nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
On the Semantics of Logic Programs with Preferences

This work is a contribution to realizing prioritized reasoning in logic programming in the presence of preference relations involving atoms. In more details, the case of dynamic preferences is investigated and a semantics interpreting each preference rule as a tool for representing a choice over alternative options is proposed. The technique, providing a new interpretation for prioritized logic programs, is inspired by the one proposed by Sakama and Inoue in  and enriched with the use of structural information of preference rules as proposed by Brewka et al. in . Specifically, the analysis of the logic program is carried out together with the analysis of preferences in order to determine the choice order and the sets of comparable models. The proposed approach is compared with those in [6,19]. Complexity analysis is also performed showing that the use of additional information does not increase the complexity of computing preferred stable models.

Field of study: Computer science
THE EFFECTS OF ACIDITY UPON THE GROWTH OF PNEUMOCOCCUS IN CULTURE MEDIA CONTAINING PROTEINS

In the presence of animal fluids or their protein constituents, Type I Pneumococcus survived and multiplied at acid hydrogen ion concentrations which in the plain broth were bactericidal for these organisms. Minimal numbers of these cells readily produced pneumococcus growth in serum broth when adjusted at hydrogen ion concentration as great as pH 5.5 with hydrochloric, or to pH 6.5 with acetic acid. Growth of the pneumococci could be demonstrated in serum broth adjusted to pH 5.0 with hydrochloric, or to pH 5.5 with acetic acid although at these hydrogen ion concentrations, large amounts of inoculum were necessary. Similar results were obtained with broth to which certain animal proteins were added and in serum broth which was previously heated by autoclave at 20 pounds pressure for 20 minutes. Pneumococcus growth proceeded at a more rapid rate in serum dextrose broth at pH 6.5 than in dextrose broth alone at the optimal hydrogen ion concentration of pH 7.8. At pH 6.0 large numbers of pneumococci failed to produce the same amount of growth in serum dextrose broth as at pH 6.5 or in dextrose broth alone at pH 7.8. It is of interest that in serum dextrose broth cultures, the stationary and decline phases of pneumococcus growth were prolonged and cell death delayed in comparison with cultures in dextrose broth alone.

Field of study: Biology
Progressive spontaneous herniation of the thoracic spinal cord: case report.

We report one case of spontaneous thoracic spinal cord herniation. To our knowledge, this is the first case involving radiological documentation of the development of herniation. Clinical features and surgical techniques are also presented.



We describe the case of a 51-year-old female patient who experienced progressive Brown-Sequard syndrome for 2 years. Three magnetic resonance imaging examinations were performed; they revealed the progressive development of anterolateral spinal cord herniation at the level of T6 during those 2 years.



After laminectomy at T6, the herniated myelon was microsurgically removed and the neurological symptoms improved.



We present the possible causes, the proposed pathophysiological mechanisms, and the clinical and radiological development of this rare entity, with a review of the literature published to date. We propose that a preexisting weakness of the ventral dural fibers, combined with abnormal adhesion of the spinal cord to the anterior dural sleeve, leads to progressive herniation throughout life. Microsurgical treatment may halt the exacerbation of the neurological symptoms.

Field of study: Medicine
Hydroxyapatite/MCM-41 and SBA-15 Nano-Composites: Preparation, Characterization and Applications

Composites of hydroxyapatite (HaP) and highly ordered large pore mesoporous silica molecular sieves such as, Al-SBA-15 and Al-MCM-41 (denoted as SBA-15 and MCM-41, respectively) were developed, characterized by XRD, BET, FTIR, HRTEM and NMR-MAS, and applied to fluoride retention from contaminated water. The proposed procedure by a new route to prepare the HaP/SBA-15 and HaP/MCM-41, composites generates materials with aluminum only in tetrahedral coordination, according to the 27Al NMR-MAS results. Free OH- groups of HaP nanocrystals, within the hosts, allowed high capacity fluoride retention. The activity of fluoride retention using HaP/MCM-41 or HaP/SBA-15 was 1-2 orders of magnitude greater, respectively, than with pure HaP.

Field of study: Materials science
Atomistic/Continuum Blending with Ghost Force Correction

We combine the ideas of atomistic/continuum energy blending and ghost force correction to obtain an energy-based atomistic/continuum coupling scheme which has, for a range of benchmark problems, the same convergence rates as optimal force-based coupling schemes. 
We present the construction of this new scheme, numerical results exploring its accuracy in comparison with established schemes, as well as a rigorous error analysis for an instructive special case.

Field of study: Physics
Fast fuzzy clustering

This paper presents a multistage random sampling fuzzy c-means-based clustering algorithm, which significantly reduces the computation time required to partition a data set into c classes. A series of subsets of the full data set are used to create initial cluster centers in order to provide an approximation to the final cluster centers. The quality of the final partitions is equivalent to those created by fuzzy c-means. The speed-up is normally a factor of 2–3 times, which is especially significant for high-dimensional spaces and large data sets. Examples of the improved speed of the algorithm in two multi-spectral domains, magnetic resonance image segmentation and satellite image segmentation, are given. The results are compared with fuzzy c-means in terms of both the time required and the final resulting partition. Significant speedup is shown in each example presented in the paper. Further, the convergence properties of fuzzy c-means are preserved.

Field of study: Computer science
Getting published: reflections of a collaborative writing group.

Writing for publication, in the nursing profession, is considered essential for the development of the profession and individual career advancement. In education there is also the increasing pressure to produce University research output.



To develop a collaborative writing group to develop and write articles relating to our teaching practice.



The idea of forming a writing group was discussed at a module team meeting where five academics expressed an interest. The process of forming the group involved an initial meeting to discuss and agree to the aims, interests, expertise and areas of responsibility for each member. Regular meetings are held and each member takes on responsibility for an aspect of work towards completing the articles.



Three articles and one editorial have been published and another is under peer review. We have endeavoured to develop and maintain a theme, this being supporting nursing students' development with an emphasis on an aspect of their decision making skills. Also, importantly, we have created a supportive environment and friendships.



The demands made upon the nurse educator to be clinically, educationally and research active can be difficult to meet. Collaborative writing groups may be one way to fulfil the scholarly activity element.

Field of study: Education
Unitary Transformations in the Quantum Model for Conceptual Conjunctions and Its Application to Data Representation

Quantum models of concept combinations have been successful in representing various experimental situations that cannot be accommodated by traditional models based on classical probability or fuzzy set theory. In many cases, the focus has been on producing a representation that fits experimental results to validate quantum models. However, these representations are not always consistent with the cognitive modeling principles. Moreover, some important issues related to the representation of concepts such as the dimensionality of the realization space, the uniqueness of solutions, and the compatibility of measurements, have been overlooked. In this paper, we provide a dimensional analysis of the realization space for the two-sector Fock space model for conjunction of concepts focusing on the first and second sectors separately. We then introduce various representation of concepts that arise from the use of unitary operators in the realization space. In these concrete representations, a pair of concepts and their combination are modeled by a single conceptual state, and by a collection of exemplar-dependent operators. Therefore, they are consistent with cognitive modeling principles. This framework not only provides a uniform approach to model an entire data set, but, because all measurement operators are expressed in the same basis, allows us to address the question of compatibility of measurements. In particular, we present evidence that it may be possible to predict non-commutative effects from partial measurements of conceptual combinations.

Field of study: Computer science
EXPERIMENTAL QUANTUM ERROR CORRECTION

Quantum error correction is required to compensate for the fragility of the state of a quantum computer. We report the first experimental implementations of quantum error correction and confirm the expected state stabilization. A precise analysis of the decay behavior is performed in alanine and a full implementation of the error correction procedure is realized in trichloroethylene. In NMR computing, however, a net improvement in the signal to noise would require very high polarization. The experiment implemented the three-bit code for phase errors using liquid state NMR.

Field of study: Computer science, Physics
The effect of stimulus duration on the persistence of gratings

The persistence of gratings varying in spatial frequency and exposure duration was measured using a stimulus-blank alternation method. Persistence was found to lengthen with increasing spatial frequency and to shorten with increasing exposure duration. For each spatial frequency, persistence decreased linearly with a slope of approximately —.75 as duration increased for short stimulus durations. For longer stimulus durations, the rate of decline in persistence with increasing duration was reduced, the slope being approximately —.13. The stimulus duration at which the change in slope of the persistence-duration relationship occurred was shown to increase with increasing spatial frequency and was approximately equivalent to the critical duration for each spatial frequency. The data were consistent with an interpretation of persistence in terms of a temporal integration component and a second, possibly cortically located, component.

Field of study: Physics
Filling the Polar Data Gap in Sea Ice Concentration Fields Using Partial Differential Equations

The “polar data gap” is a region around the North Pole where satellite orbit inclination and instrument swath for SMMR and SSM/I-SSMIS satellites preclude retrieval of sea ice concentrations. Data providers make the irregularly shaped data gap round by centering a circular “pole hole mask” over the North Pole. The area within the pole hole mask has conventionally been assumed to be ice-covered for the purpose of sea ice extent calculations, but recent conditions around the perimeter of the mask indicate that this assumption may already be invalid. Here we propose an objective, partial differential equation based model for estimating sea ice concentrations within the area of the pole hole mask. In particular, the sea ice concentration field is assumed to satisfy Laplace’s equation with boundary conditions determined by observed sea ice concentrations on the perimeter of the gap region. This type of idealization in the concentration field has already proved to be quite useful in establishing an objective method for measuring the “width” of the marginal ice zone—a highly irregular, annular-shaped region of the ice pack that interacts with the ocean, and typically surrounds the inner core of most densely packed sea ice. Realistic spatial heterogeneity in the idealized concentration field is achieved by adding a spatially autocorrelated stochastic field with temporally varying standard deviation derived from the variability of observations around the mask. To test the model, we examined composite annual cycles of observation-model agreement for three circular regions adjacent to the pole hole mask. The composite annual cycle of observation-model correlation ranged from approximately 0.6 to 0.7, and sea ice concentration mean absolute deviations were of order 10 − 2 or smaller. The model thus provides a computationally simple approach to solving the increasingly important problem of how to fill the polar data gap. Moreover, this approach based on solving an elliptic partial differential equation with given boundary conditions has sufficient generality to also provide more sophisticated models which could potentially be more accurate than the Laplace equation version. Such generalizations and potential validation opportunities are discussed.

Field of study: Environmental science, Mathematics
Quantized compute and forward: A low-complexity architecture for distributed antenna systems

We consider a low-complexity version of the Compute and Forward scheme that involves only scaling, offset (dithering removal) and scalar quantization at the relays. The proposed scheme is suited for the uplink of a distributed antenna system where the antenna elements must be very simple and are connected to a joint processor via orthogonal perfect links of given rate R0. We consider the design of non-binary LDPC codes naturally matched to the proposed scheme. Each antenna element performs individual (decentralized) Belief Propagation decoding of its own quantized signal, and sends a linear combination of the users' information messages via the noiseless link to the joint processor, which retrieves the users' messages by Gaussian elimination. The complexity of this scheme is linear in the coding block length and polynomial in the system size (number of relays).

Field of study: Computer science
Hepatic Arterial Infusion Chemotherapy in Gastric Cancer: A Report of Four Cases and Analysis of the Literature

Gastric cancer is associated with high mortality. Although the liver is a common site of metastases in this tumor, the experience with liver-directed therapies is limited.  We report a single-center experience involving four patients with liver metastases from gastric cancer treated by hepatic arterial infusion (HAI). In addition, we performed a search for reports on HAI in gastric cancer metastatic to the liver and used the studies with data on survival of individual patients for a pooled analysis.  Among three valuable patients, one had a complete response, one had stable disease and one had progressive disease. The patient with complete response is still alive 41 months after the diagnosis of liver metastases, while the other patients died 6, 22 and 31 months after the diagnosis. Objective responses were observed in 48% of the 25 patients in the pooled analysis. Objective response and limited hepatic involvement were independent predictors of survival in these patients.  Although isolated liver involvement in metastatic gastric cancer is rare, HAI seems to be similarly effective in these patients as in patients with liver metastases from colorectal cancer. The prognosis is significantly better in gastric cancer patients who have limited hepatic involvement and attain an objective response after HAI.

Field of study: Medicine
Visual search in divided areas: Dividers initially interfere with and later facilitate visual search

A common search paradigm requires observers to search for a target among undivided spatial arrays of many items. Yet our visual environment is populated with items that are typically arranged within smaller (subdivided) spatial areas outlined by dividers (e.g., frames). It remains unclear how dividers impact visual search performance. In this study, we manipulated the presence and absence of frames and the number of frames subdividing search displays. Observers searched for a target O among Cs, a typically inefficient search task, and for a target C among Os, a typically efficient search. The results indicated that the presence of divider frames in a search display initially interferes with visual search tasks when targets are quickly detected (i.e., efficient search), leading to early interference; conversely, frames later facilitate visual search in tasks in which targets take longer to detect (i.e., inefficient search), leading to late facilitation. Such interference and facilitation appear only for conditions with a specific number of frames. Relative to previous studies of grouping (due to item proximity or similarity), these findings suggest that frame enclosures of multiple items may induce a grouping effect that influences search performance.

Field of study: Computer science
Impact of Shadowing Correlation on Reverse Link Capacity of DS-CDMA Cellular System

Independent shadowing losses are often assumed for evaluating the link capacity of direct sequence code division multiple access (DS-CDMA) cellular system. However, shadowing losses may be partially correlated since the obstacles surrounding a mobile station block similarly the desired signal and the interfering signals. In this letter, we discuss how the shadowing correlation impacts the reverse link capacity of a power-controlled DS-CDMA cellular system, by numerical analysis.

Field of study: Engineering
Advice-Efficient Prediction with Expert Advice

Advice-efficient prediction with expert advice (in analogy to label-efficient prediction) is a variant of prediction with expert advice game, where on each round of the game we are allowed to ask for advice of a limited number $M$ out of $N$ experts. This setting is especially interesting when asking for advice of every expert on every round is expensive. We present an algorithm for advice-efficient prediction with expert advice that achieves $O(\sqrt{\frac{N}{M}T\ln N})$ regret on $T$ rounds of the game.

Field of study: Computer science, Mathematics
Mapping tropospheric ozone profiles from an airborne ultraviolet-visible spectrometer.

We present a novel technique for retrieving ozone (O3) profiles and especially tropospheric O3 from airborne UV/visible spectrometer measurements. This technique utilizes radiance spectra from one down-looking and two up-looking (85 degrees and 75 degrees) directions, taking advantage of the O3 absorption structure in the Huggins (300-340-nm) and Chappuis (530-650-nm) bands. This technique is especially sensitive to tropospheric O3 below and < or =8 km above the aircraft with a vertical resolution of 2-6 km and is sensitive to lower and middle stratospheric O3 with a vertical resolution of 8-15 km. It can measure tropospheric O3 at spatial resolutions of 2 km x 2 km or higher and is therefore well suited for regional air-quality studies and validation of satellite measurements.

Field of study: Environmental science, Physics
A comprehensive platform to manage peer churn and bandwidth fluctuations in real-time multimedia P2P networks

In the last few years, new service providers are growing in the Internet scenario to create new multimedia services. The most common approach to this end is based on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. The new service providers are manifesting great interest not only for classical multimedia applications, like video streaming and video on demand, but also for multi-party games, private video-chat rooms, videoconference and real-time video teaching, usually containing a small number of high-interactive group members. The target of this paper is to define a multipoint multimedia communication platform for such kind of applications, accounting both peer set variation (peer arrivals and departures) and peer bandwidth modifications. In addition, a revenue model for providers of this kind of services is proposed to allow them to design their networks in order to maximize their revenue while satisfying user requirements in terms of both admission rejection probability and perceived quality on the received video stream.

Field of study: Computer science
The Flat Oxygen Abundance Gradient in the Extended Disk of M83

We have obtained deep multiobject optical spectra of 49 H II regions in the outer disk of the spiral galaxy M83 (=NGC 5236) with the FORS2 spectrograph at the Very Large Telescope. The targets span the range in galactocentric distance between 0.64 and 2.64 times the R 25 isophotal radius (5.4-22.3 kpc), and 31 of them are located at R >  R 25, thus belonging to the extreme outer disk of the galaxy, populated by UV complexes revealed recently by the Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite. In order to derive the nebular chemical abundances, we apply several diagnostics of the oxygen abundance, including R 23, [N II]/[O II], and the [O III] λ4363 auroral line, which was detected in four H II regions. We find that, while inward of the optical edge the O/H ratio follows the radial gradient known from previous investigations, the outer abundance trend flattens out to an approximately constant value. The latter varies, according to the adopted diagnostic, between 12 + log(O/H) = 8.2 and 12 + log(O/H) = 8.6 (i.e., from approximately 1/3 of the solar oxygen abundance to nearly the solar value). An abrupt discontinuity in the radial oxygen abundance trend is also detected near the optical edge of the disk. These results are tentatively linked to the flat gas surface density in the outskirts of the galaxy, the relatively unevolved state of the extended disk of M83, and the redistribution of chemically enriched gas following a past galaxy encounter.

Field of study: Physics
Economic Action and Social Structure: The Problem of Embeddedness

How behavior and institutions are affected by social relations is one of the classic questions of social theory. This paper concerns the extent to which economic action is embedded in structures of social relations, in modern industrial society. Although the usual neoclasical accounts provide an "undersocialized" or atomized-actor explanation of such action, reformist economists who attempt to bring social structure back in do so in the "oversocialized" way criticized by Dennis Wrong. Under-and oversocialized accounts are paradoxically similar in their neglect of ongoing structures of social relations, and a sophisticated account of economic action must consider its embeddedness in such structures. The argument in illustrated by a critique of Oliver Williamson's "markets and hierarchies" research program.

Field of study: Economics, Sociology
Bayesian approach to estimation of intraclass correlation using reference prior

For the balanced variance component model when the intraclass correlation coefficient is of interest, Bayesian analysis is often appropriate. Berger and Bernardo’s (1992a) grouped ordering reference prior approach is used to analyze this model. The reference priors are developed and compared for the posterior inference with real and simulated data. We examine whether the reference priors satisfy the probability-matching criterion. Further, the reference prior is shown to be good in the sense of correct frequentist coverage probability of the posterior quantile.

Field of study: Computer science, Mathematics