Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Is δ15N of sedimentary organic matter a good proxy for paleodenitrification in coastal waters of the eastern Arabian Sea

We compared recently published sedimentary records of δ 15 N from several coastal areas affected by both natural and anthropogenically produced shallow hypoxia with the objective of testing this as a proxy for denitrification in coastal settings. We examined the eastern boundary systems of continental shelves off western India and Peru, which appear to be experiencing intensification of bottom-water oxygen depletion, most likely as a consequence of intensification of eastern boundary coastal upwelling over the last few decades. In systems that are significantly affected by an enhanced inventory of nutrients from organic matter in soils due to continental erosion following colonial land clearing (e.g., Chesapeake Bay), fertilizer and wastewater runoff (e.g., western Indian shelf and Long Island Sound), the productivity increase is largely local and induced by anthropogenic activity. The western Indian shelf thus experiences a double effect, being both an upwelling zone and prone to nutrient enrichment from land. While in other regions of both natural and anthropogenic bottom-water hypoxia, sedimentary δ 15 N has undergone significant increases over the Anthropocene; in the eastern Arabian Sea, an opposite trend is noticed despite historical water-column measurements revealing a contemporaneous intensification of denitrification. Plausible causes are discussed here in detail, which led us to conclude that the sedimentary δ 15 N may not always work as a reliable proxy of denitrification in coastal regions.
Functional Mri-based Lie Detection: Scientific and Societal Challenges Recommended Citation Functional Mri-based Lie Detection: Scientific and Societal Challenges Fmri Lie Detection: Scientific and Societal Challenges

Lying in the scanner: covert countermeasures disrupt deception detection by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Abstract Functional MRI (fMRI)-based lie detection has been marketed as a tool for enhancing personnel selection, strengthening national security and protecting personal reputations, and at least three US courts have been asked to admit the results of lie detection scans as evidence during trials. How well does fMRI-based lie detection perform, and how should the courts, and society more generally, respond? Here, we address various questions — some of which are based on a meta-analysis of published studies — concerning the scientific state of the art in fMRI-based lie detection and its legal status, and discuss broader ethical and societal implications. We close with three general policy recommendations. Lying in the scanner: covert countermeasures disrupt deception detection by functional magnetic resonance imaging. Abstract FMRI lie detection has been marketed as a tool for enhancing personnel selection,
Numerical convection modelling of a compositionally stratified lunar mantle

Full Moon convection models of lunar interior evolution are usually simplified in their compositional setup. They are often purely thermal convection-diffusion models, using a homogeneous mantle composition and a heat reservoir to model the core [1, 2]. Other models add only an ilmenite-rich layer at shallow depth [3, 4]. When this compositionally distinct and relatively dense layer is used, the focus is typically on the overturn of the lunar mantle, due to the gravitational instability which originated from the crystallisation of an early lunar magma ocean. In this study, we investigate compositionally more complex models. The initial configuration of our models has a both mineralogically and geochemically layered composition, to determine the influence of a more realistic mantle stratification on mantle dynamics and the thermal evolution of the Moon.
The Psychology of Competition: a Social Comparison Perspective the Psychology of Competition: a Social Comparison Perspective an Individual-based versus a Situational Account

We propose a new framework that distinguishes among individual and situational factors in the social comparison process that produces competitive behavior. The familiar individual factors naturally vary among similarly situated people, including the relevance of the performance dimension, the commensurability of rivals, and their relationship closeness to the individual. Researchers have long established that as relevance, commensurability, and closeness increase, so do social comparison concerns and competitive behavior. The more recently identified situational factors, on the other hand, are features of the social environment that affect similarly situated individuals, including proximity to a standard, social category lines, and the number of competitors. When rivals are proximate to a standard, members of different versus the same social category group, or among a few versus many competitors, social comparison concerns and competitive behavior intensify. The situational account not only uncovers an important set of hitherto unnoticed variables that shape social comparison, but also offers new insights regarding the role of social comparison in organizations and other policy-relevant settings and charts fruitful directions for future social comparison research. People commonly seek to achieve a superior position vis-à-vis others in contexts ranging from daily social situations to organizational settings and market transactions advantage is pervasive, permeating not only explicitly competitive settings but also common social interactions, such as among friends at a social gathering, students in the classroom, or employees at work. Yet while past psychological research valued the study of competition, psychological scholarship paid relatively little attention to this important social dynamic in recent decades. Instead, the study of competition has been relinquished to other disciplines – most notably economics and business, but also sociology and (1954) original linking of the social comparison process to competitive behavior admittedly was followed by an extensive literature that primarily studied, not competition per se, but rather the self-evaluation process – that is, how people evaluate their present state relative to others (e.g., Tesser, 1988; Beach & Tesser, 2000). This paper therefore aims to synthesize both early and more recent developments in social comparison theory into a coherent analytical account of the psychology of competition. In doing so, we draw not only on research that directly examined competition, but also on numerous studies in social comparison and related fields that have significant implications for the analysis of competitive behavior. Moreover, although our framework emphasizes the role of COMPETITION 4 social comparison in facilitating competitive behavior, we believe …
A History of Twentieth-Century American Academic Cartography

The academic discipline of cartography is a twentieth-century phenomenon. From its incipient roots in landscape representation in geology and the mapping of socio-economic data in geography, it grew into its own sub-discipline with graduate programs, research paradigms, and a scientific literature of its own. It came close to establishing a national center for cartography In the late 1960s. After rather sporadic activity before World War II, the period from 1946 to 1986 saw the building of major graduate programs at the universities of Wisconsin, Kansas, and Washington. Other programs were created, often with the doctoral students from those three. At the end of the twentieth century, cartography underwent significant changes in relation to the emerging discipline of geographic information science. The future for academic cartography is less certain, as graduate programs adjust the balances among the many components of mapping science, including cartography, geovisualization, GI science, GIS systems, spatial analysis/statistics, and remote sensing.
EFNS guidelines on the pharmacological treatment of neuropathic pain: 2009 revision

Background and objectives: This second European Federation of Neurological Societies Task Force aimed at updating the existing evidence about the pharmacological treatment of neuropathic pain since 2005. Methods: Studies were identified using the Cochrane Database and Medline. Trials were classified according to the aetiological condition. All class I and II randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were assessed; lower class studies were considered only in conditions that had no top-level studies. Treatments administered using repeated or single administrations were considered, provided they are feasible in an outpatient setting. Results: Most large RCTs included patients with diabetic polyneuropathies and postherpetic neuralgia, while an increasing number of smaller studies explored other conditions. Drugs generally have similar e! cacy in various conditions, except in trigeminal neuralgia, chronic radiculopathy and HIV neuropathy, with level A evidence in support of tricyclic antidepressants (TCA), pregabalin, gabapentin, tramadol and opioids (in various conditions), duloxetine, venlafaxine, topical lidocaine and capsaicin patches (in restricted conditions). Combination therapy appears useful for TCAgabapentin and gabapentin-opioids (level A). Conclusions: There are still too few large-scale comparative studies. For future trials, we recommend to assess comorbidities, quality of life, symptoms and signs with standardized tools and attempt to better define responder profiles to specific drug treatments.
La medición de la calidad de servicio: una aplicación en empresas hoteleras

The investigation is centered, in this article, into a methodological proposal for the measurement of the quality of the service perceived by the clients of hotels of Brazilian sun and beach. First of all, the existing methodo- logies appear to measure the quality of the services having the bibliographical analysis by base. Secondly, a met- hodological proposal is developed specifically having the SERVQUAL model by base, adapted to particularities of the hotel service, specifically the characteristics of the tourism of Brazilian sun and beach. With the purpose of verif- ying the application of the proposed methodology, interviews with clients, employees of hotels of diverse tourist ca- tegories, were taken with the objective of analyzing the expectation and the perception of the client and the emplo- yees of hotels facing the quality of the offered services. The results show the existence of different points of view between the perceptions from the clients and employees of the hotels, as well as the expectations and perceptions of the clients about the offered services. The existence of these points of view is a source of dissatisfaction with the served services. The results of the investigation confirm that the SERVQUAL scale is a robust tool to evaluate the quality of the services. Despite its adaptation to the type, it is essential, as the case of the sun hotels and beach, considering the specific characteristics of its public.
Surface ozone variability and trends over the South African Highveld from 1990 to 2007

Surface ozone is a secondary air pollutant formed from reactions between nitrogen oxides (NOx = NO + NO2) and volatile organic compounds in the presence of sunlight. In this work we examine effects of the climate pattern known as the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and NOx variability on surface ozone from 1990 to 2007 over the South African Highveld, a heavily populated region in South Africa with numerous industrial facilities. Over summer and autumn (December–May) on the Highveld, El Niño, as signified by positive sea surface temperature (SST) anomalies over the central Pacific Ocean, is typically associated with drier and warmer than normal conditions favoring ozone formation. Conversely, La Niña, or negative SST anomalies over the central Pacific Ocean, is typically associated with cloudier and above normal rainfall conditions, hindering ozone production. We use a generalized regression model to identify any linear dependence that the Highveld ozone, measured at five air quality monitoring stations, may have on ENSO and NOx. Our results indicate that four out of the five stations exhibit a statistically significant sensitivity to ENSO at some point over the December–May period where El Niño amplifies ozone formation and La Niña reduces ozone formation. Three out of the five stations reveal statistically significant sensitivity to NOx variability, primarily in winter and spring. Accounting for ENSO and NOx effects throughout the study period of 18 years, two stations exhibit statistically significant negative ozone trends in spring, one station displays a statistically significant positive trend in August, and two stations show no statistically significant change in surface ozone.
The exposome and toxicology: a win-win collaboration.

The development of the exposome concept has been one of the hallmarks of environmental and health research for the last decade. The exposome encompasses the life course environmental exposures including lifestyle factors, from the prenatal period onwards. It has inspired many research programs and is expected to influence environmental and health research, practices, and policies. Yet, the links bridging toxicology and the exposome concept have not been well developed. In this review, we describe how the exposome framework can interface with and influence the field of toxicology, as well as how the field of toxicology can help advance the exposome field by providing the needed mechanistic understanding of the exposome impacts on health. Indeed, exposome-informed toxicology is expected to emphasize several orientations including 1) developing approaches integrating multiple stressors, in particular chemical mixtures, as well as the interaction of chemicals with other stressors, 2) using mechanistic frameworks such as the adverse outcome pathways to link the different stressors with toxicity outcomes, 3) characterizing the mechanistic basis of long-term effects by distinguishing different patterns of exposures and further exploring the environment-DNA interface through genetic and epigenetic studies, and 4) improving the links between environmental and human health, in particular through a stronger connection between alterations in our ecosystems and human toxicology. The exposome concept provides the linkage between the complex environment and contemporary mechanistic toxicology. What toxicology can bring to exposome characterization is a needed framework for mechanistic understanding and regulatory outcomes in risk assessment.
Effect Modification of the Association of Cumulative Exposure and Cancer Risk by Intensity of Exposure and Time Since Exposure Cessation: A Flexible Method Applied to Cigarette Smoking and Lung Cancer in the SYNERGY Study

The indiscriminate use of the cumulative exposure metric (the product of intensity and duration of exposure) might bias reported associations between exposure to hazardous agents and cancer risk. To assess the independent effects of duration and intensity of exposure on cancer risk, we explored effect modification of the association of cumulative exposure and cancer risk by intensity of exposure. We applied a flexible excess odds ratio model that is linear in cumulative exposure but potentially nonlinear in intensity of exposure to 15 case-control studies of cigarette smokingandlungcancer (1985 – 2009). Our modelaccommodatedmodificationoftheexcess odds ratio perpack-year of cigarette smoking by time since smoking cessation among former smokers. We observed negative effect modification of the association of pack-years of cigarette smoking and lung cancer by intensity of cigarette smoke for persons whosmoked morethan20 – 30cigarettesper day. Patterns ofeffect modificationwere similaracross individual studies and across major lung cancer subtypes. We observed strong negative effect modification by time since smoking cessation. Application of our method in this example of cigarette smoking and lung cancer demonstrated that reducing a complex exposure history to a metric such as cumulative exposure is too restrictive.
Reverse Time Migration of Internal Multiples for Subsalt Imaging

ABSTRACTInternal multiple reflections have different propagation paths than primary reflections and surface-related multiples; thus, they can complement illumination where other waves are unavailable. Consequently, migration of internal multiples may provide vital images in the shadow zone of primary reflections. We have developed an approach to image structures with internal multiples. With this method, internal multiples can be separated and used as data for reverse time migration. Instead of applying the imaging condition directly to the source and receiver wavefields, we decomposed the extrapolated source and receiver waves into up- and downgoing waves. Then we applied the imaging condition to upgoing source and receiver waves to form an up-up (UU) image and also to downgoing source and receiver waves to form a down-down (DD) image. The image of the true reflector and the artifacts behave differently in the DD and UU images. A similarity analysis is conducted to the UU and DD images to separate true i.
Assessment of Functional EST-SSR Markers (Sugarcane) in Cross-Species Transferability, Genetic Diversity among Poaceae Plants, and Bulk Segregation Analysis

Expressed sequence tags (ESTs) are important resource for gene discovery, gene expression and its regulation, molecular marker development, and comparative genomics. We procured 10000 ESTs and analyzed 267 EST-SSRs markers through computational approach. The average density was one SSR/10.45 kb or 6.4% frequency, wherein trinucleotide repeats (66.74%) were the most abundant followed by di- (26.10%), tetra- (4.67%), penta- (1.5%), and hexanucleotide (1.2%) repeats. Functional annotations were done and after-effect newly developed 63 EST-SSRs were used for cross transferability, genetic diversity, and bulk segregation analysis (BSA). Out of 63 EST-SSRs, 42 markers were identified owing to their expansion genetics across 20 different plants which amplified 519 alleles at 180 loci with an average of 2.88 alleles/locus and the polymorphic information content (PIC) ranged from 0.51 to 0.93 with an average of 0.83. The cross transferability ranged from 25% for wheat to 97.22% for Schlerostachya, with an average of 55.86%, and genetic relationships were established based on diversification among them. Moreover, 10 EST-SSRs were recognized as important markers between bulks of pooled DNA of sugarcane cultivars through BSA. This study highlights the employability of the markers in transferability, genetic diversity in grass species, and distinguished sugarcane bulks.
Empirical evidence of the influence of environmental concern on the ecological behaviour of the consumer / Evidencia empírica de la influencia de la preocupación ambiental sobre el comportamiento ecológico del consumidor

Abstract In recent years, environmental degradation has raised awareness in society about environmental protection and conservation. Consequently, the concept of ‘ecological consumers’ has appeared along with the need for a clear understanding of the antecedents for their responsible behaviour. The aim of this research is to develop specific measurement scales for environmental concern and ecological behaviour, and verify their psychometric properties; and to analyze the relationship between environmental concern, which reflects an individual’s values and beliefs about the environment, and ecologically responsible behaviour. The results obtained, based on a data factor analysis of 500 respondents in Spain, show how the constructs are explained and suggest that the beliefs and values of an individual about the environment are an important and meaningful predictor for ecologically responsible behaviour. This is particularly relevant for academics and professionals.
Analysis of longitudinal data

1. Introduction 2. Design considerations 3. Exploring longitudinal data 4. General linear models 5. Parametric models for covariance structure 6. Analysis of variance methods 7. Generalized linear models for longitudinal data 8. Marginal models 9. Random effects models 10. Transition models 11. Likelihood-based methods for categorical data 12. Time-dependent covariates 13. Missing values in longitudinal data 14. Additional topics Appendix Bibliography Index
Pharmacologic Treatment of Hypertension in Adults Aged 60 Years or Older to Higher Versus Lower Blood Pressure Targets

What is hypertension? Blood pressure (BP) is the force of blood pushing against the walls of your arteries as your heart pumps blood through your body. Hypertension means having higher BP than normal. High BP makes your heart work harder with every heartbeat. Getting treatment for your hypertension is important. If you don't, you have a higher risk for heart attack, heart failure, stroke, or kidney failure. Blood pressure is measured in units called millimeters of mercury (mm Hg). When testing your BP, your doctor records a higher (systolic) number when the heart beats and a lower (diastolic) number when the heart relaxes. For most people, normal BP is 120/80 mm Hg or less. How did the ACP and AAFP develop these guidelines? The authors looked at studies and trials related to using medicines to lower BP in people aged 60 years or older. This information was used to develop advice for doctors and patients. How are patients treated for hypertension? Lifestyle changes are usually the first line of treatment because they have fewer side effects than medicines and usually do not cost money. These changes include eating less salt; following the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet by eating lots of fruits and vegetables, low-fat or nonfat dairy products, whole grains, lean meats, fish, poultry, nuts, and beans; losing weight; exercising; quitting smoking; and drinking less alcohol. In addition to making lifestyle changes, you may also need medicines if these changes do not help to lower your BP; you have a history of stroke; or you have heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, or chronic kidney disease. What do ACP and AAFP recommend that patients and doctors do? Doctors should work together with patients aged 60 years or older to lower systolic BP to less than 150 mm Hg. Patients may need to make lifestyle changes, take medicines, or do both to lower their BP. This can help prevent stroke, heart attacks, heart failure, and death. For patients with a history of stroke; mini-stroke; or other risk factors, such as heart disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, or chronic kidney disease, the target systolic BP should be less than 140 mm Hg. Patients may need to start taking medicines or take more or stronger medicines. This can help prevent future stroke, heart attacks, and heart failure. Doctors and patients should discuss the risks and benefits of reaching certain BP targets and decide which treatments are best for the patient. Questions for my doctor If I lose weight and exercise, could my BP return to normal? Are there any side effects from my BP medicines? What are healthy changes I can make to my diet? Could there be interactions between my BP medicines and the medicines I am already taking? Do I need to take BP medicines every day or only as needed? How often should I have my BP checked? Should I buy a BP monitor? How much will my medicines cost?