Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Significant population genetic structure detected in the small yellow croaker Larimichthys polyactis inferred from mitochondrial control region

Abstract The population genetic structure of the small yellow croaker (Larimichthys polyactis) between China and Korea was further estimated by broad-scale sampling locations (Gulf of Bohai, Yellow Sea including Korea). One hundred and seventeen individuals from eight localities from coastal waters of China and Korea were analyzed based on mtDNA control region sequences (5′ mtDNA CR). A total of 97 polymorphic sites were checked, which defined 136 haplotypes. A pattern with high levels of haplotype diversity (h = 0.994 ± 0.002) and nucleotide diversity (л = 0.020 ± 0.010) was detected in the examined range, and the genetic diversity of Korea populations was higher than that of China populations. Population genetic structure analyses (MDS, AMOVA, Fst, Barrier) showed that significant genetic differentiation existed between China and Korea populations. The migration analysis indicated asymmetry migration also existed among populations, which was consistent with the result of population genetic structure. Using a variety of phylogenetic methods, coalescent reasoning, and molecular dating interpreted in conjunction with paleoclimateic and physiographic evidence, we inferred that the genetic make-up of extant populations of L. polyactis was shaped by Pleistocene environmental impacts on the historical demography of this species. Coalescent analyses (Neutrality tests, Mismatch distribution analysis, Bayesian skyline analyses) showed that the species along coastline of China and Korea has experienced population expansions originated in its most recent history at about 32–196 kya and 166–662 kya before present, respectively.
Short  \(Q\) -Ary Fixed-Rate WOM Codes for Guaranteed Rewrites and With Hot/Cold Write Differentiation

To the body of works on rewrite codes for constrained memories, we add a comprehensive study in a direction that is especially relevant to practical storage. The subject of this paper is codes for the q-ary extension of the write-once memories model, with input sizes that are fixed throughout the write sequence. Seven code constructions are given with guarantees on the number of writes they can support. For the parameters addressed by the constructions, we also prove upper bounds on the number of writes, which prove the optimality of three of the constructions. We concentrate on codes with short block lengths to keep the complexity of decoding and updates within the feasibility of practical implementation. Even with these short blocks the constructed codes are shown to be within a small additive constant from capacity for an arbitrarily large number of input bits. Part of the study addresses a new rewrite model where some of the input bits can be updated multiple times in a write sequence (hot bits), while other are updated at most once (cold bits). We refer to this new model as hot/cold rewrite codes. It is shown that adding cold bits to a rewrite code has a negligible effect on the total number of writes, while adding an important feature of leveling the physical wear of memory cells between hot and cold input data.
Bovine sperm plasma membrane proteomics through biotinylation and subcellular enrichment

A significant proportion of mammalian fertilization is mediated through the proteomic composition of the sperm surface. These protein constituents can present as biomarkers to control and regulate breeding of agricultural animals. Previous studies have addressed the bovine sperm cell apical plasma membrane (PM) proteome with nitrogen cavitation enrichment. Alternative workflows would enable to expand the compositional data more globally around the entire sperm's surface. We used a cell surface biotin‐labeling in combination with differential centrifugation to enrich sperm surface proteins. Using nano‐LC MS/MS, 338 proteins were confidently identified in the PM‐enriched proteome. Functional categories of sperm–egg interaction, protein turnover, metabolism as well as molecular transport, spermatogenesis, and signal transduction were represented by proteins with high quantitative signal in our study. A highly significant degree of enrichment was found for transmembrane and PM‐targeted proteins. Among them, we also report proteins previously not described on bovine sperm (CPQ, CD58, CKLF, CPVL, GLB1L3, and LPCAT2B) of which CPQ and CPVL cell surface localization was further validated. A descriptive overview of the bovine sperm PM integral and peripheral proteins is provided to complement future studies on animal reproduction and its relation to sperm cell surface. All MS data have been deposited in the ProteomeXchange with identifier PXD001096 (http://proteomecentral.proteomexchange.org/dataset/PXD001096).
Conservation outside of parks: attitudes of local people in Laikipia, Kenya

Conflict between wildlife and people can erode local support for conservation. Wildlife-based benefits are intended to offset costs and encourage tolerance or stewardship, but where the linkage between benefits and wildlife is not understood, benefits may be ineffective at bolstering conservation. In Laikipia, Kenya, wildlife and areas devoted to wildlife are on the increase, but most residents still suffer losses to wildlife and derive minimal benefits. The elephant situation is particularly problematic because elephants may compete with livestock for resources, raid people's crops, and chase and kill livestock and people. Although most unprotected elephant range in East Africa is in semi-arid rangelands occupied by pastoralists, previous research has emphasized agricultural, not pastoral or agri-pastoral conflicts. Between 1999 and 2002, interviews were conducted in Laikipia District to examine whether pastoralists also experience conflict, and to determine whether wildlife conservation provided appreciable benefits to residents, or fostered pro-conservation attitudes among residents. Three properties, Endana, Koija and Mpala, were selected to include the two primary land uses in Laikipia (livestock and agriculture) and two levels of wildlife-based benefits (indirect benefits and direct benefits from a locally-owned tourism operation). People were negative about many aspects of local wildlife conservation, especially animals that raided crops or were dangerous. Fundamental differences in attitudes were attributable to primary land use; within ethnic groups, people practising agriculture were less tolerant of elephants than people practising pastoralism. Despite evidence that elephants may compete with livestock for forage, ecological competition was not a primary concern among cattle-keeping people. In communities that received indirect benefits from tourism or wildlife, the connection between wildlife and employment or aid in kind was usually overlooked. Unlike elsewhere in Africa, education and wealth did not correlate with positive attitudes towards wildlife because the tourism programme was improving the situation and the outlook of people lacking education and material wealth. Pastoral people with indirect financial benefits expressed positive attitudes towards elephants for aesthetic reasons, while pastoral people with direct benefits cited financial rewards derived from tourism but attributed aesthetic values to living with elephants. The programme in the pastoral community receiving benefits was exemplary in that benefits were tangible, and the participants appreciated the linkage between benefits and active conservation. Land conversion from pastoralism to agriculture threatens elephant survival, not only in terms of habitat loss, but also in terms of lost tolerance among people who have shifted to farming.
Comparison of correlations between lipid profile and different computed tomography fatty liver criteria in the setting of incidentally noted fatty liver on computed tomography examinations

Purpose The aim of this study was to compare the correlations between computed tomography (CT) criteria for hepatic steatosis and lipid profile values when hepatic steatosis is incidentally detected. Participants and methods This is an institutional Review Board-approved, HIPPA-compliant, retrospective study of abdominal CT scans in 200 randomly selected patients who had either nonenhanced CT (NECT) or contrast-enhanced CT (CECT) studies with reported fatty liver. The participants were matched for age, sex, and ethnicity with 200 patients with nonfatty liver. For NECT, four different criteria have been proposed in the literature to diagnose fatty liver: (i) liver Hounsfield Units (HU) less than 48 HU, (ii) ratio of liver to spleen HU less than 0.8, (iii) HU difference between liver and spleen less than −10, and (iv) hepatic vessel HU greater than or equal to liver HU. For CECT, the criteria was attenuation difference between liver and spleen HU, in the portal venous phase of up to −20 to −25 HU. Laboratory results (low-density lipoprotein, high-density lipoprotein, triglycerides) were documented. Matched analyses and conditional logistic regression analysis were carried out for matched variables. Results There were statistically significant differences in triglyceride values, between the cases and controls (P=0.02), when all criteria were considered. Also, statistically significant differences were found between cases and controls on the basis of NECT criterion 2 and high-density lipoprotein (P=0.04), as well as CECT criteria and triglyceride levels (P=0.02). In addition, the data indicate that criteria for steatosis on CECT may be more broad than traditionally utilized. Conclusion Incidental reporting of fatty liver on NECT/CECT should prompt consideration of clinical follow-up and lipid profile testing in an otherwise asymptomatic patient. Additional metrics for the diagnosis of steatosis in CECT exam should also be considered.
Vegetarian diets, low-meat diets and health: a review

Abstract Objective To review the epidemiological evidence for vegetarian diets, low-meat dietary patterns and their association with health status in adults. Design Published literature review focusing primarily on prospective studies and meta-analyses examining the association between vegetarian diets and health outcomes. Results Both vegetarian diets and prudent diets allowing small amounts of red meat are associated with reduced risk of diseases, particularly CHD and type 2 diabetes. There is limited evidence of an association between vegetarian diets and cancer prevention. Evidence linking red meat intake, particularly processed meat, and increased risk of CHD, cancer and type 2 diabetes is convincing and provides indirect support for consumption of a plant-based diet. Conclusions The health benefits of vegetarian diets are not unique. Prudent plant-based dietary patterns which also allow small intakes of red meat, fish and dairy products have demonstrated significant improvements in health status as well. At this time an optimal dietary intake for health status is unknown. Plant-based diets contain a host of food and nutrients known to have independent health benefits. While vegetarian diets have not shown any adverse effects on health, restrictive and monotonous vegetarian diets may result in nutrient deficiencies with deleterious effects on health. For this reason, appropriate advice is important to ensure a vegetarian diet is nutritionally adequate especially for vulnerable groups.
BLog: block-level log-block management for NAND flash memorystorage systems

Log-block-based FTL (Flash Translation Layer) schemes have been widely used to manage NAND flash memory storage systems in industry. In log-block-based FTLs, a few physical blocks called log blocks are used to hold all page updates from a large amount of data blocks. Frequent page updates in log blocks introduce big overhead so log blocks become the system bottleneck. To address this problem, this paper presents a block-level log-block management scheme called BLog (Block-level Log-Block Management). In BLog, with the block level management, the update pages of a data block can be collected together and put into the same log block as much as possible; therefore, we can effectively reduce the associativities of log blocks so as to reduce the garbage collection overhead. We also propose a novel partial merge operation called reduced-order merge by which we can effectively postpone the garbage collection of log blocks so as to maximally utilize valid pages and reduce unnecessary erase operations in log blocks. Based on BLog, we design an FTL called BLogFTL for MLC NAND flash. We conduct experiments on a mixture of real-world and synthetic traces. The experimental results show that our scheme outperforms the previous log-block-based FTLs for MLC NAND flash.
Strange Multiplicity: Constitutionalism in an Age of Diversity

Part I. Demands for Constitutional Recognition: 1. The constitutional question raised by the politics of cultural recognition: six examples and three similarities 2. The mutual recognition of cultural diversity: three features of the common ground and three historical movements 3. The spirit of Haida Gwaii as a symbol of the age of cultural diversity 4. A constitutional dialogue in The spirit of Haida Gwaii Part II. Diversity and Contemporary Constitutionalism: 5. Anwering the constitutional question: an outline 6. Two languages of contemporary constitutionalism and the three schools of modern constitutionalism 7. The challenge of post-modernism and cultural feminism 8. The challenge of interculturalism Part III. The Historical Formation of Modern Constitutionalism: The Empire of Uniformity: 9. Constitutions ancient and modern 10. Seven features of modern constitutionalism 11. Example of forging the seven features: Locke and Aboriginal peoples 12. Vattel, Kant and their followers 13.The reform of diversity in Europe and the colonies 14. The American revolution and the guardians of empire today Part IV. The Historical Formation of Common Constitutionalism: The Rediscovery of Cultural Diversity, Part I: 15. The hidden constitutions of contemporary societies 16. Understanding constitutionalism: Wittgenstein and Hale 17. Examples of the three conventions: the Aboriginal and common-law system and the conventions of mutual recognition and consent 18. The Aboriginal and common law system and the convention of continuity 19.The Aboriginal and common law system and constitutional dialogue Part V. The Historical Formation of Common Constitutionalism: The Rediscovery of Cultural Diversity. Part II: 20. Diverse federalism and the conventions of mutual recognition, continuity and consent 21. Diverse federalism and continuity: the Quebec act and the ancient constitution 22. Diverse federalism, the three conventions and the American revolution 23. The modern attack on diverse federalism: the Durham report and its followers 24. Linguistic minorities and the three conventions: the form of reasoning appropriate to mutual recognition and accommodation 25. Intercultural citizens, gender differences and the three conventions Part VI. Constitutionalism in an Age of Cultural Diversity: 25. A summary of contemporary constitutionalism 26. Replies to four objections to contemporary constitutionalism 27. Two public goods of contemporary constitutionalism: belonging and critical freedom Conclusion: the philosophy and practice of contemporary constitutionalism Notes Bibliography Index.
Rapid and accurate assessment of glomerular filtration rate in patients with renal transplants using serum cystatin C.

BACKGROUND Assessment of renal function in patients with renal transplants is of great importance. Various studies have reported cystatin C as an easily and rapidly assessable marker that can be used for accurate information on renal function impairment. To date, no study is available to define the role of cystatin C in patients with renal transplants. METHODS Thirty steady-state patients (50% male/50% female) with status post-kidney transplantation were studied. To assess renal function, cystatin C, creatinine clearance, serum creatinine, beta2-microglobulin (beta2M), and [125I]iothalamate clearance were determined. Correlations and non-parametric ROC curves for accuracy, using a cut-off glomerular filtration rate (GFR) of 60 ml/min, were obtained for the different markers allowing for calculations of positive predictive values (PPV), positive likelihood ratios (PLR), specificity and sensitivity, respectively. Further, to evaluate the usefulness of these markers for monitoring, intraindividual coefficients of variation (CVs) for cystatin C and creatinine measurements were compared in 85 renal transplant patients. Measurements consisted of at least six pairs of results, which were obtained at different time points during routine follow-up. RESULTS Cystatin C correlated best with GFR (r=0.83), whereas serum creatinine (r=0.67), creatinine clearance (r=0.57) and beta2M (r=0.58) all had lower correlation coefficients. The diagnostic accuracy of cystatin C was significantly better than serum creatinine (P=0.025), but did not differ significantly from creatinine clearance (P=0.76) and beta2M (P=0.43). At a cut-off of 1.64 mg/l, cystatin C has a PPV of 93%, PLR of 6.4, specificity 89% and sensitivity 70%, respectively. For beta2M, PPV 83%, PLR 1.7, specificity 67% and sensitivity 75% was seen at a cut-off of 3.57 mg/l. Accordingly, at a cut-off of 125 micromol/l for serum creatinine, a PPV 76%, PLR 1.4, specificity 44% and sensitivity 80% was revealed. Finally, at a cut-off of 66 ml/min/1.73 m2 for creatinine clearance, the following characteristics were found: PPV 94%, PLR 7.7, specificity 89% and sensitivity 85%. The intraindividual variation of creatinine was significantly lower than that of cystatin C (P<0.001). With increasing concentrations, their ratios of CV tended towards a value of 1, demonstrating identical variability at low GFR. CONCLUSION Together, our data show that in patients with renal transplants, cystatin C, in terms of PPV and PLR, has a similar diagnostic value as creatinine clearance. However, it is superior to serum determinations of creatinine and beta2M. The intraindividual variation of cystatin C is greater than that of creatinine. This might be due to the better ability of cystatin C to reflect temporary changes especially in mildly impaired GFR, most critical for early detection of rejection and other function impairment. Thus, cystatin C allows for rapid and accurate assessment of renal function (GFR) in renal transplants and is clearly superior to the commonly used serum creatinine.
Physical self-concept and athletic identity among former collegiate athletes : examining the influence on self

This study examined physical self-concept, global self-esteem, and athletic identity among former collegiate athletes. 308 former Division 1 NCAA collegiate athletes participated in the study. This study replicated findings that physical self-worth demonstrates a positive relation with global self-esteem. Athletic identity was shown to mediate the relation between physical self-concept and global self-esteem for former collegiate athletes. Athletic identity was also shown to mediate the relation between physical activity and physical self-concept. Athletic identity did not serve as a moderating variable for the entire sample, but was shown to moderate the relation between physical activity and physical self-concept for those no longer participating in their collegiate sport and those no longer identifying as an athlete. Athletic identity and global self-esteem demonstrated age-related differences. These findings suggest that there is some maintenance of athletic identity for many former collegiate athletes, and that identity remains influential in its association with physical self-concept.
Proposal to assess printability of bioinks for extrusion-based bioprinting and evaluation of rheological properties governing bioprintability

The development and formulation of printable inks for extrusion-based 3D bioprinting has been a major challenge in the field of biofabrication. Inks, often polymer solutions with the addition of crosslinking to form hydrogels, must not only display adequate mechanical properties for the chosen application but also show high biocompatibility as well as printability. Here we describe a reproducible two-step method for the assessment of the printability of inks for bioprinting, focussing firstly on screening ink formulations to assess fibre formation and the ability to form 3D constructs before presenting a method for the rheological evaluation of inks to characterise the yield point, shear thinning and recovery behaviour. In conjunction, a mathematical model was formulated to provide a theoretical understanding of the pressure-driven, shear thinning extrusion of inks through needles in a bioprinter. The assessment methods were trialled with a commercially available crème, poloxamer 407, alginate-based inks and an alginate-gelatine composite material. Yield stress was investigated by applying a stress ramp to a number of inks, which demonstrated the necessity of high yield for printable materials. The shear thinning behaviour of the inks was then characterised by quantifying the degree of shear thinning and using the mathematical model to predict the window of printer operating parameters in which the materials could be printed. Furthermore, the model predicted high shear conditions and high residence times for cells at the walls of the needle and effects on cytocompatibility at different printing conditions. Finally, the ability of the materials to recover to their original viscosity after extrusion was examined using rotational recovery rheological measurements. Taken together, these assessment techniques revealed significant insights into the requirements for printable inks and shear conditions present during the extrusion process and allow the rapid and reproducible characterisation of a wide variety of inks for bioprinting.
Efficacy of Dosimetric Versus Empiric Prescribed Activity of 131I for Therapy of Differentiated Thyroid Cancer

Abstract Background: The optimal management of high-risk patients with differentiated thyroid cancer (DTC) consists of thyroidectomy followed by radioiodine (131I) therapy. The prescribed activity of 131I can be determined using two approaches: 1) empiric prescribed activity of 131I (E-Rx); and 2) dosimetry-based prescribed activity of 131I (D-Rx). Aim: The aim of the study was to compare the relative treatment efficacy and side effects of D-Rx vs. E-Rx. Methods: A retrospective analysis was performed of patients with distant metastases and/or locoregionally advanced radioiodine-avid DTC who were treated with either D-Rx or E-Rx. Response to treatment was based on RECIST (Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors) 1.1 criteria. Results: The study group consisted of 87 patients followed for 51 ± 35 months, of whom 43 were treated with D-Rx and 44 with E-Rx. Multivariate analysis, controlling for age, gender, and status of metastases revealed that the D-Rx group tended to be 70% less likely to progress (odds ratio, 0.29; 95% confidence interval, 0.087–1.02; P = 0.052) and more likely to obtain complete response (CR) compared to the E-Rx group (odds ratio, 8.2; 95% confidence interval, 1.2–53.5; P = 0.029). There was an association in the D-Rx group between the observed CR and percentage of maximum tolerable activity given as a first treatment of 131I (P = 0.030). The advantage of D-Rx was specifically apparent in the locoregionally advanced group because CR was significantly higher in D-Rx vs. E-Rx in this group of patients (35.7 vs. 3.3%; P = 0.009). The rates of partial response, stable disease, and progression-free survival, as well as the frequency of side effects, were not significantly different between the two groups. Conclusion: Higher efficacy of D-Rx with a similar safety profile compared to E-Rx supports the rationale for employing individually prescribed activity in high-risk patients with DTC.