bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Mobile-assisted language learning in Chinese higher education context: a systematic review from the perspective of the situated learning theory
Authors: Li Fan , Fan Si , Wang Yanjun
Published: April 2022

Recent years have witnessed numerous systematic investigations on mobile-assisted language learning (MALL). However, very few research synthesis studies focused on the higher education context in mainland China. This paper provides a systematic review of the findings of 23 studies published between 2015 and 2020 in mainland China. The aim of this review is twofold: 1) to examine prevalent researched elements in extant MALL studies; and 2) to investigate ways in which the two original components of the Situated Learning Theory (SLT), including Legitimate Peripheral Participation and Communities of Practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991), have a bearing on MALL. This systematic review resulted in two major findings. First, five key researched elements were revealed, e.g., target language teaching areas, and adopted applications/software. Second, guided by the two original elements of SLT, four derived elements were identified, namely authenticity, social interactions and collaborations, apprenticeship learning, and beliefs and behaviours. The findings suggest the need to develop sound MALL pedagogies associated with sociocultural aspects of language learning in relevant contexts. This review study also provides insights into how Chinese language professionals and practitioners can improve curriculum design and resource development to adapt to future trends in MALL.
Teaching toddlers the meaning of numbers—connecting modes of mathematical representations in book reading
Authors: Björklund Camilla , Palmér Hanna
Published: April 2022

In this article, we direct attention to what becomes critical in teaching activities for toddlers (1–3-year-olds) to learn the meaning of numbers. One activity we thoroughly explore is interactive book reading, based on previous research indicating positive learning outcomes from this type of mathematical activity, as it has shown to simultaneously embrace the child’s perspective and encourage interaction and ‘number talk.’ A specially designed picture book presenting small quantities was developed, and variation theory principles were embedded in both the book design and the teaching acts. Through qualitative analyses, we aim to identify what is critical in the interactive book reading sessions for toddlers to discern essential aspects of numbers, with a specific focus on the conditions for making modes of representations into resources for learning. Preschool teachers frequently read the book to 27 toddlers over the course of a year. Video documentation of their reading sessions was analyzed, and exposed the significance of addressing the child’s perspective when choosing what representation to emphasize and in what ways connections within and between representations can be made. Thus, the study contributes knowledge on the teaching of numbers with toddlers, and problematizes as well as extends the potential of interactive book reading as a quality-enhancing educational tool.
Comparative Analysis of the Vocal Repertoires of the Indri (Indri indri) and the Diademed Sifaka (Propithecus diadema)
Authors: Valente Daria , Miaretsoa Longondraza , Anania Alessio , Costa Francesco , Mascaro Alessandra , Raimondi Teresa , De Gregorio Chiara , Torti Valeria , Friard Olivier , Ratsimbazafy Jonah , Giacoma Cristina , Gamba Marco
Published: April 2022

Strepsirrhine vocalisations are extraordinarily diverse and cross-species comparisons are needed to explore how this variability evolved. We contributed to the investigation of primate acoustic diversity by comparing the vocal repertoire of two sympatric lemur species, Propithecus diadema and Indri indri. These diurnal species belong to the same taxonomic family and have similar activity patterns but different social structures. These features make them excellent candidates for an investigation of the phylogenetic, environmental, and social influence on primate vocal behavior. We recorded 3 P. diadema groups in 2014 and 2016. From 1,872 recordings we selected and assigned 3814 calls to 9 a priori call types, on the basis of their acoustic structure. We implemented a reproducible technique performing an acoustic feature extraction relying on frequency bins, t-SNE data reduction, and a hard-clustering analysis. We first quantified the vocal repertoire of P. diadema, finding consistent results for the 9 putatively identified call types. When comparing this repertoire with a previously published repertoire of I. indri, we found highly species-specific repertoires, with only 2% of the calls misclassified by species identity. The loud calls of the two species were very distinct, while the low-frequency calls were more similar. Our results pinpoint the role of phylogenetic history, social and environmental features on the evolution of communicative systems and contribute to a deeper understanding of the evolutionary roots of primate vocal differentiation. We conclude by arguing that standardized and reproducible techniques, like the one we employed, allow robust comparisons and should be prioritized in the future.
Exponentially Convergent Trapezoidal Rules to Approximate Fractional Powers of Operators
Authors: Aceto Lidia , Novati Paolo
Published: April 2022

In this paper we are interested in the approximation of fractional powers of self-adjoint positive operators. Starting from the integral representation of the operators, we apply the trapezoidal rule combined with a double-exponential transform of the integrand function. In this work we show how to improve the existing error estimates for the scalar case and also extend the analysis to operators. We report some numerical experiments to show the reliability of the estimates obtained.
Lipschitzness is all you need to tame off-policy generative adversarial imitation learning
Authors: Blondé Lionel , Strasser Pablo , Kalousis Alexandros
Published: April 2022

Despite the recent success of reinforcement learning in various domains, these approaches remain, for the most part, deterringly sensitive to hyper-parameters and are often riddled with essential engineering feats allowing their success. We consider the case of off-policy generative adversarial imitation learning, and perform an in-depth review, qualitative and quantitative, of the method. We show that forcing the learned reward function to be local Lipschitz-continuous is asine qua noncondition for the method to perform well. We then study the effects of this necessary condition and provide several theoretical results involving the local Lipschitzness of the state-value function. We complement these guarantees with empirical evidence attesting to the strong positive effect that the consistent satisfaction of the Lipschitzness constraint on the reward has on imitation performance. Finally, we tackle a generic pessimistic reward preconditioning add-on spawning a large class of reward shaping methods, which makes the base method it is plugged into provably more robust, as shown in several additional theoretical guarantees. We then discuss these through a fine-grained lens and share our insights. Crucially, the guarantees derived and reported in this work are valid foranyreward satisfying the Lipschitzness condition, nothing is specific to imitation. As such, these may be of independent interest.
BV analysis of Polyakov and Nambu–Goto theories with boundary
Authors: Martinoli S. , Schiavina M.
Published: April 2022

The Batalin–Vilkovisky data for Polyakov string theory on a manifold with (non-null) boundary are shown to induce compatible Batalin–Fradkin–Vilkovisky data, thus allowing BV-quantisation on manifolds with boundary. On the other hand, the analogous formulation of Nambu–Goto string theory fails to satisfy the needed regularity requirements. As a by-product, a concise description is given of the reduced phase spaces of both models and their relation, for any target d-dimensional Lorentzian manifold.
Anime-to-real clothing: Cosplay costume generation via image-to-image translation
Authors: Tango Koya , Katsurai Marie , Maki Hayato , Goto Ryosuke
Published: April 2022

Cosplay has grown from its origins at fan conventions into a billion-dollar global dress phenomenon. To facilitate the imagination and reinterpretation of animated images as real garments, this paper presents an automatic costume-image generation method based on image-to-image translation. Cosplay items can be significantly diverse in their styles and shapes, and conventional methods cannot be directly applied to the wide variety of clothing images that are the focus of this study. To solve this problem, our method starts by collecting and preprocessing web images to prepare a cleaned, paired dataset of the anime and real domains. Then, we present a novel architecture for generative adversarial networks (GANs) to facilitate high-quality cosplay image generation. Our GAN consists of several effective techniques to bridge the two domains and improve both the global and local consistency of generated images. Experiments demonstrated that, with quantitative evaluation metrics, the proposed GAN performs better and produces more realistic images than conventional methods. Our codes and pretrained model are available on the web.
Restoring geomorphic integrity in urban streams via mechanistically-based storm water management: minimizing excess sediment transport capacity
Authors: Hawley Robert J. , Russell Kathryn , Taniguchi-Quan Kristine
Published: April 2022

Stream channel erosion, enlargement, and habitat degradation are ubiquitous in urban watersheds with conventional stormwater management that increase channel-eroding flows relative to undeveloped watersheds. Hydrologic-based restoration aims to discharge a more natural flow regime via stormwater management interventions. Whether such interventions facilitate geomorphic recovery depends, in part, on the degree to which they restrict discharges that would otherwise contribute to channel erosion. Erosion potential (E), the ratio of post-developed to predeveloped sediment transport capacity, provides a simplified, mechanistic framework to quantify the relative influence of stormwater interventions on the geomorphic effectiveness of the flow regime. This paper compiles ca. five years of data following stormwater-based interventions in three distinct settings in the United States and Australia to demonstrate how the E framework can elucidate the role of hydrologic restoration interventions in facilitating trajectories of geomorphic recovery (or lack thereof). In a previously developed watershed with unstable streams, substantial reductions in E in one stream coincided with a trajectory of geomorphic recovery, whereas the control stream without E-reducing interventions exhibited continued instability. Furthermore, a stream downstream of a greenfield development that optimized their stormwater control measures to match the sediment transport capacity of the predeveloped regime (E = 1) was able to maintain a recovery trajectory in a legacy-impacted setting that is otherwise highly susceptible to hydromodification. Streambed material size, channel evolution stage, and the hydrogeomorphic setting also likely affect the level of E reduction necessary to promote geomorphic recovery, with coarser-grained and over-widened streams potentially needing less reduction than finer-grained and more entrenched channels. Although available space and funding will limit the ability to fully reduce E in previously developed watersheds, these case studies underscore the value of using stormwater control measures to maximize reductions in E if geomorphic stability is a goal of stormwater interventions.
Integrin α11β1 in tumor fibrosis: more than just another cancer-associated fibroblast biomarker?
Authors: Zeltz Cédric , Navab Roya , Heljasvaara Ritva , Kusche-Gullberg Marion , Lu Ning , Tsao Ming-Sound , Gullberg Donald
Published: April 2022

There is currently an increased interest in understanding the role of the tumor microenvironment (TME) in tumor growth and progression. In this context the role of integrins in cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs) will need to be carefully re-evaluated. Fibroblast-derived cells are not only in the focus in tumors, but also in tissue fibrosis as well as in inflammatory conditions. The recent transcriptional profiling of what has been called “the pan-fibroblast cell lineage” in mouse and human tissues has identified novel transcriptional biomarker mRNAs encoding the secreted ECM proteins dermatopontin and collagen XV as well as the phosphatidylinositol-anchored membrane protein Pi16. Some of the genes identified in these fibroblasts scRNA-seq datasets will be useful for rigorous comparative characterizations of fibroblast-derived cell subpopulations. At the same time, it will be a challenge in the coming years to validate these transcriptional mRNA datasets at the protein-(expression) and at tissue-(distribution) levels and to find useful protein biomarker reagents that will facilitate fibroblast profiling at the cell level. In the current review we will focus on the role of the collagen-binding integrin α11β1 in CAFs, summarizing our own work as well as published datasets with information on α11 mRNA expression in selected tumors. Our experimental data suggest that α11β1 is more than just another biomarker and that it as a functional collagen receptor in the TME is playing a central role in regulating collagen assembly and matrix remodeling, which in turn impact tumor growth and metastasis.
Characterizing groundwater salinity patterns in a coastal sand aquifer at Magilligan, Northern Ireland, using geophysical and geotechnical methods
Authors: Águila Jesús F. , McDonnell Mark C. , Flynn Raymond , Hamill Gerard A. , Ruffell Alastair , Benner Eric M. , Etsias Georgios , Donohue Shane
Published: April 2022

Tidal forcing influences groundwater flow and salt distribution in shallow coastal aquifers, with the interaction between sea level variations and geology proving fundamental for assessing the risk of seawater intrusion (SI). Constraining the relative importance of each is often confounded by the influences of groundwater abstraction and geological heterogeneity, with understanding of the latter often restricted by sampling point availability and poor spatial resolution. This paper describes the application of geophysical and geotechnical methods to better characterize groundwater salinity patterns in a tidally dominated ~ 20 m thick sequence of beach sand, unaffected by groundwater abstraction. Electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) revealed the deposit to consist of an upper wedge of low resistivity (< 3 Ωm), reaching over 8 m thick in the vicinity of the low water mark, overlying a higher resistivity unit. Cone penetrometer testing (CPT), and associated high-resolution hydraulic profiling tool system (HPT), coupled with water quality sampling, revealed the wedge to reflect an intertidal recirculation cell (IRC), which restricts freshwater discharge from a relatively homogeneous sand unit to a zone of seepage within the IRC. The application of CPT and HPT techniques underscored the value of geotechnical methods in distinguishing between geological and water quality contributions to geophysical responses. Survey results have permitted a clear characterization of the groundwater flow regime in a coastal aquifer with an IRC, highlighting the benefit of combining geophysical and geotechnical methods to better characterize shallow SI mechanisms and groundwater flow in coastal hydrogeological environments.
Training in Mindfulness or Loving-kindness Meditation Is Associated with Lower Variability in Social Connectedness Across Time
Authors: Don Brian P. , Van Cappellen Patty , Fredrickson Barbara L.
Published: April 2022

Objectives

Research demonstrates that meditation interventions tend to positively influence social well-being. Yet, prior research has exclusively examined meditation in relation to average levels of social outcomes (e.g., social connectedness), despite other work demonstrating variability or fluctuations in social functioning play a distinct role in contributing to well-being. This study examined the hypothesis that training in mindfulness meditation and loving-kindness meditation would predict lower variability in social connectedness, even accounting for their positive influence on average levels of social connectedness. Moreover, this study also examined the hypothesis that lower variability in positive and negative emotions would mediate the link between training in meditation and reduced variability in social connectedness.

Methods

These hypotheses were tested using a randomized study of 224 mid-life adults. Participants received training in either mindfulness or loving-kindness meditation for 6 weeks. They reported their daily social connectedness and emotions for 2 weeks prior to the training, 6 weeks during the training, and 3 weeks after the training.

Results

Consistent with hypotheses, results demonstrated that participants in both meditation groups reported lower variability in social connectedness across the course of the intervention, even accounting for average levels of connectedness. Moreover, lower positive and negative affective variability partially mediated the association between time (training in meditation) and reduced variability in social connectedness.

Conclusions

These results suggest that (a) meditation may help to smooth social ups and downs across time and that (b) it may do so via its association with reduced affective variability.
Land suitability assessment for surface irrigation development at Ethiopian highlands using geospatial technology
Authors: Hagos Yonas Gebresilasie , Mengie Mequanent Abathun , Andualem Tesfa Gebrie , Yibeltal Mesenbet , Linh Nguyen Thi Thuy , Tenagashaw Diress Yigezu , Hewa Guna
Published: April 2022

Irrigation development necessitates suitable lands for higher yield production and the development of long-term irrigation systems. The purpose of this research was to identify appropriate irrigation lands for irrigation in the Minch Yekest watershed in West Amhara, Ethiopia. Geospatial and multi-criteria decision-making techniques were used in this study. For land suitability analysis for surface irrigation, slope, land use, altitude, distance from the water source, soil characteristics, and available water storage capacity parameters were used. To find the best location for surface irrigation, the values were weighted and combined using the weighted overlay tool. The irrigation land suitability of each physical land parameter was classified into four suitability classes (S1, S2, S3, and N) based on the Food and Agricultural Organization guideline. According to the findings, 63% of the watershed area is highly suitable, 6.25% is moderately suitable, 28.69% is marginally suitable, and 2.06% is not suitable for the aforementioned purposes. The methodological approach and study findings could help policymakers make better decisions when developing irrigation projects in Ethiopia.
Modeling stage–discharge–sediment using support vector machine and artificial neural network coupled with wavelet transform
Authors: Kumar Manish , Kumar Pravendra , Kumar Anil , Elbeltagi Ahmed , Kuriqi Alban
Published: April 2022

Many real water issues involve rivers’ sediment load or the load that rivers can bring without degrading the fluvial ecosystem. Therefore, the assessment of sediments carried by a river is also crucial in the planning and designing of various water resource projects. In the current study, five different data-driven techniques, namely artificial neural network (ANN), wavelet-based artificial neural network (WANN), support vector machine (SVM), wavelet-based support vector machine (WSVM), and multiple-linear regression (MLR) techniques, were employed for time-series modeling of daily suspended sediment concentration (SSC). Hydrological datasets containing the daily stage (h), discharge (Q), and SSC for 10 years (2004–2013) from June to October at Adityapur and Ghatshila station of Subernrekha river basin, Jharkhand, India, were considered for analysis. The Gamma test was used to determine the input variables in the first step. Various combinations were made by lagging the maximum three-day time step for predicting current-day SSC. The outcomes of ANN, SVM, WAAN, WSVM, and MLR models were evaluated with the actual values of SSC based on statistical metrics. Pearson correlation coefficient (PCC), root-mean-square error (RMSE), Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), and Wilmot index (WI) as well as visual inspection of time variation, scatter plots, and Taylor diagrams. Our results stated that the WSVM model discovered the best trustworthy models among all existing models. PCC, RMSE, NSE, and WI values were 0.844 and 0.781, 0.096 g/l and 0.057 g/l, 0.711 and 0.591, 0.907 and 0.878, respectively, throughout the training and testing processes at the Adityapur site. Also, at the Ghatshila location, it was the most accurate model. During the training and testing stages, PCC, RMSE, NSE, and WI values were 0.928 and 0.751, 0.117 g/l and 0.095 g/l, 0.861 and 0.541, 0.962 and 0.859, respectively. Our findings showed that the WANN model was the second-best model during the testing phase for both sites. Hence, the WSVM technique can model SSC at this location and other similar (i.e., geomorphology and flow regime type) rivers.
Synthesis of magnetic Fe3O4/activated carbon prepared from banana peel (BPAC@Fe3O4) and salvia seed (SSAC@Fe3O4) and applications in the adsorption of Basic Blue 41 textile dye from aqueous solutions
Authors: Mohammadifard Aynaz , Allouss Dalia , Vosoughi Mehdi , Dargahi Abdollah , Moharrami Amir
Published: April 2022

Textile industries use large amounts of water and chemicals for finishing and dying processes. The chemical structures of dyes vary enormously, and some have complicated aromatic structures that resist degradation in conventional wastewater treatment processes because of their stability to sunlight, oxidizing agents, and microorganisms. The objective of this research is to compare the adsorption efficiency of two types of magnetic activated carbons derived from Banana peel and Salvia seed for the removal of basic blue 41 dye. The faculty of the produced activated carbons to remove basic blue 41 dye from aqueous solutions via batch adsorption has been examined under several operating conditions such as pH, adsorbent dose, initial adsorbate concentration and contact time. The cheap, non-toxic produced activated carbons (AC) were characterized by scanning electron microscope and Brunauer-Emmett-Teller analyses. The best conditions of dye adsorption with BPAC@ Fe3O4 equal to pH = 9, AC dose 0.5 g/L , dye concentration 50 mg/L and equilibrium contact time 30 min, optimal dye adsorption conditions for SSAC@Fe3O4 equal to pH = 9, adsorbent dose 0.75 mg/L , dye concentration 50 mg/L and equilibrium contact time is 30 min. This study followed the Langmuir isotherm model well with regression coefficient of R2= 0.9886 for BPAC@Fe3O4 and regression coefficient of R2= 0.9764 for SSAC@Fe3O4.
Analysis of the structural characteristics and spatial organization of macrobenthic fauna in Oualidia lagoon, Morocco
Authors: El Asri Fatima , Errhif Ahmed , Tamsouri Mohamed-Naoufal , Martin Daniel , Maanan Mohamed , Zidane Hakima
Published: April 2022

Morocco is a very rich country in terms of wetlands, including bays, estuaries, lagoons, lakes, and rivers, among others. However, many of them need to be well managed and better exploited, thus requiring baseline descriptive studies to assess faunal patterns and trends. Oualidia lagoon is not an exception. In fact, the studies conducted to date in the lagoon mainly focused on its oceanographic features and aquaculture capacities. The present paper presents the first study on the whole macrofaunal assemblages of Oualidia lagoon, having as main objectives analyze the composition and structure of the assemblages, as well as their relationships with the main environmental variables explaining their spatial distribution variability in the enclosed ecosystem of the Oualidia coastal lagoon. The benthic macroinvertebrates of Oualidia lagoon were studied in summer 2013 based on 43 stations spread over the whole lagoon by using a Van Veen grab. Two replicate samples were collected for macrobenthos and one additional replicate for sediment analyses at each station. Also, single water salinity and temperature measurements were recorded at each station. Fifty-one species from seven different taxa were recorded, among which mollusks (37%), polychaetes (25%) and crustaceans (25%) dominated in terms of species number. Peringia ulvae, Abra alba, Sphaeroma serratum, Cerastoderma edule and Corophium sp. accounted for 88% of total abundance. The benthos was structured along a downstream–upstream gradient, showing three assemblages, named according to the IndVal index: (1) Diopatra cf. marocensis, (2) Peringia ulvae, and (3) Cerastoderma edule, while the main factors driving their distribution were granulometry and salinity. The Biotic and Environmental analysis showed that the combination of granulometry and salinity was the major factors controlling the spatial distribution of the macrozoobenthos in the Oualidia Lagoon.
Differential transcriptomic landscapes of multiple organs from SARS-CoV-2 early infected rhesus macaques
Authors: Gao Chun-Chun , Li Man , Deng Wei , Ma Chun-Hui , Chen Yu-Sheng , Sun Yong-Qiao , Du Tingfu , Liu Qian-Lan , Li Wen-Jie , Zhang Bing , Sun Lihong , Liu Si-Meng , Li Fengli , Qi Feifei , Qu Yajin , Ge Xinyang , Liu Jiangning , Wang Peng , Niu Yamei , Liang Zhiyong , Zhao Yong-Liang , Huang Bo , Peng Xiao-Zhong , Yang Ying , Qin Chuan , Tong Wei-Min , Yang Yun-Gui
Published: April 2022

SARS-CoV-2 infection causes complicated clinical manifestations with variable multi-organ injuries, however, the underlying mechanism, in particular immune responses in different organs, remains elusive. In this study, comprehensive transcriptomic alterations of 14 tissues from rhesus macaque infected with SARS-CoV-2 were analyzed. Compared to normal controls, SARS-CoV-2 infection resulted in dysregulation of genes involving diverse functions in various examined tissues/organs, with drastic transcriptomic changes in cerebral cortex and right ventricle. Intriguingly, cerebral cortex exhibited a hyperinflammatory state evidenced by significant upregulation of inflammation response-related genes. Meanwhile, expressions of coagulation, angiogenesis and fibrosis factors were also up-regulated in cerebral cortex. Based on our findings, neuropilin 1 (NRP1), a receptor of SARS-CoV-2, was significantly elevated in cerebral cortex post infection, accompanied by active immune response releasing inflammatory factors and signal transmission among tissues, which enhanced infection of the central nervous system (CNS) in a positive feedback way, leading to viral encephalitis. Overall, our study depicts a multi-tissue/organ transcriptomic landscapes of rhesus macaque with early infection of SARS-CoV-2, and provides important insights into the mechanistic basis for COVID-19-associated clinical complications.
Transfer in der berufsbezogenen Weiterbildung: Systematisches Literaturreview und Synthese mit Blick auf die Handlungsmöglichkeiten der Lehrenden
Authors: Wißhak Susanne
Published: April 2022

In der berufsbezogenen Weiterbildung gilt der Transfer des Gelernten als zentrales, wenngleich schwer erreichbares Erfolgskriterium. Das systematische Literaturreview folgt der Prämisse, dass Transfer gezielt gefördert werden muss und dass die Rolle der Lehrenden dabei bisher unzureichend berücksichtigt wurde. Mit dem Ziel, die empirische Forschungslage zu Transferdeterminanten zu analysieren, wurden 19 Metaanalysen aus dem Zeitraum zwischen 1988 und 2021 ausgewertet. Die Ergebnisse wurden zusammengefasst und mit Blick auf mögliche Ansatzpunkte der Transferförderung durch die Lehrenden interpretiert. Erwartungsgemäß scheint der Handlungsspielraum der Lehrenden hinsichtlich des Weiterbildungsdesigns am größten. Abhängig von den Weiterbildungszielen erwiesen sich unterschiedliche Lehr-Lern-Methoden und -Prinzipien als transferförderlich. Daneben können Lehrende aber auch auf einzelne Teilnehmendenmerkmale, wie die Motivation und Selbstwirksamkeit, Einfluss nehmen. Die Transferförderung im Arbeitsumfeld können sie begünstigen, indem sie diese rechtzeitig anbahnen, wichtige Beteiligte einbinden und über die Weiterbildungsmaßnahme hinaus Unterstützung anbieten. Das Literaturreview kommt zu dem Schluss, dass Lehrende Transfer fördern können und die dafür nötigen Kompetenzen besitzen sollten.
Electron thermodynamics along magnetic nozzle lines in a helicon plasma
Authors: Vinci Alfio E. , Delavière–Delion Quentin , Mazouffre Stéphane
Published: April 2022

The electron cooling rate is experimentally investigated along the magnetic lines of a helicon plasma device operating with different magnetic nozzle shapes. Probe measurements in a 2-D region of the plasma plume outline that the polytropic index of electrons has dissimilar values along distinct streamlines ranging from γe≃1.4 to γe>1.8. Accounting for ionization phenomena as an additional degree of freedom allows to predict a polytropic index smaller than the adiabatic limit. It is observed that a reduced cross-field transport can effectively reduce the electrons degrees of freedom.
Gromov–Witten theory and Noether–Lefschetz theory for holomorphic-symplectic varieties
Authors: Oberdieck Georg
Published: April 2022

We use Noether–Lefschetz theory to study the reduced Gromov–Witten invariants of a holomorphic-symplectic variety of

$K3^{[n]}$

-type. This yields strong evidence for a new conjectural formula that expresses Gromov–Witten invariants of this geometry for arbitrary classes in terms of primitive classes. The formula generalizes an earlier conjecture by Pandharipande and the author for K3 surfaces. Using Gromov–Witten techniques, we also determine the generating series of Noether–Lefschetz numbers of a general pencil of Debarre–Voisin varieties. This reproves and extends a result of Debarre, Han, O’Grady and Voisin on Hassett–Looijenga–Shah (HLS) divisors on the moduli space of Debarre–Voisin fourfolds.
Web-based dietary assessment and advice helps inflammatory bowel disease patients to improve their diet quality
Authors: Lamers Carlijn R. , van Erp Liselot W. , Slotegraaf Anne I. , Groenen Marcel J. M. , de Roos Nicole M. , Wahab Peter J. , Witteman Ben J. M.
Published: April 2022

Time to evaluate diet quality and give dietary advice is limited in clinical inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) practice. The Eetscore is a web-based tool that assesses diet quality according to the Dutch dietary guidelines and provides personalised dietary advice. We aimed to assess diet quality of IBD patients using the Eetscore and to study changes in diet quality, health-related quality of life (HRQoL) and clinical disease activity over time. A prospective cohort study was performed in 195 adult IBD patients. Participants were invited to fill out questionnaires (Eetscore-FFQ, short Inflammatory Bowel Disease Questionnaire and Patient Harvey Bradshaw Index/Patient Simple Clinical Colitis Activity Index) at baseline and after 1 and 4 months. The Eetscore calculates diet quality based on sixteen food components (ten points per component, total score 0–160; the higher the better) and provides dietary advice per component based on the assessment. At baseline, mean diet quality was 98 (sd 19). Diet quality was positively associated with age, female sex and level of education. Component scores were highest for red meat, wholegrain products and sweetened beverages, and lowest for legumes, nuts and processed meat. Over time, diet quality increased to 107 (sd 21) at 4 months (P < 0·001). Each ten-point improvement in diet quality was associated with an increase in HRQoL (β = 0·4 (95 % CI (0·02, 0·7), P = 0·04). Clinical disease activity did not change. In conclusion, diet quality of IBD patients significantly improved following personalised dietary advice of the Eetscore. Improvement of diet quality was associated with a slight improvement in HRQoL. The Eetscore is a practical and useful tool to monitor and support a healthy diet in IBD patients.
INSIDE OUT
Authors: Fraser Juliet
Published: April 2022

This text was written in response to a commission from Berliner Festspiele/MaerzMusik – Festival for Time Issues 2021. Juliet Fraser collaborated with filmmaker Jessie Rodger to create an experimental video essay that layered raw footage of Juliet in her erstwhile London studio space, reading her own words, reflecting on the words of others and doing her singing practice. The result offered a glimpse into one artist's efforts to remain creative and connected during the time of Covid. What follows is the written essay; the full video essay, Inside Out, can be seen at
www.youtube.com/watch?v=m96xf41-_PA.
Variation in hospital costs and resource utilisation after congenital heart surgery
Authors: Blinder Joshua J. , Huang Yuan-Shung , Rossano Joseph W. , Costarino Andrew T , Li Yimei
Published: April 2022

Background:

Children undergoing cardiac surgery have overall improving survival, though they consume substantial resources. Nationwide inpatient cost estimates and costs at longitudinal follow-up are lacking.

Methods:

Retrospective cohort study of children <19 years of age admitted to Pediatric Health Information System administrative database with an International Classification of Diseases diagnosis code undergoing cardiac surgery. Patients were grouped into neonates (≤30 days of age), infants (31–365 days of age), and children (>1 year) at index procedure. Primary and secondary outcomes included hospital stay and hospital costs at index surgical admission and 1- and 5-year follow-up.

Results:

Of the 99,670 cohort patients, neonates comprised 27% and had the highest total hospital costs, though daily hospital costs were lower. Mortality declined (5.6% in 2004 versus 2.5% in 2015, p < 0.0001) while inpatient costs rose (5% increase/year, p < 0.0001). Neonates had greater index diagnosis complexity, greater inpatient costs, required the greatest ICU resources, pharmacotherapy, and respiratory therapy. We found no relationship between hospital surgical volume, mortality, and hospital costs. Neonates had higher cumulative hospital costs at 1- and 5-year follow-up compared to infants and children.

Conclusions:

Inpatient hospital costs rose during the study period, driven primarily by longer stay. Neonates had greater complexity index diagnosis, required greater hospital resources, and have higher hospital costs at 1 and 5 years compared to older children. Surgical volume and in-hospital mortality were not associated with costs. Further analyses comprising merged clinical and administrative data are necessary to identify longer stay and cost drivers after paediatric cardiac surgery.
The Public Option
Authors: Coyle Diane
Published: April 2022

People value highly the digital technologies that are so pervasive in everyday life and work, certainly as measured by economists. Yet there are also evident harms associated with them, including the likelihood that they are affecting political discourse and choices. The features of digital markets mean they tend toward monopoly, so great economic and political power lies in the hands of a small number of giant companies. While tougher regulation may be one way to tackle the harms they create, it does not get at the structural problem, which is their advertising-driven business model. The hunt for people's attention drives algorithmic promotion of viral content to get ever-more clicks. An alternative policy intervention to reclaim public space would be to create a public service competitor that could drive competition along other dimensions. Online space must be reclaimed as a public space from the privately-owned US and Chinese digital giants.
For State-Funded Inter-Religious Education
Authors: Bhargava Rajeev
Published: April 2022

In this paper I address the vexed question of the relationship between secular states and religious education.
The Wisdom of Mentor
Authors: Norman Jesse
Published: April 2022

Thomas Hobbes posited a social contract which legitimates sovereign authority. But what grounds, or could ground, such a contract? Through reflection on Oakeshott, and on Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, the paper argues for a so far unrecognised mode of human association: philic association. It briefly considers a possible expression of philic association in the history of English law, before making the case for programmes of mentoring as a policy both reflective and supportive of this mode. It ends by suggesting that the existence of such a mode shows why Hobbes's social contract theory, however ingenious and influential it has proven to be, is neither sufficient nor necessary for its stated purpose.
Irregular Migration, Historical Injustice and the Right to Exclude
Authors: Ypi Lea
Published: April 2022

This paper makes the case for amnesty of irregular migrants by reflecting on the conditions under which a wrong that is done in the past can be considered superseded. It explores the relation between historical injustice and irregular migration and suggests that we should hold states to the same stringent standards of compliance with just norms that they apply to the assessment of the moral conduct of individual migrants. It concludes that those standards ought to orient migrants and citizens’ moral assessment of how their states handle questions of irregular migration and to inform political initiatives compatible with these moral assessments.
Measuring and improving radiotherapy delivery efficiency
Authors: Cooke Amy , Holborn Catherine
Published: April 2022

Introduction:

The researcher’s centre was in a unique position of merging with another established radiotherapy centre to create a Satellite Site. It was noted that the Satellite Site delivered more fractions per linac within the same working day profile as the Main Site. Subtle differences in the workflows allowed for an appraisal of the processes within a fraction of radiotherapy and how this can be refined to improve efficiency.

Methods:

Retrospective fraction timings were collected using the Oncology Information System for 98 breast and prostate treatments at both sites. A literature review was also conducted to further explore factors that impact fraction timings in other departments internationally.

Results:

Breast and prostate treatments took 2·1 and 2·93 minutes, respectively, longer to deliver at the Main Site. Set-up to the isocentre and verification image assessment took significantly longer in all cases at the Main Site. Literature surrounding efficiency is scarce but suggests methods used for online management of verification imaging significantly impacts appointment times.

Conclusion:

Implementation of a paperless workflow and process improvements for image assessment such as introducing a traffic light protocol may reduce the time to deliver a fraction of radiotherapy and maximise service efficiency.
The Execution of Whites for Crimes Against Ethnoracial Minorities
Authors: Smith Ryan Alan
Published: April 2022

This article extends Michael L. Radelet’s 1989 study of rare cases in which Whites have been executed for committing capital crimes against Blacks to include an assessment of White executions involving Latinx and Asian victims. The threefold aim is to (1) establish the frequency of such rare cases, and (2) explore the extent to which status characteristics (beyond race, ethnicity or gender) are present for these rare events; and (3) offer social dominance theory as a viable explanation for the patterns found in the data. An analysis of unique data from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice shows that out of 570 executions imposed between April 1982 and July 2020, only six cases led to the execution of Whites for crimes against Blacks (1.1%), sixteen cases for crimes against Hispanics (2.8%), and one case for crimes against an Asian American (0.18%). Beyond the minority status of the victim, two or more status markers were present when Whites were executed for crimes against people of color. The results, which are consistent with expectations drawn from social dominance theory, highlight the differential value placed on minority lives and call into question the legitimacy of the death penalty in the United States.
Key challenges to the corporate biosphere stewardship research program: inequity, reification, and stakeholder commensurability
Authors: Longo Stefano B. , Isgren Ellinor , York Richard
Published: April 2022

Non-Technical Summary

Research on “corporate biosphere stewardship” and the related concept of “keystone actor” has proliferated in recent years. We scrutinize the program focusing on issues and assumptions associated with inequality, naturalizing social processes, or reification, and characterizing corporations as equivalent stakeholders in sustainable development with other actors and organizations. As a result, we argue the program does not promote the stated claim of transformative change for sustainability. We suggest that the research program should develop a deeper analysis of social dynamics, forces, and structures, based in social theory, particularly sociological work, which can help reveal common taken for granted assumptions.

Technical Summary

We highlight important assumptions associated with the research program in sustainability science developed around “corporate biosphere stewardship” and the promise of “science-business initiatives.” In doing so, we interrogate a central concept in this research, “keystone actors.” We analyze the program based on associated research outputs and communications, focusing on three key challenges 1) inequities related to the concentration of political-economic power 2) concerns with naturalizing social processes, or reification, and 3) the limitations of characterizing corporations as commensurable stakeholders in sustainable development. This research program has revealed some important conditions and dynamics in relation to consolidation and concentration in global industries. However, it has been limited by insufficient integration of knowledge from social science, particularly sociology. Thus, the approach tends to undertheorize social dynamics, processes, and structures. Despite being framed as an effort at “improving the prospects for transformative change,” the implications, outcomes, and recommendations that emerge from this research program may inadvertently promote increased control and power of elite actors by presenting an ostensible inevitability of corporate dominance for bringing about social welfare and sustainability. We suggest greater attention to social structural dynamics, and particularly social struggles and social movements, when considering the potential for transformational change for sustainability.
Prosociality as response to slow- and fast-onset climate hazards
Authors: Steimanis Ivo , Vollan Björn
Published: April 2022

Non-technical summary

More and more people around the globe experience climate hazards. For vulnerable populations, these hazards not only cause significant physical damages, but can also affect the way people interact with each other. How such interactions are affected by climate hazards is particularly important for understanding the vulnerability of communities. Prosocial behavior is key for communities that heavily rely on informal social support to deal with these threats and for cooperative solutions to provide and maintain public goods. To investigate these effects, we talk to people living on the front lines of climate change and measure their prosociality using behavioral tasks. Our results show that both fast- and slow-onset hazards increase prosociality, underscoring the importance of well-functioning social relationships for dealing with hardship and uncertainty in a variety of contexts.

Technical summary

People's willingness to engage in prosocial behavior can affect how vulnerable and resilient populations are to climate hazards. We study how different types of climate hazards, fast-onsetting cyclones and slowly rising sea-levels, might affect peoples' prosociality using incentivized behavioral tasks. We sample people who are at the forefront of climate change and either experienced Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines (study 1;n= 378) or are from sea-level rise hotspots (study 2;n= 1047) in Solomon Islands, Bangladesh, and Vietnam. We experimentally manipulate the salience of these hazards through recall or informational videos. Results from study 1 show that increases in prosociality are (i) independent of whether supportive behaviors or conflicts are recalled, (ii) are not only targeted to a narrow in-group, and (iii) do not come with increases in antisocial behaviors. In study 2, we also find that people behave more prosocial when they are informed about the impacts of rising sea-levels. Our survey evidence suggests that people who already perceive the threat of displacement due to rising sea-levels are also more prosocial. Overall, peoples' responses to both types of hazards are geared toward collective action, which could strengthen their adaptive capacity to deal with climate risks.

Social media summary

People severely affected by sea-level rise and rapidly emerging climate hazards are responding with increases in prosocial behaviors to fellow villagers.
Observation of Temporal Variations in Seismic Anisotropy Within an Active Fault‐Zone Revealed From the Taiwan Chelungpu‐Fault Drilling Project Borehole Seismic Array
Authors: Hung Ruei‐Jiun , Ma Kuo‐Fong , Song Teh‐Ru Alex , Lin Yen‐Yu , Weingarten Matthew
Published: April 2022

Temporal fault‐zone observations are important to better understand the evolution of fault structure and stress configuration. However, long‐term monitoring in the fault zone is rare after a large earthquake. Here, we use seismic data in the fault zone at 1‐km depth from the Taiwan Chelungpu‐fault Drilling Project to study long‐term anisotropy after the 1999 Mw7.6 Chi‐Chi earthquake. The direct S‐wave splitting measurements resolve the overall weak anisotropy in the shallow crust. In order to resolve fault damage zone anisotropy, we perform coda cross‐correlation technique for 794 microearthquakes between 2007 and 2013. We estimate the temporal change in background shear‐wave velocity, fast shear‐wave polarization direction (FSP), and strength of anisotropy (Aani) in the fault damage zone. We show the average FSP direction is N93°E with a significant Aani of about 12%, likely due to the pervasive vertical microcracks created after the earthquake. Temporal variations of anisotropy exhibit seasonal variation with periodicity every 9–12 months that correlates with rainfall events. Furthermore, long‐term anisotropy shows a gradual rotation of FSP direction of about 15° during the first 4 years of observation. At the same time, the strength of anisotropy reduced from 17% to 10% and shear‐wave velocity increased, suggesting the fault healed after the earthquake. This study reports in‐situ evidence for two key observations: (a) long‐term, fault‐zone healing after a major earthquake and (b) modulation of 1‐km deep fault‐zone properties by surficial hydrologic processes. These observations may provide constraints on the response of the fault damage zone in the interseismic period.