bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Précis of John McDowell on Worldly Subjectivity
Authors: Cheng Tony
Published: January 2025

This is a précis of my recent monograph John McDowell on Worldly Subjectivity: Oxford Kantianism Meets Phenomenology and Cognitive Sciences. I first describe the key question the book is trying to answer via understanding McDowell’s thinking and the general outline of it. The key question is a Kantian how-possible question, and the outline includes the distinction between first and second nature, the contrast between Cogito and Homo sapience, and how a minded human animal can be a perceiver, knower, thinker, speaker, agent, person, and conceptual cum self-conscious being in the world. I then focus on two key notions of the subtitles—phenomenology and cognitive sciences—and explain how they figure in the text. After that, a chapter-by-chapter summary is provided, albeit selectively. This introductory piece ends with a prediction that McDowell’s works will still be widely discussed in the reasonable distant future.
Ecosystem assessment of semi-natural tidal flat in the Yangtze estuary by pressure-state-response model and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method
Authors: Li Song , Chen Min , Ding Ling , Zhang Mengsheng , Wei Wei , Luo Beijing
Published: January 2025

With the development of hydraulic engineering such as harbor, channel and reclamation, more and more natural tidal flat turn into the semi-natural tidal flat (SNTF). How to evaluate ecosystem of semi-natural tidal flat is a scientific problem that has not been fully solved. The study tries to assess ecosystem health change of SNTF adjoining Hengsha East Shoal training dike in the Yangtze estuary. The study found SNTF area > 0m isobaths increased from 30.33 km2 in 2010–2014 to 46.66 km2 in 2014–2017 and to 56.84 km2 in 2017–2020, and the Hengsha Shoal region.0m, -2m and -5m isobaths increased from 174.78 km2, 303.82 km2, and 556.77 km2 in 2010–2014 to 233.34 km2, 365.59 km2, and 596.83 km2 in 2014–2017 and to 243.81 km2, 363.27 km2 and 567.45 km2 in 2017–2020. Using database of 3 pressure indicators, 16 state indicators and 3 response indicators, the study combined pressure-state-response (PSR) model and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation (FCE), constructed a systematic evaluation method of ecosystem health of semi-natural tidal flat. The evaluation result found the ecosystem health of SNTF of Hengsha East Shoal was rated as "Fair" level during 2010–2020, and the summation of comprehensive evaluation index (CEI) increased from 0.4009 in 2010–2014 to 0.4703 in 2014–2017 due to the rapid expansion of tidal flat vegetation, and then decreased to 0.4450 in 2017–2020 due to a reduction in vegetation area caused by erosion. The area of salt marsh vegetation plays an important role in the health of wetland ecosystems. The Hengsha East Shoal ecosystem is undergoing a quickly dynamic evolution processes, long-term series monitoring and further research for this area are necessary to guide its future development according to the tidal flat utilization patterns.
Partnerships in Policing
Authors: Mazerolle Lorraine , Petersen Kevin , Sydes Michelle , Ransley Janet
Published: January 2025

Partnerships in policing are used worldwide to reduce crime and disorder problems. Police forge partnerships with businesses, government agencies, and communities to co-produce public safety. Third-party policing (TPP) is a particular type of partnership that involves the police addressing crime and disorder by working through (and with) third-party partners. This Element focuses on the nature and effectiveness of TPP partnerships. Using systematic review and meta-analytic techniques, it shows that TPP interventions are effective in efforts to reduce crime and disorder, without displacement of these problems. Cooperative partnerships are associated with considerably larger crime control effects than interventions relying on coercive engagement styles. Dyad partnerships – twosome partnerships between police and one third-party partner – are likely to offer the “sweet spot” in TPP. The Element concludes that partnership policing using non-criminal justice legal levers is a promising approach to crime control. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Constitutional Intolerance
Authors: van der Tol Mariëtta D. C.
Published: January 2025

Constitutional Intolerance offers a deeper reflection on intolerance in politics and society today, explaining why minorities face the contestation of their public visibility, and how the law could protect them. Van der Tol refers to historical practices of toleration, distilling from it the category of 'the other' to the political community, whose presence, representation, and visibility is not self-evident and is often subject to regulation. The book considers 'the other' in the context of modern constitutions, with reference to (ethno)religious, ethnic, and sexual groups. Theoretical chapters engage questions about the time and temporality of otherness, and their ambivalent relationship with (public) space. It offers examples from across the liberal-illiberal divide: France, the Netherlands, Hungary, and Poland. It highlights that vulnerability towards intolerance is inscribed in the structures of the law, and is not merely inherent to either liberalism or illiberalism, as is often inferred.
Constructing Modern Slavery
Authors: Fudge Judy
Published: January 2025

Modern slavery laws are a response to global capitalism, which undermines the distinction between free and unfree labour and poses intense challenges to state sovereignty. Instead of being a solution, Constructing Modern Slavery argues that modern slavery laws divert attention from the underlying structures and processes that generate exploitation. Focusing on unfree labour associated with international immigration and global supply chains, it provides a novel socio-legal genealogy of the concept 'modern slavery' through a series of linked case studies of influential actors associated with key legal instruments: the United Nations, the United States, the International Labour Organization, the European Union, the United Kingdom, and Walk Free Foundation. Constructing Modern Slavery demonstrates that despite the best efforts of academics, advocates, and policymakers to develop a truly multifaceted approach to modern slavery, it is difficult to uncouple antislavery initiatives from the conservative moral and economic agendas with which they are aligned. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.
Information Theory
Authors: Polyanskiy Yury , Wu Yihong
Published: January 2025

This enthusiastic introduction to the fundamentals of information theory builds from classical Shannon theory through to modern applications in statistical learning, equipping students with a uniquely well-rounded and rigorous foundation for further study. Introduces core topics such as data compression, channel coding, and rate-distortion theory using a unique finite block-length approach. With over 210 end-of-part exercises and numerous examples, students are introduced to contemporary applications in statistics, machine learning and modern communication theory. This textbook presents information-theoretic methods with applications in statistical learning and computer science, such as f-divergences, PAC Bayes and variational principle, Kolmogorov's metric entropy, strong data processing inequalities, and entropic upper bounds for statistical estimation. Accompanied by a solutions manual for instructors, and additional standalone chapters on more specialized topics in information theory, this is the ideal introductory textbook for senior undergraduate and graduate students in electrical engineering, statistics, and computer science.
Paper in the Age of the Digital: The Curious Case of 65-B Certificates in India
Authors: Goel Shikhar
Published: January 2025

Law enforcement institutions in India are undergoing fundamental media technological transformations, integrating digital media technologies into crime investigation, documentation, and presentation methods. This article seeks to understand these transformations by examining the curious case of 65-B certificates, a mandatory paper document that gatekeeps and governs the life of new media objects as evidence in the Indian legal system. In exploring the tensions that arise when bureaucratic institutions change their means of information production, the article reflects on the continued stubborn presence of paper at this transformative juncture in the life of legal institutions. By studying the role of paper in bureaucratic practices, analyzing jurisprudential debates and case law surrounding 65-B certificates, and thinking through some scattered ethnographic encounters around these certificates involving police officers, forensic scientists, and practicing lawyers, this article argues that despite ongoing digital transformations, law essentially remains a technology of paper.
Birds of a feather? Mis- and dis-information on the social media platform X related to avian influenza
Authors: Cooper Lauren N. , Diaz Marlon I. , Hanna John J. , Most Zachary M. , Lehmann Christoph U. , Medford Richard J.
Published: January 2025

Objective:

Social media has become an important tool in monitoring infectious disease outbreaks such as coronavirus disease 2019 and highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI). Influenced by the recent announcement of a possible human death from H5N2 avian influenza, we analyzed tweets collected from X (formerly Twitter) to describe the messaging regarding the HPAI outbreak, including mis- and dis-information, concerns, and health education.

Methods:

We collected tweets involving keywords relating to HPAI for 5 days (June 04 to June 08, 2024). Using topic modeling, emotion, sentiment, and user demographic analyses, we were able to describe the population and the HPAI-related topics that users discussed.

Results:

With an original pool of 14,796 tweets, we analyzed a final data set of 13,319 tweets from 10,421 unique X users, with 50.4% of the tweets exhibiting negative sentiments (< 0 on a scale of −4 to +4). Predominant emotions were anger and fear shown in 36.4% and 29.5% of tweets, respectively. We identified 5 distinct, descriptive topics within the tweets. The use of emotionally charged language and spread of misinformation were substantial.

Conclusions:

Mis- and dis-information about the causes of and ways to prevent HPAI infections were common. A large portion of the tweets contained references to a planned epidemic or “plandemic” to influence the upcoming 2024 US presidential election. These tweets were countered by a limited number of tweets discussing infection locations, case reports, and preventive measures. Our study can be used by public health officials and clinicians to influence the discourse on current and future outbreaks.
The application of machine perfusion for the testing of peripheral nerve and muscle interfacing for bionic prostheses: a systematic review
Authors: Amin Kavit R. , Armstrong Erin R. , Casson Alexander J. , Fildes James E.
Published: January 2025

This systematic review evaluates the use of Normothermic Machine Perfusion (NMP) as a testbed for developing peripheral nerve and muscle interfaces for bionic prostheses. Our findings suggest that NMP offers a viable alternative to traditional models, with significant implications for future research and clinical applications. A literature search was performed using Ovid MEDLINE (1946 to October 2023), revealing 559 abstracts.

No studies using nerve and/or muscle electrodes for the testing or development of bionic interface technologies were identified, except for one conference abstract. NMP could serve as a test bed for future development of interface biocompatibility, selectivity, stability and data transfer, whilst complying with ethical practices and potentially offering greater relevance for human translation. Implemention of machine perfusion requires experienced personnel. Encompassing artificial intelligence alongside machine learning will provide a significant contribution to advancing interface technologies for multiple neurological disorders.
Agent-based modeling for data-driven enforcement: combining empirical data with behavioral theory for scenario-based analysis of inspections
Authors: Koid Eunice , van der Voort Haiko , Warnier Martijn
Published: January 2025

Effective enforcement of laws and regulations hinges heavily on robust inspection policies. While data-driven approaches to testing the effectiveness of these policies are gaining popularity, they suffer significant drawbacks, particularly a lack of explainability and generalizability. This paper proposes an approach to crafting inspection policies that combines data-driven insights with behavioral theories to create an agent-based simulation model that we call a theory-infused phenomenological agent-based model (TIP-ABM). Moreover, this approach outlines a systematic process for combining theories and data to construct a phenomenological ABM, beginning with defining macro-level empirical phenomena. Illustrated through a case study of the Dutch inland shipping sector, the proposed methodology enhances explainability by illuminating inspectors’ tacit knowledge while iterating between statistical data and underlying theories. The broader generalizability of the proposed approach beyond the inland shipping context requires further research.
Methodological approaches to identifying and mapping fields of specific crops on a basis of high-resolution satellite images using phenological, geographic, and regional statistical information
Authors: Unagaev Alexey , Korotkova Irina , Efremova Natalia
Published: January 2025

Currently, methods for mapping agricultural crops have been predominantly developed for a number of the most important and popular crops. These methods are often based on remote sensing data, scarce information about the location and boundaries of fields of a particular crop, and involve analyzing phenological changes throughout the growing season by utilizing vegetation indices, e.g., the normalized difference vegetation index. However, this approach encounters challenges when attempting to distinguish fields with different crops growing in the same area or crops that share similar phenology. This complicates the reliable identification of the target crops based solely on vegetation index patterns. This research paper aims to investigate the potential of advanced techniques for crop mapping using satellite data and qualitative information. These advanced approaches involve interpreting features in satellite images in conjunction with cartographic, statistical, and climate data. The study focuses on data collection and mapping of three specific crops: lavender, almond, and barley, and relies on various sources of information for crop detection, including satellite image characteristics, regional statistical data detailing crop areas, and phenological information, such as flowering dates and the end of the growing season in specific regions. As an example, the study attempts to visually identify lavender fields in Bulgaria and almond orchards in the USA. We test several state-of-the-art methods for semantic segmentation (U-Net, UNet++, ResUnet). The best result was achieved by a ResUnet model (96.4%). Furthermore, the paper explores how vegetation indices can be leveraged to enhance the precision of crop identification, showcasing their advanced capabilities for this task.
The EU global regulatory state and the search for transnational democracy – reflections from the edges of Europe
Authors: Weimer Maria
Published: January 2025

In this essay, I reflect on the evolving role of the European Union (EU) as a global regulatory state against the backdrop of Christian Joerges’s influential work on European constitutionalism. Engaging with Joerges’s intellectual oeuvre represents a personal moment in my academic journey, having come of age as a scholar under his guidance during my PhD studies at the European University Institute in Florence. I therefore would like to use the opportunity to critically engage with his work while situating my scholarly analysis within the broader context of my personal experiences across Europe and how they have shaped my focus on political power beyond traditional state politics. The essay begins with a personal reflection on the interplay between the personal, the political, and the academic in my work on democracy in the EU regulatory state. Subsequently, I delve into Joerges’s theory of conflicts-law-constitutionalism, examining its strengths and weaknesses, as well as its relevance for understanding the new geopolitical turn in EU external regulation and its implications for democratic constitutionalism.
Using electronic medical records in hospital simulation for infection control intervention assessment
Authors: Haghpanah Fardad , Klein Eili Y ,   for the CDC MInD-Healthcare Program
Published: January 2025

Background:

Clinical trials for assessing the effects of infection prevention and control (IPC) interventions are expensive and have shown mixed results. Mathematical models can be relatively inexpensive tools for evaluating the potential of interventions. However, capturing nuances between institutions and in patient populations have adversely affected the power of computational models of nosocomial transmission.

Methods:

In this study, we present an agent-based model of ICUs in a tertiary care hospital, which directly uses data from the electronic medical records (EMR) to simulate pathogen transmission between patients, HCWs, and the environment. We demonstrate the application of our model to estimate the effects of IPC interventions at the local hospital level. Furthermore, we identify the most important sources of uncertainty, suggesting areas for prioritization in data collection.

Results:

Our model suggests that the stochasticity in ICU infections was mainly due to the uncertainties in admission prevalence, hand hygiene compliance/efficacy, and environmental disinfection efficacy. Analysis of interventions found that improving mean HCW compliance to hand hygiene protocols to 95% from 70%, mean terminal room disinfection efficacy to 95% from 50%, and reducing post-handwashing residual contamination down to 1% from 50%, could reduce infections by an average of 36%, 31%, and 26%, respectively.

Conclusions:

In-silico models of transmission coupled to EMR data can improve the assessment of IPC interventions. However, reducing the uncertainty of the estimated effectiveness requires collecting data on unknown or lesser known epidemiological and operational parameters of transmission, particularly admission prevalence, hand hygiene compliance/efficacy, and environmental disinfection efficacy.
Intrinsic phase-based proper orthogonal decomposition (IPhaB POD): a method for physically interpretable modes in near-periodic systems
Authors: Borra Akhileshwar , Flynn Zoey , Goza Andres , Saxton-Fox Theresa
Published: January 2025

Fluid dynamics systems driven by dominant, near-periodic dynamics are common across wakes, jets, rotating machinery and high-speed flows. Traditional modal decomposition techniques have been used to gain insight into these flows, but can require many modes to represent key physical processes. With the aim of generating modes that intuitively convey the underlying physical mechanisms, we propose an intrinsic phase-based proper orthogonal decomposition (IPhaB POD) method, which creates energetically ranked modes that evolve along a characteristic cycle of the dominant near-periodic dynamics. Our proposed formulation is set in the time domain, which is particularly useful in cases where the cyclical content is imperfectly periodic. We formally derive IPhaB POD within a POD framework that therefore inherits the energetically ranked decomposition and optimal low-rank representation inherent to POD. As part of this derivation, a dynamical systems representation is utilized, facilitating a definition of phase within the system's near-periodic cycle in the time domain. An expectation operator and inner product are also constructed relative to this definition of phase in a manner that allows for the various cycles within the data to demonstrate imperfect periodicity. The formulation is tested on two sample problems: a simple, low Reynolds number aerofoil wake, and a complex, high-speed pulsating shock wave problem. The method is compared to space-only POD, spectral POD (SPOD) and cyclostationary SPOD. The method is shown to better isolate the dominant, near-periodic global dynamics in a time-varying IPhaB mean, and isolate the tethered, local-in-phase dynamics in a series of time-varying modes.
Accurate models of the added mass force of a uniform random distribution of spherical particles or bubbles
Authors: Briney Sam , Akiki G. , Najjar F.M. , Horwitz J.A.K. , Balachandar S.
Published: January 2025

The added mass force resulting from the acceleration of a body in a fluid is of fundamental and practical interest in dispersed multiphase flows. Euler–Lagrange (EL) and Euler–Euler (EE) simulations require closure terms for the added mass force in order to accurately couple the conserved variables between phases. Presently, a more thorough understanding of the added mass force in a multi-particle system is developed based on potential flow resulting in a resistance matrix formulation analogous to Stokesian dynamics. This formulation is then used to generate a dataset of added mass resistance matrices for large systems of randomly generated particles. This methodology is used to create a volume fraction corrected binary model for predicting the added mass force in large systems as well as generate statistics of the added mass force in such systems. This work provides clarification to the theory of the added mass force for particle clouds, and modelling options that may be implemented in existing EL and EE codes.
Modelling dispersion in stratified turbulent flows as a resetting process
Authors: Petropoulos Nicolaos , de Bruyn Kops Stephen M. , Caulfield Colm-cille P.
Published: January 2025

In freely decaying stably stratified turbulent flows, numerical evidence shows that the horizontal displacement of Lagrangian tracers is diffusive while the vertical displacement converges towards a stationary distribution, as shown numerically by Kimura & Herring (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 328, 1996, pp. 253–269). Here, we develop a stochastic model for the vertical dispersion of Lagrangian tracers in stably stratified turbulent flows that aims to replicate and explain the emergence of a stationary probability distribution for the vertical displacement of such tracers. More precisely, our model is based on the assumption that the dynamical evolution of the tracers results from the competing effects of buoyancy forces that tend to bring a vertically perturbed fluid parcel (carrying tracers) to its equilibrium position and turbulent fluctuations that tend to disperse tracers. When the density of a fluid parcel is allowed to change due to molecular diffusion, a third effect needs to be taken into account: irreversible mixing. Indeed, ‘mixing’ dynamically and irreversibly changes the equilibrium position of the parcel and affects the buoyancy force that ‘stirs’ it on larger scales. These intricate couplings are modelled using a stochastic resetting process (Evans & Majumdar, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 106, issue 16, 2011, 160601) with memory. More precisely, Lagrangian tracers in stratified turbulent flows are assumed to follow random trajectories that obey a Brownian process. In addition, their stochastic paths can be reset to a given position (corresponding to the dynamically changing equilibrium position of a density structure containing the tracers) at a given rate. Scalings for the model parameters as functions of the molecular properties of the fluid and the turbulent characteristics of the flow are obtained by analysing the dynamics of an idealised density structure. Even though highly idealised, the model has the advantage of being analytically solvable. In particular, we show the emergence of a stationary distribution for the vertical displacement of Lagrangian tracers. We compare the predictions of this model with direct numerical simulation data at various Prandtl numbers

$Pr$

, the ratio of kinematic viscosity to molecular diffusion.
Super-resolution of turbulence with dynamics in the loss
Authors: Page Jacob
Published: January 2025

Super-resolution of turbulence is a term used to describe the prediction of high-resolution snapshots of a flow from coarse-grained observations. This is typically accomplished with a deep neural network and training usually requires a dataset of high-resolution images. An approach is presented here in which robust super-resolution can be performed without access to high-resolution reference data, as might be expected in an experiment. The training procedure is similar to data assimilation, wherein the model learns to predict an initial condition that leads to accurate coarse-grained predictions at later times, while only being shown coarse-grained observations. Implementation of the approach requires the use of a fully differentiable flow solver in the training loop to allow for time-marching of predictions. A range of models are trained on data generated from forced, two-dimensional turbulence. The networks have reconstruction errors which are similar to those obtained with ‘standard’ super-resolution approaches using high-resolution data. Furthermore, the methods are comparable to the performance of standard data assimilation for state estimation on individual trajectories, outperforming these variational approaches at initial time and remaining robust when unrolled in time where performance of the standard data-assimilation algorithm improves.
On stochastic control under poissonian intervention: optimality of a barrier strategy in a general Lévy model
Authors: Noba Kei , Yamazaki Kazutoshi
Published: January 2025

We study a version of the stochastic control problem of minimizing the sum of running and controlling costs, where control opportunities are restricted to independent Poisson arrival times. Under a general setting driven by a general Lévy process, we show the optimality of a periodic barrier strategy, which moves the process upward to the barrier whenever it is observed to be below it. The convergence of the optimal solutions to those in the continuous-observation case is also shown.
The heart attack of the Polish health service: metaphors, arguments, and emotional appeals in political debates
Authors: Juszczyk Konrad , Konat Barbara , Fabiszak Małgorzata
Published: January 2025

Metaphors, arguments and emotional appeals have considerable persuasive power in political discourse, yet they are rarely studied together. To explore the interactions between these interrelated phenomena, we employ three methods of analysis: Metaphor Identification Procedure, Inference Anchoring Theory, and lexicon-based sentiment analysis. Our data come from Polish political debates broadcasted during the 2019 pre-election campaign. We test hypotheses about the frequency of the associations between metaphors, arguments and emotional appeals. Hypothesis 1 predicts that arguments containing metaphors are more frequent than arguments without metaphors, hypothesis 2 predicts that arguments containing emotional appeals are more frequent than arguments without them, and hypothesis 3 predicts that arguments with metaphors and emotional appeals are more frequent than any other combination. The results show that metaphorical arguments do not outnumber non-metaphorical ones (H1 is falsified), and arguments that are both metaphorical and emotional do not outnumber the sum of all other types (H3 is falsified). Emotional arguments are more common than non-emotional ones (H2 is verified). We suggest that when political actors articulate their arguments, they often choose a particular metaphor to evoke positive or negative emotions in their audience.
Language control in auditory bilingual comprehension: uncovering novel evidence from the n − 2 repetition paradigm
Authors: Liu Hong , Chaouch-Orozco Adel
Published: January 2025

In language production, inhibitory control is assumed to be the primary mechanism responsible for successful bilingual processing. To convey messages in one language, bilinguals must inhibit the unintended language. However, it remains unclear whether the same mechanism works in bilingual comprehension. Following up and expanding on Declerck and Philipp (2018, ‘Is inhibition implemented during bilingual production and comprehension? n–2 language repetition costs unchained’, Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, vol. 33, pp. 608–617), the present study investigates whether inhibition is involved in the linguistic identification system during bilingual comprehension with the n − 2 repetition paradigm. This is the second study exploring comprehension with this methodological setup to date. We used an auditory word–picture matching task with Chinese late trilinguals who learned their two non-native languages (L2 English and L3 Spanish) via formal school instruction. Our results indicate that participants responded faster in the n − 2 repetition trials (i.e., when the target language in the n and n − 2 trials matched). That is, we observed an n − 2 repetition benefit effect, a novel finding in this literature that goes counter the n − 2 repetition cost effect reported in previous studies using production-based tasks. In addition, our results underscore the complex interplay between proficiency and use and the resulting dynamics within the bilingual lexicon. We discuss the results in light of the different bilingual representation and processing models.
Comparing the semantic structures of lexicon of Mandarin and English
Authors: Yang Yi , Baayen R. Harald
Published: January 2025

This paper presents a cross-language study of lexical semantics within the framework of distributional semantics. We used a wide range of predefined semantic categories in Mandarin and English and compared the clusterings of these categories using FastText word embeddings. Three techniques of dimensionality reduction were applied to mapping 300-dimensional FastText vectors into two-dimensional planes: multidimensional scaling, principal components analysis, and t-distributed stochastic neighbor embedding. The results show that t-SNE provides the clearest clustering of semantic categories, improving markedly on PCA and MDS. In both languages, we observed similar differentiation between verbs, adjectives, and nouns as well as between concrete and abstract words. In addition, the methods applied in this study, especially Procrustes analysis, make it possible to trace subtle differences in the structure of the semantic lexicons of Mandarin and English.
Ideophones are more reliable than metaphors in Japanese pain descriptions
Authors: Akita Kimi
Published: January 2025

Japanese patients often describe their pain with ideophones (sound-symbolic, imitative words), such as biribiri ‘having a continuous electric shock’. However, some manuals for healthcare workers recommend avoiding using these words in their interactions with patients, assuming that they are too subjective. We examined how reliable pain ideophones are in comparison with pain metaphors, such as denki-ga hashiru-yoona itami ‘pain like an electric current running through one’s body’. In Experiment 1, Japanese speakers rated visually presented pain ideophones and metaphors on 15 semantic-differential scales (e.g., strong–weak, momentary–continuous). It was found that the ratings of ideophones and metaphors equally varied between participants. In Experiment 2, Japanese speakers did the same rating task for a selected set of pain ideophones and metaphors presented auditorily in sentence frames. The results show that ideophones were rated more consistently than metaphors across participants, and this was true for various prosodic/morphological variants of ideophones (e.g., biriiit-to ‘having a sudden, great electric shock’, biribirit-to ‘having a momentary repetitive electric shock’). These findings indicate that ideophones can be more reliable than metaphors in health communication, especially when placed in proper context.
Observations of the Vela pulsar with a low-cost, 2.4m radio telescope at Woodchester Observatory
Authors: Campbell-Wilson Duncan , Flynn Chris , Bateman Tim
Published: January 2025

We demonstrate a low-cost radio telescope using a 2.4-m satellite dish, an inexpensive printer circuit board (PCB)-based dual-pole antenna and commodity-off-the-shelf components. Open-source, radio acquisition and professional pulsar processing tools are used to successfully monitor on a daily basis the Southern Hemisphere pulsar J0835−4510 (the Vela pulsar) at 820 MHz as it transits the meridian. The system successfully detected a ‘glitch’ in the Vela pulsar in real-time at Woodchester Observatory in South Australia. Woodchester represents a good balance of bandwidth, observation time, and cost to achieve scientifically interesting results on pulsar timing for amateur radio astronomy and/or STEM outreach projects.
A possible vicissicaudatan arthropod from the Late Carboniferous Mazon Creek Lagerstätte
Authors: McCoy Victoria E. , Herrera Fabiany , Wittry Jack , Mayer Paul , Lamsdell James C.
Published: January 2025

The Vicissicaudata, a group of artiopods, originated and reached their highest diversity during the Cambrian period. However, relatively few vicissicaudatan species are known from the Paleozoic. Here we report a new species of vicissicaudatan arthropod, sister to the cheloniellids, from the Late Carboniferous Mazon Creek Lagerstätte. The two specimens preserve a small eyeless head, a trunk comprising seven tergites with wide pleural lobes, a narrower postabdomen bearing two long, posteriorly directed caudal appendages, and a short, shield-shaped telson. This new species not only extends the stratigraphic range of the Vicissicaudata into the Late Paleozoic but also represents an intermediate morphology between the cheloniellids and other vicissicaudatans.
Black Economic Progress in the Jim Crow South: Evidence from Rosenwald Schools
Authors: Mohammed A. R. Shariq , Mohnen Paul
Published: January 2025

This paper studies the labor market impact of the Rosenwald Schools Initiative, a school construction program in the early twentieth-century South. Using a new sample linking Social Security and census records, we find that exposure to Rosenwald schools raised Black women’s labor force participation and occupational standing in 1940; however, we find little evidence that Black men’s occupational standing significantly improved. Blacks made no discernible gains in jobs where they were underrepresented, while the gains they achieved were concentrated in jobs where they were commonly found. This suggests that the scope for Black occupational advancement was limited around 1940.
Free electron laser in the magnetically dominated regime: simulations with the ONEDFEL code
Authors: Lyutikov Maxim , Freund Henry
Published: January 2025

Using the ONEDFEL code we perform free electron laser simulations in the astrophysically important guide-field dominated regime. For wigglers’ (Alfvén waves) wavelengths of tens of kilometres and beam Lorentz factor

${\sim }10^3$

, the resulting coherently emitted waves are in the centimetre range. Our simulations show a growth of the wave intensity over fourteen orders of magnitude, over the astrophysically relevant scale of approximately a few kilometres. The signal grows from noise (unseeded). The resulting spectrum shows fine spectral substructures, reminiscent of those observed in fast radio bursts.
High-density positron beam generation via Breit–Wheeler and trident processes using ultra-intense lasers
Authors: Chintalwad S. , Morris S. , Ramakrishna B.
Published: January 2025

Using two counter-propagating ultra-intense laser interactions with a solid target, we conducted a study on the generation of electron-positron pairs via the multi-photon Breit–Wheeler (BW) process and trident process. These processes were simulated using the particle-in-cell (PIC) code EPOCH. Our proposed scheme involves irradiating two targets with two counter-propagating lasers. High-energy photons are produced when hot electrons collide with the reflected laser pulse at the target's front, leading to electron and positron pair production. In the single-target scenario, electron bunches are extracted from the target by the p-polarized laser electromagnetic field and accelerated by the laser ponderomotive force before colliding with the counter-propagating laser. However, using two targets enhances pair creation compared with the single-target set-up. We observed that in two-target configurations, the increased number of high-energy gamma-rays contributes to higher-energy electron–positron generation. Additionally, the generation of hot electrons is also more pronounced in this scheme. Consequently, the laser demonstrates higher efficiency in generating gamma photons and positrons in the dual-target set-up, which is beneficial for investigating high-energy pair production and gamma-ray emission. The generated positrons exhibit a density of the order of

$10^{27}\,\text {m}^{-3}$

and can be accelerated to energies of 1.5 GeV. The involvement of hot electrons in the target is crucial for generating high-energy photons and positrons. The maximum pair yield reaches

$8 \times 10^9$

for the BW process and

$10^8$

for the trident process. Notably, the total laser energy conversion efficiencies to electrons,

$\gamma$

-rays and positrons show improvement in the dual-target configuration. Specifically, the laser energy absorbed by positrons increases from 11.62 % in Case A to 13.12 % in Case B. These enhancements in conversion efficiency and electron/positron density have significant practical implications in experimental set-ups. In both the BW and trident processes, the two-target set-up dominates, highlighting its effectiveness. We also compared the strengths of both approaches, suggesting that these simple models of implementing two targets can be used in experiments as well.
Collisionless conduction in a high-beta plasma: a collision operator for whistler turbulence
Authors: Yerger Evan L. , Kunz Matthew W. , Bott Archie F.A. , Spitkovsky Anatoly
Published: January 2025

The regulation of electron heat transport in high-

$\beta$

, weakly collisional, magnetized plasma is investigated. A temperature gradient oriented along a mean magnetic field can induce a kinetic heat-flux-driven whistler instability (HWI), which back-reacts on the transport by scattering electrons and impeding their flow. Previous analytical and numerical studies have shown that the heat flux for the saturated HWI scales as

$\beta _e^{-1}$

. These numerical studies, however, had limited scale separation and consequently large fluctuation amplitudes, which calls into question their relevance at astrophysical scales. To this end, we perform a series of particle-in-cell simulations of the HWI across a range of

$\beta _e$

and temperature-gradient length scales under two different physical set-ups. The saturated heat flux in all of our simulations follows the expected

$\beta _e^{-1}$

scaling, supporting the robustness of the result. We also use our simulation results to develop and implement several methods to construct an effective collision operator for whistler turbulence. The results point to an issue with the standard quasi-linear explanation of HWI saturation, which is analogous to the well-known

$90^{\circ }$

scattering problem in the cosmic-ray community. Despite this limitation, the methods developed here can serve as a blueprint for future work seeking to characterize the effective collisionality caused by kinetic instabilities.
An interview with Keith Ward
Authors: McNabb Tyler Dalton
Published: January 2025

This article is part of Religious Studies’ new initiative to publish a series of interviews with distinguished philosophers of religion. Each interview explores the personal and academic background of the interviewee and discusses their core philosophical views. The aim is to inspire students and scholars and to provide an overview of some of the most important works developed by contemporary philosophers of religion. In this interview, Tyler Dalton McNabb interviews Keith Ward, covering such topics as his upbringing, his first years of teaching, his view on natural theology, and his view on special revelation in the world religions.
Development of a value assessment framework for Health Technology Assessment in rare diseases drugs: insights from a Delphi study in Brazil
Authors: Biglia Luiza Vasconcelos , Felippini Arturo , Ribeiro Tatiane Bomfim , Lima Tácio de Mendonça , Aguiar Patricia Melo
Published: January 2025

Objective

The aim of this study is to propose and validate a value assessment framework for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) for rare diseases drugs in Brazil.

Methods

A scoping review was performed to identify criteria used by HTA agencies in countries with public healthcare systems when evaluating orphan drugs. Based on the findings, a criteria framework for rare disease drugs was proposed for Brazil. Content validity was conducted over three rounds using Delphi technique and content validity ratio (CVR) approach was employed to evaluate the ratings from the eighteen stakeholders (experts and patients).

Results

Twenty-nine HTA criteria for rare disease drugs were identified to compose the Brazilian framework. After three Delphi rounds, the final value framework comprised fifteen criteria categorized into four domains: disease-related factors, treatment-related factors, social and political factors, and economic factors. Among the most well-rated criteria by the CVR, considering the relevance attribute, were “relevance of outcomes for a rare disease,” “impact on patient’s quality of life,” “price negotiation,” and “adjusted cost-effectiveness threshold.” On the other hand, “budget impact threshold,” “innovative nature of treatment,” and “willingness to accept greater uncertainty in clinical evidence” received negative evaluations and were excluded from the final framework.

Conclusions

A value assessment framework validated by key stakeholders of rare diseases in Brazil could contribute to improve HTA transparency, decision making, and efficiency of the healthcare system, and inspire the development of a local guidance for rare-disease HTA.
The dimension of the feasible region of pattern densities
Authors: GARBE FREDERIK , KRÁL’ DANIEL , MALEKSHAHIAN ALEXANDRU , PENAGUIAO RAUL
Published: January 2025

A classical result of Erdős, Lovász and Spencer from the late 1970s asserts that the dimension of the feasible region of densities of graphs with at most k vertices in large graphs is equal to the number of non-trivial connected graphs with at most k vertices. Indecomposable permutations play the role of connected graphs in the realm of permutations, and Glebov et al. showed that pattern densities of indecomposable permutations are independent, i.e., the dimension of the feasible region of densities of permutation patterns of size at most k is at least the number of non-trivial indecomposable permutations of size at most k. However, this lower bound is not tight already for

$k=3$

. We prove that the dimension of the feasible region of densities of permutation patterns of size at most k is equal to the number of non-trivial Lyndon permutations of size at most k. The proof exploits an interplay between algebra and combinatorics inherent to the study of Lyndon words.
From actions of an abelian group on itself to left braces
Authors: BALLESTER–BOLINCHES A. , ESTEBAN–ROMERO R. , KURDACHENKO L. A. , PÉREZ–CALABUIG V.
Published: January 2025

We present a construction of left braces of right nilpotency class at most two based on suitable actions of an abelian group on itself with an invariance condition. This construction allows us to recover the construction of a free right nilpotent one-generated left brace of class two.
Visions of World Order in the Interwar Years: International Movements and the Quest for a Liberal Order
Authors: de Navascués Santiago
Published: January 2025

One of the most famous catchphrases to describe the First World War was H.G. Well's ‘war to end all wars’. Once an idealistic slogan, it is now mainly used sardonically as a tragic depiction of what felt at the time to be the longest and bloodiest war of the age. But Wells described what in 1914 seemed a plausible outcome of the war: this was expected to be the last great conflict between nations before an international order was finally established. This view was later shared by another well-known liberal internationalist, Alfred Zimmern, who advocated for a treaty that made war a crime in any circumstance and a covenant to substitute the old order of ‘power-politics’ with ‘responsibility-polities’. As one of the chief interpreters of the League of Nations (LON), Zimmern remains a symbol of the contradictions of the institution in its quest to establish a ‘new order’ through the rule of law. However, this new order was not destined to last, as the League's life was short, eventful and ultimately tragic.
Metrics for size-matching in paediatric cardiac transplantation: A narrative review
Authors: Stinson Griffin P. , Sharaf Omar M. , Valdes Carlos A. , Bilgili Ahmet , Peek Giles J. , Bleiweis Mark S. , Jacobs Jeffrey P.
Published: January 2025

Several metrics exist for matching the size of donor to recipient in paediatric cardiac transplantation. Different centres employ different metrics for size-matching to determine the viability of donor hearts. Inconsistent evidence exists, with limited consensus as to the metric for size-matching that is most predictive of outcomes after cardiac transplantation. Furthermore, any metric must function within the tight timeline available for the assessment of the suitability of the donor. At the time of the writing of this paper, the most commonly used metric for size-matching in paediatric cardiac transplantation is the donor-to-recipient body weight ratio. In this article, we review published literature evaluating commonly used metrics for size-matching in paediatric cardiac transplantation, including weight, height, body surface area, and imaging parameters.
Neo-aorta reconstruction with retained stented patch in Norwood procedure after hybrid palliation of high-risk hypoplastic left heart syndrome: a case report
Authors: Lim Su Chan , Kwon Hye Won , Cho Sungkyu , Lee Sang-Yun
Published: January 2025

Hybrid procedure of hypoplastic left heart syndrome, comprising ductus arteriosus stenting and bilateral pulmonary artery banding, is a good surgical option for initial palliative procedure for high-risk patients for Norwood procedure. However, ductal stenting may cause retrograde aortic blood flow obstruction. Furthermore, complete removal of stent while performing the Norwood procedure make the operation more difficult. We report a case that overcame these problems using a novel surgical technique.
Impact of cyclones on manufacturing firms in India
Authors: Goldar Bishwanath , Goldar Amrita , Parida Yashobanta , Saini Atul
Published: January 2025

The impact of cyclones on assets and sales of manufacturing firms in India is examined econometrically using data on manufacturing companies for 2008–2019. We find that there is about a 4–6 per cent dip in sales and a 2–3 per cent dip in total assets of manufacturing firms following a cyclone incident in the district where the firms' plants are located. The fall in sales is bigger for relatively small-sized firms. For multi-plant firms with plants in different states, which are relatively bigger firms, the impact may be small or even negligible. By contrast, cyclones cause a fall in total assets for both big and small firms. The adverse effect of cyclones on sales and assets of manufacturing firms is relatively less for firms with a high trade-technology orientation. We also find that cyclones significantly raise the risk of business failure among manufacturing plants, more so among small plants.