Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Across species‐pool aggregation alters grassland productivity and diversity

Abstract Plant performance is determined by the balance of intra‐ and interspecific neighbors within an individual's zone of influence. If individuals interact over smaller scales than the scales at which communities are measured, then altering neighborhood interactions may fundamentally affect community responses. These interactions can be altered by changing the number (species richness), abundances (species evenness), and positions (species pattern) of the resident plant species, and we aimed to test whether aggregating species at planting would alter effects of species richness and evenness on biomass production at a common scale of observation in grasslands. We varied plant species richness (2, 4, or 8 species and monocultures), evenness (0.64, 0.8, or 1.0), and pattern (planted randomly or aggregated in groups of four individuals) within 1 × 1 m plots established with transplants from a pool of 16 tallgrass prairie species and assessed plot‐scale biomass production and diversity over the first three growing seasons. As expected, more species‐rich plots produced more biomass by the end of the third growing season, an effect associated with a shift from selection to complementarity effects over time. Aggregating conspecifics at a 0.25‐m scale marginally reduced biomass production across all treatments and increased diversity in the most even plots, but did not alter biodiversity effects or richness–productivity relationships. Results support the hypothesis that fine‐scale species aggregation affects diversity by promoting species coexistence in this system. However, results indicate that inherent changes in species neighborhood relationships along grassland diversity gradients may only minimally affect community (meter) – scale responses among similarly designed biodiversity–ecosystem function studies. Given that species varied in their responses to local aggregation, it may be possible to use such species‐specific results to spatially design larger‐scale grassland communities to achieve desired diversity and productivity responses.
Energy barriers associated with slip–twin interactions

The energetics of slip–coherent twin boundary (CTB) interactions are established under tensile deformation in face centered cubic (fcc) copper with molecular dynamics simulations, exploring the entire stereographic triangle. The CTBs serve as effective barriers in some crystal orientations more than others, consistent with experimental observations. The resulting dislocation structures upon slip–twin reactions are identified in terms of Burgers vector analysis. Visualization of the dislocation transmission, lock formation, dislocation incorporation to twin boundaries, dislocation multiplication at the matrix–twin interface and twin translation, growth, and contraction behaviors cover the most significant reactions that can physically occur providing a deeper understanding of the mechanical behavior of fcc alloys in the presence of twin boundaries. The results make a distinction between deformation and annealing twins interacting with incident dislocations and point to the considerable role both types of twins can play in strengthening of fcc metals.
Polymorphisms in the Taste Receptor Gene (Tas1r3) Region Are Associated with Saccharin Preference in 30 Mouse Strains

The results of recent studies suggest that the mouse Sac (saccharin preference) locus is identical to the Tas1r3 (taste receptor) gene. The goal of this study was to identify Tas1r3 sequence variants associated with saccharin preference in a large number of inbred mouse strains. Initially, we sequenced ∼6.7 kb of the Tas1r3 gene and its flanking regions from six inbred mouse strains with high and low saccharin preference, including the strains in which the Sac alleles were described originally (C57BL/6J, Sacb; DBA/2J, Sacd). Of the 89 sequence variants detected among these six strains, eight polymorphic sites were significantly associated with preferences for 1.6 mm saccharin. Next, each of these eight variant sites were genotyped in 24 additional mouse strains. Analysis of the genotype–phenotype associations in all 30 strains showed the strongest association with saccharin preference at three sites: nucleotide (nt) –791 (3 bp insertion/deletion), nt +135 (Ser45Ser), and nt +179 (Ile60Thr). We measured Tas1r3 gene expression, transcript size, and T1R3 immunoreactivity in the taste tissue of two inbred mouse strains with different Tas1r3 haplotypes and saccharin preferences. The results of these experiments suggest that the polymorphisms associated with saccharin preference do not act by blocking gene expression, changing alternative splicing, or interfering with protein translation in taste tissue. The amino acid substitution (Ile60Thr) may influence the ability of the protein to form dimers or bind sweeteners. Here, we present data for future studies directed to experimentally confirm the function of these polymorphisms and highlight some of the difficulties of identifying specific DNA sequence variants that underlie quantitative trait loci.
The Geography of Empire in English Literature, 1580-1745

1. Introduction: productions of Empire 2. Thinking territorially: Spenser, Ireland, and the English nation-state 3. Contracting geography from the country house to the Colony 4. Overseeing paradise: Milton, Behn, and Rowlandson 5. The import and export of Colonial Space: the islands of Defoe and Swift 6. 1745 and the systematising of the Yahoo 7. Conclusion: the politics of space.
Detection of X-Ray-emitting Hypernova Remnants in M101

Based on an ultradeep (230 ks) ROSAT HRI imaging of M101, we have detected five X-ray sources that coincide spatially with optical emission line features previously classified as supernova remnants (SNRs) in this nearby galaxy. Two of these coincidences (SNR MF 83 and NGC 5471B) most likely represent the true physical association of X-ray emission with shock-heated interstellar gas. MF 83, with a radius of ~134 pc, is one of the largest remnants known. NGC 5471B, with a radius of 30 pc and a velocity of at least 350 km s-1 (FWZI), is extremely bright in both radio and optical. The X-ray luminosities of these two shell-like remnants are ~1 and 3×1038 ergs s-1 (0.5-2 keV), about an order of magnitude brighter than the brightest supernova remnants known in our Galaxy and in the Magellanic Clouds. The inferred blast-wave energy is ~3×1052 ergs for NGC 5471B and ~3×1053 ergs for MF 83. Therefore, the remnants likely originate in hypernovae, which are a factor of ≳10 more energetic than canonical supernovae and are postulated as being responsible for gamma-ray bursts observed at cosmological distances. The study of such hypernova remnants in nearby galaxies has the potential to provide important constraints on the progenitor type, rate, energetics, and beaming effect of gamma-ray bursts.
Microbial diversity and methanogenic activity of Antrim Shale formation waters from recently fractured wells

The Antrim Shale in the Michigan Basin is one of the most productive shale gas formations in the U.S., but optimal resource recovery strategies must rely on a thorough understanding of the complex biogeochemical, microbial, and physical interdependencies in this and similar systems. We used Illumina MiSeq 16S rDNA sequencing to analyze the diversity and relative abundance of prokaryotic communities present in Antrim shale formation water of three closely spaced recently fractured gas-producing wells. In addition, the well waters were incubated with a suite of fermentative and methanogenic substrates in an effort to stimulate microbial methane generation. The three wells exhibited substantial differences in their community structure that may arise from their different drilling and fracturing histories. Bacterial sequences greatly outnumbered those of archaea and shared highest similarity to previously described cultures of mesophiles and moderate halophiles within the Firmicutes, Bacteroidetes, and δ- and ε-Proteobacteria. The majority of archaeal sequences shared highest sequence similarity to uncultured euryarchaeotal environmental clones. Some sequences closely related to cultured methylotrophic and hydrogenotrophic methanogens were also present in the initial well water. Incubation with methanol and trimethylamine stimulated methylotrophic methanogens and resulted in the largest increase in methane production in the formation waters, while fermentation triggered by the addition of yeast extract and formate indirectly stimulated hydrogenotrophic methanogens. The addition of sterile powdered shale as a complex natural substrate stimulated the rate of methane production without affecting total methane yields. Depletion of methane indicative of anaerobic methane oxidation (AMO) was observed over the course of incubation with some substrates. This process could constitute a substantial loss of methane in the shale formation.
Motivations and Performance Conditions for Ethnic Entrepreneurship

Ethnic entrepreneurship has become a popular concept in a modern multi–cultural society. This paper seeks to offer an overview of the potential of ethnic entrepreneurship for solving inter alia the structural unemployment problems of ethnic groups in cities. There is a general lack of empirical evidence on this issue in the current literature. The present paper aims to fill this gap by addressing in particular the critical success conditions for ethnic entrepreneurs. The focus of the research is on variations in success across three ethnic groups in the Amsterdam area. By means of structured personal interviews with many ethnic entrepreneurs, a systematic qualitative data base was created. The paper sets out to identify empirically the driving forces for business success, such as education or the role of informal networks. The explanatory framework deployed for the identification of these qualitative success factors for distinct ethnic groups is based on a particular, recently developed artificial intelligence method, viz. rough set analysis. This multidimensional classification approach appears to be able to identify various important factors for the motivation and performance of ethnic enterprises. Two major findings emerge from this investigation: (i) performance conditions vary across ethnic groups, and (ii) informal networks are crucial for business success.
Teacher adaptation to open learning spaces

The “open classroom” emerged as a reaction against the industrial-era enclosed and authoritarian classroom. Although contemporary school architecture continues to incorporate and express ideas of openness, more research is needed about how teachers adapt to new and different built contexts. Our purpose is to identify teacher reaction to the affordances of open space learning environments. We outline a case study of teacher perceptions of working in new open plan school buildings. The case study demonstrates that affordances of open space classrooms include flexibility, visibility and scrutiny, and a de-emphasis of authority; teacher reactions included collective practice, team orientation, and increased interactions and a democratisation of authority. We argue that teacher reaction to the new open classroom features adaptability, intensification of day-to-day practice, and intra- and inter-personal knowledge and skills.
A prospective, open-label, multicenter, observational, postmarket study of the use of a 15 mg/mL hyaluronic acid dermal filler in the lips

Hyaluronic acid (HA)‐based injectable fillers three‐dimensionally restore the natural contours of the lips and perioral area, thereby reducing some signs of aging lips. To evaluate the short‐term aesthetic impact of treatment with the HA dermal filler Juvéderm® VOLBELLA® with Lidocaine, formulated utilizing VYCROSS™ technology, for enhancement or correction of asymmetry of the lips, evaluated using a patient‐centric approach. Sixty‐two subjects were enrolled in this study, conducted at two sites in Germany. Primary endpoints were satisfaction with improvement, look and feel of the lips, assessed by subject and physician at first visit and 4 weeks post‐treatment. Immediately after injection at first visit, 83.6% of subjects were Extremely Satisfied, Very Satisfied or Satisfied with improvement in the lips, which increased to 94.1% and 93.0% of subjects with/without top‐up treatment at follow‐up, respectively. After injection at first visit, 61.7% of subjects rated the look and feel of their lips as Extremely Natural or Very Natural, which increased to 75.0% and 93.0% of subjects with/without top‐up treatment, respectively. The HA dermal filler was associated with minimal discomfort, bruising or swelling of the lips; almost two‐thirds of subjects (62%) returned to social engagements on the same day. The high degree of subject satisfaction with aesthetic improvement in the lips, as well as the natural look and feel, indicates that this HA dermal filler represents an effective treatment option for patients requiring lip enhancement.
Synthesis of planar microwave circuits through aggressive space mapping using commercially available software packages

This article is focused on the practical implementation of a software tool for the synthesis of planar microwave circuits based on aggressive space mapping (ASM), which makes use of commercially available software packages as the core program (MATLAB®) and as the electromagnetic (EM) fine model simulation space (Agilent Momentum®). All technical details related to the control of the cited EM commercial software tool, by means of a general purpose and user‐friendly environment (MATLAB in our case), are discussed in detail. The new synthesis tool has been designed to cope with the automatic layout generation of planar metamaterial structures, which is a novel practical application of the ASM algorithm. More specifically, the automated synthesis of microstrip lines loaded with complementary split ring resonators has been considered in this work. However, this synthesis tool can be easily customized to deal with the design of many other planar structures. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Int J RF and Microwave CAE, 2010.
Autocrine VEGF – VEGFR 2 – Neuropilin-1 signaling promotes glioma stem-like cell viability and tumor growth

The Rockefeller University Press $30.00 J. Exp. Med. Vol. 209 No. 3 507-520 www.jem. org/cgi/doi/10.1084/jem.20111424 507 GBM, the most prevalent primary malignant brain tumor in adults, is essentially universally fatal, despite maximal therapy. Robust neoangiogenesis and intratumoral heterogeneity are hallmark features of these brain malignancies, which contribute to their phenotypic plasticity and therapeutic resistance (Shen et al., 2008; Li et al., 2009a; Ricci-Vitiani et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2010; Soda et al., 2011). The latter includes drugs that target the angiogenic interplay between vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and its receptors, VEGFRs. Recent observations suggest that anti-VEGF compounds (blocking antibodies and tyrosine kinase inhibitors), administered in combination with or before radiation, improve the responsiveness of solid tumors through radiosensitizing effects (Winkler et al., 2004; Citrin et al., 2006; Folkins et al., 2007; Vredenburgh et al., 2007; Desjardins et al., 2008; Ellis and Hicklin, 2008; Friedman et al., 2009; Gururangan et al., 2010; Lai et al., 2011). The concept of cancer stem-like cells (CSCs) in general, and their presence in glioblastoma CORRESPONDENCE J. Bartek: jb@cancer.dk OR J.N. Rich: richj@ccf.org
Who Calls for a Common EU Foreign Policy?

What drove the preferences over institutional choices of EU Constitutional Convention delegates in the area of foreign policy? We examine delegate preferences and find strong evidence that partisan identity rather than government positions drove delegates' preferences for both the role of the Commission and the voting rule in the Council. We also find evidence that delegates' party positions on an EU foreign policy are better predictors than delegates' personal preferences of their preferred role for the Commission and the voting rule in the Council. If government and national interests would dominate any policy area, it would be foreign policy. We contend that our finding in this critical case underscores the importance of partisan effects in European integration.
Adaptive Sliding-Window Strategy for Vehicle Detection in Highway Environments

In highway traffic monitoring systems, vehicle detection is one of the most important tasks. To automatically detect vehicles in general CCTV environments, we should effectively handle the problems caused by the following three issues: severe variation in appearance, ambiguities in location, and ambiguities in size. Over the last decade, these issues have been mainly addressed by employing a sliding-window-based image search. Although it is quite effective in many applications, the manual procedure of initializing necessary size models and high computational costs impede the automation of monitoring systems. To remedy these drawbacks, we propose an adaptive sliding-window strategy, where useful size templates are continuously modeled for a given scene, and the detection is performed by adaptively deforming a sliding window based on the obtained templates. This strategy allows us not only to avoid complex user interferences but also to reduce computational costs for vehicle detection. Experiments on real-world highway environments show that the proposed strategy achieved about 23% improved detection accuracy with 43% reduced processing time over the state-of-the-art sliding-window approach without any user assistance.
Capital Adequacy Requirements and the Financial Accelerator Caused by Bank Capital

This paper develops a computable dynamic general equilibrium model with heterogeneous banks, a portion of which may be constrained by capital adequacy requirements and the remainder of which may not, in order to examine what effects the capital requirements and bank capital induce in the macroeconomy. Applying the parameterized expectations algorithm, the model economy shows that binding bank capital constraints induce the financial accelerator, the hump-shaped dynamic behaviour of output, and ineffectuality of monetary policy, and that all the results are derived from the individual banks’ cross-sectional asymmetric responses that are consistent with the empirical evidence.
On the age of stars harboring transiting planets

Results of photometric surveys have brought to light the existence of a population of giant planets orbiting their host stars even closer than the hot Jupiters (HJ), with orbital periods below 3 days. The reason why radial velocity surveys were not able to detect these very-hot Jupiters (VHJ) is under discussion. A possible explanation is that these close-in planets are short-lived, being evaporated on short time-scales due to UV flux of their host stars. In this case, stars hosting transiting VHJ planets would be systematically younger than those in the radial velocity sample. We have used the UVES spectrograph (VLT-UT2 telescope) to obtain high resolution spectra of 5 faint stars hosting transiting planets, namely, OGLE-TR-10, 56, 111, 113 and TrES-1. Previously obtained CORALIE spectra of HD189733, and published data on the other transiting planet-hosts were also used. The immediate objective is to estimate ages via Li abundances, using the Ca II activity-age relation, and from the analysis of the stellar rotational velocity. For the stars for which we have spectra, Li abundances were computed as in Israelian et al. (2004, A&A, 414, 601) using the stellar parameters derived in Santos et al. (2006, A&A, 450, 825). The chromospheric activity index S US was built as the ratio of the flux within the core of the Ca II H & K lines and the flux in two nearby continuum regions. The index S US was calibrated to Mount Wilson index S MW allowing the computation of the Ca II H & K corrected for the photospheric contribution. These values were then used to derive the ages by means of the Henry et al. (1996) activity-age relation. Bearing in mind the limitations of the ages derived by Li abundances, chromospheric activity, and stellar rotational velocities, none of the stars studied in this paper seem to be younger than 0.5 Gyr.
Global citizen action

Campaigns * Information, Location, and Legitimacy: The Changing Bases of Civil Society Involvement in International Economic Policy * Constructing a Southern Constituency for Global Advocacy: the Experience of Latin American NGOs and the World Bank * The IMF and Civil Society: An Interim Progress Report * Opportunities and Constraints for Civil Society Participation in Multilateral Lending Operations: Lessons from Latin America * Part 3: Global Campaigns * Danger Landmines! NGO-Government Collaboration in the Ottawa Process * Jubilee 2000: Citizen Action Across the North-South Divide * Cross Border Organizing Around Alternatives to Free Trade: Lessons from the NAFTA/FTAA Experience * National Coalitions and Global Campaigns: The International Children's Rights Movement * Handing Over the Stick: the Global Spread of Participatory Approaches to Development * Campaigning for Corporate Change: Global Citizen Action on the Environment * From the Corridors of Power to the Global Negotiating Table: The NGO Steering Committee of the Commission on Sustainable Development * Part 4: Lessons Learned International Networking for Women's Human Rights * Squatting on the Global Highway: Community Exchanges for Urban Transformation * Do the Facts Matter? NGOs, Research, and International Advocacy * What Makes International Campaigns Effective? Lessons from India and Ghana * Global Citizen Action: Lessons and Challenges * List of Acronyms * References *The Contributors Index * About the Book
Orexin Neurons Function in an Efferent Pathway of a Food-Entrainable Circadian Oscillator in Eliciting Food-Anticipatory Activity and Wakefulness

Temporal restriction of feeding can entrain circadian behavioral and physiological rhythms in mammals. Considering the critical functions of the hypothalamic orexin (hypocretin) neuropeptides in promoting wakefulness and locomotor activity, we examined the role of orexin neurons in the adaptation to restricted feeding. In orexin neuron-ablated transgenic mice, the food-entrained rhythmicity of mPer2 expression in the brain and liver, the reversal of the sleep-wake cycle, and the recovery of daily food intake were unaltered compared with wild-type littermates. In contrast, orexin neuron-ablated mice had a severe deficit in displaying the normal food-anticipatory increases in wakefulness and locomotor activity under restricted feeding. Moreover, activity of orexin neurons markedly increased during the food-anticipatory period under restricted feeding in wild-type mice. Orexin neurons thus convey an efferent signal from putative food-entrainable oscillator or oscillators to increase wakefulness and locomotor activity.