188,186 research outputs found
Encoder-Attention-Based Automatic Term Recognition (EA-ATR)
No full textAutomated Term Recognition (ATR) is the task of finding terminology from raw text. It involves designing and developing techniques for the mining of possible terms from the text and filtering these identified terms based on their scores calculated using scoring methodologies like frequency of occurrence and then ranking the terms. Current approaches often rely on statistics and regular expressions over part-of-speech tags to identify terms, but this is error-prone. We propose a deep learning technique to improve the process of identifying a possible sequence of terms. We improve the term recognition by using Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (BERT) based embeddings to identify which sequence of words is a term. This model is trained on Wikipedia titles. We assume all Wikipedia titles to be the positive set, and random n-grams generated from the raw text as a weak negative set. The positive and negative set will be trained using the Embed, Encode, Attend and Predict (EEAP) formulation using BERT as embeddings. The model will then be evaluated against different domain-specific corpora like GENIA - annotated biological terms and Krapivin - scientific papers from the computer science domain
Levofloxacin dosing regimen in severely morbidly obese patients (BMI ≥40 kg/m2) should be guided by creatinine clearance estimates based on ideal body weight and optimized by therapeutic drug monitoring
No full textBACKGROUND:
Levofloxacin is a commonly prescribed antimicrobial where recommendations exist to reduce doses for renal impairment but not to increase doses for augmented renal function. Morbidly obese patients are increasing in prevalence, and represent a population that can have augmented renal function requiring higher-than-standard doses.
OBJECTIVE:
The current investigation was performed to characterize the pharmacokinetics (PK) and evaluate the influence of alternate body size descriptors and renal function as predictors of levofloxacin clearance (CL) and the area under the curve over 24 h (AUC24).
METHODS:
A database of patients undergoing levofloxacin therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) were queried to identify patients ≥18 years of age with a body mass index ≥40 kg/m(2). A maximum a posteriori probability Bayesian approach using a two-compartment linear PK model was used to estimate individual PK parameters and AUC24.
RESULTS:
A total of 394 concentration-time data points (peaks and trough) from 68 patients between 98 and 250 kg were evaluated. The median (5th, 95th percentile) daily dose and AUC24 was 1,000 (250, 1,500) mg and 90.7 (44.4, 228) mg·h/L, respectively. Levofloxacin CL was significantly (p 90 % probability of achieving an AUC24 of 50-150 mg·h/L in morbidly obese patients. Subsequent application of TDM and integration with pathogen-specific information could then be applied to tailor the levofloxacin regimen.
CONCLUSIONS:
The proposed approach serves as a relevant alternative to the current fixed-dosing paradigm of levofloxacin in the morbidly obese
Population Pharmacokinetics and Dosing Considerations for the Use of Linezolid in Overweight and Obese Adult Patients
No full textBACKGROUND:
Linezolid is an anti-Gram-positive antimicrobial agent used at a fixed dose of 600 mg every 12 h.
OBJECTIVES:
The objective of this study was to assess the population pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics of linezolid in a retrospective cohort of overweight and obese hospitalized patients.
PATIENTS AND METHODS:
Population pharmacokinetic and Monte Carlo simulations were conducted to assess the probability of target attainment (PTA) of an area under the concentration-time curve from time zero to 24 h (AUC24)/minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) ratio > 100, defined as the pharmacodynamic target of efficacy, with incremental candidate dosages. Maximum permissible doses were defined as those causing a ≤ 25% of probability of a linezolid trough of > 8.06 mg/L, associated with thrombocytopenia. The cumulative fraction of response was calculated for the permissible linezolid doses by testing the PTA against the MIC distributions of a large collection of Staphylococci and Enterococci.
RESULTS:
A total of 352 trough (minimum) and 293 peak (maximum) linezolid concentrations from 112 patients were included. The final mixed-saturative model accounted for 88% of drug concentrations variability over time, and estimated creatinine clearance [by means of the Chronic Kidney Diseases Epidemiology formula (CrCLCKD-EPI)] was the only covariate that improved the model fit. Dose reduction to 450 mg every 12 h may be optimal for patients with coagulase-negative staphylococcal infections and a CrCLCKD-EPI < 130 mL/min/1.73 m2. Dose escalation to 450 mg every 8 h may be optimal for patients with a CrCLCKD-EPI ≥ 60 mL/min/1.73 m2. Escalation to 600 mg every 8 h should not be recommended due to an unacceptable high risk of thrombocytopenia. Patients with CrCLCKD-EPI ≥ 130 mL/min/1.73 m2 and/or co-medication with P-glycoprotein modulators require therapeutic drug monitoring to optimize linezolid doses.
CONCLUSIONS:
Dosage adjustments of linezolid in this population should be based on CrCLCKD-EPI estimates, rather than on body size descriptors
Lattice-boltzmann very large eddy simulation of a multi-orifice acoustic liner with turbulent grazing flow
No full text
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Localization of Synthetic Manipulations in Western Blot Images
No full textRecent breakthroughs in deep learning and generative systems have significantly fostered the creation of synthetic media, as well as the local alteration of real content via the insertion of highly realistic synthetic manipulations. Local image manipulation, in particular, poses serious challenges to the integrity of digital content and societal trust. This problem is not only confined to multimedia data, but also extends to biological images included in scientific publications, like images depicting Western blots. In this work, we address the task of localizing synthetic manipulations in Western blot images. To discriminate between pristine and synthetic pixels of an analyzed image, we propose a synthetic detector that operates on small patches extracted from the image. We aggregate patch contributions to estimate a tampering heatmap, highlighting synthetic pixels out of pristine ones. Our methodology proves effective when tested over two manipulated Western blot image datasets, one altered automatically and the other manually by exploiting advanced AI-based image manipulation tools that are unknown at our training stage. We also explore the robustness of our method over an external dataset of other scientific images depicting different semantics, manipulated through unseen generation techniques. We release our experimental code and the manipulated datasets at https://github.com/polimiispl/western-blot-synthetic-manipulation-localization
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Distributed PC Based Routers: Bottleneck Analysis and Architecture Proposal
No full textRecent research in the different functional areas of modern routers have made proposals that can greatly increase the efficiency of these machines. Most of these proposals can be implemented quickly and often efficiently in software. We wish to use personal computers as forwarders in a network to utilize the advances made by researchers. We therefore examine the ability of a personal computer to act as a router. We analyze the performance of a single general purpose computer and show that I/O is the primary bottleneck. We then study the performance of distributed router composed of multiple general purpose computers. We study the performance of a star topology and through experimental results we show that although its performance is good, it lacks flexibility in its design. We compare it with a multistage architecture. We conclude with a proposal for an architecture that provides us with a forwarder that is both flexible and scalable.© IEE
Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics of Continuous Infusion Meropenem in Overweight, Obese, and Morbidly Obese Patients with Stable and Unstable Kidney Function: A Step Toward Dose Optimization for the Treatment of Severe Gram-Negative Bacterial Infections
No full textBACKGROUND:
Meropenem is an anti-Gram-negative antimicrobial, the time-dependent activity of which may be maximized through administration by continuous infusion.
OBJECTIVES:
The objectives of this study were to characterize the pharmacokinetics of continuous infusion meropenem in relation to body size and Cockcroft-Gault estimated creatinine clearance (CLCR) in overweight and obese patients with stable and unstable kidney function with the intent of creating a nomogram for optimal dosing.
PATIENTS AND METHODS:
Patients from a single institution with a body mass index ≥25 kg/m(2) receiving meropenem by continuous infusion with measurement of meropenem steady-state concentrations (C ss) were identified. Individual Bayesian estimates of meropenem volume of distribution of the central compartment (V c) and clearance (CL) were calculated and relationships to body size descriptors and CLCR estimated using these body size descriptors were defined by regression. Kidney function stability was defined based on median absolute deviation, stratification by the ratio of maximum to minimum serum creatinine (SCr) and individual patient-level regression of SCr over time. The influence of kidney function stability on meropenem CL estimation by CLCR was tested.
RESULTS:
A total of 375 patients (77.9 % male) with 846 C ss values (62.4 % of patients with ≥2 measurements) were identified. The median daily dose of meropenem and frequency of infusion bag changes were 2000 mg/day and four times per day, respectively. The meropenem C ss values were ≥16, ≥8, ≥4, and ≥2 mg/L for 41.1, 76.1, 97.4, and 99.9 % of observations, respectively. The median (range) age, weight, and BMI were 66 (24-90) years, 90 (70-250) kg, and 30.8 (25.1-81.6) kg/m(2), respectively. The mean [standard deviation (SD)] serum creatinine at baseline was 1.57 (1.37) mg/dL. The mean (SD) V c was 28.1 (1.36) L and not related to body size, while CL was 8.85 (6.40) L/h and best related to CLCR estimated using adjusted body weight (ABW). The meropenem CL to CLCR relationship was not significantly impacted by the presence or absence of kidney function stability. The user-friendly dosing nomogram based on CLCR estimated using ABW showed that optimal drug exposure [Css ≥ minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC)] may be obtained even against multi-drug resistant (MDR) pathogens when considering dosages up to 1250 mg every 6 h by continuous infusion.
CONCLUSIONS:
Meropenem CL is best estimated using CLCR with ABW in patients with a BMI ≥25 kg/m(2) and this relationship is not altered by unstable kidney function. Application of our dosing nomogram may improve the care of overweight and obese patients with severe MDR Gram-negative infections treated with meropenem by continuous infusion
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