LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic study of magnetron sputtered carbon-nickel composite films

Abstract Carbon–nickel films were deposited by direct current magnetron sputtering in argon plasma at temperatures between 25 and 800 °C. The films have a composite structure, consisting of a nanocrystalline dispersed phase embedded in an amorphous carbon matrix as revealed by high resolution transmission electron microscopy. Based on selected area electron diffraction, the crystalline phase was assigned to hexagonal nickel carbide (Ni 3 C) for films grown below 400 °C and to face centered cubic nickel for those prepared above 400 °C. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopic studies verify these results. In films deposited below 400 °C the carbon 1s spectral range contains two low binding energy components at 283.2 and at 281.5 eV (± 0.2 eV). While the peak at 281.5 eV corresponds to the carbidic environment, the component at 283.2 eV, existing also in high temperature samples, is assigned to carbon atoms constituting the interface between the carbon matrix and the Ni 3 C or Ni crystallites.
Childhood psychiatric disorders as anomalies in neurodevelopmental trajectories.

Childhood psychiatric disorders are rarely static; rather they change over time and longitudinal studies are ideally suited to capture such dynamic processes. Using longitudinal data, insights can be gained into the nature of the perturbation away from the trajectory of typical development in childhood disorders. Thus, some disorders may reflect a delay in neurodevelopmental trajectories. Our studies in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) suggest that cortical development is delayed with a rightward shift along the age axis in cortical trajectories, most prominent in prefrontal cortical regions. Other disorders may be characterized by differences in the velocity of trajectories: the basic shape of neurodevelopmental curves remains intact, but with disrupted tempo. Thus, childhood onset schizophrenia is associated with a marked increase during adolescence in the velocity of loss of cerebral gray matter. By contrast, in childhood autism there is an early acceleration of brain growth, which overshoots typical dimensions leading to transient cerebral enlargement. Finally, there may be more profound deviations from typical neurodevelopment, with a complete "derailing" of brain growth and a loss of the features which characterize typical brain development. An example is the almost complete silencing of white matter growth during adolescence of patients with childhood onset schizophrenia. Adopting a longitudinal perspective also readily lends itself to the understanding of the neural bases of differential clinical outcomes. Again taking ADHD as an example, we found that remission is associated with convergence to the template of typical development, whereas persistence is accompanied by progressive divergence away from typical trajectories.
Emotional distress in infertile women and failure of assisted reproductive technologies: meta-analysis of prospective psychosocial studies

OBJECTIVE
To examine whether pretreatment emotional distress in women is associated with achievement of pregnancy after a cycle of assisted reproductive technology.


DESIGN
Meta-analysis of prospective psychosocial studies.


DATA SOURCES
PubMed, Medline, Embase, PsycINFO, PsychNET, ISI Web of Knowledge, and ISI Web of Science were searched for articles published from 1985 to March 2010 (inclusive). We also undertook a hand search of reference lists and contacted 29 authors. Eligible studies were prospective studies reporting a test of the association between pretreatment emotional distress (anxiety or depression) and pregnancy in women undergoing a single cycle of assisted reproductive technology. Review methods Two authors independently assessed the studies for eligibility and quality (using criteria adapted from the Newcastle-Ottawa quality scale) and extracted data. Authors contributed additional data not included in original publication.


RESULTS
Fourteen studies with 3583 infertile women undergoing a cycle of fertility treatment were included in the meta-analysis. The effect size used was the standardised mean difference (adjusted for small sample size) in pretreatment anxiety or depression (priority on anxiety where both measured) between women who achieved a pregnancy (defined as a positive pregnancy test, positive fetal heart scan, or live birth) and those who did not. Pretreatment emotional distress was not associated with treatment outcome after a cycle of assisted reproductive technology (standardised mean difference -0.04, 95% confidence interval -0.11 to 0.03 (fixed effects model); heterogeneity I²=14%, P=0.30). Subgroup analyses according to previous experience of assisted reproductive technology, composition of the not pregnant group, and timing of the emotional assessment were not significant. The effect size did not vary according to study quality, but a significant subgroup analysis on timing of the pregnancy test, a contour enhanced funnel plot, and Egger's test indicated the presence of moderate publication bias.


CONCLUSIONS
The findings of this meta-analysis should reassure women and doctors that emotional distress caused by fertility problems or other life events co-occurring with treatment will not compromise the chance of becoming pregnant.
Multi-Timer Based Event Synchronization Control for Sensor Networks and Its Application

Applications of sensor networks usually require events at all nodes to be synchronized. To meet such requirement, this work proposes two multi-timer model based event synchronization schemes which are fully distributed. The proposed model consists of multiple timers with each timer characterizing a sensor node whose events are triggered by timer interrupts. Each timer updates its preset values by only using values from its nearby neighbors. Event synchronization is achieved when all timers reach their preset values simultaneously. One key feature of this work is by unifying the time synchronization part and the embedded system part of the sensor networks to reach the strict event synchronization. The effectiveness of the proposed schemes is demonstrated by simulation examples and a case study in a microgrid.
Community or patient preferences for cost-effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation: does it matter?

BACKGROUND
Few healthcare economic evaluations, and none in cardiac rehabilitation, report results based on both community and patient preferences for health outcomes. We published the results of a randomized trial of cardiac rehabilitation after myocardial infarction in 1994 in which preferences were measured using both perspectives but only patient preferences were reported. This secondary analysis uses both types of preference measurements.


METHODS
We collected community Quality of Well-Being (QWB) and patient Time Trade-off (TTO) preference scores from 188 patients (rehabilitation, n=93; usual care, n=95) on entry into the trial, at 2 months (end of the intervention) and again at 4, 8, and 12 months. Mean preference scores over the 12-month follow-up study period, estimates of quality-adjusted life years (QALYs) gained per patient, incremental cost-effectiveness ratios [costs inflated to 2006 US dollars] and probabilities of the cost-effectiveness of rehabilitation for costs per QALY up to USD100,000 are reported.


RESULTS
Mean QWB preference scores were lower (P<0.01) than the corresponding mean TTO preference scores at each assessment point. The 12-month changes in mean QWB and TTO preference scores were large and positive (P<0.001) with rehabilitation patients gaining a mean of 0.011 (95% confidence interval, -0.030 to +0.052) more QWB-derived QALYs, and 0.040 (-0.026, 0.107) more TTO-derived QALYs, per patient than usual care patients. The incremental cost-effectiveness ratio for QWB-derived QALYs was estimated at $60 270/QALY (about euro50 600/QALY) and at $16 580/QALY (about euro13 900/QALY) with TTO-derived QALYs. With a willingness to spend $100 000/QALY, the probability of rehabilitation being cost-effective is 0.58 for QWB-derived QALYs and 0.83 for TTO-derived QALYs.


CONCLUSION
This secondary analysis of data from a randomized trial indicates that cardiac rehabilitation is cost-effective from a community perspective and highly cost-effective from the perspective of patients.
Grid Computing and Beyond: The Context of Dynamic Data Driven Applications Systems

The advent of Grid computing has enhanced our capabilities to model and simulate complex systems arising in scientific, engineering, and commercial applications. The premise of Grid computing has been "on-demand" availability of computational resources to an application as needed, in the same manner as electricity is provided readily through electrical power grids. The computational grid (or simply the "Grid") entails ubiquitous access to resources (local or remote), such as computation and communication resources, as well as access to storage systems and visualization systems. As Grid computing technologies mature, it behooves to look beyond the current capabilities, into more advanced future environments. The environments of interest here are the enhanced capabilities that can be created by the paradigm of dynamic data driven applications systems (DDDAS). DDDAS entails the ability to incorporate additional data into an executing application and, in reverse, the ability of applications to dynamically steer the measurement process. The DDDAS concept offers the promise of improving application models and methods, and augmenting the analysis and prediction capabilities of application simulations and the effectiveness of measurement systems. Enabling this synergistic feedback and control loop between application simulations and measurements requires novel application modeling approaches and frameworks, algorithms stable under dynamic data injection and steering conditions, and new systems software and computational infrastructure capabilities. Recent advances in complex applications and the advent of Grid computing and sensor systems are some of the technologies that make it timely to embark in developing DDDAS capabilities. DDDAS environments extend the current notion of Grid infrastructure to also include the measurement systems in an integrated and synergistic way. DDDAS environments require support and services that go beyond the current Grid services in terms of t
Isolation and identification of paralytic peptides from hemolymph of the lepidopteran insects Manduca sexta, Spodoptera exigua, and Heliothis virescens.

Seven paralytic peptides were isolated and identified from lepidopteran hemolymph. All of these peptides cause rapid, rigid paralysis when injected into Manduca sexta and some other lepidopteran larvae. Each peptide contains 23 amino acid residues including 2 cysteines and the carboxyl termini are acidic. Synthetic peptides in the disulfide or reduced forms, and as carboxyl-terminal acids or amides were equally paralytic. The most potent paralytic peptide, Mas PP I, has the following sequence: H-Glu-Asn-Phe-Ala-Gly-Gly-Cys-Ala-Thr-Gly-Tyr-Leu- Arg-Thr-Ala-Asp-Gly-Arg-Cys-Lys-Pro-Thr-Phe-OH. The two peptides from M. sexta hemolymph are remarkable in that they are autoparalytic (i.e. factors in collected hemolymph that are paralytic when injected into the same larvae).
Effects of Exercise Duration and Number of Players in Heart Rate Responses and Technical Skills During Futsal Small-sided Games

In the design of training programs, it is common for coaches to modify task constraints to conduct the drill intensity at the targeted level. Sport specific drills with variations are constantly used in Futsal practices, however the knowledge about how these variations influence drill intensity and technical demands is very scarce. The purpose of this study was to measure the physiological and technical effects of both duration and variations in the numbers of players in futsal specific drills. Heart rates and technical skills of 8 semi-professional futsal players were recorded during four specific drills. The experimental protocol consisted in a half-court game with official rules, played in 4v4, 3v3 and 2v2, each during 4 minutes and 4v4 during 10 minutes. It was maintained an active break of 4 minutes between each repetition. The lowest %HRmax was observed in response to the 4v4 drill independent of the exercise duration. In players’ number variation statistically significant differences were found in the percentage of time spent between 65-85%HRmax, in the number of successive contacts with the ball and number of dribbles. In exercise duration, statistically significant differences were found in percentage of time spent above 85%HRmax, in the number of successive contacts with the ball, number of dribbles and number of tackles. The decrease in the number of players and exercise duration resulted in intensity increases and more frequent individual tactical actions.
A detailed comparison of two transaction processing workloads

Commercial applications such as databases and Web servers constitute the most important market segment for high-performance servers. Among these applications, on-line transaction processing (OLTP) workloads provide a challenging set of requirements for system designs since they often exhibit inefficient executions dominated by a large memory stall component. A number of recent studies have characterized the behavior of transaction processing workloads and proposed architectural features to improve their performance. These studies have typically used a workload based on either the TPC-B or the TPC-C benchmark , with many of them opting for the simpler TPC-B benchmark. Given that the TPC-B and TPC-C workloads exhibit dramatically different characteristics on certain architectural metrics (such as cycles-per-instruction), it becomes important to find out whether the results or conclusions of these previous studies are heavily biased due to their choice of workload. This paper presents a detailed comparison of the debit-credit (modeled after TPC-B) and order-entry (modeled after TPC-C) transaction processing workloads in the context of various architectural choices. Our experiments use the Oracle commercial database engine for running the workloads, with results generated using both full system simulations and actual runs on Alpha multiprocessors. Our results confirm that certain characteristics of these workloads, such as cycles-per-instruction (CPI) and dirty miss frequency, are indeed quite different. Nonetheless, it turns out that the overall impact of most architectural choices (e.g., out-of-order execution, on-chip integration of system modules, chip multiprocessing) are surprisingly similar for the two workloads. Furthermore, the above similarity between the two workloads is sometimes due to non-intuitive effects that would be difficult to predict without conducting the experiment with both workloads. The findings in this paper make it easier to compare results from studies that use one or the other workload. Overall, we observe that for a wide range of architectural decisions that we considered , using the simpler TPC-B workload leads to virtually the same conclusions as using the more complex TPC-C workload. Finally, we show that these same conclusions hold across two generations of the Oracle database engine.
Lymphocytopenia is associated with anti-Beta-2 glycoprotein-1 in patients with 220 systemic lupus erythematosus.

BACKGROUND
Anti B2-Glicoprotein 1 (B2-GPI) is an antiphospholipid antibody that may be present in primary or secondary antiphospholipid syndrome (APS). Systemic Lupus erythematosus (SLE) is the main disease associated with secondary APS.


OBJECTIVE
To study the prevalence of anti B2-GPI in SLE patients.


METHODS
Anti B2-GPI (IgM/IgG) was studied by ELISA in 88 patients with SLE of both genders; 18.6% of which with secondary APS. Charts were reviewed for clinical and serological profile.


RESULTS
Anti B2-GPI was present in 18.6% of the whole sample and in 29.4% of those with secondary APS. At univariated analysis, the presence of anti B2-GPI was more common in patients with serositis (p=0.04), lymphocytopenia (p=0.003) and anti cardiolipin (aCl) IgM antibodies (p=0.04). In a logistic regression study, only the associations with lymphocytopenia (OR=8.2; 95%CI=2.1-39.3) and aCl IgM (p=0.04; OR=3.4; 95%CI=1.05-11.1) remained significant.


CONCLUSION
There is a 18.6% prevalence of positive anti B2-GPI in SLE population that is associated with the presence of aCl IgM and lymphocytopenia.
Evolutionary divergence and functions of the ADAM and ADAMTS gene families

The 'A-disintegrin and metalloproteinase' (ADAM) and 'A-disintegrin and metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs' (ADAMTS) genes make up two similar, yet distinct, gene families. The human and mouse genomes contain 21 and 24 putatively functional protein-coding ADAM genes, respectively, and 24 versus 32 putatively functional protein-coding ADAMTS genes, respectively. Analysis of evolutionary divergence shows that both families are unique. Each of the two families can be separated, if need be, into groups of more closely related members: six subfamilies for ADAM, four subfamilies for ADAMTS. The presence of both disintegrin and peptidase domains within the ADAM and ADAMTS proteins implies multiple biological roles within the cell. Membrane-anchored ADAM proteins are best known for their role in activating zymogens -- including tumour necrosis factor-α, epidermal growth factor (EGF) and amyloid precursor protein (APP). ADAM proteins can also participate in cell adhesion via their interaction with integrins in neighbouring cells. ADAMTS are secreted proteins that participate in extracellular matrix maintenance by way of their cleavage of procollagen and proteoglycans. ADAMTS proteins also are involved in coagulation by cleaving von Willibrand factor precursor protein. ADAM and ADAMTS proteins participate in a wide range of cellular processes, including cell adhesion and migration, ectodomain shedding, proteolysis, development, ovulation and angiogenesis. Because these enzymes are believed to play an important role in a number of pathologies, including Alzheimer's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, asthma and cancer progression, the products of the ADAM and ADAMTS genes represent promising drug targets for the prevention and management of a number of human diseases.
Validity, trustworthiness and rigour: quality and the idea of qualitative research.

AIM
In this paper, I call into question the widely-held assumption of a single, more or less unified paradigm of 'qualitative research' whose methodologies share certain epistemological and ontological characteristics, and explore the implications of this position for judgements about the quality of research studies.


BACKGROUND
After a quarter of a century of debate in nursing about how best to judge the quality of qualitative research, we appear to be no closer to a consensus, or even to deciding whether it is appropriate to try to achieve a consensus. The literature on this issue can be broadly divided into three positions: those writers who wish qualitative research to be judged according to the same criteria as quantitative research; those who believe that a different set of criteria is required; and those who question the appropriateness of any predetermined criteria for judging qualitative research. Of the three positions, the second appears to have generated most debate, and a number of different frameworks and guidelines for judging the quality of qualitative research have been devised over recent years.


DISCUSSION
The second of the above positions is rejected in favour of the third. It argues that, if there is no unified qualitative research paradigm, then it makes little sense to attempt to establish a set of generic criteria for making quality judgements about qualitative research studies. We need either to acknowledge that the commonly perceived quantitative-qualitative dichotomy is in fact a continuum which requires a continuum of quality criteria, or to recognize that each study is individual and unique, and that the task of producing frameworks and predetermined criteria for assessing the quality of research studies is futile.


CONCLUSION
Some of the implications of this latter position are explored, including the requirement that all published research reports should include a reflexive research diary.
Teacher Identity and Early Career Resilience: Exploring the Links

A collaborative research project that explored the impact of professional, individual and relational conditions on the resilience of early career teachers revealed the importance of understanding how they engage in the formation of professional identities. Drawing on the traditions of narrative enquiry and critical ethnography, this article focuses on the story of Norah, one of sixty beginning teachers interviewed for this study, as she experienced becoming a teacher. Norah’s story provides an insight into how early career teachers engage in shaping a professional identity, and leads us to suggest that resilience may be enhanced when early career teachers engage consciously and in relationship with others in this process.
Communicating emotion through a haptic link: Design space and methodology

Communication of affect across a distance is not well supported by current technology, despite its importance to interpersonal interaction in modern lifestyles. Touch is a powerful conduit for emotional connectedness, and thus mediating haptic (touch) displays have been proposed to address this deficiency; but suitable evaluative methodology has been elusive. In this paper, we offer a first, structured examination of a design space for haptic support of remote affective communication, by analyzing the space and then comparing haptic models designed to manipulate its key dimensions. In our study, dyads (intimate pairs or strangers) are asked to communicate specified emotions using a purely haptic link that consists of virtual models rendered on simple knobs. These models instantiate both interaction metaphors of varying intimacy, and representations of virtual interpersonal distance. Our integrated objective and subjective observations imply that emotion can indeed be communicated through this medium, and confirm that the factors examined influence emotion communication performance as well as preference, comfort and connectedness. The proposed design space and the study results have implications for future efforts to support affective communication using the haptic modality, and the study approach comprises a first model for systematic evaluation of haptically expressed affect. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Channel cracks in a hermetic coating consisting of organic and inorganic layers

Flexible electronic devices often require hermetic coatings that can withstand applied strains. This letter calculates the critical strains for various configurations of channel cracks in a coating consisting of organic and inorganic layers. The authors show that the coating can sustain the largest strain when the organic layer is of some intermediate thicknesses. © 2007 American Institute of Physics. DOI: 10.1063/1.2713134