bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Survey-based Women Empowerment Index for Afghanistan (SWEI-A): An Explanatory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses
Authors: Dadras Omid , Hazratzai Mohammadsediq 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThis study aimed to develop a country-specific index to measure women empowerment among married women aged 15–49 years in Afghanistan. The data from the 2015 Afghanistan demographic health survey (ADHS) was used to develop the index. The data on 26 variables across eight hypothesized domains related to women empowerment were used in EFA to probe the underlying domains in the data. CFA examined the structural validity of hypothesized factors in EFA. Four indicators were dropped during the analysis either due to the low and significantly different loading on one factor as compared to other indicators or due to overlap with other indicators loaded on different factors. The final model included 22 indicators across seven domains (labor force participation, attitude toward violence, decision-making, access to healthcare, literacy, age at critical life events, and property-owning) and had Cronbach’s alpha = 0.69; indicative of good internal reliability. The goodness-of-fit test represented an acceptable level of construct validity with the likelihood ratio, RMSEA, and SRMR values ≤ 0.05 and CFI and TLI > 0.95. The developed index shares a common ground for future research concerning women empowerment in Afghanistan and can enhance the comparability of the results across future studies. In addition, having a standard index for women empowerment at the individual and country level could help assess the progress and efforts that have been made to achieve gender equality (SDG 5), and guide the direction of future policies and interventions.
Loneliness, Psychological Models, and Self-Estrangement
Authors: Seemann Axel 
Published: October 2023

AbstractLoneliness is often described as an experience that is about the absence of other people. But loneliness also has an important self-directed aspect: it is oneself one experiences as lonely. I begin by taking it that what the lonely person experiences as absent are not simply other people but rather certain kinds of social relationships with them. Loneliness then involves a disappointed self-relation, a form of estrangement from oneself. I substantiate this view by appeal to psychological model theory. Social agents operate with triadic models of their environments that they themselves, together with the other person and the environment, help constitute. Social models are formed on the basis of intersubjective interaction and enable the social agent to contribute to these interactions. Conceptually more sophisticated versions of social models are at play in the conduct of complex social relationships like friendships or partnerships. Participants in these relationships regulate their social activities by applying the model to concrete situations and then acting so as to adjust the social situation to the model they entertain of it. The self thus features twice in the social agent’s experience, as a participant in the interaction and as an observing and regulating perceiver. Loneliness is the result of one way in which social reality can fail to be in tune with the model the person has of it. It involves a discrepancy between the model of her social life, including her own role in it, and how she perceives that social life to be.
Assessing urban-heating impact on street tree growth in Berlin with open inventory and environmental data
Authors: Hurley Alexander Gideon , Heinrich Ingo 
Published: October 2023

AbstractExcess heat (i.e., Urban Heat Island; UHI) and other urban conditions affect tree physiology with outcomes from enhanced growth to mortality. Resilient urban forests in the face of climate change require species-specific understanding of growth responses. However, previous studies assessing growth dynamics were primarily based on remote sensing of communities rather than individuals, or relied on labor-intensive methods that can limit the spatial coverage necessary to account for highly variable urban growing conditions. Here, we analyze growth dynamics of common urban street tree species over time and across space for Berlin (Germany) combining dendroecological (temporal) and inventory assessments (spatial). First, we show annual increments increased across the 20th century for early (i.e., young) growth. Second, we use an approach relying on open inventory data to identify growth potential in relation to excess heat while accounting for age, potential management effects, and the urban fabric (i.e., planting area; building density, height; available soil nutrients) with generalized additive models for the ten most abundant species. Our analyses showed that younger trees may benefit from increased temperatures, while older individuals feature lower growth at greater UHI magnitudes. Furthermore, planting area as well as building density modulate growth responses to temperature. Lastly, we discuss management implications in the context of climate change mitigation, considering that younger trees are predominantly located at UHI “hot spots” and will undergo the observed age-dependent shift in temperature-growth sensitivity. By relying on increasingly available open data, our approach here is or will be transferable to other urban regions.
Symmetry-aware Neural Architecture for Embodied Visual Navigation
Authors: Liu Shuang , Suganuma Masanori , Okatani Takayuki 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe existing methods for addressing visual navigation employ deep reinforcement learning as the standard tool for the task. However, they tend to be vulnerable to statistical shifts between the training and test data, resulting in poor generalization over novel environments that are out-of-distribution from the training data. In this study, we attempt to improve the generalization ability by utilizing the inductive biases available for the task. Employing the active neural SLAM that learns policies with the advantage actor-critic method as the base framework, we first point out that the mappings represented by the actor and the critic should satisfy specific symmetries. We then propose a network design for the actor and the critic to inherently attain these symmetries. Specifically, we use G-convolution instead of the standard convolution and insert the semi-global polar pooling layer, which we newly design in this study, in the last section of the critic network. Our method can be integrated into existing methods that utilize intermediate goals and 2D occupancy maps. Experimental results show that our method improves generalization ability by a good margin over visual exploration and object goal navigation, which are two main embodied visual navigation tasks.
Identification of potential quality markers in Indonesia’s Arabica specialty coffee using GC/MS-based metabolomics approach
Authors: Amalia Fitri , Irifune Tomoya , Takegami Tetsuji , Yusianto  , Sumirat Ucu , Putri Sastia Prama , Fukusaki Eiichiro 
Published: October 2023

Abstract
Introduction
The cupping test is a widely used method for quality assessment of Arabica coffee. However, the cupping test is limited by the low number of certified panelists and the low throughput. Therefore, an analytical-based quality assessment may be a promising tool to complement the cupping test. A present, there is no report investigating quality marker candidates, focusing only on “specialty” grade Arabica coffee from Indonesia.

Objective
This study identified the potential quality marker(s) in Arabica Specialty coffee at different stages (green beans, roasted beans, and brewed coffee.

Methods
The metabolite profiles of ten different Arabica specialty-grade coffees were analyzed with different cup scores using gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC/MS). From the ten samples, green coffee beans, roasted coffee beans, and brewed coffee were selected. In addition, an orthogonal projection to latent structure (OPLS) regression analysis was conducted to obtain a potential quality marker based on the variable importance in projection (VIP). The potential quality marker(s) were validated by GC/MS metabolome profiling and OPLS analysis of different sets of samples consisting of 35 Arabica specialty-grade coffee samples.

Results
In Arabica coffee samples, the OPLS model of the three stages showed galactinol to have a high VIP score. Galactinol showed a consistent positive correlation with cup scores at all stages of coffee production (green beans, roasted beans, and brewed coffee). The correlation suggests galactinol is a potential quality marker after further validation using different samples.

Conclusion
GC/MS combined with OPLS regression analysis suggested galactinol as a quality marker and provide an early screening method for Arabica coffee quality that complements the cupping test performed by certified panelists.
Metabolomic profiling of preterm birth in pregnant women living with HIV
Authors: Tobin Nicole H. , Murphy Aisling , Li Fan , Brummel Sean S. , Fowler Mary Glenn , Mcintyre James A. , Currier Judith S. , Chipato Tsungai , Flynn Patricia M. , Gadama Luis A. , Saidi Friday , Nakabiito Clemensia , Koos Brian J. , Aldrovandi Grace M. ,   the IMPAACT 1077BF/1077FF PROMISE Study Team
Published: October 2023

Abstract
Background
Preterm birth is a leading cause of death in children under the age of five. The risk of preterm birth is increased by maternal HIV infection as well as by certain antiretroviral regimens, leading to a disproportionate burden on low- and medium-income settings where HIV is most prevalent. Despite decades of research, the mechanisms underlying spontaneous preterm birth, particularly in resource limited areas with high HIV infection rates, are still poorly understood and accurate prediction and therapeutic intervention remain elusive.

Objectives
Metabolomics was utilized to identify profiles of preterm birth among pregnant women living with HIV on two different antiretroviral therapy (ART) regimens.

Methods
This pilot study comprised 100 mother-infant dyads prior to antiretroviral initiation, on zidovudine monotherapy or on protease inhibitor-based antiretroviral therapy. Pregnancies that resulted in preterm births were matched 1:1 with controls by gestational age at time of sample collection. Maternal plasma and blood spots at 23–35 weeks gestation and infant dried blood spots at birth, were assayed using an untargeted metabolomics method. Linear regression and random forests classification models were used to identify shared and treatment-specific markers of preterm birth.

Results
Classification models for preterm birth achieved accuracies of 95.5%, 95.7%, and 80.7% in the untreated, zidovudine monotherapy, and protease inhibitor-based treatment groups, respectively. Urate, methionine sulfone, cortisone, and 17α-hydroxypregnanolone glucuronide were identified as shared markers of preterm birth. Other compounds including hippurate and N-acetyl-1-methylhistidine were found to be significantly altered in a treatment-specific context.

Conclusion
This study identified previously known as well as novel metabolomic features of preterm birth in pregnant women living with HIV. Validation of these models in a larger, independent cohort is necessary to ascertain whether they can be utilized to predict preterm birth during a stage of gestation that allows for therapeutic intervention or more effective resource allocation.
Towards use of life cycle–based indicators to support continuous improvement in the environmental performance of avocado orchards in New Zealand
Authors: Majumdar Shreyasi , McLaren Sarah J. 
Published: October 2023

Abstract
Purpose
A life cycle assessment (LCA) study was undertaken for the orchard stage of the NZ avocado value chain, to guide the development of indicators for facilitating continuous improvement in its environmental profile.

Methods
The functional unit (FU) was 1 kg Hass avocados produced in NZ, up to the orchard gate. The baseline model assessed avocados produced in fully productive orchards, using input data collected from 49 orchards across 281 ha in the three main avocado growing regions of New Zealand. In addition, the non-productive and low production years of avocado orchards were assessed using data from four newly established avocado operations spread across 489 ha. Climate change, eutrophication, water use, freshwater ecotoxicity and terrestrial ecotoxicity results were calculated for each orchard. Finally, national scores were calculated for each impact category from the weighted averages of the individual orchard results in the baseline sample of the three studied regions.

Results
There was significant variability between orchards in different input quantities, as well as impact scores. The impact assessment results showed that fuel use and fertiliser/soil conditioner production and use on orchard were consistently the main hotspots for all impact categories except water use, where impacts were generally dominated by indirect water use (irrespective of whether the orchards were irrigated or not). When considering the entire orchard lifespan, the commercially productive stage of the orchard life contributed the most to all impact category results. However, the impacts associated with 1 kg avocados, when allocated based on the total impacts across the orchard lifespan, were 13–26% higher than the baseline results which considered only the commercially productive years of the orchard life.

Conclusion
The study identified the priority areas for focussed improvement efforts (in particular, fertiliser and fuel use for all impact categories, and agrichemical use for the ecotoxicity impacts). Second, the regional- and national-level impact scores obtained in this study can be used as benchmarks in indicator development to show growers their relative ranking in terms of environmental performance. When using the indicators and benchmarks in a monitoring scheme, consideration should be given to developing separate benchmarks (using area-based functional units) for young orchards. It will also be necessary to develop a better understanding of the reasons for the variability in inputs and impacts so that benchmarks can be tailored to account fairly and equitably for the variability between orchards and regions.
Dynamic modeling of photoacoustic sensor data to classify human blood samples
Authors: Pérez-Pacheco Argelia , Ramírez-Chavarría Roberto G. , Quispe-Siccha Rosa M. , Colín-García Marco P. 
Published: October 2023

Abstract
The photoacoustic effect is an attractive tool for diagnosis in several biomedical applications. Analyzing photoacoustic signals, however, is challenging to provide qualitative results in an automated way. In this work, we introduce a dynamic modeling scheme of photoacoustic sensor data to classify blood samples according to their physiological status. Thirty-five whole human blood samples were studied with a state-space model estimated by a subspace method. Furthermore, the samples are classified using the model parameters and the linear discriminant analysis algorithm. The classification performance is compared with time- and frequency-domain features and an autoregressive-moving-average model. As a result, the proposed analysis can predict five blood classes: healthy women and men, microcytic and macrocytic anemia, and leukemia. Our findings indicate that the proposed method outperforms conventional signal processing techniques to analyze photoacoustic data for medical diagnosis. Hence, the method is a promising tool in point-of-care devices to detect hematological diseases in clinical scenarios.

Graphical abstract
Induction of bioactive constituents and antioxidant enzyme activities in Achillea fragrantissima (Forskal) callus cultures using ZnO nanoparticles
Authors: Khalifa Asmaa M. , Eid Mohammed A. , Gaafar Reda M. , Saad-Allah Khalil M. , Gad Dina 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe medicinally effective plant Achillea fragrantissima exhibits a magnitude of pharmacological activities. In this study, the effects of different ZnONP concentrations on antioxidant enzymes, bioactive secondary metabolites, redox potential, and molecular changes in A. fragrantissima callus cultures were investigated. First, the concentrations of the growth regulators 2,4-D and BA were optimized using Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium. The MS medium was then administered with 2,4-D and BA at its optimal dosage (1.0 mg.L−1); afterward, different ZnONP supplements (0.0, 5.0, 10.0, 15.0, and 20.0 mg.L−1) were added. ZnONPs resulted in many physiological and molecular responses. ZnONPs significantly increased POD, APX, and SOD activities. While 10.0 mg.L−1 ZnONPs significantly increased POD and APX activities, 15.0 mg.L−1 ZnONPs significantly increased SOD. However, CAT activity gradually decreased with ZnONPs. Metabolically, ZnONPs increased phenolics, flavonoids, alkaloids, and saponin levels. Phenolic levels peaked at 20.0 mg.L−1, flavonoids at 15.0 mg.L−1, and alkaloids and saponins at 10.0 mg.L−1. Terpenoids were more prevalent at lower levels of ZnONPs. With 15.0 and 10.0 mg.L−1 giving the maximum activity, ZnONPs enhanced the DPPH activity and TAC of the callus culture extracts, respectively. RAPD and ISSR fingerprinting were applied using 12 random and ISSR primers to evaluate the genetic stability of ZnONP-induced callus cultures. Six RAPD primers showed 83% polymorphism while the seven ISSR primers achieved 30% polymorphism. Consequently, DNA mutations may have been induced by ZnONPs and caused DNA fragments to either appear or disappear in RAPD and ISSR callus profiles. The dendrogram based on RAPD and ISSR combined data showed that by increasing ZnONP concentration the genetic differentiation among callus cultures was elevated. In conclusion, higher accumulation of secondary metabolites and redox activity were increased in A. fragrantissima callus cultures using low ZnONPs (10.0 mg.L−1) concentration.
Collection, Thermal Treatment, and Remelting End-of-Life Al Packaging in Norway
Authors: Bao Sarina , Eggen Sigvart , Syvertsen Martin , Kvithyld Anne 
Published: October 2023

AbstractAluminum (Al) is used in packaging due to its density, strength, and preservative qualities. The Norwegian packaging flows in 2020 are shown. The paper outlines a laboratory methodology to evaluate the recycling performance of Al packaging where parameters of collection type and pre-treatment are alternated with measurement of yield and analysis of metal quality. Further, the paper evaluates the recyclability of the Al from (1) sorted at a materials recovery facility for municipal waste, (2) from a co-mingled glass and metal packaging collection system, (3) used beverage cans from a deposit system, and (4) from a novel collection scheme. The benefit of pre-treatment is evaluated for all these systems. The results indicate acceptable yield and metal quality from remelting in all four collections systems, but care should be taken in the comparison. Collection, pre-treatment, and melting processes need to be assessed together. Overall, thermal treatment at 550°C is better than at 300°C, which is also worse than just drying at 110°C. This study aims to contribute to assessing Al packaging recycling in Norway and help future developments.
Predicting adult-age mental health with childhood reading and math disability: do resilience and coping styles matter?
Authors: Aro Tuija , Özbek Ahmet Bilal , Torppa Minna 
Published: October 2023

AbstractWe studied the associations between childhood-identified learning disabilities and adult-age mental health and whether adult-age reading and math skills, coping styles, or resilience influenced the associations. The participants were 159 Finnish adults (60.4% males). Of them, 48 (30%) had a reading disability (RD), 22 (14%) had a math disability (MD), 21 (13%) had RD + MD identified in childhood, and 68 (43%) were population-based controls, matched based on gender, age, and place of residence. At ages 20–40 (Mage = 29), they reported their mental health, coping styles, and resilience, and their reading and math skills were assessed. The hierarchical regression analyses, predicting mental health with RD, MD, and their interaction while controlling for gender and age, indicated that childhood MD predicted the occurrence of more mental health problems in adulthood, but this was not observed in the case of RD. The RDxMD positive interaction effect reflected better mental health in both the RD and the RD + MD groups than in the MD group. Controlling for adult-age reading and math skills had no effect on the association between MD and mental health outcomes while controlling for resilience and coping styles diminished the impact of MD. Strong resilience without the use of an emotion-oriented coping may thus alleviate the association between MD and mental health. As childhood MD can have long-term associations with mental health problems, these issues need to be addressed in school, at work, and in healthcare. Based on our findings, strengthening effective coping and resilience may be one avenue of support.
Assessing geographical differences of the COVID-19 impact on fuel consumption: the case of Italy
Authors: Borgoni Riccardo , Denova Matteo , Maranzano Paolo , Morelli Caterina 
Published: October 2023

AbstractWe propose a spatio-temporal analysis aiming at estimating the variation of gasoline and diesel consumption occurred in the Italian provinces as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic during 2020 and 2021. We employ generalized linear models and generalized additive models to predict business-as-usual per capita fuel consumption by means of socio-economic variables, such as demography, tourist stays, temperature and territorial characteristics. The province-specific impact of the restrictions is then estimated as the difference between the observed and model-predicted values. The spatio-temporal dynamics is introduced by means of appropriate spline basis functions allowing both spatial and time trend to be smooth surfaces. Moreover, we include a smooth spatio-temporal interaction that properly capture the seasonal characteristic of different areas. Our findings highlight that the national mobility restrictions imposed to fight the spread of COVID-19 in the first wave (March to May 2020) reduced gasoline and diesel consumption homogeneously nationwide, with some slight differences between northern and southern provinces. However, the second wave lockdown (Winter 2020–2021) determined heterogeneous impacts across Italian provinces. In particular, we highlight the existence of a divergence between North and South Italy in terms of reaction to the pandemic. Indeed, while southern provinces experienced the weakest and less variable reductions, the northern provinces recorded strong and persistent contractions of fuel consumption. Also, southern and tourism-devoted provinces recovered quickly and compact to the post-pandemic reopenings.