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This study explores how European think tanks with obstructive positions on climate policy use the social network X to advance their agendas. The aim is to understand their digital communication strategies, the issues they address, the use of hyperlinks, and the impact on interaction and online polarization. A mixed-methods analysis was conducted on tweets from twelve organizations known for opposing climate policies. Out of an initial 96,607 tweets, 803 relevant messages were selected to evaluate thematic content and interaction reach. The analysis identified five dominant thematic areas in the tweets: economic impacts of climate policy, ideological perspectives, questioning of official science, proposed technological solutions, and other messages. The higher levels of interaction were generated by messages with a political or ideological focus and those proposing technological solutions. In addition, most hyperlinks directed users to the think tanks' own websites rather than to external sources. European anti-climate change think tanks use social network X to promote their agendas through ideological and technical messages that generate high engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction The American Association of Neurological Surgeons (AANS), North American Skull Base Society (NASBS), American Rhinologic Society (ARS), and American Neurotology Society (ANS) fellowship directories are important information repositories for skull base surgical fellowship programs. However, there is limited research on the amount and depth of information available through these resources. The objective of the present study is to assess Web site accessibility and information availability for individual fellowship programs listed within the AANS, NASBS, ARS, and ANS fellowship directories. Methods Lists of all accredited skull base surgical programs were obtained from the AANS and NASBS fellowship directories. Duplications in listed programs were removed, and systematic queries via an online search engine were conducted to identify fellowship Web sites. From each available Web site, information pertaining to 24 different variables was collected and organized into two categories—recruitment and education. Differences in the availability of information on recruitment and education were then compared across Web sites and contextualized relative to other surgical specialties. Results After excluding duplicates, 113 fellowship programs were identified, of which 99 (87.6%) had accessible Web sites. Of the 48 listed by the NASBS, direct Web site links were available for 33 (68.8%), email contacts were accessible for 32 (66.7%), and phone numbers were listed for 6 (12.5%). Of the 39 programs listed by the AANS, none included Web site links, 38 (97.4%) provided an email contact, and 39 (100%) listed a departmental contact telephone number. All 28 (100%) programs listed by the ANS provided a phone and email contact in addition to a Web site link to each institutional Web site. Of the 33 programs listed by the ARS, 29 (88%) had a departmental contact telephone number, 31 (94%) had an email contact available, and 4 (12%) had a program Web site link directly available from the database Web site. Of the 99 total programs, fellowship Web sites displayed an average of 5.46 (42.0%) of the 13 recruitment features and 4.80 (42.6%) of the 11 education features. Programs in the geographic Northeast were significantly less likely to present information pertaining to recruitment (p = 0.023). Furthermore, programs in geographic Northeast and West were significantly less likely to present information focused on surgical training and/or education (p = 0.006). Conclusion Although many skull base fellowship programs have maintained comprehensive program Web sites, certain critical aspects remain deficient, and some programs provide little to no information. Providing more detailed information about programs can prove mutually beneficial for fellowship program directors and candidates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Facebook (FB) is the most popular online networking platform. Many celiac disease Facebook (CD-FB) pages spread awareness about celiac disease (CD). To get the latest information, patients with CD frequently follow such pages. However, little is known about whether such pages provide authentic and reliable information. Aims: This study aims to investigate whether CD-FB pages spread misleading information to patients with CD. Methods: On the Facebook social networking platform, CD-FB pages created in three celiac-prevalent countries (Italy, the USA, and India) were explored using different combinations of keywords. The type/category of the CD-FB page, country of origin, purpose, page web link, and number of followers/members were documented in a Microsoft spreadsheet. All posts distributed on selected CD-FB pages in the last 3 years were thoroughly screened. Results: From August 2022 to March 2023, a total of 200 CD-FB pages from Italy, the USA, and India were explored. Out of these 200 pages, 155 CD-FB (Italy 70; the USA 46; India 39) were found eligible. Of them, 20 (13%) CD-FB pages (Italy 4; the USA 5; India 11) shared misleading information about CD. Surprisingly, 11 (8%) of these 20 pages (Italy 0; the USA 2; India 9) supported alternative treatment options for CD. Conclusions: CD-FB pages are useful for disseminating celiac-disease-related information. While most such pages provide useful information, 13% of CD-FB pages allow misleading information. Patients with CD should consult their treating unit before following any uncertain information posted on CD-FB pages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Clinical laboratories face limitations in implementing advanced quality control (QC) methods with existing systems. This study aimed to develop a web-based application to addresses this gap, and improve QC practices. QC Constellation, a web application built using Python 3.11, integrates various statistical QC modules. These include Levey-Jennings charts with Westgard rules, sigma-metric calculations, exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) and cumulative sum (CUSUM) charts, and method decision charts. Additionally, it offers a risk-based QC section and a patient-based QC module aligning with modern QC practices. The codes and the web application links for QC Constellation were shared at https://github.com/hikmetc/QC%5fConstellation, and http://qcconstellation.com, respectively. Using synthetic data, QC Constellation demonstrated effective implementation of Levey-Jennings charts with user-friendly features like checkboxes for Westgard rules and customizable moving averages graphs. Sigma-metric calculations for hypothetical performance values of serum total cholesterol were successfully performed using allowable total error and maximum allowable measurement uncertainty goals, and displayed on method decision charts. The utility of the risk-based QC module was exemplified by assessing QC plans for serum total cholesterol, showcasing the application's capability in calculating risk-based QC parameters including maximum unreliable final patient results, risk management index, and maximum run size and offering risk-based QC recommendations. Similarly, the patient-based QC and optimization modules were demonstrated using simulated sodium results. In conclusion, QC Constellation emerges as a pivotal tool for laboratory professionals, streamlining the management of quality control and analytical performance monitoring, while enhancing patient safety through optimized QC processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of hyperlinks in news were prevalent in the onset of digital news publishing in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, the rise of social media platforms redirected researchers' attention away from the open web, where hyperlinks played an essential role, to other corners of the digital ecosystem. As a result, research on the use of hyperlinks in news has waned in recent years, despite the continuing and frequent use of hyperlinks in digital news, and their role as connectors between social media and news media. We aim to fill that gap in the recent research literature on hyperlinks' use in news through a multinational computational analysis. Analyzing 1,481,969 hyperlinks from 579,294 stories in 869 sources across seven countries in five continents, we found that, despite significant variations across countries, hyperlinking is quite prevalent in digital news, that external links are more prevalent than previously found, and that US sites and social media platforms are frequent targets of hyperlinks across the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Emerging legal frameworks in Oregon and Colorado license facilitators to support adults receiving psychedelic services. The current legal frameworks are silent regarding facilitators’ personal experience with psychedelics. An e-Delphi process recruited 36 experts with at least 5 years’ experience facilitating psilocybin experiences in ceremonial settings, indigenous practices, or clinical trials. Respondents completed in-depth, semi-structured qualitative interviews via secure web links. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using Thematic Analysis. Experts with a mean of 15.2 (SD 13.1) years’ experience providing psilocybin services expressed the importance of first-hand experience with psychedelics as a qualification for the emerging workforce. One participant questioned the necessity of personal psychedelic experience. Experts suggested that personal experience may indirectly support high-quality care because it enhances facilitators’ personal wellbeing, and may help facilitators understand the complexity and nature of their clients’ psychedelic experiences. Novel state-legal psychedelic paradigms create a real-world opportunity to assess associations between facilitators’ personal psychedelic experience and the safety and outcomes of psychedelic services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article considers the efforts of sub-diplomatic actors in building the Anglo-American alliance during the long 19th century. Particular attention is given to the role of Dissenting churches, the use of common heritage, joint building projects, and trans-Atlantic tours as a form of public diplomacy in pursuit of this goal. The 'Pilgrims' in particular became a useful device for promoting closer Anglo-American relations – symbolising a common history and common values, civil liberties, the rule of law, and religious toleration, all in a world where these were not common. This brought British and American voices and values closer to many ordinary people, strengthening the increasingly complex and not always visible web linking Britain and the United States, creating personal relationships and group networks, together with a sense of common political values and history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: To evaluate use and utility of the Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) Hub Australia website. Methods: Online REDCap user survey incorporating the Website Evaluation Questionnaire, open ended questions, Google metrics data and an accessibility audit. Results: Seventy‐six participants: researchers (32%), health professionals (29%) and policymakers/advocates (16%) completed the survey. Most were from Australia (95%) and were likely or very likely to recommend the FASD Hub to colleagues (92%), friends (74%) and patients (72%). The mean Website Evaluation Questionnaire score was at least 3.45/5 for all dimensions (ease of use, hyperlinks, structure, relevance, comprehension, completeness, layout, search option); range 3.45 (search option) to 4.04 (relevance). Participants found the content trustworthy (92%) but wanted more information for, and to support, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and improved search capacity. Google metrics identified 25,534 unique users over 6 months (82% new users); 83% aged 18–44 years, 72% female and 35% international. Conclusions: Users found the FASD Hub accessible, authoritative and useful and suggested improvements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food webs in ecotones linking adjacent ecosystems may depend on cross-ecosystem subsidies. In surf zones of temperate sandy beaches, higher-level consumers often rely on intertidal prey that utilize allochthonous primary production. We evaluated the importance of phytoplankton and kelp-based prey, as well as physical characteristics of beaches, to diet of a surf zone fish, barred surfperch (Amphistichus argenteus), through stomach content and stable isotope analyses. Our results suggested that barred surfperch rely on prey from both phytoplankton and kelp-based subsidies, but their relative contribution to diet varied widely across beaches. Sand crabs (Emerita analoga), which depend on phytoplankton, were abundant at every beach, but their contribution to diet in stomach contents varied from 2 to 87% among sites. At the majority of beaches, δ13C values of fish muscle tissue, which reflects diet integrated over time, were within 0.5 ‰ of sand crab values, suggesting a reliance on phytoplankton-based prey. However, kelp-dependent prey associated either with beach wrack or subtidal reefs was also present in surfperch stomachs from all beaches (up to 41–72%). The notable enrichment in 13C of juvenile surfperch at two beaches and adults at one beach relative to sand crabs suggested a longer-term contribution of kelp-based prey to fish diet. The detection of kelp-based prey in surfperch diets also indicates the potential for reciprocal subsidies in these ecotones. Our results suggest trophic connectivity between surf zones and kelp forests and sandy beaches is spatially variable and that opportunistic higher-level consumers can shift their diet in response to the availability of phytoplankton and kelp-based food resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the challenge of large-scale electric vehicle (EV) charging scheduling during peak demand periods, such as holidays or rush hours. The growing EV industry has highlighted the shortcomings of current scheduling plans, which struggle to manage surge large-scale charging demands effectively, thus posing challenges to the EV charging management system. Deep reinforcement learning, known for its effectiveness in solving complex decision-making problems, holds promise for addressing this issue. To this end, we formulate the problem as a Markov decision process (MDP). We propose a deep Q-learning (DQN) based algorithm to improve EV charging service quality as well as minimizing average queueing times for EVs and average idling times for charging devices (CDs). In our proposed methodology, we design two types of states to encompass global scheduling information, and two types of rewards to reflect scheduling performance. Based on this designing, we developed three modules: a fine-grained feature extraction module for effectively extracting state features, an improved noise-based exploration module for thorough exploration of the solution space, and a dueling block for enhancing Q value evaluation. To assess the effectiveness of our proposal, we conduct three case studies within a complex urban scenario featuring 34 charging stations and 899 scheduled EVs. The results of these experiments demonstrate the advantages of our proposal, showcasing its superiority in effectively locating superior solutions compared to current methods in the literature, as well as its efficiency in generating feasible charging scheduling plans for large-scale EVs. The code and data are available by accessing the hyperlink: https://github.com/paperscodeyouneed/A-Noisy-Dueling-Architecture-for-Large-Scale-EV-ChargingScheduling/tree/main/EV%20Charging%20Scheduling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: This study examined how children's ability to understand what they read on screens is impacted by two specific digital features: hovering hyperlinks and scrolling. Methods: The participants were 75 English‐speaking children (M = 9.90 years, SD = 0.90 years) in Grades 3 to 5 who participated in an online research study. Using a within‐participants design, children read standardised passages from the Gates–MacGinitie Reading Tests (MacGinitie et al., 2000) and answered multiple‐choice comprehension questions. In one condition, passages were presented without digital features referred to as the clicking condition; in another, children had to scroll to navigate through the passages, in a third, there were hyperlinks that provided a word definition when a participant hovered their cursor over a blue and underlined word, and a final condition included both scrolling and hyperlinks. Results: As expected, there was a significant main effect of grade on children's ability to understand what they read, with better performance for children in Grade 5 than 3. Critically, there was a significant main effect of condition on children's performance on the reading comprehension questions, with higher scores for the condition with no digital features compared with the conditions with hovering hyperlinks and both scrolling and hovering hyperlinks. Performance was similar between the clicking and scrolling conditions. There was no significant interaction between grade and condition, showing consistency in effects across the upper elementary school years. Conclusions: These findings could inform the optimal design of digital texts by identifying digital features that do and do not interfere with reading comprehension, with hyperlinks providing word level information interfering and scrolling having no negative impacts. Highlights: What is already known about this topic Several meta‐analyses now show that reading comprehension on paper tends to be higher, particularly for informative texts, than when reading on a screen (e.g., Clinton, 2019; Delgado et al., 2018; Kong et al., 2018; Mangen et al., 2013; Singer & Alexander, 2017). What this paper adds We examine the effect of two specific features – scrolling and hovering hyperlinks providing definitions – on children's level of reading comprehension on screens.In a within‐participant experimental design using standardised measures, we find that hyperlinks providing word level information interfere with comprehension, with no negative impacts of scrolling. Implications for theory, policy or practice The results from this study offer new practical insights as to how digital features impact reading comprehension in a generation that is increasingly learning to read in a digital environment.On a methodological level, this study validates a simple way to modify standardised measures of reading comprehension to explore the impacts of digital features, an innovation readily adaptable to the exploration of many other digital features and age groups.On a theory level, these findings encourage the development of models of reading that consider features of digital texts along with the shallowing hypothesis, encouraging an integration of previously disparate theories of reading comprehension in order to fully understand children's reading of digital texts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most of the current nonclassical proteins prediction methods involve manual feature selection, such as constructing features of samples based on the physicochemical properties of proteins and position‐specific scoring matrix (PSSM). However, these tasks require researchers to perform some tedious search work to obtain the physicochemical properties of proteins. This paper proposes an end‐to‐end nonclassical secreted protein prediction model based on deep learning, named DeepNCSPP, which employs the protein sequence information and sequence statistics information as input to predict whether it is a nonclassical secreted protein. The protein sequence information and sequence statistics information are extracted using bidirectional long‐ and short‐term memory and convolutional neural networks, respectively. Among the experiments conducted on the independent test dataset, DeepNCSPP achieved excellent results with an accuracy of 88.24%, Matthews coefficient (MCC) of 77.01%, and F1‐score of 87.50%. Independent test dataset testing and 10‐fold cross‐validation show that DeepNCSPP achieves competitive performance with state‐of‐the‐art methods and can be used as a reliable nonclassical secreted protein prediction model. A web server has been constructed for the convenience of researchers. The web link is https://www.deepncspp.top/. The source code of DeepNCSPP has been hosted on GitHub and is available online (https://github.com/xiaoliu166370/DEEPNCSPP). This paper proposes an end‐to‐end nonclassical secreted protein prediction model DeepNCSPP based on deep learning, which employs the protein sequence information and sequence statistics information as input to predict whether it is a nonclassical secreted protein. The protein sequence information and sequence statistics information are extracted using bidirectional long‐ and short‐term memory and convolutional neural networks, respectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The vast majority of online media rely heavily on the revenues generated by their readers' views, and due to the abundance of such outlets, they must compete for reader attention. It is a common practise for publishers to employ attention-grabbing headlines as a means to entice users to visit their websites. These headlines, commonly referred to as clickbaits, strategically leverage the curiosity gap experienced by users, enticing them to click on hyperlinks that frequently fail to meet their expectations. Therefore, the identification of clickbaits is a significant NLP application. Previous studies have demonstrated that language models can effectively detect clickbaits. Deep learning models have attained great success in text-based assignments, but these are vulnerable to adversarial modifications. These attacks involve making undetectable alterations to a small number of words or characters in order to create a deceptive text that misleads the machine into making incorrect predictions. The present work introduces "Non-Alpha-Num", a newly proposed textual adversarial assault that functions in a black box setting, operating at the character level. The primary goal is to manipulate a certain NLP model in a manner that the alterations made to the input data are undetectable by human observers. A series of comprehensive tests were conducted to evaluate the efficacy of the suggested attack approach on several widely-used models, including Word-CNN, BERT, DistilBERT, ALBERTA, RoBERTa, and XLNet. These models were fine-tuned using the clickbait dataset, which is commonly employed for clickbait detection purposes. The empirical evidence suggests that the attack model being offered routinely achieves much higher attack success rates (ASR) and produces high-quality adversarial instances in comparison to traditional adversarial manipulations. The findings suggest that the clickbait detection system has the potential to be circumvented, which might have significant implications for current policy efforts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food webs depict the tangled web of trophic interactions associated with the functioning of an ecosystem. Understanding the mechanisms providing stability to these food webs is therefore vital for conservation efforts and the management of natural systems.Here, we first characterised a tropical stream meta‐food web and five individual food webs using a Bayesian Hierarchical approach unifying three sources of information (gut content analysis, literature compilation and stable isotope data). With data on population‐level biomass and individually measured body mass, we applied a bioenergetic model and assessed food web stability using a Lotka–Volterra system of equations. We then assessed the resilience of the system to individual species extinctions using simulations and investigated the network patterns associated with systems with higher stability.The model resulted in a stable meta‐food web with 307 links among the 61 components. At the regional scale, 70% of the total energy flow occurred through a set of 10 taxa with large variation in body masses. The remaining 30% of total energy flow relied on 48 different taxa, supporting a significant dependency on a diverse community. The meta‐food web was stable against individual species extinctions, with a higher resilience in food webs harbouring omnivorous fish species able to connect multiple food web compartments via weak, non‐specialised interactions. Moreover, these fish species contributed largely to the spatial variation among individual food webs, suggesting that these species could operate as mobile predators connecting different streams and stabilising variability at the regional scale.Our results outline two key mechanisms of food web stability operating in tropical streams: (i) the diversity of species and body masses buffering against random and size‐dependent disturbances and (ii) high regional diversity and weak omnivorous interactions of predators buffering against local stochastic variation in species composition. These mechanisms rely on high local and regional biodiversity in tropical streams, which is known to be strongly affected by human impacts. Therefore, an urgent challenge is to understand how the ongoing systematic loss of diversity jeopardises the stability of stream food webs in human‐impacted landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic affected cancer service delivery and the feasibility of following the standard treatment guidelines. The present paper describes the use of clinical care guidelines for cancer management in routine practice and the approach adopted towards cancer care during the COVID‐19 pandemic in India. Methods: A web‐based survey was done in 107 hospitals (including public and private health facilities) that hosted Hospital‐Based Cancer Registries under the National Cancer Registry Programme. The participants comprised Principal Investigators of these registries, who were also medical, surgical, and radiation oncology clinicians. The survey was done between May 1, 2021, and July 31, 2021. Participants were provided with a web link for the survey questionnaire, confidential login, and password. Results: The study found high utilization of Clinical Practice Guidelines (CPGs) during practice, with eight out of ten physicians constantly to referring them. The study reported lack of knowledge, skills, and training to administer the treatment based on the guidelines followed by organizational infrastructure and affordability of treatment by the patients as the factors hampering utilization. International clinical guidelines were preferred when compared to national guidelines. The COVID‐19 pandemic decreased the use of CPGs, wherein six out of ten clinicians reported their use. Conclusion: Stakeholders who formulate clinical guidelines must consider the practical aspects and feasibility of implementing such guidelines during a pandemic and similar situations. This should be coupled with adequate changes in care practice to ensure optimal care delivery and a continuum of cancer care in routine and pandemic‐imposed situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies have shown that biased search results can produce substantial shifts in the opinions and voting preferences of undecided voters – a phenomenon called the "search engine manipulation effect" (SEME), one of the most powerful list effects ever discovered. We believe this is so because, unlike other list effects, SEME is supported by a daily regimen of operant conditioning. When people conduct searches for simple facts (86% of searches), the correct answer invariably turns up in the top position, which teaches users to attend to and click on high-ranking search results. As a result, when people are undecided, they tend to formulate opinions based on web pages linked to top search results. We tested this hypothesis in a controlled experiment with 551 US voters. Participants in our High-Trust group conducted routine searches in which the correct answer always appeared in the first search result. In our Low-Trust group, the correct answer could appear in any search position other than the first two. In all, participants had to answer five questions during this pre-training, and we focused our analysis on people who answered all the questions correctly (n = 355) – in other words, on people who were maximally impacted by the pre-training contingencies. A difference consistent with our hypothesis emerged between the groups when they were subsequently asked to search for information on political candidates. Voting preferences in the High-Trust group shifted toward the favored candidate at a higher rate (34.6%) than voting preferences in the Low-Trust group (17.1%, p = 0.001). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Extensive research has studied the effect of the Internet on trade, yet little is known about its role in trade facilitation through risk alleviation. This research investigates how Internet linkage facilitates exports, particularly through the novel channel of risk alleviation. Theoretically, this paper introduces a gravity model augmented with export risk to establish the stimulating effect of Internet linkage on exports. Empirically, this paper uses inter‐domain hyperlinks as a proxy for Internet linkage in 2009, uncovering a statistically significant positive impact of Internet linkage on exports. Notably, there is a 27.8% increase in exports in reaction to a doubling of the Internet linkage intensity. By employing various techniques, we meticulously address potential endogeneity issues and substantiate the risk‐alleviation mechanism at both the country and product levels. Particularly, we find that exports to riskier countries and of riskier products benefit more from the Internet linkage. This study sheds new light on the novel channel through which the Internet promotes exports, enriching the existing literature in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Radiolabeled antibody 131I-omburtamab was administered intraventricularly in patients with leptomeningeal disease under an institutionally approved study (#NCT03275402). Radiation safety precautions were tailored for individual patients, enabling outpatient treatment based on in-depth, evidence-based recommendations for such precautions. The imperative advancement of streamlined therapeutic administration procedures, eliminating the necessity for inpatient isolation and resource-intensive measures, holds pivotal significance. This development bears broader implications for analogous therapies within the pediatric patient demographic. Methods: Intraventricular radioimmunotherapy (RIT) with 925–1850 MBq (25–50 mCi) of 131I-omburtamab was administered via the Ommaya reservoir, in designated rooms within the pediatric ambulatory care center. Dosimeters were provided to staff involved in patient care to evaluate exposure during injection and post-administration. Post-administration exposure rate readings from the patient on contact, at 0.3 m, and at 1 m were taken within the first 30 min, and the room was surveyed after patient discharge. Duration of radiation exposure was calculated using standard U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (US NRC) regulatory guidance recommendations combined with mean exposure rates and whole-body clearance estimates. Exposure rate measurements and clearance data provided patient-specific precautions for four cohorts by age: < 3 y/o, 3–10 y/o, 10–18 y/o, and 18+. Results: Post-administration exposure rates for patients ranged from 0.16 to 0.46 µSv/hr/MBq at 0.3 m and 0.03–0.08 µSv/hr/MBq at 1 m. Radiation exposure precautions ranged from 1 to 10 days after release for the four evaluated cohorts. Based on the highest measured exposure rates and slowest whole-body clearance, the longest precautions were approximately 78% lower than the regulatory guidance recommendations. Radiation exposure to staff associated with 131I-omburtamab per administration was substantially below the annual regulatory threshold for individual exposure monitoring. Conclusion: 131I-omburtamab can be administered on an outpatient basis, using appropriate patient-based radiation safety precautions that employ patient-specific exposure rate and biological clearance parameters. This trial is registered with the National Library of Medicine's ClinicalTrials.gov. The registration number is NCT03275402, and it was registered on 7 September 2017. The web link is included here. https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT03275402. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a digital social medium, blogs have transformed into arenas where individuals can express their perspectives, concepts, and feelings. This research delves into the spread of information in blog posts related to the Uyghur discourse, utilizing topic modeling to classify and prioritize pertinent content. The analysis reveals a significant emphasis on the Chinese Government's suppression of Uyghur Muslims, as demonstrated by the hyperlinks embedded within the blog network. We mapped the discovered topics onto a network of hyperlinks, forming a topic-induced hyperlink network. Additionally, we conducted a toxicity analysis, which revealed a high level of toxicity in blog posts during that period. A morality assessment was also performed, revealing exceedingly high scores for all vices in the blog posts. Furthermore, we conducted an emotion analysis on the text and image data, which underscored a dominant sentiment of sadness pervading the blog posts and corresponding images. This reflects the severity of the Uyghur persecution. The research highlights the effectiveness of topic modeling, toxicity evaluation, and hyperlink analysis in shedding light on intricate social issues. Future studies could augment these results by expanding keyword scope and refining image recognition models within the context of Uyghur discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When deciding which modes to offer, researchers consider cost, known respondent contact information, and potential mode effects. For a short survey on employment, we evaluate the effect of adding one of two new electronic data collection modes to a mailed questionnaire. We sent a survey to principals who previously responded to the National Center for Education Statistics' (NCES) National Teacher and Principal Survey (NTPS) asking about their current job status. This questionnaire, known as the Principal Follow-up Survey (PFS), has typically been administered as a short paper form that is mailed to NTPS respondents. In 2022, the PFS introduced two new modes of completion, and principals were randomly assigned to receive: (i) a paper form only; (ii) a paper form, as well as emails with a direct link to complete a web survey; or (iii) a paper form, as well as invitations by text message to complete an automated two-way short message service text survey by responding to texted "yes/no" questions. This article compares overall response rates and time-to-response by mode to determine respondent preferences for completing short surveys. Adding either electronic mode significantly increased response rates and decreased the number of days in which completed surveys were received, compared to offering only a paper questionnaire. Although email and text messages are both forms of electronic communication that may be accessible on a smartphone, the added text message survey resulted in higher response rates than the added web survey. This suggests that respondents interact differently with emails and text messages they receive and that offering an option to complete a survey by text message can increase the speed and efficiency of data collection for short surveys. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher-order relationships are prevalent in the real world, and the strength differences between these relationships are often significant and cannot be ignored. Weighted hypernetworks can more accurately represent these prevalent relationships than simple graphs. Due to various limitations, we may not be able to observe all Higher-order relationships that exist within the network. Therefore, algorithms that can perform weighted hyperlink prediction are of great significance. However, current research on link prediction often focuses on simple networks or ordinary higher-order relationships, without considering the important factor of weight. This paper proposes an algorithm based on topologic similarity to predict whether weighted hyperedges are included in weighted hypernetworks, complementing research in this area. On the artificial weighted hypernetwork, the co-author network of various subjects, and the patent Chinese medicine prescription network, we tested the algorithm's robustness and achieved higher accuracy than other methods. Applying this algorithm can handle the prediction of weighted many-to-many relationships and improve accuracy by utilizing the weights on the weighted hypernetwork. Compared to the unweighted version, the algorithm's accuracy on the patent Chinese medicine prescription network has been improved from 97 to 99%. It has been improved from 94 to 96% on the geology co-author network. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The New York Times has a long history as the purveyor of all the news that's fit to print. In a multi-layered journalistic world, this study examined how the Times utilized Facebook video and found the Gray Lady highlighted its signature products in news, analysis, reviews, and Crosswords while expanding into videos. The legacy newspaper used Facebook to drive traffic to its website through hyperlinks in prerecorded videos while also creating specific content for social media through its Live platform. Additionally, the Times focused on mostly hard news and analysis in its prerecorded videos and packages while focusing more on soft news in Live coverage. The impact of Facebook's algorithms as well as users' reactions are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world wide web as a service offered on top of the internet has become the information repository through which we access the web pages of each individual or organization. To make the content accessible for users with disabilities, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) developed the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). In addition to accessibility, the websites should be designed in a way that is usable for their users. As no previous research has been done to evaluate the accessibility and usability of university websites in Afghanistan, this research fills the gap by evaluating the usability and accessibility of public and private universities in Afghanistan and comparing the usability and accessibility status of public and private universities' websites. AChecker and WAVE were the tools used for accessibility evaluation against WCAG 2.0 guidelines. For usability evaluation, a heuristic approach was used with eight dimensions. The results show that none of the university websites conform to the accessibility guidelines while violating various accessibility criteria. It was also found that a large portion of both public and private universities are ignoring the usability measures related to information structure, hyperlink conventions, multi-language options, navigational design, and the readability of text on the website. Public administrators, policymakers, website designers, and web administrators are to benefit from the findings of this research regarding the accessibility and usability of university websites in Afghanistan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Motivation Peptide therapeutics hinge on the precise interaction between a tailored peptide and its designated receptor while mitigating interactions with alternate receptors is equally indispensable. Existing methods primarily estimate the binding score between protein and peptide pairs. However, for a specific peptide without a corresponding protein, it is challenging to identify the proteins it could bind due to the sheer number of potential candidates. Results We propose a transformers-based protein embedding scheme in this study that can quickly identify and rank millions of interacting proteins. Furthermore, the proposed approach outperforms existing sequence- and structure-based methods, with a mean AUC-ROC and AUC-PR of 0.73. Availability and implementation Training data, scripts, and fine-tuned parameters are available at https://github.com/RoniGurvich/Peptriever. The proposed method is linked with a web application available for customized prediction at https://peptriever.app/. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Plant-herbivore interactions dominate food web links in terrestrial settings, thereby shaping ecosystem structure and functioning. Within a given plant, both primary and secondary metabolites mediate the interplay between above- and below-ground herbivores. Here, we investigate how root feeding by larvae of the turnip moth Agrotis segetum (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae) affects development and feeding behavior of an above-ground sap-feeder i.e., the large cotton aphid Acyrthosiphon gossypii (Hemiptera: Aphididae) on cotton. We further draw upon transcriptomics, metabolomics and in-vitro bioassays to elucidate how plant metabolites mediate these interactions. Root feeding reduces A. gossypii adult survival and fecundity by 35.1%. Aphids on A. segetum-infested cotton spend 7% longer probing cells than on un-infested plants. Root and stem herbivory by A. segetum larvae alters gene transcripts and metabolites in leaves, inducing biosynthesis of three flavonoids i.e., dihydromyricetin, phloridzin and dihydroquercetin. In-vitro bioassays show that the latter two compounds markedly decrease A. gossypii adult survival and fecundity. Below-ground herbivory thus elicits biosynthesis and systemic translocation of phloridzin and dihydroquercetin, with antagonistic effects on above-ground sap-feeders. Our study sheds light on the underlying mechanisms of herbivore-triggered plant defenses in cotton and reveals the interplay between herbivore guilds across ecological realms. We discuss the implications of these findings for pest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of the paper is to examine the influence of different access paths to pictures in online English learners’ dictionaries on meaning reception and retention. The article also explores the influence of pictures on the time of meaning comprehension. The following aspects of access to pictures in online learners’ dictionaries are investigated: making pictures instantly visible in entries, hyperlinking pictures, providing no pictures. In an online experiment, upper-intermediate foreign learners of English took part. They explained infrequent English concrete nouns based on reference to purpose-built monolingual dictionary entries. Three experimental conditions were created, depending on access to pictures in the entries: definitions with pictures visible by default (instantly visible pictures), definitions with pictures available upon clicking a hyperlink (hyperlinked pictures), definitions only (no pictures). Meaning comprehension and retention were evaluated based on L1 equivalents of the target nouns provided by the participants. The results reveal that instantly visible pictures and hyperlinked pictures improve meaning comprehension to a similar extent in comparison with the no-picture condition. However, meaning retention checked immediately after exposure is the most successful when pictures are visible by default in entries. Hyperlinked pictures prove to be no more useful for learning meaning than definitions without any pictorial support. They also extend comprehension time the most. Instantly visible pictures, in turn, neither speed up the comprehension of meaning nor slow it down compared to entries with no pictures. Considering their significant contribution to meaning comprehension and retention, instantly visible pictures seem to be the most recommendable in online dictionaries for learners of English. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Missing Links: Why Hyperlinks Must Be Treated as Attachments in Electronic Discovery" is an article that explores the challenges and complexities of handling hyperlinked documents in electronic discovery. It discusses the history of electronically stored information (ESI) in civil litigation discovery and emphasizes the importance of attorneys understanding their clients' information systems and digital data. The article criticizes a court decision that concluded hyperlinked documents are not attachments and argues that they should be treated as such in certain circumstances. It also discusses court cases that have addressed the burden of producing hyperlinked documents and suggests using automated methods or a case-by-case approach to handle them. The article concludes by emphasizing the need for parties to address the issue cooperatively to avoid disputes. [Extracted from the article]

How do firms invest when financial constraints are relaxed? We document that firms affected by a large positive credit supply shock predominantly increase borrowing for transaction-based purposes. These treated firms have larger asset and employment growth rates; however, growth entirely stems from the increased takeover activity. Announcement returns indicate a low quality of the credit-supply-induced takeover activity. These results offer the possibility that credit-driven growth can simply reflect redistribution, rather than net gains in assets or employment. (JEL G21, G23, G31, G32) Received June 29, 2021; editorial decision August 18, 2022 by Editor Andrew Ellul. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

National parks and other protected areas are important for preserving landscapes and biodiversity worldwide. An essential component of the mission of the United States (U.S.) National Park Service (NPS) requires understanding and maintaining accurate inventories of species on protected lands. We describe a new, national-scale synthesis of amphibian species occurrence in the NPS system. Many park units have a list of amphibian species observed within their borders compiled from various sources and available publicly through the NPSpecies platform. However, many of the observations in NPSpecies remain unverified and the lists are often outdated. We updated the amphibian dataset for each park unit by collating old and new park-level records and had them verified by regional experts. The new dataset contains occurrence records for 292 of the 424 NPS units and includes updated taxonomy, international and state conservation rankings, hyperlinks to a supporting reference for each record, specific notes, and related fields which can be used to better understand and manage amphibian biodiversity within a single park or group of parks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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While starting as an analogue practice in fanzines, fanfiction in its current form, that is, almost exclusively online, is closely entangled with the technology it is embedded in, both Web 2.0 features and specific website infrastructure. This is nowhere better exemplified than on the platform Archive of Our Own (AO3), which hosts over 13 million stories in thousands of fandoms. AO3 is one of the most popular online repositories for fanfiction and growing exponentially, precisely because of how it deals with this slew of data: its system of extensive hyperlinked labelling. Based on empirical participant data from an online survey and semi-structured interviews, I argue that tags offer distinct affordances and affect user behaviour in such a way that new reading practices arise. Tags create a literacy paradigm interwoven with virtuality, relying on links and networks, and featuring a unique set of characteristics that differentiate reading on AO3 from other digital reading platforms, as well as from print fiction. These include "informed" reading, whereby site users know what they can expect from works, "rhizomatic" reading by navigating across the platform along the metadata, even to unfamiliar fandoms, and reading in multiple, which is facilitated by the site's searchability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intra-party factionalism and media fragmentation have emerged as two major trends in U.S. politics, especially on the right. We explore potential connections between these developments by analyzing the engagement of Republican members of the US House of Representatives with far-right alternative news media during the 116th Congress. We develop three discrete measures to scale representatives' engagement using hyperlinks to news media on Twitter, demonstrating their validity against existing positional data: roll-call voting, ideological caucus membership, and political rhetoric. We then apply our scales empirically, showing that representatives with further-right media engagement became increasingly radical in their online communication during the Trump presidency. Representatives with more moderate media engagement did not radicalize in this way. These results suggest a dynamic relationship that reflects the 'dual function' of elite-media relations, where partisan elites serve as receivers of information and transmitters of intra-party signals in a fragmented media environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Marketing professionals and business owners strive to evaluate the effectiveness of their marketing investments. With multiple marketing channels at their disposal, understanding how these channels interact and influence each other is crucial. Digital analytics tools, such as Google Analytics, tend to measure the isolated success of each marketing channel. However, the intertwined effects and interdependencies between channels are often undervalued. This study, therefore, ventures into this territory. It focuses on the association between website traffic from various digital marketing channels and the purchases made by users visiting websites through direct traffic sources. We analyzed 89,394 purchases from an e-commerce business in Europe. We conclude that three marketing channels can explain 61% of the variance. By shedding light on this overlooked aspect, we aim to guide advertisers toward a more holistic understanding of digital marketing channels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Operating at the intersection of fine art walking practice, psychogeography, and critical animal studies, the practice of deep canine topography seeks to reframe the humble act of the walkies as a co-authored, multi-species act of making and performing together. This essay offers a snapshot of my current research, drawing on Erin Manning's concept of relational movement, Andrew Goodman's gathering ecologies, Tim Ingold's meshwork, Deleuze and Guattari's twin concepts of becoming-animal and nomadic subjectivity, as developed by Rosi Braidotti, alongside Roberto Marchesini's theories on animal creativity. In the process I consider the potential of the ubiquitous dog walk as the site of creative co-becoming. This essay comprises three elements: 1) A photo-essay, mapping a typical daily walk from the canine point of view; 2) Creative writing, in the form of short passages of prose as imagined from the canine perspective; and 3) The main body of the text, which explores the practice of deep canine topography, or the doggy dérive, in relation to theoretical discourse. In addition, short descriptions of our human-canine artistic experiments are offered, along with hyperlinks to the Research Catalogue, where the reader can encounter the works described in the text. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 22nd International Studying Leadership Conference will be held from December 8-10, 2024 at the Birmingham Business School and Birmingham Leadership Institute at the University of Birmingham in the UK. The conference aims to foster dialogue and understanding between different perspectives, disciplines, and identities in order to explore the ways in which leaders and leadership operate. Participants are invited to explore various topics related to leadership, such as social activism, the arts, institutions, systems, feminist and race theory, conflict, neoliberalism, violence, nature, and leadership for social good. The conference will feature keynote speakers and offer various forms of presentations, including traditional academic papers, panel discussions, workshops, and interactive symposia sessions. The Birmingham Business School and Birmingham Leadership Institute are part of the University of Birmingham, which is known for its diverse presence in management and leadership education and research. The conference will take place on the university's main campus, which offers all the necessary facilities for a major international conference. The city of Birmingham is known for its skilled craft community, ethnic diversity, historical significance in the industrial revolution, support for the arts, and diverse food cultures. The conference will open with workshops and a reception on December 8th and conclude on December 10th. [Extracted from the article]

The International Studying Leadership Conference (ISLC) 2024 will be held from December 8-10, 2024 at the Birmingham Business School and Birmingham Leadership Institute, University of Birmingham, UK. The conference aims to foster dialogue and understanding between different perspectives, disciplines, and identities in the field of leadership studies. Participants are invited to explore various aspects of leadership, such as social activism, the arts, institutions, systems, feminist and race theories, conflict, neoliberalism, violence, nature, and leadership for social good. The conference will feature keynote speakers and offer various presentation formats. The Birmingham Business School and Birmingham Leadership Institute are part of the University of Birmingham, which is known for its diverse campus and collaboration with colleagues in Dubai. The conference will take place in Birmingham, a city known for its industrial history, arts, and cultural diversity. [Extracted from the article]

Desert communities are threatened with species loss due to climate change, and their resistance to such losses is unknown. We constructed a food web of the Mojave Desert terrestrial community (300 nodes, 4080 edges) to empirically examine the potential cascading effects of bird extinctions on this desert network, compared to losses of mammals and lizards. We focused on birds because they are already disappearing from the Mojave, and their relative thermal vulnerabilities are known. We quantified bottom‐up secondary extinctions and evaluated the relative resistance of the community to losses of each vertebrate group. The impact of random bird species loss was relatively low compared to the consequences of mammal (causing the greatest number of cascading losses) or reptile loss, and birds were relatively less likely to be in trophic positions that could drive top‐down effects in apparent competition and tri‐tropic cascade motifs. An avian extinction cascade with year‐long resident birds caused more secondary extinctions than the cascade involving all bird species for randomized ordered extinctions. Notably, we also found that relatively high interconnectivity among avian species has formed a subweb, enhancing network resistance to bird losses. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This document is a preview of the main events, attractions, and dining spots in New Orleans for the annual session of the AAO (American Association of Orthodontists). The document provides information on transportation options, including taxis, ride shares, buses, streetcars, and guided walking tours. It also highlights various festivals and music events happening in the city, such as the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and the NOLA Crawfish Festival. Additionally, the document mentions several museums, parks, and landmarks that visitors can explore, including the National WWII Museum, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and Jackson Square. It concludes with a list of recommended restaurants and historic bars in the city. [Extracted from the article]

Traditional semantic-based focused crawlers calculate the topical priority of hyperlink by linearly integrating topical similarity evaluation metrics and empirical weights. However, the manually pre-determined weights may introduce bias in evaluating hyperlinks, resulting in topic deviation during crawling. To address this problem, we propose a dynamic adaptive procedure based on particle swarm optimization which dynamically updates weights in every crawling step and put forward a new focused crawler, called FCPSO. In FCPSO, we utilize domain ontology for topic representation and a comprehensive priority evaluation method to evaluate the topical priority of hyperlink. Furthermore, we construct a multi-objective optimization model for hyperlink selection, in which the strategy of the non-dominant sorting with the nearest farthest candidate solution is proposed to select Pareto-optimal hyperlinks and guide the crawling direction. Extensive experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of FCPSO over other strategies that it can obtain more topic-relevant webpages with less time consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study U.S. banks' payout policy in 2007–2008. We benchmark these payouts against payouts before the crisis, measure stock price reactions to announcements of dividend changes, and analyze changes in the relation between payout growth and future performance. Further, we examine cross-sectional variation in banks' payout policy to gauge the possible motives underlying banks' payout decisions in 2007–2008. We do not find that banks that have a higher willingness to take risk or that have higher incentives to undertake asset substitution use their payout policy to engage in more wealth transfer compared to other banks. (JEL G21, G24, G28, G32, G35). Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Institutional investors can be segmented into investors that hold simple portfolios of traditional equities and bonds, and investors that manage complex strategies in public and private markets. Investors implementing active portfolio management and holding diversified portfolios of equities and bonds are more likely to invest in alternative asset classes. The performance of institutional investors in alternative assets is significantly lower than in equities, suggesting that investors accept lower returns in exchange for diversification benefits. Institutions delegate 90% of their alternative investments to external managers and funds-of-funds. These intermediaries capture large part of the potential diversification benefits through higher fees and lower returns. (JEL G11, G23) Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies how the nature of managerial skills affects firms' governance decisions. As required skills shift from firm specific toward more general abilities, replacing an underperforming CEO with an outside hire becomes more profitable for shareholders. Therefore, firms adopt stronger governance arrangements to limit the entrenchment of incumbent CEOs and exploit the improved opportunities offered by the market for talent. The analysis rationalizes the observed trend toward stronger corporate governance and offers novel empirical predictions concerning the relationship between managerial entrenchment, firm size, and the nature of managerial skills. (JEL D83, D86, G34) Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix , which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]