Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Morphological Characterization of the Ovarian Preantral Follicle Population of Collared Peccaries (Tayassu tajacu Linnaeus, 1758)

The aim of this research was to characterize the preantral ovarian follicular population in collared peccaries (Tayassu tajacu) using light and electron microscopy. Ovaries from six mature females were collected and further fixed for histological and ultrastructural analysis. A total of 33273.45 ± 5789.99 preantral follicles (PFs) were estimated for the population in each ovary. Most preantral follicles were primordial (91.56%), followed by primary (6.29%) and secondary (2.15%) ones. Most PFs were morphologically normal (94.4%), and only a few were atretic (5.6%). At histology assessment, amounts of lipid droplets were observed into the oocyte cytoplasm, which was confirmed through ultrastructural analysis. This work characterizes for the first time the ovarian population of preantral follicles, total and per category, in collared peccaries (Tayassu tajacu). The general follicles featured at primordial, primary and secondary categories are very similar to those described for other species.
PARENTAL QUALITY AND SELECTION ON EGG SIZE IN THE MAGELLANIC PENGUIN

We examined the relative contributions of egg size and parental quality to hatching success, fledging success, and chick growth in the Magellanic penguin (Spheniscus magellanicus) be exchanging clutches between nests to reduce the covariation between egg and parental factors. Among control nests, fledging success increased slightly with egg size. However, the effect of egg size independently of parental quality was limited to an influence on chick mass and size for the first 10 days post‐hatching. In contrast, attributes of the parents influenced nesting success and chick size at fledging, independently of the egg size actually raised. We suggest that the common occurrence of a positive phenotypic correlation between egg size and fledging success is due to two factors: (1) adults laying large eggs tend to be of higher quality; and (2) to the extent that egg size does influence early survival independently of parental quality, the effect on survival is due to a maternal effect on egg composition rather than an inherent effect of egg size.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND FIRM PROFITABILITY: A CASE OF OIL AND GAS SECTOR OF PAKISTAN

The purpose of this study was to find the impact of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) practices on the financial performance of the Pakistani firms. The sample data includes 10 companies of Oil & Gas sector, listed on the Karachi stock exchange for the period 2006-13. The data was collected from annual reports of these companies. Variables include, CSR spending of the company, net profits, net profit margin and total assets. The correlation and regression tests were conducted in MS-Excel. The results suggest a positive correlation between CSR and net profit and net profit margin on the other hand negative correlation was found between CSR and total assets, but an insignificant impact of CSR activities on profitability of the firm. CSR is actually responsibility of business to play their part by sharing their profits with society as without them they could not survive.
Japanese nephropid lobster Metanephrops japonicus lacks zoeal stage

Larvae of the Japanese nephropid lobster Metanephrops japonicus hatched in the laboratory were reared at 15°C, and the development and feeding were observed. All larvae hatched at the ‘prezoea stage’ with no natatory setae on the exopodite of the pereiopods. Without feeding, 50% of prezoea molted into the megalopa stage, having small buds as the exopodite, within 1 h and all molted within 22 h. The megalopa fed with Artemia nauplii, shrimp meat and pelleted food molted into the first juvenile stage with no exopodite after approximately 17 days. The average carapace lengths of prezoea, megalopa and the first juvenile stage were 3.2, 3.6 and 4.4 mm, respectively. The survival rate from hatching to the first juvenile stage was high (90–100%). This lobster may be the only known nephropid species with no zoeal stage.
Mercury and selenium concentrations in muscle tissue of different species of predatory freshwater fish and correlation between these elements

Concentrations of total mercury and selenium were determined in 49 and 42 muscle tissue samples, respectively, of six species of predatory freshwater fish, dace (Leuciscus leuciscus), pike perch (Sander lucioperca), pike (Esox lucius), European catfish (Silurus glanis), rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and asp (Aspius aspius). Muscle selenium concentration did not correlate with the corresponding total mercury concentration (R 2 < 0.198) in all examined predatory fish species. There was an inverse correlation between the ratio Se/Hg content and the total mercury content in the muscle tissues of dace, pike perch, pike, European catfish and asp. The muscle tissue of rainbow trout exhibits a linear correlation between the ratio Se/Hg content and the total mercury content. The total mercury concentration of all examined samples did not exceed the hygienic limit for Hg for predatory fish.
Adhesive Penetration in Beech Wood Part I: Experiments

A study with synchrotron radiation X-ray tomographic microscopy (SRXTM) of PUR, PVAC, and UF adhesive bond lines in beech wood, bonded under various growth ring angles is presented. After determining the hardening characteristics of the adhesives, we evaluate the bond line morphologies, and the adhesive penetration into the wood structure. We find distinct bond line imperfections for the different adhesive systems. To describe the adhesive distribution inside the bond line we propose the saturation of the pore space instead of the commonly used maximum penetration depth. The results are the basis for a penetration model of hardening fluids into hardwood (part II).
Examining the incremental validity of psychopathy versus antisocial personality disorder in understanding patterns of criminal behavior

Psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder are two related yet clinically distinct syndromes both coined as important predictors of violence and criminality. Among the mentally ill, there is increasing evidence that only the behavioral aspects of psychopathy are related to criminality. Studies have shown that the personality-oriented facets of psychopathy add little to the prediction of future violence among the mentally ill. However, few studies have sought to examine whether a lifetime of crime shows the same pattern. A total of 96 men who had been declared not criminally responsible on account of mental disorder participated in this study. Trained interviewers assessed antisocial personality and psychopathy among participants. Official RCMP criminal records were consulted in order to ascertain criminal history. Results suggest that neither antisocial personality disorder traits nor psychopathy facets evidenced incremental validity one over the other regarding a lifetime pattern of offending. A higher number of antisocial traits were related to a greater number and higher severity of non-violent offenses. Results are discussed with regards to the usefulness of the antisocial personality disorder classification, and the applicability of conceptual models of psychopathy to individuals with a severe mental illness.
Torque and pitch angle control for variable speed wind turbines in all operating regimes

In this paper, a multivariable control strategy is proposed for variable speed wind turbines operating in the two primary regimes, below-rated and above-rated wind speeds. A torque controller, based on the achievement of zero speed-tracking error, is developed to follow a trajectory that allows the wind turbine to operate with maximum power extraction in below-rated regime. The turbine torque is unknown to the controller, and its effect on it is compensated by estimation. In above-rated wind speed regime, a pitch angle controller is added to maintain a constant rated power, while the torque controller regulates the rotor speed to follow a constant nominal speed. The robustness of the control strategy is guaranteed through the incorporation of the turbine torque estimator. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed control system for wind turbine operating in all wind speed regimes.
Effects of natural products on the function of human organic anion transporting polypeptide 1B1

In this study, the effects of 136 naturally occurring products, which have been reported to play important roles in modification of Cytochrome P450 (CYP450) activities, on the uptake of estrone-3-sulfate (E3S), a typical OATP1B1 substrate, were evaluated using human embryonic kidney 293 cells stably expressing OATP1B1. At a concentration of 100 μM, 42 natural products inhibited OATP1B1-mediated [3H]E3S uptake by more than 50%, and five of them significantly inhibited OATP1B1-mediated [3H]E3S by more than 80% with the following rank order of potency: quercetin > astragaloside IV > icariin > glycyrrhizic acid > ginsenoside Rc. Inhibitory effects of these natural products on OATP1B1 activity were in a concentration-dependent manner. 11 natural compounds were found exhibiting greater than 50% inhibition at 30 μM with IC50 values ranging from 14.6 ± 3.3 to 28.5 ± 3.0 μM. In conclusion, our data suggest that modification of OATP1B1 transport activity by these natural occurring products may be a mechanism for natural product–drug interactions in humans.
Assessment of Turbulence Models for Turbulent Flow over Backward Facing Step

layers in low Reynolds number turbulent flow is a challenging task to evaluate the capabilities of different turbulence models, especially for MEMS applications. Physical significances of backward facing step and its industrial applications were discussed. Flow analysis of backward facing step in 2D as well as in 3D were carried out by using Finite volume method, incompressible segregated scheme with SIMPLE algorithm for pressure velocity coupling. Although the recirculation created by backward facing step (BFS) is predicted by all turbulence models but ε based turbulence models underpredict the reattachment length of flow where as Shear Stress Turbulence model accurately predict the flow reattachment. Comparison of 3D and 2D results revealed that the separation point is fixed where as the reattachment points were different due to 3D nature of turbulence.
Retinal incorporation and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells intravitreally injected in the injured retina of rats.

PURPOSE To evaluate the pattern of retinal integration and differentiation of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) injected into the vitreous cavity of rat eyes with retinal injury. METHODS Adult rat retinas were submitted to laser damage followed by transplantation of DAPI-labeled BM-MSCs grafts. To assess the integration and differentiation of BM-MSCs in laser-injured retina, host retinas were evaluated 2.4 and 8 weeks after injury/transplantation. RESULTS Our results demonstrated that the grafted cells survived in the retina for at least 8 weeks and almost all BM-MSCs migrated and incorporated into the neural retina, specifically in the outer nuclear layer (ONL), inner nuclear layer (INL) and ganglion cell layer (GCL) while a subset of grafted cells were found in the subretinal space posttransplantation. At 8 weeks immunohistochemical analysis with several retinal specific markers revealed that the majority of the grafted cells expressed rhodopsin, a rod photoreceptor marker, followed by parvalbumin, a marker for bipolar and amacrine cells. A few subsets of cells were able to express a glial marker, glial fibrillary acidic protein. However, grafted cells failed to express pan-cytokeratin, a retinal pigment epithelium marker. CONCLUSIONS These results suggest the potential of BM-MSCs to differentiate into retinal neurons. Taken together, these findings might be clinically relevant for future mesenchymal stem cell therapy studies concerning retinal degeneration repair.
Deviation from Snell's law for beams transmitted near the critical angle: application to microcavity lasers.

We show that when a narrow beam is incident upon a dielectric interface near the critical angle for total internal reflection it will be transmitted into the far field with an angular deflection from the direction predicted by Snell's law, because of a phenomenon that we call "Fresnel filtering. " This effect can be quite large for the parameter range that is relevant to dielectric microcavity lasers.
Two new Megalothorax species of the minimus group (Collembola, Neelidae)

Abstract Two new Megalothorax species, Megalothorax potapovi sp. n. from the Russian Far East and Megalothorax sanguineus sp. n. from the French Pyrénées are described. The two new species have a set of morphological characters (including a smooth mucro) that places them among the minimus group sensu Schneider and D’Haese (2013). Megalothorax potapovi characteristics include dorsal protuberance on forehead, peculiar chaetotaxy of antenna III and strong lanceolate chaetae on body. Megalothorax sanguineus characteristics include strong red pigmentation, large network of integumentary channels on head and elongated apex of the two postero-distal spines of dens. The DNA barcodes ( cytochrome oxidase subunit I–COI) of the two species are also provided and analyzed among a broader sampling of the genus in order to support further their specific status. A special focus is given to the labral morphological characteristics. Pseudopores-like elements are reported for the first time in the genus. Positions of the τ-chaetae near the dorsal sensory field of thorax II are compared for several species of the genus.
An empirical study of the effects of personality in pair programming using the five-factor model

Pair Programming (PP) has been long researched in industry and academia. Although research evidence about its usefulness is somewhat inconclusive, previous studies showed that its use in an academic environment can benefit students in programming and design courses. In our study, we investigated the “human” aspect of PP; in particular the effects that personality attributes may have on PP's effectiveness as a pedagogical tool. We conducted a formal experiment at the University of Auckland to investigate the influence of personality differences among paired students using the Five-Factor Model as a personality measurement framework. The aim of our study was to improve the implementation of PP as a pedagogical tool through understanding the impact the variation in the personality profile of paired students has towards their academic performance. Our findings showed that differences in personality traits did not significantly affect the academic performance of students who pair programmed.
Course Engagement as a Mediator between Student-Instructor Personality Fit and Academic Outcomes

While the positive effects of personality similarity on attraction are well established, this research has made a limited transition to the person-environment (P-E) fit research. Following Schneider’s (1987) attraction-selection-attrition model based on similarity-attraction literature, the following study proposes that student-instructor relationships characterized by high levels of perceived personality congruence (i.e., fit) will lead to more motivated and engaged students. The study proposes a model to explain the relationship between student-instructor fit, student course engagement, and student outcomes, whereby engagement should mediate the relationship between perceived student-instructor personality fit and student outcomes of course performance, course satisfaction, and commitment to the academic discipline. A sample of introductory psychology course students completed perceived personality fit and student course engagement questionnaires midway through the semester and final course evaluations at the close of the semester. The proposed theoretical model was not supported; however, findings indicated a significant relationship between personality fit and elements of engagement. Furthermore, some factors of engagement discriminately predicted course outcomes. The proposed role of engagement as a mediating variable was only moderately supported in the fit-satisfaction relationship. Modifications to the proposed model are explored and implications for future research in student-instructor fit and student course engagement are discussed.
Genome-Wide Analysis of Cell Type-Specific Gene Transcription during Spore Formation in Clostridium difficile

Clostridium difficile, a Gram positive, anaerobic, spore-forming bacterium is an emergent pathogen and the most common cause of nosocomial diarrhea. Although transmission of C. difficile is mediated by contamination of the gut by spores, the regulatory cascade controlling spore formation remains poorly characterized. During Bacillus subtilis sporulation, a cascade of four sigma factors, σF and σG in the forespore and σE and σK in the mother cell governs compartment-specific gene expression. In this work, we combined genome wide transcriptional analyses and promoter mapping to define the C. difficile σF, σE, σG and σK regulons. We identified about 225 genes under the control of these sigma factors: 25 in the σF regulon, 97 σE-dependent genes, 50 σG-governed genes and 56 genes under σK control. A significant fraction of genes in each regulon is of unknown function but new candidates for spore coat proteins could be proposed as being synthesized under σE or σK control and detected in a previously published spore proteome. SpoIIID of C. difficile also plays a pivotal role in the mother cell line of expression repressing the transcription of many members of the σE regulon and activating sigK expression. Global analysis of developmental gene expression under the control of these sigma factors revealed deviations from the B. subtilis model regarding the communication between mother cell and forespore in C. difficile. We showed that the expression of the σE regulon in the mother cell was not strictly under the control of σF despite the fact that the forespore product SpoIIR was required for the processing of pro-σE. In addition, the σK regulon was not controlled by σG in C. difficile in agreement with the lack of pro-σK processing. This work is one key step to obtain new insights about the diversity and evolution of the sporulation process among Firmicutes.
The Distribution of the Product Explains Normal Theory Mediation Confidence Interval Estimation

The distribution of the product has several useful applications. One of these applications is its use to form confidence intervals for the indirect effect as the product of 2 regression coefficients. The purpose of this article is to investigate how the moments of the distribution of the product explain normal theory mediation confidence interval coverage and imbalance. Values of the critical ratio for each random variable are used to demonstrate how the moments of the distribution of the product change across values of the critical ratio observed in research studies. Results of the simulation study showed that as skewness in absolute value increases, coverage decreases. And as skewness in absolute value and kurtosis increases, imbalance increases. The difference between testing the significance of the indirect effect using the normal theory versus the asymmetric distribution of the product is further illustrated with a real data example. This article is the first study to show the direct link between the distribution of the product and indirect effect confidence intervals and clarifies the results of previous simulation studies by showing why normal theory confidence intervals for indirect effects are often less accurate than those obtained from the asymmetric distribution of the product or from resampling methods.
The Impact of the SIMD Width on Control-Flow and Memory Divergence

Power consumption is a prevalent issue in current and future computing systems. SIMD processors amortize the power consumption of managing the instruction stream by executing the same instruction in parallel on multiple data. Therefore, in the past years, the SIMD width has steadily increased, and it is not unlikely that it will continue to do so. In this article, we experimentally study the influence of the SIMD width to the execution of data-parallel programs. We investigate how an increasing SIMD width (up to 1024) influences control-flow divergence and memory-access divergence, and how well techniques to mitigate them will work on larger SIMD widths. We perform our study on 76 OpenCL applications and show that a group of programs scales well up to SIMD width 1024, whereas another group of programs increasingly suffers from control-flow divergence. For those programs, thread regrouping techniques may become increasingly important for larger SIMD widths. We show what average speedups can be expected when increasing the SIMD width. For example, when switching from scalar execution to SIMD width 64, one can expect a speedup of 60.11, which increases to 62.46 when using thread regrouping. We also analyze the frequency of regular (uniform, consecutive) memory access patterns and observe a monotonic decrease of regular memory accesses from 82.6 at SIMD width 4 to 43.1% at SIMD width 1024.
Effects of Habitat Loss and Fragmentation on the Behavior and Demography of Gray‐Tailed Voles

We monitored the short term behavioral and demographic responses of gray‐tailed voles (Microtus canicaudus) to the reduction and fragmentation of their habitat. Our objectives were (1) to test whether animals perished or moved into remaining fragments after 70% of their habitat was removed; and (2) to test the null hypothesis that the social structure and demography of animals would not differ between habitats consisting of one large continuous fragment (625 m2), a mosaic of 25 small fragments (each 25 m2) separated by 4 m of bare ground, and control, unmanipulated habitats (1850 m2). We conducted the experiment in 12, 0.2‐ha enclosures planted with alfalfa with four replicates for each of two manipulated treatments and a control. A 70% reduction in habitat did not adversely affect adult survival, reproductive rate, juvenile recruitment, or population size. However, an influx of unrelated females into habitat fragments resulted in decreased juvenile recruitment in those fragments. Voles from cleared habitat moved into the remaining habitat and did not measurably affect the resident population. Similarly, the demography of voles did not differ significantly among the large‐fragment, small‐fragment, and control enclosures. Peak density estimates based on the amount of habitat in each enclosure were 545 animals per hectare in control, 1056 in large‐fragment, and 2880 in small‐fragment enclosures. Reduced movement of animals among the small fragments was the most obvious effect of habitat fragmentation. Six percent of females and 15% of males moved among small fragments within a week compared to approximately 60% moving comparable distances in large‐fragment and control enclosures. Rates of juvenile dispersal and sexual maturation declined throughout the summer on all treatments, were associated with season and density, and were only marginally associated with habitat loss and fragmentation. We conclude that at the time of habitat removal and fragmentation, populations were small enough to accommodate a 70% reduction in habitat and still continue to increase in numbers. The social system of gray‐tailed voles was sufficiently flexible to accommodate an influx of animals to withstand densities> 1000 voles per ha. The behavioral and demographic features of gray‐tailed voles are similar to those reported for other small mammals, thus confirming the use of voles for ecological model systems in habitat fragmentation studies.