bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Conversion of biochar into sulfonate-bearing solid acids used for the hydrolysis of tylosin: the effect of aromaticity and degree of condensation
Authors: Xie Qianqian , Yang Xiao , Sarkar Binoy , Dou Xiaomin , Withana Piumi Amasha , Ok Yong Sik 
Published: December 2023

AbstractIn the last few decades, sulfonated carbon materials have garnered significant attention as Brønsted solid acid catalysts. The sulfonation process and catalytic activity of sulfonated biochar can be influenced by the aromaticity and degree of condensation exhibited by biochar. However, the relationships between the aromaticity, sulfonating ability, and resultant catalytic activity are not fully understood. In this study, biochar samples pyrolyzed at 300–650 °C exhibiting different aromaticity and degrees of condensation were sulfonated and employed as sulfonate-bearing solid catalysts for hydrolytically removing tylosin. They exhibited excellent hydrolytic performance and their kinetic constants were positively correlated with the total acidity and negatively correlated with their aromaticity. This study has uncovered the relationship between the structure, properties, sulfonating ability, and subsequent hydrolytic performance of biochar samples. It was observed that the aromaticity of biochar decreased as the pyrolysis temperature increased. Lower pyrolysis temperatures resulted in a reduced degree of condensation, smaller ring size, and an increased number of ring edge sites available for sulfonation, ultimately leading to enhanced catalytic performance. These findings provide valuable insights into the fundamental chemistry behind sulfonation upgrading of biochar, with the aim of developing functional catalysts for mitigating antibiotics in contaminated water.
Graphical Abstract
A New Preparation Method for cis-1,4-polyisoprene/Na-montmorillonite Latex Composites by in situ Solution Emulsification
Authors: Guo Liyun , Zhang Haichang , Hua Jing , Liu Danfeng 
Published: December 2023

AbstractCis-1,4-polyisoprene latex (IRL) is the best alternative to natural rubber latex (NRL), and can help to avoid human allergic reactions caused by proteins in NRL. The mechanical properties of IRL are inferior to those of NRL, however. To address this issue, a novel strategy was developed using an in situ solution emulsification to prepare a latex composite incorporating sodium montmorillonite (Na-Mnt). The properties of the latex film prepared were investigated. The dispersion state of the Mnt in the latex composites and the morphology of the resulting composite films were characterized using scanning electron microscopy (SEM) and transmission electron microscopy (TEM). In addition, the mechanism of Mnt reinforcement of IRL is described comprehensively. The results showed that the Mnt/IRL latex composites prepared were stable and excellent films were formed, similar to those of NRL. The current research provided an effective method for preparing high-performance composite films suitable for use in high-end medical applications.
Exploring SLUG: Feature Selection Using Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming
Authors: Rodrigues Nuno M. , Batista João E. , Cava William La , Vanneschi Leonardo , Silva Sara 
Published: December 2023

AbstractWe present SLUG, a recent method that uses genetic algorithms as a wrapper for genetic programming and performs feature selection while inducing models. SLUG was shown to be successful on different types of classification tasks, achieving state-of-the-art results on the synthetic datasets produced by GAMETES, a tool for embedding epistatic gene–gene interactions into noisy datasets. SLUG has also been studied and modified to demonstrate that its two elements, wrapper and learner, are the right combination that grants it success. We report these results and test SLUG on an additional six GAMETES datasets of increased difficulty, for a total of four regular and 16 epistatic datasets. Despite its slowness, SLUG achieves the best results and solves all but the most difficult classification tasks. We perform further explorations of its inner dynamics and discover how to improve the feature selection by enriching the communication between wrapper and learner, thus taking the first step toward a new and more powerful SLUG.
Identifying Public Tenders of Interest Using Classification Models: A Comparative Analysis
Authors: Figueroa-Gómez Yeersainth , Galpin Ixent 
Published: December 2023

AbstractPublic procurement processes related to tenders represent one of the most important financing strategies for companies in diverse sectors, as they present the opportunity to offer services, supplies and product sales to state entities. Given the high volume of public tenders in the Colombian Government SECOP II database, manually identifying tenders of interest can be a cumbersome and time-consuming process. In this work, we propose automating the identification of interesting tenders by training a supervised classification model. We manually label a sample of tenders published in the National Government open data platform, according to whether or not they are of interest to the Minuto de Dios University, and use them for model training. Several models are evaluated in order to select the best model for deployment, taking into account various metrics to determine best performance according to business needs. The best model is selected based on different analyses, comparing the application of data balancing techniques, the performance of the proposed models, and hyper-parameter settings measured against the test data.
Effects of the dark triad on word of mouth in the luxury context: the moderating role of opinion divergence
Authors: Wien Anders Hauge , Peluso Alessandro M. , Pichierri Marco , Piper Luigi , Guido Gianluigi 
Published: December 2023

AbstractThe study examines the effects of the dark triad traits (i.e., psychopathy, narcissism, and Machiavellianism) on positive word-of-mouth (WOM) intention for luxury products, and the moderating role of others’ opinion divergence (i.e., whether or not a consumer’s opinion deviates from that of the reference group). An experiment with 208 respondents tested the research hypotheses, shedding light on the moderating role of others’ opinion divergence in the relationship between each of the three dark triad traits and positive WOM intention. Results showed that psychopathy is positively (negatively) related to positive WOM intention in the presence (absence) of others’ opinion divergence. Moreover, narcissism is positively related to positive WOM intention when others’ opinion divergence is absent. Finally, Machiavellianism is negatively related to positive WOM intention when others’ opinion divergence is present. These results extend current knowledge on the influence of the dark triad traits on positive WOM intention about luxury products, offering insights for segmentation and targeting strategies in the luxury market.
Shedding light on NGLY1 deficiency: a call for awareness and support
Authors: Hasan Zainab , Warsi Syed Muhammad Farzan Ali 
Published: December 2023

AbstractNGLY1 deficiency is an ultra-rare autosomal recessive disorder caused by loss of function variants in the NGLY1 gene, representing the first known congenital disorder of deglycosylation. The disorder is characterized by a range of core features, including global developmental delay and/or intellectual disability, hyperkinetic movement disorder, transient elevation of liver transaminases, hypo- or alacrima, and peripheral neuropathy. Additional symptoms such as microcephaly, hypotonia, EEG abnormalities, brain imaging abnormalities, GI disturbances, and a history of intrauterine growth restriction have been reported in some cases. NGLY1 gene mutations lead to reduced or absent N-glycanase 1 activity, resulting in the accumulation of abnormal glycoproteins within the endoplasmic reticulum and impairing protein quality control mechanisms. Diagnosis is primarily achieved through genetic testing, while the identification of the biomarker GlcNAc-Asn may facilitate diagnosis rates. Treatment options are currently limited to supportive care, although gene therapy is being developed. To advance understanding and intervention in NGLY1 deficiency, participation in patient registries, natural history studies, and interventional research is crucial. Genetic counseling is strongly recommended for carriers and individuals at risk, with consideration given to DNA preservation for future evaluations and targeted treatments.
Building segmentation from UAV orthomosaics using unet-resnet-34 optimised with grey wolf optimisation algorithm
Authors: Nsiah Richmond Akwasi , Mantey Saviour , Ziggah Yao Yevenyo 
Published: December 2023

AbstractGiven the importance and interest of buildings in the urban environment, numerous studies have focused on automatically extracting building outlines by exploiting different datasets and techniques. Recent advancements in unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and their associated sensors have made it possible to obtain high-resolution data to update building information. These detailed, up-to-date geographic data on the built environment are essential and present a practical approach to comprehending how assets and people are exposed to hazards. This paper presents an effective method for extracting building outlines from UAV-derived orthomosaics using a semantic segmentation approach based on a U-Net architecture with a ResNet-34 backbone (UResNet-34). The novelty of this work lies in integrating a grey wolf optimiser (GWO) to fine-tune the hyperparameters of the UResNet-34 model, significantly enhancing building extraction accuracy across various localities. The experimental results, based on testing data from four different localities, demonstrate the robustness and generalisability of the approach. In this study, Locality-1 is well-laid buildings with roads, Locality-2 is dominated by slum buildings in proximity, Locality-3 has few buildings with background vegetation and Locality-4 is a conglomeration of Locality-1 and Locality-2. The proposed GWO-UResNet-34 model produced superior performance, surpassing the U-Net and UResNet-34. Thus, for Locality-1, the GWO-UResNet-34 achieved 94.74% accuracy, 98.11% precision, 84.85% recall, 91.00% F1-score, and 88.16% MIoU. For Locality-2, 90.88% accuracy, 73.23% precision, 75.65% recall, 74.42% F1-score, and 74.06% MioU was obtained.The GWO-UResNet-34 had 99.37% accuracy, 90.97% precision, 88.42% recall, 89.68% F1-score, and 90.21% MIoU for Locality-3, and 95.30% accuracy, 93.03% precision, 89.75% recall, 91.36% F1-score, and 88.92% MIoU for Locality-4.
Ubuntu in Elephant Communities
Authors: WRAGE BIRTE , PAPADOPOULOS DENNIS , BENZ-SCHWARZBURG JUDITH 
Published: December 2023

AbstractAfrican (Bantu) philosophy conceptualizes morality through ubuntu, which emphasizes the role of community in producing moral agents. This community is characterized by practices that respond to and value interdependence, such as care, cooperation, and respect for elders and ancestral knowledge. While there have been attributions of morality to nonhuman animals in the interdisciplinary animal morality debate, this debate has focused on Western concepts. We argue that the ubuntu conception of morality as a communal practice applies to some nonhuman animals. African elephant communities are highly cooperative and structured around elders; they alloparent, protect their communities, mourn their dead, and pass on cultural knowledge between generations. Identifying these as important moral practices, ubuntu provides a theoretical framework to expand our ethical concern for elephants to their communities. In practice, this will deepen our understanding of the wrongness of atrocities like culling for population management or trophy hunting.
New avenue of diagnostic stewardship: procedural stewardship for recurrent urinary tract infections in female patients
Authors: Corse Tanner D. , Rahmani Linda Dayan , Hasley Hunter L. , Kim Katherine , Harrison Robert , Fromer Debra L. 
Published: December 2023

Abstract

Introduction:
Societal guidelines offer a weak recommendation to perform cystoscopy for female patients with recurrent urinary tract infections (rUTI) of advanced age and/or with high-risk features. These guidelines lack the support of robust data and are instead based on expert opinion. In this retrospective cohort study, we aim to determine the utility of cystoscopy in patients with and without high-risk features for rUTI.

Materials and methods:
We identified 476 women who underwent cystoscopy for the evaluation of rUTI at a single tertiary academic medical center from May 1, 2015 and March 15, 2021. Patients were excluded if they had a competing indication for cystoscopy. Risk factors, demographic information, cystoscopic findings, and patient outcomes were analyzed.

Results:
192 (41.1%) were classified as having complicated UTI. We identified six patients (1.3%) with findings that prompted management to significantly impact patient outcomes. All six patients had high-risk features. 14 patients (3.0%) were found to have mucosal abnormalities prompting biopsy, three of which required general anesthesia. All 14 biopsies were ultimately benign.

Conclusions:
Our findings demonstrate a low diagnostic yield and increased risk exposure for women undergoing cystoscopy for the evaluation of complicated rUTI. Additionally, our observations support prior studies indicating that cystoscopy has limited utility in the evaluation of rUTI without high-risk features.
A comparative cyber risk analysis between federated and self-sovereign identity management systems
Authors: Le Anhtuan , Epiphaniou Gregory , Maple Carsten 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Self-sovereign identity (SSI) is an emerging and promising concept that enables users to control their identity while enhancing security and privacy compared to other identity management (IDM) approaches. Despite the recent advancements in SSI technologies, federated identity management (FIDM) systems continue to dominate the IDM market. Selecting an IDM to implement for a specific application is a complex task that requires a thorough understanding of the potential external cyber risks. However, existing research scarcely compares SSI and FIDM from the perspective of these external threats. In response to this gap, our article provides an attack surface analysis focused solely on external threats for both systems. This analysis can serve as a reference to compare the relevant security and privacy risks associated with these external threats. The threat landscapes of external attackers were systematically synthesized from the main components and functionalities of the common standards and designs. We further present a use case analysis that applies this attack surface analysis to compare the external cyber risks of the two systems in detail when managing cross-border identity between European countries. This work can be particularly useful for considering a more secure design for future IDM applications, taking into account the landscape of external threats.
‘State threats’, security, and democracy: the National Security Act 2023
Authors: Scott Paul F 
Published: December 2023

AbstractThe National Security Act 2023 replaces the Official Secrets Acts 1911, 1920 and 1939, updating, rationalising, and expanding the various offences which they contained and introducing new rules aimed at the same broad end of countering the threat posed to the UK by the efforts of hostile states and their proxies. It therefore represents a legislative confirmation of the ongoing pivot back to ‘state threats’ rather than terrorism as the focus of the national security enterprise in the UK, though now informed by the experience of counter-terrorism law since 2000. This paper assesses the main changes made by the 2023 Act, including in the context of threats to the democratic process, actual and potential, which have been identified in recent years. The argument offered is that the focus of the 2023 Act – encompassing threats to democracy only where they rise to the level of threats to national security – is undermined by the absence of a more thoroughgoing project to protect the democratic process more generally against foreign interference.
Soil organic carbon induces a decrease in erodibility of black soil with loess parent materials in northeast China
Authors: Cui Jingyi , Guo Licheng , Xiong Shangfa , Yang Shiling , Wang Yongda , Zhang Shihao , Sun Hui 
Published: December 2023

AbstractAlthough black soil in northeast China undergoes severe erosion, the contribution of parent materials, mainly Quaternary loess and non-loess sediments, to soil erodibility remains unclear. Considering the inheritance of ferromagnetic materials by parent materials, changes in magnetic parameters can successfully determine soil erodibility on a regional scale with a close climatic background. Here, we analysed the magnetic indicators of 142 samples from the black soil horizon formed on loess and non-loess sediments, covering areas of severe and slight erosion in the region to determine the effects of parent materials on the erodibility of black soil in northeast China. Both low-frequency magnetic susceptibility and frequency magnetic susceptibility (χfd) were proportional to the decrease in erosion rate due to erosion-induced leaching of ferromagnetic materials, and the change in χfd was narrow for black soil with loess parent materials, corresponding to relatively low soil erodibility. Compared with loess, the addition of soil organic matter could stabilise soils against erosion, thereby inducing a decrease in the erodibility of black soil formed on loess. Additionally, sustainable soil management policies to protect black soil from further erosion are necessary and urgent under the pressure of maintaining high grain yields and preventing erosion in northeast China.
What doesn't kill me makes me stronger? Post-traumatic growth and the problem of suffering
Authors: Panchuk Michelle 
Published: December 2023

AbstractThis article argues that the Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG) literature does not support the claim, made most notably by Eleonore Stump, that suffering tends to promote psychic integration that allows for interpersonal closeness with God (or others). Two strains of argument support this conclusion. First, there are problems internal to PTG research, identified by psychologists and bioethicists in the field, that call the strength and reliability of the findings into question. Second, even if successful in what it purports to do, the PTG literature does not support the conclusions that Stump draws from it. Finally, given that we live in a culture that both prizes and moralizes positivity, often at the expense of sufferers, applying this research in prescriptive and normative ways inappropriately circumscribes the post-traumatic journeys of trauma survivors. Before turning to these arguments, I begin by briefly describing the long-term suffering that trauma can inflict in the forms of post-traumatic stress disorder and other physical and mental health effects. This section illustrates the challenge that trauma poses for the projects of theodicy and defence and provides the backdrop against which the PTG literature must be read.
A dynamic perspective on profiling financial-aid eligibility: the case of South Africa
Authors: Whitelaw Emma , Branson Nicola , Leibbrandt Murray 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
The sustainable funding of tertiary education is a subject of significant policy debate worldwide. In South Africa, the need to balance equitable access within a constrained fiscal environment has been a complex challenge. A legacy of racially segregated educational opportunities, together with student activism and protests, has shaped the political economy surrounding tertiary education funding. Policymakers continue to be faced with the challenge of funding students whose household income is too high to meet state financial aid eligibility, yet who struggle to afford tuition and accommodation expenses. In this context, exploring a policy instrument that differentiates students based on multidimensional socioeconomic need is critical. We motivate for a differentiated policy instrument that considers economic uncertainty of households as a dimension of socioeconomic need. A purpose of our paper is therefore to illustrate that income mobility can contribute to household vulnerability, and therefore to funding need. Household income mobility is estimated using a multivariate probit model that explicitly accounts for endogeneity of initial conditions, unobserved heterogeneity, and non-random panel attrition. We operationalise this model as a relevant empirical tool for analysing and understanding the implementation, expansion, and targeting of social policy more generally.
Attitudes toward water resilience and potential for improvement
Authors: Baird Julia , Dale Gillian , Pickering Gary 
Published: December 2023

Abstract

Non-technical summary
There is a global water crisis, brought on by human actions. The ways we make decisions about water must transform to solve it. We focused on the attitudes that people in society hold toward water to understand how close or far away we are from a broadly accepted worldview that supports this transformation (what we call ‘water resilience’). We found that, across six countries in the Global South and North, attitudes showed moderate support for water resilience. Many people also showed potential to increase their support.

Technical summary
Water in the Anthropocene is threatened. Water governance aligned with the complex, dynamic, and uncertain nature of social–ecological systems (a ‘water resilience’ paradigm) is needed, and requires transformative change. We queried the potential for transformative change from the perspective that societal worldviews/paradigms offer an important leverage point for system change. Our study aimed to identify attitudes about water resilience and the extent to which there was potential for greater endorsement of water resilience. We surveyed individuals in six countries using vignettes to determine their level of water resilience endorsement (n = 2649). Overall water resilience endorsement was moderate (M = 2.86 out of 4). In some countries, a vignette related to a personally relevant water issue resulted in higher water resilience endorsement. More than half of the respondents held the potential for greater water resilience endorsement. Those with the greatest potential were younger, had children, considered religion more important, were more likely to live in urban areas, and lived in the same area for 10+ years. These findings provide guidance how to engage with the public (e.g. age-specific or parent-focused framing) to potentially increase societal water resilience endorsement.

Social media summary
General public in six countries moderately supports water resilience to address the water crisis, with room to improve.