Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Evolution of Body Elongation in Gymnophthalmid Lizards: Relationships with Climate

The evolution of elongated body shapes in vertebrates has intrigued biologists for decades and is particularly recurrent among squamates. Several aspects might explain how the environment influences the evolution of body elongation, but climate needs to be incorporated in this scenario to evaluate how it contributes to morphological evolution. Climatic parameters include temperature and precipitation, two variables that likely influence environmental characteristics, including soil texture and substrate coverage, which may define the selective pressures acting during the evolution of morphology. Due to development of geographic information system (GIS) techniques, these variables can now be included in evolutionary biology studies and were used in the present study to test for associations between variation in body shape and climate in the tropical lizard family Gymnophthalmidae. We first investigated how the morphological traits that define body shape are correlated in these lizards and then tested for associations between a descriptor of body elongation and climate. Our analyses revealed that the evolution of body elongation in Gymnophthalmidae involved concomitant changes in different morphological traits: trunk elongation was coupled with limb shortening and a reduction in body diameter, and the gradual variation along this axis was illustrated by less-elongated morphologies exhibiting shorter trunks and longer limbs. The variation identified in Gymnophthalmidae body shape was associated with climate, with the species from more arid environments usually being more elongated. Aridity is associated with high temperatures and low precipitation, which affect additional environmental features, including the habitat structure. This feature may influence the evolution of body shape because contrasting environments likely impose distinct demands for organismal performance in several activities, such as locomotion and thermoregulation. The present study establishes a connection between morphology and a broader natural component, climate, and introduces new questions about the spatial distribution of morphological variation among squamates.
International Journal of Biological & Medical Research Cell Phones – Homes for Microbes! a B B B B International Journal of Biological and Medical Research Www.biomedscidirect.com Int J Biol Med Res

Original Article Background: Cell phones are in close contact with the body and serve as reservoirs of infection allowing the transportation of the contaminating bacteria to many different clinical & non-clinical environments. Further sharing of cell phones between HCWs (Healthcare workers) & non-HCWs may distinctly facilitate the spread of potentially pathogenic bacteria to the community. Objectives: To study the bacterial flora present on the cell phones of HCWs and to compare it with that found on cell phones of non-HCWs in terms of composition and antibiotic sensitivity. Materials & Methods: A total of 100 samples from the cell phones of HCWs and non-HCWs were collected from the surfaces of the cell phones. The swabs were inoculated on Mac Conkey's, Blood Aagar and Saboraud's Dextrose Agar plates. Bacterial isolates were identified using standard methods & Antimicrobial Susceptibility Test was performed as per CLSI standards. Result: Of the 50 samples from HCWs 10 were contaminated with S. aureus, 4 CONS, 1 E. coli & Pseudomonas spp. together. Of the 10 S. aureus 40% were resistant to methicillin & >1 organism was found in 2 samples. Of the 50 samples from Non-HCWs 18 were contaminated with S. aureus of which 50% were MRSA and 6 CONS. No fungus was isolated. Conclusion: To prevent the spread of potential pathogens through mobile phones, training of the HCWs about strict infection control practices, hand hygiene, environmental disinfection, routine decontamination of mobile phones with alcohol and discouraging sharing of phones between HCWs & Non-HCWs, should be done to prevent the spread of infection in hospital settings.
A dyadic reciprocity index for repeated interaction networks*

Abstract A wide variety of networked systems in human societies are composed of repeated communications between actors. A dyadic relationship made up of repeated interactions may be reciprocal (both actors have the same probability of directing a communication attempt to the other) or non-reciprocal (one actor has a higher probability of initiating a communication attempt than the other). In this paper we propose a theoretically motivated index of reciprocity appropriate for networks formed from repeated interactions based on these probabilities. We go on to examine the distribution of reciprocity in a large-scale social network built from trace-logs of over a billion cell-phone communication events across millions of actors in a large industrialized country. We find that while most relationships tend toward reciprocity, a substantial minority of relationships exhibit large levels of non-reciprocity. This is puzzling because behavioral theories in social science predict that persons will selectively terminate non-reciprocal relationships, keeping only those that approach reciprocity. We point to two structural features of human communication behavior and relationship formation—the division of contacts into strong and weak ties and degree-based assortativity—that either help or hinder the ability of persons to obtain communicative balance in their relationships. We examine the extent to which deviations from reciprocity in the observed network are partially traceable to the operation of these countervailing tendencies.
A Novel Location Strategy for Minimizing Monitors in Vehicle Emission Remote Sensing System

The vehicle emission remote sensing system is one promising solution to monitor the emissions of on-road vehicles that contribute to the air pollution in urban areas. To implement such a system an effective location strategy to place the monitors is yet to be designed. To this purpose we formulate a novel location problem where the minimum subset of roads on which traffic emission monitors are located is to be found only using the topological structure and some other available information of the traffic network. We solve this problem by transforming it into a graph-theoretic problem and considering more characteristics such as the traffic regulations and limits. After modeling the real-world traffic network as a digraph, a two-step algorithm is developed. The first step is to find all directed circuits to establish hypergraph-based set of directed circuits using the depth first searching strategy. In the second step, an approximation algorithm is designed to find the greedy transversal which is a subset of roads to place vehicle emission monitors in order to cover all the traffic circuits. The performance of the location strategy is validated by both theoretical developments and illustrative examples.
Pitfalls of Establishing DNA Barcoding Systems in Protists: The Cryptophyceae as a Test Case

A DNA barcode is a preferrably short and highly variable region of DNA supposed to facilitate a rapid identification of species. In many protistan lineages, a lack of species-specific morphological characters hampers an identification of species by light or electron microscopy, and difficulties to perform mating experiments in laboratory cultures also do not allow for an identification of biological species. Thus, testing candidate barcode markers as well as establishment of accurately working species identification systems are more challenging than in multicellular organisms. In cryptic species complexes the performance of a potential barcode marker can not be monitored using morphological characters as a feedback, but an inappropriate choice of DNA region may result in artifactual species trees for several reasons. Therefore a priori knowledge of the systematics of a group is required. In addition to identification of known species, methods for an automatic delimitation of species with DNA barcodes have been proposed. The Cryptophyceae provide a mixture of systematically well characterized as well as badly characterized groups and are used in this study to test the suitability of some of the methods for protists. As species identification method the performance of blast in searches against badly to well-sampled reference databases has been tested with COI-5P and 5′-partial LSU rDNA (domains A to D of the nuclear LSU rRNA gene). In addition the performance of two different methods for automatic species delimitation, fixed thresholds of genetic divergence and the general mixed Yule-coalescent model (GMYC), have been examined. The study demonstrates some pitfalls of barcoding methods that have to be taken care of. Also a best-practice approach towards establishing a DNA barcode system in protists is proposed.
White-tailed deer are a biotic filter during community assembly, reducing species and phylogenetic diversity

Promotional Statement: White-tailed deer browsing has been implicated in the loss of species diversity from forests throughout eastern North America. We build on this previous research by examining how browsing also affects phylogenetic community structure. With this approach, we can better understand the role of deer browsing in the community assembly process. In browsed plots, we found that reductions in phylogenetic diversity were much greater than reductions in species richness or diversity. Species persisting in browsed communities were also closely-related. Our findings indicate deer browsing acts as a biotic filter during the community assembly process.
Population Processes at Multiple Spatial Scales Maintain Diversity and Adaptation in the Linum marginale - Melampsora lini Association

Host-pathogen coevolution is a major driver of species diversity, with an essential role in the generation and maintenance of genetic variation in host resistance and pathogen infectivity. Little is known about how resistance and infectivity are structured across multiple geographic scales and what eco-evolutionary processes drive these patterns. Across southern Australia, the wild flax Linum marginale is frequently attacked by its rust fungus Melampsora lini. Here, we compare the genetic and phenotypic structure of resistance and infectivity among population pairs from two regions where environmental differences associate with specific life histories and mating systems. We find that both host and pathogen populations are genetically distinct between these regions. The region with outcrossing hosts and pathogens that go through asexual cycles followed by sexual reproduction showed greater diversity of resistance and infectivity phenotypes, higher levels of resistance and less clumped within-population spatial distribution of resistance. However, in the region where asexual pathogens infect selfing hosts, pathogens were more infective and better adapted to sympatric hosts. Our findings largely agree with expectations based on the distinctly different host mating systems in the two regions, with a likely advantage for hosts undergoing recombination. For the pathogen in this system, sexual reproduction may primarily be a survival mechanism in the region where it is observed. While it appears to potentially have adverse effects on local adaptation in the short term, it may be necessary for longer-term coevolution with outcrossing hosts.
The Impact of Low Vision on Touch-Gesture Articulation on Mobile Devices

A comprehensive study of stroke gestures on mobile device touchscreens by users with low vision reveals that some aspects of gesture articulation, such as gesture length or size, are minimally impacted by the impairment, while other aspects, such as production times, reveal suboptimal visuomotor routines of eye-hand coordination. Informed by the studys findings, the authors outline design guidelines for effective stroke-gesture input on mobile devices under low vision conditions.
De-Anonymizing Social Networks With Random Forest Classifier

Personal privacy is facing severe threats as social networks are sharing user data with advertisers, application developers, and data mining researchers. Although these data are anonymized by removing personal information, such as user identity, nickname, or address information, personal information still could not be protected effectively. In order to arouse the attention of people from academia and industry for privacy protection, we propose a random forest method to de-anonymize social networks. First, we convert the social network de-anonymization problem into a binary classification problem between node pairs. In order to partition large sparse social networks, we use the spectral partition method to partition large graphs into a number of small subgraphs. Then, we use the features of the network structure to train the random forest classifier. As a result, candidate node pairs from anonymous network and auxiliary network can be classified as matched pair by the random forest classifier. Furthermore, we improve the efficiency of our solution through parallelizing proposed method. The experiments conducted on the real data sets show that our solution’s area under the curve is 19% higher than baseline methods on average. Besides that we test the robustness of the proposed algorithm by adding some noisy data, and the result demonstrates that our solution has good robustness.
Balloon-expandable transapical transcatheter aortic valve implantation with or without predilation of the aortic valve: results of a multicentre registry†

OBJECTIVES To assess safety and efficacy of transapical transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TA-TAVI) in the absence of predilation using balloon aortic valvuloplasty (BAV). Predilation of the stenosed valve using BAV is a routine step in TA-TAVI; however, evidence supporting its clinical value is lacking, and several studies have linked it with higher complication rates. METHODS A prospective, two-armed, multicentre registry (EASE-IT TA) to gather data on patients undergoing TA-TAVI with or without BAV, using the Edwards SAPIEN 3 valve was designed. The primary evaluation criterion was a composite of all-cause mortality, non-fatal stroke, non-fatal myocardial infarction, acute kidney injury and pacemaker implantation [per Valve Academic Research Consortium-2 (VARC-2)] within 30 days after TAVI. RESULTS A total of 198 subjects underwent TA-TAVI, 61 with and 137 without BAV. Patient characteristics were comparable at baseline (mean ± SD: age 80.3 ± 5.7 years; logistic EuroSCORE 20.2 ± 12.6). Similar reductions in peak and mean transvalvular gradients were observed post-procedurally. There was a significant reduction of fluoroscopy time without BAV (4.7 vs 7.9 min; P = 0.039) and significantly decreased odds of catecholamine administration (17.5% vs 32.8%; P = 0.017). A decreased odds of the primary evaluation criterion in patients without BAV after 30 days (adjusted odds ratio 0.71; 95% confidence interval 0.34-1.82) and the same composite end-point after 6 months (adjusted odds ratio 0.74; 95% confidence interval 0.37-1.47) were not significant even after multivariable adjustment. CONCLUSIONS TA-TAVI without BAV appears to be at least equal to its conventional counterpart in terms of efficacy and may offer advantages in terms of safety. Thus, there appears to be little justification for maintaining the BAV step in TA-TAVI for many patients.
The Role of Physical Exercise and Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Depressive  Illness in the Elderly

Background: In adulthood, depression is the most common type of mental illness and will be the second leading cause of disease by 2020. Major depression dramatically affects the function of the central nervous system and degrades the quality of life, especially in old age. Several mechanisms underlie the pathophysiology of depressive illness, since it has a multifactorial etiology. Human and an-imal studies have demonstrated that depression is mainly associated with imbalances in neurotransmitters and neurotrophins, hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis alterations, brain volume changes, neurogenesis dysfunction, and dysregulation of in-flammatory pathways. Also the gut microbiota may influence mental health outcomes. Although depression is not a consequence of normal aging, depressive disorders are common in later life, even if often undi-agnosed or mis-diagnosed in old age. When untreated, depression reduces life expectancy, worsens medical illnesses, en-hances health care costs and is the primary cause of suicide among older people. To date, the underpinnings of depression in the elderly are still to be understood, and the pharmacological treatment is the most commonly used therapy. Objective: Since a sedentary lifestyle and poor eating habits have recently emerged as crucial contributors to the genesis and course of depression, in the present review, we have focused on the effects of physical activity and omega-3 fatty acids on depressive illness in the elderly. Results: A growing literature indicates that both exercise and dietary interventions can promote mental health throughout one’s lifespan. Conclusion: There thus emerges the awareness that an active lifestyle and a balanced diet may constitute valid low-cost pre-vention strategies to counteract depressive illness in the elderly.
Characteristic of EBT-XD and EBT3 radiochromic film dosimetry for photon and proton beams

Recently, a new type of radiochromic film, the EBT-XD film, has been introduced for high dose radiotherapy. The EBT-XD film contains the same structure as the EBT3 film but has a slightly different composition and a thinner active layer. This study benchmarks the EBT-XD against EBT3 film for 6 MV and 10 MV photon beams, as well as for 97.4 MeV and 148.2 MeV proton beams and 15–100 kV x-rays. Dosimetric and film reading characteristics, such as post irradiation darkening, film orientation effect, lateral response artifact (LRA), film sensitivity, energy and beam quality dependency were investigated. Furthermore, quenching effects in the Bragg peak were investigated for a single proton beam energy for both film types, in addition measurements were performed in a spread-out Bragg peak. EBT-XD films showed the same characteristic on film darkening as EBT3. The effects between portrait and landscape orientation were reduced by 3.1% (in pixel value) for EBT-XD compared to EBT3 at a dose of 2000 cGy. The LRA is reduced for EBT-XD films for all investigated dose ranges. The sensitivity of EBT-XD films is superior to EBT3 for doses higher than 500 cGy. In addition, EBT-XD showed a similar dosimetric response for photon and proton irradiation with low energy and beam quality dependency. A quenching effect of 10% was found for both film types. The slight decrease in the thickness of the active layer and different composition configuration of EBT-XD resulted in a reduced film orientation effect and LRA, as well as a sensitivity increase in high-dose regions for both photon and proton beams. Overall, the EBT-XD film improved regarding film reading characteristics and showed advantages in the high-dose region for photon and proton beams.
Next Generation Metaheuristic: Jaguar Algorithm

Metaheuristic algorithms are implemented to solve optimization problems and have recently received significant research attention. Metaheuristic algorithms rely primarily on two properties, exploration, and exploitation. Traditional metaheuristic algorithms use many weights (parameters) to balance these two properties to increase the chance of finding a better solution in limited cost and time. However, traditional algorithms have some problems. Exploration and exploitation are different abilities and restrict each other, therefore, traditional algorithms need many parameters and lots of costs to achieve the balance, and also need to adjust parameters for different optimization problems. Jaguar Algorithm (JA) has great abilities both in exploitation and exploration, is proposed to address these issues. First, JA attempts to find the optimal solution in the designated search area. It then uses history information to jump to a better area. JA can, therefore, determine the position of the global optimum. JA achieves strong exploitation and exploration with these features. Also, according to different problems, JA implements adaptive parameter adjustment. The self-analysis and experiment of this research demonstrate that each JA capability can have various positive effects, while the performance comparison demonstrates JAs superiority over traditional metaheuristic algorithms.
Basic Research Advances on Pituitary Stem Cell Function and Regulation

As a central regulator of major physiological processes, the pituitary gland is a highly dynamic organ, capable of responding to hormonal demand and hypothalamic influence, through adapting secretion as well as remodelling cell numbers among its seven populations of differentiated cells. Stem cells of the pituitary have been shown to actively generate new cells during postnatal development but remain mostly quiescent during adulthood, where they persist as a long-lived population. Despite a significant body of research characterising attributes of anterior pituitary stem cells, the regulation of this population is poorly understood. A better grasp on the signalling mechanisms influencing stem proliferation and cell fate decisions can impact on our future treatments of pituitary gland disorders such as organ failure and pituitary tumours, which can disrupt endocrine homeostasis with life-long consequences. This minireview addresses the current methodologies aiming to understand better the attributes of pituitary stem cells and the normal regulation of this population in the organ, and discusses putative future avenues to manipulate pituitary stem cells during disease states or regenerative medicine approaches.
Does family life cycle stage influence e-shopping acceptance by Indian women? An examination using the technology acceptance model

ABSTRACT This study contributes to the literature that advocates the use of consumer segmentation by family life cycle (FLC) stages, which are found to have a greater influence on changes occurring in an individual’s life than age. It addresses the youth bias of most research on e-shopping adoption and the emergence of older e-shoppers as an attractive market segment by covering women of all age groups. It evaluated the effect of perceptions and attitudes towards e-shopping acceptance, as well as their variations across FLC stages, by using the technology acceptance model. The 10 FLC stages were selected by modifying the Duvall FLC classification system to reflect the Indian context. The results show that the different FLC stages have a significant impact on the e-shopping behaviour of women. While deals and discounts were found to influence all groups, time-saving and better decision-making through online shopping sites also significantly influenced e-shopping behaviour. Furthermore, the perceived usefulness and/or attitude were important factors that directly affected e-shopping technology adoption and usage patterns across a majority of the FLC stages. The study proved that FLC stages had greater power than age in explaining e-shopping adoption and e-retailers should not ignore them in designing e-marketing applications.
Enhanced serum levels of matrix Gla protein and bone morphogenetic protein in acute coronary syndrome patients

Vascular calcification has been found to be associated with increased risk of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality. Various bone‐associated proteins have been suggested to be related with this process. In this study, we aimed to evaluate whether serum levels of bone morphogenic protein‐4 (BMP‐4) and matrix Gla protein (MGP) differed in patients who were found to have normal epicardial coronary arteries or a culprit lesion in the coronary angiography leading to acute coronary syndrome (ACS).