Application of Weighted Voting Taggers to Languages Described with Large Tagsets

The paper presents baseline and complex part-of-speech taggers applied to the modified corpus of Frequency Dictionary of Contemporary Polish, annotated with a large tagset. First, the paper examines accuracy of 6 baseline part-of-speech taggers. The main part of the work presents simple weighted voting and complex voting taggers. Special attention is paid to lexical voting methods and issues of ties and fallbacks. TagPair and WPDV voting methods achieve the top accuracy among all considered methods. Error reduction 10.8 % with respect to the best baseline tagger for the large tagset is comparable with other author's results for small tagsets

Osgood-Schlatter disease and potential treatment

Background: Aseptic necrosis of the tibial tuberosity, also known as Osgood-Schlatter disease, is one of the more common causes of pain in the tibia area in children and adolescents. The pathology is much more common in boys than in girls. Young athletes, including training footballers, basketball players and volleyball players, as well as children who actively spend their free time are particularly exposed to the development of the disease.  Material and methods: This paper was based on medical articles collected in PubMed , medical websites and books. The research has been done by looking through key words such as:’’ Osgood-Schlatter disease”,’’Osgood-Schlatter treatment”  Results: Osgood-Schlatter disease is usually self-limiting. In the absence of symptom relief, there are operational methods, which, however, are ambiguous.  Conclusions: Treatment of OSD patients and a challenge for healthcare professionals.&nbsp

Hallux valgus treatment and new methods

Introduction: Hallux valgus is a common disease more common in women In this article, we reviewed the epidemiology, symptoms, and various surgical techniques for the treatment of hallux valgusMaterial and methods: The work was based on medical articles collected in PubMed, websites and medical books. The research was conducted by looking at keywords such as: "hallux treatment", "hallux disease"Results: There are many methods of treating hallux valgus, ranging from conservative treatment to surgical treatment.Conclusions: The interdisciplinary approach to the patient and innovative surgical techniques can provide us with many new solutions in the treatment of the disease.Doctors have to adjust treatment to provide the best therapeutic effects

Downward Spiral of Bullying : Victimization Timeline From Former Victims Perspective

The present study aimed to investigate how those who had been chronic victims of bullying perceive their bullying experience from their initial attacks to their bullying exit, how they understood processes and actions causing a situation to become progressively worse, and how they interpreted their own coping behaviors. Nine individuals who were victimized for at least 6 years were interviewed. The grounded theory approach was used to analyze the data, which generated a grounded theory of the downward spiral of bullying, demonstrating hidden aspects of bullying-the victims inner process as a response to external victimizing and accompanying events. The interdependence of those processes is presented in a timeline to show their cumulative nature as new vicious circles of bullying involving maladaptive coping strategies (e.g., self-blame), which form an overriding pattern of behavior that renders victims unable to break it even if they enter a new peer group. In terms of policy implications, the findings suggest the need to introduce school transition programs supporting school adaptation, identify chronic victims, and take every victimhood narrative seriously.Funding Agencies|Ministry of Science and Higher Education in PolandMinistry of Science and Higher Education, Poland [012/RID/2018/19]</p

Subject-specific pulse wave propagation modeling: Towards enhancement of cardiovascular assessment methods.

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death worldwide. Pulse wave analysis (PWA) technique, which reconstructs and analyses aortic pressure waveform based on non-invasive peripheral pressure recording, became an important bioassay for cardiovascular assessment in a general population. The aim of our study was to establish a pulse wave propagation modeling framework capable of matching clinical PWA data from healthy individuals on a per-subject basis. Radial pressure profiles from 20 healthy individuals (10 males, 10 females), with mean age of 42 ± 10 years, were recorded using applanation tonometry (SphygmoCor, AtCor Medical, Australia) and used to estimate subject-specific parameters of mathematical model of blood flow in the system of fifty-five arteries. The model was able to describe recorded pressure profiles with high accuracy (mean absolute percentage error of 1.87 ± 0.75%) when estimating only 6 parameters for each subject. Cardiac output (CO) and stroke volume (SV) have been correctly identified by the model as lower in females than males (CO of 3.57 ± 0.54 vs. 4.18 ± 0.72 L/min with p-value 0.99 and r > 0.97 for systolic (SP) and diastolic (DP) pressures, respectively; r > 0.77 for augmentation index (AI); all p-values < 0.01). Model-predicted central waveforms, however, had higher SP than those reconstructed by PWA using recorded radial waves (5.6 ± 3.3 mmHg on average). From all estimated subject-specific parameters only the time to the peak of heart ejection profile correlated with clinically measured AI. Our study suggests that the proposed model may serve as a tool to computationally investigate virtual patient scenarios mimicking different cardiovascular abnormalities. Such a framework can augment our understanding and help with the interpretation of PWA results

Patient-specific pulse wave propagation model identifies cardiovascular risk characteristics in hemodialysis patients.

Risk of cardiovascular associated death in dialysis patients is the highest among all other co-morbidities. Improving the identification of patients with the highest cardiovascular risk to design an adequate treatment is, therefore, of utmost importance. There are several non-invasive cardiovascular state biomarkers based on the pulse (pressure) wave propagation properties, but their major determinants are not fully understood. In the current study we aimed to provide a framework to precisely dissect the information available in non-invasively recorded pulse wave in hemodialysis patients. Radial pressure wave profiles were recorded before, during and after two independent hemodialysis sessions in 35 anuric prevalent hemodialysis patients and once in a group of 32 healthy volunteers. Each recording was used to estimate six subject-specific parameters of pulse wave propagation model. Pressure profiles were also analyzed using SphygmoCor software (AtCor Medical, Australia) to derive values of already established biomarkers, i.e. augmentation index and sub-endocardial viability ratio (SEVR). Data preprocessing using propensity score matching allowed to compare hemodialysis and healthy groups. Augmentation index remained on average stable at 142 ± 28% during dialysis and had similar values in both considered groups. SEVR, whose pre-dialytic value was on average lower by 12% compared to healthy participants, was improved by hemodialysis, with post-dialytic values indistinguishable from those in healthy population (p-value > 0.2). The model, however, identified that the patients on hemodialysis had significantly increased stiffness of both large and small arteries compared to healthy counterparts (> 60% before dialysis with p-value < 0.05 or borderline) and that it was only transiently decreased during hemodialysis session. Additionally, correlation-based clustering revealed that augmentation index reflects the shape of heart ejection profile and SEVR is associated with stiffness of larger arteries. Patient-specific pulse wave propagation modeling coupled with radial pressure profile recording correctly identified increased arterial stiffness in hemodialysis patients, while regular pulse wave analysis based biomarkers failed to show significant differences. Further model testing in larger populations and investigating other biomarkers are needed to confirm these findings

Impact of hemodialysis on cardiovascular system assessed by pulse wave analysis.

Valuable information about cardiovascular system can be derived from the shape of aortic pulse wave being the result of reciprocal interaction between heart and vasculature. Pressure profiles in ascending aorta were obtained from peripheral waveforms recorded non-invasively (SphygmoCor, AtCor Medical, Australia) before, during and after hemodialysis sessions performed after 3-day and 2-day interdialytic intervals in 35 anuric, prevalent hemodialysis patients. Fluid status was assessed by Body Composition Monitor (Fresenius Medical Care, Bad Homburg, Germany) and online hematocrit monitoring device (CritLine, HemaMetrics, Utah). Systolic pressure and ejection duration decreased during dialysis. Augmentation index remained stable at 30 ± 13% throughout hemodialysis session despite the decrease of augmented pressure and pulse height. Subendocardial viability ratio (SEVR) determined after 3-day and 2-day interdialytic intervals increased during the sessions by 43.8 ± 26.6% and 26.1 ± 25.4%, respectively. Hemodialysis performed after 3-day and 2-day interdialytic periods reduced significantly overhydration by 2.4 ± 1.0 L and 1.8 ± 1.2 L and blood volume by 16.3 ± 9.7% and 13.7 ± 8.9%, respectively. Intradialytic increase of SEVR correlated with ultrafiltration rate (R = 0.39, p-value < 0.01), reduction in overhydration (R = -0.57, p-value < 0.001) and blood volume drop (R = -0.38, p-value < 0.01). The strong correlation between the decrease of overhydration during hemodialysis and increase in SEVR confirmed that careful fluid management is crucial for proper cardiac function. Hemodialysis affected cardiovascular system with the parameters derived from pulse-wave-analysis (systolic and augmented pressures, pulse height, ejection duration, SEVR) being significantly different at the end of dialysis from those before the session. Combination of pulse-wave-analysis with the monitoring of overhydration provides a new insight into the impact of hemodialysis on cardiovascular system

Seismic modelling of the lithosphere structure under Logachev Seamount on Knipovich Ridge (Greenland Sea)

To better understand the lithospheric structure beneath the ultraslow-spreading ridges the active seismic survey within the Knipovich Ridge Passive Seismic Experiment (KNIPAS) was carried out. The aim of this work was to provide a segment-scale image of lithosphere structure, velocity field and its boundaries beneath the Logachev Seamount on the Knipovich Ridge. Active seismic profiles were acquired during cruise no. MSM67 in September 2017. On the ocean floor at depths from 2.3 to 3.3 km seismic energy was recorded by 8 ocean bottom seismometers (OBS). In total 320 km of seismic data was collected along 6 profiles with lengths varying from 30 to approximately 60 km covering the area of around 2200 km2. The profiles are crossing each other over the center of the Logachev Seamount. High resolution bathymetric data acquired during the cruise combined with previous bathymetry data sets were utilized as an ocean bottom layer within the seismic model. Our intention underlying this work is to provide evidence of crustal thickness variation beneath the Logachev Seamount and therefore substantially contribute to an understanding of this type of ridges. For the 2D modeling process only data from OBSs near the profiles were used. Seismic model was prepared for each seismic line by iterative trial-and-error ray tracing. After preparation and initial processing of the acquired data, picking of visible first breaks on all seismic sections had been done. Layers of the model were added to assume the best fit between calculated travel times and picks. Five lithospheric layers for the longest profiles were separated with substantial velocity contrasts at the boundaries. Besides first arrivals, later phases and multiples were used. Water wave and its multiples allowed estimation of the velocity in the sea water. Available non-linear information from all profiles will be used for further 3D tomography modeling. By combining the available observables from all seismic profiles we draw the following conclusions. The resulting 2D lithosphere models show relatively high velocity gradients especially for the middle oceanic crust. High velocities 5.3 – 5.8 km/s are observed just below the surface over the seamount center. We found ca. 1.5 km uplift of the lower oceanic crust layer to the East of the Logachev Seamount. For the longest profile layer with velocity above 8 km/s was distinguished at depth of approximately 10 km which can suggest presence of the Moho discontinuity