bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Development of an electromagnetic bulk wave EMAT
Authors: Huo Zhilin , Cai Daomeng , Liu Donghang , Duan Yiyang , Meng Hao , Liu Siqv , Liu Xiang
Published: December 2023

EMATs have the advantages of non-contact, no coupling, flexible structure, and convenient use. It is widely used in the field of ultrasonic non-destructive testing. At present, research on EMATs mainly focuses on permanent magnet EMATs, but permanent magnet EMATs have defects such as inconvenient movement and lack of high-temperature resistance. Therefore, it is necessary to study electromagnet EMATs. This article focuses on an electromagnetic acoustic transducer (EMAT) for detecting ferromagnetic materials. By analyzing the two mechanisms of Lorentz force and magnetostriction, the aim is to develop an electromagnet EMAT that excites transverse waves. Based on the finite element simulation software COMSOL Multiphysics, simulation analysis is conducted on the E-shaped yoke and cylindrical yoke, spiral coil, and butterfly coil, exploring the impact of different yoke structures and excitation coils on EMAT detection. Finally, by constructing an experimental system, it has been proven that the transducer can excite transverse waves in the direction of steel plate thickness, making it easy for signal analysis.
Study on Three-dimensional Impinging Jet Flow and Heat Transfer of Dryer for Gravure Printing and Coating Machine
Authors: Huang Xuejia , Bao Nengsheng , Fei Shiliang , Xu Peng , She E-zhen
Published: December 2023

Drying system is the largest energy consumption of equipment parts of solvent-based printing and coating equipment. How to optimize to design the equipment is of the highlights of this research field. According to this demand, a mathematical model of fluid flow of the drying oven is developed. By building a testing platform and using RNG k-epsilon two-equation turbulence model in Fluent Software to analyze three-dimensional impinging jet flow and heat transfer process of hot air drying in conventional drying oven. The results show that the separation of some boundary layers and undesirable swirls, which result in the non-uniform velocity field and temperature field of hot air from nozzles and no promotion to the drying effect, because of unreasonable design of the drying oven.
Design and implementation of a distributed fire monitoring and alarm system based on LoRa
Authors: Wang Yan , Tan Hong-hua
Published: December 2023

Fire has strong destructive power and wide influence, which is a serious hidden danger to regional economic development. This paper takes the distributed fire monitoring and alarm system based on LoRa as the research object. Firstly, the basic frame structure is described, and then the system is formed from three aspects: perception, collection and application. Finally, the system is tested and analyzed to ensure the orderly development of social economy for the development direction of fire monitoring and alarm system.
Design and Application of Downhole Drilling Mud Pulse Signal Transmission System
Authors: Zhang Lei , Chen Gang , Li Changkun , Xu Changlong , Xia Hongyun
Published: December 2023

Time-efficient measurement of undisturbed formation through measurement while drilling technology is an effective means to improve drilling efficiency in deep formations and increase the drilling-encounter ratio of reservoirs. Based on the application and development trend of existing downhole signal transmission technology, a pulse signal transmission system of downhole mud while drilling is designed. The system pulse generation device adopts the structure of a positive pulse generator, which is through the internal driving circuit and hydraulic circuit of the device to drive the valve head to move to generate a mud pulse signal while using the design of a limit switch to optimize the expansion spacing of the valve head so that the generated pulse signal amplitude is close. The system uses combined encoding as the encoding method, while the ground part of the system is designed to monitor and process the collected signals. Finally, the transmission capability and accuracy of the system are tested through field experiments, and the field results show that the system can work smoothly in the downhole environment to transmit downhole data to the wellhead with small errors, which meets the design requirements and field requirements. The field applications are carried out in several wells, such as the Shixi 105 well. The results show that the system has good downhole pulse signal transmission functions such as borehole inclination measurement, which helps to promote the development of existing drilling measurement technology.
Fault diagnosis of brushless DC motor based on Stack Sparse Autoencoder
Authors: Du Qiang , Zhu Danjiang , Ni Ming
Published: December 2023

Because of their simple structure, long service life, high efficiency, etc., brushless DC (BLDC) motors have been widely applied in many fields. In some applications, high requirements for BLDC continuous use of motors, so often to BLDC running state monitoring of motors, realizes the early fault diagnosis, to improve the reliability, safety, and prolonged use. To solve this problem, a BLDC fault diagnosis method based on Fast Fourier Transform (FFT), Stacked Sparse Auto-encoder (SSAE), and soft classifier was proposed. In the laboratory, a BLDC model R-3525 was used as the experimental equipment, and the data of 9 kinds of fault conditions such as bearing damage, cage damage, inner and outer ring damage, and the normal condition of the motor were collected. The collected data are transformed into 28 × 28 two-dimensional data sets by FFT. The feature expressions of various faults are adaptively learned from many data, and the intelligent diagnosis of the motor is realized by the feature function expression. The experimental results demonstrate that, in comparison to the single neural network approach, the stacked method can significantly enhance the precision of fault classification and achieve fault diagnosis for brushless DC motors. This method carries valuable implications for other varieties of BLDC motors.
Sequential procedure to investigate the optimal ranges of process parameters for the FSW of AA8090
Authors: Dahiya Munna Singh , Gupta Meenu
Published: December 2023

The main purpose of this experiment is to evaluate the optimum range of process parameters for Friction Stir welding of AA8090. In the present research work, an experiment has been made to join AA8090 alloy using friction stir welding (FSW) at different rotational speed, welding speed and tilt angle settings. The FSW was done on the CNC (Computer Numeric Control) Vertical milling machine using fixture and a cylindrical threaded tool. For designing experiments, the steepest ascent technique (Factorial Design) was used considering tilt angle, welding speed and rotational speed as input parameters and ultimate tensile strength (UTS) as an output parameter. The metallurgical and mechanical characteristics were investigated and considered while providing the sequential procedure for the optimal range. The optimum range of values observed at tilt angle (1.1° to 1.9°), welding speed (24.6 to 48.2 mm min−1), and rotational speed (1428 to 1876 r min−1). The maximum value of UTS (365 MPa) is obtained at rotational speed of 1652 r min−1, welding speed of 36.4 mm min−1, and tilt angle of 1.5°. Scanning electron microscopy and optical microscope were used for fractrography and microstructural analyses of the joints. The finer grains are observed in the NZ equated to the HAZ and TMAZ.
A contrastive characterization of pure Mg and AZ91D alloy based on the testing of mechanical, corrosion, wear, and erosion properties
Authors: Rallabandi Sivasankara Raju , Srinivas Lakshmi , Palli Srihari , Sharma Rakesh Chandmal , Sharma Neeraj , Sharma Ashwini , Sharma Sunil Kumar
Published: December 2023

Magnesium alloy of grade AZ91D is utilized for a variety of applications in aircraft design and frames, as well as vehicle engine radiators, bumpers, and suspension components to reduce the weight of automobiles. This research compared the mechanical, corrosion, wear, and erosion resistance of pure Mg to that of AZ91 alloy. The corrosion media was NaCl, NaOH, and MgSO4, and the weight loss method was utilised to evaluate corrosion. The pin-on-disc configuration was utilized to assess the dry sliding wear mechanism of the Pure Mg and AZ91D alloy. Pure monolithic Mg and AZ91D magnesium alloy have a low resistance to wear as a result of an increase in contact temperature brought about by a shift of operational conditions. Erosive wear is caused when solid particles in a liquid or air jet strike a surface. Significantly influencing the erosive wear are particle velocity, impact angle, and erodent particle size. In this work, the erosive wear of AZ91D was studied using an Air jet erosion tester. SiO2 was used as the eroding material, and the flow rate of the eroding material and air was 5 gm min−1. The erosive factor experiments are designed using Taguchi orthogonal array (L16). The erosive factor response is erosion rate and primarily regulated by three factors as angle (30°, 45°, 60°, and 90°), time (5 and 10 min) and, contact pressure (1 and 2 bar). The results of the experiments showed that the rate of wear increased with increasing pressure, and that the angle of impact of the jet at 60° caused the most wear of any of the tested angles. Analysis of variance (ANOVA) shows that time is the most important factor in determining erosive rate for AZ91D. SEM is used to investigate the structure and morphology of worn-out materials, and its findings are then confirmed.
Multipoint-BAX: a new approach for efficiently tuning particle accelerator emittance via virtual objectives
Authors: Ayoub Miskovich Sara , Neiswanger Willie , Colocho William , Emma Claudio , Garrahan Jacqueline , Maxwell Timothy , Mayes Christopher , Ermon Stefano , Edelen Auralee , Ratner Daniel
Published: December 2023

Although beam emittance is critical for the performance of high-brightness accelerators, optimization is often time limited as emittance calculations, commonly done via quadrupole scans, are typically slow. Such calculations are a type ofmultipoint query, i.e. each query requires multiple secondary measurements. Traditional black-box optimizers such as Bayesian optimization are slow and inefficient when dealing with such objectives as they must acquire the full series of measurements, but return only the emittance, with each query. We propose a new information-theoretic algorithm,Multipoint-BAX, for black-box optimization on multipoint queries, which queries and models individual beam-size measurements using techniques from Bayesian Algorithm Execution (BAX). Our method avoids the slow multipoint query on the accelerator by acquiring points through avirtual objective, i.e. calculating the emittance objective from a fast learned model rather than directly from the accelerator. We useMultipoint-BAXto minimize emittance at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) and the Facility for Advanced Accelerator Experimental Tests II (FACET-II). In simulation, our method is 20× faster and more robust to noise compared to existing methods. In live tests, it matched the hand-tuned emittance at FACET-II and achieved a 24% lower emittance than hand-tuning at LCLS. Our method represents a conceptual shift for optimizing multipoint queries, and we anticipate that it can be readily adapted to similar problems in particle accelerators and other scientific instruments.
Explainable representation learning of small quantum states
Authors: Frohnert Felix , van Nieuwenburg Evert
Published: December 2023

Unsupervised machine learning models build an internal representation of their training data without the need for explicit human guidance or feature engineering. This learned representation provides insights into which features of the data are relevant for the task at hand. In the context of quantum physics, training models to describe quantum states without human intervention offers a promising approach to gaining insight into how machines represent complex quantum states. The ability to interpret the learned representation may offer a new perspective on non-trivial features of quantum systems and their efficient representation. We train a generative model on two-qubit density matrices generated by a parameterized quantum circuit. In a series of computational experiments, we investigate the learned representation of the model and its internal understanding of the data. We observe that the model learns an interpretable representation which relates the quantum states to their underlying entanglement characteristics. In particular, our results demonstrate that the latent representation of the model is directly correlated with the entanglement measure concurrence. The insights from this study represent proof of concept toward interpretable machine learning of quantum states. Our approach offers insight into how machines learn to represent small-scale quantum systems autonomously.
Terrestrial Planets: Interior Structure, Dynamics, and Evolution
Authors: Breuer Doris , Spohn Tilman
Published: December 2023

The three terrestrial planets Mercury, Venus, and Mars (ordered by their distance from the sun) share the same first-order internal structure with the Earth. There is an iron-rich core at the center, overlain by a silicate mantle and a crust that is generated by partial melting of the mantle. But while Mars and Venus have a core with a radius of about half the planetary radius, just as the Earth, the core of Mercury extends to about 80% of the planet’s radius. The interiors of the terrestrial planets are heated by the decay of radioactive elements and cool by removing internal energy. In addition to radiogenic heat, internal energy was deposited during planet formation and early differentiation. Heat transport is dominated by mantle and core convection and volcanic heat transfer although conduction through the lithosphere on top of the mantle matters. The convection powers the planetary heat engine which converts thermal energy into gravitational energy, mechanical (tectonic) work, and magnetic field energy. None of the terrestrial planets has plate tectonics such as the Earth although surface renewal and some form of lithosphere subduction is debated for Venus. The tectonics of Mars and Mercury is best described as stagnant-lid tectonics, with a thick rigid lid overlying the convecting mantle. Both planets show early volcanism, with Mars in particular being locally volcanically active even until a few million years ago. Because of Mercury’s large core, the mantle is comparatively thin, and convection may be sluggish or may even have ceased. Magnetism is another property that the terrestrial planets share with the Earth although it is still not confirmed by data that Venus ever had a magnetic field. A dynamo process driven by buoyancy released through the growth of a solid inner core is producing the present-day magnetic fields of Earth and Mercury, but Mars’ dynamo has likely ceased to be active. Crust units with remanent magnetization testify to the early dynamo. The terrestrial planets have been explored to differing degrees by spacecraft missions which allow a deeper physical understanding of the interiors and their dynamics and evolution.
mtFRC: depth-dependent resolution quantification of image features in 3D fluorescence microscopy
Authors: Wright Neil , Rowlands Christopher J
Published: December 2023

Motivation

Quantifying lateral resolution as a function of depth is important in the design of 3D microscopy experiments. However, for many specimens, resolution is non-uniform within the same optical plane because of factors such as tissue variability and differential light scattering. This precludes application of a simple resolution metric to the image as a whole. In such cases, it can be desirable to analyse resolution only within specific, well-defined features.

Results

An algorithm and software are presented to characterize resolution as a function of depth in features of arbitrary shape in 3D samples. The tool can be used to achieve an objective comparison between different preparation methods, imaging parameters, and optical systems. It can also inform the design of experiments requiring resolution of structures at a specific scale. The method is demonstrated by quantifying the improvement in resolution of two-photon microscopy over confocal in the central brain of Drosophila melanogaster. Measurement of image quality increases by tuning a single parameter, laser power, is also shown. An ImageJ plugin implementation is provided for ease of use via a simple Graphical User Interface, with outputs in table, graph, and colourmap formats.

Availability and implementation

Software and source code are available at https://www.imperial.ac.uk/rowlands-lab/resources/.
Impact of preoperative uni- or multimodal prehabilitation on postoperative morbidity: meta-analysis
Authors: Cambriel Amélie , Choisy Benjamin , Hedou Julien , Bonnet Marie-Pierre , Fellous Souad , Lefevre Jérémie H , Voron Thibault , Gaudillière Dyani , Kin Cindy , Gaudillière Brice , Verdonk Franck
Published: December 2023

Background

Postoperative complications occur in up to 43% of patients after surgery, resulting in increased morbidity and economic burden. Prehabilitation has the potential to increase patients’ preoperative health status and thereby improve postoperative outcomes. However, reported results of prehabilitation are contradictory. The objective of this systematic review is to evaluate the effects of prehabilitation on postoperative outcomes (postoperative complications, hospital length of stay, pain at postoperative day 1) in patients undergoing elective surgery.

Methods

The authors performed a systematic review and meta-analysis of RCTs published between January 2006 and June 2023 comparing prehabilitation programmes lasting ≥14 days to ‘standard of care’ (SOC) and reporting postoperative complications according to the Clavien–Dindo classification. Database searches were conducted in PubMed, CINAHL, EMBASE, PsycINFO. The primary outcome examined was the effect of uni- or multimodal prehabilitation on 30-day complications. Secondary outcomes were length of ICU and hospital stay (LOS) and reported pain scores.

Results

Twenty-five studies (including 2090 patients randomized in a 1:1 ratio) met the inclusion criteria. Average methodological study quality was moderate. There was no difference between prehabilitation and SOC groups in regard to occurrence of postoperative complications (OR = 1.02, 95% c.i. 0.93 to 1.13; P = 0.10; I2 = 34%), total hospital LOS (−0.13 days; 95% c.i. −0.56 to 0.28; P = 0.53; I2 = 21%) or reported postoperative pain. The ICU LOS was significantly shorter in the prehabilitation group (−0.57 days; 95% c.i. −1.10 to −0.04; P = 0.03; I2 = 46%). Separate comparison of uni- and multimodal prehabilitation showed no difference for either intervention.

Conclusion

Prehabilitation reduces ICU LOS compared with SOC in elective surgery patients but has no effect on overall complication rates or total LOS, regardless of modality. Prehabilitation programs need standardization and specific targeting of those patients most likely to benefit.
Herpes viral infection and the multiple sclerosis prodrome: is HHV-6A infection a second hit?
Authors: Cree Bruce A C
Published: December 2023

This scientific commentary refers to ‘Human herpesvirus 6A and axonal injury before the clinical onset of multiple sclerosis’ by Grut et al. (https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awad374).
Potential role of the sella turcica X-ray imaging aspects for sex estimation in the field of forensic anthropology: a systematic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Ribeiro Esther C , de Mendonça Diego S , de Barros Silva Paulo G , Kurita Lúcio M , de Aguiar Andréa S W , Tuji Fabrício M , Neves Frederico S , Carvalho Francisco S R , Costa Fábio W G
Published: December 2023

Several studies have evaluated the parameters of normality of the sella turcica (ST), which is important to face different craniofacial syndromes that may affect this structure. Therefore, this research summarized the scientific evidence on the role of ST in the sex estimation of non-syndromic individuals. The research protocol was registered (Prospective International Registry of Systematic Reviews # CRD42021256469), followed by an electronic search in six databases (PubMed, LILACS, Web of Science, Scopus, EMBASE, and LIVIVO) and gray literature (Google Scholar and OpenGrey). Meta-analysis of linear (width, length, height, and diameter) and volumetric measurements, in addition to an assessment of risk of bias (RoB) and certainty of evidence, were performed. After the screening of 986 articles, 13 were evaluated by meta-analysis (1 307 males and 1 231 females). In subgroup analysis, females had lower values for width (lateral radiograph; −0.67 mm; P = 0.040), length (computed tomography; −0.23 mm; P = 0.020), and diameter (computed tomography; −0.27 mm; P < 0.001) compared to males. There was no statistically significant difference regarding height (P = 0.95), area (P = 0.72), and volume (P = 0.21). Most studies exhibited moderate RoB, and the certainty of evidence of the outcomes was very low. In this review, significant differences were observed between the sexes for the length and diameter of the ST; however, the heterogeneity of the studies must be considered.

Key points
Gibberellins involved in fruit ripening and softening by mediating multiple hormonal signals in tomato
Authors: Wu Mengbo , Liu Kaidong , Li Honghai , Li Ying , Zhu Yunqi , Su Dan , Zhang Yaoxin , Deng Heng , Wang Yikui , Liu Mingchun
Published: December 2023

The phytohormone ethylene is well known for its important role in the ripening of climacteric fruit, such as tomato (Solanum lycopersicum). However, the role and mode of action of other plant hormones in climacteric fruit ripening regulation are not fully understood. Here, we showed that exogenous GA treatment or increasing endogenous gibberellin content by overexpressing the gibberellin synthesis gene SlGA3ox2 specifically in fruit tissues delayed tomato fruit ripening, whereas treatment with the GA biosynthesis inhibitor paclobutrazol (PAC) accelerated fruit ripening. Moreover, exogenous ethylene treatment cannot completely reverse the delayed fruit ripening phenotype. Furthermore, exogenous GA treatment of ethylene signalling mutant Never ripe (Nr) or SlEBF3-overexpressing lines still delayed fruit ripening, suggesting that GA involved in fruit ripening partially depends on ethylene. Transcriptome profiling showed that gibberellin affect the ripening of fruits by modulating the metabolism and signal transduction of multiple plant hormones, such as auxin and abscisic acid, in addition to ethylene. Overall, the results of this study provide new insight into the regulation of gibberellin in fruit ripening through mediating multiple hormone signals.
The stress response of the seagrassZostera nolteiand three commercial clam species to low salinity associated with heavy rainfall
Authors: Román Salvador , Vázquez Elsa , Román Marta , Viejo Rosa M , Weidberg Nicolás , Troncoso Jesús S , Woodin Sarah A , Wethey David S , Olabarria Celia
Published: December 2023

The maintenance of stocks of estuarine species strongly depends on the ability of the species to cope with environmental stress. In NW Spain, commercial clam beds, which are usually co-occupied by the seagrass Zostera noltei, are often exposed to reduced salinity caused by intense rainfalls. Our goals were to evaluate the effects of low salinity events on both juvenile clams and Z. noltei, including their interactions. A mesocosm experiment was performed to simulate three salinity decreases (35–35, 25–10, and 20–5), and several indicators of clam and seagrass performance were measured after 3 and 6 days of exposure and again after a recovery period of 4 days. No differences were observed in the non-native clam Ruditapes philippinarum, while oxygen consumption, clearance rate and growth decreased significantly in the native clams R. decussatus and Venerupis corrugata in response to low salinity stress. Zostera noltei indicators did not vary in response to low salinity exposure, except the sucrose content, which decreased. Moreover, the seagrass buffered juvenile clams from salinity fluctuations in the short term, although the interactions were weak. The species-specific sensitivity to low salinity should be a major concern in future management plans for the shellfish beds in the context of climate change.
FLT3 signaling augments macrophage production from human pluripotent stem cells
Authors: Kitajima Kenji , Shingai Minako , Ando Hikaru , Hara Takahiko
Published: December 2023

Recent advances in cell engineering technologies enable immune cells to be utilized for adoptive cell transfer (ACT) immunotherapy against cancers. Macrophages have the potential to directly and indirectly exterminate cancers and are therefore an attractive option for therapies. To develop new ACT therapies using macrophages, a great number of macrophages are required. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) are expected to be a source of macrophages; therefore, a system to efficiently produce macrophages from human iPSCs is needed. Here, we demonstrated that human iPSCs were robustly differentiated into macrophages by enforced FMS-like tyrosine kinase-3 (FLT3) signaling via the introduction of exogenous FLT3 into iPSCs and the addition of its ligand FLT3L to the macrophage induction culture. These iPSC-derived macrophages were identical to those obtained by standard differentiation induction methods. Thus, our novel system enables the preparation of scalable macrophages from human iPSCs. We believe that this system will be useful to develop a novel ACT therapy using macrophages.
Congenital absence of appendix: a rare condition that could result in severe complications—a review of literature
Authors: Ghali Mohamed Said , Saleem Nitasha , Khalaf Mohamed H , Alkubaisi Ismail K , Ali Abdulhameed , Al Obahi Mohammed , Al-Zoubi Raed M
Published: December 2023

Acute appendicitis is the most frequent cause of abdominal pain and acute emergency surgeries, with a mortality risk of 6–7% at its onset. Since atypical deviations in these structures are rare, they can lead to diagnosis confusion and increase the risk of a worsening of the patient’s clinical picture. We present the case of a 35-year-old patient who had surgery after being diagnosed with acute appendicitis. Based on clinical assessment (Alvarado score 8), appendix agenesis was discovered intraoperatively and confirmed by postoperative pathology. Excess dissection while looking for the appendix caused an intraoperative complication of cecal damage, which was treated with a right hemicolectomy. Until now, just a few cases have been described in the literature. We record this case owing to its rarity and with the goal of further understanding the illness, which will lead to improved surgical results in similar patients.
Nuclear localization of Argonaute 2 is affected by cell density and may relieve repression by microRNAs
Authors: Johnson Krystal C , Kilikevicius Audrius , Hofman Cristina , Hu Jiaxin , Liu Yang , Aguilar Selina , Graswich Jon , Han Yi , Wang Tao , Westcott Jill M , Brekken Rolf A , Peng Lan , Karagkounis Georgios , Corey David R
Published: December 2023

Argonaute protein is associated with post-transcriptional control of cytoplasmic gene expression through miRNA-induced silencing complexes (miRISC). Specific cellular and environmental conditions can trigger AGO protein to accumulate in the nucleus. Localization of AGO is central to understanding miRNA action, yet the consequences of AGO being in the nucleus are undefined. We show nuclear enrichment of AGO2 in HCT116 cells grown in two-dimensional culture to high density, HCT116 cells grown in three-dimensional tumor spheroid culture, and human colon tumors. The shift in localization of AGO2 from cytoplasm to nucleus de-represses cytoplasmic AGO2-eCLIP targets that were candidates for canonical regulation by miRISC. Constitutive nuclear localization of AGO2 using an engineered nuclear localization signal increases cell migration. Critical RNAi factors also affect the localization of AGO2. Knocking out an enzyme essential for miRNA biogenesis, DROSHA, depletes mature miRNAs and restricts AGO2 localization to the cytoplasm, while knocking out the miRISC scaffolding protein, TNRC6, results in nuclear localization of AGO2. These data suggest that AGO2 localization and miRNA activity can be regulated depending on environmental conditions, expression of mature miRNAs, and expression of miRISC cofactors. Localization and expression of core miRISC protein machinery should be considered when investigating the roles of miRNAs.
Yeast zinc cluster transcription factors involved in the switch from fermentation to respiration show interdependency for DNA binding revealing a novel type of DNA recognition
Authors: Martinez Karla Páez , Gasmi Najla , Jeronimo Célia , Klimova Natalia , Robert François , Turcotte Bernard
Published: December 2023

In budding yeast, fermentation is the most important pathway for energy production. Under low-glucose conditions, ethanol is used for synthesis of this sugar requiring a shift to respiration. This process is controlled by the transcriptional regulators Cat8, Sip4, Rds2 and Ert1. We characterized Gsm1 (glucose starvation modulator 1), a paralog of Rds2 and Ert1. Genome-wide analysis showed that Gsm1 has a DNA binding profile highly similar to Rds2. Binding of Gsm1 and Rds2 is interdependent at the gluconeogenic gene FBP1. However, Rds2 is required for Gsm1 to bind at other promoters but not the reverse. Gsm1 and Rds2 also bind to DNA independently of each other. Western blot analysis revealed that Rds2 controls expression of Gsm1. In addition, we showed that the DNA binding domains of Gsm1 and Rds2 bind cooperatively in vitro to the FBP1 promoter. In contrast, at the HAP4 gene, Ert1 cooperates with Rds2 for DNA binding. Mutational analysis suggests that Gsm1/Rds2 and Ert1/Rds2 bind to short common DNA stretches, revealing a novel mode of binding for this class of factors. Two-point mutations in a HAP4 site convert it to a Gsm1 binding site. Thus, Rds2 controls binding of Gsm1 at many promoters by two different mechanisms: regulation of Gsm1 levels and increased DNA binding by formation of heterodimers.
Quantitative, titratable and high-throughput reporter assays to measure DNA double strand break repair activity in cells
Authors: Rajendra Eeson , Grande Diego , Mason Bethany , Di Marcantonio Daniela , Armstrong Lucy , Hewitt Graeme , Elinati Elias , Galbiati Alessandro , Boulton Simon J , Heald Robert A , Smith Graeme C M , Robinson Helen M R
Published: December 2023

Repair of DNA damage is essential for the maintenance of genome stability and cell viability. DNA double strand breaks (DSBs) constitute a toxic class of DNA lesion and multiple cellular pathways exist to mediate their repair. Robust and titratable assays of cellular DSB repair (DSBR) are important to functionally interrogate the integrity and efficiency of these mechanisms in disease models as well as in response to genetic or pharmacological perturbations. Several variants of DSBR reporters are available, however these are often limited by throughput or restricted to specific cellular models. Here, we describe the generation and validation of a suite of extrachromosomal reporter assays that can efficiently measure the major DSBR pathways of homologous recombination (HR), classical nonhomologous end joining (cNHEJ), microhomology-mediated end joining (MMEJ) and single strand annealing (SSA). We demonstrate that these assays can be adapted to a high-throughput screening format and that they are sensitive to pharmacological modulation, thus providing mechanistic and quantitative insights into compound potency, selectivity, and on-target specificity. We propose that these reporter assays can serve as tools to dissect the interplay of DSBR pathway networks in cells and will have broad implications for studies of DSBR mechanisms in basic research and drug discovery.
Women in the Ḥadīth Literature
Authors: Salem Feryal
Published: December 2023

Ḥadīth literature is rich in its many references to women and women’s stories. A close examination of the contents of ḥadīth literature reveals that women played key roles in the establishment of the early Muslim community and demonstrated equal levels of dedication, piety, and religious leadership as their male counterparts. A holistic study of the ḥadīth corpus also reflects the Prophet Muḥammad as empowering Muslim women in a pre-Islamic context in which fathers buried their baby girls alive and women were regarded as property to be inherited. This chapter challenges some of the careless assumptions often made about representations of women in ḥadīth literature through analyzing reports about women that have been commonly overlooked or not considered in terms of their broader context of intertextual reports to obtain a more profound understanding of the perceptions of gender in early Islam.
Modern Rereadings of the Qur’ān through a Gendered Lens
Authors: Afsaruddin Asma
Published: December 2023

This chapter explores the tension between patriarchal and egalitarian readings of critical verses in the Qur’an that have to do with women and gender. It provides an overview of classical male exegeses and modern Muslim women’s (re)readings of these verses. These verses include Qur’ān 2:223, 2:228, 2:253, 4:34, 4:128, 33:35, and 9:71. The chapter describes the methodologies employed by modern gender scholars and their critique of the androcentric views expressed by prominent premodern male exegetes, such as al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), and Ibn Kathīr (d. 774/1373). It furthermore provides an account of recent critiques of the egalitarian position that have been launched by a few gender scholars. The chapter concludes by assessing the cogency of prohierarchical and proegalitarian arguments and finds the egalitarian position to be far more plausible and defensible based on a holistic reading of the Qur’an.
Women as Moral Exemplars in Twelver Shī‘īsm
Authors: Dakake Maria
Published: December 2023

This chapter examines the role of the two most fundamental female exemplars in the Twelver Shīʿī tradition: Fāṭima, the daughter of the Prophet Muḥammad and both wife and mother to Shīʿī imāms; and Zaynab, the daughter of ʿAlī, who courageously defended her family during and after the tragedy at Karbala. Fāṭima has often been portrayed as a long-suffering and passive example of steadfast feminine duty and devotion, and Zaynab as the more active and public spokeswoman for her family. Yet the accounts of both women as found in Shīʿī sources demonstrate a mixture of these active and passive virtues. As models of devotion, obedience, courage, and conviction, they serve as virtuous examples, not only for Shīʿī women but for all Shīʿīs.
Early Muslim Women as Moral Paragons in Classical Islamic Literature
Authors: Amin Yasmin
Published: December 2023

Early Muslim women, especially from the first generation, are regarded as exemplary figures and role models for later Muslim generations. As a result, the lives of the Ṣaḥābiyyāt (female Companions) and the Prophet’s female family members were studied extensively, so that the examples they set could be emulated by later Muslims. Out of this large group of women, this chapter focuses specifically on the Mubashsharāt bi-l-janna, a reference to women who were given glad tidings of paradise by Prophet Muḥammad. Among the reasons for their being singled out in this manner are their precedence in faith that was praised in the Qur’ān; their migration to Medina from Mecca, during which they endured considerable hardship and/or persecution, and the fact that they pledged their allegiance to the Prophet in the very early days of Islam. Despite their status as moral paragons for later generations of Muslims and their prominence in their own lifetimes, medieval as well as modern scholarship has not devoted much attention to these women as a collective, although they are mentioned individually in biographical dictionaries, sīra works, history books, and ḥadīth collections.
Marriage, Divorce, and Inheritance in Classical Islamic Law and Premodern Practice
Authors: Sheibani Mariam
Published: December 2023

This chapter examines women’s rights and obligations in classical legal literature (from the second/eighth to twelfth/eighteenth century) pertaining to marriage, divorce, and inheritance. The chapter summarizes the classical doctrines on these topics according to the four Sunnī legal schools and the Twelver Shīʿī (Imāmī) school and discusses the scriptural foundations, underlying assumptions, and legal logic underpinning these rules. The chapter further juxtaposes these formal rules with the legal practice of a range of Muslim societies to demonstrate how Muslims throughout history have employed legal strategies and customary practices to reshape, accommodate, and circumvent formal rules in response to sociohistorical needs. Finally, the chapter discusses how other religious discourses besides Islamic law articulate normatively binding moral and religious prescriptions that sit alongside or contradict legal obligations and court-enforceable rights. The chapter thus situates Islamic law’s marital claims, divorce procedures, and transmission of property in a complex web of judicially enforceable legal norms debated among the schools, social customs, and non-litigable moral and religious duties.
Negotiating Motherhood, Religion, and Modern Lived Realities
Authors: Pappano Margaret Aziza
Published: December 2023

This chapter examines ways that religion plays a role in forging contemporary maternal identities and practices, attempting to isolate ways that Islamic interpretive paradigms have been mobilized to negotiate mothering in both Muslim-majority and Muslim-minority contexts. Focusing on maternal identities, including issues of infertility, the structure of Muslim households, the way that mothering practices or “motherwork” may differ in Muslim communities, and ways that Muslim motherhood and reproduction have been mobilized in decolonization and nationalist projects, this chapter also addresses how Muslim mothers have been both implicated in and identified as critical to the recent struggle against extremism.
Women as Modern Heads of State
Authors: Sonn Tamara
Published: December 2023

The modern world has produced several Muslim women heads of state or heads of government. While roughly one-third of non–Muslim majority countries worldwide have had women government leaders, a more appropriate comparison is with developing countries whose modern histories are characterized, like those of Muslim-majority countries, by struggles for economic, social, and political recovery from colonialism. Africa, for example, has had roughly the same percentage of women governmental leaders, including three Muslim women. Few of these women cite their religion as motivation for entering politics, but several articulate Islam as the source of their empowerment and specific values, including opposition to religious extremism.
Making and Remaking the World Anew
Authors: Buchanan Ruth , Eslava Luis , Murphy Caitlin , Pahuja Sundhya
Published: December 2023

As a particular project of international institutions, development is a way of seeing, assessing, transforming, and imagining the world in relational terms. Interventions are conducted in the name of creating in ‘developing’ and ‘underdeveloped’ places, preferred models of social and economic organisation putatively embodied by the ‘developed’ world. This relational exercise was originally calibrated in terms of a relatively crude comparison between colonies and their metropoles. From the mid-twentieth century onwards, this became a comparison between newly independent nations and their more ‘advanced’ peers in the developed world. But while it has taken different forms over time, and constantly mutates, this imagined relation, or model, originates in the West and continues to be anchored by the twin objectives of civilisation and commerce, and in the binary of self and other. This introductory chapter charts three ways to approach thinking about domination and resistance in the context of international law and development.
The Law of International Development
Authors: Dann Philipp
Published: December 2023

This chapter studies the connection between law and development by focusing on its legal core: the law of development. It argues that we have to understand this body of law if we want to critically address questions about power asymmetries and agency, accountability, and human rights in the governance of development. To understand the law of development, the chapter sketches the broader historical, theoretical, and anthropological context arguing that development and modern law are central elements of a particular Western conception of modernity and complement each other in their (ostensibly) technical rationality. Against this background, the chapter explains the basic features of the law of development, including its actors and sources, general logic, and possible principles, and traces the evolution of this field since the 1950s. It shows how the law of development mirrors the changing dynamics of the global order, but is also a tool by which this order has been shaped, and may be reshaped.
Agriculture in International Law and Development
Authors: Fakhri Michael , Adebola Titilayo
Published: December 2023

Even though for decades, development economists and policymakers assumed economies were ‘national’, food and agriculture has always been and continues to be central to international trade law and policy. As the conceptualisations of food and agriculture in the international development discourse are driven by preferences, power, and politics, multilateral institutions continue to grapple with balancing the competing positions of their members. This chapter is dedicated to food and agricultural policy vis-à-vis international trade, food sovereignty, and intellectual property rights (IPRs) for plants. It discusses the historical contexts and lawmaking trajectories of trade, food sovereignty, and IPRs for plants. In adopting historical and contextual analytical frames, the chapter unpacks pertinent debates that reveal the complexities and divergences between and within Global North and Global South positions and approaches to food and agriculture. Ultimately, beyond employing examples from food and agriculture to uncover key asymmetries in the international development discourse, the chapter proffers contemporary considerations for the future.
Ethical Markets and Economic Development: How Fair Trade Produced a Neoliberal ‘Social’
Authors: Cohen Amy J. , Lang Andrew
Published: December 2023

This chapter traces how the modern fair-trade movement helps to produce a neoliberalised version of social order. But its understanding of ‘neoliberal’ governance differs from many others’. The authors do not describe the imposition of a single order of value, e.g. ‘market value’ that cannibalises all other values. Rather, they describe it as an approach to governance that purposefully evades a shared consensus to address questions of value via the subjective evaluative techniques imaginatively associated with the sovereign consumer. As such, the social groups that coalesce around a fair-trade label do not take the form of ‘publics’ associated with a democratic polity. Nor do they take the form of unions among producers, labourers, and consumers that once served as the normative foundation of previous political imaginaries. Instead, they are contingent and thin social formations subject to ongoing competition and change that can forge loose and temporary alliances with other collectives—specifically corporations and their associated supply chains.
Law and Order
Authors: Radics George B. , Ciocchini Pablo
Published: December 2023

‘Law and order’ in the Global South started off as an aspirational side effect of the post-war modernization and development rhetoric, but eventually gained momentum in the 1970s as a ‘tough on crime’ criminal justice policy in the Global North. Although Northern in origin, nations of the Global South have adopted their own ‘law and order’ policies but with direr consequences. In South East Asia and Latin America, centuries of illiberal political institutions established under colonial rule were compounded with decades of post-colonial laws created to suit neoliberal, American interests. These circumstances led to the emergence of authoritarian dictatorships and subsequent reactionary governments. This chapter will explore the ‘law and order’ policies in South East Asia and Latin American by exploring the conditions in Brazil and the Philippines. It will ultimately argue that when ‘law and order’ is pursued under illiberal political institutions and disproportionate global pressures, inequality, racism, and excessive violence follow.
The Ideological Space in Swiss Politics
Authors: Zollinger Delia , Traber Denise
Published: December 2023

Switzerland is emblematic of transformations in electoral politics that have occurred across advanced democracies in the last decades. From as early as the 1990s, voters have become polarized along a ‘universalism–particularism’ dimension of politics, more so than along the traditional ‘state–market’ dimension. The result is a fundamentally realigned system, in which the universalist left increasingly caters to a socially progressive, highly educated new middle class while the diametrically opposed particularist far right successfully mobilizes socially conservative voters in the lower-educated old working and middle classes. A fragmented centre right, meanwhile, grapples with its position in a changing electoral landscape. The chapter traces changes in the social structure that paved the way for electoral realignment in Switzerland. Moreover, it shows how voters’ issue positions have developed over time, and it comparatively situates the Swiss case. We further engage with how the Swiss political space may evolve in the near future: on the one hand, the by now dominant ‘second’ ideological dimension seems to have become capable of absorbing or restructuring even distributive conflicts following a universalism-versus-particularism logic; on the other, the possibility remains that a liberal centre right may yet disrupt some of the strongly polarizing dynamics between the new left and the far right. Overall, the most recent stages of realignment in Switzerland might foreshadow possible developments in other countries that are experiencing similar structural and political transformations.
Cantons
Authors: Vatter Adrian
Published: December 2023

This chapter deals with the twenty-six cantons of Switzerland. First, the status of the cantons as the most important subnational entities of the Swiss federal state is presented, addressing both the differences between confederate and cantonal political structures and the major differences between the cantons. The main difference between the political system of the federal state and that of the cantons lies in the direct popular election of the executive and the strong status of the government. Subsequently, the most important political institutions of the cantons are presented: the governments, the parliaments, the party systems, and the direct democracy with extended popular rights. The chapter concludes with an overview of three important structural problems, which bring the Swiss federal state with its constituent states to its limits.