nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Improving GOES Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) aerosol optical depth (AOD) retrievals using an empirical bias correction algorithm

The Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI) on board the
Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R (GOES-R) series enables
retrieval of aerosol optical depth (AOD) from geostationary satellites using
a multiband algorithm similar to those of polar-orbiting satellites'
sensors, such as the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
and Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). However, this work
demonstrates that the current version of GOES-16 (GOES-East) ABI AOD has
diurnally varying biases due to limitations in the land surface reflectance
relationships between the 0.47  µ m band and the 2.2  µ m band and between the 0.64  µ m band and 2.2  µ m band used in the ABI AOD
retrieval algorithm, which vary with the Sun–satellite geometry and NDVI
(normalized difference vegetation index). To reduce these biases, an
empirical bias correction algorithm has been developed based on the lowest
observed ABI AOD of an adjacent 30 d period and the background AOD at each
time step and at each pixel. The bias correction algorithm improves the
performance of ABI AOD compared to AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) AOD,
especially for the high and medium (top 2) quality ABI AOD. AOD data for the period 6 August to 31 December 2018 are used to evaluate the bias
correction algorithm. After bias correction, the correlation between the top 2 quality ABI AOD and AERONET AOD improves from 0.87 to 0.91, the mean bias
improves from 0.04 to 0.00, and root-mean-square error (RMSE) improves from
0.09 to 0.05. These results for the bias-corrected top 2 qualities ABI AOD
are comparable to those of the corrected high-quality ABI AOD. By using the
top 2 qualities of ABI AOD in conjunction with the bias correction
algorithm, the areal coverage of ABI AOD is increased by about 100 %
without loss of data accuracy.

Field of study: Environmental science
Model of induction accelerator cavity with ferrite cores

A model based on the multilayer lossy transmission line was set up for studying induction accelerator cavity with ferrite cores.Experiments in short pulse exciting in both 5 kV and 220 kV voltages and simulations by PSpice were used to prove the model,and the average permeability and permittivity of the core during the pulses were calculated.The experiment and simulation results show that the model can describe the dynamic physical characteristics of the induction cavity with ferrite cores accurately,and the model makes it easier and more efficient to ananlyze the waveforms,to optimize the device and to sclect the magnetic cores of the induction accelerator cavity.

Field of study: Physics
Regular Exercise Enhances the Immune Response Against Microbial Antigens Through Up-Regulation of Toll-like Receptor Signaling Pathways

Regular physical exercise can enhance resistance to many microbial infections. However, little is known about the mechanism underlying the changes in the immune system induced by regular exercise.  We recruited members of a university badminton club as the regular exercise (RE) group and healthy sedentary students as the sedentary control (SC) group. We investigated the distribution of peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) subsets and functions in the two groups.  There were no significant differences in plasma cytokine levels between the RE and SC groups in the true resting state. However, enhanced levels of IFN-γ, TNF-α, IL-6, IFN-α and IL-12 were secreted by PBMCs in the RE group following microbial antigen stimulation, when compared to the SC group. In contrast, the levels of TNF-α and IL-6 secreted by PBMC in the RE group were suppressed compared with those in SC group following non-microbial antigen stimulation (concanavalin A or α-galactosylceramide). Furthermore, PBMC expression of TLR2, TLR7 and MyD88 was significantly increased in the RE group in response to microbial antigen stimulation.  Regular exercise enhances immune cell activation in response to pathogenic stimulation leading to enhanced cytokine production mediated via the TLR signaling pathways.

Field of study: Biology, Chemistry
Improved Estimation of High-dimensional Ising Models

We consider the problem of jointly estimating the parameters as well as the structure of binary valued Markov Random Fields, in contrast to earlier work that focus on one of the two problems. We formulate the problem as a maximization of $\ell_1$-regularized surrogate likelihood that allows us to find a sparse solution. Our optimization technique efficiently incorporates the cutting-plane algorithm in order to obtain a tighter outer bound on the marginal polytope, which results in improvement of both parameter estimates and approximation to marginals. On synthetic data, we compare our algorithm on the two estimation tasks to the other existing methods. We analyze the method in the high-dimensional setting, where the number of dimensions $p$ is allowed to grow with the number of observations $n$. The rate of convergence of the estimate is demonstrated to depend explicitly on the sparsity of the underlying graph.

Field of study: Computer science
Antithrombin III, but not C1 esterase inhibitor reduces inflammatory response in lipopolysaccharide-stimulated human monocytes in an ex-vivo whole blood setting.

In order to examine the immunomodulatory effects of antithrombin III (AT-III) and C1 esterase inhibitor (C1-INH) in human monocytes, we investigated the intracellular expression of interleukin (IL)-6, IL-8, and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α in an ex-vivo laboratory study in a whole blood setting. Heparinized whole blood samples from 23 healthy male and female volunteers (mean age: 27±7years) were pre-incubated with clinically relevant concentrations of AT-III (n=11) and C1-INH (n=12), then stimulated with 0.2 ng/mL lipopolysaccharide (LPS) for 3h. After phenotyping CD14⁺ monocytes, intracellular expression of IL-6, IL-8, and TNF-α was assessed using flow cytometry. In addition, 12 whole blood samples (AT-III and C1-INH, n=6 each) were examined using hirudin for anticoagulation; all samples were processed in the same way. To exclude cytotoxicity effects, 7-amino-actinomycin D and Nonidet P40 staining were used to investigate probes. This study is the first to demonstrate the influence of C1-INH and AT-III on the monocytic inflammatory response in a whole blood setting, which mimics the optimal physiological setting. Cells treated with AT-III exhibited significant downregulation of the proportion of gated CD14⁺ monocytes for IL-6 and IL-8, in a dose-dependent manner; downregulation for TNF-α did not reach statistical significance. There were no significant effects on mean fluorescence intensity (MFI). In contrast, C1-INH did not significantly reduce the proportion of gated CD14⁺ monocytes or the MFI regarding IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-8. When using hirudin for anticoagulation, no difference in the anti-inflammatory properties of AT-III and C1-INH in monocytes occurs. Taken together, in contrast to TNF-α, IL-6 and IL-8 were significantly downregulated in monocytes in an ex-vivo setting of human whole blood when treated with AT-III. This finding implicates monocytes as an important point of action regarding the anti-inflammatory properties of AT-III in sepsis. C1-INH was unable to attenuate the monocytic response, which supports the hypothesis that other cellular components in whole blood (e.g., neutrophils) might be responsible for the known effects of C1-INH in inflammation.

Field of study: Medicine
Differential Feedback of Geometrical Mean Decomposition Precoder for Time-Correlated MIMO Systems

For a time-correlated channel, we consider the differential feedback of the geometrical mean decomposition (GMD) precoder, which is known to be optimal for a number of criteria. When the channel varies slowly, we can expect the optimal GMD precoders of consecutive channel uses to be close. We consider the feedback of the so-called differential precoder and show that it lies in a neighborhood of the identity matrix using matrix perturbation theory. Furthermore, the radius of the neighborhood is shown to be proportional to a time-correlation parameter. Such a characterization allows for subsequent efficient quantization of the differential precoder. We show how to design codewords for the prescribed radius by perturbing the identity matrix and applying QR decomposition on the perturbed matrix. Simulations are given to demonstrate that, with a small feedback rate, the performance of the proposed differential GMD comes close to the case when perfect channel state information is available to the transmitter for slowly time-varying channels like those in indoor and microcellular environments.

Field of study: Engineering
Organochlorine and mercury residues in eggs of the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni) from a long term study in the eastern Mediterranean.

Organochlorine and mercury residues were analyzed in unhatched eggs of the lesser kestrel (Falco naumanni) (2002-2012) in central Greece. Concentrations graded as ∑DDTs > ∑PCBs > HCB > ∑HCHs > ∑Chlordanes. Temporal declines were found in the concentrations of ∑DDTs, ∑HCHs and ∑Chlordanes but not in Hg, HCB and ∑PCBs. TEQs of PCBs and their degree of metabolisation showed no time trend. The reproductive parameters showed neither a temporal trend nor a significant year effect. No relationships occurred between the reproductive parameters per year and nest type (natural, artificial) with any of the contaminants analyzed except HCB influenced by year and clutch size. Low pollutant concentrations suggest that either lesser kestrels ranged across the year in unpolluted areas or may be caused by their short food chain. The low concentrations seem improbable to have affected the reproduction of these birds, although critical levels are still to be defined.

Field of study: Environmental science
Brief exposure to contingent reinforcement produces a sustained increment in the strength of an elicited response.

Squirrel monkeys' lever pressing produced by response-independent shock was measured before, and for an extended period following, exposure to a shock-avoidance procedure. Following avoidance training, the frequency of responding increased by multiples of 10 to 50 across subjects and evidence little or no decrement for up to 6 months of postreinforcement testing. Manual responding produced by intense environmental stimulation may be substantially strengthened by a brief history of reinforcement, such that it is sustained over long periods without reinforcement.

Field of study: Biology, Psychology
A RFT Based Regular Position Correction Algorithm for Pedestrian Dead Reckoning Navigation System

Pedestrian dead reckoning (PDR) is one of the most popular techniques recognizing a pedestrian trajectory by real-time motion parameters obtained from motion sensors embedded in smart-phones. However, PDR has an inherent disadvantage of susceptibility to error accumulation. Radio Frequency Tomography (RFT) is a fairly new technology to get the user positioning information utilizing the received signal strength (RSS) fluctuant of line-of-sight communication paths (LOSP) in the wireless sensor network. In this paper, based on RFT, we estimate crossing point (CP) on the LOSP, which is for correcting the user’s current position and mitigating the error accumulation of PDR based positioning technique. We do computer simulations to evaluate the positioning scheme jointing PDR and RFT. The positioning performance shows that our scheme can achieve a finer accuracy around 1 meter.

Field of study: Engineering
Impossible Differential Cryptanalysis of Reduced-Round SKINNY

SKINNY is a new lightweight tweakable block cipher family proposed by Beierle et al. at CRYPTO 2016. SKINNY has 6 main variants where SKINNY-n-t is a block cipher that operates on n-bit blocks using t-bit tweakey (key and tweak) where \(n=64\) or 128 and \(t=n\), 2n, or 3n. In this paper, we present impossible differential attacks against reduced-round versions of all the 6 members of the SKINNY family in the single-tweakey model. More precisely, using an 11-round impossible differential distinguisher, we present impossible differential attacks against 18-round SKINNY-n-n, 20-round SKINNY-n-2n and 22-round SKINNY-n-3n (\(n=64\) or 128). To the best of our knowledge, these are the best attacks against these 6 variants in the single-tweakey model.

Field of study: Computer science, Mathematics
Characterization of chicken protein tyrosine phosphatase alpha and its expression in the central nervous system.

Protein tyrosine phosphorylation and dephosphorylation are important in cell proliferation, differentiation and functioning of the central nervous system. We have identified a cDNA clone encoding a new transmembrane protein tyrosine phosphatase from a chicken brain cDNA library. The predicted amino acid sequence contains two phosphatase tandem repeats in the intracellular domain and multiple glycosylation sites in the extracellular domain. Since its intracellular domain shares 94% identity with human PTP alpha, we call it chicken PTP alpha (ChPTP alpha). Antibodies specific to ChPTP alpha recognize two major protein bands at 130 and 85 kDa in immunoblot and immunoprecipitation. ChPTP alpha transcript and protein are found in many tissues, but they are particularly abundant in brain. To gain insight into the function of PTP alpha s, we investigated the cell-type specific localization of ChPTP alpha in cerebellum by in situ hybridization and immunostaining. Throughout development, the level of ChPTP alpha remains similar from embryonic day 7 to post-hatching day 14, but the abundance and distribution of cells expressing this protein vary systematically through this period. During development, ChPTP alpha appears in pre-migratory and migrating granule cells, and in Bergmann glia and their radial processes. By 2-weeks after hatching, ChPTP alpha disappears from all cells of the cerebellum except Bergmann glia. Our data, which show for the first time the temporal and spacial distribution of a PTP alpha, suggest that these transmembrane phosphatases are important in the differentiation and function of Bergmann glia and in the migration of granule cells, and thereby play a role in development of the cerebellum.

Field of study: Biology
The Aza Curtius Rearrangement

On interaction of N-(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)carboximidoyl chlorides (analogs of acyl chlorides in which the carbonyl oxygen atom is substituted by the more strongly electron-withdrawing =NSO2CF3 group) with sodium azide in glyme or acetonitrile at −5 to +10 °C, dinitrogen is eliminated quantitatively and carbodiimides RN=C=NSO2CF3 are formed in high yield. In other words, an aza Curtius rearrangement occurs. The carbodiimides react with water, alcohols, and secondary amines to give corresponding ureas, isoureas, and guanidine derivatives. Imidoyl chlorides with substituents other than SO2RF do not enter into the aza Curtius reaction.

Field of study: Chemistry
Drug Effects on Learning in Children A Selective Review of the Past Thirty Years

IThis study was supported In part by U.S. Children’s Bureau Grant $416. a Personnel Training Grant for Handicapped Children. With increasing publicity about pharmacologic means of improving or enhancing learning and memory, there is a natural interest on the part of special educators in the possible application of “psychoactive” drugs to the educational problems of the handicapped child. Public and professional alike have been exposed to news releases heralding the advent of new pharmacologic agents that will modify learning disabilities or otherwise enhance school performance. The genuine successes of psychopharmacology in adult psychiatry suggest that these expectations may not be altogether in vain. It is not uncommon for teachers, school counsellors, principals, and school psychologists to suggest or even request a trial of medication to alter a recalcitrant child’s behavior, improve his attention span or emotional control, or reduce his distractibility or his hyperactivity. Improvement, and sometimes deterioration, in behavior are attributed by school personnel to the “drug” that a certain child may be taking. However, criticism of educators for viewing drugs as ready .solutions to learning problems or as dramatic agents of behavioral change is hardly equitable. Physicians not infrequently submit to an anxious patient’s request for useless or even potentially harmful drugs. The purpose of this article is to review drug research with children over the past 30 years, to acquaint the reader with some of the very complex methodological problems in psychopharmacologic research, particularly as it pertains to learning, and to clarify the current status of research and clinical practice with children so that drug reports and claims may be more critically assessed.

Field of study: Education
Speaking the Unspeakable: On Toni Morrison, African American Intellectuals and the Uses of Essentialist Rhetoric

Now that Afro-American artistic presence has been "discovered" actually to exist, now that serious scholarship has moved from silencing the witnesses and erasing their meaningful place in and contribution to American culture, it is no longer acceptable merely to imagine us and imagine for us. We have always been imagining ourselves. We are not lsak Dinesen's "aspects of nature," nor Conrad's unspeaking. We are the subjects of our own narrative, witnesses to and participants in our own experience, and, in no way coincidentally, in the experience of those with whom we have come in contact. We are not, in fact, "other." We are choices. And to read imaginative literature by and about us is to choose to examine centers of the self and to have the opportunity to

Field of study: Art
Internet-Delivered Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Anxiety Disorders Is Here to Stay

Anxiety disorders are common and disabling. Cognitive behavior therapy is the treatment of choice but is often difficult to obtain. Automated, internet-delivered, cognitive behavior therapy (iCBT) courses may be an answer. There are three recent systematic reviews of randomized controlled trials that show that the benefits are substantial (d = 1.0) and similar to face to face CBT. There are two large effectiveness trials that demonstrate strong effects when iCBT is used in primary care; 60 % of patients who complete the courses no longer meet diagnostic criteria. The courses are suitable for most people with a primary anxiety disorder. Research studies usually exclude people whose anxiety is secondary to schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, or substance abuse or who are actively suicidal. Little additional input from clinicians is required. Patients find the courses very convenient. Clinically, the principal advantage is the fidelity of the treatment. What you prescribe is what the patient sees.

Field of study: Medicine, Psychology
Draft Resistance in Civil War Pennsylvania

HISTORIANS have long known that Civil War conscription was greeted with less than unreserved enthusiasm in New York, where draft riots erupted in 1863, in the Middle West, where Copperheadism flourished, and in the border states, where slaveowners and others viewed the Union government with uneasy eyes. But there was at least one more area in which the draft was exceedingly unpopular. This was Pennsylvania. An examination of contemporary newspapers and federal provost marshal records stored in the National Archives strongly suggests that opposition to conscription in the Keystone State was as widespread as in any other state of the North. Pennsylvanians, however, have been justly proud of their state's war record, for by April, 1865, perhaps as many as 320,000 residents of the state had donned the blue, a figure exceeded only by the more populous Empire State. As late as the summer of 1862, Pennsylvania with a population of less than three million had more men in uniform than New York with a population of nearly four million. But as the war became more onerous, provost marshals barely had time to solve problems in one township before difficulties arose in two others. Most frightening of all, there were stories of alleged conspiracies to resist the draft and to aid the Confederacy in Berks, Columbia, and Clearfield Counties. Though tales about these disloyal groups were often exaggerated, it was true that several officials were murdered while carrying out their official duties and that desertions were common in Pennsylvania. In 1861, after it had become apparent that the war would last years rather than weeks or months, many ninety-day volunteers

Field of study: History
Factors Influencing Intention towards Technopreneurship among University Students

The number of youths embarking on entrepreneurship in Malaysia is still low despite various efforts have been exerted by the government. Specifically, technopreneurship which is an important new breed of entrepreneurship in the post COVID-19 era is facing various challenges, especially in the development of competitive technopreneurs. To date, there is a lack in the literature pertaining to intentional-based studies, specifically on technopreneurship. As such, this study was motivated to identify the individual factors that influence university students’ intention towards technopreneurship. It developed a research model based on the concepts of self-efficacy and individual entrepreneurial orientation. A total of 196 university students from a public university were surveyed through self-administered questionnaires. The results indicated that self-efficacy, namely computer capability and Internet ability, as well as individual entrepreneurial orientation positively and significantly affected intention towards technopreneurship. Several suggestions were given to strategize technopreneurship development in the country. For instance, higher learning institutions should offer non-traditional technopreneurship curriculum and upgrade technological infrastructure. In the meantime, government was also urged to provide conducive business environment and technopreneurship funding. 
  
 29 October 2020  9 December 2020 / Published: 17 January 2021

Field of study: Education, Sociology
Porous organosilicates low-dielectric films for high-frequency devices

The dielectric properties are reported for nanoporous thin films of poly(methyl silsesquioxane) (MSSQ) for use as an ultralow, dielectric intermetal insulator. Direct experimental conformation is provided that the films have low dielectric constants with low loss up to 10 GHz. Low-frequency measurements are also reported.

Field of study: Materials science
Strengthening checks and balances: Democracy defence and promotion in the Americas

The Inter‐American Democratic Charter fails to specify the meaning of an “unconstitutional alteration or interruption of the democratic order.” Arguing that the principle threat to democracy in Americas is the violation of the separation of powers by democratically elected leaders, five conditions are outlined to specify when such an alteration has occurred. The crisis in Peru in 2000 is examined to show how the presence of these conditions gave rise to the Charter, and the crisis in Venezuela in April 2002 is used as a test of the Charter. The paper concludes with recommendations for strengthening the Charter.

Field of study: Political science