bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Vehicle Lateral Wander Measures Using Ultrasonic Sensors
Authors: Oconitrillo-Varela E , Hernández-Vega H , Aguiar-Moya J P
Published: June 2020

This paper evaluates the measurement of vehicle lateral wander using ultrasonic sensors. Measurements were made on different sections of the Costa Rican National Road Network. The recorded data allowed to determine the cumulative frequency distribution, lateral wander data and a confidence interval for the measurements. In some routes, where the sample size is greater than 70 vehicles, the distribution of the lateral wander data adjusted to a normal distribution. However, in several cases the data does not resemble a normal distribution curve, or other distributions reported in the literature. Finally, an Android app was developed to automate the data collection process using the ultrasonic sensor setup, simplifying the measurement process. From the cumulative frequency results, obtained with the ultrasonic sensors, it was determined that most vehicles travel between 50 and 150 cm from the edge of the road. In order to validate the data, the results obtained with the ultrasonic sensor setup were compared with the results obtained by image analysis of video recordings. These image analysis is possible due to pavement markings every five centimeters on the pavement from the lane edge. The results from video recordings and ultrasonic sensors show a high coefficient of correlation.
Region-specific nitrogen management indexes for sustainable cereal production in China
Authors: Tingyu Li , Weifeng Zhang , Hanbing Cao , Hao Ying , Qingsong Zhang , Siyang Ren , Zitong Liu , Yulong Yin , Wei Qin , Zhenling Cui , Xuejun Liu , Xiaotang Ju , Oenema Oene , de Vries Wim , Fusuo Zhang
Published: June 2020

Effective policy measures are required to control environmental problems caused by nitrogen (N) fertilizer use in intensive crop production systems in China. However, simply reducing the use of N fertilizer in all regions may be detrimental to food security. Here we reviewed N management policies and indicators, with a particular focus on European Union (EU), and designed an N index system for cereal crops in China. We suggest to use N surplus as an (environmental) evaluation index and N input as a guide to meet the dual challenge of food security and environmental sustainability, and propose crop and region-specific standards for these indexes. We inferred a mean critical N surplus of 75 kg N ha−1 for maize, 40 kg N ha−1 for wheat and 70 kg N ha−1 for rice. For N input, Maximum N (Max. N) and Minimum N (Min. N) input indices are proposed, to guide farming practices effectively. Max. N was based on the N demand of crops achieving their potential yield, in different regions, Min. N was based on the N demand of crops at their target yield, while associated N surpluses do not exceed the set critical values. To meet the dual challenge of food security and environmental sustainability, China needs to increase maize and wheat yields by 20%–40% (rice has achieved target yield) while reducing N input by 10%–20%. This requires an enormous increase in N use efficiency. The N management indexes proposed here can be used as benchmarks to monitor the progress at regional level. Max. N and Min. N may have to be updated regularly when potential and target yields, and thereby crop N demand, change. Also, critical N surpluses may have to change when insights in the impacts of these N surpluses change.
Impact of non-normal error distributions on the benchmarking and ranking of quantum machine learning models
Authors: Pernot Pascal , Huang Bing , Savin Andreas
Published: June 2020

Quantum machine learning models have been gaining significant traction within atomistic simulation communities. Conventionally, relative model performances are being assessed and compared using learning curves (prediction error vs. training set size). This article illustrates the limitations of using the Mean Absolute Error (MAE) for benchmarking, which is particularly relevant in the case of non-normal error distributions. We analyze more specifically the prediction error distribution of the kernel ridge regression with SLATM representation and L
2 distance metric (KRR-SLATM-L2) for effective atomization energies of QM7b molecules calculated at the level of theory CCSD(T)/cc-pVDZ. Error distributions of HF and MP2 at the same basis set referenced to CCSD(T) values were also assessed and compared to the KRR model. We show that the true performance of the KRR-SLATM-L2 method over the QM7b dataset is poorly assessed by the Mean Absolute Error, and can be notably improved after adaptation of the learning set.
Diaspora
Authors: Kamboureli Smaro
Published: June 2020

Diaspora as a concept and a particular phenomenon of migration has a double origin: etymologically, it comes from the Greek verb diaspeirein, meaning to scatter; historically, it refers to the dispersal of the Jews from their ancestral land after the destruction of the Second Temple in 586 bce. The term has been applied to the involuntary displacement of other peoples—for example, the African, Armenian, and Irish diasporas—but the Jewish diaspora has served as the principal paradigm of diasporic experience. Based on the Jewish “prototypical” case, the concept has been commonly defined as encompassing a collective identity shaped by the trauma that accompanies a group’s forced departure from its ancestral land and its emotional and material attachment to the origins that is sustained by the desire to return home or by symbolic manifestations of nostalgia. Although scholars have identified different kinds of diasporas—labor, trading, imperial diasporas—the term has maintained its emphasis on dislocation and loss, evoking at once the experience and politics of dispossession and ethnic identification. Since the second half of the 20th century, however, this understanding of diaspora has expanded to embrace a range of displaced communities—immigrants, migrants, exiles, refugees—and has thus come to be identified with global mobilities as an aftereffect of modernity. The malleability of the concept has given rise to many debates about its meaning, application, and methodology, especially since the late 1980s when diaspora began to attract systematic critical attention. The study of diaspora is generally characterized by both a centripetal and a centrifugal approach: the former, holding up the home nation as the ultimate reference point and thus viewing diasporas as distinct and cohesive entities, is concerned with demarcating the boundaries of the term by establishing categorical definitions and typologies; the latter, viewing diaspora as inhabiting an interstitial space in relation to the receiving nation and thus as a hybrid formation and social condition, is interested in diasporic subjectivity as a question of becoming. This opening up of the concept of diaspora, along with the increased global flow of people and parallel developments in other fields, has meant that, since the latter part of the 20th century, diaspora is examined in the adjacent contexts of globalization, postcolonialism, multiculturalism, transnationalism, and hybridity.
Metafiction and Contemporary Fiction
Authors: Feldman Ezra
Published: June 2020

William Gass coined the term “metafiction” in 1970 to get a handle on then-recent and innovative fictions by Robert Coover, Donald Barthelme, and Vladimir Nabokov, among others. In the critical context of the early 21st century, however, the term should be understood to name any fiction exhibiting a concern with the process, philosophy, and consequences of fiction-making. The history of metafiction is longer than that of the English-language novel. Metafictions dating from the last decade of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st typically concern themselves with the situation of discourse: they portray their characters awash in language that is potent because its origins and effects are myriad. Such metafictions ask how, why, and from where literary or narrative discourse stages its arrival on the page. In contrast, the major innovations of postmodernist, mid-20th-century metafictions are rightly characterized by Brian McHale as “ontological”; they urgently question the nature of reality as their language transports authors, narrators, readers, and characters among the different existential frames of history and fiction, past and present, and textual and corporeal reality. As a result of this difference, there is a gap between metafictional practice of the late 20th and early 21st centuries and the work of metafiction’s most influential critics: Gass, Robert Scholes, Linda Hutcheon, and Patricia Waugh, all of whom studied the varieties of metafiction in the 1970s and 1980s.

As contemporary metafictions attend to the situation of discourse, they dramatize how pieces of language move—not just across pages, but across plots, cultures, and philosophies. Various motives drive this contemporary interest in dramatizing how language moves and touches, including the influence of Deconstruction in the American academy. Deconstruction, like Marxist and psychoanalytic criticism, writes drama into the very making of meaning.

Contemporary ideas and materials—from Twitter narratives to viral memes to massively multiplayer online role-playing games—have mobilized discourse in new ways and transformed many of the philosophical puzzles of mid-20th-century metafiction into aspects of lived reality. Contemporary metafiction, consequently, puts metafictional devices and concerns into a new relationship with representation (mimesis). The world has caught up with metafiction, if it ever really lagged behind, and new forms of metafiction are being developed now to activate metafiction’s older questions anew.
Indigenous Studies: Aotearoa/New Zealand
Authors: Makereti Tina
Published: June 2020

As the second decade of the 21st century draws to a close, Indigenous literary studies in Aotearoa New Zealand are characterized primarily by tension between abundance and scarcity. The abundance relates to a wealth of writers, texts, and forms, both contemporary and archival. Many historical texts and literary contexts are being revealed and investigated for the first time. Abundance in this context also signifies the richness of approach, technique, and language use in both contemporary and archival texts. The significance of this deep archive is yet to be fully realized, due in part to the scarcity of scholars in Indigenous literatures of Aotearoa, a lack which is cemented and institutionalized by the absence of university courses that focus primarily on Indigenous literatures in English. A paucity of published Māori and Pasifika creative texts, particularly long-form fiction, further solidifies a perceptible absence in New Zealand writing. Significant scholarship is being developed despite this, however. And rather than being limited to viewing Indigenous literatures through the lens of English or New Zealand literary history, Indigenous scholars present innovative historical, geographical, and creative genre frameworks that open up multiple ways of reading and engaging with Indigenous literatures. In New Zealand, Māori literature is any writing produced by the Indigenous population. Māori and Moriori are the name of the Indigenous peoples of New Zealand, who also identify within distinct tribal groupings. In international contexts, the word “Indigenous” may be used more frequently to describe Māori, but in a New Zealand context, the term “Māori” is almost exclusively used. It should be noted that Māori is not a literary category, however. It is a cultural identity. It therefore follows that any form of literature can be produced by a Māori writer, and may be labeled “Māori writing.”

Drawing on a long literary whakapapa, or genealogy, Māori writers and literary scholars are crossing colonially imposed boundaries to recognize distinctively Indigenous creative and critical epistemologies. Having passed through the Māori cultural renaissance of the 1970s to the 1990s, Māori writers no longer grapple with the need to articulate their right to existence as distinct peoples, but instead enjoy the autonomy to decide how that distinctive existence may best be expressed. One of the most lively aspects of contemporary Indigenous literature in New Zealand is the emphasis on new ways to present, read, incorporate, and interpret te reo Māori in English language texts.
Glocalization of the Television Format in China
Authors: Liu Yang
Published: June 2020

For the past two decades, global television formats have received more attention in academia. Being theorized as mass-produced transnational cultural products, global TV formats have been articulated as dynamic junctures of cultural imperialism, media imperialism, and cultural homogenization in the realms of media and popular culture. These theoretical approaches, however, adopt a dualistic understanding of globality and locality, ignoring the multi-relational interactions between discourses of the global format and the local context constrained by specificities of global TV formats’ importing countries. Compared to the notion of globalization, glocalization attends more to the dialectical relationship between the global and the local, with its emphasis on postmodern understanding of local contents’ reproduction or repackaging within the framework delineated by global TV formats. With global TV formats’ transnational flow, these cultural commodities have gone through complex reproduction or adaptation in order to fit importing countries’ specific cultural, social, and even political milieus. Besides adaptation, global TV formats are inevitably subject to incompatible constraints in importing countries and thus exposed to disputes that may bring damages to their sustainability outside of their countries of origin. In order to present a comprehensive review of cross-border transaction and glocalization of global TV formats, it is necessary to examine this phenomenon’s origin and global expansion and explore its entrance into China. This can be done by analyzing the rise and fall of The Voice as a representative case and as one of the most successful global TV formats in the Chinese context within the framework of glocalization.
Attitudes Toward Homosexuality and LGBT People: Causal Attributions for Sexual Orientation
Authors: Hegarty Peter
Published: June 2020

Social scientists have debated whether belief in a biological basis for sexual orientation engenders more positive attitudes toward gay men and lesbians. Belief in the biological theory has often been observed to be correlated with pro-lesbian/gay attitudes, and this gives some “weak” support for the hypothesis. There is far less “strong” evidence that biological beliefs have caused a noteworthy shift in heterosexist attitudes, or that they hold any essential promise of so doing. One reason for this divergence between the weak and strong hypothesis is that beliefs about causality are influenced by attitudes and group identities. Consequently beliefs about a biological basis of sexual orientation have identity-expressive functions over and above their strictly logical causal implications about nature/nurture issues. Four other factors explain why the biological argument of the 1990s was an intuitively appealing as a pro-gay tool, although there is no strong evidence that it had a very substantive impact in making public opinion in the USA more pro-gay. These factors are that the biological argument (a) implied that sexuality is a discrete social category grounded in fundamental differences between people, (b) implied that sexual orientation categories are historically and culturally invariant, (c) implied that gender roles and stereotypes have a biological basis, and (d) framed homosexual development, not heterosexual development, as needing explanation. Understanding this literature is important and relevant for conceptualizing the relationship between biological attributions and social attitudes in domains beyond sexual orientations, such as in the more recent research on reducing transphobia and essentialist beliefs about gender.
Subregional Powers of Latin America: Colombia and Venezuela
Authors: Morales Ruvalcaba Daniel
Published: June 2020

Subregional powers have been characterized as states that despite being structurally and hierarchically below other powers, have enough capacities to project themselves in geopolitical and geoeconomic terms in specific subregions and to promote cooperation and governance dynamics in these areas. Colombia and Venezuela can be analyzed and compared through this new category of powers in order to gain a better understanding of the specificity of their roles in the international system, as well as their foreign policies toward the Caribbean, Mesoamerican/Bolivarian, and South American subregions.
Animal Communication
Authors: Beecher Michael D.
Published: June 2020

Among Darwin’s brilliant ideas was his (1871) conception of animal communication signals as adaptive characteristics of a species. The idea was subsequently taken up by the ethologists of Europe in the 1930s (Lorenz, Tinbergen, and von Frisch in particular) in their studies of animal signaling systems in nature. For many subsequent researchers, human language was the implicit model for an animal communication system. Although not expecting the same level of complexity, these researchers assumed that animal signals transmitted information from sender to receiver that was honest, and that benefitted them both. However, the honest signaling/mutual benefit view was challenged by new researchers steeped in the sociobiology and behavioral ecology movement of the 1960s. The emphasis on competition in this new field inspired these researchers to reconceive the animal signaling process as one in which the sender manipulates the receiver to the sender’s advantage. This view was challenged in turn when researchers recognized that the receiver was not a passive party in the interaction, but fully capable of manipulating the sender to its advantage. The communication interaction can be viewed as an arm’s race. The handicap principle—the idea that honesty in signaling can be maintained if signals are costly—is one way the receiver may gain an edge in this competition. Eventually, game theory considerations led to the development of a revised perspective in which signals evolve only when both the sender and the receiver benefit on average, and where signals are honest on average. Researchers examining a particular signaling system’s signals these days ask not are the signals honest, but how reliable are the signals.
Integration of Peripheral and Central Systems in Control of Ingestive and Reproductive Behavior
Authors: Schneider Jill E.
Published: June 2020

During the evolution of animals, survival and reproduction depended upon mechanisms that maintained internal homeostasis in the face of environmental change. These environmental changes included fluctuations in ambient temperature, food availability, humidity, day length, and population density. Most, if not all, of these variables have effects on the availability of energy, and most vertebrate species have mechanisms that sense energy availability and adjust behavioral priorities accordingly. For example, when the availability of food and potential mating partners is stable and abundant, brain mechanisms often inhibit ingestive behavior, increase energy expenditure, and give priority to courtship and mating. In response to severe energy shortages, brain mechanisms are likely to stimulate foraging, food hoarding, and overeating. These same deficits often delay reproductive development or inhibit adult reproductive behavior. Such adaptations involve the integration of sensory signals with peripheral hormone signals and central effectors, and they are key to understanding health and disease, particularly obesity, eating disorders, and diabetes.

The link between energy balance and reproduction recurs repeatedly, whether in the context of the sensory-somatic system, the autonomic nervous system, or the neuroendocrine cascades. Peripheral signals that are detected by receptors on vagal and splanchnic nerves are relayed to the caudal hindbrain. This brain area contains the effectors for peripheral hormone secretion and for chewing and swallowing, and this same brain area contains receptors for humoral and metabolic signals from peripheral circulation. The caudal hindbrain is therefore a strong candidate for integration of multiple signals that control the initiation of meals, meal size, energy storage, and energy expenditure, including the energy expended on reproduction. There are some differences between the reproductive and ingestive mechanisms, but there are also many striking similarities. There are still gaps in our knowledge about the nature and location of metabolic receptors and the pathways to their effectors. Some of the most promising research is designed to shed light on how hormonal signals might be enhanced or modulated by the peripheral energetic condition (e.g., the level of oxidizable metabolic fuels).
Women in Lesotho
Authors: Rosenberg Scott
Published: June 2020

During the pre-colonial period, women were valued for their productive and reproductive abilities. When women married, their parents received bohali (bridewealth) from the man’s family. During the colonial period women became increasingly responsible for running the household while men were away. Although this gave women more power on a daily basis it also led to increasing domestic violence. In order to support themselves and their families, women have sought out domestic economic opportunities as well as participating in migrant labor. Historically, beer brewing and sex trafficking were two of the economic opportunities available to women in Lesotho and South Africa. Today, women make up the overwhelming majority of labor in the textile factories. Although Lesotho is a patriarchal society, women have made gains in terms of being elected to parliament and serving as regents, yet they are still not allowed to serve as a chief in their own right. The HIV/AIDS pandemic has hit women in Lesotho especially hard.
Solar Wind and Terrestrial Planets
Authors: Dubinin Edik , Luhmann Janet G. , Slavin James A.
Published: June 2020

Knowledge about the solar wind interactions of Venus, Mars, and Mercury is rapidly expanding. While the Earth is also a terrestrial planet, it has been studied much more extensively and in far greater detail than its companions. As a result we direct the reader to specific references on that subject for obtaining an accurate comparative picture. Due to the strength of the Earth’s intrinsic dipole field, a relatively large volume is carved out in interplanetary space around the planet and its atmosphere. This “magnetosphere” is regarded as a shield from external effects, but in actuality much energy and momentum are channeled into it, especially at high latitudes, where the frequent interconnection between the Earth’s magnetic field and the interplanetary field allows some access by solar wind particles and electric fields to the upper atmosphere and ionosphere. Moreover, reconnection between oppositely directed magnetic fields occurs in Earth’s extended magnetotail—producing a host of other phenomena including injection of a ring current of energized internal plasma from the magnetotail into the inner magnetosphere—creating magnetic storms and enhancements in auroral activity and related ionospheric outflows. There are also permanent, though variable, trapped radiation belts that strengthen and decay with the rest of magnetospheric activity—depositing additional energy into the upper atmosphere over a wider latitude range. Virtually every aspect of the Earth’s solar wind interaction, highly tied to its strong intrinsic dipole field, has its own dedicated textbook chapters and review papers.

Although Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars belong to the same class of rocky terrestrial planets, their interaction with solar wind is very different. Earth and Mercury have the intrinsic, mainly dipole magnetic field, which protects them from direct exposure by solar wind. In contrast, Venus and Mars have no such shield and solar wind directly impacts their atmospheres/ionospheres. In the first case, intrinsic magnetospheric cavities with a long tail are found. In the second case, magnetospheres are also formed but are generated by the electric currents induced in the conductive ionospheres. The interaction of solar wind with terrestrial planets also varies due to changes caused by different distances to the Sun and large variations in solar irradiance and solar wind parameters. Other important planetary differences like local strong crustal magnetization on Mars and almost total absence of the ionosphere on Mercury create new essential features to the interaction pattern. Solar wind might be also a feasible driver for planetary atmospheric losses of volatiles, which could historically affect the habitability of the terrestrial planets.
Ethnographies of Water
Authors: Toussaint Sandy
Published: June 2020

Water in all its permanent, temporary, colored, salt and freshwater forms, is vital and life-sustaining to human and other living species. Ethnographic research has, by necessity, always included water in all its variations, whereas ethnographies of water describe and analyze not only accounts about water’s intrinsic value to life, but also how different societies conceptualize, sustain, use, control, and attribute meaning to it. Water as a cultural ethnographic lens reveals how both the presence and absence of water is managed, as well as how it is believed to have originated and should be cared for. Practices such as the regular enactment of religious rituals, the development of irrigation, origin narratives, understandings of hydrological movements, and the problem of drought and flood, all convey a complex of water-inspired stories. Water’s relationship to other elements—air, wind, fire, cloud, and smoke—are also part of the depth and breadth embedded in ethnographies of water, constituting a richness of narratives, especially when explored from country to country, and place to place, as new generations and circumstances across time and space converge. These inevitably include the impact of global warming, the technology revolution, and globalization, alongside the curiosity, rigor, and insight that is the long-term hallmark of anthropological inquiry.
Non-Quantitative Approaches to Dialect Classification and Relatedness
Authors: Barbato Marcello
Published: June 2020

Several attempts have been made to classify Romance languages. The subgroups created can be posited as intermediate entities in diachrony between a mother language and daughter languages. This diachronic perspective can be structured using a rigid model, such as that of the family tree, or more flexible ones. In general, this perspective yields a bipartite division between Western Romance languages (Ibero-Romance, Gallo-Romance, Alpine-, and Cisalpine-Romance) and Eastern Romance languages (Italian and Romanian), or a tripartite split between Sardinian, Romanian, and other languages.

The subgroups can, however, be considered synchronic groupings based on the analysis of the characteristics internal to the varieties. Naturally, the groupings change depending on which features are used and which theoretic model is adopted. Still, this type of approach signals the individuality of French and Romanian with respect to the Romània continua, or contrasts northern and southern Romània, highlighting, on the one hand, the shared features in Gallo-Romance and Gallo-Italian and, on the other, those common to Ibero-Romance, southern Italian, and Sardinian.

The task of classifying Romance languages includes thorny issues such as distinguishing between synchrony and diachrony, language and dialect, and monothetic and polythetic classification. Moreover, ideological and political matters often complicate the theme of classification. Many problems stand as yet unresolved, and they will probably remain unresolvable.
Agreement Morphology
Authors: Cabredo Hofherr Patricia
Published: June 2020

Agreement is defined as the systematic covariance of one element with another. The most uncontroversial agreement configuration is that between a controller—an element intrinsically specified for a value of an agreement feature—and the target of agreement—the element reflecting a displaced feature value of the controller. The distribution of morphological agreement markers is however much wider than controller–target configurations: targets can express agreement values for features that are not visible on the controller and even show agreement morphology in the absence of a lexical controller. A second source of variation is due to the fact that in certain contexts there is a choice between syntactic agreement (with formal features of the controller) and semantic agreement (with semantic features of the referent of the controller). The choice between syntactic and semantic agreement is correlated in part with cross-linguistically observed regularities that have been formulated as the agreement hierarchy and the animacy hierarchy.

Agreement morphology harnesses the same morphological devices found with derivation and inflection. Like inflectional morphology more generally, agreement morphology is only present in a subset of the world’s languages.
Environmental Health Research: Identifying the Context and the Needs, and Choosing Priorities
Authors: Morris George , Martuzzi Marco , Fleming Lora , Racioppi Francesca , Matic Srdan
Published: June 2020

Adequate funding, careful planning, and good governance are central to delivering quality research in any field. Yet, the strategic directions for research, the mechanisms through which topics emerge, and the priorities assigned are equally deserving of attention. The need to understand the role played by the environment and to manage the physical environment and the human activities which bear upon it in pursuit of health, well-being, and equity are long established. These imperatives drive environmental health research as a key branch of scientific inquiry.

Targeted research over many years, applying established methods, has informed society’s understanding of the toxic, infectious, allergenic, and physical threats to health from our physical surroundings and how these may be managed. Essentially hazard-focused research continues to deliver policy-relevant findings while simultaneously posing questions to be addressed through further research. Environmental health in the 21st century is, however, confronted by additional challenges of a rather different character. These include the need to understand, in a better and more policy-relevant way, the contributions of the environment to health and equity in complex interaction with other societal and individual-level influences (a so-called socioecological model). Also important are the potential of especially green and blue natural environments to improve health and well-being and promote equity, and the health implications of new approaches to production and consumption, such as the circular economy.

Such challenges add breadth, depth, and richness to the environmental health research agenda, but when combined with the existential and public health threat of humanity’s detrimental impact on the Earth’s systems, they entail a need for new and better strategies for scientific inquiry. As we confront the challenges and uncertainties of the Anthropocene, the complexity expands, the stakes become sky-high, and diverse interests and values clash. Thus, the pressure on environmental health researchers to evolve and engage with stakeholders and reach out to the widest constituency of policy and practice has never been greater, nor has the need to organize to deliver.

A disparate range of contextual factors have become pertinent when scoping the now significantly extended, territory for environmental health research. Moreover, the challenges of prioritizing among the candidate topics for investigation have scarcely been greater.
Cost of an elaborate trait: a trade-off between attracting females and maintaining a clean ornament
Authors: McCullough Erin L , Chou Chun-Chia , Backwell Patricia R Y
Published: June 2020

Many sexually selected ornaments and weapons are elaborations of an animal’s outer body surface, including long feathers, colorful skin, and rigid outgrowths. The time and energy required to keep these traits clean, attractive, and in good condition for signaling may represent an important but understudied cost of bearing a sexually selected trait. Male fiddler crabs possess an enlarged and brightly colored claw that is used both as a weapon to fight with rival males and also as an ornament to court females. Here, we demonstrate that males benefit from grooming because females prefer males with clean claws over dirty claws but also that the time spent grooming detracts from the amount of time available for courting females. Males, therefore, face a temporal trade-off between attracting the attention of females and maintaining a clean claw. Our study provides rare evidence of the importance of grooming for mediating sexual interactions in an invertebrate, indicating that sexual selection has likely shaped the evolution of self-maintenance behaviors across a broad range of taxa.
The intersubjective ontology of need in Carl Menger
Authors: Yamamori Toru
Published: June 2020

As I have argued elsewhere, there is no room for the concept of need in the prevailing neoclassical school of economics—without reducing the need to a purely subjective construct. Not so, however, both in classical political economy and in the contemporary heterodox schools of economics. The main aim of this paper is, firstly, to show the existence of the concept of need as such in Carl Menger—widely acknowledged as one of the fathers of modern economics; and secondly, to trace the concept’s erasure in the orthodox school along with its rediscovery in the heterodox schools. With this exposition on the history of the idea, I hope to demonstrate how taking the concept seriously would urge us to engage ontological research and would mandate a significant change in economic analysis, regardless of whether this change is considered to reside within the orthodox tradition or be deemed a departure to heterodoxy.
Positional repeatability and variation in internal and external markers during volumetric-modulated arc therapy under end-exhalation breath-hold conditions for pancreatic cancer patients
Authors: Sasaki Makoto , Nakamura Mitsuhiro , Ono Tomohiro , Ashida Ryo , Yoshimura Michio , Nakata Manabu , Mizowaki Takashi , Sugimoto Naozo
Published: June 2020

The purpose of this study was to assess the positional repeatability of internal and external markers among multiple breath-hold (BH) sessions and evaluate the positional variation of these markers within BH sessions for volumetric-modulated arc therapy (VMAT) for pancreatic cancer patients. A total of 13 consecutive pancreatic cancer patients with an internal marker were enrolled. Single full-arc coplanar VMAT was delivered under end-exhalation BH conditions while monitoring the internal marker with kilovoltage (kV) X-ray fluoroscopy. Positional repeatability of the internal and external markers was determined by the difference between the reference and zero position in all BH sessions, and positional variation was defined by the displacement from the reference position in each BH session during megavolt beam delivery. The overall positional repeatability was 0.6 ± 1.5 mm in the X-axis for the centroid of the internal marker (CoIM), −0.1 ± 2.2 mm in the Y-axis for the CoIM, and 0.8 ± 2.2 mm for the external marker. The frequency of an internal marker position appearing > 2 mm from the reference position in the Y-axis, despite the external marker position being ≤2 mm from the reference position, ranged from 0.0 to 39.9% for each patient. Meanwhile, the proportion of sessions with positional variation ≤2 mm was 93.2 and 98.7% for the CoIM and external marker, respectively. External marker motion can be used as a surrogate for pancreatic tumor motion during BH-VMAT delivery; however, margins of ~5 mm were required to ensure positional repeatability.
Thermal luminosities of cooling neutron stars
Authors: Potekhin A Y , Zyuzin D A , Yakovlev D G , Beznogov M V , Shibanov Yu A
Published: June 2020

Ages and thermal luminosities of neutron stars, inferred from observations, can be interpreted with the aid of the neutron star cooling theory to gain information on the properties of superdense matter in neutron-star interiors. We present a survey of estimated ages, surface temperatures, and thermal luminosities of middle-aged neutron stars with relatively weak or moderately strong magnetic fields, which can be useful for these purposes. The catalogue includes results selected from the literature, supplemented with new results of spectral analysis of a few cooling neutron stars. The data are compared with the theory. We show that overall agreement of theoretical cooling curves with observations improves substantially for models where neutron superfluidity in stellar core is weak.
Progenitor, precursor, and evolution of the dusty remnant of the stellar merger M31-LRN-2015
Authors: Blagorodnova N , Karambelkar V , Adams S M , Kasliwal M M , Kochanek C S , Dong S , Campbell H , Hodgkin S , Jencson J E , Johansson J , Kozłowski S , Laher R R , Masci F , Nugent P , Rebbapragada U
Published: June 2020

M31-LRN-2015 is a likely stellar merger discovered in the Andromeda Galaxy in 2015. We present new optical to mid-infrared photometry and optical spectroscopy for this event. Archival data show that the source started to brighten ∼2 yr before the nova event. During this precursor phase, the source brightened by ∼3 mag. The light curve at 6 and 1.5 months before the main outburst may show periodicity, with periods of 16 ± 0.3 and 28.1 ± 1.4 d, respectively. This complex emission may be explained by runaway mass-loss from the system after the binary undergoes Roche lobe overflow, leading the system to coalesce in tens of orbital periods. While the progenitor spectral energy distribution shows no evidence of pre-existing warm dust in the system, the remnant forms an optically thick dust shell at approximately four months after the outburst peak. The optical depth of the shell increases dramatically after 1.5 yr, suggesting the existence of shocks that enhance the dust formation process. We propose that the merger remnant is likely an inflated giant obscured by a cooling shell of gas with mass ∼0.2 M⊙ ejected at the onset of the common envelope phase.
Cataloguing the radio-sky with unsupervised machine learning: a new approach for the SKA era
Authors: Galvin T J , Huynh M T , Norris R P , Wang X R , Hopkins E , Polsterer K , Ralph N O , O’Brien A N , Heald G H
Published: June 2020

We develop a new analysis approach towards identifying related radio components and their corresponding infrared host galaxy based on unsupervised machine learning methods. By exploiting Parallelized rotation and flipping INvariant Kohonen maps (pink), a self-organizing map (SOM) algorithm, we are able to associate radio and infrared sources without the a priori requirement of training labels. We present an example of this method using 894 415 images from the Faint Images of the Radio-Sky at Twenty centimeters (FIRST) and Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) surveys centred towards positions described by the FIRST catalogue. We produce a set of catalogues that complement FIRST and describe 802 646 objects, including their radio components and their corresponding AllWISE infrared host galaxy. Using these data products, we (i) demonstrate the ability to identify objects with rare and unique radio morphologies (e.g. ‘X’-shaped galaxies, hybrid FR I/FR II morphologies), (ii) can identify the potentially resolved radio components that are associated with a single infrared host, (iii) introduce a ‘curliness’ statistic to search for bent and disturbed radio morphologies, and (iv) extract a set of 17 giant radio galaxies between 700 and 1100 kpc. As we require no training labels, our method can be applied to any radio-continuum survey, provided a sufficiently representative SOM can be trained.
An improved spin-down rate for the proposed white dwarf pulsar AR scorpii
Authors: Gaibor Y , Garnavich P M , Littlefield C , Potter S B , Buckley D A H
Published: June 2020

We analyse rapid-cadence, multiwavelength photometry of AR Scorpii from three observatories, covering five observing seasons. We measure the arrival times of the system’s beat pulses and use them to compute an updated ephemeris. The white dwarf spin-down rate is estimated with an uncertainty of only 4 per cent. These results confirm, beyond any doubt, that the white dwarf’s spin period is increasing at the rate consistent with by that of Stiller et al. (2018). We study the evolution of the beat pulse’s colour index across the orbit. The colour of the primary pulse maxima varies significantly across the orbit, with the peaks being bluer after superior conjunction than in the first half of the orbit. Specifically, at orbital phase 0.5, the colour index of the primary pulse shows a very sharp discontinuity towards bluer indices. This supports the Potter & Buckley (2018b) synchrotron emission model where the two emitting poles differ significantly in colour. However, no corresponding jump in the colour of the secondary pulses is seen. Furthermore, our analysis reveals that the arrival times of the pulses can differ by as much as 6 s in simultaneous u and r photometry, depending on the binary orbital phase. If left uncorrected, this wavelength-dependent timing offset could lead to erroneous measurements of the spin-period derivative, particularly with heterogeneous data sets.
Variance-adjusted Mahalanobis (VAM): a fast and accurate method for cell-specific gene set scoring
Authors: Frost Hildreth Robert
Published: June 2020

Statistical analysis of single cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-seq) data is hindered by high levels of technical noise and inflated zero counts. One promising approach for addressing these challenges is gene set testing, or pathway analysis, which can mitigate sparsity and noise, and improve interpretation and power, by aggregating expression data to the pathway level. Unfortunately, methods optimized for bulk transcriptomics perform poorly on scRNA-seq data and progress on single cell-specific techniques has been limited. Importantly, no existing methods support cell-level gene set inference. To address this challenge, we developed a new gene set testing method, Variance-adjusted Mahalanobis (VAM), that integrates with the Seurat framework and can accommodate the technical noise, sparsity and large sample sizes characteristic of scRNA-seq data. The VAM method computes cell-specific pathway scores to transform a cell-by-gene matrix into a cell-by-pathway matrix that can be used for both data visualization and statistical enrichment analysis. Because the distribution of these scores under the null of uncorrelated technical noise has an accurate gamma approximation, both population and cell-level inference is supported. As demonstrated using simulated and real scRNA-seq data, the VAM method provides superior classification accuracy at a lower computation cost relative to existing single sample gene set testing approaches.
Low ALT values amongst hospitalized patients are associated with increased risk of hypoglycemia and overall mortality: a retrospective, big-data analysis of 51 831 patients
Authors: Itelman E , Segev A , Ahmead L , Leibowitz E , Agbaria M , Avaky C , Negro L , Shenhav-Saltzman G , Wasserstrum Y , Segal G
Published: June 2020

Background

Sarcopenia and frailty influence clinical patients’ outcomes. Low alanine aminotransferase (ALT) serum activity is a surrogate marker for sarcopenia and frailty. In-hospital hypoglycemia is associated, also with worse clinical outcomes.

Aim

We evaluated the association between low ALT, risk of in-hospital hypoglycemia and subsequent mortality.

Design

This was a retrospective cohort analysis.

Methods

We included patients hospitalized in a tertiary hospital between 2007 and 2019. Patients’ data were retrieved from their electronic medical records.

Results

The cohort included 51 831 patients (average age 70.88). The rate of hypoglycemia was 10.8% (amongst diabetics 19.4% whereas in non-diabetics 8.3%). The rate of hypoglycemia was higher amongst patients with ALT < 10 IU/l in the whole cohort (14.3% vs. 10.4%, P < 0.001) as well as amongst diabetics (24.6% vs. 18.8%, P < 0.001). Both the overall and in-hospital mortality were higher in the low ALT group (57.7% vs. 39.1% P < 0.001 and 4.3% vs. 3.2%, P < 0.001). A propensity score matching, after which a regression model was performed, showed that patients with ALT levels < 10 IU/l had higher risk of overall mortality (HR = 1.21, CI 1.13–1.29, P < 0.001).

Conclusions

Low ALT values amongst hospitalized patients are associated with increased risk of in-hospital hypoglycemia and overall mortality.
How Did COVID-19 Affect Firms’ Access to Public Capital Markets?*
Authors: Halling Michael , Yu Jin , Zechner Josef
Published: June 2020

We find that bond issues have substantially increased since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis in calendar week 12 (March 16–20) for bonds rated A or higher, but surprisingly also for bonds rated BBB or lower. In contrast to existing evidence on bond maturities in economic downturns, we document that maturities exceed those of bonds issued before by the same firms as well as the average maturities during normal times. Determinants of corporate bond spreads substantially differ between COVID-19 and normal times. Most prominently, asset tangibility has a highly significant negative effect on spreads during normal times. During COVID-19, this is reversed, especially in industries heavily affected by lockdown measures, reflecting the inflexibility associated with fixed assets. A different picture emerges for equity issues, which slowed considerably during the first 4 weeks of the pandemic, before accelerating again. Capital raised during COVID-19 via equity issues is approximately 5% of capital raised via bond issues. (JEL G01, G32)

Received: May 21, 2020; editorial decision June 17, 2020 by Editor Andrew Ellul.
Comparative study of material point method and upper bound limit analysis in slope stability analysis
Authors: Zhao Lianheng , Qiao Nan , Zhao Zhigang , Zuo Shi , Wang Xiang
Published: June 2020

The upper bound limit analysis (UBLA) is one of the key research directions in geotechnical engineering and is widely used in engineering practice. UBLA assumes that the slip surface with the minimum factor of safety (FSmin) is the critical slip surface, and then applies it to slope stability analysis. However, the hypothesis of UBLA has not been systematically verified, which may be due to the fact that the traditional numerical method is difficult to simulate the large deformation. In this study, in order to systematically verify the assumption of UBLA, material point method (MPM), which is suitable to simulate the large deformation of continuous media, is used to simulate the whole process of the slope failure, including the large-scale transportation and deposition of soil mass after slope failure. And a series of comparative studies are conducted on the stability of cohesive slopes using UBLA and MPM. The proposed study indicated that the slope angle, internal friction angle and cohesion have a remarkable effect on the slip surface of the cohesive slope. Also, for stable slopes, the calculation results of the two are relatively close. However, for unstable slopes, the slider volume determined by the UBLA is much smaller than the slider volume determined by the MPM. In other words, for unstable slopes, the critical slip surface of UBLA is very different from the slip surface when the slope failure occurs, and when the UBLA is applied to the stability analysis of unstable slope, it will lead to extremely unfavorable results.