nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Monetary Policy Shocks and Industrial Sector Performance in South Africa

This paper employs an eight variable Structural Vector Auto regression (SVAR) model to examine how monetary policy shocks affect industrial sector performance in South Africa using monthly data from 1994:1 to 2012:12.The study finds no direct link between exchange rate and interest rate shocks and industrial output growth. A money supply shock, however, is observed to exert a significant positive impact on industrial output growth from about the eighth month. The study also reveals that the interest rate response to an unanticipated increase in the rate of inflation is insignificant, reflecting the infrequent changes of the repo rate in the country. We also find evidence of a symbiotic relationship between industrial output growth and other sectors of the economy that form components of aggregate output. The study further demonstrates that monetary authorities have very limited control over industrial output growth using instruments of monetary policy. In addition, it is found that relatively large proportions of the variations in the rate of inflation are explained by changes in money supply, exchange rates and industrial output. We also observe that variations in exchange rates are largely explained by unexpected changes in the exchange rates themselves, which supports the Martingale Hypothesis of exchange rates.
Understanding Natural Language Queries over Relational Databases
Venue: SGMD

Natural language has been the holy grail of query interface designers, but has generally been considered too hard to work with, except in limited specific circumstances. In this paper, we describe the architecture of an interactive natural language query interface for relational databases. Through a carefully limited interaction with the user, we are able to correctly interpret complex natural language queries, in a generic manner across a range of domains. By these means, a logically complex English language sentence is correctly translated into a SQL query, which may include aggregation, nesting, and various types of joins, among other things, and can be evaluated against an RDBMS.We have constructed a\ system, NaLIR (Natural Language Interface for Relational databases) embodying these ideas. Our experimental assessment, through user studies, demonstrates that NaLIR is good enough to be usable in practice: even naive users are able to specify quite complex ad hoc queries.
Leveraging big data technology for small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs)
Venue: 2016 6th International Conference on Computer and Knowledge Engineering (ICCKE)

Wisdom aligns with technology is the key factor for sustainable business development. By increasing amount of public and private data, organizations need to find new solutions to manage data and information which lead to knowledge, better decision making, and value. In the big data bang, smart organization surfing on line technology and start planning big data strategy. However, many organizations do not yet have a big data strategy. A challenge facing SMEs is that they may not have the same capacity as large companies to analysis new data sets. Also, traditional data processing tools are not capable for SMEs decision making because of volume, velocity and variety if data. For address this problem we need new leveraging technology, tools and talent. SMEs which have risen to leveraging the value of big data are using advantage of cloud computing and open source software to realize various goals. The main goal of this investment is about value as a new concept in a big data era. In this study, we focus on emerging trends and future requirement: technology and tools for SMEs.
Studying the links between organizational culture, innovation, and performance in Spanish companies

Innovation is considered to be one of the key factors that influence the long term success of a company in the competitive markets of today. As a result, there is a growing interest in the further study of the determining factors of innovation. Today, the focus is on these factors related to people and behavior, emphasizing the role of organizational culture, as a factor that can both stimulate or restrain innovation, and therefore affect company performance. However, there is little empirical research linking these variables, particularly in the Spanish context. The purpose of this paper is to study these links by using a sample of industrial companies. The results show that culture can foster innovation, as well as company performance, or it could also be an obstacle for both of them, depending on the values promoted by the culture. It has been found specifically, that an adhocratic culture is the best innovation and performance predictor. Based on these results, it can be concluded that, innovation mediates the relationship between certain types of organizational cultures and performance.
Examining the impacts of organizational culture and top management support of knowledge sharing on the success of software process improvement
Venue: Comput. Hum. Behav.

Although numerous studies have discussed the importance of the relationship between knowledge management and software process improvement (SPI) a research gap still exists in relation to how the specific role of knowledge sharing influences successful SPI implementation. This study advances our knowledge by developing an innovative model for exploring the impact of knowledge sharing on SPI success, the impact of knowledge sharing in specific organizational cultures, and how the support of top management specifically influences the path to SPI success. To empirically test the model, this study adopts the statistical technique of partial least squares (PLS) to analyze 118 samples collected from SPI certified Taiwanese organizations. The results suggest that clan type organizational culture has a stronger association with knowledge sharing than hierarchy type in the context of SPI success. SPI knowledge sharing is found to be a mediator of both clan culture and top management support in the context of SPI success. The findings also include the implication to improve our knowledge about how organizational culture and top management support drive effective knowledge sharing on the way to SPI success. SPI relies on human behavior of knowledge sharing, culture top mgt. support.This study determines how these factors influence SPI; specifically it shows that.Clan type culture is significant to knowledge sharing in SPI context.How top mgt. support may place influence on the path to SPI success.
Los peces como indicador de restauracion de areas de manglar en la costa norte de Yucatan

Resumen Los manglares son reconocidos por los servicios ecologicos que proveen a muchas especies de peces. Estudios previos sobre restauracion ecologica han pasado por alto estas funciones, generalmente enfocandose a la restauracion de cobertura vegetal. El objetivo fue determinar las funciones de los manglares como zonas de refugio y alimentacion para peces, evaluando la composicion y abundancia en sitios con diferente tiempo de restauracion. Se realizaron 2 muestreos en 4 sitios de manglar en restauracion en Yucatan Celestun 1, Celestun 2, Yucalpeten, Progreso en donde se registraron 22 especies de peces. Celestun 2 fue el sitio con mayor riqueza y diversidad (Gambusia yucatana, Poecilia velifera, Mugil cephalus y Anchoa mitchilli las mas abundantes) Progreso registro la diversidad mas baja y alta dominancia de G. yucatana 90% El sitio con mayor tiempo de restauracion presento organismos juveniles detritofagos y zoobentofagos. Los resultados demuestran la funcion del manglar como zona de crianza y alimentacion para especies marinas que intervienen en la transferencia de energia y nutrientes con sistemas adyacentes, tambien demuestran gran dominancia de G. yucatana, una especie endemica y caracteristica del ecosistema de manglar en Yucatan.
Saquinavir Loaded Acetalated Dextran Microconfetti a Long Acting Protease Inhibitor Injectable
Venue: Pharmaceutical Research

PurposeSince the adoption of highly active antiretroviral therapy, HIV disease progression has slowed across the world; however, patients are often required to take multiple medications daily of poorly bioavailable drugs via the oral route, leading to gastrointestinal irritation. Recently, long acting antiretroviral injectables that deliver drug for months at a time have moved into late phase clinical trials. Unfortunately, these solid phase crystal formulations have inherent drawbacks in potential dose dumping and a greater likelihood for burst release of drug compared to polymeric formulations.MethodsUsing electrospinning, acetalated dextran scaffolds containing the protease inhibitor saquinavir were created. Grinding techniques were then used to process these scaffolds into injectables which are termed saquinavir microconfetti. Microconfetti was analyzed for in vitro and in vivo release kinetics.ResultsHighly saquinavir loaded acetalated dextran electrospun fibers were able to be formed and processed into saquinavir microconfetti while other polymers such as poly lactic co glycolic acid and polycaprolactone were unable to do so. Saquinavir microconfetti release kinetics were able to be tuned via drug loading and polymer degradation rates. In vivo, a single subcutaneous injection of saquinavir microconfetti released drug for greater than a week with large tissue retention.ConclusionsMicroconfetti is a uniquely tunable long acting injectable that would reduce the formation of adherence related HIV resistance. Our findings suggest that the injectable microconfetti delivery system could be used for long acting controlled release of saquinavir and other hydrophobic small molecule drugs.
Antiretroviral drugs saquinavir and ritonavir reduce inhibitory concentration values of itraconazole against Histoplasma capsulatum strains in vitro.
Venue: The Brazilian journal of infectious diseases an official publication of the Brazilian Society of Infectious Diseases

Recent studies have shown that some drugs that are not routinely used to treat fungal infections have antifungal activity, such as protease inhibitor antiretroviral drugs. This study investigated the in vitro susceptibility of Histoplasma capsulatum var. capsulatum to saquinavir and ritonavir, and its combination with the antifungal itraconazole. The susceptibility assay was performed according to Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute guidelines. All strains were inhibited by the protease inhibitor antiretroviral drugs. Saquinavir showed minimum inhibitory concentrations ranging from 0.125 to 1mgmL( 1) for both phases, and ritonavir presented minimum inhibitory concentrations ranging from 0.0312 to 4mgmL( 1)and from 0.0625 to 1mgmL( 1) for filamentous and yeast phase, respectively. Concerning the antifungal itraconazole, the minimum inhibitory concentration values ranged from 0.0019 to 0.125mgmL( 1) and from 0.0039 to 0.0312mgmL( 1) for the filamentous and yeast phase, respectively. The combination of saquinavir or ritonavir with itraconazole was synergistic against H. capsulatum, with a significant reduction in the minimum inhibitory concentrations of both drugs against the strains (p<0.05) These data show an important in vitro synergy between protease inhibitors and itraconazole against the fungus H. capsulatum.
The HIV protease inhibitor saquinavir reduces proliferation, invasion and clonogenicity in cervical cancer cell lines
Venue: Oncology letters

Innovative therapies in cervical cancer (CC) remain a priority. Recent data indicate that human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) protease inhibitors used in highly active antiretroviral therapy can exert direct antitumor activities also in HIV free preclinical and clinical models. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the antineoplastic effects of various HIV protease inhibitors (indinavir, ritonavir and saquinavir) on primary and established CC cell lines. Two CC cell lines established in our laboratory and four commercially available CC cell lines were treated with indinavir, ritonavir and saquinavir at different concentrations and for different times. Proliferation, clonogenicity and radiosensitivity were evaluated by crystal violet staining. Proteasomal activities were assessed using a cell based assay and immunoblotting. Cell cycle was analyzed by propidium iodide staining and flow cytometric analysis. Invasion was tested with Matrigel chambers. A t test for paired samples was used for statistical analysis. In all cell lines, saquinavir was more effective than ritonavir in reducing cell proliferation and inhibiting proteasomal activities (P<=0.05) Conversely, indinavir exerted a negligible effect. The saquinavir concentrations required to modulate the proteasome activities were higher than those observed to be effective in inhibiting cell proliferation. In HeLa cells, saquinavir was strongly effective in inhibiting cell invasion and clonogenicity (P<=0.05) at concentrations much lower than those required to perturb proteasomal activities. Saquinavir did not contribute to increase the sensitivity of HeLa cells to X rays. In conclusion, the present results demonstrate that saquinavir is able to significantly reduce cell proliferation, cell invasion and clonogenicity in a proteasome independent manner in in vitro models of CC, and suggest that saquinavir could be a promising CC therapeutic agent.
Optical response of cylindrical multilayers in the context of hydrodynamic convection diffusion model

In this work, we generalize the cascading scattering matrix algorithm for calculating the optical response of concentric multilayered structures comprised of either plasmonic metal or dielectric, within the framework of hydrodynamic convection diffusion model of electrodynamics. Two additional boundary conditions, namely, the continuity of first order pressure of free electron density and the continuity of normal components of free charge velocity, respectively, are adopted in order to handle the behaviour at interfaces involving metals. Scattering matrices at interfaces can be readily obtained and cascaded to obtain the modal coefficients in each layer by expanding electromagnetic waves in harmonic modes with cylindrical vector wave functions. We have validated the proposed method by analyzing the optical responses of several configurations of nanostructures, including a bi metallic nanocylinder and a hyperlens. We found that nonlocal effects can be important for small structures, when the characteristic.
Accelerating the Super Resolution Convolutional Neural Network
Venue: ECCV

As a successful deep model applied in image super resolution (SR) the Super Resolution Convolutional Neural Network (SRCNN) [1, 2] has demonstrated superior performance to the previous hand crafted models either in speed and restoration quality. However, the high computational cost still hinders it from practical usage that demands real time performance (24 fps) In this paper, we aim at accelerating the current SRCNN, and propose a compact hourglass shape CNN structure for faster and better SR. We re design the SRCNN structure mainly in three aspects. First, we introduce a deconvolution layer at the end of the network, then the mapping is learned directly from the original low resolution image (without interpolation) to the high resolution one. Second, we reformulate the mapping layer by shrinking the input feature dimension before mapping and expanding back afterwards. Third, we adopt smaller filter sizes but more mapping layers. The proposed model achieves a speed up of more than 40 times with even superior restoration quality. Further, we present the parameter settings that can achieve real time performance on a generic CPU while still maintaining good performance. A corresponding transfer strategy is also proposed for fast training and testing across different upscaling factors.
What are the combined effects of negative emotions and illness cognitions on self care in people with type 2 diabetes? A longitudinal structural equation model
Venue: Psychology health

To explore whether negative emotions mediate the effect of diabetes cognitions on diabetes self care and conversely whether diabetes cognitions mediate the effect of negative emotions on diabetes self care.  Longitudinal observational study in adults with type 2 diabetes.  Self reported depression and anxiety (Diabetes Wellbeing Questionnaire) cognitions (Illness Perceptions Questionnaire Revised; Beliefs about Medicines Questionnaire) and diabetes self care (Summary of Diabetes Self Care Activities Scale) were completed at baseline and six months. Analyses used structural equation modelling.  Baseline medication concerns were associated with elevated symptoms of depression and anxiety at follow up, but emotions did not mediate medication concern's effect on diabetes self care. Baseline depression and anxiety symptoms were associated with specific diabetes cognitions over time, but these cognition domains did not mediate emotion's effect on diabetes self care. Personal control remained independent of emotions and was associated with diabetes self care over time.  Negative emotions did not act directly or alongside cognitions to influence diabetes self care. The reciprocal relationship between diabetes cognitions and emotions suggests cognitive restructuring, in addition to other mood management intervention techniques would likely improve the emotional wellbeing of adults with type 2 diabetes. Likewise, personal control beliefs are likely important intervention targets for improving self care.
A comparison of methods for in situ discrimination of imaged phase boundaries using electrical capacitance tomography

The detection of hard boundaries using tomographic techniques is challenging due to the measurement resolution inherent in the hardware and smoothing effects created during image reconstruction. This paper is concerned with the development of data processing approaches which enable the use of electrical capacitance tomography (ECT) in real time applications to visualise interfaces in liquid/liquid and solid/liquid systems based upon phase permittivity differences in media with a high di electric continuum. The methodologies developed were applied to a series of phantoms to investigate their validity as a tool for imaging phase boundaries in two and three phase systems. In an ECT based tomogram, the interface between phases is exhibited as a transition region; by applying a threshold technique based upon known areas of each respective phase within the system, the transient region can be resolved into a sharp interface. The image error of a tomogram, defined as the deviation of all pixels from their theoretical value, has been calculated using a pixel by pixel approach; however this requires exact a priori knowledge and is unsuitable for in line application; the areal method used in this paper requires global phase distribution information thereby allowing for real time application. A range of threshold values were applied to tomograms of phantoms of varying geometry and the corresponding image error for each threshold value calculated using both the areal and pixel by pixel approaches given above. The threshold value yielding lowest image error from this range is further used in the binary images giving improved tomograms with approximately 40% increase in image accuracy when compared with a default threshold value. Close to the sensor wall, the image becomes distorted due to reconstruction errors arising from decreased density in the electrical field lines, resulting in a circular phantom appearing elongated by approximately 10% when positioned near the wall.
Comparing International and American Students' Challenges: A Literature Review.

International student numbers have increased drastically in the past few years. International students provide benefits to universities and American students such as greater revenue, and more open mindedness. There have been myriad studies that have examined the international student experience, but most have focused solely on international students. However, a careful examination of the current literature demonstrates that the presence of international students in the United States offers a variety of benefits to American students by improving cultural awareness, students' self evaluated skills, and even the American economy. This literature review highlights future research that should be performed as well as strategies that can be implemented by faculty and administration to help international students who are currently studying in the United States.
Resonant Andreev reflection in a normal metal/quantum dot/superconductor system with coupled Majorana bound states*

Andreev reflection (AR) in a normal metal/quantum dot/superconductor (N QD S) system with coupled Majorana bound states (MBSs) is investigated theoretically. We find that in the N QD S system, the AR can be enhanced when coupling to the MBSs is incorporated. Fano line shapes can be observed in the AR conductance spectrum when there is an appropriate QD MBS coupling or MBS MBS coupling. The AR conductance is always e2/2h at the zero Fermi energy point when only QD MBSs coupling is considered. In addition, the resonant AR occurs when the MBS MBS coupling roughly equals to the QD energy level. We also find that an AR antiresonance appears when the QD energy level approximately equals to the sum of the QD MBS coupling and the MBS MBS coupling. These features may serve as characteristic signatures for the probe of MBSs.
Resonant Andreev reflection in a normal metal/quantum dot/superconductor system with coupled Majorana bound states

Andreev reflection(AR) in a normal metal/quantum dot/superconductor(N QD S) system with coupled Majorana bound states(MBSs) is investigated theoretically. We find that in the N QD S system, the AR can be enhanced when coupling to the MBSs is incorporated. Fano line shapes can be observed in the AR conductance spectrum when there is an appropriate QD MBS coupling or MBS MBS coupling. The AR conductance is always e~2/2h at the zero Fermi energy point when only QD MBSs coupling is considered. In addition, the resonant AR occurs when the MBS MBS coupling roughly equals to the QD energy level. We also find that an AR antiresonance appears when the QD energy level approximately equals to the sum of the QD MBS coupling and the MBS MBS coupling. These features may serve as characteristic signatures for the probe of MBSs.
Surface acoustic wave devices for sensor applications

Surface acoustic wave (SAW) devices have been widely used in different fields and will continue to be of great importance in the foreseeable future. These devices are compact, cost efficient, easy to fabricate, and have a high performance, among other advantages. SAW devices can work as filters, signal processing units, sensors and actuators. They can even work without batteries and operate under harsh environments. In this review, the operating principles of SAW sensors, including temperature sensors, pressure sensors, humidity sensors and biosensors, will be discussed. Several examples and related issues will be presented. Technological trends and future developments will also be discussed.