bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The vortex-induced vibration performance of railway rectangular box girders
Authors: Wang Qi , Yang Shaopeng , Huang Lin , Wang Feng , Chu Feng
Published: January 2025

Rectangular steel box girders offer advantages such as a simple frame, high stability, and strong bearing capacity. Despite their widespread use, these girders are susceptible to vortex-induced vibration (VIV), posing challenges to the wind-resistant design. This study aims to comprehensively understand the VIV characteristics of different rectangular steel box girders, based on which effective VIV suppression measures are proposed. First, the rectangular box girders with aspect ratios of 4:1, 6.7:1, and 9:1 are selected to investigate the VIV performance through sectional model wind tunnel tests. The test results reveal significant differences in VIV characteristics among the test sections. The section with the most pronounced vertical VIV is the model with an aspect ratio of 4:1. In contrast, the section with the most significant torsional VIV is the one with an aspect ratio of 9:1. The box section with an aspect ratio of 6.7:1 also exhibits noticeable vertical and torsional VIV responses. Subsequently, the wind tunnel test result regarding the suppression of VIV indicates that setting symmetrical wind fairings with 1/8 times the section width has varying effects for each aspect ratio section. Symmetrical wind fairings reduce the VIV amplitude of the box girder with aspect ratios of 4:1 and 9:1 under different wind attack angles but increase the VIV response of the box girder with an aspect ratio of 6.7:1 at 0°, +3°, and +5° wind attack angles. Finally, the computational fluid dynamics numerical calculations simulate the flow field of each testing section, determining the vortex shedding mode of the rectangular box section for each aspect ratio, both before and after setting the wind fairings. The research results can provide a reference for the aerodynamic design and aerodynamic measures to suppress VIV in long-span bridges.
Cortical reorganization following dorsal spinal injuries in newborn monkeys reveals a critical period in the development of the somatosensory cortex
Authors: Jain Neeraj , Qi Hui-Xin , Raman Arun , Lyon David , Kaas Jon H.
Published: January 2025

Lesions of the dorsal columns of the spinal cord in adult macaque monkeys lead to the loss of hand inputs and large-scale expansion of the face inputs in the hand region of the somatosensory cortex. Inputs from alternate spinal pathways do not reactivate the deafferented regions of area 3b. Here, we determined how transections of the dorsal columns done within a few days after birth affect the developing somatosensory cortex. Dorsal columns were transected between the 3rd and 12th postnatal day (PND), and the somatosensory cortex was mapped when the macaques were over 3 y old. There were two distinct outcomes depending on the age at the time of the lesion. In monkeys lesioned between the 3rd and 5th PND, neurons in the entire hand region of area 3b and the adjacent somatosensory cortex responded to touch on the hand. An alternate spinal pathway must have replaced the lost pathway. In monkeys lesioned between the 9th and 12th PND, neurons in the deafferented hand region did not respond to touch on the hand. There was medialward expansion of the face representation into the deafferented cortex and a lateral expansion of the arm representation as in lesioned adults. Thus, different mechanisms underlie the reorganization of area 3b and the adjacent somatosensory cortex following identical spinal cord injuries sustained as early or late newborns. The results suggest that alternate spinal cord pathways can develop within a critical period before the 9th PND, but not later.
Delineating how PCIs develop
into GCIs from a cognition-pragmatics
diachronic perspective
Authors: Liang Nina , Zhang Yanfei , Zhang Yuan
Published: January 2025

The Gricean GCI-PCI divide has long been questioned in
linguistic pragmatics. Taking Chinese méimù in the CCL corpus
as the case, the present study proposes the cognition-pragmatics diachronic
model to examine Grice’s GCI-PCI divide. It is found that with the frequency of
repeated usage increasing over time, PCIs develop into GCIs; these two types of
conversational implicatures are not easily divided. Semantic change from PCIs to
GCIs is a dynamic process of cognition from individual entrenchment to
collective conventionalization. By schematization and categorization, the former
gradually builds an individual’s knowledge network with many entrenched PCI
nodes, while the latter is reflected as sharing some parts of the individual’s
knowledge network in the collective minds, i.e., the community’s knowledge
network with some conventionalized GCI nodes, further forming socio-cultural
conventions in a speech community. During this process, there is a division of
labor between context and conventions. Therefore, the diachronic study sheds new
light on the relationship between GCIs and PCIs.
The geometric blowup of smooth solutions to 1D quasilinear strictly hyperbolic systems with large variational initial data*
Authors: Jun Li , Gang Xu , Huicheng Yin
Published: January 2025

For the first order 1D n × n quasilinear strictly hyperbolic system

∂
t

u
+
F
(
u
)

∂
x

u
=
0

with

u
(
x
,
0
)
=
ε

u
0

(
x
)

, where ɛ > 0 is small,

u
0

(
x
)
≢
0

and

u
0

(
x
)
∈

C
0
2

(

R

)

, when at least one eigenvalue of n × n real matrix F(u) is genuinely nonlinear, it is well-known that on the finite blowup time T

ɛ
, the derivatives

∂

t
,
x

u

blow up while the solution u keeps small. For the 1D scalar equation or

2
×
2

strictly hyperbolic system (corresponding to

n
=
1
,
2

), if the smooth solution u blows up in finite time, then the blowup mechanism has been well understood (i.e. only the blowup of

∂

t
,
x

u

happens). In the present paper, for the 1D n × n (

n
⩾
3

) strictly hyperbolic system and large variational initial data

u
(
x
,
0
)

without compact supports, where

u
(
x
,
0
)

is small but its derivatives are large, we investigate the smallness of the solution u itself, the blowup mechanism and the detailed singularity behaviours of

∂

t
,
x

u

near the blowup point. Our results are based on the efficient decomposition of u and the involved analysis along the different characteristic directions, the suitable introduction of the modulated coordinates and the global weighted energy estimates together with the characteristics method.
Computational symplectic topology and symmetric orbits in the restricted three-body problem
Authors: Joung Chankyu , Koert Otto van
Published: January 2025

In this paper, we propose a computational approach to proving the Birkhoff conjecture on the restricted three-body problem, which asserts the existence of a disk-like global surface of section. Birkhoff had conjectured this surface of section as a tool to prove existence of a direct periodic orbit. Using techniques from validated numerics we prove the existence of an approximately circular direct orbit for a wide range of mass parameters and Jacobi energies. We also provide methods to rigorously compute the Conley–Zehnder index of periodic Hamiltonian orbits using computational tools, thus giving some initial steps for developing computational Floer homology and providing the means to prove the Birkhoff conjecture via symplectic topology. We apply this method to various symmetric orbits in the restricted three-body problem.
Hamiltonian formalism for cosmological perturbations: fixing the gauge
Authors: Artigas Danilo , Grain Julien , Vennin Vincent
Published: January 2025

Cosmological perturbation theory is an example of a gauge theory, where gauge
transformations correspond to changes in the space-time coordinate system. To determine physical
quantities, one is free to introduce gauge conditions (i.e. to work with specific space-time
coordinates), and such conditions are often used to simplify technical aspects of the calculation
or to facilitate the interpretation of the physical degrees of freedom. Some of the prescriptions
introduced in the literature are known to fix the gauge only partially, but it is commonly assumed
that the remaining gauge degrees of freedom can be fixed somehow. In this work, we show that this
is not necessarily the case, and that some of these gauges are indeed pathological. We derive a
systematic procedure to determine whether a gauge is pathological or not, and to complete
partially-fixed gauges into healthy gauges when this is possible. In this approach, the Lagrange
multipliers (i.e. the perturbed lapse and shift in the ADM formalism) cannot appear in the
off-shell definition of the gauges, they necessarily arise as on-shell consequences of the gauge
conditions. As illustrative applications, we propose an alternative, non-pathological formulation
of the synchronous gauge, and we show that the uniform-expansion gauge (as well as any gauge
ensuring vanishing lapse perturbations) can hardly be made healthy. Our methodology also allows us
to construct all gauge-invariant variables. We further show that our non-pathological criterion
for gauges is also the one that ensures Dirac brackets to be properly defined. This allows
cosmological perturbations to be quantised in a gauge-fixed way. We finally discuss possible
generalisations of our formalism.
Girls Who Disappear, Girls Who Remember
Authors: Choi Jinhee
Published: January 2025

This chapter analyzes the colonial and post-war eras where girl victims remember, share, and write the history of their predicaments. The Silenced (Lee Hae-young, 2015), Snowy Road (Lee Na-jeong, 2015), and A Werewolf Boy (Jo Sung-hee, 2012) all present girls as the “writing subject” who asserts her limited agency by writing, literally or figuratively. The three films complement one another in terms of their historical settings: The Silenced and Snowy Road are entirely or partially set in the 1930s and ’40s under Japanese colonial rule, while the flashbacks in A Werewolf Boy unfold against the post-war period of dictatorship. Personal writing, such as in diaries and letters, has been a practice integral to girls’ culture since the 1920s and ’30s and has become a persistent trope in girls’ fiction and cinema. This chapter examines how personal writing provides the marginal subject in the film mentioned, with a perspective that allows communication between girls and the sharing of personal experience. Last, it briefly discusses the film I Can Speak (Kim Hyun-seok, 2017), which transforms the female protagonist, whose past includes working as a sexual slave during the colonial era, from a writing to a speaking subject.
Afterword
Authors: Choi Jinhee
Published: January 2025

The afterword reflects on recent Korean film trends that concern girlhood and coming-of-age plots or mother-daughter relationships. The author briefly summarizes the conceptual frameworks that are employed to examine girlhood, gender, and labor as well as leisure and idleness and shows an innovative way that Forever Girls contributes to the study of contemporary South Korean cinema and national cinemas more generally. She further acknowledges the death of Korean actors and actresses who passed away while she was completing the book and how their deaths turn the book into an opportunity to reflect on and cherish their performances.
Political Apologies in International Relations
Authors: Yang Deli , Diehl Paul F.
Published: January 2025

The so-called age of apology has led to a burgeoning literature on political apologies in international relations, centering on state officials’ recognition of historical transgressions, acceptance of responsibility, and expressions of remorse. Along with the empirical increase in political apologies has been a growth and expansion of scholarly studies devoted to understanding them as purposive acts in diplomacy. The examination of this literature is divided into three primary segments: (a) the definition and different types of apologies; (b) the motivations behind the use of apologies; and (c) the outcomes of apologies, specifically whether they promote better relations between states, whether there is a domestic backlash, and what effects they have on international reputation. Although apologies are generally aimed at reconciliation, they often yield mixed results. On the domestic front, international apologies can provoke domestic backlash, undermining leaders seeking reconciliation and tarnishing their perceived sincerity. Paradoxically, if a state is willing to risk domestic dissent in order to offer an apology, it may be perceived as a costly commitment to reconciliation internationally. At the global level, apologies can serve as tools for repairing tarnished reputations by signaling a departure from past missteps. Nevertheless, they might also be interpreted as signs of weakness, thereby reducing the apologizing state’s symbolic power.
Cyber-Routine Activity Theory
Authors: Vakhitova Zarina I.
Published: January 2025

Cyber-routine activity theory (CRAT) was developed in response to the emergence of cybercrime (i.e., criminal activities conducted using computer networks or digital devices as primary tools, targets, or mediums) and the need for a theoretical framework that can explain the specific dynamics of digital criminal activity. It builds on routine activity theory (RAT), which explains the occurrence of crime as the result of criminal opportunity. According to RAT, such an opportunity presents itself when three elements converge in time and space: the presence of a motivated offender, the availability of a suitable target, and the absence of capable guardians. In essence, CRAT provides a situational explanation for cybercrime, emphasizing the interaction between motivated offenders, suitable targets, and the lack of capable guardianship in the unique environment of cyberspace.

Early attempts to apply RAT in the context of cybercrime identified the need for a theoretical framework specific to cyberspace due to the incompatibility between the core premises of RAT and the unique features of cyberspace. Specifically, the main premise of RAT, which requires the physical convergence of offenders and victims, is not essential in the context of cybercrime. Victims of cybercrimes may not even be online at the same time as their attackers and may be geographically apart from them. Furthermore, RAT suggests that third parties can deter crime by simply being there as potential witnesses or interveners in criminal acts. This deterrence effect stems from the increased perceived risk of getting caught by the offender when witnesses are present. However, in cyberspace, the environment’s characteristics often make physical visibility difficult or impossible. Coupled with the anonymity provided by the online environment, in cyberspace, the deterrence effect of a mere presence is likely to be negligible. Consequently, the notion that the mere presence of third parties can prevent cybercrimes does not hold true in this context. The incompatibility of the core premises of RAT and the environment of cyberspace has led to the development of CRAT.

CRAT suggests that in cyberspace, crime occurs in digital domains, can happen asynchronously, and can be prevented by making targets less vulnerable through such means as personal self-protection (e.g., using strong passwords and knowledge about digital risks) and technical self-protection (e.g., using software cybersecurity applications like antivirus software and access control programs), or through active intervention by capable guardians (human third parties). Extensive empirical testing of CRAT thus far indicates its potential to provide valuable insights for developing cybersecurity measures, informing policy decisions, and predicting future cybercrime trends.
Colonialism and Muslim Personal Law in South Asia
Authors: Lhost Elizabeth
Published: January 2025

While the origins of religious legal pluralism in South Asia predate European colonialism, the personal law system assumed its present shape during the period of British rule. From 1772 onward, East India Company regulations laid the foundations for a state-centered legal system that would adjudicate religious, personal-law disputes according to the laws of the community. Until the middle of the 19th century, this approach meant consulting local experts and searching for answers to legal questions within medieval texts that were translated and published to provide British judges with access to their contents. Texts were numerous, but they remained only one tool in the jurist’s toolbox. In the second half of the 19th century, legal cases involving disputes between Muslim litigants contributed to the production of substantive case law that informed subsequent rulings, and British-trained Indian Muslim judges took a leading role in deciding cases and writing opinions that challenged and further shaped the contours of Anglo-Muslim law. Legislation also became an important part of this toolbox in the decades before independence, but even with the passage of laws like the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act (1937) and the Dissolution of Muslim Marriages Act (1939), legislation remained one of several interpretive mechanisms. Nearly a century later, key questions about who can and how to define Islamic law remain contested and the field of legal debate and interpretation is lively.
Slavery and Its Legacy in the Comoro Islands
Authors: Ali Tabibou Ibouroi
Published: January 2025

While the history of slavery prior to the arrival of Europeans in the Indian Ocean is not well known, the practice of slavery did not decrease with their arrival. On the Comoro Islands, Europeans owned the plantations that required laborers (slaves). Following the abolition of slavery, those who worked on plantations gradually become landowners. Women became second-class kin in aristocratic families. Indeed, following abolition, they were no longer slaves, but they remained of a lower social status than those around them.

The Comoro Islands were initially settled in the 1st millennium bce, and slavery existed there long before the 18th century slave trade and the engagé (indentured servant) system of the French colonial period. The primary functions of slavery in the pre-European period were agriculture and domestic service, and slaves were of local as well as foreign origin. In the past, the slave trade had been conducted by Arabs; after the arrival of the Europeans, the British, French, Dutch, and Portuguese all participated in the slave trade. At the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th century, there were major raids by Malagasy slaveholders. Slavery thus swiftly increased with the arrival of the slave trade and colonialism.

The closest coastline to the Comoro Islands is that of Mozambique. Numerous Mozambicans migrated to the islands over the years, some to fill a need for labor in the agricultural economy and others to be traded, whether on the Arabian Peninsula or the French colonies of the Indian Ocean. These Africans of Mozambican origin are known on the Comoro Islands as makuwa. Their integration is synonymous with cultural and historical contributions to the country’s history, even though the official abolition of slavery throughout the 19th century is assessed in different ways. For the country today, the consequences of this painful history remain visible in both its social structure and daily behaviors.
Pricing the Flood Risk: Evidence From the Real Estate Market in China
Authors: Deng Yongheng , Lin Lu , Meng Lina
Published: January 2025

Globally, the rising frequency and severity of droughts, tropical cyclones, floods, and heatwaves are inflicting significant economic damage. While existing research has primarily concentrated on the impacts of climate risks on developed countries, emerging economies with sizable market value, which are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change, have received little attention.

An event study and stacked difference-in-differences approaches are employed to estimate the effects of floods on the housing market within an emerging economy, with a specific focus on China. On average, the occurrence of floods leads to a 2.8% decrease in housing prices, while it surprisingly increases the transaction quantity by 36.6%. Despite the negative impact on property values, the volume of housing transactions remains brisk, possibly due to the attraction of lower prices for potential buyers. The severity of flood risk, financial aid allocation, and the disclosure of flood-prone information play significant roles in shaping the market’s response to flood risk.

Mechanism analysis shows that the market response to floods is influenced by public risk perception and short-term physical damage caused by floods. In areas with a history of frequent floods, the housing market appears to adjust more rationally, with buyers incorporating flood risk into their purchase decisions. Conversely, in regions where floods are less frequent, the market response tends to be more pronounced, with significant price discounts post-flood events. Short-term physical damage also affects housing prices by reducing prices as buyers care about property quality.

Flood-prone information disclosure helps to mitigate information asymmetry in the housing market. The disclosure of such information is found to reduce the information gap, leading to a higher price discount on flooded houses and a corresponding increase in transaction volume.

In conclusion, climate change-related risks such as floods significantly affect the asset market of emerging economies like China, which are priced in the housing market. Understanding and incorporating climate risks into housing market analysis and policymaking is crucial, particularly amid a backdrop of escalating climate-related disasters.
Solving Default Models
Authors: Mihalache Gabriel
Published: January 2025

The option of borrowers to occasionally default on their obligations drives important features of financial markets. In models designed to study such behavior, the discreteness of the default decision induces sizable nonlinearities. Moreover, when debt is long term as in the data, debt dilution is a major force in the determination of borrowing costs: Lenders offer unfavorable prices because all future borrowing and default decisions are salient for the expected payoff of the financial instrument, not only the near-term likelihood of default. Several numerical techniques are employed to compensate for the resulting destabilizing interdependence of borrower policies and asset prices. Among them, approaches based on discrete choice methods have proved particularly tractable and robust. Augmenting otherwise standard sovereign default or unsecured consumer credit models with “taste shocks” to both the borrowing and default choices has been instrumental for their computation and quantitative assessment. These algorithms naturally lend themselves to parallel computation or implementation on Graphics Processing Units and can be readily adapted to richer models incorporating self-fulfilling crises, partial recovery, risk-averse lenders, or multiple endogenous state variables. At the cost of restricting choices to values on a grid, the resulting multinominal logit structure relies on the value functions of the model directly, without taking first-order conditions, costly interpolation, or numerical maximization.
Ultra Low Frequency Waves of Earth’s Magnetosphere
Authors: Elsden Tom
Published: January 2025

The Earth generates a significant magnetic field, the effects of which extend out into space. This field interacts with the solar wind, the stream of charged particles constantly emitted from the Sun that fills the solar system. Earth’s magnetic field has an associated magnetic pressure, which pushes back against the incoming solar wind, forming a cavity around the Earth known as the magnetosphere, which extends sunward in average conditions to approximately 10 Earth radii (∼65,000 km). Inside this cavity, the plasma (ionized gas) dynamics are dominated by the effects of the Earth’s magnetic field. Other magnetized planets (e.g., Mercury, Jupiter, and Saturn) also support magnetospheres in response to the solar wind.

The solar wind is not a steady flow; therefore, the delicate balance of pressure that defines Earth’s magnetosphere is constantly being perturbed. In this way, the inhomogeneous solar wind acts as a driver of large-scale perturbations of the magnetosphere. Akin to beating the skin of a drum, this launches waves throughout the magnetosphere known as ultra-low-frequency (ULF) waves. These large length scale, long timescale (periods of 1–1,000 s) waves communicate these changes to the equilibrium as they propagate. They drive electric currents that cause particles to precipitate into the upper atmosphere generating auroral displays. They interact with highly energetic particles trapped in Earth’s magnetosphere in a region known as the radiation belts. These particles can drastically impact orbiting spacecraft, and in this way ULF waves tie in critically to space weather: the real-time plasma conditions in near-Earth space and their effect on humanity. It has also been shown that ULF waves can directly drive electric currents on the ground, which can affect power grids. ULF waves can further be used as a remote-sensing tool, with their frequency measured on the ground permitting the inference of the plasma properties in space. There are also several sources of ULF waves internal to the magnetosphere—for example, those driven by interaction with energetic particles. Through these mechanisms, ULF waves impact almost every area of the magnetosphere and are therefore a critical piece of the overall plasma dynamics.
State Partitions
Authors: Rhagavan Pallavi
Published: January 2025

Partitions—a set of administrative practices that were developed within models of colonial governance in the 19th century—are an important aspect of modern conflict resolution and techniques for innovating power-sharing arrangements. While often seen as providing a simpler exit from historic deeply entrenched conflicts around ethnicity and religion, the administrative conversation around Partition is also accompanied by detailed deliberations around resource redistribution and the methods of determining jurisdictional responsibilities. Yet, although Partitions and the process of breaking up a single administrative and territorial entity into different parts are widely associated with violence and displacement, it is also important to remember that the memory of Partition is not universally associated with loss and defeat. In fact, the political memory of the contestations over the processes of Partition is demonstrated through a contestation between older and newer forms of territorialized articulations of identity and worldview. On the one hand, the effect of a Partition is the creation of a new sovereign entity, held in place by a newly drawn boundary line. On the other, critics of this process recall previous forms of “undivided” territorial organization that, they argue, are more legitimate. Present-day memories of Partitions continue to influence the course of international politics, and many features that characterize the conduct and contestations of the modern international system can also be correlated with arguments about whether Partitions and the newly formed nation-states that accompany them are justified.
Nuclear Structure at Finite Temperature and the Electric Dipole Oscillations
Authors: Maj Adam , Bracco Angela
Published: January 2025

The research on the giant dipole resonances (GDR) built on excited states is relevant for the understanding of the properties of nuclear matter at finite temperature and of the evolution of the damping mechanisms of this collective vibration with temperature and angular momentum. Extensive experimental and theoretical work was done to address these topics. In particular, the nuclear shapes of hot nuclei are probed by the GDR and the nuclear deformations and their fluctuations affect the damping mechanisms. Generally, the intrinsic width is not affected by the temperature and the coupling to the shape ensemble characterizing the compound nucleus is responsible for the measured broadening of the GDR width. This broadening is due to both temperature and angular momentum and it was investigated at temperature up to approximately 3 MeV. Another quantity found to be independent of temperature is the Coulomb mixing of states with different isospin values. The knowledge of isospin mixing is very important also to evaluate beta decay probabilities. Some effort was also made to learn on the properties of the GDR in very heavy fissioning nuclei and in nuclei with extreme deformations (superdeformed, hyper-deformed, and Jacobi types) with the aim to shed light on how nuclei can obtain these exotic nuclear shapes.
Theater
Authors: Jay Jeff
Published: January 2025

Spectacle, theater, drama, tragedy, comedy, and stage-craft impact and shape early Christian writing and thinking. The crucifixion itself is a spectacle that demands reinterpretation and participation in theatrical cultural dialogue. Paul dramatizes his own apostolic mission as “theater” and draws on tragedy and comedy to frame his work and inflect his theology and persuasive strategies. Mark, Luke, and John composed narrative gospels incorporating tragic motifs, moods, attitudes, and values and used several formal dramatic conventions. Mark and Luke have written a type of tragic biography and history common in the competitive environment of narrative and literary criticism in Greco-Roman and early Jewish literary and oratorical culture. The god Dionysus and his links with the theater, and in particular Euripides’ Bacchae, loom large as authors like Paul, Luke, John, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen explore the rivalry between this god and Christ as they forge their emerging understandings of Christian identity. This culminates in the Byzantine drama Christus patiens, a cento that draws lines from the Bacchae and reapplies them to Christ’s passion. This multifaceted and vibrant literary, theological, and philosophical preoccupation and absorption in the theater and its literature indelibly marks the earliest Christian literary culture. This complicates and renders ambivalent any straightforward reading of the Christian tradition in the West as antitheatrical, despite the many strong critical protests in the early church against the theater by Tertullian, John Chrysostom, and Augustine. Already in the nascent literary culture of early Christianity, theater and drama play a formative role and exert far-reaching influence. Early Christian literature thus provides an intergeneric window for tracing the postclassical spread and reception of theater and drama in the Roman empire.
Ellipsis in the Syntax of Rioplatense Spanish
Authors: Saab Andrés
Published: January 2025

Ellipsis is an operation of grammar that leaves part of a phrase unpronounced. Languages vary regarding the type of elliptical phrases they allow. Spanish presents a rich variety oftense phrase ellipses (TP-ellipsis) in the sentential domain that are also attested in many other languages (sluicing, stripping, gapping, and fragment answers). In addition, this language also licenses elliptical constructions that are more restricted cross-linguistically. One of such constructions is ellipsis with clitic left dislocated remnants, a kind of ellipsis licensed by the polarity head in which the remnant (or remnants) is a contrastive clitic left dislocated topic. The behavior of clitics within the ellipsis site is compared with doubling clitics in fragment answers and gapping to draw some conclusions regarding the nature of clitic doubling in Rioplatense Spanish. Now, in contrast with its great variety of sentential ellipses, Spanish does not make use of lower ellipses; in particular, it lacks verbal ellipses (VP-ellipsis) with auxiliary or verb stranding, which are attested in languages like English or Portuguese. This absence of verbal ellipsis is correlated with the lack of verbal phrase (VP) fronting. Other attested elliptical constructions in the sentential domain, modal ellipsis and predicate ellipsis (PredP-ellipsis,i.e., ellipsis of the complement of copular verbs), correlate with the possibility of fronting the complement of the relevant modal or of the Predicate Phrase. In the nominal domain, ellipsis of the entire nominal phrase (NP-ellipsis) is the most productive ellipsis in Spanish. The construction shares all the properties of the so-called non-local anaphora (e.g., English VP-ellipsis or pseudo-gapping); that is, it can occur long-distance, across the discourse and in a variety of embedded clauses, including syntactic islands. Nominal features like gender and number behave differently under NP-ellipsis: whereas number features in the ellipsis site can mismatch with number features in the antecedent, gender features must be identical in the ellipsis site and in the antecedent. Certain instances of NP-ellipsis in Rioplatense Spanish show that the case feature of the elided noun can also vary with respect to the case feature of the noun in the antecedent.
Critiques of Social Work Practice in Carceral Systems
Authors: Rasmussen Cameron , Suslovic Brianna
Published: January 2025

Social work’s history in the United States is intertwined with the development and expansion of criminal-legal systems. As the profession of social work has remained centrally involved in criminal punishment, immigration enforcement, policing, and child welfare contexts, critiques of social work practices in these settings have proliferated. From the perspective of abolitionists, social work’s presence in coercive, controlling, or punitive settings is troublesome. The ethical obligations of social workers, as dictated by the National Association of Social Workers Code of Ethics, may be in direct conflict with the tasks expected of social workers in punitive institutions. Examining the role of social work in policing, jails/prisons, child welfare/family policing, immigration, and probation/parole, it is clear that social workers have long held an investment in working with marginalized individuals and families. However, social workers’ investments in these institutions often translate into professional actions that promote punishment, social exclusion, family separation, and coercion. Critiques of social work practice in carceral systems are largely grounded in the ways in which social workers have historically constrained choice, reinforced hierarchies, and deferred to more punitive professions such as police and correctional officers. In and around these punitive institutional contexts, however, social workers have also identified ways of practicing which disrupt carceral norms and logics. This suggests that there are ways of practicing social work that are responsive and in direct conflict with the harmful practices and attitudes perpetuated by carceral systems; these kinds of social work practices often fall under the umbrella of abolitionist social work, a relatively novel professional framework that prioritizes liberation and self-determination for all people through dismantling harmful institutions and building newer, more liberatory structures.
Sustainable Development Goals: A Midpoint Review of Accomplishments and Challenges
Authors: Pandey Shanta , Paul Pooja , Ortiz Gabi
Published: January 2025

The United Nations charged its member countries in 2015 to attain sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030. Some of these goals included eliminating poverty and hunger, improving health and education, and reaching gender parity and inclusion. Many countries have made progress toward these goals despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Ukraine and Russia war, and global inflation but may not realize these SDGs by 2030. It is reassuring that most countries have adopted the SDGs in their national plans. Child marriage, maternal and child mortality, and extreme poverty rates are declining. However, food insecurity has risen because of the Ukraine and Russia war and inflation. Additionally, violence against women may have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown. As for an inclusive world, many countries have passed laws securing the rights of LGBTQ+ people, but more needs to be done to end discrimination based on gender or sexual orientation.
Multimodal multiobjective optimization with structural network control principles to optimize personalized drug targets for drug discovery of individual patients
Authors: Liang Jing , Hu Zhuo , Bi Ying , Cheng Han , Guo Wei-Feng
Published: January 2025

Structural network control principles provided novel and efficient clues for the optimization of personalized drug targets (PDTs) related to state transitions of individual patients. However, most existing methods focus on one subnetwork or module as drug targets through the identification of the minimal set of driver nodes and ignore the state transition capabilities of other modules with different configurations of drug targets [i.e. multimodal drug targets (MDTs)] embedding the knowledge of previous drug targets (i.e. multiobjective optimization). Therefore, a novel multimodal multiobjective evolutionary optimization framework (called MMONCP) is proposed to optimize PDTs with network control principles. The key points of MMONCP are that a constrained multimodal multiobjective optimization problem is formed with discrete constraints on the decision space and multimodality characteristics, and a novel evolutionary algorithm denoted as CMMOEA-GLS-WSCD is designed by combining a global and local search strategy and a weighting-based special crowding distance strategy to balance the diversity of both objective and decision space. The experimental results on three cancer genomics data from The Cancer Genome Atlas indicate that MMONCP achieves a higher performance including algorithm convergence and diversity, the fraction of identified MDTs, and the area under the curve score than advanced algorithms. Additionally, MMONCP can detect the early state from the difference between the target activity and toxicity of MDTs and provide early treatment options for cancer treatment in precision medicine.
Early subacute frontal callosal microstructure and language outcomes after stroke
Authors: Vadinova Veronika , Brownsett Sonia L E , Garden Kimberley L , Roxbury Tracy , O’Brien Katherine , Copland David A , McMahon Katie L , Sihvonen Aleksi J
Published: January 2025

The integrity of the frontal segment of the corpus callosum, forceps minor, is particularly susceptible to age-related degradation and has been associated with cognitive outcomes in both healthy and pathological ageing. The predictive relevance of forceps minor integrity in relation to cognitive outcomes following a stroke remains unexplored. Our goal was to evaluate whether the heterogeneity of forceps minor integrity, assessed early after stroke onset (2–6 weeks), contributes to explaining variance in longitudinal outcomes in post-stroke aphasia. Both word- and sentence-level tasks were employed to assess language comprehension and language production skills in individuals with first-ever left-hemisphere stroke during the early subacute and chronic phases of recovery (n = 25). Structural and diffusion neuroimaging data from the early subacute phase were used to quantify stroke lesion load and bilateral forceps minor radial diffusivity. Multiple linear regression models examined whether early subacute radial diffusivity within the forceps minor, along with other factors (stroke lesion load, age, sex and education), explained variance in early subacute performance and longitudinal recovery (i.e. change in behavioural performance). Increased early subacute radial diffusivity in the forceps minor was associated with poor early subacute comprehension (t = −2.36, P = 0.02) but not production (P = 0.35) when controlling for stroke lesion load, age, sex and education. When considering longitudinal recovery, early subacute radial diffusivity in the forceps minor was not linked to changes in performance in either comprehension (P = 0.11) or production (P = 0.36) under the same control variables. The examination of various language components and processes led to novel insights: (i) language comprehension may be more susceptible to white matter brain health than language production and (ii) the influence of white matter brain health is reflected in early comprehension performance rather than longitudinal changes in comprehension. These results suggest that evaluating baseline callosal integrity is a valuable approach for assessing the risk of impaired language comprehension post-stroke, while also underscoring the importance of nuanced analyses of behavioural outcomes to enhance our understanding of the clinical applicability of baseline brain health measures.
Robust Diagnosis of Acute Bacterial and Viral Infections via Host Gene Expression Rank-Based Ensemble Machine Learning Algorithm: A Multi-Cohort Model Development and Validation Study
Authors: Shen Yifei , Han Dongsheng , Qu Wenxin , Yu Fei , Zhang Dan , Xu Yifan , Shen Enhui , Chu Qinjie , Timko Michael P , Fan Longjiang , Zheng Shufa , Chen Yu
Published: January 2025

Background

The accurate and prompt diagnosis of infections is essential for improving patient outcomes and preventing bacterial drug resistance. Host gene expression profiling as an approach to infection diagnosis holds great potential in assisting early and accurate diagnosis of infection.

Methods

To improve the precision of infection diagnosis, we developed InfectDiagno, a rank-based ensemble machine learning algorithm for infection diagnosis via host gene expression patterns. Eleven data sets were used as training data sets for the method development, and the InfectDiagno algorithm was optimized by multi-cohort training samples. Nine data sets were used as independent validation data sets for the method. We further validated the diagnostic capacity of InfectDiagno in a prospective clinical cohort.

Results

After selecting 100 feature genes based on their gene expression ranks for infection prediction, we trained a classifier using both a noninfected-vs-infected area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (area under the curve [AUC] 0.95 [95% CI, 0.93–0.97]) and a bacterial-vs-viral AUC 0.95 (95% CI, 0.93–0.97). We then used the noninfected/infected classifier together with the bacterial/viral classifier to build a discriminating infection diagnosis model. The sensitivity was 0.931 and 0.872, and specificity 0.963 and 0.929, for bacterial and viral infections, respectively. We then applied InfectDiagno to a prospective clinical cohort (n = 517), and found it classified 95% of the samples correctly.

Conclusions

Our study shows that the InfectDiagno algorithm is a powerful and robust tool to accurately identify infection in a real-world patient population, which has the potential to profoundly improve clinical care in the field of infection diagnosis.
Developing a co-designed, culturally responsive physical activity program for Pasifika communities in Western Sydney, Australia
Authors: Lederman Oscar , Moors-Mailei Amanda , Peacock Yvonne , McKeon Grace , Llana Alessandro , Burns David , Rosenbaum Simon , Caperchione Cristina M
Published: January 2025

Pasifika communities in Western Sydney experience significant health disparities, particularly related to chronic diseases such as cardiovascular conditions and diabetes. Physical activity is known to improve both physical and mental health, yet access to culturally responsive physical activity programs for Pasifika communities is limited. This study leveraged expertise from an Advisory Committee to adopt community-based participatory research (CBPR) through Talanoa to co-design a physical activity program specifically tailored for Pasifika people in Western Sydney. Pasifika mothers were identified as a priority population due to their central role in family health and well-being. The co-design process followed the four stages of Engage, Gather, Understand and Improve, guided by the Fonofale Model of Health to ensure a culturally responsive approach. We report on each stage of the co-design process and the results gathered, highlighting key findings such as the need for culturally safe environments, flexible scheduling, ensuring programs are community-led and addressing key barriers including caregiving responsibilities, sociocultural expectations and health status. The results from this study will guide the implementation of a culturally tailored physical activity program that meets the unique needs and values of the Pasifika community in Western Sydney.
Estimating Wingbeat Frequency of Hummingbirds Using a No-Labeling Learning Computer Vision Approach
Authors: Bastidas-Rodriguez Maria Ximena , Fernandes Ana Melisa , Espejo-Uribe María José , Abaunza Diana , Roncancio Juan Sebastián , Gutierrez-Zamora Eduardo Aquiles , Pai Cristian Flórez , Smiley Ashley , Hurme Kristiina , Clark Christopher J , Rico-Guevara Alejandro
Published: January 2025

Synopsis

Wingbeat frequency estimation is an important aspect for the study of avian flight, energetics, and behavioral patterns, among others. Hummingbirds, in particular, are ideal subjects to test a method for this estimation due to their fast wing motions and unique aerodynamics, which result from their ecological diversification, adaptation to high-altitude environments, and sexually selected displays. Traditionally, wingbeat frequency measurements have been done via “manual” image/sound processing. In this study, we present an automated method to detect, track, classify, and monitor hummingbirds in high-speed video footage, accurately estimating their wingbeat frequency using computer vision techniques and signal analysis. Our approach utilizes a zero-shot learning algorithm that eliminates the need for labeling during training. Results demonstrate that our method can produce automated wingbeat frequency estimations with minimal supervision, closely matching those performed by trained human observers. This comparison indicates that our method can, in some scenarios, achieve low or zero error compared to a human, making it a valuable tool for flight analysis. Automating video analysis can assist wingbeat frequency estimation by reducing processing time and, thus, lowering barriers to analyze biological data in fields such as aerodynamics, foraging behavior, and signaling.
Donor-acceptor engineering of triplet exciton optimized MOF photocatalyst for efficient singlet oxygen-mediated oxidations
Authors: Wang Kai , Li Chang-Tai , Zhang Guo-Lei , Yu Wang Han- , Geng Lin , Zhang Bo , Yu Mei-Hui , Zhang Jijie , Chang Ze , Bu Xian-He
Published: January 2025

The exploration of photocatalyst (PC) for efficient singlet oxygen (1O2)-based photocatalytic oxidation is critical and challenging. Herein, a new series of donor-acceptor metal-organic frameworks (D-A MOFs) were constructed through the engineering of D-A system and investigated as PCs for 1O2 oxidation reaction. By regulating the intersystem crossing and reversed intersystem crossing (ISC/RISC) features of the D-A system, the D-A MOFs could reveal high tunable triplet excitons generation. Synergy with the enhanced electron transfer properties and the effective energy transfer to ground state O2, the optimized D-A MOF (C1) could reveal remarkable activity toward 1O2 generation under proper irradiation, which is fully proved by the highly efficient oxidation and detoxification of mustard simulant 2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfide (CEES) into 2-chloroethyl ethyl sulfoxide (CEESO) (conversion and selectivity >99% within 15 min). Moreover, the application of C1 for the photocatalytic oxidation of dihydroartemisinic acid (DHAA) to artemisinin result in the highest selectivity and yield (selectivity 88% and conversion >99% at 25°C) among all the reported homo- or heterogeneous photocatalysts.