nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Age and correlation of emerged Pliocene and Pleistocene deposits

Paleontologic and paleomagnetic investigations were conducted on several hundred Pliocene and Pleistocene marine samples from five regions of the emerged Atlantic Coastal Plain: (1) the Delmarva Peninsula, (2) eastern Virginia, (3) central and northern North Carolina, (4) southern North Carolina and northeastern South Carolina, and (5) the Charleston area, South Carolina. Molluscan and ostracode interval and assemblage zonations, which are the primary means of regional correlation, have been calibrated using planktic biochronologic, paleomagnetic, radiometric and amino-acid recemization data. These multiple dating criteria were used to determine the age and, where possible, the duration of marine transgressive/regressive sequences. A correlation chart illustrates the age relationships of 27 formations from five regions. One important conclusion is some of the Yorktown Formation of Virginia and North Carolina (including the “Duplin” Formation), and some of the Raysor of South Carolina are late Pliocene in age. The late Pliocene Chowan River Formation of North Carolina is older than the early Pleistocene Waccamaw Formation of South Carolina, which in turn may be older than the James City Formation of North Carolina. During the last 1.0 million years, multiple marine transgressions occurred in each region, but the age of these middle and late Pleistocene formations often may differ from one area to the next. A significant result of the study is the evidence for the lack of time equivalence of formations in the five different regions; that is, the sequence of marine transgressions in one region does not necessarily correspond to that in another. This appears to be the result of differing subsidence and uplift histories, the patchiness of the depositional record, and the limitations of the dating techniques in light of the rapidity and frequency of sea-level fluctuations.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
Revisiting Institutionalist Law and Economics - The Inadequacy of the Chicago School: The Case of Personal Bankruptcy Law

From an evolutionary perspective, bankruptcies may be seen as an important selection mechanism. Bankruptcy, however, has not received much attention in the economics literature. AI> the quotation from Smith, above, intimates, bankruptcy is an unpleasant process for individuals, their families and for wider society. Bankruptcy laws differ widely across countries and even within a federalized country such as the United States. Filing practices within a country also differ substantially across regions as well as among social groups (Fay, Hurst, and White 2002). Thus, bankruptcy is not the uncomplicated selection mechanism in the economic realm it sometimes is believed to be. This paper discusses how one may evaluate bankruptcy regimes from an economic perspective. It contrasts the instrumental rationality approach of the Chicago {law and economics) school with the instrumental valuation principle (IVP) from original Institutional Economics (OlE) in the context of personal bankruptcy.

Field of study: Economics
Effects of inferior temporal lesions on visual discrimination performance in monkeys with complete and incomplete striate cortex ablations.

In order to determine whether inferior temporal cortex participates in the relearning of visual discriminations following striatectomy, monkeys were retrained to perform two preoperatively acquired discriminations (brightness-flux and brightness-area) after receiving bilateral striate cortex lesions and then retested in the same tasks after bilateral inferior temporal surgery. After inferior temporal surgery, the monkeys with histologically verified total ablation of striate cortex showed little or no impairment in relearning the discriminations, whereas the monkeys with remnants of intact striate cortex were severely impaired. These findings suggest that inferior temporal cortex is, at most, of minor importance in relearning brightness-flux and brightness-area discriminations in the absence of striate cortex. This interpretation is consistent with the view that the contribution of inferior temporal cortex to visual discrimination performance depends on input from striate cortex.

Field of study: Biology, Psychology
Humeral Head Replacement and Reverse Shoulder Arthroplasty for the Treatment of Proximal Humerus Fracturesm

Acute proximal humeral fractures in the elderly are generally treated non-operatively if alignment is acceptable and in stable fracture patterns. When operative treatment is indicated, surgical fixation is often difficult or impossible to obtain. Hemiarthroplasty has long been the standard of care. However, with its reliance on tuberosity healing, functional outcomes and patient satisfaction are often poor. Reverse shoulder arthroplasty has emerged as a new technology for treating proximal humeral fractures but the indications for its use remain uncertain. While not conclusive, the evidence suggests that reverse shoulder arthroplasty yields more consistent results, with improved forward elevation and higher functional outcome scores. The primary advantages of hemiarthroplasty are improved shoulder rotation and shorter operative time. Complication rates do not vary significantly between the two options. Although higher quality trials are needed to further define the role of reverse shoulder arthroplasty, current evidence suggests that this is a reasonable option for surgeons who are highly familiar with its use.

Field of study: Medicine
An Experimental Investigation of Factors Affecting University Promotion Decisions: A Brief Report.

Current pressures for use of student ratings focus heavily on their use as evidence about teaching effectiveness for decisions about faculty promotions or salary increases. Hind  reports that Stanford faculty members perceive teaching as having much less weight than research in influencing decisions about promotion and salary. They believe that teaching should have more weight (but still not as much as research). They recognize student ratings as a source of relevant data. Thus there is evidence that faculty members (at least at Stanford) will accept input from student ratings in the personnel decision-making process. Miller  indicates that student ratings are a usual part of systems of faculty evaluation. Although data on the validity of student ratings are important in determining whether student ratings should be used, we have no data on how they actually influence decisions. We need to begin to determine what kind of contribution student ratings can make to such decisions. One first step is to determine what information decision makers use from reports of student ratings. The pilot study here reported provided data relevant to the question: Does the type of information provided about teaching competence affect promotion decisions?

Field of study: Education
Saturation of the Ca intercombination line and its application to spectroscopy and frequency standards

Experiments were carried out using a Ca atomic beam and a tunable dye laser. Lamb dips were obtained in the fluorescence line of various Ca isotopes. It is shown that the narrow signals associated with saturation of the 4s2 1S0–4s4p 3P1, intercombination transition are potentially useful for frequency standards and highresolution spectroscopy. Measurements were made of the nuclear charge radii of six stable Ca isotopes. Radiofrequency transitions between excited state sublevels were studied. The nuclear quadrupole moment of the rarely encountered isotope 43Ca was determined.

Field of study: Engineering, Physics
An 'artificial mussel' for monitoring heavy metals in marine environments.

A new chemical sampling device, artificial mussel (AM), has been developed for monitoring metals in marine environments. This device consists of a polymer ligand suspended in artificial seawater within a Perspex tubing, and enclosed with semi-permeable gel at both ends. Laboratory and field experiments were carried out to examine the uptake of five metals (Cd, Cr, Cu, Pb and Zn) by the AM. Uptake of metals by AM was proportional to the exposure metal concentrations, and the AM was able to accumulate the ASV labile fractions of metals. Uptake and release of the metals of AM are similar to those of the mussel Perna viridis, but less affected by salinity and temperature. Field studies demonstrated that the AM can not only provide a time-integrated estimate of metals concentrations, but also allows comparisons of metal levels in different environments and geographical areas beyond the natural distribution limits of biomonitors.

Field of study: Environmental science
Increased Oxidative Stress and Mitochondrial Dysfunction in Zucker Diabetic Rat Liver and Brain

The Zucker diabetic fatty (ZDF, FA/FA) rat is a genetic model of type 2 diabetes, characterized by insulin resistance with progressive metabolic syndrome. We have previously demonstrated mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress in the heart, kidneys and pancreas of ZDF rats. However, the precise molecular mechanism of disease progression is not clear. Our aim in the present study was to investigate oxidative stress and mitochondrial dysfunction in the liver and brain of ZDF rats.  In this study, we have measured mitochondrial oxidative stress, bioenergetics and redox homeostasis in the liver and brain of ZDF rats.  Our results showed increased reactive oxygen species (ROS) production in the ZDF rat brain compared to the liver, while nitric oxide (NO) production was markedly increased both in the brain and liver. High levels of lipid and protein peroxidation were also observed in these tissues. Glutathione metabolism and mitochondrial respiratory functions were adversely affected in ZDF rats when compared to Zucker lean (ZL, +/FA) control rats. Reduced ATP synthesis was also observed in the liver and brain of ZDF rats. Western blot analysis confirmed altered expression of cytochrome P450 2E1, iNOS, p-JNK, and IκB-a confirming an increase in oxidative and metabolic stress in ZDF rat tissues.  Our data shows that, like other tissues, ZDF rat liver and brain develop complications associated with redox homeostasis and mitochondrial dysfunction. These results, thus, might have implications in understanding the etiology and pathophysiology of diabesity which in turn, would help in managing the disease associated complications.

Field of study: Biology, Chemistry
Virtual 3D IVUS vessel model for intravascular brachytherapy planning. I. 3D segmentation, reconstruction, and visualization of coronary artery architecture and orientation.

Intravascular brachytherapy (IVB) can significantly reduce the risk of restenosis after interventional treatment of stenotic arteries, if planned and applied correctly. To facilitate computer-based IVB planning, a three-dimensional vessel model has been derived from information on coronary artery segments acquired by intravascular ultrasound (IVUS) and biplane angiography. Part I describes the approach of model construction and presents possibilities of visualization. The vessel model is represented by a voxel volume. Polygonal information about the vessel wall structure is derived by segmentation from a sequence of IVUS images automatically acquired ECG gated during pull back of the IVUS transducer. To detect horizontal, vertical, and radial contours, modified Canny-Edge and Shen-Castan filters are applied on Cartesian and polar coordinate representations of the IVUS tomograms as edge detectors. The spatial course of the vessel wall layers is traced in reconstructed longitudinal IVUS scans. By resampling the sequence of IVUS frames the voxel volume is obtained. For this purpose the frames are properly located in space and augmented with additional intermediate frames generated by interpolation. Their spatial location and orientation is derived from biplane X-ray angiography which is performed simultaneously. For resampling, two approaches are proposed: insertion of the vertices of the rectangular goal grid into the cells of a deformed hexahedral mesh derived from the IVUS sequence, and insertion of the vertices of the hexahedral mesh into the cells of the rectangular grid. Finally, the vessel model is visualized by methods of combined volume and polygon rendering. The segmentation process is verified as being in good agreement with results obtained by manual contour tracing with a commercial system. Our approach of construction of the vessel model has been implemented into an interactive software system, 3D IVUS-View, serving as the basis of a future system for intracoronary brachytherapy treatment planning being currently under development (Part II).

Field of study: Medicine, Physics
The Origins of Philadelphia's Octavia Hill Association: Social Reform in the "Contented" City

Philadelphia s Octavia  Social Reform in the "Contented" City IN RECENT years, historians have offered modifications to Philadelphia's turn-of-the-century image as a "corrupt and contented" city. The Quaker City may have been as corrupt as any other large urban center, but abundant evidence indicates that thousands of its blacks, immigrants, and working-class citizens were anything but contented. However historians have continued to portray Philadelphia's middleand upper-class reformers as a "contented" lot—content, that is, to seek efficient, good-government solutions by tinkering with the political machinery, while ignoring serious social issues like housing, health, and sanitation. Nevertheless, some social reformers did have visions of a cleaner, healthier Philadelphia with an improved quality of life. Their paternalism and some of their methods may appear outmoded by modern standards, but their lonely struggle against middle-class contentment deserves recognition. The Octavia Hill Association was one such organization of social reformers. Both Philadelphians and visitors frequently justified the city's

Field of study: History
Quantum Phase Transition in Phosphate Glasses Containing Multiple Transition Metal Oxides

The evidence for a Mott–Hubbard type metal–insulator transition (MIT) is presented in the xP2O5− yV2O5− (100− x − y)WO3 glass system (PVW) at a critical concentration of tungsten (W) ions. Electrons contributed by the reduced vanadium (V) and tungsten (W) ions are self-trapped to form small polarons, and the hopping motion of such charge carriers is the universally accepted transport mechanism. Whereas both the V and W ions are present in multiple oxidation states in these glasses, charges at the V4+ (reduced) sites contribute only to electrical conduction. We demonstrate that, in PVW glasses, electrons at the reduced tungsten sites are too strongly localized to contribute to electrical conduction, but the oxidized state still contributes an available orbital for electrons to tunnel through. This secondary contribution of the tungsten ions greatly facilitates small polaron hopping (SPH) conductivity. With decreasing vanadium concentration [nV= V/(V + W), where V and W are the molar concentrations of V and W ions in this equation], as the inter-atomic distance between V ions increases, the resistivity remains invariant in the composition range 0.5 < nV < 1. However, a sharp increase in resistivity is observed at nV ∼ 0.5, when the tungsten localization radius collapses drastically. Such a transition is similar to the Mott–Hubbard type MIT observed in many crystalline systems. We have demonstrated that MIT in PVW glasses occurs at a critical V–V distance, drastically changing the transfer integral between V sites and forcing conduction to take place through the deeper and energetically disfavored tungsten orbitals.

Field of study: Materials science
Bayesian Nonparametric Spectral Estimation

Spectral estimation (SE) aims to identify how the energy of a signal (e.g., a time series) is distributed across different frequencies. This can become particularly challenging when only partial and noisy observations of the signal are available, where current methods fail to handle uncertainty appropriately. In this context, we propose a joint probabilistic model for signals, observations and spectra, where SE is addressed as an inference problem. Assuming a Gaussian process prior over the signal, we apply Bayes' rule to find the analytic posterior distribution of the spectrum given a set of observations. Besides its expressiveness and natural account of spectral uncertainty, the proposed model also provides a functional-form representation of the power spectral density, which can be optimised efficiently. Comparison with previous approaches is addressed theoretically, showing that the proposed method is an infinite-dimensional variant of the Lomb-Scargle approach, and also empirically through three experiments.

Field of study: Computer science
Reading Jerome in the Renaissance: Erasmus' Reception of the Adversus Jovinianum*

Scholars are now devoting more attention to the reception of the Church Fathers during the Renaissance and Reformation. While Saint Jerome's function as icon and exemplar has been the subject of substantial study, his role as an author, read and edited during the Renaissance, still awaits thorough investigation. This essay examines how Erasmus of Rotterdam, the greatest Renaissance editor of Jerome, read the Church Fathers most elaborate polemic in favor of virginity's moral and spiritual superiority to marriage, the Adversus Jovinianum. An investigation of Erasmus’ editorial apparatus for this text, especially his scholia, reveals a complex reading. Erasmus applauded Jerome's rhetorical skill but ventured cautious criticism of his scriptural exegesis without taking a firm position in the controversy over the relative merits of virginity and marriage.

Field of study: History
Proton radioactivity of151Lu

A (1231±3) keV proton activity has been observed in the fusion reaction58Ni +96Ru→154Hf*. The production cross section peaks at 50 MeV of excitation energy with a value of about 70 μb. No coincidences with annihilation radiation or withK X-rays could be observed. The activity is assigned to direct proton decay of the new isotope151Lu. The measured half life is (85±10) ms.

Field of study: Physics
An enzyme captured in two conformational states: crystal structure of S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine hydrolase from Bradyrhizobium elkanii.

S-Adenosyl-L-homocysteine hydrolase (SAHase) is involved in the enzymatic regulation of S-adenosyl-L-methionine (SAM)-dependent methylation reactions. After methyl-group transfer from SAM, S-adenosyl-L-homocysteine (SAH) is formed as a byproduct, which in turn is hydrolyzed to adenosine (Ado) and homocysteine (Hcy) by SAHase. The crystal structure of BeSAHase, an SAHase from Bradyrhizobium elkanii, which is a nitrogen-fixing bacterial symbiont of legume plants, was determined at 1.7 Å resolution, showing the domain organization (substrate-binding domain, NAD(+) cofactor-binding domain and dimerization domain) of the subunits. The protein crystallized in its biologically relevant tetrameric form, with three subunits in a closed conformation enforced by complex formation with the Ado product of the enzymatic reaction. The fourth subunit is ligand-free and has an open conformation. The BeSAHase structure therefore provides a unique snapshot of the domain movement of the enzyme induced by the binding of its natural ligands.

Field of study: Chemistry
Richness patterns of endemic and threatened conifers in south-west China: topographic-soil fertility explanation

Understanding the relationships between species richness patterns and environment constitutes a key issue in biogeography and conservation strategies. To our knowledge, this is the first integrative study that incorporates soil and human-influence data into species richness modelling. Our aims were to (a) estimate the richness patterns of four conifers groups (all conifers species, endemics, threatened, and endemic-threatened species) in south-west China, (b) assess the relative importance of environmental predictors (energy, water, climate, topography, and soil) and the human-influence on the conifers richness patterns and (c) identify hotspot ecoregions, nature reserves, or important plant areas as priority conservation areas. Generalized linear models and hierarchical partitioning were used by correlating 8962 distributional records of 97 conifer species with different environmental drivers. Results indicated that central Sichuan, northern Sichuan, northern Yunnan, and the southern areas of the Hengduan mountains were identified as distinct centres of conifers richness in China. Topographic heterogeneity and soil fertility were the strongest drivers of conifer richness patterns, while climate, energy, water, and human drivers were contributed to a lower degree. The identified conifers’ important areas were mostly located outside of the existing nature reserves but inside the ecoregions. Our findings emphasize that incorporating soil data into spatial modelling provides great insights for the conservation of conifers species. We recommend conservationists to use soil variables and other environmental data to generate a comprehensive understanding of the key drivers underlying the patterns of conifer diversity and distribution.

Field of study: Environmental science
Study of the spatial response of reduced pitch Hg1−xCdxTe dual-band detector arrays

The third generation of infrared (IR) focal plane arrays (FPA) will have to detect simultaneously at least two different spectral bands. Small pixel pitches (less than 25–30 µm) will also be needed to achieve the resolution required for such devices without degrading performances, introducing difficult technological challenges. Among those is optical filling: the third generation will have to retain the high filling factor obtained with a planar single-color FPA. It thus appears necessary to estimate the sensible areas of small pitched dual-band pixels. Scanning a controlled IR spot on the FPA surface allows the obervation of the spatial response of a pixel. Such spotscan measurements have been carried out on Hg1−xCdxTe dual-band arrays. Different device structures have been tested: planar structures and NPN mesa structures, produced at LETI LIR. The spotscan bench test is first presented, in order to clarify characterization conditions and understanding. Measurement results are then discussed and compared with modeling, in order to identify the main physical parameters determining the optical area of such dual-band IR detectors. Emphasis on modulation transfer function (MTF) estimation and X talk is finally carried out.

Field of study: Materials science
Heat generation by vibration and coil rigidity of Bi2223 pancake coil

AC losses of HTS pancake coil for the superconducting fault current limiter were investigated. The measured AC losses of pancake coil were found to be primarily heat generation by vibration. Therefore, the rigidity of coil was improved by epoxy impregnation, resulting in a 50% reduction in AC losses. Therefore, the total AC losses of HTS pancake coil are dependent on the rigidity of coil. In the present paper, the relationship between resonance frequency and heat generation by vibration is shown.

Field of study: Physics