bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Mineralogical Studies of Mahanadi Basin coals based on FTIR, XRD and Microscopy: A Geological Perspective
Authors: Naik A. S. , Behera B. , Shukla U. K. , Sahu H. B. , Singh P. K. , Mohanty D. , Sahoo K. , Chatterjee D.
Published: September 2021

This paper is an attempt to investigate the mineral matter constituents in Permian coals of Mahanadi basin, India. Twenty two bulk samples from the working mines have been selected for the study. Analytical techniques such as X-Ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy coupled with coal microscopy have been used in this study for rapid characterization. The chief mineral phases are quartz, kaolinite, orthoclase, muscovite, and chlorite in order of increasing abundance in all the samples. Petrographic analysis reveal the dominance of Vitrinite (36.17%) followed by the Inertinite (32.33%), Liptinite (14.30%) group of macerals and mineral matter (17.18%). Mineral matter in the voids and cell lumens is common mode of occurrence in the coals which can be attributed to syngenetic and epigenetic types. The proximate analysis suggest the coals have high ash yield (8.37% to 38.46% on air dried basis) with high volatile matter (10.8% to 35.51% on air dried basis) making it suitable for thermal power plants.
Role of Climate and Topography on Hydrological Characteristics of the Bharathapuzha Basin in the Tectonically Quiescent Western Ghats, India
Authors: Reddy S. Kiran Kumar , Kotluri Sravan Kumar , Gupta Harish , Reddy D. Venkat
Published: September 2021

Intra-basin variations in sediment supply provide clues for understanding the erosion process and the role of local topographic features and climatic factors. Hence in this study, Bharathapuzha (BP) basin from tectonically quiescent Western Ghats (WG) was selected to examine the role of topography and climate on the sediment erosion process across its sub-basins. Multi-years daily water discharge and sediment load data of five monitoring stations were combined with morphometric parameters to visualize the local variability in sediment erosion rates. The average annual water discharge and sediment load of the BP basin to the Arabian Sea are 4.71 km3 and 0.37x106 tons. Interestingly, Kunthipuzha (KP) sub-basin, despite covering 17% of the total basin area, contributes around 41% and 27% of water discharge and sediment flux, respectively. The sediment yield (erosion rate) from the KP sub-basin is ten times higher than the same sized sub-basin within the BP catchment. For comprehending the role of topography and climate on these local variations, geomorphic indices such as Hypsometric integral (HI) and stream length (SL) index were calculated for the BP basin and sub-basins. Further, multiple regression was used to explore the quantitative relationships among the influencing factors. Results suggest that the rainfall and topography critically influenced basin erosion and explained 93% of the total variance. This study demonstrates the importance of intra-basin scale processes even for small mountainous rivers and signifies the role of local variations in topography and climate in erosion and material transport.
Experimental study on the mechanism and development effect of multi-gas assisted steam huff and puff process in the offshore heavy oil reservoirs
Authors: Fan Jie , He Zuqing , Pang Wei , Fu Daoming , Peng Hanxiu , Liu Huanle
Published: September 2021

Multi-gas assisted steam huff and puff process is a relatively new thermal recovery technology for offshore heavy oil reservoirs. Some blocks of Bohai oilfield have implemented multi-gas assisted steam huff and puff process. However, the development mechanism still requires further study. In this paper, high-temperature high-pressure (HTHP) PVT experiments and different huff and puff experiments of sand pack were carried out to reveal the enhanced production mechanism and evaluate the development effect of multi-gas assisted steam huff and puff process. The results indicated that viscosity reduction and thermal expansion still were the main development mechanism of multi-gas assisted steam huff and puff process. Specifically, CO2 easily dissolved in the heavy oil that made it mainly play the role of reducing oil viscosity, N2 was characteristics of small solubility and good expansibility, and it could improve formation pressure, increase steam sweep volume and even reduce the heat loss. Meanwhile, injecting multi-gas and steam could break the balance of heavy oil component that made the content of resin reduce and the content of saturates, aromatics and asphaltene increase so as to further reduce the viscosity of heavy oil. Compared with steam huff and puff process, multi-gas assisted steam huff and puff process increased the recovery by 2–5%. The optimal water–gas ratio and steam injection temperature were 4:6 and 300℃, respectively. The results suggested that multi-gas assisted steam huff and puff process would have wide application prospect for offshore heavy oil reservoirs.
Wellbore instability management using geomechanical modeling and wellbore stability analysis for Zubair shale formation in Southern Iraq
Authors: Allawi Raed H. , Al-Jawad Mohammed S.
Published: September 2021

Wellbore instability problems cause nonproductive time, especially during drilling operations in the shale formations. These problems include stuck pipe, caving, lost circulation, and the tight hole, requiring more time to treat and therefore additional costs. The extensive hole collapse problem is considered one of the main challenges experienced when drilling in the Zubair shale formation. In turn, it is caused by nonproductive time and increasing well drilling expenditure. In this study, geomechanical modeling was used to determine a suitable mud weight window to overpass these problems and improve drilling performance for well development. Three failure criteria, including Mohr–Coulomb, modified Lade, and Mogi–Coulomb, were used to predict a safe mud weight window. The geomechanical model was constructed using offset well log data, including formation micro-imager (FMI) logs, acoustic compressional wave, shear wave, gamma ray, bulk density, sonic porosity, and drilling events. The model was calibrated using image data interpretation, modular formation dynamics tester (MDT), leak-off test (LOT), and formation integrity test (FIT). Furthermore, a comparison between the predicted wellbore instability and the actual wellbore failure was performed to examine the model's accuracy. The results showed that the Mogi–Coulomb failure and modified Lade criterion were the most suitable for the Zubair formation. These criteria were given a good match with field observations. In contrast, the Mohr–Coulomb criterion was improper because it does not match shear failure from the caliper log. In addition, the obtained results showed that the inappropriate mud weight (10.6 ppg) was the main cause behind wellbore instability problems in this formation. The optimum mud weight window should apply in Zubair shale formation ranges from 11.5 to 14 ppg. Moreover, the inclination angle should be less than 25 degrees, and azimuth ranges from 115 to 120 degrees northwest-southeast (NE–SW) can be presented a less risk. The well azimuth of NE–SW direction, parallel to minimum horizontal stress (Shmin), will provide the best stability for drilling the Zubair shale formation. This study's findings can help understand the root causes of wellbore instability in the Zubair shale formation. Thus, the results of this research can be applied as expenditure effectiveness tools when designing for future neighboring directional wells to get high drilling performance by reducing the nonproductive time and well expenses.
Neutron applications developing at compact accelerator-driven neutron sources
Authors: Kiyanagi Yoshiaki
Published: September 2021

Neutrons have been used in a wide field of applications by using various neutron sources. Material science is one of the widest research fields. The activity is supported by nuclear research reactors and high-intensity spallation neutron sources based on a high-intensity proton accelerator. However, it is desired to perform a measurement when researchers want to do and to perform adventuresome experiments that have not yet confirmed its importance. Furthermore, trial and error measurements are necessary to improve a measurement method. Compact accelerator-driven neutron sources are suitable for such usage and in some cases can complement the measurement at a large facility. The use of the compact neutron source has sometimes led to new methods. Other than material science, a new application of soft error acceleration test has been performed at the compact accelerator-driven neutron sources. Another neutron application is radiation therapy called as boron neutron capture therapy. In this field, nuclear reactor neutron sources have been used but many of them shut down. It was desired to construct the BNCT facility near a hospital. Therefore, BNCT facilities based on the compact accelerator have been constructed in the world. Here, the neutron sources and new methods and applications developing at compact accelerator-driven neutron sources are introduced.
Coherence as Competence
Authors: Lasonen-Aarnio Maria
Published: September 2021

Beingincoherentis often viewed as a paradigm kind of irrationality. Numerous authors attempt to explain the distinct-seeming failure of incoherence by positing a set of requirements of structural rationality. I argue that the notion of coherence that structural requirements are meant to capture is very slippery, and that intuitive judgments – in particular, a charge of a distinct, blatant kind of irrationality – are very imperfectly correlated with respecting the canon of structural requirements. I outline an alternative strategy for explaining our patterns of normative disapproval, one appealing to feasible dispositions to conform to substantive, non-structural norms. A wide range of paradigmatic cases of incoherence, I will argue, involve manifesting problematic dispositions, dispositions that manifest across a range of cases as blatant-seeming normative failures.
The Interested Expert Problem and the Epistemology of Juries
Authors: Guerrero Alexander
Published: September 2021

The existence of experts raises a host of interesting questions in social, legal, and political epistemology. This article introduces and discusses interested experts – people who are experts on some topic, but who also have a distinct set of values and preferences regarding that topic, so that they are not well-described as “disinterested” parties. Interested experts raise several distinct problems in social, legal, and political epistemology. Some general questions arise: can we rationally or justifiably form beliefs relying on interested expert testimony? Do they constitute knowledge? Under what circumstances? This article focuses on a specific question in legal epistemology: should interested experts be allowed to serve on juries and, if so, should it be permissible for lawyers to strike them from the pool of potential jurors? My hope is that concentrating on this question will provide insight into the more general questions concerning the epistemology of testimony with respect to interested experts, while also providing concrete recommendations for jury reform to improve the epistemic performance of juries.
Friendly schools’ bullying prevention research: Implications for school counsellors
Authors: Cross Donna , Runions Kevin C. , Pearce Natasha
Published: September 2021

Bullying varies in frequency, intensity, duration and hence severity, and contributes uniquely and directly to mental health problems, with severe and long-lasting consequences. Almost a half of school-age students report being bullied in the past year. All school staff, especially school counsellors, are uniquely positioned to reduce student bullying through proactive primary prevention, early intervention, and treatment. However, given the intensity of schools, and counsellors’ limited time and resources, robust evidence is needed to guide their unique contribution to a whole-school approach to reducing bullying behaviour. Since 1999, a pipeline of 18 Friendly Schools studies, including seven randomised control trials, have developed and tested ways to build all school staff’s capacity to effectively target and deliver evidence-based strategies across the prevention, early intervention and treatment continuum to reduce harm from all forms of bullying behaviour. This article describes the implications of Friendly Schools’ research findings relevant and applicable to the work of school counsellors, as part of a whole-school approach to bullying prevention. These implications demonstrate the interconnectedness of actions of all members of the school community, and the need for a whole-school commitment to preventing and reducing bullying, to realise the important synergistic contribution of school counsellors.
A broadband radio view of transient jet ejecta in the black hole candidate X-ray binary MAXI J1535–571
Authors: Chauhan Jaiverdhan , Miller-Jones J. C. A. , Anderson G. E. , Paduano A. , Sokolowski M. , Flynn C. , Hancock P. J. , Hurley-Walker N. , Kaplan D. L. , Russell T. D. , Bahramian A. , Duchesne S. W. , Altamirano D. , Croft S. , Krimm H. A. , Sivakoff G. R. , Soria R. , Trott C. M. , Wayth R. B. , Gupta V. , Johnston-Hollitt M. , Tingay S. J.
Published: September 2021

We present a broadband radio study of the transient jets ejected from the black hole candidate X-ray binary MAXI J1535–571, which underwent a prolonged outburst beginning on 2017 September 2. We monitored MAXI J1535–571 with the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) at frequencies from 119 to 186 MHz over six epochs from 2017 September 20 to 2017 October 14. The source was quasi-simultaneously observed over the frequency range 0.84–19 GHz by UTMOST (the Upgraded Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope) the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA), and the Australian Long Baseline Array (LBA). Using the LBA observations from 2017 September 23, we measured the source size to be$34\pm1$mas. During the brightest radio flare on 2017 September 21, the source was detected down to 119 MHz by the MWA, and the radio spectrum indicates a turnover between 250 and 500 MHz, which is most likely due to synchrotron self-absorption (SSA). By fitting the radio spectrum with a SSA model and using the LBA size measurement, we determined various physical parameters of the jet knot (identified in ATCA data), including the jet opening angle ($\phi_{\rm op} = 4.5\pm1.2^{\circ}$) and the magnetic field strength ($B_{\rm s} = 104^{+80}_{-78}$mG). Our fitted magnetic field strength agrees reasonably well with that inferred from the standard equipartition approach, suggesting the jet knot to be close to equipartition. Our study highlights the capabilities of the Australian suite of radio telescopes to jointly probe radio jets in black hole X-ray binaries via simultaneous observations over a broad frequency range, and with differing angular resolutions. This suite allows us to determine the physical properties of X-ray binary jets. Finally, our study emphasises the potential contributions that can be made by the low-frequency part of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA-Low) in the study of black hole X-ray binaries.
Public Sector Employment and Voter Turnout
Authors: GEYS BENNY , SØRENSEN RUNE J.
Published: September 2021

Does working in the public rather than the private sector have a causal effect on electoral participation? Extant evidence using cross-sectional survey data remains unpersuasive due to data limitations and concerns posed by preference-based job selection. We address these challenges using population-wide individual-level register data on voter turnout covering four Norwegian local and national elections between 2013 and 2019. We identify causal effects by tracking the same individuals over time during (a) shifts between private- and public-sector employment, (b) relocations between municipalities, and (c) shifts into retirement. We find that local public-sector employees display 1–3 percentage points higher voter turnout compared with private-sector employees. These effects arise particularly when working in their residential municipality, but they largely dissipate upon retirement.
Cascading effects of caffeine intake by primary consumers to the upper trophic level
Authors: Tougeron Kévin , Hance Thierry
Published: September 2021

Secondary metabolites are central to understanding the evolution of plant–animal interactions. Direct effects on phytophagous animals are well-known, but how secondary consumers adjust their behavioural and physiological responses to the herbivore's diet remains more scarcely explored for some metabolites. Caffeine is a neuroactive compound that affects both the behaviour and physiology of several animal species, from humans to insects. It is an alkaloid present in nectar, leaves and even sap of numerous species of plants where it plays a role in chemical defences against herbivores and pathogens. Caffeine effects have been overlooked in generalist herbivores that are not specialized in coffee or tea plants. Using a host–parasitoid system, we show that caffeine intake at a relatively low dose affects longevity and fecundity of the primary consumer, but also indirectly of the secondary one, suggesting that this alkaloid and/or its effects can be transmitted through trophic levels and persist in the food chain. Parasitism success was lowered by ≈16% on hosts fed with caffeine, and parasitoids of the next generation that have developed in hosts fed on caffeine showed a reduced longevity, but no differences in mass and size were found. This study helps at better understanding how plant secondary metabolites, such as caffeine involved in plant–animal interactions, could affect primary consumers, could have knock-on effects on upper trophic levels over generations, and could modify interspecific interactions in multitrophic systems.
The Puzzle of Frequent and Large Issues of Debt and Equity
Authors: Huang Rongbing , Ritter Jay R.
Published: September 2021

More frequent, larger, and more recent debt and equity issues in the prior 3 fiscal years are followed by lower stock returns in the subsequent year. The intercept of a q-factor calendar-time regression for the value-weighted (VW) portfolio of firms with at least 3 large issues is −0.63% per month (t-stat. = −4.31). Purging the factor returns of recent issuers increases the magnitude of the estimated underperformance following frequent equity issues. A VW Fama–MacBeth regression shows that firms with 3 equity issues underperform nonissuers by 0.65% per month (t-stat. = −2.65). Earnings announcement returns are low following frequent issues, especially equity issues.
Dream mother: Race, gender, and intimacy in Japanese-occupied Singapore
Authors: Imy Kate
Published: September 2021

Sheila Allan was just 17 years old when Japanese forces invaded Malaya in late 1941. British leaders surrendered at Singapore in 1942, subjecting hundreds of thousands of soldiers and civilians to Japanese internment for the duration of the war — including Allan. During that time, she became infatuated with the women's camp commandant, Dr Elinor Hopkins, whom she described as a ‘dream mother’. Her love and admiration blurred the lines between familial intimacy and sexual desire. Meanwhile, Allan was categorised as ‘Eurasian’ by both her Japanese captors and other European captives. She longed to be regarded as British and Australian, like her father. Nonetheless, white women condemned Eurasian women as sexually lax and immoral and questioned their right to be interned. As a result, Allan's desires for a white ‘dream mother’ reveal the fraught nature of racial, gender and sexual identities in wartime and under colonialism. These influenced not only her methods and strategies of coping during the war, but her hopes of finding love and intimacy when it was over. Her story reveals how fragile colonial categories and wartime violence fractured the destinies of colonial subjects, while love and devotion could be life-affirming.
The Myngoon plot: Seditious state-making and the 1902 Shan rebellion in northern Siam
Authors: Walker Andrew
Published: September 2021

In August 1902, the Siamese army occupied the northern township of Phrae after a rebellion by Shan timber workers, miners and traders. The Siamese general who investigated the rebellion claimed that the Shan attack on Phrae was part of a wider plot to restore Prince Myngoon to the Burmese throne. Myngoon was exiled from Burma in 1868 and had been living in Indochina since 1889. Most observers have regarded the so-called ‘Myngoon plot’ as implausible. This article provides the first detailed history of the plot. It argues that the plot was a product of ‘seditious state-making’ in the borderlands of mainland southeast Asia, a region in geopolitical flux. This exploration of the Myngoon plot uncovers a cosmopolitan web of seditious statecraft that extended from India, through Burma and Indochina and into Siam. The Shan rebellion was one outbreak in a region-wide web of Shan agitation dating from the early 1880s. The rebellion took place at the intersection of the competing colonial agendas of Siam, Britain and France, and various actors in this competition had been planting the seeds of a Myngoon-led rising since the 1880s. Myngoon's story was the product of a time when British, French and Siamese colonial agents were still grappling (and colluding) with dispersed and fragmented royal power.
Performance evaluation of GNSS receiver clock modelling in urban navigation using geodetic and high-sensitivity receivers
Authors: Jain Ankit , Schön Steffen
Published: September 2021

In urban areas, the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) can lead to position errors of tens of meters due to signal obstruction and severe multipath effects. In cases of 3D-positioning, the vertical coordinate is estimated less accurately than are the horizontal coordinates. Multisensor systems can enhance navigation performance in terms of accuracy, availability, continuity and integrity. However, the addition of multiple sensors increases the system cost, and thereby the applicability to low-cost applications is limited. By using the concept of receiver clock modelling (RCM), the position estimation can be made more robust; the use of high-sensitivity (HS) GNSS receivers can improve the system availability and continuity. This paper investigates the integration of a low-cost HS GNSS receiver with an external clock in urban conditions; subsequently, the gain in the navigation performance is evaluated. GNSS kinematic data is recorded in an urban environment with multiple geodetic-grade and HS receivers. The external clock stability information is incorporated through the process noise matrix in a Kalman filter when estimating the position, velocity and time states. Results shows that the improvement in the precision of the height component and vertical velocity with both receivers is about 70% with RCM compared with the estimates obtained without applying RCM. Pertaining accuracy, the improvement in height with RCM is found to be about 70% and 50% with geodetic and HS receivers, respectively. In terms of availability, the HS receiver delivers an 100% output compared with a geodetic receiver, which provides an output 99⋅4% of the total experiment duration.
Expressing prospective location in French: rethinking Vandeloise’s ‘principle of anticipation’
Authors: Tutton Mark
Published: September 2021

Vandeloise’s (1987, 2017) principle of anticipation proposes that French verbs of motion can enable prospective readings of static locative prepositions. However, it has little to say about verbs of motion that do not have a prospective verbal reference place (VRP): that is, to what extent are verbs of initial polarity like partir and s’enfuir able to trigger prospective readings of prepositions? This article argues that each verb must be analysed individually and that prospective readings of prepositions depend on the interaction of verbal and prepositional semantics: for example, the movement away from a viewer expressed by partir favours a prospective reading of derrière but not of devant: this is due to differences regarding access to perception. The animacy of the Ground and its status as a material or spatial entity (Vandeloise, 2017) is also a key factor (e.g. partir près de + spatial entity). This suggests that verbs of initial polarity participate in synergistic verb/preposition/Ground interpretations that help to overcome their lack of a VRP. The prospective reading of the preposition depends on the choice of verb and Ground, thus supporting a distributed view of spatial semantics (Sinha and Kuteva, 1995; Zlatev, 1997, 2003, 2007; Evans and Tyler, 2004).
Reduced Error Recognition Explains Post-Error Slowing Differences among Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder
Authors: Arnett Anne B. , Rhoads Candace , Rutter Tara M.
Published: September 2021

Objective:

Youth with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) often show reduced post-error slowing (PES) compared to typically developing controls. This finding has been interpreted as evidence that children with ADHD have error recognition and adaptive control impairments. However, several studies report mixed results regarding PES differences in ADHD, and among healthy controls, there is considerable debate about the cognitive-behavioral origin of PES.

Methods:

We tested competing hypotheses aimed at clarifying whether reduced PES in children with ADHD is due to impaired error detection, deficits in adaptive control, and/or attention orienting to novelty. Children aged 7–11 years with a diagnosis of ADHD (n = 74) and controls (n = 30) completed four laboratory-based computer tasks with variable cognitive loads and error types.

Results:

ADHD diagnosis was associated with shorter PES only on a task with high cognitive load and low error-cuing, consistent with impaired error recognition. In contrast, there was no evidence of impaired adaptive control or heightened novelty orienting among children with ADHD.

Conclusions:

The cognitive-behavioral origin of PES is multifactorial, but reduced PES among children with an ADHD diagnosis is due to impaired error recognition during cognitively demanding tasks. Behavioral interventions that scaffold error recognition may facilitate improved performance among children with ADHD.
Trading Away Tariffs: The Operations of the GATT System
Authors: Goldstein Judith , Gulotty Robert
Published: September 2021

Since its formation, the GATT/WTO system has facilitated a worldwide reduction of trade barriers. We return to a founding moment of the regime, the GATT 1947 (GATT47), and look closely at the liberalization process, analyzing exactly what concessions were granted to whom and in return for what. With these data, we evaluate three prominent explanations for the operation of the early GATT. First, we ask whether or not US negotiators granted asymmetric access to the US market to spur post-war recovery. Second, we look at how the rules adopted in GATT47 balanced the interests of import sensitive producers with those of the more nascent exporter interests. Third, we examine specific US concessions and ask whether or not the US used the domestic market to either increase the productive capacity of nations damaged during the war and/or to bolster unstable regimes. Our most general finding is that the US, at least in this first Round of the trade regime, was less a liberal warrior and more a seeker of stability, and that tariff setting was significantly constrained by the institutions governing global tariff negotiations.
Stripping foreign fighters of their citizenship: International human rights and humanitarian law considerations
Authors: Paulussen Christophe
Published: September 2021

This article will briefly present a number of international human rights law considerations related to the topic of citizenship stripping of foreign fighters, that is: “individuals, driven mainly by ideology, religion and/or kinship, who leave their country of origin or their country of habitual residence to join a party engaged in an armed conflict”, most notably the conflict in Syria and Iraq. After that, the article will focus on considerations in the context of international humanitarian law, which have been less frequently the subject of academic debate. This contribution concludes that citizenship stripping is not only highly problematic under international human rights law, but also from the perspective of international humanitarian law. The measure – which is likely to constitute cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment – violates Article 3 Common to the four Geneva Conventions, but it also undermines accountability for international humanitarian law violations already committed and can engender new violations through the non-removal of the suspect from the conflict zone. One of the few positive sides of the connection between the measure and international humanitarian law is that even if nationality is deprived, this will not have an effect on the international humanitarian law obligation to treat that deprived person humanely. In that sense, international humanitarian law provides a welcome – albeit temporary – safety net of decent treatment for people who have become victims of countries’ refusal to take responsibility for their own citizens.
Uncertainties, Limits, and Benefits of Climate Change Mitigation for Soil Moisture Drought in Southwestern North America
Authors: Cook B. I. , Mankin J. S. , Williams A. P. , Marvel K. D. , Smerdon J. E. , Liu H.
Published: September 2021

Over the last two decades, southwestern North America (SWNA) has been in the grip of one of the most severe droughts of the last 1,200 years, with one third to nearly one half of its severity attributable to climate change. We analyze how the risk of extreme soil moisture droughts in SWNA, analogous to the most severe 21‐year (≥ in magnitude to 2000–2020) and single‐year (≥ in magnitude to 2002) events of the last several decades, changes in projections from Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project. By the end of the 21stcentury, SWNA experiences robust (R ≥ 0.80) soil moisture drying and substantial increases in extreme single‐year drought risk that scale strongly with warming, spanning an 8%–26% probability of occurrence across +2–4 K. Notably, our results show that 21‐year droughts analogous to 2000–2020 are up to 5 times more likely than extreme single‐year droughts under all levels of warming (≈50%). These high levels of 21‐year drought risk are largely invariant across scenarios because of large spring precipitation declines in half the models, shifting SWNA into a drier mean state. Despite projections of this sweeping and ostensibly inevitable increase in 21‐year drought risk, climate mitigation reduces their severity by reducing the magnitude of extreme single‐year droughts during these events. Our results emphasize both the importance of preparing SWNA for imminent increases in persistent drought events and constraining projected precipitation uncertainty to better resolve future long‐term drought risk.
Organic Matter Chemistry Drives Carbon Dioxide Production of Peatlands
Authors: Normand A. E. , Turner B. L. , Lamit L. J. , Smith A. N. , Baiser B. , Clark M. W. , Hazlett C. , Kane E. S. , Lilleskov E. , Long J. R. , Grover S. P. , Reddy K. R.
Published: September 2021

Peatlands play a critical role in the global carbon (C) cycle, encompassing ∼30% of the 1,500 Pg of C stored in soils worldwide. However, this C is vulnerable to climate and land‐use change. Ecosystem models predict the impact of perturbation on C fluxes based on soil C pools, yet responses could vary markedly depending on soil organic matter (SOM) chemistry. Here, we show that one SOM functional group responds strongly to environmental factors and predicts the risk of carbon dioxide (CO2) release from peatlands. The molecular composition of SOM in 125 peatlands differed markedly at the global scale due to variation in temperature, land‐use, vegetation, and nutrient status. Despite this variation, incubation of peat from a subset of 11 sites revealed thatO‐alkyl C (i.e., carbohydrates) was the strongest predictor of aerobic CO2production. This explicit link provides a simple parameter that can improve models of peatland CO2fluxes.
Tropical Western Pacific Hydrology During the Last 6,000 Years Based on Wildfire Charcoal Records From Borneo
Authors: Yamamoto Masanobu , Kikuchi Takafumi , Sakurai Hiromichi , Hayashi Ryoma , Seki Osamu , Omori Takayuki , Sulaiman Abdullah , Shaari Hasrizal , Abdullah Mohd Zulhilmy , Melling Lulie
Published: September 2021

The forcing of multicentennial climate variability in the Western Pacific Warm Pool (WPWP) region is not fully understood. Here, we generated 6‐kyr‐long continuous charcoal records from five peatlands in Borneo. Every several hundred years, peaks of charcoal influx were identified in the composite record, indicating that the peatlands repeatedly experienced dry conditions and wildfires. Major fire events were identified at ∼5.4, 4.7, 4.4, 3.7, 3.2, 2.7, 2.4, 2.2, 1.7, 1.1, 0.6, and 0.3 ka. Most of these coincided with the maxima of Borneo speleothem δ18O and occurred in the high solar activity periods following the solar minima. This suggests that the higher solar activity decreased rainfall, increasing dryness and wildfire frequency. This result challenges the hypothesis that high solar activity intensifies atmospheric convection in the WPWP area.
Spatiotemporal Variations of Focal Mechanism and In Situ Vp/Vs Ratio During the 2018 Kīlauea Eruption
Authors: Lin Guoqing , Shearer Peter M.
Published: September 2021

We examine the spatiotemporal variations in seismic parameters corresponding to the 2018 Kīlauea eruption. We find that the summit area had mainly strike‐slip focal solutions prior to the eruption, whereas normal‐faulting was the predominant feature during the eruption, partially due to the collapse events. In contrast, the majority of the earthquakes in the central south flank had normal‐faulting solutions before December 2017, in agreement with the normal‐faulting of the Hilina Fault System, while there are more reverse solutions during the eruption. We also observe temporal variations in the estimated in situ ratios corresponding to the eruption, with increases in the summit and decreases in the East Rift Zone. The sustained low ratios below 4 km depth under the summit caldera may suggest persistent ascent of volatiles from the mantle. The low values in the East Rift Zone are probably associated with increased degassing.
Mineral Dust Coupled With Climate‐Carbon Cycle on Orbital Timescales Over the Past 4 Ma
Authors: Cao Mengmeng , Wang Zhixiang , Sui Yu , Li Yanzhen , Zhang Ze , Xiao Anguo , Zhang Rui , Kemp David B.
Published: September 2021

The behaviors between δ13Cbenthic and δ18Obenthic are anti‐phased after 6 Ma, and many mechanisms have been proposed to explain their behaviors. However, this question remains debated. Here, we reconstruct the interaction between mineral dust, global carbon cycle changes, and climate‐cryosphere system since 4 Ma. Our results suggest that Asian and/or global dust fluxes may have transported the signal of periodic Arctic ice sheet variability to the deep‐sea δ13Cbenthic record by mediating the strength of oceanic biological pumping. This can explain why δ13Cbenthic data show very similar orbital‐scale variability to δ18Obenthic changes controlled by Arctic ice sheet variability. A sharp increase in global dust fluxes after 1.6 Ma resulted in a significant weakening of the 405 kyr long eccentricity variance in δ13Cbenthic data. We propose that mineral dust may have been one of the most important factors controlling the anti‐phase relationship between δ13Cbenthic and δ18Obenthic over the past 6 million years.
Verrucomicrobiota are specialist consumers of sulfated methyl pentoses during diatom blooms
Authors: Orellana Luis H , Francis T Ben , Ferraro Marcela , Hehemann Jan-Hendrik , Fuchs Bernhard M , Amann Rudolf I
Published: September 2021

Marine algae annually sequester petagrams of carbon dioxide into polysaccharides, which are a central metabolic fuel for marine carbon cycling. Diatom microalgae produce sulfated polysaccharides containing methyl pentoses that are challenging to degrade for bacteria compared to other monomers, implicating these sugars as a potential carbon sink. Free-living bacteria occurring in phytoplankton blooms that specialise on consuming microalgal sugars, containing fucose and rhamnose remain unknown. Here, genomic and proteomic data indicate that small, coccoid, free-living Verrucomicrobiota specialise in fucose and rhamnose consumption during spring algal blooms in the North Sea. Verrucomicrobiota cell abundance was coupled with the algae bloom onset and accounted for up to 8% of the bacterioplankton. Glycoside hydrolases, sulfatases, and bacterial microcompartments, critical proteins for the consumption of fucosylated and sulfated polysaccharides, were actively expressed during consecutive spring bloom events. These specialised pathways were assigned to novel and discrete candidate species of the Akkermansiaceae and Puniceicoccaceae families, which we here describe as Candidatus Mariakkermansia forsetii and Candidatus Fucivorax forsetii. Moreover, our results suggest specialised metabolic pathways could determine the fate of complex polysaccharides consumed during algae blooms. Thus the sequestration of phytoplankton organic matter via methyl pentose sugars likely depend on the activity of specialised Verrucomicrobiota populations.
Absence of covert face valuation in Autism
Authors: Vinckier Fabien , Pessiglione Mathias , Forgeot d’Arc Baudouin
Published: September 2021

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition defined on clinical criteria related to diminished social reciprocity and stereotyped behavior. An influential view explains autism as a social motivation disorder characterized by less attention paid to the social environment and less pleasure experienced with social rewards. However, experimental attempts to validate this theory, by testing the impact of social reward on behavioral choice and brain activity, has yielded mixed results, possibly due to variations in how explicit instructions were about task goals. Here, we specified the putative motivation deficit as an absence of spontaneous valuation in the social domain, unexplained by inattention and correctible by explicit instruction. Since such deficit cannot be assessed with behavioral measures, we used functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to readout covert subjective values, assigned to social and nonsocial stimuli (faces and objects), either explicitly asked to participants (during a likeability judgment task) or not (during age or size estimation tasks). Value-related neural activity observed for objects, or for faces under explicit instructions, was very similar in autistic and control participants, with an activation peak in the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC), known as a key node of the brain valuation system. The only difference observed in autistic participants was an absence of the spontaneous valuation normally triggered by faces, even when they were attended for age estimation. Our findings, therefore, suggest that in autism, social stimuli might fail to trigger the automatic activation of the brain valuation system.
Functional comparison of MERS-coronavirus lineages reveals increased replicative fitness of the recombinant lineage 5
Authors: Schroeder Simon , Mache Christin , Kleine-Weber Hannah , Corman Victor M. , Muth Doreen , Richter Anja , Fatykhova Diana , Memish Ziad A. , Stanifer Megan L. , Boulant Steeve , Gultom Mitra , Dijkman Ronald , Eggeling Stephan , Hocke Andreas , Hippenstiel Stefan , Thiel Volker , Pöhlmann Stefan , Wolff Thorsten , Müller Marcel A. , Drosten Christian
Published: September 2021

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) is enzootic in dromedary camels across the Middle East and Africa. Virus-induced pneumonia in humans results from animal contact, with a potential for limited onward transmission. Phenotypic changes have been suspected after a novel recombinant clade (lineage 5) caused large nosocomial outbreaks in Saudi Arabia and South Korea in 2016. However, there has been no functional assessment. Here we perform a comprehensive in vitro and ex vivo comparison of viruses from parental and recombinant virus lineages (lineage 3, n = 7; lineage 4, n = 8; lineage 5, n = 9 viruses) from Saudi Arabia, isolated immediately before and after the shift toward lineage 5. Replication of lineage 5 viruses is significantly increased. Transcriptional profiling finds reduced induction of immune genes IFNB1, CCL5, and IFNL1 in lung cells infected with lineage 5 strains. Phenotypic differences may be determined by IFN antagonism based on experiments using IFN receptor knock out and signaling inhibition. Additionally, lineage 5 is more resilient against IFN pre-treatment of Calu-3 cells (ca. 10-fold difference in replication). This phenotypic change associated with lineage 5 has remained undiscovered by viral sequence surveillance, but may be a relevant indicator of pandemic potential.
Different historical generation intervals in human populations inferred from Neanderthal fragment lengths and mutation signatures
Authors: Coll Macià Moisès , Skov Laurits , Peter Benjamin Marco , Schierup Mikkel Heide
Published: September 2021

After the main Out-of-Africa event, humans interbred with Neanderthals leaving 1–2% of Neanderthal DNA scattered in small fragments in all non-African genomes today. Here we investigate what can be learned about human demographic processes from the size distribution of these fragments. We observe differences in fragment length across Eurasia with 12% longer fragments in East Asians than West Eurasians. Comparisons between extant populations with ancient samples show that these differences are caused by different rates of decay in length by recombination since the Neanderthal admixture. In concordance, we observe a strong correlation between the average fragment length and the mutation accumulation, similar to what is expected by changing the ages at reproduction as estimated from trio studies. Altogether, our results suggest differences in the generation interval across Eurasia, by up 10–20%, over the past 40,000 years. We use sex-specific mutation signatures to infer whether these changes were driven by shifts in either male or female age at reproduction, or both. We also find that previously reported variation in the mutational spectrum may be largely explained by changes to the generation interval. We conclude that Neanderthal fragment lengths provide unique insight into differences among human populations over recent history.
Ferroelectric phase-transition frustration near a tricritical composition point
Authors: Wei Xian-Kui , Prokhorenko Sergei , Wang Bi-Xia , Liu Zenghui , Xie Yu-Juan , Nahas Yousra , Jia Chun-Lin , Dunin-Borkowski Rafal E. , Mayer Joachim , Bellaiche Laurent , Ye Zuo-Guang
Published: September 2021

Phase transition describes a mutational behavior of matter states at a critical transition temperature or external field. Despite the phase-transition orders are well sorted by classic thermodynamic theory, ambiguous situations interposed between the first- and second-order transitions were exposed one after another. Here, we report discovery of phase-transition frustration near a tricritical composition point in ferroelectric Pb(Zr1-xTix)O3. Our multi-scale transmission electron microscopy characterization reveals a number of geometrically frustrated microstructure features such as self-assembled hierarchical domain structure, degeneracy of mesoscale domain tetragonality and decoupled polarization-strain relationship. Associated with deviation from the classic mean-field theory, dielectric critical exponent anomalies and temperature dependent birefringence data unveil that the frustrated transition order stems from intricate competition of short-range polar orders and their decoupling to long-range lattice deformation. With supports from effective Hamiltonian Monte Carlo simulations, our findings point out a potentially universal mechanism to comprehend the abnormal critical phenomena occurring in phase-transition materials.
Bio-inspired poly-DL-serine materials resist the foreign-body response
Authors: Zhang Donghui , Chen Qi , Bi Yufang , Zhang Haodong , Chen Minzhang , Wan Jianglin , Shi Chao , Zhang Wenjing , Zhang Junyu , Qiao Zhongqian , Li Jin , Chen Shengfu , Liu Runhui
Published: September 2021

Implantation-caused foreign-body response (FBR) is a commonly encountered issue and can result in failure of implants. The high L-serine content in low immunogenic silk sericin, and the high D-serine content as a neurotransmitter together inspire us to prepare poly-DL-serine (PSer) materials in mitigating the FBR. Here we report highly water soluble, biocompatible and easily accessible PSer hydrogels that cause negligible inflammatory response after subcutaneous implantation in mice for 1 week and 2 weeks. No obvious collagen capsulation is found surrounding the PSer hydrogels after 4 weeks, 3 months and 7 months post implantation. Histological analysis on inflammatory cytokines and RNA-seq assay both indicate that PSer hydrogels show low FBR, comparable to the Mock group. The anti-FBR performance of PSer hydrogels at all time points surpass the poly(ethyleneglycol) hydrogels that is widely utilized as bio-inert materials, implying the potent and wide application of PSer materials in implantable biomaterials and biomedical devices.
Genuine quantum networks with superposed tasks and addressing
Authors: Miguel-Ramiro J. , Pirker A. , Dür W.
Published: September 2021

We show how to make quantum networks, both standard and entanglement-based, genuine quantum by providing them with the possibility of handling superposed tasks and superposed addressing. This extension of their functionality relies on a quantum control register, which specifies not only the task of the network, but also the corresponding weights in a coherently superposed fashion. Although adding coherent control to classical tasks, such as sending or measuring—or not doing so—is in general impossible, we introduce protocols that are able to mimick this behavior under certain conditions. We achieve this by always performing the classical task, either on the desired state or a properly chosen dummy state. We provide several examples, and show that externally controlling quantum superposition of tasks offers additional possibilities and advantages over usually considered single functionality. For instance, superpositions of different target state configurations shared among different nodes of the network can be prepared, or quantum information can be sent among a superposition of different paths or to different destinations.