Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Treatment Failure Among Kenyan Children With Severe Pneumonia—A Cohort Study

Background: Pneumonia is the leading cause of childhood mortality worldwide. The World Health Organization recommends presumptive treatment based on clinical syndromes. Recent studies raise concerns over the frequency of treatment failure in Africa. Methods: We applied a definition of treatment failure to data prospectively collected from children who were 2–59 months of age with severe, or very severe, pneumonia admitted to Kilifi District Hospital, Kenya, from May 2007 through May 2008 and treated using World Health Organization guidelines. The primary outcome was treatment failure at 48 hours. Results: Of 568 children, median age 11 months, 165 (29%) had very severe pneumonia, 30 (5.3%) a positive HIV test and 62 (11%) severe malnutrition. One hundred eleven (20%; 95% confidence interval: 17–23%) children failed treatment at 48 hours and 34 (6.0%) died; 22 (65%) deaths occurred before 48 hours. Of 353 children with severe pneumonia, without HIV or severe malnutrition, 42 (12%) failed to respond at 48 hours, 15 (4.3%) failed at 5 days and 1 child (0.3%) died. Among 215 children with either severe pneumonia complicated by HIV or severe malnutrition, or very severe pneumonia, 69 (32%) failed to treatment at 48 hours, 47 (22%) failed at 5 days and 33 (16%) died. Treatment failure at 48 hours was associated with shock, bacteremia, very severe pneumonia, oxygen saturation in hemoglobin <95%, severe malnutrition, HIV and age <1 year in multivariable models. Conclusions: In this setting, few children with uncomplicated severe pneumonia fail treatment or die under current guidelines. Deaths mainly occurred early and may be reduced by improving prevention, prehospital care and treatment of sepsis.
On maximizing diffusion speed in social networks: impact of random seeding and clustering

A variety of models have been proposed and analyzed to understand how a new innovation (e.g., a technology, a product, or even a behavior) diffuses over a social network, broadly classified into either of epidemic-based or game-based ones. In this paper, we consider a game-based model, where each individual makes a selfish, rational choice in terms of its payoff in adopting the new innovation, but with some noise. We study how diffusion effect can be maximized by seeding a subset of individuals (within a given budget), i.e., convincing them to pre-adopt a new innovation. In particular, we aim at finding `good' seeds for minimizing the time to infect all others, i.e., diffusion speed maximization. To this end, we design polynomial-time approximation algorithms for three representative classes, Erdőos-Réenyi, planted partition and geometrically structured graph models, which correspond to globally well-connected, locally well-connected with large clusters and locally well-connected with small clusters, respectively, provide their performance guarantee in terms of approximation and complexity. First, for the dense Erdős-Rényi and planted partition graphs, we show that an arbitrary seeding and a simple seeding proportional to the size of clusters are almost optimal with high probability. Second, for geometrically structured sparse graphs, including planar and d-dimensional graphs, our algorithm that (a) constructs clusters, (b) seeds the border individuals among clusters, and (c) greedily seeds inside each cluster always outputs an almost optimal solution. We validate our theoretical findings with extensive simulations under a real social graph. We believe that our results provide new practical insights on how to seed over a social network depending on its connection structure, where individuals rationally adopt a new innovation. To our best knowledge, we are the first to study such diffusion speed maximization on the game-based diffusion, while the extensive research efforts have been made in epidemic-based models, often referred to as influence maximization.
UvA-DARE ( Digital Academic Repository ) Applications of magnetic resonance spectroscopy for noninvasive assessment of hepatic steatosis

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Use of diffusion tensor imaging in assessing superficial myometrial invasion by endometrial carcinoma: a preliminary study

Background Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) remains the standard modality for local staging of gynecological malignancies, but it has several limitations, especially when differentiating a cancer limited to the endometrium from a cancer invading the superficial myometrium. Purpose To explore 1.5 T diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in assessing superficial myometrial infiltration by endometrial carcinoma. Material and Methods We analyzed the sensitivity of apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) versus fractional anisotropy (FA) in diagnosing superficial myometrial infiltration compared to DCE-MRI and T2-weighted imaging (T2WI) in 35 patients with endometrial cancer. For each patient, T2WI-DWI fusion images were generated, and five regions of interest (ROIs) were placed on corresponding DTI images. ADC and FA were calculated, and fiber tractography (FT) images for each level were obtained. ADC and FA values for the five ROIs were compared. Results In distinguishing cancerous versus non-cancerous areas within superficial myometrium, median ADC values were significantly lower (1.16 vs. 1.48, respectively; P < 0.001) and median FA values were significantly higher (0.41 vs. 0.27; P < 0.001, respectively). ADC’s versus FA’s sensitivity, specificity, PPV, NPV, and accuracy for diagnosing superficial myometrial invasion were 74.3%, 88.6%, 86.7%, 77.5%, 81.4% versus 88.6%, 97.1%, 96.9%, 89.5%, 92.9%, respectively. T2WI and DCE-MR showed a sensitivity of 80.0% and 77.1%, respectively, in diagnosing myometrial invasion. Conclusion Both ADC and FA were able to distinguish between cancerous verss non-cancerous areas within superficial myometrium (although FA was more sensitive based on AUC values). In addition, FA was superior to ADC, and more sensitive than T2WI and DCE-MR, in evaluating myometrial invasion. FT images provided visual confirmation of irregular arrangement and direction of the fibers due to proliferation of stromal cells caused by superficial myometrial invasion.
Verification of Refactorings in Isabelle/HOL

Refactorings are source-to-source behaviour-preserving program transformations that are used for improving program structure. Programmers refactor code to adapt it when new functionality is added or when the code is being repaired -- refactoring serves to keep the code ``clean'' and more maintainable. Refactoring can also be used as an exploratory technique for understanding source code. The process of refactoring has been automated through the implementation of tools; these tools assist programmers by handling the consistent application of behaviour-preserving changes to the code. It is desirable that the implementations of refactorings are correct: bugs might otherwise be introduced in refactored programs. The correctness, i.e. behaviour-preservation, of refactoring is traditionally probed by testing the refactored program and not the refactoring implementation directly. Recently, automated testing techniques have been used to test implementations of refactorings directly, but the coverage of testing is partial at best. The verification of refactorings is more challenging but determines whether a refactoring is behaviour-preserving for all possible programs. We study the verification of refactorings using the proof assistant Isabelle/HOL for untyped and typed lambda-calculi. Some of the issues encountered during verification are technical rather than purely theoretical: they relate to the embedding of the programming language in the proof environment. The reasons for our choice of techniques are discussed. We also discuss other practical considerations such as the readability of mechanised refactorings, and the avoidance of computationally expensive refactorings.
Long‐Term results of thornell arytenoidectomy in the surgical treatment of bilateral vocal cord paralysis

Unilateral or bilateral Thornell arytenoidectomy provided relief from laryngeal obstruction in 135 of 147 patients (92 percent). Twelve patients required contralateral arytenoidectomy an average of six and one‐half years after an initially successful unilateral procedure. Voice preservation was excellent in all but six patients (4 percent). Complications in seven patients included the formation of granulation polyps (five) and webs (two); corrective procedures rehabilitated all seven.
Beyond the divide between cognition and discourse: using interpretative phenomenological analysis in health psychology

This paper introduces interpretative phenomenological analysis (PA) and discusses the particular contribution it can make to health psychology. This is contextualized within current debates, particularly in social psychology, between social cognition and discourse analysis and the significance for health psychology of such debates is considered. The paper outlines the theoretical roots of PA in phenomenology and symbolic interactionism and argues the case for a role for PA within health psychology. Discussion then focuses on one area in the health field, the patient's conception of chronic illness and research in medical sociology from a similar methodological and epistemological orientation to PA is introduced. The paper concludes with an illustration of PA from the author's own work on the patient's perception of renal dialysis.
A Seed-driven Bottom-up Machine Learning Framework for Extracting Relations of Various Complexity

A minimally supervised machine learning framework is described for extracting relations of various complexity. Bootstrapping starts from a small set of n-ary relation instances as “seeds”, in order to automatically learn pattern rules from parsed data, which then can extract new instances of the relation and its projections. We propose a novel rule representation enabling the composition of n-ary relation rules on top of the rules for projections of the relation. The compositional approach to rule construction is supported by a bottom-up pattern extraction method. In comparison to other automatic approaches, our rules cannot only localize relation arguments but also assign their exact target argument roles. The method is evaluated in two tasks: the extraction of Nobel Prize awards and management succession events. Performance for the new Nobel Prize task is strong. For the management succession task the results compare favorably with those of existing pattern acquisition approaches.
High School Physical Educators’ Beliefs About Teaching Differently Abled Students in an Urban Public School District

The purpose of this study was to examine general physical education (GPE) teachers’ beliefs about teaching differently abled students in inclusive classes.The participants were 5 GPE teachers from a large urban school district. The research method was explanatory multiple-case study situated in planned behavior theory. Data were gathered using a demographic questionnaire, attitude survey, and interviews. Survey data were analyzed with descriptive statistics and revealed that the teachers’ judgments vary on inclusion and their level of acceptance in teaching differently abled students. The teachers agreed that more professional training was a need. Interview data were analyzed with constant comparative method.The emergent themes were: (a) teachers’ pedagogies troubled, (b) dependent self-efficacy, (c) paradoxes, (d) motives, and (e) concerns. Findings thus implied that urban school districts should regularly engage teachers in professional development focused on teaching differently abled students.
A high-Q tunable micromechanical capacitor with movable dielectric for RF applications

A high-Q, tunable, micromechanical capacitor has been realized using an IC-compatible, electroplated-metal surface micromachining technology and demonstrated with quality (Q-) factors in excess of 290-the highest reported to date for on-chip tunable capacitors at frequencies near 1 GHz. The key feature in this design that makes possible such high on-chip Q is the method for capacitive tuning, which in this design is based on moving the dielectric between the capacitor plates, rather than moving the plates themselves, as done in previous designs. One version of this design achieves a measured Q of 291 at 1 GHz (C=1.21 pF) with a tuning range of 7.7% over 10 V of control voltage, and an expected self-resonant frequency (SRF) of 19 GHz. In another design, with a wider tuning range of 40% over 10 V, a Q of 218 is achieved at 1 GHz (C=1.14 pF).
Minimizing Communication in Numerical Linear Algebra

In 1981 Hong and Kung proved a lower bound on the amount of communication (amount of data moved between a small, fast memory and large, slow memory) needed to perform dense, n-by-n matrix multiplication using the conventional O(n3) algorithm, where the input matrices were too large to fit in the small, fast memory. In 2004 Irony, Toledo, and Tiskin gave a new proof of this result and extended it to the parallel case (where communication means the amount of data moved between processors). In both cases the lower bound may be expressed as Ω(#arithmetic_operations/M), where M is the size of the fast memory (or local memory in the parallel case). Here we generalize these results to a much wider variety of algorithms, including LU factorization, Cholesky factorization, LDLT factorization, QR factorization, the Gram–Schmidt algorithm, and algorithms for eigenvalues and singular values, i.e., essentially all direct methods of linear algebra. The proof works for dense or sparse matrices and for sequential or para.
Cryptographically Transparent Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Proxies

Proxies provide important rendezvous service in the session initiation protocol (SIP), but it comes at a cost to privacy. A SIP proxy is privy to all of the signaling exchanged between two user agents, even if that signaling is performed over a secure channel (e.g., a Transport Layer Security channel.) This paper proposes and evaluates a mechanism that allows the proxies to create an overlay network between the user agents for rendezvous, and once that is done, the proxies become transparent traffic forwarders. From then onwards, user agents can authenticate each other directly and exchange cryptographically secure signaling traffic over the overlay network created by the proxies. This mechanism is applicable to traditional client/server SIP as well as Peer-to-Peer SIP.
Improvements in Functional Capacity From Nordic Walking: A Randomized Controlled Trial Among Older Adults

This study examined the effects of an instructed structured Nordic walking (NW) exercise program on the functional capacity of older sedentary people. Volunteers were randomly assigned to an NW group (68.2 ± 3.8 yr old) or control group (69.9 ± 3.0 yr old). Before and at the end of the 9-wk intervention, functional tests and 2-dimensional ground-reaction-force (GRF) patterns of normal (1.40 m/s) and fast (1.94 m/s) walking speeds were measured. The intervention included a 60-min supervised NW session on an inside track twice a week for 9 wk. The mean changes in functional tests differed between groups significantly. Gait analyses showed no significant differences between the groups on any GRF parameters for walking speed either before or after the intervention. The study showed that NW has favorable effects on functional capacity in older people and is a suitable form of exercise for them.
Effects of caffeine on human health

Caffeine is probably the most frequently ingested pharmacologically active substance in the world. It is found in common beverages (coffee, tea, soft drinks), in products containing cocoa or chocolate, and in medications. Because of its wide consumption at different levels by most segments of the population, the public and the scientific community have expressed interest in the potential for caffeine to produce adverse effects on human health. The possibility that caffeine ingestion adversely affects human health was investigated based on reviews of (primarily) published human studies obtained through a comprehensive literature search. Based on the data reviewed, it is concluded that for the healthy adult population, moderate daily caffeine intake at a dose level up to 400 mg day-1 (equivalent to 6 mg kg-1 body weight day-1 in a 65-kg person) is not associated with adverse effects such as general toxicity, cardiovascular effects, effects on bone status and calcium balance (with consumption of adequate calcium), changes in adult behaviour, increased incidence of cancer and effects on male fertility. The data also show that reproductive-aged women and children are ‘at risk’ subgroups who may require specific advice on moderating their caffeine intake. Based on available evidence, it is suggested that reproductive-aged women should consume ⩽ 300 mg caffeine per day (equivalent to 4.6 mg kg-1 bw day-1 for a 65-kg person) while children should consume ⩽ 2.5 mg kg-1 bw day-1.
The Implicit Closest Point Method for the Numerical Solution of Partial Differential Equations on Surfaces

Many applications in the natural and applied sciences require the solutions of partial differential equations (PDEs) on surfaces or more general manifolds. The closest point method is a simple and accurate embedding method for numerically approximating PDEs on rather general smooth surfaces. However, the original formulation is designed to use explicit time stepping. This may lead to a strict time-step restriction for some important PDEs such as those involving the Laplace-Beltrami operator or higher-order derivative operators. To achieve improved stability and efficiency, we introduce a new implicit closest point method for surface PDEs. The method allows for large, stable time steps while retaining the principal benefits of the original method. In particular, it maintains the order of accuracy of the discretization of the underlying embedding PDE, it works on sharply defined bands without degrading the accuracy of the method, and it applies to general smooth surfaces. It also is very simple and may be applied to a rather general class of surface PDEs. Convergence studies for the in-surface heat equation and a fourth-order biharmonic problem are given to illustrate the accuracy of the method. We demonstrate the flexibility and generality of the method by treating flows involving diffusion, reaction-diffusion, and fourth-order spatial derivatives on a variety of interesting surfaces including surfaces of mixed codimension.
Decoding with shrinkage-based language models

In this paper, we investigate the use of a class-based exponential language model when directly integrated into speech recognition or machine translation decoders. Recently, a novel class-based language model, Model M, was introduced and was shown to outperform regular n -gram models on moderate amounts of Wall Street Journal data. This model was motivated by the observation that shrinking the sum of the parameter magnitudes in an exponential language model leads to better performance on unseen data. In this paper we directly integrate the shrinkage-based language model into two different state-of-the-art machine translation engines as well as a large-scale dynamic speech recognition decoder. Experiments on standard GALE and NIST development and evaluation sets show considerable and consistent improvement in both machine translation quality and speech recognition word error rate.
From N parameter fractional Brownian motions to N parameter multifractional Brownian motions

Multifractional Brownian motion is an extension of the well-known fractional Brownian motion where the H¨older regularity is allowed to vary along the paths. In this paper, two kinds of multi-parameter extensions of mBm are studied: one is isotropic while the other is not. For each of these processes, a moving average representation, a harmonizable representation, and the covariance structure are given. The H¨older regularity is then studied. In particular, the case of an irregular exponent function H is investigated. In this situation, the almost sure pointwise and local Holder exponents of the multi-parameter mBm are proved to be equal to the correspondent exponents of H. Eventually, a local asymptotic self-similarity property is proved. The limit process can be another process than fBm.
PARTICIPATION OF LYSOSOMES IN CELLULAR AUTOPHAGY INDUCED IN RAT LIVER BY GLUCAGON

Numerous observations made over the last five years have established the widespread occurrence of cellular autophagy as well as its importance in the processes whereby living cells achieve the degradation of their own constituents (For a review, see reference 5). In all the cases that have been investigated in this respect, autophagic vacuoles have been found to stain positively for acid phosphatase, suggesting strongly that lysosomal enzymes are the main agents of the digestive processes taking place within them. However, the mechanism of the segregation phenomenon and the manner in which hydrolases become associated with the sequestered area are still far from being understood. One theory, proposed by Novikoff et al. (9), considers areas of endoplasmic reticulum, assumed to be involved in the intracellular transport of newly synthesized hydrolases, as providing both the surrounding membrane of autophagic vacuoles and their enzymic complement. According to this theory, cellular autophagy represents a mechanism, though not necessarily the only one, whereby new lysosomes may arise in a living cell. Other workers have expressed similar ideas concerning the origin of lysosomes (1, 8). An alternative hypothesis, put forward by de Duve and Wattiaux (5), considers preexisting lysosomes as the source of the enzymes that are found in autophagic vacuoles, on the assumption, either that the particles actually participate in the sequestration phenomenon, or that they fuse with initially hydrolase-less "autophagosomes" as they are known to do with the "heterophagosomes" formed by endocytosis. In a recent investigation, Deter and de Duve (7) have found that the injection of a large dose of glucagon, a powerful inducer of autophagy in liver, causes a transient, but manifest increase in the mechanical and osmotic fragility and in the median sedimentation coefficient of rat-liver lysosomes. These changes were tentatively attributed to an enlargement of the lysosomes, possibly reflecting extensive participation of these particles in the autophagic process. But in the absence of morphological data, no firm conclusion could be reached. The present communication reports the first results of a quantitative morphological study correlating the appearance of autophagic vacuoles with a marked decrease in the number of recognizable dense bodies present in particulate fractions separated from hepatic homogenates 45 min after glucagon injection.
O R I G I N a L C L I N I C a L I N V E S T I G a T I O N Open Access

The management of acute venous thromboembolism in clinical practice – study rationale and protocol of the European PREFER in VTE Registry Abstract Background: Venous thromboembolism (VTE) is a major health problem, with over one million events every year in Europe. However, there is a paucity of data on the current management in real life, including factors influencing treatment pathways, patient satisfaction, quality of life (QoL), and utilization of health care resources and the corresponding costs. The PREFER in VTE registry has been designed to address this and to understand medical care and needs as well as potential gaps for improvement.