nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Power-Frequency Magnetic Field Inhibits Adipogenic Differentiation in Human ADSC

Semicircular lipoatrophy (SL) is an idiopathic condition characterized by atrophy of subcutaneous fatty tissue. Although several studies have suggested a possible association between SL and occupational exposure to power frequency magnetic fields (MF), no mechanism has been proposed so far that explains an influence of these fields on adipogenesis.  The study investigates the effects of a 50 Hz, 100 µT MF on the adipogenesis of stem cells isolated from human adipose tissue (ADSC). Cells were plated in Petri dishes and either exposed intermittently to the field for 42 hours or sham-exposed.  Field exposure significantly reduced lipid accumulation within the cells, revealed in Oil Red O stained samples by spectrophotometry and colorimetry. Early cell passages were particularly sensitive to the effect: 30.40 ± 5.77% and 47.96 ± 12.47% below controls in the spectrophotometric and colorimetric assays, respectively. Such antiadipogenic effect was accompanied by significant changes in the expression of key effectors/regulators of early adipogenesis: PPARγ, p-ERK1/2 and Sox9, indicating that at least the ERK/PPARγ signaling pathway could be involved in the effect.  These results constitute an experimental support to the hypothesis that power frequency MF can be one of the factors involved in the etiology of SL.

Field of study: Biology, Chemistry
BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS: Possibility of attainment of anomalously strong directionality of amplified spontaneous radiation

A study was made of the divergence of amplified spontaneous radiation from an extended source. An Ar–N2 mixture was excited by a high-intensity proton beam and it emitted ultraviolet radiation as a result of transitions in the second positive system of the N2 molecule. The pump power density reached 2.2×107Watm−1cm−3 and the length of the excited region was 30 cm. An anomalously strong directionality of amplified spontaneous radiation was observed: this directionality was 20 times higher than that expected on geometric grounds.

Field of study: Engineering, Physics
NSDF: a computer network system description framework and its application to network security

In this work a general framework, termed NSDF, for describing network systems is proposed. Basic elements of this scheme are entities and the relationships established between them. Both entities and relationships are the basis underlying the concept of system state. The dynamics of a network system can be conceived of as a trajectory in the state space. The term action is used to describe every event which can produce a transition from one state to another.These concepts (entity, relationship, state, and action) are enough to construct a model of the system. Evolution and dynamism are easily captured, and it is possible to monitor the behaviour of the system. With the aim of illustrating the use of the proposed framework, a network state description language derived from NSDF, termed RENDL, is also specified.An immediate application of this framework concerns the network security field. It is shown that concepts like security policing of the site, insecure states, intrusive activities and intrusion response mechanisms can be modelled well. Thus, some imprecise terms used in the security context can be expressed in a uniform, precise way within this framework. Formalizing the above concepts allows us to introduce a generic model to classify currently presented taxonomies related to intrusive activities in network systems. This provides a general context for a better understanding of security flaws and how to develop effective defenses.

Field of study: Computer science
A FASTER ALGORITHM FOR CROP MODEL PARAMETERIZATION BY INVERSE MODELING: SIMULATED ANNEALING WITH DATA REUSE

Some recent studies contend that a simple exhaustive (grid) search through the complete inverse modeling parameter 
space can be faster than a more sophisticated algorithm such as simulated annealing (SA). The objective of this study was 
to implement an SA algorithm guaranteed to run worst-case as fast as the grid search. This algorithm resulted from: (1) working 
on a discrete parameter space similarly to the grid search, and (2) accelerating the optimization by avoiding multiple crop 
model runs of the same parameter combinations. The latter was achieved by storing simulation results in computer memory 
and checking for those data before running the model for any given parameter combination. The algorithm was tested relative 
to a pure grid search in two case studies: a synthetic problem having numerous local minima, and a crop modeling exercise 
using the CERES-Maize model with two years of observed maize data from 13 locations in a field near Murray, Kentucky. 
The performance of the modified SA algorithm depended on its parameter values, but a conservative parameter combination 
was found that ran much faster than the grid search, its run time tending asymptotically to that of the grid search as the number 
of locations to calibrate grew, while converging to objective function values (and usually parameter values) practically identical 
to the global optimum, and explaining 97% of the observed yield in the two years used for parameterization.  
of this algorithm can reduce parameterization run time on the order of 25% to 75%, depending on the geometry of the simulation 
domain. Additionally, it can be used to calibrate coupled spatial crop models in which parameter values at one location 
can affect parameter values at other locations, a task not possible using a grid search. Finally, the proposed algorithm can 
generate good “first cut” solutions in only a few hundred iterations, an important consideration when designing practical 
crop simulation applications.

Field of study: Agricultural and Food sciences
The Human Person, the Physician, and the Physician's Ethics

My invitation to address you was very specific. Dr. Murrell said that the truth about the human person was to be the unifying theme ofthis conference. Within that context, he asked me to address the question of how the truth of the human person defines the physician's vocation. I approach this assignment with a sense of diffidence for several reasons: First, the topic is complex and not easily reduced to the dimensions of a luncheon talk. Second, you have already heard from Fr. Benedict Groeschel and Sister Prudence Allen who have explored the theological and philosophical reaches of this subject. Finally, the other speakers will have shown how central the idea of personhood is to our understanding of the family, marriage, and child development. At the risk of repeating what has been said, and with less eloquence, I shall try to connect some selected aspects of the Catholic Christian notion of person to the vocation and ethics of the physician, to the relationship with patients, and the moral choices physicians are called upon to make in the relationship. I apologize particularly for the necessarily sketchy and inadequate rendition I shall give of Christian anthropology and personalism, especially its philosophically subtle construal in the work of His Holiness, Pope John Paul II, which I take to be especially significant for my topic. In these days of high technology, it is ever more difficult to remember that medicine is essentially a relationship of persons. Yet, this is what makes it a moral enterprise. This is why medical ethics is unavoidably grounded in some concept of personhood. Ultimately, both the ethics of the patient-physician relationship and the making of ethical decisions depend on our conception of the human

Field of study: Medicine, Philosophy
Molecular mechanisms of adenosine-induced apoptosis in human HepG2 cells

To investigate effects of adenosine on cell proliferation and apoptosis in human HepG2 cells.HepG2 cells were incubated in the presence of adenosine (0.1–5 mmol/L) for 12–48 h, and the effect of adenosine on cell proliferation was evaluated by using 3-(4,5 -dimethyl-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. Hoechst 33342 fluorescent staining, dUTP-fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC) fluorescence and flow cytometric analysis techniques were used to observe cell apoptosis. The effects of adenosine receptor (A1, A2a, A3 and nonspecific receptor) antagonists (8-cpt, DMPX, MRS 1191, and theophylline) and an adenosine transporter protein inhibitor (dipyridamole) on adenosine-induced cell apoptosis were observed. Mitochondrial membrane potential was analyzed using DePsipher fluorescent staining, and caspase activity was detected using a Fluorometric assay kit and a fluorescence microplate reader.Adenosine significantly reduced cell viability in a dose- and time-dependent manner. The cytotoxicity of adenosine was related to the induction of cell apoptosis. Four adenosine receptor antagonists had no effect on cell apoptosis. However, dipyridamole significantly reduced the percentage of adenosine-induced apoptotic cells from 27.3% to 7.1% (P<0.05). At 48 h after treatment, 3 mmol/L adenosine increased caspase-3 activity 3.5-fold; dipyridamole markedly decreased caspase-3 activity 1.6-fold, and decreased apoptotic cell numbers. When HepG2 cells were treated with 3 mmol/L adenosine, mitochondrial membrane potential and the activity of caspase-8 or -9 remained unchanged.Our results suggest that adenosine-induced apoptosis in HepG2 cells is related to intracellular events rather than cell surface receptors, and that a caspase-3 cascade activation is required, which is not mediated via a mitochondrial pathway.

Field of study: Biology, Chemistry, Medicine
Occurrence of pharmaceuticals in the danube and drinking water wells: Efficiency of riverbank filtration.

Surface waters are becoming increasingly contaminated by pharmaceutically active compounds (PhACs), which is a potential risk factor for drinking water quality owing to incomplete riverbank filtration. This study examined the efficiency of riverbank filtration with regard to 111 PhACs in a highly urbanized section of the river Danube. One hundred seven samples from the Danube were compared to 90 water samples from relevant drinking water abstraction wells (DWAW) during five sampling periods. The presence of 52 PhACs was detected in the Danube, the quantification of 19 agents in this section of the river was without any precedent, and 10 PhACs were present in >80% of the samples. The most frequent PhACs showed higher concentrations in winter than in summer. In the DWAWs, 32 PhACs were quantified. For the majority of PhACs, the bank filtration efficiency was >95%, and not influenced by concentrations measured in the river. For carbamazepine lidocaine, tramadol, and lamotrigine, low (<50%) filtration efficiency was observed; however, no correlations were observed between the concentrations detected in the Danube and in the wells. These frequently occurring PhACs in surface waters have a relatively even distribution, and their sporadic appearance in wells is a function of both space and time, which may be caused by the constantly changing environment and micro-biological parameters, the dynamic operating schedule of abstraction wells, and the resulting sudden changes in flow rates. Due to the changes in the efficiency of riverbank filtration in space and time, predicting the occurrence and concentrations of these four PhACs poses a further challenge to ensuring a safe drinking water supply.

Field of study: Environmental science
Complicated shape of the superconductive transition curve revealed by a sensitive OFC-magnetometer

Because of pick-up coil's flat design, relatively low operation frequency (/spl sim/ 23 MHz) and high relative resolution (10/sup -6/) a single-layer Open-Flat Coil-based tunnel diode oscillator (OFC-magnetometer) has advantages, compared to other test methods. They become crucial at nondestructive studies with thin flat HTS materials (with small signals), especially near T/sub c/ (at start of the 'Cooper' pairs' formation). Due to these a new 'Para-Magnetic' peculiarity of the normal-to-superconductive (N/S) transition was detected recently in YBaCuO films. It precedes the 'Meissner' ejection and specifies details of an actually complicated shape of the N/S transition curve. We discuss influence of the currents and magnetic field on the PM effect and relationship between the quality of HTS material and amplitude of the effect. Differences between PM effect and externally close 'paramagnetic Meissner' and resistive 'peak' effects are discussed too.

Field of study: Physics
PRODUCTIVITY BARGAINING IN THE AUSTRALIAN PUBLIC SECTOR: A CASE STUDY

: Standard hours of work have been relatively uniform throughout the work force in Australia. Reductions have occurred only after careful consideration by the industrial tribunals and/or the parliaments. Provision of special treatment in this matter for particular groups of employees has been limited. The use of productivity bargaining techniques to secure reduced standard hours of work for a relatively small proportion of the work force — as occurred in the public sector in the mid-1970s — represented a significant departure from previous practice. This is a study of the first of these cases which, in effect, set the ground rules for a series of similar cases conducted later within the Commonwealth public sector. It sets out the steps which were necessary to have the productivity agreement accepted and points out novel features which arose in the application of the productivity bargaining technique.

Field of study: Political science
Linear Response Methods for Accurate Covariance Estimates from Mean Field Variational Bayes

Mean field variational Bayes (MFVB) is a popular posterior approximation method due to its fast runtime on large-scale data sets. However, a well known major failing of MFVB is that it underestimates the uncertainty of model variables (sometimes severely) and provides no information about model variable covariance. We generalize linear response methods from statistical physics to deliver accurate uncertainty estimates for model variables—both for individual variables and coherently across variables. We call our method linear response variational Bayes (LRVB). When the MFVB posterior approximation is in the exponential family, LRVB has a simple, analytic form, even for non-conjugate models. Indeed, we make no assumptions about the form of the true posterior. We demonstrate the accuracy and scalability of our method on a range of models for both simulated and real data.

Field of study: Computer science
Strong convergence theorems on an iterative method for a family of finite nonexpansive mappings

Let E be either a strictly convex and reflexive Banach spaces with a uniformly Gâteaux differentiable norm or a reflexive Banach spaces with a weakly sequentially continuous duality mapping, and K be a nonempty closed convex subset of E. For a family of finite many nonexpansive mappings {Tl} (l = 1, 2, … , N) and fixed contractive mapping f : K → K, define iteratively a sequence {xn} as follows: x n + 1 = λ n + 1 f ( x n ) + ( 1 - λ n + 1 ) T n + 1 x n , n ⩾ 0 , whereTn = Tn modN. We proved that {xn} converges strongly to p ∈ F = ⋂ n = 1 N F ( T n ) , as n → ∞, where p is the unique solution in F to the following variational inequality: 〈 ( I - f ) p , j ( p - u ) 〉 ⩽ 0 for all u ∈ F ( T ) . The main results presented in this paper generalized, extended and improved the corresponding results of Bauschke [The approximation of fixed points of nonexpansive mappings in Hilbert space,  (1996) 150–159], Halpen [Fixed points of nonexpansive maps,  (1967) 957–961], Shioji and Takahashi [Strong convergence of approximated sequences for nonexpansive mappings in Banach spaces,  (1997) 3641–3645], Wittmann [Approximation of fixed points of nonexpansive mappings,  (1992) 486–491], O’Hara et al. [Iterative approaches to fineding nearest common fixed point of nonexpansive mappings in Hilbert spaces,  (2003) 1417–1426], Xu [Viscosity approximation methods for nonexpansive mappings,  (2004) 279–291], Jung [Iterative approaches to common fixed points of nonexpansive mappings in Banach spaces,  (2005) 509–520], Zhou et al. [Strong convergence theorems on an iterative method for a family of finite nonexpansive mappings in reflexive Banach spaces,  (2006) 196–212] and others.

Field of study: Mathematics
Strontium ranelate reduces cartilage degeneration and subchondral bone remodeling in rat osteoarthritis model

To investigate whether strontium ranelate (SR), a new antiosteoporotic agent, could attenuate cartilage degeneration and subchondral bone remodeling in osteoarthritis (OA).Methods:Medial meniscal tear (MMT) operation was performed in adult SD rats to induce OA. SR (625 or 1800 mg·kg−1·d−1) was administered via gavage for 3 or 6 weeks. After the animals were sacrificed, articular cartilage degeneration was evaluated using toluidine blue O staining, SOX9 immunohistochemistry and TUNEL assay. The changes in microarchitecture indices and tissue mineral density (TMD), chemical composition (mineral-to-collagen ratio), and intrinsic mechanical properties of the subchondral bones were measured using micro-CT scanning, confocal Raman microspectroscopy and nanoindentation testing, respectively.The high-dose SR significantly attenuated cartilage matrix and chondrocyte loss at 6 weeks, and decreased chondrocyte apoptosis, improved the expression of SOX9, a critical transcription factor responsible for the expression of anabolic genes type II collagen and aggrecan, at both 3 and 6 weeks. Meanwhile, the high-dose SR also significantly attenuated the subchondral bone remodeling at both 3 and 6 weeks, as shown by the improved microarchitecture indices, TMD, mineral-to-collagen ratio and intrinsic mechanical properties. In contrast, the low-dose SR did not significantly change all the detection indices of cartilage and bone at both 3 and 6 weeks.The high-dose SR treatment can reduce articular cartilage degeneration and subchondral bone remodeling in the rat MMT model of OA.

Field of study: Biology, Chemistry, Medicine
CHONOS: Oceanographic information website for Chilean Patagonia

CHONOS is a web platform available at http://chonos.ifop.cl/ . It is composed of a variety of products based on numerical oceanographic modelling of Chilean Patagonia. CHONOS emerged as a response to numerous uncertainties in oceanographic knowledge of the southern and inner seas of Chilean Patagonia, a region where diverse economic, sociocultural and environmental conservation interests overlap, requiring a source of quality information that at the time was not freely or operationally available. The products of CHONOS are designed to provide relevant information for environmentally sustainable decision-making of anthropic activities where information gaps are jointly identified by national authorities, and the scientific and local communities.

Field of study: Environmental science
Spirit and mind: Mental health at the intersection of religion and psychiatry

In Spirit & Mind, Basu, Littlewood, and Steinforth present twelve chapters that deal with the intersection of psychiatric and religious domains in the global South and North. The chapters were initially presented at the 2012 International Conference on Religion, Healing, and Psychiatry in Münster, Germany. The interdisciplinary team of contributors includes anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, religious studies scholars, psychiatrists, and mental health researchers. This volume brings into focus the ethnographic blurring of the boundaries between the otherwise defined fields of (psychiatric) medicine and religion, which should be of interest to scholars invested in either or both of these fields.

Field of study: Materials science
Methane emissions from a Californian landfill, determined from airborne remote sensing and in situ measurements

Fugitive emissions from waste disposal sites are important anthropogenic sources of the greenhouse gas methane (CH 4 ). As a result of the growing world population and the recognition of the need to control greenhouse gas emissions, this anthropogenic source of CH 4 has received much recent attention. However, the accurate assessment of the CH 4 emissions from landfills by modeling and existing measurement techniques is challenging. This is because of inaccurate knowledge of the model parameters and the extent of and limited accessibility to landfill sites. This results in a large uncertainty in our knowledge of the emissions of CH 4 from landfills and waste management. In this study, we present results derived from data collected during the research campaign COMEX (CO 2 and Methane EXperiement) in late summer 2014 in the Los Angeles (LA) Basin. The objective of COMEX, which comprised aircraft observations of methane by the remote sensing Methane Airborne MAPper (MAMAP) instrument and a Picarro greenhouse gas in-situ analyser, was the quantitative investigation of CH 4 emissions. Enhanced CH 4 concentrations or "CH 4 plumes" were detected downwind of landfills by remote sensing aircraft surveys. Subsequent to each remote sensing survey, the detected plume was sampled within the atmospheric boundary layer by in-situ measurements of atmospheric parameters such as wind information and dry gas mixing ratios of CH 4 and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) from the same aircraft. This was undertaken to facilitate the independent estimation of the surface fluxes for the validation of the remote sensing estimates. During the COMEX campaign, four landfills in the LA Basin were surveyed. One landfill has repeatedly shown a clear emission plume. This landfill, the Olinda Alpha Landfill, was observed on four days during the last week of August and first days of September 2014. Emissions were estimated for all days using a mass balance approach. The derived emissions are between 13.0 and 18.2 kt CH 4 /yr with related uncertainties in the range of 17 % to 46 %. The comparison of the remote sensing and in-situ based CH 4 emission rate estimates reveals good agreement within the error bars with an average absolute difference of around 2.3 kt CH 4 /yr. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reported inventory value is 11.5 kt CH 4 /yr in 2014, on average 3.0 kt CH 4 /yr (±1.5 kt CH 4 /yr) lower than our estimates acquired in late Summer 2014. This difference may in part be explained by a possible leak located on the south-western slope of the landfill, which we identified in the observations of the Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer – Next Generation (AVIRIS-NG) instrument, flown contemporaneously aboard a second aircraft on one day.

Field of study: Environmental science
Yield-Optimized Superoscillations

Superoscillating signals are band-limited signals that oscillate in some region faster their largest Fourier component. While such signals have many scientific and technological applications, their actual use is hampered by the fact that an overwhelming proportion of the energy goes into that part of the signal, which is not superoscillating. In the present paper, we consider the problem of optimization of such signals. The optimization that we describe here is that of the superoscillation yield, the ratio of the energy in the superoscillations to the total energy of the signal, given the range and frequency of the superoscillations. The constrained optimization leads to a generalized eigenvalue problem, which is solved numerically. It is noteworthy that it is possible to increase further the superoscillation yield at the cost of slightly deforming the oscillatory part of the signal, while keeping the average frequency. We show, how this can be done gradually, which enables a tradeoff between the distortion and the yield. We show how to apply this approach to nontrivial domains, and explain how to generalize this to higher dimensions.

Field of study: Engineering