Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Integrating medical management with diabetes self-management training: a randomized control trial of the Diabetes Outpatient Intensive Treatment program.

OBJECTIVE This study evaluated the Diabetes Outpatient Intensive Treatment (DOIT) program, a multiday group education and skills training experience combined with daily medical management, followed by case management over 6 months. Using a randomized control design, the study explored how DOIT affected glycemic control and self-care behaviors over a short term. The impact of two additional factors on clinical outcomes were also examined (frequency of case management contacts and whether or not insulin was started during the program). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS Patients with type 1 and type 2 diabetes in poor glycemic control (A1c >8.5%) were randomly assigned to DOIT or a second condition, entitled EDUPOST, which was standard diabetes care with the addition of quarterly educational mailings. A total of 167 patients (78 EDUPOST, 89 DOIT) completed all baseline measures, including A1c and a questionnaire assessing diabetes-related self-care behaviors. At 6 months, 117 patients (52 EDUPOST, 65 DOIT) returned to complete a follow-up A1c and the identical self-care questionnaire. RESULTS At follow-up, DOIT evidenced a significantly greater drop in A1c than EDUPOST. DOIT patients also reported significantly more frequent blood glucose monitoring and greater attention to carbohydrate and fat contents (ACFC) of food compared with EDUPOST patients. An increase in ACFC over the 6-month period was associated with improved glycemic control among DOIT patients. Also, the frequency of nurse case manager follow-up contacts was positively linked to better A1c outcomes. The addition of insulin did not appear to be a significant contributor to glycemic change. CONCLUSIONS DOIT appears to be effective in promoting better diabetes care and positively influencing glycemia and diabetes-related self-care behaviors. However, it demands significant time, commitment, and careful coordination with many health care professionals. The role of the nurse case manager in providing ongoing follow-up contact seems important.
Microsimulation methods for population projection.

The use of microsimulation methods for making population projections is examined. "A particular problem in microsimulation results from the fact that the projections are subject to random variation. Various sources of random variations are examined but the most important is the one we refer to as specification randomness: the more explanatory variables are included in the model, the greater the degree of random variation affecting the output of the model. After a brief survey of the microsimulation models which exist in demography, a number of the essential characteristics of microsimulation are illustrated using the KINSIM model for projecting the future size and structure of kinship networks. " (EXCERPT)
Evaluation of plasma cystatin C as a marker for glomerular filtration rate in patients with type 2 diabetes.

AIM To evaluate plasma cystatin C as a marker of the glomerular filtration rate in patients with type 2 diabetes and their age and sex-matched controls. MATERIALS AND METHODS Forty-seven patients with one decade of type 2 diabetes and 51 non-diabetic control subjects were studied. Plasma cystatin C was measured by particle-enhanced turbidimetric immunoassay in a new application for the Hitachi 704 analyzer. For comparison, plasma creatinine and creatinine clearance were measured. The plasma clearance of 51Cr-EDTA by the single injection method was utilized as reference. RESULTS In patients with type 2 diabetes the correlation coefficient between plasma cystatin C and the plasma clearance of 51Cr-EDTA was 0.774 (Spearman's coefficient) and that between plasma creatinine and the plasma clearance of 51Cr-EDTA was 0.556 (p = 0.001 for the difference). The correlation between creatinine clearance and the plasma clearance of 51Cr-EDTA was 0.411. In receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis the diagnostic accuracy of plasma cystatin C was significantly better than that of plasma creatinine (p = 0.047) or creatinine clearance (p = 0.001). The best diagnostic efficiency (98%) for cystatin C was obtained when the cut-off limit was set at 1.32 mg/l. In the control group the correlation coefficients were: between cystatin C and the plasma clearance of 51Cr-EDTA 0.627, between creatinine and the plasma clearance of 51Cr-EDTA 0.466 and between creatinine clearance and the plasma clearance of 51Cr-EDTA 0.416. The area under the ROC plot curve of cystatin C was also greatest in the control group, but the diagnostic accuracy of cystatin C was marginally better than that of either plasma creatinine (p = 0.05) or creatinine clearance (p = 0.08). Among the control subjects various non-renal causes may have interfered with cystatin C concentrations reducing the correlations. CONCLUSIONS Cystatin C measurement is a more sensitive and specific test for GFR in patients with type 2 diabetes than plasma creatinine or its clearance, when GFR is normal or only slightly reduced. If an elevated cystatin C concentration is found, non-renal factors have to be excluded. The turbidimetric application described here can easily be applied for most clinical chemistry analyzers and is therefore useful in daily clinical practice.
Characterizing the Performance of Analytics Workloads on the Cray XC 40

This paper describes an investigation of the performance characteristics of high performance data analytics (HPDA) workloads on the Cray XC40TM, with a focus on commonly-used open source analytics frameworks like Apache Spark. We look at two types of Spark workloads: the Spark benchmarks from the Intel HiBench 4.0 suite and a CX matrix decomposition algorithm. We study performance from both the bottom-up view (via system metrics) and the top-down view (via application log analysis), and show how these two views can help identify performance bottlenecks and system issues impacting data analytics workload performance. Based on this study, we provide recommendations for improving the performance of analytics workloads on the XC40. Keywords-Spark; Cray XC40; data analytics; big data
Preparation and Characterization of Spray-Dried Polymeric Nanocapsules

Recently, much interest has been generated by colloidal drug delivery systems such as nanocapsules because of the possibilities for controlled release, increased drug efficacy, and reduced toxicity after parenteral administration. Nanocapsules of poly-ε-caprolactone and Eudragit S90® were prepared. However, these systems present physicochemical instability. To dry these nanocapsule suspensions with the view of obtaining a solid form, the spray-drying process was used. Spray-dried powders of nanocapsules of poly-ε-caprolactone and Eudragit S90® were prepared by atomization in a Büchi 190 Mini-spray dryer using colloidal silicon dioxide as a technological carrier. The morphological analysis of the surface at the powders showed that nanocapsules remain intact, and no change in particle size was detected after the spray-drying process. These results suggest that this method can be an interesting alternative to dry nanocapsule suspensions.
Altered Pharmacokinetics of Ceftazidime in Critically Ill Patients

ABSTRACT Many critically ill patients have increased extracellular fluid which might affect ceftazidime pharmacokinetics. We investigated the pharmacokinetics of ceftazidime in 15 adult intensive care patients receiving 2 g of ceftazidime intravenously three times a day. The ceftazidime mean (standard deviation) apparent volume of distribution and terminal-phase half-life were 56.91 (25.93) liters and 4.75 (1.85) h, respectively, significantly greater than values reported previously for healthy controls (P < 0.001). The mean ceftazidime clearance and area under the curve at steady state were not significantly different from those previously reported for controls. We conclude that ceftazidime pharmacokinetics in critically ill patients were altered by an increased volume of drug distribution and elevated elimination half-life.
Unsupervised terrain classification preserving polarimetric scattering characteristics

In this paper, we proposed an unsupervised terrain and land-use classification algorithm using polarimetric synthetic aperture radar data. Unlike other algorithms that classify pixels statistically and ignore their scattering characteristics, this algorithm not only uses a statistical classifier, but also preserves the purity of dominant polarimetric scattering properties. This algorithm uses a combination of a scattering model-based decomposition developed by Freeman and Durden and the maximum-likelihood classifier based on the complex Wishart distribution. The first step is to apply the Freeman and Durden decomposition to divide pixels into three scattering categories: surface scattering, volume scattering, and double-bounce scattering. To preserve the purity of scattering characteristics, pixels in a scattering category are restricted to be classified with other pixels in the same scattering category. An efficient and effective class initialization scheme is also devised to initially merge clusters from many small clusters in each scattering category by applying a merge criterion developed based on the Wishart distance measure. Then, the iterative Wishart classifier is applied. The stability in convergence is much superior to that of the previous algorithm using the entropy/anisotropy/Wishart classifier. Finally, an automated color rendering scheme is proposed, based on the classes' scattering category to code the pixels to resemble their natural color. This algorithm is also flexible and computationally efficient. The effectiveness of this algorithm is demonstrated using the Jet Propulsion Laboratory's AIRSAR and the German Aerospace Center's (DLR) E-SAR L-band polarimetric synthetic aperture radar images.
Whole Grain Consumption and Body Mass Index in Adult Women: An Analysis of NHANES 1999-2000 and the USDA Pyramid Servings Database

Objective: To examine the relationship between whole grain consumption and body mass index (BMI) in a sample of American adult women. Methods: Dietary intake data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999-2000 were linked to the USDA Pyramid Servings Database. Women 19 years of age and older (n = 2,092) were classified into groups based on their average whole grain (WG) intake: 0 servings, more than 0 but less than 1 serving, and ≥1 servings per day. Within these classifications, mean BMI, mean waist circumference and percent overweight/obese (BMI ≥ 25) were identified as primary dependent variables. Regression and logistic regression analyses were used to assess associations between BMI, waist circumference and percent of the population overweight/obese (BMI ≥25) and WG consumption. Results: Women consuming at least one serving of WG had a significantly lower mean BMI and waist circumference than women with no WG consumption (p < 0.05). Multiple regression analysis showed a significant inverse relationship between BMI and whole grain intake after adjustment for age, energy intake, dietary fiber and alcohol intake (p = 0.004). This effect was mildly attenuated but remained significant after further adjustment for level of physical activity, smoking status, ethnicity and education (p = 0.018). The odds ratio for having a BMI ≥ 25 was 1.47 (95% CI 1.12–1.94; p for trend 0.013) for women consuming no WG compared to those consuming at least one serving, after adjustment for all covariates. Conclusions: These data support other research suggesting increased WG intake may contribute to a healthy body weight in adult women.
An Analysis of Some Moderating Variables on the Value, Brand Trust and Brand Loyalty Chain

The objective in this study was to investigate the moderating effect of some variables on the value, brand trust, and brand loyalty chain. These moderating variables are customer characteristics (Age, Gender, Involvement, Price consciousness, Brand consciousness). More specifically, we investigate both the link between hedonic and utilitarian values of a product and brand trust and the link between brand trust and attitudinal and purchase loyalty and the impact of selected customer characteristics on these relationships in the context of four product groups (mobile phones, sunglasses, running shoes, and notebooks) that can be characterized as consumer durables with high brand relevance. In a basic research model after reviewing the literature on brand trust, hedonic and utilitarian value as selected contributors to brand trust and brand loyalty as an important outcome of trust, we measured the effects of product value-brand loyalty on brand trust. Then in the second phase we analyzed the moderator effects. The proposed relationships have been tested using Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) via lisrel. We first report the main effect model and then present the impact of moderators.
Fiction Retrieval: Experimental Design and Evaluation of a Search System based on Users' Value criteria (Part 1)

These papers describe the development and evaluation of a new classification system for fiction based on an analysis of users' formulations of needs. Users of fiction generally do not require specific books to be precisely identified. Their criteria for accepting books are related to a combination of several different features, such as subject matter, emotional experience, readability etc. Previous attempts to design alternative classification schemes for fiction are reviewed, and the inadequacies of these systems are discussed. New retrieval tools such as a systematic card catalogue and alphabetic indexes have been constructed on the basis of a multi-dimensional classification system. A number of search tests in laboratory conditions have been conducted in order to evaluate the different search tools. Finally, issues like differences between concept identification in fiction and non-fiction, recall/precision, vocabulary control etc., are raised and suggestions are made for future experiments with subject approaches to the searching of fiction.
Summarizing Dialogic Arguments from Social Media

Online argumentative dialog is a rich source of information on popular beliefs and opinions that could be useful to companies as well as governmental or public policy agencies. Compact, easy to read, summaries of these dialogues would thus be highly valuable. A priori, it is not even clear what form such a summary should take. Previous work on summarization has primarily focused on summarizing written texts, where the notion of an abstract of the text is well defined. We collect gold standard training data consisting of five human summaries for each of 161 dialogues on the topics of Gay Marriage, Gun Control and Abortion. We present several different computational models aimed at identifying segments of the dialogues whose content should be used for the summary, using linguistic features and Word2vec features with both SVMs and Bidirectional LSTMs. We show that we can identify the most important arguments by using the dialog context with a best F-measure of 0.74 for gun control, 0.71 for gay marriage, and 0.67 for abortion.
Risk factors for presentation to hospital with severe anaemia in Tanzanian children: a case–control study

In malaria endemic areas anaemia is a usually silent condition that nevertheless places a considerable burden on health services. Cases of severe anaemia often require hospitalization and blood transfusions. The objective of this study was to assess risk factors for admission with anaemia to facilitate the design of anaemia control programmes. We conducted a prospective case–control study of children aged 2–59 months admitted to a district hospital in southern Tanzania. There were 216 cases of severe anaemia [packed cell volume (PCV) < 25%] and 234 age‐matched controls (PCV ≥ 25%). Most cases [55.6% (n = 120)] were < 1 year of age. Anaemia was significantly associated with the educational level of parents, type of accommodation, health‐seeking behaviour, the child's nutritional status and recent and current medical history. Of these, the single most important factor was Plasmodium falciparum parasitaemia [OR 4.3, 95% confidence interval (CI) 2.9–6.5, P < 0.001]. Multivariate analysis showed that increased recent health expenditure [OR 2.2 (95% CI 1.3–3.9), P = 0.005], malnutrition [OR 2.4 (95%CI 1.3–4.3), P < 0.001], living > 10 km from the hospital [OR 3.0 (95% CI 1.9–4.9), P < 0.001], a history of previous blood transfusion [OR 3.8 (95% CI 1.7–9.1), P < 0.001] and P. falciparum parasitaemia [OR 9.5 (95% CI 4.3–21.3), P < 0.001] were independently related to risk of being admitted with anaemia. These findings are considered in terms of the pathophysiological pathway leading to anaemia. The concentration of anaemia in infants and problems of access to health services and adequate case management underline the need for targeted preventive strategies for anaemia control.
Explicit Facial Emotion Processing in Patients With Dissociative Seizures

Objective There have, as yet, been few experimental studies of explicit facial affect recognition in patients with dissociative seizures (DS). The aim of the study was to examine explicit recognition and physiological responses to facial expressions in this group, relative to healthy controls. Methods Forty patients with DS and 43 controls completed a computerized test of facial affect recognition, including five basic expressions (happiness, anger, disgust, fear, neutral). Recognition accuracy, emotional intensity judgements, and skin conductance levels and responses were dependent measures. Analyses controlled for a range of potentially confounding variables, including anxiety, depression, and medication effects. Results The DS group was less accurate at identifying facial expressions than controls (p = .005, &eegr;2p = 0.10). No group difference emerged for intensity judgements (p = .72, &eegr;2p = 0.002). Mean skin conductance levels were higher in the DS group relative to controls (p = .046, &eegr;2p = 0.053). However, a subgroup of DS patients showed attenuated skin conductance responses to the facial stimuli, compared with controls (p = .015, &eegr;2p = 0.18). These differences could not be accounted for by possible confounding variables. Recognition accuracy for neutral faces correlated negatively with trauma scores (r = −0.486, p = .002) and abandonment concerns (r = −0.493, p = .002) in the DS group. Conclusions Patients with DS showed reduced recognition accuracy for facial affect, despite accurately perceiving its intensity. Elevated autonomic arousal may characterize patients with DS in general, alongside reduced phasic autonomic responses to facial expressions in some patients with the disorder.
Visceral Adipose Tissue in Patients with Crohn's Disease Correlates with Disease Activity, Inflammatory Markers, and Outcome

Background:Visceral adipose tissue (VAT) could affect Crohn's disease (CD); however, no prospective clinical studies have explored the issue. Methods:We measured VAT with magnetic resonance imaging and total fat mass (FM) with air-displacement plethysmography in 31 women with CD in remission and 19 matched control women. We assessed the VAT/FM ratio as index of VAT accumulation, measured cytokines, and monitored clinical features (duration of remission, disease behavior, and outcome) in patients with CD retrospectively and prospectively. We also tested whether ultrasound could provide a surrogate marker of VAT in patients with CD. Results:Patients with CD had higher percentage of FM (37 ± 10% versus 31 ± 10%, P = 0.03), VAT (1885 ± 1403 mL versus 941 ± 988 mL, P = 0.02), and VAT/FM ratio (65 ± 24 mL/kg versus 37 ± 25 mL/kg, P = 0.004) than control women. In patients with CD, VAT/FM ratio was associated with leptin (P = 0.009) and interleukin 6 (P = 0.032) concentrations, and higher in short-term than in long-term remission (72.6 ± 27.1 mL/kg versus 54.8 ± 16.1 mL/kg, P = 0.079). Patients with CD with stricturing/fistulizing disease had a higher VAT/FM ratio than patients with nonstricturing/nonfistulizing behavior (79 ± 0.15 mL/kg versus 63 ± 28 mL/kg, P = 0.067). A higher baseline VAT/FM ratio was associated with an increased disease activity at follow-up (P = 0.029). The ultrasound-determined thickness between the abdominal wall and the aorta was strongly associated with VAT as measured by magnetic resonance imaging (P < 0.001). Conclusions:VAT accumulation could be a prospective risk factor for increased disease activity in CD.
Second Primary Tumors in Head and Neck Cancer Patients

XAVIER LEÓN, ALFIO FERLITO, CHARLES M. MYER III, UMBERTO SAFFIOTTI, ASHOK R. SHAHA, PATRICK J. BRADLEY, MARGARET S. BRANDWEIN, MATTI ANNIKO, RAVINDHRA G. ELLURU and ALESSANDRA RINALDO From the Department of Otolaryngology, Hospital de Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Barcelona, Spain, Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, University of Udine, Udine, Italy, Department of Pediatric Otolaryngology, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland , USA, Head and Neck Service, Memorial Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center, New York, New York, USA, Department of Otorhinolaryngology —Head and Neck Surgery, Queen’s Medical Centre, Nottingham, UK, Department of Otolaryngology and Pathology, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, New York, USA and Department of Otolaryngology—Head and Neck Surgery, University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden
Botulinum toxin therapy for limb dystonias

We investigated the effectiveness of botulinum toxin in 17 patients with limb dystonias (10 with occupational cramps, three with idiopathic dystonia unrelated to activity, and two each with post-stroke and parkinsonian dystonia) in a placebo-controlled, blinded study. We identified affected muscles clinically and by recording the EMG from implanted wire electrodes at rest and during performance of tasks that precipitated abnormal postures. There were three injections given with graded doses of toxin (average doses, 5 to 10, 10 to 20, and 20 to 40 units per muscle) and one with placebo, in random order. Subjective improvement occurred after 53% of injections of botulinum toxin, and this was substantial in 24%. Only one patient (7%) improved after placebo injection. Subjective improvement occurred in 82% of patients with at least one dose of toxin, lasting for 1 to 4 months. Response rates were similar between clinical groups. Objective evaluation failed to demonstrate significant improvement following treatment with toxin compared with placebo. The major side effect was transient focal weakness after 53% of injections of toxin.