bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Combination Use of 1440-nm and 1927-nm Nonablative Fractional Laser With Monopolar Radiofrequency for the Treatment of Facial Skin Laxity, Skin Texture, and Pigmentation
Authors: Peters John D. , Salame Nicole , Eber Ariel , Labadie Jessica G. , Kandula Prasanthi , Dover Jeffrey S.
Published: February 2025

BACKGROUND

Facial aging, marked by skin laxity, wrinkling, and dyspigmentation, remains a common aesthetic concern. Few studies have investigated combination approaches to treat these concomitant components of aging.

OBJECTIVE

To investigate the effect of combining monopolar radiofrequency with fractional nonablative diode laser treatments to improve skin laxity, wrinkling, and dyspigmentation.

METHODS AND MATERIALS

A prospective, single-arm study enrolled 20 females with mild to moderate facial skin laxity and photoaging. Subjects underwent a sequence of one monopolar radiofrequency treatment (Thermage FLX, Solta, Bausch Medica, Bothell, WA) followed by 4 fractional 1440-/1927-nm nonablative diode laser treatments (Clear + Brilliant Touch, Solta, Bausch Medica). Assessments included clinical evaluations, blinded photographic assessments, and patient satisfaction scores.

RESULTS

At the 6-month follow-up, a significant improvement was observed in Skin Laxity Grading Scale and Glogau Classification of Photoaging scale scores (1.65 ± 0.49–1.30 ± 0.47, p = .039, and 1.85 ± 0.36–1.35 ± 0.49, p = .00082, respectively). Blinded reviewers correctly identified 67% of post-treatment photographs, and 77% of participants were considered responders. No serious adverse events occurred.

CONCLUSION

Monopolar radiofrequency combined with fractional diode led to significant efficacy, suggesting a safe and promising strategy for addressing facial skin laxity, wrinkles, and dyspigmentation.
Corneal Myofibromatous and Pterygium-Like Changes in a Family With a PDGFRB Variant
Authors: Raber Irving M. , Khalili Ashley , Khang Rin , Buch Preema M. , Eagle Ralph C. , Seo Go Hun , Lee Hane , Milman Tatyana
Published: February 2025

Purpose:

To report the clinical, pathologic, and genetic findings in a family with early-onset pterygia, corneal vascularization, and corneal myofibromatous lesions.

Methods:

We performed clinical, pathologic, and genetic analysis of 12 members of a family originating in Puebla Mexico, who manifested with pterygia/pseudopterygia and corneal opacification transmitted in an autosomal-dominant inheritance pattern. Three unaffected family members also were evaluated.

Results:

Clinical findings included isolated pterygia, isolated corneal subepithelial and anterior stromal opacities associated with varying degree of corneal vascularization, and a combination of pterygia and corneal opacities. Nine patients (17 eyes) underwent surgical procedures, including penetrating keratoplasty (9/17), superficial keratectomy (7/17), and pterygium excision (7/17). Five patients (eight eyes) had more than one surgery for recurrence of pterygia (2/8), recurrent corneal opacities obscuring the visual axis (3/8), penetrating keratoplasty failure (1/8), and indication not known (2/8). Documented recurrences occurred early, within 1 to 2 years of surgery. Histopathology of 21 specimens available for evaluation (nine penetrating keratoplasty corneas, seven superficial keratectomies, and five conjunctival-corneal tissues from pterygium/pseudopterygium excision) from seven patients showed varying degrees of myofibroblastic proliferation. Exome sequencing identified a heterozygous c.1610C>A (p.Ala537Asp) variant in the platelet-derived growth factor receptor beta (PDGFRB) gene in all 11 affected family members tested and in one of three unaffected family members.

Conclusions:

The combined clinical presentation, histopathologic features, and genetic findings suggest an autosomal dominantly inherited predisposition to exuberant corneal myofibroblastic proliferation, driven by the platelet-derived growth factor receptor activation.
Interpretation of basal nuclei in brain dopamine transporter scans using a deep convolutional neural network
Authors: Chen Hsin-Yung , Tsai Ya-Ju , Peng Syu-Jyun
Published: February 2025

Objective

Functional imaging using the dopamine transporter (DAT) as a biomarker has proven effective in assessing dopaminergic neuron degeneration in the striatum. In assessing the neuron degeneration, visual and semiquantitative methods are used to interpret DAT single-photon emission tomography (SPECT) scans based on striatal to background activity, striatal shape, and symmetry. Visual analysis, however, is subjective and reviewer dependent, whereas semiquantitative methods are operator dependent. Our goal in the current study was to derive results via deep learning to facilitate the clinical diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease (PD).

Methods

This retrospective study collected data from 416 patients with clinically uncertain Parkinsonian syndrome who underwent DAT SPECT via 99mTc-TRODAT-1 ([2-[[2-[[[3-(4-chlorophenyl)-8-methyl-8-azabicyclo[3,2,1]oct-2-yl]methyl](2-mercaptoethyl)amino]ethyl]amino]ethanethiolato (3-)-N2,N2’,S2,S2’]oxo-[1R-(exo-exo)]). Transfer learning was used to estimate the degree of dopaminergic neuron degeneration in the caudate and putamen for use in classifying images according to stage. Three pretrained models – Xception, InceptionV3, and ResNet101 – were retrained and tested after undergoing transfer learning for the classification of striatum dopaminergic neuron degeneration.

Results

Overall, the performance of Xception exceeded that of InceptionV3 and ResNet101. The accuracy, macro F1 score, and kappa value of the proposed caudate classification model were 81.93%, 0.70, and 0.64, respectively. The accuracy, macro F1 score, and kappa value of the proposed putamen classification model were 88.75%, 0.64, and 0.61, respectively.

Conclusion

The proposed deep convolutional neural network provided a good model by which to interpret DAT SPECT of basal nuclei. We believe that the model could be used as an auxiliary tool to facilitate image interpretation and enhance accuracy in the diagnosis of PD.
Individualizing the choice of surgical therapy for gastroesophageal reflux disease
Authors: Bonavina Luigi
Published: February 2025

Purpose of review

Proton-pump inhibitor therapy does not provide complete relief of symptoms in up to 40% of patients with gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). Antireflux surgery (ARS) aims to reconstruct the natural antireflux barrier consisting of the diaphragmatic crura, the lower esophageal sphincter, and the gastroesophageal flap valve.

Recent findings

Although the 360° Nissen fundoplication combined with crural repair remains the gold-standard ARS treatment for GERD, the Toupet and Dor partial fundoplications and the magnetic sphincter augmentation (LINX) procedure have emerged as suitable alternative options with fewer side-effects. Randomized and observational clinical studies show that reflux control with partial fundoplications and LINX is acceptable and the risk of side-effects is minimal. Early results with the novel Refluxstop procedure show that restoration of distal esophageal length and the gastroesophageal flap valve, combined with anterior fundoplication and a silicon prosthesis to stabilize the esophagogastric junction below the diaphragm, can also provide excellent reflux control with minimal side-effects.

Laparoscopic ARS should be performed in centers offering a comprehensive diagnostic pathway and a spectrum of techniques tailored to the individual GERD patient's phenotype and expectations. Further research is needed to provide more personalized and durable ARS.
Optimal marker genes forc-separated cell types
Authors: Borozan Bartol , Borozan Luka , Ševerdija Domagoj , Matijević Domagoj , Canzar Stefan
Published: February 2025

The identification of cell types in single-cell RNA-seq studies relies on the distinct expression signature of marker genes. A small set of target genes is also needed to design probes for targeted spatial transcriptomics experiments and to target proteins in single-cell spatial proteomics or for cell sorting. While traditional approaches have relied on testing one gene at a time for differential expression between a given cell type and the rest, more recent methods have highlighted the benefits of a joint selection of markers that together distinguish all pairs of cell types simultaneously. These combinatorial methods differ mostly in the notion of discrimination between cell types, using Euclidean or Manhattan distance in the dimensions of the selected marker genes, or the difference in the fraction of cells expressing a given marker gene. The resulting combinatorial optimization problems then seeks to identify a small set of genes that yield discrimination above a given threshold between all pairs of cell types. However, existing methods either consider all pairs of individual cells which becomes intractable even for medium-sized datasets, or ignore intra-cell type expression variation entirely by collapsing all cells of a given type to a single representative. Here we address these limitations and propose to find a small set of genes such that cell types arec-separated in the selected dimensions, a notion introduced previously in learning a mixture of Gaussians. To this end, we formulate a linear program that naturally takes into account expression variation within cell types without including each pair of individual cells in the model, leading to a highly stable set of marker genes that allow to accurately discriminate between cell types and that can be computed to optimality efficiently.
TabVI: Leveraging Lightweight Transformer Architectures to Learn Biologically Meaningful Cellular Representations
Authors: Chandrashekar Aditi , Gala Rohan , Tjärnberg Andreas , Khullar Saniya , Huynh Grace , Gabitto Mariano
Published: February 2025

Transformer-based foundation models are changing the landscape of natural language processing (NLP), computer vision, and audio, achieving human-level performance across a variety of tasks. Extending these models to single-cell genomics holds significant potential for revealing the cellular and molecular perturbations associated with disease. However, unlike the sequential structure of language, the functional organization of genes is hierarchical and modular. This fundamental difference necessitates the development of meaningful feature selection strategies to adapt NLP transformer architectures effectively. In contrast to many large-scale foundation models, probabilistic models have shown success in learning complex cellular representations from single-cell datasets. In this work, we present TabVI, a probabilistic deep generative model that leverages tabular transformer architectures to improve latent embedding learning. We validate TabVI’s performance in cell type annotation and integration benchmarks. We demonstrate that TabVI improves performance across down-stream tasks and is robust to scaling dataset sizes, producing interpretable, sample-specific feature attention masks. TabVI is a lightweight, scientifically-meaningful, transformer architecture for single-cell analysis that excels where large scale foundation models are less effective.
PyOrthoANI, PyFastANI, and Pyskani: a suite of Python libraries for computation of average nucleotide identity
Authors: Larralde Martin , Zeller Georg , Carroll Laura M
Published: February 2025

Summary: The average nucleotide identity (ANI) metric has become the gold standard for prokaryotic species delineation in the genomics era. The most popular ANI algorithms are available as command-line tools and/or web applications, making it inconvenient or impossible to incorporate them into bioinformatic workflows, which utilize the popular Python programming language. Here, we present PyOrthoANI, PyFastANI, and Pyskani, Python libraries for three popular ANI computation methods. ANI values produced by PyOrthoANI, PyFastANI, and Pyskani are virtually identical to those produced by OrthoANI, FastANI, and skani, respectively. All three libraries integrate seamlessly with BioPython, making it easy and convenient to use, compare, and benchmark popular ANI algorithms within Python-based workflows. Availability and Implementation: Source code is open-source and available via GitHub (PyOrthoANI, https://github.com/althonos/orthoani; PyFastANI, https://github.com/althonos/pyfastani; Pyskani, https://github.com/althonos/pyskani). Supplementary Information: Supplementary data are available on bioRxiv.
Revisiting synthetic lethality of Gcn5-related N-acetyltransferase (GNAT) family mutations inHaloferax volcanii
Authors: Weber Katherine R. , Novillo Brianna , Maupin-Furlow Julie A.
Published: February 2025

Lysine acetylation is a post-translational modification that occurs in all domains of life, highlighting its evolutionary significance. Previous genome comparison identified three Gcn5-related N-acetyltransferase (GNAT) family members as lysine acetyltransferase homologs (Pat1, Pat2, and Elp3) and two deacetylase homologs (Sir2 and HdaI) in the halophilic archaeonHaloferax volcanii, withelp3andpat2proposed as a synthetic lethal gene pair. Here we advance these findings by performing single and double mutagenesis ofelp3with thepat1andpat2lysine acetyltransferase gene homologs. Genome sequencing and PCR screens of these strains reveal successful generation ofΔelp3, Δpat1Δelp3, andΔpat2Δelp3mutant strains. Although these mutant strains exhibited a reduced growth rate compared to the parent, they remained viable. Overall, this study provides genetic evidence thatelp3andpat2, while impacting cell growth, are not a synthetic lethal gene pair as previously reported.

IMPORTANCE

Here we reveal by whole genome sequencing that the GNAT family gene homologselp3andpat2can be deleted in the sameH. volcaniistrain. Beyond the targeted deletions, minimal differences between the parent andΔelp3 Δpat2mutant were observed suggesting that suppressor mutations are not responsible for our ability to generate this double mutant strain. Elp3 and Pat2, thus, may not share as close a functional relationship as implied by earlier study. Our finding is significant as Elp3 is thought to function in acetylation in tRNA modification, while Pat2 likely functions in the lysine acetylation of proteins.
NK cell-macrophage interactions in granulomas correlate with limited tuberculosis pathology
Authors: Niewold Paula , IJsselsteijn Marieke E , Dijkman Karin , de Miranda Noel , Ottenhoff Tom H M , Verreck Frank A W , Joosten Simone A
Published: February 2025

Development of novel vaccines and treatment approaches against tuberculosis are hampered by limited knowledge of what constitutes a protective immune response againstMycobacterium tuberculosis(Mtb). Granulomas are organized immune aggregates that form in the lung in response to mycobacterial infection and are an important site of pathogen-host interaction. The composition and cellular microenvironment within the granuloma impacts the bacterial control capacity. To identify protective responses in granulomas, imaging mass cytometry was used to study archived lung tissue from low doseMtb-infected non-human primates presenting with various levels of disease. This approach revealed that granuloma composition is correlated with the severity of lung pathology. Granulomas of animals with limited lung pathology were enriched for NK cells showing increased interactions with tissue macrophages. This work improves our understanding of local immune interactions in the lung and how these correlate with severity of tuberculosis disease.

Author summary

Tuberculosis remains the deadliest infectious disease in the world with 10 million new infections and 1.5 million deaths annually. The existing vaccine is not effective enough to halt the tuberculosis epidemic. In order to develop an improved vaccine, more complete and detailed knowledge on the immune responses that can successfully protect against tuberculosis is required. Individuals that are exposed toMycobacterium tuberculosis, the pathogen that causes tuberculosis disease, fall along a spectrum, with some individuals showing a strong innate capacity to protect against disease, while others fall ill. By studying these differences in a model organism, namely non-human primates, we can learn about protective immune responses. In primates with limited disease, the immune cell aggregates surrounding the bacteria in the lung contained more NK cells than were found in severe disease. In addition, interactions between NK cells and macrophages, cells that can eat bacteria, were seen a lot more in protected animals. This suggests that the interaction between NK cell and macrophages contributes to controlling tuberculosis disease, this knowledge can contribute to improved vaccine strategies.
Community-level physiological profiling of carbon substrate metabolization by microbial communities associated to sediments and water in karstic caves from Romania
Authors: Panait Diana Felicia , Panait Andrei Marian , Cristea Adorján , Levei Erika Andrea , Moldovan Oana Teodora , Banciu Horia Leonard
Published: February 2025

Cave ecosystems comprise specialized microbial communities that play essential roles in biogeochemical cycles; yet their metabolic capabilities and ecological functions are not yet fully understood. As conventional cultivation techniques offer limited insights into the metabolic capabilities, methods based on direct functionality screening could provide more in-depth knowledge of cave microbial activity. In this study, we utilized the Community-Level Physiological Profiling (CLPP) based on Biolog® EcoPlate™ approach to assessing carbon substrate utilization by microbial communities associated with pool water, sediment, sediment (limon), and moonmilk from five caves in Romania. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Generalized Additive Models (GAMs) statistics were employed to infer the patterns of C-substrate metabolization and their environmental drivers. Environmental variables such as sodium (Na) and electrical conductivity (EC) significantly impacted C-utilization capabilities as indicated by both PCA and GAM. The latter analysis elucidated non-linear relationships between variables, such as EC, Na, and Mg, and microbial metabolic diversity indices. However, distinct C utilization patterns were detected among sampled sites and chemical types. Unlike moonmilk samples whose associated microbial communities appeared as exhibiting low C-substrate utilization, the highest activity was shown in cave pool water samples with the associated microbial communities extensively consuming D-galacturonic acid and Tween 80. Conversely, substrates like L-threonine and α-ketobutyric acid showed limited utilization across all cave samples. Average Well Color Development (AWCD) and Shannon diversity indices indicated that microbial communities associated to samples from Cloșani and Muierilor caves demonstrated the highest metabolic diversity. Our findings suggested that metabolic profiling using Biolog®EcoPlates™ method combined with multivariate statistical methods might prove as suitable approach to effectively screen for cave microbial functionality and the probable environmental drivers. Besides, this work distinguishes from similar studies by relying on GAM analysis to predict the environmental factors governing the microbially-mediated organic carbon degradation in subterranean ecosystems.
The fire ant social chromosome exerts a major influence on genome regulation
Authors: Jones Beryl M. , Waugh Alex H. , Catto Michael A. , Kay Sasha , Glastad Karl M. , Goodisman Michael A.D. , Kocher Sarah D. , Hunt Brendan G.
Published: February 2025

Supergenes underlying complex trait polymorphisms ensure sets of coadapted alleles remain genetically linked. Despite their prevalence in nature, the mechanisms of supergene effects on genome regulation are poorly understood. In the fire antSolenopsis invicta, a supergene containing over 500 individual genes influences trait variation in multiple castes to collectively underpin a colony level social polymorphism. Here, we present results of an integrative investigation of supergene effects on gene regulation. We present analyses of ATAC-seq data to investigate variation in chromatin accessibility by supergene genotype and STARR-seq data to characterize enhancer activity by supergene haplotype. Integration with gene coexpression analyses, newly mapped intact TEs, and previously identified CNVs, collectively reveal widespread effects of the supergene on chromatin structure, gene transcription, and regulatory element activity, with a genome-wide bias for open chromatin and increased expression in the presence of the derived supergene haplotype, particularly in regions that harbor intact TEs. Integrated consideration of CNVs and regulatory element divergence suggests each evolved in concert to shape the expression of supergene encoded factors, including several transcription factors that may directly contribute to thetrans-regulatory footprint of a heteromorphic social chromosome. Overall, we show how genome structure in the form of a supergene has wide-reaching effects on gene regulation and gene expression.
Low-temperature magnetic behavior on the triangular lattice in hexagonal
Ba3Tb(BO3)3
Authors: Kelly Nicola D. , Le M. Duc , Sheptyakov Denis , Tacconis Camilla , Liu Cheng , Stenning Gavin B. G. , Baker Peter J. , Dutton Siân E.
Published: February 2025

The hexagonal polymorph of Ba3Tb(BO3)3 contains Tb3+ ions on a quasi-2D triangular lattice, resulting in geometric magnetic frustration. Powder samples of Ba3Tb(BO3)3 have been investigated using specific heat, powder neutron diffraction (PND), inelastic neutron scattering (INS), and muon-spin relaxation spectroscopy (μSR). No long-range magnetic ordering is observed down to the lowest measured temperatures of 75 mK in PND and specific heat data and 1.5 K in the μSR data. Modeling the INS spectrum using a point charge model suggests that the ground state is a singlet with a low-lying doublet on each of the two crystallographically independent Tb3+ sites and that both the Tb ions display weak XY single-ion anisotropy.

Published by the American Physical Society
2025
Core-hole induced misalignment between Van Hove singularities and
K
-edge fine structure in carbon nanotubes
Authors: Unzog Martin , Tal Alexey , Melo Pedro , Senga Ryosuke , Suenaga Kazu , Pichler Thomas , Kresse Georg
Published: February 2025

We investigate the relationship between the -edge fine structure of isolated single-wall carbon nanotubes (SWCNTs) and the Van Hove singularities (VHSs) in the conduction-band density of states. To this end, we model x-ray absorption spectra of SWCNTs using the final-state approximation and the Bethe-Salpeter equation (BSE) method. Both methods can reproduce the experimental fine structure, where the BSE results improve on peak positions and amplitude rations compared to the final-state approximation. When the fine structure in the modeled spectra is related to the VHSs, significant differences are found. We suggest that these differences arise due to modifications of the core exciton wave functions induced by the confinement along the circumference. Additionally, we analyze the character of core excitons in SWCNTs, and we find that the first bright excitons are Frenkel excitons, while higher-lying excitons are charge resonance states. Finally, we suggest that the qualitative picture based on VHSs in the density of states holds when there is a large energy gap between successive VHSs.

Published by the American Physical Society
2025
ATP-controlled remodeling in reconstituted actomyosin
Authors: Al-Izzi Sami C. , Nodehi Sedigheh Ghanbarzadeh , Köster Darius V. , Morris Richard G.
Published: February 2025

The cytoskeletal component actomyosin is a canonical example of active matter since the power-stroke cycle locally converts chemical energy in the form of adenoside triphosphate (ATP) into mechanical work for remodeling. Observing myosin II minifilaments as they remodel actin , we now report that at high concentrations of ATP, myosin minifilaments form metastable swirling patterns that are characterized by recurrent vortex and spiral-like motifs, whereas at low concentrations of ATP, such structures give way to asterlike patterns. To explain this, we construct the (quasi)steady states of a polar active hydrodynamic theory of actomyosin whose ATP-scaling is obtained from a microscopic, stochastic description for the ATP-dependent binding of the heads of single myosin II minifilaments. The latter codifies the heuristic that, since the power-stroke cycle involves the unbinding of myosin II heads from actin, increases in the concentration of ATP reduce the likelihood that a given myosin II minifilament has more than one head bound simultaneously, reducing its ability to generate contractile forces and increasing the relative likelihood of processive motion. This reproduces several qualitative and some quantitative aspects of experiments, providing evidence for the central phenomenon of the theory: an ATP-dependent active contractile instability. ATP therefore controls not only the rate at which work is done—i.e., the power—but also the mode by which this occurs.

Published by the American Physical Society
2025
Quantum data parallelism in quantum neural networks
Authors: Wu Sixuan , Zhang Yue , Li Jian
Published: February 2025

Quantum neural networks hold promise for achieving lower generalization error bounds and enhanced computational efficiency in processing certain datasets. However, the integration of quantum superposition in data parallelism—a key aspect in the applications of classical neural network—has been largely unexplored in the context of quantum neural networks. Here, we demonstrate the effective application of quantum parallelism, via quantum superposition and entanglement, to achieve data parallelism in generic quantum neural network models. We address two classes of encoding schemes for the training data: as orthogonal and nonorthogonal quantum states, respectively. With orthogonal encoding, we rigorously prove that parallel and individual training are equivalent in terms of the loss function, a result directly derived from quantum entanglement; with nonorthogonal encoding, we show that parallel computing remains viable, and quantum interference among data becomes notable. We perform a comparative numerical analysis in these different scenarios, exploring various quantum neural networks with or without superposed data input, highlighting the validity of quantum data parallelism.

Published by the American Physical Society
2025
Extending completeness of the eigenmodes of an open system beyond its boundary, for Green's function and scattering-matrix calculations
Authors: Sztranyovszky Z. , Langbein W. , Muljarov E. A.
Published: February 2025

The asymptotic completeness of a set of the eigenmodes of an open system with increasing number of modes enables an accurate calculation of the system response in terms of these modes. Using the exact eigenmodes, such completeness is limited to the interior of the system. Here we show that when the eigenmodes of a target system are obtained by the resonant-state expansion, using the modes of a basis system embedding the target system, the completeness extends beyond the boundary of the target system. We illustrate this by using the Mittag-Leffler series of the Green's function expressed in terms of the eigenmodes, which converges to the correct solution anywhere within the basis system, including the space outside the target system. Importantly, this property allows one to treat perturbations outside the target system and to calculate the scattering cross-section using the boundary conditions for the basis system. Choosing a basis system of spherical geometry, these boundary conditions have simple analytical expressions, allowing for an efficient calculation of the response of the target system, as we demonstrate for a resonator in a form of a finite dielectric cylinder.

Published by the American Physical Society
2025
Benchmarking consumer behavior in sustainable fashion: a decade-long analysis and future research directions
Authors: Tamilarasan Brinda Sree , Ramasamy Kavitha
Published: February 2025

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to provide a comprehensive overview of sustainable fashion consumption from a consumer behavior perspective, combining scientometric analysis and the SPAR-4-SLR protocol to identify trends, key contributors and research gaps in the field.

Design/methodology/approach

The study analyzes 114 articles published between 2014 and 2024, sourced from the Scopus database. A hybrid approach is used, employing VOSviewer and Rstudio for quantitative analysis, along with the theory-context-characteristics-methodology framework to systematically review constructs, theories, contexts and methodologies in the selected articles.

Findings

The findings highlight critical insights into consumer behavior regarding sustainable fashion and identify gaps in the literature. The study also provides performance indicators, including publication trends and citation metrics, visualized through tables and maps. It offers practical guidance for businesses and policymakers to promote sustainable consumption practices.

Originality/value

This research contributes to the field by integrating scientometric and systematic review methods, providing a novel approach to understanding sustainable fashion consumption. It also suggests future research directions and explores how benchmarking techniques can enhance consumer engagement and sustainability strategies.
A critique of race-neutrality discourse among internship benefits: a critical discourse analysis
Authors: Jenkins Zach , Yao Christina
Published: February 2025

Purpose

While research consistently highlights the benefits of internships for business students, this scholarly discussion is typically framed in race-neutral and meritocratic language that minimizes the importance that race plays during internship experiences. Given the problematic nature of meritocracy from a social justice perspective (Lawrence, 2015; Liu, 2011), this study aims to transpose the existing meritocratic scholarly narrative of internships to one that is more racially just.

Design/methodology/approach

To answer the research question, how is the myth of meritocracy shaping the scholarly narrative surrounding internship benefits? We systematically reviewed the literature using the search terms (interns OR internship programs) AND business AND benefits across the academic databases Business Source Complete, ERIC, Education Source and APA PsycINFO. This search produced 151 articles, 10 of which met the inclusion criteria. Utilizing Love’s (2004) myth of meritocracy framework, critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2013) was employed to analyze the data.

Findings

Our findings suggest that (1) scholars tend to frame internships as economically, sociologically and racially neutral, (2) internships are a tool for socializing interns into whiteness, (3) the literature is plagued by color-evasiveness, (4) equal opportunity for all students to pursue internships is implied and (5) internships are depicted as meritoriously awarded.

Originality/value

This research is among the first to explicitly outline and challenge the majoritarian story of internships as meritocratic experiences across the internship literature. Moreover, this work adds an important voice to the chorus of practitioners and scholars advocating for a more racially equitable internship landscape.
Documenting a profession: an exploration of the published history of school libraries and teacher librarians in Australia
Authors: Carroll Mary Brigit , Garrison Kasey , Wakeling Simon , Oddone Kay , Reynolds Susan
Published: February 2025

Purpose

This paper reviews the corpus contained in the Knowledge Bank of Australian and New Zealand School Libraries (KBANZSL) to explore the under-researched history of Australian school libraries and teacher librarianship. Through the analysis of publications in the knowledge bank, new insights into the history of school libraries and teacher librarians in Australia are gained and the intersecting relationship between school libraries and wider library and educational agendas are explored.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper uses a critical, and historical, bibliometric approach to provide new insights into the history of Australian school libraries. It examines the records of the Knowledge Bank of Australian and New Zealand School Libraries (KBANZSL) for trends and insights these records may provide.

Findings

The publications and collective memory captured within the Knowledge Bank of Australian and New Zealand School Libraries (KBANZSL) provide new insights into the rich history of the evolution of school libraries and teacher librarianship and, more particularly, the close links between formal and informal education, schools and libraries in Australia.

Research limitations/implications

The research was limited to Australia and did not include New Zealand.

Social implications

This research highlights the social value invested by the community in free access to knowledge through libraries over time and how this has impacted the provision of such access to children.

Originality/value

This paper takes an original approach to the exploration of school libraries in Australia through the use of historical bibliometrics. It uses this approach to analyse the published record and reflects on what this record can tell us about the inter-relationship between formal and informal education and library development in Australia. The findings provide new and valuable insights into the place of libraries in wider educational agendas and how political and community engagement with libraries influences the provision of library services to Australian children.
Gender inequalities in wages and access to employment in Senegal: discrimination or productive capacity
Authors: Ndour Cheikh Tidiane , Kante Ousmane
Published: February 2025

Purpose

Reducing disparities in access to the labor market and pay is a central pillar of development strategies and policies implemented globally, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and Senegal, where significant gender gaps persist. This paper aims to analyze gender inequalities in employment access and compensation in Senegal, assessing whether these differences arise from discrimination or disparities in productive skills.

Design/methodology/approach

This study investigates inequalities in labor market access and pay between men and women using the Oaxaca-Ransom (1994) model. The analysis utilizes data from the Senegal National Employment Survey conducted in 2015, which includes a sample of 6,000 households across the country, focusing on individuals aged 15 to 60.

Findings

The results reveal a substantial wage gap of 13.7% between men and women. Notably, a significant portion of this pay gap (79%) is attributed to discrimination in favor of men. Additionally, the labor market participation gap stands at 45%, with more than half of this gap (58%) attributable to discrimination against women. Key factors contributing to these disparities include experience, marital status, vocational training and place of residence.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the discourse on gender inequality by underscoring the need to combat discriminatory practices, promote self-employment opportunities and align formal employment initiatives with individual aptitudes and socio-economic profiles. It advocates for the removal of structural barriers that predispose women and girls to low-quality jobs and suboptimal pay, emphasizing the importance of fostering gender equity in the labor market.

Peer review

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-03-2024-0211
Impact of near economic center on the economic growth of neighboring country
Authors: Kim Sangho
Published: February 2025

Purpose

This study estimates the impact of growth transmitted from a near economic center (NEC) to neighboring countries in boosting the growth of Asian countries.

Design/methodology/approach

This study constructs the NEC of a country and combines it with the Penn World Tables database. The study estimates the impact of NEC on the economic growth of Asian countries over the period 1950–2019. The study also identifies the factors that boost the delivery of neighboring effects.

Findings

Estimation results show that a country’s output growth increases by about 0.14% when NEC’s output growth increases by 1%.

Practical implications

This study suggests that Asian growth benefited from a developed country that transmits economic prosperity to neighboring countries.

Social implications

This study suggests that a country should have a good economic relationship with neighboring countries to boost economic growth.

Originality/value

This study contributes to the existing literature as follows: First, this is the first study that investigated spatial externality in growth between neighboring countries in Asia. Secondly, this study empirically tests the flying geese model in Asian growth. Thirdly, the study investigates the factors that facilitate growth spillover between countries.
Build-up method for capitalization rate: revisited
Authors: Trifonov Nikolai
Published: February 2025

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to revise the imprecise formulae of the risk build-up method widely used in the practice of property valuation, in particular, in unstable economies.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper’s approach is the selection of the risk-free rate in the capitalization rate in the absence of exchange statistics. The equation of returns by analogy with Fisher (1907) and Fisher (1930) is used as a methodological instrument for this.

Findings

This study presents exact formulae for build-up method and proposes a set of risk premiums independent of each other. Cases of investments in foreign and local currencies are considered.

Research limitations/implications

To determine the values of risk premiums and the asset risk amendment with acceptable accuracy, a sufficient amount of statistical data about the market of the valuated property is required.

Practical implications

The application of the build-up method in the revised form will allow for more accurate property valuation, especially in countries where the market is opaque or where there is not a lot of activity.

Social implications

The departure from the original version of the build-up method with empirical “justification,” which after more than 30 years of application has become almost universally accepted, indicates a certain maturity of the valuation theory and will allow more effective appraisal of property, such as capital real estate or business.

Originality/value

This paper is an original study based on the application of the equation of return to clarify the structure of the capitalization rate. When determining the proposed set of risk premiums, one of the principles of real estate valuation was used – the principle of dependency.
Laser scanning technology for construction project delivery in developing economies: a confirmatory factor analysis of hindering factors
Authors: Ikuabe Matthew , Aghimien Douglas , Aigbavboa Clinton , Oke Ayodeji , Thwala Wellington Didibhuku
Published: February 2025

Purpose

The use of technological innovations to effectively deliver construction projects is gaining significant coverage. This study aims to assess the inhibiting factors to the utilisation of laser scanners for the delivery of construction projects in developing economies using South Africa as the study area.

Design/methodology/approach

Adopting a quantitative technique, this study elicited responses from construction professionals using a questionnaire as the instrument for data collection. A four-pronged data analysis method was used, comprising descriptive statistics, Kruskal−Wallis h-test, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA).

Findings

Findings from the study show that lack of awareness and high cost of acquisition are the barriers rated by the study’s respondents the most. Also, findings from the EFA and CFA conducted showed and affirmed the significance of three constructs inhibiting factors to the utilisation of laser scanners for construction project delivery: technical hindrances, financial impediments and institutional challenges.

Practical implications

This study makes practical contributions to the discourse of using innovative technologies for effective construction project delivery by inhibiting factors to the use of laser scanners.

Originality/value

Evidence from the literature shows that no study has assessed the barriers to the utilisation of laser scanning technology for construction projects in the South African construction industry. This study strives to close this gap in the literature.
FDI motives of emerging market multinationals and foreign subsidiary governance
Authors: Luo Yuxue , Kim Young Un , Li Lei , Tang Xiaojun
Published: February 2025

Purpose

This study aims to examine how the parent firm’s foreign direct investment (FDI) motive influences the roles of corporate boards and CEO appointment of foreign subsidiaries in the context of emerging market multinational enterprises (EMNEs). Based on the agency and resource dependence theories, foreign subsidiary boards mainly serve two governance roles: an internal role focusing on monitoring subsidiary operations and resource flows with parent firms and an external role aimed at securing local operational effectiveness. This paper specifically examines the composition of foreign subsidiary boards in terms of board independence and expatriate director ratio, and whether the CEO is an expatriate, which reflects the emphasized role.

Design/methodology/approach

This paper collects data on listed foreign subsidiaries of Chinese MNEs between 2005 and 2021. The final sample includes 754 subsidiary-year observations across 20 host economies. The analysis is conducted using Hausman–Taylor estimation.

Findings

This paper finds that strategic asset-seeking FDI motive is associated with a lower expatriate director ratio, a higher independent director ratio and a higher likelihood of hiring nonexpatriate CEOs. In contrast, foreign subsidiaries established with the motive of institutional escape to tax havens result in a higher expatriate director ratio, lower independent director ratio and lower likelihood of hiring nonexpatriate CEOs.

Originality/value

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore how FDI motives influence board composition of foreign subsidiaries and appointment of subsidiary CEOs. Theoretically, this paper draws upon agency theory and resource dependence theory to extend their application to foreign subsidiaries of EMNEs. The findings enhance the understanding of international corporate governance.
Tangibility of intangibles in the ESG disclosure–carbon intensity nexus for S&P 500 firms
Authors: Saha Rupjyoti , Maji Santi Gopal
Published: February 2025

Purpose

Given the substantial contribution of intangible assets to firms’ overall valuation in the present knowledge-based era, this study aims to explore how these non-physical assets influence the effectiveness of ESG disclosure in reducing carbon intensity (CI).

Design/methodology/approach

This study focuses on the S&P 500 firms for the period 2015–2016 to 2022–2023 to study the overall impact of ESG disclosure on CI and investigate the differential impact of the same based on firms’ intangible assets by applying the system generalized method of moments (GMM) and two stage least squares (2SLS) regression models.

Findings

This study finds that overall, there is a significant negative impact of ESG disclosure on CI. However, the impact of ESG disclosure on CI varies based on firms’ intangible assets. In particular, ESG disclosure leads to significant mitigation of CI for firms with high intangible assets, while the same relationship becomes insignificant for the firms with low intangible assets.

Originality/value

Given the extant ESG literature that largely focuses on its financial outcome, this study makes a novel contribution by studying the impact of ESG disclosure on a sustainability parameter, that is CI in the context of the US. Moreover, this research adds deeper insights into the strategic importance of intangible assets in enhancing corporate sustainability performance.
Uncovering Female Voices in a Male‐dominated Discourse: An Analysis of Gender Dynamics in Medical Case Records From the Qing Dynasty, China
Authors: Xiaoyan Dong
Published: February 2025

By utilizing the pivotal text Wu's Records of Medical Experiences, this research recognizes that the male‐centric perspective prevalent in case records overlooks or even disregards women's experiences. Our objective is to explore how this male‐centric lens shapes the representation of women. Contrary to the persistent belief that the Chinese gender construct was solely rooted in tradition and oppressive forces, this article contends that even within imperial China – often viewed as a quintessential example of patriarchal society – there was significant flexibility and opportunities for individuals to shape their identities through everyday practices.
Novel Gene Clusters for Secondary Metabolite Synthesis in Mesophotic Sponge‐Associated Bacteria
Authors: Chen Nuo , Liu Liwei , Wang Jingxuan , Mao Deqiang , Lu Hongmei , Shishido Tânia Keiko , Zhi Shuai , Chen Hua , He Shan
Published: February 2025

Mesophotic coral ecosystems (MCEs) host a diverse array of sponge species, which represent a promising source of bioactive compounds. Increasing evidence suggests that sponge‐associated bacteria may be the primary producers of these compounds. However, cultivating these bacteria under laboratory conditions remains a significant challenge. To investigate the rich resource of bioactive compounds synthesised by mesophotic sponge‐associated bacteria, we retrieved 429 metagenome‐assembled genomes (MAGs) from 15 mesophotic sponges, revealing a strong correlation between bacterial diversity and sponge species. Furthermore, we identified 1637 secondary metabolite biosynthetic gene clusters (BGCs) within these MAGs. Among the identified BGCs, terpenes were the most abundant (495), followed by 369 polyketide synthases (PKSs), 293 ribosomally synthesised and post‐translationally modified peptides (RiPPs) and 135 nonribosomal peptide synthetases (NRPSs). The BGCs were classified into 1086 gene cluster families (GCFs) based on sequence similarity. Notably, only five GCFs included experimentally validated reference BGCs from the Minimum Information about a Biosynthetic Gene cluster database (MIBiG). Additionally, an unusual abundance of BGCs was detected in Entotheonella sp. (s191209.Bin93) from the Tectomicrobia phylum. In contrast, members of Proteobacteria and Acidobacteriota harboured fewer BGCs (6–7 on average), yet their high abundance in MCE sponges suggests a potentially rich reservoir of BGCs. Analysis of the BGC distribution patterns revealed that a subset of BGCs, including terpene GCFs (FAM_00447 and FAM_01046), PKS GCF (FAM_00235), and RiPPs GCF (FAM_01143), were widespread across mesophotic sponges. Furthermore, 32 GCFs were consistently present in the same MAGs across different sponges, highlighting their potential key biological roles and capacity to yield novel bioactive compounds. This study not only underscores the untapped potential of mesophotic sponge‐associated bacteria as a source of bioactive compounds but also provides valuable insights into the intricate interactions between sponges and their symbiotic microbial communities.