, substantially increasing children's involvement and enjoyment levels. It significantly improved children's fruit and vegetable knowledge, attitudes, access and preparation skills; parents' knowledge and involvement in fruit and vegetable-promoting activities in schools and beyond; and teachers' perceived support for doing fruit and vegetable promotions.


CONCLUSION
Despite some methodological limitations, which may limit confidence in our findings, survey results across all target groups consistently indicated that primary schools can be supported to establish, implement and sustain highly acceptable and effective fruit and vegetable-promoting programs.
Evaluation of bivalirudin hyper- and hypo-ACT responses in the setting of percutaneous coronary intervention.

BACKGROUND
Bivalirudin has emerged as a suitable alternative anticoagulant to unfractionated heparin and low-molecular-weight heparins during percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) procedures in the management of coronary artery disease and acute coronary syndromes (ACS). In clinical trials, bivalirudin dosing was standardized, and activated clotting time (ACT) did not influence dosing adjustments. The role of ACT monitoring of bivalirudin in PCI is not defined based on current practice guidelines.


HYPOTHESIS
The hypothesis of this study is that hyper- and hypo-ACT responses to bivalirudin in PCI may be associated with excessive bleeding or thrombotic complications.


METHODS
The planned protocol screened all patients who received bivalirudin therapy and ACT monitoring during PCI in a single center's cardiac catheterization laboratory from July 2009 to June 2010. The first ACT monitored 5 to 60 minutes after bivalirudin initiation was screened for inclusion. Values above 800 seconds and below 300 seconds were included as hyper- and hypo-ACT responses, respectively. Outcomes assessed include thrombotic and bleeding complications.


RESULTS
There were 32 patients identified as hyper-responders and 20 patients identified as hypo-responders. There were no significant thrombotic or bleeding complications in the hyper-responder group. There was 1 case (1/20, 5%) of angiographically confirmed acute stent thrombosis immediately following the placement of 5 adjoining bare-metal stents in the right coronary artery of a hypo-responder.


CONCLUSIONS
Hyper-ACT responses to bivalirudin therapy in PCI were not associated with additional bleeding risk. Bivalirudin may not adequately protect hypo-ACT responders against thrombotic complications during PCI.
Towards a Better Understanding of the Energy Consumption of Software Systems

With the rise of the usage of computers and mobile devices, and the higher price of electricity, energy management of software has become a necessity for sustainable software, devices and IT services. Energy consumption in IT is rising through the rise of web and distributed services, cloud computing, or mobile devices. Therefore, energy management approaches have been developed, ranging from optimizing software code, to adaptation strategies based on hardware resources utilization. However, these approaches do not use proper energy information for their adaptations rendering themselves limited and not energy-aware. They do not provide an energy feedback of software, and limited information is available on how and where energy is spend in software code. To address these shortcomings, we present, in this thesis, energy models, approaches and tools in order to accurately estimate the energy consumption of software at the application level, at the code level, and for inferring energy evolution models based on the method’s own input parameters. We also propose JALEN and JALEN UNIT, two energy frameworks for estimating how much energy each portion of a code consumes, and for inferring energy evolution models based on empirical benchmarking of software methods. By using software estimations and energy models, we are able to provide accurate energy information without the need of power meters or hardware energy investment. The energy information we provide also gives energy management approaches direct and accurate energy measurements for their adaptations and optimizations. Provided energy information also draws a model of energy consumption evolution of software based on the values of their input parameters. This gives developers knowledge on energy efficiency in software leading to choose some code over others based on their energy performance. The experimentations using the implementations of our energy models offer important information on how and where energy is spend in software. In particular, we provide empirical comparison of programming languages (PL), algorithms implementations, the cost of using a virtual machine in PL, compilers’ options, and I/O primitives. They also allow the detection of energy hotspots in software, therefore focusing on the main spots where further lookups are needed for energy optimizations. Finally, we demonstrate how our benchmarking framework can detect energy evolution patterns based on input parameters strategies. With our contributions, we aim to advance knowledge in energy consumption in software by proposing models, approaches and tools to accurately measure energy at finer grains. In a nutshell, we build a software-centric energy microscope and conduct experiments aimed to understand how energy is being consumed in software, and directions to be taken for energy optimized software.
Pharmacotherapy for borderline personality disorder: Cochrane systematic review of randomised trials.

BACKGROUND
Many patients with borderline personality disorder receive pharmacological treatment, but there is uncertainty about the usefulness of such therapies.


AIMS
To evaluate the evidence of effectiveness of pharmacotherapy in treating different facets of the psychopathology of borderline personality disorder.


METHOD
A Cochrane Collaboration systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised comparisons of drug v. placebo, drug v. drug, or single drug v. combined drug treatment in adult patients with borderline personality disorder was conducted. Primary outcomes were overall disorder severity as well as specific core symptoms. Secondary outcomes comprised associated psychiatric pathology and drug tolerability.


RESULTS
Twenty-seven trials were included in which first- and second-generation antipsychotics, mood stabilisers, antidepressants and omega-3 fatty acids were tested. Most beneficial effects were found for the mood stabilisers topiramate, lamotrigine and valproate semisodium, and the second-generation antipsychotics aripiprazole and olanzapine. However, the robustness of findings is low, since they are based mostly on single, small studies. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors so far lack high-level evidence of effectiveness.


CONCLUSIONS
The current evidence from randomised controlled trials suggests that drug treatment, especially with mood stabilisers and second-generation antipsychotics, may be effective for treating a number of core symptoms and associated psychopathology, but the evidence does not currently support effectiveness for overall severity of borderline personality disorder. Pharmacotherapy should therefore be targeted at specific symptoms.