bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Rethinking class, capitalism and exploitation from the perspective of family farming in Aotearoa/New Zealand
Authors: Pomeroy Ann
Published: December 2023

Using empirical evidence and an exploration of literature on simple commodity and capitalist farm production, a theoretical argument is developed to show that, despite not employing labour, self‐employed family farmers (at least in New Zealand) are capitalist, not simple commodity, producers. This has major implications for not only class theorists from a Marxist perspective, with whom we are primarily concerned, but also poses questions for Weberian inspired stratification adherents preoccupied with occupation and lifestyle. Land ownership, together with the different way capital can be generated in broad‐acre livestock farming compared to other industrial settings, enables family farmers to generate profits and accumulate capital. This means that rather than being subsumed by capital, self‐employed owners of farm enterprises appropriate surplus value not by directly hiring labour to generate income from their large landholdings but indirectly by utilising the labour of other enterprises and by hiring bourgeois or petit‐bourgeois operators (purchasing equipment, technology and knowledge, and using the distribution, processing, marketing and other services supplied by other businesses). Buying and selling land also supports these capitalist enterprises. Although not expropriating surplus value directly to operate their enterprises, capitalised family producers have, as was pointed out in 1985 by David Goodman and Michael Redclift, achieved political legitimacy by distancing themselves at the ideological level from capitalism (despite embracing capitalism at the economic level). By disguising their class interests, such producers are adept at legitimating state policy in their interests.
Integral Picard group of moduli of polarized K3 surfaces
Authors: Di Lorenzo Andrea , Fringuelli Roberto , Vistoli Angelo
Published: December 2023

We compute the integral Picard group of the moduli stack of polarized K3 surfaces of fixed degree whose singularities are at most rational double points, and of its coarse moduli space. We also compute the integral Picard group of the stack of quasi‐polarized K3 surfaces, and of the stacky period domain.
Measurement of Binder/Active Material Interface Fracture in Rechargeable Batteries and the Effect of Oxide Coating
Authors: Pakhare Akshay S. , Nadimpalli Siva P.V.
Published: December 2023

Interface fracture is a critical issue for next-generation rechargeable batteries. The integrity of the binder/active material interface is essential for successful battery operation, and the interface failure is a major capacity fade mechanism. In spite of the importance, no systematic study on understanding/characterization of this issue exists at present. Here, the interface fracture was studied using a model polyvinylidene fluoride (PVdF)/Si system due to its importance in future Li-ion batteries. The interface failure was characterized in terms of critical energy release rate Gc using an experimental technique based on blister test and Michelson interferometry. The effect of the oxide layer on the interface fracture was also quantified. The critical energy release rate Gc of PVdF/Si interface is 0.55 ± 0.14 Jm−2, and the presence of oxide layer at the interface increased the Gc by an order of magnitude higher, i.e., the Gc of PVdF/SiO2 interface is 2.46 ± 0.40 Jm−2. The scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) analysis of the fracture surfaces showed that the crack growth mechanism is adhesive for both interface systems, and the strong adhesion of PVdF to SiO2 surface is attributed to the nature of bonding, i.e., a higher concentration of silanol (Si-OH) group on the SiO2 surface as compared to the Si surface to which PVdF forms a bond with. The experimental methodology proposed here is more general and can be used to study the fracture behavior of interfaces in other electrode systems and with other battery chemistries.
Transient Tip Clearance Prediction Model Considering Transient Radial Temperature Distribution of Discs in a Gas Turbine Engine
Authors: Wei Jie , Yang Heli , Zheng Pengbo , Wang Baotong , Zheng Xinqian
Published: December 2023

The tip clearance of turbomachinery components, such as compressor and turbine, significantly impacts the gas turbine engine performance, including the thrust and fuel consumption. Therefore, an appropriate prediction of the turbomachinery tip clearance is indispensable in improving the accuracy of engine performance evaluations. The traditional 1D transient tip clearance prediction model does not consider the radial temperature distribution of the disk (also called disc). However, as the engine performance keeps improving, the radial temperature gradient of the disk also increases. In order to maintain the prediction accuracy within an acceptable range, a generic transient tip clearance prediction model is developed in this paper. Based on the special treatment of the axial and radial convective heat transfer boundary regions of the disk, a 2D transient heat transfer model is established, and the radial temperature of the disk is predicted. At the same time, the interaction effect of the thermal expansion between the two different layers of the shroud is studied to improve the prediction accuracy further. In addition, the centrifugal deformation of the blade and disk with variable-thickness characteristics is considered in the new transient model. Compared with the traditional 1D transient prediction model, the model developed in this paper further improves the predicting accuracy of the transient tip clearance, which is verified by the high-fidelity fluid–solid–thermal coupling method. The prediction model provides a useful tool for evaluating the transient tip clearance. It may also benefit the future design strategy of active clearance control.
Design and Cooling Performance of Additively Manufactured Ceramic Turbine Vanes
Authors: Fox Andrew , Lynch Stephen , Young Jason C. , Frick Carl P. , Hankins Jennifer , Kuhn Kyle , Brinckmann Stephan A. , Fertig Ray S.
Published: December 2023

Ceramic materials are of significant interest in aviation and power generation gas turbine engines due to their low density and ability to withstand high temperatures. Increased cycle thermal efficiency and higher specific power output is possible by incorporating ceramic components that enable high turbine inlet temperatures and lower required cooling airflow levels. However, ceramics can be difficult and costly to form into the complex shapes used in gas turbine components, often requiring specialized multi-step processes. Furthermore, ceramic components in the hottest areas of a gas turbine, such as vanes or blade shroud seals, will still likely require cooling which is challenging to implement in conventional ceramic manufacturing approaches. Therefore, this study presents a multidisciplinary approach that investigates the design, fabrication, and overall cooling effectiveness evaluation of additively manufactured (AM), polymer derived ceramic (PDC) turbine vanes. A thermo-mechanically optimized vane design was generated, ceramic additive manufacturing of the complex cooling configuration was developed, and quantification of the increase in overall cooling effectiveness was performed in a 1X scale, high-speed facility using infrared thermography. This study produced a PDC AM process, capable of printing complex internal cooling schemes in 1X scale turbine vanes. It was found that the optimized vane more than doubled the overall cooling effectiveness observed in the baseline design, which reasonably agreed with thermomechanical optimization model predictions. Additionally, the optimized ceramic vane outperformed an identical metal vane, in terms of area averaged cooling effectiveness, suggesting that the ceramic vane could operate at reduced coolant flowrates to achieve comparable levels of cooling performance.
Variation Analysis Method Based on Product Feature Information Network
Authors: Chen Liang , Wei Naikun , Zheng Yu , Xi Juntong
Published: December 2023

Dimensional and geometric variations are significant factors of products at the manufacturing stage. Because of these variations, the physical appearance or functionality of the final product may deviate from expectations. As of the present, research on variation analysis has been conducted at the feature level. To model the information and analyze the variation transfers of products, a graphical model is constructed by using the product feature and information. Through analysis of the relationship between the product and network model, a modeling process for the feature information network is proposed. Nodes, lines, and constraints in the network are defined in detail, and the dimension unit is defined to represent the dimension information within a part. Variations caused by connections between parts are divided into two categories of influence. Combining the dimension unit and the influence between parts, a variation analysis process is devised based on the proposed network model. To verify the effectiveness and feasibility of the proposed method, a case study is performed based on the grand assembly of a hull block. The result shows that the product can be modeled and the variation can be analyzed by the proposed network model.
Rigid-Compliant Hybrid Cellular Expansion Mechanisms With Motion Amplification and Superposition
Authors: Wang Tingwei , Yu Jingjun , Zhao Hongzhe
Published: December 2023

Motivated by heat dissipation, the rigid-compliant hybrid cellular expansion mechanisms with motion amplification and superposition are proposed in this paper. Compared with existing studies, the expansion mechanism is not only easy to realize the plane tessellation via cellular design due to its regular polygon structure but also has the ability of motion amplification and superposition due to its compliant displacement amplifier and rigid scissors. First, the scheme of expansion mechanisms, especially the working principle of motion amplification and superposition, is introduced. The configuration design of a family of expansion mechanisms is presented, including varying number of edges, concave/convex property, and inner/outer layout. Second, the constraint condition and analytical modeling of relations between output performances of expansion mechanisms and dimensional parameters are carried out. Third, the displacement amplification ratio of expansion mechanisms and output performances of several typical expansion mechanisms when they act as cells to tessellate a plane with a constrained area are analyzed. Finally, the output performances of expansion mechanisms are verified via the finite element analysis. The results show that proposed cellular expansion mechanisms are beneficial for realizing plane tessellation and offer motion amplification and superposition, which provide prospects in the field of mechanism design such as metamaterials.
An Improved Shape Annealing Algorithm for the Generation of Coated Deoxyribonucleic Acid Origami Nanostructures
Authors: Babatunde Bolutito , Cagan Jonathan , Taylor Rebecca E.
Published: December 2023

In recent years, the field of structural DNA nanotechnology has advanced rapidly due to transformative design tools. Although these tools have been revolutionary, they still bear one overall limitation of requiring users to fully conceptualize their designs before designing. Recently, a simple computational casting technique was developed using generative optimization strategies to automate the DNA origami nanostructure design. This approach employs a shape annealing algorithm, which creates a formal language of honeycomb nanostructures with shape grammars and drives designs from the language toward a desired configuration using simulated annealing. This initial demonstration of the approach can generate novel scaffold routing schemes for creating solid or hollow structures constrained by the boundaries of polyhedral meshes. The results from the initial approach, particularly from the hollow structures, reveal a challenging design space. This simple technique generates novel scaffold routing schemes that do not replicate the overall polyhedral mesh shape and are limited in their ability to control scaffold path exploration in the design space. This paper demonstrates an approach for achieving different levels of consistent effective wall thicknesses and improving the quality of mesh coverage for hollow structures that can be tuned and optimized by introducing a more refined computational casting technique. We achieve these improvements through changes in the simulated annealing algorithm by adding a Hustin move set algorithm that dynamically adjusts the performance of the overall design and redefining how these hollow designs are articulated. This work illustrates how the technique can navigate a challenging design space to generate effective hollow designs.
Evaluation of Neural Network-Based Derivatives for Topology Optimization
Authors: Najmon Joel , Tovar Andres
Published: December 2023

Neural networks have gained popularity for modeling complex non-linear relationships. Their computational efficiency has led to their growing adoption in optimization methods, including topology optimization. Recently, there have been several contributions toward improving derivatives of neural network outputs, which can improve their use in gradient-based optimization. However, a comparative study has yet to be conducted on the different derivative methods for the sensitivity of the input features on the neural network outputs. This paper aims to evaluate four derivative methods: analytical neural network’s Jacobian, central finite difference method, complex step method, and automatic differentiation. These methods are implemented into density-based and homogenization-based topology optimization using multilayer perceptrons (MLPs). For density-based topology optimization, the MLP approximates Young’s modulus for the solid isotropic material with penalization (SIMP) model. For homogenization-based topology optimization, the MLP approximates the homogenized stiffness tensor of a representative volume element, e.g., square cell microstructure with a rectangular hole. The comparative study is performed by solving two-dimensional topology optimization problems using the sensitivity coefficients from each derivative method. Evaluation includes initial sensitivity coefficients, convergence plots, and the final topologies, compliance, and design variables. The findings demonstrate that neural network-based sensitivity coefficients are sufficiently accurate for density-based and homogenization-based topology optimization. The neural network’s Jacobian, complex step method, and automatic differentiation produced identical sensitivity coefficients to working precision. The study’s open-source code is provided through a python repository.
A Multi-Fidelity Bayesian Optimization Approach for Constrained Multi-Objective Optimization Problems
Authors: Lin Quan , Hu Jiexiang , Zhou Qi , Shu Leshi , Zhang Anfu
Published: December 2023

In this paper, a multi-fidelity Bayesian optimization approach is presented to tackle computationally expensive constrained multiobjective optimization problems (MOPs). The proposed approach consists of a three-stage optimization framework designed to search for promising candidate points. In the first stage, an acquisition function is proposed to identify a feasible solution if none is available in the current set of sampling points. Subsequently, a new multi-fidelity weighted expected hypervolume improvement function is developed to find better solutions. In the third stage, a constrained weighted lower confidence bound acquisition function is presented to enhance the constraint predictions and refine the solutions near the constraint boundary. Additionally, a filter strategy is suggested to determine whether constraint updating is necessary, aiming to save computational resources and improve optimization efficiency. Moreover, to expedite the optimization process, a parallel optimization approach is further developed based on the suggested three-stage optimization framework. To achieve this, a multi-fidelity influence function is introduced, allowing the proposed approach to determine a desired number of candidate points within a single iteration. Lastly, the proposed approach is demonstrated through six numerical benchmark examples, which verifies its significant advantages in addressing expensive constrained MOPs. Besides, the proposed approach is applied to the multiobjective optimization of a metamaterial vibration isolator, resulting in the attainment of satisfactory solutions.
A Design Framework for Semi-Active Structural Controlled Adjustable Constant Force Mechanisms
Authors: Rehman Tanzeel Ur , Li Jing , Qaiser Zeeshan , Johnson Shane
Published: December 2023

Semi-active adjustable constant force mechanisms (ACFMs) are an emerging alternative in applications where energy-efficient control of constant force environments is required. However, there is a lack of design strategies in the literature for semi-active ACFMs. This study addresses this gap by presenting a design strategy for ACFMs that semi-actively tunes the constant force by structural control. A design framework is presented, which consists of an optimization of a high slenderness large stroke constant force mechanism (CFM) followed by a parametric study on adjusting constant force through slenderness reduction by repositioning the boundary condition location. The design framework was able to change constant force ranging from two to four times with a stroke of 11–26% of the mechanism footprint. A selected design with a larger force magnitude was fabricated and experimentally tested, demonstrating a change in constant force of 2.01 times, which is comparable to that of active control designs and improved compactness, i.e., stroke of 11% of the footprint of the mechanism. In conclusion, the proposed ACFM design framework maximizes the initial CFM stroke and achieves constant force tuning by changing beam slenderness, resulting in compact and efficient ACFM designs.
Position Paper: Rationale for a Focused Attention on Mental Health of High-Performance Sports Coaches
Authors: Kenttä Göran , Dieffenbach Kristen , Bentzen Marte , Thompson Melissa , Côté Jean , Mallett Cliff , Olusoga Peter
Published: December 2023

High-performance (HP) coaching has been described as “a complex, social, and dynamic activity that is not easily represented as a set of tangible and predictable processes.” Coaches are not only responsible for extensive planning, monitoring, and leadership in a dynamic and complex environment but also have responsibility for supporting athlete development and safeguarding their athletes’ overall health, well-being, and psychological and physiological safety. However, HP coaching is often considered an unsustainable profession, due to the levels of stress and subsequent mental health challenges that are frequently part of the role. Therefore, this position paper will focus on the concerns, challenges, and resources needed to prevent and manage mental ill-being and support the mental well-being of sport coaching professionals in HP sport, and provide recommendations for individuals, systems, and organizations that work with HP sport coaches.
ROS-induced ribosome impairment underlies ZAKα-mediated metabolic decline in obesity and aging
Authors: Snieckute Goda , Ryder Laura , Vind Anna Constance , Wu Zhenzhen , Arendrup Frederic Schrøder , Stoneley Mark , Chamois Sébastien , Martinez-Val Ana , Leleu Marion , Dreos René , Russell Alexander , Gay David Michael , Genzor Aitana Victoria , Choi Beatrice So-Yun , Basse Astrid Linde , Sass Frederike , Dall Morten , Dollet Lucile Chantal Marie , Blasius Melanie , Willis Anne E. , Lund Anders H. , Treebak Jonas T. , Olsen Jesper Velgaard , Poulsen Steen Seier , Pownall Mary Elizabeth , Jensen Benjamin Anderschou Holbech , Clemmensen Christoffer , Gerhart-Hines Zach , Gatfield David , Bekker-Jensen Simon
Published: December 2023

The ribotoxic stress response (RSR) is a signaling pathway in which the p38- and c-Jun N-terminal kinase (JNK)–activating mitogen-activated protein kinase kinase kinase (MAP3K) ZAKα senses stalling and/or collision of ribosomes. Here, we show that reactive oxygen species (ROS)–generating agents trigger ribosomal impairment and ZAKα activation. Conversely, zebrafish larvae deficient for ZAKα are protected from ROS-induced pathology. Livers of mice fed a ROS-generating diet exhibit ZAKα-activating changes in ribosomal elongation dynamics. Highlighting a role for the RSR in metabolic regulation, ZAK-knockout mice are protected from developing high-fat high-sugar (HFHS) diet-induced blood glucose intolerance and liver steatosis. Finally, ZAK ablation slows animals from developing the hallmarks of metabolic aging. Our work highlights ROS-induced ribosomal impairment as a physiological activation signal for ZAKα that underlies metabolic adaptation in obesity and aging.
Spatial transcriptomics of B cell and T cell receptors reveals lymphocyte clonal dynamics
Authors: Engblom Camilla , Thrane Kim , Lin Qirong , Andersson Alma , Toosi Hosein , Chen Xinsong , Steiner Embla , Lu Chang , Mantovani Giulia , Hagemann-Jensen Michael , Saarenpää Sami , Jangard Mattias , Saez-Rodriguez Julio , Michaëlsson Jakob , Hartman Johan , Lagergren Jens , Mold Jeff E. , Lundeberg Joakim , Frisén Jonas
Published: December 2023

The spatial distribution of lymphocyte clones within tissues is critical to their development, selection, and expansion. We have developed spatial transcriptomics of variable, diversity, and joining (VDJ) sequences (Spatial VDJ), a method that maps B cell and T cell receptor sequences in human tissue sections. Spatial VDJ captures lymphocyte clones that match canonical B and T cell distributions and amplifies clonal sequences confirmed by orthogonal methods. We found spatial congruency between paired receptor chains, developed a computational framework to predict receptor pairs, and linked the expansion of distinct B cell clones to different tumor-associated gene expression programs. Spatial VDJ delineates B cell clonal diversity and lineage trajectories within their anatomical niche. Thus, Spatial VDJ captures lymphocyte spatial clonal architecture across tissues, providing a platform to harness clonal sequences for therapy.
Watershed sediment cannot offset sea level rise in most US tidal wetlands
Authors: Ensign Scott H. , Halls Joanne N. , Peck Erin K.
Published: December 2023

Watershed sediment can increase elevation of tidal wetlands struggling against rising seas, but where and how much watershed sediment helps is unknown. By combining contiguous US datasets on sediment loads and tidal wetland areas for 4972 rivers and their estuaries, we calculated that river sediment accretion will be insufficient to match sea level rise in 72% of cases because most watersheds are too small (median 21 square kilometers) to generate adequate sediment. Nearly half the tidal wetlands would require 10 times more river sediment to match sea level, a magnitude not generally achievable by dam removal in some regions. The realization that watershed sediment has little effect on most tidal wetland elevations shifts research priorities toward biological processes and coastal sediment dynamics that most influence elevation change.
Kinetic and thermodynamic control of C(sp
2
)–H activation enables site-selective borylation
Authors: Roque Jose B. , Shimozono Alex M. , Pabst Tyler P. , Hierlmeier Gabriele , Peterson Paul O. , Chirik Paul J.
Published: December 2023

Catalysts that distinguish between electronically distinct carbon-hydrogen (C–H) bonds without relying on steric effects or directing groups are challenging to design. In this work, cobalt precatalysts supported by
N
-alkyl-imidazole–substituted pyridine dicarbene (ACNC) pincer ligands are described that enable undirected, remote borylation of fluoroaromatics and expansion of scope to include electron-rich arenes, pyridines, and tri- and difluoromethoxylated arenes, thereby addressing one of the major limitations of first-row transition metal C–H functionalization catalysts. Mechanistic studies established a kinetic preference for C–H bond activation at the
meta
-position despite cobalt-aryl complexes resulting from
ortho
C–H activation being thermodynamically preferred. Switchable site selectivity in C–H borylation as a function of the boron reagent was thereby preliminarily demonstrated using a single precatalyst.
Coral reefs in peril in a record-breaking year
Authors: Hoegh-Guldberg Ove , Skirving William , Dove Sophie G. , Spady Blake L. , Norrie Andrew , Geiger Erick F. , Liu Gang , De La Cour Jacqueline L. , Manzello Derek P.
Published: December 2023

Climate change and its impacts on coral reefs have reached uncharted territory
Remodeling of the gastric environment in
Helicobacter pylori
-induced atrophic gastritis
Authors: Shuman Jennifer H. B. , Lin Aung Soe , Westland Mandy D. , Bryant Kaeli N. , Piazuelo M. Blanca , Reyzer Michelle L. , Judd Audra M. , McDonald W. Hayes , McClain Mark S. , Schey Kevin L. , Algood Holly M. S. , Cover Timothy L.
Published: December 2023

Helicobacter pylori
colonization of the human stomach is a strong risk factor for gastric cancer. To investigate
H. pylori
-induced gastric molecular alterations, we used a Mongolian gerbil model of gastric carcinogenesis. Histologic evaluation revealed varying levels of atrophic gastritis (a premalignant condition characterized by parietal and chief cell loss) in
H. pylori
-infected animals, and transcriptional profiling revealed a loss of markers for these cell types. We then assessed the spatial distribution and relative abundance of proteins in the gastric tissues using imaging mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry. We detected striking differences in the protein content of corpus and antrum tissues. Four hundred ninety-two proteins were preferentially localized to the corpus in uninfected animals. The abundance of 91 of these proteins was reduced in
H. pylori
-infected corpus tissues exhibiting atrophic gastritis compared with infected corpus tissues exhibiting non-atrophic gastritis or uninfected corpus tissues; these included numerous proteins with metabolic functions. Fifty proteins localized to the corpus in uninfected animals were diffusely delocalized throughout the stomach in infected tissues with atrophic gastritis; these included numerous proteins with roles in protein processing. The corresponding alterations were not detected in animals infected with a
H. pylori
∆
cagT
mutant (lacking Cag type IV secretion system activity). These results indicate that
H. pylori
can cause loss of proteins normally localized to the gastric corpus as well as diffuse delocalization of corpus-specific proteins, resulting in marked changes in the normal gastric molecular partitioning into distinct corpus and antrum regions.

IMPORTANCE

A normal stomach is organized into distinct regions known as the corpus and antrum, which have different functions, cell types, and gland architectures. Previous studies have primarily used histologic methods to differentiate these regions and detect
H. pylori
-induced alterations leading to stomach cancer. In this study, we investigated
H. pylori
-induced gastric molecular alterations in a Mongolian gerbil model of carcinogenesis. We report the detection of numerous proteins that are preferentially localized to the gastric corpus but not the antrum in a normal stomach. We show that stomachs with
H. pylori-
induced atrophic gastritis (a precancerous condition characterized by the loss of specialized cell types) exhibit marked changes in the abundance and localization of proteins normally localized to the gastric corpus. These results provide new insights into
H. pylori
-induced gastric molecular alterations that are associated with the development of stomach cancer.
Comparative evaluation of small molecules reported to be inhibitors of
Staphylococcus aureus
biofilm formation
Authors: Campbell Mara J. , Beenken Karen E. , Spencer Horace J. , Jayana Bina , Hester Hana , Sahukhal Gyan S. , Elasri Mohamed O. , Smeltzer Mark S.
Published: December 2023

Biofilm formation is an important characteristic of many
Staphylococcus aureus
infections because it limits the efficacy of host defenses and conventional antibiotic therapy. There are many literature reports that describe small molecule inhibitors of
S. aureus
biofilm formation, but the lack of direct comparisons and differences in the methods used to assess inhibition make it impossible to assess the efficacy of these compounds relative to each other. To address this, we compared 19 compounds reported in the literature to be inhibitors of
S. aureus
biofilm formation. We used the methicillin-susceptible clinical osteomyelitis isolate UAMS-1 in a microtiter plate biofilm assay shown to maximize biofilm formation and provide results consistent with those observed
in vivo
. Under these conditions, telithromycin (Ketek) showed the greatest inhibitory activity, limiting biofilm formation to a degree comparable to a UAMS-1
sarA
mutant at a concentration of 0.49 µM (0.40 µg/mL). Similar results were obtained for the methicillin-resistant USA300 strain LAC. Telithromycin is a bacteriostatic ketolide antibiotic that is not currently approved in the United States for use as an antibiotic due to its concerning safety profile. However, the concentration required to limit growth
in vitro
was higher than the concentration required to limit biofilm formation, suggesting that low-dose telithromycin might be useful to limit biofilm formation and increase the efficacy of other antibiotics in biofilm-associated infections. Irrespective of whether telithromycin is ultimately proven clinically useful in this regard, these results emphasize the need for widespread use of a standardized
in vitro
approach to evaluate prospective inhibitors.

IMPORTANCE

Because biofilm formation is such a problematic feature of
Staphylococcus aureus
infections, much effort has been put into identifying biofilm inhibitors. However, the results observed with these compounds are often reported in isolation, and the methods used to assess biofilm formation vary between labs, making it impossible to assess relative efficacy and prioritize among these putative inhibitors for further study. The studies we report address this issue by directly comparing putative biofilm inhibitors using a consistent
in vitro
assay. This assay was previously shown to maximize biofilm formation, and the results observed with this assay have been proven to be relevant
in vivo
. Of the 19 compounds compared using this method, many had no impact on biofilm formation under these conditions. Indeed, only one proved effective at limiting biofilm formation without also inhibiting growth.
Multicomponent Synthesis of Pyridine and Pyrimidine Derivatives Initiated by the Knoevenagel Reaction
Authors: Dyachenko I. V. , Dyachenko V. D. , Dorovatovskii P. V. , Khrustalev V. N. , Nenajdenko V. G.
Published: December 2023

Multicomponent condensation of alkylating reagents with carbonyl compounds functionalized by CH-acids is initiated by the Knoevenagel reaction and leads to the formation of substituted pyridines, thienopyridines, pyridothienopyridines, and pyrimidothienopyridopyrimidines. The structure of the key products was studied by the X-ray diffraction method.
Retrospective cohort study of wrong-patient imaging order errors: how many reach the patient?
Authors: Kneifati-Hayek Jerard Z , Geist Elias , Applebaum Jo R , Dal Col Alexis K , Salmasian Hojjat , Schechter Clyde B , Elhadad Noémie , Weintraub Joshua , Adelman Jason S
Published: December 2023

Studying near-miss errors is essential to preventing errors from reaching patients. When an error is committed, it may be intercepted (near-miss) or it will reach the patient; estimates of the proportion that reach the patient vary widely. To better understand this relationship, we conducted a retrospective cohort study using two objective measures to identify wrong-patient imaging order errors involving radiation, estimating the proportion of errors that are intercepted and those that reach the patient. This study was conducted at a large integrated healthcare system using data from 1 January to 31 December 2019. The study used two outcome measures of wrong-patient orders: (1) wrong-patient orders that led to misadministration of radiation reported to the New York Patient Occurrence Reporting and Tracking System (NYPORTS) (misadministration events); and (2) wrong-patient orders identified by the Wrong-Patient Retract-and-Reorder (RAR) measure, a measure identifying orders placed for a patient, retracted and rapidly reordered by the same clinician on a different patient (near-miss events). All imaging orders that involved radiation were extracted retrospectively from the healthcare system data warehouse. Among 293 039 total eligible orders, 151 were wrong-patient orders (3 misadministration events, 148 near-miss events), for an overall rate of 51.5 per 100 000 imaging orders involving radiation placed on the wrong patient. Of all wrong-patient imaging order errors, 2% reached the patient, translating to 50 near-miss events for every 1 error that reached the patient. This proportion provides a more accurate and reliable estimate and reinforces the utility of systematic measure of near-miss errors as an outcome for preventative interventions.
Insights for enhancing resilience in prolonged crises: impact of COVID-19 pandemic on nurses’ quality of life
Authors: Salimi Saleh , Özel Selman
Published: December 2023

Aims and background

The COVID-19 pandemic has had adverse effects on nurses, impacting them physically, mentally and psychosocially. These effects stem from heightened workloads, fears of contracting a life-threatening illness due to inadequate protective equipment and concerns about transmitting the disease to their families. This study assessed the impact of COVID-19 on the quality of life of nurses working on the frontlines, aiming to provide insights for future crisis responses.

Methods

A descriptive-analytic study included 288 nurses from hospitals affiliated with Çukurova University, Southern Turkey using a stratified sampling method. Data on quality of life and demographics were collected using the WHO Quality of Life-BREF scale and a questionnaire. Data analysis was conducted using SPSS V.25, employing descriptive and analytic measures at a significance level of p<0.05.

Results

Overall perceived quality of life was moderate (mean score: 3.31; SD: 0.56), with the highest scores in social relationships, psychological well-being and environmental factors. Positive correlations were found with gender, education, salary, vaccination status and living alone. Negative correlations were observed with alcohol consumption and longer working hours.

Conclusions

To strengthen future crisis responses, health authorities should prioritise workload reduction, gender diversity promotion, support for nurses residing with family, better income opportunities, alcohol abstinence encouragement and ensuring vaccination for frontline nurses.
Bracing requirements and design for a single column considering semi-rigid connections and initial curvature
Authors: Zhang Linbo , Xu Lei
Published: December 2023

The use of bracing has been widely recognized as an effective technique to increase the strength of columns by reducing their effective length. This paper presents an assessment of the bracing requirements for a semi-rigidly connected column, which is laterally braced at the mid-height. By utilizing the proposed half-length column model, the effects of column stiffness and initial curvature on the brace strength and stiffness requirements are investigated. The results indicate that the column’s initial curvature coefficient increases with a higher applied load, but decreases with increased column end connection stiffness. The required brace stiffness requirement stipulated in AISC 360-22 should be increased when considering the effect of column’s initial curvature. Following the design concepts of AISC 360-22 and CSA S16-19, equations for assessing the bracing requirements for a semi-rigidly connected column are proposed. These equations are validated against the finite element analysis results, demonstrating their ability to accurately assess the bracing requirements for semi-rigidly connected columns. These equations can be adopted in current engineering practice.
The greenlight for government buildings: strategies for a low-carbon building portfolio
Authors: Adamson S. , Medeiros A.S.
Published: December 2023

There is a global focus by governments on retrofitting buildings, as well as incorporating energy efficiency into new construction, as a means to address climate change. Initiatives to reduce energy use, source renewable electricity, and use low-carbon materials are aimed at leading by example, where governments attempt to showcase innovation through green building strategies. Greening government initiatives are promoted to reduce operating costs, improve energy system resilience, grow the “green” economy, support clean energy development, and encourage sustainable building practices. Here, we outline the benefits of greening government initiatives by examining Canada's Greening Government Strategy as a case study approach for transitioning to a low-carbon building portfolio. We focus our review on initiatives that outline how public institutions can transition buildings to reduce their carbon footprint by (1) pairing greening government mandates with adequate support structures for public agencies, (2) using an integrated energy management process for the planning and development of carbon-neutral portfolios, and (3) overcoming barriers to low-carbon project implementation with procurement standards, financial instruments, and staff training. These approaches are defined to offer leadership in the green building industry, strategically identify carbon reduction projects, and reduce barriers to a low-carbon building portfolio.
Induced phase transformation in ionizable colloidal nanoparticles
Authors: López-Flores Leticia , de la Cruz Monica Olvera
Published: December 2023

Acid–base equilibria directly influence the functionality and behavior of particles in a system. Due to the ionizing effects of acid–base functional groups, particles will undergo charge exchange. The degree of ionization and their intermolecular and electrostatic interactions are controlled by varying the pH and salt concentration of the solution in a system. Although the pH can be tuned in experiments, it is hard to model this effect using simulations or theoretical approaches. This is due to the difficulty in treating charge regulation and capturing the cooperative effects in a colloidal suspension with Coulombic interaction. In this work, we analyze a suspension of ionizable colloidal particles via molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, along with Monte Carlo simulations for charge regulation (MC-CR) and derive a phase diagram of the system as a function of pH. It is observed that as pH increases, particles functionalized with acid groups change their arrangement from face-centered cubic (FCC) packing to a disordered state. We attribute these transitions to an increase in the degree of charge polydispersity arising from an increase in pH. Our work shows that charge regulation leads to amorphous solids in colloids when the mean nanoparticle charge is sufficiently high.

Graphical abstract
Cretaceous stratigraphy of Antarctica and its global significance
Authors: Crame J. Alistair , Francis Jane E.
Published: December 2023

The Cretaceous Period is particularly well represented by a thick sequence of clastic sedimentary rocks exposed in the Antarctic Peninsula region of western Antarctica. This was an active margin throughout the Late Mesozoic, and in total some 7 km+ of Cretaceous sedimentary rocks accumulated in a series of fore-, intra- and back-arc basins. The Fossil Bluff Group of eastern Alexander Island can be traced from the Jurassic–Cretaceous boundary into the Upper Albian and represents a broad-scale shallowing-upward sequence from deep marine to a prominent Upper Albian fluvial interval in which high-density forests developed at a palaeolatitude of 75° S. The Cretaceous sequence exposed in the James Ross Island group continues right through the Upper Cretaceous to the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. The Campanian–Maastrichtian succession in particular is over 2 km in total thickness and richly fossiliferous. The improved Cretaceous stratigraphy of Antarctica is an invaluable terrestrial record of climatic change at a high palaeolatitude. This includes a gradual increase in temperature to the Cretaceous Thermal Maximum, and then a decline to the Cretaceous–Paleogene boundary. There may be no simple link between these palaeotemperature changes and Cretaceous patterns of biotic radiation and extinction.
Representation Learning for Stack Overflow Posts: How Far Are We?
Authors: He Junda , Zhou Xin , Xu Bowen , Zhang Ting , Kim Kisub , Yang Zhou , Thung Ferdian , Irsan Ivana Clairine , Lo David
Published: December 2023

The tremendous success of Stack Overflow has accumulated an extensive corpus of software engineering knowledge, thus motivating researchers to propose various solutions for analyzing its content. The performance of such solutions hinges significantly on the selection of representation models for Stack Overflow posts. As the volume of literature on Stack Overflow continues to burgeon, it highlights the need for a powerful Stack Overflow post representation model and drives researchers’ interest in developing specialized representation models that can adeptly capture the intricacies of Stack Overflow posts. The state-of-the-art (SOTA) Stack Overflow post representation models are Post2Vec and BERTOverflow, which are built upon neural networks such as convolutional neural network and transformer architecture (e.g., BERT). Despite their promising results, these representation methods have not been evaluated in the same experimental setting. To fill the research gap, we first empirically compare the performance of the representation models designed specifically for Stack Overflow posts (Post2Vec and BERTOverflow) in a wide range of related tasks (i.e., tag recommendation, relatedness prediction, and API recommendation). The results show that Post2Vec cannot further improve the SOTA techniques of the considered downstream tasks, and BERTOverflow shows surprisingly poor performance. To find more suitable representation models for the posts, we further explore a diverse set of transformer-based models, including (1) general domain language models (RoBERTa, Longformer, and GPT2) and (2) language models built with software engineering related textual artifacts (CodeBERT, GraphCodeBERT, seBERT, CodeT5, PLBart, and CodeGen). This exploration shows that models like CodeBERT and RoBERTa are suitable for representing Stack Overflow posts. However, it also illustrates the “No Silver Bullet” concept, as none of the models consistently wins against all the others. Inspired by the findings, we propose SOBERT, which employs a simple yet effective strategy to improve the representation models of Stack Overflow posts by continuing the pre-training phase with the textual artifact from Stack Overflow. The overall experimental results demonstrate that SOBERT can consistently outperform the considered models and increase the SOTA performance significantly for all the downstream tasks.
Variable Autonomy through Responsible Robotics: Design Guidelines and Research Agenda
Authors: Reinmund Tyler , Salvini Pericle , Kunze Lars , Jirotka Marina , Winfield Alan F. T.
Published: December 2023

Physically embodied artificial agents, or robots, are being incorporated into various practical and social contexts, from self-driving cars for personal transportation to assistive robotics in social care. To enable these systems to better perform under changing conditions, designers have proposed to endow robots with varying degrees of autonomous capabilities and the capacity to move between them—an approach known as variable autonomy. Researchers are beginning to understand how robots with fixed autonomous capabilities influence a person’s sense of autonomy, social relations, and, as a result, notions of responsibility; however, addressing these topics in scenarios where robot autonomy dynamically changes is underexplored. To establish a research agenda for variable autonomy that emphasises the responsible design and use of robotics, we conduct a developmental review. Based on a sample of 42 papers, we provide a synthesised definition of variable autonomy to connect currently disjointed research efforts, detail research approaches in variable autonomy to strengthen the empirical basis for subsequent work, characterise the dimensions of variable autonomy, and present design guidelines for variable autonomy research based on responsible robotics.
Adaptive Spatio-temporal Graph Learning for Bus Station Profiling
Authors: Hou Mingliang , Xia Feng , Chen Xin , Saikrishna Vidya , Chen Honglong
Published: December 2023

Understanding and managing public transportation systems require capturing complex spatio-temporal correlations within datasets. Existing studies often use predefined graphs in graph learning frameworks, neglecting shifted spatial and long-term temporal correlations, which are crucial in practical applications. To address these problems, we propose a novel bus station profiling framework to automatically infer the spatio-temporal correlations and capture the shifted spatial and long-term temporal correlations in the public transportation dataset. The proposed framework adopts and advances the graph learning structure through the following innovative ideas: (1) designing an adaptive graph learning mechanism to capture the interactions between spatio-temporal correlations rather than relying on pre-defined graphs, (2) modeling shifted correlation in shifted spatial graphs to learn fine-grained spatio-temporal features, and (3) employing self-attention mechanism to learn the long-term temporal correlations preserved in public transportation data. We conduct extensive experiments on three real-world datasets and exploit the learned profiles of stations for the station passenger flow prediction task. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed framework outperforms all baselines under different settings and can produce meaningful bus station profiles.
RADio* – An Introduction to Measuring Normative Diversity in News Recommendations
Authors: Vrijenhoek Sanne , Bénédict Gabriel , Gutierrez Granada Mateo , Odijk Daan
Published: December 2023

In traditional recommender system literature, diversity is often seen as the opposite of similarity and typically defined as the distance between identified topics, categories, or word models. However, this is not expressive of the social science’s interpretation of diversity, which accounts for a news organization’s norms and values and which we here refer to as
normative
diversity. We introduce RADio, a versatile metrics framework to evaluate recommendations according to these normative goals.

RADio introduces a rank-aware Jensen Shannon (JS) divergence. This combination accounts for (i) a user’s decreasing propensity to observe items further down a list and (ii) full distributional shifts as opposed to point estimates. We evaluate RADio’s ability to reflect five normative concepts in news recommendations on the Microsoft News Dataset and six (neural) recommendation algorithms, with the help of our metadata enrichment pipeline. We find that RADio provides insightful estimates that can potentially be used to inform news recommender system design.