LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Infrared thermography: A non-invasive window into thermal physiology.

Infrared thermography is a non-invasive technique that measures mid to long-wave infrared radiation emanating from all objects and converts this to temperature. As an imaging technique, the value of modern infrared thermography is its ability to produce a digitized image or high speed video rendering a thermal map of the scene in false colour. Since temperature is an important environmental parameter influencing animal physiology and metabolic heat production an energetically expensive process, measuring temperature and energy exchange in animals is critical to understanding physiology, especially under field conditions. As a non-contact approach, infrared thermography provides a non-invasive complement to physiological data gathering. One caveat, however, is that only surface temperatures are measured, which guides much research to those thermal events occurring at the skin and insulating regions of the body. As an imaging technique, infrared thermal imaging is also subject to certain uncertainties that require physical modelling, which is typically done via built-in software approaches. Infrared thermal imaging has enabled different insights into the comparative physiology of phenomena ranging from thermogenesis, peripheral blood flow adjustments, evaporative cooling, and to respiratory physiology. In this review, I provide background and guidelines for the use of thermal imaging, primarily aimed at field physiologists and biologists interested in thermal biology. I also discuss some of the better known approaches and discoveries revealed from using thermal imaging with the objective of encouraging more quantitative assessment.
Early Permian Pangea ‘B’ to Late Permian Pangea ‘A’

The pre-drift Wegenerian model of Pangea is almost universally accepted, but debate exists on its pre-Jurassic configuration since Ted Irving introduced Pangea ‘B’ by placing Gondwana farther to the east by V3000 km with respect to Laurasia on the basis of paleomagnetic data. New paleomagnetic data from radiometrically dated Early Permian volcanic rocks from parts of Adria that are tectonically coherent with Africa (Gondwana), integrated with published coeval data from Gondwana and Laurasia, again only from igneous rocks, fully support a Pangea ‘B’ configuration in the Early Permian. The use of paleomagnetic data strictly from igneous rocks excludes artifacts from sedimentary inclination error as a contributing explanation for Pangea ‘B’. The ultimate option to reject Pangea ‘B’ is to abandon the geocentric axial dipole hypothesis by introducing a significant non-dipole (zonal octupole) component in the Late Paleozoic time-averaged geomagnetic field. We demonstrate, however, by using a dataset consisting entirely of paleomagnetic directions with low inclinations from sampling sites confined to one hemisphere from Gondwana as well as Laurasia that the effects of a zonal octupole field contribution would not explain away the paleomagnetic evidence for Pangea ‘B’ in the Early Permian. We therefore regard the paleomagnetic evidence for an Early Permian Pangea ‘B’ as robust. The transformation from Pangea ‘B’ to Pangea ‘A’ took place during the Permian because Late Permian paleomagnetic data allow a Pangea ‘A’ configuration. We therefore review geological evidence from the literature in support of an intra-Pangea dextral megashear system. The transformation occurred after the cooling of the Variscan mega-suture and lasted V20 Myr. In this interval, the Neotethys Ocean opened between India/Arabia and the Cimmerian microcontinents in the east, while widespread lithospheric wrenching and magmatism took place in the west around the Adriatic promontory. The general distribution of plate boundaries and resulting driving forces are qualitatively consistent with a right-lateral shear couple between Gondwana and Laurasia during the Permian. Transcurrent plate boundaries associated with the Pangea transformation reactivated Variscan shear zones and were subsequently exploited by the opening of western Neotethyan seaways in the Jurassic. 0012-821X / 03 / $ ^ see front matter @ 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0012-821X(03)00452-7 * Corresponding author. Tel. : +39-02-503-15518; Fax: +39-02-503-15494. E-mail address: giovanni.muttoni1@unimi.it (G. Muttoni). § Supplementary data associated with this article can be found at doi:10.1016/S0012-821X(03)00452-7 EPSL 6808 7-10-03 Earth and Planetary Science Letters 215 (2003) 379^394 R Available online at www.sciencedirect.com www.elsevier.com/locate/epsl @ 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Text-to-speech synthesis

This paper presents an overview of the problems that occur during text-to-speech (TTS) conversion and describes the particular solutions to these problems taken within the AT&T Bell Laboratories TTS system. In addition to discussing the linguistic and speech analysis issues that must be addressed in a high-quality TTS system, this paper also outlines the modular architecture of the AT&T Bell Laboratories TTS system and the advantages of its modular design.
Channel Characterization and Link Quality Assessment of IEEE 802.15.4-Compliant Radio for Factory Environments

Wireless sensors have started being utilized for process monitoring in factory environments, which are typically harsh for low-power wireless communication due to their complicated layout and plentiful stationary/moving obstacles. Sensor radios available so far have been engineered for consumer-grade applications, featuring low cost, low power, and minimal radio complexity. In order to utilize such radios for factory applications, their channel characteristics and link quality must be investigated for optimal design and reliability assessment. In this paper, a series of measurements were made with IEEE 802.15.4-compliant sensor radios to study both their spatial and temporal characteristics with respect to the factory surroundings found in a university machine shop. Critical communication properties were investigated in terms of received signal strength, link quality indication, and packet error rate. It is found that received signal strength shows dependency on surrounding structures, radio link qualities with respect to received signal strength and link quality indication are stable before a grey zone is reached, and average link quality indicator serves as a better packet success rate indication than average received signal strength indication. The findings in this paper provide a useful guidance to the ongoing explorations for a methodology to predict radio performance at any location within a given factory floor plan and to online assess the time-variant link qualities.
Land conversion in Amazonia and Northern South America : influences on regional hydrology and ecosystem response

Thesis (Ph. D. in the Field of Hydrology)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Civil and Environmental Engineering, February 2013.
CoastColour Round Robin data sets: a database to evaluate the performance of algorithms for the retrieval of water quality parameters in coastal waters

The use of in situ measurements is essential in the validation and evaluation of the algorithms that provide coastal water quality data products from ocean colour satellite remote sensing. Over the past decade, various types of ocean colour algorithms have been developed to deal with the optical complexity of coastal waters. Yet there is a lack of a comprehensive intercomparison due to the availability of quality checked in situ databases. The CoastColour Round Robin (CCRR) project, funded by the European Space Agency (ESA), was designed to bring together three reference data sets using these to test algorithms and to assess their accuracy for retrieving water quality parameters. This paper provides a detailed description of these reference data sets, which include the Medium Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MERIS) level 2 match-ups, in situ reflectance measurements, and synthetic data generated by a radiative transfer model (HydroLight). These data sets, representing mainly coastal waters, are available from doi:10.1594/PANGAEA.841950. The data sets mainly consist of 6484 marine reflectance (either multispectral or hyperspectral) associated with various geometrical (sensor viewing and solar angles) and sky conditions and water constituents: total suspended matter (TSM) and chlorophyll a (CHL) concentrations, and the absorption of coloured dissolved organic matter (CDOM). Inherent optical properties are also provided in the simulated data sets (5000 simulations) and from 3054 match-up locations. The distributions of reflectance at selected MERIS bands and band ratios, CHL and TSM as a function of reflectance, from the three data sets are compared. Match-up and in situ sites where deviations occur are identified. The distributions of the three reflectance data sets are also compared to the simulated and in situ reflectances used previously by the International Ocean Colour Coordinating Group (IOCCG, 2006) for algorithm testing, showing a clear extension of the CCRR data which covers more turbid waters.
Impact of direct stenting on outcome of patients with ST-elevation myocardial infarction transferred for primary percutaneous coronary intervention (from the EUROTRANSFER registry).

OBJECTIVES
We sought to evaluate the impact of direct stenting technique on angiographic and clinical outcomes of patients with ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) undergoing primary angioplasty (PCI).


METHODS
Data on 1,419 patients who underwent immediate PCI for STEMI with implantation of ≥1 stent within native coronary artery were retrieved from the EUROTRANSFER Registry database. Patients were stratified based on the stent implantation technique: direct (without predilatation) vs. conventional stenting. Propensity score adjustment was used to control possible selection bias.


RESULTS
Direct stenting technique was used in 276 (19.5%) patients. Remaining 1,143 patients were treated with stent implantation after balloon predilatation. Direct compared with conventional stenting resulted in significantly greater rates of postprocedural TIMI grade 3 flow (conventional vs. direct stenting: 91.5% vs. 94.9%, adjusted OR 2.09 (1.13-3.89), P = 0.020), and lower risk of no-reflow (3.4% vs. 1.4%, adjusted OR 0.31 (0.10-0.92), P = 0.035). The rates for ST-segment resolution >50% after PCI were higher in patients treated with direct stenting technique (76.3% vs. 86.2%, adjusted OR 1.64 (1.10-2.46), P = 0.016). A significant reduction in 1-year mortality in patients from the direct stenting group compared with the conventional stenting group, even after adjustment for propensity score was observed (6.5% vs. 2.9%, adjusted OR 0.45 (0.21-0.99), P = 0.047).


CONCLUSIONS
When anatomically and technically feasible, the use of direct stenting technique may result in improved long-term survival in patients with STEMI undergoing primary PCI.
Role of peripheral and spinal 5-HT<ce:inf loc=post>6</ce:inf> receptors according to the rat formalin test

The present study assessed the possible pronociceptive role of peripheral and spinal 5-HT(6) receptors in the formalin test. For this, local peripheral administration of selective 5-HT(6) receptor antagonists N-[3,5-dichloro-2-(methoxy)phenyl]-4-(methoxy)-3-(1-piperazinyl)-benzenesulphonamide (SB-399885) (0.01-1 nmol/paw) and 4-iodo-N-[4-methoxy-3-(4-methyl-1-piperazinyl)phenyl]benzene-sulfonamide hydrochloride (SB-258585) (0.001-0.1 nmol/paw) significantly reduced formalin-induced flinching. Local peripheral serotonin (5-HT) (10-100 nmol/paw) or 5-chloro-2-methyl-3-(1,2,3,6-tetrahydro-4-pyridinyl)-1H-indole hydrochloride (EMD-386088) (0.01-0.1 nmol/paw; a selective 5-HT(6) receptor agonist) augmented 0.5% formalin-induced nociceptive behavior. The local pronociceptive effect of 5-HT (100 nmol/paw) or EMD-386088 (0.1 nmol/paw) was significantly reduced by SB-399885 or SB-258585 (0.1 nmol/paw). In contrast to peripheral administration, intrathecal injection of 5-HT(6) receptor antagonists SB-399885 and SB-258585 (0.1-10 nmol/rat) did not modify 1% formalin-induced nociceptive behavior. Spinal 5-HT (50-200 nmol/rat) significantly reduced formalin-induced flinching behavior during phases 1 and 2. Contrariwise, intrathecal EMD-386088 (0.1-10 nmol/rat) dose-dependently increased flinching during phase 2. The spinal pronociceptive effect of EMD-386088 (1 nmol/rat) was reduced by SB-399885 (1 nmol/rat) and SB-258585 (0.1 nmol/rat). Our results suggest that 5-HT(6) receptors play a pronociceptive role in peripheral as well as spinal sites in the rat formalin test. Thus, 5-HT(6) receptors could be a target to develop analgesic drugs.
Dielectric functions and phase transitions of MgO modified Pb0.99(Zr0.95Ti0.05)0.98Nb0.02O3 ceramics revealed by spectroscopic ellipsometry

Abstract The dielectric functions and phase transitions of MgO modified Pb 0.99 (Zr 0.95 Ti 0.05 ) 0.98 Nb 0.02 O 3 (PZTN- x wt% MgO, x  = 0, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5) ceramics have been investigated using temperature-dependent spectroscopic ellipsometry. With the aid of standard critical-point (SCP) model, four typical interband transitions can be observed from the second derivative of dielectric functions. Three transition process are observed and can be linked to antiferroelectric (AFE)-ferroelectric (FE) (T 1  ∼ 250 K), low temperature ferroelectric phase [FE R(LT) ]to high temperature one [FE R(HT) ] (T 2  ∼ 300 K), and ferroelectric-paraelectric phase (T C  ∼ 500 K).
Percutaneous Endoscopic Lumbar Foraminotomy: An Advanced Surgical Technique and Clinical Outcomes

BACKGROUND
Although several authors have reported the use of endoscopic techniques to treat lumbar foraminal stenosis, the practical application of these techniques has been limited to soft disc herniation.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the details of the percutaneous endoscopic lumbar foraminotomy (ELF) technique for bony foraminal stenosis and to demonstrate the clinical outcomes.


METHODS
Two years of prospective data were collected from 33 consecutive patients with lumbar foraminal stenosis who underwent ELF. The surgical outcomes were assessed using the visual analog scale, Oswestry Disability Index, and modified MacNab criteria. The procedure begins at the safer extraforaminal zone rather than the riskier intraforaminal zone. Then, a full-scale foraminal decompression can be performed using a burr and punches under endoscopic control.


RESULTS
The mean age of the 18 female and 15 male patients was 64.2 years. The mean visual analog scale score for leg pain improved from 8.36 at baseline to 3.36 at 6 weeks, 2.03 at 1 year, and 1.97 at 2 years post-surgery (P < .001). The mean Oswestry Disability Index improved from 65.8 at baseline to 31.6 at 6 weeks, 19.7 at 1 year, and 19.3 at 2 years post-surgery (P < .001). Based on the modified MacNab criteria, excellent or good results were obtained in 81.8% of the patients, and symptomatic improvements were obtained in 93.9%.


CONCLUSION
Percutaneous ELF under local anesthesia could be an efficacious surgical procedure for the treatment of foraminal stenosis. This procedure may offer safe and reproducible results, especially for elderly or medically compromised patients.
Fiction and the Ways of Knowing: Essays on British Novels

Preface 1. Introduction: Fiction as Supplement 2. The Socialization of Catherine Morland, an application of anthropological theory to Northanger Abbey 3. Wuthering Heights: The Love of a Sylph and a Gnome, an exploration of alchemical and hermetic lore 4. A Napoleon of Heroines: Historical Myth in Vanity Fair, a study of political imagination 5. Master and Servant in Little Dorrit, an analysis derived from Hegelian social thought 6. The Wanderings of Melmotte, an estimate of cultural symbols in The Way We Live Now 7. "Daniel Charisi", an assessment of Daniel Deronda in the history of ideas 8. The Buried Giant of Egdon Heath, an archeology of folklore in The Return of the Native 9. Speech and Writing in Under Western Eyes, a test case for recent theories of language 10. Science in "Ithaca", an examination of the physical sciences in Ulysses 11. Being and Nothing in A Passage to India, a meditation on its religious structure 12. Woolf and McTaggart, an interrogation of the metaphysics in To the Lighthouse 13. The Magus of the Wizard of the West, a tracing of myth and ritual patterns Postscript Notes
Medication errors in the home: a multisite study of children with cancer.

OBJECTIVE
As home medication use increases, medications previously managed by nurses are now managed by patients and their families. Our objective was to describe the types of errors occurring in the home medication management of children with cancer.


METHODS
In a prospective observational study at 3 pediatric oncology clinics in the northeastern and southeastern United States, patients undergoing chemotherapy and their parents were recruited from November 2007 through April 2011. We reviewed medical records and checked prescription doses. A trained nurse visited the home, reviewed medication bottles, and observed administration. Two physicians independently made judgments regarding whether an error occurred and its severity. Overall rates of errors were weighted to account for clustering within sites.


RESULTS
We reviewed 963 medications and observed 242 medication administrations in the homes of 92 patients. We found 72 medication errors. Four errors led to significant patient injury. An additional 40 errors had potential for injury: 2 were life-threatening, 13 were serious, and 25 were significant. Error rates varied between study sites (40-121 errors per 100 patients); the weighted overall rate was 70.2 errors per 100 patients (95% confidence interval [CI]: 58.9-81.6). The weighted rate of errors with injury was 3.6 (95% CI: 1.7-5.5) per 100 patients and with potential to injure the patient was 36.3 (95% CI: 29.3-43.3) per 100 patients. Nonchemotherapy medications were more often involved in an error than chemotherapy.


CONCLUSIONS
Medication errors were common in this multisite study of outpatient pediatric cancer care. Rates of preventable medication-related injuries in this outpatient population were comparable or higher than those found in studies of hospitalized patients.
A virtual metrology system for semiconductor manufacturing

Nowadays, the semiconductor manufacturing becomes very complex, consisting of hundreds of individual processes. If a faulty wafer is produced in an early stage but detected at the last moment, unnecessary resource consumption is unavoidable. Measuring every wafer’s quality after each process can save resources, but it is unrealistic and impractical because additional measuring processes put in between each pair of contiguous processes significantly increase the total production time. Metrology, as is employed for product quality monitoring tool today, covers only a small fraction of sampled wafers. Virtual metrology (VM), on the other hand, enables to predict every wafer’s metrology measurements based on production equipment data and preceding metrology results. A well established VM system, therefore, can help improve product quality and reduce production cost and cycle time. In this paper, we develop a VM system for an etching process in semiconductor manufacturing based on various data mining techniques. The experimental results show that our VM system can not only predict the metrology measurement accurately, but also detect possible faulty wafers with a reasonable confidence. 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Modeling and Optimization Control for Aircraft AC Generator BrushlessExcitation System Based on Improved Adaptive PSO

The brushless excitation system of aircraft AC generator is a strong coupled and nonlinearity dynamic system which is often being subjected to disturbances. Therefore, the conventional PID controller is unable to meet the brushless excitation system control requirements of More Electric Aircraft (MEA) or All Electric Aircraft (AEA). A new brushless excitation compound control controller (RBFPID) is proposed in this paper based on radical basis function (RBF) neural networks and the conventional PID control. Because the new brushless excitation compound controller (RBFPID) has a number of mutually coupled parameters that needs to be set, the improved adaptive particle swarm optimization (APSO) algorithm is used to optimize mutually coupled PID parameters Kp , Ki , Kd and RBF parameters ! ,! , m , n on line. In order to validate performances of the new brushless excitation compound controller based on multi-parameter optimization by the improved APSO, the simulation model of the aircraft brushless excitation system is implemented in MATLAB/SIMULINK according to differential equations of each component of brushless excitation system. The simulation results show that the optimized adaptive compound excitation controller (APSORBFPID) exhibits quick response speed, short adjustment time and high steady state accuracy.
A year in the life of German patients with COPD: the DACCORD observational study

INTRODUCTION
Randomized interventional trials generally recruit highly selected patients. In contrast, long-term, noninterventional studies can reflect standard of care of real-life populations. DACCORD (Die ambulante Versorgung mit langwirksamen Bronchodilatatoren: COPD-Register in Deutschland [Outpatient Care With Long-Acting Bronchodilators: COPD Registry in Germany]) is an ongoing observational study, conducted in primary and secondary care in Germany, aiming to describe the impact of disease and treatments on real-life patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).


METHODS
Patients had a clinical and spirometry diagnosis of COPD, were aged ≥40 years, and were initiating or changing COPD maintenance medication. The only exclusion criteria were asthma and participation in a randomized clinical trial. Exacerbation data were collected every 3 months. COPD medication, COPD Assessment Test, and forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) were recorded at the end of the 1 year period.


RESULTS
In the 6 months prior to baseline, 26.5% of the 3,974 patients experienced ≥1 exacerbation, compared with 26.1% over the 1-year follow-up (annualized rate 0.384). Importantly, only previous exacerbations and not poor lung function alone predicted an increased exacerbation risk. There was a general shift to lower disease severity from baseline to 1 year, predominantly as a consequence of a lower proportion of patients considered at high risk due to exacerbations. COPD Assessment Test mean change from baseline was -1.9, with 48.9% of patients reporting a clinically relevant improvement. Overall persistence to medication was high, with 77.2% of patients still receiving the same class of medication at 1 year.


CONCLUSION
DACCORD suggests that in clinical practice, the large majority of COPD patients are symptomatic but seldom exacerbate and that widely used tools and treatment recommendations do not reflect this fully.
Fuzzy PID Controller for Wind Turbines

PID and fuzzy PID controller are applied into the wind turbine with nonlinear mathematical model. PID control has simple principle and its parameters setting are rather easy. Fuzzy control need not to establish the mathematical of the control system and has strong robustness. Fuzzy PID control is combined with PID control and fuzzy control. The advantages of fuzzy PID control are simple, easy in setting parameters and strong robustness. Fuzzy PID controller combines with closed-loop optimal fuzzy reasoning (COFR), which can effectively improve the robustness, when the robustness is special requirement. MATLAB software is used for simulations, results display that fuzzy PID controller which combines with COFR has better performances than PID controller when errors exist, especially robustness performance.