bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
The Co-development of Offshore Wind and Hydrogen in the UK – A Case Study of Milford Haven South Wales
Authors: Fan Fulin , Nwobu John , Campos-Gaona David
Published: May 2023

Green hydrogen produced from renewable energy resources can not only contribute to the decarbonisation of different energy sectors, but also serve as a carrier for long-distance delivery of renewable generation, offering a cost-effective way to exploit the renewables far from electrical grids. To facilitate the co-development of offshore wind and hydrogen, the paper develops a modelling framework to dispatch power and hydrogen flows across dedicated offshore wind hydrogen production systems to meet onshore hydrogen demands while keeping similar state of charge levels between multiple systems. Then the hydrogen supply to shore and the system investments and ongoing costs are discounted to their present values to calculate the levelised cost of hydrogen, which is minimised by the particle swarm optimsiation algorithm to suggest the best capacities of hydrogen system components including converters, desalination devices, electrolysers, compressors and storage assets. The proposed modelling framework is tested based on a case study at Milford Haven South Wales which is evaluated to have massive offshore wind resources in the Celtic Sea and comparable demands for hydrogen by 2040. The optimisation results are presented based on the techno-economic input parameters projected for 2030 and 2050 scenarios and discussed alongside the influences of technology advances on the system optimisation and resulting metrics including the levelised costs of hydrogen, net present values and potential levels of green hydrogen supply to Milford Haven.
Biocompatibility evaluation of antioxidant cocktail loaded gelatin methacrylamide as bioink for extrusion-based 3D bioprinting
Authors: J Anupama Sekar , Velayudhan Shiny , PR Anil Kumar
Published: May 2023

Three-dimensional (3D) liver bioprinting is a promising technique for creating 3D liver models that can be used for in vitro drug testing, hepatotoxicity studies, and transplantation. The functional performance of 3D bioprinted liver constructs are limited by the lack of cell–cell interactions, which calls for the creation of bioprinted tissue constructs with high cell densities. This study reports the fabrication of 3D bioprinted liver constructs using a novel photocrosslinkable gelatin methacrylamide (GelMA)-based bioink formulation. However, the formation of excess free radicals during photoinitiation poses a challenge, particularly during photocrosslinking of large constructs with high cell densities. Hence, we designed a bioink formulation comprising the base polymer GelMA loaded with an antioxidant cocktail containing vitamin C (L-ascorbic acid (AA)) and vitamin E (α-tocopherol (α-Toc)). We confirmed that the combination of antioxidants loaded in GelMA enhanced the ability to scavenge intracellular reactive oxygen species formed during photocrosslinking. The GelMA formulation was evaluated for biocompatibility in vitro and in vivo. These results demonstrated that the bioink had adequate rheological characteristics and was biocompatible. Furthermore, when compared to bioprinted constructs with lower cell density, high-density primary rat hepatocyte constructs demonstrated improved cell-cell interactions and liver-specific functions like albumin and urea secretion, which increased 5-fold and 2.5-fold, respectively.
The role of green roofs as urban habitats for biodiversity modulated by their design: a review
Authors: Coulibaly Sékou F M , Aubry Christine , Provent Fanny , Rousset-Rouvière Sophie , Joimel Sophie
Published: May 2023

In view of the demographic revolution and the rapid development of urban environments, the installation of green roofs could be a tool to ensure human well-being (e.g. heat island reduction, rainwater management), or to increase urban biodiversity. However, the relationships between biodiversity and green roofs are not yet clear and little research has looked into this. We therefore reviewed studies on the overall biodiversity of green roofs. Our review has shown that there is a lack of knowledge of the biodiversity of green roofs, with recent consideration. We highlighted the importance of green roof contribution, in maintaining urban biodiversity through three lines of research: characterization, modes of use and design. Furthermore, we found that there were very few studies on soil biodiversity on this topic. We concluded that green roof construction guidelines should integrate soil communities into their design and aim to be heterogeneous at roof and landscape level. Future research should focus on the diversification and redundancy of rooftop conditions in the urban matrix. This would increase the area of green habitats and the success of species dispersal in cities.
Integral preserving discretization of 2D Toda lattices
Authors: Smirnov Sergey V
Published: May 2023

There are different methods of discretizing integrable systems. We consider semi-discrete analog of two-dimensional Toda lattices associated to the Cartan matrices of simple Lie algebras that was proposed by Habibullin in 2011. This discretization is based on the notion of Darboux integrability. Generalized Toda lattices are known to be Darboux integrable in the continuous case (that is, they admit complete families of characteristic integrals in both directions). We prove that semi-discrete analogs of Toda lattices associated to the Cartan matrices of all simple Lie algebras are Darboux integrable. By examining the properties of Habibullin’s discretization we show that if a function is a characteristic integral for a generalized Toda lattice in the continuous case, then the same function is a characteristic integral in the semi-discrete case as well. We consider characteristic algebras of such integral-preserving discretizations of Toda lattices to prove the existence of complete families of characteristic integrals in the second direction.
Fungicide resistance of Fusarium oxysporum f.sp. cepae isolated from shallot in Brebes
Authors: Poromarto S H , Hadiwiyono  , Supyani  , Supriyadi  , Permatasari F I
Published: May 2023

Brebes, Central Java is the largest shallot centre in Indonesia. Shallot are planted intensively in this area. The most detrimental disease of the plants is moler caused by Fusarim oxysporum f.sp. cepae, FOCe. Fungicide applications are carried out periodically every 3-5 days. However, the disease severity is still quite high. There is even a tendency to increase every year. In addition, continuous use of the fungicides can cause adverse effects on the control itself, such as the emergence of fungicide resistance. Field testing aims to evaluate the effectiveness of fungicides against moler disease. Lab testing to evaluate FOCe resistance to fungicides. The fungicides used in this research are the fungicide Brands widely used by farmers in this area. The efficacy test results showed that the three Brands were not effective (efficacy below 50%). There are indications that FOCe is resistant to two merks of fungicides with active ingredients, Chlorothalonil and Propineb.
Connectivity and integration analysis of karst tourism objects in Wonogiri with Space Syntax Method
Authors: Nugroho Purwanto Setyo , Purwani Ofita , Winarto Yosafat , Triratma Bambang , Setyaningsih Wiwik
Published: May 2023

Gunung Sewu in Wonogiri Regency has been recognized by UNESCO with its designation as a Global Geopark Natural Heritage. The recognition is based on its karst formation which considered to have universal value therefore needs to be protected. The recognition is a significant capital for tourism development. However, this global geopark is still underdeveloped in Wonogiri area. To plan tourism development in Wonogiri area which has been marginalized in decades in tourism development, we use space syntax tool. This tool which is developed in University College London has a strength in analyzing spatial configuration that can help predict human spatial behavior. The results show that the distribution of Karst formations in Gunung Sewu, Wonogiri Regency has variations in the value of the level of connectivity and integration that can be used as priority considerations in its development.
Analysis of potential water recharge areas using spatial multi-criteria evaluation in Denpasar City, Bali, Indonesia
Authors: Trigunasih N M , Wiguna P P K , Arthagama I D W , Susila K D , Narka I W , Handayani N P U
Published: May 2023

Occupied by a fairly large population, Denpasar City (Bali Province, Indonesia) is experiencing landuse change into residential areas. A reduction in the water recharge area has been recognized as one of the consequences. The purpose of this study was to determine the condition and distribution of water recharge zones in the city. Geographic Information System (GIS) was used to overlay maps of soil type, rainfall, slope, and landuse as the input to Spatial Multi-Criteria Evaluation (SMCE). The research output is a map of potential recharge zones in Denpasar City. Results showed six criteria for their conditions: good, normal/natural, slightly degraded or at the early stage of degradation, moderately degraded, degraded, and severely degraded. The majority of the potential water recharge areas were moderately degraded (covering an area of 7860.87 ha), degraded (2049.19 ha), degraded (1653.21 ha), severely degraded (292.45 ha), good (280.29 ha), and normal/natural (205.96 ha).
Effect of size and additives on the decomposition process and nutrient content of urban organic waste compost
Authors: Najib Nardy Noerman , Nugroho Hunggul Yudono Setio Hadi , Isnan Wahyudi , Saad Muh.
Published: May 2023

To participate in overcoming the problem of 500 tons of organic waste per day in Makassar City, in 2017-2019 Environment and Forestry Research and Development Institute of Macassar conducted research activities to develop community-based organic waste management models for pollution control and urban farming development. One of the activities is making compost from urban litter using a shredding machine to speed up the decomposition process, and mixing household waste rich in N, P, K and micro nutrients to increase the nutrient content of the compost. Observations showed that the litter mincing process significantly accelerated the decomposition process. Furthermore, the addition of nutrient-rich material from household waste into compost material has increased the nutrient content of compost which is higher than the SNI standard, thereby increasing the competitive value of compost against factory-made chemical fertilizers. These two activities have an impact on increasing public interest in managing urban organic waste to reduce pollution while developing urban farming.
Potential mapping of rural tourism clusters through application of spatial decision making system as a base of sustainable tourism planning
Authors: Fafurida  , Purwaningsih Y , Mulyanto  , Suryanto
Published: May 2023

Indonesia is rich of nature, culture, customs, culinary, and religions spread over many regions. The majority of Indonesia territory is rural areas. The existing potentials and attractions in rural areas make a lot of villages developed into tourist villages. One region that has quite a high number of tourist villages is Semarang Regency, Central Java, Indonesia. The high number of tourist villages that belongs to Semarang Regency is actually not in line with the high length of stay of the visiting tourists. Therefore, it requires the right method to develop the rural tourism potential, which is cluster-based rural tourism development. The purpose of this research is to develop a methodology for identifying the potential area of rural tourism clusters in geographic feature. The method used is Geographic Information System (GIS) based Kernel Density Estimation (KDE). The analysis brings to a map that identifies regions with strong cluster potential to develop the informative rural tourism. The map generated clearly indicates that the regions with strong potentials to become tourist village cluster in Semarang Regency are the combined cluster areas of Ungaran and Bergas District and Sumowono District. Hopefully the generated map will be informative for the stakeholders, the policy makers, and the tourism development area organizers.
Identifying the relationship between changes in vegetation indices and the anthropogenic activities in the tropical Semarang City of Indonesia using space imagery
Authors: Sudarmanto B , Suranto S , Suntoro S , Sutrisno J
Published: May 2023

The existence of vegetation in the watershed area as a function of maintaining the continuity of the process of soil infiltration, erosion resistance, and landslide resistance is essential. Studies that measure the existence of vegetation through vegetation index parameters by utilizing optical-based satellite imagery maps, as well as radiometric waves or Radio Detection and Ranging (RADAR), have been widely carried out. However, attempts to test it to formulate it into vegetation resilience indices on the scale of functional areas such as watersheds are still a challenge in itself. In this study, the vegetation resilience index was measured by looking for spatial change patterns from Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI) in 2015-2021. This spatial pattern change is associated with anthropogenic factors represented by the dynamics of changes in vegetation to housing and population distribution. The use of residential land is obtained from the interpretation of optical-based satellite imagery maps from Google Earth sources mitigated by the administrative boundaries of villages. The population change was obtained from statistical data on the village’s population in the same year. The change in vegetation index, residential, and inhabitants were examined by the Spatial Autocorrelation (SA) using the Global Moran’s Index (GMI). Finally, the changes in the spatial patterns in vegetation indices, residentials index, and inhabitant index were conducted with correlation analysis to determine the relationship between these parameters. The results of GMI indicate a tendency towards dispersion in NDVI and SAVI, which showed a linear index decline in the dry season but weak linear indices incline in the wet season. The trend of dispersion patterns also occurs in residential and inhabitants, showing a linear index decline with a high confidence level (R2=0.9171 in residentials and R2=0.5872 in inhabitants). The relationship between pattern changes in NDVI and SAVI and Residential and Inhabitant found by the following formula; NDVI = 0.214173 -3.12952 * Residential + 6.457788 * Inhabitant; SAVI = 0.101544 + 0.120294 * Residential + 1.963223 * Inhabitant.
Effects of cathodic protection potential on microbiologically induced corrosion behavior of X70 steel in a near-neutral pH solution
Authors: Chen Xu , Cui Wenxuan , Wang Yuhan , Li Chengyuan , Wang Kun
Published: May 2023

Sulfate reducing bacteria (SRB) are considered as one of the main causes for the failures of buried metal pipes. Although many researchers reported that more negative cathodic protection potential was required in environments containing SRB, SRB would increase the concentration of hydrogen adsorbed on steel surface and thus lead to hydrogen embrittlement. In the study, the optimum cathodic protection (CP) potentials of X70 steel in bacterial and sterile media were evaluated with electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. The morphology and composition of corrosion products were characterized by a scanning electron microscope (SEM), an energy dispersion x-ray spectrometer (EDS), and an x-ray photoelectron spectrometer (XPS). The corrosion morphology of X70 steel in NS4 medium was pits and the corrosion in the bacterial medium was more serious than that in the sterile medium. The corrosion products of X70 steel were FeOOH and Fe2O3 in the sterile medium, whereas its corrosion products in the bacterial medium were FeOOH and FeS. When CP potential was −775 mV, SRB growth was promoted and the optimal protection effect on X70 steel was achieved in the bacterial NS4 medium. Pits were still observed under the biofilm and the corresponding corrosion mechanism was extracellular electron transfer (EET). When CP potential was −875 mV, X70 steel realized the optimal protection in the sterile NS4 solution. However, CO2 hydrolysis and SRB metabolism in the bacterial medium resulted in hydrogen-induced pits. When CP potential was −1025 mV, the growth of SRB was inhibited and severe hydrogen evolution corrosion occurred on X70 steel in bacterial and sterile NS4 media. The optimal CP potential for pipeline steel in the sterile medium may lead to hydrogen corrosion in the bacterial medium when H+ concentration was high.
Transcolonial Studies
Authors: Harrison Olivia C.
Published: May 2023

Since the beginning of the 21st century, scholars of race and empire have been invested in exploring the horizontal vectors that stretch across and between imperial formations, displacing the vertical axis of North-South relations taken to be characteristic of early postcolonial theory. An analytical framework that seeks to capture the relationality of empire and the transversal modes of resistance against it, transcolonial studies offers a methodology for apprehending the coloniality of the present. The term transcolonial was coined in the 1990s, but the horizontal relationalities it describes are as old as empire itself. Europe’s colonial ventures were relational from the start, driven by competition for hegemony over seas and land and modeled on the likeness of empires past and present. Likewise, resistance to colonial conquest and governance took shape in relation to liberation struggles elsewhere and drew inspiration from previous and ongoing revolts in Haiti, Algeria, Vietnam, and Palestine. The movements for racial justice and decolonization that have followed in the wake of empire are similarly rooted in practices of solidarity that span subject positions without conflating them, from Standing Rock to Gaza and Black Lives Matter. Such unexpected solidarities among heterogeneously racialized and colonized subjects and their majoritarian allies work to undo the reified identities produced in colonial and racial discourse, undermining the competitive identitarian model inaugurated by the divide-and-conquer methods of high colonialism. To describe these alliances as transcolonial is also to acknowledge that Euro-colonial modernity continues to shape the purportedly postcolonial present. The prefix trans is temporal as much as it is geographic and political.
Health, Medicine, and Literature in the American Context
Authors: Diedrich Lisa
Published: May 2023

Writers have long explored illness and care as key themes in a wide range of work across a variety of literary genres. In the second half of the 20th century, literature and medicine emerged as a subfield of literary study as well as a component of medical education. In the American context, since the 1970s, research and teaching methods associated with the subfield of literature and medicine have become increasingly institutionalized in universities and medical schools. As with many emergent fields, there has been much debate around the name of the field and its primary objects of study and methods of analysis. Interdisciplinary scholars have expanded the field from a narrow focus on literature to a broader interest in the multiplicity of discourses, texts, genres, and forms—including verbal, visual, digital, and multimodal forms of creative expression and pedagogy. As a response to this expansion beyond literature, several alternatives to “literature and medicine” have been proposed and institutionalized as part of the process of field formation. Around 2000, “narrative medicine” emerged as a clinical practice that emphasizes the role of stories in medical encounters and seeks to teach health practitioners narrative competence as a form of care. Other scholars have debated whether “medical humanities” or “health humanities” best captures the parameters and investments of the field, with health humanities offered as a more inclusive name indicating the importance of spaces, practices, and practitioners beyond the institution of medicine. Some scholars have proposed “health studies” or “critical health studies” as encouraging the cross-fertilization of theories and methods from the humanities and social sciences (including medical sociology, history of medicine, philosophy, and literary studies), as well as from the interdisciplinary fields of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, science studies, critical race studies, and disability studies, into medical and health thought and practice. Scholars calling for a more critical medical humanities or health studies argue for the importance of structural analysis and an examination of how power operates in medicine and health care. Many notable developments—including the turns to narrative, to comics, and to structural analysis—have had global impacts, especially in light of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. The experience of illness and its diagnosis and treatment connects the local and phenomenological—the embodied individual in the world and in relation to others (loved ones, caretakers, health practitioners, health advocates, and activists)—with national and transnational systems and structures, including health care policies and delivery services, basic and applied medical research and development, and poverty, racism, war, climate change, and other environmental factors contributing to the increasing precarity of vulnerable people and health disparities between populations.
Kuaer Theory
Authors: Lescure Ryan M.
Published: May 2023

Although queer theory was profoundly influenced by the womanist feminism of the 1980s and its emphasis on the ways in which intersectionality affects lived experience, popular queer theorizing generally lost this as it became more popular in academic contexts during the 1990s. Generally, the popular queer scholarship that was being published in the 1990s did not pay much attention to the diversity of queer experiences and subjectivities. Because many popular queer theorists at the time were White, affluent, cisgender, and based in the United States, their scholarship, while anti-heteronormative, tended to reflect their privileged racial, socioeconomic, gendered, national, and cultural standpoints. Subsequently, this scholarship tended to construct a singular, definitive, and universal queer subject position as White, affluent, cisgender, and based in the United States.

Wenshu Lee’s kuaer theory is an example of one of the first significant theoretical challenges to queer theory’s problematic universalizing tendencies. Initially advanced in 2003, kuaer theory is influenced by postcolonialism, womanism, and E. Patrick Johnson’s quare studies, which Lee characterizes as having advanced queer theory in a similar way that womanism did for feminism. Finding inspiration in the writing of Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, Cherríe Moraga, and Gloria Anzaldúa, kuaer theory applies womanist concepts to expand on the foundation built by Johnson’s quare studies, which calls for queer theorists to focus on the particularity and diversity of sexualities as well as the ways in which sexualities relate to and are shaped by race, gender, socioeconomic class, and culture. Kuaer theory agrees with and advocates for all of these things, but it notably adds a transnational perspective and emphasizes that queer theorists must also highlight the relationships between sexualities and nation, nationality, power, and culture at the local, national, and transnational levels. Kuaer theory notes that queerness, queer activism, and queer knowledges are not exclusive to the United States or to the Western world. Because of this, kuaer theory encourages queer theorists to emphasize the local and intersectional particularities of people’s sexual experiences and subjectivities while simultaneously being critical of the ways in which queer theory itself often reproduces imperialism and cultural hierarchies at the global level.

Kuaer theory continues to be influential among queer theorists, especially for its critique of queer theory’s often implicit reproduction of hierarchies. Like quare studies, kuaer theory is often cited by queer theorists who challenge queer theory’s continued general inattention to intersectionality and to the multiplicity of queer subjectivities. Finally, kuaer theory’s emphasis on transnational and transcultural perspectives as well as its criticism of queer theory’s imperialistic consequences has proven to be a substantial influence on critical intercultural communication and the emerging field of queer intercultural communication.
Collaboration in Organizations
Authors: McClellan John G.
Published: May 2023

Among organizational communication scholars, the term collaboration is most often used when exploring interactive practices by which a variety of organizational stakeholders (individuals, groups, or organizational representatives) engage in generative conversations to accomplish collective tasks, contend with mutual problems, or pursue mutually beneficial goals. An emergent collaborative turn in organization studies arose as the complex and interconnected challenges facing contemporary organizations intersected with increased acceptance of the constitutive relationship of communication and organizing and growing concern about the inherent politics of meaning making. Motivated by mutual understanding, rather than persuasion and control, scholars focused on collaboration in organizations to attend to the complex ways organizational decisions are made as well as how organizational practices and overall understandings of organizations are constituted and by whom. As interest in collaboration emerged, scholars increasingly recognized the value of mutual engagement as a key motivating force for generating creativity and innovative decision-making. Across the interdisciplinary research on collaboration, covering a wide range of organizational contexts and issues, several discourses of collaboration have emerged. These meta-perspectives of collaboration include collaboration as collective activity, collaboration as responsive engagement, collaboration as pursuit of equitable relations, collaboration as dialogic process, and collaboration as constituted in communication. Future research on collaboration can provide meaningful insights into contemporary organization studies especially if it is attentive to issues of diversity and intercultural communication, everyday intraorganizational contexts, new developments in collaborative technologies, and issues of power and the politics of meaning making. As scholars continue to explore varied forms of collaborative organizing, the ongoing study of collaboration in organizations is ripe with potential for contributing to understanding how communication can promote innovative decision-making in ways that realize the benefits of organizational diversity as organizations work to address today’s complex interconnected problems.
Higher Education Equity and Justice
Authors: Isopahkala-Bouret Ulpukka
Published: May 2023

The higher education (HE) equity and social justice agenda is primarily concerned with inequalities in the participation of underrepresented groups. The main purpose of this agenda is to widen access to the social privileges that HE offers. Transnational policy agencies and national governments have advised higher education institutions (HEIs) to deploy relevant indicators and implement inclusive practices, such as financial assistance, nondiscriminatory admission mechanisms, and student guidance and counseling. HEIs have also been funded to provide outreach and widening participation programs in several countries. In the early 21st century, the conceptualization of HE equity and justice has broadened from fair access to more holistic, procedural, and intersectional approaches. Still, the lack of reliable, relevant, and feasible policy indicators and data make it a challenging objective to measure and follow up. Furthermore, research has pointed out the need for contextualized definitions of equity and justice because the specific social and cultural challenges differ from one country to another. Equity and justice manifest themselves in the broader design of national and regional HE systems. Some HE systems have stronger institutional stratification and financial barriers than others, hence restraining the fairness of access and social inclusion. The application of Pierre Bourdieu’s sociological theory has dominated much of the research on structural constraints of HE equity and justice. An understanding of the connection between structure/agency and the cultural reproduction opens up new avenues for the development of HE equity and justice in both policy and practice.
Slavery and Forced Labor in Madagascar
Authors: Campbell Gwyn R.
Published: May 2023

Madagascar, the fourth largest island in the world, was first permanently settled in about the mid-9th century. Slavery was present on the island from the first, but a slave export trade became significant only from the mid-18th century because of demand from the French islands of Réunion and Mauritius. Most of the literature has focused on slavery in, and the slave trades involving, Imerina, until 1817 a landlocked kingdom in the central highlands of Madagascar. In 1820, Radama I of Imerina signed a treaty with the British in which he banned the slave export trade. However, the measure was effective only in Merina-controlled regions of the island, and the traffic in slaves, predominantly to the French islands of the western Indian Ocean, continued, albeit in clandestine form. Moreover, the 1820 ban applied only to exports, and there arose a lively trade in imported East African slaves. At the same time, Merina military expansion resulted in the enslavement of thousands of non-Merina Malagasy women and children.

Of greater significance than slavery was forced labor. In pre-colonial times, fanompoana, or unremunerated forced labor for the Merina crown, was originally an honorary service of limited duration. However, from 1820, it was applied on such a scale that it resulted in the impoverishment of the vast bulk of ordinary people subjected to Merina authority. In 1896, following the French takeover of the island, the colonial regime decreed the abolition of slavery but maintained a system of corvée labor as exploitative as pre-colonial fanompoana. Many former slaves chose to remain in servitude to their former masters rather than become subject to corvées, which also underlay a massive revolt that erupted in 1947 in the coffee-growing regions of the eastern littoral, foreshadowing the demise of French colonial rule. In the post-independence era, a forced labor regime for youths was reinstituted from 1978 to 1990, while descendants of ex-slaves have largely retained their servile status, and many have remained socially and economically marginalized.
Annexation
Authors: O'Leary Brendan
Published: May 2023

Annexation refers to both the unlawful and the lawful incorporation of a territory and its people into another state. In contemporary international law, unilateral annexation of a territory is unlawful. It was not always so. Previous international law recognized a right of conquest and other modes of acquiring territory without popular consent. Unification of territories accomplished through authentic processes of consent may, however, lead to annexation that is lawful, both domestically and internationally. The subdisciplines of international law, international relations, and comparative politics respectively have distinct literatures on annexation. International law addresses its normative appropriateness, international relations examines whether the incidence of unilateral annexation has declined because of legal prohibitions or for other reasons, and scholars of comparative politics address why governments may annex territories—among other options.
Seyyed Hossein Nasr
Authors: Faruque Muhammad U.
Published: May 2023

Seyyed Hossein Nasr is a contemporary Islamic philosopher with global influence. His oeuvre covers an extended field from the perennial philosophy, which dominates his philosophical worldview, to religion, science, environmental studies, education, and the arts with particular attention to Islamic and comparative studies, as well as criticism of modernism. Grounded in Islamic tradition, Nasr’s far-reaching ideas have been acknowledged by the global scholarly community. Nasr is the only Muslim thinker included in the Library of Living Philosophers (LLP). Since its inception in 1939, the LLP has featured some of the greatest of the 20th century’s Western philosophers and scientists, namely A. N. Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, J. P. Sartre, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Richard Rorty, and Hilary Putnam. Nasr was also the first Muslim and non-Westerner to deliverthe prestigious Gifford lectures whose contributors also include prominent intellectuals such as Hannah Arendt, Noam Chomsky, William James, Iris Murdoch, Charles Taylor, and Rowan Williams.

Nasr’s written corpus contains some thirty thousand pages in print, which have generated a great deal of interest, contention, and controversy in the Islamic world and beyond. One should also consider his innumerable media appearances, public lectures, and interviews that often complement and expand upon his written corpus. Nasr is perhaps most famous for being one of the first people to predict, diagnose, and provide a response to the ecological crisis, having spoken out on the topic as early as 1966. He is considered the father of “Islamic environmentalism,” which is now gaining momentum in the Muslim world. Nasr also made important contributions to topics such as Islamic science and philosophy, religious pluralism, Islamic art and spirituality, and Sufi-Chinese dialogue.
Paraguayan Science and the Environment: A Historical Survey
Authors: Wilcox Robert W.
Published: May 2023

Much of environmental knowledge understood by an evolving scientific world from the early explorations of Europeans to the 21st century has originated in colonial possessions or developing nations. Observations by explorers, colonial officials, and visiting scientists to Latin America stimulated considerable interest in North Atlantic scientific circles, yet the contributions of Indigenous peoples, clergymen, and local scientists in furthering natural science/environmental knowledge often have received little attention from the historical community. This has begun to change in the 21st century, and roles of small nations are beginning to be recognized, including Paraguay. From the early colonial period, Paraguay was considered something of a promised land with abundant natural life and resources and, as such, a focus of interest for many aspiring practitioners of natural science, including members of the Catholic Church. By the late 18th century, traditional observational approaches conflicted with evolving European scientific rationalism, while political independence in the early 19th century generated attempts across the Americas to understand nature and environmental conditions through the imperative of economic growth. In Paraguay, this was delayed by national politics and war, but later in the century, the country embarked on a tentative path of economic development. While many observers criticized the impact of development practices, environmental science gradually transformed into a “scientific nationalism,” defined through the concept of a national nature. This evolved into developmentalist imperatives by the mid-20th century, leading to rapid degradation of the natural world. In the 21st century, the country is facing an environmental crisis, suffering some of the most extensive deforestation and related ecological destruction in the world. The convoluted path Paraguayan environmental science followed from early awed impressions to today’s critical concerns provides some insight into how scientists in poor and remote regions engaged with their natural worlds and attempted to understand nature in the face of multiple pressures: economic, political, and scientific.
temple, Greek
Authors: Sapirstein Philip
Published: May 2023

By the 8th century bce, the temple was emerging in Greek sanctuaries as a new type of building which served symbolically as a deity’s house and accommodated the cult image and votives. After a period of intensifying investment and experimentation with new forms, the Doric and Ionic styles emerged in the first half of the 6th century bce and soon became the two dominant systems. As richly adorned monumental temples proliferated throughout Greece in the ensuing centuries, innovation occurred within these two frameworks through continuous adjustments to proportion and profiles, refinements, and the blending and remixing of elements from both systems. A new type of capital known as the Corinthian was developed during the Classical period and deployed as a third architectural system in its own right by the later Hellenistic era. We learn much of Greek architectural practice from the ancient writer Vitruvius as well as construction accounts, but current knowledge of the origins of Greek architecture and its developments over the Archaic through Hellenistic periods is most deeply informed by the architectural study of the archaeological remains of Greek temples.
Circus Maximus
Authors: Buonfiglio Marialetizia
Published: May 2023

The Circus Maximus in Rome has a history that spans more than a millennium. The complex gradually took form in what was once the Murcia Valley, a wide space that, from the regal period, was organized to house equestrian events, the ludi circensi, held during major religious festivals. The first permanent building, later reconstructed by Trajan, was established at the end of the 1st century bce and constituted the architectural model of reference for other circuses in the Empire. The Circus of Rome was a large, highly functional, multipurpose structure, able to accommodate a vast number of spectators. It not only provided a venue for the majority of popular spectacles as well as civic, ludic, and military events, but it also represented an urban area of great attraction for the daily life of the city due to the numerous commercial and entertainment spaces located in its interior.
Relative Clauses in the Romance Languages
Authors: Cecchetto Carlo , Donati Caterina
Published: May 2023

Relative clauses are subordinate clauses acting as nominal modifiers. They can be finite or nonfinite in Romance languages, with finite relative clauses largely more productive and widespread across varieties. Relative clauses contain a position interpreted anaphorically to the modified noun phrase (NP) that can correspond to a gap (as in most standard varieties) or to a resumptive pronoun, as in Romanian and in many substandard varieties. In most Romance languages, relative clauses are introduced either by the invariant element che/que or by some relative pronoun (il quale/lequel/el cual . . .) depending on the grammatical function of the variable it refers to.
Disaster Risk and Decision-Making
Authors: Warner Jeroen , Dewulf Art
Published: May 2023

Disasters call for rapid decision-making, with precious little time to select a course of action among several possible alternative options. Disaster risk decision-making is situated in the context of the shifting understandings of decision-making under uncertainty, intensified by climate change. Three research traditions are identified in decision-making: (a) classic analytical decision-making theories, (b) naturalistic decision-making (NDM) and sense-making, and (c) multiple streams and complexity approaches. Crisis decision-making and risk decision-making are increasingly becoming intertwined.
The dynamics of external water conduction in the dryland moss Syntrichia
Authors: Jauregui-Lazo Javier , Wilson Marielle , Mishler Brent D
Published: May 2023

Syntrichia relies on external water conduction for photosynthesis, survival, and reproduction, a condition referred to as ectohydry. Capillarity spaces are abundant in Syntrichia, but the link between function and morphology is complex. The aim of this study was to provide a better understanding of species-specific morphological traits underlying the functions of water conduction and storage. We used an environmental scanning electron microscope and confocal microscopy for observing anatomical characters in the leaves of Syntrichia species. We also measured hydration/dehydration curves to understand the rate of conduction and dehydration by experimental approaches. Syntrichia is an ectohydric moss that can externally transport and store water from the base of the stem using capillary action. We propose a new framework to study ectohydric capabilities, which incorporates three morphological scales and the timing of going from completely dehydrated to fully hydrated. Characters of interest in this model include cell anatomy (papillae development, hyaline basal cells and laminar cells), architecture of the stem (concavity and orientation) and whole clump characteristics (density of stems). We report significant variations in the speed of conduction, water holding capacity and hydration associated with each species studied (11 in total). All Syntrichia species are capable of external water conduction and storage, but the relevant traits differ among species. These results help to understand potential evolutionary and ecological trade-offs among speed of water conduction, water holding capacity, ontogeny, and differing habitat requirements. An integrative view of ectohydry in Syntrichia contributes to understanding the water relationships of mosses.
4E analysis and optimization of cold thermal-energy storage under partial operating mode and demand-limiting mode for air-conditioning systems
Authors: Hosseinjany Salar , Ahmadi-Danesh-Ashtiani Hossien , Khoshgard Ahmad , Fazaeli Reza
Published: May 2023

Cold thermal energy storage is an active method for reducing the peak electrical demand and electricity consumption of air conditioners. This paper investigates two different cases: partial operating mode–load levelling (POM–LL) and demand-limiting mode (DLM). 4E (energy, exergy, economic, environment) analyses along with a multi-objective optimization process based on a genetic algorithm is applied to determine optimal design values. Exergy efficiency, total annual cost and payback-period time are considered as objective functions in this study. The results have shown that POM and DLM decreased the electricity consumption by 10.36% and 11.29%, respectively, resulting in raising the annual costs by 11.08% and 11.42%. Also, their annual payback periods were 4.36 and 4.18 years each. In addition, using off-peak hours instead of on-peak hours for electricity consumption and reducing electricity consumption are the two main ways of decreasing CO2 emissions during electricity generation. Therefore, the CO2 emissions through POM and DLM are 13.31% and 13.72% less than those of conventional systems, respectively.
Techno-economic optimization of a sustainable system to cogenerate power and water for remote areas
Authors: Akhavan Shams Sina , Ahmadi Rouhollah
Published: May 2023

In this study, a new water and power cogeneration plant, employing photovoltaic (PV) and photovoltaic–thermal (PVT) panels simultaneously, is designed and optimized for a village struggling to provide energy and potable water in Iran. The system includes a solar energy unit to generate clean electricity and heat, and a reverse osmosis unit to produce drinking water. Techno-economic optimization is performed by implementing a genetic algorithm, and a comprehensive water and energy management strategy is designed and presented in detail, expandable for future works. A new method, the logarithmic model, is used to calculate the depth of discharge (DOD) of lithium-ion batteries, which was previously a fixed and predetermined value in previous papers. Various indices, the constraints of the optimization process, are also introduced to measure the reliabilities of different units. The effects of the system components on total cost are investigated and a comprehensive sensitivity analysis is performed to find the best solution to increase the penetration of renewable-energy systems. The results reveal that considering the depth of discharge of batteries and water storage tank capacity as decision variables reduces the system’s life-cycle cost (by 5.1% for changeable DODs). Furthermore, the simultaneous use of PV and PVT panels decreases the life-cycle cost considerably by ≤19% compared with the use of only PVT panels. Additionally, the cost of the battery causes a decrease in the cost of electricity storage and the cost of producing and storing fresh water.
Availability, sustainability and accessibility of agro crop residue production and solar radiation in Egypt for producing highly chemical products through pyrolysis processes
Authors: A. El-Sayed Saad , Ismail Mohamed A , Mostafa Mohamed E , Noseir Emad H , Khass Tarek M
Published: May 2023

This study examines the large amount of agricultural waste produced in Egypt between 2010 and 2019 by analysing data from various departments within the Agriculture Ministry. It also provides a comprehensive database on the biomass available from agricultural waste in Egypt and its potential applications for producing power, heat and chemical products. When biomass-pyrolysis systems powered by solar energy are used, research demonstrates the potential to convert agricultural waste into a variety of chemical compounds. This approach utilizes solar energy, a clean and renewable source, and has wide-ranging industrial and power generation applications. Despite Egypt’s reliance on agriculture, the country currently utilizes little biomass for energy production and has not previously used it as a source for creating chemical products, which could potentially save on the imported oil used in these industries. The findings of the study are graphically presented using histograms, pie charts, etc. The overall production of residues reached the 30-Mt level in 2019. Because it contains the most rice-cultivated land, Dakahlia (Lower Egypt region) produces the highest percentage of the total residue (37.17%). Qena governorate (Upper Egypt region) produces 1.14 metric tons of residues, with sugarcane accounting for 20.3% of the total.
The development of sniffing
Authors: Johnson Natalie L , Wesson Daniel W
Published: May 2023

Sniffing is a commonly displayed behavior in rodents, yet how this important behavior adjusts throughout development to meet the sensory demands of the animals has remained largely unexplored. In this issue of Chemical Senses, Boulanger-Bertolus et al. investigates the ontogeny of odor-evoked sniffing through a longitudinal study of rats engaged in several olfactory paradigms from infancy to adulthood. The results of this study yield a cohesive picture of sniffing behavior across three developmental stages, while also providing direct comparisons within subjects between these timepoints. As we discuss herein, these results advance the field in relation to existing literature on the development of odor-evoked sniffing behavior in several important ways.