Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Complex histories of repeated gene flow in Cameroon crater lake cichlids cast doubt on one of the clearest examples of sympatric speciation

One of the most celebrated examples of sympatric speciation in nature are monophyletic radiations of cichlid fishes endemic to Cameroon crater lakes. However, phylogenetic inference of monophyly may not detect complex colonization histories involving some allopatric isolation, such as double invasions obscured by genome‐wide gene flow. Population genomic approaches are better suited to test hypotheses of sympatric speciation in these cases. Here, we use comprehensive sampling from all four sympatric crater lake cichlid radiations in Cameroon and outgroups across Africa combined with next‐generation sequencing to genotype tens of thousands of SNPs. We find considerable evidence of gene flow between all four radiations and neighboring riverine populations after initial colonization. In a few cases, some sympatric species are more closely related to outgroups than others, consistent with secondary gene flow facilitating their speciation. Our results do not rule out sympatric speciation in Cameroon cichlids, but rather reveal a complex history of speciation with gene flow, including allopatric and sympatric phases, resulting in both reproductively isolated species and incipient species complexes. The best remaining non‐cichlid examples of sympatric speciation all involve assortative mating within microhabitats. We speculate that this feature may be necessary to complete the process of sympatric speciation in nature.
Regional Policy Evaluation: Interactive Fixed Effects and Synthetic Controls

Abstract In this paper, we investigate the use of interactive effect or linear factor models in regional policy evaluation. We contrast treatment effect estimates obtained using Bai (2009) with those obtained using difference in differences and synthetic controls (Abadie and coauthors). We show that difference in differences are generically biased, and we derive support conditions for synthetic controls. We construct Monte Carlo experiments to compare these estimation methods in small samples. As an empirical illustration, we provide an evaluation of the impact on local unemployment of an enterprise zone policy implemented in France in the 1990s.
Continuing postischemic neuronal death in CA1: influence of ischemia duration and cytoprotective doses of NBQX and SNX-111 in rats.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Transient forebrain ischemia results in a 24- to 72-hour delayed loss of CA1 neurons. Previous work has not assessed whether insult durations can vary the degree and maturation rate of CA1 injury and whether there are different ultrastructural features of death after brief or severe ischemia. We also tested whether known cytoprotective drugs achieve permanent or transient neuroprotection. METHODS In the first experiment, ischemia was induced for 5, 15, or 30 minutes with the use of the 4-vessel occlusion rat model with 1- to 28-day survival. Others subjected to 5 or 15 minutes of ischemia and allowed to survive for 14 or 7 days, respectively, were examined with electron microscopy. Finally, we determined whether NBQX (30 mg/kg x3 at 0 or 6 hours after ischemia), an AMPA antagonist, and SNX-111 (5 mg/kg at 6 hours after ischemia), an N-type Ca2+ channel antagonist, provided enduring CA1 protection against 10 minutes of ischemia. RESULTS CA1 damage was not detected at 24 hours. Thirty minutes of ischemia produced 47% and 84% CA1 damage at 2 and 3 days, respectively. A 15-minute occlusion yielded 11%, 74%, and 86% loss at 2, 3, and 7 days, respectively. Five minutes of ischemia produced an even slower progression with 24%, 52%, and 59% loss at 3, 7, and 14 days, respectively. Ultrastructural examination after 5 and 15 minutes of ischemia revealed necrosis with no morphological evidence of apoptosis. Both NBQX (P<0.021) and SNX-111 (P<0.001) significantly reduced CA1 death at 7 days (</=35%) but not at 28 days (>/=80%) compared with saline treatment ( approximately 79%). CONCLUSIONS Brief forebrain ischemia results in a slower progression of CA1 loss than more severe insults. Nonetheless, neuronal injury had necrotic, not apoptotic, morphology. NBQX and SNX-111 only postponed CA1 injury.
Micro-Objective Learning : Accelerating Deep Reinforcement Learning through the Discovery of Continuous Subgoals

Recently, reinforcement learning has been successfully applied to the logical game of Go, various Atari games, and even a 3D game, Labyrinth, though it continues to have problems in sparse reward settings. It is difficult to explore, but also difficult to exploit, a small number of successes when learning policy. To solve this issue, the subgoal and option framework have been proposed. However, discovering subgoals online is too expensive to be used to learn options in large state spaces. We propose Micro-objective learning (MOL) to solve this problem. The main idea is to estimate how important a state is while training and to give an additional reward proportional to its importance. We evaluated our algorithm in two Atari games: Montezuma's Revenge and Seaquest. With three experiments to each game, MOL significantly improved the baseline scores. Especially in Montezuma's Revenge, MOL achieved two times better results than the previous state-of-the-art model.
EVS 24 Stavanger , Norway , May 13-16 , 2009 Low-pass Filtered Power-flow Control in Series Hybrid Electric Vehicle

This paper presents a low-pass filtered power-flow control strategy for a series hybrid electric vehicle (SHEV) with an energy buffer. The proposed control aims to decrease the maximum power values from the primary energy source and, secondly, to reduce the engine-generator dynamics at sudden load changes (from low loads at low speed to high loads). In case of variable speed diesel generator (VSDG) set downsizing reduces the emissions and the fuel consumption. The proposed control strategy is introduced with two different driving cycles, both, for the urban and the sub-urban areas. The energy losses, caused by the energy buffering, and the sizing of heavy duty vehicle’s series hybrid drive train are gained as a result.
Accessing Morphosyntax in L1 and L2 Word Recognition: A Priming Study of Inflected German Adjectives

In fusional languages, inflectional affixes may encode multiple morphosyntactic features such as case, number, and gender. To determine how these features are accessed during both native (L1) and non-native (L2) word recognition, the present study compares the results from a masked visual priming experiment testing inflected adjectives of German to those of a previous overt (cross-modal) priming experiment on the same phenomenon. While for the L1 group both experiments produced converging results, a group of highly-proficient Russian L2 learners of German showed native-like modulations of repetition priming effects under overt, but not under masked priming conditions. These results indicate that not only affixes but also their morphosyntactic features are accessible during initial form-based lexical access, albeit only for L1 and not for L2 processing. We argue that this contrast is in line with other findings suggesting that non-native language processing is less influenced by structural information than the L1.
Title Metal Artifact Reduction for CT-Based Luggage Screening Permalink

In aviation security, checked luggage is screened by computed tomography (CT) scanning, followed by automatic target recognition from the CT images. Metal objects in the bags cause image artifacts that degrade object representation, leading to increased false alarms. We develop a new method, which isolates and reduces artifacts in an intermediate image, based on a numerical optimization that de-emphasizes metal and has a novel constraint for beam hardening and scatter. Results on test bags showed excellent artifact reduction, even for multiple metal objects.
Narratives of ethnic identity among practitioners in community settings in the northeast of England

The increasing ethnic diversity of the UK has been mirrored by growing public awareness of multicultural issues, alongside developments in academic and government thinking. This paper explores the contested meanings around ethnic identity/ies in community settings, drawing on semi-structured interviews with staff from Children's Centres and allied agencies conducted for a research project that examined the relationship between identity and the participation of parents/carers in services in northeast England. The research found that respondents were unclear about, especially, white ethnic identities, and commonly referred to other social categorizations, such as age, nationality, and circumstances such as mobility, when discussing service users. While in some cases this may have reflected legitimate attempts to resist over-ethnicizing non-ethnic phenomena, such constructions coexisted with assumptions about ethnic difference and how it might translate into service needs. These findings raise important considerations for policy and practice.
Environmental implications of oil exploration and exploitation in the coastal region of Ondo State, Nigeria: A regional planning appraisal

Oil exploration and exploitation in Nigeria have evolved through a long history. However, they have left trail of woes in their path with so much damage to the ecosystem and problems to human life in the exploration region. In the light of this, the paper appraises the implications of oil exploration and exploitation in the coastal region of Ondo State. Data used in the paper were obtained through physical verification, regular observations, constant monitoring, documentation and records of oral history and administration of questionnaire in some selected settlements in the region. The paper highlighted several direct environmental and associated problems that emanated from oil exploration and exploitation in the region. The problems identified among others include large-scale environmental pollution and degradation of agricultural land which serves as source of income for the people coupled with social unrest arising from unpaid claims of compensation and lack of concern for the people in the exploration area. The paper advocates for oil spill management plan, control and clearance of spills; giving concessions to indigenous oil companies during biding process by granting licenses to operate in the Niger-Delta region; adoption of long-term monitoring and surveillance mechanism; continuous provision of infrastructure for the host communities by prospecting oil companies; and development of national oil spill contingency plan among others with a view to guarantee sustainable development of the environment in the region. Key words: Exploration, exploitation, coastal region, Niger-Delta, and environmental pollution.
Do College Students Use Online Self-Help? A Survey of Intentions and Use of Mental Health Resources

ABSTRACT Online self-help may help increase the reach of mental health services for college students, but little research has examined students’ actual interest/use of these resources. An online survey of 389 college students examined intentions and use of online mental health resources as compared with other support options. Findings indicated the highest intentions/use of informal supports (e.g., parents, friends) for mental health problems and lowest intentions/use for online self-help. However, a subset of students showed a preference for online self-help over other forms of support. Participants were also more likely to request online self-help resources (21%) than in-person therapy resources (9%) when offered these options. Reported barriers were also identified for using mobile applications (apps) specifically (e.g., stigma, credibility, privacy). Overall, results suggest mixed findings and relatively low interest for use of online self-help among college students, while highlighting potential barriers that might be addressed to increase engagement.
SmartDC: Mobility Prediction-Based Adaptive Duty Cycling for Everyday Location Monitoring

Monitoring a user's mobility during daily life is an essential requirement in providing advanced mobile services. While extensive attempts have been made to monitor user mobility, previous work has rarely addressed issues with predictions of temporal behavior in real deployment. In this paper, we introduce SmartDC, a mobility prediction-based adaptive duty cycling scheme to provide contextual information about a user's mobility: time-resolved places and paths. Unlike previous approaches that focused on minimizing energy consumption for tracking raw coordinates, we propose efficient techniques to maximize the accuracy of monitoring meaningful places with a given energy constraint. SmartDC comprises unsupervised mobility learner, mobility predictor, and Markov decision process-based adaptive duty cycling. SmartDC estimates the regularity of individual mobility and predicts residence time at places to determine efficient sensing schedules. Our experiment results show that SmartDC consumes 81 percent less energy than the periodic sensing schemes, and 87 percent less energy than a scheme employing context-aware sensing, yet it still correctly monitors 90 percent of a user's location changes within a 160-second delay.
foot simple surgical technique for treatment of Freiberg ’ s disease ohamed

Background: Of all the osteochondrosis, Freiberg’s disease is reported to be the fourth most common, exceeded by Köhler’s disease, Panner’s disease, and Sever’s disease. This disease usually occurs in the 2nd metatarsal head and relatively in the 3rd and 4th metatarsal heads. Objective: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the outcome of debridement, synovectomy, dorsal closing wedge osteotomy and pin fixation for Freiberg’s disease treatment. Methods: Ten female patients, mean age 18.3 years; (ranged 14–24 years) were treated by the above mentioned technique. The main presenting symptom was pain on walking or sport; affected their daily life and activities and was not improved by non-surgical treatment. The second metatarsal head was affected in all patients. Halve of patients had a history of trauma. According to Smillie’s classification, four patients were type V and six patients were type IV. Mean follow-up period was 19.2 months (range 6–36 months). Results: Were assessed by the Lesser Metatarsophalangeal-Interphalangeal (LMPI)Scale by Kitaoka et al. At the final follow up, scoring was changed from (44–76) with an average 57 to (66–100) with an average 80. There was no case of infection, avascular necrosis, arthritis or pseudoarthrosis. Conclusion: We founded that dorsiflexion osteotomy of the metatarsal head is presented as a logical procedure that is simple, reliable, not destructive, and capable of good results regardless of the stage of the disease.
Ultrasonic Monitoring of Setting and Strength Development of Ultra-High-Performance Concrete

In this study, the setting and tensile strength development of ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) at a very early age was investigated by performing the penetration resistance test (ASTM C403), as well as the direct tensile test using the newly developed test apparatus, and taking ultrasonic pulse velocity (UPV) measurements. In order to determine the optimum surface treatment method for preventing rapid surface drying of UHPC, four different methods were examined: plastic sheet, curing cover, membrane-forming compound, and paraffin oil. Based on the test results, the use of paraffin oil was found to be the best choice for measuring the penetration resistance and the UPV, and attaching the plastic sheet to the exposed surface was considered to be a simple method for preventing the rapid surface drying of UHPC elements. An S-shaped tensile strength development at a very early age (before 24 h) was experimentally obtained, and it was predicted by a power function of UPV. Lastly, the addition of shrinkage-reducing and expansive admixtures resulted in more rapid development of penetration resistance and UPV of UHPC.
The Value of BISAP Score for Predicting Mortality and Severity in Acute Pancreatitis: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Purpose The Bedside Index for Severity in Acute Pancreatitis (BISAP) score has been developed to identify patients at high risk for mortality or severe disease early during the course of acute pancreatitis. We aimed to undertake a meta-analysis to quantify the accuracy of BISAP score for predicting mortality and severe acute pancreatitis (SAP). Materials and Methods We searched the databases of Pubmed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library to identify studies using the BISAP score to predict mortality or SAP. The pooled sensitivity, specificity, likelihood ratios, and diagnostic odds ratio (DOR) were calculated from each study and were compared with the traditional scoring systems. Results Twelve cohorts from 10 studies were included. The overall sensitivity of a BISAP score of ≥3 for mortality was 56% (95% CI, 53%-60%), with a specificity of 91% (95% CI, 90%-91%). The positive and negative likelihood ratios were 5.65 (95% CI, 4.23-7.55) and 0.48 (95% CI, 0.41-0.56), respectively. Regarding the outcome of SAP, the pooled sensitivity was 51% (43%-60%), and the specificity was 91% (89%-92%). The pooled positive and negative likelihood ratios were 7.23 (4.21-12.42) and 0.56 (0.44-0.71), respectively. Compared with BISAP score, the Ranson criteria and APACHEⅡscore showed higher sensitivity and lower specificity for both outcomes. Conclusions The BISAP score was a reliable tool to identify AP patients at high risk for unfavorable outcomes. Compared with the Ranson criteria and APACHEⅡscore, BISAP score outperformed in specificity, but having a suboptimal sensitivity for mortality as well as SAP.
Ecology of ontogenetic body-mass scaling of gill surface area in a freshwater crustacean

ABSTRACT Several studies have documented ecological effects on intraspecific and interspecific body-size scaling of metabolic rate. However, little is known about how various ecological factors may affect the scaling of respiratory structures supporting oxygen uptake for metabolism. To our knowledge, our study is the first to provide evidence for ecological effects on the scaling of a respiratory structure among conspecific populations of any animal. We compared the body-mass scaling of gill surface area (SA) among eight spring-dwelling populations of the amphipod crustacean Gammarus minus. Although gill SA scaling was not related to water temperature, conductivity or G. minus population density, it was significantly related to predation regime (and secondarily to pH). Body-mass scaling slopes for gill SA were significantly lower in four populations inhabiting springs with fish predators than for four populations in springs without fish (based on comparing means of the population slopes, or slopes calculated from pooled raw data for each comparison group). As a result, gill SA was proportionately smaller in adult amphipods from springs with versus without fish. This scaling difference paralleled similar differences in the scaling exponents for the rates of growth and resting metabolic rate. We hypothesized that gill SA scaling is shallower in fish-containing versus fishless spring populations of G. minus because of effects of size-selective predation on size-specific growth and activity that in turn affect the scaling of oxygen demand and concomitantly the gill capacity (SA) for oxygen uptake. Although influential theory claims that metabolic scaling is constrained by internal body design, our study builds on previous work to show that the scaling of both metabolism and the respiratory structures supporting it may be ecologically sensitive and evolutionarily malleable. Summary: Body-mass scaling of gill surface area of an amphipod is shallower in freshwater springs with versus without fish predators, thus matching the scaling of oxygen demand for metabolism and growth.
Dust deposition and ambient PM 10 concentration in northwest China: spatial and temporal variability

Abstract. Eolian dust transport and deposition are important geophysical processes which influence global bio-geochemical cycles. Currently, reliable deposition data are scarce in central and east Asia. Located at the boundary of central and east Asia, Xinjiang Province of northwestern China has long played a strategic role in cultural and economic trade between Asia and Europe. In this paper, we investigated the spatial distribution and temporal variation in dust deposition and ambient PM10 (particulate matter in aerodynamic diameter ≤ 10 µm) concentration from 2000 to 2013 in Xinjiang Province. This variation was assessed using environmental monitoring records from 14 stations in the province. Over the 14 years, annual average dust deposition across stations in the province ranged from 255.7 to 421.4 t km−2. Annual dust deposition was greater in southern Xinjiang (663.6 t km−2) than northern (147.8 t km−2) and eastern Xinjiang (194.9 t km−2). Annual average PM10 concentration across stations in the province varied from 100 to 196 µg m−3 and was 70, 115 and 239 µg m−3 in northern, eastern and southern Xinjiang, respectively. The highest annual dust deposition (1394.1 t km−2) and ambient PM10 concentration (352 µg m−3) were observed in Hotan, which is located in southern Xinjiang and at the southern boundary of the Taklamakan Desert. Dust deposition was more intense during the spring and summer than other seasons. PM10 was the main air pollutant that significantly influenced regional air quality. Annual average dust deposition increased logarithmically with ambient PM10 concentration (R2 ≥ 0.81). While the annual average dust storm frequency remained unchanged from 2000 to 2013, there was a positive relationship between dust storm days and dust deposition and PM10 concentration across stations. This study suggests that sand storms are a major factor affecting the temporal variability and spatial distribution of dust deposition in northwest China.
Information and food blogging as serious leisure

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore aspects of creating, seeking, sharing and management of information in food blogging as serious leisure.Design/methodology/approach – Participants' conceptualisation of food blogging and the role of information in it is interpreted through in‐depth interviews and analysis of activity on the UK Food Bloggers Association web site.Findings – Food blogging as a leisure pursuit resulted in the creation of new information sources, for which existing information is a source of inspiration. The content, and style of blogs, and so their nature as information sources, were influenced by the extent of involvement in a professional‐amateur‐public (PAP) system. Information about publics or audiences was of great concern and a focus of collegial information sharing. The management of content implies greater personal information management needs, but the data did not show great awareness of this, rather interviewees were concerned with access management. Pre‐professional.