Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effective Seed Dispersal and Fecundity Variation in a Small and Marginal Population of Pinus pinaster Ait. Growing in a Harsh Environment: Implications for Conservation of Forest Genetic Resources

Small-size, relict and marginal tree-species populations are a priority for conservation of forest genetic resources. In-situ conservation of these populations relies on adequate forest management planning based on knowledge and understanding of both ecological (i.e., recruitment or dispersal dynamics) and population-genetic processes (i.e., female reproductive success, gene flow or inbreeding). Here, we estimate the fecundity (or female reproductive success) of adult trees (i.e., the number of successfully established offspring/adult tree) and the effective dispersal distance distribution in the pine forest of Fuencaliente (southern Spain), a small-sized, marginal and relict population of maritime pine growing on a steep, craggy hill with just 312 reproductively active individuals. Previous studies have shown the population to present reduced allelic richness and suffer from genetic introgression from nearby exotic plantations of unknown origin. Between 2003 and 2004, we surveyed all adults and recruits and we measured several adult-specific covariates, including the number of cones of all adults. The population was found to be distributed into two nuclei with 268 (Stand 1) and 44 adults (Stand 2). We used inverse modeling to adjust several dispersal-and-fecundity models including a model with random variation in fecundity among adults (Unrestricted Fecundity or UF model). Results show that: (i) the average fecundity is 2.5–3.2 recruits/adult; (ii) the mean effective dispersal distance is restricted to 13–24 m and (iii) fecundity is most likely controlled by the spatial location of adult trees in Stand ,1 but it should be considered randomly distributed in Stand 2 (in this stand five adults mothered 80% of recruits). We conclude that the low fecundity in Stand 1 and the unequal fecundity in Stand 2 may decrease the population genetic diversity and lead to lower effective population size while the low average dispersal distance may reduce the probability of this population expanding to adjacent areas. In light of the results, we define the management priorities for in-situ conservation of this population.
Cerebral Lateralization of Frontal Lobe Language Processes and Lateralization of the Posterior Visual Word Processing System

The brain areas involved in visual word processing rapidly become lateralized to the left cerebral hemisphere. It is often assumed this is because, in the vast majority of people, cortical structures underlying language production are lateralized to the left hemisphere. An alternative hypothesis, however, might be that the early stages of visual word processing are lateralized to the left hemisphere because of intrinsic hemispheric differences in processing low-level visual information as required for distinguishing fine-grained visual forms such as letters. If the alternative hypothesis was correct, we would expect posterior occipito-temporal processing stages still to be lateralized to the left hemisphere for participants with right hemisphere dominance for the frontal lobe processes involved in language production. By analyzing event-related potentials of native readers of French with either left hemisphere or right hemisphere dominance for language production (determined using a verb generation task), we were able to show that the posterior occipito-temporal areas involved in visual word processing are lateralized to the same hemisphere as language production. This finding could suggest top-down influences in the development of posterior visual word processing areas.
Contributions of anterior cingulate cortex to behaviour.

Assessments of anterior cingulate cortex in experimental animals and humans have led to unifying theories of its structural organization and contributions to mammalian behaviour. The anterior cingulate cortex forms a large region around the rostrum of the corpus callosum that is termed the anterior executive region. This region has numerous projections into motor systems, however, since these projections originate from different parts of anterior cingulate cortex and because functional studies have shown that it does not have a uniform contribution to brain functions, the anterior executive region is further subdivided into 'affect' and 'cognition' components. The affect division includes areas 25, 33 and rostral area 24, and has extensive connections with the amygdala and periaqueductal grey, and parts of it project to autonomic brainstem motor nuclei. In addition to regulating autonomic and endocrine functions, it is involved in conditioned emotional learning, vocalizations associated with expressing internal states, assessments of motivational content and assigning emotional valence to internal and external stimuli, and maternal-infant interactions. The cognition division includes caudal areas 24' and 32', the cingulate motor areas in the cingulate sulcus and nociceptive cortex. The cingulate motor areas project to the spinal cord and red nucleus and have premotor functions, while the nociceptive area is engaged in both response selection and cognitively demanding information processing. The cingulate epilepsy syndrome provides important support of experimental animal and human functional imaging studies for the role of anterior cingulate cortex in movement, affect and social behaviours. Excessive cingulate activity in cases with seizures confirmed in anterior cingulate cortex with subdural electrode recordings, can impair consciousness, alter affective state and expression, and influence skeletomotor and autonomic activity. Interictally, patients with anterior cingulate cortex epilepsy often display psychopathic or sociopathic behaviours. In other clinical examples of elevated anterior cingulate cortex activity it may contribute to tics, obsessive-compulsive behaviours, and aberrent social behaviour. Conversely, reduced cingulate activity following infarcts or surgery can contribute to behavioural disorders including akinetic mutism, diminished self-awareness and depression, motor neglect and impaired motor initiation, reduced responses to pain, and aberrent social behaviour. The role of anterior cingulate cortex in pain responsiveness is suggested by cingulumotomy results and functional imaging studies during noxious somatic stimulation. The affect division of anterior cingulate cortex modulates autonomic activity and internal emotional responses, while the cognition division is engaged in response selection associated with skeletomotor activity and responses to noxious stimuli. Overall, anterior cingulate cortex appears to play a crucial role in initiation, motivation, and goal-directed behaviours. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)
Ileal Digestibility of Crude Ash and Minerals in Feeds for the Polar Fox during the Non-mating Period*

SZYMECZKO R. , PIOTROWSKA A. , BOGUS£AWSKA-TRYK M. 2005. Ileal digestibility of crude ash and minerals in feeds for the polar fox during the non-mating period. Folia biol. (Krakow) 53 (Suppl.): 13-17. The aim of the present research was to compare the content and apparent ileal digestibility of ash and minerals (Ca, P, Mg, Na, K) in feeds used in feeding reproductive polar foxes over the non-mating period on two domestic farms (A and B), differing in reproduction results. The feeds were evaluated based on offal of animal origin and cereals. The greatest differences in the content of nutrients were noted for the concentration of crude ash. Farm A diets demonstrated a few-fold more crude ash content and a greater content of calcium, phosphorus and sodium, as compared with farm B feeds. The digestibility experiments carried out on foxes with ‘end to end’ ileorectal anastomosis showed a higher (P.05) apparent ileal digestibility of crude ash, calcium, phosphorus, magnesium and potassium in diets B in which the content of ash was three-fold lower than in diets A.
Genomic and “Polyomic” Studies of Cardiovascular and Inﬂammatory Diseases HIF1 mediates a switch in pyruvate kinase isoforms after myocardial infarction

HIF1 mediates a switch in pyruvate kinase isoforms after myocardial infarction. Physiol Genomics 50: 479–494, 2018. splicing of RNA is an underexplored area of transcriptional response. We expect that early changes in alterna- tively spliced genes may be important for responses to cardiac injury. Hypoxia inducible factor 1 (HIF1) is a key transcription factor that rapidly responds to loss of oxygen through alteration of metabolism and angiogenesis. The goal of this study was to investigate the transcriptional response after myocardial infarction (MI) and to identify novel, hypoxia-driven changes, including alternative splicing. After ligation of the left anterior descending artery in mice, we observed an abrupt loss of cardiac contractility and upregulation of hypoxic signaling. We then performed RNA sequencing on ischemic heart tissue 1 and 3 days after infarct to assess early transcriptional changes and identiﬁed 89 transcripts with altered splicing. Of particular interest was the switch in Pkm isoform expression (pyruvate kinase, muscle). The usually predominant Pkm1 isoform was less abundant in ischemic hearts, while Pkm2 and associated splicing factors (hnRNPA1, hnRNPA2B1, Ptbp1) rapidly increased. Despite increased Pkm2 expression, total pyruvate kinase activity remained re- duced in ischemic myocardial tissue. We also demonstrated HIF1 binding to PKM by chromatin immunoprecipitation, indicating a direct role for HIF1 in mediating this isoform switch. Our study provides a new, detailed characterization of the early transcriptome after MI. From this analysis, we identiﬁed an HIF1-mediated alternative splicing event in the PKM gene. Pkm1 and Pkm2 play distinct roles in glycolytic metabolism and the upregulation of Pkm2 is likely to have important consequences for ATP synthesis in infarcted cardiac muscle.
Homotopy Continuation for Spatial Interference Alignment in Arbitrary MIMO X Networks

In this paper, we propose an algorithm to design interference alignment (IA) precoding and decoding matrices for arbitrary MIMO X networks. The proposed algorithm is rooted in the homotopy continuation techniques commonly used to solve systems of nonlinear equations. Homotopy methods find the solution of a target system by smoothly deforming the solution of a start system which can be trivially solved. Unlike previously proposed IA algorithms, the homotopy continuation technique allows us to solve the IA problem for both unstructured (i.e., generic) and structured channels such as those that arise when time or frequency symbol extensions are jointly employed with the spatial dimension. To this end, we consider an extended system of bilinear equations that include the standard alignment equations to cancel the interference, and a new set of bilinear equations that preserve the desired dimensionality of the signal spaces at the intended receivers. We propose a simple method to obtain the start system by randomly choosing a set of precoders and decoders, and then finding a set of channels satisfying the system equations, which is a linear problem. Once the start system is available, standard prediction and correction techniques are applied to track the solution all the way to the target system. We analyze the convergence of the proposed algorithm and prove that, for many feasible systems and a sufficiently small continuation parameter, the algorithm converges with probability one to a perfect IA solution. The simulation results show that the proposed algorithm is able to consistently find solutions achieving the maximum number of degrees of freedom in a variety of MIMO X networks with or without symbol extensions. Further, the algorithm provides insights into the feasibility of IA in MIMO X networks for which theoretical results are scarce.
Mirror Neuron Populations Represent Sequences of Behavioral Epochs During Both Execution and Observation

Mirror neurons (MNs) have the distinguishing characteristic of modulating during both execution and observation of an action. Although most studies of MNs have focused on various features of the observed movement, MNs also may monitor the behavioral circumstances in which the movement is embedded, including time periods preceding and following the observed movement. Here, we recorded multiple MNs simultaneously from implanted electrode arrays as two male monkeys executed and observed a reach, grasp, and manipulate task involving different target objects. MNs were recorded from premotor cortex (PM-MNs) and primary motor cortex (M1-MNs). During execution trials, hidden Markov models (HMMs) applied to the activity of either PM-MN or M1-MN populations most often detected sequences of four hidden states, which we named according to the behavioral epoch during which each state began: initial, reaction, movement, and final. The hidden states of MN populations thus reflected not only the movement, but also three behavioral epochs during which no movement occurred. HMMs trained on execution trials could decode similar sequences of hidden states in observation trials, with complete hidden state sequences decoded more frequently from PM-MN populations than from M1-MN populations. Moreover, population trajectories projected in a 2D plane defined by execution trials were preserved in observation trials more for PM-MN than for M1-MN populations. These results suggest that MN populations represent entire behavioral sequences, including both movement and non-movement. PM-MN populations showed greater similarity than M1-MN populations in their representation of behavioral sequences during execution versus observation. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Mirror neurons (MNs) are thought to provide a neural mechanism for understanding the actions of others. However, for an action to be understood, both the movement per se and the non-movement context before and after the movement need to be represented. We found that simultaneously recorded MN populations encoded sequential hidden neural states corresponding approximately to sequential behavioral epochs of a reach, grasp, and manipulate task. During observation trials, hidden state sequences were similar to those identified in execution trials. Hidden state similarity was stronger for MN populations in premotor cortex than for those in primary motor cortex. Execution/observation similarity of hidden state sequences may contribute to understanding the actions of others without actually performing the action oneself.
Revision of the diatom genus Sellaphora: a first account of the larger species in the British Isles.

As a step towards a global monograph of the freshwater diatom genus Sellaphora, we made detailed surveys of Sellaphora diversity in the epipelon of 38 lakes and ponds and three Holocene diatomites in the British Isles, restricting our analysis to those specimens that would be classified in S. americana, S. bacillum, S. pupula or S. laevissima according to the standard European diatom flora of K ra MME r & L ang E -B E r T a L o T (1986; Susswasser- flora von Mitteleuropa, vol. 2/1. - G. Fischer, Stuttgart & New York). From a total of c. 10 4 specimens observed, over 3200 were recorded as digital images and sorted into 54 mostly informally-named phenodemes that can act as operational taxonomic units during future revisions. Of the 54 phenodemes, c. 40 are well-differentiated, while the others seem to intergrade and are in particular need of further study using morphometric, molecular and mating approaches. The limitations of conventional diatom taxonomy by visual comparison are clearly demonstrated. To help standardize identifications, published DNA sequences are assigned to some of the demes as 'molecular bar - code'. The phenodemes of S. pupula sensu lato cannot be equated with the infraspecific taxa previously recorded for the British Isles and both these and most other pre-1990 records of species now assigned to Sellaphora must be regarded as having very little value for ecological and biogeographical purposes. Possible non-British records of the phenodemes are discussed but few are totally convincing; of those records most likely to be of the same phenodemes, the majority come from elsewhere in Europe.
Influence of Screen Exposure on Vergence Components from Childhood to Adolescence

Vision is a complex task, the motor component of which uses a combination of eye movements; including version and vergence. Version eye movements correspond to all conjugated eye movements where both eyes shift in tandem (i.e. saccadic movements which allow precise ballistic movements towards the visual target, but also pursuits which allow maintaining the gaze toward a moving target), while during vergence the eyes rotate in opposition, i.e. for horizontal vergences via either inward (convergence) or outward (divergence) movements. Binocular coordination is a critical skill necessary for normal vision [1, 2]. The stability of binocular vision depends on good fusional amplitudes [3]. Fusional vergence movements align the visual axes precisely to enable single binocular vision [4]. The sensory visual monocular or binocular information (i.e. information about relative depth) is sent from the visual cortex to the motor control centers in the motor cortex and in the brainstem, where different neuronal structures control vergences, such as the phasic excitatory neurons in the paramedian pontine reticular formation and the tonic neurons of the mesencephalic reticular formation [5].
All about MAX: a male adult voxel phantom for Monte Carlo calculations in radiation protection dosimetry

The MAX (Male Adult voXel) phantom has been developed from existing segmented images of a male adult body, in order to achieve a representation as close as possible to the anatomical properties of the reference adult male specified by the ICRP. The study describes the adjustments of the soft-tissue organ masses, a new dosimetric model for the skin, a new model for skeletal dosimetry and a computational exposure model based on coupling the MAX phantom with the EGS4 Monte Carlo code. Conversion coefficients between equivalent dose to the red bone marrow as well as effective MAX dose and air-kerma free in air for external photon irradiation from the front and from the back, respectively, are presented and compared with similar data from other human phantoms.
Adjuvant Ciprofloxacin for Persistent BK Polyomavirus Infection in Kidney Transplant Recipients

Background. BK virus (BKV) infection is a common complication following kidney transplantation. Immunosuppression reduction is the cornerstone of treatment while adjuvant drugs have been tried in small uncontrolled studies. We sought to examine our center's experience with the use of ciprofloxacin in patients with persistent BKV infection. Methods. Retrospective evaluation of the effect of a 30-day ciprofloxacin course (250 mg twice daily) on BKV infection in kidney transplant recipients who had been diagnosed with BK viruria ≥106 copies/mL and viremia ≥500 copies/mL and in whom the infection did not resolve after immunosuppression reduction and/or treatment with other adjuvant agents. BKV in plasma and urine was evaluated after 3 months following treatment with ciprofloxacin. Results. Nine kidney transplant recipients received ciprofloxacin at a median of 130 days following the initial reduction in immunosuppression. Three patients showed complete viral clearance and another 3 had a ≥50% decrease in plasma viral load. No serious adverse events secondary to ciprofloxacin were reported and no grafts were lost due to BKV up to 1 year after treatment. Conclusion. Ciprofloxacin may be a useful therapy for persistent BKV infection despite conventional treatment. Randomized trials are required to evaluate the potential benefit of this adjuvant therapy.
Multi-Task Learning in Heterogeneous Feature Spaces

Multi-task learning aims at improving the generalization performance of a learning task with the help of some other related tasks. Although many multi-task learning methods have been proposed, they are all based on the assumption that all tasks share the same data representation. This assumption is too restrictive for general applications. In this paper, we propose a multi-task extension of linear discriminant analysis (LDA), called multi-task discriminant analysis (MTDA), which can deal with learning tasks with different data representations. For each task, MTDA learns a separate transformation which consists of two parts, one specific to the task and one common to all tasks. A by-product of MTDA is that it can alleviate the labeled data deficiency problem of LDA. Moreover, unlike many existing multi-task learning methods, MTDA can handle binary and multi-class problems for each task in a generic way. Experimental results on face recognition show that MTDA consistently outperforms related methods.
Prevalence and Risk Factors of Perineal Tears at the Limbe Regional Hospital, Cameroon

1 Senior lecturer and Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Buea, Cameroon. 2 General Practitioner, District Hospital Mbengwi. 3 Senior lecturer and Obstetrician and Gynecologist, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Bamenda, Cameroon. 4 Consultant Obstetrician and Gynecologist, Gynecology/Obstetrics and Pediatric Hospital Douala, Cameroon. 5 General Practitioner, District Hospital Poli, Cameroon. 6 Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, University of Yaounde, Cameroon.
The Kin Composition of Social Groups: Trading Group Size for Degree of Altruism

Why some social systems form groups composed of kin, while others do not, has gone largely untreated in the literature. Using an individual‐based simulation model, we explore the demographic consequences of making kinship a criterion in group formation. We find that systems where social groups consist of one‐generation breeding associations may face a serious trade‐off between degree of altruism and group size that is largely mediated by their kin composition. On the one hand, restricting groups to close kin allows the evolution of highly altruistic behaviors but may limit group size to suboptimal levels, the more severely so the smaller the intrinsic fecundity of the species and the stricter the kin admission rule. Group size requirements, on the other hand, can be met by admitting nonkin into groups, but not without limiting the degree of altruism that can evolve. As a solution to this conundrum, we show that if helping roles within groups are assigned through a lottery rather than being genetically determined, maximum degrees of altruism can evolve in groups of nonrelatives of any size. Such a “lottery” mechanism may explain reproductive and helping patterns in organisms as varied as the cellular slime molds, pleometrotic ants, and Galapagos hawks.
Improving Information Technology Adoption and Implementation Through the Identification of Appropriate Benefits: Creating IMPROVE-IT

This paper describes the objectives of a collaborative initiative that attempts to provide the evidence that increased information technology (IT) capabilities, availability, and use lead directly to improved clinical quality, safety, and effectiveness within the inpatient hospital setting. This collaborative network has defined specific measurement indicators in an attempt to examine the existence, timing, and level of improvements in health outcomes that can be derived from IT investment. These indicators are in three areas: (1) IT costs (which includes both initial and ongoing investment), (2) IT infusion (ie, system availability, adoption, and deployment), and (3) health performance (eg, clinical efficacy, efficiency, quality, and effectiveness). Herein, we outline the theoretical framework, the methodology employed to create the metrics, and the benefits that can be obtained.