bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Synthesis of Pd-Cu/TPPCu electrocatalyst for direct ethanol fuel cell applications
Authors: Irazoque S. , López-Suárez A. , Zagal-Padilla C. K. , Gamboa S. A. 
Published: November 2023

AbstractIn this study, the electro-oxidation reaction of ethanol over Pd–Cu supported on Cu porphyrin (TPPCu) was investigated. The catalyst was synthesized using the microwave-assisted polyol method and physicochemically characterized by XRD, XPS, SEM, EDS, TEM, EDAX, UV–Vis, FTIR, and RBS. A Cu-enriched catalyst with Cu3Pd, Pd,Cu, and TPPCu phases was identified using XRD and XPS. However, according to the RBS results, the catalytic surface was enriched with Pd, indicating that the interaction between TPPCu and Pd–Cu allowed the presence of Pd on the surface, thus enhancing the catalytic response of the material. This synthesis prevented the deprotonation of porphyrin on the electrocatalyst, as confirmed by XPS analysis. Electrochemical studies based on cyclic voltammetry and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy were used to investigate the response of the catalyst to variations in the scan rate and increasing ethanol concentration. The electrochemical response of PdCu/TPPCu improved with an increasing number of cycles, indicating improved mass transport, thus improving its electrochemical response and tolerance to CO contamination. This catalyst exhibited a high electroactive surface area of 49.4 m2/g, which could be related to the presence of TPPCu as a support. The behavior of the catalyst on the anode of a fuel cell fed with ethanol, bioethanol, and bioethanol residues was evaluated.
Graphical Abstract
Geometric-algebraic approach to aqueous solutions of diprotic acids and its buffer mixtures
Authors: Morales Juan C. , Arango Carlos A. 
Published: November 2023

AbstractA closed-form analytical expression for $${[\hbox {H}_{3}\hbox {O}^{+}]}$$

[

H
3

O
+

]

has been obtained for aqueous solutions of diprotic acids and its soluble salts. This formula allows to calculate the pH of aqueous solutions of diprotic acids, their buffer solutions, and the titrations of these two by a strong base, from the values of p$$K_1$$

K
1

, p$$K_2$$

K
2

, and the effective concentrations of the acid and the base, $$\bar{C}_\textrm{a}$$

C

¯

a

and $$\bar{C}_\textrm{b}$$

C

¯

b

respectively. It is shown that a strong base titration of an acid, or its buffer solutions, is always a linear path in the $$\bar{C}_\textrm{a}$$

C

¯

a

–$$\bar{C}_\textrm{b}$$

C

¯

b

plane, which allows a simple analysis of the pH stability of buffer solutions. The mathematical analysis of the equilibrium equations of the dissolution of a diprotic acid in water and the physical constraints allowed to obtain two approximate equations for the diprotic acids. One of the approximations is useful for acids with $$\textrm{p}K_2-\textrm{p}K_1\le \log _{10}4$$

p

K
2

-
p

K
1

≤

log
10

4

, the other for acids with $$\textrm{p}K_2-\textrm{p}K_1\le -\log _{10}4$$

p

K
2

-
p

K
1

≤
-

log
10

4

.
Rib remodelling changes with body size in fossil hippopotamuses from Cyprus and Greece
Authors: Miszkiewicz Justyna J. , Athanassiou Athanassios , Lyras George A. , van der Geer Alexandra A. E. 
Published: November 2023

AbstractLarge species that are isolated for thousands of years on islands often evolve extreme degrees of dwarfism. Very little is known about physiological processes that accompany such extreme transitions in extinct dwarf species. We tested whether physiological cycles of bone maintenance (remodelling) in dwarf adult hippopotamuses correlate with insularity-driven body mass shifts that may occur due to variables such as ecological release from predation pressure and change in access to resources. We hypothesised that hippopotamuses with the smallest body size should show higher values of osteocyte lacunae, proxies for osteoblast proliferation during cycles of remodelling, when compared to relatively larger dwarf forms, as well as much larger mainland common hippopotamuses. We examined 20 ribs from three extinct PleistoceneHippopotamusspecies spanning a gradient in body size:H. minor(~132 kg, Cyprus),H. creutzburgi(~398 kg, Crete), andH. antiquus(~3200 kg, mainland Greece). Ribs were selected because they reflect bone metabolic rates that are not completely clouded by factors such as biomechanics. Densities of osteocyte lacunae (Ot.Dn) were examined in 864 individual secondary osteons observed in histology sections. We found the highest average Ot.Dn in theH. minorribs, intermediate Ot.Dn in theH. creutzburgiribs, and the lowest Ot.Dn in theH. antiquusribs. It appears that Ot.Dn distinctly separated these three species, possibly signifying a gradient in bone remodelling such that bone tissue optimises maintenance in the face of insularity-driven reduction of body size. We discuss hippopotamus rib bone microstructure and the utility of Ot.Dn in palaeontological analyses for elucidating intricate biological processes occurring in bone of insular fossil mammals.
Work Difficulties in People with Multiple Sclerosis
Authors: Ponzio Michela , Podda Jessica , Pignattelli Elena , Verri Anna , Persechino Benedetta , Vitturi Bruno Kusznir , Bandiera Paolo , Manacorda Tommaso , Inglese Matilde , Durando Paolo , Battaglia Mario Alberto 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Purpose
This study identifies potential predictors of unemployment and describes specific work difficulties and their determinants in a subgroup of employed people with multiple sclerosis (PwMS). The specific work difficulties were evaluated using a validated tool that measures the impact of respondents’ symptoms and of workplace features.

Methods
A cross-sectional study was carried out in Italy during 2021–2022. The subjects included were adults (18–65 years) with a diagnosis of MS, currently employed or unemployed. Logistic regression models were used to determine the association between each potential determinant and employment status, while linear regression models were used to determine the association between determinants and specific work difficulties.

Results
The main risk factors associated with a higher risk of being unemployed were being older, living in the South of Italy/islands, and having a higher disability level, while protective factors against unemployment were having a high level of education and ‘stable’ employment (an open-ended contract). Fatigue was found to be associated with all work difficulties analyzed; mood disorders emerged as the main predictors of mental health-related work difficulties; level of disability and comorbidity significantly impacted physical health-related ones, and a good quality of life was found to improve both workplace-related and mental health-related difficulties at work.

Conclusion
Identifying the most significant difficulties is a crucial step in the development of vocational rehabilitation interventions tailored to maximize the ability of PwMS to handle their job-related duties and demands.
New Arguments for a pure lottery in Research Funding: A Sketch for a Future Science Policy Without Time-Consuming Grant Competitions
Authors: Roumbanis Lambros 
Published: November 2023

AbstractA critical debate has blossomed within the field of research policy, science and technology studies, and philosophy of science regarding the possible benefits and limitations of allocating extramural grants using a lottery system. The most common view among those supporting the lottery idea is that some form of modified lottery is acceptable, if properly combined with peer review. This means that partial randomization can be applied only after experts have screened the pursuit-worthiness of all submitted proposals and sorted out those of lowest quality. In the present paper, I will argue against the use of partial lotteries or partial randomization and instead promote use of a pure lottery in combination with a radical increase in block funding. The main reason for holding this position is that a partial lottery cannot solve the problems inherent in the current funding system, which is based on grant competitions and peer review. A partial lottery cannot decrease the enormous time-waste, reduce the uneven distribution of time between researchers, neutralize expert biases or mitigate academic power asymmetries. Instead, we need a stronger focus on improving general time management in academia by implementing a more holistic model for organizing research opportunities in the future.
Spectral warping based data augmentation for low resource children’s speaker verification
Authors: Kathania Hemant Kumar , Kadyan Virender , Kadiri Sudarsana Reddy , Kurimo Mikko 
Published: November 2023

AbstractIn this paper, we present our effort to develop an automatic speaker verification (ASV) system for low resources children’s data. For the children’s speakers, very limited amount of speech data is available in majority of the languages for training the ASV system. Developing an ASV system under low resource conditions is a very challenging problem. To develop the robust baseline system, we merged out of domain adults’ data with children’s data to train the ASV system and tested with children’s speech. This kind of system leads to acoustic mismatches between training and testing data. To overcome this issue, we have proposed spectral warping based data augmentation. We modified adult speech data using spectral warping method (to simulate like children’s speech) and added it to the training data to overcome data scarcity and mismatch between adults’ and children’s speech. The proposed data augmentation gives 20.46% and 52.52% relative improvement (in equal error rate) for Indian Punjabi and British English speech databases, respectively. We compared our proposed method with well known data augmentation methods: SpecAugment, speed perturbation (SP) and vocal tract length perturbation (VTLP), and found that the proposed method performed best. The proposed spectral warping method is publicly available at https://github.com/kathania/Speaker-Verification-spectral-warping.
Definition of guidelines for virtual reality application design based on visual attention
Authors: Baldoni Sara , Hadj Sassi Mohamed Saifeddine , Carli Marco , Battisti Federica 
Published: November 2023

AbstractIn virtual reality applications, head-mounted displays allow users to explore virtual surroundings, thus creating a high sense of immersion. However, due to the novelty of the technology and the possibility of freely enjoying a $$360^\circ $$

360
∘

virtual world, users can get distracted and divert their attention from the content of the application. In this work, we define a set of guidelines for the design of virtual reality applications for enhancing the users’ attention. To the best of our knowledge, this is one of the first attempts to provide general guidelines for virtual application design based on visual attention. More specifically, we analyze the different categories of factors that contribute to the user’s responsiveness and define a set of experiments for measuring the user’s promptness with respect to visual stimuli with different features and in the presence of audio/visual distractions. Experimental tests have been carried out with 36 volunteers. The users’ reaction time has been recorded and the performed analysis allowed the definition of a set of guidelines based on individual, operational, and technological factors for the design of virtual reality applications optimized in terms of user attention. In particular, statistical tests demonstrated that the presence of distractions leads to significantly different reaction times with respect to the case of no distractions, and that users belonging to different age intervals have significantly different behaviors. Moreover, the optimal placement of objects has been identified and the impact of cybersickness has been analyzed.
Impacts of land use history on leaf litter input, chemical composition, decomposition and related nutrient cycling in young and old secondary tropical lowland rainforests (Sumatra, Indonesia)
Authors: Alvafritz Luce , Hertel Dietrich 
Published: November 2023

AbstractBackgroundNutrient cycle in tropical forests is mainly driven by litter fall amounts and by litter decay due to litter physical and chemical properties. Apart from differences in site conditions, different successional stages of tropical rainforests may influence nutrient inputs to the soil via differences in litter fall and decay.MethodsWe studied leaf litter fall, decomposition and related nutrient input to the soil in two secondary tropical rainforest types differing in land-use intensity and history in the lowlands of Sumatra (Indonesia).ResultsMean annual litter fall was by 29.5% higher in the old than in the young secondary forests. In contrast, annual litter decomposition differed only marginally (54.9% vs. 52.1%) in young vs. old secondary forests. Litter chemical composition (C, N, P, K contents) did not differ between the forest types. Litter decomposition was also not different between the forest types (4.6% vs. 4.3% loss of initial weight per month). Consequently, annual nutrient input to the soil was primarily affected by differences in leaf litter production, thus, old secondary forests exceeded that of young secondary forests by 30% and 24% for C and N, but was not different regaring P and K among the two forest types.ConclusionsThe results indicate that litter nutrient inputs to the soil in the two types of secondary tropical lowland forests are most strongly influenced by aboveground litter production rather than litter chemical quality or litter decay. We conclude that the restoration status of secondary tropical lowland forests is crucial for the nutrient status of these forest ecosystems.
Temperate tree microbiomes: divergent soil and phyllosphere microbial communities share few but dominant taxa
Authors: Siegenthaler Andjin , Skidmore Andrew K. , de Groot G. Arjen , Laros Ivo , Rousseau Mélody , Duan Yiwei 
Published: November 2023

AbstractAimsThe phyllosphere and soil are crucial and distinct microbial spheres in forests, connected through trees that interact with both. As part of the tree's holobiont, these communities are vital to the fitness and evolution of the host. Differences between the spheres may be particularly evident at the two extreme ends of tall and long-lived trees of natural temperate forest; the top-canopy and the soil. Here, we evaluated the connectivity between the top-canopy and soil microbial communities of European beech and Norway spruce trees to determine the significance of tree-sphere and host-species identity, and to assess the contribution of taxa inhabiting both spheres.MethodsBacterial and fungal community composition was determined through metabarcoding analysis of linked top-canopy leaf and bulk soil samples collected from tall (old) trees in the natural forest of Bavarian Forest National Park.ResultsThis study shows sphere-specific communities in European temperate forests, characterized by low connectivity. Results highlight that spheres exert stronger influence than host identity. Only a few taxa inhabited both spheres, yet they accounted for the bulk of the (relative) abundance in each sphere.ConclusionAnalysing the divergence and shared characteristics of these interlinked communities redefines the tree holobiont concept and enhances our understanding of the evolution of plant-associated microbial communities in a sphere-specific manner. This study emphasizes the importance of examining multiple microbiome components for a thorough understanding of temperate forest ecology, while also highlighting the existence of a small group of overlapping taxa that may play a bigger role than previously anticipated.
Likelihood-free inference in state-space models with unknown dynamics
Authors: Aushev Alexander , Tran Thong , Pesonen Henri , Howes Andrew , Kaski Samuel 
Published: November 2023

AbstractLikelihood-free inference (LFI) has been successfully applied to state-space models, where the likelihood of observations is not available but synthetic observations generated by a black-box simulator can be used for inference instead. However, much of the research up to now has been restricted to cases in which a model of state transition dynamics can be formulated in advance and the simulation budget is unrestricted. These methods fail to address the problem of state inference when simulations are computationally expensive and the Markovian state transition dynamics are undefined. The approach proposed in this manuscript enables LFI of states with a limited number of simulations by estimating the transition dynamics and using state predictions as proposals for simulations. In the experiments with non-stationary user models, the proposed method demonstrates significant improvement in accuracy for both state inference and prediction, where a multi-output Gaussian process is used for LFI of states and a Bayesian neural network as a surrogate model of transition dynamics.
COVID-19 and British Columbia’s volunteer search and rescue workers: risk recognition and risk mitigation
Authors: Birnbaum David , Lam Vienna C. , Havaei Farinaz , Anderson Gail S. 
Published: November 2023

AbstractBackground:Early during COVID-19, British Columbia coordinated collaboration between academic researchers, public healthcare systems, and private sector partners to focus research resources on knowledge gaps in a timely manner, avoid duplication, and identify overlooked aspects. At a collaboration symposium, it became evident that BC’s volunteer search & rescue (SAR) cadre was overlooked.Objective:Our exploratory project studied volunteer SAR’s operational readiness; use and perceived value of information sources; consistency in infection prevention measures among volunteer stations, and with their professional counterparts for comparable first aid medical interventions throughout the pandemic.Methods:We partnered with the 2 organizations that govern BC’s volunteer SAR stations. Local station leaders completed a short confidential survey. Guidance documents issued by associations governing voluntary and professional first responders were compared.Results:Survey responses were received from 33 of 109 local stations, spanning all regions of BC. Most remained operationally ready throughout the entire pandemic (12.1% had to stand down at times). Except for 21% lacking eye protection, all had personal protective equipment commensurate with that of healthcare professionals; however, few used this PPE in a manner consistent with professional counterparts. Usage and perceived usefulness of various information sources differed. There was no communication link between the province’s infection control experts and 2 volunteer SAR organizations.Conclusions:Search & rescue capability was maintained despite pandemic impacts. Results reveal strengths and opportunities for improvement in the ways volunteers are informed and protected. Infection control experts providing advice for emergency health services professional responders should remember to include their volunteer counterparts.
Incomplete to complete multiphysics forecasting: a hybrid approach for learning unknown phenomena
Authors: Tathawadekar Nilam N. , Doan Nguyen Anh Khoa , Silva Camilo F. , Thuerey Nils 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Modeling complex dynamical systems with only partial knowledge of their physical mechanisms is a crucial problem across all scientific and engineering disciplines. Purely data-driven approaches, which only make use of an artificial neural network and data, often fail to accurately simulate the evolution of the system dynamics over a sufficiently long time and in a physically consistent manner. Therefore, we propose a hybrid approach that uses a neural network model in combination with an incomplete partial differential equations (PDEs) solver that provides known, but incomplete physical information. In this study, we demonstrate that the results obtained from the incomplete PDEs can be efficiently corrected at every time step by the proposed hybrid neural network—PDE solver model, so that the effect of the unknown physics present in the system is correctly accounted for. For validation purposes, the obtained simulations of the hybrid model are successfully compared against results coming from the complete set of PDEs describing the full physics of the considered system. We demonstrate the validity of the proposed approach on a reactive flow, an archetypal multi-physics system that combines fluid mechanics and chemistry, the latter being the physics considered unknown. Experiments are made on planar and Bunsen-type flames at various operating conditions. The hybrid neural network—PDE approach correctly models the flame evolution of the cases under study for significantly long time windows, yields improved generalization and allows for larger simulation time steps.
Gender disparity in minimum dietary diversity failure among currently breastfed children aged 6–23 months in Bangladesh: evidence from Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, 2019
Authors: Hossain Md. Ismail , Kabir Samia , Zinia Faozia Afia 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Research on children's dietary diversity plays a crucial role in designing effective health interventions. Thus, this study aimed to identify the factors contributing to minimum dietary diversity failure (MDDF) among male and female children aged 6–23 months in Bangladesh. The data for this study was obtained from the Bangladesh Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey, 2019, which included children currently breastfed within a specific age range. Multivariable binary logistic regression was employed to assess the strength and significance of the association. The findings revealed that approximately 59⋅4 % of children in Bangladesh experienced MDDF, with 57⋅8 % of male children and 61 % of female children affected. Proportion test uncovered a significant gender disparity (χ2=6⋅58, P-value = 0⋅01) among children aged 6–23 months. However, the multivariable binary logistic regression analysis revealed that both male and female children shared common risk factors for MDDF, which included child age, maternal educational status, wealth status, number of antenatal care visits, and division. In our study, we observed varied spatial patterns in minimal dietary diversity. Sherpur, Netrokona, Sunamganj, and Sylhet districts showed the highest failure rates. Notably, all are flood-affected areas, impacting food availability and diversity. For targeted regional development programmes, district mapping results may offer valuable insights to policymakers, especially in areas with a high prevalence of dietary diversity failure. By understanding these risk factors, policymakers and stakeholders can implement targeted strategies to improve dietary diversity among children, promoting better health and well-being for the young population in Bangladesh.