bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
The influence of bias correction of global climate models prior to dynamical downscaling on projections of changes in climate: a case study over the CORDEX-Australasia domain
Authors: Wamahiu Karuru , Kala Jatin , Evans Jason P. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractWe investigate the influence of bias correction of Global Climate Models (GCMs) prior to dynamical downscaling using regional climate models (RCMs), on the change in climate projected. We use 4 GCMs which are bias corrected against ERA-Interim re-analysis as a surrogate truth, and carry out bias corrected and non-bias corrected simulations over the CORDEX Australasia domain using the Weather Research and Forecasting model. Our results show that when considering the effect of bias correction on current and future climate separately, bias correction has a large influence on precipitation and temperature, especially for models which are known to have large biases. However, when considering the change in climate, i.e the $$\Delta$$
Δ
change (future minus current), we found that while differences between bias-corrected and non-corrected RCM simulations can be substantial (e.g. more than $$1\,^\circ$$

1

∘

C for temperatures) these differences are generally smaller than the models’ inter-annual variability. Overall, averaged across all variables, bias corrected boundary conditions produce an overall reduction in the range, standard deviation and mean absolute deviation of the change in climate projected by the 4 models tested, over 61.5%, 62% and 58% of land area, with a larger reduction for precipitation as compared to temperature indices. In addition, we show that changes in the $$\Delta$$
Δ
change for DJF tasmax are broadly linked to precipitation changes and consequently soil moisture and surface sensible heat flux and changes in the $$\Delta$$
Δ
changefor JJA tasmin are linked to downward longwave heat flux. This study shows that bias correction of GCMs against re-analysis prior to dynamical downscaling can increase our confidence in projected future changes produced by downscaled ensembles.
Perceptive vs reflective: spectator interpretation of multimodal artworks
Authors: Bramah Oliver , Adams Sue , Morreale Fabio 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThis article presents an empirical investigation into spectator interpretation of multimodal artworks. Specifically, this article explores perception of the artwork in two different sensorial modalities — sight and sound — and the effect of their interaction. We selected four abstract paintings and created four acousmatic musical pieces that were composed to reflect the content of the artwork. We then ran a between-subjects experimental study in three conditions: visual only, music only, and a combination of both. A total of 48 participants completed an online survey in which they were asked to report their interpretations of the shown artworks. Following a thematic analysis on the collected data, we clustered participants’ interpretation into two main categories:reflectiveandperceptive. The combination increased spectators’ attention to the artworks, affected the temporality of the artworks, and created richer understandings of the multimodal works. The study provides knowledge for the inclusion of multimodal experiences in the presentation of art expanding the possibilities for inter-sensory dialogue in the arts.
In the hands of users with intellectual disabilities: co-designing tangible user interfaces for mental wellbeing
Authors: Woodward Kieran , Kanjo Eiman , Brown David J. , McGinnity T. M. , Harold Gordon 
Published: October 2023

AbstractInvolving and engaging people with intellectual disabilities on issues relating to their mental wellbeing is essential if relevant tools and solutions are to be developed. This research explores how inclusive and participatory co-design techniques and principles can be used to engage people with intellectual disabilities in designing innovations in mental wellbeing tangible technologies. In particular, individuals with intellectual disabilities participated in a co-design process via a series of workshops and focus groups to design tangible interfaces for mental wellbeing as their wellbeing challenges are often diagnostically overshadowed. The workshops helped participants explore new technologies, including sensors and feedback mechanisms that can help monitor and potentially improve mental wellbeing. The adopted co-design approach resulted in a range of effective and suitable interfaces being developed for varying ages.
How do family doctors respond to reduced waiting times for cancer diagnosis in secondary care?
Authors: Hayes Helen , Meacock Rachel , Stokes Jonathan , Sutton Matt 
Published: October 2023

AbstractReducing waiting times is a priority in public health systems. Efforts of healthcare providers to shorten waiting times could be negated if they simultaneously induce substantial increases in demand. However, separating out the effects of changes in supply and demand on waiting times requires an exogenous change in one element. We examine the impact of a pilot programme in some English hospitals to shorten waiting times for urgent diagnosis of suspected cancer on family doctors’ referrals. We examine referrals from 6,666 family doctor partnerships to 145 hospitals between 1st April 2012 and 31st March 2019. Five hospitals piloted shorter waiting times initiatives in 2017. Using continuous difference-in-differences regression, we exploit the pilot as a ‘supply shifter’ to estimate the effect of waiting times on referral volumes for two suspected cancer types: bowel and lung. The proportion of referred patients breaching two-week waiting times targets for suspected bowel cancer fell by 3.9 percentage points in pilot hospitals in response to the policy, from a baseline of 4.8%. Family doctors exposed to the pilot increased their referrals (demand) by 10.8%. However, the pilot was not successful for lung cancer, with some evidence that waiting times increased, and a corresponding reduction in referrals of −10.5%. Family doctor referrals for suspected cancer are responsive at the margin to waiting times. Healthcare providers may struggle to achieve long-term reductions in waiting times if supply-side improvements are offset by increases in demand.
Decarbonising bioenergy through biomass utilisation in chemical looping combustion and gasification: a review
Authors: Güleç Fatih , Okolie Jude A. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractBiomass valorisation for bioenergy is crucial for establishing a sustainable low-carbon circular bioeconomy and addressing societal and environmental challenges. As global demand for renewable energy grows, effective waste management using biomass becomes increasingly vital. However, successful implementation requires addressing specific local, scientific, and conceptual challenges, including technological intricacies, resource availability, scalability, and environmental impacts. Advancements in chemical looping gasification and chemical looping combustion are reviewed here as essential components of bioenergy with carbon capture and storage technologies. Chemical looping technologies have substantially contributed to decarbonising various industries, supported by precise trends. The review highlights the potential of chemical looping combustion and gasification in biomass utilisation for generating bioenergy and mitigating carbon emissions. Moreover, the advantages of chemical looping processes enhance their feasibility and applicability across different contexts including (1) significant increase in biomass conversion efficiency through chemical looping gasification, leading to substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, (2) progress in chemical looping combustion, enhancing carbon capture and storage capabilities and contributing to a closed carbon cycle, (3) detailed insights into integrating chemical looping technologies into industrial sectors.
Chromatographic purification of small extracellular vesicles using an affinity column for phospholipid membranes
Authors: Masaki Kanako , Ahmed Abo Bakr F. , Ishida Takenori , Mikami Yuuki , Funabashi Hisakage , Hirota Ryuichi , Ikeda Takeshi , Kuroda Akio 
Published: October 2023

Abstract
Objectives
This study aimed to investigate whether chromatography using an ExoPUA column, an affinity column for phospholipid membranes, could potentially serve as an efficient, rapid, scalable, and reproducible method for purifying small extracellular vesicles (sEVs).

Results
We used the ExoPUA column connected to a fast-performance liquid chromatography system. One-step chromatographic purification of sEVs from culture supernatant using the ExoPUA protocol resulted in an 82 ± 16-fold increase in purity with a yield of 38 ± 5% of sEVs. The purified sEVs contained CD9, CD63, TSG101, and miRNA (miR-21), but not the endoplasmic reticulum protein Calnexin. Transmission electron microscopy indicated that the purified sEVs were intact. The purification performance of the ExoPUA protocol showed superior results in terms of yield compared to that of the differential ultracentrifugation method, the most commonly used method for purifying sEVs in laboratories, and purity compared to that of the DEAE chromatography protocol.

Conclusion
The sEVs were effectively purified in the bind-elute mode and the ExoPUA column can be refreshed and sterilized with sodium hydroxide (NaOH), having high potential for multiple sEV purification in a scalable and industrial manner.
Attribution assessment of hydrological trends and extremes to climate change for Northern high latitude catchments in Norway
Authors: Yang Xue , Huang Shaochun 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe northern high latitudes have experienced the strongest warming in the world and substantial changes in streamflow and hydrological extremes. However, there have been limited attribution studies of changes in streamflow and hydrological extremes in this region. This study provides the first trend detection and attribution assessment on 33 hydrological variables for 50 Norwegian catchments in the period 1961–2019, using observed and simulated runoff data from four hydrological models driven by factual (observed) and counterfactual forcing data. Significant increasing trends are detected in observed annual, spring and winter runoff in most catchments and significant trends towards earlier spring floods are found in 40% of catchments. The four hydrological models show similarly good performance in terms of daily discharge in both calibration and validation periods, and they can reproduce 62% of the observed significant trends considering both trend direction and significance. The counterfactual forcing data were generated by the ATTRICI model, which removed all warming trends and most significant trends in precipitation in the factual time series. Ninety-four percent of the simulated significant trends driven by the factual forcing data are insignificant under counterfactual conditions, with trend slopes approaching zero. Thus, based on the model performance in trend reproduction and the difference of significant trends under factual and counterfactual conditions, we conclude that about 58% of the observed significant trends in Norwegian catchments can be attributed mainly to climate change. The comparisons of the historical extreme events under factual and counterfactual conditions show that more than 65% of floods and droughts in the 2010s could have been magnified by climate change.
Cybersecurity for autonomous vehicles against malware attacks in smart-cities
Authors: Aurangzeb Sana , Aleem Muhammad , Khan Muhammad Taimoor , Anwar Haris , Siddique Muhammad Shaoor 
Published: October 2023

AbstractSmart Autonomous Vehicles (AVSs) are networks of Cyber-Physical Systems (CPSs) in which they wirelessly communicate with other CPSs sub-systems (e.g., smart -vehicles and smart-devices) to efficiently and securely plan safe travel. Due to unreliable wireless communication among them, such vehicles are an easy target of malware attacks that may compromise vehicles’ autonomy, increase inter-vehicle communication latency, and drain vehicles’ power. Such compromises may result in traffic congestion, threaten the safety of passengers, and can result in financial loss. Therefore, real-time detection of such attacks is key to the safe smart transportation and Intelligent Transport Systems (ITSs). Current approaches either employ static analysis or dynamic analysis techniques to detect such attacks. However, these approaches may not detect malware in real-time because of zero-day attacks and huge computational resources. Therefore, we introduce a hybrid approach that combines the strength of both analyses to efficiently detect malware for the privacy of smart-cities.
Breeding for black rot resistance in grapevine: advanced approaches for germplasm screening
Authors: Bettinelli Paola , Nicolini Daniela , Giovannini Oscar , Stefanini Marco , Hausmann Ludger , Vezzulli Silvia 
Published: October 2023

AbstractCrop improvement by means of traditional or molecular breeding is a key strategy to accomplish the European Green Deal target of reducing pesticides by 50% by 2030. Regarding viticulture, this is exacerbated by the massive use of chemicals to control pathogen infections. Black rot is an emergent disease caused by the ascomycete Phyllosticta ampelicida, and its destructiveness is alarming vine growers. Implementing and improving effective phenotyping strategies are fundamental preliminary steps to breed disease resistant varieties and this work suggests good practices adopted for this purpose. Primarily, the pedigree of black rot resistance donors was reconstructed based on the collection of phenotypic historical data, highlighting unexplored sources of black rot resistance. Strains used for artificial infections were isolated, genetically characterized and mixed to avoid race-specific resistance selection. A new inoculation protocol based on the use of leaf mature lesions was developed. Ex vivo inoculation on detached leaves was effective for the evaluation of conidia germination and hyphal growth, but not for disease progression. Finally, the pedigree was used for the identification of 23 genotypes to be tested. Two breeding selections (NY39 and NY24) resulted symptomless in all assessments and a third one (F25P52) also showed very high resistance, although with a greater variability. Other two genotypes (F12P19 and ‘Charvir’) fell within the medium resistance category, making them good candidates in a regime of well-timed preventive treatments. In conclusion, this work was effective to a comprehensive parental line characterization and preparatory towards grapevine breeding programs for black rot resistance.
“Sharp of taste”: the concept of acidity in the Greek system of natural explanation
Authors: Gerontas Apostolos K. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractAcidic substances were known for thousands of years, and their macroscopic-sensory characteristics were reflected by words in most ancient languages. In the Western canon, the history of the concept of acidity goes back to Ancient Greece. In Greek, the word associated with acidity from its early literary references was ὀξύς (“sharp”), and still in contemporary Greek the words “sour” and “acidic” have the same root. This paper makes a short presentation of the appearance of the abstract concept in the works of Plato and Aristotle and relates it, on one side to the already existing theological-philosophical tradition, starting with Hesiod´s Theogony and on the other, to the then available to the Greeks organoleptic experiences of sourness-vinegar and sour milk.
An Efficient Implementation of the Gauss–Newton Method Via Generalized Krylov Subspaces
Authors: Buccini A. , de Alba P. Díaz , Pes F. , Reichel L. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe solution of nonlinear inverse problems is a challenging task in numerical analysis. In most cases, this kind of problems is solved by iterative procedures that, at each iteration, linearize the problem in a neighborhood of the currently available approximation of the solution. The linearized problem is then solved by a direct or iterative method. Among this class of solution methods, the Gauss–Newton method is one of the most popular ones. We propose an efficient implementation of this method for large-scale problems. Our implementation is based on projecting the nonlinear problem into a sequence of nested subspaces, referred to as Generalized Krylov Subspaces, whose dimension increases with the number of iterations, except for when restarts are carried out. When the computation of the Jacobian matrix is expensive, we combine our iterative method with secant (Broyden) updates to further reduce the computational cost. We show convergence of the proposed solution methods and provide a few numerical examples that illustrate their performance.
Purification and Biochemical Characterization of the DNA Binding Domain of the Nitrogenase Transcriptional Activator NifA from Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus
Authors: Standke Heidi G. , Kim Lois , Owens Cedric P. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractNifA is a σ54 activator that turns on bacterial nitrogen fixation under reducing conditions and when fixed cellular nitrogen levels are low. The redox sensing mechanism in NifA is poorly understood. In α- and β-proteobacteria, redox sensing involves two pairs of Cys residues within and immediately following the protein’s central AAA+ domain. In this work, we examine if an additional Cys pair that is part of a C(X)5 C motif and located immediately upstream of the DNA binding domain of NifA from the α-proteobacterium Gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus (Gd) is involved in redox sensing. We hypothesize that the Cys residues’ redox state may directly influence the DNA binding domain’s DNA binding affinity and/or alter the protein’s oligomeric sate. Two DNA binding domain constructs were generated, a longer construct (2C-DBD), consisting of the DNA binding domain with the upstream Cys pair, and a shorter construct (NC-DBD) that lacks the Cys pair. The Kd of NC-DBD for its cognate DNA sequence (nifH-UAS) is equal to 20.0 µM. The Kd of 2C-DBD for nifH-UAS when the Cys pair is oxidized is 34.5 µM. Reduction of the disulfide bond does not change the DNA binding affinity. Additional experiments indicate that the redox state of the Cys residues does not influence the secondary structure or oligomerization state of the NifA DNA binding domain. Together, these results demonstrate that the Cys pair upstream of the DNA binding domain of Gd-NifA does not regulate DNA binding or domain dimerization in a redox dependent manner.
Do boards effectively link firm objectives to CEO bonus performance measures?
Authors: Lenihan Orla , Brennan Niamh M. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThis study examines whether S&P 500 boards govern their firms effectively by linking short-term operational objectives to appropriate CEO bonus performance measures. Our cross-sectional regression analysis reveals that firms with higher growth opportunities place more reliance on sales and growth performance measures in CEO bonus plans. We also find that cash-strapped firms emphasize the use of cash-based CEO performance measures. However, boards of high-cost firms do not tie a greater portion of CEO bonus to measures informative of cost-cutting efforts. This observation is contrary to effective-governance expectations and implies that boards should regularly scrutinize CEO bonus measures to ensure alignment with value-creating firm objectives. Additionally, we report an increase over time in the mean weight of social-and-environmental measures in CEO bonus plans. Boards evaluate CEO performance on sustainability issues by including quantifiable short-term performance targets in CEO bonus plans. However, there is currently a dearth of evidence on the optimality of sustainability linked executive pay in the academic literature. Our evidence on the rising weight of social-and-environmental measures in CEO bonus plans should motivate further research on this topic.
A reduced-order lie group-based race car model for systematic trajectory optimization on 3D tracks
Authors: Bartali Lorenzo , Gabiccini Marco , Grabovic Eugeniu , Domenighini Marcello , Guiggiani Massimo 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThis paper derives the dynamic equations of a reduced-order race-car model using Lie-group methods. While these methods are familiar to computational dynamicists and roboticists, their adoption in the vehicle dynamics community is limited. We address this gap by demonstrating how this framework integrates smoothly with the Articulated-Body Algorithm (ABA) and provides a fresh and systematic formulation of vehicle dynamics. For the first time, we model the car body as the end effector of a serial robot with a floating base connected to the track via virtual revolute and prismatic joints. Our formulation also accounts for the effects of 3D track geometry, providing a natural embedding of the car into the 3D track. We rigorously reconcile the ABA steps with key aspects of vehicle dynamics, including road-tire interactions, aerodynamic forces, and load transfers. The resulting model, simple yet accurate, is a powerful tool to efficiently solve Minimum-Lap-Time Planning problems. To demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach, we show numerical results obtained on the Nürburgring circuit. Our optimization problem is formulated via a direct collocation method and solved using the CasADi optimization suite. To validate the results, we test our reduced-order model against a full-fledged multi-body model recently developed by the same authors. The comparison confirms the validity of our reduced-order model, proving both the accuracy of the solution and the computational efficiency achieved.
Virtual reality evaluation of the spatial learning strategies in gamers
Authors: Lobato-Camacho Francisco José , López Juan Carlos , Vargas Juan Pedro 
Published: October 2023

AbstractPsychological memory tests have traditionally relied on paper-based methods. However, the emergence of virtual reality tools, including adaptations of animal lab tests, has opened up new possibilities for evaluating and enhancing attention and memory processes. The impact of virtual environments on spatial memory remains a topic of ongoing debate. To contribute to this discussion, we conducted a comprehensive study with two primary objectives. Firstly, we aimed to develop a virtual reality tool that could effectively assess search strategies in gamers within virtual environments. To achieve this, we designed a virtual water maze inspired by those used in animal research. Secondly, we conducted a cross-sectional study involving participants to analyze how spatial memory strategies evolve in a virtual environment with increasing gaming experience. The results revealed that participants with more gaming experience exhibited faster and more precise learning in the virtual water maze, along with improved search strategies. Additionally, our study allowed for the evaluation of our software and enabled us to track changes in the efficacy of learning strategies. Overall, this study emphasizes the potential of virtual environments for both evaluation and cognitive stimulation purposes.