bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
A global systematic review of frugivorous animal tracking studies and the estimation of seed dispersal distances
Authors: Fell Adam , Silva Thiago , Duthie A. Bradley , Dent Daisy 
Published: October 2023

AbstractSeed dispersal is one of the most important ecosystem functions globally. It shapes plant populations, enhances forest succession, and has multiple, indirect benefits for humans, yet it is one of the most threatened processes in plant regeneration, worldwide. Seed dispersal distances are determined by the diets, seed retention times and movements of frugivorous animals. Hence, understanding how we can most effectively describe frugivore movement and behaviour with rapidly developing animal tracking technology is key to quantifying seed dispersal. To assess the current use of animal tracking in frugivory studies and to provide a baseline for future studies, we provide a comprehensive review and synthesis on the existing primary literature of global tracking studies that monitor movement of frugivorous animals. Specifically, we identify studies that estimate dispersal distances and how they vary with body mass and environmental traits. We show that over the last two decades there has been a large increase in frugivore tracking studies that determine seed dispersal distances. However, some taxa (e.g. reptiles) and geographic locations (e.g. Africa and Central Asia) are poorly studied. Furthermore, we found that certain morphological and environmental traits can be used to predict seed dispersal distances. We demonstrate that flight ability and increased body mass both significantly increase estimated seed dispersal mean and maximum distances. Our results also suggest that protected areas have a positive effect on mean seed dispersal distances when compared to unprotected areas. We anticipate that this review will act as a reference for future frugivore tracking studies, specifically to target current taxonomic and geographic data gaps, and to further explore how seed dispersal relates to key frugivore and fruit traits.
Incidence, risk assessment and prevention of sudden cardiac death in cardiomyopathies
Authors: Polovina Marija , Tschöpe Carsten , Rosano Giuseppe , Metra Marco , Crea Filippo , Mullens Wilfried , Bauersachs Johann , Sliwa Karen , de Boer Rudolf A. , Farmakis Dimitrios , Thum Thomas , Corrado Domenico , Bayes‐Genis Antoni , Bozkurt Biykem , Filippatos Gerasimos , Keren Andre , Skouri Hadi , Moura Brenda , Volterrani Maurizio , Abdelhamid Magdy , Ašanin Milika , Krljanac Gordana , Tomić Milenko , Savarese Gianluigi , Adamo Marianna , Lopatin Yuri , Chioncel Ovidiu , Coats Andrew J.S. , Seferović Petar M. 
Published: October 2023

ABSTRACTCardiomyopathies are a significant contributor to cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, mainly due to the development of heart failure and increased risk of sudden cardiac death (SCD). Despite improvement in survival with contemporary treatment, SCD remains an important cause of mortality in cardiomyopathies. It occurs at a rate ranging between 0.15% and 0.7% per year (depending on the cardiomyopathy), which significantly surpasses SCD incidence in the age‐ and sex‐matched general population. The risk of SCD is affected by multiple factors including the aetiology, genetic basis, age, sex, physical exertion, the extent of myocardial disease severity, conduction system abnormalities, and electrical instability, as measured by various metrics. Over the past decades, the knowledge on the mechanisms and risk factors for SCD has substantially improved, allowing for a better‐informed risk stratification. However, unresolved issues still challenge the guidance of SCD prevention in patients with cardiomyopathies. In this review, we aim to provide an in‐depth discussion of the contemporary concepts pertinent to understanding the burden, risk assessment and prevention of SCD in cardiomyopathies (dilated, non‐dilated left ventricular, hypertrophic, arrhythmogenic right ventricular, and restrictive). The review first focuses on SCD incidence in cardiomyopathies and then summarizes established and emerging risk factors for life‐threatening arrhythmias/SCD. Finally, it discusses validated approaches to the risk assessment and evidence‐based measures for SCD prevention in cardiomyopathies, pointing to the gaps in evidence and areas of uncertainties that merit future clarification.
Understanding the role of environmental temperature on sex determination through comparative studies in reptiles and amphibians
Authors: Akashi Hiroshi , Hasui Daiki , Ueda Kai , Ishikawa Momoka , Takeda Masayoshi , Miyagawa Shinichi 
Published: October 2023

AbstractIn vertebrates, species exhibit phenotypic plasticity of sex determination that the sex can plastically be determined by the external environmental temperature through a mechanism, temperature‐dependent sex determination (TSD). Temperature exerts influence over the direction of sexual differentiation pathways, resulting in distinct primary sex ratios in a temperature‐dependent manner. This review provides a summary of the thermal sensitivities associated with sex determination in reptiles and amphibians, with a focus on the pattern of TSD, gonadal differentiation, temperature sensing, and the molecular basis underlying thermal sensitivity in sex determination. Comparative studies across diverse lineages offer valuable insights into comprehending the evolution of sex determination as a phenotypic plasticity. While evidence of molecular mechanisms governing sexual differentiation pathways continues to accumulate, the intracellular signaling linking temperature sensing and sexual differentiation pathways remains elusive. We emphasize that uncovering these links is a key for understanding species‐specific thermal sensitivities in TSD and will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of ecosystem and biodiversity conservations.
Understanding tax payment behaviour in the West African Economic and Monetary Union: The role of perceived detection capacity and honesty
Authors: Djahini‐Afawoubo Dossè Mawussi 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe analysis of the key factors influencing the perception of tax compliance in WAEMU countries is the primary goal of this study. In particular, the study examines how intrinsic factors, such as honesty and the perception of the tax administration's capacity to detect fraud, affect perceptions of tax compliance in the WAEMU. Ordered probit regression was used to examine Afrobarometer data. According to the findings, honest citizens are more likely to be compliant, whereas a lack of good detection skills is negatively correlated with the perception of tax compliance. The results also reveal cross‐country differences driven by the levels of institutional trust, corruption and democracy.
Isogeometric topology optimization for infill designs of porous structures with stress minimization in additive manufacturing
Authors: Wei Dongyu , Zhu Guoliang , Shi Zhiwu , Gao Liang , Sun Baode , Gao Jie 
Published: October 2023

AbstractPorous structures by additive manufacturing have fascinating and compelling performance compared with solid structures. The stress‐related porous infill designs which could greatly mitigate the effects of the intrinsic high residual stress in additive manufacturing process have gained increasing attention. In the current work, we propose a promising Isogeometric Topology Optimization (ITO) method for porous infill structures with stress minimization to avoid the occurrence of stress concentrations in additive manufacturing. The IsoGeometric Analysis (IGA) and induced p‐norm aggregation are utilized to develop a stress‐minimization topology description model for infill design, which can remove the mesh dependency and offer benefits for improving numerical accuracy and convergence stability. We also introduced global volume constraints to easily control the usage of material and eliminate the over‐fine structures affecting the printing accuracy. Several numerical examples are performed to demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed ITO method on porous infill designs with stress minimization. The laser powder bed fusion (LPBF) technique is employed to fabricate several prototypes, and the performance are evaluated by experiments. The advancements of our work are demonstrated effectively, which is adapted for additive manufacturing and practical application.
Subjective time dilation as a result of entropy
Authors: Zhang Dongxue , Wang Yi , Bao Yan 
Published: October 2023

AbstractSubjective time dilation is an effect discovered using the oddball paradigm, where expanding visual stimuli, but not shrinking ones, induce a prolongation of subjective temporal perception compared to static stimuli. This disparity is often seen as another demonstration of humans' evolved reaction to approaching threats, since visual expansion resembles approaching potential threats and warrants extra attention. In this study, we show that by manipulating the relative sizes of stimuli, both expanding and shrinking stimuli can induce prolongation of subjective time in an oddball paradigm. We propose an alternative explanation based on information theory, linking subjective temporal perception to entropy, an objective property of stimulus that is information uncertainty. Temporal function as a logistic function thus serves as the framework inside which content functions like information processing are able to operate coherently.
The effect of phytosterol supplementation on lipid profile: A critical umbrella review of interventional meta‐analyses
Authors: Wang Le , Feng Li , Prabahar Kousalya , Hernández‐Wolters Benjamin , Wang Zhenxing 
Published: October 2023

AbstractDespite multiple investigations assessing the impact of phytosterol supplementation on serum lipid levels, there is still a great deal of debate regarding the benefits of this intervention in the management of dyslipidemia. Therefore, we aimed at clarifying this dilemma by conducting the present umbrella review of interventional meta‐analyses. Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, and EMBASE were used to search for pertinent publications on the effect of phytosterol supplementation on the lipid profile in humans up to June 2023. To compute the overall effect size (ES) and confidence intervals (CI), the random‐effects model was used. The I2 statistic and Cochrane's Q‐test were applied to estimate the heterogeneity among the studies. Seventeen meta‐analyses with 23 study arms were included in the umbrella meta‐analysis. Data pooled from the 23 eligible arms revealed that phytosterol supplementation reduces low‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL‐C) (ES = −11.47 mg/dL; 95% CI: −12.76, −10.17, p < 0.001), total cholesterol (TC) (ES = −13.02 mg/dL; 95% CI: −15.68, −10.37, p < 0.001), and triglyceride (TG) (ES = −3.77 mg/dL; 95% CI: −6.04, −1.51, p = 0.001). Subgroup analyses showed that phytosterol administration with dosage ≥2 g/day and duration over 8 weeks and in hypercholesterolemic subjects was more likely to decrease LDL‐C, TC, and TG. Phytosterol administration did not significantly modify HDL‐C (ES = 0.18 mg/dL; 95% CI: −0.13, −0.51, p = 258) levels when compared to controls. The present umbrella meta‐analysis confirms that phytosterol administration significantly reduces LDL‐C, TC, and TG, with a greater effect with doses of ≥2 g/day and treatment duration >8 weeks, suggesting its possible application as a complementary therapy for cardiovascular risk reduction. Further studies are needed to determine the efficacy of phytosterols in patients with specific health conditions, as well as to ascertain the adverse effects, the maximum tolerable dose, and the maximum recommended duration of phytosterol administration.
Money Laundering and Financing of Terrorism via the Metaverse
Authors: Mooij Annelieke 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThis chapter assesses the risks of money laundering and financing of terrorism (MLFT) via the Metaverse. This chapter starts in Sect. 4.2 by discussing the three traditional stages of MLFT in relation to the Metaverse. These stages are placement, layering and integration. In addition to the traditional stages of MLFT, the Metaverse poses additional risks to MLFT. The first additional risk identified in this book is the possibility of entering and creating realities fully anonymously. The threats of anonymity in the Metaverse will be discussed in Sect. 4.3.1. The second additional risk is that of the lack of jurisdiction in the Metaverse. This will be further explored in Sect. 4.3.2. The third and final additional risk relating to the Metaverse is that of the use of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). These will be discussed in Sect. 4.3.3.
A retrospective real-world study: the efficacy of immune-related combination therapies in advanced non-small cell lung cancer after resistance to EGFR-TKIs
Authors: Cai Ruoxue , Liu Ying , Yu Mingyan , Sha Huanhuan , Guo Mengya , Chen Yue , Ye Jinjun , Zhou Guoren , Fang Ying , Shen Bo 
Published: October 2023

Abstract
Background
Whether patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) should choose an immune-combination therapy regimen after EGFR-tyrosine kinase inhibitors (EGFR-TKIs) resistance is currently unclear.

Methods
We evaluated 118 NSCLC patients treated by immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs) + chemotherapy (I + C), ICIs + chemotherapy + antiangiogenic therapy (I + C + A), chemotherapy + antiangiogenic therapy (C + A) after inefficacy of EGFR-TKIs. We assessed the objective remission rate (ORR), disease control rate (DCR), and progression-free survival (PFS) of these treatments.

Results
The ORR was 26.1% vs 38.2% vs 16.3% in the three groups (P = 0.093). The divergence in DCR was also statistically significant (65.2% vs 85.3% vs 74.4%, P = 0.209). The median PFS was no statistically significant difference in PFS (3.09 vs 6.31 vs 5.91 months, P = 0.809), but the Kaplan–Meier survival curve of 12-month-PFS indicated an apparent survival advantage in the I + C + A group (P = 0.001). In addition, the I + C/I + C + A group showed higher median PFS than the C + A group in patients with brain metastases (median PFS, 6.44 vs 4.21 months, P = 0.022). The divergence in ORR of patients in the brain group was also statistically significant (P = 0.045). The I + C + A group showed superior efficacy in patients with liver metastases (median PFS, 0.95 vs 6.44 vs 3.48 months, P < 0.0001). The Cox proportional hazard modeling analysis suggested that the age, brain metastases, and liver metastases were all connected with the prognosis.

Conclusions
This study suggests that advanced NSCLC patients after resistance to EGFR-TKIs may achieve better outcomes from triple therapy. Patients with brain metastases favor ICIs-related combination therapies and patients with liver metastases prefer I + C + A therapy.
Annotate and retrieve in vivo images using hybrid self-organizing map
Authors: Kaur Parminder , Malhi Avleen , Pannu Husanbir 
Published: October 2023

AbstractMultimodal retrieval has gained much attention lately due to its effectiveness over uni-modal retrieval. For instance, visual features often under-constrain the description of an image in content-based retrieval; however, another modality, such as collateral text, can be introduced to abridge the semantic gap and make the retrieval process more efficient. This article proposes the application of cross-modal fusion and retrieval on real in vivo gastrointestinal images and linguistic cues, as the visual features alone are insufficient for image description and to assist gastroenterologists. So, a cross-modal information retrieval approach has been proposed to retrieve related images given text and vice versa while handling the heterogeneity gap issue among the modalities. The technique comprises two stages: (1) individual modality feature learning; and (2) fusion of two trained networks. In the first stage, two self-organizing maps (SOMs) are trained separately using images and texts, which are clustered in the respective SOMs based on their similarity. In the second (fusion) stage, the trained SOMs are integrated using an associative network to enable cross-modal retrieval. The underlying learning techniques of the associative network include Hebbian learning and Oja learning (Improved Hebbian learning). The introduced framework can annotate images with keywords and illustrate keywords with images, and it can also be extended to incorporate more diverse modalities. Extensive experimentation has been performed on real gastrointestinal images obtained from a known gastroenterologist that have collateral keywords with each image. The obtained results proved the efficacy of the algorithm and its significance in aiding gastroenterologists in quick and pertinent decision making.
Estimation of uncertainty from duplicate measurements: new quantification procedure in the case of concentration-dependent precision
Authors: Synek Václav , Kříženecká Sylvie 
Published: October 2023

AbstractIn many analytical measurements, the analyte concentration in test samples can vary considerably. In such cases, the standard deviation (SD) quantifying measurement imprecision should be expressed as a function of the concentration, c: $${s}_{c}=\sqrt{{\mathrm{s}}_{0}^{2}+{ s}_{r}^{2}{c}^{2}}$$

s
c

=

s

0

2

+

s

r

2

c

2

, where s0 represents a non-zero SD at zero concentration and sr represents a near-constant relative SD at very high concentrations. In the case of SD repeatability, these parameters can be estimated from the differences of duplicated results measured on routine test samples. Datasets with a high number of duplicate results can be obtained within internal quality control. Most procedures recommended for this estimation are based on statistically demanding weighted regression.This article proposes a statistically less demanding procedure. The s0 and sr parameters are estimated from selected subsets of absolute and relative differences of duplicates measured at low to medium concentrations and high to medium concentrations, respectively. The estimates are obtained by iterative calculations from the root mean square of the differences with a correction for the influence of the second parameter. This procedure was verified on Monte Carlo simulated datasets. The variability of the parameter estimates obtained by this proposed procedure may be similar or slightly worse than that of the estimates obtained by the best regression procedure, but better than the variability of the estimates obtained by other tested regression procedures. However, a selection of the duplicates from an inappropriate concentration range may cause a substantial increase in variability of the estimates obtained.
Small area prediction of proportions and counts under a spatial Poisson mixed model
Authors: Boubeta Miguel , Lombardía María José , Morales Domingo 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThis paper introduces an area-level Poisson mixed model with SAR(1) spatially correlated random effects. Small area predictors of proportions and counts are derived from the new model and the corresponding mean squared errors are estimated by parametric bootstrap. The behaviour of the introduced predictors is empirically investigated by running model-based simulation experiments. An application to real data from the Spanish living conditions survey of Galicia (Spain) is given. The target is the estimation of domain proportions of women under the poverty line.
Buckling morphology of glassy nematic films with staggered director field
Authors: Xia Shan , He Linghui 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe photo-induced buckling of axially periodic glassy nematic films with alternating stripped director domains is explored by the Föppl-von Kármán plate theory along with a modified kinetics approach. The effects of domain widths on the critical light intensity as well as the buckling morphology are examined numerically. It is found that in most cases the buckled film forms regularly aligned dimples and protrusions, but shows large scale bending perpendicular to the periodic axis if the widths of the stripes are nearly the same. In addition, change in light intensity is shown to alter the wavenumber of the buckling pattern. These results are expected helpful to the design of shape-shifting structures with glassy nematic films.
Challenges in achieving educational inclusion and development in the digital era: analysis of emotions, barriers and perceived needs
Authors: Mairal-Llebot María , Liesa-Orús Marta , Latorre-Cosculluela Cecilia 
Published: October 2023

AbstractSociety is currently immersed in a highly digitalised panorama due to Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). The educational process is also in a period of constant technological change and renewal. The transformation of education and methodologies can bring positive benefits for students, but also inequalities. This study aims to analyse the perceptions of families of pupils aged 3–18 on how the use of technology influences their children’s education in terms of emotions, barriers and needs. It is also intended to study whether the perceived barriers are determined by the underlying needs of the households and/or the emotions they experience from the use of technological resources. Finally, the consequences of perceived barriers on needs are studied. For this purpose, 720 parents completed an online questionnaire. The application of the Structural Equation Model reveals that negative emotions have a positive and significant effect on perceived barriers. On the other hand, a positive and significant effect of perceived barriers on expressed needs is found. The results of the research show the inequalities that ICT generate in the school environment, which are determined by the characteristics of the pupils’ family context. Knowing about the situations and perceptions of families is a first step towards carrying out actions to break down barriers and meet needs, the ultimate goal of inclusive education.