Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Chemotherapy Response Evaluation with 18F-FDG PET in Patients with Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer

The aim of this prospective study was to evaluate the value of 18F-FDG PET for the assessment of chemotherapy response in patients with non–small cell lung cancer. Furthermore, part of the objective of this study was to compare 2 methods to quantify changes in glucose metabolism. Methods: In 51 patients, dynamic 18F-FDG PET was performed before and at 5–8 wk into treatment. Simplified methods to measure glucose metabolism (standardized uptake value [SUV]) and quantitative measures (metabolic rate of glucose [MRGlu]), derived from Patlak analysis, were evaluated. The overall survival and progression-free survival with respect to MRGlu and SUV were calculated using Kaplan–Meier estimates. Fractional changes in tumor glucose use were stratified by the median value and also the predefined EORTC (European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer) metabolic response criteria, and criteria applying cutoff levels similar to those of RECIST (Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors) were evaluated. Results: When stratifying at the median value of ΔMRGlu and ΔSUV, the difference in overall survival (P = 0.017 for ΔMRGlu, P = 0.018 for ΔSUV) and progression-free survival (P = 0.002 for ΔMRGlu, P = 0.0009 for ΔSUV) was highly significant. When applying the predefined criteria for metabolic response, the cutoff levels as also used for size measurement (RECIST) showed significant differences for ΔSUV between response categories in progression-free survival (P = 0.0003) as well as overall survival (P = 0.027). Conclusion: The degree of chemotherapy-induced changes in tumor glucose metabolism as determined by 18F-FDG PET is highly predictive for patient outcome, stratifying patients into groups with widely differing overall survival and progression-free survival probabilities. The use of 18F-FDG PET for therapy monitoring seems clinically feasible, because simplified methods to measure tumor glucose use (SUV) are sufficiently reliable and can replace more complex, quantitative measures (MRGlu) in this patient population.
Improving documentation of procedural sedation in an adult emergency department

Introduction This study evaluates the effects of an educational intervention and the use of a preprinted form on the adequacy of documentation of procedural sedation in an adult emergency department. Methods The study was conducted at a tertiary hospital's emergency department. Structured medical record review was performed before and after a multipronged educational intervention and again after the introduction of a preprinted form that included factors distilled from published procedural sedation guidelines. Good documentation was defined as having less than five of 22 documentation items missing, and greater than 10 items missing was defined as a poor documentation. Results The baseline group consisted of 93 patients with 102 included posteducation and 118 included after the introduction of the form. At baseline, 4.3% had good documentation, and 47.3% had poor documentation. Posteducation, these results were 16.7 and 30.4% for good and poor documentation, respectively. After the introduction of the form, 33.9% had good documentation and 38.1% had poor documentation. Only 39% of cases used the form, which resulted in 80.4% of medical records having good documentation and with none having poor documentation. Concurrently, if the form was not used to assist documentation, 1.4% had good documentation and 62.5% had poor documentation. Conclusion Baseline documentation was poor and improved slightly after both the educational interventions. Use of a preprinted form was associated with no medical records being classified as having poor documentation; however, uptake of the form use was low. Emergency departments should develop and consider mandatory use of such an aid together with training staff in the use of the aid and the important implications of adequate procedural documentation.
Chloroquine prophylaxis associated with high prevalence of Plasmodium falciparum pfcrt K76T mutation in people with sickle-cell disease in Benin City, Nigeria.

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES High mortality and morbidity in sickle-cell disease has been associated with malaria infection especially in countries where chloroquine is used. Chloroquine resistance has been associated with the emergence of Pfcrt mutant genes. This study aimed at comparing the prevalence rate of Pfcrt T76 mutation in Plasmodium falciparum isolates from infected individuals with sickle-cell disease and sickle-cell trait. This study was carried out in Benin City between the months of April and June 2006. This period is marked with high transmission rate of malaria. METHODS The genotype of the subjects was screened using haemoglobin electrophoresis system and the P. falciparum. Pfcrt genotyping was carried out using PCR-restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP). RESULTS Four hundred and twenty-four subjects comprising of 207 haemoglobin AA, 136 haemoglobin AS and 81 haemoglobin SS typed individuals were enrolled for this study. No significant difference existed in the prevalence rate of malaria in the three groups (p > 0.05). However, the prevalence rate of Pfcrt K76T mutant gene was higher in the haemoglobin SS genotyped individuals than the haemoglobin AA and AS subjects (p < 0.05). INTERPRETATION & CONCLUSION An uncontrolled use of chloroquine has been incriminated as the major cause of chloroquine resistance in Nigeria. Therefore, rapid intervention measures are needed as a matter of urgency to curb the up rise in the prevalence of the chloroquine resistant genes in our environment.
Subcellular localization of Dna‐initiation proteins of Bacillus subtilis: evidence that chromosome replication begins at either edge of the nucleoids

We examined the intracellular distribution of Bacillus subtilis Dna‐initiation proteins by immunofluorescence microscopy to visualize the initiation complex of replication in vivo. DnaA was distributed throughout the cytoplasm, but both DnaB and DnaI were always detected as foci during the cell‐division cycle. Interaction of DnaI with the DnaC helicase by the yeast two‐hybrid assay suggests that DnaI acts as a helicase loader. The number of DnaB and DnaI foci within the cell exceeded that of oriC. Although the foci were not always co‐localized with oriC, they seemed to be localized near the outer or inner edges of the nucleoids at initiation of replication. When the replication cycle was synchronized in cells using a temperature‐sensitive dnaA mutant, duplication of the oriC region was observed predominantly near an edge of the nucleoid. Before initiation occurred, each one of the DnaB and DnaI foci was frequently observed near there. Furthermore, DnaX–GFP (DnaX is a component of DNA polymerase III) foci were detected near either of the edges of the nucleoids at the onset of replication. These results suggest that the replisome is recruited into oriC near either edge of the nucleoids to initiate chromosome replication in B. subtilis.
Optimal Streaming of Layered Video Despina Saparilla

This paper presents a model and theory for streaming layered video. We model the bandwidth available to the streaming application as a stochastic process whose statistical characteristics are unknown a priori. The random bandwidth models short term variations due to congestion control (such as TCP-friendly conformance). We suppose that the video has been encoded into a base and an enhancement layer, and that to decode the enhancement layer the base layer has to be available to the client. We make the natural assumption that the client has abundant local storage and attempts to prefetch as much of the video as possible during playback. At any instant of time, starvation can occur at the client in either of the two layers. We study the dynamic allocation of the available bandwidth to the two layers. For the case of an infinitely-long video, we find that the optimal policy takes on a surprisingly simple and static form. For finite-length videos, the optimal policy is a simple static policy when the enhancement layer is deemed at least as important as the base layer. When the base layer is more important, we design a threshold policy heuristic which switches between two static policies. We provide numerical results that compare the performance of noprefetching, static and threshold policies.
Treebank-based grammar acquisition for German

Manual development of deep linguistic resources is time-consuming and costly and therefore often described as a bottleneck for traditional rule-based NLP. In my PhD thesis I present a treebank-based method for the automatic acquisition of LFG resources for German. The method automatically creates deep and rich linguistic presentations from labelled data (treebanks) and can be applied to large data sets. My research is based on and substantially extends previous work on automatically acquiring wide-coverage, deep, constraint-based grammatical resources from the English Penn-II treebank (Cahill et al.,2002; Burke et al., 2004; Cahill, 2004). Best results for English show a dependency f-score of 82.73% (Cahill et al., 2008) against the PARC 700 dependency bank, outperforming the best hand-crafted grammar of Kaplan et al. (2004). Preliminary work has been carried out to test the approach on languages other than English, providing proof of concept for the applicability of the method (Cahill et al., 2003; Cahill, 2004; Cahill et al., 2005). While first results have been promising, a number of important research questions have been raised. The original approach presented first in Cahill et al. (2002) is strongly tailored to English and the datastructures provided by the Penn-II treebank (Marcus et al., 1993). English is configurational and rather poor in inflectional forms. German, by contrast, features semi-free word order and a much richer morphology. Furthermore, treebanks for German differ considerably from the Penn-II treebank as regards data structures and encoding schemes underlying the grammar acquisition task. In my thesis I examine the impact of language-specific properties of German as well as linguistically motivated treebank design decisions on PCFG parsing and LFG grammar acquisition. I present experiments investigating the influence of treebank design on PCFG parsing and show which type of representations are useful for the PCFG and LFG grammar acquisition tasks. Furthermore, I present a novel approach to cross-treebank comparison, measuring the effect of controlled error insertion on treebank trees and parser output from different treebanks. I complement the cross-treebank comparison by providing a human evaluation using TePaCoC, a new testsuite for testing parser performance on complex grammatical constructions. Manual evaluation on TePaCoC data provides new insights on the impact of flat vs. hierarchical annotation schemes on data-driven parsing. I present treebank-based LFG acquisition methodologies for two German treebanks. An extensive evaluation along different dimensions complements the investigation and provides valuable insights for the future development of treebanks.
The trends of relevance about telling lung cancer diagnosis: social constraints, medical practice in several clinics.

INTRODUCTION The aim of this study is to assess the opinions of relatives about telling the lung cancer diagnosis to the patient and evaluate the implementation in our hospital. MATERIALS AND METHODS A survey questionnaire was designed, and applied on nurses and physicians working in oncology care units, 4th-6th grade medical students, and relatives of cancer and non-cancer patients. RESULTS Totally 347 (228 males, 119 females) participants (64 physicians, 100 nurses, 61 medical students, and 122 relatives of patients) with a mean age of 28 were enrolled in the study. 62.5% of doctors, 53.2% of nurses, 59.5% of medical students and 45.9% of relatives of lung cancer patients thought that the patient should be informed about his/her cancer diagnosis. 29.5% of the physicians told their patients about their diagnosis of cancer. Gender, age, abroad experience, academic career, speciality, and period of professional experience were not determined to have any impact on physician's opinion and clinical practices. CONCLUSION It was determined that physicians care more about patients' right to be informed than other participating groups. Generally, although physicians agree that the diagnosis of cancer should be told to the patient, their routine clinical practices do not reflect this viewpoint.
Bacteriostatic Effects of Hyaluronan-Based Bioresorbable Membrane

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to determine the presence of bacteriostatic effects of hyaluronan-based bioresorbable membrane (HA/CMC) on selected major bacterial strains in digestive organs. Methods: We firstly evaluated the growth inhibition effect of HA/CMC for E. coli and S. aureus by determining the optical density (OD)650 in the incubation medium. At second, to determine the viable counts of bacteria, total adenosine triphosphate (ATP) were measured with five groups; several concentrations of HA/CMC and control. Results: OD curve gradually elevated and reached to plateau at 4 hours in E. coli. and 6 hours in S. aureus. After reaching plateau, the growth inhibition of both strains was statistically significantly correlated to the concentrations of HA/CMC. The ATP productions had statistically significant differences at 6 hours after incubation and inhibited in dose-dependence of a well-dissolved HA/CMC. Conclusion: HA/CMC may have dose-dependently bacteriostatic effects on S. aureus and E. coli.
More than half of the medical students who apply for a dispensation drop out and need focused counselling.

INTRODUCTION The Student Counselling Service at the Faculty of Health Sciences, Aarhus University, Denmark, has experienced an increase in medical students with poor mental well-being. MATERIAL AND METHODS This was a descriptive, retrospective survey of 1,056 medical students commencing their studies in the period from September 2003 to February 2006. The study had a four-year follow-up period. Demographics, delay, discontinuation and dispensations were determined. Each application was reviewed and the reasons why each student applied were recorded. RESULTS Applicants were significantly older than non-applicants. 90.9% of the dispensations were related to first-year examinations (50 students). A significantly higher number of dispensation applicants (58.2%) discontinued their studies (32 students) compared with dispensation non-applicants. 54.6% of the applicants (30 students) did not pass their first-year examinations. The study time was delayed by more than two years among 67.3% of the applicants (37 students). 27.3% of the applicants were students with a foreign qualifying exam (15 students). Females listed mainly emotional reasons in their applications. Such reasons included, among others, depression, stress and anxiety. In contrast, males listed study- and family-related issues. CONCLUSION Focused student counselling is recommended for all students of medicine, especially in the first year of their studies. Furthermore, lessons aiming to build study skills and teach students how to cope with study-related stress and exam-related anxiety are recommended. Particular attention should be given to foreign students. Each applicant should be advised individually. FUNDING not relevant. TRIAL REGISTRATION not relevant.
Effect of drug-eluting stents in patients with acute ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention: a meta-analysis of randomised trials and an adjusted indirect comparison.

AIMS The role of drug-eluting stent (DES) remains an unsettled issue in patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI). Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis of randomised trials to evaluate the clinical outcome of DES as compared with bare-metal stent (BMS) after percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). METHODS AND RESULTS We undertook a literature search until July 2009. Thirteen clinical trials met inclusion criteria, with 7,244 patients enrolled. Up to 1-year, patients treated with DES as compared with BMS experienced less target-vessel revascularisation (TVR) (5.11% versus 11.19% respectively, p<0.00001) and recurrent myocardial infarction rates (3.03% versus 3.70% respectively, p=0.02). In addition, no significant differences were found in terms of cardiac death (2.80% versus 3.52%, p=0.21) and stent thrombosis (2.65% versus 2.76%, p=0.37). Using the adjusted indirect comparison, a significant difference between sirolimus- and paclitaxel-eluting stent was found when TVR was evaluated (OR [95% CI] =0.59 [0.40-0.89], p=0.01), without differences in other clinical outcomes. CONCLUSIONS In patients undergoing PCI for STEMI, treatment with DES is associated with decreased TVR and myocardial infarction rates, without increasing cardiac death or stent thrombosis occurrence. Sirolimus-eluting stent is associated with a greater TVR reduction as compared to paclitaxel-eluting stent.
Methanol synthesis at a wide range of H2/CO2 ratios over Rh-In bimetallic catalyst.

Recent years have seen an increasing interest in capturing hydrogen generated from renewables with CO 2 to produce methanol. However, renewable hydrogen production is currently expensive and in limited quantity as compared to CO 2 . Excess CO 2 and limited H 2 in the feedstock gas mixture is not favourable for the CO 2 hydrogenation to methanol reaction, which causes low activity and poor methanol selectivity. Here we report a new class of Rh-In catalysts with optimal adsorption property to the intermediates of methanol production. The Rh-In catalyst can effectively catalyse methanol synthesis but inhibit reverse water-gas shift reaction under H 2 -deficient gas flow and shows the best competitive methanol productivity under industrially applicable conditions in comparison with the literature reported values. This work demonstrates a strong potential of Rh-In bimetallic composition, from which a convenient methanol synthesis based on flexible feedstock compositions (e.g. H 2 /CO 2 from biomass derivatives) with lower energy cost can be established.
Addition of Lamotrigine to Valproate May Enhance Efficacy in the Treatment of Bipolar Affective Disorder

The new antiepileptic lamotrigine has been shown to be effective in the treatment of focal epilepsies with or without secondary generalization and has also been suggested to be efficacious in the treatment and prophylaxis of affective disorders. Therefore, we analyzed its possible benefit in a patient with refractory bipolar affective disorder. Lamotrigine (up to 150 mg/d) was added to valproate (2700 mg/d), substituting previously administered neuroleptics. A considerable improvement of the patient's condition was achieved several days after the beginning of lamotrigine co-administration, and lasted over the total follow-up period of more than one year. The plasma concentrations after total remission were in the range of 1.9 to 6.2 mg/l for lamotrigine and 57.1 to 95.2 mg/l for valproate. This positive action of lamotrigine is discussed in the context of the drug's elementary effects on sodium and calcium channels.
ATM germline heterozygosity does not play a role in chronic lymphocytic leukemia initiation but influences rapid disease progression through loss of the remaining ATM allele

Ataxia telangiectasia patients, with constitutional bi-allelic ATM mutations, have a marked risk of lymphoid tumors and ATM mutation carriers have a smaller risk of cancer. Sporadic ATM mutations occur in 10–20% of chronic lymphocytic leukemia and are often associated with chromosome 11q deletions which cause loss of an ATM allele. The role of constitutional ATM mutations in the pathogenesis of chronic lymphocytic leukemia is unknown. Here we investigated the frequency of constitutional ATM mutations in either of two chronic lymphocytic leukemia cohorts, those with and without a chromosome 11q deletion. We found that in comparison to controls, constitutional pathogenic ATM mutations were increased in patients with chromosome 11q deletions (6 of 140 vs. 0 of 281, P=0.001) but not in those without 11q deletions (2 of 178 vs. 0 of 281, P=0.15). These results suggest that ATM germline heterozygosity does not play a role in chronic lymphocytic leukemia initiation but rather influences rapid disease progression through ATM loss.
Long-term Use of Autologous Serum 50% Eye Drops for the Treatment of Dry Eye Disease

Purpose: The aim of this study was to describe the outcomes of 50% autologous serum (AS) eye drops after long-term use in a large cohort of patients with dry eyes. Methods: A retrospective cohort study was conducted on all patients treated with 50% AS eye drops at our institution between June 2008 and January 2013. Records were reviewed for clinical history, systemic risk factors, dry eye etiology, patients' symptoms, and adverse events. Ocular surface evaluation included Schirmer testing with topical anesthesia, fluorescein staining, and ocular surface disease index. Data were reviewed at initial visit, 1 month, and every 3 to 6 months during treatment with AS. Paired t tests were performed to compare the progression of signs and symptoms of dry eye disease. Results: A total of 123 eyes of 63 patients were evaluated with a mean follow-up of 12 months (range, 3–48 months). Corneal fluorescein staining (mean baseline, 1.77 ± 1.1) improved at the 3- to <6-month, 6- to <12-month, and final follow-up (mean: 1.2 ± 1.0, 1.3 ± 1.0, and 1.1 ± 1.1; P = 0.003, 0.017, and 0.0003, respectively). Schirmer scores (mean baseline, 6.6 ± 6.5 mm) improved at the 12- to 24-month follow-up (mean = 10.7 ± 11.4, P = 0.03), whereas ocular surface disease index scores (mean baseline, 54.1 ± 22.3) improved at the 3- to <6- and 6- to <12-month follow-up (mean: 49.5 ± 8.2 and 39.3 ± 21.4, P = 0.029 and 0.003, respectively). No complications were noted. Conclusions: Fifty percent AS eye drops seem to be a safe and effective long-term treatment for dry eye disease, especially in patients with severe disease who have exhausted all other conventional forms of treatment.
PROSPECTIVE PREDICTION OF SCHIZOPHRENIC REMISSION.

Although numerous studies of prognosis in schizophrenia exist, most have been biased by retrospective design and limited by short follow-up. There is no well-documented method for predicting on admission the longterm clinical course of schizophrenics. However, there are three studies 3,10,13 that have been well-enough designed to merit clinical confidence. Wittman used her Elgin Prognostic Scale13prospectively and in 83% of cases correctly predicted clinical course in schizophrenia. Her studies suffered from a follow-up period of only a year, and although her scale proved reliable in her own hands, it has proved unwieldy and subjective (21 weighted items) in the hands of subsequent investigators. Stephens and Astrup10examined 178 admission charts and decided which patients represented "process" and "non-process" (remitting) schizophrenia. They were able to obtain 5-13 year follow-ups on 80% of these patients. Ten per cent of the "recovered" and
Labour Supply: The Roles of Human Capital and the Extensive Margin

We specify and estimate a life-cycle labour supply model that expands on earlier work by simultaneously including human capital accumulation, saving and bequests, an active extensive margin, a realistic specification of the progressive tax structure and the Social Security system, and an accounting for private pensions and health expenditures. By incorporating all these features, we develop new insights into how taxes affect life-cycle labour supply. For instance, we find that labour supply elasticities vary in important ways with age, education and the tax structure itself. We also show how human capital affects elasticities differently on the intensive versus extensive margins.