Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Interspecific demographic trade‐offs and soil‐related habitat associations of tree species along resource gradients

1 Interspecific relationships between fundamental demographic rates, often called demographic trade‐offs, emerge from constraints within individuals related to morphology, physiology and resource allocation. Plant species that grow fast in high light usually have high mortality in shade, and this well‐established relationship in part defines a species’ successional niche. More generally, this relationship represents a trade‐off between a species’ ability to grow quickly to exploit abundant resources vs. avoiding mortality when resources are less plentiful, but few studies have described this demographic trade‐off with respect to environmental factors other than light. 2 Using demographic data from 960 tree species in Bornean rain forest, we examined the evidence for an interspecific demographic trade‐off between fast growth and low mortality and its variation among habitats defined by variation in soil fertility and moisture. Such a trade‐off could contribute to sorting of tree species among habitats and partly explain the striking patterns of species’ edaphic associations in this and other forests. 3 We found strong evidence for this demographic trade‐off, both within the same habitat and when growth on edaphically rich habitats was compared with mortality on a habitat with lower below‐ground resource availability. 4 The slope of the growth‐mortality relationship varied among habitats, being steepest on the habitat lowest in below‐ground resources. For species with the fastest potential growth rates, mortality was higher on this habitat than at comparable growth rates on the three more edaphically rich habitats, providing a possible mechanism by which fast‐growing species may be eliminated from the poorest habitat. Adaptations for fast growth may entail a greater mortality risk, if inherently fast‐growing species fail to maintain a positive C‐balance when below‐ground resources are scarce. 5 Conversely, for species with the slowest potential growth rates, the highest species’ mortality rates occurred on the habitats with greatest below‐ground resource availability, implying that slow‐growing species may have a competitive disadvantage in resource‐rich environments. 6 Synthesis. Differences among habitats in the steepness of this trade‐off may sort species into different habitats along this edaphic gradient, whereas on the same soil, this demographic trade‐off could facilitate coexistence of at least some species in this forest. Thus, by generating emergent demographic trade‐offs that vary along resource gradients, plant life‐history strategies can influence species diversity and distribution.
Improving the Operation of Solar Water Heating Systems in Green Buildings via Optimized Control Strategies

Solar water heating (SWH) systems are well known and effective structures that transfer solar energy into thermal energy with hot water as the storage. The efficiency of an SWH system is mainly based on well-designed solar collectors and proper operation mechanisms. Although the most existing literature has focused on the efficiency enhancement of solar collectors, limited studies are devoted to improve the operating mechanism. As such, this paper studies the control mechanisms of the SWH system with a purpose so as to help the building manager to achieve targeted energy management goals. In particular, three control approaches are presented for improving the operational efficiency of the SWH system by controlling auxiliary heaters, such as heat pumps, electric heaters, and circulation pumps. The proposed approaches are developed based on different requirements of information such as the hot water demand, weather, and electricity price. Moreover, three various energy management objectives are studied with considering different scenarios in terms of real weather pattern and hot water demand of a commercial building. The results validate that the proposed approaches can improve the operation of the SWH system according to various operation objectives.
Comparison of total ionic strength adjustment buffers III and IV in the measurement of fluoride concentration of teas

Background: Tea is the second most consumed drink in the UK and a primary source of hydration; it is an important source of dietary fluoride (F) for consumers and also abundant in aluminium (Al). Varying ranges of F concentrations in teas have been reported worldwide which may be, in part, due to differences in analytical techniques used to measure this ion. Aim: The effect of using total ionic adjustment buffers (TISAB) III or IV when measuring F concentration of black teas available in the UK was investigated and compared. Based on this evaluation, the effects of three different infusion times, 1 min, 10 min and 1 h, caffeine content and tea form on the F contents of the tea samples were investigated. Methods: The F concentrations of 47 tea samples were measured directly using a fluoride ion-selective electrode (F-ISE), TISAB III and IV and infusion times of 1 min, 10 min and 1 h. Results: Mean (SD) F concentration of tea samples for all infusion times was statistically significantly higher (p < 0.001) measured by TISAB IV (4.37 (2.16) mg/l) compared with TISAB III (3.54 (1.65) mg/l). A statistically significant positive correlation (p < 0.001) was found between Al concentration (mg/l) and differences in F concentration (mg/l) measured using the two TISABs; the difference in F concentration measured by the two TISABs increased with the magnitude of Al concentration. Conclusion: Due to higher concentrations of F and Al in teas and their complexing potential, use of TISAB IV facilitates more accurate measurement of F concentration when using an F-ISE and a direct method.
Aggression In Adolescent Chakma Tribal Students As A Function Of Gender And Stage Of Development

Aggression behaviour in 160 adult Chakma tribal students was studied. The subjects were equally divided into boys and girls. Each category was again subdivided into early adolescent and late adolescent. Age of early adolescent group ranged from 11 to 14 years and late adolescent group ranged from 15 to 18 years. Thus, the study used a 2×2 factorial design representing two levels of gender (boy versus girl) and two levels of stage of development (early versus late adolescence). The measure of aggressive behaviour was administered on the sample for data collection. It was found that regardless of stage of development, boys expressed significantly higher rates of aggression than girls. Similarly, regardless of gender, respondents at early adolescent stage expressed significantly higher rates of aggression than the respondents at late adolescent stage. DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.3329/jles.v6i0. 9722 JLES 2011 6: 59-63
Behavioral and physiological adaptations to high-flow velocities in chubs (Gila spp.) native to Southwestern USA

ABSTRACT Morphological streamlining is often associated with physiological advantages for steady swimming in fishes. Though most commonly studied in pelagic fishes, streamlining also occurs in fishes that occupy high-flow environments. Before the installation of dams and water diversions, bonytail (Cyprinidae, Gila elegans), a fish endemic to the Colorado River (USA), regularly experienced massive, seasonal flooding events. Individuals of G. elegans display morphological characteristics that may facilitate swimming in high-flow conditions, including a narrow caudal peduncle and a high aspect ratio caudal fin. We tested the hypothesis that these features improve sustained swimming performance in bonytail by comparing locomotor performance in G. elegans with that of the closely related roundtail chub (Gila robusta) and two non-native species, rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and smallmouth bass (Micropterus dolomieu), using a Brett-style respirometer and locomotor step-tests. Gila elegans had the lowest estimated drag coefficient and the highest sustained swimming speeds relative to the other three species. There were no detectible differences in locomotor energetics during steady swimming among the four species. When challenged by high-velocity water flows, the second native species examined in this study, G. robusta, exploited the boundary effects in the flow tank by pitching forward and bracing the pelvic and pectoral fins against the acrylic tank bottom to ‘hold station’. Because G. robusta can station hold to prevent being swept downstream during high flows and G. elegans can maintain swimming speeds greater than those of smallmouth bass and rainbow trout with comparable metabolic costs, we suggest that management agencies could use artificial flooding events to wash non-native competitors downstream and out of the Colorado River habitat. Summary: Specialized morphology and behavioral modifications during locomotion of Southwestern USA chubs allow them to station hold at high speeds for long periods of time, which may help them survive flooding events in the Colorado River.
Water Modeling Study on Factors Affecting Mold Powder Entrapment in Slab Continuous Casting

It was found by water modeling study that there are mainly three types of mold powder entrapment in slab continuous casting,i.e.,the entrapment caused by the shearing flow near the narrow face of the mold,the entrapment caused by vortexes in regions around the submerged entry nozzle(SEN) and the entrapment caused by the disturbing action of the Ar bubbles on the interface between liquid steel and mold powder.Both the velocity of the surface flow and the level fluctuation in the mold are enlarged with increasing the casting speed,reducing the submerged depth of SEN,decreasing the downward angles of the nozzle outlets and increasing the Ar flow rate,of all which increase the tendency of the mold powder entrapment.Among the 4 above mentioned factors,increasing casting speed has the largest effect on mold powder entrapment.It was found that,when 1.4 m/min of casting speed was used for slab of 1900 mm width,the velocity of surface flow and the level fluctuation in the mold could be well controlled to prevent and reduce the mold powder entrapment when 25° of the downward angles of the SEN outlets,250 mm of submerged depth of SEN and 10 L/min of Ar flow rate were used in the experiment.
Hippocampal mutant APP and amyloid beta-induced cognitive decline, dendritic spine loss, defective autophagy, mitophagy and mitochondrial abnormalities in a mouse model of Alzheimer’s disease

The purpose of our study was to determine the toxic effects of hippocampal mutant APP and amyloid beta (Aβ) in 12-month-old APP transgenic mice. Using rotarod and Morris water maze tests, immunoblotting and immunofluorescence, Golgi-cox staining and transmission electron microscopy, we assessed cognitive behavior, protein levels of synaptic, autophagy, mitophagy, mitochondrial dynamics, biogenesis, dendritic protein MAP2 and quantified dendritic spines and mitochondrial number and length in 12-month-old APP mice that express Swedish mutation. Mitochondrial function was assessed by measuring the levels of hydrogen peroxide, lipid peroxidation, cytochrome c oxidase activity and mitochondrial ATP. Morris water maze and rotarod tests revealed that hippocampal learning and memory and motor learning and coordination were impaired in APP mice relative to wild-type (WT) mice. Increased levels of mitochondrial fission proteins, Drp1 and Fis1 and decreased levels of fusion (Mfn1, Mfn2 and Opa1) biogenesis (PGC1α, NRF1, NRF2 and TFAM), autophagy (ATG5 and LC3BI, LC3BII), mitophagy (PINK1 and TERT), synaptic (synaptophysin and PSD95) and dendritic (MAP2) proteins were found in 12-month-old APP mice relative to age-matched non-transgenic WT mice. Golgi-cox staining analysis revealed that dendritic spines are significantly reduced. Transmission electron microscopy revealed significantly increased mitochondrial numbers and reduced mitochondrial length in APP mice. These findings suggest that hippocampal accumulation of mutant APP and Aβ is responsible for abnormal mitochondrial dynamics and defective biogenesis, reduced MAP2, autophagy, mitophagy and synaptic proteins and reduced dendritic spines and hippocampal-based learning and memory impairments, and mitochondrial structural and functional changes in 12-month-old APP mice.
Mouse IP-10 Gene Delivered by Folate-modified Chitosan Nanoparticles and Dendritic/tumor Cells Fusion Vaccine Effectively Inhibit the Growth of Hepatocellular Carcinoma in Mice

Dendritic cells (DC) and tumor cell fusion vaccine (DC/tumor cell fusion vaccine) is considered an effective approach in cancer biotherapy. However, its therapeutic effects in early clinical trials have been suboptimal partially due to the immunosuppressive tumor environment. In this study, we used nanoparticles of folate (FA)-modified chitosan, a non-viral vector capable of targeting tumor cells with high expression of FA receptors. FA-chitosan nanoparticles were used as biological carriers for the expression plasmid of the mouse interferon-induced protein-10 (mIP-10) gene, a potent chemoattractant for cytotoxic T cells. The combination of FA-chitosan/mIP-10 and DC/tumor cell fusion vaccine against hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) effectively inhibited the growth of implanted HCC tumors and prolonged the survival of mice. The combination therapy significantly reduced myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSC) in mouse spleen, local tumor, and bone marrow while increasing tumor-specific IFN-γ responses. Furthermore, the combination therapy significantly inhibited tumor cell proliferation while promoting their apoptosis. Taken together, our data illustrate that the mIP-10 enhances the anti-tumor effect of DC/tumor cell fusion vaccine by alleviating the immunosuppressive tumor environment.
Object Completion using k‐Sparse Optimization

We present a new method for the completion of partial globally‐symmetric 3D objects, based on the detection of partial and approximate symmetries in the incomplete input dataset. In our approach, symmetry detection is formulated as a constrained sparsity maximization problem, which is solved efficiently using a robust RANSAC‐based optimizer. The detected partial symmetries are then reused iteratively, in order to complete the missing parts of the object. A global error relaxation method minimizes the accumulated alignment errors and a non‐rigid registration approach applies local deformations in order to properly handle approximate symmetry. Unlike previous approaches, our method does not rely on the computation of features, it uniformly handles translational, rotational and reflectional symmetries and can provide plausible object completion results, even on challenging cases, where more than half of the target object is missing. We demonstrate our algorithm in the completion of 3D scans with varying levels of partiality and we show the applicability of our approach in the repair and completion of heavily eroded or incomplete cultural heritage objects.
Which Models Are Appropriate for Six Subtropical Forests: Species-Area and Species-Abundance Models

The species-area relationship is one of the most important topic in the study of species diversity, conservation biology and landscape ecology. The species-area relationship curves describe the increase of species number with increasing area, and have been modeled by various equations. In this paper, we used detailed data from six 1-ha subtropical forest communities to fit three species-area relationship models. The coefficient of determination and F ratio of ANOVA showed all the three models fitted well to the species-area relationship data in the subtropical communities, with the logarithm model performing better than the other two models. We also used the three species-abundance distributions, namely the lognormal, logcauchy and logseries model, to fit them to the species-abundance data of six communities. In this case, the logcauchy model had the better fit based on the coefficient of determination. Our research reveals that the rare species always exist in the six communities, corroborating the neutral theory of Hubbell. Furthermore, we explained why all species-abundance figures appeared to be left-side truncated. This was due to subtropical forests have high diversity, and their large species number includes many rare species.
The Centre for Market and Public Organisation Spending to Save? State Health Expenditure and Infant Mortality in India Spending to Save? State Health Expenditure and Infant Mortality in India Spending to Save? State Health Expenditure and Infant Mortality in India

The Centre for Market and Public Organisation (CMPO) is a leading research centre, combining expertise in economics, geography and law. Our objective is to study the intersection between the public and private sectors of the economy, and in particular to understand the right way to organise and deliver public services. The Centre aims to develop research, contribute to the public debate and inform policy-making. CMPO, now an ESRC Research Centre was established in 1998 with two large grants from The Leverhulme Trust. In 2004 we were awarded ESRC Research Centre status, and CMPO now combines core funding from both the ESRC and the Trust. Abstract There are severe inequalities in health in the world, poor health being concentrated amongst poor people in poor countries. Poor countries spend a much smaller share of national income on health expenditure than do richer countries. What potential lies in political or growth processes that raise this share? This depends upon how effective government health spending in developing countries is. Existing research presents little evidence of an impact on childhood mortality. Using specifications similar to those in the existing literature, this paper finds a similar result for India, which is that state health spending saves no lives. However, upon allowing lagged effects, controlling in a flexible way for trended unobservables and restricting the sample to rural households, a significant effect of health expenditure on infant mortality emerges, the long run elasticity being about-0.24. There are striking differences in the impact by social group. Slicing the data by gender, birth-order, religion, maternal and paternal education and maternal age at birth, I find the weakest effects in the most vulnerable groups (with the exception of a large effect for scheduled tribes). I am grateful to Frank Windmeijer and Ellen van der Poel for helpful discussions. Comments from the Editor, Owen O'Donnell, and two anonymous referees have greatly improved the paper.
Simulating My Own or Others Action Plans? – Motor Representations, Not Visual Representations Are Recalled in Motor Memory

Action plans are not generated from scratch for each movement, but features of recently generated plans are recalled for subsequent movements. This study investigated whether the observation of an action is sufficient to trigger plan recall processes. Participant dyads performed an object manipulation task in which one participant transported a plunger from an outer platform to a center platform of different heights (first move). Subsequently, either the same (intra-individual task condition) or the other participant (inter-individual task condition) returned the plunger to the outer platform (return moves). Grasp heights were inversely related to center target height and similar irrespective of direction (first vs. return move) and task condition (intra- vs. inter-individual). Moreover, participants' return move grasp heights were highly correlated with their own, but not with their partners' first move grasp heights. Our findings provide evidence that a simulated action plan resembles a plan of how the observer would execute that action (based on a motor representation) rather than a plan of the actually observed action (based on a visual representation).
Rational Design of a Parthenolide-based Drug Regimen That Selectively Eradicates Acute Myelogenous Leukemia Stem Cells*

Although multidrug approaches to cancer therapy are common, few strategies are based on rigorous scientific principles. Rather, drug combinations are largely dictated by empirical or clinical parameters. In the present study we developed a strategy for rational design of a regimen that selectively targets human acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) stem cells. As a starting point, we used parthenolide, an agent shown to target critical mechanisms of redox balance in primary AML cells. Next, using proteomic, genomic, and metabolomic methods, we determined that treatment with parthenolide leads to induction of compensatory mechanisms that include up-regulated NADPH production via the pentose phosphate pathway as well as activation of the Nrf2-mediated oxidative stress response pathway. Using this knowledge we identified 2-deoxyglucose and temsirolimus as agents that can be added to a parthenolide regimen as a means to inhibit such compensatory events and thereby further enhance eradication of AML cells. We demonstrate that the parthenolide, 2-deoxyglucose, temsirolimus (termed PDT) regimen is a potent means of targeting AML stem cells but has little to no effect on normal stem cells. Taken together our findings illustrate a comprehensive approach to designing combination anticancer drug regimens.
Overcoming chemo/radio-resistance of pancreatic cancer by inhibiting STAT3 signaling

Chemo/radio-therapy resistance to the deadly pancreatic cancer is mainly due to the failure to kill pancreatic cancer stem cells (CSCs). Signal transducer and activator of transcription 3 (STAT3) is activated in pancreatic CSCs and, therefore, may be a valid target for overcoming therapeutic resistance. Here we investigated the potential of STAT3 inhibition in sensitizing pancreatic cancer to chemo/radio-therapy. We found that the levels of nuclear pSTAT3 in pancreatic cancer correlated with advanced tumor grade and poor patient outcome. Liposomal delivery of a STAT3 inhibitor FLLL32 (Lip-FLLL32) inhibited STAT3 phosphorylation and STAT3 target genes in pancreatic cancer cells and tumors. Consequently, Lip-FLLL32 suppressed pancreatic cancer cell growth, and exhibited synergetic effects with gemcitabine and radiation treatment in vitro and in vivo. Furthermore, Lip-FLLL32 reduced ALDH1-positive CSC population and modulated several potential stem cell markers. These results demonstrate that Lip-FLLL32 suppresses pancreatic tumor growth and sensitizes pancreatic cancer cells to radiotherapy through inhibition of CSCs in a STAT3-dependent manner. By targeting pancreatic CSCs, Lip-FLLL32 provides a novel strategy for pancreatic cancer therapy via overcoming radioresistance.