LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Usefulness of combined risk stratification with heart rate and systolic blood pressure in the management of chronic heart failure. A report from the CHART-2 study.

BACKGROUND
The appropriate target ranges of heart rate (HR) and systolic blood pressure (SBP) for the management of chronic heart failure (CHF) patients remain to be elucidated in a large-scale cohort study.


METHODS AND RESULTS
We examined 3,029 consecutive CHF patients with sinus rhythm (SR) (mean age, 67.9 years) registered in the Chronic Heart Failure Analysis and Registry in the Tohoku District-2 Study (CHART-2; NCT00418041). There were 357 deaths (11.8%) during the median follow-up of 3.1 years. We first performed the classification and regression tree analysis for mortality, identifying SBP <89 mmHg, HR >70 beats/min and SBP <115 mmHg as the primary, secondary and tertiary discriminators, respectively. According to these, we divided the patients into low- (n=1,131), middle- (n=1,624) and high-risk (n=274) groups with mortality risk <10%, 10-20% and >20%, respectively. The low-risk group was characterized by SBP >115 mmHg and HR <70 beats/min and the high-risk group by SBP <89 mmHg regardless of HR values or SBP 89-115 mmHg and HR >76 beats/min. Multivariate Cox regression analysis revealed that the hazard ratio of all-cause death for low-, middle- and high-risk groups was 1.00 (reference), 1.48 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.10-1.99, P=0.009) and 2.44 (95% CI 1.66-3.58, P<0.001), respectively. Subgroup analysis revealed that age ≥70 years, diabetes, or reduced left ventricular function had higher hazard ratios in the high-risk group.


CONCLUSIONS
The results demonstrate the usefulness of combined risk stratification of HR and SBP in CHF patients with SR.
Fast convolutional sparse coding using matrix inversion lemma

Article history: Available online 3 May 2016
Association between single nucleotide polymorphism-genotype and outcome of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia in a randomized chemotherapy trial.

BACKGROUND
There is variability in the outcome of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia with apparently the same stage of disease. Identifying genetic variants that influence patients' outcome and response to treatment may provide important insights into the biology of the disease.


DESIGN AND METHODS
We investigated the possibility that genetic variation influences outcome by conducting a genome-wide analysis of 346,831 single nucleotide polymorphisms in 356 patients entered into a phase III trial comparing the efficacy of fludarabine, chlorambucil, and fludarabine with cyclophosphamide as first-line treatment. Genotypes were linked to individual patients' outcome data and response to chemotherapy. The association between genotype and progression-free survival was assessed by Cox regression analysis adjusting for treatment and clinicopathology.


RESULTS
The strongest associations were shown for rs1949733 (ACOX3; P=8.22x10-7), rs1342899 (P=7.72×10(-7)) and rs11158493 (PPP2R5E; P=8.50×10(-7)). In addition, the 52 single nucleotide polymorphisms associated at P<10(-4) included rs438034 (CENPF; P=4.86×10(-6)), previously correlated with cancer progression, and rs2255235 (B2M; P=3.10×10(-5)) and rs2064501 (IL22RA2; P=4.81×10(-5)) which map to B-cell genes.


CONCLUSIONS
Our findings provide evidence that genetic variation is a determinant of progression-free survival of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia. Specific associations warrant further analyses.
The Acquisition and Analysis of Random Access Memory

Mainstream operating systems (and the hardware they run on) fail to purge the contents of portions of volatile memory when that portion is no longer required for operation. Similar to how many file systems simply mark a file as deleted instead of actually purging the space that the file occupies on disk, Random Access Memory (RAM) is commonly littered with old information in unallocated space waiting to be reused. Additionally, RAM contains constructs and caching regions that include a wealth of state related information. The availability of this information along with techniques to recover it, provide new methods for investigation. This article discusses the benefits and drawbacks of traditional incident response methods compared to an augmented model that includes the capture and subsequent analysis of a suspect system’s memory, provides a foundation for analyzing captured memory, and provides suggestions for related work in an effort to encourage forward progress in this relatively new area of digital forensics.
The School Leaving Decision at 16.

Abstract The interest of the economist in the youth labour market is a fairly recent phenomena when compared with that of the educationalist, sociologist and occupational psychologist whose interest stretches back over three decades. The economists’ interest stems from the dramatic increase in youth unemployment rates which have emerged over the past decade and the effects that novel methods introduced by Governments in an attempt to alleviate the problems associated with youth unemployment have had on the operation of the labour market. There is one area of youth market behaviour that the economist has tended to neglect—the labour market participation decision at 16 (the school leaving decision)—and has tended to concentrate attention upon other issues. When labour force participation decisions have been considered by economists they have tended to focus on other groups within the labour market. This paper attempts to rectify this imbalance. A model is developed from a consideration of labour supply theo...
Vasopressin versus dopamine for treatment of hypotension in extremely low birth weight infants: a randomized, blinded pilot study.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate vasopressin vs dopamine as initial therapy in extremely low birth weight (ELBW) infants with hypotension during the first 24 hours of life.


STUDY DESIGN
ELBW infants with hypertension ≤ 30 weeks' gestation and ≤ 24 hours old randomly received treatment with vasopressin or dopamine in a blinded fashion. Normotensive infants not receiving vasopressor support served as a comparison group.


RESULTS
Twenty ELBW infants with hypertension received vasopressin (n = 10) or dopamine (n = 10), and 50 were enrolled for comparison. Mean gestational age was 25.6 ± 1.4 weeks and birth weight 705 ± 154 g. Response to vasopressin paralleled that of dopamine in time to adequate mean blood pressure (Kaplan-Meier curve, P = .986); 90% of infants in each treatment group responded with adequate blood pressure. The vasopressin group received fewer doses of surfactant (P < .05), had lower PaCO2 values (P < .05), and were not tachycardic (P < .001) during vasopressin administration, compared with the dopamine group.


CONCLUSIONS
Vasopressin in ELBW infants as the initial agent for early hypotension appeared safe. This pilot study supports a larger randomized controlled trial of vasopressin vs dopamine therapy in ELBW infants with hypotension.
Problem Set 3 General Instructions

Submission instructions: You should submit your answers via GradeScope and your code via Snap submission site. Submitting answers: Prepare answers to your homework into a single PDF file and submit it via http://gradescope.com. Make sure that answer to each question is on a separate page. This means you should submit a 14-page PDF (1 page for the cover sheet, 4 pages for the answers to question 1, 3 pages for answers to question 2, and 6 pages for question 3). On top of each page write the number of the question you are answering. Please find the cover sheet and the recommended templates located here: Not including the cover sheet in your submission will result in a 2-point penalty. Put all the code for a single question into a single file and upload it. Questions We strongly encourage you to use Snap.py for Python. However, you can use any other graph analysis tool or package you want (SNAP for C++, NetworkX for Python, JUNG for Java, etc.). A question that occupied sociologists and economists as early as the 1900's is how do innovations (e.g. ideas, products, technologies, behaviors) diffuse (spread) within a society. One of the prominent researchers in the field is Professor Mark Granovetter who among other contributions introduced along with Thomas Schelling threshold models in sociology. In Granovetter's model, there is a population of individuals (mob) and for simplicity two behaviours (riot or not riot). • Threshold model: each individual i has a threshold t i that determines her behavior in the following way. If there are at least t i individuals that are rioting, then she will join the riot, otherwise she stays inactive. Here, it is implicitly assumed that each individual has full knowledge of the behavior of all other individuals in the group. Nodes with small threshold are called innovators (early adopters) and nodes with large threshold are called laggards (late adopters). Granovetter's threshold model has been successful in explain classical empirical adoption curves by relating them to thresholds in
Induction of DNA damage by deguelin is mediated through reducing DNA repair genes in human non-small cell lung cancer NCI-H460 cells

It has been shown that deguelin, one of the compounds of rotenoids from flavonoid family, induced cytotoxic effects through induction of cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in many types of human cancer cell lines, but deguelin-affected DNA damage and repair gene expression (mRNA) are not clarified yet. We investigated the effects of deguelin on DNA damage and associated gene expression in human lung cancer NCI-H460 cells in vitro. DNA damage was assayed by using the comet assay and DNA gel electrophoresis and the results indicated that NCI-H460 cells treated with 0, 50, 250 and 500 nM deguelin led to a longer DNA migration smear based on the single cell electrophoresis and DNA fragmentation occurred based on the examination of DNA gel electrophoresis. DNA damage and repair gene expression (mRNA) were evaluated by using real-time PCR assay and the results indicated that 50 and 250 nM deguelin for a 24-h exposure in NCI-H460 cells, decreased the gene levels of breast cancer 1, early onset (BRCA1), DNA-dependent serine/threonine protein kinase (DNA-PK), O6-methylguanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT), p53, ataxia telangiectasia mutated (ATM) and ataxia-telangiectasia and Rad3-related (ATR) mRNA expressions. Collectively, the present study showed that deguelin caused DNA damage and inhibited DNA damage and repair gene expressions, which might be due to deguelin-inhibited cell growth in vitro.
A sensor for dynamic tactile information with applications in human-robot interaction and object exploration

We present a novel tactile sensor, which is applied for dextrous grasping with a simple robot gripper. The hardware novelty consists of an array of capacitive sensors, which couple to the object by means of little brushes of fibers. These sensor elements are very sensitive (with a threshold of about 5 mN) but robust enough not to be damaged during grasping. They yield two types of dynamical tactile information corresponding roughly to two types of tactile sensors in the human skin. The complete sensor consists of a foil-based static force sensor, which yields the total force and the center of the two-dimensional force distribution and is surrounded by an array of the dynamical sensor elements. One such sensor has been mounted on each of the two gripper jaws of our humanoid robot and equipped with the necessary read-out electronics and a CAN bus interface. We describe applications to guiding a robot arm on a desired trajectory with negligible force, reflective grip improvement, and tactile exploration of objects to create a shape representation and find stable grips, which are applied autonomously on the basis of visual recognition.
Scalable RF Energy Harvesting

This paper discusses harvesting of low-power density incident plane waves for electronic devices in environments where it is difficult or impossible to change batteries and where the exact locations of the energy sources are not known. As the incident power densities vary over time and space, distributed arrays of antennas with optimized power-management circuits are introduced to increase harvested power and efficiency. Scaling in array size, power, dc load, frequency, and gain is discussed through three example arrays: a dual industrial-scientific-medical band Yagi-Uda array with a low-power startup circuit; a narrowband 1.96-GHz dual-polarized patch rectenna array with a reconfigurable dc output network designed for harvesting base-station power; and a broadband dual-polarized 2-18-GHz array with multi-tone performance. The efficiency of rectification and power management is investigated for incident power densities in the 1-100-μW/cm2 range.
Big data mining with parallel computing: A comparison of distributed and MapReduce methodologies

Mining with big data or big data mining has become an active research area. It is very difficult using current methodologies and data mining software tools for a single personal computer to efficiently deal with very large datasets. The parallel and cloud computing platforms are considered a better solution for big data mining. The concept of parallel computing is based on dividing a large problem into smaller ones and each of them is carried out by one single processor individually. In addition, these processes are performed concurrently in a distributed and parallel manner. There are two common methodologies used to tackle the big data problem. The first one is the distributed procedure based on the data parallelism paradigm, where a given big dataset can be manually divided into n subsets, and n algorithms are respectively executed for the corresponding n subsets. The final result can be obtained from a combination of the outputs produced by the n algorithms. The second one is the MapReduce based procedure under the cloud computing platform. This procedure is composed of the map and reduce processes, in which the former performs filtering and * Corresponding author: Chih-Fong Tsai Department of Information Management, National Central University, Taiwan; Tel: +886-3-422-7151 ; Fax: +886-3-4254604 E-mail address: cftsai@mgt.ncu.edu.tw
Burden of gastroesophageal reflux disease in Shanghai, China.

BACKGROUND
Data on the impact of gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD) on health-related quality of life (HRQL) in Asian countries are scarce.


AIM
This study evaluated the impact of GERD on HRQL in Shanghai, China.


SUBJECTS
One thousand two hundred adult inhabitants of Shanghai, selected using randomized cluster sampling.


METHODS
Participants completed Mandarin versions of the Reflux Disease Questionnaire (RDQ), GERD impact scale, quality of life in reflux and dyspepsia (QOLRAD) questionnaire and short-form-36 (SF-36). GERD was defined as heartburn and/or regurgitation of any frequency during the 1-week recall period of the RDQ. A clinically meaningful impairment of HRQL was defined as a statistically significant decrease of >or=0.5 points in a QOLRAD dimension or >or=5 points in an SF-36 dimension.


RESULTS
Overall, 1034 subjects completed the survey (86.2% response rate); 919 responses were suitable for analysis. The prevalence of GERD was 6.2%. GERD was associated with meaningfully impaired HRQL in the QOLRAD dimensions of vitality, eating/drinking and emotional well-being, but not sleep or physical/social functioning, and in all SF-36 dimensions except social functioning. Respondents with GERD experienced eating and drinking problems (47%), sleep impairment (32%) and reduced work productivity (32%).


CONCLUSION
GERD has a clinically meaningful impact on HRQL in Shanghai, China.
Atorvastatin decreases apolipoprotein C-III in apolipoprotein B-containing lipoprotein and HDL in type 2 diabetes: a potential mechanism to lower plasma triglycerides.

OBJECTIVE
Apolipoprotein (apo)C-III is a constituent of HDL (HDL apoC-III) and of apoB-containing lipoproteins (LpB:C-III). It slows the clearance of triglyceride-rich lipoproteins (TRLs) by inhibition of the activity of the enzyme lipoprotein lipase (LPL) and by interference with lipoprotein binding to cell-surface receptors. Elevated plasma LpB:C-III is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease. We studied the effect of atorvastatin on plasma LpB:C-III and HDL apoC-III.


RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS
We studied the effect of 30 weeks' treatment with 10 and 80 mg atorvastatin on plasma apoC-III levels in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 217 patients with type 2 diabetes and fasting plasma triglycerides between 1.5 and 6.0 mmol/l.


RESULTS
Baseline levels of total plasma apoC-III, HDL apoC-III, and LpB:C-III were 41.5 +/- 10.0, 17.7 +/- 5.5, and 23.8 +/- 7.7 mg/l, respectively. Plasma apoC-III was strongly correlated with plasma triglycerides (r = 0.74, P < 0.001). Atorvastatin 10- and 80-mg treatment significantly decreased plasma apoC-III (atorvastatin 10 mg, 21%, and 80 mg, 27%), HDL apoC-III (atorvastatin 10 mg, 22%, and 80 mg, 28%) and LpB:C-III (atorvastatin 10 mg, 23%, and 80 mg, 28%; all P < 0.001). The decrease in plasma apoC-III, mainly in LpB:C-III, strongly correlated with a decrease in triglycerides (atorvastatin 10 mg, r = 0.70, and 80 mg, r = 0.78; P < 0.001). Atorvastatin treatment also leads to a reduction in the HDL apoC-III-to-HDL cholesterol and HDL apoC-III-to-apoA-I ratios, indicating a change in the number of apoC-III per HDL particle (atorvastatin 10 mg, -21%, and 80 mg, -31%; P < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
Atorvastatin treatment resulted in a significant dose-dependent reduction in plasma apoC-III, HDL apoC-III, and LpB:C-III levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. These data indicate a potentially important antiatherogenic effect of statin treatment and may explain (part of) the triglyceride-lowering effect of atorvastatin.
Penile anthropometry in Brazilian children and adolescents.

OBJECTIVE
Classically, the penis has two functions: to make internal fertilization possible and to direct the urine stream. However, objective abnormalities in penis size can lead to diseases being diagnosed. Furthermore, many medical consultations are the result of patients seeking parameters for normal penis size. Additionally, the penile anthropometry of Brazilian children and adolescents has not yet been properly studied. The objective of this study is to carry out penile anthropometry of Brazilian children and adolescents, establishing references for clinical use.


METHODS
A cross-sectional study was carried out of 2,010 patients with ages varying from 0 to 18 years. Five penile measurements were taken: diameter of penile shaft; apparent and real length of flaccid penis; apparent and real (RSL(max)) length of flaccid penis fully stretched. Pubertal development was defined according to Tanner's criteria.


RESULTS
Only RSLmax, out of all of the penile measurements, did not exhibit significant interobserver variation at all ages analyzed (p = 0.255). Results were tabulated with mean RSLmax and the values that define micropenis (mean - 2.5 standard deviations) by age and by Tanner sexual maturity stages. A graph was plotted of the distribution of RSLmax results by the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles and by age.


CONCLUSIONS
Out of all of the penile anthropometric measurements, only RSL(max) is clinically useful. We recommend our results as a reference standard for penile anthropometry of Brazilian children and adolescents.
Digital controlled high power synchronous boost converter based MPPT charge controller for SPV system

B.Brahmaiah Principal, GEC, Guntur AbstractDegradation of fossil fuels emphasis to hunt the alternative way of power generation, power electronics made it possible to extract the power from renewable energy sources effectively and efficiently according to need of electrical loads. In this research paper, the main focus is, designing of central level (high power) synchronous based DC-DC converter for the maximum extraction of power from solar PV system at higher DC-DC conversion efficiency, better performance and stable operation. In this paper proposed system, 1.2kWp.rated synchronous MPPT charge controller is designed and simulated, with central level configuring in SPV systems at very high switching frequency, used not only to extract the maximum power from solar array but also for matching the input solar power characteristics with load characteristics. This closed loop control algorithm, for MPPT based synchronous converter, designed and implemented in the digital domain, for direct deployment of FPGA controller. Also presented, small signal analysis of converter, the double lead integral controller design in association with MPPT algorithm in s-domain, converted to digital domain based on bi-linear transformation, deployed into FPGA. The Xilinx interfaced MATLAB simulation results demonstrate that, proposed MPPT based synchronous converter offers maximum power from solar arrays extraction at high efficiency, better dynamic performance in stable region.
Ligamentum teres: a functional description and potential clinical relevance

The primary purpose of this study was to investigate the role the ligamentum teres has in providing hip stability using a biomechanical model. The second purpose was to review arthroscopic findings in those with a complete ligamentum teres rupture and question them regarding instability to determine how clinical findings related to the biomechanical model. A string model was created to examine ligamentum teres excursion during various hip positions. A retrospective review of 350 consecutive surgical patients identified 20 subjects with a complete ligamentum teres rupture that was not repaired at the time of surgery. The model found the ligamentum teres to have the greatest excursion when the hip was externally rotated in flexion (ER/FLEX) and internally rotated in extension (IR/EXT). During operative assessment, it was noted that all 20 subjects had laxity during dynamic impingement testing when their hip was in a position of ER/FLEX. Nine (45%) of the 20 subjects with ligamentum teres rupture were available for follow-up (mean 31 months post-op). Five out of these 9 subjects noted instability: 5 of 9 with squatting (ER/FLEX) and 4 of 9 with crossing one leg behind of the other (IR/EXT). These 5 subjects had osseous risk factors that compromised hip stability including inferior acetabular insufficiency. The ligamentum teres may contribute to hip stability when the hip is in ER/FLEX and IR/EXT. Individuals with osseous risk factors for instability, including inferior acetabular insufficiency, may have instability with squatting (ER/FLEX) and crossing one leg behind of the other (IR/EXT). IV.
Scalable Byzantine Consensus via Hardware-Assisted Secret Sharing

The surging interest in blockchain technology has revitalized the search for effective Byzantine consensus schemes. In particular, the blockchain community has been looking for ways to effectively integrate traditional Byzantine fault-tolerant (BFT) protocols into a blockchain consensus layer allowing various financial institutions to securely agree on the order of transactions. However, existing BFT protocols can only scale to tens of nodes due to their <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$O(n^2)$</tex-math><alternatives> <inline-graphic xlink:href="liu-ieq1-2860009.gif"/></alternatives></inline-formula> message complexity. In this paper, we propose FastBFT, a fast and scalable BFT protocol. At the heart of FastBFT is a novel message aggregation technique that combines hardware-based trusted execution environments (TEEs) with lightweight secret sharing. Combining this technique with several other optimizations (i.e., optimistic execution, tree topology and failure detection), FastBFT achieves low latency and high throughput even for large scale networks. Via systematic analysis and experiments, we demonstrate that FastBFT has better scalability and performance than previous BFT protocols.