bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Locke and Berkeley on Abstract Ideas: From the Point of View of the Theory of Reference
Authors: Tomida Yasuhiko
Published: April 2022

In the Essay Locke argues abstract ideas within the framework of the descriptivist theory of reference. For him, abstract ideas are, in many cases, conceptual ideas that play the role of “descriptions” or “descriptive contents,” determining general terms’ referents. In contrast, in the introduction of the Principles, Berkeley denies Lockean abstract ideas adamantly from an imagistic point of view, and he offers his own theory of reference seemingly consisting of referring expressions and their referents alone. However, interestingly, he mentions a general term’s “definition” and suggests that it determines the scope of the term’s referents. For example, he takes up the definition of a triangle as “a plain Surface comprehended by three right Lines” and suggests that just as Locke’s general idea of a triangle does, the definition determines the referents of the general term “triangle.” His definition reminds us of the fact that as Descartes grasps the content of the general idea of a triangle as “a figure enclosed by three lines,” so Locke grasps the abstract idea of a triangle as “a Figure including a Space between three Lines,” and so on. That is, since Berkeley is an imagist, he does not acknowledge Locke’s conceptual abstract ideas as “ideas,” but although he verbally denies “abstract ideas,” his theory of reference also actually has the same descriptivist framework consisting of referring expressions, their descriptive contents, and their referents. Thus, we understand the real reason why Berkeley’s criticism of Locke seems beside the point.
Comparison of two small-strain concepts: ISA and intergranular strain applied to barodesy
Authors: Tafili Merita , Medicus Gertraud , Bode Manuel , Fellin Wolfgang
Published: April 2022

The intergranular strain concept (IGS) and intergranular strain anisotropy formulation (ISA) are state of the art extensions to describe small-strain effects. The main conceptional difference between ISA and IGS is the purely elastic strain range introduced by ISA. In addition, the ISA formulation used in this article includes an additional state variable in order to reduce accumulation effects for cyclic loading with a larger number of repetitive cycles. Barodesy is enhanced here with ISA to improve its small-strain predictions. The performance of this new model is compared with barodesy enhanced with IGS. It turned out that the small-strain extensions do not negatively influence predictions under monotonic loading. Differences between ISA and ISG are only remarkable for very small-strain cycles and even there they are negligible for certain parameter values.
Protective Places: the Relationship between Neighborhood Quality and Preterm Births to Black Women in Oakland, California (2007–2011)
Authors: Berkowitz Rachel L. , Mujahid Mahasin , Pearl Michelle , Poon Victor , Reid Carolina K. , Allen Amani M.
Published: April 2022

Black women have the highest incidence of preterm birth (PTB). Upstream factors, including neighborhood context, may be key drivers of this increased risk. This study assessed the relationship between neighborhood quality, defined by the Healthy Places Index, and PTB among Black women who lived in Oakland, California, and gave birth between 2007 and 2011 (N = 5418 women, N = 107 census tracts). We found that, compared with those living in lower quality neighborhoods, women living in higher quality neighborhoods had 20–38% lower risk of PTB, independent of confounders. Findings have implications for place-based research and interventions to address racial inequities in PTB.
Subsidiary Agency in Gender Equality Practice Implementation: The Case of Korean MNE Subsidiaries in Sweden
Authors: Song Ji-Won
Published: April 2022

Focusing on contextualized understandings of institutional distance and subsidiary agency, in this article I explore how multinational enterprise (MNE) subsidiaries address gender equality in the workplace. In particular, this study analyzes the strategic responses of three Korean MNE subsidiaries in Sweden to examine the extent to which they exercise agency over gender equality issues within specific institutional environment. In Swedish institutional environment, there is high demand for subsidiaries to develop gender-balanced organizational cultures and practices. As a result, Korean subsidiaries may actively consider promoting a more gender-equal working environment to gain local legitimacy, or they may retain their home country’s practices and avoid such pressures. The analysis shows that the subsidiaries’ perceptions of institutional distance and the organizational conditions in which subsidiaries are embedded shape their agency (strategic responses) and co-evolve with host institutions. I thus contribute to existing MNE agency literature by highlighting subsidiaries’ agency building process regarding gender equality issues.
Susceptibility to COVID-19 Diagnosis in People with Down Syndrome Compared to the General Population: Matched-Cohort Study Using Primary Care Electronic Records in the UK
Authors: Baksh R. Asaad , Strydom Andre , Pape Sarah E. , Chan Li F. , Gulliford Martin C.
Published: April 2022

Background

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people with Down syndrome (DS) have experienced a more severe disease course and higher mortality rates than the general population. It is not yet known whether people with DS are more susceptible to being diagnosed with COVID-19.

Objective

To explore whether DS is associated with increased susceptibility to COVID-19.

Design

Matched-cohort study design using anonymised primary care electronic health records from the May 2021 release of Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) Aurum.

Setting

Electronic health records from approximately 1400 general practices (GPs) in England.

Participants

8854 people with DS and 34,724 controls matched for age, gender and GP who were registered on or after the 29th January 2020.

Measurements

The primary outcome was COVID-19 diagnosis between January 2020 and May 2021. Conditional logistic regression models were fitted to estimate associations between DS and COVID-19 diagnosis, adjusting for comorbidities.

Results

Compared to controls, people with DS were more likely to be diagnosed with COVID-19 (7.4% vs 5.6%, p ≤ 0.001, odds ratio (OR) = 1.35; 95% CI = 1.23–1.48). There was a significant interaction between people with DS and a chronic respiratory disease diagnosis excluding asthma and increased odds of a COVID-19 diagnosis (OR = 1.71; 95% CI = 1.20–2.43), whilst adjusting for a number of comorbidities.

Conclusion

Individuals with DS are at increased risk for contracting COVID-19. Those with underlying lung conditions are particularly vulnerable during viral pandemics and should be prioritised for vaccinations.
Gasification kinetics of Barapukurian coal char using carbon dioxide and steam reactants
Authors: Shahabuddin M. , Kibria M. A. , Bhattacharya Sankar
Published: April 2022

Gasification of coal is a cost-effective and sustainable technology to produce syngas and hydrogen with integrated carbon capture and storage system. This study investigates the gasification characteristics of Barapukurian bituminous coal (BBC) char under carbon dioxide (CO2) and steam atmosphere using a thermogravimetric analyser (TGA). The char was prepared through a rapid pyrolysis process in a high temperature entrained flow gasifier at a temperature of 1200 °C. TGA experiments were conducted under atmospheric pressure over 700–1200 °C. Factors affecting intrinsic gasification kinetics, such as diffusion and mass transfer limitations, were optimised before conducting TGA experiments at various temperatures. Three established kinetic models of the volumetric model (VM), grain model (GM) and random pore model (RPM) fitted well with the experimental data. The activation energy determined from CO2gasification was 1.20–1.25 times higher than that of steam gasification, indicating a higher reactivity under steam than CO2. The order of reaction using CO2and steam was determined to be 0.67 and 0.95 at 900 °C.

Graphical abstract
Ependymoma: Evaluation and Management Updates
Authors: Rudà Roberta , Bruno Francesco , Pellerino Alessia , Soffietti Riccardo
Published: April 2022

Purpose of Review

To review state of art and relevant advances in the molecular genetics and management of ependymomas of children and adults.

Recent Findings

Ependymomas may occur either in the brain or in the spinal cord. Compared with intracranial ependymomas, spinal ependymomas are less frequent and exhibit a better prognosis. The new WHO classification of CNS tumors of 2021 has subdivided ependymomas into different histomolecular subgroups with different outcome. The majority of studies have shown a major impact of extent of resection; thus, a complete resection must be performed, whenever possible, at first surgery or at reoperation. Conformal radiotherapy is recommended for grade 3 or incompletely resected grade II tumors. Proton therapy is increasingly employed especially in children to reduce the risk of neurocognitive and endocrine sequelae. Craniospinal irradiation is reserved for metastatic disease. Chemotherapy is not useful as primary treatment and is commonly employed as salvage treatment for patients failing surgery and radiotherapy.

Standard treatments are still the mainstay of treatment: the discovery of new druggable pathways will hopefully increase the therapeutic armamentarium in the near future.
The View from Below: How the Neoliberal Academy Is Shaping Contemporary Political Theory
Authors: McKeown Maeve
Published: April 2022

Contemporary political theory is a game. Individuals compete to publish in ‘top’ journals, to amass greater numbers of publications than their peers; then journal-ranking is combined with number of publications generating scores. The aim is to get the most points. Whoever gets the most points wins: they get the best jobs and the most prestige. This Hunger Games–like contest has serious consequences for people’s lives, determining who can make a living from academia, who will be relegated to the academic precariat or forced out of the profession. In this article, I argue that, aside from the chilling effect that job insecurity and the gamification of academia has on the precariat, these conditions are stifling intellectual creativity, diversity, and dissent in political theory/philosophy. I discuss how privatization and deregulation of universities has created unbearable working conditions, why academics are forced to publish in so-called top journals and why this is detrimental to our field, marginalizing people, topics, and methodologies these journals do not support (which usually align with already structurally marginalized peoples and modes of knowledge). I explain why we are engaging in this game and how it perpetuates itself. I conclude with some suggestions for breaking this vicious cycle, as well as a discussion of who is really benefitting from it, namely, the corporate elites who run many universities and most academic publishers.
Ultra-thin broadband solar absorber based on stadium-shaped silicon nanowire arrays
Authors: Mortazavifar Seyedeh Leila , Salehi Mohammad Reza , Shahraki Mojtaba , Abiri Ebrahim
Published: April 2022

This paper investigates how the dimensions and arrangements of stadium silicon nanowires (NWs) affect their absorption properties. Compared to other NWs, the structure proposed here has a simple geometry, while its absorption rate is comparable to that of very complex structures. It is shown that changing the cross-section of NW from circular (or rectangular) to a stadium shape leads to change in the position and the number of absorption modes of the NW. In a special case, these modes result in the maximum absorption inside NWs. Another method used in this paper to attain broadband absorption is utilization of multiple NWs which have different geometries. However, the maximum enhancement is achieved using non-close packed NW. These structures can support more cavity modes, while NW scattering leads to broadening of the absorption spectra. All the structures are optimized using particle swarm optimizations. Using these optimized structures, it is viable to enhance the absorption by solar cells without introducing more absorbent materials.

Graphical Abstract
Interfacial heat transfer coefficients in cold forging of stainless steel
Authors: Volke Patrick , Groche Peter
Published: April 2022

In numerical simulations of cold forging processes, the heat transfer coefficient has a significant influence on the resulting temperature fields. However, the values determined so far for steel materials are not in the load range of cold forging processes. In this paper, a test stand for the determination of the interfacial heat transfer coefficient under typical loads of metal forming processes is presented. The results are discussed at an example of a cold extrusion forming process. It can be shown that the value increases significantly with increasing contact pressures and are higher compared to values known from literature. The investigations also disclose the influences of lubricants and the mechanical surface treatment on the heat transfer coefficient.
Measuring the Wisdom of the Crowd: How Many is Enough?
Authors: Walter Volker , Kölle Michael , Collmar David
Published: April 2022

The idea of the wisdom of the crowd is that integrating multiple estimates of a group of individuals provides an outcome that is often better than most of the underlying estimates or even better than the best individual estimate. In this paper, we examine the wisdom of the crowd principle on the example of spatial data collection by paid crowdworkers. We developed a web-based user interface for the collection of vehicles from rasterized shadings derived from 3D point clouds and executed different data collection campaigns on the crowdsourcing marketplace microWorkers. Our main question is: how large must be the crowd in order that the quality of the outcome fulfils the quality requirements of a specific application? To answer this question, we computed precision, recall, F1 score, and geometric quality measures for different crowd sizes. We found that increasing the crowd size improves the quality of the outcome. This improvement is quite large at the beginning and gradually decreases with larger crowd sizes. These findings confirm the wisdom of the crowd principle and help to find an optimum number of the crowd size that is in the end a compromise between data quality, and cost and time required to perform the data collection.
Automatic Measurement of Silicon Lattice Spacings in High-Resolution Transmission Electron Microscopy Images Through 2D Discrete Fourier Transform and Inverse Discrete Fourier Transform
Authors: Wang Fang , Shi Yushu , Zhang Shu , Yu Xixi , Li Wei
Published: April 2022

Line width (i.e., critical dimension, CD) is a crucial parameter in integrated circuits. To accurately control the CD in manufacturing, a reasonable CD measurement algorithm is required. We develop an automatic and accurate method based on a two-dimensional discrete Fourier transform for measuring the lattice spacings from high-resolution transmission electron microscopy images. Through the two-dimensional inverse discrete Fourier transform of the central spot and a pair of symmetrical diffraction spots, an image containing only a set of lattice spacings is obtained. Then, the pixel span of the lattice spacing is calculated through the centre of gravity method. Finally, we estimate the standard CD value according to the half-intensity method. The silicon crystal lattice constant guarantees the accuracy and traceability of the CD value. Through experiments, we demonstrate the efficiency of the proposed method, which can be conveniently applied to accurately measure CDs in practical applications.
Ventral midline incisional Richter's hernia: A case report
Authors: Ndong Abdourahmane , Tendeng Jacques Noel , Diallo Adja Coumba , Diao Mohamed Lamine , Ma Nyemb Philippe Manyacka , Konaté Ibrahima
Published: April 2022

ABSTRACT

Background:

Richter hernia is a particular entity characterized by partial strangulation of the intestinal wall through an hernial orifice. This form is associated with high morbidity and mortality due to the high risk of necrosis followed by intestinal perforation. We report a rare Case of Richter type strangulated incisional hernia.

Case:

It was a 68-year-old patient with a history of 7 pregnancies including two deliveries with cesarean section by midline laparotomy. She had an abdominal pain evolving for 48 hours with vomiting and cessation of passage of flatus and stool. Physical examination revealed a midline laparotomy scar with a painful non-reducible periumbilical mass. Surgical exploration via a 5 cm midline incision above the mass revealed an hernial sac, the opening of which revealed ventral midline incisional Richter's hernia with bowel necrosis. Bowel resection followed by end-to-end anastomosis and primary suture repair were done. The postoperative course was uneventful.

Conclusion:

Our observation shows that the high risk of intestinal necrosis should lead to a rapid diagnosis in order to reduce postoperative morbidity. The treatment without mesh seems to be a safe option in the context of emergency and intestinal resection.

Highlights
Death After Crevasse Rescue in Antarctica
Authors: Giesbrecht Gordon G. , Brock Jeffrey R.
Published: April 2022

We present a case report of a helicopter pilot who fell into a crevasse during a fuel delivery in Antarctica. He was trapped alone in the crevasse for 3 h while waiting for a rescue team to arrive, and a further 1 h during the extrication process. His condition deteriorated during the extrication and he lost consciousness and signs of life minutes after being dragged over the lip of the crevasse. He was then loaded into the rescue helicopter and treated with intermittent cardiopulmonary resuscitation during the 39-min return flight. Initial esophageal temperature on arrival at the Davis Base medical facility was 24.2°C. After 18 h of further treatment (mechanical ventilation with warm humidified O2, with internal and external warming) he was pronounced dead. The cause of death was hypothermia with minimal physical injury. This case highlights some of the extra challenges facing operational, rescue, and medical personnel in an isolated location. These complications include the tendency for flight crew to remove cold weather clothing during flight due to restricted mobility and excessive heat load from cabin heating; extended time for arrival of the rescue crew; extrication in a confined space; limited helicopter cabin space for transporting the rescue team and their rescue and medical equipment; and extended transport time to the nearest medical facility.
Project EARTH: Lessons from 10 Years of Teaching Public Health Skills for Resource-Limited Settings
Authors: Stoots James M. , Young Dara C. , Wykoff Randy
Published: April 2022

The College of Public Health at East Tennessee State University started a program in 2011 to teach the skills needed to protect and promote health and well-being in resource-limited settings. The need to provide public health services in resource-limited settings exists in both wilderness and isolated settings and when a disaster disrupts basic societal infrastructure. In these settings, lives may depend on the ability to provide water, sanitation, hygiene, shelter, first aid, and other basic services. Over the last decade, the college expanded the program considerably into what is now known as Project EARTH (Employing Available Resources to Transform Health) that now includes several different academic courses as well as programs designed to develop innovative solutions to address the needs of people in resource-limited settings. Working in a resource-limited setting requires effectively utilizing locally available resources to improve and protect people’s health and well-being. Project EARTH focuses on teaching students to design and create specific products for these situations while progressively honing those cross-cutting skills necessary to work effectively in these settings—notably teamwork, creativity, and resilience. To this end, Project EARTH implements a sequential learning process that includes significant hands-on training and simulated experiences with debriefing opportunities at the end of each activity. Project EARTH may serve as a useful model for others considering a similar training program.
Here be Dragons: Legal geography and EU law
Authors: de Witte Floris
Published: April 2022

This paper sets out a research agenda for EU legal geography. It identifies some central traits to the project of legal geography, a relatively new and increasingly populated interdisciplinary space that links legal studies with geography. While the EU and the project of integration appear to offer particularly rich soil for the legal geographer, very little attention has been paid to the ways in which the nature, structure and lived experience of the EU can be explained from a spatial and temporal perspective. For many reasons, as will be elaborated, this is a shame. Most crucially, perhaps, there is a growing realisation in EU studies in general that the authority and legitimacy of the EU depends, more and more, on how it is experienced by its citizens. Legal geography, with its spatial awareness and focus on the way in which space, time and law are co-constituted, offers a lens, language and conceptual framework to fill this void. While EU lawyers have occasionally and haphazardly ventured into the terrain of legal geography, much work is to be done. This could take the form of methodological, empirical, or conceptual work, and would offer a new dimension to existing accounts of European integration and to the central concepts in doctrinal and constitutional work in EU legal studies.
EU law, down to earth
Authors: Vauchez Antoine
Published: April 2022

The emergence and consolidation of European Community law (later European Union law) was rendered possible by key legal and political actors drawing a map of supranational law with the key concepts of direct effect, primacy and uniformity. The underlying assumption was that the actual territory of the law, the law on the ground, would come to fit into the drawn map. However, the last two decades have seen trust on the transformative power of the map drawn through such concepts decline, not least due to related developments. First, what looked like residual points of resistance have become polarized sources of contention over the scope and meaning of EU law; (2) sheer indifference towards EU law has emerged as a relevant attitude, partially replacing acceptance or opposition. Both developments have not led not only to a crisis of European law, but also to an existential crisis of the very actors (the “cartographers”) in charge of drawing the map of European law.
The European Union and critical legal cartography: Old geopolitics, worn geopoetry and the return of geopower
Authors: Rajkovic Nikolas M.
Published: April 2022

The European Union (EU) arose, in purpose, to undo the legacy of European geopolitics. Over decades, the EU has attempted to disrupt, or ambitiously transform, how its constituent communities “imagine” the space and boundaries of the Union’s geography. Yet, some 30 years since the Maastricht Treaty, old geopolitics manifests a distinct inertia over the mental maps of EU policy-makers and EU legal scholarship generally. For instance, should one query the EU’s cartography, it is likely an old geopolitical grammar conditions how policy-makers and scholars “map” and see the Union’s boundaries: 27 members, spanning 4,233,255 km2, and comprising a population of 447 million. Obscured is how the EU has generated a transnational and performative geography, with novel boundaries of rule that operate differently in quality and scale. In a nutshell, cartographic perceptions in EU policy-making and scholarship have rarely ventured beyond the terms of statist geography, or the worn geopoetry of “shared” or “pooled” sovereignty between Member States. This state of cartographic perception is curious, since the EU has been a geo-institutional project created to disrupt the traditional mentality of geopolitics and, further still, expand horizons of imagined social spaces, boundaries, and belonging(s).
Exporting peace? The EU mediator’s normative backpack
Authors: Nouwen Sarah M.H.
Published: April 2022

On the occasion of the launch of the European Law Open, this article analyses two policy documents of the European Union (EU) on its ambitions in peace mediation, to think about what it could mean for European law to be open to the world. Reading these documents – ‘the Concepts’ – through the lens of the theme that I have been assigned for this opening issue – ‘Europe in the world’ – one discerns an outward-looking EU searching for a greater role in the international field of peace mediation. One also sees instances of eurocentrism: a set of assumptions about the superiority of European (or ‘western’) ways of knowing and doing. In these Concepts, the EU envisages sending EU mediators into the world – either to mediate themselves or to support mediation efforts by others. The Concepts also contain increasingly long lists of EU values to be carried along and distributed during peace mediation. But the Concepts do not consider that in the countries where the EU mediator arrives, this backpack filled with normative baggage may bring other associations. Without more explicit recognition of the EU’s obstinate baggage, the EU is unlikely to be an effective peace mediator or, indeed, a credible global actor. More generally, critical reflexivity could help the EU to address the lingering Eurocentric tendencies that these Concepts reveal. Such critical questioning by the EU of its own assumptions, as well as learning from perspectives from outside the EU or the past, can be a process of focusing on Europe in order to decentre it. That, then, could also be a mission for this bold new European journal.
Decline in oral antimicrobial prescription in the outpatient setting after nationwide implementation of financial incentives and provider education: An interrupted time-series analysis
Authors: Jindai Kazuaki , Itaya Takahiro , Ogawa Yusuke , Kamitani Tsukasa , Fukuhara Shunichi , Goto Michihiko , Yamamoto Yosuke
Published: April 2022

Objectives:

To assess the impact of nationwide outpatient antimicrobial stewardship interventions in the form of financial incentives for providers and provider education when antimicrobials are deemed unnecessary for uncomplicated respiratory infections and acute diarrhea.

Methods:

We collected data from a large claims database from April 2013 through March 2020 and performed a quasi-experimental, interrupted time-series analysis. The outcome of interest was oral antimicrobial prescription rate defined as the number of monthly antimicrobial prescriptions divided by the number of outpatient visits each month. We examined the effects of financial incentive to providers (ie, targeted prescriptions for those aged ≤2 years) and provider education (ie, targeted prescriptions for those aged ≥6 years) on the overall antimicrobial prescription rates and how these interventions affected different age groups before and after their implementation.

Results:

In total, 21,647,080 oral antimicrobials were prescribed to 2,920,381 unique outpatients during the study period. At baseline, prescription rates for all age groups followed a downward trend throughout the study period. Immediately after the financial incentive implementation, substantial reductions in prescription rates were observed among only those aged 0–2 years (−47.5 prescriptions per 1,000 clinic visits each month; 95% confidence interval, −77.3 to −17.6; P = .003), whereas provider education immediately reduced prescription rates in all age groups uniformly. These interventions did not affect the long-term trend for any age group.

Conclusion:

These results suggest that the nationwide implementation of financial incentives and provider education had an immediate effect on the antimicrobial prescription but no long-term effect.
Effect of influenza vaccination among healthcare workers on hospital-acquired influenza in short-stay hospitalized patients: A multicenter pilot study in France
Authors: Amour Sélilah , Bénet Thomas , Regis Corinne , Robert Olivier , Fontana Luc , Lina Bruno , Pozzetto Bruno , Berthelot Philippe , Vanhems Philippe
Published: April 2022

Background:

Exposure to infected healthcare workers (HCWs) is a source of hospital-acquired (HA) influenza. We estimated the risk of HA influenza for hospitalized patients by rate of influenza vaccine coverage (IVC) of HCWs.

Methods:

A case–case negative control study nested in a prospective cohort was conducted in 2 French university hospitals during 2 influenza seasons. Each inpatient with influenza-like illness (ILI) provided a nasal swab sample that was systematically analyzed for influenza virus by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing. An HA influenza case was a patient with a virological confirmation of influenza with onset of symptoms ≥72 hours after admission to the ward. The IVC rate of HCWs in each participating ward was calculated from the data provided by the occupational health departments. A mixed-effect logistic regression was performed with adjustments on patient sex, age, the presence of a potential source of influenza on the ward in the 5 days prior to the start of the ILI, type of ward and influenza season.

Results:

The overall HA influenza attack rate was 1.9 per 1,000 hospitalized patients. In total, 24 confirmed HA influenza cases and 141 controls were included. The crude odds ratio (OR) of HA influenza decreased from 0.52 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.21–1.29) to 0.14 (95% CI, 0.03–0.63) when the IVC of HCWs increased from 20% to 40%. After adjustment, IVC ≥40% was associated with a risk reduction of HA influenza (aOR, 0.07; 95% CI, 0.01–0.78).

Conclusions:

Considering a limited sample size, influenza vaccination of HCWs is highly suggestive of HA flu prevention among hospitalized patients.

Trial Registration: clinicaltrials.gov identifier: NCT02198638.
Prediction of the droplet size distribution in aerodynamic droplet breakup
Authors: Jackiw Isaac M. , Ashgriz Nasser
Published: April 2022

The rim and bag dynamics in aerodynamic droplet breakup are investigated experimentally and theoretically. Three main modes contribute to the breakup sizes in aerodynamic droplet breakup: the rim node, the remaining rim and the bag breakup modes. However, existing models only consider one mode and are, therefore, unable to predict the size distribution. The present theoretical work seeks to model the dominant breakup mechanisms of each mode and to relate these mechanisms to the size distribution. It is shown that the nodes can be modelled using either the Rayleigh–Taylor or Rayleigh–Plateau instabilities with comparable results and that the variation in the node sizes results from the variation in the amount of mass in the rim that flows into the node prior to the rim breakup. The breakup of the rim is shown to be a result of a combination of the Rayleigh–Plateau instability and a newly proposed collision mechanism, wherein the impact of the corrugated receding rim of the bag with the main rim forces the main rim to break with the same wavelength as the receding rim. The resulting size distribution of the droplet breakup is estimated assuming that the relative weighting of the breakup mechanisms for each mode follows a two-parameter gamma distribution. The volume of each geometry is used to estimate the volume weighting of the modes, giving a reasonable prediction of the size distribution resulting from aerodynamic droplet breakup.
Behind the Political Connections Under Emerging Democracies
Authors: Ulziisukh Selenge , Wei Zelong
Published: April 2022

In light of inconclusive findings on the effect of political connections, this study explores conditions that affect the effectiveness of political connections on firm performance in democratic systems. First, using a resource dependence rationale, this study stresses the importance of variation in political connections and classifies direct and indirect political connections based on sources of power and the mechanisms for developing connections. Second, this study recognizes that influencing political outcomes is an entire political process in which political power matters. Furthermore, as power is central to the resource dependence rationale unlike exchange in transaction cost economics, this study explores how the effectiveness of political connections is contingent on the dynamics of de jure political power. We find that the effect of direct political connections is susceptible to changes in de jure political power due to its dyadic relationship with de jure power, while indirect political connections are more robust to such changes due to their connections with informal networks holding de facto political power. Further, the positive effects of political connections on firm performance are mediated by operational capability.
Expression of anti-NbHK single-chain antibody in fusion with NSlmb enhances the resistance toNosema bombycisin Sf9-III cells
Authors: Zhang Renze , Zheng Shiyi , Huang Hongyun , Sun Xi , Huang Yukang , Wei Junhong , Pan Guoqing , Li Chunfeng , Zhou Zeyang
Published: April 2022

Nosema bombycisis a destructive and specific intracellular parasite of silkworm, which is extremely harmful to the silkworm industry.N. bombycisis considered as a quarantine pathogen of sericulture because of its long incubation period and horizontal and vertical transmission. Herein, two single-chain antibodies targetingN. bombycishexokinase (NbHK) were cloned and expressed in fusion with the N-terminal of Slmb (aDrosophila melanogasterFBP), which contains the F-box domain. Western blotting demonstrated that Sf9-III cells expressed NSlmb–scFv-7A and NSlmb–scFv-6H, which recognized native NbHK. Subsequently, the NbHK was degraded by host ubiquitination system. When challenged withN. bombycis, the transfected Sf9-III cells exhibited better resistance relative to the controls, demonstrating that NbHK is a prospective target for parasite controls and this approach represents a potential solution for constructingN. bombycis-resistantBombyx mori.
Give ears some respite from regular microsuctioning in bisphosphonate-induced osteonecrosis of the external ear canal
Authors: Abelardo E , Jaramillo M
Published: April 2022

Background

This paper reports a case series of three elderly patients who were regularly attending ENT clinic every four to six weeks for ear canal care to address chronic otitis externa. All three patients had been taking bisphosphonate alendronic acid for years, and it is suspected that this drug was partly to blame for the progression of their chronic ear conditions.

Results

Some improvements were noted when the bisphosphonate was discontinued. The regular microsuctioning, and application of topical antibiotics with steroids, provided temporary relief of symptoms. The present pandemic shut down the routine clinic and the patients were not seen for four to five months. On latest review, it was a surprise to see that their ears seemed to have significantly improved, with healthy re-epithelialisation.

Conclusion

It is thus believed that excessive and repeated microsuctioning in bisphosphonate-induced osteonecrosis of that external ear canal can delay re-epithelialisation, and gradually prolonging the intervals between microsuctioning could help in overall resolution of the disease.
Using a theory of change to evaluate the impact of a conservation training programme: a practitioner's perspective
Authors: Gerrie Rachael M. , Concannon Lianne , Copsey Jamieson A. , Wright Tim , Young Richard P.
Published: April 2022

Training plays a central role in the pursuit of conservation goals, and it is vital to know if it is having the desired effect. However, evaluating the difference it makes is notoriously challenging. Here, we present a practitioner's perspective on overcoming these challenges and developing a framework for ongoing evaluation of a conservation training programme. To do this, we first created a theory of change, describing the pathway of change we expect from training delivery to conservation impact. This provided the clarity and structure needed to identify indicators of change in the short, medium and long term. For data collection, we utilized both quantitative and qualitative methods to provide a more complete understanding of the change expected and capture any that might be unexpected. However, the more time that passes since a training event, the more difficult it becomes to attribute results; in response, we shifted predominantly to the use of qualitative methods to understand the long-term results achieved. After 3 years of implementation, this framework has enabled us to measure the difference our training makes to individuals and their work, and to provide evidence for the contribution it makes to achieving conservation impact. We believe that the lessons learnt can be used to improve the evaluation of training activities across the conservation sector and maximize the impact they achieve.
Creating a musical for pre-schoolers in South Africa as pedagogical praxis for a tertiary music education module
Authors: van Vreden Mignon
Published: April 2022

Despite a renewed interest in educational practices to develop future music educators in South Africa for a rapidly changing professional landscape, little is known about the meaning students themselves ascribe to these practices towards their own development as music educators. This instrumental case study investigated the learning experiences of second-year BMus students creating a musical for pre-schoolers. Data were collected through interviews, observations and reflective journals. Six themes emerged through a thematic analysis of student experiences, namely interaction, preparation, skills development, stagecraft, performance and enjoyment. A conceptual model that explains the production of a musical as a pedagogical praxis connects these themes with existing literature on three teaching and learning approaches that framed the study, namely authentic arts-based pedagogy, project-based learning and community of practice.
A systematic literature review of revealed preferences of decision-makers for recommendations of cancer drugs in health technology assessment
Authors: Wang Yitong , Qiu Tingting , Nikodem Mateusz , Francois Clément , Toumi Mondher
Published: April 2022

Objectives

This review intends to provide an overview of revealed preferences of decision-makers for recommendations of cancer drugs in health technology assessment (HTA) among the different agencies.

Methods

A systematic literature search was performed in MEDLINE and EMBASE databases from inception to July 2020. The studies were eligible for inclusion if they conducted a quantitative analysis of HTA’s previous decisions for cancer drugs. The factors with p-values below the significance level of .05 were considered as the statistically significant factors for HTA decisions.

Results

A total of nine studies for six agencies in Australia, Belgium, France, South Korea, the UK, and Canada were eligible to be included. From the univariable analysis, improvements in clinical outcomes and cost-effectiveness were found as significant factors for the agencies in Belgium, South Korea, and Canada. From the multivariable analysis, cost-effectiveness was found as a positive factor for the agencies in the UK, South Korea, and Canada. Few factors related to characteristics of disease and technology were found to be significant among the included agencies.

Conclusions

Despite the different drug reimbursement systems and the socioeconomic situations, cost-effectiveness and/or improvement on clinical outcomes seemed to be the most important factors for recommendations of cancer drugs among the agencies.
The additive use of prosody and morphosyntax in L2 German
Authors: Henry Nick
Published: April 2022

This study investigates whether the use of prosodic cues during instruction facilitates the processing of German accusative case markers. Two groups of third semester L1 English learners of L2 German completed Processing Instruction (PI) with aural input: Learners in the PI+P group heard sentences that included focused prosodic cues; learners in the PI group heard sentences with monotone prosody. The effects of training were assessed through an offline comprehension task, a written production task, and an online self-paced reading (SPR) task. The results for the offline tasks showed that the groups were similar with respect to their offline comprehension and production. The SPR task showed that both groups used case markers to interpret word order online to some extent; however, only the PI+P group did so in all conditions. These results suggest that prosody does play a role in (morpho)syntactic processing, and that covert activation of prosodic structures can facilitate processing during online reading tasks.
The Bank of England's profits across 300 years: wars, financial crises and distribution
Authors: Anson Mike , Capie Forrest
Published: April 2022

We have produced a series on the Bank of England's profits from its foundation in 1694 to the present time. This has not been available before. We explain the path of these profits over more than 300 years and account for their changing pattern. We next examine from where the profits derived, first in ‘normal times’, and then seeking, in particular, the impact of wars and financial crises. Other questions are: how much derived from seignorage; to what extent were profits passively acquired? Finally, we examine what the distribution regime was, and if, and how, that changed. This becomes more interesting in the period after nationalisation with some surprising results.
A panorama of the medicolegal aspects of suicide assessments: integrating multiple vantage points in improving quality, safety, and risk management
Authors: Gupta Mayank , Gupta Nihit , Robinson Molly
Published: April 2022

Epidemiological trends in global suicides have been of serious concern in the last decade. The burden of higher expectations in the assessment of suicidal behaviors on mental health professionals is mounting. However, the suicidal risk assessment has many evolving and moving parts, and is one of the most heavily researched fields in psychiatry. Although it is clear from current empirical research that suicide cannot accurately be predicted, the standard of care from regulatory bodies and professional organizations dictates the use of established measures and following consensus guidelines. However, the legal system has different parameters to assess for the deviation from these standards and views it from a different vantage point. Therefore, it is imperative to know these critical multifaceted panoramas of suicide assessment. Considering the gaps within suicide risk assessment tools, we propose that appropriate documentation and thorough treatment planning are key to navigating the complex medicolegal risks. These approaches are useful for risk management and improve clinical outcomes, quality of care, and overall patient safety.
Geometries with agency: mathematics of form revisited
Authors: Norell Daniel
Published: April 2022

Architectural production relies on form that can be drawn, quantified, and analysed through geometry. The incorporation of calculus-based form in the 1990s and the more recent incorporation of physics simulation has pushed the edge of formal and mathematical analysis, as well as of architectural production. Yet, mathematics remains largely invisible in the current landscape – rarely addressed in discourse and hidden behind software interfaces in daily practice. As Antoine Picon has noted, architecture has unprecedented access to mathematical objects, while at the same time remaining indifferent to its relation to mathematics.
New architecture, inherited legacy: heritage, memory, grammar, and invention in the work of Peter Märkli
Authors: Alonso de los Ríos Silvia
Published: April 2022

Every architectural intervention joins a constellation of pre-existing conditions, which often constitute a fragile but valuable situation: the physical support of collective memory. The objective of this article is to explore contemporary ways of intervening in architectural heritage from the perspective of collective memory, through what is imagined to be a timeless grammar, towards design innovation. Works produced according to this strategy not only try to maintain the character of an architectural legacy but also to generate new models based on received precedents. The following article explores intervention projects from the last two decades of work by Swiss architect Peter Märkli, identifying key themes and strategies employed. The synthesis of these works allows us to identify a way of approaching heritage based on the continuity of architecture as a key to innovation.
Points and lines, nodes and rods: megastructure, graph realism, and Yona Friedman’s scientific architecture
Authors: Vardouli Theodora
Published: April 2022

In June 1966 Hungarian-born French architect Yona Friedman travelled to the port town of Folkestone on the English Channel to join the International Dialogue of Experimental Architecture (IDEA). The event was a large two-day symposium on radical experiments in architecture and urbanism organised by the British architectural collective Archigram. A leading figure in experimental international groups of architects and artists crafting techno-futuristic visions of three-dimensionally expanding cities, Friedman seemed to be an essential participant in an event advertised as a convocation of ‘all Europe’s creative nuts’.
SOLENOIDAL MAPS, AUTOMATIC SEQUENCES, VAN DER PUT SERIES, AND MEALY AUTOMATA
Authors: GRIGORCHUK ROSTISLAV , SAVCHUK DMYTRO
Published: April 2022

The ring$\mathbb Z_{d}$ofd-adic integers has a natural interpretation as the boundary of a rootedd-ary tree$T_{d}$. Endomorphisms of this tree (that is, solenoidal maps) are in one-to-one correspondence with 1-Lipschitz mappings from$\mathbb Z_{d}$to itself. In the case when$d=p$is prime, Anashin [‘Automata finiteness criterion in terms of van der Put series of automata functions’,p-Adic Numbers Ultrametric Anal. Appl.4(2) (2012), 151–160] showed that$f\in \mathrm {Lip}^{1}(\mathbb Z_{p})$is defined by a finite Mealy automaton if and only if the reduced coefficients of its van der Put series constitute ap-automatic sequence over a finite subset of$\mathbb Z_{p}\cap \mathbb Q$. We generalize this result to arbitrary integers$d\geq 2$and describe the explicit connection between the Moore automaton producing such a sequence and the Mealy automaton inducing the corresponding endomorphism of a rooted tree. We also produce two algorithms converting one automaton to the other andvice versa. As a demonstration, we apply our algorithms to the Thue–Morse sequence and to one of the generators of the lamplighter group acting on the binary rooted tree.