bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effect of oligomeric lactic acid plasticizer on the mechanical recycling of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate)
Authors: Bernabé Ignacio , Amarilla Erika , de la Orden María Ulagares , Martínez Urreaga Joaquín , Beltrán Freddys R. 
Published: January 2024

AbstractBioplastics such as polyhydroxyalkanoates (PHA) emerge as an interesting alternative to conventional fossil fuel-based plastics and as part of the solution their associated environmental issues. Nevertheless, end-of-life scenarios are still a major concern, especially within a circular economy framework. When feasible, mechanical recycling appears as the best alternative, since it saves raw materials and energy. However, the viability of mechanical recycling can be compromised by the degradation of the plastic during its use and during the recycling process and by the presence of certain additives. Consequently, the main objective of this work is to study the effect of accelerated ageing and mechanical recycling on the structure and properties of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) (PHBV)-based formulations. The obtained results suggest that accelerated ageing and mechanical recycling led only to a slight degradation of the pure PHBV material, along with small variations in the thermal and mechanical properties. However, the plasticized PHBV formulations showed a more severe degradation and increased thermal stability and stiffness, which could be result of the elimination of the plasticizer during the recycling. Overall, mechanical recycling seems to be an interesting valorization strategy for PHBV wastes, although especial attention should be paid to the additives present in the materials.
How do energy consumption, globalization, and income inequality affect environmental quality across growth regimes?
Authors: Çatık Abdurrahman Nazif , Bucak Çağla , Ballı Esra , Manga Muge , Destek Mehmet Akif 
Published: January 2024

AbstractThis paper investigates the impacts of renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption, income inequality, and globalization on the ecological footprints of 49 countries for the period of 1995–2018. Panel cointegration test reveals a long-run relationship between the variables. Long-run parameter estimates derived from AMG and CCEMG, increasing income and nonrenewable energy consumption, have a significant positive impact on the ecological footprint, while countries that consume more renewable energy have seen an improvement in the quality of the environment. Conversely, neither income inequality nor globalization has a significant effect on national EFs. Evidence from the estimation of the panel threshold error correction model, where GDP growth is used as the transition variable, indicates a significant threshold effect, which supports a nonlinear relationship among the variables by identifying two distinct growth regimes: lower and upper. For the estimation sample, the positive and significant parameter estimates for economic growth in both growth regimes do not support the EKC hypothesis. The results indicate that renewable and nonrenewable energy consumption has a larger impact on the EF in the upper than lower growth regime. The threshold estimates are in line with the linear long-run estimates that do not indicate that income inequality has a significant impact on ecological footprint. However, globalization appears to negatively affect environmental quality in the lower growth regime.
High Child Mortality and Interventions Coverage in the City of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: Are the Poorest Paying an Urban Penalty?
Authors: Kagoye Sophia , Minja Jacqueline , Ricardo Luiza , Shabani Josephine , Bajaria Shraddha , Msuya Sia , Hanson Claudia , Mahundi Masoud , Msuya Ibrahim , Simba Daudi , Ismail Habib , Boerma Ties , Masanja Honorati 
Published: January 2024

AbstractThe ‘urban penalty’ in health refers to the loss of a presumed survival advantage due to adverse consequences of urban life. This study investigated the levels and trends in neonatal, post-neonatal and under-5 mortality rate and key determinants of child survival using data from Tanzania Demographic and Health Surveys (TDHS) (2004/05, 2010 and 2015/16), AIDS Indicator Survey (AIS), Malaria Indicator survey (MIS) and health facility data in Tanzania mainland. We compared Dar es Salaam results with other urban and rural areas in Tanzania mainland, and between the poorest and richest wealth tertiles within Dar es Salaam. Under-5 mortality declined by 41% between TDHS 2004/05 and 2015/2016 from 132 to 78 deaths per 1000 live births, with a greater decline in rural areas compared to Dar es Salaam and other urban areas. Neonatal mortality rate was consistently higher in Dar es Salaam during the same period, with the widest gap (> 50%) between Dar es Salaam and rural areas in TDHS 2015/2016. Coverage of maternal, new-born and child health interventions as well as living conditions were generally better in Dar es Salaam than elsewhere. Within the city, neonatal mortality was 63 and 44 per 1000 live births in the poorest 33% and richest 33%, respectively. The poorest had higher rates of stunting, more overcrowding, inadequate sanitation and lower coverage of institutional deliveries and C-section rate, compared to richest tertile. Children in Dar es Salaam do not have improved survival chances compared to rural children, despite better living conditions and higher coverage of essential health interventions. This urban penalty is higher among children of the poorest households which could only partly be explained by the available indicators of coverage of services and living conditions. Further research is urgently needed to understand the reasons for the urban penalty, including quality of care, health behaviours and environmental conditions.
The Use of Pre- and Peri-Procedural Imaging During VT Ablation
Authors: Whitaker John , Rajani Ronak , Ismail Tevfik F. , Wright Matthew , Zei Paul C. 
Published: January 2024

Abstract
Purpose of review
Ventricular arrhythmias, including ventricular tachycardia (VT), ventricular fibrillation (VF), and premature ventricular complexes (PVCs), may occur in structurally normal hearts and in the context of structural heart disease. In those patients with recurrent arrhythmias despite medical therapy, catheter ablation may be considered. To successfully suppress ventricular arrhythmias, an understanding of the substrate for the arrhythmias is crucial.

Recent findings
Advances in cross-sectional imaging used prior to VT ablation permit accurate localisation of fibrosis that represents the substrate for VT, allowing an operator to focus the electrophysiologic assessment during a procedure and effectively target all relevant parts of the substrate. In addition, the use of imaging during a procedure allows registration of pre-procedural cross-sectional imaging as well as real-time substrate assessment and allows the operator to visualise tissue-catheter contact for the most effective lesion delivery.

Summary
In this review, the role of pre-procedural cardiac computed tomographic (CCT) imaging and cardiovascular magnetic resonance (CMR) imaging and the peri-procedural use of intra-cardiac echocardiography (ICE) are discussed.
Cultural Differences in the Perception of (Self-)sexualizing Instagram Content and Their Associations with Sexism and Self-sexualization Tendencies: Evidence from Six Countries
Authors: Plieger Thomas , Groote Olivia , Hartstein Alena , Fotiadis Roya , Griesberg Mona Corinna , Onwubiko Stephanie , Pöttgen Katja , Sever Gamze , Reuter Martin 
Published: January 2024

AbstractThe use of social networking sites is associated with objectification tendencies of the self and others. However, only few studies investigate how users actually perceive sexualizing content on Instagram. In a recent study, we showed that perceiving sexy Instagram posts as appropriate and less revealing goes along with self-sexualization in German participants and that Instagram users tend to be more sexist than non-users. The present study aimed to replicate these findings in a cross-nations study to test for cultural differences. We asked N = 2055 persons from six different countries (Germany, Spain, United States, Italy, Turkey, and South Africa) to rate sexy Instagram posts with respect to revealing clothing, appropriateness, and attractiveness and collected self-report data on sexism, enjoyment of sexualization, and Instagram usage behavior. Our results show associations between the perception of the presented posts as appropriate, sexism, and self-sexualizing tendencies in all countries. Strength of the associations are mainly the same across all countries. Participants from Spain, the U.S., and Italy reported the lowest sexism scores and the most liberal ratings for the presented photos. We find no substantial main effect of mere Instagram use on sexism or photo ratings. The results suggest that Instagram use does not necessarily alter the perception of sexualized stimuli, but that greater appreciation of self-sexualizing others goes along with self-sexualization. This effect seems to be culturally invariant. The found mean differences between countries are plausible, but future studies should aim to obtain representative samples to allow serious assumptions about cultural effects.
Overview and Discussion of the Competition on Legal Information, Extraction/Entailment (COLIEE) 2023
Authors: Goebel Randy , Kano Yoshinobu , Kim Mi-Young , Rabelo Juliano , Satoh Ken , Yoshioka Masaharu 
Published: January 2024

AbstractWe summarize the 10th Competition on Legal Information Extraction and Entailment. In this tenth edition, the competition included four tasks on case law and statute law. The case law component includes an information retrieval task (Task 1), and the confirmation of an entailment relation between an existing case and a selected unseen case (Task 2). The statute law component includes an information retrieval task (Task 3), and an entailment/question-answering task based on retrieved civil code statutes (Task 4). Participation was open to any group based on any approach. Ten different teams participated in the case law competition tasks, most of them in more than one task. We received results from 8 teams for Task 1 (22 runs) and seven teams for Task 2 (18 runs). On the statute law task, there were 9 different teams participating, most in more than one task. 6 teams submitted a total of 16 runs for Task 3, and 9 teams submitted a total of 26 runs for Task 4. We describe the variety of approaches, our official evaluation, and analysis of our data and submission results.
Increase of Plasmodium falciparum parasites carrying lumefantrine-tolerance molecular markers and lack of South East Asian pfk13 artemisinin-resistance mutations in samples collected from 2013 to 2016 in Côte d’Ivoire
Authors: Konaté-Touré Abibatou , Gnagne Akpa Paterne , Bedia-Tanoh Akoua Valérie , Menan Eby Ignace Hervé , Yavo William 
Published: January 2024

AbstractOne of the major obstacles to malaria elimination in the world is the resistance in Plasmodium falciparum to most antimalarial drugs. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of molecular markers of antimalarial drugs resistance in Côte d’Ivoire. Samples were collected from 2013 to 2016 from asymptomatic and symptomatic subjects in Abengourou, Abidjan, Grand Bassam, and San Pedro. A total of 704 participants aged between 1 year and 65 years (Mean age: 9 years ± 7.7) were enrolled. All the dried filter paper blood spots were genotyped by sequencing. Plasmodium falciparum kelch propeller domain 13 (pfk13) gene were analyzed for all the samples, while 344 samples were examined for Plasmodium falciparum multi-drug resistance 1 (pfmdr1). Overall, the success rate of molecular tests was 98.8% (340/344), 99.1% (341/344), and 94.3% (664/704) for pfmdr1 N86Y, pfmdr1 Y184F, and pfk13 genes respectively. Molecular analysis revealed twenty (5.9%; 20/340) and 219 (64.2%; 219/341) mutant alleles for pfmdr1 86Y and pfmdr1 184 F, respectively. Twenty-nine mutations in pfk13 gene (4.4%; 29/664) with 2.7% (18/664) of non-synonymous mutations was found. None of the mutations previously described in South East Asia (SEA) involved in P. falciparum resistance to artemisinin derivatives were observed in this study. According to year of collection, a decrease of the prevalence of pfk13 mutation (from 3.6 to 1.8%) and pfmdr1 N86Y mutation (from 8.5 to 4.5%) and an increase of mutant allele of pfmdr1 Y184F proportion (from 39.8 to 66.4%) were found. Comparing to previous studies in the country, this study showed an increase in lumefantrine tolerance of P. falciparum strains. This demonstrates the importance of establishing a strong system for molecular surveillance of malaria in Côte d’Ivoire.
Uncertainties and robustness with regard to the safety of a repository for high-level radioactive waste: introduction of a research initiative
Authors: Kurgyis Kata , Achtziger-Zupančič Peter , Bjorge Merle , Boxberg Marc S. , Broggi Matteo , Buchwald Jörg , Ernst Oliver G. , Flügge Judith , Ganopolski Andrey , Graf Thomas , Kortenbruck Philipp , Kowalski Julia , Kreye Phillip , Kukla Peter , Mayr Sibylle , Miro Shorash , Nagel Thomas , Nowak Wolfgang , Oladyshkin Sergey , Renz Alexander , Rienäcker-Burschil Julia , Röhlig Klaus-Jürgen , Sträter Oliver , Thiedau Jan , Wagner Florian , Wellmann Florian , Wengler Marc , Wolf Jens , Rühaak Wolfram 
Published: January 2024

AbstractThe Federal Company for Radioactive Waste Disposal (BGE mbH) is tasked with the selection of a site for a high-level radioactive waste repository in Germany in accordance with the Repository Site Selection Act. In September 2020, 90 areas with favorable geological conditions were identified as part of step 1 in phase 1 of the Site Selection Act. Representative preliminary safety analyses are to be carried out next to support decisions on the question, which siting regions should undergo surface-based exploration. These safety analyses are supported by numerical simulations building on geoscientific and technical data. The models that are taken into account are associated with various sources of uncertainties. Addressing these uncertainties and the robustness of the decisions pertaining to sites and design choices is a central component of the site selection process. In that context, important research objectives are associated with the question of how uncertainty should be treated through the various data collection, modeling and decision-making processes of the site selection procedure, and how the robustness of the repository system should be improved. BGE, therefore, established an interdisciplinary research cluster to identify open questions and to address the gaps in knowledge in six complementary research projects. In this paper, we introduce the overall purpose and the five thematic groups that constitute this research cluster. We discuss the specific questions addressed as well as the proposed methodologies in the context of the challenges of the site selection process in Germany. Finally, some conclusions are drawn on the potential benefits of a large method-centered research cluster in terms of simulation data management.
Water consumption time series forecasting in urban centers using deep neural networks
Authors: García-Soto C. G. , Torres J. F. , Zamora-Izquierdo M. A. , Palma J. , Troncoso A. 
Published: January 2024

AbstractThe time series analysis and prediction techniques are highly valued in many application fields, such as economy, medicine and biology, environmental sciences or meteorology, among others. In the last years, there is a growing interest in the sustainable and optimal management of a resource as scarce as essential: the water. Forecasting techniques for water management can be used for different time horizons from the planning of constructions that can respond to long-term needs, to the detection of anomalies in the operation of facilities or the optimization of the operation in the short and medium term. In this paper, a deep neural network is specifically designed to predict water consumption in the short-term. Results are reported using the time series of water consumption for a year and a half measured with 10-min frequency in the city of Murcia, the seventh largest city in Spain by number of inhabitants. The results are compared with K Nearest Neighbors, Random Forest, Extreme Gradient Boosting, Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average and two persistence models as naive methods, showing the proposed deep learning model the most accurate results.
Investigation the changes in the concentration of dye organic pollutant using magnetic titania nanoparticles incorporated on surface of graphene oxide
Authors: Abbasi Sedigheh 
Published: January 2024

AbstractIn this study, in order to prepare magnetic nanocomposite, TiO2 nanoparticles and Fe3O4 nanoparticles are uniformly synthesized on the surface of graphene oxide by hydrolysis and hydrothermal methods, respectively. The efficiency of the synthesized nanocomposite (MGO@ Fe3O4) for the photocatalytic decomposition of methyl orange is investigated and compared with the magnetic hybrid without graphene oxide (Fe3O4@ TiO2). FTIR and VSM analysis are used to characterize the synthesized nanocomposite and hybrid. FTIR analysis confirmed the bond vibrations in TiO2 and Fe3O4 molecules present in both photocatalytic samples. VSM analysis shows the superparamagnetic properties of the synthesized photocatalysts. Investigating the effect of irradiation time and photocatalyst concentration on the ability to remove methyl orange by magnetic photocatalysts showed that both parameters have a positive effect, although based on the results of statistical analysis, irradiation time is more effective than photocatalyst concentration. It is also observed that despite the independent operating parameters having a significant effect on the photocatalytic activity of nanocomposite and hybrid, the mutual interaction between individual factors in nanocomposite and hybrid behaves differently.
Synthesis and characterization of an innovative sodium alginate/flaxseed gum green hydrogel for forward osmosis desalination
Authors: Saad Menatalla Ashraf , Sadik Eman Radi , Eldakiky Basma Mohamed , He Zhen , Elashtoukhy Elsayed Zakaria , Khalifa Randa Eslah , Zewail Taghreed Mohamed Mohamed , Moustafa Hanan 
Published: January 2024

AbstractRecently, fresh water resources have been limited globally. Thus, desalination has been the most recommended solution to overcome this issue. Forward osmosis (FO) is an affordable and developing desalination technique. In this current study, a cutting-edge green hydrogel was prepared from a polymer blend of flaxseed gum (FG) and sodium alginate using epichlorohydrin (ECH) as a crosslinker and polyethylene glycol (PEG) as a semi-interpenetrating network polymer. The impact of PEG incorporation on the hydrogel’s response was investigated, and the influence of different mass contents of FG and ECH on the swelling measurements of the hydrogel was studied to optimize the composition of the hydrogel. The optimum hydrogel was characterized by Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction and the compressive strength test. Furthermore, the behavior of the present hydrogel was examined as a draw agent in a batch FO unit. The water flux and the reverse solute flux were measured at various values of average hydrogel particle size and feed solution (FS) temperature and concentration. The optimal hydrogel of 0.3 PEG/polymer blend mass ratio, 12% FG, and 0.95 ECH/polymer blend mass ratio exhibits a swelling ratio (%) of 1800 after an hour and an equilibrium swelling ratio (ESR) (%) of 5300. The results of the FO experiments revealed that raising FS temperature and reducing FS concentration and average hydrogel particle size enhance water flux.
The perceived potential of religion in mitigating climate change and how this is being realized in Germany and Switzerland
Authors: Hearn Adam X. , Huber Fabian , Koehrsen Jens , Buzzi Ann-Lea 
Published: January 2024

AbstractScholars of religion have repeatedly debated and contested the role of religion and spirituality in combatting climate change. In recent years, the potential of religion has also become an issue among natural scientists, politicians, environmental organizations, and civil society. Indeed, the potential of religion to mitigate climate change is perceived both internally and externally, and various expectations are placed on religion. This article examines the perceived potential of religion in mitigating climate change and how this is being realized. Based on 38 interviews, conducted with representatives from religious communities and umbrella organizations in Germany and Switzerland, we focus on the areas of values, political influence, and materialization. Our results show that the potential of religion in addressing climate change remains largely unfulfilled despite increasing steps in this direction.
Neuroprotective properties of exosomes and chitosan nanoparticles of Tomafran, a bioengineered tomato enriched in crocins
Authors: Etxebeste-Mitxeltorena Mikel , Niza Enrique , Fajardo Cristián Martinez , Gil Carmen , Gómez-Gómez Lourdes , Martinez Ana , Ahrazem Oussama 
Published: January 2024

AbstractSaffron has many pharmacological properties in addition to being a frequently used food seasoning. Crocin and picrocrocin which accumulate in saffron stigma, are responsible for these pharmacological properties. These natural products have health‐promoting effects for the prevention and treatment of numerous diseases, including age‐related cognitive and memory disfunction. Currently, crocin and picrocrocin are obtained from saffron, considered as the spice with the highest price in the market. To develop an efficient and low‐cost approach to producing these compounds with high bioactivity, biosynthetic genes isolated from saffron can be exploited in the metabolic engineering of heterologous hosts and the production of crocins in productive crop plants. Recently, we engineered tomato fruit producing crocins (Tomafran). In this study, we demonstrated that crocin-rich extract, encapsulated in chitosan or in exosomes may function as a neuroprotective strategy. Crocins contained in the Tomafran extracts and much lower doses in chitosan nanoparticles or exosomes were enough to rescue the neuroblastoma cell line SH-SY5Y after damage caused by okadaic acid. Our results confirm the neuroprotective effect of Tomafran and its exosomes that may be useful for the delay or prevention of neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Graphical Abstract