bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Improving soil silicon and selected fertility status for rice production through rice-mill waste application in lowland sawah rice field of southeastern Nigeria
Authors: Nwite John Chukwu , Unagwu Benedict Onyebuchi , Okolo Chukwuebuka Christopher , Igwe Charles Arinze , Wakatsuki Toshiyuki 
Published: October 2019

AbstractPurposeRice-mill wastes are generated in large amounts in Ishiagu, Ebonyi State, Nigeria. These wastes can potentially be utilized for rice production and in improving soil attributes. This study evaluated the effects of rice-mill wastes on soil chemical properties and rice yield in sawah rice management.MethodsA sawah rice field in an inland valley of southeastern Nigeria was used in 2014 and 2015 cropping seasons for the study. Sawah refers to an Indo-Malaysian term for rice paddy. It involves the manipulation of some soil physical properties in form of ecological engineering works, by bunding, puddling and leveling of lowland rice field for water control and management. Two rice-mill wastes [rice husk ash (RHA) and rice husk dust (RHD) applied at 0, 2.5, 5, 7.5, 10 and 12.5 t ha−1] and the control were built into a split-plot in a randomized complete block design with three replications.ResultsBio-waste application had significant (p < 0.05) improved effects on the soil organic carbon, available P, soil available Si and total N compared with the unamended (control) treatment. There was significant (p < 0.05) increase in rice grain yield from 5.05 to 5.80 t ha−1(for RHA) and 6.17–6.96 t/ha (for RHD) compared with 2.35–2.8 t ha−1(control treatment) in both cropping seasons.ConclusionRHD and RHA treatments had significantly higher rice grain yield compared with the control treatment. Overall, rice grain yield was higher under RHD treatment compared with RHA treatment. This result demonstrated that RHA and RHD are potential agricultural resource for rice production in the study area.
Prediction of Alzheimer's disease diagnosis within 14 years through Aβ misfolding in blood plasma compared to APOE4 status, and other risk factors
Authors: Stocker Hannah , Nabers Andreas , Perna Laura , Möllers Tobias , Rujescu Dan , Hartmann Annette , Holleczek Bernd , Schöttker Ben , Gerwert Klaus , Brenner Hermann 
Published: October 2019

AbstractIntroductionAlzheimer's disease (AD) has a long prodromal stage and identifying high‐risk individuals is critical. We aimed to investigate the ability of Aβ misfolding in blood plasma, APOE4 status, and dementia risk factors to predict diagnosis of AD.MethodsWithin a community‐based cohort, Aβ misfolding in plasma measured by immuno‐infrared sensor and APOE genotype were determined at baseline in 770 participants followed over 14 years. Associations between Aβ misfolding, APOE4, and other predictors with clinical AD, vascular dementia, and mixed dementia diagnoses were assessed.ResultsAβ misfolding was associated with a 23‐fold increased odds of clinical AD diagnosis within 14 years. No association was observed with vascular dementia/mixed dementia diagnoses. APOE4‐positive participants had a 2.4‐fold increased odds of clinical AD diagnosis within 14 years.DiscussionAβ misfolding in blood plasma was a strong, specific risk prediction marker for clinical AD even many years before diagnosis in a community‐based setting.
RETURN TO SENDER: LET THE INTERNATIONAL COURT OF JUSTICE JUSTIFY OR QUALIFY INTERNATIONAL-CRIMINAL-COURT EXCEPTIONALISM REGARDING PERSONAL IMMUNITIES
Authors: Nouwen Sarah M.H. 
Published: October 2019

AbstractThis article argues that it is important for the International Court of Justice to be given an opportunity, for instance through a request for an Advisory Opinion, to explain what exactly it meant when it suggested that the ordinarily applicable international law on immunities need not be an obstacle “before certain international criminal courts, where they have jurisdiction”. Two international criminal courts have built a structure of case law on this one obiter comment, which it seems unable to support.
The role of carbon dioxide in nematode behaviour and physiology
Authors: Banerjee Navonil , Hallem Elissa A. 
Published: October 2019

AbstractCarbon dioxide (CO2) is an important sensory cue for many animals, including both parasitic and free-living nematodes. Many nematodes show context-dependent, experience-dependent and/or life-stage-dependent behavioural responses to CO2, suggesting that CO2 plays crucial roles throughout the nematode life cycle in multiple ethological contexts. Nematodes also show a wide range of physiological responses to CO2. Here, we review the diverse responses of parasitic and free-living nematodes to CO2. We also discuss the molecular, cellular and neural circuit mechanisms that mediate CO2 detection in nematodes, and that drive context-dependent and experience-dependent responses of nematodes to CO2.
A strictly American institution: Neil O'Brien, blackface minstrelsy, and the invention of white Catholic identity
Authors: Blake George K. 
Published: October 2019

AbstractThis article examines the politics of race, religion and nation in relation to blackface minstrelsy during the first decades of the twentieth century. Having been superseded by more modern amusements, minstrelsy was outdated as a performance genre, yet the minstrel show served as a forum for Neil O'Brien and the Knights of Columbus fraternal society to participate in the invention of a white American Catholic identity. For fraternal society members, estranged from national belonging by religious difference, these performances situated the group as proponents of an old-fashioned American tradition, structured around anti-blackness. At a time of anti-Catholic sentiment, Catholic fraternal society members gathered for minstrel performances, distancing themselves from black people and marking themselves as white Americans.
Effects of nutrient addition on polyphenol and nutrient concentrations in leaves of woody species of a savanna woodland in Central Brazil
Authors: Jacobson Tamiel Khan Baiocchi , Bustamante Mercedes Maria da Cunha 
Published: October 2019

AbstractWe investigated whether changes in nutrient availability affected N, P, S and polyphenol concentrations in different leaf-development stages of three brevideciduous and three evergreen dominant woody species in a nutrient-limited savanna woodland in Central Brazil. Treatments included eight years of annual fertilization with 100 kg ha−1of N, P, N plus P and control, each replicated in four randomized 15 × 15-m plots. All species increased S concentrations (minimum 28%) in young and mature leaves in fertilized plots.Dalbergia miscolobiumdecreased total phenol concentrations with P (−34.3%, −23.7%) and NP fertilization (−28.2%, −17.1%).Blepharocalyx salicifoliusincreased total phenol (27.6%, 18.8%) and tannin (46.3%; 43.5%) in P fertilized and increased total phenol (33.9%) and tannin (27.8%, 43.5%) in NP fertilized plots. Total phenol concentration decreased with leaf age inOuratea hexasperma,Styrax ferrugineusandBlepharocalyx salicifolius, which also decreased tannin concentration with leaf age. For all treatments, brevideciduous species had higher N, P, total phenols and tannin concentrations and lower S concentration than evergreens. These differences between phenological groups suggest that tropical ecosystems responses to environmental changes are more complex than anticipated by global vegetation models, with consequences for predictions in ecosystem functions and resilience.
The cross-linguistic performance of word segmentation models over time
Authors: CAINES Andrew , ALTMANN-RICHER Emma , BUTTERY Paula 
Published: October 2019

AbstractWe select three word segmentation models with psycholinguistic foundations – transitional probabilities, the diphone-based segmenter, and PUDDLE – which track phoneme co-occurrence and positional frequencies in input strings, and in the case of PUDDLE build lexical and diphone inventories. The models are evaluated on caregiver utterances in 132 CHILDES corpora representing 28 languages and 11.9 m words. PUDDLE shows the best performance overall, albeit with wide cross-linguistic variation. We explore the reasons for this variation, fitting regression models to performance scores with linguistic properties which capture lexico-phonological characteristics of the input: word length, utterance length, diversity in the lexicon, the frequency of one-word utterances, the regularity of phoneme patterns at word boundaries, and the distribution of diphones in each language. These properties together explain four-tenths of the observed variation in segmentation performance, a strong outcome and a solid foundation for studying further variables which make the segmentation task difficult.
Achieving Goal 16 of the Sustainable Development Goals and Environmental Lessons for Malaysia
Authors: Tan Sarah 
Published: October 2019

AbstractOn September 2015, countries around the world pledged to end poverty, protect the planet, and hit specific developmental targets within fifteen years at the signing of th|e United Nations 2030 Agenda. Within the 2030 Agenda are seventeen Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Goal 16 of the SDG contains twelve targets; of these, Target 16.3 is aimed at ensuring equal access to justice for all and Target 16.10 at ensuring public access to information. Malaysia as a signatory has pledged its commitment to fulfilling these SDGs. This paper's primary focus is on the fulfilment of Targets 16.3 and 16.10 within Malaysia's legal environmental framework. At present, there are provisions that ensure equal access to justice and those that ensure public access to information; however, it is suggested that these are insufficient, uncommon, and limited. This paper proposes an amendment to the Federal Constitution to include the express right to a clean environment, and demonstrates, through comparative study, the success similar provisions have had on the environmental protection laws of other countries such as India, the Philippines, South Africa, Nepal, the Netherlands, and Nigeria. It then considers what possible lessons Malaysia could glean from these national experiences in fulfilling its goals for Targets 16.3 and 16.10 before concluding with the proposition that Malaysia should consider an express constitutional right to a clean environment if she intends to meet her SDG goals.
A Regularization Approach to Improve the Sequential Calibration of a Semidistributed Hydrological Model
Authors: de Lavenne A. , Andréassian V. , Thirel G. , Ramos M.‐H. , Perrin C. 
Published: October 2019

AbstractIn semidistributed hydrological modeling, sequential calibration usually refers to the calibration of a model by considering not only the flows observed at the outlet of a catchment but also the different gauging points inside the catchment from upstream to downstream. While sequential calibration aims to optimize the performance at these interior gauged points, we show that it generally fails to improve performance at ungauged points. In this paper, we propose a regularization approach for the sequential calibration of semidistributed hydrological models. It consists in adding a priori information on optimal parameter sets for each modeling unit of the semidistributed model. Calibration iterations are then performed by jointly maximizing simulation performance and minimizing drifts from the a priori parameter sets. The combination of these two sources of information is handled by a parameter k to which the method is quite sensitive. The method is applied to 1,305 catchments in France over 30 years. The leave‐one‐out validation shows that, at locations considered as ungauged, model simulations are significantly improved (over all the catchments, the median KGE criterion is increased from 0.75 to 0.83 and the first quartile from 0.35 to 0.66), while model performance at gauged points is not significantly impacted by the use of the regularization approach. Small catchments benefit most from this calibration strategy. These performances are, however, very similar to the performances obtained with a lumped model based on similar conceptualization.
On the Balance Equations and Error Estimators for Separating n Time Components of Runoff With One Stable Isotope Tracer
Authors: Hoeg Simon 
Published: October 2019

AbstractStarting from their first applications in the late 1960s, the mass balance equations for separating storm hydrographs have been analyzed with respect to their solvability and sensitivity to errors. By changing them into a time perspective, it is shown how an iterative extension of the standard two‐component separation can lead to a system of balance equations that allows for separating n time components using one single stable isotope tracer. This new approach is tested for the case n=6 by using the experimental data of the Zastler catchment (18.4 km2, southern Black Forest, Germany). The behavior of several time components is demonstrated. By separating the event water of the last and next‐to‐last event, it is shown how the event water of a certain rainfall‐runoff event contributes to stream discharge over the next two subsequent events. The new separation model offers the possibility of tracing event water over a much longer period after the initial event.
Absolute band alignment at semiconductor-water interfaces using explicit and implicit descriptions for liquid water
Authors: Hörmann Nicolas G. , Guo Zhendong , Ambrosio Francesco , Andreussi Oliviero , Pasquarello Alfredo , Marzari Nicola 
Published: October 2019

AbstractQuantum mechanical simulations that include the effects of the liquid environment are highly relevant for the characterization of solid-liquid interfaces, which is crucial for the design of a wide range of devices. In this work we present a rigorous and systematic study of the band alignment of semiconductors in aqueous solutions by contrasting a range of hybrid explicit/implicit models against explicit atomistic simulations based on density-functional theory. We find that consistent results are obtained provided that the first solvation shell is treated explicitly. Interestingly, the first molecular layer of explicit water is only relevant for the pristine surfaces without dissociatively adsorbed water, hinting at the importance of saturating the surface with quantum mechanical bonds. By referencing the averaged electrostatic potentials of explicit and implicit water against vacuum, we provide absolute alignments, finding maximal differences of only $$\sim$$
~
0.1–0.2 V. Furthermore, the implicit reference potential is shown to exhibit an intrinsic offset of −0.33 V with respect to vacuum, which is traced back to the absence of an explicit water surface in the implicit model. These results pave the way for accurate simulations of solid-liquid interfaces using minimalistic explicit/implicit models.
Role of hydrostatic pressure and wall effect in solidification of TC8 alloy
Authors: Luo Xinghong , Wang Yaya , Li Yang 
Published: October 2019

AbstractThe solidification experiments of TC8 alloy under both microgravity and normal gravity were conducted using a drop tube. The solidification microstructure were found composed of fine equiaxed grains formed at early stage and bigger elongated grains formed at later stage. Between the two kinds of grains a curved transition interface was observed in 1g sample, while that in μg sample was almost flat. Generally, the amounts and aspect ratios of the grains are larger, and the grain sizes are smaller in 1g sample. Besides, no visible element macrosegregation occurred in both samples. The results suggest that the solidification velocities of the samples were rapid, and consequently the convection effect and solute transport effect caused by gravity had little influence on the solidification microstructure. Therefore, the solidification process was mainly controlled by thermal diffusion, and hydrostatic pressure and wall effect played a great role in it.
An omnidirectional visualization model of personalized gene regulatory networks
Authors: Chen Chixiang , Jiang Libo , Fu Guifang , Wang Ming , Wang Yaqun , Shen Biyi , Liu Zhenqiu , Wang Zuoheng , Hou Wei , Berceli Scott A. , Wu Rongling 
Published: October 2019

AbstractGene regulatory networks (GRNs) have been widely used as a fundamental tool to reveal the genomic mechanisms that underlie the individual’s response to environmental and developmental cues. Standard approaches infer GRNs as holistic graphs of gene co-expression, but such graphs cannot quantify how gene–gene interactions vary among individuals and how they alter structurally across spatiotemporal gradients. Here, we develop a general framework for inferring informative, dynamic, omnidirectional, and personalized networks (idopNetworks) from routine transcriptional experiments. This framework is constructed by a system of quasi-dynamic ordinary differential equations (qdODEs) derived from the combination of ecological and evolutionary theories. We reconstruct idopNetworks using genomic data from a surgical experiment and illustrate how network structure is associated with surgical response to infrainguinal vein bypass grafting and the outcome of grafting. idopNetworks may shed light on genotype–phenotype relationships and provide valuable information for personalized medicine.
Microprojection arrays applied to skin generate mechanical stress, induce an inflammatory transcriptome and cell death, and improve vaccine-induced immune responses
Authors: Ng Hwee-Ing , Tuong Zewen K. , Fernando Germain J. P. , Depelsenaire Alexandra C. I. , Meliga Stefano C. , Frazer Ian H. , Kendall Mark A. F. 
Published: October 2019

AbstractChemical adjuvants are typically used to improve immune responses induced by immunisation with protein antigens. Here we demonstrate an approach to enhance immune responses that does not require chemical adjuvants. We applied microprojection arrays to the skin, producing a range of controlled mechanical energy to invoke localised inflammation, while administering influenza split virus protein antigen. We used validated computational modelling methods to identify links between mechanical stress and energy generated within the skin strata and resultant cell death. We compared induced immune responses to those induced by needle-based intradermal antigen delivery and used a systems biology approach to examine the nature of the induced inflammatory response, and correlated this with markers of cell stress and death. Increasing the microprojection array application energy and the addition of QS-21 adjuvant were each associated with enhanced antibody response to delivered antigen and with induction of gene transcriptions associated with TNF and NF-κB signalling pathways. We concluded that microprojection intradermal antigen delivery inducing controlled local cell death could potentially replace chemical adjuvants to enhance the immune response to protein antigen.
Online Gambling of Pure Chance: Wager Distribution, Risk Attitude, and Anomalous Diffusion
Authors: Wang Xiangwen , Pleimling Michel 
Published: October 2019

AbstractOnline gambling sites offer many different gambling games. In this work we analyse the gambling logs of numerous solely probability-based gambling games and extract the wager and odds distributions. We find that the log-normal distribution describes the wager distribution at the aggregate level. Viewing the gamblers’ net incomes as random walks, we study the mean-squared displacement of net income and related quantities and find different diffusive behaviors for different games. We discuss possible origins for the observed anomalous diffusion.
New insights on lake sediment DNA from the catchment: importance of taphonomic and analytical issues on the record quality
Authors: Giguet-Covex C. , Ficetola G. F. , Walsh K. , Poulenard J. , Bajard M. , Fouinat L. , Sabatier P. , Gielly L. , Messager E. , Develle A. L. , David F. , Taberlet P. , Brisset E. , Guiter F. , Sinet R. , Arnaud F. 
Published: October 2019

AbstractOver the last decade, an increasing number of studies have used lake sediment DNA to trace past landscape changes, agricultural activities or human presence. However, the processes responsible for lake sediment formation and sediment properties might affect DNA records via taphonomic and analytical processes. It is crucial to understand these processes to ensure reliable interpretations for “palaeo” studies. Here, we combined plant and mammal DNA metabarcoding analyses with sedimentological and geochemical analyses from three lake-catchment systems that are characterised by different erosion dynamics. The new insights derived from this approach elucidate and assess issues relating to DNA sources and transfer processes. The sources of eroded materials strongly affect the “catchment-DNA” concentration in the sediments. For instance, erosion of upper organic and organo-mineral soil horizons provides a higher amount of plant DNA in lake sediments than deep horizons, bare soils or glacial flours. Moreover, high erosion rates, along with a well-developed hydrographic network, are proposed as factors positively affecting the representation of the catchment flora. The development of open and agricultural landscapes, which favour the erosion, could thus bias the reconstructed landscape trajectory but help the record of these human activities. Regarding domestic animals, pastoral practices and animal behaviour might affect their DNA record because they control the type of source of DNA (“point” vs. “diffuse”).
Interpersonal synchrony feels good but impedes self-regulation of affect
Authors: Galbusera Laura , Finn Michael T. M. , Tschacher Wolfgang , Kyselo Miriam 
Published: October 2019

AbstractThe social benefits of interpersonal synchrony are widely recognized. Yet, little is known about its impact on the self. According to enactive cognitive science, the human self for its stability and regulation needs to balance social attunement with disengagement from others. Too much interpersonal synchrony is considered detrimental for a person’s ability to self-regulate. In this study, 66 adults took part in the Body-Conversation Task (BCT), a dyadic movement task promoting spontaneous social interaction. Using whole-body behavioural imaging, we investigated the simultaneous impact of interpersonal synchrony (between persons) and intrapersonal synchrony (within a person) on positive affect and self-regulation of affect. We hypothesized that interpersonal synchrony’s known tendency to increase positive affect would have a trade-off, decreasing a person’s ability to self-regulate affect. Interpersonal synchrony predicted an increase in positive affect. Consistent with our hypothesis, it simultaneously predicted a weakening in self-regulation of affect. Intrapersonal synchrony, however, tended to oppose these effects. Our findings challenge the widespread belief that harmony with others has only beneficial effects, pointing to the need to better understand the impact of interaction dynamics on the stability and regulation of the human self.