nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
The use of regional advance mitigation planning (RAMP) to integrate transportation infrastructure impacts with sustainability; a perspective from the USA

Globally, urban areas are expanding, and their regional, spatially cumulative, environmental impacts from transportation projects are not typically assessed. However, incorporation of a Regional Advance Mitigation Planning (RAMP) framework can promote more effective, ecologically sound, and less expensive environmental mitigation. As a demonstration of the first phase of the RAMP framework, we assessed environmental impacts from 181 planned transportation projects in the 19 368 km2 San Francisco Bay Area. We found that 107 road and railroad projects will impact 2411?3490 ha of habitat supporting 30?43 threatened or endangered species. In addition, 1175 ha of impacts to agriculture and native vegetation are expected, as well as 125 crossings of waterways supporting anadromous fish species. The extent of these spatially cumulative impacts shows the need for a regional approach to associated environmental offsets. Many of the impacts were comprised of numerous small projects, where project-by-project mitigation would result in increased transaction costs, land costs, and lost project time. Ecological gains can be made if a regional approach is taken through the avoidance of small-sized reserves and the ability to target parcels for acquisition that fit within conservation planning designs. The methods are straightforward, and can be used in other metropolitan areas.

Field of study: Environmental science
Combining SERVQUAL and QFD to Evaluate and Improve Airline Service Quality

This paper shows how to evaluate and analyze the service quality for airline business and provide feasible suggestions to improve the service. The purpose is to illustrate how the two quality improvement methods, SERVQUAL and QFD, can be combined and used to improve the service quality for service companies such as airlines.

 The data were obtained by the way of interviewing the customers who have experienced the service offered by Air Macau, with tool of SERVQUAL. Comparing the perceived scores of Air Macau to the customers’ expected value as well as to its competitors, we finally believe that the shortest board of service quality is the “responsiveness” among its five dimensions. Quality function deployment is then used to translate customers’ actual requirements into practical service measures to further improvement.

 It is more effective if SERVQUAL is combined with QFD in evaluating firm's quality and quality improvement.

 Effectiveness should be tested over time with bottom line evidences.

 Practitioners should use more than one effective methods in quality improvement whenever possible.

 People are more aware of SERVQUAL and QFD.

Field of study: Business
The Role of Female Teachers in Activating Effective Teaching Skills and Methods among High School Students from the Teachers’ Perspective – Najran, KSA

The study aimed to identify the role of female teachers in activating effective teaching skills and methods among high school students from the teachers’ perspective – Najran, KSA. The researcher used the descriptive analytical approach. Instrument of the study is a questionnaire with (76) items distributing to (3) domains: the first domain is effective teaching skills, the second one is teaching methods, and the third one is the obstacles limiting female teachers' role of activating effective teaching skills and methods. The questionnaire was distributed to a sample consisting of (614) female high school teachers at Najran Region. Results of the study indicated that there are some regulations limiting the work of teachers, and female teachers are very concerned about the participation and collaboration of all students in the different class activities. The female teachers were able to improve and develop their teaching methods according to the assessment results. Results showed also that female teachers are able to encourage students to prepare for daily school work; teachers were able to identify the difficulty levels in teaching the curriculum and that teachers are always smiling and energetic. In light of these results, the study recommended the need for developing daily plans for each lesson, to pose various class questions to students, and to engage teachers in training programs proper to the content of the lesson.  Role of teachers, effective teaching skills, methods and Najran University. 
 
The research is funded by the Deanship of the Scientific Research at Najran University (NU/SHED/14/150)

Field of study: Education
Two-band superconductors near Tc

The Ginzburg-Landau (GL) equations for two-band clean s-wave superconductors have been derived from the microscopic weak-coupling formalism with a general 2x2 coupling potentials (Ref.[2]). It is shown here that within the GL approximation the ratio of the order parameters Delta_1(r,T)/Delta_2(r,T) is an interaction dependent constant. This implies that within the GL domain, the length scales for spacial variation of both order parameters are the same and, in particular, that they have the same phase in equilibrium (modulo \pi). Along with a single length scale for the magnetic field change, this amounts to a single physical GL parameter kappa. In other words, a two-band superconductor near Tc is described by a single complex order parameter.

Field of study: Physics
Heat-stress effects on reproduction and seed set in Linum usitatissimum L. (flax)

Heat stress can detrimentally affect the reproductive capacity of many plants. The effect of a 7 or 14 d heat stress on flowering, seed set, pollen viability and germinability of flax (Linum usistatissimum L.) was assessed under growth chamber conditions. An incremental (2 °C/h), cyclical (daytime high 40 °C and night-time low 18 °C) heat stress was applied 12 d after the initiation of flowering. Although flower formation in flax was not affected by heat stress, boll formation and seed set were reduced with onset of the heat stress. On removal of heat stress the stressed plants showed a compensatory response, flowering and producing bolls at a greater rate than the control plants. Heat stress significantly prolonged flowering by 17 d. Boll weight and seed weight were reduced with heat stress and the number of malformed, sterile seed increased three-fold after 14 d of heat stress. Pollen viability and appearance were negatively affected after 6 and 10 d of heat stress, respectively. Pollen germinability decreased by the sixth day of heat stress, with no pollen germinating by the tenth day. Effects of heat stress on pollen viability and germinability alone, which did not occur until after the sixth day of the stress, could not account for the decreased boll formation due to heat stress in flax. These observations suggest that a combined effect of heat stress on both pollen and ovules contributes to decreased boll formation and seed set in flax.

Field of study: Environmental science
Cable-in-conduit conductor concept for the GEM detector magnet

A conceptual design for a conductor based on cable-in-conduit (CIC) technology is presented for application to the proposed GEM detector magnet for the Superconducting Super Collider. The conductor design is driven by the enormous scale of the magnet, which will be composed of two coil halves each approximately 19 m in diameter and 14 m long. Each coil half will be assembled from 12 winding modules, each comprising of a single layer winding. The nominal operating current of 50 kA generates a central field of 0.8 T and a peak field at the winding of 1.6 T. Although the field requirements are low and operation is DC, the CIC concept is preferred because of its large intrinsic stability. The GEM detector requires the highest level of stable, quench-free operation to minimize risk and maximize reliability. The conductor consists of a 450 strand multistage cable made from NbTi/copper composite wires enclosed in a stainless steel tube which is surrounded by a large rectangular block of low resistivity aluminum. The aluminum sheath offers quench protection for the 2.5-GJ coil system, while the fast transient stability is provided by copper in the strand and the supercritical helium inside the conduit. Details of the conductor design, operating performance, and manufacturing process are described.<<ETX>>

Field of study: Physics
Mood and Behavior Perception: Dysphoria Can Increase and Decrease Effortful Processing of Information

In the affect and cognition literature, some studies demonstrate that dysphoric mood increases effortful processing of social and nonsocial information, but others demonstrate that it decreases such processing. Five studies examined the effect of dysphoric mood on perceivers' subjective unitization of an observed other's ongoing behavior into discrete meaningful actions. Dysphoria generally reduced unitization rate (i.e., number of actions discriminated). Additional evidence indicates that this reduction likely results from failure to initiate a higher (more effortful) unitization rate rather than from inability to achieve such a level of processing. Data also suggest that dysphoric mood can actually increase unitization rate when adopting that mode of processing might relieve the dysphoria. It is concluded that dysphoric mood may lead perceivers to exhibit a more discriminating "cognitive palate" in terms of how much effort they choose to expend on processing available information.

Field of study: Psychology
Blind Identification of Multi-Channel ARMA Models Based on Second-Order Statistics

This correspondence presents a new second-order statistical approach to blind identification of single-input multiple-output (SIMO) autoregressive and moving average (ARMA) system models. The proposed approach exploits the dynamical autoregressive information of the model contained in the autocorrelation matrices of the system outputs but does not require the block Toeplitz structure of the channel convolution matrix used by classical subspace methods. For the multi-channel model with the same autoregressive (AR) polynomial, sufficient conditions and an efficient identification algorithm are given such that the multi-channel model can be uniquely identified up to a constant scaling factor. Furthermore, an extension of the result to blind identification of multi-channel models with different AR polynomials is presented. Simulation results are given to show the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

Field of study: Engineering
Glass transition temperature of polymers in supercritical carbon dioxide

A novel apparatus for in situ optical measurement of glass transition temperature(Tg)was developed.The apparatus consisted of a high-pressure cell equipped with quartz windows,a data acquisition system,a heating and temperature-controlling system,a pressure-controlling system,and a CO2 feeding system.The volume changes of poly-(ethylene-terephthalate)(PET)when it was swollen by CO2 were measured in real-time by the apparatus,at the temperatures of 50,60,70,80,90,100 and 120℃,and under the pressures of 0.1,5,10,15,20 MPa of CO2.Consequently,the glass transition temperatures in SC-CO2 were obtained under various conditions as indicated above.To examine the accuracy and reliability of this method,comparison of the results obtained by the apparatus under atmospheric pressure with those obtained by the standard differential scanning calorimetry(DSC)were made,and these two methods produced results within acceptable precision(1.6%).Thus the method developed in this work can be reliably used to measure the glass transition temperature of polymers in SC-CO2.

Field of study: Chemistry, Environmental science
Effect of Heavy-Ion Irradiation on Superconductivity in Single Crystals of Ba0.6K0.4Fe2As2 Pnictide Superconductor

The London penetration depth was measured in optimally doped Ba0.6K0.4Fe2As2 crystals, with and without columnar defects produced by 1.4 GeV 208Pb irradiation. The low temperature behavior of unirradiated samples was consistent with a fully gapped superconducting state with a minimum energy gap delta_min/(k_B T_C) = 1. Similar gap values were observed for irradiation levels corresponding to mean column-column separations of 32 nm and 22 nm. At very high irradiation levels (column-column separation of 10 nm) a T^2 power law was observed below Tc/3, most likely due to elevated scattering. Neither the location nor the sharpness of the superconducting transition was affected by irradiation. The data provides evidence for an s+/- pairing state.

Field of study: Physics
Liver abnormalities in typhoid fever in children

Fifty two patients with typhoid fever were studied. Hematomegaly occurred in 7I % of the patients. Hepatic enlargement was noted in the first week as well as during the course of the disease but the maximum incidence was found in the second week. Almoimal liver function tests were found in both groups, with and without hepatomegaly. Jaundice was present in 2 cases. Biopsies showed focal necrosis, cellular infiltration. Kupffer cell proliferation and hydropic degeneration. Typhoid nodules were demonstrated in 2 out of the 7 cases. The prognosis of typhoid fever with liver abnormalities is good and requires no further treatment.  hepatomegaly - abnormal liver function test - jaundice - liver biopsy - nonspecific reactive hepatitis

Field of study: Medicine
The case for hypercomputation

The weight of evidence supporting the case for hypercomputation is compelling. We examine some 20 physical and mathematical models of computation that are either known or suspected to have super-Turing or hypercomputational capabilities, and argue that there is nothing in principle to prevent the physical implementation of hypercomputational systems. Hypercomputation may indeed be intrinsic to physics; recursion ‘emerges’ from hypercomputation in the same way that classical physics emerges from quantum theory as scale increases. Furthermore, even if hypercomputation were one day shown to be physically infeasible, there would still remain a role for hypercomputation as an organising principle for advanced research.

Field of study: Mathematics
Low birth weight and schizophrenia.

Low birth weight has been postulated to be a risk factor for schizophrenia.



Obstetric history, premorbid adjustment, and cognitive function during admission were assessed in 167 patients with DSM-III schizophrenia or affective psychosis.



A birth weight of less than 2500 g was significantly more common in patients with schizophrenia than in those with affective psychosis. Schizophrenic patients as a group had significantly lower mean birth weight, a finding which was particularly marked after controlling for sociodemographic confounders. In schizophrenic men, lower birth weight was highly significantly correlated with poorer premorbid social and cognitive ability, and with impairment of adult cognitive function.



Neurodevelopmental impairment may cause poor foetal growth, and schizophrenia in adult life.

Field of study: Medicine, Psychology
First operation of the 20 MW Nijmegen High Field Magnet Laboratory

The University of Nijmegen has realized a new installation for high magnetic field research. The user-facility has opened its doors in April 2003. The principal part is an installation for continuous magnetic fields based on a 20 MW power converter, capable of energizing resistive magnets up to 33 T. We discuss the principle of the installation, and the magnets that have been installed and are under development. In addition, there is a pulsed field installation based on 2 MJ stored energy, capable of magnetic field pulses up to 70 T with several milliseconds duration.

Field of study: Physics
Three professors’ teaching philosophy of education: Strategies and considerations for undergraduate courses

This study investigated the impact of teaching about philosophical approaches on preservice teachers' coherence-non-coherence perspectives. Participants were 56 preservice teachers from two research universities in two states, and three professors at these universities. Data were collected using (a) a 105-item Philosophy of Education Scale (POES) (Pryor, 2004b), and (b) professor and student self-reflections. A correlational matrix was used to determine the relationship among five philosophical orientations and seven dimensions of educational practice. Results indicate that students are more consistent in their ratings of approaches they are less likely to adopt in their teaching than those they are more likely to use. Implications include suggestions for enhancing foundations courses and the use of the POES as a reflective tool.

Field of study: Education
Differences in Cd elimination from Mytilus californianus and Mytilus trossulus soft tissues.

Field results have shown that Mytilus californianus is able to release its Cd concentrations significantly in just a few days. The existing paradigm states that Cd elimination from Mytilus soft tissues is a very slow process. This discrepancy was investigated in the laboratory, testing the effect of two Cd levels (10 and 1 microgram l-1) on its release from Mytilus trossulus and M. californianus soft tissues. After exposure to 10 micrograms l-1, both species showed a significant uptake with no elimination after several days of depuration. After exposure to 1 microgram l-1, the responses were different. No significant Cd uptake was seen in M. trossulus while in M. californianus uptake was significant but returned to the background level after just 1 day of depuration. This response of M. californianus is consistent with that reported from field studies. These results are important for environmental monitoring programs since M. californianus has been used as equivalent to other Mytilus species in the assessment of Cd pollution.

Field of study: Environmental science
Children's Task Interest and Performance

This study explored the effect of extrinsic reward on children's task interest and performance. A total of 48 third-grade children participated in groups that differed in whether or not rewards were offered and the task used (mazes or block design). Each child participated twice. The baseline session was designed to assess initial nonreward levels. The experimental session, which occurred one week later, was identical except that half of the children received rewards for their participation. Results revealed that the effects of reward on subsequent intrinsic interest were found to vary as a function of the task. Lowered interest under reward conditions was found only for those children in the block design task. However, rewards were found to adversely affect immediate task performance on both tasks, supporting McGraw's (1978) prediction model. Reward subjects also perceived the task to be of greater difficulty than did nonreward subjects. These findings suggest the effects of rewards on performance and interest are not directly related and that task characteristics, particularly perceptions of task difficulty, may be important mediators of reward effects.

Field of study: Psychology
Persistence of herbicide fenoxaprop ethyl and its acid metabolite in soil and wheat crop under Indian tropical conditions

The persistence of fenoxaprop ethyl {Ethyl (RS)-2-[4-(6-chloro-1,3-benzoxazol-2-yloxy) phenoxy] propionate} herbicide and its active metabolite fenoxaprop acid was investigated in soil and wheat crop. Fenoxaprop acid was prepared by alkaline hydrolysis of fenoxaprop ethyl. A HPLC method was developed in which fenoxaprop ethyl herbicide and its acid metabolite showed sharp single peak at 6.44 and 2.61 min respectively. The sensitivity of the method for ester and acid was 2 and 1 ng respectively with limit of detection of 0.1 and 0.05 μg mL−1. The recovery of fenoxaprop ethyl and fenoxaprop acid from soil, wheat straw and grain ranged between 73.8–80.2%. In a field experiment fenoxaprop ethyl (Puma super® 10 EC) when applied to wheat crop at the rate of 120 g and 240 g a.i. ha-1 as post emergence spray, fenoxaprop ethyl converted to fenoxaprop acid. Residues of fenoxaprop ethyl and acid dissipated in soil with a half-life of 0.5 and 7.3 days, respectively. At harvest no detectable residues of fenoxaprop ethyl or acid were observed in soil, wheat grain and straw samples.

Field of study: Agricultural and Food sciences
17,000 years of vegetation, fire and climate change in the eastern foothills of the Andes (lat. 44°S)

Paleoenvironmental records from Patagonia reveal the importance of latitude, longitude and elevation in shaping the response of vegetation to climate change. We examined the vegetation, fire and watershed history from two sites at lat. 44°S, as inferred from pollen, charcoal and lithologic data. These reconstructions were compared with independent paleoenvironmental records to better understand ecosystem dynamics along the southeastern Andes (lat. 41–50°S). Our results show that at lat. 44°S, late-glacial heath-steppe was colonized by trees at ~ 14,200 cal yr BP and forests became more closed at 11,500 cal yr BP. Differences in forest cover between the two sites were likely due to elevation-dependent disparities in humidity and fire. North of lat. 44°S, increasing precipitation favored initial forest development at 16,500 cal yr BP, while dry conditions restricted tree expansion in the south until 7000 cal yr BP. The time-transgressive pattern is attributed to a gradual southward shift in the Southern Westerlies resulting from deglaciation and increasing annual insoltion. Present-day vegetation developed at all latitudes during the middle to late Holocene, when the core of the Southern Westerlies reached its modern position (50°S). Asynchronous forest expansions north and south of lat. 45°S between 5000 and 3000 cal yr BP are ascribed to centennial cycles of contraction and expansion of the Southern Westerlies, which led to seasonal variations in precipitation at the core and northern border of the wind belt. Synchronous oscillations in tree abundance along the eastern Andes prevailed during the last 3000 years. Decreased forest cover at all latitudes between 2500 and 1500 cal yr BP is concurrent with La Nina-like conditions and high solar irradiance. These climate drivers likely decreased effective moisture and favored fires at all latitudes.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
Lower Extremity Near-infrared Spectroscopy After Popliteal Block For Orthopaedic Foot Surgery

Noninvasive measurement of cutaneous tissue oxygenation using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has become common in peri-operative care. Following institution of peripheral nerve blocks, neurovascular alterations in the blocked region have been described.  The primary aim of this study encompassed the assessment of the influence of a popliteal block on changes in regional oxygen saturation (SrO2), and the location of most prominent changes.  We conducted a prospective randomised controlled trial. Hundred twenty patients who received a popliteal block for foot surgery were included. Popliteal block was performed under echographic guidance. The patients were randomized in 3 groups according to the location of the SrO2 electrodes on the legs. Bilateral SrO2 measurements were performed simultaneously. SrO2 in the operated leg and in the control leg was measured at baseline and 1, 5, 10, 15, and 30 minutes after the perineural injection. We quantified the evolution in SrO2 by calculating over time the differences in SrO2 values between the operated and control leg (=ΔSrO2).  At 30 minutes, ΔSrO2 increased significantly (p<0.05) at the plantar side of the foot (11.3% ± 2.9%), above the ankle (4.9% ± 1.3%) and the popliteal fossa (3.6% ± 1.2%).  At 30 minutes after institution of the popliteal block, ΔSrO2 was most prominent at the plantar side of the foot as compared with measurement performed above the ankle or under the knee.

Field of study: Medicine