bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Are patents linked on Twitter? A case study of Google patents
Authors: Orduña-Malea Enrique , Font-Julián Cristina I.
Published: October 2022

This study attempts to analyze patents as cited/mentioned documents to better understand the interest, dissemination and engagement of these documents in social environments, laying the foundations for social media studies of patents (social Patentometrics).Particularly, this study aims to determine how patents are disseminated on Twitter by analyzing three elements: tweets linking to patents, users linking to patents, and patents linked from Twitter. To do this, all the tweets containing at least one link to a full-text patent available on Google Patents were collected and analyzed, yielding a total of 126,815 tweets (and 129,001 links) to 86,417 patents. The results evidence an increase of the number of linking tweets over the years, presumably due to the creation of a standardized patent URL ID and the integration of Google Patents and Google Scholar, which took place in 2015. The engagement achieved by these tweets is limited (80.2% of tweets did not attract likes) but increasing notably since 2018. Two super-publisher twitter bot accounts (dailypatent and uspatentbot) are responsible of 53.3% of all the linking tweets, while most accounts are sporadic users linking to patent as part of a conversation. The patents most tweeted are, by far, from United States (87.5% of all links to Google Patents), mainly due to the effect of the two super-publishers. The impact of patents in terms of the number of tweets linking to them is unrelated to their year of publication, status or number of patent citations received, while controversial and media topics might be more determinant factors. However, further research is needed to better understand the topics discussed around patents on Twitter, the users involved, and the metrics attained. Given the increasing number of linking users and linked patents, this study finds Twitter as a relevant source to measure patent-level metrics, shedding light on the impact and interest of patents by the broad public.
“Formal and informal networkedness among German Academics”: exploring the role of conferences and co-publications in scientific performance
Authors: Kroll Henning , Neuhäusler Peter
Published: October 2022

This paper builds on the established finding that the performance of scholars depends on their interpersonal networks. Until now, these networks have largely been measured by analysing the credits and acknowledgements on their publications, especially their co-authorships. First, it seeks to clarify inconsistencies in existing findings by providing a comprehensive analysis of the effects of co-authorship among the overall population of actively publishing researchers from Germany. Second, it acknowledges that co-publication is only one very formal and explicit form of academic networking and develops a new indicator based on an academic’s inferred co-presence at conferences. Comparing the impact of these two different aspects of networkedness, we find that hierarchy and influence play a stronger role in determining a scientist’s performance in the context of informal networks than they do when considering formal co-publication networks.
Home-based pulmonary rehabilitation in patients undergoing (chemo)radiation therapy for unresectable lung cancer: a prospective explorative study
Authors: Borghetti Paolo , Branz Jacopo , Volpi Giulia , Pancera Simone , Buraschi Riccardo , Bianchi Luca Nicola Cesare , Bonù Marco Lorenzo , Greco Diana , Facheris Giorgio , Tomasi Cesare , Pini Laura , Bezzi Michela , Grisanti Salvatore , Gallazzi Maria Sole , Borghesi Andrea , Buglione di Monale e Bastia Michela ,   on behalf of the ASST Spedali Civili of Brescia Lung Unit
Published: October 2022

Aims

The prevention of pulmonary toxicity is an important goal for patient candidate to radiation therapy for lung cancer. There is a lack of evidence on the role of exercise training for patients with unresectable stage III lung cancer candidated to radical treatment. The aim of this study was to evaluate the feasibility of a home-based pulmonary rehabilitation (PR) program and to identify reliable tools in terms of respiratory function, exercise capacity and quality of life.

Methods

Patients’ recruitment lasted from April 2020 till February 2022. The PR program was proposed concomitantly to radiation therapy to the first 20 patients (interventional group, IG), and the other 20 patients were identified as an observational group (OG). All patients were assessed at baseline (T0) and after 8 weeks (T2) with 6 minute walking test (6MWT), modified Borg Scale (mBORG), SF-36 questionnaire (SF-36) and pulmonary function test (PFT); after 4 weeks (T1), only SF-36 was administered.

Results

A decrease of 13.8 m in the walked-distance was registered in the OG between T0 and T2 (p = 0.083). Instead, an increase of 56.6 m in the distance walked was recorded in the IG between T0 and T2 (p ≤ 0.001).

In the OG, the mBORG scores showed a negative trend. On the contrary, in the IG, these scores showed a slight improvement. In the OG, all the items of SF-36 scores decreased between T0 and T1. In the IG, an increased trend from T0 to T2 was observed for all the items of SF-36. No clinically significant variations were detected from baseline to T2 in both groups regarding PFT.

Conclusion

The 6MWT, mBORG and SF-36 resulted as useful tools to assess the role of a PR program. A significant gain in functional exercise capacity and a prevention of the physiological impairment of QoL during radio(chemo)therapy was registered.
Climate Change Impacts on Mental Health Will Lead to Increased Digitization of Mental Health Care
Authors: Yellowlees Peter
Published: October 2022

Purpose of Review

The evidence for the impact of climate change on the mental health of individuals and communities is reviewed, and the literature on the importance of digital systems in reducing carbon emissions is addressed.

Recent Findings

Most of the climate change impacts on mental health are disaster related, although recent literature on “eco-anxiety,” often described as anxiety about the long-term effects of climate change, is emerging. There is strong evidence that the use of telepsychiatry and digital approaches to mental health care can reduce carbon emissions by reducing travel for patients and providers as well as provide effective distance care in disasters. Hybrid care, asynchronous consultations, and care at home are all innovations that will further reduce carbon emissions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly accelerated the digitization of psychiatry, and climate change will continue to drive these changes in the future. Much more research on these overlapping issues is required.
Impact of Brexit news on the stock prices of european insurance companies: an event study approach based on indexation and sub-indexation
Authors: Müller Antonia , Reuse Svend
Published: October 2022

The Brexit referendum in June 2016 led to different publications analysing stock market reactions. This study addresses a research gap, regarding the consideration of other Brexit events and the focus on stock prices of European insurance companies, by using a further refined event study approach based on indexation and sub-indexation. In scope are 17 listed insurance companies based in the European Union or the United Kingdom represented by the Insurance Index. To analyse potential dependencies between abnormal returns and the location of the company (European Union or United Kingdom) or the share of insurance business written in the United Kingdom, the Insurance Index is divided into four sub-indices. The results show significant positive or negative abnormal returns of the Insurance Index. In addition, the sub-indices react differently to the events under consideration. Trends are suggesting that significant abnormal returns may depend on the location and the share of insurance business written in the United Kingdom.
Technical note: investigating activity-induced 3d hand entheseal variation in a documented South African sample
Authors: Bousquié Lucile , Karakostis Fotios Alexandros , Crevecoeur Isabelle , Villotte Sébastien
Published: October 2022

For reconstructing physical activity in the past, the surfaces of bones where muscles and ligaments attach, “entheses,” are routinely studied. Previous research has introduced an experimentally validated virtual approach for reconstructing habitual activity based on entheses. The present study relies on this virtual method to further investigate the effects of various biological factors on entheses, including variation by ancestry. Our skeletal sample includes 39 individuals from the well-preserved Pretoria Bone Collection in South Africa. Although the size of the sample is limited, all selected individuals present excellently preserved left- and right-hand bones. Moreover, all individuals are reliably documented for sex, biological age, and ancestry (i.e., African or European origin). Multivariate analyses were run on both raw and size-adjusted hand entheseal three-dimensional measurements. Our findings showed that, after size adjustment, entheseal multivariate patterns did not significantly vary by sex, biological age, or estimated body mass. However, a significant (p-value = 0.01) variation was found between individuals of different ancestries in only the right-hand side of our South African skeletal sample. The observed entheseal patterns were consistent with the habitual performance of power grasping in individuals of African origin, while our small sample’s European individuals showed distinctive indications of precision grasping behaviors. This pilot research provided important new insights into potentially activity-induced differences between population samples from South Africa, supporting the value of the applied protocol in reconstructing aspects of past human lifestyles. In the future, the functional interpretations of this study on interpopulation variation may be validated using increased sample sizes and individuals with long-term occupational documentation.
How frequent are vancomycin-resistant enterococci in patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis and ulcerative colitis treated with oral vancomycin?
Authors: Shah Ayesha , Pakneeshan Sahar , Jones Michael P , Koloski Natasha , Callaghan Gavin , Morrison Mark , Holtmann Gerald
Published: October 2022

In patients with primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC), antimicrobial therapy with oral vancomycin (OV) is increasingly used to prevent progression of the liver disease and control concomitant ulcerative colitis (UC); however, there are concerns regarding the risk of development of vancomycin-resistant enterococci (VRE). Thus, we aimed to determine the incidence of VRE in PSC-UC patients. We conducted a retrospective study of PSC-UC patients, treated with OV at the Department of Gastroenterology at the Princess Alexandra Hospital. VRE testing was performed utilizing rectal swabs. We included 7 PSC-UC patients (age 22–53 years, 2 females) treated with OV with daily dose ranging from 250 to 1500 mg. All patients were treated for at least 6 months with OV (range 9–31 months, mean 32.1 months). All patients achieved complete clinical remission of the UC, with mean reduction of fecal calprotectin by 634 μg/mg (87.3%), mean reduction in the C-reactive protein by 21.9 mg/L (74.2%), and mean reduction in the total Mayo score by 9.3 (93.3%). With regard to the liver parameters, mean improvement in alkaline phosphatase enzyme and total bilirubin was −48.7 U/L (−19.7%) and −2.7 mg/dL (−19.6%), respectively. No patient treated with OV developed VRE or reported any adverse events. This cohort study including PSC-UC patients did not provide evidence for development of VRE, while treatment with vancomycin was associated with clinical and endoscopic remission of the UC. Larger, prospective trials are required to define the efficacy and safety of antimicrobial therapy in PSC-UC, while the risk of VRE appears small.
Anti-skin aging activity of eggshell membrane administration and its underlying mechanism
Authors: Sim Woo-Jin , Ahn Jisong , Lim Wonchul , Son Dong Ju , Lee Eunjung , Lim Tae-Gyu
Published: October 2022

Background

There is active research on developing materials for improving skin function. Eggshell membrane (ESM) is one such raw material that is consumed as a functional food to support skin health. However, studies on the mechanism of improvement of skin function on ingestion of ESM are still lacking.

Objectives

To explore this mechanism of action, we conducted an ultraviolet (UV) irradiation study on a SKH-1 hairless mouse model. Feeding ESM was found to improve skin moisture and reduce wrinkles during 12 weeks of UVB irradiation.

Results

Oral administration of ESM restored moisture in the dorsal skin tissue of mice. In addition, oral ingestion of ESM also reversed the increased transepidermal water loss and reduction of mRNA expression of hyaluronic synthases induced by UVB irradiation. Furthermore, UVB irradiation-induced collagen degradation was inhibited, and the expression of the collagenase MMP was reduced in the ESM intake group compared to the control. These results confirmed that oral ingestion of the ESM has an anti-wrinkle effect. In addition, the mRNA expression of the antioxidant enzyme SOD1, which was reduced on UVB irradiation, was restored on ingestion of the ESM. Restoring the expression of antioxidant enzymes is a key strategy for improving skin function of the ESM.

Conclusion

Taken together, the findings from our study reveal the potential of ESM as a nutricosmetic material with anti-wrinkle and skin moisturizing properties.
Does AI Debias Recruitment? Race, Gender, and AI’s “Eradication of Difference”
Authors: Drage Eleanor , Mackereth Kerry
Published: October 2022

In this paper, we analyze two key claims offered by recruitment AI companies in relation to the development and deployment of AI-powered HR tools: (1) recruitment AI can objectively assess candidates by removing gender and race from their systems, and (2) this removal of gender and race will make recruitment fairer, help customers attain their DEI goals, and lay the foundations for a truly meritocratic culture to thrive within an organization. We argue that these claims are misleading for four reasons: First, attempts to “strip” gender and race from AI systems often misunderstand what gender and race are, casting them as isolatable attributes rather than broader systems of power. Second, the attempted outsourcing of “diversity work” to AI-powered hiring tools may unintentionally entrench cultures of inequality and discrimination by failing to address the systemic problems within organizations. Third, AI hiring tools’ supposedly neutral assessment of candidates’ traits belie the power relationship between the observer and the observed. Specifically, the racialized history of character analysis and its associated processes of classification and categorization play into longer histories of taxonomical sorting and reflect the current demands and desires of the job market, even when not explicitly conducted along the lines of gender and race. Fourth, recruitment AI tools help produce the “ideal candidate” that they supposedly identify through by constructing associations between words and people’s bodies. From these four conclusions outlined above, we offer three key recommendations to AI HR firms, their customers, and policy makers going forward.
A consensus algorithm based on the worst consistency index of hesitant fuzzy preference relations in group decision-making
Authors: Li Qiujie , Liu Gaofeng , Zhang Tianming , Xu Yejun
Published: October 2022

This paper mainly solves the individual consistency and group consensus in the decision-making with hesitant fuzzy preference relations (HFPRs). The worst consistency index (WCI) is used to measure the individual consistency level. The envelop of an HFPR called envelop of HFPR (EHFRP) is proposed in the consensus reaching process (CRP). Two algorithms are proposed: one is to improve the WCI, in which only one pair of elements are revised in the consistency improving process each time, which aims to preserve the decision makers’ (DMs’) original information as much as possible. Another algorithm is proposed to improve the consensus in the CRP. To aggregate individual EHFPRs into one group HFPR, a new induced ordered weighted averaging (IOWA) operator is presented, called envelope HFPR-IOWA (EHFPR-IOWA), which allows the experts' preference to be aggregated in such a way that the most consistent ones are given more weight. Finally, an illustrative example and comparisons with the existing methods are provided to show the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Factors Contributing to the Efficacy of Universal Mental Health and Wellbeing Programs in Secondary Schools: A Systematic Review
Authors: Scholz David , Taylor Amanda , Strelan Peter
Published: October 2022

Differences in approaches used to deliver school-based mental health and wellbeing programs may be a key consideration for program effectiveness, yet this has not been considered in reviews and meta-analyses to date. Consistent with previous research, this systematic review of 47 studies found that wellbeing programs delivered in schools tended to show small effect sizes for mental health and wellbeing outcomes with effects often not sustained. The review considered the influence of various program factors on effectiveness, and consistent with previous findings, program-based factors like theoretical framework, program length, and session duration did not show reliable patterns for influencing effectiveness. In contrast, pedagogical factors aimed at increasing participant engagement (e.g., using student-centred and active learning approaches), appear more closely linked to improved mental health and wellbeing outcomes. This review has shown that universal programs can be effective in producing better mental health and wellbeing outcomes in secondary school settings when participant engagement is maximised.
On analytic properties of the standard zeta function attached to a vector-valued modular form
Authors: Stein Oliver
Published: October 2022

We proof a Garrett–Böcherer decomposition of a vector-valued Siegel Eisenstein series$$E_{l,0}^2$$El,02of genus 2 transforming with the Weil representation of$${\text {Sp}}_2({\mathbb {Z}})$$Sp2(Z)on the group ring$${\mathbb {C}}[(L'/L)^2]$$C[(L′/L)2]. We show that the standard zeta function associated to a vector-valued common eigenformffor the Weil representation can be meromorphically continued to the wholes-plane and that it satisfies a functional equation. The proof is based on an integral representation of this zeta function in terms offand$$E_{l,0}^2$$El,02.
Optimal thickness and annealing temperature for enhancement of structural, optical, and photocatalytic properties of ZnO thin films
Authors: Abdel-Galil A. , Hussien Mai S. A. , Balboul M. R.
Published: October 2022

Thin films of ZnO, with distinct thicknesses, were deposited on soda-lime glass substrates by sol–gel spin-coating as a cost-effective method without any evacuation facilities. The nanocrystalline structure of the deposited films was indexed by the atomic force microscope and X-ray diffraction techniques. The average grain size increases with the increase of the film thickness and annealing temperature. The energy-dispersive X-ray technique has been used to check the atomic ratios of Zn and O with the film thickness and heat treatment for homogeneous ZnO films. ZnO films show elevated transmission in the visible spectrum as a transparent semiconductor material. Optical constants, like absorption coefficient, optical band gap, and refractive index, were obtained by the Swanepoel method. All thin film samples were applied for photodegradation of reactive orange 96 (RO96) to evaluate the effect of thickness and annealing temperature on the ZnO film’s photocatalytic activity. ZnO 4L (400 °C, 3 h) film possesses the highest rate of photodegradation about 0.1 min−1 for RO96 with high stability and reusability.
Evaluating space measures in P systems
Authors: Alhazov Artiom , Leporati Alberto , Manzoni Luca , Mauri Giancarlo , Zandron Claudio
Published: October 2022

P systems with active membranes are a variant of P systems where membranes can be created by division of existing membranes, thus creating an exponential amount of resources in a polynomial number of steps. Time and space complexity classes for active membrane systems have been introduced, to characterize classes of problems that can be solved by different membrane systems making use of different resources. In particular, space complexity classes introduced initially considered a hypothetical real implementation by means of biochemical materials, assuming that every single object or membrane requires some constant physical space (corresponding to unary notation). A different approach considered implementation of P systems in silico, allowing to store the multiplicity of each object in each membrane using binary numbers. In both cases, the elements contributing to the definition of the space required by a system (namely, the total number of membranes, the total number of objects, the types of different membranes, and the types of different objects) was considered as a whole. In this paper, we consider a different definition for space complexity classes in the framework of P systems, where each of the previous elements is considered independently. We review the principal results related to the solution of different computationally hard problems presented in the literature, highlighting the requirement of every single resource in each solution. A discussion concerning possible alternative solutions requiring different resources is presented.
Development of a Wearable Wireless Sensing Device for Characterization of Hand Tremors Through Vibration Frequency Analysis
Authors: Yousef Mo’ath , Hafizh Muhammad , Sassi Sadok , Adeli Gholam
Published: October 2022

Purpose

To monitor the progression of diseases such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) or essential tremor (ET), there is a growing interest in understanding their side effects and continuously monitoring the deterioration or progress of patients’ health conditions. The objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility of a wearable monitoring device constructed from compact MEMS for robust tremor detection in the upper limb using three different storage and monitoring techniques.

Method

Four subjects (2 PD and 2 ET) with varying stages of disease and treatment willingly provided offline, online, and live modes of tremor data using a low-cost, miniaturized accelerometer and microelectromechanical device.

Results

The results demonstrated differences in voluntary and non-voluntary characteristics of various activities and the distinct separation between them in the vibration spectrum at the limit of 2 Hz. Online and live monitoring provided the best alternatives to continuous in-home tracking combined with extensive post-processing techniques to detect tremor segments. The findings also highlighted the emergence of noticeable peaks, in the range between 3 and 8 Hz, for the PD’s frequency response, compared to the ET case, where the broadband behavior dominates.

Conclusion

The possibility of using a dynamic tuned mass damper tuned with dominant peaks to be canceled opens opportunities for PD passive tremor suppression.
The Development and Validation of a Child Safeguarding in Sport Self-assessment Tool for the Council of Europe
Authors: Moustakas Louis , Kalina Lisa , Petry Karen
Published: October 2022

Abuse and interpersonal violence threaten participant safety and trust in sport. Many political and project activities have sought to promote safeguarding policies within national sporting structures. Despite this, implementation of safe sport policy measures has been lacklustre, and policy guidance is often disparate and sometimes contradictory. Against this background, the Council of Europe initiated the development of a safeguarding in sport self-assessment tool to assist national sport authorities in this crucial area. This tool addresses some of the gaps within safe sport policy guidance by summarising current good practices and offering policy guidance and legitimation. In the following Innovations article, we present our work developing the safeguarding self-assessment tool for national sport organisations in collaboration with the Council of Europe.
Developing a sentence level fairness metric using word embeddings
Authors: Izzidien Ahmed , Fitz Stephen , Romero Peter , Loe Bao S. , Stillwell David
Published: October 2022

Fairness is a principal social value that is observable in civilisations around the world. Yet, a fairness metric for digital texts that describe even a simple social interaction, e.g., ‘The boy hurt the girl’ has not been developed. We address this by employing word embeddings that use factors found in a new social psychology literature review on the topic. We use these factors to build fairness vectors. These vectors are used as sentence level measures, whereby each dimension reflects a fairness component. The approach is employed to approximate human perceptions of fairness. The method leverages a pro-social bias within word embeddings, for which we obtain an F1 = 79.8 on a list of sentences using the Universal Sentence Encoder (USE). A second approach, using principal component analysis (PCA) and machine learning (ML), produces an F1 = 86.2. Repeating these tests using Sentence Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers (SBERT) produces an F1 = 96.9 and F1 = 100 respectively. Improvements using subspace representations are further suggested. By proposing a
first-principles approach, the paper contributes to the analysis of digital
texts along an ethical dimension.
Static and Dynamic Dependency Visualization in a Layered Software City
Authors: Dashuber Veronika , Philippsen Michael
Published: October 2022

A Software City is an established way to visualize metrics such as the test coverage or complexity. As current layouting algorithms are mainly based on the static code structure, dependencies that are orthogonal to this structure often clutter the visualization and are hard to grasp. This paper applies layered graph drawing to layout a Software City in 3D. The proposed layout takes both the dependencies and the static code structure into account. While having the static dependencies encoded in the layout, we can additionally display dynamic dependencies as arcs atop the city in the night view of the Layered Software City. By applying a trace clustering technique we can further reduce the number of shown arcs. We evaluate the advantages of our layout over a classic layouting algorithm in a controlled study on a real-world project and also report on a short study that evaluates the visualization of dynamic dependencies. The source code of the layouting algorithm and the raw data of the quantitative evaluations are available fromhttps://github.com/qaware/holoware-software-city.
Energy asymptotics for the strongly damped Klein–Gordon equation
Authors: Mohamad Haidar
Published: October 2022

We consider the strongly damped Klein–Gordon equation for defocusing nonlinearity and we study the asymptotic behaviour of the energy for periodic solutions. We prove first the exponential decay to zero for zero mean solutions. Then, we characterize the limit of the energy, when the time tends to infinity, for solutions with small enough initial data and we finally prove that such limit is not necessary zero.
Modelling the high-temperature deformation characteristics of S355 steel using artificial neural networks
Authors: Olejarczyk-Wożeńska Izabela , Mrzygłód Barbara , Hojny Marcin
Published: October 2022

In this study, artificial neural networks were used to predict the plastic flow behaviour of S355 steel in the process of high-temperature deformation. The aim of the studies was to develop a model of changes in stress as a function of strain, strain rate and temperature, necessary to build an advanced numerical model of the soft-reduction process. The high-temperature characteristics of the tested steel were determined with a Gleeble 3800 thermo-mechanical simulator. Tests were carried out in the temperature range of 400–1450 °C for two strain rates, i.e. 0.05 and 1 s−1. The test results were next used to develop and verify a rheological model based on artificial neural networks (ANNs). The conducted studies show that the selected models offer high accuracy in predicting the high-temperature flow behaviour of S355 steel and can be successfully used in numerical modelling of the soft-reduction process.
The uniform sparse FFT with application to PDEs with random coefficients
Authors: Kämmerer Lutz , Potts Daniel , Taubert Fabian
Published: October 2022

We develop the uniform sparse Fast Fourier Transform (usFFT), an efficient, non-intrusive, adaptive algorithm for the solution of elliptic partial differential equations with random coefficients. The algorithm is an adaption of the sparse Fast Fourier Transform (sFFT), a dimension-incremental algorithm, which tries to detect the most important frequencies in a given search domain and therefore adaptively generates a suitable Fourier basis corresponding to the approximately largest Fourier coefficients of the function. The usFFT does this w.r.t. the stochastic domain of the PDE simultaneously for multiple fixed spatial nodes, e.g., nodes of a finite element mesh. The key idea of joining the detected frequency sets in each dimension increment results in a Fourier approximation space, which fits uniformly for all these spatial nodes. This strategy allows for a faster and more efficient computation due to a significantly smaller amount of samples needed, than just using other algorithms, e.g., the sFFT for each spatial node separately. We test the usFFT for different examples using periodic, affine and lognormal random coefficients in the PDE problems.
Progress and the Scale of History
Authors: Retz Tyson
Published: October 2022

The idea of progress is a product of historical thinking. It is a bold interpretation of history that combines understandings of the past, perceptions of the present and expectations of the future. This Element examines the shifting scale of this past, present and future configuration from antiquity to the present day. It develops five categories that reveal the conceptual features of progress together with the philosophies of history in which they have been enmeshed, from temporal outlooks that held no notion of progress to universal histories that viewed progress as a law of nature, from speculation on the meaning and direction of history to the total rejection of all historical constructions. Global in scope and conversant with present-day debates in the theory and philosophy of history, the argument throughout is that the scale on which we conceive history plays a determining role in how we think about progress.
Outstanding in the Field: Impacts of Public Small Grains Breeding in Virginia
Authors: Garber Ben , Alwang Jeffrey , Norton George W.
Published: October 2022

New production from public and exclusive varieties released by the small grains breeding program at Virginia Tech generated cumulative discounted benefits of $41 million from 2000 to 2018. Fitted yields from field trials were combined with acreage estimates to generate weighted average yields based on adoption of new varieties. Benefits were estimated as the value of additional production from the release and adoption of improved varieties. Public varieties were responsible for most program benefits. The program was found to have a significant impact in Virginia and out-of-state, with much of these benefits due to public-private collaboration.
Outcomes among patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia enrolled in a postdischarge outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy program at an academic medical center
Authors: Theodore Deborah A. , Furuya E. Yoko , Austin Eloise , Greendyke William G.
Published: October 2022

We compared patients with Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia enrolled in outpatient parenteral antibiotic therapy monitoring program (OPAT-MP) upon hospital discharge with patients not enrolled. OPAT-MP patients were more likely to attend infectious diseases follow-up appointments. OPAT-related emergency room visits and/or readmissions were more common among non–OPAT-MP patients, but differences were not statistically significant.
Recruitment of diverse community health center patients in a pragmatic weight gain prevention trial
Authors: Miller Hailey N. , Berger Miriam B. , Askew Sandy , Kay Melissa C. , Chisholm Miriam , Sirdeshmukh Gaurav , Hopkins Christina M. , Brewer Ashley , DeVries Abigail , Holder Marni , Bennett Gary G.
Published: October 2022

Introduction:

Pragmatic trials are needed to establish evidence-based obesity treatment in primary care settings, particularly in community health centers (CHCs) that serve populations at heightened risk of obesity. Recruiting a representative trial sample is a critical first step to informing care for diverse communities. We described recruitment strategies utilized in a pragmatic obesity trial and assessed the sociodemographic characteristics and odds of enrollment by recruitment strategy.

Methods:

We analyzed data from Balance, a pragmatic trial implemented within a network of CHCs. We recruited participants via health center-based and electronic health record (EHR)-informed mail recruitment. We analyzed associations between sociodemographic characteristics and the return rate of patient authorization forms (required for participation) from EHR-informed mail recruitment. We also compared sociodemographic characteristics and randomization odds by recruitment strategy after returning authorization forms.

Results:

Of the individuals recruited through EHR-informed mail recruitment, females were more likely than males to return authorization forms; however, there were no differences in rates of return by preferred language (English/Spanish) or age. Females; underrepresented racial and ethnic groups; Spanish speakers; younger adults; and those with lower education levels were recruited more successfully in the health center. In contrast, their counterparts were more responsive to mail recruitment. Once authorization forms were returned, the odds of being randomized did not significantly differ by recruitment method.

Conclusion:

Health center-based recruitment was essential to meeting recruitment targets in a pragmatic weight gain prevention trial, specifically for Hispanic and Spanish-speaking communities. Future pragmatic trials should consider leveraging in-person recruitment for underrepresented groups in research.
The Concept of “Marine Living Resources”: Navigating a Grey Zone in the Law of the Sea
Authors: RAFALY VONINTSOA
Published: October 2022

The expression “living resources” occurs thirty-eight times in theUnited Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS), but the latter does not give any legal definition of the term. The integration of environmental law taxonomy, such as biodiversity, in the evolution of the law of the sea has added to confusion regarding the meaning of “marine living resources.” To clarify the meaning of this expression and its legal scope in the evolution of the law of the sea, it is necessary to analyze the context of its use inUNCLOSand, more broadly, in the legal regime governing marine resources. This article aims to clarify the origins and extent of the confusion regarding the meaning of marine living resources and to analyze how the use of a broader semantic field in different legal instruments and other sources of international law has shaped the legal framework for the conservation and sustainable use of marine living resources.
Using Artificial Intelligence for Predicting the Duration of Emergency Evacuation During Hospital Fire
Authors: Sahebi Ali , Jahangiri Katayoun , Alibabaei Ahmad , Khorasani-Zavareh Davoud
Published: October 2022

Objective:

A danger threatening hospitals is fire. The most important action following a fire is to urgently evacuate the hospital during the shortest time possible. The aim of this study was to predict the duration of emergency evacuation following hospital fire using machine-learning algorithms.

Methods:

In this study, the real emergency evacuation duration of 190 patients admitted to a hospital was predicted in a simulation based on the following 8 factors: the number of hospital floors, patient preparation and transfer time, distance to the safe location, as well as patient’s weight, age, sex, and movement capability. To design and validate the model, we used statistical models of machine learning, including Support Vector Machines Random Forest, Naive Bayes Classifier, and Artificial Neural Network.

Results:

Data analysis showed that based on the Area Under the Curve, precision, and sensitivity values of 99.5%, 92.4%, and 92.1%, respectively, the Random Forest model showed a better performance compared to other models for predicting the duration of hospital emergency evacuation during fire.

Conclusion:

Predicting evacuation duration can provide managers with accurate information and true analyses of these events. Therefore, health policy makers and managers can promote preparedness and responsiveness during fire by predicting evacuation duration and developing appropriate plans using machine learning models.
Platform work and access to social protection across major European countries
Authors: Sieker Felix
Published: October 2022

This paper is a first attempt to analyse the relationship between social protection systems and countries’ responses towards the regulation of platform work. It is argued that the degree of accessibility to social protection for self-employed workers is a predictor for how countries will deal with platform work. Countries that provide wide access to social protection for the self-employed tend to develop a more integrative response towards these work arrangements from a social protection perspective because the social protection of platform workers is a smaller policy challenge. On the other hand, in countries with a low degree of accessibility to social protection schemes, the response towards platform work is more confrontational. These responses are characterised by a larger number of court cases and legislative proposals because social protection for platform workers is a more pressing policy challenge and platform work arrangements are understood to be more antagonistic towards the respective social protection systems.
The propagation paths of fluid-driven fractures in layered and faulted rocks
Authors: Gudmundsson Agust
Published: October 2022

Fractures that form when fluid pressure ruptures the rock are referred to as fluid-driven fractures or hydrofractures. These include most dykes, inclined sheets and sills, but also many mineral veins and joints, as well as human-made hydraulic fractures. While considerable field and theoretical work has focused on the geometry and arrest of hydrofractures, how they select their propagation paths, particularly in layered and faulted rocks, has received less attention. Here I propose that of all the possible paths that a given hydrofracture may follow, it selects the path of least (minimum) action as determined by Hamilton’s principle. This means that the selected path is that along which the energy transformed (released) multiplied by the time taken for the propagation is a minimum. Hydrofractures advance their tips/fronts in steps, with a time lag between the fracture front and the fluid front. In the present framework, each step is then controlled by Hamilton’s principle. The results suggest that when the hosting rock body is regarded as homogeneous, isotropic and non-fractured, hydrofracture paths are everywhere perpendicular to the trajectories of the minimum compressive (maximum tensile) principal stress σ3 and follow the trajectories of the maximum principal compressive stress σ1. When applied to layered and faulted rock body, the results indicate that hydrofracture paths may follow existing faults for a while, depending primarily on (1) the dip of the fault (steep faults are the most likely to be used by vertically propagating hydrofractures), and (2) the tensile strength across the fault compared with the tensile strength of the host rock along a path following the direction of σ1. The results suggest that hydrofractures may use faults as parts of their paths primarily if the fault is steeply dipping and with close to zero tensile strength.
African Traditional Religion and moral philosophy
Authors: Molefe Motsamai , Maraganedzha Mutshidzi
Published: October 2022

The article provides a philosophical explication of an African religious moral philosophy. Often philosophers repudiate the view that African Traditional Religions (ATR) can embody a religious moral philosophy. Theologians, on the other hand, tend to believe that ATR can, but they often do not provide a systematic account of such an ethical system. The article demonstrates that ATR can embody an under-explored moral philosophy. ATR refers to indigenous religious ideas, beliefs, and practices of the indigenous people below the Sahara. The article will invoke the metaphysical and moral concept of vitality as the basis to construct an African religious moral philosophy. (It is worth noting that this article merely constructs, but it does not defend, this ethical system.) Vitality is the spiritual energy that originates, maximally inheres and defines God, and God has since distributed it to all that exists, albeit in varying degrees. By ‘moral philosophy’, the article focuses on (1) meta-ethics (it proffers a vitality-based account of the moral terms right and wrong); (2) normative theory (it expounds on the perfectionist and deontological principles of right action); and (3) applied ethics (it invokes a vitality-based conception of moral status to explore environmental ethics and select bioethical themes).
Exploring the associations between neighbourhood food environment, household food insecurity and child weight-related outcomes in socio-economically and racially/ethnically diverse families
Authors: Agarwal Sarthak , Fertig Angela R , Trofholz Amanda C , Tate Allan D , Robinson Jenna , Berge Jerica M
Published: October 2022

Objective:

To examine associations among neighbourhood food environments (NFE), household food insecurity (HFI) and child’s weight-related outcomes in a racially/ethnically diverse sample of US-born and immigrant/refugee families.

Design:

This cross-sectional, observational study involving individual and geographic-level data used multilevel models to estimate associations between neighbourhood food environment and child outcomes. Interactions between HFI and NFE were employed to determine whether HFI moderated the association between NFE and child outcomes and whether the associations differed for US-bornv. immigrant/refugee groups.

Setting:

The sample resided in 367 census tracts in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN metropolitan area, and the data were collected in 2016–2019.

Participants:

The sample was from theFamily Mattersstudy of families (n1296) with children from six racial/ethnic and immigrant/refugee groups (African American, Latino, Hmong, Native American, Somali/Ethiopian and White).

Results:

Living in a neighbourhood with low perceived access to affordable fresh fruits and vegetables was found to be associated with lower food security (P< 0·01), poorer child diet quality (P< 0·01) and reduced availability of a variety of fruits (P< 0·01), vegetables (P< 0·05) and whole grains in the home (P< 0·01). Moreover, residing in a food desert was found to be associated with a higher child BMI percentile if the child’s household was food insecure (P< 0·05). No differences in associations were found for immigrant/refugee groups.

Conclusions:

Poor NFE were associated with worse weight-related outcomes for children; the association with weight was more pronounced among children with HFI. Interventions aiming to improve child weight-related outcomes should consider both NFE and HFI.
Implementation of food education in school environments improves pupils’ eating patterns and social participation in school dining
Authors: Laitinen Aija L , Antikainen Amma , Mikkonen Santtu , Kähkönen Kaisa , Talvia Sanna , Varjonen Silja , Paavola Saila , Karhunen Leila , Tilles-Tirkkonen Tanja
Published: October 2022

Objective:

Schools can be an effective arena for food education. The Tasty School is a tailored teacher-driven food education model that provides tools for implementing food education in primary schools. This study aimed to investigate the effects of the Tasty School model on pupils’ eating patterns and experiences. We also aimed to assess the implementation strength of the Tasty School.

Design:

A quasi-experimental study was conducted during one school year 2019–2020 in fifteen intervention and ten control schools. The intervention schools implemented the Tasty School food education model. The pupils completed web-based baseline and follow-up questionnaires in class during a school day. The principals were interviewed after the intervention. The data were analysed using a mixed-effects model for repeated measures, accounting for the implementation strength and selected standardisation effects.

Setting:

A total of twenty-five general Finnish primary schools.

Participants:

1480 pupils from grades 3−6 (age 8–12 years) from five municipalities in Finland.

Results:

Percentages of pupils eating a balanced school meal increased in schools where food education was actively implemented (P = 0·027). In addition, pupils’ experience of social participation in school dining strengthened in schools where the Tasty School model was implemented (5-point scale mean from 2·41 to 2·61; P = 0·017).

Conclusions:

Healthy eating patterns can be promoted by the active implementation of food education in primary schools. The Tasty School model offers a promising tool for developing healthy eating patterns and increasing social participation among pupils not only in Finland, but also potentially in other countries as well.
Digital marketing of online food delivery services in a social media platform before and during COVID-19 pandemic in Brazil
Authors: Botelho Laís Vargas , Freitas Jade Veloso , Camara Alex Oliveira da , de Almeida Iasmim Ferreira , Gonçalves Thauanne de Souza , Horta Paula Martins , Canella Daniela Silva , Cardoso Letícia de Oliveira
Published: October 2022

Objective:

To describe the promotion of food and beverage and marketing strategies used by online food delivery services (OFDS) in a social media platform before and during the pandemic in Brazil.

Design:

Publicly available data were extracted from OFDS Instagram accounts. Posts published 6 months immediately before and after the first case of COVID-19 in Brazil were randomly sampled. Two independent authors coded the posts’ content. Food and beverage items featured in posts were classified according to the NOVA food system classification. Marketing strategies were coded according to protocols from previous studies.

Setting:

Top three OFDS Instagram accounts in Brazil.

Participants:

Posts published in the period studied (n 304).

Results:

During the pandemic, the proportion of posts featuring at least one food item decreased from 71·6 % to 40·2 %, and the proportion of ultra-processed foods decreased from 57·6 % to 27·9 %. Before the pandemic, the most widely used marketing strategies were branding elements (80·7 %), product imagery (unbranded) (48·9 %) and partnerships/sponsorship (35·2 %). While during the pandemic, branding elements (62·2 %) continued to be the most applied, but were followed by the use of videos/graphics interchange format/boomerangs (34·1 %) and corporate social responsibility (31·7 %). The most frequent COVID-19 marketing strategies were ‘social responsibility in the pandemic’ (30·5 %), ‘combatting the pandemic’ (28·0 %) and ‘accelerating digitalisation’ (20·7 %).

Conclusions:

OFDS advertisements on a social media platform placed less emphasis on food items, but improved the nutritional quality of foods and beverages featured in posts. A COVID-washing approach was highlighted, especially through the use of social responsibility marketing during the pandemic.