cometadata/datacite-rtg-text-other-reclassification-records huggingface dataset:
In defense of the Fourth Way and its metaphysics
Creators: name: De La Torre, Monty
Publisher: name: Australian Catholic University
Year: 2016

description: The Fourth Way of Thomas Aquinas is one of the least popular and heavily neglected demonstrations one can find for the existence of God. Most scholars in the field of natural theology or the philosophy of Aquinas are well versed in Aquinas’ other Ways. But the Fourth Way is, for some reason or other, rarely afforded the time of day. This is very unfortunate. However, recent scholarship has shed some much needed light on the proof, arguing for its metaphysical lucidity and defensibility among its detractors and interlocutors. Edward Feser is one such scholar who has gone to great lengths to promote and defend Aquinas’ general metaphysics and its application to all of Aquinas’ Five Ways within the area of contemporary analytic philosophy. This dissertation is meant to defend and promote Edward Feser’s interpretation of the Fourth Way and, with equal importance, it seeks to defend and promote the Aristotelian-Thomistic principles that underscore the Fourth Way as a challenge to mainstream contemporary philosophical circles that view such a philosophical system as a refuted relic from the past. Principles such as the transcendentals, essence, being, analogy of being, instantiation, universals, et al., are all part and parcel to upholding a correct understanding of the Fourth Way and a correct understanding of the metaphysical structure that binds reality together. Ultimately, the Fourth Way accomplishes what Aquinas intended in arguing that the gradation of things leads to an ultimate cause of being, goodness, truth, and all other perfections.
Cosmological stability in $f(ϕ,{\cal G})$ gravity
Creators: name: Tsujikawa, Shinji
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc)
subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph)
subject: High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In gravitational theories where a canonical scalar field $ϕ$ with a potential $V(ϕ)$ is coupled to a Gauss-Bonnet (GB) term ${\cal G}$ with the Lagrangian $f(ϕ,{\cal G})$, we study the cosmological stability of tensor and scalar perturbations in the presence of a perfect fluid. We show that, in decelerating cosmological epochs with a positive tensor propagation speed squared, the existence of nonlinear functions of ${\cal G}$ in $f$ always induces Laplacian instability of a dynamical scalar perturbation associated with the GB term. This is also the case for $f({\cal G})$ gravity, where the presence of nonlinear GB functions $f({\cal G})$ is not allowed during the radiation- and matter-dominated epochs. A linearly coupled GB term with $ϕ$ of the form $ξ(ϕ){\cal G}$ can be consistent with all the stability conditions, provided that the scalar-GB coupling is subdominant to the background cosmological dynamics.
description: 13 pages, no figures
(1154) George Frederick Coupland
Creators: name: Professions, Victorian
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: 220201 Business and Labour History
subject: FOS: Philosophy, ethics and religion
subject: History
subject: 140203 Economic History
subject: FOS: Economics and business

description: This three-year research project began in January 2014 and investigated whether, during the Victorian period, the professions formed a distinct self-sustaining social group with its own mores and values. The project looked at 16,000 individuals drawn from census data for Alnwick, Brighton, Bristol, Dundee, Greenock, Leeds, Merthyr Tydfil, Morpeth, and Winchester. The research project was funded by the UK Economic & Social Research Council and was based at the Universities of Oxford and Northumbria.
Impulsive Spot Heating and Thermal Explosion of Interstellar Grains Revisited
Creators: name: Ivlev, A. V.
name: Röcker, T. B.
name: Vasyunin, A.
name: Caselli, P.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The problem of impulsive heating of dust grains in cold, dense interstellar clouds is revisited theoretically, with the aim to better understand leading mechanisms of the explosive desorption of icy mantles. It is rigorously shown that if the heating of a reactive medium occurs within a sufficiently localized spot (e.g., heating of mantles by cosmic rays), then the subsequent thermal evolution is characterized by a single dimensionless number $λ$. This number identifies a bifurcation between two distinct regimes: When $λ$ exceeds a critical value (threshold), the heat equation exhibits the explosive solution, i.e., the thermal (chemical) explosion is triggered. Otherwise, thermal diffusion causes the deposited heat to spread over the entire grain -- this regime is commonly known as the whole-grain heating. The theory allows us to find a critical combination of the physical parameters that govern the explosion of icy mantles due to impulsive spot heating. In particular, the calculations suggest that heavy cosmic ray species (e.g., iron ions) colliding with dust are able to trigger the explosion. Based on the recently calculated local cosmic-ray spectra, the expected rate of the explosive desorption is estimated. The efficiency of the desorption, which affects all solid species independent of their binding energy, is shown to be comparable with other cosmic-ray desorption mechanisms typically considered in the literature. Also, the theory allows us to estimate maximum abundances of reactive species that may be stored in the mantles, which provides important constraints on available astrochemical models.
description: 9 pages, 5 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ
RISIS Reasearch Seminar: Business Model and Value Creation in Higher Education
Creators: name: Mantegazzini, Barbara Antonioli
name: Lepori, Benedetto
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: business models
higher education institutions
European Tertiary Education Register

description: The paper discussed in the presentation aims to contribute the debate on competition in the Higher education sector through the concept of the business model applied to HEIs. By considering how value is generated and captured from customers, we suggest four ideal business models, which also translate into different expectations on HEIs’ level and composition of revenues. These models are: a) a “public good-based” model, where value creation relies on positive externalities for stakeholders and the society as a whole and, accordingly HEIs’ are directly subsidized by the state, b) a “reputation-based” model, where the value creation is associated with the excellence in scientific standing, c) a “public service-based” model, creating value through a public service mission for the community interests and d) a “private good” model, where value is associated with private benefits for students and companies. We then apply these models to a large set of HEIs derived from the European Tertiary Education Register by considering variables on revenues’ levels and composition and on research activities in order to identify seed groups; we further descriptively analyse some exemplary cases in order to substantiate the proposed models. While business models in higher education have been documented elsewhere through individual case studies, to the best of our knowledge, our paper offers the first systematic analysis of the possible ways European HEIs might generate value and revenues from different sources. Implications for higher education policies and management are further discussed.
Human genes differ by their UV sensitivity estimated through analysis of UV-induced silent mutations in melanoma
Creators: name: Parker, J.
name: Orlow, I.
name: Gorlova, O.Y
name: Tsavachidis, S.
name: Shen, R.
name: Amos, C.I.
name: Thomas, N.E.
name: Berwick, M.
name: Begg, C.
name: Cheng, C.
name: Hernando, E.
name: Gorlov, I.P.
name: Luo, L.
name: Ernstoff, M.S.
Publisher: name: John Wiley and Sons Inc
Year: 2020

description: We hypothesized that human genes differ by their sensitivity to ultraviolet (UV) exposure. We used somatic mutations detected by genome-wide screens in melanoma and reported in the Catalog Of Somatic Mutations In Cancer. As a measure of UV sensitivity, we used the number of silent mutations generated by C>T transitions in pyrimidine dimers of a given transcript divided by the number of potential sites for this type of mutations in the transcript. We found that human genes varied by UV sensitivity by two orders of magnitude. We noted that the melanoma-associated tumor suppressor gene CDKN2A was among the top five most UV-sensitive genes in the human genome. Melanoma driver genes have a higher UV-sensitivity compared with other genes in the human genome. The difference was more prominent for tumor suppressors compared with oncogene. The results of this study suggest that differential sensitivity of human transcripts to UV light may explain melanoma specificity of some driver genes. Practical significance of the study relates to the fact that differences in UV sensitivity among human genes need to be taken into consideration whereas predicting melanoma-associated genes by the number of somatic mutations detected in a given gene.
Diophantine approximation on polynomial curves
Creators: name: Schleischitz, Johannes
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Number Theory (math.NT)
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 11J13, 11J82, 11J83

description: In a paper from 2010, Budarina, Dickinson and Levesley studied the rational approximation properties of curves parametrized by polynomials with integral coefficients in Euclidean space of arbitrary dimension. Assuming the dimension is at least three and excluding the case of linear dependence of the polynomials together with $P(X)\equiv 1$ over the rational number field, we establish proper generalizations of their main result.
description: 15 pages
Sox2 acts in thalamic neurons to control the development of retina-thalamus-cortex connectivity.
Creators: name: Mercurio, Sara
name: Serra, Linda
name: Motta, Alessia
name: Gesuita, Lorenzo
name: Sanchez-Arrones, Luisa
name: Inverardi, Francesca
name: Foglio, Benedetta
name: Barone, Cristiana
name: Polynikis Kaimakis
name: Martynoga, Ben
name: Ottolenghi, Sergio
name: Studer, Michèle
name: Francois Guillemot
name: Frassoni, Carolina
name: Bovolenta, Paola
name: Nicolis, Silvia K
Publisher: name: The Francis Crick Institute
Year: 2020
Subjects: Neurosciences
Model organisms
Gene Expression
Genetics & Genomics
Developmental Biology
Stem Cells

description: Visual system development involves the formation of neuronal projections connecting the retina to the thalamic dorso-lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN) and the thalamus to the visual cerebral cortex. Patients carrying mutations in the SOX2 transcription factor gene present severe visual defects, thought to be linked to SOX2 functions in the retina. We show that Sox2 is strongly expressed in mouse postmitotic thalamic projection neurons. Cre-mediated deletion of Sox2 in these neurons causes reduction of the dLGN, abnormal distribution of retino-thalamic and thalamo-cortical projections, and secondary defects in cortical patterning. Reduced expression, in mutants, of Sox2 target genes encoding ephrin-A5 and the serotonin transport molecules SERT and vMAT2 (important for establishment of thalamic connectivity) likely provides a molecular contribution to these defects. These findings unveil thalamic SOX2 function as a novel regulator of visual system development and a plausible additional cause of brain-linked genetic blindness in humans.
A test of linearity of the ratio of dark matter to baryonic matter in galaxy clusters
Creators: name: Upadhyaya, Varenya
name: Desai, Shantanu
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We search for a linearity in the ratio of dark matter to baryonic matter as a function of radius for galaxy clusters, motivated by a recent result by Lovas (arXiv:2206.11431), who has discovered such a linearity for a diverse suite of galaxies in the SPARC sample. For our analysis, we used a sample of 54 non-cool core clusters from the HIFLUGCS sample. We do not find any evidence for a linear trend in the aforementioned ratio as a function of radius for individual clusters. We then repeat this analysis for the stacked sample, which also does not show this linearity. Therefore, the linear scaling found by Lovas is not a universal property of dark matter haloes at all scales.
description: 7 pages, 3 figures. Accepted for publication in Phys. Dark Universe
Fig. S2 from Termites manipulate moisture content of wood to maximize foraging resources.
Creators: name: Oberst, Sebastian
name: Lenz, Michael
name: Lai, Joseph C. S.
name: Evans, Theodore A.
Publisher: name: The Royal Society
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Ecology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: 60801 Animal Behaviour

description: Setup of pressure trial with wood of different tree species under compression using 5×5mm2 cross section. (a), Schematic diagram, (b), top view of one setup and (c), side view of the same setup loaded with water drums
Identifying Predictors of Successful Anhedonia Treatment
Creators: name: Scott, McRae
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2021

description: Background: Anhedonia, the loss of interest in previously rewarding activities, is a symptom of many psychiatric disorders. The purpose of the present investigation was to evaluate whether clinical variables and baseline characteristics predicted improvement in anhedonia due to psychotherapy. Methods: Fifty-five outpatients with clinically significant anhedonia (Snaith-Hamilton Pleasure Scale (SHAPS) ≥ 20) participated in up to 15 weekly sessions of psychotherapy, at which they completed questionnaires concerning symptoms of anhedonia, depression, anxiety, and worry. A series of multiple linear regressions were conducted to examine whether pre-treatment depression, anxiety, and worry levels predicted change in anhedonia while controlling for pre-treatment anhedonia severity. Analyses of covariance were used to examine whether baseline characteristics predicted change in anhedonia. Results: Overall, when clinical symptoms (i.e., depression, anxiety, worry) were analyzed covarying for pre-treatment anhedonia severity, there were no unique predictors of change in anhedonia severity due to psychotherapy. When other participant characteristics (sex, marital status, employment status) were analyzed, covarying for pre-treatment anhedonia severity, females were more likely to show improvements in anhedonia severity following psychotherapy treatment, although this effect was not significant. Exploratory analyses examined race, sleep quality, and the presence of religion as predictors and found that only race was a significant predictor of change in anhedonia. Black participants were less likely to show improvements in anhedonia than white participants.  Limitations: Future longitudinal research should include a comparison treatment sample to further understand predictors of successful anhedonia treatment. Conclusions: This is the first study to examine predictors of anhedonia treatment response in a transdiagnostic sample. More research is needed to understand the participant characteristics that predict anhedonia treatment response to improve personalized treatment approaches for anhedonia.
Morphology of blazar-induced gamma ray halos due to a helical intergalactic magnetic field
Creators: name: Long, Andrew J.
name: Vachaspati, Tanmay
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We study the characteristic size and shape of idealized blazar-induced cascade halos in the $1-100 \, {\rm GeV}$ energy range assuming various non-helical and helical configurations for the intergalactic magnetic field (IGMF). While the magnetic field creates an extended halo, the helicity provides the halo with a twist. Under simplifying assumptions, we assess the parameter regimes for which it is possible to measure the size and shape of the halo from a single source and then to deduce properties of the IGMF. We find that blazar halo measurements with an experiment similar to Fermi-LAT are best suited to probe a helical magnetic field with strength and coherence length today in the ranges $10^{-17} \lesssim B_{0} / {\rm Gauss} \lesssim 10^{-13}$ and $10 \, {\rm Mpc} \lesssim λ\lesssim 10 \, {\rm Gpc}$ where $\mathcal{H} \sim B_0^2 / λ$ is the magnetic helicity density. Stronger magnetic fields or smaller coherence scales can still potentially be investigated, but the connection between the halo morphology and the magnetic field properties is more involved. Weaker magnetic fields or longer coherence scales require high photon statistics or superior angular resolution.
description: v3 - 33 pages, 14 figures; reduced file size; matches JCAP version
Survey for Distant Solar Twins (SDST) -- III. Identification of new solar twin and solar analogue stars
Creators: name: Lehmann, Christian
name: Murphy, Michael T.
name: Liu, Fan
name: Flynn, Chris
name: Smith, Daniel
name: Berke, Daniel A.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Solar and Stellar Astrophysics (astro-ph.SR)
subject: Earth and Planetary Astrophysics (astro-ph.EP)
subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: The Survey for Distant Solar Twins (SDST) aims to find stars very similar to the Sun at distances 1-4 kpc, several times more distant than any currently known solar twins and analogues. The goal is to identify the best stars with which to test whether the fine-structure constant, alpha, varies with dark matter density in our Galaxy. Here we use EPIC, our line-by-line differential technique, to measure the stellar parameters - effective temperature Teff, surface gravity log g, metallicity [Fe/H] - from moderate resolution (R < 32,000) spectra of 877 solar twin and analogue candidates (547 at 1-4 kpc) observed with the HERMES spectrograph on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. These are consistent with expectations for Teff and log g from photometry, and for [Fe/H] from the Besancon stellar population model. EPIC provides small enough uncertainties (~90 K, 0.08 dex, 0.05 dex, respectively), even at the low signal-to-noise ratios available (S/N >~ 25 per pixel), to identify 299 new solar analogues (> 90% confidence), and 20 solar twins (>50% confidence), 206 and 12 of which are at 1-4 kpc. By extending EPIC to measure line broadening and lithium abundance from HERMES spectra, and with ages derived from isochrone fitting with our stellar parameters, we identify 174 solar analogues at 1-4 kpc which are relatively inactive, slowly rotating, and with no evidence of spectroscopic binarity. These are the preferred targets for follow-up spectroscopy to measure alpha.
description: 12 pages, 12 figures. Accepted by MNRAS. The full table of stars used in this work can be found at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7332606
The development of a novel antagonist for the treatment of cardiovascular disease
Creators: name: Alduaij, Rawan A.
Publisher: name: Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland
Year: 2019
Subjects: Uncategorized

description: The binding of VWF to GpIb-α is a critical step for maintaining normal haemostasis. The interaction between VWF with GpIb initiates the adhesion and aggregation of platelets at an injury site in the blood vessel wall. This binding is specific to high shear conditions that are typically found in small arterioles where the shear rates vary between 500-5000 s-1 . However, excessive binding of GpIb-α and VWF under normal conditions can cause stroke or myocardial infarction (MI). The purpose behind blocking GpIb is to stop the initial adhesion and stimulation of platelets under high shear conditions. There have been several attempts to generate GpIb-α inhibitors, such as the monoclonal antibody H6B4, OS-1 peptide, and the snake venom anfibatide. However, only anfibatide has successfully reached the clinical trials. In this project, we aimed to design a novel GpIb inhibitor for the treatment of cardiovascular disease. We performed both high-throughput docking as well as pharmacophore based screening to identify lead compounds for development. We then performed platelet aggregation assays, high shear flow experiments to assess their function ex vivo, and ELISA assays to investigate the binding interaction between the tested compounds and GpIb. A pharmacophore was generated based on GpIb-α crystal structure and published mutagenic data. The cyclic peptide GKYFG from the pharmacophore screening inhibited the interaction between VWF and GpIb-α under high shear conditions at a concentration of 0.1 mM (P
(1155) George Gilbertson
Creators: name: Professions, Victorian
Publisher: name: University of Oxford
Year: 2022
Subjects: subject: 220201 Business and Labour History
subject: FOS: Philosophy, ethics and religion
subject: History
subject: 140203 Economic History
subject: FOS: Economics and business

description: This three-year research project began in January 2014 and investigated whether, during the Victorian period, the professions formed a distinct self-sustaining social group with its own mores and values. The project looked at 16,000 individuals drawn from census data for Alnwick, Brighton, Bristol, Dundee, Greenock, Leeds, Merthyr Tydfil, Morpeth, and Winchester. The research project was funded by the UK Economic & Social Research Council and was based at the Universities of Oxford and Northumbria.
Fig. S3. from Termites manipulate moisture content of wood to maximize foraging resources.
Creators: name: Oberst, Sebastian
name: Lenz, Michael
name: Lai, Joseph C. S.
name: Evans, Theodore A.
Publisher: name: The Royal Society
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Ecology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: 60801 Animal Behaviour

description: Quasi-static compression test, A, experimental setup, B, close-up of sample after the point of yielding strength being crushed with clearly visible slip plane.
Total and partial cross sections of the $^{112}$Sn($α,γ$)$^{116}$Te reaction measured via in-beam $γ$-ray spectroscopy
Creators: name: Netterdon, L.
name: Mayer, J.
name: Scholz, P.
name: Zilges, A.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Nuclear Experiment (nucl-ex)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: An extended database of experimental data is needed to address uncertainties of the nuclear-physics input parameters for Hauser-Feshbach calculations. Especially $α$+nucleus optical model potentials at low energies are not well known. The in-beam technique with an array of high-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors was successfully applied to the measurement of absolute cross sections of an ($α$,$γ$) reaction on a heavy nucleus at sub-Coulomb energies. The total and partial cross-section values were measured by means of in-beam $γ$-ray spectroscopy. Total and partial cross sections were measured at four different $α$-particle energies from $E_α= 10.5$ MeV to $E_α= 12$ MeV. The measured total cross-section values are in excellent agreement with previous results obtained with the activation technique, which proves the validity of the applied method. The experimental data was compared to Hauser-Feshbach calculations using the nuclear reaction code TALYS. A modified version of the semi-microscopic $α$+nucleus optical model potential OMP 3, as well as modified proton and $γ$ widths, are needed in order to obtain a good agreement between experimental data and theory. It is found, that a model using a local modification of the nuclear-physics input parameters simultaneously reproduces total cross sections of the $^{112}$Sn($α$,$γ$) and $^{112}$Sn($α$,p) reactions. The measurement of partial cross sections turns out to be very important in this case in order to apply the correct $γ$-ray strength function in the Hauser-Feshbach calculations. The model also reproduces cross-section values of $α$-induced reactions on $^{106}$Cd, as well as of ($α$,n) reactions on $^{115,116}$Sn, hinting at a more global character of the obtained nuclear-physics input.
description: 8 pages, 9 figures
title: Phonon spectrum analysis using Gaussian process regression
Creators: name: Schönbauer, Sita
Publisher: name: TU Wien
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: machine learning
subject: ab initio
subject: density functional theory
subject: phonon spectra

description: This work employs Machine Learning (ML) tools to generate phonon spectra from ab initio Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. For this end, an ML algorithm is trained using two-body and Smooth Overlap of Atomic positions (SOAP) descriptors on the MD trajectory of 54 carbon atoms in a solid cubic diamond structure calculated employing Density Functional Theory (DFT) in a canonical ensemble, with energies and forces as targets.The accuracy of the ML force field is studied using the following two approaches. Firstly, MD simulations using ML methods starting from the same geometry as the original DFT trajectory are computed and compared to the original runs, together with simulations where the ML algorithm was trained with smaller DFT datasets to inspect robustness against data reduction.Secondly, the trained ML algorithm is also used to calculate forces for new systems, specifically finite displacements from equilibrium to compute the second derivatives of the energy surface from which phonon spectra can be generated. 250 datapoints were sufficient to obtain accurate phonon dispersions.
Fig. S1 from Termites manipulate moisture content of wood to maximize foraging resources.
Creators: name: Oberst, Sebastian
name: Lenz, Michael
name: Lai, Joseph C. S.
name: Evans, Theodore A.
Publisher: name: The Royal Society
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Ecology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: 60801 Animal Behaviour

description: A - C absolute weight-increase in g and D - F weight-increase relative to dryweight for beam geometry; humidification (relative humidity in air) and moistening (water dipping) of Po. alba, P. radiata and E. regnans over time. Average values are marked by a solid thick line. Period I describes the process of saturation at 80% RH (28 ºC), period II is the increase in weight owing to the wood being dipped in water and in period III the wood is oven-dried again
Top Ten Discoveries of the Year: Neuromuscular Disease
Creators: name: Margeta, Marta
Publisher: name: Free Neuropathology
Year: 2020

description: This review highlights ten important advances in the neuromuscular disease field that either were first reported in 2019, or have reached a broad consensus during that year. The overarching topics include (i) new / emerging diseases; (ii) advances in understanding of disease etiology and pathogenesis; (iii) diagnostic advances; and (iv) therapeutic advances. Within this broad framework, the individual disease entities that are discussed in more detail include myoglobinopathy, POPDC3-mutated limb-girdle muscular dystrophy, neuromuscular adverse events associated with the immune checkpoint inhibition therapy, neuroglial stem cell-derived inflammatory pseudotumor of the spinal cord and spinal cord roots, acute flaccid myelitis, congenital myopathies, idiopathic inflammatory myopathies (with particular emphasis on immune-mediated necrotizing myopathies and sporadic inclusion body myositis), spinal muscular atrophy, and Duchenne muscular dystrophy. In addition, the review highlights several diagnostic advances (such as diagnostic RNA sequencing and development of digital diagnostic tools) that will likely have a significant impact on the overall neuromuscular disease field going forward.
description: Free Neuropathology, Bd. 1 (2020)
Predicting Students’ Cell and Assignment Completion Times in Jupyter
Creators: name: Hongyi Zhang
name: Samuel George
name: Prasun Dewan
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2021

description: In beginning computer science courses, students are often overwhelmed by the complex and novel way of problem-solving. Having a good expectation of how long the task is going to take is not easy even for students with much experience in programming. Without knowing their progress, beginners may become discouraged, have poor efficiency, miss deadlines, fail the course, and even drop out of the program. In this paper, I introduce a way to predict student time spent on Jupyter assignments by training models with collected student logs. The key idea of this project is that the student’s future relative progress can be deduced by the student’s past relative progress and problems together with information on other students. I develop a toolkit used for creating and troubleshooting prediction schemes. I present two ways of prediction: Assignment-based binary classification, and Cell-based ternary completion time. These two approaches have satisfactory results but still have room for improvement. I also evaluate an adaptation of an existing prediction scheme and compare the results. The video of the oral presentation of this thesis is available at (https://youtu.be/2qiuRLjfF-Y)
Age-related Neural Correlates of Multifeatural Encoding
Creators: name: Miceli, Karen
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2021

description: Past research has demonstrated age-related structural and functional changes that contribute to declines in episodic memory performance. More specifically, there have been age-related functional connectivity changes to key regions including the medial temporal lobes and prefrontal cortex, as well as within the default mode network. Prior studies investigating age-related episodic encoding have either performed activation analyses, or have performed functional connectivity analyses but only regarding memory of a single association or single feature. Hence, age-related connectivity changes for memory of multiple features remain widely unstudied. Using a fMRI multidimensional source memory paradigm, this study sought to further understand the effect of aging on intra-item multifeatural encoding connectivity.  Overall, results supported the hypothesis that young adults would display significantly more functional connectivity relative to older adults to the frontal and parietal lobes for multifeatural trials. A majority of these regions were also corroborated by a similar multifeatural inter-item encoding study by James et al. (2019). However, this study was limited by a small sample size and decreased statistical power. Future studies should seek to address these limitations, investigate reconnectivity at retrieval, and attempt to better differentiate between connectivity unique to multifeatural inter-item versus intra-item encoding.
 
Keywords: episodic memory, encoding, functional connectivity, aging
Fig. S2 from Termites manipulate moisture content of wood to maximize foraging resources
Creators: name: Oberst, Sebastian
name: Lenz, Michael
name: Lai, Joseph C. S.
name: Evans, Theodore A.
Publisher: name: The Royal Society
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Ecology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: 60801 Animal Behaviour

description: Setup of pressure trial with wood of different tree species under compression using 5×5mm2 cross section. (a), Schematic diagram, (b), top view of one setup and (c), side view of the same setup loaded with water drums
Simpler (classical) and faster (quantum) algorithms for Gibbs partition functions
Creators: name: Arunachalam, Srinivasan
name: Havlicek, Vojtech
name: Nannicini, Giacomo
name: Temme, Kristan
name: Wocjan, Pawel
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2020
Subjects: subject: Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: We present classical and quantum algorithms for approximating partition functions of classical Hamiltonians at a given temperature. Our work has two main contributions: first, we modify the classical algorithm of Štefankovič, Vempala and Vigoda (\emph{J.~ACM}, 56(3), 2009) to improve its sample complexity; second, we quantize this new algorithm, improving upon the previously fastest quantum algorithm for this problem, due to Harrow and Wei (SODA 2020). The conventional approach to estimating partition functions requires approximating the means of Gibbs distributions at a set of inverse temperatures that form the so-called cooling schedule. The length of the cooling schedule directly affects the complexity of the algorithm. Combining our improved version of the algorithm of Štefankovič, Vempala and Vigoda with the paired-product estimator of Huber (\emph{Ann.\ Appl.\ Probab.}, 25(2),~2015), our new quantum algorithm uses a shorter cooling schedule than previously known. This length matches the optimal length conjectured by Štefankovič, Vempala and Vigoda. The quantum algorithm also achieves a quadratic advantage in the number of required quantum samples compared to the number of random samples drawn by the best classical algorithm, and its computational complexity has quadratically better dependence on the spectral gap of the Markov chains used to produce the quantum samples.
description: Article update for publication in quantum. Minor typos and metadata fixed. Comments are encouraged!
Thin flexible multi-octave metamaterial absorber for millimetre wavelengths
Creators: name: Pisano, Giampaolo
name: Dunscombe, Christopher
name: Hargrave, Peter
name: Shitvov, Alexey
name: Tucker, Carole
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics (astro-ph.IM)
subject: Optics (physics.optics)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Development of novel radiation-absorbent materials and devices for millimetre and submillimetre astronomy instruments is a research area of high interest, and with substantial engineering challenges. Alongside low-profile structure and ultra-wideband performance in a wide range of angles of incidence, advanced absorbers in CMB instruments are aimed at reducing optical systematics, notably instrument polarisation, far beyond previous specifications. This paper presents an innovative design of flat thin flexible absorber operating in a wide frequency range of 80-400 GHz. The structure comprises a combination of sub-wavelength metal-mesh capacitive and inductive grids and dielectric layers, making use of the magnetic mirror concept for large bandwidth. The overall stack thickness is a quarter of the longest operating wavelength and is close to the theoretical limit stipulated by Rozanov criterion. The test device is designed to operate at 22.5deg. incidence. The iterative numerical-experimental design procedure of the new absorber is discussed in detail, as well as the practical challenges of its manufacture. A well-established mesh-filter fabrication process has been successfully employed for prototype fabrication, which ensures cryogenic operation of the hot-pressed quasi-optical devices. The final prototype, extensively tested in quasi-optical testbeds using a Fourier-transform spectrometer and a vector network analyser, demonstrated performance closely matching the finite-element analysis simulations, viz., greater than 99% absorbance for both polarisations, with only 0.2% difference, across the frequency band of 80-400 GHz. The angular stability for up to +/-10deg. has been confirmed by simulations. To the best of the authors knowledge, this is the first successful implementation of a low-profile ultrawideband metamaterial absorber for this frequency range and operating conditions.
description: 10 pages, 16 figures, manuscript accepted for publication
Math Skills in Biology Education: A Principles Focused Evaluation (PF-E) of Community College Faculty Needs
Creators: name: LoRe, Sondra
name: Kiser, Stacey
name: Corwin, Lisa
name: Aikens, Melissa
name: Miller, Jillian
Publisher: name: QUBES Educational Resources
Year: 2019

description: Poster on math skill instruction in community colleges presented at the 2019 BioQUEST & QUBES Summer Workshop
Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) Virulence Factors
Creators: name: Skelly, Jaden
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2021

description: Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus) is a ubiquitous bacterial infectious agent that is becoming an increasingly problematic threat in hospitals and other patient care environments. In cystic fibrosis patients, abnormally viscous mucus prevents debris from being successfully cleared from the lungs, creating a favorable environment for most S. aureus strains. Efforts to build a model of  unique lung infection sites are underway, but utilizing such a model requires a robust understanding of S. aureus virulence factors. This study explored the variation in virulence factor expression among S. aureus clinical isolates. The four main features examined were staphyloxanthin, a carotenoid pigment and chemical virulence factor mucoidy, an indication of ica expression; biofilm formation; and accessory gene regulator (Agr) function. Carotenoid pigments were extracted and the absorbance values were normalized in comparison to a known sample. The absorbance values of biofilm stained with crystal violet were also recorded.  Each isolate was plated on Congo Red agar to determine Mucoid vs. Non-mucoid phenotype. Sheep’s blood agar was also used to test the presence of Agr protein with each isolate.  The samples exhibited a wide variety of pigmentation levels, while the majority of them expressed a non-mucoid phenotype. Comparative analysis revealed that isolates with the mucoid phenotype show a statistically significant (p-value of 0.0414) tendency to produce less carotenoids than the non-mucoid isolates. However, there were no statistically significant correlations between the other virulence factors. Identifying the trends, and lack thereof, in virulence factor expression paved the way to a better understanding of how the combination of these factors impacts the success of S. aureus in an infection environment.
Moment Closure - A Brief Review
Creators: name: Kuehn, Christian
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Statistical Mechanics (cond-mat.stat-mech)
subject: Dynamical Systems (math.DS)
subject: Adaptation and Self-Organizing Systems (nlin.AO)
subject: Quantitative Methods (q-bio.QM)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: FOS: Biological sciences

description: Moment closure methods appear in myriad scientific disciplines in the modelling of complex systems. The goal is to achieve a closed form of a large, usually even infinite, set of coupled differential (or difference) equations. Each equation describes the evolution of one "moment", a suitable coarse-grained quantity computable from the full state space. If the system is too large for analytical and/or numerical methods, then one aims to reduce it by finding a moment closure relation expressing "higher-order moments" in terms of "lower-order moments". In this brief review, we focus on highlighting how moment closure methods occur in different contexts. We also conjecture via a geometric explanation why it has been difficult to rigorously justify many moment closure approximations although they work very well in practice.
description: short survey paper (max 20 pages) for a broad audience in mathematics, physics, chemistry and quantitative biology
Fig. S5 from Termites manipulate moisture content of wood to maximize foraging resources
Creators: name: Oberst, Sebastian
name: Lenz, Michael
name: Lai, Joseph C. S.
name: Evans, Theodore A.
Publisher: name: The Royal Society
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Ecology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: 60801 Animal Behaviour

description: Mudding and foraging related weight changes. Weight change over time for three different kinds of wood using 20x20mm2 and 30mm length. Thin grey lines indicate failed experiments (rot fungus, no/little contact). Thick lines highlight successful experiments; peak values are marked as thick dots while μ and σ mark their standard deviation.
Cluster-Level Contrastive Learning for Emotion Recognition in Conversations
Creators: name: Yang, Kailai
name: Zhang, Tianlin
name: Alhuzali, Hassan
name: Ananiadou, Sophia
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Computation and Language (cs.CL)
subject: Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)
subject: FOS: Computer and information sciences

description: A key challenge for Emotion Recognition in Conversations (ERC) is to distinguish semantically similar emotions. Some works utilise Supervised Contrastive Learning (SCL) which uses categorical emotion labels as supervision signals and contrasts in high-dimensional semantic space. However, categorical labels fail to provide quantitative information between emotions. ERC is also not equally dependent on all embedded features in the semantic space, which makes the high-dimensional SCL inefficient. To address these issues, we propose a novel low-dimensional Supervised Cluster-level Contrastive Learning (SCCL) method, which first reduces the high-dimensional SCL space to a three-dimensional affect representation space Valence-Arousal-Dominance (VAD), then performs cluster-level contrastive learning to incorporate measurable emotion prototypes. To help modelling the dialogue and enriching the context, we leverage the pre-trained knowledge adapters to infuse linguistic and factual knowledge. Experiments show that our method achieves new state-of-the-art results with 69.81% on IEMOCAP, 65.7% on MELD, and 62.51% on DailyDialog datasets. The analysis also proves that the VAD space is not only suitable for ERC but also interpretable, with VAD prototypes enhancing its performance and stabilising the training of SCCL. In addition, the pre-trained knowledge adapters benefit the performance of the utterance encoder and SCCL. Our code is available at: https://github.com/SteveKGYang/SCCL
description: Accepted by IEEE Transactions on Affective Computing
Incompatible Liquids in Confined Conditions
Creators: name: László, Krisztina
name: Demé, Bruno
name: Czakkel, Orsolya
name: Geissler, Erik
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Chemical Physics (physics.chem-ph)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: In applications involving organic vapour, the performance of high surface area carbons is often challenged by water vapour in the atmosphere. Small angle neutron scattering (SANS), through its ability to distinguish between different components by means of contrast variation, is ideally suited to investigating the behaviour of adsorbed layers in simultaneous contact with a mixed vapour phase. Even at high relative humidity (RH), water alone forms a discontinuous film composed of clusters on the surface of the oxidized microporous carbon used for these studies. When toluene is also present, all the available carbon surface is wetted. Toluene and water adsorb as a single phase already at RH 11.5%, and the concentration of water present in the adsorbed phase is as high as 2.9 wt.%, far above its solubility in bulk toluene (0.033 wt.% at 25 deg C). At RH 87% the concentration of water in the adsorbed phase is four times higher, approximately 12 wt.%. The recently proposed mechanism of anchoring of the water by the aromatic molecules may provide an explanation for this phenomenon.
Fig. S3. from Termites manipulate moisture content of wood to maximize foraging resources
Creators: name: Oberst, Sebastian
name: Lenz, Michael
name: Lai, Joseph C. S.
name: Evans, Theodore A.
Publisher: name: The Royal Society
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Ecology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: 60801 Animal Behaviour

description: Quasi-static compression test, A, experimental setup, B, close-up of sample after the point of yielding strength being crushed with clearly visible slip plane.
Nurses’ Attitudes towards Incarcerated Women: A Scoping Review
Creators: name: Finnessy, Elizabeth A.
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2021

description: The general lack of standardized, gender-specific data collection for incarcerated individuals in the United States makes it difficult for researchers, policymakers, and criminal justice reform advocates to identify the unique challenges that incarcerated women face. For instance, there is limited amount of data that explore how nurses’ perceptions of incarcerated women might influence the care they provide to incarcerated individuals. The following scoping review and textual analysis employ the PRISMA extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) methodological approach to map and interpret the available literature on nurses’ attitudes towards incarcerated women in high-income countries. In this study, the term ‘attitude’ captures feelings and opinions held by nurses and the behaviors linked to those opinions. PubMed, CINAHL, Web of Science, and Embase were used to identify papers published before January 4, 2021, related to the study topic. Of the full-text studies included in the study after screening with appropriate criteria, three addressed nurses' attitudes about the dual identity of being both incarcerated and a woman. The remaining seven studies presented data on the attitudes of health care workers towards incarcerated individuals; however, they did not address incarcerated women specifically. The included studies indicate that deconstructing negative preconceptions of incarcerated individuals results in an increased ability of nurses to empathize with their incarcerated patients, suggesting an improved delivery of patient-centered care.
Fig. S1 from Termites manipulate moisture content of wood to maximize foraging resources
Creators: name: Oberst, Sebastian
name: Lenz, Michael
name: Lai, Joseph C. S.
name: Evans, Theodore A.
Publisher: name: The Royal Society
Year: 2019
Subjects: subject: Ecology
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: 60801 Animal Behaviour

description: A - C absolute weight-increase in g and D - F weight-increase relative to dryweight for beam geometry; humidification (relative humidity in air) and moistening (water dipping) of Po. alba, P. radiata and E. regnans over time. Average values are marked by a solid thick line. Period I describes the process of saturation at 80% RH (28 ºC), period II is the increase in weight owing to the wood being dipped in water and in period III the wood is oven-dried again
A fractional order recovery SIR model from a stochastic process
Creators: name: Angstmann, C. N.
name: Henry, B. I.
name: McGann, A. V.
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2015
Subjects: subject: Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE)
subject: Dynamical Systems (math.DS)
subject: FOS: Biological sciences
subject: FOS: Mathematics
subject: 92D30, 26A33, 37M05

description: Over the past several decades there has been a proliferation of epidemiological models with ordinary derivatives replaced by fractional derivatives in an an-hoc manner. These models may be mathematically interesting but their relevance is uncertain. Here we develop an SIR model for an epidemic, including vital dynamics, from an underlying stochastic process. We show how fractional differential operators arise naturally in these models whenever the recovery time from the disease is power law distributed. This can provide a model for a chronic disease process where individuals who are infected for a long time are unlikely to recover. The fractional order recovery model is shown to be consistent with the Kermack-McKendrick age-structured SIR model and it reduces to the Hethcote-Tudor integral equation SIR model. The derivation from a stochastic process is extended to discrete time, providing a stable numerical method for solving the model equations. We have carried out simulations of the fractional order recovery model showing convergence to equilibrium states. The number of infecteds in the endemic equilibrium state increases as the fractional order of the derivative tends to zero.
description: 32 pages, 3 figures