LLukas22/scidocs huggingface dataset:
The MORGAN framework: enabling dynamic multi-user AR and VR projects

The availability of a suitable framework is of vital importance for the development of Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) projects. While features such as scalability, platform independence, support of multiple users, distribution of components, and an efficient and sophisticated rendering are the key requirements of current and future applications, existing frameworks often address these issues only partially. In our paper we present MORGAN --- an extensible component-based AR/VR framework, enabling sophisticated dynamic multi-user AR and VR projects. Core components include the MORGAN API, providing developers access to various input devices, including common tracking devices, as well as a modular render engine concept, allowing us to provide native support for individual scene graph concepts. The MORGAN framework has already been successfully deployed in several national and international research and development projects.
Enhanced transdermal delivery of evodiamine and rutaecarpine using microemulsion

OBJECTIVE
The purpose of this study was to improve skin permeation of evodiamine and rutaecarpine for transdermal delivery with microemulsion as vehicle and investigate real-time cutaneous absorption of the drugs via in vivo microdialysis.


METHODS
Pseudoternary phase diagrams were constructed to evaluate microemulsion regions with various surfactants and cosurfactants. Nine formulations of oil in water microemulsions were selected as vehicles for assessing skin permeation of evodiamine and rutaecarpine in ex vivo transdermal experiments. With a microdialysis hollow fiber membrane implanted in the skin beneath the site of topical drug administration, dialysis sampling was maintained for 10 hours and the samples were detected directly by high performance liquid chromatography. Real-time concentrations of the drugs in rat skin were investigated and compared with those of conventional formulations, such as ointment and tincture. Furthermore, the drugs were applied to various regions of the skin using microemulsion as vehicle.


RESULTS
In ex vivo transdermal experiments, cutaneous fluxes of evodiamine and rutaecarpine microemulsions were 2.55-fold to 11.36-fold and 1.17-fold to 6.33-fold higher, respectively, than those of aqueous suspensions. Different drug loadings, microemulsion water content, and transdermal enhancers markedly influenced the permeation of evodiamine and rutaecarpine. In microemulsion application with in vivo microdialysis, the maximum concentration of the drugs (evodiamine: 18.23 ± 1.54 ng/mL; rutaecarpine: 16.04 ± 0.69 ng/mL) were the highest, and the area under the curve(0-t) of evodiamine and rutaecarpine was 1.52-fold and 2.27-fold higher than ointment and 3.06-fold and 4.23-fold higher than tincture, respectively. A greater amount of drugs penetrated through and was absorbed by rat abdominal skin than shoulder and chest, and a reservoir in the skin was found to supply drugs even after the microemulsion was withdrawn.


CONCLUSION
Compared to conventional formulations, higher cutaneous fluxes of evodiamine and rutaecarpine were achieved with microemulsion. Based on this novel transdermal delivery, the transdermal route was effective for the administration of the two active alkaloids.
Mini Web Server Clusters for HTTP Request Splitting

HTTP request splitting is a new concept where the TCP connection and data transfer phases are dynamically split between servers without using a central dispatcher or load balancer. Splitting is completely transparent to the client and provides security due to the inaccessibility and invisibility of the data servers. We study the performance of mini Web server clusters with request splitting. With partial delegation in which some requests are split, throughput is better, and response times are only marginally less than for an equivalent non-split system. For example with partial delegation, for a four-node cluster with a single connection server and three data servers serving 64 KB files, and for a three-node cluster with two connection servers and a single data server serving 4 KB files, the respective throughput improvements over non-split systems are 10% and 22%, with only a marginal increase in response time. In practice, the throughput improvement percentages will be higher and response time gaps will be lower since we ignore the overhead of a dispatcher or load balancer in non-split systems. Although these experiments used bare PC Web servers without an operating system/kernel for ease of implementation, splitting and clustering may also be implemented on conventional systems.
Retention of Habitat Complexity Minimizes Disassembly of Reef Fish Communities following Disturbance: A Large-Scale Natural Experiment

High biodiversity ecosystems are commonly associated with complex habitats. Coral reefs are highly diverse ecosystems, but are under increasing pressure from numerous stressors, many of which reduce live coral cover and habitat complexity with concomitant effects on other organisms such as reef fishes. While previous studies have highlighted the importance of habitat complexity in structuring reef fish communities, they employed gradient or meta-analyses which lacked a controlled experimental design over broad spatial scales to explicitly separate the influence of live coral cover from overall habitat complexity. Here a natural experiment using a long term (20 year), spatially extensive (∼ 115,000 kms(2)) dataset from the Great Barrier Reef revealed the fundamental importance of overall habitat complexity for reef fishes. Reductions of both live coral cover and habitat complexity had substantial impacts on fish communities compared to relatively minor impacts after major reductions in coral cover but not habitat complexity. Where habitat complexity was substantially reduced, species abundances broadly declined and a far greater number of fish species were locally extirpated, including economically important fishes. This resulted in decreased species richness and a loss of diversity within functional groups. Our results suggest that the retention of habitat complexity following disturbances can ameliorate the impacts of coral declines on reef fishes, so preserving their capacity to perform important functional roles essential to reef resilience. These results add to a growing body of evidence about the importance of habitat complexity for reef fishes, and represent the first large-scale examination of this question on the Great Barrier Reef.
Menstrual hygiene management and school absenteeism among female adolescent students in Northeast Ethiopia

BACKGROUND
Adolescence in girls has been recognized as a special period marked with the onset of menarche. Even though menstruation is a natural process, it is associated with misconceptions, malpractices and challenges among girls in developing countries. However, much is not documented; school-absenteeism and dropout are a common problem among girls in rural Ethiopia. Focusing among school girls, this study has examined knowledge about menstruation, determinants of menstrual management and its influence on school-attendance in Northeast Ethiopia.


METHODS
We conducted a mixed-method research combining quantitative and qualitative methods in Northeast Ethiopia. The quantitative study was conducted among 595 randomly selected adolescent school girls. Nine in-depth interviews; five school-dropout girls and four female teachers, and four focus group discussions among school girls were conducted in 2013.


RESULTS
The mean age at menarche was 13.98 (±1.17) years. About 51% of girls had knowledge about menstruation and its management. Only a third of the girls used sanitary napkins as menstrual absorbent during their last menstruation. Girls from urban areas, had mothers of secondary and above education and, families of higher monthly expenditure had more chance of using sanitary napkins than their counterparts. More than half of the girls reported to have been absent from school during their menstruation period. Those who did not use sanitary napkins were more likely to be absent from school [AOR-95% C.I: 5.37 (3.02 - 9.55)]. Fifty eight percent of girls reported that their school-performance had declined after they had menarche. In addition, the qualitative study indicated that school-dropout was common among girls who experienced teasing and humiliation by classmates when their clothes were stained with blood as they do not use sanitary napkins.


CONCLUSION
Though there is an effort to increase girls' school enrollment, lack of basic needs, like sanitary napkins that facilitate routine activates of girls at early adolescence are observed to deter girls' school-attendance in rural Ethiopia. Special support for girl students, especially when they have their first menstruation and separate functioning sanitary facilities are necessities that should be in school at all times if gender equality and girls empowerment is to be achieved.
A randomized trial comparing repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation given 3 days/week and 5 days/week for the treatment of major depression: is efficacy related to the duration of treatment or the number of treatments?

BACKGROUND
Repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) has been shown to be an effective treatment for depression. However, there has been little research to determine optimal parameters for treatment.


METHOD
This study compared two rTMS treatment regimes for the treatment of major depression. Seventy-seven participants were randomized to either spaced or daily treatment. Spaced rTMS was given 3 days/week for 6 weeks (18 treatments in total) and daily rTMS was given 5 days/week for 4 weeks (20 treatments in total). All participants were assessed at baseline and after 4 weeks of treatment. Participants in the spaced treatment group were also assessed after 6 weeks of treatment. All participants were treated at 110% of the resting motor threshold with high-frequency rTMS (10 Hz) to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) followed by low-frequency rTMS to the right DLPFC.


RESULTS
Participants in the daily treatment group showed more improvement by week 4 than those in the spaced treatment group; however, both groups had similar improvement by treatment completion. There was significant improvement in both groups in ratings of depression and anxiety, with no significant differences between groups.


CONCLUSIONS
Our study indicates that the efficacy of rTMS is related to the number of treatments given and that spacing the treatments neither improves nor reduces efficacy.
Comparative effectiveness of treatment with the first TNF antagonist in monotherapy, the first TNF antagonist plus one conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drug, and the first TNF antagonist plus two or more conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs in patients w

BACKGROUND
Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients are treated with a mean of 3-4 conventional synthetic disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (csDMARDs) with or without glucocorticoids (GCs), before the first biologic prescription. The main reasons for change are inefficacy in 30-40 % of patients, and toxicity ≈ 10 %. Thus, they are treated with the first TNF antagonists in monotherapy. The aim of this study was to analyse the csDMARD and GC prescription patterns before and during treatment with the first TNF antagonist, and compare their effectiveness in three groups of patients.


METHODS
An observational, prospective, multicentre study in common clinical practice was designed. Treating rheumatologists recorded patient variables, including previous and concomitant csDMARDs and GCs in a database. The data were analysed using descriptive, inferential and multivariate statistics.


RESULTS
There were 1136 patients included; 21 % received the first TNF antagonist in monotherapy, 67 % received the first TNF antagonist plus one csDMARD, and 12 % the first TNF antagonist plus two or more csDMARDs. Most patients were female (73 %), RF+, and ACPA+, and had erosions; mean age was 53.2 (±13.0) years, and duration of disease was 9.1 (±7.6) years. They had high activity with DAS28 of 5.8 ± 1.1, and poor physical function with HAQ of 1.43 ± 0.63, and significant differences between groups in clinical variables and comorbidities; 94 % had received treatment with GCs, MTX, LFN, or SSZ at any time before the first TNF antagonist, 5 % (n = 52) had been treated with CLQ or HCLQ, and 1 % (n = 13) had received neither GCs nor csDMARDs. Before the first TNF antagonist, the drugs most commonly used were GCs (78 %), MTX (50 %), LFN (44 %), and SSZ (21 %). Concomitantly with the first TNF antagonist, 977 patients (85 %) were receiving GCs, MTX, LFN, or SSZ; 15 % (n = 173) received their first TNF antagonist without any concomitant GCs or csDMARDs, true monotherapy, and 6 % received their first TNF antagonist with GCs. The drug most commonly used at the time of first TNF antagonist initiation was MTX (58 %). All treatment groups had clinically and statistically significant improvements in DAS and HAQ scores. Effectiveness analysis (controlling for confounders) showed mean drug survival of 16.7, 20.1 and 11.7 months in each group, respectively (p < 0.001). The model that best explained a good EULAR response included the baseline and 6-month DAS28.


CONCLUSIONS
The three groups of patiernts, have different comorbidities and disease characteristics. Treatment with low or very low doses of GCs is common. True monotherapy with the first TNF antagonist without prednisone or csDMARDs is infrequent. After controlling for potential confounders, effectiveness was a little different.
The Part-Time Parliament

Recent archaeological discoveries on the island of Paxos reveal that the parliament functioned despite the peripatetic propensity of its part-time legislators. The legislators maintained consistent copies of the parliamentary record, despite their frequent forays from the chamber and the forgetfulness of their messengers. The Paxon parliament's protocol provides a new way of implementing the state machine approach to the design of distributed systems.
Risk profiles of pork and poultry meat and risk ratings of various pathogen/product combinations.

Risk profiles of pork and poultry meat were carried out using an Excel-based software program, Risk Ranger. It is a semi-quantitative risk estimator answering various questions relating to the probability of exposure to a hazard, susceptibility of the population of interest, severity of the illness caused by the hazard if present and probability of food containing an infectious dose. Therefore, qualitative and quantitative inputs were used to estimate and rank the risk of various hazards/food combinations. Risk scores provided by the tool were characterized as low, medium and high. Also, health risk was estimated separately, where needed, for low and high risk populations. Low risk scores were obtained for Salmonella spp., Listeria monocytogenes and enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) for low risk population. High risk scores were obtained for hepatitis E virus (HEV) in raw pork products (both low and high risk populations). Moderate risk scores for Salmonella spp. and L. monocytogenes in processed pork or poultry-meat products (ready-to-eat or to be reheated) and partially cooked pork products were also obtained (low risk population). Scores for Staphylococcus aureus, Clostridium perfringens and Bacillus cereus and various product types were mostly in the "medium" risk category, except for S. aureus/ready-to-eat pork products able to support growth of the organism, which fell into the high risk category. Campylobacter spp. gave moderate risk scores with one exception (raw poultry products), whereas Y. enterocolitica showed combinations of low risk and few of medium risk. High risk pathogen/product combinations identified were: 1) temperature abused, ready-to-eat pork and/or poultry-meat products with extended shelf life and cross-contaminated by L. monocytogenes (high risk population), EHEC (high risk population) or S. aureus (all population), 2) partially cooked or processed intended to be reheated pork products cross-contaminated by L. monocytogenes, served undercooked and receiving improper cooling or reheating (high risk population), and 3) all people consuming undercooked meals cross-contaminated with Campylobacter spp. (e.g. from raw poultry and raw poultry-meat products) and HEV (e.g. from raw pork and raw pork-meat products). Salmonellae gave high risk scores in all food categories (except preserved meat products) for high risk population. Preserved meats (mainly pork) such as dry fermented sausages gave low risk scores. Only Salmonella spp., L. monocytogenes and E. coli EHEC gave moderate risk ratings in case of ingredients likely to be contaminated at an early stage of processing (e.g. animal at slaughter) and inadequate fermentation process. These results may constitute a source of information for hazard assessment during application of a Food Safety Management System.
Max-min beamforming for multicell downlink systems using long-term channel statistics

This paper investigates max-min beamforming for the multicell downlink transmission, where multiple base stations (BSs) cooperatively optimize their transmit beamforming vectors using long-term channel statistics. Based on Lagrangian duality, we reformulate the original problem into a dual uplink problem, which is expected to achieve the same optimal signal to interference plus noise ratio (SINR) as the primal downlink problem. The normalized dual uplink beamformer is the dominant eigenvector of a generalized eigenvalue decomposition (GEVD) problem, and the dual uplink transmit power can be solved iteratively. According to the duality theory, we develop an iterative algorithm and compare it with the beamformer-power iterative algorithm extended from [1]. Simulation results verify the computational efficiency of the proposed algorithm.
A Survey of Distant Supervision Methods using PGMs

Relation Extraction refers to the task of populating a database with tuples of the form r(e1, e2), where r is a relation and e1, e2 are entities. Distant supervision is one such technique which tries to automatically generate training examples based on an existing KB such as Freebase. This paper is a survey of some of the techniques in distant supervision which primarily rely on Probabilistic Graphical Models (PGMs).
Physical Activity and Mortality in Patients With Stable Coronary Heart Disease.

BACKGROUND
Recommendations for physical activity in patients with stable coronary heart disease (CHD) are based on modest evidence.


OBJECTIVES
The authors analyzed the association between self-reported exercise and mortality in patients with stable CHD.


METHODS
A total of 15,486 patients from 39 countries with stable CHD who participated in the STABILITY (Stabilization of Atherosclerotic Plaque by Initiation of Darapladib Therapy) study completed questions at baseline on hours spent each week taking mild, moderate, and vigorous exercise. Associations between the volume of habitual exercise in metabolic equivalents of task hours/week and adverse outcomes during a median follow-up of 3.7 years were evaluated.


RESULTS
A graded decrease in mortality occurred with increased habitual exercise that was steeper at lower compared with higher exercise levels. Doubling exercise volume was associated with lower all-cause mortality (unadjusted hazard ratio [HR]: 0.82; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.79 to 0.85; adjusting for covariates, HR: 0.90; 95% CI: 0.87 to 0.93). These associations were similar for cardiovascular mortality (unadjusted HR: 0.83; 95% CI: 0.80 to 0.87; adjusted HR: 0.92; 95% CI: 0.88 to 0.96), but myocardial infarction and stroke were not associated with exercise volume after adjusting for covariates. The association between decrease in mortality and greater physical activity was stronger in the subgroup of patients at higher risk estimated by the ABC-CHD (Age, Biomarkers, Clinical-Coronary Heart Disease) risk score (p for interaction = 0.0007).


CONCLUSIONS
In patients with stable CHD, more physical activity was associated with lower mortality. The largest benefits occurred between sedentary patient groups and between those with the highest mortality risk.
A parallel MPEG-4 encoder for FPGA based multiprocessor SoC

A parallel MPEG-4 simple profile encoder for FPGA based multiprocessor system-on-chip (SoC) is presented. The goal is a computationally scalable framework independent of platform. The scalability is achieved by spatial parallelization where images are divided to horizontal slices. Slice coding tasks are mapped to the multiprocessor consisting of four soft-cores arranged into master-slave configuration. Also, the shared memory model is adopted where large images are stored in shared external memory while small on-chip buffers are used for processing. The interconnections between memories and processors are realized with our HIBI network. Our main contributions are the scalable encoder framework as well as methods for coping with limited memory of FPGA. The current software only implementation processes 6 QCIF frames/s with three encoding slaves. In practice, speed-ups of 1.7 and 2.3 have been measured with two and three slaves, respectively. FPGA utilization of current implementation is 59% requiring 24 207 logic elements on Altera Stratix EP1S40.
Microbial community structures differentiated in a single-chamber air-cathode microbial fuel cell fueled with rice straw hydrolysate

BACKGROUND
The microbial fuel cell represents a novel technology to simultaneously generate electric power and treat wastewater. Both pure organic matter and real wastewater can be used as fuel to generate electric power and the substrate type can influence the microbial community structure. In the present study, rice straw, an important feedstock source in the world, was used as fuel after pretreatment with diluted acid method for a microbial fuel cell to obtain electric power. Moreover, the microbial community structures of anodic and cathodic biofilm and planktonic culturewere analyzed and compared to reveal the effect of niche on microbial community structure.


RESULTS
The microbial fuel cell produced a maximum power density of 137.6 ± 15.5 mW/m2 at a COD concentration of 400 mg/L, which was further increased to 293.33 ± 7.89 mW/m2 through adjusting the electrolyte conductivity from 5.6 mS/cm to 17 mS/cm. Microbial community analysis showed reduction of the microbial diversities of the anodic biofilm and planktonic culture, whereas diversity of the cathodic biofilm was increased. Planktonic microbial communities were clustered closer to the anodic microbial communities compared to the cathodic biofilm. The differentiation in microbial community structure of the samples was caused by minor portion of the genus. The three samples shared the same predominant phylum of Proteobacteria. The abundance of exoelectrogenic genus was increased with Desulfobulbus as the shared most abundant genus; while the most abundant exoelectrogenic genus of Clostridium in the inoculum was reduced. Sulfate reducing bacteria accounted for large relative abundance in all the samples, whereas the relative abundance varied in different samples.


CONCLUSION
The results demonstrated that rice straw hydrolysate can be used as fuel for microbial fuel cells; microbial community structure differentiated depending on niches after microbial fuel cell operation; exoelectrogens were enriched; sulfate from rice straw hydrolysate might be responsible for the large relative abundance of sulfate reducing bacteria.