nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
WE‐E‐203‐01: One Model for Teaching Clinical Skills to Medical Physics Master's Degree Students: Employing a Clinical Skills Workbook as Part of a Structured Clinical Practicum Course

To present one model for teaching clinical skills to medical physics master's degree students: employing a clinical skills workbook as part of a structured practicum course.  By creating a workbook and accompanying practicum course structure, our goal is to provide a framework for improved learning of medical physics skills in practice. Each workbook section begins with selected references. Included exercises seek to empower the students to think deeply and critically by guiding them through a series of tasks and detailed questions. This encourages them to understand the rationales behind medical physics procedures and to acquire the skills needed to analyze, compare, and implement new technologies. Additional structure and materials help to keep the course cohesive, relevant, and organized. A competency list is employed to track student progress over time. Discussions between students and clinical preceptors are emphasized, and regular individual meetings of each student and preceptor with our Director of Clinical Education are required. The information obtained during these meetings allows close monitoring of student development and intervention when appropriate. Quarterly student evaluations of the course, preceptor, and clinical sites, as well as preceptor input, enable continual improvement of the workbook and course structure.  Feedback from students and preceptors indicates that students meet our expectation of at least two full days of practicum work per week for 6 of their 7 quarters in the program, master the majority of tasks outlined in the clinical competency list prior to graduation, achieve a good level of understanding of clinical procedures, and benefit from the enhanced structure our course provides.  Through the use of a clinical skills workbook and structured practicum course, we seek to ensure that our students will learn to safely and appropriately practice clinical medical physics.

Field of study: Medicine, Physics
Desire-as-belief revisited

On Humes account of motivation, beliefs and desires are very di¤erent kinds of propositional attitudes. Beliefs are cognitive attitudes, desires emotive ones. An agents belief in a proposition captures the weight he or she assigns to this proposition in his or her cognitive representation of the world. An agents desire for a proposition captures the degree to which he or she prefers its truth, motivating him or her to act accordingly. Although beliefs and desires are sometimes entangled, they play very di¤erent roles in rational  In two classic papers (Lewis 1988, 1996), David Lewis discusses several challenges to this Humean picture, but ultimately rejects them. We think that his discussion of a central anti-Humean alternative  the desire-as-belief thesis  is in need of renement. On this thesis, the desire for proposition p is given by the belief that p is desirable. Lewis claims that [e]xcept in trivial cases, [this thesis] collapses into contradiction(Lewis 1996, p. 308). The problem, he argues, is that the thesis is inconsistent with the purportedly plausible requirement that ones desire for a proposition should not change upon learning that the proposition is true; call this the invariance requirement. In this paper, we revisit Lewiss argument. We show that, if one carefully distinguishes between non-evaluative and evaluative propositions, the desire-asbelief thesis can be rendered consistent with the invariance requirement. Lewiss conclusion holds only under certain conditions: the desire-as-belief thesis conicts with the invariance requirement if and only if there are certain correlations between non-evaluative and evaluative propositions. But when there are such correlations, we suggest, the invariance requirement loses its plausibility. Thus Lewiss argument against the desire-as-belief thesis appears to be valid only in cases in which it is unsound.

Field of study: Philosophy
History of posterior thoracic instrumentation.

The term "backbone" appears in many expressions used in modern day society. In any scenario, it has one central meaning: stability. Best defined as a foundation that is able to sustain multiple stressors without adversely affecting integrity, the commonly and appropriately termed backbone of humans is the spinal column. As the central focus of stability in our species, the spine is subject to a great degree of trauma and mechanical forces. A variety of methods have been developed throughout history in the treatment of spinal column injury. Initial treatment involved the use of simple traction devices for the reduction of spinal fractures; these have evolved to include the current insertion of spinal instrumentation. The authors review the historical treatment and development of posterior instrumentation for thoracic spinal injury.

Field of study: Medicine
Reliability analysis of spin transfer torque based look up tables under process variations and NBTI aging

Spin transfer torque (STT) switching realized using a magnetic tunnel junction (MTJ) device has shown great potential for low power and non-volatile storage. A prime application of MTJs is in building non-volatile look up tables (LUT) used in reconfigurable logic. Such LUTs use a hybrid integration of CMOS transistors and MTJ devices. This paper discusses the reliability of STT based LUTs under transistor and MTJ variations in nano-scale. The sources of process variations include both the CMOS device related variations and the MTJ variations. A key part of the STT based LUTs is the sense amplifier needed for reading out the MTJ state. We compare the voltage and current based sensing schemes in terms of the power, performance, and reliability metrics. Based on our simulation results in a 16 nm bulk CMOS, for the same total device area, the voltage sensing scheme offers 17% to 28% lower failure rates under combined intra-die transistor and MTJ variations, comparable delay, and 56% lower active power compared to the current sensing scheme. Moreover, we compare the reliability of the two sensing schemes under negative bias temperature instability (NBTI) of PMOS transistors. Our results indicate that the failures rates increase over time by transistor aging for both designs, and the voltage sensing scheme maintains its improved failure rate over to the current sensing scheme.

Field of study: Engineering
Internalizing Mental Disorders and Accelerated Cellular Aging Among Perinatally HIV-Infected Youth in Uganda

Internalizing mental disorders (IMDs) in HIV+ children and adolescents are associated with impaired quality of life and non-adherence to anti-retroviral treatment. Telomere length is a biomarker of cellular aging, and shorter telomere length has been associated with IMDs. However, the nature of this association has yet to be elucidated.  We determined the longitudinal association between IMDs and relative telomere length (rTL) and the influence of chronic stress among Ugandan perinatally HIV-infected youth (PHIY).  IMDs (depressive disorders, anxiety disorders, and post-traumatic stress disorder) and IMDs were assessed using the locally adapted Child and Adolescent Symptom Inventory-5. In 368 PHIY with any IMD and 368 age- and sex-matched PHIY controls without any psychiatric disorder, rTL was assessed using quantitative polymerase chain reaction. Hierarchical cluster analysis was used to generate the three chronic stress classes (mild, moderate, and severe). t-tests were used to assess the difference between baseline and 12 month rTL and the mean difference in rTL between cases and controls both at baseline and at 12 months. Linear regression analysis was used to model the effects of chronic stress on the association between IMDs and rTL, controlling for age and sex.  We observed longer rTL among cases of IMDs compared with controls (p < 0.001). We also observed a statistically significant reduction in rTL between baseline and 12 months in the combined sample of cases and controls (p < 0.001). The same statistical difference was observed when cases and controls were individually analyzed (p < 0.001). We found no significant difference in rTL between cases and controls at 12 months (p = 0.117). We found no significant influence of chronic stress on the association between IMDs and rTL at both baseline and 12 months.  rTL is longer among cases of IMDs compared with age- and sex-matched controls. We observed a significant attrition in rTL over 12 months, which seems to be driven by the presence of any IMDs. There is a need for future longitudinal and experimental studies to understand the mechanisms driving our findings.

Field of study: Biology
Large-Scale Structure and Hyperuniformity of Amorphous Ices.

We investigate the large-scale structure of amorphous ices and transitions between their different forms by quantifying their large-scale density fluctuations. Specifically, we simulate the isothermal compression of low-density amorphous ice (LDA) and hexagonal ice to produce high-density amorphous ice (HDA). Both HDA and LDA are nearly hyperuniform; i.e., they are characterized by an anomalous suppression of large-scale density fluctuations. By contrast, in correspondence with the nonequilibrium phase transitions to HDA, the presence of structural heterogeneities strongly suppresses the hyperuniformity and the system becomes hyposurficial (devoid of "surface-area fluctuations"). Our investigation challenges the largely accepted "frozen-liquid" picture, which views glasses as structurally arrested liquids. Beyond implications for water, our findings enrich our understanding of pressure-induced structural transformations in glasses.

Field of study: Physics
The crystal and molecular structures of diferric porcine and rabbit serum transferrins at resolutions of 2.15 and 2.60 A, respectively.

The serum transferrins are monomeric proteins with a molecular mass of around 80 kDa and are responsible for the transport of iron in vertebrates. The three-dimensional structures of diferric porcine and rabbit serum transferrin have been refined against X-ray diffraction data extending to 2.15 and 2.60 A, respectively. Data for both proteins were collected using synchrotron radiation at temperatures of 277 K. The porcine protein crystallizes in the space group C2, with unit-cell parameters a = 223.8, b = 44.9, c = 78.9 A, beta = 105.4 degrees with one molecule in the asymmetric unit. The structure was solved by molecular-replacement methods using rabbit serum transferrin as the search model. The structure was refined using REFMAC, with a final residual of 13.8% (R(free) = 18.2% for a 5% data sample) for all data to 2.15 A. The final model comprises 5254 protein atoms, two Fe(3+) cations and two CO(3)(2-) anions, one N-acetyl glucosamine moiety and 494 water molecules. The rabbit protein crystallizes in space group P4(3)2(1)2, with unit-cell parameters a = 127.2, c = 144.9 A and one molecule per asymmetric unit. The structure was solved using the method of multiple isomorphous replacement and refined using REFMAC to give a final residual of 18.6% (R(free) = 22.2% for a 5% data sample) for all data to 2.60 A. The final model comprises 5216 protein atoms, two Fe(3+) cations and two CO(3)(2-) anions, a Cl(-) anion and 206 solvent molecules; there is no clear indication of the carbohydrate moiety attached to Asn490 (rabbit serum numbering). Both molecules adopt a bilobal structure typical for members of the transferrin family. Each of the structurally homologous lobes contains two dissimilar domains with a single iron-binding site buried within the interdomain cleft. The porcine serum protein lacks an interdomain disulfide bridge close to the connecting peptide between the lobes, but this seems to have little effect on the overall orientation of the lobes. The N-lobes of both proteins possess lysine residues, one from each of the two domains, that lie in close proximity to one another to form the so-called dilysine trigger. The more acid-labile release of iron from serum transferrins than from lactoferrins is discussed.

Field of study: Chemistry
Self-Help Skills Training: A Review of Operant Studies

This article reviews 36 studies conducted since 1967 which evaluated operant conditioning techniques to develop and improve self-help skills of mentally retarded persons. The studies fell within three categories: self-feeding and other mealtime behaviors, personal care skills (dressing, hygiene, etc.), and the simultaneous development of various self-help skills. Studies are analyzed in terms of the subjects, the target behaviors, training techniques and their effects, experimental designs, and reliability of measurement. The paper concludes with a critique of the studies, some suggestions for future research, and tentative teaching implications based on the results of the studies.

Field of study: Education
RHEUMATOID ARTHRITIS WITH INTERSTITIAL LUNG DISEASE AND PULMONARY TUBERCULOSIS

Rheumatoid arthritis(RA) is a chronic inflammatory autoimmune condition of unknown etiology. It may result in variety of extra-articular manifestations including respiratory manifestations. It mainly involves pleura but can also affect lung parenchyma in form of interstitial lung disease. However, pulmonary tuberculosis in a case of rheumatoid arthritis is not seen commonly. There are two studies which reported occurrence of pulmonary tuberculosis in patients of RA probably because of reduced immunity related to treatment with steroids and eternacept. However, there is rarity of such reports from developing countries.

Field of study: Medicine
A general caxedorical data memddology for evaluating medical diagnostic tests

Measures of sensitivity, predictive accuracy, and agreement are currently used to evaluate the efficiency of diagnostic tests reported on dichotomous scales. This paper presents a unified approach to the evaluation of diagnostic tests in terns of generalized Lnuices of sensitivity, misclassification, predictive accuracy and inaccuracy, classification agreement and prediction agreement for polytomous measurement scales. It Is sufficiently general to accommodate additional complications of study design factors such as multiple testing, known and unknown disease prevalence distributions, and multiple subpopulations defined by the cross-classification of independent factors. Estimation and hypothesis testing are developed within a general linear models approach to the analysis of categorical data from repeated measurement lesigns using weighted least squares computations. This methodology is illustrated within the context of data from a. large cotmiunity-based epidemiologic study of obstructive airways diseas...

Field of study: Mathematics
Tax Reforms and Tax Compliance: The Divergent Paths of Chile and Argentina

This article compares the effects of tax reform on tax compliance in Argentina and Chile. After constructing three different comparative indexes of tax compliance, it proposes a comprehensive approach, which includes political, economic and sociological explanations to address the different behaviour of taxpayers in each country. It concludes that Chile was able to enhance better tax compliance because it has implemented a permanent, stable and rational policy that allowed for the development of an effective tax administration – a process never fully accomplished in Argentina. Tax reforms may enhance better compliance only after they reverse the entrenched evasion strategies of the taxpayers.

Field of study: Political science
Self-consistent solution for the magnetic exchange interaction mediated by a superconductor

We theoretically determine the magnetic exchange interaction between two ferromagnets coupled by a superconductor using a tight-binding lattice model. The main purpose of this study is to determine how the self-consistently determined superconducting state influences the exchange interaction and the preferred ground-state of the system, including the role of impurity scattering. We find that the superconducting state eliminates RKKY-like oscillations for a sufficiently large superconducting gap, making the anti-parallel orientation the ground state of the system. Interestingly, the superconducting gap is larger in the parallel configuration than in the anti-parallel configuration, giving a larger superconducting condensation energy, even when the preferred ground state is anti-parallel. We also show that increasing the impurity concentration in the superconductor causes the exchange interaction to decrease, likely due to an increasing localization of the mediating quasiparticles in the superconductor.

Field of study: Physics
Relation of spatial learning of rats in the Morris water maze task to the number of viable CA1 neurons following four-vessel occlusion.

Male Wistar rats were tested in the Morris water maze task 1 week after 6, 9, or 12 min of transient global ischemia. The 9-min and 12-min ischemia groups were significantly impaired in the acquisition and the reversal experiment. A systematic counting of CA1 neurons in the whole hippocampal formation revealed a unilateral number of CA1 neurons of 286,000 in the sham group, of which 2/3 were located in the dorsal hippocampus. The ischemia groups showed a significant decline in the number of dorsal CA1 neurons, whereas only the 12-min ischemia group showed a significant but minor decline (10%-15%) in the number of ventral CA1 neurons. A correlation analysis showed that the escape distance declined with increasing number of viable CA1 neurons, but poor correlation coefficients were obtained. Thus, some of the ischemic rats with even very few viable CA1 neurons in the dorsal hippocampus were capable of performing this spatial learning task at sham-group level.

Field of study: Biology, Psychology
An RL-based scheduling algorithm for video traffic in high-rate wireless personal area networks

The emerging high-rate wireless personal area network (WPAN) technology is capable of supporting high-speed and high-quality real-time multimedia applications. In particular, video streams are deemed to be a dominant traffic type, and require quality of service (QoS) support. However, in the current IEEE 802.15.3 standard for MAC (media access control) of high-rate WPANs, the implementation details of some key issues such as scheduling and QoS provisioning have not been addressed. In this paper, we first propose a Markov decision process (MDP) model for optimal scheduling for video flows in high-rate WPANs. Using this model, we also propose a scheduler that incorporates compact state space representation, function approximation, and reinforcement learning (RL). Simulation results show that our proposed RL scheduler achieves nearly optimal performance and performs better than F-SRPT, EDD+SRPT, and PAP scheduling algorithms in terms of a lower decoding failure rate.

Field of study: Computer science
Construction and Identification of RNAi Vector Containing Cassava SBE I,SBE II Gene and Root Specific Promotor

A 494 bp fragment named SI from the Open Reading Frame(ORF)of SBEⅠ and a 340 bp fragment named SⅡ from the ORF of SBEⅡwere cloned from cassava and fused into a larger fragment named SⅢ with Overlap Extension PCR(SOE PCR).The SⅢ fragment was inserted into the plant expression vector pART27 RNAi in forward and reverse direction;Also the original 35S promotor in the vector was replaced with a root specific promotor Sporamin,and then a coding hairpin RNAi expression vector Sp-pRNAiSⅢ was constructed,which could,lay a foundation to breed new cassava varieties with high amylase content.

Field of study: Agricultural and Food sciences
A furnace design for XANES spectroscopy of silicate melts under controlled oxygen fugacities and temperatures to 1773 K.

A controlled-atmosphere furnace has been constructed for X-ray absorption spectroscopy experiments under imposed oxygen fugacities at temperatures up to 1773 K. The use of the furnace is demonstrated in a study of the oxidation state of Cr in a basaltic silicate melt (mid-ocean ridge basalt) by K-edge XANES spectroscopy. This is the first time the Cr(2+)/Cr(3+) ratio has been identified directly in an Fe-bearing melt. At typical terrestrial oxygen fugacities around half the Cr is present as Cr(2+), even though this oxidation state has never been identified in a terrestrial material and only Cr(3+) is observed after quenching to a glass. Cr(2+) oxidizes to Cr(3+) on cooling in the presence of Fe(3+) according to the electron exchange reaction Cr(2+) + Fe(3+) --> Cr(3+) + Fe(2+). This illustrates the importance of the in situ determination of metal oxidation states in melts.

Field of study: Physics
Rural coastal community resilience: Assessing a framework in eastern North Carolina

Rural coastal communities have unique vulnerabilities to the impacts caused by sea level rise and saltwater intrusion compared to coastal urban areas that have growing populations, increasing property values, and extensive infrastructure. In contrast, rural coastal communities are typically dependent on traditional natural resource livelihoods like farming, commercial fishing, forestry, and outdoor recreation opportunities. Saltwater intrusion, exacerbated by sea level rise, impacts rural livelihoods by limiting suitable agricultural land and development options, which compounds local economic difficulties. Higher rates of poverty, aging demographics, and out-migration already challenge the resilience of rural coastal communities. Informed by sociological research that addresses the local economic factors unique to rural communities and resilience research on coastal communities and natural hazards, we propose the Rural Coastal Community Resilience (RCCR) framework. We test the RCCR framework through a series of focus groups within the Albemarle Pamlico Peninsula of North Carolina (U.S.), a low-lying, rural region with nearly one-half of its land less than 1 m above sea level. Applying the RCCR framework revealed that local priorities include maintaining rural livelihoods, creating job opportunities, and addressing highly vulnerable populations. By including stakeholder voices to stimulate capacity building dialogue, the RCCR framework boosts rural coastal community resilience by focusing on locally perceived resilience needs as targets for capacity building workshops, management interventions, and climate action planning.

Field of study: Environmental science