From Brexit to Biden: What Responses to National Outcomes Tell Us About the Nature of Relief

Recent claims contrast relief experienced because a period of unpleasant uncertainty has ended and an outcome has materialized (temporal relief)—regardless of whether it is one’s preferred outcome—with relief experienced because a particular outcome has occurred, when the alternative was unpalatable (counterfactual relief). Two studies ( N = 993), one run the day after the United Kingdom left the European Union and one the day after Joe Biden’s inauguration, confirmed these claims. “Leavers” and Biden voters experienced high levels of relief, and less regret and disappointment than “Remainers” and Trump voters. “Remainers” and Trump voters showed an effect of precursor, experiencing little relief about the outcome that had occurred but stronger relief that a decision had been implemented. Only Trump voters who believed the election was over showed this precursor effect. Results suggest at least two different triggering conditions for relief and indicate a role for anticipated relief in voting behavior.

The Importance of Hail Events for Landslides and Bedload Transport in Austrian Alpine Torrents

Landslides and bedload transport can be a threat to people, infrastructure, and vegetation. Many detailed hydrometeorological trigger mechanisms of such natural hazards are still poorly understood. This is in particular valid concerning hail as a trigger of these processes. Therefore, this study aims to determine the influence of hail on landslides and bedload transport in alpine torrents. Based on a generated table from an event register of mountain processes maintained by the Avalanche and Torrent Control Unit (WLV) and weather data provided by the Centre for Meteorology and Geodynamics (ZAMG), 1,573 observed events between 1980 and 2019 in 79 Austrian alpine sites are analysed. Thiessen polygons are used to regionalise local weather data to adjacent regions. The spatial extend of these regions are merged with the registered torrential events. As a result of a stepwise filtering of the used data, the final inventory was created.The results show that 95.1% of the investigated torrential processes triggered by hailstorms are debris flows or debris flow-like transports. Within the study period, a peak of hail-triggered landslides and bedload transport can be recognised in the first 10 days of August in all 39 years. Furthermore, the results suggest that hail is rather a direct than an indirect trigger for landslides and bedload transport.Overall, we conclude that the influence of hail on landslides and bedload transport is significant. Respective hydrometeorological triggering conditions should be included in any regions. Further research for this topic is required to explore the process dynamics in greater detail.

Long noncoding RNA GAS5 in age-related diseases

: Aging refers to a natural process and a universal phenomenon in all cells, tissues, organs and the whole organism. Long non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs) are non-coding RNAs with the length of 200 nucleotides. LncRNA growth arrest-specific 5 (lncRNA GAS5) is often down-regulated in cancer. The accumulation of lncRNA GAS5 has been found to be able to inhibit cancer growth, invasion and metastasis, while enhancing the sensitivity of cells to chemotherapy drugs. LncRNA GAS5 can be a signaling protein, which is specifically transcribed under different triggering conditions. Subsequently, it is involved in signal transmission in numerous pathways as a signal node. LncRNA GAS5, with a close relationship to multiple miRNAs, was suggested to be involved in the signaling pathway under three action modes (i.e., signal, bait and guidance). LncRNA GAS5 was found to be involved in different age-related diseases (e.g., rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis, osteoarthritis, osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, cancer etc.). This study mainly summarized the regulatory effect exerted by lncRNA GAS5 on age-related diseases.

Adaptive control for networked uncertain cooperative dual-arm manipulators: an event-triggered approach

In this paper, an improved adaptive motion-force control approach is introduced to control the cooperative manipulators transporting a shared object under limited communication. The adaptive controller is designed based on the backstepping approach to control the motion of the handled object in the presence of uncertainties and external disturbances. Moreover, the force controller is established to maintain constant internal forces. An event-triggered (ET) mechanism is derived based on the Lyapunov analysis to deal with the bandwidth restrictions and maintain the system stability during the cooperative manipulation. The effectiveness of the proposed control scheme is investigated by comparing it with the existing variations of adaptive backstepping control (i.e., traditional and state augmented schemes). Moreover, the designed triggering mechanism is compared with different triggering conditions presented in the literature. The proposed control approach is further validated in a more realistic virtual robot experimentation platform (i.e., V-REP) using two SCORBOT-ER VPlus manipulators. From the TrueTime-based simulation runs, the proposed control scheme exhibits superior performance in tandem with efficient utilization of the network resources during the transportation task.

The status of sibilant harmony in Diné Bizaad (Navajo)

This article presents an acoustic phonetic study of contemporary Diné Bizaad (Navajo) sibilant harmony, with a focus on the realization of /s/ and /ʃ/ in two verbal prefixes and one nominal prefix. Data come from wordlists and connected speech recorded in interviews with 50 Diné Bizaad–English bilinguals, aged 18–75 years. The frequency of harmony in each prefix is calculated for speakers of different ages, then acoustic measurements of spectral center of gravity are measured and statistically compared to those in sibilants occurring in harmony-triggering and non-harmony triggering conditions. Results show no significant intergenerational differences in the phonetic or phonological realization of sibilant harmony; speakers consistently and categorically harmonize the two verbal prefixes analyzed here, but rarely harmonize the nominal prefix. This study contributes new phonetic documentation of a typologically rare phonological process and suggests that, in contrast to findings from other studies on endangered languages, sibilant harmony is not undergoing attrition or contact-induced change.

A Hybrid Landslide Susceptibility Model Obtained from Different Models (Raster or Vector, Expert or Semi-Expert) with the Correct Parameter

This study aims to determine how to choose the correct parameter for a specific study area in landslide susceptibility and how it gives results in vector or raster-based models. In the literature, factor parameters of landslide preparing and triggering conditions are used deliberately or randomly in raster or vector-based models. In this study, the landslide inventory was analyzed together with geological, topographic-morphological, environmental, and triggering parameters, and the parameters specific to the study area and its scale were decided. In order to obtain high efficiency from the models, the parameter data were taken from the landslide depletion zone. Raster-based models and vector-based models were created according to qualitative and quantitative approaches. Model outputs resulted in close Roc Curve results ranging from 0.79 to 0.92. The study area was divided into slope units and then the model output data were transferred to these units. In order to make the result easier to use, the units obtained according to the result of each model were combined, thus a single map output was obtained from 5 different raster and vector-based models. Overall, this study presents 1) the importance of the use of landslide inventory and how to use the inventory. 2) Parameters should be selected according to field analysis and field-scale rather than randomly. 3) By combining raster and vector-based on landslide susceptibility studies, make it easier to use as a base map in hazard and risk studies with a single output.

Dynamic abuse testing of airbag system for passenger car under vehicle-road conditions and identification method for high-risk triggering items

Determination of the triggering conditions for automobile airbags is a complex problem because vehicles often run under transient conditions due to the dynamic influence from varying road conditions. The research into malfunctions of automobile airbags is an important and challenging topic. In this work, the peak acceleration and moving window integration algorithms were used to obtain the high-risk abuse items from a test matrix that consisted of 111 items which were under multiple road environment excitation, including condition categories for typical roads, curb striking, potholes and drains, and roadblocks. A novel multi-channel data reduction method and improved clustering method based on abuse probability sorting were proposed, and based on the specific characteristic constraints for the automobile airbag malfunction test results, by construction of a false triggering probability model and discussion of the weight factors of the two algorithms, importance rankings for the high-risk false action items were realized based on the relative probability. Finally, 53 high-risk abuse items were identified from a large set of 111 test items through 10-channel acceleration sensors. After analysis and comparison of the test condition details, conclusions of high-risk items are drawn with regard to the vehicle-road excitation that affects airbag abuse. The consistency of the identification results with the Chinese national standard verifies the accuracy and effectiveness of the proposed method.

Clawback Provisions in Executive Compensation Contracts

Clawbacks are contractual provisions in executive compensation contracts that allow for an ex post recoupment of variable pay if certain triggering conditions are met. As a result of regulatory responses to financial crises and corporate scandals, as well as growing shareholder pressure to implement effective measures against executive misbehaviour, the prevalence of such clauses has risen considerably in the recent past, beginning in the US after the 2000 financial crisis. As clawbacks have become a buzzword in the European debate about also ensuring good corporate governance beyond the financial sector, it is time to critically discuss the hopes that have been associated with various types of such provisions.