LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Pulsed laser deposition of barium hexaferrite (BaFe12O19) thin films

Abstract Hexagonal thin films of barium hexaferrite (BaFe 12 O 19 ) were fabricated by pulsed laser deposition (PLD) on sapphire substrates. The films were grown in oxygen atmosphere by two different pulsed excimer lasers: a XeCl* ( λ =308 nm, τ FWHM ≤30 ns) and a KrF* ( λ =248 nm, τ FWHM ≥20 ns) laser in the temperature range 500–750°C. The experiments showed that the heating temperature is a key parameter in determining the films' magnetic characteristics. Some of the films were laser annealed with an Nd:YAG laser ( λ =1064 nm). High coercivity H c =3.6 kOe and good hysteresis shapes were obtained. An anisotropy of the coercive force H c , saturation magnetization M s and remanent magnetization M r was observed. The magnetic measurements were correlated with the structural and compositional characterization performed by X-ray diffraction (XRD), atomic force microscopy (AFM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS).
Omnidirectional, broadband light absorption using large-area, ultrathin lossy metallic film coatings

Resonant absorbers based on nanostructured materials are promising for variety of applications including optical filters, thermophotovoltaics, thermal emitters, and hot-electron collection. One of the significant challenges for such micro/nanoscale featured medium or surface, however, is costly lithographic processes for structural patterning which restricted from industrial production of complex designs. Here, we demonstrate lithography-free, broadband, polarization-independent optical absorbers based on a three-layer ultrathin film composed of subwavelength chromium (Cr) and oxide film coatings. We have measured almost perfect absorption as high as 99.5% across the entire visible regime and beyond (400-800 nm). In addition to near-ideal absorption, our absorbers exhibit omnidirectional independence for incidence angle over ±60 degrees. Broadband absorbers introduced in this study perform better than nanostructured plasmonic absorber counterparts in terms of bandwidth, polarization and angle independence. Improvements of such "blackbody" samples based on uniform thin-film coatings is attributed to extremely low quality factor of asymmetric highly-lossy Fabry-Perot cavities. Such broadband absorber designs are ultrathin compared to carbon nanotube based black materials, and does not require lithographic processes. This demonstration redirects the broadband super absorber design to extreme simplicity, higher performance and cost effective manufacturing convenience for practical industrial production.
Effects of intensive phonomotor treatment on reading in eight individuals with aphasia and phonological alexia.

PURPOSE
The aim of this study was to investigate effects of a multimodal treatment of phonology, phonomotor treatment, on the reading abilities of persons with aphasia (PWA) with phonological alexia.


METHOD
In a retrospective, single-group design, this study presents pre-, post-, and 3-months posttreatment data for 8 PWA with phonological alexia. Participants completed 60 hr of phonomotor treatment over 6 weeks. Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests and group effect sizes comparing pre-, immediately post-, and 3-months posttreatment performance on tests of phonological processing and reading were performed.


RESULTS
Group data showed phonological processing and oral reading of real words and nonwords improved significantly posttreatment; these gains were maintained 3 months later. No group improvement was found for reading comprehension; however, one individual did show improvement immediately post- and 3-months posttreatment.


CONCLUSIONS
This study provides support that phonomotor treatment is a viable approach to improve phonological processing and oral reading for PWA with phonological alexia. The lack of improvement with comprehension is inconsistent with prior work using similar treatments (Conway et al., 1998; Kendall et al., 2003). However, this difference can, in part, be accounted for by differences in variables, such as treatment intensity and frequency, outcome measures, and alexia severity.
Why is the Public Sector More Labor-Intensive? A Distortionary Tax Argument

Why Is the Public Sector More Labor-Intensive? A Distortionary Tax Argument Government-run entities are often more labor-intensive than private companies, even with identical production technologies. This need not imply slack in the public sector, but may be a rational response to its wage tax advantage over private firms. A tax-favored treatment of public production precludes production efficiency. It reduces welfare when labor supply is constant. With an elastic labor supply, a wage tax advantage of the public sector may improve welfare if it allows for a higher net wage. This would counteract the distortion of labor supply arising from wage taxation. Full privatization is never optimal if the labor supply elasticity is positive but small. JEL Classification: L33, J45, D24, H21
Biomechanical performance of baseball pitchers with a history of ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction.

BACKGROUND
A relatively high number of active professional baseball pitchers have a history of ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction (UCLr) on their throwing elbow. Controversy exists in the literature about whether professional baseball pitchers regain optimal performance after return from UCLr. It has been suggested that pitchers may have different biomechanics after UCLr, but this has not been previously tested.


HYPOTHESIS
It was hypothesized that, compared with a control group without a history of UCLr, professional pitchers with a history of UCLr would have (1) significantly different throwing elbow and shoulder biomechanics; (2) a shortened stride, insufficient trunk forward tilt, and excessive shoulder horizontal adduction, characteristics associated with "holding back" or being tentative; (3) late shoulder rotation; and (4) improper shoulder abduction and trunk lateral tilt.


STUDY DESIGN
Controlled laboratory study.


METHODS
A total of 80 active minor league baseball pitchers (and their 8 Major League Baseball organizations) agreed to participate in this study. Participants included 40 pitchers with a history of UCLr and a matched control group of 40 pitchers with no history of elbow or shoulder surgery. Passive ranges of motion were measured for each pitcher's elbows and shoulders, and then 23 reflective markers were attached to his body. The pitcher took as many warm-up pitches as desired and then threw 10 full-effort fastballs for data collection. Ball speed was recorded with a radar gun. The reflective markers were tracked with a 10-camera, 240-Hz automated motion analysis system. Eleven biomechanical parameters were computed for each pitch and then averaged for each participant. Demographic, range of motion, and biomechanical parameters were compared between the UCLr group and the control group by use of Student t tests (significance set at P<.05).


RESULTS
All hypotheses were rejected, as there were no differences in pitching biomechanics between the UCLr group and the control group. There were also no differences in passive range of motion between the 2 groups.


CONCLUSION
Compared with a control group, active professional pitchers with a history of UCLr displayed no significant differences in shoulder and elbow passive range of motion and no significant differences in elbow and shoulder biomechanics.


CLINICAL RELEVANCE
Clinical studies have previously shown that 10% to 33% of professional pitchers do not return to their preinjury level; however, the current study showed that those pitchers who successfully return to professional baseball after UCLr pitch with biomechanics similar to that of noninjured professionals.
Face Antispoofing Using Speeded-Up Robust Features and Fisher Vector Encoding

The vulnerabilities of face biometric authentication systems to spoofing attacks have received a significant attention during the recent years. Some of the proposed countermeasures have achieved impressive results when evaluated on intratests, i.e., the system is trained and tested on the same database. Unfortunately, most of these techniques fail to generalize well to unseen attacks, e.g., when the system is trained on one database and then evaluated on another database. This is a major concern in biometric antispoofing research that is mostly overlooked. In this letter, we propose a novel solution based on describing the facial appearance by applying Fisher vector encoding on speeded-up robust features extracted from different color spaces. The evaluation of our countermeasure on three challenging benchmark face-spoofing databases, namely the CASIA face antispoofing database, the replay-attack database, and MSU mobile face spoof database, showed excellent and stable performance across all the three datasets. Most importantly, in interdatabase tests, our proposed approach outperforms the state of the art and yields very promising generalization capabilities, even when only limited training data are used.
Sustained efficacy of adefovir add-on therapy in chronic hepatitis B patient with a poor virological response to peginterferon alfa.

BACKGROUND
Currently, there is no consensus on the recommendation of peginterferon alfa (pegIFNα) to chronic hepatitis B (CHB) patients with poor viral response (EVR). This study aimed to assess the sustained curative efficacy of adefovir (ADV) add-on therapy in optimizing pegIFNα monotherapy.


METHODS
A total of 85 hepatitis B e antigen (HBeAg)-positive CHB patients with poor virological response at month 6 after starting pegIFNα-2a were enrolled, and received either pegIFNα-2a continuing monotherapy (group A, n = 51) or add-on therapy with ADV (group B, n = 34). The treatment duration for all patients was 6 months, and the sustained responses after the end of treatment were evaluated between two groups.


RESULTS
The baseline characteristics were comparable between two groups. At months 6 after treatment completion, the sustained virological response (SVR) rates were 31.4% and 73.5%, the sustained biochemical response (SBR) rates were 39.2% and 85.3% in group A and group B respectively, and the difference in either SVR or SBR was statistically significant (both p < 0.001). As compared to patients in group A, significantly more patients in group B obtained HBeAg loss (19.6% vs. 55.9%, p = 0.001) and seroconversion (13.7% vs. 41.2%, p = 0.004).


CONCLUSION
ADV add-on therapy could significantly improve and sustain the curative efficacy of CHB patient with poor virological response to pegIFNα-2a monotherapy, but further large well-designed randomized controlled trials are needed to confirm our findings.
Addressing health disparities in the mental health of refugee children and adolescents through community-based participatory research: a study in 2 communities.

OBJECTIVES
We sought to understand the problems, strengths, and help-seeking behaviors of Somali Bantu and Bhutanese refugees and determine local expressions of mental health problems among youths in both communities.


METHODS
We used qualitative research methods to develop community needs assessments and identify local terms for child mental health problems among Somali Bantu and Bhutanese refugees in Greater Boston and Springfield, Massachusetts, between 2011 and 2014. A total of 56 Somali Bantu and 93 Bhutanese refugees participated in free list and key informant interviews.


RESULTS
Financial and language barriers impeded the abilities of families to assist youths who were struggling academically and socially. Participants identified resources both within and outside the refugee community to help with these problems. Both communities identified areas of distress corresponding to Western concepts of conduct disorders, depression, and anxiety.


CONCLUSIONS
There are numerous challenges faced by Somali Bantu and Bhutanese youths, as well as strengths and resources that promote resilience. Future steps include using culturally informed methods for identifying those in need of services and developing community-based prevention programs.
Eating disorders

This Seminar adds to the previous Lancet Seminar about eating disorders, published in 2003, with an emphasis on the biological contributions to illness onset and maintenance. The diagnostic criteria are in the process of review, and the probable four new categories are: anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, binge eating disorder, and eating disorder not otherwise specified. These categories will also be broader than they were previously, which will affect the population prevalence; the present lifetime prevalence of all eating disorders is about 5%. Eating disorders can be associated with profound and protracted physical and psychosocial morbidity. The causal factors underpinning eating disorders have been clarified by understanding about the central control of appetite. Cultural, social, and interpersonal elements can trigger onset, and changes in neural networks can sustain the illness. Overall, apart from studies reporting pharmacological treatments for binge eating disorder, advances in treatment for adults have been scarce, other than interest in new forms of treatment delivery.
Computing beyond Moore's Law

Photolithography systems are on pace to reach atomic scale by the mid-2020s, necessitating alternatives to continue realizing faster, more predictable, and cheaper computing performance. If the end of Moore's law is real, a research agenda is needed to assess the viability of novel semiconductor technologies and navigate the ensuing challenges.
Using and Reporting the Delphi Method for Selecting Healthcare Quality Indicators: A Systematic Review

OBJECTIVE
Delphi technique is a structured process commonly used to developed healthcare quality indicators, but there is a little recommendation for researchers who wish to use it. This study aimed 1) to describe reporting of the Delphi method to develop quality indicators, 2) to discuss specific methodological skills for quality indicators selection 3) to give guidance about this practice.


METHODOLOGY AND MAIN FINDING
Three electronic data bases were searched over a 30 years period (1978-2009). All articles that used the Delphi method to select quality indicators were identified. A standardized data extraction form was developed. Four domains (questionnaire preparation, expert panel, progress of the survey and Delphi results) were assessed. Of 80 included studies, quality of reporting varied significantly between items (9% for year's number of experience of the experts to 98% for the type of Delphi used). Reporting of methodological aspects needed to evaluate the reliability of the survey was insufficient: only 39% (31/80) of studies reported response rates for all rounds, 60% (48/80) that feedback was given between rounds, 77% (62/80) the method used to achieve consensus and 57% (48/80) listed quality indicators selected at the end of the survey. A modified Delphi procedure was used in 49/78 (63%) with a physical meeting of the panel members, usually between Delphi rounds. Median number of panel members was 17(Q1:11; Q3:31). In 40/70 (57%) studies, the panel included multiple stakeholders, who were healthcare professionals in 95% (38/40) of cases. Among 75 studies describing criteria to select quality indicators, 28 (37%) used validity and 17(23%) feasibility.


CONCLUSION
The use and reporting of the Delphi method for quality indicators selection need to be improved. We provide some guidance to the investigators to improve the using and reporting of the method in future surveys.
Short version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale adapted to Spanish and French: Towards a cross-cultural research in problematic mobile phone use.

Research into smartphone addiction has followed the scientific literature on problematic mobile phone use developed during the last decade, with valid screening scales being developed to identify maladaptive behaviour associated with this technology, usually in adolescent populations. This study adapts the short version of the Smartphone Addiction Scale [SAS-SV] into Spanish and into French. The aim of the study was to (i) examine the scale's psychometric properties in both languages, (ii) estimate the prevalence of potential excessive smartphone use among Spanish and Belgian adults, and (iii) compare the addictive symptomatology measured by the SAS-SV between potentially excessive users from both countries. Data were collected via online surveys administered to 281 and 144 voluntary participants from both countries respectively, aged over 18years and recruited from academic environments. Results indicated that the reliability was excellent (i.e., Cronbach alphas: Spain: .88 and Belgium: .90), and the validity was very good (e.g., unifactoriality with a 49% and 54% of variance explained through explorative factor analysis, respectively). Findings showed that the prevalence of potential excessive smartphone use 12.5% for Spanish and 21.5% for francophone Belgians. The scale showed that at least 60% of excessive users endorsed withdrawal and tolerance symptoms in both countries, although the proposed addictive symptomatology did not cover the entire group of estimated excessive users and cultural differences appeared. This first cross-cultural study discusses the smartphone excessive use construct from its addictive pathway.
Efficacy of subcutaneous methylnaltrexone in the treatment of opioid-induced constipation: a responder post hoc analysis.

OBJECTIVE
Methylnaltrexone, a selective peripherally acting mu-opioid receptor antagonist, effectively treats opioid-induced constipation (OIC) in patients with advanced illness and shows efficacy in patients with chronic nonmalignant pain. The objective was to identify patients who achieved maximal treatment effect based on response to initial four methylnaltrexone doses.


DESIGN
A post hoc analysis of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study evaluating patients with OIC and chronic nonmalignant pain who received 12 mg subcutaneous methylnaltrexone daily for 4 weeks was performed to determine if response to the first four methylnaltrexone doses predicted overall response during the study. Patients receiving ≥8 doses were included.


OUTCOME MEASURES
Patients having ≥3 rescue-free bowel movements (RFBMs)/week; change from baseline in RFBMs/week; percentage of doses with RFBMs within 4 hours after dosing.


RESULTS
Of 137 patients, 58 patients (42.3%) had RFBMs after ≥2 of four doses. Among those with response to ≥2 of four doses, 81% had ≥3 RFBMs/week vs. 43% for those with response to <2 of four (P < 0.0001). Those with RFBMs after ≥2 of first four doses averaged 4.8 RFBMs/week vs. 2.0 RFBMs/week for those with <2 of four (P < 0.0001). Percentage of subsequent injections resulting in RFBMs within 4 hours was 45.9 ± 27.6 for those with response to ≥2 of four doses vs. 17.1 ± 19.1 for those with response to <2 of four (P < 0.0001). Abdominal pain was the most frequently reported adverse event.


CONCLUSION
Early response to ≥2 of first four doses of methylnaltrexone identified patients who demonstrated a particularly robust effect of treatment over the duration of use.
Efficacy and tolerability of propiverine hydrochloride extended-release compared with immediate-release in patients with neurogenic detrusor overactivity

Study design:Double-blind, randomised, multicentre study.Objectives:Efficacy and tolerability of propiverine extended-release (ER) compared with immediate-release (IR) were evaluated in patients with proven neurogenic detrusor overactivity (NDO).Setting:Six Spinal Cord Injury Units located in Austria, Germany and Romania.Methods:Propiverine ER 45 mg s.i.d. or IR 15 mg t.i.d. were administered in patients with proven NDO. Outcomes were assessed at baseline (V1), and after 21 days of treatment (V2): Reflex volume served as primary, leak point volume and maximum detrusor pressure as secondary efficacy outcomes, treatment-related adverse events as tolerability outcomes.Results:Sixty-six patients with proven NDO were enrolled. Reflex volume (ml) increased significantly in the IR (V1: 100.9, V2: 202.9) and in the ER (V1: 89.8, V2: 180.3) group, no significant intergroup difference. Leak point volume increased, and maximum detrusor pressure decreased significantly in both groups, no significant intergroup differences. The percentage of patients presenting with incontinence was reduced by 14% in the IR and by 39% in the ER group, the difference is significant. Treatment-related adverse events manifested in 42 and 36% following propiverine IR and ER, respectively.Conclusion:The urodynamic efficacy outcomes demonstrated both galenic formulations to be equieffective. However, following propiverine ER 45 mg s.i.d. higher continence rates compared with propiverine IR 15 mg t.i.d. were achieved, possibly indicative of more balanced plasma-levels. A slight tendency for superior tolerability outcomes of propiverine ER compared with IR was demonstrated.Sponsorship:The study was sponsored by an unrestricted educational grant of APOGEPHA Arzneimittel GmbH, Dresden, Germany.
Calculation of the Deflection of Light Ray near the Sun with Quantum-corrected Newton's Gravitation Law

The deflection of light ray passing near the Sun is calculated with quantum-corrected Newton's gravitation law. The satisfactory result suggests that there may exist other theoretical possibilities besides the theory of relativity.
A profile and approach to chronic disease in Abu Dhabi

As a country, the United Arab Emirates has developed very rapidly from a developing country with a largely nomadic population, to a modern and wealthy country with a Western lifestyle. This economic progress has brought undoubted social benefits and opportunities for UAE citizens, including a high and increasing life expectancy. However, rapid modernization and urbanization have contributed to a significant problem with chronic diseases, particularly obesity-related cardiovascular risk. In response the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi has significantly strengthened its data systems to better assess the baseline and measure the impact of targeted interventions. The unique population-level Weqaya Programme for UAE Nationals living in Abu Dhabi has recruited more than 94% of adults into a screening programme for the rapid identification of those at risk and the deployment of targeted interventions to control that risk. This article describes the burden of non-communicable disease in Abu Dhabi, and the efforts made by the Health Authority of Abu Dhabi to tackle this burden including the development of a whole population cardiovascular screening programme changes to health policy, particularly in terms of lifestyle and behaviour change, and empowerment of the community to enable individuals to make healthier choices. In addition, recommendations have been made for global responsibility for tackling chronic disease.