bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Contrasting carbon and nitrogen responses to tillage at different soil depths: An observation after 40‐year of tillage management
Authors: Parajuli Binaya , Ye Rongzhong , Luo Min , Ducey Thomas F. , Park Dara , Smith Matthew , Sigua Gilbert 
Published: May 2021

AbstractConservation tillage (CS) is a major component of sustainable soil management. The objective of the study was to investigate soil C and N pools and the associated microbial activities in sandy Ultisols after 40 yr of CS and conventional tillage (CT). Soil samples were collected from fields under continuous CS and CT for 40 yr (1979–2018) and subjected to a range of physio‐biogeochemical analyses. When compared with CT, CS increased total C, total N, and active C by 35, 45, and 44% at 0‐to‐5‐cm depth, respectively, but not at 5‐to‐15‐cm depth. In contrast, CT had 128 and 121% higher inorganic N and dissolved organic N at 5‐to‐15‐cm depth, which was not observed at 0‐to‐5‐cm depth. Respiratory CO2 production and organic N mineralization were found to be higher in CS soils than in CT soils at 0–5 cm, but both were higher in CT than CS at 5–15 cm. Concurrently with increased active C concentrations, potential activities of C‐cycling enzymes were higher in CS soils than CT soils at 0–5 cm, which was not observed at 5–15 cm. The increased labile C supply stimulated microbial activities in CS soils at 0–5 cm, but at 5–15 cm, the higher N availability increased microbial biomass N and organic N mineralization potentials in CT than CS soils. The contrasting CS and CT impacts on C and N at different soil depths likely reflected the decouple of C and N cycling in the tested soils.
Relating indicators to soil health functions in conventional and organic Mediterranean cropping systems
Authors: Lazicki Patricia , Geisseler Daniel 
Published: May 2021

AbstractAccurate assessment of the benefits of soil health building practices to soil function and crop performance requires region‐specific data and locally relevant indicators. In this study, we used a long‐term experiment to measure the effect of 25 yr of differing management on soil health and crop performance indicators in organic and conventionally farmed annual crops in a Mediterranean climate. We measured the strength and consistency of the relationships between several indicators and three functions of a healthy agroecosystem—C storage, net N mineralization, and yields—over two growing seasons and two crop types. Lastly, we used path analysis to test the hypothesis that healthier soils lead to healthier plants and higher yields. Organic plots had greater C stocks and net N mineralization compared with the conventional plots, but lower yields. The path analysis suggested that yields were limited by factors other than N deficiency. The relationships between soil health indicators and soil function were unaffected by crop type but were moderated by yearly changes in weather and operations timing. The indicators most strongly and consistently related to C stocks were permanganate oxidizable C and microbial biomass C, and to N mineralization were CO2 mineralized from rewet soil and fluorescein diacetate hydrolysis. Our results highlight that (a) different indicators are appropriate for assessing different aspects of soil health, (b) using several years of data in developing robust ranges for indicator interpretation is important, and (c) links between soil and crop health must be assessed mechanistically within a given system.
Enhanced Dye Adsorption of Mixed‐Matrix Membrane by Covalent Incorporation of Metal‐Organic Framework with Poly(styrene‐alt‐maleic anhydride)
Authors: Cao Xuan Thang , Vo The Ky , An Tran Nguyen Minh , Nguyen Trinh Duy , Kabtamu Daniel Manaye , Kumar Subodh 
Published: May 2021

AbstractIn this study, a novel mixed‐matrix membrane (MMM) based on covalent incorporation of poly(styrene‐alt‐maleic anhydride) (PSMA) with a metal‐organic framework (MOF) UiO‐66‐NH2 was prepared and utilized for dye removal from aqueous solution. The fabrication of PSMA and UiO‐66‐NH2 was carried out by the amidation reaction between the maleic anhydride ring and amino functional group affording crosslinked MOF/PSMA membrane. The separate UiO‐66‐NH2 and PSMA solutions were mixed before cast films were produced. The MMM was prepared with final UiO‐66‐NH2 wt % content from 0 to 30 % in each membrane. The formation of MMM was confirmed with FT‐IR, PXRD, TGA, SEM, and XPS analysis. The MMM having high adsorption capacity was used for the separation of methylene blue (MB) and methyl orange (MO) as organic dye pollutants commonly found in wastewater. The MMM could be recycled and still maintained 75 and 52 % retention of MB and MO on the third reuse cycle, respectively. The results suggest that the MOF incorporated PSMA was an outstanding membrane for the development of filtration techniques for decontamination of water resources.
A Theoretical Investigation: Effect of Structural Modifications on Molecular, Electronic, and Optical Properties of Phosphonate Substituted BODIPY Dyes
Authors: Tasgin Dilek Isik , Sirin Pınar Seyitdanlioglu 
Published: May 2021

AbstractPhosphonates are important organophosphorus compounds which exhibit versatile properties in organic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, materials and biological applications. Phosphonate groups have appeared in a very few examples of BODIPY (4,4‐difluoro‐4‐bora‐3a,4a‐diaza‐s‐indacene) compounds that are important florescent dyes in these areas. The deficiency in the area motivated us to investigate how the phosphonate substituent(s) affect the structural, electronic, and optical properties of meso, α, or α, α′‐substituted BODIPYs using density functional theory (DFT) and time‐dependent density functional theory (TD‐DFT) methods. We have identified the suitable method as HSEH1PBE functional in combination with the basis set 6‐31+G** by comparing the theoretical results with the experimental studies. Structural, electronic and optical parameters of a series of designed phosphonate substituted 12 BODIPYs (1‐4) have been investigated. The α, and α, α′‐vinyl phosphonate substituted BODIPYs (3,4) compared to meso‐substituted BODIPYs (1,2) have both lower HOMO/LUMO electronic energies [(−5.57)‐(−6.19)/(−3.16)‐(−3.91)] and lower electronic energy gaps (Egap) (2.11–2.42). Electrostatic potential analysis was performed for all BODIPYs to characterize their electron distribution and TD‐DFT analysis was used for the absorption spectral analysis. The presented theoretical approach can be a practical guide for experimental studies for the design of new BODIPY compounds with desired properties.
Preparation of Poly(arylamino‐quinone) Polymer and Its Electrochemical Properties as a Cathode Material for Lithium Ion Battery
Authors: Xu Lihuan , Zhang Shiqing , Guo Pengju , Su Chang 
Published: May 2021

AbstractThe exploration of organic materials for electrochemical energy storage has attracted much attention, and our studies focus on quinone‐based polymer that is employed as the electrode materials for lithium‐ion batteries. In this article, two poly(arylamino‐quinone) polymers are prepared by Michael addition polymerization reaction. The constructed poly(arylamino‐quinone) polymers contained the quinone units in arylamine‐linked conjugated skeleton, which possess the branched molecular structure for poly (tris(4‐aminophenyl)amine‐benzoquinone) (PAQ1) and the linear molecular structure for poly (p‐phenylenediamine‐benzoquinone) (PAQ2), respectively. As explored as the organic cathode materials for lithium‐ion batteries, PAQ1 with granular morphology exhibits the discharge capacity of 429.6 mAh. g−1 in the first cycle and the improved average discharge potential. Also, it shows that the stable cycling stability after the capacity attenuation in the initial cycles and the high current rate performances as comparing to PAQ2. It can be ascribed to the introduction of triphenylamine unit in polymer and the assembled granular morphology, which contributes to improved electrochemical performances for PAQ1.
Basalt‐polypropylene fiber reinforced concrete for durable and sustainable pipe production. Part 1: Experimental program
Authors: Deng Zhiyun , Liu Xinrong , Chen Peng , de la Fuente Albert , Zhou Xiaohan , Liang Ninghui , Han Yafeng , Du Libing 
Published: May 2021

AbstractAn experimental program consisting in producing and testing reinforced concrete pipes (RCPs) under the three‐edge bearing tests considering different types of reinforcement was carried out. Four types of RCPs were produced, these reinforced with: (1) polypropylene macrofibers; (2) basalt microfibers; (3) combination of both (hybrid reinforcement); and (4) plain concrete. The analysis of the crack patterns and both service and ultimate mechanical responses allowed concluding that the use of fibers do not lead to an effective increase of the first cracking load; however, both types of fibers allowed a better crack width control respect to the standard RCP. In this regard, basalt microfiber reinforced concrete led to a better response caused by concentrated loads (jacketing) whilst polypropylene macrofibers increased the concrete pipe performance in terms of bearing capacity and flexural crack control. The hybrid fiber reinforced concrete was found to be the most suitable alternative for increasing the load bearing capacity and the crack width control for service loads. These incipient experimental results permit to conclude that this type of hybrid basalt‐polypropylene fiber reinforced concretes are an interesting alternative to traditional steel‐cage RCPs.
Structure based virtual screening: Fast and slow
Authors: Varela‐Rial Alejandro , Majewski Maciej , De Fabritiis Gianni 
Published: May 2021

AbstractFor many decades virtual screening methods have provided a convenient and cost effective in silico solution in the early stages of drug discovery. In particular, molecular docking uses structural information to approximate protein–ligand recognition, providing valuable information for large chemical libraries at a fast pace with multiple success stories to validate the approach. Nevertheless, fast turnaround of results required assumptions and approximations which compromise the accuracy of these algorithms. On the other side of the spectrum, physical‐based molecular simulations offer more precise and realistic models of protein–ligand binding at the cost of being slower and requiring more expensive computing infrastructure. Both fast and slow approaches are useful and solve different aspects of the same problem. Here, we aim to review these approaches focusing on their capabilities, context of usage and limitations, presenting multiple examples along the way.This article is categorized under:Molecular and Statistical Mechanics > Molecular MechanicsSoftware > Molecular ModelingStructure and Mechanism > Computational Biochemistry and Biophysics
microRNA‐based diagnostic and therapeutic applications in cancer medicine
Authors: Sempere Lorenzo F. , Azmi Asfar S. , Moore Anna 
Published: May 2021

AbstractIt has been almost two decades since the first link between microRNAs and cancer was established. In the ensuing years, this abundant class of short noncoding regulatory RNAs has been studied in virtually all cancer types. This tremendously large body of research has generated innovative technological advances for detection of microRNAs in tissue and bodily fluids, identified the diagnostic, prognostic, and/or predictive value of individual microRNAs or microRNA signatures as potential biomarkers for patient management, shed light on regulatory mechanisms of RNA–RNA interactions that modulate gene expression, uncovered cell‐autonomous and cell‐to‐cell communication roles of specific microRNAs, and developed a battery of viral and nonviral delivery approaches for therapeutic intervention. Despite these intense and prolific research efforts in preclinical and clinical settings, there are a limited number of microRNA‐based applications that have been incorporated into clinical practice. We review recent literature and ongoing clinical trials that highlight most promising approaches and standing challenges to translate these findings into viable microRNA‐based clinical tools for cancer medicine.This article is categorized under:
RNA in Disease and Development > RNA in Disease
Contextualizing the Bioeconomy in an Unequal World: Biomass Sourcing and Global Socio-Ecological Inequalities
Authors: Backhouse Maria , Lehmann Rosa , Lorenzen Kristina , Puder Janina , Rodríguez Fabricio , Tittor Anne 
Published: May 2021

AbstractWhat is the bioeconomy and how does the bioeconomy relate to socio-ecological inequalities? With a focus on biomass sourcing, production and bioenergy, this chapter aims to answer these two questions with the whole book in mind. First, we introduce the conceptual, geographical and methodological focus of the volume. Drawing on political ecology and world systems theory, we develop an analytical lens for the study of global socio-ecological inequalities. Against this background, we sketch out the main findings of the contributions, which focus on conceptual questions, bioeconomy policies and agendas in different countries, as well as the reconfigurations and continuities of socio-ecological inequalities in and beyond the agrarian sector from the local to the global level. The contributions offer insights into different countries in South America, Southeast Asia and Europe as well as into the interrelations between different countries and regions. Finally, the outlook identifies and discusses four areas of further research.
Superexploitation in Bio-based Industries: The Case of Oil Palm and Labour Migration in Malaysia
Authors: Puder Janina 
Published: May 2021

AbstractMalaysia is the second largest palm oil producer in the world. In recent years, the state has portrayed palm oil as a favourable source of biomass for the global bioeconomy. Palm oil production has been heavily criticized and is often associated with social inequalities concerning land ownership, land use, access to land and environmental degradation. Palm oil expansion in Malaysia has resulted in the exploitation of migrant workers—a further expression of social inequality induced by industrial oil palm cultivation. Hence, investigating the working conditions of this group is crucial when examining existing, solidifying or evolving social inequalities in emerging bio-based industries. In this chapter, I draw on an existing body of literature and my own empirical findings in order to show that migrant workers are systematically superexploited in the Malaysian palm oil sector—an economic branch that could gain importance if the bioeconomy becomes a global reality.
Territorial Changes Around Biodiesel: A Case Study of North-Western Argentina
Authors: Toledo López Virginia 
Published: May 2021

AbstractAs part of a recent global agrofuel boom, Argentina became one of the leading producers and exporters of biodiesel. To understand the socioecological implication of this growth, the first chapter considers the national context by exploring the legal framework and agrofuels initiatives. It then focuses on the territorial changes that occurred in north-western Argentina through a case study on the local impacts of the agroindustry. The research shows that biodiesel production in the north-western province of Santiago del Estero is associated with the expansion of monocropping and pesticides, forest destruction, the risk of water pollution and the appropriation of common goods. These processes contribute to the deterioration of the material basis of peasants and local communities and affect the ecological distribution of environmental costs. The research also shows that territorial changes involve symbolic dimensions that are connected to environmental appropriation as part of the process of accumulation.
Global Inequalities and Extractive Knowledge Production in the Bioeconomy
Authors: Backhouse Maria 
Published: May 2021

AbstractResearch funding is pivotal for the implementation of the bioeconomy. Drawing on approaches inspired by world-systems theory, this chapter argues that existing bioeconomy strategies reproduce the global unequal production of knowledge: North America and Western Europe not only define the direction of the bioeconomy, but also claim to be the centres of technological knowledge production. In contrast, (semi-)peripheral countries remain raw material suppliers with less complex technologies. This strengthens the dominant form of extractive knowledge production in agriculture. By using the term ‘extractive knowledge’, I refer to research and development that serves agro-industrial resource extraction in (semi-)peripheral countries for export. I use Brazilian agricultural research on soybean to show that extractive knowledge exacerbates the socio-ecological problems that the bioeconomy is purported to solve. A sustainable bioeconomy requires a shift in research funding to alternative approaches such as those being developed by social movements in agroecology and food sovereignty.
Neoliberal Bioeconomies? Co-constructing Markets and Natures
Authors: Birch Kean 
Published: May 2021

AbstractThe bioeconomy is a key low-carbon transition pathway to address climate change promoted by a range of policymakers. The bioeconomy has been defined as a market-based strategy for dealing with environmental problems, largely because it seeks to insert bio-based products, fuels, and materials into prevailing economic infrastructures and institutions, rather than challenging underlying capitalist logics. As such, it can be seen as a ‘neoliberal’ response to climate change that reflects theoretical debates about the neoliberalization of nature. Such criticism, however, tends to treat markets as aberrations of nature and disrupting notions of a pristine, untouched natural state. In contrast, I argue that analysing the bioeconomy reveals the co-construction of markets and natures, rather than the imposition of markets on natures. Opening up criticism helps to provide an understanding of how else the bioeconomy could be organized and of the sorts of socio-material arrangements that we view as supportable.
Bioenergy, Thermodynamics and Inequalities
Authors: Lohmann Larry 
Published: May 2021

AbstractAny serious study of bioenergy and global inequalities must take account of the oppression inherent in thermodynamic energy itself. Because this topic is widely neglected by academics and activists alike, the chapter first describes how the abstract nature that we now call energy was organized during the nineteenth century in conjunction with new waves of capitalist mechanization centred on labour control and productivity. It then goes on to set out some of the ways in which the social or ecological contradictions of thermodynamic energy are intensified in the twentieth-century bioeconomy. Finally, the chapter draws out some of the implications for how social movements might place themselves more strategically in struggles over today’s bioeconomy.
A Player Bigger Than Its Size: Finnish Bioeconomy and Forest Policy in the Era of Global Climate Politics
Authors: Toivanen Tero 
Published: May 2021

AbstractOver the last two decades, the bioeconomy has emerged as a key political idea in framing a low-carbon transition. Bioeconomy is particularly important in Finland due to the country’s large forestry sector. The bioeconomy has reframed the Finnish forestry industry as sustainable and placed forestry at the centre of the national economy. This has led to the constitution of a new forest policy regime: the bioeconomy regime. However, in the era of climate mitigation, forests are expected to serve as carbon sinks. Increasing the harvesting of forests, a Finnish bioeconomy policy, would decrease the size of forest sinks, while increasing net emissions from forests. This aspect of climate science has challenged the Finnish bioeconomic strategy. This chapter analyses the emergence of the bioeconomy regime and how the regime has been challenged by climate science. Finally, it examines the communication strategies used and the status of the Finnish bioeconomy on the world stage.
Sugar-Cane Bioelectricity in Brazil: Reinforcing the Meta-Discourses of Bioeconomy and Energy Transition
Authors: Herrera Selena , Wilkinson John 
Published: May 2021

AbstractThis article analyses the contribution of sugar-cane bioelectricity to the distribution and diversification of power generation in Brazil. A transition is currently underway towards an energy mix characterized by natural gas and new renewable energy sources, mainly wind and solar. Energy security and industrial development priorities have created political and economic challenges for bioelectricity governance. However, meta-discourses of energy transition and bioeconomy are giving rise to selection pressures that are promoting institutional changes towards an expansion of the ethanol market. By using the multi-level perspective of transitions, this paper concludes that, given the technology in use for bioelectricity production, the critical financial state of the sugar-cane industry and the current priorities of the electricity marketing model, sugar-cane bioelectricity, which has a key role to play in the energy matrix, remains uncompetitive and dependent on specific public policies to support its expansion.
pygrametl: A Powerful Programming Framework for Easy Creation and Testing of ETL Flows
Authors: Jensen Søren Kejser , Thomsen Christian , Pedersen Torben Bach , Andersen Ove 
Published: May 2021

AbstractExtract-Transform-Load (ETL) flows are used to extract data, transform it, and load it into data warehouses (DWs). The dominating ETL tools use graphical user interfaces (GUIs) where users must manually place steps/components on a canvas and manually connect them using lines. This provides an easy to understand overview of the ETL flow but can also be rather tedious and require much trivial work for simple things. We, therefore, challenge this approach and propose to develop ETL flows by writing code. To make the programming easy, we proposed the Python-based ETL framework in 2009. We have extended significantly since the original release, and in this paper, we present an up-to-date overview of the framework. offers commonly used functionality for programmatic ETL development and enables the user to efficiently create effective ETL flows with the full power of programming. Each dimension is represented by a dimension object that manages the underlying table or tables in the case of a snowflaked dimension. Thus, filling a slowly changing or snowflaked dimension only requires a single method call per row as performs all of the required lookups, insertions, and assignment of surrogate keys. Similarly to dimensions, fact tables are each represented by a fact table object. Our latest addition to , Drawn Table Testing (DTT), simplifies testing ETL flows by making it easy to define both preconditions (i.e., the state of the database before the ETL flow is run) and postconditions (i.e., the expected state after the ETL flow has run) into a test. DTT can also be used to test ETL flows created in other ETL tools. also provides a set of commonly used functions for transforming rows, classes that help users parallelize their ETL flows using simple abstractions, and editor support for working with DTT. We present an evaluation that shows that provides high programmer productivity and that the created ETL flows have good run-time performance. Last, we present a case study from a company using in production and consider some of the lessons we learned during the development of as an open source framework.
Factorized lightcone expansion of conformal blocks
Authors: Li Wenliang 
Published: May 2021

Abstract
We present a factorized decomposition of 4-point scalar conformal blocks near the lightcone, which applies to arbitrary intermediate spin and general spacetime dimensions. Then we discuss the systematic expansion in large intermediate spin and the resummations of the large-spin tails of Regge trajectories. The basic integrals for the Lorentzian inversion are given by Wilson functions.