bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Combined Effects of Multiple Forcing Factors on Extreme Summer Multivariate Compound Heatwaves Over Western Europe
Authors: Dong Wei , Li XiuMing , Jia XiaoJing , Liu FangChi , Qian QiFeng , Zhang RuiZhi 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThe Multivariate compound heatwaves (MCHWs) present a significant risk to human health and ecological diversity, which attract widespread attention from researchers and society. The intensity and variability of summer MCHWs over Western Europe (WE) (MCHWs_WE) have substantially increased over the last two decades. The growing chance of such events is likely related to human activity‐induced climate change. However, the possible contributions from multiple atmospheric boundary forcing remain unclear. This study investigates the combined effects of North Atlantic sea surface temperature (SST), Tibetan Plateau (TP) snow cover (SC), and Arctic sea ice (SIC) on the variability of extreme summer MCHWs_WE. Observational analysis shows that an intensified anticyclonic system prevailing over WE, one of the centers of an atmospheric wave train dominating the North Atlantic‐Europe sector and persists from late spring to summer, is the essential system contributing to the extreme MCHWs_WE. Spring North Atlantic SST anomalies in the form of a dipole pattern persist from spring to summer and contribute to the summer extreme MCHWs_WE by exciting a downward propagating Rossby wave train pattern. Additionally, excessive late spring SC over the western TP and SIC over the Arctic, which are stimulated by the North Atlantic anomalous SST‐related wave train, can intensify the MCHWs_WE‐related anticyclonic system through vertical circulation and wave energy transport. The study further quantifies the relative contributions of the aforementioned factors. The findings of this study could potentially offer valuable insights for improving the prediction skill of summer extreme MCHWs_WE.
Seamount Subduction Dynamics and Long‐Term Evolution of the Franciscan Active Margin
Authors: Bonnet G. , Apen F. E. , Soret M. , Noël J. , Caron B. , Ninkabou D. , Zverev P. , Deldicque D. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThe Snow Mountain Volcanic Complex (SMVC; northern California, USA) is a well‐preserved example of a coherently‐exhumed subducted seamount. This study reappraises the genesis and evolution of this complex and surrounding units through detailed field, petro‐structural and geochronological analyses. This work demonstrates that the SMVC (a) erupted at ∼166 Ma as a hotspot volcano on the Farallon Plate, (b) entered the Franciscan subduction trench at ∼118 Ma, and (c) was subsequently subducted to a depth of ∼20 km (within the seismogenic zone), as shown by local blueschist‐facies assemblages formed at 0.6 GPa, 240°C. Transient subduction interfaces are preserved above, within, and below the SMVC, making it an exceptional target to study seamount subduction dynamics. Like other seamounts, the subduction‐related deformation was mainly accommodated along kilometer‐scale internal thrust zones lubricated by serpentinite/metasediments, and within centimeter‐thick crack‐seal veins recording pulsed fluid flow near peak metamorphism. No unequivocal proof of seismic activity was found. The integration of other seamounts (some potentially belonging to a former seamount chain) in the Franciscan Complex suggests that exhumed seamounts are more abundant than previously thought. Moreover, pressure‐temperature‐time estimates of subduction metamorphism for the surrounding units, combined with previous work constrain the thermal maturation of the subduction zone through time and the in‐sequence emplacement of the SMVC. Rapid changes in age of the subducted oceanic plate when subducted additionally hint to the subduction of large‐offset transform faults on the former Farallon plate. Such a process might have been linked to changes in accretion dynamics and magmatic flare‐ups in the arc.
Bacterial capsules: Occurrence, mechanism, and function
Authors: Gao Shuji , Jin Wenjie , Quan Yingying , Li Yue , Shen Yamin , Yuan Shuo , Yi Li , Wang Yuxin , Wang Yang 
Published: March 2024

AbstractIn environments characterized by extended multi-stress conditions, pathogens develop a variety of immune escape mechanisms to enhance their ability to infect the host. The capsules, polymers that bacteria secrete near their cell wall, participates in numerous bacterial life processes and plays a crucial role in resisting host immune attacks and adapting to their niche. Here, we discuss the relationship between capsules and bacterial virulence, summarizing the molecular mechanisms of capsular regulation and pathogenesis to provide new insights into the research on the pathogenesis of pathogenic bacteria.
Disease progression strikingly differs in research and real-world Parkinson’s populations
Authors: Beaulieu-Jones Brett K. , Frau Francesca , Bozzi Sylvie , Chandross Karen J. , Peterschmitt M. Judith , Cohen Caroline , Coulovrat Catherine , Kumar Dinesh , Kruger Mark J. , Lipnick Scott L. , Fitzsimmons Lane , Kohane Isaac S. , Scherzer Clemens R. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractCharacterization of Parkinson’s disease (PD) progression using real-world evidence could guide clinical trial design and identify subpopulations. Efforts to curate research populations, the increasing availability of real-world data, and advances in natural language processing, particularly large language models, allow for a more granular comparison of populations than previously possible. This study includes two research populations and two real-world data-derived (RWD) populations. The research populations are the Harvard Biomarkers Study (HBS, N = 935), a longitudinal biomarkers cohort study with in-person structured study visits; and Fox Insights (N = 36,660), an online self-survey-based research study of the Michael J. Fox Foundation. Real-world cohorts are the Optum Integrated Claims-electronic health records (N = 157,475), representing wide-scale linked medical and claims data and de-identified data from Mass General Brigham (MGB, N = 22,949), an academic hospital system. Structured, de-identified electronic health records data at MGB are supplemented using a manually validated natural language processing with a large language model to extract measurements of PD progression. Motor and cognitive progression scores change more rapidly in MGB than HBS (median survival until H&Y 3: 5.6 years vs. >10, p < 0.001; mini-mental state exam median decline 0.28 vs. 0.11, p < 0.001; and clinically recognized cognitive decline, p = 0.001). In real-world populations, patients are diagnosed more than eleven years later (RWD mean of 72.2 vs. research mean of 60.4, p < 0.001). After diagnosis, in real-world cohorts, treatment with PD medications has initiated an average of 2.3 years later (95% CI: [2.1–2.4]; p < 0.001). This study provides a detailed characterization of Parkinson’s progression in diverse populations. It delineates systemic divergences in the patient populations enrolled in research settings vs. patients in the real-world. These divergences are likely due to a combination of selection bias and real population differences, but exact attribution of the causes is challenging. This study emphasizes a need to utilize multiple data sources and to diligently consider potential biases when planning, choosing data sources, and performing downstream tasks and analyses.
Low disorder and high valley splitting in silicon
Authors: Degli Esposti Davide , Stehouwer Lucas E. A. , Gül Önder , Samkharadze Nodar , Déprez Corentin , Meyer Marcel , Meijer Ilja N. , Tryputen Larysa , Karwal Saurabh , Botifoll Marc , Arbiol Jordi , Amitonov Sergey V. , Vandersypen Lieven M. K. , Sammak Amir , Veldhorst Menno , Scappucci Giordano 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThe electrical characterisation of classical and quantum devices is a critical step in the development cycle of heterogeneous material stacks for semiconductor spin qubits. In the case of silicon, properties such as disorder and energy separation of conduction band valleys are commonly investigated individually upon modifications in selected parameters of the material stack. However, this reductionist approach fails to consider the interdependence between different structural and electronic properties at the danger of optimising one metric at the expense of the others. Here, we achieve a significant improvement in both disorder and valley splitting by taking a co-design approach to the material stack. We demonstrate isotopically purified, strained quantum wells with high mobility of 3.14(8) × 105 cm2 V−1 s−1 and low percolation density of 6.9(1) × 1010 cm−2. These low disorder quantum wells support quantum dots with low charge noise of 0.9(3) μeV Hz−1/2 and large mean valley splitting energy of 0.24(7) meV, measured in qubit devices. By striking the delicate balance between disorder, charge noise, and valley splitting, these findings provide a benchmark for silicon as a host semiconductor for quantum dot qubits. We foresee the application of these heterostructures in larger, high-performance quantum processors.
Dehydration kinetics of nanoconfined water in beryl probed by high temperature single crystal synchrotron X-ray diffraction
Authors: Nguyen Phuong Q. H. , Zhang Dongzhou , Xu Jingui , Downs Robert T. , Dera Przemyslaw K. 
Published: March 2024

AbstractUnderstanding changes in material properties through external stimuli plays a key role in validating the expected performance of materials and engineering material properties in a controlled manner. Here, we introduce a fundamental protocol to deduce dehydration reactions kinetics of water confined in nanopore channels, with the cyclosilicate beryl as the scaffold of interest, using time-resolved synchrotron X-ray diffraction (SXRD), in the temperature interval of 298–1038 K. The temperature-dependent intensity $$(I)$$

(
I
)

of the strongest reflection (112) was used as the crystallite variable. An estimation of an isobaric thermal crystallite coefficient, $$k$$
k
, analogous with the isobaric thermal expansion coefficient, established the rate of relative crystallization as a function of temperature, $$\frac{\partial I}{\partial T}$$

∂
I

∂
T

. A plot of $$lnk$$

lnk

and $$\frac{1}{T}$$

1
T

gives rise to two kinetic steps, indicating a slow dehydration stage up to ~ 700 K and a fast dehydration stage up to the investigated temperature 1038 K. The crystal structure of beryl determined up to 1038 K, in temperature increment as small as 10 K, indicates the presence of channel ions Na and Fe and a gradual decrease of water upon heating.
Improving image classification of gastrointestinal endoscopy using curriculum self-supervised learning
Authors: Guo Han , Somayajula Sai Ashish , Hosseini Ramtin , Xie Pengtao 
Published: March 2024

AbstractEndoscopy, a widely used medical procedure for examining the gastrointestinal (GI) tract to detect potential disorders, poses challenges in manual diagnosis due to non-specific symptoms and difficulties in accessing affected areas. While supervised machine learning models have proven effective in assisting clinical diagnosis of GI disorders, the scarcity of image-label pairs created by medical experts limits their availability. To address these limitations, we propose a curriculum self-supervised learning framework inspired by human curriculum learning. Our approach leverages the HyperKvasir dataset, which comprises 100k unlabeled GI images for pre-training and 10k labeled GI images for fine-tuning. By adopting our proposed method, we achieved an impressive top-1 accuracy of 88.92% and an F1 score of 73.39%. This represents a 2.1% increase over vanilla SimSiam for the top-1 accuracy and a 1.9% increase for the F1 score. The combination of self-supervised learning and a curriculum-based approach demonstrates the efficacy of our framework in advancing the diagnosis of GI disorders. Our study highlights the potential of curriculum self-supervised learning in utilizing unlabeled GI tract images to improve the diagnosis of GI disorders, paving the way for more accurate and efficient diagnosis in GI endoscopy.
Exploring the contribution of lifestyle to the impact of education on the risk of cancer through Mendelian randomization analysis
Authors: Zagkos Loukas , Schwinges Alexander , Amin Hasnat A. , Dovey Terry , Drenos Fotios 
Published: March 2024

AbstractEducational attainment (EA) has been linked to the risk of several types of cancer, despite having no expected direct biological connection. In this paper, we investigate the mediating role of alcohol consumption, smoking, vegetable consumption, fruit consumption and body mass index (BMI) in explaining the effect of EA on 7 cancer groupings. Large-scale genome wide association study (GWAS) results were used to construct the genetic instrument for EA and the lifestyle factors. We conducted GWAS in the UK Biobank sample in up to 335,024 individuals to obtain genetic association data for the cancer outcomes. Univariable and multivariable two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) analyses and mediation analyses were then conducted to explore the causal effect and mediating proportions of these relations. MR mediation analysis revealed that reduced lifetime smoking index accounted for 81.7% (49.1% to 100%) of the protective effect of higher EA on lower respiratory cancer. Moreover, the effect of higher EA on lower respiratory cancer was mediated through vegetable consumption by 10.2% (4.4% to 15.9%). We found genetic evidence that the effect of EA on groups of cancer is due to behavioural changes in avoiding well established risk factors such as smoking and vegetable consuming.
The role of offensive processes and age development for female soccer players’ anticipation
Authors: Shui Yizhou , Che Xiang , Zhang Yu , Ma Ning , Li Jie , You Xuqun , Wan Bingjun 
Published: March 2024

AbstractAnticipation has been confirmed as a more valid measure for recognizing talented athletes than pattern recall alone. Anticipation of offensive processes in soccer, such as counter attacks and positional attacks, is essential for the sport. Additionally, the anticipation of elements such as the soccer ball, offensive and defensive players may also be affected by varied offensive processes. In this study, we combined anticipation with the pattern recall paradigm to measure the perceptual-cognitive skills of female soccer players across different age groups and offensive processes. Adult (U23) and adolescent (U15) female soccer players were recruited to complete the pattern anticipation task using coach-rated video segments. Our results show that adult female soccer players demonstrated greater accuracy in anticipating locations during positional attacks compared to adolescents, but no significant difference was observed during counter attacks. Furthermore, location anticipation accuracy is higher in all groups towards elements of the soccer ball and offensive players, but not defensive players, during counter attacks compared to positional attacks. These findings suggest that positional attack is the main advantage in perceptual-cognitive skills for adult female soccer players. Additionally, offensive processes and elements should be carefully considered when measuring perceptual-cognitive skills.
Examining the association between depersonalisation traits and the bodily self in waking and dreaming
Authors: Gwyther Matt P. D. , Lenggenhager Bigna , Windt Jennifer M. , Aspell Jane E. , Ciaunica Anna 
Published: March 2024

AbstractDepersonalisation (DP) is characterized by fundamental alterations to the sense of self that include feelings of detachment and estrangement from one’s body. We conducted an online study in healthy participants (n = 514) with DP traits to investigate and quantify the subjective experience of body and self during waking and dreaming, as the vast majority of previous studies focussed on waking experience only. Investigating dreams in people experiencing DP symptoms may help us understand whether the dream state is a ‘spared space’ where people can temporarily ‘retrieve’ their sense of self and sense of bodily presence. We found that higher DP traits—i.e. higher scores on the Cambridge Depersonalisation Scale (CDS)—were associated with more frequent dream experiences from an outside observer perspective (r = 0.28) and more frequent dream experiences of distinct bodily sensations (r = 0.23). We also found that people with higher CDS scores had more frequent dream experiences of altered bodily perception (r = 0.24), more frequent nightmares (r = 0.33) and higher dream recall (r = 0.17). CDS scores were negatively correlated with body boundary scores (r = − 0.31) in waking states and there was a negative association between CDS scores and the degree of trust in interoceptive signals (r = − 0.52). Our study elucidates the complex phenomenology of DP in relation to bodily selfhood during waking and dreaming and suggests avenues for potential therapeutic interventions in people with chronic depersonalisation (depersonalisation -derealisation disorder).
A comprehensive risk assessment method for hot work in underground mines based on G1-EWM and unascertained measure theory
Authors: Ding Xiaoqiang , Tian Xiangliang , Wang Jinhui 
Published: March 2024

AbstractA risk assessment method for hot work based on G1-EWM and unascertained measurement theory was proposed to prevent hot work accidents in underground mines. Firstly, based on the risk influencing factors and classification criteria for underground hot work operations in mines, a single indicator measurement matrix was constructed using unascertained measurement theory; Secondly, a risk assessment index system for mine underground hot work operations was established. The combination weight coefficient of each index was determined using the order relationship analysis method (G1) and entropy weight method (EWM) and coupled with the single index measurement evaluation vector to calculate the multi-index comprehensive evaluation vector of the evaluation object; Finally, the model was validated and examined using engineering examples, and the evaluation level was determined using confidence identification criteria. The results showed that the proposed method, when used to evaluate the risk of hot work operations in tunnels and vertical shafts in metal mines, produces risk levels that are in line with reality III (Moderate Risk) for the vertical shaft and IV (High Risk) for the tunnels. The evaluation model results are consistent with the risk evaluation results the whole process of on-site hot work, which verifies the model feasibility. A unique strategy and method for risk management in hot work operations in underground mines is provided by the combination of weighting and unascertained measure models, which has theoretical and practical value. Future research could focus on refineing this model by exploring the applicability in diverse mining environments and integrating advanced analytical techniques to enhance the predictive accuracy and operational efficiency.
Twelve-hour normothermic liver perfusion in a rat model: characterization of the changes in the ex-situ bio-molecular phenotype and metabolism
Authors: Dondossola Daniele , Lonati Caterina , Battistin Michele , Vivona Luigi , Zanella Alberto , Maggioni Marco , Valentina Vaira , Zizmare Laimdota , Trautwein Christoph , Schlegel Andrea , Gatti Stefano 
Published: March 2024

AbstractThe partial understanding of the biological events that occur during normothermic machine perfusion (NMP) and particularly during prolonged perfusion might hinder its deployment in clinical transplantation. The aim of our study was to implement a rat model of prolonged NMP to characterize the bio-molecular phenotype and metabolism of the perfused organs. Livers (n = 5/group) were procured and underwent 4 h (NMP4h) or 12 h (NMP12h) NMP, respectively, using a perfusion fluid supplemented with an acellular oxygen carrier. Organs that were not exposed to any procedure served as controls (Native). All perfused organs met clinically derived viability criteria at the end of NMP. Factors related to stress-response and survival were increased after prolonged perfusion. No signs of oxidative damage were detected in both NMP groups. Evaluation of metabolite profiles showed preserved mitochondrial function, activation of Cori cycle, induction of lipolysis, acetogenesis and ketogenesis in livers exposed to 12 h-NMP. Increased concentrations of metabolites involved in glycogen synthesis, glucuronidation, bile acid conjugation, and antioxidant response were likewise observed. In conclusion, our NMP12h model was able to sustain liver viability and function, thereby deeply changing cell homeostasis to maintain a newly developed equilibrium. Our findings provide valuable information for the implementation of optimized protocols for prolonged NMP.
Antagonistic and additive effect when combining biopesticides against the fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda
Authors: Harte Steven J. , Bray Daniel P. , Nash-Woolley Victoria , Stevenson Philip C. , Fernández-Grandon G. Mandela 
Published: March 2024

AbstractFall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda (FAW) is a cosmopolitan crop pest species that has recently become established in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Current FAW control is almost entirely dependent on synthetic pesticides. Biopesticides offer a more sustainable alternative but have limitations. For example, pyrethrum is an effective botanical insecticide with low mammalian toxicity but is highly UV labile, resulting in a rapid loss of efficacy in the field. Beauveria bassiana is an entomopathogenic fungus that is more persistent, but there is a time lag of several days before it causes insect mortality and leads to effective control. The combination of these biopesticides could mitigate their drawbacks for FAW control. Here we evaluated the efficacy of pyrethrum and B. bassiana as individual treatments and in combination against 3rd instar FAW. Four different combinations of these two biopesticides were tested, resulting in an antagonistic relationship at the lowest concentrations of B. bassiana and pyrethrum (1 × 104 conidia mL−1 with 25 ppm) and an additive effect for the other 3 combined treatments (1 × 104 conidia mL−1 with 100 ppm and 1 × 105 conidia mL−1 with 25 ppm and 100 ppm pyrethrum). Additionally, a delay in efficacy from B. bassiana was observed when combined with pyrethrum as well as a general inhibition of growth on agar plates. These results appear to show that this particular combination of biopesticides is not universally beneficial or detrimental to pest control strategies and is dependent on the doses of each biopesticide applied. However, the additive effect shown here at specific concentrations does indicate that combining biopesticides could help overcome the challenges of persistence seen in botanical pesticides and the slow establishment of EPF, with the potential to improve effectiveness of biopesticides for IPM.