bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Investigation of Steam Turbine Warm-Keeping by Use of Air
Authors: Toebben Dennis , Luczynski Piotr , Wirsum Manfred , Mohr Wolfgang F. D. , Helbig Klaus
Published: July 2019

The changing energy landscape leads to a rising demand of more flexible power generation. A system for steam turbine (ST) warm-keeping provides the ability to shutdown conventional power plants during periods with a high share of renewable power. Simultaneously, these power plants are ready for grid stabilization on demand without an excessive consumption of lifetime during the start-up. One technical solution to keep a ST warm is the use of hot air, which is passed through the turbine. In addition, the air supply prevents corrosion during standstill and also enables the prewarming after maintenance or long outages. This paper investigates the warm-keeping process of an intermediate pressure (IP) ST (double-shell configuration) through the use of dynamic numerical finite element (FE) simulations. As a representative test case, warm-keeping calculations during a weekend shutdown (60 h) are conducted to investigate the temperatures, their distribution, and gradients within the rotor and the casing. For this purpose, an improved numerical calculation model is developed. This detailed three-dimensional FE model (including blades and vanes) uses heat transfer correlations conceived for warm-keeping with low air mass flows in gear mode operation. These analytical correlations take heat radiation, convection, and contact heat transfer at the blade roots into account. The thermal boundary conditions (BCs) at the outer walls of the rotor and casing are determined by use of experimental natural cool-down data. The calculation model is finally compared and verified with this dataset. The results offer valuable information about the thermal condition of the ST for a subsequent start-up procedure. The warm-keeping operation with air is able to preserve hot start conditions for any time period. Most of the heat is transferred close to the steam inlet of the turbine, which is caused by similar flow directions of air and steam. Thus, temperatures in the last stages and in the casing remain well below material limits. This allows higher temperatures at the first blade groove of the turbine, which is highly loaded during a turbine startup and thus crucial to the lifetime.
Atmospheric pressure mass spectrometric imaging of bio-tissue specimen using electrospray-assisted CW laser desorption and ionization source
Authors: Kim Jae Young , Lee Sun Young , Moon Dae Won , Park Ji-Won , Lim Dong-Kwon , Song Cheol
Published: July 2019

When a tissue slice pretreated with gold nanoparticles is irradiated with a focused 532-nm continuous wave laser, desorption is observed to be uniform and stable, and its shape is sharp and steep. However, since the desorbed molecules are still electrically neutral particles in atmospheric pressure (AP), additional procedure of ionizing them is necessary for AP mass spectrometry (AP-MS) analysis. Therefore, the authors have combined an electrospray device with a simple chamber connected to the airflow-assisted particle transport equipment mounted at the mass spectrometer inlet. Subsequent ionization processes using an electrospray device enable the detection of several types of diacylglycerol molecules above 500 Da, which cannot be detected with the use of AP plasma jets. The authors also developed a remote AP-MS using a long and flexible sampling probe and a fiber laser with a slight modification of the proposed AP desorption and ionization method.
Role of MurT C-Terminal Domain in the Amidation of Staphylococcus aureus Peptidoglycan
Authors: Gonçalves Bárbara V. , Portela Raquel , Lobo Ricardo , Figueiredo Teresa A. , Grilo Inês R. , Ludovice Ana Madalena , de Lencastre Hermínia , Dias Jorge S. , Sobral Rita G.
Published: July 2019

Glutamate amidation, a secondary modification of the peptidoglycan, was first identified in
Staphylococcus aureus
. It is catalyzed by the protein products of the
murT
and
gatD
genes, which are conserved and colocalized in the genomes of most sequenced Gram-positive bacterial species. The MurT-GatD complex is required for cell viability, full resistance to β-lactam antibiotics, and resistance to human lysozyme and is recognized as an attractive target for new antimicrobials.
Population Pharmacokinetics of Unbound Ceftolozane and Tazobactam in Critically Ill Patients without Renal Dysfunction
Authors: Sime Fekade B. , Lassig-Smith Melissa , Starr Therese , Stuart Janine , Pandey Saurabh , Parker Suzanne L. , Wallis Steven C. , Lipman Jeffrey , Roberts Jason A.
Published: July 2019

Evaluation of dosing regimens for critically ill patients requires pharmacokinetic data in this population. This prospective observational study aimed to describe the population pharmacokinetics of unbound ceftolozane and tazobactam in critically ill patients without renal impairment and to assess the adequacy of recommended dosing regimens for treatment of systemic infections. Patients received 1.5 or 3.0 g ceftolozane-tazobactam according to clinician recommendation.
Interleukin-10 (IL-10) Produced by Mutant Toxic Shock Syndrome Toxin 1 Vaccine-Induced Memory T Cells Downregulates IL-17 Production and Abrogates the Protective Effect against Staphylococcus aureus Infection
Authors: Narita Kouji , Hu Dong-Liang , Asano Krisana , Nakane Akio
Published: July 2019

Development of long-term memory is crucial for vaccine-induced adaptive immunity against infectious diseases such as
Staphylococcus aureus
infection. Toxic shock syndrome toxin 1 (TSST-1), one of the superantigens produced by
S. aureus
, is a possible vaccine candidate against infectious diseases caused by this pathogen.
Impact of CO
2
/HCO
3
–
Availability on Anaplerotic Flux in Pyruvate Dehydrogenase Complex-Deficient Corynebacterium glutamicum Strains
Authors: Krüger Aileen , Wiechert Johanna , Gätgens Cornelia , Polen Tino , Mahr Regina , Frunzke Julia
Published: July 2019

CO
2
is a ubiquitous product of cellular metabolism and an essential substrate for carboxylation reactions. The pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDHC) catalyzes a central metabolic reaction contributing to the intracellular CO
2
/HCO
3
–
pool in many organisms. In this study, we used a PDHC-deficient strain of
Corynebacterium glutamicum
, which additionally lacked pyruvate carboxylase (Δ
aceE
Δ
pyc
). This strain featured a >15-h lag phase during growth on glucose-acetate mixtures. We used this strain to systematically assess the impact of alterations in the intracellular CO
2
/HCO
3
–
pool on growth in glucose-acetate medium. Remarkably, all measures enhancing CO
2
/HCO
3
–
levels successfully restored growth. These results emphasize the strong impact of the intracellular CO
2
/HCO
3
–
pool on metabolic flux, especially in strains exhibiting low endogenous CO
2
production rates.
New Twists and Turns in Bacterial Locomotion and Signal Transduction
Authors: Watts Kylie J. , Vaknin Ady , Fuqua Clay , Kazmierczak Barbara I.
Published: July 2019

Prokaryotic organisms occupy the most diverse set of environments and conditions on our planet. Their ability to sense and respond to a broad range of external cues remain key research areas in modern microbiology, central to behaviors that underlie beneficial and pathogenic interactions of bacteria with multicellular organisms and within complex ecosystems.
Drawing a Link Between Genetic Inheritance and Meiosis: A Set of Exercises for the Undergraduate Biology Classroom
Authors: Strand Stephanie , Boes Katie E.
Published: July 2019

Alleles are passed from parent to offspring through meiotic cell division and subsequent fusion of gametes. Despite this important link, general biology courses at the high school and college levels frequently discuss meiosis and genetic inheritance as two distinct content areas. As a consequence, students may leave biology courses with a working knowledge of both meiosis and genetic inheritance in isolation rather than understanding them as interconnected topics. In this paper, we describe and provide a series of classroom exercises that prompt students to explore the connection between meiosis and genetic inheritance. Specifically, students draw cells containing chromosomes with labeled alleles to illustrate key steps in the formation of gametes during meiosis and the subsequent fusion of gametes during fertilization. We believe that this approach is appropriate for either group or individual work, during or outside of class time, and we describe potential benefits for students and instructors.
Orbital controls on Namib Desert hydroclimate over the past 50,000 years
Authors: Chase Brian M. , Niedermeyer Eva M. , Boom Arnoud , Carr Andrew S. , Chevalier Manuel , He Feng , Meadows Michael E. , Ogle Neil , Reimer Paula J.
Published: July 2019

Despite being one of the world’s oldest deserts, and the subject of decades of research, evidence of past climate change in the Namib Desert is extremely limited. As such, there is significant debate regarding the nature and drivers of climate change in the low-latitude drylands of southwestern Africa. Here we present data from stratified accumulations of rock hyrax urine that provide the first continuous high-resolution terrestrial climate record for the Namib Desert spanning the past 50,000 yr. These data, spanning multiple sites, show remarkably coherent variability that is clearly linked to orbital cycles and the evolution and perturbation of global boundary conditions. Contrary to some previous predictions of southwestern African climate change, we show that orbital-scale cycles of hydroclimatic variability in the Namib Desert region are in phase with those of the northern tropics, with increased local summer insolation coinciding with periods of increased aridity. Supported by climate model simulations, our analyses link this to variations in position and intensity of atmospheric pressure cells modulated by hemispheric and land-sea temperature gradients. We conclude that hydroclimatic variability at orbital time scales is driven by the combined influence of direct low-latitude insolation forcing and the influence of remote controls on the South Atlantic anticyclone, with attendant impacts on upwelling and sea-surface temperature variations.
Основные моменты задачи активной защиты от внешнего шума
Authors: Турчанинов Виктор Игоревич , Turchaninov Viktor Igorevich
Published: July 2019

Рассматривается задача защиты разговора в комнате с открытым окном от уличного шума в качестве примера более общей задачи защиты в реальном времени заданной области от наружного шума. Речь идeт об активной защите, то есть она
осуществляется с помощью дополнительных источников звука, располагаемых на
границе области. Эти источники дополняются окружающей их измерительной аппаратурой, следящей в интерактивном режиме за состоянием акустической среды,
совокупность которых будем называть прибором защиты.
Для решения задачи защиты В.С. Рябеньким построена математическая модель
процесса защиты, основанная на методе разностных потенциалов (МРП) и текущей
акустической разведки (ТАР). В этой модели управление динамиками прибора ослабляет шум в заданное число раз. Однако конструктивная реализация математической модели затруднена, потому что в ней аппаратура прибора плотным кольцом
окружает защищаемую область. Для того чтобы преодолеть указанную трудность,
будет построена приближeнная модель прибора защиты с крупной сеткой динамиков путeм специальной аппроксимации математической модели.
На простом примере излагается математическая модель процесса защиты. Изложение ведeтся таким образом, чтобы обеспечить широкие возможности в выборе конкретных вариантов шумоподавления. Далее предлагается методика получения экономной аппроксимации математической модели и на численных примерах демонстрируется еe эффективность и, при условии аккуратного исполнения, еe устойчивость.
Нестационарные контрастные структуры задачи реакции-диффузии с корнями нецелой кратности в неоднородной среде
Authors: Быков Алексей Александрович , Bykov Aleksei Aleksandrovich , Ермакова Кристина Евгениевна , Ermakova Kristina Evgenievna
Published: July 2019

Дано описание контрастных структур, возникающих при моделировании процессов реакции-диффузии в неоднородной среде со степенной зависимостью плотности источников от концентрации в окрестности корней. Полученные ранее нами результаты для однородной среды обобщены на случай неоднородной среды, строго обоснованы достаточные условия существования решения типа контрастной структуры. Показатель степени корня функции правой части, в отличие от ранее известных результатов, предполагается нецелочисленным, в том числе иррациональным. Показано, что передний (относительно направления перемещения) участок фронта представляется экспоненциальной функцией, задний участок фронта представляется степенной функцией, и это принципиально новый, ранее неизвестный результат. Найдено семейство точных решений эволюционного уравнения. Построена формальная асимптотика решения начально-краевой задачи для уравнения реакции-диффузии. Дано обоснование корректности частичной суммы асимптотического ряда с использованием метода дифференциальных неравенств.
Late-onset group B streptococcus infections and severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia in an extremely preterm born infant
Authors: Suffolk Raymond , Agertoft Lone , Johansen Malene , Zachariassen Gitte
Published: July 2019

This case report is about a boy born extremely preterm at gestational age of 24 weeks, with extremely low birth weight, developing severe bronchopulmonary dysplasia and in need of mechanical ventilation for 155 days. He also had five recurrent infections with group B streptococcus (GBS) within 4 months from birth, and his respiratory condition clearly deteriorated with every GBS infection. It was difficult to wean him from mechanical ventilation. Finally he was extubated when he was 7 months old and kept out of mechanical ventilation after receiving high-dose methylprednisolone, given according to international recommendations. After GBS was cultured for the fifth time, he received oral rifampicin along with intravenous penicillin and after this treatment, GBS did not occur again. At the age of 22 months, the boy no longer needed any respiratory support and he was about 6 months late in his neurological development.
Pulsatile tinnitus as a presenting symptom of central venous stenosis secondary to an ipsilateral upper arm arteriovenous PTFE graft
Authors: Steele Lloyd , Flowers David , Coles Simon , Gibbs Paul
Published: July 2019

A 51-year-old man presented with a swollen left arm and unilateral pulsatile tinnitus 2 weeks after a left upper arm polytetrafluoroethylene graft was created for haemodialysis access. A fistulogram of the left upper arm showed a central venous stenosis and significant retrograde flow up the left internal jugular vein. Percutaneous transluminal angioplasty was attempted unsuccessfully and fistula ligation was subsequently performed. This led to immediate resolution of the tinnitus. The venous stenosis was likely secondary to a cardiac resynchronisation therapy defibrillator, which had been removed 1 year previously. Central venous stenosis is a common but often asymptomatic complication of a cardiac device, with the exception of patients with upper extremity arteriovenous fistulas, who frequently develop symptomatic venous hypertension. This generally presents with ipsilateral arm swelling and/or high venous pressures during dialysis. To our knowledge, this is the first report of pulsatile tinnitus arising in this context.
Fatality from potassium gold cyanide poisoning
Authors: Harmon Elizabeth , Lebin Jacob , Murphy David , Watsjold Bjorn
Published: July 2019

While potassium cyanide poisoning has been well described, the toxicity of potassium gold cyanide is less well understood. This case describes an 84-year-old man who presented after an intentional ingestion of 0.5–1 teaspoons of potassium gold cyanide. Despite antidotal therapy, the patient rapidly developed severe lactic acidosis, multiorgan dysfunction and ultimately expired. While the patient’s clinical findings were consistent with acute cyanide poisoning, a serum cyanide level was below the toxic threshold. Previous reports have suggested that gold toxicity may also contribute to the effects of potassium gold cyanide, and may have played a role in the patient’s rapid decline. In addition to treatment of cyanide toxicity, management of acute gold toxicity should also be considered in potassium gold cyanide ingestion.
Citizen bystander–patient relationship and 1-month outcomes after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest of cardiac origin from the All-Japan Utstein Registry: a prospective, nationwide, population-based, observational study
Authors: Suematsu Yasunori , Zhang Bo , Kuwano Takashi , Sako Hideto , Ogawa Masahiro , Yonemoto Naohiro , Nonogi Hiroshi , Kimura Takeshi , Nagao Ken , Yasunaga Shin’ichiro , Saku Keijiro , Miura Shin-ichiro
Published: July 2019

Objectives

The presence of a bystander witness is a crucial predictor of patient survival after out-of-hospital cardiac arrest (OHCA). However, the differences in survival and neurological outcomes among different types of citizen bystanders are not well understood.

Design

We analysed data from the All-Japan Utstein Registry, a prospective, nationwide, population-based, observational study that was started in January 2005.

Setting

The registry includes all patients with OHCA who were transported to the hospital by emergency medical service (EMS) in Japan. The type of citizen bystander was classified as family member, friend, colleague, passerby or other.

Participants

We analysed 210 642 patients in the registry who were 18 years or older and experienced OHCA of cardiac origin witnessed by a citizen bystander between 2005 and 2014.

Primary and secondary outcome measures

The main outcomes were 1 month survival and 1 month survival with minimal neurological impairment.

Results

Of the citizen bystander-witnessed cases, 65.1% (137 147/210 642) were witnessed by a family member. However, among patients who survived to 1 month and who had a favourable 1 month neurological outcome, much lower proportions (53.9% (10 907/20 239) and 48.9% (5722/11 696)) were witnessed by a family member. Witness by a friend, colleague or passerby was associated with good 1 month neurological function, after controlling for the patient’s age, first recorded rhythm, gender, bystander cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), use of a public-access automated external defibrillator, dispatcher instructions, collapse-call time and response time compared with witness by a family member (friend: OR 1.35, 95% CI 1.24 to 1.46, colleague: OR 1.63, 95% CI 1.33 to 1.98, passerby: OR 1.60, 95% CI 1.39 to 1.84).

Conclusions

One-month survival and favourable1 month neurological outcome of patients with OHCA of cardiac origin witnessed by a family member were worse than those in cases witnessed by a friend, colleague or passerby, independent of the patient characteristics and the response of EMS.
Geographical and population disparities in timely access to prehospital and advanced level emergency care in New Zealand: a cross-sectional study
Authors: Lilley Rebbecca , de Graaf Brandon , Kool Bridget , Davie Gabrielle , Reid Papaarangi , Dicker Bridget , Civil Ian , Ameratunga Shanthi , Branas Charles
Published: July 2019

Objective

Rapid access to advanced emergency medical and trauma care has been shown to significantly reduce mortality and disability. This study aims to systematically examine geographical access to prehospital care provided by emergency medical services (EMS) and advanced-level hospital care, for the smallest geographical units used in New Zealand and explores national disparities in geographical access to these services.

Design

Observational study involving geospatial analysis estimating population access to EMS and advanced-level hospital care.

Setting

Population access to advanced-level hospital care via road and air EMS across New Zealand.

Participants

New Zealand population usually resident within geographical census meshblocks.

Primary and secondary outcome measures

The proportion of the resident population with calculated EMS access to advanced-level hospital care within 60 min was examined by age, sex, ethnicity, level of deprivation and population density to identify disparities in geographical access.

Results

An estimated 16% of the New Zealand population does not have timely EMS access to advanced-level hospital care via road or air. The 700 000 New Zealanders without timely access lived mostly in areas of low-moderate population density. Indigenous Māori, New Zealand European and older New Zealanders were less likely to have timely access.

Conclusions

These findings suggest that in New Zealand, geographically marginalised groups which tend to be rural and remote communities with disproportionately more indigenous Māori and older adults have poorer EMS access to advanced-level hospitals. Addressing these inequities in rapid access to medical care may lead to improvements in survival that have been documented for people who experience medical or surgical emergencies.
Implementation of an algorithm for the identification of breast cancer deaths in German health insurance claims data: a validation study based on a record linkage with administrative mortality data
Authors: Langner Ingo , Ohlmeier Christoph , Haug Ulrike , Hense Hans Werner , Czwikla Jonas , Zeeb Hajo
Published: July 2019

Objective

To adapt a Canadian algorithm for the identification of female cases of breast cancer (BC) deaths to German health insurance claims data and to test and validate the algorithm by comparing results with official cause of death (CoD) data on the individual and the population level.

Design

Validation study, secondary data, medical claims.

Setting

Claims data of two statutory health insurance providers (SHIs) for inpatient and outpatient care, CoD added via record linkage with epidemiological cancer registry (ECR).

Participants

All women insured with the two SHIs and who deceased in the period 2006–2013, were residents of North Rhine Westphalia (NRW) and were linked with ECR data: n=22 413.

Main outcome measures

Based on inpatient and outpatient diagnoses in the year before death, six algorithms were derived and the accordance of the algorithm-based CoD with the official CoD was evaluated calculating specificity, sensitivity, negative and positive predictive values (NPV, PPV). Furthermore, algorithm-based age-specific BC mortality rates covering several calendar years were calculated for the entire insured female population and compared with official national rates.

Results

Our final algorithm, derived from the NRW subsample, comprised codes indicating the presence of BC, metastases, a terminal illness phase and the absence of codes for other tumours. Overall, specificity, sensitivity, NPV and PPV of this algorithm were 97.4%, 91.3%, 98.9% and 81.7%, respectively. In the age range 40–80 years, sensitivity and PPV slightly decreased with increasing age. Algorithm-based age-specific BC mortality rates agreed well with official rates except for the age group 85 years and older.

Conclusions

The algorithm-based identification of BC deaths in German claims data is feasible and valid, except for higher ages. The algorithm to ascertain BC mortality rates in an epidemiological study seems applicable when information on the official CoD is not available in the original database.
Protocol for a systematic scoping review of reasons given to justify the performance of randomised controlled trials
Authors: Dewar Brian , Fedyk Mark , Jurkovic Lucas , Chevrier Stephanie , Rodriguez Rosendo , Kitto Simon C , Saginur Raphael , Shamy Michel
Published: July 2019

Introduction

Randomised controlled trials (RCTs) are widely viewed to generate the most reliable medical knowledge. However, RCTs are not always scientifically necessary and therefore not always ethical. Unfortunately, it is not clear when an RCT is not necessary or how this should be established. This study seeks to systematically catalogue justifications offered throughout the medical and ethics literature for performing randomisation within clinical trials.

Methods and analysis

We will systematically search electronic databases of the medical literature including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Cochrane Clinical Trials Register, Web of Science Proceedings, ClinicalTrials.gov; databases of philosophical literature including Philosopher’s Index, Phil Papers, JSTOR, Periodicals Archive Online, Project MUSE, National Reference Centre for Bioethics; the library catalogue at the University of Ottawa; bibliographies of retrieved papers; and the grey literature. We will also pursue suggestions from experts in the fields of medical ethics, philosophy and clinical trial methodology. Article screening, selection and data extraction will be performed by two independent reviewers based on prespecified inclusion/exclusion criteria. A third reviewer will be consulted to resolve any discrepancies. We will then extract the reasons given to justify randomisation using methodology established to extract data in a defensible, systematic manner. We will track the reasons given, their frequency of use and changes over time. Finally, using grounded theory, we will combine the reasons into broader themes. These themes will form the foundation of our subsequent analysis from qualitative and quantitative perspectives. This review will map existing arguments that clinicians, ethicists and philosophers use to ethically justify randomisation in clinical trials.

Ethics and dissemination

No research ethics board approval is necessary because we are not examining patient-level data. This protocol complies with the reported guidance for conducting systematic scoping reviews. The findings of this paper will be disseminated via presentations and academic publication. In a subsequent phase of this research, we hope to engage with stakeholders and translate any recommendations derived from our findings into operational guidelines.
HORIZONS protocol: a UK prospective cohort study to explore recovery of health and well-being in adults diagnosed with cancer
Authors: Foster Claire , Calman Lynn , Richardson Alison , May Carl R , Rogers Anne , Smith Peter W
Published: July 2019

Introduction

Understanding the impact of cancer and its treatment on people’s everyday lives will help prepare people for what to expect, enable health professionals to predict likely recovery trajectories and shape care management according to needs. HORIZONS will recruit people awaiting treatment and follow them up at regular intervals to assess recovery of health and well-being.

Research questions

What impact does cancer diagnosis and treatment have on people’s lives in the short, medium and long term? What are people’s health and well-being outcomes, experiences and self-management activities over time across different cancer types and what influences these? How do people connect with and relate to others in mobilising resources that enable them to self-manage the consequences of cancer and treatment?

Methods and analysis

HORIZONS is a multicentre, prospective cohort study exploring recovery of health and well-being in 3000 people diagnosed with breast cancer (<50 years), non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma or gynaecological cancer. Recruitment will take place across National Health Service (NHS) sites in the UK between September 2016 and March 2019, before primary treatment starts. Participants will be identified through clinical teams and invited to complete questionnaires including assessments of quality of life, symptoms and functioning (Quality of Life in Adult Cancer Survivors; European Organisation for Research and Treatment Consortium Core quality of life questionnaire, EORTC-QLQ-C30), health status (EuroQol-5 dimensions, EQ-5D), self-efficacy, social support, social networks and lifestyle. Clinical data will also be collected. Descriptive statistics will characterise outcomes. Changes over time will be investigated. Factors that may influence recovery and self-management will be included in regression models to determine which influence health and well-being and self-management.

Ethics and dissemination

Ethics and Health Research Authority approvals granted (IRAS Project ID: 202342, REC reference number 16/NW/0425). Adopted onto the National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research Network portfolio. We will engage with our Scientific Advisory Board, Tumour Specific Expert Panels, User Reference Group, Macmillan and the University of Southampton to ensure maximum publicity and benefit.
Exploring, measuring and enhancing the coproduction of health and well-being at the national, regional and local levels through comparative case studies in Sweden and England: the ‘Samskapa’ research programme protocol
Authors: Kjellström Sofia , Areskoug-Josefsson Kristina , Andersson Gäre Boel , Andersson Ann-Christine , Ockander Marlene , Käll Jacob , McGrath Jane , Donetto Sara , Robert Glenn
Published: July 2019

Introduction

Cocreation, coproduction and codesign are advocated as effective ways of involving citizens in the design, management, provision and evaluation of health and social care services. Although numerous case studies describe the nature and level of coproduction in individual projects, there remain three significant gaps in the evidence base: (1) measures of coproduction processes and their outcomes, (2) mechanisms that enable inclusivity and reciprocity and (3) management systems and styles. By focusing on these issues, we aim to explore, enhance and measure the value of coproduction for improving the health and well-being of citizens.

Methods and analysis

Nine ongoing coproduction projects form the core of an interactive research programme (‘Samskapa’) during a 6-year period (2019–2024). Six of these will take place in Sweden and three will be undertaken in England to enable knowledge exchange and cross-cultural comparison. The programme has a longitudinal case study design using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Cross-case analysis and a sensemaking process will generate relevant lessons both for those participating in the projects and researchers. Based on the findings, we will develop explanatory models and other outputs to increase the sustained value (and values) of future coproduction initiatives in these sectors.

Ethics and dissemination

All necessary ethical approvals will be obtained from the regional Ethical Board in Sweden and from relevant authorities in England. All data and personal data will be handled in accordance with General Data Protection Regulations. Given the interactive nature of the research programme, knowledge dissemination to participants and stakeholders in the nine projects will be ongoing throughout the 6 years. External workshops—facilitated in collaboration with participating case studies and citizens—both during and at the end of the programme will provide an additional dissemination mechanism and involve health and social care practitioners, policymakers and third-sector organisations.
Beta diversity and factors that drive land-snail patterns in Jiangxi Province, People’s Republic of China
Authors: Xu Yang , Liu Xiongjun , Xie Guanglong , Qin Jiajun , Wu Xiaoping , Ouyang Shan
Published: July 2019

Jiangxi Province is a biodiversity hotspot in the People’s Republic of China and has abundant land-snail species (247). Beta diversity is a key concept for understanding the functioning of ecosystems, the conservation of biodiversity, and the management of ecosystems. Here, the pattern of beta diversity for land snails in Jiangxi Province was analyzed. The results showed that the spatial turnover component was the main contributor to beta diversity, indicating that additional conservation efforts must target an increase in the number of protected areas, which should be spread across each one of the areas, to maximize the protection of species diversity. The nestedness component of diversity was always low, but there was a marked difference between microsnails, in which zero values occurred in 41.3% of all cases, and macrosnails, in which zero values occurred in only 2.7% of cases. There was a difference in the pattern of beta diversity between the two. The principal coordinate analysis showed a clear pattern with four groups in Jiangxi Province. In addition, we found significant effects of precipitation and altitude on overall beta diversity. These results will provide important basic information for the conservation of biodiversity in land snails.
Simulation Optimization on Complex Job Shop Scheduling with Non-Identical Job Sizes
Authors: Liu Lingxuan , Shi Leyuan
Published: July 2019

This paper addresses the complex job shop scheduling problem with the consideration of non-identical job sizes. By simultaneously considering practical constraints of sequence dependent setup times, incompatible job families and job dependent batch processing time, we formulate this problem into a simulation optimization problem based on the disjunctive graph representation. In order to find scheduling policies that minimise the expectation of mean weighted tardiness, we propose a genetic programming based hyper heuristic to generate efficient dispatching rules. And then, based on the nested partition framework together with the optimal computing budget allocation technique, a hybrid rule selection algorithm is proposed for searching machine group specified rule combinations. Numerical results show that the proposed algorithms outperform benchmark algorithms in both solution quality and robustness.
Geological development of the Timor Orogen
Authors: Martinez Duran Pedro , Baillie Peter , Carrillo Eduardo , Duval Gregor
Published: July 2019

The Timor Orogen comprises the island of Timor, a narrow offshore area to the north and a wider offshore fold-and-thrust belt to the south. This orogen formed by jamming and subsequent collision of the Banda Sea subduction system by the Australian Plate. The BandaSeis seismic survey has revealed excellent images of the deep-water fold-and-thrust belt. Seismic interpretation of the dataset demonstrated structural and tectonic features not previously described, including regional geological features on the Australian continental crust and two regional NE–SW sinistral strike-slip faults, and a prominent Middle Permian palaeogeographical high (Timor Plateau). Moreover, since the Middle–Late Triassic and Middle Jurassic, the two NE-trending strike-slip faults governed the formation of the West Timor and Cova-Lima sub-basins. The location along the Australian margin plays a dominant role in controlling the structural style and shaping of the Timor Orogen. Vertical loading and the southerly motion of the orogenic wedge are the main driving forces responsible for its building, illustrating a thin-skinned tectonic framework. Thrust faults nucleate in a forward-breaking sequence in the motion of thrust transport, with younger thrusts developing in front of older thrusts. Most of the collisional deformation has been classified into two styles: shallow thin-skinned and deep-seated deformation.
“The Enemy Among Us”
Authors: Alorainy Wafa , Burnap Pete , Liu Han , Williams Matthew L.
Published: July 2019

Offensive or antagonistic language targeted at individuals and social groups based on their personal characteristics (also known as cyber hate speech or cyberhate) has been frequently posted and widely circulated via the World Wide Web. This can be considered as a key risk factor for individual and societal tension surrounding regional instability. Automated Web-based cyberhate detection is important for observing and understanding community and regional societal tension—especially in online social networks where posts can be rapidly and widely viewed and disseminated. While previous work has involved using lexicons, bags-of-words, or probabilistic language parsing approaches, they often suffer from a similar issue, which is that cyberhate can be subtle and indirect—thus, depending on the occurrence of individual words or phrases, can lead to a significant number of false negatives, providing inaccurate representation of the trends in cyberhate. This problem motivated us to challenge thinking around the representation of subtle language use, such as references to perceived threats from “the other” including immigration or job prosperity in a hateful context. We propose a novel “othering” feature set that utilizes language use around the concept of “othering” and intergroup threat theory to identify these subtleties, and we implement a wide range of classification methods using embedding learning to compute semantic distances between parts of speech considered to be part of an “othering” narrative. To validate our approach, we conducted two sets of experiments. The first involved comparing the results of our novel method with state-of-the-art baseline models from the literature. Our approach outperformed all existing methods. The second tested the best performing models from the first phase on unseen datasets for different types of cyberhate, namely religion, disability, race, and sexual orientation. The results showed F-measure scores for classifying hateful instances obtained through applying our model of 0.81, 0.71, 0.89, and 0.72, respectively, demonstrating the ability of the “othering” narrative to be an important part of model generalization.
Housing Demand Estimation Based on Express Delivery Data
Authors: Li Qingyang , Yu Zhiwen , Guo Bin , Xu Huang , Lu Xinjiang
Published: July 2019

Housing demand estimation is an important topic in the field of economic research. It is beneficial and helpful for various applications including real estate market regulation and urban planning, and therefore is crucial for both real estate investors and government administrators. Meanwhile, given the rapid development of the express industry, abundant useful information is embedded in express delivery records, which is helpful for researchers in profiling urban life patterns. The express delivery behaviors of the residents in a residential community can reflect the housing demand to some extent. Although housing demand has been analyzed in previous studies, its estimation has not been very good, and the subject remains under explored. To this end, in this article, we propose a systematic housing demand estimation method based on express delivery data. First, the express delivery records are aggregated on the community scale with the use of clustering methods, and the missing values in the records are completed. Then, various features are extracted from a less sparse dataset considering both the probability of residential mobility and the attractiveness of residential communities. In addition, given that the correlations between different districts can influence the performances of the inference model, the commonalities and differences of different districts are considered. After obtaining the features and correlations between different districts being obtained, the housing demand is estimated by using a multi-task learning method based on neural networks. The experimental results for real-world data show that the proposed model is effective at estimating the housing demand at the residential community level.
User Studies on End-User Service Composition
Authors: Zhao Liping , Loucopoulos Pericles , Kavakli Evangelia , Letsholo Keletso J.
Published: July 2019

Context:
End-user service composition (EUSC) is a service-oriented paradigm that aims to empower end users and allow them to compose their own web applications from reusable service components. User studies have been used to evaluate EUSC tools and processes. Such an approach should benefit software development, because incorporating end users’ feedback into software development should make software more useful and usable.
Problem:
There is a gap in our understanding of what constitutes a user study and how a good user study should be designed, conducted, and reported.
Goal:
This article aims to address this gap.
Method:
The article presents a systematic review of 47 selected user studies for EUSC. Guided by a review framework, the article systematically and consistently assesses the focus, methodology and cohesion of each of these studies.
Results:
The article concludes that the focus of these studies is clear, but their methodology is incomplete and inadequate, their overall cohesion is poor. The findings lead to the development of a design framework and a set of questions for the design, reporting, and review of good user studies for EUSC. The detailed analysis and the insights obtained from the analysis should be applicable to the design of user studies for service-oriented systems as well and indeed for any user studies related to software artifacts.
Cloud-Hosted Intelligence for Real-time IoT Applications
Authors: Birman Ken , Hariharan Bharath , De Sa Christopher
Published: July 2019

Deploying machine learning into IoT cloud settings will require an evolution of the cloud infrastructure. In this white paper, we justify this assertion and identify new capabilities needed for real-time intelligent systems. We also outline our initial efforts to create a new edge architecture more suitable for ML. Although the work is still underway, several components exist, and we review them. We then point to open technical problems that will need to be solved as we progress further in this direction.
Analysis of DAWNBench, a Time-to-Accuracy Machine Learning Performance Benchmark
Authors: Coleman Cody , Kang Daniel , Narayanan Deepak , Nardi Luigi , Zhao Tian , Zhang Jian , Bailis Peter , Olukotun Kunle , Ré Chris , Zaharia Matei
Published: July 2019

Researchers have proposed hardware, software, and algorithmic optimizations to improve the computational performance of deep learning. While some of these optimizations perform the same operations faster (e.g., increasing GPU clock speed), many others modify the semantics of the training procedure (e.g., reduced precision), and can impact the final model's accuracy on unseen data. Due to a lack of standard evaluation criteria that considers these trade-offs, it is difficult to directly compare these optimizations. To address this problem, we recently introduced DAWNBENCH, a benchmark competition focused on end-to-end training time to achieve near-state-of-the-art accuracy on an unseen dataset-a combined metric called time-to-accuracy (TTA). In this work, we analyze the entries from DAWNBENCH, which received optimized submissions from multiple industrial groups, to investigate the behavior of TTA as a metric as well as trends in the best-performing entries. We show that TTA has a low coefficient of variation and that models optimized for TTA generalize nearly as well as those trained using standard methods. Additionally, even though DAWNBENCH entries were able to train ImageNet models in under 3 minutes, we find they still underutilize hardware capabilities such as Tensor Cores. Furthermore, we find that distributed entries can spend more than half of their time on communication. We show similar findings with entries to the MLPERF v0.5 benchmark.
Leveraging Deep Learning to Improve Performance Predictability in Cloud Microservices with Seer
Authors: Gan Yu , Zhang Yanqi , Hu Kelvin , Cheng Dailun , He Yuan , Pancholi Meghna , Delimitrou Christina
Published: July 2019

Performance unpredictability is a major roadblock towards cloud adoption, and has performance, cost, and revenue ramifications. Predictable performance is even more critical as cloud services transition from monolithic designs to microservices. Detecting UOS violations after they occur in systems with microservices results in long recovery times, as hotspots propagate and amplify across dependent services.
Bringing Engineering Rigor to Deep Learning
Authors: Pei Kexin , Wang Shiqi , Tian Yuchi , Whitehouse Justin , Vondrick Carl , Cao Yinzhi , Ray Baishakhi , Jana Suman , Yang Junfeng
Published: July 2019

Deep learning (DL) systems are increasingly deployed in safety- and security-critical domains including autonomous driving, robotics, and malware detection, where the correctness and predictability of a system on corner-case inputs are of great importance. Unfortunately, the common practice to validating a deep neural network (DNN) - measuring overall accuracy on a randomly selected test set - is not designed to surface corner-case errors. As recent work shows, even DNNs with state-of-the-art accuracy are easily fooled by human-imperceptible, adversarial perturbations to the inputs. Questions such as how to test corner-case behaviors more thoroughly and whether all adversarial samples have been found remain unanswered.

In the last few years, we have been working on bringing more engineering rigor into deep learning. Towards this goal, we have built five systems to test DNNs more thoroughly and verify the absence of adversarial samples for given datasets. These systems check a broad spectrum of properties (e.g., rotating an image should never change its classification) and find thousands of error-inducing samples for popular DNNs in critical domains (e.g., ImageNet, autonomous driving, and malware detection). Our DNN verifiers are also orders of magnitude (e.g., 5,000×) faster than similar tools. This article overviews our systems and discusses three open research challenges to hopefully inspire more future research towards testing and verifying DNNs.
Itinerant Objects
Authors: Bauer Alexander A.
Published: July 2019

That the meanings and value of things can be transformed through their circulation was brought to the foreground of anthropological studies more than 30 years ago with the publication of The Social Life of Things (Appadurai 1986b). The last decade, however, has seen a move away from “object biographies” in favor of frameworks that better account for objects’ complex entanglements. Recent work on object itineraries extends and challenges many elements of the biography approach and represents an intersection with critical interventions regarding materiality and agency, networks and circulation, and heritage discourses. This review evaluates the legacy of The Social Life of Things in the context of anthropological studies of the material world and suggests that thinking about itineraries rather than biographies allows us to collapse the distinctions between past and present (and future) and, thus, fully consider objects’ present entanglements as central to their story.
Poverty and Children's Language in Anthropolitical Perspective
Authors: Paugh Amy L. , Riley Kathleen C.
Published: July 2019

From the “verbal deprivation” and “restricted codes” of the 1960s to contemporary “language gap” discourses, deficit models of children's language have been posited to explain social ills ranging from school failure to intergenerational poverty. However, researchers from a range of disciplines have problematized such models on the basis of the power of language to reflect, articulate, produce, and reproduce structural inequality. This review considers how the discursive construction of language, poverty, and child development contributes to deficit-based research agendas and the resulting interventions aimed at remediating language use in homes and schools. We suggest that an anthropolitical language socialization approach deconstructs ideologies of linguistic (in)competence and more accurately traces how children across cultures and social contexts develop communicative resources, cultural knowledge, and social practices in the face of political and economic adversity; it also helps articulate alternative ways of respecting and building on difference.