nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Parasitic zoonoses associated with dogs and cats: a survey of Portuguese pet owners' awareness and deworming practices
Venue: Parasites Vectors

BackgroundParasitic diseases of companion animals comprise a group of globally distributed and rapidly spreading illnesses that are caused by a wide range of arthropods, helminths and protozoa. In addition to their veterinary importance, many of these parasites can also affect the human population, due to their zoonotic potential. The aim of the present work was to evaluate the knowledge of Portuguese pet owners regarding the zoonotic potential of parasites that dogs and cats can harbour, most common drugs, frequency of use and reasons for endo and ectoparasite control.MethodsSeventy hundred and fifty multiple choice questionnaires designed to obtain data knowledge about the meaning of zoonosis, knowledge about parasitic diseases and perception regarding their zoonotic potential, as well as the drugs, frequency and reason for deworming their animals were delivered to dog and/or cat owners from non rural (i.e. urban or semi urban) and rural parishes who attended veterinary medical centres from continental Portugal. total of 536 (71.5 questionnaires were retrieved. Two hundred and ninety five (56.5 responders had heard of zoonosis/zoonoses, but only 184 (35.2 knew their meaning. Tick fever, mange, leishmaniosis and ascaridiosis/roundworms were the parasitic diseases from pets most frequently identified. The number of owners who recognized the different parasitoses, who stated to have heard about zoonoses and who were aware of the potential transmission of parasites from animals to humans was significantly higher in those with intermediate (i.e. =9 and 12 years of schooling) and/or higher academic degree (i.e. licentiate, master's and/or doctorate degrees) The combinations of febantel pyrantel praziquantel (23.5 and milbemycin praziquantel (34.5 were the most widely endoparasitic drugs used in dogs and in cats, respectively. The most common ectoparasiticide used in dogs was a combination of imidacloprid permethrin (33.4 while in cats it was imidacloprid (26.3 followed by fipronil (25.4 The most used treatment schedule against internal and external parasites in dogs and cats was an administration every three months and the main reason to do it was as a prophylactic purpose.ConclusionsThe majority of Portuguese owners that attended veterinarian clinics use endoparasiticides and ectoparasiticides in/on their pets as a prophylactic measure, although in many cases not in the correct schedule of treatment. In addition, most of them are not aware of the possible transmission of parasites from their dogs and cats to themselves, a fact which highlights the important role of veterinarians in the continuous implementation of effective control measures to reduce the risk of parasitic infections in both humans and companion animals.
Predictive value of sperm morphology and progressively motile sperm count for pregnancy outcomes in intrauterine insemination.
Venue: Fertility and sterility

To investigate the value of sperm parameters to predict an ongoing pregnancy outcome in couples treated with intrauterine insemination (IUI) during a methodologically stable period of time.  Retrospective, observational study with logistic regression analyses.  University hospital.  A total of 1,166 couples visiting the fertility laboratory for their first IUI episode, including 4,251 IUI cycles. INTERVENTION(S) None. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURE(S) Sperm morphology, total progressively motile sperm count (TPMSC) and number of inseminated progressively motile spermatozoa (NIPMS) odds ratios (ORs) of the sperm parameters after the first IUI cycle and the first finished IUI episode; discriminatory accuracy of the multivariable model. RESULT(S) None of the sperm parameters was of predictive value for pregnancy after the first IUI cycle. In the first finished IUI episode, a positive relationship was found for =4% of morphologically normal spermatozoa (OR 1.39) and a moderate NIPMS (5 10 million; OR 1.73) Low NIPMS showed a negative relation =1 million; OR 0.42) The TPMSC had no predictive value. The multivariable model (i.e. sperm morphology, NIPMS, female age, male age, and the number of cycles in the episode) had a moderate discriminatory accuracy (area under the curve 0.73) CONCLUSION(S) Intrauterine insemination is especially relevant for couples with moderate male factor infertility (sperm morphology =4% NIPMS 5 10 million) In the multivariable model, however, the predictive power of these sperm parameters is rather low.
Sperm morphology, adenosine triphosphate (ATP) concentration and swimming velocity: unexpected relationships in a passerine bird
Venue: Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

The relationship between sperm energetics and sperm function is poorly known, but is central to our understanding of the evolution of sperm traits. The aim of this study was to examine how sperm morphology and ATP content affect sperm swimming velocity in the zebra finch Taeniopygia guttata. We exploited the high inter male variation in this species and created extra experimental power by increasing the number of individuals with very long or short sperm through artificial selection. We found a pronounced quadratic relationship between total sperm length and swimming velocity, with velocity increasing with length up to a point, but declining in the very longest sperm. We also found an unexpected negative association between midpiece length and ATP content: sperm with a short midpiece generally contained the highest concentration of ATP. Low intracellular ATP is therefore unlikely to explain reduced swimming velocity among the very longest sperm (which tend to have a shorter midpiece)
To grade or not to grade: balancing formative and summative assessment in post 16 teacher trainee observations

The issue of whether trainee teachers in the post 16 sector should have their classroom practice graded has been debated for a number of years. The case for training courses retaining an emphasis on written and verbal 'developmental' feedback at the expense of 'judgements' appears to be lost. This article is set within the context of an ever growing culture of performativity in English further education colleges, where grading is regarded as an essential requirement to ensure high quality teaching. Tensions are explored between stakeholders who call for graded observations of trainees' classroom performance (e.g. Ofsted and FEC quality assurance managers) and classroom based trainers and researchers who argue that grading is too judgemental and compromises the formative and developmental progress of trainees. The rationale for trainee teachers to have their classroom practice graded is contrasted with evidence that highlights the negative results of grading. This article reports findings from the evaluation of an innovative, alternative strategy that addresses Ofsted's central requirement for trainees to know 'where they are' in their development by offering a middle way between grading and not grading trainees' classroom performance.
Learning Common and Specific Features for RGB D Semantic Segmentation with Deconvolutional Networks
Venue: ECCV

In this paper, we tackle the problem of RGB D semantic segmentation of indoor images. We take advantage of deconvolutional networks which can predict pixel wise class labels, and develop a new structure for deconvolution of multiple modalities. We propose a novel feature transformation network to bridge the convolutional networks and deconvolutional networks. In the feature transformation network, we correlate the two modalities by discovering common features between them, as well as characterize each modality by discovering modality specific features. With the common features, we not only closely correlate the two modalities, but also allow them to borrow features from each other to enhance the representation of shared information. With specific features, we capture the visual patterns that are only visible in one modality. The proposed network achieves competitive segmentation accuracy on NYU depth dataset V1 and V2.
Architecture of a real time delay calculator for digital beamforming in ultrasound system
Venue: IET Circuits Devices Syst.

In ultrasound systems synthetic transmit aperture and phased array imaging are widely used for obtaining the high quality images. These imaging systems require dynamic focusing of the multi element transducer array at large number of scan points during transmission and reception. The array can be focused at any point by applying proper delay values to the signals, received or transmitted by each element of the array. Dynamic focusing requires on line computation of the delay values, for large number of scan points, corresponding to all the elements of the array. This paper describes a delay calculation algorithm and corresponding hardware architecture for dynamically focusing the convex transducer array at large number of scan points. The hardware architecture for the 64 element convex transducer array, which scans 128 scan lines having 1024 scan points on each scan line, consumes 61k gates. It shows around 57 86% improvement in terms of hardware consumption with respect to those of other available architectures. To reduce the overall complexity and latency of the delay calculator, a 28 bit radicand square root calculator architecture which requires less initial memory than that of the linear approximation and less hardware resources than that of the quadratic approximation is also presented.
High Performance FPGA Architecture for Multi line Beamforming in Ultrasound Applications
Venue: 2016 Euromicro Conference on Digital System Design (DSD)

Nowadays, several applications are requested to process huge amount of data with tight temporal constraints to produce "real time" results. This is the case of ultrasound (US) tomographic (B mode) images used in diagnostics. A B mode image is typically composed by many tens of vertical lines. Each line is calculated by the so called beamformer (BF) that combines the echoes received from tens of small piezoelectric transducers integrated in the US probe. The BF processes massive quantity of data (several Gb/s) and is implemented in fast digital devices like the FPGAs. In the standard approach, the B mode image is formed on a line by line basis, i.e. one line per pulse repetition interval (PRI) This limits the achievable image frame rate (IFR) to few tens of Hz, which is not suitable to detail fast, important phenomena like the heart valve movement. In the so called plane wave approach, the data needed to produce all of the B mode image lines are acquired in a single PRI. In this case, the IFR can be in the order of kHz, but a more complex BF is needed. In this paper, we present a Multi Line BF architecture, capable of real time processing tens of lines per PRI. The BF was implemented in the research ultrasound system ULA OP 256. A sample B mode sequence obtained at IFR 600Hz is presented.
Childhood Onset of Behavioral Problems and Violent Victimization Among Serious Juvenile Offenders

There is a growing literature suggesting that childhood onset behavioral problems have negative long term effects on multiple life domains, including poor physical and mental health, substance use, interpersonal conflict, and domestic violence. The current study extends this line of research by assessing the association between childhood onset behavioral problems and later violent victimization. Using a sample of serious juvenile offenders, the study shows that individuals with childhood onset behavioral problems are at an elevated risk of encountering violent victimization during adolescence and early adulthood. Results suggest that childhood onset does not directly lead to later victimization; instead, a mediating process that involves children's continuing involvement in delinquency/criminal activities and association with deviant peers ultimately put these youth into high risk situations.
Long term clinical outcomes following 3 and 4 level anterior cervical discectomy and fusion.
Venue: Journal of neurosurgery. Spine

The purpose of this study was to report the long term clinical outcomes following 3 and 4 level anterior cervical discectomy and fusion (ACDF) METHODS A retrospective review of all adult neurosurgical patients undergoing elective ACDF for degenerative disease at a single institution between 1996 and 2013 was performed. Patients who underwent first time 3 or 4 level ACDF were included; patients with previous cervical spine surgery, those undergoing anterior/posterior approaches, and those with corpectomy were excluded. Outcome measures included perioperative complication rates, fusion rates, need for revision surgery, Nurick Scores, Odom's criteria, symptom resolution, neck visual analog scale (VAS) pain score, and persistent narcotics usage.  Seventy one patients who underwent 3 level ACDF and 26 patients who underwent 4 level ACDF were identified and followed for an average of 7.6 4.2 years. There was 1 case (3.9% of deep wound infection in the 4 level group and 1 case in the 3 level group (1.4% p 0.454) Postoperatively, 31% of patients in the 4 level group complained of dysphagia, compared with 12.7% in the 3 level group (p 0.038) The fusion rate was 84.6% after 4 level ACDF and 94.4% after 3 level ACDF (p 0.122) At last follow up, a significantly higher proportion of patients in the 4 level group continued to have axial neck pain (53.8% than in the 3 level group (31% p 0.039) the daily oral morphine equivalent dose was significantly higher in the 4 level group (143 97 mg/day) than in the 3 level group (25 10 mg/day; p 0.030) Outcomes based on Odom's criteria were also different between cohorts (p 0.044) with a significantly lower proportion of patients in the 4 level ACDF group experiencing an excellent/good outcome.  In this study, patients who underwent 4 level ACDF had significantly higher rates of dysphagia, postoperative neck pain, and postoperative narcotic usage when compared with patients who underwent 3 level ACDF. Pseudarthrosis and deep wound infection rates were also higher in the 4 level group, although this did not reach statistical significance. Additionally, a smaller proportion of patients achieved a good/excellent outcome in the 4 level group than in the 3 level group. These findings suggest a significant increase of perioperative morbidity and worsened outcomes for patients who undergo 4 versus 3 level ACDF.
Scalable MCMC for Mixed Membership Stochastic Blockmodels
Venue: AISTATS

We propose a stochastic gradient Markov chain Monte Carlo (SG MCMC) algorithm for scalable inference in mixed membership stochastic blockmodels (MMSB) Our algorithm is based on the stochastic gradient Riemannian Langevin sampler and achieves both faster speed and higher accuracy at every iteration than the current state of the art algorithm based on stochastic variational inference. In addition we develop an approximation that can handle models that entertain a very large number of communities. The experimental results show that SG MCMC strictly dominates competing algorithms in all cases.
Scalable MCMC for Mixed Membership Stochastic Blockmodels

We propose a stochastic gradient Markov chain Monte Carlo (SG MCMC) algorithm for scalable inference in mixed membership stochastic blockmodels (MMSB) Our algorithm is based on the stochastic gradient Riemannian Langevin sampler and achieves both faster speed and higher accuracy at every iteration than the current state of the art algorithm based on stochastic variational inference. In addition we develop an approximation that can handle models that entertain a very large number of communities. The experimental results show that SG MCMC strictly dominates competing algorithms in all cases.
[Implications of PI RADS Version 1 and Updated Version 2 on the Scoring of Prostatic Lesions in Multiparametric MRI]
Venue: Aktuelle Urologie

A revised version of the PI RADS scoring system has been introduced and score related variability between version 1 and 2 may be suspected. This study aimed to assess the PI RADS scores derived from version 1 (v1) and the updated version 2 (v2)  patients with biopsy proven prostate cancer (PCa) and 90 lesions detected on pre biopsy 3 Tesla multiparametric MRI were included in this retrospective analysis. 2 experienced radiologists scored all lesions in consensus. Lesion scores differing between PI RADS v1 and v2 were further analyzed. Histology data from radical prostatectomy (RP) were included when available.  The PI RADS v1 and v2 score differed in 52% of patients (32/61) and in 39% of lesions (35/90) On a lesion basis, the reason for the differences were related to sum score in v1 vs. categorical system in v2 in 51% (18/35) of lesions, cutoff between PI RADS 4 and 5 based on lesion size in v2 as opposed to the sum score in v1 in 31% (11/35) and were inconclusive in 17% (6/35) The RP subgroup indicates enhanced detection of PCas with GS 3+3 and GS 3+4 in v2.  PI RADS scores of prostatic lesions frequently differed between v1 and v2, the major reasons for these differences being score related. In men undergoing RP, PI RADS v2 improved detection of low risk PCa, but did not increase accuracy for discrimination of GS 3+4 vs. GS>=4+3 compared to v1. Urologists should be aware of the system related differences when interpreting PI RADS scores.
Sheet Music Statistical Layout Analysis
Venue: 2016 15th International Conference on Frontiers in Handwriting Recognition (ICFHR)

In order to provide access to the contents of ancient music scores to researchers, the transcripts of both the lyrics and the musical notation is required. Before attempting any type of automatic or semi automatic transcription of sheet music, an adequate layout analysis (LA) is needed. This LA must provide not only the locations of the different image regions, but also adequate region labels to distinguish between different region types such as staff, lyric, etc. To this end, we adapt a stochastic framework for LA based on Hidden Markov Models that we had previously introduced for detection and classification of text lines in typical handwritten text images. The proposed approach takes a scanned music score image as input and, after basic preprocessing, simultaneously performs region detection and region classification in an integrated way. To assess this statistical LA approach several experiments were carried out on a representative sample of a historical music archive, under different difficulty settings. The results show that our approach is able to tackle these structured documents providing good results not only for region detection but also for classification of the different regions.
Music Generation from Statistical Models of Harmony

This article investigates the problem of sampling from statistical models of music, motivated by the fact that music generated by random walk is generally atypical in style and of vastly inferior quality compared with pieces in the corpus. Specifically, we employ a multiple viewpoint system of four part harmony, in conjunction with a small set of general rules of harmony, to evaluate an improved iterative random walk technique which efficiently finds low cross entropy (high probability) solutions. By first using standard iterative random walk, we show that a range of very high cross entropy harmonizations is generated. Furthermore, we demonstrate a relationship between cross entropy and the number of rule violations; that is, there are fewer violations at lower cross entropy. Motivated by this result, the application of an improved sampling technique was used to produce solutions of very low cross entropy, confirming that the correlation between cross entropy and rule violations extends into the low cross entropy region. Various diversity measures, such as the number of non diatonic notes per 100 melody notes, also exhibit trends with respect to cross entropy. These findings are likely to influence future research involving the generation of samples from statistical models, in the realm of music and beyond.
The SNARC Effect in Number Memorization and Retrieval. What is the Impact of Congruency, Magnitude and the Exact Position of Numbers in Short Term Memory Processing?
Venue: Advances in cognitive psychology

Mental representations of numbers are spatially organized along a Mental Number Line (MNL) One widely proven manifestation of this relationship is the Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC) effect. It refers to the phenomenon of faster responses to numbers when there is congruency between the reaction side and the number position on the MNL Although long term memory is considered to house the MNL, short term memory (STM) load may also modulate responses to numbers and the SN ARCRC effect. Our question, however, was not how STM content modulates the SNARC effect observed in responses to digits, but rather how the MNLNL representation affects the number retrieval from ST M. Each trial began with four digits presented horizontally in a spatial sequence (prime stimuli) which were then replaced by one of the priming digits as a single target. The task required participants to recall the exact location of the target. The SN ARCRC effect occurred only in the retrieval of left sided digits, most likely because of the generally better processing of right sided ones, as well as in reaction to digits presented more laterally. Moreover, memory processing was more efficient with low magnitude numbers, which may suggest that they trigger attention shifting. We conclude that the MNL affects not only the responses to numbers obtained in typical SNARC induction tasks, such as number detection, parity judgment or magnitude comparison, but also memorization and retrieval of them. Importantly, this effect seems to be dependent on the exact position of a digit in STM.
Peer Mentoring in Higher Education and the Development of Leadership Skills in Mentors

We examine the question of whether peer mentoring programs in higher education develop leadership skills in student mentors.  The various forms of peer mentoring are discussed, as well as the benefits that these programs can bestow on mentors. We then turn to a discussion of the relationship between peer mentoring and leadership, and place particular emphasis on implicit leadership theories and the research in this area. A case study of a large peer mentoring program at an Australian university is undertaken and the various aspects of implicit leadership theory are examined in the light of comments collected from both mentees and mentors.  Evidence of implicit leadership skills of mentors was seen in the responses of mentees. However, the explicit treatment of leadership skills in the peer mentoring program needs to be approached in a more deliberate manner if students are to benefit fully from the experience of mentoring.  While the results of this study were inconclusive, it does provide a basis for further inspection of leadership development within peer mentoring communities.