bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Understanding tropical cyclone persistence over land: a case study of cyclone Gulab
Authors: Navale Ashish , Karthikeyan L
Published: September 2024

Tropical cyclone (TC) Gulab originated in the Bay of Bengal during the post-monsoon season of 2021. Following an unusual westward trajectory, TC Gulab made landfall on the east coast of India, traversed central India, and reintensified over the Arabian Sea into TC Shaheen. This study employed an online Eulerian water vapor tracer (WVT) tool embedded within the Weather Research and Forecasting model to investigate the role of land in terms of soil moisture (SM) and land use land cover (LULC) in persistence of TC Gulab over central India. We quantified the contributions of sub-regions and dominant LULC types within the Indian subcontinent to the precipitation associated with TC Gulab. Our findings indicate that evapotranspiration across the entire Indian subcontinent contributed approximately 30% to the post-landfall precipitation associated with TC Gulab. The highest contribution originated from the northwestern region, followed by the northeast. Croplands, the dominant LULC type, were the primary contributors, followed by forests. Despite changing the dominant land cover from cropland to forest, the low-pressure system persisted over land while altering the spatial patterns of precipitation. Sensitivity experiments demonstrated a linear decrease in precipitation originating from land with decreasing SM. Notably, there is a disproportionate decline in total precipitation with decreasing SM. Further analysis separating atmospheric vapor sources into land and ocean contributions using WVT revealed a compensatory mechanism. The contribution of oceanic vapor to atmospheric vapor over land increased when SM decreased due to increase in the latent heat over ocean. However, the total atmospheric vapor remained low, ultimately leading to a lower total precipitation. Although SM plays a role, our results highlight the importance of oceanic and atmospheric processes in determining TC persistence over land. This study offers valuable insights into the dynamics of land–atmosphere interactions during low-pressure systems of TCs.
Metrics and geodesics on fuzzy spaces
Authors: Viennot David
Published: September 2024

We study the fuzzy spaces (as special examples of noncommutative manifolds) with their quasicoherent states in order to find their pertinent metrics. We show that they are naturally endowed with two natural ‘quantum metrics’ which are associated with quantum fluctuations of ‘paths’. The first one provides the length the mean path whereas the second one provides the average length of the fluctuated paths. Onto the classical manifold associated with the quasicoherent state (manifold of the mean values of the coordinate observables in the state minimising their quantum uncertainties) these two metrics provides two minimising geodesic equations. Moreover, fuzzy spaces being not torsion free, we have also two different autoparallel geodesic equations associated with two different adiabatic regimes in the move of a probe onto the fuzzy space. We apply these mathematical results to quantum gravity in BFSS matrix models, and to the quantum information theory of a controlled qubit submitted to noises of a large quantum environment.
Consistency and causality of interconnected nonsignaling resources
Authors: Bierhorst Peter
Published: September 2024

This paper examines networks of n measuring parties sharing m nonsignaling resources that can be locally wired together: that is, each party follows a scheme to measure the resources in a cascaded fashion with inputs to later resources possibly depending on outputs of earlier-measured ones. A specific framework is provided for studying probability distributions arising in such networks, and this framework is used to directly prove some accepted, but often only implicitly invoked, facts: there is a uniquely determined and well-defined joint probability distribution for the outputs of all resources shared by the parties, and this joint distribution is nonsignaling. It is furthermore shown that is often sufficient to restrict consideration to only extremal nonsignaling resources when considering features and properties of such networks. Finally, the framework illustrates how the physical theory of nonsignaling boxes and local wirings is causal, supporting the applicability of the inflation technique to constrain such models. For an application, we probe the example of

(
3
,
2
,
2
)

inequalities that witness genuine three-party nonlocality according to the local-operations-shared-randomness definition, and show how all other examples can be derived from that of Mao et al (2022 Phys. Rev. Lett.
129 150401).
Discrete Laplacian thermostat for flocks and swarms: the fully conserved Inertial Spin Model
Authors: Cavagna Andrea , Cristín Javier , Giardina Irene , Grigera Tomás S , Veca Mario
Published: September 2024

Experiments on bird flocks and midge swarms reveal that these natural systems are well described by an active theory in which conservation laws play a crucial role. By building a symplectic structure that couples the particles’ velocities to the generator of their internal rotations (spin), the Inertial Spin Model (ISM) reinstates a second-order temporal dynamics that captures many phenomenological traits of flocks and swarms. The reversible structure of the ISM predicts that the total spin is a constant of motion, the central conservation law responsible for all the novel dynamical features of the model. However, fluctuations and dissipation introduced in the original model to make it relax, violate the spin conservation law, so that the ISM aligns with the biophysical phenomenology only within finite-size regimes, beyond which the overdamped dynamics characteristic of the Vicsek model takes over. Here, we introduce a novel version of the ISM, in which the irreversible terms needed to relax the dynamics strictly respect the conservation of the spin. We perform a numerical investigation of the fully conservative model, exploring both the fixed-network case, which belongs to the equilibrium class of Model G, and the active case, characterized by self-propulsion of the agents and an out-of-equilibrium reshuffling of the underlying interaction network. Our simulations not only capture the correct spin wave phenomenology of the ordered phase, but they also yield dynamical critical exponents in the near-ordering phase that agree very well with the theoretical predictions.
Lattice random walk dynamics with stochastic resetting in heterogeneous space
Authors: Barbini Alessandro , Giuggioli Luca
Published: September 2024

We examine the diffusive dynamics of a lattice random walk subject to resetting in a one-dimensional spatially heterogeneous environment composed of two media separated by an interface. At random times the walker may reset its position to the interface, but only when in the left medium. In addition the spatial heterogeneity results from having unequal diffusivities and biases in the two media. We construct the Master equation for the dynamics of the walker occupation probability in unbounded space, solve it exactly in terms of generating functions, and analyse the dynamics of the first and second moment. Making use of the closed form solution in the unbounded case, we build the analytic solution of the Master equation in finite and semi-infinite domains. By bounding the space on the right with a reflecting boundary we study the first-passage dynamics to a single fully absorbing target placed in the left medium away from the interface. As reset strongly increases the time to reach the target, we find that the first-passage dynamics enter the motion-limited regime even for relative small resetting probability. We also identify a surprising non-monotonic dependence of the first-passage probability mode as a function of the bias. By deriving an analytic expression for the mean first-passage time, we show when its value is independent of the diffusivity and bias in the left medium, uncovering another example of the so-called mean disorder indifference phenomenon.
Amazon severe drought in 2023 triggered surface water loss
Authors: Souza Carlos M , Marengo José , Ferreira Bruno , Ribeiro Júlia , Schirmbeck Lucimara W , Schirmbeck Juliano , Hirye Mayumi , Cunha Ana , Wiederhecker Helga C , Latuf Marcelo O
Published: September 2024

The Amazon underwent a severe austral springtime drought attributed to the onset of El Niño in 2023 and the warmer North Atlantic, Indian, and North Pacific Oceans. The Amazon rivers, lakes, small streams, wetlands, and reservoirs quickly lowered their water level below historical records due to decreased rainfall and warmth in the region. Based on satellite imagery, this study presents the first estimate of the water loss extent in the 4.2 million km2 of the Brazilian Amazon biome (∼62% of the Amazon total biome) in 2023. We estimated the loss of 3.3 million hectares of surface water relative to 2022, with an overall accuracy of 92%. The surface water losses were concentrated in the states of Amazonas (59.4%) and Pará (25.5), adding up to 2.8 million hectares. The warmer and drier climate in the region affected the main rivers in the Amazon. Among them, the Solimões, Negro, Purus, Acre, and Branco suffered extreme drops in their levels in some regions, resulting in a high negative impact on the aquatic biodiversity, yet estimated only in local areas. A total of 1.14 million hectares of surface water loss (i.e. 35%) was detected within protected areas territories, affecting extractivist, indegenous, African-Brazilian, and fishing and traditional communities. Proximity analysis revealed that 75% of the 2023 surface water loss was within 25 km of small towns, 48% and 65.8% at 50 km from indigenous villages and urban areas, respectively. Our results reinforce people’s vulnerability to climate change, anticipating a plausible adverse impact scenario in the Amazon region and urging solutions to adaptation and mitigation. Therefore, an integrated monitoring system based on climate and water dynamics from satellite and ground stations is necessary to improve understanding of the problem for timing response of climatic change negative impacts.
The Zooarchaeological Data
Authors: Sugiyama Nawa
Published: September 2024

This chapter presents the rigorous zooarchaeological data of the corporeal animal forms necessary to reconstruct rich osteobiographies of individual actors and the ritualization process. The goal is to extract from the descriptions of pathologies and tabulations of cutmarks the intimacies and perils of direct human–predator contact. I evaluate each animal’s osteological evidence identifying diachronic and synchronic differences between primary and secondary burials. Corporeal animal forms encode lurid details of pathologies of trauma and infection, oral fixation, taxidermy, pelt extraction, ritual feeding, and en vivo sacrifice through distribution of element and surface modifications, age/sex of the animals, and contextual data. The animal’s behavior and biology, including accessibility and adaptability to captive environments, inform narratives of corporeal human–animal interactions etched onto the bones. Notable zooarchaeological patterns reflect how each animal negotiated its social positionality at Teotihuacan.
Forest flickers of history. Early modern woodland restoration and how it shapes postmodern options
Authors: de Jong Wil , Takahashi Takuya , Winkel Georg , Konczal Agata , Anderson Nathaniel , Andrew Wardell David
Published: September 2024

Forest or land restoration in general features large on current environmental agendas. Multiple examples exist of past efforts to restore tree cover. Forest restoration proliferated in the 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe, but it has been pursued in multiple locations around the world and during different historical periods. This chapter reviews past forest restoration efforts and their outcomes in Japan, Germany and Poland, the United States, and in colonial territories until the mid-20th century. A forest restoration legacy can be recognized by the imprints on contemporary forest landscapes. Some early forest restoration controversies have their counterparts in 21st-century forest restoration debates.
Regional variation in forest landscape restoration
Authors: Sabogal César , Blaser Jürgen , Shono Kenichi , Tekle Tegegne Yitagesu , Zamora Cristales Rene , Sitoe Almeida , Ammour Tania , Dontenville Adeline , Feurer Mélanie , Markovic Jelena , Besacier Christophe , Simonit Silvio , de Ridder Benjamin , Jonsson Orjan
Published: September 2024

This chapter explores how restoration is proposed and implemented across selected world regions and how various contextual conditions influence these processes. Gaining a better understanding of the regional/country differences provides important insights for planning and implementing national/subnational forest landscape restoration (FLR) agendas. Eight regions are compared using a set of mostly qualitative variables: Central America & Mexico, Tropical South America, West Africa, East Africa, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, and Eastern & South-Eastern Europe. The comparison considers the implementation contexts (forest resources, drivers of land cover change, and rationales) and the implementation tools (policy, institutional, social, economic, and technical interventions undertaken at the country/regional levels) for FLR. The regional comparison includes an in-depth review of the FLR process in a suite of countries for each region. The chapter concludes with a comparison of the regional variation in FLR implementation, highlighting common challenges.
Flirting with Death
Authors: Kishi Madoka
Published: September 2024

This chapter portrays the figure Roosevelt designated as a “criminal against the race”: the New Woman, who turned away from motherhood to pursue her own desires. In so doing, this chapter revises critical understandings of the racial and sexual politics of Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), attending to the complex racialization of Creole identities in New Orleans. In examining the landmark decision Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) and the plaintiff Homer Plessy’s status as a Creole of color, it charts the construction of whiteness under Jim Crow as formed at the intersection between biological reproduction and property reproduction. In this reading, Edna’s suicide emerges as an act that squanders whiteness as family property, embodying the narcissistic pleasures associated with turn-of-the-century consumer culture. Her desire to dissipate herself as racialized property is entangled with liberal logics of freedom, whereby liberty is defined as the ownership of one’s own person as property.
Jennifer West—“Are We Only at L?!!”
Authors: MacDonald Scott
Published: September 2024

Jennifer West’s One Mile Film and Film Title Poem are new kinds of epic film. One Mile Film was produced in collaboration with thousands of visitors to New York City’s High Line Park—a new kind of City Symphony. Raw filmstocks and prints of imagery shot in the neighborhood of the High Line were taped to the floor of the mile-long walkway and visitors were encouraged to interact directly with the filmstrips. The results became the raw material for the edited One Mile Film. For Film Title Poem West filmed the title cards for every film she could remember seeing since childhood, arranged the title cards in alphabetical order (with interruptive poetic riffs on certain titles), and worked with animators to provide hands-on manipulations of the title-card images. The edited result represents a new kind of comprehensive cinema scholarship and a new kind of personal film.
Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel
Authors: MacDonald Scott
Published: September 2024

In the wake of their immersive feature Leviathan (2012), Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Véréna Paravel have made two feature films dealing, in various intimate ways, with the human body. Caniba (2017) is in-close on Issei Sagawa, who in 1981 killed a young woman and cannibalized her (judged insane, he is not in jail) and on his brother Jun who is addicted to mutilating himself. The home movies of the Sagawa family suggest an idyllic childhood and loving parents. For De Corporis Humani Fabrica (2022), the filmmakers explore a variety of Paris hospitals where surgical units are hard at work investigating and operating on their patients and where elderly women who can no longer function in the outside world walk the halls. The result is an unusually intimate, sometimes shockingly intimate depiction of the work of the doctors and the experiences of their patients.
Erin Espelie 2
Authors: MacDonald Scott
Published: September 2024

Cine-scientist, Erin Espelie, who was interviewed about her earlier work in The Sublimity of Document, has developed what she calls the RGB+K film project (the letters refer to the red green blue of LED light; “+K” refers to black). The project combines computer history, Mandarin logograms, poetry, imagery and sounds of spiders, evolutionary biology, retinal eye surgery, plus a species of mealworms that reduce Styrofoam to food—as a way of exploring the implications of the current technological revolution, specifically the implications and limitations of our increasing dependence on LED light. Her most recent films provide extraordinary views of the shape, structure, and interaction of cyanobacteria, the essential and complex microscopic organisms that provide the Earth with oxygen.
“The Film Is Our Director”
Authors: MacDonald Scott
Published: September 2024

For thirty years the Alloy Orchestra, three musicians—Ken Winokur (Alloy’s manager), Terry Donahue, and Roger Miller, who replaced Caleb Sampson)—composed and performed their own scores for classic motion pictures from the silent era (Metropolis, The General, Phantom of the Opera, The Man with a Movie Camera, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Blackmail, A Page of Madness . . .) for audiences large and small, across the world. Alloy’s goal was to provide modern, in-person music that would allow viewers to experience the films with the excitement original audiences might have had. The group became well known for their “Rack of Junk,” a collection of found objects used for various percussion and musical effects, and for their ability to continue performing despite technical snafus caused by weather or faulty projection equipment. The COVID-19 pandemic brought their touring to a close.
The Mestizo Nation and the Linguistic Operations of Racial Invisibility in El Salvador
Authors: Marroquín Parducci Amparo
Published: September 2024

The media landscape, for more than a century, has shaped El Salvador as a mestizo nation and was constructed through the invisibilization of indigenous and Black groups that populated Salvadoran territory. The Salvadoran media has constructed the idea of racial otherness and discriminated against and denied the rights and existence of indigenous peoples. This occurred in three historical periods. One, before 1932, when the media configured the idea of a mestizo nation, without making the indigenous world visible. Second, after 1932, a moment that began with the massacre of more than 25,000 indigenous people at the hands of the army. In this period, the media configure the indigenous person as a violent being that has already been almost completely exterminated. Finally, the period that follows after the peace agreements, in 1992, where the media recovers the indigenous past, but without hiding the disgust that this produces. In every period, indigenous voices are silenced and deprived of access to community or indigenous media.
CO2 in Earth’s Ice Age Cycles
Authors: Hain Mathis P. , Sigman Daniel M.
Published: September 2024

Earth's history is marked by episodes of large-scale continental glaciation. Most recently, beginning 3 million years ago, northern hemispheric glaciation expanded and developed cyclic variations known as the ice age cycles. With the 19th-century discovery of these cycles in ice extent and climate, changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration were proposed as a possible cause. Since the 1980s, scientists have produced detailed reconstructions revealing that, during ice ages, atmospheric CO2 was as much as a third lower than its preindustrial concentration—enough to explain almost half of the approximately 5 °C ice age cooling by weakening the Earth’s natural greenhouse effect. The consensus is that the ice age climate cycles result from cyclic changes in Earth’s orbit, which redistribute sunlight between regions and seasons but do not in themselves significantly heat or cool the globe on an annual-average basis. If so, the regional and seasonal effects of orbital change must cause changes in aspects of the Earth system that then induce changes in global annual-average climate. Changes in the reflection of sunlight by the ice sheets are widely believed to have played such a role. Atmospheric CO2 appears to be a second key Earth system property, and one that caused the ice age cycles to be global rather than simply regional phenomena. The ocean was likely the dominant driver of atmospheric CO2 change between warm “interglacial” and cold “glacial” periods, through multiple aspects of its behavior. First, ice age cooling and other changes allowed bulk global seawater to absorb additional CO2 from the atmosphere. Second, during ice ages, the ocean’s “biological carbon pump” was stronger: Ocean plankton and their sinking debris more effectively removed CO2 from surface waters and the atmosphere, sequestering it in the ocean interior. Polar ocean changes were key to this stronger biological pump, involving some combination of changes in biological productivity, ocean circulation, and air–sea gas exchange. Third, the net effect of these ocean changes was to enhance deep ocean CO2 storage and thus to dissolve calcium carbonate sediment off the seafloor, changing the ocean’s acid/base chemistry so that it absorbed additional CO2 from the atmosphere. The specific polar ocean changes that drove the strengthening of the biological carbon pump and the ensuing seafloor calcium carbonate response are a topic of ongoing debate.
A History of Western Sahara
Authors: Correale Francesco
Published: September 2024

Writing the history of Western Sahara can be difficult insofar as it means breaking the silence surrounding the territory and its population, the Sahrawi, whose existence as political subjects is often denied. In 1975, without consulting its inhabitants, Madrid ceded the territory of Western Sahara, a Spanish colonial possession since 1884, to the Kingdom of Morocco and the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. A first Sahrawi nationalist movement was born in the late 1960s, but the Spanish authorities harshly repressed it. In May 1973, the Polisario Front was born, and the United Nations recognized it as the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people in May 1975. Until 1991, Libya and Algeria supported it in an asymmetrical war in which it defeated Mauritania (1979) and contained the Moroccan army. On September 6, 1991, Morocco and the Polisario Front signed an armistice under the auspices of the United Nations that provided for the establishment of a UN mission (MINURSO) and a referendum on self-determination. Thirty years on, however, the Sahrawi people remain divided: many have lived in refugee camps near Tindouf (Algeria) since 1975, some inhabit Moroccan-controlled areas (80 percent of the territory), and others live in the diaspora. On November 13, 2020, after a breach of military agreements by Morocco, the Polisario Front declared the ceasefire null and void. The war resumed and remains ongoing.

Western Sahara has thus been at the center of a decolonization conflict since 1975. In this conflict, history has been brought into play to justify the legitimacy of one position or the other, often highlighting positions that do not take into account the complexity of political and social processes. The two sides have systematically interpreted the various events in light of the conflict, generating multiple, contradictory narratives. According to Sahrawi nationalists, for example, the Sahrawi people have existed since the dawn of history. In the refugee camps of Tindouf, one often encounters narratives according to which the rock art of the Western Sahara territory is a direct and uninterrupted testimony of a Sahrawi people who have existed since prehistoric times. From Morocco’s perspective, by contrast, the Saharan territory has always been part of the Kingdom of Morocco, as if Morocco always existed in this form and was not itself the result of a long historical process. Indeed, it is often forgotten that the parameters of territorial sovereignty in this area did not exist prior to European colonization—a reality obscured by Morocco’s claims.

It is evident that writing the history of Western Sahara and its population is an impossible undertaking; it is therefore much more honest to propose a probable historical reconstruction, based on the rigorous interpretation of archival documents and testimonies collected within the framework of scientific research projects. Even so, such an undertaking can only ever be a subjective interpretation, mediated by knowledge but without any pretense of objectivity.
The Ethiopian and Yemeni Roots of Coffee
Authors: Tuchscherer Michel
Published: September 2024

The beginnings of the history of coffee can be found in two neighboring countries separated only by the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. Coffee’s history starts before its consumption in Europe during the middle of the 17th century and before the development of its cultivation in the European tropical colonies during the 18th century. Yet this history is not well known in the early 21st century and often is pervaded by myths, the best known being the myth concerning the goat-herder Kaldi. There are objective reasons for this situation. In Ethiopia, the origins of coffee are found solely in the southern part of the country. Written sources about coffee that predate the 18th century are extremely rare, and so far very few archaeological excavations have provided data about coffee consumption. In Yemen, the archives that could cast light on the relevant period, from the end of the 15th century to the start of the 19th century, are mainly in the hands of families who are scattered across the country. Because of early-21st-century conflicts in the region, access to these archives is completely out of the question.

Nevertheless, research published since the 1990s in the areas of history and anthropology, alongside genetic analyses of the species Coffea arabica, opens the way to a new view of the pioneering role of southern Ethiopia and Yemen in the dissemination of the coffee consumption, the domestication of the coffee plant, and the production of coffee beans since at least the 13th century and up to the 18th century.
Mexican Radio Dramas
Authors: Robles Sonia
Published: September 2024

When radio stations in Mexico City began transmitting dramas in the early 1930s, listeners throughout Mexico had a decade of familiarity with the medium behind them. At the time, commercial and official stations transmitted an array of programs, including news bulletins, conferences, weather reports, women’s advice shows, cooking presentations, and vast amounts of music—solos, orchestras, bands, piano recitals, etc. A radio drama, however, was different. Dramas demanded a captive audience, tested the boundaries of listeners’ imagination, provided emotional fulfillment, and capitalized on wireless broadcasting’s intrinsic capabilities: taking messages instantly, the moment they are created, to audiences.

The history of radio dramas in Mexico parallels nationwide trends and developments including population growth, rural to urban migration, and the irreversible effects of US economic and cultural imperialism. Dozens of stations appeared in the 1930s, yet only a handful led audiences through these transformations, including XEW, which was the first commercial station to air a radio play, Los Tres Mosqueteros on the evening of August 1, 1932. Foreign plays and theater performances written by Mexican men and women specifically for the radio, or radioteatro, became an important genre of the decade, allocating a slot in daily programming for dramas.

The zenith of golden age dramas occurred in the 1940s, not with adapted European or US theater productions but with radionovelas. Generally sponsored by transnational corporations like Max Factor and Colgate Palmolive, the hit series Anita de Montemar, Francisca Velasco, Elena Montalvo, Chucho el roto, or the Cuban triumph El derecho de nacer are exemplary in their innovation, artistic talent, and production. The radio industry enjoyed nationwide growth once stations recorded radionovelas and distributed them throughout the country through a newly inaugurated network and after the Mexican government decided to join the allied forces during the Second World War. Radio dramas did not disappear in the 1950s when television was a threat to the wireless broadcasting industry. Instead, drama sketches were included in elaborate sponsored shows and evening programs where film stars “paraded” in front of audience members.
The Challenges of Measuring Socioeconomic Inequality in Pharmacoepidemiology Studies
Authors: Prener Christopher , Schley Katharina , Miles Amanda , Willis Sarah
Published: September 2024

Social conditions like socioeconomic status (SES) are critical sources of health disparities. In pharmacoepidemiology research, our ability to measure SES in retrospective, real world clinical data remains challenged by a lack of patient-reported data. Some broadly accepted concepts can be measured at the individual level, such as income, poverty, and education. Community-level measures such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) also exist. After reflecting on these existing measures and discussing the challenges for leveraging them with real world data, we offer three recommendations that we believe could improve the ability of pharmacoepidemiologists to better measure and interrogate the effect of SES in their own research. These recommendations include a greater collection of patient-reported metrics, reduced reliance on ZIP Codes and ZIP Code Tabulation Areas for creating community-level measures of deprivation, and the inclusion of GIS and demography specialists within pharmacoepidemiology teams.
Use of Censored Data Methods to Estimate Blood Pressure Percentiles in US Adults
Authors: Rosner Bernard , Cook Nancy R , Glynn Robert J , Bress Adam , Derington Atherine G , Falkner Bonita , Allen Norrina
Published: September 2024

Blood pressure (BP) levels are important modifiable risk factors for incident cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, many adults are on anti-hypertensive medication (MEDS) which lowers their BP but is a marker for increased CVD risk. To capture the association of BP and its treatment with risk, it is important to estimate BP levels in the absence of medication, i.e., Underlying BP. One proposed ad-hoc solution is to add a fixed increment e.g., 10/5 mm Hg to systolic (SBP)/diastolic (DBP) for people on MEDS to approximate their Underlying BP. However, what this increment should be, and whether it applies to all MEDS users is unclear. In this manuscript, we propose a novel time-to-event approach to estimate Underlying BP, treating BPs on MEDS as censored observations. The results indicate that the median Treatment Effect (i.e., Underlying BP – Observed BP) for SBP/DBP is 12.0/7.7 for men and 16.9/6.5 for women and is significantly modified by age, BMI and black race. The Underlying BP for MEDS users is then combined with the observed BP for non-MEDS users to derive age-sex-specific BP percentiles for Underlying BP based on a representative sample of normal weight U.S. adults aged 18-79 using NHANES data from 1999-2018.
Progression in Central Blood Pressure and Hemodynamic Parameters and Relationship With Cardiovascular Risk Factors in a Spanish Population: EVA Follow-Up Study
Authors: González-Falcón David , Gómez-Sánchez Leticia , Gómez-Sánchez Marta , Rodriguez-Sánchez Emiliano , Tamayo-Morales Olaya , Lugones-Sánchez Cristina , Gonzalez-Sánchez Susana , García-Ortiz Luis , Diaz Moises , Gómez-Marcos Manuel A , EVA investigators
Published: September 2024

BACKGROUND

The progression of central blood pressure (CBP) values and central hemodynamic parameters and its relationship with cardiovascular risk factors is quite unknown. We sought to investigate this association in a Spanish adult population without cardiovascular diseases.

METHODS

Prospective observational research with a 5-year follow-up. Randomly sampled 501 individuals (mean age 56 ± 14 years, 50.3% women). After 5 years, 480 individuals had a follow-up. Measurements taken using the SphygmoCor (AtCor Medical Pty Ltd., Head Office, West Ryde, Australia), following all the recommendations established in the “International task force” (Sharman JE, Avolio AP, Baulmann J, Benetos A, Blacher J, Blizzard CL, Boutouyrie P, Chen CH, Chowienczyk P, Cockcroft JR, Cruickshank JK, Ferreira I, Ghiadoni L, Hughes A, Jankowski P, Laurent S, McDonnell BJ, McEniery C, Millasseau SC, Papaioannou TG, Vlachopoulos C. Validation of non-invasive central blood pressure devices: ARTERY Society task force consensus statement on protocol standardization. Eur Heart J 2017; 38:2805–2812), giving an estimate of CBP relative to measured brachial blood pressure (type 1 device).

RESULTS

Progressions during follow-up: central systolic blood pressure (cSBP): 4.16 ± 13.71 mm Hg; central diastolic blood pressure: 2.45 ± 11.37 mm Hg; central pulse pressure: 1.72 ± 12.43 mm Hg; pulse pressure amplification (PPA): 2.85 ± 12.20 mm Hg; ejection duration: 7.00 ± 47.87 ms; subendocardial viability ratio (SEVR): −8.04 ± 36.24%. In multiple regression analysis: cSBP positively associated with: body mass index (BMI) (β = 0.476); waist size (β = 0.159); number of cigarettes per day (β = 0.192). Inversely associated with peripheral systolic blood pressure (β = −0.282). Central diastolic blood pressure increase positively associated with number of cigarettes per day (β = 0.174). Inversely associated with peripheral diastolic blood pressure (β = −0.292). Central pulse pressure increase positively associated with BMI (β = 0.330). Inversely associated with peripheral pulse pressure (β = −0.262). Pulse pressure amplification increase positively associated with: BMI (β = 0.276); number of cigarettes per day (β = 0.281). Ejection duration progress inversely associated with basal plasma glucose (β = −0.286).

CONCLUSIONS

All measures increased except for SEVR. Progressions in CBP and PPA were positively associated with anthropometric parameters and number of cigarettes and CBP inversely associated with peripheral blood pressure, although this association was different according to sex.
Multi-omics integration for both single-cell and spatially resolved data based on dual-path graph attention auto-encoder
Authors: Lv Tongxuan , Zhang Yong , Liu Junlin , Kang Qiang , Liu Lin
Published: September 2024

Single-cell multi-omics integration enables joint analysis at the single-cell level of resolution to provide more accurate understanding of complex biological systems, while spatial multi-omics integration is benefit to the exploration of cell spatial heterogeneity to facilitate more comprehensive downstream analyses. Existing methods are mainly designed for single-cell multi-omics data with little consideration of spatial information and still have room for performance improvement. A reliable multi-omics integration method designed for both single-cell and spatially resolved data is necessary and significant. We propose a multi-omics integration method based on dual-path graph attention auto-encoder (SSGATE). It can construct the neighborhood graphs based on single-cell expression profiles or spatial coordinates, enabling it to process single-cell data and utilize spatial information from spatially resolved data. It can also perform self-supervised learning for integration through the graph attention auto-encoders from two paths. SSGATE is applied to integration of transcriptomics and proteomics, including single-cell and spatially resolved data of various tissues from different sequencing technologies. SSGATE shows better performance and stronger robustness than competitive methods and facilitates downstream analysis.
ACP-CapsPred: an explainable computational framework for identification and functional prediction of anticancer peptides based on capsule network
Authors: Yao Lantian , Xie Peilin , Guan Jiahui , Chung Chia-Ru , Zhang Wenyang , Deng Junyang , Huang Yixian , Chiang Ying-Chih , Lee Tzong-Yi
Published: September 2024

Cancer is a severe illness that significantly threatens human life and health. Anticancer peptides (ACPs) represent a promising therapeutic strategy for combating cancer. In silico methods enable rapid and accurate identification of ACPs without extensive human and material resources. This study proposes a two-stage computational framework called ACP-CapsPred, which can accurately identify ACPs and characterize their functional activities across different cancer types. ACP-CapsPred integrates a protein language model with evolutionary information and physicochemical properties of peptides, constructing a comprehensive profile of peptides. ACP-CapsPred employs a next-generation neural network, specifically capsule networks, to construct predictive models. Experimental results demonstrate that ACP-CapsPred exhibits satisfactory predictive capabilities in both stages, reaching state-of-the-art performance. In the first stage, ACP-CapsPred achieves accuracies of 80.25% and 95.71%, as well as F1-scores of 79.86% and 95.90%, on benchmark datasets Set 1 and Set 2, respectively. In the second stage, tasked with characterizing the functional activities of ACPs across five selected cancer types, ACP-CapsPred attains an average accuracy of 90.75% and an F1-score of 91.38%. Furthermore, ACP-CapsPred demonstrates excellent interpretability, revealing regions and residues associated with anticancer activity. Consequently, ACP-CapsPred presents a promising solution to expedite the development of ACPs and offers a novel perspective for other biological sequence analyses.
“Being / together”: Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other and the Black British Women’s Movement
Authors: Abram Nicola
Published: September 2024

This essay locates Bernardine Evaristo’s Booker Prize-winning novel Girl, Woman, Other (2019) within the sociopolitical history and written lineage of the Black women’s movement in Britain. It identifies contextual resonances with the 1970s and 1980s praxis of collaboration and collectivity and traces intertextual connections with Evaristo’s own early writing (including theater, verse fiction, and the radio story from which the novel evolved) and the periodicals, anthologies, and organization newsletters of the time. These references illuminate the novel’s structure, lineation, and narrative mode. I argue that Girl, Woman, Other reanimates the rallying call “we are here,” affirming the presence and diversity of Black lives in Britain, while its distinctive “fusion fiction” form actively engages readers, realizing the Black feminist political principle of “speaking out.”
Bursts of Rapid Diversification, Dispersals Out of Southern Africa, and Two Origins of Dioecy Punctuate the Evolution of Asparagus
Authors: Bentz Philip C , Burrows John E , Burrows Sandra M , Mizrachi Eshchar , Liu Zhengjie , Yang Junbo , Mao Zichao , Popecki Margot , Seberg Ole , Petersen Gitte , Leebens-Mack Jim
Published: September 2024

The genus Asparagus arose ∼9 to 15 million years ago (Ma), and transitions from hermaphroditism to dioecy (separate sexes) occurred ∼3 to 4 Ma. Roughly 27% of extant Asparagus species are dioecious, while the remaining are bisexual with monoclinous flowers. As such, Asparagus is an ideal model taxon for studying the early stages of dioecy and sex chromosome evolution in plants. Until now, however, understanding of diversification and shifts from hermaphroditism to dioecy in Asparagus has been hampered by the lack of robust species tree estimates for the genus. In this study, a genus-wide phylogenomic analysis including 1,726 nuclear loci and comprehensive species sampling supports two independent origins of dioecy in Asparagus—first in a widely distributed Eurasian clade and then in a clade restricted to the Mediterranean Basin. Modeling of ancestral biogeography indicates that both dioecy origins were associated with range expansion out of southern Africa. Our findings also reveal several bursts of diversification across the phylogeny, including an initial radiation in southern Africa that gave rise to 12 major clades in the genus, and more recent radiations that have resulted in paraphyly and polyphyly among closely related species, as expected given active speciation processes. Lastly, we report that the geographic origin of domesticated garden asparagus (Asparagus officinalis L.) was likely in western Asia near the Mediterranean Sea. The presented phylogenomic framework for Asparagus is foundational for ongoing genomic investigations of diversification and functional trait evolution in the genus and contributes to its utility for understanding the origin and early evolution of dioecy and sex chromosomes.
Is Cancer Associated With Frailty? Results From a Longitudinal Study of Old Danish Twins
Authors: Mohammadnejad Afsaneh , Jylhävä Juulia , Ewertz Marianne , Ryg Jesper , Hjelmborg Jacob V B , Galvin Angéline
Published: September 2024

Background

Although age is an important risk factor for both cancer and frailty, it is unclear whether cancer itself increases the risk of frailty. We aimed to assess the association between cancer and frailty in a longitudinal cohort of older Danish twins, taking familial effect into account.

Methods

Using the Danish Cancer Registry, cancer cases were identified among participants aged 70 and over in the Longitudinal Study of Aging Danish Twins (LSADT). Frailty was evaluated over 10 years of follow-up using the frailty index (FI) and defined as FI > 0.21. Stratified Cox regressions were performed on discordant twin pairs (pairs where one twin had incident cancer and the other was cancer-free) and on all LSADT individual twins (twin pairs and singletons) with no history of cancer.

Results

Among the 72 discordant pairs (n = 144, median age at inclusion = 75) included in the study, the median FI at inclusion was 0.08 for both cancer twins and cancer-free co-twins. From the stratified Cox regression, twins with cancer had an increased hazard of developing frailty (hazard ratio [HR] = 3.67, 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.02–13.14) compared with their cancer-free co-twins. The analyses on individual twins (n = 4 027) provided similar results, showing an increased hazard of frailty in individuals with cancer (HR = 2.57, 95% CI = 1.77–3.74) compared with those without cancer.

Conclusions

We showed a higher risk of becoming frail following a cancer diagnosis in both discordant twin pairs and individual twins. These findings support the importance of monitoring frailty in older adults with cancer through geriatric assessments and the implementation of frailty interventions.
Carbon emissions analysis of office building renovation: a case study in China’s hot summer and cold winter zone
Authors: Xu Chi , Zhang Ying , Qiu Dianle , Chen Zhiqing , Zhang Yurong , Kong Deyu
Published: September 2024

Building renovations in climates characterized by a hot summer and cold winter (HSWC) pose significant challenges in managing carbon emissions due to increased energy demands and material use. Despite advances in sustainable design, the carbon footprint of renovation activities remains a critical concern, particularly regarding the balance between initial emissions from construction and long-term operational efficiency. This study addresses these pressing issues through analyzing the carbon emissions associated with a building complex renovation in an HSWC zone of China. The research examines both the construction stage, where material production and transportation contribute significantly to emissions, and the operational stage, where energy consumption and equipment degradation influence long-term carbon output. By evaluating the effectiveness of renovation strategies and integrating building-integrated photovoltaic systems, this study demonstrates a reduction in annual carbon emissions from 1176.28 tCO2 to 1007.25 tCO2, a reduction of approximately 14.4%. The findings showed that the renovation process would achieve a carbon payback period of 7.46 years and a 24.9%–37.8% reduction in carbon emission intensity. This work underscores the potential significant environmental benefits of innovative materials and efficient design, offering valuable insights for future low-carbon building renovation projects.
Ketamine Prevents Inflammation-Induced Reduction of Human Hippocampal Neurogenesis via Inhibiting the Production of Neurotoxic Metabolites of the Kynurenine Pathway
Authors: Mandal Gargi , Kirkpatrick Madeline , Alboni Silvia , Mariani Nicole , Pariante Carmine M , Borsini Alessandra
Published: September 2024

Background

Understanding the precise mechanisms of ketamine is crucial for replicating its rapid antidepressant effects without inducing psychomimetic changes. Here, we explore whether the antidepressant-like effects of ketamine enantiomers are underscored by protection against cytokine-induced reductions in hippocampal neurogenesis and activation of the neurotoxic kynurenine pathway in our well-established in vitro model of depression in a dish.

Methods

We used the fetal hippocampal progenitor cell line (HPC0A07/03C) to investigate ketamine’s impact on cytokine-induced reductions in neurogenesis in vitro. Cells were treated with interleukin- 1beta (IL-1b) (10 ng/mL) or IL-6 (50 pg/mL), alone or in combination with ketamine enantiomers arketamine (R-ketamine, 400 nM) or esketamine (S-ketamine, 400 nM) or antidepressants sertraline (1 mM) or venlafaxine (1 mM).

Results

Resembling the effect of antidepressants, both ketamine enantiomers prevented IL-1b– and IL-6–induced reduction in neurogenesis and increase in apoptosis. This was mediated by inhibition of IL-1b–induced production of IL-2 and IL-13 by R-ketamine and of IL-1b–induced tumor necrosis factor-alpha by S-ketamine. Likewise, R-ketamine inhibited IL-6–induced production of IL-13, whereas S-ketamine inhibited IL-6–induced IL-1b and IL-8. Moreover, both R- and S-ketamine prevented IL-1b–induced increases in indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase expression as well as kynurenine production, which in turn was shown to mediate the detrimental effects of IL-1b on neurogenesis and apoptosis. In contrast, neither R- nor S-ketamine prevented IL-6–induced kynurenine pathway activation.

Conclusions

Results suggest that R- and S-ketamine have pro-neurogenic and anti-inflammatory properties; however, this is mediated by inhibition of the kynurenine pathway only in the context of IL-1b. Overall, this study enhances our understanding of the mechanisms underlying ketamine’s antidepressant effects in the context of different inflammatory phenotypes, ultimately leading to the development of more effective, personalized therapeutic approaches for patients suffering from depression.
Boundedness of Log Fano Pairs with Certain K-stability
Authors: Loginov Konstantin , Zhou Chuyu
Published: September 2024

We prove several boundedness results for log Fano pairs with certain K-stability. In particular, we prove that K-semistable log Fano pairs of Maeda type in each dimension form a log bounded family. We also compute K-semistable domains for some examples.