nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
The role of natural habitats in agricultural systems for bird conservation: the case of the threatened Lesser Grey Shrike

Birds of agricultural systems are one of the most threatened groups of birds in Europe mainly due to their sharp population decline in recent decades. Habitat intensification resulting from more productive agricultural practices has been proposed as a major cause for these declines. However, especially in some regions such as Eastern European and Mediterranean countries, little is known about the ultimate factors linked to habitat intensification that drive population declines for different species. The Lesser Grey Shrike is a good study species for a better understanding of such processes since it is closely related to agricultural habitats in Europe and has suffered a strong decline in range and population size across the western half of the continent. In this study, we explored variations in breeding parameters of this shrike related to habitat composition and food supply at the territory level. We found that fledgling success of early breeders was related to the presence of natural (shrub lands) and semi-natural (fallows) habitats in the predominantly agricultural matrix that dominated breeding territories. Their influence on fledgling success appeared to be mediated by a higher arthropod availability on these habitats. Indeed, Lesser Grey Shrike showed a strong preference for these habitats as hunting locations. Our results highlight the importance of natural habitats in intensified agricultural land mosaics for the conservation of bird species. We suggest that management plans should pay special attention to the availability of habitats which serve as high quality food reservoirs and can potentially contribute to enhance the species population viability in an area. Finally, we discuss the possible link between agricultural intensification and Lesser Grey Shrike population declines in Western Europe.

Field of study: Environmental science
Dynamic, Embodied, Limited-Capacity Attention and Memory: Modeling Cognitive Processing of Mediated Stimuli

Human sensory processing does not occur in a vacuum. Instead it unfolds over time and reflects the motivational goals of the person. The perceptual system identifies emotionally relevant stimuli from the world, and these stimuli are processed differently than unemotional stimuli. As the nervous system prepares the body for action, motivated attention is directed to relevant objects in the world. These processes are not separable but rather reflect a unified embodied cognition. When visual information is mediated, the body still responds, and cognition of emotionally charged mediated topics reflects the body's responses. This article outlines a dynamic, embodied approach to the cognitive processing of mediated stimuli, presents a connectionist model to account for the cognitive processing, and compares model predictions with past results. The model is driven by data and theoretical work in communication showing that arousal fundamentally affects processing of and memory for mediated messages.

Field of study: Psychology
Diversity and ecophysiological features of thermophilic carboxydotrophic anaerobes.

Both natural and anthropogenic hot environments contain appreciable levels of carbon monoxide (CO). Anaerobic microbial communities play an important role in CO conversion in such environments. CO is involved in a number of redox reactions. It is biotransformed by thermophilic methanogens, acetogens, hydrogenogens, sulfate reducers, and ferric iron reducers. Most thermophilic CO-oxidizing anaerobes have diverse metabolic capacities, but two hydrogenogenic species are obligate carboxydotrophs. Among known thermophilic carboxydotrophic anaerobes, hydrogenogens are most numerous, and based on available data they are most important in CO biotransformation in hot environments.

Field of study: Biology, Environmental science
Concurrent Salmonella Mycotic Abdominal Aneurysm and Empyema Thoracis: A Rare Coincidence

To present a case of Salmonella bacteremia with a rare metastatic focus.  A 61-year-old male presented with a suicide attempt after ingestion of half a bottle of toilet cleaner. He had a medical history of intravenous drug abuse and major depression. Persistent Salmonella enteritidis bacteremia occurred during his hospitalization, and a search for the primary source of infection disclosed a mycotic abdominal aortic aneurysm. A suppurative lesion was also noted over the left pleural space, and Salmonella empyema was confirmed after thoracentesis. He underwent video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery and endovascular repair of the abdominal aortic aneurysm and was placed on long-term antibiotics, without recurrence. S. enteritidis involvement of the cardiovascular system is a rare coincidence and results in significant morbidity and mortality. In addition, the phenomenon of secondary metastatic infective foci involving the pleural space has an even lower frequency than that of cardiovascular involvement. Therefore, a high index of suspicion and prompt treatment from the treating physicians are strongly recommended.

Field of study: Medicine
Beyond Mfold: Recent advances in RNA bioinformatics

Abstract
               
                  Computational analysis of RNA secondary structure is a classical field of biosequence analysis, which has recently gained momentum due to the manyfold regulatory functions of RNA that have become apparent. We present five recent computational approaches that address the problems of synoptic folding space analysis, pseudoknot prediction, structure alignment, comparative structure prediction, and miRNA target prediction. All these programs are in current use and are available via the Bielefeld Bioinformatics Server at http://bibiserv.techfak.uni-bielefeld.de.

Field of study: Biology, Engineering
Predictive modelling of eutrophication in the Pozón de la Dolores lake (Northern Spain) by using an evolutionary support vector machines approach

Eutrophication is a water enrichment in nutrients (mainly phosphorus) that generally leads to symptomatic changes and deterioration of water quality and all its uses in general, when the production of algae and other aquatic vegetations are increased. In this sense, eutrophication has caused a variety of impacts, such as high levels of Chlorophyll a (Chl-a). Consequently, anticipate its presence is a matter of importance to prevent future risks. The aim of this study was to obtain a predictive model able to perform an early detection of the eutrophication in water bodies such as lakes. This study presents a novel hybrid algorithm, based on support vector machines (SVM) approach in combination with the particle swarm optimization (PSO) technique, for predicting the eutrophication from biological and physical–chemical input parameters determined experimentally through sampling and subsequent analysis in a certificate laboratory. This optimization technique involves hyperparameter setting in the SVM training procedure, which significantly influences the regression accuracy. The results of the present study are twofold. In the first place, the significance of each biological and physical–chemical variables on the eutrophication is presented through the model. Secondly, a model for forecasting eutrophication is obtained with success. Indeed, regression with optimal hyperparameters was performed and coefficients of determination equal to 0.90 for the Total phosphorus estimation and 0.92 for the Chlorophyll concentration were obtained when this hybrid PSO–SVM-based model was applied to the experimental dataset, respectively. The agreement between experimental data and the model confirmed the good performance of the latter.

Field of study: Biology, Mathematics
Simple time-aware and social-aware user similarity for a KNN-based recommender system

In this paper we report the results of the experiment carried out by our institutions for participating in the track 1 of the the 2011 CAMRa challenge workshop. We ran some variations of a traditional user-based neighborhood recommender system based on two simple ideas: (1) Force the inclusion of household members into the neighborhood of the user and (2) increase the similarity of users that use the system if they use the system at similar time slots. The approaches are evaluated using the MAP, P@5, P@10 and AUC metrics. Results show that a small improvement is achieved on of the chosen metrics when comparing the social and time strategies to a traditional KNN approach.

Field of study: Economics
A ten-year trend analysis of pharmacist participation in the workforce

David A. Mott, William R. Doucette, Caroline A. Gaither, Craig A. Pedersen and Jon C. Schommer School of Pharmacy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 777 Highland Avenue, Madison WI 53705-2222; College of Pharmacy, University of Iowa, Iowa City IA 52242; School of Pharmacy, University of Michigan,

Field of study: Education, Medicine
Utilization of Selected Vitality Staple Foods by Low Income Households in Ebonyi State

The study focused on the utilization of selected vitality foods among low income household in Ebonyi State. Specifically the study aimed at identifying vitality foods that are available, accessible and utilized by low income household in state. Descriptive survey design was used for the study. The population of the study is 2,173,501 households and the sample size is 400 households. The instrument for data collection was questionnaire and interview. The research questions were answered on individual item basis using mean, frequency and standard deviation, t-test was used to test the hypothesis. The findings revealed among other things that vitality foods are not always available in the state; they are not always accessible and therefore not always utilized by the low income households in the state. This is contrary to US Department of Agriculture Food Guide Pyramid that children should consume three servings from the vitality foods each day to remain healthy. Based on the findings, some recommendations were made including (1) Nutrition education at the household level should be taught by Home Economics Extension workers to family members through workshops/seminars as this will encourage low income households on ways of reducing food insecurity during off seasons (2) Entrepreneurship education should be introduced into the school curriculum from primary to university levels of education to empower low income households financially among others.

Field of study: Education
Research of Dynamic Forecasting Model and ANSYS Analysis of Temperature Field in Slab

The dynamic forecasting model of temperature field in slab was established by the numerical solution according to the energy conservation.The ANSYS simulation was successfully introduced to the modeling simulation of slab heating based on the character of slab heating.The simulation results emerge the temperature field and heat transfer of slab heating,and offer investigative instrument for the more analyse of slab heating and heating system.The temperature field in slab and energy saving are achieved by using the model database of slab heating.

Field of study: Materials science
Increasing zoo’s conservation potential through understanding barriers to holding globally threatened amphibians

The global amphibian crisis and current un-mitigatable threats make ex situ programmes a crucial complementary action for the conservation of many amphibians. Zoos and aquariums are some of the most important and influential groups of institutions to undertake this yet the proportion of globally threatened amphibians in zoos is just 23.9% compared to over 40% in the wild. To identify key barriers to holding globally threatened amphibian species in ex situ collections, as well as potential strategies to mitigate such barriers, we surveyed amphibian curators across 107 institutions worldwide. A lack of resources (including budget, staffing and space) was perceived as the most significant barrier (87% of respondents) and the barrier most frequently identified (119 responses), followed by disease/biosecurity concerns (31 responses), and a lack of staff expertise/knowledge (30 responses). Difficulty displaying amphibians due to cryptic behaviour or colouration (65% or respondents) and difficulty attracting visitor interest (60% of respondents) were seen as insignificant barriers. Nine key priority action areas were identified, with increasing interest from zoo leadership and budget allocation identified as the most important (49% of suggested solutions). Increasing visitor interest in amphibians to encourage increased investment and engaging with range country facilities were highlighted as two ways to address barriers. Careful collection planning considering both the need and suitability of a species for captive breeding is also key, whilst critically assessing the role each species will play in a collection will enable a better assessment of the collection’s conservation value rather than using global threat status alone.

Field of study: Environmental science
Design of SFQ-counting analog-to-digital converter

We describe the design of an oversampling single-flux-counting analog-to-digital converter with the estimated bandwidth of a few tens of MHz, based on Rapid Single-Flux-Quantum (RSFQ) devices. It consists of an input analog circuit, high-speed quantizer with an original analog/digital negative feedback loop, decimation (comb) filter, and supporting subsystems including clock distribution circuits, quantization signal conditioner, and output drivers. We have applied a new approach, the 'symmetrizing' negative feedback, to free the quantizer from the intrinsic hysteresis without dynamic range sacrifice. The 16-bit version of the system comprises about 1,500 Josephson junctions and consumes 1.2 mW of DC power, when implemented using Nb-trilayer technology with 1 kA/cm/sup 2/, 3.5 /spl mu/m Josephson junctions. All subsystems of the converter have been successfully tested and testing of the system as a whole is in progress.<<ETX>>

Field of study: Physics
The Study of Barrage-type Jamming for SAR

The active and barrage-type noise jamming method of synthetic aperture radar is analyzed and discussed.The methods of noise jamming and the signal model of transmitting is described.The raw echo signal of SAR and the model of jammed echo signal are expatiated,the characteristic of SAR and the evaluating method of noise jamming are established.Finally,the noise jamming imaging of SAR is simulated.

Field of study: Engineering
Comparative Analysis of Impulse and Impedance Tests to Detect Short Circuits Within the W7-X Magnets

The magnet system of the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator (W7-X) consists of 50 nonplanar and 20 planar coils. In particular, the winding packs of the nonplanar coils are densely packed and compressed in the area of inter-layer joints and coil terminations, which brings some risk of inter-turn and inter-layer short circuits. The paper describes methods deducted from impulse and ac tests performed on the coils, which enable demonstrating the absence of short circuits and weak points of low inter-layer insulation resistance. In the impulse test, frequency and damping are compared for coils with and without short circuits and coils with an external low resistance bypass. With ac voltage, a drastically reduced impedance clearly indicates a short circuit. Therefore both tests represent excellent QA (quality assurance) tools for checking the uniformity of the electromagnetic performance of a serial production of magnet coils

Field of study: Physics
Collective clusterization approach to investigate the relevance of deformation effects in Sn radioactivity

The role of deformations and orientations is studied in cluster decays of various radioactive nuclei leading to doubly magic 100Sn or 132Sn daughter nucleus, using the preformed cluster model (PCM). This model treats the cluster emission process via tunnelling across the potential barrier, the cluster/fragment being preformed with a relative probability $ P_0$P0. With the incorporation of deformation and orientation effects, the fragmentation potential, the penetration path and related barrier characteristics get significantly modified, due to which both the preformation probability $ P_0$P0 and penetrability P of the emitting cluster get influenced. The calculated half-lives of the decaying clusters calculated using PCM are found to be within the upper limits of the present experiments. The influence of deformations and orientations on Sn radioactivity is also seen in terms of various barrier characteristics such as barrier modification, barrier height, etc. Moreover, the role of different nuclear proximity potentials, i.e., Prox 77, Prox 88 and Prox 00, is analyzed in the context of potential energy surfaces (PES) in the ground-state decay of parent nucleus. The behavior of PES is explored including, as well as without including, the shell corrections in the binding energies, which in turn help to explore the importance of doubly magic closed shell configuration of daughter and cluster nuclei. The possible role of higher order multipole deformations (i.e., up to $ \beta_{4i}$β4i) is also analyzed in view of the fragmentation path and barrier tunnelling characteristics.

Field of study: Physics
Palaeoclimate analysis using spectral gamma-ray data from the Aptian (Cretaceous) of southern England and southern France

The abundance and half-lives of potassium (K), uranium (U) and thorium (Th) make these three elements the dominant sources of gamma-rays detected in rocks both at outcrop and in the subsurface. With the advent of the spectral gamma-ray tool (SGR), the variation shown by these three elements in rocks has been considered to reflect sorting at flooding surfaces and changes in the weathering regime of sediment source-lands. K and U are considered to be more soluble than Th, thus elevated Th to K or U ratios in soils and eroded clays can reflect hot, humid climates and palaeoclimates. This study makes an assessment of the usefulness of SGR data to palaeoclimate studies by comparing changing Th/K and Th/U ratios from a known period of palaeoclimate change to extensive published and new data from other analytical methods. New SGR data from the Cretaceous of southern England and southern France compare favourably to outcrop sedimentological facies interpretations and laboratory geochemical data. Palaeoclimate data from two other sections (northern Germany, northern Italy) are compared as controls to the study. Together these analyses suggest that there was a gradual change from semi-arid climate in the Barremian and early Aptian, to a semi-humid climate in the mid-Aptian. Superimposed on this long-term rise in humidity were a number of short-term (ammonite zone-length) changes in Th/K and Th/U ratios and the abundance of climate-sensitive materials. This study shows that SGR data are more useful than originally thought. When problems of overprinting from heavy minerals and diagenesis are overcome, outcrop and borehole spectral gamma-ray logs from mudstones or the clay-rich beds of mixed successions may be used to interpret past patterns of hinterland weathering.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
The timing of glacier advances in the northern European Alps based on surface exposure dating with cosmogenic 10Be, 26Al, 36Cl, and 21Ne

Exposure dating of boulder and bedrock surfaces with 10Be, 21Ne, 26Al, and 36Cl allows us to constrain periods of glacier expansion in the European Alps. The age of 155 ka from a boulder of Alpine lithology located in the Jura Mountains (Switzerland) provides a minimum age for pre-LGM (Last Glacial Maximum), more extensive Alpine glaciations. During the LGM, glaciers expanded onto the foreland after 30 ka. By 21.1 ± 0.9 ka deglaciation had begun, and the Rhône Glacier abandoned the E-mail: ivy@phys.ethz.ch. Ivy-Ochs, S., Kerschner, H., Reuther, A., Maisch, M., Sailer, R., Schaefer, J., Kubik, P.W., Synal, H., and Schlüchter, C., 2006, The timing of glacier advances in the northern European Alps based on surface exposure dating with cosmogenic Be, Al, Cl, and Ne,  Bourlès, D.L., and Brown, E.T., eds., In Situ–Produced Cosmogenic Nuclides and Quantifi cation of Geological Processes: Geological Society of America Special Paper 415, p. 43–60, doi: 10.1130/2006.2415(04). For permission to copy, contact editing@geosociety.org.

Field of study: Geology
Groups Under Stress: The Influence of Group Structure and Environment on Process and Performance

The study examined how group structure affects group process and performance in stressful and nonstressful environments. Research suggests that clear structure should facilitate group process and performance, but reactance theory suggests that prearranged group structure may reduce individual freedom, thereby reducing group satisfaction and performance. A 2 x 4 factorial design involved groups that were either given structure or left unstructured before working on a task. Groups worked in either positive, crowded, or noisy environmental conditions. A perceived negative environment condition in which subjects were informed that the environment would inhibit performance was also included. The results indicated that the predetermined structure facilitated interpersonal relations and performance in the positive environment and the perceived negative environment. However, the predetermined structure had a negative effect when the groups faced a stressful environment (crowded or noisy). The results suggest that the environmental setting influences the type of group structure that will be most effective in promoting process and performance.

Field of study: Psychology
Role of insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia in cardiovascular disease

Resi,stance to insulin-stimulated glucose uptake is present in the great majority of patients with impaired glucose tolerance or type 2 diabetes mellitus, in first degree relatives of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, as well as in approximately 25% of non-obese individuals with normal oral glucose tolerance. Deterioration of glucose tolerance can be prevented if beta cell is able to produce more insulin resulting hyperinsulinemia. The association between hypertension and diabetes mellitus is well recognized. Several reasons for the coexistence of these disorders have been postulated, i.e. as part of aging process, diabetes causes macrovascular and microvascular disease, renovascular stenosis which is enhanced by the development of hypertension. Insulin causes renal sodium reabsorption, stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, increases intracellular calcium, and is a vascular growth factor. Insulin resistance, hyperinsulinemia, impaired glucose tolerance, increased plasma triglyceride, and decreased HDL-cholesterol concentration have been shown to be associated with increased risk of coronary heart disease. Based upon these considerations, it raised the possibility that insulin resistance and hyperinsulinemia are involved in the etiology and clinical course of three major related disease; the type 2 diabetes mellitus, hypertension, and coronary heart disease.  hyperinsulinemia insulin resistance cardiovascular disease glucose homeostasis aging

Field of study: Medicine