Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetic Basis of Cry1F-Resistance in a Laboratory Selected Asian Corn Borer Strain and Its Cross-Resistance to Other Bacillus thuringiensis Toxins

The Asian corn borer (ACB), Ostrinia furnacalis (Guenée) (Lepidoptera: Crambidae), is the most destructive insect pest of corn in China. Susceptibility to the Cry1F toxin derived from Bacillus thuringiensis has been demonstrated for ACB, suggesting the potential for Cry1F inclusion as part of an insect pest management program. Insects can develop resistance to Cry toxins, which threatens the development and use of Bt formulations and Bt crops in the field. To determine possible resistance mechanisms to Cry1F, a Cry1F-resistant colony of ACB (ACB-FR) that exhibited more than 1700-fold resistance was established through selection experiments after 49 generations of selection under laboratory conditions. The ACB-FR strain showed moderate cross-resistance to Cry1Ab and Cry1Ac of 22.8- and 26.9-fold, respectively, marginally cross-resistance to Cry1Ah (3.7-fold), and no cross-resistance to Cry1Ie (0.6-fold). The bioassay responses of progeny from reciprocal F1 crosses to different Cry1 toxin concentrations indicated that the resistance trait to Cry1Ab, Cry1Ac and Cry1F has autosomal inheritance with no maternal effect or sex linked. The effective dominance (h) of F1 offspring was calculated at different concentrations of Cry1F, showing that h decreased as concentration of Cry1F increased. Finally, the analysis of actual and expected mortality of the progeny from a backcross (F1 × resistant strain) indicated that the inheritance of the resistance to Cry1F in ACB-FR was due to more than one locus. The present study provides an understanding of the genetic basis of Cry1F resistance in ACB-FR and also shows that pyramiding Cry1F with Cry1Ah or Cry1Ie could be used as a strategy to delay the development of ACB resistance to Bt proteins.
Choosing the Rules: Distinct and Overlapping Frontoparietal Representations of Task Rules for Perceptual Decisions

Behavior is governed by rules that associate stimuli with responses and outcomes. Human and monkey studies have shown that rule-specific information is widely represented in the frontoparietal cortex. However, it is not known how establishing a rule under different contexts affects its neural representation. Here, we use event-related functional MRI (fMRI) and multivoxel pattern classification methods to investigate the human brain's mechanisms of establishing and maintaining rules for multiple perceptual decision tasks. Rules were either chosen by participants or specifically instructed to them, and the fMRI activation patterns representing rule-specific information were compared between these contexts. We show that frontoparietal regions differ in the properties of their rule representations during active maintenance before execution. First, rule-specific information maintained in the dorsolateral and medial frontal cortex depends on the context in which it was established (chosen vs specified). Second, rule representations maintained in the ventrolateral frontal and parietal cortex are independent of the context in which they were established. Furthermore, we found that the rule-specific coding maintained in anticipation of stimuli may change with execution of the rule: representations in context-independent regions remain invariant from maintenance to execution stages, whereas rule representations in context-dependent regions do not generalize to execution stage. The identification of distinct frontoparietal systems with context-independent and context-dependent task rule representations, and the distinction between anticipatory and executive rule representations, provide new insights into the functional architecture of goal-directed behavior.
Supersonic bullet trajectory estimation using ballistic shock wave arrivals at an acoustic sensor array

One approach to locate the point of fire of a supersonic bullet is to first estimate the trajectory of the bullet and then trace the trajectory back to topographic or man-made obstructions on a digital map. The supersonic flight of a bullet generates a ballistic shock wave, and the trajectory of the bullet can be estimated by measuring the time delay between the shock wave arrivals at each sensor pair of an acoustic array and using an exterior ballistics model for the bullet to account for its decreasing speed with the distance travelled. In this paper, the bullet trajectory estimation problem is formulated, followed by a Cramer-Rao lower bound error analysis. A nonlinear least-squares (NLS) solution to the bullet trajectory estimation problem is then described, which assumes the ballistic constant of the bullet is known a priori. Any uncertainty in the ballistic constant will degrade the accuracy of the bullet trajectory estimation and subsequently the localization accuracy for the point of fire. The performance of the NLS method when the ballistic constant is exactly known and the degrading effect of an erroneous ballistic constant are evaluated using both simulated data and real data.
Effect of Vitamin Supplementation on Serum Oxidized Low-Density Lipoprotein Levels in Male Subjects with Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors

Objective(s):Oxidized low-density lipoproteins (ox-LDLs) appear to play a significant role in atherogenesis. In fact, circulating ox-LDL concentrations have been recognized as a risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD). The main objectives of this study were to assess the effects of antioxidant vitamins on ox-LDL as a biomarker of CVD in male subjects with CVD risk factors. Materials and Methods:The effect of antioxidant vitamins on ox-LDL as a biomarker of CVD in male subjects with CVD in male subjects with CVD risk factors at baseline and after 12 weeks of supplementation with vitamin E (400 IU), C (500 mg), ß-carotene (15 mg), and the combined supplements (E, C, and ß-carotene) respectively defined as group E, C, B and control group was considered as group P. Results:The mean values for ox-LDL at the baseline were 86.93 ± 26.30 U/l in group C, 94.52 ± 38.40 U/l in group E, 79.73±2.07 U/l in group B, 85.97±23.07 U/l in combined group, and 84.90± 14.66 U/l in group P. After 12 weeks of intervention the percentage of changes for group C, group E, group B, COM group, and group P were (-18.32), (-2286), (-17.31), (-19.01) and (-2.0), respectively. Using Wilcoxon method, significant differences were detected in the mean ox-LDL concentrations of baseline and after intervention, values in the C, E, B and combined groups (P< 005). Conclusion:This study illustrated that diet supplemented with vitamin C (500 mg), vitamin E (400 IU), ß-carotene (15 mg), and the combination of these vitamins was associated with lower serum ox-LDL levels.
Quiver varieties and Hilbert schemes

In this note we give an explicit geometric description of some of the Nakajima's quiver varieties. More precisely, we show that the $\Gamma$-equivariant Hilbert scheme $X^{\Gamma[n]}$ and the Hilbert scheme $X_\Gamma^{[n]}$ (where $X=\C^2$, $\Gamma\subset SL(\C^2)$ is a finite subgroup, and $X_\Gamma$ is a minimal resolution of $X/\Gamma$) are quiver varieties for the affine Dynkin graph, corresponding to $\Gamma$ via the McKay correspondence, the same dimension vectors, but different parameters $\zeta$ (for earlier results in this direction see [4, 12, 13]). In particular, it follows that the varieties $X^{\Gamma[n]}$ and $X_\Gamma^{[n]}$ are diffeomorphic. Computing their cohomology (in the case $\Gamma=\Z/d\Z$) via the fixed points of $(\C^*\times\C^*)$-action we deduce the following combinatorial identity: the number $UCY(n,d)$ of uniformly coloured in d colours Young diagrams consisting of nd boxes coincides with the number $CY(n,d)$ of collections of d Young diagrams with the total number of boxes equal to n.
Modelling Well-Structured Argumentation Lines

Abstract argumentation systems are formalisms for defeasible reasoning where some components remain unspecified, the structure of arguments being the main abstraction. In the dialectical process carried out to identify accepted arguments in the system some controversial situations may appear. These relate to the reintroduction of arguments into the process which cause the onset of circularity. This must be avoided in order to prevent an infinite analysis. Some systems apply the sole restriction of not allowing the introduction of previously considered arguments in an argumentation line. However, repeating an argument is not the only possible cause for the risk mentioned, as subarguments must be taken into account. In this work, we introduce an extended argumentation framework and a definition for progressive defeat path. A credulous extension is also presented.
Methionine, folic acid and vitamin B12 in growing-finishing pigs: Impact on growth performance and meat quality

Growth performance, metabolic variables, and meat quality were measured in 78 growing-finishing pigs using supplements of 0 (C), or 0.2% of DL-methionine (M), and three combinations of folic acid [mg/kg] and cyanocobalamin [μg/kg], respectively 0 and 0 (V0), 10 and 25 (V1), and 10 and 150 (V2) in a 2 × 3 factorial arrangement. Feed conversion was lower (p = 0.05) in M than in C pigs during the growing period (0–4 weeks). Both V1 and V2 treatments increased plasma vitamin B12 (p < 0.01) and decreased plasma homocysteine (p < 0.01). Plasma 5-methyl-tetrahydrofolates were the lowest, highest and intermediate in V0, V1 and V2 pigs (p < 0.04), respectively. In V2 meat, folates were 32% higher, vitamin B12, 55% higher and homocysteine, 28% lower than in V0 (p < 0.01). Oxidative stability of the fresh meat was similar among treatments during a storage period of 42 days. Therefore, methionine supplements improved growth performance during the growing period. Vitamin supplements interacted with the methionine cycle pathway, increased vitamin content of pork meat but did not improve oxidative stability of the fresh meat during storage.
Intestinal colonization with phylogenetic group B2 Escherichia coli related to inflammatory bowel disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Background and objectives. Increased numbers of Escherichia coli and, furthermore, specific subtypes of E. coli, such as E. coli of the phylogenetic groups B2 and D have been found in the intestine of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). In this review, we wanted to evaluate the relationship between B2 and D E. coli intestinal colonization and IBD. Methods. A systematic review with meta-analyses. We included studies comparing colonization with B2 and D E. coli in IBD patients and in controls. Random-effects and fixed-effect meta-analyses were performed. Results. We included 7 studies on 163 patients with IBD and 89 controls. Among IBD patients, 57 patients had ulcerative colitis (UC) and 95 Crohn’s disease (CD). Random-effects meta-analysis showed that IBD patients were more likely to have B2 E. coli intestinal colonization compared with controls (odds ratio [OR]: 2.28; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.25–4.16). There was little between-study heterogeneity (I2 = 0). The result was confirmed in subgroup analyses of patients with UC (OR: 3.58; 95% CI: 1.62–7.90), but not CD (OR: 1.94; 95% CI: 0.98–3.82). Intestinal colonization with phylogenetic group D E. coli was not found to be related to IBD, UC or CD. Conclusions. Our study reveals that intestinal colonization with phylogenetic group B2 E. coli is associated with UC. Due to the design, we are unable to determine if the colonization with B2 E. coli leads to the development of the disease or the disease increases the risk of colonization with B2 E. coli.
Inhibin B Levels in Adolescents and Young Adults with Type 1 Diabetes

Objective/Methods: To assess exocrine and endocrine testicular function in subjects with diabetes, we evaluated serum inhibin B, gonadotrophins and testosterone levels in 33 male adolescent and young adult patients affected by type-1 diabetes (age 21.0 ± 5 years; range 14.2–33.3), with a mean disease duration of 12.7 ± 5.8 years (range 1.5–25.3) and various metabolic control (HbA1c 7.8 ± 1.5%; range 5.5–13.2) and compared them with those of an age-matched group of 36 healthy control subjects (age 19.5 ± 4.1 years; range 13.6–28.1). Both patients and controls had a testicular volume ≧15 ml. Inhibin B was measured by ELISA method. Results/Conclusion: Diabetics and controls had comparable inhibin B (203 ± 74 vs. 221 ± 69 pg/ml, respectively) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels, while luteinizing hormone (LH) and testosterone levels were significantly higher in the diabetic group. Inhibin B was negatively correlated both in patients and controls with FSH, while a negative correlation with LH was found only in the diabetic group. We conclude that our young diabetic males, after a mean disease duration of 12 years and various metabolic control, had inhibin B and FSH levels comparable to those of normal subjects. Therefore, they seem to have a regular testicular function and in particular a normal seminiferous tubule/Sertoli cell activity despite sustained hyperglycemia.
Community-based interventions to reduce overweight and obesity in China: a systematic review of the Chinese and English literature.

BACKGROUND Overweight and obesity pose a challenge to public health in China. According to Chinese definition, 303 million Chinese are overweight (body mass index, BMI >or= 24 kg m(-2)). Among them, 73 million are clinically obese (BMI >or= 28 kg m(-2)). In line with the global trend, the rate of obesity in China continues to increase, with associated morbidity and mortality. This study was to identify interventions, which are effective in Mainland Chinese society. METHODS All non-drug-controlled interventions (>or=3 months) in Mainland China, which used anthropometric outcome measures, were selected from three Chinese and nine international electronic databases (before May 2006) and included in this systematic review. RESULTS A total of 20 studies met the selection criteria and were included in the review. Among them only one was published in an international journal. Most studies combined at least physical activity, dietary intervention and health education. Seventeen studies (85%) reported significant effects in anthropometric measurement outcomes. CONCLUSIONS Comprehensive interventions with at least physical activity, dietary intervention and health education may be effective in reducing obesity in Chinese children. The role of grandparents as carers in the one-child society is worth considering further. Current evidence of effective interventions for adults is limited. Publication bias in Chinese databases should be taken into account.
Continua of Underemployment Equilibria

In this paper the existence of unemployment is partly explained as being the result of coordination failures. This is achieved by considering a standard general equilibriummodel and splitting the set of commodities in two groups. The first group contains commodities like gold. The prices of these commodities are fully flexible, even in the short run, and their markets always clear. The prices of the commodities in the second group are rigid in the short run (for instance labour services or some consumer goods) and households and firms may expect restricted supply possibilities. We show that such expectations are self-enforcing, even if all prices of commodities in the second group are competitive. In that case it is shown that as a result of coordination failures a continuum of equilibria results, among which an equilibrium with approximately no trade in the commodities of the second group, and a Walrasian equilibrium. In fact, these coordination failures also arise at other price systems, but then unemployment is the result of both a wrong price system and coordination failures. Moreover, some properties of the set of equilibria are analysed. Generically, there exists a continuum of non-indifferent equilibrium allocations. Under a condition implied by gross substitutability, there exists a continuum of equilibrium allocations in the neighbourhood of a competitive allocation. Examples show that the latter property may not hold in general.
Coordination Without Prior Agreement

Assuming that there is an a priori agreement between processes on the names of shared memory locations, as done in almost all the publications on shared memory algorithms, is tantamount to assuming that agreement has already been solved at the lower-level. From a theoretical point of view, it is intriguing to figure out how coordination can be achieved without relying on such lower-level agreement. In order to better understand the new model, we have designed new algorithms without relying on such a priori lower-level agreement, and proved space lower bounds and impossibility results for several important problems, such as mutual exclusion, consensus, election and renaming. Using these results, we identify fundamental differences between the standard model where there is a lower-level agreement about the shared register's names and the strictly weaker model where there is no such agreement.
IS6110 Restriction Fragment Length Polymorphism Typing of Drug-resistant Mycobacterium tuberculosis Strains from Northeast South Africa

Tuberculosis (TB) remains a deadly infectious disease affecting millions of people worldwide; 95% of TB cases, with 98% of death occur in developing countries. The situation in South Africa merits special attention. A total of 21,913 sputum specimens of suspected TB patients from three provinces of South Africa routinely submitted to the TB laboratory of Dr. George Mukhari (DGM) Hospital were assayed for Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) growth and antibiotic susceptibility. The genetic diversity of 338 resistant strains were also studied. DNA isolated from the strains were restricted with Pvu II, transferred on to a nylon membrane and hybridized with a PCR-amplified horseradish peroxidase 245 bp IS6110 probe. Of the 338 resistant strains, 2.09% had less than 5 bands of IS6110, and 98% had 5 or more bands. Unique restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) patterns were observed in 84.3% of the strains, showing their epidemiological independence, and 15.7% were grouped into 22 clusters. Thirty-two strains (61.5%) from the 52 that clustered were from Mpumalanga, 16/52 (30.8%) from Gauteng, and 4/52 (9.6%) from Limpopo province. Clustering was not associated with age. However, strains from male patients in Mpumalanga were more likely to be clustered than strains from male patients in Limpopo and/or Gauteng province. The minimum estimate for the proportion of resistant TB that was due to transmission is 9.06% (52-22=30/331). Our results indicate that transmission of drug-resistant strains may contribute substantially to the emergence of drug-resistant tuberculosis in South Africa.
Robots in Need: How Patterns of Emotional Behavior Influence Willingness to Help

This study explores how different patterns of robot emotional behavior influences people's intentions to help a robot requiring human assistance. In this online study, participants saw a set of videos of a robot receiving human help to get free of an obstruction, with different emotional behavior in each video. These initial results suggest that people would be more willing to aid a robot that showed either happy or sad behavior while stuck, compared to one that remained neutral. There was no influence of the behavior shown by the robot after being freed. This suggests that it is the behavior of the robot while stuck that is most influential in people's perceptions and intentions to interact with the robot. Furthermore, the finding that positive behavior increased intention to help suggests that behavior patterns that are unusual by human standards may be available to robots to gain assistance, but further work is required to identify whether this translates to actual helping.
Attenuation of Neural Responses in Primary Visual Cortex during the Attentional Blink

Information-processing bottlenecks are characteristic of many cognitive and neural systems. One such bottleneck is revealed by tasks in which rapidly successive stimulus events must be reported. Here, observers missed the second of two visual targets if it occurred within 700 ms of the first [an “attentional blink” (AB)], even though this second target could be reported accurately when the first item was ignored. Isolating neural responses to such rapid events has proven difficult because current magnetic resonance imaging methods rely on relatively sluggish changes in the brain's physiological response to sensory inputs. Here, we overcame this limitation by presenting successive visual targets at different spatial locations, thereby exploiting the retinotopic organization of early cortical visual areas to distinguish neural activity associated with successive target events. We show that neural activity in primary visual cortex is significantly modulated during the AB, and that this activity mirrors behavioral measures of target identification accuracy. The findings suggest that the neural signature of perceptual suppression during processing of rapidly successive stimuli is evident at the earliest stages of cortical sensory processing.
A method to measure CO and N2 depletion profiles inside prestellar cores

Context. In the dense and cold prestellar cores, many species freeze out onto grains to form ices. The most conspicuous case is that of CO itself. Only upper limits of this depletion amplitude can be estimated because the CO emission from the external undepleted layers mask the emission of CO left inside the depleted region. The finite signal-to-noise ratio of the observations is another limitation. However, depletion and even more desorption mechanisms are not well-known and need observational constraints, i.e., depletion profiles. Aims. We describe a method for retrieving the CO and N2 abundance profiles inside prestellar cores, which is mostly free of initial conditions. Methods. DCO is a daughter molecule of CO, which appears inside depleted prestellar cores. The main deuteration partners are the H+3 isotopologues. By determining the abundance of these isotopologues via N2D , N2H, and ortho-H2D observations and a chemical model, we can uniquely constrain the CO abundance, the only free parameter left, to fit the observed DCO abundance. The N2 abundance is also determined in the same manner once CO is known. DCO–H2 collisional rates including the hyperfine structure were computed in order to determine the DCO abundance. Results. To illustrate the method, we apply it to the main L183 prestellar core and find that the CO abundance profile varies from ≥2.4 × 10−5 at the core edge to ≤6.6 × 10−8 at the center. This represents a relative decrease in abundance by ≥360, and by ≥2000 compared to the standard undepleted CO abundance (1–2 × 10−4). Comparatively, N2 abundance decreases much less, from ≤3.7 × 10−7 down to ∼2.9 × 10−8, in contrast to the similar binding properties of the two species. Because the N2 abundance is lower than its steady state value at the edge, while CO is close to its own, a possible explanation is that N2 is still in its production phase in competition with depletion. Conclusions. The method allows the CO and N2 abundance profiles to be retrieved in the depleted zone both without needing extremely high signal-to-noise observations and free of masking effects by extended emission from the cloud envelope. The main uncertainties are linked to the N2H collisional rates and somewhat to the H+3 isotopologue rates, both collisional and chemical, but hardly to the initial conditions of the model. This method opens up possibilities of testing depletion and desorption mechanisms in prestellar cores and time evolution models, and of addressing the debated CO/N2 depletion controversy.