Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Invasive Rodent Eradication on Islands

Abstract: Invasive mammals are the greatest threat to island biodiversity and invasive rodents are likely responsible for the greatest number of extinctions and ecosystem changes. Techniques for eradicating rodents from islands were developed over 2 decades ago. Since that time there has been a significant development and application of this conservation tool. We reviewed the literature on invasive rodent eradications to assess its current state and identify actions to make it more effective. Worldwide, 332 successful rodent eradications have been undertaken; we identified 35 failed eradications and 20 campaigns of unknown result. Invasive rodents have been eradicated from 284 islands (47,628 ha). With the exception of two small islands, rodenticides were used in all eradication campaigns. Brodifacoum was used in 71% of campaigns and 91% of the total area treated. The most frequent rodenticide distribution methods (from most to least) are bait stations, hand broadcasting, and aerial broadcasting. Nevertheless, campaigns using aerial broadcast made up 76% of the total area treated. Mortality of native vertebrates due to nontarget poisoning has been documented, but affected species quickly recover to pre‐eradication population levels or higher. A variety of methods have been developed to mitigate nontarget impacts, and applied research can further aid in minimizing impacts. Land managers should routinely remove invasive rodents from islands <100 ha that lack vertebrates susceptible to nontarget poisoning. For larger islands and those that require nontarget mitigation, expert consultation and greater planning effort are needed. With the exception of house mice (Mus musculus), island size may no longer be the limiting factor for rodent eradications; rather, social acceptance and funding may be the main challenges. To be successful, large‐scale rodent campaigns should be integrated with programs to improve the livelihoods of residents, island biosecurity, and reinvasion response programs.
Lidar observations of seasonal variation of diurnal mean temperature in the mesopause region over Fort Collins, Colorado (41°N, 105°W)

Two campaigns from February 1997 to January 1999 have resulted in 18 sets of continuous temperature measurements in the mesopause region over Fort Collins, Colorado (41°N, 105°W), each covering a complete diurnal cycle, reasonably well distributed throughout the year. It is shown that the winter-summer transitions, based on diurnal means, are abrupt and clear, further strengthening the concept of two-level mesopause, and demonstrate the robustness of this picture. Similar to data taken at Urbana, Illinois, our data at Fort Collins also demonstrate the need to observe over a complete diurnal cycle to deduce the uncontaminated mean temperature structure and seasonal variations in the mesopause region. The difference between annual diurnal, nighttime, and daytime means may be ascribed to a temperature wave propagating with a downward phase speed of ∼0.8 km/h. Our data show that the nighttime annual mean is colder than the diurnal annual mean by no more than 2 K below 88 km and warmer by no more than 3 K above 88 km where the three means are nearly the same. As in the Urbana data, we also observed the altitude of a secondary temperature minimum in the summer to be ∼96 km, which without strong dynamical cooling in the summer would have been the summer mesopause altitude.
Deglaciation history and palaeoceanography of the western Spitsbergen margin since the last glacial maximum

Abstract Two high resolution cores from the Spitsbergen margin were studied to increase the understanding of the palaeoceanography and deglaciation of the Spitsbergen continental margin. Planktonic and benthic foraminiferal δ18O records along with foraminiferal abundance counts and dropstone analysis were used to interpret the palaeoceanography of the Spitsbergen margin and to link the marine record with deglaciation of the Barents Sea Ice Sheet. High foraminiferal and dropstone abundances during the Late Weichselian glacial maximum show that this period was characterized by seasonally ice-free conditions. The initial deglaciation recognized along the Spitsbergen margin is dated at 14.1 ka BP and represents the break up of the Barents Sea Ice Sheet, though some input from the Spitsbergen ice dome is likely. This initial deglaciation was produced by glacio-isostatic relative sea-level rise and/or by increased solar insolation after the minimum of the Late Weichselian. The first unequivocal deglaciation of Spitsbergen ice occurred at 13 ka, whereas the oceanographic regime was still dominated by polar waters. The beginning of the Holocene was heralded by a second deglaciation phase of the Spitsbergen ice mass. The first influx of North Atlantic waters causing rapid iceberg calving and melting was recorded at this time. Dropstone input virtually ended at approximately 9 ka BP when most glaciers had retreated beyond their present day positions. A short relatively cool episode produced by the retreat of the North Atlantic waters during the early Holocene was recorded along the Spitsbergen margin.
Singularly impulsive dynamical systems with time delay: Mathematical model and stability

In this paper we introduce new class of system, so called singularly impulsive or generalized impulsive dynamical systems with time delay. Dynamics of this system is characterized by the set of differential and difference equations with time delay, and algebraic equations. They represent the class of hybrid systems, where algebraic equations represent constraints that differential and difference equations with time delay need to satisfy. In this paper we present model, assumptions on the model, two classes of singularly impulsive dynamical systems with delay - time dependent and state dependent. Further, we present Lyapunov and asymptotic stability theorems for nonlinear time-dependent and state-dependent singularly impulsive dynamical systems with time delay.
Discontinuation of potent antiretroviral therapy: predictive value of and impact on CD4 cell counts and HIV RNA levels

ObjectiveTo characterize predictors and consequences of discontinuing antiretroviral therapy (ART) in terms of CD4 cell count, HIV RNA, and reported side-effects in a large cohort of HIV-infected women. DesignCohort study. MethodsA total of 1058 HIV-infected women initiated potent ART before September 1999. For each 6 month period after October 1996 we determined the proportion of potent ART users who downshifted to non-potent ART and who discontinued all ART. We examined the role of CD4 cell count and HIV RNA with regard to ART discontinuation. ResultsBetween October 1996 and September 1999, 1058 individuals contributed 3362 visits at which potent ART was reported in the previous 6 months. Overall rates of 6 month downshifting and discontinuation were 10.0% and 6.7%. The proportion of individuals discontinuing all ART increased from 2.9% in late 1996 to 9.1% in mid 1999 (P < 0.001). Individuals with high HIV RNA levels were more likely to discontinue (P < 0.05). Compared to those who continued on potent ART, individuals who discontinued experienced large declines (P < 0.001) in CD4 cell counts and were more than three times more likely (P < 0.001) to experience HIV RNA increases. However, over one-third of those discontinuing ART reported side-effects and this subset had smaller CD4 cell count declines as compared to discontinuers not reporting side-effects (P = 0.147). ConclusionsIn a large cohort of HIV-infected women, an increasing proportion of potent ART users discontinued ART over 3 years. Higher HIV RNA levels predicted discontinuation. Immediate immunological/virological deleterious consequences were observed. Side-effects were the most common reason for discontinuation and CD4 cell count declines were larger among those who did not cite side-effects as the reason for discontinuation.
Multiscale simulations suggest a mechanism for integrin inside-out activation

Integrins are large cell-surface adhesion receptors that can be activated to a high affinity state by the formation of an intracellular complex between the integrin β-subunit tail, the membrane, and talin. The F2 and F3 subdomains of the talin head play a key role in formation of this complex. Here, activation of the integrin αIIb/β3 dimer by the talin head domain was probed using multiscale molecular dynamics simulations. A number of novel insights emerge from these studies, including (i) the importance of the integrin αIIb subunit F992 and F993 residues in stabilizing the “off” state of the αIIb/β3 dimer, (ii) a crucial role for negatively charged groups in the F2-F3/membrane interaction, (iii) binding of the talin F2-F3 domain to negatively charged lipid headgroups in the membrane induces a reorientation of the β transmembrane (TM) domain, (iv) an increase in the tilt angle of the β TM domain relative to the bilayer normal helps to destabilize the α/β TM interaction and promote a scissor-like movement of the integrin TM helices. These results, combined with various published experimental observations, suggest a model for the mechanism of inside-out activation of integrins by talin.
Impact of hyperhomocysteinemia on insulin resistance in patients with H-type hypertension

ABSTRACT Background: Hypertension (HT) and hyperhomocysteinemia (HHcy) had been considered influential factors of insulin resistance. H-type HT occurred as HHcy associated with HT. The impact of HHcy on insulin resistance in H-type HT patients remains to be estimated. The interacted effects of HHcy and HT on insulin resistance are still unclear. Methods: A total of 790 patients were recruited and classified into four groups according to their blood pressure and plasma Hcy level, i.e., control group (C group), HHcy group (HHcy subjects without HT), HT group (HT subjects without HHcy), and H group (subjects with H-type HT). The relationship between HHcy and insulin resistance, as estimated using the HOMA-IR, was analyzed and related to blood pressure. Results: HOMA-IR values were significantly higher in the HHcy group than the C group (2.97 (2.23–4.01) versus 2.54 (1.87–3.58), P ＜ 0.01). H-type HT patients showed more severe insulin resistance than those who only got HT (3.58 (2.59–4.85) versus 2.96 (1.90–3.49)，P ＜ 0.01). Moreover, HOMA-IR values were positively correlated with Hcy levels (r = 0.26, P ＜ 0.01). After correcting for possible risking factors, a linear regression relationship between insulin resistance and HHcy was found (β = 0.158, P ＜ 0.01). HHcy was interacted with HT on the exacerbation of insulin resistance in H-type HT patients (β = 0.501, P ＜ 0.01). Conclusions: HHcy obviously exacerbate insulin resistance, especially in H-type HT patients. HHcy and HT have a multiplicative effect on metabolic dysfunction, which may help to interpret why these patients are suffering a high risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.
Fast Evaluation of Multiquadric RBF Sums by a Cartesian Treecode

A treecode is presented for evaluating sums defined in terms of the multiquadric radial basis function (RBF), $\phi({\bf x}) = (|{\bf x}|^2+c^2)^{1/2}$, where ${\bf x} \in \mathbb{R}^3$ and $c \ge 0$. Given a set of $N$ nodes, evaluating an RBF sum directly requires CPU time that scales like $O(N^2)$. For a given level of accuracy, the treecode reduces the CPU time to $O(N\log N)$ using a far-field expansion of $\phi({\bf x})$. We consider two options for the far-field expansion: (1) a Laurent series previously used in applications of the Fast Multipole Method to multiquadric RBFs, and (2) a certain Taylor series previously used in treecode particle simulations, but not yet in the context of multiquadric RBFs. It is known that the Laurent series converges when the RBF parameter $c$ lies in an interval $0 \le c \le \bar{c}$, where $\bar{c}$ is proportional to the minimum node spacing, but here we show that the Taylor series converges uniformly for $c \ge 0$. We implement the treecode in Cartesian coordinates and use a recurrence relation to compute the Taylor coefficients. Numerical results exhibit the treecode error, CPU time, and memory usage in two test cases, random nodes in a cube and on the surface of a sphere. The treecode approach presented here is applicable to generalized multiquadrics in any dimension.
On-device objective-C application optimization framework for high-performance mobile processors

Smartphones provide applications that are increasingly similar to those of interactive desktop programs, providing rich graphics and animations. To simplify the creation of these interactive applications, mobile operating systems employ highlevel object-oriented programming languages and shared libraries to manipulate the device's peripherals and provide common userinterface frameworks. The presence of dynamic dispatch and polymorphism allows for robust and extensible application coding. Unfortunately, the presence of dynamic dispatch also introduces significant overheads during method calls, which directly impact execution time. Furthermore, since these applications rely heavily on shared libraries and helper routines, the quantity of these method calls is higher than those found in typical desktop-based programs. Optimizing these method calls centrally before consumers download the application onto a given phone is exacerbated due to the large diversity of hardware and operating system versions that the application could run on. This paper proposes a methodology to tailor a given Objective-C application and its associated device-specific shared library codebase using on-device post-compilation code optimization and transformation. In doing so, many polymorphic sites can be resolved statically, improving the overall application performance.
Elevated Growth Hormone Secretory Rate in Premature Infants: Deconvolution Analysis of Pulsatile Growth Hormone Secretion in the Neonate

ABSTRACT: Premature infants have higher circulating concentrations of growth hormone (GH) than term infants. Previous investigations of these differences have used sampling frequencies of every 30 min with subsequent application of pulse detection algorithms, such as the CLUSTER program, to assess serum GH pulse parameters. To determine differences in GH secretory rates or GH t½ values between premature and term infants, we have sampled 11 neonates at 15-min intervals. We performed deconvolution analysis of the resultant plasma GH values to estimate GH secretory and clearance parameters. Five premature infants (gestational age range 24–34 wk) and six term infants (gestational age range 38–42 wk) were sampled every 15 min for 6 h. All subjects had indwelling arterial catheters. GH was measured (in duplicate) by RIA using 10 μL of plasma. Premature infants had higher secretory burst amplitudes (2.2 ± 0.13 μg/L/min versus 1.4 ± 0.27 μg/L/min, p = 0.02), higher production rates (product of the total number of bursts and the mean mass of GH secreted per burst, 811 ± 173 μg/L/6 h versus 283 ± 77 μg/L/6 h, p = 0.03), and a higher mass of GH per secretory burst (106 ± 25 μg/L versus 38 ± 11 μg/L, p = 0.049) than term infants. The integrated plasma GH concentration exhibited a strong trend toward a higher value in the) premature infants (18 100 ± 800μg/L versus 10 200 ± 2 700 μg/L, p = 0.067). There were no differences between GH secretory burst frequency (7.8 ± 0.2 pulses/6 h versus 7.7 ± 0.6 pulses/6 h), GH t1/2, (20 ± 4 min versus 24 ± 6 min), half-duration of burst (the time elapsed at half-maximal amplitude, 45 ± 11 min versus 25 ± 4 min), or mean interval between peaks (48 ± 2 min versus 48 ± 3 min) comparing the premature and term groups, respectively. In summary, we have demonstrated an elevation in GH secretory burst amplitude, GH production rate, and the mass of GH secreted per burst in premature compared with term infants. Because the estimated GH t1/2, is similar between these two groups, amplified secretion rather than decreased clearance accounts for the differences in circulating GH concentrations. We suggest that the augmented GH secretory activity in premature infants reflects an increase in hypothalamic GH-releasing hormone activity and/or reduced somatostatin tone.
Microbial effectors target multiple steps in the salicylic acid production and signaling pathway

Microbes attempting to colonize plants are recognized through the plant immune surveillance system. This leads to a complex array of global as well as specific defense responses, which are often associated with plant cell death and subsequent arrest of the invader. The responses also entail complex changes in phytohormone signaling pathways. Among these, salicylic acid (SA) signaling is an important pathway because of its ability to trigger plant cell death. As biotrophic and hemibiotrophic pathogens need to invade living plant tissue to cause disease, they have evolved efficient strategies to downregulate SA signaling by virulence effectors, which can be proteins or secondary metabolites. Here we review the strategies prokaryotic pathogens have developed to target SA biosynthesis and signaling, and contrast this with recent insights into how plant pathogenic eukaryotic fungi and oomycetes accomplish the same goal.
Distributed server selection with imprecise state for replicated server group

Server replication is an approach often used to improve service access efficiency and availability for a large number of clients. This paper adopts a simple service model and investigates a set of efficient algorithms for server selection in an anycast group under the condition of imprecise network delay. The algorithms use ticket-based probing approach to search the path with short delay and probe the server load at the same time and try to optimize the server and path delay at the same time. The simulation results demonstrate that our algorithms are efficient in terms of server response time for sever selection compared with several other server selection algorithms.
Simulation of Environmental and Varietal effects on Growth and Yield of Aromatic Rice using Ceres-Rice Model in Middle Gujarat Agri-Climatic Region

SIMULATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL AND VARIETAL EFFECTS ON GROWTH AND YIELD OF AROMATIC RICE USING CERES-RICE MODEL IN MIDDLE GUJARAT AGRO-CLIMATIC REGION Name of the student Major Advisor Mohammad Shamim Dr. A. M. Shekh B.A. College of Agriculture Anand Agricultural University Anand-388 110
Importance of Reservoir Tributaries to Spawning of Migratory Fish in the Upper Paraná River

Regulation of rivers by dams transforms previously lotic reaches above the dam into lentic ones and limits or prevents longitudinal connectivity, which impairs access to suitable habitats for the reproduction of many migratory fish species. Frequently, unregulated tributaries can provide important habitat heterogeneity to a regulated river and may mitigate the influence of impoundments on the mainstem river. We evaluated the importance of tributaries to spawning of migratory fish species over three spawning seasons, by comparing several abiotic conditions and larval fish distributions in four rivers that are tributaries to an impounded reach of the Upper Paraná River, Brazil. Our study confirmed reproduction of at least 8 long‐distance migrators, likely nine, out of a total of 19 occurring in the Upper Paraná River. Total larval densities and percentage species composition differed among tributaries, but the differences were not consistent among spawning seasons and unexpectedly were not strongly related to annual differences in temperature and hydrology. We hypothesize that under present conditions, densities of larvae of migratory species may be better related to efficiency of fish passage facilities than to temperature and hydrology. Our study indicates that adult fish are finding suitable habitat for spawning in tributaries, fish eggs are developing into larvae, and larvae are finding suitable rearing space in lagoons adjacent to the tributaries. Our findings also suggest the need for establishment of protected areas in unregulated and lightly regulated tributaries to preserve essential spawning and nursery habitats. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Discovering biomedical semantic relations in PubMed queries for information retrieval and database curation

Identifying relevant papers from the literature is a common task in biocuration. Most current biomedical literature search systems primarily rely on matching user keywords. Semantic search, on the other hand, seeks to improve search accuracy by understanding the entities and contextual relations in user keywords. However, past research has mostly focused on semantically identifying biological entities (e.g. chemicals, diseases and genes) with little effort on discovering semantic relations. In this work, we aim to discover biomedical semantic relations in PubMed queries in an automated and unsupervised fashion. Specifically, we focus on extracting and understanding the contextual information (or context patterns) that is used by PubMed users to represent semantic relations between entities such as ‘CHEMICAL-1 compared to CHEMICAL-2. ’ With the advances in automatic named entity recognition, we first tag entities in PubMed queries and then use tagged entities as knowledge to recognize pattern semantics. More specifically, we transform PubMed queries into context patterns involving participating entities, which are subsequently projected to latent topics via latent semantic analysis (LSA) to avoid the data sparseness and specificity issues. Finally, we mine semantically similar contextual patterns or semantic relations based on LSA topic distributions. Our two separate evaluation experiments of chemical-chemical (CC) and chemical–disease (CD) relations show that the proposed approach significantly outperforms a baseline method, which simply measures pattern semantics by similarity in participating entities. The highest performance achieved by our approach is nearly 0.9 and 0.85 respectively for the CC and CD task when compared against the ground truth in terms of normalized discounted cumulative gain (nDCG), a standard measure of ranking quality. These results suggest that our approach can effectively identify and return related semantic patterns in a ranked order covering diverse bio-entity relations. To assess the potential utility of our automated top-ranked patterns of a given relation in semantic search, we performed a pilot study on frequently sought semantic relations in PubMed and observed improved literature retrieval effectiveness based on post-hoc human relevance evaluation. Further investigation in larger tests and in real-world scenarios is warranted.
Existence of the AH + 2 subfactor

We give two different proofs of the existence of the $AH+2$ subfactor, which is a $3$-supertransitive self-dual subfactor with index $\frac{9+\sqrt{17}}{2} $. The first proof is a direct construction using connections on graphs and intertwiner calculus for bimodule categories. The second proof is indirect, and deduces the existence of $AH+2$ from a recent alternative construction of the Asaeda-Haagerup subfactor and fusion combinatorics of the Brauer-Picard groupoid.