bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Screening under infection-relevant conditions reveals chemical sensitivity in multidrug resistant invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella (iNTS)
Authors: Tsai Caressa N. , Massicotte Marie-Ange , MacNair Craig R. , Perry Jordyn N. , Brown Eric D. , Coombes Brian K.
Published: July 2023

Invasive non-typhoidal Salmonella (iNTS) are a growing bacterial threat due to their antimicrobial resistance. This work demonstrates that iNTS are susceptible to host-directed therapies that inhibit intracellular bacterial replication.
Preparation of a CeO2 ball-core structure and its application in quantum dot sensitized solar cells
Authors: Yang Shusen , Sun Jie , Dai Chenxuan , Wang Zixin , Ma Zeyuan , Zhang Wenming , Li Ling
Published: July 2023

A pomegranate-like nanosphere structure of CeO2 was prepared by a hydrothermal method, which was printed on a TiO2 film as a scattering layer. The photoelectric conversion efficiency of the assembled quantum dot sensitized solar cells reached 7.46%.
Self-healing polymers through hydrogen-bond cross-linking: synthesis and electronic applications
Authors: Chen Long , Xu Jianhua , Zhu Miaomiao , Zeng Ziyuan , Song Yuanyuan , Zhang Yingying , Zhang Xiaoli , Deng Yankang , Xiong Ranhua , Huang Chaobo
Published: July 2023

Classification of H-bonding-based SHPs and their electronic applications.
An activatable endoplasmic reticulum-targeted probe for NIR imaging-guided photothermal therapy
Authors: Chen Rui , Wang Rongchen , Sun Jie , Dong Xuemei , Dong Chengjun , Sun Lixin , Gu Xianfeng , Zhao Chunchang
Published: July 2023

An endoplasmic reticulum-targeted probe with H2O2-activated NIR fluorescence emission and photothermal therapy is presented for NIR imaging-guided photothermal therapy in endoplasmic reticulum of H2O2-overexpressing cancer cells.
Regulation of stability and detonation performance: preparation of coordination compounds by using isomeric ligands
Authors: Wang Tingwei , Zhang Chao , Lu Zujia , Kuang Baolong , Xie Zhiming , Yi Zhenxin , Li Yan , Zhang Jianguo
Published: July 2023

By cutting off the reaction site and maintaining the coordination model, Cu(4-IMCA)2(ClO4)2 (ECC-1) was prepared. Compared to Cu(PZCA)2(ClO4)2, ECC-1 has reduced mechanical sensitivity, enhanced thermal stability, and increased detonation performance.
Application of the closed loop industrial internet of things (IIoT)‐based control system in enhancing the oil recovery factor and the oil production
Authors: Naghneh Hossein Malekpour , Amani Maryamparisa , Farhadi Alireza , Isaai Mohammad Taghi
Published: July 2023

A non‐linear large scale stochastic optimisation model for enhancing the oil production and the recovery factor of the offshore oil reservoirs is proposed. The model aims at minimising the miss‐match between mathematical model and the actual dynamic behaviour of the reservoir and the exploitation time, while maximising the oil production and the recovery factor. The model involves the three dimension (3D) oil reservoirs equipped with a few vertical injection and production wells. The limited number of wells is one of the major features of the common oil reservoirs in the middle‐east region. The proposed model consists of the primarily mathematical model of the 3D reservoir, a model update algorithm and a large scale constrained non‐linear optimisation algorithm. The input to this model is the daily production rate of the oil, natural gas and water produced from the oil reservoir and the output is the optimal injection rate to be injected to the injection wells in order to maximise the oil production and the recovery factor. In order to evaluate the performance of this model, the authors apply this model on part of one of the Iran's offshore oil reservoirs and study the performance improvement due to the proposed model and compare its performance with the performance of the available Improved Oil Recovery (IOR) technique. It is illustrated that the proposed model can increase the oil production from the reservoir up to 47.96% and reduce the exploitation period up to 66.66% compared with those of the available technique.
A multimodal feature fusion image dehazing method with scene depth prior
Authors: Zhengpeng Zhang , Yan Cheng , Shuai Zhang , Lijing Bu , Mingjun Deng
Published: July 2023

Current dehazing networks usually only learn haze features in a single‐image colour space and often suffer from uneven dehazing, colour, and edge degradation when confronted with different scales of ground objects in the depth space of the scene. The authors propose a multimodal feature fusion image dehazing method with scene depth prior based on a decoder–encoder backbone network. The multimodal feature fusion module was first designed. In this module, affine transformation and polarized self‐attention mechanism are used to realize the fusion of image colour and depth prior feature, to improve the representation ability of the model for different scale ground haze feature in‐depth space. Then, the feature enhancement module (FEM) is added, and deformable convolution and difference convolution methods are used to enhance the representation ability of the model for the geometric and texture feature of the ground objects. The publicly available dehazing datasets are used for comparison and ablation experiments. The results show that compared with the existing classical dehazing networks, the peak signal‐to‐noise ratio (PSNR) and SSIM of the authors’ proposed method have been significantly improved, have a more uniform dehazing effect in different depth spaces, and maintain the colour and edge details of the ground objects very well.
Search framework for neutral bits and boomerangs in SHA‐1 collision attacks
Authors: Li Degang , Yang Yang , Zeng Guang
Published: July 2023

Neutral bits and boomerangs are key techniques for accelerating collision search in SHA‐1 attacks. The current acceleration techniques for SHA‐1 near‐collision attacks are reviewed and a generic search framework for neutral bits and boomerangs is presented. The framework can efficiently construct auxiliary paths for a given differential path and message bit relations and find and store ideal boomerangs. The framework was applied to free‐start attacks for 76‐step SHA‐1, and the complexity was reduced from to . Relaxing the boomerang's restrictions on message words, the authors propose an accelerating technique termed semi‐boomerangs, combined with the search framework of boomerangs, which increases the speed of collision search by 3.48 times in a free‐start attack for 80‐step SHA‐1 and the complexity for 80‐step attack was reduced from to .
A re-analysis of equilibrium chemistry in five hot Jupiters
Authors: Panek E. , Beaulieu J.-P. , Drossart P. , Venot O. , Changeat Q. , Al-Refaie A. , Gressier A.
Published: July 2023

Aims. Studies of chemistry and chemical composition are fundamental to exploring the formation histories of planets and planetary systems. We propose having another look at five targets to better determine their composition and the chemical mechanisms taking place in their atmospheres. We present a re-analysis of five hot Jupiters, combining multiple instruments and using Bayesian retrieval methods. We compare different combinations of molecules present in the simulated atmosphere and various chemistry types, as well as a range of cloud parametrizations. Following up on recent studies questioning the detection of Na and K in the atmosphere of HD 209458b as being potentially contaminated by stellar lines (when present), we study the impact on other retrieval parameters that may lead to misinterpretations of the presence of these alkali species.

Methods. We used spatially scanned observations from the grisms G102 and G141 of the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on the Hubble Space Telescope, with a wavelength coverage of ~0.8 to ~1.7 microns. We analyzed these data with the publicly available Iraclis pipeline. We added data from Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) observations to increase our wavelength coverage from ~0.4 to ~1.7 µm. We then performed a Bayesian retrieval analysis with the open-source TauREx using a nested sampling algorithm. We carried out the retrieval, taking into account molecular abundances that vary freely and then with equilibrium chemistry. We explored the influence of including Na and K on the retrieval of the molecules from the atmosphere.

Results. Our data re-analysis and Bayesian retrieval are consistent with previous studies, but we do find small differences in the retrieved parameters. After all, Na and K have no significant impact on the properties of the planet atmospheres. Therefore, we present here our new best-fit models, taking into account molecular abundances that are allowed to vary freely as well as the equilibrium chemistry. This work is a preparation for a future addition of a more sophisticated representation of the chemistry involved, while taking into account disequilibrium effects such as vertical mixing and photochemistry.
Rotational spectrum and interstellar detection of the first torsionally excited state of methylamine
Authors: Gyawali P. , Motiyenko R. A. , Belloche A. , Kleiner I. , Ilyushin V. V. , Alekseev E. A. , Gulaczyk I. , Kreglewski M.
Published: July 2023

Context. Methylamine (CH3NH2) was first detected in the interstellar medium (ISM) toward Sgr B2 almost 50 years ago by observation of rotational transitions in its torsional ground state. Methylamine exhibits two large-amplitude motions (LAMs), the methyl torsion and amine wagging, which complicate the spectral analysis, especially in excited vibration states. The lack of an accurate model of the two coupled LAMs has also hampered the identification in the ISM of rotational transitions in excited vibrational states.

Aims. The aim of this work is to study the terahertz and microwave rotational spectra of methylamine experimentally and theoretically in order to provide a reliable basis for the detection of its rotational transitions in the first torsionally excited state, υt = 1, in the ISM.

Methods. The terahertz spectrum of methylamine was measured from 150 to 1520 GHz with the Lille fast scan spectrometer. Using a new “hybrid” Hamiltonian model, we were able to analyze the nuclear quadrupole hyperfine structure and to accurately fit the rotational spectrum of the υt = 1 state of methylamine. We used the imaging spectral line survey ReMoCA performed with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to search for rotational transitions of methylamine in its first torsionally excited state toward the high-mass star forming region Sgr B2(N). The observed spectra are modeled under the assumption of local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE).

Results. Accurate spectral predictions were obtained for the ground and first excited states of CH3NH2. We report the first interstellar detection of methylamine in the υt = 1 state toward the offset position Sgr B2(N1S) in the hot molecular core Sgr B2(N1). The LTE parameters derived previously from the rotational emission of methylamine in its torsional ground state toward Sgr B2(N1S) yield synthetic spectra of methylamine in the υt = 1 state that are fully consistent with the ALMA spectra and allow us to identify five rotational lines of this state.
Analyticity and observability for fractional order parabolic equations in the whole space
Authors: Wang Ming , Zhang Can
Published: July 2023

In this paper, we study the quantitative analyticity and observability inequality for solutions of fractional order parabolic equations with space-time dependent potentials in ℝn. We first obtain a uniformly lower bound of analyticity radius of the spatial variable for the above solutions with respect to the time variable. Next, we prove a globally Hölder-type interpolation inequality on a thick set, which is based on a propagation estimate of smallness for analytic functions. Finally, we establish an observability inequality from a thick set in ℝn, by utilizing a telescoping series method.
Assessing the effectiveness of targeted poverty alleviation policies in Xinjiang, China
Authors: Huang Yujie , Huang Xianke , Li Ruiliang , Cheng Wei
Published: July 2023

To consolidate and expand the effective connection between the achievements of poverty alleviation in Xinjiang’s deeply impoverished areas and rural revitalization, it is necessary to study the effects and mechanisms of poverty alleviation policies. In this paper, the value of night light is used to measure regional economic development, and the panel data of 32 national key counties for poverty alleviation in Xinjiang and the remaining 48 counties in the province under its jurisdiction are analyzed by using the dual difference method to evaluate the promotion effect of poverty alleviation policies on regional economic development. The indirect impact of different poverty alleviation measures on economic development is explored by using the intermediary effect model. The study found that the implementation of the policy significantly promoted the development of the county economy, and the poverty alleviation policy in minority counties in the region had a stronger role in promoting the economy than that in nonminority counties. Further analysis of the mechanism shows that industrial poverty alleviation and education poverty alleviation have a significant role in county economic development, and the promotion of education poverty alleviation is lower than that of industry poverty alleviation.
Do agricultural commodity prices asymmetrically affect the performance of value-added agriculture? Evidence from Pakistan using a NARDL model
Authors: Kashif Umair , Shi Junguo , Naseem Snovia , Ayaz Muhammad , Butt Rehan Sohail , Khan Waris Ali , Al-Faryan Mamdouh Abdulaziz Saleh
Published: July 2023

In the last few decades, rising prices of agricultural commodities have been an area of concern for most countries owing to high population growth, increased unemployment, and per capita food needs. The current study intends to examine the positive and negative shocks of agricultural product prices, credit disbursement, and the labor force’s impact on the agricultural growth of Pakistan. The nonlinear autoregressive distributed lag (NARDL) method was applied using secondary data sources from 1970 to 2018. The results revealed that positive and negative price shocks contribute positively to agriculture growth; however, positive price shock has a more stimulating effect than negative prices. Furthermore, credit disbursement and labor force significantly positively impact agricultural value added in the short and long run. Finally, the study’s findings have far-reaching consequences for policymakers dealing with Pakistan’s asymmetric relationship between agricultural credit disbursement, commodity prices, and agricultural growth.
Which kind of board benefits more from the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and radical innovation? The asymmetric roles of board characteristics in China
Authors: Liu Yexin , Wu Yecheng , Wu Weiwei
Published: July 2023

Radical innovation is necessary for firms to transform existing markets or create new ones, which has critical impact on firm performance. Therefore, there is a need to explore how radical innovation can be successfully achieved. Entrepreneurial orientation reflects a firm’s willingness to be innovative, proactive and risk-taking, which has been recognized as a key factor contributing to firm innovation. However, the specific focus on the relationship between entrepreneurial orientation and radical innovation is very limited. This paper therefore investigates how entrepreneurial orientation affects radical innovation by considering the contingency effects of board characteristics. Using the panel data of listed manufacturing firms in China from 2013 to 2019, this paper found that entrepreneurial orientation has a significant positive impact on radical innovation. Furthermore, different board characteristics play asymmetric moderating roles in that relationship in such a way that CEO duality and board independence play positive moderating roles, while board ownership and board size play negative moderating roles. This paper contributes to the entrepreneurial orientation literature by providing a finer-grained understanding of the role of entrepreneurial orientation on radical innovation. This paper also contributes to the corporate governance literature by revealing the asymmetric contingency effects of different board characteristics.
Research on new electric vehicle AC charging pile technology based on active filter function
Authors: Bao Jin , Duan Meimei , Li Jun
Published: July 2023

The AC charging pile is the main energy supply facility for household electric vehicles, which uses a vehicle mounted charger to charge the power battery. The current standard of the State Grid Corporation of China clearly stipulates the function of the AC charging pile and does not take into account the impact of the harmonics of the vehicle mounted charger on the power grid. Therefore, in view of the deficiency that AC charging piles cannot suppress the current harmonics of the vehicle mounted charger, application of the active power filtering technology to the design of AC charging piles is proposed to form a new type of AC charging pile with better functions. In the experimental prototype that was built, for vehicle mounted chargers with two load characteristics, the composite control method of traditional PI control and repetitive control is adopted, where the new AC charging pile effectively suppresses the harmonics of the vehicle-mounted charger. Experiments show that the AC charging pile using active power filtering technology cannot only improve the power quality of the grid side but also reduce the impact of harmonics on the power metering and billing system, ensuring the stability of the charging communication system.
Improvement in output power assessment by wind turbine power curve modeling based on data mining
Authors: Munguia F. E. , Robles M. , Garcia H. , Rodríguez-Hernández O.
Published: July 2023

The accurate assessment of wind turbine output power is crucial in the process of sizing wind farms. Typically, this assessment is based on the manufacturer’s characteristic power curve, which relates wind speed to power output. However, the manufacturer’s power curve is often an idealized representation that may not accurately reflect the actual power output of the turbine under real-world conditions. To address this limitation, various techniques have been employed to develop more precise power curves, including curve fitting, artificial intelligence, probabilistic models, and Gaussian processes. This paper introduces a novel method for modeling the power curve that takes into account the specific conditions at the wind turbine’s location. The method involves transforming wind speed data into a graph that resembles the phase space commonly used in statistical mechanics. By applying the k-means algorithm to this phase space, clusters of wind speeds can be identified. Furthermore, the corresponding clusters of wind turbine output power can be determined based on the identified wind speed clusters. These clusters of power data provide valuable information for constructing a more accurate power curve using an adjustment function. By utilizing this method, the authors demonstrate a significant improvement in the accuracy of power output estimation compared to relying solely on the manufacturer’s power curve. The proposed approach considers the unique characteristics of the wind speed data and incorporates them into the modeling process, resulting in a more reliable representation of the turbine’s power output. This advancement represents a significant step forward in optimizing the sizing of wind farms and ensuring their efficient operation.
Review of closed drift thruster neutral flow dynamics
Authors: Lu Shixu , Dong Liexiao , Luo Wei , Liang Shengtao , Long Jianfei , Zhu Xiaocheng , Guo Ning , Xu Luxiang
Published: July 2023

Operation of closed drift thruster (CDT) relies mainly on neutral gas, whose trajectory and distribution in the flow field have a significant influence on performance. Neutral flow dynamics (NFD), also known as the dynamics of the neutral gas in the thruster, has received increased attention from researchers over the past century, drawing attention to its significant influence on CDT. This article will therefore review the most recent research on NFD in CDT. At the outset of the review, we will provide a quick overview of how the CDT works and the influence of NFD on its performance, focusing on the effect on the CDT’s discharge characteristics and discharge oscillations. The effect of the gas distributor and discharge channel layout on the performance of the CDT and NFD is highlighted in the major portion of the article. Following that, we provide an overview of typical NFD detection techniques. Additional sub-categories of work are provided outside of the main portion, including usual work on neutral gas and gas distributor temperatures, neutral gas distribution uniformity, and neutral gas types.
InP/InGaAs/AlGaAs quantum-well semiconductor laser with an InP based 1550 nm n-GaAsSb single waveguide structure
Authors: Ning Zhian , Dong Hailiang , Jia Zhigang , Jia Wei , Liang Jian , Xu Bingshe
Published: July 2023

A n-GaAsSb single waveguide layer semiconductor laser with an InP/In0.55Ga0.45As/AlGaAs asymmetrical barrier is designed in order to improve output power, which not only reduces optical loss in the p-region but also effectively suppresses carrier leakage. The results show that a GaAsSb single waveguide structure almost completely shifts the optical field to the n-region, which reduces the absorption of photons by holes. When the injected current is 1 A, the device’s optical loss decreases from 15.60 to 13.20 cm−1. Ensuring that carrier leakage and internal quantum efficiency are almost unaffected, the InP/In0.55Ga0.45As/AlGaAs asymmetric barrier makes optical loss further reduce. The power of the new-structure device is 0.74 W, and its wall-plug efficiency reaches 70.84%. This structure design will provide both experimental data and theoretical support for the growth of the epitaxial structure of InP-based 1550 nm semiconductor lasers.
A semi-analytical model of guided wave with variable section under inhomogeneous prestress
Authors: Wang Yunlong , Mu Xiaokai , Yuan Bo , Sun Qingchao , Sun Wei
Published: July 2023

The correlation of guided wave propagation characteristics with structural prestress is of paramount importance to the structural health monitoring of gas pipelines. A variable section structure and inhomogeneous prestress are common conditions in the pipeline. However, most of the existing guided wave finite element models focus on the structure size and stress distribution under two-dimensional conditions, and it is difficult to analyze the three-dimensional structure with non-uniform stress and variable cross section. In this paper, an acoustoelastic theory combined with a semi-analytical finite element based on the three-dimensional mapping method is proposed to investigate guided wave propagation. It provides a generalized tool to study guided waves in waveguides with a variable cross section under inhomogeneous prestress. Then it is applied to two cases, a hollow cylinder with a variable cross section subjected to axial force and radial force, to demonstrate the capability of the method. Dispersive solutions are obtained in terms of the three-dimensional dispersion surface and the change in phase velocity in a variable cross section. The results show that there is a propagation mode, which is insensitive to the change in the section but sensitive to the change in prestress. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified by comparing with the experimental results. This study provides a good application prospect for the structural design and performance analysis of variable cross section waveguides.
ProJect: a powerful mixed-model missing value imputation method
Authors: Kong Weijia , Wong Bertrand Jern Han , Hui Harvard Wai Hann , Lim Kai Peng , Wang Yulan , Wong Limsoon , Goh Wilson Wen Bin
Published: July 2023

Missing values (MVs) can adversely impact data analysis and machine-learning model development. We propose a novel mixed-model method for missing value imputation (MVI). This method, ProJect (short for Protein inJection), is a powerful and meaningful improvement over existing MVI methods such as Bayesian principal component analysis (PCA), probabilistic PCA, local least squares and quantile regression imputation of left-censored data. We rigorously tested ProJect on various high-throughput data types, including genomics and mass spectrometry (MS)-based proteomics. Specifically, we utilized renal cancer (RC) data acquired using DIA-SWATH, ovarian cancer (OC) data acquired using DIA-MS, bladder (BladderBatch) and glioblastoma (GBM) microarray gene expression dataset. Our results demonstrate that ProJect consistently performs better than other referenced MVI methods. It achieves the lowest normalized root mean square error (on average, scoring 45.92% less error in RC_C, 27.37% in RC_full, 29.22% in OC, 23.65% in BladderBatch and 20.20% in GBM relative to the closest competing method) and the Procrustes sum of squared error (Procrustes SS) (exhibits 79.71% less error in RC_C, 38.36% in RC full, 18.13% in OC, 74.74% in BladderBatch and 30.79% in GBM compared to the next best method). ProJect also leads with the highest correlation coefficient among all types of MV combinations (0.64% higher in RC_C, 0.24% in RC full, 0.55% in OC, 0.39% in BladderBatch and 0.27% in GBM versus the second-best performing method). ProJect’s key strength is its ability to handle different types of MVs commonly found in real-world data. Unlike most MVI methods that are designed to handle only one type of MV, ProJect employs a decision-making algorithm that first determines if an MV is missing at random or missing not at random. It then employs targeted imputation strategies for each MV type, resulting in more accurate and reliable imputation outcomes. An R implementation of ProJect is available at https://github.com/miaomiao6606/ProJect.
LSMMD-MA: scaling multimodal data integration for single-cell genomics data analysis
Authors: Meng-Papaxanthos Laetitia , Zhang Ran , Li Gang , Cuturi Marco , Noble William Stafford , Vert Jean-Philippe
Published: July 2023

Motivation

Modality matching in single-cell omics data analysis—i.e. matching cells across datasets collected using different types of genomic assays—has become an important problem, because unifying perspectives across different technologies holds the promise of yielding biological and clinical discoveries. However, single-cell dataset sizes can now reach hundreds of thousands to millions of cells, which remain out of reach for most multimodal computational methods.

Results

We propose LSMMD-MA, a large-scale Python implementation of the MMD-MA method for multimodal data integration. In LSMMD-MA, we reformulate the MMD-MA optimization problem using linear algebra and solve it with KeOps, a CUDA framework for symbolic matrix computation in Python. We show that LSMMD-MA scales to a million cells in each modality, two orders of magnitude greater than existing implementations.

Availability and implementation

LSMMD-MA is freely available at https://github.com/google-research/large_scale_mmdma and archived at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8076311.
Children’s Participation in Child Welfare: A Systematic Review of Systematic Reviews
Authors: McCafferty Paul , Mercado Garcia Esther
Published: July 2023

The objective of this research was to conduct a systematic review of systematic reviews related to Article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) as it relates to children and young people involved with child welfare agencies. This systematic review sought to comply with the guidance from the JBI Manual for Evidence Synthesis on umbrella reviews. Fourteen databases were searched using predefined terms. Six hundred seventy-four original hits were retrieved for title and abstract searching after independent searching by the authors. Of those, fourteen were included for full independent reads and all fourteen were selected after discussion. Each systematic review was appraised using an eleven-point quality checklist from JBI. A thematic review was conducted to ascertain the themes across all systematic reviews. Three themes emerged (i) children’s voice is not taken seriously; (ii) relationships are an important determining factor in (un)successful participation; and (iii) the context of participation is important. Our conclusion is that despite mandated UNCRC requirements to involve children and young people within the child protection system, the possibilities for children and young people to express their views remain restricted.
From bazooka to backstop: the political economy of standing swap facilities
Authors: Richtmann Mathis L , Steininger Lea
Published: July 2023

The permanent international lender of last resort consists of a swap line network between six major central banks (C6), centring around the US Federal Reserve. Arguably, this network is a solution to a long-debated problem as it provides public emergency liquidity provision to the world’s largest financial market, the Eurodollar market. Drawing on exclusive interviews with monetary technocrats as well as a textual analysis of Federal Open Market Committee meeting transcripts over the course of 14 years, we reconstruct how this facility came into being. Building on Kalyanpur and Newman (2017) and Braun (2015), we develop an interpretive framework of bricolage to contextualise its formation: in times of crisis, central bankers rely on retrospection, experimentation and creative re-deployment to develop their tools. In non-crisis times, however, the tools that prevail are those that offer what we call ‘bureaucratic familiarity’: the C6 swap line network became a permanent feature of international finance because technocrats had got used to it.
Multiscale model reduction of finite-difference frequency-domain wave modelling in acoustic media
Authors: Jiang Wei , Chen Xuehua , Zhao Qingwei
Published: July 2023

Frequency-domain wave modelling can easily describe the visco-acoustic behaviour of wave propagation using frequency-dependent velocities. Conventional finite-difference (FD) modelling in the frequency domain is computationally prohibitive for solving the acoustic Helmholtz equation in complicated and large geological models. To reduce the computational cost of traditional FD Helmholtz solvers, we develop a multiscale FD frequency-domain method that uses multiscale basis functions to significantly reduce the dimension of system matrices associated with the Helmholtz equation. Due to the insufficient accuracy of the first-order multiscale basis functions in the case of strongly heterogeneous models, we introduce the multinode coarse-element scheme into the scalar Helmholtz equation, a scheme previously developed in the extended multiscale finite-element method for vector problems. This multinode scheme enables multiscale basis functions to capture accurate fine-scale medium property variations. We use one homogeneous model and two heterogeneous models to validate our multiscale method for accuracy and computational cost. Numerical results demonstrate that our new approach can significantly reduce the time and memory costs of acoustic wave modelling while maintaining accuracy, indicating the great potential of our multiscale method in large-scale modelling applications.
Daily Torpor in Birds and Mammals: Past, Present, and Future of the Field
Authors: Shankar Anusha , Welch Kenneth C , Eberts Erich R , Geiser Fritz , Halter Shayne , Keicher Lara , Levesque Danielle L , Nowack Julia , Wolf Blair O , Wolfe Sophia W
Published: July 2023

Synopsis

Torpor is an incredibly efficient energy-saving strategy that many endothermic birds and mammals use to save energy by lowering their metabolic rates, heart rates, and typically body temperatures. Over the last few decades, the study of daily torpor—in which torpor is used for <24 h per bout—has advanced rapidly. The papers in this issue cover the ecological and evolutionary drivers of torpor, as well as some of the mechanisms governing torpor use. We identified broad focus areas that need special attention: clearly defining the various parameters that indicate torpor use and identifying the genetic and neurological mechanisms regulating torpor. Recent studies on daily torpor and heterothermy, including the ones in this issue, have furthered the field immensely. We look forward to a period of immense growth in this field.
Donors in lung transplantation: does age matter?
Authors: Ponte Charlotte , Alkhatiri Omar , Olland Anne , Falcoz Pierre-Emmanuel
Published: July 2023

A best-evidence topic was written according to a structured protocol. The question addressed was the following: in patient undergoing lung transplantation, are lungs from donors of age >60 years old (yo) associated with equivalent outcomes—including primary graft dysfunction, respiratory function and survival—than lungs from donors ≤60yo? Altogether, >200 papers were found using the reported search, of which 12 represented the best evidence to answer the clinical question. The authors, journals, dates, country of publication, patients group studied, study type, relevant outcomes, and results of these papers were tabulated. Amongst the 12 papers reviewed, survival results were different depending on whether donor age was analysed raw or adjusted for recipients’ age and initial diagnosis. Indeed, recipients with interstitial lung disease (ILD), pulmonary hypertension or cystic fibrosis (CF) had significantly inferior overall survival when receiving grafts from older donors. When older grafts are allocated to younger donors, a significant decrease in survival has been noticed in the case of single lung transplantation. In addition, 3 papers showed worse results regarding peak forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) in patients receiving older organs, and 4 showed comparable primary graft dysfunction incidence rates. We conclude that when carefully assessed and allocated to the recipient who could benefit most from the transplant (e.g., a patient with a diagnosis of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), who would not require a prolonged cardiopulmonary bypass (CPB)), lung grafts from donors of >60yo offer comparable results to younger donors.
Left lower lobectomy without pericardial reconstruction in a patient with a congenital pericardium defect
Authors: Miura Jun , Ito Hiroyuki , Adachi Hiroyuki , Isaka Tetsuya
Published: July 2023

Pericardial defects are rare congenital disorders. We report a case of a left lower lobectomy in a patient with lung cancer, a congenital complete left-sided pericardial defect and severe pleural adhesions. The pleural adhesions between the epicardium and lungs were carefully dissected. A left lower lobectomy with mediastinal nodal dissection was performed under complete video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery without pericardial reconstruction. The patient remained asymptomatic for 20 months postoperatively. Careful dissection of severe adhesions is necessary in patients with severe cardiac pulsations.
Authoritarian Propaganda Campaigns on Foreign Affairs: Four Birds, One Stone, and the South China Sea Arbitration
Authors: Chubb Andrew , Wang Frances Yaping
Published: July 2023

Why do authoritarian states sometimes play up dangerous international crises and embarrassing diplomatic incidents in domestic propaganda? Is it to mobilize, threaten, divert, or pacify? Recent studies in comparative politics have focused on regime legitimacy and stability as key drivers of authoritarian propaganda practices, leaving aside other possible motivations such as mobilization of the regime’s domestic allies or strategic signaling aimed at foreign audiences. Foreign policy analysts, meanwhile, have emphasized international dimensions of the propaganda behavior of China—the contemporary world’s most powerful and technologically sophisticated authoritarian state—but have often mistakenly framed complementary theories as competing alternative explanations. This article argues that once the multiple domestic and international audiences for authoritarian propaganda are brought into view, many supposedly competing explanations turn out to be logically compatible and, in many cases, mutually reinforcing. We identify four sets of explanations—mobilization, signaling, diversion, and pacification—first showing how they fit together logically, before illustrating their convergence in the PRC’s otherwise puzzling high-intensity propaganda campaign in 2016 over the Philippines vs. China arbitration on the South China Sea.
Earning Structure and Heterogeneity of the Labor Market: Evidence from DR Congo
Authors: Ibale Douglas Amuli
Published: July 2023

Using 1.2.3 survey data on the Democratic Republic of Congo, we highlight different sectors in the labor market, with ‘higher paid’ sectors that are largely formal and ‘lower paid’ sectors that are largely informal. Based on a linear regression model, we report significant heterogeneity in earnings across sectors, which remain after controlling for aspects of human capital. We use a multinomial logit model to identify sector choice and show, allowing for selection, how returns to human capital differ across these sectors. We find that returns to basic education are important in largely informal sectors and that tertiary education is very important to access the higher paid sectors, but less important than in the lower paid sectors in increasing earnings once there. We then extend this analysis using quantile regression to show how returns differ across the distribution within sectors. Finally, we decompose the earnings gap across sectors and check how characteristics and return on these characteristics affect the cross-sector earnings gap. The earnings gap decomposition shows that workers of the lower paid sectors earn less, not only because they are less skill-endowed but also because they earn lower returns on their skills.
AnnoDash, a clinical terminology annotation dashboard
Authors: Xu Justin , Mazwi Mjaye , Johnson Alistair E W
Published: July 2023

Background

Standard ontologies are critical for interoperability and multisite analyses of health data. Nevertheless, mapping concepts to ontologies is often done with generic tools and is labor-intensive. Contextualizing candidate concepts within source data is also done in an ad hoc manner.

Methods and Results

We present AnnoDash, a flexible dashboard to support annotation of concepts with terms from a given ontology. Text-based similarity is used to identify likely matches, and large language models are used to improve ontology ranking. A convenient interface is provided to visualize observations associated with a concept, supporting the disambiguation of vague concept descriptions. Time-series plots contrast the concept with known clinical measurements. We evaluated the dashboard qualitatively against several ontologies (SNOMED CT, LOINC, etc.) by using MIMIC-IV measurements. The dashboard is web-based and step-by-step instructions for deployment are provided, simplifying usage for nontechnical audiences. The modular code structure enables users to extend upon components, including improving similarity scoring, constructing new plots, or configuring new ontologies.

Conclusion

AnnoDash, an improved clinical terminology annotation tool, can facilitate data harmonizing by promoting mapping of clinical data. AnnoDash is freely available at https://github.com/justin13601/AnnoDash (https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8043943).
Effect of 3-caffeoylquinic acid on growth performance, nutrient digestibility, and intestinal functions in weaned pigs
Authors: Wei Zixiang , Yu Bing , Huang Zhiqing , Luo Yuheng , Zheng Ping , Mao Xiangbing , Yu Jie , Luo Junqiu , Yan Hui , He Jun
Published: July 2023

Phenolic acid like with the 3-caffeoylquini acid (3-CQA) is formed by caffeic acid and qunic acid. This study was conducted to explore the effect of 3-CQA on growth performance and intestinal functions in weaned pigs. A total of 180 weaned pigs were randomly allocated into five treatments with 6 replicate pens per treatment (6 pigs per pen). Pigs in the control group (CON) were fed with basal diet (BD), and the others in the experimental groups were fed with BD and supplemented with 12.5, 25, 50, and 100 mg/kg 3-CQA. On day 43, the blood sample-collected pigs in the CON and optimal-dose group (only based on growth performance) were picked, and housed in metabolism cages (a total of 12 pigs, N = 6). 3-CQA increased the feed efficiency from days 21 to 42 of the trial and throughout the trial (P < 0.05). 3-CQA increased the serum concentrations of total protein, albumin, and total cholesterol (P < 0.05). Moreover, 3-CQA supplementation at 25 mg/kg increased the apparent digestibility of DM, energy, and ash (P < 0.05). Interestingly, 3-CQA decreased the crypt depth but increased the ratio of villus height to crypt depth in the jejunum and ileum (P < 0.05). Moreover, 3-CQA also increased the activities of sucrase, lactase, and catalase in the jejunal mucosa, and increased the activities of alkaline phosphatase and superoxide dismutase in the ileal mucosa (P < 0.05). 3-CQA also increased the abundance of secretory immunoglobulin A in the ileal mucosa (P < 0.05). Importantly, 3-CQA not only elevated the expression levels of critical functional genes such as the zonula occludens-1 , occludin, solute carrier family 7 , and nuclear factor erythroid 2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) in the duodenum but also elevated the expression levels of divalent metal transporter-1 and Nrf2 in the jejunum (P < 0.05). These results suggested a positive effect of 3-CQA supplementation on the growth and intestinal functions of weaned pigs. The mechanisms of action may be associated with elevated anti-oxidant capacity and improved intestinal barrier functions.
Designing Educational and Home Computers in State Socialism: The Polish and Czechoslovak Experience
Authors: Wasiak Patryk , Švelch Jaroslav
Published: July 2023

This article investigates the design of two comparable microcomputers that were built under state socialism in neighboring countries: Poland (Elwro Junior) and Czechoslovakia (Didaktik Gama). Both computers were “clones” of the highly popular British ZX Spectrum computer. In our article, we discuss the decisions that informed the design of the local “clones” of the British computer, and how both endeavors were supposed to solve specific problems identified by the communities involved in their design. We argue that different configurations of power—in which the actors that took part in the design of both computers were embedded—were the primary reason why these similar products, the ZX Spectrum clones, were “scripted” in a substantially different manner. The Junior was designed as an “educational computer” envisaged as an aid to schooling, while the Gama was a more flexible “home computer.” Our investigation focuses on how their designers projected, or “scripted,” possible forms of computer use, and who they imagined would be the users of these machines. We also compare both computers with the high-profile One Laptop Per Child project to demonstrate the wider relevance of our study and the usefulness of our investigative toolset to the intersection of design studies and science and technology studies.
Chronicle of a crisis foretold: how the WTO Appellate Body drove itself into a corner
Authors: Miranda Jorge , Sánchez Miranda Manuel
Published: July 2023

With 146 decisions delivered since 1995, the Appellate Body of the World Trade Organization (WTO) stands as one of the world's most prolific and accomplished international courts. However, the Appellate Body finds itself currently embroiled in a crisis that has crippled it. This article delves into the reasons that may account for this state of affairs. We examine a sample of Appellate Body decisions, that, on the one hand, had significant policy and systemic implications for WTO dispute settlement, but on the other hand, are beset with notable flaws. While it is human to err, and there is no reason why this old adage should not be applicable to international tribunals, by developing an overly dogmatic jurisprudential tradition that has the potential to perpetuate even the most deficient rationale, the Appellate Body invited at least some of the criticism that escalated into political maneuvering that rendered it inoperative. Our aspiration is that this crisis can serve as a source of valuable lessons regarding how to mitigate the risks that international adjudicators must inevitably bear when interpreting international treaties. In an effort to trigger a scholarly discussion on how to make the work of the Appellate Body more sustainable, we outline a possible blueprint to resolve the current deadlock.
Aedes yunnanensis (Diptera: Culicidae): transferred from the subgenus Hulecoeteomyia to Orohylomyia subg. nov., with descriptions of the species and the new subgenus
Authors: Somboon Pradya , Zhou Li , Phanitchakun Thanari , Saingamsook Jassada , Harbach Ralph E
Published: July 2023

Aedes yunnanensis (Gaschen), currently classified in the subgenus Hulecoeteomyia Theobald, is transferred to a new monobasic subgenus, Orohylomyia Somboon & Harbach, subg. nov., based on morphological assessment of adults, male and female genitalia, larvae, and pupae, and phylogenetic analysis. The new subgenus and its type species are described in detail.
Disability, Transition Costs, and the Things That Really Matter
Authors: Ness Tommy , Barclay Linda
Published: July 2023

This article develops a detailed, empirically driven analysis of the nature of the transition costs incurred in becoming disabled. Our analysis of the complex nature of these costs supports the claim that it can be wrong to cause disability, even if disability is just one way of being different. We also argue that close attention to the nature of transition costs gives us reason to doubt that well-being, including transitory impacts on well-being, is the only thing that should determine the wrongness of causing or removing disability. Non-welfare considerations also defeat the claim that it is always wrong to cause disability. The upshot of these conclusions is that closer attention to the nature of transition costs supports disabled people who strenuously contest the assumption that their well-being is lower than nondisabled people. It also suggests that, in addition, disabled people should contest their opponents’ narrow account of how we should make ethical decisions regarding causing or failing to prevent disability.