julilili42/papers huggingface dataset:
Institutional ethnography for communication and media research
2019-08-30

The goal of this article is to illustrate how an existing sociological methodology “institutional ethnography” (IE), coined by Canadian sociologist Dorothy E. Smith, can inform qualitative research projects in communication and media studies. In introducing IE to our field, I hope to equip communication and media studies researchers with a qualitative methodology that opens up opportunity to map the undergirding ruling relations and institutionalized processes that shape the many aspects of human and mediated communication. Upon explaining IE’s methodological anchoring in feminist ontology and epistemology, I detail several methods for data gathering (participant observation, interviewing, textual analysis) and put forward suggestions to analyze IE data. I then offer potential avenues for IE in communication and media scholarship across the journal’s three perspectives – communication and culture, communication as a social force, and communication and new media – and close by discussing some of IE’s methodological opportunities and limitations for our discipline’s diverse research agenda.
Direct and indirect effects in a logit model
2019-08-30

In this article, I discuss a method by Erikson et al. (2005, Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 102: 9730–9733) for decomposing a total effect in a logit model into direct and indirect effects. Moreover, I extend this method in three ways. First, in the original method the variable through which the indirect effect occurs is assumed to be normally distributed. In this article, the method is generalized by allowing this variable to have any distribution. Second, the original method did not provide standard errors for the estimates. In this article, the bootstrap is proposed as a method of providing those. Third, I show how to include control variables in this decomposition, which was not allowed in the original method. The original method and these extensions are implemented in the ldecomp command.
International migration, human capital formation, and saving
2019-08-30

In the model of Stark et al. (1997, 1998), the possibility of employment in a developed country raises the level of human capital acquired by workers in the developing country. We show that this result holds even when workers have the option to save.
Do family ties with those left behind intensify or weaken migrants’ assimilation?
2019-08-30

Strong ties with the home country and with the host country can coexist. An altruistic migrant who sends remittances to his family back home assimilates more the more altruistic he is, and also more than a non-remitting migrant.
Will a government find it financially easier to neutralize a looming protest if more groups are involved?
2019-08-30

We study a policy response to an increase in post-merger social stress. If a merger of groups of people is viewed as a revision of their social space, then the merger alters people’s comparators and increases social stress: the social stress of a merged population is greater than the sum of the levels of social stress of the constituent populations when apart. We use social stress as a proxy measure for looming social protest. As a response to the post-merger increase in social stress, we consider a policy aimed at reversing the negative effect of the merger by bringing the social stress of the merged population back to the sum of the pre-merger levels of social stress of the constituent populations when apart. We present, in the form of an algorithm, a cost-effective policy response which is publicly financed and does not reduce the incomes of the members of the merged population. We then compare the financial cost of implementing such a policy when the merger involves more or fewer groups. We show that the cost may fall as the number of merging groups rises.
Gastropods from the Jurassic neptunian sills of Rocca Busambra (north‐western Sicily, Italy): Patellogastropoda, Pleurotomarioidea, Scissurelloidea, Fissurelloidea and Eucycloidea
2019-08-31

Abstract The gastropods from Jurassic neptunian sills of Rocca Busambra (Sicily, Italy) represent an extraordinary assemblage for richness and extremely high degree of novelty, consisting of about 250 species (two‐thirds of which are new) of 20 superfamilies. A total of 38 species and 18 genera of Lottioidea, Pleurotomarioidea, Scissurelloidea, Fissurelloidea and Eucycloidea are described. Of these, 30 species and 9 genera are new, namely Ramusatomaria nuda gen. et sp. nov., Trapanimaria gattoi gen. et sp. nov., Trapanimaria nicolosiensis gen. et sp. nov., Trapanimaria ? pallinii gen. et sp. nov., Trochotomaria conoidea sp. nov., Trochotomaria polymorpha sp. nov., Laevitomaria babalusciae sp. nov., Pyrgotrochus vorosi sp. nov., Auritoma lenticula gen. et sp. nov., Busambrella fasciata gen. et sp. nov., Emarginula ( Emarginula ) burgioi sp. nov., Emarginula ( Tauschia ) acutidens sp. nov., Propeucyclus sicanus gen. et sp. nov., Propeucyclus obesus gen. et sp. nov., Propeucyclus ? semireticulatus gen. et sp. nov., Eucyclomphalus ? marenostrum sp. nov., Toronyella lineata gen. et sp. nov., Toronyella margaritata gen. et sp. nov., Zarnglaffia polygonalis sp. nov., Zarnglaffia palermitana sp. nov., Ambercyclus cratisculptus sp. nov., Elymicyclus alternatus gen. et sp. nov., Elymicyclus ietumensis gen. et sp. nov., Elymicyclus martae gen. et sp. nov., Elymicyclus garibaldii gen. et sp. nov., Jurassiscala sturanii gen. et sp. nov., Jurassiscala ? tenuiretis gen. et sp. nov., Fischeriella sicula sp. nov., Retimusina poseidoni gen. et sp. nov. and Retimusina ? tritoni sp. nov. The new scissurelloidean family Auritomidae fam. nov. is erected. A palaeobiogeographical analysis indicates close relationships with coeval faunas from condensed pelagic carbonates of the central region of western Tethys.
A genome-wide genetic pleiotropy approach identified shared loci between multiple system atrophy and inflammatory bowel disease
2019-08-31

ABSTRACT We aimed to identify shared genetic background between multiple system atrophy (MSA) and autoimmune diseases by using the conjFDR approach. Our study showed significant genetic overlap between MSA and inflammatory bowel disease and identified DENND1B, C7 , and RSP04 loci, which are linked to significant changes in methylation or expression levels of adjacent genes. We obtained evidence of enriched heritability involving immune/digestive categories. Finally, an MSA mouse model showed dysregulation of the C7 gene in the degenerating midbrain compared to wildtype mice. The results identify novel molecular mechanisms and implicate immune and gut dysfunction in MSA pathophysiology.
Therapeutic Iloprost for the treatment of acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) (the ThIlo-Trial): a prospective, randomized, multicenter phase II study
2019-08-31

<title>Abstract</title> Background Acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) is caused by rapid onset (within hours) acute inflammatory processes in lung tissue, and it is a life-threatening condition with high mortality. The treatment of ARDS to date is focused on the prevention of further iatrogenic damage of the lung rather than the treatment of the initial inflammatory process. Several preclinical studies have revealed a beneficial effect of iloprost on the control of pulmonary inflammation, and in a small number of ARDS patients, iloprost treatment resulted in improved oxygenation. Therefore, we plan to conduct a large multicenter trial to evaluate the effect of iloprost on ARDS.Methods The Therapeutic Iloprost during ARDS ( ThIIo-Trial) is a multicenter, randomized, clinical phase II trial assessing the efficacy of inhaled Iloprost for the prevention of the development and progression of ARDS in critically ill patients. One hundred fifty critically ill patients suffering from acute ARDS will be treated either by nebulized iloprost or NaCl 0.9% for 5 days. Blood samples will be drawn at defined time points to elucidate the serum levels of iloprost and inflammatory markers during treatment. Mechanical ventilation will be standardized. In follow-up visits at days 28 and 90 as well as 6 months after enrollment, functional status according to the Barthel Index, a health care-related questionnaire and frailty (Vulnerable Elderly Survey) will be evaluated. The primary endpoint is the improvement of oxygenation, defined as the ratio of PaO 2 /FiO 2 . Secondary endpoints include 90-day all-cause mortality, SOFA scores during the study period up to day 90, the duration of mechanical ventilation, the length of ICU stay, ventilator-associated pneumonia, delirium, ICU-acquired weakness and discharge localization. The study will be conducted in three university ARDS centers in Germany.Discussion The results of the ThIlo-Trial will highlight the anti-inflammatory effect of iloprost on early inflammatory processes during ARDS, resulting in the improvement of outcome parameters in ARDS patients.
Engineering a Less Artificial Intelligence
2019-09-01

Despite enormous progress in machine learning, artificial neural networks still lag behind brains in their ability to generalize to new situations. Given identical training data, differences in generalization are caused by many defining features of a learning algorithm, such as network architecture and learning rule. Their joint effect, called "inductive bias," determines how well any learning algorithm-or brain-generalizes: robust generalization needs good inductive biases. Artificial networks use rather nonspecific biases and often latch onto patterns that are only informative about the statistics of the training data but may not generalize to different scenarios. Brains, on the other hand, generalize across comparatively drastic changes in the sensory input all the time. We highlight some shortcomings of state-of-the-art learning algorithms compared to biological brains and discuss several ideas about how neuroscience can guide the quest for better inductive biases by providing useful constraints on representations and network architecture.
Unsupervised Medical Image Translation Using Cycle-MedGAN
2019-09-01

Image-to-image translation is a new field in computer vision with multiple\\npotential applications in the medical domain. However, for supervised image\\ntranslation frameworks, co-registered datasets, paired in a pixel-wise sense,\\nare required. This is often difficult to acquire in realistic medical\\nscenarios. On the other hand, unsupervised translation frameworks often result\\nin blurred translated images with unrealistic details. In this work, we propose\\na new unsupervised translation framework which is titled Cycle-MedGAN. The\\nproposed framework utilizes new non-adversarial cycle losses which direct the\\nframework to minimize the textural and perceptual discrepancies in the\\ntranslated images. Qualitative and quantitative comparisons against other\\nunsupervised translation approaches demonstrate the performance of the proposed\\nframework for PET-CT translation and MR motion correction.\\n
Management of Takayasu arteritis: a systematic literature review informing the 2018 update of the EULAR recommendation for the management of large vessel vasculitis
2019-09-01

Objective To collect available evidence on management of large vessel vasculitis to inform the 2018 update of the EULAR management recommendations. Methods Two independent systematic literature reviews were performed, one on diagnosis and monitoring and the other on drugs and surgical treatments. Using a predefined PICO (population, intervention, comparator and outcome) strategy, Medline, Embase and Cochrane databases were accessed. Eligible papers were reviewed and results condensed into a summary of findings table. This paper reports the main results for Takayasu arteritis (TAK). Results A total of 287 articles were selected. Relevant heterogeneity precluded meta-analysis. Males appear to have more complications than females. The presence of major complications, older age, a progressive disease course and a weaker inflammatory response are associated with a more unfavourable prognosis. Evidence for details on the best disease monitoring scheme was not found. High-quality evidence to guide the treatment of TAK was not found. Glucocorticoids are widely accepted as first-line treatment. Conventional immunosuppressive drugs and tumour necrosis factor inhibitors were beneficial in case series and uncontrolled studies. Tocilizumab failed the primary endpoint (time to relapse) in a randomised controlled clinical trial; however, results still favoured tocilizumab over placebo. Vascular procedures may be required, and outcome is better when performed during inactive disease. Conclusions Evidence to guide monitoring and treatment of patients with TAK is predominantly derived from observational studies with low level of evidence. Therefore, higher-quality studies are needed in the future.
KCa3.1 Channels Confer Radioresistance to Breast Cancer Cells
2019-09-01

KCa3.1 K+ channels reportedly contribute to the proliferation of breast tumor cells and may serve pro-tumor functions in the microenvironment. The putative interaction of KCa3.1 with major anti-cancer treatment strategies, which are based on cytotoxic drugs or radiotherapy, remains largely unexplored. We employed KCa3.1-proficient and -deficient breast cancer cells derived from breast cancer-prone MMTV-PyMT mice, pharmacological KCa3.1 inhibition, and a syngeneic orthotopic mouse model to study the relevance of functional KCa3.1 for therapy response. The KCa3.1 status of MMTV-PyMT cells did not determine tumor cell proliferation after treatment with different concentrations of docetaxel, doxorubicin, 5-fluorouracil, or cyclophosphamide. KCa3.1 activation by ionizing radiation (IR) in breast tumor cells in vitro, however, enhanced radioresistance, probably via an involvement of the channel in IR-stimulated Ca2+ signals and DNA repair pathways. Consistently, KCa3.1 knockout increased survival time of wildtype mice upon syngeneic orthotopic transplantation of MMTV-PyMT tumors followed by fractionated radiotherapy. Combined, our results imply that KCa3.1 confers resistance to radio- but not to chemotherapy in the MMTV-PyMT breast cancer model. Since KCa3.1 is druggable, KCa3.1 targeting concomitant to radiotherapy seems to be a promising strategy to radiosensitize breast tumors.
Numerical simulation of critical dissipative non-equilibrium quantum systems with an absorbing state
2019-09-01

Abstract The simulation of out-of-equilibrium dissipative quantum many body systems is a problem of fundamental interest to a number of fields in physics, ranging from condensed matter to cosmology. For unitary systems, tensor network methods have proved successful and extending these to open systems is a natural avenue for study. In particular, an important question concerns the possibility of approximating the critical dynamics of non-equilibrium systems with tensor networks. Here, we investigate this by performing numerical simulations of a paradigmatic quantum non-equilibrium system with an absorbing state: the quantum contact process. We consider the application of matrix product states and the time-evolving block decimation algorithm to simulate the time-evolution of the quantum contact process at criticality. In the Lindblad formalism, we find that the Heisenberg picture can be used to improve the accuracy of simulations over the Schrödinger approach, which can be understood by considering the evolution of operator-space entanglement. Furthermore, we also consider a quantum trajectories approach, which we find can reproduce the expected universal behaviour of key observables for a significantly longer time than direct simulation of the average state. These improved results provide further evidence that the universality class of the quantum contact process is not directed percolation, which is the class of the classical contact process.
NoVA: Learning to See in Novel Viewpoints and Domains
2019-09-01

Domain adaptation techniques enable the re-use and transfer of existing labeled datasets from a source to a target domain in which little or no labeled data exists. Recently, image-level domain adaptation approaches have demonstrated impressive results in adapting from synthetic to real-world environments by translating source images to the style of a target domain. However, the domain gap between source and target may not only be caused by a different style but also by a change in viewpoint. This case necessitates a semantically consistent translation of source images and labels to the style and viewpoint of the target domain. In this work, we propose the Novel Viewpoint Adaptation (NoVA) model, which enables unsupervised adaptation to a novel viewpoint in a target domain for which no labeled data is available. NoVA utilizes an explicit representation of the 3D scene geometry to translate source view images and labels to the target view. Experiments on adaptation to synthetic and real-world datasets show the benefit of NoVA compared to state-of-the-art domain adaptation approaches on the task of semantic segmentation.
24 UTERUS-11 STUDY: A randomized clinical trial on surgical staging versus ct-staging prior to primary chemoradiation in patients with FIGO2009 stages IIB-IVA cervical cancer
2019-09-01

<h3>Objectives</h3> Surgical staging potentially modifies radiation field in locally advanced cervical cancer (LACC), although a survival benefit has never been proved in a randomized clinical trial. Uterus-11 Study (German GOG and Radiation Oncology Group) is a RCT designed to evaluate the impact of surgical staging compared to standard clinical/radiological staging, followed by chemoradiation (CR). Primary endpoint was disease free survival (DFS), secondary was overall survival (OS). <h3>Methods</h3> From 2009 to 2013, a total of 255 LACC patients (FIGO2009 IIB-IVA) were randomized to surgical staging and CR (ArmA), or clinical staging followed by CR (ArmB). CR consisted in pelvic external beam radiotherapy with weekly cisplatin (40mg/m2) and brachytherapy. Extended-field radiation was performed in cases of confirmed paraaortic metastases. <h3>Results</h3> Among 240 patients (n=121 ArmA;n=119 ArmB), 236(98.3%) received CR. Arms were balanced. Surgical approach was transperitoneal laparoscopy in 93.4%(mean 19pelvic/17paraaortic lymph nodes (LN). CR started 7–21days after surgery. Surgery upstaged 40/121(33%). Median follow-up: 66.5months. ArmA was superior for PFS (HR=1.38 ArmB vs. ArmA,p=0.115) and OS (HR=1.29,p=0.24). Clinically or surgically LN+ negatively impacted PFS (pelvic:HR=2.38,p=0.007; paraaortic:HR=2.84,p=0.001; anyLN+:HR=2.83,p=0.003) and OS (pelvic:HR=2.90,p=0.003; paraaortic:HR=3.03,p=0.001; anyLN+:HR=3.51,p=0.001). Adeno/adenosquamous were comparable to squamous cell carcinomas (PFS:HR=1.26, p=0.44, OS:HR=1.35, p=0.32). Stages III/IV had worse prognosis than IIb (PFS:HR=1.86, p=0.003; OS:HR=2.07, p=0.001). <h3>Conclusions</h3> Although statistical significance could not be reached, surgical staging in LACC lead to superior DFS and OS compared to clinical staging with acceptable morbidity and no significant CR delay. The high risk of distant metastases in both arms underlies the need for further treatment intensification.
Effects of eye rotation and contact lens decentration on horizontal peripheral refraction
2019-09-01

Abstract Purpose Peripheral refraction is important in design of myopia control therapies. The aim was to investigate the influence of contact lens decentration associated with eye rotation on peripheral refraction in the horizontal visual field. Methods Participants were 10 emmetropes and 10 myopes in good general and ocular health. Right eyes underwent cycloplegic peripheral refraction, using a Grand‐Seiko WAM ‐5500 Autorefractor, in 5° steps to ±35° eccentricities along the horizontal visual field. Targets were fixated using eye rotation only or head rotation only. Refractions were measured without correction and with three types of contact lenses: single vision, a multifocal centre‐distance aspheric with +2.50 D add and NaturalVue aspheric. Photographs of eyes during lens wear were taken for each eye rotation. Effects of visual field angle, lens type and test method (head or eye rotation) on vector components of relative peripheral refraction were evaluated using repeated measures anova s. Test method for each visual field angle/lens combination were compared via paired t ‐tests. Results Horizontal decentration ranges across the visual field were 1.2 ± 0.6 mm for single vision and 1.2 ± 0.4 mm for multifocal lenses but smaller at 0.7 ± 0.4 mm for NaturalVue lenses. There were only two significant effects of test method across the visual field angle/lens type combinations (single vision: for emmetropes horizontal/vertical astigmatism component at 35° nasal with mean difference −0.38 D and for myopes spherical equivalent refraction at 20° temporal with mean difference +0.24 D). Conclusion Upon eye rotation the contact lenses decentred on the eye, but not enough to affect peripheral refraction. For the types assessed and for the horizontal visual field out to ±35° when measurements were performed with the Grand‐Seiko WAM ‐5500 autorefractor, it is valid to use eye rotations to investigate peripheral refraction.
External Timebase Trials for Phase Coherency of a Bistatic Transfer Function Measurement Setup
2019-09-01

In this paper a comparison between several external timebase references for clock synchronization and phase coherency between the transmitter and receiver of a bistatic complex transfer function measurement setup is presented. In order to derive rural environmental clutter models, the complex transfer function (amplitude and phase response) of rural environments e.g. forests or farmland is estimated from measurement data. The transmitter and receiver are separated to be able to measure the rural scenes at different spatial points. For the estimation of the phase response, a phase coherency between the transmitter and receiver clocks is required. Therefore, the internal transmitter and receiver clocks must be synchronized to an external timebase reference signal. One possibility of achieving this is to distribute an external 10 MHz clock signal, which replaces the internal timebase references. We have investigated several methods for generating and distributing the 10 MHz signal between the transmitter and receiver of the measurement system and present the resulting phase error distributions.
Wideband Direction of Arrival Estimation using Monopulse in Rotman Lens Beamspace
2019-09-01

In this paper, an efficient and responsive amplitude-based wideband Direction of Arrival (DoA) estimation approach using a multiple beam antenna setup is presented. The simultaneous spatial beams (beamspace) are generated using a Rotman lens as a true time delay network with an attached Uniform Linear Array (ULA) consisting of broadband Vivaldi antenna elements. The proposed processing scheme is divided into two major steps. In the first step a coarse power based direction finding on the Rotman lens beamports is done. In the second step an amplitude-based monopulse estimation is applied to corresponding adjacent Rotman lens beamports to get a higher resolution. This results in much lower computational load compared to classic phase dependent array processing algorithms like Capon or MUSIC which are not directly applicable for wideband DoA in contrast to our approach. The performance is evaluated with measurements performed in an anechoic chamber.
<p>Efficacy, Safety And Feasibility Of Antiemetic Prophylaxis With Fosaprepitant, Granisetron And Dexamethasone In Pediatric Patients With Hemato-Oncological Malignancies</p>
2019-09-01

Antiemetic prophylaxis with fosaprepitant and granisetron with or without dexamethasone was well tolerated, safe and effective in pediatric patients. However, larger prospective trials are needed to evaluate these findings.