nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Anti-Oxidative Effect of Lipoic Acid in Spinal Cord Ischemia/Reperfusion

Lipoic acid (LA) is an effective anti-oxidant agent that can scavenge free radicals in biological systems. The aim of this research was to study the probable protective effect of LA in spinal ischemic/reperfusion (I/R) injury.  Thirty male Wistar rats, weighing 230–285 g, were assigned randomly into 3 groups (10 animals in each group): sham spinal I/R, and spinal I/R + LA. The spinal I/R + LA rats received LA 100 mg/kg subcutaneously 3 days prior to ischemia induction and 3 days after. The induction of ischemia lasted for 30 min.  At 72 h postoperatively, the neurological status was worse in the I/R group than the sham group (p < 0.05). The neurological status of animals in the LA-treated group appeared better than the I/R group (p < 0.05). In the I/R group, tissue glutathione peroxidase (GPx) and super oxide dismutase (SOD) activity were significantly less compared to the control group (p < 0.05). In the LA-treated group, tissue GPx and SOD levels were higher compared to the I/R group (p < 0.05).  LA pretreatment reduced neurologic injury in the rats, most probably by maintaining the oxidant/anti-oxidant ion balance during spinal cord ischemia. Reperfusion may have contributed to the protective effects seen in the LA pretreatment.

Field of study: Medicine
Modeling the impact of periodic bottlenecks, unidirectional mutation, and observational error in experimental evolution

Antibiotic resistant bacteria are a constant threat in the battle against infectious diseases. One strategy for reducing their effect is to temporarily discontinue the use of certain antibiotics in the hope that in the absence of the antibiotic the resistant strains will be replaced by the sensitive strains. An experiment where this strategy is employed in vitro  produces data which showed a slow accumulation of sensitive mutants. Here we propose a mathematical model and statistical analysis to explain this data.The stochastic model elucidates the trend and error structure of the data. It provides a guide for developing future sampling strategies, and provides a framework for long term predictions of the effects of discontinuing specific antibiotics on the dynamics of resistant bacterial populations.

Field of study: Biology, Mathematics
The role of the decision-making process on shoreline armoring: A case study in Quebec, Canada

Shoreline armoring has repercussions on coastal processes, including reducing the width and height of sandy beaches, which affect coastal ecosystems and ecosystem services. This project, consisting of two parts, was carried out in the Canadian province of Quebec, on the coasts of the St. Lawrence Estuary and Gulf, which cover the territory of 21 coastal Regional County Municipalities (RCM). The objectives were to characterise shoreline armoring in Eastern Quebec, to determine the role played by coastal managers, coastal citizens, and coastal engineers in the coastal defence decision-making process, and to identify possible actions to be taken by each stakeholder to improve coastal engineering development. First, over 3300 km of shoreline were segmented and characterised, allowing the mapping of what proportion of the shoreline was covered by artificial structures. In 2017, coastal defence measures (CDM) occupied about 10% of the shoreline, and 97.6% of them were reflective rigid structures. The second part of the project involved three different consultations carried out in 2017 and 2018 with 300 coastal managers, 494 coastal residents and 51 professionals from environmental and engineering firms to assess their knowledge of CDM types and functions, and to discuss about the decision process leading to the CDM identification. Results of the consultations show a significant change in the type of desired solutions compared to previous studies where rigid structures were clearly preferred. But despite a greater prioritization of soft techniques by professionals from municipalities, ministries' managers and coastal citizens, the rigid structures continue to be the type of solution mostly implemented along Quebec's coasts. This difference can be explained by a number of factors: a lack of specialized knowledge; a lack of funding; a lack of collaborative process; and regulations that are too restrictive for innovative CDM. In addition to an increase of funding for preventive CDM, for long term CDM monitoring and maintenance, for case studies and pilot projects, the main solutions proposed were interdisciplinary projects based on consultation, adjustment of environmental regulations, and development of a tool that would enable decision-makers to evaluate each option in a particular context, so as to identify the most appropriate solutions and make better decisions for the long term.

Field of study: Environmental science
Cloud Point Curves of Aqueous Solutions of Poly(N-ethylmethacrylamide)

Aqueous solutions of poly( N -ethylmethacrylamide) have a lower critical solution temperature (LCST). Cloud point curves of five polydisperse samples ( M w . 10 -6 = 0.06 to 2.04) in aqueous solutions at concentrations from 0.002 to 0.1 g/ml were obtained. The threshold concentration was found to be almost independent of the molecular weight. The threshold temperature decreases moderately with increasing M and the limiting value for infinite M obtained by the Shultz-Flory method is Θ L PE = 340.5 K. This value is lower by 2.5 K than the temperature Θ L η at which the intrinsic viscosity is proportional to the square root of the molecular weight. The difference cannot be assigned to experimental errors. The entropy-of-dilution parameter is negative (ψ = -2) and much higher than the value obtained from dilute solution properties. The differences in Θ and ψ values are discussed in terms of theory of polymer solutions where a higher-order interaction parameter is included.

Field of study: Chemistry
Analysis of clast lithologies from CIROS-2 core, New Harbour, Antarctica — Implications for ice flow directions during Plio-Pleistocene time

This paper reports and discusses the distribution, petrography and mineral chemistry of granule- to boulder-size clasts in the Early Pliocene to Quaternary sedimentary succession recovered by the CIROS-2 drill hole, located near the mouth of the Ferrar Glacier (McMurdo Sound). In the Pliocene interval (166.47–99.27 mbsf), Early Paleozoic basement granitoids (monzogranites and granodiorites) are most common, apart from the basal 13-m-thick diamictite unit, which is dominated by basalt clasts from the late Cenozoic McMurdo Volcanics. In the Pleistocene interval (99.27–0 mbsf) basement granitoids are also the most common, but are largely tonalities. Gabbros and dolerites of the Jurassic Ferrar Supergroup are a minor persistent component throughout the core. In contrast, basement metamorphic rocks and Beacon Supergroup sandstones are present only within the lowest part of the core, the former disappearing above ca. 70.20 mbsf, and the latter above ca. 99.30 mbsf. During Pliocene time, the clast assemblage is consistent with the main source of the detritus from basement rocks to the west, transported by an ancestral Ferrar Glacier through the Transantarctic Mountains, the basal basalts suggesting an invasion of Ross Sea ice into Ferrar Fjord from the south (in the area of Mount Discovery and Mount Morning volcanoes). The dominance of tonalite in Pleistocene clasts also suggests derivation from the coastal Blue Glacier area immediately to the south. The decrease in volcanic clasts from Late Pliocene time may relate to the final construction of the Mount Morning–Mount Discovery peninsula, which acted as a barrier to the northern movement of a grounded Ross Ice Shelf, whereas the appearance of the tonalite clasts suggests periods of ice flow from its present day provenance, the Blue Glacier–Miers Valley area, northward along the coast and then into Ferrar Fjord from the east.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
Separation of taste-aversion-prone and taste-aversion-resistant rats through selective breeding: implications for individual differences in conditionability and aversion-therapy alcoholism treatment.

Both rats and alcoholic humans display considerable variability in acquisition of illness-induced consummatory aversions. Differential conditionability may be a significant modulator of outcome in alcoholics who elect taste aversion (TA) approaches to abstinence facilitation. This is a report of the ongoing development of rat strains suitable for studies of biological bases of individual differences in TA conditionability. Sprague-Dawley-derived rats have been selectively bred over seven generations as strong or weak learners of a cyclophosphamide-induced saccharin aversion. Efficiency of aversion acquisition is a selectable propensity, as indicated by progressively divergent strain separation that attained significance in the second selected generation. Subjects have also been studied with respect to shock-motivated environmental avoidance (SMEA), but efficiency of SMEA performance has not been a selection factor. Results have produced an unexpected trend across generations indicative of a within-strain reversal of TA and SMEA learning efficiency. Continuation of this reversal in subsequent generations could have important implications for studies of genetic contributions to different learning capacities and for the selection of biologically appropriate noxious stimuli for aversive therapy treatments of various target problems.

Field of study: Biology, Psychology
Fast Elliptic-Curve Cryptography on the Cell Broadband Engine

This paper is the first to investigate the power of the Cell Broadband Engine for state-of-the-art public-key cryptography. We present a high-speed implementation of elliptic-curve Diffie-Hellman (ECDH) key exchange for this processor, which needs 697080 cycles on one Synergistic Processor Unit for a scalar multiplication on a 255-bit elliptic curve, including the costs for key verification and key compression. This cycle count is independent of inputs therefore protecting against timing attacks. 
 
This speed relies on a new representation of elements of the underlying finite field suited for the unconventional instruction set of this architecture. 
 
Furthermore we demonstrate that an implementation based on the multi-precision integer arithmetic functions provided by IBM's multi-precision math (MPM) library would take at least 2227040 cycles. Comparison with implementations of the same function for other architectures shows that the Cell Broadband Engine is competitive in terms of cost-performance ratio to other recent processors such as the Intel Core 2 for public-key cryptography. 
 
Specifically, the state-of-the-art Galbraith-Lin-Scott ECDH software performs 27370 scalar multiplications per second using all four cores of a 2.5GHz Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300 inside a $296 computer, while the new software reported in this paper performs 27474 scalar multiplications per second on a Playstation 3 that costs just $221. Both of these speed reports are for high-security 256-bit elliptic-curve cryptography.

Field of study: Computer science, Mathematics
Structure determination and refinement at 2.44 A resolution of argininosuccinate lyase from Escherichia coli.

Escherichia coli argininosuccinate lyase has been crystallized from a highly concentrated sample of purified recombinant alpha-methylacyl-CoA racemase, in which it occurred as a minor impurity. The structure has been solved using molecular replacement at 2.44 A resolution. The enzyme is tetrameric, but in this crystal form there is a dimer in the asymmetric unit. The tetramer has four active sites; each active site is constructed from loops of three different subunits. One of these catalytic loops, near residues Ser277 and Ser278, was disordered in previous structures of active lyases, but is very well ordered in this structure in one of the subunits owing to the presence of two phosphate ions in the active-site cavity. The positions of these phosphate ions indicate a plausible mode of binding of the succinate moiety of the substrate in the competent catalytic complex.

Field of study: Chemistry
On a property of the order statistics of the uniform distribution

Let be a sample from the uniform distribution on the interval (0, θ), where θ is unknown, and be the order statistics of the sample. Both statistics and are unbiased estimators of the population mean θ/2. Consider the change of the variances of Tk and Hk as k changes. We show that both D(Tk) and D(Hk) are strictly and Especially, When n is even, i.e.n = 2s, we obtian the following inequalities .

Field of study: Mathematics
A Module on Death and Dying to Develop Empathy in Student Pharmacists

To implement an integrated module on death and dying into a 15-week bioethics course and determine whether it increased student pharmacists’ empathy.  Students participated in a 5-week death and dying module that included presentation of the film Wit, an interactive lecture on hospice, and a lecture on the ethics of pain management. Assessment. Fifty-six students completed the 30-item Balanced Emotional Empathy Scale (BEES) before and after completing the module and wrote a reflective essay. Students demonstrated an appreciation of patient-specific values in their essay. Quantitative data collected via BEES scores demonstrated significant improvement in measured empathy.  A 5-week instructional model on death and dying significantly increased student empathy.

Field of study: Education, Medicine
Care of HIV-positive obstetric patients. Meeting a multigenerational challenge.

Caring for pregnant women who are HIV-positive challenges family physicians to manage a disease that can be multigenerational, directly affecting parents and their offspring and indirectly affecting many others. I review current literature on prenatal, intrapartum, and postpartum care of HIV-positive patients. Management of HIV-positive women must be comprehensive, supportive, and sensitive to new information.

Field of study: Medicine
Highly Sensitive Light-induced Memory Effect with Amorphous Se-SnO(2) Heterojunction.

The light-induced memory effect in amorphous selenium films is studied by fabricating them into a sort of heterojunction (Se-SnO(2)) so as to be able to apply the bias voltage together with the laser beam irradiation for memory. Under the reverse bias voltage, a region of high electric field is formed in the selenium film near the junction. Remarkable enhancement in the photo-induced image spot is achieved if an appropriate bias voltage is applied simultaneously, indicating the sensitization of the memory effect due to the photocurrent induced by the high electric field in the selenium film.

Field of study: Physics
Research and Producing on an Assembly and Animation of a Kind of Bionic Flying Robot

This paper uses the plug-in Animator which belongs to Solidworks to do the research on assembly animation and motorial animation of a kind of mechanical dragonfly.It can inextenso display the structural feature,functional feature and motorial feature of Bionic flying robot,which can make people understand the intension of its kinemics and architectonics.So this paper enhances the understanding level and grasping capacity to Bionic fling robot.This paper also can help people use simulation software technology to do the research on all kinds of mechatronics products.

Field of study: Computer science
In vitro digestion of red deer (Cervus elaphus) and cow (Bos taurus) milk.

The aim of this study was to compare the digestion of milk proteins from deer and cow milk using in vitro digestion and to quantify the production of peptides using the O-phthaldialdehyde assay. Deer milk contained on average 8.8 ± 0.13% protein which is twice the levels found in cow milk (4.1 ± 0.02%). Deer and cow milk were digested in two steps; imitating both the human stomach (Pepsin, pH 2.5, 30 min) and the duodenum (Corolase PP, pH 7.5, 30 min). The degradation patterns of the milk proteins were visualized by SDS-PAGE and quantified using ImageJ software. Peptide production was significantly higher in deer milk than cow milk (P< 0.05). The commercial proteolytic enzymes degraded milk protein from deer more rapidly than those from cow. Deer casein was completely digested at 40 min of digestion (10 min into duodenum digestion) where as 14% of the casein was still present in cow milk. The digestibility of α-lactalbumin and immunoglobulin were also higher in deer milk than cow milk. However, β-lactoglobulin from both species appeared to be resistant to both gastric and duodenal digestion. This study shows that deer milk proteins were more digestible and produced more peptides than protein from cow milk. The bioactive functions of deer peptides are currently under investigation.

Field of study: Agricultural and Food sciences
Digital cultures, acceleration and mega sporting event narratives

Mega sporting events, as with the evolution of human progress, continue to be marked by trepidation and awe over the transformational power of technology. Today, mega sporting events like the Olympic Games and World Cup are increasingly the captivating spectacles of consumer capitalism. Whereas, since the 1980s, established media organisations have exerted a significant influence over the production of mega sporting event narratives, the mass availability of everyday digital technologies democratises media making, changing the way events are conceived, planned, mediatised and reported. Citizens, living digitised and social mediated lifestyles, are now important co-creators, shaping the design, delivery and dissemination of events to a wider audience. This article explores the emergence of digital tools and technologies and their impact on mega sporting event media narratives. It highlights how social media and ubiquitous digital technologies augment accelerated identities. As a means of illustrating the acceleration agenda and its impact on mega sporting event coverage, the author presents a case study of a citizen media initiative #citizenrelay, which focused on the Olympic Torch Relay on its journey around Scotland, UK in the summer of 2012. The article concludes by suggesting that the digitally democratised citizen has power in their pocket to make media that, when brought together as part of a collective, can present alternative narratives to those offered by the established media frame.

Field of study: Sociology
Integrating the Daily Newspaper into the College Classroom

Newspaper readership has declined dramatically over the last few decades. Millennials and students of college age report reading a daily newspaper less frequently than any other generational cohort in America. However, credible newspapers continue to provide in-depth coverage and analysis of key contemporary issues that facilitate civic literacy and a sociological understanding of the world. This case study discusses an exploratory approach to integrating the newspaper into the college classroom as a way of connecting journalism with theoretical knowledge. In an Introductory Sociology course, I provided daily copies of The New York Times to students throughout the duration of a semester. Students worked in assigned groups, regularly read articles in the paper, and searched for stories related to a wide variety of sociological issues. As a final project, students wrote detailed summaries of several articles published throughout the semester and explained how they were connected with key sociological concepts studied in the class.  Nearly all students in the course reported that consistent readership over a 12-week period of the semester to be an effective learning activity that expanded their understanding and exposure to core sociological issues.

Field of study: Education
Conductibilité thermique des éléments dans les circuits hybrides

Resume L'analyse de la correlation entre les dimensions de l'element du degagement de la chaleur et sa conductibilite thermique reste toujours importante pour les circuits hybrides. Pour calculer la conductibilite thermique d'un circuit hybride dispose sur un bloc on applique un modele de l'angle fixe. Un bloc, qui est un systeme spatial, on peut transformer en un systeme bidimensionnel. On suppose encore un element rectangulaire sur lequel existe une distribution de la temperature. Les deux expressions pour la conductibilite thermique sont proposees dans les cas des elements petits, moyens et vastes.

Field of study: Engineering
Ecology of microfungal communities in gardens of fungus-growing ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae): a year-long survey of three species of attine ants in Central Texas.

We profiled the microfungal communities in gardens of fungus-growing ants to evaluate possible species-specific ant-microfungal associations and to assess the potential dependencies of microfungal diversity on ant foraging behavior. In a 1-year survey, we isolated microfungi from nests of Cyphomyrmex wheeleri, Trachymyrmex septentrionalis and Atta texana in Central Texas. Microfungal prevalence was higher in gardens of C. wheeleri (57%) than in the gardens of T. septentrionalis (46%) and A. texana (35%). Culture-dependent methods coupled with a polyphasic approach of species identification revealed diverse and changing microfungal communities in all the sampling periods. Diversity analyses showed no obvious correlations between the number of observed microfungal species, ant species, or the ants' changing foraging behavior across the seasons. However, both correspondence analysis and 5.8S-rRNA gene unifrac analyses suggested structuring of microfungal communities by ant host. These host-specific differences may reflect in part the three different environments where ants were collected. Most interestingly, the specialized fungal parasite Escovopsis was not isolated from any attine garden in this study near the northernmost limit of the range of attine ants, contrasting with previous studies that indicated a significant incidence of this parasite in ant gardens from Central and South America. The observed differences of microfungal communities in attine gardens suggest that the ants are continuously in contact with a diverse microfungal species assemblage.

Field of study: Biology, Environmental science
Electroporation-based gene transfer for efficient transfection of neural precursor cells.

Transplantation of neural precursor cells (NPCs) is a potential tool to replace dysfunctional or degenerated neuronal or glial cell types in the central nervous system. Furthermore, transplantation of genetically engineered neural precursor cells might provide a strategy to target therapeutic gene products to the diseased nervous system. Here, we describe a novel and highly efficient electroporation-based transfection protocol for mitogen-expanded mouse NPCs. Transfection of NPCs with the reporter gene enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) or the neural adhesion molecule L1 revealed transfection efficacies of more than 70% as estimated by the number of EGFP-positive or L1-immunoreactive cells 1 day after transfection in vitro. The percentage of EGFP- or L1-positive cells decreased with increasing time in culture. Positive cells were detectable for up to 3 weeks after transfection. When EGFP- or L1-transfected NPCs were grafted into the retina of adult wild-type or L1-deficient mice, they differentiated into glial cells some of which expressed EGFP and L1 for up to 2 and 3 weeks, respectively, the longest post-transplantation periods investigated.

Field of study: Biology