nils-herrmann/clean_scirepeval huggingface dataset:
Role of GABRA2 in moderating subjective responses to alcohol.

Human twin studies have shown that certain responses to alcohol, including subjective perceptions, are genetically influenced. Previous studies have provided evidence that a low level of response to alcohol predicts future alcohol use disorders in humans. Recent genetic studies suggest an association between alcohol dependence and genetic variation in the γ-aminobutyric acid A (GABA(A)) receptor α2 subunit gene (GABRA2). Based on a haplotypic association of alcohol dependence with GABRA2, we investigated whether GABRA2 alleles are associated with the subjective responses to clamped alcohol concentration.



One hundred and ten healthy social drinkers (53 men) underwent the alcohol clamp. Fifteen minutes after the start of an intravenous infusion of alcohol, the breath alcohol concentration was clamped at a target of 50 ± 5 mg/dl for 165 minutes. Subjective physiologic responses to alcohol and stimulant and sedative effects of alcohol were measured repeatedly during the alcohol clamp. Because aldehyde dehydrogenase 2 (ALDH2) has been shown to have a great impact on the subjective responses to alcohol, we divided subjects by ALDH2 genotype for further analyses. To examine the role of genetic variation in GABRA2, 7 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) that were informative in association studies were included as factors in the analysis.



Among these 7 SNPs, 3 SNPs (rs279869, rs279858, and rs279837) located in the middle of the GABRA2 gene showed significant associations with subjective effects of alcohol. Subjects with 1 or 2 copies of the more common allele showed greater subjective responses to alcohol than did individuals homozygous for the alcohol dependence-associated allele regardless of ALDH2 genotype.



These findings confirm and extend the observation that the GABRA2 alleles affect the subjective responses to alcohol, and suggest that the genetic variations in GABRA2 might play a role in the risk of alcohol use disorders by moderating the subjective effects of alcohol.

Field of study: Medicine
CIS Electives for Technical Support Analysts

Technical skills are critical for computer related professions. Unless computer information systems (CIS) graduates have the special technical skills that employers need, they may have difficulty in obtaining their first CIS related positions. Specific skills will often vary by job classification. Many CIS personnel acquire their necessary job skills from institutions of higher education. The research reported in this paper examines 16 technical CIS electives often recommended by CIS academia. A survey questions a sample of both system analysts and technical support analysts to determine the perceived importance of the suggested electives. The results show that the perceived important electives for system analysts are different from those perceived by technical support analysts. Both professions perceive telecommunications and database concepts as being important while their perceptions differ on information center concepts and management, CIS professionalism and ethics, software engineering, and advanced...

Field of study: Computer science
BRIEF COMMUNICATIONS: Generalization of the Ramsey formula for the probability of a transition in the method of separate oscillating fields

A general expression is obtained for the line profile of a transition occurring in a beam of two-level molecules interacting with m ≥ 1 separate oscillating fields. It is shown that, if m > 2, then (m–2) side maxima of the Ramsey line nearest to the center are suppressed.

Field of study: Engineering, Physics
Co-benefits and trade-offs in the water–energy nexus of irrigation modernization in China

There are strong interdependencies between water use in agriculture and energy consumption as water saving technologies can require increased pumping and pressurizing. The Chinese Government includes water efficiency improvement and carbon intensity reduction targets in the 12th Five-Year Plan (5YP. 2011–2015), yet the links between energy use and irrigation modernization are not always addressed in policy targets. Here we build an original model of the energy embedded in water pumping for irrigated agriculture and its related processes. The model is based on the physical processes of irrigation schemes and the implication of technological developments, comprising all processes from extraction and conveyance of water to its application in the field. The model uses data from government sources to assess policy targets for deployment of irrigation technologies, which aim to reduce water application and contribute to adaptation of Chinese agriculture to climate change. The consequences of policy targets involve co-beneficial outcomes that achieve water and energy savings, or trade-offs in which reduced water application leads to increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. We analyze irrigation efficiency and energy use in four significant provinces and nationally, using scenarios based on the targets of the 12th 5YP. At the national scale, we find that expansion of sprinklers and micro-irrigation as outlined in the 5YP would increase GHG emissions from agricultural water use, however, emissions decrease in those provinces with predominant groundwater use and planned expansion of low-pressure pipes. We show that the most costly technologies relate to trade-offs, while co-benefits are generally achieved with less expensive technologies. The investment cost per area of irrigation technology expansion does not greatly affect the outcome in terms of water, but in terms of energy the most expensive technologies are more energy-intensive and produce more emissions. The results show that water supply configuration (proportion of surface to groundwater) largely determines the potential energy savings from reductions in water application. The paper examines the importance of fertigation and highlights briefly some policy implications.

Field of study: Environmental science
Individual-Group Discontinuity: Further Evidence for Mediation by Fear and Greed

The authors have previously shown that intergroup interactions are dramatically more competitive than interindividual interactions and have termed this phenomenon a discontinuity effect. They believe that this effect is partly driven by group members' fear of being exploited by the out-group. Experiment 1 found that when subjects were allowed to select a single, safe alternative, a significant, albeit descriptively smaller competitive effect remained. Intergroup competiteness may also be driven by greed. Experiments 2 and 3 tested whether the group content is propitious for providing social support for totally self-interested acts. Trained role-players consistently suggested selecting either the cooperative or the competitive option in a prisoner's dilemma game; and groups received trial-by-trial feedback about the out-group's responding. The pattern of results is consistent with the assumption that, in the presence of a vulnerable opponent, group members tend to provide social support for immediate self-interest.

Field of study: Psychology
Contracting out and accountability

Governments are increasingly moving to contract out the provision of public services which have previously been delivered by public service departments. Contracting out typically implies provision by private sector contractors. However, it may also include in-house provision by public service departments or other public agencies where the right to provide is won through competitive tendering and is governed by contract. At the Commonwealth level, the trend has been given added impetus by the Coalition government elected in 1996 (Reith J 996; National Commission of Audit 1996). 
 
 
 
The main rationale for contracting out is to improve efficiency in service provision by harnessing the virtues of competition, in particular the superior productivity engendered among competitive providers (Industry Commission (IC) 1996, B3.4;  At the same time, there is a legitimate expectation that providers of public services paid for by public funds will be publicly accountable (IC 1996, BI). However, contracting out has the potential to reduce the extent of public accountability by transferring the provision of public services to members of the private sector who are generally not subject to the same accountability requirements as public officials. Indeed, reduction in such accountability requirements may be one of the reasons for the greater efficiency of the private sector.

Field of study: Political science
Lancashire's Last Stand: Declining Employment in the British Cotton Industry, 1950-70

After a brief respite during the 1940s the secular decline of the British cotton industry resumed its course. This article seeks, by the application of an accounting procedure, to estimate the relative contributions of falling exports, rising imports, dwindling home demand, and increasing labour productivity to the decline in employment in cotton between 1950 and 1970. It concludes that the significance of each of these factors, as an immediate cause of decline, was subject to considerable variation over the period in question.

Field of study: Economics, History
Ethanol inhibition of AMPA and kainate receptor-mediated depolarizations of hippocampal area CA1.

Longitudinal hippocampal slices were prepared from adult female rats. The excitatory amino acids, alpha-amino-3-hydroxy-5-methyl-4-isoxazole propionate (AMPA) and kainic acid, were applied to area CA1, and the resulting depolarizations were measured using the grease-gap electrophysiological technique. Agonist dose-response curves were generated in the presence and absence of various concentrations of ethanol. Ethanol (25-200 mM) significantly attenuated the depolarizations that were produced by each agonist. In addition, we found that ethanol potently antagonized kainate-induced depolarizations across the agonist concentration-response curve, whereas it significantly suppressed only AMPA responses that were induced with moderate-to-high agonist concentrations. These results indicate that ethanol has potent antagonist actions against non-N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) excitatory amino acid-induced neuronal depolarizations in hippocampal area CA1. Moreover, the relative potency of ethanol depends on the specific excitatory agonist tested and the concentration of that agonist. This suggests that, in addition to the known effects of ethanol on NMDA receptor-mediated activity, it may also potently attenuate ongoing "fast" glutamatergic synaptic activity in the hippocampus.

Field of study: Medicine
Late-Holocene and recent hydroclimatic variability in the central Kenya Rift Valley: The sediment record of hypersaline lakes Bogoria, Nakuru and Elementeita

The sedimentology, salt mineralogy and stable oxygen- and carbon-isotope signatures of a mid-lake sediment sequence from hypersaline Lake Bogoria in Kenya reveal marked climate-driven changes in water-column mixing regime and salinity over the past 1700 years. Combined with sedimentological data on short sediment sequences from nearby lakes Nakuru and Elementeita, this results in a preliminary reconstruction of hydroclimatic variability in the central Kenya Rift Valley since ca. 300 AD. Stratigraphic analyses of bulk sediment composition, texture and magnetic susceptibility of all three cores; and smear slide, XRD and stable-isotope analyses on carbonate minerals in the Bogoria sequence allowed to define a succession of sedimentary units, corresponding to distinct phases in lake history. In the lowermost unit, four characteristic trona layers (Na3(HCO3)(CO3)·2H2O) are attributed to predominantly dry conditions during the second half of the first millennium AD and the period equivalent to the Medieval Climate Anomaly, until the first half of the 12th century AD. Lake Bogoria was probably polymictic at that time, its surface level standing significantly lower than today. The second unit displays uniform deposition of nahcolite (NaHCO3), indicative of a strongly stratified lake where a layer of less saline surface water (near-)permanently covers a hypersaline water mass with high pCO2. We propose that this depositional phase reflects the rising lake level related to the transition from dry to more humid climate conditions at the onset of the Little Ice Age, as previously documented for other parts of equatorial East Africa. The third, uppermost Bogoria unit contains only sporadic depositions of magadiite (Na2Si14O29(OH)3·11H2O) and various sodium carbonate minerals. This, together with low magnetic susceptibility, is interpreted to indicate humid Little Ice Age conditions, with highest lake level and reduced salinity around the late-15th to early-16th century AD. From the late-18th to early-19th century and again in the 1870's, the region experienced two episodes of drought more severe than any recorded in historical time. Tentative evidence for these events in the Bogoria record is not well constrained in time, but dated desiccation surfaces in the Nakuru and Elementeita records confirm their widespread nature across eastern equatorial Africa.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
Low-latitude climate control on sea-surface temperatures recorded in the southern Okinawa Trough during the last 13.3 kyr

Paleotemperature records were reconstructed for the past 13.3 kyr using the alkenone unsaturation index (UK′37) and the tetraether index of 86 carbon atoms (TEX86) proxies measured in sediment core OKI-151, which was collected in the southern Okinawa Trough. The UK′37- and TEX86-derived temperatures for the top sample are close to the modern mean annual sea-surface temperature (SST). Changes in SSTs in the southern Okinawa Trough were primarily controlled by the western tropical Pacific Ocean, low-latitude winter insolation, and sea-level rise. Unlike previous studies, we found that the high-latitude North Atlantic played no significant role in the SST variations in this area. Moreover, SSTs in the southern Okinawa Trough decoupled from the East Asian summer monsoon system in the last 13.3 kyr. The UK′37- and TEX86-based SSTs dropped significantly at 7.6–6.9 kyr BP (centered on 7.3 kyr BP). These findings suggest that the cold event at 7.3 kyr BP was widely recorded in the Okinawa Trough. However, the TEX86-based SSTs dropped approximately 14 °C during this period for an unknown reason.

Field of study: Environmental science, Geography
Calorimetric Study of the Interaction of Local Anesthetics [2-(Alkyloxy)phenyl]-2-(1-piperidinyl)ethyl Carbamates with Model Dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine Membranes

Local anesthetics of the homologous series of monohydrochlorides of [2-(alkoxy)phenyl]-2-(1-piperidinyl)ethyl esters of carbamic acid decrease the temperature of phase transitions L β' → P β (pretransition) and P β → L α (main transition) of 1,2-dipalmitoyl- sn -phosphatidylcholine in aqueous phase at pH 6.2. The efficiency of the anesthetics in decreasing the pretransition temperature increases with the number of carbon atoms n of the alkoxy substituent up to n = 6. For n > 6 no pretransition could be detected. The efficiency in decreasing the temperature of the main transition increases up to n = 8 - 9 while it starts decreasing at n = 10. Computer simulation of the thermograms has shown that the decrease of efficiency at n = 10 is caused by the dependence of the partition coefficients of the anesthetics K P,G and K P,LC between the aqueous phase and the P β and L α phases, respectively, on the length of the alkoxy substituent, thus: log K P,LC = A LC + B LC n and log K P,G = A G + B G n , where B LC B G .

Field of study: Chemistry
Xylem cavitation in two mature Scots pine forests growing in a wet and a dry area of Britain

The xylem cavitation rate, stem water content, stomatal conductance and leaf water potential of mature Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris L.) were compared over a period of 18 months at two sites in Britain where trees were planted from the same seed source. The sites were at Thetford in south-east England, where the climate is relatively warm and dry (average rainfall of 600 mm per year), and Aberfoyle in central Scotland, where it is relatively cool and wet (average rainfall of 1500 mm year -1 ). In the first year of study (1992) the natural difference between the sites was amplified by a severe drought affecting south-east England. Acoustic emissions (as a result of cavitation) were detected at both sites, but were not an everyday occurrence, and rates depended on short-term meteorological variation. The relative water content (RWC) of the trunk at breast height at Thetford was significantly lower than at Aberfoyle, and declined in parallel with increasing severity of drought. Following the release from drought a gradual increase in RWC was found, but the pre-drought RWC was not attained. The same xylem water potential gradient and stomatal conductance was found at the two sites ; but on a diurnal basis, as water potential declined, cavitation rates increased. There was no difference in vulnerability to cavitation or in hydraulic conductance between the sites.

Field of study: Environmental science
The Replacement Principle in Economies with Single-Peaked Preferences

Our objective is to investigate the implications of the “replacement principle” for the fair allocation of an infinitely divisible commodity among agents with single-peaked preferences. The principle says that when one of the components of the data entering the description of the problem to be solved changes, all of the relevant agents should be affected in the same direction: they all gain or they all lose. We apply it to situations in which the preferences of one of the agents may change, under the name ofwelfare-domination under preference-replacement. We show that there is no selection from the no-envy and Pareto solution satisfying it. Then, we weaken it by limiting its application to situations in which the change is not so disruptive that it turns the economy from one in which there is “too little” of the commodity to one in which there is “too much,” or conversely. We show that there is only one selection from the no-envy and Pareto solution satisfying this property andreplication-invariance. It is the “uniform rule,” a solution that has played a central role in previous analyses of the problem.

Field of study: Economics
Physicians in alcoholism: a study of current status and future needs.

Members of the American Medical Society on Alcoholism were studied to shed light on medical manpower needs in the alcoholism field. Findings were compared to AMA and federal survey data for all American physicians. AMSA respondents were broadly distributed among specialties: primarily psychiatrists, internists, and family practitioners. They were evenly divided between office-based and institutional practice, and most were on medical school faculties. Regarding alcoholism treatment, they generally agreed that Alcoholics Anonymous is necessary and that nonmedical counsellors are effective, although their attitudes on the etiology of alcoholism were divided. This sample of physicians in alcoholism, although not inclusive of all in the field, represents a diverse group, with differing clinical and educational needs.

Field of study: Medicine
A variational principle for nonlinear networks

1. R. Courant and D. Hilbert, Methods of mathematical physics, Vol. 1, Interscience Publishers, Inc., New York, 1953, p. 158 2. P. Hartman and A. Wintner, On the solutions of the equations of heat conduction,  (1950) 367 3. F. G. Tricomi, Integral equations, Interscience Publishers, Inc., New York, 1957, p. 39 4. H. Weber, Die ■partiellen Differentialgleichungen der mathematischen Physik, Friedr. Vieweg und Sohn, Braunschweig, Germany, 1912, pp. 101-111

Field of study: Mathematics
Relationship between oxytocin receptor genotype and recognition of facial emotion.

The ability to understand thoughts and feelings of another person is an important prerequisite for successful social interaction. One part of this ability is the recognition of emotions in the face of the counterpart. Knowledge on genetic contributions to emotion recognition is still scarce. In the present study, 105 healthy participants were experimentally tested for their ability to recognize complex emotions in faces. As prior studies outlined the importance of the oxytocin system for emotion recognition, the functional rs2268498 polymorphism on the OXTR-gene was investigated. Although there were no differences in reaction times between genotype groups, carriers of the T-allele exhibited more accurate recognition skills than subjects carrying the CC-genotype. There was no influence of gender or age. Results support recent findings, demonstrating the importance of the oxytocin system for affect processing and related social behavior.

Field of study: Biology, Psychology
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: Picosecond relaxation of energy in a light-gathering assembly of active and inactive reaction centers

It was found that the kinetics of deactivation of excitations in a photosynthetic light-gathering antenna does not change (in the first approximation) when traps (reaction centers) are converted from the active to the inactive state. This conclusion is deduced using absorption spectroscopic methods with picosecond optical parametric oscillators as light sources.

Field of study: Engineering, Physics
Efficacy of Two Pheromone Types on Red Palm Weevil, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Under Saudi Arabian Conditions

Two types (Trece incorporated, USA) of synthetic aggregation pheromone lures (8683 and 8685) were used to trap the adults of red palm weevil (RPW), Rhynchophorus ferrugineus (Oliver), in infested date palm farm at Al-Jush in Al-Qatif district, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia, by using the reusable Saudi bucket trap. Adult weevils (females and males) were attracted to both types of pheromones although females were found more in number than males. Type 8683 pheromone was most attractive to RAW than type 8685 and the highest number of weevil captures were recorded during the months of February, March and April..

Field of study: Biology
Spectroscopic evidence of high transport spin-polarization in ferromagnetic CuFeSb

We have measured the transport spin polarization in the itinerant ferromagnet CuFeSb by spin-resolved Andreev reflection spectroscopy. From the analysis of the Andreev reflection spectra within a modified Blonder-Tinkham-Klapwijk (BTK) formalism that includes Fermi-level spin polarization and the spectral broadening due to finite quasiparticle lifetime, we found that the intrinsic transport spin polarization in CuFeSb is approximately 50\%. This is significantly different from the half-metallic behaviour of CuFeSb as expected from band-structure calculation. We attribute this difference to possible difference in the Fermi velocities in the spin up and the spin down bands of CuFeSb.

Field of study: Physics