Benchmark Measurements Research Articles

Abstract WP3: Predictors and Outcomes of Successful First Pass in Neurothrombectomy- Insights From the STAR Collaboration

Introduction: Shorter procedure time during neurothrombectomy is a strong predictor for good outcomes in stroke patients with large vessel occlusion. We sought to assess the predictors and outcomes of successful first pass (SFP) using multi-center investigator-initiated database. Methods: Prospectively collected neurothrombectomy data from 11 thrombectomy-capable stroke centers was combined in the Stroke Thrombectomy and Aneurysm Registry (STAR). SFP was defined by achieving modified Thrombolysis in Cerebral Infarction (mTICI) score≥2b with a single thrombectomy device pass. We compared the baseline characteristics, procedural metrics, rate of symptomatic intracranial hemorrhage (sICH), and long-term functional outcomes between SFP and non-SFP patients. A multivariate logistic regression analysis was used to assess the predictors of SFP and evaluate whether SFP was an independent predictor for good long-term functional outcomes (90-day mRS≤2). Results: A total of 733 SFP patients and 1134 non-SFP patients were included in this analysis. SFP patients were older (73 vs. 70, P=0.001), had higher Alberta Stroke Program Early CT (ASPECT) score on presentation (9 vs. 8, P=0.002). The use of Solumbra technique was an independent predictor of SFP (OR 1.2, 95% CI 1.1-1.4, P=0.004) after controlling for age, sex, location of occlusion, National Institute of Health stroke scale (NIHSS) on presentation, intravenous alteplase (IV-tPA), and onset to groin (OTG) time. SFP was an independent predictor for good long-term functional outcomes (OR1.6, 95% CI 1.1-2.3, P=0.008) after controlling for age, sex, location of occlusion, NIHSS on presentation, OTG time, IV-tPA, procedure technique, and procedure duration. Conclusion: SFP lead to higher rates of functional independence in stroke patients with large vessel occlusion. These records reiterate the importance of SFP as a benchmark measure for stroke thrombectomy devices.

Transient IR (0001–0000) absorption spectroscopy of optically centrifuged N2O with extreme rotation up to J = 205

High-resolution transient IR absorption spectroscopy was used to measure (0001− 0000) R-branch transition frequencies for N2O molecules in extreme rotational states, with quantum number up to J = 205 and energies as high as Erot=17,000 cm−1. A population inversion of rotationally excited N2O states was prepared with an optical centrifuge and probed in a multi-pass IR cell using a quantum cascade laser. The optical centrifuge is based on 800-nm ultrafast, chirped laser pulses that optically trap molecules and accelerate them angularly to extreme rotational states. This work substantially increases the range of observed transitions for this band beyond the J = 100 transitions previously reported and provides benchmark measurements for theoretical predictions based on an effective Hamiltonian using a polyad model. Transient Doppler-broadened IR line profiles of N2O show that optical excitation of the sample is selectively partitioned into rotation, prior to Doppler broadening from rotation-to-translation collisional energy transfer. These results demonstrate how high-J transitions can be measured without thermal heating by coupling optical centrifuge excitation with high-resolution transient IR absorption probing.

Dual diagnosis: A systematic review of the organization of community health services.

Dual diagnosis (DD), as the co-occurrence of a substance use disorder and a psychiatric disorder, is underestimated, under-diagnosed and often poorly treated throughout the world, although it is highly prevalent in people suffering from a mental disorder. This review analyzed 48 studies from a PubMed and PsycINFO databases search, in order to verify the state of the art regarding the organization of community health services for DD treatment. Four macro-themes have been identified: service organization, critical issues, assessment tools and evidence-based interventions. An effective service recognizes the complexity of DD, promotes a common staff culture, and tailors the organization to local needs. The main critical issues in its implementation include the lack of specific staff training, the poor management of resources and the need for greater personalization of care plans, with attention to psychosocial interventions. Integrated service assessment tools can be used as a benchmark measure at the program level for implementation planning and at the national level to affect policy change. The integrated treatment model for DD should also aim to improve access to care and offer treatments based on scientific evidence. It is also evident that the integration of services can improve outcomes but it is not a guarantee for it. There is an urgent need to improve networking between mental health and addiction services in order to deal with DD and create new integrated intervention models, paying attention to an approach to the whole person, seen in his/her absolute uniqueness.

Does international cooperation affect CO2 emissions? Evidence from OECD countries.

This paper analyzes the role of international cooperation on CO2 emissions growth in 36 OECD economies over the period 1970-2016. The indices of political globalization are the benchmark measure of international cooperation since a higher value of the index of political globalization is an indicator of collaboration in the world. The paper finds that political globalization decreases CO2 emissions growth. The findings remain robust when we consider the sub-indices of political globalization and include various controls. Also, the findings of the panel quantile regressions with the fixed-effects via the method of moments indicate that the effects of per capita income and the initial level of CO2 emissions are higher in more pollutant countries. However, the impact of political globalization on CO2 emissions is stable at different quantiles. The paper also discusses the potential implications for the role of international cooperation on climate change.

Turds, traitors and tossers: the abuse of UK MPs via Twitter

ABSTRACTThere has been growing public attention around the abuse of MPs online including criminal convictions for violent threats, regular coverage of racist and misogynistic language directed at representatives. Yet, the extent of the problem and patterns of abuse remain relatively under-researched. So far, much of coverage of the problem is anecdotal or based on self-reporting from MPs. This research sets out to provide a more rigorous benchmark measure of abuse. It also examines targets and triggers for social media abuse – how far is abuse connected to contentious debates such as Brexit or targeted at specific groups of MPs (e.g. female representatives)? Our results indicate that whilst the overall volume of abuse appears low, social media abuse has become ubiquitous and is highly public. Furthermore, whilst some abuse is undoubtedly targeted and gendered, the biggest proportion of abuse follows a reactive response to political discussions and public interventions of MPs.

How to Measure the Liquidity of Cryptocurrencies?

We use data from cryptocurrency markets to analyze the accuracy of liquidity measures that are calculated from transactions data. We use benchmark measures calculated from high-frequency order book data to evaluate the performance of the transactions-based measures along three dimensions, the time-series correlation with the benchmark measures, the root mean squared and mean absolute error, and the liquidity ranking across three exchanges. The Abdi & Ranaldo (2017) estimator best captures the time series variation in liquidity. It also performs well in the cross-sectional dimension. When it comes to estimating the level of the benchmark measures the Kyle & Obizhaeva (2016) estimator and the Amihud (2002) illiquidity ratio perform best.

The measurement of the Hrightarrow tau tau signal strength in the future e^{+}e^{-} Higgs factories

The Circular Electron Positron Collider and the International Linear Collider are two electron-positron Higgs factories. They are designed to operate at a center-of-mass energy of 240 and 250 GeV and accumulate 5.6 and 2 ab^{-1} of integrated luminosity. This paper estimates their performance on the H rightarrow tau ^{+}tau ^{-} benchmark measurement. Using the full simulation analysis, the CEPC is expected to measure the signal strength to a relative accuracy of 0.8%. Extrapolating to the ILC setup, we conclude the ILC can reach a relative accuracy of 1.1% or 1.2%, corresponding to two benchmark beam polarization setups. The physics requirement on the mass resolution of the Higgs boson with hadronic decay final states is also discussed, showing that the CEPC baseline design and reconstruction fulfill the accuracy requirement of the Hrightarrow tau ^{+}tau ^{-} signal strength.

Benchmarking Authoritative DNS Servers

In this paper, we examine the performance of four authoritative DNS server implementations (BIND, NSD, Knot DNS, and YADIFA). In our tests, we apply the measurement procedure defined in Section 9 of RFC 8219. Our aim is threefold: to provide DNS operators with ready to use measurement results to support their selection of the best fitting authoritative DNS server implementation for their needs, to assist researchers and DNS64 server developers in finding a suitable authoritative DNS server implementation for their DNS64 benchmarking measurements, and to advance the theory and practice of benchmarking DNS servers. We examine how the different conditions such as the number of active CPU cores, the size of the zone file, the applied timeout, and the type of the processor influence the performance of the tested authoritative DNS server implementations. The performance of all four tested DNS servers scales up more or less well with the number of CPU cores, except for YADIFA. The increase of the size of the zone file causes significant degradation only in the performance of BIND, which shows different anomalies described in the paper. The change of the timeout from 250ms (required by RFC 8219) to 100ms usually causes only a small performance degradation. We point out that NSD and Knot DNS can achieve an order of magnitude higher performance than BIND and YADIFA.

RANCANG BANGUN SISTEM PENGHITUNGAN HEART RATE MENGGUNAKAN SENSOR FINGER

Making heart rate module aims to obtain information module accuracy compared to standard gauge (Pulse Oxymetri). Work system which used using finger and sensor-based Arduino Uno which results are displayed on the LCD. This research uses the method by means of comparing the results of calculating heart rate on the module with the standard gauge (pulse oxymetri) conducted in 5 respondents, each of the respondents was conducted 5 times of measurement. The measurement is done by way of a coexisting between module and checklists (pulse oxymetri) on the index finger of the right and left using the finger sensor. The results of this study showed this tool be eligible to use the benchmarking measurement using Pulse with Oxymetri as much as 5 times by 5 respondents with an average error of results of 0.38%.

Assessing the eco-efficiency of U.S. manufacturing industries with a focus on renewable vs. non-renewable energy use: An integrated time series MRIO and DEA approach

Abstract This study investigated the global supply chain-linked renewable and nonrenewable energy use impacts and economic output of U.S. manufacturing industries over a twenty-year period. Considering energy use impacts and economic outputs together within the scope of a global-trade-linked, cradle-to-gate life cycle provides a comprehensive understanding of the environmental and economic impacts of industrial activities. In the first phase of the methodology, twenty multi-region input-output models were built to assess the energy and economic output nexus using a time series approach. Sixteen energy carriers were considered and aggregated in terms of renewable and nonrenewable energy use impacts. The second phase of the methodology focused on benchmarking U.S. manufacturing industries’ eco-efficiency, considering renewable to nonrenewable energy use and economic output. To accomplish this, data envelopment analysis (DEA) models were developed, and two benchmarking (eco-efficiency) measures were proposed, namely: renewability ratio (RR) and economic-output-induced renewability ratio (E-RR). The results indicated that the economic output of the manufacturing industries exhibited a steady, sustainable growth. Similar growth was observed in nonrenewable energy use. In contrast, the trend in renewable energy use was seen to be stagnant. No statistically significant improvement was observed in either the RR or E-RR measures, which were found to parallel the multi-region input-output analysis (MRIO) results. Although an increase in both the mean RR (0.3–0.4) and the mean E-RR (0.38–0.52) scores was recorded from 1995 to 2014, this was concluded to be unsatisfactory, since the majority of the industries’ eco-efficiency results were still below 0.5. Such an unsatisfactory result could be attributed to an imbalanced growth in nonrenewable energy use and economic output relative to renewable energy use. The findings of this study suggest that substantial policy changes are required immediately to shift the negative trend in renewable energy use to comply with UN Sustainability Development Goals 7 and 13.

Pretesting a political skill scale in a sample of teacher-leaders from polytechnics in northeast Nigeria

Although the Political Skill Inventory (PSI) is the benchmark measure of the political skill construct, the existence and frequent use of other measures suggest that the PSI fails to cover the content domain of the construct comprehensively. This study utilised the extant political skill measures in developing a robust and parsimonious political skill scale for assessing the political sensitivity of teacher-leaders in higher education. Cognitive tests, behaviour coding and respondent debriefing were conducted to evaluate a 38-item pool on political skill in a sample of 36 teacher-leaders drawn from nine polytechnics situated in Northeast Nigeria. The scale's interrater agreement was computed using Fleiss' κ statistic based on categorical data from five expert reviews. The results of our analyses revealed a 15-item Political Skill Scale (PSS) that reflects the social competence teacher-leaders need in performing the largely voluntary roles of teacher leadership. This work contributes towards contextual mapping of the political skill construct in an African setting. It also offers a new political skill measure.

Smart City Digital Twin–Enabled Energy Management: Toward Real-Time Urban Building Energy Benchmarking

To meet energy-reduction goals, cities are challenged with assessing building energy performance and prioritizing efficiency upgrades across existing buildings. Although current top-down building energy benchmarking approaches are useful for identifying overall efficient and poor performers across a portfolio of buildings at a city scale, they are limited in their ability to provide actionable insights regarding efficiency opportunities. Concurrently, advances in smart metering data analytics combined with new data streams available via smart metering infrastructure present the opportunity to incorporate previously undetectable temporal fluctuations into top-down building benchmarking analyses. This paper leveraged smart meter electricity data to develop daily building energy benchmarks segmented by strategic periods to quantify their variation from conventional, annual energy benchmarking strategies and investigate how such metrics can lead to near real-time energy management. The periods considered include occupied periods during the school year, unoccupied periods during the school year, occupied periods during the summer, unoccupied periods during the summer, and peak summer demand periods. Results showed that temporally segmented building energy benchmarks are distinct from a building’s overall benchmark. This demonstrates that a building’s overall benchmark masks periods in which a building is over- or underperforming during the day, week, or month; thus, temporally segmented energy benchmarks can provide a more specific and accurate measure for building efficiency. We discussed how these findings establish the foundation for digital twin–enabled urban energy management platforms by enabling identification of building retrofit strategies and near-real-time efficiency in the context of the performance of an entire building portfolio. Temporally segmented energy benchmarking measures generated from smart meter data streams are a critical step for integrating smart meter analytics with building energy benchmarking techniques, and for conducting smarter energy management across a large geographic scale of buildings.

Response Versus Scan-Angle Assessment of MODIS Reflective Solar Bands in Collection 6.1 Calibration

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instruments onboard the Aqua and Terra satellites have been operated for nearly two decades, producing high-quality earth observation data sets suitable for a broad range of scientific studies regarding the earth’s land, ocean, and atmospheric processes. The high radiometric accuracy of MODIS reflective solar band (RSB) calibration has also served as benchmark measurements for on-orbit cross-calibration studies. As the two MODIS instruments have operated well beyond their design lifespan of six years, the measurements from the onboard calibrators alone become inadequate to characterize the sensor’s response at all scan angles, as evinced by long-term drifts observed at certain scan positions of the Aqua-MODIS 0.64- and 0.86- $\mu \text{m}$ bands in Collection 6 (C6) data set. The latest MODIS Level 1B C6.1 data set incorporates earth-view response trending from invariant desert sites as supplemental inputs to characterize the scan-angle calibration dependencies for all RSB. This article presents a deep convective cloud (DCC)-based calibration approach for an independent evaluation of the MODIS RSB response versus scan-angle (RVS) performance in C6.1. The long-term calibration stability and RVS differences in C6.1 have been significantly improved for Aqua-MODIS RSB. The observed RVS differences of more than 2% in Aqua-MODIS C6 bands 1 and 2 have been reduced to within 1% in C6.1. Some RSBs of Terra-MODIS have suffered temporal drifts up to ~2% and calibration shifts up to 3%, particularly around 2016 when the Terra satellite entered into safe mode. The DCC approach has been found very effective in tracking the on-orbit RVS changes over time.

Transient flow prediction in an idealized aneurysm geometry using data assimilation

Hemodynamic simulations are restricted by modeling assumptions and uncertain initial and boundary conditions, whereas Phase-Contrast Magnetic Resonance Imaging (PC-MRI) data is affected by measurement noise and artifacts. To overcome the limitations of both techniques, the current study uses a Localization Ensemble Transform Kalman Filter (LETKF) to fully incorporate noisy, low-resolution Phase-Contrast MRI data into an ensemble of high-resolution numerical simulations. The analysis output provides an improved state estimate of the three-dimensional blood flow field in an intracranial aneurysm model. Benchmark measurements are carried out in a silicone phantom model of an idealized aneurysm under pulsatile inflow conditions. Validation is ensured with high-resolution Particle Imaging Velocimetry (PIV) obtained in the symmetry plane of the same geometry. Two data assimilation approaches are introduced, which differ in their way to propagate the ensemble members in time. In both cases the velocity noise is significantly reduced over the whole cardiac cycle. Quantitative and qualitative results indicate an improvement of the flow field prediction in comparison to the raw measurement data. Although biased measurement data reveal a systematic deviation from the truth, the LETKF is able to account for stochastically distributed errors. Through the implementation of the data assimilation step, physical constraints are introduced into the raw measurement data. The resulting, realistic high-resolution flow field can be readily used to assess further patient-specific parameters in addition to the velocity distribution, such as wall shear stress or pressure.

Corneal Topographic Astigmatism Based on Total Corneal Power Data (CorT Total): A Benchmark for Total Corneal Astigmatism.

To evaluate how closely manufacturer-provided measures of total corneal astigmatism correspond with the manifest refractive cylinder, as compared to a benchmark of corneal topographic astigmatism calculated on the basis of measured total corneal power (TCP) data (CorT Total). The SD of the ocular residual astigmatism magnitude (ORAsd) was evaluated for normal virgin eyes based on an optimized benchmark CorT Total and the various measures of total corneal astigmatism provided by 3 different Scheimpflug tomographers. The CorT Total corresponded with the manifest refractive cylinder at least as well as all the measures of total corneal astigmatism provided by the tomographers [Sirius CorT Total ORAsd: 0.320D (standard error [SE] 0.017D), Sirius TCP 4 mm ORAsd: 0.324D (SE 0.017D); Pentacam CorT Total ORAsd: 0.338D (SE 0.027D), Pentacam total corneal refractive power apex zone 4 mm ORAsd: 0.337D (SE 0.029D); Galilei CorT Total ORAsd: 0.472D (SE 0.068D), and Galilei TCP2 ORAsd: 0.536D (SE 0.124D)]. The difference between CorT Total and best measure on each tomographer was not statistically significant (Sirius TCP 4 mm: P = 0.24, Pentacam total corneal refractive power apex zone 4 mm: P = 0.64, Galilei TCP2: P = 0.24). Most of the manufacturer-provided measures did not correspond closely with the manifest refractive cylinder. When there were multiple measures of total corneal astigmatism, those derived from a zone with a diameter of 4.0 mm corresponded best with the manifest refractive cylinder. The CorT Total is a reliable benchmark measure that can be used to assess how well other measures of total corneal astigmatism correspond with the manifest refractive cylinder.

Temperature affected guided wave propagation in a composite plate complementing the Open Guided Waves Platform

The influence of temperature is regarded as particularly important for a structural health monitoring system based on ultrasonic guided waves. Since the temperature effect causes stronger signal changes than a typical defect, the former must be addressed and compensated for reliable damage assessment. Development of new temperature compensation techniques as well as the comparison of existing algorithms require high-quality benchmark measurements. This paper investigates a carbon fiber reinforced plastic (CFRP) plate that was fully characterized in previous research in terms of stiffness tensor and guided wave propagation. The same CFRP plate is used here for the analysis of the temperature effect for a wide range of ultrasound frequencies and temperatures. The measurement data are a contribution to the Open Guided Waves (OGW) platform: http://www.open-guided-waves.de. The technical validation includes initial results on the analysis of phase velocity variations with temperature and exemplary damage detection results using state-of-the-art signal processing methods that aim to suppress the temperature effect.

Systemic risk in market microstructure of crude oil and gasoline futures prices: A Hawkes flocking model approach

AbstractWe propose the Hawkes flocking model that assesses systemic risk in high‐frequency processes at the two perspectives—endogeneity and interactivity. We examine the futures markets of West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil and gasoline for the past decade, and perform a comparative analysis with conditional value‐at‐risk as a benchmark measure. In terms of high‐frequency structure, we derive the empirical findings. The endogenous systemic risk in WTI was significantly higher than that in gasoline, and the level at which gasoline affects WTI was constantly higher than that in the opposite case. Moreover, although the relative influence's degree was asymmetric, its difference has gradually reduced.

Dieci problemi per una reale riforma della salute mentale

The Italian Law no. 180/1978, that closed mental hospitals in Italy, is a law of principles that cannot prevent the development and the progressive extension of ways of working used in old psychiatric hospitals. Ten aspects are examined which are strongly at risk in this direction and which are in fact facilitated by many national and regional regulations. They are the following: leaving the organization of mental health to the autonomous decisions of Regions; reducing the programming of services to an administrative management; reconstituting spaces that operate according to the old mental hospital system; not using every available tool to oppose chronicity; not making a real integration of the new psychiatric wards in General Hospitals; returning to dangerous for yourself and others as the leading model in psychiatric choices; devaluing the centrality of the community and the integrative value of mental health centers; managing any context where there are behavioral or social problems as something related to mental illness; ignoring benchmarking and outcome measures; devaluing the quality of training.

THE SELF-REPORTED PATENT QUALITY OF CHINESE FIRMS: MOTIVATION SOURCE AND TECHNOLOGY ACCUMULATION EFFECTS ANALYSIS

Enhanced innovation capacity has become imperative to China’s growth and development. Patent quantity and quality indicators are benchmark measures of innovative capacity. This paper utilizes data from the 2013 Chinese Patent Survey to explore self-evaluated firm-level patent quality in China. Focus is placed on the effects of technological accumulation and also patent motivation on four multi-dimensional self-evaluation indices: technical quality, writing quality, right stability and market value. The results: (i) verify the proposal that in high patent intensity industries “strategic patent behavior will reduce patent quality”; (ii) suggest that reducing administrative-driven patent behaviors could improve patent quality and (iii) find patent structure but not quantity to be positively correlated with patent quality. This serves to enrich understanding of China’s patent system and the one-dimensional “inventive step” analysis deriving from analyses of European Patent Survey data.

(Invited) HydroGEN PEC Supernode: Emergent Degradation Mechanisms with Integration and Scale up of PEC Devices

This talk will give an overview of the HydroGEN Photoelectrochemistry (PEC) Supernode and present recent progress. This Supernode project is a collaboration of nine PEC capability nodes that are part of the HydroGEN Advanced Water Splitting Materials (AWSM) consortium. These nodes are contributing to a common objective of developing an understanding of integration issues and emergent degradation mechanisms of PEC devices upon scale up above 1cm2 active areas. Larger devices are expected to introduce new component integration challenges and pathways for degradation that this PEC Supernode project will identify and propose pathways for future progress. The objective of this Supernode includes: 1) Photoreactor chassis fabrication and baselining, 2) development, fabrication, and testing of larger area PEC devices, 3) development of in-situ morphology and corrosion analysis techniques and characterization, and 4) analysis of durability mechanisms and impacts using modeling LCA and TEA. A new photoreactor chassis will be presented that has been designed to facilitate indoor and on-sun efficiency and durability benchmarking measurements. The design will be validated in a preliminary set of multi-institution round robin measurements toward understanding and harmonizing measurement conditions and protocol. Furthermore, we will present initial STH, durability and degradation characterization results upon scale up to 8 cm2 active area of integrated vapor fed PEC cell.