bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Provincializing America: Race, Neoliberalism, and Sovereignty in the War on Iraq
Authors: Baker Yousef K.
Published: July 2022

I came of age in the early years of the “War on Terror.” As a young student activist, my initial arguments against the wars in 2001 and 2003 followed a common logic, responding to disinformation, ahistorical narratives, and false claims about Iraq, Afghanistan, and Muslims. Like many who work in the fields of Middle Eastern studies, this work was driven by the belief that exposing the narratives of the target nations to be wrong would in turn expose the false premises behind the wars. I have by now spent my entire adult life researching, writing, and teaching about the “War on Terror” with a specific focus on the war on Iraq. My hope was that “humanizing” and providing more insight into the views of the people “over there” would alter popular ideas in the United States and steer American state actions in a different direction than intervention.
The Social Welfare System in Bata Company Towns (1920s–1950s): Between Transnational Vision and Local Settings
Authors: Balaban Milan , Perutka Lukáš , Paye Simon , Savić Dalibor , Herman Jan
Published: July 2022

In the early twentieth century, the Bata company became one of the largest shoe manufacturers in the world, and an emblematic icon of family capitalism. This paper presents an overview of the social welfare system developed by the firm, first in its hometown of Zlín (Moravia) and then in more than thirty company towns founded in Czechoslovakia, Europe, and other continents from the 1920s to the 1950s. It shows how the initial model provided by the city of Zlín took different forms after being exported to other settlements, and aims to identify the causes of this divergence. Following a transnational perspective, this research contributes to a better understanding of how policies, models, and practices transferred around the world by multinational companies can be reshaped according to national and local contexts.
Examining the logical argument of the problem of evil from an African perspective
Authors: Chimakonam Jonathan O. , Chimakonam Amara Esther
Published: July 2022

We argue that the problem of evil, logically, stems from the unequal binary that characterizes the bivalent structure of Western discourses in the philosophy of religion. This structure pits God against the devil, but also the value of good against evil they are believed to represent. The difficulty is that those who subscribe to creationism, for example, hold that God as an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect entity created everything. Ironically, this must include evil or the devil himself. If one says He did not create evil, then one is faced with the challenge of explaining how evil emerged and how an omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect God could continue to allow evil in the world. Our strategy would be to dilute the problem by dismantling logical bivalence. With an appropriate logic background like the African truth-glut three-valued system of Ezumezu as an explanatory mechanism, we will demonstrate that the problem of evil is resolvable, even if negatively. Using the principle of value-complementarity, we will argue that the notions of good and evil are not merely opposites but complementary. In this way, God, would be construed, especially from logical ideas inspired by the viewpoint of the African Traditional world-view, as ‘harmony-God’.
NEXT TIME WON'T YOU SIGN WITH ME: JOAN LA BARBARA ON SESAME STREET
Authors: Bohlman Andrea F.
Published: July 2022

This article explores Joan La Barbara's appearance on Sesame Street with ‘The Signing Alphabet’ (1977) to engage her artistic commitments to accessibility and collaboration. The piece is an alphabet song rendered through vocal improvisation against an animation of the American Manual Alphabet by Steve Finkin. It plays with the relationships between sound, alphabets, learning and literacy, reaching new listening publics: children and their caregivers. Through the visibility it offers Deaf culture, the work generates frames through which to hear La Barbara's voice and see the limitations of her vocal extensions. The piece reveals other paths for new music in the 1970s, placing La Barbara's creativity in the context of educational programing aimed at normalising difference, especially in the context of disability, race and class. Sesame Street and Joan La Barbara, I suggest, imbue vocal extension and exploration with an ethos of care.
Construction Grammar Conceptual Network: Coordination-based graph method for semantic association analysis
Authors: Perak Benedikt , Ban Kirigin Tajana
Published: July 2022

In this article, we present the Construction Grammar Conceptual Network method, developed for identifying lexical similarity and word sense discrimination in a syntactically tagged corpus, based on the cognitive linguistic assumption that coordination construction instantiates conceptual relatedness. This graph analysis method projects a semantic value onto a given coordinated syntactic dependency and constructs a second-order lexical network of lexical collocates with a high co-occurrence measure. The subsequent process of clustering and pruning the graph reveals lexical communities with high conceptual similarity, which are interpreted as associated senses of the source lexeme. We demonstrate the theory and its application to the task of identifying the conceptual structure and different meanings of nouns, adjectives and verbs using examples from different corpora, and explain the modulating effects of linguistic and graph parameters. This graph approach is based on syntactic dependency processing and can be used as a complementary method to other contemporary natural language processing resources to enrich semantic tasks such as word disambiguation, domain relatedness, sense structure, identification of synonymy, metonymy, and metaphoricity, as well as to automate comprehensive meta-reasoning about languages and identify cross/intra-cultural discourse variations of prototypical conceptualization patterns and knowledge representations. As a contribution, we provide a web-based app athttp://emocnet.uniri.hr/.
Comments on Katharina T. Kraus, Kant on Self-Knowledge and Self-Formation: The Nature of Inner Experience
Authors: Wood Allen
Published: July 2022

Kraus’s book is both deep and wide-ranging. My comments focus on her account of Kant on self-awareness – both a priori and empirical apperception. Basic to her account is what she calls the hylomorphism of mental faculties in Kant. Kraus distinguishes her ‘reflexive’ account of apperception from both ‘logical’ and ‘psychological’ accounts. An inevitable question is: Does Kant think we have an empirical cognition of the self? Kraus seems to want to say yes, but I question this answer. Cognition requires both intuition and conception. My claim is that it requires intuition in both space and time, but inner empirical self-awareness is apparently in time only. Kant’s Refutation of Idealism in B, as developed later in the Kiesewetter essays, makes awareness of our body essential to time determination.
From Logic to Functional Logic Programs
Authors: HANUS MICHAEL
Published: July 2022

Logic programming is a flexible programming paradigm due to the use of predicates without a fixed data flow. To extend logic languages with the compact notation of functional programming, there are various proposals to map evaluable functions into predicates in order to stay in the logic programming framework. Since amalgamated functional logic languages offer flexible as well as efficient evaluation strategies, we propose an opposite approach in this paper. By mapping logic programs into functional logic programs with a transformation based on inferring functional dependencies, we develop a fully automatic transformation which keeps the flexibility of logic programming but can improve computations by reducing infinite search spaces to finite ones.
The view of the past in international humanitarian law (1860–2020)
Authors: De Baets Antoon
Published: July 2022

This essay explores how the drafters of international humanitarian law (IHL) incorporated the past into their work between 1860 and 2020, and how they approached time, memory and history as indicators for this view of the past. Its sources consist of the complete series of general conventional and customary IHL instruments as well as the leading commentaries on them. For the IHL view of time, the impact of legal principles on the perception of time is scrutinized. Balancing nonretroactivity against customary international law and the humanity principle broadens the temporal scope towards the past, while balancing legal forgetting against imprescriptibility and State succession broadens it towards the future. For the IHL view of memory, dead persons and cultural heritage are seen as crucial vectors. Attention to the fate of the dead has been a constant hallmark of IHL, while care for cultural heritage has an even longer pedigree. For the IHL view of history, the essay highlights that the International Committee of the Red Cross has consistently advocated State duties to the war dead and has organized an archival infrastructure to satisfy the need – later converted into a right – of families and society to search for the historical truth about them.

Furthermore, the responses of IHL drafters to five major historical challenges are examined. First, while in the realm of war crimes impunity prevailed for most of history, after World War II a system of war crimes trials was mounted, culminating in the International Criminal Court. Second, soul-searching about the atrocities of World War II, including the Holocaust, helped create Geneva Convention IV of 1949, which protects civilians in wartime. Third, the human rights idea was not fully embraced by IHL treaty drafters until 1968. Fourth, the IHL approach to civil wars was slow and incomplete, but its appearance in 1949 and coming of age in 1977 were breakthroughs nevertheless. Fifth, colonial conflicts were not recognized as international wars in 1949, when this could have had considerable impact, but only in 1977, when decolonization was largely over. In all cases, the responses to these historical challenges came after long delays. Clearly, the IHL view of the past has to be assessed on a transgenerational scale.
The “Glorious” Revolution’s Inglorious Religious Commitment: Why Parliamentary Rule Failed to Secure Religious Liberty
Authors: Kulkarni Parashar , Pfaff Steven
Published: July 2022

Many scholars contend that the “Glorious” Revolution of 1688 restrained governmental abuses in Britain by preventing the Crown from engaging in irresponsible behavior. However, the question of whether it imposed similar restraints on Parliament has received limited scrutiny. This oversight applies in particular to the religious sphere and outside of England. Rather than create the general conditions for liberty, we contend that the institutional legacy of the Revolution of 1688 was biased toward those in the winning coalition and that its positive effect on liberty is overstated. Analyzing the institutional legacy of the Glorious Revolution on religion in Scotland, we use narrative evidence and systematic evaluation of legislation to show that, rather than establishing the conditions for religious liberty in Britain, the revolution transferred power from one denomination to the other. The arbitrary religious repression symptomatic of the prerevolutionary Crown persisted because the religious liberties enshrined in the Revolution depended largely on whether a group was a member of its winning coalition. Whereas the Crown and the Episcopalians suppressed the Presbyterians prior to 1688, afterward an alliance between the Scottish Presbyterians and the English Parliament reinstated Presbyterianism as the established Scottish Church. This reversal allowed the Presbyterians to suppress the Episcopalians. Religious tolerance and attendant civil rights expanded only with secularization in the nineteenth century when the political representation of other denominations and religions increased and factionalism undercut Presbyterian monopoly.
A Comparison of Hybrid‐Gain Versus Hybrid‐Covariance Data Assimilation for Global NWP
Authors: Whitaker Jeffrey S. , Shlyaeva Anna , Penny Stephen G.
Published: July 2022

Two methods for incorporating a time‐invariant, high‐rank covariance estimate in an ensemble‐based data assimilation system for global weather prediction are compared. The hybrid‐covariance approach linearly combines the static and ensemble‐based covariance estimate in a four‐dimensional variational solver, whereas the hybrid‐gain approach blends analysis increments computed separately using a three‐dimensional variational solution and an ensemble Kalman filter solution. Results show that the simpler and less expensive hybrid‐gain approach performs similarly if the incremental normal‐mode balance constraint applied to the ensemble‐part of the hybrid‐covariance update is turned off.
3D model of the geometric nest structure, the “mystery circle,” constructed by pufferfish
Authors: Kawase Hiroshi , Kitajima Yuki , Iwai Daisuke
Published: July 2022

A small pufferfish, Torquigener albomaculosus, is known to construct an elaborate geometric circular structure, which has been referred to as a “mystery circle,” with a diameter of ~2 m in the sand of the seabed. We reconstructed a 3D model of this structure for the first time using a “structure from motion” (SfM) algorithm. The mystery circle constructed by the pufferfish may have potential applications for biomimetics similar to the structures constructed by termites and prairie dogs. To support the significance of its structural characteristics, it was observed that the water passing through the valley upstream always gathers in the center of the structure, regardless of the direction of water flow. Furthermore, it has the function of extracting fine-grained sand particles from the valleys and directing these to the center. Computational fluid analysis can be performed immediately using the quantified 3D data, and the structural features of the mystery circle is expected to be applied in a wide range of fields, such as architecture and engineering, via biomimetics.
NAC transcription factors ATAF1 and ANAC055 affect the heat stress response in Arabidopsis
Authors: Alshareef Nouf Owdah , Otterbach Sophie L. , Allu Annapurna Devi , Woo Yong H. , de Werk Tobias , Kamranfar Iman , Mueller-Roeber Bernd , Tester Mark , Balazadeh Salma , Schmöckel Sandra M.
Published: July 2022

Pre-exposing (priming) plants to mild, non-lethal elevated temperature improves their tolerance to a later higher-temperature stress (triggering stimulus), which is of great ecological importance. ‘Thermomemory’ is maintaining this tolerance for an extended period of time. NAM/ATAF1/2/CUC2 (NAC) proteins are plant-specific transcription factors (TFs) that modulate responses to abiotic stresses, including heat stress (HS). Here, we investigated the potential role of NACs for thermomemory. We determined the expression of 104 Arabidopsis NAC genes after priming and triggering heat stimuli, and foundATAF1expression is strongly induced right after priming and declines below control levels thereafter during thermorecovery. Knockout mutants ofATAF1show better thermomemory than wild type, revealing a negative regulatory role. Differential expression analyses of RNA-seq data fromATAF1overexpressor,ataf1mutant and wild-type plants after heat priming revealed five genes that might be priming-associated direct targets of ATAF1:AT2G31260(ATG9),AT2G41640(GT61),AT3G44990(XTH31),AT4G27720andAT3G23540. Based on co-expression analyses applied to the aforementioned RNA-seq profiles, we identifiedANAC055to be transcriptionally co-regulated withATAF1. Likeataf1,anac055mutants show improved thermomemory, revealing a potential co-control of both NAC TFs over thermomemory. Our data reveals a core importance of two NAC transcription factors, ATAF1 and ANAC055, for thermomemory.
The genetic consequences of captive breeding, environmental change and human exploitation in the endangered peninsular pronghorn
Authors: Klimova Anastasia , Gutiérrez-Rivera Jesus Neftalí , Sánchez-Sotomayor Victor , Hoffman Joseph Ivan
Published: July 2022

Endangered species with small population sizes are susceptible to genetic erosion, which can be detrimental to long-term persistence. Consequently, monitoring and mitigating the loss of genetic diversity are essential for conservation. The Peninsular pronghorn (Antilocapra americana peninsularis) is an endangered pronghorn subspecies that is almost entirely held in captivity. Captive breeding has increased the number of pronghorns from 25 founders in 1997 to around 700 individuals today, but it is unclear how the genetic diversity of the captive herd may have changed over time. We therefore generated and analysed data for 16 microsatellites spanning 2009–2021. We detected a decline in heterozygosity and an increase in the proportion of inbred individuals over time. However, these trends appear to have been partially mitigated by a genetically informed breeding management attempt that was implemented in 2018. We also reconstructed the recent demographic history of the Peninsular pronghorn, revealing two sequential population declines putatively linked to the desertification of the Baja California peninsula around 6000 years ago, and hunting and habitat loss around 500 years ago, respectively. Our results provide insights into the genetic diversity of an endangered antelope and indicate the potential for genetically informed management to have positive conservation outcomes.
Anatomical harmonics basis based brain source localization with application to epilepsy
Authors: Giri Amita , Kumar Lalan , Kurwale Nilesh , Gandhi Tapan K.
Published: July 2022

Brain Source Localization (BSL) using Electroencephalogram (EEG) has been a useful noninvasive modality for the diagnosis of epileptogenic zones, study of evoked related potentials, and brain disorders. The inverse solution of BSL is limited by high computational cost and localization error. The performance is additionally limited by head shape assumption and the corresponding harmonics basis function. In this work, an anatomical harmonics basis (Spherical Harmonics (SH), and more particularly Head Harmonics (H2)) based BSL is presented. The spatio-temporal four shell head model is formulated in SH and H2 domain. The anatomical harmonics domain formulation leads to dimensionality reduction and increased contribution of source eigenvalues, resulting in decreased computation and increased accuracy respectively. The performance of spatial subspace based Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) and Recursively Applied and Projected (RAP)-MUSIC method is compared with the proposed SH and H2 counterparts on simulated data. SH and H2 domain processing effectively resolves the problem of high computational cost without sacrificing the inverse source localization accuracy. The proposed H2 MUSIC was additionally validated for epileptogenic zone localization on clinical EEG data. The proposed framework offers an effective solution to clinicians in automated and time efficient seizure localization.
Validating daily social media macroscopes of emotions
Authors: Pellert Max , Metzler Hannah , Matzenberger Michael , Garcia David
Published: July 2022

Measuring sentiment in social media text has become an important practice in studying emotions at the macroscopic level. However, this approach can suffer from methodological issues like sampling biases and measurement errors. To date, it has not been validated if social media sentiment can actually measure the temporal dynamics of mood and emotions aggregated at the level of communities. We ran a large-scale survey at an online newspaper to gather daily mood self-reports from its users, and compare these with aggregated results of sentiment analysis of user discussions. We find strong correlations between text analysis results and levels of self-reported mood, as well as between inter-day changes of both measurements. We replicate these results using sentiment data from Twitter. We show that a combination of supervised text analysis methods based on novel deep learning architectures and unsupervised dictionary-based methods have high agreement with the time series of aggregated mood measured with self-reports. Our findings indicate that macro level dynamics of mood expressed on an online platform can be tracked with social media text, especially in situations of high mood variability.
Use of giant unilamellar lipid vesicles as antioxidant carriers in in vitro culture medium of bovine embryos
Authors: Rossi Luana Teixeira Rodrigues , Nunes Giovana Barros , da Silva Cíntia Rodrigues , de Rossi Hugo , dos Santos Priscila Helena , Nogueira Marcelo Fábio Gouveia , Aoki Pedro Henrique Benites , Mingoti Gisele Zoccal
Published: July 2022

Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) are composed of lipophilic layers and are sensitive to the action of reactive oxygen species (ROS). The use of GUVs as microcarriers of biological macromolecules is particularly interesting since ROS produced by gametes or embryos during in vitro culture can induce the opening of pores in the membrane of these vesicles and cause the release of their content. This study investigated the behavior of GUVs [composed of 2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine and 1,2-dioleoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphoethanolamine-N-(lissamine rhodamine B sulfonyl)] in co-culture with in vitro produced bovine embryos, as well as their embryotoxicity and effectiveness as cysteine carriers in culture medium. Embryonic developmental rates were unaffected, demonstrating the absence of toxicity of GUVs co-cultured with the embryos. No increase of intracellular ROS levels was observed in the embryos co-cultured with GUVs, indicating that the higher lipid content of the culture environment resulting from the lipid composition of the GUV membrane itself did not increase oxidative stress. Variations in the diameter and number of GUVs demonstrated their sensitivity to ROS produced by embryos cultured under conditions that generate oxidative stress. Encapsulation of cysteine in GUVs was found to be more effective in controlling the production of ROS in embryonic cells than direct dilution of this antioxidant in the medium. In conclusion, the use of GUVs in in vitro culture was found to be safe since these vesicles did not promote toxic effects nor did they increase intracellular ROS concentrations in the embryos. GUVs were sensitive to oxidative stress, which resulted in structural changes in response to the action of ROS. The possible slow release of cysteine into the culture medium by GUV rupture would therefore favor the gradual supply of cysteine, prolonging its presence in the medium. Thus, the main implication of the use of GUVs as cysteine microcarriers is the greater effectiveness in preventing the intracytoplasmic increase of ROS in in vitro produced bovine embryos.
Study of tribological properties of human buccal epithelium cell membranes using probe microscopy
Authors: Torhov N. A. , Mosunov A. A. , Novikov V. A. , Ivonin I. V.
Published: July 2022

In this work demostrates a unique method for determining the absolute value of the friction force of a nanoobject on the surface of a cell membrane using atomic force microscopy. The tribological properties of membranes of adult human buccal epithelium cells in the presence of a protective adsorption buffer layer of ~ 100 nm on their surface were studied using atomic force microscopy in the contact scanning mode. Local mapping of the tribological characteristics of the surface was carried out, viz. friction FL = FL(x, y) and adhesion Fadh = Fadh(x, y) forces were measured. Studies of the friction force Ffr on the membrane surface at the nanolevel showed that its value varies discretely with an interval equal to lLF ≈ 100 nm. It was shown that such discreteness is determined by the interval lLF of the action of adhesive forces Fadh and indicates the fractal nature of the functional dependence of the friction force on the coordinate Ffr = Ffr(x). Thus, for nano-objects with dimensions ≤ lLF, the absolute value of Ffr decreases according to a power law with an increase in the size of the object, which contradicts the similar dependence of the friction force for macro-objects in the global approximation.
Neural network based successor representations to form cognitive maps of space and language
Authors: Stoewer Paul , Schlieker Christian , Schilling Achim , Metzner Claus , Maier Andreas , Krauss Patrick
Published: July 2022

How does the mind organize thoughts? The hippocampal-entorhinal complex is thought to support domain-general representation and processing of structural knowledge of arbitrary state, feature and concept spaces. In particular, it enables the formation of cognitive maps, and navigation on these maps, thereby broadly contributing to cognition. It has been proposed that the concept of multi-scale successor representations provides an explanation of the underlying computations performed by place and grid cells. Here, we present a neural network based approach to learn such representations, and its application to different scenarios: a spatial exploration task based on supervised learning, a spatial navigation task based on reinforcement learning, and a non-spatial task where linguistic constructions have to be inferred by observing sample sentences. In all scenarios, the neural network correctly learns and approximates the underlying structure by building successor representations. Furthermore, the resulting neural firing patterns are strikingly similar to experimentally observed place and grid cell firing patterns. We conclude that cognitive maps and neural network-based successor representations of structured knowledge provide a promising way to overcome some of the short comings of deep learning towards artificial general intelligence.
Using active matter to introduce spatial heterogeneity to the susceptible infected recovered model of epidemic spreading
Authors: Forgács P. , Libál A. , Reichhardt C. , Hengartner N. , Reichhardt C. J. O.
Published: July 2022

The widely used susceptible-infected-recovered (S-I-R) epidemic model assumes a uniform, well-mixed population, and incorporation of spatial heterogeneities remains a major challenge. Understanding failures of the mixing assumption is important for designing effective disease mitigation approaches. We combine a run-and-tumble self-propelled active matter system with an S-I-R model to capture the effects of spatial disorder. Working in the motility-induced phase separation regime both with and without quenched disorder, we find two epidemic regimes. For low transmissibility, quenched disorder lowers the frequency of epidemics and increases their average duration. For high transmissibility, the epidemic spreads as a front and the epidemic curves are less sensitive to quenched disorder; however, within this regime it is possible for quenched disorder to enhance the contagion by creating regions of higher particle densities. We discuss how this system could be realized using artificial swimmers with mobile optical traps operated on a feedback loop.
A brassinosteroid functional analogue increases soybean drought resilience
Authors: Perez-Borroto Lucia Sandra , Guzzo María Carla , Posada Gisella , Peña Malavera Andrea Natalia , Castagnaro Atilio Pedro , Gonzalez-Olmedo Justo Lorenzo , Coll-García Yamilet , Pardo Esteban Mariano
Published: July 2022

Drought severely affects soybean productivity, challenging breeding/management strategies to increase crop resilience. Hormone-based biostimulants like brassinosteroids (BRs) modulate growth/defence trade-off, mitigating yield losses; yet, natural molecule's low stability challenges the development of cost-effective and long-lasting analogues. Here, we investigated for the first time the effects of BR functional analogue DI-31 in soybean physiology under drought by assessing changes in growth, photosynthesis, water relations, antioxidant metabolism, nodulation, and nitrogen homeostasis. Moreover, DI-31 application frequencies' effects on crop cycle and commercial cultivar yield stabilisation under drought were assessed. A single foliar application of DI-31 favoured plant drought tolerance, preventing reductions in canopy development and enhancing plant performance and water use since the early stages of stress. The analogue also increased the antioxidant response, favouring nitrogen homeostasis maintenance and attenuating the nodular senescence. Moreover, foliar applications of DI-31 every 21 days enhanced the absolute yield by ~ 9% and reduced drought-induced yield losses by ~ 7% in four commercial cultivars, increasing their drought tolerance efficiency by ~ 12%. These findings demonstrated the practical value of DI-31 as an environmentally friendly alternative for integrative soybean resilience management under drought.
An ML prediction model based on clinical parameters and automated CT scan features for COVID-19 patients
Authors: Sinha Abhishar , Joshi Swati Purohit , Das Purnendu Sekhar , Jana Soumya , Sarkar Rahuldeb
Published: July 2022

Outcome prediction for individual patient groups is of paramount importance in terms of selection of appropriate therapeutic options, risk communication to patients and families, and allocating resource through optimum triage. This has become even more necessary in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic. Widening the spectrum of predictor variables by including radiological parameters alongside the usually utilized demographic, clinical and biochemical ones can facilitate building a comprehensive prediction model. Automation has the potential to build such models with applications to time-critical environments so that a clinician will be able to utilize the model outcomes in real-time decision making at bedside. We show that amalgamation of computed tomogram (CT) data with clinical parameters (CP) in generating a Machine Learning model from 302 COVID-19 patients presenting to an acute care hospital in India could prognosticate the need for invasive mechanical ventilation. Models developed from CP alone, CP and radiologist derived CT severity score and CP with automated lesion-to-lung ratio had AUC of 0.87 (95% CI 0.85–0.88), 0.89 (95% CI 0.87–0.91), and 0.91 (95% CI 0.89–0.93), respectively. We show that an operating point on the ROC can be chosen to aid clinicians in risk characterization according to the resource availability and ethical considerations. This approach can be deployed in more general settings, with appropriate calibrations, to predict outcomes of severe COVID-19 patients effectively.
Salt flat microbial diversity and dynamics across salinity gradient
Authors: Hazzouri Khaled M. , Sudalaimuthuasari Naganeeswaran , Saeed Esam Eldin , Kundu Biduth , Al-Maskari Raja Saeed , Nelson David , AlShehhi Alya Ali , Aldhuhoori Maryam Abdulla , Almutawa Dhabiah Saleh , Alshehhi Fatema Rashed , Balan Jithin , Mundra Sunil , Alam Mohammad , Salehi-Ashtiani Kourosh , Purugganan Michael , Amiri Khaled M. A.
Published: July 2022

Sabkhas are hypersaline, mineral-rich, supratidal mudflats that harbor microbes that are adapted to high salt concentration. Sabkha microbial diversity is generally studied for their community composition, but less is known about their genetic structure and heterogeneity. In this study, we analyzed a coastal sabkha for its microbial composition using 16S rDNA and whole metagenome, as well as for its population genetic structure. Our 16S rDNA analysis show high alpha diversity in both inner and edge sabkha than outer sabkha. Beta diversity result showed similar kind of microbial composition between inner and edge sabkha, while outer sabkha samples show different microbial composition. At phylum level, Bacteroidetes (~ 22 to 34%), Euryarchaeota (~ 18 to ~ 30%), unclassified bacteria (~ 24 to ~ 35%), Actinobacteria (~ 0.01 to ~ 11%) and Cyanobacteria (less than 1%) are predominantly found in both inside and edge sabkha regions, whereas Proteobacteria (~ 92 to ~ 97%) and Parcubacteria (~ 1 to ~ 2%) are predominately found in outer sabkha. Our 225 metagenomes assembly from this study showed similar bacterial community profile as observed in 16S rDNA-based analysis. From the assembled genomes, we found important genes that are involved in biogeochemical cycles and secondary metabolite biosynthesis. We observed a dynamic, thriving ecosystem that engages in metabolic activity that shapes biogeochemical structure via carbon fixation, nitrogen, and sulfur cycling. Our results show varying degrees of horizontal gene transfers (HGT) and homologous recombination, which correlates with the observed high diversity for these populations. Moreover, our pairwise population differentiation (Fst) for the abundance of species across the salinity gradient of sabkhas identified genes with strong allelic differentiation, lower diversity and elevated nonsynonymous to synonymous ratio of variants, which suggest selective sweeps for those gene variants. We conclude that the process of HGT, combined with recombination and gene specific selection, constitute the driver of genetic variation in bacterial population along a salinity gradient in the unique sabkha ecosystem.
Changes in salivary biomarkers associated with periodontitis and diabetic neuropathy in individuals with type 1 diabetes
Authors: Steigmann Larissa , Maekawa Shogo , Kauffmann Frederic , Reiss Jacob , Cornett Ashley , Sugai James , Venegas Julian , Fan Xudong , Xie Yuying , Giannobile William V. , Pop-Busui Rodica , Lombaert Isabelle M. A.
Published: July 2022

The objective of this pilot clinical study was to identify salivary biomarkers that are associated with periodontal disease and measures of diabetic autonomic dysfunction. Saliva samples from 32 participants were obtained from 3 groups: healthy (H), type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM), and type 1 diabetes mellitus with neuropathy (DMN). Based on the periodontal examination, individuals’ mean Periodontal Screening and Recording scores were categorized into two groups (periodontally healthy and gingivitis), and correlated to specific salivary inflammatory biomarkers assessed by a customized protein array and enzyme assay. The mean salivary IgA level in DM was 9211.5 ± 4776.4 pg/ml, which was significantly lower than H (17,182.2 ± 8899.3 pg/ml). IgA in DMN with healthy periodontium was significantly lower (5905.5 ± 3124.8 pg/ml) compared to H, although IgA levels in DMN patients with gingivitis (16,894. 6 ± 7084.3) were not. According to the result of a logistic regression model, IgA and periodontal condition were the indicators of the binary response given by H versus DM, and H versus DMN, respectively. These data suggest that selected salivary biomarkers, such as IgA, combined with a periodontal examination prior to obtaining salivary samples can offer a non-invasive method to assess risk for developing diabetic neuropathy.
Supercapacitor based on polymeric binary composite of polythiophene and single-walled carbon nanotubes
Authors: Shokry Azza , Karim Marwa , Khalil Marwa , Ebrahim Shaker , El Nady Jehan
Published: July 2022

The aim of this work is to fabricate supercapacitor electrode based on poly (3-hexyl-thiophene-2, 5-diyl) (P3HT) and single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) nanocomposites with different ratios onto a graphite sheet as a substrate with a wide voltage window in nonaqueous electrolyte. Structural, morphological and electrochemical properties of the prepared nanocomposites of P3HT/SWCNTs were studied and discussed. The electrochemical properties included cyclic voltammetry (CV), galvanostatic charging-discharging (GCD), and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) were investigated. The obtained results indicated that P3HT/SWCNTs nanocomposite possesses higher specific capacitance than that present in its individual component. The high electrochemical performance of the nanocomposite was due to formation of microporous structure which facilitates ions diffusion and electrolyte penetration in these pores. The morphological micrographs of the purified SWCNTs had buckypaper structure while the photomicrographs of P3HT/SWCNTs showed that SWCNTs appear behind and front of the P3HT nanospheres. The specific capacitance of 50% SWCNTs at 0.5 Ag−1 was found to be 245.8 Fg−1 compared with that of pure P3HT of 160.5 Fg−1.
Autoantibodies against IFNα in patients with systemic lupus erythematosus and susceptibility for infection: a retrospective case-control study
Authors: Beydon Maxime , Nicaise-Roland Pascale , Mageau Arthur , Farkh Carine , Daugas Eric , Descamps Vincent , Dieude Philippe , Dossier Antoine , Goulenok Tiphaine , Farhi Fatima , Mutuon Pierre , Timsit Jean-Francois , Papo Thomas , Sacre Karim
Published: July 2022

IFNα and anti-IFNα autoantibodies have been implicated in susceptibility both for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and viral infection. We aimed to analyze the SLE disease phenotype and risk for infection associated with anti-IFN-α IgG autoantibodies in SLE patients In this multidisciplinary retrospective single referral center study, all consecutive patients with SLE admitted between January 1st and November 30th 2020 were considered. All subjects fulfilled the ACR/EULAR 2019 criteria for SLE. Anti-IFNα IgG autoantibodies were quantified at admission by ELISA. Demographic, medical history, laboratory, treatment, and outcome data were extracted from electronic medical records using a standardized data collection form. 180 patients [female 87.2%, median age of 44.4 (34–54.2) years] were included. The median disease duration was 10 years [4–20] with a median SLEDAI score of 2 [0–4] at study time. Fifty-four (30%) patients had a past-history of lupus nephritis. One hundred and forty-four (80%) had received long-term glucocorticoids and 99 (55%) immunosuppressive drugs. Overall, 127 infections—mostly bacterial and viral—were reported in 95 (52.8%) patients. Twenty SLE patients (11.1%) had positive anti-IFNα IgG autoantibodies with a titer ranging from 10 to 103 UA/mL. Age, sex, SLE phenotype and treatment did not significantly differ between SLE patients with or without anti-IFNα. Infection rate was similar in both groups except for tuberculosis which was more frequent in patients with anti-IFNα (20% vs. 3.1%, p = 0.01). The prevalence of autoantibodies against IFNα is high in SLE and associated with a higher frequency of tuberculosis.
Altered mitochondrial microenvironment at the spotlight of musculoskeletal aging and Alzheimer’s disease
Authors: Giannos Panagiotis , Prokopidis Konstantinos , Raleigh Stuart M. , Kelaiditi Eirini , Hill Mathew
Published: July 2022

Emerging evidence has linked Alzheimer’s disease (AD) onset with musculoskeletal aging via a muscle-brain crosstalk mediated by dysregulation of the mitochondrial microenvironment. This study investigated gene expression profiles from skeletal muscle tissues of older healthy adults to identify potential gene biomarkers whose dysregulated expression and protein interactome were involved in AD. Screening of the literature resulted in 12 relevant microarray datasets (GSE25941, GSE28392, GSE28422, GSE47881, GSE47969, GSE59880) in musculoskeletal aging and (GSE4757, GSE5281, GSE16759, GSE28146, GSE48350, GSE84422) in AD. Retrieved differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were used to construct two unique protein–protein interaction networks and clustering gene modules were identified. Overlapping module DEGs in the musculoskeletal aging and AD networks were ranked based on 11 topological algorithms and the five highest-ranked ones were considered as hub genes. The analysis revealed that the dysregulated expression of the mitochondrial microenvironment genes, NDUFAB1, UQCRC1, UQCRFS1, NDUFS3, and MRPL15, overlapped between both musculoskeletal aging and AD networks. Thus, these genes may have a potential role as markers of AD occurrence in musculoskeletal aging. Human studies are warranted to evaluate the functional role and prognostic value of these genes in aging populations with sarcopenia and AD.
Bias and sensitivity in numerosity perception of negative emotions among individuals with high social anxiety
Authors: Yang Jae-Won , Baek Jongsoo
Published: July 2022

The cognitive model of social anxiety suggests an association between social anxiety and cognitive bias toward negative social information. This study investigated the numerosity perception of emotional faces among individuals with high social anxiety. Seventy-five college students completed self-reported questionnaires—assessing social anxiety symptoms—and a numerosity comparison experiment. In each trial of the experiment, participants were presented with a group of 16 emotional faces, varying in the number of faces expressing positive and negative emotions. They were asked to judge which emotion—positive or negative—was more numerous in the crowd. Bias and sensitivity in numerosity perception of emotions were estimated by fitting a psychometric function to participants’ responses. Individuals with low social anxiety showed a bias toward positive faces (t(17) = 2.44,p = 0.026), while those with high social anxiety did not (t(17) = 1.87,p = 0.079). Correlation analyses indicated that social anxiety was negatively associated with the parameters of the function (mean for bias and standard deviation for sensitivity;r =  − 0.34, p = 0.003 for mean;r =  − 0.23, p = 0.047 for standard deviation). Thus, our results suggest that socially anxious individuals lack the bias toward positive emotion and are more sensitive to negative emotion than nonanxious individuals in perceiving the numerosity of facial expressions.
Using multiagent modeling to forecast the spatiotemporal development of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland
Authors: Pałka Piotr , Olszewski Robert , Kęsik-Brodacka Małgorzata , Wendland Agnieszka , Nowak Karolina , Szczepankowska-Bednarek Urszula , Liebers David Th.
Published: July 2022

In the article, the authors present a multi-agent model that simulates the development of the COVID-19 pandemic at the regional level. The developed what-if system is a multi-agent generalization of the SEIR epidemiological model, which enables predicting the pandemic's course in various regions of Poland, taking into account Poland's spatial and demographic diversity, the residents' level of mobility, and, primarily, the level of restrictions imposed and the associated compliance. The developed simulation system considers detailed topographic data and the residents' professional and private lifestyles specific to the community. A numerical agent represents each resident in the system, thus providing a highly detailed model of social interactions and the pandemic's development. The developed model, made publicly available as free software, was tested in three representative regions of Poland. As the obtained results indicate, implementing social distancing and limiting mobility is crucial for impeding a pandemic before the development of an effective vaccine. It is also essential to consider a given community's social, demographic, and topographic specificity and apply measures appropriate for a given region.
Revisiting NH3–catalyst interactions in Cu-SSZ-13 SCR catalysts: an in situ spectro-kinetics study
Authors: Kiani Daniyal , Xi Yuanzhou , Ottinger Nathan , Liu Z. Gerald
Published: July 2022

At low surface coverages, NH3 consumption was found to occur during adsorption at 120 °C over both Cu-SSZ-13, and H-SSZ-13; albeit much faster on Cu-SSZ-13.
MOF-derived CoFe alloy nanoparticles encapsulated within N,O Co-doped multilayer graphitized shells as an efficient bifunctional catalyst for zinc--air batteries
Authors: Zhang Jingjing , Tang Fumin , Wan Kechuang , Yang Yange , Zhang Cunman , Ming Ping Wen , Li Bing
Published: July 2022

Metal–organic frameworks (MOFs) and their derivatives are promising electrocatalysts for zinc–air batteries due to their advantages of reconfigurable metal nodes and abundant coordinatively unsaturated active sites.
Correction: The recent development of nanozymes for food quality and safety detection
Authors: Huang Yanyan , Mu Xiaoyu , Wang Jiayi , Wang Yue , Xie Jing , Ying Ruifeng , Su Erzheng
Published: July 2022

Correction for ‘The recent development of nanozymes for food quality and safety detection’ by Yanyan Huang et al., J. Mater. Chem. B, 2022, 10, 1359–1368, https://doi.org/10.1039/D1TB02667D.
Computational discovery of In2XY2 (X, Y = S, Se, and Te; X ≠ Y) monolayers as multifunctional energy conversion materials
Authors: Xiong Rui , Li Weiqiang , Zhang Yinggan , Cui Zhou , Wen Cuilian , Anpo Masakazu , Wu Bo , Sa Baisheng
Published: July 2022

In2XY2 (X, Y = S, Se, and Te; X ≠ Y) monolayers show great potential application in the fields of photocatalytic water splitting, exciton heterostructure solar cells, and thermoelectric materials.
Solution-processable donor–π–acceptor type thieno[3,2-b]thiophene derivatives; synthesis, photophysical properties and applications
Authors: Isci Recep , Wan Li , Topal Sebahat , Gunturkun Dilara , Campbell Alasdair James , Ozturk Turan
Published: July 2022

Two new D–π–A-type fluorescent materials with nearly quantitative quantum yields, possessing thieno[3,2-b]thiophene, triphenylamine and boron units, were synthesized and their devices were fabricated via a solution process.
Extremely high spectral resolution measurements of the 450 µm atmospheric window at Chajnantor with APEX,
Authors: Pardo J. R. , De Breuck C. , Muders D. , González J. , Montenegro-Montes F. M. , Pérez-Beaupuits J. P. , Cernicharo J. , Prigent C. , Serabyn E. , Mroczkowski T. , Phillips N.
Published: July 2022

Ground-based telescopes observing at millimeter (mm) and submillimeter (submm) wavelengths have to deal with a line-rich and highly variable atmospheric spectrum, both in space and time. Models of this spectrum play an important role in planning observations that are appropriate for the weather conditions and also calibrating those observations. Through magnetic dipolar (M1) rotational transitions and electric dipolar (E1) transitions O2 and H2O, respectively, dominate the atmospheric opacity in this part of the electromagnetic spectrum. Although O2 lines, and more generally the so-called dry opacity, are relatively constant, the absorption related to H2O can change by several orders of magnitude leading from a totally opaque atmosphere near sea level with high H2O columns to frequency windows with good transmission from high and dry mountain sites. Other minor atmospheric gases, such as O3 and N2O among others, are present in the atmospheric spectrum which also includes nonresonant collision-induced absorption due to several mechanisms. The aim of our research is to improve the characterization of the mm/submm atmospheric spectrum using very stable heterodyne receivers with excellent sideband separation and extremely high (kHz) spectral resolutions at the 5000 m altitude Chajnantor site in northern Chile. This last aspect (spectral resolution) is the main improvement (by more than three orders of magnitude) in the presented data with respect to our previous work conducted ~20 yr ago from Mauna Kea in Hawai’i. These new measurements have enabled us to identify slight modifications needed in the Atmospheric Transmission at Microwaves (ATM) model to better take into account minor constituent vertical profiles, include a few missing lines, and adjust some high-energy O3 line frequencies. After these updates, the ATM model is highly consistent with all data sets presented in this work (within ~2% at 1 GHz resolution).