bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Estonian Fears, Hopes, and Efforts–Russian War Against Ukraine
Authors: Veebel Viljar , Ploom Illimar 
Published: December 2023

AbstractDebates following the events in February 2022 in Estonian society have shown diverging opinions about the war in Ukraine. There is, nevertheless, a mainstream viewpoint on how to assist Ukraine, how to respond to Russia, what to expect from NATO allies, and how to deal with the inner cohesion of Estonia's multi-ethnic and multi-lingual society. The least problematic has been understanding how to help Ukraine, with Estonia emerging as the leading donating nation per capita in 2022. As for the response to Russian aggression in Ukraine, most Estonian public and elite support significantly more severe sanctions than have been enacted. In this chapter, we will illustrate that although there have been voices that have demanded the straightforward intervention of NATO in the conflict, there is a consensus that the West should not get directly involved but should indirectly support Ukraine to a greater degree than it has managed to thus far. Despite its membership in NATO, the Estonian political and military elite and the Estonian-speaking society remains afraid that Russia will use the same logic and action against the Baltic States. The main question for Estonia is if and when, after the war in Ukraine, Russia might be ready and motivated to challenge NATO in the Baltic states.
Tarafsız: Turkey’s Impartial Stance Vis-a-Vis Russia’s War Against Ukraine
Authors: Ambrosetti Eleonora Tafuro 
Published: December 2023

AbstractTurkish officials stress that their neutral and impartial, tarafsız, position enables Ankara to mediate in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. The country has been one of the key external political and diplomatic players in the context of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine since February 2022. Ankara has acted as a mediator since the early days of the invasion and tried—so far, successfully—to balance being pro-Ukrainian without being openly anti-Russian. This chapter maintains that Turkey’s attitude confirms the academic literature’s descriptions of Turkey’s foreign policy as growing more independent and seeking to balance its external relations. In particular, the Turkish government’s motives revolve around three main foreign policy objectives: boosting status (through mediation activities), carrying out a balancing strategy in its external relations, and pursuing economic interests through trade engagement with Moscow. Meanwhile, diffuse anti-Western sentiments and a severe economic crisis seemingly have led the Turkish society towards more inward-looking positions and a certain lack of empathy towards Ukrainians. All in all, questions remain on the sustainability of Turkey’s neutral approach, especially in the case of a further military—and, possibly, nuclear—escalation.
The United Nations and the Russian-Ukrainian War
Authors: Kostakos Georgios 
Published: December 2023

AbstractWhatever was left of the good feelings resulting from the end of the Cold War came crashing down with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Intense fighting, uncompromising rhetoric, and even threats of nuclear war have been the characteristics of this conflict, which can potentially escalate to World War III. This chapter provides an overview of UN efforts to prevent and/or stop the Russian invasion of Ukraine and/or help de-escalate the violence and find a peaceful solution. With the war still raging as of January 2023, when this chapter is being finalized, the findings about the inability of the UN to prevent such a major and largely foreseen conflict are concerning, particularly the failure of the UN Security Council to deal with a conflict that involves one of its five permanent members as an aggressor. While robust political responses from the UN General Assembly and the Human Rights Council have partly compensated for this, the UN Secretary-General, the top-most official associated with global peacemaking, has been unable or unwilling to engage beyond statements of principle and humanitarian support. All this bodes poorly for the UN and, more importantly, the world, which faces increasing geopolitical rivalries among significant powers that undermine efforts to achieve global goals for peace and sustainable development.
OSCE’s Resilience in Times of War
Authors: Cupać Jelena 
Published: December 2023

AbstractWith Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the subsequent war between two of its core participating states, the OSCE seems highly fragile, and many doubt it will survive. However, this paradigm needs to follow an assessment of the OSCE's resilience in times of crisis, grounded in International Relations research on international organizations. This chapter seeks to fill this gap, hoping to find a new perspective on what the OSCE can do to survive the Ukrainian war and remain relevant in the long term. To that end, it assesses the OSCE’s resilience using formal factors such as its issue area, membership, age, and the quality of its bureaucracy. The chapter also adopts a historical perspective, which evaluates the OSCE’s resilience through its relationship with the post-Cold War security environment. This perspective suggests that the OSCE might be more resilient than formal organizational factors indicate. Overall, assessing the OSCE’s resilience from these two perspectives calls for more optimism about its future amid the war in Ukraine. However, it also indicates that the likely price of the OSCE’s survival will be its contraction to a forum in which normative conflicts prevail over compromise.
Transitional Justice in Ukraine
Authors: Mihr Anja 
Published: December 2023

AbstractFrom day one of the Russian aggression against Ukraine in February 2022, independent investigators and advocates for Transitional Justice (TJ) started to collect data and evidence of possible war crimes and to use these to hold perpetrators, war criminals, and politically responsible stakeholders accountable once the war ends. This has been the beginning of a TJ process in Ukraine that could last for decades, regardless of how long this war will last. It aims to hold perpetrators and war criminals to account, reckon with past injustice and war crimes, vet and lustrate perpetrators and bystanders and compensate victims for leveraging democratic institutions and processes in Ukraine. Before the war, the country suffered from high corruption levels and low rule of law. Holding perpetrators to account on all sides, regardless of nationality, could be a chance for Ukraine to restore and leverage the rule of law. Nevertheless, it is a unique process because it is multi-level and multi-stakeholder based, using evidence from NGOs, the UN, OSCE, the EU, and other governmental and non-governmental investigators. Such a process requires careful assessment of the data and evidence provided because fake data and manipulation of narratives and proof have been part of this war from day one. ‘Disinformation and cyber war’, the ‘cell phone war’, and ‘hybrid war’ are just a few of the metaphors used to describe this war thus far. In this chapter, I argue that disentangling the array and different levels of stakeholders in this process is pivotal for the success of TJ in Ukraine.
Patterns of Border Disputes Amongst OSCE Countries
Authors: Sapeha Halina , Ghorbaninejad Kasra , Finnsson Ari , Perrier Benjamin , Brunet-Jailly Emmanuel 
Published: December 2023

AbstractDespite the general decline in territorial conquest and disputes over traditional land borders, 150 disputes world-wide continue to contribute to security instability. Given the scope and reach of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as a security organization, this study aims to examine whether the patterns of border disputes in the OSCE region are significantly different from those in other regions and in what ways the OSCE patterns follow those in the rest of the world. With the help of the Borders in Globalization Dyads Database (BiG Dyads Database), the study shows that, while patterns of border disputes in the OSCE region follow those in the rest of the world, there is also regional specificity as most dyads are very young and many dyads still remain contested, which raises significant questions regarding the overall stability and governance in the OSCE region and the effectiveness and limitations of regional international organizations such as the OSCE.
Vetting as a Tool for Strengthening Judicial Integrity in the OSCE Region
Authors: Miljojkovic Teodora 
Published: December 2023

AbstractVetting procedures have gained momentum in Third Wave Democracies as a tool for rebuilding state capacity post-crisis or during regime shifts within the transitional justice framework. Vetting procedures are present in contemporary legal realities, but the discourse around them remains mainly in the transitional justice setting. This chapter’s central claims are that the aims and rationales of vetting procedures have changed considerably over time; unlike in the transitional justice framework, where the political and moral criteria for judicial assessment matter, contemporary vetting focuses on boosting judicial integrity to strengthen the rule of law. Secondly, there is a need for a novel lens on vetting to strengthen judicial integrity. Thirdly, a distinct framework should, on the one hand, observe the international standards of judicial independence and the rule of law and, on the other, account for the specificities of the local contexts in which vetting is applied. Finally, a short overview of the Serbian vetting saga shows that vetting as a strengthening tool may have detrimental outcomes, even when guided by presumably laudable intentions.
Human Rights and Social Media: Challenges and Opportunities for Human Rights Education
Authors: Kulesza Joanna 
Published: December 2023

AbstractSocial media and freedom of expression are intentionally ambiguous terms. Their meaning and scope change along with societies and the technologies they use. It is primarily for this reason that disinformation is a growing challenge faced by all forms of social media and its users. The fine line between freedom of expression and political propaganda raises increasing concerns during international unrest and hybrid threats. States and businesses strive to address this challenge promptly and effectively. Yet, the dogmatic distinction between free expression and journalistic due care must be made aware of the myriad new media channels and evolving means of communication. In 2022, the European Union proposed the Code of Practice on Disinformation (European Commission, 2022)—a nonbinding set of practical guidelines to support social media platforms to eliminate harmful online communications.
Singular spin structures and superstrings
Authors: Matone Marco 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
There are two main problems in finding the higher genus superstring measure. The first one is that for g ≥ 5 the super moduli space is not projected. Furthermore, the supermeasure is regular for g ≤ 11, a bound related to the source of singularities due to the divisor in the moduli space of Riemann surfaces with even spin structure having holomorphic sections, such a divisor is called the θ-null divisor. A result of this paper is the characterization of such a divisor. This is done by first extending the Dirac propagator, that is the Szegö kernel, to the case of an arbitrary number of zero modes, that leads to a modification of the Fay trisecant identity, where the determinant of the Dirac propagators is replaced by the product of two determinants of the Dirac zero modes. By taking suitable limits of points on the Riemann surface, this holomorphic Fay trisecant identity leads to identities that include points dependent rank 3 quadrics in ℙg−1. Furthermore, integrating over the homological cycles gives relations for the Riemann period matrix which are satisfied in the presence of Dirac zero modes. Such identities characterize the θ-null divisor. Finally, we provide the geometrical interpretation of the above points dependent quadrics and show, via a new θ-identity, its relation with the Andreotti-Mayer quadric.
Closing in on new chiral leptons at the LHC
Authors: Barducci Daniele , Di Luzio Luca , Nardecchia Marco , Toni Claudio 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
We study the phenomenological viability of chiral extensions of the Standard Model, with new chiral fermions acquiring their mass through interactions with a single Higgs. We examine constraints from electroweak precision tests, Higgs physics and direct searches at the LHC. Our analysis indicates that purely chiral scenarios are perturbatively excluded by the combination of Higgs coupling measurements and LHC direct searches. However, allowing for a partial contribution from vector-like masses opens up the parameter space and non-decoupled exotic leptons could account for the observed 2σ deviation in h → Zγ. This scenario will be further tested in the high-luminosity phase of the LHC.
Systematic classification of aGUT models in five dimensions: the SU(N) kinship
Authors: Cacciapaglia Giacomo 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Asymptotic Grand Unification theories (aGUTs) in five dimensions provide a valid alternative to standard quantitative unification. We define the pathway towards viable models starting from a general unified bulk gauge symmetry. Imposing the presence of ultra-violet fixed points for both gauge and Yukawa couplings strongly limits the possibilities. Within the SU(N) kinship, we identify and characterise only two realistic minimal models, both based on a bulk SU(6) symmetry. Both models feature the generation of either up or down-type Yukawas via gauge scalars, two Higgs doublets with build-in minimal flavour violation at low energies, and conservation of baryon number. We also propose interesting avenues beyond the minimality criterion.
A robust CRISPR interference gene repression system in Vibrio parahaemolyticus
Authors: Jiang Taoyuan , Li Yuhuan , Hong Wencong , Lin Mingyu 
Published: December 2023

AbstractVibrio parahaemolyticus is a significant cause of seafood-associated gastroenteritis and pestilence in aquaculture worldwide. Despite extensive research, strategies for protein depletion in this pathogen remain limited. Herein, we constructed a new CRISPR interference (CRISPRi) system for gene repression based on the combination of a shuttle vector pVv3 and the nuclease-null Cas9 variant (dead Cas9, or dCas9) from Streptococcus pyrogens. This CRISPRi is induced by adding both IPTG and arabinose. We showed that gene repression is scalable via the use of multiple sgRNAs. We also demonstrated that this gene repression can be precisely tuned by adjusting the amount of two different inducers and can be reversed by removing the inducers. This system provides a simple approach for selective gene repression on a genome-wide scale in V. parahaemolyticus. Application of this system will dramatically accelerate investigations of this bacterium, including studies of physiology, pathogenesis, and drug target discovery.
The significance of admission blood lactate and fibrinogen in pediatric traumatic brain injury: a single-center clinical study
Authors: Zhang Kun-yuan , Li Pei-long , Yan Peng , Qin Cheng-jian , He Hao , Liao Chang-pin 
Published: December 2023

Abstract
Background
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in pediatric patients, leading to long-term physical, cognitive, and psychological impairments. Blood lactate and fibrinogen levels have emerged as potential biomarkers associated with tissue hypoperfusion and coagulation dysfunction, respectively. However, limited research has specifically focused on the significance of these biomarkers in pediatric TBI. This study aimed to investigate the clinical significance of blood lactate and fibrinogen levels upon admission in pediatric patients with traumatic brain injury.

Methods
The medical records of 80 children with a traumatic brain injury who were admitted from January 2017 to January 2021 were retrospectively analyzed. The two groups were compared according to whether the blood lactate in the admission arterial blood gas increased and the fibrinogen content in the coagulation function decreased. The clinical data of the children in the two groups were different, and then they were divided into a good prognosis group and a poor prognosis group according to the GOS prognostic score, and the differences in the clinical indicators of the two groups were compared.

Results
Among the 80 patients, 33 had elevated blood lactate levels, 34 had decreased fibrinogen levels, and 29 had an unfavorable outcome (GOS < 4). Compared to the normal blood lactate group, there were no statistically significant differences in age, sex ratio, or platelet count in the elevated blood lactate group (P > 0.05). However, the elevated blood lactate group had lower Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) scores upon admission, higher blood lactate levels, lower fibrinogen levels, longer hospital stay, lower GOS scores, and a higher proportion of GOS < 4 (P < 0.05). Compared to the normal fibrinogen group, there were no statistically significant differences in age, sex ratio, or platelet count in the decreased fibrinogen group (P > 0.05). However, the decreased fibrinogen group had lower GCS scores upon admission, higher blood lactate levels, lower fibrinogen levels, longer hospital stays, lower GOS scores, and a higher proportion of GOS < 4 (P < 0.05). Compared to the favorable outcome group, there were no statistically significant differences in age, sex ratio, or platelet count in the unfavorable outcome group (P > 0.05). However, the unfavorable outcome group had lower GCS scores upon admission, higher blood lactate levels, lower fibrinogen levels, longer hospital stays, a higher incidence of pulmonary infection, a higher incidence of stress ulcers, and lower GOS scores (P < 0.05).

Conclusion
The levels of blood lactate and fibrinogen may represent the severity of children with traumatic brain injury and may be risk factors for poor prognosis of children with traumatic brain injury.
Statistical relationships between the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation and El Niño–Southern Oscillation
Authors: Heidemann Hanna , Cowan Tim , Power Scott B. , Henley Benjamin J. 
Published: December 2023

AbstractThe climate of the Pacific Ocean varies on interannual, decadal, and longer timescales. This variability is dominated by the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and the Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO), both of which have profound impacts on countries within and well beyond the Pacific. To date, previous studies have only examined a small subset of the possible links between ENSO, its diversity, and the IPO. Here we focus on the statistical relationship between decadal variability in ENSO properties and the IPO, testing the null hypothesis that the IPO arises from random decadal changes in ENSO activity, including ENSO diversity. We use observed sea surface temperature (SST) records since 1920 to investigate how the timing, structure, frequency, duration, and magnitude of El Niño and La Niña events differ between IPO phases. We find that using the relative frequency of El Niño and La Niña events and either the mean event duration or SST magnitude can reproduce up to 60% of the IPO Tripole Index timeseries. While the spatial SST patterns that represent the IPO and ENSO are similar, the IPO is meridionally broader in the central to eastern Pacific, which may be caused by a lagged relationship with low-frequency SST variability in the equatorial Pacific. In addition, North Pacific SST anomalies of opposite sign to the tropical Pacific SST anomalies is a unique feature of the IPO that cannot be explained by decadal ENSO variability. This suggests a clear IPO and ENSO relationship, but also independence in some of the IPO’s characteristics.
Striated preferentially expressed gene deficiency leads to mitochondrial dysfunction in developing cardiomyocytes
Authors: Li Gu , Huang He , Wu Yanshuang , Shu Chang , Hwang Narae , Li Qifei , Zhao Rose , Lam Hilaire C. , Oldham William M. , EI-Chemaly Souheil , Agrawal Pankaj B. , Tian Jie , Liu Xiaoli , Perrella Mark A. 
Published: December 2023

AbstractA deficiency of striated preferentially expressed gene (Speg), a member of the myosin light chain kinase family, results in abnormal myofibril structure and function of immature cardiomyocytes (CMs), corresponding with a dilated cardiomyopathy, heart failure and perinatal death. Mitochondrial development plays a role in cardiomyocyte maturation. Therefore, this study investigated whether Speg deficiency ( – / – ) in CMs would result in mitochondrial abnormalities. Speg wild-type and Speg−/− C57BL/6 littermate mice were utilized for assessment of mitochondrial structure by transmission electron and confocal microscopies. Speg was expressed in the first and second heart fields at embryonic (E) day 7.5, prior to the expression of mitochondrial Na+/Ca2+/Li+ exchanger (NCLX) at E8.5. Decreases in NCLX expression (E11.5) and the mitochondrial-to-nuclear DNA ratio (E13.5) were observed in Speg−/− hearts. Imaging of E18.5 Speg−/− hearts revealed abnormal mitochondrial cristae, corresponding with decreased ATP production in cells fed glucose or palmitate, increased levels of mitochondrial superoxide and depolarization of mitochondrial membrane potential. Interestingly, phosphorylated (p) PGC-1α, a key mediator of mitochondrial development, was significantly reduced in Speg−/− hearts during screening for targeted genes. Besides Z-line expression, Speg partially co-localized with PGC-1α in the sarcomeric region and was found in the same complex by co-immunoprecipitation. Overexpression of a Speg internal serine/threonine kinase domain in Speg−/− CMs promoted translocation of pPGC-1α into the nucleus, and restored ATP production that was abolished by siRNA-mediated silencing of PGC-1α. Our results demonstrate a critical role of Speg in mitochondrial development and energy metabolism in CMs, mediated in part by phosphorylation of PGC-1α.