nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Reduced work/academic performance and quality of life in patients with allergic rhinitis and impact of allergen immunotherapy
Venue: Allergy, Asthma Clinical Immunology

AbstractBackgroundAllergic rhinitis (AR) is characterised by burdensome nasal and/or ocular symptoms. This inflammatory disease can be debilitating and thus result in considerable health related and economic consequences.MethodsIn a cross sectional study, adult subjects with AR (N 683) completed three allergy specific questionnaires that assessed the impact of AR on the work/academic performance, daily activities, health related quality of life (HRQOL) and satisfaction with allergen immunotherapy (AIT) Regression analyses were used to examine the associations between several clinical variables and the patient reported outcomes.ResultsTotal loss of productivity was 21.0 and 21.2 for employed and student patients, respectively, whereas the impairment of daily activities was 22.0 The mean overall HRQOL score was 1.94 1.29 (on the scale of 0 6 points) Global score for satisfaction with AIT was 65.5 24.8 (on a 0 100 scale) Simple regression analysis found statistically significant associations between loss of work and academic productivity, impairment of daily activities and the type and severity of AR. AIT was a protective factor. The persistent and more severe types of AR and lack of AIT contributed to the worsening of HRQOL.ConclusionsAR (the persistent and more severe form of the disease) has an impact on functional characteristics of adult patients in Spain. AIT might reduce the effect of this disease on the work/academic performance and HRQOL.
The benefits and challenges of e procurement implementation: a case study of Malaysian company

Traditionally, procurement covers the sales and purchase activities between two entities, which covers various aspects from searching, sourcing, negotiating, ordering, and receipt, to post purchase review. In line with the advancement of Information and Communication Technologies, as well as with the rapid growth of the Internet, more and more people and organisations are becoming connected. In order to move with the times, many governments around the world have looked into implementing e government systems, part of which is the e procurement system. This paper presents the advantages as well as challenges faced when implementing an e procurement system based on results of a case study, from the perspective of a Malaysian company (Telekom Research and Development Sdn. Bhd. implementing an e procurement system that has been developed internally, rather than installing an off the shelf software application. Internally developed e procurement systems covers four important dimensions, namely information collected, type of application, contract negotiation, and intelligence analysis, all of which are analysed in view of e procurement performance. The outcome of this research yielded pertinent information for the company in identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the internally developed e procurement system, as well as enabling the organisation to highlight the practices and performance as a benchmark to measure the level of success of their own e procurement system. Thus, due to the potential cost savings and highlighted benefits in this paper, e procurement requires more attention from the government as related entities for greater expansion and adoption in order to ultimately contribute to the growth and well being of the country's economy.
Multiplex immunoassay for in vitro characterization of acellular pertussis antigens in combination vaccines.
Venue: Vaccine

Vaccines characterization is required to ensure physical, chemical, and biological integrity of antigens and adjuvants. Current analytical methods mostly require complete antigen desorption from aluminum based adjuvants and are not always suitable to distinguish individual antigens in multivalent formulations. Here, Luminex technology is proposed to improve the analytics of vaccine characterization. As proof of concept, TdaP (tetanus, diphtheria and acellular pertussis) combination, adjuvanted with aluminum hydroxide, was chosen as model formulation to quantify and determine the level of adsorption of acellular pertussis (aP) antigens onto adjuvant surface at the same time. The assay used specific antibodies bound to magnetic microspheres presenting unique digital signatures for each pertussis antigen, allowing the simultaneous recognition of respective antigens in the whole vaccine, avoiding laborious procedures for adjuvant separation. Accurate and reproducible quantification of aP antigens in TdaP vaccine has been achieved in the range 0.78 50 ng/mL, providing simultaneously information on antigen identity, quantity, and degree of adsorption to aluminum hydroxide. The current study could further be considered as a model to set up in vitro potency assays thus supporting the replacement of animal tests accordingly to the 3Rs concept.
Modified Murray Loop Method for Underground Cable Fault Location Detection Using GSM

In recent years, power systems have been very difficult to manage as the load demands increase and environment constraints restrict the distribution network. One another mode used for distribution of Electrical power is making use of underground cables (generally in urban areas only) instead of overhead distribution network. The use of underground cables arise a problem of identifying the fault location as it is not open to view as in case of overhead network. To improve the reliability of a distribution system, accurate identification of a faulted segment is required in order to reduce the interruption time during fault. Speedy and precise fault location plays an important role in accelerating system restoration, reducing outage time, reducing great financial loss and significantly improving system reliability. The objective of this paper is to study the methods of determining the distance of underground cable fault from the base station in kilometers. Underground cable system is a common practice followed in major urban areas. While a fault occurs for some reason, at that time the repairing process related to that particular cable is difficult due to exact unknown location of the fault in the cable. In this paper, a technique for detecting faults in underground distribution system is presented. Proposed system is used to find out the exact location of the fault and to send an SMS with details to a remote mobile phone using GSM module.
MAMMOGRAPHIC DENSITY AND THE RISK AND DETECTION OF BREAST CANCER

With the increase in breast cancer risk over the years, there are many factors estimated that lead to it. However, till date which factor is majorly involved in development of breast cancer or which factor accounts more is not clearly evident. Mammography technique accounting for 80 90% of cancer being detected is believed to be the best method of detection. While mammographic density is manifested by increased proliferation of fat, stoma, epithelium and connective tissue, it is considered to be a risk factor for development of breast cancer. The current study was thus conducted to find out whether the mammographic density is actually a risk factor for development of breast cancer and to find out the better detection tool available. For this, the methodology adopted was review of various journals and studies already published with respect to mammographic density and its risk on development of breast cancer. The conclusion of the current study as well as from another comparable study was that the frequency of screening might be dependent on breast density and in such cases diagnostic techniques such as "digital mammography, ultra sonography and magnetic resonance imaging" may prove to be better detection tools. Moreover, recent studies have also suggested that mammographic density as a marker for risk of developing breast cancer holds true however, this fact needs to be evaluated further.  To view a copy of this license, visit http:/creativecommons.org/licenses/by nc/4.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, PO Box 1866, Mountain View, CA 94042, USA.
Globalization, computing, and their political impact
Venue: Commun. ACM

P ERCHED AS WE are on the crest of the current tech and computing enrollment boom, it is hard to remember the dark days of the early 2000s. The NASDAQ Index peaked on March 10, 2000, declining almost 80% over the next two years. The stock market crash in the U.S. caused the loss of $5 trillion in the market valuations from 2000 to 2002. Computing enrollments in North America went into a steep dive. At the same time, the Internet enabled the globalization of software production giving rise to the phenomenon of offshore outsourcing. There were daily stories in the media describing major shifts in employment that were occurring largely as a result of software off shoring. Combined with the dot com bust, these reports raised concerns about the future of information technology (IT) as a viable field of study and work in developed countries. In response to these concerns, ACM Council commissioned a Task Force in 2004 to " look at the facts behind the rapid globalization of IT and the migration of jobs resulting from out sourcing and offshoring. " The Task Force, co chaired by Frank Mayadas and myself, with the assistance of Wil liam Aspray as Editor, issued its report Globalization and Offshoring of Software in 2006. The report concluded that there is no real reason to believe that IT jobs are migrating away from developed countries. The passing decade has vindicated that conclusion. But while the report conceded that " trade gains may be distributed differentially " meaning some individuals gain and some lose, some localities gain and some lose; it was focused narrowly on the IT industry. Had we looked at the broader impact of globalization on the economy, we might have reached somewhat less sanguine conclusions. Globalization exerted tremendous competitive pressure on manufacturing in developed countries. It is instructive to examine the response to this competitive pressure, taking U.S. manufacturing as an example. To survive in the intensely competitive global economy, U.S. manufacturing had to increase its productivity dramatically, substituting technology for labor. U.S. manufacturing productivity roughly doubled between 1995 and 2015. As a result, while U.S. manufacturing output today is essentially at an all time high, employment peaked around 1980, and has been declining precipitously since 1995. Neoclassical economists argue that when technology destroys jobs " people find other jobs, albeit possibly after a long period of painful adjustment. " They are definitely right about the painful
Modeling the impact of new product introduction on the output of semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities
Venue: 2016 Winter Simulation Conference (WSC)

We consider the problem of managing output in semiconductor wafer fabrication facilities when a new product is introduced alongside a current product. We propose a mathematical model of the impact of the new product on the distribution of the effective processing time, and use a simple Excel simulation to illustrate the impact of different release control policies on output under product transitions.
Position error and entropy of probabilistic Wi Fi fingerprinting in the UJIIndoorLoc dataset
Venue: 2016 International Conference on Indoor Positioning and Indoor Navigation (IPIN)

The accuracy of a positioning system is usually expressed as its average position error in an experiment. However, when the ground truth is no longer available, it would still be useful to know the reliability of a position estimate based on a single measurement. To obtain a reliability metric, we hypothesize that there is a relation between the uncertainty in a position's posterior probability distribution, expressed as its conditional entropy, and the position error of the position that is derived from this distribution. In this paper, we present the correlation between these two metrics as calculated for the UJIIndoorLoc Wi Fi fingerprinting dataset, using a new probabilistic sensor model. We found that there is no significant correlation between the conditional entropy and the position error. However, we learned that our sensor model is usually very certain in the dataset, and saw that the suggestion of a correlation improves when we increase the uncertainty by selecting a fixed, larger variance. Interestingly, the position error results improve as well.
Using Remotely Sensed Land Cover and Distribution Modeling to Estimate Tree Species Migration in the Pacific Northwest Region of North America
Venue: Remote. Sens.

Understanding future tree species migration is challenging due to the unprecedented rate of climate change combined with the presence of human barriers that may limit or impede species movement. Projected changes in climatic conditions outpace migration rates, and more realistic rates of range expansion are needed to make sound environmental policies. In this paper, we develop a modeling approach that takes into account both the geographic changes in the area suitable for the growth and reproduction of tree species, as well as limits imposed geographically on their potential migration using remotely sensed land cover information. To do so, we combined a physiologically based decision tree model with a remotely sensed derived diffusion dispersal model to identify the most likely direction of future migration for 15 native tree species in the Pacific Northwest Region of North America, as well as the degree that landscape fragmentation might limit movement. Although projected changes in climate through to 2080 are likely to create favorable environments for range expansion of the 15 tree species by 65% on average, by limiting the potential movement by previously published migration rates and landscape fragmentation, range expansion will likely be 50% 90% of the potential. The hybrid modeling approach using distribution modeling and remotely sensed data fills a gap between naive and more complex approaches to take into account major impediments on the potential migration of native tree species.
Fish Species in a Changing World: The Route and Timing of Species Migration between Tropical and Temperate Ecosystems in Eastern Atlantic
Venue: Front. Mar. Sci.

The presence of tropical species has been reported in Atlantic European waters with increasing frequency in recent years. Unfortunately, the history of their migrations is not well understood. In this study, we examined the routes and timing of fish migrations in several ecosystems of the East Atlantic Ocean, combining several publicly available and unpublicized datasets on species occurrences. The species studied were those noted as exotic or rare outside their previous known area of distribution. We used sea surface temperature (SST) data obtained from 30 years of satellite observation to define three distinct time periods. Within these periods, temperature trends were studied in six ecosystems: the North Sea, the Celtic Sea, the South European Atlantic Waters, the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Current and the Guinea Current. We also incorporated bathymetry data to describe the distribution of species. Measurement across a relatively large spatial extent was made possible by incorporating the capabilities of GIS. While SST increased consistently over time in all of the ecosystems observed, the change in number of species differed among ecosystems. The number of species in the middle regions, such as the South European Atlantic Shelf and the Western Mediterranean Sea, tended to increase over time. These regions received numbers of species from the lower or the upper latitudes according to season. Of all of the species observed in the recent period, 7 species from the Canary Current tended to be found in the Western Mediterranean Sea, and 6 species from these two regions extended their distributions to the South European Atlantic Shelf. Twelve species from the Canary Current moved seasonally to the Guinea Current. In the northern regions, 13 species moved seasonally in the North Sea and the Celtic Seas, and 12 of these species reached the South European Atlantic Shelf. This study presents a picture of routes and timing of species migration at the biogeographical scale. It shows how species have shifted their area of distribution (mostly northward) along the Eastern Atlantic ecosystems or have increased their depth ranges probably to remain within their preferred temperature range in response to long term and seasonal environmental changes.
The Limitations of Franz Kafka

m "'HE cult of Franz Kafka began during his own lifetime. I It was at first confined to a small group led by Max JL Brod, who proclaimed Kafka's genius. Since very little of his work was published at the time, the Kafka legend took on a semi mythical character. It was not until well after his death and the publication of his major work that the cult spread from Germany and Austria to England, France and the Americas. Hermann Hesse called him "the secret king of German prose." He has been praised by Thomas and Klaus Mann. In England, Stephen Spender, Dylan Thomas, Aldous Huxley, Hugh Walpole, Rex Warner, and above all, Edwin Muir and W. H. Auden spread the gospel. Muir translated his three novels, The Great Wall of China and other short pieces, introducing them with inspired eulogies. The Argentinian critic Claude Edmonde Magny wrote that Kafka has forged myths similar to those of the ancient religions. In this country, the Kafka wave began with the American edition of The Castle in 1930 and The Trial in 1937. Twice a Year published additional material by and on him under the title Franz Kafka: A Miscellany in 1940. New Directions has since taken him up, declaring that "Franz Kafka symbolizes perfectly the kind of writer for whom New Directions was originated." Several publishing houses are also planning studies on him.
Visual scene understanding for autonomous vehicles: understanding where and what

Making Ground Autonomous Vehicles (GAVs) a reality as a service for the society is one of the major scientific and technological challenges of this century. The potential benefits of autonomous vehicles include reducing accidents, improving traffic congestion and better usage of road infrastructures, among others. These vehicles must operate in our cities, towns and highways, dealing with many different types of situations while respecting traffic rules and protecting human lives. GAVs are ex pected to deal with all types of scenarios and situations, coping with an uncertain and chaotic world. Therefore, in order to fulfil these demanding requirements GAVs need to be endowed with the capabil ity of understanding their surrounding at many different levels, by means of affordable sensors and artificial intelligence. This capacity to understand the surroundings and the current situation that the vehicle is involved in, is called scene understanding. In this work we investigate novel techniques to bring scene understanding to autonomous vehicles by combining the use of cameras as the main source of information due to their versatility and affordability and algorithms based on computer vision and machine learning. We investigate different degrees of understanding of the scene, starting from basic geometric knowledge about where is the vehicle within the scene. A robust and efficient estimation of the vehicle location and pose with respect to a map is one of the most fundamental steps towards autonomous driving. We study this problem from the point of view of robustness and computational efficiency, proposing key insights to improve current solutions. Then we advance to higher levels of abstraction to discover what is in the scene, by recognizing and parsing all the elements present on a driving scene, such as roads, sidewalks, pedestrians, etc. We investigate this problem known as semantic segmentation, proposing new approaches to improve recognition accuracy and computational efficiency. We cover these points by focusing on key aspects such as: (i) how to leverage computation moving semantics to an offline process, (ii) how to train compact architectures based on deconvolutional networks to achieve their maximum potential, (iii) how to use virtual worlds in combination with domain adaptation to produce accurate models in a cost effective fashion, and (iv) how to use transfer learning techniques to prepare models to new situations. We finally extend the previous level of knowledge enabling systems to reasoning about what has change in a scene with respect to a previous visit, which in return allows for efficient and cost effective map updating.
Presidential Inaugural Addresses and American Political Culture

Taking its cue from Parker and Greenstone, this study uses the inaugural addresses of the presidents of the United States to identify the "permanent"  It considers the more prominent, recurrent themes in the tradi tion formed by those addresses as definitive of the more permanent, cultural fea tures of American politics. Moreover, it argues that the function of inaugural addresses is precisely to express those cultural features of American politics, not, as political scientists and others have long noted, such transient features of American politics as the incoming president's policy  This argument can be attacked from three directions. One critique would be to deny that inaugural addresses share any common themes.3 For example, the fact that all inaugural addresses have invoked a providential supreme being might be dismissed by stating the obvious: different presidents have meant different things by invoking such a being. All these invocations do, however, share a common meaning. The incoming president invokes a supreme being to identify with his audience by acknowledging their common humanity. He is confessing that even as he assumes the highest office in the land he shares with the members of his audience all the limitations of human nature. He is also confessing that he can not fulfill the stringent duties of his new office without the assistance of a power beyond his, or any other person's, control. What, then, is "transient" in inaugural addresses is the incoming president's personal conception of that higher power; what is "permanent" is his recognition of the limits of his all too human powers. Inaugural addresses, though, could share some common themes without those themes being anchored in the broader culture. The second critique, thus, would be to deny that inaugural themes are cultural themes.