LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
The effects of the implementation of snoezelen on the quality of working life in psychogeriatric care.

BACKGROUND
Dementia among nursing home residents is often accompanied by high care dependency and behavioral disturbances, resulting in an increased workload for the caregivers. Snoezelen, integrated into 24-hour dementia care, is an approach that might improve the quality of working life of dementia caregivers. This study aims to investigate the effectiveness of integrated snoezelen on work-related outcomes (workload and psychological outcomes) of caregivers in psychogeriatric nursing homes.


METHODS
A quasi-experimental pre- and post-test design was used, comparing six psychogeriatric wards that implemented snoezelen in 24-hour care to six control wards that continued giving usual care. One hundred and twenty-nine Certified Nursing Assistants (CNAs) were included in the pre-test and 127 CNAs in the post-test. The six intervention wards received a 4-day in-house training program. The intervention further consisted of implementation activities on the ward (e.g. stimulus preference screening, workgroup), three in-house follow-up meetings and two general meetings. Measurements on workload, perceived problems, stress reactions, job satisfaction and burnout were performed at baseline and after 18 months.


RESULTS
A significant treatment effect in favor of the experimental group was found for time pressure, perceived problems, stress reactions and emotional exhaustion. CNAs of the experimental group also improved on their overall job satisfaction score. In particular, they were more satisfied with the quality of care and with their contact with residents.


CONCLUSION
The implementation of snoezelen improved the quality of the working life of dementia caregivers.
Enhanced step coverage by oblique angle physical vapor deposition

We present the use of an oblique angle physical vapor deposition OAPVDd technique with substrate rotation to obtain conformal thin films with enhanced step coverage on patterned surfaces. We report the results of rutheniumsRud films sputter deposited on trench structures with aspect ratio ,2 and show that OAPVD with an incidence angle less that 30° with respect to the substrate surface normal one can create a more conformal coating without overhangs and voids compared to that obtained by normal incidence deposition. A simple geometrical shadowing effect is presented to explain the results. The technique has the potential of extending the present PVD technique to future chip interconnect fabrication. ©2005 American Institute of Physics . fDOI: 10.1063/1.1937476 g
Signal processing for melody transcription

vocal sources. For example, Moorer [9] describes a system that transcribes two-part music, and his example inputs were violin and guitar duets. He reported problems in finding the beginnings and ends of notes. Piszczalski and Galler [13] restricted input to recorders and flutes playing at a consistent tempo. These instruments are relatively easy to track because they have strong fundamental frequencies and weak harmonics. MT is a melody transcription system that accepts acoustic input, typically sung by the user, and displays it in standard music notation. It tracks the pitch of the input and segments the pitch stream into musical notes, which are labelled by their pitches relative to a reference frequency that adapts to the user’s tuning. This paper describes the signal processing operations involved, and discusses two applications that have been prototyped: a sightsinging tutor and a scheme for acoustically indexing a melody database. More recently, Kuhn [8] described a system that transcribes singing by displaying the evolution of pitch as a thick horizontal line on a musical staff to show users the notes they are producing. No attempt is made to identify the boundary between one note and the next: the only way to create a musical score is for users to tap the computer’s keyboard at the beginning of each note. There are at least two commercial systems that claim to teach sightsinging—but they generate the melodies randomly, which inevitably creates very bad examples for users to work with. More fundamentally, they require the user to keep mercilessly to the tempo set by the machine, and the overall success measure is calculated from the accumulated amount of time that he or she is not singing the correct pitch. Such partial solutions to the melody transcription problem are not very useful in practice.
Clinical study to evaluate the wear of natural enamel antagonist to zirconia and metal ceramic crowns.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Tooth wear is a complex process, which, if not prevented, may adversely affect the integrity of the stomatognathic system. Different restorative dental materials may affect the amount of wear on natural enamel antagonists.


PURPOSE
The purpose of this in vivo study was to evaluate and compare the wear of enamel opposing natural enamel, zirconia, and metal ceramic crowns after 1 year.


MATERIAL AND METHODS
Ten participants between 18 and 35 years of age requiring 2 complete crowns, 1 on either side of maxillary or mandibular molar region, and having healthy natural teeth in the opposing arch were selected. For each participant, 1 monolithic polished zirconia crown and 1 glazed metal ceramic crown were fabricated and cemented. To evaluate the wear of the antagonistic natural enamel (premolar and molar), polyvinyl siloxane impressions were made immediately (baseline) and at 1 year after cementation. The wear of natural enamel against natural enamel was evaluated as the control. The resulting casts were scanned (using a 3D white light scanner), and 3D software was used to calculate the maximum amount of linear wear.


RESULTS
One-way repeated measures ANOVA was conducted to analyze data. Mean ±SD occlusal wear of the antagonistic enamel 1 year after the cementation of metal ceramic crowns was 69.20 ±4.10 μm for premolar teeth and 179.70 ±8.09 μm for molar teeth, whereas for zirconia crowns, it was 42.10 ±4.30 μm for premolar teeth and 127.00 ±5.03 μm for molar teeth. Occlusal wear of natural enamel opposing natural enamel was 17.30 ±1.88 μm in the premolar region and 35.10 ±2.60 μm in the molar region. The Bonferroni post hoc test revealed that the occlusal wear of antagonistic enamel 1 year after the cementation of a metal ceramic crown was significantly higher (P<.001) than that of an opposing zirconia crown or natural enamel.


CONCLUSIONS
Zirconia crowns led to less wear of antagonist enamel than metal ceramic crowns, but more than natural enamel.
On the short-term influence of oil price changes on stock markets in GCC countries: linear and nonlinear analyses

This paper examines the short-run relationships between oil prices and GCC stock markets. Since GCC countries are major world energy market players, their stock markets may be susceptible to oil price shocks. To account for the fact that stock markets may respond nonlinearly to oil price shocks, we have examined both linear and nonlinear relationships. Our findings show that there are significant links between the two variables in Qatar, Oman, and UAE. Thus, stock markets in these countries react positively to oil price increases. For Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia we found that oil price changes do not affect stock market returns. Citation: Arouri Mohamed el hédi and Fouquau Julien, (2009) ''On the short-term influence of oil price changes on stock markets in gcc countries: linear and nonlinear analyses'', Economics Bulletin, Vol. 29 no.2 pp. 795-804. Submitted: Mar 23 2009.   Published: May 03, 2009.
A Deep Reinforcement Learning Based Multimodal Coaching Model (DCM) for Slot Filling in Spoken Language Understanding(SLU)

In this paper, a deep reinforcement learning(DRL) based multimodal coaching model (DCM) for slot filling task in SLU is proposed. The DCM takes advantage of a DRL based model as a coach of the system to learn the wrong labeled slots with/without user’s feedback, hence may further improve the performance of an SLU system. This DCM model is an improved model of the deep reinforcement learning based augmented tagging model as introduced in [1], by using a better DRL model with different rewards and adding in a user’s feedback modal to achieve one-shot learning.The performance of DCM is evaluated on two datasets: one is the benchmark ATIS corpus dataset, another is our in-house dataset with three different domains. It shows that the new system gives a better performance than the current state-of-the-art results on ATIS by using DCM. Furthermore, we build a demo application to further explain how user’s input can also be used as a real-time coach to improve model’s performance even more.
Intertemporal choice in lemurs

Different species vary in their ability to wait for delayed rewards in intertemporal choice tasks. Models of rate maximization account for part of this variation, but other factors such as social structure and feeding ecology seem to underly some species differences. Though studies have evaluated intertemporal choice in several primate species, including Old World monkeys, New World monkeys, and apes, prosimians have not been tested. This study investigated intertemporal choices in three species of lemur (black-and-white ruffed lemurs, Varecia variegata, red ruffed lemurs, Varecia rubra, and black lemurs, Eulemur macaco) to assess how they compare to other primate species and whether their choices are consistent with rate maximization. We offered lemurs a choice between two food items available immediately and six food items available after a delay. We found that by adjusting the delay to the larger reward, the lemurs were indifferent between the two options at a mean delay of 17 s, ranging from 9 to 25 s. These data are comparable to data collected from common marmosets (Callithrix jacchus). The lemur data were not consistent with models of rate maximization. The addition of lemurs to the list of species tested in these tasks will help uncover the role of life history and socio-ecological factors influencing intertemporal choices.
Single-Event Characterization of the 28 nm Xilinx Kintex-7 Field-Programmable Gate Array under Heavy Ion Irradiation

This study examines the single-event response of the Xilinx 28 nm Kintex-7 FPGA irradiated with heavy ions. Results for single-event effects on configuration SRAM cells, user-accessible Flip-Flop cells, and BlockRAM™ memory are provided. This study also describes an unconventional single event latch-up signature observed during testing.
Review of flywheel based energy storage systems

In flywheel based energy storage systems, a flywheel stores mechanical energy that interchanges in form of electrical energy by means of an electrical machine with a bidirectional power converter. Flywheel based energy storage systems are suitable whenever numerous charge and discharge cycles (hundred of thousands) are needed with medium to high power (kW to MW) during short periods (seconds). The materials for the flywheel, the type of electrical machine, the type of bearings and the confinement atmosphere determine the energy efficiency (>85%) of the flywheel based energy storage systems. Monitoring of state of charge is simple and reliable as only spinning speed is needed. Flywheel based energy storage systems are commercially available with more than a dozen of manufacturers. Amongst the applications of flywheel based energy storage systems are: uninterruptible power supplies, hybrid power systems, power grids feeding trains, hybrid vehicles and space satellites.
Evaluating adherence to highly active antiretroviral therapy with use of pill counts and viral load measurement in the drug resources enhancement against AIDS and malnutrition program in Mozambique.

BACKGROUND
Maintaining treatment adherence among the growing number of patients receiving antiretroviral treatment in Africa is a dramatic challenge. The objective of our study was to explore the results of a computerized pill count method and to test the validity, sensitivity, and specificity of this method with respect to viral load measurement in an African setting.


METHODS
We performed a prospective, observational study involving patients who received first-line highly active antiretroviral therapy in Mozambique from 1 April 2005 through 31 March 2006. Enrolled patients had received treatment for at least 3 months before the study. For defining treatment adherence levels, pill counts were used, and the results were analyzed with viral load measurements at the end of the observation period.


RESULTS
The study involved 531 participants. During the 12 months of observation, 137 patients left the program or discontinued first-line therapy. Of the remaining 394 patients, 284 (72.1%) had >95% treatment adherence; of those 284 patients, 274 (96.5%) had a final viral load <1000 copies/mL. A Cox proportional hazards analysis revealed that the relationship between >95% treatment adherence and the final viral load was closer than that between >90% treatment adherence and viral load.


CONCLUSIONS
Treatment adherence >95% maximizes the results of the nonnucleoside reverse-transcriptase inhibitor-based regimen. The pill count method appears to be a reliable and economic tool for monitoring treatment adherence in resource-limited settings.
Interoperability issues among smart home technological frameworks

Population aging may be seen both as a human success story, the triumph of public health, medical advancements and economic development over diseases and injures, and as one of the most challenging phenomena that society faces in this century. Assistive technology in all its possible implementations (from Telemedicine to Ambient Assisted Living, and Ambient Intelligence) represents an emerging answer to the needs of the new generation of older adults whose desire is to live longer with a higher quality of life. Objective of this paper is to present the results of a public financed action for the development and implementation of an “integration platform” for Ambient Assisted Living that includes features of home automation (energy management, safety, comfort, etc.) and introduces “smart objects”, to monitor activities of daily living and detect any abnormal behavior that may represent a danger, or highlight symptoms of some incipient disease.
Multibroadband Slotted Bow-Tie Monopole Antenna

In this letter, a coplanar waveguide (CPW)-fed multiband bow-tie monopole antenna is proposed. This antenna can be easily designed to meet the requirement of multiple operating frequencies by using the proposed approach. Multiple bent monopoles, which correspond to different operating frequencies, are generated by etching slots of different lengths in a bow-tie patch. The length of each bent monopole is determined under the quarter wavelength resonance condition. Each frequency band can be easily satisfied for the broadband character because the bow-tie patch can be treated as a broadband impedance-matching structure. This study demonstrates a triple-band slotted bow-tie monopole antenna for WLAN/WiMAX/LTE applications with bands of 2.4-2.7 GHz, 3.4-3.7 GHz, and 5.2-5.8 GHz. The size of the proposed antenna fabricated on a 0.8 mm-thick FR4 substrate with a dielectric constant of 4.2 without considering the ground plane size is only 19.5 ×9.0 mm2. The good agreement between the simulation results and the measurement validates the proposed design approach.
Sum capacity of the vector Gaussian broadcast channel and uplink-downlink duality

We characterize the sum capacity of the vector Gaussian broadcast channel by showing that the existing inner bound of Marton and the existing upper bound of Sato are tight for this channel. We exploit an intimate four-way connection between the vector broadcast channel, the corresponding point-to-point channel (where the receivers can cooperate), the multiple-access channel (MAC) (where the role of transmitters and receivers are reversed), and the corresponding point-to-point channel (where the transmitters can cooperate).
Speaker-independent isolated word recognition using dynamic features of speech spectrum

This paper proposes a new isolated word recognition technique based on a combination of instantaneous and dynamic features of the speech spectrum. This technique is shown to be highly effective in speaker-independent speech recognition. Spoken utterances are represented by time sequences of cepstrum coefficients and energy. Regression coefficients for these time functions are extracted for every frame over an approximately 50 ms period. Time functions of regression coefficients extracted for cepstrum and energy are combined with time functions of the original cepstrum coefficients, and used with a staggered array DP matching algorithm to compare multiple templates and input speech. Speaker-independent isolated word recognition experiments using a vocabulary of 100 Japanese city names indicate that a recognition error rate of 2.4 percent can be obtained with this method. Using only the original cepstrum coefficients the error rate is 6.2 percent. D
Ciprofibrate therapy improves endothelial function and reduces postprandial lipemia and oxidative stress in type 2 diabetes mellitus.

BACKGROUND
Exaggerated postprandial lipemia (PPL) is a factor in atherogenesis, involving endothelial dysfunction and enhanced oxidative stress. We examined the effect of ciprofibrate therapy on these parameters in type 2 diabetes mellitus.


METHODS AND RESULTS
Twenty patients entered a 3-month, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Each subject was studied fasting and after a fatty meal, at baseline, and after 3 months of treatment. Glucose and lipid profiles were measured over an 8-hour postprandial period. Endothelial function (flow-mediated endothelium-dependent vasodilatation [FMD]) and oxidative stress (electron paramagnetic resonance spectroscopy) were measured after fasting and 4 hours postprandially. At baseline, both groups exhibited similar PPL and deterioration in endothelial function. After ciprofibrate, fasting and postprandial FMD values were significantly higher (from 3.8+/-1. 8% and 1.8+/-1.3% to 4.8+/-1.1% and 3.4+/-1.1%; P<0.05). This was mirrored by a fall in fasting and postprandial triglycerides (3. 1+/-2.1 and 6.6+/-4.1 mmol/L to 1.5+/-0.8 and 2.8+/-1.3 mmol/L, P<0. 05). Fasting and postprandial HDL cholesterol was also elevated (0. 9+/-0.1 and 0.8+/-0.1 mmol/L and 1.2+/-0.2 and 1.2+/-0.1 mmol/L, P<0. 05). There were no changes in total or LDL cholesterol. Fasting and postprandial triglyceride enrichment of all lipoproteins was attenuated, with cholesterol depletion of VLDL and enrichment of HDL. There were similar postprandial increases in oxidative stress in both groups at baseline, which was significantly attenuated by ciprofibrate (0.3+/-0.6 versus 1.5+/-1.1 U, P<0.05).


CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrates that fibrate therapy improves fasting and postprandial endothelial function in type 2 diabetes. Attenuation of PPL and the associated oxidative stress, with increased HDL cholesterol levels, may be important.
Unilateral leptomeningeal enhancement after carotid stent insertion detected by magnetic resonance imaging.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty combined with vascular stenting is currently being assessed in the treatment of patients with symptomatic, severe carotid stenosis. The immediate cerebral hemodynamic effects resulting from stenting are not fully understood. This article describes a novel finding: abnormal leptomeningeal enhancement after stenting shown by MRI.


METHODS
Fourteen patients with symptomatic severe carotid bifurcation stenosis underwent MRI within 4 hours before and within 3 hours after attempted carotid stenting. Twelve patients were successfully stented. Part of the MR investigation consisted of the acquisition of T1-weighted images before and after administration of the contrast agent Gd-DTPA, both before and after the procedure.


RESULTS
All 12 patients who underwent successful stenting did not have abnormal enhancement of the leptomeninges before stenting but developed unilateral enhancement following intervention but before the second injection of contrast agent. No contrast enhancement was detected in the 2 patients who had the angiographic procedure but were not stented.


CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest that abnormal changes to the leptomeningeal vasculature occur during carotid stenting which are not associated with sudden development of neurological symptoms. The anatomic distribution of the enhancement suggests that it is a consequence of the sudden change in brain hemodynamics secondary to the improvement in carotid flow after stenting.
Proposal of a Sustainability Index for the Automotive Industry

In a scenario of increasing globalization, sustainable development has emerged as an attractive and strategic issue for both countries and individual organizations and their supply chains. Companies have faced different challenges in seeking to combine the best economic performance with increased social and environmental responsibility. Monitoring sustainability is essential for decision-making and management of activities that comprise an organization’s system processes. Evaluation can be performed using indices or a set of indicators. In addition to increasing organizational effectiveness and improving competitiveness, customer service and profitability, it is also a crucial influence on the development of business sustainability. This paper proposes a sustainability index that provides companies with information about their level of economic, social and environmental sustainability, showing their performance at both individual and supply chain level. The importance of the indicators is assessed by using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodology applied to a case study of a supply chain in the automotive industry. The various stages experienced during the construction of the index are also shown. The final results achieved are then presented and discussed in light of the objectives. OPEN ACCESS Sustainability 2015, 7 2114
A survey of methods and approaches for reliable dynamic service compositions

An increasing amount of today’s software systems is developed by dynamically composing available atomic services to form a single service that responds to consumers’ demand. These composite services are distributed across the network, adapted dynamically during run-time, and still required to work correctly and be available on demand. The development of these kinds of modern services requires new modeling and analysis methods and techniques to enable service reliability during run-time. In this paper, we define the required phases of the composite service design and execution to achieve reliable composite service. These phases are described in the form of a framework. We perform a literature survey of existing methods and approaches for reliable composite services to find out how they match with the criteria of our framework. The contribution of the work is to reveal the current status in the research field of reliable composite service engineering.