bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effect of fecal preservation method on captive southern white rhinoceros gut microbiome
Authors: Burnham Christina M. , McKenney Erin A. , Heugten Kimberly Ange‐van , Minter Larry J. , Trivedi Shweta 
Published: March 2023

AbstractThe southern white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum) faces an uncertain future in the wild due to increased poaching pressure and habitat fragmentation, thus the management of reproductively successful populations is of critical importance. Successful reproductive outcomes in rhinoceros may be mediated by diet and gut microbial diversity; therefore, understanding gut microbial dynamics within and between captive and wild populations may help improve conservation efforts. Accordingly, gut microbiome preservation methods are needed that are practical for in situ field sampling of wild populations. We evaluated the efficacy of 3 different preservation methods over 2 timepoints for stabilizing microbial communities in feces from southern white rhinoceros (n = 10) at the North Carolina Zoo in Asheboro, North Carolina, USA, during July–September 2020 and January–March 2021. Samples were immediately frozen at −80°C, stored in PERFORMAbiome™·GUT (PB) tubes or stored in 95% ethanol at ambient temperatures (to simulate field conditions), and processed after 14 or 230 days post‐collection. We quantitatively compared alpha and beta diversity across microbial communities and identified taxa that were enriched in each treatment group. Samples preserved in 95% ethanol consistently harbored lower Shannon diversity index (SHDI) and Simpson's diversity (SDI) values compared to Frozen and PB samples. This trend was apparent in both Ethanol day‐14 samples (SHDI 4.94; SDI 0.98) versus Frozen day‐14 (SHDI 5.19; W = 518, P < 0.001; SDI 0.99; W = 476, P < 0.001) and PB day‐14 (SHDI 5.15; W = 430, P < 0.01; SDI 0.99; W = 1075, P = 1) samples, and in Ethanol day‐230 samples (SHDI 4.48; SDI 0.97) versus Frozen day‐230 (SHDI 5.18; W = 0, P < 0.05; SDI 0.99; W = 0, P = 0.032) and PB day‐230 (SHDI 5.23; W = 0, P < 0.05; SDI 0.99; W = 0, P = 0.032) samples. Ethanol day 230 samples differed (P < 0.05) from all other treatments in both alpha and beta diversity indices. Notably, frozen and PB preservation methods maintained compositionally similar microbial communities across both time points. Our results indicate that PB tubes stored at ambient temperatures perform similarly to freezing at −80°C, highlighting their utility for microbiome fieldwork applications. Identifying optimal and versatile microbiome preservation techniques will enable future studies of the gut microbiome in reproductively‐successful wild populations, an effort central to conservation efforts in the southern white rhinoceros and other threatened species.
Imaging techniques as tool in the characterization of the impact of silica nanofluid in Indiana limestone
Authors: de Araújo Olga M. O. , Sharma Keerti V. , dos Santos Caio M. S. F. F. , da Silva Marcus V. S. , dos Santos Ramon S. , Anjos Marcelino J. , Oliveira Davi F. , Machado Alessandra S. , Lopes Ricardo T. 
Published: March 2023

AbstractIndiana limestone is composed mainly of calcite and aragonite minerals, which are different crystalline forms of calcium carbonate. Due to its composition of almost pure calcium carbonate (around 97%), it is widely used in the petroleum industry as a standard porous media for laboratory experiments with a huge scope in industrial applications. A method to improve oil recovery is associated with the use of nanoparticles (NP). One of the most promising is presented to be that of silica (Si) NP, because of their compatibility with the reservoir and subsurface abundance. In this work, we applied Si NP at a concentration of 0.5%, prepared in a base fluid of 1000 ppm in crude oil, injected in Indiana limestone and tested them with microtomography (microCT) and micro x‐ray fluorescence (microXRF) techniques to evaluate the impact of the treatment. Combining morphological results with the mapping of the elements, a more complete characterization of the sample is possible for a better understanding of these interactions applied in oil field industries.
Natural convective MHD nanofluid flow past a vertical plate embedded in a porous medium with thermal diffusion and hall current
Authors: Gohain Dipunja , Taid Bijoy Krishna , Ahmed Nazibuddin 
Published: March 2023

AbstractIn the present study, we explore MHD water‐based nanofluid flow past an impulsively started infinite vertical plate embedded in a porous medium, including ramped velocity and concentration in the presence of Hall effect, thermal radiation, chemical reaction, heat source/sink and thermal diffusion. The set of non‐dimensional governing equations is computed utilising the Laplace transform method. The effect of different embedded parameters on velocity, temperature and concentration profiles have been plotted and graphically deliberated through physical interpretation. Variations of the Nusselt number, Sherwood number and skin friction are also studied. It is established that for higher values of nanoparticle volume fraction, the primary and secondary velocities and concentration of the fluid reduce. The temperature enhances by increasing the nanoparticle volume fraction. The thermal diffusion upsurges the fluid concentration. The rate of momentum transfer falls as Hall current parameter increases.
Backcrossing as a species restoration technique
Authors: Wharton Dan 
Published: March 2023

AbstractAn investigation was conducted on the phenotypic results of mouse hybridization and seven generations of backcrossing, observing reciprocal F1 hybrids and backcrosses of Mus spretus and a laboratory strain of Mus domesticus C57BL/6J. F1 hybrids, backcrosses, and pure control specimens were measured for 6 body characteristics, 4 pelage coloration characteristics, 14 behaviors, and reproduction as reflected in litter size. Backcrossing was pursued for seven generations to FBC7 (i.e., “Backcross 7” or seven generations from commencement of backcrossing from an F1 hybrid female) where species restoration is mathematically calculated to be at 99.7%. Except for a minority of FBC7 M. spretus specimens failing to conform completely to one pelage characteristic, FBC7 specimens were indistinguishable from controls both subjectively and in all areas of measurement. The M. spretus backcross line was followed generation by generation and was largely conforming to controls by FBC4 at latest. The same effect was observed in the reciprocal M. domesticus backcross line. Fertility was negatively affected in F1 hybrids but restored or improved in backcross generations. Discussion is offered on hybridization and backcrossing as it occurs in nature and how it has been used or could be used as an additional ex situ tool in wildlife conservation efforts. It is concluded that conservation‐oriented backcrossing is a practical species/subspecies restoration technique and has the potential to make genetic rescue feasible with minimal gene flow at the binomial level. Backcrossing is most applicable in closely monitored ex situ settings (1) where only one sex remains of a given taxon; and (2) where inbreeding depression seriously threatens a remnant taxon's ability to recover, and the only gene flow option is from another distinct species.
Advanced Topics
Authors: Esuli Andrea , Fabris Alessandro , Moreo Alejandro , Sebastiani Fabrizio 
Published: March 2023

AbstractIn this chapter we look at a number of “advanced” (or niche) topics in quantification, including quantification for ordinal data, “regression quantification” (the task that stands to regression as “standard” quantification stands to classification), cross-lingual quantification for textual data, quantification for networked data, and quantification for streaming data. The chapter ends with a discussion on how to derive confidence intervals for the class prevalence estimates returned by quantification systems.
The Quantification Landscape
Authors: Esuli Andrea , Fabris Alessandro , Moreo Alejandro , Sebastiani Fabrizio 
Published: March 2023

AbstractThis chapter looks at other aspects of the “quantification landscape” that have not been covered in the previous chapters, and discusses the evolution of quantification research, from its beginnings to the most recent quantification-based “shared tasks”; the landscape of quantification-based, publicly available software libraries; visualization tools specifically oriented to displaying the results of quantification-based experiments; and other tasks in data science that present important similarities with quantification. This chapter also presents the results of experiments, that we have carried out ourselves, in which we compare many of the methods discussed in Chapter2on a common testing infrastructure.
Tunnel Linings
Authors: Neu Gerrit Emanuel , Christ Florian , Iskhakov Tagir , Krikelis Christina , Petraroia Diego Nicolás , Plückelmann Sven , Schoen Maximilian , Breitenbücher Rolf , Lavasan Arash Alimardani , Mark Peter , Meschke Günther , Timothy Jithender J. 
Published: March 2023

AbstractIn this chapter, important research results for the development of a robust and damage-tolerant multimaterial tunnel lining are presented. This includes the production, design and optimization of fiber-reinforced hybrid segmental lining systems based on numerical models and experimental investigations under tunneling loads. In addition, novel tail void grouting materials are developed and optimized regarding their infiltration and hardening behavior while taking the interaction with the surrounding ground into account. In order to expand the applicability of mechanized tunneling regarding soils characterized by significant swelling potential due to water uptake by clay minerals, a deformable segmental lining system is presented. The risk of damage due to high localized loads is reduced by the integration of additional radial protective layers on the lining segments and a compressible annular gap grout, which protect the tunnel structure by undergoing high deformations after reaching a certain yielding load. However, the deformability of such support systems affects the distribution of the stresses around the tunnel which governs the magnitude and buildup of the swelling pressure in the soil. Therefore, the development of damage tolerant lining systems requires a material and structural design which ensures an optimal soil-structure interaction through a synergy of computational and experimental techniques.
The Cultures Framework
Authors: Stephenson Janet 
Published: March 2023

AbstractThis chapter introduces the cultures framework, which offers a conceptual structure for visualising and analysing the relationship between culture and sustainability. It has been extensively tested through research on a wide range of sustainability problems. The core of the framework—which conveys the interactions between motivators, activities and materiality, together called the cultural ensemble—reflects widely shared understandings of culture’s features and dynamics as discussed in Chapter 3. The framework also incorporates conceptual elements from other fields of knowledge. From systems theory, it takes understandings of system dynamics and system boundaries. From structuration, it adopts the concept of agency and applies it to circumscribe actors’ cultures. Contextual pressures on culture are drawn into consideration as external influences. Sustainability outcomes are the tangible effects of how these variables work through actors’ cultures. These ideas are visually represented in a model which is applicable to cultural analysis at any scale.
Conclusion: Records, Bodies and Contested Justice
Authors: McCulloch Jock , Miller Pavla 
Published: March 2023

AbstractThe conclusion draws together the main themes of the book and brings the story of the miners’ class action up to date.For most of the twentieth century, gold mining dominated South Africa’s economy. Through their extensive use of migrant labour, the industry helped shape the economies—and populations—of the southern half of the continent. The mines led the world in the use of science, provisions for compensating occupational injury and state oversight of the industry. Yet their reputation for excellence was undeserved. Rather, the collusion between the state and the industry in suppressing the knowledge of risk, the publication of misleading data and the use of publicity is best characterised as the manufacture of ignorance. In particular, the systematic failure to collect health statistics and employment records impeded the accumulation of comparable data, prevented the consolidation of epidemiological evidence and so played a significant part in hiding an epidemic of occupational lung disease.In the first half of the twentieth century, the South African gold mining industry helped shape and consolidate apartheid. The gradual dismantling of this system in the 1990s presented both the industry and social justice advocates with far-reaching challenges. The recent settlement of the miners’ class action and establishment of the Tshiamiso Trust coincided with sharp decline of the gold mining industry and struggling ODMWA compensation system. Lack of administrative capacity, patchy employment records, difficulties in diagnosing silicosis and TB and shortages of medical staff have been exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. These and other issues have become the focus of a Justice for Miners campaign. The chapter concludes by noting that those who support miners injured in South Africa’s process of wealth accumulation—propose solutions to practical problems, conduct research into occupational diseases and mobilise local communities—make a double contribution to social justice. They assist miners and their families receive compensation, and help heal longstanding injuries to the region’s civil society.
Lifting the Ban on the Recruitment of Tropical Labour: 1933–1945
Authors: McCulloch Jock , Miller Pavla 
Published: March 2023

AbstractThe ban on the recruitment of Tropical labour, imposed in 1913, was arguably the single most important state intervention in the mines’ history. It was the only intervention aimed specifically at protecting migrant labour—and it was strongly opposed by the industry. To have the ban lifted, the Chamber commissioned the international experts Almroth Wright, William Gorgas and Lyle Cummins to find a solution to deaths on the mines. Wright failed to develop an effective vaccine, and the expert recommendations of Gorgas and Cummins were largely ignored. Improved conditions on the mines did lead to a reduction of deaths from infectious pneumonia. What proved most effective in lifting the ban, however, was relentless lobbying, led by the company actuary William Gemmill and the Chief Medical Officer of Rand Mines, Dr A.J. Orenstein. Despite persistent evidence to the contrary, by 1938 the Chamber of Mines succeeded in persuading the South African government, the Colonial Office and the ILO that conditions on the mines were safe and that oscillating migration was beneficial to labour.
Tuberculosis, Malnutrition and Mining in South Africa: 1903–1960
Authors: McCulloch Jock , Miller Pavla 
Published: March 2023

AbstractTuberculosis became a notifiable disease in the Cape in 1907, and throughout the South African Union under the Public Health Act of 1919. The Act, which was designed to limit infection among whites, introduced programmes for early diagnosis, treatment and notification, as well as improved housing, sanitation and education. It also established dispensaries, sanatoria and farm colonies. There was no parallel programme for the majority of South Africans. By mid-twentieth century, the tuberculosis death rate among whites in South Africa was lower than in most European countries and was falling. However, the limited data suggested that the death rates among non-Europeans were disturbingly high. Over several decades, a range of medical officers and commissions of enquiry warned about a looming tuberculosis crisis, but there was no public health response, whether in the form of programmes to tackle malnutrition, diagnosing and treating those infected with tuberculosis or collecting relevant statistics. Effective treatment of tuberculosis, which should have—but did not—completely changed the management of the disease on the mines, became available in the 1950s. The failure to take advantage of the new drugs made the mines’ determination to externalise costs even more visible.
Tuberculosis and Migrant Labour in the High Commission Territories: Bechuanaland: 1885–1998
Authors: McCulloch Jock , Miller Pavla 
Published: March 2023

AbstractBritain acquired the High Commission Territories (HCTs) of Bechuanaland, Basutoland and Swaziland largely as a result of conflict with the Boer Republics around the turn of the twentieth century. The Territories were poor, had dispersed rural populations and few natural resources. Britain administered the HCTs on the principle that expenditure should not exceed the revenue obtained through taxation and made little investment in basic services and infrastructure. Generating sufficient revenue was a constant problem. The HCTs were starved of funds for essential services, and they soon became dependent upon the revenue from contracting labour to the gold mines. Selling migrant labour, however, came at a cost. From as early as 1912, the annual medical reports from the three Territories suggested that the mines were spreading tuberculosis into vulnerable populations. Medical repatriations were one of the obvious costs of a system in which a physical elite travelled south and, having served their contracts, returned home seriously ill. This chapter examines the interplay between colonial taxation, oscillating migration to the gold mines, the poverty of local communities and the emergent TB epidemic in Bechuanaland. The imposition and subsequent lifting of the ban on the recruitment of tropical labour and continuing tensions over recruiting at local and governmental levels are then linked to the developments of the medical system and compensation regimes.
Luminescent Mechanochromism and the Photosalient Effect of Aryl Gold(I) Isocyanide Complexes
Authors: Seki Tomohiro , Ito Hajime 
Published: March 2023

AbstractA study of stimuli-responsive molecules that can change their physical properties or external shape owing to variations in the external environment has attracted much attention owing to potential application in sensors and actuators. Our group has intensively studied aryl gold(I) isocyanide complexes to develop stimuli-responsive molecular crystals that can show luminescent mechanochromism and crystal jumping through phase transitions induced by mechanical stimulation or photoirradiation. Interestingly, some of our gold(I) isocyanide complexes have crystalline or even single crystalline characteristic both before and after mechano-induced emission color changes or photoinduced crystal jump. Based on the detailed information on molecular arrangements of the aryl gold(I) isocyanide complexes, the underlying mechanism of the responses can be clearly identified. In the Sect. 5.2 of this chapter, we review luminescent mechanochromic aryl gold(I) isocyanide complexes that has unique characteristic such as multiple emission colors, infrared emission, and noncentrosymmetry/centrosymmetry switching. Section 5.3 describes the mechano-induced single-crystal-to-single-crystal phase transitions of aryl gold(I) isocyanide complexes with red- and blue-shifted emission color changes or reversibility. In Sect. 5.4, the photoinduced phase transition of a gold(I) complex which accompanied by mechanical motion, i.e., crystal jump is described.
Spectral curves and W-representations of matrix models
Authors: Mironov A. , Morozov A. 
Published: March 2023

AbstractWe explain how the spectral curve can be extracted from the$$ \mathcal{W} $$W-representation of a matrix model. It emerges from the part of the$$ \mathcal{W} $$W-operator, which is linear in time-variables. A possibility of extracting the spectral curve in this way is important because there are models where matrix integrals are not yet available, and still they possess all their important features. We apply this reasoning to the family of WLZZ models and discuss additional peculiarities which appear for the non-negative value of the family parametern, when the model depends on additional couplings (dual times). In this case, the relation between topological and 1/Nexpansions is broken. On the other hand, all the WLZZ partition functions areτ-functions of the Toda lattice hierarchy, and these models also celebrate the superintegrability properties.
Parton distributions with scale uncertainties: a Monte Carlo sampling approach
Authors: Kassabov Zahari , Ubiali Maria , Voisey Cameron 
Published: March 2023

Abstract
We present the MCscales approach for incorporating scale uncertainties in parton distribution functions (PDFs). The new methodology builds on the Monte Carlo sampling for propagating experimental uncertainties into the PDF space that underlies the NNPDF approach, but it extends it to the space of factorisation and renomalisation scales. A prior probability is assigned to each scale combinations set in the theoretical predictions used to obtain each PDF replica in the Monte Carlo ensemble and a posterior probability is obtained by selecting replicas that satisfy fit-quality criteria. Our approach allows one to exactly match the scale variations in the PDFs with those in the computation of the partonic cross sections, thus accounting for the full correlations between the two. We illustrate the opportunities for phenomenological exploration made possible by our methodology for a variety of LHC observables. Sets of PDFs enriched with scale information are provided, along with a set of tools to use them.
An Algorithmic Approach to Palladio’s Design of Stairs
Authors: Giovannini Elisabetta Caterina 
Published: March 2023

AbstractBook I of Andrea Palladio's I quattro libri dell’architettura, contains the rules of Palladio's design. Over the years, many scholars have investigated how to make explicit the reasoning behind the theory of architectural proportions in Palladio. The study addresses the parametric analysis for Stairs described in Chapter XXVIII.