Lucene4IR: Developing information retrieval evaluation resources using Lucene

The workshop and hackathon on developing Information Retrieval Evaluation Resources using Lucene (L4IR) was held on the 8th and 9th of September, 2016 at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK and funded by the ESF Elias Network. The event featured three main elements: (i) a series of keynote and invited talks on industry, teaching and evaluation; (ii) planning, coding and hacking where a number of groups created modules and infrastructure to use Lucene to undertake TREC based evaluations; and (iii) a number of breakout groups discussing challenges, opportunities and problems in bridging the divide between academia and industry, and how we can use Lucene for teaching and learning Information Retrieval (IR). The event was composed of a mix and blend of academics, experts and students wanting to learn, share and create evaluation resources for the community. The hacking was intense and the discussions lively creating the basis of many useful tools but also raising numerous issues. It was clear that by adopting and contributing to most widely used and supported Open Source IR toolkit, there were many benefits for academics, students, researchers, developers and practitioners - providing a basis for stronger evaluation practices, increased reproducibility, more efficient knowledge transfer, greater collaboration between academia and industry, and shared teaching and training resources

Enablers and Barriers to Deployment of Smartphone-Based Home Vision Monitoring in Clinical Practice Settings

Importance: Telemedicine is accelerating the remote detection and monitoring of medical conditions, such as vision-threatening diseases. Meaningful deployment of smartphone apps for home vision monitoring should consider the barriers to patient uptake and engagement and address issues around digital exclusion in vulnerable patient populations. Objective: To quantify the associations between patient characteristics and clinical measures with vision monitoring app uptake and engagement. Design, Setting, and Participants: In this cohort and survey study, consecutive adult patients attending Moorfields Eye Hospital receiving intravitreal injections for retinal disease between May 2020 and February 2021 were included. Exposures: Patients were offered the Home Vision Monitor (HVM) smartphone app to self-test their vision. A patient survey was conducted to capture their experience. App data, demographic characteristics, survey results, and clinical data from the electronic health record were analyzed via regression and machine learning. Main Outcomes and Measures: Associations of patient uptake, compliance, and use rate measured in odds ratios (ORs). Results: Of 417 included patients, 236 (56.6%) were female, and the mean (SD) age was 72.8 (12.8) years. A total of 258 patients (61.9%) were active users. Uptake was negatively associated with age (OR, 0.98; 95% CI, 0.97-0.998; P = .02) and positively associated with both visual acuity in the better-seeing eye (OR, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.00-1.03; P = .01) and baseline number of intravitreal injections (OR, 1.01; 95% CI, 1.00-1.02; P = .02). Of 258 active patients, 166 (64.3%) fulfilled the definition of compliance. Compliance was associated with patients diagnosed with neovascular age-related macular degeneration (OR, 1.94; 95% CI, 1.07-3.53; P = .002), White British ethnicity (OR, 1.69; 95% CI, 0.96-3.01; P = .02), and visual acuity in the better-seeing eye at baseline (OR, 1.02; 95% CI, 1.01-1.04; P = .04). Use rate was higher with increasing levels of comfort with use of modern technologies (β = 0.031; 95% CI, 0.007-0.055; P = .02). A total of 119 patients (98.4%) found the app either easy or very easy to use, while 96 (82.1%) experienced increased reassurance from using the app. Conclusions and Relevance: This evaluation of home vision monitoring for patients with common vision-threatening disease within a clinical practice setting revealed demographic, clinical, and patient-related factors associated with patient uptake and engagement. These insights inform targeted interventions to address risks of digital exclusion with smartphone-based medical devices

Enucleation and development of cluster headache: a retrospective study

BACKGROUND: Cluster headache (CH) is a neurovascular, primary headache disorder. There are, however, several case reports about patients whose CH started shortly after a structural brain disease or trauma. Motivated by a patient who developed CH 3 weeks after the removal of an eye and by similar case reports, we tested the hypothesis that the removal of an eye is a risk factor for CH. METHODS: A detailed headache questionnaire was filled out by 112 patients on average 8 years after enucleation or evisceration of an eye. RESULTS: While 21 % of these patients experienced previously unknown headaches after the removal of an eye, no patient fulfilled the diagnostic criteria for CH. CONCLUSION: Our data does not suggest that the removal of an eye is a major risk factor for the development of CH

Intravitreal vs. subtenon triamcinolone acetonide for the treatment of diabetic cystoid macular edema

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To assess the efficacy of the intravitreal (IVT) injection of Triamcinolone Acetonide (TA) as compared to posterior subtenon (SBT) capsule injection for the treatment of cystoid diabetic macular edema.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Fourteen patients with type II diabetes mellitus and on insulin treatment, presenting diffuse cystoid macular edema were recruited. Before TA injection all focal lakes were treated by laser photocoagulation. In the same patients one eye was assigned to 4 mg IVT injection of TA and the fellow eye was then treated with 40 mg SBT injection of TA. Before and one, three and six months after treatment we measured visual acuity with ETDRS chart as well as thickness of the macula with optical coherence tomography (OCT) and intraocular pressure (IOP).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The eyes treated with an IVT injection displayed significant improvement in visual acuity, both after one (0.491 ± 0.070; p < 0.001) and three months (0.500 ± 0.089; p < 0.001) of treatment. Significant improvement was displayed also in eyes treated with an SBT injection, again after one (0.455 ± 0.069; p < 0.001) and three months (0.427 ± 0.065; p < 0.001). The difference between an IVT injection (0.809 ± 0.083) and SBT injection (0.460 ± 0.072) becomes significant six months after the treatment (p < 0.001).</p> <p>Macular thickness of the eyes treated with IVT injection was significantly reduced both after one (222.7 ± 13.4 μm; p < 0.001) and after three months (228.1 ± 10.6 μm; p < 0.001) of treatment. The eyes treated with SBT injection displayed significant improvement after one (220.1 ± 15.1 μm; p < 0.001) and after three months (231.3 ± 10.9 μm; p < 0.001). The difference between the eyes treated with IVT injection (385.2 ± 11.3 μm) and those treated with SBT injection (235.4 ± 8.7 μm) becomes significant six months after the treatment (p < 0.001).</p> <p>Intraocular pressure of the eyes treated with IVT injection significantly increased after one month (17.7 ± 1.1 mm/Hg; p < 0.020), three (18.2 ± 1.2 mm/Hg; p < 0.003) and six month (18.1 ± 1.3 mm/Hg; p < 0.007) when compared to baseline value (16.1 ± 1.402 mm/Hg). In the SBT injection eyes we didn't display a significant increase of intraocular pressure after one (16.4 ± 1.2 mm/Hg; p < 0.450), three (16.3 ± 1.1 mm/Hg; p < 0.630) and six months (16.2 ± 1.1 mm/Hg; p < 0.720) when compared to baseline value (16.2 ± 1.3 mm/Hg).</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>The parabulbar subtenon approach can be considered a valid alternative to the intravitreal injection.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>Current Controlled Trials <b>ISRCTN67086909</b></p

The combination of intravitreal triamcinolone and phacoemulsification surgery in patients with diabeticfoveal oedema and cataract

BACKGROUND: The management of diabetic patients with refractory macular oedema or patients with no adequate pre-operative view to administer laser treatment provide a challenge to the ophthalmologist. We wished to assess the use, safety and effect of intravitreal triamcinolone injection at the time of cataract surgery in patients with diabetic foveal oedema and sight limiting lens opacities. METHOD: This was a longitudinal non-randomised prospective pilot study in 18 eyes (12 patients). All patients had visually significant lens opacities and either persistent diabetic foveal oedema unresponsive to laser treatment-group A, or foveal oedema with no adequate pre-operative view for laser treatment- group B. The cataract surgery was carried out under full aseptic technique using a self-sealing temporal incision and a foldable acrylic lens. Intravitreal triamcinolone was given infratemporally pars plana at the completion of the cataract surgery. The patients were reviewed at day 5, 2 weeks, 2 months and then every 3 months as required. The Wilcoxin matched-pairs test was used to assess the significance of the improvement in visual acuity at 2 months. RESULTS: Twelve patients with a total of 18 eyes were included in the study. There were 10 patients (15 eyes) in group A and 3 patients (3 eyes) in group B. Preoperatively 16 of the 18 eyes had a visual acuity of 6/24 or worse. Postoperatively 83% of patients had completely dry foveae at 2 weeks. Best-corrected visual acuities at two months review ranged from 6/6 to CF with 9 eyes (50%) achieving 6/12 or better (7 eyes (47%) in group A and 2 eyes (67%) in group B). Three eyes had no recorded improvement in visual acuity, but no eyes had deterioration in acuity. The improvement in visual acuity was significant at p = 0.001. There were no significant sight threatening complications. CONCLUSION: Intravitreal triamcinolone has been shown to lead to an improvement in macular oedema and visual improvement in diabetic patients not undergoing cataract surgery but has not, to our knowledge, been previously used in a study like this one. We suggest that intravitreal injection at the time of cataract surgery could be carried out safely with encouraging visual outcomes in patients with diabetic foveal oedema and cataract

Exploring term temporality for pseudo-relevance feedback

As digital collections expand, the importance of the temporal aspect of information has become increasingly apparent. The aim of this paper is to investigate the effect of using long-term temporal profiles of terms in information retrieval by enhancing the term selection process of pseudo-relevance feedback (PRF). For this purpose, two temporal PRF approaches were introduced considering only temporal aspect and temporal along with textual aspect. Experiments used the AP88-89 and WSJ87-92 test collections with TREC Ad-Hoc Topics 51-100. Term temporal profiles are extracted from the Google Books n-grams dataset. The results show that the long-term temporal aspects of terms are capable of enhancing retrieval effectiveness