2024 Industry Documents Undergraduate Summer Fellowship - JUUL Labs Collection Final Report

This report, developed as part of the 2024 UCSF Industry Documents Library Undergraduate Summer Fellowship, examines four distinct projects that leverage natural language processing and data science within the context of the JUUL Labs Collection and the broader IDL. Project One investigates the optical character recognition (OCR) accuracy of low-quality and handwritten documents in the absence of ground truth data. Project Two explores the implementation of embedding search algorithms and visualizations aimed at enhancing the relevance of document recommendations for users. Project Three employs txt-ferret to conduct a thorough scan of a substantial corpus of industry documents to identify sensitive information, including credit card numbers. Finally, Project Four assesses the biases present in large language model (LLM) summarization through the lens of sentiment analysis

Teaching health advocacy to medical students: a comparison study.

CONTEXT: Many encourage service learning and health advocacy training in medical student education, but related evaluation is limited. OBJECTIVES: To assess (1) impact of a required community health advocacy training for medical students on student attitudes, knowledge, and skills; (2) student characteristics associated with higher advocacy knowledge and skills; and (3) perspectives of community-based organizations (CBOs). DESIGN: Cross-sectional surveys. SETTING: University of Miami Miller School of Medicine (UMMSM) Regional Medical Campus and main campus. PARTICIPANTS: Medical students at both UMMSM campuses. INTERVENTION: Required community health advocacy training for first- and second-year students including classroom experiences and hands-on project in partnership with a CBO. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: Student characteristics, health advocacy-related attitudes, self-reported and objective knowledge, and skills. Scores were compared between campuses, with multivariable modeling adjusting for individual student characteristics. Community-based organization perspectives were assessed via separate surveys. RESULTS: Ninety-eight (77%) regional campus students (intervention group) and 139 (30%) main campus students (comparison group) completed surveys. Versus the comparison group, the intervention group reported greater: mean knowledge of community health needs: 34.6 versus 31.1 (range: 11-44, P \u3c .01), knowledge about CBOs: 3.0 versus 2.7 (range 1-4, P \u3c .01) and knowledge of community resources: 5.4 versus 2.3 (range, 0-11, P \u3c .01), and mean skill scores: 12.7 versus 10.5 (score range: 4-16, P \u3c .01), following the intervention. Using adjusted analysis across both groups, female gender was associated with higher attitudes score. High level of previous community involvement was associated with higher attitude and skill scores. Higher self-reported educational debt was associated with higher skill scores. Community-based organization perspectives included high satisfaction and a desire to influence the training of future physicians. CONCLUSIONS: Medical student advocacy training in partnership with community-based organizations could be beneficial in improving student advocacy knowledge and skills in addressing community health issues and in developing sustainable community partnerships

Atrial Natriuretic Peptide in Young and Elderly Children with Mild Gastroenteritis

Objective. Atrial Natriuretic Peptide (ANP) has natriuretic and diuretic effects, synthesized and stored in the atrial cells, released in response to stretch of the atrial muscle during increase venous return. Acute gastroenteritis (AGE) causes dehydration. We intend to determine whether the decrease in venous return due to dehydration would lead to a decrease in ANP levels. Patients and Methods. This is a prospective observational controlled study. Blood collected from 30 children with AGE and ANP's levels were compared with 25 controls. ANP levels were determined by radioimmunoassay. Results. The study group was in mild dehydration. As a significant difference was found in ANP levels between children in the 3mo–3y group and older children 3y–14y. We analyzed the results according to age. No difference was found between children with AGE and control, in the 3mo–3y, ANP was 12.1 ± 11 pg/ml versus 13.4 ± 12 pg/ml respectively, and 3 ± 2 versus 3.8 ± 3 pg/ml in the 3y–14y groups, respectively. Conclusion. Dehydration due to AGE does not change the ANP's plasma levels. A weak positive correlation between sodium levels and ANP was found r = 0.29. The significant finding of our study is the difference in ANP levels related to age, in the control as well as the GE group

Pyomyositis: A Complicated and Curious Case Report

Introduction: In the elderly (over the age of 50), the risk of urinary tract infections is estimated at 8% per year in men. Anatomic abnormalities such as prostatic hypertrophy, leading to urinary retention is considered as the main reason. Pyomyositis is an uncommon condition of optical urethrotomy, especially in patients who have received local radiation therapy in the past. Till date no cases of pectineus muscle abscess and only two cases of obturator externus muscle abscess have been reported in the literature, with only one developing as a result of genitourinary intervention such as urethrotomy. Case presentation: Here we are presenting a case of a very unusual and serious complication in an elderly man presenting with urosepsis several months after undergoing urethrotomy. Conclusion: Elderly men have an increased risk of sepsis, higher than that in women with UTI

Consumer satisfaction with primary care provider choice and associated trust

BACKGROUND: Development of managed care, characterized by limited provider choice, is believed to undermine trust. Provider choice has been identified as strongly associated with physician trust. Stakeholders in a competitive healthcare market have competing agendas related to choice. The purpose of this study is to analyze variables associated with consumer's satisfaction that they have enough choice when selecting their primary care provider (PCP), and to analyze the importance of these variables on provider trust. METHODS: A 1999 randomized national cross-sectional telephone survey conducted of United States residential households, who had a telephone, had seen a medical professional at least twice in the past two years, and aged ≥ 20 years was selected for secondary data analyses. Among 1,117 households interviewed, 564 were selected as the final sample. Subjects responded to a core set of questions related to provider trust, and a subset of questions related to trust in the insurer. A previously developed conceptual framework was adopted. Linear and logistic regressions were performed based on this framework. RESULTS: Results affirmed 'satisfaction with amount of PCP choice' was significantly (p < .001) associated with provider trust. 'PCP's care being extremely effective' was strongly associated with 'satisfaction with amount of PCP choice' and 'provider trust'. Having sought a second opinion(s) was associated with lower trust. 'Spoke to the PCP outside the medical office,' 'satisfaction with the insurer' and 'insurer charges less if PCP within network' were all variables associated with 'satisfaction with amount of PCP choice' (all p < .05). CONCLUSION: This study confirmed the association of 'satisfaction with amount of PCP choice' with provider trust. Results affirmed 'enough PCP choice' was a strong predictor of provider trust. 'Second opinion on PCP' may indicate distrust in the provider. Data such as 'trust in providers in general' and 'the role of provider performance information' in choice, though import in PCP choice, were not available for analysis and should be explored in future studies. Results have implications for rethinking the relationships among consumer choice, consumer behaviors in making trade-offs in PCP choice, and the role of healthcare experiences in 'satisfaction with amount of PCP choice' or 'provider trust.

Salt restriction in kidney disease—a missed therapeutic opportunity?

The importance of salt restriction in the treatment of patients with renal disease has remained highly controversial. In the following we marshal the current evidence that salt plays a definite role in the genesis of hypertension and target organ damage, point to practical problems of salt restriction, and report on novel pathomechanisms of how salt affects blood pressure and causes target organ damage

Effects of interspecific coexistence on laying date and clutch size in two closely related species of hole-nesting birds

1. Coexistence between great tits Parus major and blue tits Cyanistes caeruleus, but also other hole‐nesting taxa, constitutes a classic example of species co‐occurrence resulting in potential interference and exploitation competition for food and for breeding and roosting sites. However, the spatial and temporal variations in coexistence and its consequences for competition remain poorly understood. 2. We used an extensive database on reproduction in nest boxes by great and blue tits based on 87 study plots across Europe and Northern Africa during 1957–2012 for a total of 19,075 great tit and 16,729 blue tit clutches to assess correlative evidence for a relationship between laying date and clutch size, respectively, and density consistent with effects of intraspecific and interspecific competition. 3. In an initial set of analyses, we statistically controlled for a suite of site‐specific variables. We found evidence for an effect of intraspecific competition on blue tit laying date (later laying at higher density) and clutch size (smaller clutch size at higher density), but no evidence of significant effects of intraspecific competition in great tits, nor effects of interspecific competition for either species. 4. To further control for site‐specific variation caused by a range of potentially confounding variables, we compared means and variances in laying date and clutch size of great and blue tits among three categories of difference in density between the two species. We exploited the fact that means and variances are generally positively correlated. If interspecific competition occurs, we predicted a reduction in mean and an increase in variance in clutch size in great tit and blue tit when density of heterospecifics is higher than the density of conspecifics, and for intraspecific competition, this reduction would occur when density of conspecifics is higher than the density of heterospecifics. Such comparisons of temporal patterns of means and variances revealed evidence, for both species, consistent with intraspecific competition and to a smaller extent with interspecific competition. 5. These findings suggest that competition associated with reproductive behaviour between blue and great tits is widespread, but also varies across large spatial and temporal scales