nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Activity of Escherichia coli, Aspergillus niger, and Rye Phytase toward Partially Phosphorylated myo Inositol Phosphates.
Venue: Journal of agricultural and food chemistry
Year: 2017

Kinetic parameters for the dephosphorylation of sodium phytate and a series of partially phosphorylated myo inositol phosphates were determined at pH 3.0 and pH 5.0 for three phytase preparations (Aspergillus niger, Escherichia coli, rye) The enzymes showed lower affinity and turnover numbers at pH 3 compared to pH 5 toward all myo inositol phosphates included in the study. The number and distribution of phosphate groups on the myo inositol ring affected the kinetic parameters. Representatives of the individual phytate dephosphorylation pathways were identified as the best substrates of the phytases. Within the individual phytate dephosphorylation pathways, the pentakisphosphates were better substrates compared to the tetrakisphosphates or phytate itself. E. coli and rye phytase showed comparable activities at both pH values toward the tetrakis and trisphosphate, whereas A. niger phytase exhibited a higher activity toward the tetrakisphosphate. A myo inositol phosphate with alternate phosphate groups was shown to be not significantly dephosphorylated by the phytases.
Understanding user behavior in large scale video on demand systems
Venue: EuroSys
Year: 2006

Video on demand over IP (VOD) is one of the best known examples of "next generation" Internet applications cited as a goal by networking and multimedia researchers. Without empirical data, researchers have generally relied on simulated models to drive their design and developmental efforts. In this paper, we present one of the first measurement studies of a large VOD system, using data covering 219 days and more than 150,000 users in a VOD system deployed by China Telecom. Our study focuses on user behavior, content access patterns, and their implications on the design of multimedia streaming systems. Our results also show that when used to model the user arrival rate, the traditional Poisson model is conservative and overestimates the probability of large arrival groups. We introduce a modified Poisson distribution that more accurately models our observations. We also observe a surprising result, that video session lengths has a weak inverse correlation with the video's popularity. Finally, we gain better understanding of the sources of video popularity through analysis of a number of internal and external factors.
The effect of foreign direct investment on economic growth in Ghana: the role of exchange rate volatility
Year: 2021

The main objective of the study is to examine the effect of foreign direct investment inflows on economic growth in Ghana: the moderating role of exchange rate volatility. The study used Auto Regressive Distributed Lags (ARDL) and Generalized Autoregressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity (GARCH) The study was based mainly on secondary data from World Development Indicators (WDI) where annual time series data of 39 years was used for the study ranging from 1980 to 2018. The study found that FDI had a positively significant impact on growth in the short run. Also, exchange rate volatility had a negatively significant impact on economic growth in the long run. However, domestic capital and trade openness had a positive significant impact on economic growth in the long run. The long run estimate suggests that FDI decrease growth and exchange rate volatility dampen the negative effect of FDI on growth. The study, therefore, recommended, among other things, that the government should formulate policies that attract foreign direct investors into the country, as this may stabilize the economy.
Can gas dynamics in centres of galaxies reveal orbiting massive black holes
Year: 2006

If supermassive black holes in centres of galaxies form by merging of black hole remnants of massive Population III stars, then there should be a few black holes of mass one or two orders of magnitude smaller than that of the central ones, orbiting around the centre of a typical galaxy. These black holes constitute a weak perturbation in the gravitational potential, which can generate wave phenomena in gas within a disc close to the centre of the galaxy. Here, we show that a single orbiting black hole generates a three arm spiral pattern in the central gaseous disc. The density excess in the spiral arms in the disc reaches values of 3 12 per cent when the orbiting black hole is about 10 times less massive than the central black hole. Therefore, the observed density pattern in gas can be used as a signature in detecting the most massive orbiting black holes.
Unsupervised Text Style Transfer using Language Models as Discriminators
Venue: NeurIPS
Year: 2018

Binary classifiers are often employed as discriminators in GAN based unsupervised style transfer systems to ensure that transferred sentences are similar to sentences in the target domain. One difficulty with this approach is that the error signal provided by the discriminator can be unstable and is sometimes insufficient to train the generator to produce fluent language. In this paper, we propose a new technique that uses a target domain language model as the discriminator, providing richer and more stable token level feedback during the learning process. We train the generator to minimize the negative log likelihood (NLL) of generated sentences, evaluated by the language model. By using a continuous approximation of discrete sampling under the generator, our model can be trained using back propagation in an end to end fashion. Moreover, our empirical results show that when using a language model as a structured discriminator, it is possible to forgo adversarial steps during training, making the process more stable. We compare our model with previous work using convolutional neural networks (CNNs) as discriminators and show that our approach leads to improved performance on three tasks: word substitution decipherment, sentiment modification, and related language translation.
Learned graphical models for probabilistic planning provide a new class of movement primitives
Venue: Front. Comput. Neurosci.
Year: 2013

Biological movement generation combines three interesting aspects: its modular organization in movement primitives (MPs) its characteristics of stochastic optimality under perturbations, and its efficiency in terms of learning. A common approach to motor skill learning is to endow the primitives with dynamical systems. Here, the parameters of the primitive indirectly define the shape of a reference trajectory. We propose an alternative MP representation based on probabilistic inference in learned graphical models with new and interesting properties that complies with salient features of biological movement control. Instead of endowing the primitives with dynamical systems, we propose to endow MPs with an intrinsic probabilistic planning system, integrating the power of stochastic optimal control (SOC) methods within a MP. The parameterization of the primitive is a graphical model that represents the dynamics and intrinsic cost function such that inference in this graphical model yields the control policy. We parameterize the intrinsic cost function using task relevant features, such as the importance of passing through certain via points. The system dynamics as well as intrinsic cost function parameters are learned in a reinforcement learning (RL) setting. We evaluate our approach on a complex 4 link balancing task. Our experiments show that our movement representation facilitates learning significantly and leads to better generalization to new task settings without re learning.
Fast synthetic CT generation with deep learning for general pelvis MR only Radiotherapy
Year: 2018

To enable magnetic resonance (MR) only radiotherapy and facilitate modelling of radiation attenuation in humans, synthetic CT (sCT) images need to be generated. Considering the application of MR guided radiotherapy, sCT generation should occur within minutes. This work aims at assessing whether an existing deep learning network can rapidly generate sCT images leading to accurate MR based dose calculations in the entire pelvis. A study was conducted on data of 91 patients with prostate (59) rectal (18) and cervical (14) cancer who underwent external beam radiotherapy acquiring both CT and MRI for patients' simulation. Dixon reconstructed water, fat and in phase images obtained from a conventional dual gradient recalled echo sequence were used to generate sCT images. A conditional generative adversarial network (cGAN) was used to generate sCT images. The network was trained in a paired fashion on 2D transverse slices of 32 prostate patients and feed forward evaluated on the remaining patients (test set) For 30 patients in the test set, dose recalculations of the clinical plan were performed on sCT images. Dose distributions were evaluated comparing voxel based dose differences, gamma and dose volume histogram (DVH) analysis. The sCT generation required 5.6s and 21s for a single patient volume on a GPU and CPU, respectively. On average, sCT images resulted in a higher dose to the target of maximum 0.3% The average gamma pass rates using the 3%,3mm and 2%,2mm criteria were above 97 and 91% respectively, for all volumes of interests considered. All DVH points from the sCT based plans differed less than \pm$2.5% from the corresponding points on CT based plans. Results suggest that accurate MR based dose calculation using sCT images generated with a cGAN is feasible for the entire pelvis. The sCT generation was sufficiently fast to be integrated into an MR guided radiotherapy workflow.
A third derivative two step block Falkner type method for solving general second order boundary value systems
Venue: Math. Comput. Simul.
Year: 2019

In this article, a third derivative continuous 2 step block Falkner type method for the general solution of second order boundary value problems of ordinary differential equations (ODEs) with different types of boundary conditions is developed. The approaches of collocation and interpolation are adopted to derive the new Falkner type method, which is then implemented in a block mode to get approximations at all the grid points simultaneously. This method is said to be a global method since it simultaneously produces a solution over the entire interval, although it may also be categorized as a boundary value method (see Brugnano and Trigiante (1998) The order and the convergence analysis of the proposed method are studied. The new Falkner type scheme is applied to solve linear and non linear systems of second order boundary value problems of ODEs considering different types of boundary conditions. Numerical results obtained through the implementation of the scheme are very much close to the theoretical solution and found favourably compared with various existing methods in the literature.
GC MS analysis of volatiles in cinnamon essential oil extracted by different methods
Year: 2020

Cinnamon essential oil (CEO) was extracted by three different methods: steam distillation (SD) ultrasound assisted steam distillation (UASD) and microwave assisted steam distillation (MASD) The volatiles in CEO were separated and identified by gas chromatography mass spectrometry (GC MS) and the differences in volatiles among the three different methods were further analyzed through principal component analysis. The results showed that 36 individual volatile components were present in the CEO from the three different methods. In general, the numbers of aldehydes, esters, alcohols, terpenes, aromatics and ketones were 6, 3, 7, 17, 2, and 1, respectively. The most abundant volatile component was determined to be cinnamic aldehyde. The content of total cinnamic aldehydes, which determines the price of CEO, was the highest among the three methods in the UASD sample (85.633% Moreover, the highest yield (8.33%0) of essential oil was extracted by the UASD method. Therefore, UASD was the best way for CEO extraction in this research and was recommended for future industrial applications.
A sigma delta bandpass ADC modelling in superconducting RSFQ technology with VHDL AMS
Venue: 2008 Forum on Specification, Verification and Design Languages
Year: 2008

This paper presents a sigma delta bandpass ADC modelling based on RSFQ (rapid single flux quantum) technology with VHDL AMS. A Josephson junction model is proposed and simulated based on RCSJ electrical model. Each ADC element is dissociated and simulated to validate its behaviour. We assimilate ADCpsilas comparator which is composed by two Josehpson junctions to an ideal rectangular pulses generator. Pulses duration is directly a physical parameter obtained by technology. We give relations between ADC performance (SNR) to the comparator SFQ pulses form and duration with normalized physical parameters.
Helping adolescent smokers quit: can telephone quitlines lead the way?
Venue: Journal of the National Cancer Institute
Year: 2009

The numbers remain staggering and unacceptable, but the sad reality in the United States is that each day " approximately 3,600 young people between the ages of 12 and 17 years initiate cigarette smoking, and an estimated 1,100 young people become daily cigarette smokers " (1) We know that many of these children will become addicted and that many will eventually die of tobacco caused cancer or other disease. And given these tobacco caused deaths, tobacco companies have long recognized that young smokers are a key to their future because the population of smokers must be replenished as others die or quit. Or, as stated in a proposed tobacco company marketing plan, " As this 14 24 age group matures, they will account for a key share of the total cigarette volume for at least the next 25 years. " (2) These sobering facts lead to the obvious question: What do we know about preventing and treating tobacco use in the youngest populations, before it is truly ingrained into a lifestyle? Much attention and funding are directed at tobacco use prevention, and prevention programs are common in schools and communities. But research and programs for treating adolescent tobacco use are far less common and we know little about denying tobacco companies a new population of addicts. So when a game changing study provides new hope for how tobacco using youth can be treated, the collective " ears " of the public health community should perk to attention. The report by Peterson et al. (3) in this issue, along with its accompanying methodological piece by Kealey et al. (4) is such a study. Dozens of studies have investigated both behavioral and pharmacological interventions to help youth quit smoking, but as Peterson et al. (3) point out, " to our knowledge, no randomized trial in adolescent smoking cessation has found a statistically sig nifi cant intervention effect on prolonged (6 months or more) cessation. " Until now. In the study by Peterson et al. 50 high schools were randomly assigned to receive either an experimental (25 schools) or control smoking cessation treatment (25 schools) in which the experimental treatment was proactive telephone based counseling that used Motivational Interviewing and Cognitive Behavioral Skills Training. At the end of 6 months of treatment, daily smokers who are most likely already addicted to tobacco were more likely to be abstinent than those in the control condition.
The smiling philosopher: Emotional labor, gender, and harassment in conference spaces
Year: 2019

Conference environments enable diverse roles for academics. However, conferences are hardly entered into by participants as equals. Academics enter into and experience professional environments differently according to culture, gender, race, ethnicity, class, and more. This paper considers from a philosophical perspective entering and initiating culturally into academic conferences as a woman. It discusses theories of gender and emotional labor and emotional management, focusing on Arlie Hochschild's foundational work, and affect in gendered social relations, considering Sara Ahmed's theorization of the feminist killjoy and the affect alien. It applies these lenses to explore problematic experiences of women initiates at conferences. The paper proceeds with a theoretical discussion of gender, emotional labor, and affect. Then the paper discusses women academics' experiences generally and at conferences, including educational research conferences, with reference to relevant higher education research as well as anecdotal evidence, relating these experiences to the theories. It thus aims to tie together theoretical insights, higher education scholarship, and ordinary real life experiences of gendered social relations in conference activities.
HPV vaccination syndrome. A questionnaire based study
Venue: Clinical Rheumatology
Year: 2015

Isolated cases and small series have described the development of complex regional pain syndrome, postural orthostatic tachycardia, and fibromyalgia after human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccination. These illnesses are difficult to diagnose and have overlapping clinical features. Small fiber neuropathy and dysautonomia may play a major role in the pathogenesis of these entities. We used the following validated questionnaires to appraise the chronic illness that might appear after HPV vaccination: The 2010 American College of Rheumatology Fibromyalgia Diagnostic Criteria, COMPASS 31 dysautonomia questionnaire, and S LANSS neuropathic pain form. These questionnaires and a "present illness" survey were e mailed to persons who had the onset of a chronic ailment soon after HPV vaccination. Forty five filled questionnaires from individuals living in 13 different countries were collected in a month's period. Mean SD) age at vaccination time was 14 5 years. Twenty nine percent of the cases had immediate (within 24 h) post vaccination illness onset. The most common presenting complaints were musculoskeletal pain (66 fatigue (57 headache (57 dizziness/vertigo (43 and paresthesias/allodynia (36 Fifty three percent of affected individuals fulfill the fibromyalgia criteria. COMPASS 31 score was 43 21, implying advanced autonomic dysfunction. Eighty three percent of the patients who had ongoing pain displayed S LANSS values >12, suggesting a neuropathic component in their pain experience. After a mean period of 4.2 2.5 years post vaccination, 93 of patients continue to have incapacitating symptoms and remain unable to attend school or work. In conclusion, a disabling syndrome of chronic neuropathic pain, fatigue, and autonomic dysfunction may appear after HPV vaccination.
Real time Tracking by Detection of Human Motion in RGB D Camera Networks
Venue: 2019 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man and Cybernetics (SMC)
Year: 2019

This paper presents a novel real time tracking system capable of improving body pose estimation algorithms in distributed camera networks. The first stage of our approach introduces a linear Kalman filter operating at the body joints level, used to fuse single view body poses coming from different detection nodes of the network and to ensure temporal consistency between them. The second stage, instead, refines the Kalman filter estimates by fitting a hierarchical model of the human body having constrained link sizes in order to ensure the physical consistency of the tracking. The effectiveness of the proposed approach is demonstrated through a broad experimental validation, performed on a set of sequences whose ground truth references are generated by a commercial marker based motion capture system. The obtained results show how the proposed system outperforms the considered state of the art approaches, granting accurate and reliable estimates. Moreover, the developed methodology constrains neither the number of persons to track, nor the number, position, synchronization, frame rate, and manufacturer of the RGB D cameras used. Finally, the real time performances of the system are of paramount importance for a large number of real world applications.
Semantic Similarity Computation in Knowledge Graphs: Comparisons and Improvements
Venue: 2019 IEEE 35th International Conference on Data Engineering Workshops (ICDEW)
Year: 2019

Computing semantic similarity between concepts is a fundamental task in natural language processing and has a large variety of applications. In this paper, first of all, we will review and analyze existing semantic similarity computation methods in knowledge graphs. Through the analysis of these methods, we find that existing works mainly focus on the context features of concepts which indicate the position or the frequency of the concepts in the knowledge graphs, such as the depth of terms, information content of the terms, or the distance between terms, while a fundamental part to describe the meaning of the concept, the synsets of concepts, are neglected for a long term. Thus, in this paper, we propose a new method to compute the similarity of concepts based on their extended synsets. Moreover, we propose a general hybrid framework, which can combine our new similarity measure based on extended synsets with any of existing context feature based semantic similarities to evaluate the concepts more accurately. We conducted experiments on five well known datasets for semantic similarity evaluation, and the experimental results show that our general framework can improve most of existing methods significantly.
Construction risk knowledge management in BIM using ontology and semantic web technology
Year: 2016

The development of Building Information Modelling provides a visual and information rich environment to incorporate the construction risk knowledge in the domain of safety management. Ontology and semantic web technology offer an opportunity to enable such domain knowledge to be represented semantically. This paper attempts to take advantage of the strength of BIM, ontology and semantic web technology to establish an ontology based methodology/framework for construction risk knowledge management in BIM environment. The risk knowledge is modelled into an ontology based semantic network to produce a risk map, from which the interdependences between risks, risk paths can be inferred semantically. Based on the semantic retrieval mechanism, the applicable knowledge is dynamically linked to the specific objects in the BIM environment. Based on the methodology, a prototype system is developed as a tool to facilitate the construction risk knowledge management and reuse in hope of indirectly improving the construction risk analysis process. A case application is implemented to demonstrate the risk prevention through construction process/method selection, including the risk factors identification, risk paths reasoning and risk prevention plan recommendation. Finally, a questionnaire survey highlights the potential benefits and limitations on the deployment of such system.