Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Nitrogen-seeded divertor detachment in TCV L-mode plasmas

Most of the detachment experiments done to date on the tokamak à configuration variable (TCV), both in standard and alternative divertor geometries, focused on L-mode integrated core density ramps. In view of extending these studies to high-power, high-confinement regimes, where impurity seeding will be necessary for detachment, the properties of nitrogen seeded L-mode detachment in TCV are assessed here with the extensive set of edge and divertor diagnostics and similarities and differences with integrated core density ( n e ) ramp detachment experiments are elucidated. It is found that in high current, reversed field plasmas, detachment at the outer target is achieved with N2-seeding and density ramps, with target heat flux reductions of up to 90%, while the inner target only detaches with seeding. The Scrape-Off Layer radiation fraction reaches values of 60%–80% and in all situations, a stable radiator can form around the X-point. The most striking difference between seeding and density ramp is the behavior of the upstream quantities. During the n e -ramp, a broadening of the upstream density profile (density ‘shoulder’) occurs, concurrent with the outer target ion flux roll-over, while no such behavior occurs during nitrogen seeded detachment. Separatrix density, electron temperature and pressure also evolve strongly with increasing density, and are largely unaffected by the injection of nitrogen. Comparison of upstream and target pressures reveals that, in all cases, the outer target ion flux reduction coincides with the development of a parallel gradient of the total pressure. Common to all cases is also a reduction of energy confinement time with detachment, although this effect is weak for seeding at relatively high density. Studying the impact of the ∇B-drift direction in both nitrogen seeding and core density ramps reveals that drifts mainly affect the behavior at the inner strike point, highlighting the need to include them in edge transport simulations.
Validating a Procedure to Assess Declines in Acute Cigarette Self-Administration due to Reductions in Nicotine Content

The FDA has considered reducing the maximum allowable nicotine content in cigarettes to facilitate quitting in dependent smokers. To potentially inform clinical research on nicotine reduction, this laboratory-based study used a within-subjects forced-choice paradigm to assess dose-related declines in relative nicotine reinforcement in dependent adult smokers (N=37). The aim was to establish the clinically predictive validity of this paradigm by relating findings to results from the Donny et al. (2015) clinical trial on smoking reduction with reduced nicotine cigarettes. In five sessions following overnight abstinence, SPECTRUM research cigarettes varying in nicotine contents (17.4, 11.2, 5.5, 2.3, and 1.3 mg/g; one “NIC” dose per session), were compared to a very low nicotine content cigarette (“VLNC”; 0.4 mg/g). Each session began with four 4-puff exposure trials (2 each NIC or VLNC, identified by letter codes). Assessment of pleasurable sensory perceptions of smoking occurred immediately following each exposure trial. Next were four choice trials in which NIC and VLNC cigarettes were presented concurrently; participants were instructed to take four puffs from any combination of the cigarettes they wanted, totaling 16 choices. Overall, the number of NIC choices and the magnitude of difference in pleasurable sensory perceptions (NIC – VLNC) increased significantly as the nicotine content condition increased. Sensory responses were found to mediate the relationship between nicotine content condition and choice. Differences in choice and sensory responses due to menthol preference and/or ethnicity were also found. However, the pattern NIC choices across nicotine content conditions were not consistent with the pattern of results observed by Donny et al. (2015), failing to establish clinically predictive validity of the forced choice procedure. Although this within-subjects acute choice procedure did not closely relate to the between-subjects ad lib smoking behavior across weeks in Donny et al., this procedure may combine with other data to suggest a nicotine reduction to ≤2.3 mg/g may attenuate reinforcement.
Associations of natural language switching with executive control in early bilinguals

Abstract This study aimed at identifying linguistic factors that could contribute to understanding individual differences in executive control among bilinguals. Directionality and type of natural language switching, age of second language acquisition, and language proficiency were evaluated in a sample of 112 early bilingual adults. Participants performed several computerized tasks tapping into three dimensions of executive control: inhibition of interference, working memory updating, and shifting. Regression analyses showed that frequent switching to the second language was associated with more efficient executive processing, enhanced working memory updating processes, and better shifting ability. Moreover, higher frequency of unintended language switches was associated with lower interference control abilities. Frequency of language switching behavior was the principal predictor of executive control, beyond age of second language acquisition and language proficiency. Results suggest that frequent language switching is related to enhanced executive control, while the unintended switching of languages could be associated with low interference control.
Process-Tracking Scheme Based on Bulk Microphysics to Diagnose the Features of Snow Particles

We have developed a new method of diagnosing the character- istics of ice particles using a bulk microphysics model. Our model tracked the mass compositions of different classes of ice particles, using their microphysical process of origin, such as water vapor deposition and riming. The mass composition from depositional growth was further divided into six components by the temperature and humidity ranges corresponding to the typical growth habits of ice crystals. In test simulations, the new framework successfully revealed the influences of riming and depositional growths of ice particles within clouds and on surface snowfall. The new approach enables weather prediction models to provide much more information on the characteristics of ice particles regarding crystal habits and the extent of riming. ( Process-tracking scheme based on bulk microphys- ics to diagnose the features of snow particles. SOLA
Sacred groves and serpent‐gods moderate human–snake relations

Overshadowed by growing concerns over contemporary human‐in‐ duced threats to ecosystems associated with global urbanization, numerous cultures throughout the world have upheld the preserva‐ tion of natural sites for generations by valuing their sanctity (Dudley, Higgins‐Zogib, & Mansourian, 2009; Verschuuren, Wild, McNeely, & Oviedo, 2010). By preventing the development or extensive deg‐ radation of sacred natural sites, such beliefs and traditions have helped maintain local biodiversity despite ongoing nearby urban growth and land‐use changes (Verschuuren et al., 2010). There has consequently been a sharpening focus on their value in current conservation biology (Mcleod & Palmer, 2015; Waylen, Fischer, Mcgowan, Thirgood, & Milner‐Gulland, 2010), perhaps as an ideal for the prosperity of both nature and society (Pardo‐de‐Santayana & Macía, 2015). Although found throughout the world (Verschuuren et al., 2010), the potential role for sacred natural sites in modern conservation practices has garnered significant attention in places such as Ethiopia (Aerts et al., 2016; Teketay et al., 2010), Ghana (Decher, 1997; Sarfo‐Mensah, Oduro, Antoh Fredua, & Amisah, 2010), Tanzania (Kideghesho, 2008; Mgumia & Oba, 2003), and Southwestern China (Salick et al., 2007; Shen, Lu, Li, & Chen, 2012), where studies have exemplified their efficacy in safeguarding native flora and fauna. Received: 22 July 2019 | Accepted: 6 October 2019 DOI: 10.1002/pan3.10059
Not Able to Lead a Healthy Life When You Need It the Most: Dual Role of Lifestyle Behaviors in the Association of Blurred Work-Life Boundaries With Well-Being

As there is a growing trend for people to work from home, precipitated by the COVID-19 pandemic, this research examines the impact of blurred work-life boundaries on lifestyle and subjective well-being. Our cross-sectional study in the Netherlands demonstrates that heightened levels of blurred work-life boundaries predict negative changes in happiness through enhanced emotional exhaustion. In addition, the findings point to a dual role of lifestyle in this process. On the one hand, we observed that healthy overall lifestyle patterns buffered employees against the detrimental effects of blurred work-life boundaries and emotional exhaustion on happiness. On the other hand, employees who experienced increases in blurring of work-life boundaries reported a deterioration in healthy lifestyle behaviors, which in turn was related to reduced happiness. Paradoxically, it seems that those who would benefit the most from a healthy lifestyle are less able to sustain health-promoting behaviors. A case for shared responsibility between employers and employees is built as we discuss the practical implications of the current research.
3He-rich Solar Energetic Particle Observations at the Parker Solar Probe and near Earth

The Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (IS⊙IS) instrument suite on the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) spacecraft is making in situ observations of energetic ions and electrons closer to the Sun than any previous mission. Using data collected during its first two orbits, which reached perihelion distances of 0.17 au, we have searched for -rich solar energetic particle (SEP) events under very quiet solar minimum conditions. On 2019-110–111 (April 20–21), -rich SEPs were observed at energies near 1 MeV nucleon–1 in association with energetic protons, heavy ions, and electrons. This activity was also detected by the Ultra-Low-Energy Isotope Spectrometer and the Electron, Proton, and Alpha Monitor instruments on the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft located near Earth, 0.99 au from the Sun. At that time, PSP and ACE were both magnetically connected to locations near the west limb of the Sun. Remote sensing measurements showed the presence of type III radio bursts and also helical jets from this region of the Sun. This combination of observations is commonly associated with -rich SEP acceleration on the Sun. AR 12738, which was located at Carrington coordinates from which numerous X-ray flares were observed over a period of more than 6 months, was identified as the source of the -rich events. This region was also the source of several other SEP events detected at PSP or ACE. Aside from the period in 2019 April, IS⊙IS did not observe any other -rich SEPs during orbits 1 and 2.
The Role of Complement in Myocardial Infarction Reperfusion Injury: An Underappreciated Therapeutic Target

This article reviews the pathogenetic role of the complement system in myocardial infarction reperfusion injury. The complement activation pathways involved in myocardial tissue injury are identified, as are the complement-derived effector molecules. The results of past anti-complement therapies are reviewed; as the more recent therapeutic concept of complement depletion with humanized CVF described.
An experimental test of crocodilian stick-displaying behavior

Tool use has been documented across a diverse array of animals; however, this behavior has received little attention in reptiles. Recently, researchers reported observations of two crocodilian species apparently using sticks as lures to aid in the capture of nesting birds, but the evidence for the behavior was anecdotal and correlative. To explore the behavior in a more controlled situation we designed an experiment to explicitly test the ability of crocodilians to tailor stick-displaying behaviors to specific environmental contexts using four captive pond-dwelling American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) populations, two of which reside near bird rookeries and two of which do not. During bird nesting season we added sticks to each pond and observed the frequency with which each population exhibited stick-displaying behaviors. We found that in most comparisons the frequency of stick-displaying behavior did not differ between rookery and no-rookery sites, while in one comparison the alligators at a no-rookery site actually displayed the behavior more frequently than a paired rookery site. Our results do not generally support the hypothesis that crocodilians tailor stick-displaying behaviors to specific environmental contexts, therefore the hypothesis that crocodilians are true tool users is also called into question. Furthermore, our results suggest that experiments on captive populations are not the ideal way to study stick-displaying behavior because of issues like unrealistic alligator densities and food provisioning.
Increased yields of duplex sequencing data by a series of quality control tools

Duplex sequencing is currently the most reliable method to identify ultra-low frequency DNA variants by grouping sequence reads derived from the same DNA molecule into families with information on the forward and reverse strand. However, only a small proportion of reads are assembled into duplex consensus sequences, and reads with potentially valuable information are discarded at different steps of the bioinformatics pipeline, especially reads without a family. We developed a bioinformatics tool-set that analyses the tag and family composition with the purpose to understand data loss and implement modifications to maximize the data output for the variant calling. Specifically, our tools show that tags contain PCR and sequencing errors that contribute to data loss and lower DCS yields. Our tools also identified chimeras, which result in unpaired families that do not form DCS. Finally, we also developed a tool called Variant Analyzer that re-examines variant calls from raw reads and provides different summary data that categorizes the confidence level of a variant call by a tier-based system. We demonstrate that this tool identified false positive variants tagged by the tier-based classification. Furthermore, with this tool we can include reads without a family and check the reliability of the call, which increases substantially the sequencing depth for variant calling, a particular important advantage for low-input samples or low-coverage regions.
Learning decision trees through Monte Carlo tree search: An empirical evaluation

Decision trees (DTs) are a widely used prediction tool, owing to their interpretability. Standard learning methods follow a locally optimal approach that trades off prediction performance for computational efficiency. Such methods can however be far from optimal, and it may pay off to spend more computational resources to increase performance. Monte Carlo tree search (MCTS) is an approach to approximate optimal choices in exponentially large search spaces. We propose a DT learning approach based on the Upper Confidence Bound applied to tree (UCT) algorithm, including procedures to expand and explore the space of DTs. To mitigate the computational cost of our method, we employ search pruning strategies that discard some branches of the search tree. The experiments show that proposed approach outperformed the C4.5 algorithm in 20 out of 31 datasets, with statistically significant improvements in the trade‐off between prediction performance and DT complexity. The approach improved locally optimal search for datasets with more than 1,000 instances, or for smaller datasets likely arising from complex distributions.
Pass-Fail Decisions for Borderline Performers After a Summative Objective Structured Clinical Examination

Objective. To determine what expert assessors value when making pass-fail decisions regarding pharmacy students based on summative data from objective structured clinical examinations (OSCE), and to determine the reliability of these judgments between multiple assessors. Methods. All assessment data from 10 exit-from-degree OSCE stations for seven borderline pharmacy students (determined by standard setting methods) and one control was given to three of eight assessors for review. Assessors determined an overall pass-fail decision based on their perception of graduate competency. Assessors were interviewed to determine their decision-making rationale. Intraclass correlation coefficients were used to calculate reliability between assessor judgments. Results. Expert consensus was achieved for three of the eight students, however, the assessors’ decisions did not align with standard-setting results. The reliability of assessors’ decisions was poor. Assessors focused on ability to make correct recommendations rather than on gathering information or providing follow-up advice. Global evaluations (including a student’s communication skills) rarely influenced the assessors’ decision-making. Conclusion. When faced with making pass-fail decisions for borderline students, the assessors focus on evaluating the same competencies in the students but differed in their expected performance levels of these competencies. Pass-fail decisions are primarily based on task-focused components instead of global components (eg, communication skills), despite that global components are weighted the same for scoring purposes.
Global Social Cost Minimization With Possibly Nonconvex Objective Functions: An Extremum Seeking-Based Approach

A social cost minimization problem is addressed in this article. In the considered problem, a network of agents work collaboratively to minimize the social cost function, which is defined as the sum of the agents’ local objective functions. The engaged agents are supposed to be equipped with an undirected and connected communication graph. Different from most of the existing works, the social cost function in the considered problem is allowed to be nonconvex and possibly admits local extrema. To avoid local extrema and achieve the global minimization of the social cost function, an extremum-seeking-based approach is proposed by introducing a dynamic average consensus protocol to the sinusoidal-dither-signal-based extremum seeking scheme. The dynamic average consensus protocol is leveraged in the proposed extremum-seeker for information sharing and the sinusoidal probing signal is utilized for information extraction. For the avoidance of local extrema, the amplitude of the dither signal is designed to be adaptive. Through Lyapunov stability analysis, it is shown that the proposed method enables the decision variable to converge to a neighborhood of the global minimum point if the conditions on the network connectivity, the existence of unique global minimum and achievability of the global minimum are satisfied. The theoretical result is verified via simulating a numerical example.
‘We teach, we record, we edit, and we reflect’: Engaging pre-service language teachers in video-based reflective practice

The significance of reflective practice (RP) has been widely recognized in both general education and language education. The past years have witnessed an exponential growth of studies in examining how technology can be utilized to promote teachers’ RP and video-based RP has been extensively reported as a powerful tool for teacher learning in many educational contexts. While existing literature has documented the potential benefits that student teachers may reap from video-based RP, there is a lack of attention to the complex interplay between the process of their RP and the contextual factors in their situated learning environment. This article reports on a study which aims to promote video-based RP among student teachers in a pre-service language teacher education course in Hong Kong. Drawing on data from post-course interviews with and the videoed reflection of six student teachers, the study uncovered the complex and dynamic process of the student teachers’ video-based RP. This article offers practical implications for language teachers, teacher educators and school leaders on how to promote RP in second language teacher education.
An OD Flow Clustering Method Based on Vector Constraints: A Case Study for Beijing Taxi Origin-Destination Data

Origin-destination (OD) flow pattern mining is an important research method of urban dynamics, in which OD flow clustering analysis discovers the activity patterns of urban residents and mine the coupling relationship of urban subspace and dynamic causes. The existing flow clustering methods are limited by the spatial constraints of OD points, rely on the spatial similarity of geographical points, and lack in-depth analysis of high-dimensional flow characteristics, and therefore it is difficult to find irregular flow clusters. In this paper, we propose an OD flow clustering method based on vector constraints (ODFCVC), which defines OD flow event point and OD flow vector to express the spatial location relationship and geometric flow behavior characteristics of OD flow. First, the OD flow vector coordinate system is normalized by the Euclidean distance-based OD flow event point spatial clustering, and then the OD flow clusters with similar flow patterns are mined using adjusted cosine similarity-based OD flow vector feature clustering. The transformation of OD data from point set space to vector space is realized by constraining the vector coordinate system and vector similarity through two-step clustering, which simplifies the calculation of high-dimensional similarity of OD flow and helps mining representative OD flow clusters in flow space. Due to the OD flow cluster property, the k-means algorithm is selected as the basic clustering logic in the two-step clustering method, and a sum of squared error perceptually important points algorithm considering silhouette coefficients (SSEPIP) is adopted to automatically extract the optimal cluster number without defining any parameters. Tested by origin-destination flow data in Beijing, China, new traffic flow communities based on traffic hubs are obtained by using the ODFCVC method, and irregular traffic flow clusters (including cluster mode, divergence mode, and convergence mode) with representative travel trends are found.
Supply chain risk management and risk ranking in the automotive industry

Abstract Supply chain risk management (SCRM) has a strong influence on the cooperation among partners and the performance of the entire production chain. A supply chain designed to minimize risks enables firms to establish a competitive position and provides long-term benefits to stakeholders. The SCRM system should be structured to manage both routine and extraordinary risks, such as natural disasters and major accidents. The risks should be managed both reactively, by monitoring changes in the chain, the needs of customers, technology and the strategies of suppliers and competitors, among others, to enable quick reaction to events; and proactively, to identify risks and implement actions to prevent them or minimize their impacts. The basic risk management process consists of identifying, evaluating, mitigating and controlling risks. The objective of this paper is to analyze how a carmaker identifies and manages the risk factors in its supply chain. To achieve this aim, we performed a qualitative, applied and exploratory field study of a Brazilian automaker. The data were collected by structured interviews, and the analytic hierarchy process was applied to rank the risk factors, resulting in a risk matrix that can be an instrument for making decisions by the company studied.