Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Activity-Based Funding of Hospitals and Its Impact on Mortality, Readmission, Discharge Destination, Severity of Illness, and Volume of Care: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Background Activity-based funding (ABF) of hospitals is a policy intervention intended to re-shape incentives across health systems through the use of diagnosis-related groups. Many countries are adopting or actively promoting ABF. We assessed the effect of ABF on key measures potentially affecting patients and health care systems: mortality (acute and post-acute care); readmission rates; discharge rate to post-acute care following hospitalization; severity of illness; volume of care. Methods We undertook a systematic review and meta-analysis of the worldwide evidence produced since 1980. We included all studies reporting original quantitative data comparing the impact of ABF versus alternative funding systems in acute care settings, regardless of language. We searched 9 electronic databases (OVID MEDLINE, EMBASE, OVID Healthstar, CINAHL, Cochrane CENTRAL, Health Technology Assessment, NHS Economic Evaluation Database, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, and Business Source), hand-searched reference lists, and consulted with experts. Paired reviewers independently screened for eligibility, abstracted data, and assessed study credibility according to a pre-defined scoring system, resolving conflicts by discussion or adjudication. Results Of 16,565 unique citations, 50 US studies and 15 studies from 9 other countries proved eligible (i.e. Australia, Austria, England, Germany, Israel, Italy, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland). We found consistent and robust differences between ABF and no-ABF in discharge to post-acute care, showing a 24% increase with ABF (pooled relative risk = 1.24, 95% CI 1.18–1.31). Results also suggested a possible increase in readmission with ABF, and an apparent increase in severity of illness, perhaps reflecting differences in diagnostic coding. Although we found no consistent, systematic differences in mortality rates and volume of care, results varied widely across studies, some suggesting appreciable benefits from ABF, and others suggesting deleterious consequences. Conclusions Transitioning to ABF is associated with important policy- and clinically-relevant changes. Evidence suggests substantial increases in admissions to post-acute care following hospitalization, with implications for system capacity and equitable access to care. High variability in results of other outcomes leaves the impact in particular settings uncertain, and may not allow a jurisdiction to predict if ABF would be harmless. Decision-makers considering ABF should plan for likely increases in post-acute care admissions, and be aware of the large uncertainty around impacts on other critical outcomes.
Molecular Diversity of Plaques of Epithelial‐Adhering Junctions

Abstract: In biochemical and immunocytochemical comparisons of adhering junctions of different epithelia, we have observed differences in molecular composition not only between the intermediate filament‐attached desmosomes and the actin filaments‐anchoring adherens junctions but also between desmosomes of different tissues and of different strata in the same stratified epithelium. In addition we now report cell type‐specific differences of molecular composition and immunoreactivity in both desmosomes and adherens junctions of certain simple epithelia. Whereas the zonula adhaerens of human intestinal and colonic epithelial cells, and of carcinomas derived therefrom, contains the additional armadillo‐type plaque protein ARVCF, this protein has not been detected in the zonula adhaerens of hepatocytes. Similarly, plakophilin 3 is present in the desmosomal plaques of intestinal and colonic cells but appears to be absent from the hepatocytic desmosomes. We suggest that these profound compositional differences in the junctions of related simple epithelia are correlated to functional differences of the specific type of epithelium.
Elevated risk of chronic lymphocytic leukemia and other indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas among relatives of patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia

Previous studies have shown increased familial risk for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. This study by Goldin and colleagues examines the risk of lymphoid cancer development in first degree relatives of these patients. These data provide a compelling argument for focused studies of germline susceptibility genes and SNP associations in this at-risk population. See related perspective article on page 606. Background Previous studies have shown increased familial risk for chronic lymphocytic leukemia. In the most comprehensive study to date, we evaluated risk of chronic lymphocytic leukemia and lymphoproliferative disorders among first-degree relatives of chronic lymphocytic leukemia cases compared to first-degree relatives of controls. Design and Methods Population-based registry data from Sweden were used to evaluate outcomes in 26,947 first-degree relatives of 9,717 chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients (diagnosed 1958–2004) compared with 107,223 first-degree relatives of 38,159 matched controls. Using a marginal survival model, we calculated relative risks (RR) and 95% confidence intervals as measures of familial aggregation. Results Compared to relatives of controls, relatives of chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients had an increased risk for chronic lymphocytic leukemia (RR=8.5, 6.1–11.7) and other non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas (NHLs) (RR=1.9, 1.5–2.3). Evaluating NHL subtypes, we found a striking excess of indolent B-cell NHL, specifically lymphoplasmacytic lymphoma/Waldenström macroglobulinemia and hairy cell leukemia. No excesses of aggressive B-cell or T-cell lymphomas were found. There was no statistical excess of Hodgkin’s lymphoma, multiple myeloma, or the precursor condition, monoclonal gammopathy of undetermined significance, among chronic lymphocytic leukemia relatives. Conclusions These familial aggregations are striking and provide novel clues to research designed to uncover early pathogenetic mechanisms in chronic lymphocytic leukemia including studies to identify germ line susceptibility genes. However, clinicians should counsel their chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients emphasizing that because the baseline population risks are low, the absolute risk for a first-degree relative to develop chronic lymphocytic leukemia or another indolent lymphoma is low. At this time, an increased medical surveillance of first-degree relatives of chronic lymphocytic leukemia patients has no role outside research studies.
The human skeleton in forensic medicine. I.

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Symmetric canonical quincunx tight framelets with high vanishing moments and smoothness

We propose an approach to construct a family of two-dimensional compactly supported real-valued symmetric quincunx tight framelets $\{\phi; \psi_1,\psi_2,\psi_3\}$ in $L_2(R^2)$ with arbitrarily high orders of vanishing moments. Such symmetric quincunx tight framelets are associated with quincunx tight framelet filter banks $\{a;b_1,b_2,b_3\}$ having increasing orders of vanishing moments and enjoying the additional double canonical properties: \[ b_1(k_1,k_2)=(-1)^{1+k_1+k_2} a(1-k_1,-k_2), b_3(k_1,k_2)=(-1)^{1+k_1+k_2} b_2(1-k_1,-k_2). \] For a low-pass filter $a$ which is not a quincunx orthonormal wavelet filter, we show that a quincunx tight framelet filter bank $\{a;b_1,\ldots,b_L\}$ with $b_1$ taking the above canonical form must have $L\ge 3$ high-pass filters. Thus, our family of symmetric double canonical quincunx tight framelets has the minimum number of generators. Numerical calculation indicates that this family of symmetric double canonical quincunx tight framelets can be arbitrarily smooth. Using one-dimensional filters having linear-phase moments, in this paper we also provide a second approach to construct multiple canonical quincunx tight framelets with symmetry. In particular, the second approach yields a family of $6$-multiple canonical real-valued quincunx tight framelets in $L_2(R^2)$ and a family of double canonical complex-valued quincunx tight framelets in $L_2(R^2)$ such that both of them have symmetry and arbitrarily increasing orders of smoothness and vanishing moments. Several examples are provided to illustrate our general construction and theoretical results on canonical quincunx tight framelets in $L_2(R^2)$ with symmetry, high vanishing moments, and smoothness. Symmetric quincunx tight framelets constructed by both approaches in this paper are of particular interest for their applications in computer graphics and image processing.
The relative economic importance of academic, psychological and behavioural attributes developed on childhood

This paper makes use of the substantial information about the psychological and behavioural development of children by age ten in the 1970 Cohort to predict later, economic outcomes, namely qualifications, employment and earnings. It is found that this previously unobserved individual heterogeneity has very substantial implications for the labour market. The returns to education are not significantly reduced by this omission bias but there is evidence of substantial returns to the production of non-academic ability. The paper also finds that different age ten abilities and attributes have implications for different adult outcomes so that human capital production should not be considered by economists as a simple one-dimensional process. Age ten conduct disorder predicts male adult unemployment particularly well but it is self-esteem that predicts male earnings. For women the locus of control variable is particularly important. Finally, whereas age ten maths ability is a good predictor of subsequent educational development for children from high SES families, reading is the stronger predictor for children from low SES groups. The implications of these results for education are developed. Parental attitudes are much more important than raw indices of social class for the explanation of the age ten scores. Schooling curriculum may be important.
An analysis of the motion planning problem for a spherical rolling robot driven by internal rotors

The paper deals with the motion planning for a spherical rolling robot actuated by internal rotors that are placed on orthogonal axes. It is shown that if the robot is actuated by three rotors, any feasible kinematic trajectory is dynamically realizable. For the case of two rotors the conditions of controllability and dynamic realizability of a feasible kinematic trajectory are established. It is shown that in moving the robot by tracing straight lines and circles in the contact plane the dynamically realizable trajectories are not represented by the circles on the sphere, which is a feature of the kinematic model of pure rolling. The dynamic motion planning problem is then formulated in the optimal control settings, and the properties of the optimal trajectories are illustrated under simulation.
Imaging of juvenile spondyloarthritis. Part I: Classifications and radiographs

Abstract Juvenile spondyloarthropathies are manifested mainly by symptoms of peripheral arthritis and enthesitis. By contrast with adults, children rarely present with sacroiliitis and spondylitis. Imaging and laboratory tests allow early diagnosis and treatment. Conventional radiographs visualize late inflammatory lesions and post-inflammatory complications. Early diagnosis is possible with the use of ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging. The first part of the article presents classifications of juvenile spondyloarthropathies and discusses their radiographic presentation. Typical radiographic features of individual types of juvenile spondyloarthritis are listed (including ankylosing spondylitis, juvenile psoriatic arthritis, reactive arthritis and arthritis in the course of inflammatory bowel diseases). The second part will describe changes visible on ultrasonography and magnetic resonance imaging. In patients with juvenile spondyloarthropathies, these examinations are conducted to diagnose inflammatory lesions in peripheral joints, tendon sheaths, tendons and bursae. Moreover, magnetic resonance imaging also visualizes early inflammatory changes in the axial skeleton and subchondral bone marrow edema, which is considered an early sign of inflammation.
Critical questions about the metabolic syndrome.

In this issue of Circulation , Hanley et al1 show that the metabolic syndrome, whether defined according to criteria of the National Cholesterol Education Program,2 the International Diabetes Federation,3 or the World Health Organization,4 predicts the development of diabetes. The new finding of Hanley et al is that the International Diabetes Federation criteria, including central obesity as a critical feature of the metabolic syndrome, predicts diabetes as well as the other definitions, at least in the cohort studied. Thus, clinicians could define metabolic syndrome in any of the above 3 ways and thereby identify many patients at heightened risk of diabetes. Although diabetes and its prediction are of interest to clinicians in a variety of medical specialties and this article provides useful and valid information on this topic, the report by Hanley et al1 leaves aside issues of cardiovascular disease (CVD) origin, pathogenesis, and risk that arguably have constituted the major impetus for heightened attention to the metabolic syndrome over the past 5 years. Article p 3713 Despite recognition of the presence of clustering of metabolic and cardiovascular risk factors for many years,5 the term “metabolic syndrome” appeared relatively uncommonly in the medical literature until the 2001 report of the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP), which described the syndrome as a means of identifying more patients as candidates for lipid-altering therapies and other CVD risk factor treatments.2 I conducted a PubMed search spanning from 1991 through August 2005 for articles containing the title phrase “metabolic syndrome” and found a total of 776 references cited. Before 2001, fewer than …
Space optimization in deductive databases

In the bottom-up evaluation of logic programs and recursively defined views on databases, all generated facts are usually assumed to be stored until the end of the evaluation. Discarding facts during the evaluation, however, can considerably improve the efficiency of the evaluation: the space needed to evaluate the program, the I/O costs, the costs of maintaining and accessing indices, and the cost of eliminating duplicates may all be reduced. Given an evaluation method that is sound, complete, and does not repeat derivation steps, we consider how facts can be discarded during the evaluation without compromising these properties. We show that every such space optimization method has certain components, the first to ensure soundness and completeness, the second to avoid redundancy (i.e., repetition of derivations), and the third to reduce “fact lifetimes” (i.e., the time period for which each fact must be retained during evaluation). We present new techniques based on providing bounds on the number of derivations and uses of facts, and using monotonicity constraints for each of the first two components, and provide novel synchronization techniques for the third component of a space optimization method. We describe how techniques for each of the three components can be combined in practice to obtain a space optimization method for a program. Our results are also of importance in applications such as sequence querying, and in active databases where triggers are defined over multiple “events. ”
Multiobjective Simulated Annealing-Based Clustering of Tissue Samples for Cancer Diagnosis

In the field of pattern recognition, the study of the gene expression profiles of different tissue samples over different experimental conditions has become feasible with the arrival of microarray-based technology. In cancer research, classification of tissue samples is necessary for cancer diagnosis, which can be done with the help of microarray technology. In this paper, we have presented a multiobjective optimization (MOO)-based clustering technique utilizing archived multiobjective simulated annealing(AMOSA) as the underlying optimization strategy for classification of tissue samples from cancer datasets. The presented clustering technique is evaluated for three open source benchmark cancer datasets [Brain tumor dataset, Adult Malignancy, and Small Round Blood Cell Tumors (SRBCT)]. In order to evaluate the quality or goodness of produced clusters, two cluster quality measures viz, adjusted rand index and classification accuracy (% CoA) are calculated. Comparative results of the presented clustering algorithm with ten state-of-the-art existing clustering techniques are shown for three benchmark datasets. Also, we have conducted a statistical significance test called t-test to prove the superiority of our presented MOO-based clustering technique over other clustering techniques. Moreover, significant gene markers have been identified and demonstrated visually from the clustering solutions obtained. In the field of cancer subtype prediction, this study can have important impact.
Improving VLAD: Hierarchical coding and a refined local coordinate system

The enormous growth of image databases calls for new techniques for fast and effective image search that scales with millions of images. Most importantly, the setting requires a compact but also descriptive image signature. Recently, the vector of aggregated local descriptors (VLAD) [1] has received much attention in large-scale image retrieval. In this paper we present two modifications for VLAD which improve the retrieval performance of the signature.
Biologically-inspired Adaptive Movement Control for a Quadrupedal Robot

Biologically-inspired robot motion control has attracted a lot of interests because of its potential to make a robot perform better and the value of such study to understand animals’ behaviors. This paper presented a quadrupedal robot, Biosbot, with variety of motion abilities and adaptability to its environment. We employed biological neural mechanisms, such as central pattern generator, flexor reflex and postural reflex as Biosbot’s control system, meanwhile designed its acts after its animal counterpart, a cat. Biosbot can walk in different gaits, transfer from one gait to another, turn, clear obstacles and walk up and down hill autonomously, to adapt to its environment. The successful walking experiments with Biosbot prove the approach and control model has the ability to improve legged robot’s performances.
Scalable Load Balancing Strategies for Parallel A* Algorithms

Abstract In this paper, we develop load balancing strategies for scalable high-performance parallel A* algorithms suitable for distributed-memory machines. In parallel A* search, inefficiencies such as processor starvation and search of nonessential spaces (search spaces not explored by the sequential algorithm) grow with the number of processors P used, thus restricting its scalability. To alleviate this effect, we propose a novel parallel startup phase and an efficient dynamic load balancing strategy called the quality equalizing (QE) strategy. Our new parallel startup scheme executes optimally in Θ(log P) time and, in addition, achieves good initial load balance. The QE strategy prossess certain unique quantitative and qualitative load balancing properties that enable it to significantly reduce starvation and nonessential work. Consequently, we obtain a highly scalable parallel A* algorithm with an almost-linear speedup. The startup and load balancing schemes were employed in parallel A* algorithms to solve the Traveling Salesman Problem on an nCUBE2 hypercube multicomputer. The QE strategy yields average speedup improvements of about 20-185% and 15-120% at low and intermediate work densities (the ratio of the problem size to P), respectively, over three well-known load balancing methods-the round-robin (RR), the random communication (RC), and the neighborhood averaging (NA) strategies. The average speedup observed on 1024 processors is about 985, representing a very high efficiency of 0.96. Finally, we analyze and empirically evaluate the scalability of parallel A* algorithms in terms of the isoefficiency metric. Our analysis gives (1) a Θ(P log P) lower bound on the isoefficiency function of any parallel A* algorithm, and (2) a general expression for the upper bound on the isoefficiency function of our parallel A* algorithm using the QE strategy on any topology-for the hypercube and 2-D mesh architectures the upper bounds on the isoefficiency function are found to be Θ(P log2P) and Θ(P[formula]), respectively. Experimental results validate our analysis, and also show that parallel A* search has better scalability using the QE load balancing strategy than using the RR, RC, or NA strategies.
Feedback control of a two wheeled mobile robot with obstacle avoidance using potential functions

This paper deals with the feedback stabilization problem for a two-wheeled mobile robot which moves in the presence of obstacles. A state feedback controller is proposed based on Lyapunov control. First, we choose a potential function (Lyapunov function) whose value is minimum at a desired point and maximum on the surfaces of obstacles. And then, we construct a control input by multiplying the gradient vector of the potential function by a matrix composed of a negative definite symmetric one and a skew-symmetric one. It is shown that the system with the controller converges to one of critical points of the potential function. When the potential function has some critical points other than the minimum at the desired point, in order to avoid convergence to those points, the controller is modified. As a result, the controlled system converges to the desired point avoiding collision with obstacles.