nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Phenolic Acids from Lycium barbarum Leaves: In Vitro and In Silico Studies of the Inhibitory Activity against Porcine Pancreatic a Amylase
Year: 2020

Nowadays, bioactive compounds from vegetable food and waste are of great interest for their inhibitory potential against digestive enzymes. In the present study, the inhibitory activity of methanolic extract from Lycium barbarum leaves on porcine pancreas a amylase has been studied. The a amylase inhibitory activity of the constituent phenolic acids was also investigated. The leaves were extracted by ultrasound assisted method, one of the most efficient techniques for bioactive extraction from plant materials, and then the phenolic acids were identified by Accurate Mass Quadrupole Time of Flight (Q TOF) Liquid Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry (LC/MS) Chlorogenic and salicylic acids were the most abundant phenolic acids in L. barbarum leaf extract. The inhibitory effect against a amylase, determined for individual compounds by in vitro assay, was higher for chlorogenic, salicylic, and caffeic acids. L. barbarum leaf extract showed an appreciable a amylase inhibitory effect in a concentration dependent manner. Docking studies of the considered phenolic acids into the active site of a amylase suggested a conserved binding mode that is mainly stabilized through H bonds and p p stacking interactions.
SpecCFI: Mitigating Spectre Attacks using CFI Informed Speculation
Venue: 2020 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (SP)
Year: 2020

Spectre attacks and their many subsequent variants are a new vulnerability class affecting modern CPUs. The attacks rely on the ability to misguide speculative execution, generally by exploiting the branch prediction structures, to execute a vulnerable code sequence speculatively. In this paper, we propose to use Control Flow Integrity (CFI) a security technique used to stop control flow hijacking attacks, on the committed path, to prevent speculative control flow from being hijacked to launch the most dangerous variants of the Spectre attacks (Spectre BTB and Spectre RSB) Specifically, CFI attempts to constrain the possible targets of an indirect branch to a set of legal targets defined by a pre calculated control flow graph (CFG) As CFI is being adopted by commodity software (e.g. Windows and Android) and commodity hardware (e.g. Intel's CET and ARM's BTI) the CFI information becomes readily available through the hardware CFI extensions. With the CFI information, we apply CFI principles to also constrain illegal control flow during speculative execution. Specifically, our proposed defense, SpecCFI, ensures that control flow instructions target legal destinations to constrain dangerous speculation on forward control flow paths (indirect calls and branches) We augment this protection with a precise speculation aware hardware stack to constrain speculation on backward control flow edges (returns) We combine this solution with existing solutions against branch target predictor attacks (Spectre PHT) to close all known non vendor specific Spectre vulnerabilities. We show that SpecCFI results in small overheads both in terms of performance and additional hardware complexity.
Interaction aware cooperative trajectory planning for lane change maneuvers in dense traffic
Venue: 2020 IEEE 23rd International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC)
Year: 2020

In order to generate favorable trajectories, road users need to cope with interaction among them, especially in dense traffic. Thus, for autonomous cars, the intention of involved vehicles needs to be considered in their motion planning. This paper proposes a general framework for cooperative interaction aware trajectory generation based on multiagent trajectory planning. Possible intentions are distinguished by different cost functions, resulting in different behaviors such as cooperative or non cooperative. Given observations, Bayesian estimation is used to obtain a probability distribution of the intention models. Considering these probabilities during prediction and planning results in trajectories taking uncertain interaction with surrounding vehicles into account. The performance of the approach is demonstrated via numerical experiments for a lane change scenario in dense traffic.
Application of the JA CHRODIS Integrated Multimorbidity Care Model (IMCM) to a Case Study of Diabetes and Mental Health
Venue: International journal of environmental research and public health
Year: 2019

The Integrated Multimorbidity Care Model (IMCM) developed by the Joint Action on Chronic Diseases and Promoting Healthy Ageing across the Life Cycle (JA CHRODIS) proposes a set of 16 multidimensional components (i.e. recommendations) to improve the care of persons with multimorbidity in Europe. This study aimed at analyzing the potential applicability of the IMCM. We followed a qualitative approach that comprised two phases: (1) The design of a case study based on empirical clinical data, which consisted of a hypothetical woman with multimorbidity, type 2 diabetes mellitus, mental health, and associated social problems, and (2) the creation of a consensus group to gather the opinions of a multidisciplinary group of experts and consider the potential applicability of the IMCM to our case study. Experts described how care should be delivered to this patient according to each model component, suggested the use of specific rating scales and tools to assess her needs in a comprehensive and regular way, and pointed our crucial health and social resources to improve her care process. Experts also highlighted patient centered, integrated and tailored care as one of the keystones of quality healthcare. Our results suggest that the IMCM is applicable in complex patients with multimorbidity.
Chicory ameliorates hyperuricemia via modulating gut microbiota and alleviating LPS/TLR4 axis in quail.
Venue: Biomedicine pharmacotherapy Biomedecine pharmacotherapie
Year: 2020

High purine diet can cause gut microbiota disorder, which is closely related to the occurrence of hyperuricemia (HUA) At the same time, the development of HUA is often accompanied by renal impairment. Chicory, a natural medicine, has a significant effect on lowering uric acid. However, whether its concrete mechanism is associated with the regulation of gut microbiota and renal damage is still unclear.  Hyperuricemic quails induced by high purine diet were used, and quails were divided into control (CON) model (MOD) and model plus high, middle, low doses of chicory. The uricosuric effect was evaluated by detecting the uric acid levels in serum and feces. Meanwhile, the morphology of intestine and kidney were observed by hematoxylin and eosin (HE) staining, and the expression of intestinal barrier junction proteins Occludin, Claudin 1 were detected by quantitative real time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) and western blotting. Furthermore, the latent mechanism was clarified by analyzing 16S rRNA amplicon of gut microbiota and measuring the changes of LPS/TLR4 axis inflammatory response of the kidney by western blotting and enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA)  The results showed that serum uric acid levels were significantly decreased, and the feces uric acid levels were noticeably increased after the intervention of chicory. In addition, chicory could repair the damage of intestinal mucosa and improve the permeability of intestinal barrier. Moreover, the 16S rRNA sequencing analysis uncovered that chicory restored gut microbiota by increasing the probiotics flora (Bifidobacterium, Erysipelotrichaceae) and reducing the pathogenic bacteria group (Helicobacteraceae) Furthermore, it was found that chicory reduced the LPS/TLR4 axis inflammatory response by down regulating the serum LPS and TLR4/NF kB inflammatory pathway in kidney, thus promoting the excretion of uric acid in kidney.  Chicory intervention ameliorated HUA via modulating the imbalance of gut microbiota and suppressing LPS/TLR4 axis inflammatory reaction in quail model, which may be a promising candidate for hyperuricemia relieving properties.
Construction workers work life balance: A tool for improving productivity in the construction industry
Year: 2020

This paper examines the relationship between construction workers work life balance and productivity in the construction industry in Ghana. Survey method was adopted where 200 Questionnaires were administered to small and medium construction firms and 150 response were obtained. Canonical correlation analysis (CCA) was also carried out to establish the relationship between the predictor (WLB) and criterion latent variable set (Productivity) It emerged that there is a relationship between construction workers work life balance and productivity in the construction industry. This work strives to engender a wider academic debate and renew the need for work life balance policies that will enhance productivity to be revisited. Management of construction organisations must develop and implement construction workers work life balance polices at their place of work.
Platinum/carbon black composites as counter electrodes for high performance dye sensitized solar cells
Venue: Journal of Solid State Electrochemistry
Year: 2017

Low cost counter electrodes for dye sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) are prepared using platinum/carbon black (Pt/CB) composites via a spin coating process. Ethyl cellulose (EC) is used as a binder to regulate the viscosity of the Pt/CB composites to facilitate the spin coating process. The ratio of Pt to CB is ca. 1:3. The effects of film composition (Pt/CB:EC 30:15, 30:4) and number of coating layers on the electrochemical properties of the Pt/CB electrodes and the performance of the corresponding DSSCs are studied. The results show that Pt/CB films with the lower concentration of EC (Pt/CB:EC 30:4) exhibit high electrochemical activity, low charge transfer resistance, and good DSSC performance. These results are attributed to the lower loading of EC, which facilitates the charge transfer of the electrodes. DSSCs using these Pt/CB composite counter electrodes with lower loading of EC achieve a high conversion efficiency (8.06% comparable to that of cells using Pt.
Prognostic Value and Reproducibility of AI assisted Analysis of Lung Involvement in COVID 19 on Low Dose Submillisievert Chest CT: Sample Size Implications for Clinical Trials
Venue: Radiology. Cardiothoracic imaging
Year: 2020

To compare the prognostic value and reproducibility of visual versus AI assisted analysis of lung involvement on submillisievert low dose chest CT in COVID 19 patients.  This was a HIPAA compliant, institutional review board approved retrospective study. From March 15 to June 1, 2020, 250 RT PCR confirmed COVID 19 patients were studied with low dose chest CT at admission. Visual and AI assisted analysis of lung involvement was performed by using a semi quantitative CT score and a quantitative percentage of lung involvement. Adverse outcome was defined as intensive care unit (ICU) admission or death. Cox regression analysis, Kaplan Meier curves, and cross validated receiver operating characteristic curve with area under the curve (AUROC) analysis was performed to compare model performance. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) and Bland Altman analysis was used to assess intra and interreader reproducibility.  Adverse outcome occurred in 39 patients (11 deaths, 28 ICU admissions) AUC values from AI assisted analysis were significantly higher than those from visual analysis for both semi quantitative CT scores and percentages of lung involvement (all P<0.001) Intrareader and interreader agreement rates were significantly higher for AI assisted analysis than visual analysis (all ICC =0.960 versus =0.885) AI assisted variability for quantitative percentage of lung involvement was 17.2% (coefficient of variation) versus 34.7% for visual analysis. The sample size to detect a 5% change in lung involvement with 90% power and an a error of 0.05 was 250 patients with AI assisted analysis and 1014 patients with visual analysis.  AI assisted analysis of lung involvement on submillisievert low dose chest CT outperformed conventional visual analysis in predicting outcome in COVID 19 patients while reducing CT variability. Lung involvement on chest CT could be used as a reliable metric in future clinical trials.
Zoom to Learn, Learn to Zoom
Venue: 2019 IEEE/CVF Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR)
Year: 2019

This paper shows that when applying machine learning to digital zoom, it is beneficial to operate on real, RAW sensor data. Existing learning based super resolution methods do not use real sensor data, instead operating on processed RGB images. We show that these approaches forfeit detail and accuracy that can be gained by operating on raw data, particularly when zooming in on distant objects. The key barrier to using real sensor data for training is that ground truth high resolution imagery is missing. We show how to obtain such ground truth data via optical zoom and contribute a dataset, SR RAW, for real world computational zoom. We use SR RAW to train a deep network with a novel contextual bilateral loss that is robust to mild misalignment between input and outputs images. The trained network achieves state of the art performance in 4X and 8X computational zoom. We also show that synthesizing sensor data by resampling high resolution RGB images is an oversimplified approximation of real sensor data and noise, resulting in worse image quality.
L'influence du management de la responsabilite societale sur les caracteristiques instrumentales et organisationnelles de la fonction de controleur de gestion
Year: 2015

Dans cette these, nous nous interessons a la question de recherche suivante le management de la responsabilite societale influence t il significativement les caracteristiques instrumentales et organisationnelles de la fonction de controleur de gestion? Il s'agit principalement de savoir si le management de la responsabilite societale entraine une modification des missions du controleur, de son rattachement hierarchique et des outils de gestion qu'il utilise. Dans un premier temps, en nous basant sur les approches contingentes de la fonction de controleur, nous proposons une analyse theorique de la question de recherche. En mobilisant les modalites "dissocie/integre" du management de la responsabilite societale (Capron et Quairel 2006) nous suggerons que dans une approche dissociee le management de la responsabilite societale n'influence pas significativement les caracteristiques de la fonction de controleur, alors que dans une approche integree l'influence est significative. Dans un deuxieme temps nous realisons une etude empirique qualitative dans cinq contextes organisationnels pour evaluer la pertinence de notre propos theorique et aboutir a la formulation d'hypotheses testables. L'etude qualitative met en evidence que le management de la responsabilite societale semble systematiquement dissocie et que les controleurs de gestion sont maintenus dans leurs finalites economiques classiques. Sur cette base, nous formulons douze hypotheses relatives a l'influence significative du management de la responsabilite societale dans le but de les tester. Les donnees collectees sur la base d'une enquete par questionnaire aupres de 192 controleurs de gestion (92 repondants) nous permettent de refuter les hypotheses emises. En definitive, ces donnees nous permettent de soutenir que du fait de sa dissociation, le management de la responsabilite societale n'a pas d'influence significative sur les caracteristiques instrumentales et organisationnelles de la fonction de controleur de gestion.
Applications of Visible and near Infrared Hyperspectral Imaging for Non Destructive Detection of the Agricultural Products
Year: 2011

Agricultural products quality which included intrinsic attribute and extrinsic characteristic, closely related to the health of consumer and the exported cost. Now, imaging (machine vision) and spectrum are two main nondestructive inspection technologies to be applied. Hyperspectral imaging, a new emerging technology developed for detecting quality of the food and agricultural products in recent years, combined techniques of conventional imaging and spectroscopy to obtain both spatial and spectral information from an objective simultaneously. This paper compared the advantage and disadvantage of imaging, spectrum and hyperspectral imaging technique, and provided a description to basic principle, feature of hyperspectral imaging system and calibration of hyperspectral reflectance images. In addition, the recent advances for the application of hyperspectral imaging to agricultural products quality inspection were reviewed in other countries and China.
Lipid nanoparticles: In vitro and in vivo approaches in drug delivery and targeting
Year: 2018

Lipid nanoparticles (LNs) including solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) and nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) are colloidal dispersions stabilized by emulsifiers with a solid lipid matrix. Associated with advantages such as high biocompatibility, good physical stability, controlled release of drug and active substances, easy large scale production, and cheap raw materials, LNs have attracted increasing interest in drug delivery. Besides chemical drugs, LNs are applied to deliver biopharmaceuticals such as protein, peptides, and genes. The administration routes for LNs are versatile, including oral, parenteral, dermal, pulmonary, intranasal, and ophthalmologic delivery. However, the marketed preparations based on LNs are still limited. This chapter gives a brief introduction to the principle preparation techniques of LNs, while focusing on the in vitro and in vivo characterization methods. Furthermore, evaluation models for specific administration routes as well as cellular models are included.
BALANCING AN AIRCRAFT WITH SYMMETRICALLY DEFLECTED SPLIT ELEVATOR AND RUDDER DURING SHORT LANDING RUN
Venue: Aviation
Year: 2019

This article investigates methods for balancing aircraft during short straight line landing run realized by employing split rudder and elevator as air brakes after touchdown. For standard atmospheric and runway conditions, directional and longitudinal balance equations for aircraft of conventional configuration such as Il 86 are presented. Methods depend on operational and mechanical approaches, where the first requires manual or automatic trim of shortly peaking small pitching, yawing, and rolling moments using dynamic forces while the second suggest some re design of elevator and rudder control channels to limit deflection angles. The paper describes in detail each method disadvantages and suggests the adoption of automatic operational approach due to less required system modifications and piloting skills.
A Visual Framing Analysis of French and US Political Cartoons on Trump's Withdrawal from the Iran Nuclear Deal
Year: 2019

The present study examines how Trump's unilateral withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) on May 8, 2018 was framed in political cartoons published in the American and French media. The paper offers a thematic analysis of cartoons published from May 8 to June 8, 2018, the peak period for publication of cartoons on the Iran nuclear deal, and accessed via Google images. The paper applies the five categorizations of news frames identified by Semetko and Valkenburg (2000) the conflict frame, human interest frame, economic consequences frame, responsibility frame and morality frame to the selected cartoons to identify whether the frames used in the political cartoons vary between the American and French news outlets. This comparative study shows both divergence and convergence in the issues and concerns covered in the media of the both countries.
Impacts of hatchery reared mandarin fish Siniperca chuatsi stocking on wild fish community and water quality in a shallow Yangtze lake
Venue: Scientific Reports
Year: 2018

Mandarin fish Siniperca chuatsi, a valuable piscivorous fish, have been stocked into many lakes in China since the 1990s. This study did the first attempt to evaluate the ecological effects of hatchery reared mandarin fish stocking in the Yangtze River basin lakes. Our study demonstrated a significant change in fish community composition after mandarin fish stocking, but no fish extinction was observed. No significant difference was observed in the total density of 13 forage fish before and after mandarin fish stocking, but the total biomass showed a significant decline after mandarin fish stocking. Significant differences in length frequency distributions were observed for Carassius auratus, Pseudorasbora parva and Toxabramis swinhonis captured before and after stocking mandarin fish. No significant change in habitat distribution was detected before and after mandarin fish stocking. A marked decline in total nitrogen and a slight decline in total phosphorus were observed while a slight increasing trend for Secchi depth was found after stocking. Our findings suggested that mandarin fish stocking can increase predation pressure on forage fish and subsequently optimize the food web structure. Also, mandarin fish stocking has the potential to improve water quality and may be a feasible strategy to alleviate eutrophication of shallow Yangtze lakes.
Shadow Detection and Removal from Solo Natural Image Based on Retinex Theory
Venue: ICIRA
Year: 2008

Shadows are physical phenomena observed in most natural scenes. They can cause many problems in computer vision performance. The paper addresses the problem of shadow detection and removal from solo image of natural scenes. Our method is based on Retinex theory which is an image enhancement and illumination compensation model of the lightness and color perception of human vision. The approach proposed here does not use any special prior knowledge and assumptions. The shadow extraction algorithm originates from a simple idea that the human vision based Retinex has the natural ability to enhance the shadow region of an image no matter it is penumbrae or umbrae. The penumbrae and umbrae regions will be highlighted if we compare the Retinex enhanced images with original images. Then through adding smooth light forcibly to shadow edges and introducing shadow edge masks, we reduce the effects of shadow edges in the Retinex enhancement processing. Experiment results validate the approach.