Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Associative bacteria influence maize (Zea mays L.) growth, physiology and root anatomy under different nitrogen levels.

Despite the great diversity of plant growth-promoting bacteria (PGPB) with potential to partially replace the use of N fertilisers in agriculture, few PGPB have been explored for the production of commercial inoculants, reinforcing the importance of identifying positive plant-bacteria interactions. Aiming to better understand the influence of PGPB inoculation in plant development, two PGPB species with distant phylogenetic relationship were inoculated in maize. Maize seeds were inoculated with Bacillus sp. or Azospirillum brasilense. After germination, the plants were subjected to two N treatments: full (N+) and limiting (N-) N supply. Then, anatomical, biometric and physiological analyses were performed. Both PGPB species modified the anatomical pattern of roots, as verified by the higher metaxylem vessel element (MVE) number. Bacillus sp. also increased the MVE area in maize roots. Under N+ conditions, both PGPB decreased leaf protein content and led to development of shorter roots; however, Bacillus sp. increased root and shoot dry weight, whereas A. brasilense increased photosynthesis rate and leaf nitrate content. In plants subjected to N limitation (N-), photosynthesis rate and photosystem II efficiency increased in maize inoculated with Bacillus sp. , whilst A. brasilense contained higher ammonium, amino acids and total soluble sugars in leaves, compared to the control. Plant developmental and metabolical patterns were switched by the inoculation, regardless of the inoculant bacterium used, producing similar as well as distinct modifications to the parameters studied. These results indicate that even non-diazotrophic inoculant strains can improve the plant N status as result of the morpho-anatomical and physiological modifications produced by the PGPB.
French Reed Bed as a Solution to Minimize the Operational and Maintenance Costs of Wastewater Treatment from a Small Settlement: An Italian Example

French Reed Bed (FRB) is a particular constructed wetland (CW) solution which receives raw wastewater. Data from the full-scale FRB wastewater treatment plant of Castelluccio di Norcia (center of Italy) were collected to show the FRB capability to minimize the operational and management (O&M) costs. The system was designed to treat wastewater variable from 200 person equivalent (PE) in off-season up to 1000 PE. Data from 2014 up to 2016 showed high removal efficiency in line with French experiences with FRBs. An interview was conducted with the Water Utility to estimate the operational and maintenance (O&M) costs faced by the WWTP, which allowed us to detail the O&M costs for energy consumption, water quality samples, and personnel for inspection. Other O&M expenditure items were estimated on the basis of parametric costs from the executive design. The FRB O&M costs in euro for 500–1000 PE (6–11 € PE−1 year−1) resulted from 5 to 13 lower in comparison to those reported for classical activated sludge systems in an Italian context (45–90 € year−1). The low O&M costs are mainly due to the limited energy consumed and to the minimized costs of sludge management.
Ronald Malt or Chen Zhongwei: Who performed the first surgical replantation?

This article discusses the contributions of the two pioneers of the surgical procedure of replantation—Ronald Malt in the US and Chen Zhongwei in China. Ronald Malt performed the reattachment surgery on a boy who had an accident in 1962, but he published his case report two years later in 1964. Chen Zhongwei performed a similar surgery on a worker who cut off his forearm in 1963, but he published his case report the same year. There is some debate about which one of these reputed surgeons should be given credit for being the first one to perform this breakthrough surgery, because although Malt was the first to perform the procedure, Zhongwei was the first to report it. To shed light on this controversy, criteria for scientific priority suggested by Ronald Vale and Anthony Hyman were applied. Although the criteria mainly favored Zhongwei as the pioneer of this procedure, he did not entirely fulfill one of the criteria. Therefore, the article could not present a definitive answer to the question, and it concludes by pointing out the highly commendable achievements and contributions of both Ronald Malt and Chen Zhongwei.
Geoengineering by stratospheric SO 2 injection: results from the Met Office HadGEM2 climate model and comparison with the Goddard Institute for Space Studies ModelE

Abstract. We examine the response of the Met Office Hadley Centre's HadGEM2-AO climate model to simulated geoengineering by continuous injection of SO2 into the lower stratosphere, and compare the results with those from the Goddard Institute for Space Studies ModelE. Despite the differences between the models, we find a broadly similar geographic distribution of the response to geoengineering in both models in terms of near-surface air temperature and mean June–August precipitation. The simulations also suggest that significant changes in regional climate would be experienced even if geoengineering was successful in maintaining global-mean temperature near current values, and both models indicate rapid warming if geoengineering is not sustained.
NTP 730: Tecnoestrés: concepto, medida e intervención psicosocial

Los cambios generados por las nuevas tecnologías demandan su prevención para evitar riesgos y efectos negativos de su impacto en las empresas y los trabajadores. En este sentido, por ejemplo el Real Decreto 39/1997 que se refiere al reglamento de los Servicios de Prevención especifica que la evaluación de riesgos deberá repetirse cuando las condiciones de trabajo "puedan verse afectadas por. la introducción de nuevas tecnologías. "
Curcumin – b-cyclodextrin inclusion complex : Stability , solubility , characterisation by FTIR , FT-Raman , X-ray diffraction and photoacoustic spectroscopy

Curcumin was complexed with b-CD using co-precipitation, freeze-drying and solvent evaporation methods. Co-precipitation enabled complex formation, as indicated by the FT-IR and FT-Raman techniques via the shifts in the peaks that were assigned to the aromatic rings of curcumin. In addition, photoacoustic spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction, with the disappearance of the band related to aromatic rings, by Gaussian fitting, and modifications in the spectral lines, respectively, also suggested complex formation. The possible complexation had an efficiency of 74% and increased the solubility of the pure colourant 31-fold. Curcumin–b-CD complex exhibited a sunlight stability 18% higher than the pure colourant. This material was stable to pH variations and storage at 15 and 4 C. With an isothermal heating at 100 and 150 C for 2 h, the material exhibited a colour retention of approximately 99%. The application of curcumin–b-CD complex in vanilla ice creams intensified the colour of the products and produced a great sensorial acceptance. 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Investigating power capping toward energy‐efficient scientific applications

The emergence of power efficiency as a primary constraint in processor and system design poses new challenges concerning power and energy awareness for numerical libraries and scientific applications. Power consumption also plays a major role in the design of data centers, which may house petascale or exascale‐level computing systems. At these extreme scales, understanding and improving the energy efficiency of numerical libraries and their related applications becomes a crucial part of the successful implementation and operation of the computing system. In this paper, we study and investigate the practice of controlling a compute system's power usage, and we explore how different power caps affect the performance of numerical algorithms with different computational intensities. Further, we determine the impact, in terms of performance and energy usage, that these caps have on a system running scientific applications. This analysis will enable us to characterize the types of algorithms that benefit most from these power management schemes. Our experiments are performed using a set of representative kernels and several popular scientific benchmarks. We quantify a number of power and performance measurements and draw observations and conclusions that can be viewed as a roadmap to achieving energy efficiency in the design and execution of scientific algorithms.
KL-UCB-switch: optimal regret bounds for stochastic bandits from both a distribution-dependent and a distribution-free viewpoints

In the context of K-armed stochastic bandits with distribution only assumed to be supported by [0,1], we introduce the first algorithm, called KL-UCB-switch, that enjoys simultaneously a distribution-free regret bound of optimal order $\sqrt{KT}$ and a distribution-dependent regret bound of optimal order as well, that is, matching the $\kappa\ln T$ lower bound by Lai & Robbins (1985) and Burnetas & Katehakis (1996). This self-contained contribution simultaneously presents state-of-the-art techniques for regret minimization in bandit models, and an elementary construction of non-asymptotic confidence bounds based on the empirical likelihood method for bounded distributions.
Extracephalic manifestations of nonchromosomal, nonsyndromic holoprosencephaly

Nonchromosomal, nonsyndromic holoprosencephaly (NCNS‐HPE) has traditionally been considered as a condition of brain and craniofacial maldevelopment. In this review, we present the results of a comprehensive literature search supporting a wide spectrum of extracephalic manifestations identified in patients with NCNS‐HPE. These manifestations have been described in case reports and in large cohorts of patients with “single‐gene” mutations, suggesting that the NCNS‐HPE phenotype can be more complex than traditionally thought. Likely, a complex network of interacting genetic variants and environmental factors is responsible for these systemic abnormalities that deviate from the usual brain and craniofacial findings in NCNS‐HPE. In addition to the systemic consequences of pituitary dysfunction (as a direct result of brain midline defects), here we describe a number of extracephalic findings of NCNS‐HPE affecting various organ systems. It is our goal to provide a guide of extracephalic features for clinicians given the important clinical implications of these manifestations for the management and care of patients with HPE and their mutation‐positive relatives. The health risks associated with some manifestations (e.g., fatty liver disease) may have historically been neglected in affected families.
Fluctuations of the EEG‐fMRI correlation reflect intrinsic strength of functional connectivity in default mode network

Both functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and electrophysiological recordings have revealed that resting‐state functional connectivity is temporally variable in human brain. Combined full‐band electroencephalography‐fMRI (fbEEG‐fMRI) studies have shown that infraslow (<.1 Hz) fluctuations in EEG scalp potential are correlated with the blood‐oxygen‐level‐dependent (BOLD) fMRI signals and that also this correlation appears variable over time. Here, we used simultaneous fbEEG‐fMRI to test the hypothesis that correlation dynamics between BOLD and fbEEG signals could be explained by fluctuations in the activation properties of resting‐state networks (RSNs) such as the extent or strength of their activation. We used ultrafast magnetic resonance encephalography (MREG) fMRI to enable temporally accurate and statistically robust short‐time‐window comparisons of infra‐slow fbEEG and BOLD signals. We found that the temporal fluctuations in the fbEEG‐BOLD correlation were dependent on RSN connectivity strength, but not on the mean signal level or magnitude of RSN activation or motion during scanning. Moreover, the EEG‐fMRI correlations were strongest when the intrinsic RSN connectivity was strong and close to the pial surface. Conversely, weak fbEEG‐BOLD correlations were attributable to periods of less coherent or spatially more scattered intrinsic RSN connectivity, or RSN activation in deeper cerebral structures. The results thus show that the on‐average low correlations between infra‐slow EEG and BOLD signals are, in fact, governed by the momentary coherence and depth of the underlying RSN activation, and may reach systematically high values with appropriate source activities. These findings further consolidate the notion of slow scalp potentials being directly coupled to hemodynamic fluctuations.
Prevalence and effect factors of dementia among the community elderly in Chongqing, China

China is an ageing society, with around 150 million people aged 60 years or older. The prevalence of dementia will increase by more than 100% in the coming 20 years. This study aimed to investigate the prevalence and effects of dementia among the community elderly in Chongqing, China.
Association of circulating CXCL10 and CXCL11 with systemic sclerosis

Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disorder defined ‘vascular’ disease1 due to early defective angiogenesis ending in severe multiorgan fibrosis.2 Biomarker(s) mirroring early microvascular derangements in SSc,3 potentially useful for very early diagnosis, are lacking. C-X-C angiostatic chemokines induced by interferon-γ, like CXCL10 and CXCL11, are involved in vasculopathy and associate with more severe SSc.4 5 We investigated whether the shift from very early diagnosis of SSc (VEDOSS), when vasculopathy and fibrosis are at very low degree, to definite SSc elicits serum CXCL10/CXCL11 modifications. CXCL10/CXCL11 were measured by multiplatform bead array in 26 healthy subjects; 62 sera from women admitted to the Scleroderma Clinic of Policlinico Umberto I, Sapienza University of Rome: 34 sera were from VEDOSS6 (mean age 50.50±13.66 years, mean disease duration 11.1±4.2 months) and 28 sera from patients with SSc (mean age 56.56±12.45 years, mean disease 91.3±11.73 months) fulfilling the new American College of Rheumatology/European League Against Rheumatism 2013 classification7; table 1 reports patient characteristics. View this table: Table 1 Demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with very early diagnosis of systemic sclerosis (VEDOSS) and systemic sclerosis (SSc) (whose sera sample collection was used in the study). …
Correlation between Dietary Intake and Inflammatory Biomarkers in a Tunisian Obese Group

Aims: This study aims to determine the inflammatory status and evaluate the correlation between dietary intake and inflammatory biomarkers in a Tunisian obese group. Material and Methods: This is an open cross-sectional study that includes 81 individuals divided into two groups: a group of 42 obese patients recruited from the endocrinology department and a control group of 39 non-obese healthy subjects. All participants received a food survey, anthropometric measurements and blood sampling. Pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL-6, IL-8, TNF-α), and hs-CRP were measured in patients and controls. Results: Dietary data revealed significant increases in food intake in obese patients compared to controls. The results of the laboratory parameters showed a statistically significant increase in IL-8, TNF-α and blood glucose in obese compared to controls. The analysis of correlations among the parameters studied showed that the plasma level of IL-6 was positively correlated with dietary fat intake (r = 0.70; p －3) and carbohydrate (r = 0.54; p = 0.03) and the dietary intake expressed in calories (r = 0.64; p －3). Conclusion: dietary imbalances in obese were observed and characterized by an excessive intake of calories, fat and carbohydrates. The excessive carbohydrate and fat intake is associated with increased IL-6 and TNF-α plasma levels.
Questionable Answers in Question Answering Research: Reproducibility and Variability of Published Results

“Based on theoretical reasoning it has been suggested that the reliability of findings published in the scientific literature decreases with the popularity of a research field” (Pfeiffer and Hoffmann, 2009). As we know, deep learning is very popular and the ability to reproduce results is an important part of science. There is growing concern within the deep learning community about the reproducibility of results that are presented. In this paper we present a number of controllable, yet unreported, effects that can substantially change the effectiveness of a sample model, and thusly the reproducibility of those results. Through these environmental effects we show that the commonly held belief that distribution of source code is all that is needed for reproducibility is not enough. Source code without a reproducible environment does not mean anything at all. In addition the range of results produced from these effects can be larger than the majority of incremental improvement reported.
A multi-level perspective of a spatial data ecosystem: needs and challenges among urban planning stakeholders in New Zealand

Spatial data ecosystems are often complex, and stakeholders express difficulties in finding, accessing, using and sharing spatial information. Doing so can be essential for making good evidence-based decisions on urban development. New Zealand's urban planning spatial data ecosystem is no exception. This paper identifies and maps key stakeholders, their data needs and respective barriers to an improved use of spatial information. We apply a multi-level perspective approach to analysing challenges of a transition towards an improved spatial data ecosystem for urban decision-making. Based on expert interviews and the international literature, we provide recommendations to improve the spatial data ecosystem and reduce barriers to making spatial data more available to support urban decisions. Our stakeholder-based analysis highlights the importance of intensive stakeholder engagement across the multiple levels of the spatial data ecosystem, fostering increased awareness and understanding of the value of fit-for-purpose spatial information for better planning outcomes. We argue for a coordinated, stakeholder-based mechanism addressing in particular cultural and governance local practices.
Land use change over the Amazon forest and its impact on the local climate

One of the most important anthropogenic influences on climate is land use change (LUC). In particular, the Amazon (AMZ) basin is a highly vulnerable area to climate change due to substantial modifications of the hydroclimatology of the region expected as a result of LUC. However, both the magnitude of these changes and the physical process underlying this scenario are still uncertain. This work aims to analyze the simulated Amazon deforestation and its impacts on local mean climate. We used the Common Land Model (CLM) version 4.5 coupled with the Regional Climate Model (RegCM4) over the Coordinated Regional Climate Downscaling Experiment (CORDEX) South America domain. We performed one simulation with the RegCM4 default land cover map (CTRL) and one simulation under a scenario of deforestation (LUC), i.e., replacing broadleaf evergreen trees with C3 grass over the Amazon basin. Both simulations were driven by ERA Interim reanalysis from 1979 to 2009. The climate change signal due to AMZ deforestation was evaluated by comparing the climatology of CTRL with LUC. Concerning the temperature, the deforested areas are about 2 °C warmer compared to the CTRL experiment, which contributes to decrease the surface pressure. Higher air temperature is associated with a decrease of the latent heat flux and an increase of the sensible heat flux over the deforested areas. AMZ deforestation induces a dipole pattern response in the precipitation over the region: a reduction over the west (about 7.9%) and an increase over the east (about 8.3%). Analyzing the water balance in the atmospheric column over the AMZ basin, the results show that under the deforestation scenario the land surface processes play an important role and drive the precipitation in the western AMZ; on the other hand, on the east side, the large scale circulation drives the precipitation change signal. Dipole patterns over scenarios of deforestation in the Amazon was also found by other authors, but the precipitation decrease on the west side was never fully explained. Using budget equations, this work highlights the physical processes that control the climate in the Amazon basin under a deforestation scenario.
Naming the Unspeakable Harm of Street Harassment: A Survey-Based Examination of Disclosure Practices

Street harassment may be considered an “unspeakable” harm on account of the routine silencing and trivialization of victims’ experiences. Disclosing street harassment is vital in making its harms visible and in working to transform social and cultural attitudes. Despite a recent resurgence of interest in street harassment via online activist groups, there is scant research on disclosure practices. Drawing on findings from an online, mixed-methods survey with 292 participants who have experienced street harassment, I examine disclosure practices using an intersectional lens. I argue that disclosure is an epistemological process, through which a limited and partial understanding of street harassment is produced.
Shaping memory consolidation via targeted memory reactivation during sleep

Recent studies have shown that the reactivation of specific memories during sleep can be modulated using external stimulation. Specifically, it has been reported that matching a sensory stimulus (e.g., odor or sound cue) with target information (e.g., pairs of words, pictures, and motor sequences) during wakefulness, and then presenting the cue alone during sleep, facilitates memory of the target information. Thus, presenting learned cues while asleep may reactivate related declarative, procedural, and emotional material, and facilitate the neurophysiological processes underpinning memory consolidation in humans. This paradigm, which has been named targeted memory reactivation, has been successfully used to improve visuospatial and verbal memories, strengthen motor skills, modify implicit social biases, and enhance fear extinction. However, these studies also show that results depend on the type of memory investigated, the task employed, the sensory cue used, and the specific sleep stage of stimulation. Here, we present a review of how memory consolidation may be shaped using noninvasive sensory stimulation during sleep.