bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Wastewater treatment from a science faculty during the COVID-19 pandemic by using ammonium-oxidising and heterotrophic bacteria
Authors: Pedroza-Camacho Lucas D. , Ospina-Sánchez Paula A. , Romero-Perdomo Felipe A. , Infante-González Nury G. , Paredes-Céspedes Diana M. , Quevedo-Hidalgo Balkys , Gutiérrez-Romero Viviana , Rivera-Hoyos Claudia M. , Pedroza-Rodríguez Aura M. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractDuring and after the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the use of personal care products and disinfectants increased in universities worldwide. Among these, quaternary ammonium-based products stand out; these compounds and their intermediates caused substantial changes in the chemical composition of the wastewater produced by these institutions. For this reason, improvements and environmentally sustainable biological alternatives were introduced in the existing treatment systems so that these institutions could continue their research and teaching activities. For this reason, the objective of this study was to develop an improved culture medium to cultivate ammonium oxidising bacteria (AOB) to increase the biomass and use them in the treatment of wastewater produced in a faculty of sciences in Bogotá, D.C., Colombia. A Plackett Burman Experimental Design (PBED) and growth curves served for oligotrophic culture medium, and production conditions improved for the AOB. Finally, these bacteria were used with total heterotrophic bacteria (THB) for wastewater treatment in a pilot plant. Modification of base ammonium broth and culture conditions (6607 mg L−1 of (NH4)2SO4, 84 mg L−1 CaCO3, 40 mg L−1 MgSO4·7H2O, 40 mg L−1 CaCl2·2H2O and 200 mg L−1 KH2PO4, 10% (w/v) inoculum, no copper addition, pH 7.0 ± 0.2, 200 r.p.m., 30 days) favoured the growth of Nitrosomonas europea, Nitrosococcus oceani, and Nitrosospira multiformis with values of 8.23 ± 1.9, 7.56 ± 0.7 and 4.2 ± 0.4 Log10 CFU mL−1, respectively. NO2− production was 0.396 ± 0.0264, 0.247 ± 0.013 and 0.185 ± 0.003 mg L−1 for Nitrosomonas europea, Nitrosococcus oceani and Nitrosospira multiformis. After the 5-day wastewater treatment (WW) by co-inoculating the three studied bacteria in the wastewater (with their self-microorganisms), the concentrations of AOB and THB were 5.92 and 9.3 Log10 CFU mL−1, respectively. These values were related to the oxidative decrease of Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), (39.5 mg L−1), Ammonium ion (NH4+), (6.5 mg L−1) Nitrite (NO2−), (2.0 mg L−1) and Nitrate (NO3−), (1.5 mg L−1), respectively in the five days of treatment. It was concluded, with the improvement of a culture medium and production conditions for three AOB through biotechnological strategies at the laboratory scale, being a promising alternative to bio-augment of the biomass of the studied bacteria under controlled conditions that allow the aerobic removal of COD and nitrogen cycle intermediates present in the studied wastewater.
Malaria parasitic detection using a new Deep Boosted and Ensemble Learning framework
Authors: Asif Hafiz M. , Khan Saddam Hussain , Alahmadi Tahani Jaser , Alsahfi Tariq , Mahmoud Amena 
Published: April 2024

AbstractMalaria is a potentially fatal plasmodium parasite injected by female anopheles mosquitoes that infect red blood cells and cause millions of lifelong disability worldwide yearly. However, specialists’ manual screening in clinical practice is laborious and prone to error. Therefore, a novel Deep Boosted and Ensemble Learning (DBEL) framework, comprising the stacking of new Boosted-BR-STM convolutional neural networks (CNN) and the ensemble ML classifiers, is developed to screen malaria parasite images. The proposed Boosted-BR-STM is based on a new dilated-convolutional block-based Split Transform Merge (STM) and feature-map Squeezing–Boosting (SB) ideas. Moreover, the new STM block uses regional and boundary operations to learn the malaria parasite’s homogeneity, heterogeneity, and boundary with patterns. Furthermore, the diverse boosted channels are attained by employing Transfer Learning-based new feature-map SB in STM blocks at the abstract, medium, and conclusion levels to learn minute intensity and texture variation of the parasitic pattern. Additionally, to enhance the learning capacity of Boosted-BR-STM and foster a more diverse representation of features, boosting at the final stage is achieved through TL by utilizing multipath residual learning. The proposed DBEL framework implicates the stacking of prominent and diverse boosted channels and provides the generated discriminative features of the developed Boosted-BR-STM to the ensemble of ML classifiers. The proposed framework improves the discrimination ability and generalization of ensemble learning. Moreover, the deep feature spaces of the developed Boosted-BR-STM and customized CNNs are fed into ML classifiers for comparative analysis. The proposed DBEL framework outperforms the existing techniques on the NIH malaria dataset that are enhanced using discrete wavelet transform to enrich feature space. The proposed DBEL framework achieved Accuracy (98.50%), Sensitivity (0.9920), F-score (0.9850), and AUC (0.9960), which suggests it to be utilized for malaria parasite screening.
A novel pressure transient analysis model for fracturing wells in fracture–cavity carbonate reservoirs
Authors: Liu Jianyi , Liu Zhibin , Gu Congyue , Zou Ning , Yuan Hua , Jiang Lu , Wen Yimin 
Published: April 2024

AbstractLarge-scale karst caves are the principal storage spaces for hydrocarbon resources in fracture–cavity carbonate reservoirs. Drilling directly into these caves is considered the ideal mode of development, but many wells do not effectively penetrate karst caves. Therefore, acid fracturing is employed to generate artificial fractures that can connect with these caves. However, there are no appropriate well test methods for fracturing wells in fracture–cavity reservoirs. This study establishes a novel pressure transient analysis model for such wells. A new mathematical model is proposed that couples linear flow in acid fracturing cracks with radial flow in the oil drainage area. The Laplace transform and Stehfest numerical inversion provided analytical solutions for the bottomhole pressure. Typical log–log well testing curves were plotted to analyze oil flow, which occurs in ten stages. During the flow stage in fracturing cracks, the pressure and pressure derivative curves are parallel lines with a slope of 0.5. In the stage of karst cave storage, the pressure derivative curve is a straight line with a slope of 1. A comparison with previous models confirmed the validity of the proposed model. The influence of key parameters on the behavior of typical curves is analyzed. A field case study of the proposed model was carried out. Parameters related to fracturing cracks and karst caves, such as the crack length and cave radius, were successfully estimated. The proposed model has great potential for determining formation parameters of fracture–cavity reservoirs.
Examining the impact of managers’ network size on SME performance: a case study of Interurban and local road freight transport in the Paris department
Authors: Capoani Luigi , Izzo Andrea 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThis study focuses on the interplay between managers’ personalities, relationships, and company performance. We investigate the influence of managers on a sample of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), specifically examining the size of their networks. Our focus is on enterprises working in the sector of interurban road freight transport and local road freight transport within the Paris department. The model we propose aims to understand the advantages of a well-established and interconnected network for SME performance. We analyse how the different characteristics of a company as well as its manager’s personality and network ties can affect company performance. By drawing upon the dependency network approach, the Resource Dependency Theory, and network theory, we investigate the connection between resource and network dependencies, and how these influence firms’ behavior and long-term growth. Through our theoretical review and by analyzing a database of selected companies through the multiple linear regression and the Principal Component Analysis, we find that networking plays a vital role and significantly impacts a company’s revenues and costs, although not to the extent that we predicted. The results of our research provide evidence of the correlation between networking and performance ratios, but only partially confirm our hypotheses.
Immunocompromisation of wheat host by L-BSO and 2,4-DPA induces susceptibility to the fungal pathogen Fusarium oxysporum
Authors: Sahu Abhaya Kumar , Kumari Punam , Mittra Bhabatosh 
Published: April 2024

AbstractSusceptibility is defined as the disruption of host defence systems that promotes infection or limits pathogenicity. Glutathione (GSH) is a major component of defence signalling pathways that maintain redox status and is synthesised by γ-glutamyl cysteine synthetase (γ-ECS). On the other hand, lignin acts as a barrier in the primary cell wall of vascular bundles (VBs) synthesised by phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) in the intracellular system of plants. In this study, we used two inhibitors, such as L-Buthionine-sulfoximine (BSO), which irreversibly inhibits γ-ECS, and 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (DPA), which reduces PAL activity and leads to the induction of oxidative stress in wheat (Triticum aestivum) seedlings after exposure to Fusarium oxysporum. Seedlings treated with 1 mM L-BSO and 2,4-DPA showed high levels of hydrogen peroxide (H2O2), malondialdehyde (MDA), carbonyl (CO) content, and low activity of antioxidative enzymes [superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT), ascorbate peroxidase (APX), and glutathione reductase (GR)] as compared to wild-type (WT) seedlings under F. oxysporum infection. Further, the content of reduced glutathione (RGSH), ascorbate (ASC), and lignin was decreased in BSO and DPA treated seedlings as compared to WT seedlings during Fusarium infection. Moreover, treatment with BSO and DPA significantly inhibited the relative activity of γ-ECS and PAL (P ≤ 0.001) in WT seedlings during Fusarium infection, which led to disintegrated VBs and, finally, cell death. Our results demonstrate that inhibition of γ-ECS and PAL by BSO and DPA, respectively, disrupts the defence mechanisms of wheat seedlings and induces susceptibility to F. oxysporum.
Unravelling vulnerabilities: mapping key hazards in the Gori Ganga watershed of Kumaon Himalaya for communication, conservation and management
Authors: Chatterjee Debaleena , Adhikari Bhupendra Singh 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThe present study investigates the susceptibility of the Kailash Sacred Landscape in Uttarakhand's Pithoragarh district, focusing on regional-level disaster risk assessment in the Gori Ganga watershed as a case study and aims to prepare foundation maps for recurrent disasters like landslides, floods and forest fires. The techniques of remote sensing & geographic information systems, frequency ratio and correlation analytics were employed to perceive hazard-prone areas in the valley, using a variety of geographical, environmental and anthropogenic predictors. The accuracy of the maps generated by the modelling procedure was assessed using validation data and a receiver operating characteristics curve (ROC) with the area under the curve (AUC). The analysis revealed 83.5 km2 was extremely susceptible to flood incidents, 133.1 km2 was susceptible to landslides and 147 km2 was severely vulnerable to wildfires. The determined area under the curve value for flood susceptibility was 88.6%, followed by landslides at 89.5% and wildfires at 90.9%, showing that the model performed exceptionally well. The findings reveal that precipitation, lithology and elevation were the most significant variables in inducing floods. Precipitation, profile curvature, elevation and distance to thrust are the primary determinants of landslides, while closeness to the road and settlements, as well as vegetation indices, were significant predictors of fire events. The Lower Kumaon Himalayan valley region was recognized as highly vulnerable to all three major catastrophes. This study identifies potentially hazardous regions for adaptive sustainable conservation activities, involving local communities in decision-making to mitigate impacts and aid in preventing and managing impending landscape-level threats.
Comparison of potential evapotranspiration methods in Ethiopia
Authors: Mekoya Antensay , Workneh Mulatu 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThe Food and Agricultural Organization method for estimating reference crop evapotranspiration (ETo), FAO56, is the standard method across the globe. Daily ETo estimated using seventeen potential evapotranspiration (PET) methods that has less data requirments were compared with FAO56 at five sites in Ethiopia (Bahir Dar, Bale Robe, Hawassa, Metehara, and Nazareth). The average rank of five model validation metrics namely standard deviation, RMSE, MAPE, NSE, and correlation were used to compare the methods. By taking the areal average ETo and PET, ten methods, Wen, Ant, Pen, Mak, PT, Ha5, Ha4, Tho, Rad, and Enk, having correlation > 0.57 and MAPE < 28% were ranked 1st to 10th, respectively. Also, at each site, the above ten PET methods were compared. By taking the average ranks of the five sites, Wen, Pen, Ant, PT, and Mak & Ha5 ranked 1st to 5th, respectively. Wen & Ant methods which are applied in Ethiopia for the first time had shown the best performance.
Immunological aspects of central neurodegeneration
Authors: Niso-Santano Mireia , Fuentes José M. , Galluzzi Lorenzo 
Published: April 2024

AbstractThe etiology of various neurodegenerative disorders that mainly affect the central nervous system including (but not limited to) Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and Huntington’s disease has classically been attributed to neuronal defects that culminate with the loss of specific neuronal populations. However, accumulating evidence suggests that numerous immune effector cells and the products thereof (including cytokines and other soluble mediators) have a major impact on the pathogenesis and/or severity of these and other neurodegenerative syndromes. These observations not only add to our understanding of neurodegenerative conditions but also imply that (at least in some cases) therapeutic strategies targeting immune cells or their products may mediate clinically relevant neuroprotective effects. Here, we critically discuss immunological mechanisms of central neurodegeneration and propose potential strategies to correct neurodegeneration-associated immunological dysfunction with therapeutic purposes.
Worldwide divergence of values
Authors: Jackson Joshua Conrad , Medvedev Danila 
Published: April 2024

AbstractSocial scientists have long debated the nature of cultural change in a modernizing and globalizing world. Some scholars predicted that national cultures would converge by adopting social values typical of Western democracies. Others predicted that cultural differences in values would persist or even increase over time. We test these competing predictions by analyzing survey data from 1981 to 2022 (n = 406,185) from 76 national cultures. We find evidence of global value divergence. Values emphasizing tolerance and self-expression have diverged most sharply, especially between high-income Western countries and the rest of the world. We also find that countries with similar per-capita GDP levels have held similar values over the last 40 years. Over time, however, geographic proximity has emerged as an increasingly strong correlate of value similarity, indicating that values have diverged globally but converged regionally.
Teacher-student collaborated multiple instance learning for pan-cancer PDL1 expression prediction from histopathology slides
Authors: Jin Darui , Liang Shangying , Shmatko Artem , Arnold Alexander , Horst David , Grünewald Thomas G. P. , Gerstung Moritz , Bai Xiangzhi 
Published: April 2024

AbstractProgrammed cell death ligand 1 (PDL1), as an important biomarker, is quantified by immunohistochemistry (IHC) with few established histopathological patterns. Deep learning aids in histopathological assessment, yet heterogeneity and lacking spatially resolved annotations challenge precise analysis. Here, we present a weakly supervised learning approach using bulk RNA sequencing for PDL1 expression prediction from hematoxylin and eosin (H&E) slides. Our method extends the multiple instance learning paradigm with the teacher-student framework, which assigns dynamic pseudo-labels for intra-slide heterogeneity and retrieves unlabeled instances using temporal ensemble model distillation. The approach, evaluated on 12,299 slides across 20 solid tumor types, achieves a weighted average area under the curve of 0.83 on fresh-frozen and 0.74 on formalin-fixed specimens for 9 tumors with PDL1 as an established biomarker. Our method predicts PDL1 expression patterns, validated by IHC on 20 slides, offering insights into histologies relevant to PDL1. This demonstrates the potential of deep learning in identifying diverse histological patterns for molecular changes from H&E images.
Quantum simulation of the bosonic Kitaev chain
Authors: Busnaina Jamal H. , Shi Zheng , McDonald Alexander , Dubyna Dmytro , Nsanzineza Ibrahim , Hung Jimmy S. C. , Chang C. W. Sandbo , Clerk Aashish A. , Wilson Christopher M. 
Published: April 2024

AbstractSuperconducting quantum circuits are a natural platform for quantum simulations of a wide variety of important lattice models describing topological phenomena, spanning condensed matter and high-energy physics. One such model is the bosonic analog of the well-known fermionic Kitaev chain, a 1D tight-binding model with both nearest-neighbor hopping and pairing terms. Despite being fully Hermitian, the bosonic Kitaev chain exhibits a number of striking features associated with non-Hermitian systems, including chiral transport and a dramatic sensitivity to boundary conditions known as the non-Hermitian skin effect. Here, using a multimode superconducting parametric cavity, we implement the bosonic Kitaev chain in synthetic dimensions. The lattice sites are mapped to frequency modes of the cavity, and the in situ tunable complex hopping and pairing terms are created by parametric pumping at the mode-difference and mode-sum frequencies, respectively. We experimentally demonstrate important precursors of nontrivial topology and the non-Hermitian skin effect in the bosonic Kitaev chain, including chiral transport, quadrature wavefunction localization, and sensitivity to boundary conditions. Our experiment is an important first step towards exploring genuine many-body non-Hermitian quantum dynamics.
Highly robust supramolecular polymer networks crosslinked by a tiny amount of metallacycles
Authors: He Lang , Jiang Yu , Wei Jialin , Zhang Zibin , Hong Tao , Ren Zhiqiang , Huang Jianying , Huang Feihe , Stang Peter J. , Li Shijun 
Published: April 2024

AbstractSupramolecular polymeric materials have exhibited attractive features such as self-healing, reversibility, and stimuli-responsiveness. However, on account of the weak bonding nature of most noncovalent interactions, it remains a great challenge to construct supramolecular polymeric materials with high robustness. Moreover, high usage of supramolecular units is usually necessary to promote the formation of robust supramolecular polymeric materials, which restrains their applications. Herein, we describe the construction of highly robust supramolecular polymer networks by using only a tiny amount of metallacycles as the supramolecular crosslinkers. A norbornene ring-opening metathesis copolymer with a 120° dipyridine ligand is prepared and self-assembled with a 60° or 120° Pt(II) acceptor to fabricate the metallacycle-crosslinked polymer networks. With only 0.28 mol% or less pendant dipyridine units to form the metallacycle crosslinkers, the mechanical properties of the polymers are significantly enhanced. The tensile strengths, Young’s moduli, and toughness of the reinforced polymers reach up to more than 20 MPa, 600 MPa, and 150 MJ/m3, respectively. Controllable destruction and reconstruction of the metallacycle-crosslinked polymer networks are further demonstrated by the sequential addition of tetrabutylammonium bromide and silver triflate, indicative of good stimuli-responsiveness of the networks. These remarkable performances are attributed to the thermodynamically stable, but dynamic metallacycle-based supramolecular coordination complexes that offer strong linkages with good adaptive characteristics.
Multilevel design and construction in nanomembrane rolling for three-dimensional angle-sensitive photodetection
Authors: Zhang Ziyu , Wu Binmin , Wang Yang , Cai Tianjun , Ma Mingze , You Chunyu , Liu Chang , Jiang Guobang , Hu Yuhang , Li Xing , Chen Xiang-Zhong , Song Enming , Cui Jizhai , Huang Gaoshan , Kiravittaya Suwit , Mei Yongfeng 
Published: April 2024

AbstractReleasing pre-strained two-dimensional nanomembranes to assemble on-chip three-dimensional devices is crucial for upcoming advanced electronic and optoelectronic applications. However, the release process is affected by many unclear factors, hindering the transition from laboratory to industrial applications. Here, we propose a quasistatic multilevel finite element modeling to assemble three-dimensional structures from two-dimensional nanomembranes and offer verification results by various bilayer nanomembranes. Take Si/Cr nanomembrane as an example, we confirm that the three-dimensional structural formation is governed by both the minimum energy state and the geometric constraints imposed by the edges of the sacrificial layer. Large-scale, high-yield fabrication of three-dimensional structures is achieved, and two distinct three-dimensional structures are assembled from the same precursor. Six types of three-dimensional Si/Cr photodetectors are then prepared to resolve the incident angle of light with a deep neural network model, opening up possibilities for the design and manufacturing methods of More-than-Moore-era devices.
SARS-CoV-2-specific cellular and humoral immunity after bivalent BA.4/5 COVID-19-vaccination in previously infected and non-infected individuals
Authors: Urschel Rebecca , Bronder Saskia , Klemis Verena , Marx Stefanie , Hielscher Franziska , Abu-Omar Amina , Guckelmus Candida , Schneitler Sophie , Baum Christina , Becker Sören L. , Gärtner Barbara C. , Sester Urban , Martinez Leonardo , Widera Marek , Schmidt Tina , Sester Martina 
Published: April 2024

AbstractKnowledge is limited as to how prior SARS-CoV-2 infection influences cellular and humoral immunity after booster-vaccination with bivalent BA.4/5-adapted mRNA-vaccines, and whether vaccine-induced immunity may indicate subsequent infection. In this observational study, individuals with prior infection (n = 64) showed higher vaccine-induced anti-spike IgG-antibodies and neutralizing titers, but the relative increase was significantly higher in non-infected individuals (n = 63). In general, both groups showed higher neutralizing activity towards the parental strain than towards Omicron-subvariants BA.1, BA.2 and BA.5. In contrast, CD4 or CD8 T cell levels towards spike from the parental strain and the Omicron-subvariants, and cytokine expression profiles were similar irrespective of prior infection. Breakthrough infections occurred more frequently among previously non-infected individuals, who had significantly lower vaccine-induced spike-specific neutralizing activity and CD4 T cell levels. In summary, we show that immunogenicity after BA.4/5-bivalent vaccination differs between individuals with and without prior infection. Moreover, our results may help to improve prediction of breakthrough infections.