nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Daphnia magna's sense of competition: intra specific interactions (ISI) alter life history strategies and increase metals toxicity
Venue: Ecotoxicology

This work investigates whether the scale up to multi animal exposures that is commonly applied in genomics studies provides equivalent toxicity outcomes to single animal experiments of standard Daphnia magna toxicity assays. Specifically, we tested the null hypothesis that intraspecific interactions (ISI) among D. magna have neither effect on the life history strategies of this species, nor impact toxicological outcomes in exposure experiments with Cu and Pb. The results show that ISI significantly increased mortality of D. magna in both Cu and Pb exposure experiments, decreasing 14 day LC50 s and 95 confidence intervals from 14.5 (10.9 148.3) to 8.4 (8.2 8.7) ug Cu/L and from 232 (156 4810) to 68 (63 73) ug Pb/L. Additionally, ISI potentiated Pb impacts on reproduction eliciting a nearly 10 fold decrease in the no observed effect concentration (from 236 to 25 ug/L) As an indication of environmental relevance, the effects of ISI on both mortality and reproduction in Pb exposures were sustained at both high and low food rations. Furthermore, even with a single pair of Daphnia, ISI significantly increased (p 0.05) neonate production in control conditions, demonstrating that ISI can affect life history strategy. Given these results we reject the null hypothesis and conclude that results from scale up assays cannot be directly applied to observations from single animal assessments in D. magna. We postulate that D. magna senses chemical signatures of conspecifics which elicits changes in life history strategies that ultimately increase susceptibility to metal toxicity.
The Autonomous Learner Model

As we look into our complex and diverse future, the need to develop autonomous learners who perceive learning and living as two main components of ongoing development in the emotional, social, cognitive, and physical domains is imperative. The Autonomous Learner Model (Betts Knapp, 1981; Betts, 1985; Betts Kercher, 1999; Betts Kercher, 2009; Betts, Carey, Kapushion, 2013; Betts, Carey,  2014) consists of five dimensions and four domains supporting the development of persons who are complex thinkers, problem finders, problem solvers and producers of knowledge.
Tunable MEMS Fabry Perot filters for infrared microspectrometers: a review
Venue: SPIE OPTO

Many application fields of infrared spectroscopy require small, robust and transportable spectrometers, which are considerable less costly than existing products. Therefore microspectrometer technologies are rapidly emerging and many research groups spend effort on this. Compared to other kinds of devices, micromachined tunable Fabry Perot filters are best suited in terms of miniaturization and optical throughput. This paper gives a review of mFP filters for infrared spectroscopy. Different approaches from several groups are compared. Optical performance parameters like wavelength tuning range, spectral resolution and aperture size as well as complexity of fabrication and costs are discussed.
Solutions for 80 km DWDM Systems
Venue: Journal of Lightwave Technology

Currently discussed solutions for 80 km DWDM transmission targeting inter data center connections at 100G and 400G line rates are reviewed. PDM 64QAM, PAM4, and discrete multi tone transmission (DMT) are investigated, while the focus lies on directly detected solutions. For DMT, the vestigial sideband approach significantly increases the tolerance toward chromatic dispersion and bandwidth limitation and gives way to a flexible DWDM 400G transceiver using four to eight wavelengths.
Beyond Traditional Newspaper Advertisement: Leveraging Facebook Targeted Advertisement to Recruit Long Term Smokers for Research
Venue: Journal of medical Internet research

Smokers are a stigmatized population, but an important population to reach for the purpose of research. Therefore, innovative recruitment methods are needed that are both cost effective and efficacious in recruiting this population.  The aim of the present article was to evaluate the feasibility of Facebook targeted advertisement to recruit long term smokers eligible for lung cancer screening for a descriptive, cross sectional survey.  A social media recruitment campaign was launched using Facebook targeted advertisement to target age and keywords related to tobacco smoking in the Facebook users profile, interests, and likes. A 3 day newspaper advertisement recruitment campaign was used as a comparison. The study that used both recruitment methods aimed to test the psychometric properties of 4 newly developed lung cancer screening health belief scales. Data were collected via cross sectional survey methodology using an Web based survey platform.  The Facebook targeted advertisements were viewed 56,621 times over an 18 day campaign in 2015 in the United States. The advertisement campaign yielded 1121 unique clicks to the Web based survey platform at a cost of $1.51 per completed survey. Of those who clicked through to the study survey platform, 423 (37.7% consented to participate; 92 (8.2% dropped out during completion of the survey yielding a final study pool of 331 completed surveys. Recruitment by newspaper advertisement yielded a total of 30 participants in response to a 3 day advertisement campaign; recruitment efficacy resulted in 10 participants/day at $40.80 per completed survey. Participants represented current (n=182; 51% and former smokers (n=178; 49% with a mean age of 63.4 years (SD 6.0) Cost of the advertisement campaign was $500 total for the 18 day campaign.  Recruitment by Facebook was more efficacious and cost effective compared with newspaper advertisement. Facebook offers a new venue for recruitment into research studies that offer the potential for wider reach at a lower cost while providing privacy and flexibility for potential study participants. The study's findings extend recent work of other researchers who have demonstrated Facebook's utility with younger smokers, and Facebook is an effective tool to recruit older smokers. Furthermore, Facebook is a cost effective alternative to traditional newspaper advertisement offering a new, affordable venue to recruit large numbers of older smokers efficiently.
Geographic variation in advertisement calls of a Microhylid frog testing the role of drift and ecology
Venue: Ecology and evolution

Acoustic signals for mating are important traits that could drive population differentiation and speciation. Ecology may play a role in acoustic divergence through direct selection (e.g. local adaptation to abiotic environment) constraint of correlated traits (e.g. acoustic traits linked to another trait under selection) and/or interspecific competition (e.g. character displacement) However, genetic drift alone can also drive acoustic divergence. It is not always easy to differentiate the role of ecology versus drift in acoustic divergence. In this study, we tested the role of ecology and drift in shaping geographic variation in the advertisement calls of Microhyla fissipes. We examined three predictions based on ecological processes: (1) the correlation between temperature and call properties across M. fissipes populations; (2) the correlation between call properties and body size across M. fissipes populations; and (3) reproductive character displacement (RCD) in call properties between M. fissipes populations that are sympatric with and allopatric to a congener M. heymonsi. To test genetic drift, we examined correlations among call divergence, geographic distance, and genetic distance across M. fissipes populations. We recorded the advertisement calls from 11 populations of M. fissipes in Taiwan, five of which are sympatrically distributed with M. heymonsi. We found geographic variation in both temporal and spectral properties of the advertisement calls of M. fissipes. However, the call properties were not correlated with local temperature or the callers' body size. Furthermore, we did not detect RCD. By contrast, call divergence, geographic distance, and genetic distance between M. fissipes populations were all positively correlated. The comparisons between phenotypic Q st (P st) and F st values did not show significant differences, suggesting a role of drift. We concluded that genetic drift, rather than ecological processes, is the more likely driver for the geographic variation in the advertisement calls of M. fissipes.
Biochemical reconstitution of TET1 TDG BER dependent active DNA demethylation reveals a highly coordinated mechanism
Venue: Nature communications

Cytosine methylation in CpG dinucleotides is an epigenetic DNA modification dynamically established and maintained by DNA methyltransferases and demethylases. Molecular mechanisms of active DNA demethylation began to surface only recently with the discovery of the 5 methylcytosine (5mC) directed hydroxylase and base excision activities of ten eleven translocation (TET) proteins and thymine DNA glycosylase (TDG) This implicated a pathway operating through oxidation of 5mC by TET proteins, which generates substrates for TDG dependent base excision repair (BER) that then replaces 5mC with C. Yet, direct evidence for a productive coupling of TET with BER has never been presented. Here we show that TET1 and TDG physically interact to oxidize and excise 5mC, and proof by biochemical reconstitution that the TET TDG BER system is capable of productive DNA demethylation. We show that the mechanism assures a sequential demethylation of symmetrically methylated CpGs, thereby avoiding DNA double strand break formation but contributing to the mutability of methylated CpGs.
An Incremental Approach for Real Time Big Data Visual Analytics
Venue: 2016 IEEE 4th International Conference on Future Internet of Things and Cloud Workshops (FiCloudW)

In the age of Big Data, the real time interactive visualization is a challenge due to latency of executing calculation over terabytes (even, petabytes) datasets. The execution of an operation has to finish before its outcome is displayed, which would be an issue in those scenarios where low latency responses are required. To address such a requirement, this paper introduces a new approach for real time visualization of extremely large data at rest as well as data in motion by showing intermediate results as soon as they become available. This should allow the data analyst to take decisions in real time.
HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL (HBS) CASE METHOD TO TEACHING ENGLISH FOR BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

The present research investigated the effectiveness of Harvard Business School (HBS) case method to teaching English for Business Communication in an EFL context. The HBS case method is a commonly used approach in the field of business and management to prepare MBA students for the challenges of leadership. In contrast, in the field of English language teaching, task based learning (TBL) focuses on doing meaningful tasks using the target language. The definitions of tasks and the rationale of TBL are first discussed and then the TBL approach and the HBS case method are compared. The pedagogical framework is underpinned by content based instruction, business case study and task based learning, in which each approach has its source and theories to support it. A series of independent groups t tests were conducted to compare the English majoring students' oral performance on business communication with and without the instruction of HBS case method. To find out English majors' perception toward the business case method, questionnaires were distributed as a follow up study. Results provide some evidence for the effect of the case method on participation. Questionnaires reflect the learners' need for specialist knowledge as well as oral communication skills.
Organisational Culture and Motivation as Instigators for Employee Engagement

The main objective of this article is to conceptualize the instigating force of Organization Culture and Employee Motivation on Employee Engagement which ultimately turns out to be a key competitive advantage to the firm beating the competition in attracting top talent.  Review of literature is extensively employed in this article because it is merely based on facts and theories on the concept Employee Engagement. Many Employee Engagement and Culture reports by Aon Hewitt, DUP were reviewed to find the impact of Organizational culture and Employee Motivation on Employee Engagement.  Successfully managing the employee encounter is one of the toughest challenges businesses face today. The top performing companies know that an Employee Engagement strategy that is linked to bottom line outcomes will help them win in the marketplace. Business and corporate houses should rewind their strategies towards shaping the organization culture as well as Employee Motivation by using 2015 as the time of change. By focusing on leveraging the right Organization culture, Employing Intrinsic as well as Extrinsic rewards, companies can improve retention and financial performance thereby paving way to lead a healthier competitive advantage.  This conceptual article on the impact of Organization Culture and Employee Motivation can be applied as an Employee Opinion Survey on their engagement levels. Through the survey organisations can get to know the level of Engagement/Dis Engagement of the employees and take necessary steps to increase engagement levels among Employees. It also measures employee sentiment on things such as passion and pride how passionate employees are about their work, how proud they are to tell people where they work, do they believe in the mission of the organization and do they feel their work is valued and their talents are well utilized.
Modeling on piezoelectric energy harvesting from pavements under traffic loads

Piezoelectric energy harvesting from deformation in pavements caused by moving vehicles is investigated in this work. The behavior of pavement is described by a plate resting on a Winkler foundation. Two types of moving distributed loads are considered: single wheel load and four wheel load. The loads and the displacement of the pavement are expanded with trigonometric series. Two explicit solutions for the dynamic response of the pavement are then obtained using the Fourier transform and Cauchy's residue theorem. The voltage and power outputs of a piezoceramic transducer embedded in the pavement are then obtained by the direct piezoelectric effect. Finally, a comprehensive numerical study is conducted to show the effect of the Winkler modulus, the velocity of moving load, the position of moving load, and the position of transducer on the voltage and power outputs. Numerical results show that, compared with a previously studied beam model, the plate model is more suitable for predicting the harvested energy from pavements over soft subgrade.
Comparing the Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients across distributions and sample sizes: A tutorial using simulations and empirical data.
Venue: Psychological methods

The Pearson product moment correlation coefficient (rp) and the Spearman rank correlation coefficient (rs) are widely used in psychological research. We compare rp and rs on 3 criteria: variability, bias with respect to the population value, and robustness to an outlier. Using simulations across low (N 5) to high (N 1,000) sample sizes we show that, for normally distributed variables, rp and rs have similar expected values but rs is more variable, especially when the correlation is strong. However, when the variables have high kurtosis, rp is more variable than rs. Next, we conducted a sampling study of a psychometric dataset featuring symmetrically distributed data with light tails, and of 2 Likert type survey datasets, 1 with light tailed and the other with heavy tailed distributions. Consistent with the simulations, rp had lower variability than rs in the psychometric dataset. In the survey datasets with heavy tailed variables in particular, rs had lower variability than rp, and often corresponded more accurately to the population Pearson correlation coefficient (Rp) than rp did. The simulations and the sampling studies showed that variability in terms of standard deviations can be reduced by about 20% by choosing rs instead of rp. In comparison, increasing the sample size by a factor of 2 results in a 41% reduction of the standard deviations of rs and rp. In conclusion, rp is suitable for light tailed distributions, whereas rs is preferable when variables feature heavy tailed distributions or when outliers are present, as is often the case in psychological research.
Smart Antenna Technologies for Future Wireless System: Trends and Challenges

The adoption of smart/adaptive antenna techniques in future wireless systems s expected to have a significant impact on the efficient use of the spectrum, the minimization of the cost of establishing new wireless networks, the optimization of service quality and realization of transparent operation across multi technology wireless networks. Nevertheless, its success relies on two considerations that have been often overlooked when investigating smart antenna technologies: First, the smart antennas features need to be considered early in the design phase of future system; Second, a realistic performance evaluation of smart antenna technique needs to be performed according to the critical parameters associated with future systems requirements. This paper presents brief account on smart antenna (SA) system. SAs can place nulls in the direction of interferers via adaptive updating of weights linked to each antenna element. SAs thus cancel out most of the co channel interference resulting in better quality of reception and lower dropped calls. SAs can also track the user within a cell via direction of arrival algorithms. This paper explains the architecture, evolution and how the smart/adaptive antenna differs from the basic format of antenna. The capabilities of smart/adaptive antenna are easily employable to Cognitive Radio and OFDMA system.
Recent Trends for Interference Mitigation in Multi Antenna Wireless Systems

In this chapter we discuss the general techniques of multi antenna systems. Then, we delve to describe four recent trends in interference mitigation technologies that will change the design of the future 4G and beyond (5G) of mobile and wireless communication systems. Particularly, we consider the coordinated multi point MIMO systems, smart terminal devices techniques, millimeter wave communications and massive MIMO systems. We discuss the fundamental concepts of those new approaches, along with their advantages, and the challenges facing such technologies. Even though the references list of this chapter is not anticipated to be exhaustive, the cited articles and also the references therein should be good sources of further reading to start with.
Soft Nanocomposites of Nanoparticles and Nanocarbons with Supramolecular and Polymer Gels and Their Applications.
Venue: Chemical reviews

Gel nanocomposites are rapidly emerging functional advanced materials having widespread applications in materials and biological sciences. Herein, we review syntheses, properties, and applications of various gel nanocomposites assembled from different metal based nanoparticles or nanocarbons [fullerene, carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and graphenes] with tailor made supramolecular (small molecular) or polymeric physical organogels and hydrogels. Dynamic supramolecular self assembly of gelators prove to be excellent hosts for the incorporation of these dimensionally different nanomaterials. Thus, gel nanocomposites doped with preformed/in situ synthesized nanoparticles show magnetic or near infrared responsive, catalytic or antibacterial properties. Fullerene based gel nanocomposites show applications in organic solar cells. Gel nanocomposites based on CNTs and graphenes and their functionalized (covalent/noncovalent) analogues find interesting properties including electrical conductivity, viscoelasticity, thermal robustness, magnetic, phase selective, redox and near infrared radiation sensitive properties. We present appropriate rationale to explain most of these phenomena at the molecular level, which provide useful perspectives for future designs and new spin offs. Finally, a possible outlook is projected for the design and syntheses of next generation multifunctional gel nanocomposites, which could be achieved by increasing the complexity of the system upon adding selective nanomaterials with desired properties in a multicomponent mixture following a de novo design in order to take advantage of their individual properties.
Functional Equivalence of Imagined vs. Real Performance of an Inhibitory Task: An EEG/ERP Study
Venue: Front. Hum. Neurosci.

Early neuroimaging and electrophysiological studies suggested that motor imagery recruited a different network than motor execution. However, several studies have provided evidence for the involvement of the same circuits in motor imagery tasks, in the absence of overt responses. The present study aimed to test whether imagined performance of a stop signal task produces a similar pattern of motor related EEG activity than that observed during real performance. To this end, mu and beta event related desynchronization (ERD) and the Lateralized Readiness Potential (LRP) were analyzed. The study also aimed to clarify the functional significance of the Stop N2 and Stop P3 event related potential (ERPs) components, which were also obtained during both real and imagined performance. The results showed a common pattern of brain electrical activity, and with a similar time course, during covert performance and overt execution of the stop signal task: presence of LRP and Stop P3 in the imagined condition and identical LRP onset, and similar mu and beta ERD temporal windows for both conditions. These findings suggest that a similar inhibitory network may be activated during both overt and covert execution of the task. Therefore, motor imagery may be useful to improve inhibitory skills and to develop new communicating systems for Brain Computer Interface (BCI) devices based on inhibitory signals.
Predictors of New Onset Atrial Fibrillation After St Segment Elevation Myocardial Infarction in the Elderly

Of the 102 patients with STEMI, AF was not observed in 74 patients (Group I) and was observed in 28 patients (Group II) during hospitalization. Those 28 patients with AF were further divided into two subgroups according to the onset time of AF (early <24 hours and late >24 hours) Anterior MI was observed in 49% of patients in Group I and 71.4% of patients in Group II (p<0.05) In late onset AF group; pulse rate, systolic and diastolic blood pressure were significantly higher than Group I at admission to the hospital (p<0.05) All patients in Group II had higher Killip class and TIMI risk scores than Group I patients (p<0.05) Left ventricular ejection fraction was 30.4+ 4.0% in the late onset group and 44.4+ 8.8% in Group I (p<0.05) There was a significant difference in mortality rate among groups during hospitalization period; 36% in Group II, 9% in Group I (p<0.05)