LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Multiple predator effects result in risk reduction for prey across multiple prey densities

Investigating how prey density influences a prey’s combined predation risk from multiple predator species is critical for understanding the widespread importance of multiple predator effects. We conducted experiments that crossed six treatments consisting of zero, one, or two predator species (hellgrammites, greenside darters, and creek chubs) with three treatments in which we varied the density of mayfly prey. None of the multiple predator effects in our system were independent, and instead, the presence of multiple predator species resulted in risk reduction for the prey across both multiple predator combinations and all three levels of prey density. Risk reduction is likely to have population-level consequences for the prey, resulting in larger prey populations than would be predicted if the effects of multiple predator species were independent. For one of the two multiple predator combinations, the magnitude of risk reduction marginally increased with prey density. As a result, models predicting the combined risk from multiple predator species in this system will sometimes need to account for prey density as a factor influencing per-capita prey death rates.
Clustering articles based on semantic similarity

Document clustering is generally the first step for topic identification. Since many clustering methods operate on the similarities between documents, it is important to build representations of these documents which keep their semantics as much as possible and are also suitable for efficient similarity calculation. As we describe in Koopman et al. (Proceedings of ISSI 2015 Istanbul: 15th International Society of Scientometrics and Informetrics Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, 29 June to 3 July, 2015. Bogaziçi University Printhouse. http://www.issi2015.org/files/downloads/all-papers/1042.pdf , 2015), the metadata of articles in the Astro dataset contribute to a semantic matrix, which uses a vector space to capture the semantics of entities derived from these articles and consequently supports the contextual exploration of these entities in LittleAriadne. However, this semantic matrix does not allow to calculate similarities between articles directly. In this paper, we will describe in detail how we build a semantic representation for an article from the entities that are associated with it. Base on such semantic representations of articles, we apply two standard clustering methods, K-Means and the Louvain community detection algorithm, which leads to our two clustering solutions labelled as OCLC-31 (standing for K-Means) and OCLC-Louvain (standing for Louvain). In this paper, we will give the implementation details and a basic comparison with other clustering solutions that are reported in this special issue.
Hepatic portal venous gas: the ABCs of management.

OBJECTIVE
To review the use of computed tomography (CT) and radiography in managing hepatic portal venous gas (HPVG) at a university-affiliated tertiary care center and in the literature. Hepatic portal venous gas is frequently associated with acute mesenteric ischemia, accounting for most of the HPVG-associated mortality. While early studies were necessarily dependent on plain abdominal radiography, modern high-resolution CT has revealed a host of benign conditions in which HPVG has been reported that do not require emergent surgery.


DATA SOURCES
Patient records from our institution over the last 10 years and relevant studies from BioMed Central, CENTRAL, PubMed, and PubMed Central. In addition, references cited in selected works were also used as source data.


STUDY SELECTION
Patient records were selected if the CT or radiograph findings matched the term hepatic portal venous gas. Studies were selected based on the search terms hepatic portal venous gas or portal venous gas.


DATA EXTRACTION
Quantitative and qualitative data were quoted directly from cited work.


DATA SYNTHESIS
Early studies of HPVG were based on plain abdominal radiography and a literature survey in 1978 found an associated mortality rate of 75%, primarily due to ischemic bowel disease. Modern abdominal CT has resulted in the detection of HPVG in more benign conditions, and a second literature survey in 2001 found a total mortality of only 39%. While the pathophysiology of HPVG is, as yet, unclear, changing abdominal imaging technology has altered the significance of this radiologic finding. Hepatic portal venous gas therefore predicts high risk of mortality (>50%) if detected by plain radiography or by CT in a patient with additional evidence of necrotic bowel. If detected by CT in patients after surgical or endoscopic manipulation, the clinician is advised that there is no evidence of increased risk. If HPVG is detected by CT in patients with active peptic ulcer disease, intestinal obstruction and/or dilatation, or mucosal diseases such as Crohn disease or ulcerative colitis, caution is warranted, as risk of death may approach 20% to 30%.


CONCLUSION
The finding of HPVG alone cannot be an indication for emergency exploration, and we have developed an evidence-based algorithm to guide the clinician in management of patients with HPVG.
Combined use of growth hormone and gonadotropin-releasing hormone analogues: the national cooperative growth study experience.

Gonadotropin-releasing hormone ana-logues (GnRHa) are used to treat central precocious puberty. They also are used to delay puberty in short children with a prognosis for impaired adult height. In both cases, growth hormone (GH) treatment is sometimes added. To determine how North American pediatric endocrinologists are using the combination of GH and GnRHa, we searched the National Cooperative Growth Study (NCGS) database and identified 509 patients who were treated with both. Among them were 139 patients with a diagnosis of precocious puberty. Most of these (82%) also had GH deficiency (GHD). Of the 370 patients who did not have precocious puberty, 71% had GHD. There were 200 patients with precocious puberty who were treated with GH but not with GnRHa. The children who were given GH alone (77% of whom had GHD) were much younger than the children who were given both GH and GnRHa (5.7 +/- 2.9 years for those who were not treated with GnRHa vs 9.1 +/- 2.7 years for those who were). Data on both predicted adult height before GH treatment and near- adult height were available for 141 of the patients who were given both GH and GnRHa. There was a statistically significant increase in near-adult height over pre-GH predicted adult height in girls with precocious puberty (5.4 +/- 4.3 cm) and without precocious puberty (3.0 +/- 6.1 cm). There was no statistically significant gain in height for boys who did not have precocious puberty (1.3 +/- 6.8 cm). There were too few boys with precocious puberty (n = 7) to enable meaningful conclusions. In a multiple regression analysis of data on girls who did not have precocious puberty, duration of GH treatment was the most important variable predictive of height gain.gonadotropin-releasing hormone, growth hormone, precocious puberty, idiopathic growth hormone deficiency, organic growth deficiency, idiopathic short stature.
Simulation for the social scientist

Interest in social simulation has been growing rapidly worldwide as a result of increasingly powerful hardware and software and a rising interest in the application of ideas of complexity, evolution, adaptation and chaos in the social sciences. Simulation for the Social Scientist is a practical textbook on the techniques of building computer simulations to assist understanding of social and economic issues and problems.
Reduced dose and duration of peginterferon alfa-2b and weight-based ribavirin in patients with genotype 2 and 3 chronic hepatitis C.

BACKGROUND & AIMS
There is increasing interest in identifying patients with chronic hepatitis C genotype 2 or 3 infection in whom it is possible to lower the burden of therapy while retaining high levels of efficacy.


METHODS
Treatment-naive patients with chronic hepatitis C genotype 2/3 infection were randomized to receive peginterferon alfa-2b (1.5μg/kg/wk) for 24weeks (group A); peginterferon alfa-2b (1.0μg/kg/wk) for 24weeks (group B); or peginterferon alfa-2b (1.5μg/kg/wk) for 16weeks (group C), each in combination with weight-based ribavirin (800-1200mg/d). The study population comprised two cohorts: the Hep-Net cohort enrolled in Germany and an International cohort enrolled at study sites throughout Europe and Asia. The primary end point was sustained virological response (SVR).


RESULTS
The study included 682 patients; 80.2% had genotype 3 infection. In the intent-to-treat population, SVR rates were 66.5%, 64.3%, and 56.6% in groups A, B, and C, and were similar in Asian and white patients. Treatment differences (A vs. B and A vs. C) failed to reach the predefined margin for noninferiority of -10%; and thus groups B and C failed to show noninferiority relative to group A. Among patients with undetectable HCV RNA at week 4, SVR rates were 75.3%, 75.9%, and 72.4%, respectively. Relapse rates were 17.8%, 16.3%, and 29.3%, respectively. Treatment-emergent serious adverse events were highest in group A and lowest in group C, and adverse events leading to discontinuation were similar across treatment arms.


CONCLUSIONS
For patients with chronic hepatitis C genotype 2/3 infection, 24weeks of peginterferon alfa-2b (1.5μg/kg/wk) plus weight-based ribavirin remains a standard-of-care therapy; however, treatment for 16weeks may be considered for patients with undetectable HCV RNA at week 4 of the treatment.
Premarital Sexual Behavior among male college students of Kathmandu, Nepal

BACKGROUND
In Nepal, as in other Asian countries, the issue of sexuality still remains a taboo. Despite this fact, an increasing number of sexual activities is being reported by Nepalese students. This trend warrants serious and timely attention. Due to the sensitivity of the topic of premarital sexuality, youth receive inadequate education, guidance and services on reproductive health. The main objectives of this paper are to explore the sexual behavior especially focusing on prevalence of premarital sex among college men and to investigate the factors surrounding premarital sexual behavior.


METHODS
A cross-sectional survey of college students was conducted in April-May 2006. A self-administered questionnaire was completed by 573 male students. Association between premarital sex and the explanatory variables was assessed in bivariate analysis using Chi-square tests. The associations were further explored using multivariate logistic analysis.


RESULTS
Despite the religious and cultural restrictions, about two-fifths of survey respondents (39%) reported that they have had premarital sex. The study has also shown that substantial proportions of students indulge in sexual activities as well as risky sexual behavior. Sex with commercial sex workers, multiple sex partners, and inconsistence use of condom with non-regular partner was common among the students. Less than two in five male students (57%) had used condom at the first sexual intercourse.The prevalence of premarital sex varied on different settings. Older students aged 20 and above were more likely to have premarital sex compared with younger students aged 15-19. Men who had liberal attitude towards male virginity at marriage were almost two times more likely to have engaged in premarital sex compared to their counterparts who have conservative attitude towards male virginity at marriage. Moreover, those students who believe in Hindu religion were more than two times (OR = 2.5) more likely to have premarital sex compared with those who follow other religions. Furthermore, those men who have close unmarried friends who have experienced premarital sexual intercourse were eight times (OR = 8.4) more likely to be sexually active compared to those who did not have such sexually active friends.


CONCLUSION
Prevalence of premarital sexual intercourse and risky sexual behavior are not uncommon in Nepal. Young people are exposed to health hazards due to their sexual behavior; hence sex education should be provided. School or college based sexuality education could benefit even out-of-school youths, because their partners often are students.
Learning hardware agnostic grasps for a universal jamming gripper

Grasping has been studied from various perspectives including planning, control, and learning. In this paper, we take a learning approach to predict successful grasps for a universal jamming gripper. A jamming gripper is comprised of a flexible membrane filled with granular material, and it can quickly harden or soften to grip objects of varying shape by modulating the air pressure within the membrane. Although this gripper is easy to control, developing a physical model of its gripping mechanism is difficult because it undergoes significant deformation during use. Thus, many grasping approaches based on physical models (such as based on form- and force-closure) would be challenging to apply to a jamming gripper. Here we instead use a supervised learning algorithm and design both visual and shape features for capturing the properties of good grasps. We show that given target object data from an RGBD sensor, our algorithm can predict successful grasps for the jamming gripper without requiring a physical model. It can therefore be applied to both a parallel plate gripper and a jamming gripper without modification. We demonstrate that our learning algorithm enables both grippers to pick up a wide variety of objects, including objects from outside the training set. Through robotic experiments we are then able to define the type of objects each gripper is best suited for handling.
Logical Cryptanalysis as a SAT Problem

Cryptographic algorithms play a key role in computer security and the formal analysis of their robustness is of utmost importance. Yet, logic and automated reasoning tools are seldom used in the analysis of a cipher, and thus one cannot often get the desired formal assurance that the cipher is free from unwanted properties that may weaken its strength. In this paper, we claim that one can feasibly encode the low-level properties of state-of-the-art cryptographic algorithms as SAT problems and then use efficient automated theorem-proving systems and SAT-solvers for reasoning about them. We call this approach logical cryptanalysis. In this framework, for instance, finding a model for a formula encoding an algorithm is equivalent to finding a key with a cryptanalytic attack. Other important properties, such as cipher integrity or algebraic closure, can also be captured as SAT problems or as quantified boolean formulae. SAT benchmarks based on the encoding of cryptographic algorithms can be used to effectively combine features of “real-world” problems and randomly generated problems. Here we present a case study on the U.S. Data Encryption Standard (DES) and show how to obtain a manageable encoding of its properties. We have also tested three SAT provers, TABLEAU by Crawford and Auton, SATO by Zhang, and rel-SAT by Bayardo and Schrag, on the encoding of DES, and we discuss the reasons behind their different performance. A discussion of open problems and future research concludes the paper.
Groundwater Environment in Delhi, India

Abstract Delhi, the capital city of India, is the third largest city in the country by area and the second largest by population. It supports a population of over 16.7 million ( Census of India, 2011 ). The city has a long history of political dominance by various dynasties. For a long time, its relevance as the political center of India led to the migration of different communities from all over the country, shaping its cultural heritage. Delhi in last six decades has seen unprecedented population growth and urbanization. This has left its footprint on groundwater environment of the city. However in recent years, steps for conservation and management of groundwater resources has given hope for its betterment.
Fighting to win: Wartime morale in the American public

Abstract The ingredients of wartime morale are the subject of lively debate, with casualties, prospect of victory, and elite cues representing the major points of view. This research covers the wars in Korea and Vietnam with expanded time series of public support and rare surveys that probed perceptions of victory during those military interventions. The prospect of victory affected wartime morale during both of those conflicts. It did so quite uniformly in the American public, cutting across elite cues such as partisanship. Casualties left only a weak, if any, imprint on popular support for the wars in Korea and Vietnam. Wartime morale suffered during those interventions not so much because of battlefield casualties or the breakdown of elite consensus, but because the prospect of victory collapsed.
Benchmarking Global Optimization and Constraint Satisfaction Codes

A benchmarking suite describing over 1000 optimization problems and constraint satisfaction problems covering problems from different traditions is described, annotated with best known solutions, and accompanied by recommended benchmarking protocols for comparing test results.
The High-Efficiency Isolated AC–DC Converter Using the Three-Phase Interleaved LLC Resonant Converter Employing the Y-Connected Rectifier

The power conversion efficiency of an isolated ac-dc converter is a dominant factor in the overall efficiency of dc distribution systems. To improve the power conversion efficiency of the dc distribution system, a three-phase interleaved full-bridge LLC resonant converter employing a Y-connected rectifier is proposed as the isolated ac-dc high-frequency-link power-conversion system. The proposed Y-connected rectifier has the capability of boosting the output voltage without increasing the transformer's turn ratio. Especially, the frequency of the rectifier's output ripple is six times higher than the switching frequency, thereby reducing the output capacitor and the secondary transformer's RMS current. However, the tolerance of the converter's resonant components in each primary stage causes the unbalance problem of output ripple current. It cannot be solved using conventional control techniques since the structure of the three-phase interleaving has the limitations of individual control capability for each converter. To solve the current unbalance problem, a current balancing method is proposed for the output rectifying current. The performance of the proposed converter and the current balancing method has been verified through experiments using a 10 kW (300 V/33.3 A) prototype converter.
Feasibility of inter-hospital transportation using extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) support of patients affected by severe swine-flu(H1N1)-related ARDS

BACKGROUND
To describe the organization of an ECMO-centre from triage by telephone to the phase of inter-hospital transportation with ECMO of patients affected by H1N1-induced ARDS, describing techniques and equipment used.


METHODS
From September 2009 to January 2010, 18 patients with H1N1-induced ARDS were referred to our ECMO-centre from other hospitals. Six patients had contraindications to treatment with ECMO and remained in the local hospital. Twelve patients were transported to our centre and were included in this study. Four patients were transported on ECMO (Group A) and eight on conventional ventilation (Group B). The groups were compared on the basis of adverse events during transport, clinical characteristics and outcome.


RESULTS
The PaO2/FiO2 ratio was lower in the patients of Group A (46.8 vs 89.7 [median]) despite the PEEP values being higher (15.0 vs 8.5 [median]). The Murray score was higher in Group A (3.50 vs 2.75 [median]). During the transfer there were no significant complications noted in Group A, whereas two patients in Group B were reported with hypoxia (SpO2 < 90%). One patient in Group A died. All the other patients of the two groups have been discharged from hospital.


CONCLUSIONS
The creation of an ECMO team, with various experts in the treatment of ARDS, assured a safe transfer of patients with severe hypoxia, over long distances, when in other cases they wouldn't have been be transportable.
RSA algorithm using modified subset sum cryptosystem

RSA is the asymmetric cryptography system. The security of RSA public key cryptosystem is based on the assumption that factoring of a large number (modulus) is difficult. In RSA if one can factor modulus into its prime numbers then the private key is also detected and hence the security of the cryptosystem is broken. The Subset-Sum cryptosystem (Knapsack Cryptosystem) is also an asymmetric cryptographic technique. The Merkle-Hellman system is based on the subset sum problem (a special case of the knapsack problem): given a list of numbers and a third number, which is the sum of a subset of these numbers, determine the subset. In general, this problem is known to be NP-complete. However, if the set of numbers (called the knapsack) is superincreasing, that is, each element of the set is greater than the sum of all the numbers before it, the problem is ‘easy’ and solvable in polynomial time with a simple greedy algorithm. So in this paper a Modified Subset-Sum over RSA Public key cryptosystem (MSSRPKC) is presented which is secure against Mathematical and brute-force attacks on RSA as well as Shamir attacks. This paper also presents comparison between MSSRPKC and RSA cryptosystems in respect of security and performance.
The use of electromyography and magnetic resonance imaging to evaluate a core strengthening exercise programme.

BACKGROUND
The question that was asked in the study was whether a training routine based on curl-up exercises with a load provided by body mass of the person increases local muscle strength or local muscle endurance.


OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of 4 weeks training based on a small load and low movement velocity on electrical activity (EMG), cross-sectional area (CSA) of core stabilisers.


METHODS
The EMG activity was measured in the rectus abdominis (RA), obliquus abdominis externus and erector spinae (ES) muscles. CSA of the muscles: RA, anterolateral abdominal, psoas major, quadratus lumborum, ES, and multifidus at the level of L3-L4 were measured too.


RESULTS
The training increased the CSA and thickness in most of the muscles studied. Statistically significant correlation was found only for the ES circumference (left side) and EMG activity for the right side (r= 0.627, p= 0.022) and left side (r= 0.624, p= 0.023).


CONCLUSIONS
The training programme resulted in a increase in the number of curl-up repetitions revealing an endurance increase in abdominal muscles. Furthermore, there was a increase in the EMG activity of the RA. An increase of the CSA of all tested muscles showed an increase of muscle active force.