bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Lifelong learning‐based multilayer neural network control of nonlinear continuous‐time strict‐feedback systems
Authors: Ganie Irfan Ahmad , Jagannathan S. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractIn this paper, we investigate lifelong learning (LL)‐based tracking control for partially uncertain strict feedback nonlinear systems with state constraints, employing a singular value decomposition (SVD) of the multilayer neural networks (MNNs) activation function based weight tuning scheme. The novel SVD‐based approach extends the MNN weight tuning to layers. A unique online LL method, based on tracking error, is integrated into the MNN weight update laws to counteract catastrophic forgetting. To adeptly address constraints for safety assurances, taking into account the effects caused by disturbances, we utilize a time‐varying barrier Lyapunov function (TBLF) that ensures a uniformly ultimately bounded closed‐loop system. The effectiveness of the proposed safe LL MNN approach is demonstrated through a leader‐follower formation scenario involving unknown kinematics and dynamics. Supporting simulation results of mobile robot formation control are provided, confirming the theoretical findings.
Norwegian offshore wind power—Spatial planning using multi‐criteria decision analysis
Authors: Solbrekke Ida Marie , Sorteberg Asgeir 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe Norwegian government recently agreed on the goal 30by40, which involves opening Norwegian offshore areas to host 30 GW of installed wind power by 2040. We address this goal by presenting a first mapping of wind power suitability scores (WPSS) for the entire Norwegian economic zone (NEZ) using a multi‐criteria decision analysis framework (MCDA), namely, the analytical hierarchical process (AHP) approach. We obtain WPSS considering relevant criteria like wind resources, techno‐economic aspects, social acceptance, environmental considerations, and met‐ocean constraints such as wind and wave conditions. The results starts with a baseline scenario, where the criterion importance is pairwise compared in the context of balancing economic incentives and conflicting interests. Additionally, to reveal regions that are robust to changes in criterion importance, we carry out a sensitivity analysis by introducing three additional scenarios. These scenarios represent stereotypical actors with distinct preferences for siting of wind farms: the investor, the environmentalist, and the fisherman. The results show that the southern part of the NEZ is the most suitable and robust region for offshore wind power deployment. This region receives the highest suitability category (“very high” suitability for wind power application) throughout all the scenarios. Areas in the Norwegian part of the Barents Sea and the near‐coastal areas outside mid‐Norway are also well suited regions, but these are more sensitive to the choice of criterion importance. The use of AHP within the framework of MCDA is shown to be a promising tool for pinpointing the best Norwegian offshore areas for wind power application.
Rising above the ashes: Sustainable development goals and the intersections of peace education amid a violent past
Authors: Amaladas Stan , Schellhammer Erich , Parker Lorelei Higgins 
Published: October 2023

AbstractFor the sake of promoting peaceful and inclusive societies and building accountable and inclusive institutions, what can peace leadership educators do in the Here and Now to implement equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities? This question is raised within the context of the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves of Indigenous children on the grounds of several former Indian Residential Schools across Canada. Emerging from the responses to the question raised, the authors offer a peace education model that includes four distinct yet interconnected aspects for college student leadership educators (i) be principle‐centered; (ii) be courageous in challenging questions asked, (iii) be purposeful by enabling safe spaces where learners’ stories can be told and heard, and (iv) be imaginative by choosing hope rather than despair.
Meditation and Other New Spiritual Practices in the Church of Sweden
Authors: Plank Katarina , Lundgren Linnea , Egnell Helene 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThis chapter deals with practices that traditionally have not been found within the Lutheran Church and how these are integrated in its activities. Here Katarina Plank, Linnea Lundgren, and Helene Egnell draw on data from an ongoing research project that explore how, since the 1970s, spiritual practices labeled as “New Age” have become more widespread, and lately practices with a focus on “body-mind techniques” have especially been given more space within the Church of Sweden. Their netnographic survey of the homepages of the parishes in the diocese of Stockholm shows that there is plethora of new activities going on which have emerged during the last 50 years. Many of these activities were geared toward community building, and 15% of them fall into the category of holistic practices. Such practices, comprising, for example, meditation groups, yoga classes, and dance, can be found in eight out of ten parishes. These new spiritual practices were first offered in exclusive settings like retreat centers, but have now moved into ordinary parish life, accessible to all parishioners. Some of the practices, like Zen meditation and yoga, have been contested but are now broadly accepted.
The Central Asian Research Setting: An Introduction
Authors: Dall’Agnola Jasmin , Sharshenova Aijan 
Published: October 2023

AbstractResearching Central Asia can be interesting, entertaining, life-changing, traumatising and, at the very least, thought provoking. The way we, Central Asians and Central Asianists, experience the region differs, but it certainly impacts our lives in a multitude of small and not-so-small ways. In this chapter, the editors reflect on the reasons why the Central Asian research setting has become more popular, and what this means both for individual researchers and the study area in general. The need to systematise and structure the diverse experiences of insiders and outsiders, the attraction of the region against the background of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, as well as the ongoing discussions of Russian colonialism and decolonisation in Central Asia have all contributed to the urgency of this book.
Performative Heterosexuality: A Gay Researcher Doing Fieldwork in Central Asia
Authors: Honig Marius 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThis chapter explores the challenges faced by a foreign gay researcher in Central Asia. Drawing on personal experiences, the author reflects on the limited choices available to LGBTQ+ researchers to protect themselves, the practicalities and consequences of hiding one’s sexuality, and the limitations of performing a heterosexual male identity in the field. The author explains the strategies employed to protect their safety and the ethical consequences of silencing their own identity and values. The author also emphasises how choices made by researchers studying Central Asia become permanent features of their professional life due to long-lasting involvement in the region.
Making Sense of Central Asia Sources of Epistemic Uncertainty
Authors: Elmuradov Aziz 
Published: October 2023

AbstractCentral Asia is in flux, and so are the perspectives and angles of intellectual inquiry, as are the modes of and approaches to the scientific investigation of the region. This paper sets out to discuss the role of academic positionality essential to this flux—caught between modernity and tradition—and reflects on one of its striking effects, epistemic ambiguity. In light of knowledge-related turns in the social sciences, notably, the epistemological twists and turns entailed in postmodernist, postcolonial, decolonial, and feminist critique, the study of academic positionality and its implications in the Central Asian context is a worthwhile pursuit.
Being Afghani, French and not Soviet Along the Border Between Tajikistan and Afghanistan
Authors: Sadozaï Mélanie 
Published: October 2023

AbstractHow can being a French woman of Afghan origin be an asset and an obstacle in conducting research along the borderlands of Badakhshan between Tajikistan and Afghanistan? This essay draws on field anecdotes which fostered critical thinking about my positionality as a French-Afghani woman. While my French passport symbolized my foreign identity, having personal ties with Badakhshan made me not “just a foreigner” due to my Afghan heritage. I argue that having a plural identity is just as helpful in conducting ethnographic research as it can be difficult to maintain the necessary distance from the object of study and to keep my collaborators safe.
A Stranger in the Village: Anti-blackness in the Field
Authors: Kurmanov Alexa 
Published: October 2023

AbstractIn 1951, James Baldwin visited the remote town of Leukerbad, Switzerland, which inspired his essay Stranger in the Village. Baldwin’s reflection of himself as a “first” encounter with Black flesh offers a critical reflection on overlooked discussions of the fatigue that accompanies Black researchers conducting fieldwork in (post)socialist spaces. In this chapter, I reflect on the ways my Black non-binary body becomes fatigued at the intersections of blackness and sexuality in the context of contemporary Kyrgyzstan. Furthermore, I address the sedimented representations of blackness that I embody, and the interactions my embodied (mis)representations invite, pushing us to think beyond the physicality of anti-blackness and to consider its psychological effects.
Sicily and the process of Neolithisation: a review of the archaeobotanical data
Authors: Speciale Claudia 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThis review paper analyses the first steps of the spread of domestic plants into Sicily. Despite being the biggest island of the Mediterranean and its central position, the process of arrival and diffusion of crops in Sicily is still poorly understood. Starting from the limited but significant record from Grotta dell’Uzzo, the plant macrofossil data are presented and discussed with some comparison with the pollen, zooarchaeological and obsidian data. The closest regions to Sicily, from where these domesticates may have come, are discussed. The arrival of domesticated plants in Sicily fits perfectly with the model of dispersal by sea. The introduction of crops was a slow process that covered the whole of the Neolithic period. The intention is to raise interest in this field and to inspire researchers to analyse more plant macro- and micro-remains from prehistoric archaeological contexts in Sicily.
Maintenance and enhancement of forest ecosystem services: a non-industrial private forest owner perspective
Authors: Bergkvist John , Nikoleris Alexandra , Fors Hanna , Jönsson Anna Maria 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe transition to a fossil-free society in Sweden is expected to cause an increased demand for forest-derived products which may intensify existing conflicts between forest ecosystem services. This study investigated the preferences among non-industrial private forest owners for maintaining multiple forest ecosystem services and their preferences for future forest development. The findings were related to their prioritizations for and knowledge of forest management. The study results were generated through the means of a survey which revealed a consistent high valuation among all respondents of ecosystem services relating to water quality, timber quality, recreation, and biodiversity. A majority of the respondents desired increasing proportions of mixed species and broadleaved stands within the future forest landscape. Certified forest owners who were members of a forest owner association (CMs) prioritized achieving high economic income through roundwood production with strong preferences for the ecosystem services high stand growth and high timber quality. For CMs, carbon substitution was the preferred means of mitigating climate change. Forest owners lacking both certification and membership in a forest owner association ranked the ecosystem services recreation and biodiversity significantly higher, and also preferred retaining more old forest within the landscape. The survey results revealed a higher management activity among CMs, resulting in a more frequent establishment of mixed and broadleaved stands. Forest owners with medium to large scale properties were well-represented within the CM category. The results indicated that while the CMs have stronger preferences for roundwood production compared to owners of small properties, they are also more likely to have taken adaptive measures favoring risk management and biodiversity.
Bringing together urban systems and food systems theory and research is overdue: understanding the relationships between food and nutrition infrastructures along a continuum of contested and hybrid access
Authors:   Living Off-Grid Food and Infrastructure Collaboration (LOGIC), Battersby Jane , Brown-Luthango Mercy , Fuseini Issahaka , Gulabani Herry , Haysom Gareth , Jackson Ben , Khandelwal Vrashali , MacGregor Hayley , Mitra Sudeshna , Nisbett Nicholas , Perera Iromi , te Lintelo Dolf , Thorpe Jodie , Toriro Percy 
Published: October 2023

AbstractUrban dwellers’ food and nutritional wellbeing are both dependent on infrastructure and can be indicative of wider wellbeing in urban contexts and societal health. This paper focuses on the multiple relationships that exist between food and infrastructure to provide a thorough theoretical and empirical grounding to urgent work on urban food security and nutrition in the context of rapid urban and nutrition transitions in the South. We argue that urban systems and food systems thinking have not been well aligned, but that such alignment is not only timely and overdue but also fruitful for both thematic areas of research and policy. We draw in particular on work within wider urban political economy and political ecology that can be classified as part of the ‘infrastructural turn’ that is influential with urban studies but little acknowledged within food studies. Drawing on these literatures helps us to better understand the interrelationships between people, things and ideas that make up both infrastructure and food systems. Policy, planning and research relating to both food and urban systems cannot afford to ignore such interlinkages, though much policy still operates on the neat assumptions of progressive connectivity to ‘the grid’ and formal food retail. Instead we argue how in many urban governance systems, a variety of hybrid mechanisms—on and off the grid, public and private formal and informal—better represent how urban residents, particularly the most marginalised, meet their everyday food and infrastructural needs along a continuum of gridded and off-grid access.
Examining the Longitudinal Relationship Between Metacognitive Beliefs and Psychological Distress in an Adolescent Population: A Preliminary Analysis
Authors: Schultz Katie , Kannis-Dymand Lee , Jamieson Daniel , McLoughlin Larisa T. , Loughnan Siobhan , Allen Andrew , Hermens Daniel F. 
Published: October 2023

AbstractAdolescence is a period marked by significant vulnerability to the onset of mental health concerns. Within adults, the metacognitive model of psychological disorders advocates for the involvement of metacognitive beliefs in the onset, and maintenance, of psychopathology. The current study aimed to assess the applicability of the metacognitive model in adolescence by exploring the relationship, as well as the trajectory, between metacognitive beliefs and psychological distress. The longitudinal prospective cohort study investigated data from a community-based sample of participants aged 12 to 13. Self-report assessment measures of metacognitive beliefs, psychological distress, and somatic distress are reported across four time-points. Baseline assessments are reported for 70 participants, which reduced to 53 participants at time-point four. Correlational analyses demonstrated a significant relationship between overall metacognition, as well as negative metacognitive beliefs, and psychological distress at each of the four time-points. Generalised Estimating Equations found a significant association between metacognitive predictors and psychological distress over the four time-points. These results indicate that negative metacognitive beliefs, positive metacognitive beliefs, metacognitive beliefs related to superstition, punishment, and responsibility, low perceived levels of cognitive confidence and cognitive self-consciousness predict psychological distress over 12 months in adolescents aged 12 to 13. The strongest longitudinal correlational structure was found for the model of negative metacognitive beliefs and psychological distress. These findings provide preliminary evidence for the positive linear relationship between metacognitive beliefs and psychological distress in adolescence. The study provides an important contribution to understanding the role of metacognitive beliefs in the aetiology and perpetuation of psychological distress in adolescence.
Circulating hsa-miR-221 as a possible diagnostic and prognostic biomarker of diabetic nephropathy
Authors: Abdel-Tawab Marwa Sayed , Mohamed Mohamed Gamal , Doudar Noha A. , Rateb Enas Ezzat , Reyad Hoda Ramadan , Elazeem Naglaa Adli Abd 
Published: October 2023

Abstract
Background
Diabetic nephropathy (DN), which is a chronic outcome of diabetes mellitus (DM), usually progresses to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). The DN pathophysiology, nevertheless, is not well-defined. Several miRNAs were reported to be either risk or protective factors in DN.

Methods, and results
The present study sought to inspect the potential diagnostic and prognostic value of hsa-miR-221 in DN. The study included 200 participants divided into four groups: Group 1 (50 patients with DN), Group 2 (50 diabetic patients without nephropathy), Group 3 (50 nondiabetic patients with CKD), and Group 4 (50 healthy subjects as a control group). Patients in groups 1 and 3 were further classified based on the presence of macroalbuminuria and microalbuminuria. Hsa-miR-221 expression was measured by RT- qRT-PCR. DN patients had significantly elevated serum hsa-miR-221 levels than the other groups, while diabetic patients without nephropathy exhibited elevated levels compared to both nondiabetic patients with CKD, and the control group. The DN patients with macroalbuminuria revealed significantly higher mean values of hsa-miR-221 relative to the patients with microalbuminuria. Significant positive associations were observed in the DN group between serum hsa-miR-221 and fasting insulin, fasting glucose, HOMA IR, ACR, and BMI. The ROC curve analysis of serum hsa-miR-221 in the initial diagnosis of DN in DM revealed high specificity and sensitivity.

Conclusions
It is concluded that hsa-miR-221 has the potential to be a useful biomarker for prognostic and diagnostic purposes in DN.
A reduced-rank approach to predicting multiple binary responses through machine learning
Authors: Mai The Tien 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThis paper investigates the problem of simultaneously predicting multiple binary responses by utilizing a shared set of covariates. Our approach incorporates machine learning techniques for binary classification, without making assumptions about the underlying observations. Instead, our focus lies on a group of predictors, aiming to identify the one that minimizes prediction error. Unlike previous studies that primarily address estimation error, we directly analyze the prediction error of our method using PAC-Bayesian bounds techniques. In this paper, we introduce a pseudo-Bayesian approach capable of handling incomplete response data. Our strategy is efficiently implemented using the Langevin Monte Carlo method. Through simulation studies and a practical application using real data, we demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed method, producing comparable or sometimes superior results compared to the current state-of-the-art method.
High-Temperature Phase Behavior of Li2O-MnO with a Focus on the Liquid-to-Solid Transition
Authors: Li Haojie , Ranneberg Marko , Fischlschweiger Michael 
Published: October 2023

AbstractThe Li-Mn-O system is a crucial constituent of cathode materials used in lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). Numerous research teams have focused on enhancing its electrochemical properties and thermal stability at lower temperatures to develop high-performance cathode materials. However, in the recycling of LIBs in pyrometallurgical processing, the high temperature phase behavior of the Li-Mn-O system is important. Today, there is still a lack of systematic understanding regarding the high-temperature phase behavior of the Li-Mn-O system under well-defined atmospheric conditions, which is highly sought after in the pyrometallurgical process route to increase the recycling efficiency of lithium from spent LIBs. In this study, we investigate the high temperature phase behavior of the pseudo binary system Li2O-MnO under inert atmosphere. Thermal and caloric properties are measured as well as the contact angle at high temperatures to identify the solid-liquid transition. Based on the obtained phase behavior, thermodynamic database of Li2O-MnO within the Calphad framework is developed, where the liquid phase is modelled by the Modified Quasichemical Model (MQM).
Cellular and humoral responses to fourth SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in a real-life cohort of patients with cancer
Authors: Berger Julia M. , Gattinger Pia , Mair Maximilian J. , Berghoff Anna S. , Valenta Rudolf , Preusser Matthias 
Published: October 2023

SummaryThis study assessed cellular and humoral responses to the fourth dose of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) vaccines in patients with malignant diseases. Even though, clear indications of humoral, cellular, or combined response was evident in most patients undergoing active treatment, high intra- and interpatient heterogeneity in response patterns was observed.
The Kids aren’t Alright: A Brief Positive Psychological Intervention During the COVID-19 Pandemic in a Spanish Sample of Adolescents
Authors: Muro Anna , Tejada-Gallardo Clàudia , Illa Júlia , Gomà-i-Freixanet Montserrat , Méndez-Ulrich Jorge L. , Chellew Karin , Sanz Antoni , Cladellas Ramon 
Published: October 2023

AbstractPrevious studies have reported that adolescents were at higher risk for mental health disorders during and after the COVID-19 pandemic due to the characteristics of their developmental period and to the impact of social and mobility restrictions on their daily routines. In response to these reports, we designed, implemented, and evaluated the impact of a brief positive psychological intervention in a high school setting to increase adolescents’ psychological well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. A pre-post experimental study was conducted to compare the levels of anxiety, academic motivation, and performance changes in an experimental and control group. A final sample of 148 students from two Spanish high schools of the Catalan region participated in the study (Mage = 12.45; 48% female). Results showed that participants in the experimental group reported a reduction in anxiety and an increase in global motivation levels compared to the control group. Regression analyses also revealed that the intervention was a significant predictor of reduced anxiety, increased motivation, and fewer failed subjects, while high anxiety predicted decreased performance and reduced motivation. These findings suggest that brief positive psychological interventions implemented in high school classrooms could be a cost-effective and systemic preventive measure for increasing adolescents’ psychological well-being and strengthening their general mental health both during and after periods of pandemic restrictions.