bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Water quality, human health risk, and pesticides accumulation in African catfish and Nile tilapia from the Kitchener Drain-Egypt
Authors: Metwally Ahmed A. , Khalafallah Malik M. , Dawood Mahmoud A. O. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractPesticides are toxic and could negatively impact humans and the ecosystem. The Kitchener Drain is among the longest drains in Egypt and carries a wide range of wastewater from the agriculture sector, which contains pesticides and may pollute the ecosystem. Thus, water quality, human health risk, and pesticide accumulation in African catfish and Nile tilapia from the Kitchener Drain-Egypt. The water and fish samples were collected from Kitchener Drain in Kafr Elsheikh Governorate, Egypt, during the four seasons. The results indicated that heptachlor and diazinon were undetected during the four seasons. However, endosulfan, chlorpyrifos, and dicofol were detected in winter and autumn. Only p,p′-DDT was detected during spring. Endosulfan, heptachlor, and aldrin were detected in Nile tilapia during winter. Only heptachlor and aldrin were detected during spring. Endosulfan, heptachlor, dicofol, p,p′-DDT, chlorpyrifos, and diazinon were detected in the autumn season. In summer, dicofol and p,p′-DDT were detected, while endosulfan, heptachlor p,p′-DDT, aldrin, chlorpyrifos, and diazinon were not detected. In African catfish, endosulfan, heptachlor, dicofol, and p,p′-DDT were detected during winter, while chlorpyrifos, aldrin, and chlorpyrifos, aldrin, and diazinon were not detected. In the spring season, endosulfan, heptachlor, and aldrin were detected. Endosulfan, heptachlor, dicofol, p,p′-DDT, aldrin, chlorpyrifos, and diazinon were detected in the autumn season. Similarly, in the summer season, endosulfan, heptachlor, dicofol, p,p′-DDT, aldrin, chlorpyrifos, and diazinon were detected. The sequence of estimated daily intake (EDI) in Nile tilapia during the four seasons is heptachlor > endosulfan > dicofol > p,p′-DDT > aldrin > diazinon > chlorpyrifos. The sequence of EDI in African catfish during the four seasons is endosulfan > p,p′-DDT > heptachlor > aldrin > dicofol > diazinon > chlorpyrifos. In conclusion, the results confirmed the absence of a hazard index for consuming Nile tilapia and African catfish collected from the Kitchener drain.
Languages with more speakers tend to be harder to (machine-)learn
Authors: Koplenig Alexander , Wolfer Sascha 
Published: October 2023

AbstractComputational language models (LMs), most notably exemplified by the widespread success of OpenAI's ChatGPT chatbot, show impressive performance on a wide range of linguistic tasks, thus providing cognitive science and linguistics with a computational working model to empirically study different aspects of human language. Here, we use LMs to test the hypothesis that languages with more speakers tend to be easier to learn. In two experiments, we train several LMs—ranging from very simple n-gram models to state-of-the-art deep neural networks—on written cross-linguistic corpus data covering 1293 different languages and statistically estimate learning difficulty. Using a variety of quantitative methods and machine learning techniques to account for phylogenetic relatedness and geographical proximity of languages, we show that there is robust evidence for a relationship between learning difficulty and speaker population size. However, contrary to expectations derived from previous research, our results suggest that languages with more speakers tend to be harder to learn.
Thermally tunable electromagnetic surface waves supported by graphene loaded indium antimonide (InSb) interface
Authors: Yaqoob M. Z. , Ahamd Munir , Ghaffar A. , Razzaz F. , Saeed S. M. , Alanazi T. M. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe thermal agitation plays a vital role in tunability of optoelectronic, structural and chemical characteristics of the temperature sensitive materials. Graphene enables the THz optics, due to its unprecedent controlling characteristics over the traditional materials. The influence of temperature on the monolayer graphene is very negligible due to its low free charge carrier density, to enhance the thermal sensitivity of graphene, the graphene loaded temperature sensitive material interface has been proposed. A theoretical analysis has been carried out on temperature dependent propagation characteristics of electromagnetic surface waves supported by the graphene loaded semi-infinite indium antimonide (InSb). The InSb has been taken as temperature sensitive material. The Drude model has been used for the modeling of InSb in the THz region while the modeling of the graphene has been done by random phase approximation-based Kubo’s formulism. To realize the graphene loaded indium antimonide interface, the impedance boundary conditions (IBCs) have been employed. The numerical analysis has been conducted to analyze the influence of temperature on the characteristics of electromagnetic surface waves i.e., dispersion curve, effective mode index (Neff), penetration depth (δ), propagation length (Lp), phase speed (Vp) and field profile, propagating along the graphene loaded InSb. In all the numerical results, the temperature variation has been considered from 200 to 350 K. It has been concluded that the graphene–InSb interface provides more temperature assisted tunability to the interfacial surface modes, commonly known as surface waves, as compared to monolayer graphene. Further, the graphene parameters can play a vital role in the dynamical tuning of electromagnetic surface waves in THz to IR frequency range. The numerically computed results have potential applications in designing of thermo-optical waveguides, temperature assisted communication devices, thermo-optical sensors and near field thermal imaging platforms.
Long-term results on the suppression of secondary brain injury by early administered low-dose baclofen in a traumatic brain injury mouse model
Authors: Park Ji Young , Park Junwon , Baek Jiwon , Chang Jin Woo , Kim Young Goo , Chang Won Seok 
Published: October 2023

AbstractSecondary injury from traumatic brain injury (TBI) perpetuates cerebral damages through varied ways. Attenuating neuroinflammation, which is a key feature of TBI, is important for long-term prognosis of its patients. Baclofen, a muscle relaxant, has shown promise in reducing excessive inflammation in other neurologic disorders. However, its effectiveness in TBI remains ambiguous. Thus, our study aimed to investigate whether early administration of baclofen could elicit potential therapeutic effects by diminishing exaggerated neuroinflammation in TBI mice. In this study, 80 C57BL/6 mice were used, of which 69 mice received controlled cortical impact. The mice were divided into six groups (11–16 mice each). Baclofen, administered at dose of 0.05, 0.2 and 1 mg/kg, was injected intraperitoneally a day after TBI for 3 consecutive weeks. 3 weeks after completing the treatments, the mice were assessed histologically. The results showed that mice treated with baclofen exhibited a significantly lower volume of lesion tissue than TBI mice with normal saline. Baclofen also reduced activated glial cells with neurotoxic immune molecules and inhibited apoptotic cells. Significant recovery was observed and sustained for 6 weeks at the 0.2 mg/kg dose in the modified neurological severity score. Furthermore, memory impairment was recovered with low-doses of baclofen in the Y-maze. Our findings demonstrate that early administration of low dose baclofen can regulate neuroinflammation, prevent cell death, and improve TBI motor and cognitive abnormalities.
Synergistic effects of grass competition and insect herbivory on the weed Rumex obtusifolius in an inundative biocontrol approach
Authors: Klötzli Julie , Suter Matthias , Schaffner Urs , Müller-Schärer Heinz , Lüscher Andreas 
Published: October 2023

AbstractOutcomes of weed biological control projects are highly variable, but a mechanistic understanding of how top-down and bottom-up factors influence the success of weed biological control is often lacking. We grew Rumex obtusifolius, the most prominent native weed in European grasslands, in the presence and absence of competition from the grass Lolium perenne and subjected it to herbivory through targeted inoculation with root-boring Pyropteron spp. To explore whether the interactive effects of competition and inundative biological control were size-dependent, R. obtusifolius was planted covering a large range of plant sizes found in managed grasslands. Overall, competition from the grass sward reduced aboveground biomass and final root mass of R. obtusifolius about 62- and 7.5-fold, respectively, and increased root decay of R. obtusifolius from 14 to 58%. Herbivory alone increased only root decay. However, grass competition significantly enhanced infestation by Pyropteron spp. and, as a consequence, enhanced the impact of herbivory on aboveground biomass and final root mass. The synergistic effect was so strong that R. obtusifolius plants grown from initially smaller roots did no longer develop. Inoculating R. obtusifolius with Pyropteron species in grasslands should be further pursued as a promising inundative biological control strategy in the weed’s native range.
Module of Axis-based Nexus Attention for weakly supervised object localization
Authors: Sohn Junghyo , Jeon Eunjin , Jung Wonsik , Kang Eunsong , Suk Heung-Il 
Published: October 2023

AbstractWeakly supervised object localization tasks remain challenging to identify and segment an entire object rather than only discriminative parts of the object. To tackle this problem, corruption-based approaches have been devised, which involve the training of non-discriminative regions by corrupting (e.g., erasing) the input images or intermediate feature maps. However, this approach requires an additional hyperparameter, the corrupting threshold, to determine the degree of corruption and can unfavorably disrupt training. It also tends to localize object regions coarsely. In this paper, we propose a novel approach, Module of Axis-based Nexus Attention (MoANA), which helps to adaptively activate less discriminative regions along with the class-discriminative regions without an additional hyperparameter, and elaborately localizes an entire object. Specifically, MoANA consists of three mechanisms (1) triple-view attentions representation, (2) attentions expansion, and (3) features calibration mechanism. Unlike other attention-based methods that train a coarse attention map with the same values across elements in feature maps, MoANA trains fine-grained values in an attention map by assigning different attention values to each element. We validated MoANA by comparing it with various methods. We also analyzed the effect of each component in MoANA and visualized attention maps to provide insights into the calibration.
Amyloidogenic 60–71 deletion/ValThr insertion mutation of apolipoprotein A-I generates a new aggregation-prone segment that promotes nucleation through entropic effects
Authors: Namba Norihiro , Ohgita Takashi , Tamagaki-Asahina Hiroko , Nishitsuji Kazuchika , Shimanouchi Toshinori , Sato Takeshi , Saito Hiroyuki 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe N-terminal fragment of apolipoprotein A-I (apoA-I), comprising residues 1–83, contains three segments prone to aggregation: residues 14–22, 53–58, and 67–72. We previously demonstrated that residues 14–22 are critical in apoA-I fibril formation while residues 53–58 entropically drove the nucleation process. Here, we investigated the impact of amyloidogenic mutations (Δ60–71/VT, Δ70–72, and F71Y) located around residues 67–72 on fibril formation by the apoA-I 1–83 fragment. Thioflavin T fluorescence assay demonstrated that the Δ60–71/VT mutation significantly enhances both nucleation and fibril elongation rates, whereas the Δ70–72 and F71Y mutations had minimal effects. Circular dichroism measurements and microscopic observations revealed that all variant fragments formed straight fibrils, transitioning from random coils to β-sheet structures. Kinetic analysis demonstrated that primary nucleation is the dominant step in fibril formation, with fibril elongation reaching saturation at high protein concentrations. Thermodynamically, both nucleation and fibril elongation were enthalpically and entropically unfavorable in all apoA-I 1–83 variants, in which the entropic barrier of nucleation was almost eliminated for the Δ60–71/VT variant. Taken together, our results suggest the presence of new aggregation-prone segment in the Δ60–71/VT variant that promotes nucleation through entropic effects.
Thermal treatment of water-soluble particles formed by compounds composed of carbon nanobelts and C60 molecules
Authors: Kurosu Shunji , Hata Sayaca , Ukai Tomofumi , Mashiko Yuta , Choi Sieun , Minakawa Takanobu , Tanuma Yuri , Maekawa Toru 
Published: October 2023

AbstractIt was previously shown that spherical particles are self-assembled by compounds composed of C60-(6,6)CNB-C60, where CNB stands for “carbon nanobelt”, by mixing two individual solutions of C60 and (6,6)CNB molecules dissolved in 1,2-dichlorobenzene at room temperature. The particles are monodisperse in water thanks to their high absolute value of the zeta potential in water. In this report, we investigate the effect of thermal treatment of the particles on some changes in the physical properties and structures. We find that the particles become electrically conductive after thermal treatment at 600 °C for 1 h. We suppose that the change in the electrical characteristics might have been caused by the structural change of (6,6)CNBs into opened-up ribbons composed of fused benzene rings, which construct networks supported by C60 molecules in the particles, judging by the change in the absorption and mass spectra of the particles after thermal treatment and analysis of a possible change in the structure of C60-(6,6)CNB-C60 based on quantum chemical calculations employing the PM6 method, with which it is known that nanostructures such as carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and (6,6)CNBs can be correctly estimated.
Phosphatidylinositolmannoside vaccination induces lipid-specific Th1-responses and partially protects guinea pigs from Mycobacterium tuberculosis challenge
Authors: Eckhardt Emmelie , Schinköthe Jan , Gischke Marcel , Sehl-Ewert Julia , Corleis Björn , Dorhoi Anca , Teifke Jens , Albrecht Dirk , Geluk Annemieke , Gilleron Martine , Bastian Max 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe concept of donor-unrestricted T cells (DURTs) comprises a heterogeneity of lymphoid cells that respond to an abundance of unconventional epitopes in a non-MHC-restricted manner. Vaccinologists strive to harness this so far underexplored branch of the immune system for new vaccines against tuberculosis. A particular division of DURTs are T cells that recognize their cognate lipid antigen in the context of CD1-molecules. Mycobacteria are characterized by a particular lipid-rich cell wall. Several of these lipids have been shown to be presented to T cells via CD1b-molecules. Guinea pigs functionally express CD1b and are hence an appropriate small animal model to study the role of CD1b-restricted, lipid-specific immune responses. In the current study, guinea pigs were vaccinated with BCG or highly-purified, liposome-formulated phosphatidylinositol-hexa-mannoside (PIM6) to assess the effect of CD1-restricted DURTs on the course of infection after virulent Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) challenge. Robust PIM6-specific T cell-responses were observed both after BCG- and PIM6-vaccination. The cellular response was significantly reduced in the presence of monoclonal, CD1b-blocking antibodies, indicating that a predominant part of this reactivity was CD1b-restricted. When animals were challenged with Mtb, BCG- and PIM6-vaccinated animals showed significantly reduced pathology, smaller necrotic granulomas in lymph node and spleen and reduced bacterial loads. While BCG conferred an almost sterile protection in this setting, compared to control animals’ lesions were reduced roughly by two thirds in PIM6-vaccinated. Comprehensive histological and transcriptional analyses in the draining lymph node revealed that protected animals showed reduced transcription-levels of inflammatory cyto- and chemokines and higher levels of CD1b-expression on professional antigen cells compared to controls. Although BCG as a comparator induced by far stronger effects, our observations in the guinea pig model suggest that CD1b-restricted, PIM6-reactive DURTs contribute to immune-mediated containment of virulent Mtb.
A randomized, clinical trial investigating the use of a digital intervention to reduce delirium-associated agitation
Authors: Nicholas Michelle , Wittmann Jessica , Norena Monica , Ornowska Marlena , Reynolds Steven 
Published: October 2023

AbstractWe aimed to determine if a novel digital therapeutic intervention could reduce agitation and unscheduled medication use in an adult delirious acute care population. Delirious participants were randomly allocated (1:1) to receive standard of care plus a single 4-hour exposure to the digital intervention “MindfulGarden”, which uses a screen-based delivery to display a nature landscape with dynamic adjustment of screen content in response to movement and sound or standard of care only. Between March 2021 and January 2022, 73 participants were enrolled with 70 completing the trial protocol and included in the final analysis with a mean age of 61 years and 68% being male (35 intervention, 35 control). Mean RASS was significantly lower across the 4-hour study period in the intervention arm 0.3 (0.85) vs 0.9 (0.93), p = 0.01. Exposure to a nature-based dynamic digital intervention showed benefits in agitation reduction.
Interfacial interaction promoted titanium oxide-based organic-inorganic nanoheterojunctions by chiral host-guest binding
Authors: Huang Juexin , Xia Jingyi , Baddi Sravan , Feng Chuanliang 
Published: October 2023

AbstractAlthough titanium oxide (TiO2)-based organic-inorganic nanostructures attract increasing attention in energy fields, accurate regulation of close contact between TiO2 and organic components in nanostructures that determines their performance is still a critical task. Here, the interfacial interaction in TiO2-based organic-inorganic nanoheterojunctions is promoted by host-guest interactions, which are obtained through chiral recognition between chirality imprinted TiO2 and chiral organic molecules (L-PheAD), leading to their close contact. This close contact is due to the matching structure obtained from a multi-level chirality transfer between TiO2 and L-PheAD during molecular imprinting, facilitating the strong electronic coupling and resulting in a positive correlation between chiral signal intensity and the interface bonding strength in the nanoheterojunction. The tightly packed interface is further confirmed by the enhanced photocatalytic activity of TiO2-L-PheAD nanoheterojunctions. This work creates an opportunity to tailor the intimate contact between organic-inorganic interfaces based on host-guest systems with matched chiral space.
Evaluating the Effect of Voice Quality Covariance on Auditory-Perceptual Evaluation Using a Novel Two-Dimensional Magnitude Estimation Task
Authors: Anand Supraja , Park Yeonggwang , Shrivastav Rahul , Eddins David A. 
Published: October 2023

Purpose:
Most people with dysphonia present with voices that vary along more than one voice quality (VQ) dimension. This study sought to examine the effect of covariance between breathy and rough VQ in natural voices.

Method:
A two-dimensional matrix of 16 /a/ vowels was selected such that two VQ dimensions (breathiness and roughness) were sampled on a 4-point severity scale (none, mild, moderate, and severe). Ten listeners evaluated 480 stimuli (16 stimuli × 10 repetitions × 3 blocks) on one-dimensional magnitude estimation (1DME) tasks and a novel two-dimensional magnitude estimation (2DME) task that allowed for simultaneous measurement of breathiness and roughness.

Results:

Data indicated high intra- and interrater reliabilities for both breathiness and roughness in the 2DME and 1DME tasks. Correlation analyses revealed a strong correlation between 2DME and 1DME judgments for breathiness and roughness (
r
> .95). There was also a minimal correlation between breathy and rough VQ in the 2DME task (
r
< .10).

Conclusions:
Covarying roughness or breathiness had less impact on the perception of the other VQ in natural dysphonic voices in 2DME compared to 1DME. An understanding and quantification of the perceptual interactions among the dimensions will aid in the refinement of computational models and in the establishment of the validity of clinical scales for VQ perception.
Stochastic pre‐disaster planning and post‐disaster restoration to enhance distribution system resilience during typhoons
Authors: Hou Hui , Tang Junyi , Zhang Zhiwei , Wu Xixiu , Wei Ruizeng , Wang Lei , He Huan 
Published: October 2023

AbstractIn recent years, extreme weather events, such as typhoons, have led to large‐scale power outages in distribution systems. As a result, developing strategies to bolster distribution system resilience has become imperative. This paper proposes a two‐stage stochastic programming model aimed at enhancing this resilience. Prior to a typhoon, the first stage establishes a comprehensive wind field model based on extreme value distribution for accurate wind speed predictions. Simultaneously, a refined stress–strength interference model is used to determine the likelihood of distribution line failures. Taking into account the uncertainty of line damage, repair crews and mobile emergency generators are then strategically positioned at staging depots. Following the typhoon, the second stage coordinates network reconfiguration, dispatches repair crews, and mobilizes mobile emergency generators to minimize load shedding and expedite repairs. This model was validated on the IEEE 33‐bus distribution system, coupled with a corresponding transportation network, utilizing data from the 2018 super typhoon ‘Mangkhut’ in China. Simulations indicate that our approach can effectively reduce load shedding and power outage durations, thereby enhancing the resilience of distribution systems.
Fast and accurate method for sub‐synchronous oscillation detection
Authors: Abdeen Mohamed , El‐Sayed Loai Mohamed Ali , Diab Ahmed A. Zaki , Abdul‐Ghaffar Hussien I. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractDetection of sub‐synchronous oscillation (SSO) accurately within a short time poses a big challenge to avoiding the potential risks of the SSO phenomenon. This paper proposes a novel technique for detecting the SSO phenomenon based on identifying the SSO frequency and magnitude rather than applying fast Fourier transform. The voltage magnitude signal is used as an input signal. The SSO magnitude is identified based on estimating the max value of the voltage magnitude signal, whereas the time corresponding to the zero crossings is defined for calculating the SSO frequency. In order to confirm its effectiveness, the proposed technique is tested with different SSO types (induction generator effect, torsional interaction, and sub‐synchronous control interaction). Moreover, the impact of the series compensation level change on the proposed method performance is investigated. The results prove the effectiveness and the speed of the proposed method in all studied cases. Compared to the traditional methods within a wide range of compensation levels, the proposed technique is fast and accurate. The IEEE first benchmark model is adapted with a doubly‐fed induction generator in the MATLAB program to analyze the performance of the proposed method for detecting the SSO phenomenon.