The interactive command line, also known as the shell, is a prominent mechanism used extensively by a wide range of software professionals (engineers, system administrators, data scientists, etc.). Shell customizations can therefore provide insight into the tasks they repeatedly … | Continue reading
This work describes the application of a library of iron(III)-salen catalysts in the production of biodiesel from vegetable oils. The conversion of neutral soybean oil is complete within two hours at 160–180 °C with low catalyst loading (0.10 mol%). A comparative screening reveal … | Continue reading
Since autumn 2020, rapid antigen tests (RATs) have been implemented in several countries as an important pillar of the national testing strategy to rapidly screen for infections on site during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The current surge in infection rates around the globe is drive … | Continue reading
What explains popular support for political violence in the contemporary United States, particularly the anti-institutional mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol in January 2021? Recent scholarship gives reason to suspect that a constellation of beliefs known as “Christian nationali … | Continue reading
This article reviews recent bibliography on time series of some extreme weather events and related response indicators in order to understand whether an increase in intensity and/or frequency is detectable. The most robust global changes in climate extremes are found in yearly va … | Continue reading
That certain paper bills have monetary value, that Vladimir Putin is the president of Russia, and that Prince Philip is the husband of Queen Elizabeth II: such facts are commonly called ‘institutional facts’ (IFF). IFF are, by definition, facts that exist by virtue of collective … | Continue reading
We present word prevalence data for 61,858 English words. Word prevalence refers to the number of people who know the word. The measure was obtained on the basis of an online crowdsourcing study involving over 220,000 people. Word prevalence data are useful for gauging the diffic … | Continue reading
Cognitive theory has decomposed human mental abilities into cognitive (sub) systems, and cognitive neuroscience succeeded in disclosing a host of relationships between cognitive systems and specific structures of the human brain. However, an explanation of why specific functions … | Continue reading
Many code changes are inherently repetitive, and researchers employ repetitiveness of the code changes to generate bug fix patterns. Automatic Program Repair (APR) can automatically detect and fix bugs, thus helping developers to improve the quality of software products. As a cri … | Continue reading
The spread of online conspiracy theories represents a serious threat to society. To understand the content of conspiracies, here we present the language of conspiracy (LOCO) corpus. LOCO is an 88-million-token corpus composed of topic-matched conspiracy (N = 23,937) and mainstrea … | Continue reading
In this paper, using both hand-drawn and computer-drawn graphics, we establish a method to generate advanced Escher-like spiral tessellations. We first give a way to achieve simple spiral tilings of cyclic symmetry. Then, we introduce several conformal mappings to generate three … | Continue reading
Background Acute caffeine ingestion has been associated with improvements in cognitive performance and visual functioning. The main objective of this study was to determine the effects of caffeine intake on dynamic visual acuity (DVA). Methods Twenty-one low caffeine consumers (2 … | Continue reading
Humans have evolved perceptual acuity toward environmental cues heuristically associated with communicable disease that elicits an aversion. One heuristic cue that humans utilize to infer contamination threat is ingroup-outgroup status, with prejudices arising toward outgroup mem … | Continue reading
Reality shifting (RS) is a trendy mental activity that emerged abruptly following the flare-up of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and seems to be practiced mainly by members of the post-millennial generation. RS, described as the experience of being able to transcend one’s physical … | Continue reading
The present study examines employees’ prior victimization from bullying in school or at work as a predictor of 1) their current exposure to negative social acts at work and 2) the likelihood of labelling as a victim of workplace bullying, and 3) whether the link between exposure … | Continue reading
This paper addresses a concurrent multidisciplinary problem: animal safety against lightning hazards. In regions where lightning is prevalent, either seasonally or throughout the year, a considerable number of wild, captive and tame animals are injured due to lightning generated … | Continue reading
Ironically, flat-Earthers, anti-vaxxers, and climate change naysayers trust in science. Unfortunately, they trust the wrong science. That conundrum lies at the heart of scientific literacy in an age of well-funded commercial and ideological interests and overwhelming digital info … | Continue reading
In the quest for a panacea to ensure digital privacy, many users have switched to using decentralized open-source Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol multi-client instant messaging (IM) apps for secure end-to-end communication. In this paper, we present a forensic analysis … | Continue reading
While conducting analysis related to a DARPA-funded project to evaluate possible structure of the energy density present in a Casimir cavity as predicted by the dynamic vacuum model, a micro/nano-scale structure has been discovered that predicts negative energy density distributi … | Continue reading
Technologies to measure gaze direction and pupil reactivity have become efficient, cheap, and compact and are finding increasing use in many fields, including gaming, marketing, driver safety,... | Continue reading
We describe OCB3, the final version of OCB, a blockcipher mode for authenticated encryption (AE). We prove the construction secure, up to the birthday bound, assuming its underlying blockcipher is secure as a strong-PRP. We study the scheme’s software performance, comparing its s … | Continue reading
In this paper we investigate risk prediction of criminal re-offense among juvenile defendants using general-purpose machine learning (ML) algorithms. We show that in our dataset, containing hundreds of cases, ML models achieve better predictive power than a structured professiona … | Continue reading
In this study, we define a new non-commutative number system called hybrid numbers. This number system can be accepted as a generalization of the complex $$\left( {\mathbf {i}}^{2}=-1\right) $$ i 2 = - 1 , hyperbolic $$\left( {\mathbf {h}} ^{2}=1\right) $$ h 2 = 1 and dual number … | Continue reading
The current study examined the right to a professional workspace and separation between private and public within the home as an arena of gendered negotiation and struggle between spouses working from home during the COVID-19 crisis. Using a qualitative, inductive approach based … | Continue reading
We know that animals are harmed in plant production. Unfortunately, though, we know very little about the scale of the problem. This matters for two reasons. First, we can’t decide how many resources to devote to the problem without a better sense of its scope. Second, this infor … | Continue reading
This paper offers new evidence on the life-cycle pattern of happiness. A novelty of the analysis is that it exploits information on the period individuals recall as the happiest in their lives. Data come from SHARELIFE 2008/09, a retrospective life survey conducted in 13 European … | Continue reading
We propose a formal framework for interpretable machine learning. Combining elements from statistical learning, causal interventionism, and decision theory, we design an idealised explanation game in which players collaborate to find the best explanation(s) for a given algorithmi … | Continue reading
Unsanctioned, unscripted, and seemingly “undesirable” activities have long appropriated urban spaces in routine and sometimes unexpected ways, bringing new meanings and unforeseen functions to those places. In the last decade or so, such practices have inspired a growing movement … | Continue reading
Research and development are central to economic growth, and a key challenge for countries of the global South is that their research performance lags behind that of the global North. Yet, among Southern researchers, a few significantly outperform their peers and can be styled re … | Continue reading
The physical description, from the small to the large, the physical to the biological, and the material to the mental are reconsidered from a quantum chemical perspective fostering an isomorphic... | Continue reading
The EMDrive is a proposed propellantless propulsion concept claiming to be many orders of magnitude more efficient than classical radiation pressure forces. It is based on microwaves, which are injected into a closed tapered cavity, producing a unidirectional thrust with values o … | Continue reading
Evidence suggests that chronic sensory stimulation via excessive exposure to screen time may affect brain development in negative ways. Excessive smartphone use may increase the risk of cognitive, behavioral, and emotional disorders in adolescents and young adults that also has t … | Continue reading
We examine the question of rationality, replicating two core experiments used to establish that people deviate from the rational actor model. Our analysis extends existing research to a developing country context. Based on our theoretical expectations, we test if respondents make … | Continue reading
We argue for multiple forms of life realized through multiple different historical pathways. From this perspective, there have been multiple origins of life on Earth—life is not a universal homology. By broadening the class of originations, we significantly expand the data set fo … | Continue reading
Mate-choice copying is a phenomenon whereby females assess the mate quality of males based on the mating decisions of other females. Previous studies demonstrated that the presence of a partner enhanced men’s attractiveness. Mate assessment is, however, error-prone, and the accep … | Continue reading
Permafrost thaw is a challenge in many Arctic regions, one that modifies ecosystems and affects infrastructure and livelihoods. To date, there have been no demographic studies of the population on permafrost. We present the first estimates of the number of inhabitants on permafro … | Continue reading
Are children better off than their parents? This highly debated question in politics and economics is investigated by analysing the trends in absolute and relative intergenerational labour income mobility for Germany and the US. High quality panel data is used for this purpose; t … | Continue reading
Are children better off than their parents? This highly debated question in politics and economics is investigated by analysing the trends in absolute and relative intergenerational labour income mobility for Germany and the US. High quality panel data is used for this purpose; t … | Continue reading
In this article we show why flying and rotating beer mats, CDs, or other flat disks will eventually flip in the air and end up flying with backspin, thus, making them unusable as frisbees. The crucial effect responsible for the flipping is found to be the lift attacking not in th … | Continue reading
This study examines the effect of foreign aid on extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) over the period 1981–2013. The study uses recent dynamic panel estimation techniques, including those methods which deal with endogeneity by controlling for simultaneity and unobserved he … | Continue reading