Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Übersicht und Analyse internationaler Fall-Kontroll-Studien zu „Chronischen zerebrospinalen venösen Insuffizienz“ (CCSVI) und Multipler Sklerose

Zusammenfassung Hintergrund: Die neurosonologische Befundkonstellation „Chronischen zerebrospinalen venösen Insuffizienz“ (CCSVI) wurde initial als hochspezifischer und hochsensitiver Befund bei Patienten mit Multipler Sklerose (MS) beschrieben. Es wurde postuliert, dass ein Rückstau in zerebralen Venen ursächlich für die pathophysiologischen Prozesse bei der MS sei. Inzwischen sind mehrere Fall-Kontroll-Studien zur Prävalenz einer CCSVI bei MS-Patienten mit sehr widersprüchlichen Ergebnissen publiziert worden. Methoden: Neben einer Übersicht über die Datenlage zur „venösen Hypothese“ erfolgt eine Meta-Analyse der Ergebnisse aus den bisher publizierten internationalen Fall-Kontroll-Studien. Ergebnisse: In 25 Studien wurden 2 012 MS-Patienten und 1 425 gesunde Kontrollen untersucht. Die Konstellation einer „CCSVI“ nach neurosonologischen Kriterien wurde bei 876 (41,7%) der Patienten und 147 (10,3%) der Gesunden beschrieben (OR=3,2; 95% CI=2,5–4,0). Bei der Bewertung dieser Meta-Analyse ist jedoch die hohe Heterogenität (I2=82%) zu berücksichtigen. Die Analyse dreier deutscher Studien ergab eine sehr geringe CCSVI-Prävalenz von ca. 2% in beiden Gruppen (OR=0,5; 95% CI=0,1–3,1) und ist durch keinerlei Heterogenität (I2=0%) in Ihrer Aussage eingeschränkt. Schlussfolgerungen: Im Vergleich zur Erstbeschreibung konnte keine der folgenden internationalen Fall-Kontrollstudien die hohe Spezifität bzw. Sensitivität einer CCSVI bei MS reproduzieren. Bei einer allgemeinen Meta-Analyse der teils widersprüchlichen Daten ist die hohe Heterogenität zu berücksichtigen, sodass genauere Meta-Analysen mit erweiterten Sensitivitätsanalysen notwendig sind. Die in Deutschland durchgeführten Studien haben keine Hinweise für eine „venöse Genese“ der MS ergeben. Die Ergebnisse unterstützen nachhaltig die Empfehlung, dass interventionelle Verfahren zur Erweiterung der venösen Halsgefäße nicht mehr außerhalb von klinischen Studien durchgeführt werden sollten.
A Medical Device Complexity Model: A New Approach to Medical Equipment Management

Complexity ranking can be used as a measure of the degree of difficulty in understanding, operating, and managing systems. Categorization of systems according to their level of complexity provides guidance for system management, optimization, and cost reduction. With the fundamental role of clinical engineers in medical equipment selection, equipment performance programs, education programs, and risk analysis, development of a medical device complexity model provides a useful tool for managing medical technology.
Verification of the diagnosability of discrete-event systems in waters

The task of detecting faults and reacting to them appropriately is a crucial aspect of a building a stable system. If a fault cannot be directly observed, its occurrence must be inferred from what can be observed. In the realm of discrete-event systems, the property of diagnosability has been defined, and several algorithms for testing diagnosability have been presented. Diagnosability relates to the ability for all possible faults to be correctly detected or inferred within a finite amount of time from their occurrence. WATERS (Waikato Analysis Toolkit for Events in Reactive Systems) is a software toolkit for the creation and analysis of discrete-event systems. In this report pre-existing existing algorithms for the verification of diagnosability and the implementation of one of these algorithms into WATERS are discussed. The created implementation can verify the diagnosability of a discrete-event system in polynomial time with respect to its state space and provide a counterexample if the discrete-event system was found to be not diagnosable.
A REVIEW: MOLECULAR REGULATION OF STOMATAL DEVELOPMENT RELATED TO ENVIRONMENTAL FACTORS AND HORMONES IN PLANTS

Plants regulate leaf transpiration rate and water potential by changing the number of stomata and their rate of opening and closing. Stomata act as turgor-operated valves for gas exchange and water evaporation based on environmental needs. During stomatal development, various transcription factors and related genes are involved in the reception or transduction of environmental factors and hormones. Recent studies have led to significant advances in our understanding of intercellular signaling, the underlying pathways, and the polarity of the asymmetric division that controls stomatal development. The endogenous and exogenous factors that regulate these elements have also been identified. However, the mechanism of stomatal formation and development is highly complex and several morphogenesis-related questions are still unresolved. In this review, the molecular basis of stomatal development, including transcription factors, functional genes, and regulatory pathways, is described in detail. The connection between stomatal development and environmental factors such as CO2, light, temperature and air humidity is discussed. In addition, the influences of plant hormones on stomatal development are sketched out in the review. We also highlight critical questions requiring future research and form a detailed list involving in gene functions and trait changes in mutants.
PTH-137 Patients’ views on their Experience of the Delivery of Single-Sex Accommodation within the Endoscopy Department: is it Worth it?

Introduction The 2007 Chief Nursing Officer’s report on privacy and dignity identified provision of single-sex accommodation (SSA) as a key objective for the NHS. This was formalised in the 2010 Department of Health (DOH) policy to eliminate mixed-sex accommodation and financial sanctions for policy breaches were introduced in 2011. Our endoscopy department adopted the policy in 2011. However the unit, which opened in 2004, has only one recovery bay, necessitating separate gender lists. Urgent procedures for patients of the opposite sex to the list running are accommodated by admission/recovery in a separate endoscopy room. We explored the views of patients on their experience of attending our unit since implementation of the SSA policy. There are no published studies of patients’ perspectives of care in endoscopy units since the widespread adoption of the policy in 2011. Methods Patients attending the endoscopy unit between August and October 2012 were invited to take part in the study by nursing staff during the admission process. Patient views were assessed using a structured non-disguised questionnaire of ten closed-ended questions. The Student’s t-test was used and a p value of < 0.05 was taken to be significant. Results Of the 68 questionnaires returned (female 20, male 25, unknown 23) 14 (20.6% [80% female]) and 17 (25% [81.8% female]) reported that they would feel vulnerable changing behind a curtain or waiting in a gown in a mixed-sex area respectively. Patients ranked (scale 1–10, 1 = least, 10 = most) the importance of provision of SSA significantly lower than the importance of access to prompt investigation and treatment (mean: 4.8 [SD ± 3.74] vs 8.71 [SD ± 2.70], p = 2.6 x10–7). Male patients ranked the importance of SSA significantly lower than females (mean:1.5 [SD ±1.05] vs 6.5 [SD ±3.30], p = 6.3 x10–6). 17/68 patients (25%) were admitted to an area other than the main receiving/recovery area because they were a different sex to the list running, and of these, 7/17 (41.2%) felt their care was compromised or patient experience reduced as a result. Conclusion SSA delivery is important to our patients, especially women. However they rank prompt investigation and treatment as more important. The rapid introduction of SSA in our hospital, in the absence of the necessary infrastructure, conflicts in part, with the pressure to deliver timely investigations. This can lead to compromised care, notably in patients who are admitted/recovered in an alternative room and can also lead to delays for specialised endoscopy (polypectomy, ERCP and EUS). By making such compromises we are at risk of achieving no net gain in patient satisfaction and experience. Disclosure of Interest None Declared.
Positioning by Road Feature Correspondence

This research analyzes a new method to localize a moving vehicle within a known road network using di↵erential odometry and a digital road map. The technique proposes geometrically hashing road features whose curvature is great enough to represent a distinct, measurable, real-world phenomenon. Several other strategies using road map data to constrain a localization search are discussed. In the recognition phase, this research proposes using a modified particle filter provides a way to maintain, test, and resample multiple hypotheses of the vehicle’s dead-reckoned location.
SAT0128 Biologic Treatment is Associated with More Serious Adverse Reactions, Serious Infections and Admissions in Hospital than DMARDS in Patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis: A REAL World Study

Background Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is a systemic disease of small and large joints with many extra-articular manifestations. Biologic agents (BAs) offer a better outcome when disease is not adequately controlled by DMARDs. Nevertheless, many doubts still exist about the safety of BAs compared to classical treatment. Objectives To estimate the safety of BAs compared to DMARDs in this real world study at a single rheumatologic center. Methods This is a retrospective study of 1.494 patients' files (1.173 women and 321 men, mean age at disease initiation 48.9 years). Demographic and clinical data were recorded during every patient's visit. Adverse reactions (ARs) were classified according to the international CTCAE (Common Terminology Criteria for Adverse Events) system: scale 1 to 5 with parallel increase of severity (1=mild AR without any intervention, 2=medial severity with non-invasive treatment, 3=serious AR but not life-threatening, 4=serious, life-threatening AR and 5=death). Results There were 1471 patients with DMARDs administration during their follow-up (65.5 months/patient, 8037 patient-years) and 471 patients with BAs (43.5 months/patient, 1711 patient-years). During DMARDs administration there were totally recorded 908 ARs, 81 infections, 45 admissions (18 due to infections) and 58 serious ARs (CTCAE=3-5). In patients with BAs, there were totally recorded 579 ARs, 195 infections, 84 admissions (40 due to infections) and 89 serious ARs. Of patients with DMARDs, 34.9% had at least one AR (95% CI 0.323-0.376, std error 0.135) compared to 54.7% of patients with BAs (95% CI 0.503-0.592, std error 0.229). Statistical analysis showed that BAs had significantly much more ARs compared to DMARDs (p<0.0001). Direct comparison between DMARDs and BAs (per 100 patient-years) showed 11.3 vs. 33.8 total ARs, 1.0 vs. 11.4 infections, 0.72 vs. 5.2 serious ARs, 0.56 vs. 4.9 admissions and 0.23 vs. 2.34 admissions due to infections, respectively. Conclusions Biologic treatment appears to have more frequent and devastating ARs compared to DMARDs in this real world study of our clinic. Further studies are needed to confirm these results, where co-morbidities and other predictive factors must be taken into account. Disclosure of Interest None declared DOI 10.1136/annrheumdis-2014-eular.4694
How public hospitals respond to and use a national serious and sentinel events report: A qualitative study in New Zealand

How and if public hospital leaders in a national health system use an annual Serious and Sentinel Events (SSE) report, an aim of which is to stimulate improvements in health care quality and patient safety, is an important question that is under-researched. This exploratory qualitative study in New Zealand using semi-structured interviews was undertaken in response. Interviewees included 29 representatives in patient safety leadership roles from 20 hospital districts, each of whom were recommended by their Chief Executives. Four themes describing factors contributing to the use of the SSE report were identified: response to the report itself; perceived use of and value of the report as a quality improvement tool; collaboration amongst hospitals around the findings; and, the priority given to improving quality within respondents' healthcare organisations. This article provides examples of these themes and how they relate to the use of the SSE report as a quality improvement tool. The article concludes that an annual SSE report has the potential to be a very useful tool for health care leaders in addressing SSEs. However, it also suggests that the report is underutilised and consequently some of this potential is lost. This may be explained by hospital capacity to absorb information from, and respond to, the SSE report.
Customer Churn Prediction in an Online Streaming Service

This thesis analyzes the application of different classification models to the churn prediction problem, and various techniques for handling common hurdles in this domain such as imbalanced datasets. More specifically, the study was conducted in collaboration with a digital rights management company, and the end goal was to produce a model for the identification of users that are likely to cancel their subscription to the company’s paid subscription service within the next 30 days. We paired logistic regression, gradient boosted trees and feed-forward neural networks with different types of preprocessing and feature selection methods to construct multiple churn prediction models. The final model obtained an F-score of 0.1628, and we believe it could potentially help boost profitability in targeted marketing campaigns.
736 ANGIOTENSIN II/SALT-INDUCED KIDNEY INJURY VIA RAC1-MEDIATED MINERALOCORTICOID RECEPTOR ACTIVATION

Purpose: The aldosterone-mineralocorticoid receptor (MR) system has recently been considered as a key player in renal dysfunction. Previously we showed that salt worsens renal injury via paradoxical MR activation despite lowering plasma aldosterone in the experiments with hyperaldosteronemic animals and revealed that salt and aldosterone synergistically contribute to renal impairment via Rac1-mediated MR activation. We suspected angiotensin II also promotes renal injury through this mechanism and aimed to elucidate it in this experiment. Methods: We placed angiotensin II-overproducing, double transgenic Tsukuba hypertensive mice on a low-salt or high-salt intake for 6 weeks and treated some animals on high-salt intake with adrenalectomy, MR antagonist eplerenone, Rac inhibitor EHT1864, or hydralazine. Results: High-salt intake, but not low-salt intake, led to hypertension and prominent kidney injury. Adrenalectomy prevented angiotensin II/salt-induced nephropathy in mice receiving high-salt intake, which was recapitulated by aldosterone supplementation, suggesting the involvement of aldosterone/MR signalling. Plasma aldosterone levels, however, were lower in high-salt than low-salt conditions. Instead, angiotensin II/salt-evoked MR activation associated with Rac1 activation and was not dependent on plasma aldosterone level. Both EHT1864 and eplerenone repressed the augmented MR signalling and diminished kidney injury with partial, but significant, reduction in blood pressure with high-salt intake. Hydralazine similarly reduced blood pressure but neither suppressed the Rac1-MR pathway nor ameliorated the nephropathy. Conclusions: We newly demonstrated that angiotensin II and salt accelerates kidney injury via Rac1-mediated MR activation through these results. Rac inhibition may be a promising strategy for the treatment of CKD.
Correlação dos Escores de Risco com a Anatomia Coronária na Síndrome Coronária Aguda sem Supra de ST Correlation of Risk Scores with Coronary Anatomy in Non-ST-elevation Acute Coronary Syndrome

Background: The literature lacks studies regarding the correlation between risk scores and coronary anatomy in acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Objective: Correlate risk scores with the severity of the coronary lesion in ACS with non-ST elevation. Methods: A total of 582 patients were analyzed between July 2004 and October 2006. The correlation between TIMI risk scores and GRACE (hospital and six months) scores was performed for patients with coronary lesion ≥ 50%, using Spearman’s non-parametric method. Multiple regression logistics was used to determine the predictive ability of the scores to discriminate to discriminate who will have a coronary lesion ≥ 50%. Results: Most subjects were male (319 or 54.8%), mean age of 59.9 (± 10.6) years. A positive correlation was observed between risk scores and coronary lesion ≥ 50% (TIMI r = 0.363 [p < 0.0001]; hospital GRACE r = 0.255 [p < 0.0001]; GRACE at six months r = 0.209 [< 0.0001]). The area under the ROC curve for each score to determine to discriminate who will have a coronary lesion ≥ 50% was: TIMI = 0.704 [CI95% 0.656-0.752; p <0.0001]; hospital GRACE = 0.623 [CI95% 0.573-0.673; p < 0.0001]; GRACE at six months= 0.562 [CI95% 0.510-0.613; p = 0.0255]. Comparing the areas under the ROC curve, it was found: TIMI versus hospital GRACE: p = 0.01; TIMI versus GRACE at six months: p < 0.0001; hospital GRACE versus GRACE at six months: p = 0.0461. Conclusion: Risk scores correlate with the severity of coronary lesions, and the TIMI risk score showed the best predictive ability (Arq Bras Cardiol. 2013; [online].ahead print, PP.0-0).
Thyroid gland functions are affected in obsessive-compulsive disorder

Objective: In the present study, it was aimed to examine thyroid functions in a group of patients with OCD who had not any comorbid conditions. Methods: Our present study included forty patients diagnosed with OCD and forty healthy controls. The subjects were selected by the chart reviews among the patients with OCD who had applied to the Firat University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, as inpatients or outpatients and had met the criteria of the present investigation. Thyroid hormone values had been obtained by using an auto analyzer. Results: Independent t test revealed that there were no statistically significant differences thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) values between the patients with OCD and healthy control subjects whereas there were statistically significant reduced levels of free triiodothyronine (FT3) and free thyroxine (FT4) hormones in the patient group compared to those of healthy ones. Conclusion: Consequently, altered levels of thyroid hormones may be associated with pathophysiology or maintenance of OCD.
Development and evaluation of the game agent to change confidence of estimating in Cooperative game Hanabi

*1 University of Tsukuba Abstract: AI agent for cooperation with human need to follow human thought. There are some research using cooperating game ‘Hanabi’ from various aspects such as self-estimation, psychology, and communication theory. In this research, we developed an agent’s strategy for following human thought for guessing human understanding of AI’s strategy to utilize the length of thinking time of the human player and changing the estimation reliability. As a result, we found that this agent estimated more frequently to the good player of Hanabi than the conventional agent and there is a positive correlation between some evaluation to this agent and score. However, the agent that change estimation reliability depending on opponent’s thinking time didn’t affect human’s impression compared to the conventional agent and there was no significant difference in the score and the success rate of the estimation by changing the reliability of the estimation according to the thinking time.
Bronchiectasis: Clinical Features and Management With a Focus on Inhaled Antibiotics

Noncystic fibrosis bronchiectasis is a chronic, debilitating lung disease characterized by cycles of infection, inflammation, and progressive airway structural changes. The associated burden of disease in terms of morbidity, health-related quality of life, and socioeconomic cost of long-term management is significant. Until recently, treatment of this chronic disease has been hampered by an inadequate evidence base. This has led to the extrapolation of research from other chronic respiratory diseases with potentially different underlying disease processes. A recent increase in studies of noncystic fibrosis bronchiectasis by several pharmaceutical companies means there are a number of clinical research trials designed specifically for this population either at, or near, completion. These may offer a real potential for new treatment options to reduce exacerbation rates and improve health-related quality of life. This article reviews current clinical practice in the routine management of noncystic fibrosis bronchiectasis and discusses emerging therapeutic options, with a particular focus on inhaled antibiotic therapy.
Screening Sonography of the Ankle/Foot to Correlate Pain and Pathology

The objective of this study was to determine if a relationship exists between sonographic pathological findings of the ankle/foot and self-reported ankle/foot pain. Symptomatic and asymptomatic participants were recruited and evaluated using sonographic imaging of the ankle and foot bilaterally. Participants also completed the Short Form<@150>12 (SF-12, a national physical and mental health scoring system), a visual analog scale (VAS) for pain, and the Victorian Institute of Sports Assessment–Achilles (VISA-A, a scoring system for Achilles tendon abnormalities), as well as provided a health history and demographic information. Twenty-five participants were evaluated. Symptomatic participants had below average physical SF-12 scores (mean [SD], 48.3 [7.3]), while asymptomatic patients had above-average physical SF-12 scores (54.9 [4.0]). Painful right ankle and/or foot were significantly associated with SF-12 physical health (R2 = 0.2, P < .03) and VISA-A (R2 = 0.6, P < .001) scores. Painful left ankle/foot was associated with only VISA-A (R2 = 0.5, P < .003). The modified D’Agostino scores for positive sonographic evidence of pathology were statistically linked to painful right (P < .02) and left ankle/foot (P < .04). The combination of SF-12 physical health score, palpable myofascial trigger points (MTrPs), and MTrPs sonographically visualized were statistically associated with the VAS for pain (P < .02). In conclusion, sonography of the foot/ankle combined with self-reported data could aid in the holistic evaluation of ankle/foot pain.
SÍNTESIS, COMPOSICIÓN Y MODIFICACIÓN DE LA GRASA DE LA LECHE BOVINA: Un nutriente valioso para la salud humana SYNTHESIS, COMPOSITION AND MODIFICATION OF THE BOVINE MILK FAT: A valuable nutrient for the human health

It presents a review about the composition, structure and mechanism of milk fat synthesis in the bovine mammary gland, and about the effect of unsaturated fatty acid (UFA) supplementation on the amount and quality of milk fat. It is enhanced the importance of the supplementation with vegetable plus fish oils; it is suggested that the effect of UFA should not be remarked as negative on the amount of milk fat; It is showed the necessity of