LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
Improving building energy efficiency with a network of sensing, learning and prediction agents

Nearly 20% of total energy consumption in the United States is accounted for in heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems. Smart sensing and adaptive energy management agents can greatly decrease the energy usage of HVAC systems in many building applications, for example by enabling the operator to shut off HVAC to unoccupied rooms. We implement a multi-modal sensor agent that is non-intrusive and low-cost, combining information such as motion detection, CO2 reading, sound level, ambient light, and door state sensing. We show that in our live testbed at the USC campus, these sensor agents can be used to accurately estimate the number of occupants in each room using machine learning techniques, and that these techniques can also be applied to predict future occupancy by creating agent models of the occupants. These predictions will be used by control agents to enable the HVAC system increase its efficiency by continuously adapting to occupancy forecasts of each room.
Effects of alternative label formats on choice of high- and low-sodium products in a New Zealand population sample.

OBJECTIVE
Dietary sodium reduction is a cost-effective public health intervention to reduce chronic disease. In response to calls for further research into front-of-pack labelling systems, we examined how alternative sodium nutrition label formats and nutrition claims influenced consumers' choice behaviour and whether consumers with or without a diagnosis of hypertension differed in their choice patterns.


DESIGN
An anonymous online experiment in which participants viewed ten choice sets featuring three fictitious brands of baked beans with varied label formats and nutritional profiles (high and low sodium) and indicated which brand in each set they would purchase if shopping for this product.


SETTING
Participants were recruited from New Zealand's largest online nationwide research panel.


SUBJECTS
Five hundred people with self-reported hypertension and 191 people without hypertension aged 18 to 79 years.


RESULTS
The addition of a front-of-pack label increased both groups' ability to discriminate between products with high and low sodium, while the Traffic Light label enabled better identification of the high-sodium product. Both front-of-pack formats enhanced discrimination in the presence of a reduced salt claim, but the Traffic Light label also performed better than the Percentage Daily Intake label in moderating the effect of the claim for the high-sodium product.


CONCLUSIONS
Front-of-pack labels, particularly those with simple visual cues, enhance consumers' ability to discriminate between high- and low-sodium products, even when those products feature nutrition claims.
Optic-flow selective cortical sensory regions associated with self-reported states of vection

Optic flow is one of the most important visual cues to the estimation of self-motion. It has repeatedly been demonstrated that a cortical network including visual, multisensory, and vestibular areas is implicated in processing optic flow; namely, visual areas middle temporal cortex (MT+), V6; multisensory areas ventral intra-parietal area (VIP), cingulate sulcus visual area, precuneus motion area (PcM); and vestibular areas parieto-insular vestibular cortex (PIVC) and putative area 2v (p2v). However, few studies have investigated the roles of and interaction between the optic-flow selective sensory areas within the context of self-motion perception. When visual information (i.e., optic flow) is the sole cue to computing self-motion parameters, the discrepancy amongst the sensory signals may induce an illusion of self-motion referred to as 'vection.' This study aimed to identify optic-flow selective sensory areas that are involved in the processing of visual cues to self-motion, by introducing vection as an index and assessing activation in which of those areas reflect vection, using functional magnetic resonance imaging. The results showed that activity in visual areas MT+ and V6, multisensory area VIP and vestibular area PIVC was significantly greater while participants were experiencing vection, as compared to when they were experiencing no vection, which may indicate that activation in MT+, V6, VIP, and PIVC reflects vection. The results also place VIP in a good position to integrate visual cues related to self-motion and vestibular information.
Plasma phthalate levels in pubertal gynecomastia.

OBJECTIVE
Several untoward health effects of phthalates, which are a group of industrial chemicals with many commercial uses including personal-care products and plastic materials, have been defined. The most commonly used, di-(2-ethylhexyl)-phthalate (DEHP), is known to have antiandrogenic or estrogenic effects or both. Mono-(2-ethylhexyl)-phthalate (MEHP) is the main metabolite of DEHP. In this study, we aimed to determine the plasma DEHP and MEHP levels in pubertal gynecomastia cases.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
The study group comprised 40 newly diagnosed pubertal gynecomastia cases who were admitted to Hacettepe University Ihsan Doğramaci Children's Hospital. The control group comprised 21 age-matched children without gynecomastia or other endocrinologic disorder. Plasma DEHP and MEHP levels were measured by using high-performance liquid chromatography. Serum hormone levels were determined in some pubertal gynecomastia cases according to the physician's evaluation.


RESULTS
Plasma DEHP and MEHP levels were found to be statistically significantly higher in the pubertal gynecomastia group compared with the control group (P < .001) (DEHP, 4.66 +/- 1.58 and 3.09 +/- 0.90 microg/mL, respectively [odds ratio: 2.77 (95% confidence interval: 1.48-5.21)]; MEHP, 3.19 +/- 1.41 and 1.37 +/- 0.36 microg/mL [odds ratio: 24.76 (95% confidence interval: 3.5-172.6)]). There was a statistically significant correlation between plasma DEHP and MEHP levels (r: 0.58; P < .001). In the pubertal gynecomastia group, no correlation could be determined between plasma DEHP and MEHP levels and any of the hormone levels.


CONCLUSIONS
DEHP, which has antiandrogenic or estrogenic effects, may be an etiologic factor in pubertal gynecomastia. These results may pioneer larger-scale studies on the etiologic role of DEHP in pubertal gynecomastia.
Determination of End Point of Primary Drying in Freeze-Drying Process Control

Freeze-drying is a relatively expensive process requiring long processing time, and hence one of the key objectives during freeze-drying process development is to minimize the primary drying time, which is the longest of the three steps in freeze-drying. However, increasing the shelf temperature into secondary drying before all of the ice is removed from the product will likely cause collapse or eutectic melt. Thus, from product quality as well as process economics standpoint, it is very critical to detect the end of primary drying. Experiments were conducted with 5% mannitol and 5% sucrose as model systems. The apparent end point of primary drying was determined by comparative pressure measurement (i.e., Pirani vs. MKS Baratron), dew point, Lyotrack (gas plasma spectroscopy), water concentration from tunable diode laser absorption spectroscopy, condenser pressure, pressure rise test (manometric temperature measurement or variations of this method), and product thermocouples. Vials were pulled out from the drying chamber using a sample thief during late primary and early secondary drying to determine percent residual moisture either gravimetrically or by Karl Fischer, and the cake structure was determined visually for melt-back, collapse, and retention of cake structure at the apparent end point of primary drying (i.e., onset, midpoint, and offset). By far, the Pirani is the best choice of the methods tested for evaluation of the end point of primary drying. Also, it is a batch technique, which is cheap, steam sterilizable, and easy to install without requiring any modification to the existing dryer.
Frequency band widening of negative permeability using split ring resonators

In recent years, the medium which has negative index of refraction is widely researched. The medium has both the negative permittivity and the negative permeability. In this paper, we have researched the frequency range widening of negative permeability using split ring resonators.
Incidence of transmitted antiretroviral drug resistance in treatment-naive HIV-1-infected persons in a large South Central United States clinic.

BACKGROUND
Transmitted drug resistance (TDR) can limit effective treatment options to antiretroviral-naive HIV-infected persons and increase the risk of treatment failure. Limited estimates of TDR have been reported from the South Central United States.


OBJECTIVE
To describe the incidence of TDR in Oklahoma and to examine whether TDR rates have increased with time.


METHODS
This was a retrospective observational study of antiretroviral-naive patients at the Infectious Diseases Institute, a large infectious diseases clinic in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, who had received baseline antiretroviral resistance testing. Mutations were screened using the 2011 International Antiviral Society-USA Drug Resistance Mutation (DRM) update, and categorized using the 2009 World Health Organization (WHO) Surveillance Drug Resistance Mutation (SDRM) list.


RESULTS
Genotypic sequences from 428 patients revealed a 6.0% to 13.6% incidence of SDRMs between 2007 and 2011, though no progression in the frequency was apparent during the study period. Primary DRMs were detected in 12.6% of the sampled patients, most commonly involving nonnucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NNRTIs; 8.2%), followed by protease inhibitors (PIs; 3.5%) and nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTIs; 3.3%). The K103N/S and E138A reverse transcriptase mutations were the most common DRMs identified, both present in 3.5% of patients. The L90M mutation was the most frequently observed PI SDRM (1.6%), while the T215C/D/I mutation was the most common NRTI SDRM identified (1.9%). This study was limited by the fact that the WHO SDRM list was last updated in 2009.


CONCLUSIONS
The frequency of DRMs in central and western Oklahoma is similar to recently reported rates in the United States which lack data from this region. However, the frequency of second-generation NNRTI DRMs (4.4%) suggests the need to closely monitor epidemiologic trends for increasing resistance rates to individual classes of ARVs in order to predict the impact of TDR on therapeutic options.
Investigation of Heavy metal status in soil and vegetables grown in urban area of Allahabad , Uttar Pradesh , India

The present study was carried out to assess levels of different heavy metals like Iron, Cadmium, Nickel, Lead, Copper and Zinc in vegetables irrigated with water from different sources industrial area of Naini Allahabad. The order of heavy metal concentration was found in Fe > Zn > Cd > Pb > Ni > Cu in irrigated water and Fe > Ni > Zn > Cu > Cd > Pb was observed in industrial contaminated sites of soils. Metal levels observed in these sources were compared with WHO. The concentrations (mg/L) of heavy metals in irrigated water ranged from 0.249 to 0.257 for Fe, 0.049 to 0.056 for Zn, 0.028 to 0.036 for Cd, 0.015 to 0.019 for Cu, 0.035 to 0.042 for Pb and 0.031 to 0.038 for Ni which is lower than recommended maximum tolerable levels proposed by joint FAO/WHO Expert committee on food additives (2007), with the exception of Cd and Fe which exhibited elevated content. Uptake and translocation factor of heavy metal from soil to Edible parts of vegetables were quite distinguished for almost all elements examined. Although the practice of growing leafy vegetables using wastewater for irrigation is aimed at producing socio-economic benefits but study reveals that heavy metal-contaminated vegetables grown in wastewater-irrigated areas may pose Public health hazards which is not safe and may not be sustainable in the long-term.
Enhanced low vision rehabilitation for people with age related macular degeneration: a randomised controlled trial.

AIM
To compare the effectiveness of three models of low vision rehabilitation for people with age related macular degeneration (AMD) referred for low vision rehabilitation (LVR): (a) an enhanced low vision rehabilitation model (ELVR) including supplementary home based low vision rehabilitation; (b) conventional low vision rehabilitation (CLVR) based in a hospital clinic; (c) CLVR with home visits that did not include rehabilitation (CELVR), intended to act as a control for the additional contact time with ELVR.


METHOD
A single centre parallel group randomised controlled trial in participants' homes and the low vision clinic, Manchester Royal Eye Hospital. People referred for LVR with a primary diagnosis of AMD and visual acuity worse than 6/18 in both eyes and equal to or better than 1/60 in the better eye. The main outcome measures were vision specific quality of life (QoL) (primary outcome, VCM1) and generic health related QoL (SF-36); psychological adjustment to vision loss; measured task performance; restriction in everyday activities; use of low vision aids (LVAs).


RESULTS
226 participants were recruited (median age 82 years); 194 completed the trial (86%). Except for SF-36 physical and mental component summary scores, arms did not differ significantly for any of the outcomes. Differences for the VCM1 were ELVR v CLVR, 0.06 (95% CI to 0.17 to 0.30, p = 0.60); ELVR v CELVR, 0.12 (95% CI to 0.11 to 0.34, p = 0.31); CELVR v CLVR, -0.05 (95% CI -0.29 to 0.18, p = 0.64). Differences for the SF-36 favoured CLVR compared to ELVR (ELVR v CLVR: physical = -6.05, 95% CI -10.2 to -1.91, p = 0.004; mental = -4.04, 95% CI -7.44 to -0.65, p = 0.02). At 12 months, 94% of participants reported using at least one LVA.


CONCLUSION
ELVR was no more effective than CLVR. Researchers should be wary of proposing new LVR interventions without preliminary evidence of effectiveness, given the manifest lack of effectiveness of the model of enhanced LVR evaluated in the trial.
Aetiology and therapy of community-acquired pneumonia: a hospital study in northern Italy

Objectives: The primary aim of this study was to determine whether the use of a therapeutic protocol in the treatment of community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) proved equally effective as the initial empirical anti-infective therapy usually employed. A secondary aim was to compare the cost of therapy and the incidence of the pathogens responsible for so-called “atypical” pneumonia in the study area. Methods: A comparison was made between 11 hospital departments agreeing to abide by the study protocol and 12 hospital departments, well matched for size and type, implementing their usual therapy. The protocol provided different anti-infective therapy options for the patients regarded as being at risk and not at risk, and, secondarily, for infections likely to be of the “typical bacterial” or so-called “atypical” type. The main outcome measures were need to change the initial anti-infective therapy owing to inefficacy, final clinical and radiological outcome, mean cost of pharmacological therapy per patient and result of the serological investigations of the pathogens responsible for “atypical” pneumonia. Results: A total of 345 patients with CAP were assessed. The initial therapy was changed in 8.6% of patients treated according to the protocol, and in 24.5% of patients treated with the usual anti-infective therapies. The cost of therapy for the protocol was almost half of that in the control group. Clinical and radiological outcome was similar in the two groups, with a very low mortality rate. The overall proportion of cases of “atypical” pneumonia amounted to 13%. Conclusions: The use of the therapeutic protocol gave an efficacy comparable to that achieved with routine therapy, but at a distinctly lower cost of antibiotic therapy. The use of microbiological investigations is very limited in day-to-day clinical practice, and the incidence of so-called “atypical” pneumonia was low in the study area, apart from specific outbreaks.
Chimpanzees, Pan troglodytes, follow gaze direction geometrically

Two experiments on chimpanzee gaze following are reported. In the first, chimpanzee subjects watched as a human experimenter looked around various types of barriers. The subjects looked around each of the barriers more when the human had done so than in a control condition (in which the human looked in another direction). In the second experiment, chimpanzees watched as a human looked towards the back of their cage. As they turned to follow the human's gaze a distractor object was presented. The chimpanzees looked at the distractor while still following the human's gaze to the back of the cage. These two experiments effectively disconfirm the low-level model of chimpanzee gaze following in which it is claimed that upon seeing another animate being's gaze direction chimpanzees simply turn in that direction and look around for something interesting. Rather, they support the hypothesis that chimpanzees follow the gaze direction of other animate beings geometrically to specific locations, in much the same way as human infants. The degree to which chimpanzees have a mentalistic interpretation of the gaze and/or visual experience of others is still an open question. Copyright 1999 The Association for the Study of Animal Behaviour.
A 1.8V to 10V CMOS level shifter for RFID transponders

A 1.8V-to-10V high-voltage tolerant level shifter (HVT level shifter) is presented in this paper. This new topology of HVT level shifter makes all the transistors working in safe operating region, and consequently greatly enhances the circuit's reliability. It has been fabricated in 0.18 µm CMOS process, and successfully integrated in an embedded EEPROM memory with 10 V programming/erasing voltages in the passive UHF RFID transponders.
A Seven-degrees-of-freedom Robot-arm Driven by Pneumatic Artificial Muscles for Humanoid Robots

Braided pneumatic artificial muscles, and in particular the better known type with a double helical braid usually called the McKibben muscle, seem to be at present the best means for motorizing robotarms with artificial muscles. Their ability to develop high maximum force associated with lightness and a compact cylindrical shape, as well as their analogical behavior with natural skeletal muscle were very well emphasized in the 1980s by the development of the Bridgestone “soft robot” actuated by “rubbertuators”. Recent publications have presented ways for modeling McKibben artificial muscle as well as controlling its highly non-linear dynamic behavior. However, fewer studies have concentrated on analyzing the integration of artificial muscles with robot-arm architectures since the first Bridgestone prototypes were designed. In this paper we present the design of a 7R anthropomorphic robot-arm entirely actuated by antagonistic McKibben artificial muscle pairs. The validation of the robot-arm architecture was performed in a teleoperation mode. KEY WORDS—anthropomorphic robot-arm, artificial muscle, McKibben muscle
Handwritten ZIP code recognition using lexicon free word recognition algorithm

This paper describes a new approach to ZIP code recognition using a word recognition algorithm, where a numeral string is recognized as a word. This paper also describes an end to end ZIP code recognition system consisting of tiltlslant correction, line segmentation, word segmentation, ZIP code location, as well as the ZIP code recognition. Evaluation tests are performed using address block image samples collected from United States mail pieces. The results of isolaed numeral recognition, manually extracted ZIP code recognition, and end to end ZIP code recognition are presented to show and discuss the advantage of the word recognition based numeral string recognition.
A database for microphone array experimentation.

Figure 3: Example of phase correlation between two microphones. The peak of this function indicates the inter-channel delay. index associated with peak value of f(t). This delay estimator is computationally convenient and more robust to noise and reverberation than other approaches based on cross-correlation or adaptive ltering. In ideal conditions, the output of Equation (5) is a delta function centered on the correct delay. In real applications with a wide band signal, e.g., a speech signal, the outcome is not a perfect delta function. Rather it resembles a correlation function of a random process. The time index associated with the maximum value of the output of Equation (5) provides an estimation of the delay. The system can produce wrong answers when two or more peaks of similar amplitude are present, i.e., in highly reverber-ant conditions. The resolution in delay estimation is limited in discrete systems by the sampling frequency. In order to increase the accuracy, oversampling can be applied in the neighborhood of the peak, to achieve sub-sample precision. Fig. 3 demonstrates an example of the result of a cross-power spectrum time delay estimator. Once the relative delays associated with all considered microphone pairs are known, the source position (x s ; y s) is estimated as the point that would produce the most similar delay values to the observed ones. This optimization is performed by a downhill sim-plex algorithm 6] applied to minimize the Euclidean distance between M observed delays ^ i and the corresponding M theoretical delays i : An analysis of the impulse responses associated with all the microphones, given an acoustic source emitting at a speciic position, has shown that constructive interference phenomena occur in the presence of signiicant reverberation. In some cases, the direct wavefront happens to be weaker than a coincidence of reeections, inducing a wrong estimation of the arrival direction and leading to an incorrect result. Selecting only microphone pairs that show the highest peaks of phase correlation generally alleviates this problem. Location results obtained with this strategy show comparable performance (mean posi-Reverb. Time Average Error 10 mic pairs 4 mic pairs 0.1sec 38.4 cm 29.8 cm 0.6sec 51.3 cm 32.1 cm 1.7sec 105.0 cm 46.4 cm Table 1: Average location error using either all 10 pairs or 4 pairs of microphones. Three reverberation time conditions are considered. tion error of about 0.3 m) at reverberation times of 0.1 s and 0.6 s. …
Influence of different types of environmental enrichment on the behaviour of finishing pigs in two different housing systems. 1. Hanging toy versus rootable substrate

This study aimed to assess the effects of environmental enrichment with either hanging manipulable toys or rootable substrates on the behaviour of finishing pigs in two contrasting housing systems. Thousand one hundred and twenty-four (Large White Landrace) Large White pigs were housed contemporarily in either a straw-based (ST) or fully slatted (FS) building from 35 kg to slaughter at 104 kg liveweight. In each building, half the pens received additional enrichment in the form of a hanging plastic toy (Bite-Rite). In the ST house the remaining pens were enriched only by the straw bedding. The remaining pens in the FS house were provided with hoppers containing shreds of unmolassed sugar beet pulp. The level of Bite-Rite manipulation was significantly higher in the FS system than in the ST system (P < 0.05). Within the FS system, the sugar beet pulp occupied the pigs for more time than the Bite-Rite object (P < 0.05). Neither object provided a level of occupation close to that of straw bedding in the ST system. In the absence of straw, more investigatory behaviours were directed towards pen components (P < 0.001), however, no significant differences in www.elsevier.com/locate/applanim Applied Animal Behaviour Science 99 (2006) 222–229 * Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 191 2227435; fax: +44 191 2227811. E-mail address: Kamara.Scott@newcastle.ac.uk (K. Scott). 0168-1591/$ – see front matter # 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.applanim.2005.10.013 pig-directed behaviours were observed. Further study is required to identify functional forms of environmental enrichment for pigs in unbedded systems. # 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.