bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Impacts of synergies on software project scheduling
Authors: Kosztyán Zsolt T. , Bogdány Eszter , Szalkai István , Kurbucz Marcell T. 
Published: December 2021

AbstractThe adequate allocation of human resources is one of the most important success factors in software projects. Although project teams can be regarded as complex systems in which a team’s performance is highly influenced by the interdependencies among team members, the allocation methods applied to date have focused only on individual skills and consider project teams as units of isolated workers. The existing software project scheduling problem (SPSP) is extended to (1) consider different skills and efficiencies of employees and (2) examine the pairwise synergies between them, as well as to (3) handle the flexible structure of the project that is used in flexible management, such as agile project management. To better understand the impact of synergies on the project’s cost, the solutions of the traditional and extended SPSP versions are analyzed and compared on the generated project networks. The results show not only that this factor has a highly significant impact but also that the project cost strongly depends on the structural parameters of the synergy network (e.g., topology, network size and degree centrality). Among these parameters, a low degree of centrality and some topologies, most notably star and circular networks, obtained the highest reduction in the projects’ total cost.
A Hurwitz divisor on the moduli of Prym curves
Authors: Bud Andrei 
Published: December 2021

AbstractFor even genus$$g=2i\ge 4$$g=2i≥4and the length$$g-1$$g-1partition$$\mu = (4,2,\ldots ,2,-2,\ldots ,-2)$$μ=(4,2,…,2,-2,…,-2)of 0, we compute the first coefficients of the class of$$\overline{D}(\mu )$$D¯(μ)in$$\mathrm {Pic}_{\mathbb {Q}}(\overline{{\mathcal {R}}}_g)$$PicQ(R¯g), where$$D(\mu )$$D(μ)is the divisor consisting of pairs$$[C,\eta ]\in {\mathcal {R}}_g$$[C,η]∈Rgwith$$\eta \cong {\mathcal {O}}_C(2x_1+x_2+\cdots + x_{i-1}-x_i-\cdots -x_{2i-1})$$η≅OC(2x1+x2+⋯+xi-1-xi-⋯-x2i-1)for some points$$x_1,\ldots , x_{2i-1}$$x1,…,x2i-1onC. We further provide several enumerative results that will be used for this computation.
Clustering Treatment Outcomes in Women with Gambling Disorder
Authors: Lara-Huallipe Milagros Lizbeth , Granero Roser , Fernández-Aranda Fernando , Gómez-Peña Mónica , Moragas Laura , del Pino-Gutierrez Amparo , Valenciano-Mendoza Eduardo , Mora-Maltas Bernat , Baenas Isabel , Etxandi Mikel , Menchón José M. , Jiménez-Murcia Susana 
Published: December 2021

AbstractThe rising prevalence of gambling disorder (GD) among women has awakened considerable interest in the study of therapeutic outcomes in females. This study aimed to explore profiles of women seeking treatment for GD based on a set of indicators including sociodemographic features, personality traits, clinical state at baseline, and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) outcomes. Two-step clustering, an agglomerative hierarchical classification system, was applied to a sample of n = 163 women of ages ranging from 20 to 73 years-old, consecutively attended to by a clinical unit specialized in the treatment of G. Three mutually exclusive clusters were identified. Cluster C1 (n = 67, 41.1%) included the highest proportion of married, occupationally active patients within the highest social status index. This cluster was characterized by medium GD severity levels, the best psychopathological functioning, and the highest mean in the self-directedness trait. C1 registered 0% dropouts and only 14.9% relapse. Cluster C2 (n = 63; 38.7%) was characterized by the lowest GD severity, medium scores for psychopathological measures and a high risk of dropout during CBT. Cluster C3 (n = 33; 20.2%) registered the highest GD severity, the worst psychopathological state, the lowest self-directedness level and the highest harm-avoidance level, as well as the highest risk of relapse. These results provide new evidence regarding the heterogeneity of women diagnosed with GD and treated with CBT, based on the profile at pre- and post-treatment. Person-centered treatments should include specific strategies aimed at increasing self-esteem, emotional regulation capacities and self-control of GD women.
Psychometric validation and interpretation of the Nocturia Impact Diary in a clinical trial setting
Authors: Hudgens Stacie , Howerter Amy , Polek Ela , Andersson Fredrik L. 
Published: December 2021

Abstract
Purpose
Psychometric evaluation of the Nocturia Impact (NI) Diary was conducted to support its use as a trial endpoint.

Methods
As part of a randomized, controlled Phase 2 clinical trial investigating a novel drug candidate for nocturnal polyuria, adult nocturia patients completed the NI Diary and a voiding diary for three nights preceding their clinic visit at Baseline and Weeks 1, 4, 8, and 12 (end of treatment). Exit interviews were conducted to obtain patient impressions of the NI Diary.

Results
A total of N = 302 participants were included. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated that the 11-item measure is unidimensional with values of CFI, TLI, and RMSEA meeting relevant thresholds. Good internal consistency (Cronbach’s α 0.941) and test–retest reliability (intra-class correlation coefficients 0.730–0.880). Convergent validity with two reference measures was demonstrated with strong correlations of 0.573–0.730 were shown. Significant differences (P = 0.0018, standardized effect size = 0.372) between groups defined by number of night-time voids supported known-groups validity. Exit interviews in 66 patients indicated all participants experienced improvement in at least 1 NI Diary item and that a 1-point improvement on the item response scale and 1-void reduction per night (associated with an average best cut point on ROC analysis of − 11.6) constituted meaningful improvement. Anchor and distribution-based analyses identified a meaningful change threshold of − 15 to − 18 points on the NI Diary.

Conclusion
The NI Diary is a reliable and valid patient-reported psychometric instrument which is fit-for-purpose to evaluate the impact of nocturia on patient quality of life in the clinical trial setting.
Trial registration number and registration date NCT03201419; June 28, 2017.
Wavelet-based robust estimation and variable selection in nonparametric additive models
Authors: Amato Umberto , Antoniadis Anestis , Feis Italia De , Gijbels Irène 
Published: December 2021

AbstractThis article studies M-type estimators for fitting robust additive models in the presence of anomalous data. The components in the additive model are allowed to have different degrees of smoothness. We introduce a new class of wavelet-based robustM-type estimators for performing simultaneous additive component estimation and variable selection in such inhomogeneous additive models. Each additive component is approximated by a truncated series expansion of wavelet bases, making it feasible to apply the method to nonequispaced data and sample sizes that are not necessarily a power of 2. Sparsity of the additive components together with sparsity of the wavelet coefficients within each component (group), results into a bi-level group variable selection problem. In this framework, we discuss robust estimation and variable selection. A two-stage computational algorithm, consisting of a fast accelerated proximal gradient algorithm of coordinate descend type, and thresholding, is proposed. When using nonconvex redescending loss functions, and appropriate nonconvex penalty functions at the group level, we establish optimal convergence rates of the estimates. We prove variable selection consistency under a weak compatibility condition for sparse additive models. The theoretical results are complemented with some simulations and real data analysis, as well as a comparison to other existing methods.
Product-form estimators: exploiting independence to scale up Monte Carlo
Authors: Kuntz Juan , Crucinio Francesca R. , Johansen Adam M. 
Published: December 2021

AbstractWe introduce a class of Monte Carlo estimators that aim to overcome the rapid growth of variance with dimension often observed for standard estimators by exploiting the target’s independence structure. We identify the most basic incarnations of these estimators with a class of generalized U-statistics and thus establish their unbiasedness, consistency, and asymptotic normality. Moreover, we show that they obtain the minimum possible variance amongst a broad class of estimators, and we investigate their computational cost and delineate the settings in which they are most efficient. We exemplify the merger of these estimators with other well known Monte Carlo estimators so as to better adapt the latter to the target’s independence structure and improve their performance. We do this via three simple mergers: one with importance sampling, another with importance sampling squared, and a final one with pseudo-marginal Metropolis–Hastings. In all cases, we show that the resulting estimators are well founded and achieve lower variances than their standard counterparts. Lastly, we illustrate the various variance reductions through several examples.
In vitro tools for orally inhaled drug products—state of the art for their application in pharmaceutical research and industry and regulatory challenges
Authors: Metz Julia Katharina , Hittinger Marius , Lehr Claus-Michael 
Published: December 2021

AbstractThe drug development process is a lengthy and expensive challenge for all involved players. Experience with the COVID-19 pandemic underlines the need for a rapid and effective approval for treatment options. As essential prerequisites for successful drug approval, a combination of high-quality studies and reliable research must be included. To this day, mainly in vivo data are requested and collected for assessing safety and efficacy and are therefore decisive for the pre-clinical evaluation of the respective drug. This review aims to summarize the current state of the art for safety and efficacy studies in pharmaceutical research and industry to address the relevant regulatory challenges and to provide an outlook on implementing more in vitro methods as alternative to animal testing. While the public demand for alternative methods is becoming louder, first examples have meanwhile found acceptance in relevant guidelines, e.g. the OECD guidelines for skin sensitizer. Besides ethically driven developments, also the rather low throughput and relatively high costs of animal experiments are forcing the industry towards the implementation of alternative methods. In this context, the development of orally inhaled drug products is particularly challenging due to the complexity of the lung as biological barrier and route of administration. The replacement of animal experiments with focus on the lungs requires special designed tools to achieve predictive data. New in vitro test systems of increasing complexity are presented in this review. Limits and advantages are discussed to provide some perspective for a future in vitro testing strategy for orally inhaled drug products.
Graphical abstract
Understanding National Remedies and the Principle of National Procedural Autonomy: A Constitutional Approach
Authors: HALBERSTAM Daniel 
Published: December 2021

AbstractThis article provides a constitutionally grounded understanding of the vexing principle of ‘national procedural autonomy’ that haunts the vindication of EU law in national court. After identifying tensions and confusion in the debate surrounding this purported principle of ‘autonomy’, the Article turns to the foundational text and structure of Union law to reconstruct the proper constitutional basis for deploying or supplanting national procedures and remedies. It further argues that much of the case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union may be considered through the lens of ‘prudential avoidance’, ie the decision to avoid difficult constitutional questions surrounding the principle of conferral. As the last Part shows, a constitutional understanding of ‘national procedural authority’—not ‘autonomy’—helps clear up some persistent puzzles, and provides critical guidance for when deference to national procedures and remedies is appropriate, and when such deference is misplaced. Comparative references inform the argument along the way.
Closing the rehabilitation utilization gap of New Zealand’s (Aotearoa) Māori people: Multiple case studies
Authors: Mpofu Ngonidzashe , Anderson Sasha , Brown Caroline , Yoo Minna 
Published: December 2021

AbstractWe aimed to explore personal factors in use of rehabilitation counseling and mental health services by Māori adults. Participants were three Māori adults (females = 2, residing in major urban settings, age range 45–50 years old; male = 1, residing in a rural setting, age range = 25–30 years old). Thematic analysis yielded the following findings: (a) a preference of Māori service providers who understand whānau culture, (b) an understanding of whakapapa or the family structure as an integral source of social support as counselors are planning for treatment, (c) establishing and maintaining trusting relationships within the Māori community by non-Māori counselors, (d) having financial difficulties when attempting to access rehabilitation resources, (e) limited access to health care facilities and services or lack of information about the services available, and (f) a general mistrust of government operated systems. Rehabilitation and mental health services with Māori should address personal cultural and systemic exclusion factors for better service engagement.
Methodological challenges in harmonisation of the variables used as indicators of social capital in epidemiological studies of ageing – results of the ATHLOS project
Authors: Zawisza Katarzyna , Woźniak Barbara , Tobiasz-Adamczyk Beata , Galas Aleksander , Giné-Vázquez Iago , Sanchez-Niubo Albert , Ayuso-Mateos José Luis , Koskinen Seppo , Leonardi Matilde , Bobak Martin , Haro Josep Maria 
Published: December 2021

AbstractThe present article aims to highlight methodological aspects related to understanding and conceptualising social capital for the purposes of population research as well as describing the key challenges in the harmonisation process of indicators of social capital. The study was conducted in the frame of the Ageing Trajectories of Health: Longitudinal Opportunities and Synergies (ATHLOS) project. After a review of social capital theories developed in social science and a subsequent review of the documentation of 18 international cohorts, decision trees of the harmonisation of social variables were developed. The known-group validity was verified. The results focused on generalised trust, civic engagement and social participation are presented. The summary of the availability of any indicators of these concepts is classified in seven domains (generalised trust, political participation, religious participation, senior-specific participation, participation in sport groups, participation in volunteer/charity group activities, any participation) across surveys. The results of the analysis for known-group validity support the construct validity of the harmonised variables.
Mesoscale Eddies Regulate Seasonal Iron Supply and Carbon Drawdown in the Drake Passage
Authors: Jersild Annika , Delawalla Sara , Ito Takamitsu 
Published: December 2021

AbstractThe Southern Ocean is a major region for uptake of anthropogenic carbon. The transport of carbon and nutrients are dominated by the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and its rich mesoscale eddy field; however, the current generation of Earth System Models (ESMs) lack the resolution to resolve eddies. Here we show that a computational model that explicitly represents mesoscale eddies can reproduce observed phases and amplitudes of seasonal biological productivity and partial pressure of carbon dioxide. Our sensitivity study demonstrates that when eddies are suppressed or parameterized, the model cannot reproduce these seasonal cycles. Experiments with suppressed eddy activity show that the lack of eddies significantly changes the iron supply and phenology of phytoplankton blooms. The mismatch in the timing and intensity of the bloom causes significant biases in the seasonal carbon cycle of the region with implications to the enigmatic biases in partial pressure of carbon dioxide among the state‐of‐the‐art ESMs.
Sub‐Kilometer Correlation Between Near‐Surface Structure and Ground Motion Measured With Distributed Acoustic Sensing
Authors: Yang Yan , Atterholt James W. , Shen Zhichao , Muir Jack B. , Williams Ethan F. , Zhan Zhongwen 
Published: December 2021

AbstractEarthquake ground motion depends strongly on near‐surface structure, which is challenging to image in urban areas at high resolution. Distributed acoustic sensing (DAS) is an emerging technique that provides a scalable solution by converting preexisting fiber‐optic cables into dense seismic arrays. After the July 2019 M7.1 Ridgecrest earthquake, we converted an underground dark fiber across the city of Ridgecrest, CA, into a DAS array. The recorded aftershocks show substantial lateral variability in site amplification over only 8‐km in distance. To understand the cause of such variability, we used three months of continuous data, dominated by traffic‐generated seismic noise, to image near‐surface structure along the fiber path. We find that the lateral variations of earthquake shaking correlate well with the shallow shear velocity model at sub‐kilometer scales, in particular micro‐basins filled with soft sediments. These results highlight the great potential of DAS for high‐resolution seismic hazard mapping in urban areas.
Deep Sourced Fluids for Peridotite Carbonation in the Shallow Mantle Wedge of a Fossil Subduction Zone: Sr and C Isotope Profiles of OmanDP Hole BT1B
Authors: de Obeso Juan Carlos , Kelemen Peter B. , Leong James M. , Menzel Manuel D. , Manning Craig E. , Godard Marguerite , Cai Yue , Bolge Louise ,   Oman Drilling Project Phase 1 Science Party
Published: December 2021

AbstractCompletely carbonated peridotites represent a window to study reactions of carbon‐rich fluids with mantle rocks. Here, we present details on the carbonation history of listvenites close to the basal thrust in the Samail ophiolite. We use samples from Oman Drilling Project Hole BT1B, which provides a continuous record of lithologic transitions, as well as outcrop samples from listvenites, metasediments, and metamafics below the basal thrust of the ophiolite. 87Sr/86Sr of listvenites and serpentinites, ranging from 0.7090 to 0.7145, are significantly more radiogenic than mantle values, Cretaceous seawater, and other peridotite hosted carbonates in Oman. The Hawasina sediments that underlie the ophiolite, on the other hand, show higher 87Sr/86Sr values of up to 0.7241. δ13C values of total carbon in the listvenites and serpentinites range from −10.6‰ to 1.92‰. We also identified a small organic carbon component with δ13C as low as −27‰. Based on these results, we propose that during subduction at temperatures above >400°C, carbon‐rich fluids derived from decarbonation of the underlying sediments migrated updip and generated the radiogenic 87Sr/86Sr signature and the fractionated δ13C values of the serpentinites and listvenites in core BT1B.
Organic Matter Composition of Biomineral Flocs and Its Influence on Suspended Particulate Matter Dynamics Along a Nearshore to Offshore Transect
Authors: Fettweis Michael , Schartau Markus , Desmit Xavier , Lee Byung Joon , Terseleer Nathan , Van der Zande Dimitry , Parmentier Koen , Riethmüller Rolf 
Published: December 2021

AbstractThe seasonal variation in concentration of transparent exopolymer particles (TEPs), particulate organic carbon (POC) and particulate organic nitrogen (PON) were investigated together with floc size and the concentration of suspended particulate matter (SPM) along the cross‐shore gradient, from the high turbid nearshore toward the low‐turbid offshore waters in the Southern Bight of the North Sea. Our data demonstrate that biophysical flocculation cannot be explained by these heterogeneous parameters, but requires a distinction between a more reactive labile (“fresh”) and a less reactive refractory (“mineral‐associated”) fraction. Based on all data, we separated the labile and mineral‐associated POC, PON, and TEP using a semi‐empirical model approach. The model's estimates of fresh and mineral‐associated organic matter (OM) show that great parts of the POC, PON, and TEP are associated with suspended minerals, which are present in the water column throughout the year, whereas the occurrence of fresh TEP, POC, and PON is restricted to spring and summer months. In spite of a constantly high abundance of total TEP throughout the entire year, it is its fresh fraction that promotes the formation of larger and faster sinking biomineral flocs, thereby contributing to reducing the SPM concentration in the water column over spring and summer. Our results show that the different components of the SPM, such as minerals, extracellular OM and living organisms, form an integrated dynamic system with direct interactions and feedback controls.
Efficient technique of microarray missing data imputation using clustering and weighted nearest neighbour
Authors: Dubey Aditya , Rasool Akhtar 
Published: December 2021

AbstractFor most bioinformatics statistical methods, particularly for gene expression data classification, prognosis, and prediction, a complete dataset is required. The gene sample value can be missing due to hardware failure, software failure, or manual mistakes. The missing data in gene expression research dramatically affects the analysis of the collected data. Consequently, this has become a critical problem that requires an efficient imputation algorithm to resolve the issue. This paper proposed a technique considering the local similarity structure that predicts the missing data using clustering and top K nearest neighbor approaches for imputing the missing value. A similarity-based spectral clustering approach is used that is combined with the K-means. The spectral clustering parameters, cluster size, and weighting factors are optimized, and after that, missing values are predicted. For imputing each cluster’s missing value, the top K nearest neighbor approach utilizes the concept of weighted distance. The evaluation is carried out on numerous datasets from a variety of biological areas, with experimentally inserted missing values varying from 5 to 25%. Experimental results prove that the proposed imputation technique makes accurate predictions as compared to other imputation procedures. In this paper, for performing the imputation experiments, microarray gene expression datasets consisting of information of different cancers and tumors are considered. The main contribution of this research states that local similarity-based techniques can be used for imputation even when the dataset has varying dimensionality and characteristics.
CO, CO2 and CS2 activation by divalent ytterbium hydrido complexes
Authors: Shi Xianghui , Rajeshkumar Thayalan , Maron Laurent , Cheng Jianhua 
Published: December 2021

Treatment of a divalent ytterbium hydride complex 1 with CO, CO2 and CS2 resulted in the formation of a divalent ytterbium ethenediolate complex 2, a formate complex 3, and a trivalent ytterbium ethenetetrathiolate complex 4, respectively.
Activation of CO2 and CH4 on MgO surfaces: mechanistic insights from first-principles theory
Authors: Manae Meghna A. , Dheer Lakshay , Rai Sandhya , Shetty Sharan , Waghmare Umesh V. 
Published: December 2021

Using DFT calculations, we propose O-terminated (111) surface of MgO as a suitable catalyst for Oxidative Coupling of Methane as it cleaves 3 C—H bonds in CH4, and interacts weakly with CO2, a byproduct, thus avoiding poisoning via MgCO3 formation.