A machine-learning based bio-psycho-social model for the prediction of non-obstructive and obstructive coronary artery disease

Background: Mechanisms of myocardial ischemia in obstructive and non-obstructive coronary artery disease (CAD), and the interplay between clinical, functional, biological and psycho-social features, are still far to be fully elucidated. Objectives: To develop a machine-learning (ML) model for the supervised prediction of obstructive versus non-obstructive CAD. Methods: From the EVA study, we analysed adults hospitalized for IHD undergoing conventional coronary angiography (CCA). Non-obstructive CAD was defined by a stenosis < 50% in one or more vessels. Baseline clinical and psycho-socio-cultural characteristics were used for computing a Rockwood and Mitnitski frailty index, and a gender score according to GENESIS-PRAXY methodology. Serum concentration of inflammatory cytokines was measured with a multiplex flow cytometry assay. Through an XGBoost classifier combined with an explainable artificial intelligence tool (SHAP), we identified the most influential features in discriminating obstructive versus non-obstructive CAD. Results: Among the overall EVA cohort (n = 509), 311 individuals (mean age 67 ± 11 years, 38% females; 67% obstructive CAD) with complete data were analysed. The ML-based model (83% accuracy and 87% precision) showed that while obstructive CAD was associated with higher frailty index, older age and a cytokine signature characterized by IL-1β, IL-12p70 and IL-33, non-obstructive CAD was associated with a higher gender score (i.e., social characteristics traditionally ascribed to women) and with a cytokine signature characterized by IL-18, IL-8, IL-23. Conclusions: Integrating clinical, biological, and psycho-social features, we have optimized a sex- and gender-unbiased model that discriminates obstructive and non-obstructive CAD. Further mechanistic studies will shed light on the biological plausibility of these associations. Clinical trial registration: NCT02737982

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

"Esquerdisticamente afinados" : os intelectuais, os livros e as revistas das editoras Civilização Brasileira e Paz e Terra : (1964-1969)

A instauração do regime militar, em março de 1964, teve implicações decisivas sobre o funcionamento de espaços e grupos intelectuais de esquerda no Brasil, impondo novos rumos à ampla mobilização estabelecida desde a década de 1950, que passou a orientar-se pela ideia fundamental de retorno à democracia. Esta tese aborda a oposição ao autoritarismo estabelecida por meio das editoras Civilização Brasileira e Paz e Terra e de suas revistas, a Civilização Brasileira, a Política Externa Independente e a Paz e Terra, editadas no Rio de Janeiro, entre os anos de 1965 e 1969. Busca evidenciar, através da revisão e análise dos grupos envolvidos nas publicações e de suas características e estratégias editoriais, a posição privilegiada ocupada pelas iniciativas e pelas empresas, que conseguiram reunir e manter ativos intelectuais de variadas matrizes teórico-políticas e institucionais, nos anos iniciais da ditadura, e mesmo ampliar suas atividades e seu público leitor. Reconstitui, também, o amplo conjunto de medidas judiciais, policiais e extralegais utilizadas pelo governo e pelos órgãos de informação e segurança contra as duas editoras, seus livros, periódicos e seus responsáveis, que acabaram por inviabilizar muitas das atividades até 1969.The establishment of the military regimen, in March of 1964, had decisive implications on the functioning of spaces and intellectual groups of left in Brazil, imposing new routes to the broad mobilization established since the decade of 1950, oriented now by the main idea of return to democracy. This thesis approaches the opposition to the authoritarianism established through the publishing companies Civilização Brasileira and Paz e Terra and its magazines, the Civilização Brasileira, the Política Externa Independente and the Paz e Terra, edited in Rio De Janeiro, between the years of 1965 and 1969. It seeks to evidence, through the reconstitution and analysis of the groups involved in the publications and of its characteristics and editorial strategies, the privileged position occupied by the initiatives and by the companies, that succeeded in gathering and maintaining active intellectuals of varied institutional and theoretical-political origins, during the initial years of the dictatorship, and even extend its activities and its public of readers. Moreover, it reconstitute the full range of judicial, police and extralegal means used by government and by information and security agencies against the publishers, his books, the magazines and those who were responsible for them, that contributed to the end of many of the activities until 1969.L’instauration du régime militaire, dans mars 1964, a eu implications décisives sur le fonctionnement d’espaces et groupes intellectuels de gauche au Brésil, en imposant nouveaux itinéraires à la suffisante mobilisation établie depuis la décennie de 1950, qui a commencé à se guider par l’idée fondamentale de retour à la démocratie. Cette thèse aborde l’opposition à l’autoritarisme établi à travers les éditrices Civilização Brasileira et Paz e Terra et de leurs revues, Civilização Brasileira, Política Externa Independente et Paz e Terra, éditées à Rio de Janeiro, entre les années de 1965 et 1969. Il cherche prouver, à travers la révision et l’analyse des groupes impliqués dans les publications et de leurs caractéristiques et les stratégies éditoriales, la position privilégiée occupée par les initiatives et par les sociétés, qui ont réussi à se réunir et maintiendront des actifs intellectuels de variés des matrices teórico-políticas et institutionnelles, dans les années initiales de la dictature, et même élargir leurs activités et son public lecteur. Il reconstitue, aussi, le suffisant ensemble de mesures judiciaires, policiers et illégaux utilisés par le gouvernement et par les agences d’informations et sécurité contre les deux éditrices, leurs livres, périodiques et leurs responsables, qui ont fini de rendre impracticable beaucoup des activités jusqu’en 1969

"Esquerdisticamente afinados" : os intelectuais, os livros e as revistas das editoras Civilização Brasileira e Paz e Terra : (1964-1969)

A instauração do regime militar, em março de 1964, teve implicações decisivas sobre o funcionamento de espaços e grupos intelectuais de esquerda no Brasil, impondo novos rumos à ampla mobilização estabelecida desde a década de 1950, que passou a orientar-se pela ideia fundamental de retorno à democracia. Esta tese aborda a oposição ao autoritarismo estabelecida por meio das editoras Civilização Brasileira e Paz e Terra e de suas revistas, a Civilização Brasileira, a Política Externa Independente e a Paz e Terra, editadas no Rio de Janeiro, entre os anos de 1965 e 1969. Busca evidenciar, através da revisão e análise dos grupos envolvidos nas publicações e de suas características e estratégias editoriais, a posição privilegiada ocupada pelas iniciativas e pelas empresas, que conseguiram reunir e manter ativos intelectuais de variadas matrizes teórico-políticas e institucionais, nos anos iniciais da ditadura, e mesmo ampliar suas atividades e seu público leitor. Reconstitui, também, o amplo conjunto de medidas judiciais, policiais e extralegais utilizadas pelo governo e pelos órgãos de informação e segurança contra as duas editoras, seus livros, periódicos e seus responsáveis, que acabaram por inviabilizar muitas das atividades até 1969.The establishment of the military regimen, in March of 1964, had decisive implications on the functioning of spaces and intellectual groups of left in Brazil, imposing new routes to the broad mobilization established since the decade of 1950, oriented now by the main idea of return to democracy. This thesis approaches the opposition to the authoritarianism established through the publishing companies Civilização Brasileira and Paz e Terra and its magazines, the Civilização Brasileira, the Política Externa Independente and the Paz e Terra, edited in Rio De Janeiro, between the years of 1965 and 1969. It seeks to evidence, through the reconstitution and analysis of the groups involved in the publications and of its characteristics and editorial strategies, the privileged position occupied by the initiatives and by the companies, that succeeded in gathering and maintaining active intellectuals of varied institutional and theoretical-political origins, during the initial years of the dictatorship, and even extend its activities and its public of readers. Moreover, it reconstitute the full range of judicial, police and extralegal means used by government and by information and security agencies against the publishers, his books, the magazines and those who were responsible for them, that contributed to the end of many of the activities until 1969.L’instauration du régime militaire, dans mars 1964, a eu implications décisives sur le fonctionnement d’espaces et groupes intellectuels de gauche au Brésil, en imposant nouveaux itinéraires à la suffisante mobilisation établie depuis la décennie de 1950, qui a commencé à se guider par l’idée fondamentale de retour à la démocratie. Cette thèse aborde l’opposition à l’autoritarisme établi à travers les éditrices Civilização Brasileira et Paz e Terra et de leurs revues, Civilização Brasileira, Política Externa Independente et Paz e Terra, éditées à Rio de Janeiro, entre les années de 1965 et 1969. Il cherche prouver, à travers la révision et l’analyse des groupes impliqués dans les publications et de leurs caractéristiques et les stratégies éditoriales, la position privilégiée occupée par les initiatives et par les sociétés, qui ont réussi à se réunir et maintiendront des actifs intellectuels de variés des matrices teórico-políticas et institutionnelles, dans les années initiales de la dictature, et même élargir leurs activités et son public lecteur. Il reconstitue, aussi, le suffisant ensemble de mesures judiciaires, policiers et illégaux utilisés par le gouvernement et par les agences d’informations et sécurité contre les deux éditrices, leurs livres, périodiques et leurs responsables, qui ont fini de rendre impracticable beaucoup des activités jusqu’en 1969