bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Lacosamide-induced atrial tachycardia in a child with hypoplastic left-heart syndrome: the importance of assessing additional proarrhythmic risks
Authors: Loomba Rohit S. , Singh Anoop K. , Kovach Joshua , Gudausky Todd M. 
Published: July 2014

AbstractAntiepileptic medications have been reported to cause disturbances in cardiac conduction. Lacosamide decreases seizure burden by modulating sodium channels. Although it has been demonstrated to have few side effects, there have been reports of clinically significant cardiac conduction disturbances. We report the case of a child with hypoplastic left-heart syndrome and well-controlled multifocal atrial tachycardia who developed haemodynamically significant atrial tachycardia after receiving two doses of lacosamide.
Global Uptake of the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership Over Its First Ten Years
Authors: Foran Mark P. , Williams Alan R. 
Published: July 2014

AbstractIntroductionAccountability in the delivery of humanitarian aid has become increasingly important and emphasized by the humanitarian community. The Humanitarian Accountability Partnership (HAP) was created in 2003 in order to improve accountability in the humanitarian sector. HAP acts as a self-regulatory body to the humanitarian system. One of the main goals of HAP is the promotion of accountability through self-regulation by members. Humanitarian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) can become members by meeting standards of accountability and quality management set by HAP. This report describes the growth of HAP membership by the humanitarian community from its inception until present.Hypothesis/ProblemThe hypothesis for this study was that HAP membership has grown substantially since inception, both in terms of number of member organizations and annual budgets of member organizations, but that near universal membership has not yet been achieved.MethodsA retrospective study was conducted to determine the total number and percentage of humanitarian NGOs that are members of HAP. Total expenditures of HAP members in 2010 also was measured and compared with the total humanitarian expenditure by all humanitarian NGOs for the same year. The reference year of 2010 was chosen in order to be able to compile accurate budgets for the largest possible number of HAP members. The total number of HAP members for the years 2005 through 2012 was divided by the estimated number of humanitarian NGOs active in 2010. The total budgets for HAP members in 2010 were divided by the estimated total humanitarian expenditure of all NGOs for 2010.ResultsAs of the beginning of 2012, the percentage of humanitarian NGOs that were members of HAP was 1.6% (68 members out of 4400 organizations). The combined budgets of the member organizations of HAP in 2010 made up 62.9% of the total humanitarian expenditure for the year 2010 (US $4.65 billion/7.4 billion).ConclusionA very small proportion of humanitarian NGOs have adopted HAP membership. However, HAP members account for almost two-thirds of all humanitarian expenditures. The humanitarian sector, therefore, remains without a universal regulatory and accountability structure, although progress has been made. Efforts should be made to increase the membership within HAP of more small to medium sized organizations.ForanMP, WilliamsAR. Global uptake of the Humanitarian Accountability Partnership over its first ten years. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2014;29(4):1-4.
Emergency Preparedness Law and Willingness to Respond in the EMS Workforce
Authors: Rutkow Lainie , Vernick Jon S. , Thompson Carol B. , Pirrallo Ronald G. , Barnett Daniel J. 
Published: July 2014

AbstractIntroductionFor effective responses to emergencies, individuals must have the ability to respond and also be willing to participate in the response. A growing body of research points to gaps in response willingness among several occupational cohorts with response duties, including the Emergency Medical Services (EMS) workforce. Willingness to respond is particularly important during an influenza or other pandemic, due to increased demands on EMS workers and the potential for workforces to be depleted if responders contract influenza or stay home to care for sick dependents. State emergency preparedness laws are one possible avenue to improve willingness to respond.HypothesisPresence of certain state-level emergency preparedness laws (ie, ability to declare a public health emergency; requirement to create a public health emergency plan; priority access to health resources for responders) is associated with willingness to respond among EMS workers.MethodsFour hundred twenty-one EMS workers from the National Registry of Emergency Medical Technicians’ (NREMT's) mid-year Longitudinal EMT Attributes and Demographics Study (LEADS) were studied. The survey, which included questions about willingness to respond during an influenza pandemic, was fielded from May through June 2009. Survey data were merged with data about the presence or absence of the three emergency preparedness laws of interest in each of the 50 US states. Unadjusted logistic regression analyses were performed with the presence/absence of each law and were adjusted for respondents’ demographic/locale characteristics.ResultsCompared to EMS workers in states that did not allow the government to declare a public health emergency, those in states that permitted such declarations were more likely to report that they were willing to respond during an influenza pandemic. In adjusted and unadjusted analyses, this difference was not statistically significant. Similar results were found for the other state-level emergency preparedness laws of interest.ConclusionWhile state-level emergency preparedness laws are not associated with willingness to respond, recent research suggests that inconsistencies between the perceived and objective legal environments for EMS workers could be an alternative explanation for this study's findings. Educational efforts within the EMS workforce and more prominent state-level implementation of emergency preparedness laws should be considered as a means to raise awareness of these laws. These types of actions are important steps toward determining whether state-level emergency preparedness laws have the potential to promote response willingness among EMS workers.RutkowL, VernickJS, ThompsonCB, PirralloRG, BarnettDJ. Emergency preparedness law and willingness to respond in the EMS workforce. Prehosp Disaster Med. 2014;29(4):1-6.
The P-Box CDF-Intervals: A Reliable Constraint Reasoning with Quantifiable Information
Authors: SAAD AYA , FRÜHWIRTH THOM , GERVET CARMEN 
Published: July 2014

AbstractThis paper introduces a new constraint domain for reasoning about data with uncertainty. It extends convex modeling with the notion of p-box to gain additional quantifiable information on the data whereabouts. Unlike existing approaches, the p-box envelops an unknown probability instead of approximating its representation. The p-box bounds are uniform cumulative distribution functions (cdf) in order to employ linear computations in the probabilistic domain. The reasoning by means of p-box cdf-intervals is an interval computation which is exerted on the real domain then it is projected onto the cdf domain. This operation conveys additional knowledge represented by the obtained probabilistic bounds. The empirical evaluation of our implementation shows that, with minimal overhead, the output solution set realizes a full enclosure of the data along with tighter bounds on its probabilistic distributions.
Simulating Dynamic Systems Using Linear Time Calculus Theories
Authors: BOGAERTS BART , JANSEN JOACHIM , BRUYNOOGHE MAURICE , DE CAT BROES , VENNEKENS JOOST , DENECKER MARC 
Published: July 2014

AbstractDynamic systems play a central role in fields such as planning, verification, and databases. Fragmented throughout these fields, we find a multitude of languages to formally specify dynamic systems and a multitude of systems to reason on such specifications. Often, such systems are bound to one specific language and one specific inference task. It is troublesome that performing several inference tasks on the same knowledge requires translations of your specification to other languages. In this paper we study whether it is possible to perform a broad set of well-studied inference tasks on one specification. More concretely, we extend IDP3with several inferences from fields concerned with dynamic specifications.
Exchanging Conflict Resolution in an Adaptable Implementation of ACT-R
Authors: GALL DANIEL , FRÜHWIRTH THOM 
Published: July 2014

AbstractIn computational cognitive science, the cognitive architecture ACT-R is very popular. It describes a model of cognition that is amenable to computer implementation, paving the way for computational psychology. Its underlying psychological theory has been investigated in many psychological experiments, but ACT-R lacks a formal definition of its underlying concepts from a mathematical-computational point of view. Although the canonical implementation of ACT-R is now modularized, this production rule system is still hard to adapt and extend in central components like the conflict resolution mechanism (which decides which of the applicable rules to apply next).In this work, we present a concise implementation of ACT-R based on Constraint Handling Rules which has been derived from a formalization in prior work. To show the adaptability of our approach, we implement several different conflict resolution mechanisms discussed in the ACT-R literature. This results in the first implementation of one such mechanism. For the other mechanisms, we empirically evaluate if our implementation matches the results of reference implementations of ACT-R.
claspfolio2: Advances in Algorithm Selection for Answer Set Programming
Authors: HOOS HOLGER , LINDAUER MARIUS , SCHAUB TORSTEN 
Published: July 2014

AbstractBuilding on the award-winning, portfolio-based ASP solverclaspfolio, we presentclaspfolio2, a modular and open solver architecture that integrates several different portfolio-based algorithm selection approaches and techniques. Theclaspfolio2 solver framework supports various feature generators, solver selection approaches, solver portfolios, as well as solver-schedule-based pre-solving techniques. The default configuration ofclaspfolio2 relies on a light-weight version of the ASP solverclaspto generate static and dynamic instance features. The flexible open design ofclaspfolio2 is a distinguishing factor even beyond ASP. As such, it provides a unique framework for comparing and combining existing portfolio-based algorithm selection approaches and techniques in a single, unified framework. Taking advantage of this, we conducted an extensive experimental study to assess the impact of different feature sets, selection approaches and base solver portfolios. In addition to gaining substantial insights into the utility of the various approaches and techniques, we identified a default configuration ofclaspfolio2 that achieves substantial performance gains not only overclasp's default configuration and the earlier version ofclaspfolio, but also over manually tuned configurations ofclasp.
On Termination, Confluence and Consistent CHR-based Type Inference
Authors: DUCK GREGORY J. , HAEMMERLÉ RÉMY , SULZMANN MARTIN 
Published: July 2014

AbstractWe consider the application of Constraint Handling Rules (CHR) for the specification of type inference systems, such as that used by Haskell. Confluence of CHR guarantees that the answer provided by type inference is correct and consistent. The standard method for establishing confluence relies on an assumption that the CHR program is terminating. However, many examples in practice give rise to non-terminating CHR programs, rendering this method inapplicable. Despite no guarantee of termination or confluence, the Glasgow Haskell Compiler (GHC) supports options that allow the user to proceed with type inference anyway, e.g. via the use of theUndecidableInstancesflag. In this paper we formally identify and verify a set of relaxed criteria, namelyrange-restrictedness,local confluence, andground termination, that ensure the consistency of CHR-based type inference that maps to potentially non-terminating CHR programs.
Using Tabled Logic Programming to Solve the Petrobras Planning Problem
Authors: BARTÁK ROMAN , ZHOU NENG-FA 
Published: July 2014

AbstractTabling has been used for some time to improve efficiency of Prolog programs by memorizing answered queries. The same idea can be naturally used to memorize visited states during search for planning. In this paper we present a planner developed in the Picat language to solve the Petrobras planning problem. Picat is a novel Prolog-like language that provides pattern matching, deterministic and non-deterministic rules, and tabling as its core modelling and solving features. We demonstrate these capabilities using the Petrobras problem, where the goal is to plan transport of cargo items from ports to platforms using vessels with limited capacity. Monte Carlo Tree Search has been so far the best technique to tackle this problem and we will show that by using tabling we can achieve much better runtime efficiency and better plan quality.
Minimum Model Semantics for Extensional Higher-order Logic Programming with Negation
Authors: CHARALAMBIDIS ANGELOS , ÉSIK ZOLTÁN , RONDOGIANNIS PANOS 
Published: July 2014

AbstractExtensional higher-order logic programming has been introduced as a generalization of classical logic programming. An important characteristic of this paradigm is that it preserves all the well-known properties of traditional logic programming. In this paper we consider the semantics of negation in the context of the new paradigm. Using some recent results from non-monotonic fixed-point theory, we demonstrate that every higher-order logic program with negation has a unique minimum infinite-valued model. In this way we obtain the first purely model-theoretic semantics for negation in extensional higher-order logic programming. Using our approach, we resolve an old paradox that was introduced by W. W. Wadge in order to demonstrate the semantic difficulties of higher-order logic programming.
Anytime Computation of Cautious Consequences in Answer Set Programming
Authors: ALVIANO MARIO , DODARO CARMINE , RICCA FRANCESCO 
Published: July 2014

AbstractQuery answering in Answer Set Programming (ASP) is usually solved by computing (a subset of) the cautious consequences of a logic program. This task is computationally very hard, and there are programs for which computing cautious consequences is not viable in reasonable time. However, current ASP solvers produce the (whole) set of cautious consequences only at the end of their computation. This paper reports on strategies for computing cautious consequences, also introducing anytime algorithms able to produce sound answers during the computation.
A Module System for Domain-Specific Languages
Authors: JACKSON ETHAN K. 
Published: July 2014

AbstractDomain-specific languages(DSLs) are routinely created to simplify difficult or specialized programming tasks. They expose useful abstractions and design patterns in the form of language constructs, provide static semantics to eagerly detect misuse of these constructs, and dynamic semantics to completely define how language constructs interact. However, implementing and composing DSLs is a non-trivial task, and there is a lack of tools and techniques.We address this problem by presenting a complete module system over LP for DSL construction, reuse, and composition. LP is already useful for DSL design, because it supports executable language specifications using notations familiar to language designers. We extend LP with a module system that is simple (with a few concepts), succinct (for key DSL specification scenarios), and composable (on the level of languages, compilers, and programs). These design choices reflect our use of LP for industrial DSL design. Our module system has been implemented in theformulalanguage, and was used to build key Windows 8 device drivers via DSLs. Though we present our module system as it actually appears in ourformulalanguage, our emphasis is on concepts adaptable to other LP languages.
Financial impact of the GFC: health care spending across the OECD
Authors: Morgan David , Astolfi Roberto 
Published: July 2014

AbstractSince the onset of the global financial crisis (GFC), health spending has slowed markedly or fallen in many OECD countries after years of continuous growth. However, health spending patterns across the 34 countries of the OECD have been affected to varying degrees. This article examines in more detail the observed downturn in health expenditure growth, analysing which countries and which sectors of health spending have been most affected. In addition, using more recent preliminary data for a subset of countries, this article tries to shed light on the prospects for health spending trends. Given that public sources account for around three-quarters of total spending on health on average across the OECD, and, in an overall context of managing public deficits, the article focuses on the specific areas of public spending that have been most affected. This study also tries to link the observed trends with some of the main policy measures and instruments put in place by countries. The investigation finds that while nearly all OECD countries have seen health spending growth decrease since 2009, there is wide variation as to the extent of the slowdown, with some countries outside of Europe continuing to see significant growth in health spending. While all sectors of spending appear to have been affected, initial analysis appears to show the greatest decreases has been experienced in pharmaceutical spending and in areas of public health and prevention.
Estimating heritability of drug-induced liver injury from common variants and implications for future study designs
Authors: Overby Casey Lynnette , Hripcsak George , Shen Yufeng 
Published: July 2014

AbstractRecent genome-wide association studies identified certain human leukocyote antigen (HLA) alleles as the major risk factors of drug-induced liver injuries (DILI). While these alleles often cause large relative risk, their predictive values are quite low due to low prevalence of idiosyncratic DILI. Finding additional risk factors is important for precision medicine. However, optimal design of further genetic studies is hindered by uncertain overall heritability of DILI. This is a common problem for low-prevalence pharmacological traits, since it is difficult to obtain clinical outcome data in families. Here we estimated the heritability (h2) of DILI from case-control genome-wide single nucleotide polymorphism data using a method based on random effect models. We estimated the proportion of h2 captured by common SNPs for DILI to be between 0.3 and 0.5. For co-amoxiclav induced DILI, chromosome 6 explained part of the heritability, indicating additional contributions from common variants yet to be found. We performed simulations to assess the robustness of the h2 estimate with limited sample size under low prevelance, a condition typical to studies on idiosyncratic pharmacological traits. Our findings suggest that common variants outside of HLA contribute to DILI susceptability; therefore, it is valuable to conduct further GWAS with expanded case collection.
Arginine infusion in patients with septic shock increases nitric oxide production without haemodynamic instability
Authors: Luiking Yvette C. , Poeze Martijn , Deutz Nicolaas E. 
Published: July 2014

Arginine deficiency in sepsis may impair nitric oxide (NO) production for local perfusion and add to the catabolic state. In contrast, excessive NO production has been related to global haemodynamic instability. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to investigate the dose–response effect of intravenous arginine supplementation in post-absorptive patients with septic shock on arginine-NO and protein metabolism and on global and regional haemodynamics. Eight critically ill patients with a diagnosis of septic shock participated in this short-term (8 h) dose–response study. L-Arginine-HCl was continuously infused [intravenously (IV)] in three stepwise-increasing doses (33, 66 and 99 μmol·kg−1·h−1). Whole-body arginine-NO and protein metabolism were measured using stable isotope techniques, and baseline values were compared with healthy controls. Global and regional haemodynamic parameters were continuously recorded during the study. Upon infusion, plasma arginine increased from 48±7 to 189±23 μmol·l−1 (means±S.D.; P&lt;0.0001). This coincided with increased de novo arginine (P&lt;0.0001) and increased NO production (P&lt;0.05). Sepsis patients demonstrated elevated protein breakdown at baseline (P&lt;0.001 compared with healthy controls), whereas protein breakdown and synthesis both decreased during arginine infusion (P&lt;0.0001). Mean arterial and pulmonary pressure and gastric mucosal-arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide difference (Pr-aCO2) gap did not alter during arginine infusion (P&gt;0.05), whereas stroke volume (SV) increased (P&lt;0.05) and arterial lactate decreased (P&lt;0.05). In conclusion, a 4-fold increase in plasma arginine with intravenous arginine infusion in sepsis stimulates de novo arginine and NO production and reduces whole-body protein breakdown. These potential beneficial metabolic effects occurred without negative alterations in haemodynamic parameters, although improvement in regional perfusion could not be demonstrated in the eight patients with septic shock who were studied.
Management and Prognosis of Primary Cerebral Melanocytic Tumors. A Case Report and Systematic Review
Authors: Splavski Bruno , Muzevic Dario , Kovacevic Marko , Splavski Brano , Bajek Goran 
Published: July 2014

Primary melanocytic cerebral tumors form a spectrum of different lesions that range from benign to extremely malignant, such as an intracranial melanoma. This article points out some characteristics of primary melanocytic cerebral tumors and discusses their management and prognosis, based on a systematic literature review and a case of primary cerebral malignant melanoma.Because the biological characteristics of primary melanocytic cerebral tumors remain unclear, it appears that total surgical resection of the tumor followed by oncologic treatment is the mainstay of the management. The prognosis still depends on the degree of malignancy.
Social Inequalities in the Choice of Secondary School
Authors: Panichella Nazareno , Triventi Moris 
Published: July 2014

ABSTRACT
The main aim of this work is to examine the long-term trends in the association between social class of origin, enrolment in upper secondary education and the choice of high school track. In the first part, we describe the Italian education system and the main educational reforms which occurred in the second half of the twentieth century. We also discuss several theories which can help to make predictions on the expected trends in vertical and horizontal inequalities in secondary education. We used binomial and multinomial logistic regression models on data from the Italian Households Longitudinal Survey to test our hypotheses. In line with the maximally maintained inequality argument, we found that absolute inequalities in the probability of enrolling in upper secondary education declined but relative inequality persisted. As predicted by the ‘effectively maintained inequality’ thesis, the association between social class of origin and the choice of the academic track grew over time (both in absolute and in relative terms). This is because children from the upper classes became increasingly likely to attend the academic track, while those from the working class were more likely to attend the technical and vocational schools. The educational reforms played a negligible role in reducing social inequalities in school prosecution after lower secondary education, while they had a side effect of boosting horizontal inequality in track choice.