bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Meanings and practices of the physical activity engaged in by Moroccan women in an Islamic urban environment: A quasi‐ethnography
Authors: Rubio‐Rico Lourdes , de Molina‐Fernández Inmaculada , Font‐Jiménez Isabel , Roca‐Biosca Alba
Published: March 2021

Aim

To understand the meanings and practices of the physical activity (PA) engaged in by Moroccan women in an Islamic urban environment.

Design

Quasi‐ethnographical study.

Methods

13 semi‐structured interviews and 15 observation sessions of the PA engaged in by women.

Results

The concept of PA fits into the holistic approach of Islam. The social and cultural conditions of those who regularly practise PA are diverse. The community collaborates to overcome difficulties involved with this practice. The flexibility of issues such as gender segregation and clothing, Islam as a stimulus for PA, health as a value, the promotion of a rights and duty‐based model for health care user, the community co‐creation of the PA offer, and the power of organized civil society could inspire new strategies for the promotion of PA among Muslim women in other contexts.
Soap operas will not wash for wildlife
Authors: Somerville Keith , Dickman Amy , Johnson Paul J. , Hart Adam G.
Published: March 2021

Natural history documentaries are a globally important source of information about wildlife, conservation and environmental issues, and they are the closest many will get to seeing featured animals and their behaviour in the wild. They are entertainment, certainly, but may also inform people's knowledge of the natural world and influence their ideas on conservation of species and habitats. We locate our perspective in the existing literature analysing wildlife documentary making and its effects.

We argue that a conspicuous pre‐occupation with the ‘personalisation’ of individual animals and the injection of false jeopardy in recent wildlife documentaries leads to significant misinformation and creates problems for public understanding of wider conservation.

We illustrate our point by detailing episodes from the BBC natural history series Dynasties, discussing personalisation, anthropomorphism and the use of jeopardy to gain emotive impact and audience engagement. We find that narratives are framed around a single individual, that ‘stories’ are framed as soap operas, that jeopardy is emphasised throughout and that animals are endowed with the capacity to be aware of, and work towards, the dynasties of the title.

With conservation increasingly relying on public support, we argue that it is important that people are presented with factually correct information, and portraying wild animals as soap opera style characters is neither honest nor helpful.

A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.
Synergistic effects of polyoxometalate‐based ionic liquid‐doped sepiolite in intumescent flame‐retardant high‐density polyethylene
Authors: Li Xin , Liang Dong , Hu Zhiyong , He Jilai , Bian Xiangcheng , Cui Jianlan
Published: March 2021

A polyoxometalate‐based ionic liquid‐doped sepiolite (SEP‐PIL) was prepared by electrostatically immobilizing phosphomolybdic acid (PMA) on natural sepiolite embedded with imidazolium cations (SEP‐IL), and its structural properties were fully characterized by various methods. Furthermore, a new intumescent flame‐retardant system (IFR) for high‐density polyethylene (HDPE) was constructed by adding SEP‐PIL into conventional HDPE/IFR composites. The retardant properties and thermal decomposition behaviors were comprehensively investigated. The results showed that the HDPE composite containing 24 wt% IFR and 1 wt% SEP‐PIL passed UL‐94V‐0 rating, and the limiting oxygen index increased from 17.8% (pure HDPE) to 27.6%. In addition, the HDPE/IFR/SEP‐PIL composite had lower peak heat release rate (PHRR) and total heat release (THR) compared to the HDPE/IFR composite. The thermogravimetric analysis demonstrated that the combination of SEP‐PIL with IFR could greatly promote the formation of residual chars. Dynamic rheological measurement further confirmed that the synergistic effect of SEP‐PIL and IFR could greatly improve the flame retardancy of HDPE/IFR/SEP‐PIL composites.
Green recycling of aluminum plastic packaging waste by solid‐state shear milling and 3D printing for thermal conductive composites
Authors: Wei Baojie , Yang Shuangqiao , Wang Qi
Published: March 2021

Aluminum‐plastic packaging is a multilayer material composed of polymer and aluminum, which has been applied in food, medical, and other fields, due to the excellent fresh‐keeping and barrier performance. However, it is difficult to recycle aluminum‐plastic packaging waste (APPW) due to the complicated components and the low value of reclaim products. This paper reports a green way to recycle the APPW by solid‐state shear milling (S3M) technology and then fabricate APPW/expandable graphite (EG) composite parts with high thermal conductivity by fused deposition modeling (FDM) process. After the S3M treatment, the ultrafine APPW powder with the size of 7 ~ 8 um was obtained, and it showed excellent processibility and the APPW/EG composite parts were successfully processed by FDM technology. The APPW/EG three‐dimensional (3D) printed parts showed excellent mechanical and heat transfer performance along the stretch direction (0°), where the tensile strength and thermal conductivity reached 13.58 MPa and 2.71 W/mK for APPW/EG (80/20) composites, respectively, much higher than those of pure APPW composite (7.71 MPa and 0.62 W/mK). Theoretical calculations showed that the interfacial thermal resistances of APPW/EG 3D printed parts with aligned fillers were lower than other samples. Furthermore, the APPW/EG composites with 20 wt.% EG loading showed a low electrical conductivity of 10−10 S/cm because the oxidation layer was formed on the surface of Al flakes during the S3M process, which can be used in the thermally conductive insulating field. The new strategy presented in this work provides a new sight to recycle APPW for value‐add material.
Quality of life in caregivers of patients receiving chimeric antigen receptor T‐cell therapy
Authors: Barata Anna , Hoogland Aasha I. , Hyland Kelly A. , Otto Amy K. , Kommalapati Anuhya , Jayani Reena V. , Irizarry‐Arroyo Nathaly , Collier Aaron , Rodriguez Yvelise , Welniak Taylor L. , Booth‐Jones Margaret , Logue Jennifer , Small Brent J. , Jain Michael D. , Reblin Maija , Locke Frederick L. , Jim Heather S. L.
Published: March 2021

Objective

Informal family caregivers provide critical support for patients receiving chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T‐cell therapy. However, caregivers' experiences are largely unstudied. This study examined quality of life (QOL; physical functioning, pain, fatigue, anxiety, and depression), caregiving burden, and treatment‐related distress in caregivers in the first 6 months after CAR T‐cell therapy, when caregivers were expected to be most involved in providing care. Relationships between patients' clinical course and caregiver outcomes were also explored.

Methods

Caregivers completed measures examining QOL and burden before patients' CAR T‐cell therapy and at days 90 and 180. Treatment‐related distress was assessed at days 90 and 180. Patients' clinical variables were extracted from medical charts. Change in outcomes was assessed using means and 99% confidence intervals. Association of change in outcomes with patient clinical variables was assessed with backward elimination analysis.

Results

A total of 99 caregivers (mean age 59, 73% female) provided data. Regarding QOL, pain was significantly higher than population norms at baseline but improved by day 180 (p < .01). Conversely, anxiety worsened over time (p < .01). Caregiver burden and treatment‐related distress did not change over time. Worsening caregiver depression by day 180 was associated with lower patient baseline performance status (p < .01). Worse caregiver treatment‐related distress at day 180 was associated with lower performance status, intensive care unit admission, and lack of disease response at day 90 (ps < 0.01).

Conclusions

Some CAR T‐cell therapy caregivers experience pain, anxiety, and burden, which may be associated patients' health status. Further research is warranted regarding the experience of CAR T‐cell therapy caregivers.
Enzyme catalysis prior to aromatic residues: Reverse engineering of a dephospho‐CoA kinase
Authors: Makarov Mikhail , Meng Jingwei , Tretyachenko Vyacheslav , Srb Pavel , Březinová Anna , Giacobelli Valerio Guido , Bednárová Lucie , Vondrášek Jiří , Dunker A. Keith , Hlouchová Klára
Published: March 2021

The wide variety of protein structures and functions results from the diverse properties of the 20 canonical amino acids. The generally accepted hypothesis is that early protein evolution was associated with enrichment of a primordial alphabet, thereby enabling increased protein catalytic efficiencies and functional diversification. Aromatic amino acids were likely among the last additions to genetic code. The main objective of this study was to test whether enzyme catalysis can occur without the aromatic residues (aromatics) by studying the structure and function of dephospho‐CoA kinase (DPCK) following aromatic residue depletion. We designed two variants of a putative DPCK from Aquifex aeolicus by substituting (a) Tyr, Phe and Trp or (b) all aromatics (including His). Their structural characterization indicates that substituting the aromatics does not markedly alter their secondary structures but does significantly loosen their side chain packing and increase their sizes. Both variants still possess ATPase activity, although with 150–300 times lower efficiency in comparison with the wild‐type phosphotransferase activity. The transfer of the phosphate group to the dephospho‐CoA substrate becomes heavily uncoupled and only the His‐containing variant is still able to perform the phosphotransferase reaction. These data support the hypothesis that proteins in the early stages of life could support catalytic activities, albeit with low efficiencies. An observed significant contraction upon ligand binding is likely important for appropriate organization of the active site. Formation of firm hydrophobic cores, which enable the assembly of stably structured active sites, is suggested to provide a selective advantage for adding the aromatic residues.
Life‐cycle reliability‐based robust design optimization for GP model with response uncertainty
Authors: Feng Zebiao , Wang Jianjun , Ma Yizhong , Yang Guikang
Published: March 2021

Reliability‐based robust design optimization (RBRDO) is a crucial tool for life‐cycle quality improvement. Gaussian process (GP) model is an effective alternative modeling technique that is widely used in robust parameter design. However, there are few studies to deal with reliability‐based design problems by using GP model. This article proposes a novel life‐cycle RBRDO approach concerning response uncertainty under the framework of GP modeling technique. First, the hyperparameters of GP model are estimated by using the Gibbs sampling procedure. Second, the expected partial derivative expression is derived based on GP modeling technique. Moreover, a novel failure risk cost function is constructed to assess the life‐cycle reliability. Then, the quality loss function and confidence interval are constructed by simulated outputs to evaluate the robustness of optimal settings and response uncertainty, respectively. Finally, an optimization model integrating failure risk cost function, quality loss function, and confidence interval analysis approach is constructed to find reasonable optimal input settings. Two case studies are given to illustrate the performance of the proposed approach. The results show that the proposed approach can make better trade‐offs between the quality characteristics and reliability requirements by considering response uncertainty.
The MADMAX data set for visual‐inertial rover navigation on Mars
Authors: Meyer Lukas , Smíšek Michal , Fontan Villacampa Alejandro , Oliva Maza Laura , Medina Daniel , Schuster Martin J. , Steidle Florian , Vayugundla Mallikarjuna , Müller Marcus G. , Rebele Bernhard , Wedler Armin , Triebel Rudolph
Published: March 2021

Planetary rovers increasingly rely on vision‐based components for autonomous navigation and mapping. Developing and testing these components requires representative optical conditions, which can be achieved by either field testing at planetary analog sites on Earth or using prerecorded data sets from such locations. However, the availability of representative data is scarce and field testing in planetary analog sites requires a substantial financial investment and logistical overhead, and it entails the risk of damaging complex robotic systems. To address these issues, we use our compact human‐portable DLR Sensor Unit for Planetary Exploration Rovers (SUPER) in the Moroccan desert to show resource‐efficient field testing and make the resulting Morocco‐Acquired data set of Mars‐Analog eXploration (MADMAX) publicly accessible. The data set consists of 36 different navigation experiments, captured at eight Mars analog sites of widely varying environmental conditions. Its longest trajectory covers 1.5 km and the combined trajectory length is 9.2 km. The data set contains time‐stamped recordings from monochrome stereo cameras, a color camera, omnidirectional cameras in stereo configuration, and from an inertial measurement unit. Additionally, we provide the ground truth in position and orientation together with the associated uncertainties, obtained by a real‐time kinematic‐based algorithm that fuses the global navigation satellite system data of two body antennas. Finally, we run two state‐of‐the‐art navigation algorithms, ORB‐SLAM2 and VINS‐mono, on our data to evaluate their accuracy and to provide a baseline, which can be used as a performance reference of accuracy and robustness for other navigation algorithms. The data set can be accessed at https://rmc.dlr.de/morocco2018.
Quantifying Acceptable Artefact Ranges for Dermatologic Classification Algorithms
Authors: Petrie T.C. , Larson C. , Heath M. , Samatham R. , Davis A. , Berry E.G. , Leachman S.A.
Published: March 2021

Background

Many classifiers have been developed that can distinguish different types of skin lesions (e.g., benign nevi, melanoma) with varying degrees of success.1–5 However, even successfully trained classifiers may perform poorly on images that include artefacts. While problems created by hair and ink markings have been published, quantitative measurements of blur, colour and lighting variations on classification accuracy has not yet been reported to our knowledge.

Objectives

We created a system that measures the impact of various artefacts on machine learning accuracy. Our objectives were to (1) quantitatively identify the most egregious artefacts and (2) demonstrate how to assess a classification algorithm's accuracy when input images include artefacts.

Methods

We injected artefacts into dermatologic images using techniques that could be controlled with a single variable. This allows us to quantitatively evaluate the impact on the accuracy. We trained two convolutional neural networks on two different binary classification tasks and measured the impact on dermoscopy images over a range of parameter values. The area under the curve and specificity-at-a-given-sensitivity values were measured for each artefact induced at each parameter.

Results

General blur had the strongest negative effect on the melanoma versus other task. Conversely, shifting the hue towards blue had a more pronounced effect on the suspicious versus follow task.

Conclusions

Classifiers should either mitigate artefacts or detect them. Images should be excluded from diagnosis/recommendation when artefacts are present in amounts outside the machine perceived quality range. Failure to do so will reduce accuracy and impede approval from regulatory agencies.
Longitudinal transitions in patterns of post‐traumatic stress disorder symptoms and psychological distress among South Korean adults with traumatic experiences
Authors: Jung Hayoung , Lee DongHun , Lee Deokhee
Published: March 2021

This study aimed to investigate transitions in patterns of post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and psychological distress among South Koreans with traumatic experiences. This study consists of two parts: In Part 1 the time since trauma ranged between 0 and 41 years, while in Part 2 participants experienced at least one traumatic event within the previous three years. We identified subgroups and transitions between classes over a one‐year period using latent profile analysis and latent transition analysis. First, in Part 1, four classes were identified at T1 and T2. Second, we explored whether age, sex, time since trauma, and time perspective (TP) predicted class membership at T1. Age, past‐negative (PN), present‐fatalistic, and future TPs were significant predictors of class membership at T1. Finally, sex, PN, and future TPs were identified as significant predictors of class transition over time. The same analysis was conducted in Part 2 with individuals chosen from the Part 1 participants. Differential effects of TP on class membership and transitions in PTSD symptoms and psychological distress indicated the need for intervention programs that consider the TP profiles of individuals with traumatic experiences.
Zeolite‐Based Memristive Synapse with Ultralow Sub‐10‐fJ Energy Consumption for Neuromorphic Computation
Authors: Zeng Tao , Zou Xiaoqin , Wang Zhongqiang , Yu Guangli , Yang Zhi , Rong Huazhen , Zhang Chi , Xu Haiyang , Lin Ya , Zhao Xiaoning , Ma Jiangang , Zhu Guangshan , Liu Yichun
Published: March 2021

The development of neuromorphic computation faces the appreciable challenge of implementing hardware with energy consumption on the level of a femtojoule per synaptic event to be comparable with the energy consumption of human brain. Controllable ultrathin conductive filaments are needed to achieve such extremely low energy consumption in memristive synapses but their formation is difficult to control owing to their stochastic morphology and unexpected overgrowth. Herein, a zeolite‐based memristive synapse is demonstrated for the first time, in which Ag exchange in the sub‐nanometer pore closely resembles synaptic Ca2+ dynamics across biomembrane channel. Particularly, the confined ultrasmall pore and low Ag ion migration barrier give the zeolite‐based memristive synapse ultralow energy consumption below 10 fJ per synaptic spike, on par with the biological counterpart. Experimental results reveal that the gradual memristive effect is attributed to the dimension modulation of Ag clusters. In addition to emulating inherent cognitive functions through electrical stimulations, the experience‐dependent transition of short‐term plasticity to long‐term plasticity using a chemical modulation method is achieved by treating the initial Ag quantity as a learning experience. The proposed memristors can be used to develop highly efficient memristive neural networks and are considered as a candidate for application in neuromorphic computation.
Electrochemical Capacitor Performance of Nanotextured Carbon/Transition Metal Dichalcogenides Composites
Authors: Frąckowiak Elżbieta , Foroutan Koudahi Masoud , Tobis Maciej
Published: March 2021

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) are emerging low‐dimensional materials with potential applications for electrochemical capacitors (EC). Here, physicochemical and electrochemical characterizations of carbon composites with two sulfides ReS2 and FeS2 are reported. To enhance conductivity, multiwalled carbon nanotubes (NTs) serve as a support for ReS2 while 3D graphene‐like network (3DG) is utilized for FeS2 deposition. Unique structure of carbon/TMDs composites allows a faradaic contribution of sulfides to be exploited. Capacitance values, charge/discharge efficiency, capacitance retention, charge propagation, cyclabilty, and voltage limits of EC with carbon/sulfide composites in aqueous neutral solutions (Li2SO4, Na2SO4) are analyzed. Special attention is devoted to energetic efficiency of capacitive charge/discharge processes. Structure‐to‐capacitance correlation for the composites with various TMDs loading is thoroughly emphasized. The more defected structure of layered NTs/ReS2 composite is responsible for the lower capacitor voltage (0.8 V) owing to quicker electrolyte decomposition. Additionally, the catalytic effect of Re for hydrogen evolution reaction plays a crucial role in EC voltage restriction. Contrary, the operating voltage of capacitor based on 3DG/FeS2 is able to be extended until 1.5 V in sodium sulfate electrolytic solution.
Few‐Layer Tellurium: Cathodic Exfoliation and Doping for Collaborative Hydrogen Evolution
Authors: Zheng Weiran , Li Yong , Liu Mengjie , Lee Lawrence Yoon Suk
Published: March 2021

2D tellurium is a suitable electrocatalyst support that can assist electron transport while hosting active sites, yet its production remains challenging. Herein, a cathodic exfoliation method that can exfoliate Te crystal directly to Te nanosheets at low potential, also enabling simultaneous transition metal doping on Te nanosheet surface is presented. In situ Raman spectra and ex situ characterizations reveal that the cathodic exfoliation relies on the electrostatic repulsion between Te flakes covered with in situ generated ditelluride (Te22−) anions. The Te22− anions can anchor metal ions to the surface, and the doping concentration can be tuned by adjusting the concentration of metal ion in the electrolyte. The metal‐doped Te nanosheets exhibit highly improved hydrogen evolution activities. In particular, Pt‐doped Te outperforms polycrystalline Pt at high overpotential. A collaborative hydrogen production mechanism via Volmer–Heyrovsky pathway is suggested: Te22− adsorbs protons and assists the mass transfer to adjacent Pt atoms where the protons are reduced and released as hydrogen.
Surfactant‐in‐Polymer Templating for Fabrication of Carbon Nanofibers with Controlled Interior Substructures: Designing Versatile Materials for Energy Applications
Authors: Heo Eunseo , Noh Seonmyeong , Lee Unhan , Le Thanh‐Hai , Lee Haney , Jo Hyemi , Lee Sanghyuck , Yoon Hyeonseok
Published: March 2021

A simple, scalable, surfactant‐in‐polymer templating approach is demonstrated to create controlled long‐range secondary substructures in a primary structure. A metal bis(2‐ethylhexyl) sulfosuccinate (MAOT) as the surfactant is shown to be capable of serving as a sacrificial template and metal precursor in carbon nanofibers. The low interfacial tension and controllable dimensions of the MAOT are maintained in the solid‐phase polymer, even during electrospinning and heat‐treatment processes, allowing for the long‐range uniform formation of substructures in the nanofibers. The MAOT content is found to be a critical parameter for tailoring the diameter of the nanofibers and their textural properties, such as size and volume of interior pores. The metal counterion species in the MAOT determine the introduction of metallic phases in the nanofiber interior. The incorporation of MAOT with Na as the counterion into the polymer phase leads to the formation of a built‐in pore structure in the nanofibers. In contrast, MAOT with Fe as a counterion generates unique iron‐in‐pore substructures in the nanofibers (FeCNFs). The FeCNFs exhibit outstanding charge storage and water splitting performances. As a result, the MAOT‐in‐polymer templating approach can be extended to combinations of various metal precursors and thus create desirable functionalities for different target applications.
An Experimentally Verified LC‐MS Protocol toward an Economical, Reliable, and Quantitative Isotopic Analysis in Nitrogen Reduction Reactions
Authors: Saji Sandra Elizabeth , Lu Haijiao , Lu Ziyang , Carroll Adam , Yin Zongyou
Published: March 2021

To substitute the energy‐intensive Haber‐Bosch process for the synthesis of ammonia, some labile techniques, such as photocatalysis, electrocatalysis, photoelectrocatalysis, and photothermocatalysis, have emerged and attracted intense research interest. However, the contamination of the reaction system is one of the major concerns on how to reliably and accurately evaluate the performance of these catalysts, which is why various control studies are involved. Isotopic labeling studies are one of the most reliable control strategies in nitrogen fixation experiments, to ensure that N2 is exclusively the source of the generated ammonia. As a convenient, sensitive and accurate technique distinguished with a quantitative atomic mass resolution, liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry (LC‐MS) has been extensively employed for the detection of ammonia in aqueous electrolyte systems. However, the previous work protocols for 15N2 isotopic analysis using LC‐MS either involved hazardous procedures which could potentially damage the instrument, or lacked in their experimental verification using real samples. Herein, a safe, reproducible and economical protocol for the detection of ammonia using LC‐MS is presented, exhibiting an exponentially steep progressive detectivity of 15N abundance, well verified with a series of experimental results for nitrogen reduction reactions. This is expected to provide a prudent cost‐effective and sustainable gateway into isotopic analysis.
A lightweight virtualization model to enable edge computing in deeply embedded systems
Authors: Tiburski Ramão T. , Moratelli Carlos R. , Johann Sérgio F. , de Matos Everton , Hessel Fabiano
Published: March 2021

Edge computing paradigm enables moving Internet of Things (IoT) applications from the Cloud to the edge of the network. Modern software engineering approaches are adhering to microservices to enable the deployment of such applications on edge devices. Microservices consist of the disaggregation of an application into smaller pieces that operate independently. Recent works have explored microservices packaged into containers and advocate that containers result in a reduced footprint and avoid the unwanted overhead caused by traditional virtualization. However, containers cannot be used in many deeply embedded systems (DES) due to an underlying operating system's (OSs) requirement. DES are edge devices with minimal resources regarding storage, memory, and processing power. Thus, they cannot afford large and sophisticated OSs. This article presents the Hellfire hypervisor, a lightweight virtualization implementation that enables separation and improves security in IoT applications on DES. Our proposal simplifies the traditional hypervisor approach and reaches devices where the existing techniques fail. The results show that the proposed model has a small footprint of 23 KB while keeping a low average virtualization overhead of 0.62% for multiple virtual machines execution.
Study on an Improve Finite‐Control‐Set ‐Model Predictive Control (FCS‐MPC) Strategy for a T‐Type Rectifier with Direct Power Control Strategy
Authors: Wang Hanwei , Zhang Hui
Published: March 2021

Model predictive control has been wildly used in the modern power electronic converter with the advantages of the multi‐objective optimization, no additional modulator is required and small grid current harmonic. However, the switching operation is not constant and higher sampling frequency must be required. A novel direct power control using model predictive control (DPC‐MPC) strategy is presented in this paper, which achieve the optimal vector prediction scheme with constant switching frequency operation. The calculation process is greatly simplified due to the optimal voltage vector generated directly, then, it applied to the control of a three‐phase three‐level T‐type grid converter. A cost function is first built to balance the neutral‐point‐potential voltage. After then, the cost function is updated by considering the delay caused by the calculation, sampling and gate driver. Finally, a comprehensive comparative study with the conventional DPC‐MPC strategy is introduced to verify the superiority of the presented DPC‐MPC. The simulation and experimental results show that the steady and the transient performance of the grid current with the proposed DPC‐MPC control strategy are effectively improved. © 2021 Institute of Electrical Engineers of Japan. Published by Wiley Periodicals LLC.
Public–private entrepreneurial financing partnership model in Nigeria
Authors: Ochinanwata Nonso , Ezepue Patrick Oseloka , Nwankwo Theodore Chinonso , Ochinanwata Chinedu , Igwe Paul Agu
Published: March 2021

This article critically examines some of the financing sources available to small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs) and factors that influence investor's decisions. Based on a qualitative approach, this study draws on evidence from Nigerian digital firms, public, and private financers to explore suitable entrepreneurial financing model for SMEs. Thus, it extends the understanding of combinations of entrepreneurial finance and funding in the African context. The study offers fresh and rare illustrative insights on how public–private entrepreneurial finance partnership will provide affordable and adequate access to entrepreneurial finance. It further highlights the impact and relevance of different entrepreneurial financiers on SMEs development and growth. It recommends a collaborative partnership initiative that involves public and private financial consultants and business incubators working together to ensure that SMEs have access to appropriate finance for growth, development, and business sustainability.
‘What is the purpose of the veterinary profession in modern society?’
Authors: Brownlie Joe
Published: March 2021

Joe Brownlie argues that defining its national public service role is one of the veterinary profession's most pressing issues, but who should lead this?
Brian Harold Dawkes
Authors: Jones Ronald S. , Allen Maurice , Hardy Bas
Published: March 2021

As a classic general practitioner, he was dedicated to providing excellent service to all his clients.
Rigid polyurethane foams reinforced with ultrafine powder from automotive shredder residue
Authors: Song Kaixuan , Li Yijun , Nie Min , Wang Qi
Published: March 2021

With the booming of the abandoned cars, automobile shredding residual (ASR) increase sharply in recent years. ASRs contain complex components that are difficult to separate and recycle, causing serious environmental impacts. Herein, we report a new strategy for ASR recycling to prepare high value‐added rigid polyurethane foams (RPUFs) with excellent mechanical and thermal properties. Ultrafine ASR powder with homogeneous domain size and activated functional groups, added to the precursor of RPUFs as reinforcing fillers, was fabricated through solid‐state shear milling (S3M) technology. As a nucleating agent, ASR particles can participate in the foaming procedure of RPUFs, which decreased the cell size to ~0.2 mm. Owing to the strong interaction between the ASR and polyurethane matrix, the thermal degradation temperature increased to 246.7°C, 42.4°C higher than the neat one. Inspiringly, the ASR particles can act as reinforcing elements in the cell walls, which can not only increase the compressive strength and modulus to 1.79 and 0.1 MPa respectively, 81% and 71% higher than the neat sample, but also enhance the long‐term fatigue resistance of the foam. This strategy achieves the recycling and utilization of ASR, and expands the application scope of RPUFs as well.
Doing Dirty Work: Listening for Ignorance Among the Ruins of Reflexivity in Music Education Research
Authors: Kallio Alexis Anja
Published: March 2021

Recent research in music education has emphasized the importance of reflexive approaches in unsettling the concept of a neutral, objective researcher and critically considered the ways in which cultural others are represented in research texts. Seen to enhance both the rigor and ethical dimensions of research practice, reflexivity has emerged as a hegemonic virtue, highlighting the inherently political aspects of research practice. In this chapter, I interrogate the politics of inquiry involved in reflexive research, considering the ways in which reflexivity may afford the researcher methodological power and hinder relational and responsible work. Reflexivity is thus positioned as a ruin: perpetually reaffirming the benevolence of the already-privileged researcher while doing little to disrupt the structures that keep such privileges at the center of academic practice. However, rather than abandoning such practices altogether, I suggest that reflexivity might be better considered as a way to listen for ignorance and direct attention toward ontological or epistemological difference. In this way, reflexivity serves as an invitation to engage in the politics of diversity through the transformation of researchers themselves.
MOVING: A User-Centric Platform for Online Literacy Training and Learning
Authors: Apaolaza Aitor , Backes Tobias , Barthold Sabine , Bienia Irina , Blume Till , Collyda Chrysa , Fessl Angela , Gottfried Sebastian , Grunewald Paul , Günther Franziska , Köhler Thomas , Lorenz Robert , Heinz Matthias , Herbst Sabrina , Mezaris Vasileios , Nishioka Chifumi , Pournaras Alexandros , Sabol Vedran , Saleh Ahmed , Scherp Ansgar , Simic Ilija , Skulimowski Andrzej M.J. , Vagliano Iacopo , Vigo Markel , Wiese Michael , Zdolšek Draksler Tanja
Published: March 2021

In this paper, we present an overview of the MOVING platform, a user-driven approach that enables young researchers, decision makers, and public administrators to use machine learning and data mining tools to search, organize, and manage large-scale information sources on the web such as scientific publications, videos of research talks, and social media. In order to provide a concise overview of the platform, we focus on its front end, which is the MOVING web application. By presenting the main components of the web application, we illustrate what functionalities and capabilities the platform offer its end-users, rather than delving into the data analysis and machine learning technologies that make these functionalities possible.
Trauma and Migration
Authors: Theisen-Womersley Gail
Published: March 2021

Over the past two decades, there has been an increasing interest in the question of trauma among refugee populations. This body of research has largely focused on the immediate psychological aftermaths of armed conflicts in light of the well-described associations between these psychiatric disorders, displacement, and generalized forms of violence (Morina et al., Morina et al., .Frontiers in Psychiatry 9:433, 2018). In general, the literature attests to the greater mental health difficulties among refugees compared to general populations within host communities.
Beyond PTSD
Authors: Theisen-Womersley Gail
Published: March 2021

PTSD as a disorder was first introduced as a diagnosis by the American Psychiatric Association (American Psychiatric Association (APA), Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders 1980) in the DSM III in 1980, with interest in it booming to such an extent thereafter that it was referred to in mass media as “the disorder of the 1990s” (Marsella et al., Ethnocultural aspects of posttraumatic stress disorder: Issues, research, and clinical applications, 1996).
Collective Resilience and Imagination
Authors: Theisen-Womersley Gail
Published: March 2021

While indeed the stories of forced displacement are often unfathomably difficult and layered with sometimes profound and traumatizing obstacles, they too are often stories of hope and human triumph (Neace et al. in Handbook of refugee experience: Trauma resilience and recovery. California Cognella Academic Publishing, San Diego, pp. 9–20, 2020).
Working with Shame and Trauma
Authors: Theisen-Womersley Gail
Published: March 2021

Not only does the literature attest to the high levels of trauma among displaced populations, research in the past decade has increasingly revealed the hidden yet pervasive role that shame may play in posttraumatic symptomatology. As defined by Wilson and colleagues, “in the posttraumatic self, shame develops from traumatic experiences that render the victim fearful, powerless, helpless, and unable to act congruently with moral values” (Wilson et al., 2006, p. 127). In the context of forced migration in particular, both trauma and shame are ubiquitous, pervasive, and contagious.
Becoming Open Knowledge Institutions: Divergence, Dialogue and Diversity
Authors: Wilson Katie , Montgomery Lucy , Neylon Cameron , Handcock Rebecca N. , Hosking Richard , Huang Chun-Kai (Karl) , Ozaygen Alkim , Roelofs Aniek
Published: March 2021

The Curtin Open Knowledge Initiative (COKI) is an innovative research project that collects and analyses publicly available research output data to assist and encourage researchers, academics, administrators and executives to understand the actual and potential reach of openness in research, and to assess their progress on the path towards open knowledge institutions. By taking a broad global approach and using multiple data sources, the project diverges from existing approaches, methods and bibliometric measures in the scholarly research environment. It combines analysis of research output, citations, publication sources and publishers, funders, social media events, open and not open access to provide overviews of research output and performance at institutional, funder, consortial and country levels. The project collects and analyses personnel diversity data such as gender, focusing on widening the reach of data analysis to emphasise the importance and value of diversity in research and knowledge production. Interactive visual tools present research output and performance to encourage understanding and dialogue among researchers and management. The path towards becoming open knowledge institutions involves a process of cultural change, moving beyond dominant publishing and evaluation practices. This paper discusses how through divergence, diversity and dialogue the COKI project can contribute to this change, with examples of applications in understanding and embracing openness.
On Benchmarking for Concurrent Runtime Verification
Authors: Aceto Luca , Attard Duncan Paul , Francalanza Adrian , Ingólfsdóttir Anna
Published: March 2021

We present a synthetic benchmarking framework that targets the systematic evaluation of RV tools for message-based concurrent systems. Our tool can emulate various load profiles via configuration. It provides a multi-faceted view of measurements that is conducive to a comprehensive assessment of the overhead induced by runtime monitoring. The tool is able to generate significant loads to reveal edge case behaviour that may only emerge when the monitoring system is pushed to its limit. We evaluate our framework in two ways. First, we conduct sanity checks to assess the precision of the measurement mechanisms used, the repeatability of the results obtained, and the veracity of the behaviour emulated by our synthetic benchmark. We then showcase the utility of the features offered by our tool in a two-part RV case study.
Keeping Pace with the History of Evolving Runtime Models
Authors: Sakizloglou Lucas , Barkowsky Matthias , Giese Holger
Published: March 2021

Structural runtime models provide a snapshot of the constituents of a system and their state. Capturing the history of runtime models, i.e., previous snapshots, has been shown to be useful for a number of aims. Handling, however, history at runtime poses important challenges to tool support. We present the InTempo tool which is based on the Eclipse Modeling Framework and encodes runtime models as graphs. Key features of InTempo, such as, the integration of temporal requirements into graph queries, the in-memory storage of the model, and a systematic method to contain the model’s memory consumption, intend to address issues which seemingly place limitations on the available tool support. InTempo offers two operation modes which support both runtime and postmortem application scenarios.
SpecTest: Specification-Based Compiler Testing
Authors: Schumi Richard , Sun Jun
Published: March 2021

Compilers are error-prone due to their high complexity. They are relevant for not only general purpose programming languages, but also for many domain specific languages. Bugs in compilers can potentially render all programs at risk. It is thus crucial that compilers are systematically tested, if not verified. Recently, a number of efforts have been made to formalise and standardise programming language semantics, which can be applied to verify the correctness of the respective compilers. In this work, we present a novel specification-based testing method named SpecTest to better utilise these semantics for testing. By applying an executable semantics as test oracle, SpecTest can discover deep semantic errors in compilers. Compared to existing approaches, SpecTest is built upon a novel test coverage criterion called semantic coverage which brings together mutation testing and fuzzing to specifically target less tested language features. We apply SpecTest to systematically test two compilers, i.e., the Java compiler and the Solidity compiler. SpecTest improves the semantic coverage of both compilers considerably and reveals multiple previously unknown bugs.
Understanding Local Robustness of Deep Neural Networks under Natural Variations
Authors: Zhong Ziyuan , Tian Yuchi , Ray Baishakhi
Published: March 2021

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) are being deployed in a wide range of settings today, from safety-critical applications like autonomous driving to commercial applications involving image classifications. However, recent research has shown that DNNs can be brittle to even slight variations of the input data. Therefore, rigorous testing of DNNs has gained widespread attention.

While DNN robustness under norm-bound perturbation got significant attention over the past few years, our knowledge is still limited when natural variants of the input images come. These natural variants, e.g., a rotated or a rainy version of the original input, are especially concerning as they can occur naturally in the field without any active adversary and may lead to undesirable consequences. Thus, it is important to identify the inputs whose small variations may lead to erroneous DNN behaviors. The very few studies that looked at DNN’s robustness under natural variants, however, focus on estimating the overall robustness of DNNs across all the test data rather than localizing such error-producing points. This work aims to bridge this gap.

To this end, we study the local per-input robustness properties of the DNNs and leverage those properties to build a white-box (DeepRobust-W) and a black-box (DeepRobust-B) tool to automatically identify the non-robust points. Our evaluation of these methods on three DNN models spanning three widely used image classification datasets shows that they are effective in flagging points of poor robustness. In particular, DeepRobust-W and DeepRobust-B are able to achieve an F1 score of up to 91.4% and 99.1%, respectively. We further show that DeepRobust-W can be applied to a regression problem in a domain beyond image classification. Our evaluation on three self-driving car models demonstrates that DeepRobust-W is effective in identifying points of poor robustness with F1 score up to 78.9%.
Status Report on Software Testing: Test-Comp 2021
Authors: Beyer Dirk
Published: March 2021

This report describes Test-Comp 2021, the 3rd edition of the Competition on Software Testing. The competition is a series of annual comparative evaluations of fully automatic software test generators for C programs. The competition has a strong focus on reproducibility of its results and its main goal is to provide an overview of the current state of the art in the area of automatic test-generation. The competition was based on 3 173 test-generation tasks for C programs. Each test-generation task consisted of a program and a test specification (error coverage, branch coverage). Test-Comp 2021 had 11 participating test generators from 6 countries.
FuSeBMC: A White-Box Fuzzer for Finding Security Vulnerabilities in C Programs (Competition Contribution)
Authors: Alshmrany Kaled M. , Menezes Rafael S. , Gadelha Mikhail R. , Cordeiro Lucas C.
Published: March 2021

We describe and evaluate a novel white-box fuzzer for C programs named , which combines fuzzing and symbolic execution, and applies Bounded Model Checking (BMC) to find security vulnerabilities in C programs. explores and analyzes C programs (1) to find execution paths that lead to property violations and (2) to incrementally inject labels to guide the fuzzer and the BMC engine to produce test-cases for code coverage. successfully participates in Test-Comp’21 and achieves first place in the category and second place in the category.
A Decision Tree Lifted Domain for Analyzing Program Families with Numerical Features
Authors: Dimovski Aleksandar S. , Apel Sven , Legay Axel
Published: March 2021

Lifted (family-based) static analysis by abstract interpretation is capable of analyzing all variants of a program family simultaneously, in a single run without generating any of the variants explicitly. The elements of the underlying lifted analysis domain are tuples, which maintain one property per variant. Still, explicit property enumeration in tuples, one by one for all variants, immediately yields combinatorial explosion. This is particularly apparent in the case of program families that, apart from Boolean features, contain also numerical features with large domains, thus giving rise to astronomical configuration spaces.

The key for an efficient lifted analysis is a proper handling of variability-specific constructs of the language (e.g., feature-based runtime tests and $$\texttt {\#if}$$

#
if

directives). In this work, we introduce a new symbolic representation of the lifted abstract domain that can efficiently analyze program families with numerical features. This makes sharing between property elements corresponding to different variants explicitly possible. The elements of the new lifted domain are constraint-based decision trees, where decision nodes are labeled with linear constraints defined over numerical features and the leaf nodes belong to an existing single-program analysis domain. To illustrate the potential of this representation, we have implemented an experimental lifted static analyzer, called SPLNum$$^2$$

2

Analyzer, for inferring invariants of C programs. An empirical evaluation on BusyBox and on benchmarks from SV-COMP yields promising preliminary results indicating that our decision trees-based approach is effective and outperforms the baseline tuple-based approach.
A Game for Linear-time–Branching-time Spectroscopy
Authors: Bisping Benjamin , Nestmann Uwe
Published: March 2021

We introduce a generalization of the bisimulation game that can be employed to find all relevant distinguishing Hennessy–Milner logic formulas for two compared finite-state processes. By measuring the use of expressive powers, we adapt the formula generation to just yield formulas belonging to the coarsest distinguishing behavioral preorders/equivalences from the linear-time–branching-time spectrum. The induced algorithm can determine the best fit of (in)equivalences for a pair of processes.