nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Meaningful engagement of people living with HIV who use drugs: methodology for the design of a Peer Research Associate (PRA) hiring model
Venue: Harm Reduction Journal

BackgroundCommunity based HIV, harm reduction, and addiction research increasingly involve members of affected communities as Peer Research Associates (PRAs) individuals with common experiences to the participant population (e.g. people who use drugs, people living with HIV [PLHIV] However, there is a paucity of literature detailing the operationalization of PRA hiring and thus limited understanding regarding how affected communities can be meaningfully involved through low barrier engagement in paid positions within community based participatory research (CBPR) projects. We aim to address this gap by describing a low threshold PRA hiring process.ResultsIn 2012, the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS and the Dr. Peter AIDS Foundation collaborated to develop a mixed method CBPR project evaluating the effectiveness of the Dr. Peter Centre (DPC) an integrative HIV care facility in Vancouver, Canada. A primary objective of the study was to assess the impact of DPC services among clients who have a history of illicit drug use. In keeping with CBPR principles, affected populations, community based organizations, and key stakeholders guided the development and dissemination of a low barrier PRA hiring process to meaningfully engage affected communities (e.g. PLHIV who have a history of illicit drug use) in all aspects of the research project.The hiring model was implemented in a number of stages, including (1) the establishment of a hiring team; (2) the development and dissemination of the job posting; (3) interviewing applicants; and (4) the selection of participants. The hiring model presented in this paper demonstrates the benefits of hiring vulnerable PLHIV who use drugs as PRAs in community based research.ConclusionsThe provision of low barrier access to meaningful research employment described herein attempts to engage affected communities beyond tokenistic involvement in research. Our hiring model was successful at engaging five PRAs over a 2 year period and fostered opportunities for future paid employment or volunteer opportunities through ongoing collaboration between PRAs and a diverse range of stakeholders working in HIV/AIDS and addictions. Additionally, this model has the potential to be used across a range of studies and community based settings interested in meaningfully engaging communities in all stages of the research process.
PROPHETIC IMAGINATION AND THE UNITY OF "JANE EYRE"

It has been common for critics of Jane Eyre to write of the novel's lack of unity, or of a unity achieved by rather artificial means. William Peden's assessment, while sympathetic on the whole, notes in typical fashion this apparent weakness of the work: "Few novels which have sur? vived the test of time contain as many defects as Jane Eyre. The sub? division of the novel into three loosely connected sequences is artificial. The plot is frequently over contrived. The engrafting of the Gothic elements upon an essentially realistic life story tends to destroy at times the illusion of vital reality which is the very foundation of the novel's success."1 It is easy, of course, to note the novel's structural simplicity. There are the three major sections, the Lowood, Thomfield, and Marsh End episodes, framed by the introductory Gateshead and the concluding Fern dean sections. As Mark Schorer says, "The structure of Jane Eyre is nearly artless."2 But to stop here is to miss an element of the novel which provides much of its reader fascination and underlying artistry. Though apparently simple in structure, the novel contains a quality of imagination and insight which borders on the visionary and prophetic, a quality pre? sented with sufficient subtlety to condition the reader's response almost imperceptibly. Yet, in retrospect, it may be seen that this visionary ele? ment has provided the coherence not immediately apparent in the surface structure of the novel.
Building Blocks of the Imagination: Children, Creativity, and the Limits of Disney Infinity

This article examines Disney Infinity, a toys to life game launched in 2013. Billed as "a celebration of infinite creativity" ahead of its release, Infinity is the only toys to life platform that incorporates open ended world building into play. It is designed to emulate kids' physical play by allowing them to mix and match characters and elements from disparate story worlds in a virtual environment. The essay considers Disney's use of children's creativity as an economic strategy, arguing that the company's deployment of creativity is exemplary of the term's rhetorical appropriation by industry stakeholders across contemporary children's media culture. Exploring the game's promotional materials, in game features, attributes of gameplay, and aesthetics, the article situates Infinity within the broader toys to life market, demonstrating Disney's interest in creativity, particularly in the wake of heightened interest in STEM and STEAM initiatives. It suggests that Disney's creativity is complex and, at times, contradictory and that it relies upon a romanticized notion of children as "unruly" players. Making Disney characters and iconography available for user generated appropriation, Infinity attempts to reframe creativity within the parameters of its own intellectual property.
Challenging future, challenging past: the relationship of social integration and psychological impairment in traumatized refugees
Venue: European journal of psychotraumatology

Refugees have been shown to present high prevalence rates of trauma related mental disorders. Despite their psychological impairment, they are expected to meet high functional requirements in terms of social integration into, and financial independence from, the host society.  This cross sectional study examined the relationship of mental health problems, post migration living difficulties (PMLD) and social integration in a sample of 104 refugees seeking treatment for severe posttraumatic stress and comorbid symptoms in two outpatient clinics in Switzerland.  Despite an average time of residence in Switzerland of over 10 years, participants showed poor integration and a high number of PMLD. Integration difficulties were closely associated with psychological symptoms, but not with socio demographic parameters such as education or visa status.  Psychological impairment in treatment seeking traumatized refugees is associated with poor integration. To foster social integration, it is crucial to better understand and address the specific needs of this highly vulnerable population.
The relationship between financial strain, perceived stress, psychological symptoms, and academic and social integration in undergraduate students
Venue: Journal of American college health J of ACH

Financial strain may directly or indirectly (i.e. through perceived stress) impact students' psychological symptoms and academic and social integration, yet few studies have tested these relationships. The authors explored the mediating effect of perceived stress on the relationship between financial strain and 2 important outcomes: psychological symptomology and academic and social integration.  Participants were 157 undergraduate students. Data were collected from December 2013 to March 2014.  Cross sectional data collection conducted using online survey software.  It was found that perceived stress mediated the relationship between financial strain and (a) psychological symptomology and (b) academic and social integration. Both models included first generation status as a covariate.  Results suggest that perceived stress is an important intervention target for reducing psychological symptoms and improving academic and social integration for undergraduate students. Implications for university health centers and mental health professionals include incorporating a public health model to minimize stress risk.
Catalyst or Crown: Does Naturalization Promote the Long Term Social Integration of Immigrants?

We study the impact of naturalization on the long term social integration of immigrants into the host country society. Despite ongoing debates about citizenship policy, we lack reliable evidence that isolates the causal effect of naturalization from the non random selection into naturalization. We exploit the quasi random assignment of citizenship in Swiss municipalities that used referendums to decide on naturalization applications of immigrants. Comparing otherwise similar immigrants who narrowly won or narrowly lost their naturalization referendums, we find that receiving Swiss citizenship strongly improved long term social integration. We also find that the integration returns to naturalization are much larger for more marginalized immigrant groups and somewhat larger when naturalization occurs earlier, rather than later in the residency period. Overall, our findings support the policy paradigm arguing that naturalization is a catalyst for improving the social integration of immigrants rather than merely the crown on the completed integration process.
Housing First and Social Integration: A Realistic Aim?

First is now dominating discussions about how best to respond to homelessness among people with high and complex needs throughout the EU and in several countries within the OECD. Whilst recognised internationally as an effective model in addressing homelessness, little attention has been given as to whether Housing First also assists previously homeless people become more socially integrated into their communities. This paper reviews the available research evidence (utilising a Rapid Evidence Assessment methodology) on the extent to which Housing First services are effective in promoting social integration. Existing evidence suggests Housing First is delivering varying results in respect of social integration, despite some evidence suggesting normalising effects of settled housing on ontological security. The paper argues that a lack of clarity around the mechanisms by which Housing First is designed to deliver 'social integration' coupled with poor measurement, helps explain the inconsistent and sometimes limited results for Housing First services in this area. It concludes that there is a need to look critically at the extent to which Housing First can deliver social integration, moving the debate beyond the successes in housing sustainment and identifying what is needed to enhance people's lives in the longer term.
Multiscale Two Directional Two Dimensional Principal Component Analysis and Its Application to High Dimensional Biomedical Signal Classification
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering

Time frequency analysis incorporating the wavelet transform followed by the principal component analysis (WT PCA) has been a powerful approach for the analysis of biomedical signals, such as electromyography (EMG) electroencephalography, electrocardiography, and Doppler ultrasound. Time frequency coefficients at various scales were usually transformed into a 1 D array using only a single or a few signal channels. The steady improvement of biomedical recording techniques has increasingly permitted the registration of a high number of channels. However, WT PCA is not applicable to high dimensional recordings due to the curse of dimensionality and small sample size problem. In this study, we present a multiscale two directional 2 D principal component analysis method for the efficient and effective extraction of essential feature information from high dimensional signals. Multiscale matrices constructed in the first step incorporate the spatial correlation and physiological characteristics of subband signals among channels. In the second step, the two directional 2 D PCA operates on the multiscale matrices to reduce the dimension, rather than vectors in conventional PCA. Results are presented from an experiment to classify 20 hand movements using 89 channel EMG signals recorded in stroke survivors, which illustrates the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed method for a high dimensional biomedical signal analysis.
Stock prediction using deep learning
Venue: Multimedia Tools and Applications

Stock market is considered chaotic, complex, volatile and dynamic. Undoubtedly, its prediction is one of the most challenging tasks in time series forecasting. Moreover existing Artificial Neural Network (ANN) approaches fail to provide encouraging results. Meanwhile advances in machine learning have presented favourable results for speech recognition, image classification and language processing. Methods applied in digital signal processing can be applied to stock data as both are time series. Similarly, learning outcome of this paper can be applied to speech time series data. Deep learning for stock prediction has been introduced in this paper and its performance is evaluated on Google stock price multimedia data (chart) from NASDAQ. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate that deep learning can improve stock market forecasting accuracy. For this, (2D)2PCA Deep Neural Network (DNN) method is compared with state of the art method 2 Directional 2 Dimensional Principal Component Analysis (2D)2PCA Radial Basis Function Neural Network (RBFNN) It is found that the proposed method is performing better than the existing method RBFNN with an improved accuracy of 4.8% for Hit Rate with a window size of 20. Also the results of the proposed model are compared with the Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) and it is found that the accuracy for Hit Rate is improved by 15.6% The correlation coefficient between the actual and predicted return for DNN is 17.1% more than RBFNN and it is 43.4% better than RNN.
Classification of facial diagnosis gloss in Chinese medicine based on different algorithms
Venue: Chinese journal of integrative medicine

ObjectiveTo design a face gloss classification model and to provide an automatic and quantitative approach for the diagnosis of Chinese medicine (CM) based on the face images.MethodsTo classify the face gloss images into two groups (gloss and non gloss) feature extraction methods were applied to the original images. The original images were supposed to obtain a more ideal representation in which gloss information was better revealed in four color spaces [including red, green, blue (RGB) hue, saturation, value (HSV) Gray and Lab] Principal component analysis (PCA) 2 dimensional PCA (2DPCA) 2 directional 2 dimensional PCA (2D)2PCA] linear discriminant analysis (LDA) 2 dimensional LDA (2DLDA) and partial least squares (PLS) were used as the feature extraction methods of face gloss. k nearest neighbor was used as the classifification method.ResultsAll the six feature extraction methods were useful in extracting information of face gloss, especially LDA, which had the best prediction accuracy in the 4 color spaces. The average accuracy of LDA in the Lab was 7% 10% higher than that of PCA, 2DPCA, (2D)2PCA and 2DLDA P<0.05) The prediction accuracy of LDA reached 98% in the Lab color space and showed practical usage in clinical diagnosis. The consistent rate between the CM experts and the facial diagnosis system was 81%.ConclusionA computer assisted classifification model was designed to provide an automatic and quantitative approach for the gloss diagnosis of CM based on the face images.
The Effect of Forest Road Distance on Forest Fire Severity (Case Study: Fires in the Neka County Forestry)

The effect of forest roads on the extent and type of fire damage occurred in forests and rangelands of the Neka County in Mazandaran province was investigated. For this purpose, all fire spots, stand number, percentage and type of injury and damage to tree species, and average diameter at breast height (DBH) were noted with 100% inventory; area and geographic location of access roads were determined using GPS. The results showed that distance from the main access road had a significant correlation with the area of fire spots, but no significant correlation existed between the distance from the strip roads, skid ways, town of Neka and the area of fire spots. The factors influencing fire severity were analyzed using the stepwise regression model. Model also showed that just the distance from the main access road affected the area of fire spots. For every one meter increase in the distance from the main access roads, the area of fire spot was increased by 1.545 m. Further, the extent of fire can be controlled by reducing the distance from the main access roads.
Influence Of Subsurface Courses Materials On Pavement Performance: A Case Study in Yebu Agaro Road

The properties of subsurface materials would vary from place to place while it is true the performance of pavement along the route also differs. The research study had been undertaken at Yebu Agaro road section with the main objective to determine the Influence of Subgrade Soil on pavement performance. In order to realize the desired objective, a systematic methodology was adopted which includes field investigation, field test and laboratory tests. While the purposive sampling method was used to extract soil samples from the road section that are severely damaged showing different failures types and non distress surface. Those severe types of failures observed along the road section are reflective crack, pothole, rutting, alligator crack and block crack. From these failure types, five representative samples were extracted at different locations along the failures section and one non distress pavement of road section using a manual hand auger. The analyses of soil samples were carried out based on the Geotechnical properties such as wash gradation, Atterberg limit, and Modified proctor test, California Bearing Ratio (CBR) and field test, as well as Axle load analysis. It was found out that the liquid limit of subgrade soil varies from 33% 60.5% and the plasticity index from 20.3% 30.1% while there was a significant increase in moisture content at field and observed beyond the OMC in the laboratory result due to the distress of pavement affected by water infiltration through cracks, that tend to reduce the dry density. The recorded soaked CBR values of subgrade soil materials range between 8% 13% which was below the 15% minimum value specified by ERA manual. However, the existing CBR values of the subgrade soils indicate a poor material used for pavement structures. According to ASSHTO, the soil is classified as A 2 6 and A 7 6 category which means the existing soils are fair to poor as a sub grade material while USCS classification shows that the soil falls into SC group. In addition, the failures that are frequently observed on the road surface were significantly influenced by subgrade soil. For the sub base layer materials, it was noted to have satisfied the minimum requirements as compared with standard specification, except deficiency of its thickness. For the base course materials, inferior qualities of material were used at some section. The overall results showed that, heavy vehicles or traffic loads are one of the major causes of road failure along the study road section. Hence, the influence of other factors such as poor drainage courses, level of ground water table, variety of geologic materials along the road route and poor construction materials should be thoroughly addressed before the start of the rehabilitation of the road section in the future. Finally a possible remedial measure is recommended for every observed failure or distress on the pavement condition of the study area in order to sustain the design life of the pavement.
Bound states in the continuum

Bound states in the continuum (BICs) are waves that remain localized even though they coexist with a continuous spectrum of radiating waves that can carry energy away. Their very existence defies conventional wisdom. Although BICs were first proposed in quantum mechanics, they are a general wave phenomenon and have since been identified in electromagnetic waves, acoustic waves in air, water waves and elastic waves in solids. These states have been studied in a wide range of material systems, such as piezoelectric materials, dielectric photonic crystals, optical waveguides and fibres, quantum dots, graphene and topological insulators. In this Review, we describe recent developments in this field with an emphasis on the physical mechanisms that lead to BICs across seemingly very different materials and types of waves. We also discuss experimental realizations, existing applications and directions for future work. The fascinating wave phenomenon of 'bound states in the continuum' spans different material and wave systems, including electron, electromagnetic and mechanical waves. In this Review, we focus on the common physical mechanisms underlying these bound states, whilst also discussing recent experimental realizations, current applications and future opportunities for research.
Does addition of glucocorticoids to the initial therapy influence the later course of the disease in patients with early RA? Results from the Swiss prospective observational registry (SCQM)
Venue: Clinical Rheumatology

The main goal of this study was to analyse whether initial addition of glucocorticoid to DMARD therapy influences the long term course of the disease in patients with early rheumatoid arthritis. All patients from the Swiss RA cohort SCQM with recent onset arthritis (disease duration =1 year) were analysed. The exposure of interest was the use of glucocorticoids (GCs) at baseline. As primary outcome, we considered clinical and radiographic disease progression, assessed by the disease activity (disease activity score, DAS 28) function (health assessment questionnaire disability index, HAQ DI) and structural joint damage (Ratingen erosion score) The baseline disease characteristics were compared using standard descriptive statistics. The effects of initial GC use on disease progression during follow up were estimated using linear mixed models with random slope and random intercept, adjusted for potential confounders. In total, 592 patients with early disease were available, with 4.3 years of follow up (average) Of these, 363 were initially treated with glucocorticoids (GC patients) and 228 were not (no GC patients) DAS 28 (4.6 vs. 4.3, p 0.01) and the HAQ DI (0.94 vs. 0.82, p 0.01) were higher at baseline in GC patients, while other prognostic factors were balanced at baseline. Neither the change of DAS 28, of HAQ DI nor of the development of joint erosions differed between the two groups during follow up. Escalation of treatment employing biologics was documented in 18.0% of the no GC patients and 27.3% of the GC patients (p 0.01) In this cohort, patients with early RA initially treated with GCs had higher measures of disease activity at baseline in comparison to no GC patients. Despite a similar course of the disease in GC versus non GC patients, the higher escalation rate to biologic agents in GC patients may reflect a disease less responsive to therapy in these patients. These data suggest that GC use as part of the initial therapeutic strategy in early RA may prevent a more severe course of the disease in patients with higher clinical disease measures at the start of therapy.