bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Limit shape phase transitions: a merger of arctic circles
Authors: Pallister James S , Gangardt Dimitri M , Abanov Alexander G
Published: June 2022

We consider a free fermion formulation of a statistical model exhibiting a limit shape phenomenon. The model is shown to have a phase transition that can be visualized as the merger of two liquid regions – arctic circles. We show that the merging arctic circles provide a space-time resolved picture of the phase transition in lattice QCD known as Gross–Witten–Wadia transition. The latter is a continuous phase transition of the third order. We argue that this transition is universal and is not spoiled by interactions if parity and time-reversal symmetries are preserved. We refer to this universal transition as the merger transition.
Integrable systems associated to open extensions of type A and D Dubrovin–Frobenius manifolds
Authors: Basalaev A
Published: June 2022

We investigate the solutions to open WDVV equation, associated to type A and D Dubrovin–Frobenius manifolds. We show that these solutions satisfy some stabilization condition and associate to both of them the systems of commuting PDEs. In the type A we show that the system of PDEs constructed coincides with the dispersionless modified KP hierarchy written in the Fay form.
Learning quantum data with the quantum earth mover’s distance
Authors: Kiani Bobak Toussi , De Palma Giacomo , Marvian Milad , Liu Zi-Wen , Lloyd Seth
Published: June 2022

Quantifying how far the output of a learning algorithm is from its target is an essential task in machine learning. However, in quantum settings, the loss landscapes of commonly used distance metrics often produce undesirable outcomes such as poor local minima and exponentially decaying gradients. To overcome these obstacles, we consider here the recently proposed quantum earth mover’s (EM) or Wasserstein-1 distance as a quantum analog to the classical EM distance. We show that the quantum EM distance possesses unique properties, not found in other commonly used quantum distance metrics, that make quantum learning more stable and efficient. We propose a quantum Wasserstein generative adversarial network (qWGAN) which takes advantage of the quantum EM distance and provides an efficient means of performing learning on quantum data. We provide examples where our qWGAN is capable of learning a diverse set of quantum data with only resources polynomial in the number of qubits.
Core–shell carbon-polymer quantum dot passivation for near infrared perovskite light emitting diodes
Authors: Tountas Marinos , Soultati Anastasia , Armadorou Konstantina-Kalliopi , Ladomenou Kalliopi , Landrou Georgios , Verykios Apostolis , Skoulikidou Maria-Christina , Panagiotakis Stylianos , Fillipatos Petros-Panagis , Yannakopoulou Konstantina , Chroneos Alexander , Palilis Leonidas C , Yusoff Abd Rashid Bin Mohd , Coutsolelos Athanassios G , Argitis Panagiotis , Vasilopoulou Maria
Published: June 2022

High-performance perovskite light-emitting diodes (PeLEDs) require a high quality perovskite emitter and appropriate charge transport layers to facilitate charge injection and transport within the device. Solution-processed n-type metal oxides represent a judicious choice for the electron transport layer (ETL); however, they do not always present surface properties and energetics compatible with the perovskite emitter. Moreover, the emitter itself exhibits poor nanomorphology and defect traps that compromise the device performance. Here, we modulate the surface properties and interface energetics between the tin oxide (SnO2) ETL with the perovskite emitter by using an amino functionalized difluoro{2-[1-(3,5-dimethyl-2H-pyrrol-2-ylidene-N)ethyl]-3,5-dimethyl-1H-pyrrolato-N}boron compound and passivate the defects present in the perovskite matrix with carbon-polymer core–shell quantum dots inserted into the perovskite precursor. Both these approaches synergistically improve the perovskite layer nanomorphology and enhance the radiative recombination. These properties resulted in the fabrication of near-infrared PeLEDs based on formamidinium lead iodide (FAPbI3) with a high radiance of 92 W sr−1 m−2, an external quantum efficiency (EQE) of 14%, reduced efficiency roll-off and prolonged lifetime. In particular, the modified device retained 80% of the initial EQE (T80) for 33 h compared to 6 h of the reference cell.
Arab Jews: History, Memory, and Literary Identities in the Nahḍah
Authors: Bashkin Orit
Published: June 2022

Middle Eastern Jews showed great interests in the Nahḍah (Arabic for Renaissance), a term signifying numerous intellectual movements, which championed Arabic literary and cultural renewal during the 19th century and the interwar period. Middle Eastern Jewish thought and literature thus responded to, and were shaped by, a context where ideas about the need to reform social and religious practices and laws, and discourses about Arab history and civilization, circulated widely in urban public spheres in the Arab World. Jewish thinkers and scholars were attentive to these discourses and they incorporated them into their conversations about the status of Jews as Arabic speakers, imperial and national citizens, and modern subjects. Middle Eastern Jewish writers were likewise keen to experiment in new genres that the Nahḍah’s Arab writers explored, such as the short story, the novella and the novel, the newspaper’s article and editorial, and the historical essay. Some Jews identified as Arab Jews, while others thought of themselves more as members of the national communities that emerged in the Middle East after World War I. The influence of Arab culture on Jews is apparent not only in their Arabic publications, but also in their writings in Judeo-Arabic and Hebrew. Jewish adaptions and perceptions of Arab culture, history, and language, moreover, generated different ideological commitments. Some Jews, who occasionally called themselves Arab Jews, felt that their adaption of Arab culture obliged them to support Arab nationalism and object to Zionism. Others, however, especially the Palestinian Sephardim, felt that they could combine between their Arab culture and Zionism to change Zionism from within, and underscored their indigenous identity as part of Zionist claims for Palestine.
Humanitarianism and Global Literature
Authors: Kaus Alaina
Published: June 2022

Understood as a system of actions designed to reduce the suffering of distant humans across the world, humanitarianism is intimately connected to storytelling as a means of raising awareness and generating empathy. Humanitarian beliefs and efforts are as diverse as the religious and secular moral philosophies that motivate them. Both aid organizations and government leaders have drawn on humanitarian discourses to gather support for such things as shipments of clothing and medical supplies to those in need, resettlement opportunities for refugees, and even military interventions in the Global South. As cultural platforms that promote themes of human dignity as well as liberal freedom and autonomy, humanitarianism and literature share long histories of influencing each other since the late 18th century. With the adoption of the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights in response to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany during World War II, humanitarianism and the related discourse of human rights have received an increase in popular and literary interest in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Whether or not these discourses are enough to counter the incredible violence of the contemporary period has been the subject of much debate. Global literatures support and critique humanitarianism and human rights as they retell histories of disaster, warfare, and state violence. As literature continues to variously imagine the causes of and responses to world suffering, the intersections of humanitarianism, human rights, and global literature embody a rich site of contestation and possibility for study in the 21st century.
Meta-Analysis as a Business Research Method
Authors: Stajkovic Alexander D. , Stajkovic Kayla S.
Published: June 2022

Mounting complexity in the world, coupled with new discoveries and more journal space to publish the findings, have spurred research on a host of topics in just about every discipline of social science. Research forays have also generated unprecedented disagreements. For many topics, empirical findings exist but results are mixed: some show positive relationships, some show negative relationships, and some show no statistically significant relationship. How, then, do researchers go about discovering systematic variation across studies to understand and predict forces that impinge on human functioning? Historically, qualitative literature reviews were performed in conjunction with the counting of statistically significant effects. This approach fails to consider effect magnitudes and sample sizes, and thus its conclusions can be misleading.

A more precise way to reach conclusions from research literature is via meta-analysis, defined as a set of statistical procedures that enable researchers to derive quantitative estimates of average and moderator effects across available studies. Since its introduction in 1976, meta-analysis has developed into an authoritative source of information for ascertaining the generalizability of research findings. Thus, it is perhaps not surprising that meta-analyses in the field of management garner, on average, three times as many citations as single studies.

A framework for conducting meta-analysis explains why it should be used, outlines what it has yielded to society, and introduces the reader to a fundamental conception and a misconception.

More specifics follow about data collection and study selection criteria and implications of publication bias. How to convert estimates from individual studies to a common scale to be able to average them, what to consider in choosing a meta-analytic method, how to compare the procedures, and what information to include when reporting results are presented next. The article concludes with a discussion of nuances and limitations, and suggestions for future research and practice.

Science builds knowledge cumulatively from numerous studies, which, more often than not, differ in their characteristics (e.g., research design, participants, setting, sample size). Some findings are in concert and some are not. Through its quantitative foundations, conjoint with theory-guiding hypotheses, meta-analysis offers statistical means of analyzing disparate research designs and conflicting results and discovering consistencies in a seemingly inconsistent literature. Research conclusions reached by a theory-driven, well-conducted meta-analysis are almost certainly more accurate and reliable than those from any single study.
Entrepreneurial Finance and Governance
Authors: Martino Pierluigi , Bell Greg , Rasheed Abdul A. , Bellavitis Cristiano
Published: June 2022

Entrepreneurial finance includes a wide array of sources of capital, such as venture capital, angel investors, equity, and debt finance, along with new forms of financing through crowdfunding and initial coin offerings. Providers of funds to entrepreneurial ventures, whether they are venture capitalists, angel investors, debt holders, or participants in crowdfunding face similar agency problems, such as moral hazard and adverse selection. There are considerable differences across investors in terms of their objectives, risk-bearing capacity, and time horizons, as well as in their motivation and ability to monitor the firms in which they invest. These differences give rise to governance challenges associated with each source of entrepreneurial finance.
Gang Desistance
Authors: Bolden Christian L. , Iliff Anna Q.
Published: June 2022

Gang desistance refers to the cessation of gang activities and disentanglement from gang identity. Despite the widespread myths concerning an inability to leave a gang without severe consequences, most individuals will desist from gang activities in a passive manner. Although passive exits may be common, gang desistance is both a social and a psychological phenomenon that defies an oversimplified event of sudden cessation. Studies have revealed theoretical patterns and processes that involve a wide variety of motivations and exit strategies that are not mutually exclusive from each other. Although the majority of gang-involved individuals will eventually leave the gang, the paths toward desistance are not always straightforward, sometimes resulting in ambivalent and ambiguous behaviors, such as regression back to gang involvement, and residual attributes of street lifestyles rather than abrupt cessation of gang affiliation.

For concerns of outside observers, the nebulous boundaries of gangs further complicate understanding of gang exit. Motivators of desistance include push factors such as personal and vicarious experiences of violence and victimization, disillusionment with gang life, dissolution of gangs and membership attrition, and incarceration. Pull factors that motivate gang desistance are maturing or aging out, parenthood, family and prosocial support, and religion. Despite the rhetoric surrounding a violent requirement for gang exit, it is more common for an individual to cease gang activity without a violent incident. Nonviolent exits are accomplished through walking away, fading out of the gang scene, and geographic relocation. Despite the varied regional contexts, studies on gang desistance have resulted in similar findings.
Critical Literacy for English Language Learners
Authors: Yoon Bogum
Published: June 2022

As more linguistically diverse students populate classrooms around the world including the United States, providing them with equitable and rigorous learning experiences through critical literacy has become a pressing issue in the field of education. By focusing on basic language and literacy skills, English language learners (ELLs) have rarely been exposed to critical literacy, a force to empower them as active learners. One of the major reasons is based on the misconception that ELLs, who are learning English, might not have the ability to critique and analyze texts, issues, and realities. More recent empirical studies challenge this misconception by showing the possibilities of ELLs’ engagement in critical literacy practices. The specific frameworks developed by language and literacy scholars have contributed to making critical literacy theory a more applicable and approachable practice. Despite the possibilities shown from recent research in classroom contexts, challenges also exist from both micro- and macrolevels. Challenges include the absence of fundamental critical literacy tenets from the school curriculum and policy, the absence of required critical literacy coursework from many pre- and in-service teacher education programs, and educator discomfort, rooted in misconceptions and false assumptions, with the implementation of critical literacy strategies in their classrooms. Both challenges and possibilities provide directions to the field of critical language and literacy education for future research and practice as ways to address affording equitable access for increasingly diverse ELLs.
Regionalization of Higher Education in Asia
Authors: Chao Roger Y.
Published: June 2022

Regionalization of higher education in Asia is a multidisciplinary project that complements the ongoing Association of Southeast Asian Nations–centered regionalism that is prevalent in the Asian region. It is part of the ongoing global regionalism and regionalization of higher education projects and is significantly influenced by European higher education developments, especially the Bologna Process and the establishment of the European Higher Education Area. It is anchored on the discourse of higher education for sustainable economic, social, and cultural development and on regional integration projects, and it is built on existing (and changing) Asian regional frameworks.

Regionalization of higher education in Asia is a complex project given its multiple stakeholders, frameworks, and power asymmetries within the region and the various regional and international organizations that influence global and regional higher education developments not limited to Asia. This complexity is further enhanced by the diversity of cultures, religion, socioeconomic development, politics, colonial heritage, and the systems and development of Asian higher education.

Regionalization of higher education projects, not limited to Asia, can be adequately presented using functional, operational, and political approaches. Furthermore, the contribution of mobility and mutual recognition, which are core components of regionalization of higher education, to sustainable Asian regional integration should also be considered. Despite its development during the past decade, regionalization of Asian higher education faces significant challenges related to, but not limited to, quality assurance, mutual recognition, relevance and governance of higher education programs/systems, international relations, and even access and mobility opportunities to higher education.
Tax Audits, Economics, and Racism
Authors: Lipman Francine J.
Published: June 2022

Since 2010, Congress has significantly cut the annual budget of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) while requiring the IRS to manage more responsibilities, including last-minute comprehensive tax reform, health care, broad-based antipoverty relief, and a variety of economic stimulus provisions. As a result, the IRS has sustained across-the-board decreases in staffing, with the most significant decreases in tax enforcement personnel. The IRS has fewer auditors than at any time since World War II, despite an explosion of concentrated income and wealth. Predictably, the tax gap, the difference between what taxpayers owe and what taxpayers pay, has skyrocketed to almost $1 trillion a year. Economists have estimated that funding the IRS will pay for itself severalfold, raising more than a trillion dollars of uncollected tax revenues over a decade.

Despite evidence that funding will remedy budget shortfalls severalfold, Congress continues to defund the IRS. While the bulk of the tax gap is due to unreported income by high-income individuals, the audit rate of these households has dropped precipitously. By comparison, the lowest income wage earners are being audited five times more often than all other taxpayers. Given centuries of racist policies in the United States, households of color are disproportionately impoverished and white households are disproportionately wealthy. Accordingly, lower income working families of color, especially in the South, are audited at rates higher than their white northern counterparts. Moreover, because these households and the IRS have limited resources, many of these audits result in taxpayers losing antipoverty benefits that they have properly claimed. This discriminatory treatment is counter to Congressional intent to support these families and exacerbates existing racial income and wealth gaps. With President Biden’s 2021 executive order on advancing racial equity and support for underserved communities through the federal government, the U.S. Treasury, IRS, and Congress have been charged to “recognize and work to redress inequities in their policies and programs that serve as barriers to equal opportunity.” Properly funding the IRS is a necessary step to advancing racial equity.
Asset Pricing: Time-Series Predictability
Authors: Rapach David E. , Zhou Guofu
Published: June 2022

Asset returns change with fundamentals and other factors, such as technical information and sentiment over time. In modeling time-varying expected returns, this article focuses on the out-of-sample predictability of the aggregate stock market return via extensions of the conventional predictive regression approach.

The extensions are designed to improve out-of-sample performance in realistic environments characterized by large information sets and noisy data. Large information sets are relevant because there are a plethora of plausible stock return predictors. The information sets include variables typically associated with a rational time-varying market risk premium, as well as variables more likely to reflect market inefficiencies resulting from behavioral influences and information frictions. Noisy data stem from the intrinsically large unpredictable component in stock returns. When forecasting with large information sets and noisy data, it is vital to employ methods that incorporate the relevant information in the large set of predictors in a manner that guards against overfitting the data.

Methods that improve out-of-sample market return prediction include forecast combination, principal component regression, partial least squares, the LASSO and elastic net from machine learning, and a newly developed C-ENet approach that relies on the elastic net to refine the simple combination forecast. Employing these methods, a number of studies provide statistically and economically significant evidence that the aggregate market return is predictable on an out-of-sample basis. Out-of-sample market return predictability based on a rich set of predictors thus appears to be a well-established empirical result in asset pricing.
The Philosophical Significance of Decoherence
Authors: Crull Elise
Published: June 2022

Quantum decoherence is a physical process resulting from the entanglement of a system with environmental degrees of freedom. The entanglement allows the environment to behave like a measuring device on the initial system, resulting in the dynamical suppression of interference terms in mutually commuting bases. Because decoherence processes are extremely fast and often practically irreversible, measurements performed on the system after system–environment interactions typically yield outcomes empirically indistinguishable from physical collapse of the wave function. That is: environmental decoherence of a system’s phase relations produces effective eigenstates of a system in certain bases (depending on the details of the interaction) through prodigious damping—but not destruction—of the system’s off-diagonal terms in those bases.

Although decoherence by itself is neither an interpretation of quantum physics nor indeed even new physics, there is much debate concerning the implications of this process in both the philosophical and the scientific literature. This is especially true regarding fundamental questions arising from quantum theory about the roles of measurement, observation, the nature of entanglement, and the emergence of classicality. In particular, acknowledging the part decoherence plays in interpretations of quantum mechanics recasts that debate in a new light.
Latinx Criminality
Authors: Felker-Kantor Max
Published: June 2022

Latinx criminality was a product of racialized policing and policies that constructed various Latinx groups as foreign threats over the course of American history. Crime was not an objective category but one produced by policing, vigilantism, border enforcement, and immigration policy, all of which both relied on and produced dominant beliefs of Latinx criminality. Latinxs were racialized as criminal and foreign enemies to be variously eliminated or contained beginning before the Mexican-American War and continuing with the integration of immigration enforcement and criminal justice, known as crimmigration, in the 21st century. The intertwined process of racialization and criminalization evolved over time, from the conquest of Mexico driven by Manifest Destiny to colonial projects in Cuba and Puerto Rico during the Spanish-American War to the Texas Rangers’ assaults on Mexicans during the Mexican Revolution; from the repatriation campaigns in the 1930s to the social movements of the 1960s; and from the refugee and asylum crisis in the 1980s to the antiimmigrant nativism of the 1990s and 2000s. In each of these eras, policing practices built on the deep racial scripts that were deployed to construct different Latinx groups as potential criminals.

While ethnic Mexicans in the Southwest bore the brunt of racist policing and criminalization during the 19th and first half of the 20th century, demographic changes resulting from new migration streams, American imperial ambitions in the 1890s, and Cold War interventions ensured that other Latinx groups, such as Puerto Ricans, Dominicans, Haitians, Cubans, Guatemalans, and Salvadorans, were subjected to racialized policing and criminalization. In the process, the logic of racist assumptions about the criminality of people of Mexican descent born out of America’s ideological belief in its Manifest Destiny easily translated to the criminalization of other Latinx groups. The framework of racial scripts explains this common process of racialization and criminalization. Although the nature of policing and criminalization shifted over time and targeted different Latinx groups in different ways, Anglo-Americans continually displaced their fears of “foreign threats” onto racialized others, making Latinxs into “criminals” through punitive policies, scapegoating, and policing.
Kālacakra-Maṇḍala: Symbolism and Construction
Authors: Wallace Vesna A.
Published: June 2022

The kālacakra-maṇḍala, whether as a purely mental object created in meditation through visualization or as a material object produced by the hands of artists and tantric masters, has a significant instrumental function in the Kālacakra tantric tradition. It is a complex, virtual object abounding in visual signs pointing to the transcendent, or sublimated, aspects of the practitioner’s outer and inner worlds. The kālacakra-maṇḍala is believed to have the capacity to induce desirable mental states, to produce religious knowledge in a nondiscursive manner, and to exercise purificatory agency. The maṇḍala’s expressive power and transformative agency dwell in its prescribed shape, structure, dimensions, colors, deity forms, emblems, mantric symbols, and other constitutive elements. However, its agency becomes fully effective when combined with the creative skills and mental powers of those who bring the maṇḍala into view. In the Kālacakra tantric tradition, the material kālacakra-maṇḍala, created for the rite of initiation, also has a social function in that it brings together the community of Buddhist tantric practitioners with shared religious goals.
The Mesoamerican Collection of the National Museum of Denmark
Authors: Nielsen Jesper
Published: June 2022

The National Museum of Denmark, located in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, holds a small but significant collection of archaeological and ethnographic objects from Mesoamerica. The collection includes artefacts from a broad span of the Mesoamerican cultures, including the Olmec, Zapotec, Teotihuacán, Mixtec, Maya, and Aztec. The majority have derived not from controlled excavations but have entered the museum as donations, purchases, or exchanges with other museums. Although Mesoamerican objects have presumably been part of the museum’s Ethnographic Collection since the first half of the 18th century, a more active acquisition policy was initiated in the 1860s and the next century saw the gradual expansion of the collection. Some of the most remarkable pieces have received international scholarly attention, in particular two Late Postclassic mosaic-encrusted wooden objects and a 16th-century indigenous map from Oaxaca. But, as a whole, the collection has been largely unknown to researchers working with Mesoamerican archaeology and history. Characteristically, the collection also contains a number of forgeries, which in themselves contribute to the larger narrative of the growing interest in ancient Mesoamerica and the expansion of ethnographic collections in Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Case Markers in Indo-Aryan
Authors: Butt Miriam
Published: June 2022

Indo-Aryan languages have the longest documented historical record, with the earliest attested texts going back to 1900 bce. Old Indo-Aryan (Vedic, Sanskrit) had an inflectional case-marking system where nominatives functioned as subjects. Objects could be realized via several different case markers (depending on semantic and structural factors), but not the nominative. This inflectional system was lost over the course of several centuries during Middle Indo-Aryan, resulting in just a nominative–oblique inflectional distinction. The New Indo-Aryan languages innovated case markers and developed new case-marking systems. Like in Old Indo-Aryan, case is systematically used to express semantic differences via differential object marking constructions. However, unlike in Old Indo-Aryan, many of the New Indo-Aryan languages are ergative and all allow for non-nominative subjects, most prominently for experiencer subjects. Objects, on the other hand, can now also be unmarked (nominative), usually participating in differential object marking. The case-marking patterns within New Indo-Aryan and across time have given rise to a number of debates and analyses. The most prominent of these include issues of case alignment and language change, the distribution of ergative vs. accusative vs. nominative case, and discussions of markedness and differential case marking.
Focus and Focus Structures in the Romance Languages
Authors: Cruschina Silvio
Published: June 2022

Focus is key to understanding processes of syntactic and prosodic readjustments in the Romance languages. Since, prosodically, it must be the most prominent constituent in the sentence, focus associates with the nuclear pitch accent, which may be shifted from its default rightmost position when the syntactic position of the focus also changes. The application of specific syntactic operations depends both on the size and on the subtype of focus, although not always unambiguously. Subject inversion characterizes focus structures where the domain of focus covers either the whole sentence (broad-focus) or a single constituent (narrow-focus). Presentational constructions distinctively mark broad focus, avoiding potential ambiguity with an SVO structure where the predicate is the focus and the subject is interpreted as topic. In narrow-focus structures, the focus constituent typically occurs sentence-final (postverbal focalization), but it may also be fronted (focus fronting), depending on the specific interpretation associated with the focus.

Semantically, focus indicates the presence of alternatives, and the different interpretations arise from the way the set of alternatives is pragmatically exploited, giving rise to a contextually open set (information focus), to contrast or correction (contrastive or corrective focus), or to surprise or unexpectedness (mirative focus). Whether a subtype of focus may undergo fronting in a Romance language is subject to variation. In most varieties it is indeed possible with contrastive or corrective focus, but it has been shown that focus fronting is also acceptable with noncontrastive focus in several languages, especially with mirative focus.

Finally, certain focus-sensitive operators or particles directly interact with the narrow-focus constituent of the sentence and their association with focus has semantic effects on the interpretation of the sentence.
Institutional Fit in the Water Sector
Authors: Rubiños Cathy , Bernedo Del Carpio Maria
Published: June 2022

Adequate water governance is necessary for the world’s sustainability. Because of its importance, a growing literature has studied ways to improve water governance, beginning in the early 2000s. Institutions, which refer to the set of shared rules, codes, and prescriptions that regulate human actions, are a particularly important element of sustainable water governance. Evidence shows that to design institutions that will generate sustainable economic, ecological, and cultural development, it is necessary to consider ecosystems and socioeconomic-cultural systems as social-ecological systems (SESs). In the past, practitioners and international agencies tried to find the government-led panaceas, but this search has been largely unsuccessful. Current views support efforts to move towards addressing complexity (e.g., Integrated Water Resources Management), and search for the fit between the institutional arrangements and SESs’ attributes.

The literature on institutional fit in SESs encourages planners to design institutions by carefully considering the defining features of the problems they are meant to address and the SES context in which they are found. This literature has been developing since the 1990s and has identified different types of misfits. A comprehensive fitness typology that includes all the different types of fitness (ecological, social, SES, and intra-institutional fit) helps organize existing and future work on institutional fit and provides a checklist for governments to be used in the problem-solving process for increasing fitness. The water governance and institutional fitness literature provide examples of management practices and mechanisms for increasing institutional fit for each fitness type. Future research should focus on improving the methodologies to measure different types of fit and testing the effect of introducing fit on SES outcomes.
Racial Justice
Authors: Merritt Darcey H. , Ludeke Rachel D. , Patankar Krushika Uday , Mahachi Muthoni , Buck Morgan
Published: June 2022

Racial justice remains a hot-button issue in the United States, particularly in the aftermath of several high-profile murders of Black and Brown people due to state-sanctioned violence. There is an increased need to explore how racial injustice remains prevalent intentionally and comprehensively in all aspects of micro, mezzo, and macro social work practice. Racism is pervasive in the social work profession, and it is therefore important to address the ways in which it underpins established human service systems (e.g., public assistance and child welfare).
Irisin reduces the abnormal reproductive and metabolic phenotypes of PCOS by regulating the activity of brown adipose tissue in mice
Authors: Zheng Yajing , He Juan , Yang Dongyong , Yuan Mengqin , Liu Shiyi , Dai Fangfang , Jia Yifan , Cheng Yanxiang
Published: June 2022

Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is a common endocrine and metabolic disease in women, with clinical manifestations of anovulation and hyperandrogenaemia. The treatment of PCOS mainly focuses on improving clinical symptoms, such as insulin sensitivity or menstrual disorder, through drug treatment. However, due to the pathogenesis diversity of PCOS, there is still a lack of effective treatment in clinics. Metabolic disorder is the key factor in the occurrence of PCOS. Brown adipose tissue (BAT) is a special adipose tissue in the human body that can participate in metabolic balance by improving heat production. BAT has been demonstrated to be an important substance involved in the metabolic disorder of PCOS. Although increasing evidence indicates that BAT transplantation can improve the symptoms of PCOS, it is difficult to achieve BAT transplantation at present due to technical limitations. Stimulation of BAT activation by exogenous substances may be an effective alternative therapy for PCOS. In this study, we investigated the effects of Irisin on dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA)-induced PCOS in mice and evaluated the effect of Irisin on serum hormone levels and changes in body temperature, body weight, and ovarian morphology. In our study, we found that Irisin can enhance the thermogenesis and insulin sensitivity of PCOS mice by activating the function of BAT. In addition, Irisin treatment can correct the menstrual cycle of PCOS mice, improve the serum steroid hormone disorder status, and reduce the formation of ovarian cystic follicles. In conclusion, our results showed that Irisin treatment significantly improved the metabolic disorder of PCOS and may provide a new and alternative therapy for the treatment of this pathology.
Roles and Tasks of Social Workers in Chinese Disaster Management
Authors: Sim Timothy , He Minying , Chen Huiquan , Yang Wanqiu
Published: June 2022

Although social workers are often deeply involved in disaster management, their distinct roles and tasks in its various phases have not been adequately recognised. This may impede social work training and practice in disaster contexts and particularly in China, which regularly experiences disasters. In this study, we investigated the unique roles and tasks of Chinese social workers in disaster management. We conducted thirty-two in-depth interviews with stakeholders including front line social workers, academics, government officials, other professionals and survivors, and a content analysis. We identified the three main roles of social workers as conduits, mediators and providers of psychosocial support. We then assessed the complexity of social workers’ roles and tasks in the Chinese context, and the potential for the strategic integration of social workers into a top-down disaster management system.
Peak fraction of infected in epidemic spreading for multi-community networks
Authors: Ma Jing , Meng Xiangyi , Braunstein Lidia A
Published: June 2022

One of the most effective strategies to mitigate the global spreading of a pandemic (e.g. coronavirus disease 2019) is to shut down international airports. From a network theory perspective, this is since international airports and flights, essentially playing the roles of bridge nodes and bridge links between countries as individual communities, dominate the epidemic spreading characteristics in the whole multi-community system. Among all epidemic characteristics, the peak fraction of infected, $I_{\max}$, is a decisive factor in evaluating an epidemic strategy given limited capacity of medical resources but is seldom considered in multi-community models. In this article, we study a general two-community system interconnected by a fraction $r$ of bridge nodes and its dynamic properties, especially $I_{\max}$, under the evolution of the susceptible-infected-recovered model. Comparing the characteristic time scales of different parts of the system allows us to analytically derive the asymptotic behaviour of $I_{\max}$ with $r$, as $r\rightarrow 0$, which follows different power-law relations in each regime of the phase diagram. We also detect crossovers when $I_{\max}$ changes from one power law to another, crossing different power-law regimes as driven by $r$. Our results enable a better prediction of the effectiveness of strategies acting on bridge nodes, denoted by the power-law exponent $\epsilon_I$ as in $I_{\max}\propto r^{1/\epsilon_I}$.
Right-sided aortic arch with Kommerell’s diverticulum: a case report of a rare cause of type B dissection
Authors: Marzouki Sami , Peeters Bernard , Gevaert Sofie , Van Herzeele Isabelle
Published: June 2022

Background

A right-sided aortic arch (RAArch) is present in approximately 0.1% of the population. A Kommerell’s diverticulum (KD), a remnant of the dorsal aortic arch usually refers to an aneurysmal aortic enlargement at the origin of an aberrant left subclavian artery (ALSA) and is associated with an increased risk of aortic dissection.

Case summary

A 59-year-old female smoker with a history of hypertension and hypercholesterolaemia presented with a 24-hour history of sudden-onset and severe stabbing chest pain radiating to the interscapular region. Physical examination was normal except for bilateral basal crepitations. Computed tomography angiography (CTA) showed a type B aortic dissection in a RAArch with an ALSA arising from KD with a peri-aortic haematoma and haemothorax without any active contrast extravasation. After medical stabilization, a semi-urgent hybrid repair was performed with a right carotid-subclavian bypass, thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR), a plug in the left subclavian artery, and left carotid-subclavian bypass due to severe ischaemia of the left arm. The postoperative CTA showed patent bypasses, aortic remodelling, and a minimal type IIa endoleak at the level of the ALSA.

Discussion

In patients with a type B dissection and KD, hybrid repair including TEVAR is feasible after careful pre-operative assessment of the patient’s unique anatomy and may reduce post-surgical morbidity and mortality compared to open surgery. Prophylactic repair may be considered in patients with an asymptomatic RAArch and KD.
European mature adults and elderly are moving closer to the Mediterranean diet—a longitudinal study, 2013–19
Authors: Alves Ricardo , Perelman Julian
Published: June 2022

Background

The decreasing adherence in Mediterranean Diet (M.D.) during the last decades has been attributed to social, cultural and economic factors. However, recent efforts to improve dietary habits and the economic improvement might be reversing this trend. We analyze the changes in M.D. adherence between 2013 and 2019 among a sample of European mature adults and the elderly.

Methods

Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe for adults over 50 years old, we designed a longitudinal cohort study with a sample of participants from waves 5 (2013) and 8 (2019/20). Logistic regressions were used to model the consumption of M.D. adherence as a function of the year. We then stratified the analyses by education, age and transitions in economic status, employment and self-perceived health.

Results

There was in 2019/20 a significant increase in the M.D. adherence (10.8% vs. 14.3%, OR = 1.367, P < 0.01). The rise was mainly related to the decrease of meat and fish (38.4% vs. 30.5%, OR = 0.703, P < 0.01) and growth of legumes and eggs intake (36.3% vs. 41.8%, OR = 1.260 P < 0.01). The results were consistent in all European regions and most sociodemographic groups. Younger people with higher income and education had a greater rise in adherence.

Conclusions

Our analysis shows a generalized growth in adherence to the M.D. across most socioeconomic subpopulations and countries in Europe, suggesting a shift to healthier diet patterns. The more noticeable increase among affluent, educated and healthy respondents, may further entrench dietary and health inequalities.
Of No One Born: Queering Motherhood in Marivaux’s
La Vie de Marianne
Authors: Rutler Tracy L
Published: June 2022

This article proposes that, rather than a sentimental love story, Pierre de Marivaux’s unfinished novel,
La Vie de Marianne ou les aventures de Mme la Comtesse de ***
(1731–41), presents a form of queer motherhood that provides a counterpoint to the form of Republican motherhood and the ‘cult of domesticity’ championed by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (among others) and critiqued by feminists such as Adrienne Rich and Élisabeth Badinter. Grounding the maternal experience in discourses of traumatic memory, it argues that, contrary to Sigmund Freud’s assertion that repeating is an act of repression (rather than working through), in this novel we see the opposite. The article demonstrates how trauma brings women together into polymaternal communities based on mutual affection that bypass the patriarchal structure that tends to shape eighteenth-century sentimental novels. For Marianne, re-enacting childhood trauma with others allows her to share the burden of pain and strengthen intimate bonds between women. More than being just a unique literary experiment, the queer articulation of family throughout this novel might help us to imagine an ontology of motherhood that is unencumbered by patriarchy.
The Origin and Evolution of RNase T2 Family and Gametophytic Self-incompatibility System in Plants
Authors: Lv Shouzheng , Qiao Xin , Zhang Wei , Li Qionghou , Wang Peng , Zhang Shaoling , Wu Juyou
Published: June 2022

Ribonuclease (RNase) T2 genes are found widely in both eukaryotes and prokaryotes, and genes from this family have been revealed to have various functions in plants. In particular, S-RNase is known to be the female determinant in the S-RNase-based gametophytic self-incompatibility (GSI) system. However, the origin and evolution of the RNase T2 gene family and GSI system are not well understood. In this study, 785 RNase T2 genes were identified in 81 sequenced plant genomes representing broad-scale diversity and divided into three subgroups (Class I, II, and III) based on phylogenetic and synteny network analysis. Class I was found to be of ancient origin and to emerge in green algae, Class II was shown to originate with the appearance of angiosperms, while Class III was discovered to be eudicot-specific. Each of the three major classes could be further classified into several subclasses of which some subclasses were found to be lineage-specific. Furthermore, duplication, deletion, or inactivation of the S/S-like-locus was revealed to be linked to repeated loss and gain of self-incompatibility in different species from distantly related plant families with GSI. Finally, the origin and evolutionary history of S-locus in Rosaceae species was unraveled with independent loss and gain of S-RNase occurred in different subfamilies of Rosaceae. Our findings provide insights into the origin and evolution of the RNase T2 family and the GSI system in plants.
Risk factors for postoperative pulmonary venous obstruction after surgical repair of total anomalous pulmonary venous connection: a systemic review and meta-analysis
Authors: Zhang Han , Shi Guocheng , Chen Huiwen
Published: June 2022

OBJECTIVES

A meta-analysis was performed to investigate the risk factors for postoperative pulmonary venous obstruction (PVO) after surgical repair of total anomalous pulmonary venous connection (TAPVC).

METHODS

Data bases including PubMed, Embase, Web of Science and Cochrane Library were searched systematically. The goal was to discuss the risk factors for postoperative PVO after TAPVC. Publications were screened by 2 authors independently for criteria inclusion, methodological quality assessment and data extraction. The Newcastle-Ottawa Scale and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality checklist were obtained to assess the quality of the studies. Data were pooled by the random effect model or the fixed effect model according to the heterogeneity test.

RESULTS

A total of 16 studies (2,385 participants) were included in the meta-analysis. All included studies were retrospective studies. Six potential risk factors were pooled, 5 of which were significantly associated with postoperative PVO. Patients with preoperative PVO were more likely to suffer from postoperative PVO [odds ratio (OR)=5.27, 95% confidence interval (CI) = (2.75, 10.11), P < 0.01]. Compared with a sutureless procedure, the conventional operative procedure was associated with postoperative PVO [OR = 1.80, 95% CI=(1.20, 2.71), P < 0.01]. A mixed type TAPVC plays a critical role in postoperative PVO [OR = 3.78, 95% CI=(1.08, 13.18), P = 0.04]. Inverse variance analysis showed that longer cardiopulmonary bypass time [hazard ratio (HR)=1.01, 95% CI=(1.01, 1.02), P < 0.00001] and aortic cross-clamp time [HR = 1.01, 95% CI=(1.01, 1.02), P < 0.01] were significantly associated with postoperative PVO. Heterotaxy [OR = 1.18, 95% CI = 0.13, 10.45, P = 0.88] was not statistically significant as a risk factor for postoperative PVO.

CONCLUSIONS

This meta-analysis may provide a perspective on the risk factors for postoperative PVO after TAPVC, thus leading to more studies predicting postoperative PVO after TAPVC with our findings.