bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Speech characteristics yield important clues about motor function: Speech variability in individuals at clinical high-risk for psychosis
Authors: Hitczenko Kasia , Segal Yael , Keshet Joseph , Goldrick Matthew , Mittal Vijay A. 
Published: September 2023

AbstractBackground and hypothesis: Motor abnormalities are predictive of psychosis onset in individuals at clinical high risk (CHR) for psychosis and are tied to its progression. We hypothesize that these motor abnormalities also disrupt their speech production (a highly complex motor behavior) and predict CHR individuals will produce more variable speech than healthy controls, and that this variability will relate to symptom severity, motor measures, and psychosis-risk calculator risk scores. Study design: We measure variability in speech production (variability in consonants, vowels, speech rate, and pausing/timing) in N = 58 CHR participants and N = 67 healthy controls. Three different tasks are used to elicit speech: diadochokinetic speech (rapidly-repeated syllables e.g., papapa…, pataka…), read speech, and spontaneously-generated speech. Study results: Individuals in the CHR group produced more variable consonants and exhibited greater speech rate variability than healthy controls in two of the three speech tasks (diadochokinetic and read speech). While there were no significant correlations between speech measures and remotely-obtained motor measures, symptom severity, or conversion risk scores, these comparisons may be under-powered (in part due to challenges of remote data collection during the COVID-19 pandemic). Conclusion: This study provides a thorough and theory-driven first look at how speech production is affected in this at-risk population and speaks to the promise and challenges facing this approach moving forward.
How animal milk and plant-based alternatives diverge in terms of fatty acid, amino acid, and mineral composition
Authors: Moore S. S. , Costa A. , Pozza M. , Vamerali T. , Niero G. , Censi S. , De Marchi M. 
Published: September 2023

AbstractThe decline in fresh milk in the Western world has in part been substituted by an increased consumption of plant-based beverages (PBB). These are often marketed as healthy and sustainable alternatives to milk and dairy foodstuff, although studies have suggested PBB to be of lower nutrient quality. The current study considered different brands of almond-, oat-, rice-, coconut- and soya-based beverages for a comparative analysis and found that they indeed presented lower contents of total protein, lipids, amino acids, and minerals than cow and goat milk. The only exception was given by soya-based beverages which approximated the protein content (3.47% vs. 3.42 and 3.25% in cow and goat milk, respectively) and amino acid composition of animal milk, and also demonstrated high mineral content. The natural presence of phyto-compounds in PBB characterised as antinutrients and their potential to exacerbate the issue of low nutrient quality by lowering bioavailability have been discussed.
The impacts of a high-school art-based program on academic achievements, creativity, and creative behaviors
Authors: Egana-delSol Pablo 
Published: September 2023

AbstractThis article evaluates the impact of an Art-based program, which consisted in bringing artist to do workshops in public schools, on academic achievements, creativity (i.e., the skill) and the external manifestation of creativity in action (i.e., creative behaviors). The main contribution with respect to previous literature is a quasi-experimental design—propensity score matching—that makes the causal link between these aspects more plausible, and which had a sample of 297 children between 14 and 16 years old. Four main findings are derived from the empirical investigation. First, substantial practice is crucial. Participation in at least two semester-length workshops is a necessary condition to observe significant impacts. Second, participation has a significant impact on academic achievements. Grades increased by 0.61 standard deviations (sd) for language, by 0.36 sd for math, and by 0.33 sd for art. Overall GPA increased by 0.55 sd. The program also increased participant willingness to consider postsecondary education. Third, the impact of the art-based program on various innovative graphical psychometric measures of creativity was positive and significant. Fourth, related to creative behaviors, the program had a positive impact on certain cultural activities, such as time spent watching films at home and creating cultural goods (e.g., handicrafts, poetry, music). In conclusion, our study presents substantial evidence on the effective enhancement of creativity, the fostering of creative activities, and the improvement of academic performance through the deployment of art-based programs.
KINECAL: A Dataset for Falls-Risk Assessment and Balance Impairment Analysis
Authors: Maudsley-Barton Sean , Yap Moi Hoon 
Published: September 2023

AbstractThe field of human action recognition has made great strides in recent years, much helped by the availability of a wide variety of datasets that use Kinect to record human movement. Conversely, progress towards the use of Kinect in clinical practice has been hampered by the lack of appropriate data. In particular, datasets that contain clinically significant movements and appropriate metadata. This paper proposes a dataset to address this issue, namely KINECAL. It contains the recordings of 90 individuals carrying out 11 movements, commonly used in the clinical assessment of balance. The dataset contains relevant metadata, including clinical labelling, falls history labelling and postural sway metrics. KINECAL should be of interest to researchers interested in the clinical use of motion capture and motion analysis.
CLSoilMaps: A national soil gridded database of physical and hydraulic soil properties for Chile
Authors: Dinamarca Diego I. , Galleguillos Mauricio , Seguel Oscar , Faúndez Urbina Carlos 
Published: September 2023

AbstractSpatially explicit soil information is crucial for comprehending and managing many of Earth´s processes related to carbon, water, and other biogeochemical cycles. We introduced a gridded database of soil physical properties and hydraulic parameters at 100 meters spatial resolution. It covers the continental area of Chile and binational basins shared with Argentina for six standardized depths following the specifications of the GlobalSoilMap project. We generated soil maps based on digital soil mapping techniques based on more than 4000 observations, including unpublished data from remote areas. These maps were used as input for the pedotransfer function Rosetta V3 to obtain predictions of soil hydraulic properties, such as field capacity, permanent wilting point, total available water capacity, and other parameters of the water retention curve. The trained models outperformed several other DSM studies applied at the national and regional scale for soil physical properties (nRMSE ranging from 6.93% to 15.7%) and delivered acceptable predictions (nRMSE ranging from 10.4% to 15.6%) for soil hydraulic properties, making them suitable for countless environmental studies.
Hourly emissions of air pollutants and greenhouse gases from open biomass burning in China during 2016–2020
Authors: Xu Yuanqian , Huang Zhijiong , Ye Jiashu , Zheng Junyu 
Published: September 2023

AbstractOpen biomass burning (OBB) is a significant source of air pollutants and greenhouse gases that have contributed to air pollution episodes in China in recent years. An accurate emission inventory is critical for the precise control of OBB. Existing OBB emission datasets are commonly based on MODIS observations, and most only have a daily-scale temporal resolution. Daily OBB emissions, however, might not accurately represent diurnal variations, peak hours, or any open burning processes. The China Hourly Open Biomass Burning Emissions (CHOBE) dataset for mainland China from 2016 to 2020 was developed in this study using the spatiotemporal fusion of multiple active fires from MODIS, VIIRS S-NPP and Himawari-8 AHI detections. At a spatial resolution of 2 km, CHOBE provided gridded CO, NOx, SO2, NH3, VOCs, PM2.5, CO2, CH4 and N2O emissions from OBB. CHOBE will enhance insight into OBB spatiotemporal variability, improves air quality and climate modelling and forecasting, and aids in the formulation of precise OBB preventive and control measures.
Road pavement upgrade scheduling accounting for minimizing congestion
Authors: Rupasinghe Bhagya , Wallace Mark , Gange Graeme , Senthooran Ilankaikone 
Published: September 2023

AbstractRoad pavement maintenance and upgrades (RPU) need to be scheduled in a way that minimises congestion across the road network and matches the schedule with the availability of equipment and skilled labourers to ensure that they are completed on time. RPU should not introduce unbearable congestion around blocked lanes or roads, and increased traffic due to ongoing road upgrades needs to be transferred to alternative routes. In situations where multiple upgrades are planned together, the scheduled road closures should be coordinated to not block alternative routes. While extensive studies have been conducted separately on scheduling and routing, limited research has linked these processes together, and only in restricted scenarios. In this paper, we investigate how to minimise the disruption of a set of road maintenance tasks based on their interaction with other tasks. We propose a new approach for scheduling a set of road maintenance tasks, some at the same time and others at different times, to minimise overall disruption. The proposed approach has two phases: (1) identify the local area affected by the RPU, and (2) determine which upgrades can be planned together to minimise congestion. The comparison of the results shows how the novel optimized approach identifies a better schedule to minimise congestion.
Importance of TREC and KREC as molecular markers for immunological evaluation of down syndrome children
Authors: Eissa Eman , Afifi Hanan H. , Abo-Shanab Assem M. , Thomas Manal M. , Taher Mohamed B. , Kandil Rania , Kholoussi Naglaa M. 
Published: September 2023

AbstractRecurrent and severe infections occurred in children with Down Syndrome (DS) due to immunological parameter defects have been reported. The aim of the study is to evaluate the importance of using T-cell receptor excision circle (TREC) and kappa-deleting recombination excision circle (KREC) as molecular markers for immunological investigation of children with DS. The study included 40 non-disjunction trisomy 21 confirmed DS children, and 25 healthy controls. Peripheral blood (PB) was analyzed for lymphocyte subpopulations by flow cytometry, serum immunoglobulin levels, and TREC and KREC copy numbers using quantitative real-time PCR. DS patients showed significantly lower absolute counts of PB T lymphocytes, T helper lymphocytes, T cytotoxic lymphocytes, B lymphocytes, and Natural killer cells, and lower serum IgA, IgG, and IgM levels compared to healthy controls. Copy number of TREC and KREC showed no significant differences between DS patients and healthy controls. There is a significant positive correlation between TREC copy number with a percentage and absolute count of helper T lymphocytes in patients. Also, the KREC copy number was significantly negatively correlated with the age of patients. These findings suggest that copy numbers of TREC and KREC could be useful as molecular markers for immunological evaluation of patients with DS.
Using a facile method to predict properties of recycled waste nitrile rubber (NBR) through devulcanization
Authors: Ghowsi Mohammad Amin , Jamshidi Masoud 
Published: September 2023

AbstractTo prepare a reliable method for predicting the properties of devulcanized rubbers a nitrile rubber (NBR) compound was prepared and masticated before vulcanization for 0, 30 and 60 min under mechanical stress to prepare NBRs with different molecular weights. The masticated samples were vulcanized at different accelerator contents to prepare damples with different crosslink densities. The physical/mechanical/thermal properties (i.e. crosslink density, tensile strength, modulus, modulus at 100 and 300% elongation, elongation at break, hardness, curing behavior and molecular weight) of the samples were experimentally evaluated. In the next step, the prepared samples were assumed as devulcanized NBRs that underwent chains scission (masticated samples) or crosslinks breakage (vulcanized at different accelerator contents). On this basis, hypothetical devulcanization routes were considered between each sample that underwent chains scission or crosslinks breakage. Based on the results, numerical relationships between the number of chains scission or crosslinks breakage and decrease in the properties were obtained. Finally, the numerical reationships were used to calculate the properties of the samples that underwent both of chains scission and crosslinks breakage. It was found that the calculated contents of hardness, modulus at 100% and molecular weight (MZ) using the prepared method were very close to the evaluated ones.
Mid-to-late Holocene climate variability in coastal East Asia and its impact on ancient Korean societies
Authors: Park Jungjae , Bahk Junbeom , Park Jinheum , Kim Hyejin , Choi Jieun 
Published: September 2023

AbstractThe sustainability of human societies is contingent upon our ability to accurately predict the effects of future climate change on the global environment and humanity. Wise responses to forthcoming environmental alterations require extensive knowledge from historical precedents. However, in coastal East Asia, a region with a long history of agriculture, it is challenging to obtain paleoenvironmental proxy data without anthropogenic disturbances that can be used to assess the impact of late Holocene climate change on local communities. This study introduces a high-resolution multi-proxy sedimentary record from an isolated crater in Jeju Island, Korea, to elucidate the mechanisms underlying mid-to-late Holocene climate change and its impacts on ancient societies. Our findings suggest that hydroclimate changes were predominantly governed by sea surface temperature fluctuations in the western tropical Pacific, with low-frequency variability in solar activity and a decrease in summer insolation identified as primary drivers of temperature change. Moreover, ancient societies on the Korean peninsula were significantly affected by recurring cooling events, including the 2.8 ka event, 2.3 ka event, Late Antique Little Ice Age, maunder minimum, and others.
A novel method using a differential staining fluorescence microscopy (DSFM) to track the location of enteric pathogens within mixed-species biofilms
Authors: Chen Qiyue , Wang Rong , Bosilevac Joseph M. , Guragain Manita , Chitlapilly Dass Sapna 
Published: September 2023

AbstractThis study developed a new tool, differential staining fluorescence microscopy (DSFM), to measure the biovolume and track the location of enteric pathogens in mixed-species biofilms which can pose a risk to food safety in beef processing facilities. DSFM was employed to examine the impact of pathogenic bacteria, Escherichia coli O157:H7 and three different Salmonella enterica strains on mixed-species biofilms of beef processing facilities. Fourteen floor drain biofilm samples from three beef processing plants were incubated with overnight BacLight stained enteric pathogens at 7 °C for 5 days on stainless steel surface then counter-stained with FM-1-43 biofilm stain and analyzed using fluorescence microscopy. Notable variations in biovolume of biofilms were observed across the fourteen samples. The introduction of E. coli O157:H7 and S. enterica strains resulted in diverse alterations of biofilm biovolume, suggesting distinct impacts on mixed-species biofilms by different enteric pathogens which were revealed to be located in the upper layer of the mixed-species biofilms. Pathogen strain growth curve comparisons and verification of BacLight Red Stain staining effectiveness were validated. The findings of this study show that the DSFM method is a promising approach to studying the location of enteric pathogens within mixed-species biofilms recovered from processing facilities. Understanding how foodborne pathogens interact with biofilms will allow for improved targeted antimicrobial interventions.
Exploring the effect of pain on response to reward loss in calves
Authors: Ede Thomas , von Keyserlingk Marina A. G. , Weary Daniel M. 
Published: September 2023

AbstractNegative emotional states are known to interact, potentially aggravating one another. In this study, we used a well validated paradigm (successive negative contrast, SNC) to determine if pain from a common procedure (disbudding) influences responses to a reward downshift. Holstein calves (n = 30) were trained to approach a 0.5 L milk reward. Latency to approach, number of vocalisations and pressure applied on the bottle were recorded during training. To assess how pain affected responses to reward downshift, calves were randomly assigned to one of three treatments before the downshift. Two groups were disbudded and provided the ‘gold standard’ of pain mitigation: intraoperative local anesthesia and analgesia. One of these disbudded groups was then provided supplemental analgesic before testing. The third group was sham disbudded. All calves were then subjected to the reward downshift by reducing the milk reward to just 0.1 L. Interactions were detected between test session and daily trials on pressure applied for the Disbudded group (estimate ± SEM: 0.08 ± 0.05), and on vocalisations for the Sham (0.3 ± 0.1) and Disbudding + Analgesia (0.4 ± 0.1) groups. Our results indicate that SNC is a promising paradigm for measuring negative affect in calves and suggests that pain potentially affects the response to a reward downshift.
Targeted single-cell proteomic analysis identifies new liquid biopsy biomarkers associated with multiple myeloma
Authors: Setayesh Sonia M. , Ndacayisaba Libere J. , Rappard Kate E. , Hennes Valerie , Rueda Luz Yurany Moreno , Tang Guilin , Lin Pei , Orlowski Robert Z. , Symer David E. , Manasanch Elisabet E. , Shishido Stephanie N. , Kuhn Peter 
Published: September 2023

AbstractMultiple myeloma (MM) is accompanied by alterations to the normal plasma cell (PC) proteome, leading to changes to the tumor microenvironment and disease progression. There is a great need for understanding the consequences that lead to MM progression and for the discovery of new biomarkers that can aid clinical diagnostics and serve as targets for therapeutics. This study demonstrates the applicability of utilizing the single-cell high-definition liquid biopsy assay (HDSCA) and imaging mass cytometry to characterize the proteomic profile of myeloma. In our study, we analyzed ~87,000 cells from seven patient samples (bone marrow and peripheral blood) across the myeloma disease spectrum and utilized our multiplexed panel to characterize the expression of clinical markers for PC classification, additional potential therapeutic targets, and the tumor microenvironment cells. Our analysis showed BCMA, ICAM3 (CD50), CD221, and CS1 (SLAMF7) as the most abundantly expressed markers on PCs across all myeloma stages, with BCMA, ICAM3, and CD221 having significantly higher expression levels on disease versus precursor PCs. Additionally, we identify significantly elevated levels of expression for CD74, MUM1, CD229, CD44, IGLL5, Cyclin D1, UBA52, and CD317 on PCs from overt disease conditions compared to those from precursor states.
Excess explosivity driven by melt inclusions during the 946 CE Plinian eruption of Baekdusan
Authors: Kim Gi Bom , Cronin Shane J. , Jeong Jong Ok , Go Sun Young , Lee Youn Soo , Liu Jiaqi , Sohn Young Kwan 
Published: September 2023

AbstractMelt inclusions readily rupture and form gas bubbles during explosive volcanic eruptions, but their role as a volcanic gas source remains enigmatic. Here, we examined a pumice texture generated by the instantaneous bursting of melt inclusions during the 946 CE Plinian eruption at Baekdusan. The burst produced non-sheared, super-vesicular (>80 vol.% voids) bubble pockets, occupying volume fractions of 6–24% within the Millennium gray pumice. The bubble pocket texture suggests that the melt inclusions acted as an additional volcanic gas source that increased the volume of the erupting magma at the moment of magma fragmentation. Two distinctive feldspar–glass assemblages of either sanidine-bearing trachyte or anorthoclase-bearing rhyolite in the bubble pockets indicate that the chemical bimodality of the hemisphere-scale, 946 CE Baekdusan tephra resulted from cryptic mixing of two magmas. The excess explosivity induced by the bursting melt inclusions should be considered when modeling eruption dynamics and assessing volcanic hazards, therefore having broad volcanological implications.
A multilevel segmentation method of asymmetric semantics based on deep learning
Authors: Liu Angxin , Yang Yongbiao 
Published: September 2023

AbstractAn asymmetric semantic multi‐level segmentation method based on depth learning is proposed in order to improve the precision and effect of semantic segmentation. A ‘content tree’ structure and an adjacency matrix are constructed to represent the parent‐child relationship between each image sub region in a complete image. Through multiple combinations of spatial attention mechanism and channel attention mechanism, the similarity semantic features of the target object can be selectively aggregated, so as to enhance its feature expression and avoid the impact of significant objects. The asymmetric semantic segmentation model asymmetric pyramid feature convolutional network (APFCN) is constructed, and the path feature extraction and parameter adjustment are realised through APFCN. On the basis of APFCN network, a full convolution network is introduced for end‐to‐end image semantic segmentation. Combining the advantages of convolution network in extracting image features and the advantages of short‐term and short‐term memory network in solving long‐term dependence, an end‐to‐end hybrid depth network is constructed for image semantic multi‐level segmentation. The experimental results show that the mean intersection over Union value and mean pixel accuracy value are higher than that of the literature method, both of which are increased by more than 3%, and the segmentation effect is good.
Lattice piecewise affine approximation of explicit nonlinear model predictive control with application to trajectory tracking of mobile robot
Authors: Wang Kangbo , Xu Zhengqi , Zhang Kaijie , Huang Yating , Xu Jun 
Published: September 2023

AbstractTo promote the widespread use of mobile robots in diverse fields, the performance of trajectory tracking must be ensured. To address the constraints and nonlinear features associated with mobile robot systems, nonlinear model predictive control (MPC) is applied to realize trajectory tracking of mobile robots. Specifically, to alleviate the online computational complexity of nonlinear MPC, this paper devises a lattice piecewise affine (PWA) approximation method that can approximate both the nonlinear system and control law of explicit nonlinear MPC. The kinematic model of the mobile robot is successively linearized along the trajectory to obtain a linear time‐varying description of the system, which is then expressed using a lattice PWA model. Subsequently, the nonlinear MPC problem can be transformed into a series of linear MPC problems. Furthermore, to reduce the complexity of online calculation of multiple linear MPC problems, the optimal solution of the linear MPCs is approximated by using the lattice PWA models. That is, for different sampling states, the optimal control inputs are obtained offline, and lattice PWA approximations are constructed for the state control pairs. Simulations are performed to evaluate the performance of the method in comparison with the state‐of‐the‐art methods, and the results show that the method has a higher online computing speed and can decrease the offline computing time without significantly increasing the tracking error.