bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Template-induced crystallization of charged colloids: a molecular dynamics study
Authors: Ouyang Wenze , Zou Shuangyang , Zhong Jun , Xu Shenghua
Published: August 2023

Crystallization with different templates in charged colloids is studied in detail via large-scale MD simulations. Considering the crystal quality and growth rate, the fcc(100) template should better be used when the fcc phase is thermodynamically stable.
Atmospheric composition of WASP-85Ab with ESPRESSO/VLT observations
Authors: Jiang Zewen , Wang Wei , Chen Guo , Yan Fei , Cegla Heather M. , Rojo Patricio , Shi Yaqing , Ouyang Qinglin , Zhai Meng , Liu Yujuan , Zhao Fei , Chen Yuqin
Published: August 2023

Transit spectroscopy is the most frequently used technique to reveal the atmospheric properties of exoplanets. At high resolution, it has the added advantage of resolving the small Doppler shift of spectral lines and, thus, the trace signal of the exoplanet atmosphere can be extracted separately. We obtained the transmission spectra of the extrasolar planet WASP-85Ab, a hot Jupiter in a 2.655-day orbit around a G5, V = 11.2 mag host star, observed by the high-resolution spectrograph ESPRESSO at the Very Large Telescope array for three transits. We present an analysis of the Rossiter-McLaughlin (RM) effect on WASP-85A and determine a spin-orbit angle λ = −16.155°−2.879+2.916, suggesting that the planet is in a nearly aligned orbit. Combining the transmission spectra of three nights, we tentatively detected Hα and Call absorption with ⪆3σ via direct visual inspection of the transmission spectra with the center-to-limb variation and the Rossiter-McLaughlin effects removed; these absorptions still remain visible after excluding the cores of these strong lines with a 0.1Å mask. These spectral signals appear likely to have originated from the planetary atmosphere, but we cannot fully exclude a stellar origin. Via the cross-correlation analysis of a set of atoms and molecules, Li I is marginally detected at the ∼4σ level, suggesting that Li might be present in the atmosphere of WASP-85Ab.
Towards “glocalised” management of tuna stocks based on causation between a stock and its component belonging temporally to local Exclusive Economic Zones
Authors: Akia Sosthene Alban Valeryn , Amandè Monin Justin , Gaertner Daniel
Published: August 2023

The creation of Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) in 1982 gave coastal countries sovereignty over their local tuna resources, whereas the migratory nature of tuna calls for regional management. However, as regional tuna management by Regional Fisheries Management Organisations (RFMOs) does not always facilitate optimal management of local resources by coastal countries, there is a need for an approach that ensures both the achievement of regional management objectives and optimisation of local benefits, i.e., “glocalised” management. To promote “glocal” management measures for the local populations of highly migratory species, (1) the spatio-temporal VAST model was used to estimate abundance indices for the adult regional Eastern Atlantic yellowfin tuna population and its local component in Ivorian waters using catch and effort data and (2) convergent cross mapping was used to examine the causal relationship between changes in abundance at these different spatial scales over time. Convergent cross-mapping detected a causal relationship between general stock dynamics and local dynamics, in the direction from global stock abundances to local resource abundances. This implies that the success of local fishing was closely linked to the general state of the stock. Conversely, we found no evidence of a causal relationship in the direction from local resources to the regional stock. This suggests that local adult dynamics had little or no influence on overall stock dynamics. Based on these results, we propose several criteria to ensure fairer distribution of tuna resources between coastal states and distant water fleets (DWFs).
Green Innovation and Supply Chain Financing–Evidence from China
Authors: Liu Haiyue , Zhang Qin , Wang Cangyu , Manzoor Aqsa , Jiang Jie
Published: August 2023

Based on the stakeholder theory, this study investigates the relationship between green innovation and supply chain financing using the data of 3490 Chinese listed firms from 2012 to 2019. The results show that green innovation of firms could promote their supply chain financing. And the channel mechanism test indicates that green innovation could improve the peer recognition gained by firms from the industry, thus it would be more convenient for green-oriented firms to obtain financing along the supply chain, especially SOEs. Moreover, after launch of the Green Credit Guideline, the positive relationship between green innovation and supply chain financing became more significant. These findings remain consistent after robustness tests including instrumental variables (IV), propensity score matching (PSM) and replacing variable metrics. Further results present that green innovation in non-heavy pollution firms and firms with high-level environmental disclosure can significantly benefit supply chain financing. Our findings have important implications on how firms’ green efforts affect their short-time financing ability through the supply chain.
Research on The Evaluation Model of Symbiosis Degree in High-tech Industrial innovation Ecosystem-An Empirical Study Based on the Panel Data of China from 2012 to 2018
Authors: Tan Yan , Zhao Changyi , Yang Nan
Published: August 2023

On the basis of previous symbiotic analysis and research, the scientific and technological activities between symbiotic subjects are included into the evaluation index system of symbiotic network, and the high-tech industry innovation ecosystem evaluation model is established. The symbiosis degree was empirically measured using the entropy method with the data of high-tech industries in 32 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China from 2012 to 2018. Results showed that though a significant development of overall symbiosis degree has been seen, there are still significant differences in the development speed and stage among regional innovation ecosystems.
Tourist’s Environmentally Responsible behavior with a Focus on Water-energy-food Nexus Awareness: Evidence from College Students
Authors: Liu Ze , Zhao Wicky
Published: August 2023

Environmental issues caused by unsustainable tourism have increased fast, resulting in greater attention to tourists’ behavior contributing to ecotourism. With college students as the research object, this study explored the effects of values on tourist’s environmentally responsible behavior (TERB) by introducing the newly proposed water-energy-food nexus awareness into the Value-Belief-Norm (VBN) theory. Valid five-part questionnaires were analyzed from 799 Sichuan University students that included demographics, the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale, water-energy nexus awareness, water-food awareness and TERB. The correlation and regression analyses found that the biospheric and altruistic values orientations supported the NEP, but egoistic values did not, that water-energy nexus awareness and water-food nexus awareness were positively affected by the NEP and openness-to-change, and that openness-to-change, NEP, water-energy nexus awareness and water-food nexus awareness all had a positive effect on most TERB items except anti-waste ones. The potential role of CGBs to prevent college students from saving water, energy, and food when travelling was also highlighted. Caution should be exercised when accepting results about causality.
A Research on Hot Spots of Psychological Warning Based on Co-word Analysis and Visualization
Authors: Lin Wei , Tian Wenbo , Mo Ran , Zheng Mingyue
Published: August 2023

Offering reference for sustainable researches of psychological warning field by analyzing hotspots in it in the latest decade. 589 literatures relevant to psychological warning conformed to standard, were extracted keywords. Cooccurrence matrix and lexical matrix were exported by using python software, and the correlations among high frequency keywords were received by analyzing the combination between social network and semantic network which also drew the semantic network graph. The hierarchical clustering function was used to draw the high frequency keywords clustering analysis diagram, and the Eucidean range model was used to draw the two-dimensional scale analysis graph. The combination between co-word analysis and knowledge graph revealed, explored, and summarized the current research hotspots and their relationships in the field of psychological warning. Hotspots research showed the necessity of researches in the psychological warning field. The construction of psychological warning evaluation system and the analysis of key elements of psychological warning should be attached importance.
The Optimization of Emergency Logistics Based on Quantitative Risk Measurement
Authors: Deng Yanfei , Zhang Yixin , Xu Lei
Published: August 2023

High-risk societies are uncertain, ambiguous and unpredictable. Risk fluctuations are prone to the intertwining and overlapping of various accident hazards and safety risks. China is prone to the interweaving and overlapping of various accident hazards and safety risks, which leads to an increase in the number of factors affecting public safety as well [1]. Therefore, this paper will quantify specific ranking indicators in terms of frequency of hazards, degree of hazards and vulnerability to different hazards. The ranking is based on the quantified results in red, yellow and green and the hazard risk level is calculated according to the risk formula. This study will take the Chengdu-Chongqing region as an example and optimise the storage of materials in the emergency logistics base in order to maximise the precise and rapid supply of materials to the main demand points. The efficiency of emergency material deployment will be further improved and emergency materials will be well secured.
Pay Gap and Accounting Conservatism
Authors: Wang Liangcheng , Su Ting
Published: August 2023

This paper investigates the impact of the pay gap on accounting conservatism based on the basic data of A-share listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen from 2008 to 2020 by using multivariate linear regression model and OLS regression method, finding that the two are significantly negatively correlated. By introducing Confucian culture, this paper further explores the moderating role of Confucianism and finds that enterprises influenced by Confucian culture emphasize collectivism, which also increases the accounting conservatism. This paper expands the research of accounting conservatism and explains the relationship between the pay gap and accounting conservatism from the perspective of corporate governance and Confucian culture, encouraging companies to strengthen cultural construction and absorb the essence of Chinese traditional culture.
Perspectives of Severity in the Choice of Risk Management Techniques
Authors: Windapo Abimbola , Chiswanda Farai
Published: August 2023

This study examines the risk management practices prevalent in the South African construction industry. This was necessitated by ineffective risk management practices in the construction industry, particularly in developing countries such as South Africa. A comprehensive literature review was conducted to establish the risk management practices in use. The study adopted a quantitative research approach that employs an electronic questionnaire to contractors operating in South Africa. The findings suggest that the South African construction industry experiences ineffective risk management implementation, which is impacted by the perception of the risk severity. The study established that contractors face many risks, chief among them high competition in bids, political instability, payment delays, corruption and bribery and an overbearing influence of bureaucratic processes from government-aligned agencies. Furthermore, it was also established that risk management techniques used amongst South African contractors are largely informal with low implementation. It also emerged that risk management implementation is perceived to be an expensive venture that erodes the marginal profits contractors aim to make. Resultantly, risk management practices implementation is low among the contractors. The study recommends that public and private construction clients encourage adopting risk management practices linked to good practice and not based on perceptions of risk severity.
CSR Initiatives of Controlling Shareholder in Share Pledge Firms: Sustainable Orientation or Interim Plan?
Authors: Guo Ruining , Li Ziyang
Published: August 2023

This paper investigates the effects of share pledge by controlling shareholder on corporate social responsibility and the mechanism through which stock pledge affects CSR. Using a sample of Chinese listed firms from 2008 to 2020, we find that firms with pledging controlling shareholders are more likely to invest in corporate social responsibility (CSR) than other firms. Their CSR also perform better even when all pledge funds are invested to shareholders themselves rather than to the company’s operation. We then provide evidence to show that the motivating effect of stock pledge by controlling shareholder on CSR is related to controlling shareholder’s incentives to improve corporate value to prevent loss of corporate control and reduce the risk of stock price crash. These results consistently suggest that controlling shareholders employ corporate social responsibility as an effective way to reduce the risk of controlling right transfer.
Influence Mechanism of Multidimensional Structure of External Knowledge Search on Firm Performance: Based on Chinese Manu-facturing
Authors: Zhang Jianrong , Yang Xue , Rahman M Samiur , Zheng Chao
Published: August 2023

In the context of open innovation, the diversification of external innovation resources makes more and more enterprises choose to obtain new knowledge from the outside and search for external knowledge, so as to achieve the purpose of enterprise innovation and development, improve quality and increase efficiency. This paper discusses the different influences of the multidimensional spatial structure of external knowledge search on corporate financial performance and innovation performance. Through the empirical analysis of the knowledge search data of 2053 Chinese manufacturing listed companies, it is found that different external knowledge search structures have different effects on corporate performance. Compared with the three-dimensional development search structure, exploratory search in any dimension is not conducive to the improvement of corporate financial performance and innovation performance.
Study on The Supply Security of Fresh Products Under Public Health Emergencies
Authors: Lu Yi , Yu Lu , Gan Yutong , Wang Valerie Lynette
Published: August 2023

Strict control taken in response to public health emergencies (PHEs) can hinder fresh products supply, while stock-outs and the risk of epidemics can increase fresh products demand. To explore the interrelationship between outbreak control measures and the availability of fresh products, this paper establishes a dynamic synergistic model of epidemic transmission subsystem and fresh products supply-consumption subsystem based on system dynamics (SD). Taking the spread of COVID-19 in Shanghai from March to May 2022 as the actual background, the impact of different storage strategies and control measures on epidemic prevention and material supply was quantitatively evaluated. The results show that risk transmission factor (RTF) affects the number of infections and the intensity of community control contributes to controlling the spread of the epidemic, but it can continue to affect fresh product supply security. Therefore, increasing fresh product protection inputs and reducing in-transit time can reduce fresh product losses and improve fresh product supply security under PHEs. The findings can enable fresh products to effectively match supply and demand under PHEs, mitigate the impact of epidemic risks and provide decision support for relevant retailers.
Research on Current Situation, Problems and Countermeasures of Cross-border E-commerce between China and ASEAN under the RCEP Background
Authors: Zhang Lin , Zhang Jin
Published: August 2023

In recent years, the scale of cross-border E-commerce in China has developed rapidly. ASEAN is an important market of cross-border E-commerce in China. With the signing and entry into force of RCEP, the favorable factors such as the decline of raw materials, production costs and commodity prices of the contracting countries will bring many opportunities as well as a series of challenges to the development of cross-border E-commerce between China and ASEAN. How to grasp the new opportunities brought by RCEP to promote the high-quality development of cross-border E-commerce in China is an urgent problem to be solved. Therefore, based on the analysis of the current situation of cross-border E-commerce cooperation between China and ASEAN and the customer portraits of some ASEAN member countries based on data mining, this paper finds out the existing problems, and puts forward some solutions from the aspects of optimizing the supervision system, establishing overseas warehouses, carrying out precise marketing, and cultivating compound crossborder E-commerce talents, so as to provide targeted reference value and practical guiding significance for cross-border E-commerce for China to seize opportunities and meet challenges under the RCEP background.
Research on the Impact of E-commerce Live Broadcast on Consumer Purchase Behavior under Perceived Value
Authors: Hou Jiale , Chen Jingdong
Published: August 2023

With the advent of the Internet era, the new mode of live delivery of e-commerce has gradually entered the view of the audience. Live shopping through its strong interactivity, accurate transmission, content diversification, Quickly become the hottest online shopping mode. In this paper, through the relevant research on the impact of the live broadcast on on purchase behavior, a theoretical model reflecting live broadcast characteristics, perceived value and consumer purchase behavior is constructed and empirical research is carried out. The results show that the popularity, interactivity and personalized service of anchors in webcasts positively affects consumer purchase behavior; perceived value plays an intermediary role between live broadcast characteristics and purchase behavior.
Authority-enterprise Equilibrium Based Subsidy Policy for Natural Gas Hydrate Transportation Technology
Authors: Tang Min , Tian Yalou , Li Zongmin , Jiang Jiaxin , Liu Kexin
Published: August 2023

The continued rise in oil prices and environmental concerns have made natural gas (NG) one of the world’s most important energy sources. As populations and economies grow, the demand for natural gas is increasing due to the expansion of the industrial and commercial sectors, as well as increased household incomes. The potential for significant increases in natural gas supply to meet growing demand makes decisions at all strategic, tactical and operational levels necessary in building new or restructuring existing natural gas transportation systems. In this paper, the multi-objective optimization of natural gas hydrate (NGH) transportation is proposed as a tool for supporting regulatory decisions. Three objective functions are involved in the formulation of the problem: minimization of subsidy costs, maximization of energy utilization, and maximization of profit for each NGH plant. As part of the design parameters for the NGH project, the regulatory agency must consider the entrepreneur’s return on investment and the needs of current and future consumers. In the absence of an optimization tool, this problem may result in unfair gas prices or a lack of investor interest. With a continuous increase in natural gas consumption, the proposed analysis examines growing markets. The mixed subsidy mechanism was applied to a typical example in order to demonstrate the performance of the proposed approach.
Tourism Organizational Resilience to the Covid-19 Crisis: Evidence from Sichuan Province, China
Authors: Peng Junlin , Terry
Published: August 2023

Tourism is a significant contributor to economic growth in many countries, and especially in developing countries. However, the outbreak of the Covid-19 has resulted in a global economic crisis that has significantly impacted global tourism. As a result, the ability of tourism businesses to survive and recover in this turbulent business environment, that is, their resilience has attracted greater research attention. While there has been some researches on the resilience of tourism enterprises during the COVID-19 pandemic, very few empirical studies have focused on the impact of leadership on organizational resilience. Therefore, to empirically explore the influence mechanism of transformational leadership on tourism organizational resilience during the pandemic, a questionnaire was conducted on 302 tourism business owners and managers in Sichuan Province, China, in October 2022. The analysis revealed that transformational leadership positively influenced organizational resilience. The three dimensions group voice climate, organizational culture and organizational learning partially mediated the relationship between transformational leadership and organizational resilience. Perceived environmental uncertainty plays a positive moderating role in the relationship between transformational leadership, organizational culture and organizational learning. Several suggestions are given to enhance the resilience of tourism enterprises and accelerate industry recovery.
Cracking mechanism analysis and experimental verification of encapsulated module under high low temperature cycle considering residual stress
Authors: LI Yongzhi , HE Erming , CHEN Pengxiang , YIN Menghan
Published: August 2023

Aiming at the cracking failure of the modified epoxy resin encapsulated module as a result of interface failure under high low temperature cycles, numerical simulation and experimental studies were carried out. Firstly, the residual stress field in the encapsulated module was reconstructed after measuring the curing residual stresses in epoxy resin using the hole-drilling method. Temperature-dependent material models were developed after testing the mechanical and thermal characteristic parameters of encapsulated module components, such as modified epoxy resin, in high and low temperature conditions. Then, a finite element model of a high-reduction encapsulated module with multiple components, multiple interfaces, and complicated contacts was established considering residual stress and temperature effects. To simulate the failure behaviour of the resin-embedded part interfaces, the cohesive zone model was utilized. Finally, the stress and strain of the encapsulated module under high and low temperature cycles were simulated, and their distribution features and cracking failure mechanism were analyzed. The results indicate that regardless of the heating/cooling process, significant due to a mismatch in thermal expansion coefficients between the resin and the embedded parts. As the temperature approaches the glass transition temperature Tg, the difference grows dramatically. The resulting thermal stress, together with the residual stress, led to the interface failure in encapsulated module. The numerical results were in good agreement with the high and low temperature cycle test results of the encapsulated module, which verified the effectiveness of the analysis method and the established finite element model. The investigation provides an important reference for the high-reliability design of the encapsulation module.
Effect of bolt tightening torque on fatigue life of multi-bolted composite structure
Authors: DONG Jiachen , YANG Zhiyong , ZHENG Xitao , SONG Mingyu , YAN Leilei
Published: August 2023

Bolt tightening torque has an influence on the fatigue life of the multi-bolted joints which cannot be ignored, but there are few methods to predict the fatigue life of the multi-bolted composite structure by considering the bolt tightening torque. A fatigue life prediction method of the multi-bolted composite structure by considering the bolt tightening torque is proposed. It can take into account the various damages of bolts and laminates and accurately calculate fatigue life and damage evolution of multi-bolted composite structure. The multi-bolted composite structure being composed of T300/BMP-316 composite laminates and TC4 titanium alloy bolts is used to verify the present method. The logarithmic error between the predicted fatigue life and the experimental is 4.36%, and the failure mode is consistent with the experimental. Through the present method, the influence of the bolt tightening torque is explored, in which it is found that with the increasing of bolt tightening torque, the fatigue life increases firstly and decreases, and there is an optimal tightening torque. By observing the damage evolution diagram, it is found that when the tightening torque is below the optimal tightening torque, the damage propagation cannot be effectively restrained, which will lead to the reduction of fatigue life. On the contrary, when the tightening torque is more than the optimal tightening torque, it will cause the initial damage to the test piece, which will also lead to the reduction of fatigue life. In engineering, to choose the best tightening torque of the structure for assembly can effectively improve the fatigue life of the structure.
Research on obstacle avoidance motion planning method of manipulator in complex multi scene
Authors: SONG Yong , ZHANG Lei , TIAN Rong , WANG Xiaohua
Published: August 2023

In order to improve the efficiency and success rate of obstacle avoidance motion planning of industrial manipulator in complex multi scenes, a collision detection model between manipulator and obstacles based on cylinder and sphere bounding box is established, and an improved RRT*algorithm based on heuristic probability fusion artificial potential field method(P-artificial potential field RRT*, PAPF-RRT*) is proposed. The probability target bias and random sampling point optimization strategy are introduced into the sampling, and the location optimization constraints are applied to the sampling points to enhance the sampling guidance and quality. In order to change the expansion direction of the traditional new node and the local optimization problem in special environment, the target gravity, obstacle repulsion and adaptive step size of the artificial potential field method are combined, so that the algorithm can guide the expansion direction and step size of the new node in real time within the resultant force range generated by APF, reducing excessive exploration and the expansion of the collision region. The Cubic B-spline is used to interpolate and optimize the planned path to reduce the complexity of the path and improve the flexibility of the path. The simulation results in two-dimensional and three-dimensional multi scenes show that the present algorithm reduces the average path search time by 31.22% and shortens the path length by 17.32% comparing with the traditional RRT*algorithm. The visual simulation results show that the present algorithm can make the manipulator successfully avoid obstacles and run to the target point quickly and smoothly.
A time-frequency feature prediction network for time-varying radio frequency interference
Authors: WAN Pengcheng , FENG Weike , TONG Ningning , WEI Wei
Published: August 2023

The time-varying radio frequency interference has strong nonlinear dynamic characteristics, which is difficult to be predicted by linear method effectively, making the anti-interference decision without sufficient information support. To solve this problem, a recurrent neural network for spectrum prediction based on time-frequency correlation features is proposed. A sliding window is used to characterize the two-dimensional correlation of time-frequency series, and the spectrum prediction problem is transformed into a problem similar to spatiotemporal sequence prediction. A gradient bridge structure across time frames is added to reduce the attenuation of the gradient in the long time and multi-level network propagation. The training efficiency and network performance are improved by the loss function with better matching. Simulation and experimental results verify the validity of the network prediction results.
Hydrodynamic performance study of manta ray gliding in groups
Authors: GAO Pengcheng , HUANG Qiaogao , SONG Dong , PAN Guang , MA Yunlong
Published: August 2023

To investigate the effect of group gliding formation on the hydrodynamic performance of manta rays, numerical simulations were used to investigate the drag, the lift and pressure distribution of multiple manta rays in tandem, triangular and diamond-shaped arrangements. The simulation results show that the leader manta ray at the head of the group always suffers the least drag, and in most cases, the companion manta ray at the tail of the group suffers the most drag. The pressure distribution in the flow field shows that the drag reduction effect mainly comes from the distribution of high pressure and low pressure zones among the individual rays in the cluster, the high pressure zone is beneficial to the manta rays at the front of the group, and under certain circumstances, the presence of low pressure zone generates forward suction to reduce the drag of the manta rays at the end of the group. It is found that when manta rays glide in "two in front and one at the back", four-body diamond, six-body tandem and six-body diamond arrangement, the average drag of the system can be reduced, which provides theoretical guidance for the formation of bionic vehicle groups.
The strategic interaction between business mode and store brand introduction in a platform-based supply chain
Authors: Zhou Jianheng , Ji Yajie
Published: August 2023

The phenomenon of store brands introduced by large-scale platforms is becoming common, and manufacturers should carefully choose the business mode of selling national brand (NB) products via platforms. Considering big-data marketing, we examine the sales mode selection in a platform-based supply chain based on the strategic interaction between the business mode decision and store brand decision. By continuous dynamic game theory, the strategies and performance under different modes are solved. We find that given the store brand (SB) decision, the business mode adopted by the manufacturer depends only on the commission rate, which is high for reselling and low for agency selling. Given the business mode, under reselling, whether the platform introduces SB depends only on the brand preference, i.e., SB is introduced when the preference for NB is low. While under agency, he introduces SB in the general or relatively passive situation, depending both on the commission rate and the brand preference. In addition, four equilibrium sales modes are obtained based on the strategic interaction. In order to achieve a win-win-win situation in profitability among the manufacturer, the platform and the platform-based supply chain, the manufacturer should adopt agency selling and the platform forgoes introducing SB when both the commission rates and NB preference are low.
Functional Nasal Surgery in a Compromised Soft Tissue Envelope
Authors: Dunn Brandyn S. , Madorsky Simon
Published: August 2023

Functional nasal surgery in the setting of a compromised soft tissue envelope (STE) requires significant planning and preparation. Proper preoperative evaluation is imperative to assess the degree of STE compromise and determine the best surgical approach. Alternative approaches to functional nasal surgery, such as limited access surgical approaches, should be considered to minimize complications while achieving functional improvement. Given the increased risk of ischemia and necrosis in individuals with a history of a compromised STE, a comprehensive postoperative treatment algorithm is necessary to identify and treat signs of early vascular compromise.
The transhistorical, transcultural life of sausages: From medieval morescas to New Mexican Matachines with Aby Warburg
Authors: Drury Lindsey
Published: August 2023

New Mexican Matachines dances have long been discussed as descendent dances of medieval morescas. This article explores this ‘ancestral relation’, beginning on New Year’s Day in 1896 at the colonial outpost of Cubero, New Mexico. There, the German art historian Aby Warburg met a local shepherd who endeavoured to explain the pantomimic killing of a bull in the dance drama by saying the blood was ‘good for making sausages.’ Accordingly, this article investigates Warburg’s lifelong exploration of Matachines antecedents in the margins of his research on early Italian Renaissance images of medieval festive drama, and ‘headhuntress’ figures, such as Judith and Salome. Warburg’s thoughts on New Mexican Matachines meandered over the course of his life from Aztec sacrifice to medieval morescas, to the Mithras cult. Through these explorations, Warburg pursued a cultural evolutionary theory that would situate New Mexican Matachines as a descendent of antique pagan blood ceremony.
Changes in patterns of age-related network connectivity are associated with risk for schizophrenia
Authors: Passiatore Roberta , Antonucci Linda A. , DeRamus Thomas P. , Fazio Leonardo , Stolfa Giuseppe , Sportelli Leonardo , Kikidis Gianluca C. , Blasi Giuseppe , Chen Qiang , Dukart Juergen , Goldman Aaron L. , Mattay Venkata S. , Popolizio Teresa , Rampino Antonio , Sambataro Fabio , Selvaggi Pierluigi , Ulrich William ,   Apulian Network on Risk for Psychosis, Weinberger Daniel R. , Bertolino Alessandro , Calhoun Vince D. , Pergola Giulio
Published: August 2023

Alterations in fMRI-based brain functional network connectivity (FNC) are associated with schizophrenia (SCZ) and the genetic risk or subthreshold clinical symptoms preceding the onset of SCZ, which often occurs in early adulthood. Thus, age-sensitive FNC changes may be relevant to SCZ risk-related FNC. We used independent component analysis to estimate FNC from childhood to adulthood in 9,236 individuals. To capture individual brain features more accurately than single-session fMRI, we studied an average of three fMRI scans per individual. To identify potential familial risk–related FNC changes, we compared age-related FNC in first-degree relatives of SCZ patients mostly including unaffected siblings (SIB) with neurotypical controls (NC) at the same age stage. Then, we examined how polygenic risk scores for SCZ influenced risk-related FNC patterns. Finally, we investigated the same risk-related FNC patterns in adult SCZ patients (oSCZ) and young individuals with subclinical psychotic symptoms (PSY). Age-sensitive risk-related FNC patterns emerge during adolescence and early adulthood, but not before. Young SIB always followed older NC patterns, with decreased FNC in a cerebellar–occipitoparietal circuit and increased FNC in two prefrontal–sensorimotor circuits when compared to young NC. Two of these FNC alterations were also found in oSCZ, with one exhibiting reversed pattern. All were linked to polygenic risk for SCZ in unrelated individuals (R2varied from 0.02 to 0.05). Young PSY showed FNC alterations in the same direction as SIB when compared to NC. These results suggest that age-related neurotypical FNC correlates with genetic risk for SCZ and is detectable with MRI in young participants.
Vector fiber Bragg gratings accelerometer based on silicone compliant cylinder for low frequency vibration monitoring
Authors: Hu 胡 Wenyu 文玉 , Chen 陈 Zhuo 卓 , You 尤 Jiangshan 江山 , Wang 王 Ruohui 若晖 , Zhou 周 Rui 锐 , Qiao 乔 Xueguang 学光
Published: August 2023

Vector accelerometer has attracted much attention for its great application potential in underground seismic signal measurement. We propose and demonstrate a novel vector accelerometer based on the three fiber Bragg gratings (FBGs) embedded in a silicone rubber compliant cylinder at 120° distributed uniformly. The accelerometer is capable of detecting the orientation of vibration with a range of 0°–360° and the acceleration through monitoring the central wavelength shifts of three FBGs simultaneously. The experimental results show that the natural frequency of the accelerometer is about 85 Hz, and the sensitivity is 84.21 pm/g in the flat range of 20 Hz–60 Hz. Through experimental calibration, the designed accelerometer can accurately obtain vibration vector information, including vibration orientation and acceleration. In addition, the range of resonant frequency and sensitivity can be expanded by adjusting the hardness of the silicone rubber materials. Due to the characteristics of small size and orientation recognition, the accelerometer can be applied to low-frequency vibration acceleration vector measurement in narrow spaces.
Modeling of surface damage at the Si/SiO2-interface of irradiated MOS-capacitors
Authors: Akchurin N. , Altopp G. , Burkle B. , Frey W.D. , Heintz U. , Hinton N. , Hoeferkamp M. , Kazhykarim Y. , Kuryatkov V. , Mengke T. , Peltola T. , Seidel S. , Spencer E. , Tripathi M. , Voelker J.
Published: August 2023

Surface damage caused by ionizing radiation in SiO2 
passivated silicon particle detectors consists mainly of the
accumulation of a positively charged layer along with
trapped-oxide-charge and interface traps inside the oxide and close
to the Si/SiO2-interface. High density positive interface net
charge can be detrimental to the operation of a multi-channel
 n-on-p sensor since the inversion layer generated under the
Si/SiO2-interface can cause loss of position resolution by
creating a conduction channel between the electrodes. In the
investigation of the radiation-induced accumulation of oxide charge
and interface traps, a capacitance-voltage characterization study of
n/γ- and γ-irradiated Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor (MOS)
capacitors showed that close agreement between measurement and
simulation were possible when oxide charge density was complemented
by both acceptor- and donor-type deep interface traps with densities
comparable to the oxide charges. Corresponding inter-strip
resistance simulations of a n-on-p sensor with the tuned oxide
charge density and interface traps show close agreement with
experimental results. The beneficial impact of radiation-induced
accumulation of deep interface traps on inter-electrode isolation
may be considered in the optimization of the processing parameters
of isolation implants on n-on-p sensors for the extreme
radiation environments.
Reduction of radioactive impurities in liquid scintillator by using metal scavengers
Authors: Kamei Y. , Shimizu I. , Teraoka Y. , Yamamura T. , Shirasaki K.
Published: August 2023

Development of radio-purification for the large-volume
liquid scintillator detector is a key to enhance search
sensitivities in neutrino physics. In this paper, we describe
laboratory studies on the radio-purification of the liquid
scintillator detector by using the metal scavenger, aiming at the
improved search for the neutrinoless double beta decay in
KamLAND-Zen. In the purification tests, the 210Pb reduction
efficiency was evaluated. Based on the purification performance in
small-scale system, we designed a large adsorption column for the
metal scavenging applicable to the KamLAND purification system. We
produced the column and constructed a purification test bench, and
confirmed the 212Pb reduction efficiency, the process speed,
the LS contamination and quality changes, and the stability of
chemical components in the Xe-LS. We found that the metal scavenging
is a practical method for the large-volume LS purification, and will
be effective to reduce metallic radioactive elements.
Total economic costs of climate change at different discount rates for market and non-market values
Authors: Oda Takahiro , Takakura Jun’ya , Tang Longlong , Iizumi Toshichika , Itsubo Norihiro , Ohashi Haruka , Kiguchi Masashi , Kumano Naoko , Takahashi Kiyoshi , Tanoue Masahiro , Tamura Makoto , Zhou Qian , Hanasaki Naota , Hasegawa Tomoko , Park Chan , Hijioka Yasuaki , Hirabayashi Yukiko , Fujimori Shinichiro , Honda Yasushi , Matsui Tetsuya , Matsuda Hiroyuki , Yokoki Hiromune , Oki Taikan
Published: August 2023

What will be the aggregated cost of climate change in achieving the Paris Agreement, including mitigation, adaptation, and residual impacts? Several studies estimated the aggregated cost but did not always consider the critical issues. Some do not address non-market values such as biodiversity and human health, and most do not address differentiating discount rates. In this study, we estimate the aggregated cost of climate change using an integrated assessment model linked with detailed-process-based climate impact models and different discount rates for market and non-market values. The analysis reveals that a climate policy with minimal aggregated cost is sensitive to socioeconomic scenarios and the way discount rates are applied. The results elucidate that a lower discount rate to non-market value—that is, a higher estimate of future value—makes the aggregated cost of achieving the Paris Agreement economically reasonable.
KOMPUTE: imputing summary statistics of missing phenotypes in high-throughput model organism data
Authors: Warkentin Coby , O’Connell Michael J , Lee Donghyung
Published: August 2023

Motivation

The International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium (IMPC) is striving to build a comprehensive functional catalog of mammalian protein-coding genes by systematically producing and phenotyping gene-knockout mice for almost every protein-coding gene in the mouse genome and by testing associations between gene loss-of-function and phenotype. To date, the IMPC has identified over 90 000 gene–phenotype associations, but many phenotypes have not yet been measured for each gene, resulting in largely incomplete data; ∼75.6% of association summary statistics are still missing in the latest IMPC summary statistics dataset (IMPC release version 16).

Results

To overcome these challenges, we propose KOMPUTE, a novel method for imputing missing summary statistics in the IMPC dataset. Using conditional distribution properties of multivariate normal, KOMPUTE estimates the association Z-scores of unmeasured phenotypes for a particular gene as a conditional expectation given the Z-scores of measured phenotypes. Our evaluation of the method using simulated and real-world datasets demonstrates its superiority over the singular value decomposition matrix completion method in various scenarios.

Availability and implementation

An R package for KOMPUTE is publicly available at https://github.com/statsleelab/kompute, along with usage examples and results for different phenotype domains at https://statsleelab.github.io/komputeExamples.
ggpicrust2: an R package for PICRUSt2 predicted functional profile analysis and visualization
Authors: Yang Chen , Mai Jiahao , Cao Xuan , Burberry Aaron , Cominelli Fabio , Zhang Liangliang
Published: August 2023

Microbiome research is now moving beyond the compositional analysis of microbial taxa in a sample. Increasing evidence from large human microbiome studies suggests that functional consequences of changes in the intestinal microbiome may provide more power for studying their impact on inflammation and immune responses. Although 16S rRNA analysis is one of the most popular and a cost-effective method to profile the microbial compositions, marker-gene sequencing cannot provide direct information about the functional genes that are present in the genomes of community members. Bioinformatic tools have been developed to predict microbiome function with 16S rRNA gene data. Among them, PICRUSt2 (Phylogenetic Investigation of Communities by Reconstruction of Unobserved States) has become one of the most popular functional profile prediction tools, which generates community-wide pathway abundances. However, no state-of-art inference tools are available to test the differences in pathway abundances between comparison groups. We have developed ggpicrust2, an R package, for analyzing functional profiles derived from 16S rRNA sequencing. This powerful tool enables researchers to conduct extensive differential abundance analyses and generate visually appealing visualizations that effectively highlight functional signals. With ggpicrust2, users can obtain publishable results and gain deeper insights into the functional composition of their microbial communities.

Availability and implementation

The package is open-source under the MIT and file license and is available at CRAN and https://github.com/cafferychen777/ggpicrust2. Its shiny web is available at https://a95dps-caffery-chen.shinyapps.io/ggpicrust2_shiny/.
MIX-TPI: a flexible prediction framework for TCR–pMHC interactions based on multimodal representations
Authors: Yang Minghao , Huang Zhi-An , Zhou Wei , Ji Junkai , Zhang Jun , He Shan , Zhu Zexuan
Published: August 2023

Motivation

The interactions between T-cell receptors (TCR) and peptide-major histocompatibility complex (pMHC) are essential for the adaptive immune system. However, identifying these interactions can be challenging due to the limited availability of experimental data, sequence data heterogeneity, and high experimental validation costs.

Results

To address this issue, we develop a novel computational framework, named MIX-TPI, to predict TCR–pMHC interactions using amino acid sequences and physicochemical properties. Based on convolutional neural networks, MIX-TPI incorporates sequence-based and physicochemical-based extractors to refine the representations of TCR–pMHC interactions. Each modality is projected into modality-invariant and modality-specific representations to capture the uniformity and diversities between different features. A self-attention fusion layer is then adopted to form the classification module. Experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of MIX-TPI in comparison with other state-of-the-art methods. MIX-TPI also shows good generalization capability on mutual exclusive evaluation datasets and a paired TCR dataset.

Availability and implementation

The source code of MIX-TPI and the test data are available at: https://github.com/Wolverinerine/MIX-TPI.
Short-read aligner performance in germline variant identification
Authors: Wilton Richard , Szalay Alexander S
Published: August 2023

Motivation

Read alignment is an essential first step in the characterization of DNA sequence variation. The accuracy of variant-calling results depends not only on the quality of read alignment and variant-calling software but also on the interaction between these complex software tools.

Results

In this review, we evaluate short-read aligner performance with the goal of optimizing germline variant-calling accuracy. We examine the performance of three general-purpose short-read aligners—BWA-MEM, Bowtie 2, and Arioc—in conjunction with three germline variant callers: DeepVariant, FreeBayes, and GATK HaplotypeCaller. We discuss the behavior of the read aligners with regard to the data elements on which the variant callers rely, and illustrate how the runtime configurations of these software tools combine to affect variant-calling performance.