LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
The effects of emotional intelligence, age, work experience, and academic performance.

In recent years, emotional intelligence (EI) has been a popular topic of debate in the field of management. It has been praised as a successful predictor of job performance and leadership ability. Authors have also claimed that emotional intelligence predicts success at school. However, little empirical research has been conducted to test this assertion. In this study, the relationship between emotional intelligence, as measured by the Trait Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire Short Form (TEIQue SF) and academic performance were examined in a sample of undergraduate business students (N=193). Emotional intelligence was found to be positively associated with work experience. Despite this finding, emotional intelligence was not significantly associated with age. Global trait emotional intelligence was not significantly associated with academic achievement, however, students in the mid-range GPA had a significantly higher mean “well-being” factor score than students in the lower and higher-range GPA. Implications and recommendations for developing emotional intelligence in students are discussed.
Bluetooth: With Low Energy Comes Low Security

We discuss our tools and techniques to monitor and inject packets in Bluetooth Low Energy. Also known as BTLE or Bluetooth Smart, it is found in recent high-end smartphones, sports devices, sensors, and will soon appear in many medical devices. We show that we can effectively render useless the encryption of any Bluetooth Low Energy link.
Echocardiography of Right Ventriculoarterial Coupling Combined With Cardiopulmonary Exercise Testing to Predict Outcome in Heart Failure.

BACKGROUND
Pulmonary hypertension, which is related to right ventricular (RV) failure, indicates a poor prognosis in heart failure (HF). Increased ventilatory response and exercise oscillatory ventilation (EOV) also have a negative impact. We hypothesized that the severity classification of HF and risk prediction could be improved by combining functional capacity with cardiopulmonary exercise testing (CPET) and RV-pulmonary circulation coupling, as evaluated by the tricuspid annular plane systolic excursion (TAPSE)-pulmonary artery systolic pressure (PASP) relationship.


METHODS
Four hundred fifty-nine patients with HF were assessed with Doppler echocardiography and CPET and were tracked for outcome. The subjects were followed for major cardiac events (cardiac mortality, left ventricular assist device implant, or heart transplant). Cox regression and Kaplan-Meier analyses were performed with TAPSE and PASP as individual measures that were then combined into a ratio form.


RESULTS
The TAPSE/PASP ratio (TAPSE/PASP) was the strongest predictor, whereas the New York Heart Association classification and EOV added predictive value. A four-quadrant group prediction risk was created based on TAPSE (< 16 mm or ≥ 16 mm) vs PASP (< 40 mm Hg or ≥ 40 mm Hg) thresholds and the CPET variables distribution as follows: group A (TAPSE > 16 mm and PASP < 40 mm Hg) presented the lowest risk (hazard ratio, 0.17) and best ventilation; group B exhibited a low risk (hazard ratio, 0.88) with depressed TAPSE (< 16 mm) and normal PASP, a preserved peak oxygen consumption (V.o2), but high ventilation. Group C had an increased risk (hazard ratio, 1.3; TAPSE ≥ 16 mm, PASP ≥ 40 mm Hg), a reduced peak V.o2, and a high EOV prevalence. Group D had the highest risk (hazard ratio, 5.6), the worse RV-pulmonary pressure coupling (TAPSE < 16 and PASP ≥ 40 mm Hg), the lowest peak V.o2, and the highest EOV rate.


CONCLUSIONS
TAPSE/PASP, combined with exercise ventilation, provides relevant clinical and prognostic insights into HF. A low TAPSE/PASP with EOV identifies patients at a particularly high risk of cardiac events.
The effects of levosimendan in cardiac surgery patients with poor left ventricular function.

BACKGROUND
Patients with poor left ventricular function often require inotropic drug support immediately after cardiopulmonary bypass. Levosimendan improves cardiac function by a novel mechanism of action compared to currently available drugs. We hypothesized that, in patients with severely compromised ventricular function, the use of levosimendan would be associated with better postoperative cardiac function than with inotropic drugs that increase myocardial oxygen consumption.


METHODS
Thirty patients with a preoperative ejection fraction < or =30% scheduled for elective cardiac surgery with cardiopulmonary bypass were randomized to two different inotropic protocols: milrinone 0.5 microg [corrected] x kg(-1) x min(-1) or levosimendan 0.1 microg [corrected] x kg(-1) x min(-1), started immediately after the release of the aortic crossclamp. The treatment was masked to the observers. All patients received dobutamine 5 microg [corrected] x kg(-1) x min(-1).


RESULTS
Stroke volume was similar between groups initially after surgery, but it declined 12 h after surgery in the milrinone group but not in the levosimendan group (P < 0.05 between groups) despite similar filling pressures. Total dose, duration of inotropic drug administration and norepinephrine dose were lower in the levosimendan group than in the milrinone group (P < 0.05). The duration of tracheal intubation was shorter in the former group compared with the milrinone group (P = 0008). Three patients in the milrinone group but none in the levosimendan group died within 30 days of surgery.


CONCLUSION
In cardiac surgery patients with a low preoperative ejection fraction, stroke volume was better maintained with the combination of dobutamine with levosimendan than with the combination of dobutamine with milrinone.
Current role of rufinamide in the treatment of childhood epilepsy: literature review and treatment guidelines.

PURPOSE
The literature on the efficacy and safety of rufinamide in childhood-onset epilepsy syndromes currently includes approximately 600 paediatric patients. This paper summarizes the views of a panel of experienced European epileptologists with regard to the current role of rufinamide in the treatment of childhood epilepsies.


RESULTS
Rufinamide is effective in decreasing the seizure frequency in the Lennox-Gastaut syndrome (LGS), especially tonic and atonic seizures. It might consequently be preferred to other drugs as a second-line treatment for LGS when drop-attacks are frequent. The mean responder rate in the published studies is 38% with seizure freedom achieved in 2.4% of patients. Rufinamide has shown some efficacy in epileptic encephalopathies other than LGS. It can be also effective as adjunctive therapy in children and adolescents with drug-resistant partial seizures. The available data suggest that rufinamide has an acceptable risk/benefit ratio with quite a low risk of aggravating seizures. Common adverse effects (somnolence, nausea and vomiting) are usually mild and self-limiting; they are more frequently observed during titration than in the maintenance phase, suggesting that low escalation rates might be associated with fewer adverse effects. Rufinamide appears to have a favourable cognitive profile compared with other antiepileptic drugs.


CONCLUSION
Rufinamide is only approved for adjunctive treatment of seizures associated with LGS in children 4 years of age and older. There are very few data on rufinamide treatment at the onset of LGS or early in the course of the disorder; whether early treatment will improve outcome has yet to be determined.
Formulation Development and Evaluation of Fast Dissolving Film of Telmisartan

Hypertension is a major cause of concern not just in the elderly but also in the youngsters. An effort was made to formulate a fast dissolving film containing telmisartan which is used in the treatment of hypertension with a view to improve the onset of action, therapeutic efficacy, patient compliance and convenience. The major challenge in formulation of oral films of telmisatran is that it shows very less solubility in the pH range of 3-9. Various film forming agents and polyhydric alcohols were evaluated for optimizing composition of fast dissolving films. Fast dissolving films using hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, polyvinyl alcohol, glycerol, sorbitol, menthol and an alkalizer were formulated using solvent casting method. Optimized formulations were evaluated for their weight, thickness, folding endurance, appearance, tensile strength, disintegration time and dissolution profile.
Does the cosmological constant imply the existence of a minimum mass

We show that in the framework of the classical general relativity the presence of a positive cosmological constant implies the existence of a minimal mass and of a minimal mean density in nature. These results rigorously follow from the generalized Buchdahl inequality in the presence of a cosmological constant.
A Survey on Educational Data Mining in Field of Education

Abstract: Educational Data Mining refers to techniques, tools, and research designed for automatically extracting meaning from large repositories of data generated by or related to people' learning activities in educational settings.[1] It is an emerging discipline, concerned with developing methods for exploring the unique types of data that come from educational settings, and using those methods to better understand students, and the settings which they learn in.[2]
Principles for principals

The experience of the last 50 years in the engineering, acquisition and integration of large, complex electronic systems in both the civilian and military sectors has not been good, and there is considerable room for improvement. In an attempt to provide “lessons learned” and to summarize and codify some 40+ years of experience in this field, a set of ten principles are presented. They cover such topics as planning, leadership, organization, modularization and testing.
Efficacy of confrontational counselling for smoking cessation in smokers with previously undiagnosed mild to moderate airflow limitation: study protocol of a randomized controlled trial

BACKGROUND
The use of spirometry for early detection of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is still an issue of debate, particularly because of a lack of convincing evidence that spirometry has an added positive effect on smoking cessation. We hypothesise that early detection of COPD and confrontation with spirometry for smoking cessation may be effective when applying an approach we have termed "confrontational counselling"; a patient-centred approach which involves specific communication skills and elements of cognitive therapy. An important aspect is to confront the smoker with his/her airflow limitation during the counselling sessions. The primary objective of this study is to test the efficacy of confrontational counselling in comparison to regular health education and promotion for smoking cessation delivered by specialized respiratory nurses in current smokers with previously undiagnosed mild to moderate airflow limitation.


METHODS/DESIGN
The study design is a randomized controlled trial comparing confrontational counselling delivered by a respiratory nurse combined with nortriptyline for smoking cessation (experimental group), health education and promotion delivered by a respiratory nurse combined with nortriptyline for smoking cessation (control group 1), and "care as usual" delivered by the GP (control group 2). Early detection of smokers with mild to moderate airflow limitation is achieved by means of a telephone interview in combination with spirometry. Due to a comparable baseline risk of airflow limitation and motivation to quit smoking, and because of the standardization of number, duration, and scheduling of counselling sessions between the experimental group and control group 1, the study enables to assess the "net" effect of confrontational counselling. The study has been ethically approved and registered.


DISCUSSION
Ethical as well as methodological considerations of the study are discussed in this protocol. A significant and relevant effect of confrontational counselling would provide an argument in favour of early detection of current smokers with airflow limitation. Successful treatment of tobacco dependence in respiratory patients requires repeated intensive interventions. The results of this study may also show that respiratory nurses are able to deliver this treatment and that intensive smoking cessation counselling is more feasible.


TRIAL REGISTRATION
: Netherlands Trial Register (ISRCTN 64481813).
Mindfulness-oriented recovery enhancement for chronic pain and prescription opioid misuse: results from an early-stage randomized controlled trial.

OBJECTIVE
Opioid pharmacotherapy is now the leading treatment for chronic pain, a problem that affects nearly one third of the U.S. population. Given the dramatic rise in prescription opioid misuse and opioid-related mortality, novel behavioral interventions are needed. The purpose of this study was to conduct an early-stage randomized controlled trial of Mindfulness-Oriented Recovery Enhancement (MORE), a multimodal intervention designed to simultaneously target mechanisms underpinning chronic pain and opioid misuse.


METHOD
Chronic pain patients (N = 115; mean age = 48 ± 14 years; 68% female) were randomized to 8 weeks of MORE or a support group (SG). Outcomes were measured at pre- and posttreatment, and at 3-month follow-up. The Brief Pain Inventory was used to assess changes in pain severity and interference. Changes in opioid use disorder status were measured by the Current Opioid Misuse Measure. Desire for opioids, stress, nonreactivity, reinterpretation of pain sensations, and reappraisal were also evaluated.


RESULTS
MORE participants reported significantly greater reductions in pain severity (p = .038) and interference (p = .003) than SG participants, which were maintained by 3-month follow-up and mediated by increased nonreactivity and reinterpretation of pain sensations. Compared with SG participants, participants in MORE evidenced significantly less stress arousal (p = .034) and desire for opioids (p = .027), and were significantly more likely to no longer meet criteria for opioid use disorder immediately following treatment (p = .05); however, these effects were not sustained at follow-up.


CONCLUSIONS
Findings demonstrate preliminary feasibility and efficacy of MORE as a treatment for co-occurring prescription opioid misuse and chronic pain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Longitudinal data model selection

In longitudinal data with correlated errors, we apply the likelihood and residual likelihood approaches to obtain the corrected Akaike information criterion (AICc) and the residual information criterion (RIC), respectively. Simulation studies show that AICc outperforms the Akaike information criterion (AIC) when the numbers of subjects and repeated observations are small, and RIC is superior to the Bayesian information criterion (BIC) when the signal-to-noise ratio is moderate to large. We illustrate the practical use of these selection criteria with an empirical example for modeling the serum cholesterol measured at six time occasions. © 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Moringa oleifera prevents selenite-induced cataractogenesis in rat pups.

PURPOSE
The aim of this study was to investigate the protective effects of the flavonoid fraction of Moringa oleifera leaves (FMO) on selenite cataract in vivo.


METHODS
Rat pups of Sprague-Dawley strain initially weighing 10–12 g on day 8 were used for the study and grouped as control (G I), selenite induced (G II), and FMO treated (G III). The rat pups in G II and G III received a single subcutaneous injection of sodium selenite (4 µg/g body weight) on day 10 and G III was administered with FMO (2.5 µg/g body weight) from day 8 to 15. Cataract was visualized from day 16. The development of cataract was assessed and rat lenses were analyzed for the activities of antioxidant enzymes (superoxide dismutase and catalase), generation of reactive oxygen species, reduced glutathione, protein oxidation, and lipid peroxidation. FMO was subjected to in vitro antioxidant assays (2,2-diphenyl-picrylhydrazyl and superoxide scavenging assays).


RESULTS
The total phenolic content of FMO was 4.4 mg of catechin equivalent/g dried plant material. The extract showed remarkable activity on 2,2-diphenyl-picrylhydrazyl (IC50 36 µg/mL) and in superoxide radical (IC50 33.81µg/mL) scavenging assays. FMO effectively prevented the morphological changes and oxidative damage in lens. FMO maintained the activities of antioxidant enzymes and sulfhydryl content and prevented reactive oxygen species generation and lipid peroxidation.


CONCLUSIONS
FMO was effective in preventing cataractogenesis in selenite model by enhancing the activities of antioxidant enzyme, reducing the intensity of lipid peroxidation, and inhibiting free radical generation.
In Situ Measurement and Stress Evaluation for Wire Bonding Using Embedded Piezoresistive Stress Sensors

A ball bonding process in wire bonding generally involves impact followed by ultrasonic (US) bonding prior to wedge bonding. During the ball bonding process, the impact force flattening the free-air ball introduces significant localized out-of-plane compressive stress on the pad and the low-k structure beneath. The subsequent process of US bonding induces in-plane and shear stresses to the structure. High induced stress during bonding is not desirable, as it may lead to pad damage or cratering of the silicon structure. In this paper, we report on studies conducted on using four piezoresistive sensors embedded underneath the center of the bond pad for the evaluation of in-plane and out-of-plane stresses, which covers both the impact and US stages during the ball bonding process. Different levels of impact force, bond force, bonding duration, and US power are investigated using gold wire bonding for feasibility and sensitivity studies of the stress sensors. Fast Fourier transform (FFT) and inverse FFT are used for noise filtering and to isolate the US signal yielding a continuous output signal from the in situ measurement of contact and US stages during the ball bonding process. It is found that the stress sensors are sensible to capture different impact force, bond force, bonding duration, and US power.
Changes in genital anatomy and microbiology in girls between age 6 and age 12 years: a longitudinal study.

STUDY OBJECTIVE
To study changes in genital anatomy and occurrence of human papillomavirus and Gardnerella vaginalis in girls resulting from growth and development.


DESIGN
At age 11-12 years, an invitation was sent to 180 girls to attend a follow-up examination. All girls had previously participated in a study exploring anogenital anatomy and microbiology in children selected for non-abuse at age 5 and 6. The genital area was examined with a colposcope and microbiological samples for Gardnerella vaginalis (GV) and human papillomavirus (HPV) were collected. GV was identified by conventional criteria and HPV by a PCR method.


RESULTS
Thirty-one girls were examined twice, at mean age 5.7 and 12.0 years. At first examination all were pre-pubertal. At second examination 21 girls were B2/P2 or above. Significantly more girls had developed a structure called a fossa groove. A thick and redundant hymen with a tendency of folding outward was more common at the second examination. Two girls had GV and one girl had HPV-16 identified. Another girl was classified to have a deep notch and a probable transection in her hymen, and this girl reported a painful insertion of a tampon. All girls denied sexual activity.


CONCLUSION
The main genital finding in girls entering puberty is the hymen becoming thick and redundant with a tendency of folding out. In the study findings associated with sexual activity were discovered in two girls, and the possibility of alternative explanations is discussed.
Blockchain Consensus Protocols in the Wild

A blockchain is a distributed ledger for recording transactions, maintained by many nodes without central authority through a distributed cryptographic protocol. All nodes validate the information to be appended to the blockchain, and a consensus protocol ensures that the nodes agree on a unique order in which entries are appended. Consensus protocols for tolerating Byzantine faults have received renewed attention because they also address blockchain systems. This work discusses the process of assessing and gaining confidence in the resilience of a consensus protocols exposed to faults and adversarial nodes. We advocate to follow the established practice in cryptography and computer security, relying on public reviews, detailed models, and formal proofs; the designers of several practical systems appear to be unaware of this. Moreover, we review the consensus protocols in some prominent permissioned blockchain platforms with respect to their fault models and resilience against attacks. 1998 ACM Subject Classification C.2.4 Distributed Systems, D.1.3 Concurrent Programming
A Comprehensive IoT Attacks Survey based on a Building-blocked Reference Model

Internet of Things (IoT) has not yet reached a distinctive definition. A generic understanding of IoT is that it offers numerous services in many domains, utilizing conventional internet infrastructure by enabling different communication patterns such as human-to-object, object-to-objects, and object-to-object. Integrating IoT objects into the standard Internet, however, has unlocked several security challenges, as most internet technologies and connectivity protocols have been specifically designed for unconstrained objects. Moreover, IoT objects have their own limitations in terms of computation power, memory and bandwidth. IoT vision, therefore, has suffered from unprecedented attacks targeting not only individuals but also enterprises, some examples of these attacks are loss of privacy, organized crime, mental suffering, and the probability of jeopardizing human lives. Hence, providing a comprehensive classification of IoT attacks and their available countermeasures is an indispensable requirement. In this paper, we propose a novel four-layered IoT reference model based on building blocks strategy, in which we develop a comprehensive IoT attack model composed of four key phases. First, we have proposed IoT asset-based attack surface, which consists of four main components: 1) physical objects, 2) protocols covering whole IoT stack, 3) data, and 4) software. Second, we describe a set of IoT security goals. Third, we identify IoT attack taxonomy for each asset. Finally, we show the relationship between each attack and its violated security goals, and identify a set of countermeasures to protect each asset as well. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper that attempts to provide a comprehensive IoT attacks model based on a building-blocked reference model. Keywords—Internet of Things (IoT); building block; security and privacy; reference model
Addendum to “ The FFX Mode of Operation for Format-Preserving Encryption ” A parameter collection for enciphering strings of arbitrary radix and length

Background. A scheme for format-preserving encryption (FPE) is supposed to do that which a conventional (possibly tweakable) blockcipher does—encipher messages within some message space X—except that message space, instead of being something like X = {0, 1}128, is more gen­ eral [1, 3]. For example, the message space might be the set X = {0, 1, . . . , 9}16, in which case each 16-digit plaintext X ∈ X gets enciphered into a 16-digit ciphertext Y ∈ X . In a stringbased FPE scheme—the only type of FPE that we consider here—the message space is of the form n X = {0, 1, . . . , radix − 1} for some message length n and alphabet size radix.