bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Multi‐taxon biodiversity responses to the 2019–2020 Australian megafires
Authors: Gorta Simon B. Z. , Callaghan Corey T. , Samonte Fabrice , Ooi Mark K. J. , Mesaglio Thomas , Laffan Shawn W. , Cornwell Will K. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractConditions conducive to fires are becoming increasingly common and widespread under climate change. Recent fire events across the globe have occurred over unprecedented scales, affecting a diverse array of species and habitats. Understanding biodiversity responses to such fires is critical for conservation. Quantifying post‐fire recovery is problematic across taxa, from insects to plants to vertebrates, especially at large geographic scales. Novel datasets can address this challenge. We use presence‐only citizen science data from iNaturalist, collected before and after the 2019–2020 megafires in burnt and unburnt regions of eastern Australia, to quantify the effect of post‐fire diversity responses, up to 18 months post‐fire. The geographic, temporal, and taxonomic sampling of this dataset was large, but sampling effort and species discoverability were unevenly spread. We used rarefaction and prediction (iNEXT) with which we controlled sampling completeness among treatments, to estimate diversity indices (Hill numbers: q = 0–2) among nine broad taxon groupings and seven habitats, including 3885 species. We estimated an increase in species diversity up to 18 months after the 2019–2020 Australian megafires in regions which were burnt, compared to before the fires in burnt and unburnt regions. Diversity estimates in dry sclerophyll forest matched and likely drove this overall increase post‐fire, while no taxon groupings showed clear increases inconsistent with both control treatments post‐fire. Compared to unburnt regions, overall diversity across all taxon groupings and habitats greatly decreased in areas exposed to extreme fire severity. Post‐fire life histories are complex and species detectability is an important consideration in all post‐fire sampling. We demonstrate how fire characteristics, distinct taxa, and habitat influence biodiversity, as seen in local‐scale datasets. Further integration of large‐scale datasets with small‐scale studies will lead to a more robust understanding of fire recovery.
Extinction risks and mitigation for a megaherbivore, the giraffe, in a human‐influenced landscape under climate change
Authors: Bond Monica L. , Lee Derek E. , Paniw Maria 
Published: October 2023

AbstractMegaherbivores play “outsized” roles in ecosystem functioning but are vulnerable to human impacts such as overhunting, land‐use changes, and climate extremes. However, such impacts—and combinations of these impacts—on population dynamics are rarely examined using empirical data. To guide effective conservation actions under increasing global‐change pressures, we developed a socially structured individual‐based model (IBM) using long‐term demographic data from female giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis) in a human‐influenced landscape in northern Tanzania, the Tarangire Ecosystem. This unfenced system includes savanna habitats with a wide gradient of anthropogenic pressures, from national parks, a wildlife ranch and community conservation areas, to unprotected village lands. We then simulated and projected over 50 years how realistic environmental and land‐use management changes might affect this metapopulation of female giraffes. Scenarios included: (1) anthropogenic land‐use changes including roads and agricultural/urban expansion; (2) reduction or improvement in wildlife law enforcement measures; (3) changes in populations of natural predators and migratory alternative prey; and (4) increases in rainfall as predicted for East Africa. The factor causing the greatest risk of rapid declines in female giraffe abundance in our simulations was a reduction in law enforcement leading to more poaching. Other threats decreased abundances of giraffes, but improving law enforcement in both of the study area's protected areas mitigated these impacts: a 0.01 increase in giraffe survival probability from improved law enforcement mitigated a 25% rise in heavy rainfall events by increasing abundance 19%, and mitigated the expansion of towns and blockage of dispersal movements by increasing abundance 22%. Our IBM enabled us to further quantify fine‐scale abundance changes among female giraffe social communities, revealing potential source–sink interactions within the metapopulation. This flexible methodology can be adapted to test additional ecological questions in this landscape, or to model populations of giraffes or other species in different ecosystems.
Herbivory and elevated levels of CO2 and nutrients separately, rather than synergistically, impacted biomass production and allocation in invasive and native plant species
Authors: Shan Liping , Oduor Ayub M. O. , Liu Yanjie 
Published: October 2023

AbstractLarge parts of the Earth are experiencing environmental change caused by alien plant invasions, rising atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (CO2), and nutrient enrichments. Elevated CO2 and nutrient concentrations can separately favour growth of invasive plants over that of natives but how herbivory may modulate the magnitude and direction of net responses by the two groups of plants to simultaneous CO2 and nutrient enrichments remains unknown. In line with the enemy release hypothesis, invasive plant species should reallocate metabolites from costly anti‐herbivore defences into greater growth following escape from intense herbivory in the native range. Therefore, invasive plants should have greater growth than native plants under simultaneous CO2 and nutrient enrichments in the absence of herbivory. To test this prediction, we grew nine congeneric pairs of invasive and native plant species that naturally co‐occurred in grasslands in China under two levels each of nutrient enrichment (low‐nutrient vs. high‐nutrient), herbivory (with herbivory vs. without herbivory) and under ambient (412.9 ± 0.6 ppm) and elevated (790.1 ± 6.2 ppm) levels of CO2 concentrations in open top chambers in a common garden. Elevated CO2 and nutrient enrichment separately increased total plant biomass, while herbivory reduced it regardless of the plant invasive status. High‐nutrient treatment caused the plants to allocate a significantly lower proportion of total biomass to roots, while herbivory induced an opposite pattern. Herbivory suppressed total biomass production more strongly in native plants than invasive plants. The plants exhibited significant interspecific and intergeneric variation in their responses to the various treatment combinations. Overall, these results suggest that elevated CO2 and nutrients and herbivory may separately, rather than synergistically, impact productivity of the invasive and co‐occurring native plant species in our study system. Moreover, interspecific variation in resource‐use strategies was more important than invasive status in determining plant responses to the various treatment combinations.
Intravascular volumes and the influence on anemia assessed by a carbon monoxide rebreathing method in patients undergoing maintenance hemodialysis
Authors: Vinje Vårin , Bomholt Tobias , Lundby Carsten , Oturai Peter , Rix Marianne , Lindhard Kristine , Hornum Mads 
Published: October 2023

AbstractIntroductionFluid overload is a major challenge in hemodialysis patients and might cause hypervolemia. We speculated that hemodialysis patients reaching dry weight could have undetected hypervolemia and low hemoglobin (Hb) concentration (g/dL) due to hemodilution.MethodsThe study included hemodialysis patients (n = 22) and matched healthy controls (n = 22). Blood volume, plasma volume, red blood cell volume, and total Hb mass were determined using a carbon monoxide (CO)‐rebreathing method in hemodialysis patients reaching dry weight and controls. Blood volume measurements were also obtained by a dual‐isotope labeling technique in a subgroup for validation purposes.FindingsIn the hemodialysis group, the median specific blood volume was 89.3 mL/kg (interquartile range [IQR]: 76.7–95.4 mL/kg) and was higher than in the control group (79.9 mL/kg [IQR: 70.4–88.0 mL/kg]; p < 0.037). The median specific plasma volume was 54.7 mL/kg (IQR: 47.1–61.0 mL/kg) and 44.0 mL/kg (IQR: 38.7–49.5 mL/kg) in the hemodialysis and control groups, respectively (p < 0.001). Hb concentration was lower in hemodialysis patients (p < 0.001), whereas no difference in total Hb mass was observed between groups (p = 0.11). A correlation was found between blood volume measured by the CO‐rebreathing test and the dual‐isotope labeling technique in the control group (r = 0.83, p = 0.015), but not the hemodialysis group (r = 0.25, p = 0.60).DiscussionThe hemodialysis group had increased specific blood volume at dry weight due to high plasma volume, suggesting a hypervolemic state. However, correlation was not established against the dual‐isotope labeling technique underlining that the precision of the CO‐rebreathing test should be further validated. The total Hb mass was similar between hemodialysis patients and controls, unlike Hb concentration, which emphasizes that Hb concentration is an inaccurate marker of anemia among hemodialysis patients.
Problematizing Strategic Alliance Research: Challenges, Issues and Paradoxes in the New Era
Authors: He Qile , Meadows Maureen , Angwin Duncan , Gomes Emanuel , Child John 
Published: October 2023

AbstractStrategic alliances have attracted substantial attention from industry and academia over the past three decades. However, due to rapid technological evolution, saturated marketplaces, globalisation of businesses on the one hand and de‐globalisation of the market on the other (as marked by Brexit and the trade war between US and China, COVID‐19 pandemic and the Ukraine war), the strategic environment of businesses is changing quickly. Fundamental and rapid changes in the wider environment necessitate the review of theoretical and practical insights of earlier and emerging studies ‐ to examine the new challenges, issues and paradoxes of strategic alliances. This special issue attempts to provide a forum to allow researchers to question the assumptions underlying existing theory a little further beyond just “gap‐spotting” or “gap‐filling”. This special issue includes four very interesting literature review pieces, which venture deeper into the phenomenon, and explore the opportunities, issues and paradoxes of strategic alliances while adopting alternative theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches and interpretations to address issues of managing strategic alliances and maximising returns from them in the new strategic context.
Facilitating flexibility in postgraduate nursing education through entrustable professional activities to address nursing shortages and career prospects
Authors: Pool Inge A. , van Zundert Helma , ten Cate Olle 
Published: October 2023

AbstractAimTo communicate how the Dutch postgraduate nursing education landscape was redesigned using entrustable professional activities (EPAs). The goal of this initiative was to reduce training time, enhance transfer across nursing specialities and contribute to a better‐aligned continuum of initial education, postgraduate education and continuing professional development.BackgroundNursing shortages continue to worsen worldwide. An approach to address this growing shortage is to create a more flexible postgraduate training structure, offering training in the just‐in‐time and just‐as‐needed models. EPAs can be used as building blocks for training and assessment. Experience with EPAs (i.e. units of professional practice that can be entrusted once a trainee has demonstrated the required competencies) in health professions education, including nursing, is rising rapidly. While EPAs are largely used to create training flexibility within a programme, they can also be used to create flexibility across programmes. In 2018–2022, training hospitals and education institutions in the Netherlands collaborated in the CZO Flex Level Project to redesign the postgraduate nursing education landscape using EPAs.DiscussionThe implementation of a flexible postgraduate nursing education model nationwide will face several challenges. An overview of these challenges and suggestions for future research on the effects of the new structure on nursing competence, satisfaction and career development are provided.ConclusionEPAs can imbue flexibility within and across training programmes. Designing an EPA‐based educational landscape requires nationally coordinated efforts.Implications for nursing policyRedesigning educational structures to allow for more flexibility is critical to address major societal challenges in healthcare.
Effect of skeletonisation and pedicled bilateral internal mammary artery grafting in coronary artery bypass surgery on post‐operative wound infection: A meta‐analysis
Authors: Nie Caihong , Deng Yunping , Lu Yongmei 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe results showed that different internal thoracic artery (ITA) was associated with the rate of postoperative wound infection and the severity of pain following coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG). In order to ascertain if there was any genuine difference in the rate of postoperative infection and severity of the pain, we conducted a meta‐analysis to evaluate if there was any actual difference in the wound complication that had been identified with the ITA method. Through EMBASE, Cochrane Library and Pubmed, and so forth, we systematically reviewed the results by August 2023, which compared the impact of skeletonised versus pedicled internal mammary artery (IMA) on wound complications following CABG. The trial data have been pooled and analysed in order to determine if a randomisation or fixed‐effect model should be applied. The meta‐analysis of data was performed with Revman 5.3 software. The results of this meta‐study included 252 related articles from four main databases, and nine articles were chosen to be extracted and analysed. A total of 3320 patients were treated with coronary artery transplantation. Based on current data analysis, we have shown that the rate of postoperative wound infections is reduced by the use of the skeletonised internal mammary artery (SIMA) (OR, 1.84; 95% CI, 1.13, 3.01; p = 0.01). But the results showed that there were no statistically significant differences in the post‐operation pain score of the patients (MD, 0.09; 95% CI, −0.58, 0.76; p = 0.79). Furthermore, the duration of the operation was not significantly different between the SIMA and pedicled internal mammary artery (PIMA) (MD, 3.30; 95% CI, −3.13, 9.73; p = 0.31). Overall, the SIMA decreased the rate of postoperative wound infection in CABG patients than the PIMA.
Ultrapulse carbon dioxide dot matrix laser for facial scar treatment: A meta‐analysis
Authors: Yan Hongtao , Sun Yan , Hu Yayu , Wu Youjun 
Published: October 2023

AbstractA meta‐analysis was performed to investigate the efficacy of ultrapulse carbon dioxide dot matrix laser treatment for patients with facial scars. PubMed, EMBASE, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, China Biomedical Literature Database, and Wanfang Database were systematically searched for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) investigating ultrapulse carbon dioxide dot matrix laser treatment for facial scars, and the search was conducted from the time of database inception to July 2023. The retrieved literature was screened independently by two researchers, and data extraction and quality assessments were performed. The meta‐analysis was conducted using RevMan 5.4 software. Outcome metrics included overall treatment effectiveness, complication rate, and Echelle d'évaluation clinique des cicatrices d'acné (ECCA) scores. Seventeen RCTs comprising 3703 patients were included, with 1853 patients in the experimental group and 1850 in the control group. The results showed that the experimental group had significantly increased overall treatment efficacy rates (odds ratio [OR]: 3.84, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 3.02–4.90, p < 0.001), reduced complication rates (OR: 0.35, 95% CI: 0.27–0.44, p < 0.001), and improved ECCA scores (standardised mean difference: −1.79, 95% CI: −2.53 to −1.05, p < 0.001) compared with the control group. In conclusion, as the primary treatment modality for facial acne depression scars, ultrapulse carbon dioxide dot matrix laser can significantly increase the overall treatment efficacy rate and ECCA scores and reduce the incidence of complications; however, higher‐quality studies are needed for further validation.
The magnetocaloric, magnetic, optical, and thermoelectric properties of EuB6 compound: DFT and Monte Carlo study
Authors: Benyoussef Safae , Jabar Abderrahim , Bahmad Lahoucine 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe hexaboride EuB6 has been proven to have qualities that theoretically travel from being electronic to being magneto‐caloric. Under GGA‐PBE and GGA + SOC + U schemes, first‐principles calculations have been used to examine the electronic band structure and density of states. The magnetic moment and the interaction constant have each been calculated using DFT. Additionally, the thermoelectric properties are considered within the particular transport restrictions in order to determine the dimensionless figure of merit (ZT). The extremum of the ZT for EuB6 is determined by using the Seebeck, electrical, thermal, and lattice conductivity coefficients, which are computed. At 1800 K, a maximum ZT of 0.22 is discovered. The computed values of optical conductivity, electron energy loss, absorption coefficient, dielectric tensor, refractive index, and extinction coefficient throughout the range of 0–13 eV anticipate the optical considerations of such an alloy. The infrared spectrum is that where this chemical is active. The critical temperature (Tc) has been determined using the Metropolis algorithm and the Monte Carlo simulation. The material exhibits a ferromagnetic to paramagnetic phase transition, as indicated by temperature‐dependent magnetization. The magnetocaloric efficiency of this material can be measured using the magnetic entropy change (−ΔSm) and the relative cooling power.
Frailty in community‐dwelling older people and nursing home residents: An adaptation and validation study
Authors: Kmetec Sergej , Fekonja Zvonka , Davey Adam , Kegl Barbara , Mori Jernej , Reljić Nataša Mlinar , McCormack Brendan , Lorber Mateja 
Published: October 2023

AbstractAimThe aim of this was to psychometrically adapt and evaluate the Tilburg Frailty Indicator to assess frailty among older people living in Slovenia's community and nursing home settings.DesignA cross‐cultural adaptation and validation of instruments throughout the cross‐sectional study.MethodsOlder people living in the community and nursing homes throughout Slovenia were recruited between March and August 2021. Among 831 participants were 330 people living in nursing homes and 501 people living in the community, and all were older than 65 years.ResultsAll items were translated into the Slovene language, and a slight cultural adjustment was made to improve the clarity of the meaning of all items. The average scale validity index of the scale was rated as good, which indicates satisfactory content validity. Cronbach's α was acceptable for the total items and subitems.ConclusionsThe Slovenian questionnaire version demonstrated adequate internal consistency, reliability, and construct and criterion validity. The questionnaire is suitable for investigating frailty in nursing homes, community dwelling and other settings where older people live.ImpactThe Slovenian questionnaire version can be used to measure and evaluate frailty among older adults. We have found that careful translation and adaptation processes have maintained the instrument's strong reliability and validity for use in a new cultural context. The instrument can foster international collaboration to identify and manage frailty among older people in nursing homes and community‐dwelling homes.Reporting MethodThe Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology checklist for reporting cross‐sectional studies was used.No Patient or Public ContributionNo patient or public involvement in the design or conduct of the study. Head nurses from nursing homes and community nurses helped recruit older adults. Older adults only contributed to the data collection and were collected from nursing homes and community dwelling.
Ubuntu Thinking on Biodiversity Loss: The Inadequacies of Egalitarian and Communitarian Solutions
Authors: Samuel Olusegun Steven , Omosulu Rotimi 
Published: October 2023

ABSTRACTThis article evaluates the moral implications of two leading theories on biodiversity preservation/conservation (Paul Taylor's biocentric egalitarianism and J. Baird Callicott's holistic communitarianism). Taylor argues for the moral equality of all members of the Earth's community of life, calling for an ethic of respect for nature to conserve biodiversity. Callicott argues for the moral consideration of ecosystems to maintain their integrity, stability, and beauty. The article makes two major claims. First, we need a plausible account of moral egalitarianism to disrupt ethical anthropocentrism. Second, the ethics of respect for nature requires a critical bottom‐up character‐based ethical theory to be morally forceful. These missing elements are central to the ubuntu philosophy about personhood and are significant for enriching egalitarian‐communitarian solutions to biodiversity loss.
Facilitating transformative endings: Therapists' experience of ending therapy with people with intellectual disabilities—An interpretative phenomenological analysis
Authors: Dunn Yasmine , Summers S. J. , Dagnan Dave 
Published: October 2023

AbstractBackgroundEndings in therapy are discussed widely in mainstream literature, however, there is only a small amount of research that considers endings in therapy for people with intellectual disabilities.MethodsEight therapists were interviewed about their experience of ending therapy with people with intellectual disabilities. Interviews were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).ResultsFour superordinate themes associated with endings that go well were identified: ‘recognising’, ‘readying’, ‘reframing’ and reflecting’, with a fifth theme reflecting endings that were less successful. Participants worked hard to offer transformative experiences of endings and an overarching ‘super‐superordinate’ theme of ‘facilitating transformative endings' encompassed the findings.ConclusionsEndings are a multi‐faceted component of psychological therapy with people with intellectual disabilities and are significant for both client and therapist. We discuss implications for therapy adaptations and future research.