bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Using deep reinforcement learning to investigate stretch feedback during swimming of the lamprey
Authors: Hausdörfer Oliver , Gupta Astha , Ijspeert Auke , Renjewski Daniel 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
Animals have to navigate complex environments and perform intricate swimming maneuvers in the real world. To conquer these challenges, animals evolved a variety of motion control strategies. While it is known that many factors contribute to motion control, we specifically focus on the role of stretch sensory feedback. We investigate how stretch feedback potentially serves as a way to coordinate locomotion, and how different stretch feedback topologies, such as networks spanning varying ranges along the spinal cord, impact the locomotion. We conduct our studies on a simulated robot model of the lamprey consisting of an articulated spine with eleven segments connected by actuated joints. The stretch feedback is modeled with neural networks trained with deep reinforcement learning. We find that the topology of the feedback influences the energy efficiency and smoothness of the swimming, along with various other metrics characterizing the locomotion, such as frequency, amplitude and stride length. By analyzing the learned feedback networks, we highlight the importances of very local, caudally-directed, as well as stretch derivative information. Our results deliver valuable insights into the potential mechanisms and benefits of stretch feedback control and inspire novel decentralized control strategies for complex robots.
One-particle irreducibility of Vilkovisky-DeWitt Effective Action
Authors: Panda Sukanta , Tinwala Abbas , Jadav Ketan 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
The effective action formalism introduced by Vilkovisky and later modified by DeWitt is completely covariant and suitable for obtaining an effective action that is independent of the parametrization of the quantum fields. Among a few basic properties of an effective action, one property is that it can be written as a sum of one-particle irreducible diagrams. In this work, we verify this property up to three-loop order for Vilkovisky-Dewitt effective action (VDEA) by solving the equations satisfied by VDEA written down in the original parametrization for non-gauge theories.
Sustainable Environmental Practices and Cultural Adaptation in Kampung Adat Naga: An Ethnomethodological Approach to Landscape Dynamics
Authors: As'ari Ruli , Fadjarajani Siti , Badriah Liah , Nurjamilah Ai Siti , Shaari Mohammad Zohir 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This research aims to examine how cultural adaptation and sustainable environmental practices influence landscape dynamics in Kampung Adat Naga (a traditional Sundanese village in Indonesia), using an ethnomethodological approach. The study seeks to answer the central question of how the Kampung Adat Naga community integrates their cultural values into sustainable environmental practices and how this interaction affects local landscape dynamics. The methodology includes participatory observation, in-depth interviews, and document analysis to explore the long-established cultural and environmental practices of the Kampung Naga community. The findings reveal that cultural adaptation in Kampung Naga, such as the implementation of agroforestry systems and traditional ceremonies, plays a crucial role in maintaining ecological balance and environmental sustainability. Cultural values and sustainability principles meticulously manage the village landscape, not only preserving soil fertility and biodiversity but also reinforcing the community's cultural identity. The study also revealed that the Kampung Naga community bases their understanding of the environment on a holistic perspective, viewing nature as an entity worthy of respect and preservation. The study's conclusion indicates that cultural practices and environmental sustainability in Kampung Naga are inseparable and mutually supportive, making a significant contribution to understanding the relationship between culture and the environment in the context of traditional communities. This research underscores the significance of upholding and honoring local cultural customs in worldwide sustainability initiatives, and offers fresh perspectives for crafting sustainable policies in other traditional communities.
An estimation of the health and climatic impacts of household biomass consumption across Nigeria in 2018
Authors: Slater Jessica , Palmer Eve , Yetano-Roche Maria , Eleri Ewah , Malley Christopher S 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
In 2021, Nigeria became the first country in the world to state, quantitatively, how implementing their &#xD;Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to mitigate climate change could improve health. &#xD;Nigeria’s NDC stated that an estimated 30,000 premature deaths could be avoided annually by 2030 &#xD;due to reduction in household air pollution caused by burning wood and charcoal for cooking. As &#xD;Nigeria moves to implement its climate change commitments, there are two key questions that this &#xD;paper aims to address. Firstly, across Nigeria, where are the greatest health burdens from household &#xD;air pollution that could be targeted to achieve these health benefits, and secondly, to what extent does &#xD;wood fuel consumption drive greenhouse gas emissions from the Forestry and Land Use (FOLU) &#xD;sector? To explore these questions this paper utilises available statistical data on households primary &#xD;cooking fuel choice at the state level in Nigeria to estimate the health impact from household air &#xD;pollution due to households cooking using wood and charcoal. It also provides an estimate of the &#xD;total wood fuel demand in the country and from this provides an estimate of the carbon dioxide &#xD;emissions from the FOLU sector associated with these households’ biomass use. In 2018, it was &#xD;estimated that of the almost 116 thousand premature deaths attributable to household air pollution in &#xD;23% occurred in 3 states in Northern Nigeria. The biomass consumption for household energy &#xD;consumption across Nigeria was estimated to contribute 78 % of the 151 million tonnes of carbon &#xD;dioxide emissions estimated within this analysis to be due to the Forestry and Other Land Use &#xD;(FOLU) sector in Nigeria. Hence action targeted at transitioning households to modern cooking fuels &#xD;and technologies can have a large impact on achieving the dual climate and health goals Nigeria has &#xD;set itself within its climate change commitment.
Dual perspectives: a remote sensing- and survey-based exploration of the determinants of irrigation use in Northern Ethiopia
Authors: Raji Tunmise , Wamalwa Fhazhil , Williams Nathan 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This study addresses the need to improve agricultural productivity and enhance the resilience of small-holder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa through irrigation. Using Amhara and Tigray regions in Ethiopia as a case study, we investigate the factors that impact farmers' use of irrigation through two distinct analytical approaches: a survey-based approach that leverages Ethiopia's 2018/2019 Socioeconomic Survey, and a remote sensing-based approach that integrates multiple remote sensing products. While previous research has relied primarily on surveys to understand technology adoption in agriculture, we demonstrate how nighttime light imagery for electrification detection and multispectral imagery for irrigation mapping can complement survey data. We examine infrastructure factors (electricity access, road accessibility), environmental variables that influence irrigation costs and efficiency (soil salinity, slope, groundwater depth, topographic wetness index, proximity to surface water), and farming practices (crop type, fertilizer use). Despite the common assumption that infrastructure development will drive agricultural technology adoption, we found that access to electricity and all-weather roads are not strongly associated with farmers' irrigation decisions in these regions. We identified a cropland area of about 97,760 ha in Amhara and 28,830 ha in Tigray that is electrified but does not use the electricity for irrigation purposes. Instead, environmental variables emerged as significant determinants, with favorable physical conditions (proximity to surface water, gentle slopes, shallow groundwater) showing positive associations with irrigation use. Additionally, the cultivation of permanent crops and the application of fertilizers are found to be positively associated with irrigation use. By validating remote sensing results against survey data, we demonstrate the potential of remote sensing as a cost-effective technique for understanding agricultural technology adoption in data-scarce regions. We conclude by presenting strategies to facilitate the use of irrigation in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Grains of Wheat
Authors: Stump Eleonore 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
There is a kind of knowledge that is non-propositional; one variety of it can be acquired in second-person experience of another person, but it can also be transmitted through narratives. This narratively mediated kind of knowledge can be significant for philosophical and theological reflection. Biblical narratives are specially fruitful in this regard, because they offer profound insights into the nature of the human condition and human flourishing. This book brings together detailed examinations of narratives in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament to yield one large, emergent story which has something to teach that can be missed when the stories are taken in isolation from one another. These are the stories of Job, Samson, Abraham, Mary of Bethany, the temptations of Christ, the passion of Christ, and the story in the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. Taken together, these stories depict a possible world in which there is a good for suffering human beings that outweighs their suffering and that could not be gotten without the suffering, not even in a world without a Fall. On this emergent larger story, human suffering is defeated; and peace and joy in human life are possible.
The Story of Abraham
Authors: Stump Eleonore 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
Abraham is an exemplar of a person who suffers because of what he has set his heart on. This chapter focuses on the problem of suffering in connection with the loss or deprivation of the desires of the heart. The chapter concentrates on the biblical story of Abraham and gives a detailed philosophical examination of many parts of the story, but especially the part of the story involving the binding of Isaac. It argues against Kierkegaard’s well-known interpretation of the story in Fear and Trembling and suggests an alternative that emerges when the episode of the binding of Isaac is set in the whole context of Abraham’s relations with the children he fathers and their mothers. So understood, the story illuminates the nature of faith as a response to the problem of suffering, and it sets a very high standard for acceptable solutions to the problem.
The Temptations of Christ
Authors: Stump Eleonore 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This chapter examines biblical narratives about the temptations of Christ. These stories show forcefully the way in which Christ’s suffering and death are connected to the processes of justification and sanctification. A person’s ceasing to resist the grace of God and surrendering to God’s love is the pinnacle on which her salvation has to stand. If we focus on this crucial and difficult necessary condition for salvation, then we can begin to see the reason for Christ’s suffering. What can be gained by weakness that could not be gotten through power is the melting of a heart accustomed to willed loneliness and hardened against the hope of joy.
Basic concepts and theories
Authors: Coulmas Florian 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
If languages were not both means of and obstacles to communication, they would not be an object of political concern. Basic concepts and theories applied to the analysis of language as an object of policy making are introduced in this chapter, among them politics, diversity, abstand and ausbau, status planning, corpus planning, acquisition planning, domain, proficiency, language shift, language rights, legitimate language, and language ideology. As for theory, the chapter expounds differences and commonalities of language policy (closer to political science) and language planning (closer to linguistics). It argues that because of the contingency of social science concepts and language ideologies no generally accepted theory for analysing policy decisions concerning language as a rule-governed system, on one hand, and society as a rule-governed system, on the other, is available, and that the highest priority of such a theory is to explain the causes of language conflicts.
Agents of language policy
Authors: Coulmas Florian 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
If languages are artefacts, as argued in Chapter 4, there must be agents executing the necessary work to make and maintain them. First and foremost, these are the users of the languages, who, however, in modern states are guided by agents with a policy agenda designed to form the languages in question in specific ways. This chapter introduces language regulating institutions and their policies, how they were established and what place they occupy with regard to other institutions. It explains what they are and what they do. An overview is given of the many institutions—academies, research institutes, and government commissions—charged with designing and implementing language policies that exist in the world today. It discusses similarities and differences between these institutions with respect to structure, function, size, membership, and prestige, as well as the ideological motivations that brought them into being, which are the subject of the following chapter. Three main tasks that occupy agents of language policy discussed in this chapter are spelling reform and script choice, lexicography and terminology, and language dissemination. How they are actually implemented is politically motivated and therefore sometimes contentious.
International language regimes
Authors: Coulmas Florian 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
Language follows power. In order to give this general principle some substance, this chapter examines international language regimes. It extends from the failed attempt by the first intergovernmental organization, the League of Nations, to establish a neutral language regime, to the sophisticated and lavish multilingual regime of the European Union of our days. In between, other international organizations are examined and compared with each other regarding their language regimes. How do nations, or rather their representatives, communicate? Whose interests are served by the language regimes of international organizations? How do pragmatism and symbolism (ideology) relate in this regard? Returning to some of the issues touched upon in the first chapter, this one offers some answers to these questions. It shows that the question whether international language regimes reflect and perpetuate structures of domination is still relevant today and discusses the importance of nation state and national language in this regard.
Invading the Stock Exchange
Authors: Taylor James 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
Chapter 7 examines women’s increasingly assertive attempts to join stock exchanges after 1945, and the strategies deployed by men to exclude them. Rather than treat applications from women the same as applications from men, stock exchanges used them to trigger debates and votes on the principle of women’s membership, which served to entrench opposition. But in the 1960s, with federation and regionalization on the agenda, smaller stock exchanges thought that maintaining the masculine purity of their trading floors was less important than recruiting new members to prove their continuing viability as distinct entities within larger regional units. Consequently, they began admitting women. Larger stock exchanges, especially London, remained hostile, however, even with the growing prospect of legal and political intervention. The chapter explores reasons for this opposition, including the threats of competition and professionalization, and—above all—the threat to the idea of stockbroking as man’s work. The chapter concludes by exploring how women finally gained admission to the London Stock Exchange in 1973, not through a positive vote, but as a side-effect of the amalgamation of the nation’s stock exchanges, which forced a new admission policy on London.
Epilogue
Authors: Taylor James 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
The Epilogue shows how women’s admission to the London Stock Exchange in 1973 did little to challenge deep-seated traditions of imagining the stock market as a hypermasculine environment, which endured even after the switch from the physical trading floor to electronic dealing after 1986’s ‘Big Bang’. Gender difference continued to structure financial work in profound ways, and while the City woman became a recognizable figure in popular culture from the 1990s, representations served to underline her incongruity and ‘otherness’ in the world of finance. Opportunities continued to expand, with women appointed to the most senior roles at the London Stock Exchange, and firms increasingly accepting the ‘business case for diversity’. But cultural change was slower, a point which has attracted growing political attention in recent years. Though the London Stock Exchange celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the admission of women in 2023, months later a scathing parliamentary investigation into ‘Sexism in the City’ painted a bleak picture of limited progress. The challenge facing the sector is not simply to break with half a century of inadequate action on diversity but to confront the fact that for 300 years, institutional structures and professional identities in finance have been based on the denigration and marginalization of women.
The Rise of Talmud
Authors: Vidas Moulie 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
The rabbinic sages of late antiquity are known for their sophisticated and creative reading of Scripture, but rabbinic literature also includes elaborate commentary on another kind of text: the sages’ own teachings. This book argues that the development of this commentary, later called Talmud, transformed the sages’ self-perception and intellectual world. By studying the first collection of commentary on rabbinic teachings, the often neglected and difficult Talmud Yerushalmi, and comparing it with earlier rabbinic texts, this study shows how ancient Talmudic scholars presented a new understanding of these teachings: they saw them as the products of individual sages and as resulting from problem-fraught processes of composition and transmission. To examine these aspects, these ancient scholars introduced new types of arguments and reading strategies, such as attribution analysis and textual criticism, into the study of Torah. The result was not only a new understanding of rabbinic teachings, but also a body of scholarship that was decidedly different from rabbinic scholarship on Scripture, since it engaged precisely the type of critical inquiries that rabbinic readings of Scripture avoided. This new perspective on the first Talmud allows us not only to paint a richer picture of rabbinic hermeneutics and interpretive practices, but also to situate ancient Talmudic scholarship among other scholarly traditions of the Greco-Roman world and examine the ways that different ideas, aims, and contexts shape textual scholarship—including our own.
Conclusion
Authors: Vidas Moulie 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
The development of textual scholarship on rabbinic teachings in the Amoraic period had a transformative effect on rabbinic culture. First, it presented a new understanding of the nature of rabbinic teachings, emphasizing aspects of them that were ignored or denied in the Tannaitic period, and therefore resulted in a new concept of Torah and of the rabbinic project. Second, it introduced new types of commentary, arguments, and reading strategies into rabbinic study culture. Tracing these developments allows us to appreciate the contribution represented by the first Talmud, too often seen as the undeveloped or uninteresting sibling of the Bavli; to recognize the rise of commentary on rabbinic teachings as a significant development in Jewish intellectual history; to place Amoraic scholars among other philologically minded elites in the Greco-Roman world; and to examine what this body of scholarship can tell us about different approaches to textual study, including our own.
A Unified Account of Manipulation
Authors: Noggle Robert 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
It appears that some forms of manipulation involve trickery, while others involve pressure. It is tempting to define manipulation as either trickery or pressure. But this does not explain what both forms of manipulation have in common. This chapter seeks a unified account of manipulation. It begins by observing that manipulative pressure is weaker than coercive pressure: It does not make the action solicited by the manipulator the target’s best option. Consequently, manipulative pressure only works when the target mistakenly chooses the option solicited by the manipulator, even though it is not the target’s best option. Thus, manipulative pressure works when the target makes a mistake philosophers call akrasia or weakness of will. This fact points to a common feature of all forms of manipulation: They all work by getting the target to make a mistake. This idea is the core of a new account of manipulation—the Mistake Account.
The Mistake Account
Authors: Noggle Robert 
Published: February 2025

Abstract
This chapter draws on the findings of the previous two chapters to develop formal definitions of ‘M acted manipulatively toward T’, and ‘M manipulated T’, as well as ‘manipulation’, and several senses of ‘manipulative’. It also assembles the cumulative case in favor of the Mistake Account, and in so doing, shows (1) how the Mistake Account properly identifies all the paradigm examples of manipulation from Chapter 2, (2) how it accommodates the Dual Use Phenomenon, and (3) how the parallel it draws between manipulation and deception allows it to avoid making the presence of manipulation depend on how we choose to describe an influence that can be described equally well as involving or not involving a false belief. It concludes by showing how the Mistake Account incorporates important insights from competing accounts of manipulation.