Together Yet Apart: Multimodal Representation Learning for Personalised Visual Art Recommendation

With the advent of digital media, the availability of art content has greatly expanded, making it increasingly challenging for individuals to discover and curate works that align with their personal preferences and taste. The task of providing accurate and personalised Visual Art (VA) recommendations is thus a complex one, requiring a deep understanding of the intricate interplay of multiple modalities such as images, textual descriptions, or other metadata. In this paper, we study the nuances of modalities involved in the VA domain (image and text) and how they can be effectively harnessed to provide a truly personalised art experience to users. Particularly, we develop four fusion-based multimodal VA recommendation pipelines and conduct a large-scale user-centric evaluation. Our results indicate that early fusion (i.e, joint multimodal learning of visual and textual features) is preferred over a late fusion of ranked paintings from unimodal models (state-of-the-art baselines) but only if the latent representation space of the multimodal painting embeddings is entangled. Our findings open a new perspective for a better representation learning in the VA RecSys domain

Associations between endometriosis and adverse pregnancy and perinatal outcomes: a population-based cohort study.

PURPOSE To examine the association between endometriosis and adverse pregnancy and perinatal outcomes (preeclampsia, placenta previa, and preterm birth). METHODS A population-based retrospective cohort study was conducted among 468,778 eligible women who contributed 912,747 singleton livebirths between 1980 and 2015 in Western Australia (WA). We used probabilistically linked perinatal and hospital separation data from the WA data linkage system's Midwives Notification System and Hospital Morbidity Data Collection databases. We used a doubly robust estimator by combining the inverse probability weighting with the outcome regression model to estimate adjusted risk ratios (RR) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS There were 19,476 singleton livebirths among 8874 women diagnosed with endometriosis. Using a doubly robust estimator, we found pregnancies in women with endometriosis to be associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia with RR of 1.18, 95% CI 1.11-1.26, placenta previa (RR 1.59, 95% CI 1.42-1.79) and preterm birth (RR 1.45, 95% CI 1.37-1.54). The observed association persisted after stratified by the use of Medically Assisted Reproduction, with a slightly elevated risk among pregnancies conceived spontaneously. CONCLUSIONS In this large population-based cohort, endometriosis is associated with an increased risk of preeclampsia, placenta previa, and preterm birth, independent of the use of Medically Assisted Reproduction. This may help to enhance future obstetric care among this population

A Contextual Framework for Adaptive User Interfaces: Modelling the Interaction Environment

The interaction context (or environment) is key to any HCI task and especially to adaptive user interfaces (AUIs), since it represents the conditions under which users interact with computers. Unfortunately, there are currently no formal representations to model said interaction context. In order to address this gap, we propose a contextual framework for AUIs and illustrate a practical applica- tion using learning management systems as a case study. We also discuss limitations of our framework and offer discussion points about the realisation of truly context-aware AUIs.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure

The Value of Literacy Practices

The concepts of literacy events and practices have received considerable attention in educational research and policy. In comparison, the question of value, that is, ‘which literacy practices do people most value?’ has been neglected. With the current trend of cross-cultural adult literacy assessment, it is increasingly important to recognise locally valued literacy practices. In this paper we argue that measuring preferences and weighting of literacy practices provides an empirical and democratic basis for decisions in literacy assessment and curriculum development and could inform rapid educational adaptation to changes in the literacy environment. The paper examines the methodological basis for investigating literacy values and its potential to inform cross-cultural literacy assessments. The argument is illustrated with primary data from Mozambique. The correlation between individual values and respondents’ socio-economic and demographic characteristics is explored

Hypothyroidism in a five-year-old boy with rhabdomyolysis and recent history of cardiac tamponade: a case report

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>Cardiac tamponade is a rare manifestation of hypothyroidism, and a less rare cause of pericardial effusion. The accumulation of the pericardial fluid is gradual, and often does not compromise cardiac hemodynamic function. There is a relationship between the severity and chronicity of the disease with the presence of pericardial effusion. There are few cases describing associated pericardial tamponade published in the literature. When a tamponade occurs, a concomitant provocative factor such as a viral pericarditis may be related. Our patient's case appears to be the youngest patient described so far.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>We report the case of a previously healthy five-year-old Hispanic (non-indigenous) boy who developed rhabdomyolysis with a history of a recent pericardial effusion and tamponade two months before that required the placement of a percutaneous pericardial drainage. Pericardial effusion was considered to be viral. Later on readmission, clinical primary hypothyroidism was diagnosed and thought to be associated with the previous cardiac tamponade. He developed rhabdomyolysis, which was considered to be autoimmune and was treated with steroids. The level of creatine phosphate kinase and creatine kinase MB fraction returned to within the reference rangeone week after our patient was started on steroids and three weeks after he was started on thyroid hormones.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Physicians should consider hypothyroidism as a differential diagnosis in patients with pericardial effusion. Pericardial effusion may progress and cause a cardiac tamponade with hemodynamic instability. The fact that our patient did not have any manifestations of hypothyroidism might have delayed diagnosis.</p

Symptomatic cerebral oedema during treatment of diabetic ketoacidosis: effect of adjuvant octreotide infusion

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Introduction</p> <p>A potentially lethal complication of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) in children is brain oedema, whether caused by DKA itself or by the therapeutic infusion of insulin and fluids.</p> <p>Case presentation</p> <p>A 10-year old previously healthy boy with DKA became unconscious and apnoeic due to cerebral oedema (confirmed by abnormal EEG and CT-scan) during treatment with intravenous fluids (36 ml/h) and insulin (0.1 units/kg/h). He was intubated and artificially ventilated, without impact on EEG and CT-scan. Subsequently, adjuvant infusion of octreotide was applied (3.5 μg/kg/h), suppressing growth hormone (GH) and IGF-1 production and necessitating the insulin dose to be reduced to 0.05 - 0.025 units/kg/h. The brain oedema improved and the boy made a full recovery.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Co-therapy with octreotide was associated with a favourable outcome in the present patient with DKA and cerebral oedema. Whether this could be ascribed to the effects of octreotide on the insulin requirement or on the GH/IGF-axis remains to be elucidated.</p

Podoconiosis and soil-transmitted helminths (STHs): double burden of neglected tropical diseases in Wolaita zone, rural southern Ethiopia

Background Both podoconiosis and soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections occur among barefoot people in areas of extreme poverty; however, their co-morbidity has not previously been investigated. We explored the overlap of STH infection and podoconiosis in Southern Ethiopia and quantified their separate and combined effects on prevalent anemia and hemoglobin levels in podoconiosis patients and health controls from the same area. Methods and Principal Findings A two-part comparative cross-sectional study was conducted in Wolaita zone, southern Ethiopia. Data were collected from adult patients presenting with clinically confirmed podoconiosis, and unmatched adult neighborhood controls living in the same administrative area. Information on demographic and selected lifestyle factors was collected using interviewer-administered questionnaires. Stool samples were collected and examined qualitatively using the modified formalin-ether sedimentation method. Hemoglobin level was determined using two different methods: hemoglobinometer and automated hematology analyzer. A total of 913 study subjects (677 podoconiosis patients and 236 controls) participated. The prevalence of any STH infection was 47.6% among patients and 33.1% among controls (p<0.001). The prevalence of both hookworm and Trichuris trichiura infections was significantly higher in podoconiosis patients than in controls (AOR 1.74, 95% CI 1.25 to2.42, AOR 6.53, 95% CI 2.34 to 18.22, respectively). Not wearing shoes and being a farmer remained significant independent predictors of infection with any STH. There was a significant interaction between STH infection and podoconiosis on reduction of hemoglobin level (interaction p value = 0.002). Conclusions Prevalence of any STH and hookworm infection was higher among podoconiosis patients than among controls. A significant reduction in hemoglobin level was observed among podoconiosis patients co-infected with hookworm and ‘non-hookworm STH’. Promotion of consistent shoe-wearing practices may have double advantages in controlling both podoconiosis and hookworm infection in the study area