2,170 research outputs found
Technology for large-scale translation of clinical practice guidelines : a pilot study of the performance of a hybrid human and computer-assisted approach
Background: The construction of EBMPracticeNet, a national electronic point-of-care information platform in Belgium, was initiated in 2011 to optimize quality of care by promoting evidence-based decision-making. The project involved, among other tasks, the translation of 940 EBM Guidelines of Duodecim Medical Publications from English into Dutch and French. Considering the scale of the translation process, it was decided to make use of computer-aided translation performed by certificated translators with limited expertise in medical translation. Our consortium used a hybrid approach, involving a human translator supported by a translation memory (using SDL Trados Studio), terminology recognition (using SDL Multiterm termbases) from medical termbases and support from online machine translation. This has resulted in a validated translation memory which is now in use for the translation of new and updated guidelines.
Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the performance of the hybrid human and computer-assisted approach in comparison with translation unsupported by translation memory and terminology recognition. A comparison was also made with the translation efficiency of an expert medical translator.
Methods: We conducted a pilot trial in which two sets of 30 new and 30 updated guidelines were randomized to one of three groups. Comparable guidelines were translated (a) by certificated junior translators without medical specialization using the hybrid method (b) by an experienced medical translator without this support and (c) by the same junior translators without the support of the validated translation memory. A medical proofreader who was blinded for the translation procedure, evaluated the translated guidelines for acceptability and adequacy. Translation speed was measured by recording translation and post-editing time. The Human Translation Edit Rate was calculated as a metric to evaluate the quality of the translation. A further evaluation was made of translation acceptability and adequacy.
Results: The average number of words per guideline was 1,195 and the mean total translation time was 100.2 min/1,000 words. No meaningful differences were found in the translation speed for new guidelines. The translation of updated guidelines was 59 min/1,000 words faster (95% CI 2-115; P=.044) in the computer-aided group. Revisions due to terminology accounted for one third of the overall revisions by the medical proofreader.
Conclusions: Use of the hybrid human and computer-aided translation by a non-expert translator makes the translation of updates of clinical practice guidelines faster and cheaper because of the benefits of translation memory. For the translation of new guidelines there was no apparent benefit in comparison with the efficiency of translation unsupported by translation memory (whether by an expert or non-expert translator
Underpotential deposition of Cu on Au(111) in sulfate-containing electrolytes: a theoretical and experimental study
We study the underpotential deposition of Cu on single-crystal Au(111)
electrodes in sulfate-containing electrolytes by a combination of computational
statistical-mechanics based lattice-gas modeling and experiments. The
experimental methods are in situ cyclic voltammetry and coulometry and ex situ
Auger electron spectroscopy and low-energy electron diffraction. The
experimentally obtained voltammetric current and charge densities and adsorbate
coverages are compared with the predictions of a two-component lattice-gas
model for the coadsorption of Cu and sulfate. This model includes effective,
lateral interactions out to fourth-nearest neighbors. Using group-theoretical
ground-state calculations and Monte Carlo simulations, we estimate effective
electrovalences and lateral adsorbate--adsorbate interactions so as to obtain
overall agreement with experiments, including both our own and those of other
groups. In agreement with earlier work, we find a mixed R3xR3 phase consisting
of 2/3 monolayer Cu and 1/3 monolayer sulfate at intermediate electrode
potentials, delimited by phase transitions at both higher and lower potentials.
Our approach provides estimates of the effective electrovalences and lateral
interaction energies, which cannot yet be calculated by first-principles
methods.Comment: 36 pages, 14 Postscript figures are in uufiles for
Secondary structure of Ac-Ala-LysH polyalanine peptides (=5,10,15) in vacuo: Helical or not?
The polyalanine-based peptide series Ac-Ala_n-LysH+ (n=5-20) is a prime
example that a secondary structure motif which is well-known from the solution
phase (here: helices) can be formed in vacuo. We here revisit this conclusion
for n=5,10,15, using density-functional theory (van der Waals corrected
generalized gradient approximation), and gas-phase infrared vibrational
spectroscopy. For the longer molecules (n=10,15) \alpha-helical models provide
good qualitative agreement (theory vs. experiment) already in the harmonic
approximation. For n=5, the lowest energy conformer is not a simple helix, but
competes closely with \alpha-helical motifs at 300K. Close agreement between
infrared spectra from experiment and ab initio molecular dynamics (including
anharmonic effects) supports our findings.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Submitted to JPC Letter
Nuclear spin dynamics and Zeno effect in quantum dots and defect centers
We analyze nuclear spin dynamics in quantum dots and defect centers with a
bound electron under electron-mediated coupling between nuclear spins due to
the hyperfine interaction ("J-coupling" in NMR). Our analysis shows that the
Overhauser field generated by the nuclei at the position of the electron has
short-time dynamics quadratic in time for an initial nuclear spin state without
transverse coherence. The quadratic short-time behavior allows for an extension
of the Overhauser field lifetime through a sequence of projective measurements
(quantum Zeno effect). We analyze the requirements on the repetition rate of
measurements and the measurement accuracy to achieve such an effect. Further,
we calculate the long-time behavior of the Overhauser field for effective
electron Zeeman splittings larger than the hyperfine coupling strength and
find, both in a Dyson series expansion and a generalized master equation
approach, that for a nuclear spin system with a sufficiently smooth
polarization the electron-mediated interaction alone leads only to a partial
decay of the Overhauser field by an amount on the order of the inverse number
of nuclear spins interacting with the electron.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure
On Quantum State Observability and Measurement
We consider the problem of determining the state of a quantum system given
one or more readings of the expectation value of an observable. The system is
assumed to be a finite dimensional quantum control system for which we can
influence the dynamics by generating all the unitary evolutions in a Lie group.
We investigate to what extent, by an appropriate sequence of evolutions and
measurements, we can obtain information on the initial state of the system. We
present a system theoretic viewpoint of this problem in that we study the {\it
observability} of the system. In this context, we characterize the equivalence
classes of indistinguishable states and propose algorithms for state
identification
Underlining some limitations of the statistical formalism in quantum mechanics
We show that two chosen ensembles of spin states, which are differently
prepared but are described by the same density matrix in quantum mechanics, do
not fully share the same measurable characteristics. One characteristic on
which they differ is shown to be the variance of the spin along a given
direction. We conclude that the statistical description of an ensemble of
states as given by its density matrix, although sufficient in many cases,
should be considered incomplete, as it does not fully describe the measurable
characteristics of the ensemble. A discussion a posteriori on the problem is
provided
Phase-space theory for dispersive detectors of superconducting qubits
Motivated by recent experiments, we study the dynamics of a qubit
quadratically coupled to its detector, a damped harmonic oscillator. We use a
complex-environment approach, explicitly describing the dynamics of the qubit
and the oscillator by means of their full Floquet state master equations in
phase-space. We investigate the backaction of the environment on the measured
qubit and explore several measurement protocols, which include a long-term full
read-out cycle as well as schemes based on short time transfer of information
between qubit and oscillator. We also show that the pointer becomes measurable
before all information in the qubit has been lost.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure
Emerging Pharmacotherapy for Relapsed or Refractory Hodgkinâs Lymphoma: Focus on Brentuximab Vedotin
Hodgkinsâ lymphoma (HL) which has relapsed post or is refractory to autologous bone marrow transplant presents an ongoing treatment challenge. Development of monoclonal antibodies (mAb) for the treatment of HL has aimed to replicate the success of mAb therapy in the treatment on Non Hodgkins Lymphoma. The identification of CD30 as a potential target for treatment has led to the development of a new antibody-drug conjugate, brentuximab vedotin (SGN-35), which conjugates monomethyl auristatin E to an anti-CD30 antibody to deliver targeted toxicity to the malignant Reed Sternberg cells of HL. This review describes CD30 as an antibody target, and focuses on the antibody-drug conjugate brentuximab vedotin, including current knowledge of the mechanism of action, preclinical, clinical and pharmacokinetic data available for Brentuximab Vedotin
Quantum to Classical Transition from the Cosmic Background Radiation
We have revisited the Ghirardi-Rimini-Weber-Pearle (GRWP) approach for
continuous dynamical evolution of the state vector for a macroscopic object.
Our main concern is to recover the decoupling of the state vector dynamics for
the center-of-mass (CM) and internal motion, as in the GRWP model, but within
the framework of the standard cosmology. In this connection we have taken the
opposite direction of the GRWP argument, that the cosmic background radiation
(CBR) has originated from a fundamental stochastic hitting process. We assume
the CBR as a clue of the Big Bang, playing a main role in the decoupling of the
state vector dynamics of the CM and internal motion. In our model, instead of
describing a continuous spontaneous localization (CSL) of a system of massive
particles as proposed by Ghirardi, Pearle and Rimini, the It\^{o} stochastic
equation accounts for the intervention of the CBR on the system of particles.
Essentially, this approach leads to a pre-master equation for both the CBR and
particles degrees of freedom. The violation of the principle of energy
conservation characteristic of the CSL model is avoided as well as the
additional assumption on the size of the GRWP's localization width necessary to
reach the decoupling between the collective and internal motions. Moreover,
realistic estimation for the decoherence time, exhibiting an interesting
dependence on the CBR temperature, is obtained. From the formula for the
decoherence time it is possible to analyze the transition from micro to macro
dynamics in both the early hot Universe and the nowadays cold one. The entropy
of the system under decoherence is analyzed and the emergent `pointer basis' is
discussed. In spite of not having imposed a privileged basis, in our model the
position still emerges as the preferred observable as in the CSL model.Comment: 14 pages, no figure. To appear in Phys. Rev.
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