nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Segmentation of MMW Image of Aquatic Plant Based on Region Growing

Millimeter wave radiometric images are characterized by blurred edge, existence of transition band and interference, intensity inhomogeneity. For the MMW radiometric image of aquatic plant, we propose a method to treat which first makes a modest improvement of the existing fuzzy based enhancement method and apply it to the enhancement of MMW radiometric image. The region growing method has the characteristic of considering the connectivity and similarity of pixels, taking advantage of it and combining with the characteristics of the radiometric image, then the method automatically chooses the initial growing point and segment the target from the background. Experiment shows that this method can achieve the purpose of separating the lotus leaf from the radiometric image with interference and transition band.

Field of study: Engineering
THERMOCAPILLARY FLOW IN LIQUID BRIDGE UNDER MAGNETIC FIELD GENERATED BY COMBINED COIL CONFIGURATIONS

In order to optimize convection control in a liquid bridge,the effects of the magnetic fields generated respectively by axial coils,transversal coils and their combination on thermocapillary flow are investigated.The results demonstrate that the magnetic field produced by axial coils can help suppress melt flow in the radial direction and improve the axisymmetry of a convection structure;and that the magnetic field produced by transversal coils,however,may break the axisymmetry of a convection structure while damping melt flow in the axial direction.Furthermore,the coupled favorable effect,weakened melt flow in the axial direction with an axisymmetrical convection structure,is obtained under the magnetic field produced by the combination of axial coils and transversal coils,thereby attaining a better effect on melt convection,and therefore high-quality crystal in floating zone crystal growth.

Field of study: Engineering
Late Holocene environmental changes as recorded in the sediments of high Andean Laguna Chepical, Central Chile (32°S; 3050 m a.s.l.)

We present a reconstruction of environmental changes from sediments of high-altitude Laguna Chepical in the subtropical Andes of Central Chile (32°16′S; 70°30′W, 3050 m a.s.l.) for the past 3100 years. Based on subfossil pollen, microscopic charcoal and diatoms, we inferred changes in moisture (related to precipitation) and ice-cover/ice-free season (related to summer temperature) at decadal to millennial scales. Sustained wetter and colder summer temperatures than today prevailed between 1100 BC and ca. AD 1. Afterward, decreasing pollen accumulation rates and increased fire activity suggest drier conditions and possibly enhanced seasonality and/or inter-annual climate variability. Frequent changes between cold and warm summers were observed, particularly for the last 1000 years. About AD 1250 (during the Medieval Climate Anomaly), wet years and early break up of ice-cover occurred in central Chile, which is today typical for El Nino-like mean conditions. Conversely, and with the exception of a few wet pulses, a generally dry period with extended ice-cover (cool summers) was observed between AD 1400 and AD 1850 (Little Ice Age). This can be interpreted as a trend toward more La Nina-like mean conditions. Recent climate change and human disturbances during the last 100 years have prompted changes in diatom and plant communities that are unprecedented in the late Holocene. First, planktonic diatoms increased as a result of hydraulic interventions in the lake during the late 19th century, and secondly, the Andean vegetation shifted upward as result of recent warming, and the frequency of arboreal taxa was significantly reduced. At the same time peaks of fire activity were observed.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
Quality of consultation and the project 'Support and Consultation on Euthanasia in the Netherlands' (SCEN).

Consultation of another physician is one of the requirements for prudent practice. The project 'Support and Consultation on Euthanasia in the Netherlands' (SCEN) is aimed at professionalizing consultation. The objective of this study is to assess whether the quality of consultation was improved through SCEN.



In four districts all general practitioners (GPs) received a pre-test questionnaire approximately six weeks before the start of the project in the period (n=1224, response 71%). In the period from April 2000 to December 2002, all GPs in districts in which SCEN had been implemented received a written post-test questionnaire one and a half years after the start of the project. This post-test questionnaire was returned by 60% of the GPs (n=3614).



In SCEN consultations the attending physicians has no specific relation to the attending physician in 85% of consultations, while this is the case for 31% of other consultations. While before the start of SCEN in 71% of consultations six or seven of the seven criteria for good consultation were met, in SCEN consultations 83% of cases six or seven of these requirements were met. GPS who had consulted a SCEN physician generally were more positive about different aspects than those who consulted another consultant, such as considering the consultant to be able to make an independent judgement (totally agree 74% versus 59%).



Although the quality of consultation appears to be high for both SCEN physicians and other consultants, the SCEN project further contributed to the quality of consultation. Since GPs attach importance to judgement of SCEN physician and have the intention to use it in future, and the quality of consultation stays high over time, this project is expected to maintain its value.

Field of study: Medicine, Political science
Three-body unitarity in the finite volume

The physical interpretation of lattice QCD simulations, performed in a small volume, requires an extrapolation to the infinite volume. A method is proposed to perform such an extrapolation for three interacting particles at energies above threshold. For this, a recently formulated relativistic $ 3\rightarrow 3$3→3 amplitude based on the isobar formulation is adapted to the finite volume. The guiding principle is two- and three-body unitarity that imposes the imaginary parts of the amplitude in the infinite volume. In turn, these imaginary parts dictate the leading power-law finite-volume effects. It is demonstrated that finite-volume poles arising from the singular interaction, from the external two-body sub-amplitudes, and from the disconnected topology cancel exactly leaving only the genuine three-body eigenvalues. The corresponding quantization condition is derived for the case of three identical scalar-isoscalar particles and its numerical implementation is demonstrated.

Field of study: Physics
Coexistence of spin-glass and antiferromagnetic orders in the Ising system Fe0.55Mg0.45Cl2.

The low-temperature phase of the dilute Ising antiferromagnet Fe/sub 0.55/Mg/sub 0.45/Cl/sub 2/ in zero field is studied by specific-heat, ac-susceptibility, and neutron-scattering experiments. We find that in this phase, spin-glass behavior and antiferromagnetic long-range order coexist. Such a mixed-order phase is predicted by the mean-field theory of reentrant spin-glasses, but has never been observed before.

Field of study: Physics
Do repeat ultrasounds affect orchiectomy rate in patients with testicular torsion treated at a pediatric institution?

Testicular torsion is a urological emergency; as the testicular salvage rate decreases with time, prompt intervention is required to restore the blood flow. Interhospital transfers and ultrasound examinations, while clinically essential to proper treatment and diagnosis, may adversely affect outcomes by delaying surgical intervention. Patients transferred to another institution for treatment of testicular torsion may experience a further time delay by undergoing two ultrasound examinations: one at the initial admitting institution and one at the receiving institution. To the knowledge of the authors, no study has yet explored the time delays and outcomes associated with these repeat ultrasounds.



The objective was to investigate the impact of repeat ultrasound imaging on time to treatment and patient outcomes in patients with testicular torsion.



A retrospective chart review of 133 patients, aged 0-20 years, treated at the authors' institution for testicular torsion was conducted. Neonate patients and patients who did not receive ultrasound were excluded. Demographic and clinical variables were collected from the electronic medical record. Pearson Chi-squared and t-tests were used for univariate comparisons, and multivariate logistic regression analysis was performed to measure the relationships between variables.



Forty-nine percent of patients were primary patients, and 51% were transfer patients. Fifty-two percent of transfer patients received repeat ultrasounds. In comparison to salvaged patients, those who underwent orchiectomy experienced a greater delay between presentation at the institution and surgical intervention (229 min vs 177 min, p = 0.048). The transfer status does not appear to be related to the outcome, i.e. orchiectomy versus salvage. Patients who underwent orchiectomy were more likely than salvaged patients to have received repeat ultrasounds (p = 0.008). Repeat ultrasound patients had three times the likelihood of orchiectomy of single ultrasound patients. In a subset analysis of transfer patients, repeat ultrasound patients were more likely than single ultrasound patients to receive an orchiectomy (p = 0.03).



In agreement with previous studies, patients who underwent orchiectomy were found to experience greater treatment delays and trend toward transfer. Specifically, repeat ultrasound and time between presentation and intervention appear to influence patient outcomes. The effect of repeat ultrasound on outcomes appears to be independent of the transfer status. The study was limited by its retrospective nature and small sample size.



The analysis suggests that efforts to prevent repeat ultrasounds and minimize the time between presentation and intervention would improve patient outcomes. It is proposed that standardized clinical decision-making procedures, such as the TWIST scoring system, be incorporated into hospital protocols.

Field of study: Medicine
Über Zusammenstöße von Lichtquanten

ZusammenfassungEs wird angenommen, daß der Zusammenstoß zweier Lichtquanten ein vollkommen elastischer sei. Durch Anwendung der Methode, vermittels welcher Boltzmann sein H-Theorem beweist, und unter Annahme der Wienschen Verteilungsfunktion kommt der Verf. zu dem Schlüsse, daß bei der schwarzen Strahlung zwischen zwei zusammenstoßenden Quanten ein voller Impulsaustausch stattfindet. Formell bekommt man eine vollkommene Analogie zu der Vorstellung der klassischen Optik von der unabhängigen Ausbreitung zweier verschiedener Wellen. Die Schlußfolgerung steht nicht im Widerspruch mit der Planckschen Funktion.

Field of study: Physics
Optimization of oxide-confined vertical-cavity surface-emitting diode lasers

The performance of modern oxide-confined (OC) vertical-cavity surface-emitting diode lasers (VCSELs) is distinctly different than that of earlier VCSEL designs. As a result, hitherto known optimal VCSEL designs cannot be considered as the best ones any longer; they need new analysis to determine their optimal OC designs for their various applications. Therefore, in this paper, a comparative analysis of the room-temperature (RT) continuous-wave (CW) threshold operation of various designs of OC VCSELs is carried out using the 1.3 µm OC intra-cavity-contacted GaAs-based quantum-well (GaIn)(NAs)/GaAs VCSEL as a typical example. The analysis has been made with the aid of a comprehensive fully self-consistent three-dimensional optical-electrical-thermal-gain model. Depending on an application, different OC VCSEL designs have been found to be optimal. The lowest RT CW lasing threshold has been found to be achieved in the 1.5λ-cavity design with only one oxide aperture (for smaller active regions) or in the 3λ-cavity design with two oxide apertures (for larger active regions). On the other hand, to reach the single-fundamental-mode operation and/or longer lasing wavelengths, the 3λ-cavity OC VCSEL with one oxide aperture happened to be the best lasing design, especially for relatively large active regions.

Field of study: Materials science
Design and Implementation of High Performance Cluster Management and Monitor System Based on Flexible Architecture

High performance cluster management and monitor system based on controller conception and multi-layer flexible architecture is researched. The multi-layer architecture can reduce the communication overhead and imporve the node number scaleability of management system; the controller based on separating concrete logic from common logic can imporve the functiuon scaleability of management system. This management and monitor system can satify the change of cluster size and management function, which can manange and monitor the heterogeneous high performance cluster easily and effectively.

Field of study: Computer science
Late Cenozoic volcanic rocks of the Clearwater – Wells Gray area, British Columbia

The Clearwater – Wells Gray area of east-central British Columbia includes a succession of late Cenozoic, alkali olivine basalt flows that lie east of the extensive Chilcotin lavas and define the eastern end of the Anahim Volcanic Belt. The rocks are petrographically similar to but less altered than the Chilcotin basalts. The volcanic activity spanned at least two episodes of glacial advance and produced both subaerial flows and a subaqueous facies comprising pillow lava, pillow breccia, and tuff breccia, locally intercalated with fluvial gravels and sand. Four morphological assemblages have been recognized. An early glacial assemblage, characterized by tuyalike forms, gives K – Ar dates of 0.27 – 3.5 Ma. These circular features are surrounded by a deeply dissected valley-filling assemblage of subaerial and minor subaqueous flows and tuff breccia that rest locally on lag gravel and till. Subaerial flows in this assemblage give K – Ar dates of 0.15 – 0.56 Ma. Whitehorse Bluffs, a volcanic centre composed o...

Field of study: Environmental science
Social recognition memory requires protein synthesis after reactivation.

Recent evidence indicates that reactivation of consolidated memories returns them to a protein-synthesis-dependent state called reconsolidation. The hypothesis that memories reconsolidate has never been assessed in social memory. The authors tested whether sheep (Ovis aries) mothers' memory of their lambs undergoes reconsolidation upon reactivation. After 7 days of mother-young contact, ewes were separated from their lambs for 8 hr, after which the lambs were reintroduced to their mothers for a 10-min reactivation session. Before reactivation, mothers received a subcutaneous injection of either the protein-synthesis inhibitor cycloheximide (CY, 1 mg/kg) or vehicle. Mothers' lamb memory was tested 1 hr (short-term memory [STM]) or 16 hr (long-term memory [LTM]) after reactivation. Mothers treated with CY exhibited intact STM but deficient LTM. CY injection without reactivation or before presentation of an alien lamb induced no deficit in LTM. CY-induced LTM deficit was alleviated by (a) introducing a reminder just before the LTM test, (b) extending mother-young contact, and (c) preventing suckling by the familiar lamb during reactivation. Thus, reconsolidation can be shown to exist in social memory, and some of its boundary conditions are discussed.

Field of study: Biology, Psychology
Experimental quantum-walk revival with a time-dependent coin.

We demonstrate a quantum walk with time-dependent coin bias. With this technique we realize an experimental single-photon one-dimensional quantum walk with a linearly ramped time-dependent coin flip operation and thereby demonstrate two periodic revivals of the walker distribution. In our beam-displacer interferometer, the walk corresponds to movement between discretely separated transverse modes of the field serving as lattice sites, and the time-dependent coin flip is effected by implementing a different angle between the optical axis of half-wave plate and the light propagation at each step. Each of the quantum-walk steps required to realize a revival comprises two sequential orthogonal coin-flip operators, with one coin having constant bias and the other coin having a time-dependent ramped coin bias, followed by a conditional translation of the walker.

Field of study: Physics
Materials for luminescent greenhouse solar collectors.

Luminescent greenhouse solar collectors are potentially useful for concentrating sunlight onto photovoltaic power cells. Measurements of the performance of small-scale collectors made of two commercially available materials (Owens-Illinois ED2 neodymium-doped laser glass and rhodamine 6G-doped plastic) are presented. The results are encouraging, but they indicate a need for further spectral sensitization and for reduced matrix loss coefficient. The measurements with monochromatic illumination agree with the predictions of a mathematical model developed to take account of reemission following the absorption of luminescence. Under solar illumination, the model predicts photon flux concentrations of about 15 for optimized full-scale collectors made of the materials studied and concentrations of 110 for reasonably improved glass.

Field of study: Physics
Support vector machine techniques for nonlinear equalization

The emerging machine learning technique called support vector machines is proposed as a method for performing nonlinear equalization in communication systems. The support vector machine has the advantage that a smaller number of parameters for the model can be identified in a manner that does not require the extent of prior information or heuristic assumptions that some previous techniques require. Furthermore, the optimization method of a support vector machine is quadratic programming, which is a well-studied and understood mathematical programming technique. Support vector machine simulations are carried out on nonlinear problems previously studied by other researchers using neural networks. This allows initial comparison against other techniques to determine the feasibility of using the proposed method for nonlinear detection. Results show that support vector machines perform as well as neural networks on the nonlinear problems investigated. A method is then proposed to introduce decision feedback processing to support vector machines to address the fact that intersymbol interference (ISI) data generates input vectors having temporal correlation, whereas a standard support vector machine assumes independent input vectors. Presenting the problem from the viewpoint of the pattern space illustrates the utility of a bank of support vector machines. This approach yields a nonlinear processing method that is somewhat different than the nonlinear decision feedback method whereby the linear feedback filter of the decision feedback equalizer is replaced by a Volterra filter. A simulation using a linear system shows that the proposed method performs equally to a conventional decision feedback equalizer for this problem.

Field of study: Engineering
Occurrence of coal and coal-derived particle-bound polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) in a river floodplain soil.

A PAH contaminated river floodplain soil was separated according to grain size and density. Coal and coal-derived particles from coal mining, coal industry and coal transportation activities were identified by organic petrographic analysis in our samples. Distinct concentrations of PAHs were found in different grain size and density fractions, however, similar distribution patterns of PAHs indicated similar sources. In addition, although light fractions had the mass fraction by weight of less than 5%, they contributed almost 75% of the total PAHs in the soil. PAH concentrations of all sub fractions showed positive correlation with their TOC contents. Altogether, coal and coal-derived particles that were abundant in light fractions could be the dominant geosorbents for PAHs in our samples.

Field of study: Environmental science
Indomethacin Serves as a Potential Inhibitor of Protein Phosphatases

We have shown that indomethacin has the potential to activate Ca2+/ calmodulin-dependent protein kinase II (CaMKII), regardless of cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibition. To understand the underlying mechanism, the present study investigated the effect of indomethacin on protein phosphatases such as protein phosphatase 1 (PP1), protein phosphatase 2A (PP2A), and protein tyrosine phosphatase 1B (PTP1B).  Activity of CaMKII was assayed in cultured rat hippocampal neurons and under the cell-free conditions. Activities of protein phosphatases were monitored under the cell-free conditions. Indomethacin binding assay was carried out using a fluorescein-conjugated indomethacin.  Indomethacin enhanced CaMKII activity in cultured rat hippocampal neurons, that is abolished the CaMKII inhibitor KN-93. In the cell-free assay, no CaMKII activation was obtained with indomethacin, but indomethacin otherwise inhibited PP1 in a concentration (10 µM-1 mM)-dependent manner, the maximum reaching 70% of basal levels. This indicates that indomethacin indirectly activates CaMKII due to PP1 inhibition. Likewise, indomethacin still inhibited PP2A and PTP1B in a concentration (10 µM-1 mM)-dependent manner, reaching 80 and 10% of basal levels at 1 mM, respectively. In the indomethacin binding assay, indomethacin bound to all the investigated protein phosphatases.  The results of the present study indicate that indomethacin inhibits PP1, PP2A, and PTP1B, possibly through its direct binding and that the inhibitory effect of indomethacin on PP1 could cause indirect CaMKII activation. This may represent the novel indomethacin action.

Field of study: Biology, Chemistry
Maximum queue lengths during a fixed time interval in the M/m/c retrial queue

We are concerned with the problem of characterizing the distribution of the maximum number Z(t(0)) of customers during a fixed time interval [0, t(0)] in the M/M/c retrial queue, which is shown to have a matrix exponential form. We present a simple condition on the service and retrial rates for the matrix exponential solution to be explicit or algorithmically tractable. Our methodology is based on splitting methods and the use of eigen-values and eigenvectors. A particularly appealing feature of our solution is that it allows us to obtain global error control. Specifically, we derive an approximating solution p(x; t(0)) = p(x; t(0); epsilon) verifying [P(Z(t(0)) = i + j, for any epsilon > 0 and initial numbers i of busy servers and j of customers in orbit.

Field of study: Mathematics