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1. Factors that Impact Photochemical Cage Escape Yields

   https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.chemrev.3c00930  

   Goodwin, Matthew J; Dickenson, John C; Ripak, Alexia; Deetz, Alexander M; McCarthy, Jackson S; Meyer, Gerald J; Troian-Gautier, Ludovic (June 2024, Chemical Reviews)

   The utilization of visible light to mediate chemical reactions in fluid solutions has applications that range from solar fuel production to medicine and organic synthesis. These reactions are typically initiated by electron transfer between a photoexcited dye molecule (a photosensitizer) and a redox-active quencher to yield radical pairs that are intimately associated within a solvent cage. Many of these radicals undergo rapid thermodynamically favored “geminate” recombination and do not diffuse out of the solvent cage that surrounds them. Those that do escape the cage are useful reagents that may undergo subsequent reactions important to the above-mentioned applications. The cage escape process and the factors that determine the yields remain poorly understood despite decades of research motivated by their practical and fundamental importance. Herein, state-of-the-art research on light-induced electron transfer and cage escape that has appeared since the seminal 1972 review by J. P. Lorand entitled “The Cage Effect” is reviewed. This review also provides some background for those new to the field and discusses the cage escape process of both homolytic bond photodissociation and bimolecular light induced electron transfer reactions. The review concludes with some key goals and directions for future research that promise to elevate this very vibrant field to even greater heights. 

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2. The Human Factors Impact of Programming Error Messages

   Brett A. Becker, Paul Denny (August 2022, Dagstuhl reports)

   The impacts of many human factors on how people program are poorly understood and present significant challenges for work on improving programmer productivity and effective techniques for teaching and learning programming. Programming error messages are one factor that is particularly problematic, with a documented history of evidence dating back over 50 years. Such messages, commonly called compiler error messages, present difficulties for programmers with diverse demographic backgrounds. It is generally agreed that these messages could be more effective for all users, making this an obvious and high-impact area to target for improving programming outcomes. This report documents the program and the outputs of Dagstuhl Seminar 22052, “The Human Factors Impact of Programming Error Messages”, which explores this problem. In total, 11 on-site participants and 17 remote participants engaged in intensive collaboration during the seminar, including discussing past and current research, identifying gaps, and developing ways to move forward collaboratively to address these challenges. 

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3. Interpreting Graphs to Distinguish Factors that Impact Climate Change

   McBride, E. (January 2020, Computersupported collaborative learning)

   Scientists use models and graphs to distinguish among factors that impact a phenomenon (for example, the impact of CO2 accumulation on climate change) and factors that do not impact the phenomenon (for example the role of ozone depletion on climate change). In this paper, we compare two forms of exploration of time series line graphs: plan and typical. In the plan condition, students plan an experiment with a model by graphing the level of a system parameter (e.g., concentration of greenhouse gases) and the predicted response of an outcome variable (e.g., temperature). They then run the model to observe the accuracy of their predictions. In the typical condition, students run the simulation immediately and adjust the parameter level as they see fit. Students produced more informative experiments in the plan condition than the typical condition. Students in the plan condition made inferences by comparing their prediction to the outcome. 

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4. Long-Time Kinetic Impact on Key Factors Affecting Asphaltene Precipitation

   https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.energyfuels.2c01963  

   Quainoo, Ato Kwamena; Imqam, Abdulmohsin (September 2022, Energy & Fuels)
5. Investigating the impact of demographic factors on contactless fingerprints interoperability

   https://doi.org/10.1109/BIOSIG55365.2022.9897061  

   Berti, Aeddon; Nasrabadi, Nasser; Dawson, Jeremy (September 2022, IEEE 21th International Conference of the Biometrics Special Interest Group (BIOSIG'22))

   Contactless fingerprints have continued to grow interoperability as a faster and more convenient replacement for contact fingerprints, and with covid-19 now starting to be a past event the need for hygienic alternatives has only grown after the sudden focus during the pandemic. Though, past works have shown issues with the interoperability of contactless prints from both kiosk devices and phone fingerprint collection apps. The focus of the paper is the evaluation of match performance between contact and contactless fingerprints, and the evaluation of match score bias based on skin demographics. AUC results indicate contactless match performance is as good as contact fingerprints, while phone contactless fingerprints fall short. Additionally, bias found for melanin showed specific ranges affected in both low melanin values and high melanin values. 

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