bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Students’ and facilitators’ experiences with synchronous and asynchronous online dialogic discussions and e-facilitation in understanding the Nature of Science
Authors: Mansour Nasser 
Published: February 2024

AbstractThe existing literature lacks a precise understanding of how online facilitation and dialogic discussions can positively impact students’ comprehension of the Nature of Science (NoS). This study delves into the experiences of students and facilitators engaged in synchronous and asynchronous online dialogic discussions and e-facilitation to enhance our understanding of NoS. An innovative experiment employed a digital dialogue game to engage postgraduate students in a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) secondary science course. The participants included sixty-five PGCE science students and three lecturers specializing in different science disciplines (Physics, Chemistry, and Biology). Qualitative data collection methods and analysis, including transcripts of online discussions about NoS topics, were followed by critical event recall interviews to identify specific online dialogue events that significantly contributed to the comprehension of NoS. The findings contribute significantly to comprehending students’ processes in grasping complex and debatable topics such as Nature of Science (NoS) within online dialogic discussions supported by e-facilitation. They emphasize the importance of establishing an open and expansive dialogic space, with a focus on the crucial roles of e-facilitators. The results also highlight a tension between active and passive roles in both synchronous and asynchronous online discussions. Additionally, the study sheds light on the influence of space, time, and texts in understanding NoS through e-facilitated online dialogic discussions. Notably, the research emphasizes the live chat room’s significance within Interloc, accentuating its role as a social space fostering a sense of community and a safe environment for inquiry in online dialogue which supported understanding NoS.
On the Averaging and Closure of Fiber Orientation Tensors in Virtual Process Chains
Authors: Krauß Constantin , Bauer Julian Karl , Mitsch Johannes , Böhlke Thomas , Kärger Luise 
Published: February 2024

AbstractFiber orientation tensors (FOT) are widely used to approximate statistical orientation distributions of fibers within fiber-reinforced polymers. The design process of components made of such fiber-reinforced composites is usually accompanied by a virtual process chain. In this virtual process chain, process-induced FOT are computed in a flow simulation and transferred to the structural simulation. Within the structural simulation, effective macroscopic properties are identified based on the averaged information contained in the FOT. Solving the field equations in flow simulations as well as homogenization of effective stiffnesses necessitates the application of a closure scheme, computing higher-order statistical moments based on assumptions. Additionally, non-congruent spatial discretizations require an intermediate mapping operation. This mapping operation is required, if the discretization, i.e., mesh, of the flow simulation differs from the discretization of the structural simulation. The main objective of this work is to give an answer to the question: Does the sequence of closure and mapping influence the achieved results? It will turn out, that the order influences the result, raising the consecutive question: Which order is beneficial? Both questions are addressed by deriving a quantification of the closure-related uncertainty. The two possible sequences, mapping followed by closure and closure followed by mapping, yield strongly different results, with the magnitude of the deviation even exceeding the magnitude of a reference result. Graphical consideration reveals that for both transversely isotropic and planar FOT-input, invalid results occur if the mapping takes place prior to closure. This issue is retrieved by orientation averaging stiffness tensors. As a by-product, we explicitly define for the first time the admissible parameter space of orthotropic fourth-order fiber orientation tensors and define a distance measure in this parameter space.
Trace element levels in the muscles of three tern species (Aves: Laridae) from the western Arabian Gulf: environmental assessment and implications for conservation
Authors: Yacoubi Lamia , Savoca Dario , El Zrelli Radhouan Belgacem , Gopalan Jinoy , Nazal Mazen , Lin Yu-Jia , Maccotta Antonella , Hamza Foued , Bhuyan Md. Simul , Arculeo Marco , Rabaoui Lotfi Jilani 
Published: February 2024

AbstractIn the Arabian Gulf (called also Persian Gulf; hereafter 'the Gulf'), Jana and Karan Islands are recognized as one of the most Important Bird Areas in the region. Many migratory breeding seabirds, like the Greater Crested Tern Thalasseus bergii, White-cheeked Tern Sterna repressa and Bridled Tern Onychoprion anaethetus, depend on these islands during the breeding season. However, these aquatic wildlife species are suffering from intensified urban and industrial coastal development and various contamination events including wars and related oil spills. In this study, we used these three piscivorous top predator birds to analyse the levels of 19 trace elements (TEs; i.e. Al, As, Ba, Ca, Cd, Co, Cr, Cu, Fe, Hg, K, Mg, Mn, Na, Ni, Pb, Sr, V and Zn) in 15 muscular tissue samples from Jana and Karan Islands. PERMANOVA analysis showed no difference in contamination profile between sites nor between species probably due to their spatial and ecological proximity and therefore similar levels of exposure to TEs. Comparing these levels with existing literature, our results showed no particular concern for all elements, except for Al (maximum values recorded = 116.5 µg g−1 d.w.) and, in two samples, Ba (33.67 µg g−1 d.w.) and Pb (5.6 µg g−1 d.w.). The results can be considered as an initial step for supplementary evaluations with a larger number of samples and specified time intervals for the collection of specimens. This study provided baseline information on the pollution status of these two ecologically important sites which require a continuous biomonitoring programme.
Orbital septum attachment site on the levator aponeurosis sling for mild congenital blepharoptosis
Authors: Yang Jianwei , Song Lihua , Tan Yan , Zhang Lulu , Wang Juan , Liu Limin 
Published: February 2024

Abstract
Purpose
This study aimed to investigate the value of the orbital septum attachment site on the levator aponeurosis (OSASLA) sling in correcting mild congenital blepharoptosis.

Methods
A total of 60 patients (92 eyes) with mild congenital blepharoptosis (levator function ≥ 8 mm) were treated in our hospital from January to October 2021, and relevant data of these patients were collected. All patients underwent OSASLA sling for ptosis correction. The distances from the superior tarsal border to the OSASLA were measured. The primary outcome was the number of postoperative changes in the marginal reflex distance 1 (MRD1). Pearson’s correlation coefficient between the distance from the superior tarsal border to the OSASLA and the height of the upper eyelid elevated was analyzed.

Results
Fifty-eight patients (89 eyes) successfully underwent OSASLA sling surgery. The preoperative MRD1 was 1.4–3.6 mm (mean 2.1 ± 0.5 mm), and the postoperative MRD1 was 3.4–5.0 mm (mean 3.7 ± 0.6 mm). The distance from the superior tarsal border to the OSASLA sling was significantly and positively correlated with the height of the upper eyelid elevation (r = 0.7328, P < 0.0001). The eyelid margin positions of the patients did not regress substantially during 6–18 months of follow-up.

Conclusions
Compared with the shortening of levator palpebrae superioris (LPS) and pleating of LPS, the OSASLA sling is a less invasive, more effective, and easy-operating surgery for mild congenital blepharoptosis.
Atypical Impact of Action Effect Delay on Motor Performance in Autism
Authors: Karsh Noam , Hartston Marissa , Hadad Bat-Sheva 
Published: February 2024

Abstract
Atypical sensory perception and motor impairments are primary features of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) that indicate atypical development and predict social and non-social challenges. However, their link is poorly understood. Sensory perception is often integrated with motor processes when a sensory effect is temporally contiguous with the motor response. Such sensory-motor coupling further improves motor behavior. Previous studies indicate alterations in sensory perception of action-effect temporal contiguity in ASD, which bares the question of how it may impact motor performance. People diagnosed with ASD and typically developed (TD) participants performed a speeded reaction-time task previously established to capture the facilitating impact of action’s perceptual effect on motor response selection. The sensitivity of this mechanism to delays in the effect was measured, manipulating the action-effect temporal contiguity in a within-subject design. An immediate action effect (compared to a No-effect condition) facilitated response selection in the TD group. This facilitation effect was evident in the ASD group but did not show the typical sensitivity to the effect delay. While in the TD group, RT was shorter in the short (225ms) compared to the long (675ms) action effect delay condition, this distinguished pattern was absent in the ASD group. The findings provide supporting evidence that atypical motor performance in ASD results, at least in part, from an altered sensory perception of action effect temporal contiguity. We discuss the results in light of the reduced perceptual specialization account in ASD and its potential for undermining adaptive sensorimotor processes.
Cu-Graphene water-based hybrid nanofluids: synthesis, stability, thermophysical characterization, and figure of merit analysis
Authors: Shaik Aabid Hussain , Chakraborty Samarshi , Saboor Shaik , Kumar Kodi Rajesh , Majumdar Aaroh , Rizwan Mohammed , Arıcı Müslüm , Chandan Mohammed Rehaan 
Published: February 2024

AbstractHybrid nanofluids are emerging as an alternative to conventional heat transfer fluids and nanofluids for improving the thermal efficiency of heat exchanging devices synergistically due to their outstanding thermophysical properties associated because of the dispersion of different types of nanoparticles as compared to mono nanofluids. This will help in optimizing fluid characteristics in different flow regimes for several applications. However, enhancing the thermal energy efficiency of heat exchangers is challenging owing to the deprived stability of hybrid nanofluids at greater volume concentrations. This work concentrated on the synthesizing, thermophysical depiction, and thermal performance estimation of stable water-based Cu-graphene hybrid nanofluids using very low volume concentrations of Cu and graphene hybrid nanostructures. Cu-graphene hybrid nanofluid was successfully synthesized by dispersing the synthesized Cu and graphene nanostructures (keeping the Cu concentration constant at 0.04 vol % and varying the graphene concentration from 0.01 to 0.1 vol %) in water. Hybrid nanofluids display excellent stability against aggregation for up to 7 weeks, as proven by higher zeta potential values. Thermophysical characteristics of the prepared hybrid nanofluids were effectively measured. The thermal conductivity of Cu-graphene hybrid nanofluids shows exceptional enrichment (~ 35%) at minimal concentrations of hybrid nanostructures. Viscosity of the water-based hybrid nanofluids shows remarkable enhancement as compared to water and represents the increasing trend in viscosity of the base fluid with respect to the increase in concentration of hybrid nanostructures. The thermal and rheological properties of hybrid nanofluids are effectively validated with existing theoretical models. In addition, the specific heat and pumping power of Cu-graphene hybrid nanofluids with respect to the volume concentration of hybrid nanostructures are calculated using the existing theoretical equations. A figure of merit (FOM) analysis was conducted for the synthesized hybrid nanofluids to gauge thermal efficiency and evaluate the applicability of these hybrid nanofluids under laminar and turbulent flow conditions.
$$\beta $$-Ensembles and higher genera Catalan numbers
Authors: Cassia Luca , Posch Vera , Zabzine Maxim 
Published: February 2024

AbstractWe propose formulas for the large N expansion of the generating function of connected correlators of the $$\beta $$
β
-deformed Gaussian and Wishart–Laguerre matrix models. We show that our proposal satisfies the known transformation properties under the exchange of $$\beta $$
β
with $$1/\beta $$

1
/
β

and, using Virasoro constraints, we derive a recursion formula for the coefficients of the expansion. In the undeformed limit $$\beta =1$$

β
=
1

, these coefficients are integers and they have the combinatorial interpretation of generalized Catalan numbers. For generic $$\beta $$
β
, we define the higher genus Catalan polynomials $$C_{g,\nu }(\beta )$$

C

g
,
ν

(
β
)

whose coefficients are integer numbers.
AS-Net: active speaker detection using deep audio-visual attention
Authors: Radman Abduljalil , Laaksonen Jorma 
Published: February 2024

AbstractActive Speaker Detection (ASD) aims at identifying the active speaker among multiple speakers in a video scene. Previous ASD models often seek audio and visual features from long video clips with a complex 3D Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture. However, models based on 3D CNNs can generate discriminative spatial-temporal features, but this comes at the expense of computational complexity, and they frequently face challenges in detecting active speakers in short video clips. This work proposes the Active Speaker Network (AS-Net) model, a simple yet effective ASD method tailored for detecting active speakers in relatively short video clips without relying on 3D CNNs. Instead, it incorporates the Temporal Shift Module (TSM) into 2D CNNs, facilitating the extraction of dense temporal visual features without the need for additional computations. Moreover, self-attention and cross-attention schemes are introduced to enhance long-term temporal audio-visual synchronization, thereby improving ASD performance. Experimental results demonstrate that AS-Net outperforms state-of-the-art 2D CNN-based methods on the AVA-ActiveSpeaker dataset and remains competitive with the methods utilizing more complex architectures.
Simplified Multi-head Mechanism for Few-Shot Remote Sensing Image Classification
Authors: Qiao Xujian , Xing Lei , Han Anxun , Liu Weifeng , Liu Baodi 
Published: February 2024

AbstractThe study of few-shot remote sensing image classification has received significant attention. Although meta-learning-based algorithms have been the primary focus of recent examination, feature fusion methods stress feature extraction and representation. Nonetheless, current feature fusion methods, like the multi-head mechanism, are restricted by their complicated network structure and challenging training process. This manuscript presents a simplified multi-head mechanism for obtaining multiple feature representations from a single sample. Furthermore, we perform specific fundamental transformations on remote-sensing images to obtain more suitable features for information representation. Specifically, we reduce multiple feature extractors of the multi-head mechanism to a single one and add an image transformation module before the feature extractor. After transforming the image, the features are extracted resulting in multiple features for each sample. The feature fusion stage is integrated with the classification prediction stage, and multiple linear classifiers are combined for multi-decision fusion to complete feature fusion and classification. By combining image transformation with feature decision fusion, we compare our results with other methods through validation tests and demonstrate that our algorithm simplifies the multi-head mechanism while maintaining or improving classification performance.
Different patient versus provider perspectives on living with Cushing’s disease
Authors: Halstrom Amanda , Lin I.-Hsin , Lin Andrew , Cohen Marc , Tabar Viviane , Geer Eliza B. 
Published: February 2024

Abstract
Context
Patients with Cushing’s disease (CD) face challenges living with and receiving appropriate care for this rare, chronic condition. Even with successful treatment, many patients experience ongoing symptoms and impaired quality of life (QoL). Different perspectives and expectations between patients and healthcare providers (HCPs) may also impair well-being.

Objective
To examine differences in perspectives on living with CD between patients and HCPs, and to compare care goals and unmet needs.

Design
Memorial Sloan Kettering Pituitary Center established an annual pituitary symposium for pituitary patients and HCPs. Through anonymous pre-program surveys distributed at the 2020 and 2022 symposia, patients and HCPs answered questions related to their own sense, or perception of their patients’ sense, of hope, choice, and loneliness in the context of living with CD.

Participants
From 655 participants over two educational events, 46 patients with CD and 116 HCPs were included. Median age of both groups was 51 years. 78.3% of the patients were female vs. 53.0% of the HCPs.

Results
More patients than HCPs reported they had no choices in their treatment (21.7% vs. 0.9%, P < 0.001). More patients reported feeling alone living with CD than HCPs’ perception of such (60.9% vs. 45.5%, P = 0.08). The most common personal care goal concern for patients was ‘QoL/mental health,’ vs. ‘medical therapies/tumor control’ for HCPs. The most common CD unmet need reported by patients was ‘education/awareness’ vs. ‘medical therapies/tumor control’ for HCPs.

Conclusions
CD patients experience long term symptoms and impaired QoL which may in part be due to a perception of lack of effective treatment options and little hope for improvement. Communicating experiences and care goals may improve long term outcomes for CD patients.
An Interesting Correlation Between the Peak Slope and Peak Value of a Sunspot Cycle
Authors: Pesnell W. Dean 
Published: February 2024

AbstractThe maximum slope of the sunspot number during the rising phase of a sunspot cycle has an excellent correlation with the maximum value of the sunspot number during that cycle. This is demonstrated using a Savitzky–Golay filter to both smooth and calculate the derivative of the sunspot-number data. Version 2 of the International Sunspot Number ($S$
S
) is used to represent solar activity. The maximum of the slope during the rising phase of each cycle was correlated against the peaks of solar activity. Using three different correlation fits, the average predicted amplitude for Solar Cycle 25 is 130.7 ± 0.5, among the best correlations in solar predictions. A possible explanation for this correlation is given by the similar behavior of a shape function representing the time variation of the sunspot number. This universal function also provides the timing of the solar maximum by the time from the slope maximum to the peak in the function as late 2023 or early 2024. A Hilbert transform gives similar results, which are caused by the dominance of the 11-yr sunspot-cycle period in a Fourier fit of the sunspot number.
Differences and similarities in radial growth of Betula species to climate change
Authors: Liu Di , An Yang , Li Zhao , Wang Zhihui , Zhao Yinghui , Wang Xiaochun 
Published: February 2024

AbstractBetula platyphylla and Betula costata are important species in mixed broadleaved-Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis) forests. However, the specific ways in which their growth is affected by warm temperatures and drought remain unclear. To address this issue, 60 and 62 tree-ring cores of B. platyphylla and B. costata were collected in Yichun, China. Using dendrochronological methods, the response and adaptation of these species to climate change were examined. A “hysteresis effect” was found in the rings of both species, linked to May–September moisture conditions of the previous year. Radial growth of B. costata was positively correlated with the standardized precipitation-evapotranspiration index (SPEI), the precipitation from September to October of the previous year, and the relative humidity in October of the previous year. Growth of B. costata is primarily restricted by moisture conditions from September to October. In contrast, B. platyphylla growth is mainly limited by minimum temperatures in May–June of both the previous and current years. After droughts, B. platyphylla had a faster recovery rate compared to B. costata. In the context of rising temperatures since 1980, the correlation between B. platyphylla growth and monthly SPEI became positive and strengthened over time, while the growth of B. costata showed no conspicuous change. Our findings suggest that the growth of B. platyphylla is already affected by warming temperatures, whereas B. costata may become limited if warming continues or intensifies. Climate change could disrupt the succession of these species, possibly accelerating the succession of pioneer species. The results of this research are of great significance for understanding how the growth changes of birch species under warming and drying conditions, and contribute to understanding the structural adaptation of mixed broadleaved-Korean pine (Pinus koraiensis) forests under climate change.
Ethnobiological kinds and material grounding: comments on Ludwig
Authors: Reydon Thomas A. C. , Ereshefsky Marc 
Published: February 2024

AbstractIn a recent article, David Ludwig proposed to reorient the debate on natural kinds away from inquiring into the naturalness of kinds and toward elucidating the materiality of kinds. This article responds to Ludwig’s critique of a recently proposed account of kinds and classification, the Grounded Functionality Account, against which Ludwig offsets his own account, and criticizes Ludwig’s proposal to shift focus from naturalness to materiality in the philosophy of kinds and classification.
In temperate Europe, fire is already here: The case of The Netherlands
Authors: Stoof Cathelijne R. , Kok Edwin , Cardil Forradellas Adrián , van Marle Margreet J. E. 
Published: February 2024

AbstractLandscape fires are usually not associated with temperate Europe, yet not all temperate countries record statistics indicating that actual risks remain unknown. Here we introduce new wildfire statistics for The Netherlands, and summarize significant events and fatalities. The period 2017–2022 saw 611 wildfires and 405 ha burned per year, which Copernicus’ European Forest Fire Information System satellite data vastly underestimate. Fires burned more heathland than forest, were small (mean fire size 1.5 ha), were caused by people, and often burned simultaneously, in Spring and in Summer drought. Suppression, restoration and traffic delays cost 3 M€ year−1. Dozens of significant events illustrate fire has never been away and has major societal impact amidst grave concerns for firefighter safety. Since 1833, 31 fatalities were reported. A legal framework is needed to ensure continuity of recordkeeping, as the core foundation of integrated fire management, to create a baseline for climate change, and to fulfill international reporting requirements.