bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The Effects of Fiscal Measures during COVID‐19
Authors: DEB PRAGYAN , FURCERI DAVIDE , OSTRY JONATHAN D. , TAWK NOUR , YANG NAIHAN 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThis paper empirically examines the effects of fiscal measures during COVID‐19, using a novel database of daily fiscal policy announcements—classified by type of fiscal measure—and high‐frequency economic indicators for 52 countries from January 1 to December 31, 2020. Results suggest that fiscal policy announcements have been effective in stimulating economic activity, boosting confidence, and reducing unemployment, but their effect varies by type of measure and country characteristics. Emergency lifeline measures are more effective when containment policies are stringent, providing cashflow support to most affected firms and households. Demand support measures are more effective when containment measures are relaxed.
Phase 1 study of safety and tolerability of an oral contraceptive containing low‐dose ethinyl oestradiol combined with glecaprevir/pibrentasvir treatment in healthy premenopausal women
Authors: Shiller Dee‐Dee , Yao Betty B. , Chen Mong‐Jen , Orejudos Amelia , Mostafa Nael M. , Marcinak John F. , Burroughs Margaret , Boyle Craig 
Published: April 2024

AbstractGlecaprevir/pibrentasvir (GLE/PIB) is an approved guideline‐recommended chronic hepatitis C virus infection treatment. GLE/PIB coadministration with ethinyl oestradiol (EE) is not recommended in current labels owing to a Phase 1 study observing Grade ≥2 alanine aminotransferase (ALT) elevation in 2 out of 12 healthy women cotreated for 11 days with GLE/PIB and oral contraceptive (OC) containing 35 μg/250 μg EE/norgestimate. No Grade ≥2 elevation was observed with low‐dose (20 μg) EE (n = 14). This Phase 1 study examined safety/tolerability of GLE/PIB coadministered with an OC containing low‐dose EE using a larger sample size and longer treatment duration. Healthy premenopausal women were treated with EE/levonorgestrel alone (20/100 μg, Cycles 1–2), followed by coadministration with GLE/PIB (300/120 mg; Cycles 3–4). A safety criterion of special interest was a confirmed Grade ≥2 ALT elevation (>3× upper normal limit). Adverse events (AEs) and study drugs concentrations were examined. Of 85 enrolled women, 72 initiated combined GLE/PIB + EE/levonorgestrel treatment, 66 completed the study and 19 discontinued prematurely (non‐safety reason, n = 16; AE [deemed unelated to GLE/PIB], n = 3). No participant met the safety criterion of special interest of confirmed Grade ≥2 ALT elevation. No serious/Grade ≥3 AEs were reported. Study drug concentrations were within the expected ranges. GLE/PIB in combination with an OC containing low‐dose EE was generally well tolerated with no confirmed Grade ≥2 ALT elevation and no evidence of drug‐induced liver injury. No pattern to the reported AEs and no new safety issues were identified. This was a Phase 1 study of healthy volunteers, not a registered clinical trial.
Total thyroxine, triiodothyronine, and thyrotropin concentrations during acute nonthyroidal illness and recovery in dogs
Authors: Corsini Andrea , Del Baldo Francesca , Lunetta Francesco , Ribichini Serena , Giunti Massimo , Fidanzio Francesca , Fracassi Federico 
Published: April 2024

AbstractBackgroundAcute illness can result in changes in serum total thyroxine (tT4), total triiodothyronine (tT3), and thyrotropin (TSH) concentrations in euthyroid dogs defined as nonthyroidal illness syndrome, but longitudinal evaluation of these hormones during the recovery phase is lacking.ObjectivesTo longitudinally evaluate serum tT4, tT3, and TSH concentrations during the acute phase and recovery from acute illness in dogs.AnimalsNineteen euthyroid client‐owned dogs hospitalized for acute illness at a veterinary teaching hospital.MethodsProspective longitudinal study. Serum tT4, tT3, and TSH concentrations were measured at the admission (T0), at last day of hospitalization (T1), and during the recovery phase at 3, 7, 14, and 21 days after the discharge (T2, T3, T4, and T5), respectively.ResultstT4 and tT3 were below the reference interval (RI) at T0 in 3 (16%) and 18 (95%) dogs, respectively; tT4 normalized in all dogs early in the recovery phase, while low tT3 persisted at the end of the study in 16 (83%) dogs. Median TSH concentrations were increased at T5 compared with T1 (0.19 ng/mL [range 0.03‐0.65] vs 0.11 ng/mL [range (0.05‐0.26)], mean difference = 0.09 ng/mL; P = .03). Five (26%) dogs had TSH above the RI at least at 1 time point during the recovery phase. None of the dogs had concurrent low tT4 and high TSH during the study.Conclusions and Clinical RelevanceIn euthyroid dogs acute illness can interfere with evaluation of thyroid function up to 21 days during the recovery phase. Thyroid testing should be avoided or postponed in these dogs.
Effective dispersal patterns in prairie plant species across human‐modified landscapes
Authors: Hendrickson Elizabeth C. , Cruzan Mitchell B. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractEffective dispersal among plant populations is dependent on vector behaviour, landscape features and availability of adequate habitats. To capture landscape feature effects on dispersal, studies must be conducted at scales reflecting single‐generation dispersal events (mesoscale). Many studies are conducted at large scales where genetic differentiation is due to dispersal occurring over multiple generations, making it difficult to interpret the effects of specific landscape features on vector behaviour. Genetic structure at the mesoscale may be determined by ecological and evolutionary processes, such as the consequences of vector behaviour on patterns of gene flow. We used chloroplast haplotypes and nuclear genome SNP surveys to identify landscape features influencing seed and pollen dispersal at a mesoscale within the Rogue River Valley in southern Oregon. We evaluated biotic and abiotic vector behaviour by contrasting two annual species with differing dispersal mechanisms; Achyrachaena mollis (Asteraceae) is a self‐pollinating and anemochoric species, and Plectritis congesta (Caprifoliaceae) is biotically pollinated with barochoric seeds. Using landscape genetics methods, we identified features of the study region that conduct or restrict dispersal. We found chloroplast haplotypes were indicative of historic patterns of gene flow prior to human modification of landscapes. Seed dispersal of A. mollis was best supported by models of isolation by distance, while seed‐driven gene flow of P. congesta was determined by the distribution of preserved natural spaces and quality habitat. Nuclear genetic structure was driven by both pollen and seed dispersal, and both species responded to contemporary landscape changes, such as urban and agricultural conversion, and habitat availability.
An intelligent optimization method for the facility environment on rural roads
Authors: Ren Weixi , Yu Bo , Chen Yuren , Gao Kun , Bao Shan , Wang Zhixuan , Qin Yuting 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThis study develops an intelligent optimization method of the facility environment (i.e., road facilities and surrounding landscapes) from drivers’ visual perception to adjust operation speeds on rural roads. Different from previous methods that heavily rely on expert experience and are time‐consuming, this method can rapidly generate optimized visual images of the facility environment and promptly verify the optimization effects. In this study, a visual road schema model is established to quantify the facility environment from drivers’ visual perception, and an automated optimization scheme determination approach considering the original facility environment characteristics is proposed using self‐explaining theory. Then, Cycle‐consistent generative adversarial network is used to automatically generate optimized facility environment images. To verify the optimization effect, operation speeds of the optimized facility environments are predicted using random forest. The case study shows that this method can effectively optimize the facility environment where original operation speeds are more than 20% over the speed limits, and the whole process only takes 1 h far less than several months or years in previous ways. Overall, this study advances the intelligence level in optimizing the facility environment and enhances rural road safety.
Perioperative management and outcomes for posterior spinal fusion in patients with Friedreich ataxia: A single‐center, retrospective study
Authors: O'Brien Elizabeth M. , Neiswinter Natalie , Lin Kimberly Y. , Lynch David , Baldwin Keith , Profeta Victoria , Flynn John M. , Muhly Wallis T. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractBackgroundFriedreich ataxia is a rare genetic disorder associated with progressive mitochondrial dysfunction leading to widespread sequelae including ataxia, muscle weakness, hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, diabetes mellitus, and neuromuscular scoliosis. Children with Friedreich ataxia are at high risk for periprocedural complications during posterior spinal fusion due to their comorbidities.AimTo describe our single‐center perioperative management of patients with Friedreich ataxia undergoing posterior spinal fusion.MethodsAdolescent patients with Friedreich ataxia presenting for spinal deformity surgery between 2007 and 2023 were included in this retrospective case series performed at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. Perioperative outcomes were reviewed along with preoperative characteristics, intraoperative anesthetic management, and postoperative medical management.ResultsSeventeen patients were included in the final analysis. The mean age was 15 ± 2 years old and 47% were female. Preoperatively, 35% were wheelchair dependent, 100% had mild‐to‐moderate hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with preserved systolic function and no left ventricular outflow tract obstruction, 29% were on cardiac medications, and 29% were on pain medications. Intraoperatively, 53% had transesophageal echocardiography monitoring; 12% had changes in volume status on echo but no changes in function. Numerous combinations of total intravenous anesthetic agents were used, most commonly propofol, remifentanil, and ketamine. Baseline neuromonitoring signals were poor in four patients and one patient lost signals, resulting in 4 (24%) wake‐up tests. The majority (75%) were extubated in the operating room. Postoperative complications were high (88%) and ranged from minor complications like nausea/vomiting (18%) to major complications like hypotension/tachycardia (29%) and need for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation support in one patient (6%).ConclusionsPatients with Friedreich ataxia are at high risk for perioperative complications when undergoing posterior spinal fusion and coordinated multidisciplinary care is required at each stage. Future research should focus on the utility of intraoperative echocardiography, optimal anesthetic agent selection, and targeted fluid management to reduce postoperative cardiac complications.
“Chat‐Up”: The role of competition in street‐level bureaucrats' willingness to break technological rules and use generative pre‐trained transformers (GPTs)
Authors: Frisch‐Aviram Neomi , Spanghero Lotta Gabriela , Jordão de Carvalho Luciana 
Published: April 2024

AbstractOrganizations worldwide are concerned about workers using generative pretrained transformers (GPTs), which can generate human‐like text in seconds at work. These organizations are setting rules on how and when to use GPTs. This article focuses on street‐level bureaucrats' (SLBs) intentions to use GPTs even if their public organization does not allow its use (tech rule‐breaking). Based on a mixed‐methods exploratory design, using focus groups (N = 14) and a survey experiment (N = 279), we demonstrate that SLBs intend to break the rules and use GPTs when their competitors from the private sector have access to artificial intelligence (AI) tools. We discuss these findings in the context of hybrid forms of public management and the Promethean moment of GPTs.
Recalcitrant emotions: The problems of perceptual theories
Authors: Sacco Giulio 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThe term ‘recalcitrant emotions’ refers to those cases where we feel an emotion that apparently contradicts our better judgements. For instance, one may be afraid of flying while claiming not to believe that it is dangerous. This phenomenon is commonly conceived as an objection to cognitivism, according to which emotions are based on the subject's beliefs, insofar as it would force us to ascribe to the subject who feels them an excessive degree of irrationality, comparing recalcitrant emotions to contradictory beliefs. For this reason, many philosophers have developed perceptual theories which describe emotions as forms of perception, allowing us to explain recalcitrant emotions without attributing to the subject contradictory beliefs, treating them as perceptual illusions. Facing the most compelling of these attempts, the article shows that perceptual accounts fail to explain in what sense recalcitrant emotions (and people who feel them) are irrational, keeping the comparison with optical illusions, which are not. Having rebutted three popular perceptual proposals, I conclude that the analogy between emotions and perceptions is flawed and that the appeal of these theories lies on a surreptitious shift in the meaning of the term ‘perceive’.
Kant and Baumgarten on the duty of self‐love
Authors: Osawa Toshiro 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThis article offers an account of Kant's conception of the duty of self‐love, a rarely researched subject, by investigating how he appropriated Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten's prior conception. I argue that exploring this appropriation helps us to gain new insights into Kant's conception of duty, a leading thread in Kant's ethics. Substantiating this argument, I derive the following conclusions. First, Kant peculiarly affirms a duty to rational self‐love of delight. To be more precise, human beings ought rationally to love themselves in such a way that they are content with—or have a positive feeling about—themselves in acting on maxims that they are pleased to see submitted to the moral law. Further, rational self‐love of delight results from declining pathological forms of self‐love. Second, Kant retains, to a meaningful extent, Baumgarten's conception of the duty to self‐love where feeling and rationality achieve their distinct elevation.
Uncertainty is in the Form: A functional, meaning‐based approach to teaching ambiguity as author choice in Kafka's “Vor dem Gesetz”
Authors: Walter Daniel 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThere is a need for a continued focus on language learning in advanced language classes beyond the foundations that are formed in the beginning and intermediate levels. Despite this need, little work exists on how to implement language‐focused instruction in upper‐level courses. As one possible solution, this paper outlines a functional, meaning‐based approach to teaching language that could be easily adopted by all instructors, regardless of their professional training and/or research interests. As an example of this approach, the study described in this paper investigates the instruction of Subjunctive 1 through its function as indirect speech in a literary context. Eight participants in a fourth‐semester German course engaged with the Subjunctive 1 form through a lesson focused on Kafka's authorial choices in the text Vor dem Gesetz that create a sense of uncertainty. This approach complements the traditional teaching of Subjunctive 1, such as in journalistic contexts, by centering it as a tool for meaning making in an author's lexicogrammatical toolkit. An analysis of pre/posttests that included both quantitative and qualitative data was used to assess the effectiveness of the approach. The results indicate an overall positive effect for the instruction but also individual variation by the learner. These findings support both the utility of and need for functional, meaning‐based approaches in upper‐level courses. Finally, I discuss how this type of approach could be adopted for any linguistic feature and by any instructor teaching advanced courses to support students’ linguistic growth throughout the curriculum.
A planar graph cluster‐routing approach for optimizing medical waste collection based on spatial constraint
Authors: Bagheri Keyvan , Samany Najmeh Neysani , Toomanian Ara , Jelokhani‐Niaraki Mohammadreza , Hajibabai Leila 
Published: April 2024

AbstractMedical Solid Wastes (MSWs) are major hazardous materials containing harmful biological or chemical compounds that present public and environmental health risks. The collection and transportation of waste are usually informed by optimized work‐balanced routing based on comprehensive spatial data in urban traffic networks, called a Vehicle Routing Problem (VRP). This may be unsuitable for MSWs as their special category means they impose additional complexity. The present article develops a planar graph‐based cluster‐routing approach for the optimal collection of MSWs informed by a Geospatial Information System (GIS). The problem is first formulated as a mixed integer linear program in road network spatial data, in the context of Tehran city. The work has two key aims: (i) to minimize the total routing cost of MSW collection and transfer to waste landfills; (ii) to balance workload across waste collectors. There are three main contributions of the proposed approach: (i) to simplify the large search space area by converting the road network to a planar graph based on graph theory, spatial parameters, and topological rules; (ii) to use a modified K‐means algorithm for clustering; (iii) to consider average traffic impacts in the clustering stage and momentary traffic in the route planning stage. A planar graph extraction procedure is applied to capture the network sketch (i.e., a directed graph) from the traffic roadway network. An iterative cluster‐first‐route‐second heuristic is employed to solve the proposed routing problem. This heuristic customizes a K‐means algorithm to determine the optimal number and size of clusters (i.e., routes). A Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP) algorithm is applied to regulate the optimal sequence of visits to medical centers. The experimental results show improvements in balancing collectors' workload (i.e., ~4 min reduction in the standard deviation of average travel time) with reductions in travel time (i.e., an average ~1 h for the entire fleet and ~4 min per route). These findings confirm that the proposed methodology can be considered as an approach for optimizing waste collection routes.
Performance Measurement: Machine Learning as a Complement to DEA for Continuous Efficiency Estimation
Authors: Khoubrane Yousef , Ramli Noor Asiah , Mohd Khairi Siti Shaliza 
Published: April 2024

Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) is a well-established non-parametric technique for performance measurement to access the efficiency of Decision-Making Units (DMUs). However, its inability to predict the efficiency values of new DMUs without re-conducting the analysis on the entire dataset has led to the integration of Machine Learning (ML) in previous studies to address this limitation. Yet, such integration often lacks a thorough evaluation of ML's adaptability in replacing current DEA process. This paper presents the results of an empirical study that employed eight ML models, two DEA variants, and a dataset of S&P500 companies. The findings demonstrated ML’s remarkable precision in predicting efficiency values derived from a single DEA run and comparable performance in predicting the efficiency of new DMUs, thus eliminating the need for repeated DEA. This discovery highlights ML’s robustness as a complementary tool for DEA in continuous efficiency estimation, rendering the practice of re-conducting DEA unnecessary. Notably, boosting models within the Ensemble Learning category consistently outperformed other models, highlighting their effectiveness in the context of DEA efficiency prediction. Particularly, CatBoost demonstrated its superiority as the top-performing model, followed by LightGBM in the second position in most cases. When extended to five enlarged datasets, it shows that the model exhibits superior R² values in the CRS scenario.
Modeling of N and P-Type of Coaxial Ge Detectors Using MCNPX and the Effect of Dead Layer Variation on Its Response Function
Authors: El-Tayebany R. A. , Ali Mohamed , Mohmed Nawal , Mohamed R. S. 
Published: April 2024

Abstract
This study assessed the response function of a p-type and n-type coaxial high-purity germanium (HPGe) detector via Monte Carlo N-Particle eXtended (MCNPX). MCNPX was employed to model the Coaxial Ge detectors, and for a precise simulation, the dimensions of the dead layer of germanium crystals were added. The dead layer was separated into front and lateral surfaces, and the thickness of each dead layer was modeled. In this work, the simulated detectors have been performed at different energy lines using a radioactive source Eu-152 to study the response function of each with dead layer variations for the front dead layer and study the range of relative deviation of the Monte Carlo simulation outputs from the manufactured declared data. The results proved that the n-type coaxial HPGe detector is more sensitive to the dead layer change than the p-type with a thick change of 0.01 mm. This research has significant effects on the efficiencies of the radiation detection systems in the energy range ∼ (120–1410) keV.
Tribo-Dynamic Analysis of Nano-Enhanced Palm Blend Lubricant for Roller Bearing Application
Authors: Kamarapu Santhosh Kumar , Amarnath M. , Sateesh Kumar P. , Prasad Deepak Kumar 
Published: April 2024

Abstract
Environmental concerns have led to an increase in the development of bio-lubricants during the last ten years. Many tribological studies address the findings of various types of bio-based lubricant performance derived from plant-based edible and non-edible oils in different operating conditions. However, those tribological tests were limited to workbench tribometers. In the present work, experimental investigations were carried out to evaluate the lubrication performance of functionalized multiwall carbon nanotubes (FMWCNTs) blended palm oil compared to mineral oil. Steel bearings are commonly used to minimize the effect of dynamic loads coming from the driven end in sliding/rolling conditions of the bearing. The wear severity on the bearing surfaces was examined using a scanning electron microscope (SEM) coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (EDX). The results of the 3D-optical profilometer provided detailed information on surface profiles and roughness created on bearing surfaces under machine operating conditions. FFT-bearing vibration results were correlated with the surface degradation study of SEM analysis. Zeta-potential values reveal that the nanomaterial showed stable performance in the lubricant for 80% of the total machine operating duration. Overall, experimental studies indicate that the tribological and vibration response of nanomaterial blended bio-oil-lubricated bearing exhibited better results than that of mineral oil-lubricated bearings.