bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Machine learning models to predict success of endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty using total and excess weight loss percent achievement: a multicentre study
Authors: Vannucci Maria , Niyishaka Patrick , Collins Toby , Rodríguez-Luna María Rita , Mascagni Pietro , Hostettler Alexandre , Marescaux Jacques , Perretta Silvana 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Background
The large amount of heterogeneous data collected in surgical/endoscopic practice calls for data-driven approaches as machine learning (ML) models. The aim of this study was to develop ML models to predict endoscopic sleeve gastroplasty (ESG) efficacy at 12 months defined by total weight loss (TWL) % and excess weight loss (EWL) % achievement. Multicentre data were used to enhance generalizability: evaluate consistency among different center of ESG practice and assess reproducibility of the models and possible clinical application. Models were designed to be dynamic and integrate follow-up clinical data into more accurate predictions, possibly assisting management and decision-making.

Methods
ML models were developed using data of 404 ESG procedures performed at 12 centers across Europe. Collected data included clinical and demographic variables at the time of ESG and at follow-up. Multicentre/external and single center/internal and temporal validation were performed. Training and evaluation of the models were performed on Python’s scikit-learn library. Performance of models was quantified as receiver operator curve (ROC-AUC), sensitivity, specificity, and calibration plots.

Results
Multicenter external validation: ML models using preoperative data show poor performance. Best performances were reached by linear regression (LR) and support vector machine models for TWL% and EWL%, respectively, (ROC-AUC: TWL% 0.87, EWL% 0.86) with the addition of 6-month follow-up data.
Single-center internal validation: Preoperative data only ML models show suboptimal performance. Early, i.e., 3-month follow-up data addition lead to ROC-AUC of 0.79 (random forest classifiers model) and 0.81 (LR models) for TWL% and EWL% achievement prediction, respectively. Single-center temporal validation shows similar results.

Conclusions
Although preoperative data only may not be sufficient for accurate postoperative predictions, the ability of ML models to adapt and evolve with the patients changes could assist in providing an effective and personalized postoperative care. ML models predictive capacity improvement with follow-up data is encouraging and may become a valuable support in patient management and decision-making.
Characterization of the soil resistome and mobilome in Namib Desert soils
Authors: Naidoo Yashini , Pierneef Rian E. , Cowan Don A. , Valverde Angel 
Published: November 2023

AbstractThe study of the soil resistome is important in understanding the evolution of antibiotic resistance and its dissemination between the clinic and the environment. However, very little is known about the soil resistome, especially of those from deserts. Here, we characterize the bacterial communities, using targeted sequencing of the 16S rRNA genes, and both the resistome and the mobilome in Namib Desert soils, using shotgun metagenomics. We detected a variety of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) that conferred resistance to antibiotics such as elfamycin, rifampicin, and fluoroquinolones, metal/biocide resistance genes (MRGs/BRGs) conferring resistance to metals such as arsenic and copper, and mobile genetic elements (MGEs) such as the ColE1-like plasmid. The presence of metal/biocide resistance genes in close proximity to ARGs indicated a potential for co-selection of resistance to antibiotics and metals/biocides. The co-existence of MGEs and horizontally acquired ARGs most likely contributed to a decoupling between bacterial community composition and ARG profiles. Overall, this study indicates that soil bacterial communities in Namib Desert soils host a diversity of resistance elements and that horizontal gene transfer, rather than host phylogeny, plays an essential role in their dynamics.
Physiological confounders of renal blood flow measurement
Authors: Alhummiany Bashair , Sharma Kanishka , Buckley David L. , Soe Kywe Kywe , Sourbron Steven P. 
Published: November 2023

Abstract
Objectives
Renal blood flow (RBF) is controlled by a number of physiological factors that can contribute to the variability of its measurement. The purpose of this review is to assess the changes in RBF in response to a wide range of physiological confounders and derive practical recommendations on patient preparation and interpretation of RBF measurements with MRI.

Methods
A comprehensive search was conducted to include articles reporting on physiological variations of renal perfusion, blood and/or plasma flow in healthy humans.

Results
A total of 24 potential confounders were identified from the literature search and categorized into non-modifiable and modifiable factors. The non-modifiable factors include variables related to the demographics of a population (e.g. age, sex, and race) which cannot be manipulated but should be considered when interpreting RBF values between subjects. The modifiable factors include different activities (e.g. food/fluid intake, exercise training and medication use) that can be standardized in the study design. For each of the modifiable factors, evidence-based recommendations are provided to control for them in an RBF-measurement.

Conclusion
Future studies aiming to measure RBF are encouraged to follow a rigorous study design, that takes into account these recommendations for controlling the factors that can influence RBF results.
Do we all perceive experiences of age discrimination in the same way? Cross-cultural differences in perceived age discrimination and its association with life satisfaction
Authors: P. de Paula Couto M. Clara , Nikitin Jana , Graf Sylvie , Fung Helene H. , Hess Thomas M. , Liou Shyhnan , Rothermund Klaus 
Published: November 2023

AbstractAge discrimination is pervasive in most societies and bears far-reaching consequences for individuals’ psychological well-being. Despite that, studies that examine cross-cultural differences in age discrimination are still lacking. Likewise, whether the detrimental association between age discrimination and psychological well-being varies across contexts remains an open question. In this study, therefore, we examined cross-cultural differences in perceived experiences of age discrimination and their detrimental association with a specific indicator of psychological well-being, which is life satisfaction. The sample was drawn from the Ageing as Future study and comprised 1653 older adults (60–90 years) from the Czech Republic, Germany, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the USA. Participants self-reported their experiences of age discrimination and their life satisfaction. Findings indicated that participants from Hong Kong and Taiwan reported experiences of perceived age discrimination more often than participants from the Czech Republic, Germany, and the USA. Furthermore, experiences of age discrimination were negatively associated with life satisfaction. Cultural context moderated this relation: We found a smaller detrimental association between perceived experiences of age discrimination and life satisfaction in Eastern cultures, that is, in contexts where such experiences were perceived to be more prevalent. These findings highlight the importance of examining age discrimination across cultures. Experiences of age discrimination are clearly undesirable in that they negatively affect psychological well-being. Our results indicate that a higher self-reported prevalence of perceived age discrimination in the samples studied weakens this negative association. We discuss these findings in terms of adaptation (versus sensitization) in response to discrimination.
Learning to summarize and answer questions about a virtual robot’s past actions
Authors: DeChant Chad , Akinola Iretiayo , Bauer Daniel 
Published: November 2023

AbstractWhen robots perform long action sequences, users will want to easily and reliably find out what they have done. We therefore demonstrate the task of learning to summarize and answer questions about a robot agent’s past actions using natural language alone. A single system with a large language model at its core is trained to both summarize and answer questions about action sequences given ego-centric video frames of a virtual robot and a question prompt. To enable training of question answering, we develop a method to automatically generate English-language questions and answers about objects, actions, and the temporal order in which actions occurred during episodes of robot action in the virtual environment. Training one model to both summarize and answer questions enables zero-shot transfer of representations of objects learned through question answering to improved action summarization.
The auditing game: the dark side of the private provision of a public good
Authors: Ehrmann Thomas , Prinz Aloys 
Published: November 2023

AbstractThe aim of auditing is to protect active and potential investors from accounting fraud. Nevertheless, as many auditing scandals have demonstrated, auditing has a dark side. Correct auditing is a public good provided by private auditing firms, but these firms are paid by the enterprise being audited. Therefore, audit firms may be dubbed as agents of two principals, the audited firm and the public. Reputation theory conjectures that auditors are disincentivized from performing shallow and fraudulent auditing because of reputational concerns and associated reputational costs. However, empirical evidence does not support this claim. While it may be irrational for a large audit firm (such as Arthur Andersen LLP) to sacrifice its reputational capital for a single client by doing superficial audits (such as WorldCom), it may be quite rational for the auditing firm’s engagement partners to do so. The result might be a conspiracy against the public and investors. Because of an inelastic supply of experienced auditors and a highly concentrated market of big auditing firms, reputational losses due to auditing scandals for the audit firms’ local partners and staff seem to be rather small. With a game theoretic model, we argue here that neither higher transparency nor higher fines for auditing failures may prevent such conspiracies. Therefore, legal regulations and court rulings can only change the expected fines for audit fraud, but they cannot solve the general problems arising from the symbiotic relationship between auditors and their client firms. As auditing firms may use the so-called expectation gap to protect themselves against legal claims of wrongdoing, avenues more suitable to deterring conspiracies by auditors and their client firms might include whistleblowing, short-selling investors and investigative journalism.
Exploring farmers’ perceptions of social sustainability
Authors: Saleh Rita , Ehlers Melf-Hinrich 
Published: November 2023

AbstractIn the farming sector, there is growing awareness of the importance of the social dimension of sustainability and its complex links to environmental and economic sustainability. However, social sustainability is generally the least understood dimension of sustainability. Despite efforts to empirically capture social sustainability, it remains unclear how it is relevant to individual farms and how it depends on their contexts. To generate a comprehensive and contextual understanding of social sustainability, we adopted a mixed-methods approach. We first conducted qualitative interviews with farm managers, which then informed the development of a survey focused on farmers’ perceptions and experiences of social sustainability at their farms. In total, 354 Swiss farm managers completed our online survey. First, we identified social aspects relevant to farmers and compared them across the three main production types in Switzerland (dairy, crop, and other livestock production). Second, we assessed farmers’ perceptions and experiences of social sustainability and the relationship of these perceptions and experiences with farmer identity (i.e., productivist, conservative, passionate caretaker, and forward-looking). The findings reveal differences in the meaning and importance of social sustainability across production types. Farmer identity appears to influence the experience of social sustainability at farms, with forward-looking farmers reporting better experiences of social sustainability than other farmers. The findings can inform the development and implementation of social sustainability indicators for farms and tailored interventions based on farm contexts and farmer characteristics.
Digital twins, big data governance, and sustainable tourism
Authors: Rahmadian Eko , Feitosa Daniel , Virantina Yulia 
Published: November 2023

AbstractThe rapid adoption of digital technologies has revolutionized business operations and introduced emerging concepts such as Digital Twin (DT) technology, which has the potential to predict system responses before they occur, making it an attractive option for smart and sustainable tourism. However, implementing DT software systems poses significant challenges, including compliance with regulations and effective communication among stakeholders, and concerns surrounding security, privacy, and trust with the use of big data. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a documentation framework for architectural decisions (DFAD) that applies the concept of big data governance to the digital system. The framework aims to ensure accountability, transparency, and trustworthiness while adhering to rules and regulations. To demonstrate its applicability, a case study and three case scenarios on the potential use of Mobile Positioning Data (MPD) in Indonesia for DT technology in smart and sustainable tourism were examined. The paper highlights the benefits of DFAD in shaping stakeholder communication and human–machine interactions while leveraging the potential of MPD to measure tourism statistics by Statistics Indonesia since 2016. Not only the documentation framework promotes compliance with regulations, but it also facilitates effective communication among stakeholders and enhances trust and transparency in the use of big data in DT technology for smart and sustainable tourism. This paper emphasizes the importance of effective big data governance and its potential to promote sustainable tourism practices. The multidisciplinarity approach on political science, software engineering, tourism, and official statistics provides an opportunity for academic contribution and decision-making processes.
What’s Wrong with Social Hierarchy? On Niko Kolodny’s The Pecking Order
Authors: Sharp Daniel 
Published: November 2023

AbstractThis review critically assesses Niko Kolodny’s theory of social hierarchy and its importance as articulated in The Pecking Order (2023). After summarizing Kolodny’s argument, I raise two critical challenges. First, I ask whether Kolodny leaves us without adequate account of why social hierarchies are, in themselves, objectionable. Second, I query whether Kolodny’s defense of representative democracy is decisive, and suggest that egalitarians should be open to alternative ways of mitigating the threat of hierarchy posed by political rule.
Epidemiological Models and Epistemic Perspectives: How Scientific Pluralism may be Misconstrued
Authors: Gaj Nicolò 
Published: November 2023

AbstractIn a scenario characterized by unpredictable developments, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiological models have played a leading part, having been especially widely deployed for forecasting purposes. In this paper, two real-world examples of modeling are examined in support of the proposition that science can convey inconsistent as well as genuinely perspectival representations of the world. Reciprocally inconsistent outcomes are grounded on incompatible assumptions, whereas perspectival outcomes are grounded on compatible assumptions and illuminate different aspects of the same object of interest. In both cases, models should be viewed as expressions of specific assumptions and unconstrained choices on the part of those designing them. The coexistence of a variety of models reflects a primary feature of science, namely its pluralism. It is herein proposed that recent over-exposure to science’s inner workings and disputes such as those pertaining to models, may have led the public to perceive pluralism as a flaw—or more specifically, as disunity or fragmentation, which in turn may have been interpreted as a sign of unreliability. In conclusion, given the inescapability of pluralism, suggestions are offered as to how to counteract distorted perceptions of science, and thereby enhance scientific literacy.
The effects of respiratory rate and tidal volume on pulse pressure variation in healthy lungs–a generalized additive model approach may help overcome limitations
Authors: Enevoldsen Johannes , Brandsborg Birgitte , Juhl-Olsen Peter , Rees Stephen Edward , Thaysen Henriette Vind , Scheeren Thomas W. L. , Vistisen Simon Tilma 
Published: November 2023

AbstractPulse pressure variation (PPV) is a well-established method for predicting fluid responsiveness in mechanically ventilated patients. The predictive accuracy is, however, disputed for ventilation with low tidal volume (VT) or low heart-rate-to-respiratory-rate ratio (HR/RR). We investigated the effects of VT and RR on PPV and on PPV’s ability to predict fluid responsiveness. We included patients scheduled for open abdominal surgery. Prior to a 250 ml fluid bolus, we ventilated patients with combinations of VT from 4 to 10 ml kg−1 and RR from 10 to 31 min−1. For each of 10 RR-VT combinations, PPV was derived using both a classic approach and a generalized additive model (GAM) approach. The stroke volume (SV) response to fluid was evaluated using uncalibrated pulse contour analysis. An SV increase > 10% defined fluid responsiveness. Fifty of 52 included patients received a fluid bolus. Ten were fluid responders. For all ventilator settings, fluid responsiveness prediction with PPV was inconclusive with point estimates for the area under the receiver operating characteristics curve between 0.62 and 0.82. Both PPV measures were nearly proportional to VT. Higher RR was associated with lower PPV. Classically derived PPV was affected more by RR than GAM-derived PPV. Correcting PPV for VT could improve PPV’s predictive utility. Low HR/RR has limited effect on GAM-derived PPV, indicating that the low HR/RR limitation is related to how PPV is calculated. We did not demonstrate any benefit of GAM-derived PPV in predicting fluid responsiveness.Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov, reg. March 6, 2020, NCT04298931.
On decreasing the orders of $$(k,g)$$-graphs
Authors: Exoo Geoffrey , Jajcay Robert , Raiman Tom 
Published: November 2023

AbstractA $$(k,g)$$

(
k
,
g
)

-graph is a k-regular graph of girth $$g$$
g
. Given $$k\ge 2$$

k
≥
2

and $$g\ge 3$$

g
≥
3

, $$(k,g)$$

(
k
,
g
)

-graphs of infinitely many orders are known to exist and the problem of finding a (k, g)-graph of the smallest possible order is known as the Cage Problem. The aim of our paper is to develop systematic (programmable) ways for lowering the orders of existing $$(k,g)$$

(
k
,
g
)

-graphs, while preserving their regularity and girth. Such methods, in analogy with the previously used excision, may have the potential for constructing smaller (k, g)-graphs from current smallest examples—record holders—some of which have not been improved in years. In addition, we consider constructions that preserve the regularity, the girth and the order of the considered graphs, but alter the graphs enough to possibly make them suitable for the application of our order decreasing methods. We include a detailed discussion of several specific parameter cases for which several non-isomorphic smallest examples are known to exist, and address the question of the distance between these non-isomorphic examples based on the number of changes required to move from one example to another.
Changes in Primary HIV-1 Drug Resistance Due to War Migration from Eastern Europe
Authors: Załęski Andrzej , Lembas Agnieszka , Dyda Tomasz , Siwak Ewa , Osińska Joanna , Suchacz Magdalena , Stempkowska-Rejek Justyna , Strycharz Marta , Orzechowska Justyna , Wiercińska-Drapało Alicja 
Published: November 2023

AbstractIn recent years, especially as a result of war in Ukraine, enormous movements of migration to Poland from eastern European countries have been reported, including people living with Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV). We have conducted multi-center, prospective study, which aimed to establish HIV-1 subtype and assess the presence of primary drug resistance mutations to nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and protease inhibitors in antiretroviral treatment naïve patients. The clinical trial recruited 117 individuals during 2 years period (2020–2022). The prevalence of HIV-1 subtype A was statistically significantly more frequent in Ukrainian, and HIV-1 subtype B in Polish patients (p < 0.05). Drug resistance mutations were detected in 44% of all cases and the comparison of presence of mutations in the analyzed groups, as well as in the subgroups of subtype A and B HIV-1 has not revealed any significant differences (p > 0.05), nevertheless Polish patients had multidrug resistance mutations more frequent (p < 0.05). The results from our trial show no increased risk of transmission of multidrug resistant HIV strains in our cohort of Ukrainian migrants.Clinical trials. Gov number NCT04636736; date of registration: November 19, 2020.
Thermal properties and thermodynamic model of lithium doped 45S5 bioglass
Authors: Chromčíková Mária , Hruška Branislav , Nowicka Aleksandra , Macháček Jan , Liška Marek 
Published: November 2023

AbstractShakhmatkin and Vedishcheva thermodynamic model (SV TDM) of the 45S5 Bioglass® doped with three different amounts of Li2O (4.1, 9.9, and 12.3 mol%) was evaluated at T = 800 K. The 55 components of SV TDM were considered, among them 12 lithium containing compounds. Different number of components with not negligible equilibrium molar amount was found for different glass compositions (9 or 10). In all glass compositions containing nonzero amount of Li2O, the four lithium compounds with not negligible equilibrium amount were identified, i.e., Li2O·SiO2, 3Li2O·P2O5, Li2O·2CaO·2SiO2, and 2Li2O·SiO2. In the 45S5 glass composition four phosphate compounds with not negligible abundance were identified: 9Na2O·6SiO2·2P2O5, Na2O·2CaO·P2O5, 5Na2O·4SiO2·P2O5, and Na2O·CaO·P2O5. In all other glasses the 3Li2O.P2O5 was found with not negligible abundance. Moreover, in the glass with 4.1 mol% Li2O the Na2O·2CaO·P2O5 and 3Li2O·P2O5 compounds were found with not negligible abundance. For each studied glass the glass transition temperature, coefficient of thermal expansion of glass and metastable melt were measured by thermodilatometry. The low temperature viscosity was measured by thermomechanical analysis. The viscous flow activation energy was evaluated from the viscosity temperature dependence. The compositional dependence of measured thermal properties was analyzed by correlation analysis with the Q-distribution of silicate and phosphate units.