nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Non-stationary hydropower generation projections constrained by environmental and electricity grid operations over the western United States

In the western United States, 27% of electricity demand is met by hydropower, so power system planners have a key interest in predicting hydropower availability under changing climate conditions. Large-scale projections of hydropower generation are often simplified based on regression relationships with runoff and they are not always ready to inform power system models due to the coarse time scale (annual) or limited number of represented power plants. We developed an enhanced process-based hydropower model to predict future hydropower generation by addressing the commonly under-represented constraints, including (1) the ecological spills, (2) penstock constraints to provide flexibility in electricity operations, and (3) biases in hydro-meteorological simulations. We evaluated the model over the western United States under two emission scenarios (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) and ten downscaled global circulation models. At the annual time scale, potential hydropower generation is not projected to change substantially, except in California. At the seasonal time scale, systematic shifting of the generation patterns can be observed in snowmelt-dominated regions. These projected annual and regional trends are comparable to other regression-based relationships. However, the representation of more complex operations and constraints tend to reduce the uncertainties inherent to climate projections at seasonal scale. In the Pacific Northwest region where hydropower is the dominant electricity source, our predicted future change of hydropower generation is about 10% less than the regression-based projections in spring and summer. The model can also capture the seasonal non-stationary in hydrologic changes. The spatio and temporal scales of the model, increased accuracy and quantification of uncertainty allow one to use the products to inform power system models toward supporting energy sector planning activities and water-energy trade-offs.

Field of study: Environmental science
Oxygen self-diffusion and conduction mechanisms of thoria

The self-diffusion coefficients of oxygen ion in single-crystal thoria have been measured in O 2 and CO 2 atmospheres by means of a gas-solid isotope exchange technique. The coefficient determined in CO 2 was close to the intrinsic self-diffusion coefficient determined in an oxygen atmosphere, indicating it is independent of the oxygen partial pressure. On the basis of the results the electrical conduction mechanism for thoria is discussed.

Field of study: Materials science
Gene Regulatory Network Inference: Connecting Plant Biology and Mathematical Modeling

Plant responses to environmental and intrinsic signals are tightly controlled by multiple transcription factors (TFs). These TFs and their regulatory connections form gene regulatory networks (GRNs), which provide a blueprint of the transcriptional regulations underlying plant development and environmental responses. This review provides examples of experimental methodologies commonly used to identify regulatory interactions and generate GRNs. Additionally, this review describes network inference techniques that leverage gene expression data to predict regulatory interactions. These computational and experimental methodologies yield complex networks that can identify new regulatory interactions, driving novel hypotheses. Biological properties that contribute to the complexity of GRNs are also described in this review. These include network topology, network size, transient binding of TFs to DNA, and competition between multiple upstream regulators. Finally, this review highlights the potential of machine learning approaches to leverage gene expression data to predict phenotypic outputs.

Field of study: Biology
Causal inference with multi-state models - estimands and estimators of the population-attributable fraction.

The population-attributable fraction (PAF) is a popular epidemiological measure for the burden of a harmful exposure within a population. It is often interpreted causally as proportion of preventable cases after an elimination of exposure. Originally, the PAF has been defined for cohort studies of fixed length with a baseline exposure or cross-sectional studies. 
An extension of the definition to complex time-to-event data is not straightforward. We revise the proposed approaches in literature and provide a clear concept of the PAF for these data situations. The conceptualization is achieved by a proper differentiation between estimands and estimators as well as causal effect measures and measures of association.

Field of study: Mathematics
Clinical Usefulness of the Iowa Gambling Task in Severe Alcohol Use Disorders: Link with Relapse and Cognitive‐Physiological Deficits

Decision-making impairments have been repeatedly evaluated in severe alcohol use disorders (SAUD) using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT). The IGT, capitalizing on strong theoretical background and ecological significance, allowed identifying large-scale deficits in this population and is now a standard decision-making assessment in therapeutic settings. However, the clinical usefulness of the IGT, particularly regarding its ability to predict relapse and its link with key cognitive-physiological deficits, remains to be clarified.



Thirty-eight recently detoxified patients with SAUD and 38 matched healthy controls performed the IGT, a neuropsychological task using monetary rewards to assess decision making under uncertainty and under risk. Disease characteristics (e.g., duration and intensity), cognitive abilities, psychopathological comorbidities, and physiological damage were also measured, as well as relapse rates 6 months later.



Compared to controls, patients with SAUD presented a dissociation between preserved decision making under uncertainty and impaired decision making under risk. In the SAUD group, while relapsers (55% of the sample) presented lower global cognitive functioning and stronger liver damage than nonrelapsers at detoxification time, no difference was found between these subgroups for the IGT. IGT results were not related to alcohol-consumption characteristics or cognitive-physiological deficits.



SAUD is not related to a global IGT deficit, as suggested earlier, but rather to a specific impairment for decision making under risk. This deficit is not associated with other disease-related variables and has no relapse prediction power. These results question the clinical usefulness of the IGT as a tool identifying key treatment levers and guiding (neuro)psychological rehabilitation.

Field of study: Medicine
A grating monochromator of BL23SU at SPring-8 covering silicon and oxygen K-edges.

We report the present performance of a grating monochromator at the newly constructed soft x-ray beamline (BL23SU at the SPring-8), which can measure both silicon and oxygen K-edges. That provides new opportunities for XAFS measurements of solids up to 2100 eV.

Field of study: Physics
Rate Structure Reform: A Review of the Current Debate

Regulation of utility rate structure, traditionally focusing on overall earnings and the concept that competition discourages efficiency, has recently shifted in response to new technological, economic, and legal issues. The author reviews recent controversies involving the electric and telecommunications industries and concludes that it is time to revise rate structures. The impetus for reform in the electric utility industry comes from a combination of factors that have emerged in public hearings and meetings, while technological innovations and institutional changes have influenced the movement for rate reform in the telecommunications industry. The costs of changing rate structures are noted, and the author warns that the benefits may not be as all-encompassing as reformists hope. 22 references.

Field of study: Economics
Growth increments in Gomphotherium tusks and implications for late Miocene climate change in North America

Changes in mammalian faunas in North America during the late Miocene are thought to have been caused by the replacement of woodland habitats with grassland or steppe. The proposed cause of this habitat shift is the transition from the relatively low-seasonality early Miocene climate to a more highly seasonal climate regime by the end of the Miocene. Tusks, which are highly modified incisor teeth, of late Miocene Gomphotherium (Mammalia, Proboscidea) were sectioned to document the nature of tusk growth in this genus and to test for patterns of seasonal growth. Both the dentin and enamel of Gomphotherium tusks preserve incremental growth lines. Dentin has increments on three scales, inferred to represent annual (first-order), weekly (second-order), and daily (third-order) periodicities. Luminance and second-order increment thickness profiles were measured on transverse thin sections of tusk dentin viewed at low magnification, and the data were examined with bivariate plots and autocorrelation. Autocorrelograms of luminance data support the consistent identification and measurement of second-order increments within and among the tusks sampled. Profiles of second-order increment thickness in three tusks from the Barstovian North America Land Mammal Age (NALMA) show no indication of seasonal patterns of growth. One tusk from the late Clarendonian and one from the early Hemphillian NALMA have patterns of growth consistent with an increase in seasonality during the late Miocene, an interpretation supported by autocorrelation of the increment thickness data from these tusks. The growth patterns are consistent with the hypothesized changes in North American climate during the late Miocene and are suggestive of an increase in aridity and development of a wet season. Tests of this hypothesis are suggested.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
Technical Notes: Overhang and Pallet Gap Effects on the Performance of Corrugated Fiberboard Boxes

Experiments were carried out to determine the effect of overhang and pallet gap size on the ultimate vertical compression strength of corrugated fiberboard boxes. The experiments were set up to simulate real forces that packages containing fresh produce encounter during transportation and storage. It was found that compression strength decreased exponentially with pallet gap size. Compression strength decreased with an increase in overhang, but not exponentially. There was a large reduction in compression strength for small overhang (10 mm) increasing overhang afterwards and decreased compression strength almost linearly. The results of this study have considerable relevance to the ultimate performance of corrugated fiberboard boxes containing horticultural products. The choice of using gapped pallets and overhang of boxes has to be made based on space efficiency versus loss of stacking strength.

Field of study: Agricultural and Food sciences
An analysis of the effectiveness of Spanish primary health care teams.

One of the main objectives of the managers of public health systems in most developed countries is the modernisation of public services through managerial reforms as a way of resolving the traditional inefficiency of this sector. The objective of this article is to observe how the introduction of one tool traditionally used in the private sector, the organisation of work through teams, can contribute to improved performance in public health services. The study was conducted in the primary health care teams of Navarre, an autonomous region of Spain, where a new model of primary health care, based on teamwork was implanted. We analyse the relationship between team characteristics, team members' individual features and team performance from a stakeholder approach. We can conclude that teams are a form of organisational design useful for improving performance in primary health care because insofar as they function properly, they achieve greater degrees of job satisfaction for the employees, greater perceived quality by the users and greater efficiency for the Administration.

Field of study: Medicine, Political science
Aspects of Self-Regulation and Self-Structure as Predictors of Perceived Emotional Distress

Research on the link between the self and emotional distress has produced many measures that have unknown conceptual and empirical interrelations. The authors identified two classes of self-related variables shown previously to be important predictors of emotional distress. The first class, termed self-regulatory variables, included ego-resiliency, ego-control, ego-strength, and hardiness. The second class, termed self-structure variables, included self-complexity, self-discrepancy, self-consistency, self-attitude ambivalence, and role conflict. Using a two-step structural equation modeling (SEM) strategy, the authors examined first the factor structure of this set of measures. Second, they determined that Elasticity and Permeability (two self-regulatory factors) accounted for unique variance in the prediction of perceived emotional distress (Agitation and Dejection), whereas Self-Discrepancy and Self-Complexity (two self-structure factors) did not.

Field of study: Psychology
Defect Reduction in AlN Epilayers Grown by MOCVD 
via Intermediate-Temperature Interlayers

In this work, significant reduction of the density of threading dislocations (TDs) in AlN epilayers grown on sapphire substrates via metalorganic chemical vapor deposition has been obtained by insertion of thin intermediate-temperature interlayers (IT-ILs). The growth temperature of the IT-ILs ranged from 750°C to 950°C after the initial growth at high temperature of 1200°C. Detailed characterizations were performed to understand the mechanisms of the reduction in dislocation density. It is found that the relatively low growth temperature of the IT-ILs can modify the originally two-dimensional (2D) growth mode to a three-dimensional (3D) growth process and creates a high density of small islands at the interface. During the subsequent growth of the high-temperature AlN layer, the AlN islands initially coalesce to form larger grains as the growth proceeds, and some TDs present in the previous AlN epilayers are found to bend near the interlayer, leading to dislocation merging and annihilation.

Field of study: Materials science
Spectral functions and hole nuclear states

An explicit expression for the spectral function of hole nuclear states is given in the framework of the coherent fluctuation model. It is shown that the spectral function and single-particle width, centroid energy, quasiparticle effective mass, etc., are functionals of the ground-state nucleon density distribution. Calculation of the spectral functions for58Ni,40Ca,28Si is carried out and the results are compared with the experimental data.

Field of study: Physics
Effect of Pulsed Illumination on the Belousov-Zhabotinsky Reaction Catalyzed with Tris(bipyridine) Ruthenium(II) in Continuous Stirred Tank Reactor

The photochemical response of BZ reaction with photosensitive Ru(bpy)32+ has been studied under pulsed illumination in a continuous–flow stirred tank reactor,  Two types of photo-response, the advanced and delayed phase shifts of oscillation, are observed depending on the initial concentrations of malonic acid (MA) or Br− and the timing of a pulsed illumination.

Field of study: Chemistry
Collision-Resistant Hashing: Towards Making UOWHFs Practical

Recent attacks on the cryptographic hash functions MD4 and MD5 make it clear that (strong) collision-resistance is a hard-toachieve goal. We look towards a weaker notion, the universal one-way hash functions (UOWHFs) of Naor and Yung, and investigate their practical potential. The goal is to build UOWHFs not based on number theoretic assumptions, but from the primitives underlying current cryptographic hash functions like MD5 and SHA-1. Pursuing this goal leads us to new questions. The main one is how to extend a compression function to a full-fledged hash function in this new setting. We show that the classic Merkle-Damgard method used in the standard setting fails for these weaker kinds of hash functions, and we present some new methods that work. Our main construction is the “XOR tree.” We also consider the problem of input length-variability and present a general solution.

Field of study: Computer science, Mathematics
108: The role of nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain 1 (Nod1) in cytokine production by macrophages in response to Mycobacterium tuberculosis

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Recognition of pathogen by pattern recognition receptors is crucial for the activation of both innate and adaptive immune responses. Nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (Nod) 1 and Nod2 are cytoplasmic receptors which detect unique muropeptide from bacterial peptidoglycan. Although Nod2 is critical for initiation of host immune responses against M. tuberculosis infection, the role of Nod1 remains largely unknown. In this study, we investigated the role of Nod1 on cytokines production by bone marrow-derived macrophages (BMDMs) in response to M. tuberculosis . We found that pro-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-6, TNF-α, and IL-1β were induced in BMDMs infected with M. tuberculosis , which was not affected by Nod1 deficiency. Activation of NF-κB and MAPKs by M. tuberculosis was also comparable between WT and Nod1-deficient BMDMs. Interestingly, IL-6 and IL-1β production was reduced in Nod1/Nod2-double deficient BMDMs, as compared with Nod2 single deficient cells. Furthermore, when TLRs signaling was inhibited by LPS pre-treatment, such cytokines production was diminished in Nod1-deficient BMDMs, as compared with WT cells. Our results indicate that Nod1 cooperates with Nod2 or TLRs to produce cytokines in macrophages in response to M. tuberculosis.

Field of study: Medicine
Preliminary evidence that copper inhibits the degradation of DDT to DDE in pip and stonefruit orchard soils in the Auckland region, New Zealand.

Orchards (n=13) were sampled as part of a larger survey investigating agrichemical residues (pesticides and trace elements) in cropping soils in the Auckland region, New Zealand. SigmaDDT concentrations in orchard soils ranged from <0.03 to 24.41 mg kg(-1). DDT (o,p'- and p,p'-) comprised at least 40% of the SigmaDDT residues in 67% of orchards in which DDT residues were detected. There was a highly significant negative correlation (-0.924, P<0.001) between copper concentration (21-490 mg kg-1) and the ratio of DDE:DDT (0.4-5.2) in pip and stonefruit orchard soils. In further investigations involving five pip and stone fruit orchard sites and one grazing paddock it was found that soil respiration and the ratio of soil microbial carbon to soil carbon (%Cmic/Org-C) in orchard soils decreased with increasing copper concentration. These findings are consistent with the conclusion that elevated soil copper concentrations in pip and stone fruit orchard soils in the Auckland region may have reduced the ability of the indigenous soil microbial community to degrade DDT to DDE

Field of study: Environmental science
Cardiovascular Safety of Stimulants in Children: Findings from Recent Population-Based Cohort Studies

The past decade has seen a heated debate over the cardiac safety of central nervous system stimulants in the treatment of ADHD. This review discusses five controlled population-based studies that investigated this risk in children in the United States. All studies utilized administrative claims data of private or public insurance to compare risk of stimulant use to non-use. Two studies with smaller sample size lacked the ability to investigate serious events but report a slightly increased risk of emergency department visits attributed to cardiac symptoms such as tachycardia or palpitation. Three studies that enrolled more than one million patients found no association between stimulants and composite endpoints of sudden cardiac death, myocardial infarction, stroke and ventricular arrhythmia. The studies concur that background rates of serious cardiovascular events in children are extremely small. No study exceeded an average follow-up of two years, prohibiting inferences about long-term effects of stimulants.

Field of study: Medicine, Psychology
Analysis of Litchi-induced allergic asthma among 23 cases

To determine that litchi can be an important allergen of asthma.  Twenty three suspected litchi hypersensitivity cases and 20 controls were tested by skin prick test and bronchial provocation test (BPT) with fresh litchi juice. The changes of FEV 1 and PEF levels were measured before and after BPT.  Skin prick test: all the patients in litchi group had positive reactions and the controls had negative reactions. The wheal size of the two groups has significant difference ( P 0.01). (2) Bronchial provocation test litchi induced asthma was observed in the litchi group, while none of the controls had this phenomenon. Changes of FEV 1 and PEF were found significant difference ( P 0.01) before and after BPT.  Litichi is an important allergen of asthma, it can provoke asthma.

Field of study: Biology
The paradox of the question

Since A4 is obviously useless, Markosian asks what has gone wrong.2 Responding to Markosian, Sider (1997) points out that the angel has given the wrong answer to Q4. Were A4 correct, then Q4 would be the best question to have asked and A4 its answer; but since there are better question/answer pairs than (Q4, A4), A4 cannot be the correct answer to Q4. Sider goes on to argue that Q4 cannot be the best question: suppose the answer to Q4 is X, then X consists in just the (useless) ordered pair (Q4, X).3 It seems that for any answer the angel gives of the form X = (Q4, X), such as A4, the angel undermines the answer it gives. However, not every answer of this form need be trivial. For instance, if we write Y for the solution to the problem of world hunger, another answer to Q4 would be

Field of study: Philosophy
Is there an inter-organ glutathione redox cycle?

Intracellular glutathione redox status is a function of the flux through glutathione peroxidase-glutathione reductase system. Specific activities of these two enzymes in rat liver cytosol and erythrocyte hemolysates were determined. Relative to glutathione peroxidase levels, glutathione reductase activity was about 15-fold more abundant in the rat liver than in erythrocytes. This is suggestive of greater capacity of the liver to reduce oxidised glutathione (GSSG). Based on these results and from the pattern of glutathione efflux from different cells and tissues [Sies, H. & Akerboom, T.P.M. (1984) Methods Enzymol. 105, 445-451], it is speculated that an interorgan glutathione redox cycle may be operative wherein liver is central to the reduction of GSSG and other disulphides.

Field of study: Biology, Chemistry, Physics