nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Distributed joint optimization for large-scale video-on-demand

We study the provisioning of large-scale video-on-demand (VoD) services to distributed users. In order to achieve scalability in user capacity overcoming the limitation in core network bandwidth, servers are deployed close to user pools. They replicate movie segments cooperatively under the constraint of their storages. Considering the realistic scenario that access delay is a function of the total traffic in the underlay link (including cross-traffic), we address the following optimization issues in the server overlay: (1) Which segments should each server replicate to achieve network-wide good locality effect? This is the so-called content replication (CR) problem; (2) Given a segment miss at a server and a number of remote servers storing the segment, which of them should serve the local server to conserve network bandwidth? This is the so-called server selection (SS) problem; and (3) Given a certain total storage budget in the VoD network, what should be the capacity allocated to each server to achieve low access delay? This is so-called storage planning (SP) problem. Clearly the decisions of CR, SS and SP are inter-dependent, and hence need to be jointly optimized.We first formulate the joint optimization problem and prove that it is NP-hard. We then propose a simple and distributed algorithm called CR-SS-SP to address it. CR-SS-SP achieves good storage allocation, replicates segments collaboratively and adaptively to achieve high locality, and selects servers efficiently with a simple lookup. Simulation results on both Internet-like and real ISP topologies show that CR-SS-SP significantly outperforms existing and state-of-the-art approaches by a wide margin (often by multiple times).

Field of study: Computer science
The effect of normal and rheumatic pregnancy sera on intracellular cathepsin B activity in human monocytes.

In a prospective study of pregnant patients with rheumatic disease and healthy pregnant women, the effect of pregnancy serum on human blood monocytes was investigated. Intracellular activity of the collagen degrading enzyme cathepsin B was found to be significantly depressed in monocyte cultures exposed to pregnancy and cord sera, independent of the presence or absence of an inflammatory state in the pregnant woman. Enzyme inhibition developed in a dose-dependent fashion over 3 days in culture. In contrast to cord and pregnancy sera, non-pregnant serum and serum from oral contraceptive users displayed enzyme stimulating activity. The response of monocytes to the stimulating agent carrageenan was unaffected by inhibitory sera. The nature of possible inhibitory factors in pregnancy and cord serum is discussed.

Field of study: Biology, Medicine
Eolian coastal dune deposits and surrounding marine sandstones, Rocky Mountain Supergroup (Lower Pennsylvanian), southeastern British Columbia

The Pennsylvanian Rocky Mountain Supergroup, in the Elk Range, B.C., includes three sandstone formations: Tyrwhitt (about 100 m thick), Storelk (about 95 m), and Tobermory (about 75). The Tyrwhitt consists mostly of structureless sandstones which prove to be bioturbated in X radiographs. There is an abundant trace fauna, as well as brachiopods. The second most abundant facies consists of medium scale (up to about 1 m) cross-bedded sandstones. The Tobermory is essentially similar to the Tyrwhitt but contains fewer structureless sandstones, and more beds with ripple cross-lamination and horizontal lamination. Both formations were probably deposited slowly in water deeper than fair-weather wave base (deeper than 10–15 m).The Storelk, sandwiched between Tyrwhitt and Tobermory, is dominated by large scale (up to 10.5 m) sets of cross-bedding. These occur in three members, separated by two structureless members. The Storelk structureless members are not mottled in X radiographs, and no trace fauna was found in ...

Field of study: Environmental science
Immunocytological and immunochemical analysis on the common acute lymphoblastic leukemia antigen (CALLA): evidence that CALLA on ALL cells and granulocytes are structurally related.

The common acute lymphoblastic leukemia antigen(CALLA) on acute lymphoblastic leukemia(ALL) cells and granulocytes were compared by newly developed and other anti-CALLA monoclonal antibodies(anti-CALLA). New anti-CALLA(IF-3 through IF-7) were effectively selected by immunostaining on kidney sections. By competitive binding three antigenic determinants were separated on ALL cells by IF and other anti-CALLA. All three determinants existed on granulocytes although the reactivity of each anti-CALLA was variable. Such a variability was partly due to the heterogeneous terminal sialic acid compositions. Although CALLA from granulocytes and ALL cells differed in molecular weight they showed identical peptide mapping patterns. These results strongly suggest that CALLA on ALL cells and granulocytes are structurally related although they are different in posttransulational modification.

Field of study: Biology
Über das Verhalten der Frequenz und Polarisation der Stark-Effekt-Komponenten bei plötzlichen Änderungen der Feldbedingungen

ZusammenfassungIm Hinblick auf die Heisenbergsche Unbestimmtheitsrelation für die zusammengehörenden GrößenEnergie undZeit wurden die Änderungen der Aufspaltung und Polarisation der Stark-Effekt-Komponenten vonHβundHγbei plötzlichen Umstellungen der Feldbedingungen untersucht. Nach der Theorie sollte die Dauer der jeweiligen Stark-Effekt-Periode eineuntere Grenze für die Beobaohtbarkeit dieser Effekte bilden. Die Versuche ergaben tatsächlich, daß diese Grenze zwar erreicht, aber nicht unterschritten werden kann.

Field of study: Physics
Hydrogen absorption and magnetic properties of intermetallic compounds based on 3d elements

A review is given of the various types of changes in magnetic properties due to hydrogen absorption observed in certain groups of intermetallic compounds. These comprise compounds of 3d transition metals in which the second component is one of the strongly hydrogen attracting metals such as Ca, Y, the rare earths, Sc, Ti, Zr, Hf or Th. The changes in magnetic properties do not only entail increases or decreases in transition metal moment but also changes from Pauli paramagnetism to ferromagnetism as well as changes in the reverse direction. It is dis— cussed to what extent these changes can be explained in terms of changes in 3d band occupation and changes in 3d band exchange splitting. Particular attention is given to the changes in 5TFe isomer shift observed in several Fe compounds.

Field of study: Chemistry
Experimental Research on Thermophysical of Blast Furnace Hearth Ramming Material

The correlation experiments between the thermal conductivity and linear expansion coefficient of ramming material and temperature variation were carried out under normal pressure. The difference correlations between the thermal conductivity and linear expansion coefficient of asphalt and resin combined with ramming material and the temperature variation are obtained by comparing and analyzing the experiment results, and the correlation formulas are given. Finding out the differences between them and discussing the correlation between thermophysical properties and heat transfer of BF lining in theory, can provide a theoretical basis for the BF longevity design.

Field of study: Engineering
Effect of Integrated Study Reading on Polytechnic Students’ Time Management and Academic Achievement

Being a key factor in academic achievement, polytechnic students are taught study reading on the assumption that they will practice it on their own. The reality, however, is that most students do not practice it because there is no institutionalized regulated monitoring. The common trend among majority of the students is to delay serious reading till few days to examination. This leads to ineffective time management and low academic grades. This study was conducted to see how the integration and proper monitoring of students’ practice of study reading will affect their time management and academic achievement. Three null hypotheses were tested. 400 students from three departments in three faculties of a polytechnic were selected and randomly assigned to experimental and control groups of 200 each.  After they were lectured on the study reading skills and time management practices, the experimental group was monitored and effectively guided to put study reading to use. Two instruments used were Effect of Integrated Study Reading Questionnaire and Tests of Students’ Achievement. Results showed a significant difference in academic achievement (t(398)=11.11, p < 0.05) and time management practices (t(199)=22.30, p<0.05). There was however no significant difference in ND/HND experimental students’ time management. The study therefore concluded that students can be less wasteful with time and make high grades in examinations if closely monitored and supervised to engage in study reading. It was, therefore, recommended that necessary institutional arrangements should be made for the students to be instructed in the importance of time management and closely monitored in study reading.  Study Reading, Integrated Study Reading, Academic Achievement, Time Management

Field of study: Education
Ten Ways to Lose at Counterinsurgency

Counterinsurgency is one of the most important topics facing policymakers and scholars. Existing studies of counterinsurgency are very valuable, but sometimes adhere too strictly to sweeping dichotomies and paradigms. This article discusses ten specific mechanisms that lead counterinsurgent governments to squander their generally overwhelming power advantages. This mechanism-based approach can improve both policy and scholarly analysis.

Field of study: History, Sociology
Effect of Partners’ Disgust Responses on Psychological Wellbeing in Cancer Patients

The aim of this study was to explore quantitatively the relationship between disgust responses in cancer patients and their partners, and in turn their relationship to patients’ psychological well-being. We recruited 50 participants with heterogeneous cancer diagnoses and their partners from cancer-related groups (e.g., charities). Patients completed questionnaires to determine levels of disgust propensity, disgust sensitivity, self-disgust, and symptoms of anxiety and depression. Disgust propensity and sensitivity were also assessed in their partners. Partners’ disgust sensitivity was significantly positively correlated with cancer patients’ self-disgust, disgust propensity, and depression. Path analyses suggested that patients’ self-disgust plays a role in mediating the effect of partners’ disgust sensitivity on patients’ psychological well-being. This study provides the first quantitative evidence that psychological well-being in cancer patients is contingent on their partners’ sensitivity to disgust, and that patients’ self-disgust plays a mediating role. Focusing therapeutically on disgust responses could well be beneficial to people with cancer.

Field of study: Psychology
Glycyrrhizin Treatment Facilitates Extinction of Conditioned Fear Responses After a Single Prolonged Stress Exposure in Rats

Impaired fear memory extinction is widely considered a key mechanism of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Recent studies have suggested that neuroinflammation after a single prolonged stress (SPS) exposure may play a critical role in the impaired fear memory extinction. Studies have shown that high mobility group box chromosomal protein 1 (HMGB-1) is critically involved in neuroinflammation. However, the role of HMGB-1 underlying the development of impairment of fear memory extinction is still not known.  Thus, we examined the levels of HMGB-1 in the basolateral amygdala (BLA) following SPS using Western blot and evaluated the levels of microglia and astrocytes activation in the BLA after SPS using immunohistochemical staining. We then examined the effects of pre-SPS intra-BLA administration of glycyrrhizin, an HMGB1 inhibitor, or LPS-RS, a competitive TLR4 antagonist, on subsequent post-SPS fear extinction.  We found that SPS treatment prolonged the extinction of contextual fear memory after the SPS. The impairment of SPS-induced extinction of contextual fear memory was associated with increased HMGB1 and Toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4) levels in the BLA. Additionally, the impairment of SPS-induced extinction of contextual fear memory was associated with increased activation of microglia and astrocyte in the BLA. Intra-BLA administrations of glycyrrhizin (HMGB-1 inhibitor) or LPS-RS (TLR4 antagonist) can prevent the development of SPS-induced fear extinction impairment.  Taken together, these results suggested that SPS treatment may not only produce short term effects on the HMGB1/TLR4-mediated pro-inflammation, but alter the response of microglia and astrocytes to the exposure to fear associated contextual stimuli.

Field of study: Biology, Chemistry
Fail / recover / fail (F/R/F) failure mechanisms new trend

The need to improve the failure analysis results accuracy and the cycle time reduction of all the reliability and qualification is a key factor of the success for new products or technologies. The 150°C bake during the failure analysis process is known to segregate the failure mechanisms. All the recovered units submitted to the reliability test duplication have not the same behavior. The F/R/F ( delay failure duplication leads to the failure mechanisms. The study of this delay versus failure mechanisms found during several EFR (Early Failure Rate) exercises is presented.

Field of study: Engineering
Occupational Structure in the Czech Lands Under the Second Serfdom

A shift in occupational structure towards non-agricultural activities is widely viewed as a key component of European economic growth during the early modern ‘Little Divergence’. Yet little is known about this process in those parts of eastern-central Europe that experienced the early modern ‘second serfdom’, the massive increase in the institutional powers of landlords over the rural population. We analyze non-agricultural occupations under the second serfdom using data on 6,983 Bohemian villages in 1654. Bohemia resembled other eastern-central, nordic and southern European economies in having a lower percentage of non-agricultural activities than western Europe. But Bohemian serfs engaged in a wide array of industrial and commercial activities whose intensity varied significantly with village characteristics. Nonagricultural activity showed a significant positive relationship with village size, pastoral agriculture, sub-peasant social strata, Jews, freemen, female household heads, and village mills, and a significant negative relationship with arable agriculture and urban agglomerations. Non-agricultural activity was also positively associated with landlord presence in the village, although the relationship turned negative at higher values and landlord presence reversed the positive effects of female headship and mills. Under the second serfdom, landlords encouraged serf activities from which they could extort rents, while stifling others which threatened their interests.

Field of study: Economics, History
P011 TNF inhibition combined with chemotherapy for experimental tuberculosis improves pulmonary bacterial clearance and reduces pathology

TNF plays an important role in host immunity to M. tuberculosis infection and contributes to granuloma formation. TNF inhibition has been shown to disorganize pulmonary granulomas and to reactivate tuberculosis in certain patients. Chemotherapy for tuberculosis requires long and difficult treatments with reduced patient compliance. To determine whether TNF inhibition can be an advantage for the efficacy of anti-TB drugs to eliminate intracellular mycobacteria shortening the duration of chemotherapy, we compared the effects of co-administration of anti-TNF treatments and anti-TB drugs with those obtained with anti-TB drugs alone using a murine model of M. tuberculosis pulmonary infection.  Mice were infected with M. tuberculosis and treated with isoniazid (INH) and Rympamycin (RMP) alone or in combination with a TNF inhibitor (Enbrel), or with Enbrel alone, to determine whether TNF neutralization may improve chemotherapy for tuberculosis. The effect of co-administration of TNF blocker and therapy for M. tuberculosis treatments was evaluated during acute and chronic M. tuberculosis infections. Determination of lung bacterial load and pulmonary pathology was performed at different time points after stopping treatments.  There was a reduction in pulmonary bacterial load and an improvement of pathology in mice co-treated with INH/RMP plus Enbrel compared to mice with chemotherapy alone during acute infection. During M. tuberculosis chronic infection, we observed that the effects of the chemotherapy combined with anti-TNF enhanced bacterial elimination and decreased pulmonary pathology compared to the TB therapy alone.  These data suggest that the combination of anti-TNF and therapy for M. tuberculosis improves chemotherapy and shortens the duration of the treatment which is an important clinical issue.

Field of study: Medicine
ABC-Di: Approximate Bayesian Computation for Discrete Data

Many real-life problems are represented as a black-box, i.e., the internal workings are inaccessible or a closed-form mathematical expression of the likelihood function cannot be defined. For continuous random variables likelihood-free inference problems can be solved by a group of methods under the name of Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC). However, a similar approach for discrete random variables is yet to be formulated. Here, we aim to fill this research gap. We propose to use a population-based MCMC ABC framework. Further, we present a valid Markov kernel, and propose a new kernel that is inspired by Differential Evolution. We assess the proposed approach on a problem with the known likelihood function, namely, discovering the underlying diseases based on a QMR-DT Network, and three likelihood-free inference problems: (i) the QMR-DT Network with the unknown likelihood function, (ii) learning binary neural network, and (iii) Neural Architecture Search. The obtained results indicate the high potential of the proposed framework and the superiority of the new Markov kernel.

Field of study: Computer science
The economics of prevention: a critique.

A recent claim that "few preventive programmes, if any, reduce medical expenditures" is critically reviewed with specific reference to the health value of regular exercise. It is argued that a focus upon medical expenditures biases the argument in favour of acute care by neglecting much of the investment in research, training and construction, and ignoring differences in the quality of life between fit and marginally healthy individuals. By focussing on a specific clinical condition, the widespread benefits of exercise are also overlooked, and by equating costs with the consumer price index, errors from differential inflation are ignored. Discounting of benefits weighs heavily against prevention, but is an inappropriate tactic in a steady-state situation. Likewise, the levying of incidental medical charges for an extended lifespan is inappropriate when the individual concerned is also contributing to society. Limited recruitment and poor adherence are the main current weaknesses of preventive medicine, but their impact should be reduced when a preventive philosophy becomes the norm for both the patient and his or her medical adviser. The collection of appropriate and unbiased estimates of costs and benefits is an important first step towards this objective.

Field of study: Medicine, Political science
Heritage and change on the naval waterfront: opportunity and challenge

The paper examines naval waterfront decline, the potential heritage legacy of that decline, and the challenges which that legacy poses for urban and coastal zone planning and management. An initial analysis of decline processes is juxtaposed with exploration of the state's changing role in the abandonment of naval waterfronts. The range of potential heritage resources likely to be released by naval retreat is assessed, and it is shown that this rich endowment frequently extends well beyond the immediate urban waterfront to engage other parts of the cityport and the wider coastal zone. The impressive 20th-century growth of naval ports raises issues concerning heritage definition, but it is also argued that naval heritage of whatever era has the capacity to create an additional and extensive range of planning and management challenges. These extend from building constraints, through aesthetic issues to economic-impact and market considerations. It is on these challenges, which often contrast sharply with commercial waterfront experiences, that the case for naval waterfront research is based.

Field of study: Environmental science
Heavy and Toxic Metals in Staple Foodstuffs and Agriproduct from Contaminated Soils

This article presents basic data on the content of Cr, Fe, Ni, Cu, Zn, As, Cd, Sb, Hg, and Pb in staple foodstuffs and agriproduct grown in Russia (Astrakhan region and the town of Belovo) and Egypt (Helwan region). The dependence of the concentration of metals in agriproducts on the content and chemical form of existence in irrigation water and soils is indicated.

Field of study: Agricultural and Food sciences
From qualification education to personality education

From the perspective of historical vicissitude of education objectives,education gradually got alienated from life: The classical education clung to natural qualifications like wealth and power,therefore it fell to be qualification education;The modern education was lost in various ideals that intellectuals came up with and,therefore was caught in competitive circumstances.With life basis lost,education has grown instrumental day by day and lost its own sense of direction.The main reason lies in the misleading conception of "the average man".Therefore,in order to return to true education,we should transcend "the average man",and the real man should be comprehended in perspective of the three-dimensional elements: personality,dignity,resolutions.

Field of study: Education
High-pressure cooling of protein crystals without cryoprotectants.

Flash-cooling of protein crystals is the best known method to effectively mitigate radiation damage in macromolecular crystallography. To prevent physical damage to crystals upon cooling, suitable cryoprotectants must usually be found, a process that is time-consuming and in some cases unsuccessful. A method is described to cool protein crystals in high-pressure helium gas without the need for penetrative cryoprotectants. The method involves mounting protein crystals from the native mother liquor in a cryoloop with a droplet of oil, pressurizing the crystal to 200 MPa in He gas, cooling the crystal under pressure and then releasing the pressure. The crystal is then removed from the apparatus under liquid nitrogen and handled thereafter like a normal cryocooled crystal. Results are presented from three representative proteins. Dramatic improvement in diffraction quality in terms of resolution and mosaicity was observed in all cases. A mechanism for the pressure cooling is proposed involving high-density amorphous (HDA) ice which is produced at high pressure and is metastable at room pressure and 110 K.

Field of study: Chemistry