Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of Partial Sugar Deprivation on Lifespan and Carbohydrate Mobilization in the Parasitoid Macrocentrus grandii (Hymenoptera: Braconidae)

Abstract We compared the lifespan of Macrocentrus grandii (Goidanich) adults fed a 50% sucrose solution at various intervals throughout their lives. Treatments included starvation, continuous feeding, feeding on the first day of life only, and feeding every second, third, or fourth day of life. Life expectancy for starved males and females was less than 3 d, and providing sugar during the first day of life increased life expectancy by 2 d for males and 4 d for females. Life expectancy was highest when adults were fed continuously (14 d for males and 21 d for females) or every 2 d (17 d for males and 23 d for females). The life expectancy of adults that were fed either every 3 or every 4 d ranged between 9 and 16 d. Together, these results demonstrate that a constant supply of sugars is not necessary to achieve maximum survivorship, and limited sugar availability may suffice to increase substantially the lifespan of M. grandii over starvation values. A series of anthrone tests was used to determine levels of gut sugars, simple storage sugars (‘body sugars’; primarily trehalose), and glycogen over the first 6 d of life of female and male M. grandii that were either fed 50% sucrose continuously, the first day of life only, or not at all. A single day of sugar feeding led to apparently maximum levels of gut sugars, body sugars, and glycogen, and parasitoids fed only on the first day of life maintained high levels of these nutrients for 1 d postfeeding. After this time, glycogen and gut sugars decreased substantially, but body sugar levels remained essentially constant. This pattern suggests a strategy in which gut sugars and glycogen are mobilized to maintain high levels of body sugars in starving parasitoids.
Size distributions of organic nitrogen and carbon in remote marine aerosols: Evidence of marine biological origin based on their isotopic ratios

Size‐segregated aerosol samples were collected over the western North Pacific in summer 2008 for the measurements of organic nitrogen (ON) and organic carbon (OC). ON and OC showed bimodal size distributions. Their concentrations showed positive correlation with those of biogenic tracers, methanesulfonic acid (MSA) and azelaic acid (C9). We found that average ON and OC concentrations were twice greater in aerosols collected in the oceanic region with higher biological productivity than in the regions with lower productivity. The average ON/OC ratios are higher (0.49 ± 0.11) in more biologically influenced aerosols than those (0.35 ± 0.10) in less influenced aerosols. Stable carbon isotopic analysis indicates that marine‐derived carbon accounted for ∼46–72% of total carbon in more biologically influenced aerosols. These results provide evidence that organic aerosols in this region are enriched in ON that is linked to oceanic biological activity and the subsequent emissions to the atmosphere.
PII: 0890-6955(94)E0028-H

-The deformation mechanism of cold rolling thin foil is investigated with the aid of the slab method in conjunction with an incremental analysis. The interaction between the rolls and foil is explored thoroughly. The effects of initial thickness and yield stress of foil materials are discussed in detail. Extensive numerical studies show that the pressure and shearing force profiles in the rolfing bite vary significantly with the increment of reduction ratio. The distribution of slip and no-slip zones is much more complex than that predicted previously. In the regime of rolling extremely thin foils with a constant reduction ratio, the rolling load increases and the rolling torque decreases monotonically with decreasing inlet foil thickness. It is found, however, that the change of the central elastic/plastic no-slip zones has very little effect on the resultant rolling forces. ao~ a l ao, at b bo D [Olop d E E* H H' L P Q q R r S x , S z , Sx z W W R , W F X , Z Y NOMENCLATURE absolute values of non-dimensional coordinates of entry and exit contact points of the rolling bite, defined as ao/(p.R) and aJ(IxR), respectively absolute values of the coordinates of the entry and exit contact points, respectively half-thickness of foil inlet half-thickness of foil constant, defined by equation (8) elastic-plastic matrix, see equation (5) distance between a pair of surface points at x on foil and roll, see equation (6) Young's modulus plane strain Young's modulus, defined as E / ( 1 v 2) non-dimeusional initial thickness of foil, defined as 2bo E~/(~RY) tangential modulus of the uniaxial tensile curve of foil ratio of the total length of no-reduction zones to that of the rolling bite normal interface pressure between the foil and roll surfaces non-dimensional rolling torque, defined by equation (14) shearing interface force between the foil and roll surfaces radius of roll reduction ratio stress deviations, see equation (5) non-dimensional rolling load, defined by equation (14) normal deflections of roll and foil surfaces, respectively coordinates, see Fig. 1 yield stress of foil Greek symbols 1~ central angle of a pressure element, see equation (8) ex, cz, ~txz strains 0 central angle, a variable VL friction coefficient v Poisson's ratio ~r x,~,,rx, stresses Superscr ip ts an d subscr ip ts b back tension F foil f front tension (i) element index (J) inlet element indication (K) outlet element indication R roll tDepartment of Mechanical and Mechatronic Engineering, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006 Australia. 363
The Na D profiles of nearby low-power radio sources: jets powering outflows

We have analyzed the properties of the Na D doublet lines at λλ5890, 5896 A in a large sample of 691 radio galaxies using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). These radio galaxies are resolved in the FIRST survey, have redshifts less that 0.2 and radio flux densities at 1.4 GHz higher than 40 mJy. The sample is complete within the main spectroscopic magnitude limits of the SDSS. Approximately 1/3 of the sources show a significant excess (above that contributed by their stellar populations) of Na D absorption that can be robustly fitted with two Voigt profiles representing the Na D doublet. A further 1/6 of the sources show residual absorption, for which the fits were not well constrained though while ∼50% of the sample show no significant residual absorption. The residual absorption is modestly blueshifted, typically by ∼50 km s −1 , but the velocity dispersions are high, generally ∼500 km s −1 . Assuming that the size of the absorbing region is consistent with ∼1 kpc for dust lanes in a sample of generally more powerful radio sources, assuming
Interference Suppression Performance of Automotive UWB Radars Using Pseudo Random Sequences

Ultra wideband (UWB) automotive radars have attracted attention from the viewpoint of reducing traffic accidents. The performance of automotive radars may be degraded by interference from nearby radars using the same frequency. In this study, a scenario where two cars pass each other on a road was considered. Considering the utilization of cross-polarization, the desired-to-undesired signal power ratio (DUR) was found to vary approximately from -10 to 30 dB. Different pseudo random sequences were employed for spectrum spreading the different radar signals to mitigate the interference effects. This paper evaluates the interference suppression provided by maximum length sequence (MLS) and Gold sequence (GS) through numerical simulations of the radar’s performance in terms of probability of false alarm and probability of detection. It was found that MLS and GS yielded nearly the same performance when the DUR is -10 dB (worst case); for example when fixing the probability of false alarm to 10, the probabilities of detection were 0.964 and 0.946 respectively. The GS are more advantageous than MLS due to larger number of different sequences having the same length in GS than in MLS.
Fire and plant diversity at the global scale

Aim Understanding the drivers of global diversity has challenged ecologists for decades. Drivers related to the environment, productivity and heterogeneity are considered primary factors, whereas disturbance has received less attention. Given that fire is a global factor that has been affecting many regions around the world over geological time scales, we hypothesize that the fire regime should explain a significant proportion of global coarse-scale plant diversity. Location All terrestrial ecosystems, excluding Antarctica. Time period Data collected throughout the late 20th and early 21st century. Taxa Seed plants (= spermatophytes = phanerogamae). Methods We used available global plant diversity information at the ecoregion scale and compiled productivity, heterogeneity and fire information for each ecoregion using 15 years of remotely sensed data. We regressed plant diversity against environmental variables; thereafter, we tested whether fire activity still explained a significant proportion of the variance. Results Ecoregional plant diversity was positively related to both productivity (R2 = .30) and fire activity (R2 = .38). Once productivity and other environmental variables were in the model (R2 = .50), fire regime still explained a significant proportion of the variability in plant diversity (overall model, R2 = .71). The results suggest that fire drives temporal and spatial variability in many ecosystems, providing opportunities for a diversity of plants. Main conclusions Fire regime is a primary factor explaining plant diversity around the globe, even after accounting for productivity. Fires delay competitive exclusion, increase landscape heterogeneity and generate new niches; thus, they provide opportunities for a large variety of species. Consequently, fire regime should be considered in order to understand global ecosystem distribution and diversity.
Digital Story-Based Problem Solving Applications: Preservice Primary Teachers’ Experiences and Future Integration Plans

: This case study investigates how preservice primary school teachers describe their experiences with digital story-based problem solving applications and their plans for the future integration of this technology into their teaching. Totally 113 preservice primary school teachers participated in the study. Data collection tools included a questionnaire with three open-ended questions and focus group interviews. The data were analyzed using content analysis by combining manifest and latent techniques. Most of the preservice primary teachers described positive experiences about digital story-based problem solving applications by emphasizing on that they contribute to both their own and their students’ learning, development, and attitudes. Participants further described digital story (DS) integration as in line with behaviorist pedagogy. Study results revealed that most of the preservice primary school teachers planned to integrate DSs into their future classrooms for purposes such as capturing students’ attention and reinforcing, rewarding, or supporting learning.
Light Transport Analysis by Krylov Subspace Illumination

We propose a recursive illumination framework for light transport analysis of an unknown scene. In this framework, we repeatedly illuminate a scene by capturing a photo and projecting the photo back onto the scene. This recursive illumination procedure produces a set of photos that spans the Krylov subspace of the light transport matrix. Many iterative methods in numerical linear algebra rely on this Krylov subspace for solving the generalized eigenvalue and minimal residual problems of large systems. Our framework expresses this recursive illumination procedure as a means to solve novel problems in computational illumination. In particular, we discuss some applications in light transport segmentation and light transport compensation. Light transport segmentation identifies pixels that mutually illuminate each other by segmenting the image according to low-level global illumination cues. Light transport compensation improves image projection quality by constructing an environment-aware projector that iteratively corrects for defocus, distortions, and global lighting. We also discuss the numerical stability of Krylov subspace illumination by considering the effects of sensor noise and signal quantization.
Sexual selection and the evolution of altruism: males are more altruistic and cooperative towards attractive females

Explaining altruism through an evolutionary lens has been a challenge for evolutionary theorists. Where altruism towards kin is well understood through kin selection, altruism towards non-kin is an evolutionary puzzle. Contemporary research has found that, through a game-theoretic framework, sexual selection could be an explanation for the evolution of altruism. Research suggests that males are more altruistic towards females they are interested in engaging with, sexually or romantically when distributing stakes in economic games. This study, adopting a between-groups design, tested the sexual selection explanation for altruism by asking participants to self-report altruistic and cooperative intention when reading moral scenarios accompanied by attractive or unattractive images. We find that participants, particularly males, report being more altruistic and cooperative when viewing an attractive image of a female. This study replicates the sexual selection hypothesis in explaining altruism through an alternative experimental framework to game theory.
Abortion And The Load Of Its Immediate Complications In Orrota Maternity Hospital

Background: Abortion is considered not only a major reproductive health matter, but also as a health risk factor for mother’s well-being and threatening their lives and comforts. Objectives: To assess the prevalence of abortion and its immediate complications and the possible risk factors associated with abortion in Orrota Maternity Hospital (OMH), Eritrea. Methodology: A descriptive and analytical a cross-sectional study was conducted on 250 women admitted with abortion into the gynecological ward of OMH from January – June, 2016. Data were collected by interviewing a structured questionnaire and analyzed using IBM SPSS software version 20. Results: Abortion cases were 14% of all deliveries and 64 % of all gynecological admissions. The immediate complications of abortion accounted for 60%. On assessing the risk factors, the maternal age group was 21-30 years (54%), lack of contraceptives use (73.6%), primary and above educational level (96%), extraneous mechanical movements and work overload (44%). Conclusion and Recommendations: The prevalence of abortion and its immediate complications is high in OMH. Not using contraceptives and extraneous mechanical movements and work overload may be important public health issues predisposing the occurrence of abortion. Measures should be taken to increase the use of contraceptives. Effective education should be given, during the antenatal visits, to mothers about the effects of mechanical movements and overload on pregnancy.
On the functional equations involving nonlinear generalized $P$-compact operators

Introduction. In his recent papers [23], [24], [25] Petryshyn has introduced and studied a class of projectionally compact (P-compact) nonlinear mappings of a real Banach space with property (-)K into itself. The main result of this study was an elementary and essentially a constructive proof of two fixed point theorems for bounded [23], [24] and unbounded [25] P-compact operators which were then used to derive a number of results concerning the existence and construction of solutions of various classes of nonlinear equations. Since, as was shown in [25], P-compact operators include, among others, completely continuous, quasicompact, and various classes of monotone operators (in a Hilbert space), the fixed point theorems (for balls about the origin) of Schauder [34], Rothe [32], Krasnoselsky [17], Altman [1] and Kaniel [14] as well as certain existence theorems for monotone operators of Zarantonello [41], Kacurowski [13], Minty [21], Browder [2], [3], Dolph and Minty [10] and others were deduced from the results on P-compact operators. Further results for P-compact operators or their extensions have been recently obtained by Lees and Schultz [18], De Figueiredo [8], [9] and Tucker [36]. The purpose of this paper is to continue the study and to extend the results for P-compact operators obtained in [23], [24], [25] to generalized P-compact or Py-compact operators introduced in [28]. One of our objectives is to show that many properties and results which are true for completely continuous operators carry over to generalized P-compact operators. We now outline briefly the main results of this paper. In ? 1 we introduce and discuss some basic definitions to be used in this paper. In ? 2 we discuss further properties of P-compact and generalized P-compact operators. The main result of this section is Theorem 2.4 which asserts that under certain conditions "the Frechet derivative A'(x) is P-compact if and only if A(x) is P-compact. " In ? 3 we discuss certain properties of linear P-compact operators. The main result of this section is the characterization Theorem 3.3 which asserts that "a symmetric linear mapping A of a Hilbert space into itself is P-compact if and only if A = S+ T where S? 0 and T is completely continuous. "
A genetic and genomic study of resistance to 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD) inhibitor herbicides in Amaranthus tuberculatus (waterhemp)

Waterhemp (Amaranthus tuberculatus) is an agronomic weed found throughout the Midwestern United States. Without proper management waterhemp has the potential to cause yield losses up to 74% and 56% in maize (Zea mays L.) and soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr. ], respectively. There are various characteristics of waterhemp that contribute to increasing prevalence of waterhemp in agriculture including the ability to evolve herbicide resistance. There are six herbicide sites of action that have been evolved in waterhemp. In 2011, waterhemp was discovered to be resistant to phydroxyphenylpyruvate-dioxygenase (HPPD, EC 1.13.11.27) inhibitor herbicides. The objectives of my research were to 1) identify the number of genes and describe the allelic expression involved with HPPD-herbicide resistance in waterhemp and 2) examine the transcriptomic expression response of HPPD-herbicide resistance in waterhemp. To examine the inheritance of the resistance trait, we reciprocally crossed a known HPPD resistant waterhemp population with a known HPPD susceptible waterhemp population and established a pseudo-F2 generation. We challenged the parent, F1 and pseudo F2 generations against four rates of an HPPD-inhibiting herbicide. The HPPD-resistance trait was determined to be polygenic. Additionally, these data suggest the number of involved resistance genes was found to increase at higher rates of the herbicide with at least one dominant allele at each major locus. This study has confirmed previous reports describing the inheritance of HPPD resistance to be complex while introducing new descriptions of the response of HPPD resistant waterhemp to HPPD herbicides.
Trait‐based representation of diatom functional diversity in a plankton functional type model of the eutrophied southern North Sea

We introduce a trait‐based description of diatom functional diversity to an existing plankton functional type (PFT) model, implemented for the eutrophied coastal ecosystem in the Southern Bight of the North Sea. The trait‐based description represents a continuum of diatom species, each characterized by a distinct cell volume, and includes size dependence of four diatom traits: the maximum growth rate, the half‐saturation constants for nutrient uptake, the photosynthetic efficiency, and the relative affinity of copepods for diatoms. Through competition under seasonally varying forcing, the fitness of each diatom varies throughout time, and the outcome of competition results in a changing community structure. The predicted seasonal change in mean cell volume of the community is supported by field observations: smaller diatoms, which are more competitive in terms of resource acquisition, prevail during the first spring bloom, whereas the summer bloom is dominated by larger species which better resist grazing. The size‐based model is used to determine the ecological niche of diatoms in the area and identifies a range of viable sizes that matches observations. The general trade‐off between small, competitive diatoms and large, grazing‐resistant species is a convenient framework to study patterns in diatom functional diversity. PFT models and trait‐based approaches constitute promising complementary tools to study community structure in marine ecosystems.
Dna Barcoding a Collection of Ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Isla Del Coco, Costa Rica

Abstract Islands can be exceptionally sensitive to changes brought about by newly arrived species. Non-native ants on an island can cause catastrophic changes. Identifying these non-native species is taxonomically challenging because their geographic source is unknown. We DNA barcoded a 2011 collection of ants from Isla del Coco in the Pacific Ocean, about 500 km from the mainland of Costa Rica and Colombia. We compared these barcodes with those from Area de Conservación Guanacaste in northwestern (coastal) Costa Rica, and with ant barcodes from elsewhere in the Neotropics. We found 10 species from 7 genera in 3 subfamilies.
Ecosystem Services and Human Well-Being: a Participatory Study in a Mountain Community in Portugal

Ecosystem services are essential for human well-being, but the links between ecosystem services and human well-being are complex, diverse, context-dependent, and complicated by the need to consider different spatial and temporal scales to assess them properly. We present the results of a study in the rural community of Sistelo in northern Portugal that formed part of the Portugal Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The main purpose of our study was to assess the linkages between human well-being and ecosystem services at the local level, as perceived by the community. We used a range of tools that included participatory rural appraisal and rapid rural appraisal as well as other field methods such as direct observation, familiarization and participation in activities, semistructured interviews, trend lines, wellbeing ranking, and other ranking and scoring exercises. Sistelo has a unique landscape of agricultural terraces that are now being abandoned because of the depopulation of the region, a common trend in mountainous rural areas of Europe. From the community perspective, some components of well-being such as material well-being have been improving, whereas some ecosystem services, e.g., food production, have been declining. Although a few of the local criteria for well-being are closely related to local ecosystem services, most of them are not. People recognize many of the services provided by ecosystems, in particular, provisioning, cultural, and regulating services, although they feel that provisioning services are the most important for well-being. It is apparent that, for the Sistelo community, there is an increasing disconnect between local well-being and at least some local ecosystem services. This disconnect is associated with greater freedom of choice at the local level, which gives the local inhabitants the power to find substitutes for ecosystem services. The consequences of land abandonment for human well-being and ecosystem services at different temporal and spatial scales are discussed.