bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Lean and agile software process improvement in traditional and agile environments
Authors: Poth Alexander , Sasabe Susumu , Mas Antònia , Mesquida Antoni‐Lluís 
Published: August 2018

AbstractThe culture of traditional organizations favors firmly established processes and standardization. Therefore, the adoption of Agile and Lean approaches in these organizations is a challenging issue. This paper presents an overview and outlook of the most well‐known Agile and Lean approaches in order to identify which kind of continuous software process improvement (SPI) is inherent in these approaches. The main objective of this research is to show that Lean and Agile SPI approaches can be pursued depending on the target environment, both in traditional and in agile organizations.
A new radiodont (stem Euarthropoda) frontal appendage with a mosaic of characters from the Cambrian (Series 2 Stage 3) Chengjiang biota
Authors: Guo Jin , Pates Stephen , Cong Peiyun , Daley Allison C. , Edgecombe Gregory D. , Chen Taimin , Hou Xianguang 
Published: August 2018

AbstractThe classification of Radiodonta is primarily based on the morphology of their frontal appendages, a main feeding structure of this iconic group of mostly Cambrian stem‐group euarthropods. However, recent progress in the description and revision of radiodont taxa, particularly drawing on their frontal appendages, has exposed morphological variation that challenges reliable identification of higher‐level groupings. Here we describe a new taxon of Radiodonta, Laminacaris chimera gen. et sp. nov., from the Cambrian Series 2, Stage 3, Chengjiang biota of China, based on its unique frontal appendage morphology. Laminacaris is distinctive for its combination of characters shared by hurdiids and other early Cambrian radiodont families. Elongated, possibly unpaired endites on two proximal podomeres that bear small distally‐directed auxiliary spines oriented perpendicular to the long axis of the endite, are comparable with the elongated endites and their auxiliary spines of all known Cambrian members of Hurdiidae. In contrast, endites on more distal podomeres are similar to some species of Anomalocaris, and the dorsal spines at the distal end resemble those of Amplectobelua. The mosaic characters in the frontal appendage of Laminacaris chimera may capture morphology close to the divergence between the major radiodont groups.
The intelligent solution: automation, the skills shortage and cyber-security
Authors: Smith Graham 
Published: August 2018

A Las Vegas hacking event in 2016, the Cyber Grand Challenge, was the ultimate – and only – all-machine hacking competition. 1 Each machine identified software vulnerabilities, exploited them and patched their own systems to protect against threats – all without the intervention of a human programmer. Could this be the future of information security? And in particular, could it address the infamous skills shortage? The lack of security skills in the IT industry is in part because professionals in this field work long hours and require patience, resources, knowledge and experience Unfortunately, the cyber-security talent pool simply isn't wide enough to meet these needs. Graham Smith of Curo Talent discusses how AI and automation might relieve some of the pressure, automating the longwinded and repetitive tasks that are currently filling the workflows of IT teams, such as testing, basis threat analysis and data deception tactics.
Get the full e-signature picture to avoid falling foul of the law
Authors: Crook Sam 
Published: August 2018

Companies initiate e-signature projects for a variety of reasons. For some it is to improve document security, for others it is about speeding up the contract signing process, improving efficiency or cutting costs. These are tangible, easy-to-quantify benefits that resonate strongly with business leaders. Companies initiate e-signature projects for a variety of reasons. For some it is to improve document security, for others it is about speeding up the contract-signing process, improving efficiency or cutting costs for the business. These are tangible, easy-to-quantify benefits that resonate strongly with business leaders. Against a background of regulatory change, however, it is the part that e-signatures play in the management of data governance strategies, meeting compliance and reducing risk that makes them an essential tool in the corporate armoury, argues Sam Crook of Ascertia.
Is vaccinating monkeys against yellow fever the ultimate solution for the Brazilian recurrent epizootics?
Authors: Massad Eduardo , Miguel Mônica Manir , Coutinho Francisco Antonio Bezerra 
Published: August 2018

AbstractVaccinating monkeys against yellow fever (YF) has been a common practice in the beginning of the 17D vaccine development. Although it may seem strange at first sight, vaccinating monkeys as a public health strategy is, we think, feasible and theoretically could eliminate the infection among non-human primates, interrupting the virus circulation (or significantly reducing it) and therefore reducing the risk of spilling over to the human population. We propose a series of studies that could demonstrate (or not) the efficacy and feasibility of vaccinating non-human primates YF reservoirs living in green areas of urban centres to cut off or curb the virus circulation that recurrently spill over to the human population. Therefore, vaccinating monkeys in relatively small green areas of the urban centres is perhaps the ultimate solution for the Brazilian recurrent YF epizootics.
U‐Shaped Spectrograms Registered by the DEMETER Satellite: Observational Features and Formation Mechanism
Authors: Shklyar D. R. , Parrot M. , Titova E. E. 
Published: August 2018

AbstractU‐shaped spectrograms observed by the DEMETER satellite in the equatorial region of the upper ionosphere are presented and explained for the first time. These spectra are characterized by the latitude‐dependent upper cutoff frequency that increases with the latitude during nighttime. The observations suggest that this very low frequency wave phenomenon is closely connected with the anomalous increase in cold plasma density at and below the satellite. We show that restricting the analysis to propagation effects is insufficient to explain U‐shaped spectra, and other effects, in particular, the collisional wave damping should be taken into consideration. To calculate the wave damping, we use the method of successive approximations. In the first approximation, we calculate the ray trajectory and the wave normal vector along it, using the equations of geometrical optics neglecting collisions. In the second approximation we calculate the collisional wave damping along the precalculated trajectory. We show that the effects of very low frequency wave propagation and attenuation in the equatorial region of the upper ionosphere explain the main features of the phenomenon under discussion.
Determining Plasmaspheric Densities from Observations of Plasmaspheric Hiss
Authors: Hartley D. P. , Kletzing C. A. , De Pascuale S. , Kurth W. S. , Santolík O. 
Published: August 2018

AbstractA new method of inferring electron plasma densities inside of the plasmasphere is presented. Utilizing observations of the electric and magnetic field wave power associated with plasmaspheric hiss, coupled with the cold plasma dispersion relation, permits calculation of the plasma density. This methodology yields a density estimate for each frequency channel and time interval where plasmaspheric hiss is observed and is shown to yield results that are generally in agreement with densities determined via other methods. A statistical calibration is performed against the density from the upper hybrid line, accounting for both systematic offsets and distribution scatter in the hiss‐inferred densities. This calculation and calibration methodology provides accurate density estimates, both statistically and for individual events. These calibrated calculated densities are not subject to the same upper limit as densities inferred via other methodologies, thus permitting density estimates to be extended to lower L shells. This is of particular interest given that fpe/fce ratios indicate favorable conditions for efficient pitch‐angle and energy diffusion in this region. Since hiss is almost always observable inside of the plasmasphere, the hiss‐inferred densities are available for the majority of time periods, with 79% data coverage for L < 4. This compares to 33–37% data coverage for other methods of inferring plasma densities. Due to the high‐accuracy of these hiss‐inferred densities and their plentiful availability, this methodology provides a viable alternative of calculating event‐specific densities, and therefore diffusion coefficients, as opposed to relying on empirical models for periods when densities from other sources are not available.
Seismic Dispersion and Attenuation in Saturated Porous Rock With Aligned Slit Cracks
Authors: Fu Bo‐Ye , Guo Junxin , Fu Li‐Yun , Glubokovskikh Stanislav , Galvin Robert J. , Gurevich Boris 
Published: August 2018

AbstractWe estimate the seismic attenuation and velocity dispersion induced by fluid pressure diffusion in a saturated porous medium containing a sparse distribution of aligned slit fractures. This is done by solving the scattering problem for a single crack and using Waterman‐Truell scattering approximation for a distribution of cracks. This approach gives a numerical solution for the entire frequency range and analytical solutions for the low‐ and high‐frequency limits. Analysis of the results shows that the characteristics of the seismic dispersion and attenuation for the slit cracks are similar to known results for penny‐shaped crack. At high frequencies, the attenuation and dispersion are controlled by the crack density regardless of the crack geometry. At low frequencies, due to the different geometries of the slit and penny‐shaped cracks, the characteristics of seismic dispersion and attenuation are different. For both the slit and penny‐shaped crack case, the slope of the frequency dependence attenuation of factor (inverse quality factor) Q−1 tends to be 1. Yet the low‐frequency asymptotic solutions for these two cases are somewhat different. For penny‐shaped cracks, the Q−1(ω) on the bilogarithmic scale has a straight line asymptote with slope 1, so that the attenuation factor at low frequencies is proportional to the frequency ω. However, for slit cracks, the asymptotic low‐frequency solution contains a logarithmic function of ω, and no such asymptote exists. At the same time, similarly to the penny‐shaped crack case, the solution for compressional velocity in the low‐frequency limit is consistent with the anisotropic Gassmann theory.
Ice Loss From the Interior of Small Airless Bodies According to an Idealized Model
Authors: Schörghofer Norbert , Hsieh Henry H. 
Published: August 2018

AbstractIce in main belt asteroids and near‐Earth objects is of scientific and resource exploration interest, but small airless bodies gradually lose their ice to space by outward diffusion. Here we quantitatively estimate the time it takes a porous airless body to lose all of its interior ice, based on an analytic solution for the interior temperature field of bodies in stable orbits. Without latent heat, the average surface temperature, which is lower than the classic effective temperature, is representative of the body interior and hence an appropriate temperature to evaluate desiccation timescales. In a spherically averaged model, an explicit analytic solution is obtained for the depth to ice as a function of time and the time to complete desiccation. Half of the ice volume is lost after 11% of this time. A bilobate structure emerges from the strong latitude dependence of desiccation rates. Cold polar regions can harbor subsurface ice, even when the body center does not. Latent heat retards ice loss, and we obtain a succinct expression for the temperature difference between the surface and the ice. In the outer main belt, nearly all bodies 10 km in size or larger should have been able to retain ice in their interiors over the age of the solar system. Each of the following factors favors the presence of ice inside near‐Earth objects: a semimajor axis in the outer belt or beyond, a mantle of very low thermal inertia, a young age, or a small and stable axis tilt.
Wnt pathway is involved in 5-FU drug resistance of colorectal cancer cells
Authors: He Lingfeng , Zhu Hong , Zhou Shiying , Wu Ting , Wu Huan , Yang Huan , Mao Huiwen , SekharKathera Chandra , Janardhan Avilala , Edick Ashlin M. , Zhang Anna , Hu Zhigang , Pan Feiyan , Guo Zhigang 
Published: August 2018

AbstractColorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the leading causes of cancer-related death worldwide. 5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is widely used in the treatment of cancers, but its antineoplastic activity is limited in drug-resistant cancer cells. To investigate the detailed mechanism of 5-FU resistance, we developed a model of 5-FU-resistant cells from HCT-8 cells, a well-established colorectal cancer cell line. We found that the drug-resistant cells demonstrated high expression of TCF4 and β-catenin, indicating an upregulated Wnt pathway. A microarray analysis revealed that the suppression of the checkpoint kinase 1 (CHK1) pathway explained the resistance to 5-FU, especially in p53 wild-type cancer cells such as HCT-8. Our data also demonstrated that the CHK1 pathway is suppressed by the Wnt pathway in 5-FU-resistant cells. In summary, we have discovered a novel mechanism for 5-FU resistance mediated by histone deacetylation, which also revealed the crosstalk between the Wnt pathway and CHK1 pathway.
Efficient non-Markovian quantum dynamics using time-evolving matrix product operators
Authors: Strathearn A. , Kirton P. , Kilda D. , Keeling J. , Lovett B. W. 
Published: August 2018

AbstractIn order to model realistic quantum devices it is necessary to simulate quantum systems strongly coupled to their environment. To date, most understanding of open quantum systems is restricted either to weak system–bath couplings or to special cases where specific numerical techniques become effective. Here we present a general and yet exact numerical approach that efficiently describes the time evolution of a quantum system coupled to a non-Markovian harmonic environment. Our method relies on expressing the system state and its propagator as a matrix product state and operator, respectively, and using a singular value decomposition to compress the description of the state as time evolves. We demonstrate the power and flexibility of our approach by numerically identifying the localisation transition of the Ohmic spin-boson model, and considering a model with widely separated environmental timescales arising for a pair of spins embedded in a common environment.
Parasitoid biology preserved in mineralized fossils
Authors: van de Kamp Thomas , Schwermann Achim H. , dos Santos Rolo Tomy , Lösel Philipp D. , Engler Thomas , Etter Walter , Faragó Tomáš , Göttlicher Jörg , Heuveline Vincent , Kopmann Andreas , Mähler Bastian , Mörs Thomas , Odar Janes , Rust Jes , Tan Jerome Nicholas , Vogelgesang Matthias , Baumbach Tilo , Krogmann Lars 
Published: August 2018

AbstractAbout 50% of all animal species are considered parasites. The linkage of species diversity to a parasitic lifestyle is especially evident in the insect order Hymenoptera. However, fossil evidence for host–parasitoid interactions is extremely rare, rendering hypotheses on the evolution of parasitism assumptive. Here, using high-throughput synchrotron X-ray microtomography, we examine 1510 phosphatized fly pupae from the Paleogene of France and identify 55 parasitation events by four wasp species, providing morphological and ecological data. All species developed as solitary endoparasitoids inside their hosts and exhibit different morphological adaptations for exploiting the same hosts in one habitat. Our results allow systematic and ecological placement of four distinct endoparasitoids in the Paleogene and highlight the need to investigate ecological data preserved in the fossil record.
Sequences of purchases in credit card data reveal lifestyles in urban populations
Authors: Di Clemente Riccardo , Luengo-Oroz Miguel , Travizano Matias , Xu Sharon , Vaitla Bapu , González Marta C. 
Published: August 2018

AbstractZipf-like distributions characterize a wide set of phenomena in physics, biology, economics, and social sciences. In human activities, Zipf's law describes, for example, the frequency of appearance of words in a text or the purchase types in shopping patterns. In the latter, the uneven distribution of transaction types is bound with the temporal sequences of purchases of individual choices. In this work, we define a framework using a text compression technique on the sequences of credit card purchases to detect ubiquitous patterns of collective behavior. Clustering the consumers by their similarity in purchase sequences, we detect five consumer groups. Remarkably, post checking, individuals in each group are also similar in their age, total expenditure, gender, and the diversity of their social and mobility networks extracted from their mobile phone records. By properly deconstructing transaction data with Zipf-like distributions, this method uncovers sets of significant sequences that reveal insights on collective human behavior.
A proline switch explains kinetic heterogeneity in a coupled folding and binding reaction
Authors: Zosel Franziska , Mercadante Davide , Nettels Daniel , Schuler Benjamin 
Published: August 2018

AbstractThe interactions of intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) with their molecular targets are essential for the regulation of many cellular processes. IDPs can perform their functions while disordered, and they may fold to structured conformations on binding. Here we show that the cis/trans isomerization of peptidyl−prolyl bonds can have a pronounced effect on the interactions of IDPs. By single-molecule spectroscopy, we identify a conserved proline residue in NCBD (the nuclear-coactivator binding domain of CBP) whose cis/trans isomerization in the unbound state modulates the association and dissociation rates with its binding partner, ACTR. As a result, NCBD switches on a time scale of tens of seconds between two populations that differ in their affinities to ACTR by about an order of magnitude. Molecular dynamics simulations indicate as a cause reduced packing of the complex for the cis isomer. Peptidyl-prolyl cis/trans isomerization may be an important previously unidentified mechanism for regulating IDP interactions.
The structure of the ubiquitin-like modifier FAT10 reveals an alternative targeting mechanism for proteasomal degradation
Authors: Aichem Annette , Anders Samira , Catone Nicola , Rößler Philip , Stotz Sophie , Berg Andrej , Schwab Ricarda , Scheuermann Sophia , Bialas Johanna , Schütz-Stoffregen Mira C. , Schmidtke Gunter , Peter Christine , Groettrup Marcus , Wiesner Silke 
Published: August 2018

AbstractFAT10 is a ubiquitin-like modifier that directly targets proteins for proteasomal degradation. Here, we report the high-resolution structures of the two individual ubiquitin-like domains (UBD) of FAT10 that are joined by a flexible linker. While the UBDs of FAT10 show the typical ubiquitin-fold, their surfaces are entirely different from each other and from ubiquitin explaining their unique binding specificities. Deletion of the linker abrogates FAT10-conjugation while its mutation blocks auto-FAT10ylation of the FAT10-conjugating enzyme USE1 but not bulk conjugate formation. FAT10- but not ubiquitin-mediated degradation is independent of the segregase VCP/p97 in the presence but not the absence of FAT10’s unstructured N-terminal heptapeptide. Stabilization of the FAT10 UBDs strongly decelerates degradation suggesting that the intrinsic instability of FAT10 together with its disordered N-terminus enables the rapid, joint degradation of FAT10 and its substrates without the need for FAT10 de-conjugation and partial substrate unfolding.
Evolution of the Kondo lattice and non-Fermi liquid excitations in a heavy-fermion metal
Authors: Seiro S. , Jiao L. , Kirchner S. , Hartmann S. , Friedemann S. , Krellner C. , Geibel C. , Si Q. , Steglich F. , Wirth S. 
Published: August 2018

AbstractStrong electron correlations can give rise to extraordinary properties of metals with renormalized Landau quasiparticles. Near a quantum critical point, these quasiparticles can be destroyed and non-Fermi liquid behavior ensues. YbRh2Si2 is a prototypical correlated metal exhibiting the formation of quasiparticle and Kondo lattice coherence, as well as quasiparticle destruction at a field-induced quantum critical point. Here we show how, upon lowering the temperature, Kondo lattice coherence develops at zero field and finally gives way to non-Fermi liquid electronic excitations. By measuring the single-particle excitations through scanning tunneling spectroscopy, we find the Kondo lattice peak displays a non-trivial temperature dependence with a strong increase around 3.3 K. At 0.3 K and with applied magnetic field, the width of this peak is minimized in the quantum critical regime. Our results demonstrate that the lattice Kondo correlations have to be sufficiently developed before quantum criticality can set in.
Direct writing of anodic oxides for plastic electronics
Authors: Siket Christian Michael , Tillner Nadine , Mardare Andrei Ionut , Reuveny Amir , Grill Carina Daniela , Hartmann Florian , Kettlgruber Gerald , Moser Richard , Kollender Jan Philipp , Someya Takao , Hassel Achim Walter , Kaltenbrunner Martin , Bauer Siegfried 
Published: August 2018

AbstractMetal oxide thin films for soft and flexible electronics require low cost, room temperature fabrication, and structuring processes. We here introduce an anodic printing process to realize the essential building blocks of electronic circuitry, including resistors, capacitors, field-effect transistors, diodes, rectifiers, and memristors directly on imperceptible plastic substrates. Largely independent on surface properties, we achieve high-quality, few nanometer thin dielectric and semiconducting films even on rough substrates via localized anodisation of valve metals using a scanning droplet cell microscope. We demonstrate printing-like fabrication of 3D multilayer solid-state capacitors with a record-high areal capacity of 4 µF cm−2. Applicable to the whole class of valve metals and their alloys, our method provides a versatile fabrication technique for the circuits that empower the flexible and stretchable electronics of tomorrow.