nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
The construction and expression of tumor-targeting fusion protein RGD-hIL-24 and the study of its in vitro anti-tumor activity

To construct and express tumor-targeting fusion protein RGD-hIL-24 in E. coli and to study its anti-tumor activity of inducing apoptosis and targeting tumor in vitro .  The fusion gene GRGDS fused with N-terminus of hTL-24 was obtained by PCR. Then it was cloned into expression vector pET-22b. RGD-hIL-24 was expressed in E. coli BL21(DE3) . The fusion protein was purified by chelating chromatog-raphy. The activity of inducing apoptosis of tumor cells was observed by MTT colorimetry and fluorescence staining. The activity of targeting tumor was analyzed by cell adhesion assay.  The fusion gene was confirmed by gene sequencing. RGD-hIL-24 was expressed in E. coli as inclusion bodies ( Mr = 20 000) which took up to 26.47% of total somatic protein. It was identified by SDS-PAGE and Western blot. The purity of fusion protein reached over 90% . It induced the apoptosis of MCF - 7 cells and was targeted to tumor cells in vitro .  The fusion protein RGD-hIL-24 was successfully constructed and highly expressed in E. coli. It could induce tumor cells apoptosis and have the activity of tumor targeting.

Field of study: Biology
Microwave-free magnetometry with nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond

We use magnetic-field-dependent features in the photoluminescence of negatively charged nitrogen-vacancy centers to measure magnetic fields without the use of microwaves. In particular, we present a magnetometer based on the level anti-crossing in the triplet ground state at 102.4 mT with a demonstrated noise floor of 6 nT/ Hz, limited by the intensity noise of the laser and the performance of the background-field power supply. The technique presented here can be useful in applications where the sensor is placed close to conductive materials, e.g., magnetic induction tomography or magnetic field mapping, and in remote-sensing applications since principally no electrical access is needed.

Field of study: Physics
Genetic diversity of Enterolobium cyclocarpum in Colombian seasonally dry tropical forest: implications for conservation and restoration

Enterolobium cyclocarpum is a characteristic legume tree species of seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTFs) of Mesoamerica and northern South America typically used in silvopastoral and agroforestry systems. Remaining populations of E. cyclocarpum in Colombia are severely fragmented owing to the highly degraded state of SDTF in the country, posing threats to both their in situ persistence and their usefulness as seed sources for future planting efforts. We genotyped E. cyclocarpum populations at nine sampling sites across a latitudinal gradient of SDTF in Colombia by means of eight nSSR markers to elucidate the species diversity distribution in the country. Our data suggest that a deep divide seems to have existed between Caribbean and Andean populations of E. cyclocarpum in Colombian SDTF that may date back to the last glacial maximum (~21,000 BP), or longer. However, we only found evidence of genetic differentiation between trees from the southern Cauca River valley and populations at more northern locations. All the latter populations showed signs of admixture which may be the result of human-influenced movement of germplasm, particularly after the introduction of cattle by European settlers. Most of the sampled sites showed heterozygosity scores close to Hardy–Weinberg expectations. Only the three southern-most populations displayed significantly positive values of inbreeding coefficient, potentially affecting their in situ maintenance and their use as seed sources. Based on our findings we identify priority areas for the in situ conservation of remaining E. cyclocarpum populations, and propose a strategy for sourcing of appropriate planting material for use in future tree planting efforts.

Field of study: Environmental science
Reform towards National Health Insurance in Malaysia: the equity implications.

This paper assesses the potential equity impact of Malaysia's projected reform of its current tax financed system towards National Health Insurance (NHI).



The Kakwani's progressivity index was used to assess the equity consequences of the new NHI system (with flat rate NHI scheme) compared to the current tax financed system. It was also used to model a proposed system (with a progressive NHI scheme) that can generate the same amount of funding more equitably.



The new NHI system would be less equitable than the current tax financed system, as evident from the reduction of Kakwani's index to 0.168 from 0.217. The new flat rate NHI scheme, if implemented, would reduce the progressivity of the health finance system because it is a less progressive finance source than that of general government revenue. We proposed a system with a progressive NHI scheme that generates the same amount of funding whilst preserving the equity at the Kakwani's progressivity index of 0.213.



A NHI system with a progressive NHI scheme is proposed to be implemented to raise health funding whilst preserving the equity in health care financing.

Field of study: Medicine, Political science
Effect of drying method on rehydration of rapid cooking mungbean

This experiment studied hot air drying,microwave drying,air hot-microwave drying of three drying methods effect on rehydration of rapid cooking mungbean,and discussed the best drying conditions of three drying methods,obtain with the best drying method.The experimental results show that,air hot-microwave drying methods with the best rehydration effect,and the best drying conditions: rapid cooking mungbean of placed in 36 h sealed containers after 100 ℃ drying 30～40 min,reoccupy 462 W microwave drying 4 ～ 6 min,the form keep intact,internal organization structure keep loosen and porous,easily expand into the water,rehydration time about 9 min,rehydration rate 5.0.

Field of study: Agricultural and Food sciences
Treatment of acute ischemic stroke in patients with cerebral microbleeds: a decision analysis.

Treatment with anti-thrombotic agents reduces the likelihood of recurrent ischemic stroke. However, it may produce intracerebral hemorrhage. The risk of recurrence is highest shortly after an ischemic stroke has occurred irrespective of the ischemic stroke subtype. About one-fourth1 to one-half2 of the risk of recurrence at 1 year is accrued during the acute phase (first 2–4 weeks) of an ischemic stroke, and this risk declines further during the following 5 years.3 Similarly, the rates of intracerebral hemorrhage decline from 0.6% to 3% during the the first 2–4 weeks after an ischemic stroke4–13 to 0.16–0.23% annually thereafter.11,14

This time variance in complication rates indicates that the risk–benefit ratio of the treatment of patients with acute ischemic stroke may be different from that of their long-term care. Still, published analyses of the treatment of such patients have assumed that the risks of ischemic stroke recurrence and intracerebral hemorrhage are constant over the patient’s lifetime,15 or over the first year after ischemic stroke.16 Therefore, the conclusions of these analyses may not pertain to patients with acute ischemic stroke. The management of ischemic stroke in patients with cerebral microbleeds is particularly uncertain. About one-fourth of the patients with ischemic stroke have cerebral microbleeds that may predict a higher risk of intracerebral hemorrhages.17 Still, we know of no randomized studies comparing the risks and benefits of anti-thrombotic treatment in patients with and without cerebral microbleeds.

When clinical decisions must be made in the absence of evidence, an analysis of the benefits (efficacy) and risks (adverse effects) of alternative management options may identify the treatment of choice and the specific areas of uncertainty that should be explored by future research. In this article, we use a decision tree to compare no treatment, aspirin or anti-coagulation in …

Field of study: Medicine
Information Filtering Using Kullback-Leibler Divergence

In this paper we describe an information filtering system using the Kullback-Leibler divergence. To cope with information flood, many information filtering systems have been proposed up to now. Since almost all information filtering systems are developed with techniques of information retrieval, machine learning, and pattern recognition, they often use a linear function as the discriminant function. To classify information in the field of document classification more precisely, the systems have been reported which use a non-linear function as the discriminant function. The proposed method is to use the Kullback-Leibler divergence as the discriminat function which denotes to user's interest in the information filtering system. To identify the optimal discriminat function with documents which a user evaluates, we decide the optimal function using the genetic algorithm. We compare the present method with the other one using a linear discriminant function and confirm the effectiveness of the proposed method.

Field of study: Computer science
3D SCATTERING BY AN ALLUVIAL VALLEY EMBEDDED IN A FLUID-SATURATED, LAYERED HALF-SPACE FOR OBLIQUELY INCIDENT PLANE P1 WAVES

The indirect boundary element method is used to study the 3D wave scattering problem of obliquely incident plane P1 waves by an alluvial valley embedded in a fluid-saturated,layered half-space in frequency domain,based on the given 3D exact dynamic stiffness matrix and Green's functions of moving distributed loads in a fluid-saturated,layered half-space.The method has the advantage that fictitious moving distributed loads and pore pressure can be acted directly on the interface of the valley and the layered half space without singularity.The rationality of the method is validated by comparing with known results,and the numerical analyses are performed by examples of a valley embedded in a fluid-saturated half space and in a single fluid saturated soil layer over elastic bedrock.It is shown that the 3D scattering is essentially different from the 2D case and the parameters such as incident angle,porosity,layer stiffness and layer thickness,etc.have significant effect on the dynamic responses near the valley.

Field of study: Engineering
Riches For All: The California Gold Rush and the World (review)

The official California Gold-Rush-to-Statehood Sesquicentennial Commission was authorized by the state of California to raise millions of dollars from the private sector to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the events that propelled California to a miraculously swift admission as the thirty-first state. As retired history professor Kenneth N. Owens of California State University Sacramento points out in his Preface, the Commission failed in its fundraising goals. Yet all was not lost; for before, during, and after the two-year observance there occurred a number of challenging / reassessments of the Gold Rush by historians, and these re-evaluations succeeded in laying down a challenging and nuanced interpretation of the Gold Rush that, in effect, demanded that Californians, indeed, all Americans, abandon stereotypes in favor of a sense of history enlivened by nearly four decades of revisionist inquiry.

Field of study: History
Off-site impacts of agricultural composting: role of terrestrially derived organic matter in structuring aquatic microbial communities and their metabolic potential.

While considered as sustainable and low-cost agricultural amendments, the impacts of organic fertilizers on downstream aquatic microbial communities remain poorly documented. We investigated the quantity and quality of the dissolved organic matter leaching from agricultural soil amended with compost, vermicompost or biochar and assessed their effects on lake microbial communities, in terms of viral and bacterial abundances, community structure and metabolic potential. The addition of compost and vermicompost significantly increased the amount of dissolved organic carbon in the leachate compared with soil alone. Leachates from these additions, either with or without biochar, were highly bioavailable to aquatic microbial communities, although reducing the metabolic potential of the community and harbouring more specific communities. Although not affecting bacterial richness or taxonomic distributions, the specific addition of biochar affected the original lake bacterial communities, resulting in a strongly different community. This could be partly explained by viral burst and converging bacterial abundances throughout the samples. These results underline the necessity to include off-site impacts of agricultural amendments when considering their cascading effect on downstream aquatic ecosystems.

Field of study: Biology, Environmental science
Surface Activation of Polylactic Acid-Based Wood-Plastic Composite by Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Treatment

Wood-plastic composite (WPC) based on a polylactic acid (PLA) matrix is a promising material since it is biobased, degradable, sustainable, and 3D printable. However, due to its coloring, visible layers after 3D-printing, and small build volumes of these printers, a coating or gluing of parts might be required. This study investigates the influence of a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD) plasma treatment of PLA-based WPC to activate the surface and improve, e.g., coating capabilities. X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) measurements showed the oxidation of the surface due to the formation of carbonyl and carboxyl groups. Laser scanning microscopy revealed a surface roughening after the treatment. Contact angles of water and diiodomethane decreased significantly after the plasma treatment and the consecutively calculated surface free energy increased. Finally, two practical adhesion tests revealed an improvement of the applied acrylic dispersion coating’s adhesion to the WPC surface: The assigned cross-cut class improved, and the pull-off strength increased from 1.4 to 2.3 N/mm2.

Field of study: Materials science
Lasers with wavefront-reversing mirrors (review)

The principles of construction of lasers with wavefront reversing (WFR) mirrors are considered. Descriptions are given of methods for the determination of the transverse and longitudinal mode structures in such lasers. The advantages and shortcomings of various systems with WFR mirrors are reviewed. A comparison is made of the various systems with one another and with conventional mirrors. The future trends and the main lines of further research are forecast.

Field of study: Engineering, Physics
Early life nutritional stress affects song learning but not underlying neural circuitry in zebra finches.

Early life stress negatively impacts behavior and underlying neural circuitry across species. The present study investigated the effects of nutritional stress (NS), which increases parental foraging, on song quality in males, song preferences in females, and the size and number of cells in song and auditory regions of the zebra finch brain. We hypothesized that NS would decrease song quality in males and decrease preference for high quality song in females. Furthermore, we predicted that NS would reduce the size of song nuclei and decrease the number of cells in song and auditory regions. In males, NS decreased the number of syllable types (a measure of song complexity), decreased the number of high notes and flat notes, and increased the number of noisy notes, but had no effect on song rate or song length. In females, NS reduced preferences for high quality song. Despite these behavioral effects, there were no effects of NS on song and auditory nuclei, although there were effects of age and sex. These results suggest that NS affects behavior in both males and females, but these effects are not attributable to the number of cells or size of song and auditory regions. Such findings add to our understanding of the effects of early life stress on behavior and cognition.

Field of study: Biology, Psychology
Quaternary subsurface paleosols in Haifa Bay, Israel: A new perspective on stratigraphic correlations in coastal settings

This study presents the first in-depth analysis of properties, micromorphology, clay mineralogy, magnetic susceptibility, and general properties of Quaternary paleosols from two boreholes in Haifa Bay subsurface, whose chronostratigraphic position was determined previously. The current analytical results allowed us to identify the type, hydrologic regime, polygenesis, mode of pedosedimentary evolution, and some subsequent alterations of paleosols. The analogs of polygenic Haplo- and Rhodo-xeralf soils (Brown, Mollic, and Ortho-Hamra) are associated with marine isotope stages (MIS) 3.1, 5.4, 6 and 8.0 (or 7.4) and likely developed in response to a changing climate. Paleosols prior to MIS 12, yet difficult to attribute to specific MIS, are distinct from Hamra soils by striking mottling, poor preservation of argillic horizons, abundant deformations in microfabric, and overprinting processes of gley and calcium carbonate accumulation. It is assumed that calcification may have affected the earlier formed clay illuviation and amorphous features, and was related with marine/coastal groundwater interface. The older calcic gleyed paleosols of earlier Middle Pleistocene likely indicate that coastal paleogeography was characterized by both high discharge of the ancient Qishon River and a high water table. The thin section micromorphology is particularly valuable for refined paleopedological taxonomy.  Pleistocene paleosols including their type, hydrology and mode of evolution, are proposed to serve additional stratigraphic markers in coastal settings.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
Prussian Blue Analogue of Copper-Cobalt Decorated with Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes Based Electrochemical Sensor for Sensitive Determination of Nitrite in Food Samples

Cu-Co Prussian Blue analogue (CuII3[CoIII(CN)6]2)/multi-walled carbon nanotubes (Cu-Co PBA/MWCNTs) composite was synthesized for fabrication of an electrochemical sensor for detection of nitrite. The morphology and composition of the fabricated nanomaterial were characterized by X-ray diffraction (XRD), energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDS), and scanning electron microscopy (SEM). Cyclic voltammetry (CV) and differential pulse voltammetry (DPV) were used to investigate the electrochemical behavior and mechanism of the fabricated biosensor. Experimental results showed that Cu-Co PBA/MWCNTs/GCE had excellent electrochemical activity towards nitrite, which was superior to that of Cu-Co PBA and MWCNTs. Under the optimal conditions, a wide linear range from 10–400 μM and 400–2100 μM and a detection limit of 0.5 μM were obtained. Moreover, this sensor was employed to determine the concentration of nitrite in ham sausage and mustard samples, and showed excellent selectivity, good anti-interference, repeatability and satisfied recovery.

Field of study: Chemistry
NMDA receptor subunit mRNA and protein expression in ethanol-withdrawal seizure-prone and -resistant mice.

Ethanol withdrawal seizure-prone (WSP) and -resistant (WSR) mice have been genetically selected for differences in handling-induced convulsion severity during withdrawal from chronic ethanol administration. Importantly, drug-naïve mice from these selected lines also differ in handling-induced convulsion severity. Different N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor subunit and splice variant associations confer varying sensitivities to ethanol, and may play a role in the different behavioral responses of the WSP and WSR mice.



In situ hybridization of riboprobes was used to characterize NMDA receptor subunit and splice variant mRNA expression in cortex and hippocampus from WSP and WSR mice. In addition, immunoblotting and immunohistochemistry were used to examine the expression of specific NMDA receptor subunits and splice variants in hippocampus and cortex from the selected mouse lines.



In situ hybridization of riboprobes indicated that, in brain sections from both WSP and WSR mice, there was a differential regional distribution of mRNA for the mouse NR1, NR2A, NR2B, and NR2C NMDA receptor subunits. However, there were no differences between the selected lines in the hybridization of riboprobes to hippocampal subfields or cortical layers. In addition, hybridization of the probe for a 63-base N1-terminal cassette of ethanol-sensitive NR1 splice variants labeled both cortex and hippocampus. The level of hybridization did not differ across subfields of the hippocampus. Results from Western blot and immunohistochemical experiments also indicated that there were no differences between selected lines in NMDA receptor subunit protein expression. However, there was a correlation between mRNA and protein expression in hippocampus and cortex for each NMDA receptor subunit that was examined.



The data suggest that at the level of both mRNA and protein, NMDA receptor subunit and splice variant expression can be uncoupled from convulsion severity in mice that have been selectively bred for symptoms of ethanol withdrawal.

Field of study: Medicine
Bacterial enzymes involved in lignin degradation.

Lignin forms a large part of plant biomass. It is a highly heterogeneous polymer of 4-hydroxyphenylpropanoid units and is embedded within polysaccharide polymers forming lignocellulose. Lignin provides strength and rigidity to plants and is rather resilient towards degradation. To improve the (bio)processing of lignocellulosic feedstocks, more effective degradation methods of lignin are in demand. Nature has found ways to fully degrade lignin through the production of dedicated ligninolytic enzyme systems. While such enzymes have been well thoroughly studied for ligninolytic fungi, only in recent years biochemical studies on bacterial enzymes capable of lignin modification have intensified. This has revealed several types of enzymes available to bacteria that enable them to act on lignin. Two major classes of bacterial lignin-modifying enzymes are DyP-type peroxidases and laccases. Yet, recently also several other bacterial enzymes have been discovered that seem to play a role in lignin modifications. In the present review, we provide an overview of recent advances in the identification and use of bacterial enzymes acting on lignin or lignin-derived products.

Field of study: Biology, Engineering
LIQHYSMES—A Novel Energy Storage Concept for Variable Renewable Energy Sources Using Hydrogen and SMES

A new energy storage concept is proposed that combines the use of liquid hydrogen (LH2) with Superconducting Magnetic Energy Storage (SMES). The anticipated increase of the contribution of intermittent renewable power plants like wind or solar farms will substantially increase the need for balancing demands and supplies from seconds to several hours or even days. LH2 with its high volumetric energy density is the prime candidate for large scale stationary energy storage but balancing load or supply fluctuations with hydrogen alone is unrealistic due to the losses related to the re-conversion into electricity and also due to the response times of the flow control. To operate the hydrogen part more steadily some short-term electrical energy storage will be needed. Here a SMES based on High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) is proposed for this purpose which could be operated in the LH2 bath. With this approach the cryogenics-related costs for the SMES are widely cut. The concept is introduced. Simple simulations on the buffering behavior and comparisons of different plant types are presented.

Field of study: Physics