nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Morphological variability of Brachidontes Swainson (Bivalvia, Mytilidae) in the marine Quaternary of Argentina (SW Atlantic)

Morphometric analyses of abundant shells of Brachidontes from 27 localities (19 littoral deposits of Late Quaternary age and eight modern sites) in Argentina, where Brachidontes rodriguezi d'Orb., 1846, Brachidontes darwinianus d'Orb., 1846 and Brachidontes purpuratus Lamk., 1819 have been reported, show implications for palaeoenvironmental reconstructions. Only shell characters have been generally used for taxonomic discrimination of these taxa (i.e., general shape, size, external ornamentation, colour). Morphometric variation ranges from elongate, comparatively small shells (R), typical of coarse sandy substrates and warm or warm-temperate water masses in typically marine and polyhaline environments (dominant in the mid-Holocene), to bigger, more strongly ribbed and more globose shells (P), characteristic of pebbly or rocky substrates, and shallow, cold water masses in typically open marine habitats (dominant in the Magellanean province at present). Traditional and geometric morphometric techniques performed on large amounts of fossil and modern shells help to objectively define the morphometric variation of Brachidontes in the area. The coordinates for the shell outline (165 specimens) and five linear dimensions (485 specimens) were used for morphometric analyses of shell specimens of the three main morphs (D = darwinianus; R = rodriguezi; P = purpuratus) identified within the samples collected, for two main reasons: 1) They represent the most common features used for taxonomic discrimination at the species level; 2) comparative analysis of outer ornamentation and colour could produce deceiving results due to the varying preservation grades between fossil and modern shells. Results both by Relative Warps and Principal Component techniques show no difference among shell morphs, implying that B. darwinianus and B. rodriguezi (= B. solisianus d'Orb. = B. exustus Linn.) might have to be synonymized with B. purpuratus (P), which dominates in colder waters at higher latitudes. The morphotypes are extremes within a wide morphological range and can be linked together in a chain of transitional forms. They respond to different habitats (ecomorphs) controlled by temperature (geographical variation), substrate, energy and water-depth, and by salinity, and by competitive strategies for space (availability of food resources), all influencing growth. The morphometric variation of organisms in fossil strata could represent a valid tool to reconstruct palaeoenvironmental changes that occurred during high sea-level stands since ca. 300 ka (Pleistocene, MOIS 9) to ca. 7.6–4.5 ka (mid-Holocene Climatic Optimum, transgressive maximum of MOIS1) and up to present.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
An Empirical Study of Software Piracy and Moral Intensity among University Students

Software piracy, an unethical and illegal behavior, is pervading today's society. In a few recent studies, some scholars have argued that to decrease software piracy, it is more important to raise the level of moral intensity regarding software piracy than establishing a reward - punishment structure for following institutional compliance. In this study, authors developed a survey questionnaire and administered to about 800 undergraduate and graduate business students from two Midwestern state universities, to study the relationship between the level of moral intensity and eleven demographic variables. The results obtained were mixed. The most interesting results that were obtained are that moral intensity of software piracy is not affected by the use of computer, experience with computers or task orientation. The propensity toward moral intensity is affected by general demographic variables.

Field of study: Computer science
Probability inequalities for continuous unimodal random variables with finite support

A paramecer-free Bernstein-type upper bound is derived for the probability that the sum S of n i.i.d, unimodal random variables with finite support, X1 ,X2,…,Xn, exceeds its mean E(S) by the positive value nt. The bound for P{S - nμ ≥ nt} depends on the range of the summands, the sample size n, the positive number t, and the type of unimodality assumed for Xi. A two-sided Gauss-type probability inequality for sums of strongly unimodal random variables is also given. The new bounds are contrasted to Hoeffding's inequality for bounded random variables and to the Bienayme-Chebyshev inequality. Finally, the new inequalities are applied to a classic probability inequality example first published by Savage (1961).

Field of study: Mathematics
Systematics of rotational bands withK=0 in odd-odd nuclei

An empirical rule for the sign of the Newby shifts inK=0 rotational bands from purej-shells is proposed. An examination of 42 experimentalK=0 bands demonstrates the usefulness of this rule. A fit of the parameters in the residual neutron-proton interaction to the experimental Newby shifts shows the importance of the space exchange term for a good description of the Newby shifts.

Field of study: Physics
A methodology to assess environmental vulnerability in a coastal city: Application to Jakarta, Indonesia

The assessment of environmental vulnerability is a sound basis for environmental management measures because it provides an objective standard for the priorities for implementation. Although several methods have been used by international agencies to assess and compare national environmental vulnerabilities, relatively few methodologies have been proposed to assess vulnerability on the local scale. In this study, we developed a methodology to assess the environmental vulnerability of a coastal city, with the goal of overcoming the limitations of a previous method that compared countries' vulnerabilities on a global scale. We applied this methodology to Jakarta, Indonesia, to identify its utility in providing a basis for the development of environmental policy measures. We assessed the relative environmental vulnerabilities of Jakarta's five districts, using a conceptual diagram composed of exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity. For environmental exposure, we considered inundation due to heavy rainstorm, flood from sea level rise, and environmental pollution. For sensitivity, sectors of human and natural systems were considered using a land cover map from GIS data. To examine adaptive capacity, we addressed environmental awareness, policy foundation, economic status, and infrastructure. The assessment results showed that the East and North districts are more vulnerable than other districts. We suggested environmental policy measures for each district using radial graphs that show the dominant indicators within the composite index. Our proposed methodology has a significant relevance in the sense that it extracts key indicators of environmental vulnerability by considering local conditions, and provides a useful tool to compare results within a vulnerability assessment and to inform appropriate environmental policy measures.

Field of study: Environmental science
Computerized Model for Response of Transistors to a Pulse of Ionizing Radiation

A computer program has been formulated to solve the time-dependent differential equations describing electron and hole concentrations and the electric field in one-dimensional planar semiconductor-device geometry. The usual assumptions of small minority-carrier concentration and requirements for separating devices into neutral and space-charge regions are not required since the depletion layer is a natural result of the computer solution. Problems which have been studied include the relaxation of P-N junction diodes and transistors from an intense short pulse of ionizing radiation. The phenomena observed include an apparent long recovery time of diodes in high-impedance circuits, ambipolar diffusion of electron-hole pairs toward the junction of alloy diodes, and electric-field peaking in the depletion layer of reverse-biased alloy junctions.

Field of study: Physics
Aptitude Tests as a Co-Relate of Students’ Performance in Achievement Tests in Senior Secondary School Biology

Literature revealed that there was poor enrolment of students in Biology related courses such as medicine, pharmacy, radiography, nursing, medical laboratory science, dentistry as a result of poor performance of students in Biology and consequence of inadequate method of evaluation. The purpose of the study was to find out the relationship between the students performance in achievement and aptitude test scores in biology. The design of the study was correlation and the population was all the 1056 students that wrote the SS1 biology and entrance examination into senior secondary II examinations in biology in the 2012/2013 academic session. Simple random sampling (battling without replacement) was used to sample 650 students from 14 secondary schools in Enugu East Local Government area of Enugu Slate. The method of data collection was documentary information of students' scores on achievement and aptitude in biology examinations. Pearson ‘r’ and t-test were used to correlate and test the hypothesis at 5% level of confidence. Based on the analyzed data, it was found out that out of the 10 schools studied, the relationship between achievement and aptitude scores was positive, high and significant.  Relationship, students’ performance, achievement and aptitude, senior secondary and Biology examination.

Field of study: Education
Debunking the current narrative: updating the Canada-India economic relationship

There have been significant improvements to the policy framework and tone of diplomatic relations to improve Canada-India economic relations under the previous Harper government. Yet, despite these changes and a commitment to increasing trade to CAD$15 billion by 2015, bilateral trade between the two countries remains stagnant at CAD$6 billion dollars a year. Academics, commentators and policy makers have settled on false narratives to explain why there has been little improvement to this potentially powerful economic relationship. Therefore, this article updates these explanations based on their limitations to improve how the Canada-India economic relationship should be reconceptualized. I recommend that exports that reflect innovative solutions to India's socio-economic development challenge are central to the future of bilateral relations. Canada must also be aware of how its ongoing position on international issues – such as climate change – will negatively affect its relations with India.

Field of study: Political science
Status of marine mammals in Korea

Although marine mammals, particularly cetaceans, have been protected in Korea for more than 24 years after a commercial whaling moratorium in 1986, relatively little effort has been focused on assessing their current status of marine mammals in this area after this protection and the efficacy of this protection. Thus, for the first time, the status of marine mammals in Korea was investigated using potential biological removal (PBR) and mortality data. A total of 5 stocks of marine mammals were investigated and 4 stocks experienced anthropogenic mortalities that exceeded their estimated PBR level. Therefore, these 4 stocks were considered strategic. These mortalities were mainly associated with commercial fishing activities. To conserve and manage marine mammals in this area effectively, it urgently needs to investigate the efficiency of various bycatch mitigation measures and to apply these measures in field actually for reducing bycatch. This study has advanced our understanding of the current status of marine mammals in Korea, but quantitative data on abundance are not available for most small cetaceans such as common dolphin, harbor porpoise. Thus, further study needs to examine abundance of small cetaceans for investigating of the current status of these stocks in Korea.

Field of study: Environmental science
Solvent Extraction of Rare Earths with Mixtures of Di-(2-ethylhexyl) Phosphoric Acid and sec-Nonylphenoxy Acetic Acid

The solvent extraction of rare earths with mixtures of di-( 2-ethylhexyl ) phosphoric acid ( D2EHPA,H2A2) and sec-nonylphenoxy acetic acid ( CA100,H2B2) has been carried out. The separation abilities among rare earths were determined and compared with those with D2EHPA alone. The mechanism of synergistic extraction of lanthanum was discussed. The methods of slope analysis and constant mole were used to examine the extraction stoichiometry. Effects of acidities,concentrations of extractants,and temperature on the extractabilities have been investigated. The results showed that the synergistic effects decrease with increasing atomic numbers of rare earths. At proper ratios of the extractants,the separation abilities of some rare earths with D2EHPA + CA100 were higher than those with D2EHPA alone,which may be applied to the separation of these rare earths. The extracted complex of lanthanum with D2EHPA + CA100 was determined as LaH5A6B2. The synergistic extraction is endothermically driven.

Field of study: Chemistry
Omic research in termites: an overview and a roadmap

Many recent breakthroughs in our understanding of termite biology have been facilitated by “omics” research. Omic science seeks to collectively catalog, quantify, and characterize pools of biological molecules that translate into structure, function, and life processes of an organism. Biological molecules in this context include genomic DNA, messenger RNA, proteins, and other biochemicals. Other permutations of omics that apply to termites include sociogenomics, which seeks to define social life in molecular terms (e.g., behavior, sociality, physiology, symbiosis, etc.) and digestomics, which seeks to define the collective pool of host and symbiont genes that collaborate to achieve high-efficiency lignocellulose digestion in the termite gut. This review covers a wide spectrum of termite omic studies from the past 15 years. Topics covered include a summary of terminology, the various kinds of omic efforts that have been undertaken, what has been revealed, and to a degree, what the results mean. Although recent omic efforts have contributed to a better understanding of many facets of termite and symbiont biology, and have created important new resources for many species, significant knowledge gaps still remain. Crossing these gaps can best be done by applying new omic resources within multi-dimensional (i.e., functional, translational, and applied) research programs.

Field of study: Biology
Microvascular decompression in patients with isolated maxillary division trigeminal neuralgia, with particular attention to venous pathology.

OBJECT
The authors have the clinical impression that patients with isolated V2, or maxillary division, trigeminal neuralgia (TN) are most often women of a younger age with atypical pain features and a predominance of venous compression as the pathology. The aim of this study was to evaluate a specific subgroup of patients with V2 TN.



Among 120 patients who underwent microvascular decompression (MVD) for TN in 2007, data were available for 114; 6 patients were lost to follow-up. Patients were stratified according to typical (Burchiel Type 1), mixed (Burchiel Type 2a), or atypical (Burchiel Type 2b) TN. A pain-free status without medication was used to determine the efficacy of MVD. All patients were contacted in June 2008 and again in January 2009 at 12-24 months after surgery (median 18.4 months) and asked to rate their response to MVD as excellent (complete pain relief without medication), fair (complete pain relief with medication or some relief with or without medication), or poor (continued pain despite medication; that is, no change from their preoperative baseline pain status.



Of 114 patients, 14 (12%) had isolated V2 TN. Among these 14 were 2 typical (14%), 1 mixed (7%), and 11 atypical cases (79%) of TN. Among the remaining 100 cases were 37 typical (37%), 14 mixed (14%), and 49 atypical cases (49%) of TN. In the isolated V2 TN group, all patients were women as compared with 72% of women in the larger group of 100 patients (p = 0.05, chi-square test). The average age in the isolated V2 TN group was 51.2 years (median 48.1 years) versus 54.2 years (median 54.0 years) in the remainder of the group (p = NS, unpaired Student t-test). In the isolated V2 TN group, there was a predominance of atypical pain cases (79%) versus 49% in the remainder of the group, and this finding trended toward statistical significance (p = 0.07, chi-square test). Venous contact or compression (partly or wholly) was noted in 93% of the patients with isolated V2 versus 69% of the remainder of the group (p = 0.13, chi-square test). The likelihood of excellent outcomes in the patients with V2 TN (71%) was compared with that in typical pain cases (79%) among patients in the rest of the group (that is, the bestoutcome group), and no difference was found between the 2 groups (p = 0.8, chi-square test).



The authors confirmed that patients with isolated V2 TN were more likely to be female, tended toward an atypical pain classification with venous pathology at surgery, and fared just as well as those presenting with typical pain.

Field of study: Medicine
Conflict Research and the ‘Decline’ of Civil War

In recent years a number of scholars have suggested that there has been a decline in the absolute numbers of civil wars since the early 1990s, and this claim is purportedly supported by empirical evidence. This paper explores the methodological challenges which confront the study of conflict trends and identifies a number of problems with prevailing approaches. It argues that a differentiated approach to the concept of civil war is necessary before it is possible to make claims about trends in numbers of conflicts, because even the most sophisticated methodological processes have problems related to the manner in which they define and codify armed conflict. Nevertheless, the paper accepts that there has been a decline in the number of major civil wars, and it proposes – and evaluates – a number of explanations for the decline in such wars. These are: the decline of potent ideology since the end of the Cold War, which had hitherto ignited and/or exacerbated armed violence; the decline in intervention by third parties in civil war, a key feature of ‘proxy’ conflicts during the Cold War; the increasing tendency for secession – or hard partition – to be recognised by the international community, which has defused some ongoing conflicts; the increasingly interventionist nature of peacekeeping and peacebuilding activities by international organisations; the growing tendency for powerful states to view civil war and state failure as a potential security threat, resulting in a more substantial effort to resolve conflict which might have hitherto been regarded as ‘merely’ a humanitarian issue or even completely ignored; and the growing number of consolidated democracies.

Field of study: History, Sociology
Antibiotic susceptibility of Pseudomonas aeruginosa

: The susceptibility of 128 clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa against amikacin, kanamycin, gentamycin, minocycline, colistin, chloramphenicol, claforan , piperacillin and carbenicillin were tested. Piperacillin, carbenicillin, amikacin and claforan are effective against at least 54% of strains tested. The susceptibilities of microorganisms to antibiotics were evaluated in different points and discussed in details.

Field of study: Biology
Provisioning overlay distribution networks

Future entertainment services are expected to be increasingly interactive, on demand and personalized. This paper aims to address the challenge of provisioning network and server resources to support the distribution of these services over the Internet. We propose the Overlay Distribution Network (ODN) as a cost-effective means to deliver these services. Because ODNs are created over shared network and server infrastructure, the provisioning problem becomes significantly complex. The paper formulates this problem as a joint resource provisioning and content replication optimization. The resulting formulation is proved to be NP-complete. We solved this problem with an efficient Lagrangian heuristic. Further, content clustering is employed to improve the heuristic run time. Initial results show that this is efficient. In some cases, clustering allows solutions with very similar quality to be achieved at a 20 times reduction in complexity.

Field of study: Computer science
Chemical constituents of the pine extracts and their activities: A review

Pines are very important economically. There is a diverse set of studies related to chemical composition of Pine extracts and their activities. This review discusses the different compounds of 4 species of pine; Pinus halepensis, Pinus pinaster, Pinus pinea and Pinus brutia which include Terpenoids, Phenolic, Resin and Fatty acids. Many activities are attributed to them, such as herbicidal, antifungal, antiradical, antimicrobial and many others. Chemical composition of some pine extracts and their activities are discussed herein, and structure–activity relationships are presented when appropriate

Field of study: Agricultural and Food sciences
The Effect of Cimetidine, Magnesium Tri-Silicate Mixture, and Metoclopramide on Gastric pH and Volume

Surgery patients are considered at risk for pulmonary acid aspiration if the gastric pH is 2.5 or less and/or the gastric aspirate volume is 25 ml or more. This study compares the effect of cimetidine, magnesium tri-silicate (MTS) and metoclopramide on the intragastric volume and pH in 120 elective surgery patients divided into four equal groups. Sixty to ninety minutes before anaesthesia, the cimetidine and metoclopramide groups received 300 and 10 mg i.m., respectively. One hundred twenty minutes before anaesthesia, the MTS group received 30 ml orally. Patients receiving MTS showed the highest gastric pH and intragastric volume. The cimetidine group had the lowest intragastric volume and a significant increase in pH. The metoclopramide group effectively reduced gastric volume but showed no significant effect on pH. We conclude that no single drug can be relied upon to reduce intragastric volume and neutralize gastric acid in all patients.

Field of study: Medicine
Comparison between urban Toronto PM and selected materials: aerosol characterization using laser ablation/ionization mass spectrometry (LAMS).

Laser ablation/ionization mass spectrometry (LAMS) of particulate matter (PM) was undertaken on-line in order to extend and contrast PM characterization. Qualitative on-line LAMS results for certified materials and Toronto source materials demonstrated the versatility and limitations of the technique. The observation of organic and inorganic components of certified materials verified the proper working condition of the in-house on-line LAMS. Organic and inorganic components of Toronto source materials were also observed with the on-line LAMS. Common components identified from both types of materials were Na, Al, Ca, Fe, and K. Other recognized components were compared with marker elements reported for some common PM emission sources. An in-house off-line LAMS was used to analyze urban Toronto PM deposited on glass substrates, while the on-line LAMS analyzed individual urban Toronto PM particles that were introduced directly into the instrument. Scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray spectrometry and inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) were used for confirmatory purposes. Organic and inorganic components of urban Toronto PM at their typical ng/m3 concentrations were successfully observed in mass spectra using both off-line LAMS and on-line LAMS. Identified ions unique to each analyzed material were compared to identified ions of urban Toronto PM. The ability of LAMS to analyze individual respirable PM particles (viz. < 2 microns), both for inorganic trace elements and for organic components, greatly extended our capability to characterize PM and also to achieve estimates of concentration contributions of each material.

Field of study: Environmental science