ethicalabs/Research-Intent-Collab huggingface dataset:
Is the maturity of hospitals' quality improvement systems associated with measures of quality and patient safety?

Previous research addressed the development of a classification scheme for quality improvement systems in European hospitals. In this study we explore associations between the 'maturity' of the hospitals' quality improvement system and clinical outcomes.The maturity classification scheme was developed based on survey results from 389 hospitals in eight European countries. We matched the hospitals from the Spanish sample (113 hospitals) with those hospitals participating in a nation-wide, voluntary hospital performance initiative. We then compared sample distributions and explored associations between the 'maturity' of the hospitals' quality improvement system and a range of composite outcomes measures, such as adjusted hospital-wide mortality, -readmission, -complication and -length of stay indices. Statistical analysis includes bivariate correlations for parametrically and non-parametrically distributed data, multiple robust regression models and bootstrapping techniques to obtain confidence-intervals for the correlation and regression estimates.Overall, 43 hospitals were included. Compared to the original sample of 113, this sample was characterized by a higher representation of university hospitals. Maturity of the quality improvement system was similar, although the matched sample showed less variability. Analysis of associations between the quality improvement system and hospital-wide outcomes suggests significant correlations for the indicator adjusted hospital complications, borderline significance for adjusted hospital readmissions and non-significance for the adjusted hospital mortality and length of stay indicators. These results are confirmed by the bootstrap estimates of the robust regression model after adjusting for hospital characteristics.We assessed associations between hospitals' quality improvement systems and clinical outcomes. From this data it seems that having a more developed quality improvement system is associated with lower rates of adjusted hospital complications. A number of methodological and logistic hurdles remain to link hospital quality improvement systems to outcomes. Further research should aim at identifying the latent dimensions of quality improvement systems that predict quality and safety outcomes. Such research would add pertinent knowledge regarding the implementation of organizational strategies related with quality of care outcomes.
Community-Based Approaches to Herbicide-Resistant Weed Management: Lessons from Science and Practice

When herbicide-resistant weeds are highly mobile across farms, delaying resistance becomes a common-pool resource (CPR) problem. In such situations, it is in the collective long-term interest of farmers to conserve an herbicide's usefulness. Yet, each farmer has an individual short-run incentive to use the herbicide without considering effects on resistance. This study considers the potential for community-based (CB) approaches to address problems of herbicide-resistant weeds. Here, growers actively participate in designing, financing, and implementing programs, usually in collaboration with industry, government, and universities. CB approaches have certain advantages over top-down regulatory or subsidy-based approaches. Scholars and practitioners have developed effective governance mechanisms for many CPRs that could aid in developing effective resistance management programs. Successful CB management programs for insect pest eradication and areawide invasive weed control offer additional lessons about the potential and challenges of such efforts. Lessons from these examples can inform the design and implementation of successful, voluntary programs for herbicide-resistance management. Key research, education, and outreach priorities to help implement successful CB programs are identified at the close.
The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (2024), de Juan Bautista Cartes Rodríguez. Universidad Pública de Navarra, Pamplona

For many years, the African regional human rights system has been, with few exceptions, largely neglected in Spanish legal scholarship. Due to various factors, such as Spain's membership in the Council of Europe and its cultural ties with Latin American countries, the European and American human rights systems have garnered the attention of academics in our country. Therefore, writing a doctoral thesis on the African human rights system is a particularly commendable undertaking. And that is precisely what Juan Bautista Cartes Rodríguez, Professor of Public International Law at the Complutense University of Madrid, has done under the supervision of Professors Ana Gemma López Martín and José Antonio Perea Unceta. The quality of his thesis is evidenced by the fact that it was awarded the Jaime Brunet Prize (2022) by the Public University of Navarre, given to the best thesis of the year in the field of human rights. This monograph in English, funded by the Jaime Brunet Foundation, stems precisely from this award, and joins two other monographs in Spanish by the same author on this subject, published by the prestigious publishers Aranzadi and Tirant lo Blanch.
Integration of Sentinel-1A SAR data with crop simulation model for rice yield prediction in Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand

In this study, the utility of assimilation of multi-temporal and multi-polarized Sentinel-1A SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) data with rice crop model for mapping and predicting rice yield for district Udham Singh Nagar, Uttarakhand has been discussed. In this approach information regarding rice distribution over the district was achieved by mapping of rice fields from Sentinel-1A SAR images using support vector classification, and then the CERES RICE model which is embedded in DSSAT-4.7 was re-initialized by performing assimilation method in which the temporal single-polarized rice backscattering coefficients were grouped for each rice pixel for the district.  The optimal input parameters with assimilation method in re-initializing the model allows a good temporal agreement between rice backscattering coefficients derived from Sentinel-1A SAR images and the rice backscattering coefficient derived from coupled model i.e. integration of CERES RICE (DSSAT-4.7) and semi-empirical rice backscatter model through Leaf Area Index (LAI). After re-initialization the yield of rice was calculated from each rice pixel and yield map of the area of study was developed. The results showed that the coupled model gave an estimate of rice yield of 3190 kg/ha which was quite near to the five years average district yield which was 3160 kg/ha with a difference of 30 kg/ha between coupled and five years average rice yield of the district y. On the basis of results obtained it can be concluded that Sentinel-1A SAR data has great potential for monitoring and mapping of rice with the ability to predict the yield of rice crop. The prediction of rice crop is an important step that could be used to assist farmers and policy makers by providing in-season estimates of the rice yield and production. This information could be used for better planning of the resources.
Citizen science as an approach for engaging underrepresented communities in codevelopment of health research

Engaging patients and public in health research ensures results remain relevant and responsive to community needs. However, meaningful engagement with underrepresented communities remains challenging, and this lack of representation can perpetuate ongoing inequities in health research. Citizen science offers a flexible methodological approach to prioritize active and meaningful patient and public engagement, including from underrepresented communities, where community voices are included throughout the research process. This commentary explores how a citizen science approach can be applied to enhance engagement of underrepresented communities and support co-developing research questions that reflect community needs.We present a case example of an ongoing project working with 2S/LGBTQQIA+ communities to codevelop a health research program centered around chronic pain using citizen science. The project includes a nationwide online platform, group workshops, and consensus approaches, with activities guided by an Advisory Committee of 2S/LGBTQQIA+ individuals. We describe the European Citizen Science Association's ten principles of citizen science, their application in the example .The case example demonstrates how citizen science can be used to codevelop a research program that reflects community needs, balancing large-scale public engagement with collaborative cocreation. Prioritizing active community engagement throughout the research process promotes transparency and inclusion, setting a new standard for collaborative research.Citizen science holds significant potential for broader application across diverse health domains, offering an innovative alternative to traditional methods of priority-setting, and provides a flexible framework for engaging underrepresented communities to advance health equity.
Acceptability of a Proposed Marine Protected Area: A Precondition for Marine Biodiversity Conservation Efforts in Ozamiz City, Philippines

A clearer understanding of human or social aspects of environmental issues will enhance conservation. While social acceptance is critical in determining MPA success, it continues to be an inadequately explored area of research. This study examined the acceptability of the proposed Marine Protected Area in Ozamiz City, Philippines. Stressing the significance of social acceptability to an MPA's successful implementation, this investigated the influence of the fishing households' knowledge of the marine environment and coastal resource management and the perceived condition of the coastal environment on the social acceptability of a proposed MPA implementation. The study used a mixed-method, particularly concurrent triangulation design, utilizing a sample of 270 fishing households in the 15 coastal barangays of Ozamiz City. The data were gathered through a survey supplemented with key informant interviews (KII). The study revealed that the knowledge of the marine environment and coastal resource management had shown a highly significant relationship and emerged as a predictor of the social acceptability of the proposed MPA. Therefore, greater knowledge of the marine environment and coastal resource management among the fisher folks and stakeholders, in general, may result in a higher level of acceptability of the proposed MPA, thus resulting in a successful implementation. Strategies must be implemented to enhance and enrich the fisher folks' knowledge of the marine ecosystem and coastal resource management. Information on the features, characteristics, and importance of the corals and coral reefs to the marine ecosystem should be emphasized.
Automatized Multi-Scale Force-Field Parameter Optimization of Lennard-Jones Parameters for Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Specifically designed and accurate force fields are of central importance in molecular simulations, as they are often required when investigating new or slightly modified systems. Their parameterization, referred to as force-field parameter optimization, is a complex multi-modal optimization challenge. It requires balancing the parameter’s transferability between various optimization objectives, while their interdependencies often are non-trivial and hard to unravel. This cumulative dissertation addresses this optimization challenge by systematically developing and extending an automatized multi-scale force-field parameter optimization workflow. An important feature is ist modular design that (a) allows the optimization of any amount and combination of force-field parameters towards any type and amount of target properties, and (b) facilitates the extension by additional optimization algorithms or objective functions. First, the workflow’s foundation and a proof-of-concept is provided by simultaneously optimizing the Lennard-Jones parameters towards n-octane’s liquid-phase density (i.e. a multi-molecular, thermodynamic property) and its relative conformational Energies (i.e. a single molecular structural property). By showing that the applicability of the force field was expanded, the simultaneous multi-scale optimization workflow is established. Then, the optimization workflow’s hyperparameters are fine-tuned to improveits results and it is shown that by reasonably balancing the optimization objectives using weighting factors the previously introduced errors are reduced. Next, the optimization procedure’s efficiency is increased by substituting the most time-consuming molecular dynamics simulations by machine learning surrogate models. Those simulations are required repeatedly throughout the optimization, and due to the workflow’s iterative nature, they need to be performed just-in-time. By substituting them with machine learning surrogate models the required run time is approximately reduced by 20-fold. Additionally, guidelines for the model’s training and selection are included. Subsequently, as a challenging test of the workflow, the Lennard-Jones Parameters for 1-bromobutane and 2-bromobutane are optimized. They exhibit a σ-hole allowing halogen bonding, which is subject to current research, that can be supported by accurate simulation models. It is shown that the modeling is improved by the herein presented multi-scale optimization approach, but that further refinements with respect to the workflow and the modeling are necessary. In conclusion, promising approaches to improve the optimization workflow and the modeling are suggested.
Metabolic Networks of Sodalis glossinidius: A Systems Biology Approach to Reductive Evolution

Genome reduction is a common evolutionary process affecting bacterial lineages that establish symbiotic or pathogenic associations with eukaryotic hosts. Such associations yield highly reduced genomes with greatly streamlined metabolic abilities shaped by the type of ecological association with the host. Sodalis glossinidius, the secondary endosymbiont of tsetse flies, represents one of the few complete genomes available of a bacterium at the initial stages of this process. In the present study, genome reduction is studied from a systems biology perspective through the reconstruction and functional analysis of genome-scale metabolic networks of S. glossinidius.The functional profile of ancestral and extant metabolic networks sheds light on the evolutionary events underlying transition to a host-dependent lifestyle. Meanwhile, reductive evolution simulations on the extant metabolic network can predict possible future evolution of S. glossinidius in the context of genome reduction. Finally, knockout simulations in different metabolic systems reveal a gradual decrease in network robustness to different mutational events for bacterial endosymbionts at different stages of the symbiotic association.Stoichiometric analysis reveals few gene inactivation events whose effects on the functionality of S. glossinidius metabolic systems are drastic enough to account for the ecological transition from a free-living to host-dependent lifestyle. The decrease in network robustness across different metabolic systems may be associated with the progressive integration in the more stable environment provided by the insect host. Finally, reductive evolution simulations reveal the strong influence that external conditions exert on the evolvability of metabolic systems.
3. Resolution of the Security Council Concerning the Implementation of the Resolutions of the General Assembly Regarding the Principles Governing the General Regulation and Reduction of Armaments and Information on Armed Forces of the United Nations, February 13, 1947.

The Security Council, having accepted the resolution of the General Assembly of 14 December 1946 and recognizing that the general regulation and reduction of irmaments and armed forces constitute a most important measure for strengthening international peace and security, and that the implementationof the resolution of the General Assembly on this subject is one of the most urgent and important tasks before the Security Council,RESOLVES:1. to work out the practical measures for giving effect to the resolutions of the General Assembly on 14 December 1946 concerning, on the one hand, the general regulation and reduction of armaments and armed forces, and the establishment of international control to bring about the reduction of armaments and armed forces and, on the other hand, information concerning the armed forces of the United Nations;2. to consider as soon as possible the report submitted by the Atomic Energy Commission and to take suitable decisions in order to facilitate its work;
Deep Learning for Recognizing Mobile Targets in Satellite Imagery

There is an increasing demand for software that automatically detects and classifies mobile targets such as airplanes, cars, and ships in satellite imagery. Applications of such automated target recognition (ATR) software include economic forecasting, traffic planning, maritime law enforcement, and disaster response. This paper describes the extension of a convolutional neural network (CNN) for classification to a sliding window algorithm for detection. It is evaluated on mobile targets of the xView dataset, on which it achieves detection and classification accuracies higher than 95%.
Efficient Estimation of Material Property Curves and Surfaces via Active Learning

The relationship between material properties and independent variables such as temperature, external field or time, is usually represented by a curve or surface in a multi-dimensional space. Determining such a curve or surface requires a series of experiments or calculations which are often time and cost consuming. A general strategy uses an appropriate utility function to sample the space to recommend the next optimal experiment or calculation within an active learning loop. However, knowing what the optimal sampling strategy to use to minimize the number of experiments is an outstanding problem. We compare a number of strategies based on directed exploration on several materials problems of varying complexity using a Kriging based model. These include one dimensional curves such as the fatigue life curve for 304L stainless steel and the Liquidus line of the Fe-C phase diagram, surfaces such as the Hartmann 3 function in 3D space and the fitted intermolecular potential for Ar-SH, and a four dimensional data set of experimental measurements for BaTiO3 based ceramics. We also consider the effects of experimental noise on the Hartmann 3 function. We find that directed exploration guided by maximum variance provides better performance overall, converging faster across several data sets. However, for certain problems, the trade-off methods incorporating exploitation can perform at least as well, if not better than maximum variance. Thus, we discuss how the choice of the utility function depends on the distribution of the data, the model performance and uncertainties, additive noise as well as the budget.
Applying the IAT to Assess Big Five Personality Traits

This chapter reviews the studies that applied the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to assess the Big Five personality traits, focusing on issues related to measurement and validity. After a brief introduction on the implicit self-concept of personality, the following five issues are critically reviewed: (1) the experimental procedure of both classical and questionnaire-based Big Five IATs, (2) the factorial structure and reliability of the implicit traits and the degree of dissociation between implicit and explicit measures, (3) the state and trait components of implicit scores, (4) the predictive validity of the Big-Five IATs with respect to relevant behavioural criteria, and (5) the robustness to faking of the Big Five IATs. Future research directions for the implicit measures of the Big Five were discussed.
The Possible Prospects of the Weak Veto reform proposal for the United Nations Security Council : A discourse analysis of United Nations Security Council meeting documents

Throughout the years many have called for a reform of the United Nations and more specifically its most influential body the United Nations Security Council. The Security Council has the authority to pass resolutions with the sole purpose to preserve the peace around the globe, in theory at least. As there are conflicts that have been going on for a decade without any kind of solution from the Security Council and with huge humanitarian toll, just like Syria and Yemen, the need for a reform is clearly needed for the Security Council to be able to act better in conflict solving. In the Council five members have veto rights which are also permanent members and are not elected. As this has been considered unfair, both the notion of a permanent member and also the notion of a veto, some reform proposals have been brought up by organizations or countries to change the Security Council. This work is concerned with the Weak Veto reform proposal as analysing possible reforms using discourse analysis can predict possible future behaviour of states and can introduce a different view on the future of international organizations.
Search for cosmic gamma rays of ultra-high energies with the Baksan air shower array

Abstract                Recently two collaborations (Tibet ASγ and HAWC) almost simultaneously reported about their measurements of ultra-high-energy (&gt; 100 TeV) gamma rays from the Crab Nebula. The Baksan air shower array (BASA) recorded a burst from this very source as long ago as more than 20 years. At the moment the new experiment on gamma ray astronomy (Carpet-3 project) started at Baksan, and it is appropriate to recall old results of BASA to be compared with the new results, already published and expected.
The Role of Information Technology in Reduction of Administrative Corruption through Increasing of Information transparency, Improvement of Accountability and Promotion of Integrity A Case Study of Saderat Bank Branches in Isfahan

The purpose of this study is to investigate the relationship between information transparency, improve accountability and enhance the reliability and accuracy of the use of information technology (telephone, fax, computer and electronic banking services) to reduce corruption in Saderat Bank Branches in Isfahan. The method of this study is Solidarity-Survey. This study uses Cohen, Morgan and Krejcie table and selectes 269 samples randomly among the 900 employees of Saderat Bank Branches. The data were obtained from the two questionnaires with content validity that confirmed by experts and stationary with Cronbach's alpha coefficients for the 0.96 and 0.92. Results were analyzed statistically with the use of descriptive statistics, Pearson correlation coefficient, multiple regression analysis and path analysis. Results showed that information transparency, improve accountability and enhance the reliability and integrity of information technology, including telephone and fax, computer and electronic banking services and have a direct relation with the reduction of corruption.