Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Are Vancomycin Trough Concentrations Adequate for Optimal Dosing?

ABSTRACT The current vancomycin therapeutic guidelines recommend the use of only trough concentrations to manage the dosing of adults with Staphylococcus aureus infections. Both vancomycin efficacy and toxicity are likely to be related to the area under the plasma concentration-time curve (AUC). We assembled richly sampled vancomycin pharmacokinetic data from three studies comprising 47 adults with various levels of renal function. With Pmetrics, the nonparametric population modeling package for R, we compared AUCs estimated from models derived from trough-only and peak-trough depleted versions of the full data set and characterized the relationship between the vancomycin trough concentration and AUC. The trough-only and peak-trough depleted data sets underestimated the true AUCs compared to the full model by a mean (95% confidence interval) of 23% (11 to 33%; P = 0.0001) and 14% (7 to 19%; P < 0.0001), respectively. In contrast, using the full model as a Bayesian prior with trough-only data allowed 97% (93 to 102%; P = 0.23) accurate AUC estimation. On the basis of 5,000 profiles simulated from the full model, among adults with normal renal function and a therapeutic AUC of ≥400 mg · h/liter for an organism for which the vancomycin MIC is 1 mg/liter, approximately 60% are expected to have a trough concentration below the suggested minimum target of 15 mg/liter for serious infections, which could result in needlessly increased doses and a risk of toxicity. Our data indicate that adjustment of vancomycin doses on the basis of trough concentrations without a Bayesian tool results in poor achievement of maximally safe and effective drug exposures in plasma and that many adults can have an adequate vancomycin AUC with a trough concentration of <15 mg/liter.
Collaborative care for depression in primary care

Background The management of depression in primary care is a significant issue for health services worldwide. ‘Collaborative care’ interventions are effective, but little is known about which aspects of these complex interventions are essential. Aims To use meta-regression to identify ‘active ingredients' in collaborative care models for depression in primary care. Method Studies were identified using systematic searches of electronic databases. The content of collaborative care interventions was coded, together with outcome data on antidepressant use and depressive symptoms. Meta-regression was used to examine relationships between intervention content and outcomes. Results There was no significant predictor of the effect of collaborative care on antidepressant use. Key predictors of depressive symptom outcomes included systematic identification of patients, professional background of staff and specialist supervision. Conclusions Meta-regression may be useful in examining ‘active ingredients' in complex interventions in mental health.
Cyclooxygenase-2 Inhibition Attenuates Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Progression in Hyperlipidemic Mice

Abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs) are a chronic inflammatory disease that increase the risk of life-threatening aortic rupture. In humans, AAAs have been characterized by increased expression of cyclooxygenase-2 and the inactivation of COX-2 prior to disease initiation reduces AAA incidence in a mouse model of the disease. The current study examined the effectiveness of selective cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibition on reducing AAA progression when administered after the initiation of AAA formation. AAAs were induced in hyperlipidemic apolipoprotein E-deficient mice by chronic angiotensin II (AngII) infusion and the effect of treatment with the COX-2 inhibitor celecoxib was examined when initiated at different stages of the disease. Celecoxib treatment that was started 1 week after initiating AngII infusion reduced AAA incidence by 61% and significantly decreased AAA severity. Mice treated with celecoxib also showed significantly reduced aortic rupture and mortality. Treatment with celecoxib that was started at a late stage of AAA development also significantly reduced AAA incidence and severity. Celecoxib treatment significantly increased smooth muscle alpha-actin expression in the abdominal aorta and did not reduce expression of markers of macrophage-dependent inflammation. These findings indicate that COX-2 inhibitor treatment initiated after formation of AngII-induced AAAs effectively reduces progression of the disease in hyperlipidemic mice.
Fish oil and antioxidants alter the composition and function of circulating mononuclear cells in Crohn disease 1 – 3

Background: Crohn disease (CD) is associated with osteoporosis and other extraintestinal manifestations that might be mediated by cytokines from circulating (peripheral blood) mononuclear cells (PBMCs). Fish oil rich in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) reduces disease activity in patients with CD with raised laboratory markers of inflammation and in healthy subjects alters PBMC function. Objective: We investigated the effect of fish oil plus antioxidants on cytokine production by PBMCs from patients with CD with raised C-reactive protein concentrations ( 6.9 mg/L) or erythrocyte sedimentation rates ( 18 mm/h). Design: A randomized placebo-controlled trial of fish oil (2.7 g EPA and DHA/d; n 31) or placebo (olive oil; n 31) for 24 wk was conducted in patients with CD. The fish-oil group additionally received an antioxidant preparation (vitamins A, C, and E and selenium). Exclusion criteria included corticosteroid use. Fatty acid composition was measured by gas chromatography. Production of tumor necrosis factor , interferon (IFN), and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) was measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays after stimulation with mitogen and endotoxin (lipopolysaccharide). Results: Fish-oil plus antioxidant dietary supplementation was associated with higher EPA and DHA incorporation into PBMCs (P 0.001) and lower arachidonic acid (P 0.006) and lower production of IFNby mitogen-stimulated PBMCs (P 0.012) and of PGE2 by lipopolysaccharide-stimulated PBMCs (P 0.047). Conclusion: Dietary supplementation with fish oil plus antioxidants is associated with modified PBMC composition and lower production of PGE2 and IFNby circulating monocytes or macrophages. The response of extraintestinal manifestations of CD should be investigated in a randomized controlled trial. Am J Clin Nutr 2004;80:1137–44.
Am object-based approach to plenoptic videos

This paper proposes an object-based approach to plenoptic videos, where the plenoptic video sequences are segmented into image-based rendering (IBR) objects each with its image sequence, depth map and other relevant information such as shape information. This allows desirable functionalities such as scalability of contents, error resilience, and interactivity with individual IBR objects to be supported. A portable capturing system consisting of two linear camera arrays, each hosting 6 JVC video cameras, was developed to verify the proposed approach. Rendering and compression results of real-world scenes demonstrate the usefulness and good quality of the proposed approach.
Diagnosing Process Trajectories Under Partially Known Behavior

Diagnosis of process executions is an important task in many application domains, especially in the area of workflow management systems and orchestrated Web Services. If executions fail because activities of the process do not behave as intended, recovery procedures re-execute some activities to recover from the failure. We present a diagnosis method for identifying incorrect activities in process executions. Our method is novel both in that it does not require exact behavioral models for the activities and that its accuracy improves upon dependency-based methods. Observations obtained from partial executions and re-executions of a process are exploited. We formally characterize the diagnosis problem and develop a symbolic encoding that can be solved using CLP(FD) solvers. Our evaluation demonstrates that the framework yields superior accuracy to dependency-based methods on realistically-sized examples.
Online Monitoring and Fault Diagnosis of Hybrid Systems Using Switched Dynamic Bayesian Networks

Modern real-world engineering systems typically have hybrid dynamic behaviors that can be modeled by continuous behaviors with discrete mode transitions. These complex systems present many significant challenges for online monitoring and diagnosis, including tracking system behavior, dealing with noisy measurements and disturbances, and diagnosing different types of faults. In this paper, we propose an integrated model-based diagnosis approach that extends the traditional Dynamic Bayesian Network-based particle filter approach for tracking continuous system dynamics. A novel mode diagnoser is presented that discriminates between residuals generated by inaccurate system tracking, discrete faults, and parametric faults. An extended quantitative fault isolation and identification scheme is combined with a qualitative fault isolation scheme to identify the abrupt parametric faults. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by applying it to Reverse Osmosis (RO) subsystem of the Water Recovery System (WRS) developed at the NASA Johnson Space Center for long duration human missions.
Relative Perturbation Theory for Diagonally Dominant Matrices

In this paper, strong relative perturbation bounds are developed for a number of linear algebra problems involving diagonally dominant matrices. The key point is to parameterize diagonally dominant matrices using their off-diagonal entries and diagonally dominant parts and to consider small relative componentwise perturbations of these parameters. This allows us to obtain new relative perturbation bounds for the inverse, the solution to linear systems, the symmetric indefinite eigenvalue problem, the singular value problem, and the nonsymmetric eigenvalue problem. These bounds are much stronger than traditional perturbation results, since they are independent of either the standard condition number or the magnitude of eigenvalues/singular values. Together with previously derived perturbation bounds for the LDU factorization and the symmetric positive definite eigenvalue problem, this paper presents a complete and detailed account of relative structured perturbation theory for diagonally dominant matrices.
Green tea (Camellia sinensis) catechins and vascular function

The health benefits of green tea (Camellia sinensis) catechins are becoming increasingly recognised. Amongst the proposed benefits are the maintenance of endothelial function and vascular homeostasis and an associated reduction in atherogenesis and CVD risk. The mounting evidence for the influential effect of green tea catechins on vascular function from epidemiological, human intervention and animal studies is subject to review together with exploration of the potential mechanistic pathways involved. Epigallocatechin-3-gallate, one of the most abundant and widely studied catechin found in green tea, will be prominent in the present review. Since there is a substantial inconsistency in the published data with regards to the impact of green tea catechins on vascular function, evaluation and interpretation of the inter- and intra-study variability is included. In conclusion, a positive effect of green tea catechins on vascular function is becoming apparent. Further studies in animal and cell models using physiological concentrations of catechins and their metabolites are warranted in order to gain some insight into the physiology and molecular basis of the observed beneficial effects.
A Novel Tri-Band Branch-Line Coupler using Stepped-Impedance Resonator

In this study, a novel structure of tri-band branch-line coupler is proposed using stepped-impedance (SIR) resonator to control the frequency ratio between the second and first resonance frequencies of such resonator. The fundamental characteristic of such resonators, the frequency ratio between the second and first resonance frequencies, is targeted as a key factor in arbitrary tuning the resonance frequencies. Based on the first and second spurious resonance harmonic of the SIR, a triple branch-line coupler is designed and simulated. The proposed BLC is shown to demonstrate a tri-band BLC with central frequencies located at 0.9, 2.6 and 4.2 GHz, respectively.
High Power Laser Diode Arrays for 2-Micron Solid State Coherent Lidars Applications

Laser diode arrays are critical components of any diode-pumped solid state laser systems, constraining their performance and reliability. Laser diode arrays (LDAs) are used as the pump source for energizing the solid state lasing media to generate an intense coherent laser beam with a high spatial and spectral quality. The solid state laser design and the characteristics of its lasing materials define the operating wavelength, pulse duration, and power of the laser diodes. The pump requirements for high pulse energy 2-micron solid state lasers are substantially different from those of more widely used 1-micron lasers and in many aspects more challenging [1]. Furthermore, the reliability and lifetime demanded by many coherent lidar applications, such as global wind profiling from space and long-range clear air turbulence detection from aircraft, are beyond the capability of currently available LDAs. In addition to the need for more reliable LDAs with longer lifetime, further improvement in the operational parameters of high power quasi-cw LDAs, such as electrical efficiency, brightness, and duty cycle, are also necessary for developing cost-effective 2-micron coherent lidar systems for applications that impose stringent size, heat dissipation, and power constraints. Global wind sounding from space is one of such applications, which is the main driver for this work as part of NASA s Laser Risk Reduction Program. This paper discusses the current state of the 792 nm LDA technology and the technology areas being pursued toward improving their performance. The design and development of a unique characterization facility for addressing the specific issues associated with the LDAs for pumping 2-micron coherent lidar transmitters and identifying areas of technological improvement will be described. Finally, the results of measurements to date on various standard laser diode packages, as well as custom-designed packages with potentially longer lifetime, will be reported.
A Model for Policy Based Service Community

Since the World Wide Web is an open system, it is difficult to maintain the information about services on the Web in a centralized server. Therefore the service mediation system could be constructed by federation of service communities, in which each community provides and mediates limited number of services according to its own policy. The federation should preserve the policy of each community. Furthermore, (1) scalability, (2) verifiability of policy compliance, and (3) flexibility to the change of federation relation should be considered in implementing the federation. In this paper, we introduce a notion of policy of community based on access control among players and show a community model that is aimed at specifying communications between players compliant with policy. The community model provides function specification of the service mediation system. Since a meta-architecture based language is used to describe community model, communications for the cooperation of communities can be represented separately from the communications for service request and provision. As the result, our community model (1) represents communications between players in a modular way, (2) provides a basis for verification of policy compliance, and (3) encapsulates the dependencies on partner communities.
Tracking the Response Dynamics of Implicit Partisan Biases

Despite widespread political conspiracy theories about Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, a majority of partisans continue to distance themselves from such beliefs. Even so, the ideological biases that drive conspiratorial thinking may be hard to overcome. In this study, we examine the unintentional endorsement of conspiratorial beliefs as revealed in movement dynamics. We track the cursor movements of Republicans and Democrats as they click target regions on their computer screens, ostensibly providing bias-free opinions (e.g., clicking “FALSE” upon reading “Barack Obama was born in Kenya”). However, during these response movements, we find inhibition and movement attraction to regions of the screen where a competitor response is located (e.g., “TRUE” for the “birther” conspiracy). These dynamics are not present for general conspiracies or political knowledge items. Though both Republicans and Democrats show evidence of implicit biases, changes in the strength of competition also reveal key asymmetrical differences.
Diagnostic performance of non-invasive fractional flow reserve derived from coronary computed tomography angiography: current perspectives

Coronary computed tomography angiography (CTA) has been increasingly used to detect coronary artery disease. The diagnostic performance of coronary CTA is well established with a high sensitivity and negative predictive value. Nevertheless, the diagnostic value of coronary CTA is offset by a high false positive rate, partly due to the technique lacking physio­ logical lesion assessment when performed in the conventional way. This has raised concerns regarding unnecessary invasive coronary angiography referrals and inappropriate revasculariza­ tion procedures. Recent advances in computational fluid dynamics and image­based modeling have enabled the calculation of coronary artery blood flow and pressure under various modeled physiologic conditions from coronary CTA without the need for hyperemia­inducing medica­ tions, modification of acquisition protocol or further radiation. Coronary flow and pressure can be derived both at rest and during simulated maximum hyperemia allowing for the calculation of fractional flow reserve from coronary CTA (FFR CTA ) across stenotic lesions in a fashion similar to invasive FFR. This novel non­invasive technology offers concurrent anatomical and functional assessment of major epicardial coronary arteries. The diagnostic performance of FFR CTA has been tested in three major trials where it resulted in accurate identification of ischemia­related lesions. Similar to an invasive FFR­guided management strategy, the use of FFR CTA has been shown to improve patients' outcomes and reduce health care costs. FFR CTA is emerging as an attractive alternative to invasive FFR. There are, however, several challenges that need to be overcome before FFR CTA can be incorporated into routine clinical practice.
Mobile cell phone technology puts the future of health care in our hands

[See related article at [www.cmaj. ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.170432][2]][2] KEY POINTS The digital revolution has affected virtually every aspect of our lives, and health is no exception. This is particularly evident in the burgeoning area of mobile health (mHealth). A subset of the overall digital
Low-Dropout Voltage Source: An Alternative Approach for Low-Dropout Voltage Regulators

In this brief, a high-order temperature-compensated 0.6-V low-dropout voltage source (LDVS) is realized in standard 0.13-μm CMOS technology. The LDVS operates at supply voltages down to 0.75 V and consumes only 39 μA while providing up to 100 mA of load current. Gate-to-channel capacitance values of MOSFETs are employed to implement the capacitors, reducing chip area and enabling integration in any inexpensive CMOS technology. The regulation loop is compensated using a combined pole-splitting and feedforward technique, which results in stable operation from a no-load current to 100 mA of full-load current. A temperature-dependent current-driven voltage generator is proposed to suppress the line-voltage sensitivity of the LDVS. To further improve line regulation, a line-voltage compensation circuit is introduced, which lowers the line sensitivity by about three times down to 0.54%/V. With a supply voltage of 1 V and no output filtering capacitor, the mean power-supply rejection is -51 and -24 dB for 1 and 10 MHz, respectively. The proposed LDVS requires no startup circuit. The 0.1% startup settling time is 73 μs with a supply voltage of 0.8 V and a load current of 1 mA. In the temperature range of -25 °C- +85 °C, it demonstrates a maximum temperature drift of only 32 ppm/°C.
Worldwide prevalence of anaemia, WHO Vitamin and Mineral Nutrition Information System, 1993–2005

Abstract Objective To provide current global and regional estimates of anaemia prevalence and number of persons affected in the total population and by population subgroup. Setting and design We used anaemia prevalence data from the WHO Vitamin and Mineral Nutrition Information System for 1993–2005 to generate anaemia prevalence estimates for countries with data representative at the national level or at the first administrative level that is below the national level. For countries without eligible data, we employed regression-based estimates, which used the UN Human Development Index (HDI) and other health indicators. We combined country estimates, weighted by their population, to estimate anaemia prevalence at the global level, by UN Regions and by category of human development. Results Survey data covered 48·8 % of the global population, 76·1 % of preschool-aged children, 69·0 % of pregnant women and 73·5 % of non-pregnant women. The estimated global anaemia prevalence is 24·8 % (95 % CI 22·9, 26·7 %), affecting 1·62 billion people (95 % CI 1·50, 1·74 billion). Estimated anaemia prevalence is 47·4 % (95 % CI 45·7, 49·1 %) in preschool-aged children, 41·8 % (95 % CI 39·9, 43·8 %) in pregnant women and 30·2 % (95 % CI 28·7, 31·6 %) in non-pregnant women. In numbers, 293 million (95 % CI 282, 303 million) preschool-aged children, 56 million (95 % CI 54, 59 million) pregnant women and 468 million (95 % CI 446, 491 million) non-pregnant women are affected. Conclusion Anaemia affects one-quarter of the world’s population and is concentrated in preschool-aged children and women, making it a global public health problem. Data on relative contributions of causal factors are lacking, however, which makes it difficult to effectively address the problem.
Questionnaires for 360-degree assessment of consultant psychiatrists: Development and psychometric properties

Background Expert clinical judgement combines technical proficiency with humanistic qualities. Aims To test the psychometric properties of questionnaires to assess the humanistic qualities of working with colleagues and relating to patients using multisource feedback. Method Analysis of self-ratings by 347 consultant psychiatrists and ratings by 4422 colleagues and 6657 patients. Results Mean effectiveness as rated by self, colleagues and patients, was 4.6, 5.0 and 5.2 respectively (where 1=very low and 6=excellent). The instruments are internally consistent (Cronbach's alpha > 0.95). Principal components analysis of the colleague questionnaire yielded seven factors that explain 70.2% of the variance and accord with the domain structure. Colleague and patient ratings correlate with one another (r=0.39, P<0.001) but not with the self-rating. Ratings from 13 colleagues and 25 patients are required to achieve a generalisability coefficient (Eρ2) of 0.75. Conclusions Reliable 360-degree assessment of humane judgement is feasible for psychiatrists who work in large multiprofessional teams and who have large case-loads.