Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Survey of internal medicine residents' use of the fecal occult blood test and their understanding of colorectal cancer screening and surveillance

OBJECTIVE:Primary care physicians have imperfect understanding of current colorectal cancer screening guidelines and recommendations. Furthermore, compliance with colorectal cancer screening by internal medicine residents has been demonstrated to be poor. We sought to identify whether current trainees in internal medicine had adequate understanding of colorectal cancer screening and surveillance and test utilization.METHODS:We applied a structured questionnaire about colorectal cancer screening and the use of fecal occult blood tests to 168 internal medicine residents at four accredited programs in the U.S. They were also asked for recommendations about six hypothetical patients who may have been candidates for screening or surveillance.RESULTS:Seventy-one percent identified 50 yr as the currently recommended age to commence screening in an average-risk individual; 64.3% would begin screening with fecal occult blood testing and flexible sigmoidoscopy and 4.8% with colonoscopy. Most perform fecal occult blood testing on stool obtained at digital rectal exam and without prior dietary restrictions. Many use fecal occult blood testing for indications other than colorectal cancer screening. Only 29% recommended colonoscopy to evaluate a positive fecal occult blood test. Most residents plan to be screened for colorectal neoplasia at the appropriate age; significantly more opted for colonoscopy than recommended it for their patients.CONCLUSIONS:Internal medicine residents have many misperceptions regarding colorectal cancer screening and the utility of the fecal occult blood test. Educational efforts should be directed at internal medicine residents, many of whom plan careers in primary care, where most colorectal cancer screening is currently performed.
A new parameterizable power macro-model for datapath components

We propose a novel power macro-model which is based on the Hamming-distance of two consecutive input vectors and additional information on the module structure. The model is parameterizable in terms of input bit-widths and can be applied to a wide variety of datapath components. The good trade-off between estimation accuracy, model complexity and flexibility makes the model attractive for power analysis and optimization tasks on a high level of abstraction. Furthermore, a new approach is presented, that allows one to calculate the average Hamming-distance distribution of an input data stream. It is demonstrated, that the application of Hamming-distance distributions, instead of only average values, improves the estimation accuracy for a number of typical DSP-modules and data streams.
[French Health Authority (HAS) Guidance: the post-registration studies on health technologies (drugs, medical devices and instruments): principles and methods].

The assessment of a health technology is frequently accompanied by uncertainty about its impact, at short or long terms, on the health of the population. The Health Authorities may request additional « post-registration » data that will allow a relevant reassessment of these technologies. The responsibility to collect this information lies with the industry and the HAS evaluates the methodology. This guideline provides practical benchmarks on methodological aspects of these studies. It describes the different types of studies to consider depending on the objectives, including the use of databases and cohorts and European studies. It emphasizes the importance of establishing a scientific committee, clearly defining the objectives of the study, justifying the methodological choices, documenting the representativeness or completeness of centers, investigators and patients, limiting the number of lost of follow-up patients and missing data, describing the statistical analysis methods, the bias and their possible impact on results. The publication of the results of these studies is strongly encouraged.
The Willingness to Pay-Willingness to Accept Gap, the 'Endowment Effect,' Subject Misconceptions, and Experimental Procedures for Eliciting Valuations

We conduct experiments to explore the possibility that subject misconceptions, as opposed to a particular theory of preferences referred to as the "endowment effect," account for reported gaps between willingness to pay ("WTP") and willingness to accept ("WTA"). Two facts are evident in the literature. First, there is no consensus regarding the nature or robustness of the WTA-WTP gap. Secondly, while experimenters are very concerned to avoid subject misconceptions, there is no consensus about the fundamental properties of misconceptions or how they might be avoided. Instead, experimenters have revealed different conceptions of the phenomena through different types of experimental procedures and controls. Such controls involve the role of anonymity, elicitation mechanisms, practice and training applied separately or in different combinations. The resulting pattern of research leaves open the possibility that the widely differing reports of a gap between WTP and WTA could be due to an incomplete science regarding subject misconceptions. The lack of a theory of misconceptions is replaced by what we will call a revealed theory methodology in which theories implicit in experimental procedures found in the literature are at the heart of the new experimental design. Thus, the approach reported here reflects an attempt to simultaneously control for all dimensions of concern found in the literature. To this end our procedures modify the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak mechanism used in previous studies to elicit values. In addition, our procedures supplement commonly used procedures by providing extensive training on the elicitation mechanism before subjects provide WTP and WTA responses. Experiments were conducted using both lotteries and mugs, goods frequently used in endowment effect experiments. Using the modified procedures, we find no support for the hypothesis that WTA is significantly greater than WTP. In addition, we find no support that an observed gap can be convincingly interpreted as an endowment effect and conclude that further evidence is required before convincing interpretations of any observed gap can be advanced.
On Uniform Convexity, Total Convexity and Convergence of the Proximal Point and Outer Bregman Projection Algorithms in Banach Spaces

In this paper we study and compare the notions of uniform convexity of functions at a point and on bounded sets with the notions of total convexity at a point and sequential consistency of functions, respectively. We establish connections between these concepts of strict convexity in inflnite dimensional settings and use the connections in order to obtain improved convergence results concerning the outer Bregman projection algorithm for solving convex feasibility problems and the generalized proximal point algorithm for optimization in Banach spaces.
Social Ties and Support and Neuroendocrine Function: the MacArthur Studies of Successful Aging

Data from a community-based, relatively high-functioning cohort of men and women, aged 70–79, were used to test hypotheses relating the quantity and quality of social relationships to levels of urinary norepinephrine, epinephrine, and Cortisol. For men, multivariate models adjusting for age, chronic conditions, relative weight, smoking, and medications indicated that higher average and maximal frequency of emotional support had the strongest associations with lower levels of all three neuroendocrine parameters. Less consistent patterns of association were seen for other measures of support and social ties among men. Maximum frequency of instrumental support had significant, negative associations with norepinephrine and Cortisol but only a marginal association with epinephrine. Number of social relationships was negatively related to only norepinephrine levels. For women, these same measures showed no significant associations, though married women had significantly lower epinephrine levels. More negative aspects of social relationships (e.g. frequency of demands or criticism) were generally unrelated to endocrine levels. Only men showed a significant, positive relationship between higher minimum frequency of such demands and criticism and levels of Cortisol. Observed gender differences are consistent with those found in previous studies where more consistent associations between social relationships and health and longevity have been found for men.
Contradiction Resolution for Foreign Exchange Rates Estimation

In this paper, we propose a new type of information-theoretic method called ”contradiction resolution. ” In this method, we suppose that a neuron should be evaluated for itself (self-evaluation) and by all the other neurons (outer-evaluation). If some difference or contradiction between two types of evaluation can be found, the contradiction should be decreased as much as possible. We applied the method to the self-organizing maps with an output layer, which is a kind of combination of the self-organizing maps with the RBF networks. When the method was applied to the dollar-yen exchange rates, prediction and visualization performance could be improved simultaneously.
Soil food web properties explain ecosystem services across European land use systems

Intensive land use reduces the diversity and abundance of many soil biota, with consequences for the processes that they govern and the ecosystem services that these processes underpin. Relationships between soil biota and ecosystem processes have mostly been found in laboratory experiments and rarely are found in the field. Here, we quantified, across four countries of contrasting climatic and soil conditions in Europe, how differences in soil food web composition resulting from land use systems (intensive wheat rotation, extensive rotation, and permanent grassland) influence the functioning of soils and the ecosystem services that they deliver. Intensive wheat rotation consistently reduced the biomass of all components of the soil food web across all countries. Soil food web properties strongly and consistently predicted processes of C and N cycling across land use systems and geographic locations, and they were a better predictor of these processes than land use. Processes of carbon loss increased with soil food web properties that correlated with soil C content, such as earthworm biomass and fungal/bacterial energy channel ratio, and were greatest in permanent grassland. In contrast, processes of N cycling were explained by soil food web properties independent of land use, such as arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi and bacterial channel biomass. Our quantification of the contribution of soil organisms to processes of C and N cycling across land use systems and geographic locations shows that soil biota need to be included in C and N cycling models and highlights the need to map and conserve soil biodiversity across the world.
New era or false dawn

There is little doubt that experts in the field have had an appetite for changing the classification of personality disorders (Bernstein, Iscan, Maser, & Boards of Directors of the Association for Research in Personality Disorders International Society for the Study of Personality Disorders, 2007), but if the DSM-5 debate is any indication, it is not clear whether this is shared by rank-and-file clinicians. Many agree that the existing ICD-10 (WHO, 1992) and DSM-IV-TR (APA, 2000) systems are unsatisfactory. Tyrer and colleagues’ (this issue) diagnosis of the problem is precise, but this does not ensure that the treatment will be palatable. Indeed, some might now regret what they wished for as they read Tyrer and colleagues’ radical proposal for reclassifying personality disorder in ICD-11. Change, whether radical or not, must offer some advantage over the previous system, and although discussion regarding the DSM-5 is well advanced, the ICD-11 proposal is only just beginning to take shape and will no doubt be the subject of strenuous debate. The proposed ICD-11 classification of personality disorders has the welcome aims of improving the clinical utility of the diagnosis of personality disorder, reducing stigma and helping in the development and selection of appropriate treatment. Such practical aims are in large part due to the wide constituency of the ICD-11, which is intended for use across the globe in primary through to specialist health-care settings. This contrasts with the DSM-5, which is being produced by the American Psychiatric Association and is primarily intended for use in specialist psychiatric practice. Clinical experience suggests that the requisite skills for diagnosing personality disorders are not always available, even in specialist settings, and a more straightforward approach might improve confidence and usage of these diagnoses. ICD-10 was never really satisfactory. It imitated aspects of the DSM but without clear operational criteria was perhaps more unwieldy. The use of ICD coding internationally is not a good index of its acceptability, as in many countries these codes are used through ‘back translation’ from the DSM codes. Despite this, Tyrer and colleagues refer to the low level of usage of all the current personality disorder categories, except borderline (emotionally unstable) and antisocial (dissocial) as evidence of the shortcomings of both ICD and DSM. The ICD-11 proposal introduces a primary classification based upon five levels of severity. This is a very constructive innovation and is similar to that proposed for DSM-5, providing an opportunity to develop common ground between the two systems. Although they are likely to be separate but overlapping constructs, personality traits and personality dysfunction are often confounded (Clark, 2007), and assessing severity separately to trait domains is a significant improvement.
Cross Lingual QA: A Modular Baseline

This work evaluates the applicability of currently available research tools to the problem of cross lingual QA. We establish a task baseline by combining a cross lingual IR system with a monolingual QA system in a very short amount of time. A higher precision strategy involves applying the monolingual QA system to an automatically translated question, assumed to be correct. A higher coverage strategy consists of a term weighted proximity measure with varied query expansion, tuned for each individual question type. 1 IntroductionCLEF 2003 participation we evaluate the application of existing research modules to Cross-Lingual Question Answering (CLQA). The obvious first step towards solving this task is to combine cross lingual information retrieval with monolingual question answering. In order to set up a baseline with very little effort – one week’s worth of work – we glued two existing off-the-(authors’ research)-shelf components: a cross lingual information retrieval system and a monolingual question answering system, and tuned them on available question/answer datasets. We have participated with two runs in the cross-lingual French-to-English CLEF task and we focused on quickly obtaining a system based on available tools and components.
How Health Professionals Conceptualize and Represent Placebo Treatment in Clinical Trials and How Their Patients Understand It: Impact on Validity of Informed Consent

Context Previous studies suggested that many patients, who have given their informed consent to participate in randomized controlled trials (RCT), have somewhat limited understanding of what a placebo treatment is. We hypothesized that the relationship between patients and their health professionals plays a central role in this understanding. Methods We interviewed 12 patients included in RCTs (nine suffering from Parkinson’s disease and three from Huntington’s disease) and 18 health professionals involved with RCTs (eight principal investigators, four associated physicians and six clinical research associates). Semi-structured interviews were conducted after the RCTs had ended but before the treatment allocation was revealed. Results Only two patients clearly understood the aim of placebo-controlled RCTs. Only one principal investigator said she asks all her patients whether they agree to participate in RCTs. The seven others said they only ask patients who seem more likely to be compliant. Their selection criteria included docility and personality traits associated in other studies with enhanced placebo responses. According to 13 of the 18 health professionals, their relationship with patients may influence the amplitude of the placebo response. All but one clinical research associates added that the placebo response could result from a “maternal” type of care. All principal investigators said they have a strong influence on their patient's decision to participate. Finally, when interviewees were asked to narrate a memory of a medically unexplained healing, in eight of 11 physicians' narratives the beneficiary was a child while in 10 of 12 patients' narratives it was an adult. Conclusion Our observations suggest that the interrelationship between health professionals and patients involved in RCTs could be compared to that between parents and children. Therefore, adherence to formal rules regarding informed consent does not ensure a balanced relationship between patients and health professionals.
Methodological Proposal for Multispectral Stereo Matching

Remote sensors have begun to capture digital stereoscopic data. Although still monospectral (usually panchromatic), the capture of multispectral or hyperspectral stereoscopic data is just a matter of time. Digital photogrammetric workstations use area-based stereo-matching techniques based on the Pearson (product-moment) correlation coefficient. This is a technique that is not intended to take advantage of the multispectral data. The authors propose a new method that 1) can handle this multispectral information and 2) can take advantage of the spatial relations between pixel locations. The method is based on multidimensional scaling and Procrustes analysis. Our results indicate that the proposed new technique renders more robust results than classical methodology when noise in the original data is introduced
Sub-second temporal processing : effects of modality and spatial change on brief visual and auditory time judgments

The present thesis set out to investigate how sensory modality and spatial presentation influence visual and auditory duration judgments in the millisecond range. The effects of modality and spatial location were explored by considering right and left side presentations of mixed or blocked visual and auditory stimuli. Several studies have shown that perceived duration of a stimulus can be affected by various extra-temporal factors such as modality and spatial position. Auditory stimuli lead to more precise duration judgments than visual stimuli and often last subjectively longer than visual stimuli of equal duration. The circumstances under which these modality differences occur are not clear yet. Recent studies indicated an interaction between temporal and spatial processing. Overestimation of durations was associated with right side presentation of visual stimuli, underestimation with left side presentation. However, the effect of spatial presentation has not been explored in the auditory temporal judgments. Furthermore, there is a debate concerning the mechanisms underlying processing of visual and auditory intervals with some researchers supporting the view that there is a central, amodal temporal mechanism and others arguing in favour of distinct, modality specific temporal mechanisms. The above issues were examined in a series of experiments using the duration discrimination paradigm. Processing demands where iv varied between experiments by varying the number of stimuli positions and the way that different modality trials were presented (mixed or blocked). Across all experiments we found no effect of location either in visual or auditory domain. However, in experiments in which different modality trials were intermixed, participants in the visual versions of the task tended to overestimate durations of comparison stimuli that were presented at different locations to the standard stimuli. In such conditions, visual stimuli were also judged to be longer than the auditory. However, when the location of the comparison stimulus was at the same side as the standard a reverse effect was observed. These findings call into question an influence of the position per se on temporal judgments as the visual duration judgments were affected rather by the change of the location. Auditory judgments were not affected by location manipulations, suggesting that different mechanisms might underlie visual and auditory temporal processing. Based on these results, we propose the existence of an error-correction mechanism, according to which a specific duration is added in order to compensate for the loss of time caused by spatial attention shifts. This mechanism is revealed under some circumstances (such as mixed modality) where it is over-activated, resulting into a systematic bias. This work has important implications for the contemporary research in time perception as it is shedding new light on the possible ways that a unified experience of timing arises from modally and spatially specific temporal mechanisms.
The effect of functional electrical stimulation on akinetic gait in patients with Parkinson's disease

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