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We construct Bayesian and frequentist finite-sample goodness-of-fit tests for three different variants of the stochastic blockmodel for network data. Since all of the stochastic blockmodel variants are log-linear in form when block assignments are known, the tests for the latent block model versions combine a block membership estimator with the algebraic statistics machinery for testing goodness-of-fit in log-linear models. We describe Markov bases and marginal polytopes of the variants of the stochastic blockmodel and discuss how both facilitate the development of goodness-of-fit tests and understanding of model behaviour. The general testing methodology developed here extends to any finite mixture of log-linear models on discrete data, and as such is the first application of the algebraic statistics machinery for latent-variable models., QC 20240222

As global change accelerates, natural resource-dependent communities must respond and adapt. Small-scale fisheries, essential for coastal livelihoods and food security, are considered among the most vulnerable of these coupled social-ecological systems. While previous studies have examined vulnerability and adaptation in fisheries at the individual, household, and community level, these scales of organization are inconsistent with many of the legal and regulatory frameworks that function in practice to mediate behavior, decision-making, and adaptation. Here, we use cooperative- and privately-owned fishing enterprises in Northwest Mexico as a case study to examine how different forms of marine self-governance experience and respond to climate shocks. Leveraging social-ecological network methods to examine changes in fisheries participation and vulnerability during a recent period of pronounced regional oceanographic change, our analysis suggests that: 1) different forms of SSF self-governance (and the fishing strategies and harvest portfolios with which they are associated) help determine the impacts of and response to environmental change; and 2) that there may be important tradeoffs between short-term responses which function to prevent or mitigate lost fishing revenue and long-term changes in climate vulnerability. In particular large fishing cooperatives, predicted to be highly vulnerable on the basis of network theoretic metrics, exceeded expectations (maintaining or increasing resource revenues) while demonstrating a degree of path dependency that may function to increase sensitivity and undermine resilience as climate change progresses. In providing an empirical evaluation of how self-governance arrangements characterized by different group sizes, access regimes and levels of cooperation respond to system perturbation, we aim to advance common pool resource theory while offering targeted guidance for the development of more nuanced and equitable climate adapta

U odgojno-obrazovnim ustanovama, djeca rane i predškolske dobi često pokazuju različite oblike rizičnih ponašanja, potičući potrebu za suradnjom među stručnjacima, odgojiteljima, roditeljima i stručnjacima vanjskih ustanova radi pravovremenog prepoznavanja, identifikacije i intervencije. Cilj ovog istraživanja bio je analizirati suradnju stručnih suradnika dječjih vrtića s navedenim dionicima u procesu prepoznavanja i identifikacije rizičnih ponašanja djece te identificirati ograničenja u suradnji. Kroz fokusne grupe s 10 stručnih suradnika različitih profila (pedagog, psiholog, edukacijski rehabilitator i logoped), provedena je deskriptivna kvalitativna analiza podataka (TCA). Rezultati istraživanja ukazuju da stručni suradnici najčešće surađuju s odgojiteljima i roditeljima na njihovu zajedničku inicijativu u prepoznavanju problema. Iako se takva suradnja smatra vrlo dobrom, postoje izazovi poput nedostatka kontinuiteta u radu odgojitelja te otpora roditelja. Nedostatak suradnje najizraženiji je sa stručnjacima vanjskih ustanova, što dovodi do nedostatka komunikacije i informacija o strategijama rada s djecom. Ograničenja u suradnji s roditeljima i stručnjacima vanjskih ustanova reflektiraju se na planiranje i provođenje intervencija te rada stručnog tima u cjelini., In educational institutions, children of early and preschool age often show different forms of risky behaviours while encouraging the need for cooperation between experts, educators, parents, and professionals from external institutions for timeous recognition, identification, and intervention. The aim of this paper was to analyse the cooperation of the expert associates of kindergartens with the aforementioned participators in the process of recognition and identification of children's risky behaviours and to identify limitations in cooperation. Descriptive qualitative data analysis (TCA) was conducted through focus groups of 10 expert associates of different profiles (pedagogue, psychologist, educational rehabilitator, and speech therapist). The results of the research indicate that expert associates most often cooperate with educators and parents on their joint initiative in identifying problems. Although such cooperation is considered positive, there are certain challenges, such as the lack of continuity in the work of educators, and the resistance of parents. The lack of cooperation is most conspicuous with experts from external institutions, which leads to a lack of communication and information about strategies that are required for working with children. Limitations in cooperation with parents and experts from external institutions are reflected in the planning and implementation of interventions, and in the work of the overall professional team.

Space weather is a multidisciplinary research area connecting scientists from across heliophysics domains seeking a coherent understanding of our space environment that can also serve modern life and society's needs. COSPAR's ISWAT (International Space Weather Action Teams) 'clusters' focus attention on different areas of space weather study while ensuring the coupled system is broadly addressed via regular communications and interactions. The ISWAT cluster "H3: Radiation Environment in the Heliosphere" (this https URL) has been working to provide a scientific platform to understand, characterize and predict the energetic particle radiation in the heliosphere with the practical goal of mitigating radiation risks associated with areospace activities, satellite industry and human space explorations. In particular, present approaches help us understand the physical phenomena at large, optimizing the output of multi-viewpoint observations and pushing current models to their limits. In this paper, we review the scientific aspects of the radiation environment in the heliosphere covering four different radiation types: Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs), Ground Level Enhancement (GLE, a type of SEP events with energies high enough to trigger the enhancement of ground-level detectors), Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) and Anomalous Cosmic Rays (ACRs). We focus on related advances in the research community in the past 10-20 years and what we still lack in terms of understanding and predictive capabilities. Finally we also consider some recommendations related to the improvement of both observational and modeling capabilities in the field of space radiation environment.

Index systems are central to our everyday and intellectual lives. Their ubiquity and diversity make them an important class of cognitive artifacts, the study of which has implications for our understanding of representational systems in general. This paper builds schema-theoretic network models of the nature of the memory structures, that underpin the interpretation of indexing systems. We identify four common classes of index systems. Using Representation Interpretation Structure Theory, we ex-plain how the four basic classes can be responsible for the substantial diversity among index systems.

Transcription with Incremental Presentation of the Stimulus (TIPS) is a novel approach relying on micro-behaviours proposed by Colarusso and colleagues (2023) to study users' cognition with data visualizations. The study in this paper has two primary objectives: (a) investigate whether TIPS can measure an individual's competence with data visualizations; and (b) explore the potential enhancement of TIPS measures by normalizing them with the individual's performance on tests of visuo-spatial abilities and memory capacity. We test 30 participants with different expertise and cognitive skills. Results reveal that TIPS provides some promise for individual competence assessment, but only when normalized with the individual's performance on a test of rigid transformation of mental images. Other tests measuring visuospatial abilities or memory capacity did not produce effective normalizations.

Kortikalni centri za vidnu percepciju međusobno su povezani spletom uzlaznih i silaznihveza. Dok je uloga uzlaznih putova dobro istražena, uloga silaznih putova nije u potpunosti jasna. Cilj je ovoga preglednog rada opisati recentne neurodinamičke modele vidne percepcije koji silaznim kortikalnim putovima pripisuju različite funkcije te evaluirati njihovu relativnu uspješnost u objašnjavanju i integraciji neuroznanstvenih i psiholoških nalaza o interakciji između percepcije i kognicije. U prvome je dijelu rada opisana uloga silaznih putova u usmjeravanju selektivne pažnje na relevantne podražaje. Selektivna se pažnja može usmjeriti na lokaciju u prostoru, na objekt ili na obilježje. Sva tri oblika selekcije može podržati ista umjetna neuronska mreža koja dobiva različite silazne utjecaje. U drugome je dijelu rada opisana uloga silaznih putova u komunikaciji očekivanja o nadolazećim podražajima. Ta hipoteza proizlazi iz modela prediktivnoga kodiranja koji predstavlja opći model kortikalne obrade informacija. Razmotrene su također teorijske alternative prediktivnomu kodiranju. Rezultati neuroznanstvenih istraživanja i neuronskoga modeliranja upućuju na zaključak da silazni putovi mogu prenositi različite informacije ovisno o specijalizaciji neuronske mreže u koju su uklopljeni., The cortical centers for visual perception are connected by a tangle of bottom-up and top-down pathways. While the role of the bottom-up pathways is well studied, the role of the top-down ones is not yet fully understood. The aim of this review is to describe recent neurodynamic models of visual perception that attribute distinct functions to top-down pathways, and to assess their merits in explaining and integrating neuroscientific and psychological findings on the interaction between perception and cognition. The first part of the review examines the role of top-down pathways in selective attention to relevant stimuli. Selective attention can be directed to a location in space, to an object, or to a feature. All three forms of selection take place in the same artificial neural network, which receives different top-down influences. The second part of the review examines the role of top-down pathways in mediating expectations about upcoming stimuli. This hypothesis is derived from the model of predictive coding, which is a general model of cortical information processing. Theoretical alternatives to predictive coding are also investigated. The results of neuroscientific and neural modeling suggest that top-down pathways convey different types of information depending on the specialization of the neural network in which they are embedded.

The sunflower (Helianthus annuus L.) is the most important oil plant in the Republic of Croatia for the production of edible oil from seeds. Subsequent to the oil production, the utilizable biomass of postharvest residues remains, being used for the production of solid biofuels, as well as the sunflower heads, which can be used as the ingredients for the production of animal feed. The aim of this study was to determine the physical and chemical properties of the sunflower head with seeds in order to be able to use the whole head in animal feed. The sunflower head, which usually has a diameter of 10 to 40 cm, contains 7% of protein, 16% of fiber, and 4% of oil subsequent to the separation of the seeds, while the sunflower seed contains 38 to 45% of oil and many unsaturated fatty acids, being a valuable source of vitamins. By processing the seeds after extraction, a protein-rich cake, or meal, is obtained, which is also a high-quality animal feed. Three sunflower hybrids were used for the study: Alexa SU, Driver CL, and Surimi CL. The results demonstrate that the Surimi CL hybrid has better physical properties due to a larger head diameter and weight. The Alexa SU hybrid had better chemical properties, as it had a higher starch content and a lower water content and therefore should not be thermically treated before use, while the Driver CL hybrid had the highest fat content and the lowest ash content (p<0,05)., Suncokret (Helianthus annuus L.) je najvažnija uljarica u Republici Hrvatskoj za proizvodnju jestivoga ulja iz sjemenaka. Nakon proizvodnje ulja ostaje korisna biomasa posliježetvenih ostataka, koja se koristi za proizvodnju čvrstih biogoriva, kao i glave suncokreta, koje se mogu koristiti kao sastojci u proizvodnji hrane za životinje. Cilj ovoga istraživanja bio je odrediti fizikalna i kemijska svojstva glave suncokreta sa sjemenkama kako bi se cijela glava mogla koristiti u hrani za životinje. Glava suncokreta, koja obično ima promjer između 10 i 40 cm, sadrži 7 % proteina, 16 % vlakana i 4 % ulja nakon odvajanja sjemenaka, dok sjemenke suncokreta sadrže 38 - 45 % ulja i mnogo nezasićenih masnih kiselina te su vrijedan izvor vitamina. Doradom sjemenaka nakon ekstrakcije dobiva se pogača ili sačma, koja je bogata proteinima i također je visokokvalitetna hrana za životinje. Za istraživanje su korištena tri hibrida suncokreta: Alexa SU, Driver CL i Surimi CL. Dobiveni rezultati pokazuju da hibrid Surimi CL ima bolja fizikalna svojstva zbog većega promjera i težine glava. Hibrid Alexa SU je imao bolja kemijska svojstva jer je imao veći udio škroba i niži udio vode te se stoga ne treba termički obrađivati prije upotrebe, dok je hibrid Driver CL imao najveći udio masti i najmanji udio pepela (p<0,05).

Evapotranspiracija je važan dio hidrološkog ciklusa vode, kao i važna komponenta u planiranju navodnjavanja i određivanja sušnog razdoblja. Cilj je ovog istraživanja usporediti iznose potencijalne evapotranspiracije prema različitim metodama izračuna u različitim klimatskim tipovima, kao i korelacije među njima. Potencijalna evapotranspiracija (mm) izračunata je prema metodama Thornthwaitea, Ivanova, Blaney-Criddlea i Penman- Monteitha za meteorološke postaje Osijek, Zagreb-Maksimir, Parg, Zavižan i Hvar. Meteorološka postaja Osijek ima Cfa tip klime, umjereno topla kišna klima s vrućim ljetom. Meteorološke postaje Zagreb-Maksimir i Parg imaju Cfb tip klime, umjereno toplu vlažnu klimu s toplim ljetom, meteorološka postaja Zavižan ima Df tip klime, vlažna borealna klima, dok se meteorološka postaja Hvar nalazi u području sredozemne klime s vrućim ljetom (Csa tip klime). Na području nizinske Hrvatske u Cfa i Cfb tipovima klime prosječno najmanji iznos potencijalne evapotranspiracije bio je prema metodi Blaney-Criddlea (709,30 mm), a najveći prema metodi Ivanova (859,95 mm). Za meteorološku postaju Parg u gorskoj Hrvatskoj, prosječno najmanji iznos potencijalne evapotranspiracije bio je prema metodi Ivanova (553,01 mm), dok je najveći iznos bio prema metodi Penman-Monteitha (705,87 mm). Na Hvaru najmanji iznos potencijalne evapotranspiracije bio je prema metodi Thornthwaitea (891,57 mm), a najveći prema metodi Ivanova u iznosu od 1368,55 mm. Prema prosječnim godišnjim vrijednostima potencijalne evapotranspiracije metodi Penman-Monteitha bila je najbliža metoda Ivanova na području nizinske Hrvatske te metoda Blaney-Criddlea na području gorske, pretplaninske i sredozemne Hrvatske. Najveća korelacija (r = 0,98*) bila je između metode Thornthwaitea i Blaney-Criddla, a najmanja (r = 0,49*) utvrđena je između metoda Ivanova i Blaney-Criddlea. S metodom Pennman-Monteitha najviše su korelirale metode Thornthwaitea i Ivanova u nizinskoj Hrvatskoj te Thornthwaitea i Blaney-Crid, Evapotranspiration is an important part of the hydrological water cycle as well as an important component in irrigation planning and drought determination. The aim of this research is to compare the amounts of potential evapotranspiration according to different methods in different climate types as well as the correlation between them. Potential evapotranspiration (in mm) was calculated according to Thornthwaite, Ivanov, Blaney-Criddle and Penman-Monteith methods for Osijek, Zagreb-Maksimir, Parg, Zavižan and Hvar weather stations. Osijek weather station has a Cfa climate type, a moderately warm rainy climate with hot summers. Zagreb-Maksimir and Parg weather stations have Cfb climate type, moderately warm humid climate with hot summers. Zavižan weather station has Df climate type, humid boreal climate, while Hvar weather station is located in the area of Mediterranean climate with hot summers (Csa climate type). In the area of lowland Croatia in Cfa and Cfb climate types, the average amount of potential evapotranspiration was the lowest according to the Blaney- Criddle method (709.30 mm), and the highest according to the Ivanov method (859.95 mm). For Parg weather station in mountainous Croatia, Cfb climate type, the lowest average amount of potential evapotranspiration was found according to the Ivanov method (553.01 mm), while in this case the highest amount was found according to the Penman-Monteith method (705.87 mm). On Hvar, Csa type climate, the smallest amount of potential evapotranspiration was recorded according to the Thornthwaite method (891.57 mm), and the largest according to the Ivanov method in the amount of 1368.55 mm. According to the average annual values of potential evapotranspiration, the Penman- Monteith method was the closest to the Ivanov method in the area of lowland Croatia, and the Blaney- Criddle method in the area of mountainous, sub-mountainous and Mediterranean Croatia. The highest correlation in the amount of r = 0.98* was between t

Sektor stočarstva u Hrvatskoj obilježava niska razina produktivnosti i nekonkurentnost. Uz to, nakon ulaska u članstvo EU u Hrvatskoj se broj krmača smanjio za 30 % što je utjecalo na pad proizvodnje svinjskog mesa. Došlo je i do pada proizvodnje goveđeg mesa za cca 10 %, a najveći pad proizvodnje bilježi sektor mliječnog govedarstva što je vidljivo kroz veliki pad broja mliječnih krava, za 35 % u odnosu na 2012. godinu, tj. prije ulaska u članstvo. U sektoru stočarstva jedino je zabilježen rast proizvodnje mesa peradi i stabilnost u proizvodnji konzumnih jaja. Od 2020. stočarstvo se susreće s visokim rastom cijena inputa uzrokovana bolešću COVID-19 i ratom u Ukrajini. Od 2023. dodatni problem predstavlja Afrička svinjska kuga zbog koje je smanjena trgovina živim životinjama i mesom. Proizvodnja ovaca i koza u posljednjih deset godina je u porastu i predstavlja uglavnom dodatni izvor prihoda na gospodarstvu. Hrvatska ne proizvodi dovoljno stočarskih proizvoda za svoje potrebe što nadoknađuje uvozom živih životinja, mesa i mlijeka. Proizvode koje izvozimo najčešće izvozimo u obliku sirovina bez dodane vrijednosti, dok uvozimo složenije i skuplje proizvode. Većina proizvodnji u sektoru stočarstva ima značajnu dohodovnu ovisnost o javnim potporama, koje ne rezultiraju poboljšanjima u sektoru. Poljoprivredna politika i u razdoblju 2023.-2027. teži rješavanju pitanja gospodarske, socijalne, okolišne i klimatske održivosti sektora. Cilj ovog rada je opisati stanje u sektoru stočarstva kroz važnije statističke pokazatelje od 2013. do 2022. te prikazati intervencije poljoprivredne politike koje nastoje unaprijediti sektor., The livestock sector in Croatia is characterised by a low level of productivity and a lack of competitiveness. In addition, after Croatia's accession to the EU, the number of sows was reduced by 30%, which had an impact on the decline in pork production. Beef production also fell by around 10%. The largest drop in production was recorded in the dairy cattle breeding sector, as evidenced by a sharp 35% drop in the number of dairy cows compared to the year 2012, before EU accession. In the livestock sector, only growth was recorded in the production of poultry meat and stability in the production of eggs. From 2020, the livestock sector experience high input price inflation caused by the COVID-19 disease and the war in Ukraine. From 2023, an additional problem is African swine fever, which has reduced the trade in live animals and meat. The production of sheep and goats has increased in the last ten years and is primarily an additional source of income for the economy. Croatia does not produce enough animal products for its needs and makes up for this by importing live animals, meat and milk. The products we export are usually exported in the form of raw materials without added value, while we import more complex and expensive products. Most of the production in the livestock sector is highly dependent on public subsidies in terms of income, which do not lead to improvements in this sector. Agricultural policy in the period 2023-2027 endeavours to solve the sector's economic, social, environmental and climate problems in a sustainable way. The aim of this paper is to describe the situation of the livestock sector based on the main statistical indicators from 2013 to 2022 and to present agricultural policy measures to improve the sector., Der kroatische Viehzuchtsektor ist durch ein niedriges Produktivitätsniveau und mangelnde Wettbewerbsfähigkeit gekennzeichnet. Darüber hinaus wurde nach dem EU-Beitritt Kroatiens die Zahl der Sauen um 30 % reduziert, was sich auf den Rückgang der Schweinefleischproduktion auswirkte. Auch die Rindfleischproduktion ging um rund 10 % zurück. Der größte Produktionsrückgang wurde in der Milchviehzucht verzeichnet, was sich in einem starken Rückgang der Zahl der Milchkühe um 35 % gegenüber dem Jahr 2012, also vor dem EU-Beitritt, widerspiegelt. In dem Viehzuchtsektor wurde nur bei der Geflügelfleischproduktion ein Wachstum und bei der Eierproduktion Stabilität verzeichnet. Ab 2020 wird der Viehzuchtsektor durch die COVID-19-Krankheit und den Krieg in der Ukraine mit einer hohen Inputpreisinflation konfrontiert. Ab 2023 kommt als weiteres Problem die Afrikanische Schweinepest hinzu, die den Handel mit lebenden Tieren und Fleisch beeinträchtigt. Die Produktion von Schafen und Ziegen hat in den letzten zehn Jahren zugenommen und ist in erster Linie eine zusätzliche Einnahmequelle für die Wirtschaft. Kroatien produziert nicht genügend tierische Erzeugnisse für seinen Bedarf und gleicht dies durch den Import von lebenden Tieren, Fleisch und Milch aus. Die Produkte, die wir exportieren, werden in der Regel in Form von Rohstoffen ohne Wertschöpfung ausgeführt, während wir komplexere und teurere Produkte importieren. Der größte Teil der Produktion in der Viehwirtschaft ist in hohem Maße von öffentlichen Einkommenssubventionen abhängig, die nicht zu Verbesserungen in diesem Sektor führen. Die Agrarpolitik im Zeitraum 2023-2027 ist bestrebt, die wirtschaftlichen, sozialen, ökologischen und klimatischen Probleme des Sektors auf nachhaltige Weise zu lösen. Ziel dieser Arbeit ist es, die Situation des Viehzuchtsektors auf der Grundlage der wichtigsten statistischen Indikatoren von 2013 bis 2022 zu beschreiben und agrarpolitische Maßnahmen zur Verbesserung des Sektors vorzustellen., El sector ganadero en Croacia se caracteriza por un bajo nivel de productividad y falta de competitividad. Además, tras la adhesión de Croacia a la UE, el número de cerdas se redujo en un 30 %, lo que tuvo un impacto en la disminución de la producción de carne de cerdo. La producción de carne de vacuno también cayó alrededor del 10 %. La mayor caída en la producción se registró en el sector de cría de ganado lechero, como lo demuestra una fuerte caída del 35 % en el número de vacas lecheras en comparación con el año 2012, antes de la adhesión a la UE. En el sector ganadero, solo se registró un crecimiento en la producción de carne de aves de corral y estabilidad en la producción de huevos. A partir de 2020, el sector ganadero se enfrenta con una alta inflación de precios de insumos causada por la enfermedad COVID-19 y la guerra en Ucrania. A partir de 2023, un problema adicional es la peste porcina africana, que ha reducido el comercio de animales vivos y de la carne. La producción de ovejas y cabras ha aumentado en los últimos diez años y es principalmente una fuente adicional de ingresos para la economía. Croacia no produce suficientes productos animales para sus necesidades y compensa esto importando los animales vivos, la carne y la leche. Los productos que exportamos generalmente se exportan en forma de materias primas sin valor agregado, mientras que importamos productos más complejos y costosos. La mayor parte de la producción en el sector ganadero depende en gran medida de los subsidios públicos en términos de ingresos, que no conducen a mejoras en este sector. La política agrícola en el período 2023-2027 se esfuerza por resolver los problemas económicos, sociales, ambientales y climáticos del sector de manera sostenible. El objetivo de este documento es describir la situación del sector ganadero basándose en los principales indicadores estadísticos de 2013 a 2022 y presentar medidas de política agrícola para mejorar el sector., Il settore zootecnico in Croazia è caratterizzato da un basso livello di produttività e da una mancanza di competitività. Inoltre, dopo l’adesione della Croazia all’UE, il numero di scrofe è stato ridotto del 30 % che ha avuto un impatto sul calo della produzione di carne suina. Anche la produzione della carne bovina è calata all’incirca pari al 10 % e il callo maggiore della produzione è stato registrato nel settore dell’allevamento di bovini da latte come evidenziato da un forte calo del numero di vacche da latte pari al 35 % rispetto al 2012 cioè prima dell’adesione all’UE. Nel settore zootecnico si evidenzia una crescita nella produzione di carne di pollame e stabilità nella produzione di uova da consumo. Dal 2020, il settore dell’allevamento subisce un’elevata inflazione dei prezzi di acquisto conseguente alla malattia COVID-19 e alla guerra in Ucraina. Dal 2023, la Peste suina africana ha creato un problema aggiuntivo che ha comportato la riduzione del commercio di animali vivi e di carne. La produzione di ovini e caprini aumenta negli ultimi dieci anni costituendo perlopiù una fonte di reddito supplementare di aziende agricole. Croazia non produce una quantità sufficiente di prodotti animali per i suoi bisogni e lo compensa importando animali vivi, carne e latte. I prodotti che esportiamo sono principalmente materie prime senza valore aggiunto, mentre importiamo i prodotti più complessi e costosi. In termini di reddito, la maggior parte delle produzioni nel settore zootecnico dipende fortemente dalle sovvenzioni pubbliche le quali non portano a miglioramenti in questo settore. Nel periodo 2023-2027, la politica agricola intende impegnarsi per risolvere i problemi di sostenibilità economica, sociale, ambientale e climatica del settore. Lo scopo di questa relazione è descrivere la situazione del settore zootecnico presentando gli indicatori statistici più importanti che si riferiscono al periodo dal 2013 al 2022 e gli interventi della politica agricola volti al

Pripovijedanje i čitanje priča naglas pripadaju najprikladnijim pristupima poučavanju jezika u ranoj dobi. Čitanjem i pripovijedanjem priča potiče se stvaranje pozitivnih stavova prema književnosti, stranim jezicima i drugim kulturama. Cilj ove komparativne analize bio je istražiti učestalost i načine na koje se priče koriste u nastavi engleskoga jezika u prva tri razreda osnovne škole u Sloveniji (uzrast od 6 do 8 godina) te u prva četiri razreda u Hrvatskoj (uzrast od 7 do 10 godina). Za potrebe prikupljanja podataka osmišljen je upitnik, a odgovori su dobiveni od 199 učitelja (N=199) engleskoga jezika iz Slovenije i Hrvatske. Rezultati istraživanja ukazali su na značajne razlike među ispitanicima iz Slovenije i Hrvatske glede korištenje udžbenika u nastavi. Ispitanici iz Hrvatske uglavnom se oslanjaju na tekstove koji su ponuđeni u udžbenicima, dok učitelji iz Slovenije u nastavi uglavnom koriste izvorne slikovnice umjesto udžbenika. Također je uočeno da je učiteljima jedan od glavnih izazova pronalaženje prikladnih materijala. S obzirom na rezultate istraživanja, predlažu se promjene u programima za obrazovanje učitelja i bolje opremanje škola materijalima za čitanje., Storytelling and reading stories aloud are among the most appropriate approaches in early language teaching. Both reading and telling stories create positive attitudes towards literature, foreign languages, and other cultures. The aim of the present comparative study was to investigate the frequency and ways of using stories in the English classroom in the first three years of primary education in Slovenia (ages 6-8) and Croatia (ages 7-10). A questionnaire was used to gather data, with responses provided by 199 teachers of English from Slovenia and Croatia. The research results revealed a considerable difference between the participants from Slovenia and Croatia as regards coursebook use, namely, teachers from Croatia largely rely on texts offered in coursebooks, whereas teachers in Slovenia mostly use authentic picturebooks instead of coursebooks in their lessons. We also observed that stories are rarely employed to promote students’ intercultural competences and that the main challenge for teachers is to find suitable materials. In light of these findings, we recommend that teacher education programmes provide more support for teachers to develop learners’ communicative, social and cultural skills through the use of stories, and that schools are better equipped with reading materials.

Background: Somatic and germline genetic alterations are significant drivers of cancer. Increasing integration of new technologies which profile these alterations requires timely, equitable and high-quality genetic counselling to facilitate accurate diagnoses and informed decision-making by patients and their families in preventive and clinical settings. This article aims to provide an overview of genetic counselling legislation and practice across European Union (EU) Member States to serve as a foundation for future European recommendations and action. Methods: National legislative databases of all 27 Member States were searched using terms relevant to genetic counselling, translated as appropriate. Interviews with relevant experts from each Member State were conducted to validate legislative search results and provide detailed insights into genetic counselling practice in each country. Results: Genetic counselling is included in national legislative documents of 22 of 27 Member States, with substantial variation in legal mechanisms and prescribed details (i.e. the ‘who, what, when and where’ of counselling). Practice is similarly varied. Workforce capacity (25 of 27 Member States) and genetic literacy (all Member States) were common reported barriers. Recognition and/or better integration of genetic counsellors and updated legislation and were most commonly noted as the ‘most important change’ which would improve practice. Conclusions: This review highlights substantial variability in genetic counselling across EU Member States, as well as common barriers notwithstanding this variation. Future recommendations and action should focus on addressing literacy and capacity challenges through legislative, regulatory and/or strategic approaches at EU, national, regional and/or local levels.

Aims: We introduce ReSurveyEurope — a new data source of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe, compiled by a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. We describe the scope of this initiative, provide an overview of currently available data, governance, data contribution rules, and accessibility. In addition, we outline further steps, including potential research questions. Results: ReSurveyEurope includes resurveyed vegetation plots from all habitats. Version 1.0 of ReSurveyEurope contains 283,135 observations (i.e., individual surveys of each plot) from 79,190 plots sampled in 449 independent resurvey projects. Of these, 62,139 (78%) are permanent plots, that is, marked in situ, or located with GPS, which allow for high spatial accuracy in resurvey. The remaining 17,051 (22%) plots are from studies in which plots from the initial survey could not be exactly relocated. Four data sets, which together account for 28,470 (36%) plots, provide only presence/absence information on plant species, while the remaining 50,720 (64%) plots contain abundance information (e.g., percentage cover or cover–abundance classes such as variants of the Braun-Blanquet scale). The oldest plots were sampled in 1911 in the Swiss Alps, while most plots were sampled between 1950 and 2020. Conclusions: ReSurveyEurope is a new resource to address a wide range of research questions on fine-scale changes in European vegetation. The initiative is devoted to an inclusive and transparent governance and data usage approach, based on slightly adapted rules of the well-established European Vegetation Archive (EVA). ReSurveyEurope data are ready for use, and proposals for analyses of the data set can be submitted at any time to the coordinators. Still, further data contributions are highly welcome.

Figueiredo, J. and Garcia-Penalvo, F. (2021) påstår att studenter hoppar av programmeringsutbildningar allt oftare eftersom de känner att de inte har några förkunskaper, eller att de inte förstår undervisningen. Undervisningstekniker går alltid att förbättra, därför är live-programmering ett sätt att få studenter att förstå vad kod gör. Live-programmering innebär att kod skrivs i en textruta och presenteras kort därefter som en demo. I denna studie kommer programmeringsspråken C# och JavaScript jämföras mot varandra i ett experiment för att se vilket har lägst laddningshastighet. På grund av att C# inte stöds naturligt på webbplatsen kommer webb assembly användas för att kompilera C# kod, samtidigt kommer blazor användas eftersom webb assembly är redan implementerat i ramverket. Mätningen av experimentet gjordes med hjälp av ett skript som mätte laddningstiden i millisekunder. Resultatet visade i varje mätserie att JavaScript hade mycket lägre laddningstid än C#. Det går att fortsätta på studien, genom att bygga en kompilator och ett ramverk., Det finns övrigt digitalt material (t.ex. film-, bild- eller ljudfiler) eller modeller/artefakter tillhörande examensarbetet som ska skickas till arkivet.There are other digital material (eg film, image or audio files) or models/artifacts that belongs to the thesis and need to be archived.

Fritidshemmet har gått från en verksamhet för att förhindra kriminalitet och tiggeri till att erbjuda stimulans och meningsfullt skapande. Med dessa förändringar har även fritidslärarens yrkesroll formats, det vill säga att fritidslärarsubjektet har omformat beroende på vilka diskurser som är rådande. Att erbjuda omsorg och lärande till eleverna är en del av rollen och uppdraget men även att kunna anpassa sig till de ändrade arbetsvillkoren när verksamheten behöver förändras. Vårt syfte med denna studie är att undersöka vilka diskurser som framträder när lärare i fritidshem och rektorer uttrycker sina tankar om meningsskapande inom fritidsverksamheten samt hur dessa diskurser kan forma fritidslärarsubjektets ideal. Teoretisk ramverk som används som analysverktyg vars diskursteori, subjektkonstruktioner och makt. Studien genomförs med två kvalitativa metoder där fyra rektorer och 10 lärare i fritidshem deltog i semistrukturerade intervjuer eller fokusgrupper. Empirin samlades in och transkriberades, sedan genomfördes och tematisering av materialet. Efter detta gjordes en kvantitativ sommar som belysta sju olika teman som var framträdande i intervjuerna. Dessa teman och teorin som analysverktyg har formatstudier. De mest återkommande teman kategoriseras i tre olika diskurser. Resultatet visade att fritidslärares yrkesroll är föränderligt eftersom förståelsen för denna brister i många höst. Yttre faktorer, såsom tid och rum blev beskrivande förutsättningar för fritidslärarsubjektet och dess arbetsuppgifter. Resultatet visade att tidssnyltande, glömska och vilja att bli sedd var av några tema som var utförda i diskurserna för fritidslärarsubjektet.

Finite control set model predictive control (FCS-MPC) has gained increasing popularity as an emerging control strategy for electrical drive systems. However, it is still a challenging task to optimize weighting parameters, as multiple objectives are involved in the customized cost function. A cooperative decision-making approach for FCS-MPC is proposed in this article, to solve the optimization problems with manifold control objectives. By splitting the cost function, the optimization problem underlying multi-objective FCS-MPC is separated into a series of decomposed optimization problems. By doing so, the dimension of the decomposed problem is reduced to one. To collect the information for decision-making, an efficient sorting algorithm is applied for each control objective. The theory behind the cooperative decision-making approach is comprehensively analyzed, to validate both the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed scheme. More specifically, the highlight is the adaptive mechanism on the number of desired candidates, to obtain a decent performance for torque and flux. The candidate which minimizes the switching frequency is selected as the optimal. The proposed scheme is experimentally verified and compared with the existing FCS-MPC without weighting parameters.

The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in Europe is associated with the regional disappearance of Neanderthals and the spread of Homo sapiens. Late Neanderthals persisted in western Europe several millennia after the occurrence of H. sapiens in eastern Europe1. Local hybridization between the two groups occurred2, but not on all occasions3. Archaeological evidence also indicates the presence of several technocomplexes during this transition, complicating our understanding and the association of behavioural adaptations with specific hominin groups4. One such technocomplex for which the makers are unknown is the Lincombian–Ranisian–Jerzmanowician (LRJ), which has been described in northwestern and central Europe5–8. Here we present the morphological and proteomic taxonomic identification, mitochondrial DNA analysis and direct radiocarbon dating of human remains directly associated with an LRJ assemblage at the site Ilsenhöhle in Ranis (Germany). These human remains are among the earliest directly dated Upper Palaeolithic H. sapiens remains in Eurasia. We show that early H. sapiens associated with the LRJ were present in central and northwestern Europe long before the extinction of late Neanderthals in southwestern Europe. Our results strengthen the notion of a patchwork of distinct human populations and technocomplexes present in Europe during this transitional period.

Space weather is a multidisciplinary research area connecting scientists from across heliophysics domains seeking a coherent understanding of our space environment that can also serve modern life and society's needs. COSPAR's ISWAT (International Space Weather Action Teams) 'clusters' focus attention on different areas of space weather study while ensuring the coupled system is broadly addressed via regular communications and interactions. The ISWAT cluster "H3: Radiation Environment in the Heliosphere" (this https URL) has been working to provide a scientific platform to understand, characterize and predict the energetic particle radiation in the heliosphere with the practical goal of mitigating radiation risks associated with areospace activities, satellite industry and human space explorations. In particular, present approaches help us understand the physical phenomena at large, optimizing the output of multi-viewpoint observations and pushing current models to their limits. In this paper, we review the scientific aspects of the radiation environment in the heliosphere covering four different radiation types: Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs), Ground Level Enhancement (GLE, a type of SEP events with energies high enough to trigger the enhancement of ground-level detectors), Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) and Anomalous Cosmic Rays (ACRs). We focus on related advances in the research community in the past 10-20 years and what we still lack in terms of understanding and predictive capabilities. Finally we also consider some recommendations related to the improvement of both observational and modeling capabilities in the field of space radiation environment.

Magneto-mechanical actuation (MMA) using the low-frequency alternating magnetic fields (AMFs) of magnetic nanoparticles internalized into cancer cells can be used to irreparably damage these cells. However, nanoparticles in cells usually agglomerate, thus greatly augmenting the delivered force compared to single nanoparticles. Here, we demonstrate that MMA also decreases the cell viability, with the MMA mediated by individual, non-interacting nanoparticles. The effect was demonstrated with ferrimagnetic (i.e., permanently magnetic) barium-hexaferrite nanoplatelets (NPLs, ∼50 nm wide and 3 nm thick) with a unique, perpendicular orientation of the magnetization. Two cancer-cell lines (MDA-MB-231 and HeLa) are exposed to the NPLs in-vitro under different cell-culture conditions and actuated with a uniaxial AMF. TEM analyses show that only a small number of NPLs internalize in the cells, always situated in membrane-enclosed compartments of the endosomal-lysosomal system. Most compartments contain 1-2 NPLs and only seldom are the NPLs found in small groups, but never in close contact or mutually oriented. Even at low concentrations, the single NPLs reduce the cell viability when actuated with AMFs, which is further increased when the cells are in starvation conditions. These results pave the way for more efficient in-vivo MMA at very low particle concentrations.

We show that the existence of clouds of ultralight particles surrounding black holes during their cosmological history as members of a binary system can leave a measurable imprint on the distribution of masses and orbital eccentricities observable with future gravitational-wave detectors. Notably, we find that for nonprecessing binaries with chirp masses ${\cal M} \lesssim 10\,M_\odot$, formed exclusively in isolation, larger-than-expected values of the eccentricity, i.e. $e\gtrsim 10^{-2}$ at gravitational-wave frequencies $f_{\rm GW} \simeq 10^{-2}\,$Hz, would provide tantalizing evidence for a new particle of mass between $[0.5,2.5] \times 10^{-12}\,$eV in nature. The predicted evolution of the eccentricity can also drastically affect the in-band phase evolution and peak frequency. These results constitute unique signatures of boson clouds of ultralight particles in the dynamics of binary black holes, which will be readily accessible with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, as well as future mid-band and Deci-hertz detectors., Comment: 5 pages + 9 pages appendices and references, 8 figures

The difference in draft force is analyzed for six different passes during longitudinal plowing of the plot. The force is measured indirectly using four strain transducers. Values of the force are obtained by calculation after previous calibration and then measurements in the experimental field. The strain readings on the sensors installed on the outside of the tractor lower links are used. Similar values are obtained on the other two sensors installed on the inside of the links. The biggest difference is observed between the first and second pass, respectively, the second and third one for which the value of effect size amounts to 0,824 and 0,835 respectively. The study highlights draft force in the function of soil resistance as an exceptionally important parameter in the analysis of agricultural soil and suggests the expansion of current routine in precision agriculture mapping.

Most of the yeast species we encounter daily are terrestrial, but they are also found in the marine environment. Marine yeasts occur in estuaries, coastal and open marine waters, sediments, and as epi- and endobionts of various marine organisms. This study focuses on the fermentation capabilities of marine yeasts isolated from the central Adriatic Sea for use in the brewing process. Sampling was performed at a sea temperature of 12°C to avoid collecting yeasts introduced into the marine environment by human activities. Four nutrient media designed for yeast isolation and growth were used to isolate yeasts from the marine samples: Yeast Malt Agar (YM), Yeast Malt Agar with antibiotics, acidified Yeast Malt Agar, and Sabouraud Dextrose Agar. Sixteen yeast colonies were successfully isolated, and only three were positive in the fermentation test and were further determined to species level. Of the three species identified as capable of fermentation, Candida famata completely fermented the wort and produced a beer. Candida pelliculosa fermented slowly over an extended period and did not produce a usable beer, while Candida sake did not ferment the wort at all. To our knowledge, this is the first time that marine yeast isolates have been used experimentally for beer fermentation, indicating potential for use as nonconventional yeasts in brewing and beer production. Further investigations should include professional standard fermentation, aroma and genetic studies., Većina kvasca s kojima se svakodnevno susrećemo su kopnene vrste, ali ih ima i u morskom okolišu. Morski kvasci nalaze se u estuarijima, obalnim i otvorenim morskim vodama, sedimentima te kao epi- i endobionti raznih morskih organizama. Ovaj rad je usmjeren na testiranje fermentacijske sposobnosti morskih kvasaca izoliranih iz uzoraka prikupljenih u srednjem Jadranu za potencijalnu upotrebu u procesu proizvodnje piva. Uzorkovanje je obavljeno pri temperaturi mora od 12°C kako bi se izbjeglo sakupljanje kvasaca unesenih u morski okoliš ljudskim aktivnostima. Za izolaciju kvasaca iz uzoraka mora korištena su četiri hranjiva medija namijenjena za izolaciju i rast kvasca: kvaščev sladni agar (YM), kvaščev sladni agar s antibioticima, zakiseljeni kvaščev sladni agar i dekstrozni agar Sabouraud. Uspješno je izolirano 16 kolonija kvasca, a samo su tri bile pozitivne u testu fermentacije te su dalje određene do razine vrste. Od tri vrste koje su pokazale potencijal za frementaciju, Candida famata potpuno je fermentirala sladovinu uz uspješnu proizvodnju testnog piva. Candida pelliculosa fermentirala je sporo tijekom duljeg vremenskog razdoblja i nije proizvela upotrebljivo pivo, dok Candida sake uopće nije fermentirala sladovinu. Prema našim saznanjima, ovo je prvi put da su izolati morskog kvasca eksperimentalno korišteni za fermentaciju piva, što ukazuje na potencijal za upotrebu nekonvencionalnog kvasca u pivarstvu i proizvodnji piva. Daljnja istraživanja trebala bi se usmjeriti na proces fermentacije u industrijskoj proizvodnji, aromatski profil piva i molekularnu identifikaciju kvasaca.

New and proactive strategies are required in utilities and other transformer purchasers to ensure delivery of transformer capital investment plans in the current times of market saturation and various supply chain issues. Close collaboration with suppliers and adaptative and flexible engineering and commercial initiatives need to be implemented from as early stage in the project lifecycle as definition of requirements and tendering. This paper presents the strategy adopted by SP Energy Networks, and one of their main suppliers of power transformers, Kolektor Etra, in this regard.

Aims: We introduce ReSurveyEurope — a new data source of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe, compiled by a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. We describe the scope of this initiative, provide an overview of currently available data, governance, data contribution rules, and accessibility. In addition, we outline further steps, including potential research questions. Results: ReSurveyEurope includes resurveyed vegetation plots from all habitats. Version 1.0 of ReSurveyEurope contains 283,135 observations (i.e., individual surveys of each plot) from 79,190 plots sampled in 449 independent resurvey projects. Of these, 62,139 (78%) are permanent plots, that is, marked in situ, or located with GPS, which allow for high spatial accuracy in resurvey. The remaining 17,051 (22%) plots are from studies in which plots from the initial survey could not be exactly relocated. Four data sets, which together account for 28,470 (36%) plots, provide only presence/absence information on plant species, while the remaining 50,720 (64%) plots contain abundance information (e.g., percentage cover or cover–abundance classes such as variants of the Braun-Blanquet scale). The oldest plots were sampled in 1911 in the Swiss Alps, while most plots were sampled between 1950 and 2020. Conclusions: ReSurveyEurope is a new resource to address a wide range of research questions on fine-scale changes in European vegetation. The initiative is devoted to an inclusive and transparent governance and data usage approach, based on slightly adapted rules of the well-established European Vegetation Archive (EVA). ReSurveyEurope data are ready for use, and proposals for analyses of the data set can be submitted at any time to the coordinators. Still, further data contributions are highly welcome.

The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in Europe is associated with the regional disappearance of Neanderthals and the spread of Homo sapiens. Late Neanderthals persisted in western Europe several millennia after the occurrence of H. sapiens in eastern Europe 1. Local hybridization between the two groups occurred 2, but not on all occasions 3. Archaeological evidence also indicates the presence of several technocomplexes during this transition, complicating our understanding and the association of behavioural adaptations with specific hominin groups 4. One such technocomplex for which the makers are unknown is the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician (LRJ), which has been described in northwestern and central Europe 5-8. Here we present the morphological and proteomic taxonomic identification, mitochondrial DNA analysis and direct radiocarbon dating of human remains directly associated with an LRJ assemblage at the site Ilsenhöhle in Ranis (Germany). These human remains are among the earliest directly dated Upper Palaeolithic H. sapiens remains in Eurasia. We show that early H. sapiens associated with the LRJ were present in central and northwestern Europe long before the extinction of late Neanderthals in southwestern Europe. Our results strengthen the notion of a patchwork of distinct human populations and technocomplexes present in Europe during this transitional period.

Introduction: Measures to improve nurses' work environments include ensuring adequate staffing levels, recognising the importance of nursing work, involving nurses in decision-making processes, and improving interprofessional communication. The aim of this study was to analyse the job characteristics reported by nurses and their association with the dimensions of clinical practice environments in hospitals.Methods: A cross-sectional explorative research design was employed. The Slovene-language version of the Practice Environment Scale of the Nursing Work Index (PES-NWI(SI)) and data on nurses' job characteristics were used. A total of 1,010 nurses (403 general care nurses and 605 healthcare assistants) from ten Slovenian general hospitals participated in the study. Permission to conduct the research was granted by the Commission of the Republic of Slovenia for Medical Ethics.Results: The mean score of the PES-NWI(SI) was low (2.64), and the scale reliability was 0.937. The original theoretical five-factor structure was confirmed. The regression model explained the five factors in 26–47% of cases. The explanatory variables included opportunities for advancement, educational opportunities, professional status, satisfaction with current job and work environment, independence at work, and study leave.Discussion and conclusion: The study revealed managers' inadequate ability to ensure sufficient staffing, insufficient involvement of both respondents and managers in hospital affairs, and the lack of promotion opportunities. Creating an optimal work environment for nurses is an important task for managers and leaders. National healthcare policy must consider nurses as equal healthcare professionals and nursing as both a professional and scientific discipline., Uvod: Intervencije za izboljšanje delovnega okolja medicinskih sester vključujejo ustrezno kadrovsko zasedbo, vrednotenje dela medicinskih sester, njihovo vključevanje v procese odločanja in dobro medpoklicno komunikacijo. Cilj raziskave je bil raziskati značilnosti dela, o katerih poročajo medicinske sestre v izbranih slovenskih bolnišnicah in njihovo povezavo z dimenzijami delovnih okolij v bolnišnicah.Metode: Izvedena je bila presečna raziskava. Uporabljena je bila slovenska različica lestvice Indeks delovnega okolja v zdravstveni negi (PES-NWI(SI)), zbrani so bili podatki o značilnostih delovnih mest. Sodelovalo je 1010 medicinskih sester (403 diplomirane medicinske sestre in 605 tehnikov zdravstvene nege) iz desetih slovenskih splošnih bolnišnic. Dovoljenje za izvedbo raziskave je dala Komisija Republike Slovenije za medicinsko etiko.Rezultati: Povprečna ocena PES-NWI(SI) je bila nizka (2,64); zanesljivost lestvice je bila 0,937. Prvotna pet-faktorska teoretična struktura lestvice je bila potrjena. Regresijski model je pojasnil pet notranjih dimenzij lestvice s 26–47 % uspešnostjo. Pojasnjevalne spremenljivke so bile priložnosti za napredovanje in izobraževanje, poklicni status, zadovoljstvo s trenutno službo in delovnim okoljem, neodvisnost pri delu in študijski dopust.Diskusija in zaključek: Raziskava je pokazala slabo sposobnost menedžerjev v zdravstveni negi za zagotavljanje ustrezne kadrovske zasedenosti, slabo vključenost anketirancev in vodij v bolnišnične zadeve ter slabe možnosti kariernega napredovanja. Ustvarjanje optimalnega delovnega okolja za medicinske sestre je pomembna naloga menedžerjev in vodij. Nacionalna zdravstvena politika mora na medicinske sestre gledati kot na enakovredne zdravstvene delavce, na zdravstveno nego pa kot na stroko in znanost.

•Aims: We introduce ReSurveyEurope — a new data source of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe, compiled by a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. We describe the scope of this initiative, provide an overview of currently available data, governance, data contribution rules, and accessibility. In addition, we outline further steps, including potential research questions. •Results: ReSurveyEurope includes resurveyed vegetation plots from all habitats. Version 1.0 of ReSurveyEurope contains 283,135 observations (i.e., individual surveys of each plot) from 79,190 plots sampled in 449 independent resurvey projects. Of these, 62,139 (78%) are permanent plots, that is, marked in situ, or located with GPS, which allow for high spatial accuracy in resurvey. The remaining 17,051 (22%) plots are from studies in which plots from the initial survey could not be exactly relocated. Four data sets, which together account for 28,470 (36%) plots, provide only presence/absence information on plant species, while the remaining 50,720 (64%) plots contain abundance information (e.g., percentage cover or cover–abundance classes such as variants of the Braun-Blanquet scale). The oldest plots were sampled in 1911 in the Swiss Alps, while most plots were sampled between 1950 and 2020. •Conclusions: ReSurveyEurope is a new resource to address a wide range of research questions on fine-scale changes in European vegetation. The initiative is devoted to an inclusive and transparent governance and data usage approach, based on slightly adapted rules of the well-established European Vegetation Archive (EVA). ReSurveyEurope data are ready for use, and proposals for analyses of the data set can be submitted at any time to the coordinators. Still, further data contributions are highly welcome.

Aims: We introduce ReSurveyEurope — a new data source of resurveyed vegetation plots in Europe, compiled by a collaborative network of vegetation scientists. We describe the scope of this initiative, provide an overview of currently available data, governance, data contribution rules, and accessibility. In addition, we outline further steps, including potential research questions. Results: ReSurveyEurope includes resurveyed vegetation plots from all habitats. Version 1.0 of ReSurveyEurope contains 283,135 observations (i.e., individual surveys of each plot) from 79,190 plots sampled in 449 independent resurvey projects. Of these, 62,139 (78%) are permanent plots, that is, marked in situ, or located with GPS, which allow for high spatial accuracy in resurvey. The remaining 17,051 (22%) plots are from studies in which plots from the initial survey could not be exactly relocated. Four data sets, which together account for 28,470 (36%) plots, provide only presence/absence information on plant species, while the remaining 50,720 (64%) plots contain abundance information (e.g., percentage cover or cover–abundance classes such as variants of the Braun-Blanquet scale). The oldest plots were sampled in 1911 in the Swiss Alps, while most plots were sampled between 1950 and 2020. Conclusions: ReSurveyEurope is a new resource to address a wide range of research questions on fine-scale changes in European vegetation. The initiative is devoted to an inclusive and transparent governance and data usage approach, based on slightly adapted rules of the well-established European Vegetation Archive (EVA). ReSurveyEurope data are ready for use, and proposals for analyses of the data set can be submitted at any time to the coordinators. Still, further data contributions are highly welcome.

The Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition in Europe is associated with the regional disappearance of Neanderthals and the spread of Homo sapiens. Late Neanderthals persisted in western Europe several millennia after the occurrence of H. sapiens in eastern Europe 1. Local hybridization between the two groups occurred 2, but not on all occasions 3. Archaeological evidence also indicates the presence of several technocomplexes during this transition, complicating our understanding and the association of behavioural adaptations with specific hominin groups 4. One such technocomplex for which the makers are unknown is the Lincombian-Ranisian-Jerzmanowician (LRJ), which has been described in northwestern and central Europe 5-8. Here we present the morphological and proteomic taxonomic identification, mitochondrial DNA analysis and direct radiocarbon dating of human remains directly associated with an LRJ assemblage at the site Ilsenhöhle in Ranis (Germany). These human remains are among the earliest directly dated Upper Palaeolithic H. sapiens remains in Eurasia. We show that early H. sapiens associated with the LRJ were present in central and northwestern Europe long before the extinction of late Neanderthals in southwestern Europe. Our results strengthen the notion of a patchwork of distinct human populations and technocomplexes present in Europe during this transitional period.

Good academic practice is more than the avoidance of clear-cut cheating. It also involves navigation of the gray zones between cheating and good practice. The existing literature has left students’ understanding of gray zone practices largely unexplored. To begin filling in this gap, we present results from a questionnaire study involving N = 1639 undergraduate students from seven European countries representing all major disciplines. We show that large numbers of these students are unable to identify gray area issues and lack sensitivity to the context dependence of these. We also show that a considerable proportion of students have a poor understanding of concepts like plagiarism and falsification, not only in gray zone scenarios, but also in cases of relatively clear-cut cheating. Our results are similar across the faculties and countries of study, and even for students who have attended academic integrity training. We discuss the implications of this for academic integrity training.

U primjeni prigovora kao redovnog pravnog lijeka reguliranog u Zakonu o općem upravnom postupku pokazale su se određene neujednačenosti i nedorečenosti. Unatoč tomu što je pohvalno da prigovor uopće postoji kao sredstvo zaštite građana od nezakonitog postupanja javnopravnih tijela, njegova regulacija u Zakonu u općem upravnom postupku nije ujednačena. Prigovor je reguliran u nekoliko članaka, pri čemu u pojedinim člancima nisu precizno određeni važni aspekti njegova podnošenja, poput rokova u kojem se prigovor može izjaviti ili pak postupka ako tijelo kojem je prigovor podnesen ne donese o tomu odluku. Zbog toga su i spomenute odredbe prepuštene (nepotrebnim) interpretacijama. U radu su detaljno analizirane sve odredbe Zakona o općem upravnom postupku, kao i zakona nekih europskih država koje se odnose na regulaciju prigovora u cilju utvrđivanja nedostatne ili neodgovarajuće regulacije pojedinih vrsta prigovora. Nakon sustavne analize hrvatskog i poredbenog zakonodavstva, dani su prijedlozi za poboljšanje svake vrste prigovora, kao i opći prijedlog o jednoznačnom uređenju cjelokupne regulacije prigovora u jednoj glavi Zakona o općem upravnom postupku., The application of objections as a regular legal remedy regulated in the General Administrative Procedure Act has shown certain inconsistencies and vagueness. Despite the commendable fact that objections exist as a means to protect citizens from illegal actions of public bodies, their regulation in the General Administrative Procedure Act is not uniform. Objections are regulated in several articles of the General Administrative Procedure Act, wherein some important aspects of its submission are not precisely defined. For example, deadlines for lodging objections or procedures if the body to which the objection is submitted fails to decide on it are not defined precisely in certain cases. For this reason, the aforementioned provisions are left to (unnecessary) interpretations. The paper analyses in detail all provisions of the General Administrative Procedure Act, as well as a comparative regulation in some European countries regarding the regulation of objections, with the aim of detecting insufficient or inappropriate regulation of certain types of objections. After a systematic analysis of Croatian and comparative legislation, the paper contains suggestions for improvement for each type of objection, as well as a general proposal on the unequivocal regulation of the entire objection process in one chapter of the General Administrative Procedure Act.

The success of Large Language Models (LLMs), e.g., ChatGPT, is witnessed by their planetary popularity, their capability of human-like question-answering, and also by their steadily improved reasoning performance. However, it remains unclear whether LLMs reason. It is an open problem how traditional neural networks can be qualitatively extended to go beyond the statistic paradigm and achieve high-level cognition. Here, we present a minimalist qualitative extension by generalising computational building blocks from vectors to spheres. We propose Sphere Neural Networks (SphNNs) for human-like reasoning through model construction and inspection, and develop SphNN for syllogistic reasoning, a microcosm of human rationality. Instead of training data, SphNN uses a neuro-symbolic transition map of neighbourhood spatial relations to guide transformations from the current sphere configuration towards the target. SphNN is the first neural model that can determine the validity of long-chained syllogistic reasoning in one epoch by constructing sphere configurations as Euler diagrams, with the worst computational complexity of O(N^2). SphNN can evolve into various types of reasoning, such as spatio-temporal reasoning, logical reasoning with negation and disjunction, event reasoning, neuro-symbolic reasoning, and humour understanding (the highest level of cognition). All these suggest a new kind of Herbert A. Simon's scissors with two neural blades. SphNNs will tremendously enhance interdisciplinary collaborations to develop the two neural blades and realise deterministic neural reasoning and human-bounded rationality and elevate LLMs to reliable psychological AI. This work suggests that the non-zero radii of spheres are the missing components that prevent traditional deep-learning systems from reaching the realm of rational reasoning and cause LLMs to be trapped in the swamp of hallucination.

We present MIPS, a novel method for program synthesis based on automated mechanistic interpretability of neural networks trained to perform the desired task, auto-distilling the learned algorithm into Python code. We test MIPS on a benchmark of 62 algorithmic tasks that can be learned by an RNN and find it highly complementary to GPT-4: MIPS solves 32 of them, including 13 that are not solved by GPT-4 (which also solves 30). MIPS uses an integer autoencoder to convert the RNN into a finite state machine, then applies Boolean or integer symbolic regression to capture the learned algorithm. As opposed to large language models, this program synthesis technique makes no use of (and is therefore not limited by) human training data such as algorithms and code from GitHub. We discuss opportunities and challenges for scaling up this approach to make machine-learned models more interpretable and trustworthy., Comment: 24 pages

Concept-based methods explain model predictions using human-understandable concepts. These models require accurate concept predictors, yet the faithfulness of existing concept predictors to their underlying concepts is unclear. In this paper, we investigate the faithfulness of Concept Bottleneck Models (CBMs), a popular family of concept-based architectures, by looking at whether they respect "localities" in datasets. Localities involve using only relevant features when predicting a concept's value. When localities are not considered, concepts may be predicted based on spuriously correlated features, degrading performance and robustness. This work examines how CBM predictions change when perturbing model inputs, and reveals that CBMs may not capture localities, even when independent concepts are localised to non-overlapping feature subsets. Our empirical and theoretical results demonstrate that datasets with correlated concepts may lead to accurate but uninterpretable models that fail to learn localities. Overall, we find that CBM interpretability is fragile, as CBMs occasionally rely upon spurious features, necessitating further research into the robustness of concept predictors., Comment: Previous Version Accepted at NeurIPs 23 XAI in Action Workshop

Text embeddings are essential for many tasks, such as document retrieval, clustering, and semantic similarity assessment. In this paper, we study how to contrastively train text embedding models in a compute-optimal fashion, given a suite of pre-trained decoder-only language models. Our innovation is an algorithm that produces optimal configurations of model sizes, data quantities, and fine-tuning methods for text-embedding models at different computational budget levels. The resulting recipe, which we obtain through extensive experiments, can be used by practitioners to make informed design choices for their embedding models. Specifically, our findings suggest that full fine-tuning and low-rank adaptation fine-tuning produce optimal models at lower and higher computational budgets respectively.

Tabular data is prevalent in many critical domains, yet it is often challenging to acquire in large quantities. This scarcity usually results in poor performance of machine learning models on such data. Data augmentation, a common strategy for performance improvement in vision and language tasks, typically underperforms for tabular data due to the lack of explicit symmetries in the input space. To overcome this challenge, we introduce TabMDA, a novel method for manifold data augmentation on tabular data. This method utilises a pre-trained in-context model, such as TabPFN, to map the data into a manifold space. TabMDA performs label-invariant transformations by encoding the data multiple times with varied contexts. This process explores the manifold of the underlying in-context models, thereby enlarging the training dataset. TabMDA is a training-free method, making it applicable to any classifier. We evaluate TabMDA on five standard classifiers and observe significant performance improvements across various tabular datasets. Our results demonstrate that TabMDA provides an effective way to leverage information from pre-trained in-context models to enhance the performance of downstream classifiers.

Learning holistic computational representations in physical, chemical or biological systems requires the ability to process information from different distributions and modalities within the same model. Thus, the demand for multimodal machine learning models has sharply risen for modalities that go beyond vision and language, such as sequences, graphs, time series, or tabular data. While there are many available multimodal fusion and alignment approaches, most of them require end-to-end training, scale quadratically with the number of modalities, cannot handle cases of high modality imbalance in the training set, or are highly topology-specific, making them too restrictive for many biomedical learning tasks. This paper presents Multimodal Lego (MM-Lego), a modular and general-purpose fusion and model merging framework to turn any set of encoders into a competitive multimodal model with no or minimal fine-tuning. We achieve this by introducing a wrapper for unimodal encoders that enforces lightweight dimensionality assumptions between modalities and harmonises their representations by learning features in the frequency domain to enable model merging with little signal interference. We show that MM-Lego 1) can be used as a model merging method which achieves competitive performance with end-to-end fusion models without any fine-tuning, 2) can operate on any unimodal encoder, and 3) is a model fusion method that, with minimal fine-tuning, achieves state-of-the-art results on six benchmarked multimodal biomedical tasks.

Concept-based explainability methods provide insight into deep learning systems by constructing explanations using human-understandable concepts. While the literature on human reasoning demonstrates that we exploit relationships between concepts when solving tasks, it is unclear whether concept-based methods incorporate the rich structure of inter-concept relationships. We analyse the concept representations learnt by concept-based models to understand whether these models correctly capture inter-concept relationships. First, we empirically demonstrate that state-of-the-art concept-based models produce representations that lack stability and robustness, and such methods fail to capture inter-concept relationships. Then, we develop a novel algorithm which leverages inter-concept relationships to improve concept intervention accuracy, demonstrating how correctly capturing inter-concept relationships can improve downstream tasks., Comment: Accepted at ICML 2024

Not too long ago most headlines talked about our fear of AI. Today, AI is ubiquitous, and the conversation has moved on from whether we should use AI to how we can trust the AI systems that we use in our daily lives. In this talk I look at some key technical ingredients that help us build confidence and trust in using intelligent technology. I argue that intuitiveness, interaction, explainability and inclusion of human domain knowledge are essential in building this trust. I present some of the techniques and methods we are building for making AI systems that think and interact with humans in more intuitive and personalised ways, enabling humans to better understand the solutions produced by machines, and enabling machines to incorporate human domain knowledge in their reasoning and learning processes.

Ways in which ovarian hormones affect cognition have been long overlooked in psychology and neuroscience research despite strong evidence of their effects on the brain. In order to address this gap, we study performance on a rule-plus-exception category learning task, a complex task that requires careful coordination of core cognitive mechanisms, across the menstrual cycle. Results show that the menstrual cycle distinctly affects learning of exceptions in a manner that matches the typical estradiol cycle. Furthermore, participants in their high estradiol phase outperform participants in their low estradiol phase, and show steeper learning slopes than men in exception-learning. These results provide novel evidence of the role of estradiol in category learning, underscore the importance of recruiting diverse samples in cognitive neuroscience research, and highlight the ways in which cognition varies throughout the fundamental biological cycles of the human experience.

Ways in which ovarian hormones affect cognition have been long overlooked in psychology and neuroscience research despite strong evidence of their effects on the brain. In order to address this gap, we study performance on a rule-plus-exception category learning task, a complex task that requires careful coordination of core cognitive mechanisms, across the menstrual cycle. Results show that the menstrual cycle distinctly affects learning of exceptions in a manner that matches the typical estradiol cycle. Furthermore, participants in their high estradiol phase outperform participants in their low estradiol phase, and show steeper learning slopes than men in exception-learning. These results provide novel evidence of the role of estradiol in category learning, underscore the importance of recruiting diverse samples in cognitive neuroscience research, and highlight the ways in which cognition varies throughout the fundamental biological cycles of the human experience.

Based on their cell ultrastructure, two types of erythrophores in the spotted skin regions of brown trout (Salmo trutta) were previously described. To test the hypothesis regarding the origin of a new cell type following genome duplication, we analysed the gene and paralogue gene expression patterns of erythrophores in brown trout skin. In addition, the ultrastructure of both erythrophore types was precisely examined using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and correlative light microscopy and electron microscopy (CLEM). Ultrastructural differences between the sizes of erythrophore inclusions were confirmed; however, the overlapping inclusion sizes blur the distinction between erythrophore types, which we have instead defined as cell subtypes. Nevertheless, the red spots of brown trout skin with subtype 2 erythrophores, exhibited unique gene expression patterns. Many of the upregulated genes are involved in melanogenesis or xanthophore differentiation. In addition, sox10, related to progenitor cells, was also upregulated in the red spots. The expressions of paralogues derived from two genome duplication events were also analysed. Multiple paralogues were overexpressed in the red spots compared with other skin regions, suggesting that the duplicated gene copies adopted new functions and contributed to the origin of a new cell subtype that is characteristic for red spot. Possible mechanisms regarding erythrophore origin are proposed and discussed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate pigment cell types in the black and red spots of brown trout skin using the advanced CLEM approach together with gene expression profiling.