bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
What shapes galling insect–parasitoid interaction networks on closely related host plants?
Authors: Prauchner Carolina , de Souza Mendonça Milton 
Published: November 2023

AbstractEcological networks describe community structure by focusing on how nodes are connected by links (interactions). Related species have higher probabilities of sharing links if interactions depending on phylogeny and/or species are functionally similar; however, if and how this modularity impacts higher trophic levels is still an open question.We aimed to evaluate the effect of different structuring factors on an observed bipartite network of galling insects and associated parasitoids on a system with two closely related and recently diverged plants, where host‐tracking could be underway. We hypothesized that gall structure, galler taxonomy and host plant identity could contribute, from a higher to a lower degree respectively, to network modularity by generating a selective pressure on parasitoids.Samples were collected between May 2015 and June 2017 in the forest areas of Porto Alegre, southern Brazil. Overall, we found 4629 galls of three monophagous and four oligophagous galling species; 664 parasitoid individuals were obtained and classified into 37 morphospecies.We constructed four networks with the collected data by organising nodes according to the tested factors, that is, gall structure, galler taxonomy, host plant identity and gall–plant interaction. All networks were significantly modular, and for three out of four analysed factors (gall structure, galler taxonomy and gall–plant interaction), modularity levels were at least intermediate (at aboutQ = 0.4).Barriers to or preferences for certain interactions appear to be responses to multiple concomitant factors. However, galler taxonomy and host plant identity are somehow stronger determinants for the parasitoids in terms of attacked hosts.
Income inequality and export‐oriented commercialization in colonial Africa: Evidence from six countries
Authors: Hillbom Ellen , Bolt Jutta , de Haas Michiel , Tadei Federico 
Published: November 2023

AbstractLimited knowledge of African historical inequality trajectories hampers our understanding of inequality outcomes today and leads to a major omission in debates about global inequality. Economies in colonial Africa were characterized by a process of export‐oriented commercialization. We hypothesize that this process itself, the capital intensity of the commodities produced, and the relative importance of European and Asian expatriates and settlers in the economy shaped heterogeneous inequality outcomes. We evaluate these hypotheses using 33 social tables from six predominately agricultural countries between 1914 and 1969. Social tables capture income across the full distribution, aggregated in classes. We assess and improve the commensurability of the different social tables. We then apply different inequality metrics, and find that Gini and Theil coefficients and Inequality Extraction Ratios rose over time. Gini coefficients moved in conjunction with the real value of commodity exports per capita. Using Theil decompositions, we observe a trade‐off between inequality among African classes on the one hand, and among non‐Africans and between races on the other. Whenever present, non‐Africans captured a large share of the export profits. Inequality patterns towards the end of the period suggest that capital‐intensive commodities were associated with higher levels of inequality in the agricultural sector.
Sustainable soil management: Soil knowledge use and gaps in Europe
Authors: Thorsøe Martin Hvarregaard , Keesstra Saskia , De Boever Maarten , Buchová Kristina , Bøe Frederik , Castanheira Nádia L. , Chenu Claire , Cornu Sophie , Don Axel , Fohrafellner Julia , Farina Roberta , Fornara Dario , da Conceição Gonçalves Maria , Graversgaard Morten , Heller Olivier , Inselsbacher Erich , Jacobs Anna , Mavsar Sara , Meurer Katharina H. E. , Mihelič Rok , O'Sullivan Lilian , Pulido‐Moncada Mansonia , Ruysschaert Greet , Sviček Michal , Tähtikarhu Mika , Vanino Silvia , Vervuurt Wieke , Zechmeister‐Boltenstern Sophie , Munkholm Lars Juhl 
Published: November 2023

AbstractSoils are the foundation of agricultural production, ecosystem functioning and human well‐being. Bridging soil knowledge gaps and improving the knowledge system is crucial to meet the growing EU soil policy ambitions in the face of climate change and the ongoing trend in soil degradation. The objective of this article is to assess the current state of knowledge, knowledge use and knowledge gaps concerning sustainable soil management in Europe. This study is based on interviews with 791 stakeholders and 254 researchers and on a comprehensive review of >1800 documents carried out under the European Joint Programme on agricultural soils. Despite differences in stakeholder groups, the conclusions are rather consistent and complementary. We identified major knowledge gaps with respect to (1) soil carbon stocks, (2) soil degradation and fertility and (3) strategies for improved soil management. Transcending these three areas, particularly the loss of soil organic carbon, peatland degradation and soil compaction, are most critical, thus, we stress the urgency of developing more models and monitoring programmes on soils. Stakeholders further report that insufficient transfer of existing soil research findings to practitioners is a hindrance to the adoption of sustainable soil management practices. In addition to knowledge production, soil knowledge gaps may be addressed by considering seven recommendations from the stakeholders: (1) raising awareness, (2) strengthening knowledge brokers, (3) improving relevance of research activities and resource allocation for land users, (4) peer‐to‐peer communication, (5) targeting advice and information, (6) improving knowledge access, and (7) providing incentives. We argue that filling and bridging knowledge gaps should be a priority for policymakers and the insights provided in the article may help prioritise research and dissemination needs enabling a transition to more sustainable soil management in Europe.
A novel risk score predicting 30‐day hospital re‐admission of patients with acute stroke by machine learning model
Authors: Mercurio Giovanna , Gottardelli Benedetta , Lenkowicz Jacopo , Patarnello Stefano , Bellavia Simone , Scala Irene , Rizzo Pierandrea , de Belvis Antonio Giulio , Del Signore Anna Benedetta , Maviglia Riccardo , Bocci Maria Grazia , Olivi Alessandro , Franceschi Francesco , Urbani Andrea , Calabresi Paolo , Valentini Vincenzo , Antonelli Massimo , Frisullo Giovanni 
Published: November 2023

AbstractBackgroundThe 30‐day hospital re‐admission rate is a quality measure of hospital care to monitor the efficiency of the healthcare system. The hospital re‐admission of acute stroke (AS) patients is often associated with higher mortality rates, greater levels of disability and increased healthcare costs. The aim of our study was to identify predictors of unplanned 30‐day hospital re‐admissions after discharge of AS patients and define an early re‐admission risk score (RRS).MethodsThis observational, retrospective study was performed on AS patients who were discharged between 2014 and 2019. Early re‐admission predictors were identified by machine learning models. The performances of these models were assessed by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis.ResultsOf 7599 patients with AS, 3699 patients met the inclusion criteria, and 304 patients (8.22%) were re‐admitted within 30 days from discharge. After identifying the predictors of early re‐admission by logistic regression analysis, RRS was obtained and consisted of seven variables: hemoglobin level, atrial fibrillation, brain hemorrhage, discharge home, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, one and more than one hospitalization in the previous year. The cohort of patients was then stratified into three risk categories: low (RRS = 0–1), medium (RRS = 2–3) and high (RRS >3) with re‐admission rates of 5%, 8% and 14%, respectively.ConclusionsThe identification of risk factors for early re‐admission after AS and the elaboration of a score to stratify at discharge time the risk of re‐admission can provide a tool for clinicians to plan a personalized follow‐up and contain healthcare costs.
Non‐discontinuation of antiseizure medication in seizure‐free epilepsy patients
Authors: Doerrfuss Jakob I. , Hüsing Thea , Graf Luise , Ilyas‐Feldmann Maria , Holtkamp Martin 
Published: November 2023

AbstractBackground and purposeIn patients with epilepsy and sustained seizure freedom, guidelines recommend considering discontinuation of antiseizure medication (ASM) based on shared decision‐making. This study aims to identify factors associated with non‐discontinuation of ASM in seizure‐free patients.MethodsRetrospective data from three sites of an academic outpatient clinic were analyzed. Adult patients with epilepsy who have been seizure‐free for ≥24 months on ASM monotherapy were included. The primary end‐point was non‐discontinuation of ASM, defined as no discontinuation or no dose reduction of ≥25% at the last outpatient clinic visit in the ultimate seizure‐free interval. Secondary end‐points included frequency of discussion on discontinuation attempts between patients and physicians, adherence to ASM discontinuation decisions, and post‐discontinuation seizure outcomes.ResultsOut of 338 included patients, 81.7% did not discontinue ASM and did not reduce its dose, 11.5% discontinued ASM and 6.8% had a significant dose reduction. Factors independently associated with non‐discontinuation of ASM were history of focal to bilateral or generalized tonic–clonic seizures (odds ratio [OR] 2.33, 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.08–5.06), history of breakthrough seizures (OR 3.32, 95% CI 1.10–10.04), history of failed attempts to discontinue or reduce the ASM dose (OR 4.67, 95% CI 1.03–21.11) and higher ASM load at the index visit (OR 6.10, 95% CI 2.09–17.78). Discontinuation attempts were made during the entire period of seizure freedom and were most commonly undertaken ≥10 years after the last seizure.ConclusionsThis study provides insights into factors associated with the shared decision‐making process regarding ASM discontinuation in seizure‐free patients and highlights the importance of considering individual patient characteristics and seizure history.
Artificial Intelligence Web Application Firewall for advanced detection of web injection attacks
Authors: Román‐Gallego Jesús‐Ángel , Pérez‐Delgado María‐Luisa , Viñuela Marcos Luengo , Vega‐Hernández María‐Concepción 
Published: November 2023

AbstractCurrently, web services‐based applications have an important presence in public and private organizations. The vulnerabilities that these types of applications may have pose an inherent potential risk to the business model of these organizations. These applications have the inherent risk of being used by organizations in such a way that their activity is affected and they become the main entry point for attackers who want to breach their security. The main barrier to this type of attack are web application firewalls (WAF), which are responsible for processing Hypertext Transfer Protocol requests between clients and web servers, classifying them and rejecting malicious requests. This type of (WAF) applications, for the most part, have regular expressions that correspond to general rules and allow detecting malicious requests that follow a pattern contained in them. However, due to the knowledge of these rules by attackers, it is easy to circumvent security and to impersonate a malicious request by an innocuous request. Therefore, in this article, we present a study of different models based on artificial intelligence techniques as Naïve Bayes, k‐nearest neighbors, support vector machines, and linear regression to test their effectiveness in detecting malicious requests from a synthetic dataset containing more than 100,000 requests. The results obtained show that the implementation of these methods optimize the detection of malicious requests obtaining results between 92% and 99% of success in their classification.
Optimal deep transfer learning driven computer‐aided breast cancer classification using ultrasound images
Authors: Ragab Mahmoud , Khadidos Alaa O. , Alshareef Abdulrhman M. , Khadidos Adil O. , Altwijri Mohammed , Alhebaishi Nawaf 
Published: November 2023

AbstractBreast cancer (BC) is regarded as the second leading type of cancer among women globally. Ultrasound images are typically used for the identification and classification of abnormalities that exist in the breast. To enhance diagnosis performance, the computer assisted diagnosis (CAD) model finds it effective for identifying and classifying BC. Generally, the CAD technique contains distinct procedures like feature extraction, preprocessing, segmentation, and classification. The recent developments of deep learning (DL) algorithms in the form of CAD system helps to minimize the cost and enhance the ability of radiologists to interpret medical images. Therefore, this study develops an optimal deep transfer learning driven computer aided BC classification (ODTLD‐CABCC) technique on ultrasound images. The presented ODTLD‐CABCC algorithm undergoes pre‐processing in two levels such as median filtering based noise removal and graph cut segmentation. Furthermore, the residual network (ResNet101) model can be used as a feature extractor. Finally, the sailfish optimizer (SFO) with a labelled weighted extreme learning machine (LWELM) algorithm is used for the classification process. The SFO technique is employed to choose optimal parameters involved in the LWELM algorithm. A comprehensive set of simulations are conducted on the benchmark data and the experimental outcomes are examined under numerous aspects. The comparative examination represents the supremacy of the ODTLD‐CABCC technique over the other approaches.
Being a parent, but not: A grounded theory of home‐based care
Authors: Cooper Kimberlea , Sadowski Christina , Townsend Rob 
Published: November 2023

AbstractObjectiveThis constructivist‐grounded‐theory study explored how foster and kinship carers conceptualize and experience their role.BackgroundInternationally, amid growing emphasis on home‐based care for children and young people living outside parental care, issues such as carer shortages, dissatisfied carers, and placement instability present significant challenges.MethodSixteen carers (seven foster carers and nine kinship carers) from a regional area in Victoria, Australia, participated in in‐depth interviews following constructivist‐grounded‐theory protocols.ResultsSix categories reveal the central ways carers go about caring for children and young people and the main challenges they face in doing so. The core category of “being a parent, but not” demonstrates tensions that carers experience in trying to establish a sense of belonging and connectedness with a child, within the limits of the Victorian home‐based care system.ConclusionHome‐based carers view their role through a parental lens, but with various limitations that restrict their sense of being a parent.ImplicationsThe current research acknowledges the role tensions inherent within the Victorian home‐based care system and emphasizes the importance of raising the status of foster and kinship carers to provide more recognition of the expertise they hold in the care of children and young people within this complex context.
Sensitivity of step‐stress accelerated fatigue‐life tests on type I censored data—An engineering perspective
Authors: Klemenc Jernej , Nagode Marko 
Published: November 2023

AbstractStep‐stress accelerated life testing is often used to estimate the fatigue life or reliability of structural components. Various methods exist for designing the optimal accelerated life test and estimating the parameters of the fatigue‐life or reliability models. Although they are based on rigorous mathematical formulations, they sometimes result in inappropriate estimates of the model parameters if the experimental data consists of censored data. This article presents a robust engineering procedure for estimating the parameters of the fatigue‐life curve and its scatter, which combines an inverse power law and the two‐parametric Weibull distribution. The presented methodology is tested on use cases that stem from the experimental fatigue‐life data. The results show that the proposed approach can yield a good estimate of the fatigue‐life model. Moreover, it can be further concluded that the sensitivity of the fatigue‐life model to the type I censored data strongly depends on the data scatter.
Mammal communities of primeval forests as sentinels of global change
Authors: Selva Nuria , Hobson Keith A. , Zalewski Andrzej , Cortés‐Avizanda Ainara , Donázar José Antonio 
Published: November 2023

AbstractUnderstanding the drivers and consequences of global environmental change is crucial to inform predictions of effects on ecosystems. We used the mammal community of Białowieża Forest, the last lowland near‐primeval forest in temperate Europe, as a sentinel of global change. We analyzed changes in stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope values of hair in 687 specimens from 50 mammal species across seven decades (1946–2011). We classified mammals into four taxonomic‐dietary groups (herbivores, carnivores, insectivores, and bats). We found a significant negative trend in hair δ15N for the mammal community, particularly strong for herbivores. This trend is consistent with temporal patterns in nitrogen deposition from (15N depleted) industrial fertilizers and fossil fuel emissions. It is also in line with global‐scale declines in δ15N reported in forests and other unfertilized, non‐urban terrestrial ecosystems and with local decreases in N foliar concentrations. The global depletion of 13C content in atmospheric CO2 due to fossil fuel burning (Suess effect) was detected in all groups. After correcting for this effect, the hair δ13C trend became non‐significant for both community and groups, except for bats, which showed a strong decline in δ13C. This could be related to an increase in the relative abundance of freshwater insects taken by bats or increased use of methane‐derived carbon in food webs used by bats. This work is the first broad‐scale and long‐term mammal isotope ecology study in a near‐primeval forest in temperate Europe. Mammal communities from natural forests represent a unique benchmark in global change research; investigating their isotopic temporal variation can help identify patterns and early detections of ecosystem changes and provide more comprehensive and integrative assessments than single species approaches.
Shrinking body size of European anchovy in the Bay of Biscay
Authors: Taboada Fernando G. , Chust Guillem , Santos Mocoroa María , Aldanondo Naroa , Fontán Almudena , Cotano Unai , Álvarez Paula , Erauskin‐Extramiana Maite , Irigoien Xabier , Fernandes‐Salvador Jose A. , Boyra Guillermo , Uriarte Andrés , Ibaibarriaga Leire 
Published: November 2023

AbstractDecreased body size is often cited as a major response to ocean warming. Available evidence, however, questions the actual emergence of shrinking trends and the prevalence of temperature‐driven changes in size over alternative drivers. In marine fish, changes in food availability or fluctuations in abundance, including those due to size‐selective fishing, provide compelling mechanisms to explain changes in body size. Here, based on three decades of scientific survey data (1990–2021), we report a decline in the average body size—length and weight—of anchovy, Engraulis encrasicolus L., in the Bay of Biscay. Shrinking was evident in all age classes, from juveniles to adults. Allometric adjustment indicated slightly more pronounced declines in weight than in total length, which is consistent with a change toward a slender body shape. Trends in adult weight were nonlinear, with rates accelerating to an average decline of up to 25% decade−1 during the last two decades. We found a strong association between higher anchovy abundance and reduced juvenile size. The effect of density dependence was less clear later in life, and temperature became the best predictor of declines in adult size. Theoretical analyses based on a strategic model further suggested that observed patterns are consistent with a simultaneous, opposing effect of rising temperatures on accelerating early growth and decreasing adult size as predicted by the temperature‐size rule. Macroecological assessment of ecogeographical—Bergmann's and James'—rules in anchovy size suggested that the observed decline largely exceeds intraspecific variation and might be the result of selection. Limitations inherent in the observational nature of the study recommend caution and a continued assessment and exploration of alternative drivers. Additional evidence of a climate‐driven regime shift in the region suggests, however, that shrinking anchovy sizes may signal a long‐lasting change in the structure and functioning of the Bay of Biscay ecosystem.
Effects of cerium oxide nanoparticles on adenine‐induced chronic kidney disease model rats
Authors: Kanome Yuki , Gao Jiaqi , Hashimoto Akiko , Ogawa Yukihiro , Nakatsu Masaharu , Kohno Masahiro , Fukui Koji 
Published: November 2023

AimCerium oxide, particularly in nanoparticle form (nanoceria), has been investigated for biomedical applications as a promising new agent for treating several pathologies. The aim of the present study was to characterize the pharmacologic effects of nanoceria in an animal model of chronic kidney disease.MethodsWe created the chronic kidney disease animal model by feeding rats a 0.25% adenine diet. Male Wistar rats were divided into five groups: normal diet, 0.25% adenine diet, or adenine diet containing three different doses or durations of nanoceria treatment. Blood was collected weekly from the tail veins of each rat and analyzed for renal function markers. After 5 weeks, various biochemical markers in serum, plasma, and urine were also analyzed.ResultsIn the adenine‐treated group, body weight was significantly decreased, and the kidneys lost much of their healthy reddish color and became lumpy and white in appearance. In addition, levels of serum creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, and plasma uremic toxins were significantly increased in adenine‐treated rats compared with controls. Renal functional and structural damage in adenine diet model rats tended to be ameliorated by nanoceria ingestion. The high‐dose cerium‐treated group maintained reddish areas in the kidneys, and the increases in biomarker levels of creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, and inorganic phosphorus were markedly reduced, regardless of treatment duration.ConclusionsIngestion of nanoceria may be effective for improving or preventing renal damage caused by adenine. Geriatr Gerontol Int 2024; 24: 88–95.