nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Context Aware Friend Recommendation for Location Based Social Networks using Random Walk
Venue: WWW

The location based social networks (LBSN) facilitate users to check in their current location and share it with other users. The accumulated check in data can be employed for the benefit of users by providing personalized recommendations. In this paper, we propose a random walk based context aware friend recommendation algorithm (RWCFR) RWCFR considers the current context (i.e. current social relations, personal preferences and current location) of the user to provide personalized recommendations. Our LBSN model is an undirected unweighted graph model that represents users, locations, and their relationships. We build a graph according to the current context of the user depending on this LBSN model. In order to rank the recommendation scores of the users for friend recommendation, a random walk with restart approach is employed. We compare RWCFR with popularity based, friend based and expert based baseline approaches. According to the results, our friend recommendation algorithm outperforms these approaches in all the tests.
Modelling and Investigating the relationship of after sales service quality with customer satisfaction, retention and loyalty A case study of home appliances business

After sales services (ASS) are activities that take place after the purchase of the product by customers and are devoted to supporting customers in the use and disposal of goods. ASS can create sustainable relationships with customers and contribute significantly to customer satisfaction. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the ASS quality by measuring the level of customer satisfaction (CS) customer retention (CR) and customer loyalty (CL) through the SERVQUAL dimensions comprising of ASS attributes and also to check which such ASS based dimensions of SERVQUAL needs to be focused more on improving the quality of ASS with the consideration of firms involved in manufacturing the home appliances. For this purpose research models were proposed to examine the influence of ASS attributes on CS, CR and CL for three different products such as Gas Stove, Water Purifier and Mixer Grinder from the home appliances sector and tested by multiple regression analyses on data collected through the structured survey questionnaire, with a five point Likert scale. The study has demonstrated the application of multiple regression analysis in studying the influence of ASS attributes on CS, CR and CL, and the results of the study have helped in analysing the performance of the case companies so as to devise suitable strategies in improving CS, CR and CL.
What Is the Value of Extrinsic Olive Oil Cues in Emerging Markets? Empirical Evidence from the U.S. E Commerce Retail Market

Olive oil consumption in the United States has more than tripled over the past two decades and imports have grown considerably, in particular from Mediterranean countries. This is due to the spread of the Mediterranean diet and increasing consumer awareness about the health benefits of olive oil. We investigated the role of the main extrinsic quality cues (size of container, product category, organic certification, geographical indications, country of origin, and brand) in affecting the price of olive oil sold in the U.S. e commerce retail market. Using data from amazon.com, the leading e retailer in the United States, a hedonic price model was estimated. Results show that all the considered extrinsic quality cues have a significant impact on the price of olive oil, with interesting implications for both practitioners and policy makers.
Glutathione Activatable Photosensitizer Conjugated Pseudopolyrotaxane Nanocarriers for Photodynamic Theranostics.
Venue: Small

Photodynamic theranostics has recently been extensively explored as a promising approach for precise localization and therapy. Herein, glutathione (GSH) activatable photosensitizer (PS) conjugated pseudopolyrotaxane nanocarriers (a CD ss Ce6 NPs) are reported for enhanced photodynamic theranostics by taking advantage of the noncovalent interactions between a cyclodextrin (a CD) and poly(ethylene glycol) The designed a CD ss Ce6 NPs are nonactivated and stable during circulation but exhibited strong photodynamic theranostics through GSH activating after arriving at tumor site. More importantly, compared to free chlorin e6 (Ce6) such kind of pseudopolyrotaxane nanocarrier can dramatically enhance Ce6 accumulation in tumor and prolong its tumor retention time, demonstrating excellent therapeutic effects after light irradiation. Overall, the designed GSH activatable PS conjugated pseudopolyrotaxane nanocarrier possessing high performance photodynamic therapeutic efficacy together with reduced side effects offers a promising alternative for photodynamic theranostics.
Image aesthetic predictors based on weighted CNNs
Venue: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Image Processing (ICIP)

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have been widely adopted for many imaging applications. For image aesthetics prediction, state of the art algorithms train CNNs on a recently published large scale dataset, AVA. However, the distribution of the aesthetic scores on this dataset is extremely unbalanced, which limits the prediction capability of existing methods. We overcome such limitation by using weighted CNNs. We train a regression model that improves the prediction accuracy of the aesthetic scores over state of the art algorithms. In addition, we propose a novel histogram prediction model that not only predicts the aesthetic score, but also estimates the difficulty of performing aesthetics assessment for an input image. We further show an image enhancement application where we obtain an aesthetically pleasing crop of an input image using our regression model.
Local biodiversity is higher inside than outside terrestrial protected areas worldwide
Venue: Nature communications

Protected areas are widely considered essential for biodiversity conservation. However, few global studies have demonstrated that protection benefits a broad range of species. Here, using a new global biodiversity database with unprecedented geographic and taxonomic coverage, we compare four biodiversity measures at sites sampled in multiple land uses inside and outside protected areas. Globally, species richness is 10.6% higher and abundance 14.5% higher in samples taken inside protected areas compared with samples taken outside, but neither rarefaction based richness nor endemicity differ significantly. Importantly, we show that the positive effects of protection are mostly attributable to differences in land use between protected and unprotected sites. Nonetheless, even within some human dominated land uses, species richness and abundance are higher in protected sites. Our results reinforce the global importance of protected areas but suggest that protection does not consistently benefit species with small ranges or increase the variety of ecological niches.
OntoSoS.CM: A business process architecture driven and semantically enriched change management framework for systems of systems engineering
Venue: 2016 IEEE International Symposium on Systems Engineering (ISSE)

The emergence of Systems of Systems (SoS) arrangements, with their high level of complexity, mainly due to the different characteristics of the individual systems and their integration into the respective SoS, has brought about new challenges in terms of Configuration Management (CM) in general, and change management in particular. Novel change management frameworks are needed to appropriately address these challenges simultaneously both at the level of individual systems and at the SoS level. To address these challenges, there has been a call for a major paradigm shift, by proposing state of the art approaches that target the investigation of new frameworks, which align various CM activities with newly proposed Systems Engineering (SE) models (i.e. SoSE models) So far, the adopted change management frameworks have been applied for managing changes to software and IT services in complex monolithic system environments only, but they have not been widely proposed to be applied on entire SoS arrangements. This paper introduces an ongoing research that aims to propose a novel approach, by investigating the potential of using ontology driven models combined with a formal Business Process Architecture (BPA) approach and in particular, Riva, in driving the development of a generic semantically enriched change management framework for the software engineering life cycle of SoS, namely the OntoSoS.CM framework.
Preparation of HIFU triggered tumor targeted hyaluronic acid micelles for controlled drug release and enhanced cellular uptake.
Venue: Colloids and surfaces. B, Biointerfaces

In this study, a novel type of high intensity focused ultrasound (HIFU) triggered active tumor targeting polymeric micelle was prepared and investigated for controlled drug release and enhanced cellular uptake. Amphiphilic hyaluronic acid (HA) conjugates were synthesized to form docetaxel loaded micelles in aqueous conditions with high encapsulation efficiencies of over 80% The micelle sizes were limited to less than 150nm, and they varied slightly according to the encapsulated drug amount. Modifying the micellar surface modification with polyethylene glycol diamine successfully inhibited premature drug leakage at a certain level, and it can be expected to prolong the circulation time of the particles in blood. In addition, high intensity focused ultrasound was introduced to control the release of docetaxel from micelles, to which the release behavior of a drug can be tuned. The in vitro cell cytotoxicity of docetaxel loaded micelles was verified against CT 26 and MDA MB 231 cells. The IC50 values of drug loaded micelles to CT 26 and MDA MB 231 cells were 1230.2 and 870.9ng/mL, respectively. However, when exposed to HIFU, the values decreased significantly, to 181.9 and 114.3ng/mL, suggesting that HIFU can enhance cell cytotoxicity by triggering the release of a drug from the micelles. Furthermore, cellular uptake tests were conducted via the quantitative analysis of intracellular drug concentration within CT 26 (CD44 negative) MDA MB 231 (CD44 positive) and MDA MB 231 (CD44 blocked) and then imaged with coumarin 6 loaded micelles. The results verified that intracellular drug delivery can be enhanced efficiently via the CD44 receptor mediated endocytosis of HA micelles. Moreover, HIFU enhanced the cellular uptake behavior by altering the permeability of the cell membrane. It was also able to aid with the extravasation of micelles into the interior of tumors, which will be explained in further research. Therefore, the present study demonstrates that the micelles prepared in this study can emerge as promising nanocarriers of chemotherapeutic agents for controlled drug release and tumor targeting in cancer treatment.
Uptake of Chitosan Based Viscoelastic Hydrogel Particles by AntigenPresenting Cells and Activation of Innate Immune Responses

The chitin derived biopolymer chitosan has been shown to possess immunostimulatory properties in several systems and has rendered interest as a candidate adjuvant in vaccine formulations. The mechanisms underlying this effect are not completely understood at the cellular and molecular level, but activation of inflammasome and caspase 1 in antigen presenting cells (APC) was recently suggested to be vital for immune activation. In this study, chitosan based viscoelastic hydrogel particles of two sizes, 10 mm and 200 mm, were evaluated in regard to cellular uptake and activation of APCs. Macrophages derived from the human cell line THP 1 were shown by flow cytometry and confocal laser scanning microscopy to take up FITC labelled chitosan particles of both sizes via an active process that could be inhibited by cytochalasin D. To investigate if the viscoelastic chitosan particles cause inflammasome activation, NFkB and IL 1b was measured in THP 1 derived macrophages after 24 h incubation with the chitosan particles with or without priming of the cells with LPS. We found that chitosan particles of both sizes stimulated upregulation of NFkB and IL 1b in the absence of LPS. Finally the dependence of this effect on inflammasome mediated activation of caspase 1 was assessed. Active caspase 1 was not detected in THP 1 derived macrophages stimulated with chitosan based viscoelastic hydrogel particles, neither alone nor in combination with LPS. In conclusion, we show that viscoelastic chitosan particles in the size range of 10 200 mm, are taken up by human APCs. Moreover, our study suggests that the chitosan particles stimulate NFkB upregulation and IL 1b secretion through inflammasome activation via a caspase 1 independent pathway.
Adaptive semi supervised dimensionality reduction with sparse representation using pairwise constraints
Venue: Neurocomputing

With the rapid accumulation of high dimensional data, dimensionality reduction plays a more and more important role in practical data processing and learning tasks. This paper studies semi supervised dimensionality reduction using pairwise constraints. In this setting, domain knowledge is given in the form of pairwise constraints, which specifies whether a pair of instances belong to the same class (must link constraint) or different classes (cannot link constraint) In this paper, a novel semi supervised dimensionality reduction method called Adaptive Semi Supervised Dimensionality Reduction with Sparse Representation (ASSDR SR) is proposed, which can get the optimized low dimensional representation of the original data by adaptively adjusting the weights of the pairwise constraints and simultaneously optimizing the graph construction using the ?1 graph of sparse representation. Experiments on clustering and classification tasks show that ASSDR SR is superior to some existing dimensionality reduction methods.
Global and local scatter based semi supervised dimensionality reduction with active constraints selection in ensemble subspaces
Venue: Pattern Analysis and Applications

AbstractSemi supervised dimensionality reduction has attracted an increasing amount of attention in this big data era. Many algorithms have been developed with a small number of pairwise constraints to achieve performances comparable to those of fully su pervised methods. However, one challenging problem with semi supervised approaches is the appropriate choice of the constraint set, including the cardinality and the composition of the constraint set which, to a large extent, affects the performance of the resulting algorithm. In this work, we address the problem by incorporating ensemble subspaces and active learning into dimensionality reduction and propose a new global and local scatter based semi supervised dimensionality reduction method with active constraints selection. Unlike traditional methods that select the supervised information in one subspace, we pick up pairwise constraints in ensemble subspaces, where a novel active learning algorithm is designed with both exploration and filtering to generate informative pairwise constraints. The automatic constraint selection approach proposed in this paper can be generalized to be used with all constraint based semi supervised learning algorithms. Comparative experiments are conducted on four face database and the results validate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Depressive and anxiety disorders and short leukocyte telomere length: mediating effects of metabolic stress and lifestyle factors
Venue: Psychological Medicine

Depressive and anxiety disorders are associated with shorter leukocyte telomere length (LTL) an indicator of cellular aging. It is, however, unknown which pathways underlie this association. This study examined the extent to which lifestyle factors and physiological changes such as inflammatory or metabolic alterations mediate the relationship.  We applied mediation analysis techniques to data from 2750 participants of the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety. LTL was assessed using quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Independent variables were current depressive (30 item Inventory of Depressive Symptoms Self Report) and anxiety (21 item Beck's Anxiety Inventory) symptoms and presence of a depressive or anxiety disorder diagnosis based on DSM IV; mediator variables included physiological stress systems, metabolic syndrome components and lifestyle factors.  Short LTL was associated with higher symptom severity (B 2.4, p 0.002) and current psychiatric diagnosis (B 63.3, p 0.024) C reactive protein, interleukin 6, waist circumference, triglycerides, high density lipoprotein cholesterol and cigarette smoking were significant mediators in the relationship between psychopathology and LTL. When all significant mediators were included in one model, the effect sizes of the relationships between LTL and symptom severity and current diagnosis were reduced by 36.7 and 32.7% respectively, and the remaining direct effects were no longer significant.  Pro inflammatory cytokines, metabolic alterations and cigarette smoking are important mediators of the association between depressive and anxiety disorders and LTL. This calls for future research on intervention programs that take into account lifestyle changes in mental health care settings.
Hepatocellular carcinoma after the Fontan procedure in a 16 year old girl
Venue: Medicine

The Fontan procedure (FP) has become the standard operation for patients with single ventricle physiology. However, a long period of elevated systemic venous pressure and low cardiac output after the procedure result in chronic inflammation and liver cirrhosis, which may eventually lead to the occurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC)  We described the case of a 16 year old female who developed HCC after the FP. At 21 months, the patient received a lateral tunnel FP, and 14 years later, she began complaining of abdominal distension, telangiectasia, and fatigue. Imaging studies revealed a large hepatic mass involving most of the right lobe and multiple masses in the left lobe. Evidence suggested severe liver cirrhosis, and the presence of ascites, hepatosplenomegaly, paraesophageal gastric varices reflecting the severity of the disease. In addition, tumor thrombosis was found in the right hepatic vein, middle hepatic vein, and inferior vena cava, as well as multiple metastatic nodules in both lungs. The patient received an incisional biopsy and the diagnosis of HCC was pathologically confirmed. After treatment with 1 cycle of systemic chemotherapy, she received ongoing supportive care for disease related complications, and died 2 months after chemotherapy due to hematemesis.  With the advances in medicine, the incidence of Fontan physiology related complications is likely to increase, and the incidence of HCC will also increase accordingly. As early diagnosis of HCC results in better patient outcomes, a surveillance guideline for HCC after the FP should be developed.
Lead poisoning in a 16 year old girl: a case report and a review of the literature (CARE compliant)
Venue: Medicine

Lead is a toxic element of the environment which leads to major complications once it enters the blood stream, affecting multiple organs and systems of the body. We present the case of a 16 year old girl, diagnosed with lead poisoning after occupational exposure due to the fact that the girl was actively involved in the family's pottery business.History revealed that the girl participated in the process of pottery, her father was also diagnosed with lead poisoning 2 years before. The patient's personal history underlined that approximately 1 year ago she presented with severe abdominal pain, being diagnosed with acute appendicitis and she underwent appendectomy, but the pain persisted, thus due to family history of lead poisoning, the suspicion of saturnine colic rose, and she was diagnosed with lead poisoning. The main symptoms and signs were severe abdominal pain, vomiting, and arterial hypertension. The clinical evolution was favorable under symptomatic treatment and chelation therapy. Lead toxicity is a life threatening condition because of its severe acute and chronic complications. In children, there is no safe blood lead level, prevention methods are, therefore, very important in order to avoid toxic multiorganic effects of this metal. Even though the diagnosis of lead poisoning remains difficult in children, it must also be taken into consideration by the clinician facing a child with gastrointestinal or neurological involvement.
Interleaved Concatenations of Polar Codes With BCH and Convolutional Codes
Venue: IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications

We analyze interleaved concatenation schemes of polar codes with outer binary BCH codes and convolutional codes. We show that both BCH polar and Conv polar codes can have a frame error rate that decays exponentially with the code length for all rates up to capacity, which is a substantial improvement in the error exponent over stand alone polar codes. Interleaved concatenation with long constraint length convolutional codes is an effective way to leverage the fact that polarization increases the cutoff rate of the channel. Simulation results show that Conv polar codes when decoded with the proposed soft output multistage iterative decoding algorithm can outperform stand alone polar codes decoded with successive cancellation or belief propagation decoding. It may be comparable to stand alone polar codes with list decoding in the high SNR regime. In addition to this, we show that the proposed concatenation scheme requires lower memory and decoding complexity in comparison to belief propagation and list decoding of polar codes. Practically, the scheme enables rate compatible outer codes which ease hardware implementation. Our results suggest that the proposed method may strike a better balance between performance and complexity compared to existing methods in the finite length regime.
Efficient implementation of BCH decoders on GPU for flash memory devices using iBMA
Venue: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Consumer Electronics (ICCE)

Recent development and popularity of Flash Memory requires efficient error correction technique on its eco system like gaming and mobile platforms. In this paper, we have addressed an efficient method to decode and correct errors using the parallel computing technique offered by Graphical Processing Unit (GPU) This decoder employs the inversion less Berleykamp Massey algorithm (iBMA) and Chein search algorithm to decode the BCH (Bose Chaudhuri Hocquenghem) codes. We have devised an engine, on a GPU, that decodes BCH (n=8192, k=4096, t=4) code, and the results have shown that the latency of the decoder is less than the typical read latency of the flash memory device. Further, a comparative analysis of the same engine for different block size and error bits.
Serial quasi primitive BC BCH codes for NAND flash memories
Venue: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC)

In this work, we study high rate error control systems with serial quasi primitive block wise concatenated Bose Chaudhuri Hocquenghem (BC BCH) codes for storage devices using multi level per cell (MLC) NAND flash memories. The system targets at achieving a strong error correcting capability when only hard decision channel outputs are available. Error rate performance of the proposed system is compared with those of systems based on various coding schemes including LDPC codes.
BCH and LDPC Error Correction Codes for NAND Flash Memories
Venue: 3D Flash Memories

Because NAND devices can't be manufactured without defects, the use of Error Correction Codes (ECCs) has always been a common practice. While BCH (Bose Chaudhuri Hocquenghem) is a de facto standard for consumer applications, LDPC (Low Density Parity Check) codes are a typical choice in the enterprise world. This is especially true when looking at planar (2D) ultra scaled (e.g. 15nm) NAND. Generally speaking, LDPC offers higher correction capabilities, but BCH remains a good solution when bandwidth requirements are very stringent. This chapter provides an overview of both BCH and LDPC state of the art solutions.