nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Hydronephrosis in pediatric kidney transplant: clinical relevance to graft outcome.

To evaluate our pediatric renal transplant patient population at the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh to better understand the clinical significance of hydronephrosis.



We retrospectively reviewed records of patients who had received a renal transplant in 1998-2008. Exclusion criteria included multi-organ transplants and allograft failure within 3-months. We determined the incidence of hydronephrosis and compared serum creatinine, incidence of pyelonephritis, rejection and vesicoureteral reflux between the hydronephrotic and non-hydronephrotic cohorts. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Student's t-test and Pearson Chi-Square test.



51 patients (35 male, 68.6%) were identified. The mean age at time of transplant was 8.7 ± 5.9 years and the mean follow-up period was 45.2 ± 45.4 months. Common causes of renal failure included posterior urethral valves, renal dysplasia, reflux and prune belly syndrome. Twenty-five (49%) patients developed hydronephrosis. This was associated with worsening renal function (p = 0.008). Hydronephrosis was also associated with pyelonephritis (p = 0.03) and male gender (p = 0.004). Age at transplant may be a predictor of pyelonephritis: median age of 10 patients with pyelonephritis was 4.6 years (range 0.6-19.9 years). Hydronephrotic cohort had increased rate of reflux and rejection; as not all patients underwent voiding cystourethrogram and/or allograft biopsy, this result was not significant.



Pediatric renal graft hydronephrosis was correlated with worsening renal function and increased incidence of pyelonephritis. More aggressive preoperative and postoperative urological testing and management should help preserve renal function.

Field of study: Medicine
Enhancing the lithium ion diffusivity in LiMn2O4−ySy cathode materials through potassium doping

High-energy and high-power lithium ion-batteries are essential for future development in large scale energy storage systems to meet all the requirements of modern society. Unfortunately, at present, high-power applications are limited mainly by the diffusion of lithium ions in the solids. This work aims at the improvement of lithium ion diffusivity in one of the most promising cathode material: lithium-manganese spinel (LMO). Herein we are presenting synergetic effect of potassium and sulphur doping of LMO structure. We prove that introduction of small amount of K in the Li sites can enhance effective lithium ion diffusion coefficient and allows material to retain high capacity during very fast charging/discharging processes.

Field of study: Materials science
Judicial Education on Equality

This article argues that judicial education, while new to the common law tradition, is becoming integral to the standing of the judiciary and offers an appropriate means of providing accountability without violating independence. The 1990s mark a period of intense change for judiciaries operating in many western countries. This change is heralded by widespread complaints of 'gender bias' and cultural insensitivity. These complaints in Britain and Australia have mirrored those in the United States and Canada a decade earlier and have led to a number of

Field of study: Law
Intrinsic factors of Peltigera lichens influence the structure of the associated soil bacterial microbiota.

Definition of lichens has evolved from bi(tri)partite associations to multi-species symbioses, where bacteria would play essential roles. Besides, although soil bacterial communities are known to be affected by edaphic factors, when lichens grow upon them these could become less preponderant. We hypothesized that the structure of both the lichen microbiota and the microbiota in the soil underneath lichens is shaped by lichen intrinsic and extrinsic factors. In this work, intrinsic factors corresponded to mycobiont and cyanobiont identities of Peltigera lichens, metabolite diversity and phenoloxidase activity and extrinsic factors involved the site of the forest where lichens grow. Likewise, the genetic and metabolic structure of the lichen and soil bacterial communities were analyzed by fingerprinting. Among the results, metabolite diversity was inversely related to the genetic structure of bacterial communities of lichens and soils, highlighting the far-reaching effect of these substances; while phenoloxidase activity was inversely related to the metabolic structure only of the lichen bacterial microbiota, presuming a more limited effect of the products of these enzymes. Soil bacterial microbiota was different depending on the site and, strikingly, according to the cyanobiont present in the lichen over them, which could indicate an influence of the photobiont metabolism on the availability of soil nutrients.

Field of study: Biology, Environmental science
Escape from serial stimuli leading to food.

If the functional relations governing the strength of a conditioned reinforcer correspond to those obtained with other Pavlovian procedures (e.g., Kaplan, 1984), the termination of stimuli appearing early in the interval between successive food deliveries should be reinforcing. During initial training we presented four key colors, followed by food, in a recurrent sequence to each of 6 pigeons. This established a baseline level of autoshaped pecking. In later sessions, we terminated each of these colors or only the first color for a brief period following each peck, replacing the original color with a standard substitute to avoid darkening the key. Pecking decreased in the presence of the last color in the sequence but increased in the presence of the first. In accord with contemporary models of Pavlovian conditioning, these and other data suggest that the behavioral effects of stimuli in a chain may be better understood in terms of what each stimulus predicts, as measured by relative time to the terminal reinforcer, than in the exclusively positive terms of the traditional formulation (Skinner, 1938). The same model may also account for the initial pause under fixed-interval and fixed-ratio schedules of reinforcement.

Field of study: Biology, Psychology
Seroprevalence of Mycoplasma pneumoniae among Patients with Community Acquired Pneumonia in a Tertiary Care Hospital at Navi Mumbai

Community-acquired pneumonia (CAP) is often clinically classified as typical or atypical. Mycoplasma pneumoniae is the primary causative organism responsible for atypical pneumonia, which constitutes 10 to 20% of all pneumonia cases. Although prevalence studies have been performed extensively abroad, in India, such work has been seldom carried out. The present seroprevalence study carried out with this fact has shown 12.6% IgM and 16.0% IgG prevalence of the mycoplasma antibodies in the locality. These findings will encourage in undertaking further extensive study on this self-replicating unique bacterium.

Field of study: Medicine
The extreme residuals in gamma regression

The use of the extreme Pearson and Anscombe residuals for testing for outliers in gamma regression models is considered. Approximations to the critical values of the distributions of the extreme residuals are presented and some modified approximations which utilise the approximate moments of the residuals are proposed. The approximations are evaluated for a number of models when there is a logarithmic link between the response variable means and the regressor variables.

Field of study: Mathematics
Holocene faunal stratigraphy and paleoclimatic implications of deep-sea sediments in Cascadia Basin

Hemipelagic sediments in Cascadia Basin were characterized by an abundance of planktonic foraminifers during glacial periods and by an abundance of radiolarians during interglacial periods. The relative abundances of these organisms are used to construct a paleoclimatic curve which includes several intervals indicative of cooling periods within the Holocene. These periods, from 5,000 to 4,000 and at 2,000 years B.P. appear to correlate with those reported in other paleoclimatic studies in widely separated localities.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
Research on System Control Based on a Novel Theory

A system is combined by itself and the periphery, and the periphery controls the system. The Periphery Theory describes that a system input is dependent on a system gate of the periphery, and the gate is considered as a switch which will adjust the state of the system automatically. In this research, a new logistic model with switch is created to learn how the switch adjust the system. The switch is set to close/open the gate of the system to decrease/increase the input, and it is related to the final states of the system. By comparing this new model with the original one, the switch also improve the complexity of the system, which changes the distribution of final system states, making the positions of the transition and bifurcation points occur earlier. Moreover, a new Feigenbaum constant for the new logistic model is 4.68274650, and it is totally different from the original one. In addition, a quantitative relationship between the probability of system switch and the final system states shows the protection provided by the gate to the system.

Field of study: Engineering
Pain and Depression: An Integrative Review of Neurobiological and Psychological Factors

The comorbidity of pain and depression has been well established in the literature and is associated with a greater burden to the individual and society than either condition alone. The relationship between pain and depression is quite complex and multiple factors must be considered when trying to disentangle the pain-depression link including shared neurobiology, precipitating environmental factors and cognitive influences. This article aims to provide an overview of the leading neurobiological and psychosocial theories that have advanced our understanding of the link between pain and depression. To this end we describe the shared neurobiological mechanisms in the brain thought to explain the overlap and consider psychological processes and how they inform a cognitive behavioral model. The article also provides an overview of the evidence based treatment for comorbid pain and depression.

Field of study: Medicine, Psychology
Sampling large Internet topologies for simulation purposes

In this paper, we develop methods to ''sample'' a small realistic graph from a large Internet topology. Despite recent activity, modeling and generation of realistic graphs resembling the Internet is still not a resolved issue. All previous work has attempted to grow such graphs from scratch. We address the complementary problem of shrinking an existing topology. In more detail, this work has three parts. First, we propose a number of reduction methods that can be categorized into three classes: (a) deletion methods, (b) contraction methods, and (c) exploration methods. We prove that some of them maintain key properties of the initial graph. We implement our methods and show that we can effectively reduce the nodes of an Internet graph by as much as 70% while maintaining its important properties. Second, we show that our reduced graphs compare favorably against construction-based generators. Finally, we successfully validate the effectiveness of our best methods in an actual performance evaluation study of multicast routing. Apart from its practical applications, the problem of graph sampling is of independent interest.

Field of study: Computer science
änderung des Phasensprungs bei der Reflexion an Silber in Abhängigkeit vom Einfallswinkel

ZusammenfassungMit einem Platteninterferometer (nachJamin) wird in zwei verschiedenen Anordnungen die Phasenverschiebung bei der Reflexion Glas-Silber und bei der Reflexion Luft-Silber über einen größtmöglichen Bereich des Einfallswinkels gemessen. Dabei werden nach dem in der vorvorausgehenden Arbeit angegebenen Verfahren die zu vergleichenden Bündel vor der Interferenz auf gleiche Intensität gebracht. Die Phasensprünge werden für die beiden Polarisationsrichtungen des einfallenden Lichtes (elektrischer Vektor parallel bzw. senkrecht zur Einfallsebene) getrennt bestimmt. Schichten ergaben experimentell einen etwas verschiedenen Verlauf mit dem Einfallswinkel, der durch Oberflächenschichten erklärbar ist. Daher wurden für jede untersuchte Schicht einzeln effektive optische Konstanten bestimmt. Mit diesen ergab sich übereinstimmung zwischen Beobachtung und Erwartung innerhalb der Fehlergrenze. Dicke und Brechungsindex der Oberflächenschichten wurden nach einem bekannten Verfahren vonDrude abgeschätzt.

Field of study: Physics
On the energy levels for the screened Coulomb potentialV(r)=−Z/r+Gλ/(1+λr)

The energy eigenvalues of various eigenstates for the potentialV(r)=−Z/r+Gλ/(1+λr) are accurately evaluated within the framework of the hypervirial-Padé scheme. An approximate formula for energy levels is also obtained with the use of the Ecker-Weizel approximation. The results of the present calculations are compared with those of a dispersion calculation.

Field of study: Physics
STAT3 in cancer: A double edged sword.

The transcription factor signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT) 3 is activated downstream of cytokines, growth factors and oncogenes to mediate their functions under both physiological and pathological conditions. In particular, aberrant/unrestrained STAT3 activity is detected in a wide variety of tumors, driving multiple pro-oncogenic functions. For that, STAT3 is widely considered as an oncogene and is the object of intense translational studies. One of the distinctive features of this factor is however, its ability to elicit different and sometimes contrasting effects under different conditions. In particular, STAT3 activities have been shown to be either pro-oncogenic or tumor-suppressive according to the tumor aetiology/mutational landscape, suggesting that the molecular bases underlining its functions are still incompletely understood. Here we discuss some of the properties that may provide the bases to explain STAT3 heterogeneous functions, and in particular how post-translational modifications contribute shaping its sub-cellular localization and activities, the cross talk between these activities and cell metabolic conditions, and finally how its functions can control the behaviour of both tumor and tumor microenvironment cell populations.

Field of study: Medicine
Coherent population transfer in coupled semiconductor quantum dots

We propose a solid-state implementation of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in two coupled semiconductor quantum dots. Proper combination of two pulsed laser fields allows the coherent carrier transfer between the two nanostructures without suffering significant losses due to environment coupling. By use of a general solution scheme for the carrier states in the double-dot structure, we identify the pertinent dot and laser parameters.

Field of study: Physics
On the Behavior of Some Estimators from Probability Plots

Probability plots are popular graphical methods used to assess distributional assumptions. Under a location-scale model, the plot tends to lie on a straight line. A common practice in this situation is to fit a line through the plot and use the intercept and slope of the fitted line as estimates of the location and scale parameters. What are the properties of these estimators? Estimators from weighted least squares lines are considered, and their asymptotic, finite-sample, robustness, and optimality properties are discussed. Included among these are the ordinary least squares estimators and estimators from least squares lines fitted after trimming or Winsorizing some of the extreme order statistics.

Field of study: Mathematics
Características físico-químicas de amidos modificados com permanganato de potássio/ácido lático e hipoclorito de sódio/ácido lático

Oxidized starches produce low-viscosity pastes even in high concentrations, are stable to retrogradation and are used in the paper, textile and food industries. This property is attributed to the presence of carboxyl groups, which have negative charges and are bulkier than hydroxyls. In this work, potato, sweet potato, Peruvian carrot, cassava, corn and waxy corn starches were modified with oxidative reagents and characterized with respect to their carboxyl content, reducing power, differential dyeing, expansion power and viscographic properties, in water, acetate buffer (pH 4.0) and phosphate buffer (pH 7.0). The results showed that waxy corn and cassava starches presented high expansions, when modified with KMNO4/lactic acid (25.8 and 24.1 mL.g-1, respectively). The starch pastes of waxy corn showed freeze-thaw stability in all treatments. Differential dyeing and carboxyl content did not vary between the native and modified samples; only potato starch reacted with methylene blue, due to the presence of phosphate groups. With respect to pH and acidity, almost all samples presented values next to neutrality, except corn and waxy corn starch modified with NaOCl/lactic acid. The starches oxidized with KMnO4/lactic acid presented lower viscosity peaks than those oxidized with NaOCl. The viscosity peaks of starches analyzed in phosphate buffer were lower than in water and acetate buffer.

Field of study: Agricultural and Food sciences
Intelligence and Belief in the Supernatural

Just before starting university education, 339 Ss had small, but significant negative correlations between intelligence and both traditional and avant garde supernatural beliefs. A year later, an independent sample of 241 Ss maintained the significant negative correlation with traditional beliefs but had a non-significant correlation with avant garde beliefs. Religious background was the most significant predictor of beliefs, indicating that socialization had more effect than intelligence and university education in determining beliefs of these Ss.

Field of study: Psychology
Receptor tyrosine kinases and schistosome reproduction: new targets for chemotherapy

Schistosome parasites still represent a serious public health concern and a major economic problem in developing countries. Pathology of schistosomiasis is mainly due to massive egg production by these parasites and to inflammatory responses raised against the eggs which are trapped in host tissues. Tyrosine kinases (TKs) are key molecules that control cell differentiation and proliferation and they already represent important targets in cancer therapy. During recent years, it has been shown that receptor tyrosine kinases (RTK) signaling was active in reproductive organs and that it could regulate sexual maturation of schistosomes and egg production. This opens interesting perspectives for the control of transmission and pathogenesis of schistosomiasis based on new therapies targeting schistosome RTKs. This review relates the numerous data showing the major roles of kinase signaling in schistosome reproduction. It describes the conserved and particular features of schistosome RTKs, their implication in gametogenesis and reproduction processes and summarizes recent works indicating that RTKs and their signaling partners are interesting chemotherapeutical targets in new programs of control.

Field of study: Biology
Priority setting in health policy in Sweden and a comparison with Norway.

The development of priority setting policies has been an important part of the national agenda for health services in Sweden and Norway during the past 10 years. Both countries have health systems with a pronounced public character and a declared emphasis on equity and solidarity. Both countries have also had National Priority Commissions that have developed general documents providing advice, but not very detailed guidelines, on how to set priorities. Resource constraints and the rapid restructuring of the health care system were important characteristics forming the background for the National Priority Commission in Sweden (1995). In Norway, the starting point for the first-ever Priority Commission in the world (1987) was how to set limits for health care in a society with rapidly increasing wealth. The second Norwegian Commission (1997) critically reviewed the effects of the general principles for priority setting that have been put forward, and demonstrated the importance to link them to steering tools within health care services.

Field of study: Medicine, Political science
PrivICN: Privacy-preserving content retrieval in information-centric networking

Information-Centric Networking (ICN) has emerged as a paradigm to cope with the increasing demand for content delivery on the Internet. In contrast to the Internet Protocol (IP), the underlying architecture of ICN enables users to request contents based on their name rather than their hosting location (IP address). On the one hand, this preserves users’ anonymity since packet routing does not require source and destination addresses of the communication parties. On the other hand, semantically-rich names reveal information about users’ interests, which poses serious threats to their privacy. A curious ICN node can monitor the traffic to profile users’ or censor specific contents for instance. In this paper, we present PrivICN: a system that enhances users privacy in ICN by protecting the confidentiality of content names and content data. PrivICN  relies on a proxy encryption scheme and has several features that distinguish it from existing solutions: it preserves full in-network caching benefits, it does not require end-to-end communication between consumers and providers and it provides flexible user management (addition/removal of users). We evaluate PrivICN  in a real ICN network (CCNx implementation) showing that it introduces an acceptable overhead and little delay. PrivICN  is publicly available as an open-source library.

Field of study: Computer science
The effects of freshwater flow and salinity on turbidity and dissolved oxygen in a shallow Macrotidal estuary: a case study of Portsmouth Harbour

Portsmouth Harbour was used to investigate the effects of fresh water flow and water physio-chemical properties such as salinity on turbidity and dissolved oxygen within industrialised Macrotidal estuaries. Nine sites were selected within the harbour for field sampling and data collection based on their contrasting hydrodynamic environment and accessibility from land. Sediment, water samples and water physio-chemical data were collected from the harbour once every season over a period of two years. Fresh water flow directly affects turbidity as an increase in fresh water flow leads to a decrease in turbidity. Increasing fresh water flow also leads to seaward transport of Suspended particulate matter. There is no significant migration of the estuarine turbidity maxima zone within Portsmouth Harbour due to the general low fresh water flow (average yearly flow of 0.6 m3/s) for all seasons unlike other Macrotidal estuaries. The area of intertidal flats have low dissolved oxygen ranging from about 4.5 mg/L to 10.4 mg/L compared to other areas within the harbour which ranged from 6.5 mg/L to 12.5 mg/L. This is due to the substantial amount of sediment supplied by bed forms such as runnels on the intertidal flats into receiving waters. Based on these findings, there is need for a synchronised management system within these type of estuaries.

Field of study: Environmental science