nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
What students learn from hands on activities

The ability to design and interpret controlled experiments is an important scientific process skill and a common objective of science standards. Numerous intervention studies have investigated how the control of variables strategy (CVS) can be introduced to students. However, a meta analysis of 72 intervention studies found that the opportunity to train CVS skills with hands on tasks (g 0.59) did not lead to better acquisition of CVS relative to interventions without a hands on component (g 0.74) We conducted an intervention study in which we investigated the differential effects of hands on and paper and pencil training tasks on 161 eighth grade students' achievement. CVS was demonstrated to all students before they were grouped into a hands on or a paper and pencil training condition. In both training conditions, students designed and interpreted experiments about which variables influence the force of electromagnets. Students in the hands on group interacted with physical equipment while students in the paper and pencil group planned experiments using sketches and interpreted the outcome of experiments presented in photographs. We found no general advantage or disadvantage of hands on tasks, as both groups did equally well on CVS and content knowledge tests. However, hands on students outperformed paper and pencil students on a hands on test identical to the training tasks, whereas the paper and pencil students outperformed hands on students on a science fair poster evaluation task similar to the paper and pencil training. In summary, students learned task specific procedural knowledge, but they did not acquire a deeper conceptual understanding of CVS or the content domain as a function of type of training. Implications for instruction and assessment are discussed.
Young people's cognitive achievement as fostered by hands on centred environmental education

In line with previous studies, where outdoor nature experience was shown to support adolescents' environmental knowledge, our study monitored the influence of a hands on environmental programme within a National Park on cognitive knowledge achievement. A sample of 4th and 5th graders (n 289) completed a week long outreach conservation programme with two follow up options: the first group (n 170) interacted with thematic posters, the second group (n 128) also completed a thematic board game. In a quasi experimental design, we analysed both versions with regard to achievement efforts and individual situational emotions. Altogether, programme participation added cognitive knowledge, while group one (poster and board game as follow up option) outmatched group two (just the poster option) Measures of 'state' and 'situational' emotions regarding the programme and right after game participation revealed positive effects toward knowledge. Thus, we conclude, direct experiences with nature and additional hands on follow up activities may foster a student's cognitive achievement in such programmes.
Estimating affine invariant structures on triangle meshes
Venue: Comput. Graph.

Affine invariant measures are powerful tools to develop robust shape descriptors that can be applied, for example, to shape matching, shape retrieval, or symmetry detection problems. In this work we introduce estimators for the affine structure of surfaces represented by triangle meshes, i.e. affine co normal and normal vectors, affine curvature tensors, affine mean and Gaussian curvatures, and affine principal directions and curvatures. The proposed method estimates the affine normal using a finite differences scheme together with a least squares approximation, followed by a weighted average strategy to approach discrete affine curvature tensors. When compared to the exact geometric measures of analytic models, experiments on regular meshes obtain small error, which decreases for finer meshes, and outperforms the state of the art method in some cases. Experiments to evaluate affine invariance show that the difference between measures before and after equi affine transformations remains small even after large deformations.
Structural Characterization of Large Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons. Part 2: Solvent Separated Fractions of Coal Tar Pitch and Naphthalene Derived Pitch

Complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) mixtures separated from a coal tar pitch (CP) and naphthalene pitch (NP) by sequential extraction with heptane and toluene were characterized in detail by applying a multiarray analytical approach. Gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC MS) size exclusion chromatography (SEC) laser desorption ionization time of flight mass spectrometry (LDI TOFMS) and thermogravimetry (TG) were used to relate the volatility and coking yield of pitch components to their solubility and molecular weight distribution. Spectroscopic analysis, including infrared (IR) ultraviolet visible (UV vis) and fluorescence spectroscopy, proved to be useful for measuring specific features of aromatic systems, such as the aromatic content, degree of aliphatic substitution, and size distribution of PAHs of different molecular weights. In particular, it has been shown that the spectroscopic analysis is an essential tool for characterizing very large PAH systems concentrated in the pitch tol.
A spatial model of socioeconomic and environmental determinants of dengue fever in Cali, Colombia.
Venue: Acta tropica

Dengue fever has gradually re emerged across the global South, particularly affecting urban areas of the tropics and sub tropics. The dynamics of dengue fever transmission are sensitive to changes in environmental conditions, as well as local demographic and socioeconomic factors. In 2010, the municipality of Cali, Colombia, experienced one of its worst outbreaks, however the outbreak was not spatially homogeneous across the city. In this paper, we evaluate the role of socioeconomic and environmental factors associated with this outbreak at the neighborhood level, using a Geographically Weighted Regression model. Key socioeconomic factors include population density and socioeconomic stratum, whereas environmental factors are proximity to both tire shops and plant nurseries and the presence of a sewage system (R2=0.64) The strength of the association between these factors and the incidence of dengue fever is spatially heterogeneous at the neighborhood level. The findings provide evidence to support public health strategies in allocating resources locally, which will enable a better detection of high risk areas, a reduction of the risk of infection and to strengthen the resilience of the population.
Severe Dengue Fever Outbreak in Taiwan.
Venue: The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene

Dengue fever (DF) is a vector borne disease caused by dengue viruses (DENVs) Epidemic dengue occurs intermittently in Taiwan. In 2014, Taiwan experienced its largest DF outbreak. There were 15,732 DF cases reported. There were a total of 136 dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF) cases, of which 20 resulted in death. Most DF cases were reported in southern Taiwan. A total of 15,043 (96% cases were from Kaohsiung, a modern city in southern Taiwan. This report reviews DF epidemics in Taiwan during 2005 2014. The correlation between DF and DHF along with temperature and precipitation were conjointly examined. We conclude that most dengue epidemics in Taiwan resulted from imported DF cases. Results indicate three main factors that may have been associated with this DF outbreak in Kaohsiung: an underground pipeline explosion combined with subsequent rainfall and higher temperature. These factors may have enhanced mosquito breeding activity, facilitating DENV transmission.
Dengue Fever: Causes, Complications, and Vaccine Strategies
Venue: Journal of immunology research

Dengue is a highly endemic infectious disease of the tropical countries and is rapidly becoming a global burden. It is caused by any of the 4 serotypes of dengue virus and is transmitted within humans through female Aedes mosquitoes. Dengue disease varies from mild fever to severe conditions of dengue hemorrhagic fever and shock syndrome. Globalization, increased air travel, and unplanned urbanization have led to increase in the rate of infection and helped dengue to expand its geographic and demographic distribution. Dengue vaccine development has been a challenging task due to the existence of four antigenically distinct dengue virus serotypes, each capable of eliciting cross reactive and disease enhancing antibody response against the remaining three serotypes. Recently, Sanofi Pasteur's chimeric live attenuated dengue vaccine candidate has been approved in Mexico, Brazil, and Philippines for usage in adults between 9 and 45 years of age. The impact of its limited application to the public health system needs to be evaluated. Simultaneously, the restricted application of this vaccine candidate warrants continued efforts in developing a dengue vaccine candidate which is additionally efficacious for infants and naive individuals. In this context, alternative strategies of developing a designed vaccine candidate which does not allow production of enhancing antibodies should be explored, as it may expand the umbrella of efficacy to include infants and naive individuals.
Dengue Fever Classification Using Gene Expression Data: A PSO Based Artificial Neural Network Approach
Venue: FICTA

A mosquito borne pathogen called Dengue virus (DENV) has been emerged as one of the most fatal threats in the recent time. Infections can be in two main forms, namely the DF (Dengue Fever) and DHF (Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever) An efficient detection method for both fever types turns out to be a significant task. Thus, in the present work, a novel application of Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) trained Artificial Neural Network (ANN) has been employed to separate the patients having Dengue fevers from those who are recovering from it or do not have DF. The ANN's input weight vector are optimized using PSO to achieve the expected accuracy and to avoid premature convergence toward the local optima. Therefore, a gene expression data (GDS5093 dataset) available publicly is used. The dataset contains gene expression data for DF, DHF, convalescent and healthy control patients of total 56 subjects. Greedy forward selection method has been applied to select most promising genes to identify the DF, DHF and normal (either convalescent or healthy controlled) patients. The proposed system performance was compared to the multilayer perceptron feed forward neural network (MLP FFN) classifier. Results proved the dominance of the proposed method with achieved accuracy of 90.91
Effects of weather factors on dengue fever incidence and implications for interventions in Cambodia
Venue: BMC Public Health

BackgroundDengue viruses and their mosquito vectors are sensitive to their environment. Temperature, rainfall and humidity have well defined roles in the transmission cycle. Therefore changes in these conditions may contribute to increasing incidence. The aim of this study was to examine the relationship between weather factors and dengue incidence in three provinces in Cambodia, in order to strengthen the evidence basis of dengue control strategies in this high burden country.MethodsWe developed negative binomial models using monthly average maximum, minimum, mean temperatures and monthly cumulative rainfall over the period from January 1998 to December 2012. We adopted piecewise linear functions to estimate the incidence rate ratio (IRR) between dengue incidence and weather factors for simplicity in interpreting the coefficients. We estimated the values of parameters below cut points defined in terms of the results of sensitivity tests over a 0 3 month lagged period.ResultsMean temperature was significantly associated with dengue incidence in all three provinces, but incidence did not correlate well with maximum temperature in Banteay Meanchey, nor with minimum temperature in Kampong Thom at a lag of three months in the negative binomial model. The monthly cumulative rainfall influence on the dengue incidence was significant in all three provinces, but not consistently over a 0 3 month lagged period. Rainfall significantly affected the dengue incidence at a lag of 0 to 3 months in Siem Reap, but it did not have an impact at a lag of 2 to 3 months in Banteay Meanchey, nor at a lag of 2 months in Kampong Thom.ConclusionsThe association between dengue incidence and weather factors also apparently varies by locality, suggesting that a prospective dengue early warning system would likely be best implemented at a local or regional scale, rather than nation wide in Cambodia. Such spatial down scaling would also enable dengue control measures to be better targeted, timed and implemented.
Protective and immunological behavior of chimeric yellow fever dengue vaccine.
Venue: Vaccine

Clinical observations from the third year of the Sanofi Pasteur chimeric yellow fever dengue tetravalent vaccine (CYD) trials document both protection and vaccination enhanced dengue disease among vaccine recipients. Children who were 5 years old or younger when vaccinated experienced a DENV disease resulting in hospitalization at 5 times the rate of controls. On closer inspection, hospitalized cases among vaccinated seropositives, those at highest risk to hospitalized disease accompanying a dengue virus (DENV) infection, were greatly reduced by vaccination. But, seronegative individuals of all ages after being vaccinated were only modestly protected from mild to moderate disease throughout the entire observation period despite developing neutralizing antibodies at high rates. Applying a simple epidemiological model to the data, vaccinated seronegative individuals of all ages were at increased risk of developing hospitalized disease during a subsequent wild type DENV infection. The etiology of disease in placebo and vaccinated children resulting in hospitalization during a DENV infection, while clinically similar are of different origin. The implications of the observed mixture of DENV protection and enhanced disease in CYD vaccinees are discussed.
Overexpression of AtEDT1/HDG11 in Chinese Kale (Brassica oleracea var. alboglabra) Enhances Drought and Osmotic Stress Tolerance
Venue: Front. Plant Sci.

Plants are constantly challenged by environmental stresses, including drought and high salinity. Improvement of drought and osmotic stress tolerance without yield decrease has been a great challenge in crop improvement. The Arabidopsis ENHANCED DROUGHT TOLERANCE1/HOMEODOMAIN GLABROUS11 (AtEDT1/HDG11) a protein of the class IV HD Zip family, has been demonstrated to significantly improve drought tolerance in Arabidopsis, rice, and pepper. Here, we report that AtEDT1/HDG11 confers drought and osmotic stress tolerance in the Chinese kale. AtEDT1/HDG11 overexpression lines exhibit auxin overproduction phenotypes, such as long hypocotyls, tall stems, more root hairs, and a larger root system architecture. Compared with the untransformed control, transgenic lines have significantly reduced stomatal density. In the leaves of transgenic Chinese kale plants, proline (Pro) content and reactive oxygen species scavenging enzyme activity was significantly increased after drought and osmotic stress, particularly compared to wild kale. More importantly, AtEDT1/HDG11 overexpression leads to abscisic acid (ABA) hypersensitivity, resulting in ABA inhibitor germination and induced stomatal closure. Consistent with observed phenotypes, the expression levels of auxin, ABA, and stress related genes were also altered under both normal and/or stress conditions. Further analysis showed that AtEDT1/HDG11, as a transcription factor, can target the auxin biosynthesis gene YUCC6 and ABA response genes ABI3 and ABI5. Collectively, our results provide a new insight into the role of AtEDT1/HDG11 in enhancing abiotic stress resistance through auxin and ABA mediated signaling response in Chinese kale.
A pragmatic randomised multi centre trial of multifamily and single family therapy for adolescent anorexia nervosa
Venue: BMC Psychiatry

BackgroundConsiderable progress has been made in recent years in developing effective treatments for child and adolescent anorexia nervosa, with a general consensus in the field that eating disorders focussed family therapy (often referred to as Maudsley Family Therapy or Family Based Treatment) currently offers the most promising outcomes. Nevertheless, a significant number do not respond well and additional treatment developments are needed to improve outcomes. Multifamily therapy is a promising treatment that has attracted considerable interest and we report the results of the first randomised controlled trial of multifamily therapy for adolescent anorexia nervosa.MethodsThe study was a pragmatic multicentre randomised controlled superiority trial comparing two outpatient eating disorder focussed family interventions multifamily therapy (MFT AN) and single family therapy (FT AN) A total of 169 adolescents with a DSM IV diagnosis of anorexia nervosa or eating disorder not otherwise specified (restricting type) were randomised to the two treatments using computer generated blocks of random sizes to ensure balanced numbers in the trial arms. Independent assessors, blind to the allocation, completed evaluations at baseline, 3 months, 12 months (end of treatment) and 18 months.ResultsBoth treatment groups showed clinically significant improvements with just under 60% achieving a good or intermediate outcome (on the Morgan Russell scales) at the end of treatment in the FT AN group and more than 75% in the MFT AN group a statistically significant benefit in favour of the multifamily intervention (OR 2.55 95% CI 1.17, 5.52; p 0.019) At follow up (18 months post baseline) there was relatively little change compared to end of treatment although the difference in primary outcome between the treatments was no longer statistically significant. Clinically significant gains in weight were accompanied by improvements in mood and eating disorder psychopathology. Approximately half the patients in FT AN and nearly 60% of those in MFT AN had started menstruating.ConclusionsThis study confirms previous research findings demonstrating the effectiveness of eating disorder focused family therapy and highlights the additional benefits of bringing together groups of families that maximises the use of family resources and mutual support leading to improved outcomes.
Attachment Based Family Therapy: A Review of the Empirical Support.
Venue: Family process

Attachment based family therapy (ABFT) is an empirically supported treatment designed to capitalize on the innate, biological desire for meaningful and secure relationships. The therapy is grounded in attachment theory and provides an interpersonal, process oriented, trauma focused approach to treating adolescent depression, suicidality, and trauma. Although a process oriented therapy, ABFT offers a clear structure and road map to help therapists quickly address attachment ruptures that lie at the core of family conflict. Several clinical trials and process studies have demonstrated empirical support for the model and its proposed mechanism of change. This article provides an overview of the clinical model and the existing empirical support for ABFT.
Family Therapy for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders: A Critical Review.
Venue: Family process

Eating disorder focused family therapy has emerged as the strongest evidence based treatment for adolescent anorexia nervosa, supported by evidence from nine RCTs, and there is increasing evidence of its efficacy in treating adolescent bulimia nervosa (three RCTs) There is also emerging evidence for the efficacy of multifamily therapy formats of this treatment, with a recent RCT demonstrating the benefits of this approach in the treatment of adolescent anorexia nervosa. In this article, we critically review the evidence for eating disorder focused family therapy through the lens of a moderate common factors paradigm. From this perspective, this treatment is likely to be effective as it provides a supportive and nonblaming context that: one, creates a safe, predictable environment that helps to contain anxiety generated by the eating disorder; two, promotes specific change early on in treatment in eating disorder related behaviors; and three, provides a vehicle for the mobilization of common factors such as hope and expectancy reinforced by the eating disorder expertise of the multidisciplinary team. In order to improve outcomes for young people, there is a need to develop an improved understanding of the moderators and mediators involved in this treatment approach. Such an understanding could lead to the refining of the therapy, and inform adaptations for those families who do not currently benefit from treatment.
The Oregon Model of Behavior Family Therapy: From Intervention Design to Promoting Large Scale System Change.
Venue: Behavior therapy

This paper reviews the evolution of the Oregon model of family behavior therapy over the past four decades. Inspired by basic research on family interaction and innovation in behavior change theory, a set of intervention strategies were developed that were effective for reducing multiple forms of problem behavior in children (e.g. Patterson, Chamberlain, Reid, 1982) Over the ensuing decades, the behavior family therapy principles were applied and adapted to promote children's adjustment to address family formation and adaptation (Family Check Up model) family disruption and maladaptation (Parent Management Training Oregon model) and family attenuation and dissolution (Treatment Foster Care Oregon model) We provide a brief overview of each intervention model and summarize randomized trials of intervention effectiveness. We review evidence on the viability of effective implementation, as well as barriers and solutions to adopting these evidence based practices. We conclude by proposing an integrated family support system for the three models applied to the goal of reducing the prevalence of severe problem behavior, addiction, and mental problems for children and families, as well as reducing the need for costly and largely ineffective residential placements.
Biopharmaceutical evaluation of epigallocatechin gallate loaded cationic lipid nanoparticles (EGCG LNs) In vivo, in vitro and ex vivo studies.
Venue: International journal of pharmaceutics

Cationic lipid nanoparticles (LNs) have been tested for sustained release and site specific targeting of epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) a potential polyphenol with improved pharmacological profile for the treatment of ocular pathologies, such as age related macular edema, diabetic retinopathy, and inflammatory disorders. Cationic EGCG LNs were produced by double emulsion technique; the in vitro release study was performed in a dialysis bag, followed by the drug assay using a previously validated RP HPLC method. In vitro HET CAM study was carried out using chicken embryos to determine the potential risk of irritation of the developed formulations. Ex vivo permeation profile was assessed using rabbit cornea and sclera isolated and mounted in Franz diffusion cells. The results show that the use of cationic LNs provides a prolonged EGCG release, following a Boltzmann sigmoidal profile. In addition, EGCG was successfully quantified in both tested ocular tissues, demonstrating the ability of these formulations to reach both anterior and posterior segment of the eye. The pharmacokinetic study of the corneal permeation showed a first order kinetics for both cationic formulations, while EGCG cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) LNs followed a Boltzmann sigmoidal profile and EGCG dimethyldioctadecylammonium bromide (DDAB) LNs a first order profile. Our studies also proved the safety and non irritant nature of the developed LNs. Thus, loading EGCG in cationic LNs is recognised as a promising strategy for the treatment of ocular diseases related to anti oxidant and anti inflammatory pathways.