bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Large mammals generate both top-down effects and extended trophic cascades on floral-visitor assemblages
Authors: Louthan Allison , Valencia Emily , Martins Dino J. , Guy Travis , Goheen Jacob , Palmer Todd , Doak Daniel 
Published: June 2019

AbstractCascading effects of high trophic levels onto lower trophic levels have been documented in many ecosystems. Some studies also show evidence of extended trophic cascades, in which guilds dependent on lower trophic levels, but uninvolved in the trophic cascade themselves, are affected by the trophic cascade due to their dependence on lower trophic levels. Top-down effects of large mammals on plants could lead to a variety of extended trophic cascades on the many guilds dependent on plants, such as pollinators. In this study, floral-visitor and floral abundances and assemblages were quantified within a series of 1-ha manipulations of large-mammalian herbivore density in an African savanna. Top-down effects of large mammals on the composition of flowers available for floral visitors are first shown, using regressions of herbivore activity on metrics of floral and floral-visitor assemblages. An extended trophic cascade is also shown: the floral assemblage further altered the assemblage of floral visitors, according to a variety of approaches, including a structural equation modelling approach (model with an extended trophic cascade was supported over a model without, AICc weight = 0.984). Our study provides support for extended trophic cascades affecting floral visitors, suggesting that trophic cascades can have impacts throughout entire communities.
Potential role of intraspecific and interspecific cloning in the conservation of wild mammals
Authors: Borges Alana Azevedo , Pereira Alexsandra Fernandes 
Published: June 2019

SummaryIntraspecific and interspecific cloning via somatic cell nuclear transfer (iSCNT) is a biotechnique with great possibilities for wild mammals because it allows the maintenance of biodiversity by recovering species, nuclear reprogramming for the production of pluripotency-induced cells, and studies related to embryonic development. Nevertheless, many areas in cloning, especially those associated with wild mammals, are still in question because of the difficulty in obtaining cytoplasmic donor cells (or cytoplasts). Conversely, donor cell nuclei (or karyoplasts) are widely obtained from the skin of living or post-mortem individuals and often maintained in somatic cell banks. Moreover, the creation of karyoplast–cytoplast complexes by fusion followed by activation and embryo development is one of the most difficult steps that requires further clarification to avoid genetic failures. Although difficult, cloning different species, such as wild carnivores and ungulates, can be successful via iSCNT with embryo development and the birth of offspring. Thus, novel research in the area that contributes to the conservation of biodiversity and knowledge of the physiology of species continues. The present review presents the failures and successes that occurred with the application of the technique in wild mammals, with the goal of helping future work on cloning via iSCNT.
Natural disasters and regional development – the case of earthquakes
Authors: Fabian Marius , Lessmann Christian , Sofke Tim 
Published: June 2019

AbstractWe analyze the impact of earthquakes on nighttime lights at a sub-national level, i.e., on grids of different size. We argue that existing studies on the impact of natural disasters on economic development have several important limitations, both at the level of the outcome variable as well as at the level of the independent variable, e.g., the timing of an event and the measuring of its intensity. We aim to overcome these limitations by using geophysical event data on earthquakes together with satellite nighttime lights. Using panel fixed effects regressions covering the entire world for the period 1992–2013, we find that earthquakes reduce both light growth rates and light levels significantly. The effects persist for approximately 5 years, but we find no long-run effects. Effects are stronger the smaller the area of a unit of observation. National institutions and economic conditions are relevant moderating factors.
When health services are powerless to prevent suicide: results from a linkage study of suicide among men with no service contact in the year prior to death
Authors: Mallon Sharon , Galway Karen , Rondon-Sulbaran Janeet , Hughes Lynette , Leavey Gerry 
Published: June 2019

AbstractAimsTo investigate cases of suicide in which there was no healthcare contact, by looking at history of help-seeking and evidence of previous mental health vulnerability. To identify any life events associated with suicide for which individuals did not seek help.BackgroundPrevious research has suggested that non-consultation is the main barrier to suicide prevention among men. Estimates suggest approximately 22% of men who die by suicide have not consulted their GP in the year before their death. Little is known about the lifetime pattern of engagement with services among these individuals and whether or not this may influence their help-seeking behaviour before death.MethodsCoroner records of suicide deaths in Northern Ireland over 2 years were linked to general practice (GP) records. This identified 63 individuals who had not attended health services in the 12 months before death. Coroner’s data were used to categorise life events associated with the male deaths. Lifetime mental health help-seeking at the GP was assessed.FindingsThe vast majority of individuals who did not seek help were males (n=60, 15% of all suicide deaths). Lack of consultation in the year before suicide was consistent with behaviour over the lifespan; over two-thirds had no previous consultations for mental health. In Coroner’s records, suicides with no prior consultation were primarily linked to relationship breakdown and job loss. These findings highlight the limitations of primary care in suicide prevention as most had never attended GP for mental health issues and there was a high rate of supported consultation among those who had previously sought help. Public health campaigns that promote service use among vulnerable groups at times of crisis might usefully be targeted at those likely to be experiencing financial and relationship issues.
Gender Politics in the Lobbying Profession
Authors: LaPira Timothy M. , Marchetti Kathleen , Thomas Herschel F. 
Published: June 2019

AbstractAlthough political scientists have increasingly focused on the role of gender in the policy process and the characteristics of individual lobbyists, little is known about the gender politics of the government relations profession. We extend the study of professional women to the unique political context of Washington, DC, lobbying, an important form of political participation that is understudied in terms of gender. Using data from more than 25,000 individuals registered to lobby the federal government from 2008 to 2015, we show that women account for 37% of the lobbyist population in Washington, that female lobbyists are more likely to work as in-house employees than for contract lobbying firms, and that the largest Washington lobbying firms are strongly biased towards employing men. We add to these findings qualitative data from in-depth interviews with 23 lobbyists to reveal how the professional experiences of women often depend on the idiosyncrasies of lobbying employment and the political nature of their work. We conclude that the underrepresentation of women in the professional lobbying community is an underappreciated problem with broader implications for gender equality in elite political participation.
A balancing act: The revised rules of access to the ICRC Archives reflect multiple stakes and challenges
Authors: Hashemi Valérie McKnight 
Published: June 2019

AbstractThe International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) revised the access rules to its archives in 2017 for reasons that are complex, fascinating and deeply contemporary to our times. As these rules define when and to what extent the ICRC Archives are made available to the public, their contents are important for the institution as well as for wider audiences. The ICRC must ensure that it can implement its humanitarian mandate to protect and assist victims of armed conflicts and other situations of violence and preserve confidentiality, while sharing its past with the world at large. This article offers a historical overview of the ICRC Archives and the development of their access regulations until their latest revision in 2017. It shows that both today and in the past, the rules of access to the archives have resulted from choices made by the ICRC on how to balance its mandate and long-standing interests with contemporary opportunities and risks related to independent scrutiny.
On the Arithmometer of M. Thomas (de Colmar), and its application to the Construction of Life Contingency Tables. (Continued from page 32.)
Authors: Gray Peter 
Published: June 2019

Problem VIII—To construct a table for the formation of Survivorship Assurances.A survivorship assurance on (x) against (y) is an assurance payable at the end of the year in which the combination (x. y) is dissolved, provided the dissolution is caused by the death of (x).
Some Remarks on the Application of the Principle of Non-Forfeiture to Ordinary Policies
Authors: Sprague Thomas Bond 
Published: June 2019

As the principle of non-forfeiture has now been adopted by several British Life Offices, and will probably, in the natural course of competition, soon be adopted by many others, it has occurred to me that it may be useful to bring under the notice of the Institute some of the practical points that will have to be considered in the application of the principle.If the idea of non-forfeiture is accepted to its fullest extent, it follows that no profit, properly so called, should be made by a life office through the forfeiture of policies, in consequence of the inability or neglect of the assured to pay the premiums as they fall due. The surrender-value of a policy is calculated according to certain rules, which should provide for the office receiving an adequate compensation for the loss of the policyholder's contributions to future expenses, as well as for the disturbance in the rate of mortality caused by the withdrawal of a presumably healthy life; and it is in no way necessary for the prosperity of the office, that it should also make a profit, by the forfeiture of the surrender-values that would be paid to the proper parties on application. In fact, if policies are to be strictly non-forfeitable, the calculated surrender-values should in no case be forfeited, but should be applied, in one way or other, for the benefit of the assured or his representatives.
The Position of Life and other Insurance Associations in relation to their Local Medical Examiners: Is it satisfactory?
Authors: Walford Cornelius 
Published: June 2019

In a former paper, I had occasion to make some reference to the question of Local Medical Examiners, in tracing the changes in the practice of life insurance during the present century; but I then purposely avoided entering upon a detailed consideration of the points involved, believing these to be worthy of special attention whenever a suitable occasion should arise.The important part which local medical examiners are called upon to take in the every-day practice of life, and some other important branches of, insurance business, is too well understood in this Institute to require any specific mention. It is enough for my momentary purposes, to say that a most sacred trust is reposed in them; and it will fall within the limit of these purposes to consider in some detail, on this occasion, the manner in which this trust is on the whole performed.The first difficulty which arises in the treatment of a question of this character, is the fear of doing injustice, by implication or otherwise, to a body of gentlemen, a considerable proportion of whom, I trust, do conscientiously perform their important functions. But on this point it has to be understood, that on those who do discharge their duties honorably and efficiently there can be no adverse criticism. Our remarks, then, in the nature of the case, can only apply to those who are regarded as not acting up to this high but essential standard; and as to these latter, I venture to think that—in very many cases certainly—the true position of matters has but to be placed in a clear light, in order to lead to very speedy and decided improvement.
An Improved Method of Approximating to the Value of Annuities involving Three Lives
Authors: Hardy George F. 
Published: June 2019

The ordinary method of approximating to three-life annuities is as follows:—Let the lives be aged respectively x, y, z, (x being the youngest). Find an age w such that at the given rate of interest aw=ayz, then axyz=axw nearly. Baily diminishes the value thus found by .05, but I cannot say if this correction is usually made. It will generally be found to be too small if the lives are very young, but much too large at the older ages.It has been shown that the above method (neglecting now the correction referred to) is strictly accurate in any mortality table where the mortality conforms to Mr. Gompertz's hypothesis, and where consequently the force of mortality can be represented throughout by the expression(B and q being constants). The reason for this is, that the force of mortality for two joint lives, or, x, x + t, may be represented by a similar expression(where qt′ = qt + 1).It follows from this that if we havewe have alsoand, the force of mortality in the joint status being equal to that for the single life, throughout the table, the two annuities are identical, not only as to their total value, but also as to the value of each successive payment.
Advective Transport in Discrete Fracture Networks With Connected and Disconnected Textures Representing Internal Aperture Variability
Authors: Frampton A. , Hyman J. D. , Zou L. 
Published: June 2019

AbstractFlow and transport in three‐dimensional discrete fracture networks with internal variability in aperture and permeability are investigated using a numerical model. The analysis is conducted for three different texture types representing internal variability considering various correlation lengths and for an increase in domain size corresponding to an increase in network complexity. Internal variability in discrete fracture networks generally increases median travel times and delays arrival of bulk mass transport when compared against reference cases without texture, corresponding to smooth fractures. In particular, internal variability textures with weak connectivity increase travel times nonlinearly with domain size increase, further delaying bulk mass arrival. Textures with strong connectivity can however decrease median travel times, accelerating bulk mass arrival, but only for limited ranges of correlation length and domain size. As domain size increases, travel times of textures with strong connectivity converge toward travel times obtained for classical multivariant Gaussian textures. Thus, accounting for internal fracture variability is potentially significant for improving conservative estimates of bulk mass arrival, flow channeling, and advective and reactive transport in large‐scale discrete fracture networks. Further, early mass arrival can arrive significantly earlier for textures with strong connectivity and classical Gaussian textures corresponding to intermediate connectivity but are only slightly affected by textures with weak connectivity. Thus, accounting for internal variability in fractures is also important for accurate estimates of early solute mass arrival. The overall impact on predictive transport modeling will depend on the extent of, or lack of, internal fracture connectivity structure in real‐world fractured rocks.
Predicting CO2 Plume Migration in Heterogeneous Formations Using Conditional Deep Convolutional Generative Adversarial Network
Authors: Zhong Zhi , Sun Alexander Y. , Jeong Hoonyoung 
Published: June 2019

AbstractNumerical simulation of flow and transport in heterogeneous formations has long been studied, especially for uncertainty quantification and risk assessment. The high computational cost associated with running large‐scale numerical simulations in a Monte Carlo sense has motivated the development of surrogate models, which aim to capture the important input‐output relations of physics‐based models but require only a fraction of the cost of full model runs. In this work, we formulate a conditional deep convolutional generative adversarial network (cDC‐GAN) surrogate model to learn the dynamic functional mappings in multiphase models. The cDC‐GAN belongs to a class of semisupervised learning methods that can be used to learn the data generation processes. Like the original GAN, a main strength of the cDC‐GAN is that it includes a self‐training scheme for improving the quality of generative modeling in a game theoretic framework, without requiring extensive statistical knowledge and assumptions on input data distributions. In particular, our cDC‐GAN model is designed to learn cross‐domain mappings between high‐dimensional input (e.g., permeability) and output (e.g., phase saturations) pairs, with the ability to incorporate conditioning information (e.g., prediction time). As a use case, we demonstrate the performance of cDC‐GAN for predicting the migration of carbon dioxide (CO2) plume in heterogeneous carbon storage reservoirs, which has both numerical and practical significance because of the safe storage requirements now mandated in many countries. Results show that cDC‐GAN achieves high accuracy in predicting the spatial and temporal evolution patterns of the injected CO2 plume, as compared to the original results obtained using a compositional reservoir simulator. The performance of cDC‐GAN models, trained using the same number of training samples, stays relatively robust when the level of spatial heterogeneity is increased. Our cDC‐GAN is pattern based and is not limited by the underlying physics. Thus, it provides a general framework for developing surrogate models, and for conducting uncertainty analyses for a wide range of physics‐based models used in both groundwater and subsurface energy exploration applications.
Asynchronous Variation in the Quaternary East Asian Winter Monsoon Associated With the Tropical Pacific ENSO‐Like System
Authors: Zhao Debo , Wan Shiming , Song Zhaoyang , Gong Xun , Zhai Lina , Shi Xuefa , Li Anchun 
Published: June 2019

AbstractQuaternary East Asian winter monsoon (EAWM) evolution has long been attributed to high‐latitude Northern Hemisphere climate change. However, it cannot explain the distinct relationships of the EAWM in the northern and southern East Asian marginal sea in paleoclimatic records. Here we present an EAWM record of the northern East China Sea over the past 300 ka and a transient climate simulation with the Kiel Climate Model through the Holocene. Both proxy record and simulation suggest anticorrelated long‐term EAWM evolution between the northern East China Sea and the South China Sea. We suggest that this spatial discrepancy of EAWM can be interpreted as El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO)‐like controlling, which generates cyclonic/anticyclonic wind anomalies in the northern/southern East Asian marginal sea. This research explains much of the controversy in nonorbital scale variability of Quaternary EAWM records in the East Asian marginal sea and supports a potent role of tropical forcing in East Asian winter climate change.
Fracture Network Imaging on Rock Slope Instabilities Using Resonance Mode Analysis
Authors: Häusler M. , Michel C. , Burjánek J. , Fäh D. 
Published: June 2019

AbstractWe performed modal analysis using frequency domain decomposition of ambient seismic vibration data collected on large rock slope instabilities. This technique enables a robust detection of resonance frequencies and provides the corresponding mode shape vectors. We applied the technique to synthetic and field data sets acquired by seismometer arrays on two rock instabilities in Switzerland. We found that, at the fundamental mode, the entire instability vibrates in‐phase with the dominant mode shape vector oriented perpendicular to dominant fracture systems. At higher frequencies, different compartments of the instability resonate antiphase. Therefore, delineating the zero crossings between the phases allows dominant fractures to be efficiently mapped. Approximately 1 hr of ambient vibration data suffices to apply the method successfully. The method also potentially detects hidden fractures that cannot be observed by geological field mapping. In addition, this approach combines classic amplification and polarization analysis into one technique, simplifying data processing efforts.
The Closure of a Shallow Tidal Inlet Promoted by Infragravity Waves
Authors: Bertin Xavier , Mendes Diogo , Martins Kévin , Fortunato André B. , Lavaud Laura 
Published: June 2019

AbstractTidal inlets connect the ocean to inner water bodies and are present worldwide. Shallow inlets display fast morphological changes, due to complex interactions between tides, waves, and shallow depths. Their closure is commonly observed under storm waves, but the underlying processes remain only partly understood. Here, we present new field evidence that infragravity waves contribute to the closure of shallow inlets. The analysis of new field data collected at a shallow inlet under storm waves reveals that infragravity waves up to 0.4 m high can propagate inside the lagoon during flood but are blocked by opposing currents during ebb. At the passage of an infragravity wave crest, currents peak over 2.5 m/s and increase instantaneous sand fluxes by 2 orders of magnitude. Large accumulations of sand at the lagoon entrance damp tidal propagation until full inlet closure. This mechanism provides a new explanation for the closure of shallow inlets observed worldwide.
Analytic Expressions for Radial Diffusion
Authors: Lejosne Solène 
Published: June 2019

AbstractI briefly review, compare, and contrast two theoretical works that have significantly influenced radial diffusion research thus far, namely, the works of Fälthammar (1965, https://doi.org/10.1029/JZ070i011p02503) and the works of Fei et al. (2006, https://doi.org/10.1029/2005JA011211). Leveraging Fälthammar's model for magnetic field disturbances, I demonstrate that Fei et al.'s formulas are incorrect: They underestimate radial diffusion by a factor 2 in the presence of magnetic field disturbances. This underestimation comes from the erroneous assumption that radial displacements driven by magnetic field disturbances are statistically independent from radial displacements driven by induced electric fields, while, in fact, both displacements are proportional to each other. Fei et al.'s approach is similar to Fälthammar's approach in that they both analyze radial diffusion by pieces, depending on the nature of the driver. Yet, the Fokker‐Planck equation requires only one radial diffusion coefficient to characterize statistically a trapped radiation belt population cross drift shell motion. Thus, it is worth questioning the practice that consists of defining the coefficient as a sum of independent contributions. In addition, both theoretical models rely on the assumption that the background magnetic field is primarily dipolar, leading to flawed estimates. To overcome these limitations and to improve radial diffusion quantification, I use a general formulation for the variation of the third adiabatic invariant (1) to describe how to compute a radial diffusion coefficient in the most general way and (2) to highlight the assumptions that need to be questioned.