bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
An agency mapping of marginalized communities and aid providers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia
Authors: Nungsari Melati , Hui Yin Chuah , Fong Nicole , Pillai Veena
Published: January 2022

Background: Given the urgent need for help amongst vulnerable populations throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, civil society organizations (CSOs) and members have stepped up to provide support for impacted communities. The process of responding to these urgent needs reflects the agency and resilience of civil society members in accessing or providing resources. There is still a lack of understanding of how human agency is exercised in the context of power imbalances. Such an understanding is important not only for creating an effective and inclusive aid delivery mechanisms but also improving preparedness for future public health and economic crises.

Methods: This study utilizes Albert Bandura’s social cognitive theory to comprehensively map the agency landscape of aid providers and marginalized populations during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia. Assuming that these populations’ main goals are access to aid while providers’ main goals are to provide aid, this study categorizes the different modes of agency involved and highlights environmental facilitators and constraints for each of these groups in achieving their goals. Data was collected through in-depth interviews with 34 participants. Using a hermeneutic content analysis based on a sample of 824 textual excerpts from the interviews, we explore the relationship between each component of the agency landscape to understand the relationships between them.

Results: We find that marginalized populations are often unable to achieve their goals despite clear intentions to survive. Additionally, we find that proxy agency is problematic for marginalized populations and characterize why this is the case.

Conclusions: Finally, we present policy recommendations which prioritise marginalized populations and their needs, while removing barriers to accessing aid.
Who’s Afraid of the Werewolf? An Imagological View of Kitzberg’s Play
Authors: Niinre Anneli
Published: January 2022

Abstract. The archetypal fear of the other and the idea that it is safer to hold on to the familiar are the central topics discussed in one of the best plays in Estonian literature Libahunt (The Werewolf, 1912) by August Kitzberg (1855– 1927). Although the play was written at the beginning of the 20th century, it is still open to interpretation and has not lost its relevance. It is a play about conflict between values: the Tammaru family is conservative and afraid of strangers, of foreign blood, while one of their foster children Tiina is a free spirit whose appearance and nature is different from the family. She is not one of the villagers, she is an outsider and the family and the villagers are afraid of her. This stranger is seen as mysterious and dangerous – she is said to be a werewolf – and the xenophobic village casts her out. Using imagology as a theoretical basis, the article concentrates on the aspect of the foreigner and on fear of the other.
CZASOPIŚMIENNICTWO DLA DZIECI I MŁODZIEŻY W POLSCE STAN BADAŃ I PERSPEKTYWY BADAWCZE
Authors: Falkowska Joanna
Published: January 2022

Czasopisma dla dzieci i młodzieży poszerzają wiedzę młodych czytelników,wpływając na ich osobowość, ale także dostarczają rozrywki. Ponadto polskie czasopiśmiennictwo skierowane do najmłodszych odbiorców często miało związek ze szkołą, co wyrażało się doborem tematycznym treści, skorelowanych z programem nauczania w poszczególnych klasach. Czasem także pisma te swoimi treściami wychodziły daleko poza program szkolny. W wielu środowiskach skupiały wokół siebie liczne grupy młodzieży, tworząc grupy literacko-samokształceniowe, ułatwiały proces samodzielnego myśleniai twórczego działania, budziły aktywność kulturalną i intelektualną. Prasa wpływała również na kształtowanie postaw obywatelskich, a nawet politycznych i światopoglądowych. Celem tego raportu z badań jest wskazanie najważniejszych prac dotyczących zagadnienia tytułowego, ważnych tekstów poświęconych wybranym periodykom lub też przedsięwzięć wydawniczych, które odegrały znaczącą rolę w kształtowaniu młodych odbiorców. Ponadto zwrócono też uwagę na możliwe do podjęcia pola badawcze w związku z zagadnieniem tytułowym.
Przegląd metod wizualizacji wiarygodności dawnych map pod względem dokładności geometrycznej na przykładzie mapy Śląska Cieszyńskiego
Authors: Kuźma Maria
Published: January 2022

W artykule dokonano przeglądu sposobów wizualizacji wyników oceny wiarygodności dawnych map pod kątem możliwości ich zautomatyzowania. Badanie wykonano na przykładzie mapy Le Duche de Cieszyn (Teschen) Silesie, z zasobu pozostałego po konferencji pokojowej kończącej pierwszą wojnę światową. Oceniono formy prezentacji wyników, oferowane przez twórców aplikacji MapAnalyst, QGIS oraz ArcMap i ArcScene z pakietu ArcGIS. Otrzymane obrazy oceniono pod kątem możliwości interpretacyjnych, tj. wyobrażenia sobie na ich podstawie stopnia deformacji powierzchni i odległości na mapie przez odbiorców niekorzystających na co dzień z kartograficznych metod prezentacji. Wskazano siatkę zniekształceń i wizualizację 3D sumy błędów odległości jako najbardziej użyteczne.
The Effect of Medicaid Expansion on Wait Time in the Emergency Department
Authors: Wang Guihua
Published: January 2022

We study the effect of Medicaid expansion on wait time in the emergency department (ED), using a difference-in-differences approach, where the treatment group includes the states that expanded Medicaid at the beginning of 2014 and the control group includes the states that did not expand Medicaid before 2016. We first focus on the average treatment effect and find that Medicaid expansion increases ED wait time by 10.4% (or 3.5 minutes). We then develop a first-difference causal forest (FDCF) approach for heterogeneous treatment-effect analysis by incorporating the first-difference approach into the causal forest approach. Our comprehensive simulation studies show that the FDCF approach has smaller mean-squared errors than direct applications of the causal forest approach. Finally, we apply the FDCF approach to our empirical example and find that the effect of Medicaid expansion varies widely across different hospitals. Our results are useful to policymakers deciding whether to expand Medicaid and to hospital managers seeking to understand the effect of Medicaid expansion on their hospitals. Our results are also useful to researchers applying causal machine learning methods for heterogeneous treatment-effect analysis.

This paper was accepted by Stefan Scholtes, healthcare management.
Distribution-Free Pricing
Authors: Chen Hongqiao , Hu Ming , Perakis Georgia
Published: January 2022

Problem definition: We study a monopolistic robust pricing problem in which the seller does not know the customers’ valuation distribution for a product but knows its mean and variance. Academic/practical relevance: This minimal requirement for information means that the pricing managers only need to be able to answer two questions: How much will your targeted customers pay on average? To measure your confidence in the previous answer, what is the standard deviation of customer valuations? Methodology: We focus on the maximin profit criterion and derive distribution-free upper and lower bounds on the profit function. Results: By maximizing the tight profit lower bound, we obtain the optimal robust price in closed form as well as its distribution-free, worst-case performance bound. We then extend the single-product result to study the robust pure bundle pricing problem where the seller only knows the mean and variance of each product, and we provide easily verifiable, distribution-free, sufficient conditions that guarantee the pure bundle to be more robustly profitable than à la carte (i.e., separate) sales. We further derive a distribution-free, worst-case performance guarantee for a heuristic scheme in which customers choose between buying either a single product or a pure bundle. Moreover, we generalize separate sales and pure bundling to a scheme called clustered bundling that imposes a price for each part (i.e., cluster) of a partition of all products and allows customers to choose one or multiple parts (i.e., clusters), and we provide various algorithms to compute clustered bundling heuristics. In parallel, most of our results hold for the minimax relative regret criterion as well. Managerial implications: The robust price for a single product is in closed form under the maximin profit or minimax relative regret criterion and hence, is easily computable. Its interpretation can be easily explained to pricing managers. We also provide efficient algorithms to compute various mixed bundling heuristics for the multiproduct problem.
Participation and conflict in the formation of neighbourhood areas and forums in ‘super-diverse’ cities
Authors: Colomb Claire
Published: January 2022

This chapter evaluates whether neighbourhood planning has the potential to bring about more inclusive forms of public participation in and engagement with planning, or, on the contrary, to stir up social conflict. Neighbourhood planning ‘assumes a latent willingness and capacity within local communities to engage in plan-making and/or that these capacities can be developed’. Yet, these assumptions cannot be taken for granted, in particular, in towns and cities with a very diverse population in ethnic, class, and socio-economic terms. The chapter focuses on London and specifically discusses the first steps of the neighbourhood planning process: the formation of neighbourhood forums, their application for recognition by local planning authorities (in London, the borough councils) and, once formally designated, their initial outreach activities as part of the evidence-gathering process for the drafting of a neighbourhood plan. It addresses the following questions: who gets involved in neighbourhood planning processes, where and with what agenda (and who does not)? What specific tensions and politics emerge in the process of neighbourhood forum formation and application for recognition, and how do local authorities deal with these?
Introduction
Authors: Panke Diana , Stapel Sören , Starkmann Anna
Published: January 2022

This chapter reviews the literature on comparative regionalism and identifies major insights as well as gaps. One of the gaps in state- of- the- art research is the lack of a comprehensive comparative analysis of the patterns and trajectories of RO development over a long period of time that includes all ROs and all policy areas. This book fills this gap by providing a comprehensive analysis of how ROs developed in different parts of the world with respect to their member state composition and policy scope. After summarizing the major contributions, Chapter 1 ends with a brief outline of the structure of the book.
Conceptual Framework and Measurement
Authors: Panke Diana , Stapel Sören , Starkmann Anna
Published: January 2022

Chapter 2 introduces the conceptual framework of the book as well as the dataset used and accompanying measurement decisions.
The first part explains why the focus on policy competencies and membership can have important ramifications for the operation of ROs as these characteristics affect the potential reach of RO activities and decisions as well as the ability to arrive at such collective outcomes in the fi rst place. Based on the two dimensions, RO competencies (policy scope) and membership (size), the section presents a two- by- two typology of ROs. There are small selective ROs, which only have a few competencies and are also small in size, ROs with many member states but only a few policy competencies
(large selective ROs), small ROs with many competencies (small encompassing ROs), and large encompassing ROs, which combine many member states with a broad policy scope. This typology is used in the subsequent chapters to illustrate differences and similarities between ROs and developments over time as well as between regions.
The second part of Chapter 2 introduces the Regional Organizations’ Competencies (ROCO) datasets.
Regional Organizations in Asia
Authors: Panke Diana , Stapel Sören , Starkmann Anna
Published: January 2022

Chapter 6 focuses on regionalism in Asia. Asian ROs have been created with a delay, as regionalism in Asia only took off at the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s and developed incrementally over time with respect to membership size and policy scopes. Asia lacks an RO with continental reach and in some sub- regions there are no ROs at all, most notably in North- East Asia. Moreover, in Asia, ROs place emphasis mainly on economy and trade, as well as technology and infrastructure policies, and states are reluctant to equip their ROs with encompassing policy scopes. Accordingly, Asian ROs started mainly as small selective ones and still predominately resemble this type by 2015.
Regional Organizations in Europe
Authors: Panke Diana , Stapel Sören , Starkmann Anna
Published: January 2022

Chapter 7 discusses the trajectories of RO development in Europe. Although regional cooperation started early in Europe, it is the region with the lowest absolute number of ROs and with the highest share of ROs that have lost member states over time. Nevertheless, European ROs tend to be large in size and many of them have broad policy scopes. European regionalism has long been influenced by the Cold War, resulting in separate patterns of regional cooperation in East and West. After the end of the Cold War, some ROs, such as the EU, underwent enlargement processes, leading to state membership from Eastern and Western Europe. There are two waves of regionalism with respect to RO policy competencies. Within European ROs, economy and trade policy competencies are most prevalent, while in global comparison European ROs are champions in the field of security and defence. European Ros mainly reflect the small selective and the small encompassing type in 2015. Nevertheless, the share of ROs that shifted between types over time is highest in Europe.
Wideband sparse signal acquisition with ultrahigh sampling compression ratio based on continuous-time photonic time stretch and photonic compressive sampling
Authors: Yang Bo , Xu Qing , Yang Shuna , Chi Hao
Published: January 2022

In this paper, an approach to realizing wideband sparse signal acquisition with an ultrahigh sampling compression ratio based on continuous-time photonic time stretch (CT-PTS) and photonic compressive sampling (PCS) is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. In the system, a wideband sparse signal is slowed down in the time domain by a CT-PTS module and then down-sampled and reconstructed by a random-demodulator-based PCS scheme in which random mixing is realized with a pseudo-random binary sequence. Virtual time gating based on wavelength-to-time mapping and wavelength division multiplexing is used to realize CT-PTS to increase the length of the sampling window and finally improve the performance of PCS. In addition, single sideband modulation is employed to solve the problem of dispersion-induced power fading in PTS and therefore increase the bandwidth of the system. Due to the techniques of CT-PTS and PCS, wideband sparse signals can be acquired with sampling rates far below the Nyquist rate of the original signal. In the experiment, a sparse signal within 2–40 GHz bandwidth is successfully recovered with a sampling rate of 800 MS/s, which means a sampling compression ratio as high as 100.
Consequences of non-differentiable angular dispersion in optics: tilted pulse fronts versus space-time wave packets
Authors: Hall Layton A. , Abouraddy Ayman F.
Published: January 2022

Conventional diffractive and dispersive devices introduce angular dispersion (AD) into pulsed optical fields, thus producing so-called ‘tilted pulse fronts’. Naturally, it is always assumed that the functional form of the wavelength-dependent propagation angle[s] associated with AD is differentiable with respect to wavelength. Recent developments in the study of space-time wave packets – pulsed beams in which the spatial and temporal degrees of freedom are inextricably intertwined – have pointed to the existence of non-differentiable AD: field configurations in which the propagation angle does not possess a derivative at some wavelength. Here we investigate the consequences of introducing non-differentiable AD into a pulsed field and show that it is the crucial ingredient required to realize group velocities that deviate from c (the speed of light in vacuum) along the propagation axis in free space. In contrast, the on-axis group velocity for conventional pulsed fields in free space is always equal to c. Furthermore, we show that non-differentiable AD is needed for realizing anomalous or normal group-velocity dispersion along the propagation axis, while simultaneously suppressing all higher-order dispersion terms. We experimentally verify these and several other consequences of non-differentiable AD using a pulsed-beam shaper capable of introducing AD with arbitrary spectral profile. Non-differentiable AD is not an exotic phenomenon, but is rather an accessible, robust, and versatile resource for sculpting pulsed optical fields.
Polarization selective ultra-broadband wavelength conversion in silicon nitride waveguides
Authors: Ayan Arman , Mazeas Florent , Liu Junqiu , Kippenberg Tobias J. , Brès Camille-Sophie
Published: January 2022

We experimentally demonstrate broadband degenerate continuous-wave four-wave mixing in long silicon nitride (Si3N4) waveguides for operation both in the telecommunication L-band and the thulium band near 2 µm by leveraging polarization dependence of the waveguide dispersion. Broadband conversion is typically demonstrated in short milimeter long waveguides as the bandwidth is linked to the interaction length. This makes it challenging to simultaneously push bandwidth and efficiency, imposing stringent constraints on dispersion engineering. In this work, we show conversion bandwidths larger than 150 nm in the L-band when pumping in the transverse magnetic (TM) mode and larger than 120 nm at 2 µm when using transverse electric excitation, despite the use of 0.5 m long waveguides. In addition, we also show how extreme polarization selectivity can be leveraged in a single waveguide to enable switchable distant phase-matching based on higher-order dispersion. Relying on this approach, we demonstrate the selective conversion of light from the telecom band to the O-band for TM polarization or to the mid-infrared light up to 2.5 µm in TE. Our experiments are in excellent agreement with simulations, showing the high potential of the platform for broadband and distant conversion beyond the telecom band.
Image quality enhancement of transparent waveguide display using a twisted nematic mode polymer-stabilized liquid crystal
Authors: Tseng Heng-Yi , Lin Kuan-Wu , Chang Li-Min , Lu Guan-Yu , Li Cheng-Chang , Wang Sheng-Wen , Cheng Ko-Ting , Lin Tsung-Hsien
Published: January 2022

In this study, a twisted nematic mode polymer-stabilized liquid crystal (TN mode PSLC) integrated with a crossed polarizer was used to create a transparent waveguide display. When a voltage was applied, the PSLC scattered the waveguide light with a high polarization selectivity such that no substantial loss of the outgoing light intensity was observed after integrating the polarizer. However, with a crossed polarizer, in the ON state, the background light was not only scattered but also absorbed by the analyzer. Using this device configuration, with a 12 µm cell gap and 7% monomer concentration, we successfully realized a normally transparent waveguide display. The contrast ratio of the waveguide outgoing light was 26 and that of the undesired background reached 90. This device can display images due to waveguide edge-lit light scattering and simultaneously block the background information to improve the image quality.
Propagation of Bessel-correlated specular and antispecular beams
Authors: Das Dipanjan , Halder Atri , Partanen Henri , Koivurova Matias , Turunen Jari
Published: January 2022

We address the specular properties of Bessel-correlated fields, generated by illuminating a tilted rotating plane-parallel glass plate with a coherent Gaussian beam and passing the output beam though a mirror-based wavefront folding interferometer. This device allows us to produce beams whose specular properties are preserved in propagation. In the far zone, the specular nature of these partially coherent fields is shown to produce intensity-profile oscillations in the sub-diffraction-limit scale. The analytical results at various propagation distances are verified experimentally by using another wavefront-folding interferometer for coherence measurements.
Design of an achromatic optical polarization-insensitive zoom metalens
Authors: Zhou Hongwei , Cao Ziyu , Wang Zixiang , Yang Zhenyu
Published: January 2022

A diffractive lens based on metasurfaces has many advantages such as flatness, small aberrations, and compactness. The focal length can be adjusted by changing the lateral displacement between a pair of conjugate metasurfaces while fixing their axial distance, thereby forming a very compact zoom lens. However, chromatic aberration of diffractive optical elements restricts this system to working at one wavelength. This Letter proposes a metalens design method based on novel three-layer polarization-insensitive nanoposts, which can improve transmission amplitude and satisfy the achromatic zoom function with wavelengths ranging from 1310 nm to 1550 nm. The focal length can be adjusted from 31.2 µm to 19.8 µm, corresponding to extremal wavelength-dependent focal length relative deviation of 8.98%. This achromatic zoom metalens design method could have applications in various fields including augmented reality and integrated optical systems.
Rotational echo spectroscopy for accurate measurement of molecular alignment
Authors: Wang Pu , He Lixin , He Yanqing , Hu Jianchang , Sun Siqi , Lan Pengfei , Lu Peixiang
Published: January 2022

We measure the molecular alignment induced in gas using molecular rotational echo spectroscopy. Our results show that the echo intensity and the time interval between the local extremas of the echo responses depend sensitively on the pump intensities and the initial molecular rotational temperature, respectively. This allows us to accurately extract these experimental parameters from the echo signals and then further determine the molecular alignment in experiments. The accuracy of our method has been verified by comparing the simulation with the extracted parameters from the molecular alignment experiment performed with a femtosecond pump pulse.
CRBPDL: Identification of circRNA-RBP interaction sites using an ensemble neural network approach
Authors: Niu Mengting , Zou Quan , Lin Chen
Published: January 2022

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are non-coding RNAs with a special circular structure produced formed by the reverse splicing mechanism. Increasing evidence shows that circular RNAs can directly bind to RNA-binding proteins (RBP) and play an important role in a variety of biological activities. The interactions between circRNAs and RBPs are key to comprehending the mechanism of posttranscriptional regulation. Accurately identifying binding sites is very useful for analyzing interactions. In past research, some predictors on the basis of machine learning (ML) have been presented, but prediction accuracy still needs to be ameliorated. Therefore, we present a novel calculation model, CRBPDL, which uses an Adaboost integrated deep hierarchical network to identify the binding sites of circular RNA-RBP. CRBPDL combines five different feature encoding schemes to encode the original RNA sequence, uses deep multiscale residual networks (MSRN) and bidirectional gating recurrent units (BiGRUs) to effectively learn high-level feature representations, it is sufficient to extract local and global context information at the same time. Additionally, a self-attention mechanism is employed to train the robustness of the CRBPDL. Ultimately, the Adaboost algorithm is applied to integrate deep learning (DL) model to improve prediction performance and reliability of the model. To verify the usefulness of CRBPDL, we compared the efficiency with state-of-the-art methods on 37 circular RNA data sets and 31 linear RNA data sets. Moreover, results display that CRBPDL is capable of performing universal, reliable, and robust. The code and data sets are obtainable athttps://github.com/nmt315320/CRBPDL.git.
Alleviation of temperature stress in maize by integration of foliar applied growth promoting substances and sowing dates
Authors: Afzal Irfan , Imran Shakeel , Javed Talha , Tahir Ayesha , Kamran Muhammad , Shakeel Qamar , Mehmood Khalid , Ali Hayssam M. , Siddiqui Manzer H.
Published: January 2022

Temperature is a key factor influencing plant growth and productivity, but its sudden rise can cause severe consequences on crop performances. Early sowing and application of growth promoting agents as a foliar spray can be a sustainable approach to cope with high temperature stress at grain filling stage of cereal crops. Therefore, a test was designed to explore the potential of different growth helping agents including sorghum water extract (SWE, 10 ml L-1), moringa leaf extract (MLE, 3%), hydrogen peroxide (H2O2, 2 μM), salicylic acid (SA, 50 mg L-1) and ascorbic acid (ASA, 50 mg L-1) as foliar agents at different sowing dates (early and optimum) to cope with temperature stress in maize. The results stated that foliar application of growth promoting substances successfully persuaded high temperature tolerance at reproductive phase of maize in early and optimum sowings when compared to control. However, SWE + ASA, MLE + H2O2 and SWE + ASA + SA + H2O2 were the best combinations for improving growth, development, and physiological variables under both sowing dates even under suboptimal temperature. All foliar applications significantly increased maize grain and biological yields while maximum was observed in SWE + ASA followed by SWE + ASA + SA + H2O2 or MLE + H2O2 that were statistically at par with ASA + SA + H2O2 but plants without spray or distilled water application did not improve grain and biological yields. Overall, the foliar applications of growth promoting substances enable the plant to enhance its growth, development, morphology, yield and biochemical variables.
Leading causes of death and high mortality rates in an HIV endemic setting (Kisumu county, Kenya, 2019)
Authors: Waruru Anthony , Onyango Dickens , Nyagah Lilly , Sila Alex , Waruiru Wanjiru , Sava Solomon , Oele Elizabeth , Nyakeriga Emmanuel , Muuo Sheru W. , Kiboye Jacqueline , Musingila Paul K. , van der Sande Marianne A. B. , Massawa Thaddeus , Rogena Emily A. , DeCock Kevin M. , Young Peter W.
Published: January 2022

Background

In resource-limited settings, underlying causes of death (UCOD) often are not ascertained systematically, leading to unreliable mortality statistics. We reviewed medical charts to establish UCOD for decedents at two high volume mortuaries in Kisumu County, Kenya, and compared ascertained UCOD to those notified to the civil registry.

Methods

Medical experts trained in COD certification examined medical charts and ascertained causes of death for 456 decedents admitted to the mortuaries from April 16 through July 12, 2019. Decedents with unknown HIV status or who had tested HIV-negative >90 days before the date of death were tested for HIV. We calculated annualized all-cause and cause-specific mortality rates grouped according to global burden of disease (GBD) categories and separately for deaths due to HIV/AIDS and expressed estimated deaths per 100,000 population. We compared notified to ascertained UCOD using Cohen’s Kappa (κ) and assessed for the independence of proportions using Pearson’s chi-squared test.

Findings

The four leading UCOD were HIV/AIDS (102/442 [23.1%]), hypertensive disease (41/442 [9.3%]), other cardiovascular diseases (23/442 [5.2%]), and cancer (20/442 [4.5%]). The all-cause mortality rate was 1,086/100,000 population. The highest cause-specific mortality was in GBD category II (noncommunicable diseases; 516/100,000), followed by GBD I (communicable, perinatal, maternal, and nutritional; 513/100,000), and III (injuries; 56/100,000). The HIV/AIDS mortality rate was 251/100,000 population. The proportion of deaths due to GBD II causes was higher among females (51.9%) than male decedents (42.1%; p = 0.039). Conversely, more men/boys (8.6%) than women/girls (2.1%) died of GBD III causes (p = 0.002). Most of the records with available recorded and ascertained UCOD (n = 236), 167 (70.8%) had incorrectly recorded UCOD, and agreement between notified and ascertained UCOD was poor (29.2%; κ = 0.26).

Conclusions

Mortality from infectious diseases, especially HIV/AIDS, is high in Kisumu County, but there is a shift toward higher mortality from noncommunicable diseases, possibly reflecting an epidemiologic transition and improving HIV outcomes. The epidemiologic transition suggests the need for increased focus on controlling noncommunicable conditions despite the high communicable disease burden. The weak agreement between notified and ascertained UCOD could lead to substantial inaccuracies in mortality statistics, which wholly depend on death notifications.
Results of a phase 1, randomized, placebo-controlled first-in-human trial of griffithsin formulated in a carrageenan vaginal gel
Authors: Teleshova Natalia , Keller Marla J. , Fernández Romero José A. , Friedland Barbara A. , Creasy George W. , Plagianos Marlena G. , Ray Laurie , Barnable Patrick , Kizima Larisa , Rodriguez Aixa , Cornejal Nadjet , Melo Claudia , Cruz Rodriguez Gearoff , Mukhopadhyay Sampurna , Calenda Giulia , Sinkar Shweta U. , Bonnaire Thierry , Wesenberg Asa , Zhang Shimin , Kleinbeck Kyle , Palmer Kenneth , Alami Mohcine , O’Keefe Barry R. , Gillevet Patrick , Hur Hong , Liang Yupu , Santone Gabriela , Fichorova Raina N. , Kalir Tamara , Zydowsky Thomas M.
Published: January 2022

HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is dominated by clinical therapeutic antiretroviral (ARV) drugs. Griffithsin (GRFT) is a non-ARV lectin with potent anti-HIV activity. GRFT’s preclinical safety, lack of systemic absorption after vaginal administration in animal studies, and lack of cross-resistance with existing ARV drugs prompted its development for topical HIV PrEP. We investigated safety, pharmacokinetics (PK), pharmacodynamics (PD), and immunogenicity of PC-6500 (0.1% GRFT in a carrageenan (CG) gel) in healthy women after vaginal administration. This randomized, placebo-controlled, parallel group, double-blind first-in-human phase 1 study enrolled healthy, HIV-negative, non-pregnant women aged 24–45 years. In the open label period, all participants (n = 7) received single dose of PC-6500. In the randomized period, participants (n = 13) were instructed to self-administer 14 doses of PC-6500 or its matching CG placebo (PC-535) once daily for 14 days. The primary outcomes were safety and PK after single dose, and then after 14 days of dosing. Exploratory outcomes were GRFT concentrations in cervicovaginal fluids, PD, inflammatory mediators and gene expression in ectocervical biopsies. This trial is registered with ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT02875119. No significant adverse events were recorded in clinical or laboratory results or histopathological evaluations in cervicovaginal mucosa, and no anti-drug (GRFT) antibodies were detected in serum. No cervicovaginal proinflammatory responses and no changes in the ectocervical transcriptome were evident. Decreased levels of proinflammatory chemokines (CXCL8, CCL5 and CCL20) were observed. GRFT was not detected in plasma. GRFT and GRFT/CG in cervicovaginal lavage samples inhibited HIV and HPV, respectively, in vitro in a dose-dependent fashion. These data suggest GRFT formulated in a CG gel is a safe and promising on-demand multipurpose prevention technology product that warrants further investigation.
Exploiting three-dimensional human hepatic constructs to investigate the impact of rs174537 on fatty acid metabolism
Authors: Kirk L. Madison , Waits Charlotte Mae K. , Bashore Alexander C. , Dosso Beverly , Meyers Allison K. , Renaldo Antonio C. , DePalma Thomas J. , Simms Kelli N. , Hauser Nathaniel , Chuang Key Chia-Chi , McCall Charles E. , Parks John S. , Sergeant Susan , Langefeld Carl D. , Skardal Aleksander , Rahbar Elaheh
Published: January 2022

The Modern Western Diet has been associated with the rise in metabolic and inflammatory diseases, including obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. This has been attributed, in part, to the increase in dietary omega-6 polyunsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) consumption, specifically linoleic acid (LA), arachidonic acid (ARA), and their subsequent metabolism to pro-inflammatory metabolites which may be driving human disease. Conversion of dietary LA to ARA is regulated by genetic variants near and within the fatty acid desaturase (FADS) haplotype block, most notably single nucleotide polymorphism rs174537 is strongly associated with FADS1 activity and expression. This variant and others within high linkage disequilibrium may potentially explain the diversity in both diet and inflammatory mediators that drive chronic inflammatory disease in human populations. Mechanistic exploration into this phenomenon using human hepatocytes is limited by current two-dimensional culture models that poorly replicate in vivo functionality. Therefore, we aimed to develop and characterize a three-dimensional hepatic construct for the study of human PUFA metabolism. Primary human hepatocytes cultured in 3D hydrogels were characterized for their capacity to represent basic lipid processing functions, including lipid esterification, de novo lipogenesis, and cholesterol efflux. They were then exposed to control and LA-enriched media and reproducibly displayed allele-specific metabolic activity of FADS1, based on genotype at rs174537. Hepatocytes derived from individuals homozygous with the minor allele at rs174537 (i.e., TT) displayed the slowest metabolic conversion of LA to ARA and significantly reduced FADS1 and FADS2 expression. These results support the feasibility of using 3D human hepatic cultures for the study of human PUFA and lipid metabolism and relevant gene-diet interactions, thereby enabling future nutrition targets in humans.
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) seroprevalence, cervical HPV prevalence, genotype distribution and cytological lesions in solid organ transplant recipients and immunocompetent women in Sao Paulo, Brazil
Authors: Miyaji Karina Takesaki , Infante Vanessa , Picone Camila de Melo , Levi José Eduardo , Oliveira Ana Carolina Soares de , Lara Amanda Nazareth , Tacla Maricy , Dillner Joakim , Kann Hanna , Eklund Carina , Castanheira Cristina Paula , Mayaud Philippe , Sartori Ana Marli Christovam ,   the Study group on HPV vaccine in immunosuppressed persons
Published: January 2022

Introduction

Solid organ transplant (SOT) recipients are at increased risk of Human Papillomavirus (HPV) persistent infection and disease. This study aimed to evaluate HPV seroprevalence, cervical HPV prevalence, genotype distribution, and frequency of HPV-related cervical lesions in SOT recipients in comparison to immunocompetent women.

Methods

Cross-sectional study including SOT and immunocompetent women aged 18 to 45 years who denied previous HPV-related lesions. Cervical samples were screened for HPV-DNA by a polymerase chain reaction (PCR)-based DNA microarray system (PapilloCheck®) and squamous intraepithelial lesions (SIL) by liquid-based cytology. A multiplexed pseudovirion-based serology assay (PsV-Luminex) was used to measure HPV serum antibodies.

Results

125 SOT and 132 immunocompetent women were enrolled. Cervical samples were collected from 113 SOT and 127 immunocompetent women who had initiated sexual activity. HPV-DNA prevalence was higher in SOT than in immunocompetent women (29.6% vs. 20.2%,p= 0.112), but this difference was not statistically significant. High-risk (HR)-HPV was significantly more frequent in SOT than in immunocompetent women (19.4% vs. 7.9%,p= 0.014). Simultaneous infection with ≥2 HR-HPV types was found in 3.1% of SOT and 0.9% of immunocompetent women. HPV seropositivity for at least one HPV type was high in both groups: 63.8% of 105 SOT and 69.7% of 119 immunocompetent women (p= 0.524). Low-grade (LSIL) and high-grade SIL (HSIL) were significantly more frequent in SOT (9.7% and 5.3%, respectively) than in immunocompetent women (1.6% and 0.8%, respectively) (p= 0.001).

Conclusions

These results may reflect the increased risk of HPV persistent infection and disease progression in SOT women due to chronic immunosuppression.
Effects of integrative neuromuscular training intervention on physical performance in elite female table tennis players: A randomized controlled trial
Authors: Xiong Jinfeng , Li Shangxiao , Cao Aibin , Qian Lei , Peng Bo , Xiao Dandan
Published: January 2022

Objectives

To investigate the effects of integrative neuromuscular training (INT) on physical performance in elite female table tennis players.

Methods

Twenty-four Chinese elite female table tennis players were randomized into either INT (n = 12) group or control group (CON; n = 12). INT group performed four INT sessions every week for 8 weeks, while CON group performed traditional physical fitness training. One repetition maximal (1RM), vertical jump, Y balance test and 30-meter sprinting performance were tested before and after intervention.

Results

No between groups differences were detected for any tests before intervention. Significant group by time (before or after intervention) interaction effects were observed in 1RM, vertical jump, bilateral lower limb reaching distance at posteromedial and posterolateral directions, and right leg at the anterior direction for the Y balance test (all p < 0.05), but not for the left leg at the anterior direction or the 30-meter sprinting performance (both p > 0.05). Post-hoc analysis for measurements with significant interactions revealed that all significant changes were at the ING group (all p < 0.05), while no changes for the CON group were observed (all p > 0.05).

Conclusion

Eight weeks INT significantly improved strength, power and balance in Chinese elite female table tennis players. Adopting INT in table tennis players may improve their physical performance and lead to better sports performance.
Costume as a shared sensorial experience
Authors: Hrga Iztok , Frumen Tjaša
Published: January 2022

This research report discusses the creation of a costume for the spectator that stimulates sensorial experiences of internalized feelings. Under the project title Sense my Thoughts, we constructed two wearable prototypes: one for the performer and the other one for the spectator. Wearable electronics embedded both in the performer’s and the spectator’s garments allow the spectator to become directly connected with the performer’s emotional experience through costume. This enables the spectators to identify with the onstage character through a personal connection and immerse themselves in the performance on a multi-sensorial level. The goal of our practice-as-research was to design wearables that measure and transmit the performer’s biometric data in a sensorial format, which the spectator would be able to feel on/in their own body in real time. We assembled one garment that captures performer’s input data, such as brainwaves, heartbeat and breathing, and interpret them as different emotional states. We then connected it wirelessly to another garment that we named the spectator’s costume, which receives the performer’s data and activates hidden vibrational motors, speakers, heaters and coolers as various combinations of physical stimuli. In this article, we focus on the latter garment and explain how the spectator’s costume can become an agent of the wearer’s empathic engagement through stimulating the suggestion of the performer’s embodied experiences. The work presented here is still in an early stage of development and, therefore, the conclusions are based on small-scale prototype research.
Publicness beyond the public sphere
Authors: Mateus Samuel
Published: January 2022

This paper contends the public sphere is a restrictive approach to public action. Despite the dysphoric development of the public sphere in post-modern societies, public action and communicative activity can easily be discerned if one recognizes that rational-critical deliberation is not the exclusive means to exercise it.I propose to separate what is an historical and idealized construct – the public sphere – from the socio-anthropological principle – publicness. The former consubstantiates a specific normative principle of legitimate political decision-making, as well as a peculiar space of communication and an ensemble of specific publics. The latter cannot be reduced to the strict formulation of the public sphere. Publicness is, first of all, a matter of cohesion and consensus on values in a society, reached through a communicative process that occurs in almost every social interaction. It does not absolutely depend on a capital Public or on a public sphere model to emerge and be felt by all members of a society.By tracing a brief panorama in the three main models of the public sphere (Habermas, Arendt, Negt & Kluge’s models), the paper suggests going beyond the public sphere by envisioning publicness as a socio-anthropological principle characterized as being an empirical reality, as being pre-political and pre-institutional, as well as a process linked to social imaginaries.
„Fedon” Mosesa Mendelssohna i jego recepcja w Polsce
Authors: Mróz Tomasz
Published: January 2022

The paper discusses Moses Mendelssohn’s work Phaedo and its Polish translation which was published in 1829 by Jakub Tugendhold. Although this book did not exert impact on Polish philosophy, Tugendhold, the translator, aimed to use Mendelssohn’s biography and his Phaedo as an instructive example for those representatives of Jewish community who wanted to free themselves from isolation and undergo social and economic, though not religious, assimilation into their Polish and Christian surrounding. Moreover, the author briefly compares Plato’s and Mendelssohn’s Phaedos.
Rhythmicity of Prefrontal Local Field Potentials after Nucleus Basalis Stimulation
Authors: Singh Balbir , Qi Xue-Lian , Blake David T. , Constantinidis Christos
Published: January 2022

The action of acetylcholine in the cortex is critical for cognitive functions and cholinergic drugs can improve functions such as attention and working memory. An alternative means of enhancing cholinergic neuromodulation in primates is the intermittent electrical stimulation of the cortical source of acetylcholine, the nucleus basalis (NB) of Meynert. NB stimulation generally increases firing rate of neurons in the prefrontal cortex, however its effects on single neurons are diverse and complex. We sought to understand how NB stimulation affects global measures of neural activity by recording and analyzing local field potentials (LFPs) in monkeys as they performed working memory tasks. NB stimulation primarily decreased power in the alpha frequency range during the delay interval of working memory tasks. The effect was consistent across variants of the task. No consistent modulation in the delay interval of the task was observed in the gamma frequency range, which has previously been implicated in the maintenance of working memory. Our results reveal global effects of cholinergic neuromodulation via deep brain stimulation, an emerging intervention for the improvement of cognitive function.
Performance-Dependent Consolidation of Learned Vocal Changes in Adult Songbirds
Authors: Tachibana Ryosuke O. , Lee Dahyun , Kai Kazuki , Kojima Satoshi
Published: January 2022

Motor skills learned through practice are consolidated at later time, which can include nighttime, but the time course of motor memory consolidation and its underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. We investigated neural substrates underlying motor memory consolidation of learned changes in birdsong, a tractable model system for studying neural basis of motor skill learning. Previous studies in male zebra finches and Bengalese finches have demonstrated that adaptive changes in adult song structure learned through a reinforcement paradigm are initially driven by a cortical-basal ganglia circuit, and subsequently consolidated into downstream cortical motor circuitry. However, the time course of the consolidation process, including whether it occurs offline during nighttime or online during daytime, remains unclear and even controversial. Here, we provide in both species experimental evidence of virtually no consolidation of learned vocal changes during nighttime. We demonstrate instead that the consolidation occurs during daytime and the amount of consolidation is strongly correlated with the amount of learning, suggesting online, performance-dependent mechanisms of consolidation of learned vocal changes. Moreover, by using computer simulations based on our experimental results, we demonstrate that such online, performance-dependent consolidation can account for the contradicting conclusions concerning the time course of consolidation process reached by previous studies. These results thus reconcile a controversy in the study of vocal motor consolidation in songbirds, and illustrate the neural substrates through which newly learned motor skills initially implemented by cortical-basal ganglia circuits become encoded in the cortical motor circuitry.

SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENTMotor skills learned through repetitive practice become stable and are consolidated into cortical motor circuits. We investigate neural substrates of this “motor memory consolidation” in adult songbirds, which produce songs that are complex motor skills learned and maintained through repetitive vocal practice. We demonstrate that learned changes in song acoustic structure are consolidated into the cortical motor circuits predominantly during daytime, but not during nighttime, depending on ongoing song performance. These consolidation mechanisms reconcile seemingly contradicting results of previous studies regarding the time course of vocal learning consolidation, and provide fundamental insights into the process through which learned performance of complex motor skills is consolidated and encoded in in motor circuits.
Comparison of Speech Quality and Intelligibility Assessments in University Classrooms
Authors: Prodeus Arkadiy , Didkovska Maryna , Kukharicheva Kateryna
Published: January 2022

Estimates of speech quality and intelligibility for three university classrooms of small, medium and large sizes are presented. The quality and intelligibility of speech were assessed by objective methods using binaural room impulse responses, measured at 5-6 points of the premises. The measures of speech quality were log-spectral distortion (LSD), bark spectral distortion (BSD) and perceptual evaluation of speech quality (PESQ), and the objective measure of speech intelligibility was the speech transmission index (STI).
Among the quality measures considered, only BSD is shown to be highly correlated with STI measures for all three classrooms. In this case, correlation coefficient R varies from minus 0.6 for a small room to minus 0.98 for a large room. The close relationship between PESQ and STI is observed only in the case of a large classroom (R = 0.96-0.99), and the LSD measure was found to be uncorrelated with STI for premises of all sizes. The obtained results can serve as a justification for the use of BSD instead of STI, and vice versa, in the acoustic examination of classrooms of different sizes.