nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Self acceptance of stuttering: A preliminary study.
Venue: Journal of communication disorders

This study explored the relationship between self acceptance of stuttering and (1) psychosocial factors (self esteem, hostility towards others, emotional support, and perceived discrimination) (2) treatment history (support group participation, therapy duration, and perceived therapy success) and (3) previously reported variables in self acceptance of stuttering, which include age and stuttering severity.  Participants were 80 adults who stutter who were recruited with assistance from the National Stuttering Association and Board Certified Specialists in Fluency Disorders. Participants completed an electronic survey composed of an acceptance of stuttering scale, psychosocial scales, and a participant information questionnaire.  Statistical analysis identified significant correlations between participants' reports of self acceptance of stuttering and self esteem, perceived discrimination, hostility towards others, and perceived therapy outcome. Self esteem was positively correlated with self acceptance, while hostility towards others and perceived discrimination was negatively correlated with self acceptance. Participants who perceived their therapy outcome to be successful were significantly more likely to report higher levels of self acceptance. No significant relationships were found between self acceptance of stuttering and support group participation, emotional support, stuttering severity, and participant age.  This exploratory investigation has provided a foundation for future studies on the self acceptance of stuttering. The findings indicate common psychosocial variables in self acceptance of stuttering and of other disabilities. The significant relationships between self acceptance of stuttering and psychosocial and therapeutic variables found need to be further explored to identify its causalities and clinical implications.  The reader will be able to (1) discuss the importance of assessing self acceptance of stuttering, (2) summarize the literature on self acceptance of disability, and (3) describe the significant findings related to self acceptance of stuttering and psychosocial, therapeutic variables.
Contemplating Tragedy Raises Gratifications and Fosters Self Acceptance

Despite the reflective nature of tragedy, little research has focused on reflection's impact on "pleasure" and personal growth. Drawing from entertainment, literary, and health research, this study assessed the degree to which contemplating tragedy increases gratifications and promotes self acceptance. The moderating effects of life events were also examined. In an experiment, participants (N 120) were randomly instructed to either watch a Hollywood drama and reflect, or only watch the movie (control) Results showed significant main effects on appreciation and enjoyment. Reflection increased gratifications for participants with remote loss =2 years) but not recent loss, and it strengthened the link between self perceptual depth and a 4 week change in self compassion. The benefits and drawbacks of reflecting on tragedy are discussed.
Neutron Scattering from Polymers: Five Decades of Developing Possibilities.
Venue: Annual review of chemical and biomolecular engineering

The first three decades of my research career closely map the development of neutron scattering techniques for the study of molecular behavior. At the same time, the theoretical understanding of organization and motion of polymer molecules, especially in the bulk state, was developing rapidly and providing many predictions crying out for experimental verification. Neutron scattering is an ideal technique for providing the necessary evidence. This autobiographical essay describes the applications by my research group and other collaborators of increasingly sophisticated neutron scattering techniques to observe and understand molecular behavior in polymeric materials. It has been a stimulating and rewarding journey.
Mechanisms and biomaterials in pH responsive tumour targeted drug delivery: A review.
Venue: Biomaterials

As the mainstay in the treatment of various cancers, chemotherapy plays a vital role, but still faces many challenges, such as poor tumour selectivity and multidrug resistance (MDR) Targeted drug delivery using nanotechnology has provided a new strategy for addressing the limitations of the conventional chemotherapy. In the last decade, the volume of research published in this area has increased tremendously, especially with functional nano drug delivery systems (nanocarriers) Coupling a specific stimuli triggered drug release mechanism with these delivery systems is one of the most prevalent approaches for improving therapeutic outcomes. Among the various stimuli, pH triggered delivery is regarded as the most general strategy, targeting the acidic extracellular microenvironment and intracellular organelles of solid tumours. In this review, we discuss recent advances in the development of pH sensitive nanocarriers for tumour targeted drug delivery. The review focuses on the chemical design of pH sensitive biomaterials, which are used to fabricate nanocarriers for extracellular and/or intracellular tumour site specific drug release. The pH responsive biomaterials bring forth conformational changes in these nanocarriers through various mechanisms such as protonation, charge reversal or cleavage of a chemical bond, facilitating tumour specific cell uptake or drug release. A greater understanding of these mechanisms will help to design more efficient drug delivery systems to address the challenges encountered in conventional chemotherapy.
Biocontrol potential of endophytic fungi in medicinal plants from Wuhan Botanical Garden in China

Many medicinal plants possess antimicrobial activities, and have antagonistic endophytic fungi that help them protect from pathogen attack. The aim of this study was to examine endophytic fungi in traditional Chinese medicinal plants, and understand if these organisms have antimicrobial activities and they can be potentially used for biological control of plant diseases. A total of 208 endophytic fungal isolates were collected from stems (83) leaves (121) and flowers (4) of 26 medicinal plant species. The majority of the isolates belonged to Alternaria, Phomopsis, Colletotrichum, Phoma and Acremonium as well as several species allocated to Mycelia sterilia. A detached leaf assay was conducted by testing these isolates on wheat powdery mildew (Blumeria graminis f. sp. tritici, or Bgt) Fifteen isolates of endophytic fungi inhibited Bgt, exhibiting control efficacies ranging from 65.4% to 100% Of these isolates, LPS 1, SCS 6 and 16 6, exhibited significant inhibition of Bgt proliferation >90% Isolate LPS 1 isolated from the stem of Ilex cornuta Lindl. ex Paxt. had the highest efficacy, resulting in 100% inhibition of Bgt growth on detached leaf segments. Based on morphological characteristics and phylogenetic analyses of the ITS rDNA sequences and translation elongation factor 1 alpha (TEF 1a) gene regions, LPS 1 was identified as Lasiodiplodia pseudotheobromae. A range of culture conditions for LPS 1 were examined and the results indicated that optimal antifungal activity resulted from static cultures in PDB (pH 7.0) inoculated with three mycelial plugs and incubated at 30 degC for 6 days. With further study, LPS 1 can be a candidate for biological control.
Aggressive quadrotor flight through cluttered environments using mixed integer programming
Venue: 2016 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA)

Quadrotor flight has typically been limited to sparse environments due to numerical complications that arise when dealing with large numbers of obstacles. We hypothesized that it would be possible to plan and robustly execute trajectories in obstacle dense environments using the novel Iterative Regional Inflation by Semidefinite programming algorithm (IRIS) mixed integer semidefinite programs (MISDP) and model based control. Unlike sampling based approaches, the planning algorithm first introduced by Deits theoretically guarantees non penetration of the trajectories even with small obstacles such as strings. We present experimental validation of this claim by aggressively flying a small quadrotor (34g, 92mm rotor to rotor) in a series of indoor environments including a cubic meter volume containing 20 interwoven strings, and present the control architecture we developed to do so.
Sentiment classification using Comprehensive Attention Recurrent models
Venue: 2016 International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN)

Sentiment classification has been a very hot topic in the field of natural language processing (NLP) and understanding in recent years. Recurrent neural networks (RNN) is a widely used tool to deal with the classification problem of variable length sentences. The standard RNN can only access the preceding context of a sentence. In this paper, a new architecture termed Comprehensive Attention Recurrent Neural Networks (CA RNN) which can store preceding, succeeding and local contexts of any position in a sequence is developed. The bidirectional recurrent neural networks (BRNN) is used to access the past and future information while a convolutional layer is employed to capture local information. The standard RNN is also replaced by two recently emerged RNN variants, namely long short term memory (LSTM) and gated recurrent unit (GRU) to enhance the effectiveness of the new architecture. Another salient feature of the proposed model is that it can be trained end to end without any human intervention. It is very easy to be implemented. We conduct experiments on several sentiment labeled datasets and analysis tasks. Experiment results demonstrate that capturing comprehensive contextual information can significantly enhance the classification accuracy compared with the standard recurrent models and the new models can achieve competitive performance compared with the state of the art approaches.
PGQ: Combining policy gradient and Q learning
Venue: ArXiv

Policy gradient is an efficient technique for improving a policy in a reinforcement learning setting. However, vanilla online variants are on policy only and not able to take advantage of off policy data. In this paper we describe a new technique that combines policy gradient with off policy Q learning, drawing experience from a replay buffer. This is motivated by making a connection between the fixed points of the regularized policy gradient algorithm and the Q values. This connection allows us to estimate the Q values from the action preferences of the policy, to which we apply Q learning updates. We refer to the new technique as 'PGQL' for policy gradient and Q learning. We also establish an equivalency between action value fitting techniques and actor critic algorithms, showing that regularized policy gradient techniques can be interpreted as advantage function learning algorithms. We conclude with some numerical examples that demonstrate improved data efficiency and stability of PGQL. In particular, we tested PGQL on the full suite of Atari games and achieved performance exceeding that of both asynchronous advantage actor critic (A3C) and Q learning.
Wafer level measurements and numerical analysis of self heating phenomena in nano scale SOI MOSFETs
Venue: Microelectron. Reliab.

We present an experimental technique and a Finite Element thermal simulation for the determination of the temperature elevation in Silicon on Insulator (SOI) MOSFETs due to self heating. We evaluate the temperature elevation in two steps, as we calibrate the gate resistance over temperature with the transistor at off state at a first stage, and then we deduce the temperature elevation through gate resistance measurements. We simulate the self heating phenomena in a Finite Elements Method (FEM) environment, both with 2D and 3D models. In order to set up the simulations, we weight the effects of several parameters, such as thermal material properties, the modeling of heat generation and a careful setting of boundary conditions. We present typical temperature fields and local heat fluxes, thus giving concrete indications for solving thermal reliability issues. Simulation results show temperature elevations up to approximately 120 K in the hot spot, 70 K in the gate and 7 K in the Back End of Line (BEoL) The 3D model gives results that are satisfying over the whole set of MOSFETs we consider in this work. Temperature elevation strongly depends on physical dimensions, where transistors endowed with shorter gates suffer from more severe self heating. We propose a simplified model based on geometrical parameters that predict maximum and gate temperatures, obtaining satisfying results. Since correlation with measurements confirms the correctness of our model, we believe that our simulations could be a useful tool to determine accurate reliability rules and in a context of thermal aware design.
Battle Damage Assessment based on self similarity and contextual modeling of buildings in dense urban areas
Venue: 2016 IEEE International Geoscience and Remote Sensing Symposium (IGARSS)

Assessment of battle damages is significant both for tactical planning and for after war relief efforts. In this study damaged buildings are detected using self similarity descriptor in pre and post war satellite images. Detection accuracy is improved by the use of a contextual model that describes the building neighborhoods. Building footprints are utilized for accurate assessment of building level changes and for the formation of neighborhood context. The Gaza Strip after 2014 Israel Palestine conflict is analyzed with the suggested method and 84% true positive rate and 19% false positive rate are obtained on the average for detection of damaged buildings with respect to the ground truth data of UNOSAT.
Moments Based Ultrasound Visual Servoing: From a Mono to Multiplane Approach
Venue: IEEE Transactions on Robotics

This paper presents a new image based visual servoing approach to control a robotic system equipped with an ultrasound (US) imaging device. The presented method allows an automatic positioning of the probe with respect to an object of interest. Moments based image features are computed from three orthogonal US images to servo in plane and out of plane motions of the system. An efficient segmentation method, based on graph cut strategy, is proposed to extract the object contour in each image plane. Simulation results demonstrate that this approach improves upon techniques based on a single 2 D US image in terms of probe positioning. Our method was also validated from robotic experiments performed on a US phantom with the use of a motorized 3 D probe that provides the three US images.
3D Flash Memories
Venue: Springer Netherlands

This book walks the reader through the next step in the evolution of NAND flash memory technology, namely the development of 3D flash memories, in which multiple layers of memory cells are grown within the same piece of silicon. It describes their working principles, device architectures, fabrication techniques and practical implementations, and highlights why 3D flash is a brand new technology. After reviewing market trends for both NAND and solid state drives (SSDs) the book digs into the details of the flash memory cell itself, covering both floating gate and emerging charge trap technologies. There is a plethora of different materials and vertical integration schemes out there. New memory cells, new materials, new architectures (3D Stacked, BiCS and P BiCS, 3D FG, 3D VG, 3D advanced architectures) basically, each NAND manufacturer has its own solution. Chapter 3 to chapter 7 offer a broad overview of how 3D can materialize. The 3D wave is impacting emerging memories as well and chapter 8 covers 3D RRAM (resistive RAM) crosspoint arrays. Visualizing 3D structures can be a challenge for the human brain: this is way all these chapters contain a lot of birds eye views and cross sections along the 3 axes. The second part of the book is devoted to other important aspects, such as advanced packaging technology (i.e. TSV in chapter 9) and error correction codes, which have been leveraged to improve flash reliability for decades. Chapter 10 describes the evolution from legacy BCH to the most recent LDPC codes, while chapter 11 deals with some of the most recent advancements in the ECC field. Last but not least, chapter 12 looks at 3D flash memories from a system perspective. Is 14nm the last step for planar cells? Can 100 layers be integrated within the same piece of silicon? Is 4 bit/cell possible with 3D? Will 3D be reliable enough for enterprise and datacenter applications? These are some of the questions that this book helps answering by providing insights into 3D flash memory design, process technology and applications.
Focus on Extracellular Vesicles: Introducing the Next Small Big Thing
Venue: International journal of molecular sciences

Intercellular communication was long thought to be regulated exclusively through direct contact between cells or via release of soluble molecules that transmit the signal by binding to a suitable receptor on the target cell, and/or via uptake into that cell. With the discovery of small secreted vesicular structures that contain complex cargo, both in their lumen and the lipid membrane that surrounds them, a new frontier of signal transduction was discovered. These "extracellular vesicles" (EV) were initially thought to be garbage bags through which the cell ejected its waste. Whilst this is a major function of one type of EV, i.e. apoptotic bodies, many EVs have intricate functions in intercellular communication and compound exchange; although their physiological roles are still ill defined. Additionally, it is now becoming increasingly clear that EVs mediate disease progression and therefore studying EVs has ignited significant interests among researchers from various fields of life sciences. Consequently, the research effort into the pathogenic roles of EVs is significantly higher even though their protective roles are not well established. The "Focus on extracellular vesicles" series of reviews highlights the current state of the art regarding various topics in EV research, whilst this review serves as an introductory overview of EVs, their biogenesis and molecular composition.
The 2nd United Kingdom Extracellular Vesicle Forum Meeting Abstracts
Venue: Journal of extracellular vesicles

The UK Extracellular Vesicles (UKEV) Forum meetings were born of the realization that there were a number of UK laboratories studying extracellular vesicle biology and using similar techniques but without a regular national meeting dedicated to EVs at which to share their findings. This was compounded by the fact that many of these labs were working in different fields and thus networking and sharing of ideas and best practice was sometimes difficult. The first workshop was organized in 2013 by Dr Charlotte Lawson, under the auspices of the Society for Endocrinology, led to the founding of the UKEV Forum and the organization of a British Heart Foundation sponsored 1 day conference held in London in December 2014. Although growing in size every year, the central aims of these workshops have remained the same: to provide a forum for discussion and exchange of ideas, to allow young scientists to present their data in the form of short talks and poster presentations and to discuss their work with more established scientists in the field. Here we include the presented abstracts for the 2015 1 day conference hosted by Cardiff University. This meeting was attended by approximately 130 delegates throughout the United Kingdom, but also attended by delegates from Belgium, Netherlands, France, Ireland and other nations. The day composed of plenary presentations from Prof Matthias Belting, Lund University, Sweden and Dr Guillaume van Niel, Institut Curie, Paris together with 10 short presentations from submitted abstracts. The topics covered were broad, with sessions on Mechanisms of EV production, EVs in Infection, EVs in Cancer and in Blood and Characterizing EVs in Biological fluids. This hopefully gives a reflection of the range of EV related studies being conducted currently in the UK. There were also 33 poster presentations equally broad in subject matter. The organizers are grateful to the Life Science Research Network Wales a Welsh government funding scheme that part sponsored the conference. We are also grateful to commercial sponsors, and 3 paid presentations are included in the abstracts. The UK EV Forum is expected to become an established annual event held at different Universities across the UK and continue to attract increasing delegate numbers and abstract submissions. We look forward to the next planned conference, which will be hosted by David Carter and his colleagues at Oxford Brookes University on 13th December 2016.
Sophoraflavanone G from Sophora alopecuroides inhibits lipopolysaccharide induced inflammation in RAW264.7 cells by targeting PI3K/Akt, JAK/STAT and Nrf2/HO 1 pathways.
Venue: International immunopharmacology

Sophoraflavanone G (SG) a prenylated flavonoid from Sophora alopecuroides, has been reported to have many pharmacological activities including anti inflammation. However, the molecular mechanisms of its anti inflammatory activity remain largely unclear. In this study we investigated the effects and the underlying molecular mechanisms of SG on lipopolysaccharide (LPS) induced inflammation in RAW264.7 cells. Pretreatment with SG inhibited LPS induced production of nitric oxide (NO) and prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) through reducing the expressions of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS) and cyclooxygenase 2 (COX 2) SG also decreased the expressions of pro inflammatory cytokines, tumor necrosis factor a (TNF a) interleukin 6 (IL 6) and interleukin 1b (IL 1b) both in the protein and gene levels. Further experiments demonstrated that SG downregulated the LPS induced upregulation of phosphorylated phosphoinositide 3 kinase and Akt (PI3K/Akt) SG also attenuated the expression of phosphorylated Janus kinase signal transducer and activator of transcription (JAK/STAT) In addition, SG upregulated heme oxygenase 1 (HO 1) expression via nuclear translocation of nuclear factor E2 related factor 2 (Nrf2) Taken together, SG may act as a natural agent to treat some inflammatory diseases by targeting PI3K/Akt, JAK/STAT and Nrf2/HO 1 pathways.