bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The effects of monoclonal anti‐CD47 on RBCs, compatibility testing, and transfusion requirements in refractory acute myeloid leukemia
Authors: Brierley C.K. , Staves J. , Roberts C. , Johnson H. , Vyas P. , Goodnough L.T. , Murphy M.F.
Published: June 2019

BACKGROUND

CD47 is a novel therapeutic target in the treatment of solid‐organ and hematologic malignancies. CD47 is also expressed on RBCs. Here, we report our experience of the RBC effects and the impact on blood bank testing and transfusion management in a Phase 1 trial of the humanized anti‐CD47 monoclonal antibody Hu5F9‐G4 in relapsed or primary refractory acute myeloid leukemia (AML) (NCT02678338).

STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS

Nineteen patients with relapsed or primary refractory AML treated across five UK centers were included for analysis. Patients received escalating doses of Hu5F9‐G4. Serial laboratory data were collected to evaluate impact on hemoglobin (Hb), markers of hemolysis (bilirubin, lactate dehydrogenase, reticulocyte count), transfusion requirements, and blood compatibility testing.

RESULTS

A decline in Hb was observed with drug administration (median Hb change, −1.0 g/dL; range, 0.4–1.6) with associated increase in transfusion requirements. Patients responded to transfusion with a median Hb increment per unit of 1.0 g/dL. RBC agglutination was seen in all cases without associated change in Hb, lactate dehydrogenase, bilirubin, or reticulocyte count. Nine of 19 (47%) patients developed a newly positive antibody screen with a pan‐agglutinin identified in plasma. Invalid ABO blood grouping occurred in 4 of 12 (33%) non–group O patients due to anomalous reactivity in the reverse ABO‐type results.

CONCLUSIONS

Treatment with Hu5F9‐G4 in patients with AML resulted in an Hb decline and increased transfusion requirements. Problems with ABO blood typing and compatibility testing were widely observed and should be expected by centers treating recipients of Hu5F9‐G4.
Classification and Feature Selection Approaches by Machine Learning Techniques: Heart Disease Prediction
Authors: Chandra Reddy N. Satish , Shue Nee Song , Zhi Min Lim , Xin Ying Chew
Published: June 2019

The heart disease has been one of the major causes of death worldwide. The heart disease diagnosis has been expensive nowadays, thus it is necessary to predict the risk of getting heart disease with selected features. The feature selection methods could be used as valuable techniques to reduce the cost of diagnosis by selecting the important attributes. The objectives of this study are to predict the classification model, and to know which selected features play a key role in the prediction of heart disease by using Cleveland and statlog project heart datasets. The accuracy of random forest algorithm both in classification and feature selection model has been observed to be 90–95% based on three different percentage splits. The 8 and 6 selected features seem to be the minimum feature requirements to build a better performance model. Whereby, further dropping of the 8 or 6 selected features may not lead to better performance for the prediction model.
A Survey on SQL Injection Prevention Methods
Authors: Chaki Shahbaaz Mohammed Hayat , Mat Din Mazura
Published: June 2019

Database plays a very important role in everyone’s life including the organizations since everything today is connected via Internet and to manage so many data. There is a need of database which helps organizations to organize, sort and manage the data and to ensure that the data which a user is receiving and sending through the mean of database is secure since the database stores almost everything such as Banking details which includes user id, Password and so. Thus, it means that the data are really valuable and confidential to us and therefore security really matters for database. SQL Injection Attacks on the database are becoming common in this era where the hackers are trying to steal the valuable data of an individual through the mean of SQL Injection Attack by using malicious query on the application. This application reveals the individual data by an efficient and the best SQL Injection Prevention technique is required in order to protect the individual data from being stolen by the hackers. Therefore, this paper will be focusing on reviewing different types of SQL Injection prevention methods and SQL injection types. The initial finding of this paper can make comparison of different types of SQL Injection Prevention methods which will enable the Database Administrator to choose the best and the efficient SQL Injection Prevention Method for their organization. Consequently, Preventing of SQL Injection Attack from happening which would ultimately result in no data loss of an user.
Boundary Slope Control in Topology Optimization for Additive Manufacturing: For Self-Support and Surface Roughness
Authors: Wang Cunfu , Qian Xiaoping , Gerstler William D. , Shubrooks Jeff
Published: June 2019

This paper studies how to control boundary slope of optimized parts in density-based topology optimization for additive manufacturing (AM). Boundary slope of a part affects the amount of support structure required during its fabrication by additive processes. Boundary slope also has a direct relation with the resulting surface roughness from the AM processes, which in turn affects the heat transfer efficiency. By constraining the minimal boundary slope, support structures can be eliminated or reduced for AM, and thus, material and postprocessing costs are reduced; by constraining the maximal boundary slope, high-surface roughness can be attained, and thus, the heat transfer efficiency is increased. In this paper, the boundary slope is controlled through a constraint between the density gradient and the given build direction. This allows us to explicitly control the boundary slope through density gradient in the density-based topology optimization approach. We control the boundary slope through two single global constraints. An adaptive scheme is also proposed to select the thresholds of these two boundary slope constraints. Numerical examples of linear elastic problem, heat conduction problem, and thermoelastic problems demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed formulation in controlling boundary slopes for additive manufacturing. Experimental results from metal 3D printed parts confirm that our boundary slope-based formulation is effective for controlling part self-support during printing and for affecting surface roughness of the printed parts.
Fabrication of Plano-Concave Plastic Lens by Novel Injection Molding Using Carbide-Bonded Graphene-Coated Silica Molds
Authors: Liu Xiaohua , Zhang Lin , Zhou Wenchen , Zhou Tianfeng , Yu Jianfeng , Lee L. James , Yi Allen Y.
Published: June 2019

Injection molding of plastic optical lenses prevails over many other techniques in both efficiency and cost; however, polymer shrinkage during cooling, high level of uneven residual stresses, and refractive index variations have limited its potential use for high precision lens fabrication. In this research, we adopted a newly developed strong graphene network to both plano and convex fused silica mold surfaces and proposed a novel injection molding with graphene-coated fused silica molds. This advanced injection molding process was implemented in the molding of polymer-based plano-concave lenses resulting in reduced polymer shrinkage. In addition, internal residual stresses and refractive index variations were also analyzed and discussed in detail. Meanwhile, as a comparison of conventional injection mold material, aluminum mold inserts with the same shape and size were also diamond machined and then employed to mold the same plano-concave lenses. Finally, a simulation model using moldex3d was utilized to interpret stress distributions of both graphene and aluminum molds and then validated by experiments. The comparison between graphene-coated mold and aluminum mold reveals that the novel injection molding with carbide-bonded graphene-coated fused silica mold inserts is capable of molding high-quality optical lenses with much less shrinkage and residual stresses with a more uniform refractive index distribution.
CDK5 inhibits the clathrin-dependent internalization of TRPV1 by phosphorylating the clathrin adaptor protein AP2μ2
Authors: Liu Jiao , Du Junxia , Wang Yun
Published: June 2019

CDK5 inhibits constitutive internalization of the nociceptor TRPV1 and contributes to inflammatory hyperalgesia.
Amplifying mTORC2 signals through AMPK during energetic stress
Authors: Jacinto Estela
Published: June 2019

mTORC2 is phosphorylated by AMPK during energetic stress to promote cell survival (Kazyken
et al.
in 11 June 2019 issue).
Mitochondrial respiration not required
Authors: VanHook Annalisa M.
Published: June 2019

Chondrocytes survive constitutive hypoxia by suppressing mitochondrial respiration.
The Novel Arylamidine T-2307 Selectively Disrupts Yeast Mitochondrial Function by Inhibiting Respiratory Chain Complexes
Authors: Yamashita Kohei , Miyazaki Taiga , Fukuda Yoshiko , Mitsuyama Junichi , Saijo Tomomi , Shimamura Shintaro , Yamamoto Kazuko , Imamura Yoshifumi , Izumikawa Koichi , Yanagihara Katsunori , Kohno Shigeru , Mukae Hiroshi
Published: June 2019

The novel arylamidine T-2307 exhibits broad-spectrum
in vitro
and
in vivo
antifungal activities against clinically significant pathogens. Previous studies have shown that T-2307 accumulates in yeast cells via a specific polyamine transporter and disrupts yeast mitochondrial membrane potential. Further, it has little effect on rat liver mitochondrial function.
Prospective Cohort Study on Performance of Cerebrospinal Fluid (CSF) Xpert MTB/RIF, CSF Lipoarabinomannan (LAM) Lateral Flow Assay (LFA), and Urine LAM LFA for Diagnosis of Tuberculous Meningitis in Zambia
Authors: Siddiqi Omar K. , Birbeck Gretchen L. , Ghebremichael Musie , Mubanga Eugene , Love Shawn , Buback Clayton , Kosloff Barry , Ayles Helen , Atadzhanov Masharip , Dheda Keertan , Koralnik Igor J.
Published: June 2019

Tuberculous meningitis (TBM) is a devastating infection of the central nervous system lacking an adequate point-of-care diagnostic test. We conducted a prospective cohort study of 550 Zambian adults with suspected TBM to determine the diagnostic accuracy of cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) Xpert MTB/RIF, CSF lipoarabinomannan (LAM), urine LAM, CSF total protein, and CSF glucose compared with the gold standard of CSF culture.
Tissue-Specific Gene Expression during Productive Human Papillomavirus 16 Infection of Cervical, Foreskin, and Tonsil Epithelium
Authors: Chatterjee Sreejata , Do Kang Sa , Alam Samina , Salzberg Anna C. , Milici Janice , van der Burg Sjoerd H. , Freeman Willard , Meyers Craig
Published: June 2019

Although the high-risk human papillomavirus 16 infects anogenital and oropharyngeal sites, the cervical epithelium has a unique vulnerability to progression of cancer. Host responses during persistent infection and preneoplastic stages can shape the outcome of cancer progression in a tissue-dependent manner. Our study for the first time reports differential regulation of critical cellular functions and signaling pathways during productive HPV16 infection of cervical, foreskin, and tonsil tissues. While the virus induces hyperproliferation in infected cells, it downregulates epithelial differentiation, epidermal development, and innate immune responses, according to the tissue type. Modulation of these biological functions can determine virus fitness and pathogenesis and illuminate key cellular mechanisms that the virus employs to establish persistence and finally initiate disease progression.
Detection of VIM-1-Producing Enterobacter cloacae and Salmonella enterica Serovars Infantis and Goldcoast at a Breeding Pig Farm in Germany in 2017 and Their Molecular Relationship to Former VIM-1-Producing
S.
Infantis Isolates in German Livestock Production
Authors: Roschanski Nicole , Hadziabdic Sead , Borowiak Maria , Malorny Burkhard , Tenhagen Bernd-Alois , Projahn Michaela , Kaesbohrer Annemarie , Guenther Sebastian , Szabo Istvan , Roesler Uwe , Fischer Jennie
Published: June 2019

Carbapenems are considered one of few remaining treatment options against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative pathogens in human clinical settings. The occurrence of carbapenemase-producing
Enterobacteriaceae
in livestock and food is a major public health concern. Particularly the occurrence of VIM-1-producing
Salmonella
Infantis in livestock farms is worrisome, as this zoonotic pathogen is one of the main causes for human salmonellosis in Europe. Investigations on the epidemiology of those carbapenemase-producing isolates and associated mobile genetic elements through an in-depth molecular characterization are indispensable to understand the transmission of carbapenemase-producing
Enterobacteriaceae
along the food chain and between different populations to develop strategies to prevent their further spread.
Emergence of Azithromycin Resistance Mediated by Phosphotransferase-Encoding
mph
(A) in Diarrheagenic Vibrio fluvialis
Authors: Chowdhury Goutam , Ramamurthy Thandavarayan , Ghosh Amit , Dutta Shanta , Takahashi Eizo , Mukhopadhyay Asish K.
Published: June 2019

The progressive rise in antibiotic resistance among enteric pathogens in developing countries is becoming a big concern. India is one of the largest consumers of antibiotics, and their use is not well regulated.
V. fluvialis
is increasingly recognized as an emerging diarrheal pathogen of public health importance. Here we report the emergence of azithromycin resistance in
V. fluvialis
isolates from diarrheal patients in Kolkata, India. Azithromycin has been widely used in the treatment of various infections, both in children and in adults. Resistance to azithromycin is encoded in the gene
mph
(A). Emerging azithromycin resistance in
V. fluvialis
is a major public health challenge, and future studies should be focused on identifying ways to prevent the dissemination of this antibiotic resistance gene.
Wild goose chase – no predictable patient subgroups benefit from meniscal surgery: patient-reported outcomes of 641 patients 1 year after surgery
Authors: Pihl Kenneth , Ensor Joie , Peat George , Englund Martin , Lohmander Stefan , Jørgensen Uffe , Nissen Nis , Fristed Jakob Vium , Thorlund Jonas Bloch
Published: June 2019

Background

Despite absence of evidence of a clinical benefit of arthroscopic partial meniscectomy (APM), many surgeons claim that subgroups of patients benefit from APM.

Objective

We developed a prognostic model predicting change in patient-reported outcome 1 year following arthroscopic meniscal surgery to identify such subgroups.

Methods

We included 641 patients (age 48.7 years (SD 13), 56% men) undergoing arthroscopic meniscal surgery from the Knee Arthroscopy Cohort Southern Denmark. 18 preoperative factors identified from literature and/or orthopaedic surgeons (patient demographics, medical history, symptom onset and duration, knee-related symptoms, etc) were combined in a multivariable linear regression model. The outcome was change in Knee injury and Osteoarthritis Outcome Score (KOOS4) (average score of 4 of 5 KOOS subscales excluding the activities of daily living subscale) from presurgery to 52 weeks after surgery. A positive KOOS4change score constitutes improvement. Prognostic performance was assessed using R2statistics and calibration plots and was internally validated by adjusting for optimism using 1000 bootstrap samples.

Results

Patients improved on average 18.6 (SD 19.7, range −38.0 to 87.8) in KOOS4. The strongest prognostic factors for improvement were (1) no previous meniscal surgery on index knee and (2) more severe preoperative knee-related symptoms. The model’s overall predictive performance was low (apparent R2=0.162, optimism adjusted R2=0.080) and it showed poor calibration (calibration-in-the-large=0.205, calibration slope=0.772).

Conclusion

Despite combining a large number of preoperative factors presumed clinically relevant, change in patient-reported outcome 1 year following meniscal surgery was not predictable. This essentially quashes the existence of ‘subgroups’ with certain characteristics having a particularly favourable outcome after meniscal surgery.

Trial registration number

NCT01871272.
‘Water is life’: developing community participation for clean water in rural South Africa
Authors: Hove Jennifer , D'Ambruoso Lucia , Mabetha Denny , van der Merwe Maria , Byass Peter , Kahn Kathleen , Khosa Sonto , Witter Sophie , Twine Rhian
Published: June 2019

Background

South Africa is a semiarid country where 5 million people, mainly in rural areas, lack access to water. Despite legislative and policy commitments to the right to water, cooperative governance and public participation, many authorities lack the means to engage with and respond to community needs. The objectives were to develop local knowledge on health priorities in a rural province as part of a programme developing community evidence for policy and planning.

Methods

We engaged 24 participants across three villages in the Agincourt Health and Socio-Demographic Surveillance System and codesigned the study. This paper reports on lack of clean, safe water, which was nominated in one village (n=8 participants) and in which women of reproductive age were nominated as a group whose voices are excluded from attention to the issue. On this basis, additional participants were recruited (n=8). We then held a series of consensus-building workshops to develop accounts of the problem and actions to address it using Photovoice to document lived realities. Thematic analysis of narrative and visual data was performed.

Results

Repeated and prolonged periods when piped water is unavailable were reported, as was unreliable infrastructure, inadequate service delivery, empty reservoirs and poor supply exacerbated by droughts. Interconnected social, behavioural and health impacts were documented combined with lack of understanding, cooperation and trust between communities and authorities. There was unanimity among participants for taps in houses as an overarching goal and strategies to build an evidence base for planning and advocacy were developed.

Conclusion

In this setting, there is willingness among community stakeholders to improve water security and there are existing community assemblies to support this. Health and Socio-Demographic Surveillance Systems provide important opportunities to routinely connect communities to resource management and service delivery. Developing learning platforms with government and non-government organisations may offer a means to enable more effective public participation in decentralised water governance.
Probable drug‐triggered pemphigus foliaceus in a dog following administration of afoxolaner (NexGard)
Authors: White Amelia , Hicks Karly , Bizikova Petra , Bailey Jessica , Linder Keith
Published: June 2019

A nine‐year‐old castrated male miniature dachshund presented for chronic pustular dermatitis, lethargy, fever and weight loss. There was no history of dermatological disease prior to lesion development which occurred within days following administration of afoxolaner (NexGard) and worsened with each of the five subsequent doses. Physical examination revealed multifocal alopecia, diffuse crusting and peripheral lymphadenomegaly. Multiple intact panfollicular pustules were present in the inguinal region, concave pinnae and ear canals. Cytology from intact pustules revealed non‐degenerate neutrophils, acantholytic keratinocytes with no bacterial or fungal organisms. Deep skin scrape and dermatophyte culture were negative. Full‐thickness cutaneous punch biopsy samples of intact pustules were obtained, and histopathological findings included subcorneal acantholytic pustular dermatosis. This was consistent with the clinical findings and the diagnosis of pemphigus foliaceus. Treatment was initiated with immunosuppressive prednisone and cyclosporine and remission was achieved. Medications were slowly tapered, though low doses were required to maintain long‐term remission.
Robust kernel canonical correlation analysis to detect gene-gene co-associations: A case study in genetics
Authors: Ashad Alam Md. , Komori Osamu , Deng Hong-Wen , Calhoun Vince D. , Wang Yu-Ping
Published: June 2019

The kernel canonical correlation analysis based U-statistic (KCCU) is being used to detect nonlinear gene–gene co-associations. Estimating the variance of the KCCU is however computationally intensive. In addition, the kernel canonical correlation analysis (kernel CCA) is not robust to contaminated data. Using a robust kernel mean element and a robust kernel (cross)-covariance operator potentially enables the use of a robust kernel CCA, which is studied in this paper. We first propose an influence function-based estimator for the variance of the KCCU. We then present a non-parametric robust KCCU, which is designed for dealing with contaminated data. The robust KCCU is less sensitive to noise than KCCU. We investigate the proposed method using both synthesized and real data from the Mind Clinical Imaging Consortium (MCIC). We show through simulation studies that the power of the proposed methods is a monotonically increasing function of sample size, and the robust test statistics bring incremental gains in power. To demonstrate the advantage of the robust kernel CCA, we study MCIC data among 22,442 candidate Schizophrenia genes for gene–gene co-associations. We select 768 genes with strong evidence for shedding light on gene–gene interaction networks for Schizophrenia. By performing gene ontology enrichment analysis, pathway analysis, gene–gene network and other studies, the proposed robust methods can find undiscovered genes in addition to significant gene pairs, and demonstrate superior performance over several of current approaches.
Consistent Point-to-Point Motion Planning of Anthropomorphic Arms
Authors: Xu Hongcheng , Ding Xilun
Published: June 2019

This paper proposes a novel Point-to-Point (P2P) motion planning method which can ensure consistent external behaviors when applied on a group of anthropomorphic arms. Anthropomorphic arms are special kinds of manipulators which have a Spherical–Revolute–Spherical (S-R-S) structure like a human arm. Assuming they are covered by skin, the arms with equal lengths of upper arm and forearm will be seen as the same, although their internal mechanical structure, i.e., the joint arrangement, might be different. Their base frames are equivalent and related to human body’s anatomical planes, with respect to which task parameters are normally prescribed. Consequently, with the conventional joint space method, the arms with different joint arrangements will behave inconsistently when performing an identical task. This phenomenon is essentially unhuman-like. To conquer this problem, consistent P2P motion planning method is proposed. The proposed method constructs a virtual manipulator serving as motion generator on the arms’ unique corresponding physiological structure. The virtual manipulator motion is planned in the joint space. Simulations on an anthropomorphic arm and its variant are performed to prove consistency of the proposed method and inconsistency of the conventional joint space method.
Tsunami Assessment and Evacuation Analysis Using Remote Sensing for Tianya District of Sanya City, China
Authors: Hou Jingming , Ren Zhiyuan , Wang Peitao , Wang Juncheng , Gao Yi
Published: June 2019

Tsunami is one of the world’s most dangerous marine disaster. In this paper, freely available remote sensing data are applied to study the hazard, vulnerability, and evacuation in the event that a tsunami strikes the district of Tianya in the city of Sanya. Tsunami inundation is calculated using a tsunami numerical model, and the tsunami vulnerability and evacuation in the inundation area are analyzed. Aster Global Digital Elevation Model elevation data are applied to provide input data for the tsunami numerical model and thus obtain tsunami inundation areas, while they are also used to study the surface slope for evacuation. Landsat satellite imagery is used to analyze land–water borders and land cover in both hazard assessment and evacuation analysis. Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite nighttime lights data provide information of the socioeconomic activity for vulnerability analysis. The analysis results show that the remote sensing data is suitable for tsunami assessment and evacuation analysis of China’s county-level region. We can get a general understanding about tsunami vulnerability and evacuation situation. One kind of remote sensing data can accomplish several tasks, avoiding the error caused by different source data. Remote sensing can play an important role in tsunami assessment.
Two-Layer Non-Hydrostatic Scheme for Simulations of Wave Runup
Authors: Ginting M. A. , Pudjaprasetya S. R. , Adytia D.
Published: June 2019

There are indisputable research supporting scientific argument that propagation of (tsunami) wave from intermediate depth towards shallower coastal area needs dispersive wave model. For tsunami wave simulation, efficiency of the numerical scheme is an important issue. In this paper, the two-layer non-hydrostatic model as developed previously in Pudjaprasetya et al. [2017] “A non-hydrostatic two-layer staggered scheme for transient waves due to anti-symmetric seabed thrust,” J. Earthquake Tsunami  11, 1–17, to study tsunami generation and propagation, is adopted. Restricting to 1+1 dimension, here, we focus on the performance of the scheme in simulating wave propagation in coastal areas, in particular predicting the run-up height. First, we conducted a simulation of harmonic wave over a sloping beach to conform the analytical shoreline motion by Carrier and Greenspan [1958] “Water waves of finite amplitude on a sloping beach,” J. Fluid Mech.  4, 97–109. The ability of the scheme in accommodating dispersion and non-linearity were shown via simulation of a solitary wave that propagates over a flat bottom. This solitary wave simulation provides an evaluation of the convergence aspect of the model. Further, several benchmark tests were conducted; a solitary wave over a sloping beach to mimic the experimental data by Synolakis [1986] “The run-up of solitary waves,” J. Fluid Mech.  185, 523–545, as well as solitary wave over a composite beach. Good agreement with laboratory data was obtained in terms of wave signal, whereas for relatively low amplitude, the solitary run-up height conforms the analytical formula. Moreover, the scheme is tested for simulating the Beji–Battjes experiment Beji, S. and Battjes, J. A. [1993] “Experimental investigation of wave propagation over a bar,” Coast. Eng.  19, 151–162. As well as wave focusing experiment by Kurnia et al. [2015] “Simulations for design and reconstruction of breaking waves in a wavetank,” Proc. ASME 2015 34th Int. Conf. Ocean, Offshore and Arctic Engineering, Newfoundland, Canada, 31 May–5 June 2015, pp. 2–7.
Fast repetition rate fs pulsed lasers for advanced PLIM microscopy
Authors: Kalinina Sviatlana , Jelzow Alexander , Plötzing Tobias , Rück Angelika
Published: June 2019

Simultaneous metabolic and oxygen imaging is promising to follow up therapy response, disease development and to determine prognostic factors. FLIM of metabolic coenzymes is now widely accepted to be the most reliable method to determine cellular bioenergetics. Also, oxygen consumption has to be taken into account to understand treatment responses. The phosphorescence lifetime of oxygen sensors is able to indicate local oxygen changes. For phosphorescence lifetime imaging (PLIM) dyes based on ruthenium (II) coordination complexes are useful, in detail TLD1433 which possesses a variety of different triplet states, enables complex photochemistry and redox reactions. PLIM is usually reached by two photon excitation of the drug with a femtosecond (fs) pulsed Ti:Sapphire laser working at 80[Formula: see text]MHz repetition rate and (time-correlated single photon counting) (TCSPC) detection electronics. The interesting question was whether it is possible to follow up PLIM using faster repetition rates. Faster repetition rates could be advantageous for the induction of specific photochemical reactions because of similar light doses used normally in standard CW light treatments. For this, a default 2[Formula: see text]-FLIM–PLIM system was expanded by adding a second fs pulsed laser (“helixx”) which provides 50[Formula: see text]fs pulses at a repetition rate of 250[Formula: see text]MHz, more than 2.3[Formula: see text]W average power and tunable from 720[Formula: see text]nm to 920[Formula: see text]nm. The laser beam was coupled into the AOM instead of the default 80[Formula: see text]MHz laser. We demonstrated successful applications of the 250[Formula: see text]MHz laser for PLIM which correlates well with measurements done by excitation with the conventional 80[Formula: see text]MHz laser source.
A new semigroup obtained via known ones
Authors: Urlu Özalan Nurten , Çevik A. Sinan , Karpuz Eylem Güzel
Published: June 2019

The goal of this paper is to establish a new class of semigroups based on both Rees matrix and completely [Formula: see text]-simple semigroups. We further present some fundamental properties and finiteness conditions for this new semigroup structure.
Improvement of thermoelectric performance of Bi2Te2.7Se0.3 via grain boundary engineering with melting KOH
Authors: Liu Tingyang , Zhu Weiming , Wang Rui , Li Shuankui , Xiao Yinguo
Published: June 2019

Grain boundary engineering is considered an effective approach to improve the performance of thermoelectric materials. Herein, by introducing KOH into the grain boundary of Bi2[Formula: see text][Formula: see text] (BTS) via liquid phase sintering strategy, the thermoelectric performances are improved significantly. The melting KOH spreads over the grain boundaries during the high temperature sintering process, which could be used to optimize the carrier/phonon transport behavior. The maximum ZT reaches up to 0.97 for the sample incorporated with 0.5%[Formula: see text]Wt of KOH at 425[Formula: see text]K, which achieves 30% improvement over the pure BTS. The homogeneous distribution of KOH layer on the grain boundaries forms efficient potential barrier scattering, which increases power factor and reduces thermal conductivity simultaneously. Particularly, it is found that the maximum ZT can be tuned gradually in the temperature range from 450[Formula: see text]K to 375[Formula: see text]K by tuning the weight percent of KOH, demonstrating a possibility in adjusting the thermoelectric properties of BTS using a relatively simple method.
华校与新加坡的成人教育: 1951–1957
Authors: 梁 秉赋
Published: June 2019

新加坡的英国殖民地政府在1950年12月，成立了一个 “新加坡成人教育咨询委员会” (Singapore Council for Adult Education), 开始关注成人教育的问题，其主要目标在于扫除文盲。然而，政府虽然有此良好构想，但如何落实这项政策仍然是极具挑战的。因为以扫除文盲、提升劳动力的知识文化水平为宗旨的成人教育，在当时的新加坡仍是一项全新的社会工程。许多相关的问题都需要作细致的规划。比如，教师、教材从何而来，上课的地点如何安排？其次，这项规划虽然用意至善，但是否能通过有效的宣导以获得民众的支持？本文拟指出，华文教育界当时曾积极地参与这项工作，协助政府实现其目标。华校的校长和教师们，在成立于1946年的 “新加坡华校联合会” 的领导下，曾为这项影响深远的社会工程作出重大的贡献。
Structural, microstructural and dielectric properties of Ba1−xLaxTi(1−x∕4)O3 prepared by sol gel method
Authors: El Ghandouri Abdelhak , Sayouri Salaheddine , Lamcharfi Tajeddine , Elbasset Abdelhalim
Published: June 2019

Detailed structural and dielectric properties of Lanthanum-doped barium titanate [Formula: see text]Lax[Formula: see text]O3 ceramic powders BLTx (where [Formula: see text]; 0.10; 0.20; 0.30 and 0.40)/BT, BLT10, BLT20, BLT30 and BLT40, synthesized by the sol gel process, calcined at 900∘C for 3[Formula: see text]h and sintered at 1250∘C for 6[Formula: see text]h, have been investigated. The phase formation and crystal structure of the samples were checked by X-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy. The samples crystallize in the pure perovskite structure that transforms from tetragonal to pseudocubic under doping with La; results that have been confirmed by Rietveld Refinement technique. The estimated average crystallite size of the samples was about 23[Formula: see text]nm. Dielectric parameters (dielectric permittivity and losses) were determined in the temperature range room temperature (RT) — 280∘C and in the frequency range 500[Formula: see text]Hz–2[Formula: see text]MHz. La doping gives rise to a strong decrease of the ferro-to-paraelectric transition temperature, and the frequency dependence of the permittivity shows that the samples with [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] reach their resonance frequency. The frequency dependence of impedance and electric modulus properties were studied over a wide frequency range from 1[Formula: see text]kHz to 2[Formula: see text]MHz at various temperatures to confirm the contributions from grains and grain-boundaries. The complex impedance analysis data have been presented in the Nyquist plot which is used to identify the corresponding equivalent circuit and fundamental circuit parameters; it was found that the grain boundaries resistance is dominant at room temperature. The frequency dependence of the parameters permittivity, losses and AC conductivity reveals that the relaxation process is of the Maxwell–Wagner type of interfacial polarization.
Machine Translation Evaluation Metric Based on Dependency Parsing Model
Authors: Yu Hui , Xu Weizhi , Lin Shouxun , Liu Qun
Published: June 2019

Most of the syntax-based metrics obtain the similarity by comparing the sub-structures extracted from the trees of hypothesis and reference. These sub-structures cannot represent all the information in the trees because their lengths are limited. To sufficiently use the reference syntax information, a new automatic evaluation metric is proposed based on the dependency parsing model. First, a dependency parsing model is trained using the reference dependency tree for each sentence. Then, the hypothesis is parsed by this dependency parsing model and the corresponding hypothesis dependency tree is generated. The quality of hypothesis can be judged by the quality of the hypothesis dependency tree. Unigram F-score is included in the new metric so that lexicon similarity is obtained. According to experimental results, the proposed metric can perform better than METEOR and BLEU on system level and get comparable results with METEOR on sentence level. To further improve the performance, we also propose a combined metric which gets the best performance on the sentence level and on the system level.
Enabling On-the-Fly Hardware Tracing of Data Reads in Multicores
Authors: Ponugoti Mounika , Milenkovic Aleksandar
Published: June 2019

Software debugging is one of the most challenging aspects of embedded system development due to growing hardware and software complexity, limited visibility of system components, and tightening time-to-market. To find software bugs faster, developers often rely on on-chip trace modules with large buffers to capture program execution traces with minimum interference with program execution. However, the high volumes of trace data and the high cost of trace modules limit the visibility into the system operation to short program segments. This article introduces a new hardware/software technique for capturing and filtering read data value traces in multicores that enables a complete reconstruction of parallel program execution. The proposed technique exploits tracking of data reads in data caches and cache coherence protocol states to minimize the number of trace messages streamed out of the target platform to the software debugger. The effectiveness of the proposed technique is determined by analyzing the required trace port bandwidth and trace buffer sizes as a function of the data cache size and the number of processor cores. The results show that the proposed technique significantly reduces the required trace port bandwidth, from 12.2 to 73.9 times, when compared to the Nexus-like read data value tracing, thus enabling continuous on-the-fly data tracing at modest hardware cost.
Effects of Extended Use of an Age-friendly Computer System on Assessments of Computer Proficiency, Attitudes, and Usability by Older Non--Computer Users
Authors: Sharit Joseph , Moxley Jerad H. , Boot Walter R. , Charness Neil , Rogers Wendy A. , Czaja Sara J.
Published: June 2019

This study examined the impact of use of a computer software application designed specifically for older people known as PRISM—a Personal Reminder Information and Social Management system—which was installed on a computer that was placed in the homes of adults aged 65 to 98 years, who were at risk for social isolation and had minimal or no computer skills and no computers in their homes. Participants received face-to-face training on the system in their homes over several days and a variety of measures were collected at baseline and at 12 months. A growth mixture model applied to participants’ usage of the system over the course of 12 months revealed two distinct subpopulations of users—less-frequent users and more-frequent users—who after one year of exposure to the system differed in computer proficiency, attitudes toward computers, and ratings of system usability. These two groups did not differ on computer proficiency and computer attitude measures at baseline. The more-frequent user group, however, had significantly higher fluid cognitive abilities. Additional analytical models were used to further examine the relationships among the study measures. The implications of the findings are discussed in terms of the importance of usability for promoting initial engagement with a system and that increased engagement with the system can instill beliefs in these older adults that they can successfully transition to other computer-based technologies and applications. The results also underscore the importance of the user-centered design approach and designing highly usable systems for older adults with low technology proficiency.
Predicting the Understandability of Imperfect English Captions for People Who Are Deaf or Hard of Hearing
Authors: Kafle Sushant , Huenerfauth Matt
Published: June 2019

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology has seen major advancements in its accuracy and speed in recent years, making it a possible mechanism for supporting communication between people who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing (DHH) and their hearing peers. However, state-of-the-art ASR technology is still imperfect in many realistic settings. Researchers who evaluate ASR performance often focus on improving the Word Error Rate (WER) metric, but it has been found to have little correlation with human-subject performance for many applications. This article describes and evaluates several new captioning-focused evaluation metrics for predicting the impact of ASR errors on the understandability of automatically generated captions for people who are DHH. Through experimental studies with DHH users, we have found that our new metric (based on word-importance and semantic-difference scoring) is more closely correlated with DHH user's judgements of caption quality—as compared to pre-existing metrics for ASR evaluation.
Bid-Limited Targeting
Authors: Hummel Patrick , Nadav Uri
Published: June 2019

This article analyzes a mechanism for selling items in auctions in which the auctioneer specifies a cap on the ratio between the maximum and minimum bids that bidders may use in the auctions. Such a mechanism is widely used in online advertising through the caps that companies impose on the minimum and maximum bid multipliers that advertisers may use in targeting. When bidders’ values are independent and identically distributed, this mechanism results in greater revenue than allowing bidders to condition their bids on the targeting information in an arbitrary way and also almost always results in greater revenue than not allowing bidders to target. Choosing the optimal cap on the ratio between the maximum and minimum bids can also be more important than introducing additional competition in the auction. However, if bidders’ values are not identically distributed, pure-strategy equilibria may fail to exist.
Self-Adaptive QoS Management of Computation and Communication Resources in Many-Core SoCs
Authors: Ruaro Marcelo , Jantsch Axel , Moraes Fernando Gehm
Published: June 2019

Providing quality of service (QoS) for many-core systems with dynamic application admission is challenging due to the high amount of resources to manage and the unpredictability of computation and communication events. Related works propose a self-adaptive QoS mechanism concerned either in communication or computation resources, lacking, however, a comprehensive QoS management of both. Assuming a many-core system with QoS monitoring, runtime circuit-switching establishment, task migration, and a soft real-time task scheduler, this work fills this gap by proposing a novel self-adaptive QoS management. The contribution of this proposal comes with the following features in the QoS management: (
i
) comprehensiveness, by covering communication and computation resources; (
ii
) online, adopting the ODA (Observe, Decide, Act) runtime closed-loop adaptation; and (
iii
) reactive and proactive decisions, by using a dynamic application profile extraction technique, which enables the QoS management to be aware of the profile of running applications, allowing it to take proactive decisions based on a prediction analysis. The proposed QoS management adopts a decentralized organization by partitioning the system in clusters, each one managed by a dedicated processor, making the proposal scalable. Results show that the proactive feature accurately extracts the applications’ profile, and can prevent future QoS violations. The synergy of reactive and proactive decisions was able to sustain QoS, reducing the deadline miss rate by 99.5% with a severe disturbance in communication and computation levels, and avoiding deadline misses up to 70% of system utilization.
Cultural Evolution in Animals
Authors: Whiten Andrew
Published: June 2019

In recent decades, a burgeoning literature has documented the cultural transmission of behavior through social learning in numerous vertebrate and invertebrate species. One meaning of “cultural evolution in animals” refers to these discoveries, and I present an overview of key findings. I then address the other meaning of the term focused on cultural changes within a lineage. Such changes in humans, described as “cumulative cultural evolution,” have been spectacular, but relatively little attention has yet been paid to the topic in nonhuman animals, other than asserting that the process is unique to humans. A variety of evidence including both controlled experiments and field observations has begun to challenge this view, and in some behavioral domains, notably birdsong, cultural evolution has been studied for many years. In this review, I dissect concepts of cultural evolution and cumulative culture and appraise the accumulating evidence bearing on their nature and significance for evolutionary biology at large.
Evaluation of Sleep Patterns and Self-Reported Academic Performance among Medical Students at the University of Ghana School of Medicine and Dentistry
Authors: Lawson Henry Jeremy , Wellens-Mensah Jude Tettey , Attah Nantogma Salamatu
Published: June 2019

Background. Sleep habits and problems play a vital role in determining sleep quality. We describe sleep habits and problems among medical students and assess their possible effect on self-reported academic performance. Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional study among medical students at the University of Ghana during the 2014/2015 academic year. Data was collected using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), a self-report questionnaire that assesses sleep quality over a 1-month time interval. Results. 153 medical students were recruited comprising 83 (54.2%) females and 70 (45.8%) males with a mean age of 23.1 ± 2.4 years. The mean duration of night sleep was 5.7 ± 1.2 hours; 88 (57.5%) students had sleep latency of 10-30 minutes while 18 (11.8%) woke up nightly. 23 (15%) students experienced nightmares, 13 (8.5%) snored at night, and only one student reported coffee intake of 2-3 times daily. Sleep quality was poor in 86 (56.2%) and was significantly associated with sleep latency, morning tiredness, daytime sleepiness during lectures, academic performance, living conditions, leisure time, frequency of nocturnal awakenings, waking up due to noise, sleep walking, and nocturnal awakening to use washroom. There was also a significant positive relation between sleep quality and academic performance (X2 = 10.004 p = 0.019). Conclusion. Poor sleep quality and daytime dysfunction are widespread among medical students in Ghana. There was a significant positive relation between sleep quality and self-reported academic performance.
Long‐Term Performance and Deicing Effect of Sustained‐Release Snow Melting Asphalt Mixture
Authors: Zhou Jian , Li Jing , Liu Guoqiang , Yang Tao , Zhao Yongli
Published: June 2019

To accelerate snow and ice melting, traditional chloride‐based salts are spreaded on asphalt pavement surface, causing serious environmental pollution and infrastructure corrosion. For sustained‐release snow melting asphalt mixture, the snow melting agent of Mafilon is directly added to asphalt mixture by replacing partial mineral powder to develop a new type of functional asphalt mixture. In this paper, through the Marshall test, immersion Marshall test, rutting test, trabecular bending test, and Cantabro test, the effects of Mafilon addition on asphalt pavement performance is systematically analysed. Meanwhile, salt precipitation rate is measured by conductimetry to estimate effective deicing period of the pavement. Finally, a new experimental device is designed to quantitatively evaluate snow melting effect of sustained‐release snow melting asphalt pavement. The experimental results show that replacing 70% of the mineral powder with Mafilon by volume can achieve satisfactory snow melting effect without affecting usability of asphalt pavement.
Behaviour of Foam Concrete under Impact Loading Based on SHPB Experiments
Authors: He Yongliang , Gao Mingshi , Zhao Hongchao , Zhao Yichao
Published: June 2019

This paper presents an innovative method for using foam concrete as a typical building material for soft structures in underground coal mines subjected to dynamic loading. To understand the behaviour of foam concrete under impact loading, a total of 30 specimens with a diameter of 50 mm and a height of 50 mm were experimentally tested using a 75 mm diameter split Hopkinson pressure bar (SHPB) device. The key parameters investigated in the present study included the type of foam concrete (fly ash and sand), the density of foam concrete (1000, 1200 and 1400 kg/m3), and the impact velocity (3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0, and 7.0 m/s). Six specimens were also tested under static loading for comparison. The stress‐strain curve of foam concrete under impact loading showed three stages, started with a linear elastic stage, followed by a yield stage and ended with a pore wall destruction stage. The test results also indicated that the dynamic increase factor, ultimate compressive strength, tenacity, and specific energy absorption increase with the strain rate under the same density. In particular, both the failure model and the behaviour of foam concrete were affected by the impact velocity. The findings of this research provide a reference for further research on the application of foam concrete in underground coal mines.