LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Catheter Ablation of Ventricular Tachycardia in Patients With MitraClip Device: Preliminary Findings.

INTRODUCTION
Patients with mitral regurgitation are increasingly treated by percutaneous implantation of a MitraClip device (Abbott Park, IL, USA). We investigate the feasibility and safety of the transmitral catheter route for catheter ablation of ventricular tachycardia (VT) in these patients.


METHODS
The mitral valve with the MitraClip in situ was crossed under transesophageal 3-dimensional echocardiographic and fluoroscopic guidance using a steerable sheath for ablation of the left ventricle.


RESULTS
Five patients (all males, median age 74.0 ± 16.0 years) who had previously a MitraClip implanted were referred for catheter ablation of VT. The left ventricular ejection fraction was 29.0% ± 24.0%. One patient had both an atrial septal defect and a left atrial appendage occluder device in addition to a MitraClip. The duration between MitraClip implantation and ablation was 1019.0 ± 783.0 days. After transseptal puncture, ablation catheter was successfully steered through the mitral valve with the use of fluoroscopy. A complete high-density map of the substrate in sinus rhythm could be obtained in all patients using multipolar mapping catheters. In 1 patient, mapping was carried out using a mini-basket catheter. Procedural endpoints, noninducibility of all VTs, and abolition of all late potentials were achieved in all patients. Procedure time was 255.0 ± 52.5 minute, fluoroscopy time was 23.0 ± 7.3, and the radiation dose was 61.0 ± 37.5 Gycm2 . No mitral insufficiency or worsening of regurgitation was documented after the procedure.


CONCLUSIONS
This is the first report demonstrating the feasibility and safety of VT ablation in patients with a MitraClip device using the anterograde transmitral catheter route.
Lessons from the syphilis outbreak in homosexual men in east London.

OBJECTIVES
To describe the epidemiology, presentation, and diagnosis of early syphilis in 103 homosexual men in east London.


METHODS
A retrospective study using data from KC60 returns, the Health Protection Agency (HPA) enhanced surveillance forms and case notes.


RESULTS
40 cases of primary (PS), 40 of secondary (SS) and 23 of early latent syphilis were identified, 33% co-infected with HIV. 41% had concurrent sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Pain featured in 35% of PS and itch in 13% of rashes. Dark ground microscopy (DGM), performed in 44 of the symptomatic cases, was positive in 37 (84%) allowing early management. Initial syphilis serology was negative in 15/40 (37%) cases of PS. 51% and 49% opted for parenteral and oral treatment, respectively. In 53/103 (51%) cases oral sex was the only risk factor. 86% of infections were UK acquired. Only 4% of contacts were seen.


CONCLUSION
This outbreak, reflecting the resurgence of syphilis across the United Kingdom, highlights several important points. Painful chancres and itchy rash are common presentations. DGM is a highly sensitive diagnostic tool. Initial negative serological screening tests are common in PS and sero-surveillance for 3 months is recommended. The high prevalence of concomitant STIs indicates ongoing unprotected sexual intercourse. Oral sex is a significant risk factor and is a distinctly "unsafe" practice. Conventional partner notification is ineffective. Other methods of screening of the at-risk homosexual population are warranted. Continued education is required to reduce STI acquisition in homosexual men.
Character-level Chinese Writer Identification using Path Signature Feature, DropStroke and Deep CNN

Most existing online writer-identification systems require that the text content is supplied in advance and rely on separately designed features and classifiers. The identifications are based on lines of text, entire paragraphs, or entire documents; however, these materials are not always available. In this paper, we introduce a path-signature feature to an end-to-end text-independent writer-identification system with a deep convolutional neural network (DCNN). Because deep models require a considerable amount of data to achieve good performance, we propose a data-augmentation method named DropStroke to enrich personal handwriting. Experiments were conducted on online handwritten Chinese characters from the CASIA-OLHWDB1.0 dataset, which consists of 3,866 classes from 420 writers. For each writer, we only used 200 samples for training and the remaining 3,666. The results reveal that the path-signature feature is useful for writer identification, and the proposed DropStroke technique enhances the generalization and significantly improves performance. Keywords—Deep convolutional neural network; online text-independent writer identification; data augmentation; path-signature feature; Chinese character
Political Behavior in the Coffee Agreement

In recent decades, international commodity agreements have been proposed as a way of promoting "development." Behrman, McNicol, and others have analyzed them from a purely economic point of view.' Fisher, Krasner, and others have adopted a more political perspective.2 In this article, we seek to advance the political analysis of such agreements. We do so by studying the allocation of export entitlements in the International Coffee Organization (ICO). In the ICO, as in other international organizations, political processes replace markets in the allocation of scarce resources. In the case of the ICO, allocational decisions are made by majority rule. Given the possibility of strategic behavior in such political environments, game theory should provide a useful set of tools for the analysis of such institutions. A particular interest of this article is the appropriateness of a specific solution concept-the Shapley value-to the analysis of politically contrived allocations under the ICO.3
Klinefelter's syndrome (47,XXY) among men with systemic lupus erythematosus.

AIM
To determine the rate of Klinefelter's syndrome among men with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and to determine whether the manifestations of SLE in these men are different from that seen in 46,XY men.


METHODS
A total of 276 men with SLE underwent a real-time PCR procedure to screen for more than one X chromosome. Those with results consistent with two X chromosomes were further characterized by karyotype and FISH. Clinical manifestations of SLE were determined by interview, questionnaire and medical chart review. Each man with Klinefelter's and SLE was matched to four 46,XY men with SLE. Rates of SLE manifestations were compared with chi-square analyses.


RESULTS
We found seven of the 286 men with SLE had Klinefelter's syndrome. Four of these seven were nonmosaic 47,XXY, while two were mosaic 46,XY/47,XXY and one was 46,XX/47,XXY. The men with 47,XXY did not have severe manifestations of SLE including no proliferative renal disease, neurological disease, thrombocytopenia, autoimmune haemolytic anaemia, discoid skin disease or anti-RNP/Sm.


CONCLUSION
47,XXY is found in excess among men with SLE. Men commonly have SLE that is more severe than that found among women, but the 47,XXY men had less severe SLE than other men.
Model Predictive Control : Past , Present and Future

More than 15 years after model predictive control (MPC) appeared in industry as an effective means to deal with multivariable constrained control problems, a theoretical basis for this technique has started to emerge. The issues of feasibility of the on-line optimization, stability and performance are largely understood for systems described by linear models. Much progress has been made on these issues for non-linear systems but for practical applications many questions remain, including the reliability and efficiency of the on-line computation scheme. To deal with model uncertainty ‘rigorously’ an involved dynamic programming problem must be solved. The approximation techniques proposed for this purpose are largely at a conceptual stage. Among the broader research needs the following areas are identified: multivariable system identification, performance monitoring and diagnostics, non-linear state estimation, and batch system control. Many practical problems like control objective prioritization and symptom-aided diagnosis can be integrated systematically and effectively into the MPC framework by expanding the problem formulation to include integer variables yielding a mixed-integer quadratic or linear program. Efficient techniques for solving these problems are becoming available. © 1999 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
A multicentric, international matched pair analysis of body composition in peritoneal dialysis versus haemodialysis patients.

BACKGROUND
Volume status, lean and fat tissue are gaining interest as prognostic predictors in patients on dialysis. Comparative data in peritoneal dialysis (PD) versus haemodialysis (HD) patients are lacking.


METHODS
In a cohort of PD (EuroBCM) and HD (Euclid database) patients, matched for country, gender, age and dialysis vintage, body composition was assessed by bioimpedance spectroscopy (BCM, Fresenius Medical Care). Time-averaged volume overload (TAVO) was defined as the mean of pre- and post-dialysis volume overload (VO), and relative (%) (TA)VO as (TA)VO/ECV.


RESULTS
Four hundred and ninety-one matched pairs (55.2% males, median age 60.0 years) were included. The body mass index (BMI, PD = 26.5 ± 4.7 versus HD = 25.9 ± 4.6 kg/m(2), P = 0.18 in males and 27.4 ± 5.8 versus 27.5 ± 6.6 kg/m(2), P = 0.75 in females) and fat tissue index (males: 11.5 ± 5.3 versus 11.4 ± 5.4 kg/m(2), P = 0.90, females: 14.8 ± 6.7 versus 15.4 ± 7.2 kg/m(2), P = 0.30) were not different in PD versus HD patients, whereas the lean tissue index (LTI) was higher in PD versus HD patients (males: 14.5 ± 3.4 versus 13.7 ± 3.1 kg/m(2), P = 0.001, females: 12.6 ± 3.3 versus 11.5 ± 2.6 kg/m(2), P < 0.0001). VO/extracellular water (ECW) was not different between PD versus just before the HD treatment (males: 10.8 ± 12.1 versus 9.2 ± 10.2%, P = 0.09; females: 6.5 ± 10.8 versus 7.7 ± 9.4%, P = 0.19). The relative TAVO was higher in PD versus HD (10.8 ± 12.1% versus 3.2 ± 11.2%, and 6.5 ± 10.8% versus 1.2 ± 10.9%, both P < 0.0001).


CONCLUSIONS
The LTI was impaired, and this was more in males versus females, but was better preserved on PD versus HD, whereas fat tissue index (FTI) was increased, but not different between PD and HD. Volume overload was more present in PD versus HD when TAVO, but not when predialysis volume status, was used as a reference.
The treatment of diabetic gastroparesis with botulinum toxin

OBJECTIVE
Gastroparesis is a disorder of delayed gastric emptying that is often chronic in nature. Up to 50% of type 1 diabetic subjects have symptoms of gastroparesis, which include nausea, vomiting, and early satiety. Elevated pyloric pressures may be responsible for delayed gastric emptying in diabetic subjects. Botulinum toxin inhibits the release of acetylcholine and produces transient paralysis when injected into smooth muscle. The aim of this study was to determine whether injection of the pylorus with botulinum toxin in patients with diabetic gastroparesis improves symptoms of gastroparesis, alters gastric emptying scan time, and/or changes weight and insulin use.


RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
This was an open-label trial with age- and sex-matched control subjects from a tertiary care referral center for patients with gastroparesis. Eight type 1 diabetic subjects (six women and two men; mean age 41 years; mean years with diabetes 25.3) who had failed standard therapy were enrolled. Intervention consisted of injection of the pylorus with 200 units of botulinum toxin during upper endoscopy. Symptoms, antropyloric manometry, gastric emptying scan times, weight, and insulin use were all recorded before intervention and during a 12-week follow-up period.


RESULTS
Seven of the eight patients completed the full 12-week follow-up period. No complications were noted. Mean symptom scores declined from 27 to 12.1 (P < 0.01), whereas the SF-36 physical functioning domain also improved (P < 0.05). Four patients noted an increase in insulin use of >5 units/day. Six of the seven patients gained weight (P = 0.05). Gastric emptying scan time improved in four patients.


CONCLUSIONS
Botulinum toxin injection of the pylorus is safe and improves symptoms in patients with diabetic gastroparesis. These results warrant further investigation with a large, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial.
Manipulation of host resistance in cancer therapy

The notion that malignant cells may be subject to control by the immunological network of the host has developed basically from studies of the immune rejection of rodent tumours, particulary those induced with chemical carcinogens or oncogenic viruses [15, 25, 98]. In one series of studies reported some 25 to 30 years ago, it was established that sarcomas induced by polycyclic hydrocarbon carcinogens in rodents of inbred (syngeneic) strains grew progressively following transplantation into compatible recipients [3, 36, 80]. However, pre-immunization of normal animals with tumour cells treated so as to restrict their progressive growth led to the development of a specific tumour immunity, so that a subsequent challenge with cells of the immunizing tumour was rejected. The repertoire of tumours in which there is conclusive evidence for the expression of antigens which can be manipulated to produce tumour rejection responses was rapidly expanded following these early studies. It now includes tumours of many types including carcinomas and sarcomas induced with a broad spectrum of chemical carcinogens [15], many of these belonging to the classes (polycyclic hydrocarbons, nitrosamines, amino azo dyes, and aromatic amines) which are known, or suspected to be, human carcinogens. Rodent tumours induced with DNAand RNA-containing oncogenic viruses have also been shown to express antigens able to induce turnout rejection [41, 50]. Recently tumours induced with UV-radiation also were shown to express antigens which elicit tumour rejection [57]. Faced with this wealth of evidence from rodent tumour studies that the adaptive immune system of the host can respond to tumours, it is not surprising that consideration has been given over the past 10 years or more to the possibility that specific immunotherapy may be introduced for cancer treatment. This approach initially received encouragement from early studies reporting that administration of vaccines containing radiation attenuated leukaemia cells with BCG as an immunostimulant produced a therapeutic response in acute lymphoblastic leukaemia [60]. Also in vitro cytotoxicity tests with blood lymphocytes from cancer patients
Incidence, diagnostic methods, and evolution of left ventricular thrombus in patients with anterior myocardial infarction and low left ventricular ejection fraction: a prospective multicenter study.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES
We aimed to assess the incidence and evolution of left ventricular (LV) thrombi in a high-risk population of patients with LV systolic dysfunction after anterior myocardial infarction (ant-MI). We also compared the accuracy of transthoracic echocardiography (TTE) and cardiac magnetic resonance imaging with contrast-delayed enhancement (CMR-DE) in detecting LV thrombi.


METHODS
We prospectively included 100 consecutive patients with LV ejection fraction (LVEF) <45% at the first TTE performed <7 days after ant-MI. A second evaluation with TTE and CMR-DE (by blinded examiners) was performed at 30 days. A third TTE and assessment of clinical status were performed between 6 and 12 months after ant-MI.


RESULTS
Patients (males 71%; mean age 59.1 ± 12.1 years; mean LVEF 33.5% ± 6.0%) were included at a median of 5.5 days (interquartile range 25th-75th percentile 4.25-6.0 days) after ant-MI. Thrombi were detected among 26 (26%) patients at a median of 12.0 days after ant-MI (7 patients at 1-7 days after MI; 15 at 8-30 days; and 4 after day 30). Sensitivity and specificity for LV thrombi detection were 94.7% and 98.5%, respectively, for TTE as compared with CMR-DE. Most thrombi (n = 24; 92.3%) disappeared after triple antithrombotic therapy (vitamin K antagonist in addition to dual antiplatelet therapy).


CONCLUSION
Left ventricular thrombus is a frequent complication after ant-MI with systolic dysfunction. When a search for thrombus is prespecified, the accuracy of TTE is high as compared with CMR-DE. The best antithrombotic strategy is not known.
Neural Network Applications in Power Electronics and Motor Drives—An Introduction and Perspective

Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques, particularly the neural networks, are recently having significant impact on power electronics and motor drives. Neural networks have created a new and advancing frontier in power electronics, which is already a complex and multidisciplinary technology that is going through dynamic evolution in the recent years. This paper gives a comprehensive introduction and perspective of neural network applications in the intelligent control and estimation for power electronics and motor drives area. The principal topologies of neural networks that are currently most relevant for applications in power electronics have been reviewed including the detailed description of their properties. Both feedforward and feedback or recurrent architectures have been covered in the description. The application examples that are discussed in this paper include nonlinear function generation, delayless filtering and waveform processing, feedback signal processing of vector drive, space vector PWM of two-level and multilevel inverters, adaptive flux vector estimation, and some of their combination for vector-controlled ac drive. Additional selected applications in the literature are included in the references. From the current trend of the technology, it appears that neural networks will find widespread applications in power electronics and motor drives in future
Discontinuation of adalimumab after attaining disease activity score 28-erythrocyte sedimentation rate remission in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (HONOR study): an observational study

INTRODUCTION
Evidences of biologics-free disease control after discontinuing adalimumab (ADA) in rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients in clinical practice have not been sufficiently investigated. Purpose of this study is to investigate whether disease activity score 28 (DAS28)- erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) remission was preserved after discontinuation of ADA in patients with RA.


METHODS
This is an observational but not a randomized controlled study. Among 197 RA patients who initiated with combination of ADA with concomitant MTX, 69 (35%) acquired DAS28 (ESR) < 2.6 for at least 24 weeks. Of those 69 patients, 51 went on ADA discontinuation with their consent, and finally 50 of those with follow-up of > 24 weeks were evaluated. The effect of discontinuing ADA on clinical disease activity, functional disability and radiographic progression were evaluated by DAS28 (ESR), the clinical disease activity index (CDAI) and the simplified disease activity index (SDAI), by a health assessment questionnaire-disability index (HAQ-DI) and by the modified total Sharp score (mTSS), respectively.


RESULTS
The mean age of the participants was 59.5 years with the mean disease duration of 7.1 years. Out of the 50 patients, 29 (58%) were maintained in DAS28 (ESR) < 2.6 at 24 weeks after discontinuing ADA. A logistic regression analysis showed that DAS28 (ESR) at baseline significantly predicted a DAS28 (ESR) < 2.6 maintained after discontinuation of ADA, and a receiver-operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that the cut-off value of DAS28 (ESR) at discontinuation was 2.16. The mean HAQ-DI at six months after discontinuing ADA was 0.1 in patients who kept in DAS28 (ESR) < 2.6, and 94.9% (37/39) showed no evidence of radiographic progression (> 0.5 per year of a change in mTSS) at 1 year.


CONCLUSIONS
It was possible to maintain DAS28 (ESR) < 2.6 after discontinuation of ADA without functional and radiographic progression and very low DAS28 (ESR) at the discontinuation was associated with successful ADA-free DAS28 (ESR) < 2.6 in patients with RA.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
University Hospital Medical Information Network Identifier: UMIN000006669.
A parallel hybrid banded system solver: the SPIKE algorithm

This paper describes an efficient and robust hybrid parallel solver ‘‘the SPIKE algorithm’’ for narrow-banded linear systems. Two versions of SPIKE with their built-in-options are described in detail: the Recursive SPIKE version for handling non-diagonally dominant systems and the Truncated SPIKE version for diagonally dominant ones. These SPIKE schemes can be used either as direct solvers, or as preconditioners for outer iterative schemes. Both versions are faster than the direct solvers in ScaLAPACK on parallel computing platforms, and quite competitive in terms of achieved accuracy for handling systems that are dense within the band. 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Speech enhancement and recognition using multi-task learning of long short-term memory recurrent neural networks

Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) recurrent neural network has proven effective in modeling speech and has achieved outstanding performance in both speech enhancement (SE) and automatic speech recognition (ASR). To further improve the performance of noise-robust speech recognition, a combination of speech enhancement and recognition was shown to be promising in earlier work. This paper aims to explore options for consistent integration of SE and ASR using LSTM networks. Since SE and ASR have different objective criteria, it is not clear what kind of integration would finally lead to the best word error rate for noise-robust ASR tasks. In this work, several integration architectures are proposed and tested, including: (1) a pipeline architecture of LSTM-based SE and ASR with sequence training, (2) an alternating estimation architecture, and (3) a multi-task hybrid LSTM network architecture. The proposed models were evaluated on the 2nd CHiME speech separation and recognition challenge task, and show significant improvements relative to prior results.
An Open-Label Prospective Randomized Multicenter Study Shows Very Rapid Remission of Ulcerative Colitis by Intensive Granulocyte and Monocyte Adsorptive Apheresis as Compared With Routine Weekly Treatment

OBJECTIVES:Granulocyte and monocyte adsorptive apheresis (GMA) has shown efficacy in patients with active ulcerative colitis (UC). However, with routine weekly treatment, it may take several weeks to achieve remission, and to date, the efficacy of a more frequent treatment schedule remains unknown. The aim of this study was to assess the clinical efficacy and safety of intensive GMA treatment in patients with active UC.METHODS:This was an open-label, prospective, randomized multicenter study to compare an intensive, two GMA sessions per week, with the routine, one GMA session per week. A total of 163 patients with mild-to-moderately active UC were randomly assigned to routine weekly treatment or intensive treatment. The maximum number of sessions of GMA permitted was 10. However, when patients achieved remission, GMA was discontinued. Remission rate at the end of the study, time to remission, and adverse events were assessed in both groups.RESULTS:Of the 163 patients, 149 were available for efficacy analysis as per protocol, 76 were in weekly GMA, and 73 were in intensive GMA. At the end of the study period, clinical remission was achieved in 41 of 76 patients (54.0%) in weekly GMA and in 52 of 73 patients (71.2%) in intensive GMA (P=0.029). The mean time to remission was 28.1±16.9 days in the weekly GMA treatment group and 14.9±9.5 days in the intensive GMA group (P<0.0001). Intensive GMA was well tolerated without GMA-related serious adverse side effects.CONCLUSIONS:Intensive GMA in patients with active UC seems to be more efficacious than weekly treatment, and significantly reduced the patients' morbidity time without increasing the incidence of side effects.