Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Field Margin Vegetation in Tropical African Bean Systems Harbours Diverse Natural Enemies for Biological Pest Control in Adjacent Crops

Non-crop vegetation around farmland can be valuable habitats for enhancing ecosystem services but little is known of the importance of field margins in supporting natural enemies of insect pests in tropical agriculture. This study was conducted in smallholder bean fields in three elevation zones to assess the importance of field margin vegetation to natural enemy populations and movement to the bean crop for biological pest control. The pests and natural enemies were assessed using different coloured water pan traps (to ensure the capture of insects with different colour preferences) and the interactions of the two arthropod groups with the margin vegetation and their movement to the bean crop were monitored using fluorescent dye. Sentinel plants were used to assess predation and parasitism levels. A total of 5003 natural enemies were captured, more in the field margin than within the bean field for low and mid elevation zones, while in the high elevation zone, they were more abundant within the bean field. Pests were more abundant in the crop than margins for all the elevation zones. The use of a dye applied to margin vegetation demonstrated that common natural enemy taxa moved to the crop during the days after dye application. The proportion of dye-marked natural enemies (showing their origin to be margin vegetation) sampled from the crop suggest high levels of spatial flux in the arthropod assemblage. Aphid mortality rates (measured by prey removal and parasitism levels on sentinel plants) did not differ between the field edges and field centre in any of the three elevation zones, suggesting that for this pest taxon, the centre of the fields still receive comparable pest control service as in the field edges. This study found that field margins around smallholder bean fields are useful habitats to large numbers of natural enemy taxa that move to adjacent crops providing biological pest control service.
The impact of diabatic heating over the Tibetan plateau upon northeastern Asia arid region

Formation mechanism of arid climate over northern China is investigated by a series of numerical experiments. On that region summertime precipitation is strongly reduced by a regional scale subsidence. Sensitivity experiment without condensation process is conducted in order to clarify the physical mechanism for the generation of the subsidence. Simulated vertical velocity shows the descent at middle troposphere over the arid region. On the other hand ascending motion appears immediate above the Tibetan plateau because the planetary boundary layer acts as an elevated heat source over the plateau. However, only gentle vertical motion is left in the case when diabatic processes is turned off in the model. That implies mechanically forced subsidence by the terrain, such as mountain wave, is not enough to cause the subsidence. To the contrary, thermal effect of the plateau is fairly larger since the subsidence over arid region is enhanced when diabatic heating is artificially given only over the plateau. Northward propagation of the stationary Rossby wave is inferred to cause the robust subsidence over the arid region in northern China. The stationary Rossby wave tends to propagate northward because subtropical westerly jet is being situated north of the plateau in boreal summer. Therefore, the stationary descending motion prevails over northeastern Asia, which consequently reduces the precipitation around arid region. We also confirmed that the stationary Rossby wave is likely to propagate not only northward but also southward of the plateau when zonal mean of January is assumed as a boundary condition. Spatial relationship between the plateau and the westerly jet undergoes transition period from spring to summer. The relationship could widely affect the seasonal evolution among Asian region since the spatial distribution of the subsidence will be changed simultaneously around the plateau. Keyword: arid climate, northeast Asia, regional climate model
On the Relation between Position Information and Sentence Length in Neural Machine Translation

Long sentences have been one of the major challenges in neural machine translation (NMT). Although some approaches such as the attention mechanism have partially remedied the problem, we found that the current standard NMT model, Transformer, has difficulty in translating long sentences compared to the former standard, Recurrent Neural Network (RNN)-based model. One of the key differences of these NMT models is how the model handles position information which is essential to process sequential data. In this study, we focus on the position information type of NMT models, and hypothesize that relative position is better than absolute position. To examine the hypothesis, we propose RNN-Transformer which replaces positional encoding layer of Transformer by RNN, and then compare RNN-based model and four variants of Transformer. Experiments on ASPEC English-to-Japanese and WMT2014 English-to-German translation tasks demonstrate that relative position helps translating sentences longer than those in the training data. Further experiments on length-controlled training data reveal that absolute position actually causes overfitting to the sentence length.
Lévi F; International Association for Research on Time in Biology and Chronotherapy (ARTBC) Chronotherapy Group. Fatigue and weight loss predict survival on circadian chemotherapy for metastatic colorectal cancer

BACKGROUND Chemotherapy-induced neutropenia has been associated with prolonged survival selectively in patients on a conventional schedule (combined 5-fluorouracil, leucovorin, and oxaliplatin [FOLFOX2]) but not on a chronomodulated schedule of the same drugs administered at specific circadian times (chronoFLO4). The authors hypothesized that the early occurrence of chemotherapy-induced symptoms correlated with circadian disruption would selectively hinder the efficacy of chronotherapy.
Helical fibrillar microstructure of tendon using serial block-face scanning electron microscopy and a mechanical model for interfibrillar load transfer

Tendon's hierarchical structure allows for load transfer between its fibrillar elements at multiple length scales. Tendon microstructure is particularly important, because it includes the cells and their surrounding collagen fibrils, where mechanical interactions can have potentially important physiological and pathological contributions. However, the three-dimensional (3D) microstructure and the mechanisms of load transfer in that length scale are not known. It has been postulated that interfibrillar matrix shear or direct load transfer via the fusion/branching of small fibrils are responsible for load transfer, but the significance of these mechanisms is still unclear. Alternatively, the helical fibrils that occur at the microstructural scale in tendon may also mediate load transfer; however, these structures are not well studied due to the lack of a three-dimensional visualization of tendon microstructure. In this study, we used serial block-face scanning electron microscopy to investigate the 3D microstructure of fibrils in rat tail tendon. We found that tendon fibrils have a complex architecture with many helically wrapped fibrils. We studied the mechanical implications of these helical structures using finite-element modelling and found that frictional contact between helical fibrils can induce load transfer even in the absence of matrix bonding or fibril fusion/branching. This study is significant in that it provides a three-dimensional view of the tendon microstructure and suggests friction between helically wrapped fibrils as a mechanism for load transfer, which is an important aspect of tendon biomechanics.
The Lithuanian Economy

Not a high-tech country. Despite some positive recent examples, the country still by and large remains a lowto mediumvalue-added economy, dominated by less knowledge-intensive services and low and medium-low technology manufacturing. The high-tech sector, which tends to be the most productive, still remains very small and underdeveloped. Transition towards a more value-added economy, through more innovation, is extremely important for Lithuania, otherwise the country risks getting stuck in the middle-income trap.
Humpback Whale Movements and Behavior in Response to Whale-Watching Vessels in Juneau, AK

The whale watching industry in Juneau, Alaska relies primarily on the presence of North Pacific humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae). To meet demands from the rapidly growing tourism industry, the number of whale watching vessels in this region has tripled over the last 18 years. As a result, increased vessel presence could have negative effects on humpback whales, ranging from short-term behavioral disturbance to long-term impacts. The current humpback whale viewing regulations are outdated and may not be as effective as they were 18 years ago, when both the whale watching industry and humpback whale population were smaller. The present study assessed how humpback whale movement and behavioral patterns were affected by (1) vessel presence and number of vessels present, and (2) time spent in the presence of vessels. The study also determined how humpback whale behavioral state transitions were affected by vessel presence. A total of 201 humpback whale focal follows were conducted during summer 2016 and 2017. Based on linear mixed effects models, whales in the presence (vs. absence) of vessels exhibited 38.9% higher deviation in linear movement (p = 0.001), 6.2% increase in swimming speed (p = 0.047) and a 6.7% decrease in inter-breath intervals (IBI) (p = 0.025). For each additional vessel present, deviation increased by 6.2% (p = 0.022) and IBI decreased by 3.4% (p = 0.001). As time spent in the presence of vessels increased, respiration rate increased (p = 0.011). Feeding and traveling humpback whales were likely to maintain their behavioral state regardless of vessel presence, while surface active humpback whales were likely to transition to traveling in the presence of vessels. These short-term changes in movement and behavior in response to whale watching vessels could lead to cumulative, long-term consequences, negatively impacting the health and predictability of the resource on which the industry relies. Current formal vessel approach regulations and voluntary guidelines should be revisited to reduce vessel pressure and mitigate potential negative effects of this growing whale watching industry.
Dynamic Mechanical Hysteresis of Magnetorheological Elastomers Subjected to the Cyclic Loading and Periodic Magnetic Field

Magnetorheological elastomer (MRE) is a kind of the most promising smart materials with excellent magnetic-control mechanical properties. This work focuses on the study of the dynamic mechanical properties of MRE under cyclic loadings and periodic magnetic field. The influences of matrix, particle distribution, magnetic field on the dynamic mechanical hysteresis were systematically investigated. It was found that all the normal force, magnetic fields and shear strain would cause a hysteresis in the dynamic mechanical responses of MRE. The continuous cycle tests revealed the hysteresis tended to be saturated after several initial cycles. The hysteresis of MRE under the constant magnetic field can be attributed to the rearrangement of particles, which caused a hardening effect of MRE under the continuous dynamic tests. The periodic magnetic field caused a hysteresis in the dynamic modulus which could be attributed to the irreversible movement of the particles. Among them, the polymer matrix of MRE played an important role in the dynamic mechanical hysteresis, which suggested more stable molecular chain structures in the matrix would reduce the magnitude of hysteresis and improve its stability. Besides, the saturation of the mechanical hysteresis had also been studied, and then relevant physical mechanism was proposed for the qualitative explanation.
Weak Invariance and Entropy ∗

For continuous time control systems, this paper introduces invariance entropy as a measure for the amount of information necessary to achieve invariance of weakly invariant (or controlled invariant) compact subsets of the state space. Upper and lower bounds are derived, in particular, finiteness is proven. For linear control systems with compact control range, the invariance entropy is given by the sum of the real parts of the unstable eigenvalues of the uncontrolled system. A characterization via covers and corresponding feedbacks is provided.
TCRM_A_188941 891..904

Independent Research, Internal Medicine, Rehabilitation Medicine, Social Medicine, Bad Brückenau, Bavaria, Germany Purpose of review: Not only the multiple sclerosis specialist but also the general neurologist and primary care practitioner are increasingly aware of possible adverse events (AEs) by treatment with alemtuzumab (over 47% risk of secondary autoimmune-mediated diseases). Vitamin D supplementation's effect (VDS) to reduce these autoimmune AEs is poorly performed in routine practice. This article seeks to justify why this simple, inexpensive, patient-friendly therapy should be seriously discussed. Recent findings: Patients who have developed autoimmunity also show a high basal level of IL-21, a cytokine which increases the growth of auto-reactive T-cells. For side effects such as thyroid dysfunction, autoimmune thrombocytopenia, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, autoimmune hepatitis, diabetes mellitus type 1, and alopecia areata/alopecia totalis, VDS may have an impact on the immunological mechanism, in particular lowering levels of IL-17 and IL-21. Summary: The potential role of vitamin D in influencing autoimmune diseases is evident. If a life-threatening side-effect can be prevented by high-dose VDS, it is ethical to initiate this add-on therapy despite contradictory results in studies on the effectiveness of VDS.
The Gut Microbiota in Women Suffering from Gestational Diabetes Mellitus with the Failure of Glycemic Control by Lifestyle Modification

Gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) is prevalent worldwide, leading to a high risk of significant morbidity for both the mother and offspring with complications. Increasing evidences suggest that gut microbiota plays a role in the pathogenesis of GDM. Lifestyle modification is the cornerstones of GDM treatment. However, a number of patients whose blood glucose is not controlled by lifestyle modification still require exogenous insulin to control blood glucose. No observational study is available about the relationship between the gut microbiota in GDM patients and lifestyle modifications. Thus, we investigated the differences in gut microbiota between GDM patients with successful glycemic control (GDM1) and failure of glycemic control (GDM2) by lifestyle modifications. We sequenced the V3-V4 regions of 16S ribosomal ribonucleic acid (rRNA) gene from stool samples of 52 singleton pregnant women with 24–28 weeks of gestation. Our results showed that Blautia, Eubacterium_hallii_group, and Faecalibacterium in the gut microbiota showed significant differences among the normoglycemic mother, GDM1, and GDM2 groups, respectively. The combined diagnostic performance of Blautia, Eubacterium_hallii_group, and Faecalibacterium in differentiating GDM2 from GDM was considered as the most reasonable identification indicator. Gut bacteria may participate in the pathological development of GDM2 through the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor (PPAR) signaling pathway. These results indicated that Blautia, Eubacterium_hallii_group, and Faecalibacterium had important characteristic changes in the gut microbiota of women with GDM2.
29-Color Flow Cytometry: Unraveling Human Liver NK Cell Repertoire Diversity

Recent studies have demonstrated extraordinary diversity in peripheral blood human natural killer (NK) cells and have suggested environmental control of receptor expression patterns on distinct subsets of NK cells. However, tissue localization may influence NK cell differentiation to an even higher extent and less is known about the receptor repertoire of human tissue-resident NK cells. Advances in single-cell technologies have allowed higher resolution studies of these cells. Here, the power of high-dimensional flow cytometry was harnessed to unravel the complexity of NK cell repertoire diversity in liver since recent studies had indicated high heterogeneity within liver NK cells. A 29-color flow cytometry panel allowing simultaneous measurement of surface tissue-residency markers, activating and inhibitory receptors, differentiation markers, chemokine receptors, and transcription factors was established. This panel was applied to lymphocytes across three tissues (liver, peripheral blood, and tonsil) with different distribution of distinct NK cell subsets. Dimensionality reduction of this data ordered events according to their lineage, rather than tissue of origin. Notably, narrowing the scope of the analysis to the NK cell lineage in liver and peripheral blood separated subsets according to tissue, enabling phenotypic characterization of NK cell subpopulations in individual tissues. Such dimensionality reduction, coupled with a clustering algorithm, identified CD49e as the preferred marker for future studies of liver-resident NK cell subsets. We present a robust approach for diversity profiling of tissue-resident NK cells that can be applied in various homeostatic and pathological conditions such as reproduction, infection, and cancer.
Physical and Numerical Modeling of Nonlinear Cyclic Load-Deformation Behavior of Shallow Foundations Supporting Rocking Shear Walls

A shear wall supported by a shallow foundation system is a commonly used seismic-force-resisting structural building system, yet there are many unresolved issues regarding their design and performance. One of the major changes in the traditional seismic design procedures adopted in the 1997 Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Building Retrofit NEHRP Guidelines was to allow mobilization of the ultimate capacity and rocking behavior of shallow foundations to reduce the ductility demands on structures. However, the uncertainty in soil properties, the absence of practical reliable foundation modeling techniques, and the resulting permanent settlement beneath the footing due to foundation rocking have hindered the use of nonlinear soilfoundation-structure interaction as a mechanism for reducing demands on the structure in practice. About sixty footings, representative of footings for building shear walls, were tested in a centrifuge under cyclic vertical (V), horizontal (H), and moment (M) loading; some were tested in slow cyclic loading while others were shaken using the shaking table on the centrifuge. Footing dimensions, depth of embedment, shear wall weight, soil
Crowd-sourcing annotation of complex NLU tasks: A case study of argumentative content annotation

Recent advancements in machine reading and listening comprehension involve the annotation of long texts. Such tasks are typically time consuming, making crowd-annotations an attractive solution, yet their complexity often makes such a solution unfeasible. In particular, a major concern is that crowd annotators may be tempted to skim through long texts, and answer questions without reading thoroughly. We present a case study of adapting this type of task to the crowd. The task is to identify claims in a several minute long debate speech. We show that sentence-by-sentence annotation does not scale and that labeling only a subset of sentences is insufficient. Instead, we propose a scheme for effectively performing the full, complex task with crowd annotators, allowing the collection of large scale annotated datasets. We believe that the encountered challenges and pitfalls, as well as lessons learned, are relevant in general when collecting data for large scale natural language understanding (NLU) tasks.
Prevalence of Urinary Incontinence among Elderly Women in Yazd, Iran: A Population-Based Study

Article history Received 22 Jan 2015 Accepted 28 Mar 2015 Introduction: Urinary incontinence (UI) is a common disorder among aging population especially women. Women are at more risk of UI than men, because of anatomic, social and cultural status and also because of pregnancy, delivery and menopause. Regarding lack of studies in the area in Yazd, the study aimed to find the prevalence and related factors to UI among aging women in Yazd city, Iran.
Silencing circZFR inhibits the proliferation, migration and invasion of human renal carcinoma cells by regulating miR-206

Background: Renal cell carcinoma (RCC) is the most prevalent kind of kidney cancer. At present, the most ef ﬁ cient treatment mean is surgery. 40% patients with clear cell RCC (ccRCC) relapse after surgery. Identifying novel therapeutic markers and spots for early detection and treatment of RCC is necessary. Methods: qRT-PCR was utilized to quantify circZFR and miR-206 expression in CAKI-1 and ACHN cells. Cell viability was detected by CCK-8 assay. Colony formation capacity was measured by colony formation assay. Transwell assay was utilized to investigate migration and invasion capacity. Expression of migration and apoptosis-associated proteins was quanti ﬁ ed by Western blot. Results: As a result, circZFR was highly expressed in RCC tissues and cells. Si-circZFR suppressed cell growth, migration and invasion of experimental cells. In addition, knockdown of circZFR upregulated miR-206 expression. Moreover, the antigrowth, antimigrating and anti-invasive effects of si-circZFR were attenuated when downregulating miR-206. Furthermore, Met is the target gene of miR-206 in experimental cells. The suppression on these signaling pathways was acted by targeting miR-206/Met axis. Conclusion: The results demonstrated si-circZFR inhibited cell growth, migration and invasion in experimental cells by up-regulating of miR-206. Furthermore, si-circZFR suppressed Wnt/ β -catenin and PI3K/AKT pathways via targeting miR-206/Met axis.
Identification of novel, immune-mediating extracellular vesicles in human lymphatic effluent draining primary cutaneous melanoma

ABSTRACT Epithelial tumors including melanoma often first metastasize to regional, sentinel lymph nodes (SLN). Thus, the presence of SLN metastases is a critical prognostic factor of survival. Prior to metastasis, accumulating evidence suggests the SLN is immunologically compromised; however, the process by which pre-metastatic niche formation occurs remains unknown. In this prospective study, freshly dissected, afferent lymphatic fluid was obtained during SLN biopsy in three patients with primary cutaneous melanoma. Lymphatic extracellular vesicles (L-EV) were visualized by transmission electron microscopy and proteomic cargo profiled by mass spectrometry. Flow cytometry assessed L-EV effects on autologous dendritic cell maturation in vitro. Immunogold electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry visualized expression of EV cargo within the primary tumor and SLN. Lymphatic extracellular vesicles from each afferent lymphatic channel demonstrated inhibition of autologous dendritic cell maturation. Proteomic profiling identified 81 peptides shared among the L-EV preparations including a signature of 18 immune-modulating proteins including previously established inhibitor of dendritic cell maturation, S100A9. Immunohistochemistry and immunogold electron microscopy confirmed S100A9 tracking along the lymphatic path, from keratinocytes in the primary tumor to sub-capsular macrophages in the SLN. Our findings suggest L-EV cargo may serve as early mediators of tumor-induced immune subversion in regional lymph nodes, by preceding malignant cells and trafficking within the lymphatic vasculature to harbor the first pre-metastatic niche.