Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The experiences of young witnesses and caregivers in Aotearoa New Zealand’s Sexual Violence Pilot Courts

New Zealand’s Sexual Violence Courts Pilot was established in late 2016, intended in part, to reduce the stress experienced by complainants. Young witnesses who testified in the specialist courts and their caregivers were interviewed about their experiences of court involvement. Interview transcripts were analysed using thematic analysis and the following themes were identified: The period between reporting an alleged offence and the trial is far too long and stressful; moving forward with life is difficult until the trial has concluded; cross-examination is distressing; feeling comfortable and supported when at court is important; safety and distance from the defendant when at court is important; separation of young witnesses from their caregivers at court is difficult; information is lacking throughout the process; and parenting young witnesses through the court process is challenging. Young witnesses typically experienced court involvement as very stressful and distressing, and further innovation within the courts is therefore needed.
#PlasticFreeJuly – Analyzing a Worldwide Campaign to Reduce Single-use Plastic Consumption with Twitter

ABSTRACT Plastic pollution is ubiquitous in the environment. One initiative that tackles this global environmental problem is the “Plastic Free July,” a worldwide campaign encouraging consumers to reduce their single-use plastic consumption during the month of July. In the current study, we investigate microblogging in order to analyze the messages people spread within the scope of the campaign. This paper presents results of a Twitter analysis based on data from July 2018, assessing 16,363 tweets linked to the hashtag #plasticfreejuly. User structure shows that private individuals and shops frequently used this hashtag. Simultaneously, a content analysis reveals that consumption patterns mentioned in the tweets refer not only to boycott (e.g. avoidance of plastic straws) but also to buycott (e.g. praising reusable coffee cups) as forms of political consumption. The three R’s of waste management – reduce, reuse, recycle – were frequently mentioned in the tweets. Thus, the empowerment of consumers was promoted by solution-based rather than problem-based communication.
Physico-Mechanical Study of CMC/BFO/PoPD Nanocomposite Films Reinforced with Cellulose Nanocrystals (CNCMCC) for Effective Photocatalytic Removal of Methyl Orange

The present study was conducted to develop a nanocomposite film of carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) reinforced with cellulose nanocrystals isolated from microcrystalline cellulose (CNCMCC) in the presence of bismuth ferrite (BFO)/poly-o-phenylenediamine (PoPD). The physicochemical properties, the mechanical and thermal stability, and its photocatalytic activity towards the removal of methyl orange (MO) were determined. Results show that the integration of CNCMCC into the CMC matrix enhanced the mechanical strength of the film. The tensile strength (TS) of the nanocomposite film increased from 0.205 to 0.244 MPa, while elongation at break (EB) decreased from 201.44 to 168.78% in the presence of 20 wt. % of CNCMCC. The incorporation of CNCMCC in the CMC matrix substantially enhanced the nanocomposite’s thermal stability from 181.16 to 185.59 °C and decreased the degradation residue from 72.64 to 63.16%. The determination of the photocatalytic activity of the CMC/CNCMCC/BFO/PoPD composite film revealed the removal of methyl orange (MO) of 93.64% with high structural integrity after 3 h of treatment. Thus, the isolated CNCMCC-reinforced CMC/BFO/PoPD composite film can be used as a photocatalyst for the removal of organic pollutants from wastewater, including the methyl orange.
The Electro-Optical Properties and Adhesion Strength of Epoxy-Polymercaptan-Based Polymer Dispersed Liquid Crystal Films

Polymer dispersed liquid crystal (PDLC) films were prepared by thermal polymerization-induced phase separation in epoxy/polymercaptan/liquid crystal (LC)/accelerator mixtures. The effects of the concentration of LC and accelerator, the curing temperature, and the structure of epoxy monomer on the electro-optical (E-O) properties and adhesion strength of the PDLC films were studied systematically via E-O, peel strength, DSC, IR, and gel measurements. It showed that different polymer structures and the properties of the polymer can be obtained by changing the compositions and the curing temperature, which had significant impacts on the E-O properties of the PDLC films. Meanwhile, the polymer matrix with high glass-transition temperature (Tg) and small pore size will improve the adhesion strength of the PDLC film, and these kinds of epoxy-polymercaptan-based PDLC films have better performance than traditional acrylate-based PDLC in the aspect of the adhesion strength. This work may provide some inspiration in preparing epoxy-polymercaptan-based PDLC films, which both have excellent E-O performance and good adhesion strength, towards roll-to-roll processes and large-scale flexible applications.
Investigation of the Factors Affecting the Attitudes of Academicians Towards Project Development to Enhance Innovation

Economic development can be achieved through knowledge-based growth. In this respect, universities have a significant role to produce knowledge and contribute innovation management through their research and development activities. However, too many obstacles bring difficulties on academicians to develop projects to increase innovation capabilities of the countries. The aim of this study is to identify the factors affecting attitudes of academicians towards research and development projects. In this study, an attitude scale and a structural model were developed to identify the key factors. According to the consequences obtained, perception of self-worth, perceived self-efficacy, reputation, anxiety, team interaction and justice factors directly and significantly affect academicians' attitudes towards project development. It is envisaged that identification of the factors affecting academicians' attitudes towards project development leads to rethink the obstacles of universities to become targeted innovative and entrepreneurial universities, contributing the enhancement of innovation, and produce projects that support the country's economy and solve social problems.
Concise Robust Control of the Nonlinear Ship in Course-Keeping Control

Most of the existing nonlinear ship course-keeping control systems are designed with the Nomoto model, which solely considers the yawing of the ship with only one Degree of Freedom (DOF), and it does not consider the coupling between the longitudinal and the lateral velocity of the ship. In this paper, a nonlinear ship course controller design method that can be used in a nonlinear coupled model was proposed. A stable nonlinear ship course controller with anti-wind and anti-wave interference was constructed based on the Lyapunov stability principle and robust control theory, which can be used in the course control of autopilot in the case of wind and waves. In this method, the coupling among the longitudinal and lateral velocity as well as yawing of the ship was considered. The simulation results showed that the method can not only effectively control the ship’s course but also can track the dynamic course effectively. At the same time, compared with the PID control method based on backstepping, the steering angle of the rudder angle of our method is smaller and the wear and tear of steering gear will be smaller.
Repercussions of a weak ocean governance and a non-existent maritime security policy: The resurgence of piracy and Armed Robbery in the Gulf of Mexico

ABSTRACT This paper examines piracy and armed robbery in the Gulf of Mexico, under the framework of maritime security. The results indicate that piratic attacks are most likely underreported by the Government of Mexico. The research findings documented fourteen attacks on supply vessels and offshore platforms for the first half of 2020; only three relevant attacks were officially reported in the same period by the vessel´s (foreign) flag jurisdiction. However, the Maritime Authority of Mexico did not change the security level at any of the ports or territorial sea during the incidents. The maritime security level remained the same (level 1) during 2020, despite several alerts launched by the international maritime community. Recommendations by the respondents (shipmasters, SSO, CSO and PFSO) recommended that a permanent increased security level (level 2) should be implemented in the Southern part of the Gulf of Mexico until this specific problem is resolved. Participants suggested additional special measures to tackle the problem including the evaluation to class the area as a High Risk Area (HRA) and the establishment of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOU), for international cooperation and capacity building with the US Coastguard authorities to promote necessary collaboration towards effectively dealing with these security threats.
Self-assembled peptide-conjugated rosemary extract derivatives as drug delivery vehicles for targeting tumor cells

ABSTRACT Self-assembled supramolecular structures have gained attention due to their wide range of applications. In this work, we have created two novel drug delivery systems for targeting MCF-7 breast cancer cells using polyphenols derived from rosemary extract. The assemblies were synthesized by conjugating rosmarinic acid (RMA) and carnosic acid (CSA) with the peptide sequence H-A-I-L-L-I-T-K-G-I-F-K known for its ability to target MCF-7 breast cancer cells. The products were self-assembled into nanofibers or oblong shaped nanoassemblies. The mechanism of self-assembly was probed by COSMOS-RS computational studies. The assemblies were utilized to entrap the drug topotecan. Entrapment efficiency varied based on the morphology of the assemblies and concentration (42.3% for carnosic acid-peptide assemblies and 59.11% for rosmarinic acid-peptide assemblies). Furthermore, the RMA-peptide and CSA-peptide assemblies were found to be cytotoxic toward MCF-7 breast cancer cells, with relatively higher cytotoxicity observed for the topotecan entrapped CSA-peptide assemblies compared to topotecan entrapped RMA-peptide assemblies. Docking studies were conducted to examine binding interactions of the RMA-peptide and CSA-peptide conjugates with Src kinase receptor and estrogen receptor. Furthermore, CSA-peptide assemblies induced apoptosis while RMA-peptide assemblies induced necrosis. Our results indicate that such new biomimetic materials derived from naturally occurring polyphenols may be developed for dual targeting tumor cells.
Mineralogy of Phoscorites of the Arbarastakh Complex (Republic of Sakha, Yakutia, Russia)

The Arbarastakh ultramafic carbonatite complex is located in the southwestern part of the Siberian Craton and contains ore-bearing carbonatites and phoscorites with Zr-Nb-REE mineralization. Based on the modal composition, textural features, and chemical compositions of minerals, the phoscorites from Arbarastakh can be subdivided into two groups: FOS 1 and FOS 2. FOS 1 contains the primary minerals olivine, magnetite with isomorphic Ti impurities, phlogopite replaced by tetraferriphlogopite along the rims, and apatite poorly enriched in REE. Baddeleyite predominates among the accessory minerals in FOS 1. Zirconolite enriched with REE and Nb and pyrochlore are found in smaller quantities. FOS 2 has a similar mineral composition but contains much less olivine, magnetite is enriched in Mg, and the phlogopite is enriched in Ba and Al. Of the accessory minerals, pyrochlore predominates and is enriched in Ta, Th, and U; baddeleyite is subordinate and enriched in Nb. Chemical and textural differences suggest that the phoscorites were formed by the sequential introduction of different portions of the melt. The melt that formed the FOS 1 was enriched in Zr and REE relative to the FOS 2 melt; the melt that formed the FOS 2 was enriched in Al, Ba, Nb, Ta, Th, U, and, to a lesser extent, Sr.
The Effects of Managerial Competency and Local Religiosity on Corporate Environmental Responsibility

This study investigates the influence of local religious beliefs to evaluate managerial motives towards corporate environmental engagement, considering the growing attention of the role of external factors in shaping corporate behavior. Using Newsweek’s green rankings of the largest publicly traded US firms by market capitalization from 2014–2016, we find that competent managers show a higher strategic preference for corporate environmental practices in firms located in low-Protestant or high-Catholic areas exhibiting higher risk and uncertainty, which tend to mitigate the negative effects of risky environments. We find that corporate environmental practices positively influence the sales of firms in high risk-taking states. This study provides significant contributions to the literature documenting the consequences of local religious risk-taking behavior and elaborates on the perceptions of competent managers on environmental management. The results provide valuable insights for practitioners and policymakers looking to incorporate environmental practices.
The Transformation of Work in the COVID-19 Era

In March 2020, a massive experiment of work-from-home (WFH) started abruptly almost worldwide. In this article, I explore some the most important changes of the work practices linked to the work detachment from standard places, due to the COVID-19 shutdown. Notwithstanding the unprecedented nature of the shutdown experience, the changes experimented in this period might last beyond the end of the measures adopted to control the spread of the virus, due to the estimated long-term growth of remote working and the acceleration of virtuality and connectivity at work. The discussion draws on recent research on remote working and on the emerging research and theoretical debate on how COVID-19 is affecting organisation and work design, and it aims at highlighting some new directions in the evolution of work practices. Moreover, going beyond the emphasis placed on the success of the world-wide experiment of WFH backed by digital technologies, a special attention, in this analysis, is devoted to envisioning some risks associated to the transformation of work in the COVID era.
Event-Triggered and Asynchronous Reduced-Order Filtering Codesign for Fuzzy Markov Jump Systems

This article is devoted to the investigation of reduced-order dissipative filtering for Takagi–Sugeno (T–S) fuzzy Markov jump systems with the event-triggered mechanism. For the proposed event-triggered mechanism, its threshold parameter is constructed as a special diagonal matrix which can improve system performance by flexibly adjusting the matrix elements. Due to the impact of the sampling behaviors and the environmental disturbance, the asynchronization between the filter and the estimated system is considered in this article, which can be characterized by the hidden Markov model. Through handling the linear matrix inequalities (LMIs) with some slack matrices, event-triggered fuzzy filters are designed to guarantee the resulting system is stochastically stable and strictly dissipative. The proposed filter parameters are obtained by solving LMIs. Ultimately, both the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed reduced-order filter with the event-triggered mechanism are verified by a practical example.
Artificial intelligence in healthcare—the road to precision medicine

Precision medicine aims to integrate an individual’s unique features from clinical phenotypes and biological information obtained from imaging to laboratory tests and health records, to arrive at a tailored diagnostic or therapeutic solution. The premise that precision medicine will reduce disease-related health and financial burden is theoretically sound, but its realisation in clinical practice is still nascent. In contrast to conventional medicine, developing precision medicine solutions is highly data-intensive and to accelerate this effort there are initiatives to collect vast amounts of clinical and biomedical data. Over the last decade, artificial intelligence (AI), which includes machine learning (ML), has demonstrated unparalleled success in pattern recognition from big data in a range of domains from shopping recommendation to image classification. It is not surprising that ML is being considered as the critical technology that can transform big data from biobanks and electronic health records (EHRs) into clinically applicable precision medicine tools at the bedside. Distillation of high-dimensional data across clinical, biological, patient-generated and environmental domains using ML and translating garnered insights into clinical practice requires not only extant algorithms but also additional development of newer methods and tools. In this review, we provide a broad overview of the prospects and potential for AI in precision medicine and discuss some of the challenges and evolving solutions that are revolutionising healthcare.
Arganiella Giusti & Pezzoli, 1980 (Caenogastropoda: Truncatelloidea: Hydrobiidae): a widespread genus or several narrow-range endemic genera?

Most valvatiform genera of the gastropod family Hydrobiidae are narrow-range taxa. One exception is the genus Arganiella, which is comprised of three congeners: the type species A. pescei from the Apennine Peninsula, A. wolfi from the Iberian Peninsula and A. tabanensis from the Balkans. The genus assignment of the latter two species was based on morphological similarities with A. pescei in the shell, operculum, radula and genitalia. Given that the morphology of hydrobiids is sometimes susceptible to convergence, this study re-evaluates the taxonomic status of species of Arganiella by analysing mitochondrial (mtCOI) and nuclear (18S rRNA) sequences of topotypes or near topotypes to infer their phylogenetic position. Our phylogenetic analyses depicted Arganiella as a non-monophyletic group within Hydrobiidae, and sequence divergence among the three species ranged from 14.5 to 16.7% for mtCOI and 2.0 to 3.8% for 18S. We also re-examined the extent of morphological variation among species of Arganiella and found a few differences among them and other valvatiform genera. Consequently, we propose two new genera for A. wolfi and A. tabanensis. Our results conflict with the classification of valvatiform hydrobiid species solely based on traditional phenotypical methods and suggest further taxonomic evaluation within a molecular framework.
Applications of Cold Atmospheric Pressure Plasma Technology in Medicine, Agriculture and Food Industry

In recent years, cold atmospheric pressure plasma (CAPP) technology has received substantial attention due to its valuable properties including operational simplicity, low running cost, and environmental friendliness. Several different gases (air, nitrogen, helium, argon) and techniques (corona discharge, dielectric barrier discharge, plasma jet) can be used to generate plasma at atmospheric pressure and low temperature. Plasma treatment is routinely used in materials science to modify the surface properties (e.g., wettability, chemical composition, adhesion) of a wide range of materials (e.g., polymers, textiles, metals, glasses). Moreover, CAPP seems to be a powerful tool for the inactivation of various pathogens (e.g., bacteria, fungi, viruses) in the food industry (e.g., food and packing material decontamination, shelf life extension), agriculture (e.g., disinfection of seeds, fertilizer, water, soil) and medicine (e.g., sterilization of medical equipment, implants). Plasma medicine also holds great promise for direct therapeutic treatments in dentistry (tooth bleaching), dermatology (atopic eczema, wound healing) and oncology (melanoma, glioblastoma). Overall, CAPP technology is an innovative, powerful and effective tool offering a broad application potential. However, its limitations and negative impacts need to be determined in order to receive regulatory approval and consumer acceptance.
“She Blinded Me with Science”: The Use of Science Frames in Abortion Litigation before the Supreme Court

Abstract While much of the work on amicus briefs focuses on whether such briefs affect Supreme Court outcomes or doctrine, much less is known about the content of these briefs, particularly how groups opt to frame issues as part of their litigation strategy. In this study, I leverage an approach to content analysis that has previously been used to analyze judicial opinions and use it to assess the frames used by amicus groups in a single policy area over four decades. Using an original dataset of amicus briefs filed in Supreme Court cases on the right to abortion, I test the claim from the social movement literature that antiabortion groups have adopted the language of science in the post-Roe era. However, I find only limited support for such a shift, suggesting that litigation strategies may not track framing approaches used in other venues. Among antiabortion amici, only health organizations rely upon science framing, partially neutralizing the monopoly that prochoice health organizations had established with respect to scientific claims. By comparison, prochoice groups generally employ more science framing in their briefs than prolife groups and show evidence of calibrating this frame in response to changes in doctrine and court composition. Beyond its contributions to illuminating the movement-countermovement dynamics in abortion litigation, this study offers an approach that could be easily adapted to the study of other policy areas, contributes to the literature on social movements and framing, and advances our understanding of how organized interests assert themselves through the amicus curiae brief.
Exploring a Fine-Grained Multiscale Method for Cross-Modal Remote Sensing Image Retrieval

Remote sensing (RS) cross-modal text–image retrieval has attracted extensive attention for its advantages of flexible input and efficient query. However, traditional methods ignore the characteristics of multiscale and redundant targets in RS image, leading to the degradation of retrieval accuracy. To cope with the problem of multiscale scarcity and target redundancy in RS multimodal retrieval task, we come up with a novel asymmetric multimodal feature matching network (AMFMN). Our model adapts to multiscale feature inputs, favors multisource retrieval methods, and can dynamically filter redundant features. AMFMN employs the multiscale visual self-attention (MVSA) module to extract the salient features of RS image and utilizes visual features to guide the text representation. Furthermore, to alleviate the positive samples ambiguity caused by the strong intraclass similarity in RS image, we propose a triplet loss function with dynamic variable margin based on prior similarity of sample pairs. Finally, unlike the traditional RS image-text dataset with coarse text and higher intraclass similarity, we construct a fine-grained and more challenging Remote sensing Image-Text Match dataset (RSITMD), which supports RS image retrieval through keywords and sentence separately and jointly. Experiments on four RS text–image datasets demonstrate that the proposed model can achieve state-of-the-art performance in cross-modal RS text–image retrieval task.