Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relative Influence of Plant Quality and Natural Enemies on the Seasonal Dynamics of Bemisia tabaci (Hemiptera: Aleyrodidae) in Cotton

ABSTRACT The abundance and distribution of insect herbivores is determined by, among other things, plant quality and natural enemies. These two factors vary temporally and spatially, subsequently affecting seasonal population dynamics. The relative influence of plant quality and natural enemies on the seasonal dynamics of Bemisia tabaci (Gennadius) was investigated in a 3-yr field study in cotton. Plant quality was manipulated through varying irrigation regimes: irrigations done at 20, 40, and 60% soil water depletions; and natural enemy densities were manipulated using broad spectrum insecticide applications that reduced their densities compared with unsprayed controls. In each year, densities of B. tabaci eggs, large nymphs and adults were consistently higher when natural enemy densities were reduced compared with when they were left unaltered, regardless of irrigation regime. In contrast, effects of plant quality on densities of all whitefly stages were weak and inconsistent. In addition, natural enemy densities and predator:prey ratios also were not generally affected by plant quality. Interactions between natural enemies and plant quality on whitefly dynamics were rare. In general, whitefly densities were elevated two-thirds of the time and increased two- to sixfold when natural enemy densities were reduced compared with plant quality effects which influenced whitefly densities about one-third of the time and were expressed inconsistently over the years. This indicates that natural enemies exert a comparatively greater influence on seasonal dynamics of B. tabaci in cotton than plant quality, as manipulated by differential irrigation.
Quantifying Skype user satisfaction

The success of Skype has inspired a generation of peer-to-peer-based solutions for satisfactory real-time multimedia services over the Internet. However, fundamental questions, such as whether VoIP services like Skype are good enough in terms of user satisfaction,have not been formally addressed. One of the major challenges lies in the lack of an easily accessible and objective index to quantify the degree of user satisfaction.In this work, we propose a model, geared to Skype, but generalizable to other VoIP services, to quantify VoIP user satisfaction based on a rigorous analysis of the call duration from actual Skype traces. The User Satisfaction Index (USI) derived from the model is unique in that 1) it is composed by objective source-and network-level metrics, such as the bit rate, bit rate jitter, and round-trip time, 2) unlike speech quality measures based on voice signals, such as the PESQ model standardized by ITU-T, the metrics are easily accessible and computable for real-time adaptation, and 3) the model development only requires network measurements, i.e., no user surveys or voice signals are necessary. Our model is validated by an independent set of metrics that quantifies the degree of user interaction from the actual traces.
PRECLINICAL STUDY: Route of administration affects the ability of naltrexone to reduce amphetamine‐potentiated brain stimulation reward in rats

Opioid receptor antagonism has been shown to attenuate behavioral and neurochemical effects of amphetamine in humans and rodents. The effects of acute (oral or subcutaneous) or extended‐release naltrexone (XR‐NTX) were tested on the reward‐enhancing effects of amphetamine using the intracranial self‐stimulation (ICSS) paradigm. Acute exposure to drugs of abuse reduces the locus of rise (LOR) in the ICSS procedure, reflecting enhanced brain stimulation reward (BSR). Rats were treated once a day with naltrexone orally (PO; 5.0 mg/kg) or subcutaneously (SC; 0.5 mg/kg) for four consecutive days and tested with D‐amphetamine (0.5 mg/kg, intraperitoneal) in the ICSS paradigm 30 minutes later on days 1 and 4. Separate groups of rats received XR‐NTX (50 mg/kg, SC) or placebo microspheres (similar mass to XR‐NTX, SC) on day 0 and tested with D‐amphetamine in the ICSS paradigm on days 4, 14, 21, 28 and 41 after administration. Naltrexone plasma concentrations were determined for each amphetamine testing session using liquid chromatography‐mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC‐MS/MS). In rats pretreated with naltrexone acutely, amphetamine‐potentiated BSR did not differ from vehicle‐pretreated rats on either day 1 or day 4 (25–30% decrease in LOR). In XR‐NTX‐pretreated rats, amphetamine‐potentiated BSR was reduced by 64 and 70% on days 4 and 14, respectively, compared to placebo microsphere‐treated controls. This effect dissipated by day 21. Naltrexone plasma concentrations were comparable across all treatment groups (14–30 ng/ml) on days 1, 4 and 14. In summary, an extended‐release formulation of naltrexone results in significant attenuation of psychostimulant‐enhanced BSR that is not observed with acute naltrexone.
The Application of Electro- and Magneto-Encephalography in Tinnitus Research – Methods and Interpretations

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in the use of electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG) to investigate changes in oscillatory brain activity associated with tinnitus with many conflicting results. Current view of the underlying mechanism of tinnitus is that it results from changes in brain activity in various structures of the brain as a consequence of sensory deprivation. This in turn gives rise to increased spontaneous activity and/or synchrony in the auditory centers but also involves modulation from non-auditory processes from structures of the limbic and paralimbic system. Some of the neural changes associated with tinnitus may be assessed non-invasively in human beings with MEG and EEG (M/EEG) in ways, which are superior to animal studies and other non-invasive imaging techniques. However, both MEG and EEG have their limitations and research results can be misinterpreted without appropriate consideration of these limitations. In this article, I intend to provide a brief review of these techniques, describe what the recorded signals reflect in terms of the underlying neural activity, and their strengths and limitations. I also discuss some pertinent methodological issues involved in tinnitus-related studies and conclude with suggestions to minimize possible discrepancies between results. The overall message is that while MEG and EEG are extremely useful techniques, the interpretation of results from tinnitus studies requires much caution given the individual variability in oscillatory activity and the limits of these techniques.
Apathy and Executive Function in Depressed Elderly

Apathy and executive cognitive dysfunction (ECD) are important though conceptually different aspects of late-life depression. The primary objective of this study was to evaluate the relationship of apathy to ECD. The authors also evaluated the relationship of apathy and ECD to global cognitive impairment and word generation. Fifty-two elderly subjects with major depression and MMSE scores of 15 or greater were evaluated with apathy-related items from the Hamilton rating scale for depression (ApHRSD), the Executive Interview (EXIT), the Dementia Rating Scale (DRS), and the Controlled Oral Word Association test (COWA). ApHRSD scores were not significantly correlated with any of these variables. EXIT scores were correlated significantly with DRS and COWA. The results suggest that apathy and ECD may be independent of each other in some samples of elderly with late-life depression. Correlations may have been reduced by low variance for the variables of interest and by psychometric limitations of the ApHRSD. (J Geriatr Psychiatry Neurol 2003; 16:112-116)
The "hidden observer" phenomenon in hypnosis: some additional findings.

Twenty-three highly hypnotizable subjects underwent two specially constructed 7-item hypnotic inductions. Over the 14 items, the main finding was of a relationship between Hilgard's "hidden observer" effect and two aspects of hypnotic age regression. Subjects reporting a hidden observer experienced duality during regression to age 5, in which they were aware of being both adult and child. When asked to write a complex sentence, most did so, usually without spelling errors. The subjects not reporting this effect experienced quasi-literal age regression in which they had the exclusive feeling of being 5 years old, with no sense of an adult identity. Most of these subjects were unable to write the same complex sentence when requested to during age regression. The study replicated Hilgard's finding of the hidden observer phenomenon in terms of its incidence and obtained similar verbal reports from subjects experiencing it. At the same time, the results suggest that a neodissociation account of hypnosis may need some modifications to accommodate these additional empirical findings.
Zinc as Allosteric Ion Channel Modulator: Ionotropic Receptors as Metalloproteins

Zinc is an essential metal to life. This transition metal is a structural component of many proteins and is actively involved in the catalytic activity of cell enzymes. In either case, these zinc-containing proteins are metalloproteins. However, the amino acid residues that serve as ligands for metal coordination are not necessarily the same in structural proteins compared to enzymes. While crystals of structural proteins that bind zinc reveal a higher preference for cysteine sulfhydryls rather than histidine imidazole rings, catalytic enzymes reveal the opposite, i.e., a greater preference for the histidines over cysteines for catalysis, plus the influence of carboxylic acids. Based on this paradigm, we reviewed the putative ligands of zinc in ionotropic receptors, where zinc has been described as an allosteric modulator of channel receptors. Although these receptors do not strictly qualify as metalloproteins since they do not normally bind zinc in structural domains, they do transitorily bind zinc at allosteric sites, modifying transiently the receptor channel’s ion permeability. The present contribution summarizes current information showing that zinc allosteric modulation of receptor channels occurs by the preferential metal coordination to imidazole rings as well as to the sulfhydryl groups of cysteine in addition to the carboxyl group of acid residues, as with enzymes and catalysis. It is remarkable that most channels, either voltage-sensitive or transmitter-gated receptor channels, are susceptible to zinc modulation either as positive or negative regulators.
The best dialysis therapy? Results from an international survey among nephrology professionals

Background. There is little evidence for superior outcome of one dialysis therapy versus another. Still, nephrologists have to prescribe dialysis every day. It is therefore of interest to ascertain the opinion among nephrology professionals regarding which therapy they consider to be the best and to compare this to reality. Methods. We designed a survey addressing these questions and distributed it at five international dialysis and nephrology congresses during 2007. Results. Responses were collected from 6595 delegates, 57% physicians and 28% nurses. Peritoneal dialysis (PD) was considered the best initial dialysis therapy for a planned start in a typical patient. The dialysis treatment chosen to be best for long-term use was home/self-care dialysis applied >3 times/week. The best extracorporeal form of dialysis among European respondents was high-volume haemodiafiltration (HDF), while the Asians and Americans gave preference to high-flux haemodialysis (HD). Only 7% preferred low-flux HD. Finally, the respondents were asked what level of evidence they would require to consider one form of dialysis superior to another. The majority wanted hard evidence, i.e. improved survival, to make such a distinction. Conclusions. The view of nephrology professionals on the value of different dialysis therapies reflects current scientific discussions. They consider PD to be the best initial therapy and frequent application of home/self-care dialysis to be the best long-term therapy. High-flux membranes are strongly preferred for any extracorporeal form of therapy, and HDF seems to be the modality of choice among Europeans. The opinions expressed are far from reality, which we interpret to show that non-medical factors have a strong impact on treatment allocation.
Structural characteristics and photoluminescenc spectra of ZnO films produced by pulsed laser deposition

The thin films of zinc oxide have been produced at various levels of doping with gallium. The dependence of the ZnO film crystallographic parameters on the deposition process parameters has been established. The dependence of the photoluminescence spectra of films on the conditions of deposition has been investigated. A study has been made of the intensity, emission band width, and the value of Stokes shift of ZnO films.
Frequency of hepatitis G virus infection among HIV positive subjects with parenteral and sexual exposure.

BACKGROUND Epidemiological data indicate that Hepatitis G virus (HGV) is transmitted predominantly through parenteral routes, with a high seroprevalence among injection drug users (IDUs), although sexual transmission has also been reported. In this study our objective was to compare the frequency of HGV infection in two groups of HIV-positive patients including IDUs and those with sexual risk of exposure. METHODS Presence of HGV-RNA was analyzed in serum samples from 82 HIV-infected patients including 52 IDUs and 30 cases with sexual (heterosexuals) risk of exposure by reverse transcriptase-nested polymerase chain reaction. Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg), Hepatitis B surface antibody (anti-HBs), Hepatitis C antibody (anti-HCV), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels, HIV viral load and CD4 cells count were also tested in all subjects. RESULTS The overall prevalence of HGV infection was 10.97% in HIV infected patients, with no statistically significant difference between the two groups (13.5% among IDUs vs. 6.7% among the sexual cases). We found a higher frequency of HGV co-infection with HCV in IDUs than in the sexual group (11.5% vs. 3.3%). There was no statistically significant difference between IDUs and the sexual group regarding age, viral load, CD4 cells count, ALT levels and the prevalence of HBV infection. CONCLUSION The overall prevalence of HGV infection was relatively high in HIV infected patients. HGV-RNA was found more frequently in patients with injection drug use than in those with sexual risk of exposure.
Processing Forecasting Queries

Forecasting future events based on historic data is useful in many domains like system management, adaptive query processing, environmental monitoring, and financial planning. We describe the Fa system where users and applications can pose declarative forecasting queries---both one-time queries and continuous queries---and get forecasts in real-time along with accuracy estimates. Fa supports efficient algorithms to generate execution plans automatically for forecasting queries from a novel plan space comprising operators for transforming data, learning statistical models from data, and doing inference using the learned models. In addition, Fa supports adaptive query-processing algorithms that adapt plans for continuous forecasting queries to the time-varying properties of input data streams. We report an extensive experimental evaluation of Fa using synthetic datasets, datasets collected on a testbed, and two real datasets from production settings. Our experiments give interesting insights on plans for forecasting queries, and demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of our plan-selection algorithms.
SPARC Promotes Cell Invasion In Vivo by Decreasing Type IV Collagen Levels in the Basement Membrane

Overexpression of SPARC, a collagen-binding glycoprotein, is strongly associated with tumor invasion through extracellular matrix in many aggressive cancers. SPARC regulates numerous cellular processes including integrin-mediated cell adhesion, cell signaling pathways, and extracellular matrix assembly; however, the mechanism by which SPARC promotes cell invasion in vivo remains unclear. A main obstacle in understanding SPARC function has been the difficulty of visualizing and experimentally examining the dynamic interactions between invasive cells, extracellular matrix and SPARC in native tissue environments. Using the model of anchor cell invasion through the basement membrane (BM) extracellular matrix in Caenorhabditis elegans, we find that SPARC overexpression is highly pro-invasive and rescues BM transmigration in mutants with defects in diverse aspects of invasion, including cell polarity, invadopodia formation, and matrix metalloproteinase expression. By examining BM assembly, we find that overexpression of SPARC specifically decreases levels of BM type IV collagen, a crucial structural BM component. Reduction of type IV collagen mimicked SPARC overexpression and was sufficient to promote invasion. Tissue-specific overexpression and photobleaching experiments revealed that SPARC acts extracellularly to inhibit collagen incorporation into BM. By reducing endogenous SPARC, we also found that SPARC functions normally to traffic collagen from its site of synthesis to tissues that do not express collagen. We propose that a surplus of SPARC disrupts extracellular collagen trafficking and reduces BM collagen incorporation, thus weakening the BM barrier and dramatically enhancing its ability to be breached by invasive cells.
Interpersonal Influence in Viral Social Media: A Study of Refugee Stories on Virality

The expansion of social media use has enabled massive and rapid spreadability of content, which is often referred to as virality. Earlier studies have examined various aspects of virality such as the attributes of stories that become viral. In this on-going study we aim to make a better sense of the role of interpersonal influences in the spreadability of viral social media content. In this, we are inspired by Tarde's views on interpersonal processes and the notion of imitation. Considering the recent mass migrations, and numerous viral stories that have related to the plight of refugees, we chose a group of Syrian refugees consisting of men and women as the participants for this study. In twelve in-depth qualitative interviews we learned about the participants' views on viral stories as well as the way in which their interpersonal influences may play a role in their interaction with viral stories. The findings show that the views on migrant-related viral stories varied among the participants, but a common view seemed to be somewhat of scepticism about the agenda behind the spread of these stories. As part of the study, we identified four key interpersonal influences including community conversation, formative consciousness, community boundaries, and retrospective experiences. A main conclusion in the study is that although back-end technical issues, content attributes, emotions and so on may play a role in virality, still human agency, connections and interpersonal ties play a major role in shaping the process that leads to content spreadability, hence virality.
Simple Patient-Based Transmantle Pressure and Shear Estimate From Cine Phase-Contrast MRI in Cerebral Aqueduct

From measurements of the oscillating flux of the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) in the aqueduct of Sylvius, we elaborate a patient-based methodology for transmantle pressure (TRP) and shear evaluation. High-resolution anatomical magnetic resonance imaging first permits a precise 3-D anatomical digitalized reconstruction of the Sylvius's aqueduct shape. From this, a very fast approximate numerical flow computation, nevertheless consistent with analytical predictions, is developed. Our approach includes the main contributions of inertial effects coming from the pulsatile flow and curvature effects associated with the aqueduct bending. Integrating the pressure along the aqueduct longitudinal centerline enables the total dynamic hydraulic admittances of the aqueduct to be evaluated, which is the pre-eminent contribution to the CSF pressure difference between the lateral ventricles and the subarachnoidal spaces also called the TRP. The application of the method to 20 healthy human patients validates the hypothesis of the proposed approach and provides a first database for normal aqueduct CSF flow. Finally, the implications of our results for modeling and evaluating intracranial cerebral pressure are discussed.
Dynamics of Industry and Innovation: Organizations, Networks and Systems the Fruit Flies of Innovation: a Taxonomy of Innovative Small Firms

Taxonomies of patterns of innovation give a dominant role to large firms, and are often based on empirical studies that exclude micro firms. This paper proposes an empirical taxonomy of the innovative firms at the bottom of the size distribution, based on a new survey of 1,234 small firms and micro firms in the Netherlands, in both manufacturing and services. These firms differ not only in their innovative activities, but also in their business practices and strategies – such as management attitude, planning and external orientation – that they use to achieve innovation. The taxonomy identifies four categories of small innovative firms: science-based, specialised suppliers, supplier-dominated and resource-intensive. It suggests a more diverse pattern of innovation of small firms than in Pavitt's (1984) taxonomy, a pattern that is shared by both manufacturing and services firms. Finally, the research shows that taxonomies can be effectively used to map differences in the rates, sources and nature of innovation, with the differences in the business strategies of innovative firms. 1. Introduction Fruit flies are a favourite object of study in evolutionary biology as things happen fast for them and their evolution can be observed over short time periods (Maynard Smith, 1996)
Frequency of and risk factors associated to Leptospira spp. Seropositivity in goats in the state of Sergipe, Northeastern Brazil

The objective of this study was to determine the frequency and factors associated with the occurrence of seropositivity for Leptospira spp. in goat herds in the state of Sergipe, Brazil, on the basis of the analysis of 675 samples collected from 41 properties in 2013-2014. Analysis of anti-Leptospira spp. antibodies revealed that 25.74% goats (194) were seropositive and that 90.24% (37) of the properties had at least one infected goat. The most prevalent serogroup was Icterohaemorrhagiae (85.57%); although, the study animals were reactive to other serogroups: Australis (5.15%), Pomona (3.61%), Sejroe (3.09%), and Pyrogenes (2.58%) had titers ≤400 in 96.91% of cases. The origin of the water source [still water source (OR=3.86)] was associated with seropositivity. Results reflected the importance of adopting appropriate management practices for herds in Sergipe.