Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A multicenter prospective phase 2 randomized study of extracorporeal photopheresis for treatment of chronic graft-versus-host disease.

Chronic graft-versus-host disease (cGVHD) is a major limitation of successful hematopoietic cell transplantation. The safety and efficacy of extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) for 12 to 24 weeks together with standard therapy was compared with standard therapy alone in patients with cutaneous manifestations of cGVHD that could not be adequately controlled by corticosteroid treatment. The primary efficacy end point was a blinded quantitative comparison of percent change from baseline in Total Skin Score (TSS) of 10 body regions at week 12. Ninety-five patients were randomized to either ECP and standard therapy (n = 48) or standard therapy alone (n = 47). The median percentage improvement in TSS at week 12 was 14.5% for the ECP arm and 8.5% for the control arm (P = .48). The proportion of patients who had at least a 50% reduction in steroid dose and at least a 25% decrease from baseline in TSS was 8.3% in the ECP arm at week 12 and 0% in the control arm (P = .04). The nonblinded investigator assessment of skin complete or partial responses revealed a significant improvement in favor of ECP (P < .001). ECP was generally well tolerated. These results suggest that ECP may have a steroid-sparing effect in the treatment of cGVHD. Clinical trials registered at www.ClinicalTrials. gov as NCT00054613.
Subretinal coapplication of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator and bevacizumab for neovascular age-related macular degeneration with submacular haemorrhage

Aim: To evaluate the efficacy and safety of pars plana vitrectomy (ppV) with subretinal coapplication of recombinant tissue plasminogen activator (rtPA) and bevacizumab, and fluid–gas exchange for neovascular age-related macular degeneration (AMD) with submacular haemorrhage (SMH). Methods: Consecutive interventional case series of 12 patients with neovascular AMD with SMH with a maximum history of 14 days. All patients underwent ppV with subretinal coapplication of rtPA and bevacizumab, and fluid–gas (20% SF6) exchange. Phakic patients underwent concomitant cataract surgery. Additional injections of bevacizumab were applied intravitreally 4 and 8 weeks postop. Results: Complete displacement of SMH from the fovea was achieved in 9 of 12 patients. The mean best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) improved significantly from preop logMAR 1.9 (range 3.0 to 0.7) to logMAR 1.2 (range 3.0 to 0.3) at 4 weeks postop (p = 0.01) and to logMAR 0.9 (range 1.6 to 0.2) at 12 weeks postop (p = 0.006). The mean improvement of BCVA 4 weeks postop as compared with preop was logMAR 0.7 (range −0.2 to 2.3). The mean improvement of BCVA 12 weeks postop as compared with preop was logMAR 0.96 (range −0.3 to 2.8). Overall, at 12 weeks postop, BCVA had improved in 10 patients, remained unchanged in one patient and worsened in one patient. Conclusion: PpV with subretinal coapplication of rtPA and bevacizumab, and fluid–gas exchange effectively displaces SMH and improves visual acuity in most patients.
On the accuracy of measuring rates of visual field change in glaucoma

Recently, Chauhan et al presented recommendations for measuring rates of visual field change in glaucoma.1 Unlike event detection, assessment of this “rate of progression” should permit the prediction of blindness occurring during lifetime and thus provide information on the need for treatment or its intensification.2 They emphasised the need for frequent perimetry in glaucoma and ended with recommending six fields in the first 2 years. However, although they stressed the importance of the assessment of the rate of progression (depicted by a mean deviation (MD) slope), their analyses actually addressed the question of how many fields are needed to detect a slope significantly different from zero, leaving unanswered the question of how accurately that slope can be determined. The aim of this letter is to address the latter question. For this purpose, model calculations were performed similar to that of Chauhan et …
Efeitos do estado e especificidade do treinamento aeróbio na relação %VO2max versus %FCmax durante o ciclismo

OBJECTIVE: To determine the effects of the status and specificity of exercise training in the ratio between maximum oxygen consumption (%VO2max) and the percentage of maximal heart rate (%HRmax) during incremental exercise on a cycle ergometer. METHODS: Seven runners, 9 cyclists, 11 triathletes, and 12 sedentary individuals, all male and apparently healthy, underwent exhaustive incremental exercise on cycle ergometers. Linear regressions between %VO2max x %HRmax were determined for each individual. Based on these regressions, %HRmax was assessed corresponding to a determined %VO2max (50, 60, 70, 80, and 90%) from each participant. RESULTS: Significant differences were not found between the groups in %HRmax for each of the %VO2max assessed. Analyzing the volunteers as a single group, the average of the corresponding %HRmax to 50, 60, 70, 80, and 90% %VO2max were 67, 73, 80, 87, and 93%, respectively. CONCLUSION: The ratio between %VO2max and %HRmax in the groups assessed during incremental exercise on the bicycle is not dependent on the status and specificity of aerobic exercise training.
The Effects of Neuromuscular Electrical Stimulation on Swallowing Function in Acute Stroke Patients with Dysphagia

In this study, we investigated the effects of neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) on the treatment of 20 acute stroke patients with dysphagia. For both the treated and control groups, the basic facial stimulation training was conducted for 30 minutes, five times a week, for four weeks. NMES was performed on the treated group only, for 30 minutes each time. Both groups were evaluated according to the functional dysphagia scale (FDS) using a videofluoroscopic swallowing study (VFSS). After the treatment was performed for four weeks, the FDS results of the treated group showed a significance difference in oral transit time in the oral phase and in the triggering of pharyngeal swallow fluid, laryngeal elevation and epiglottic closure, nasal penetration, residue in valleculae, coating of pharyngeal wall after swallow fluid, and pharyngeal transit time in the pharyngeal phase. In addition, the treated group showed a significant difference in laryngeal elevation and epiglottic closure, nasal penetration, and pharyngeal transit time in the pharyngeal phase after the treatment compared to the control group. The results of this study showed that neuromuscular electrical stimulation may be an effective method of treating dysphagia in acute phase stroke patients.
Nursing perioperative care: an integrative review of literature

Objetivo: conhecer quais sao os cuidados de enfermagem realizados no periodo perioperatorio. Metodo: Revisao Integrativa de literatura nas bases de dados realizada na Base de Dados de Enfermagem (BDENF) e na Literatura Latino-Americana e do Caribe em Ciencias da Saude (LILACS), com os descritores enfermagem perioperatoria e enfermagem de centro cirurgico. Para analise foi utilizado analise de conteudo. Resultados: obtiveram-se 23 artigos e duas categorias: cuidado de enfermagem no perioperatorio: identificam-se como cuidado as orientacoes de enfermagem, cuidados na hipotermia e na prevencao das lesoes de pele. Na categoria organizacao da assistencia de enfermagem no perioperatorio, os estudos evidenciam estrategias desenvolvidas para ofertar qualidade de assistencia por meio da organizacao do trabalho de enfermagem. Conclusao: Os resultados encontrados nesse estudo refletem as caracteristicas do cuidado de enfermagem no perioperatorio e possibilitam pensar sobre a assistencia de enfermagem nos diferentes periodos da experiencia cirurgica.
The Calgary‐Cambridge guides: the ‘teenage years’

T he problem with producing anything, from children to academic work, is that after a very short time you lose control. Your progeny run amok, doing all sorts of things you didn’t expect. You were there at the conception and proud at the birth; but then your pride and joy gradually drifts away, taking on a life of its own, being used by others in ways you never meant, and sometimes not behaving at all how you had intended.
A proactive approach for LTE radio network planning with green considerations

The recent trend towards energy-efficient and environment-aware network operations has mandated the development of novel green network planning paradigms. In this context, while existing work focused on developing reactive energy reduction techniques after complete network deployment, this paper presents a proactive green radio network planning (RNP) algorithm that jointly optimizes base station (BS) locations and generates the BS on/off switching patterns based on the changing traffic conditions. Simulation results demonstrate considerable energy savings through dynamic adaptation of the number of simultaneous active BSs.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis in donor cornea

I read with interest the study by Catedral et al on the use of PCR for the detection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis in donor corneal tissues.1 The authors report the presence of M tuberculosis DNA in donor corneas of patients with no documented history of tuberculosis. However, there are several methodological errors in the study which need to be discussed. The most significant …
Sympathetic ophthalmia risk following vitrectomy: should we counsel patients?

Retinal surgery is being performed with increasing frequency as the advent of newer microsurgical techniques, perfluorocarbon liquids, and silicone oil tamponade has produced greater anatomical and functional success in preserving vision for both primary and repeat retinal surgery.1 With the ageing of the population, and associated increased incidence of retinal detachment and age related macular degeneration, pars plana vitrectomy, in particular, is being increasingly performed with expanding indications, such as for phakic retinal detachment repair, macular hole, submacular and retinal translocation surgery.1 2Sympathetic ophthalmia is a rare disease, with an incidence of 0.03/100 000,3 causing bilateral severe posterior uveitis following penetrating trauma to one eye. Sympathetic ophthalmia has potentially devastating visual consequences if treatment is delayed or inadequate, and usually chronic immunosuppressive therapy is required in order to preserve good vision.4 Formerly, accidental penetrating eye trauma was the main cause but ocular surgery, particularly retinal surgery, has now become the main risk for sympathetic ophthalmia.3 4 The eye is regarded as an …
Towards an efficient platform for social big data analytics

With the development of social networks, people can easily share their feelings and express their opinions on interesting topics. Thus, social media mining is becoming an important research topic. However, huge volume of social Web data in various forms are rapidly generated around the world in a much faster speed than those of any other media. This can lead to the difficulties in social data analysis: noisy data and efficiency. In this paper, we propose a distributed data analytics platform for social media. First, data from various sources are collected and stored in a distributed index for efficient retrieval. Then, a distributed analytics framework is built from memory-based cluster computing based on the MapReduce paradigm. Finally, statistical analysis is performed and integrated for presentation. In the experiment, we built the platform by open source projects Hadoop and Spark, and implemented combinations of map and reduce operations. We compared the efficiency and scalability of the platform on various check-in datasets. Further evaluation is needed to verify the performance in different types of operations.
Correlation between corneal biomechanical properties, applanation tonometry and direct intracameral tonometry

Aim To investigate the correlation between corneal biomechanical properties, applanation tonometry and direct intracameral tonometry. Methods Patients scheduled for phacoemulsification were enrolled in this prospective observer-masked study. Central corneal thickness (CCT) was obtained with ultrasound pachymetry. Corneal biomechanical properties including corneal hysteresis (CH) and corneal resistance factor (CRF) were measured with the ocular response analyser. Applanation intraocular pressure (IOP) (IOPappla) was measured in the supine position. Intracameral IOP (IOPintra) was measured with a pressure transducer connected to a cannula inserted into the anterior chamber. Results Fifty-eight eyes of 58 patients were included. There was a significant difference between IOPappla and IOPintra (17.3±4.1 vs 13.8±4.7 mm Hg, p<0.001). CCT was significantly correlated with CH and CRF (p<0.01). Univariate regression analysis revealed IOPappla was significantly correlated with CCT and CRF (p<0.05). IOPintra had no significant association with the corneal properties (p>0.05). Multivariate regression analysis revealed IOPappla=10.43+2.69CRF–1.99CH (p<0.001) and the difference between IOPappla and IOPintra (ΔIOP)=−1.57+0.55CRF (p=0.032). Conclusion The mean difference between IOPappla and IOPintra was 3.5 mm Hg. While IOPappla was correlated with the corneal biomechanical properties of CH and CRF, IOPintra was not. IOPappla was correlated more with the corneal biomechanical properties assessed by the ocular response analyser than with CCT alone.
Trans-corneal fine cannula aspiration: Rycroft cannula aspiration technique for sampling iris tumours

Aim To demonstrate a novel surgical technique for the accurate diagnosis of iris lesions using a minimally invasive aspiration cannula. Method 12 consecutive patients underwent biopsy of iris lesions at the Ocular Oncology Service, Royal Hallamshire Hospital, Sheffield, UK. Samples were obtained using a novel technique called trans-corneal fine cannula aspiration. This comprised a 25-gauge, Rycroft cannula aspiration technique performed by a single surgeon and samples transferred into alcohol-based tissue fixative. A specialist ophthalmic histopathologist performed a histological analysis of the samples. Results On average, the size of the specimens obtained in theatre ranged from 1 mm to 1.5 mm (maximum dimensions). This sample size allowed an unequivocal histological diagnosis in all 12 cases. In this study, 10 patients were diagnosed as having iris melanoma, one patient with metastatic adenocarcinoma and one patient with pigmented adenoma. Conclusions This simple iris tumour biopsy technique provides sufficiently large sample sizes to obtain a firm histological diagnosis in 100% of cases performed so far. The sample sizes permitted not only morphological interpretation but also ancillary investigations such as immunohistochemistry.
Development and validation of a computer-aided diagnostic tool to screen for age-related macular degeneration by optical coherence tomography

Background To develop and assess the technical validity of new computer-aided diagnostic software (CAD) for automated analyses of optical coherence tomography (OCT) images for the purpose of screening for neovascular age-related macular degeneration. Methods Artificial visual techniques were used to develop the CAD in two steps: normalisation and feature vector extraction from OCT images; and training and classification by means of decision trees. Technical validation was performed by a retrospective study design based on OCT images randomly extracted from clinical charts. Images were classified as normal or abnormal to serve for screening purposes. Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive values and negative predictive values were obtained. Results The CAD was able to quantify image information by working in the perceptually uniform hue–saturation–value colour space. Particle swarm optimisation with Haar-like features is suitable to reveal structural features in normal and abnormal OCT images. Decision trees were useful to characterise normal and abnormal images using feature vectors obtained from descriptive statistics of detected structures. The sensitivity of the CAD was 96% and the specificity 92%. Conclusions This new CAD for automated analysis of OCT images offers adequate sensitivity and specificity to distinguish normal OCT images from those showing potential neovascular age-related macular degeneration. These results will enable its clinical validation and a subsequent cost-effectiveness assessment to be made before recommendations are made for population-screening purposes.
Design and implementation of 6LoWPAN border router

Accessing end devices (nodes) in the Internet of things (IoT) with a uniquie IP address is possible with the evolution IPv6 and 6LoWPAN. 6LoWPAN stands for IPv6 over a Low Power WPAN, which is a open stack developed by IETF to provides communication between LoWPAN devices and the internet. 6LoWPAN Border Router (6LBR) is gateway between nodes and internet, which connects 6LoWPAN devices to the Internet and is also responsible for handling traffic between IPv6 and IEEE 802.15. 4 interfaces. There are many solutions to implement 6LoWPAN Networks, but very few are open standards which can be implemented on development boards like Raspberry Pi, Beagle bones etc. In this paper CETIC-6LBR is chosen, which is open source, Contiki based, and well supported by popular repositories. This Paper aims at design and implementation of 6LoWPAN border router with an embedded Webserver on Beagle Bone Black (BBB) and implement bridge between 6LoWPAN devices to the internet (IPv4 as well as IPv6).
Changing trends in the incidence of bleb-related infection in trabeculectomy

Aim To investigate the incidence of late onset bleb-related infection (BRI) following Mitomycin C (MMC) augmented trabeculectomy procedures at a single institution. Methods This was a retrospective case series analysis of late onset BRI, defined as either blebitis or endophthalmitis occurring at least 1 month following a glaucoma filtration procedure. Data collected from hospital charts included the position of the conjunctival flap base. Two cohorts were examined: the first a sample of 194 intraoperative MMC augmented trabeculectomies undertaken over a 4-year period from 1993 to 1997, and the second a sample of 764 MMC trabeculectomies performed in a 4-year period between the years 1999 and 2005. Results A total of 11 cases of BRI (cumulative incidence 5.7%) were identified in the cohort from 1993 to 1997. BRI cases had trabeculectomies performed with a limbus-based conjunctival flap and presented at a median IQR 14.8 (9.4–42.9) months after surgery. In the 1999–2005 cohort, nine cases of BRI were identified (cumulative incidence 1.2%). All these BRI cases had a fornix-based conjunctival flap and presented at a median IQR 19.2 (6.1–44.1) months after trabeculectomy surgery. Conclusion This study found that the incidence of BRI was higher in MMC augmented trabeculectomy shortly after the introduction of MMC, but subsequently reduced to a lower level. While many changes in surgical technique had occurred in the intervening period, the most significant change was from limbus-based to fornix-based conjunctival flap. However, the retrospective nature of the study prevents the authors from concluding that there is a causative relationship between changes in surgical technique and BRI.
Foveal avascular zone and foveal pit formation after preterm birth

Background Vascularisation of the macula takes place between 24 and 27 weeks post-conception. Preterm birth may affect the formation of the foveal avascular zone (FAZ) and foveal depression, and displacement of inner retinal layers away from the incipient fovea. Objective To examine whether vascular abnormalities accompany an inner retinal abnormality, and whether they are coincident. Methods High-density spectral domain optical coherence tomography volume scans were obtained from 24 preterm children and 34 full-term controls (5–16 years). Matlab programs were used to quantify total retinal thickness, thickness of individual retinal layers and metrics of foveal morphology. Summed voxel projections for the ganglion cell layer–inner nuclear layer were used to identify the FAZ. Results Preterm children had significantly smaller FAZ diameters than controls (p<0.0001). The foveal pits of preterm children were significantly shallower and less steep (p<0.0001) and total retinal thickness at the fovea was significantly increased (p<0.0001) compared to controls. The ganglion cell layer–inner plexiform layer and outer nuclear layer were significantly (p≤0.0001) thicker in preterm children than in controls. Conclusions Preterm birth results in abnormal foveal vascularisation, a failure of the inner retinal neurons to migrate away from the fovea, and an elevated outer nuclear layer ratio. The spatial coincidence of inner retinal and vascular abnormalities in preterm children supports the hypothesis that aspects of foveal development are interdependent.
Meta-programming techniques for distributed real-time and embedded systems

This paper provides two contributions to the study of mechanisms for reducing the life-cycle costs of distributed real-time and embedded (DRE) systems. First, we present a mechanism-called a Quality Connector-that enables applications to specify the qualities of service that they require from their infrastructure, and then manages the operations that optimize the middleware to implement those requirements. Second, we show how Quality Connectors are being applied in practice to allocate communication resources automatically for real-time CORBA event propagation. Although middleware that configures itself in response to quality of service (QoS) requests has been investigated and applied in general-purpose computing contexts, we believe that the present work is among the first to put such capabilities into mission-critical DRE systems with stringent QoS requirements.
D2D in LTE vehicular networking: System model and upper bound performance

The Device-to-Device (D2D) communication over the Long Term Evolution (LTE) cellular system is emerging as a key technology to support safety and traffic efficiency applications in Vehicular Ad-hoc NETworks (VANETs). By offering a flexible usage of the radio interface, it allows vehicles to directly communicate each other, while experiencing low-latency and highly reliable data delivery. Anyway, the impact that application traffic patterns and transmission settings have on the overall performance is still unclear and in this context it is necessary a deep study for driving future research activities. To this end, the present contribution proposes a flexible methodology that characterizes, from a system level point of view, the upper bound performance of vehicular D2D communications as a function of the application, the access layer settings, and the channel behavior. Model outcomes have been used to provide insights about the most suitable transmission parameters, the achievable transmission range, and the supported vehicles density in VANETs scenarios.
MAC-layer scheduling in cognitive radio based multi-hop wireless networks

Cognitive radios (CR) have the ability to dynamically adapt to local spectrum availability. In a multi-hop wireless network comprised of CR-enabled devices, medium access control (MAC) layer scheduling for data communication involves assignment of timeslots and channels to either links or nodes in the network. The number of channels available and the channel identities vary from one node to another within the CR network. This is in contrast to the existing use of multiple channels where all the nodes have the same set of channels available (for example in IEEE 802.11 networks). In this paper, we present an integer linear programming (ILP) formulation for the MAC-layer scheduling problem and find an optimal schedule. We also propose a simple and efficient distributed heuristic for MAC-layer scheduling. Simulation results indicate that the proposed distributed heuristic provides near optimal schedule