bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Academic Integrity Training Module for Academic Stakeholders: IEPAR Framework
Authors: Khan Zeenath Reza
Published: February 2024

The global surge in academic misconduct during the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbated by remote teaching and online assessment, necessitates a comprehensive understanding of the multidimensional aspects and stakeholders' perspectives associated with this issue. This paper addresses the prevalent use of answer-providing sites and other types of academic misconduct, underscoring the challenge of detecting all or most of the student misconduct. Exploring factors such as faculty inexperience in remote teaching and assessment, the paper advocates for proactive measures to preserve integrity in education. Emphasizing the need for a culture of integrity beyond traditional classrooms, the paper reviews existing models, then details steps to create a framework using the International Labour Organization (ILO)’s TREE training method. It presents the IEPAR framework (Inspiration, Education, Pedagogical considerations, Assessment design, Response and Restorative practice), and assesses its effectiveness. Incorporating faculty feedback, the paper concludes with evidence-based findings, positioning the IEPAR framework as a robust approach for addressing academic misconduct and fostering a culture of academic integrity in higher education through responsible training of all stakeholders.
Waterfowl Eggshell Refines Palaeoenvironmental Reconstruction and Supports Multi-species Niche Construction at the Pleistocene-Holocene Transition in the Levant
Authors: Yeomans Lisa , Codlin Maria C. , Mazzucato Camilla , Dal Bello Federica , Demarchi Beatrice
Published: February 2024

Utilising multiple lines of evidence for palaeoenvironmental reconstruction improves our understanding of the past landscapes in which human populations interacted with other species. Illuminating such processes is key for a nuanced understanding of fundamental transitions in human history, such as the shift from hunting and gathering to farming, and allows us to move beyond simple deterministic interpretations of climate-driven innovation. Avifaunal remains provide detailed indications of complex multi-species interactions at the local scale. They allow us to infer relationships between human and non-human animals, but also to reconstruct their niche, because many bird species are sensitive to specific ecological conditions and will often relocate and change their breeding patterns. In this paper, we illustrate how novel evidence that waterfowl reproduced at Levantine wetlands, which we obtained through biomolecular archaeology, together with modern ornithological data reveals conditions of wetlands that are conducive for breeding waterfowl. By understanding the interplay between wetland productivity cycles and waterfowl ecology, we argue that human modifications to the environment could have promoted wetland productivity inviting waterfowl to remain year-round. Within this landscape of “mutual ecologies”, the feedback resulting from the agency of all species is involved in the construction of the human niche.
Self-Reported Adverse Childhood Experiences and Risk for Internalizing and Externalizing Difficulties among Adolescent Custodial Grandchildren
Authors: Smith Gregory C. , Dolbin-MacNab Megan , Infurna Frank J. , Crowley Daniel M. , Castro Saul , Musil Carol , Webster Britney
Published: February 2024

Despite custodial grandchildren’s (CG) traumatic histories and risk for psychological difficulties, knowledge is scant regarding the frequencies, types, and consequences of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) they have encountered. We examined self-reported ACEs via online surveys with 342 CG (ages 12 to 18) who were recruited to participate in an RCT of a social intelligence training program. ACEs were assessed by 14 widely used items, and risk for internalizing (ID) and externalizing (ED) difficulties were measured using 80th percentile cut-offs on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. Classification and regression tree analyses included all 14 ACEs (along with CG gender and age) as predictors of ID and ED risk separately. Given possible comorbidity, analyses were run with and without the other risk type as a predictor. Less than 9% of CG self-reported no ACEs, 48.6% reported two to five ACEs, and 30.5% reported ≥6. Irrespective of ED risk, bullying from peers strongly predicted ID risk. ED risk was peak among CG who also had risk for ID. Without ID risk as a predictor, ED risk was highest among CG who were emotionally abused, not lived with a substance abuser, and encountered neighborhood violence. The frequency and types of ACEs observed were alarmingly higher than those among the general population, suggesting that many CG have histories of trauma and household dysfunction. That a small number of ACEs among the 14 studied here were significant predictors of ID and ED risk challenges the widespread belief of a cumulative dose ACE effect.
The Breakthrough of Large Language Models Release for Medical Applications: 1-Year Timeline and Perspectives
Authors: Cascella Marco , Semeraro Federico , Montomoli Jonathan , Bellini Valentina , Piazza Ornella , Bignami Elena
Published: February 2024

Within the domain of Natural Language Processing (NLP), Large Language Models (LLMs) represent sophisticated models engineered to comprehend, generate, and manipulate text resembling human language on an extensive scale. They are transformer-based deep learning architectures, obtained through the scaling of model size, pretraining of corpora, and computational resources. The potential healthcare applications of these models primarily involve chatbots and interaction systems for clinical documentation management, and medical literature summarization (Biomedical NLP). The challenge in this field lies in the research for applications in diagnostic and clinical decision support, as well as patient triage. Therefore, LLMs can be used for multiple tasks within patient care, research, and education. Throughout 2023, there has been an escalation in the release of LLMs, some of which are applicable in the healthcare domain. This remarkable output is largely the effect of the customization of pre-trained models for applications like chatbots, virtual assistants, or any system requiring human-like conversational engagement. As healthcare professionals, we recognize the imperative to stay at the forefront of knowledge. However, keeping abreast of the rapid evolution of this technology is practically unattainable, and, above all, understanding its potential applications and limitations remains a subject of ongoing debate. Consequently, this article aims to provide a succinct overview of the recently released LLMs, emphasizing their potential use in the field of medicine. Perspectives for a more extensive range of safe and effective applications are also discussed. The upcoming evolutionary leap involves the transition from an AI-powered model primarily designed for answering medical questions to a more versatile and practical tool for healthcare providers such as generalist biomedical AI systems for multimodal-based calibrated decision-making processes. On the other hand, the development of more accurate virtual clinical partners could enhance patient engagement, offering personalized support, and improving chronic disease management.
Touch as a Stress Buffer? Gender Differences in Subjective and Physiological Responses to Partner and Stranger Touch
Authors: Debrot Anik , Stellar Jennifer E. , Dan-Glauser Elise , Klumb Petra L.
Published: February 2024

Interpersonal touch buffers against stress under challenging conditions, but this effect depends on familiarity. People benefit from receiving touch from their romantic partners, but the results are less consistent in the context of receiving touch from an opposite-gender stranger. We propose that there may be important gender differences in how people respond to touch from opposite-gender strangers. Specifically, we propose that touch from an opposite-gender stranger may only have stress-buffering effects for men, not women. Stress was induced as participants took part in an emotion recognition task in which they received false failure feedback while being touched by a romantic partner or stranger. We measured subjective and physiological markers of stress (i.e., reduced heart rate variability) throughout the experiment. Neither stranger’s nor partner’s touch had any effect on subjective or physiological markers of stress for men. Women, however, subjectively experienced a stress-buffering effect of partner and stranger touch, but showed increased physiological markers of stress when receiving touch from an opposite-gender stranger. These results highlight the importance of considering gender when investigating touch as a stress buffer.
Fast Multiobjective Gradient Methods with Nesterov Acceleration via Inertial Gradient-Like Systems
Authors: Sonntag Konstantin , Peitz Sebastian
Published: February 2024

We derive efficient algorithms to compute weakly Pareto optimal solutions for smooth, convex and unconstrained multiobjective optimization problems in general Hilbert spaces. To this end, we define a novel inertial gradient-like dynamical system in the multiobjective setting, which trajectories converge weakly to Pareto optimal solutions. Discretization of this system yields an inertial multiobjective algorithm which generates sequences that converge weakly to Pareto optimal solutions. We employ Nesterov acceleration to define an algorithm with an improved convergence rate compared to the plain multiobjective steepest descent method (Algorithm 1). A further improvement in terms of efficiency is achieved by avoiding the solution of a quadratic subproblem to compute a common step direction for all objective functions, which is usually required in first-order methods. Using a different discretization of our inertial gradient-like dynamical system, we obtain an accelerated multiobjective gradient method that does not require the solution of a subproblem in each step (Algorithm 2). While this algorithm does not converge in general, it yields good results on test problems while being faster than standard steepest descent.
Fabrication of multi-walled carbon nanotube/polycaprolactone scaffolds for possible application in tissue engineering
Authors: Peñaranda-Armbrecht Jose , Correa-Quiceno Mario Jose , Caicedo-Angulo Julio Cesar , Neuta-Arciniegas Paola Andrea , Gutiérrez-Montes José Óscar
Published: February 2024

Flexible scaffolds made of polycaprolactone (PCL), and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) were created and chemically verified through RAMAN. The most suitable coupling percentages for PCL were 1%, 3%, and 5% MWCNT. The scaffolds were very stable with high hardness values (10–12 GPa). The PCL/MWCNT 5% scaffold was the most flexible and least resistant, with adequate porosity, pore size, and interconnectivity for cell anchoring. Moreover, the scaffold exhibited low cytotoxicity with a cell viability of 90%. These flexible PCL/MWCNT scaffolds were developed to support tissue engineering by providing a mechanical response with flexibility and elasticity like the surrounding tissue.
Optimizing Postpartum Care in Rural Communities: Insights from Women in Arizona and Implications for Policy
Authors: Okechukwu Abidemi , Magrath Priscilla , Alaofe Halimatou , Farland Leslie V. , Abraham Ivo , Marrero David G. , Celaya Martin , Ehiri John
Published: February 2024

Objectives

Optimal postpartum care promotes healthcare utilization and outcomes. This qualitative study investigated the experiences and perceived needs for postpartum care among women in rural communities in Arizona, United States.

Methods

We conducted in-depth interviews with thirty childbearing women and analyzed the transcripts using reflexive thematic analysis to gauge their experiences, needs, and factors affecting postpartum healthcare utilization.

Results

Experiences during childbirth and multiple structural factors, including transportation, childcare services, financial constraints, and social support, played crucial roles in postpartum care utilization for childbearing people in rural communities. Access to comprehensive health information and community-level support systems were perceived as critical for optimizing postpartum care and utilization.

Conclusions for Practice

This study provides valuable insights for policymakers, healthcare providers, and community stakeholders in enhancing postpartum care services for individuals in rural communities in the United States.
MGSGA: Multi-grained and Semantic-Guided Alignment for Text-Video Retrieval
Authors: Wu Xiaoyu , Qian Jiayao , Yang Lulu
Published: February 2024

In the text-video retrieval task, the objective is to calculate the similarity between a text and a video, and rank the relevant candidates higher. Most existing methods only consider the text-video semantic alignment in the global view. But using mean-pooling to obtain global semantics and simply aligning text and video in the global view may lead to semantic bias. In addition, some methods utilize offline object detectors or sentence parsers to obtain entity-level information in text and video and achieve local alignment. However, inaccurate detection introduces possible errors and such approaches prevent models from being trained end-to-end for retrieval. To overcome these limitations, we propose multi-grained and semantic-guided alignment for text-video retrieval in this paper, which can achieve fine-grained alignment based on video frames and text words, local alignment based on semantic centers, and global alignment. Specially, we explore summary semantics of text and video to guide the local alignment based on semantic centers for we believe that the importance of each semantic center is determined by summary semantics. We evaluate our approach on four benchmark datasets of MSRVTT, MSVD, ActivityNet Captions, and DiDeMo, achieving better performance than most existing methods.
Combining Swin Transformer and Attention-Weighted Fusion for Scene Text Detection
Authors: Li Xianguo , Yao Xingchen , Liu Yi
Published: February 2024

The existing text detection algorithms based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN) commonly have the problems of insufficient receptive fields and inadequate extraction of spatial positional information, which limit their ability to detect large-scale variation text instances, long-distance and wide-spaced text instances as well as effectively distinguish complex background textures. To address the above problems, in this paper, a scene text detection algorithm combining Swin Transformer and attention-weighted fusion is proposed. Firstly, an attention-weighted fusion (AWF) module is proposed, which embeds a modified coordinate attention module (CAM) in the feature pyramid network (FPN). This module learns spatial positional weights of foreground information in different-scale features while suppressing redundant background information. As a result, the fused features are more focused on the text regions, enhancing the localization ability for text regions and boundaries. Secondly, the window-based self-attention mechanism of the Swin Transformer is utilized to achieve global feature perception on the fused features of the pyramid network. This compensates for the insufficient receptive fields of CNN and enhances the representation capability of global contextual features, thereby further improving the performance of text detection. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed algorithm achieves competitive performance on three public datasets, namely ICDAR2015, MSRA-TD500, and Total-Text, with F-measure reaching 87.9%, 91.4%, and 86.7%, respectively. Code is available at: https://github.com/xgli411/ST-AWFNet.
Few-Shot Semantic Segmentation via Mask Aggregation
Authors: Ao Wei , Zheng Shunyi , Meng Yan , Yang Yang
Published: February 2024

Few-shot semantic segmentation aims to recognize novel classes with only very few labelled data. This challenging task requires mining of the correlation between the query image and the support images. Previous works have typically regarded it as a pixel-wise classification problem. Therefore, various models have been designed to explore the correlation of pixels between the query image and the support images. However, they focus only on pixel-wise correspondence and ignore the overall correlation of objects. In this paper, we introduce a mask-based classification method for addressing this problem. The mask aggregation network, which is a simple mask classification model, is proposed to simultaneously generate a fixed number of masks and their probabilities of being targets. Then, the final segmentation result is obtained by aggregating all the masks according to their locations. Experiments on both the PASCAL-$$5^i$$

5
i

and COCO-$$20^i$$

20
i

datasets show that our method performs comparably to the state-of-the-art pixel-based methods. This competitive performance demonstrates the potential of mask classification as an alternative baseline method for few-shot semantic segmentation.
Sufficient access? Activity participation, perceived accessibility and transport-related social exclusion across spatial contexts
Authors: Pot Felix Johan , Heinen Eva , Tillema Taede
Published: February 2024

Promoting social inclusion through facilitating the participation in social and economic activities is a central goal of land-use and transport planning. This study examines the relationship between activity participation and experiences of transport-related social exclusion across different spatial accessibility levels in the Netherlands. Using perceived accessibility as an indicator of the benefits derived from spatial opportunities, this paper reveals a weak and non-linear connection between activity participation and satisfaction with accessibility, which becomes negligible at higher participation levels. Even when individuals have low engagement levels, they often report high perceived accessibility, indicating voluntary non-participation. In rural areas with limited local opportunities, constrained participation is more prominent, especially for those with limited mobility options. The weak correlations between participation and experienced benefits from accessibility across diverse spatial contexts emphasize the importance of considering perceived accessibility alongside spatial and activity data in normative debates on determining the sufficiency of accessibility.
The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on treatment for domestic violence injuries: evidence from medical claims
Authors: Gilbert Lauren , Parker Susan , Schechter Lauren
Published: February 2024

Previous studies have observed heterogeneous changes in domestic violence-related 911 calls, police incident reports, and arrests at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this study, we use a large-scale medical claims database with coverage of over 100 million patients to examine the impact on domestic violence victims’ use of emergency department care for their injuries in the early weeks of the pandemic compared to the corresponding weeks in previous years. We find a 23–35% decrease in utilization of emergency medical services by domestic violence victims between March and June of 2020. Based on this finding, it is essential to use caution when using medical claims to measure domestic violence in future research covering this time period. Decreases in care utilization also have important implications for the detection, screening, and treatment of domestic violence injuries during future public health crises.
How does team learning from failure facilitate new product performance? The double-edged moderating effect of collective efficacy
Authors: Tao Xiangming , Wang Catherine L. , Robson Paul J. A. , Hughes Mathew
Published: February 2024

Learning from failure can foster innovation, but how a new product development (NPD) team’s learning from failure affects new product performance requires more insights. In particular, the question remains on how collective efficacy, which discerns team members’ belief to achieve desired goals, affects team learning from failure towards improving new product performance. Using social cognitive theory complemented by sensemaking and attribution theories, we examine the effects of NPD teams’ (experiential and vicarious) learning from failure on new product performance and the moderating effects of collective efficacy on these relationships. With survey data collected from 398 responses within 152 NPD teams in Chinese high-tech small and medium-sized enterprises, we find that both experiential and vicarious learning from failure enhance new product performance in terms of speed to market and product innovativeness. Further, as collective efficacy increases, the positive effect of experiential learning from failure on speed to market is strengthened. However, the positive effect of vicarious learning from failure on product innovativeness is weakened. Our results suggest that NPD teams can benefit from experiential and vicarious learning from failure to improve new product performance but must pay attention to the double-edged effect of collective efficacy.
Scientific explanation as a guide to ground
Authors: Kortabarria Markel , Giannotti Joaquim
Published: February 2024

Ground is all the rage in contemporary metaphysics. But what is its nature? Some metaphysicians defend what we could call, following Skiles and Trogdon (Philos Stud 178(12):4083-4098, 2021), the inheritance view: it is because constitutive forms of metaphysical explanation are such-and-such that we should believe that ground is so-and-so. However, many putative instances of inheritance are not primarily motivated by scientific considerations. This limitation is harmless if one thinks that ground and science are best kept apart. Contrary to this view, we believe that ground is a highly serviceable tool for investigating metaphysical areas of science. In this paper, we defend a naturalistic version of the inheritance view which takes constitutive scientific explanation as a better guide to ground. After illustrating the approach and its merits, we discuss some implications of the emerging scientific conception for the theory of ground at large.
Urban patches of dry forest as refuges for ants and carabid beetles in a neotropical overcrowded city
Authors: Forero-Chavez Nataly , Arenas-Clavijo Anderson , Armbrecht Inge , Montoya-Lerma James
Published: February 2024

Cali is the third most prominent, and one of the most crowed, Colombian cities. It still harbours some tropical dry forest patches that can mitigate the impacts of the urban transformation; however, there is an almost total absence of information on the biological importance of these sites and their potential for future ecological restoration processes. To assess if they serve as important refuges for insect bioindicator species, we sampled five urban patches of tropical dry forest in the city, plus one nearby rural patch, using specific trapping procedures for ants and carabid beetles. Patch areas were variable, from 1 to 50 ha. We found that the smallest patch presented the highest ant richness, with a tendency towards generalists and a few unique species. Meanwhile, some specialist species were found in the rural patch. A total of 109 ant and 13 carabid species were recorded, including four new records of ants for Colombia. Results suggest that environmental variables favour the presence of generalist and opportunistic ants. Despite this, the high ant richness demonstrates that. Urban forest patches are important refuges for biodiversity. The low richness observed for carabids could be a sign of the challenges that urban forests face considering the ecological importance of beetles. The possible dangers of intensive internal use of these forests is discussed to prevent local extinctions, since the biggest forests are not necessarily conserving a higher richness. This work represents an important contribution to urban ecology in the region, with possibilities of further restoration in urban environments.
Methods for the separation of hydraulic retention time and solids retention time in the application of photosynthetic microorganisms in photobioreactors: a review
Authors: Keet Grant , Du Toit J. P. , Pott Robert William McClelland
Published: February 2024

Photosynthetic microorganisms have a wide range of biotechnical applications, through the application of their versatile metabolisms. However, their use in industry has been extremely limited to date, partially because of the additional complexities associated with their cultivation in comparison to other organisms. Strategies and developments in photobioreactors (PBRs) designed for their culture and applications are needed to drive the field forward. One particular area which bears examination is the use of strategies to separate solid- and hydraulic-residence times (SRT and HRT), to facilitate flow-through systems and continuous processing. The aim of this review is to discuss the various types of PBRs and methods which are currently demonstrated in the literature and industry, with a focus on the separation of HRT and SRT. The use of an efficient method of biomass retention in a PBR may be advantageous as it unlocks the option for continuous operation, which may improve efficiency, and improve economic feasibility of large-scale implementation of photosynthetic biocatalysts, especially where biomass is not the primary product. Due to the underexplored nature of the separation of HRT and SRT in reactors using photosynthetic microorganisms, limited literature is available regarding their performance, efficiencies, and potential issues. This review first introduces an overview into photosynthetic microorganisms cultivated and commonly exploited for use in biotechnological applications, with reference to bioreactor considerations specific to each organism. Following this, the existing technologies used for the separation of HRT and SRT in PBRs are explored. The respective advantages and disadvantages are discussed for each PBR design, which may inform an interested bioprocess engineer.
The impact of artificial intelligence on managerial attention allocation for discontinuous change: a conceptual framework
Authors: Mundlos Philip
Published: February 2024

The early detection of discontinuous change plays a decisive role in the performance and competitiveness of organizations. Whether and how top managers perceive change is mostly determined by their attention. However, research has shown that many top managers are often unable to allocate their attention properly and may therefore react with inertia or not at all to relevant changes. This raises the question of how managerial attention can be influenced to make top managers more receptive to discontinuous changes. A promising approach to this problem may come from the growing research field on the impact of AI on strategic decision-making. In this paper, I provide a conceptual framework of how the use of AI might help top managers better focus their attention on discontinuous change. Based on a systematic literature review and an attentional model, I highlight factors that influence top managers' attention allocation and likely enhance or inhibit it through the use of AI. This allows me to derive propositions for the application of AI in discontinuous change detection that can serve as a starting point for future empirical research. My paper contributes to broadening the research field of AI in the area of managerial attention.
Quantile-based effect of energy, transport, and total environmental tax on ecological footprint in EU5 countries
Authors: Kartal Mustafa Tevfik
Published: February 2024

Considering a vast majority of application areas, the study investigates how environmental tax (ET) affects ecological footprint. In this context, the study examines the European Union Five (EU5) countries, considers ecological footprint (EF) as the proxy of the environment, uses ET as tax-based environmental measures by making both disaggregated (i.e., energy and transport) and aggregated level analysis, and performs novel nonlinear quantile-based approaches for the period from 1995/Q1 to 2021/Q4. The outcomes show that on EF (i) energy-related ET has only a declining effect at lower and middle quantiles in Germany and at lower quantiles in Italy, whereas it does not have a curbing effect in other countries; (ii) transport-related ET is not effective on EF in any country, which means that it does not have a curbing effect; (iii) total ET has a decreasing effect in only Germany; and (iv) the alternative method validates the robustness. Thus, the study demonstrates the changing effect of ET across countries, quantiles, and ET types in curbing EF. Hence, it can be suggested that Germany can go on relying further on energy-related ET practices to decrease EF, whereas there is a long way for the remaining EU5 countries as well as transport-related ET in curbing EF.
The impact of technological innovations on the environmental Kuznets curve: evidence from EU-27
Authors: Ercan Hamdi , Savranlar Buket , Polat Melike Atay , Yıgıt Yuksel , Aslan Alper
Published: February 2024

The EKC hypothesis expresses the inverted U-shaped relationship between per capita income and environmental quality. In the literature, the role of technological innovations and income inequality on pollution is a relatively recent discussion in the studies testing the EKC hypothesis. The aim of this paper is to investigate the impact of technological innovations, income inequality, exports, urbanization, and growth on CO2 emissions in EU-27. In addition, while investigating this relationship, exports and urbanization are also considered and panel vector autoregression (PVAR) analysis is applied for the 2005–2019 period. According to the coefficient estimation results, while income inequality, exports, and urbanization increase pollution, technological innovations contribute to environmental quality. Also, the results demonstrated that the EKC hypothesis is invalid in these countries and there is a U-shaped relationship between growth and emissions. The causality test results revealed the presence of unidirectional causality running from all explanatory variables to CO2 emissions. Moreover, impulse-response graphs demonstrated that the reply of emissions to the shocks in the explanatory variables is similar to the long-run coefficient results. In conclusion, all available empirical evidence for this relationship highlights that income inequality and technological innovations should be considered in policy-making processes to ensure environmental quality in EU-27 countries.
Exploring the potential of the carbon credit program for hedging energy prices in Brazil
Authors: Palazzi Rafael Baptista , Quintino Derick David , Ferreira Paulo Jorge Silveira , Bekun Festus Victor
Published: February 2024

The transition to a low-carbon economy is imperative to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and mitigate pollution emissions. This preposition also aligns with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs-13), which highlight the climate change action. In this vein, Brazil has implemented the Decarbonization Credit (CBIOS) program to incentivize biofuel production and promote environmental sustainability through carbon credit emissions. To this end, the present study evaluates the effectiveness of the CBIO contract as a hedging tool for investors in the face of energy price fluctuations and decarbonization efforts. Specifically, we employ conditional dynamic correlation (DCC-GARCH) and optimal hedge ratio (HR) techniques to assess the relationship between CBIO and the futures and spot prices of sugar, oil, and ethanol. Our findings suggest that the current CBIO contract is not an effective hedge against energy spot and future prices. However, our analysis identifies a strengthening correlation between ethanol traded in Chicago and CBIO over time, highlighting the potential for an underlying contract to serve as an effective hedging tool in the future. Our study adds to the existing literature on carbon pricing mechanisms and their impact on financial markets, emphasizing the importance of sustainable energy policies and their potential to mitigate the risks associated with energy price volatility and decarbonization efforts.
An informative short-term study on the impacts of a triclocarban/weathered multi-walled carbon nanotube-adsorbed complex to benthic organisms
Authors: Weise Katrin , Beil Stephan , Schwanebeck Klemens , Ion Alina Catrinel , Berendonk Thomas Ulrich , Jungmann Dirk
Published: February 2024

Freshwater organisms are suitable models to study the fate of environmental pollutants. Due to their versatile and everyday use, many environmental pollutants such as triclocarban (TCC) or multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) enter environmental compartments very easily. TCC is known as a disinfectant and is declared as a highly aquatic toxicant. Multi-walled carbon nanotubes are used, e.g., in the automotive industry to improve plastic properties. Both TCCs and MWCNTs can pose major pollution hazards to various organisms. In addition, these substances can bind to each other due to their tendency to interact via strong hydrophobic interactions. Therefore, a short-term test was conducted to investigate the effects of the individual chemicals TCC and weathered MWCNTs (wMWCNTs) on a benthic biofilm and a grazing organism, Lymnaea stagnalis. Furthermore, the two compounds were coupled by an adsorption experiment resulting in a coupled complex formation (TCC + wMWCNTs). L. stagnalis showed no effects in terms of mortality. For benthic biofilm, the coupling test (TCC + wMWCNTs) showed a decrease of 58% in chlorophyll a (Chl-a) concentration. The main effect could be attributed to the wMWCNTs’ exposure alone (decrease of 82%), but not to presence of TCC. The concentration range of Chl-a upon TCC exposure alone was comparable to that in the control group (32 and 37 µg/cm2). With respect to the particulate organic carbon (POC) concentration, very similar results were found for the solvent control, the TCC, and also for the TCC + wMWCNTs group (3, 2.9, and 2.9 mg/cm2). In contrast to the control, a significant increase in POC concentration (100%) was observed for wMWCNTs, but no synergistic effect of TCC + wMWCNTs was detected.
Combined adsorption and electrochemical oxidation of perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) using graphite intercalated compound
Authors: Trzcinski Antoine P. , Harada Kouji
Published: February 2024

Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) is a bioaccumulative synthetic chemical containing strong C–F bonds and is one of the most common per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) detected in the environment. Graphite intercalated compound (GIC) flakes were used to adsorb and degrade PFOA through electrochemical oxidation. The adsorption followed the Langmuir model with a loading capacity of 2.6 µg PFOA g−1 GIC and a second-order kinetics (3.354 g µg−1 min−1). 99.4% of PFOA was removed by the process with a half-life of 15 min. When PFOA molecules broke down, they released various by-products, such as short-chain perfluoro carboxylic acids like PFHpA, PFHxA, and PFBA. This breakdown indicates the cleavage of the perfluorocarbon chain and the release of CF2 units, suggesting a transformation or degradation of the original compound into these smaller acids. Shorter-chain perfluorinated compounds had slower degradation rates compared to longer-chain ones. Combining these two methods (adsorption and in situ electrochemical oxidation) was found to be advantageous because adsorption can initially concentrate the PFOA molecules, making it easier for the electrochemical process to target and degrade them. The electrochemical process can potentially break down or transform the PFAS compounds into less harmful substances through oxidation or other reactions.
Environmental impact assessment of the coal yard and ambient pollution
Authors: Kucbel Marek , Raclavská Helena , Slamová Karolina , Šafář Michal , Švédová Barbora , Juchelková Dagmar , Růžičková Jana
Published: February 2024

This study investigates the vertical distribution of pollutants emitted from coal yards using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Vertical concentration measurements of black carbon (BC) and particulate matter (PM) in a range of 1 m to 100 m above ground level (AGL) in the central coal yard showed clear spatial patterns and gradients of these pollutants. In addition, measurements were taken at specific heights (1 m, 30 m AGL, and 60 m AGL) at seven locations approximately 3 km from the yard. Thirteen measurements were carried out during the non-heating period under similar weather conditions. The measured BC concentrations decreased significantly with increasing altitude, with ground-level concentrations reaching 1.88 ± 0.61 µg/m3 and decreasing by over 46% at 80 m AGL. Similarly, PM10 concentrations at 60 m AGL decreased by 21.7%, with values of 25.99 ± 9.24 µg/m3 measured near the ground level and 16.52 ± 8.31 µg/m3 at 60 m AGL. The maximum coal particle pollution from the coal depot ranges from 500 to 1,000 m. The study showed a significant decrease in BC concentrations with height above the coal yard surface. Concentrations of PM10 and PM10-TSP showed a complex distribution influenced by local emissions and long-range particle transport. Meteorological factors, especially wind speed and direction, significantly influenced the pollutant dispersion. In addition, higher pollutant concentrations were measured during dry periods than after rainfall. The findings of this study contribute to a better understanding of the dispersion patterns and potential impacts of coal dust, enabling the implementation of targeted mitigation strategies and improved pollution control measures.
A strain-hardening macro-element model for pile groups under vertical–horizontal-moment loading
Authors: Iodice Chiara , Iovino Maria , Di Laora Raffaele , de Sanctis Luca , Mandolini Alessandro
Published: February 2024

Pile foundations supporting wind turbines, silos, elevated water tanks or bridge piers are frequently subjected to multi-component loads, which may lead to significant rotations and settlements compromising the safe operation of the structure. The prediction of these displacements is of major concern and can be easily carried out using force-resultants plasticity models, also referred to as ‘macro-elements’, stemming from the idea of describing the foundation behaviour by a single upscaled constitutive relationship between generalized forces and displacements. When properly formulated, they can reproduce key aspects of the mechanical response of the foundation at low computational cost as compared to numerical analysis. To this end, a new macro-element for pile groups formulated in the classical framework of strain-hardening elasto-plasticity is presented and discussed. The required model parameters can be calibrated by closed-form equations and additional few data of numerical and/or experimental nature. The proposed mathematical framework is finally validated against the results of centrifuge tests and 3D finite element analyses.
The Educational Affordances and Challenges of ChatGPT: State of the Field
Authors: Crompton Helen , Burke Diane
Published: February 2024

ChatGPT was released to the public in November 30, 2022. This study examines how ChatGPT can be used by educators and students to promote learning and what are the challenges and limitations. This study is unique in providing one of the first systematic reviews using peer review studies to provide an early examination of the field. Using PRISMA principles, 44 articles were selected for review. Grounded coding was then used to reveal trends in the data. The findings show that educators can use ChatGPT for teaching support, task automation, and professional development. These were further delineated further by axial sub codes. Eight student uses were 24/7 support, explain difficult concepts, conversational partner, personalized feedback and materials, provide writing support, offer self-assessment, facilitate engagement, and self-determination. In addition to be affordances of the AI, the data from the articles also showed limitations to ChatGPT and misuses, specifically, inaccuracies and hallucinations, potential bias, and tool limitations. Misuses are plagiarism and cheating, privacy issues and spread of false information. This study is a springboard for researchers, practitioners, policy makers and funders in understanding the emerging state of the field of ChatGPT.
Gorenstein curve singularities of genus three
Authors: Battistella Luca
Published: February 2024

We classify the analytic germs of isolated Gorenstein curve singularities of genus three, and relate them to the connected components of strata of abelian differentials.
Centring Indigenous peoples in knowledge exchange research-practice by resetting assumptions, relationships and institutions
Authors: Weir J. K. , Morgain R. , Moon K. , Moggridge B. J.
Published: February 2024

Knowledge exchange is a broad and consequential undertaking, analysed by diverse scholars, and rapidly growing as a field of academic practice. Its remit is to strengthen ties between research generators and users to support better material outcomes for society. This review paper considers how this increasingly codified academic field might engage with the research-practice concerns identified in the Indigenous and decolonial literature. We do so by bringing the two literature sets together for analysis, noting they are not mutually exclusive. We reveal how addressing discrimination towards Indigenous peoples from within the knowledge exchange field requires a fundamental reconsideration of the biases that run through the field’s structures and processes. We prioritise two connected framing assumptions for shifting—jurisdictional and epistemological. The first shift requires a repositioning of Indigenous peoples as political–legal entities with societies, territories, laws and customs. The second shift requires engagement with Indigenous expert knowledge seriously on its own terms, including through greater understanding about expert knowledge creation with nature. These shifts require taking reflexivity much further than grasped possible or appropriate by most of the knowledge exchange literature. To assist, we offer heuristic devices, including illustrative examples, summary figures, and different questions from which to start the practice of knowledge exchange. Our focus is environmental research practice in western Anglophone settler-colonial and imperial contexts, with which we are most familiar, and where there is substantial knowledge exchange literature.
Inter- and transdisciplinary reasoning for action: the case of an arts–sciences–humanities intervention on climate change
Authors: Poliseli Luana , Caniglia Guido
Published: February 2024

Inter- and transdisciplinary (ITD) approaches represent promising ways to address complex global challenges, such as climate change. Importantly, arts–sciences collaborations as a form of inter and transdisciplinarity have been widely recognized as potential catalysts for scientific development and social change towards sustainability. However, little attention has been paid to the process of reasoning among the participants in such collaborations. How do participants in arts–science collaboration reason together to overcome disciplinary boundaries and to co-create interventions? This article investigates how inter- and transdisciplinary reasoning (or ITD reasoning) unfolded in a collaboration involving experts from the natural sciences, humanities, and the arts. We studied how collaborators reasoned through different understandings and experiences of climate change as well as through multiple ways of fostering motivation to take action via two co-designed artworks, HOMONEXUS (a participatory textile and acoustic installation) and GLACIER NEX US (a performance staging a dialogue between a melting glacier and a glaciologist). Our conclusions are threefold: (i) ITD reasoning can increase participants’ capacity to navigate often-unpredictable situations by cross-fertilizing ideas and overcoming blind-spots; (ii) humanities in arts–science collaborations can foster a more nuanced understanding of the differences and similarities of different knowledge systems as well as a deeper ecological understanding of sustainability problems; and (iii) the aesthetic experiences stimulated by arts–science interventions may help to raise awareness about the climate emergency and sustainable actions by providing pleasant and positive or dazzling and negative aesthetic experiences.
Effect of Surface Roughness and Chemical Composition of Metastable Austenitic Stainless Steels on Electrochemical Polishing-Induced Martensitic Transformation
Authors: Chae Junyoung , Gwon Hojun , Jeong Chanwoo , Lee Hyukjae , Lee Guihyung , Cho Hyungjun , Kim Sung-Joon , Han Heung Nam
Published: February 2024

Herein, we analyzed the martensitic transformation kinetics during electrochemical polishing (EP) for stainless steel specimens with varying surface roughness and austenite stability. Martensite fraction measurement demonstrated that specimens with higher surface roughness and lower austenite stability exhibited relatively higher levels of martensitic transformation. To understand these phase transformation characteristics, the amount of charge build-up on the specimen surface during EP was calculated using COMSOL Multiphysics simulations for specimens with different surface roughness. The effect of charge build-up-induced stress was analyzed using previously published first-principles calculations. We found that specimens with higher surface roughness accumulated more charge build-up, resulting in greater stress and a martensitic transformation driving force. Furthermore, the critical energy required for the martensitic transformation was calculated using Thermo-Calc for specimens with different austenite stabilities. We demonstrated that the martensitic transformation kinetics during EP could be explained in terms of austenite stability, similar to the stress-induced martensitic transformation.

Graphical Abstract
A Prospective Multicenter Standard of Care Study of Outpatient Laparoscopic Sleeve Gastrectomy
Authors: Surve Amit , Cottam Daniel , Pryor Aurora , Cottam Samuel , Michaelson Robert , Umbach Thomas , Williams Michael , Bagshahi Hossein , July Laura , Bueno Racquel , Chock Devorah , Apel Matthew , Hart Christopher , Johnson William , Curtis Brendon , Rosenbluth Amy , Spaniolas Konstantinos , Medlin Walter , Wright Whitney , Lee Ciara , Lee Christy , Trujeque Rachael , Rinker Deborah
Published: February 2024

A global shift is occurring as hospital procedures move to ambulatory surgical settings. Surgeons have performed outpatient sleeve gastrectomy (SG) in bariatric surgery since 2010. However, prospective trials are needed to ensure its safety before widespread adoption.

Purpose

The study aimed to present a comprehensive report on the prospective data collection of 30-day outcomes of outpatient primary laparoscopic SG (LSG). This trial seeks to assess whether outpatient LSG is non-inferior to hospital-based surgery in selected patients who meet the outpatient surgery criteria set by the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

Materials and Methods

This study is funded by the Society of American Gastrointestinal and Endoscopic Surgeons and has been approved by the Advarra Institutional Review Board (Pro00055990). Cognizant of the necessity for a prospective approach, data collection commenced after patients underwent primary LSG procedures, spanning from August 2021 to September 2022, at six medical centers across the USA. Data centralization was facilitated through ArborMetrix. Each center has its own enhanced recovery protocols, and no attempt was made to standardize the protocols.

Results

The analysis included 365 patients with a mean preoperative BMI of 43.7 ± 5.7 kg/m2. Rates for 30-day complications, reoperations, readmissions, emergency department visits, and urgent care visits were low: 1.6%, .5%, .2%, .2%, and 0%, respectively. Two patients (0.5%) experienced grade IIIb complications. There were no mortalities or leaks reported.

Conclusion

The prospective cohort study suggests that same-day discharge following LSG seems safe in highly selected patients at experienced US centers.

Graphical Abstract