bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Carboniferous records of the
Zoophycos
group of trace fossils from England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the North Sea
Authors: McLean Duncan , Booth Matthew , Bodman David J. , McLean Finlay D.
Published: May 2020

The
Zoophycos
group of trace fossils is common in Carboniferous to recent marine strata and sediments, and is a common component of ichnofaunas in the Visean and Namurian stages of England and Wales. A review of new and published records indicates that it is often present in limestones and sandstones of Chadian to Arnsbergian age. Thereafter it is less common, and restricted to clastic rocks. There are no known records within Carboniferous strata above the lowest Westphalian. The form is most common and often abundant in limestones of the Yoredale facies in the upper Visean and lower Namurian stages of northern England, particularly so in northern Northumberland. Where detailed sedimentological data exist, they indicate that the organisms responsible for the
Zoophycos
group burrowed into unconsolidated carbonate substrate that was deposited under low accumulation rates, often affected by storm wave action and where seawater flow provided a nutrient supply. However, in mixed carbonate–clastic settings, the deep-tier nature of
Zoophycos
may indicate that the organism lived in overlying shallow-marine, clastic-dominated depositional environments and burrowed down into the carbonate substrate. The same may be true of siliciclastic depositional settings where the presence of
Zoophycos
in some sandstones may reflect the palaeoenvironment of the overlying, finer-grained transgressive marine (prodelta and distal mouth bar) deposits.

Supplementary material:
A spreadsheet with details of Carboniferous records of
Zoophycos
group fossils from England, Wales, the Isle of Man and the North Sea is available at
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.4994636
Developing 3D geological and hydrogeological models for the Low Level Waste Repository site, west Cumbria, UK
Authors: Coleman C.G. , Grimoldi E. , Woollard H. , Holton D. , Shevelan J.
Published: May 2020

This case study presents the recent development of new 3D geological models for the Low Level Waste Repository in Cumbria through the review of historical and new datasets. The site is located in an area of complex Late Pleistocene glacial geology and geomorphology, which control near-surface groundwater movement, and benefits from extensive historical site characterization data. This work emphasizes the value of a quality review of existing borehole records, drilling techniques and supplementary information to build a predictive geological model. The integration of different datasets has proved crucial to our understanding of the ground conditions, which are characterized by complex Quaternary sequences, and the depositional processes responsible for their formation. The updated geological interpretation suggests that the Low Level Waste Repository is located on a former ice-dammed lake plain. This is contrary to the previous interpretation of multiple and extensive till units in the area. Although the permeabilities may be similar in both interpretations, the extents may be different. Understanding the depositional processes and extent and the hydrogeological characteristics of the deposits is key to developing a hydrogeological model that is appropriate for the assessment of the environmental safety of the site, both now and into the future.

Thematic collection:
This article is part of the Ground models in engineering geology and hydrogeology collection available at:
https://www.lyellcollection.org/cc/Ground-models-in-engineering-geology-and-hydrogeology
Tectonic terranes underlying the present-day Caribbean plate: their tectonic origin, sedimentary thickness, subsidence histories and regional controls on hydrocarbon resources
Authors: Romito Sean , Mann Paul
Published: May 2020

Thick sedimentary cover (≤16 km), vintage seismic and disparate crustal terranes have hindered understanding of the basement underlying the Caribbean plate. The plate formed by Early Cretaceous to Miocene amalgamation of four crustal types: the Caribbean Large Igneous Province oceanic plateau; the Chortis continental block; the related Great Arc of the Caribbean and Siuna/Mesquito Composite Oceanic Terranes island arc blocks; and the Colombian and Venezuelan basin oceanic crust. We characterize each terrane through interpretation of surface geology, 62 000-line-km of 2D seismic reflection data, 366 seismic refraction stations, 47 wells, 74 basement samples, 2D forward modelling, magnetic and gravity anomaly grids, and integration of previous studies.

Basins overlying island arc crust are small, fault-bounded and deep, while on continental crust, they are broader and shallower. Strongly flexed oceanic and oceanic plateau crust along amagmatic subduction zones on the southern and northeastern edges of the Caribbean plate produce the largest and deepest sediment-filled basins.

Areas of proven hydrocarbon source rocks and mapped seeps are associated with continental and island arc terranes in the western Caribbean plate, while organically-rich, but immature, Late Cretaceous source rocks occur across the more elevated areas of the central and eastern Caribbean plate interior.
"It's easier than causing confrontation": Sanctioning Strategies to Maintain Social Norms and Privacy on Social Media
Authors: Rashidi Yasmeen , Kapadia Apu , Nippert-Eng Christena , Su Norman Makoto
Published: May 2020

Sanctions play an essential role in enforcing and sustaining social norms. On social networking sites (SNS), sanctions allow individuals to shape community norms on appropriate privacy respecting behaviors. Existing theories of privacy assume the use of such sanctions but do not examine the extent and effectiveness of sanctioning behaviors. We conducted a qualitative interview study of young adults (N=23), and extend research on collective boundary regulation by studying sanctions in the context of popular SNS. Through a systematization of sanctioning strategies, we find that young adults prefer to use indirect and invisible sanctions to preserve strong-tie relationships. Such sanctions are not always effective in helping the violator understand the nature of their normative violation. We offer suggestions on supporting online sanctioning that make norms more visible and signal violations in ways that avoid direct confrontation to reduce the risk of harming on-going social relationships.
Designing a Chatbot as a Mediator for Promoting Deep Self-Disclosure to a Real Mental Health Professional
Authors: Lee Yi-Chieh , Yamashita Naomi , Huang Yun
Published: May 2020

Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular. One promising application for chatbots is to elicit people's self-disclosure of their personal experiences, thoughts, and feelings. As receiving one's deep self-disclosure is critical for mental health professionals to understand people's mental status, chatbots show great potential in the mental health domain. However, there is a lack of research addressing if and how people self-disclose sensitive topics to a real mental health professional (MHP) through a chatbot. In this work, we designed, implemented and evaluated a chatbot that offered three chatting styles; we also conducted a study with 47 participants who were randomly assigned into three groups where each group experienced the chatbot's self-disclosure at varying levels respectively. After using the chatbot for a few weeks, participants were introduced to a MHP and were asked if they would like to share their self-disclosed content with the MHP. If they chose to share, the participants had the option of changing (adding, deleting, and editing) the content they self-disclosed to the chatbot. Comparing participants' self-disclosure data the week before and the week after sharing with the MHP, our results showed that, within each group, the depth of participants' self-disclosure to the chatbot remained after sharing with the MHP; participants exhibited deeper self-disclosure to the MHP through a more self-disclosing chatbot; further, through conversation log analysis, we found that some participants made different edits on their self-disclosed content before sharing it with the MHP. Participants' interview and survey feedback suggested an interaction between participants' trust in the chatbot and their trust in the MHP, which further explained participants' self-disclosure behavior.
Estimating Conversational Styles in Conversational Microtask Crowdsourcing
Authors: Qiu Sihang , Gadiraju Ujwal , Bozzon Alessandro
Published: May 2020

Crowdsourcing marketplaces have provided a large number of opportunities for online workers to earn a living. To improve satisfaction and engagement of such workers, who are vital for the sustainability of the marketplaces, recent works have used conversational interfaces to support the execution of a variety of crowdsourcing tasks. The rationale behind using conversational interfaces stems from the potential engagement that conversation can stimulate. Prior works in psychology have also shown that conversational styles can play an important role in communication. There are unexplored opportunities to estimate a worker's conversational style with an end goal of improving worker satisfaction, engagement and quality. Addressing this knowledge gap, we investigate the role of conversational styles in conversational microtask crowdsourcing. To this end, we design a conversational interface which supports task execution, and we propose methods to estimate the conversational style of a worker. Our experimental setup was designed to empirically observe how conversational styles of workers relate with quality-related outcomes. Results show that even a naive supervised classifier can predict the conversation style with high accuracy (80%), and crowd workers with an Involvement conversational style provided a significantly higher output quality, exhibited a higher user engagement and perceived less cognitive task load in comparison to their counterparts. Our findings have important implications on task design with respect to improving worker performance and their engagement in microtask crowdsourcing.
I Share, You Care: Private Status Sharing and Sender-Controlled Notifications in Mobile Instant Messaging
Authors: Cho Hyunsung , Oh Jinyoung , Kim Juho , Lee Sung-Ju
Published: May 2020

While mobile instant messaging (MIM) facilitates ubiquitous interpersonal communication, its constant connectivity could build the expectation of an immediate response to messages, and its notifications flood could cause interruptions at inopportune moments. We examine two design concepts for MIM-private status sharing and sender-controlled notifications-that aim to lower the pressure for an immediate reply and reduce unnecessary interruptions by untimely notifications. Private status sharing reactively reveals a customized status with a selected partner(s) only when the partner has sent a message. Sender-controlled notifications give senders the control of choosing whether to send a notification for their own messages. We built MyButler, an Android app prototype that instantiates these two concepts and integrated it with KakaoTalk, a commercial MIM app. During a two-week field study with 11 pairs (5 couples and 6 friend pairs), participants expressed themselves through a total of 210 different statuses, 64.3% of which indicated the current activity or task of the user. Participants reported that private status sharing enabled them to explain their unavailability and relieved the pressure and expectations for timely attendance. We reveal more findings on the types of privately shared statuses and their roles in MIM communication; the in-situ behaviors and patterns of using sender-controlled notifications; and the motivations of MIM users in choosing whether to alert their messages. In terms of message notifications, senders chose to send 25.4% of the messages without any notification. We found that senders' decisions to alert are affected by the receiver's status, their own status to chat, and the possibility of message content exposure to others through notifications. Based on our findings, we draw insights into how the concepts of private status sharing and sender-controlled notifications can be applied in future designs and explorations.
Stuck in the middle with you: The Transaction Costs of Corporate Employees Hiring Freelancers
Authors: Lustig Caitlin , Rintel Sean , Scult Liane , Suri Siddharth
Published: May 2020

Corporations are increasingly empowering employees to hire on-demand workers via freelance platforms. We interviewed full-time employees of a global technology company who hired freelancers as part of their job responsibilities. While there has been prior work describing freelancers' perspectives there has been little research on those that hire them, the "clients", especially in the corporate context. We found that while freelance platforms reduce many administrative burdens, there are number of conditions in which using freelance platforms in a corporate context creates high transaction costs and power asymmetries that make it difficult for clients to negotiate work rights and responsibilities. This leads corporate employee clients to feel "stuck in the middle" between their employer, the platform, and the freelancer. Ultimately, these transactions costs are a potential barrier to wider adoption. If corporations want to leverage the value of the freelance economy then better guardrails, guidelines, and perhaps even creative technology solutions will be needed.
Parallel Journeys of Patients with Cancer and Depression: Challenges and Opportunities for Technology-Enabled Collaborative Care
Authors: Suh Jina , Williams Spencer , Fann Jesse R. , Fogarty James , Bauer Amy M. , Hsieh Gary
Published: May 2020

Depression is common but under-treated in patients with cancer, despite being a major modifiable contributor to morbidity and early mortality. Integrating psychosocial care into cancer services through the team-based Collaborative Care Management (CoCM) model has been proven to be effective in improving patient outcomes in cancer centers. However, there is currently a gap in understanding the challenges that patients and their care team encounter in managing co-morbid cancer and depression in integrated psycho-oncology care settings. Our formative study examines the challenges and needs of CoCM in cancer settings with perspectives from patients, care managers, oncologists, psychiatrists, and administrators, with a focus on technology opportunities to support CoCM. We find that: (1) patients with co-morbid cancer and depression struggle to navigate between their cancer and psychosocial care journeys, and (2) conceptualizing co-morbidities as separate and independent care journeys is insufficient for characterizing this complex care context. We then propose the parallel journeys framework as a conceptual design framework for characterizing challenges that patients and their care team encounter when cancer and psychosocial care journeys interact. We use the challenges discovered through the lens of this framework to highlight and prioritize technology design opportunities for supporting whole-person care for patients with co-morbid cancer and depression.
Real-Time Interruption Management System for Efficient Distributed Collaboration in Multi-tasking Environments
Authors: Shivakumar Ashutosh , Bositty Aishwarya , Peters Nia S. , Pei Yong
Published: May 2020

Interruption dissemination in proactive systems remains a challenge for efficient human-machine collaboration, especially in real-time distributed collaborative environments. In this paper a real-time interruption management system (IMS) is proposed that leverages speech information, the most commonly used and available means of communication within collaborative distributed environments. The key aspect of this paper includes a proposed real-time IMS system that leverages lexical affirmation cues to infer the end of a task or task boundary as a candidate interruption time. The performance results show the proposed real-time lexical Affirmation Cues based Interruption Management System (ACE-IMS) outperforms the current baseline real-time IMS system within the existing literature. ACE-IMS has the potential of reducing disruptive interruptions without incurring excessive missed opportunities to disseminate interruptions by utilizing only the most frequently used mode of human communication: voice. Thereby, providing a promising new baseline to further the system development of real-time interruption management systems within the ever-growing distributed collaborative domain.
ImageSense: An Intelligent Collaborative Ideation Tool to Support Diverse Human-Computer Partnerships
Authors: Koch Janin , Taffin Nicolas , Beaudouin-Lafon Michel , Laine Markku , Lucero Andrés , Mackay Wendy E.
Published: May 2020

Professional designers create mood boards to explore, visualize, and communicate hard-to-express ideas. We present ImageCascade, an intelligent, collaborative ideation tool that combines individual and shared work spaces, as well as collaboration with multiple forms of intelligent agents. In the collection phase, ImageCascade offers fluid transitions between serendipitous discovery of curated images via ImageCascade, combined text- and image-based Semantic search, and intelligent AI suggestions for finding new images. For later composition and reflection, ImageCascade provides semantic labels, generated color palettes, and multiple tag clouds to help communicate the intent of the mood board. A study of nine professional designers revealed nuances in designers' preferences for designer-led, system-led, and mixed-initiative approaches that evolve throughout the design process. We discuss the challenges in creating effective human-computer partnerships for creative activities, and suggest directions for future research.
Emotional Amplification During Live-Streaming: Evidence from Comments During and After News Events
Authors: Luo Mufan , Hsu Tiffany W. , Park Joon Sung , Hancock Jeffrey T.
Published: May 2020

Live streaming services allow people to concurrently consume and comment on media events with other people in real time. Durkheim's theory of "collective effervescence" suggests that face-to-face encounters in ritual events conjure emotional arousal, so people often feel happier and more excited while watching events like the Super Bowl with family and friends through the television than if they were alone. Does a stronger emotional intensity also occur in live streaming? Using a large-scale dataset of comments posted to news and media events on YouTube, we address this question by examining emotional intensity in live comments versus those produced retrospectively. Results reveal that live comments are overall more emotionally intense than retrospective comments across all temporal periods and all event types examined. Findings support the emotional amplification hypothesis and provide preliminary evidence for shared attention theory in explaining the amplification effect. These findings have important implications for live streaming platforms to optimize resources for content moderation and to improve psychological well-being for content moderators, and more broadly as society grapples with using technology to stay connected during social distancing required by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Measuring Misinformation in Video Search Platforms: An Audit Study on YouTube
Authors: Hussein Eslam , Juneja Prerna , Mitra Tanushree
Published: May 2020

Search engines are the primary gateways of information. Yet, they do not take into account the credibility of search results. There is a growing concern that YouTube, the second largest search engine and the most popular video-sharing platform, has been promoting and recommending misinformative content for certain search topics. In this study, we audit YouTube to verify those claims. Our audit experiments investigate whether personalization (based on age, gender, geolocation, or watch history) contributes to amplifying misinformation. After shortlisting five popular topics known to contain misinformative content and compiling associated search queries representing them, we conduct two sets of audits-Search-and Watch-misinformative audits. Our audits resulted in a dataset of more than 56K videos compiled to link stance (whether promoting misinformation or not) with the personalization attribute audited. Our videos correspond to three major YouTube components: search results, Up-Next, and Top 5 recommendations. We find that demographics, such as, gender, age, and geolocation do not have a significant effect on amplifying misinformation in returned search results for users with brand new accounts. On the other hand, once a user develops a watch history, these attributes do affect the extent of misinformation recommended to them. Further analyses reveal a filter bubble effect, both in the Top 5 and Up-Next recommendations for all topics, except vaccine controversies; for these topics, watching videos that promote misinformation leads to more misinformative video recommendations. In conclusion, YouTube still has a long way to go to mitigate misinformation on its platform.
Successful Online Socialization: Lessons from the Wikipedia Education Program
Authors: Li Ang , Yao Zheng , Yang Diyi , Kulkarni Chinmay , Farzan Rosta , Kraut Robert E.
Published: May 2020

Attracting and retaining newcomers is critical and challenging for online production communities such as Wikipedia, both because volunteers need specialized training and are likely to leave before being integrated into the community. In response to these challenges, the Wikimedia Foundation started the Wiki Education Project (Wiki Ed), an online program in which college students edit Wikipedia articles as class assignments. The Wiki Ed program incorporates many components of institutional socialization, a process many conventional organizations successfully use to integrate new employees through formalized on-boarding practices. Research has not adequately investigated whether Wiki Ed and similar programs are effective ways to integrate volunteers in online communities, and, if so, the mechanisms involved. This paper evaluates the Wiki Ed program by comparing 16,819 student editors in 770 Wiki Ed classes with new editors who joined Wikipedia in the conventional way. The evaluation shows that the Wiki Ed students did more work, improved articles more, and were more committed to Wikipedia. For example, compared to new editors who joined Wikipedia in the conventional way they were twice as likely to still be editing Wikipedia a year after their Wiki Ed class was finished. Further, students in classrooms that encouraged joint activity, a key component of institutional socialization, produced better quality work than those in classrooms where students worked independently. These findings are consistent with an interpretation that the Wiki Ed program was successful because it incorporated elements of institutionalized socialization.
Data Analysts and Their Software Practices: A Profile of the Sabermetrics Community and Beyond
Authors: Middleton Justin , Murphy-Hill Emerson , Stolee Kathryn T.
Published: May 2020

For modern data analytics, practices from software development are increasingly necessary to manage data, but they must be incorporated alongside other statistical and scientific skills. Therefore, we ask: how does a community recontextualize software development through the unique pressures of their work? To answer this, we explore the analytic community around baseball, or sabermetrics. To discover software development's place in the search for robust statistical insight in sports, we interview 10 participants in the sabermetric community and survey over 120 more data analysts, both in baseball and not. We explore how their work lives at the intersection of science and entertainment, and as a consequence, baseball data serves as an accessible yet deep subject to practice analytic skills. Software development exists within an iterative research process that cycles between defining rigorous statistical methods and preserving the flexibility to chase interesting problems. In this question-driven process, members of the community inhabit several overlapping roles of intentional work, in which software development can become the priority to support research and statistical infrastructure, and we discuss the way that the community can foster the balance of these skills.
Toward a Grassroots Culture of Technology Practice
Authors: Ghoshal Sucheta , Mendhekar Rishma , Bruckman Amy
Published: May 2020

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) can support grassroots social movements toward greateroutreach and better day-to-day communication. In this paper, we present the results of action research with alarge-scale grassroots social movement, the Southern Movement Assembly (SMA), exploring their uses andperceptions of ICTs. We find that the ICTs chosen by the SMA are often at odds with their grassroots cultureof inclusion and participation-which results in inequitable sociotechnical realities within the movement. Forexample, people with technical skills gain more power as they start to control organizational processes. Astechnical skills are most commonly associated with racial, gender, and socioeconomic privileges, this leads toinequitable participation. We conclude by calling for a grassroots culture of technology practice rooted inanalyses of systemic exclusion with a continuous effort to center the marginalized voices and experienceswith technology.
How We've Taught Algorithms to See Identity: Constructing Race and Gender in Image Databases for Facial Analysis
Authors: Scheuerman Morgan Klaus , Wade Kandrea , Lustig Caitlin , Brubaker Jed R.
Published: May 2020

Race and gender have long sociopolitical histories of classification in technical infrastructures-from the passport to social media. Facial analysis technologies are particularly pertinent to understanding how identity is operationalized in new technical systems. What facial analysis technologies can do is determined by the data available to train and evaluate them with. In this study, we specifically focus on this data by examining how race and gender are defined and annotated in image databases used for facial analysis. We found that the majority of image databases rarely contain underlying source material for how those identities are defined. Further, when they are annotated with race and gender information, database authors rarely describe the process of annotation. Instead, classifications of race and gender are portrayed as insignificant, indisputable, and apolitical. We discuss the limitations of these approaches given the sociohistorical nature of race and gender. We posit that the lack of critical engagement with this nature renders databases opaque and less trustworthy. We conclude by encouraging database authors to address both the histories of classification inherently embedded into race and gender, as well as their positionality in embedding such classifications.
Using Cultural Probes in HCI4D/ICTD: A Design Case Study from Bungoma, Kenya
Authors: Wyche Susan
Published: May 2020

Cultural probes have long been used in HCI to provide designers with glimpses into the local cultures for which they are designing, and thereby inspire novel design proposals. HCI4D/ICTD researchers are increasingly interested in more deeply understanding local cultures in the developing regions where they work, in designing technologies that are not strictly related to socioeconomic development, and in considering new design approaches. However, few use this subjective, design-led method in their research. In this paper, I present a case study detailing my experience designing and deploying cultural probes in Bungoma, Kenya. Returns from my comment cards and digital camera activities draw attention to probe recipients' unique experiences and to Bungoma's distinctive characteristics; they also inspired a series of speculative design proposals. My experience motivates a discussion that elaborates on how a cultural probes approach can benefit HCI4D/ICTD research by raising questions about generalizability, objectivity, and the pursuit of a single solution in design. More broadly, I offer a case study demonstrating an alternative way to approach design in HCI4D/ICTD.
Exposing Error in Poverty Management Technology: A Method for Auditing Government Benefits Screening Tools
Authors: Escher Nel , Banovic Nikola
Published: May 2020

Public benefits programs help people afford necessities like food, housing, and healthcare. In the US, such programs are means-tested: applicants must complete long forms to prove financial distress before receiving aid. Online benefits screening tools provide a gloss of such forms, advising households about their eligibility prior to completing full applications. If incorrectly implemented, screening tools may discourage qualified households from applying for benefits. Unfortunately, errors in screening tools are difficult to detect because they surface one at a time and difficult to contest because unofficial determinations do not generate a paper trail. We introduce a method for auditing such tools in four steps: 1) generate test households, 2) automatically populate screening questions with household information and retrieve determinations, 3) translate eligibility guidelines into computer code to generate ground truth determinations, and 4) identify conflicting determinations to detect errors. We illustrated our method on a real screening tool with households modeled from census data. Our method exposed major errors with corresponding examples to reproduce them. Our work provides a necessary corrective to an already arduous benefits application process.
Human Factors in Model Interpretability: Industry Practices, Challenges, and Needs
Authors: Hong Sungsoo Ray , Hullman Jessica , Bertini Enrico
Published: May 2020

As the use of machine learning (ML) models in product development and data-driven decision-making processes became pervasive in many domains, people's focus on building a well-performing model has increasingly shifted to understanding how their model works. While scholarly interest in model interpretability has grown rapidly in research communities like HCI, ML, and beyond, little is known about how practitioners perceive and aim to provide interpretability in the context of their existing workflows. This lack of understanding of interpretability as practiced may prevent interpretability research from addressing important needs, or lead to unrealistic solutions. To bridge this gap, we conducted 22 semi-structured interviews with industry practitioners to understand how they conceive of and design for interpretability while they plan, build, and use their models. Based on a qualitative analysis of our results, we differentiate interpretability roles, processes, goals and strategies as they exist within organizations making heavy use of ML models. The characterization of interpretability work that emerges from our analysis suggests that model interpretability frequently involves cooperation and mental model comparison between people in different roles, often aimed at building trust not only between people and models but also between people within the organization. We present implications for design that discuss gaps between the interpretability challenges that practitioners face in their practice and approaches proposed in the literature, highlighting possible research directions that can better address real-world needs.
Understanding the Long-Term Evolution of Electric Taxi Networks
Authors: Wang Guang , Zhang Fan , Sun Huijun , Wang Yang , Zhang Desheng
Published: May 2020

Due to the ever-growing concerns over air pollution and energy security, more and more cities have started to replace their conventional taxi fleets with electric ones. Even though environmentally friendly, the rapid promotion of electric taxis raises problems to both taxi drivers and governments, e.g., prolonged waiting/charging time, unbalanced utilization of charging infrastructures, and inadequate taxi supply due to the long charging time. In this article, we conduct the first longitudinal measurement study to understand the long-term evolution of mobility and charging patterns by utilizing 5-year data from one of the largest electric taxi networks in the world, i.e., the Shenzhen electric taxi network in China. In particular, (1) we first perform an electric taxi contextualization about their operation and charging activities; (2) then we design a generic charging event extraction algorithm based on GPS data and charging station data, and (3) based on the contextualization and extracted charging activities, we perform a comprehensive measurement study called ePat to explore the evolution of the electric taxi network from the mobility and charging perspectives. Our ePat is based on 4.8 TB taxi GPS data, 240 GB taxi transaction data, and metadata from 117 charging stations, during an evolution process from 427 electric taxis in 2013 to 13,178 in 2018. Moreover, ePat also explores the impacts of various contexts and benefits during the evolution process. Our ePat as a comprehensive measurement of the electric taxi network mobility and charging evolution has the potential to advance the understanding of the evolution patterns of electric taxi networks and pave the way for analyzing future shared autonomous vehicles.
Anthropology and the Anthropocene: Criticisms, Experiments, and Collaborations
Authors: Mathews Andrew S.
Published: May 2020

The Anthropocene, a proposed name for a geological epoch marked by human impacts on global ecosystems, has inspired anthropologists to critique, to engage in theoretical and methodological experimentation, and to develop new forms of collaboration. Critics are concerned that the term Anthropocene overemphasizes human mastery or erases differential human responsibilities, including imperialism, capitalism, and racism, and new forms of technocratic governance. Others find the term helpful in drawing attention to disastrous environmental change, inspiring a reinvigorated attention to the ontological unruliness of the world, to multiple temporal scales, and to intertwined social and natural histories. New forms of noticing can be linked to systems analytics, including capitalist world systems, structural comparisons of patchy landscapes, infrastructures and ecological models, emerging sociotechnical assemblages, and spirits. Rather than a historical epoch defined by geologists, the Anthropocene is a problem that is pulling anthropologists into new forms of noticing and analysis, and into experiments and collaborations beyond anthropology.
The Search Theory of Over-the-Counter Markets
Authors: Weill Pierre-Olivier
Published: May 2020

I review the recent literature that applies search-and-matching theory to the study of over-the-counter financial markets. I formulate and solve a simple model to illustrate the typical assumptions and economic forces at play in existing work. I then offer thematic tours of the literature and, in the process, discuss avenues for future research.
A Model Developed for Predicting Uniformity of Kyphoplasty Balloon Wall Thickness Based on the Orthogonal Test
Authors: Dai Guanghui , Zhang Qingqing , Jin Guobao
Published: May 2020

In order to optimize the wall thickness distribution of medical balloon, kyphoplasty balloon was chosen as the research object, the uniformity of wall thickness distribution was taken as the evaluation index, and the influence of stretch blow molding process on the uniformity of kyphoplasty balloon was investigated. In this paper, 16 sets of orthogonal test schemes were studied by selecting four main parameters such as forming temperature, forming pressure, stretching distance, and holding time of stretch blow molding process based on the L16(44) Taguchi method orthogonal table. The statistical analysis showed that the forming temperature was an utmost parameter on the uniformity, while an optimal scheme was obtained and an optimal balloon with the uniformity of 95.86% was formed under the scheme. To further quantify the relationship between the uniformity and the parameters, artificial neural network (ANN) and nonlinear regression (NLR) models were developed to predict the uniformity of the balloon based on orthogonal test results. A feed‐forward neural network based on backpropagation (BP) was made up of 4 input neurons, 11 hidden neurons, and one output neuron, an objective function of the NLR model was developed using second‐order polynomial, and the BFGS method was used to solve the function. Adequacy of models was tested using hypothesis tests, and their performances were evaluated using the R2 value. Results show that both predictive models can be used for predicting the uniformity of the balloon with a higher reliability. However, the NLR model showed a slightly better performance than the ANN model.
Its2vec: Fungal Species Identification Using Sequence Embedding and Random Forest Classification
Authors: Wang Chao , Zhang Ying , Han Shuguang
Published: May 2020

Fungi play essential roles in many ecological processes, and taxonomic classification is fundamental for microbial community characterization and vital for the study and preservation of fungal biodiversity. To cope with massive fungal barcode data, tools that can implement extensive volumes of barcode sequences, especially the internal transcribed spacer (ITS) region, are necessary. However, high variation in the ITS region and computational requirements for processing high‐dimensional features remain challenging for existing predictors. In this study, we developed Its2vec, a bioinformatics tool for the classification of fungal ITS barcodes to the species level. An ITS database covering more than 25,000 species in a broad range of fungal taxa was assembled. For dimensionality reduction, a word embedding algorithm was used to represent an ITS sequence as a dense low‐dimensional vector. A random forest‐based classifier was built for species identification. Benchmarking results showed that our model achieved an accuracy comparable to that of several state‐of‐the‐art predictors, and more importantly, it could implement large datasets and greatly reduce dimensionality. We expect the Its2vec model to be helpful for fungal species identification and, thus, for revealing microbial community structures and in deepening our understanding of their functional mechanisms.
High Plasma Levels of Soluble Talin-1 in Patients with Coronary Artery Disease
Authors: Aoyama Masayuki , Kishimoto Yoshimi , Saita Emi , Ikegami Yukinori , Ohmori Reiko , Nakamura Masato , Kondo Kazuo , Momiyama Yukihiko
Published: May 2020

Aims. Talin-1 is a cytoskeletal protein that binds integrin, thereby leading to integrin activation and affecting focal adhesions. Recently, talin-1 expression was reported to be downregulated in human atherosclerotic plaques. However, blood levels of soluble talin-1 (sTalin-1) in patients with atherosclerotic disease, such as coronary artery disease (CAD), have not been elucidated. Methods. We measured plasma sTalin-1 levels in 349 patients undergoing elective coronary angiography. The severity of CAD was represented as the number of stenotic coronary vessels and segments. Results. Of the 349 study patients, CAD was found in 194 patients, of whom 88 had 1-vessel disease (1-VD), 60 had 2-vessel disease (2-VD), and 46 had 3-vessel disease (3-VD). Plasma sTalin-1 levels were higher in 194 patients with CAD than in 155 without CAD (CAD(-) group) (median 0.30 vs. 0.23 ng/mL, P<0.005). A stepwise increase in sTalin-1 levels was found depending on the number of >50% stenotic coronary vessels: 0.23 in CAD(-), 0.29 in 1-VD, 0.30 in 2-VD, and 0.32 ng/mL in 3-VD group, respectively, (P<0.05). High sTalin-1 level (>0.28 ng/mL) was found in 36% of CAD(-), 51% of 1-VD, 53% of 2-VD, and 59% of 3-VD group (P<0.025). sTalin-1 levels also correlated with the number of >50% stenotic segments (r=0.14, P<0.02). The multivariate analysis revealed that sTalin-1 levels were independently associated with CAD. The odds ratio for CAD was 1.83 (95%CI=1.14−2.93) for high sTalin-1 level (>0.28 ng/mL) (P<0.02). Conclusions. Plasma sTalin-1 levels in patients with CAD were found to be high and to be associated with the presence and severity of CAD, suggesting a role of sTalin-1 in the progression of coronary atherosclerosis.
Study of the Stability Control of Rock Surrounding Longwall Recovery Roadways in Shallow Seams
Authors: Zhu Cheng , Yuan Yong , Chen Zhongshun , Meng Chaogui , Wang Shengzhi
Published: May 2020

The rock pressure appearance of longwall faces in shallow seams is generally violent, and roofs and supports are susceptible to damage during equipment extraction. Stability control of the rock surrounding longwall recovery roadways allows safe and rapid equipment extraction. Herein, via theoretical analysis, numerical simulations, and field observations, the stability control of the rock surrounding recovery roadways is studied to ensure the release of the accumulated rock pressure on the roof, the working resistance of the supports and the reasonableness of the recovery roadway support design. Pressure-relief technology is introduced to release the accumulated rock pressure before equipment extraction, and a discriminative approach is proposed to determine the breaking and articulated forms of key strata and broken blocks, respectively. On this basis, mechanical models of roof instability are established based on four key stratum structures in the overburden of shallow seams. Methods for calculating a reasonable working resistance for supports are discussed. Finally, Liangshuijing Coal Mine and Fengjiata Coal Mine are taken as research objects to evaluate the roof stability of recovery roadways based on observations of weighting characteristics. The support working resistances and reasonable recovery roadway widths under three key stratum structures are determined. Considering the time effect of plastic zone development, the support design of recovery roadways is optimized. FLAC2D software simulates the surrounding rock control effect of two support designs, and roof subsidence curves are obtained. The results show that the key to equipment extraction in shallow seams is to ensure that supports have reasonable working resistances and to improve the support of recovery roadways. The results provide a reference for the selection and extraction of supports in shallow seam faces.
A Modified Preparation of Cellulosic‐Absorbent Resin for Cu2+ Removal under Microwave Irradiation
Authors: Shu Jing , Zhao Dabiao , Li Lili
Published: May 2020

The absorbent resin for Cu2+ removal was prepared under microwave irradiation through grafting acrylamide (AM) and acrylic acid (AA) to cellulose. The initiator is a kind of redox system composed of potassium persulfate/sodium thiosulfate. The crosslinking agent is N,N′‐methylene bisacrylamide. The optimal reaction conditions are as follows: the ratio of AA to cellulose is 10 : 1, initiator to AA is 0.65 wt%, crosslinking agent to AA is 1.0 wt%, neutralization degree of AA is 75%, microwave power level is 320 W, and time is 300 s. The maximum absorption capability of the resin is 65 mg·g−1. Different from previous studies, the reaction was carried out without the protection of nitrogen and troublesome posttreatment. The product was obtained directly by one‐step synthesis without purification and drying of the crude product. The pollution and cost caused by organic solvent are avoided, and the whole preparation period is shortened deeply. Moreover, the time of absorption equilibrium is shorter. In a word, the preparation in this paper has the obvious advantages, such as simple process, short time, no pollution, low‐energy, and low‐cost.
Mitochondria Participate in Chemoresistance to Cisplatin in Human Ovarian Cancer Cells
Authors: Zampieri Luca X. , Grasso Debora , Bouzin Caroline , Brusa Davide , Rossignol Rodrigue , Sonveaux Pierre
Published: May 2020

Ovarian cancer is an aggressive disease that affects about 300,000 patients worldwide, with a yearly death count of about 185,000. Following surgery, treatment involves adjuvant or neoadjuvant administration of taxane with platinum compounds cisplatin or carboplatin, which alkylate DNA through the same chemical intermediates. However, although platinum-based therapy can cure patients in a number of cases, a majority of them discontinues treatment owing to side effects and to the emergence of resistance. In this study, we focused on resistance to cisplatin and investigated whether metabolic changes could be involved. As models, we used matched pairs of cisplatin-sensitive (SKOV-3 and COV-362) and cisplatin-resistant (SKOV-3-R and COV-362-R) human ovarian carcinoma cells that were selected in vitro following exposure to increasing doses of the chemotherapy. Metabolic comparison revealed that resistant cells undergo a shift toward a more oxidative metabolism. The shift goes along with a reorganization of the mitochondrial network, with a generally increased mitochondrial compartment. More functional mitochondria in cisplatin-resistant compared with cisplatin-sensitive cells were associated to enzymatic changes affecting either the electron transport chain (SKOV-3/SKOV-3-R model) or mitochondrial coupling (COV-362/COV-362-R model). Our findings further indicate that the preservation of functional mitochondria in these cells could be due to an increased mitochondrial turnover rate, suggesting mitophagy inhibition as a potential strategy to tackle cisplatin-resistant human ovarian cancer progression.

Implications:

Besides classical mechanisms related to drug efflux and target modification, we report that preserving functional mitochondria is a strategy used by human ovarian cancer cells to resist to cisplatin chemotherapy.
How to Reduce the Potential Harmful Effects of Light on Blastocyst Development during IVF
Authors: Bódis József , Gödöny Krisztina , Várnagy Ákos , Kovács Kálmán , Koppán Miklós , Nagy Bernadett , Erostyák János , Herczeg Róbert , Szekeres-Barthó Julia , Gyenesei Attila , Kovács Gabor L.
Published: May 2020

Purpose: Earlier findings revealed the damaging effect of visible light on zygotes and gametes. The aim of our study is to eliminate or significantly reduce the potentially harmful effects of light exposure during in vitro fertilization (IVF) or intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) and to investigate the effect of light protection on embryo development and implantation. Materials and Methods: To protect sperm cells, oocytes, and embryos from the potential harmful effects of light exposure during laboratory procedures, we created a dark environment for the cells and applied red filters on laboratory lamps and UV or infrared filters in the microscopes in order to eliminate white light exposure of the cells throughout all work stages. Results: The fertilization rate was significantly (p = 0.011) higher in light-protected ICSI cycles. Blastocyst development rates (blastocyst/embryo) were significantly (p < 0.001) higher in light-protected embryos than in those manipulated in conventional light conditions both in IVF (20.9% difference) and ICSI (38.6% difference). Numbers of clinical pregnancies/transfers of ICSI fertilized day 5 blastocysts were also significantly (p = 0.040) higher in light-protected conditions. Conclusions: These data show that light protection has a positive effect on fertilization rate and increases the blastocyst development as well as the number of clinical pregnancies/transfers. Implementation of this light protection method in IVF centers may improve the success rate while maintaining maximal embryo safety.