bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Near-Earth Object Observations using Synthetic Tracking
Authors: Zhai Chengxing , Shao Michael , Saini Navtej , Choi Philip , Evans Nez , Trahan Russell , Nazli Kutay , Zhan Max
Published: March 2024

Synthetic tracking (ST) has emerged as a potent technique for observing fast-moving near-Earth objects (NEOs), offering enhanced detection sensitivity and astrometric accuracy by avoiding trailing loss. This approach also empowers small telescopes to use prolonged integration times to achieve high sensitivity for NEO surveys and follow-up observations. In this study, we present the outcomes of ST observations conducted with Pomona College’s 1 m telescope at the Table Mountain Facility and JPL’s robotic telescopes at the Sierra Remote Observatory. The results showcase astrometric accuracy statistics comparable to stellar astrometry, irrespective of an object’s rate of motion, and the capability to detect faint asteroids beyond 20.5th magnitude using 11 inch telescopes. Furthermore, we detail the technical aspects of data processing, including the correction of differential chromatic refraction in the atmosphere and accurate timing for image stacking, which contribute to achieving precise astrometry. We also provide compelling examples that showcase the robustness of ST even when asteroids closely approach stars or bright satellites cause disturbances. Moreover, we illustrate the proficiency of ST in recovering NEO candidates with highly uncertain ephemerides. As a glimpse of the potential of NEO surveys utilizing small robotic telescopes with ST, we present significant statistics from our NEO survey conducted for testing purposes. These findings underscore the promise and effectiveness of ST as a powerful tool for observing fast-moving NEOs, offering valuable insights into their trajectories and characteristics. Overall, the adoption of ST stands to revolutionize fast-moving NEO observations for planetary defense and studying these celestial bodies.
Premodern Multilingual Arabo-Islamicate Poetics
Authors: Gould Rebecca Ruth
Published: March 2024

Arabo-Islamicate poetics can be divided into three rubrics: philosophical aesthetics, balāgha (rhetoric, poetics, stylistics), and paratextual commentary. Philosophical aesthetics encompasses the writings of al-Fārābī Ibn Sīnā, Ibn Rushd, and Naṣīr al-Dīn Ṭūsī, who creatively adapted the Aristotelian tradition to Islamic learning. Balāgha encompasses indigenous literary discourses and originated in an effort to delineate the aesthetic dimensions of the Qur’ān while using poetry to prove the Qurʾān’s inimitability (iʿjāz). The paratextual tradition encompasses commentaries, anthologies, and other forms of literary history.

The models of literary criticism first articulated in Arabic within these frameworks inspired multilingual poetics that spanned the Islamic world. Often alongside their work in Arabic, critics and rhetoricians writing in Persian, Hebrew, Ottoman, Chaghatay, and many other types of literature took Arabic genres and literary norms as templates for theorizing poetics in their respective literature. Hence, the scope of Arabo-Islamicate poetics is broader than the history of the Arabic language and encompasses a range of Islamic literary cultures, extending from Delhi to al-Andalus and from Baghdad to the Malay Archipelago.
Climate Change and Coastal Processes in the Baltic Sea
Authors: Soomere Tarmo
Published: March 2024

Various manifestations of climate change have led to complicated patterns of reactions of the Baltic Sea shores to varying hydrodynamic drivers. The northern and western bedrock and limestone coasts of this young water body experience postglacial uplift that is faster than the global sea-level rise. These coastal segments are thus insensitive with respect to changes in hydrodynamic forcing. Sedimentary and easily erodible coasts of the westernmost, southern, and eastern shores of this water body evolve under the impact of relative sea-level rise, changing wave properties and gradual loss of sea ice in conditions of chronic deficit of fine sediment.

Several classic features of coastal processes, such as the cut-and-fill cycle of beaches, are substantially modified in many coastal sections. Waves approaching the shore systematically at large angles drive massive alongshore sediment transport in many coastal segments. This transport has led to the development of large sand spits and many relict lakes separated from the sea by coastal barriers. The concept of closure depth is reinterpreted because of frequent synchronization of strong waves and elevated water levels.

The gradual loss of sea ice cover endangers most seriously coastal systems around the latitudes of the Gulf of Finland (about 60°N). The combined influence of climatically controlled sea-level rise and intense wave action leads to a gradual increase in eroding sections and the acceleration of coastal retreat on the southern downlifting shores of Poland and Germany. The bidirectional wind forcing has created a delicate balance of sediment on the shores of Latvia and Lithuania. This balance is vulnerable with respect to changes in strong wind directions. The sedimentary shores of Estonia host a number of small beaches that are geometrically protected against typical strong wind directions but are sensitive with respect to storms from unusual directions. Numerical analysis of sediment transport patterns along the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea has identified major changes in the wave directions in the Baltic Proper that can be attributed to manifestations of climate change.
Climate Change and Corporate Strategies
Authors: Wright Christopher , Nyberg Daniel , Bowden Vanessa
Published: March 2024

Corporations play a central role in the political economy of climate change. Since the Industrial Revolution, corporations have been the major producers of carbon emissions. More specifically, companies within the fossil-fuel sector have over time hampered action and legislation to mitigate climate change. Through public relations and corporate political activities, the fossil-fuel sector has implemented strategies to deny the science of climate change and delay urgent action to mitigate its worst effects. However, national governments and international organizations also turn to corporations for innovative solutions to address a worsening climate crisis, and in recent years many corporations have engaged with this issue to a greater degree, emphasizing strategic concern for climate change in terms of risk and opportunity. Key examples include companies developing “green” technologies and products, eco-efficiency initiatives, the uptake of renewable energy, and an increased awareness of the physical risk of climate-induced extreme weather events threatening operations and infrastructure. This has included corporate commitments to “net-zero” emissions by, for example, 2050. However, the long-term timeframes and lack of detail of these commitments indicate that this strategy is foremost geared toward delaying a transition to alternative economic organizations that are better equipped to deal with decarbonization. These corporate commitments to future change constitute a form of “predatory delay” in defending current practice and appealing to the idea that systemic government intervention is not needed. Overall, corporations have promoted the idea that climate change as a problem of excessive consumption can be solved by further consumption, albeit framed within the innovative capacities of “greener” business and technological innovation.
Experimental Methods in Criminology
Authors: Simpson Rylan
Published: March 2024

Experimental methods have been a hallmark of the scientific enterprise since its inception. Over time, experiments have become much more sophisticated, complex, and nuanced. Experiments have also become much more diverse, and their use within research settings has expanded from the physical sciences to the social sciences, including criminology.

Within criminology, experimental methods can manifest in the form of laboratory experiments, field experiments, and quasi-experiments, each of which present their own strengths and weaknesses. Experimental methods can also be applied in the context of between-subject and within-subject paradigms, both of which exhibit unique characteristics and implications. Experimental methods—as a research method—are unique in their ability to help establish causal relationships among variables. This article introduces the topic of experimental methods in criminology, with a specific focus on the subfield of policing.
Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893)
Authors: Walusinski Olivier
Published: March 2024

Jean-Martin Charcot (1825–1893), son of a Parisian craftsman, went on to a brilliant university career and worked his way to the top of the hospital hierarchy. Becoming a resident in 1858 at the women’s nursing home and asylum at La Salpêtrière Hospital, he returned there in 1868 as chief physician. Observing more than 2,000 elderly women, he first worked as a geriatrician–internist, leading him to describe thyroid pathology, cruoric pulmonary embolism, and so forth. To deal with the numerous nervous system pathologies, he applied the anatomoclinical method with the addition of microscopy. In less than around 10 years, his perspicacious clinical eye enabled him to describe Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and tabetic arthropathy and to identify medullary localizations, for example. Already aware of functional neurological disorders, at that time referred to as hysteria and frequent to this day, Charcot used hypnosis to try to decipher the pathophysiology. His thinking gradually evolved from looking for lesions to recognizing triggering psychological trauma. This prolonged search, misinterpreted for years, opened the way to fine, precise clinical semiology, specific to neurology and psychosomatic medicine. Charcot knew how to surround himself with a cohort of brilliant clinicians, who often became as famous as he was, notably Pierre Marie (1853–1940), Georges Gilles de la Tourette (1857–1904), Joseph Babiński (1857–1932), and Pierre Janet (1859–1947). This cohort and the breadth of Charcot’s innovative work define what is now classically called the “Salpêtrière School.”
The Indus River
Authors: Gilmartin David
Published: March 2024

The Indus is the westernmost of the great arc of rivers across southern and eastern Asia flowing from the Tibetan plateau, and its watershed today includes parts of China, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India. Flowing through a predominantly arid region, it was the site of South Asia’s earliest urban civilization in the 3rd millennium bce. Today, it features some of the most highly developed irrigation works in the world, supporting large agricultural populations on the plains of Pakistan and in northwestern India.

Its history has been defined not only by the dynamics of the Indus river system, with its highly seasonal, monsoon-fed flows descending from the mountains, but also by its critical role in defining a transitional zone of migration and mobility situated between central Asia and the Iranian plateau, on the one hand, and the wetter parts of the Indian subcontinent, on the other. Within this context, it played a critical role in the coming of Islam to the subcontinent from the west.

Since the late 19th century it has been the site of one of the modern world’s most dramatic irrigation-based transformations, rooted in British colonial canal-building and the opening of large canal colonies for agricultural settlement. What was already the world’s largest, integrated irrigation system was divided between India and Pakistan in 1947 (with the larger part going to Pakistan). The subsequent Indus Waters Treaty of 1960, which was intended to facilitate the continuing management of the river basin, accomplished this only through the intensification of irrigation investment and the maximization of the available water’s “use,” with all the difficult environmental and political challenges that has brought.
The Temporalities of Southeast Asian Historiography
Authors: Sastrawan Wayan Jarrah
Published: March 2024

Temporalities are ways to organize time. Historiography, which can be defined as the manner in which people approach, understand, narrate, and give meaning to the past, is intimately connected to temporality. Temporal devices like calendars and genealogies produce specific patterns of time that structure historical knowledge. The traditional historiography of Southeast Asia exhibits a great diversity of temporalities. In contrast to modern historical temporality, in which the unitary timeline is overwhelmingly dominant, Southeast Asian temporalities can just as easily be organized in terms of lineages, cycles, or prophecies. These methods for organizing time can be traced to the region’s Austronesian and Austroasiatic heritage, as well as to the influence of other parts of the world, such as India, the Middle East, and China. Ultimately, these global systems were adapted to local situations and concerns. Southeast Asian historiography can be analyzed in terms of the different temporalities that it uses. Such an approach can make better sense of why Southeast Asians chose to write history in the form of annalistic chronicles, dynastic genealogies, saintly biographies, messianic prophecies, and many other genres. Importantly, understanding the temporalities of Southeast Asian historiography allows one to appraise it on its own terms rather than to prejudge it through the norms of modern professional history.
Wa Communities in the China-Myanmar Borderlands
Authors: Fiskesjö Magnus
Published: March 2024

The Wa is an ethnicity in the borderlands of China and Myanmar (Burma). In the 1950s and 1960s, their ancient land was divided for the first time by these two modern states. Before this watershed moment in Wa history, the Wa were famous as independent, practically invincible warrior-farmers, much feared in their region despite having no kings and no regular army. These Wa farmer-warriors were deeply engaged in their regional economy through trade in mining products, as well as in opium, and, as a result, the British colonial officers who tried but failed to incorporate them into their empire could not but marvel at the wealth of the Wa. Since the division, the formerly independent Wa communities have been transformed on both sides of the border: on the Chinese side, into drastically impoverished regular peasants under Chinese rule; and, on Burmese territory, since 1989, into peasants under a new type of Wa elite in the Wa state—a semi-state governed by the United Wa State Army (UWSA). Both in China and in Myanmar, the Wa are officially listed as an indigenous ethnic minority. In China, there is local autonomy in name only. In Myanmar, the UWSA is an ethnonationalistic Wa elite with an army of considerable power and occupies a fraught position in the geopolitics of the fragmented state of Myanmar, which the UWSA recognizes even as it seeks even greater autonomy. Both contemporary Wa societies are dramatically different from the past, although many cultural traditions continue.
Kilwa and its Environs
Authors: Ichumbaki Elgidius B. , Munisi Neema C.
Published: March 2024

Between the 10th and 16th centuries ce, the coast of eastern Africa and the adjacent islands developed commercial interactions with many parts of the Indian Ocean and beyond. The interactions resulted in the growth of coastal towns built of coral stones bonded with lime mortar. One of the key coastal towns along the coast of Tanzania is Kilwa, part of which is a UNESCO World Heritage property. Kilwa, off the coast of southern Tanzania, was once a celebrated maritime city-state. The town grew significantly to the extent of minting its coins, becoming a main trading center, and dominating a large part of the Swahili coast, especially between the 11th and 15th centuries ce. Due to commercial growth, Kilwa attracted merchants worldwide to trade in gold, mangrove poles, animal skins, and slaves, among other products. Because of its archaeological and historical potential, Kilwa has attracted research attention from a multidisciplinary perspective since the 1950s. Results of several research projects ranging from historical, archaeological, anthropological, genetics, and heritage management studies inform that Kilwa was the center of a unique coastal culture famously known as “the Swahili civilization.” Because of this uniqueness, the site receives significant national and international support for unraveling more site histories and preserving the existing integrity. Indeed, there is a need to continue conducting research and implementing monument conservation projects; hence, keeping the momentum for the locality remains important in the early 21st century and the future.
The Négritude Movement
Authors: Bird Gemma
Published: March 2024

The Négritude movement was a literary, cultural, and poetic movement that was born among French-speaking Black intellectuals in the 1930s and was shaped by anti-colonial and Pan-Africanist political ideas. Négritude was a response to colonial oppressions and envisioned a new world grounded in equality and justice. It was also more than just a political movement, with culture and art at the heart of its development and approach. The use of poetry and literature ensured that it was grounded not only in anti-colonial struggle and the desire for political change but also in creativity and artistry. The Négritude movement originated as a response by Black Caribbean and African elites studying in Paris to the sense of injustice they felt both in the context of colonialism and in their own experience living in the European metropole. The first known publication of the word Négritude was in an essay written by Aimé Césaire in L’Étudiant Noir, a student newspaper he founded alongside Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon-Gontran Damas. The three men are thought of as the founders of the movement, which intended to answer the question “Who am I?” in response to the dehumanizing practices of colonialism and the injustices associated with assimilation politics. Négritude sought to explore, reclaim, and celebrate what it meant to be Black in a system that racialized, marginalized, and oppressed.
Samora Moisés Machel, 1933–1986
Authors: Darch Colin
Published: March 2024

Samora Moisés Machel was born in 1933 in Portuguese-ruled colonial Mozambique and trained as a nursing auxiliary. He joined the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique (Mozambique Liberation Front, or Frelimo) soon after its foundation in 1962. After military training in Algeria, he quickly became commander of the group’s armed forces, and when Eduardo Mondlane, Frelimo’s first leader, was assassinated in 1969, he was appointed president the following year. A talented but authoritarian politico-military strategist, he improved discipline within Frelimo and led it in the negotiations for unconditional independence that followed the April 25, 1974, coup in Portugal. At independence on June 25, 1975, he became the first president of the People’s Republic of Mozambique, a one-party state dedicated to radical social transformation. Machel was a convinced Marxist, which he attributed to his experience of racism and discrimination under Portuguese rule, and in February 1977, Frelimo officially became a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party. In the immediate post-independence period, Frelimo launched broad educational and health programs while attempting to shepherd the rural population into large “communal villages” where production could be organized along cooperative lines and social services provided at scale. However, the liberation war in neighboring Rhodesia, along Mozambique’s long western flank, destabilized these programs, especially after the Rhodesians set up and supported a domestic rebel movement, the Mozambique National Resistance (the MNR or Renamo), which carried out sabotage operations in the late 1970s. After Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980, South Africa adopted Renamo, which began gradually to develop support based on local resentment of government policy. The war dragged on and even intensified throughout the early 1980s, despite the signing by Mozambique and South Africa in 1984 of the Nkomati Accord, supposedly ushering in an era of good neighborliness. The conflict imposed crippling costs on Mozambique’s economy and society. In October 1986, Machel died in an air disaster at Mbuzini. Machel was a man of sharp intelligence and a gifted and persuasive orator, who as president was nevertheless intolerant of opposition. In 1994, several years after his death, the Frelimo government negotiated a pluralist dispensation with Renamo, having by that time effectively abandoned its socialist project.
Archaeology of Caves along the East African Coast
Authors: Shipton Ceri , Crowther Alison
Published: March 2024

Caves in uplifted limestone running from southern Kenya to Zanzibar were occupied by hunter-gatherers since the late Middle Stone Age approximately eighty thousand years ago. At that age they were a novel setting for human occupation away from the savannah landscapes of the East African interior. One of these caves, Panga ya Saidi, has yielded the earliest evidence for the Later Stone Age (LSA) anywhere in Africa, beginning sixty-seven thousand years ago. This cave is one of the only sites in Africa to have repeated human occupation throughout the major climatic fluctuations of the last eighty thousand years, a situation facilitated by its ecotonal and near-coastal setting. The rising sea levels after twenty thousand years ago saw more widespread coastal occupations including of Kuumbi Cave on Zanzibar, which was at that time joined to the mainland. A major transition in the occupation histories of the caves occurs in the late 1st millennium ce, with Iron Age ceramics appearing at many cave sites on the mainland coast and offshore islands, where they become increasingly prevalent into the 2nd millennium. The colonization of offshore islands occurs alongside the first definitive evidence for human occupation in Madagascar, including foragers living in cave sites. On both the mainland and offshore islands a continuing tradition of stone tool manufacture persists with the occasional use of domestic crops and livestock, demonstrating interactions between foraging and early farming communities. Glass beads show the cave occupants became part of Indian Ocean trade networks, likely exchanging forest products with Swahili merchants. Ancient DNA analysis indicates the survival of ancient hunter-gatherer ancestry well into the 2nd millennium ce. In the early 21st century, many of these caves are venerated as places of the ancestors and other spirit beings.
The Kenyan Truth, Justice and Reconciliation Commission
Authors: Slye Ronald C.
Published: March 2024

The Kenyan Truth Justice and Reconciliation Commission (KTJRC) operated from August 2009 to August 2013. It consisted of nine commissioners (six Kenyan and three international) and examined gross violations of human rights committed between December 12, 1963 (the date Kenya achieved independence), and February 28, 2008, though the Commission also had the power to look at relevant events before and after those dates. During its four years of operation the Commission collected over forty thousand statements from individual Kenyans, the largest number of statements collected by any truth commission; incorporated violations of economic, social, and cultural rights in its fact-finding and analysis (one of the first such truth commissions to do so); and increased the participation of women in the process by, among other things, conducting women-only hearings at each of the more than one hundred locations where public hearings were held. In addition to these successes, the KTJRC faced two significant challenges. First, its chair was linked to three violations of human rights within the Commission’s mandate, leading the Commission to recommend that he be investigated and, if the evidence warranted, prosecuted. Second, the Office of the President interfered in the Commission’s Final Report to remove certain references to the president’s family, leading the three international commissioners to issue a public dissent. The Commission made a number of recommendations for the government to implement, including the creation of a comprehensive reparations program. Only one of the recommendations in the Commission’s Final Report has been implemented: the president publicly apologized on behalf of the Kenyan government for the history of gross violations of human rights committed since independence. The Kenyan government has not moved to implement any of the other recommendations. Finally, the KTJRC was the first major truth commission to operate simultaneously with investigations and indictments by the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC often overshadowed the work of the TJRC in media coverage, and efforts to coordinate the activity of the two parallel investigative initiatives were minimal and unsuccessful
Unintended Fertility: Trends, Causes, Consequences
Authors: Piette Durrance Christine , Guldi Melanie
Published: March 2024

Unintended fertility occurs when an individual, who did not intend to, becomes pregnant or gives birth. Most measures of unintended fertility account for whether the pregnancy (birth) was wanted and whether it occurred at a desired time. Economic models of fertility provide a framework for understanding an individual’s desire to have children (or not), the number of children to have alongside the quality of each child, and the timing of childbirth. To study fertility intendedness, researchers often classify pregnancies or births as unintended using self-reported retrospective (or prospective) survey responses. However, since survey information on the intendedness of pregnancies and births is not always available, the research on unintended fertility using survey data is necessarily limited to the population surveyed. Consequently, to broaden the population studied, researchers also often rely on reported births, abortions, and miscarriages (fetal deaths) to estimate intendedness. However, other factors (such as laws restricting access or financial hurdles to overcome) may restrict access to the methods used to control reproduction, and these restrictions in turn may influence realized (observed) pregnancies, births, and abortions. Furthermore, abortion and miscarriages are not consistently reported and, when reported, they exhibit more measurement error than births. Despite these research challenges, the available data have allowed researchers to glean information on trends in unintendedness and to study the relationship between fertility-related policies and unintendedness. Over the last 2 decades, unintended fertility has declined in many countries and fewer births are happening “too soon.” There are multiple factors underlying these changes, but changes in access to and quality of reproductive technologies, changes in macroeconomic conditions, and socioeconomic characteristics of fertility-aged individuals appear to be crucial drivers of these changes.
The Institutional Construction of Intangible Heritage Concept and Policy in Brazil, 1937–2016
Authors: Levy Salama Morena
Published: March 2024

This article describes how the concept of intangible cultural heritage was developed in Brazilian public institutions and policies aimed at protecting and maintaining alive the country’s cultural traditions and heritage. This term was first imprinted in Brazilian public records dating back to the 1930s, when it was mentioned in a bill for the creation of a federal institution known as the National Institute of Historical and Artistic Heritage (IPHAN). This concept was only reintroduced in the late 1980s, with the adoption of the new Brazilian Federal Constitution. After providing an overview of the process of replacing the term folklore with intangible cultural heritage, this article focuses on the execution of the federal government’s safeguarding policy for intangible cultural heritage beginning in the year 2000. From the promulgation of Decree 3,551, which created the National Program of Intangible Heritage (PNPI) and established the guidelines for the official recognition of Brazilian cultural traditions as national cultural heritage. By looking closer at the measures taken by the government after a cultural tradition becomes part of their heritage, this article further explores the participatory call developed by such public policy.
Natural Hazards, Climate Change, and Indigenous Knowledge and Stewardship: Moving Toward a Resilience-Based Model
Authors: Nikolakis William , Gay Victoria , Ross Russell Myers , Nygaard Aimee
Published: March 2024

The increased frequency and intensity of natural hazards associated with climate change represents a major risk to Indigenous peoples . Yet, the existing vulnerability-based model of natural hazard mitigation and adaptation is reactive and largely treats Indigenous peoples as “vulnerable”—passive actors, whose knowledge and stewardship are typically ignored. To meaningfully mitigate and adapt to the increasing impacts of changing climates, a transformation is required towards a proactive and holistic resilience-based model, grounded in Indigenous knowledge and stewardship. A resilience-based model empowers Indigenous peoples to proactively steward their lands towards health as the primary goal, thus reducing ecosystem vulnerability, and in doing so, community members strengthen their connection to the land and enhance their identity and agency, with documented positive health and well-being outcomes.

Transitioning to a resilience-based approach requires structured learning and action-based approaches that treat resilience as both a process and an outcome, and strengthened in a positive cycle. Four interdependent elements are important to catalyze a resilience-based approach: (a) devolving stewardship to Indigenous Peoples , guided by Indigenous knowledge; (b) strengthening localized governance, in ways consistent with local values; (c) adequately resourcing stewardship and governance; and (d) monitoring and evaluating stewardship using “transdisciplinary” approaches that draw from Indigenous and Western knowledge systems in respectful ways, and to guide stewardship.
A Relational Approach to Risk Communication
Authors: Zhu Jing , Lejano Raul P.
Published: March 2024

It is instructive to juxtapose two contrasting models of risk communication. The first views risk communication as a product that is packaged and transmitted, unmodified and intact, to a passive public. The second, a relational approach, views it as a process in which experts, the public, and agencies engage in open communication, regarding the public as an equal partner in risk communication. The second model has the benefit of taking advantage of the public’s local knowledge and ability to engage in risk communication themselves. Risk communication should be understood as more of a dynamic process, and less of a packaged object. An example of the relational model is found in Bangladesh’s Cyclone Preparedness Programme, which has incorporated the relational model in its disaster risk reduction training for community volunteers. Nevertheless, the two contrasting models, in practice, are never mutually exclusive, and both are needed for effective disaster risk prevention.
The macroevolution of sexual size dimorphism in birds
Authors: Caron Fernanda S , Pie Marcio R
Published: March 2024

There is considerable variation of sexual size dimorphism (SSD) in body mass among animal groups, yet the drivers of interspecific variation in SSD are still poorly understood. Possible mechanisms have been suggested, including sexual selection, selection for fecundity in females, niche divergence between sexes, and allometry, yet their relative importance is still poorly understood. Here, we tested predictions of these four hypotheses in different avian groups using a large-scale dataset on SSD of body mass for 4761 species. Specifically, we estimated the probability of transition between male- and female-biased SSD, tested for differences in evolutionary rates of body mass evolution for males and females, and assessed the potential ecological and spatial correlates of SSD. Our results were consistent with the sexual selection, fecundity, and niche divergence hypotheses, but their support varied considerably among avian orders. In addition, we found little evidence that the direction of SSD affected the evolution of male or female body mass, and no relationship was detected between SSD and environmental predictors (i.e. temperature and precipitation seasonality, productivity, species richness, and absolute latitude). These results suggest that avian evolution of SSD is likely to be multifactorial, with sexual selection, fecundity, and niche divergence playing important roles in different avian orders.
Identification of a rare MET variant in three siblings with extramammary Paget disease
Authors: Kobayashi Yuki , Nakamura Yoshio , Tahara Umi , Nakamura Kohei , Nakanishi Kuniaki , Miyagawa Akihiro , Horikawa Hiroto , Kobayashi Kenta , Funakoshi Takeru , Sugano Kokichi , Ushiama Mineko , Yoshida Teruhiko , Inazumi Toyoko
Published: March 2024

Extramammary Paget disease (EMPD) is an intraepithelial adenocarcinoma that primarily affects the genital and axillary areas in older individuals. A limited number of paired patients with familial EMPD (i.e. parent–offspring, siblings) have been reported but the genetics have not yet been adequately studied. We report, to the best of our knowledge, the first familial cases of patients with EMPD involving three affected siblings. The tumour-only multigene panel testing using surgical specimens revealed a heterozygous c.2997A>C (p.Glu999Asp) nonsynonymous variant in the proto-oncogene MET (NM_000245.4) in the three affected siblings. The germline multigene panel testing using peripheral blood lymphocytes revealed the same missense MET variant in all five family members who were tested, including two asymptomatic offspring (51 and 37 years of age). The MET variant we identified could be involved in EMPD carcinogenesis. Further genomic analyses of patients with familial EMPD are warranted to validate the pathogenic relevance of MET variants in EMPD development.
Efficacy and safety of topical corticosteroid treatment under occlusion for severe alopecia areata in children: a single-centre retrospective analysis
Authors: Lee Young Yoon , Lim Han Hyuk , Son Seungjin , Jin Soyoung , Shin Jung-Min , Hong Dong-Kyun , Jung Kyung Eun , Seo Young-Joon , Lee Tae Kwan , Kim Yoo-Mi , Lee Young
Published: March 2024

Background

Alopecia areata (AA) has a poor clinical course in children. There are no reliable therapeutic options for children with severe AA, including alopecia totalis (AT) and alopecia universalis (AU).

Objectives

We evaluated the efficacy and adverse effects of a potent topical corticosteroid (TCS) under occlusion in paediatric patients with severe AA.

Methods

We reviewed records of 23 patients under the age of 10 years with AT or AU treated with a potent TCS (0.05% clobetasol propionate or 0.3% diflucortolone valerate) for 8 h under occlusion with a plastic film. We used the Severity of Alopecia Tool (SALT) to measure clinical improvement. The primary endpoint was a SALT score of ≤ 20 at 6 months. We analysed the change in cortisol levels to identify the long-term safety of TCS therapy on the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal axis.

Results

Nineteen of the 23 patients (83%) reached SALT ≤ 20 at 6 months. Six patients relapsed over the 6-month follow-up period. Four patients were suspected of having adrenal insufficiency. However, the cortisol levels of the patients recovered to normal within 1 month of lowering the TCS potency or changing to nonsteroidal treatments. Limitations include the retrospective design and small sample size.

Conclusions

This study shows that a potent TCS occlusion may be a safe treatment option in paediatric patients with severe AA. Further long-term studies are required to evaluate the safety and recurrence of TCS occlusion therapy for paediatric AA.
The effect of Brexit on British workers living in Portugal: a synthetic control method approach
Authors: Venâncio Ana , Pereira dos Santos João
Published: March 2024

The effect of Brexit is an important topic in European and British political agendas. In this study, we examine the effect of Brexit on the Portuguese labour market. We apply the synthetic control method to estimate how the number of UK citizens working in Portugal would have evolved if the Remain vote had won the referendum. Our results suggest that the Brexit referendum reduced the number of UK-dependent workers in Portugal, particularly in the case of non-university-educated, male individuals with temporary employment contracts. This reduction is explained by the decrease in the number of incomers. We also find that those UK citizens who were already working in Portugal before Brexit were more likely to continue working in the host country.
Intensity of educational expansion: a key factor in explaining educational inequality across regions and cohorts in Spain
Authors: Manzano Dulce , Cordero-Coma Julia , Valdés Manuel T
Published: March 2024

Previous sociological research has indirectly examined the association between educational expansion and inequality by analysing changes in inequality over cohorts during the expansion process. This study tests the impact of educational expansion in Spain by using the proportion of people with a specific level of education in a particular region cohort as a direct measure of expansion. More importantly, this study focuses on the intensity of the expansionary process (of one level of education) as a crucial dimension that influences inequality (in the attainment of the next level). We argue that an intense expansion may strengthen the motivation of advantaged families to increase their investments in their children’s education but limit their capacity to undertake effective educational responses, particularly during the initial stages of the expansionary process. We use the socio-demographic survey conducted in Spain in 1991, which provides representative samples for different cohorts and regions in the country, and employ multilevel modelling to analyse the effect of the phase and intensity of the expansion on inequality. Our findings show a strong positive relationship between the intensity of expansion and the level of inequality that, nonetheless, is less strong at the initial stage of the expansionary process.
Hamiltonian Monte Carlo based elastic full-waveform inversion of wide-angle seismic data
Authors: Dhabaria Nirmit , Singh Satish C
Published: March 2024

Full-waveform inversion (FWI) of seismic data provides quantitative constraints on subsurface structures. Despite its widespread success, FWI of data around the critical angle is challenging because of the abrupt change in amplitude and phase at the critical angle and the complex waveforms, especially in the presence of a sharp velocity contrast, such as at the Moho transition zone (MTZ). Furthermore, the interference of refracted lower crustal (Pg) and upper mantle (Pn) arrivals with the critically reflected Moho (PmP) arrivals in crustal and mantle studies makes the application of conventional FWI based on linearized model updates difficult. To address such a complex relationship between the model and data, one should use an inversion method based on a Bayesian formulation. Here, we propose to use a Hamiltonian Monte Carlo (HMC) method for FWI of wide-angle seismic data. HMC is a non-linear inversion technique where model updates follow the Hamiltonian mechanics while using the gradient information present in the probability distribution, making it similar to iterative gradient techniques like FWI. It also involves procedures for generating distant models for sampling the posterior distribution, making it a Bayesian method. We test the performance and applicability of HMC based elastic FWI by inverting the non-linear part of the synthetic seismic data from a three-layer and a complex velocity model, followed by the inversion of wide-angle seismic data recorded by two ocean bottom seismometers over a 70 Ma old oceanic crustal segment in the equatorial Atlantic Ocean. The inversion results from both synthetic and real data suggest that HMC based FWI is an appropriate method for inverting the non-linear part of seismic data for crustal studies.
The Russian approach to peacekeeping
Authors: Hansen Flemming Splidsboel
Published: March 2024

Peacekeeping is a central element of Russian foreign policy. The country has been deploying peacekeeping troops under highly controversial circumstances for more than three decades. A major power and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, Russia obviously plays an important role in defining the standards by which peacekeeping is and may be done. When Russian troops invaded Ukraine in an unprovoked aggression on 24 February 2022, Russian politicians initially referred to them as ‘peacekeeping troops’. This led UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to declare his concern about ‘the perversion of the concept of peacekeeping’. This article offers a discussion of the Russian approach to peacekeeping as this has been and is being expressed in both recent conceptual thinking and implementation. Relying on a large pool of Russian policy documents and scholarly works, the article finds that Russia is likely to execute more operations with a lowered threshold for intervention and under conditions of greater flexibility. It is a more pragmatic approach. Operations will increasingly be designed comprehensively across the physical, cyber and cognitive domains and will include the use of private military companies. This will almost inevitably bring Russian interests to clash even more with the interests of western states.
Regulatory Considerations in the Approval of Rezafungin (Rezzayo) for the Treatment of Candidemia and Invasive Candidiasis in Adults
Authors: Smith Heidi L , Bensman Timothy J , Mishra Shrimant , Li Xianbin , Dixon Cheryl A , Sheikh Jalal , McMaster Owen G , Joshi Abhay , Rubin Daniel B , Goodwin Avery , Miller Terry J , Danielsen Zhixia Y , Syed Irum , Shukla Sunita J , Iarikov Dmitri , Kim Peter W , Farley John J
Published: March 2024

On 22 March 2023, the FDA approved rezafungin (Rezzayo) for the treatment of candidemia and invasive candidiasis in adults with limited or no alternative treatment options. Rezafungin is an echinocandin that supports weekly dosing, enabling outpatient parenteral treatment that potentially avoids the need for a central venous catheter. Approval of rezafungin was based on a single adequate and well-controlled phase 3 study designed with a day 30 all-cause mortality primary end point and 20% noninferiority margin, which demonstrated that rezafungin is noninferior to the comparator echinocandin. Nonclinical studies of rezafungin in nonhuman primates identified a neurotoxicity safety signal; however, rezafungin's safety profile in the completed clinical studies was similar to other Food and Drug Administration-approved echinocandins. Here we describe the rationale for this approval and important considerations during the review process for a flexible development program intended to expedite the availability of antimicrobial therapies to treat serious infections in patients with limited treatment options.

Clinical Trials Registration . NCT02734862 and NCT03667690.
Collision induced molecular rotation of SiC4–He for astrophysical implications
Authors: Chefai Atka , Khadri Fehmi , Alsubaie Nahaa Eid , Elabidi Haykel , Hammami Kamel
Published: March 2024

To probe the physical conditions in molecular clouds, observations of the rotational transitions of a molecular system are very important. Thus, accurate modelling of the emission spectra of silicon carbides requires the calculation of collision rate coefficients for its systems. We determine here, the collisional rate coefficients for the excitation of SiC4 by He using a new potential energy surface. The state-to-state rate coefficients between the lower levels (j ≤ 28) are calculated using the coupled-channel and coupled-state methods for temperatures ranging from 5 to 300 K. Finally, we model the excitation of the SiC4 radical in cold molecular clouds and star-forming regions using a radiative transfer model. For this purpose, the new rate coefficients are used to estimate the molecular abundances in interstellar clouds. Therefore, we recommend the use of this new data set in any astrophysical model of SiC4 radical excitation.
Revisiting the Dragonfly galaxy II. Young, radiatively efficient radio-loud AGN drives massive molecular outflow in a starburst merger at z = 1.92
Authors: Zhong Yuxing , Inoue Akio K , Sugahara Yuma , Morokuma-Matsui Kana , Komugi Shinya , Kaneko Hiroyuki , Fudamoto Yoshinobu
Published: March 2024

Radio-loud active galactic nuclei (RLAGNs) are a unique AGN population and were thought to be preferentially associated with supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at low accretion rates. They could impact the host galaxy evolution by expelling cold gas through the jet-mode feedback. In this work, we studied CO(6−5) line emission and continuum emission in a high-redshift radio galaxy, MRC 0152−209, at z = 1.92 using ALMA (Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array) up to a 0.024″ resolution (corresponding to ∼200 pc at z = 1.92). This system is a starburst major merger comprising two galaxies: the north-west (NW) galaxy hosting the RLAGN with jet kinetic power Ljet ≳ 2 × 1046  erg s−1 and the other galaxy to the south-east (SE). Based on the spectral energy distribution fitting for the entire system (NW+SE galaxies), we find an AGN bolometric luminosity LAGN, bol ∼ 3 × 1046  erg s−1 with a lower limit of ∼0.9 × 1046  erg s−1 for the RLAGN. We estimate the black hole mass through MBH–M⋆ scaling relations and find an Eddington ratio of λEdd ∼ 0.07–4 conservatively by adopting the lower limit of LAGN, bol and considering the dispersion of the scaling relation. These results suggest that the RLAGN is radiatively efficient and the powerful jets could be launched from a super-Eddington accretion disc. ALMA Cycle 6 observations further reveal a massive (${M}_\mathrm{H_2}=(1.1-2.3)\times 10^9\ \rm M_\odot$), compact (∼500 pc), and monopolar molecular outflow perpendicular to the jet axis. The corresponding mass outflow rate ($1200^{+300}_{-300}-2600^{+600}_{-600}\ \mathrm{M_\odot }\ \rm yr^{-1}$) is comparable with the star formation rate of at least $\sim 2100\ \mathrm{M_\odot }\ \rm yr^{-1}$. Depending on the outflowing molecular gas mass, the outflow kinetic power/LAGN, bol ratio of ∼0.008–0.02, and momentum boost factor of ∼3–24 agree with a radiative-mode AGN feedback scenario. On the other hand, the jets can also drive the molecular outflow within its lifetime of ∼2 × 105 yr without additional energy supply from AGN radiation. The jet-mode feedback is then capable of removing all cold gas from the host galaxy through the long-term, episodic launching of jets. Our study reveals a unique object where starburst activity, powerful jets, and rapid BH growth co-exist, which may represent a fundamental stage of AGN-host galaxy co-evolution.