Explore the vast range of titles available.

Background: Natural sounds are reportedly restorative, but most research has used one-off experiments conducted in artificial conditions. Research based on field experiments is still in its infancy. This study aimed to generate hypotheses on the restorative effects of listening to natural sounds on surgeons, representing professionals working in stressful conditions. Methods: Each of four surgeons (two experts and two residents) participated six times in an experiment where they took a 10-min break listening to natural sounds (four times) or without natural sounds (twice) after a surgical operation. We measured their skin conductance level, an indicator of sympathetic arousal, continuously during the break (measurement occasions N = 2520) and assessed their mood using two questionnaires before and after the break (N = 69 and N = 42). We also interviewed them after the break. Results: Based on statistical Linear Mixed-Effects modeling, we developed two hypotheses for further, more detailed studies: (H1) Listening to natural sounds after an operation improves surgeons’ mood. (H2) Inexperienced surgeons’ tension persists so long that the effect of natural sounds on their sympathetic arousal is negligible. Conclusions: This risk-free, easy-to-use means of stress alleviation through natural sounds could benefit highly-stressed people working indoors.

Many studies have reported that natural sounds (e.g., birdsong) are more restorative than urban noise. These studies have used physiological and psychological indicators, such as the skin conductance level (SCL) and the Perceived Restorativeness Scale (PRS), to evaluate the restorative effect of natural sounds. However, the effect of faint background noise mixed with birdsong on the restorativeness of birdsong has not been described yet. In the current experiment, we examined whether traffic noise affects the perceived restorativeness and the physiological restorativeness of birdsong in a low-stress condition using the SCL and the PRS. The scores of the PRS showed that birdsong significantly increased the perceived restorativeness of the place regardless of the car noise, but no significant difference was found between these two birdsongs. In contrast, physiologically, the birdsong without car noise decreased the participants’ SCL significantly more than the birdsong with car noise did. These results indicate that the SCL would be useful to detect the effect of background noise on natural sound when the noise is too low to affect the perceived restorativeness. This study highlights the importance of measuring the SCL besides assessing perceived restorativeness to describe the characteristics of restorative natural sound in future research.

Rare earth elements (REEs) have been shown to be efficient tracers of the functional sites and/or complexes formed on humic molecules. In the present study, we test the potential of REEs to be used as tracers of the sources of humic substances (HSs). Three types of organic matter (OM) of terrestrial and microbiological origin were tested. The experiments of REEs binding to the HSs were combined with size-fractionation experiments. The REE patterns were the most fractionated in the <10 kDa fraction. For Leonardite humic acid (LHA) and Aldrich humic acid (AHA), the REE patterns were consistent with the REEs binding to strong but low density sites for a low REE/C loading. By contrast, for Pony Lake fulvic acid (PLFA), the REE pattern was similar to the REE pattern developed onto a bacteria cell surface and was attributed to the REEs binding to phosphate surface sites. Fluorescence and elemental analysis of PLFA showed that the <10 kDa fraction was the fraction with the stronger microbiological character, which suggested the REEs were probably bound to PLFA through REE-phosphate complexes. Such results therefore provide a new possibility for the use of REEs to assess an OM source without the need to perform numerous or complex analytical methodologies.

Climate change is currently one of humanity’s greatest threats. To help scholars understand the psychology of climate change, we conducted an online quasi-experimental survey on 59,508 participants from 63 countries (collected between July 2022 and July 2023). In a between-subjects design, we tested 11 interventions designed to promote climate change mitigation across four outcomes: climate change belief, support for climate policies, willingness to share information on social media, and performance on an effortful pro-environmental behavioural task. Participants also reported their demographic information (e.g., age, gender) and several other independent variables (e.g., political orientation, perceptions about the scientific consensus). In the no-intervention control group, we also measured important additional variables, such as environmentalist identity and trust in climate science. We report the collaboration procedure, study design, raw and cleaned data, all survey materials, relevant analysis scripts, and data visualisations. This dataset can be used to further the understanding of psychological, demographic, and national-level factors related to individual-level climate action and how these differ across countries.

We developed a measurement system capable of detecting magnetic responses in various material samples. The system utilizes an excitation coil to apply an alternating magnetic field within the frequency range of 1–10 kHz. The magnetic field generated in the samples was detected using a highly sensitive magnetoresistive sensor. The system demonstrated a detection lower limit in the sub-pT range for magnetic fields arising from magnetic responses such as eddy currents and magnetization changes. The frequency dependence of the detected signal intensities correlated well with the physical mechanisms underlying the magnetic responses. Notably, the distance between the excitation coil and the magnetic sensor was maintained at 300 mm. These results, which demonstrate the detection of a sub-pT magnetic field using a highly sensitive magnetic sensor, have not been previously reported and provide valuable insights for advancing practical applications in non-destructive testing and clinical diagnostic imaging.

In this study, we evaluated the magnetization properties of a magnetic alloy with single-crystalline cubic nanostructures, in order to clarify its magnetocrystalline anisotropy. Upon applying a specific annealing treatment to the CuNiFe base material, the precipitated magnetic particles grew into cubic granules, resulting in the formation of nanometric cubic single crystals of magnetic CuNiFe in a nonmagnetic Cu-rich matrix. The cubic nanostructures of CuNiFe were oriented along their crystallographic axis, in the direction of the face-centered-cubic structure. We evaluated the static magnetization properties of the sample, which originated primarily from the CuNiFe nanocubes precipitated in the Cu-rich matrix, under an applied DC magnetic field. The magnetocrystalline anisotropy was readily observed in the magnetization curves. The axis of the CuNiFe was observed to be the easy axis of magnetization. We also investigated the dynamic magnetization properties of the sample under an AC magnetic field. By subtracting the magnetic signal induced by the eddy current from the magnetization curves of the sample, we could obtain the intrinsic AC magnetization properties of the CuNiFe nanocubes.

Understanding magnetic interparticle interactions within a single hydrodynamic volume of polydispersed magnetic nanoparticles and the resulting nonlinear magnetization properties is critical for their implementation in magnetic theranostics. However, in general, the field-dependent static and dynamic magnetization measurements may only highlight polydispersity effects including magnetic moment and size distributions. Therefore, as a complement to such typical analysis of hysteretic magnetization curves, we spectroscopically examined the complex magnetization harmonics of magnetic nanoclusters either dispersed in a liquid medium or immobilized by a hydrocolloid polymer, later to emphasize the harmonic characteristics for different core sizes. In the case of superparamagnetic nanoclusters with a 4-nm primary size, particularly, we correlated the negative quadrature components of the third-harmonic susceptibility with an insignificant cluster rotation induced by the oscillatory field. Moreover, the field-dependent in-phase components appear to be frequency-independent, suggesting a weak damping effect on the moment dynamics. The characteristic of the Néel time constant further supports this argument by showing a smaller dependence on the applied dc bias field, in comparison to that of larger cores. These findings show that the complex harmonic components of the magnetization are important attributes to the interacting cores of a magnetic nanocluster.