nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Living within a One Planet reality: the contribution of personal Footprint calculators

During the last 50 years, humanity's Ecological Footprint has increased by nearly 190% indicating a growing unbalance in the human-environment relationship, coupled with major environmental and social changes. Our ability to live within the planet's biological limits requires not only a major re-think in how we produce and distribute 'things', but also a shift in consumption activities. Footprint calculators can provide a framing that communicates the extent to which an individual's daily activities are compatible with our One Planet context. This paper presents the findings from the first international study to assess the value of personal Footprint calculators in guiding individuals towards sustainable consumption choices. It focuses specifically on Global Footprint Network's personal Footprint calculator, and aims to understand the profile of calculator users and assess the contribution of calculators to increasing individual awareness and encouraging sustainable choices. Our survey of 4245 respondents show that 75% of users resided in 10 countries, 54% were aged 18–34 years and had largely used the calculator within an educational context (62%). The calculator was considered a valuable tool for knowledge generation by 91% of users, and 78% found it useful to motivate action. However, only 23% indicated the calculator provided them with the necessary information to make actual changes to their life and reduce their personal Footprint. The paper discusses how and why this personal Footprint calculator has been effective in enhancing individuals' understanding of the environmental impact of their actions, framing the scale of the problem and empowering users to understand the impacts of different lifestyle choices. Those individual-level and system-level changes needed to generate global sustainability outcomes are also discussed. Similar to other calculators, a gap is also identified in terms of this calculator facilitating individuals to convert new knowledge into action.

Field of study: Environmental science
Combining crystallographic information and an aspherical-atom data bank in the evaluation of the electrostatic interaction energy in an enzyme-substrate complex: influenza neuraminidase inhibition.

Although electrostatic interactions contribute only a part of the interaction energies between macromolecules, unlike dispersion forces they are highly directional and therefore dominate the nature of molecular packing in crystals and in biological complexes and contribute significantly to differences in inhibition strength among related enzyme inhibitors. In the reported study, a wide range of complexes of influenza neuraminidases with inhibitor molecules (sialic acid derivatives and others) have been analyzed using charge densities from a transferable aspherical-atom data bank. The strongest interactions of the residues are with the acidic group at the C2 position of the inhibitor ( approximately -300 kJ mol(-1) for -COO(-) in non-aromatic inhibitors, approximately -120-210 kJ mol(-1) for -COO(-) in aromatic inhibitors and approximately -450 kJ mol(-1) for -PO(3)(2-)) and with the amino and guanidine groups at C4 ( approximately -250 kJ mol(-1)). Other groups contribute less than approximately 100 kJ mol(-1). Residues Glu119, Asp151, Glu227, Glu276 and Arg371 show the largest variation in electrostatic energies of interaction with different groups of inhibitors, which points to their important role in the inhibitor recognition. The Arg292-->Lys mutation reduces the electrostatic interactions of the enzyme with the acidic group at C2 for all inhibitors that have been studied (SIA, DAN, 4AM, ZMR, G20, G28, G39 and BCZ), but enhances the interactions with the glycerol group at C6 for inhibitors that contain it. This is in agreement with the lower level of resistance of the mutated virus to glycerol-containing inhibitors compared with the more hydrophobic derivatives.

Field of study: Chemistry
Notched strengths of asymmetric woven hybrid laminates

In this article, the notched strengths of asymmetric woven hybrid laminates were studied by using both experiment and the finite element-based point stress criterion (FEMPSC). It was experimentally shown that the notched strength decreases with the increase of hole radius for all the laminates machined by water jet cut, drilling, and milling. Particularly, it is noted that the notched strength of specimens of the same hole size made by water jet cut is obviously higher than those made by both drilling and milling, due to stress redistribution. The results also indicate that the notched strengths predicted by FEMPSC agree well with the experimental data, with only a 4% margin of error.

Field of study: Materials science
George Hoggart Toulmin and James Hutton: A fresh look

According to Gordon L. Davies (1967), George Hoggart Toulmin (1754–1817) probably plagiarized from James Hutton, and was not important in the history of geology. But Toulmin9s views differed from Hutton9s in important respects, and he was perhaps more indebted to Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon and to John Brown. That Toulmin translated the geological writings of J.A.C. Chaptal shows that his interest in geology was a lasting one.

Field of study: Geology
Lead-free 0201 manufacturing, assembly and reliability test results

The trend towards smaller, faster and cheaper electronic devices has led to an increase in the use of 0201 (L ∼ 0.02 in.; W ∼ 0.01 in.) and even smaller sized passive components. The size advantages of the 0201 component make it a popular choice among design engineers but not among manufacturing engineers. From a manufacturing perspective, the size of the 0201 package poses significant challenges to the printed circuit board (PCB) assembly process. The many challenges with 0201 assembly can be attributed to the solder paste volume, pad design, aperture design, board finish, type of solder paste, pick-and-place and reflow profile. If these factors are not optimized, they will introduce undesirable manufacturing defects. The small size of 0201 packages and undetected manufacturing defects will also raise concerns about their second level interconnect reliability, especially for lead-free solder alloys and surface finishes, with new processes and higher reflow requirements. To determine the optimum conditions, a design-of-experiment (DOE) study was carried out to investigate the effects of these parameters on assembly defects and solder joint reliability. This paper presents the test results and comparative literature data on the influence of a few key manufacturing parameters and defects associated with the 0201 component using lead-free and tin–lead solder alloys. Data pertaining to component shear strength before and after isothermal aging at 150 °C and intermetallic growth up to 500 h of aging are presented. A number of test vehicles were also subjected to thermal cycling (1500 cycles) in the range of −55/100 °C to determine the solder fatigue behavior. Shear test results for test vehicles subjected to thermal cycling is also presented. In addition, optical microscopy analysis of solder joint behavior during thermal cycling showing the progress of the solder damage and cross-sectional photos taken at 1500 cycles is included.

Field of study: Engineering
Origin of Non-axisymmetric Features of Virgo Cluster Early-type Dwarf Galaxies. I. Bar Formation and Recurrent Buckling

A fraction of early-type dwarf galaxies in the Virgo cluster have a disk component and even possess disk features such as bar, lens, and spiral arms. In this study, we construct 15 galaxy models that resemble VCC856, considered to be an infalling progenitor of disk dwarf galaxies, within observational error ranges, and use $N$-body simulations to study their long-term dynamical evolution in isolation as well as the formation of bar in them. We find that dwarf disk galaxies readily form bars unless they have an excessively concentrated halo or a hot disk. This suggests that infalling dwarf disk galaxies are intrinsically unstable to bar formation, even without any external perturbation, accounting for a population of barred dwarf galaxies in the outskirts of the Virgo cluster. The bars form earlier and stronger in galaxies with a lower fraction of counter-streaming motions, lower halo concentration, lower velocity anisotropy, and thinner disk. Similarly to normal disk galaxies, dwarf disk galaxies also undergo recurrent buckling instabilities. The first buckling instability tends to shorten the bar and to thicken the disk, and drives a dynamical transition in the bar pattern speed as well as mass inflow rate. In nine models, the bars regrow after the mild first buckling instability due to the efficient transfer of disk angular momentum to the halo, and are subject to recurrent buckling instabilities to turn into X-shaped bulges.

Field of study: Physics
Regression analysis with censored autocorrelated data

For many studies in which data are collected sequentially in time, the sensitivity of the measurement is limited and an exact value can be recorded only if it falls within a specified range. This gives rise to a censored time series. In this article, we present a methodology for regression analysis of censored time series data. We fit autoregressive models to account for the time dependence. Two numerical methods for full likelihood estimation and an approximate method are discussed. The methods are illustrated with air pollution data subject to lower limits of detection.

Field of study: Mathematics
Genetic and Epigenetic Studies in Diabetic Kidney Disease

Chronic kidney disease is a worldwide health crisis, while diabetic kidney disease (DKD) has become the leading cause of end-stage renal disease (ESRD). DKD is a microvascular complication and occurs in 30–40% of diabetes patients. Epidemiological investigations and clinical observations on the familial clustering and heritability in DKD have highlighted an underlying genetic susceptibility. Furthermore, DKD is a progressive and long-term diabetic complication, in which epigenetic effects and environmental factors interact with an individual’s genetic background. In recent years, researchers have undertaken genetic and epigenetic studies of DKD in order to better understand its molecular mechanisms. In this review, clinical material, research approaches and experimental designs that have been used for genetic and epigenetic studies of DKD are described. Current information from genetic and epigenetic studies of DKD and ESRD in patients with diabetes, including the approaches of genome-wide association study (GWAS) or epigenome-wide association study (EWAS) and candidate gene association analyses, are summarized. Further investigation of molecular defects in DKD with new approaches such as next generation sequencing analysis and phenome-wide association study (PheWAS) is also discussed.

Field of study: Biology
Waveguide-integrated electroluminescent carbon nanotubes

Carbon based optoelectronic devices promise to revolutionize modern integrated circuits by combining outstanding electrical and optical properties into a unified technology. By coupling nanoelectronic devices to nanophotonic structures functional components such as nanoscale light emitting diodes, narrow-band thermal emitters, cavity controlled detectors and wideband electro optic modulators can be realized for chipscale information processing. These devices not only allow the light-matter interaction of low-dimensional systems to be studied, but also provide fundamental building blocks for high bandwidth on-chip communication. Here we demonstrate how light from an electrically-driven carbon-nanotube can be coupled directly into a photonic waveguide architecture. We realize wafer scale, broadband sources integrated with nanophotonic circuits allowing for propagation of light over centimeter distances. Moreover, we show that the spectral properties of the emitter can be controlled directly on chip with passive devices using Mach-Zehnder interferometers and grating structures. The direct, near-field coupling of electrically generated light into a waveguide, opposed to far-field fiber coupling of external light sources, opens new avenues for compact optoelectronic systems in a CMOS compatible framework.

Field of study: Physics
Research on Multicast Reliability in Distributed Virtual Environment

This paper proposes a novel multicast reliability algorithm in distributed virtual environment. Firstly, architecture of the distributed virtual environment system is made up of three layers, which are 1) Layer 1 is made up of distributed virtual environment server, which can transmit information from internet to clients, 2) Layer 2 is constructed by clients, which are connected to a specific server and can only solve a specific task, and 3) Layer 3 are tasks which should be solved by the distributed virtual environment system. Afterwards, the multicast problem of distributed virtual environment can be converted into a tree network with several nodes, of which the key issue is how to obtain a multicast strategy with the maximum reliability satisfying several constraints. Then, a multicast reliability algorithm for the distributed virtual environment system is present by finding key nodes and key paths in the tree network. Finally, experiments are conducted by both the performance evaluation metric “average cost” and “blocking probability” to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed algorithm.

Field of study: Computer science
Assay of mitochondrial functions by resazurin in vitro.

To study the mechanism of resazurin as indicator of mitochondrial function and to develop a rapid and sensitive assay for measuring metabolic activity of isolated mitochondria from rat liver in vitro.



The screening was carried out on 96-well microtitre plates by monitoring fluorescence intensity of resazurin reduced by mitochondria. Experimental conditions were optimized and influences of several inhibitors on mitochondrial function were observed.



Fluorescence intensity increased in a linear manner when the mitochondrial protein concentration from 5 to 50 microg protein per well was incubated with resazurin (5 micromol/L) during 230 min period at 37 degrees C. Edetic acid could promote the reduction of resazurin in mitochondria. The fluorescence intensity decreased greatly after pretreatment with NaN3, antimycin A, carbonyl cyanide p-trifluoromethoxyphenylhydrazone (FCCP), and oligomycin compared with the control. However, the typical complex I inhibitor, rotenone enhanced the fluorescence intensity without mitochondria.



Using resazurin to determine mitochondrial function is sensitive, inexpensive and could be easily automated for high throughput screening.

Field of study: Biology, Chemistry, Medicine
FLP Affirmed by Tax Court

The Tax Court held that although a family limited partnership (FLP) conducted no active trade or business, it nonetheless fulfilled a legitimate and significant nontax purpose. Thus, a discounted value of an interest in the FLP, rather than that of stock with which it was funded, was includible in a decedent's estate. The Tax Court held that other important factors in the FLP's legitimacy were that interests in it constituted adequate and full consideration for the transfer of stock to it and that the interests were apportioned proportionately to its participants' contributions. The court thus rejected an IRS deficiency determination with respect to the estate of Samuel P. Black Jr. of more than $129 million. Also as a result, the Tax Court rejected a deficiency determination of more than $82 million with respect to the estate of Black's widow, who died five months after him. Samuel P. Black Jr. was a founding employee in 1927 of Erie Indemnity Co. Over the next 70 years, he, more than any other person, made the company successful and accumulated much of its stock. Following the recommendation of his estate planner, he made gifts of stock to his son and trusts for each of his two grandchildren. In 1993 he was concerned that his son would either sell the stock or lose it in a divorce. He was also concerned that his grandchildren, who would soon receive distributions from the trusts, would sell the stock, because they were not employed or seeking employment. He wanted to prevent the disposition of the stock because he felt that it would appreciate significantly and that the ownership of all the stock would provide enough voting interest to affect the future direction of the company. Consequently, he created the FLP, transferring into it for his interest the Erie Indemnity stock. His son and the trusts transferred in their stock for their ownership interests in the FLP. At Black's death in 2001, the discounted value of his interest in the FLP was included in his estate. The IRS contended the estate's value should be based on the full value of the stock, arguing that the partnership was created for tax avoidance purposes. The Tax Court noted that an appeal from its decision would go to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. Therefore, it relied on this court's approach to the issue. Pursuant to IRC [section] 2036, such a transfer to an FLP must be a bona fide sale for full and adequate consideration. A bona fide sale need not be at arm's-length, but it must provide the transferor some potential nontax benefit. Consequently, the FLP must demonstrate legitimate and significant nontax reasons for its creation. …

Field of study: Business
Analysis of the success rates of new drug development in Japan and the lag behind the US.

The launch delay of new drugs has been a major public concern in Japan. Although it is recognized that the delay results from industrial R&D behaviors and regulatory conditions in the global market, the specific mechanisms underlying the significant delay have been unexplained. This study analyzed the association between the success rates of clinical development programs of new molecular entities in Japan and the development lag behind the US and provides clues for policy planning.



The association between the success rates of clinical development and the development time lag between Japan and the US was estimated using the Cox proportional hazard model.



The phase II transition success rates in Japan were positively associated with the lags behind US development. Cox regression analysis results of phase III success rates were similar to phase II success rate results but were not statistically significant.



The advantageous effect of lags on development success in the latter country (i.e., Japan) appears to explain the persistent delays in development and launch. The government's countermeasures to reduce the access gap of new drugs must consider this mechanism and the influence on both the industry and the target population.

Field of study: Medicine, Political science
Application of Electronic Nose System Coupled with HS-SPME-GC/MS for Characterization of Aroma Fingerprint of Roasted Coffee Beans from Different Cultivation Regions in Yunnan Province

Abstra ct The volatile flavor components of roasted ground coffee with different roasting degree from different cultivation regions(Puer, Baoshan, Lincang, Dehong) of Yunnan were evaluated to identify the flavor difference. Headspace solid-phase microextraction gas chromatography-mass/spectrometry(HS-SPME-GC/MS) and electronic tongue technology were utilized in this study. The results of HS-SPME-GC/MS performance indicated that the number of volatile compounds identified were 60, 65 and 67 for light, medium and dark roasted coffee samples, with the increase of roasting degree, the content of furans, pyridines and sulfides increased gradually, acids and furanones decreased accordingly. Principal component analysis(PCA) could effectively discriminate coffee samples of different roasting degree, while the samples with the roasting degree from different origins clustered closely. The performance of electronic tongue showed that the taste components were different obviously, and the samples could be grouped according to the properties in the PCA score plot,which was in accordance with the result of HS-SPME-GC/MS.

Field of study: Agricultural and Food sciences
Use of chlorate as a selective inhibitor to distinguish membrane-bound nitrate reductase (Nar) and periplasmic nitrate reductase (Nap) of dissimilative nitrate reducing bacteria in sediment.

The use of chlorate as a selective inhibitor of dissimilative nitrate reduction was studied using pure cultures of Comamonas testosteroni (a denitrifier) and Klebsiella pneumoniae (a nitrate-ammonifier) isolated from estuarine sediment, and in sediment slurry. Pure culture experiments demonstrated that chlorate selectively inhibited membrane-bound nitrate reductase (Nar) activity, probably by blocking nitrate transporters (NarK). Sediment slurry experiments showed that chlorate inhibited nitrate reduction and N(2)O formation, but did not inhibit nitrite reduction and its N(2)O formation, indicating that chlorate selectively inhibited only the first step of nitrate reduction. Chlorite chemically oxidized nitrite to nitrate and could not be used as a selective inhibitor of nitrite metabolism, although chlorite apparently selectively inhibited formation of N(2)O from nitrite. Chlorate can be used as a specific inhibitor to distinguish between nitrate reduction by Nap or Nar in natural communities of microorganisms.

Field of study: Biology, Environmental science
Laparoscopic heminephroureterectomy for duplex kidney anomalies in the pediatric population.

Despite increasing acceptance of laparoscopy in pediatric urology, few published data are available on laparoscopic heminephroureterectomy in patients with duplex kidney anomalies. In the present study, we report our own experiences with this technique.



From August 2003 to January 2006, five laparoscopic heminephroureterectomies were performed in four girls with a mean age of 41 (9-67) months. In all cases, a non-functioning upper pole with an obstructive (n=4) or refluxing (n=1) megaureter was found. The upper pole was resected laparoscopically en bloc with the megaureter using three to four trocars.



Mean follow-up was 42.4 (+/-7.9) months. All procedures were performed successfully without conversion to open surgery with a mean operative time of 190 (170-210)min. Blood loss was minimal and no intraoperative complications occurred. Despite chronic inflammation in the resected specimens, the patients showed no clinical signs of infection postoperatively. The average length of hospital stay was 5.6 (4-7) days. All patients were followed using duplex sonography.



These data demonstrate that, even in infants, laparoscopic heminephroureterectomy is feasible and associated with minimal morbidity, a better cosmetic result and a shorter hospital stay compared to open surgery. The main disadvantage of the laparoscopic approach is a longer operative time. Laparoscopic heminephroureterectomy is a technically demanding procedure and should be performed only in specialized centers.

Field of study: Medicine
Synthesis and Characterization of Bismaleimide Modified Vinyl Ester Monomer-Unsaturated Polyester Intercrosslinked Hybrid Matrices

Intercrosslinked hybrid matrices were developed from N,N′-bismaleimido-4,4′-diphenyl methane (BMI) modified vinyl ester monomer (VEM), namely cyclohexyl-1,1′-bis[4-(γ-2-methylphenoxy)-α-hydroxypropylacrylate]-unsaturated polyester (UP) resin. BMI-modified VEM-UP hybrid matrices were characterized for their mechanical properties, viz. tensile strength, flexural strength, unnotched izod impact strength and hardness as per ASTM standards. Data obtained from thermal studies indicated that the introduction of vinyl ester monomer into unsaturated polyester resin marginally reduced the values of heat distortion temperature and glass transition temperature compared with those of the neat UP resin. Scanning electron microscopy studies of BMI modified VEM-unsaturated polyester systems exhibited a homogeneous morphology, confirming efficient chemical interaction and the formation of intercrosslinked networks.

Field of study: Materials science