nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Antimicrobial, antioxidant and cytotoxicity studies of medicinal plants used in the treatment of sexually transmitted diseases

The World Health Organization reported that more than 1 million sexually transmitted infections (STIs) are acquired daily, with an estimated 357 million new infections caused by either chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis or trichomoniasis.  The present study was aimed to evaluate antimicrobial, antioxidant and cytotoxicity activities of ethanol extracts of ten ethnobotanical selected plant species used to treat STD's and related symptoms.  The determination of antimicrobial susceptibility of plant extracts was done using the broth micro dilution assay against five microorganisms. The free radical scavenging activity was determined by using DPPH (2, 2 diphenyly 1 picrylhydrazyl) Cytotoxicity activity of the plant extracts was done on Vero African monkey cells lines with 2, 3 bis [2 methoxy 4 nitro5 sulfophenyl] 2H tetrazolium 5 carboxanilide (XTT) reagents.  Our results suggest that extracts of Acacia karroo and Rhoicissus tridentata subsp. cuneifolia are potential candidates with a good antimicrobial, antioxidant and low cytotoxicity activities. This results may support the anecdotal claims for the use of the selected plant species to treat venereal diseases.
The global roadmap for advancing development of vaccines against sexually transmitted infections: Update and next steps
Venue: Vaccine

In 2014, the World Health Organization, the US National Institutes of Health, and global technical partners published a comprehensive roadmap for development of new vaccines against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) Since its publication, progress has been made in several roadmap activities: obtaining better epidemiologic data to establish the public health rationale for STI vaccines, modeling the theoretical impact of future vaccines, advancing basic science research, defining preferred product characteristics for first generation vaccines, and encouraging investment in STI vaccine development. This article reviews these overarching roadmap activities, provides updates on research and development of individual vaccines against herpes simplex virus, Chlamydia trachomatis, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, and Treponema pallidum, and discusses important next steps to advance the global roadmap for STI vaccine development.
Sharing News Through Social Networks

In contemporary media management, the sharing of news articles among readers' family, friends, and social circle is vital to the media outlet's reaching a wide audience and building engagement. As the use of social media is becoming more integrated into the core strategy of many businesses, the propensity to share news has become a key metric to measure and understand media impact. Although existing literature suggests that increasing the centrality of news sharing has become an important factor in audience engagement, empirical evidence of the influence of news sharing is sparse. The challenges in motivating news readers to share in the media environment call for research on the characteristics that predict the spreading of news. In this regard, we investigate how textual characteristics of news articles influence sharing activities. Using a publicly available secondary dataset of 39,797 records from Mashable, we build a decision tree and conducted regression analysis to identify the factors that are most influential in terms of sharing. We find that subjective writing style, polar sentiments expressed in the title of an article, and embedded content, such as external links and images, are positively associated with number of shares. In addition, we find that sharing of articles occurs more often through social media channels than through other special interest websites (e.g. entertainment, business) and more frequently on weekends. We provide managerial insights into the economics of the contemporary news business and guidelines to measure, monetize, and analyze audience engagement based on the sharing process.
A New Algorithm to Improve Efficiency of Resource Scheduling in Clouding Computing Based on Extended Support Vector Machine

A high effective scheduling in cloud computing environment is significant to guarantee quality of cloud service. In this paper, Weighted Least Squares Support Vector Machine (WLS SVM) is introduced to reflect finished time and cost of assignments in cloud computing and can obtain robust estimates for regression through the limited observation. There is a simple and efficient approach to model parameters selection. Some significant parameters of support vector machine are defined to further improve convergence performance of algorithm. Moreover, high effective scheduling will be acquired and service cost may be generated in cloud computing environment. Through the simulation experiment, the validity of the proposed model is demonstrated. The results show that the method has more superior performance than other methods like Least Squares Support Vector Machine (LS SVM)
Recycling combustion ash for sustainable cement production: A critical review with data mining and time series predictive models

Combustion is a complex process that produces energy as the goal and ashes as by products. The ash of coal, biomass and solid waste combustion can be used as pozzolans in blended cement due to the similarity of their physiochemical properties to conventional pozzolans (e.g. silica fume) This strategy effectively recycles pozzolanic active combustion ash and replaces a significant proportion of Portland cement, which potentially reduces the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from cement production. However, cement producers wishing to substitute pozzolanic active ash for conventional pozzolans lack information on the pozzolanic activity (PA) of ash from diverse combustible materials. A data mining model that can extract key information for predicting the PA of combustion ash is envisioned as a screening tool to assess the pozzolanic potential of candidate combustible materials prior to experimental work. Hence, the objectives of this chapter are, 1) to critically review the recent research progress in using various combustion ashes as pozzolans, including the mechanism of the pozzolanic reaction, sources of eligible materials, and methods of PA improvement, 2) to create a data mining artificial neural network (ANN) model for PA prediction built upon data reported in the scientific literature from 1998 to 2015, and 3) to describe the effect of cement curing period on PA, based on a time series model. The ANN and time series models developed in this study can accurately forecast the PA of combustion ashes during 3 90 d curing (R 2 0.8479 0.9914) We recommend these screening tools as rapid indicators of the pozzolanic potential of combustion ash prior to undertaking strength tests and other experimental testing.
Feasibility, safety, and economic implications of whey recovered water in cleaning in place systems: A case study on water conservation for the dairy industry.
Venue: Journal of dairy science

Water scarcity is threatening food security and business growth in the United States. In the dairy sector, most of the water is used in cleaning applications; therefore, any attempt to support water conservation in these processes will have a considerable effect on the water footprint of dairy products. This study demonstrates the viability for recovering good quality water from whey, a highly pollutant cheese making by product, to be reused in cleaning in place systems. The results obtained in this study indicate that by using a combined ultrafiltration and reverse osmosis system, 47% of water can be recovered. This system generates protein and lactose concentrates, by products that once spray dried fulfill commercial standards for protein and lactose powders. The physicochemical and microbiological quality of the recovered permeate was also analyzed, suggesting suitable properties to be reused in the cleaning in place system without affecting the quality and safety of the product manufactured on the cleaned equipment. A cost analysis was conducted for 3 cheese manufacturing levels, considering an annual production of 1, 20, and 225 million liters of whey. Results indicate the feasibility of this intervention in the dairy industry, generating revenues of $0.18, $3.05, and $33.4 million per year, respectively. The findings provide scientific evidence to promote the safety of reuse of reconditioned water in food processing plants, contributing to building a culture of water conservation and sustainable production throughout the food supply chain.
Poly optimization of cleaning conditions for pipe systems and plate heat exchangers contaminated with hot milk using the Cleaning In Place method

Devices used in food industry that are connected by pipelines are usually cleaned using Clean In Place method. Such a system of cleaning generates high consumption of energy, water and requires the use of chemical cleaning solutions. In this study, we aimed to activate the physical factors in the process of cleaning and minimize the energy consumption. The variable factors considered within this study were flow velocity, pressure, temperature of the cleaning medium (pure water) and cleaning time. The effects of cleaning efficiency and the energy consumed in the cleaning process were taken as the criteria for the evaluation of the cleaning process in Clean In Place station. For the purpose of optimization, these evaluation criteria were opposed to each other; namely, they sought a high cleaning efficiency with a minimal input of energy. Both functions were based on a set of experimental results using the technique of experimental design. A 5 level experimental design, orthogonal and rotatable, was employed. These equations were used in multi objective optimization process. A polyoptimal model of cleaning conditions was developed. Results were calculated by using Matlab scripts and showed a set of acceptable solutions on the plane of controllable variables (cleaning factors) because of accepted criteria (energy and cleanliness) The dominated and non dominated points were appointed. These points described cleaning conditions for which it was possible to obtain a better cleanliness without increasing the amount of energy (the dominated points) and conditions for which we were not able to improve any of the tested criteria (the non dominated points) Finally, the polyoptimal results defining the favorable effects of a cleaning fluid without the use of chemical agents were determined. The results obtained during this study are important from an ecological aspect of the effectiveness of the Cleaning in Place system and may be applied in real conditions for the development of cleaning programs of the analyzed objects (e.g. in a dairy industry for which these experimental studies have been carried out) The obtained set of optimal solutions constitute a basis for further studies in the aspect of energy consumed and an effectiveness of the cleaning process in Clean In Place system.
Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing 15th International Conference, ICAISC 2016, Zakopane, Poland, June 12 16, 2016, Proceedings, Part II

The two volume set LNAI 9692 and LNAI 9693 constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 15th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Soft Computing, ICAISC 2016, held in Zakopane, Poland in June 2016. The 134 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 343 submissions. The papers included in the first volume are organized in the following topical sections: neural networks and their applications; fuzzy systems and their applications; evolutionary algorithms and their applications; agent systems, robotics and control; and pattern classification. The second volume is divided in the following parts: bioinformatics, biometrics and medical applications; data mining; artificial intelligence in modeling and simulation; visual information coding meets machine learning; and various problems of artificial intelligence
Why offer the International Baccalaureate Middle Years Programme? A comparison between schools in Asia Pacific and other regions

The International Baccalaureate (IB) has become a powerful educational brand by developing a reputation for combining progressive approaches with academic rigour. This can be identified by the growing number of schools adopting IB programmes globally and especially in the IB Asia Pacific region. As part of this trend, the IB Middle Years Programme (MYP) aimed at students between 11 and 16 years old, has expanded significantly in recent years. However, in Asia Pacific, the MYP remains less popular relative to the IB's Primary Years Programme and pre university Diploma Programme (DP) This article compares the motivations of IB MYP and DP Coordinators for choosing the MYP in Asia Pacific with their counterparts in other parts of the world. To achieve this, 175 IB Coordinators across 54 countries were surveyed. Findings revealed that IB pedagogy, holistic approach, philosophy and global citizenship were the most popular reasons to offer the MYP. Yet, IB Coordinators in Asia Pacific put relatively greater weight on marketing, the MYP Certificate and external validation of school based assessments. This article argues that this emphasis may stem from a high concentration of schools operating in the private international schooling sector and discusses the potential for the MYP to continue to expand across the Asia Pacific region.
Cell wall disruption and lipid/astaxanthin extraction from microalgae: Chlorella and Haematococcus.
Venue: Bioresource technology

Recently, biofuels and nutraceuticals produced from microalgae have emerged as major interests, resulting in intensive research of the microalgal biorefinery process. In this paper, recent developments in cell wall disruption and extraction methods are reviewed, focusing on lipid and astaxanthin production from the biotechnologically important microalgae Chlorella and Haematococcus, respectively. As a common, critical bottleneck for recovery of intracellular components such as lipid and astaxanthin from these microalgae, the composition and structure of rigid, thick cell walls were analyzed. Various chemical, physical, physico chemical, and biological methods applied for cell wall breakage and lipid/astaxanthin extraction from Chlorella and Haematococcus are discussed in detail and compared based on efficiency, energy consumption, type and dosage of solvent, biomass concentration and status (wet/dried) toxicity, scalability, and synergistic combinations. This report could serve as a useful guide to the implementation of practical downstream processes for recovery of valuable products from microalgae including Chlorella and Haematococcus.
Work efficient parallel non maximum suppression for embedded GPU architectures
Venue: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Acoustics, Speech and Signal Processing (ICASSP)

With the emergence of GPU computing, deep neural networks have become a widely used technique for advancing research in the field of image and speech processing. In the context of object and event detection, sliding window classifiers require to choose the best among all positively discriminated candidate windows. In this paper, we introduce the first GPU based non maximum suppression (NMS) algorithm for embedded GPU architectures. The obtained results show that the proposed parallel algorithm reduces the NMS latency by a wide margin when compared to CPUs, even clocking the GPU at 50% of its maximum frequency on an NVIDIA Tegra K1. In this paper, we show results for object detection in images. The proposed technique is directly applicable to speech segmentation tasks such as speaker diarization.
Peer influence effects on risk taking and prosocial decision making in adolescence: insights from neuroimaging studies
Venue: Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences

Peer influence plays a key role in health compromising risky behaviors during adolescence. However, there is emerging evidence indicating that peer influence can also lead to positive psychosocial outcomes, such as learning, exploration and prosocial behavior. This review highlights the maladaptive and adaptive nature of peer influence and identifies recent functional neuroimaging research investigating the underlying neural mechanisms thereof. In the context of risk taking, peer effects have been associated with amplified motivational circuitry, including ventral striatum. The social brain (medial prefrontal cortex, temporo parietal junction and superior temporal sulcus) has been related to peer influence in neutral/prosocial contexts. We propose that peer influence may enhance activation in task related brain areas; and that the interplay between the motivational circuitry and social brain regions should be investigated to advance our knowledge about the neural underpinnings of peer influence.
Driving Under the Influence of Risky Peers: An Experimental Study of Adolescent Risk Taking

Both passive and active social influences may affect adolescents' dangerous driving. In this study, we used an experimental paradigm to delineate these two influences with actual peers. Adolescents completed a simulated driving task, and we measured risk preferences of each member of the peer group. We used hierarchical linear modeling to partition variance in risky decisions. Adolescents experienced many more crashes when they had "passengers" present who reported a strong preference for risk taking and who actively provided decision making guidance. Although youth in the passive peer condition were also influenced by the riskiness of their peers, this relation was less strong relative to the active condition. We discuss the need for interventions focussing on active and passive peer influence.
Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation. By DeborahDavis. New York: Atria Books, 2012. 308 pp.

Guest of Honor: Booker T. Washington, Theodore Roosevelt, and the White House Dinner That Shocked a Nation. By Deborah Davis.  Atria Books, 2012.  2008. During the address, Senator McCain proffered: "A century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt's invitation of Booker T. Washington to visit to dine at the White House was taken as an outrage in many quarters. America today is a world away from the cruel and prideful bigotry of that time. There is no better evidence of this than the election of an African American to the presidency of the United States. Let there be no reason now for any American to fail to cherish their citizenship in this, the greatest nation on Earth." His remarks piqued the interest of Davis and led to her work on the story behind Washington's dinner at the White House. The author begins by chronicling and juxtaposing the lives of Booker T. Washington (whom she casually refers to as "Booker T." throughout the manuscript) and President Theodore Roosevelt (casually referenced as "TR" from their births until their deaths. The 308 page book consists of 30 short chapters including an introduction and an epilogue, and proceeds in chronological sequence. As might be predicted, the reader is introduced to Booker T. during the time of his enslavement in Hales Ford, Virginia, and to TR during his upbringing in New York. Davis spends roughly two thirds of the book setting the context for the eventual dinner at the White House and the fallout that ensued shortly afterwards. A few of the more interesting chapters feature discussions on the Jim Crow South, challenges that Washington and Roosevelt faced raising their daughters, the assassination of President William McKinley, rodent infestation of the White House and the poor condition of the manse, and Washington's role as advisor to Roosevelt. Davis's discussion of Scott Joplin's ragtime opera, "A Guest of Honor," along with his connection to the White House affair, is also quite refreshing. According to the author, Roosevelt invited Washington to dine with him and his family at the White House on October 16, 1901, representing a clear breach in the code of racial etiquette for those familiar with the ways of the South. Neither Washington nor Roosevelt anticipated the sort of backlash they experienced. Southern whites were livid and attacked Washington and Roosevelt throughout the press. For example, Governor James K. Vardaman of Mississippi derided Washington for his part in the affair, saying that the White House is "so saturated with the odor of the nigger that the rats have taken refuge in the stable" (p. 238) Similarly, other indignant southerners lambasted Roosevelt: "The most damnable outrage which has ever been perpetuated by any citizen of the United States was committed yesterday by the President when he invited a nigger to dine with him at the White House.
Why Do Chinese College Students Learn ESP: An Analysis of Language Learning Motivations within SDT Framework

This study mainly investigates the motivational characteristics of Chinese college students learning English for Specific Purposes (ESP) By critically examining and comparing Gardner's (1985) Integrative Instrumental model and the Self determination Theory (SDT) by Deci and Ryan(1985) the researcher finds out that the latter one is more comprehensive and applicable to the case of Chinese college ESP learners (the subjects) Thus the researcher develops a questionnaire within the SDT framework to analyze the subjects' motivations. Drawing upon a follow up statistical analysis, the research discovers the motivational propensities of the subjects. A discussion of corresponding motivational methods to help improve the subjects' ESP learning is provided at the end of the article.
Bridging In School and Out of School Literacies

As new technology has changed adolescents' literate life pathways outside of school in remarkable ways, new uses of terminology, such as mutiliteracies, are necessary to capture the multidimensional nature of literacy. However, there have been few studies on the multiliteracies experiences of Korean adolescent English learners (ELs) In this article, through a case study, Pyo examines how an adolescent EL cultivated his literate identity through an inquiry based multimodal project. The findings reveal that the participant integrated his computer related practices and local experiences into the multimodal project. He used various modalities and orchestrated them for meaning making while inscribing an author's identity, which conveyed his message more comprehensively than writing alone could have done. This suggests that a multimodal literacy approach can be a powerful tool for ELs to connect in school and out of school literacies.
A Logical Thinking Analysis through the Euclidean Geometry

The objective of this present research is to analyze the logical thinking of the students of mathematics education department through the solution to the Euclidean geometry problems. This research was made at the Mathematics Education Department, University of Muhammadiyah Malang where six students consisting of each two students under low, medium, and high abilities were taken as the research subject. The data were obtained through the Euclidean geometry test and then were analyzed through the solution results of the Euclidean geometry item tests by paying attention to the grouping of their learning results. The result showed that the students under the low category had a less logical thinking pattern since they did not pay attention to a proper order in solving the problems. Those under the medium category showed a relatively logical thinking order as suggested by the fact that some of the orders was not properly followed, but the students under the high category showed that their thinking is based on an awareness so that their thinking order is said to be logical.