bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Sexual dimorphism in dynamic body color in the green anole lizard
Authors: Horr Daisy M. , Payne Amy A. , McEntire Kira D. , Johnson Michele A.
Published: March 2023

Animals capable of rapid (i.e., physiological) body color change may use color to respond quickly to changing social or physical environments. Because males and females often differ in their environments, the sexes may use changes in body color differently, reflecting sexual dimorphism in ecological, behavioral, or morphological traits. Green anole lizards, Anolis carolinensis, frequently switch their dorsal body color between bright green and dark brown, a change that requires only seconds, but little is known regarding sexual dimorphism in their color change. We tested three hypotheses for the function of body color (thermoregulation, camouflage via background-matching, and social communication) to determine the ecological role(s) of physiological color change in anoles. First, we examined instantaneous body color to determine relationships between body color and body temperature, substrate color and type, and whether these varied between the sexes. Next, we examined the association between color change and behavioral displays. Altogether, we found that males were more likely to be green than females, and larger lizards were more often green than smaller ones, but there was no evidence that anole body color was associated with body temperature or background color during the summer breeding season. Instead, our results show that although the sexes change their color at approximately the same rates, males changed color more frequently during social displays, while females remained green when displaying. In sum, social communication appears to be the primary function of anole color change, although the functions of body color may differ in the nonbreeding season.

Significance statement

Many animals can change their body color in response to their environments, and in many species, males and females experience different environments. In this study, we examined whether the sexes of green anole lizards use the ability to rapidly change their body color between green and brown for different functions. We found that, when a lizard was first sighted, its body color did not appear to match its background color in either sex (suggesting that color change does not contribute to avoidance of detection by potential predators), and body color was not associated with temperature for either sex (i.e., color was unlikely to influence body temperature). Yet, males changed color more often when performing social displays to other lizards, while females remained green during social displays. Thus, rapid color change plays an important role in social communication in both sexes, highlighting how males and females may use the same behavior to convey different messages.
Transformer-based structuring of free-text radiology report databases
Authors: Nowak S. , Biesner D. , Layer Y. C. , Theis M. , Schneider H. , Block W. , Wulff B. , Attenberger U. I. , Sifa R. , Sprinkart A. M.
Published: March 2023

Objectives

To provide insights for on-site development of transformer-based structuring of free-text report databases by investigating different labeling and pre-training strategies.

Methods

A total of 93,368 German chest X-ray reports from 20,912 intensive care unit (ICU) patients were included. Two labeling strategies were investigated to tag six findings of the attending radiologist. First, a system based on human-defined rules was applied for annotation of all reports (termed “silver labels”). Second, 18,000 reports were manually annotated in 197 h (termed “gold labels”) of which 10% were used for testing. An on-site pre-trained model (Tmlm) using masked-language modeling (MLM) was compared to a public, medically pre-trained model (Tmed). Both models were fine-tuned on silver labels only, gold labels only, and first with silver and then gold labels (hybrid training) for text classification, using varying numbers (N: 500, 1000, 2000, 3500, 7000, 14,580) of gold labels. Macro-averaged F1-scores (MAF1) in percent were calculated with 95% confidence intervals (CI).

Results

Tmlm,gold (95.5 [94.5–96.3]) showed significantly higher MAF1 than Tmed,silver (75.0 [73.4–76.5]) and Tmlm,silver (75.2 [73.6–76.7]), but not significantly higher MAF1 than Tmed,gold (94.7 [93.6–95.6]), Tmed,hybrid (94.9 [93.9–95.8]), and Tmlm,hybrid (95.2 [94.3–96.0]). When using 7000 or less gold-labeled reports, Tmlm,gold (N: 7000, 94.7 [93.5–95.7]) showed significantly higher MAF1 than Tmed,gold (N: 7000, 91.5 [90.0–92.8]). With at least 2000 gold-labeled reports, utilizing silver labels did not lead to significant improvement of Tmlm,hybrid (N: 2000, 91.8 [90.4–93.2]) over Tmlm,gold (N: 2000, 91.4 [89.9–92.8]).

Conclusions

Custom pre-training of transformers and fine-tuning on manual annotations promises to be an efficient strategy to unlock report databases for data-driven medicine.

Key Points

• On-site development of natural language processing methods that retrospectively unlock free-text databases of radiology clinics for data-driven medicine is of great interest.

• For clinics seeking to develop methods on-site for retrospective structuring of a report database of a certain department, it remains unclear which of previously proposed strategies for labeling reports and pre-training models is the most appropriate in context of, e.g., available annotator time.

• Using a custom pre-trained transformer model, along with a little annotation effort, promises to be an efficient way to retrospectively structure radiological databases, even if not millions of reports are available for pre-training.
The association between adherence to a plant-based diet and cognitive ageing
Authors: van Soest Annick P. M. , van de Rest Ondine , Witkamp Renger F. , van der Velde Nathalie , de Groot Lisette C. P. G. M.
Published: March 2023

Purpose

While the benefits of adopting a more plant-based diet for sustainability and animal welfare are clear, its long-term health impacts, including the impact on cognitive ageing, are limited studied. Therefore, we investigated the associations between plant-based diet adherence and cognitive ageing.

Methods

Data from a previous intervention study involving community-dwelling adults aged ≥ 65 years were analysed at baseline (n = 658) and after 2-year follow-up (n = 314). Global and domain-specific cognitive functioning were assessed at both timepoints. Overall, healthful and unhealthful plant-based dietary indices were calculated from a 190-item food frequency questionnaire. Multivariate-adjusted linear regression models were applied to test for associations.

Results

After full-adjustment, higher overall adherence to a plant-based diet was not associated with global cognitive function (difference in Z-score, tertile 1 versus 3 [95% CI]: 0.04 [− 0.05, 0.13] p = 0.40) or cognitive change (− 0.04 [− 0.11, 0.04], p = 0.35). Similarly, healthful and unhealthful plant-based diet indices were not associated with cognitive functioning (respectively p = 0.48; p = 0.87) or change (respectively p = 0.21, p = 0.33). Interestingly, we observed fish consumption to influence the association between plant-based diet adherence and cognitive functioning (p-interaction = 0.01), with only individuals with a fish consumption of ≥ 0.93 portion/week benefitting from better overall plant-based diet adherence (β per 10-point increment [95% CI]: 0.12 [0.03, 0.21] p = 0.01).

Conclusion

We did not demonstrate associations of a more plant-based diet with cognitive ageing. However, possibly such association exists in a subpopulation with higher fish intake. This would be in line with earlier observations that diets rich in plant foods and fish, such as the Mediterranean diet, may be beneficial for cognitive ageing.

Trial registration

Registered at clinicaltrials.gov (NCT00696514) on June 12, 2008.
A novel method for evaluating combined component anteversion in total hip arthroplasty on cross-table lateral hip radiographs
Authors: Dimitriou Dimitris , Zindel Christoph , Winkler Elin , Cornaz Frédéric , Mazel Peter , Zingg Patrick O.
Published: March 2023

Introduction

Accurate measurement of combined component anteversion (CA) is important in evaluating the radiographic outcomes following total hip arthroplasty (THA). The aim of the present study was to evaluate the accuracy and reliability of a novel radiographic method in estimating CA in THA.

Materials and methods

The radiographs and computer tomography of patients who underwent a primary THA were retrospectively reviewed, to measure the radiographic CA (CAr), defined as the angle between a line connecting the center of the femoral head to the most anterior rim of the acetabular cup and a line connecting the center of the femoral head to the base of the femoral head to allow a comparison with the CA measured on the CT (CACT). Subsequently, a computational simulation was performed to evaluate the effect of cup anteversion, inclination, stem anteversion, and leg rotation on the CAr and develop a formula that would correct the CAr according to the acetabular cup inclination based on the best-fit equation.

Results

In the retrospective analysis of 154 THA, the average CAr_cor, and CACT were 53 ± 11° and 54 ± 11° (p > 0.05), respectively. A strong correlation was found between CAr and CACT (r = 0.96, p < 0.001), with an average bias of − 0.5° between CAr_cor and CACT. In the computational simulation, the CAr was strongly affected by the cup anteversion, inclination, stem anteversion, and leg rotation. The formula to convert the CAr to CA_cor was: CA-cor = 1.3*Car − (17* In (Cup Inclination) − 31.

Conclusion

The combined anteversion measurement of THA components on the lateral hip radiograph is accurate and reliable, implying that it could be routinely used postoperatively but also in patients with persistent complaints following a THA.

Level of evidence

Cross-sectional study, Level III.
Training spatial hearing in unilateral cochlear implant users through reaching to sounds in virtual reality
Authors: Valzolgher Chiara , Bouzaid Sabrina , Grenouillet Solene , Gatel Julie , Ratenet Laura , Murenu Francesca , Verdelet Grégoire , Salemme Romeo , Gaveau Valérie , Coudert Aurélie , Hermann Ruben , Truy Eric , Farnè Alessandro , Pavani Francesco
Published: March 2023

Background and Purpose

Use of unilateral cochlear implant (UCI) is associated with limited spatial hearing skills. Evidence that training these abilities in UCI user is possible remains limited. In this study, we assessed whether a Spatial training based on hand-reaching to sounds performed in virtual reality improves spatial hearing abilities in UCI users

Methods

Using a crossover randomized clinical trial, we compared the effects of a Spatial training protocol with those of a Non-Spatial control training. We tested 17 UCI users in a head-pointing to sound task and in an audio-visual attention orienting task, before and after each training.
Study is recorded in clinicaltrials.gov (NCT04183348).

Results

During the Spatial VR training, sound localization errors in azimuth decreased. Moreover, when comparing head-pointing to sounds before vs. after training, localization errors decreased after the Spatial more than the control training. No training effects emerged in the audio-visual attention orienting task.

Conclusions

Our results showed that sound localization in UCI users improves during a Spatial training, with benefits that extend also to a non-trained sound localization task (generalization). These findings have potentials for novel rehabilitation procedures in clinical contexts.
Multimodal sentiment system and method based on CRNN-SVM
Authors: Zhao Yuxia , Mamat Mahpirat , Aysa Alimjan , Ubul Kurban
Published: March 2023

Traditional sentiment analysis focuses on text-level sentiment mining, transforming sentiment mining into classification or regression problems, resulting in a sentiment analysis low accuracy rate. Sentiment analysis refers to the use of natural language processing, text analysis, and computational linguistics to systematically identify, extract, quantify, and study sentimental states. Therefore, more scholars have begun to focus on speech recognition and facial expression recognition research, and extracting and analysing people’s sentiment tendencies can improve sentiment recognition accuracy. Traditional single-modal sentiment analysis can no longer meet people’s needs. Therefore, this paper proposes a multimodal sentiment analysis method based on the multimodal sentiment analysis method that can obtain more sentimental information sources and help people make better decisions. The experimental results in this paper show that the highest recognition rates of CNN-SVM, RNN-SVM, and CRNN-SVM were 76.8%, 71.2%, and 93.5%, respectively. It can be seen that CRNN-SVM has the highest sentiment tendency recognition rate in deep learning, so it is suitable to apply CRNN-SVM to sentiment tendency analysis system design in this paper. The average accuracy rate of the system designed in this paper was 91%, and the stability was also very strong, which shows that the system designed in this paper is meaningful. The main contribution of this paper is based on the limitations of single-mode emotion analysis. It proposes a multimode emotion analysis method and introduces a convolutional neural network to help people obtain more emotional information sources to meet their needs.
Privacy concerns in social media UGC communities: Understanding user behavior sentiments in complex networks
Authors: Saura Jose Ramon , Palacios-Marqués Daniel , Ribeiro-Soriano Domingo
Published: March 2023

In a digital ecosystem where large amounts of data related to user actions are generated every day, important concerns have emerged about the collection, management, and analysis of these data and, according, about user privacy. In recent years, users have been accustomed to organizing in and relying on digital communities to support and achieve their goals. In this context, the present study aims to identify the main privacy concerns in user communities on social media, and how these affect users’ online behavior. In order to better understand online communities in social networks, privacy concerns, and their connection to user behavior, we developed an innovative and original methodology that combines elements of machine learning as a technical contribution. First, a complex network visualization algorithm known as ForceAtlas2 was used through the open-source software Gephi to visually identify the nodes that form the main communities belonging to the sample of UGC collected from Twitter. Then, a sentiment analysis was applied with Textblob, an algorithm that works with machine learning on which experiments were developed with support vector classifier (SVC), multinomial naïve Bayes (MNB), logistic regression (LR), random forest, and classifier (RFC) under the theoretical frameworks of computer-aided text analysis (CATA) and natural language processing (NLP). As a result, a total of 11 user communities were identified: the positive protection software and cybersecurity and eCommerce, the negative privacy settings, personal information and social engineering, and the neutral privacy concerns, hacking, false information, impersonation and cookies data. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and their relation to user behavior in digital environments and an outline valuable and practical insights into some techniques and challenges related to users’ personal data.
The European Commission and the “Europeanisation” of EU trade diplomacy: the case of EU-China relations, 1999–2021
Authors: van der Harst Jan
Published: March 2023

In recent times, the European Commission has shown to have increasing difficulty keeping up its central position in trade diplomacy towards China, in the face of a growing wariness and assertiveness of the member states. In this article, we observe a changing balance, a development from EU diplomacy towards European diplomacy, meaning a growing influence of EU member states in the process. We call this the “Europeanisation” of EU economic diplomacy. This is not limited to China and reflects a broader development, as is visible in the politicisation of the negotiation processes towards the (failed) Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) and the (provisionally applied) Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) between the EU and Canada, and also in the trend towards mixed agreements that require member state ratification. However, it was particularly in the relations with China that such trends became visible for the first time and have continued to manifest themselves throughout the years. Apart from the member states assembled in the Council, also the European Parliament has strengthened its position in the process at the expense of the Commission.
Non-mass lesions on breast ultrasound: why does not the ACR BI-RADS breast ultrasound lexicon add the terminology?
Authors: Uematsu Takayoshi
Published: March 2023

The definition of a non-mass lesion on breast ultrasound (US) is designed for everyday practice to provide unambiguous clinical management and to assist physicians and sonographers as they interpret breast US images. The field of breast imaging research requires consistent and standardized terminology for non-mass lesions identified on breast US, especially when differentiating benign from malignant lesions. Physicians and sonographers should be aware of the benefits and limitations of the terminology and use them precisely. I am hopeful that the next edition of the Breast Imaging Reporting and Data System (BI-RADS) lexicon will include standardized terminology for describing non-mass lesions detected on breast US.
Third-look contrast-enhanced ultrasonography plus needle biopsy for differential diagnosis of magnetic resonance imaging-only detected breast lesions
Authors: Miyake Tomohiro , Shimazu Kenzo
Published: March 2023

Research has shown that in approximately 20–30% of cases, breast lesions that were not detected on mammography (MG) or ultrasonography (US) were incidentally found during preoperative magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) examination for breast cancer. MRI-guided needle biopsy is recommended or considered for such MRI-only detected breast lesions invisible on second-look US, but many facilities in Japan cannot perform this biopsy procedure because it is expensive and time consuming. Thus, a simpler and more accessible diagnostic method is needed. Two studies to date have shown that third-look contrast-enhanced US (CEUS) plus needle biopsy for MRI-only detected breast lesions (i.e., MRI + /MG-/US-) that were not detected on second-look US showed moderate/high sensitivity (57.1 and 90.9%) and high specificity (100.0% in both studies) with no severe complications. In addition, the identification rate was higher for MRI-only lesions with a higher MRI BI-RADS category (i.e., category 4/5) than for those with a lower category (i.e., category 3). Despite the fact that there are limitations in our literature review, CEUS plus needle biopsy is a feasible and convenient diagnostic tool for MRI-only lesions invisible on second-look US and is expected to reduce the frequency of MRI-guided needle biopsy. When third-look CEUS does not reveal MRI-only lesions, a further indication for MRI-guided needle biopsy should be considered according to the BI-RADS category.
Do Wealth Managers Understand Codes of Conduct and Their Ethical Dilemmas? Lessons from an Online Survey
Authors: Lombard Ewa , GibsonBrandon Rajna N.
Published: March 2023

How do wealth managers understand and comply with the social norms embedded in banks’ codes of conduct (CoC), and how do they cope with ethical dilemmas? Do they have a tendency after the global financial crisis to prioritize banks’ financial security over clients’ interests? To answer these and related questions, we conduct a nonincentivized online survey with wealth management employees of the Swiss legal entity of a large multinational bank. We propose a method to estimate the comprehension and the level of expected adherence to the CoC principles that we test with our sample. We further show that framing questions under the label of “Financial Security” increased response accuracy and that employees’ honesty helped guide their decision-making toward integrity in ethical dilemmas. Thus, in addition to validating a method for testing the level of CoC comprehension and the expected adherence to its principles, our study is among the first to show that in the wealth management business, honesty and social injunctive norms defined in the bank’s CoC reinforce one another.
Moral Thinking and Empathy in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Children and Adolescents with Conduct Problems: A Narrative Review
Authors: Matthys Walter , Schutter Dennis J. L. G.
Published: March 2023

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for conduct problems in children and adolescents aims to decrease behaviors which may be considered moral transgressions (e.g., aggressive and antisocial behavior) and to increase behaviors that benefit others (e.g., helping, comforting). However, the moral aspects underlying these behaviors have received relatively little attention. In view of increasing the effectiveness of CBT for conduct problems, insights into morality and empathy based on studies from developmental psychology and cognitive neuroscience are reviewed and integrated into a previously proposed model of social problem-solving (Matthys & Schutter, Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev 25:552–572, 2022). Specifically, this narrative review discusses developmental psychology studies on normative beliefs in support of aggression and antisocial behavior, clarification of goals, and empathy. These studies are complemented by cognitive neuroscience research on harm perception and moral thinking, harm perception and empathy, others’ beliefs and intentions, and response outcome learning and decision-making. A functional integration of moral thinking and empathy into social problem-solving in group CBT may contribute to the acceptance of morality-related issues by children and adolescents with conduct problems.
Assessment and Actions to Support Integrated Water Resources Management of Seville (Spain)
Authors: Algaba María Hernández-Pacheco , Huyghe Wim , van Leeuwen Kees , Koop Stef , Eisenreich Steven
Published: March 2023

Integrated Water Resources Management (IWRM) of the city of Seville, Spain, located in the southern Guadalquivir River Basin is assessed applying the city blueprint approach (CBA). The trends and pressures framework identifies five major indicators reflecting ‘concern’ for Seville’s urban water management: heat island effect, urban drainage flooding, river peak discharges, unemployment rate and economic pressure. The results indicate increased daytime and night-time temperatures and increased urban flooding due to sealed soil, and river rise from regional precipitation under climate change. The financial pressures are driven by the high unemployment rate and the low per capita income compared to other cities assessed. The city blueprint framework identifies three categories reflecting ‘poor’ performance for the urban water management of Seville: water infrastructure, solid waste and climate adaptation. An aging sewer network, low operational cost recovery and combined-sewer overflow systems dominate. Solid waste management is characterized by high waste generation, low recycling rate and minimal energy recovery. The percentage of green space is low, but growing. The Governance Capacity Framework identifies five conditions reflecting ‘limited’ governance of water scarcity: awareness, useful knowledge, continuous learning, agents of change and financial viability. The assessment of water governance reflects a low citizens’ sense of urgency. Integrating citizens and stakeholders in a more participative governance will result in increased awareness of economic efforts required to face water scarcity, renewal of water infrastructure and climate adaptation. The blue city index (BCI) of Seville is 5.8/10, placing it highly among other Mediterranean cities, and in the top 20% of 125 cities assessed worldwide. Application of the CBA to the urban water resources of cities allows clear definition of water and resource management challenges and is the first step to becoming a ‘water smart’ city.
Knowledge representation and acquisition for ethical AI: challenges and opportunities
Authors: Belle Vaishak
Published: March 2023

Machine learning (ML) techniques have become pervasive across a range of different applications, and are now widely used in areas as disparate as recidivism prediction, consumer credit-risk analysis, and insurance pricing. Likewise, in the physical world, ML models are critical components in autonomous agents such as robotic surgeons and self-driving cars. Among the many ethical dimensions that arise in the use of ML technology in such applications, analyzing morally permissible actions is both immediate and profound. For example, there is the potential for learned algorithms to become biased against certain groups. More generally, in so much that the decisions of ML models impact society, both virtually (e.g., denying a loan) and physically (e.g., driving into a pedestrian), notions of accountability, blame and responsibility need to be carefully considered. In this article, we advocate for a two-pronged approach ethical decision-making enabled using rich models of autonomous agency: on the one hand, we need to draw on philosophical notions of such as beliefs, causes, effects and intentions, and look to formalise them, as attempted by the knowledge representation community, but on the other, from a computational perspective, such theories need to also address the problems of tractable reasoning and (probabilistic) knowledge acquisition. As a concrete instance of this tradeoff, we report on a few preliminary results that apply (propositional) tractable probabilistic models to problems in fair ML and automated reasoning of moral principles. Such models are compilation targets for certain types of knowledge representation languages, and can effectively reason in service some computational tasks. They can also be learned from data. Concretely, current evidence suggests that they are attractive structures for jointly addressing three fundamental challenges: reasoning about possible worlds + tractable computation + knowledge acquisition. Thus, these seems like a good starting point for modelling reasoning robots as part of the larger ecosystem where accountability and responsibility is understood more broadly.
The Positive Argument Against Scientific Realism
Authors: Boge Florian J.
Published: March 2023

Putnam coined what is now known as the no miracles argument “[t]he positive argument for realism”. In its opposition, he put an argument that by his own standards counts as negative. But are there no positive arguments against scientific realism? I believe that there is such an argument that has figured in the back of much of the realism-debate, but, to my knowledge, has nowhere been stated and defended explicitly. This is an argument from the success of quantum physics to the unlikely appropriateness of scientific realism as a philosophical stance towards science. I will here state this argument and offer a detailed defence of its premises. The purpose of this is to both exhibit in detail how far the intuition that quantum physics threatens realism can be driven, in the light also of more recent developments, as well as to exhibit possible vulnerabilities, i.e., to show where potential detractors might attack.
Residual Work Capacity and (In)Ability to Work Fulltime Among a Year-Cohort of Disability Benefit Applicants Diagnosed with Mental and Behavioural Disorders
Authors: Hoekstra Tialda , Boersema Henk-Jan , Abma Femke I. , Brouwer Sandra
Published: March 2023

Aims

Residual work capacity and inability to work fulltime are important outcomes in disability benefit assessment for workers with mental and behavioural disorders. The aim of this study is to gain insight into the prevalence and associations of socio-demographic and disease-related factors of these outcomes across different mental and behavioural diagnoses groups.

Methods

A year cohort of anonymized register-data of patients diagnosed with a mental or behavioural disorder who claim a work disability benefit after two years of sick-leave was used (n = 12,325, age 44.5 ± 10.9, 55.5% female). Limitations in mental and physical functioning caused by disease are indicated according to the Functional Ability List (FAL). No residual work capacity was defined as having no possibilities to work, whereas inability to work fulltime was defined as being able to work less than 8 h per day.

Results

The majority (77.5%) of the applicants were assessed with residual work capacity, of these 58.6% had an ability to work fulltime. Applicants diagnosed with (post-traumatic) stress, mood affective and delusional disorders showed significant higher odds for no residual work capacity and for inability to work fulltime, while other diagnoses groups, like adjustment and anxiety disorders, showed decreased odds for both assessment outcomes.

Conclusions

The type of mental and behavioural disorder seems important in the assessment of residual work capacity and inability to work fulltime, as the associations differ significantly between the specific diagnoses groups.
On exploring weakly supervised domain adaptation strategies for semantic segmentation using synthetic data
Authors: Alcover-Couso Roberto , SanMiguel Juan C. , Escudero-Viñolo Marcos , Garcia-Martin Alvaro
Published: March 2023

Pixel-wise image segmentation is key for many Computer Vision applications. The training of deep neural networks for this task has expensive pixel-level annotation requirements, thus, motivating a growing interest on synthetic data to provide unlimited data and its annotations. In this paper, we focus on the generation and application of synthetic data as representative training corpuses for semantic segmentation of urban scenes. First, we propose a synthetic data generation protocol, which identifies key features affecting performance and provides datasets with variable complexity. Second, we adapt two popular weakly supervised domain adaptation approaches (combined training, fine-tuning) to employ synthetic and real data. Moreover, we analyze several backbone models, real/synthetic datasets and their proportions when combined. Third, we propose a new curriculum learning strategy to employ several synthetic and real datasets. Our major findings suggest the high performance impact of pace and order of synthetic and real data presentation, achieving state of the art results for well-known models. The results by training with the proposed dataset outperform popular alternatives, thus demonstrating the effectiveness of the proposed protocol. Our code and dataset are available at http://www-vpu.eps.uam.es/publications/WSDA_semantic/
Synchronization-based model for turbulent thermoacoustic systems
Authors: Weng Yue , Unni Vishnu R. , Sujith R. I. , Saha Abhishek
Published: March 2023

We present a phenomenological reduced-order model to capture the transition to thermoacoustic instability in turbulent combustors. Based on the synchronization framework, the model considers the acoustic field and the unsteady heat release rate from turbulent reactive flow as two nonlinearly coupled sub-systems. To model combustion noise, we use a pair of nonlinearly coupled second-order ODEs to represent the unsteady heat release rate. This simple configuration, while nonlinearly coupled to another oscillator that represents the independent sub-system of acoustics (pressure oscillations) in the combustor, is able to produce chaos. Previous experimental studies have reported a route from low amplitude chaotic oscillation (i.e., combustion noise) to periodic oscillation through intermittency in turbulent combustors. By varying the coupling strength, the model can replicate the route of transition observed and reflect the coupled dynamics arising from the interplay of unsteady heat release rate and pressure oscillations.
Naming as business strategy: an analysis of eponymy and debt contracting
Authors: Chen Chen , Song Michelle , Truong Cameron , Zhang Jin
Published: March 2023

This study proposes that naming a firm eponymously is a mechanism that small private firms can use to signal their superior financial performance and commitment to fulfill debt contract obligations. Using 621,614 small private firms in Europe over the period 2008–2018, we find that small private eponymous firms pay significantly lower interest on their debts and have more long-term debt than non-eponymous firms. Our findings are robust to various controls and placebo tests. Additional analyses show that eponymy lowers the cost of debt and facilitates long-term debt via reputation signaling and private information. We also document that the effect of eponymy on debt contracting is most pronounced when there is less financial development and when firms’ dependence on external financing is low, consistent with the idea that high-quality firms opt for eponymy when they consider less external financing.
Asymmetric dynamic risk transmission between financial stress and monetary policy uncertainty: thinking in the post-covid-19 world
Authors: Liang Chao , Hong Yanran , Huynh Luu Duc Toan , Ma Feng
Published: March 2023

Considering the dramatically increasing impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on monetary policy and the uncertainty in the financial system, we aim to examine the dynamic asymmetric risk transmission between financial stress and monetary policy uncertainty. Our sample covers 30 years of data. We first employ the conventional Granger causality test to examine the average relationship between financial stress and monetary policy uncertainty, and the results cannot provide evidence of causality between them. However, from an asymmetric perspective, we further detect the strongly apparent existence of the asymmetric structure of causality between them. Finally, we conduct further research on the asymmetric impacts from a time-varying perspective. The time-varying test finds that this relationship can be influenced by major events, especially the dot-com bubble, the 2009 financial crisis, and the current COVID-19 pandemic. Thus, one can learn more information about the influencing mechanism between financial stress and monetary policy with our work, which may be beneficial for making better decisions in the future.
Driving intrapreneurial behavior through high-performance work systems
Authors: Portalanza-Chavarría Alexandra , Revuelto-Taboada Lorenzo
Published: March 2023

Companies are increasingly adopting practices aimed at fostering intrapreneurial initiatives to ensure their survival, seize opportunities, and combat threats. This paper analyzes the effect of employee perceptions of high-performance work systems on intrapreneurial behavior, with potential mediation by knowledge management processes. It also analyzes possible moderation by human resource management (HRM) strength. Hypotheses were tested using partial least squares path modeling (PLS-PM) in Smart PLS 3.3. The analysis was conducted for a sample of 1,885 knowledge-intensive employees working in three banks in Ecuador. The results show that innovative behavior can be enhanced by implementing high-performance work systems. These systems promote sound knowledge management processes. These findings are relevant because they offer guidance to help practitioners promote intrapreneurship. They highlight the importance of high-performance work systems that enhance knowledge management processes, particularly knowledge sharing. The results also show that HRM strength moderates the relationships between high-performance work systems and intrapreneurial behavior and between knowledge management and intrapreneurial behavior. However, in the second of these relationships, the effect is the opposite of what is to be expected. This finding may indicate a need to consider this variable at the group, department, or even organizational level under a multilevel analysis approach.
Evolutionary honing in and mutational replacement: how long-term directed mutational responses to specific environmental pressures are possible
Authors: Livnat Adi , Melamed Daniel
Published: March 2023

Recent results have shown that the human malaria-resistant hemoglobin S mutation originates de novo more frequently in the gene and in the population where it is of adaptive significance, namely, in the hemoglobin subunit beta gene compared to the nonresistant but otherwise identical 20A$$\rightarrow$$→T mutation in the hemoglobin subunit delta gene, and in sub-Saharan Africans, who have been subject to intense malarial pressure for many generations, compared to northern Europeans, who have not. This finding raises a fundamental challenge to the traditional notion of accidental mutation. Here, we address this finding with the replacement hypothesis, according to which preexisting genetic interactions can lead directly and mechanistically to mutations that simplify and replace them. Thus, an evolutionary process under selection can gradually hone in on interactions of importance for the currently evolving adaptations, from which large-effect mutations follow that are relevant to these adaptations. We exemplify this hypothesis using multiple types of mutation, including gene fusion mutations, gene duplication mutations, A$$\rightarrow$$→G mutations in RNA-edited sites and transcription-associated mutations, and place it in the broader context of a system-level view of mutation origination called interaction-based evolution. Potential consequences include that similarity of mutation pressures may contribute to parallel evolution in genetically related species, that the evolution of genome organization may be driven by mutational mechanisms, that transposable element movements may also be explained by replacement, and that long-term directed mutational responses to specific environmental pressures are possible. Such mutational phenomena need to be further tested by future studies in natural and artificial settings.
Do perfectionists show negative, repetitive thoughts facing uncertain situations?
Authors: Kummer Kilian , Mattes André , Stahl Jutta
Published: March 2023

Perfectionism, intolerance of uncertainty and repetitive negative thinking are all psychological traits, which are treated as transdiagnostic phenomena for the development and the maintenance of psychopathology. The aim of the current work was to investigate the associations between repetitive negative thinking and the multidimensional aspects of perfectionism (perfectionistic strivings and perfectionistic concerns) and intolerance of uncertainty (prospective and inhibitory) in one model. Two studies were conducted in which participants (N1 = 227; N2 = 148) completed questionnaires in an online survey. The first study measured rumination and worry separately as repetitive negative thinking processes. The second study measured repetitive negative thinking as an underlying construct of rumination and worry using a single questionnaire. We applied hierarchical regression analyses and mediation analyses in both studies. The mediation analyses in both studies showed that inhibitory intolerance of uncertainty significantly partially mediated the relationship between perfectionistic concerns and repetitive negative thinking (as well as worry and rumination). Perfectionistic concerns seem to be the more crucial perfectionism aspect for transdiagnostic considerations, particularly in association with a heighten inhibitory intolerance of uncertainty and repetitive negative thinking. Both studies strongly affirm the necessity to use the multidimensional aspects of perfectionism and intolerance of uncertainty in psychological research.
Is teacher humor an asset in classroom management? Examining its association with students’ well-being, sense of school belonging, and engagement
Authors: St-Amand Jérôme , Smith Jonathan , Goulet Mélissa
Published: March 2023

This study used the instructional humor processing theory to test how different humor subtypes employed by teachers (course-related, course-unrelated, self-disparaging, other-disparaging) relate to students’ well-being, sense of belonging, and engagement. The participants comprised 395 students (boys = 106; girls = 270; other = 8; NA = 11) (secondary school students = 291; primary school students = 97, NA = 7) from five public school boards located in rural areas, and one private secondary school situated in an urban area (Mage = 14.11) with a proportion of 93% speaking French at home. Correlational and structural equation modeling methods were used to analyze these relationships. Results showed that only humor related to course content (positive association) and other-disparaging humor (negative association) were significantly associated with the sense of belonging, which, in turn, was positively associated with a cognitive, affective, and behavioral engagement. Results also showed that only course-related humor (positive association) and unrelated humor (negative association) were significantly associated with students’ emotional well-being, which, in turn, was positively associated with cognitive and affective engagement. As far as this study is concerned, humor in the classroom should be course-related when it comes to supporting students’ emotional well-being, sense of belonging, and engagement.
New insight on tomato seed priming with Anabaena minutissima phycobiliproteins in relation to Rhizoctonia solani root rot resistance and seedling growth promotion
Authors: Righini Hillary , Francioso Ornella , Quintana Antera Martel , Pinchetti Juan Luis Gómez , Zuffi Veronica , Cappelletti Eleonora , Roberti Roberta
Published: March 2023

Cyanobacteria phycobiliproteins (PBPs) are already exploited in the food industries and for biotechnological applications but not in the agricultural field. Different concentrations (0.6 – 4.8 mg/mL) of Anabaena minutissima PBPs were applied to tomato seed to study their priming effect against the soil-borne fungal pathogen Rhizoctonia solani and in promoting plant growth. PBPs increased seedling emergence and vigour, showed activity against root rot disease (67%), and enhanced plant dry weight, length, and height. Generally, no dose effect has been observed except for dry weight (55% at 4.8 mg/mL). Seed treatment primed seeds and seedlings by leading to the activation of defence responses raising phenol (26% in hypocotyls) and flavonoid (26 and 45% in hypocotyls and epicotyls, respectively) contents and chitinase (4-fold at 2.4 and 4.8 mg/mL in hypocotyls) and β-1,3-D-glucanase (up to about 2-fold at all doses in epicotyls) activities. Micro-Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared revealed changes in functional groups of primed seeds, hypocotyls and exudates released into the agar because of treatment. Protein extract from PBP-primed seedlings inhibited mycelial growth (67% for epicotyl proteins) and caused morphological alterations in hyphae. This research emphasizes the potential priming role of PBPs applied by seed treatment against soil-borne pathogens.
Structure, regulation, and physiological functions of NADPH oxidase 5 (NOX5)
Authors: García Jorge G. , Ansorena Eduardo , Izal Iñigo , Zalba Guillermo , de Miguel Carlos , Milagro Fermín I.
Published: March 2023

NOX5 is the last member of the NADPH oxidase (NOXs) family to be identified and presents some specific characteristics differing from the rest of the NOXs. It contains four Ca2+ binding domains at the N-terminus and its activity is regulated by the intracellular concentration of Ca2+. NOX5 generates superoxide (O2•−) using NADPH as a substrate, and it modulates functions related to processes in which reactive oxygen species (ROS) are involved. Those functions appear to be detrimental or beneficial depending on the level of ROS produced. For example, the increase in NOX5 activity is related to the development of various oxidative stress-related pathologies such as cancer, cardiovascular, and renal diseases. In this context, pancreatic expression of NOX5 can negatively alter insulin action in high-fat diet-fed transgenic mice. This is consistent with the idea that the expression of NOX5 tends to increase in response to a stimulus or a stressful situation, generally causing a worsening of the pathology. On the other hand, it has also been suggested that it might have a positive role in preparing the body for metabolic stress, for example, by inducing a protective adipose tissue adaptation to the excess of nutrients supplied by a high-fat diet. In this line, its endothelial overexpression can delay lipid accumulation and insulin resistance development in obese transgenic mice by inducing the secretion of IL-6 followed by the expression of thermogenic and lipolytic genes. However, as NOX5 gene is not present in rodents and human NOX5 protein has not been crystallized, its function is still poorly characterized and further extensive research is required.
On the regularity of null cones and geodesic spheres
Authors: Gutiérrez Manuel , Olea Benjamín
Published: March 2023

We show a property on the null cones in a Lorentzian manifold near a conjugate point, which contributes to the understanding of the behaviour of the exponential map. We also give an analogous property in the Riemannian case.
Digital Domination and the Promise of Radical Republicanism
Authors: Hoeksema Bernd
Published: March 2023

In this paper, I approach the power of digital platforms by using the republican concept of domination. More specifically, I argue that the traditional, agent-relative interpretation of domination, in the case of digital domination, is best supplemented by a more radical version, on which republicans ought to give priority to structural elements. I show how radical republicanism draws attention to (1) the economic rationales and the socio-technical infrastructures that underlie and support digital platforms and to (2) the forms of influence that are directed at cognitive dimensions, such as habituation and routinisation, which are particularly relevant for the power of digital platforms. These insights also imply that republicans have reason to favour a more structural response to digital platforms over more direct and individualised forms of control that fit with a ‘standard’ republican approach, such as securing exit options and requiring user consent.