nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Modelling of stress corrosion cracking by using peridynamics

We present for the first time a numerical multiphysics peridynamic framework for the modelling of adsorbed hydrogen stress corrosion cracking (SCC) based on the adsorption induced decohesion mechanism. The material is modelled at the microscopic scale using microstructural data. First principle studies available in the literature are used for characterizing the process of intergranular material strength degradation. The model consists of a polycrystalline AISI 4340 high strength low alloy (HSLA) thin, pre cracked steel plate subjected to a constant displacement controlled loading and exposed to an aqueous solution. Different values of stress intensity factor (SIF) are considered, and the resulting crack propagation speed and branching behaviour are found to be in good agreement with experimental results available in the literature.
Effect of plastic deformation on the electrochemical and stress corrosion cracking behavior of X70 steel in near neutral pH environment

This work investigated the effect of plastic deformation on the electrochemical and stress corrosion cracking (SCC) behavior of X70 steel in near neutral pH environment. The deformation induced increase in electrochemical activity, dislocation density and heterogeneity, and surface roughness accelerated the corrosion, especially the cathodic reactions. Hydrogen absorption and permeation into the steel is promoted by the plastic deformation, resulting in the high hydrogen content of the pre deformed steels. Moreover, the SCC susceptibility increases with plastic elongation, which is attributed to the enhanced anodic dissolution and hydrogen absorption.
Prediction of hip osteoporosis by DXA using a novel pulse echo ultrasound device
Venue: Osteoporosis International

SummaryPulse echo ultrasonometry can be used as a pre screen for hip osteoporosis before dual energy x ray absorptiometry (DXA) potentially allowing DXA to be avoided for the majority of post menopausal women. Pulse echo ultrasound measures of tibia cortical thickness are also associated with radiographically confirmed prior fractures, independent of femoral neck bone mineral density.IntroductionTo estimate how well a pulse echo ultrasound device discriminates those who have from those who do not have hip osteoporosis (femoral neck bone mineral density [BMD] or total hip BMD T score 2.5) and to estimate the association of pulse echo ultrasound measures with prevalent (radiographically confirmed) clinical fractures.MethodsFive hundred fifty five post menopausal women age 50 to 89 had femoral neck and total hip BMD measured by dual energy x ray absorptiometry (DXA) and pulse echo ultrasound measures of distal radius, proximal tibia, distal tibia cortical thickness, and multi and single site density indices (DI) Using previously published threshold ultrasound values, we estimated the proportion of women who would avoid a follow up DXA after pulse echo ultrasonometry, and the sensitivity and specificity of this for the detection of hip osteoporosis. Logistic regression models were used to estimate the associations of pulse echo ultrasound measures with radiographically confirmed clinical fractures within the prior 5 years.ResultsUsing multi site and single site DI measures, follow up DXA could be avoided for 73 and 69 of individuals, respectively, while detecting hip osteoporosis with 80 82 sensitivity and 81 specificity. Radiographically confirmed prior fracture was associated with ultrasound measures of single site DI (odds ratio (OR) 1.55, 95 confidence interval (CI) 1.06 to 2.26) and proximal tibia cortical thickness (OR 1.47, 95 CI 1.10 to 1.96) adjusted for age, body mass index, and femoral neck BMD.ConclusionsPulse echo ultrasonometry can be used as an initial screening test for hip osteoporosis. Prospective studies of how well pulse echo ultrasound measures predict subsequent clinical fractures are warranted.
Utility of DXA scanning and risk factors for osteoporosis in ankylosing spondylitis A prospective study.
Venue: Seminars in arthritis and rheumatism

Conventional DXA imaging of spine and hip to measure bone mineral density (BMD) has limitations in patients with ankylosing spondylitis (AS) We investigated the correlation of hip and spine BMD measurements in patients with AS to determine if hip DXA will prove clinically useful while avoiding the confounding effect of spinal disease. Also, we studied risk factors for osteoporosis (OP) and osteopenia in AS.  We randomly identified patients from our validated AS registry =18 years of age who met the Modified New York Classification criteria for AS. BMD was measured and interpreted using ISCD 2007 guidelines and diagnosis of OP was based on WHO criteria. ESR, CRP, urinary N telopeptide, and 25 hydroxy vitamin D were also measured. Correlation between the BMD (total hip and/or femoral neck) and lumbar spine was calculated. Statistical comparisons between the 2 sites, lumbar spine (AP) and hip (total hip and or femoral neck) were made using Bowker's test for symmetry and kappa statistics. Chi square and odds ratio using logistic regression were used to assess the association of the purported risk factors for OP in these patients.  Frequency of OP among AS patients =50 years of age was 23% and that of osteopenia was 41% Among patients <50 years of age, the frequency of low bone mass for expected age (Z score 2.0) was 14.7% There was moderate correlation (r 0.59) and a fair agreement (k 0.26; 95% CI: 0.10 0.42) between the lowest T values of hip and lumbar spine (AP view) OP was significantly associated with elevated CRP level [OR 4.2 (95% CI: 1.13 15.9) p 0.03] and African American race [OR 7.2 (95% CI: 1.18 44.99) p 0.03]  Our results demonstrated a moderate correlation and fair agreement between the T scores of hip and the lumbar spine (AP view) in patients with AS, suggesting that DXA of the hip and the lumbar spine (AP view) may both be useful for OP and osteopenia screening in patients with AS without fused spines. We confirm the previous reports of an association of elevated CRP level with an increased risk of OP in patients with AS, but this is the first study to demonstrate that African American patients with AS may be at a higher risk of developing OP compared to Caucasians.
Effects of a DXA result letter on satisfaction, quality of life, and osteoporosis knowledge: a randomized controlled trial
Venue: BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders

BackgroundUndiagnosed, or diagnosed and untreated osteoporosis (OP) increases the likelihood that falls result in hip fractures, decreased quality of life (QOL) and significant medical expenditures among older adults. We tested whether a tailored dual energy x ray absorptiometry (DXA) test result letter and an accompanying educational bone health brochure affected patient satisfaction, QOL, or OP knowledge.MethodsThe Patient Activation after DXA Result Notification (PAADRN) study was a double blinded, pragmatic, randomized trial which enrolled patients from 2012 to 2014. We randomized 7,749 patients presenting for DXA at three health care institutions in the United States who were 50 years old and able to understand English. Intervention patients received a tailored letter four weeks after DXA containing their results, 10 year fracture risk, and a bone health educational brochure. Control patients received the results of their DXA per the usual practices of their providers and institutions. Satisfaction with bone health care, QOL, and OP knowledge were assessed at baseline and 12 and 52 weeks after DXA. Intention to treat analyses used multiple imputation for missing data and random effects regression models to adjust for clustering within providers and covariates.ResultsAt 12 weeks 6,728 (86.8 and at 52 weeks 6,103 participants (78.8 completed their follow up interviews. The intervention group was more satisfied with their bone health care compared to the usual care group at both their 12 and 52 week follow ups (standardized effect size 0.28 at 12 weeks and 0.17 at 52 weeks, p 0.001) There were no differences between the intervention and usual care groups in QOL or OP knowledge at either time point.ConclusionsA tailored DXA result letter and bone health educational brochure sent to patients improved patient satisfaction with bone related health care.
Binarized Neural Networks
Venue: NIPS

We introduce a method to train Binarized Neural Networks (BNNs) neural networks with binary weights and activations at run time. At train time the binary weights and activations are used for computing the parameter gradients. During the forward pass, BNNs drastically reduce memory size and accesses, and replace most arithmetic operations with bit wise operations, which is expected to substantially improve power efficiency. To validate the effectiveness of BNNs, we conducted two sets of experiments on the Torch7 and Theano frameworks. On both, BNNs achieved nearly state of the art results over the MNIST, CIFAR 10 and SVHN datasets. We also report our preliminary results on the challenging ImageNet dataset. Last but not least, we wrote a binary matrix multiplication GPU kernel with which it is possible to run our MNIST BNN 7 times faster than with an unoptimized GPU kernel, without suffering any loss in classification accuracy. The code for training and running our BNNs is available on line.
A STUDY OF VARIATIONS OF TESTICULAR VEIN AND ITS CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCE

Address for Correspondence: Dr. D. Malar, Assistant Professor, JSS Medical College, JSS University, Mysore, Karnataka, India. Phone no. +919448434067, 08212410142 E Mail: janavi.rk@gmail.com, malarjan2519@gmail.com  Testis is drained by the pampiniform plexus of veins which join to form four veins at the superficial inguinal ring, two veins at the deep inguinal ring and one vein at variable levels in the abdomen. The right testicular vein drains into inferior vena cava and left testicular vein drains into the left renal vein. Testicular veins show several variations and they are variations in number; course and termination. The knowledge of anatomic variations of testicular vein will help surgeons and radiologists in recognition of these anomalies and avoid potential complications during surgical procedures.  Testicular veins were studied in 25 adult cadavers by dissection method. Two anatomic aspects were considered: Number of testicular veins, and the site of vein termination.  In the present study variations in termination and duplication of testicular veins were observed. Right side One testicular vein occurred in 92% and 2 veins in 4% of the cases. Left side One testicular vein occurred in 88% two veins in 8% Variations of the testicular veins are due to alterations in the embryological origin of the veins.  variations of site of termination and duplication of testicular veins were observed in the present study. These variations are significant surgically and radiological.
UNILATERAL VARIATION OF THE RENAL VEIN AND TESTICULAR VEIN A CASE REPORT

The right and left renal veins open into the inferior vena cava at right angle. The left renal vein is 3 times longer as compared to right. The right gonadal vein (testicular in male or ovarian in female) drains directly into inferior vena cava and left gonadal vein into left renal vein.  During the routine dissection teaching of posterior abdominal wall for first year MBBS students in the Department of Anatomy, MSRMC, Bangalore, we found the presence of double right renal veins along with variation in the termination of right testicular vein in an adult male cadaver aged 65 years. All the structures were carefully dissected, measurements noted and photographed using a digital camera.  In the present case, two right renal veins (superior and inferior) were found to be draining into inferior vena cava separately and right testicular vein into inferior right renal vein  This type of variation will help the radiologists for planning radiographic procedures; the surgeons for planning surgery to avoid intra and post operative complications and the clinicians in recognition and protection of the variation.
A cadaveric study of the testicular artery and its clinical significance
Venue: Jornal vascular brasileiro

Knowledge of testicular artery variations is vital to ensure that they are not neglected during a variety of different operative techniques, since damage can cause testicular atrophy.  The present study was therefore intended to identify variants in the origin and course of the testicular arteries. An attempt was made to classify the arteries based on their various origins.  This study examined 42 formalin fixed cadavers of 40 to 70 year old adult males. Variant origins of the testicular artery were identified and classified. Variations in the origin and course of the artery were colored, photographed, and documented. The distances between the origins of the testicular arteries and the mid points of the origins of the renal arteries were measured.  Testicular arteries were classified into four categories on the basis of origin. This variability was defined in relation to the renal and inferior mesenteric arteries. The mean distance between the origin of the testicular artery and the mid point of the origin of the renal artery were 3.08 and 3.47 cm, on the right and left sides respectively. Variations were almost exclusively found on the left side. The variations observed included multiple arterial twigs forming the testicular artery, suprarenal arteries arising from the testicular artery, and testicular artery duplication.  This study provides an insight into variations in the testicular artery and proposes a classification which could help surgeons during a variety of procedures on the male abdomen and pelvis.
The impact of education and occupation on domestic violence in Saudi Arabia

This study examined the role of education and occupation in connection with domestic violence in Saudi Arabia based on a survey administered to 917 women who had varying years of education and various types of occupations. Results show that education and occupation play a positive role in the life of Saudi women by reducing the level of domestic violence to which they are exposed. Education was found to lower the rate of domestic violence by around 7% A significant difference in the level of domestic violence was found as well between employed and unemployed women. In Saudi Arabia, having an education and/or earning an income seems to give women more power and higher social status, which in turn appears to lower the level of domestic violence they experience compared with women who do not work, have few years of education or are not currently enrolled in education.
Constructing diagnostic likelihood: clinical decisions using subjective versus statistical probability
Venue: Postgraduate Medical Journal

Although physicians are highly trained in the application of evidence based medicine, and are assumed to make rational decisions, there is evidence that their decision making is prone to biases. One of the biases that has been shown to affect accuracy of judgements is that of representativeness and base rate neglect, where the saliency of a person's features leads to overestimation of their likelihood of belonging to a group. This results in the substitution of 'subjective' probability for statistical probability.  This study examines clinicians' propensity to make estimations of subjective probability when presented with clinical information that is considered typical of a medical condition. The strength of the representativeness bias is tested by presenting choices in textual and graphic form. Understanding of statistical probability is also tested by omitting all clinical information.  For the questions that included clinical information, 46.7% and 45.5% of clinicians made judgements of statistical probability, respectively. Where the question omitted clinical information, 79.9% of clinicians made a judgement consistent with statistical probability. There was a statistically significant difference in responses to the questions with and without representativeness information (kh2 (1, n=254)=54.45, p<0.0001) Conclusions Physicians are strongly influenced by a representativeness bias, leading to base rate neglect, even though they understand the application of statistical probability. One of the causes for this representativeness bias may be the way clinical medicine is taught where stereotypic presentations are emphasised in diagnostic decision making.
Detection of Theileria orientalis in mosquito blood meals in the United Kingdom.
Venue: Veterinary parasitology

Theileria spp. are tick borne protozoan parasites that infect a wide range of wild and domestic animals. In this study, the utility of xenosurveillance of blood fed specimens of Culiseta annulata for detecting the presence of piroplasms in livestock was investigated. Blood fed mosquitoes were collected at Elmley National Nature Reserve, Kent, United Kingdom. All specimens were morphologically identified, and DNA barcoding was used to confirm the morphological identification. Both the vertebrate host species and Theileria genome was detected within the bloodmeal by real time PCR. Sequencing was used to confirm the identity of all amplicons. In total, 105 blood fed mosquitoes morphologically identified as Cs. annulata were collected. DNA barcoding revealed that 102 specimens were Cs. annulata (99% while a single specimen was identified as Anopheles messeae. Two specimens could not be identified molecularly due to PCR amplification failure. Blood meal analysis revealed that Cs. annulata fed almost exclusively on cattle at the collection site (n=100) The application of a pan piroplasm PCR detected 16 positive samples (15.2% and sequence analysis of the amplicons demonstrated that the piroplasms present in the blood meal belonged to the Theileria orientalis group. This study demonstrates how xenosurveillance can be applied to detecting pathogens in livestock and confirms the presence of Theileria species in livestock from the United Kingdom.
An investigation of factors affecting employee satisfaction and loyalty in the Fire Fighting and Prevention Police of Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam

Satisfaction and loyalty of employee had been confirmed to be important factors to organisation"s survival and development. An organization has employees who are satisfied with job and loyal with their oganization, it will has more advantages during operation. An organization has employees who are satisfied with job and loyal with their organization, it will have more advantages during operation. This study aims to examine the effects of employee training, employee empowerment, management leadership, and teamwork on employee satisfaction and investigate the relationship between satisfaction and loyalty of employee in the Fire Fighting and Prevention Police of Ho Chi Minh City. The study was conducted by the survey questionnaire with a sample of 450 employees of the specialized units in the Fire Fighting and Prevention Police of Ho Chi Minh City. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences SPSS 20 and Analysis of Moment Structures AMOS software version 20 were used to test the research model. The results of this study examined that employee empowerment, employee training is significant positive with employee satisfaction; which employee empowerment was found to be the most important factor in relation to employee satisfaction. It is also revealed that there was a strong relationship between employee loyalty and employee satisfaction in the Fire Fighting and Prevention Police of Ho Chi Minh City Vietnam.
The factors affecting employee's satisfaction and loyalty: An evidence from the People's Committee of Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

Employees are seen as a valuable resource that can contribute in various ways to an organization's activities. In order to prevent the phenomenon of "brain drain" from the public sectors to other sectors and have a stable human resource, the organization needs to make employees feel satisfied in work and want to have a strong attachment to the organization for a long time by their loyalty. The aim of the study is to explore the factors that affecting the job satisfaction of employees in the People Committee of Binh Tan District, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; to examine the relationship between employees' satisfaction and loyalty; and to provide solutions to improve the degree of satisfaction and loyalty for employees in this organization. The research model includes six variables, including four independent variables (empowerment, salary and rewards, training, and career advancement opportunities) one dependent variable (loyalty) and one intermediate variable (satisfaction) These variables corresponds with five hypotheses. The research is conducted on 170 staffs who are working at People's Committee of Binh Tan District through a survey by the questionnaires. Amos 20 was used to test the model, and then, the author ran Amos 20 for CFA and SEM with purpose of enhancing the value of the model, analyzed the data and brought out the results for this study. The results indicated a remarkably positive correlation between satisfaction with salary and rewards as well as a positive relation was also illustrated between the satisfaction with training and empowerment. However, career advancement opportunities has shown an insignificant relation with satisfaction in this organization. Apart from that, implications for management and policy markers in the context of personnel source in People's Committee of Binh Tan District in particular and the Vietnamese local governments in general are discussed in this study.
Safe and Efficient Off Policy Reinforcement Learning
Venue: NIPS

In this work, we take a fresh look at some old and new algorithms for off policy, return based reinforcement learning. Expressing these in a common form, we derive a novel algorithm, Retrace(\lambda$ with three desired properties: (1) it has low variance; (2) it safely uses samples collected from any behaviour policy, whatever its degree of "off policyness" and (3) it is efficient as it makes the best use of samples collected from near on policy behaviour policies. We analyze the contractive nature of the related operator under both off policy policy evaluation and control settings and derive online sample based algorithms. We believe this is the first return based off policy control algorithm converging a.s. to $Q^ without the GLIE assumption (Greedy in the Limit with Infinite Exploration) As a corollary, we prove the convergence of Watkins' Q(\lambda$ which was an open problem since 1989. We illustrate the benefits of Retrace(\lambda$ on a standard suite of Atari 2600 games.
Learning Purposeful Behaviour in the Absence of Rewards
Venue: ArXiv

Artificial intelligence is commonly defined as the ability to achieve goals in the world. In the reinforcement learning framework, goals are encoded as reward functions that guide agent behaviour, and the sum of observed rewards provide a notion of progress. However, some domains have no such reward signal, or have a reward signal so sparse as to appear absent. Without reward feedback, agent behaviour is typically random, often dithering aimlessly and lacking intentionality. In this paper we present an algorithm capable of learning purposeful behaviour in the absence of rewards. The algorithm proceeds by constructing temporally extended actions (options) through the identification of purposes that are "just out of reach" of the agent's current behaviour. These purposes establish intrinsic goals for the agent to learn, ultimately resulting in a suite of behaviours that encourage the agent to visit different parts of the state space. Moreover, the approach is particularly suited for settings where rewards are very sparse, and such behaviours can help in the exploration of the environment until reward is observed.