nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Serum microRNA 125b as a diagnostic or prognostic biomarker for advanced NSCLC patients receiving cisplatin-based chemotherapy

To investigate the expression profile of microRNAs in inoperable advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients receiving chemotherapy and the potential relevance of microRNAs to clinicopathological characteristics and prognosis.Serum samples were taken from 260 inoperable advanced NSCLC patients and 260 healthy individuals. All the patients received cisplatin-based chemotherapy, including NP/NC regimens, GP/GC regimens, and TP/TC regimens. The serum levels of microRNAs (miR-125b, miR-10b, miR-34a and miR-155) were determined by quantitative real-time PCR.Results:Serum levels of the 4 microRNAs examined in NSCLC patients were significantly increased as compared with healthy individuals. The levels of miR-125b and miR-155 were changed in a similar pattern: the patients with stage IV disease had the highest one, while the patients with stage III A and stage III B disease showed similar increased levels. The levels of miR-10b and miR-34a in the patients with different stages were increased to similar extent. The level of miR-125b in poorly differentiated cancer was significantly higher than those in well and moderately differentiated cancers, while the levels of miR-10b, miR-34a, and miR-155 did not significantly differ with cancer differentiation. Among the 4 microRNAs examined, only miR-125b was significantly associated with therapeutic response, exhibiting higher expression levels in non-responsive patients. Furthermore, the high level of miR-125b was significantly correlated with poor patient survival. A multivariate Cox regression analysis showed that the expression level of miR-125b was an independent prognostic marker in NSCLC patients.Our results suggest that miR-125b is a potential diagnostic or prognostic biomarker for NSCLC. This finding has important implications for development of targeted therapeutics to overcome chemotherapeutic resistance in NSCLC.

Field of study: Biology, Chemistry, Medicine
Effect of a meson cloud on the jet nuclear modification factor in pA collisions

We study the effect of the nucleon meson cloud on centrality dependence of the jet nuclear modification factor RpA. We find that the meson–baryon Fock components may lead to a noticeable deviation of RpA from unity. Our results for RpA show the same tendency as that observed by ATLAS in p + Pb collisions at √s = 5.02 TeV. The meson cloud suppresses the central jet events and enhances the peripheral jet events. However, quantitatively the effect is somewhat smaller than in the data.

Field of study: Physics
Therapist-reported alliance: Is it really a predictor of outcome?

Most of the literature on the alliance-outcome association is based exclusively on differences between patient reports on alliance. Much less is known about the unique contribution of the therapist's report to this association across treatment, that is, the association between therapist-reported alliance and outcome over the course of treatment, after controlling for the patient's contribution. The present study is the first to examine the unique contribution of the therapist-reported alliance to outcome, accounting for reverse causation (symptomatic levels predicting alliance), at several time points in the course of treatment. Of 156 patients randomized to dynamic supportive-expressive psychotherapy, antidepressant medication with clinical management, and placebo with clinical management, 149 were included in the present study. Alliance was assessed from the perspective of both the patient and the therapist. Outcome measures included the patients' self-reported and diagnostician-rated depressive symptoms. Overall, the findings demonstrate that the therapists' contribution to the alliance-outcome association was explained mainly by prior symptomatic levels. However, when a time lag of several sessions was introduced between alliance and symptoms, a positive association emerged between alliance at 1 time point and symptomatic distress assessed several sessions later in the treatment, controlling for previous symptomatic level. The findings were similar whether or not we controlled for the patient's perspective on the alliance. Taken together, the findings attest to the importance of improving therapists' ability to detect deterioration in the alliance.

Field of study: Psychology
Same-day booking: success in a Canadian family practice.

ADDRESSED
Patients in a family practice had to wait 6 weeks for an appointment.



To improve patient care by facilitating access to timely appointments.



An FP from Halifax, NS, implemented advanced access in her practice. Advanced access is a same-day booking system, which has been shown to reduce or eliminate patient backlogs without the addition of resources. Theoretically, it can be put into effect in any practice with a stable backlog (which indicates that supply and demand are well matched). The first step to implement the advanced access system was to clear the existing appointment backlog. During a 6-week "boot camp" period, all prebooked patients and patients who called requesting same-day appointments were seen (between 50 and 60 patients per day). Same-day appointment rules apply to almost all patients. Staff begin accepting calls at 8:00 AM, and patients request the most convenient time available.



Baseline and postimplementation data are not available, as this was not a formal research study. Nevertheless, this FP from Halifax who implemented advanced access experienced the following in her practice: elimination of patient backlog, fewer no-shows, patients' happiness with the system, increase in physician and staff morale, and stability in physician income. Formal feasibility studies and research evaluating patient outcomes, cost effectiveness, and physician and patient satisfaction in a variety of practice settings would help Canadian FPs decide if same-day booking could be successfully implemented in their practices.

Field of study: Medicine
The co-incidence of storm surges and extreme discharges within the Rhine?Meuse Delta

The Netherlands is a low-lying coastal area and therefore threatened by both extreme river discharges from the Meuse and Rhine rivers and storm surges along the North Sea coastline. To date, in most flood risk analyses these two hazardous phenomena are considered independent. However, if there were a dependence between high sea water levels and extreme discharges this might result in higher design water levels, which might consequently have implications for flood protection policy in the Netherlands. In this study we explore the relation between high sea water levels at Hoek van Holland and high river discharges at Lobith. Different from previous studies, we use physical models forced by the same atmospheric forcing leading to concomitant and consistent time series of storm surge conditions and river discharge. These time series were generated for present day conditions as well as future climate projections and analysed for dependence within the upper tails of their distribution. In this study, dependence between the discharge at Lobith and storm surge at Hoek van Holland was found, and the dependence was highest for a lag of six days between the two processes. As no significant dependence of the threats was found for cases without time lag, there is no need for considering dependence in flood protection and policy making. Although future climate change is expected to lead to more extreme conditions in river discharges, we cannot conclude from this study that it will change the magnitude of the dependence for extreme conditions.

Field of study: Environmental science
Editor's corner: Software maintenance: It's time to educate the educators

I want to talk about two things-software maintenance and software engineering education. Software maintenance is worth talking about. That’s that part of the software business where we spent 4080% of our dollars, depending on whose figures you’re looking at. Software engineering education is worth talking about. That’s that part of our educational process where we teach people about the pragmatics of building software. So the juxtaposition of these two subjects ought to be really exciting, right? In that juxtaposition we will educate people to deal with the biggest spender of the software dollar, right? Wrong! If you take a look around at the people who do software engineering education, you’ll find that, almost without exception, they don’t touch software maintenance even using a ten-foot pole. Why not? Why would the leading software engineering educators, working in places like Seattle University and Texas Christian and Wichita State and even Sterling in Scotland, why would they not teach software maintenance? Because, I found in asking around, these educators don’t believe there is any unique technology to maintenance. That is, once you’ve learned how to develop software, you will certainly know how to maintain it. The steps, after all, are the same-study the requirements, design the solution, code the design, and test the heck out of the result. So what else is there to say? At least, that’s the question the software educators are asking. Except they aren’t really asking. They think they already know the answer. So let’s poke at this question a little bit. Is there really a unique technology to software maintenance? My answer, and the answer in the thousands of locations across the world where people are actually

Field of study: Computer science, Engineering
Fabrication of PS-RF double-layered hollow microspheres

Based on interfacial polymerization reaction,PS-RF double shell microspheres were synthesized using polystyrene(PS) hollow microspheres as template,RF solution as precursor and dibutyl phthalate as dispersant.The factors,such as the choice of RF solution and oil,prepolymerization time,stirring rate and solidification temperature,which affect the process,have been preliminarily discussed.As the polymerization reaction was occurring in the following conditions: RF solution was 25%,the molar ratio of resorcinol to sodium carbonate was 100,prepolymerization time was 24 hours,stirring rate was 120～200 r/min,and solidification temperature was 35 ℃,the experiment has fabricated PS-RF double-layered hollow microsphere,whose degree of sphericity and concentricity are over 95% and the surface finish is less than 10 nm.

Field of study: Physics
Kindergarten Teacher Aides and Reading Readiness Minneapolis Public Schools

In order to discover whether teacher aides can be used effectively to help develop reading readiness in kindergarten children, three groups of three classes each were compared: (1) Group A, no teacher aide, (2) Group B, one teacher aide, (3) Group C, five teacher aides. Under the direction of the teachers, aides worked with children in activities designed to increase reading readiness. There were no initial differences between groups (Metropolitan Readiness Test, Form R), but there were significant differences at the end of one semester in favor of the groups with aides.

Field of study: Education
A procedural technique for thermal simulation and visualization in urban environments

Analysing the thermal behaviour of buildings is an important goal for any and all of the tasks involving energy flow simulation in urban environments. However, the number of variables to be considered, along with the difficulty of implementing some of them, make it difficult to address the problem on an urban scale. In this paper we propose a procedural approach that, from a 3D urban model and a set of parameters, simulates the thermal exchanges that take place inside and outside buildings in an urban environment. We also provide a technique to efficiently visualise thermal variations over time of both the interior and exterior of buildings in an urban environment. We believe this technique will be helpful for performing a rapid analysis when building parameters, such as materials, dimensions, shape or number of floors, are being changed.

Field of study: Engineering
Studies on Oxalic Acid as a Crosslinker of Polyvinyl Alcohol

The suitability of oxalic acid as a crosslinker of polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is the focus of study of the present paper. Oxalic acid concentration was varied from 3–70% (w/w with respect to polymer) and curing was carried out at various temperatures (100–140 °C) for a range of time periods (20–120 minutes). The optimum curative dose and curing conditions were evaluated through systematic swelling studies (% swelling, gel content, swelling ratio and molecular weight between the crosslinks) of the oxalic acid-treated PVA films, both in hot and cold water. Thermogravimetric analysis showed higher heat stability of oxalic acid crosslinked PVA film compared with heat-treated and virgin PVA. The shift in glass transition temperature (from that of virgin PVA 86 °C) to a higher value for heat-treated and oxalic acid-treated PVA was more prominent for the former than the later. Crosslinking enhanced the Young's modulus and IR spectra indicate the formation of ester carbonyl group in crosslinked PVA.

Field of study: Materials science
Load-balancing solutions for static routing schemes in ATM networks

In this paper, we present two different path ordering algorithms whose aim is balancing the load among network links when used in conjunction with static routing algorithms. Both algorithms have the same aim, but use different heuristics. A new formalism based on set theory is defined in order to allow a formal description of the problem and of the two algorithms devised to solve it. The first selection criterion we define tries, as a general rule, to allocate the shortest paths first, thus aiming at reducing bandwidth waste due to routing over long paths. The second one attempts to allocate paths for every source-destination pair, trying to assign the primary paths first, then the alternate ones. We compare the two routing schemes by simulating them in both simple and complex topologies, using ATM Networks Call LEvel Simulator (ANCLES), a tool developed by the Electronics Department of Politecnico di Torino in cooperation with Telecom Italia Research Center (CSELT). Performance metrics include the network call blocking probability and the load distribution between links. Also, we show how our algorithms restrict the path search to a narrower set, thus effectively decreasing the call setup times. Results are compared with those obtained by routing without load balancing on both a symmetric and an asymmetric traffic scenario.

Field of study: Computer science
Reactions of organoaluminium compounds with electron donors

The application of organoaluminium compounds as components of organometallic or complex systems is connected with a knowledge of their reactions with electron donors. Reactions with nitriles, ketones, esters, ethers, alkyl chlorides, vinyl chloride, and acid chlorides as the electron donors were investigated. The first stage of the reaction of an organoaluminium compound with an electron donor involves formation of the corresponding donor-acceptor complex. A knowledge of the structure of the formed complexes is very important for an elucidation of the reaction course and mechanism. The heat of formation, composition, and molecular weight of the corresponding complexes were determined, and their i.r. and n.m.r. spectra were studied. From these investigations general conclusions were made concerning, the influence of the Lewis acidity of the organoaluminium compound on the structure of its complexes and on their reactivity; the effect of reactant mole ratio (organoaluminium compound to electron donor) on the reaction course, and the influence of the molecular structure of the complex and of dislocation of electrons on the reaction mechanism. Hallwachs and Schafarik' synthesized the first organoaluminium compound 120 years ago. By treating aluminium with ethyl iodide they prepared ethylaluminium sesqui-iodide. However, the chemistry of organoaluminium compounds received little attention until the investigations of Ziegler and his collaborators, in about 1950. The development of the direct synthesis of organoaluminium compounds from aluminium, ethylene. and hydrogen, and elaboration of normal pressure polymerization of ethylene, aroused great interest. Almost simultaneously, numerous research centres over the world undertook research and technological investigations. Organoaluminium compounds proved to be of both theoretical and technological interest because of their ability to form auto and other complexes, their high reactivity, and associated structure and valence theory problems. In spite of the two decades that have passed since Ziegler's discoveries and the intensive studies that have been conducted throughout. the interest in the chemistry of organoaluminium compounds has not declined. This is mainly due to the use of organoaluminium compounds as constituents of complex catalyst systems.

Field of study: Chemistry
Differential expressions of mPer1 and mPer2 mRNAs under a skeleton photoperiod and a complete light-dark cycle.

To investigate the molecular mechanisms in photo-entrainment of circadian rhythms, expression patterns of mouse period1 (mPer1) and mPer2 mRNAs were examined in the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) and skin under a complete light-dark (LD) cycle and a corresponding skeleton photoperiod (SPP). Under the SPP, the robust daily expressions of mPer1 and mPer2 were maintained in the SCN and in the skin. A slower rise time for mPer1 mRNA expression was observed in the SPP compared with that in the LD condition both in the SCN and in the skin, although the expression pattern of mPer2 was not significantly different between the two lighting conditions. The results suggest that the expressions of mPer1 and mPer2 mRNAs are differentially regulated not only in the SCN but also in peripheral tissues. Furthermore, we propose that the persistent expression of mPer2 mRNA is required for the entrainment to the SPP.

Field of study: Biology
Study on Key Design Technologies of a Wave Energy Converter With an HTS Linear Generator

Ocean waves have the potential to provide a completely sustainable source of energy, which can be captured and converted into electric power by wave energy converters (WECs). We propose a conceptual structure of a large-scale WEC, which features a tubular high-temperature superconducting linear generator (HTS-LG) directly driven by a cylindrical heaving buoy. We describe the key electrical design technologies of the HTS-LG, and present the design results. Moreover, we analyze the movement of the heaving buoy to clarify the operation state of the WEC device. Then, we calculate the induced voltages and plot the waveforms, which demonstrate the feasibility of using this device to obtain desirable output power. This study gives an insight of implementing the large-scale tubular HTS-LGs in WECs. Besides, the electrical design technologies of HTS-LGs illustrated in this paper provide a good reference to design HTS electric machines.

Field of study: Physics
Behavior analysis and revaluation.

Revaluation refers to phenomena in which the strength of an operant is altered by reinforcer-related manipulations that take place outside the conditioning situation in which the operant was selected. As an example, if lever pressing is acquired using food as a reinforcer and food is later paired with an aversive stimulus, the frequency of lever pressing decreases when subsequently tested. Associationist psychology infers from such findings that conditioning produces a response-outcome (i.e., reinforcer) association and that the operant decreased in strength because pairing the reinforcer with the aversive stimulus changed the value of the outcome. Here, we present an approach to the interpretation of these and related findings that employs neural network simulations grounded in the experimental analysis of behavior and neuroscience. In so doing, we address some general issues regarding the relations among behavior analysis, neuroscience, and associationism.

Field of study: Biology, Psychology
Ratings of Helper Roles by Multicultural Psychologists and Asian American Students: Initial Support for the Three-Dimensional Model of Multicultural Counseling

The results of 2 surveys investigating support for psychologists' roles advocated by the three-dimensional (3-D) model of multicultural counseling are reported. Eight vignettes were developed depicting an ethnic minority person with high or low acculturation experiencing or about to experience a problem with an internal or external etiology. Psychologists interested and experienced in multicultural issues (Study 1) rated 6 of the 8 helper roles recommended by the 3-D model for conditions depicted in the 8 vignettes higher on average than they did nonrecommended helper roles. Asian American university students (Study 2) also gave higher mean ratings to 3 of the recommended roles than they did the nonrecommended roles. Examination of the Asian American students' helpfulness ratings revealed a consistent preference for 2 roles: facilitator of indigenous support systems and consultation. Implications for the 3-D model, direct service, future research, and training of counseling psychologists are discussed. Ever since the formal recognition of counseling as a specialty in psychology in 1952, there has been an ongoing debate about the professional roles that counseling psychologists should fulfill (Bordin, 1955; Super, 1955; Yamamoto, 1963). From the beginning, much of this debate, and the research bearing on it, has focused on the roles that counselors and psychologists conventionally perform in elementary (Miller, 1989), secondary (Atkinson, Froman, Romo, & Mayton, 1977), and higher (Heppner & Neal, 1983; Kiracofe et al, 1994; Robbins, May, & Corazzini, 1985) education. Many of the studies examining counselor roles in educational settings have used surveys of counseling providers and the various consumer groups they served (students, parents, teachers, administrators) to determine actual and ideal counselor roles. Some of the conventional roles identified as appropriate for counselors and psychologists in educational settings include personal counseling; career planning; academic advising; consulting; assessment; referral; evaluation and research; program development; placement; and, in higher education or other direct service settings, psychotherapy. Debate over the role of counselors in educational settings can still be found in contemporary professional literature (Murray, 1995; Saba, 1991; Studer & Allton, 1996; Thomas, 1990; Welch &McCarroll, 1993).

Field of study: Psychology
Career Disruption in Higher Education.

Some of the least anticipated and least publicized casualties of today's tight job market-displaced college faculty-are described by one writer as "destined to a life of wandering in search of a campus that will have them and keep them" [14, p. 35]. They have doctoral degrees but are unemployed, underemployed, or employed only until they reach the point of tenure and promotion. The problem of displaced college faculty is not new, but it is newly acknowledged and has been growing in volume and impact since the early 1970s. There is a growing number of displaced and frequently disillusioned former professors (or prospective professors) looking for jobs and poorly prepared to cope with this unexpected career disruption. This article attempts to shed some light on how individuals who have lost, who are losing, or who have never secured the anticipated academic position cope with what is, at worst, a crisis and, at best, an unanticipated need to restructure their lives. The crisis in higher education is the result of three, somewhat unrelated, sets of circumstances that have combined to create an academic recession: (1) a decrease in the number of college-age young people, (2) an overproduction of doctorates, and (3) an inflated economy that drove up the costs of education while an economic recession put limitations on passing costs on to the consumer.

Field of study: Education