bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Problems in comparisons of data for the prevalence of myopia and the frequency distribution of ametropia
Authors: Plainis Sotiris , Charman W. Neil 
Published: May 2015

AbstractPurposeThere is currently great interest in comparing data for the prevalence of myopia in different parts of the world, particularly in view of the suggestion that, in recent decades, marked increases have occurred in prevalence among children and young adults in some areas. This work investigates the factors that affect the comparison and interpretation of sets of myopia prevalence data for different age groups, locations and dates.Recent findingsUsing data from the literature, the problems caused by the effect of the reliability and validity of the method used to measure refraction, the threshold chosen to define an eye as myopic are discussed. The influence of slow drifts in refraction with age is considered and it is recommended that if mean refractions at different ages are to be compared, the interpretation of the results should take account of the normal age‐dependent trends in refraction. The value of specifying the distribution of refractive errors, rather than simply their mean and standard deviation, is emphasised and possible parametric fits to describe these distributions are reviewed.SummaryThere remains a need for greater standardisation in sampling strategies, refractive measurement procedures and definition of myopia in prevalence studies. The use of an ex‐Gaussian or other approximations to describe the refractive error distribution appears to give useful insights into the nature of the changes that may occur with age and other factors.
The psychophysiology of mixed emotional states: Internal and external replicability analysis of a direct replication study
Authors: Kreibig Sylvia D. , Samson Andrea C. , Gross James J. 
Published: May 2015

AbstractThe replicability of emotion‐related physiological changes constitutes a fundamental issue in affective science. We undertook a direct replication of the physiological differentiation of amusement, disgust, and a mixed emotional state as previously reported (Kreibig, Samson, & Gross, 2013). In the current study, 48 women watched 54 amusing, disgusting, and mixed emotional film clips while cardiovascular, electrodermal, and respiratory measures were obtained. Primary analyses indicated physiological differentiation of the mixed emotional state from amusement and disgust. We evaluated (a) the probability that future replications of the current study would yield similar results using bootstrapped confidence intervals of effect sizes, and (b) the stability of results of physiological reactivity between actual replications using correlation and regression analyses. Findings suggest replicable differentiation of amusement, disgust, and a mixed emotional state.
Equal Parenting when Families Break Apart: Alternating Residence and the Best Interests of the Child in Sweden
Authors: Blomqvist Paula , Heimer Maria 
Published: May 2015

AbstractShared, or alternating, residence for children when their parents separate is increasingly common. Sweden adopted a new policy in 1998 (modified in 2006) which gave courts the mandate to order 50/50 alternating residence against the will of one parent. Since then, the 50/50 alternating residence has become the legal norm in Sweden in cases of disputed custody. In this article, we ask how Swedish policymakers reasoned in relation to the potentially conflicting values of equal parenting post‐separation and the interests of children. More specifically, we investigate how they addressed some of the most common objections to court‐ordered alternating residence. We found that all three issues were discussed extensively during the policy‐making process, but that, in the end, none of them was seen as contradictory to the goal of promoting more equal parenting roles post‐separation through the introduction of court‐ordered alternating residence. This policy outcome, we argue, should be seen in light of Sweden's long‐standing commitment to strengthening the role of fathers in the care of children.
Preliminary findings on the effect of melatonin on the clinical outcome of cataract surgery in dogs
Authors: Sande Pablo H. , Álvarez Javier , Calcagno Javier , Rosenstein Ruth E. 
Published: May 2015

AbstractObjectiveCataract is the most prevalent cause of blindness in dogs. Phacoemulsification (PE) is currently the surgical treatment of choice to remove the opaque lens; however, it is associated with varying degrees of postoperative inflammation. We assessed the effect of melatonin on postoperative complications of canine cataract surgery.Animal studiedEleven diabetic and thirteen healthy owned dogs with cataracts.ProceduresAll dogs underwent cataract surgery by PE. The anti‐inflammatory effect of melatonin was compared with the reference treatments: nonsteroidal anti‐inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) for diabetic dogs, and dexamethasone for nondiabetic dogs. Eyes were examined by means of clinical evaluation and intraocular pressure (IOP).ResultsIn diabetic dogs, melatonin was more effective than topical and systemic NSAIDs in reducing the clinical score at 2, 7, and 20 days postsurgery, while it showed a similar efficacy to topical dexamethasone in dogs with hereditary cataracts. IOP decreased in all groups at 2 days postsurgery, but this decrease reached statistical significance only in diabetic dogs treated with NSAIDs, and persisted at 7 days postsurgery in this group. Afterward, IOP returned to normal values in all groups. Melatonin decreased the occurrence of surgical sequelae in diabetic and nondiabetic dogs.ConclusionsThese results indicate that melatonin might constitute a useful tool for reducing postoperative PE complications in dogs.
Effects of Buerger Exercise Combined Health‐Promoting Program on Peripheral Neurovasculopathy Among Community Residents at High Risk for Diabetic Foot Ulceration
Authors: Chang Chyong‐Fang , Chang Chang‐Cheng , Hwang Su‐Lun , Chen Mei‐Yen 
Published: May 2015

ABSTRACTBackgroundPeripheral neuropathy and vasculopathy are important risk factors for diabetic foot ulceration (DFU). Buerger exercises for patients with arterial occlusive disease have previously been noted; however, current evidence to support this intervention is limited.AimWe established a standardized procedure for Buerger exercises combined with a health‐promoting program and investigated its effectiveness in reducing peripheral neurovasculopathy among rural Taiwanese residents with type 2 diabetes who were at high risk of developing DFU.MethodsA one group quasi‐experimental pretest–posttest design was used. The Buerger exercise protocol composed of a three‐step posture change with 9 minutes for each cycle. The health‐promoting program composed of six dimensions of healthy habits. Outcome measurements 1 year after the beginning of the intervention included the ankle brachial pressure index (ABI), the Michigan neuropathy screening instrument (MNSI), blood pressure, frequency of self‐reported leg discomfort, and a type 2 Diabetes Health Promoting Score.FindingsThirty‐one of 66 (47%) subjects completed this study. Buerger exercises combined with the health‐promoting program significantly improved (a) the ABI in the legs, (b) health‐promoting behaviors, (c) MNSI values, and (d) leg discomfort symptoms.Linking Evidence to ActionThis study supports the use of Buerger exercises combined with the health‐promoting program to improve symptoms of peripheral neuropathy and peripheral circulation in patients with type 2 diabetes.
System-Based Safety Tenets Applied to the Extra-High Voltage Transmission Line Design for Common Uses of Highway Right-of-Way
Authors: Abou Seraphin C. , Saad Maarouf 
Published: May 2015

The rapidly increasing demand for electricity in recent years resulted in increasing needs of electrical system capacity and deployment for alternate uses of highway right-of-way (ROW) for the purpose of electric power generation, transmission, and distribution. In this framework, a systems approach—fundamental principles of system dynamics for identifying, understanding, and analyzing safety requirements of the extra-high voltage power line (EHV)—is used to objectively focus on two main safety issues related to the design and the risk of the EHV transmission line within highway ROW: (1) assess the design and the operation, and (2) evaluate causally related impacts on the public and workers’ safety that matter. A generalized model of the electromagnetic fields distribution and the clearance model are developed for the analysis of the causally related impacts of a conceptual design and the reliability of materials of construction of the electric systems by introducing the number of exposed individuals and the level of the environmental impacts as a second dimension in addition to the risk factors. A worst-case design scenario is evaluated. Sensitivity analysis of effects of the design attributes such as the route configuration, over voltages, and conductor clearance is performed by determining the magnitude of the electromagnetic field strengths and predicting the resulting maximum voltage. Information obtained on the structural design scenario, conductor size and configuration, insulators, and connectors is of value in determining the safety of the design for operation at extra-high voltages within highway ROW.
Reconstruction of Phonated Speech from Whispers Using Formant-Derived Plausible Pitch Modulation
Authors: Mcloughlin Ian V. , Sharifzadeh Hamid Reza , Tan Su Lim , Li Jingjie , Song Yan 
Published: May 2015

Whispering is a natural, unphonated, secondary aspect of speech communications for most people. However, it is the primary mechanism of communications for some speakers who have impaired voice production mechanisms, such as partial laryngectomees, as well as for those prescribed voice rest, which often follows surgery or damage to the larynx. Unlike most people, who choose when to whisper and when not to, these speakers may have little choice but to rely on whispers for much of their daily vocal interaction.
Even though most speakers will whisper at times, and some speakers can only whisper, the majority of today’s computational speech technology systems assume or require phonated speech. This article considers conversion of whispers into natural-sounding phonated speech as a noninvasive prosthetic aid for people with voice impairments who can only whisper. As a by-product, the technique is also useful for unimpaired speakers who choose to whisper.
Speech reconstruction systems can be classified into those requiring training and those that do not. Among the latter, a recent parametric reconstruction framework is explored and then enhanced through a refined estimation of plausible pitch from weighted formant differences. The improved reconstruction framework, with proposed formant-derived artificial pitch modulation, is validated through subjective and objective comparison tests alongside state-of-the-art alternatives.
Practical Iterative Optimization for the Data Center
Authors: Fang Shuangde , Xu Wenwen , Chen Yang , Eeckhout Lieven , Temam Olivier , Chen Yunji , Wu Chengyong , Feng Xiaobing 
Published: May 2015

Iterative optimization is a simple but powerful approach that searches the best possible combination of compiler optimizations for a given workload. However, iterative optimization is plagued by several practical issues that prevent it from being widely used in practice: a large number of runs are required to find the best combination, the optimum combination is dataset dependent, and the exploration process incurs significant overhead that needs to be compensated for by performance benefits. Therefore, although iterative optimization has been shown to have a significant performance potential, it seldom is used in production compilers.
In this article, we propose iterative optimization for the data center (IODC): we show that the data center offers a context in which all of the preceding hurdles can be overcome. The basic idea is to spawn different combinations across workers and recollect performance statistics at the master, which then evolves to the optimum combination of compiler optimizations. IODC carefully manages costs and benefits, and it is transparent to the end user. To bring IODC to practice, we evaluate it in the presence of co-runners to better reflect real-life data center operation with multiple applications co-running per server. We enhance IODC with the capability to find compatible co-runners along with a mechanism to dynamically adjust the level of aggressiveness to improve its robustness in the presence of co-running applications.
We evaluate IODC using both MapReduce and compute-intensive throughput server applications. To reflect the large number of users interacting with the system, we gather a very large collection of datasets (up to hundreds of millions of unique datasets per program), for a total storage of 16.4TB and 850 days of CPU time. We report an average performance improvement of 1.48 × and up to 2.08 × for five MapReduce applications, and 1.12 × and up to 1.39 × for nine server applications. Furthermore, our experiments demonstrate that IODC is effective in the presence of co-runners, improving performance by greater than 13% compared to the worst possible co-runner schedule.
Automatic Detection of Phone-Based Anomalies in Dysarthric Speech
Authors: Laaridh Imed , Fredouille Corinne , Meunier Christine 
Published: May 2015

Perceptual evaluation is still the most common method in clinical practice for diagnosing and following the progression of the condition of people with speech disorders. Although a number of studies have addressed the acoustic analysis of speech productions exhibiting impairments, additional descriptive analysis is required to manage interperson variability, considering speakers with the same condition or across different conditions. In this context, this article investigates automatic speech processing approaches dedicated to the detection and localization of abnormal acoustic phenomena in speech signal produced by people with speech disorders. This automatic process aims at enhancing the manual investigation of human experts while at the same time reducing the extent of their intervention by calling their attention to specific parts of the speech considered as atypical from an acoustical point of view.
Two different approaches are proposed in this article. The first approach models only the normal speech, whereas the second models both normal and dysarthric speech. Both approaches are evaluated following two strategies: one consists of a strict phone comparison between a human annotation of abnormal phones and the automatic output, while the other uses a “one-phone delay” for the comparison.
The experimental evaluation of both approaches for the task of detecting acoustic anomalies was conducted on two different corpora composed of French dysarthric speakers and control speakers. These approaches obtain very encouraging results and their potential for clinical uses with different types of dysarthria and neurological diseases is quite promising.
Concurrent, parallel garbage collection in linear time
Authors: Brandt Steven R. , Krishnan Hari , Sharma Gokarna , Busch Costas 
Published: May 2015

This paper presents a new concurrent garbage collection algorithm based on two types of reference, strong and weak, to link the graph of objects. Strong references connect the roots to all the nodes in the graph but do not contain cycles. Weak references may, however, contain cycles.
Advantages of this system include: (1) reduced processing, non-trivial garbage collection work is only required when the last strong reference is lost; (2) fewer memory traces to delete objects, a garbage cycle only needs to be traversed twice to be deleted; (3) fewer memory traces to retain objects, since the collector can often prove objects are reachable without fully tracing support cycles to which the objects belong; (4) concurrency, it can run in parallel with a live system without "stopping the world"; (5) parallel, because collection operations in different parts of the memory can proceed at the same time.
Previous variants of this technique required exponential cleanup time, but our algorithm is linear in total time, i.e. any changes in the graph take only O(N) time steps, where N is the number of edges in the affected subgraph (e.g. the subgraph whose strong support is affected by the operations).
Celebrating COMET’s 25 Years of Providing Innovative Education and Training
Authors: Johnson Victoria , Jeffries Richard , Byrd Greg , Schreiber-Abshire Wendy , Page Elizabeth , Muller Bruce , Alberta Tim 
Published: May 2015

Abstract
The Cooperative Program for Operational Meteorology, Education, and Training (COMET)’s mission when it began in 1990 was to deliver professional development opportunities to U.S. government forecasters during the National Weather Service (NWS) modernization program. Since then, COMET has emerged as a worldwide leader in geoscience education. Its original objectives were to provide forecasters with classroom and distance learning training based on state-of-the-art science; support development and testing of new forecast methods; promote collaboration between the forecasting, research, and academic communities; and to advance forecasting and nowcasting by encouraging research. Over the years, COMET’s mission has expanded to disseminating and enhancing scientific knowledge in the environmental sciences, particularly meteorology, but also including diverse areas such as oceanography, hydrology, space weather, and emergency management. This paper reviews COMET’s evolution from a primary focus on educating U.S. forecasters on the application of new technologies (such as Doppler radar) to mesoscale meteorology problems into a program with a much broader scope. Those changes include offering learning opportunities that now cover a wider variety of topics and support the educational needs of diverse audiences worldwide. The history of COMET is a story of adaptation to technological changes, funding cycles, partner requirements, and service opportunities as well as taking on a more global mission. We will look at how COMET’s activities in geoscience education have changed, how its adaptability has contributed to the longevity of the program that was only supposed to exist until the NWS modernization was complete, and expectations and plans for the future.
Orographic Precipitation Forcing along the Coast of Northern California during a Landfalling Winter Storm
Authors: Valenzuela Raul A. , Kingsmill David E. 
Published: May 2015

Abstract
This study documents orographic precipitation forcing along the coastal mountains of Northern California during the landfall of a significant winter storm over the period 16–18 February 2004. The primary observing asset is a scanning X-band Doppler radar deployed on the coast at Fort Ross, California, which provides low-level (e.g., below 1 km MSL) horizontal and vertical scans of radial velocity and reflectivity to characterize airflow and precipitation structures. Further context is provided by a wind-profiling radar, a radio acoustic sounding system (RASS), balloon soundings, buoys, a GPS receiver, and surface meteorological sensors. The winter storm is divided into two episodes, each having pre-cold-frontal low-level jet (LLJ) structures and atmospheric river characteristics. Episode 1 has a corridor of terrain-trapped airflow (TTA) that forms an interface with the LLJ. The interface extends ~25 km offshore in a ~0.5-km vertical layer, and the western edge of this interface near the ocean surface advances toward the coast over the course of ~5 h. The TTA acts as a dynamically driven barrier, so that the incoming LLJ slopes upward offshore below 1.5 km MSL and precipitation is enhanced over the ocean and near the coast. The absence of a TTA in episode 2 allows the cross-barrier flow to slope upward and enhance precipitation directly over the coastal mountains. A theoretical analysis favors the hypothesis that a gap flow exiting the Petaluma Gap forces the TTA.
Powered by Customers: Relationship Is Key to Surviving 100 Years in Business
Authors: Morse Douglas 
Published: May 2015

Powered by customers is about new business models and organizations that are required in order for businesses to survive and thrive in the modern global economy by focusing on customer success and new value creation. History has shown that service has been a key driver for financial success and longevity of businesses. Relationship with customers, that is, understanding their needs and what makes them successful, has been key for successful companies to thrive for periods in excess of 100 years. Services have shown to be a key provider of those touch points and data that foster an ongoing customer relationships for longevity and market leadership.
Making Engagement Worth It: Measuring and Managing How Entrepreneurs Exchange Value with Their Community
Authors: Blomquist Laura , Imel Spencer 
Published: May 2015

While business leaders use the tools of Customer Value Management to understand and improve the value they offer to customers, the potential for these tools to explain and improve decision-making expands beyond the business–customer relationship. This is because the cornerstone framework of measuring and improving a value exchange applies to all sorts of decisions. We present a case study in which Customer Value Management techniques were used to analyze the value of a particular community through the perspective of entrepreneurs themselves, allowing us to uncover how entrepreneurs decide whether it is ‘worth it’ to start a business in their community. We also demonstrate a strong link between the value perceived by entrepreneurs and their loyalty to the community, showing ‘how good is good’ when it comes to enticing entrepreneurs to engage with and promote the local startup ecosystem. This case study offers a framework that can be used by community leaders to manage the value exchange with members and constituents in the community. Once leaders better understand the value proposition that drives decisions among community members, they are empowered to maximize that value by focusing scarce resources on the greatest opportunities for improvement. By doing this, they help foster genuine loyalty and deeper engagement among community members, which helps generate growth and development that creates even more value for the region.
Boundary Risk and What It Means for Value Creation
Authors: Rudin Andrew 
Published: May 2015

This article focuses on strategic risks that companies absorb when they are unprepared—or unable—to develop new ways to create customer value. Using real-world examples, the article describes what happens when senior executives are lulled into complacency, causing them to turn a blind eye to emerging opportunities to drive sustainable revenue. In particular, the article profiles how other companies have successfully adapted. What constitutes value for customers is ephemeral, adding risk to corporate strategies. Yesterday's cash cow can become today's obsolete product. Leaders must continually define what ‘prospective customer’ means in the context of their industry. They must figure out which products to develop and sell. They must learn how customers intend to buy what they and their competitors, produce. But not every executive fully understands the grave importance for solving these problems. In just five years, revenue sources for most companies will be quite different from the ones they depend on today, and some will not make the transition. There are no ordained roadmaps for addressing boundary risk, but cited in the article are tactics common to the successful companies: acknowledging the risks, having adequate financial capacity to absorb failure and fostering a culture that accepts those outcomes, along with successes.