Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Sclérodermie systémique : polymorphisme clinique et aspects thérapeutiques

La sclerodermie systemique est une maladie rare qui n’a fait l’objet que de tres peu d’etudes randomisees expliquant le faible niveau de preuve de nombreux medicaments utilises dans cette maladie. Les trois principales populations cellulaires concernees et constituant des cibles therapeutiques potentielles sont le fibroblaste, les cellules lymphocytaires T et B, la cellule endotheliale et ses precurseurs. Aucun traitement antifibrotique n’a, a ce jour, demontre son efficacite. La place de la D-penicillamine est controversee, le role antifibrotique des prostacyclines et des antagonistes des recepteurs de l’endotheline restent a demontrer chez l’homme. Dans le phenomene de Raynaud severe, l’ilomedine en intraveineux est la molecule la plus efficace. Si la corticotherapie peut apporter un benefice dans les formes aigues œdemateuses, il est recommande de ne pas depasser la posologie quotidienne de 15 mg d’equivalent de prednisone, car, au-dela, existe une augmentation significative du risque de crise renale aigue sclerodermique. Les inhibiteurs de l’enzyme de conversion sont le traitement de reference de la crise renale aigue dont le pronostic reste malgre tout sombre avec environ 20 % de deces. La prostacycline en pompe intraveineuse, l’iloprost, son analogue, en aerosol, et les antagonistes des recepteurs de l’endotheline ont ces dernieres annees completement modifie le pronostic de l’hypertension arterielle pulmonaire, complication dramatique qui concerne 10 a 15 % des patients atteints de sclerodermie systemique limitee ou diffuse. Bien qu’il n’y ait aucune etude randomisee, le cyclophosphamide fait reference en cas de pneumopathie interstitielle evolutive. L’oxygenotherapie et la kinesitherapie respiratoire sont des adjuvants utiles dans les atteintes pulmonaires. Dans les formes graves, la transplantation monopulmonaire est possible, son pronostic est comparable a celui des fibroses pulmonaires idiopathiques. La place de l’autogreffe de moelle reste a determiner, une etude randomisee versus cyclophosphamide est actuellement en cours. Les voies therapeutiques du futur concernent la modulation des lymphocytes T autoreactifs, les biotherapies antichemokines ou anticytokines et peut-etre la mobilisation des precurseurs medullaires des cellules endotheliales afin d’activer la vasculogenese.
Um estudo sobre interface cérebro-computador

This work consists of a study about Brain Machine Interface (BMI) and validation of this knowledge with the development of a game. The bibliography was composed by reading books, articles and undergraduate works about BMI. The developed software was a game of table tenis controlled by the interpretation of signals obtained by a neuralheadset. Futhermore, the OpenViBE application was used to develop the aquisition and classi cation of the data. For analysis of the implementation, an experiment was made with the participation of some subjects, in which the classi cation rate reached around 70%. The resultant data shows that, even simulating the usage of the headset in real situations with a high quantity of noise, it is possible to obtain a good classication rate.
C-B2-01: Cardiotoxic Chemotherapy is Associated with Increased Heart Failure Risk Among Women with Breast Cancer in the Cancer Research Network

Background The association between cardiotoxic chemotherapy for breast cancer treatment and congestive heart failure has been well documented in clinical trials. However, clinical trial populations often contain young, otherwise healthy people, and these results may not represent true associations in community settings. We used electronic administrative data from the CRN VDW to estimate the association between chemotherapy with anthracycline and/or trastuzumab and heart failure in a cohort of women with breast cancer. Methods We included 13,497 women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer between 1999–2007 from eight CRN health plans. Using Current Procedural Terminology codes and National Drug Codes from the VDW, we determined whether each woman was exposed to anthracyclines alone, trastuzumab alone, anthracyclines plus trastuzumab, other chemotherapy, or no chemotherapy. We used International Classification of Disease codes and an algorithm based on number of inpatient, outpatient, and emergency department diagnoses to determine whether each woman had a prevalent (before breast cancer diagnosis) or incident (after breast cancer diagnosis) heart failure diagnosis. Using Cox proportional hazards models, we modeled the time to incident heart failure (censoring at disenrollment or death) associated with time varying exposures for each treatment category using hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI) adjusted for age, health plan, stage, year of diagnosis, and comorbidities. Results Almost half of our study population received no chemotherapy (46.2%, 6420/13497); 28.6% (3857/13497) received anthracyclines alone, 1.2% (157/13497) received trastuzumab alone, 3.5% (470/13497) received both, and 20.4% (2748/13497) received other chemotherapy. One thousand forty-one women (7.7%, 1041/13497) were diagnosed with incident heart failure. The adjusted HR associated with anthracycline use alone was 1.19 (95%CI=0.97–1.46) compared with no chemotherapy, 3.02 for trastuzumab alone (95%CI=1.86–4.89), 6.05 for anthracycline and trastuzumab combined (95%CI=4.35–8.42), and 1.36 for other chemotherapy (95%CI=1.17–1.58). These associations strengthened after excluding women with prevalent heart failure or incident heart failure diagnosed <60 days after breast cancer diagnosis. Conclusions Cardiotoxic outcomes after chemotherapy occur in the community setting; the combination of anthracycline plus trastuzumab in particular, is associated with an elevated heart failure risk. The CRN is an ideal setting to study chemotherapy, cardiotoxicity, and other survivorship-related outcomes.
The cost-effectiveness of boceprevir for hepatitis C

Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is costly to treat and, has high morbidity and mortality. The addition of new protease inhibitors (i.e., boceprevir, telaprevir), to the standard dual therapy with pegylated interferon-α and ribavirin, for the treatment of HCV infection has demonstrated superior efficacy with shorter treatment duration, but at higher drug acquisition costs and incidence of adverse events. Robust economic data are required to inform healthcare decision for the optimal use of these expensive antiviral agents. Accordingly, this review will explore the clinical and economic aspects of boceprevir-based treatment strategies. Important considerations, challenges and gaps for future pharmacoeconomic research in this setting are highlighted.
Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, Cost-Benefit Analysis, and Beyond: Evolving Models for the Scientist-Manager-Practitioner

Models are described for measuring cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit in clinical research and for optimizing cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit in clinical practice. Three applications are provided of a model advocated by the author, cost procedure process outcome analysis. Traditional research often examines the degree to which treatment procedures are implemented and the extent to which those procedures affect biopsycho-social processes that may yield outcomes (procedure process outcome analysis). To these analyses we can add data on treatment costs for a complete model, that is, cost procedure -* process -* outcome. This model can be analyzed to find the least expensive way to achieve goal outcomes or the most effective way to deliver services within budget constraints.
Quality of life in psoriasis patients

Patient-reported outcomes are major components of decision making in clinical research, reimbursement, health policy and health care for psoriasis. The most important construct in patient-reported outcomes is health-related quality of life (HRQoL) which encompasses the individual’s well-being with respect to health. HRQoL cannot directly be measured but is assessed in single dimensions, especially physical, emotional, social and functional aspects. For this, disease- and condition-specific instruments are used. Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease affecting the skin as well as other tissues and organ systems. Patients suffer from a large scale of impairments, for example, physical symptoms, stigmatization and embarrassment, psychological strain and disabilities in profession. Improvement of HRQoL is a major objective of disease management. Current knowledge on determinants of HRQoL and the treatments available increase QoL in clinical care.
Column-oriented query processing for row stores

Column-oriented DBMSs have gained increasing interest due to their superior performance for analytical workloads. Prior efforts tried to determine the possibility of simulating the query processing techniques of column-oriented systems in row-oriented databases, in a hope to improve their performance, especially for OLAP and data warehousing applications. In this paper, we show that column-oriented query processing can significantly improve the performance of row-oriented DBMSs. We introduce new operators that take into account the unique characteristics of data obtained from indexes, and exploit new technologies such as flash SSDs and multi-core processors to boost the performance. We demonstrate our approach with an experimental study using a prototype built on a commercial row-oriented DBMS.
Patent search using IPC classification vectors

Finding similar patents is a challenging task in patent information retrieval. A patent application is often a starting point to find similar inventions. Keyword search for similar patents requires significant domain expertise and may not fetch relevant results. We propose a novel representation for patents and use a two stage approach to find similar patents. Each patent is represented as an IPC class vector. Citation network of patents is used to propagate these vectors from a node (patent) to its neighbors (cited patents). Thus, each patent is represented as a weighted combination of its IPC information as well as of its neighbors. A query patent is represented as a vector using its IPC information and similar patents can be simply found by comparing this vector with vectors of patents in the corpus. Text based search is used to re-rank this solution set to improve precision. We experiment with two similarity measures and re-ranking strategies to empirically show that our representation is effective in improving both precision and recall of queries of CLEF-2011 dataset.
Poster: Smart buildings, sensor networks, and the Internet of Things

In contrast to traditional sensor networks, the "Internet of Things" focuses on interactions between humans and physical objects rather than on sensing and reporting low level information. While several middle-ware systems have been created to simplify the task of managing and aggregating data from multiple sensor networks that use different hardware and software, management of the data is not sufficient to build an Internet of Things. To build a smart home or office application, information from sensors and existing infrastructure, such as networked power supplies and printers, need to be associated with physical objects. As low-level data is processed, it can be fed back into the system to support higher-level results. In this paper we introduce Octopus, an open-source, dynamically extensible system that supports data management and fusion for Internet of Things applications.
Cost–effectiveness analysis of 5-fluorouracil 0.5%/salicylic acid 10% in the treatment of actinic keratosis in Spain

Objective: The aim of this study is to conduct a cost–effectiveness analysis of 5-fluorouracil 0.5%/salicylic acid 10% (5-FU/SA) in the treatment of isolated hyperkeratotic actinic keratosis lesions in Spain. Methods: An analytical decision-making model was constructed to compare whether 5-FU/SA was a cost-effective option compared with cryotherapy from the perspective of the Spanish National Health System with a time horizon of 6 months. Costs were expressed in 2014 euros. Results: The cost of patients with hyperkeratotic actinic keratosis treated with 5-FU/SA or cryotherapy was €266 and €285, respectively. 5-FU/SA was associated with higher rates of treatment success and, consequently, more quality-adjusted life years, than cryotherapy. Therefore, 5-FU/SA was the dominant treatment, as it was associated with a lower treatment cost and greater effectiveness than cryotherapy. Conclusions: Economically, 5-FU/SA was a dominant option compared with cryotherapy in the treatment of isolated hyperkeratotic actinic keratosis lesions in Spain.
A Review of the STAR*D Trial

Major depressive disorder is a common disorder that affects 5% to 13% of medical outpatients. The treatment of depression can be challenging, with many first-line options and even more second-line or next-step options. The STAR*D trial was the first of its kind developed to evaluate clinical strategies to improve outcomes for patients with treatment-resistant depression and determining the best next-step treatment option for patients who did not respond adequately to earlier treatment attempts. The trial included a widely representative group of outpatients so as to be applicable to the current practice in the treatment of depression. The trial consisted of 4 different treatment strategies with both switching and augmentation options. Patients were permitted to select treatment options at each of the levels that they themselves selected, creating a “realworld” setting in the trial. Patients were recommended to continue through each level until remission was reached. The study, though limited in size at each level, has provided much-needed information for the continued treatment of major depressive disorder.
Protecting the identity of doctors in drug prescription analysis

This paper describes work undertaken to assure the privacy of doctors in a system that enables some other parties to analyse prescription information at a reasonably detailed level. The task was to determine what ‘reasonably’ should mean. The paper outlines the risks to the privacy of doctors, which were identified during fieldwork and data analysis. The measures chosen to safeguard the identity of doctors when they do not explicitly give consent for it to be known are then described. Although the paper concentrates on technical measures, some relevant organizational and contractual issues are also mentioned.
Salvage of the First Ray With External Fixation in the High-Risk Patient

In diabetic patients, hallux and first-ray amputations significantly increase the risk of recurrent ulceration and more proximal amputation over time. This small, retrospective study demonstrates that salvage of the first ray can be reliably accomplished, even in high-risk patients, when basic principles of infection management are followed in conjunction with the appropriate use of external fixation. These techniques may help to improve the quality of life and reduce the overall medical resources required for the treatment of recurrent ulceration and amputation in this patient population.
Evaluation of portion size estimation aids among Irish consumers

L. K. Pourshahidi, G. P. Faulkner, M. Spence, M. Dean, S. O’Brien, M. Goulding, E. R. Gibney, M. A. Kerr, T. A. McCaffrey, J. M. W. Wallace and M. B. E. Livingstone Northern Ireland Centre for Food and Health, University of Ulster, Coleraine, BT52 1SA, School of Biological Sciences, Queen’s University Belfast, BT9 5AG and Institute of Food and Health, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Ireland
Is food marketing making us fat? Fat cats vs dogmatists.

Stephen Holden is a researcher/educator holding adjunct positions with Bond University and Southern Cross University. He has published a wide range of social marketing research projects (anti-smoking, drink-driving, over-eating, public health, road safety) both for government agencies and in academic journals around the world. His current research interests include portion-size effects, meta-analysis, social marketing and ethics.
Integrating laboratory paradigms and ethnographic field studies for advancing analyses of creative processes

This symposium responds to calls for an integration of in-vivo and in-vitro methods when studying how people tackle complex, open-ended issues in the areas of creativity, design, and innovation. Bringing together expertise from multiple perspectives and methodological backgrounds we explore fruitful ways towards integrative approaches to analyzing creative processes and practices. The theme is addressed from theoretical and practical viewpoints.
Acute Tobacco Smoke-Induced Airways Inflammation in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Common laboratory rats and mice fail to develop persistent, progressive pulmonary inflammation found in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease as a result of tobacco smoke exposure. We hypothesized that spontaneously hypertensive rats would be more susceptible than normal Wistar Kyoto rats to acute tobacco smoke-induced pulmonary inflammation due to impaired apoptosis. Spontaneously hypertensive rats display systemic oxidative stress, inflammation, hypercoagulation, and immunosupression, similar to humans with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Male spontaneously hypertensive rats and Wistar Kyoto rats were exposed whole-body to tobacco smoke (total particulate concentration 75–85 mg/m3) or filtered air for 6 h/day for 2 or 15 days (3 days/wk). Tobacco smoke caused an increase in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid neutrophils at both time points in each strain. Significantly more neutrophils were noted in spontaneously hypertensive rats at 15 days compared to Wistar Kyoto rats. There was a trend of increase for macrophages in spontaneously hypertensive rats at both time points (significant at 2 days). TUNEL assay detected apoptotic cells in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid and lung tissue sections. The number of apoptotic neutrophils in airway walls and bronchoalveolar lavage fluid increased at 2 days in both strains, but at 15 days the effect was much lower in spontaneously hypertensive rats than in Wistar Kyoto rats. Tobacco smoke induces a greater inflammatory response associated with lower apoptotic neutrophils in the lungs of spontaneously hypertensive rats compared to Wistar Kyoto rats. The spontaneously hypertensive rat may be a more relevant animal model of acute tobacco smoke-induced airway inflammation than other laboratory rats.
What is the role of cerebrospinal fluid ferritin in the diagnosis of subarachnoid haemorrhage in computed tomography-negative patients?

Abstract Background Spectrophotometry of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) for bilirubin is the recommended method for investigation in suspected cases of subarachnoid haemorrhage (SAH), when a computed tomography (CT) of the head is negative for blood. There is a potential need for a simpler alternative. Measurement of CSF ferritin might fulfil this need. Method We have measured ferritin in the CSF from 252 patients with suspected SAH who were negative on a CT of the head for blood, recruited on a consecutive intention to recruit basis from four centres. CSF spectrophotometry was performed on all samples. A positive outcome was taken as an aneurysm found on angiography that was treated or a discharge diagnosis of non-aneurysmal SAH. Results A final diagnosis of aneurysmal SAH was made in six patients, an arteriovenous malformation in one and non-aneurysmal SAH in nine. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis showed that at 6.4 μg/L, sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values were 1.0, 0.48, 0.12 and 1.0, respectively. At 12 μg/L, these values were 0.81, 0.91, 0.38 and 0.98, respectively. Conclusions At an appropriate negative predictive value (1.0) for a rule-out test, ferritin has too low a specificity to function as a stand-alone test and we cannot recommend it as an initial screen to be followed by spectrophotometry.
AAT: a tool for accessing and analysing students' behaviour data in learning systems

In online learning environments, teachers and course designers often get little feedback about how students actually interact with and learn in online courses. Most of the learning systems used by educational institutions store comprehensive log data associated with students' behaviours and actions. However, these systems typically reveal or report on very general and limited information based on this data. In order to provide teachers and course designers with more detailed and meaningful information about students' behaviour and their use of learning resources within online courses, an analytics tool has been developed. The tool incorporates functionality to access and analyse data related to students' behaviours in learning systems. This tool can provide valuable information about students' learning processes allowing the identification of difficult or inappropriate learning material, and can therefore significantly contribute to the design of improved student support activities and resources.
Game engines in game programming education: experiences from use of the CAGE game engine

Game engines are the most important tools in modern game development. We have developed a novel game engine CAGE and used it in a game programming course for three years. The CAGE game engine was developed in summer 2008 in Tampere University of Technology. It has been developed iteratively since then. In this paper, we describe lessons learned from the three years of when CAGE has been used. Our experiences can provide valuable information for teachers planning a use of a game engine in their game programming classes.
The early response of the systemic ventricle during transition to the Fontan circulation—an acute hypertrophic cardiomyopathy?

Summary Using combined epicardial echocardiography and high-fidelity intraventricular pressure recordings, the acute effects of transition to a Fontan circulation were studied in 10 patients. Measurements were made before and after cardiopulmonary bypass. The Fontan operation had no significant effect on load-dependent indices, or on a load independent index (Vmax) of ventricular systolic function. Large changes were observed in ventricular geometry. Maximum and minimum cavity dimensions were reduced, while maximum and minimum thicknesses of the posterior wall were increased.While simultaneous Doppler/intraventricular pressure measurements suggested that the compliance of the ventricle was unchanged, the pattern of atrioventricular flow changed from predominantly early diastolic (E wave) to predominantly atrial systolic (A wave) as a result of surgery in four patients. The time constant of ventricular relaxation was prolonged in all patients and five developed Doppler echocardiographic evidence of incoordinate relaxation of the ventricle, with intraventricular flow occurring during isovolumic relaxation. Thus, the Fontan operation causes acute hypertrophy of the systemic ventricle due to a sudden reduction in ventricular preload in the presence of a maintained shortening fraction. While global ventricular diastolic compliance may be unchanged by the operative procedure, filling of the ventricle during early diastole is altered as a result of incoordinate relaxation and a prolonged time constant of ventricular relaxation.