LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
A spatially explicit hierarchical approach to modeling complex ecological systems: theory and applications

Ecological systems are generally considered among the most complex because they are characterized by a large number of diverse components, nonlinear interactions, scale multiplicity, and spatial heterogeneity. Hierarchy theory, as well as empirical evidence, suggests that complexity often takes the form of modularity in structure and functionality. Therefore, a hierarchical perspective can be essential to understanding complex ecological systems. But, how can such hierarchical approach help us with modeling spatially heterogeneous, nonlinear dynamic systems like landscapes, be they natural or human-dominated? In this paper, we present a spatially explicit hierarchical modeling approach to studying the patterns and processes of heterogeneous landscapes. We first discuss the theoretical basis for the modeling approach—the hierarchical patch dynamics (HPD) paradigm and the scaling ladder strategy, and then describe the general structure of a hierarchical urban landscape model (HPDM-PHX) which is developed using this modeling approach. In addition, we introduce a hierarchical patch dynamics modeling platform (HPD-MP), a software package that is designed to facilitate the development of spatial hierarchical models. We then illustrate the utility of HPD-MP through two examples: a hierarchical cellular automata model of land use change and a spatial multi-species population dynamics model. © 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.
Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxin and dibenzofuran concentration profiles in sediments and flood-plain soils of the Tittabawassee River, Michigan.

Concentrations of polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins (PCDDs) and dibenzofurans (PCDFs) in sediments and flood-plain soils collected along the Tittabawassee River in Michigan ranged from 102 to 53,600 pg/g, dry wt. Mean PCDD/PCDF concentrations in downstream sediment and soil were from 10- to 20-fold greater than those found at locations upstream of Midland, Michigan. Concentrations of PCDD/PCDF in sediments and flood-plain soils from the Tittabawassee watershed were comparable to those found in industrialized areas such as the Housatonic and lower Passaic Rivers in the U.S. Concentrations of PCDDs/PCDFs in soil and sediment were not correlated with total organic carbon (TOC) in sediments or soils. OCDD and 2,3,7,8-TeCDF were the predominant congeners in sediment/soil collected from locations downstream of Midland, Michigan. Principal component analysis of the PCDD/PCDF congener profile suggested the presence of sources originating from a mixture of chlorophenol and other chlorinated compound production. Mass balance analysis of TCDD equivalents (TCDD-EQs) derived from H4IIE-luc bioassay of sediment extracts and 2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin equivalents (TEQs) estimated from instrumental analysis suggested that PCDDs/PCDFs were the major dioxin-like compounds present in sediments. A significant correlation existed between bioassay-derived TCDD-EQs and instrumentally measured TEQs (r2 = 0.94).
Robust Authentication Using Physically Unclonable Functions

In this work we utilize a physically unclonable function (PUF) to improve resilience of authentication protocols to various types of compromise. As an example application, we consider users who authenticate at an ATM using their bank-issued PUF and a password. We present a scheme that is provably secure and achieves strong security properties. In particular, we ensure that (i) the user is unable to authenticate without her device; (ii) the device cannot be used by someone else to successfully authenticate as the user; (iii) the device cannot be duplicated (e.g., by a bank employee); (iv) an adversary with full access to the bank’s personal and authentication records is unable to impersonate the user even if he obtains access to the device before and/or after the setup; (v) the device does not need to store any information. We also give an extension that endows the solution with emergency capabilities: if a user is coerced into opening her secrets and giving the coercer full access to the device, she gives the coercer alternative secrets whose use notifies the bank of the coercion in such a way that the coercer is unable to distinguish between emergency and normal operation of the protocol.
Gender effect on housework allocation: Evidence from Spanish two-earner couples

Empirical evidence from developed countries consistently shows that working wives remain responsible for most household duties. The aim of this paper is to study the unequal distribution of housework between working spouses in Spain. Housework time allocation is modelled through a bivariate negative binomial distribution, conditional on a set of observable characteristics, such as paid labor conditions, education or the presence of children at home. We find that the probability of egalitarian housework sharing between spouses is particularly small, being greater the probability of wives bearing most of the household duties. Furthermore, these estimates are used to carry out an similar-to-Oaxaca decomposition, between observable characteristics effects and “price” effects. Our results suggest that an important part of housework allocation depends more on gender-specific effects such as the cultural context or historical view of gender housework division rather than on spouses differences in their observable characteristics.
BIMQL - An open query language for building information models

In this paper we present the on-going development of a framework for a domain specific, open query language for building information models. The proposed query language is intended for selecting, updating and deleting of data stored in Industry Foundation Classes models. Even though some partial solutions already have been suggested, none of them are open source, domain specific, platform independent and implemented at the same time. This paper provides an overview of existing approaches, conceptual sketches of the language in development and documents the current state of implementation as a prototype plugin developed for the open source model server platform bimserver.org. We report on the execution of example test-cases to show the general feasibility of the approach chosen. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
The antibiotic resistance and prescribing in European Children project: a neonatal and pediatric antimicrobial web-based point prevalence survey in 73 hospitals worldwide.

BACKGROUND
The neonatal and pediatric antimicrobial point prevalence survey (PPS) of the Antibiotic Resistance and Prescribing in European Children project (http://www.arpecproject.eu/) aims to standardize a method for surveillance of antimicrobial use in children and neonates admitted to the hospital within Europe. This article describes the audit criteria used and reports overall country-specific proportions of antimicrobial use. An analytical review presents methodologies on antimicrobial use.


METHODS
A 1-day PPS on antimicrobial use in hospitalized children was organized in September 2011, using a previously validated and standardized method. The survey included all inpatient pediatric and neonatal beds and identified all children receiving an antimicrobial treatment on the day of survey. Mandatory data were age, gender, (birth) weight, underlying diagnosis, antimicrobial agent, dose and indication for treatment. Data were entered through a web-based system for data-entry and reporting, based on the WebPPS program developed for the European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption project.


RESULTS
There were 2760 and 1565 pediatric versus 1154 and 589 neonatal inpatients reported among 50 European (n = 14 countries) and 23 non-European hospitals (n = 9 countries), respectively. Overall, antibiotic pediatric and neonatal use was significantly higher in non-European (43.8%; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 41.3-46.3% and 39.4%; 95% CI: 35.5-43.4%) compared with that in European hospitals (35.4; 95% CI: 33.6-37.2% and 21.8%; 95% CI: 19.4-24.2%). Proportions of antibiotic use were highest in hematology/oncology wards (61.3%; 95% CI: 56.2-66.4%) and pediatric intensive care units (55.8%; 95% CI: 50.3-61.3%).


CONCLUSIONS
An Antibiotic Resistance and Prescribing in European Children standardized web-based method for a 1-day PPS was successfully developed and conducted in 73 hospitals worldwide. It offers a simple, feasible and sustainable way of data collection that can be used globally.
Zero-Shot Person Re-identification via Cross-View Consistency

Person re-identification, aiming to identify images of the same person from various cameras configured in different places, has attracted much attention in the multimedia retrieval community. In this problem, choosing a proper distance metric is a crucial aspect, and many classic methods utilize a uniform learnt metric. However, their performance is limited due to ignoring the zero-shot and fine-grained characteristics presented in real person re-identification applications. In this paper, we investigate two consistencies across two cameras, which are cross-view support consistency and cross-view projection consistency. The philosophy behind it is that, in spite of visual changes in two images of the same person under two camera views, the support sets in their respective views are highly consistent, and after being projected to the same view, their context sets are also highly consistent. Based on the above phenomena, we propose a data-driven distance metric (DDDM) method, re-exploiting the training data to adjust the metric for each query-gallery pair. Experiments conducted on three public data sets have validated the effectiveness of the proposed method, with a significant improvement over three baseline metric learning methods. In particular, on the public VIPeR dataset, the proposed method achieves an accuracy rate of 42.09% at rank-1, which outperforms the state-of-the-art methods by 4.29%.
Does Biodiesel from Jatropha Curcas Represent a Sustainable Alternative Energy Source

Various government agencies around the world have proposed vegetable oils and their conversion to biodiesel as a renewable alternative to fossil fuels. Due to its adaptability to marginal soils and environments, the cultivation of Jatropha curcas is frequently mentioned as the best option for producing biodiesel. In the present work the current situation of proven and potential reserves of fossil fuel, and the production and consumption model for the same are analyzed, in order to later review the sustainability of the production process which begins with the cultivation of J. curcas, and culminates with the consumption of biodiesel. A review of the following topics is proposed in order to improve the sustainability of the process: areas destined for cultivation, use of external (chemical) inputs in cultivation, processes for converting the vegetable oil to biodiesel, and, above all, the location for ultimate consumption of the biofuel.
Hospitalized incidence and case fatality for upper gastrointestinal bleeding from 1999 to 2007: a record linkage study.

BACKGROUND
Upper gastrointestinal (GI) bleeding is the most common emergency managed by gastroenterologists.


AIM
To establish the hospitalized incidence and case fatality for upper GI bleeding, and to determine how they are associated with factors including day of admission, hospital size, social deprivation and distance from hospital.


METHODS
Systematic record linkage of hospital in-patient and mortality data for 24 421 admissions for upper GI bleeding among 22 299 people in Wales from 1999 to 2007.


RESULTS
The hospitalized incidence of upper GI bleeding was 134 per 100 000. Case fatality was 10.0%. Incidence was stable from 1999 to 2007; case fatality fell from 11.4% in 1999-2000 to 8.6% in 2006-7. Incidence was associated significantly with social deprivation. Compared with weekday admissions, case fatality was 13% higher for weekend admissions and 41% higher for admissions on public holidays. There was little variation in case fatality according to social deprivation, hospital size or distance from hospital.


CONCLUSIONS
Incidence, but not case fatality, was associated significantly with social deprivation. The higher mortality for weekend and public holiday admissions could not be explained by measures of case mix and may indicate a possible impact of reduced staffing levels and delays to endoscopy at weekends in some hospitals.
Re-tiling polygonal surfaces

This paper presents an automatic method of creating surface models at several levels of detail from an original polygonal description of a given object. Representing models at various levels of detail is important for achieving high frame rates in interactive graphics applications and also for speeding-up the off-line rendering of complex scenes. Unfortunately, generating these levels of detail is a time-consuming task usually left to a human modeler. This paper shows how a new set of vertices can be distributed over the surface of a model and connected to one another to create a re-tiling of a surface that is faithful to both the geometry and the topology of the original surface. The main contributions of this paper are: 1) a robust method of connecting together new vertices over a surface, 2) a way of using an estimate of surface curvature to distribute more new vertices at regions of higher curvature and 3) a method of smoothly interpolating between models that represent the same object at different levels of detail. The key notion in the re-tiling procedure is the creation of an intermediate model called the mutual tessellation of a surface that contains both the vertices from the original model and the new points that are to become vertices in the re-tiled surface. The new model is then created by removing each original vertex and locally re-triangulating the surface in a way that matches the local connectedness of the initial surface. This technique for surface retessellation has been successfully applied to iso-surface models derived from volume data, Connolly surface molecular models and a tessellation of a minimal surface of interest to mathematicians. CR
and ACTIVITY AND " ALKALINE " PHOSPHATASE " ACID " INORGANIC PHOSPHATE AND THE ESTIMATION OF SERUM

In 1930, Kay (6, 7) introduced a method for the quantitative determination of “alkaline” phosphatase activity of blood, employing sodium P-glycerophosphate as the substrate. Of the many modifications which have been introduced in which this substrate is employed, Bodansky’s (3, 4) method seems to have found the greatest usage because of its short incubation period and its accuracy. For our studies certain fundamental changes in the technique for the quantitative estimation of serum phosphatase activity and inorganic phosphate were necessary. Presented in this communication are procedures for the simultaneous determination of serum inorganic phosphate and ‘(acid” and “alkaline” phosphatase activity. The estimation of all three tests may be made on 0.40 cc. of serum in the macrotechnique, 0.06 cc. in the microtechnique. Only one photometric calibration curve or one set of phosphorus standards for visual calorimetry is required. The unit of phosphatase activity is defined here as follows: Each unit of serum phosphatase activity is equivalent to 1 mg. of phosphorus as phosphate ion liberated during 1 hour of actual incubation at 37” with a substrate containing sodium fl-glycerophosphate, hydrolysis not exceeding 10 per cent of the substrate; and at
The hydrogel template method for fabrication of homogeneous nano/microparticles.

Nano/microparticles have been used widely in drug delivery applications. The majority of the particles are prepared by the conventional emulsion methods, which tend to result in particles with heterogeneous size distribution with sub-optimal drug loading and release properties. Recently, microfabrication methods have been used to make nano/microparticles with a monodisperse size distribution. The existing methods utilize solid templates for making particles, and the collection of individual particles after preparation has not been easy. The new hydrogel template approach was developed to make the particle preparation process simple and fast. The hydrogel template approach is based on the unique properties of physical gels that can undergo sol-gel phase transition upon changes in environmental conditions. The phase reversible hydrogels, however, are in general mechanically too weak to be treated as a solid material. It was unexpectedly found that gelatin hydrogels could be made to possess various properties necessary for microfabrication of nano/microparticles in large quantities. The size of the particles can be adjusted from 200 nm to >50 microm, providing flexibility in controlling the size in drug delivery formulations. The simplicity in processing makes the hydrogel template method useful for scale-up manufacturing of particles. The drug loading capacity is 50% or higher, and yet the initial burst release is minimal. The hydrogel template approach presents a new strategy of preparing nano/microparticles of predefined size and shape with homogeneous size distribution for drug delivery applications.
A Bayesian neural network method for adverse drug reaction signal generation

Objective: The database of adverse drug reactions (ADRs) held by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre on behalf of the 47 countries of the World Health Organization (WHO) Collaborating Programme for International Drug Monitoring contains nearly two million reports. It is the largest database of this sort in the world, and about 35 000 new reports are added quarterly. The task of trying to find new drug–ADR signals has been carried out by an expert panel, but with such a large volume of material the task is daunting. We have developed a flexible, automated procedure to find new signals with known probability difference from the background data. Method: Data mining, using various computational approaches, has been applied in a variety of disciplines. A Bayesian confidence propagation neural network (BCPNN) has been developed which can manage large data sets, is robust in handling incomplete data, and may be used with complex variables. Using information theory, such a tool is ideal for finding drug–ADR combinations with other variables, which are highly associated compared to the generality of the stored data, or a section of the stored data. The method is transparent for easy checking and flexible for different kinds of search. Results: Using the BCPNN, some time scan examples are given which show the power of the technique to find signals early (captopril–coughing) and to avoid false positives where a common drug and ADRs occur in the database (digoxin–acne; digoxin–rash). A routine application of the BCPNN to a quarterly update is also tested, showing that 1004 suspected drug–ADR combinations reached the 97.5% confidence level of difference from the generality. Of these, 307 were potentially serious ADRs, and of these 53 related to new drugs. Twelve of the latter were not recorded in the CD editions of The physician's Desk Reference or Martindale's Extra Pharmacopoea and did not appear in Reactions Weekly online. Conclusion: The results indicate that the BCPNN can be used in the detection of significant signals from the data set of the WHO Programme on International Drug Monitoring. The BCPNN will be an extremely useful adjunct to the expert assessment of very large numbers of spontaneously reported ADRs.
An Overview of Machine Teaching

In this paper we try to organize machine teaching as a coherent set of ideas. Each idea is presented as varying along a dimension. The collection of dimensions then form the problem space of machine teaching, such that existing teaching problems can be characterized in this space. We hope this organization allows us to gain deeper understanding of individual teaching problems, discover connections among them, and identify gaps in the field.
Attitudes of nurse professionals and nursing students towards children with disabilities. Do nurses really overcome children's physical and mental handicaps?

BACKGROUND
Many health professionals and nurses, who are involved in the care of disabled children, do not exhibit the essential sensitivity and appropriate attitudes towards them, resulting in a poor quality of nursing care.


AIM
The objective of this study was to investigate the attitudes of nurse professionals (paediatric nurses) and nursing students towards disabled children.


PATIENTS AND METHODS
The present study is a comparative study. The sample consisted of 228 first-year nursing students, 90 post-diploma nurses attending MSc degree course and 123 nurse professionals who are employed in paediatric hospitals. After obtaining permission from the hospitals and the educational settings and informing about the subjects of the study, data were collected using the paediatric Attitude Towards Disabled Person Scale (ATDP).


RESULTS
Overall nurses' attitudes appeared to be poor (mean ATDP score 61.7 +/- 14.2). However, the post-diploma nurses had significantly higher ATDP scores than first-year students and paediatric nurses (P < 0.001). In addition, first-year students had significantly higher scores than paediatric nurses (P = 0.047). Across the sample, females hold significantly more positive attitudes than males (F = 9.5, P = 0.002), while age did not have any significant effect.


CONCLUSIONS
Carefully designed curricula can influence the attitudes of nursing students towards children with disabilities. Special courses for treating disabled children should be integrated to the basic nursing studies. Moreover, continuing hospital education can change paediatric nurses' attitudes towards children with disabilities.
Value of ultrasonography for diagnosis of synovitis associated with rheumatoid arthritis.

AIM
To investigate the value of ultrasonography (US) for diagnosing synovitis associated with rheumatoid arthritis (RA).


METHOD
Bilateral metacarpophalangeal (MCP), proximal interphalangeal (PIP) II-V and wrist joints of 46 RA patients and 35 healthy controls were evaluated by quantitative and semiquantitative US. Wrists on more severely affected sides of 20 of the 46 patients also underwent magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The MRI and US results were compared. The US cutoff to distinguish pathology was calculated. The two US methods were compared and the correlation between quantitative methods and clinical serologic markers was analyzed.


RESULTS
The imaging techniques (US and MRI) for detecting synovitis produced consistent results (γ = 0.70-0.77, P < 0.001). When the cutoffs for the MCP and PIP joints were 2.5 and 2.6 mm, respectively; the sensitivities/specificities were 82.8%/85.8% and 98.2%/84.8%, respectively. When the cutoff for the wrist was 5.2 mm, the sensitivity/specificity was 93.4%/93.4%. The average synovial membrane thickness was positively related to biochemical markers erythrocyte sedimentation rate, C-reactive protein, anticyclic citrullinated peptide antibody, and Disease Activity Index of 28 joints (γ = 0.307-0.614; P = 0.020, 0.038, 0.01, < 0.001, respectively) but was poorly related to rheumatoid factor immunoglobulin A (RF-IgA), RF-IgM, and RF-IgG (γ = 0.06-0.115; P = 0.45, 0.45, 0.62, respectively).


CONCLUSIONS
US is a valid method for diagnosing early-stage synovitis, with high-accuracy cutoffs for MCP, PIP and wrist joints set at 2.5, 2.6 and 5.2 mm. The mean synovial thicknesses of the bilateral wrist, MCP II-IV and PIP II-IV joints can be used to assess disease activity.