bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The roles and dynamics of transition intermediaries in enabling sustainable public food procurement: insights from Spain
Authors: Gaitán-Cremaschi Daniel , Valbuena Diego , Klerkx Laurens 
Published: March 2024

Abstract Sustainable Public Food Procurement (SPFP) is gaining recognition for its potential to improve the sustainability of food systems and promote healthier diets. However, SPFP faces various challenges, including coordination issues, actor dynamics, infrastructure limitations, unsustainable habits, and institutional resistance, among others. Drawing upon insights from the Multi-Level Perspective (MLP) on socio-technical transitions and the X-curve model on transition dynamics, this study investigates the role of transition intermediaries in facilitating SPFP-induced transformations in food systems. Focusing on four case studies in Spain, we identify common barriers encountered in SPFP and analyse how distinct types of transition intermediaries contribute individually and collectively to address these challenges. Additionally, we explore how intermediary networks evolve throughout different phases of the transition process. Our findings reveal that SPFP barriers are systemic and interconnected, emphasizing the necessity of collective intermediation to overcome these obstacles. Furthermore, our results reveal how collective intermediation is orchestrated by pivotal intermediaries who mobilize diverse transition intermediaries, shaping multiple transition pathways. These intermediaries operate at both food system regimes and niches, challenging the conventional notion that transformative change can only originate from niche efforts. Lastly, we highlight the dynamic and flexible nature of intermediation in SPFP transitions, underscoring the importance of adaptability in strategies as these transitions evolve over time. Practical implications include the need for context-specific, adaptive approaches and strategies that leverage intermediary diversity. This research offers insights for policymakers, practitioners, and scholars into SPFP and broader transitions towards food systems transformation, fostering a more comprehensive understanding of these transition processes.
Testing the Factor Structure and Construct Validity of the German Version of Gray et al.’s (2003) Sexual Fantasy Questionnaire
Authors: Lehmann Robert J. B. , Schäfer Thomas , Bartels Ross , Sabic Sabina , Schache Catrin 
Published: March 2024

AbstractGray et al.’s (2003) Sexual Fantasy Questionnaire (SFQ) is becoming an increasingly used self-report measure of sexual fantasy use. The current study analyzed the factorial structure and construct validity of the behavioral items of the SFQ using a nomological network of other sexuality-related measures in a large German-speaking sample (N = 846). Participants’ (27.7% females) mean age was 30.8 years (SD = 11.0). Exploratory factor analysis revealed a 65-item scale comprising five-factors, which were termed: normophilic sexual fantasies, sexualized aggression, sexualized submission, submissive courtship, and bodily functions. This German version of the SFQ was found to have high construct validity indicated by its association with other related constructs. Based on these results, we argue that the SFQ is a valid self-report measure that can be used in both research and clinical practice (foremost the factors sexualized aggression and sexualized submission). Suggestions for future research are discussed in light of the results and the study’s limitations.
Neuroprotective effects of rutin against cuprizone-induced multiple sclerosis in mice
Authors: Nicola Mariam A. , Attaai Abdelraheim H. , Abdel-Raheem Mahmoud H. , Mohammed Anber F. , Abu-Elhassan Yasmin F. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractMultiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic inflammatory neurodegenerative disease of the central nervous system that injures the myelin sheath, provoking progressive axonal degeneration and functional impairments. No efficient therapy is available at present to combat such insults, and hence, novel safe and effective alternatives for MS therapy are extremely required. Rutin (RUT) is a flavonoid that exhibits antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective effects in several brain injuries. The present study evaluated the potential beneficial effects of two doses of RUT in a model of pattern-III lesion of MS, in comparison to the conventional standard drug; dimethyl fumarate (DMF). Demyelination was induced in in male adult C57BL/6 mice by dietary 0.2% (w/w) cuprizone (CPZ) feeding for 6 consecutive weeks. Treated groups received either oral RUT (50 or 100 mg/kg) or DMF (15 mg/kg), along with CPZ feeding, for 6 consecutive weeks. Mice were then tested for behavioral changes, followed by biochemical analyses and histological examinations of the corpus callosum (CC). Results revealed that CPZ caused motor dysfunction, demyelination, and glial activation in demyelinated lesions, as well as significant oxidative stress, and proinflammatory cytokine elevation. Six weeks of RUT treatment significantly improved locomotor activity and motor coordination. Moreover, RUT considerably improved remyelination in the CC of CPZ + RUT-treated mice, as revealed by luxol fast blue staining and transmission electron microscopy. Rutin also significantly attenuated CPZ-induced oxidative stress and inflammation in the CC of tested animals. The effect of RUT100 was obviously more marked than either that of DMF, regarding most of the tested parameters, or even its smaller tested dose. In silico docking revealed that RUT binds tightly within NF-κB at the binding site of the protein-DNA complex, with a good negative score of −6.79 kcal/mol. Also, RUT-Kelch-like ECH-associated protein 1 (Keap1) model clarifies the possible inhibition of Keap1–Nrf2 protein–protein interaction. Findings of the current study provide evidence for the protective effect of RUT in CPZ-induced demyelination and behavioral dysfunction in mice, possibly by modulating NF-κB and Nrf2 signaling pathways. The present study may be one of the first to indicate a pro-remyelinating effect for RUT, which might represent a potential additive benefit in treating MS.
Graphical Abstract
Assessing the Efficacy of a Novel Massive Open Online Soft Skills Course for South Asian Healthcare Professionals
Authors: Mahadevan Aditya , Rivera Ronald , Najhawan Mahan , Saadat Soheil , Strehlow Matthew , Rao G. V. Ramana , Youm Julie 
Published: March 2024

Abstract
In healthcare professions, soft skills contribute to critical thinking, decision-making, and patient-centered care. While important to the delivery of high-quality medical care, soft skills are often underemphasized during healthcare training in low-and-middle-income countries. Despite South Asia’s large population, the efficacy and viability of a digital soft skills curriculum for South Asian healthcare practitioners has not been studied to date. We hypothesized that a web-based, multilingual, soft skills course could aid the understanding and application of soft skills to improve healthcare practitioner knowledge, confidence, attitudes, and intent-to-change clinical practice.In September 2019 a needs assessment observing soft skills practices was conducted in several Indian states. We developed a communication-focused soft skills curriculum that comprised seven 10-minute video lectures, recorded in spoken English and Hindi. Participants consisted of any practicing healthcare professionals and trainees in select South Asian countries age 18 and over. Participant knowledge, confidence, attitudes, and intent-to-change clinical practice were evaluated using pre- and post-course tests and surveys. Statistical analyses were performed using STATA and SPSS.From July 26, 2021 to September 26, 2021, 5750 registered and attempted the course, 2628 unique participants completed the pre-test, and 1566 unique participants completed the post-test. Participants demonstrated small but statistically significant gains in confidence (𝑝<0.001), attitudes toward course topics relevance (𝑝<0.001), and intent-to-change clinical practice (𝑝<0.001). There was no statistically significant gain in knowledge. A digital soft-skills massive open online course for healthcare practitioners in South Asia could serve as a viable approach to improve the quality of soft skills training in low-to-middle income countries.
DDT: A Reinforcement Learning Approach to Dynamic Flow Timeout Assignment in Software Defined Networks
Authors: Harris Nathan , Khorsandroo Sajad 
Published: March 2024

AbstractOpenFlow-compliant commodity switches face challenges in efficiently managing flow rules due to the limited capacity of expensive high-speed memories used to store them. The accumulation of inactive flows can disrupt ongoing communication, necessitating an optimized approach to flow rule timeouts. This paper proposes Delayed Dynamic Timeout (DDT), a Reinforcement Learning-based approach to dynamically adjust flow rule timeouts and enhance the utilization of a switch’s flow table(s) for improved efficiency. Despite the dynamic nature of network traffic, our DDT algorithm leverages advancements in Reinforcement Learning algorithms to adapt and achieve flow-specific optimization objectives. The evaluation results demonstrate that DDT outperforms static timeout values in terms of both flow rule match rate and flow rule activity. By continuously adapting to changing network conditions, DDT showcases the potential of Reinforcement Learning algorithms to effectively optimize flow rule management. This research contributes to the advancement of flow rule optimization techniques and highlights the feasibility of applying Reinforcement Learning in the context of SDN.
Relational Egalitarianism and Intergenerational Justice: Reply to Sommers
Authors: Inoue Akira 
Published: March 2024

AbstractIt is often argued that relational egalitarianism has a fundamental problem with intergenerational justice when compared to other theories of justice such as utilitarianism, prioritarianism, and luck egalitarianism. Recently, Timothy Sommers argued that there is no such comparative disadvantage for relational egalitarianism. His argument is quite modest: it merely aims to reject the claim that there could be no way to extend relational egalitarianism to intergenerational justice. This may be called the ‘No Comparative Disadvantage Thesis’. The present article challenges Sommers’s argument in two ways. First, I show that Sommers fails to provide a reasonable constraint on causal efficacy, which is crucial to his argument for our relation (not relationship) to future generations. Second, I show that the chain-relatedness problem casts a shadow over Sommers’s argument for the No Comparative Disadvantage Thesis. More specifically, compared to the other theories of justice, relational egalitarianism (as it stands) can less easily justify that present persons have duties to future others. This is because relational egalitarianism cannot appeal to a specific principle in regard to the duties in question, because its principle is sensitive to current context and practice. I conclude that the No Comparative Disadvantage Thesis does not hold much promise.
False Conscience: Sustainability and Smart Evolution—Between Law and Power
Authors: Mattei Ugo 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThe contribution describes the legal phenomenon as a playing field characterized by a progressive regression of the law, understood as a sovereign will from top to bottom, both in the vision of formalist legal positivisms in continental Europe and in realist terms, in the United States. Soft law represents the main strategy to subordinate the law to the interests of the economy, elasticizing environmental law, making it favorable to the market, reducing ecology to the simplistic metric of CO2 emissions. The consequence is a retreat of the statist vertical normativity of law which is not replaced by a de facto power granted to those who control the technology, built by design to close spaces for pluralism and democratic action, in the interest of surveillance and concentrated power in private and government oligopolies. The author concludes by advocating the urgency for genuinely innovative categories, particularly in the legal education, such as the commons, capable of including sustainability into a “new ecological jurisprudence committed to inclusion and solidarity rather than exclusion and struggle”.
Resampling-based confidence intervals and bands for the average treatment effect in observational studies with competing risks
Authors: Rühl Jasmin , Friedrich Sarah 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThe g-formula can be used to estimate the treatment effect while accounting for confounding bias in observational studies. With regard to time-to-event endpoints, possibly subject to competing risks, the construction of valid pointwise confidence intervals and time-simultaneous confidence bands for the causal risk difference is complicated, however. A convenient solution is to approximate the asymptotic distribution of the corresponding stochastic process by means of resampling approaches. In this paper, we consider three different resampling methods, namely the classical nonparametric bootstrap, the influence function equipped with a resampling approach as well as a martingale-based bootstrap version, the so-called wild bootstrap. For the latter, three sub-versions based on differing distributions of the underlying random multipliers are examined. We set up a simulation study to compare the accuracy of the different techniques, which reveals that the wild bootstrap should in general be preferred if the sample size is moderate and sufficient data on the event of interest have been accrued. For illustration, the resampling methods are further applied to data on the long-term survival in patients with early-stage Hodgkin’s disease.
Effect of exotic species management on the recovery of relict forests through citizen participation
Authors: Flores-Galicia Nihaib , Gutiérrez Erick , Trejo Irma 
Published: March 2024

AbstractIn the cities, remnants of the vegetation that originally occupied these areas can be found. Exotic species have established in these relicts, and therefore these spaces require management aimed at recovering native vegetation. In this study, we evaluated the impact of the removing exotic species on the floristic composition of the remnants of an oak forest. We compared the abundance/cover and composition of exotic plants in a forest that has been managed through citizen participation with that of reference forests (both with remnants, but the former without protection and the latter with protection). We established 48 sampling sites to characterize the vegetation in three strata (upper, middle, and low) and monitored changes in composition in managed forest sites for a period of 3 years. The results indicate that the managed forest hosts different species than those found in the reference forests, with lower abundance and cover of exotic plants in the upper and lower strata. Regarding temporal changes, we observed shifts in floristic composition before and after management activities, and a reduction in the cover of exotic species before and after management, with consistently low cover three years later. This underscores the effectiveness of citizen-led management activities, offering a viable alternative for restoring native vegetation in urban environments.
Age-related effects on a hierarchical structure of canine cognition
Authors: Bognár Zsófia , Turcsán Borbála , Faragó Tamás , Szabó Dóra , Iotchev Ivaylo Borislavov , Kubinyi Enikő 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThe current study investigates whether there are statistically independent age-related influences on the canine cognitive structure and how individual factors moderate cognitive aging on both cross-sectional and longitudinal samples. A battery of seven tasks was administered to 129 pet dogs, on which exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses were employed to unveil the correlational structure underlying individual differences in cognitive performance. The best-fitting model featured a hierarchical structure with two first-order cognitive domains (individual problem solving, learning) and a second-order common factor. These higher order factors exhibited consistency over a period of at least 2.5 years. External validation linked the common factor positively to discrimination and reversal learning performance, exploration, neophilia, activity/excitability, and training level while negatively to cognitive dysfunction symptoms, suggesting that it is a good candidate for a general cognitive factor (canine g). Structural equation models identified three distinct age-related influences, operating on associative learning, on memory, and on canine g. Health status moderated the negative age-canine g relationship, with a stronger association observed in dogs with poorer health status, and no relationship for dogs in good health. On a longitudinal sample (N = 99), we showed that the direction and magnitude of change in canine g over up to 3 years is affected by various interactions between the dogs’ age, communication score, baseline performance, and time elapsed since the baseline measurement. These findings underscore the presence of a general cognitive factor in dogs and reveal intriguing parallels between human and canine aging, affirming the translational value of dogs in cognition and aging research.
Histology profiling of lung tumors: tru-cut versus full-core system for CT-guided biopsies
Authors: Tipaldi Marcello Andrea , Ronconi Edoardo , Ubaldi Nicolò , Bozzi Fernando , Siciliano Francesco , Zolovkins Aleksejs , Orgera Gianluigi , Krokidis Miltiadis , Quarta Colosso Giulio , Rossi Michele 
Published: March 2024

Abstract
Purpose
We aimed to compare the diagnostic yield and procedure-related complications of two different types of systems for percutaneous CT-guided lung biopsy.

Material and methods
All patients with a lung lesion who underwent a CT-guided lung biopsy at our institution, between January 2019 and 2021, were retrospectively analyzed. The inclusion criteria were: (a) Procedures performed using either a fully automated tru-cut or a semi-automated full-core biopsy needle, (b) CT images demonstrating the position of the needles within the lesion, (c) histopathological result of the biopsy and (d) clinical follow-up for at least 12 months and\or surgical histopathological results. A total of 400 biopsy fulfilling the inclusion criteria were selected and enrolled in the study.

Results
Overall technical success was 100% and diagnostic accuracy was 84%. Tru-cut needles showed a significantly higher diagnostic accuracy when compared to full-core needles (91% vs. 77%, p = 0.0004) and a lower rate of pneumothorax (31% vs. 41%, p = 0.047). Due to the statistically significant different of nodules size between the two groups, we reiterated the statistical analysis splitting our population around the 20 mm cut-off for nodule size. We still observed a significant difference in diagnostic accuracy between tru-cut and full-core needles favoring the former for both smaller and larger lesions (81% vs. 71%, p = 0.025; and 92% vs. 81%; p = 0.01, respectively).

Conclusion
Our results demonstrated that the use of automated tru-cut needles is associated with higher histopathological diagnostic accuracy compared to semi-automated full-core needles for CTLB.
Quantitative ultrasound (QUS) in the evaluation of liver steatosis: data reliability in different respiratory phases and body positions
Authors: Rocca Aldo , Komici Klara , Brunese Maria Chiara , Pacella Giulia , Avella Pasquale , Di Benedetto Chiara , Caiazzo Corrado , Zappia Marcello , Brunese Luca , Vallone Gianfranco 
Published: March 2024

AbstractLiver steatosis is the most common chronic liver disease and affects 10–24% of the general population. As the grade of disease can range from fat infiltration to steatohepatitis and cirrhosis, an early diagnosis is needed to set the most appropriate therapy. Innovative noninvasive radiological techniques have been developed through MRI and US. MRI-PDFF is the reference standard, but it is not so widely diffused due to its cost. For this reason, ultrasound tools have been validated to study liver parenchyma. The qualitative assessment of the brightness of liver parenchyma has now been supported by quantitative values of attenuation and scattering to make the analysis objective and reproducible. We aim to demonstrate the reliability of quantitative ultrasound in assessing liver fat and to confirm the inter-operator reliability in different respiratory phases. We enrolled 45 patients examined during normal breathing at rest, peak inspiration, peak expiration, and semi-sitting position. The highest inter-operator agreement in both attenuation and scattering parameters was achieved at peak inspiration and peak expiration, followed by semi-sitting position. In conclusion, this technology also allows to monitor uncompliant patients, as it grants high reliability and reproducibility in different body position and respiratory phases.
The ecor as global special purpose money: towards a green international monetary system to finance sustainable and just transformation
Authors: Aguila Nicolás , Haufe Paula , Wullweber Joscha 
Published: March 2024

AbstractCountries from the Global South face significant challenges to finance sustainable and just transformation. These challenges primarily stem from the hierarchical character of the current international monetary system, which requires Global South countries to obtain US dollars to finance imports of green goods, services, and technologies that they cannot (yet) produce, but require for the sustainable transformation. To overcome this hurdle, we propose the foundation of a green international monetary system with a Green World Central Bank (GWCB) at its centre. The GWCB would be allowed to create its own unit of account, which in our model we refer to as the “ecor”. The ecor would be a global special purpose money similar to Keynes’ ‘bancor’. Ecors would be created by the GWCB in the act of lending, and credited to the GWCB accounts of countries to finance imports needed to combat the climate crisis and advance the process of sustainable and just transformation in their societies and economies. Ecors transferred by deficit countries to surplus countries would only be able to be used within the system, leading to an expansionary adjustment of international imbalances. In this way, the amount of ecors would adjust elastically to the real demands for sustainable change and would not be limited by reserves or by funding conditions from private finance. This would create an international monetary system capable of responding appropriately and flexibly to ease the financing needs of countries around the world, thus enabling them, to effectively address the climate crisis on a globally just basis.