Water Interaction with Fe2NiP Schreibersite (110) Surface: a Quantum Mechanical Atomistic Perspective

Phosphorus is an element of primary importance for all living creatures, being present in many biological activities in the form of phosphate (PO43-). However, there are still open questions about the origin of this specific element and on the transformation which allowed it to be incorporated in biological systems. The most probable source of prebiotic phosphorus is the intense meteoritic bombardment during the Archean era, few million years after the solar system formation, which brought tons of iron-phosphide materials (schreibersite) on the early Earth crust. It was recently demonstrated that by simple wetting/corrosion processes from this material various oxygenated phosphorus compounds are produced. In the present work, the wetting process of schreibersite (Fe2NiP) was studied by computer simulations using density functional theory, with the PBE functional supplemented with dispersive interactions through a posteriori empirical correction. To start disentangling the complexity of the system, only the most stable (110) surface of Fe2NiP was used simulating different water coverages, from which structures, water binding energies and vibrational spectra have been predicted. The computed (ana-)harmonic infrared spectra have been compared with the experimental ones, thus confirming the validity of the adopted methodology and models.

Fine mapping of goat polledness variant in six Chinese native breeds

Background: The genetic mechanism of goat polledness has been studied for decades, but identifying causative variants and functional genes remains challenging. Results: Using a genome-wide association study (GWAS), we identified a significant striking locus for polledness in two different goat breeds. To reduce the linkage disequilibrium among variants for localizing causative variants in the finer region, we sequenced 79 goats from six Chinese native breeds (Jining Gray, Matou, Guizhou black, Yunnan black bone, Chaidamu, and Ujumqin) and identified 483.5 kb CNV (150,334,567-150,818,099) translocated into the previously identified 11.7 kb polled intersex syndrome region, which was consistent with previous research using intersex goat populations. Within the 483.5 kb CNV, a ~322 bp horn-specific element, similar to the superfamily of tRNA-derived families of SINEs, located at the first intron of the ERG gene was identified. The results of the GO enrichment analysis showed that the Horn-SINE element-associated genes were involved in both nervous system and head development. Finally, we used RNA sequencing to investigate gene expression profiles in the horn bud and skin tissues of horned and polled goats. We identified 1077 and 1222 differentially expressed genes between the horn bud and skin tissue in polled and horned goats, respectively. We also identified 367 differentially expressed genes in horn buds between polled and horned animals and found that the two CNV-related genes, ERG and FOXL2 were upregulated in the horn bud of polled goats. Gene functional enrichment analysis demonstrated that the downregulated genes in the horn bud of polled goats were enriched in skeletal system development, whereas the upregulated genes were significantly overexpressed in muscle tissue development.

Parliament–government–citizens. The place of the institution of direct democracy in the discussion on the shape of San Marino-European Union relations in the context of the referendum of 2013

The subject of the article is the issue of using the institutions of direct democracy in the process of shaping the directions of a very specific element of foreign policy – relations with the European Union, of which San Marino is not a member. While most of the referenda related to the European Union concern the accession of countries to this organization, the vote in 2013 was of a slightly different nature. Therefore, the author attempts to indicate how the use of the instruments of direct democracy by citizens, in a way in opposition to the institution of indirect democracy (parliament and its dependent government), can contribute to the decision-makers making political decisions desired by citizens, even in seemingly rather unusual (apart from the aforementioned accession referenda) for direct democracy, spheres as the directions of foreign policy.

FORTRESS WALLS WITH USABLE INTRA-WALL SPACE IN BACTRIAN FORTIFICATIONS

На примере крепости Узундара рассматривается такой элемент фортификации, как крепостные стены с внутристенным эксплуатируемым пространством. Анализ конструктивных особенностей образца позволяет внести предложение в неустоявшуюся терминологию, существующую в литературе и относимую к данному виду фортификации. Предлагается выделять: монолитные стены и стены с внутристенным эксплуатируемым пространством. Многочисленные аналогии в архитектуре Бактрии и соседних историко-культурных регионов еще раз подчеркнули особенную близость фортификации Бактрии и Хорезма. Рассмотрение десятков памятников с использованием двойных стен в хронологическом срезе всего античного периода требует внести поправку в устоявшееся в науке мнение о магистральном переходе в эпоху эллинизма к монолитным стенам. Использование крепостных стен с внутристенным эксплуатируемым пространством в фортификации и эллинистических и кушанских крепостей и городов позволяет утверждать, что возводились они по необходимости и возможности и в зависимости от десятков разнообразных факторов. Taking the Uzundara fortress as a case study, the paper reviews a specific element of fortification, which is fortress walls with usable intra-wall space. The analysis of technical design of the construction helps clarify some terms used in literature to describe this type of fortifications. It is proposed to single out monolithic walls and walls with intra-wall usable space. Multiple analogies in Bactrian architecture and neighboring historical and cultural regions reiterate special similarity of fortifications in Bactria and Khwarazm. The review of dozens of sites with the use of double walls chronologically throughout the Classical period requires changes to be made in the established opinion that in the Hellenic period the shift to monolithic walls occurred across the board. The use of fortress walls with intra-wall usable space in fortifications and Hellenistic and Kushan fortresses suggests that they were constructed, when necessary and when possible, depending on multiple factors.

The educational e-portfolio: preliminary evidence of its relationship with student’s self-efficacy and engagement

The educational use of portfolios has been increasing in the last few years, especially as technology has also developed electronic versions of portfolios. Although there is abundant information about their benefits and practice description, few studies provide empirical evidence of their implementation. The objective of this study was to provide initial evidence about the use of the portfolio in higher education. Concretely, we aimed 1) to explore the correlation between students’ performance on the portfolio and their performance on more traditional assessment methods 2) to explore whether student’s personal variables predict performance in key elements of the e-portfolio, such as individual reflections, and if these contribute to general academic performance in the course, and 3) to evaluate whether the use of the e-portfolio during a semester changes the students’ self-efficacy and engagement. For this purpose, an initial sample of 73 students were recruited, and an e-portfolio (based on Mahara) was implemented over a semester. The results showed that performance on the portfolio correlated with the score obtained on multiple choice tests. There was an increase in self-efficacy after one semester of e-portfolio implementation, and engagement proved to be an important predictor of the final course grade through the mediation of individual reflections. These results offer preliminary and promising evidence about the relationship of a specific element of e-portfolios, individual reflections with several variables related to academic achievement such as self-efficacy and engagement.

Sustainable Socio-cultural Aspect Within Green Building User Behavior in Bali, Indonesia

The definition of green building is related to the design strategy and use of technology in buildings to create efficient energy utilization and minimize negative impacts on both the environment and the health of its users. User behavior is a significant determinant because to achieve green building parameters in the technical aspects alone is hard and, in the long term, must be supported by user behavior patterns with a responsive understanding of energy efficiency goals. This paper aims to conduct an initial study that focuses on the socio-cultural aspects of green building users’ behavior in Bali. This paper does not discuss quantitative matters on the green building parameters. Instead, it focuses on formulating a basic knowledge about the influence of user behavior with Balinese socio-cultural characteristics to become a reference at the building management level for the specific green building’s success. The method used in this paper is a qualitative descriptive method with literature review approach. The socio-cultural factor that affected Bali’s user behavior was influenced by green building principles’ technical issues and pro-environmental action in general. The more specific element is culture, local wisdom, and the religious value that leads to environmental awareness. The perspective of Bali’s green building user can be defined as the user’s local socio-culture views, the principles of green building perspectives and organization and management level perspective..

Dietary Micronutrients from Zygote to Senility: Updated Review of Minerals’ Role and Orchestration in Human Nutrition throughout Life Cycle with Sex Differences

Micronutrients such as selenium, fluoride, zinc, iron, and manganese are minerals that are crucial for many body homeostatic processes supplied at low levels. The importance of these micronutrients starts early in the human life cycle and continues across its different stages. Several studies have emphasized the critical role of a well-balanced micronutrient intake. However, the majority of studies looked into or examined such issues in relation to a specific element or life stage, with the majority merely reporting the effect of either excess or deficiency. Herein, in this review, we will look in depth at the orchestration of the main element requirements across the human life cycle beginning from fertility and pregnancy, passing through infancy, childhood, adolescence, and reaching adulthood and senility, with insight on the interactions among them and underlying action mechanisms. Emphasis is given towards approaches to the role of the different minerals in the life cycle, associated symptoms for under- or overdoses, and typical management for each element, with future perspectives. The effect of sex is also discussed for each micronutrient for each life stage as literature suffice to highlight the different daily requirements and or effects.

CrabNet for explainable deep learning in materials science: bridging the gap between academia and industry

Despite recent breakthroughs in deep learning for materials informatics, there exists a disparity between their popularity in academic research and their limited adoption in the industry. A significant contributor to this “interpretability-adoption gap” is the prevalence of black-box models and the lack of built-in methods for model interpretation. While established methods for evaluating model performance exist, an intuitive understanding of the modeling and decision-making processes in models is nonetheless desired in many cases. In this work, we demonstrate several ways of incorporating model interpretability to the structure-agnostic Compositionally Restricted Attention-Based network, CrabNet. We show that CrabNet learns meaningful, material property-specific element representations based solely on the data with no additional supervision. These element representations can then be used to explore element identity, similarity, behavior, and interactions within different chemical environments. Chemical compounds can also be uniquely represented and examined to reveal clear structures and trends within the chemical space. Additionally, visualizations of the attention mechanism can be used in conjunction to further understand the modeling process, identify potential modeling or dataset errors, and hint at further chemical insights leading to a better understanding of the phenomena governing material properties. We feel confident that the interpretability methods introduced in this work for CrabNet will be of keen interest to materials informatics researchers as well as industrial practitioners alike.

NoFumo+: A Clinical Trial of an mHealth for Smoking Cessation with Hospitalized Patients

Smartphone applications (apps) improve accessibility to smoking cessation treatments. The NoFumo+ app administers a cognitive behavioral therapy program for smoking cessation. This study evaluates the efficacy of NoFumo+ for quitting smoking or reducing cigarette consumption versus the usual information-based treatment. A clinical trial was conducted with 99 hospitalized smokers, 54 pseudo-randomly assigned to the app treatment and 45 to the usual treatment. The two groups had homogeneous baseline characteristics to ensure comparability. Abstinence was evaluated at post-treatment (two months) and at a six-month follow-up. The results obtained indicate that participants who receive the usual treatment are 5.40 times more likely to continue smoking than those who undergo the app treatment (95% CI = [1.35; 20.15]). Participants who do not succeed in quitting smoking with the app manage to decrease their habitual consumption. Users who successfully complete treatment with NoFumo+ access all its contents and use the chat, but without requesting professional support. There is not enough empirical evidence to attribute this success to any specific element of the app. NoFumo+ achieves better abstinence rates than the usual information-based treatments, and the goal of generalizing its use to the non-hospitalized smoking population may be achievable in the future.

Performance of conceptual framework elements for the retrieval of qualitative health literature: a case study

Objective: A growing volume of studies address methods for performing systematic reviews of qualitative studies. One such methodological aspect is the conceptual framework used to structure the review question and plan the search strategy for locating relevant studies. The purpose of this case study was to evaluate the retrieval potential of each element of conceptual frameworks in qualitative systematic reviews in the health sciences.Methods: The presence of elements from conceptual frameworks in publication titles, abstracts, and controlled vocabulary in CINAHL and PubMed was analyzed using a set of qualitative reviews and their included studies as a gold standard. Using a sample of 101 publications, we determined whether particular publications could be retrieved if a specific element from the conceptual framework was used in the search strategy.Results: We found that the relative recall of conceptual framework elements varied considerably, with higher recall for patient/population (99%) and research type (97%) and lower recall for intervention/phenomenon of interest (74%), outcome (79%), and context (61%).Conclusion: The use of patient/population and research type elements had high relative recall for qualitative studies. However, other elements should be used with great care due to lower relative recall.