bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Sex and strife: post-conflict sexual contacts in bonobos
Authors: Clay Zanna , de Waal Frans B.M. 
Published: February 2015

Sexual contacts are thought to play an important role in regulating social tension in bonobos (Pan paniscus), and are especially common following aggressive conflicts, either between former opponents or involving bystanders. Nevertheless, research on the factors determining post-conflict sexual contacts, their effectiveness in reducing social tension and the nature of post-conflict sexual behaviour is scarce. Here, we collected data on post-conflict affiliative contacts in bonobos occurring between former opponents (reconciliation) and offered by bystanders towards victims (consolation) to investigate the role of sexual contacts in the regulation of aggressive conflicts compared to non-sexual affiliation behaviours. We tested whether post-conflict sexual contacts: (1) alleviate stress, (2) confer reproductive benefits, (3) mediate food-related conflict and (4) repair valuable social bonds. Thirty-six semi-free bonobos of all ages were observed at the Lola ya Bonobo Sanctuary, DR Congo, using standardized Post-Conflict/Matched Control methods. Consolation and reconciliation were both marked by significant increases in the occurrence of sexual behaviours. Reconciliation was almost exclusively characterized by sexual contacts, although consolation was also characterized by increases in non-sexual behaviours, such as embrace. Adults were more likely to engage in post-conflict sexual contacts than younger bonobos. Consistent with the stress-alleviation hypothesis, victims receiving sexual consolatory contact showed significantly lower rates of self-scratching, a marker of stress in primates, compared to receiving non-sexual contact. Post-conflict sexual contacts were not targeted towards valuable social partners and they did not confer obvious reproductive benefits; nor were they used to mediate food-related conflicts. Overall, results highlight the role of sex in regulating tension and social conflicts in bonobos.
Living Wills in Italy: Ethical and Comparative Law Approaches
Authors: Veshi Denard , Neitzke Gerald 
Published: February 2015

Abstract
In this article, advance directives will be analysed through ethical and comparative law approaches. Their importance, the two different types of advance directives and the so-called three steps hierarchy, will be discussed. Living wills will be treated in detail, considering the criticism they have attracted, as well as their known benefits. A thorough examination of the latest version of Arts. 3 and 4 of Italian Bill No. 2350, as approved by the Italian Senate in March 2009 and then amended by the Chamber of Deputies in July 2011, is included. This bill grants advance directives advisory force, limits their application in time and does not allow the validity of oral declarations. This political decision limits autonomy. Furthermore, there are doubts about the constitutionality of this bill, especially with respect to Arts. 2, 13 and 32 of the Italian Constitution, related to the right of self-determination. Further, this article will include a comparative approach of the legal aspects, with particular attention to the French and German models. To conclude, some ethical principles that the Italian legislator must take into consideration are indicated. In addition, some possible modifications of this Bill are suggested based on the experience of other European legislation.
Epicharmus and Aeschylus on Stage in Syracuse in the 5th Century
Authors: Poehlmann Egert 
Published: February 2015

New excavations give clear information about the Athenian Dionysus-Theatre of the 5th century b.c.; and the stage in Western Greece can now be reconstructed by analogy with it.
Vase paintings depict wooden theatres in Sicily from 400 b.c. onwards, mainly for comedy. Tragedies were performed only after 476/5 b.c., but the lively tradition of comedy since the late 6th century b.c. must have had a stage. For Epicharmus’ short comedies, which had no lyrics or chorus and were addressed to the elite of Hieron’s court, the small theatre carved into the slope of the Temenites rock was sufficient. But the performances of Aeschylus’ Aitnaiai and Persians were politically motivated productions addressed to the whole Syracusan demos; they required a chorus, and space for large audiences. The form of the theatre and its wooden stage building, designed by Damokopos Myrilla, can be hypothetically reconstructed by analogy with their Athenian counterparts.
Improving Flash Flood Forecasts: The HMT-WPC Flash Flood and Intense Rainfall Experiment
Authors: Barthold Faye E. , Workoff Thomas E. , Cosgrove Brian A. , Gourley Jonathan J. , Novak David R. , Mahoney Kelly M. 
Published: February 2015

Abstract
Despite advancements in numerical modeling and the increasing prevalence of convection-allowing guidance, flash flood forecasting remains a substantial challenge. Accurate flash flood forecasts depend not only on accurate quantitative precipitation forecasts (QPFs), but also on an understanding of the corresponding hydrologic response. To advance forecast skill, innovative guidance products that blend meteorology and hydrology are needed, as well as a comprehensive verification dataset to identify areas in need of improvement.
To address these challenges, in 2013 the Hydrometeorological Testbed at the Weather Prediction Center (HMT-WPC), partnering with the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL) and the Earth System Research Laboratory (ESRL), developed and hosted the inaugural Flash Flood and Intense Rainfall (FFaIR) Experiment. In its first two years, the experiment has focused on ways to combine meteorological guidance with available hydrologic information. One example of this is the creation of neighborhood flash flood guidance (FFG) exceedance probabilities, which combine QPF information from convection-allowing ensembles with flash flood guidance; these were found to provide valuable information about the flash flood threat across the contiguous United States.
Additionally, WPC has begun to address the challenge of flash flood verification by developing a verification database that incorporates observations from a variety of disparate sources in an attempt to build a comprehensive picture of flash flooding across the nation. While the development of this database represents an important step forward in the verification of flash flood forecasts, many of the other challenges identified during the experiment will require a long-term community effort in order to make notable advancements.
Climate Model Errors over the South Indian Ocean Thermocline Dome and Their Effect on the Basin Mode of Interannual Variability
Authors: Li Gen , Xie Shang-Ping , Du Yan 
Published: February 2015

AbstractAn open-ocean thermocline dome south of the equator is a striking feature of the Indian Ocean (IO) as a result of equatorial westerly winds. Over the thermocline dome, the El Niño–forced Rossby waves help sustain the IO basin (IOB) mode and offer climate predictability for the IO and surrounding countries. This study shows that a common equatorial easterly wind bias, by forcing a westward-propagating downwelling Rossby wave in the southern IO, induces too deep a thermocline dome over the southwestern IO (SWIO) in state-of-the-art climate models. Such a deep SWIO thermocline weakens the influence of subsurface variability on sea surface temperature (SST), reducing the IOB amplitude and possibly limiting the models’ skill of regional climate prediction. To the extent that the equatorial easterly wind bias originates from errors of the South Asian summer monsoon, improving the monsoon simulation can lead to substantial improvements in simulating and predicting interannual variability in the IO.
Influence of Beam Broadening on the Accuracy of Radar Polarimetric Rainfall Estimation
Authors: Gorgucci Eugenio , Baldini Luca 
Published: February 2015

AbstractThe quantitative estimation of rain rates using meteorological radar has been a major theme in radar meteorology and radar hydrology. The increase of interest in polarimetric radar is in part because polarization diversity can reduce the effect on radar precipitation estimates caused by raindrop size variability, which has allowed progress on radar rainfall estimation and on hydrometeorological applications. From an operational point of view, the promises regarding the improvement of radar rainfall accuracy have not yet been completely proven. The main reason behind these limits is the geometry of radar measurements combined with the variability of the spatial structure of the precipitation systems. To overcome these difficulties, a methodology has been developed to transform the estimated drop size distribution (DSD) provided by a vertically pointing micro rain radar to a profile given by a ground-based polarimetric radar. As a result, the rainfall rate at the ground is fixed at all ranges, whereas the broadening beam encompasses a large variability of DSDs. The resulting DSD profile is used to simulate the corresponding profile of radar measurements at C band. Rainfall algorithms based on polarimetric radar measurements were taken into account to estimate the rainfall into the radar beam. Finally, merit factors were used to achieve a quantitative analysis of the performance of the rainfall algorithm in comparison with the corresponding measurements at the ground obtained from a 2D video disdrometer (2DVD) that was positioned beside the micro rain radar. In this method, the behavior change of the merit factors in the range is directly attributable to the DSD variability inside the radar measurement volume, thus providing an assessment of the effects due to beam broadening.
Lightning in the North American Monsoon: An Exploratory Climatology
Authors: Holle Ronald L. , Murphy Martin J. 
Published: February 2015

Abstract
Temporal and spatial distributions of the North American monsoon have been studied previously with rainfall and satellite data. In the current study, the monsoon is examined with lightning data from Vaisala’s Global Lightning Dataset (GLD360). GLD360 has been operating for over three years and provides sufficient data to develop an exploratory climatology with minimal spatial variation in detection efficiency and location accuracy across the North American monsoon region. About 80% of strokes detected by GLD360 are cloud to ground. This paper focuses on seasonal, monthly, and diurnal features of lightning occurrence during the monsoon season from Mazatlán north-northwest to northern Arizona and New Mexico. The goal is to describe thunderstorm frequency with a dataset that provides uniform spatial coverage at a resolution of 2–5 km and uniform temporal coverage with individual lightning events resolved to the millisecond, compared with prior studies that used hourly point rainfall or satellite data with a resolution of several kilometers. The monthly lightning stroke density over northwestern Mexico increases between May and June, as thunderstorms begin over the high terrain east of the Gulf of California. The monthly lightning stroke density over the entire region increases dramatically to a maximum in July and August. The highest stroke densities observed in Mexico approach those observed by GLD360 in subtropical and tropical regions in Africa, Central and South America, and Southeast Asia. The diurnal cycle of lightning exhibits a maximum over the highest terrain near noon, associated with daytime solar heating, a maximum near midnight along the southern coast of the Gulf, and a gradual decay toward sunrise.
Measuring decreased serum IgG sialylation: a novel clinical biomarker of lupus
Authors: Chen X-X , Chen Y-Q , Ye S 
Published: February 2015

Introduction The aim of this work was to develop a simple assay to distinguish between patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and patients with systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) by measuring the serum sialylated IgG (SAIgG). Methods Using a newly established SNA-based ELISA method, we compared the sialylation of immunoglobulin G (IgG) from a healthy control group ( n = 41), RA patients ( n = 30), SLE patients ( n = 45), patients with neuropsychiatric SLE (NPSLE) ( n = 30) and patients with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) ( n = 32). Results The average SAIgG level in healthy control individuals, RA patients, JIA patients, SLE patients and NPSLE patients was 0.64 ± 0.17, 0.82 ± 0.33, 0.69 ± 0.23, 0.12 ± 0.02 and 0.03 ± 0.01 mg/ml, respectively. The ratio of sialylated IgG to total IgG was significantly decreased in the SLE group (1.88 ± 0.32%) compared with the healthy population (4.64 ± 0.90%). Conclusion In summary, while the mean serum SAIgG level of RA and JIA patients was similar to that of the healthy population, there was a significant decrease in the serum SAIgG of both SLE groups tested, whereby the level of the NPSLE population group was the lowest.
Consequences of late bilingualism for novel word learning: Evidence from Tamil–English bilingual speakers
Authors: Nair Vishnu KK , Biedermann Britta , Nickels Lyndsey 
Published: February 2015

Aims and objectives: Recent studies that have investigated novel word learning have demonstrated an advantage for bilinguals compared to monolinguals. The study reported here sought to explore whether a word learning advantage is revealed only for early bilinguals with comparable proficiency in both their languages, or whether such advantages are also observed in individuals with relatively late experience of, and less proficiency in, a second language. Methodology: We tested the acquisition of novel words in an unknown language using identification and naming tasks in three groups of 20 participants: monolingual Tamil speakers; early Tamil–English bilingual speakers; and late Tamil–English bilingual speakers. Data and analysis: The data was analysed using a non-parametric Kruskal–Wallis test followed by linear regressions. Findings: The results showed a bilingual advantage for word learning as evidenced by superior performance in both the naming and identification tasks and, critically, late bilinguals outperformed monolinguals. Originality: The results of the present study revealed, for the first time, a bilingual advantage in word learning even when individuals acquire their second language later in life. Significance: The results suggest that the positive effects of bilingualism may generalise beyond non-linguistic tasks, perhaps affecting a general language learning mechanism. Moreover, this seems to occur even in late bilingualism. This is in contrast to the reported effects on cognitive control mechanisms that show only weaker advantages for individuals who learned a second language later in life.
Clinician Recommendations and Perceptions of Factors Associated With Ankle Brace Use
Authors: Denton Jason M. , Waldhelm Andrew , Hacke Jonathon D. , Gross Michael T. 
Published: February 2015

Background: Little information is available regarding the ankle braces orthopaedic sports medicine clinicians recommend or clinicians’ concerns that may influence their decisions to recommend use of an ankle brace. Hypotheses: (1) Clinicians most frequently recommend lace-up braces with straps. (2) Clinicians who are concerned about potential adverse side effects from ankle brace use are less likely to recommend an ankle brace to prevent ankle sprain injuries. Study Design: Descriptive survey study. Level of Evidence: Level 3. Methods: Surveys were sent via e-mail to 1000 randomly selected members of the Orthopaedic Section of the American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) and 1000 randomly selected members of the National Athletic Trainers’ Association (NATA). A total of 377 individuals responded to the survey. Results: Lace-up braces, specifically lace-up braces with straps, were the most frequently recommended type of ankle brace. Regression analyses indicated that the only perceived adverse side effect significantly related to frequency of ankle brace recommendation was a potential negative influence on ankle strength. Conclusion: Based on our sample, clinicians recommend lace-up ankle braces with straps most frequently to prevent ankle sprain injuries. Clinicians who are concerned about weakness of ankle musculature may be less likely to recommend use of an ankle brace. Clinical Relevance: Clinicians may effectively reduce the number of ankle sprain injuries by recommending an ankle brace use after an initial ankle sprain injury.
miRs-138 and -424 control palmitoylation-dependent CD95-mediated cell death by targeting acyl protein thioesterases 1 and 2 in CLL
Authors: Berg Valeska , Rusch Marion , Vartak Nachiket , Jüngst Christian , Schauss Astrid , Waldmann Herbert , Hedberg Christian , Pallasch Christian P. , Bastiaens Philippe I. H. , Hallek Michael , Wendtner Clemens-Martin , Frenzel Lukas P. 
Published: February 2015

Key Points
APTs as miRNA targets provide a novel molecular mechanism for how primary CLL cells escape from CD95-mediated apoptosis. Palmitoylation as a novel posttranslational modification in CLL might also impact on survival signaling, proliferation, and migration.
PhyloWGS: Reconstructing subclonal composition and evolution from whole-genome sequencing of tumors
Authors: Deshwar Amit G , Vembu Shankar , Yung Christina K , Jang Gun Ho , Stein Lincoln , Morris Quaid 
Published: February 2015

AbstractTumors often contain multiple subpopulations of cancerous cells defined by distinct somatic mutations. We describe a new method, PhyloWGS, which can be applied to whole-genome sequencing data from one or more tumor samples to reconstruct complete genotypes of these subpopulations based on variant allele frequencies (VAFs) of point mutations and population frequencies of structural variations. We introduce a principled phylogenic correction for VAFs in loci affected by copy number alterations and we show that this correction greatly improves subclonal reconstruction compared to existing methods. PhyloWGS is free, open-source software, available at https://github.com/morrislab/phylowgs.
SIFT-based local spectrogram image descriptor: a novel feature for robust music identification
Authors: Zhang Xiu , Zhu Bilei , Li Linwei , Li Wei , Li Xiaoqiang , Wang Wei , Lu Peizhong , Zhang Wenqiang 
Published: February 2015

Abstract
Music identification via audio fingerprinting has been an active research field in recent years. In the real-world environment, music queries are often deformed by various interferences which typically include signal distortions and time-frequency misalignments caused by time stretching, pitch shifting, etc. Therefore, robustness plays a crucial role in music identification technique. In this paper, we propose to use scale invariant feature transform (SIFT) local descriptors computed from a spectrogram image as sub-fingerprints for music identification. Experiments show that these sub-fingerprints exhibit strong robustness against serious time stretching and pitch shifting simultaneously. In addition, a locality sensitive hashing (LSH)-based nearest sub-fingerprint retrieval method and a matching determination mechanism are applied for robust sub-fingerprint matching, which makes the identification efficient and precise. Finally, as an auxiliary function, we demonstrate that by comparing the time-frequency locations of corresponding SIFT keypoints, the factor of time stretching and pitch shifting that music queries might have experienced can be accurately estimated.
Characteristics of meteorological disasters and their impacts on the agricultural ecosystems in the northwest of China: a case study in Xinjiang
Authors: Wu Meihua , Chen Yaning , Wang Huaijun , Sun Guili 
Published: February 2015

Abstract

Background
In recent years, the meteorological extreme events have caused the direct economic losses and human mortality increased significantly. While there has been a paucity of information regarding trends in meteorological disasters in Xinjiang. Based on two extreme climate measurements, i.e., the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and the agricultural disaster area, the influence of meteorological disasters on agriculture were analyzed during the period 1960-2010.

Results
(1) Temperature extremes exhibited patterns consistent with warming, with a large proportion of stations having statistically significant trends. The warming trends in the indices derived using daily minimum temperatures were greater than those obtained using maximum temperatures. Most of the precipitation indices exhibited increasing trends across the region, and the increased precipitation was due to the increase in both precipitation frequency and intensity. (2) The drought indices increased significantly in most regions of Xinjiang, and the seasonal PDSI exhibited significant correlations with the annual PDSI. For the entire geographical study area, two contrasting periods were evident in the PDSI between 1961 and 2010. Wet conditions dominated from 1987 to 2010, whereas persistent drought conditions occurred from 1960 to 1986. (3) Increased climate extremes resulted in increased agricultural disaster area. During warm summers, the droughts intensified; the corresponding snowmelt flood also became stronger. In addition, the sharply reduced effective irrigation area exacerbated the increased agricultural disaster area.

Conclusions
Climate change has affected the local agricultural oasis ecosystem and the yield and quality of crops in Xinjiang, leading to increased instability in agricultural production.
Human T cell activation induces synaptic translocation and alters expression of the serine protease inhibitor neuroserpin and its target protease
Authors: Lorenz Natalie , Loef Evert Jan , Verdon Daniel J , Chen Chun-Jen J , Mansell Claudia J , Angel Catherine E , Brooks Anna E S , Dunbar P Rod , Birch Nigel P 
Published: February 2015

AbstractContact between T cells and APCs and activation of an effective immune response trigger cellular polarization and the formation of a structured interface known as the immunological synapse. Interactions across the synapse and secretion of T cell and APC-derived factors into the perisynaptic compartment regulate synapse formation and activation of T cells. We report that the serine protease inhibitor neuroserpin, an axonally secreted protein thought to play roles in the formation of the neuronal synapse and refinement of synaptic activity, is expressed in human nai¨ve effector memory and central memory subsets of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells, as well as monocytes, B cells, and NK cells. Neuroserpin partially colocalized with a TGN38/LFA-1-positive vesicle population in T cells and translocates to the immunological synapse upon activation with TCR antibodies or antigen-pulsed APCs. Activation of T cells triggered neuroserpin secretion, a rapid, 8.4-fold up-regulation of the serine protease tissue plasminogen activator, the protease target for neuroserpin, and a delayed, 6.25-fold down-regulation of neuroserpin expression. Evidence of polarization and regulated neuroserpin expression was also seen in ex vivo analyses of human lymph nodes and blood-derived T cells. Increased neuroserpin expression was seen in clusters of T cells in the paracortex of human lymph nodes, with some showing polarization to areas of cell:cell interaction. Our results support a role for neuroserpin and tissue plasminogen activator in activation-controlled proteolytic cleavage of proteins in the synaptic or perisynaptic space to modulate immune cell function.