bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Changes in Pre-service Teachers' Perception of Artificial Intelligence through an Educational Program Utilizing Generative Al
Authors:   Center For Educational Research, Lee Jaehyeok , Paik Seoung-Hey
Published: August 2024

Purpose: This study explored pre-service teachers' perception of AI changes through an educational program that utilize AI.
Methods: An educational program was developed that provides opportunities for pre-service teachers to design classes using AI and implement them through teaching practicum and used to investigate the educational effectiveness of seventeen pre-service teachers at a university in Chungcheongbuk province. Fourteen questions corresponding to the two categories of ‘Accessibility of AI’ and ‘Similarity between AI and Human’ were administered in pre- and post-surveys. Changes were also investigated in the pre-service teachers' perception of artificial intelligence based on the output and interview data submitted by the pre-service teachers that supplemented the survey results.
Results: As a result of the study, the educational program developed in this study showed educational effectiveness. Through the educational program, pre-service teachers showed changes in their perception that AI can be used by anyone, that AI is safe, that AI cannot replace human jobs, and that AI learns through human input. However, it was found that pre-service teachers felt a financial burden in having to subscribe to artificial intelligence, and there was a limit to changing the thinking that artificial intelligence can solve problems like humans.
Conclusion: In the future, in order to improve the pre-service teachers' perception of AI and to actively implement classes using generative artificial intelligence in schools, schools should provide financial support when using AI programs, or let pre-service teachers recognize the operating principles of artificial intelligence and the differences between humans. There is a need to develop more sophisticated pre-service teacher education programs for content that shows limited effectiveness.
A Study on Plato’s and Nietzsche’s Authentic Educator: Focusing on Suffering, Adversity, and the Process of Overcoming Crisis
Authors:   Center For Educational Research, Hong Yun-Taek , Lee Byung-Seung
Published: August 2024

Purpose: The purpose of this article was to present an authentic path for educators in crisis to follow today.
Methods: An identification of the authentic educator was discerned by examining Plato's Politeia and Nietzsche's Also Sprache Zarathustra.
Results: First, educators should devote themselves to the truth to improve their life. Second, educators should create new values by renewing themselves. Third, educators should assist students convert to truths. Lastly, educators should love everyone's existential life in itself so as to make students renew themselves.
Conclusion: There are various difficulties in the process of education. However, even in the face of suffering and adversity, educators should perform their tasks faithfully to create a brighter future for society.
Differences in High School Students’ Rating of Sentence Importance Depending on Text Length, Content, and Students’ Proficiency Levels (upper and lower)
Authors:   Center For Educational Research, Park Kyoung-Hee , Kim Hye-Rim , Park Young-Min
Published: August 2024

Purpose: This study analyzed differences in high school students’ rating of sentence importance depending on text length, content, and the students’ proficiency level(upper and lower), aiming to improve the teaching and the learning of reading.
Methods: A test was conducted with 173 high school students in Changwon, Gyeongsangnam province. Based on the test, an analysis was performed to examine how text length and content affect the rating of importance. Additionally, participants were divided into two groups based on their proficiency levels in rating sentence importance — upper and lower — and the effects of variables within each group were analyzed.
Results: First, text length revealed a statistically significant difference in students’ importance rating scores. Second, concerning content, no statistically significant difference was observed in the scores. Third, dividing participants into upper and lower proficiency groups based on the mean score showed a statistically significant difference between the two groups. Fourth, regarding text length, students in the upper group exhibited a superior ability to rate sentence importance in shorter passages compared to longer ones, and this difference was statistically significant. In contrast, for the lower group, no statistically significant difference was observed depending on the text length. Consequently, it was determined that students in the lower group face challenges in rating sentence importance regardless of text length. Fifth, concerning content, no statistically significant differences were observed in importance rating abilities for both upper and lower groups. Nevertheless, upon calculating effect sizes, it was discerned that students in both groups exhibited comparatively higher abilities in passages related to humanities than those related to the Natural Sciences.
Conclusion: Students’ proficiency in rating sentence importance varied depending on the length of the text, while no significant difference was observed concerning the content. The upper and lower groups showed a great disparity in proficiency, and the variables that caused statistically significant differences varied depending on the proficiency level. These findings show that it is important to adjust the length and content of texts to match students’ proficiency levels when teaching reading strategies such as sentence importance rating. Furthermore, the introduction of sentence importance rating method, which visually illustrates the reading process, into teaching and learning can contribute to enhancing students’ reading abilities.
A concept mapping study on early adolescents' experiences and changes at home in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic
Authors:   Center For Educational Research, Choi Jiyoung , Lee Seungyeong , Yu Lin
Published: August 2024

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the conceptual structure of early adolescents' experiences and changes at home in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods: For this purpose, focusing questions were developed to generate ideas from 20 male and female students in the first and second grades of middle school, and ultimately 62 statements were derived. Research participants rated the similarity classification of the final statements and the degree to which they matched their own experiences and changes, and based on the results, multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis were performed to derive a concept map.
Results: As a result of the study, the concept map was classified six clusters and composed of two dimensions : ‘the experience of living with family members’ vs. ‘personal life experience (x-axis)’and ‘class and academic attitude vs personal activities (Y-axis)’. Six clusters were ‘increased worries and conflicts about family members’, ‘as family members spent more time together, intimacy increase’, ‘changes in personal life patterns at home and opportunities for personal growth’, ‘changes in personal life patterns and increased negative emotional experiences’, ‘increased personal activities at home’, ‘changes in (online/offline) class and academic attitudes during the COVID era’. Second, as a result of evaluating the degree of agreement, the research participants recognized the ‘increased personal activity at home’ cluster as most consistent with their own experiences and changes.
Conclusion: Based on these research results, implications regarding educational intervention and support plan for the healthy growth of early adolescents who experienced COVID-19 were discussed.
Onboarding Students at Scale: A New Student Orientation Course that Prepares Students to Succeed in their Online Degree Programs
Authors: Leslie Heather
Published: August 2024

A new online orientation course equips students with the tools and skills to thrive in online programs. It welcomes them to the university, introduces the learning management system, fosters peer connection, and locates essential resources. Additionally, it teaches valuable strategies for time management, motivation, and success in online learning. This adaptable base course caters to the university’s diverse online programs while maintaining a core structure. Designed for efficient facilitation by Academic Directors, it also allows for a personalized touch. Surveys indicate the course effectively prepares students for their first online course. Notably, completing the orientation has become the strongest predictor of student retention and academic success. This award-winning approach serves as a valuable example for designing online student orientation programs.
Every Lesson Needs a Gandalf: How Interactive Storytelling can Enhance the Collaborative Learning Experience!
Authors: Buseyne Siem , Libot Chaja , Van Lier Tim , Raes Annelies
Published: August 2024

Every teacher aspires to create the ideal lesson! You want to convey the knowledge and skills in the best possible way while also keeping learners motivated. In our design case, we focus on the complex skill of collaborative problem-solving (CPS). In today’s complex world, the acquisition of CPS competencies is considered an important learning goal in education. However, there is limited knowledge on how to teach and assess CPS competencies. In addition to tackling these challenges, we search for new ways of interactive storytelling to implement in the learning materials. Our main design challenge was how to design a learning experience that encourages CPS. To address these challenges, we started in 2020 the project titled Supporting TEamwork in AMbient learning Spaces (STEAMS). In this project, we designed the EDUbox Teamwork, a four-hour learning activity for children between the ages of 10 to 14. In this paper, we describe the iterative process of designing the materials to learn about CPS (i.e., CPS as a learning goal) by doing CPS (i.e., CPS as a method), enhanced by interactive storytelling, for which the design-based research approach was used. The design team consisted of a diverse group of educational researchers, computer scientists, instructional graphical designers, digital storytellers, and teachers. Given the strong collaboration between a research group specialized in computer-supported collaborative learning and specialists in digital storytelling, our design case incorporated insights from both parties. The learning activity was piloted both in in-vivo and in-vitro contexts in collaboration with at least 400 students.
Cardgame Design Project-Based Learning for a Graphic Design Course
Authors: Hananto Brian Alvin
Published: August 2024

Project-based learning is an effective method for students’ learning design. For the “Graphic Design for Interactive Entertainment” elective course, the author uses project-based learning to teach UI and UX design to Universitas Pelita Harapan’s Visual Communication Design Department students. For the project, the author designed a game mechanic. The students of the course later designed visuals for the game. One game that resulted from this project was “Pro Pickpockets”, a game about a group of pickpockets competing to collect valuable prizes for the best pickpockets. This paper elaborates on the design case of Pro Pickpockets as a design project and project-based learning for students in learning UI and UX.
Designing a Hybrid Program to Utilize Tacit Knowledge
Authors: Li Zixi , Feng Chen
Published: August 2024

This design case focused on the design of an intervention set aimed at capturing and sharing tacit knowledge in the workplace. The design case demonstrated the design process of expanding a single chatbot intervention into a comprehensive hybrid intervention set to cooperate with learners of different technology competencies and learning needs. This design case also details insights gained by the design team on how to utilize shared design knowledge through different design disciplines to resolve a design problem, and how to make revisions to improve the design.
The role of noncontiguous attendance zones in shaping school populations: A case study of Tucson, Arizona and Fort Bend, Texas
Authors: Asson Sarah , Krebs Buck Ruth , Bodenschatz Hope , Frankenberg Erica , Folwer Christopher
Published: August 2024

Noncontiguous school attendance zone boundaries (AZBs) have a unique, relatively uncommon shape that assign two or more non-adjacent residential areas to the same school. Given their ability to shape school enrollments by taking advantage of residential sorting, noncontiguous AZBs have historically been linked to explicit efforts to both segregate and desegregate schools. In this paper, we use a novel, longitudinal dataset of AZBs and descriptive quantitative and geospatial methods to understand how the relationship between noncontiguous zones, school diversity, and neighborhood demographics changed from 1990-2020 in two southwestern school districts—Tucson Unified School District, Arizona and Fort Bend Independent School District, Texas. Each district has a unique legal history and demographic context that informs their use of noncontiguous AZBs. We find noncontiguous AZBs are more strongly associated with racially diverse schools and are more likely to bring together neighborhoods with different compositions in Tucson compared to Fort Bend. However, the association between Tucson’s noncontiguous AZBs and racially diverse schools has waned since 1990, as the district has negotiated the end of its court-ordered desegregation plan. Our findings provide insight into when and how noncontiguous AZBs can effectively contribute to ethnoracially diverse schools.
La escuela autodidacta: Inclusión de estudiantes extranjeros según la acción pública en Chile
Authors: Valdés René , Catalán Ramiro , Jiménez Felipe , Poblete Rolando , Abett de la Torre Paloma , Martínez Susana
Published: August 2024

La consolidación de los flujos migratorios hacia Chile y la concentración de estudiantes extranjeros en escuelas públicas han hecho que el Estado y el Ministerio de Educación implementen cuerpos normativos y diseñen guías y orientaciones para favorecer los procesos de inclusión escolar. El objetivo de este estudio fue analizar la documentación pública disponible sobre inclusión de estudiantes extranjeros en función de lo que se espera que hagan las escuelas en gestión de la diversidad cultural. Se analizaron 18 documentos oficiales mediante la técnica cualitativa del análisis de discurso. Los resultados evidencian que los textos construyen una escuela voluntarista, responsable de una gran cantidad de tareas sin la provisión de recursos y modelos de gestión de la diversidad. Sin embargo, en el contexto de pandemia, se percibe un giro hacia la integralidad: aparecen nuevos desafíos y dimensiones para abordar la inclusión de comunidades migrantes.
Heterogeneous Fenton Degradation of Batik Wastewater using Natural Pyrite
Authors: Irawaty Wenny , Yuliana Maria , Wijaya Christian J. , Retnoningtyas Ery S. , Lourentius Suratno , Puspitasari Nathania , Hamidah Umi
Published: August 2024

Heterogeneous Fenton processes with solid natural pyrite catalyst have gained attention for wastewater treatment. The improvement of degradation efficiency of natural pyrite is specific and therefore, it is still a challenging issue. This study was aimed to investigate the performance of Indonesian natural pyrite, without any purification, to treat the real wastewater obtained from batik home industry. To address this issue, several experiment variables such as pre-reaction between pyrite and hydrogen peroxide, hydrogen peroxide concentration, and pH were investigated. COD removal has been found to increase in a slightly acid condition (4.5 to 5.65) and inhibited at pHs of 8 and above (10). The results showed the presence of hydrogen peroxide was indeed greatly influence the wastewater degradation and the solution pH did not significantly change the wastewater degradation in the range of 3 and less than 8. Moreover, the pre-reaction period was found as the important part to initiate the degradation process. The optimum degradation efficiency was obtained by providing the pre-reaction time of 20 min with the addition of 326 mmol/L of H2O2 in the system and the mixture was reacted for 30 min at room temperature and real wastewater pH. Based on results observed in this study, it can be concluded that the batik wastewater can be degraded by natural pyrite up to 84% under reaction conditions studied. This finding offers great opportunity to further investigate and develop the heterogeneous Fenton process for real applications in industry.
A Leak Free Phase Change Materials with Enhanced Thermal Buffering Properties by TiO2/Biochar
Authors: Ariyanti Dessy , Huda Khoirul , Bayu Samudra Muhammad , Lesdantina Dina , Adi Saputra Erwan , Hamzah Fazlena
Published: August 2024

A leak free organic phase change material of palmitic acid with enhanced thermal buffering properties was synthesized by simple chemical TiO2/biochar encapsulation process. By utilizing the optimum amount of TiO2 as an encapsulation agent the minimalization of leakage phenomena during the phase change process can be achieved with the value 20-25% of weight loss. Furthermore, the additional sugar cane bagasse-based biochar that was introduced to the encapsulation system acts as a support matrix that enhances further the leakage properties into free leak category with the percentage of weight lost 1.1-1.4 %. Moreover, the introduction of sugar cane bagasse-based biochar in the encapsulation system of the palmitic acid PCM can improve the thermal buffering properties by keeping a package box temperature in the range of 2-80C for more than 20 h by means small increment of temperature 0.72oC/h.  Keywords: PCM, encapsulation, palmitic acid, thermal buffering, leakage
The Effect of Variation of Palm Fronds Absorbent Concentration In Adsorption Process to Reduce Free Fatty Acid Content on Tengkawang Oil
Authors: Puspita Filda Agum , Oktaviani Eva Pramuni , Rakasiwi Rinjani Ratih , Ivontianti Wivina Diah
Published: August 2024

Tengkawang oil that hasn’t through purification process contains free fatty acid that can affect its quality, where this essence is the polluter that must be removed because it can caused a rancid. The removal of free fatty acid content on Tengkawang oil was done through adsorption process utilizing palm fronds adsorbent by using its cellulose content. Palm fronds went through dilegnification process using 10% of NaOH, then adsorption process was conducted with adsorbent concentration variety 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25%. Adsorbent characterized by utilizing FTIR and SAA, from FTIR result shows that palm fronds contain berlignocellulose function cluster, after delignification the C=C lignin compound function cluster still can be found on FTIR result and after adsorption O-H cluster went through intensity decrement which shows that cellulose content and hydroxyl (-OH) cluster reacted with adsorbat. Furthermore, there’s absorption on C-H function cluster that indicates the existence of free fatty acid compound and other polluter that adsorbed by palm fronds adsorbent. The characteristic of palm fronds adsorbent after delignification process was conducted shows the pore size is on micropore range with surface area of 6.480 m2/g, pore volume of 0.01138 cc/g and pore radius of 12.4 Å. The result of the research shows decreasing percentage of free fatty acid, capacity value and adsorption effectiveness of Tengkawang oil that the highest is on adsorbent concentration as much as 25% with decreasing percentage of free fatty acid as much as 4.68%, adsorption capacity as much as 207.19 mg/g and adsorption effectiveness as much as 36.28%. Keywords: adsorption; delignification; free fatty acid; tengkawang oil
DETECTING OF PROBABILITY OF FINANCIAL STATEMENT FRAUD USING FRAUD HEXAGON MODEL: Evidence from Indonesian Public Companies
Authors: Sari Sahda Purnama , Hanafi Mamduh Mahmadah
Published: August 2024

Many of Indonesian public companies had proven guilty that have committed financial statement fraud.The purpose of this research is for detecting financial statement fraud using fraud hexagon model consists of pressure, opportunity, rationalization, ccompetence, arrogance & collusion variabels. The sample in this reaserch specifically chose companies that were proven to have committed financial statement fraud and used logistical regression estimation technique assisted by STATA 14.The results of this reaserch shows that pressure proxied by financial stability, rationalization proxied by total accruals and collusion proxied by state owned enterprises (SOEs) have positive effect significantly on probability of financal statement fraud. Consequently, change of receivables, change of directors, CEO education, CEO narcissism, managerial ownership and CEO duality have negative effect on probability of financial statement fraud. meanwhile, external pressure, financial target, ineffective monitoring and auditor switching have no efffect on probability of financial statement fraud. The fraud hexagon model  can be used for financial statement fraud detection because the results support the collusion variable proxied by state owned enterprises (SOEs) which indicates that regulation, supervision and punishment are still weak for parties proven to have committed financial statement fraud.
THE IMPACT OF CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY DISCLOSURES ON COMPANY PROFITABILITY
Authors: Aresteria Maya , Sulestiyono Deddy , Rakhmayani Alfita
Published: August 2024

Companies with complex environmental consequences have an obligation to address their corporate social and environmental impacts. The heterogeneity of results makes research on the impact of companies in implementing CSR still very interesting to do, one of which is the impact on profitability that will be received by companies if companies carry out CSR well. This study examines how the impact caused by the company on its CSR activities on company profitability. From the test results of 54 companies listed on the IDX, it was found that CSR disclosures made by companies had an impact on company profitability.
THE INFLUENCE OF LIFESTYLE, FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY, FINANCIAL LITERACY, AND FINANCIAL BEHAVIOR ON GENERETION Z INVESTMENT DECISIONS
Authors: SAPTYANA RISKA FITA
Published: August 2024

This research aims to examine the influence of lifestyle, financial technology, financial literacy, and financial behavior on investment decisions among generation Z students in Semarang. The respondents in this research were 202 Generation Z students in Semarang. The primary data used in this research was by distributing research online questionnaires and processed using SPSS statistics 26. The results of this research show that lifestyle, financial technology and financial behavior have a positive and significant influence on generation Z's investment decisions. Meanwhile, financial literacy has no effect. significant impact on generation Z's investment decisions
Dziecięce konfabulacje i rozwój moralny najmłodszych
Authors: Grzesiak Emilia
Published: August 2024

The article is devoted to the issue of children’s confabulations, which often characterize preschool children and constitute a specific part of this developmental period. The text explains the phenomenon of confabulation, who else it may concern, and why younger children fantasize and tell untrue stories. It will also discuss the topic of lies, the causes of insincerity among children, and the broadly understood moral development of the youngest.
The Internet as the New Backyard: Developmental Consequences of the Smartphone Lifestyle
Authors: Błajet Piotr
Published: August 2024

This article discusses the threats related to the excessive use of smartphones, which have replaced backyard games for children in the past, as well as its consequences for the development of the young generation. Robert Kegan’s concept of development is used as an analytical tool to diagnose such threats. The text indicates the following developmental risks: a reduced sense of inner control, underdeveloped reflexivity, and reduced physical activity.
Window Function Expression: Let the Self-Join Enter
Authors: Bača Radim
Published: August 2024

Window function expressions (WFEs) became part of the SQL:2003 standard, and since then, they have often been implemented in database systems (DBS). They are especially essential to OLAP DBSs, and people use them daily. Even though WFEs are a heavily used part of the SQL language, the amount of research done on their optimization in the last two decades is not significant.

WFE does not extend the expressive power of the SQL language, but it makes writing SQL queries easier and more transparent. DBSs always compile SQL queries with WFE using a sequence of partition-sort-compute operators, which we call a linear strategy. Plans resulting from the linear strategy are robust and, in many cases, efficient.

This article introduces an alternative strategy using a self-join, which is not considered in the current DBSs. We call it the self-join strategy, and it is based on an SQL query transformation where the result query uses a self-join query plan to compute WFE. One output of this work is a tool that can automatically perform such SQL query transformations.

We created a microbenchmark showing that the self-join strategy is more effective than the linear strategy in many cases. We also performed a cost-based experiment to evaluate the query optimizers' ability to select an appropriate strategy. The article's main aim is to show that usage of the self-join strategy for queries with WFE is beneficial if selected in a cost-based manner.
Sampling Methods for Inner Product Sketching
Authors: Daliri Majid , Freire Juliana , Musco Christopher , Santos Aécio , Zhang Haoxiang
Published: August 2024

Recently, Bessa et al. (PODS 2023) showed that sketches based on coordinated weighted sampling theoretically and empirically outperform popular linear sketching methods like Johnson-Lindentrauss projection and CountSketch for the ubiquitous problem of inner product estimation. We further develop this finding by introducing and analyzing two alternative sampling-based methods. In contrast to the computationally expensive algorithm in Bessa et al., our methods run in linear time (to compute the sketch) and perform better in practice, significantly beating linear sketching on a variety of tasks. For example, they provide state-of-the-art results for estimating the correlation between columns in unjoined tables, a problem that we show how to reduce to inner product estimation in a black-box way. While based on known sampling techniques (threshold and priority sampling) we introduce significant new theoretical analysis to prove approximation guarantees for our methods.
DET-LSH: A Locality-Sensitive Hashing Scheme with Dynamic Encoding Tree for Approximate Nearest Neighbor Search
Authors: Wei Jiuqi , Peng Botao , Lee Xiaodong , Palpanas Themis
Published: August 2024

Locality-sensitive hashing (LSH) is a well-known solution for approximate nearest neighbor (ANN) search in high-dimensional spaces due to its robust theoretical guarantee on query accuracy. Traditional LSH-based methods mainly focus on improving the efficiency and accuracy of the query phase by designing different query strategies, but pay little attention to improving the efficiency of the indexing phase. They typically fine-tune existing data-oriented partitioning trees to index data points and support their query strategies. However, their strategy to directly partition the multi-dimensional space is time-consuming, and performance degrades as the space dimensionality increases. In this paper, we design an encoding-based tree called Dynamic Encoding Tree (DE-Tree) to improve the indexing efficiency and support efficient range queries based on Euclidean distance. Based on DE-Tree, we propose a novel LSH scheme called DET-LSH. DET-LSH adopts a novel query strategy, which performs range queries in multiple independent index DE-Trees to reduce the probability of missing exact NN points, thereby improving the query accuracy. Our theoretical studies show that DET-LSH enjoys probabilistic guarantees on query accuracy. Extensive experiments on real-world datasets demonstrate the superiority of DET-LSH over the state-of-the-art LSH-based methods on both efficiency and accuracy. While achieving better query accuracy than competitors, DET-LSH achieves up to 6x speedup in indexing time and 2x speedup in query time over the state-of-the-art LSH-based methods.
GENTI: GPU-Powered Walk-Based Subgraph Extraction for Scalable Representation Learning on Dynamic Graphs
Authors: Yu Zihao , Liao Ningyi , Luo Siqiang
Published: August 2024

Graph representation learning is an emerging task for effectively embedding graph-structured data with learned features. Among them, Subgraph-based GRL (SGRL) methods have demonstrated better scalability and expressiveness for large-scale tasks. The core challenge of applying SGRL to dynamic graphs lies in accommodating the extraction of subgraphs to evolving data with efficient computation. To address the efficiency bottleneck, we propose GENTI, a GPU-oriented SGRL algorithm for dynamic graphs. Our approach mainly improves the critical subgraph extraction stage by disentangling it into two phases, namely neighbor sampling and subgraph gathering, which are respectively performed on CPU and GPU in an asynchronous fashion. The design favorably eliminates the dependence of feature learning on subgraph extraction, and is capable of exploiting the GPU's batch processing ability to remarkably boost computations throughout the pipeline. Dedicated data structures are designed for efficiently managing the dynamic graph storage and conforming efficient subgraph operations. Extensive empirical results on various real-world dynamic graphs show that GENTI achieves up to 30× faster in subgraph extraction time than the state-of-the-art walk-based methods and up to 26× acceleration in overall learning time, while maintaining comparable prediction performance. In particular, it is able to complete learning on the largest available graph of 1.3 billion edges within 24 hours, while all other baselines exhibit prohibitive overhead.
BYO: A Unified Framework for Benchmarking Large-Scale Graph Containers
Authors: Wheatman Brian , Dong Xiaojun , Shen Zheqi , Dhulipala Laxman , Łącki Jakub , Pandey Prashant , Xu Helen
Published: August 2024

A fundamental building block in any graph algorithm is a
graph container -
- a data structure used to represent the graph. Ideally, a graph container enables efficient access to the underlying graph, has low space usage, and supports updating the graph efficiently. In this paper, we conduct an extensive empirical evaluation of graph containers designed to support running algorithms on large graphs. To our knowledge, this is the first
apples-to-apples
comparison of graph containers rather than overall systems, which include confounding factors such as differences in algorithm implementations and infrastructure.

We measure the running time of 10 highly-optimized algorithms across over 20 different containers and 10 graphs. Somewhat surprisingly, we find that the average algorithm running time does not differ much across containers, especially those that support dynamic updates. Specifically, a simple container based on an off-the-shelf B-tree is only 1.22× slower on average than a highly optimized static one. Moreover, we observe that simplifying a graph-container Application Programming Interface (API) to only a few simple functions incurs a mere 1.16× slowdown compared to a complete API. Finally, we also measure batch-insert throughput in dynamic-graph containers for a full picture of their performance.

To perform the benchmarks, we introduce BYO, a unified framework that standardizes evaluations of graph-algorithm performance across different graph containers. BYO extends the Graph Based Benchmark Suite (Dhulipala et al. 18), a state-of-the-art graph algorithm benchmark, to easily plug into different dynamic graph containers and enable fair comparisons between them on a large suite of graph algorithms. While several graph algorithm benchmarks have been developed to date, to the best of our knowledge, BYO is the first system designed to benchmark graph containers.
Efficient and Reliable Estimation of Knowledge Graph Accuracy
Authors: Marchesin Stefano , Silvello Gianmaria
Published: August 2024

Data accuracy is a central dimension of data quality, especially when dealing with Knowledge Graphs (KGs). Auditing the accuracy of KGs is essential to make informed decisions in entity-oriented services or applications. However, manually evaluating the accuracy of large-scale KGs is prohibitively expensive, and research is focused on developing efficient sampling techniques for estimating KG accuracy. This work addresses the limitations of current KG accuracy estimation methods, which rely on the Wald method to build confidence intervals, addressing reliability issues such as zero-width and overshooting intervals. Our solution, rooted in the Wilson method and tailored for complex sampling designs, overcomes these limitations and ensures applicability across various evaluation scenarios. We show that the presented methods increase the reliability of accuracy estimates by up to two times when compared to the state-of-the-art while preserving or enhancing efficiency. Additionally, this consistency holds regardless of the KG size or topology.
Efficient Influence Minimization via Node Blocking
Authors: Wang Jinghao , Wu Yanping , Wang Xiaoyang , Zhang Ying , Qin Lu , Zhang Wenjie , Lin Xuemin
Published: August 2024

Given a graph
G
, a budget
k
and a misinformation seed set
S, Influence Minimization
(IMIN) via node blocking aims to find a set of
k
nodes to be blocked such that the expected spread of
S
is minimized. This problem finds important applications in suppressing the spread of misinformation and has been extensively studied in the literature. However, existing solutions for IMIN still incur significant computation overhead, especially when
k
becomes large. In addition, there is still no approximation solution with non-trivial theoretical guarantee for IMIN via node blocking prior to our work. In this paper, we conduct the first attempt to propose algorithms that yield data-dependent approximation guarantees. Based on the Sandwich framework, we first develop submodular and monotonic lower and upper bounds for our non-submodular objective function and prove the computation of proposed bounds is #P-hard. In addition, two advanced sampling methods are proposed to estimate the value of bounding functions. Moreover, we develop two novel martingale-based concentration bounds to reduce the sample complexity and design two non-trivial algorithms that provide (1 - 1/
e - ϵ
)-approximate solutions to our bounding functions. Comprehensive experiments on 9 real-world datasets are conducted to validate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed techniques. Compared with the state-of-the-art methods, our solutions can achieve up to two orders of magnitude speedup and provide theoretical guarantees for the quality of returned results.
Blitzcrank: Fast Semantic Compression for In-Memory Online Transaction Processing
Authors: Qiao Yiming , Gao Yihan , Zhang Huanchen
Published: August 2024

We present Blitzcrank, a high-speed semantic compressor designed for OLTP databases. Previous solutions are inadequate for compressing row-stores: they suffer from either low compression factor due to a coarse compression granularity or suboptimal performance due to the inefficiency in handling dynamic data sets. To solve these problems, we first propose novel semantic models that support fast inferences and dynamic value set for both discrete and continuous data types. We then introduce a new entropy encoding algorithm, called delayed coding, that achieves significant improvement in the decoding speed compared to modern arithmetic coding implementations. We evaluate Blitzcrank in both standalone microbenchmarks and a multicore in-memory row-store using the TPC-C benchmark. Our results show that Blitzcrank achieves a sub-microsecond latency for decompressing a random tuple while obtaining high compression factors. This leads to an 85% memory reduction in the TPC-C evaluation with a moderate (19%) throughput degradation. For data sets larger than the available physical memory, Blitzcrank help the database sustain a high throughput for more transactions before the I/O overhead dominates.
Fast Commitment for Geo-Distributed Transactions via Decentralized Co-Coordinators
Authors: Zhang Zihao , Hu Huiqi , Zhou Xuan , Tu Yaofeng , Qian Weining , Zhou Aoying
Published: August 2024

In a geo-distributed database, data shards and their respective replicas are deployed in distinct datacenters across multiple regions, enabling regional-level disaster recovery and the ability to serve global users locally. However, transaction processing in geo-distributed databases requires multiple cross-region communications, especially during the commit phase, which can significantly impact system performance.

To optimize the performance of geo-distributed transactions, we propose Decentralized Two-phase Commit (D2PC), a new transaction commit protocol aiming to minimize the negative impact of cross-region communication. In D2PC, we employ multiple co-coordinators that perform commit coordination in parallel. Each co-coordinator is responsible for collecting 2PC votes and making a PreCommit decision in its local region. This approach allows for the concurrent invocation of multiple cross-region network round trips, and each region can end its concurrency control locally before replication is complete, thus significantly reducing the chances of blocking and enhancing system concurrency. Moreover, we propose the bypass leader replication reply method, leveraging decentralized co-coordinators to bypass the leader for message transmission, thereby reducing the commit latency. Experimental results have demonstrated that D2PC can reduce commit latency by 43% and improve throughput by up to 2.43 × compared to the geo-distributed transaction processing methods based on 2PC.
Inductive Attributed Community Search: To Learn Communities Across Graphs
Authors: Fang Shuheng , Zhao Kangfei , Rong Yu , Li Zhixun , Yu Jeffrey Xu
Published: August 2024

Attributed community search (ACS) aims to identify subgraphs satisfying both structure cohesiveness and attribute homogeneity in attributed graphs, for a given query that contains query nodes and query attributes. Previously, algorithmic approaches deal with ACS in a two-stage paradigm, which suffer from structural inflexibility and attribute irrelevance. To overcome this problem, recently, learning-based approaches have been proposed to learn both structures and attributes simultaneously as a one-stage paradigm. However, these approaches train a transductive model which assumes the graph to infer unseen queries is as same as the graph used for training. That limits the generalization and adaptation of these approaches to different heterogeneous graphs.

In this paper, we propose a new framework, Inductive Attributed Community Search,
IACS
, by inductive learning, which can be used to infer new queries for different communities/graphs. Specifically,
IACS
employs an encoder-decoder neural architecture to handle an ACS task at a time, where a task consists of a graph with only a few queries and corresponding ground-truth. We design a three-phase workflow, "training-adaptation-inference", which learns a shared model to absorb and induce prior effective common knowledge about ACS across different tasks. And the shared model can swiftly adapt to a new task with small number of ground-truth. We conduct substantial experiments in 7 real-world datasets to verify the effectiveness of
IACS
for CS/ACS. Our approach
IACS
achieves 28.97% and 25.60% improvements in F1-score on average in CS and ACS, respectively.
DEX: Scalable Range Indexing on Disaggregated Memory
Authors: Lu Baotong , Huang Kaisong , Liang Chieh-Jan Mike , Wang Tianzheng , Lo Eric
Published: August 2024

Memory disaggregation can potentially allow memory-optimized range indexes such as B+-trees to scale beyond one machine while attaining high hardware utilization and low cost. Designing scalable indexes on disaggregated memory, however, is challenging due to rudimentary caching, unprincipled offloading and excessive inconsistency among servers.

This paper proposes DEX, a new scalable B+-tree for memory disaggregation. DEX includes a set of techniques to reduce remote accesses, including logical partitioning, lightweight caching and cost-aware offloading. Our evaluation shows that DEX can outperform the state-of-the-art by 1.7--56.3×, and the advantage remains under various setups, such as cache size and skewness.
Cones between the cones of positive semidefinite forms and sums of squares
Authors: Goel Charu , Hess Sarah , Kuhlmann Salma
Published: August 2024

For n, d ∈ ℕ, the cone 𝓟
n+1,2d
of positive semidefinite real forms in n + 1 variables of degree 2d contains the subcone Σ

n+1,2d
of those representable as finite sums of squares of real forms. Hilbert [11] proved that these cones coincide exactly in the Hilbert cases (n + 1, 2d) with n + 1 = 2 or 2d = 2 or (n + 1, 2d) = (3, 4).

In this paper, we induce a filtration of intermediate cones between Σ

n+1,2d
and 𝓟
n+1,2d
via the Gram matrix approach in [4] on a filtration of irreducible projective varieties V

k−n
⊊ … ⊊ Vn
⊊ … ⊊ V
0 containing the Veronese variety. Here, k is the dimension of the vector space of real forms in n + 1 variables of degree d. By showing that V
0, …, V

n
(and V

n+1 when n = 2) are varieties of minimal degree, we demonstrate that the corresponding intermediate cones coincide with Σ

n+1,2d
. We moreover prove that, in the non-Hilbert cases of (n + 1)-ary quartics for n ≥ 3 and (n + 1)-ary sextics for n ≥ 2, all the remaining cone inclusions are strict.
Study on the promotion multiple of blood flow velocity on human epidermal microcirculation of volcanic rock polymer fiber seamless knitted fabric
Authors: Qian Shuxian , Jin Zimin , Zhang Yixing , Fang Chengxiao , Jin Jing , Sun Yuqiang , Zheng Cong
Published: August 2024

As a material that can release infrared rays, volcanic rock polymer fibers can be used in textiles to improve human microcirculation, which is helpful to relieve chronic inflammatory diseases such as perishoulder arthritis. In this article, there are two different kinds of exterior yarns. Volcanic rock blended polyester, volcanic rock blended polyamide, polyester and polyamide are chosen as the material type of exterior yarn Ⅰ, whereas the material type of exterior yarn II is conductive polyamide yarn. The exterior yarn feed ratio of exterior yarn Ⅰ and exterior yarn II is designed as 8:0, 7:1 and 6:2 when weft plain stitch, 1 + 1 mock rib and 1 + 3 mock rib are used as the knitted structure of the fabric. According to the three-factor four-level orthogonal experimental design method, the sample protocol was established, and 16 knitted sample fabrics were produced. Then, the promotion multiple of blood flow velocity on human epidermal microcirculation of each sample was tested and analyzed. The results show that the promotion multiple of blood flow velocity on human epidermal microcirculation of the fabrics woven by volcanic rock polymer fibers is better than that of the blank control group, and the difference between fabrics with different volcanic rock polymer fibers is small. The higher the proportion of exterior yarn Ⅰ is, the better the promotion multiple of blood flow velocity on human epidermal microcirculation of fabric will be. The effect of knitted structure on the promotion multiple of blood flow velocity on human epidermal microcirculation of fabrics is not obvious. This study provides reference for the design of medical or health textiles for chronic inflammatory diseases.
Omega-3 fatty acids prevent gestational diabetes mellitus via modulation of lipid metabolism
Authors: Zhang Xuan , Li Fang , Yang Botao , Zhang Wei , Wang Yingchun
Published: August 2024

The incidence rate of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) remains high among pregnant women in the second trimester of pregnancy. However, the main clinical approach to alleviate the symptoms of GDM is to control the diet. Our study explored the therapeutic effects of omega-3 fatty acids (ω-3 FAs) on GDM at the cellular and animal levels. We found that ω-3 FAs can promote the transformation of M0 macrophages into anti-inflammatory M2 macrophages. The transformed M2 macrophages promoted β-oxidation and reduced hepatocyte lipid synthesis (P < 0.05), thereby promoting hepatic function and preventing the excessive accumulation of lipid droplets in the hepatocyte cell line HepG2. Supplementation of ω-3 FAs in pregnant GDM mice significantly reduced fasting blood glucose levels, glucose tolerance test, and insulin tolerance test indices, and lipid accumulation in the liver and effectively prevented the occurrence of liver fibrosis (P < 0.05). These therapeutic effects may be mediated through the anti-inflammatory effects of ω-3 FAs (P < 0.05). ω-3 FAs also had positive effects on the offspring of pregnant GDM mice, as demonstrated by reduced birth mortality and improved glycemic stabilization (P < 0.05). In conclusion, this study provides a possible translational medicine strategy for the treatment of GDM.
Refractory hypertension complicated with Turner syndrome: A case report
Authors: Hu Sisi , Liu Jichun , Tang Haixia , Xie Xiangrong , Wei Youquan
Published: August 2024

Hypertension is commonly classified into essential hypertension and secondary hypertension, although definitive classification can be challenging in some cases. Here, we discussed a patient who admitted for refractory hypertension, exhibiting various clinical manifestations including inadequate estrogen secretion, underdeveloped secondary sexual characteristics, primary amenorrhea, short stature, multiple moles, and somatic abnormalities. The patient was finally diagnosed with Turner syndrome (TS) based on clinical findings and chromosomal analysis. The genetic karyotype identified was 46,X,i(X)(q10).
Interaction of ncRNAs and the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway: Implications for osteosarcoma
Authors: Shao Weilin , Feng Yan , Huang Jin , Li Tingyu , Gao Shengguai , Yang Yihao , Li Dongqi , Yang Zuozhang , Yao Zhihong
Published: August 2024

Osteosarcoma (OS) is the most common primary malignant bone tumor in children and adolescents, and is characterized by high heterogeneity, high malignancy, easy metastasis, and poor prognosis. Recurrence, metastasis, and multidrug resistance are the main problems that limit the therapeutic effect and prognosis of OS. PI3K/AKT/mTOR signaling pathway is often abnormally activated in OS tissues and cells, which promotes the rapid development, metastasis, and drug sensitivity of OS. Emerging evidence has revealed new insights into tumorigenesis through the interaction between the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway and non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs). Therefore, we reviewed the interactions between the PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathway and ncRNAs and their implication in OS. These interactions have the potential to serve as cancer biomarkers and therapeutic targets in clinical applications.