LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
SCIM III is reliable and valid in a separate analysis for traumatic spinal cord lesions

Study design:A multi-center international cohort study.Objective:To evaluate the reliability and validity of the third version of the Spinal Cord Independence Measure (SCIM III), separately for patients with traumatic spinal cord lesions (SCLs).Setting:A total of 13 spinal cord units in six countries from North America, Europe and the Middle-East.Methods:SCIM III and Functional Independence Measure (FIM) were assessed for 261 patients with traumatic SCLs, on admission to rehabilitation and before discharge, by two raters. Conventional statistical measures were used to evaluate the SCIM III reliability and validity.Results:In almost all SCIM III tasks, the total agreement between the paired raters was >80%. The κ coefficients were all >0.6 and statistically significant. Pearson's coefficients of the correlations between the paired raters were >0.9, the mean differences between raters were nonsignificant and the intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were ⩾0.95. Cronbach's α values for the entire SCIM III scale were 0.833–0.835. FIM and SCIM III total scores were correlated (r=0.84, P<0.001). SCIM III was more responsive to changes than FIM. In all subscales, SCIM III identified more changes in function than FIM, and in 3 of the 4 subscales, differences in responsiveness were statistically significant (P<0.02).Conclusion:The results confirm the reliability and validity of SCIM III for patients with traumatic SCLs in a number of countries.
Dynamics between the trust transfer process and intention to use mobile payment services: A cross-environment perspective

Many Internet-based services have already been ported to the mobile-based environment, embracing the new services is therefore critical to deriving revenue for services providers. Based on a valence framework and trust transfer theory, we developed a trust-based customer decision-making model of the non-independent, third-party mobile payment services context. We empirically investigated whether a customer’s established trust in Internet payment services is likely to influence his or her initial trust in mobile payment services. We also examined how these trust beliefs might interact with both positive and negative valence factors and affect a customer’s adoption of mobile payment services. Our SEM analysis indicated that trust indeed had a substantial impact on the cross-environment relationship and, further, that trust in combination with the positive and negative valence determinants directly and indirectly influenced behavioral intention. In addition, the magnitudes of these effects on workers and students were significantly different from each other. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. * Corresponding author. Tel.: +86 27 8755 8100; fax: +86 27 8755 6437. E-mail addresses: luyb@mail.hust.edu.cn (Y. Lu), xtysq@smail.hust.edu.cn (S. Yang), Chau@business.hku.hk (Patrick Y.K. Chau), skysharecao@163.com (Y. Cao). 1 Tel.: +86 27 8755 6448. 2 Tel.: +852 2859 1025. 3 Tel.: +86 27 8755 8100.
MAVE: Multilevel wrApper Verification systEm

Wrappers are pieces of software used to extract data from websites and structure them for further application processing. Unfortunately, websites are continuously evolving and structural changes happen with no forewarning, which usually results in wrappers working incorrectly. Thus, wrappers maintenance is necessary for detecting whether wrapper is extracting erroneous data. The solution consists of using verification models to detect whether wrapper output is statistically similar to the output produced by the wrapper itself when it was successfully invoked in the past. Current proposals present some weaknesses, as the data used to build these models are supposed to be homogeneous, independent, or representative enough, or following a single predefined mathematical model. In this paper, we present MAVE, a novel multilevel wrapper verification system that is based on one-class classification techniques to overcome previous weaknesses. The experimental results show that our proposal outperforms accuracy of current solutions.
Using aspects and dynamic composition to provide context-aware adaptation for mobile applications

Mobile systems characterize by dynamic environments, thus requiring adaptive and context aware mechanisms to perceive changes in the execution context and to dynamically adapt to them. We propose a framework for developing adaptive context aware applications which employs aspect-oriented techniques and dynamic composition to modularize the adaptive behavior and to keep apart the application logic from this behavior.
Graph-based Analysis for E-Commerce Recommendation

Recommender systems automate the process of recommending products and services to customers based on various types of data including customer demographics, product features, and, most importantly, previous interactions between customers and products (e.g., purchasing, rating, and catalog browsing). Despite significant research progress and growing acceptance in real-world applications, two major challenges remain to be addressed to implement effective e-commerce recommendation applications. The first challenge is concerned with making recommendations based on sparse transaction data. The second challenge is the lack of a unified framework to integrate multiple types of input data and recommendation approaches. This dissertation investigates graph-based algorithms to address these two problems. The proposed approach is centered on consumer-product graphs that represent sales transactions as links connecting consumer and product nodes. In order to address the sparsity problem, I investigate the network spreading activation algorithms and a newly proposed link analysis algorithm motivated by ideas from Web graph analysis techniques. Experimental results with several e-commerce datasets indicated that both classes of algorithms outperform a wide range of existing collaborative filtering algorithms, especially under sparse data. Two graph-based models that enhance the simple consumerproduct graph were proposed to provide unified recommendation frameworks. The first model, a two-layer graph model, enhances the consumer-product graph by incorporating the consumer/product attribute information as consumer and product similarity links. The
An exploration on teaching team construction of computer software in application-oriented undergraduate universities

This paper analyzed the contradictions between requirements for computer software talents in application-oriented undergraduate universities (AOUUs) and current teaching status. We also discussed the necessities of teaching team construction for computer software specialties based on university-enterprise-cooperation (UEC) in AOUUs. We proposed the construction principles and explored the organizational forms and construction methods of UEC-based teaching teams of computer software.
Religious Fundamentalism and Intercultural Communication: The Relationships Among Ethnocentrism, Intercultural Communication Apprehension, Religious Fundamentalism, Homonegativity, and Tolerance for Religious Disagreements

The purpose of the current study was to examine the relationships among ethnocentrism, intercultural communication apprehension, religious fundamentalism, homonegativity, and tolerance for religious disagreements. This study found a positive relationship between religious fundamentalism with ethnocentrism and homonegativity. The study further found a negative relationship between tolerance for religious disagreement with ethnocentrism and religious fundamentalism. Lastly, homonegativity, ethnocentrism, and tolerance for religious disagreement were shown to account for approximately 17.5% of the variance in an individual’s intercultural communication apprehension. However, religious fundamentalism was not shown to be related to intercultural communication apprehension.
A taxonomy of causes of software vulnerabilities in Internet software

At the root of almost every security incident on the Internet are one or more software vulnerabilities, i.e. security-related bugs in the software that can be exploited by an attacker to perform actions he should not be able to perform. Analysis of vulnerability alerts as distributed by organisations like CERT([CER]) or SANS([SAN]), and analysis of causes of actual incidents shows that many vulnerabilities can be traced back to a relatively small number of causes: software developers are making the same mistakes over and over again. The goal of this paper is to propose a structured taxonomy of the most frequently occuring causes of vulnerabilities. Such a taxonomy can be useful in a number of scenarios: as an aid for developers, to avoid common pitfalls, as didactical material for students in software engineering or as a “checklist” for software testers or auditors. Due to space limitations, examples and discussion of related work are omitted in this paper. In a longer technical report ([Pie02]), the reader can find examples of all categories of vulnerabilities, and an extensive discussion of related work.
CKD patients and erythropoietin: do we need evidence-based informed consent?

BACKGROUND
Consent to therapy is increasingly requested in the form of ''informed consent''.


OBJECTIVE
To validate an evidence-based informed consent form for erythropoietin (EPO) therapy and to evaluate patient opinions about the informed consent approach.


METHODS
An evidence-based informed consent form was developed as part of the Evidence-Based-Medicine course at the Medical School of Turin, Italy. It was validated by anonymous questionnaires (0-10 analogical scales and open answers) administered to patients at different stages of CKD (19 pre-ESRD, 26 hemodialysis, 12 transplant patients) attending an outpatient unit of the University of Turin, to 8 nurses, and to 26 medical students.


RESULTS
All individuals filled in the questionnaire. Interest in a detailed explanation of the therapy was high (median 9), as was comprehension (median 9), with no differences between patients with regard to disease stage (pre-ESRD vs. RRT) or educational level. Prior knowledge of the therapy was affected by the educational level (p=0.013 for the advantages and p=0.004 for the side effects) and the professional role (patients vs caregivers: p=0.009 for the advantages and p<0.001 for side affects); patient knowledge of the advantages (median 6) tended to increase as the disease progressed (p=0.015). The most common response by patients was that informed consent was necessary for all drugs (35.1%); 73.1% of the caregivers considered it necessary only for severe side effects. The preferred modality of consent was discussion with the caregiver during the clinical controls (42% of all cases).


CONCLUSIONS
Patient interest in and comprehension of an informed consent form with a detailed explanation of the therapy was high; the caregiver's opinion was still the most valued teaching tool.
Working with autistic children through the spectrum of psychoanalytic concepts

Abstract In this paper, a specific institution in North London provides services for children with mild learning difficulties, was examined “through the spectrum of psychoanalytical concepts” by looking at the way its members cope with working with autistic children. The unconscious institutional anxieties, defences and the counter-transference were focused. It was clearly seen through the extracts and observations that unconscious factors can determine teaching and learning experiences together with the emotional aspects of the institution.
Financial Time Series Forecasting : Comparison of Neural Networks and ARCH Models

This paper compares the predictive accuracy of neural networks and conditional heteroscedastic models like ARCH, GARCH, GARCH-M, TGARCH, EGARCH and IGARCH, for forecasting the exchange rate series.The Multi Layer Perceptron (MLP) and Radial Basis Function (RBF) networks with different architectures and conditional heteroscedastic models are used to forecast five exchange rate time series. The results show that both Neural network and conditionally heteroscedastic models can be effectively used for prediction. RBF networks do considerably better than MLP networks in neural networks case. IGARCH and TGARCH fare better than other conditional heteroscedastic models. Neural networks' performance is better than that of conditional heteroscedasticity models in forecasting exchange rate. It is shown that neural network can be effectively employed to estimate the conditional volatility of exchange rate series and the implied volatility of NIFTY options. Neural network is found to beat conditional heteroscedastic models in out-of-sample forecasting.
Regulation of type I procollagen and MMP-1 expression after single or repeated exposure to infrared radiation in human skin

Human skin is daily exposed to infrared (IR) radiation from natural sunlight. However, the effects of IR irradiation on collagen metabolism have not been investigated in human skin in vivo. Here, we examined whether single or repeated (three times a week for 4 weeks) exposure to IR irradiation changes the expressions of type I procollagen and interstitial collagenase (MMP-1). By using immunostaining, Western blotting, and semi-quantitative RT-PCR, we analyzed the protein and mRNA levels of type I procollagen and MMP-1 in young buttock skin. A single dose of IR to human skin increased the expression of type I procollagen within 24h, but did not change the expression of MMP-1. On the other hand, multiple IR doses reduced the expression of type I procollagen and increased the expression of MMP-1. We also found that TGF-betas may mediate type I procollagen synthesis in IR-irradiated human skin. Our results demonstrate that the regulations of the expressions of type I procollagen and MMP-1 differ in acute and chronically IR-irradiated skin. In particular, decreased collagen levels and increased MMP-1 levels in chronic IR-irradiated skin may be associated with connective tissue damage. Thus, we suggest that repeated exposure to IR irradiation might induce premature skin aging (photoaging) in human skin in vivo.
A zero charge-pump mismatch current tracking loop for reference spur reduction in PLLs

The charge-pump (CP) mismatch current is a dominant source of static phase error and reference spur in the nano-meter CMOS PLL implementations due to its worsened channel length modulation effect. This paper presents a charge-pump (CP) mismatch current reduction technique utilizing an adaptive body bias tuning of CP transistors and a zero CP mismatch current tracking PLL architecture for reference spur suppression. A chip prototype of the proposed circuit was implemented in 0:13 μm CMOS technology. The frequency synthesizer consumes 8.2 mA current from a 1.3 V supply voltage and achieves a phase noise of 96.01 dBc/Hz @ 1 MHz offset from a 2.4 GHz RF carrier. The charge-pump measurements using the proposed calibration technique exhibited a mismatch current of less than 0.3 μA (0.55%) over the VCO control voltage range of 0.3–1.0 V. The closed loop measurements show a minimized static phase error of within 770 ps and a C9 dB reduction in reference spur level across the PLL output frequency range 2.4–2.5 GHz. The presented CP calibration technique compensates for the DC current mismatch and the mismatch due to channel length modulation effect and therefore improves the performance of CP-PLLs in nano-meter CMOS implementations. & 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
EAU guidelines on penile curvature.

CONTEXT
Penile curvature can be congenital or acquired. Acquired curvature is secondary due to La Peyronie (Peyronie's) disease.


OBJECTIVE
To provide clinical guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of penile curvature.


EVIDENCE ACQUISITION
A systematic literature search on the epidemiology, diagnosis, and treatment of penile curvature was performed. Articles with the highest evidence available were selected and formed the basis for assigning levels of evidence and grades of recommendations.


EVIDENCE SYNTHESIS
The pathogenesis of congenital penile curvature is unknown. Peyronie's disease is a poorly understood connective tissue disorder most commonly attributed to repetitive microvascular injury or trauma during intercourse. Diagnosis is based on medical and sexual histories, which are sufficient to establish the diagnosis. Physical examination includes assessment of palpable nodules and penile length. Curvature is best documented by a self-photograph or pharmacologically induced erection. The only treatment option for congenital penile curvature is surgery based on plication techniques. Conservative treatment for Peyronie's disease is associated with poor outcomes. Pharmacotherapy includes oral potassium para-aminobenzoate, intralesional treatment with verapamil, clostridial collagenase or interferon, topical verapamil gel, and iontophoresis with verapamil and dexamethasone. They can be efficacious in some patients, but none of these options carry a grade A recommendation. Steroids, vitamin E, and tamoxifen cannot be recommended. Extracorporeal shock wave treatment and penile traction devices may only be used to treat penile pain and reduce penile deformity, respectively. Surgery is indicated when Peyronie's disease is stable for at least 3 mo. Tunical shortening procedures, especially plication techniques, are the first treatment options. Tunical lengthening procedures are preferred in more severe curvatures or in complex deformities. Penile prosthesis implantation is recommended in patients with erectile dysfunction not responding to pharmacotherapy.


CONCLUSIONS
These European Association of Urology (EAU) guidelines summarise the present information on penile curvature. The extended version of the guidelines is available on the EAU Web site (www.uroweb.org/guidelines/).
An 8 bit 0.3–0.8 V 0.2–40 MS/s 2-bit/Step SAR ADC With Successively Activated Threshold Configuring Comparators in 40 nm CMOS

A 0.3-0.8 V low-power 2-bit/step asynchronous successive approximation register analog-to-digital converter (ADC) is presented. A low-power 2-bit/step operation technique is proposed which uses dynamic threshold configuring comparator instead of multiple digital-to-analog converters (DACs). Power and area overhead is minimized by successively activated comparators. The comparator threshold is configured by simple Vcm biased current source, which keep the ADC free from power supply variations over 10%. Simple digital calibration is enabled by generating the reference internally. The prototype ADC fabricated in a 40 nm CMOS achieved a 44.3 dB signal-to-noise-plus-distortion ratio (SNDR) with 6.14 MS/s at a single supply voltage of 0.5 V. The ADC achieved a peak FoM of 4.8 fJ/conv-step at 0.4 V and operates down to 0.3 V.
Components of delay in the pre-hospital phase of acute myocardial infarction.

Abstract One hundred sixty patients from a defined population with acute myocardial infarction were questioned about their activities before hospital arrival. Hospital arrival time was divided into prodromal period, patient decision time, lay consultation period, medical decision time and travel time. Forty-eight percent experienced prodromal chest pain before the acute onset of symptoms. The median hospital arrival time for all patients was 2 hours, 45 minutes. Hospital arrival time was significantly prolonged in patients experiencing an increase in the severity of angina pectoris, and in those with a physician decision time of more than 1 hour. Implications for intervention techniques are discussed.
Ouroboros Praos: An adaptively-secure, semi-synchronous proof-of-stake protocol

We present “Ouroboros Praos”, a new proof-of-stake blockchain protocol that provides, for the first time, a robust distributed ledger that is provably secure in the semi-synchronous adversarial setting, i.e., assuming a delay ∆ in message delivery which is unknown to protocol participants, and fully adaptively secure, i.e., the adversary can choose to corrupt any participant of an ever evolving population of stakeholders at any moment as long the stakeholder distribution maintains an honest majority of stake at any given time. To achieve that, our protocol puts to use forward secure digital signatures and a new type of verifiable random functions that maintains unpredictability under malicious key generation, a property we introduce and instantiate in the random oracle model. Our security proof entails a combinatorial analysis of a class of forkable strings tailored to semi-synchronous blockchains that may be of independent interest in the context of security analysis of blockchain protocols.
Efficacy and Safety of the 3-Month Formulation of Paliperidone Palmitate vs Placebo for Relapse Prevention of Schizophrenia: A Randomized Clinical Trial.

IMPORTANCE
Treatment nonadherence and relapse are common problems in patients with schizophrenia. The long-acting 3-month formulation of paliperidone palmitate, owing to its extended elimination half-life, may offer a valuable therapeutic option for these patients.


OBJECTIVE
To evaluate the efficacy and safety of the 3-month formulation of paliperidone palmitate vs placebo in delaying time to relapse of schizophrenia symptoms.


DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS
This randomized, multicenter trial conducted from April 26, 2012, through April 9, 2014, in 8 countries consisted of 4 phases: 3-week screening phase, flexible-dose 17-week open-label transition phase, 12-week open-label maintenance phase, and open-ended double-blind (DB) phase. Of the 506 patients enrolled (aged 18-70 years; DSM-IV-TR diagnosis of schizophrenia), 305 were randomized to 3-month paliperidone palmitate (n = 160) or placebo (n = 145) in the DB phase.


INTERVENTIONS
Patients received once-monthly doses of the 1-month formulation of paliperidone palmitate (50, 75, 100, or 150 mg eq) during the transition phase, followed by a single dose of the 3-month formulation (3.5 times the stabilized dose of once-monthly paliperidone palmitate) during the maintenance phase. Stabilized patients were randomized to receive either a fixed dose of 3-month paliperidone palmitate (175, 263, 350, or 525 mg eq) or placebo once every 3 months during the DB phase.


MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES
Time from randomization to the first relapse event (time to relapse) in the DB phase.


RESULTS
In the interim analysis, time to first relapse was significantly different in favor of the paliperidone palmitate group vs the placebo group (hazard ratio = 3.45; 95% CI, 1.73-6.88; P < .001); median time to relapse was 274 days for placebo but not estimable for 3-month paliperidone palmitate. An independent data monitoring committee recommended early study termination due to efficacy. In the DB phase, 183 of 305 patients (62% with 3-month paliperidone palmitate; 58% with placebo) had at least 1 treatment-emergent adverse event; those noted more frequently in the group receiving paliperidone palmitate than in the placebo group were headache (9% vs 4%), weight increased (9% vs 3%), nasopharyngitis (6% vs 1%), and akathisia (4% vs 1%).


CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE
Compared with placebo, the 3-month formulation of paliperidone palmitate administered 4 times yearly significantly delayed time to relapse in patients with schizophrenia. The 3-month formulation was generally tolerable and has a safety profile consistent with other marketed paliperidone formulations.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
clinicaltrials.gov Identifier:NCT01529515.