bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Brain glucose uptake during transcranial direct current stimulation measured with functional [18F]FDG-PET
Authors: Kraus Christoph , Hahn Andreas , Sigurdardottir Helen , Spurny Benjamin , Wadsak Wolfgang , Mitterhauser Markus , Hacker Marcus , Kasper Siegfried , Lanzenberger Rupert 
Published: October 2019

Abstract
Previous evidence indicates that transcranial direct stimulation (tDCS) is a neuromodulatory brain stimulation technique. Easy applicability, low side-effects and negligible costs facilitated its wide–spread application in efforts to modulate brain function, however neuronal mechanisms of tDCS are insufficiently understood. Hence, we investigated the immediate impact of tDCS on the brain’s glucose consumption in a continuous infusion protocol with the radioligand 2-[18F]fluoro-2-deoxy-D-glucose ([18F]FDG) and positron emission tomography (PET). This novel functional PET (fPET) method is capable to reliably detect area-specific and dynamic absolute glucose demand related to neuronal activity in a single molecular imaging session. Fifteen healthy subjects underwent tDCS at 0.5, 1 and 2 mA (mA) at the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC, cathodal right) for 10 min during functional [18F]FDG-PET lasting 70 min. Active stimulation compared to sham did not yield significant changes in glucose consumption at any tested stimulation intensity in this paradigm. Exploratory investigation of aftereffects provided hints for increased glucose consumption with a delay of 5 min at 1 mA in the right posterior temporal cortex. This is the first study investigating changes of glucose consumption in the brain during tDCS. The lack of immediately increased glucose consumption indicates that energy demanding processes in the brain such as glutamatergic signaling might not be immediately increased by tDCS. However, our results implicate the need of fPET investigations for medium-term and long-term effects.
The causes of stage expansion of WTI/Brent spread
Authors: Tian Hong-Zhi , Lai Wei-Di 
Published: October 2019

Abstract
Historically, the price of WTI crude oil futures has long been higher than that of Brent by $2/barrel, but the spread between 2011 and 2015 was reversed and expanded to $24/barrel. In order to analyze the difference between two crude oil price variables with the same trend and phase separation using one method of analysis, this paper constructs a dynamic comparative analysis framework using the method of time-point decomposition of fluctuation factors to determine the different reasons and amplitudes for monthly fluctuations in the two price systems in the sample interval. The study found that the sensitive response of Brent futures price indicators to the world’s crude oil supply resulting from the depletion of oil in the North Sea oil field prompted it to rise in 2011–2015. For the WTI price system, due to the increase in the US shale oil production after 2008 and the restrictions in domestic pipeline transportation capacity, the increase in the Cushing crude oil inventory caused downward pressure on the WTI price. With the lifting of the US crude oil export ban in December 2015, arbitrage space disappeared, and the spread between the two gradually narrowed.
An improved method for obtaining rotational accelerations from instrumented headforms
Authors: Nevins Derek , Smith Lloyd , Petersen Philip 
Published: October 2019

Abstract
The following compares the effect of differentiation methods used to acquire angular acceleration from three types of un-helmeted headform impact tests. The differentiation methods considered were the commonly used 5-point stencil method and a total variation regularization method. Both methods were used to obtain angular acceleration by differentiating angular velocity measured by three angular rate sensors (gyroscopes), and a reference angular acceleration signal was obtained from an array of nine linear accelerometers (that do not require differentiation to obtain angular acceleration). For each impact, three injury criteria that use angular acceleration as an input were calculated from the three angular acceleration signals. The effect of the differentiation methods were considered by comparing the criteria values obtained from gyroscope data to those obtained from the reference signal. Agreement with reference values was observed to be greater for the TV method when a user-defined tuning parameter was optimized for the impact test and cutoff frequency of each condition, particularly at higher cutoff frequencies. In this case, mean absolute error of the five-point stencil ranged from 1.0 (the same) to 11.4 times larger than that associated with the TV method. When a constant tuning parameter value was used across all impacts and cutoff frequencies considered in this study, the TV method still provided a significant improvement over the 5-point stencil method, achieving mean absolute errors as low as one-tenth that observed for the five-point stencil method.
High Altitude Legality: Visuality and Jurisdiction in the Adjudication of NATO Air Strikes
Authors: Wilke Christiane 
Published: October 2019

AbstractAir strikes are the signature modality of violence used by NATO militaries. When civilian victims of NATO air strikes have turned to courts in NATO countries, they have generally not been successful. What are the legal techniques and legal knowledges deployed in Western courts that render Western aerial violence legal or extralegal? The article analyzes the responses by European courts to two sets of NATO bombings: the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia and a September 2009 air strike near Kunduz, Afghanistan. The judgments rely on two forms of “legal technicalities”: the drawing of jurisdictional boundaries that exclude the airspace taken up by the bombers and the ground on which victims stood when they were killed as well as particular visual regimes that facilitate not seeing people on the ground as civilians.
Le tournant sensoriel en droit : vers un droit sensible et sensé?
Authors: Antaki Mark 
Published: October 2019

RésuméLe tournant sensoriel en droit nous invite à vivre différemment le droit en reconnaissant la centralité de tous nos sens dans l’étude et la pratique d’une vocation qui nous appelle à la quête de sens. Il vise à renverser l’anesthésie générale qui afflige les études en droit, et en droit et société : la juridicité elle-même, c’est-à-dire l’essence du droit – les sens du droit – est une question sensorielle et sensuelle.
Contraceptive use and its effect on Indian women’s empowerment: evidence from the National Family Health Survey-4
Authors: Dhak Biplab , Saggurti Niranjan , Ram Faujdar 
Published: October 2019

AbstractThe positive effect of women’s empowerment on the use of contraceptives is well established. However, the reverse effect, i.e. the potential effect of use of contraceptives on women’s empowerment, is relatively unexplored. This study examined the direct impact of contraceptive use on women’s empowerment in currently married women aged 15–49 years in India using data from the National Family Health Survey-4 conducted in 2015–16. A two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression model was used to account for the issue of endogeneity that appears in a general logit model. The use of contraceptives by the sample women was found to be associated with greater women’s empowerment in terms of both their mobility and decision-making power. The pathways to greater women’s empowerment are often presumed to be factors such as changing perception of their domestic role and sense of control over their own body. While these are integral, this paper highlights how the possible control over family size and birth interval through use of contraception may also be critical pathways to increasing women’s empowerment.
At the Crossroads of Empire and Nation-State: Partition, gold smuggling, and port cities in the western Indian Ocean
Authors: MATHEW NISHA 
Published: October 2019

AbstractThis article investigates gold smuggling in the twentieth-century western Indian Ocean. It illustrates how gold, condemned as a ‘barbarous relic’ by international monetary economists and central banks in the immediate post-war period, created an economy in the intermediate zone between a retreating empire and emerging nation-states in India and the Persian Gulf. Bombay and Dubai—connected by mercantile networks, trading dhows, migrants, and ‘smugglers’—were the principal constituencies and key drivers of this trans-regional economy. Partition and the concomitant flight of Indian mercantile capital into Dubai becomes the key to unlocking the many dimensions of smuggling, including its social organization and ethnic constitution. Looked at in such terms, gold smuggling reveals a transnational side to both partition and the post-colonial history of Bombay which has drawn little critical attention from historians. Consequently, it expands the analytic space necessary to explain how Dubai was able to capitalize on the arbitrage possibilities offered by import regulations in India, tap into the global networks of trade and finance, and chart its own course of development as a modern urban space throughout the latter half of the twentieth century.
The Haiphong Shipping Boycotts of 1907 and 1909–10: Business interactions in the Haiphong-Hong Kong rice shipping trade
Authors: BECKER BERT 
Published: October 2019

AbstractThe main focus of this article is the Haiphong shipping boycotts of 1907 and 1909–10, which were conflicts over freight rates on rice which arose between several Chinese rice hongs in Haiphong (Hải Phòng), the main port in northeastern French Indochina, and three European tramp shipping companies. When these companies set up a joint agreement in 1907 unilaterally increasing the freight rates for shipping rice to Hong Kong, the affected merchants felt unfairly treated and boycotted the companies’ ships. Furthermore, in 1909, they formed a rival charter syndicate and set up a steamship company chartering the vessels of other companies to apply additional pressure on the firms to return to the previous rate. Although the Chinese suffered direct financial losses due to their insufficient expertise in this business, they were successful in achieving a considerable decrease in the freight rate on rice, which shows that boycotting, even when costly, proved to be an effective means to push for reductions and better arrangements with shipping companies. In contrast to a similar incident in the same trade—the shipping boycott of 1895–96 when the French government intervened with the Chinese government on behalf of a French shipping company—the later boycotts did not provoke the intervention of Western powers. This case suggests that growing anti-imperialism and nationalism in China, expressed in public discourses on shipping rights recovery and in the use of economic instead of political means, had an impact on the boycotts. Economic, not imperial, power determined the outcome of this struggle.
Patterns of gender assignment in the Jamtlandic variety of Scandinavian
Authors: Van Epps Briana , Carling Gerd 
Published: October 2019

AbstractIn this study, we present an analysis of gender assignment tendencies in Jamtlandic, a language variety of Sweden, using a word list of 1029 items obtained from fieldwork. Most research on gender assignment in the Scandinavian languages focuses on the standard languages (Steinmetz 1985; Källström 1996; Trosterud 2001, 2006) and Norwegian dialects (Enger 2011, Kvinlaug 2011, Enger & Corbett 2012). However, gender assignment principles for Swedish dialects have not previously been researched. We find generalizations based on semantic, morphological, and phonological principles. Some of the principles apply more consistently than others, some ‘win’ in competition with other principles; a multinomial logistic regression analysis provides a statistical foundation for evaluating the principles. The strongest tendencies are those based on biological sex, plural inflection, derivational suffixes, and some phonological sequences. Weaker tendencies include non-core semantic tendencies and other phonological sequences. Gender assignment in modern loanwords differs from the overall material, with a larger proportion of nouns assigned masculine gender.
Eddies in the Tropical Atlantic Ocean and Their Seasonal Variability
Authors: Aguedjou H. M. A. , Dadou I. , Chaigneau A. , Morel Y. , Alory G. 
Published: October 2019

AbstractWe study mesoscale eddy characteristics in the tropical Atlantic Ocean, using 23 years of daily altimetry sea level anomalies. Eddies are mainly generated in the eastern boundary upwelling systems and in the Brazil Current region. Their westward propagation speed reaches 20 cm/s in equatorial areas, decreasing with latitudes. They present typical amplitudes of 1‐5 cm. The largest and most energetic eddies are observed in the equatorial region, especially in the North Brazil Current (NBC) retroflection. The seasonal cycle of the eddy characteristics shows higher amplitudes along the NBC retroflection and the western part of the North Equatorial Countercurrent. A new criterion, based on altimetry data, determines the probability that barotropic instability of mean surface currents is responsible for eddy generation. We find a strong likelihood that the latter plays a key role along the North Equatorial Countercurrent, whereas other mechanisms must be invoked for the NBC region.
Numerical Analysis of Time‐Dependent Conduit Magma Flow in Dome‐Forming Eruptions With Application to Mount St. Helens 2004–2008
Authors: Wong Ying‐Qi , Segall Paul 
Published: October 2019

AbstractConduit models of volcanic eruptions simulate magma evolution through phase transitions and material changes during ascent. We present a time‐dependent one‐dimensional model of a chamber‐conduit system to examine the temporal evolution of dome‐forming eruptions. As magma ascends, volatiles exsolve and may escape vertically through the column or laterally through the conduit walls. Magma solidifies which increases viscosity, leading to a natural transition from viscous flow at depth to frictional sliding along the conduit walls near the surface, resulting in the extrusion of a semisolid plug. The model evaluates time‐ and depth‐dependent pressure, velocity, porosity, and relative amounts of exsolved water to carbon dioxide. Transient effects arise when magma outflux from the chamber appreciably decreases pressure over the magma ascent timescale. For low magma permeability, transient effects increase porosity and velocity relative to steady‐state solutions. For high magma permeability, efficient vertical and lateral gas escape depresses porosity and velocity at later times. We use the model to predict three time series data sets from the 2004–2008 eruption of Mount St. Helens: extruded volume, ground deformation, and carbon dioxide emissions. We quantify sensitivity of model predictions to input parameters using the distance‐based generalized sensitivity analysis. Chamber volatile content, volume, and excess pressure influence the amplitude of observables, while conduit radius, frictional rate dependence and magma permeability influence temporal evolution. High magma permeability can cause marked departures from exponentially decaying flux and may explain the unique temporal evolution of deformation observed at the only nearby continuous GPS station in operation at the eruption onset.
SAMEERDU—Digital Ionosonde: Brief System Description and Initial Results from a Low‐Latitude Location Dibrugarh
Authors: Kalita B.R. , Nath Sankar J. , Bhuyan P.K. , Khandare Ajay , Kulkarni Anil 
Published: October 2019

AbstractA digital ionosonde was designed and built by Society for Applied Microwave Electronics Engineering and Research (SAMEER), Mumbai in collaboration with Dibrugarh University to suit the needs of equatorial‐ and low‐latitude regions of India. The design objectives were to obtain good signal‐to‐noise ratio to mitigate the heavy noise due to interference, obtain short duration ionograms, estimate vertical drifts, reconstruct vertical electron density profile, and make antenna size smaller. Transmission of maximum 1 kW power using modified delta antenna is used with dual channel magnetic loop receiver antenna. Pulse compression by 8‐ and 16‐bit biphase codes are employed to increase noise immunity and the height resolution. The preliminary results of the ionogram mode only are presented in this work. The basic ionogram recorded by this system called SAMEER‐Dibrugarh University Ionospheric Radar is compared with colocated Canadian Advanced Digital Ionosonde ionogram which is in operation in Dibrugarh since 2010. A reasonably clear trace of E and F layers is obtained even without coherent pulse integration and pulse coding. The performance of the coding schemes is investigated with and without coherent integration. Some sample ionospheric experiments conducted with SAMEER‐Dibrugarh University Ionospheric Radar, and interesting results like the detection of travelling ionospheric disturbances, Es layer substructures, ionospheric irregularities, and the generation of bottom‐side vertical electron density profile are presented to highlight the potential and capabilities of the system.
Using Physically Based Synthetic Peak Flows to Assess Local and Regional Flood Frequency Analysis Methods
Authors: Perez Gabriel , Mantilla Ricardo , Krajewski Witold F. , Wright Daniel B. 
Published: October 2019

AbstractAlthough prior studies have evaluated the role of sampling errors associated with local and regional methods to estimate peak flow quantiles, the investigation of epistemic errors is more difficult because the underlying properties of the random variable have been prescribed using ad‐hoc characterizations of the regional distributions of peak flows. This study addresses this challenge using representations of regional peak flow distributions derived from a combined framework of stochastic storm transposition, radar rainfall observations, and distributed hydrologic modeling. The authors evaluated four commonly used peak flow quantile estimation methods using synthetic peak flows at 5,000 sites in the Turkey River watershed in Iowa, USA. They first used at‐site flood frequency analysis using the Pearson Type III distribution with L‐moments. The authors then pooled regional information using (1) the index flood method, (2) the quantile regression technique, and (3) the parameter regression. This approach allowed quantification of error components stemming from epistemic assumptions, parameter estimation method, sample size, and, in the regional approaches, the number of pooled sites. The results demonstrate that the inability to capture the spatial variability of the skewness of the peak flows dominates epistemic error for regional methods. We concluded that, in the study basin, this variability could be partially explained by river network structure and the predominant orientation of the watershed. The general approach used in this study is promising in that it brings new tools and sources of data to the study of the old hydrologic problem of flood frequency analysis.
Pore‐Scale Investigation of Methane Hydrate Dissociation Using the Lattice Boltzmann Method
Authors: Zhang Liming , Zhang Chuangde , Zhang Kai , Zhang Lei , Yao Jun , Sun Hai , Yang Yongfei 
Published: October 2019

AbstractFundamental understanding of pore‐scale methane hydrate dissociation in porous media is important to evaluate submarine slope stability and potential utilization of methane resources. In this paper, a general pore‐scale framework based on the lattice Boltzmann (LB) method is established for reactive transport coupled with nonisothermal multiple physicochemical processes in porous media. The framework combines the gas hydrate dissociation kinetic model, the single‐phase flow LB model, the mass transport LB model, and the conjugate heat transfer LB model. The pore‐scale framework is validated by several benchmark problems and then employed to investigate the endothermic dissociation process of methane hydrate with pore‐filling and grain‐coating habits in porous media. The methane hydrate endothermic dissociation behavior coupled with nonlinear nonisothermal multiple physicochemical processes involving intrinsic dissociation dynamics, gas flow, mass transport, phase change heat transfer, and conjugate heat transfer is well captured by the framework. The phase change of methane hydrate dissociation and pore structure evolution for different pore habits of hydrate are well depicted, and some insights about the dissociation front advancement and temperature distributions are also obtained. In addition, the effects of temperature field, inlet temperature, and inlet pressure on methane hydrate dissociation are investigated. The pore‐scale methane hydrate dissociation helps to advance our understanding of permeability‐saturation variation relation for continuum models.
poFUT1 promotes uterine angiogenesis and vascular remodeling via enhancing the O-fucosylation on uPA
Authors: Zhang Dandan , Yang Yu , Liang Caixia , Liu Jianwei , Wang Hao , Liu Shuai , Yan Qiu 
Published: October 2019

AbstractUterine angiogenesis and vascular remodeling play critical roles in determing the normal menstrual cycle and successful pregnancy. Poor uterine angiogenesis usually results in pregnancy failure. Protein O-fucosyltransferase 1 (poFUT1) is the key enzyme responsible for O-fucosylated glycan biosynthesis on glycoproteins. However, the dynamic expression and regulation of poFUT1 on the uterine angiogenesis and vascular remodeling remain unknown. Here, we showed that the enlargement of the vascular lumen in the secretory phase was greater than that in the proliferative phase of the uterine endometrium during menstrual cycle; whereas there was a narrower vessel lumen and fewer blood vessels in the decidua from miscarriage patients than in that from healthy pregnancy women. Additionally, the expression of poFUT1 was increased in the uterine endometrium during the secretory phase compared with that in the proliferation phase, and its expression was decreased in the uterus of miscarriage patients compared with that of the healthy pregnancy women. Using hESCs and a mouse model, we demonstrated that poFUT1 increased the O-fucosylation on uPA, and activated of the RhoA signaling pathway, thus facilitating uterine angiogenesis and vascular remodeling. We also provide evidence that poFUT1 promotes hESCs angiogenesis by the decreased stemness of hESCs. These findings reveal a new insight into the uterine angiogenesis and vascular remodeling. The study suggests that poFUT1 could be seen as a novel potential diagnostic and therapeutic target for miscarriage.
Matrine inhibits the development and progression of ovarian cancer by repressing cancer associated phosphorylation signaling pathways
Authors: Zhang Xi , Hou Guoqing , Liu Andong , Xu Hui , Guan Yang , Wu Yaosong , Deng Jie , Cao Xuan 
Published: October 2019

AbstractOvarian cancer remains the most lethal gynecologic malignancy with late detection and acquired chemoresistance. Advanced understanding of the pathophysiology and novel treatment strategies are urgently required. A growing body of proteomic investigations suggest that phosphorylation has a pivotal role in the regulation of ovarian cancer associated signaling pathways. Matrine has been extensively studied for its potent anti-tumor activities. However, its effect on ovarian cancer cells and underlying molecular mechanisms remain unclear. Herein we showed that matrine treatment inhibited the development and progression of ovarian cancer cells by regulating proliferation, apoptosis, autophagy, invasion and angiogenesis. Matrine treatment retarded the cancer associated signaling transduction by decreasing the phosphorylation levels of ERK1/2, MEK1/2, PI3K, Akt, mTOR, FAK, RhoA, VEGFR2, and Tie2 in vitro and in vivo. Moreover, matrine showed excellent antitumor effect on chemoresistant ovarian cancer cells. No obvious toxic side effects were observed in matrine-administrated mice. As the natural agent, matrine has the potential to be the targeting drug against ovarian cancer cells with the advantages of overcoming the chemotherapy resistance and decreasing the toxic side effects.