nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Extra nodal extension of sentinel lymph node metastasis is a marker of poor prognosis in breast cancer patients: A systematic review and an exploratory meta analysis.
Venue: European journal of surgical oncology the journal of the European Society of Surgical Oncology and the British Association of Surgical Oncology

Invasive breast cancer is the most common malignancy in women. Its most common site of metastasis is represented by the lymph nodes of axilla, and the sentinel lymph node (SLN) is the first station of nodal metastasis. Axillary SLN biopsy accurately predicts axillary lymph node status and has been accepted as standard of care for nodal staging in breast cancer. To date, the morphologic aspects of SLN metastasis have not been considered by the oncologic staging system. Extranodal extension (ENE) of nodal metastasis, defined as extension of neoplastic cells through the nodal capsule into the peri nodal adipose tissue, has recently emerged as an important prognostic factor in several types of malignancies. It has also been considered as a possible predictor of non sentinel node tumor burden in SLN positive breast cancer patients. We sought out to clarify the prognostic role of ENE in SLN positive breast cancer patients in terms of overall and disease free survival by conducting a systematic review and meta analysis. Among 172 screened articles, 5 were eligible for the meta analysis; they globally include 624 patients (163 ENE+ and 461 ENE with a median follow up of 58 months. ENE was associated with a higher risk of both mortality (RR 2.51; 95% CI: 1.66 3.79, p 0.0001, I(2) 0% and recurrence of disease (RR 2.07, 95% CI: 1.38 3.10, p 0.0001, I(2) 0% These findings recommend the consideration of ENE from the gross sampling to the histopathological evaluation, in perspectives to be validated and included in the oncologic staging.
Do Highly Paid, Highly Skilled Women Experience the Largest Motherhood Penalty?

Motherhood reduces women's wages. But does the size of this penalty differ between more and less advantaged women? To answer this, we use unconditional quantile regression models with person fixed effects, and panel data from the 1979 to 2010 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79) We find that among white women, the most privileged women with high skills and high wages experience the highest total penalties, estimated to include effects mediated through lost experience. Although highly skilled, highly paid women have fairly continuous experience, their high returns to experience make even the small amounts of time some of them take out of employment for childrearing costly. By contrast, penalties net of experience, which may represent employer discrimination or effects of motherhood on job performance, are not distinctive for highly skilled women with high wages.
Optimizing CMOS analog Variable Gain Amplifier cell for WiMAX receiver
Venue: 2016 International Conference on Design and Technology of Integrated Systems in Nanoscale Era (DTIS)

This paper presents the design of an analog Variable Gain Amplifier (VGA) design in TSMC 0.18 mm process. The proposed circuit is composed of tow transimpedance amplifiers, a transconductance amplifier applied to mobile WiMAX standard. The VGA control is ensured by using analog voltage control (Vctr) The optimized circuit presents high gain, high bandwidth, low power consumption and low Noise Figure (NF) In order to attempt mobile WiMAX standard specifications, one VGA cell is used. The simulation structure provides a minimum and a maximum gain of respectively 5 dB and 40 dB over more than 160 MHz bandwidth and less than 19 dB of NF. The VGA consumes only approximately 72 mW under 1.8 V power supply.
An Improved Linearity, Single Stage Variable Gain Amplifier Using Current Squarer for Wider Gain Range
Venue: Circuits Syst. Signal Process.

A novel single stage variable gain amplifier (VGA) based on transconductance $g_{m}$gm ratio amplifier is analyzed and designed with wider linear in dB gain range and improved linearity. The variable gain amplifier proposed here consists of an exponential control block, a current squarer and an amplifier block with both input and load degeneration. With the help of current squarer which gets square function of the output current from exponential control block, the VGA achieves the maximum linear gain range in single stage. Current squarer is proposed, which is designed with compensation technique to minimize the second order effect caused by carrier mobility reduction in short channel MOSFET. To avoid the poor linearity performance of the $g_{{m}$gm ratio amplifiers, the distortion is analyzed and the linearity is improved by applying input and load degenerating technique. At the same power consumption, the input 1 dB compression point can be improved by nearly 8.78 dB. Simulation results show that the VGA can provide a gain variation range of 64.09 dB (from 35.59$ 35.59 to 28.5 dB) with a 3 dB bandwidth from 47 to 640 MHz. The circuit consumes the maximum power 3.5 mW from a 1.8 V supply.
Impact of the Digital Divide on Computer Use and Internet Access on the Poor in Nigeria

We recruited 20 community members in Ido Local Government Area, Oyo state and Yewa Local Government Area, Ogun state in Nigeria to explore experiences and perceptions of Internet access and computer use. Face to face interviews were conducted using open ended questions to collect qualitative data regarding accessibility of information and communication technology. Twenty low income community members volunteered to participate in the study. The results centered around affordability of computers and Internet access, exposure to information on the Internet, increasing access to the Internet, training on computer use, benefits for job searching, and networking. The results indicated the lack of Internet access, affordability of computers and Internet usage, poverty, lack of computer skills, and poor infrastructures were contributors to the digital divide.
An examination of the impact of care giving styles (accommodation and skilful communication and support) on the one year outcome of adolescent anorexia nervosa: Testing the assumptions of the cognitive interpersonal model in anorexia nervosa.
Venue: Journal of affective disorders

The cognitive interpersonal model predicts that parental caregiving style will impact on the rate of improvement of anorexia nervosa symptoms. The study aims to examine whether the absolute levels and the relative congruence between mothers' and fathers' care giving styles influenced the rate of change of their children's symptoms of anorexia nervosa over 12 months.  Triads (n=54) consisting of patients with anorexia nervosa and both of their parents were included in the study. Caregivers completed the Caregiver Skills scale and the Accommodation and Enabling Scale at intake. Patients completed the Short Evaluation of Eating Disorders at intake and at monthly intervals for one year. Polynomial Hierarchical Linear Modeling was used for the analysis.  There is a person/dose dependant relationship between accommodation and patients' outcome, i.e. when both mother and father are highly accommodating outcome is poor, if either is highly accommodating outcome is intermediate and if both parents are low on accommodation outcome is good. Outcome is also good if both parents or mother alone have high levels of carer skills and poor if both have low levels of skills.  Including only a sub sample of an adolescent clinical population; not considering time spent care giving, and reporting patient's self reported outcome data limits the generalisability of the current findings.  Accommodating and enabling behaviours by family members can serve to maintain eating disorder behaviours. However, skilful behaviours particularly by mothers, can aid recovery. Clinical interventions to optimise care giving skills and to reduce accommodation by both parents may be an important addition to treatment for anorexia nervosa.
Enhancing Family Communication: Examining the Impact of a Therapeutic Wilderness Program for Struggling Teens and Parents

Every year approximately 130 families participate in Intercept, a program for struggling teens and their families at the Voyageur Outward Bound School, because they are concerned about the loss of trust, poor communication, and/or other high risk behaviors they are experiencing with their children. Though families hope for improvements in family functioning, little research has been done on the impact of this type of program on the parent/child relationship or how families function once they leave the program. This phenomenological study collected qualitative data from nine families to determine what positive relationship outcomes emerged between parent(s) and their adolescent child post program, as well as what aspects of the program curriculum were helpful in improving the parent/child relationship. Results showed that communication among family members improved as a result of participation in the Outward Bound program, and families reported utilizing new skills they had learned, including the use of time outs, improved listening, and other assertive communication tools. Families reported that the parent/child conference at the end of the program was the most helpful aspect of the Intercept curriculum for improving the parent/child relationship. Implications for family therapy include support for therapeutic wilderness programs as a viable intervention for families of high risk teens struggling with communication.
The Impact of Utilizing Social Media as a Communication Platform during a Crisis within the Oil Industry

The purpose of this study is to gather arguments and counterarguments about the effective use of various types of social media that an organization can use in crisis preparedness, response and recovery. This study focuses on various industries worldwide. British Petroleum (BP) case study as well related industrial case studies is the main methodology of this study; and qualitative methods was used as an approach for this study. Social media can be an effective tool in order to convey information and explain current issues to the public. Various types of social media play different roles with one main purpose, which is to disseminate information on an urgent basis and share it with a wide range of people. In a crisis, it is vital to plan a response and share information strategically via social media in order to control the information and avoid a worsening crisis. This also aims to reduce any potential tarnishing of the company's image, something which can easily occur as a result of poor communication with the public. The key limitation is that when secondary data such as an organisation's website and documentation are accessed, there is a risk that it may not be accurate or current. This study attempts to highlight the importance for industries practitioners to utilize social media as an effective platform as part of organization's crisis communication strategies.
Private Dispute Resolution in International Business: Negotiation, Mediation, Arbitration (3rd revised ed. by Klaus Peter Berger

Private Dispute Resolution in International Business: Negotiation, Mediation, Arbitration (3rd revised ed. by Klaus Peter Berger, Kluwer Law International, 2015, includes Case Study (Volume I) (159 pp) Interactive USB Card and Handbook (Volume II) Rock Roll Hall of Famer Jerry Lee Lewis' 1957 song Great Balls of Fire !1 reflects this reviewer's impression of Professor Klaus Peter Berger pounding the keyboards of three separate laptop computers during his 'Comparison of Negotiation, Mediation, Arbitration'2 at his 'brain rattling' 2014 Cologne Academies for which the Private Dispute Resolution in International Business PDRIB beta test version was used. After reviewing the PDRIB third edition, this reviewer can only affirm his initial Cologne Academies impression of highly effective and fun learning and add 'Chapeau! to the author and his 2015 redesign  PDRIB third edition's main focus the advocacy skills required from practitioners to be successful in international business negotiation, mediation, or arbitration is innovatively advanced through the interactive multi media realization of its three goals, which go beyond reading for maximum learning efficiency. 1. Update and revise 'the text of the Handbook to take into account recent developments in the law and practice of ADR in international business' 2. 'Improve user friendliness of the Handbook, which now serves a dual purpose. It] continues to function as a complement to the Case Study in that it contains Answers to the Questions posed in the Case Study at the end of each Scenario' and 'may now be also used as a stand alone reference manual for international ADR' due to 'a new and comprehensive Table of Contents and a much more detailed [Subject] Index' 3. 'Improve the usability and graphical interface of the digital content a switch from DVD to USB technology [with] case related documents contained on the USB Card revised or rewritten to adapt them to the standards of contemporary international ADR practice'.4 Part I of this review summarizes the PDRIB third edition. Part II assesses how well the above goals are achieved. Part III examines the third edition's place within international legal scholarship and why it is  Principal,  (1989 1991) University of Erlangen Nurnberg Law School, Erlangen, Germany (1996 97) Chairman, State Bar of Georgia's Drafting Committee, Georgia International Transactions Arbitration Code of 1988. phil{at}philray idr.com  #xref corresp 1 1
Study on Strengthening of RC Slabs with Different Innovative Techniques

This paper presents a focused study on using different methods to enhance the ultimate capacity of flexural behavior in RC slabs. Four RC specimens were casted with common compressive strength and reinforced with steel mesh. Specimens were strengthened with different methods such as usage of GFRP sheets, carbon fibers laminate strips and near surface mounted steel rebars. All specimens were subjected to two point loading setup. Load was increased from zero to failure load. First crack was recorded and crack pattern was observed. The behavior of strengthened specimens was compared to that of the control specimen to judge the efficiency of the used techniques. Test results showed that the used techniques were effective in enhancing the behavior of the strengthened slabs by noteworthy values.
State dissociation moderates response to dialectical behavior therapy for posttraumatic stress disorder in women with and without borderline personality disorder
Venue: European journal of psychotraumatology

Patients with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) are prone to dissociation, which in theory should interfere with successful treatment. However, most empirical studies do not substantiate this assumption.  The primary objective was to test whether state dissociation predicts the success of an adaptation of dialectical behavior therapy designed for the treatment of patients with PTSD after childhood sexual abuse (CSA) (DBT PTSD) We further explored whether the operationalization of dissociation as state versus trait dissociation made a difference with respect to prediction of improvement.  We present a hypothesis driven post hoc analysis of a randomized controlled trial on the efficacy in patients with PTSD after CSA. Regression analyses relating pre post improvements in the Clinician Administered PTSD Scale (CAPS) and the Posttraumatic Diagnostic Scale (PDS) to dissociation were applied to the women who participated in the active treatment arm (DBT PTSD) Multivariate models accounting for major confounders were used to relate improvements in both the CAPS and the PDS to (1) state dissociation as assessed after each treatment session and (2) trait dissociation as assessed at baseline.  State dissociation during psychotherapy sessions predicted improvement after DBT PTSD: patients with low state dissociation during treatment had a higher chance to show substantial improvement. This relation consistently emerged across subgroups of PTSD patients with and without borderline personality disorder. The operationalization of dissociation as state versus trait dissociation made a difference as improvement was not significantly predicted from trait dissociation.  Dissociation during treatment sessions may reduce success with trauma focused therapies such as DBT PTSD. Accordingly, clinical studies aimed at improving ways to address dissociation are needed. Highlights of the article The article investigates whether state dissociation during psychotherapeutic sessions moderates the success of an established treatment for PTSD. Patients were much more likely to substantially improve with respect to PTSD symptomatology if state dissociation during psychotherapeutic sessions was low. The article suggests that the relation between low dissociation and good response in highly symptomatic patients is stronger than previously thought. Future studies investigating the extent to which outcome might be improved when treating dissociation more vigorously than usually are necessary.
Design Thinking At Scale: A Report on Best Practices of Online Courses

Thinking has arguably become a state of the art innovation methodology. It has received increasing attention from both media and educational institutes around the globe. Consequently, there is an increasing demand for Design Thinking education. In this research we aim to answer the question of whether and how Design Thinking can be taught in the form of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) that promise scalable teaching. In this chapter we discuss the potentials as well as challenges of teaching Design Thinking in a MOOC environment. In order to learn about the pedagogies and practices required for high quality teaching, we look into four Design Thinking MOOCs and through the lens of a widely used pedagogical framework called the Seven Principles of Good Practice in Undergraduate Education. We also pay careful attention to the technological features and the didactical methods applied in selected courses and how they support the fulfillment of these principles. Further, the research team aims at setting up an online course on Design Thinking in collaboration with the openHPI platform one of the Europe's frontrunner MOOC providers. Thus, we compare the results to the capacities and features of openHPI and examine its potentials for supporting and hosting a design thinking MOOC. Finally based on the best practices observed in the selected courses and the literature, we propose general recommendations for course designers and report on results of interviews with Stanford d.school course instructors on the challenges and potentials of a digital Design Thinking learning environment as well as the path of future research.
Spatially inhomogeneous background rate estimators and uncertainty quantification for nonparametric Hawkes point process models of earthquake occurrences

Space time Hawkes point process models for the conditional rate of earthquake occurrences traditionally make many parametric assumptions about the form of the triggering function for the rate of aftershocks following an earthquake. As an alternative, Marsan and Lengline [ (2008) 1076 1079] developed a completely nonparametric method that provides an estimate of a homogeneous background rate for mainshocks, and a histogram estimate of the triggering function. At each step of the procedure the model estimates rely on computing the probability each earthquake is a mainshock or aftershock of a previous event. The focus of this paper is the improvement and assessment of Marsan and Lengline's method in the following ways: (a) the proposal of novel ways to incorporate a spatially inhomogeneous background rate; (b) adding error bars to the histogram estimates which quantify the sampling variability in the estimation of the underlying seismic process. A simulation study is designed to evaluate and validate the ability of our methods to recover the triggering function and spatially varying background rate. An application to earthquake data from the Tohoku District in Japan is discussed at the end, and the results are compared to a well established parametric model of seismicity for this region.
Integrated output filter inductor for permanent magnet motor drives
Venue: IECON 2016 42nd Annual Conference of the IEEE Industrial Electronics Society

This paper presents a novel approach to integrate the output filter inductor in permanent magnet synchronous motor (PMSM) drive system. The integrated output filter inductor is based on utilizing the motor magnetics as a filter inductance instead of introducing a separate filter inductor. Thus, eliminating added filter inductor losses and associated weight and volume. The vector controlled model, taking modulation and switching effect in to account, has been developed using MATLAB/Simulink tool for the proposed integrated output filter inductor. The currents obtained from MATLAB/Simulink model are then injected into the Finite Element model to validate the concept. The performance of the proposed and conventional system is analyzed in terms of mean electromagnetic torque, torque ripple, motor losses, inductor losses, weight and volume.
A new approach for estimation of electrical parameters and flux observation of permanent magnet synchronous motors

In this paper, a new class of estimators for permanent magnet synchronous motors is proposed. Using a novel representation of the permanent magnet synchronous motor dynamics and some suitable filtering, we obtain new solutions to two important problems: a estimation of the stator resistance and inductance and b flux estimation with known electrical parameters. Neither one of the schemes requires knowledge of the mechanical parameters nor of the magnetic flux constant. Conditions for global convergence are given in terms of persistency of excitation requirements that, for the flux observation problem, is imposed only to the rotor speed. Both stability proofs require the availability of rotor speed. However, for the flux observer, extensive simulations using the speed estimate obtained from the estimator instead of the actual rotor speed illustrate the robustness of the proposed scheme vis i vis this assumption. Simulations also show that the new flux observer outperforms other existing designs.