LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Toward open-world software: Issues and challenges

Traditional software development is based on the closed-world assumption that the boundary between system and environment is known and unchanging. However, this assumption no longer works within today's unpredictable open-world settings, especially in ubiquitous and pervasive computing settings, which demand techniques that let software react to changes by self-organizing its structure and self-adapting its behavior. The more we move toward dynamic and heterogeneous systems, and the more we stress their self-healing and self-adapting capabilities, the more we need new approaches to develop these applications and new ways to structure and program them. Programming open systems requires new programming language features. Two features that bear investigation are introspection mechanisms to get runtime information about newly encountered services and reflective mechanisms to adapt client applications dynamically. Some existing standards, industrial products, and research prototypes that support, to a certain extent, the open-world assumptions are service-oriented technologies, publish/subscribe middleware systems, grid infrastructures, autonomic frameworks
Long-term biomechanical stability and clinical improvement after extended multilevel corpectomy and circumferential reconstruction of the cervical spine using titanium mesh cages.

STUDY DESIGN
Retrospective review of clinical case series.


OBJECTIVE
We present our experience with extended (> or =3 levels) anterior cervical corpectomy (EACC) and reconstruction.


SUMMARY OF BACKGROUND DATA
Multilevel cervical corpectomy has traditionally been associated with increased graft-related complications and worse clinical outcomes compared with single-level procedures. Data specifically regarding corpectomies across 3 or more levels remains limited.


METHODS
Retrospective review of data on 20 patients who underwent anterior cervical corpectomies with titanium mesh cage reconstruction and supplemental posterolateral fixation across 3 or more levels of the cervical spine. Anteroposterior/lateral plain films were used to determine sagittal balance and cage subsidence. Fusion was defined as the lack of motion on flexion-extension radiographs. Patients underwent preoperative and postoperative clinical assessment using visual analog scores and Nurick grading.


RESULTS
Surgery was performed for spondylotic myelopathy in 15 patients, osteomyelitis in 4, and fracture in 1. Corpectomies were performed across an average of 3.4 levels. Average follow-up was 33 months. Local autograft was used in all cases except osteomyelitis, where allograft was used instead. Sagittal balance was improved or maintained in all patients and was not related to number of corpectomy levels. An average of 30.2 degrees of kyphosis correction was achieved in 9 patients. All patients demonstrated radiographic evidence of fusion without significant cage subsidence and no cases of instrumentation failure. Improvement in pain and functional scores occurred in all cases.


CONCLUSIONS
Circumferential reconstruction using titanium mesh cages after EACC can provide appropriate, biomechanically stable fixation and allows for significant correction of preexisting kyphosis. Supplemental posterior instrumentation may limit delayed cage subsidence and loss of sagittal balance after this procedure. EACC and circumferential reconstruction seems to be an effective treatment for symptomatic degenerative, traumatic, or infectious pathology involving 3 or more levels of the anterior cervical spine.
Effect of Intravitreal Injection of Methotrexate on Human Corneal Endothelial Cells.

PURPOSE
To evaluate the toxic effect of intravitreal methotrexate on human corneal endothelium.


METHODS
In this prospective noncomparative interventional case series, intravitreal injection of 400 μg methotrexate was performed in eyes with persistent diabetic macular edema. Corneal endothelial cell analyses and central corneal thickness measurements were performed before and 1, 3, and 6 months after injections, using noncontact specular microscopy.


RESULTS
Twenty one eyes of 18 patients with a mean age of 60.5 ± 6.8 years were evaluated. No statistically significant difference was found in endothelial cell density, coefficient of variation, average cell area, hexagonality, and central corneal thickness measurements before and after injections (P = 0.70, 0.39, 0.43, 0.64, and 0.67, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
In this 6-month follow-up study, intravitreal injection of 400 μg methotrexate had no significant effect on corneal endothelial cell measurements performed by specular microscopy.
Recent Developments in Indian Sign Language Recognition : An Analysis

There exists significant variation between sign language recognition processes across the world, although there are many similarities. Pre-processing, feature extraction and classification are the three major steps involved in the sign language recognition process. An analysis of scientific literature indicates the potential of various methods in achieving significantly high accuracy in image recognition. Further examination of the literature indicates the voluminous works carried out in American Sign Language recognition systems and most of these works compare the potential of various methods and combination of methods for their accuracy. Although, the comparison using randomly selected gestures for their potential would result in realistic overall accuracy for ASL where the gestures are simple and distinct, the complete adoption of such methods for Indian Sign Language (ISL) recognition may not be ideal due to the complexity in ISL. Other than static gestures, the dynamic gestures, gestures including facial expression, similarity in gestures, all increase the complexity of ISL. Therefore, the potential of different methods and their combinations need to evaluate in the context of ISL. A preliminary study to analyse the potential of promising feature extraction methods indicated that the methods could vary significantly while handling gestures with resemblances. This clearly indicates the necessity to screen gesture recognition methods for their accuracy in handling gestures in the context of complex ISL. Keywords— Indian Sign Language, Gesture Recognition, Preprocessing, Feature Extraction, Classification.
Drivers of agile software development use: Dialectic interplay between benefits and hindrances

Context: Agile software development with its emphasis on producing working code through frequent releases, extensive client interactions and iterative development has emerged as an alternative to traditional plan-based software development methods. While a number of case studies have provided insights into the use and consequences of agile, few empirical studies have examined the factors that drive the adoption and use of agile. Objective: We draw on intention-based theories and a dialectic perspective to identify factors driving the use of agile practices among adopters of this software development methodology. Method: Data for the study was gathered through an anonymous online survey of software development professionals. We requested participation from members of a selected list of online discussion groups, and received 98 responses. Results: Our analyses reveal that subjective norm and training play a significant role in influencing software developers’ use of agile processes and methods, while perceived benefits and perceived limitations are not primary drivers of agile use among adopters. Interestingly, perceived benefit emerges as a significant predictor of agile use only if adopters face hindrances to their agile practices. Conclusion: We conclude that research in the adoption of software development innovations should examine the effects of both enabling and detracting factors and the interactions between them. Since training, subjective norm, and the interplay between perceived benefits and perceived hindrances appear to be key factors influencing the adoption of agile methods, researchers can focus on how to (a) perform training on agile methods more effectively, (b) facilitate the dialog between developers and managers about perceived benefits and hindrances, and (c) capitalize on subjective norm to publicize the benefits of agile methods within an organization. Further, when managing the transition to new software development methods, we recommend that practitioners adapt their strategies and tactics contingent on the extent of perceived hindrances to the change. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
A combined recognition and segmentation model for urban traffic scene understanding

The perception of traffic related objects in the vehicles environment is an essential prerequisite for future autonomous driving. Cameras are particularly suited for this task, as the traffic relevant information of a scene is inferable from its visual appearance. In traffic scene understanding, semantic segmentation denotes the task of generating and labeling regions in the image that correspond to specific object categories, such as cars or road area. In contrast, the task of scene recognition assigns a global label to an image, that reflects the overall category of the scene. This paper presents a deep neural network (DNN) capable of solving both problems in a computationally efficient manner. The architecture is designed to avoid redundant computations, as the task specific decoders share a common feature encoder stage. A novel Hadamard layer with element-wise weights efficiently exploits spatial priors for the segmentation task. Traffic scene segmentation is investigated in conjunction with road topology recognition based on the cityscapes dataset [1] augmented with manually labeled road topology ground truth data.
The effect of foot reflexology massage on the level of pain during chest tube removal after open heart surgery

Aims: Pain due to the removal of the chest tube is one of the important complications after open heart surgery. In the case of inadequate pain management, sympathetic system is stimulated and can lead to irreversible complications. Studies showed the effect of reflexology massage on pain relief in other cases; so this study had been done with the aim of “determining the effect of foot reflexology on the pain of the patients under open heart surgery during chest tube removal”. Methods: This randomized clinical study with control group was done in the hospitals covered by Baqiyatallah Medical Sciences University in 2013. Ninety samples were divided into three experimental, control and placebo-treated groups based on randomized allocation. Pain level was measured through Numerical Rating Scale (NRS) in all the three groups before intervention. In the experimental group center of the anterior one-third and in the placebotreated group, Posterior one-third of the left foot was being massaged for ten minutes before chest tube removal. There was no measurement in the control group. After removal of the chest tube, the level of the pain was measured and documented immediately. Data were analyzed by SPSS18 software by the help of descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Difference in the mean of the quantitative variables including; age, height, weight and level of the body and demographic qualitative variables of the patients including; education status, occupation and marital status was not significant (p>0.05). Expected increasing of the pain due to the chest pain tube removal was not significant in the experimental group (p=0.08), while placebo-treated and control groups had significant increase of the pain (p=0.001 and p=0.000
Models as Economies

The distinction between actual economies and stylized general equilibrium models is no t sharp. General equilibrium models with such key elements as uncerta inty, spatial separation, private information, limited communication, and limited commitment provide a catalogue that one can use to inter pret actual economies. Further, a general equilibrium model can provi de a framework one can use to trace out the logic of some premise for joint, economy-wide phenomena, a web to tie together seemingly unrel ated observations. Also, in tolerating wide variations in environment s, general equilibrium models provide laboratories one can use to con duct relatively inexpensive policy experiments. Copyright 1987 by Royal Economic Society.
Estimating linear functionals of the error distribution in nonparametric regression

This paper addresses estimation of linear functionals of the error distribution in nonparametric regression models. It derives an i.i.d. representation for the empirical estimator based on residuals, using undersmoothed estimators for the regression curve. Asymptotic efficiency of the estimator is proved. Estimation of the error variance is discussed in detail. In this case, undersmoothing is not necessary. AMS 2000 subject classifications. Primary 62G05, 62G08, 62G20.
Quantitative genetic research on sleep: a review of normal sleep, sleep disturbances and associated emotional, behavioural, and health-related difficulties.

Over the past 50 years, well over 100 twin studies have focussed on understanding factors contributing to variability in normal sleep-wake characteristics and sleep disturbances. Whilst we have gained a great deal from these studies, there is still much to be learnt. Twin studies can be used in multiple ways to answer questions beyond simply estimating heritability. This paper provides a comprehensive review of some of the most important findings from twin studies relating to sleep to date, with a focus on studies investigating genetic and environmental influences contributing to i) objective and subjective measures of normal sleep characteristics (e.g., sleep stage organisation, sleep quality); as well as sleep disturbances and disorders such as dyssomnias (e.g., insomnia, narcolepsy) and parasomnias (e.g., sleepwalking, bruxism); ii) the persistence of sleep problems from childhood to adulthood, and the possibility that the aetiological influences on sleep change with age; iii) the associations between sleep disturbances, emotional, behavioural and health-related problems; and iv) processes of gene-environment correlation and interaction. We highlight avenues for further research, emphasising the need to further consider the aetiology of longitudinal associations between sleep disturbances and psychopathology; the genetic and environmental overlap between sleep and numerous phenotypes; and processes of gene-environment interplay and epigenetics.
A global perspective on MAP inference for low-level vision

In recent years the Markov Random Field (MRF) has become the de facto probabilistic model for low-level vision applications. However, in a maximum a posteriori (MAP) framework, MRFs inherently encourage delta function marginal statistics. By contrast, many low-level vision problems have heavy tailed marginal statistics, making the MRF model unsuitable. In this paper we introduce a more general Marginal Probability Field (MPF), of which the MRF is a special, linear case, and show that convex energy MPFs can be used to encourage arbitrary marginal statistics. We introduce a flexible, extensible framework for effectively optimizing the resulting NP-hard MAP problem, based around dual-decomposition and a modified min-cost flow algorithm, and which achieves global optimality in some instances. We use a range of applications, including image denoising and texture synthesis, to demonstrate the benefits of this class of MPF over MRFs.
Gender difference in benefits of twinning in pre‐industrial humans: boys did not pay

1. We studied how differences in the cost of producing male and female offspring in humans affected the productivity of twin vs. singleton deliveries in two ecologically different areas of pre-industrial (1752–1850) Finland. Given the higher energy requirements of male infants, we predicted sons to suffer more from increased litter size and food scarcity than daughters. 2. We found that the number of offspring surviving to adulthood from a twin delivery differed between the archipelago and mainland areas of rural Finland. On the mainland areas, where crop failures and subsequent famines were common throughout the centuries, twin deliveries were much less successful than in the south-west archipelago, where food conditions were traditionally more stable and survival was ensured by fishing. 3. Productivity of twin deliveries was modified by the gender composition of the twins; female–female twin births were generally most successful and male–male births least successful. 4. On the mainland, giving birth to twins of any gender composition never increased the mothers’ reproductive success beyond giving birth to either a male or female single ton, whereas in the archipelago mothers could increase their reproductive output by producing twins. This was because in the archipelago female–female twin deliveries contributed on average more than one adult offspring to the breeding population, whereas a singleton delivery of either gender produced only about 0·7 adults. 5. Our results show that increases in litter size and variability of food conditions increased male mortality. High female twin survival in the archipelago led to higher fitness of twinning mothers in relation to mothers with only singletons. Twinning has traditionally been significantly more common in the archipelago as compared to the mainland, but contrary to the prediction, there were no apparent differences in the frequency of male–male and female–female twins being born.
Omega-3 fatty acids from fish oils and cardiovascular disease

Fish and fish oils contain the omega-3 fatty acids known as eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) plus docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). Epidemiological studies have shown an inverse relation between the dietary consumption of fish containing EPA/DHA and mortality from coronary heart disease. These relationships have been substantiated from blood measures of omega-3 fatty acids including DHA as a physiological biomarker for omega-3 fatty acid status. Controlled intervention trials with fish oil supplements enriched in EPA/DHA have shown their potential to reduce mortality in post-myocardial infarction patients with a substantial reduction in the risk of sudden cardiac death. The cardioprotective effects of EPA/DHA are widespread, appear to act independently of blood cholesterol reduction, and are mediated by diverse mechanisms. Their overall effects include anti-arrhythmic, blood triglyceride-lowering, anti-thrombotic, anti-inflammatory, endothelial relaxation, plus others. Current dietary intakes of EPA/DHA in North America and elsewhere are well below those recommended by the American Heart Association for the management of patients with coronary heart disease. (Mol Cell Biochem 263: 217–225, 2004)
HIV seroconversion interval and demographic characteristics: no evidence of selection bias.

OBJECTIVES
To determine if the interval between the last negative and the first positive HIV test is associated with demographic characteristics of HIV seroconverters.


METHODS
A prospective cohort of patients with HIV seroconversion enrolled in the Lyons HIV hospital database was analysed. Comparisons of demographic characteristics were performed after stratification on the duration of the interval between the last HIV negative screening test and the first HIV positive screening test, which ranged from 1 day to 24 months. Linear regression methods were used to identify the covariates associated with a negative HIV antibody test followed by a positive test.


RESULTS
Age (p = 0.54), sex (p = 0.78), heterosexual route of infection (p = 0.78), other route (p = 0.40) compared with homosexual route, and estimated year of HIV infection (p value ranged from 0.84 to 0.95) were not associated with a shorter seroconversion interval after multivariate analyses. The presence of an acute HIV illness was the only predictor of a short seroconversion interval (p = 0.006) with a reduction of 84 days of the interval when it was reported.


CONCLUSIONS
No selection bias for demographic characteristics of HIV seroconverters seems associated with the length of the seroconversion interval, at least for intervals < or = 24 months.
Treating to target matrix metalloproteinase 3 normalisation together with disease activity score below 2.6 yields better effects than each alone in rheumatoid arthritis patients: T-4 Study.

OBJECTIVES
To assess whether therapy to achieve both a disease activity score in 28 joints (DAS28) less than 2.6 and matrix metalloproteinase (MMP) 3 normalisation offers better outcomes than either target alone in early rheumatoid arthritis (RA) at 56 weeks: Treating to Twin Targets (T-4) Study.


METHODS
243 early RA patients were randomly allocated to one of four strategy groups: routine care (R group; n=62); DAS28-driven therapy (D group; n=60); MMP-3-driven therapy (M group; n=60); or both DAS28 and MMP-3-driven therapy group (twin; T group; n=61). Medication was started with sulfasalazine (1 g/day) in all intervention groups. Targets were DAS28 less than 2.6 for the D group, MMP-3 normalisation for the M group and both DAS28 less than 2.6 and MMP-3 normalisation for the T group. If the value in question did not fall below the previously measured level, medication was intensified, including methotrexate, other disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs and biological agents. Primary, secondary and outcome measures consisted of the proportions of patients showing clinical remission (DAS28 <2.6), radiographic non-progression (Δmodified total Sharp score ≤0.5), normal physical function (modified health assessment questionnaire score 0), or comprehensive disease remission defined as the combination of clinical remission, radiographic non-progression and normal physical function.


RESULTS
Clinical remission at 56 weeks was achieved by more patients in the T group (56%) than in the R group (p<0.0005) or M group (p<0.0005).


CONCLUSIONS
Results of the T-4 Study reveal that a twin target strategy can achieve a high clinical remission rate in early RA.
Impact of menopausal status on background parenchymal enhancement and fibroglandular tissue on breast MRI

To evaluate the effect of menopausal status on the background parenchymal enhancement (BPE) and amount of fibroglandular tissue (FGT) on breast MRI. Retrospective review identified 1,130 women who underwent screening breast MRI between July and November 2010. In 28 of these women, breast MRI was performed both at one time point while pre- and one time point while post-menopausal (median interval 49 months). Two independent readers blinded to menopausal status used categorical scales to rate BPE (minimal/mild/moderate/marked) and FGT (fatty/scattered/heterogeneously dense/dense). Consensus was reached when there was disagreement. The sign test was used to assess changes in rating categories, and the Spearman rank and Fisher’s exact tests were used to measure correlations and associations between variables. Significant proportions of women demonstrated decreases in BPE and FGT on post-menopausal breast MRI (P = 0.0001 and P = 0.0009). BPE category was unchanged in 39 % (11/28) and decreased in 61 % (17/28) of women. FGT category was unchanged in 61 % (17/28) and decreased in 39 % (11/28) of women. Age, reason for menopause, or interval between MRIs had no significant impact on changes in BPE and FGT. On MRI, BPE, and FGT decrease after menopause in significant proportions of women; BPE decreases more than FGT. • On MRI, background parenchymal enhancement and fibroglandular tissue both decrease after menopause. • The reduced postmenopausal enhancement is more marked in parenchyma than fibroglandular tissue. • Background enhancement and fibroglandular tissue seen on MRI are under hormonal influence.