bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Public hygiene and funeral rituals during the Risorgimento: mummies and ashes
Authors: Marinozzi Silvia , Messineo Daniela , Gazzaniga Valentina , Iorio Silvia
Published: February 2020

Starting in 1865, regulations pursuant to public hygiene issued by the Unitary Government provided for administrative and political control of the funerary practice. Specifically, they regulated the management of cemeteries and the burials, increasingly drawing the funeral rituals from the control of the Church and of Catholicism, therefore secularising death for the construction of a new political religion. Hygiene became fundamental in order to promulgate cremation as a system of preserving the integrity of the bodies, preserving the ashes as a tangible and indestructible product of body matter and as a measure to protect public health by eliminating the risk of miasmatic pollution of the air caused by the cadaveric fumes. In the early 1870s, the practice of cremation began to spread, especially in the territories of Lombardy-Veneto and Savoy, as an expression of the progressive policies of the new Italian state, antagonistic to the old Catholic religious traditions. This paper intends to highlight the key aspects of the political significance that the cremation took on during the Risorgimento period, while also illustrating the methods adopted by important authors from that time period regarding incineration techniques and cremation methods.
Putting the NHS England on trial: uncertainty-as-power, evidence and the controversy of PrEP in England
Authors: Nagington Maurice , Sandset Tony
Published: February 2020

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) (Truvada) is a medication which if taken correctly is almost entirely effective in preventing HIV infection. In regions and countries where it has been widely taken up, HIV seroconversion rates have significantly decreased. Alongside testing and treatment, it offers the very real prospect of ending HIV infections. However, in England, commissioning it has (and still is) a controversial process, where NHS England has repeatedly raised supposed ‘uncertainties’, first legal and then scientific. The same has not happened in Scotland, where PrEP was commissioned to anyone who needed it in April 2017. This article presents a close reading of the IMPACT trial protocol, which we conclude cannot answer the questions it sets out to answer. We then suggest that the uncertainties the trial claims to address are in fact a tool of power which is deployed to strategically ration healthcare; introduce uncertainty about commissioning PrEP; and shift the boundary between individual responsibilities and state responsibilities for public health and HIV prevention. We conclude that all the above constitute an unethical use of clinical trial rhetoric, systematically discriminate against minority and vulnerable groups, and ration healthcare for those who most need it. As such, we call on all academics, clinicians and activists to resist further unethical misuses of clinical trial rhetoric.
Global and regional burden of disease and injury in 2016 arising from occupational exposures: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016
Authors:   GBD 2016 Occupational Risk Factors Collaborators
Published: February 2020

Objectives

This study provides an overview of the influence of occupational risk factors on the global burden of disease as estimated by the occupational component of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) 2016 study.

Methods

The GBD 2016 study estimated the burden in terms of deaths and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) arising from the effects of occupational risk factors (carcinogens; asthmagens; particulate matter, gases and fumes (PMGF); secondhand smoke (SHS); noise; ergonomic risk factors for low back pain; risk factors for injury). A population attributable fraction (PAF) approach was used for most risk factors.

Results

In 2016, globally, an estimated 1.53 (95% uncertainty interval 1.39–1.68) million deaths and 76.1 (66.3–86.3) million DALYs were attributable to the included occupational risk factors, accounting for 2.8% of deaths and 3.2% of DALYs from all causes. Most deaths were attributable to PMGF, carcinogens (particularly asbestos), injury risk factors and SHS. Most DALYs were attributable to injury risk factors and ergonomic exposures. Men and persons 55 years or older were most affected. PAFs ranged from 26.8% for low back pain from ergonomic risk factors and 19.6% for hearing loss from noise to 3.4% for carcinogens. DALYs per capita were highest in Oceania, Southeast Asia and Central sub-Saharan Africa. On a per capita basis, between 1990 and 2016 there was an overall decrease of about 31% in deaths and 25% in DALYs.

Conclusions

Occupational exposures continue to cause an important health burden worldwide, justifying the need for ongoing prevention and control initiatives.
Global and regional burden of cancer in 2016 arising from occupational exposure to selected carcinogens: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2016
Authors:   GBD 2016 Occupational Carcinogens Collaborators
Published: February 2020

Objectives

This study provides a detailed analysis of the global and regional burden of cancer due to occupational carcinogens from the Global Burden of Disease 2016 study.

Methods

The burden of cancer due to 14 International Agency for Research on Cancer Group 1 occupational carcinogens was estimated using the population attributable fraction, based on past population exposure prevalence and relative risks from the literature. The results were used to calculate attributable deaths and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).

Results

There were an estimated 349 000 (95% Uncertainty Interval 269 000 to 427 000) deaths and 7.2 (5.8 to 8.6) million DALYs in 2016 due to exposure to the included occupational carcinogens—3.9% (3.2% to 4.6%) of all cancer deaths and 3.4% (2.7% to 4.0%) of all cancer DALYs; 79% of deaths were of males and 88% were of people aged 55 –79 years. Lung cancer accounted for 86% of the deaths, mesothelioma for 7.9% and laryngeal cancer for 2.1%. Asbestos was responsible for the largest number of deaths due to occupational carcinogens (63%); other important risk factors were secondhand smoke (14%), silica (14%) and diesel engine exhaust (5%). The highest mortality rates were in high-income regions, largely due to asbestos-related cancers, whereas in other regions cancer deaths from secondhand smoke, silica and diesel engine exhaust were more prominent. From 1990 to 2016, there was a decrease in the rate for deaths (−10%) and DALYs (−15%) due to exposure to occupational carcinogens.

Conclusions

Work-related carcinogens are responsible for considerable disease burden worldwide. The results provide guidance for prevention and control initiatives.
Patient gender bias on the diagnosis of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis
Authors: Assayag Deborah , Morisset Julie , Johannson Kerri A , Wells Athol U , Walsh Simon L F
Published: February 2020

Background

Patient sex has clinical and prognostic implications in idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). It is not known if sex-related and gender-related discrepancies exist when establishing a diagnosis of IPF. The aim was to determine how patient gender influences the diagnosis of IPF and the physician’s diagnostic confidence.

Methods

This study was performed using clinical cases compiled from a single centre, then scored by respiratory physicians for a prior study. Using clinical information, physicians were asked to provide up to five diagnoses, together with their diagnostic confidence. Logistic regression was used to assess the odds of receiving a diagnosis of IPF based on patient gender. Prognostic discrimination between IPF and non-IPF was used to assess diagnostic accuracy with Cox proportional hazards modelling.

Results

Sixty cases were scored by 404 physicians. IPF was diagnosed more frequently in men compared with women (37.8% vs 10.6%; p<0.0001), and with greater mean diagnostic confidence (p<0.001). The odds of a male patient receiving an IPF diagnosis was greater than that of female patients, after adjusting for confounders (OR=3.05, 95% CI: 2.81 to 3.31), especially if the scan was not definite for the usual interstitial pneumonia pattern. Mortality was higher in women (HR=2.21, 95% CI: 2.02 to 2.41) than in men with an IPF diagnosis (HR=1.26, 95% CI: 1.20 to 1.33), suggesting that men were more often misclassified as having IPF.

Conclusion

Patient gender influences diagnosis of IPF: women may be underdiagnosed and men overdiagnosed with IPF.
Serological survey of wild cervids in England and Wales for bovine viral diarrhoea virus
Authors: Hardstaff Jo , Hunt Hannah , Tugwell Laura , Thomas Carole , Elattar Laila , Brownlie Joe , Booth Richard
Published: February 2020

Background

Bovine viral diarrhoea (BVD) is a production disease commonly found in British cattle herds. Species other than cattle have been shown to be infected with the virus, thereby providing a potential source of infection for livestock. This study surveyed serum samples taken from 596 culled wild deer from England and Wales, between 2009 and 2010, for the presence of BVD antibodies.

Methods

596 samples were tested with the SVANOVIR BVDV p80‐Ab ELISA and a subset of 64 were tested with the IDEXX BVDV p80‐Ab ELISA. ELISA results were confirmed using serum neutralisation tests.

Results

2/596 samples (0.35 per cent) tested positive for BVD antibodies using the Svanova test and one of these tested positive and the other inconclusive using the IDEXX test; both were confirmed positive with serum neutralisation tests. These were both red deer stags, one from Devon and the other from East Anglia.

Conclusions

The results indicate that it is unlikely that BVD virus is widely circulating within the wild deer population and particularly unlikely that persistently infected deer are present in the populations surveyed. These results suggest that wild deer are unlikely to be a significant reservoir of BVD infection in cattle.
Current welfare state of pet guinea pigs in the UK
Authors: Harrup Amber Jade , Rooney Nicola
Published: February 2020

Background

Little research has been carried out into how guinea pigs are cared for in the UK, and information regarding potential welfare issues is sparse. This study was designed to examine the five welfare needs, collecting data on the extent to which these are each met by a sample of UK guinea pig owners.

Methods

A survey of 4590 owners was conducted.

Results

Guinea pigs were housed in a variety of ways, but a hutch or cage, with no attached run, was the most common enclosure. The majority reportedly lived with a conspecific, although some lived on their own, or with a rabbit. Significant associations between aspects of housing and husbandry, and behaviour and health were found, for example, the frequency of positive behaviours displayed was higher in those guinea pigs housed with a conspecific and those in larger enclosures, while the number of reported health issues was lower in animals receiving green vegetables more often.

Conclusion

This study has identified common practices, and highlighted some potential welfare issues, which would benefit from further research. The authors suggest improved availability of targeted information may enable owners to improve issues identified here.
Stability evaluation of overtopped hydraulic structures using computational fluid dynamics
Authors: Freitas Mario , Favre Étienne , Léger Pierre , Pedroso Lineu José
Published: February 2020

A particularly challenging aspect in gravity dam stability assessment is the estimation of the induced hydrodynamic water pressure when water with significant velocity is overtopping gravity dams and flowing in or over spillway components. The water flow conditions, including the related pressure fields and resultant forces, are difficult to quantify accurately. Herein, existing dam safety guidelines to estimate the weight of the overflowing water nappe on gravity dams with rectangular crests are first reviewed. Then, a computational fluid dynamics (CFD) methodology is developed to improve the simplified estimation of hydrodynamic pressure fields acting on the rectangular crests of submerged gravity dams. The CFD pressures are used as input data for the classical structural stability analyses based on the gravity method to more adequately quantify the dam stability during overtopping. A back analysis is also performed on the stability of an existing gated spillway that was overtopped during the 1996 Saguenay flood in Québec.
Indigenous knowledge and federal environmental assessments in Canada: applying past lessons to the 2019 impact assessment act
Authors: Eckert Lauren E. , Claxton Nick XEMŦOLTW_ , Owens Cameron , Johnston Anna , Ban Natalie C. , Moola Faisal , Darimont Chris T.
Published: February 2020

Policy-makers ideally pursue well-informed, socially just means to make environmental decisions. Indigenous peoples have used Indigenous knowledge (IK) to inform decisions about environmental management for millennia. In the last 50 years, many western societies have used environmental assessment (EA) processes to deliberate on industrial proposals, informed by scientific information. Recently EA processes have attempted to incorporate IK in some countries and regions, but practitioners and scholars have criticized the ability of EA to meaningfully engage IK. Here we consider these tensions in Canada, a country with economic focus on resource extraction and unresolved government-to-government relationships with Indigenous Nations. In 2019, the Canadian government passed the Impact Assessment Act, reinvigorating dialogue on the relationship between IK and EA. Addressing this opportunity, we examined obstacles between IK and EA via a systematic literature review, and qualitative analyses of publications and the Act itself. Our results and synthesis identify obstacles preventing the Act from meaningfully engaging IK, some of which are surmountable (e.g., failures to engage best practices, financial limitations), whereas others are substantial (e.g., knowledge incompatibilities, effects of colonization). Finally, we offer recommendations for practitioners and scholars towards ameliorating relationships between IK and EA towards improved decision-making and recognition of Indigenous rights.
Complete spacelike submanifolds in a locally symmetric semi-Riemannian space
Authors: Zhang Shicheng , Zhang Yuntao
Published: February 2020

In this paper, complete spacelike submanifolds with parallel normalized mean curvature vector are investigated in semi-Riemannian space obeying some standard curvature conditions. In this setting, we obtain a suitable Simons type formula and apply it jointly with the well-known generalized maximum principle of Omori–Yau to show that it must be totally umbilical submanifold or isometric to an isoparametric hypersurface in a submanifold [Formula: see text] of [Formula: see text].
On certain subgroups of the McCool group
Authors: Kofinas C. E.
Published: February 2020

For a positive integer [Formula: see text], with [Formula: see text], let [Formula: see text] be a free group of rank [Formula: see text] and let [Formula: see text] be the subgroup of the automorphism group of [Formula: see text] consisting of all automorphisms which induce the identity on the abelianization of [Formula: see text]. We write [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] for the upper McCool group and the partial inner automorphism group, respectively. We show that [Formula: see text] is isomorphic to the quotient of [Formula: see text] by its center and we prove similar results for their associated graded Lie algebras and their Andreadakis–Johnson Lie algebras. Furthermore, we give a presentation of the associated graded Lie algebra over the integers of [Formula: see text] and we prove that it admits a natural embedding into the Andreadakis–Johnson Lie algebra of [Formula: see text]. Although the latter results are known, we present proofs based on different methods.
Oscillating inflaton power-law cosmology in two-mode quantum optical states
Authors: Rathore Meghna , Dhayal Renu , Venkataratnam K. K.
Published: February 2020

In this paper, we study the semiclassical evolution of a “coherently oscillating massive scalar field”. This field is nominally linked to the spatially levelled Friedmann–Robertson–Walker (FRW) metric. By use of two-mode quantum optical states formalism, we evaluated the power-law cosmology with scale factor as a power function of cosmic time. In the oscillatory phase of scalar field, it was found that, in all the four different combinations of quantum states, quantum scalar field obeying the time-dependent Schrödinger equation leads to the power-law expansion, in good agreement with that of the matter-dominated era. However, in the semiclassical theory of gravity in contrary to the classical description of gravity, we obtained two behavioral solutions corresponding to two different pattern evolution of the scale factor. This behavioral pattern evolution of scale factor of the universe has an important quantum implication associated with it.
THE COMPUTATION OF REPRODUCTION NUMBERS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT-HOST-ENVIRONMENT CHOLERA TRANSMISSION DYNAMICS
Authors: LUPICA ANTONELLA , GUMEL ABBA B. , PALUMBO ANNUNZIATA
Published: February 2020

This study presents a new model for the environment-host-environment transmission dynamics of V. cholerae in a community with an interconnected aquatic pond–river water network. For the case when the human host is the sole target of anti-cholera control and the volume of water in the pond is maximum, the disease-free equilibrium of the model is shown to be globally asymptotically stable whenever a certain epidemiological threshold, known as the basic reproduction number [Formula: see text], is less than unity. The epidemiological implication of this result is that cholera can be eliminated from the community if the control strategies implemented can bring (and maintain) [Formula: see text] to a value less than unity. Four scenarios, that represent different interpretations of the role of the V. cholerea pathogen within the environment, were studied. The corresponding basic reproduction numbers were shown to exhibit the same threshold property with respect to the value unity (i.e., if one is less (equal, greater) than unity, then the three others are also less (equal, greater) than unity. Further, it was shown that for the case where anti-cholera control is focused on the human host population, the associated type reproduction number of the model (corresponding to each of the four transmission scenarios considered) is unique. The implication of this result is that the estimate of the effort needed for disease elimination (i.e., the required herd immunity threshold) is unique, regardless of which of the four transmission scenarios is considered. However, when any of the other two bacterial population types in the aquatic environment (i.e., bacterial in the pond or river) is the focus of the control efforts, this study shows that the associated type reproduction number is not unique. Extensive numerical simulations of the model, using a realistic set of parameters from the published literature, show that the community-wide implementation of a strategy that focus on improved water quality, sanitation, and hygiene (known as WASH-only strategy), using the current estimated coverage of 50% and efficacy of 60%, is unable to lead to the elimination of the disease. Such elimination is attainable if the coverage and efficacy are increased (e.g., to 80% and 90%, respectively). Further, elimination can be achieved using a strategy that focuses on oral rehydration therapy and the use of antibiotics to treat the infected humans (i.e., treatment-only strategy) for moderate effectiveness and coverage levels. The combined hybrid WASH-treatment strategy provides far better population-level impact vis a vis disease elimination. This study ranks the three interventions in the following order of population-level effectiveness: combined WASH-treatment, followed by treatment-only and then WASH-only strategy.
Fecundity regulation in a spatial birth-and-death process
Authors: Bezborodov Viktor , Di Persio Luca , Finkelshtein Dmitri , Kondratiev Yuri , Kutoviy Oleksandr
Published: February 2020

We study a Markov birth-and-death process on a space of locally finite configurations, which describes an ecological model with a density-dependent fecundity regulation mechanism. We establish existence and uniqueness of this process and analyze its properties. In particular, we show global time-space boundedness of the population density and, using a constructed Foster–Lyapunov-type function, we study return times to certain level sets of tempered configurations. We also find sufficient conditions that the degenerate invariant distribution is unique for the considered process.
CLASSIFICATION OF PHONOCARDIOGRAM SIGNALS BASED ON ENVELOPE OPTIMIZATION MODEL AND SUPPORT VECTOR MACHINE
Authors: YANG LIJUN , LI SHUANG , ZHANG ZHI , YANG XIAOHUI
Published: February 2020

The prevention and diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases have become one of the primary problems in the medical community since the mortality of this kind of diseases accounts for 31% of global deaths in 2016. Heart sound, which is an important physiological signal of human body, mainly comes from the pulsing of cardiac structures and blood turbulence. The analysis of heart sounds plays an irreplaceable role in early diagnosis of heart disease since they contain a large amount of pathological information about each part of human heart. Heart sounds can be detected and recorded by Phonocardiogram (PCG). As a noninvasive method to detect and diagnose heart disease, PCG signals have been paid more and more attention by researchers. In this paper, a novel envelope extraction model is proposed and used to estimate the cardiac cycle of each PCG signal. We present a strategy combining empirical mode decomposition (EMD) technique and the proposed envelope model to extract the time-domain features. After applying EMD process to each PCG signal, the second intrinsic mode function is chosen for further analysis. Based on the proposed envelope model, the cardiac cycles of PCG signals can be estimated and then the time-domain features can be extracted. Combining with the frequency-domain features and wavelet-domain features, the feature vectors are obtained. Finally, the support vector machine (SVM) classifier is used to detect the normal and abnormal PCG signals. Two public datasets are used to test our framework in this paper. And classification accuracies of more than [Formula: see text] on both datasets show the effectiveness of the proposed model.
INNOVATION EFFORT AND CEO’S CHARACTERISTICS
Authors: LOUKIL NADIA , YOUSFI OUIDAD , CHEIKH SANA BEN
Published: February 2020

The current study analyses how CEO’s attributes could influence innovation. It is drawn on all listed firms on the SBF1201index between 2001 and 2013. Proxies for innovation effort are the ratio of R&D spending and the number of researchers/scientists per R&D team. First, we find that the CEO’s education background could influence innovation effort. Specifically, when CEOs have a science or an engineering degree, unlike business and management educated CEOs, they are more inclined to increase R&D spending. These effects are pronounced in innovative firms operating in sectors where innovation is not the heart core of their businesses. Also, we show that CEOs’ profile influence firms’ innovation investment only in non-technological industries. In high technological firms, attributes’ differences between CEOs are very small which may be due to high competition between firms listed on the SBF120 index. Finally, our results on the influence of gender diversity on boardrooms in Tech firms are consistent with the risk-avoidance hypothesis according to which women are risk averse agents.
Mathematical modeling of female breast cancer in Japan
Authors: Nagah Ahmed , Amer Asmaa , Zhang Xinan
Published: February 2020

Cancer incidence rates are significantly different all over the world. Breast cancer is affected by many factors, the most important being genetics and lifestyle. The aim of this paper is to study the mutation mechanisms of breast cancer for Japanese women by fitting the incidence data of three high-quality population areas in Japan from 1985 to 2010. To achieve this goal, we have set up multi-stage models within the mathematical model of Moolgavkar, Venzon, and Knudson. Such models take both mutation rates and clonal expansion rates as parameters in each compartment into consideration. Based on our simulation outcomes, two to twelve driver mutations are sufficient in the pathway to female breast cancer in Japan. On the other hand, a previous study demonstrated that breast cancer in American women requires two to fourteen gene mutations to get a cancerous cell. Moreover, the 3-stage mathematical model is the optimal model as it fits clinical data very nicely for all affected cases of females in Japan and the US. The genetic instability has a prominent effect on the tumorigenesis of Japanese females caused by the first four driver mutations. The calculated results for Japanese women are compared with previous works for American women.
Does disclosure of internal control system of credit risk improve banks’ performance? Evidence from Tunisian listed banks
Authors: Saâda Moufida Ben , Gafsi Yosra
Published: February 2020

This paper proposes a measure of disclosure of internal control of credit risk and explores the extent to which this disclosure improves the performance of Tunisian listed banks. We use a self-constructed disclosure index from content analysis. From regressing panel data applied on a sample of 11 listed Tunisian banks during the period from 2007 to 2017, we find that disclosure of Internal Control System of Credit Risk (DICSCR) improves the performance of banks through the implementation of methods and procedures for controlling credit risk. Moreover, the results show that the interactions between DICSCR and the audit committee, the risk committee, and the internal auditor enhance the performance of the banks. Constructing a measure of disclosure inherent to the internal control system of credit risk allows investors and depositors to make relevant decisions, leads to better understanding the level of risk when controlling the bank by internal auditors and external auditors as well. It provides the Central Bank with a useful tool for evaluating the credit risk of the banks.
Platforms oriented business and data analytics in digital ecosystem
Authors: Mishra Shrutika , Triptahi A. R.
Published: February 2020

In this paper, we discuss about platform-oriented business approach which is a prerequisite of the frontrunners for any noble organizations to keep customers active, alive and compete the business in the digital age of information and platform focussed. We focussed the study on how to concentrate the strategic revolution in financial sector with various econometric tools.
On bank’s risk incentives under deposit insurance system
Authors: Seta Hiroki , Inoue Hiroshi
Published: February 2020

This paper refers to bank’s risk incentive problem which is one of the factors behind its risky behavior toward investing in projects. Using the relevant distributions of depositors’ bank balances, we study the risk incentive influence. As a result, the bank’s risk incentive is shown to be classified regarding depositors and bank’s shareholders who increase its capital, indicating the former being positive value and the latter negative. In this study, we use perpetual American put option and perpetual down and out call option. Thus, we examine changes in the influence of these incentives, showing several numerical examples.
Efficient mining of design patterns for advanced modeling and optimization of content management system-based web applications
Authors: Gkantouna Vassiliki , Sioutas Spyros , Tzimas Giannis
Published: February 2020

Content Management Systems (CMSs) play an increasingly important role in the evolution of the World Wide Web, since almost half of the websites today use some form of CMS as their main development platform. CMSs provide development teams with standardized software platforms that significantly facilitate and speed up Web development, while maintaining high quality and low-cost implementation without requiring extensive programming expertise. Due to their flexibility and ease of use, CMSs are nowadays constantly gaining in popularity, and undoubtedly, they are among the most prominent platforms used by developers for building Web applications. The goal of this work
1
is to study and address challenging problems in the area of the widely used category of Web applications developed on top of CMSs, the so-called CMS-based Web applications, contributing novel models, methodologies and tools to optimize the quality of both the CMS-based Web development process and the final products.
Public opinion matters
Authors: Du Xu , Kowalski Matthew , Varde Aparna S. , de Melo Gerard , Taylor Robert W.
Published: February 2020

Social media mining has proven useful in multiple research fields as a tool for public opinion extraction and analysis. Such mining can discover knowledge from unstructured data in booming social media sources that provide instant public responses and also capture long-term data. Environmental scientists have realized its potential and conducted various studies where
public opinion matters.
We focus our discussion in this article on mining social media text on environmental issues, with particular emphasis on sentiment analysis, fitting the theme of
Data Science and Sustainability.
The data science community today is interested in topics that overlap with environmental issues and their broader impacts on sustainability. Such work appeals to scientists focusing on areas such as smart cities, climate change and geo-informatics. Future issues emerging from this research include domain-specific multilingual mining, and advanced geo-location tagging with demographically focused sentiment analysis.
Master of Tickets
Authors: Neville-Neil George V.
Published: February 2020

Many silly metrics have been created to measure work, including the rate at which tickets are closed, the number of lines of code a programmer writes in a day, and the number of words an author can compose in an hour. All of these measures have one thing in common: They fail to take into account the quality of the output. If Alice writes 1,000 lines of impossible-to-read, buggy code in a day and Carol writes 100 lines of well-crafted, easy-to-use code in the same time, then who should be rewarded?
Computing's social obligation
Authors: Trim Michelle
Published: February 2020

The cover of the August issue of Communications of the ACM showcases Harvard's impressive experiment integrating ethics throughout its undergraduate computer science curriculum [6]. Anyone currently grappling with exploding enrollments must applaud Harvard's deliberate use of resources to broaden CS education beyond its traditional technical components. In a similar vein, ACM recently updated its professional code of ethics, calling on CS professionals to acknowledge "all people are stakeholders" and to "ensure that the public good is the central concern during all professional computing work," [1] possibly adding to the pressure many in CS education may be feeling to 'up their game' when it comes to their programs' attention to ethics. Unsurprisingly, doing ethics in CS can seem like yet another requirement tasked to an already overburdened system. If one is operating under constraints, perhaps limited by shortages in money and personnel, ethics, or put another way, instilling concern for computing's impact on society, starts to seem like a luxury: something that we all agree is valuable and that would be nice to have if we can afford it. But, what happens if learning about ethics is just as fundamental to software engineering as procedural abstraction or just as crucial to data science as learning to avoid spurious correlation?
Flash
Authors: Sabek Ibrahim
Published: February 2020

The current explosion in spatial data raises the need for efficient spatial analysis tools to extract useful information from such data. Spatial probabilistic graphical modeling (SPGM) is an important class of spatial data analysis that provides efficient probabilistic graphical models for spatial data. Unfortunately, existing SPGM tools are neither generic nor scalable when dealing with big spatial data. In this work, we present
Flash
; a framework for
generic
and
scalable
spatial probabilistic graphical modeling (SPGM).
Flash
exploits Markov Logic Networks (MLN) to express SPGM as a set of declarative logical rules. In addition, it provides spatial variations of the scalable RDBMS-based learning and inference techniques of MLN to efficiently perform SPGM predictions. We have evaluated
Flash
, based on three real spatial analysis applications, and achieved at least two orders of magnitude speed up in learning the modeling parameters over state-of-the-art computational methods.
SRC
Authors: Huang Tianyuan
Published: February 2020

This study investigates human activity community in a city by conceptualizing it as a network embedding problem. In order to learn the latent representations of activity-travel patterns from individual daily trajectories, network embedding learns a vector space representation for each type of activity place as a node connected by movement links to preserve the structure of individual activities. The proposed approach is applied to mobile positioning data at the individual level obtained for a weekday from volunteers at Guangzhou City. Assessments are conducted to validate individual decision making for several types of activities by a field survey. This study contributes to a general framework for discovering individual activity-travel patterns from human movement trajectories.
GeoAI 2019 workshop report: The 3nd ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on GeoAI: AI for Geographic Knowledge Discovery
Authors: Gao Song , Newsam Shawn , Zhao Liang , Lunga Dalton , Hu Yingjie , Martins Bruno , Zhou Xun , Chen Feng
Published: February 2020

Nowadays artificial intelligence (AI) is bringing tremendous opportunities and challenges to geospatial research. Big data enable computers to observe and learn the world from many different perspectives, while high performance machines support the development, training, and deployment of AI models within reasonable amount of time. Recent years have witnessed significant advances in the integration of geospatial study and AI in both academia and industry. There have already been many successful studies for both physical environment and human society. Focusing on modeling the physical nature, research has shown that deep learning can improve the representation of clouds that are smaller than the grid resolutions of climate models. Examining the human society, AI and natural language processing methods, such as word embeddings, help quantify changes in stereotypes and attitudes toward women and ethnic minorities over 100 years in the United States. There are also many other applications that effectively integrate AI with problems in geospatial studies, such as vehicle trajectory prediction, high-definition mapping and navigation, historical map digitizing, gazetteer conflation, geographic feature extraction, and place understanding. The 3nd International Workshop on AI for Geographic Knowledge Discovery (GeoAI 2019) builds on the success of the previous workshops in 2017 and 2018. GeoAI is bringing together geoscientists, computer scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, and decision makers from academia, industry, and government to discuss the latest trends, successes, challenges, and opportunities in the field of artificial intelligence for data mining and geographic knowledge discovery.
LocalRec 2019 workshop report: The Third ACM SIGSPATIAL Workshop on Location-Based Recommendations, Geosocial Networks and Geoadvertising
Authors: Bouros Panagiotis , Dasu Tamraparni , Kanza Yaron , Renz Matthias , Sacharidis Dimitris
Published: February 2020

The amount of publicly available geo-referenced data has seen a dramatic explosion over the past few years. Many user activities generate data that are annotated with location and contextual information. Furthermore, it has become easier to collect and combine rich and diverse location information. In the context of geoadvertising, the use of geosocial data for targeted marketing is receiving significant attention from a wide spectrum of companies and organizations. With the advent of smartphones and online social networks, a multi-billion dollar industry that utilizes geosocial data for advertising and marketing has emerged. Geotagged social-media posts, GPS traces, data from cellular antennas and WiFi access points are used widely to directly access people for advertising, recommendations, marketing, and group purchases. Exploiting this torrent of geo-referenced data provides a tremendous potential to materially improve existing recommendation services and offer novel ones, with numerous applications in many domains, including social networks, marketing, and tourism.
The Eighth ACM SIGSPATIAL International Workshop on Analysis for Big Spatial Data
Authors: Shashidharan Ashwin , Chandola Varun , Vatsavai Ranga Raju
Published: February 2020

Since the "Big Data Research and Development Initiative" launched by the White House in 2012, big data has received great attention from industry and federal agencies alike emerging as an important area of research for scientists worldwide. Within the realm of big data, spatial and spatiotemporal data continues to be among the fastest-growing types of data. With advances in remote sensors, sensor networks, and the proliferation of location sensing devices in daily life activities and common business practices, the generation of disparate, dynamic, and geographically distributed spatiotemporal data has exploded in recent years. In addition, significant progress in the ground, air- and space-borne sensor technologies have led to unprecedented access to earth science data for scientists from different disciplines, interested in studying the complementary nature of different parameters. Today, analyzing this data poses a massive challenge to researchers.
Cardiorespiratory and metabolic responses to exercise testing during lower-body positive pressure running
Authors: Brüssau Tim , Oehring Robert , Felix Stephan B. , Dörr Marcus , Bahls Martin
Published: February 2020

Exercise reduces the future cardiometabolic disease risk. However, not everyone can participate in routine physical activity because of obesity or orthopedic impairments. Body weight-supported (BWS) exercise may be an option for these individuals. Unfortunately, very little data are available with regard to BWS running in untrained healthy individuals. Yet, this information is important to assess the potential use of lower-body positive pressure (LBPP) treadmill running for the prevention of cardiometabolic disease. Twenty healthy but untrained participants (10 females, mean age 31.5 yr) were included in this study. Participants completed two exercise tests (one with 100% and one with 60% body wt) in randomized order on a LBPP treadmill. Expired gas data and heart rate (HR) were collected continuously. Blood lactate, blood pressure (BP), pulse wave velocity (PWV), and rating of perceived exertion (RPE) were measured during a 2-min break after each stage. Oxygen uptake increased significantly independent of BWS but was lower with BWS. Furthermore, we identified a significant correlation between HR and RPE independent of BWS. BP and PWV showed a large heterogeneity in response to BWS. The lower O2 requirement when running with BWS may help untrained individuals to adapt to an exercise regimen. Future research needs to explore the heterogenetic response of blood pressure and pulse wave velocity to LBPP BWS between individuals.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY Lower-body positive pressure body weight-supported exercise has a lower metabolic and cardiovascular demand. Furthermore, heart rate and rating of perceived exertion are highly correlated independent of body weight support. Our data support the further examination of lower-body positive pressure exercise training for cardiovascular disease risk groups.
Heat stress ameliorates tenotomy-induced inflammation in muscle-specific response via regulation of macrophage subtypes
Authors: Hirunsai Muthita , Srikuea Ratchakrit
Published: February 2020

During disuse-induced muscle atrophy, macrophages play a significant role in inflammatory responses that occur with muscle degeneration and repair. Heat treatment has been shown to alleviate muscle atrophy; however, the effect of heat on inflammatory responses following tenotomy has not been evaluated. This study examined the effects of heat stress on proinflammatory (M1-like) and anti-inflammatory (M2-like) macrophage populations. Also, cytokine protein expression in oxidative soleus and glycolytic plantaris muscles following Achilles tendon transection (tenotomy) was analyzed. Male Wistar rats were assigned into control, control plus heat stress, tenotomy, and tenotomy plus heat stress groups. Tenotomy was performed for 8 (TEN8) and 14 (TEN14) days to induce muscle inflammation. Heat treatments, 30 min at 40.5–41.5°C, were given 24 h before and 1–6 consecutive days after tenotomy (TEN8 group) or every other day (TEN14 group). Tenotomy induced muscle necrosis, extensive infiltration of M1- (CD68+), and M2- (CD163+) like macrophages and increased tumor necrosis factor-α (TNFα) but not interleukin-10 (IL-10) protein expression. Heat stress caused a reduction in necrotic fibers, M1-like macrophage invasion, and TNFα protein expression in tenotomized soleus muscle. Additionally, heat stress enhanced M2-like macrophage accumulation during the 14 days following tenotomy in soleus muscle but did not affect IL-10 protein level. Our results indicate that heat stress can limit tenotomy-induced inflammatory responses through modulation of macrophage subtypes and TNFα protein expression, preferentially in oxidative muscle. These findings shed light on the ability of heat stress as a therapeutic strategy to manipulate macrophages for optimal inflammation during muscle atrophy.

NEW & NOTEWORTHY We investigated differential effects of heat stress on modulating inflammation following 8 and 14 days of tenotomy in soleus and plantaris muscles. Heat exposure could reduce necrosis, suppress pro-inflammatory macrophage infiltration, and diminish TNFα protein expression in tenotomized muscle, which preferentially occurred in soleus muscle. Additionally, heat stress enhanced anti-inflammatory macrophages in soleus muscle in the 14-day study period. Neither tenotomy nor heat stress had an impact on IL-10 protein expression in either muscle examined.
Hydrothermal Synthesis of Lanthanum-Doped MgAl-Layered Double Hydroxide/Graphene Oxide Hybrid and Its Application as Flame Retardant for Thermoplastic Polyurethane
Authors: Qian Yi , Qiao Peng , Li Long , Han Haoyue , Zhang Haiming , Chang Guozhang
Published: February 2020

A novel lanthanum-doped MgAl-layered double hydroxide/graphene oxide hybrid (La LDH/GO) with a La3+/Al3+ molar ratio of 0.05 was successfully synthesized by the hydrothermal method. The structure and morphology of as-prepared samples were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). Then, La LDH/GO was added into thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) to investigate its effect on flame retardancy, smoke suppression, and thermal stability of TPU composites. The cone calorimeter test (CCT) results indicated that the peak heat release rate (PHRR) and peak smoke production rate (PSPR) values of TPU with La LDH/GO decreased by 33.1% and 51% compared with neat TPU, respectively. Therefore, La LDH/GO can play a good role in flame retardancy and smoke suppression of TPU matrix during combustion. In the meantime, La LDH/GO could improve the char yield of TPU composites, which is attributed to the interaction between the physical barrier effect of GO and the catalytic effect of 0.05 La LDH.
Multiple Myeloma in a Young Female Presenting with Neurological Symptoms
Authors: Lee Matthew , Zhang Xinmin , Nguyen Vinh , Hartley-Brown Monique
Published: February 2020

Background. Multiple myeloma is overall the 14th most common malignancy but is rarely seen in those younger than 35 years. Those in the younger age group have been shown to have a more aggressive course but reportedly have had similar responses to treatment compared to older cohorts. Extramedullary plasmacytomas are discrete soft tissue masses of neoplastic monoclonal plasma cells that often occur in patients with multiple myeloma. Case. This case entails a young female with new diagnosis of multiple myeloma and multiple extramedullary plasmacytomas presenting with neurological symptoms. She was treated with CyBorD regimen but was refractory and progressed. Treatment was changed to DCEP regimen, and daratumumab was added for primary refractory myeloma. The patient improved rapidly. Conclusion. This is a unique case of multiple myeloma in a young female that had failed first-line treatment but responded to targeted therapy of daratumumab. It highlights that multiple myeloma may present atypically in young patients. More research is needed on appropriate initial diagnosis and treatment of patients in this age group.
Global Existence for Stochastic Strongly Dissipative Zakharov Equations
Authors: Wang Xueqin , Shang Yadong , Lei Chunlin
Published: February 2020

The stochastic strongly dissipative Zakharov equations with white noise are studied. On the basis of the time uniform a priori estimates, we prove the existence and uniqueness of solutions in energy spaces E1 and E2, by using the standard Galerkin approximation method of stochastic partial differential equations.
Incidence and Risk Factors of Iatrogenic Retinal Breaks: 20-Gauge versus 25-Gauge Vitrectomy for Idiopathic Macular Hole Repair
Authors: Fujiwara Norio , Tomita Goji , Yagi Fumihiko
Published: February 2020

Purpose. We compared the incidences of iatrogenic retinal breaks and postoperative retinal detachment between eyes that underwent 20-gauge vitrectomy and those that underwent 25-gauge vitrectomy for idiopathic macular hole repair. Methods. This retrospective nonrandomized consecutive observational case series included 185 eyes of 183 patients (130 eyes of 129 patients and 55 eyes of 54 patients in the 20- and 25-gauge groups, respectively). We assessed the relationship between the incidence of retinal breaks and postoperative retinal detachment and related this to posterior vitreous detachment and lattice degeneration. Results. The incidences of iatrogenic retinal breaks were 36.9% and 12.7% in the 20-gauge and 25-gauge groups, respectively. These groups did not differ in their respective frequencies of posterior vitreous detachment (the 20-gauge group: 31.5% and the 25-gauge group: 27.3%) and lattice degeneration (the 20-gauge group: 14.6% and the 25-gauge group: 7.3%). Among eyes without lattice degeneration, the 20-gauge group showed a higher incidence of iatrogenic retinal breaks than the 25-gauge group. However, among the eyes with lattice degeneration, the frequency of retinal breaks did not differ between the two surgery types, and four cases of postoperative retinal detachment were reported in both groups. Conclusions. The incidence of retinal breaks related to idiopathic macular hole surgery is higher among patients undergoing 20-gauge vitrectomy than among those undergoing 25-gauge vitrectomy. Posterior vitreous detachment and lattice degeneration are associated with considerably increased incidences of retinal break.