bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Albendazole-induced genotoxicity in the larvae of fall armyworm as a safe environmental tool
Authors: Malak Marian 
Published: November 2023

AbstractAnthelmintic drugs are considered a new alternative strategy to control insect pests. Spodoptera frugiperda, fall armyworm (FAW), is one of the most serious pests of maize and cultivated plants. Albendazole (ABZ) is one of the safest anthelmintic drugs and is used worldwide in human and veterinary medicine. ABZ has not previously been used for controlling FAW, so the present study aimed to investigate the insecticidal and genotoxic effects of ABZ on FAW. ABZ produced a significant effect on the mortality of FAW. Also, drug treatment significantly disrupted the larval, pupal, and adult durations associated with malformations. Because ABZ interferes with microtubule formation, it could induce mortality and affect all physiological processes in FAW. Additionally, it can disrupt the chromosomes' alignment and result in the formation of micronuclei (MN), DNA damage, and cell death, thus causing ABZ-induced genotoxic effects on FAW larval hemocytes. The present study shows that the ABZ drug has a strong insecticidal potency and is a promising environmental safety tool to control the fall armyworm pest.
Graphical abstract
Transcriptomic response of Pinus massoniana to infection stress from the pine wood nematode Bursaphelenchus xylophilus
Authors: An Yibo , Li Yongxia , Ma Ling , Li Dongzhen , Zhang Wei , Feng Yuqian , Liu Zhenkai , Wang Xuan , Wen Xiaojian , Zhang Xingyao 
Published: November 2023

AbstractThe pinewood nematode (PWN) Bursaphelenchus xylophilus is a forestry quarantine pest and causes an extremely dangerous forest disease that is spreading worldwide. Due to the complex pathogenic factors of pine wood nematode disease, the pathogenesis is still unknown. B. xylophilus ultimately invades a host and causes death. However, little is known about the defence-regulating process of host pine after infection by B. xylophilus at the molecular level. Therefore, we wanted to understand how Pinus massoniana regulates its response to invasion by B. xylophilus. P. massoniana were artificially inoculated with B. xylophilus solution, while those without B. xylophilus solution were used as controls. P. massoniana inoculated with B. xylophilus solution for 0 h, 6 h, 24 h, and 120 h was subjected to high-throughput sequencing to obtain transcriptome data. At various time points (0 h, 6 h, 24 h, 120 h), gene transcription was measured in P. massoniana inoculated with PWN. At different time points, P. massoniana gene transcription differed significantly, with a response to early invasion by PWN. According to Gene Ontology (GO) classification and Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG) enrichment analysis, P. massoniana response to PWN invasion involves a wide range of genes, including plant hormone signal transformation, flavonoid biosynthesis, amino sugar and nucleoside sugar metabolism, and MAPK signalling pathways. Among them, inoculation for 120 hours had the greatest impact on differential genes. Subsequently, weighted gene coexpression network analysis (WGCNA) was used to analyse transcriptional regulation of P. massoniana after PWN infection. The results showed that the core gene module of P. massoniana responding to PWN was “MEmagenta”, enriched in oxidative phosphorylation, amino sugar and nucleotide sugar metabolism, and the MAPK signalling pathway. MYB family transcription factors with the highest number of changes between infected and healthy pine trees accounted for 20.4% of the total differentially expressed transcription factors. To conclude, this study contributes to our understanding of the molecular mechanism of initial PWN infection of P. massoniana. Moreover, it provides some important background information on PWN pathogenic mechanisms.
Adversarial machine learning phases of matter
Authors: Jiang Si , Lu Sirui , Deng Dong-Ling 
Published: November 2023

AbstractWe study the robustness of machine learning approaches to adversarial perturbations, with a focus on supervised learning scenarios. We find that typical phase classifiers based on deep neural networks are extremely vulnerable to adversarial perturbations: adding a tiny amount of carefully crafted noises into the original legitimate examples will cause the classifiers to make incorrect predictions at a notably high confidence level. Through the lens of activation maps, we find that some important underlying physical principles and symmetries remain to be adequately captured for classifiers with even near-perfect performance. This explains why adversarial perturbations exist for fooling these classifiers. In addition, we find that, after adversarial training the classifiers will become more consistent with physical laws and consequently more robust to certain kinds of adversarial perturbations. Our results provide valuable guidance for both theoretical and experimental future studies on applying machine learning techniques to condensed matter physics.
Artificial Intelligence and Sensor Innovations: Enhancing Livestock Welfare with a Human-Centric Approach
Authors: Neethirajan Suresh 
Published: November 2023

AbstractIn the wake of rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and sensor technologies, a new horizon of possibilities has emerged across diverse sectors. Livestock farming, a domain often sidelined in conventional AI discussions, stands at the cusp of this transformative wave. This paper delves into the profound potential of AI and sensor innovations in reshaping animal welfare in livestock farming, with a pronounced emphasis on a human-centric paradigm. Central to our discourse is the symbiotic interplay between cutting-edge technology and human expertise. While AI and sensor mechanisms offer real-time, comprehensive, and objective insights into animal welfare, it’s the farmer’s intrinsic knowledge of their livestock and environment that should steer these technological strides. We champion the notion of technology as an enhancer of farmers’ innate capabilities, not a substitute. Our manuscript sheds light on: Objective Animal Welfare Indicators: An exhaustive exploration of health, behavioral, and physiological metrics, underscoring AI’s prowess in delivering precise, timely, and objective evaluations. Farmer-Centric Approach: A focus on the pivotal role of farmers in the adept adoption and judicious utilization of AI and sensor technologies, coupled with discussions on crafting intuitive, pragmatic, and cost-effective solutions tailored to farmers' distinct needs. Ethical and Social Implications: A discerning scrutiny of the digital metamorphosis in farming, encompassing facets like animal privacy, data safeguarding, responsible AI deployment, and potential technological access disparities. Future Pathways: Advocacy for principled technology design, unambiguous responsible use guidelines, and fair technology access, all echoing the fundamental principles of human-centric computing and analytics. In essence, our paper furnishes pioneering insights at the crossroads of farming, animal welfare, technology, and ethics. It presents a rejuvenated perspective, bridging the chasm between technological advancements and their human beneficiaries, resonating seamlessly with the ethos of the Human-Centric Intelligent Systems journal. This comprehensive analysis thus marks a significant stride in the burgeoning domain of human-centric intelligent systems, especially within the digital livestock farming landscape, fostering a harmonious coexistence of technology, animals, and humans.
Effect of thermal oxidation on the dry sliding friction and wear behaviour of CP-Ti on CP-Ti tribopairs
Authors: Sun Yong , Bailey Richard , Zhang Jin , Lian Yong , Ji Xiulin 
Published: November 2023

AbstractThermal oxidation (TO) has proven to be a cost-effective and efficient technique to engineer the surfaces of titanium and its alloys to achieve enhanced surface properties. The benefits of TO treatment in enhancing the tribological properties of titanium have been demonstrated by many investigators. However, most of the reported tribological studies have been based on the contact between a TO treated titanium specimen and a counter-body made of other materials, mainly ceramics, steels and polymers. Very few studies have been reported on the friction and wear behaviour of TO treated titanium sliding against TO treated titanium. In this work, the effect of thermal oxidation on the dry sliding friction and wear behaviour of commercially pure Ti (CP-Ti) on CP-Ti tribopairs was investigated under loading conditions ranging from elastic contact to plastic contact. Comparisons were made among three contact pairs: (1) untreated Ti on untreated Ti (Ti–Ti), (2) untreated Ti on TO treated Ti (Ti-TO) and (3) TO treated Ti on TO treated Ti (TO-TO). The results show that the TO-TO contact pair presents an ideal material combination to achieve the best tribological performance in terms of low friction and superior wear resistance. On the other hand, the Ti–Ti pair presents the worst combination in terms of tribological performance. While the Ti-TO pair performs better than the Ti–Ti pair tribologically, it is not as good as the TO-TO pair. It is essential to thermally oxidize both specimens in order to achieve optimal tribological performance. It is the oxide layer-on-oxide layer contact that imparts the excellent tribological performance. Failure of the oxide layer in one of the contact bodies can lead to high and unstable friction and increased wear from both contacting bodies. The tribological performance of the three contact pairs and the failure mechanism of the oxide layer are discussed in the paper. The results of this work suggest that the TO treated Ti on TO treated Ti contact pair would have potential tribological applications in engineering.
The cultural and linguistic adaptation of the Oxford Cognitive Screen to Tamil
Authors: A. P. Porrselvi , Venkateswaran Prathiksha , Vijayanand Sahasra , Webb Sam S. , Ramkumar Shreya , C. R. Sneha , Demeyere Nele 
Published: November 2023

AbstractObjective:The Oxford Cognitive Screen (OCS) is a screening tool to assess stroke patients for deficits in attention, executive functions, language, praxis, numeric cognition, and memory. In this study, the OCS was culturally and linguistically adapted to Tamil, for use in India (OCS TA), considering the differences between formal and spoken versions of Tamil and consideration of its phonetic complexity.
Method:We adopted two-parallel form versions of the OCS and generated normative data for them. We recruited 181 healthy controls (Mean = 39.27 years, SD 16.52) (141 completed version A, 40 completed version B, 33 completed version A and B) and compared the data with the original UK normative sample. In addition, 28 native Tamil-speaking patients who had a stroke in the past three years (Mean = 62.76 years, SD 9.14) were assessed. Convergent validity was assessed with subtasks from Addenbrooke’s Cognitive Examination III (ACE-III).
Results:We found significant differences between the UK normative group and the OCS TA normative group in age and education. Tamil-specific norms were used to adapt the cutoffs for the memory, gesture imitation, and executive function tasks. When domain-specific scores on the ACE-III were compared, OCS TA exhibited strong convergent validity.Conclusions:The OCS TA has shown the potential to be a useful screening tool for stroke survivors among Tamil speakers with the two-parallel forms demonstrating good equivalence. Further empirical evidence from larger studies is required to establish their psychometric performance and clinical validity.
More Money, Less Credit? Legislator Gender and the Effectiveness of Congressional Credit Claiming
Authors: McLaughlin Peter T. 
Published: November 2023

AbstractBringing home federal spending projects to the district is a common reelection strategy for members of the U.S. Congress, and congresswomen tend to outperform congressmen in securing district spending. However, for legislators to turn distributive benefits into higher approval and electoral rewards, constituents must recognize that public spending has taken place in their community and attribute credit to the correct public official. I theorize that congresswomen face a gender bias when claiming credit for federal projects, and I test this theory through an online survey experiment. Contrary to expectations, I find no evidence that legislator gender influences the public’s reaction to congressional credit claims, indicating that congresswomen can effectively use distributive politics to counter gendered vulnerability in the U.S. Congress. This research advances the literature on gender and politics by investigating whether a gender bias in credit claiming prevents congresswomen from turning their representational efforts into electoral capital.
Detailed Modeling and Evaluation of the Potential Impact of Blue Jet on the Atmospheric Chemistry
Authors: Xu C. , Huret N. , Celestin S. , Qie X. 
Published: November 2023

AbstractTo evaluate the impact of a blue jet (BJ) discharge on the chemical system in the whole stratosphere as a function of altitude, we developed a detailed ion‐neutral chemistry model. The BJ discharge is formed as a streamer discharge up to 50 km with a leader part up to 28 km associated with high‐temperature chemistry. The simulations are performed in a 2‐day duration to investigate diurnal variations of chemical perturbations at the altitudes of every 2 km from 20 to 50 km. The specific chemistry processes during the leader (considering the molecular diffusion) and streamer discharges react with the whole stratospheric chemical families (oxygen, nitrogen, chlorine, and bromine). We systematically compare the simulations with and without the BJ discharge. The results obtained during the first 100 s indicate the ozone enhanced in the middle stratosphere, while no obvious change in the lower and close to the top of the stratosphere. After 2 days, simulations show that the entire neutral chemical stratospheric system is modified with the enhancement of nitrogen oxides, chlorine, and bromine reservoirs. As a consequence, ozone depletion appears in the middle and upper stratosphere due to the catalytic cycle associated with reactive NOx (=NO + NO2). Each chemical family results in a new equilibrium, and the ozone layer appears to be “shifted” to a lower altitude with its maximum less abundance. Due to the long lifetimes of the chlorine and bromine reservoirs in the stratosphere, the chemical perturbations caused by the BJ discharge at all studied altitudes are maintained.
More Frequent Hurricane Passage Across the Bahamian Archipelago During the Little Ice Age
Authors: Winkler T. S. , van Hengstum P. J. , Donnelly J. P. , Wallace E. J. , Albury N. A. , D’Entremont N. , Hawkes A. D. , Maio C. V. , Roberts J. , Sullivan R. M. , Woodruff J. D. 
Published: November 2023

AbstractThe year 2020 Common Era (CE) experienced the highest number of named tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean since 1850 CE, but the short instrumental record makes it challenging to assess if this level of activity is statistically meaningful. Here, we present two near‐annually resolved hurricane reconstructions from sediment archived in two blue holes located only 300 m apart on the northern margin of Grand Bahama. These two blue holes provide a replicated signal of hurricanes passing within a 50–100 km radius over the last 1,800 years, and the long‐term reconstructions document multiple 50‐to‐150‐year intervals when hurricane frequency was significantly higher than it has been over the last 100 years. These two records were first merged into a single stack, and then compiled with five other high‐resolution reconstructions from across the Bahamian Archipelago to form a single 1500‐year record of Bahamian hurricane frequency. This new Bahamian Compilation documents more hurricanes passing ∼75°W from 21°N to 26°N during the Little Ice Age (LIA; 1300–1850 CE) relative to the prior millennium and the last 170 years. The US Eastern Seaboard also experienced heightened hurricane activity during the LIA, whereas the Gulf of Mexico and Southern Caribbean were inactive. This suggests that despite a globally cooler climate, regional climate conditions during the LIA remained favorable for cyclogenesis and intensification along certain Atlantic hurricane pathways. Perhaps heightened Sahel rainfall during the LIA indicates an increase in African Easterly waves, which in turn possibly seeded more tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Main Development Region.
A Nonlinear Model for Evaluating Dynamic Resilience of Water Supply Hydropower Generation‐Environment Conservation Nexus System
Authors: Wu Zhenhui , Liu Dedi , Mei Yadong , Guo Shenglian , Xiong Lihua , Liu Pan , Chen Jie , Yin Jiabo , Zeng Yujie 
Published: November 2023

AbstractUndesirable disturbances (e.g., extraordinary drought) are prone to cause cascading failures of water supply‐hydropower generation‐environment conservation (WHE) nexus system. Simulating a dynamic resilience of the nexus system can provide opportunities for pre‐disturbance effective prevention and post‐disturbance recovery from the cascading failures. Previous dynamic resilience simulating is often based on the linear assumption which is not applicable for the WHE nexus system that involves nonlinear processes. To improve simulation accuracy of the dynamic resilience of the WHE nexus system, a novel nonlinear dynamic resilience model that incorporates both a WHE nexus model and a second‐order Volterra (SOV) model is proposed. The WHE nexus model simulates amount of impact propagated by an original disturbance event on each subsystem, while the SOV model captures nonlinear relationship between the amount of impact and a corresponding dynamic resilience. The proposed model was applied to the Liuchong River Basin, China, under different dry year scenarios. The results show that the dynamic resilience simulated through the SOV model performs better than that through a first‐order Volterra model which is suitable for a linear system, with Nash‐Sutcliffe efficiencies of water supply, hydropower generation, and environment conservation subsystems increasing by 36.8%, 70.9%, and 17% respectively. Among the WHE nexus system, the water supply subsystem is found to be the least resilient. Moreover, the proposed nonlinear model is more suitable for simulating and predicting dynamic resilience when a severer water resources drought occurs. The proposed model helps to guide resilience management of water resource system by combining nexus and resilience thinking.
Electroacupuncture modulates glutamate neurotransmission to alleviate PTSD-like behaviors in a PTSD animal model
Authors: Cai Mudan , Park Hee Ra , Yang Eun Jin 
Published: November 2023

AbstractPost-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental disorder that develops after exposure to a traumatic event. Owing to the relatively low rates of response and remission with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors as the primary treatment for PTSD, there is a recognized need for alternative strategies to effectively address the symptoms of PTSD. Dysregulation of glutamatergic neurotransmission plays a critical role in various disorders, including anxiety, depression, PTSD, and Alzheimer’s disease. Therefore, the regulation of glutamate levels holds great promise as a therapeutic target for the treatment of mental disorders. Electroacupuncture (EA) has become increasingly popular as a complementary and alternative medicine approach. It maintains the homeostasis of central nervous system (CNS) function and alleviates symptoms associated with anxiety, depression, and insomnia. This study investigated the effects of EA at the GV29 (Yintang) acupoint three times per week for 2 weeks in an animal model of PTSD. PTSD was induced using single prolonged stress/shock (SPSS) in mice, that is, SPS with additional foot shock stimulation. EA treatment significantly reduced PTSD-like behavior and effectively regulated serum corticosterone and serotonin levels in the PTSD model. Additionally, EA treatment decreased glutamate levels and glutamate neurotransmission-related proteins (pNR1 and NR2B) in the hippocampus of a PTSD model. In addition, neuronal activity and the number of Golgi-impregnated dendritic spines were significantly lower in the EA treatment group than in the SPSS group. Notably, EA treatment effectively reduced glutamate-induced excitotoxicity (caspase-3, Bax, and pJNK). These findings suggest that EA treatment at the GV29 acupoint holds promise as a potential therapeutic approach for PTSD, possibly through the regulation of NR2B receptor-mediated glutamate neurotransmission to reduce PTSD-like behaviors.
Atomic scale volume and grain boundary diffusion elucidated by in situ STEM
Authors: Schweizer Peter , Sharma Amit , Pethö Laszlo , Huszar Emese , Vogl Lilian Maria , Michler Johann , Maeder Xavier 
Published: November 2023

AbstractDiffusion is one of the most important phenomena studied in science ranging from physics to biology and, in abstract form, even in social sciences. In the field of materials science, diffusion in crystalline solids is of particular interest as it plays a pivotal role in materials synthesis, processing and applications. While this subject has been studied extensively for a long time there are still some fundamental knowledge gaps to be filled. In particular, atomic scale observations of thermally stimulated volume diffusion and its mechanisms are still lacking. In addition, the mechanisms and kinetics of diffusion along defects such as grain boundaries are not yet fully understood. In this work we show volume diffusion processes of tungsten atoms in a metal matrix on the atomic scale. Using in situ high resolution scanning transmission electron microscopy we are able to follow the random movement of single atoms within a lattice at elevated temperatures. The direct observation allows us to confirm random walk processes, quantify diffusion kinetics and distinctly separate diffusion in the volume from diffusion along defects. This work solidifies and refines our knowledge of the broadly essential mechanism of volume diffusion.
High-resolution temporal profiling of E. coli transcriptional response
Authors: Miano Arianna , Rychel Kevin , Lezia Andrew , Sastry Anand , Palsson Bernhard , Hasty Jeff 
Published: November 2023

AbstractUnderstanding how cells dynamically adapt to their environment is a primary focus of biology research. Temporal information about cellular behavior is often limited by both small numbers of data time-points and the methods used to analyze this data. Here, we apply unsupervised machine learning to a data set containing the activity of 1805 native promoters in E. coli measured every 10 minutes in a high-throughput microfluidic device via fluorescence time-lapse microscopy. Specifically, this data set reveals E. coli transcriptome dynamics when exposed to different heavy metal ions. We use a bioinformatics pipeline based on Independent Component Analysis (ICA) to generate insights and hypotheses from this data. We discovered three primary, time-dependent stages of promoter activation to heavy metal stress (fast, intermediate, and steady). Furthermore, we uncovered a global strategy E. coli uses to reallocate resources from stress-related promoters to growth-related promoters following exposure to heavy metal stress.