Contextual Understanding in Neural Dialog Systems: the Integration of External Knowledge Graphs for Generating Coherent and Knowledge-rich Conversations

The integration of external knowledge graphs has emerged as a powerful approach to enrich conversational AI systems with coherent and knowledge-rich conversations. This paper provides an overview of the integration process and highlights its benefits. Knowledge graphs serve as structured representations of information, capturing the relationships between entities through nodes and edges. They offer an organized and efficient means of representing factual knowledge. External knowledge graphs, such as DBpedia, Wikidata, Freebase, and Google's Knowledge Graph, are pre-existing repositories that encompass a wide range of information across various domains. These knowledge graphs are compiled by aggregating data from diverse sources, including online encyclopedias, databases, and structured repositories. To integrate an external knowledge graph into a conversational AI system, a connection needs to be established between the system and the knowledge graph. This can be achieved through APIs or by importing a copy of the knowledge graph into the AI system's internal storage. Once integrated, the conversational AI system can query the knowledge graph to retrieve relevant information when a user poses a question or makes a statement. When analyzing user inputs, the conversational AI system identifies entities or concepts that require additional knowledge. It then formulates queries to retrieve relevant information from the integrated knowledge graph. These queries may involve searching for specific entities, retrieving related entities, or accessing properties and attributes associated with the entities. The obtained information is used to generate coherent and knowledge-rich responses. By integrating external knowledge graphs, conversational AI systems can augment their internal knowledge base and provide more accurate and up-to-date responses. The retrieved information allows the system to extract relevant facts, provide detailed explanations, or offer additional context. This integration empowers AI systems to deliver comprehensive and insightful responses that enhance user experience. As external knowledge graphs are regularly updated with new information and improvements, conversational AI systems should ensure their integrated knowledge graphs remain current. This can be achieved through periodic updates, either by synchronizing the system's internal representation with the external knowledge graph or by querying the external knowledge graph in real-time

Cardiac Myxomas: A single center experience and ten-years follow up

Background: Cardiac myxoma is a benign tumor that carries the risk of embolization and obstruction of the blood flow. The ideal surgical approach is still debatable. We present our experience in the surgical treatment of cardiac myxomas and its ideal surgical approach.Methods: We retrospectively analyzed the data for all patients who underwent surgical excision of cardiac myxoma at our institution over 11 years starting from January 2006 to December 2016. Descriptive statistics were used to present preoperative, operative and postoperative data and Kaplan Meier curve to plot long-term survival.Results: Twenty-one patients had surgical excision of a primary, single and sporadic cardiac myxoma. Thirteen patients (62 %) were females, and the mean age at operation was 55.2 years (range: 28 – 71 years). The location of myxomas was in the left atrium in 17 patients (81%) and right atrium in 4 patients (19 %). Dyspnea was the main presenting symptom (71.4%) followed by constitutional symptoms (28%), palpitations (23.8%), syncope (14.2%) and stroke (14.2%). A right atrial trans-septal incision was used in 76.5% of left atrial myxoma cases. Five patients had concomitant operative procedures (coronary artery bypass grafting (n=2), tricuspid valve repair (n=1), mitral valve replacement (n=1) and bullectomy (n=1)). Postoperative complications were reported in six patients (28.6%) (supraventricular arrhythmia (n=2), temporary conduction deficit (n=2), pulmonary atelectasis (n=1), and postoperative bleeding (n=1)). Early postoperative mortality occurred in one patient (4.76 %), and there were no late deaths related to myxoma.Conclusion: Surgical treatment of cardiac myxoma is safe with low morbidity and mortality. The right atrial trans-septal incision is the recommended surgical approach

The Prevalence of Physical Activity and Sedentary Lifestyle among Adolescents in Palestine

Physical inactivity and sedentary behavior have been considered the most contributing predisposing factors for many chronic diseases. Regular Physical activity has the potential to attenuate the health and economic burden that Physical inactivity places on Palestinian society.The authors of this paper would like to thank the Department of Community Medicine, Universiti Sains Malaysia. As well as, the authors would like to thank both the all participants of this study, and the Palestinian Ministry of Education Board committee for their assistance during this study

The Prevalence of Physical Activity and Sedentary Lifestyle among Adolescents in Palestine

Keywords: Abstract physical activity; sedentary lifestyle; school students; risk behavior; Palestine Introduction Physical inactivity and sedentary behavior have been considered the most contributing predisposing factors for many chronic diseases. Regular Physical activity has the potential to attenuate the health and economic burden that Physical inactivity places on Palestinian society. Objective The objectives of this study were to assess the prevalence of physical activity in Palestinian adolescents and to identify associated socio-demographic and behavioral variables. Methods This data is part of the 2011 descriptive cross-sectional study used the Global SchoolBased Health Survey in Palestine. The sample was 720 adolescents (363 boys and 357 girls) aged 13-17 years, in grade 7 through 11 at four public schools. STATA version 11 was used to describe the data and to compare the association between genders. Results Although 53.89 % of students reported engaging in some physical activity, only 9.86% (11.57% of males and 8.12% of females) of the sample met recommended guidelines. Overall 35.42% had spent three or more hours per day doing sitting activities, with significant difference by gender, 54.90 % for Males and 52.89% for females. Conclusions The prevalence of physical activity among Palestinian adolescents was very low. The vast majority of students did not meet public health recommended amounts of physical activity. These findings require immediate action, and efforts should be made to increase levels of physical activity through developing a school-based health education intervention to improve sport practice among school students in Palestine

Prospective study of avian influenza transmission to humans in egypt

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 virus remains a public health threat and continues to cause outbreaks among poultry as well as human infections. Since its appearance, the virus has spread to numerous geographic areas and is now considered endemic in Egypt and other countries. Most studies on human H5N1 cases were conducted to investigate outbreak situations and were not designed to address fundamental questions about the epidemiology of human infection with H5N1 viruses. Our objective for this study is to answer these questions by estimating the prevalence and incidence rates of human cases and determine associated risk and protective factors in areas where H5N1 viruses are endemic.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>We designed a 3-year prospective cohort study of 1000 individuals of various exposure levels to poultry in Egypt. At onset, we will collect sera to estimate baseline antibody titers against AI viruses H4-H16. Two follow-up visits are scheduled at 1-year intervals following initial enrollment. At follow-up, we will also collect sera to measure changes in antibody titers over time. Thus, annual prevalence rates as well as incidence rates of infection will be calculated. At each visit, exposure and other data will be collected using a specifically tailored questionnaire. This data will be used to measure risk and protective factors associated with infection. Subjects will be asked to contact the study team any time they have influenza-like illness (ILI). In this case, the study team will verify infection by rapid influenza A test and obtain swabs from the subject's contacts to isolate and characterize viruses causing acute infection.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>Epidemiologic studies at the influenza human-animal interface are rare, hence many questions concerning transmission, severity, and extent of infection at the population level remain unanswered. We believe that our study will help tackle and clarify some of these issues.</p

Spatial distribution of podoconiosis in relation to environmental factors in Ethiopia: a historical review

BACKGROUND An up-to-date and reliable map of podoconiosis is needed to design geographically targeted and cost-effective intervention in Ethiopia. Identifying the ecological correlates of the distribution of podoconiosis is the first step for distribution and risk maps. The objective of this study was to investigate the spatial distribution and ecological correlates of podoconiosis using historical and contemporary survey data. METHODS Data on the observed prevalence of podoconiosis were abstracted from published and unpublished literature into a standardized database, according to strict inclusion and exclusion criteria. In total, 10 studies conducted between 1969 and 2012 were included, and data were available for 401,674 individuals older than 15 years of age from 229 locations. A range of high resolution environmental factors were investigated to determine their association with podoconiosis prevalence, using logistic regression. RESULTS The prevalence of podoconiosis in Ethiopia was estimated at 3.4% (95% CI 3.3%-3.4%) with marked regional variation. We identified significant associations between mean annual Land Surface Temperature (LST), mean annual precipitation, topography of the land and fine soil texture and high prevalence of podoconiosis. The derived maps indicate both widespread occurrence of podoconiosis and a marked variability in prevalence of podoconiosis, with prevalence typically highest at altitudes >1500 m above sea level (masl), with >1500 mm annual rainfall and mean annual LST of 19-21°C. No (or very little) podoconiosis occurred at altitudes 24°C. CONCLUSION Podoconiosis remains a public health problem in Ethiopia over considerable areas of the country, but exhibits marked geographical variation associated in part with key environmental factors. This is work in progress and the results presented here will be refined in future work

Benign chondroid syringoma of the orbit: a rare cause of exophtalmos

Chondroid syringoma (CS) of the orbit is an extremely rare benign neoplasm. To the best of our knowledege, this is the second case reported in the english litérature

An Essential Difference between the Flavonoids MonoHER and Quercetin in Their Interplay with the Endogenous Antioxidant Network

Antioxidants can scavenge highly reactive radicals. As a result the antioxidants are converted into oxidation products that might cause damage to vital cellular components. To prevent this damage, the human body possesses an intricate network of antioxidants that pass over the reactivity from one antioxidant to another in a controlled way. The aim of the present study was to investigate how the semi-synthetic flavonoid 7-mono-O-(β-hydroxyethyl)-rutoside (monoHER), a potential protective agent against doxorubicin-induced cardiotoxicity, fits into this antioxidant network. This position was compared with that of the well-known flavonoid quercetin. The present study shows that the oxidation products of both monoHER and quercetin are reactive towards thiol groups of both GSH and proteins. However, in human blood plasma, oxidized quercetin easily reacts with protein thiols, whereas oxidized monoHER does not react with plasma protein thiols. Our results indicate that this can be explained by the presence of ascorbate in plasma; ascorbate is able to reduce oxidized monoHER to the parent compound monoHER before oxidized monoHER can react with thiols. This is a major difference with oxidized quercetin that preferentially reacts with thiols rather than ascorbate. The difference in selectivity between monoHER and quercetin originates from an intrinsic difference in the chemical nature of their oxidation products, which was corroborated by molecular quantum chemical calculations. These findings point towards an essential difference between structurally closely related flavonoids in their interplay with the endogenous antioxidant network. The advantage of monoHER is that it can safely channel the reactivity of radicals into the antioxidant network where the reactivity is completely neutralized