bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
TinySpiking: a lightweight and efficient python framework for unsupervised learning spiking neural networks
Authors: Liu Xin , Mo Lingfei , Tang Mengting 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Neural computation frameworks are essential for advancing computational neuroscience and artificial intelligence, offering a robust platform for simulating intricate brain-like processes and fostering the growth of intelligent systems. This study presents TinySpiking, a novel, lightweight, and energy-efficient Python framework designed for the simulation and learning of Spiking Neural Networks (SNNs). Unlike traditional frameworks, TinySpiking does not depend on third-party libraries, thereby reducing computational overhead and energy consumption. The framework's innovation is that it implements unsupervised learning through Spike-Time Dependent Plasticity (STDP), a biologically inspired learning rule that adjusts synaptic weights based on the precise timing of neuronal spikes. This mechanism is crucial for constructing complex neural architectures and effectively processing spatio-temporal data, which is vital for the dynamic and intricate demands of real-world data analysis. Demonstrating the practical utility of TinySpiking, we applied it to image reconstruction tasks using the MNIST and landmark datasets. The results not only validate the network's ability to autonomously identify and enhance key visual features without external supervision but also highlight its efficiency in learning from data, mirroring the adaptability of biological neural systems. In conclusion, TinySpiking's innovative, lightweight design and its proven effectiveness in unsupervised learning tasks make it a standout computational tool for the fields of computational neuroscience and machine learning. Its low time consumption, biological plausibility, and independence from third-party libraries position it as a compelling platform for future research and applications, promising to drive advancements in unsupervised learning and intelligent system development.
Resonant frequency reduction of piezoelectric vibration energy harvester by spring boundary condition
Authors: Huang Yu-Hsi , Ong Zhi Chao , Chou Sheng-Lun , Siow Pei Yi 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Recent years have shown increased interest in improving the efficiency of piezoelectric vibration-based energy harvesters (PVEH). The most common boundary condition of a PVEH is the clamped-end or cantilever with rigid supports, making it to perform efficiently at the resonant frequencies of the first two bending modes that are usually at a higher frequency range. The generated output voltage and power is also limited to the deformation from the bending modes of the cantilever PVEH. Thus, to lower the resonant frequencies for practicality in real ambient vibrations and to further increase the generated energy output, this paper proposed a spring boundary condition cantilever PVEH, where the rigid support of a cantilever PVEH was replaced with springs. A clamped-end cantilever PVEH was used as the benchmark for comparison. The springs were computationally modelled as a combination of a tension and a torsional spring to investigate the effect of tension and torsional spring stiffness in reducing the resonant frequencies of the cantilever PVEH using computational methods. To validate the proposed boundary conditions in reducing the resonant frequencies and increasing the generated voltage and power output of a cantilever PVEH, the vibration characteristics of the spring-based cantilever PVEH were extracted numerically and experimentally using amplitude-fluctuation electronic speckle pattern interferometry (AF-ESPI), laser Doppler vibrometer (LDV), and impedance analysis, and were compared with the clamped-end cantilever PVEH. Results showed that the spring boundary condition can effectively reduce the resonant frequencies and increase the maximum voltage and power output of the cantilever PVEH due to the increased displacement from the spring supports in the bending modes. The first three resonant frequencies of the cantilever PVEH were reduced from 73 Hz, 284 Hz, and 452 Hz to 15 Hz, 127 Hz, and 439 Hz. The maximum voltage output was increased from 3.1 V to 9.3 V, and the maximum power was increased from 0.093 mW to 8.316 mW, thus making it more practical to be used at a lower or ambient frequency range.
Enhanced dynamic hand gesture recognition for finger disabilities using deep learning and an optimized Otsu threshold method
Authors: Kadhim Malik Kareem , Der Chen Soong , Chai Phing Chen 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Hand gestures serve as a powerful means of communication, capable of conveying extensive information across various public health domains, including medicine and education. The process of hand gesture recognition involves the use of mathematical algorithms to identify human gestures and finds applications in areas such as communication for the deaf, human-computer interaction, intelligent driving, and virtual reality. This study introduces a robust method aimed at recognizing dynamic hand gestures, particularly for individuals with finger disabilities. The approach begins with segmenting hand gestures from intricate backgrounds using an advanced Otsu segmentation algorithm, while also integrating motion data from RGB video sequences. Hand gestures are transformed into texture and contour features, which are utilized as input for a hybrid model that merges a convolutional neural network (CNN) with a recurrent neural network (RNN). The model employs Inception-v3 for feature extraction complemented by an LSTM layer for classification. The focus of the study is on recognizing six dynamic gestures, with particular emphasis on ‘scroll right’ and ‘scroll down’ due to their high accuracy in recognition. The model demonstrated an average precision of 84.34% across all gestures, achieving 87.57% for gestures involving finger impairments. These results highlight the model’s effectiveness in practical applications for dynamic hand gesture recognition.
Greenhouse gas offsets distort the effect of clean energy tax credits in the United States
Authors: Grubert Emily , Ricks Wilson , Cullenward Danny 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Prominent clean energy tax credits in the United States (U.S.) could drive large expenditures that materially increase greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions if their implementing regulations assign negative values to avoided GHG emissions and allow projects to offset other supply chain emissions on this basis. Most notably, we find that assigning negative GHG intensities to biogenic- and fossil-origin methane feedstocks and allowing such feedstocks to be blended with natural gas could support about 35 million metric tonnes of gray hydrogen production per year under the Section 45V tax credit. These practices would come at a taxpayer cost of ∼$1 trillion over 10 years of tax credit eligibility and cause excess emissions of ∼3 billion tonnes carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e) above scenarios that impose strict methane controls. Both the clean hydrogen (Section 45V) and clean electricity (Section 45Y) production tax credits use life cycle emissions criteria to direct potentially trillions of dollars in federal tax expenditures. Life cycle analysis is a decision support tool that is increasingly prominent in energy and environmental policies, but it is not an objective, quantitative calculator. Seemingly minor choices about life cycle system boundaries and baseline assumptions, such as whether unabated methane emissions are assumed to continue indefinitely, have gigatonne-scale effects on expected GHG outcomes. We find that risks are more significant for hydrogen than clean electricity due both to the scale of feedstock availability relative to market size and tax credit value relative to commodity prices. Methane feedstocks that are inappropriately assigned negative emissions intensity could dominate U.S. hydrogen production via conventional steam methane reformation, preventing the innovation-oriented 45V tax credit from encouraging development of higher-cost electrolysis technology. For both tax credits, if eligibility rules qualify emitting technologies based on offsets, long-lived facilities would have no incentive to continue offsetting once tax credit incentives end, risking lock-in of methane-based infrastructure.
Retributivism and the ‘Black Boxes’ of Imprisonment
Authors: Dagan Netanel , Cole David P 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
This chapter explores how common law and continental systems tackle the ‘black boxes’ that evolve during the administration of the punishment (in-prison rehabilitative progress, (un)expected excessive prison suffering, and conditional release), with a focus on judicial decision makers. The chapter suggests that addressing the ‘black boxes’ of punishment is important for making retributivists more attuned to the ‘realpolitik’ of incarceration and for ensuring that judicial moral authority is more closely connected to responsibility for the punishment and for the practical consequences of their actions. We argue that a ‘Robertsian’ approach to sentencing requires the conceptualization of sentencing as a complex, holistic, and ongoing process rather than as a simple, one-time, and unidimensional act. Such an approach requires more serious thinking about the ‘black boxes’ of imprisonment and their meaning for penal theory and policy and for promoting consistency, fairness, and justice.
Guiding Sentencers
Authors: Bois-Pedain Antje du 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Julian V Roberts has long promoted well-designed sentencing guidelines. In England and Wales, sentencing guidelines are expected to give greater structure to the exercise of discretion without suppressing the evaluative components of sentencing decisions. For the English system, the crucial question is how effectively the guidelines support appropriate sentence individualization—the inverse of the objective that drove the first phase of guideline development in the United States, that comparable sentences should be given for comparable crimes, irrespective of the personal situation of the offender. This chapter revisits the historical development and current format of the English guidelines and then addresses whether these guidelines provide adequate individualized decision-making support to sentencers. It shows that while the English guideline system in principle allows sentencers sufficient flexibility to reach properly individualized sentence outcomes, it needs to acknowledge more explicitly the limitations of its design as regards the impact of mitigation.
When is a Sentence a Miscarriage of Justice?
Authors: Roach Kent 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
The first part of this chapter examines how disproportionate sentencing discounts have contributed to guilty plea wrongful convictions that form a significant number of remedied wrongful convictions in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. Attempts to regulate such discounts have been unable to stop such miscarriages of justice in part because of charge bargaining. The second part of the chapter examines how Criminal Cases Review Commissions (CCRCs) in England and Wales, Scotland, and New Zealand have exercised their jurisdiction to refer sentences back to appeal courts. The exclusion of sentencing from the jurisdiction of a commission in North Carolina and in Canada’s proposed commission is related to Julian V Roberts’ diagnosis of penal populism and its particular strength in North America. CCRCs refer sentences based on investigations that discover new facts and factual and legal errors that influenced sentencing. They could also serve as an alternative means by which to challenge parole decisions and introduce new facts to sentencing, including those related to offender disadvantage. Many sentencing referrals in England and Wales, however, relate to technical and legal errors in calculating sentences that could be avoided by simpler laws and better education of trial judges about sentencing. The chapter confirms Julian V Roberts’ important claim that sentencing is central to the criminal process by demonstrating how sentences can lead to wrongful convictions and how sentences based on legal and factual errors can themselves be characterized as miscarriages of justice.
Beyond the Dreaming Spires
Authors: Freiberg Arie 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Policy entrepreneurs are people who, by their publications, intellectual authority, public presentations, and networking skills, act as promoters or champions of an idea or institution. They spread policy ideas, or the theoretical, conceptual, or intellectual underpinnings of policies which ultimately influence reform in the form of new laws or the establishment of new institutions. In the area of sentencing guidance and sentencing commissions, Julian V Roberts has been both a pioneer and champion of structured sentencing guidance through sentencing guidelines and sentencing commissions or councils. Adopting the theoretical framework of ‘policy transfer’, also called policy diffusion, this chapter identifies Roberts’ role and influence in promoting structured sentencing regimes in England and Wales and beyond. It identifies not only his mastery of sentencing theory and practice but his advocacy for the cause through his widely cited publications, teaching, editorship of books and journals, conference curation, joint authorship, graduate supervisions, membership of sentencing councils, visiting professorships, and personal visits and presentations at national and international conferences. It recognizes Roberts’ commitment, energy, tenacity, credibility, sociability, networking skills, and ability to engage with multiple audiences, all of which have made him one of the most respected and influential sentencing academics of his time.
Nicaragua
Authors: Altamirano Rayo Giorleny 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
This chapter describes the temporal and spatial patterns of communal land titling to Indigenous and Afro-descendent peoples in Nicaragua. Based on primary evidence collected during fieldwork, this chapter shows that the interests of political elites in guaranteeing internal order played a crucial role in shaping Indigenous land titling. The chapter shows that the patterns observed in Nicaragua reflect the central government’s need to quickly pacify the population in the remote east region, where Indigenous peoples had waged a war for self-determination against the Sandinista in the 1980s. In places like the west that lack a history of ethnic resistance, the state largely ignored Indigenous land claims.
Outreach acute care for nursing homes: an observational study on the quality and cost-effectiveness of the Mobile Hospital
Authors: Perttu Kontunen , Roope Leppänen , Miika Linna , Maaret Castrén , Paulus Torkki 
Published: January 2025

Abstract

Background
The global trend of emergency department (ED) crowding can be mitigated with outreach care. The Mobile Hospital is an outreach acute care service in Espoo, Finland. This study describes the results of the Mobile Hospital intervention to nursing homes in a pre–post study setting with benchmarking validation data.

Methods
We compared Emergency Medical Services (EMS) missions, ED visits, hospitalisations and their estimated costs from two 6-month periods in 2018–2019 (1325 nursing home beds). Benchmarking control data for ED visits were obtained from health records of the 10 largest Finnish cities.

Results
The number of EMS missions to nursing homes decreased by 16% (720 vs 604), ED visits decreased by 22% (801 vs 622), there was no significant difference in specialised inpatient episodes (178 vs 162) and primary hospital inpatient episodes were fewer (285 vs 178, decreased 38%). Annual estimated savings per resident were 686 euros (decreased 14%). Annual estimated total savings were 934 908 euros. In the benchmarking analysis, the number of ED visits and acute hospitalisations amongst the older population decreased in Espoo, while in the other cities it increased.

Conclusions
The Mobile Hospital seems to reduce nursing home residents’ ED visits, hospitalisations and overall costs. Advance care planning and on-call physician telephone consultations may be useful components of the service.
Implications to practice: This study adds to the growing evidence that outreach care to nursing homes is cost-effective in suburban areas with universal healthcare funding, at least as part of other developments in the acute care pathway.
Comparison of Telehealth Versus Face-to-Face Administration of the Oral Trail Making Test in Older Adults with and without Cognitive Impairment: A Brief Report
Authors: Fatima Hudaisa , Helphrey Jessica , Ahmed Danyah , Tamez Ingrid , Cullum C Munro 
Published: January 2025

Abstract

Objectives
To examine the performance reliability of the Oral Trail Making Test (OTMT) in face-to-face (FTF) and teleneuropsychology (TeleNP) conditions among older individuals with and without cognitive impairment.

Methods
Two hundred participants (with [n = 81], and without cognitive impairment [n = 119]) completed the OTMT in both conditions, in a counterbalanced design. Paired sample t-tests compared OTMT scores and intra-class correlation coefficients examined the degree of agreement between the two testing conditions for both diagnostic groups.

Results
For both groups, mean scores were similar across test conditions, with small yet statistically significant differences for OTMT-A (p &lt; .001), though OTMT-B scores did not significantly differ (p-values: .702–.749). Despite substantial variability in OTMT scores, there was a strong agreement between testing formats for OTMT-A (α values = 0.845–0.939) and moderate to strong agreement for OTMT-B scores (α-values = 0.657–0.837).

Conclusions
OTMT administration may be feasible and reliable for TeleNP, though caution is advised for clinicians when interpreting overall test performances given large score variability.
Improving generalizability of drug–target binding prediction by pre-trained multi-view molecular representations
Authors: Ouyang Xike , Feng Yannuo , Cui Chen , Li Yunhe , Zhang Li , Wang Han 
Published: January 2025

Abstract

Motivation
Most drugs start on their journey inside the body by binding the right target proteins. This is the reason that numerous efforts have been devoted to predicting the drug–target binding during drug development. However, the inherent diversity among molecular properties, coupled with limited training data availability, poses challenges to the accuracy and generalizability of these methods beyond their training domain.

Results
In this work, we proposed a neural networks construction for high accurate and generalizable drug–target binding prediction, named Pre-trained Multi-view Molecular Representations (PMMR). The method uses pre-trained models to transfer representations of target proteins and drugs to the domain of drug–target binding prediction, mitigating the issue of poor generalizability stemming from limited data. Then, two typical representations of drug molecules, Graphs and SMILES strings, are learned respectively by a Graph Neural Network and a Transformer to achieve complementarity between local and global features. PMMR was evaluated on drug–target affinity and interaction benchmark datasets, and it derived preponderant performance contrast to peer methods, especially generalizability in cold-start scenarios. Furthermore, our state-of-the-art method was indicated to have the potential for drug discovery by a case study of cyclin-dependent kinase 2.

Availability and implementation
https://github.com/NENUBioCompute/PMMR.
Annelated vs. non-annelated hopping sites in periodically twisted molecular wires
Authors: Asakawa Ryo , Yokoyama Soichi , Yamada Ryo , Ohto Tatsuhiko , Tada Hirokazu , Ie Yutaka 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
To realize efficient intramolecular hopping transport, molecular wires must possess both a small reorganization energy (λ) at the hopping site and a minimal energy difference (ΔEhs) between them. While we showed that periodically twisted molecular wires using an annelated unit (TBID) as a hopping site improves hopping transport, the influence of the chemical structure of the hopping site remains unclear. Here, to investigate the impact of the annelated structure on hopping transport, we designed a non-annelated unit (BPB) and developed molecular wires based on periodically twisted BPB. Physical properties of BPB were compared with those of TBID. Molecular wires based on BPB showed lower single-molecule conductance than those based on TBID. Theoretical calculations indicate that BPB has a larger λ, ΔEhs, as well as a higher injection barrier compared to TBID. These results demonstrate the importance of the annelated structure at the hopping site for achieving efficient hopping transport.
Delineating specific structural and functional patterns for neurophysiological biotypes of childhood maltreatment
Authors: Zhang Jiang , Qin Tianwei , Sun Hui , Zhao Tianyu , Pan Jun , Bi Bin , Chen Kexuan , Chen Meiling 
Published: January 2025

Abstract
Childhood maltreatment (CM) is a major risk factor for numerous mental disorders. The long-term consequences of CM on brain structural and functional plasticity have been well documented. However, the neurophysiological biotypes of CM remain unclear although the childhood trauma questionnaire uses different dimensions to assess trauma types. Here, we investigated neurophysiological biotypes of CM using spectral clustering and further evaluated the neurobiological heterogeneities with multimodal magnetic resonance imaging. Moreover, we established the molecular basis for each biotype of CM using brain-wide transcriptome-neuroimaging spatial association analyses. Three neurophysiological biotypes of CM with distinct structural and functional characteristics were found. The specific structural pattern for each CM subtype was found to be associated with genes primarily mediating synapse development and neuron projection. Taken together, our findings provide the initial neurophysiological and molecular evidence that CM has different biotypes, which may facilitate early precise prevention for CM and better to links this high risk factor with different psychiatric disorders.