LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Association between blood cadmium levels and malnutrition in peritoneal dialysis

BACKGROUND
Malnutrition is associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular death and may cause protein-energy wasting in individuals with chronic kidney disease. A previous study demonstrated that blood cadmium levels (BCLs) were associated with malnutrition in maintenance hemodialysis (MHD) patients. However, the correlation between cadmium exposure and malnutrition remains unclear in chronic peritoneal dialysis (CPD) patients. This study examined the possible adverse effects of environmental cadmium exposure in CPD patients.


METHODS
A total of 301 CPD patients were enrolled and divided into 3 study groups based on the following BCL tertiles: low (<0.19 μg/L), middle (0.19-0.39 μg/L), and high (>0.39 μg/L). Demographic, hematological, biochemical, and dialysis-related data were obtained for analysis. The analysis also included values of nutritional and inflammatory markers.


RESULTS
The BCLs of CPD patients were lower than those of MHD patients. At baseline, patients in the high BCL group were older and had a higher prevalence of diabetes mellitus but lower serum albumin, creatinine, and phosphate levels than the patients in the other 2 groups. After adjusting for potential variables, stepwise backward multiple linear regression analysis revealed that age and alanine aminotransferase levels were positively associated with logarithmic transformation of BCLs (log BCLs), while serum albumin levels were negatively associated with log BCLs in CPD patients. The log BCLs were a significant determinant (beta coefficient ± standard error = -0.185 ± 0.074; P = 0.013) of nutritional status and significantly associated with the presence of malnutrition (odds ratio = 2.64; 95% confidence interval: 1.07-6.48; P = 0.035) in CPD patients after adjustment for related variables.


CONCLUSIONS
BCL is significantly associated with nutritional status and malnutrition in CPD patients. Therefore, it is important for CPD patients to avoid environmental exposure to cadmium such as through smoking and consumption of cadmium-rich foods.
Pneumonia care and the nursing home: a qualitative descriptive study of resident and family member perspectives

BACKGROUND
Nursing home residents are frequently sent to hospital for diagnostic tests or to receive acute health care services. These transfers are both costly and for some, associated with increased risks. Although improved technology allows long-term care facilities to deliver more complex health care on site, if this is to become a trend then residents and family members must see the value of such care. This qualitative study examined resident and family member perspectives on in situ care for pneumonia.


METHODS
A qualitative descriptive study design was used. Participants were residents and family members of residents treated for pneumonia drawn from a larger randomized controlled trial of a clinical pathway to manage nursing home-acquired pneumonia on-site. A total of 14 in-depth interviews were conducted. Interview data were analyzed using the editing style, described by Miller and Crabtree, to identify key themes.


RESULTS
Both residents and family members preferred that pneumonia be treated in the nursing home, where possible. They both felt that caring and attention are key aspects of care which are more easily accessible in the nursing home setting. However, residents felt that staff or doctors should make the decision whether to hospitalize them, whereas family members wanted to be consulted or involved in the decision-making process.


CONCLUSION
These findings suggest that interventions to reduce hospitalization of nursing home residents with pneumonia are consistent with resident and family member preferences.
Connectivism: Learning theory of the future or vestige of the past?

Siemens and Downes initially received increasing attention in the blogosphere in 2005 when they discussed their ideas concerning distributed knowledge. An extended discourse has ensued in and around the status of ‘connectivism’ as a learning theory for the digital age. This has led to a number of questions in relation to existing learning theories. Do they still meet the needs of today’s learners, and anticipate the needs of learners of the future? Would a new theory that encompasses new developments in digital technology be more appropriate, and would it be suitable for other aspects of learning, including in the traditional class room, in distance education and e-learning? This paper will highlight current theories of learning and critically analyse connectivism within the context of its predecessors, to establish if it has anything new to offer as a learning theory or as an approach to teaching for the 21st Century.
Spot fluoroscopy: a novel innovative approach to reduce radiation dose in neurointerventional procedures

Background Increased interest in radiation dose reduction in neurointerventional procedures has led to the development of a method called "spot fluoroscopy" (SF), which enables the operator to collimate a rectangular or square region of interest anywhere within the general field of view. This has potential advantages over conventional collimation, which is limited to symmetric collimation centered over the field of view. Purpose To evaluate the effect of SF on the radiation dose. Material and Methods Thirty-five patients with intracranial aneurysms were treated with endovascular coiling. SF was used in 16 patients and conventional fluoroscopy in 19. The following parameters were analyzed: the total fluoroscopic time, the total air kerma, the total fluoroscopic dose-area product, and the fluoroscopic dose-area product rate. Statistical differences were determined using the Welch's t-test. Results The use of SF led to a reduction of 50% of the total fluoroscopic dose-area product (CF = 106.21 Gycm2, SD = 99.06 Gycm2 versus SF = 51.80 Gycm2, SD = 21.03 Gycm2, p = 0.003884) and significant reduction of the total fluoroscopic dose-area product rate (CF = 1.42 Gycm2/min, SD = 0.57 Gycm2/s versus SF = 0.83 Gycm2/min, SD = 0.37 Gycm2/min, p = 0.00106). The use of SF did not lead to an increase in fluoroscopy time or an increase in total fluoroscopic cumulative air kerma, regardless of collimation. Conclusion The SF function is a new and promising tool for reduction of the radiation dose during neurointerventional procedures.
Categorical Data Clustering using Cosine based similarity for Enhancing the Accuracy of Squeezer Algorithm

DISC Measure, Squeezer, Categorical Data Clustering, Cosine similarity References Rishi Sayal and Vijay Kumar. V. 2011. A novel Similarity Measure for Clustering Categorical Data Sets. International Journal of Computer Application (0975-8887). Aditya Desai, Himanshu Singh and Vikram Pudi. 2011. DISC Data-Intensive Similarity Measure for Categorical Data. Pacific-Asia Conferences on Knowledge Discovery Data Mining. Shyam Boriah, Varun Chandola and Vipin Kumar. 2008. Similarity Measure for Clustering Categorical Data. Comparative Evaluation. SIAM International Conference on Data Mining-SDM. Taoying Li, Yan Chen. 2009. Fuzzy Clustering Ensemble Algorithm for partitional Categorical Data. IEEE, International conference on Business Intelligence and Financial Engineering.
Target Organ Damage and the Long Term Effect of Nonadherence to Clinical Practice Guidelines in Patients with Hypertension: A Retrospective Cohort Study

BACKGROUND
There was limited published data on target organ damage (TOD) and the effect of nonadherence to practice guidelines in Ethiopia. This study determined TOD and the long term effect of nonadherence to clinical guidelines on hypertensive patients.


METHODS
An open level retrospective cohort study has been employed at cardiac clinic of Gondar university hospital for a mean follow-up period of 78 months. Multivariate Cox regression was conducted to test associating factors of TOD.


RESULTS
Of the total number of 612 patients examined, the overall prevalence of hypertensive TOD was 40.3%. The presence of comorbidities, COR = 1.073 [1.01-1.437], AOR = 1.196 [1.174-1.637], and nonadherence to clinical practice guidelines, COR = 1.537 [1.167-2.024], AOR = 1.636 [1.189-2.251], were found to be predicting factors for TOD. According to Kaplan-Meier analysis patients who were initiated on appropriate medication tended to develop TOD very late: Log Rank [11.975 (p = 0.01)].


CONCLUSION
More than forty percent of patients acquired TOD which is more significant. Presence of comorbidities and nonadherence to practice guidelines were correlated with the incidence of TOD. Appropriate management of hypertension and modification of triggering factors are essential to prevent complications.
Designing Annotation Schemes: From Model to Representation

The physical formats used to represent linguistic data and its annotations have evolved over the past four decades, accommodating different needs and perspectives as well as incorporating advances in data representation generally. This chapter provides an overview of representation formats with the aim of surveying the relevant issues for representing different data types together with current stateof-the-art solutions, in order to provide sufficient information to guide others in the choice of a representation format or formats.
Do Customs Union Members Engage in More Bilateral Trade than Free-Trade Agreement Members?

This paper provides the rst empirical analysis directly comparing the e¤ects of customs unions (CUs) and free trade agreements (FTAs) on members bilateral trade, while addressing the biases arising from log-linearization of the gravity model and crucial time-invariant unobservables. Since Fiorentino et al. (2007) question the popularity of CUs relative to FTAs, considering the latter to be more practical in the current trading climate, such a comparison seems especially relevant. While Baier and Bergstrand (2007) nd an FTA to approximately double membersbilateral trade after 10 years, the results of this paper nd CUs to have had a much larger impact than FTAs. JEL: F1
Multinational Firms and Knowledge Diffusion: Evidence using Patent Citation Data

To understand the role of MNCs in international knowledge diffusion, two questions need to be considered: (1) How actively do overseas subsidiaries of an MNC exchange knowledge with other players i...
Luminance mechanisms mediate the motion of red–green isoluminant gratings: the role of “temporal chromatic aberration”

In this paper we use a dynamic noise-masking paradigm to explore the nature of the mechanisms mediating the motion perception of drifting isoluminant red-green gratings. We compare contrast thresholds for the detection and direction discrimination of drifting gratings (1.5 cpd), over a range of temporal frequencies (0.5-9 Hz) in the presence of variable luminance or chromatic noise. In the first experiment, we used dynamic luminance noise to show that direction thresholds for red-green grating motion are masked by luminance noise over the entire temporal range tested, whereas detection thresholds are unaffected. This result indicates that the motion of nominally isoluminant red-green gratings is mediated by luminance signals. We suggest that stimulus-based luminance artifacts are not responsible for this effect because there is no masking of the detection thresholds. Instead we propose that chromatic motion thresholds for red-green isoluminant gratings are mediated by dynamic luminance artifacts that have an internal, physiological origin. We have termed these "temporal chromatic aberration". In the second experiment, we used dynamic chromatic noise masking to test for a chromatic contribution to red-green grating motion. We were unable to find conclusive evidence for a contribution of chromatic mechanisms to the chromatic grating motion, although a contribution at very high chromatic contrasts cannot be ruled out. Our results add to a growing body of evidence indicating the presence of dynamic, internal luminance artifacts in the motion of chromatic stimuli and we show that these occur even at very low temporal rates. Our results are compatible with our previous work indicating the absence of a chromatic mechanism for first order (quasi-linear) apparent motion [Vision Res. 40 (2000) 1993]. We conclude that previous conclusions based on the motion of chromatic red-green gratings should be reassessed to determine the contribution of dynamic luminance artifacts.
Family-focused treatment for adolescents with bipolar disorder: results of a 2-year randomized trial.

CONTEXT
Family interventions have been found to hasten episode recovery and delay recurrences among adults with bipolar disorder.


OBJECTIVE
To examine the benefits of family-focused treatment for adolescents (FFT-A) and pharmacotherapy in the 2-year course of adolescent bipolar disorder.


DESIGN
Two-site outpatient randomized controlled trial with 2-year follow-up.


PATIENTS
A referred sample of 58 adolescents (mean [SD] age, 14.5 [1.6] years) with bipolar I (n = 38), II (n = 6), or not otherwise specified disorder (n = 14) with a mood episode in the prior 3 months.


INTERVENTIONS
Patients were randomly assigned to FFT-A and protocol pharmacotherapy (n = 30) or enhanced care (EC) and protocol pharmacotherapy (n = 28). The FFT-A consisted of 21 sessions in 9 months of psychoeducation, communication training, and problem-solving skills training. The EC consisted of 3 family sessions focused on relapse prevention.


MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES
Independent "blind" evaluators assessed patients every 3 to 6 months for 2 years. Outcomes included time to recovery from the index episode, time to recurrence, weeks in episode or remission, and mood symptom severity scores.


RESULTS
Analyses were by intent to treat. Rates of 2-year study completion did not differ across the FFT-A (60.0%) and EC conditions (64.3%). Although there were no group differences in rates of recovery from the index episode, patients in FFT-A recovered from their baseline depressive symptoms faster than patients in EC (hazard ratio, 1.85; 95% confidence interval, 1.04-3.29; P = .04). The groups did not differ in time to recurrence of depression or mania, but patients in FFT-A spent fewer weeks in depressive episodes and had a more favorable trajectory of depression symptoms for 2 years.


CONCLUSIONS
Family-focused therapy is effective in combination with pharmacotherapy in stabilizing bipolar depressive symptoms among adolescents. To establish full recovery, FFT-A may need to be supplemented with systematic care interventions effective for mania symptoms.
Further Simplification of the Simple Erosion Narrowing Score With Item Response Theory Methodology.

OBJECTIVE
To further simplify the simple erosion narrowing score (SENS) by removing scored areas that contribute the least to its measurement precision according to analysis based on item response theory (IRT) and to compare the measurement performance of the simplified version to the original.


METHODS
Baseline and 18-month data of the Combinatietherapie Bij Reumatoide Artritis (COBRA) trial were modeled using longitudinal IRT methodology. Measurement precision was evaluated across different levels of structural damage. SENS was further simplified by omitting the least reliably scored areas. Discriminant validity of SENS and its simplification were studied by comparing their ability to differentiate between the COBRA and sulfasalazine arms. Responsiveness was studied by comparing standardized change scores between versions.


RESULTS
SENS data showed good fit to the IRT model. Carpal and feet joints contributed the least statistical information to both erosion and joint space narrowing scores. Omitting the joints of the foot reduced measurement precision for the erosion score in cases with below-average levels of structural damage (relative efficiency compared with the original version ranged 35-59%). Omitting the carpal joints had minimal effect on precision (relative efficiency range 77-88%). Responsiveness of a simplified SENS without carpal joints closely approximated the original version (i.e., all Δ standardized change scores were ≤0.06). Discriminant validity was also similar between versions for both the erosion score (relative efficiency = 97%) and the SENS total score (relative efficiency = 84%).


CONCLUSION
Our results show that the carpal joints may be omitted from the SENS without notable repercussion for its measurement performance.
Enhancing adherence to antiretroviral therapy at the HIV clinic in resource constrained countries; the Tanzanian experience.

OBJECTIVE
To evaluate various strategies aimed at improving adherence to antiretroviral therapy (ART).


METHODS
Patients initiated on ART at Muhimbili National Hospital HIV clinic were randomly assigned to either regular adherence counseling, regular counseling plus a calendar, or regular counseling and a treatment assistant. Patients were seen monthly; during these meetings self-reported adherence to treatment was recorded. Disease progression was monitored clinically and immunologically.


RESULTS
Of the 621 patients randomized, 312 received regular counseling only, 242 regular counseling and calendars, while 67 had treatment assistants in addition to regular counseling. The mean (SD) follow-up time was 14.5 (4.6) months. During follow-up 20 (3.2%) patients died, and 102 (16.4%) were lost to follow-up; this was similar in all groups. In 94.8% of all visits, patients reported to have adhered to treatment. In only 39 (0.7%) visits did patients report a < or = 95% adherence. There were no differences in adherence (P = 0.573) or differences in CD4 count and weight changes over time in the interventions.


CONCLUSIONS
Good adherence to ART is possible in resource constrained countries. Persistent adherence counseling in clinic settings by itself may be effective in improving adherence to ART.
The mechanisms of massage and effects on performance, muscle recovery and injury prevention.

Many coaches, athletes and sports medicine personnel hold the belief, based on observations and experiences, that massage can provide several benefits to the body such as increased blood flow, reduced muscle tension and neurological excitability, and an increased sense of well-being. Massage can produce mechanical pressure, which is expected to increase muscle compliance resulting in increased range of joint motion, decreased passive stiffness and decreased active stiffness (biomechanical mechanisms). Mechanical pressure might help to increase blood flow by increasing the arteriolar pressure, as well as increasing muscle temperature from rubbing. Depending on the massage technique, mechanical pressure on the muscle is expected to increase or decrease neural excitability as measured by the Hoffman reflex (neurological mechanisms). Changes in parasympathetic activity (as measured by heart rate, blood pressure and heart rate variability) and hormonal levels (as measured by cortisol levels) following massage result in a relaxation response (physiological mechanisms). A reduction in anxiety and an improvement in mood state also cause relaxation (psychological mechanisms) after massage. Therefore, these benefits of massage are expected to help athletes by enhancing performance and reducing injury risk. However, limited research has investigated the effects of pre-exercise massage on performance and injury prevention. Massage between events is widely investigated because it is believed that massage might help to enhance recovery and prepare athletes for the next event. Unfortunately, very little scientific data has supported this claim. The majority of research on psychological effects of massage has concluded that massage produces positive effects on recovery (psychological mechanisms). Post-exercise massage has been shown to reduce the severity of muscle soreness but massage has no effects on muscle functional loss. Notwithstanding the belief that massage has benefits for athletes, the effects of different types of massage (e.g. petrissage, effleurage, friction) or the appropriate timing of massage (pre-exercise vs post-exercise) on performance, recovery from injury, or as an injury prevention method are not clear. Explanations are lacking, as the mechanisms of each massage technique have not been widely investigated. Therefore, this article discusses the possible mechanisms of massage and provides a discussion of the limited evidence of massage on performance, recovery and muscle injury prevention. The limitations of previous research are described and further research is recommended.
Pattern-revising Enhanced Simple Question Answering over Knowledge Bases

Question Answering over Knowledge Bases (KB-QA), which automatically answer natural language questions based on the facts contained by a knowledge base, is one of the most important natural language processing (NLP) tasks. Simple questions constitute a large part of questions queried on the web, still being a challenge to QA systems. In this work, we propose to conduct pattern extraction and entity linking first, and put forward pattern revising procedure to mitigate the error propagation problem. In order to learn to rank candidate subject-predicate pairs to enable the relevant facts retrieval given a question, we propose to do joint fact selection enhanced by relation detection. Multi-level encodings and multi-dimension information are leveraged to strengthen the whole procedure. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach sets a new record in this task, outperforming the current state-of-the-art by an absolute large margin.
Comparison of single CT scan assessment of bone mineral density, vascular calcification and fat mass with standard clinical measurements in renal transplant subjects: the ABC HeART study

BACKGROUND
Despite limitations of routine methods, Clinical Practice Guidelines support the assessment of bone mineral density (BMD) and vascular calcification in renal transplant recipients. Changes in fat mass also occur post-transplantation, although they are traditionally difficult to measure accurately. We report the feasibility, convenience and accuracy of measuring the above 3 parameters using a novel CT protocol.


METHODS
We conducted a cross-sectional study of 64 first renal allograft recipients (eGFR > 30 ml/min/1.73 m(2)). Quantitative CT (QCT) BMD analysis was conducted using CT lumbar spine (GE Medical Systems Lightspeed VCT & Mindways QCT Pro Bone Mineral Densitometry System Version 4.2.3) to calculate spinal volumetric BMD and compared with standard DXA calculated areal BMD at the spine, hip and distal forearm. Abdominal aortic calcification was assessed by semi-quantitative Aortic Calcification Index (ACI) method and compared with lateral lumbar x-ray Kappuila score and pulse wave velocity (PWV). Visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue volume (Osirix 16 Ver 3.7.1) was compared with BMI.


RESULTS
Participants were 61 % male, had a mean age of 47 years, median ESKD duration of 5.4 years and a mean eGFR of 54 ml/min. iDXA median T-score at proximal femur was -1.2 and at lumbar spine was -0.2. Median QCT Trabecular T-score at lumbar spine was -1.2. The percent of subjects with a T-score of < 2.5 by site and method was DXA Proximal Femur: 7 %, DXA distal radius: 17 %, DXA spine: 9 %, QCT (American College of Radiology cutoffs): 9 %. CT derived ACI correlated with PWV (r = 0.29, p = 0.02), pulse wave pressure (r = 0.51, p < 0.001), QCT Trabecular (-0.31, p = 0.01) and cortical volumetric BMD and history of cardiovascular events (Mann-Whitney U, p = 0.02). Both visceral and subcutaneous adipose tissue correlated with BMI (r = 0.63 & 0.64, p < 0.001).


CONCLUSIONS
Single CT scan triple assessment of BMD, vascular calcification and body composition is an efficient, accurate and convenient method of risk factor monitoring post renal transplantation.