LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Engineering Ethics: Peace, Justice, and the Earth

Abstract A response of the engineering profession to the challenges of security, poverty and under-development, and environmental sustainability is described. Ethical codes, which govern the behavior of engineers, are examined from a historical perspective linking the prevailing codes to models of the natural world.Anewethical code based on a recently introduced model of Nature as an integral community is provided and discussed. Applications of the new code are described using a case study approach. With the ethical code based on an integral community in place, a new design algorithm is developed and also explored using case studies. Implications of the proposed changes in ethics and design on engineering education are considered.
The effectiveness of e-& mHealth interventions to promote physical activity and healthy diets in developing countries: A systematic review

BACKGROUND
Promoting physical activity and healthy eating is important to combat the unprecedented rise in NCDs in many developing countries. Using modern information-and communication technologies to deliver physical activity and diet interventions is particularly promising considering the increased proliferation of such technologies in many developing countries. The objective of this systematic review is to investigate the effectiveness of e-& mHealth interventions to promote physical activity and healthy diets in developing countries.


METHODS
Major databases and grey literature sources were searched to retrieve studies that quantitatively examined the effectiveness of e-& mHealth interventions on physical activity and diet outcomes in developing countries. Additional studies were retrieved through citation alerts and scientific social media allowing study inclusion until August 2016. The CONSORT checklist was used to assess the risk of bias of the included studies.


RESULTS
A total of 15 studies conducted in 13 developing countries in Europe, Africa, Latin-and South America and Asia were included in the review. The majority of studies enrolled adults who were healthy or at risk of diabetes or hypertension. The average intervention length was 6.4 months, and text messages and the Internet were the most frequently used intervention delivery channels. Risk of bias across the studies was moderate (55.7 % of the criteria fulfilled). Eleven studies reported significant positive effects of an e-& mHealth intervention on physical activity and/or diet behaviour. Respectively, 50 % and 70 % of the interventions were effective in promoting physical activity and healthy diets.


CONCLUSIONS
The majority of studies demonstrated that e-& mHealth interventions were effective in promoting physical activity and healthy diets in developing countries. Future interventions should use more rigorous study designs, investigate the cost-effectiveness and reach of interventions, and focus on emerging technologies, such as smart phone apps and wearable activity trackers.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
The review protocol can be retrieved from the PROSPERO database (Registration ID: CRD42015029240 ).
Ambiguity Shifts and the 2007 – 2008 Financial Crisis ∗

I analyze the effects of model misspecification on default swap spreads and equity prices for firms that are not perfectly transparent to the investors. The agents in the economy are misspecification-averse and thus assign higher probabilities to lower utility states. This leads to higher CDS rates, lower equity prices and lower expected times to default. Estimating the model using data on financial institutions, I find that the sudden increase in credit spreads in the summer of 2007 can be partially explained by agents’ mistrust of the signals observed in the market. The bailout of Bear Stearns in March 2008 and the liquidation of Lehman Brothers in September 2008 further exacerbated the agents’ doubts about signals quality and introduced mistrust about the agents’ pricing models, accounting for the further increases in credit spreads after these events. ∗Email: nboyarch@chicagobooth.edu. Earlier versions of this paper were circulated under the title “Ambiguity, Information Quality and Credit Risk”. I would like to thank my committee Lars P. Hansen (co-chair), Pietro Veronesi (co-chair), Stavros Panageas and John Heaton. I would also like to thank Lubos Pastor, Martin Schneider, Narayana Kocherlakota, three anonymous faculty reviewers at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Ariel Zetlin-Jones, Andrei Malenko, and participants in the Finance Brownbag, University of Chicago Booth School of Business (February 12, 2009), Chicago-Minnesota PhD conference (April 16, 2009), Transatlantic PhD Conference (May 14-16, 2009), Summer Meetings of the Econometrics Society, Boston (June 4-7, 2009), Society of Economic Dynamics Meetings, Istanbul (July 2-4, 2009), European Meetings of the Econometric Society, Barcelona (August 23-27, 2009) for helpful comments on the previous drafts of this paper. All the remaining errors are mine. Research support from the Sanford J. Grossman Fellowship in Honor of Arnold Zellner is gratefully acknowledged; any opinions expressed herein are the author’s and not necessarily those of Sanford J. Grossman or Arnold Zellner.
VANet security challenges and solutions: A survey

Article history: Received 16 September 2016 Received in revised form 28 November 2016 Accepted 20 January 2017 Available online xxxx
Reactive Attachment Disorder in Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVC)Affected by HIV/AIDS: Implications for Clinical Practice, Education andHealth Service Delivery

Background: Orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) affected by HIV/AIDS frequently experience placement/ residential changes, inconsistent caregivers, abuse, neglect, disruptions in their lives and several mental health problems. This may lead to a disorder of emotional functioning, reactive attachment disorder (RAD), where the child exhibits wary, watchful, and emotionally withdrawn. Despite its clinical importance, nothing is known about RAD among OVC. This study investigated: (1) whether RAD symptoms can occur in children affected by HIV/AIDS; (2) association between RAD and other psychiatric symptoms; (3) possible aetiological or contextual factors for high RAD symptom; and (4) any interactive, cumulative effects between the aetiological or contextual factors (both risks and protective) for higher RAD symptoms. Method: In a cross-sectional survey, caregivers of 191 OVC and 100 non-OVC completed questionnaires on mental health problems including RAD and contextual variables. Results: The results demonstrated that RAD is present in OVC and that RAD symptoms may be as a result of environmental factors. The study also found high levels of RAD comorbidity with other disorders including depression, conduct problems and hyperactivity. Finally, the results indicate that experiencing more neglect and psychological abuse among OVC increases their likelihood of exhibiting RAD symptoms five-fold. Conclusion: The paper discusses the clinical implications of these findings for service development for this vulnerable group in the community and concluded that among children affected by HIV/AIDS, RAD was not rare.
Inhaled nitric oxide and arterial oxygen tension in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and severe pulmonary hypertension.

BACKGROUND
Inhaled nitric oxide (NO) is a selective pulmonary vasodilator which can improve gas exchange in acute lung injury. However, it is uncertain that this effect on arterial oxygenation can be generalised to all lung diseases.


METHODS
The effects of inhaled NO on gas exchange were studied in nine patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), 11 patients with severe pulmonary hypertension, and 14 healthy volunteers. A randomized sequence of 40 ppm of NO or air was inhaled for 20 minutes through an orofacial mask.


RESULTS
Inhaled NO reduced mean (SE) transcutaneous arterial oxygen tension (TcPO2) from 9.6 (0.3) to 8.9 (0.4) kPa in healthy volunteers and from 7.4 (0.6) to 7.0 (0.5) kPa in patients with COPD. There was no change in TcPO2 in patients with severe pulmonary hypertension. During inhalation of NO and air no change occurred in transcutaneous arterial carbon dioxide tension (TcPCO2), arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) measured by pulse oximeter, or cardiac output determined by the transthoracic impedance method.


CONCLUSIONS
Inhaled NO does not improve TcPO2 nor increase cardiac output in normal subjects and patients with COPD, suggesting that inhaled NO worsens gas exchange. This could represent inhaled NO overriding hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction in COPD. The finding that TcPO2 also fell when normal subjects inhaled NO suggests that a similar mechanism normally contributes to optimal gas exchange. Whilst inhaled NO can improve oxygenation, this effect should not be considered to be a general response but is dependent on the type of lung disease.
Numerical Solution of Optimal Control Problems by Direct Collocation

By an appropriate discretization of control and state variables, a constrained optimal control problem is transformed into a finite dimensional nonlinear program which can be solved by standard SQP-methods [10]. Convergence properties of the discretization are derived. From a solution of this method known as direct collocation, these properties are used to obtain reliable estimates of adjoint variables. In the presence of active state constraints, these estimates can be significantly improved by including the switching structure of the state constraint into the optimization procedure. Two numerical examples are presented. 1 Statement of problems Systems governed by ordinary differential equations arise in many applications as, e. g., in astronautics, aeronautics, robotics, and economics. The task of optimizing these systems leads to the optimal control problems investigated in this paper. The aim is to find a control vector u(t) and the final time tf that minimize the functional J [u, tf ] = Φ(x(tf ), tf) (1) subject to a system of n nonlinear differential equations ẋi(t) = fi(x(t), u(t), t), i = 1, . . . , n, 0 ≤ t ≤ tf , (2) boundary conditions ri(x(0), x(tf ), tf) = 0, i = 1, . . . , k ≤ 2n, (3) and m inequality constraints gi(x(t), u(t), t) ≥ 0, i = 1, . . . , m, 0 ≤ t ≤ tf . (4) Here, the l vector of control variables is denoted by u(t) = (u1(t), . . . , ul(t)) T and the n vector of state variables is denoted by x(t) = (x1(t), . . . , xn(t)) T . The functions Φ : IR → IR, f : IR → IR, r : IR → IR, and g : IR → IR are assumed to be continuously differentiable. The controls ui : [0, tf ] → IR, i = 1, . . . , l, are assumed to be bounded and measureable and tf may be fixed or free. 1 2 Discretization This section briefly recalls the discretization scheme as described in more detail in [18]. Some of the basic ideas of this discretization scheme have been formerly outlined by Kraft [14] and Hargraves and Paris [11]. A discretization of the time interval 0 = t1 < t2 < . . . < tN = tf (5) is chosen. The parameters Y of the nonlinear program are the values of control and state variables at the grid points tj, j = 1, . . . , N, and the final time tf Y = (u(t1), . . . , u(tN), x(t1), . . . , x(tN ), tN) ∈ IR. (6) The controls are chosen as piecewise linear interpolating functions between u(tj) and u(tj+1) for tj ≤ t < tj+1 uapp(t) = u(tj) + t− tj tj+1 − tj (u(tj+1)− u(tj)). (7) The states are chosen as continuously differentiable functions and piecewise defined as cubic polynomials between x(tj) and x(tj+1) with ẋapp(s) := f(x(s), u(s), s) at s = tj, tj+1,
The development and prospects for category theory

This paper is a formulation of my personal opinion of the historical development and the present prospects of category theory.
Neurocognitive dysfunction in adult moyamoya disease

We wanted to determine the neurocognitive profile of adult patients with moyamoya disease prior to neurosurgical intervention. The experience of three United States medical centers, Columbia University, University of Illinois at Chicago, and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, were combined. Clinical data from adult patients (N = 29) referred for neuropsychological evaluation from 1996 to 2008 were reviewed. Neurocognitive functioning was assessed using standardized neuropsychological tests and all data were converted to z-scores. Memory, attention, processing speed, verbal memory, visuo-spatial, language, and executive functions were examined. Cognitive dysfunction was defined as performance in two or more cognitive domains 1.5 standard deviations below age-corrected normative means OR one or more cognitive domains two standard deviations below age-corrected normative means. Manual strength and dexterity, as well as depressive symptoms, were also assessed. Two-thirds of patients demonstrated neurocognitive dysfunction. A large proportion of patients were found to have pronounced cognitive dysfunction (>2 SD below the mean) on tests of processing speed (29%), verbal memory (31%), verbal fluency (26%) and executive function (25%). Manual strength and dexterity were also affected in many patients, with impairment found in 36–58% of patients. Twenty-eight percent of patients reported moderate to severe depression, but depressive symptoms did not correlate with neurocognitive findings. A large proportion of adults with moyamoya disease demonstrate disruption of neurocognition in a broad range of functions, particularly those mediated by subcortical and frontal regions. The pattern of deficits suggests a mechanism of diffuse small vessel disease possibly caused by chronic hypoperfusion.
Optimal features for auditory categorization

Humans and vocal animals use vocalizations to communicate with members of their species. A necessary function of auditory perception is to generalize across the high variability inherent in vocalization production and classify them into behaviorally distinct categories (‘words’ or ‘call types’). Here, we demonstrate that detecting mid-level features in calls achieves production-invariant classification. Starting from randomly chosen marmoset call features, we use a greedy search algorithm to determine the most informative and least redundant features necessary for call classification. High classification performance is achieved using only 10–20 features per call type. Predictions of tuning properties of putative feature-selective neurons accurately match some observed auditory cortical responses. This feature-based approach also succeeds for call categorization in other species, and for other complex classification tasks such as caller identification. Our results suggest that high-level neural representations of sounds are based on task-dependent features optimized for specific computational goals. Vocalizations such as speech or animal calls have high variability in production. Here, the authors report that a few mid-level acoustic features provide sufficient information to generalize across this variability and classify vocalization types and auditory cortical neurons exhibit tuning to these features.
Zero end-digit preference in recorded blood pressure and its impact on classification of patients for pharmacologic management in primary care - PREDICT-CVD-6.

BACKGROUND
Most blood pressure recordings end with a zero end-digit despite guidelines recommending measurement to the nearest 2 mmHg. The impact of rounding on management of cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk is unknown.


AIM
To document the use of rounding to zero end-digit and assess its potential impact on eligibility for pharmacologic management of CVD risk.


DESIGN OF STUDY
Cross-sectional study.


SETTING
A total of 23,676 patients having opportunistic CVD risk assessment in primary care practices in New Zealand.


METHOD
To simulate rounding in practice, for patients with systolic blood pressures recorded without a zero end-digit, a second blood pressure measure was generated by arithmetically rounding to the nearest zero end-digit. A 10-year Framingham CVD risk score was estimated using actual and rounded blood pressures. Eligibility for pharmacologic treatment was then determined using the Joint British Societies' JBS2 and the British Hypertension Society BHS-IV guidelines based on actual and rounded blood pressure values.


RESULTS
Zero end-digits were recorded in 64% of systolic and 62% of diastolic blood pressures. When eligibility for drug treatment was based only on a Framingham 10year CVD risk threshold of 20% or more, rounding misclassified one in 41 of all those patients subject to this error. Under the two guidelines which use different combinations of CVD risk and blood pressure thresholds, one in 19 would be misclassified under JBS2 and one in 12 under the BHS-IV guidelines mostly towards increased treatment.


CONCLUSION
Zero end-digit preference significantly increases a patient's likelihood of being classified as eligible for drug treatment. Guidelines that base treatment decisions primarily on absolute CVD risk are less susceptible to these errors.
Myoelectric Signal Classification for Phoneme-Based Speech Recognition

Traditional acoustic speech recognition accuracies have been shown to deteriorate in highly noisy environments. A secondary information source is exploited using surface myoelectric signals (MES) collected from facial articulatory muscles during speech. Words are classified at the phoneme level using a hidden Markov model (HMM) classifier. Acoustic and MES data was collected while the words "zero" through "nine" were spoken. An acoustic expert classified the 18 formative phonemes in low noise levels [signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of 17.5 dB] with an accuracy of 99%, but deteriorated to approximately 38% under simulations with SNR approaching 0 dB. A fused acoustic-myoelectric multiexpert system, without knowledge of SNR, improved on acoustic classification results at all noise levels. A multiexpert system, incorporating SNR information, obtained accuracies of 99% at low noise levels while maintaining accuracies above 94% during low SNR (0 dB) simulations. Results improve on previous full word MES speech recognition accuracies by almost 10%
Automation of Irrigation System Using ANN based Controller

Irrigation systems are as old as man itself since agriculture is the foremost occupation of civilized humanity. To irrigate large areas of plants is an onerous job. In order to overcome this problem many irrigation scheduling techniques have been developed which are mainly based on monitoring the soil, crop and weather conditions. Irrigation scheduling engrosses when to irrigate and how much water to be applied. Currently most of the irrigation scheduling systems and their corresponding automated hardware are fixed rate. Variable rate irrigation is very essential not only for the improvement of irrigation system but also to reduce the irrigation cost and to increase crop yield. The heart of automatic irrigation system (fixed rate or variable rate) is its control unit: as it controls irrigation time and water flow. Intelligent control based irrigation is necessitated to maximize the efficiency and production. Existing technologies varies from water balance or check book method to sophisticated sensor-based systems [1].Most of the irrigation systems use ON/OFF controllers. These controllers can not give optimal results for varying time delays and varying system parameters. This paper presents Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based intelligent control system for effective irrigation scheduling. The proposed Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based controller is prototyped using MATLAB. The input parameters like air temperature, soil moisture, radiations and humidity are modeled. Then using appropriate method, ecological conditions, evapotranspiration and type of crop, the amount of water needed for irrigation is estimated and then associated results are simulated.
Long-term functional and radiographic outcomes in 243 operated ankle fractures

BACKGROUND
Large comparative studies that have evaluated long-term functional outcome of operatively treated ankle fractures are lacking. This study was performed to analyse the influence of several combinations of malleolar fractures on long-term functional outcome and development of osteoarthritis.


METHODS
Retrospective cohort-study on operated (1995-2007) malleolar fractures. Results were assessed with use of the AAOS- and AOFAS-questionnaires, VAS-pain score, dorsiflexion restriction (range of motion) and osteoarthritis. Categorisation was determined using the number of malleoli involved.


RESULTS
243 participants with a mean follow-up of 9.6 years were included. Significant differences for all outcomes were found between unimalleolar (isolated fibular) and bimalleolar (a combination of fibular and medial) fractures (AOFAS 97 vs 91, p = 0.035; AAOS 97 vs 90, p = 0.026; dorsiflexion restriction 2.8° vs 6.7°, p = 0.003). Outcomes after fibular fractures with an additional posterior fragment were similar to isolated fibular fractures. However, significant differences were found between unimalleolar and trimalleolar (a combination of lateral, medial and posterior) fractures (AOFAS 97 vs 88, p < 0.001; AAOS 97 vs 90, p = 0.003; VAS-pain 1.1 vs 2.3 p < 0.001; dorsiflexion restriction 2.9° vs 6.9°, p < 0.001). There was no significant difference in isolated fibular fractures with or without additional deltoid ligament injury. In addition, no functional differences were found between bimalleolar and trimalleolar fractures. Surprisingly, poor outcomes were found for isolated medial malleolar fractures. Development of osteoarthritis occurred mainly in trimalleolar fractures with a posterior fragment larger than 5 %.


CONCLUSIONS
The results of our study show that long-term functional outcome is strongly associated to medial malleolar fractures, isolated or as part of bi- or trimalleolar fractures. More cases of osteoarthritis are found in trimalleolar fractures.
INTRODUCTION TO THE THEORY OF QUASI-LOG VARIETIES

This paper is a gentle introduction to the theory of quasi-log varieties by Ambro. We explain the fundamental theo- rems for the log minimal model program for log canonical pairs. More precisely, we give a proof of the base point free theorem for log canonical pairs in the framework of the theory of quasi-log varieties.