bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
A printed lens in antenna’s aperture to improve the performance of UWB-radar system
Authors: Choudhary Vipin , Rönnow Daniel , Tripathy Malay Ranjan
Published: September 2021

we present a printed lens for radar applications. The structure of the presented lens consists of an array of modified micro-strip lines, which is positioned in the antenna’s aperture on the same planar substrate. Simulations show that the gain and directivity increase with the proposed lens in a wide band frequency band. The proposed design is insensitive to rotation of the antenna. This paper focuses on real industrial applications and problems. Further, we show that the lens can be used to improve the object detection ability of an ultrawide band radar system, which is used in industrial applications such as non-destructive monitoring of built-structures and for use in the renovation process. The signal to noise ratio is improved. Furthermore, we show how the microwave lens can also be used to reduce the clutter in applications where the complex refractive index of objects is determined. Further, different simulated results (for different cases) are compared, presented and concluded.
The forest frontier in the Global South: Climate change policies and the promise of development and equity
Authors: Brockhaus Maria , Di Gregorio Monica , Djoudi Houria , Moeliono Moira , Pham Thuy Thu , Wong Grace Y.
Published: September 2021

Halting forest loss and achieving sustainable development in an equitable manner require state, non-state actors, and entire societies in the Global North and South to tackle deeply established patterns of inequality and power relations embedded in forest frontiers. Forest and climate governance in the Global South can provide an avenue for the transformational change needed—yet, does it? We analyse the politics and power in four cases of mitigation, adaptation, and development arenas. We use a political economy lens to explore the transformations taking place when climate policy meets specific forest frontiers in the Global South, where international, national and local institutions, interests, ideas, and information are at play. We argue that lasting and equitable outcomes will require a strong discursive shift within dominant institutions and among policy actors to redress policies that place responsibilities and burdens on local people in the Global South, while benefits from deforestation and maladaptation are taken elsewhere. What is missing is a shared transformational objective and priority to keep forests standing among all those involved from afar in the major forest frontiers in the tropics.
Effect of sex, age, and reproductive status on daily activity levels and activity patterns in jaguars (Panthera onca)
Authors: Jędrzejewski Włodzimierz , Vivas Ilad , Abarca Maria , Lampo Margarita , Morales Luis G. , Gamarra Gertrudis , Schmidt Krzysztof , Hoogesteijn Rafael , Carreño Rafael , Puerto María F. , Viloria Ángel L. , Breitenmoser Christine , Breitenmoser Urs
Published: September 2021

All animals, including carnivores, adapt their daily activity duration and distribution to satisfy food demands, breed, or avoid mortality risk. We used the kernel density method to estimate daily movement activity levels and movement activity patterns of jaguars in Hato Piñero, in Venezuelan Western Llanos, based on 3,656 jaguar detection time records from two and a half years of camera trapping. Jaguars were active for 11.7 h per day on average and exhibited mostly nocturnal and crepuscular activity pattern, however, with marked differences between sex/age/reproductive groups. Reproductive females had the highest daily activity level (13.2 h/day), followed by adult males (10.9 h/day), non-reproductive females (10.5 h/day), and cubs (8.7 h/day). Activity patterns also differed, with males and reproductive females having activity peaks at the same hours after sunset and before sunrise, cubs in the night and after sunrise, while non-reproductive females were most active during night hours. This study was the first to document the effect of sex, age, and reproductive status on daily level and activity pattern in the jaguar.
A hybrid ant lion optimization chicken swarm optimization algorithm for charger placement problem
Authors: Deb Sanchari , Gao Xiao-Zhi
Published: September 2021

Transportation electrification is known to be a viable alternative to deal with the alarming issues of global warming, air pollution, and energy crisis. Public acceptance of Electric Vehicles (EVs) requires the availability of charging infrastructure. However, the optimal placement of chargers is indeed a complex problem with multiple design variables, objective functions, and constraints. Chargers must be placed with the EV drivers’ convenience and security of the power distribution network being taken into account. The solutions to such an emerging optimization problem are mostly based on metaheuristics. This work proposes a novel metaheuristic considering the hybridization of Chicken Swarm Optimization (CSO) with Ant Lion Optimization (ALO) for effectively and efficiently coping with the charger placement problem. The amalgamation of CSO with ALO can enhance the performance of ALO, thereby preventing it from getting stuck in the local optima. Our hybrid algorithm has the strengths from both CSO and ALO, which is tested on the standard benchmark functions as well as the above charger placement problem. Simulation results demonstrate that it performs moderately better than the counterpart methods.
Effects of One-a-Day Foot Patrols on Hot Spots of Serious Violence and Crime Harm: a Randomised Crossover Trial
Authors: Basford Lewis , Sims Chris , Agar Iain , Harinam Vincent , Strang Heather
Published: September 2021

Research Question

Does one foot patrol per day (15–20 min) conducted in serious violence harm spots reduce street-visible crime harm and frequency relative to no foot patrol in the same hot spots, and if so by how much?

Data

We identified 20 hot spots of 150m2 each on the basis of community violence defined as serious assaults, robbery, and drug dealing in the Southend-on-Sea area of Essex Police, with boundaries geo-fenced to collect GPS measures of foot patrol presence generated by hand-held electronic trackers issued to officers directed to perform patrols. All street-visible crimes were counted for each of the 90 days of the experiment in each hot spot.

Methods

Daily random assignment of each hot spot to either control or treatment conditions (N = 90 X 20 = 1800 place-days) prescribed 720 place-days to receive extra patrols by Operational Support Group officers, which were compared to 1080 place-days with no extra patrols, using an intent-to-treat design, with 98% compliance with assigned treatments. Independent measures of other police presence in the area were tracked by the force-wide GPS telematics measures. All crimes were coded with the Cambridge Crime Harm Index for their CHI value.

Findings

The 20 harm spots comprised just 2.6% of the geographical area of the Southend-on-Sea area, with 41% of all its Cambridge CHI crime harm in the year preceding the experiment. Background patrol presence was about 2 min per day on control days and 1 min per treatment day. Crime harm scores for serious community violence were 88.5% lower on experimental days with extra patrols (mean = 1.07 CHI per treatment place-day) than without it (mean = 9.30 CHI per control place-day). Crime harm scores for all street-visible offences were 35.6% lower on treatment days (mean = 7.94 CHI per treatment place-day) than control days (mean = 12.33 CHI per control place-day), while the mean count of all street-visible offences was 31% lower on treatment days (mean count = 0.09 crimes per treatment place-day) than on control days (mean count = 0.13 crimes per control place-day). The estimated effect of the 720 days with 15-min patrols was to prevent crimes with recommended imprisonment of 3161 days, or 8.66 years.

Conclusion

The use of two-officer foot patrol can be highly effective at preventing serious violence in street-visible settings in small areas in which such violence is heavily concentrated.
Reversal modeling and optimal design of hyper-elastic diaphragm in space fuel tanks
Authors: Sabaghzadeh Hossein , Shafaee Mazyar
Published: September 2021

Diaphragm tanks are a common type of pressurized tanks in which the diaphragm is used to separate the fuel part from the high-pressure part, compress the fuel in the tank, and reduce free space to avoid liquid fuel sloshing. The main purpose of the application of the diaphragm tanks is to ensure the continuous flow of pure fuel without the gas bubble into the spacecraft engine. In space mission, diaphragm tanks will experience a wide range of acceleration at different levels of filling. These conditions change the state of equilibrium between the volume of the gas and the fluid and move the diaphragm toward the discharge portion of the tank. As a result of this movement, the diaphragm curvature is changed and the structure collapses at rest, which is called folding. When large nonlinear folding occurs, there is potential for diaphragm damage through wear, rubbing, and excessive stress. Predicting diaphragm behavior in order to calculate a diaphragm’s susceptibility to corrosion, rupture, and surface strain is one of the major design challenges. In this study, new method is provided to analyze deformation of diaphragm tanks by using numerical techniques. Also, the investigation method is verified by using experimental methods. In this process, first a 3D numerical model is developed to investigate the inverse behavior of a hyper-elastic diaphragm by using ANSYS software and the results of the simulations are compared with the results of experimental tests in the same situation. After validation, a second case study is performed to survey the effect of reducing diaphragm thickness according to the strain energy and natural frequency behavior of the diaphragm in different fill levels. The results of this study showed that numerical simulations are capable of reconstructing diaphragm inversion properties with good accuracy. In addition, the numerical model can detect the proper thickness for the diaphragm. In the last section, algorithm and software for optimal automatic modeling of diaphragm tanks are proposed.
Towards Visual Semantics
Authors: Giunchiglia Fausto , Erculiani Luca , Passerini Andrea
Published: September 2021

Lexical Semanticsis concerned with how words encode mental representations of the world, i.e.,concepts. We call this type of concepts,classification concepts. In this paper, we focus onVisual Semantics, namely, on how humans build concepts representing what they perceive visually. We call this second type of concepts,substance concepts. As shown in the paper, these two types of concepts are different and, furthermore, the mapping between them is many-to-many. In this paper we provide a theory and an algorithm for how to build substance concepts which are in a one-to-one correspondence with classifications concepts, thus paving the way to the seamless integration between natural language descriptions and visual perception. This work builds upon three main intuitions: (i) substance concepts are modeled asvisual objects, namely, sequences of similar frames, as perceived in multipleencounters; (ii) substance concepts are organized into avisual subsumption hierarchybased on the notions of and ; (iii) the human feedback is exploitednotto name objects, but, rather, to align the hierarchy of substance concepts with that of classification concepts. The learning algorithm is implemented for the base case of a hierarchy of depth two. The experiments, though preliminary, show that the algorithm manages to acquire the notions of and with reasonable accuracy, this despite seeing a small number of examples and receiving supervision on a fraction of them.
Social behavior prediction with graph U-Net+
Authors: Yan Zhiyue , Cao Wenming , Ji Jianhua
Published: September 2021

We focus on the problem of predicting social media user’s future behavior and consider it as a graph node binary classification task. Existing works use graph representation learning methods to give each node an embedding vector, then update the node representations by designing different information passing and aggregation mechanisms, like GCN or GAT methods. In this paper, we follow the fact that social media users have influence on their neighbor area, and extract subgraph structures from real-world social networks. We propose an encoder–decoder architecture based on graph U-Net, known as the graph U-Net+. In order to improve the feature extraction capability in convolutional process and eliminate the effect of over-smoothing problem, we introduce the bilinear information aggregator and NodeNorm normalization approaches into both encoding and decoding blocks. We reuse four datasets from DeepInf and extensive experimental results demonstrate that our methods achieve better performance than previous models.
The late ascent of Darwin's Descent: exploring human evolution and women's role for a new China, 1927–1965
Authors: Jiang Lijing
Published: September 2021

Darwin's ideas held sway among Chinese intellectuals by the early twentieth century. Yet the usual emphasis was a Spencerism instead of Darwin's original ideas. As a result, translations of The Descent of Man in the early twentieth century quickly fell into oblivion. When the embryologist Zhu Xi (1900–62) eventually decided to give all evolutionary theories a comprehensive examination, he nevertheless found the idea of sexual evolution inadequate, as expressed in his volume Biological Evolution (1958). Only in the 1950s did serious efforts to translate Descent gather momentum, thanks to eugenicist and sociologist Pan Guangdan (1899–1967). Such efforts were not only responses to a renewed interest in Darwinism under the socialist regime, but also expressions that synthesized both scholars’ earlier paths in wrestling with schemes of human evolution and the roles of women in China's survival and renewal. Trained in different scientific and cultural milieus and holding almost oppositional views, the two scholars nevertheless converged in finding new meanings in Darwin's Descent.
How many minors are participating in clinical research today? An estimate and important lessons learned
Authors: Ittenbach Richard F. , Corsmo Jeremy J. , Kissling Alison D. , Strauss Arnold W.
Published: September 2021

Little is known about the number of minors enrolled in clinical research today. IRB administrators at leading pediatric medical centers were surveyed regarding studies with minors. Analyses were descriptive in nature with adaptive Bayesian bootstrap imputation used with missing data. Officials from 17/41 (41.5%) pediatric research centers responded: 74,204 active studies were estimated, 29,078 (39%) included minors, and 6574 (23%) were “more than minimal risk.” Minors accounted for 0.7–2.87M research subjects. Pediatric medicine desperately needs a more accurate and reliable reporting system for tracking the recruitment, retention, and involvement of minors in clinical research.
Emulating computer experiments of transport infrastructure slope stability using Gaussian processes and Bayesian inference
Authors: Svalova Aleksandra , Helm Peter , Prangle Dennis , Rouainia Mohamed , Glendinning Stephanie , Wilkinson Darren J.
Published: September 2021

We propose using fully Bayesian Gaussian process emulation (GPE) as a surrogate for expensive computer experiments of transport infrastructure cut slopes in high-plasticity clay soils that are associated with an increased risk of failure. Our deterioration experiments simulate the dissipation of excess pore water pressure and seasonal pore water pressure cycles to determine slope failure time. It is impractical to perform the number of computer simulations that would be sufficient to make slope stability predictions over a meaningful range of geometries and strength parameters. Therefore, a GPE is used as an interpolator over a set of optimally spaced simulator runs modeling the time to slope failure as a function of geometry, strength, and permeability. Bayesian inference and Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation are used to obtain posterior estimates of the GPE parameters. For the experiments that do not reach failure within model time of 184 years, the time to failure is stochastically imputed by the Bayesian model. The trained GPE has the potential to inform infrastructure slope design, management, and maintenance. The reduction in computational cost compared with the original simulator makes it a highly attractive tool which can be applied to the different spatio-temporal scales of transport networks.
The taphonomic clock in fish otoliths
Authors: Agiadi Konstantina , Azzarone Michele , Hua Quan , Kaufman Darrell S. , Thivaiou Danae , Albano Paolo G.
Published: September 2021

Paleobiological and paleoecological interpretations rely on constraining the temporal resolution of the fossil record. The taphonomic clock, that is, a correlation between the alteration of skeletal material and its age, is an approach for quantifying time-averaging scales. We test the taphonomic clock hypothesis for marine demersal and pelagic fish otoliths from a 10–40 m depth transect on the Mediterranean siliciclastic Israeli shelf by radiocarbon dating and taphonomic scoring. Otolith ages span the last ~8000 yr, with considerable variation in median and range along the transect. Severely altered otoliths, contrary to pristine otoliths, are likely to be older than 1000 yr. For pelagic fish otoliths, at 30 m depth, taphonomic degradation correlates positively with postmortem age. In contrast, no correlation occurs for demersal fishes at 10 and 30 m depth, mostly because of the paucity of very young pristine (<150 yr) otoliths, possibly due to a drop in production over the last few centuries. Contrary to molluscan and brachiopod shells, young otoliths at these depths are little affected and do not show a broad spectrum of taphonomic damage, because those that derive from predation are excreted in calcium- and phosphate-rich feces forming an insoluble crystallic matrix that increases their preservation potential. At 40 m depth, all dated otoliths are very young but rather damaged because of locally chemically aggressive sediments, thus showing no correlation between taphonomic grade and postmortem age. Our results show that local conditions and the target species population dynamics must be considered when testing the taphonomic clock hypothesis.
The GLEAM 200-MHz local radio luminosity function for AGN and star-forming galaxies
Authors: Franzen T. M. O. , Seymour N. , Sadler E. M. , Mauch T. , White S. V. , Jackson C. A. , Chhetri R. , Quici B. , Bell M. E. , Callingham J. R. , Dwarakanath K. S. , For B. , Gaensler B. M. , Hancock P. J. , Hindson L. , Hurley-Walker N. , Johnston-Hollitt M. , Kapińska A. D. , Lenc E. , McKinley B. , Morgan J. , Offringa A. R. , Procopio P. , Staveley-Smith L. , Wayth R. B. , Wu C. , Zheng Q.
Published: September 2021

The GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) is a radio continuum survey at 76–227 MHz of the entire southern sky (Declination$<\!{+}30^{\circ}$) with an angular resolution of${\approx}2$arcmin. In this paper, we combine GLEAM data with optical spectroscopy from the 6dF Galaxy Survey to construct a sample of 1 590 local (median$z \approx 0.064$) radio sources with$S_{200\,\mathrm{MHz}} > 55$mJy across an area of${\approx}16\,700\,\mathrm{deg}^{2}$. From the optical spectra, we identify the dominant physical process responsible for the radio emission from each galaxy: 73% are fuelled by an active galactic nucleus (AGN) and 27% by star formation. We present the local radio luminosity function for AGN and star-forming (SF) galaxies at 200 MHz and characterise the typical radio spectra of these two populations between 76 MHz and${\sim}1$GHz. For the AGN, the median spectral index between 200 MHz and${\sim}1$GHz,$\alpha_{\mathrm{high}}$, is$-0.600 \pm 0.010$(where$S \propto \nu^{\alpha}$) and the median spectral index within the GLEAM band,$\alpha_{\mathrm{low}}$, is$-0.704 \pm 0.011$. For the SF galaxies, the median value of$\alpha_{\mathrm{high}}$is$-0.650 \pm 0.010$and the median value of$\alpha_{\mathrm{low}}$is$-0.596 \pm 0.015$. Among the AGN population, flat-spectrum sources are more common at lower radio luminosity, suggesting the existence of a significant population of weak radio AGN that remain core-dominated even at low frequencies. However, around 4% of local radio AGN have ultra-steep radio spectra at low frequencies ($\alpha_{\mathrm{low}} < -1.2$). These ultra-steep-spectrum sources span a wide range in radio luminosity, and further work is needed to clarify their nature.
On regular algebraic hypersurfaces with non-zero constant mean curvature in Euclidean spaces
Authors: Barreto Alexandre Paiva , Fontenele Francisco , Hartmann Luiz
Published: September 2021

We prove that there are no regular algebraic hypersurfaces with non-zero constant mean curvature in the Euclidean space $\mathbb {R}^{n+1},\,\;n\geq 2,$ defined by polynomials of odd degree. Also we prove that the hyperspheres and the round cylinders are the only regular algebraic hypersurfaces with non-zero constant mean curvature in $\mathbb {R}^{n+1}, n\geq 2,$ defined by polynomials of degree less than or equal to three. These results give partial answers to a question raised by Barbosa and do Carmo.
Discs area-minimizing in mean convex Riemanniann-manifolds
Authors: Barbosa Ezequiel , Conrado Franciele
Published: September 2021

In this work, we consider oriented compact manifolds which possess convex mean curvature boundary, positive scalar curvature and admit a map to$\mathbb {D}^{2}\times T^{n}$with non-zero degree, where$\mathbb {D}^{2}$is a disc and$T^{n}$is an$n$-dimensional torus. We prove the validity of an inequality involving a mean of the area and the length of the boundary of immersed discs whose boundaries are homotopically non-trivial curves. We also prove a rigidity result for the equality case when the boundary is strongly totally geodesic. This can be viewed as a partial generalization of a result due to Lucas Ambrózio in (2015,J. Geom. Anal.,25, 1001–1017) to higher dimensions.
Oscillation, synchrony, and multi-factor patterns between cereal aphids and parasitoid populations in southern Brazil
Authors: Engel Eduardo , Lau Douglas , Godoy Wesley A. C. , Pasini Mauricio P. B. , Malaquias José B. , Santos Carlos D. R. , Pivato Juliana , Pereira Paulo R. V. da S.
Published: September 2021

In different parts of the world, aphid populations and their natural enemies are influenced by landscapes and climate. In the Neotropical region, few long-term studies have been conducted, maintaining a gap for comprehension of the effect of meteorological variables on aphid population patterns and their parasitoids in field conditions. This study describes the general patterns of oscillation in cereal winged aphids and their parasitoids, selecting meteorological variables and evaluating their effects on these insects. Aphids exhibit two annual peaks, one in summer–fall transition and the other in winter-spring transition. For parasitoids, the highest annual peak takes place during winter and a second peak occurs in winter–spring transition. Temperature was the principal meteorological regulator of population fluctuation in winged aphids and parasitoids during the year. The favorable temperature range is not the same for aphids and parasitoids. For aphids, temperature increase resulted in population growth, with maximum positive effect at 25°C. Temperature also positively influenced parasitoid populations, but the growth was asymptotic around 20°C. Although rainfall showed no regulatory function on aphid seasonality, it influenced the final number of insects over the year. The response of aphids and parasitoids to temperature has implications for trophic compatibility and regulation of their populations. Such functions should be taken into account in predictive models.
The First Earl of Shaftesbury's Resolute Conscience and Aristocratic Constitutionalism
Authors: Mansfield Andrew
Published: September 2021

This article provides a reappraisal of the first earl of Shaftesbury (1621–83) and challenges his reputation as an unprincipled politician. Conversely, it is argued that Shaftesbury's opposition to both Cromwell during the Protectorate and Charles II in the Restoration was guided by a resolute ‘conscience’. While there was certainly elasticity in his conduct, Shaftesbury was very much the product of a political education framed during the Civil War and Commonwealth eras. The article explicitly demonstrates through an exposition of his activity and thought in the 1650s and 1670s that four guiding values remained consistent in his career. Both periods were shaped by concerns over political and religious tyranny by an overbearing executive and a threat to ‘lives, liberty, and property’ from the ruler, the church, and the army. Shaftesbury's significance lies in the aristocratic constitutionalism he believed offered a restraint to encroachment by the executive and the people in government. Relying upon long-established traditions that positioned the nobility as an independent bridle against arbitrary government, Shaftesbury suggested a forward-thinking vision of elite rule supported by the people. In clarifying Shaftesbury's values, the article rejects interpretations of him as a republican, Neo-Harringtonian, or a believer in popular government (democracy).
More than Beast: Muhammad's She-Mule Duldul and Her Role in Early Islamic History
Authors: Marashi Taryn
Published: September 2021

Duldul, a beloved she-mule of the Prophet Muhammad and ʿAli b. Abi Talib (d. 661), fourth caliph and Muhammad's son-in-law, was a venerated riding beast in early Islamic tradition. The article argues that Duldul reflected the transmission of political authority and became a tool of legitimation for hadith compilers and medieval Muslim writers to use, contest, and navigate an emergent Shiʿa-Sunni rift. Exploring the responsive relationship between hadith construction and the Shiʿa-Sunni polemic, the article first analyzes three literary genres—maghāzī, hadith, and sīra—to describe Duldul and her role in early Islamic history. Second, the article examines the writings of al-Jahiz (d. 868) and al-Damiri (d. 1405) to understand medieval Muslim attitudes toward Duldul and she-mules in general. By taking Duldul more seriously as a historical actor, we can gain deeper insight into the disputes over Muhammad's legacy in medieval Islam.
Auditory event-related potentials, neurocognition, and global functioning in drug naïve first-episode schizophrenia and bipolar disorder
Authors: Li Xiaojing , Deng Wei , Xue Rui , Wang Qiang , Ren Hongyan , Wei Wei , Zhang Yamin , Li Mingli , Zhao Liansheng , Du Xiangdong , Meng Yajing , Ma Xiaohong , Hall Mei-Hua , Li Tao
Published: September 2021

Background

Deficits in event-related potential (ERP) including duration mismatch negativity (MMN) and P3a have been demonstrated widely in chronic schizophrenia (SZ) but inconsistent findings were reported in first-episode patients. Psychotropic medications and diagnosis might contribute to different findings on MMN/P3a ERP in first-episode patients. The present study examined MMN and P3a in first episode drug naïve SZ and bipolar disorder (BPD) patients and explored the relationships among ERPs, neurocognition and global functioning.

Methods

Twenty SZ, 24 BPD and 49 age and sex-matched healthy controls were enrolled in this study. Data of clinical symptoms [Positive and Negative Symptoms Scale (PANSS), Young Manic Rating Scale (YMRS), Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD)], neurocognition [Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS), Cattell's Culture Fair Intelligence Test (CCFT), Delay Matching to Sample (DMS), Rapid Visual Information Processing (RVP)], and functioning [Functioning Assessment Short Test (FAST)] were collected. P3a and MMN were elicited using a passive auditory oddball paradigm.

Results

Significant MMN and P3a deficits and impaired neurocognition were found in both SZ and BPD patients. In SZ, MMN was significantly correlated with FAST (r = 0.48) and CCFT (r = −0.31). In BPD, MMN was significantly correlated with DMS (r = −0.54). For P3a, RVP and FAST scores were significant predictors in SZ, whereas RVP, WAIS and FAST were significant predictors in BPD.

Conclusions

The present study found deficits in MMN, P3a, neurocognition in drug naïve SZ and BPD patients. These deficits appeared to link with levels of higher-order cognition and functioning.
Behavioural change box? Applying the COM-B model to understand behavioural triggers that support consumption of fruits and vegetable among subscribers of a fruit and vegetable box scheme
Authors: Craveiro Daniela , Marques Sibila , Bell Ruth , Khan Matluba , Godinho Cristina , Peixeiro Filomena
Published: September 2021

Objective:

To understand the key mechanisms that support healthy dietary habits promoted by fruit and vegetable (F&V) box schemes, testing relevant behaviour change triggers identified under the COM-B model in an evaluation research study of a Portuguese F&V box scheme (PROVE).

Design:

Correlation study with a post-test-only non-equivalent group design based on survey data. The mechanisms underpinning the differences between subscribers and non-subscribers are operationalised as mediation effects. Data availability, theoretical relevance and empirical validation supported the selection and testing of four potential mediators for the effects of subscribing to the box scheme on F&V consumption. These estimations derive from the coefficients of a structural equation model combined with the product coefficient approach and Sobel test.

Setting:

The study is part of a wider evaluation study on the impact of the PROVE box scheme on sustainability, health and equity.

Participants:

A sample of PROVE box subscribers (n 294) was compared with a matched subsample of non-subscribers (n 571) in a nationally representative survey.

Results:

Subscribing to the PROVE box correlates with an increased probability of eating at least five portions of F&V, irrespective of differences in age, education and perceived economic difficulties. Diet quality perceptions, and more robustly, the strength of meal habits and household availability were identified as relevant mediators.

Conclusions:

The subscription to an F&V box scheme is connected with proximal context that enables the consumption of F&V by ensuring more readily available F&V and better situational conditions associated with healthier meal habits.
Martian stick-like structures are not trace fossils: a new protocol for testing ichnogenicity synthesized from paleosol ichnology
Authors: Genise Jorge F.
Published: September 2021

There are different criteria that are usually analysed independently before identifying a new trace fossil, such as morphological regularity, completeness, dispersion, recurrence and complexity, surface morphology, and context. The synthesis of these criteria, as utilized in paleosol ichnology, composes a protocol that is presented herein for the first time and can be used for testing the ichnogenicity of trace-like structures in any paleoenvironment of Earth or Mars. As a study case, the Martian ‘stick-like structures’ do not fulfil any of the requirements posed by this protocol to be postulated as trace fossils. The ichnogenicity test, focussed exclusively on morphology and context, is simpler but equally useful as the biogenicity ones. It may be applied in the future with other potential cases before carrying on more complex analyses or to evaluate the astrobiological interest of trace-like structures.
Connectivity changes in major depressive disorder after rTMS: a review of functional and structural connectivity data
Authors: Schiena G. , Franco G. , Boscutti A. , Delvecchio G. , Maggioni E. , Brambilla P.
Published: September 2021

Aims

In the search for effective therapeutic strategies for depression, repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) emerged as a non-invasive, promising treatment. This is because the antidepressant effect of rTMS might be related to neuronal plasticity mechanisms possibly reverting connectivity alterations often observed in depression. Therefore, in this review, we aimed at providing an overview of the findings reported by studies investigating functional and structural connectivity changes after rTMS in depression.

Methods

A bibliographic search was conducted on PubMed, including studies that used unilateral, excitatory (⩾10 Hz) rTMS treatment targeted on the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) in unipolar depressed patients.

Results

The majority of the results showed significant TMS-induced changes in functional connectivity (FC) between areas important for emotion regulation, including the DLPFC and the subgenual anterior cingulate cortex, and among regions that are part of the major resting-state networks, such as the Default Mode Network, the Salience Networks and the Central Executive Network. Finally, in diffusion tensor imaging studies, it has been reported that rTMS appeared to increase fractional anisotropy in the frontal lobe.

Limitations

The small sample size, the heterogeneity of the rTMS stimulation parameters, the concomitant use of psychotropic drugs might have limited the generalisability of the results.

Conclusions

Overall, rTMS treatment induces structural and FC changes in brain regions and networks implicated in the pathogenesis of unipolar depression. However, whether these changes underlie the antidepressant effect of rTMS still needs to be clarified.
The Contingent Problem: A Counter-Narrative on Race and Class in the Field of Slavic Studies
Authors: Porter Louis Howard
Published: September 2021

This essay explores the unique challenge the proliferation of adjunct labor in higher education poses to efforts at eliminating racial bias and promoting diversity in our field. Relying on published research and personal experience, I argue that the pervasive exploitation of contingent labor makes academic careers, particularly in far-flung fields such as Slavic studies, unattractive to many college graduates from the Black community, a large portion of which considers education a meritocratic means of escaping intergenerational poverty. Because the economic, social, and cultural inequalities at play in determining who obtains a tenure-track job fly in the face of this myth of meritocracy so fundamental to historic Black hopes for socioeconomic mobility, I call for a reckoning with adjunctification as a critical first step to addressing racial bias and ensuring inclusivity in our field.
Influence of herbicides on germination and quality of Palmer amaranth (Amaranthus palmeri) seed
Authors: Moore Levi D. , Jennings Katherine M. , Monks David W. , Leon Ramon G. , Boyette Michael D. , Jordan David L.
Published: September 2021

Laboratory and greenhouse studies were conducted to evaluate the effects of chemical treatments applied to Palmer amaranth seeds or gynoecious plants that retain seeds to determine seed germination and quality. Treatments applied to physiologically mature Palmer amaranth seed included acifluorfen, dicamba, ethephon, flumioxazin, fomesafen, halosulfuron, linuron, metribuzin, oryzalin, pendimethalin, pyroxasulfone, S-metolachlor, saflufenacil, trifluralin, and 2,4-D plus crop oil concentrate applied at 1× and 2× the suggested use rates from the manufacturer. Germination was reduced by 20% when 2,4-D was used, 15% when dicamba was used, and 13% when halosulfuron and pyroxasulfone were used. Use of dicamba, ethephon, halosulfuron, oryzalin, trifluralin, and 2,4-D resulted in decreased seedling length by an average of at least 50%. Due to the observed effect of dicamba, ethephon, halosulfuron, oryzalin, trifluralin, and 2,4-D, these treatments were applied to gynoecious Palmer amaranth inflorescence at the 2× registered application rates to evaluate their effects on progeny seed. Dicamba use resulted in a 24% decrease in seed germination, whereas all other treatment results were similar to those of the control. Crush tests showed that seed viability was greater than 95%, thus dicamba did not have a strong effect on seed viability. No treatments applied to Palmer amaranth inflorescence affected average seedling length; therefore, chemical treatments did not affect the quality of seeds that germinated.
Resistance in smallflower umbrella sedge (Cyperus difformis) to an acetolactate synthase–inhibiting herbicide in rice: first case in India
Authors: Choudhary Vijay K. , Reddy Seshadri S. , Mishra Subhash K. , Kumar Bhumesh , Gharde Yogita , Kumar Sunil , Yadav Mayank , Barik Suhrid , Singh P. K.
Published: September 2021

Smallflower umbrella sedge is one of the most problematic weeds in direct-seeded rice in India. Bispyribac-sodium (acetolactate synthase [ALS]-inhibiting herbicide) is commonly used in rice, but growers have recently reported lack of smallflower umbrella sedge control with this herbicide. An extensive survey was carried out in two rice-growing states, Chhattisgarh and Kerala, where 53 putative bispyribac-sodium-resistant (BR) biotypes were collected. Studies were conducted to confirm resistance to bispyribac-sodium and to test the efficacy of the newly developed synthetic auxin herbicide florpyrauxifen-benzyl on putative BR biotypes. A whole-plant bioassay revealed that bispyribac-sodium is no longer effective. Of 53 putative BR biotypes, 17 biotypes survived the recommended label rate of 25 g ai ha−1. The effective bispyribac-sodium rate required to control 50% of the plants in most of the BR biotypes (ED50) ranged from 19 to 96 g ha−1, whereas it was 10 g ha−1in a susceptible biotype. In two highly resistant biotypes, the ED50was beyond the maximum tested rate, 200 g ha−1. This suggests 2- to >20-fold resistance in BR biotypes. An ALS enzyme activity assay suggests an altered target site as mechanism of resistance to bispyribac-sodium. This study confirms the first case of evolved resistance to bispyribac-sodium in smallflower umbrella sedge in India. However, the newly developed synthetic auxin florpyrauxifen-benzyl effectively controlled all BR biotypes at the field use rate of 31.25 g ai ha−1.
Lernberatung in der generalistischen Pflegeausbildung
Authors: Maurer Brigitte
Published: September 2021

Zusammenfassung. Viele Auszubildende sind aufgrund ihrer bisherigen Lern- und Bildungsbiografie nur bedingt in der Lage sich selbstständig Lernziele zu setzen. Lernberatung stellt in diesem Zusammenhang ein fundiertes Instrument zur Förderung von Selbstlernkompetenzen und Reflexionsfähigkeit dar. Mit ihrer Hilfe können Lernprozesse begleitet, unterstützt und reflektiert werden. Lernende erfahren darüber ihre Selbstwirksamkeit beim Erreichen der individuellen Lernziele unter Nutzung vorhandener Ressourcen.
The role of meningeal populations of type II innate lymphoid cells in modulating neuroinflammation in neurodegenerative diseases
Authors: Yeung Sherry Sin-Hang , Ho Yuen-Shan , Chang Raymond Chuen-Chung
Published: September 2021

Recent research into meningeal lymphatics has revealed a never-before appreciated role of type II innate lymphoid cells (ILC2s) in modulating neuroinflammation in the central nervous system (CNS). To date, the role of ILC2-mediated inflammation in the periphery has been well studied. However, the exact distribution of ILC2s in the CNS and therefore their putative role in modulating neuroinflammation in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease (AD), multiple sclerosis (MS), Parkinson’s disease (PD), and major depressive disorder (MDD) remain highly elusive. Here, we review the current evidence of ILC2-mediated modulation of neuroinflammatory cues (i.e., IL-33, IL-25, IL-5, IL-13, IL-10, TNFα, and CXCL16-CXCR6) within the CNS, highlight the distribution of ILC2s in both the periphery and CNS, and discuss some challenges associated with cell type-specific targeting that are important for therapeutics. A comprehensive understanding of the roles of ILC2s in mediating and responding to inflammatory cues may provide valuable insight into potential therapeutic strategies for many dementia-related disorders.
Predictive performance and metabolite dynamics of proton MR spectroscopy in neonatal hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy
Authors: Barta Hajnalka , Jermendy Agnes , Kovacs Livia , Schiever Noemie , Rudas Gabor , Szabo Miklos
Published: September 2021

Background

Prognostic value of proton MR spectroscopy (H-MRS) in hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is acknowledged; however, effects of gestational age (GA) and postnatal age (PA) on prediction and metabolite levels are unknown.

Methods

One hundred and sixty-nine newborns with moderate-to-severe HIE were studied, having ≥1 H-MRS scan during postnatal days 0–14 and known neurodevelopmental outcome (Bayley-II score/cerebral palsy/death). Initial scans were categorized by PA (day 1–3/4–6/≥7), and metabolite ratios were compared by predictive value. Metabolite dynamics were assessed in a total of 214 scans performed in the study population, using regression modeling, with predictors GA, PA, and outcome.

Results

N-acetyl-aspartate (NAA)/creatine (Cr) and myo-inositol (mI)/NAA height ratios were consistently associated with outcome throughout the first 14 days, with the highest predictive value in the late (≥7 days) period (AUC = 0.963 and 0.816, respectively). Neither GA nor PA had an overall effect on these metabolite ratios, which showed strongest association with outcome (p < 0.001). Assessed separately in patients with good outcome, GA became a significant covariate for metabolite ratios (p = 0.0058 and 0.0002, respectively). However, this association disappeared in the poor outcome group.

Conclusions

In HIE, NAA/Cr and mI/NAA give most accurate outcome prediction throughout postnatal days 0–14. GA only affected metabolite levels in the good outcome group.

Impact

Proton MR spectroscopy metabolite ratios N-acetyl-aspartate/creatine and myo-inositol/N-acetyl-aspartate have persistently high predictive value throughout postnatal days 0–14 in newborns with hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy, with the highest predictive power between postnatal days 7 and 14.

Overall, neither metabolite ratio was affected by gestational age nor by postnatal age, while they showed the strongest association with neurological outcome.

However, in newborns facing good outcome, metabolite ratios were associated with gestational age, whereas in cases facing poor outcome, this association disappeared.

Proton MR spectroscopy provides valuable prognostic information in neonatal hypoxic–ischemic encephalopathy throughout the first 2 weeks of life, irrespective of the timing of MR scan.
Learning interpretable cellular and gene signature embeddings from single-cell transcriptomic data
Authors: Zhao Yifan , Cai Huiyu , Zhang Zuobai , Tang Jian , Li Yue
Published: September 2021

The advent of single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) technologies has revolutionized transcriptomic studies. However, large-scale integrative analysis of scRNA-seq data remains a challenge largely due to unwanted batch effects and the limited transferabilty, interpretability, and scalability of the existing computational methods. We present single-cell Embedded Topic Model (scETM). Our key contribution is the utilization of a transferable neural-network-based encoder while having an interpretable linear decoder via a matrix tri-factorization. In particular, scETM simultaneously learns an encoder network to infer cell type mixture and a set of highly interpretable gene embeddings, topic embeddings, and batch-effect linear intercepts from multiple scRNA-seq datasets. scETM is scalable to over 106 cells and confers remarkable cross-tissue and cross-species zero-shot transfer-learning performance. Using gene set enrichment analysis, we find that scETM-learned topics are enriched in biologically meaningful and disease-related pathways. Lastly, scETM enables the incorporation of known gene sets into the gene embeddings, thereby directly learning the associations between pathways and topics via the topic embeddings.
Binding of regulatory proteins to nucleosomes is modulated by dynamic histone tails
Authors: Peng Yunhui , Li Shuxiang , Onufriev Alexey , Landsman David , Panchenko Anna R.
Published: September 2021

Little is known about the roles of histone tails in modulating nucleosomal DNA accessibility and its recognition by other macromolecules. Here we generate extensive atomic level conformational ensembles of histone tails in the context of the full nucleosome, totaling 65 microseconds of molecular dynamics simulations. We observe rapid conformational transitions between tail bound and unbound states, and characterize kinetic and thermodynamic properties of histone tail-DNA interactions. Different histone types exhibit distinct binding modes to specific DNA regions. Using a comprehensive set of experimental nucleosome complexes, we find that the majority of them target mutually exclusive regions with histone tails on nucleosomal/linker DNA around the super-helical locations ± 1, ± 2, and ± 7, and histone tails H3 and H4 contribute most to this process. These findings are explained within competitive binding and tail displacement models. Finally, we demonstrate the crosstalk between different histone tail post-translational modifications and mutations; those which change charge, suppress tail-DNA interactions and enhance histone tail dynamics and DNA accessibility.
Structure of the native pyruvate dehydrogenase complex reveals the mechanism of substrate insertion
Authors: Škerlová Jana , Berndtsson Jens , Nolte Hendrik , Ott Martin , Stenmark Pål
Published: September 2021

The pyruvate dehydrogenase complex (PDHc) links glycolysis to the citric acid cycle by converting pyruvate into acetyl-coenzyme A. PDHc encompasses three enzymatically active subunits, namely pyruvate dehydrogenase, dihydrolipoyl transacetylase, and dihydrolipoyl dehydrogenase. Dihydrolipoyl transacetylase is a multidomain protein comprising a varying number of lipoyl domains, a peripheral subunit-binding domain, and a catalytic domain. It forms the structural core of the complex, provides binding sites for the other enzymes, and shuffles reaction intermediates between the active sites through covalently bound lipoyl domains. The molecular mechanism by which this shuttling occurs has remained elusive. Here, we report a cryo-EM reconstruction of the native E. coli dihydrolipoyl transacetylase core in a resting state. This structure provides molecular details of the assembly of the core and reveals how the lipoyl domains interact with the core at the active site.
Direct measurement of ferroelectric polarization in a tunable semimetal
Authors: de la Barrera Sergio C. , Cao Qingrui , Gao Yang , Gao Yuan , Bheemarasetty Vineetha S. , Yan Jiaqiang , Mandrus David G. , Zhu Wenguang , Xiao Di , Hunt Benjamin M.
Published: September 2021

Ferroelectricity, the electrostatic counterpart to ferromagnetism, has long been thought to be incompatible with metallicity due to screening of electric dipoles and external electric fields by itinerant charges. Recent measurements, however, demonstrated signatures of ferroelectric switching in the electrical conductance of bilayers and trilayers of WTe2, a semimetallic transition metal dichalcogenide with broken inversion symmetry. An especially promising aspect of this system is that the density of electrons and holes can be continuously tuned by an external gate voltage. This degree of freedom enables measurement of the spontaneous polarization as free carriers are added to the system. Here we employ capacitive sensing in dual-gated mesoscopic devices of bilayer WTe2 to directly measure the spontaneous polarization in the metallic state and quantify the effect of free carriers on the polarization in the conduction and valence bands, separately. We compare our results to a low-energy model for the electronic bands and identify the layer-polarized states that contribute to transport and polarization simultaneously. Bilayer WTe2 is thus shown to be a fully tunable ferroelectric metal and an ideal platform for exploring polar ordering, ferroelectric transitions, and applications in the presence of free carriers.