Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The complete larval development of Eurypanopeus canalensis Abele and Kim, 1989 (Crustacea: Brachyura: Panopeidae) described from laboratory reared material

The estuarine panopeid crab Eurypanopeus canalensis Abele and Kim, 1989, is an eastern tropical Pacific species with a known distribution from the southeastern Gulf of California, Mexico, to Panama. Its complete larval development is fully described and illustrated from laboratory-reared material. The four zoeal stages and the megalopa are compared with two congeneric species from the West Atlantic, E. abbreviatus (Stimpson, 1860) and E. depressus (Smith, 1869). The main differences between larvae of E. canalensis and those of these two species include telson setation and the presence/absence of a stout hook-like spine in the megalopae cheliped ischium.
Challenging “Factor–Cluster Segmentation”

The concept of market segmentation has been widely accepted and warmly embraced both by tourism industry and academia. In tourism research, this increased interest in segmentation studies has led to the emergence of a standard research approach. Most notably a concept referred to as “factor–cluster segmentation” has been broadly adopted. The aim of this article is to demonstrate that this approach is not generally the best procedure to identify homogeneous groups of individuals (market segments).
Study of Demographic Characteristics of Adult Patients with Positive Urine Culture in a General Hospital in Tehran, Iran

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVE: Urinary tract infection (UTI) is a common disease in adults that early diagnosis and proper treatment of it has high importance. This study was performed for analysis of type and antibiotics resistance of isolated bacteria from urine of adult in different sex and ages for help in choose of antibiotics in empirical therapy.METHOD: Data of patients (gender, age, kind of admission and isolated bacteria) with bacterial positive urine culture during three months in 2013 at Pars Hospital, Tehran, Iran, were studied and analyzed by SPSS software. Antimicrobial susceptibility pattern of isolates to cotrimoxazole, ampicillin, ciprofloxacin, gentamicin, amikacin and nitrofurantoin, were also determined by the standard disk diffusion method according to CLSI recommendation.RESULTS: A total of 1123 urine isolates were collected. Studied patients were often female and outpatients (78.3% and 88.7%, respectively). Escherichia coli was the most common isolate (50%), followed by Streptococcus agalactiae (22.9%), Klebsiella spp. (8.5%), Enterococcus spp. (7.6%), Coagulase Negative Staphylococci (3.7%) and Staphylococcus aureus (2%). Statistically significant differences were seen in distribution of some bacteria regarding demographic characteristics of patients. Highest resistance rates have shown to cotrimoxazole and ampicillin (56.9% and 55%, respectively) among isolated bacteria.CONCLUSIONS: The results show the relationship between demographic characteristics of Iranian patients and type of isolated bacteria from urine and high resistance to common antimicrobial agents.
Postmethod Condition and Its Implications for English Language Teacher

Postmethod condition refers to the qualities of the contemporary era in English language teaching in which previously well trusted methods are put under serious scrutiny and in which a body of methods and techniques collected from all previous methods and approaches are used pragmatically with a belief that such an eclectic practice leads to success. Such practices, under the postmethod condition, are in constant influx, bringing continuous changes in both pre-service and in-service professional development programs. The aim of this paper, thus, is to discuss the relationship between this postmethod condition and a variety of English language teacher education practices situated in Turkey.
Food and Shelter as Determinants of Food Choice by an Herbivorous Marine Amphipod

Because food and habitat are closely linked for small herbivores that live on plants, food choice in the field may be constrained by the need to choose plants that provide safe living sites. We investigated the importance of food value and refuge value in determining the plant utilization patterns of the herbivorous marine amphipod Ampithoe longimana. When offered a choice of five common seaweeds, this amphipod fed most readily on Dictyota and Hypnea and less readily on Sargassum, Chondria, and Calonitophyllum. Rates of feeding on the different seaweeds were unrelated to seaweed gross morphology, toughness, nitrogen, or protein content. When cultured on each of these seaweeds in the laboratory, amphipod survivorship was high on Dictyota (82%), intermediate (35 and 18%, respectively) on Sargassum and Hypnea, and low (0%) on the other seaweeds. Survivorship on the different diets was strongly correlated (r = 0.930) with algal protein content; however, neither protein content nor amphipod performance on the different diets was significantly related to feeding rates on those diets. Additionally, amphipods from the three seaweed species that produced some survivors did not differ in growth rate, fecundity, egg size, or age at first ovulation. Variance in survivorship, and related measures, among sibling groups of amphipods suggested that this amphipod population possessed heritable variation for performance on the different seaweed species. In the field, abundance of A. longimana on the different species of algae was more clearly related to the preference of omnivorous fishes for these algae than to feeding rates of the amphipods when given those algae in the laboratory. A. longimana was more abun- dant on Dictyota and Sargassum (both unpalatable to omnivorous fishes), than on Hypnea, Chondria, and Calonitophyllum (all of which are palatable to fishes). During the season when omnivorous fishes were abundant, density of A. longimana increased on Dictyota, which is chemically defended from fishes, but decreased or remained unchanged on the seaweeds that are more palatable to fishes. Competition with other amphipods as a group did not appear to explain the distribution of A. longimana among seaweeds, since there were no negative correlations between A. longimana abundance and total amphipod abun- dance in any month. The lack of any consistent relationship between host-plant use in the field and either feeding preference or diet value, as measured by survivorship and repro- duction, suggests that host-plant use by A. longimana may be strongly constrained by requirements for shelter from predation.
Spatial relationships between soil attributes and corn yield in no-tillage system

Soil properties play an important role in spatial variability of crop yield. However, a low spatial correlation has generally been observed between maps of crop yield and of soil properties. The objectives of the present investigation were to assess the spatial pattern variability of soil properties and of corn yield at the same sampling intensity, and evaluate its cause-and-effect relationships. The experimental site was structured in a grid of 100 referenced points, spaced at 10 m intervals along four parallel 250 m long rows spaced 4.5 m apart. Thus, points formed a rectangle containing four columns and 25 rows. Therefore, each sampling cell encompassed an area of 45 m2 and consisted of five 10 m long crop rows, in which the referenced points represented the center. Samples were taken from the layers 0-0.1 m and 0.1-0.2 m. Soil physical and chemical properties were evaluated. Statistical analyses consisted of data description and geostatistics. The spatial dependence of corn yield and soil properties was confirmed. The hypothesis of this study was confirmed, i.e., when sampling the soil to determine the values of soil characteristics at similar to sampling intensity as for crop yield assessments, correlations between the spatial distribution of soil characteristics and crop yield were observed. The spatial distribution pattern of soil properties explained 65 % of the spatial distribution pattern of corn yield. The spatial distribution pattern of clay content and percentage of soil base saturation explained most of the spatial distribution pattern of corn yield.
On contractive projections in Hardy spaces

We prove a conjecture of Wojtaszczyk that for 1 6 p < ∞, p 6 2, Hp(T) does not admit any norm one projections with dimension of the range finite and bigger than 1. This implies in particular that for 1 6 p < ∞, p 6 2, Hp does not admit a Schauder basis with constant one.
Articulatory evidence for feedback and competition in speech production

We report an experimental investigation of slips of the tongue using a Word Order Competition (WOC) paradigm in which context (entirely non-lexical, mixed) and competitor (whether a possible phoneme substitution would result in a word or not) were crossed. Our primary analysis uses electropalatographic (EPG) records to measure articulatory variation, and reveals that the articulation of onset phonemes is affected by two factors. First, onsets with real word competitors are articulated more similarly to the competitor onset than when the competitor would result in a non-word. Second, onsets produced in a non-lexical context vary more from the intended onset than when the context contains real words. We propose an account for these findings that incorporates feedback between phonological and lexical representations in a cascading model of speech production, and argue that measuring articulatory variation can improve our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in speech production.
Determining the intracellular concentrations of flavonoids in MDA-MB-231 cells using HPLC-coupled mass spectrometry

DETERMINING THE INTRACELLULAR CONCENTRATIONS OF FLAVONOIDS IN MDA-MB-231 CELLS USING HPLC-COUPLED MASS SPECTROMETRY by Anh Dang Pham Flavonoids are polyphenolic compounds found in a wide variety of plants. In recent years, flavonoids have been found to be beneficial to human health. Our lab has investigated the ability of flavonoids to induce cytotoxicity in human breast cancer cell lines. We have discovered that some compounds can induce cytotoxicity very readily, whereas others cannot. We hypothesized that this difference is attributable to a compound’s ability to transverse the cell membrane. Therefore, we used LC-MS to measure the amount of each flavonoid that is able to enter into MDA-MB-231 cells, human breast cancer cells. We tested 14 flavonoids. MDA-MB-231 cells were plated and treated with 100 μM flavonoids for 24 and 48 hr. After treatment, cells were extracted using methanol. Flavonoids from extracts were characterized and quantitated by LC-MS. We found that intracellular flavonoid concentration increased over time for some of the flavonoids. We could not detect quercetin, myricetin, and catechin in cell extracts. However, quercetin was found to be a moderate inducer of cytotoxicity, whereas myricetin and catechin were not. We found that quercetin dimerized over time in the cell medium only in the presence of serum. The quercetin dimer could not be detected in cellular extracts, which suggested that it was unable to cross the membrane. Additionally, synthetic quercetin dimer did not induce cell death. Our results suggest that only fresh quercetin killed cells; once quercetin dimerized, it could not induce cell death.
Prevalence of the metabolic syndrome among patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus in Uyo, Nigeria

Background: The metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors that is responsible for most of the excess cardiovascular morbidity amongst persons with type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (DM). The metabolic syndrome increases the risk for coronary heart disease and stroke by three-fold with a marked increase in cardiovascular mortality. Objectives: This study set out to find the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome amongst type 2 diabetes mellitus patients and the commonest metabolic abnormalities in them in Uyo, South-South Nigeria. Subjects and Methods: A prospective cross sectional study carried out at the diabetes clinic of the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital, between January and August, 2008. Data obtained included anthropometric indices, blood pressure and fasting serum lipids. Data was analyzed using SPSS version 10. Results: Two hundred and forty subjects (106 males, 134 females) were enrolled for the study. The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 62.5%. Majority of the subjects with metabolic syndrome were aged between 41-70 years with a mean age of. 53±7years. Hypertension was the most common metabolic abnormality present in 130 (86.6%) of the subjects with metabolic syndrome, while low high density lipoprotein (HDL) was the least common abnormality present in 26 (17.3%) of the subjects with metabolic syndrome. Two metabolic abnormalities were present in 114 (76%) of the subjects, while four abnormalities were present in 4 (2.6%) of the subjects with metabolic syndrome. Conclusion: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome in type 2 DM patients in Uyo, South-South of Nigeria is high. With the cardiovascular risk associated with this syndrome, efforts must be geared towards addressing these abnormalities through lifestyle modification, health awareness and medications in order to reduce this complication in type 2 DM patients. Keywords: Metabolic syndrome, Type 2 DM, Uyo.
Porcine perilipin (PLIN) gene: Structure, polymorphism and association study in Large White pigs

- tions as a key regulator of triacylglycerol storage and hydrolysis in adipocytes. In this study, structure and variability of the porcine PLIN gene were characterised. PCR fragments encompassing exons 1 to 9 and interspersed introns were sequenced and the obtained sequence was deposited in EMBL/GenBank/DDBJ databases (AM931171). Seven silent polymorphisms and one nonsynonymous polymorphism were detected in the coding sequence. The nonsynonymous polymorphism g.627G>A causing an amino acid substitution p.Val3Ile was found only in Meishan and Meishan × Pietrain cross. Associations were studied between loci g.4119A>G and g.7966T>C, and average daily gain (ADG), backfat thickness (BFT) or lean meat content (LMC) in 166 gilts from two herds. Due to supposed complete linkage disequilibrium between loci g.4119A>G and g.7966T>C only genotype combinations AA-TT, AG-TC and GG-CC were detected. A significant differ - ence (P = 0.0290) between GG-CC and AG-TC genotype combinations for BFT in herd 2 and a suggestive difference ( = 0.0516) between GG-CC and AA-TT genotypes for ADG in herd 1 were detected.
The effect of inquiry based learning on gifted and talented students’ mental states in learning the concepts of acids-bases

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of inquiry based learning approach on students’ mental states in learning the concepts of acids-bases. A nonequivalent control group design was used in this study. Eight grade gifted and talented students were participated in the study. The students were applied Mental State Conceptual Learning Inventory (MSCLI) which was developed by Liu, Hou, Chiu and Treagust (2014) and adapted into Turkish by Dinçol Özgür (2016) to determine their mental states in learning the concepts of acids-bases. The inventory includes four factors: emotions, intentions, internal mental representation and external mental representation. During the implementation, inquiry based learning approach was used in the experimental group and the traditional instruction was used in the traditional group. The results showed that there was a statistical significant difference between the experimental and control groups in internal mental representation and external mental representation factors.
State Capacity and Development in Francophone West Africa

This thesis proposes a unique quantitative investigation of the long-term development of modern states in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is done by measuring and analysing the dynamic history of tax revenue, as a key measure of the capacity of the state, and development in four countries in francophone West Africa – Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger and Senegal – over the long 20th century. This approach contrasts with that of previous quantitative studies of state capacity in Africa by bridging the colonial and the independent periods and taking issue with static generalisations and typologies about African states. The thesis applies both historical and econometric methods to describe and assess various economic and political explanations to long-term state development in the West African context. In this way, the thesis makes a historically and empirically grounded contribution to ourunderstanding of current levels of state capacity and development in francophone West Africa.Three main conclusions can be drawn from the findings. First, modern African states have dynamic histories that help us understand from where they come and explain their current diversity, strengths and weaknesses. This thesis presents strong evidence of significant long-term growth of state capacity and economic and social development in the four West African countries. This long-term expansion of fiscal capacity in the four countries is not properly recognised in the contemporary development literature, which tends to emphasise the current weaknesses of African governments and fiscal systems within much shorter time perspective.Second, our understanding of African states cannot be reduced to colonial legacies or explained by institutional persistence. There were indeed clear common temporal patterns among the four countries with significant continuity over independence, but also important differences depending on economic, political and social contexts. In this way, Africa is not different from other parts of the world. Instead, what deserves much more empirical attention is the impact of the continuous external dependency and isomorphism to which African states are subjected.Third, despite long-term growth, state capacity in the four countries has been constrained by limited social and economic development just as theory would predict. Yet, many African countries tax more than Western countries did at similar stages of development. Such high tax burdens may have negative effects on economic activity. The implication is that any hopes of increasing domestic resource mobilisation to finance e.g. the Sustainable Development Goals may be disappointing unless accompanied with sustained economic and social transformation.In sum, the evidence presented in this thesis on the fiscal trajectories and economic development of Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger and Senegal is testimony to the great achievements of state development in francophone West Africa over the long 20th century, but also to the historical vulnerability and external dependency of these states. (Less)
Coupling between a dark and a bright eigenmode in a terahertz metamaterial

Terahertz time domain spectroscopy and rigorous simulations are used to probe the coupling between a dark and a bright plasmonic eigenmode in a metamaterial with broken symmetry. The metamaterial consists of two closely spaced split ring resonators that have their gaps in nonidentical positions within the ring. For normal incidence and a fixed polarization both lowest-order eigenmodes of the split ring resonators can be excited, although one of them has to be regarded as dark since coupling is prohibited because of symmetry constraints. Emphasis in this work is put on a systematic evaluation of the coupling effects depending on a spectral tuning of both resonances.
Will a perfect model agree with perfect observations? The impact of spatial sampling

Abstract. The spatial resolution of global climate models with interactive aerosol and the observations used to evaluate them is very different. Current models use grid spacings of ∼ 200 km, while satellite observations of aerosol use so-called pixels of ∼ 10 km. Ground site or airborne observations relate to even smaller spatial scales. We study the errors incurred due to different resolutions by aggregating high-resolution simulations (10 km grid spacing) over either the large areas of global model grid boxes ("perfect" model data) or small areas corresponding to the pixels of satellite measurements or the field of view of ground sites ("perfect" observations). Our analysis suggests that instantaneous root-mean-square (RMS) differences of perfect observations from perfect global models can easily amount to 30–160 %, for a range of observables like AOT (aerosol optical thickness), extinction, black carbon mass concentrations, PM2.5, number densities and CCN (cloud condensation nuclei). These differences, due entirely to different spatial sampling of models and observations, are often larger than measurement errors in real observations. Temporal averaging over a month of data reduces these differences more strongly for some observables (e.g. a threefold reduction for AOT), than for others (e.g. a twofold reduction for surface black carbon concentrations), but significant RMS differences remain (10–75 %). Note that this study ignores the issue of temporal sampling of real observations, which is likely to affect our present monthly error estimates. We examine several other strategies (e.g. spatial aggregation of observations, interpolation of model data) for reducing these differences and show their effectiveness. Finally, we examine consequences for the use of flight campaign data in global model evaluation and show that significant biases may be introduced depending on the flight strategy used.
Title Targeting the Genital Tract Mucosa with a Lipopeptide / Recombinant Adenovirus Prime / Boost Vaccine Induces Potent and Long-Lasting CD 8 + T Cell Immunity Against Herpes : Importance of Myeloid Differentiation Factor

Targeting the mucosal immune system of the genital tract (GT) with subunit vaccines failed to induce potent and durable local CD8+ T cell immunity, crucial for protection against many sexually transmitted viral (STV) pathogens, including herpes simplex virus type 2 (HSV-2) that causes genital herpes. In this study, we aimed to investigate the potential of a novel lipopeptide/ adenovirus type 5 (Lipo/rAdv5) prime/boost mucosal vaccine for induction of CD8+ T cell immunity to protect the female genital tract from herpes. The lipopeptide and the rAdv5 vaccine express the immunodominant HSV-2 CD8+ T cell epitope (gB498-505) and both were delivered intravaginally (IVAG) in the progesterone-induced B6 mouse model of genital herpes. Compared to its homologous lipopeptide/lipopeptide (Lipo/Lipo); the Lipo/rAdv5 prime/boost immunized mice: (i) developed potent and sustained HSV-specific CD8+ T cells, detected in both the GT draining nodes (GT-DLN) and in the vaginal mucosa (VM); (ii) had significantly lower virus titers; (iii) had decreased overt signs of genital herpes disease; and (iv) did not succumb to lethal infection (p < 0.005), following intravaginal HSV-2 challenge. Polyfunctional CD8+ T cells, producing IFN-γ, TNF-α and IL-2 and exhibiting cytotoxic activity, were associated with protection (p < 0.005). The protective CD8+ T cell response was significantly compromised in the absence of the adaptor myeloid differentiation factor 88 (MyD88) (p = 0.0001). Taken together, these findings indicate that targeting the VM with a Lipo/rAdv5 prime/boost vaccine elicits a potent, MyD88-dependent, and long-lasting mucosal CD8+ T cell protective immunity against sexually transmitted herpes infection and disease.