nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Boundary-spanning: reflections on the practices and principles of Global Health

As Global Health evolves, not merely as a metaphor for international collaboration, but as a distinct field of practice, it warrants greater consideration of how it is practiced, by whom, and for what goals. We believe that, to become more relevant for the health systems and communities that are their intended beneficiaries, Global Health practices must actively span and disrupt boundaries of geography, geopolitics and constituency, some of which are rooted in imbalances of power and resources. In this process, fostering cross-country learning networks and communities of practice, and building local and national institutions with a global outlook in low and middle-income countries, are critically important. Crucially, boundary-spanning practices in Global Health require a mindset of inclusiveness, awareness of and respect for different coexisting realities.
Different factors associated with loss to follow-up of infants born to HIV-infected or uninfected mothers: observations from the ANRS 12140-PEDIACAM study in Cameroon

Loss to follow-up (LTFU) is a cause of potential bias in clinical studies. Differing LTFU between study groups may affect internal validity and generalizability of the results. Understanding reasons for LTFU could help improve follow-up in clinical studies and thereby contribute to goals for prevention, treatment, or research being achieved. We explored factors associated with LTFU of mother-child pairs after inclusion in the ANRS 12140-Pediacam study.



From November 2007 to October 2010, 4104 infants including 2053 born to HIV-infected mothers and 2051 born to HIV-uninfected mothers matched individually on gender and study site were enrolled during the first week of life in three referral hospitals in Cameroon and scheduled for visits at 6, 10 and 14 weeks of age. Visits were designated 1, 2 and 3, in chronological order, irrespective of the child's age at the time of the visit. Mother-child pairs were considered lost to follow-up if they never returned for a clinical visit within the first six months after inclusion. Uni- and multivariable logistic regression were adjusted on matching variables to identify factors associated with LTFU according to maternal HIV status.



LTFU among HIV-unexposed infants was four times higher than among HIV-exposed infants (36.7% vs 9.8%, p < 0.001). Emergency caesarean section (adjusted Odds Ratio (aOR) = 2.46 95% Confidence Interval (CI) [1.47-4.13]), young maternal age (aOR = 2.29, 95% CI [1.18-4.46]), and absence of antiretroviral treatment for prophylaxis (aOR = 3.45, 95% CI [2.30-5.19]) were independently associated with LTFU among HIV-exposed infants. Factors associated with LTFU among HIV-unexposed infants included young maternal age (aOR = 1.96, 95% CI [1.36-2.81]), low maternal education level (aOR = 2.77, 95% CI [1.95-3.95]) and housewife/unemployed mothers (aOR = 1.56, 95% CI [1.16-2.11]).



Failure to return for at least one scheduled clinical visit is a problem especially among HIV-unexposed infants included in studies involving HIV-exposed infants. Factors associated with this type of LTFU included maternal characteristics, socio-economic status, quality of antenatal care and obstetrical context of delivery. Enhanced counselling in antenatal and intrapartum services is required for mothers at high risk of failure to return for follow-up visits.
Platelet inhibition by abciximab bolus-only administration and oral ADP receptor antagonist loading in acute coronary syndrome patients: the blocking and bridging strategy.

Current guidelines still recommend the bolus and infusion administration of glycoprotein IIbIIIa inhibitors in patients with high-risk acute coronary syndrome undergoing percutaneous coronary intervention. We sought to evaluate the extent of platelet inhibition by a blocking and bridging strategy with intracoronary abciximab bolus-only administration and oral loading of adenosine diphosphate receptor antagonists.



Fifty-six consecutive high-risk acute coronary syndrome patients with bolus-only abciximab administration (0.25 mg/kg i.c.) and loading with 600 mg clopidogrel (55%) or 60 mg prasugrel (45%) were included in this study. Platelet aggregation induced by thrombin receptor-activating peptide and adenosine diphosphate was measured by multiple electrode aggregometry up to 7 days.



Thrombin receptor-activating peptide induced platelet aggregation was significantly suppressed for a minimum of 48 h (45±17U) and returned to a normal range (>84 U) after 6 days (90±26U; p<0.001). Co-medication with prasugrel significantly reduced adenosine diphosphate-induced (p=0.002) and thrombin receptor-activating peptide-induced (p=0.02) platelet aggregation compared with clopidogrel throughout the observation period. No stent thrombosis or repeat myocardial infarction occurred at 30-day follow-up.



Immediate blocking of platelet aggregation in high-risk acute coronary syndrome patients by intracoronary abciximab bolus-only administration and bridging to prolonged inhibition via oral blockade of ADP receptors effectively inhibited overall platelet reactivity for at least 48 h, questioning the value of continuous abciximab infusion. Co-medication with prasugrel vs. clopidogrel synergistically augmented platelet inhibition.
Does the constellation of risk factors with and without abdominal adiposity associate with different cardiovascular mortality risk?

To evaluate whether the metabolic syndrome (MetS) defined by the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) criteria, which has abdominal adiposity as a mandatory element, predicts cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality better than the cluster of other IDF-defined abnormalities not including abdominal adiposity.Data from nine European population-based studies, including 7782 men and 7739 women (aged 30–89 years), with a median follow-up of 8.55 years, were jointly analyzed. Hazard ratios for CVD mortality were calculated with Cox regression models.In total, 41% of the men and 38% of the women had the IDF MetS. Individuals with the IDF MetS were by definition more obese and had a higher prevalence of diabetes than non-obese subjects with ⩾2 IDF abnormalities; whereas non-obese men with ⩾3 factors had more atherogenic lipid profiles. Multivariate adjusted hazard ratio for CVD death in men and women with the IDF MetS was 2.44 (1.69–2.98) and 2.32 (1.27–4.23); in non-obese men with 2 and ⩾3 factors the hazard ratio was 1.60 (1.12–2.30) and 2.44 (1.62–3.66), respectively, and in non-obese women with 2 factors the hazard ratio was 2.41 The cluster of the CVD risk factors predicted CVD mortality regardless of the presence or absence of the abdominal adiposity. Inclusion of abdominal adiposity as a prerequisite will miss those non-obese individuals who have increased CVD mortality.
Systemic side effects of beclomethasone dipropionate aerosols (Becotide, Aldecine, Sanasthmyl) in otherwise non steroid treated asthmatic patients

Beclomethasone dipropionate (0.4 mg daily) or its propellent carrier alone used as placebo (oleic acid and fluorens) was inhaled by a group of sixteen otherwise non steroid treated asthmatic patients with stable perennial asthma. The mean FEV1 was 1780 ml and increased by more than 20% (mean 47%) after orciprenaline aerosol. The double blind controlled study lasted three weeks. Weekly control assessment at 8 a. m. included arterial blood gas sampling for plasma cortisol level, white blood cell count and blood gas analysis, followed by spirometry and clinical evaluation. Prior to control assessment, the last beclomethasone or placebo aerosol was taken at midnight. No significant improvement of lung function was observed in the beclomethasone group or in the placebo group. Systemic side effects were seen in both groups. The group inhaling the propellent carrier alone showed a significant increase in the basal plasma cortisol level and the absolute blood eosonophil count at the end of the second and the third week of the study. In contrast, in the beclomethasone group a significant decrease of the plasma cortisol level and the absolute blood eosinophil count was observed at the end of the second and third week. During the beclomethasone inhalation the absolute blood neutrophil count increased significantly, whereas during the inhalation of the propellent carrier alone the absolute blood monocyte count rose significantly. It thus appears that the propellent carrier of beclomethasone dipropionate has plasma cortisol mobilizing properties and stimulates cellular immune defenses through an uncertain mechanism. The systemic activity of the propellent carrier of beclomethasone produces an effect apparently opposite to the systemic side effects of beclomethasone aerosol.
DLint: dynamically checking bad coding practices in JavaScript

JavaScript has become one of the most popular programming languages, yet it is known for its suboptimal design. To effectively use JavaScript despite its design flaws, developers try to follow informal code quality rules that help avoid correctness, maintainability, performance, and security problems. Lightweight static analyses, implemented in "lint-like" tools, are widely used to find violations of these rules, but are of limited use because of the language's dynamic nature.  DLint consists of a generic framework and an extensible set of checkers that each addresses a particular rule. We formally describe and implement 28 checkers that address problems missed by state-of-the-art static approaches. Applying the approach in a comprehensive empirical study on over 200 popular web sites shows that static and dynamic checking complement each other. On average per web site, DLint detects 49 problems that are missed statically, including visible bugs on the web sites of IKEA, Hilton, eBay, and CNBC.
Emergency department-initiated palliative care for advanced cancer patients: protocol for a pilot randomized controlled trial

For patients with advanced cancer, visits to the emergency department (ED) are common. Such patients present to the ED with a specific profile of palliative care needs, including burdensome symptoms such as pain, dyspnea, or vomiting that cannot be controlled in other settings and a lack of well-defined goals of care. The goals of this study are: i) to test the feasibility of recruiting, enrolling, and randomizing patients with serious illness in the ED; and ii) to evaluate the impact of ED-initiated palliative care on health care utilization, quality of life, and survival.



This is a protocol for a single center parallel, two-arm randomized controlled trial in ED patients with metastatic solid tumors comparing ED-initiated palliative care referral to a control group receiving usual care. We plan to enroll 125 to 150 ED-advanced cancer patients at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, USA, who meet the following criteria: i) pass a brief cognitive screen; ii) speak fluent English or Spanish; and iii) have never been seen by palliative care. We will use balanced block randomization in groups of 50 to assign patients to the intervention or control group after completion of a baseline questionnaire. All research staff performing assessment or analysis will be blinded to patient assignment. We will measure the impact of the palliative care intervention on the following outcomes: i) timing and rate of palliative care consultation; ii) quality of life and depression at 12 weeks, measured using the FACT-G and PHQ-9; iii) health care utilization; and iv) length of survival. The primary analysis will be based on intention-to-treat.



This pilot randomized controlled trial will test the feasibility of recruiting, enrolling, and randomizing patients with advanced cancer in the ED, and provide a preliminary estimate of the impact of palliative care referral on health care utilization, quality of life, and survival.
Methodological assessment of economic evaluations of alcohol treatment: what is missing?

The aim of this study is to review the methodology that has been adopted in previous economic evaluations of alcohol treatment and offer research recommendations with a view to enhancing the consistency and harmonization of economic evaluations in the alcohol field.



Published full economic evaluations of alcohol treatment were retrieved using a systematic search. The studies were analysed in terms of the identification, measurement and valuation methods used to assess the society-level consequences and the methods used to carry out the analysis of individual-level consequences and costs of the intervention. A taxonomy of alcohol-related consequences was developed and used as a framework for the methodology extraction.



Twenty- seven studies were selected. Almost half of the studies did not include society-level consequences in their analysis. Some consequences of alcohol treatment at a societal level, such as the impact of treatment on health-related quality of life of family and friends of the drinker, have never been considered in the economic analysis. There was no agreement regarding the individual health consequences used in the evaluations. Measures capturing life years and morbidity have not been extensively used in the alcohol field. The level of reporting treatment costs on the reviewed studies is generally well detailed.



The literature is still rather sparse in this area and further research is required to fulfil the gaps. If a common methodology is adopted in future economic evaluations of alcohol treatment, more stable cost-effectiveness estimates will be produced and informed decisions for resources allocation to alcohol treatments will be possible.
Weekly ventilator circuit changes. A strategy to reduce costs without affecting pneumonia rates.

Mechanical ventilator circuits are commonly changed at 48-h intervals. This frequency may be unnecessary because ventilator-associated pneumonia often results from aspiration of pharyngeal secretions and not from the ventilator circuit. We compared the ventilator-associated pneumonia rates and costs associated with 48-h and 7-day circuit changes.



Ventilator circuits were changed at 48-h intervals during the control period (November 1992 to April 1993) and at 7-day intervals during the study period (June 1993 to November 1993). Nosocomial pneumonias were prospectively identified using the criteria of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The annual cost difference of changing circuits at 48-h and 7-day intervals was calculated using the distribution of ventilator days for the control and study periods.



There were 1,708 patients, 9,858 ventilator days, and a pneumonia rate of 9.64 per 1,000 ventilator days in the control group (48-h circuit changes). There were 1,715 patients, 9,160 ventilator days, and 8.62 pneumonias per 1,000 ventilator days when circuits were changed at 1-week intervals (study group). Using a logistic regression model, there were significantly greater odds of developing a ventilator-associated pneumonia in surgical patients (odds ratio 1.77, P = 0.02) and patients in critical care units (odds ratio 1.54, P = 0.05), but no significant risk of ventilator-associated pneumonia in patients in whom circuits were changed at 1-week intervals (odds ratio 0.82, P = 0.22). Changing circuits at 7-day intervals resulted in a 76.6% ($111,530) reduction in the annual cost for materials and salaries.



We found no difference in pneumonia rates with ventilator circuit changes at 48-h and 7-day intervals. Ventilator circuits can be safely changed at weekly intervals, resulting in large cost savings.
Dose-dense induction with sequential high-dose cytarabine and mitoxantone (S-HAM) and pegfilgrastim results in a high efficacy and a short duration of critical neutropenia in de novo acute myeloid leukemia: a pilot study of the AMLCG.

Dose density during early induction has been demonstrated to be one of the prime determinants for treatment efficacy in acute myeloid leukemia (AML). The German AML Cooperative Group has therefore piloted a dose-dense induction regimen sequential high-dose AraC and mitoxantrone followed by pegfilgrastim (S-HAM) in which 2 induction cycles are applied over 11 to 12 days instead of 25 to 29 days as used in conventional double induction, thereby increasing dose density 2-fold. Of 172 de novo AML patients (excluding acute promyelocytic leukemia), 61% reached a complete remission, 22% a complete remission with incomplete peripheral recovery, 7% had persistent leukemia, 10% died (early death) resulting in an overall response rate of 83%. Kaplan-Meier estimated survival at 2 years was 61% for the whole group (patients with unfavorable karyotypes, 38%; patients with favorable karyotypes, 69%; patients with intermediate karyotypes, 75%) after S-HAM treatment. Importantly, the compression of the 2 induction cycles into the first 11 to 12 days of treatment was beneficial for normal hematopoiesis as demonstrated by a significantly shortened duration of critical neutropenia of 31 days compared with 46 days after conventionally timed double induction.
Inverse kinematics learning by modular architecture neural networks

Inverse kinematics computation using an artificial neural network that learns the inverse kinematics of a robot arm has been employed by many researchers. However, the inverse kinematics system of typical robot arms with joint limits is a multi-valued and discontinuous function. Since it is difficult for a wellknown multi-layer neural network to approximate such a function, a correct inverse kinematics model cannot be obtained by using a single neural network. In order to overcome the discontinuity of the inverse kinematics function, we proposed a novel modular neural network system that consists of a number of expert neural networks. Each expert approximates the continuous part of the inverse kinematics function. The proposed system uses the forward kinematics model for selection of experts. When the number of the experts increases, the computation time for calculating the inverse kinematics solution also increases without using the parallel computing system. In order to reduce the computation time, we propose a novel expert selection by using the performance prediction networks which directly calculate the performances of the experts.
Real-time In Vivo Tissue Characterization with Diffuse Reflectance Spectroscopy during Transthoracic Lung Biopsy: A Clinical Feasibility Study.

This study presents the first in vivo real-time tissue characterization during image-guided percutaneous lung biopsies using diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) sensing at the tip of a biopsy needle with integrated optical fibers.



Tissues from 21 consented patients undergoing lung cancer surgery were measured intraoperatively using the fiber-optic platform capable of assessing various physical tissue properties highly correlated to tissue architecture and composition. In addition, the method was tested for clinical use by performing DRS tissue sensing during 11 routine biopsy procedures in patients with suspected lung cancer.



We found that water content and scattering amplitude are the primary discriminators for the transition from healthy lung tissue to tumor tissue and that the reliability of these parameters is not affected by the amount of blood at the needle tip. In the 21 patients measured intraoperatively, the water-to-scattering ratio yielded a 56% to 81% contrast difference between tumor and surrounding tissue. Analysis of the 11 image-guided lung biopsy procedures showed that the tissue diagnosis derived from DRS was diagnostically discriminant in each clinical case.



DRS tissue sensing integrated into a biopsy needle may be a powerful new tool for biopsy guidance that can be readily used in routine diagnostic lung biopsy procedures. This approach may not only help to increase the successful biopsy yield for histopathologic analysis, but may also allow specific sampling of vital tumor tissue for genetic profiling.
Statistical base value of 24-hour blood pressure distribution in patients with essential hypertension.

The purpose of this study was to calculate statistically the minimum (base) blood pressure (BP) of nighttime (sleep-time) BP values obtained by ambulatory BP monitoring (ABPM) and to investigate its clinical significance. Twenty-four-hour recording of ECG with ABPM was performed directly (n=89) or indirectly (n=117) in 206 patients with essential hypertension. A telemeter was used for the direct method and a multi-biomedical recorder (TM2425) was used for indirect measurement. First, minimum heart rate (HR0=60/RR0) was determined from sleep-time ECG. The mean product of sleep-time diastolic BP (DBP) and pulse interval (RR) was divided by RR0 to obtain DBP0 [DBP0=(DBPxRR)s/RR0]. The correlation between systolic BP (SBP) and DBP was used to determine SBP0 corresponding to DBP0. Statistical base mean BP (MBP0) was calculated from these values, and its reproducibility and relation to hypertension severity were investigated. MBP0 values were similar to true base values of sleep-time MBP obtained by the direct method (mean+/-SD difference, 2.0+/-4.2 mm Hg). Direct MBP0 criteria predicted hypertension severity (mild, moderate, or severe target organ damage) more accurately (predictive accuracy, 89%) than daytime MBP criteria (53%, P<0.01). Almost the same results were obtained using indirect MBP0 criteria. Day-to-day indirect MBP0 variation (mean absolute difference) was smaller (2.4+/-1.8 mm Hg) than day-to-day daytime and nighttime MBP variation (6.3+/-5.3 and 5.4+/-3.4 mm Hg, respectively; n=61, P<0.01), and the correlation coefficient between day-to-day variations of daytime MBP and physical activity (measured by an acceleration sensor) was 0.38 (P<0.05). In conclusion, statistical base BP was almost equal to true base (minimum) BP of sleep-time BP distribution. It was closely related to the severity of hypertensive organ damage, was highly reproducible, and is considered likely to serve stochastically and physiologically as a representative BP value in an individual subject.
Extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma from skin or soft tissue: suggestion of treatment from multinational retrospective analysis.

Clinical features and outcomes of extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma (ENKL) arising from extranasal sites are not fully understood. The purpose of this study was to study the prognosis and treatment outcome of skin/soft tissue primary ENKL.



This multicenter retrospective study included 48 patients with skin/soft tissue primary ENKL diagnosed from 1993 to 2010.



Patients with Ann Arbor stage I, T1-2N0M0 by International Society for Cutaneous Lymphomas-European Organization of Research and Treatment of Cancer TNM (tumour-node-metastasis) stage, International prognostic index score of 0-1, and a Korean prognostic index (KPI) score of 0-1 were associated with better survival. Four of five patients with T1-2N0M0 disease achieved complete response with radiation alone. In disseminated disease, only 6 of 13 patients responded to anthracycline-containing chemotherapy, and all the two patients receiving SMILE showed response.



In conclusion, we identified the prognostic value of KPI, and we suggest a treatment recommendation according to the TNM (tumour-node-metastasis) stage. Radiotherapy with/without chemotherapy seemed to be optimal in localized disease. In advanced stages, a more aggressive treatment regimen with newer agents should be sought.