bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Commoning Practices Along Streetscapes
Authors: Ravazzoli Elisa
Published: December 2023

In many cities around the world, similar stakeholders are collectively implementing initiatives that aim to address common problems, satisfy similar unmet needs, and contribute to the creation of more socially just and ecologically sustainable communities. Among the different types of action, commoning practices propose alternative forms of caring, sharing, protesting, producing, consuming, and occupying, where resources are collectively produced, owned, managed, or distributed. This paper seeks to theoretically reflect on the transformative power of commoning occurring on streets to tackle contemporary challenges and aims to suggest a framework for the socio-spatial analysis of commoning practices on streets.
New Technologies and Public Spaces: Supporting Sustainable Urban Policies
Authors: Sepe Marichela
Published: December 2023

New technologies add value to public spaces if these are used to support the knowledge of a place and its use. The presence of wireless, multimedia support, apps and different ICT tools constitute elements, which can support the knowledge aspects of the place with its different characteristics and can be designed in a logic of integration with other infrastructure and networks in the city. Furthermore, the presence on social media, even if not exhaustive—as the presence of that public space as a background to a photo does not guarantee that it is a pleasant and successful space—offers, however, within a more comprehensive framework of information, data on the type and quantity of users and their perception of it. Indeed, new technologies in their different forms become more and more important tools to provide deeper knowledge of the place, participation, and to address sustainable urban policies. Starting from these premises, the aim of this work, carried out in the framework of the research project “PRIN2020 #20209F3A37”, within the ISMed-CNR Unit with the author’s responsibility and the related Sapienza Università di Roma-ISMed-CNR agreement, is to illustrate the positive influence of ICT tools on the use of both indoor and outdoor public spaces by: revitalizing them; increasing the possibilities of use as well as contributing to greater social cohesion; and supporting sustainable urban policies. By way of examples, two emblematic case studies of public spaces will be illustrated using an original and an ad hoc database.
Life Course Studies and Biographical Research: Exploring the Individual-Society Relationship
Authors: Nilsen Ann
Published: December 2023

In this chapter the many ways in which the individual-society relationship has been approached in the history of sociology are addressed. The micro-macro distinction is discussed as an early conceptualisation of this relationship. In Thomas and Znaniecki’s pioneering work they made a distinction between ‘values’ and ‘attitudes’ that was considered an early attempt at constructing notions to discuss this issue in biographical research. The prominence of the agency-structure pair of concepts since the 1990s in the vocabulary to discuss the relationship between individuals and society is discussed in relation to the historical contexts of their origin. The section outlines arguments from some of the prominent sociologists who have written about the topic. Gendered aspects of concepts are seldom addressed in mainstream sociological theoretical discussions. A section that discusses this topic in its own right is included in this chapter. It sets notions of gendered agency within the historical contexts of debates that addressed them. Differences between the structure-agency divide on the one hand, and the history-biography dynamic on the other are discussed in the fourth section of the chapter. It also gives an overview of the diversity of approaches to the history-biography dynamic in biographical life course research.
Time and Temporality in Biographical Life Course Research
Authors: Nilsen Ann
Published: December 2023

This chapter discusses the topics of time and temporality in biographical research. The Chapter addresses the centrality of Mead’s writings. His notion of the temporal self was of particular relevance for this tradition. A section on historical time discusses the impact of period specific historical events on intergenerational relations and on the individual level. Family time is addressed in Tamara Hareven’s framework as an intermediary temporality between biographical and historical time. Discussions on intergenerational time explore topics such as social mobility and set these in an historical framework that demonstrate how biographical studies can add layers of knowledge about the processes involved that quantitative approaches miss. At the biographical level life course phases are addressed in relation to transitions and variations across cultural and structural contexts. Specific attention is paid to the phase of adulthood since it has largely had a kind of taken-for-granted definition without much attention to variations by gender and social class over historical time. A section on gender and time sets discussions about this theme in its historical context and extends the topic to include temporal aspects of biographical interviews and gendered narratives. In this section empirical examples from my own and other research are used to exemplify the arguments addressed.
The Future as a Topic in Biographical Life Course Approaches
Authors: Nilsen Ann
Published: December 2023

The relevance of a biographical approach to studies about the future is the topic of this chapter. In a discussion that takes its point of departure in theories of time and temporality, the significance of particular aspects of historical periods for what topics about the future are deemed research-worthy is addressed. The chapter addresses how ideas about Progress impacted on notions of time and temporality during earlier historical periods. Empirical studies discussed in this chapter demonstrate their embeddedness in specific circumstances and particular historical periods. These research topics thus provide insights into how changes at the structural level, be they environmental problems such as climate change, pandemics, or credit crises, in any present are woven into and become topics in individual biographical accounts. The early studies of women and time and gendered thoughts about the future, for instance, originated in a period when changes in gender relations in all areas of social life happened at a rapid pace in the Scandinavian countries in particular. The chapter shows that whilst gender, age and social class are essential analytical elements of sociological analysis that transcend historical periods, the contexts of their impact are diverse and varied.
Methodological and Other Controversies
Authors: Nilsen Ann
Published: December 2023

This chapter addresses methodological and other controversies in the biographical research tradition. Two strands of methodological debates have run parallel; the quantitative-qualitative divide that foregrounded methodological issues, and the other debate originating in the ‘cultural turn’ in the social sciences, that put epistemological questions centre stage. The quantitative-qualitative dispute has early origins. The discussion as it relates to life course and biographical research have been a constant since the origin of this approach. The methodological divide has persisted over the years and is also related to epistemological debates that have created dividing lines within qualitative approaches. A section discusses the meeting between the different approaches to qualitative biographical research in the social sciences and the humanities. The heated discussions from the 1980s onwards, that were in reality addressing themes in the philosophy of science, are presented in their contemporary contexts. Another line of debate is about notions and attention to historical time and is addressed in the section called ‘From history as periods to history as epoch’. Theoretical notions such as ‘the individualisation thesis’ and a ‘de-standardisation’ of life courses are terms associated with notions of history in epochal terms such as ‘late modernity’ and show how this vocabulary became influential.
Reflections
Authors: Nilsen Ann
Published: December 2023

This chapter starts with general discussions about divides in the wider research community and then narrows down the focus to the biographical life course approach and the various suggestions that have been put forward for bridging methodological divides. Mixed methods strategies across the quantitative-qualitative gap is the title of a section that presents different research designs in such studies that make use of both quantitative and qualitative material. It discusses challenges and potential barriers against incorporating both types of data along a continuum of statistical techniques for causal analyses on the one end, and biographical material for exploring social processes, on the other. Examples from empirical research illustrate the points raised. Questions of quality in biographical life course research is the topic of a separate section that underlines how different research strategies and approaches invite specific types of questions in relation to e.g., generalisability. The chapter ends with some general reflections inspired by research from this approach in contemporary society.
Factorization of covariant Feynman graphs for the effective action
Authors: von Gersdorff Gero
Published: December 2023

Abstract

We prove a neat factorization property of Feynman graphs in covariant perturbation theory. The contribution of the graph to the effective action is written as an integral over Schwinger parameters whose integrand is a product of a massless scalar momentum integral that only depends on the basic graph topology, and a background-field dependent piece that contains all the information of spin, gauge representations, masses etc. We give a closed expression for the momentum integral in terms of four graph polynomials whose properties we derive in some detail. Our results can also be useful for standard (non-covariant) perturbation theory.
Investigation of surface imperfection in freeform optics with high-order XY polynomial design
Authors: Kumar Sumit , Zhong Wenbin , Yu Guoyu , Zhang Jufan , Zeng Wenhan , Jiang Xiangqian
Published: December 2023

Freeform surfaces find potential applications in optics but pose new challenges for manufacturing and functional testing. A basic description of such surfaces is observed in terms of surface spatial frequencies which have been altered as a result of evolution in the fabrication of optics. While mid-spatial-frequency (MSF) errors arising from manufacturing and metrology processes are well documented, our investigation reveals that such errors originate not only during these stages but also during the surface construction at the design phase, particularly for high-order XY polynomial optical surfaces. The presence of MSF errors can significantly affect the performance of high-performance optical systems across various applications. The study discussed in this paper focuses on the relationship between the resolution of the design dataset of freeform surfaces with high-order polynomials and the subsequent surface imperfections in the production of precision optics. The main contributions of this investigation are the identification of MSF errors at surface construction of the design phase and the control over the MSF errors in design dataset using the 2nd-order Gaussian filtration which will bridge the gap between freeform optics design and ultra-precision manufacturing.
Modelling and diagnostic tests for Poisson and negative-binomial count time series
Authors: Aleksandrov Boris , Weiß Christian H. , Nik Simon , Faymonville Maxime , Jentsch Carsten
Published: December 2023

When modelling unbounded counts, their marginals are often assumed to follow either Poisson (Poi) or negative binomial (NB) distributions. To test such null hypotheses, we propose goodness-of-fit (GoF) tests based on statistics relying on certain moment properties. By contrast to most approaches proposed in the count-data literature so far, we do not restrict ourselves to specific low-order moments, but consider a flexible class of functions of generalized moments to construct model-diagnostic tests. These cover GoF-tests based on higher-order factorial moments, which are particularly suitable for the Poi- or NB-distribution where simple closed-form expressions for factorial moments of any order exist, but also GoF-tests relying on the respective Stein’s identity for the Poi- or NB-distribution. In the time-dependent case, under mild mixing conditions, we derive the asymptotic theory for GoF tests based on higher-order factorial moments for a wide family of stationary processes having Poi- or NB-marginals, respectively. This family also includes a type of NB-autoregressive model, where we provide clarification of some confusion caused in the literature. Additionally, for the case of independent and identically distributed counts, we prove asymptotic normality results for GoF-tests relying on a Stein identity, and we briefly discuss how its statistic might be used to define an omnibus GoF-test. The performance of the tests is investigated with simulations for both asymptotic and bootstrap implementations, also considering various alternative scenarios for power analyses. A data example of daily counts of downloads of a TeX editor is used to illustrate the application of the proposed GoF-tests.
Fistula development after anal abscess drainage—a multicentre retrospective cohort study
Authors: Skovgaards Daniel Mark , Perregaard Helene , Dibbern Christian Bakholdt , Nordholm-Carstensen Andreas
Published: December 2023

Purpose

Anal abscesses are common and, despite correct treatment with surgical drainage, carry the risk of developing fistulas. Studies identifying risk factors for the development of anal fistulas are sparse. This study aimed to identify the risk factors for anal fistulas after anal abscess surgery.

Methods

This was a multicentre, retrospective cohort study of patients undergoing acute surgery for anal abscesses in the Capital Region of Denmark between 2018 and 2019. The patients were identified using ICD-10 codes for anal abscesses. Predefined clinicopathological factors and postoperative courses were extracted from patient records.

Results

A total of 475 patients were included. At a median follow-up time of 1108 days (IQR 946–1320 days) following surgery, 164 (33.7%) patients were diagnosed with an anal fistula. Risk factors for developing fistulas were low intersphincteric (OR 2.77, 95CI 1.50–5.06) and ischioanal (OR 2.48, 95CI 1.36–4.47) abscesses, Crohn’s disease (OR 5.96, 95CI 2.33–17.2), a history of recurrent anal abscesses (OR 4.14, 95CI 2.47–7.01) or repeat surgery (OR 5.96, 95CI 2.33–17.2), E. coli-positive pus cultures (OR 4.06, 1.56–11.4) or preoperative C-reactive protein (CRP) of more than 100 mg/L (OR 3.21, 95CI 1.57–6.71).

Conclusion

Several significant clinical risk factors were associated with fistula development following anal abscess surgery. These findings are clinically relevant and could influence the selection of patients for specialised follow-up, facilitate expedited diagnosis, and potentially prevent unnecessarily long treatment courses.
Importance of a detailed anomaly scan after a cfDNA test indicating fetal trisomy 21, 18 or 13
Authors: Spingler Tobias , Sonek Jiri , Hoopmann Markus , Prodan Natalia , Jonaityte Gertruda , Elger Tania , Kagan Karl Oliver
Published: December 2023

Objective

To investigate the effect of the presence or absence of fetal anomalies and soft markers diagnosed by ultrasound on positive predictive value (PPV) 21, 18 and 13 in pregnancies with a high-risk cfDNA result.

Methods

Retrospective study including singleton pregnancies with high-risk NIPT results for common trisomies followed by invasive testing. The cases were grouped by gestational age at the time of invasive testing and by the presence or absence of fetal abnormalities or soft markers. The ultrasound was considered abnormal if at least one major defect or a soft marker was detected.

Results

A total of 173 women were included. Median maternal and gestational age was 37.7 years and 14.0 weeks, respectively. CfDNA test result showed high-risk for trisomy 21 and trisomy 18 or 13 in 119 and 54 cases, respectively. The “pre-ultrasound” PPV for trisomy 21 and for trisomy 18 or 13 were 98.3% and 68.4%, respectively. In case of a high-risk result for trisomy 21 and no fetal anomalies, the PPV was 86.7% while it was 100% if there were anomalies or markers present. In the case of a high-risk result for trisomy 18 or 13, the PPV was 9.5% if the ultrasound examination was normal and 100% if the ultrasound examination was abnormal.

Conclusion

This study suggests that a detailed ultrasound examination performed after a cfDNA result that is high-risk for one of the common autosomal trisomies adds significantly to establishing an individualized risk assessment. This is particularly true in cases with a high-risk result for trisomies 18 or 13.
Prevalence and assemblage of Giardia duodenalis in a case-control study of children under 5 years from Jimma, Southwest Ethiopia
Authors: Alemu Yonas , Abdissa Alemseged , Mekonnen Zeleke , Sharew Bizuwarek , Johansen Øystein H. , Bjørang Ola , Langeland Nina , Hanevik Kurt , Moyo Sabrina J. ,   the CRYPTO-POC study group
Published: December 2023

Giardia duodenalis is a common pathogenic intestinal protozoan parasite with high prevalence in developing countries, especially among children. The distribution of giardia assemblages among humans and their clinical relevance remains controversial. This study aimed to determine the prevalence and assemblage of Giardia among children under 5 years of age in Jimma, Southwest Ethiopia. Employing a case-control design, 606 children presenting with diarrhea at Jimma university medical center and Serbo Health Center were enrolled from December 2016 to July 2018 along with 617 matched controls without diarrhea. Giardia was detected and typed using real-time PCR. Univariate and multivariate regression analysis was performed. The total prevalence of Giardia was 41% (501/1223) and did not differ significantly between cases and controls (40% vs 42%). Prevalence increased by age, with the highest prevalence seen in children aged ≥ 25 months. Children without diarrhea with a history of diarrhea during the last month were more likely to be Giardia positive compared to children with no history diarrhea (OR 1.8 and 95%CI; 1.1–2.9). Regardless of current diarrhea symptoms, assemblage B predominated with 89%, followed by assemblage A (8%) and mixed infection assemblage A and B (3%). We report a high prevalence of Giardia by PCR detection in Jimma, Ethiopia, with assemblage B being predominant. There was a similar distribution of Giardia assemblages between children with and without diarrhea. Increasing age was a risk factor for Giardia infection. Community-based prevention and control strategies need to be employed to decrease the risk of giardia infection.
Urinary extracellular vesicles in childhood kidney diseases
Authors: Harita Yutaka
Published: December 2023

Most biological fluids contain extracellular vesicles (EVs). EVs are surrounded by a lipid bilayer and contain biological macromolecules such as proteins, lipids, RNA, and DNA. They lack a functioning nucleus and are incapable of replicating. The physiological characteristics and molecular composition of EVs in body fluids provide valuable information about the status of originating cells. Consequently, they could be effectively utilized for diagnostic and prognostic applications. Urine contains a heterogeneous population of EVs. To date, these urinary extracellular vesicles (uEVs) have been ignored in the standard urinalysis. In recent years, knowledge has accumulated on how uEVs should be separated and analyzed. It has become clear how uEVs reflect the expression of each molecule in cells in nephron segments and how they are altered in disease states such as glomerular/tubular disorders, rare congenital diseases, acute kidney injury (AKI), and chronic kidney disease (CKD). Significant promise exists for the molecular expression signature of uEVs detected by simple techniques such as enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA), making them more applicable in clinical settings. This review presents the current understanding regarding uEVs, emphasizing the potential for non-invasive diagnostics, especially for childhood kidney diseases.
Climate change and future challenges to the sustainable management of the Iraqi marshlands
Authors: Nama Ala Hassan , Alwan Imzahim A. , Pham Quoc Bao
Published: December 2023

The application of restoration plans for the Iraqi marshlands is encountering significant challenges due to water scarcity and the impacts of climate change. This paper assesses the impact of water scarcity on the possibility of continuing the application of restoration and sustainable management plans for the main marshlands in Iraq. This assessment was conducted based on the available data and expected situation of available water resources under climate change conditions until the year 2035. Additionally, a satellite image–based index model was prepared and applied for the period 2009–2020 to obtain the spatiotemporal distribution of the restored marshlands. The results show that the shortage in water resources and insufficient inundation rates prevented the adequate application of the restoration plans. Also, applying the scenarios of distributing the deficit equally over all water demand sectors (S1) and according to the percentage of demand for each sector (S2) shows that the expected deficit in available water for the three marshes by the years 2025 and 2035 will be approximately 25% and 32% for S1 and 9% for S2. Consequently, the considered marshes are expected to lose approximately 20 to 33% of their eligible restoration areas. Accordingly, looking for suitable alternatives to support the water resources of these marshes became a very urgent matter and/or recourse to reduce the areas targeted by inundation and being satisfied with the areas that can be sustainable and maintain the current status of the rest of the regions as an emerging ecosystem characterized by lands that are inundated every few years. Accordingly, steps must be urged to develop plans and programs to maintain the sustainability of these emerging ecosystems within the frameworks of climate change and the conditions of scarcity of water resources and water and air pollution to ensure that they are not lost in the future.
Promising biomass waste–derived insulation materials for application in construction and buildings
Authors: Lisowski Paweł , Glinicki Michał A.
Published: December 2023

Current insulation materials applied in construction engineering and the building industry are generally petrochemical-based polymers and recycled thermal insulation materials. The environmental effects of these materials’ production processes are substantial, despite their high thermal insulation performance. Consequently, the researchers conclude that it is essential to develop and produce insulating materials with superior thermal properties, minimal environmental impact, and a reasonable cost. The study concentrated on the application of insulation materials derived from biomass in the development of thermal insulation. The purpose of this review is to investigate and develop the possibilities of using biomass wastes as renewable and eco-friendly thermal insulation materials for construction engineering and the building industry. The thermal conductivity of those materials was measured using the hot plate and hot box methods, two of the most widely used hot processing methods. With a relatively low thermal conductivity (< 0.100 W·m−1·K−1), this review provides critical scientific insight into potential building insulation materials derived from biodegradable and abundant resources. It was observed that these materials are appealing for use in building and construction because they have a number of potential advantages from technical, economic, environmental, and green credentials perspectives. The collection of information enables some conclusions regarding the different biomass waste–derived insulation materials that have already been investigated and identifies gaps in the literature. Finally, the scope of commercialization pathways and future research directions to validate the proposed material alternatives’ claim for commercial-scale applications has been identified in this review.

Graphical Abstract
Pragmatics and Emotion
Authors: Wharton Tim , de Saussure Louis
Published: December 2023

It has long been received wisdom in semantics and pragmatics that 'the head' and 'the heart' are two opposing forces, a view that has led scholars, until now, to explore the mental processes behind cognition, and the mental processes behind emotion, as two separate entities. This bold, innovative book challenges this view, and provides an original study of how we communicate our emotions through language, drawing on both pragmatic theory and affective science. It begins with the assumption that emotional or expressive meaning plays such a central role in human interaction that any pragmatic theory worth its salt must account for it. It meets the associated challenges head-on and strives to integrate affect within one theory of utterance interpretation, showing that emotional meaning and rationality/reasoning can be analysed within one framework. Written in a clear and concise style, it is essential reading for anyone interested in communication and emotion.
States of Emergency, Simultaneous Overreach and Underreach and the COVID-19 Pan(dem)ic
Authors: Steuer Max
Published: December 2023

Previous research has neglected how repeated declarations of states of emergency (SsoE) in response to the same emergency may combine with executive overreach and underreach within a single jurisdiction, undermining the authority of the SsoE as a legal institution and increasing the vulnerability of the constitutional system as a result. This article examines how decision-makers’ commitment to a culture of justification is central to avoiding emergency mismanagement via underreach, overreach or their combination. The simultaneous instances of executive overreach and underreach as emergency management failures are studied via the Slovak case, which was celebrated for its initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic but castigated for its failure to contain the subsequent waves. The analysis of the legal framework of the SsoE and the justifications for SsoE declarations uncovers the lack of justifications for the patterns of simultaneous executive underreach and overreach, underscoring the elusiveness of these categories. The limited justifications for the decisions demonstrated by the “government in panic” point to the undermining of the SsoE as a legal institution. The article concludes with highlighting how leaders’ role conceptions as democratic emergency managers might be necessary to sustain the authority of the SsoE.
Persistent colonization of Candida auris among inpatients rescreened as part of a weekly surveillance program
Authors: Arenas Sebastian P. , Persad Patrice J. , Patel Samira , Parekh Dipen J. , Ferreira Tanira B.D. , Farinas Mirian , Sexton D. Joseph , Lyman Meghan , Gershengorn Hayley B. , Shukla Bhavarth S.
Published: December 2023

We established a surveillance program to evaluate persistence of C. auris colonization among hospitalized patients. Overall, 17 patients (34%) had ≥1 negative result followed by a positive test, and 7 (41%) of these patients had ≥2 consecutive negative tests.
Life at the Margins: Religious Minorities, Status, and the State
Authors: Oraby Mona
Published: December 2023

This essay examines the claims-making practices of conservative evangelical Protestants in England and Satmar Hasidim in the United States, communities marginal to two contingents of leftist academic discourse today: scholars who see liberation as an anti-statist project and others who imagine religious diversity as a common good facilitated by the state. The author suggests that one way forward in the critical study of law and religion is to examine communities with political commitments that differ from our own—who shape their worlds alongside and through the state yet are unconcerned about a common democratic future. By showing that no liberal (statist) or liberatory (anti-statist) framework holds either the Satmar or evangelical Christian legal claims, the author identifies generative problems for thought that challenge current approaches to understanding religion-state entanglement in the contemporary world.
Reproductive Justice Beyond Borders: Global Feminist Solidarity in the Post-Roe Era
Authors: Arguedas-Ramírez Gabriela , Wenner Danielle M.
Published: December 2023

The global impact of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and the backlash towards reproductive justice that it represents warrant a global feminist response informed by broad theoretical and geopolitical lenses. We consider how a solidaristic, transnational feminist movement might learn from Latin American feminist movements that have been successful in uniting broad coalitions in the fight for reproductive justice as situated within far-reaching political goals. The success of such a global movement must be decolonial and must contend with the fact that overlapping realities of global inequality, severe poverty, extractivism, and western-backed violence are fundamentally implicated in reproductive justice.
Where Does Life Begin? Discerning the Impact of Dobbs on Assisted Reproductive Technologies
Authors: Daar Judith
Published: December 2023

This article explores the impact of Dobbs on access to assisted reproductive technologies. Clinical aspects of IVF, including embryo discard and cryopreservation, preimplantation genetic testing, and selective reduction of multiple pregnancy are potentially jeopardized by a new legal landscape that protects embryos over the interest of infertility patients.
Protecting Abortion with State Health Care Freedom of Choice
Authors: Thomas Tracy
Published: December 2023

This essay examines the right of health care freedom of choice contained in some state constitutions. It explores how courts have, and could, use this constitutional health care right as a basis for recognizing or reinforcing a fundamental right to choose an abortion.
Anti-Abortion Exceptionalism after Dobbs
Authors: Sepper Elizabeth
Published: December 2023

The end of the constitutional right to abortion with Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health stands to generate massive conflict between abortion regulation and the First Amendment. Abortion exceptionalism within constitutional doctrine -- which both treats abortion differently than other areas and favors anti-abortion over pro-choice viewpoints -- will not retreat but advance, unless confronted by the courts.
Mifepristone Paternalism at the FDA
Authors: Paradise Jordan
Published: December 2023

This article explores the role of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in drug approval and restrictions to mifepristone access in the context of historical regulation and current litigation.
Fixed point logics and definable topological properties
Authors: Fernández-Duque David , Gougeon Quentin
Published: December 2023

Modal logic enjoys topological semantics that may be traced back to McKinsey and Tarski, and the classification of topological spaces via modal axioms is a lively area of research. In the past two decades, there has been interest in extending topological modal logic to the language of the mu-calculus, but previously no class of topological spaces was known to be mu-calculus definable that was not already modally definable. In this paper, we show that the full mu-calculus is indeed more expressive than standard modal logic, in the sense that there are classes of topological spaces (and weakly transitive Kripke frames), which are mu-definable but not modally definable. The classes we exhibit satisfy a modally definable property outside of their perfect core, and thus we dub them imperfect spaces. We show that the mu-calculus is sound and complete for these classes. Our examples are minimal in the sense that they use a single instance of a greatest fixed point, and we show that least fixed points alone do not suffice to define any class of spaces that is not already modally definable.
Maxims: Responsibility and Causal Laws
Authors: Mandle Jon
Published: December 2023

Although maxims are central to Kant’s ethical theory, his account of them remains obscure. We can make progress towards understanding Kantian maxims by examining not only their role as the object of moral judgement but also their connection to freedom of the will and causality. This requires understanding maxims as causal laws that explain the actions that we impute to agents. In this way, they are analogous to causal laws of nature, but they are limited in scope to the agents who are responsible for them. Understanding maxims in this way explains our limited epistemic access to them and helps to clarify Kant’s account of virtue and character as well as how they mediate the relationship between practical and theoretical reason.
Mercury Isotope Composition in Open Water Corals of South China Sea: Implication for Atmospheric Mercury Deposition Pathways Into Tropical Oceans
Authors: Zhang Rui , Sun Ruoyu , Liu Yi , Li Songjing , Cao Fei , Yang Hongqiang , Chen Shun , Li Xiaohua , Zheng Wang , Chen Jiubin
Published: December 2023

The deposition of different atmospheric mercury (Hg) species into oceans determines the atmospheric Hg lifetime and the production of neurotoxin methylmercury. Yet, the relative contribution of atmospheric Hg(II) and Hg(0) is largely unconstrained. Here, we report the concentrations of total Hg and methylmercury, as well as Hg isotope composition in living corals collected from the tropical South China Sea (SCS). The results show that the Hg in corals is mainly present as inorganic Hg, exhibiting slightly negative δ202Hg and small yet significant Δ199Hg and Δ200Hg. These isotope features closely resemble those of pelagic waters, suggesting that shallow‐water corals that are widely distributed in oligotrophic waters could be used to trace atmospheric Hg deposition pathways. A mixture model based on coral Δ200Hg indicates that approximately 49% of the seawater Hg in the tropical SCS, a region characterized by high rainfall, originates from atmospheric gaseous Hg(0), much larger than previous estimates.
Characterizing the Seafloor Sediment Layer Using Teleseismic Body Waves Recorded by Ocean Bottom Seismometers
Authors: Kim HyeJeong , Kawakatsu Hitoshi , Akuhara Takeshi , Takeuchi Nozomu
Published: December 2023

This study presents an approach to better characterize the P‐wave and S‐wave velocity structure of the seafloor sediment layer using ocean bottom seismometers. The presence of low‐velocity seafloor sediment layers influences the observed seismic record at the seafloor over a broad frequency range, such that detailed knowledge of this sediment structure is essential to predict its effect on teleseismic records. We use the radial component of teleseismic P waves and autocorrelation functions of the radial, vertical, and pressure components of teleseismic P and S waves to obtain sediment layer models using the Markov chain Monte Carlo approach with parallel tempering. Synthetic tests show that the body waves constrain the P‐ and S‐wave impedances and travel times and the P‐ to S‐wave velocity ratio of the sediment layers. The proposed method resolves thin layers at a high resolution, including the uppermost thin (∼50 m to a few hundred meters) low S‐wave velocity layer. Real data applications at sites across the Pacific Ocean that are coincident with previous in situ studies demonstrate the effectiveness of this method in characterizing the seafloor sediment unit. The sediment models characterized by this new approach will allow us to more accurately predict and correct the effects of sediment layers in generating P‐ and S‐wave reverberations.
The Effects of Aminium and Ammonium Cations on the Ice Nucleation Activity of K‐Feldspar
Authors: Chen Lanxiadi , Worthy Soleil E. , Gu Wenjun , Bertram Allan K. , Tang Mingjin
Published: December 2023

Mineral dust is one of the most abundant types of ice nucleating particles in the atmosphere. During atmospheric transport, mineral dust particles can become coated with inorganic and organic solutes, which can impact their ice nucleation activity. Aminium cations formed from amines are one type of organic solute that can coat mineral dust particles in the atmosphere, but their effects on the ice nucleation activity of mineral dust have not been studied. We investigated the effects of primary, secondary, and tertiary aminium cations with methyl and ethyl groups, as well as ammonium cations, on the ice nucleation activity of K‐feldspar, an important type of mineral dust, in the immersion freezing mode at low cation concentrations (0.2–20 mM) using a droplet‐freezing apparatus. Ammonium cations substantially increased the ice nucleation activity of K‐feldspar, consistent with previous studies. In contrast, primary aminium cations significantly reduced K‐feldspar ice nucleation activity, and secondary and tertiary aminium cations had no significant effect (the effect was less than the uncertainty of our measurements). Our combined results are consistent with the following mechanisms: ammonium cations undergo ion exchange with K‐feldspar, providing exposed N–H groups for hydrogen bonding with ice; primary aminium cations undergo ion exchange with K‐feldspar, exposing a hydrophobic tail that is not effective at nucleating ice; secondary and tertiary aminium cations do not undergo ion exchange with K‐feldspar due to steric effects caused by the multiple hydrophobic groups on the cation.
Disentangling Photoelectrons and Penetrating Solar Wind Electrons in the Dayside Martian Upper Atmosphere
Authors: Cao Y. T. , Cui J. , Gu H. , Wu X.‐S. , Liang W.‐J. , Lu H.‐Y.
Published: December 2023

In situ produced photoelectrons and precipitating solar wind electrons are two distinct hot electron populations in the dayside Martian upper atmosphere. While each population has been known for decades, its relative contribution to the measured hot electron flux has not been adequately characterized up to now. In this study, we implement a two‐stream kinetic model to compute the hot electron flux for a open magnetic field configuration. By comparing model results to realistic data acquired by the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, we show that the electron fluxes predicted by the pure photoelectron model are enormously underestimated, especially in the direction toward Mars, but the measurements can be adequately reproduced once solar wind electron precipitation is taken into account. Such a precipitation plays a crucial role above 180 km, not only for hot electrons at all energies that move toward Mars but also for electrons above 1,000 eV that move away from Mars due to the backscattering of precipitating electrons. In contrast, the hot electron population is predicted to be mostly composed of photoelectrons below 180 km. The significance of precipitating solar wind electrons is also evaluated, revealing an appreciable impact on the structure of the dayside Martian upper atmosphere at high altitudes, where electron impact ionization is enhanced by a factor of 7 and cold electron heating enhanced by a factor of 4.
Observations of ULF Pulsations During TRINNI Events
Authors: Mmame B. , Stephenson J. A. E. , Walker A. D. M. , Mtumela Z. , Rash J. P. S.
Published: December 2023

Two magnetospheric phenomena are commonly observed in both SuperDARN (Dual Auroral Radar Network) and ground‐based magnetometer network data. These are ULF pulsations driven by magnetohydrodynamic waves, and flow bursts in the high latitude ionosphere driven by magnetic reconnection. Possible connections between these two phenomena are investigated. TRINNI (Tail Reconnection during IMF Northward, Non‐substorm Intervals) events, high‐speed ionospheric flows resulting from magnetotail reconnection during IMF Bz‐positive but By‐dominant periods, have been investigated by many researchers. These events produce measurable enhancements of the cross polar cap potential. Four previously reported TRINNI events have been analyzed using SuperDARN data, together with high‐latitude magnetometer data which show simultaneous ULF pulsations. Fourier analysis of the cross polar cap potential measured by SuperDARN and two magnetic field components revealed common spectral peaks in the 1–5 mHz range. The signals were narrow‐band filtered and complex demodulation was performed to construct the analytic signals, allowing determination of amplitude and phase. In all four events the magnetic field and potential signals showed similar wave packet structure with large‐amplitude oscillations at a common frequency for periods of the order of hours. During these periods the phase differences between the field and potential remained constant. It is argued that this phase locking suggests a causal link between the two oscillations, so that the TRINNIs could be the source of the magnetic pulsations, or they at least share a common driver.
A Surrogate Model for Studying Solar Energetic Particle Transport and the Seed Population
Authors: Baydin Atilim Guneş , Poduval Bala , Schwadron Nathan A.
Published: December 2023

The high energy particles originating from the Sun, known as solar energetic particles (SEPs), contribute significantly to the space radiation environment, posing serious threats to astronauts and scientific instruments on board spacecraft. The mechanism that accelerates the SEPs to the observed energy ranges, their transport in the inner heliosphere, and the influence of suprathermal seed particle spectrum are open questions in heliophysics. Accurate predictions of the occurrences of SEP events well in advance are necessary to mitigate their adverse effects but prediction based on first principle models still remains a challenge. In this scenario, adopting a machine learning approach to SEP modeling and prediction is desirable. However, the lack of a balanced database of SEP events restrains this approach. We addressed this limitation by generating large data sets of synthetic SEP events sampled from the physics‐based model, Energetic Particle Radiation Environment Module (EPREM). Using this data, we developed neural networks‐based surrogate models to study the seed population parameter space. Our models, EPREM‐S, run thousands to millions of times faster (depending on computer hardware), making simulation‐based inference workflows practicable in SEP studies while providing predictive uncertainty estimates using a deep ensemble approach.
Panacea or Placebo? The Diverse Pathways and Implications of Drinking Water System Consolidation
Authors: Dobbin Kristin B. , McBride Justin , Pierce Gregory
Published: December 2023

Scholars and policy makers alike frequently promote drinking water system consolidation as a solution to the longstanding struggles of small water systems and the related consequences of service fragmentation, including vulnerability to climate change and persistent racial and economic inequalities in access to safe and affordable drinking water. Despite enthusiasm for the concept, however, our understanding of how, why, and where consolidations occur has remained stubbornly limited such that the promise of drinking water system consolidation remains theoretical at best. This study analyzes all known water system consolidations (n = 206) in the state of California over a 7‐year period (2015–2021). We find empirical support for certain theoretical claims about consolidation, including an overall reduction in the number of regulated systems, with the largest reductions occurring among particularly underperforming, climate‐vulnerable, and unrepresentative system types. Other findings, however, do not align with the literature on the subject. We find limited evidence of either water service privatization or remunicipalization trends and seemingly limited prospects for economies of scale benefits through consolidations. Moreover, roughly half of consolidations during the study period involve non‐residential water systems. Among the consolidated community water systems, systems serving higher‐resourced communities are overrepresented compared to those serving lower‐resourced communities by a margin of two‐to‐one. It is time to move beyond the blanket assumption of positive consolidation benefits toward a more nuanced understanding of the associated opportunities and limitations. Depending on their goals, policymakers may need to support more specific types of consolidation.
The central role of the Thalamus in psychosis, lessons from neurodegenerative diseases and psychedelics
Authors: Onofrj Marco , Russo Mirella , Delli Pizzi Stefano , De Gregorio Danilo , Inserra Antonio , Gobbi Gabriella , Sensi Stefano L.
Published: December 2023

The PD-DLB psychosis complex found in Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Dementia with Lewy Bodies (DLB) includes hallucinations, Somatic Symptom/Functional Disorders, and delusions. These disorders exhibit similar presentation patterns and progression. Mechanisms at the root of these symptoms also share similarities with processes promoting altered states of consciousness found in Rapid Eye Movement sleep, psychiatric disorders, or the intake of psychedelic compounds. We propose that these mechanisms find a crucial driver and trigger in the dysregulated activity of high-order thalamic nuclei set in motion by ThalamoCortical Dysrhythmia (TCD). TCD generates the loss of finely tuned cortico-cortical modulations promoted by the thalamus and unleashes the aberrant activity of the Default Mode Network (DMN). TCD moves in parallel with altered thalamic filtering of external and internal information. The process produces an input overload to the cortex, thereby exacerbating DMN decoupling from task-positive networks. These phenomena alter the brain metastability, creating dreamlike, dissociative, or altered states of consciousness. In support of this hypothesis, mind-altering psychedelic drugs also modulate thalamic-cortical pathways. Understanding the pathophysiological background of these conditions provides a conceptual bridge between neurology and psychiatry, thereby helping to generate a promising and converging area of investigation and therapeutic efforts.
Facilitators for increasing dental attendance of people from vulnerable groups: a rapid review of evidence relevant to the UK
Authors: A. Dyer Tom , Glenny Anne-Marie , MacDonald Laura , Weston-Price Sally , Marshman Zoe , Ireland Anna , Jones Kate
Published: December 2023

Objective To rapidly review facilitators of access for vulnerable groups and to evaluate their effectiveness.

Methods Data sources: MEDLINE via Ovid. Publications in English from 2000. Data selection: Research involving ‘vulnerable groups' relevant to UK health systems, with a primary outcome of increasing attendance. Data extraction: One author extracted and tabulated data. These were audited by a second author. Data synthesis: A narrative synthesis was produced.

Results Data from 31 studies were available for ten vulnerable groups: people with learning, physical or sensory disabilities (n = 8); people experiencing homelessness (n = 6); prisoners (n = 4); asylum-seekers and refugees (n = 3); people living in socioeconomically deprived areas (n = 3); people with severe mental health conditions (n = 2); vulnerable children (n = 2); dependent older people (n = 1); Gypsy, Roma or Traveller groups (n = 1); and people with drug dependency (n = 1). Many facilitators involved organisational reform and more integration of health, social and other services. Other facilitators included: modification of premises; team development and skill-mix use; and awareness of needs and flexible services to meet them. Few studies evaluated effectiveness.

Conclusion Although facilitators for access for vulnerable groups have been proposed, there is little evidence to support or refute their effectiveness. Efforts are needed to promote access for vulnerable groups in the UK with evaluation plans embedded.