julilili42/papers huggingface dataset:
International Agreements, Economic Sovereignty and Exit
2018-03-14

We develop a model in which realisations of an ex ante uncertain domestic policy environment can make it attractive to a sovereign nation to renege on an international agreement. We show, in a fairly general setting in which the likelihood of exit is affected by the degree of cooperation, that the possibility of exit reduces the optimal degree of initial cooperation. “Full” cooperation will never be optimal, and the optimal degree of cooperation will never be such as to “squeeze out” any possibility of exit. However, an increase in global uncertainty may imply an increase in cooperation when exit risks are already large to begin with.
Peer Review #1 of "Difficulties when using video playback to investigate social cognition in California scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) (v0.1)"
2018-03-14

Previous research has suggested that videos can be used to experimentally manipulate social stimuli.In the present study, we used the California scrub-jays' cache protection strategies to assess whether video playback can be used to simulate conspecifics in a social context.In both the lab and the field, scrub-jays are known to exhibit a range of behaviours to protect their caches from potential pilferage by a conspecific, for example by hiding food in locations out of the observer's view or by re-caching previously made caches once the observer has left.Here, we presented scrub-jays with videos of a conspecific observer as well as two non-social conditions during a caching period and assessed whether they would cache out of the observer's "view" (Experiment 1) or would re-cache their caches once the observer was no longer present (Experiment 2).In contrast to previous studies using live observers, the scrub-jays' caching and re-caching behaviour was not influenced by whether the observer was present or absent.These findings suggest that there might be limitations in using video playback of social agents to mimic real-life situations when investigating corvid decision making.
Peer Review #2 of "Difficulties when using video playback to investigate social cognition in California scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) (v0.1)"
2018-03-14

Previous research has suggested that videos can be used to experimentally manipulate social stimuli.In the present study, we used the California scrub-jays' cache protection strategies to assess whether video playback can be used to simulate conspecifics in a social context.In both the lab and the field, scrub-jays are known to exhibit a range of behaviours to protect their caches from potential pilferage by a conspecific, for example by hiding food in locations out of the observer's view or by re-caching previously made caches once the observer has left.Here, we presented scrub-jays with videos of a conspecific observer as well as two non-social conditions during a caching period and assessed whether they would cache out of the observer's "view" (Experiment 1) or would re-cache their caches once the observer was no longer present (Experiment 2).In contrast to previous studies using live observers, the scrub-jays' caching and re-caching behaviour was not influenced by whether the observer was present or absent.These findings suggest that there might be limitations in using video playback of social agents to mimic real-life situations when investigating corvid decision making.
Peer Review #1 of "Difficulties when using video playback to investigate social cognition in California scrub-jays (Aphelocoma californica) (v0.2)"
2018-03-14

Previous research has suggested that videos can be used to experimentally manipulate social stimuli.In the present study, we used the California scrub-jays' cache protection strategies to assess whether video playback can be used to simulate conspecifics in a social context.In both the lab and the field, scrub-jays are known to exhibit a range of behaviours to protect their caches from potential pilferage by a conspecific, for example by hiding food in locations out of the observer's view or by re-caching previously made caches once the observer has left.Here, we presented scrub-jays with videos of a conspecific observer as well as two non-social conditions during a caching period and assessed whether they would cache out of the observer's "view" (Experiment 1) or would re-cache their caches once the observer was no longer present (Experiment 2).In contrast to previous studies using live observers, the scrub-jays' caching and re-caching behaviour was not influenced by whether the observer was present or absent.These findings suggest that there might be limitations in using video playback of social agents to mimic real-life situations when investigating corvid decision making.
Short-interval and long-interval intracortical inhibition of TMS-evoked EEG potentials
2018-03-15

Findings suggest a similar interaction of paired-pulse effects on TEPs irrespective of the interstimulus interval. Therefore, SICI and LICI as measured with TEPs cannot be directly derived from SICI and LICI measured with MEPs, but may offer novel insight into paired-pulse responses recorded directly from the brain rather than muscle.
Mechanisms and disease relevance of neutrophil extracellular trap formation
2018-03-15

Abstract While the microscopic appearance of neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) has fascinated basic researchers since its discovery, the (patho)physiological mechanisms triggering NET release, the disease relevance and clinical translatability of this unconventional cellular mechanism remained poorly understood. Here, we summarize and discuss current concepts of the mechanisms and disease relevance of NET formation.
Freedom of movement, social rights and residence-based conditionality in the European Union
2018-03-15

This article stresses the need to study how European Union (EU) member states define and implement the concept of habitual residence to assess boundaries of welfare in the EU. It focuses specifically on EU migrant citizens’ social rights and draws on comparative qualitative research on two EU member states – Germany and Sweden. The article first clarifies the differences between legal and habitual residence, and distinguishes between legal definitions of habitual residence and administrative formalities tied to such definitions. After examining legal definitions at the EU level, it goes on to consider additional definitions found in each member state case and administrative formalities attached to these definitions. Following this, implications for EU migrant citizens’ social rights in each country are assessed. The analysis reveals how administrative processes of residence registration shape conditionality. In this way, administrative aspects of habitual residence can have far-reaching exclusive effects on EU migrant citizens’ access to social benefits and services in the destination member state, as well as inhibit their ability to enjoy their right to freedom of movement. The article thus illustrates the inherent tension between free movement and residence-based social rights in a Union with devolved social provision.
The Burden of Power: Construing Power as Responsibility (Rather Than as Opportunity) Alters Threat-Challenge Responses
2018-03-15

Power usually lowers stress responses. In stressful situations, having high (vs. low) power heightens challenge and lowers threat. Yet, even power-holders may experience threat when becoming aware of the responsibility that accompanies their power. Power-holders can construe (i.e., understand) a high-power position primarily as opportunity to “make things happen” or as responsibility to “take care of things.” Power-holders construing power as responsibility (rather than opportunity) may be more likely to experience demands—such as taking care of important decisions under their control—as outweighing their resources, resulting in less challenge and more threat. Four experiments with subjective and cardiovascular threat-challenge indicators support this. Going beyond prior work on structural aspects (e.g., power instability) that induce stress, we show that merely the way how power-holders construe their power can evoke stress. Specifically, we find that power construed as responsibility (vs. opportunity) is more likely to imply a “burden” for the power-holder.
Expression of tumour progression‐associated genes in circulating tumour cells of patients at different stages of prostate cancer
2018-03-15

Objective To evaluate the presence of circulating tumour cells ( CTC s) at different stages of prostate cancer using the AdnaTest ® ProstateCancerDetect kit (Qiagen). Moreover, we aimed to assess the expression of transcripts that are specific for cancer stem cells (AdnaTest StemCell) and epithelial–mesenchymal transition ( EMT ) in CTC s (AdnaTest EMT ), as well as additional genes that are known to promote prostate cancer progression. Patients and Methods In this prospective study, we included 81 patients who underwent treatment for prostate cancer between 07/2014 and 02/2015, including: Group A, 18 patients (22.2%) with low‐risk clinically localised prostate cancer; Group B, 25 patients (30.9%) with high‐risk clinically localised prostate cancer; Group C, 11 patients (13.6%) with metastatic castration‐sensitive prostate cancer ( mCSPC ); and Group D, 27 patients (33.3%) with metastatic castration‐resistant prostate cancer ( mCRPC ). AdnaTest ProstateCancer and AdnaTest StemCell/ EMT were performed in all cases. In addition, expression of the androgen receptor ( AR ), c‐met , c‐kit and thymidylate synthase ( TYMS ) in CTC s was assessed using specific polymerase chain reaction assays. Results A positive AdnaTest ProstateCancer was present in three (16.7%), two (8.0%), six (54.5%) and 19 (70.5%) patients in groups A, B, C and D, respectively ( P &lt; 0.01, chi‐squared test). The AdnaTest EMT and AdnaTest StemCell were positive in zero (0.0%), zero (0.0%), one (9.1%), and two (7.4%); and in five (27.8%), four (16.0%), three (27.3%), and 11 (40.7%) patients in groups A, B, C and D, respectively, with no significant differences noted between groups. CTC s expressing TYMS (44.4% and 50.0% vs 13.9%) or AR (18.2% and 25.9% vs 0.0%) were seen more commonly in patients in groups C and D vs patients with non‐metastatic disease (all P &lt; 0.05). Expression of c‐kit and c‐met were rare events, with only two patients positive for either marker. Conclusions AdnaTest ProstateCancerDetect exhibits positive results mainly in patients with metastatic disease. Expression of AR and TYMS are frequent events in CTC s of patients with advanced disease, whereas c‐met and c‐kit gene expression is seen in only a small proportion of patients. The implications of these results for the use of CTC analysis as a decision factor for personalised treatment strategies in advanced prostate cancer remain to be determined.
A Practical Guide for Physicians and Health Care Workers to Reduce Their Carbon Footprint in Daily Clinical Work
2018-03-15

With Earth Overshoot Day having recently passed, there is no space for complacency regarding taking care of our planet. On August 2, 2017, humanity used nature's resource budget for the entire year. For decades, we have lived far beyond our means by overexploiting natural resources and spewing pollution, such as microplastics and industrial chemicals, into our environment. On the other hand, public awareness of human-induced climate change has also increased since the 1980s. The frequent media coverage about extreme weather conditions and natural disasters, such as Hurricane Irma in 2017, serves as an important reminder that anthropogenic climate change is happening now.Adverse health conditions associated with climate change include an increased prevalence of diseases and disorders. Although we all contribute to this development, as physicians we also have the privileged duty to protect global human health. Therefore, we should make every effort to cut down our own carbon footprint and adapt a more sustainable lifestyle.The aim of this commentary is to provide feasible tips and strategies to effectively reduce one's individual carbon footprint, with a special focus on daily clinical and hospital work. Not only are these strategies easy to implement in daily clinical routine, but most of them are associated with important health benefits.
Estimating mechanical properties of cloth from videos using dense motion trajectories: human psychophysics and machine learning
2018-03-15

Humans can visually estimate the mechanical properties of deformable objects (e.g. cloth stiffness). While much of the recent work on material perception has focused on static image cues (e.g., textures and shape), little is known whether humans can integrate information over time to make a judgment. Here, we investigate the effect of spatiotemporal information across multiple frames (multi-frame motion) on estimating the bending stiffness of cloth. Using high-fidelity cloth animations, we first examined how the perceived bending stiffness changed as a function of the physical bending stiffness defined in the simulation model. Using maximum likelihood difference scaling methods (MLDS) we found that the perceived stiffness and the physical bending stiffness were highly correlated. A second experiment in which we scrambled the frame sequences diminished this correlation. This suggests that multi-frame motion plays an important role. To provide further evidence for this finding, we extracted dense motion trajectories from the videos across 15 consecutive frames and used the trajectory descriptors to train a machine-learning model with the measured perceptual scales. The model can predict human perceptual scales in new videos with varied winds, optical properties of cloth, and scene setups. When the correct multi-frame was removed (using either scrambled videos or 2-frame optical flow to train the model), the predictions significantly worsened. Our findings demonstrate that multi-frame motion information is important for both humans and machines to estimate the mechanical properties. In addition, we show that dense motion trajectories are effective features to build a successful automatic cloth estimation system.
Reduction of emission level in approach signals of greater mouse-eared bats (Myotis myotis): No evidence for a closed loop control system for intensity compensation
2018-03-15

Bats lower the emission SPL when approaching a target. The SPL reduction has been explained by intensity compensation which implies that bats adjust the emission SPL to perceive the retuning echoes at the same level. For a better understanding of this control mechanism we recorded the echolocation signals of four Myotis myotis with an onboard microphone when foraging in the passive mode for rustling mealworms offered in two feeding dishes with different target strength, and determined the reduction rate for the emission SPL and the increase rate for the SPL of the returning echoes. When approaching the dish with higher target strength bats started the reduction of the emission SPL at a larger reaction distance (1.05 ± 0.21 m) and approached it with a lower reduction rate of 7.2 dB/halving of distance (hd), thus producing a change of echo rate at the ears of + 4 dB/hd. At the weaker target reaction distance was shorter (0.71 ± 0.24 m) and the reduction rate (9.1 dB/hd) was higher, producing a change of echo rate of-1.2 dB/hd. Independent of dish type, bats lowered the emission SPL by about 26 dB on average. In one bat where the echo SPL from both targets could be measured, the reduction of emission SPL was triggered when the echo SPL surpassed a similar threshold value around 41-42 dB. Echo SPL was not adjusted at a constant value indicating that Myotis myotis and most likely all other bats do not use a closed loop system for intensity compensation when approaching a target of interest. We propose that bats lower the emission SPL to adjust the SPL of the perceived pulse-echo-pairs to the optimal auditory range for the processing of range information and hypothesize that bats use flow field information not only to control the reduction of the approach speed to the target but also to control the reduction of emission SPL.
Poetic Physics (Poetische Naturwissenschaft)
2018-03-15

This article deals with Martin Opitz’s didactic poem Vesuvius (1633) and tries to elucidate its fundamental poetical and epistemological issues. In his Buch von der Deutschen Poeterey (1624), Opitz establishes a set of rules for the genre of carmen heroicum that comprises both didactic poetry and narrative epics. Especially didactic resp. scientific poetry plays a decisive role in Opitz’s overall concept of poetry as it denies being fiction (‘Erdichtung’) and claims strict factuality. Thus it is not surprising that Vesuvius becomes the opening piece of the posthumous collection of Opitz’s Teutsche Poemata (1644). Vesuvius reveals itself not only as an imitation / translation of De Aetna (a didactic poem included in the Appendix Vergiliana ), but also as an attempt to connect literary tradition, natural philosophy and religious knowledge: The purely scientific parts of the poem (on earthquakes and volcanism) are functioning to reveal the natural order of creation (the aspect of theodicy avant la lettre). The Vesuv-catastrophe is interpreted as God’s clear hint for mankind towards the ending of moral deprivation and civil war. The poet’s role as poeta vates resp. poeta theologus is thus to be the mediator / translator / interpreter between god and mankind, a mediation which actually takes the form of philological interpretation and commentary. The text of the 1633 print reflects this constellation by interweaving text and paratext (commentary) to a unique ensemble. With its particular textual arrangement and discoursive complexity, Vesuvius is symptomatic for premodern negotiations between natural sciences, religious knowledge, and literature.
Cytotoxic Effects of 24-Methylenecyloartanyl Ferulate on A549 Nonsmall Cell Lung Cancer Cells through MYBBP1A Up-Regulation and AKT and Aurora B Kinase Inhibition
2018-03-16

Lung cancer is the second most prevalent cancer. Nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is the most common type of lung cancer. The low efficacy in current chemotherapies impels us to find new alternatives to prevent or treat NSCLC. Rice bran oil is cytotoxic to A549 cells, a NSCLC cell line. Here, we identified 24-methylenecyloartanyl ferulate (24-mCAF) as the main component responsible for the cytotoxicity in A549 cells. An iTRAQ-based quantitative proteomics analysis revealed that 24-mCAF inhibits cell proliferation and activates cell death and apoptosis. 24-mCAF induces up-regulation of Myb binding protein 1A (MYBBP1A), a tumor suppressor that halts cancer progression. 24-mCAF inhibits the activity of AKT and Aurora B kinase, two Ser/Thr kinases involved in MYBBP1A regulation and that represent important targets in NSCLC. This study provides the first insight of the effect of 24-mCAF, the main component of rice bran oil, on A459 cells at the cellular and molecular levels.
Persistence of Translational Symmetry in the BCS Model with Radial Pair Interaction
2018-03-17

We consider the two-dimensional BCS functional with a radial pair interaction. We show that the translational symmetry is not broken in a certain temperature interval below the critical temperature. In the case of vanishing angular momentum our results carry over to the three-dimensional case.
Intradermal Delivery of Synthetic mRNA Using Hollow Microneedles for Efficient and Rapid Production of Exogenous Proteins in Skin
2018-03-18

In recent years, synthetic mRNA-based applications to produce desired exogenous proteins in cells have been gaining importance. However, systemic delivery of synthetic mRNA can result in unspecific uptake into undesired cells or organs and, thereby, fail to target desired cells. Thus, local and targeted delivery of synthetic mRNA becomes increasingly important to reach the desired cell types and tissues. In this study, intradermal delivery of synthetic mRNA using a hollow microneedle injection-based method was evaluated. Furthermore, an ex vivo porcine skin model was established to analyze synthetic mRNA-mediated protein expression in the skin following intradermal delivery. Using this model, highly efficient delivery of synthetic mRNA was demonstrated, which resulted in detection of high levels of secretable humanized Gaussia luciferase (hGLuc) protein encoded by the microinjected synthetic mRNA. Interestingly, synthetic mRNA injected without transfection reagent was also able to enter the cells and resulted in protein expression. The established ex vivo porcine skin model can be used to evaluate the successful production of desired proteins after intradermal delivery of synthetic mRNAs before starting with in vivo experiments. Furthermore, the use of microneedles enables patient-friendly, painless, and efficient delivery of synthetic mRNAs into the dermis; thus, this method could be applied for local treatment of different skin diseases as well as for vaccination and immunotherapy.
Adenylate cyclases: Receivers, transducers, and generators of signals
2018-03-18

Class III adenylate cyclases (ACs) are widespread signaling proteins, which translate diverse intracellular and extracellular stimuli into a uniform intracellular signal. They are typically composed of an N-terminal array of input domains and transducers, followed C-terminally by a catalytic domain, which, as a dimer, generates the second messenger cAMP. The input domains, which receive stimuli, and the transducers, which propagate the signals, are often found in other signaling proteins. The nature of stimuli and the regulatory mechanisms of ACs have been studied experimentally in only a few cases, and even in these, important questions remain open, such as whether eukaryotic ACs regulated by G protein-coupled receptors can also receive stimuli through their own membrane domains. Here we survey the current knowledge on regulation and intramolecular signal propagation in ACs and draw comparisons to other signaling proteins. We highlight the pivotal role of a recently identified cyclase-specific transducer element located N-terminally of many AC catalytic domains, suggesting an intramolecular signaling capacity.
Sedimentology and micromorphology of the Lower Palaeolithic lakeshore site Marathousa 1, Megalopolis basin, Greece
2018-03-18

&lt;p&gt;The present study describes the sedimentology and formation processes of the archaeological siteMarathousa 1, part of a Pleistocene lignite-bearing succession at the Megalopolis basin (SouthernGreece). The sedimentary sequence of the site comprises about 4e5 m lacustrine andfluviolacustrineclastic deposits found between Lignite Seam II and III. The lower part of this sequence is characterized byrelatively high rate subaqueous sedimentation of bedded sands and silts with local evidence of slumpingand liquefaction attributed to a seismic event. This part of the sequence containsfluctuating butgenerally low organic and carbonate content probably associated with cold and arid conditions of aglacial period. The upper part of the sequence follows a major hiatus attributed to exposure and erosion.A series of erosional bounded depositional units are observed in this sequence suggesting importantwater-levelfluctuations. The subaqueous emplacement of the deposits is attributed to subaerialflood-generated, organic- and carbonate-rich dilute mudflows and hyperconcentratedflows. Organic-richsedimentation culminates with the formation of the overlying lignite seam. This change is interpretedas a gradual return to warmer and humid conditions of an interglacial period.The fossiliferous and cultural levels at Marathousa 1 are associated with the major erosional andexposed surface found in the upper part of the sequence. This surface was part of an extensive mudflatsurrounding the lake shore at that time. The overlying mudflows have locally redistributed and buriedthe archaeological remains, thus preserving this very important butchering site.&lt;/p&gt;