Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ATTACHMENT OF PIED FLYCATCHERS MUSCICAPA HYPOLEUCA TO NEST‐SITES

Summary. 1 A breeding population of Pied Flycatchers has been studied on 60 acres of old oakwood in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, from 1947 to 1958. The birds breed in 250 nest-boxes attached to 200 numbered trees scattered throughout the area at about 50 yard intervals. 2 Data have been collected on the reappearance in the area of 89 males and 150 females ringed as adults, and of 67 males and 90 females ringed as nestlings. 3 Distances between nest-boxes occupied by ringed adults show that males return to a box at an average of 125 yards from that last occupied, females to an average of 175 yards. Males show a significantly closer attachment to the previous site. 4 Birds ringed as nestlings show no particular attachment to the birth-site, both sexes returning to an average of 350 yards of it; a circle of 350 yards radius includes 90% of the nest-boxes in the area. 5 The failure of adults to return to exactly the same site may be partly the result of interspecific competition from resident tit-mice (Parus) but is more probably due to the artificial provision of many equally suitable sites within a small area. 6 The nest-sites taken by returning nestlings may be more or less at random over the area covered by nest-boxes. Isolated boxes may exert a stronger attraction and a case is given of a nestling returning to breed in its birth-site in Derbyshire.
Nutrient metabolism and rumen micro-organisms in sheep fed a poor-quality tropical grass hay supplemented with sulphate

SUMMARY A feeding trial was performed during 1986, in Townsville, Australia, to describe alterations in nutrient metabolism, and the coincident gross changes in rumen microbiology, when a sulphurdeficient diet was supplemented with inorganic sulphur. Eight Merino sheep were fed ad libitum a spear grass (Heteropogon contortus) hay of low sulphur content (0·4 g/kg DM), supplemented with all other essential minerals. Upon supplementation, daily sulphur intake was increased to c. 0·75 g and four animals continued to be fed ad libitum (group A) whilst the remaining animals were restricted in feed intake (group B). Sulphur supplementation caused a twofold increase in the feed intake of group A (P < 0·05). In both groups of animals, sulphur supplementation increased the fermentation of cotton thread cellulose (P < 0·05), as well as of ground plant dry matter (P < 0·05), suspended in the rumen in nylon bags for 24 and 48 h. The apparent digestibility of organic matter (AOMD) was also increased by sulphur supplementation; from 30·6 to 39·3% in group A (P < 0·05) and from 35·1 to 41·5% in group B (P > 0·05). The difference in AOMD between groups with sulphur supplementation was not significant, despite group B maintaining a longer retention of fluid digesta in the rumen (20·7 v. 25·3 h) with a significantly lowered rumen volume (4·68 v 3·67 litres, P < 0·05) and outflow of fluid digesta from this site (5·31 v 3·58 litres/day, P < 0·05). Sulphur supplementation increased the molar proportion of acetic acid in rumen fluid (P < 0·05) but lowered propionic and butyric acids in group A (P < 0·05). Only the molar proportion of propionic acid in rumen fluid was significantly lowered in group B (P < 0·05). In both groups of animals, counts of fluid-borne rumen bacteria, protozoa and sporangia of rumen anaerobic fungi (RAF) all increased significantly with sulphur supplementation (P < 0·05 in all instances), but no significant differences were observed between groups in microbial counts, despite the different feeding regimes. The increase in sporangial forms of RAF was most marked; no sporangial forms were detectable until the diet was supplemented with sulphate and measurable concentrations of rumen sulphide were observed. This is the first account of nondetectable concentrations of RAF brought about by the nutritional status of the diet.
Sex-Ratio Variation in Response to Interspecific Competition

An important yet controversial hypothesis n evolutionary biology is that natural selection may sometimes favor parental control of the sex of offspring. Fisher (1930) initially proposed that sexually reproducing organisms hould, over their lifetimes, invest equally in sons and daughters and hence that the equilibrium sex ratio of newly independent young should be 1: 1. He also pointed out that if members of one sex were overproduced, stabilizing selection would return the population sex ratio to parity because the producers of the rare sex would tend to leave relatively more offspring. More-recent studies have suggested that natural selection may frequently favor deviations from equal investment inthe sexes and hence lead to biased sex ratios (reviews in Charnov 1982; Clutton-Brock and lason 1986; Armitage 1987). A model proposed by Trivers and Willard (1973) predicts that, for species in which males exhibit more variation in reproductive success than females (e.g., the mating system is polygynous), "high-quality" mothers invest more per offspring and bias their litters toward males, whereas "low-quality" mothers invest less per offspring and produce more females. These predictions have been substantiated in a variety of field and laboratory studies (e.g., Meikle et al. 1984; Austad and Sunquist 1986; Gosling 1986; Labov et al. 1986), although not in others (e.g., Trillmich 1986). A mother's ability to invest is usually assumed to depend on her physical strength, size, nutritional state, age or dominance rank, and hence on her foraging ability or status within the population. However, other species may also influence a mother's ability to invest by reducing shared food resources or by some other mechanism. Shifts from a balanced sex ratio have been reported in several studies of competition among mammals (Joule and Jameson 1972; Mann and Bindra 1978; Pitcher and Keller 1979). It is unclear, however, whether these represent adaptive prepartum shifts in the sex ratio (Williams 1979) or simply differences between the sexes in mortality, growth, or the number trapped after weaning. In this study, I describe the effects of competition on the offspring sex ratio of a small dasyurid marsupial, Antechinus stuartii, of a larger and competitively dominant congener, A. swainsonii. I have shown elsewhere that A. swainsonii adversely affects the population size, survival, and resource use of A. stuartii and that competition for food probably occurs (Dickman 1986a,b).
Estimation of Voltage Dependent Load Models Through Power and Frequency Measurements

This letter proposes an optimization-free technique to estimate the parameters of voltage dependent loads through the measurements of only the load active and reactive power consumption and frequency deviations at the load bus. The technique is shown to be a relevant consequence of the dependency of power flow equations on the bus voltage phase angles. The WSCC 9-bus and the IEEE 14-bus systems serve to illustrate the proposed technique.
The use of volatile cues in recognition of kin eggs by predatory mites

Several animal species are known to distinguish between their own eggs and eggs of unrelated conspecifics. However, the cues involved in this discrimination are often unknown. These cues were studied using the predatory mite Gynaeseius liturivorus Ehara. Adult females of these predatory mites oviposit in clusters and avoid oviposition close to eggs laid by other females, resulting in reduced cannibalism between offspring. Because predatory mites are blind, it was tested whether volatiles of eggs were used as a cue for egg recognition. Adult female predatory mites were offered volatile cues of their own eggs and of unrelated conspecific eggs, and females were prevented from contacting the eggs. Predatory mites oviposited closer to their own eggs than to unrelated eggs. This preference was observed even when one own and one unrelated egg were offered as a volatile source. These results suggest that adult female predatory mites can determine kinship using volatiles released from the eggs.
The many uses of non‐invasive faecal steroid monitoring in zoo and wildlife species

During the past two decades, techniques for faecal steroid analysis have been developed and have been used for research with mammalian, bird and, to a lesser extent, reptile, amphibian and fish species. Various techniques for the analysis of reproductive (oestrogen, androgen, progestagen) and adrenocortical (glucocorticoids) steroid hormones have been established and have been applied to a wide range of research questions studying captive and free-ranging wildlife, as well as domestic and laboratory species. Because of species-specific differences in steroid metabolism in even closely related species, careful validation of assay methods is necessary in order to generate meaningful and accurate results. For future research and management of free-ranging and captive wildlife, the great potential of non-invasive endocrine monitoring will be utilized more than ever. In light of this, captive wildlife species are ideal research subjects, as longitudinal sample collection is possible and studies connecting physiology, endocrinology, reproduction and stress with various social and/or environmental factors can be carried out and can be analysed to determine how they impact animal health.
End-to-End Performance-Based Autonomous VNF Placement With Adopted Reinforcement Learning

The autonomous placement of Virtual Network Functions (VNFs) is a key aspect of Zero-touch network and Service Management (ZSM) in Fifth Generation (5G) networking. Therefore, current orchestration frameworks need to be enhanced, accordingly. To address this need, this work presents an Adapted REinforcement Learning VNF Performance Prediction module for Autonomous VNF Placement, namely AREL3P. Our solution design bears a dual novelty. First, it leverages end-to-end service-level performance predictions for placing VNFs. Second, whereas the majority of other Machine Learning efforts in the literature use Supervised Learning (SL) techniques, AREL3P is based on a particular form of Reinforcement Learning adapted to predictions. This makes placement decisions more resilient to dynamic conditions, as well as portable to other network nodes, and able to generalize in heterogeneous network environments. Backed by a meticulous performance evaluation over a real 5G end-to-end testbed, we verify the above properties after integrating AREL3P to Open Source Management and Orchestration (OSM MANO) decisions. Among other highlights, we show increased VNF performance predictions accuracy by 40–45%, and an overall improved VNF placement efficiency against other SL benchmarks reflected by near-optimal decision scores in 23 out of a total of 27 investigated scenarios.
Comparative study of the physiology and its probable effect on size in Blue Mussels (Mytilus Edulis L.) from the North Sea and the Northern Baltic Proper

Abstract It is a well-known fact that the Baltic Sea blue mussels are very abundant but do not grow as large and fast as Mytilus edulis from the North Sea. This is often attributed to physiological differences due to the decline in salinities, although the mechanisms behind this are not yet fully understood. In order to elucidate this, the metabolism of mussels from the northern Baltic proper (Asko) and the North Sea (Tjarno) was compared in the laboratory at ambient salinities of about 6.5 and 28.8 ‰, respectively, together with the magnitude of response to acute changes in the salinity. At 13°C and ambient salinities, respiration was higher for North Sea mussels in a non-reproductive stage, while after spawning respiration was higher for Baltic mussels. NH4-N excretion was always about two times higher for Baltic than for North Sea mussels at ambient salinities, and very sensitive to changes in salinity due to changes in the metabolism of free amino acids. While lowered salinities increased excretion, t.
Hybrid Prediction of Weekly Tornado Activity Out to Week 3: Utilizing Weather Regimes

Tornadoes are one of the high‐impact weather phenomena that can induce life loss and property damage. Here, we investigate the relationship between large‐scale weather regimes and tornado occurrence in boreal spring. Results show that weather regimes strongly modulate the probability of tornado occurrence in the United States due to changes in shear and convective available potential energy and that persisting weather regimes (lasting ≥3 days) contribute to greater than 70% of outbreak days (days with ≥10 tornadoes). A hybrid model based on the weather regime frequency predicted by a numerical model is developed to predict above/below normal weekly tornado activity and has skill better than climatology out to Week 3. The hybrid model can be applied to real‐time forecasting and aide in mitigation of severe weather events.
Ants accelerate litter decomposition in a Costa Rican lowland tropical rain forest

Abstract: The decomposition of leaf litter is governed, in part, by litter invertebrates. In tropical rain forests, ants are dominant predators in the leaf litter and may alter litter decomposition through the action of a top-down control of food web structure. The role of ants in litter decomposition was investigated in a Costa Rican lowland rain forest with two experiments. In a mesocosm experiment, we manipulated ant presence in 50 ambient leaf-litter mesocosms. In a litterbag gradient experiment, Cecropia obtusifolia litter was used to measure decomposition rate constants across gradients in nutrients, ant density and richness, with 27 separate litterbag treatments for total arthropod exclusion or partial arthropod exclusion. After 2 mo, mass loss in mesocosms containing ants was 30.9%, significantly greater than the 23.5% mass loss in mesocosms without ants. In the litter bags with all arthropods excluded, decomposition was best accounted by the carbon: phosphorus content of soil (r2 = 0.41). In litter bags permitting smaller arthropods but excluding ants, decomposition was best explained by the local biomass of ants in the vicinity of the litter bags (r2 = 0.50). Once the microarthropod prey of ants are permitted to enter litterbags, the biomass of ants near the litterbags overtakes soil chemistry as the regulator of decomposition. In concert, these results support a working hypothesis that litter-dwelling ants are responsible for accelerating litter decomposition in lowland tropical rain forests.
Influence of Rootstock Propagation Method on Traits of Grafted Sweet Orange Trees

The rootstock plays a large role in modern citrus production because of its influence on tolerance to adverse abiotic and biotic soil-borne stresses, and on the general horticultural characteristics of the grafted scion. In recent years, rootstock has received increased attention as a management strategy to alleviate the devastating effects of the bacterial disease huanglongbing (HLB), also known as “citrus greening. ” In commercial citrus nursery production, rootstocks are typically propagated by seed. Because of the increased demand for HLB-tolerant rootstocks, seed supply is often inadequate for the most popular cultivars. Cuttings and tissue culture (TC) propagation are alternative methods to supply adequate quantities of genetically identical rootstocks to be used as liners for grafting. However, there are concerns among nursery owners and citrus growers regarding the possible inferiority of rootstocks that are not propagated by seed. This study investigates the influence of rootstock propagation method on traits of sweet orange trees grafted on four commercially important rootstock cultivars during the nursery stage and during the first year of growth in a commercial citrus orchard. Several of the measured traits during the nursery stage, including rootstock sprouting, grafted tree growth, and root mass distribution were significantly influenced by the rootstock propagation method, but traits were also influenced by the rootstock cultivar. Our results also suggest that for tissue culture-propagated plants, differences in the starting material and the culturing method can affect the grafted tree behavior. Except for canopy spread and scion to rootstock trunk diameter ratio, tree growth during the orchard stage was determined by the combination of propagation method and rootstock, rather than by propagation method alone.
Lender Trust on the P2P Lending: Analysis Based on Sentiment Analysis of Comment Text

Lender trust is important to ensure the sustainability of P2P lending. This paper uses web crawling to collect more than 240,000 unique pieces of comment text data. Based on the mapping relationship between emotion and trust, we use the lexicon-based method and deep learning to check the trust of a given lender in P2P lending. Further, we use the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) topic model to mine topics concerned with this research. The results show that lenders are positive about P2P lending, though this tendency fluctuates downward with time. The security, rate of return, and compliance of P2P lending are the issues of greatest concern to lenders. This study reveals the core subject areas that influence a lender’s emotions and trusts and provides a theoretical basis and empirical reference for relevant platforms to improve their operational level while enhancing competitiveness. This analytical approach offers insights for researchers to understand the hidden content behind the text data.
A Learning-Based Approach to Intra-Domain QoS Routing

In traditional networks, routing table is essential for packet transmission due to the lack of the direction information abut destination in the head of packet. However, it is feasible to make the address of device encode the routing information with the application of data technology. In this article, we propose new identities for networking routers –vectors, and a new routing principle based on these vectors is designed accordingly. These vectors encode the device distance information and serve as a pattern of the network topology. Then, routing decisions could be made by these vector calculations and only requirement of table query on the destination vector following the proposed routing principle. The proposed method is not limited in calculating the shortest path routing, but extend to solve the constrain routing problem. Besides, multi-paths routing is also available as long as multi-paths exist between the origin-destination pairs. The simulation results show that our proposed method works reliable and stable in routing tasks, and can achieve a remarkable performance when compared with the state-of-the-art work on the delay constrained least cost path (DCLC) problem.
Influence of various dietary synthetic carotenoids on bio‐defence mechanisms in rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss (Walbaum)

This study examined the influence of different carotenoids on growth and some immune indices in rainbow trout. Six semipurified casein-based diets were formulated to contain one of three different carotenoids: astaxanthin, canthaxanthin and β-carotene, at 100 mg kg−1, each of them with vitamins A, C and E either added or omitted. The two control diets contained no carotenoids and were either with or without the vitamins. Rainbow trout weighing about 140 g were fed the diets for 9 weeks. Specific growth rate, feed:gain ratio and nonspecific immune parameters were determined. Growth and feed conversion were similar among the groups. Immune parameters like production of reactive oxygen species by head kidney leukocytes and plasma total immunoglobulin levels did not vary with the treatment. Serum complement activity in both β-carotene groups and the vitamin-containing astaxanthin group were significantly higher than both the control fish. Serum lysozyme activity in the vitamin-containing β-carotene and astaxanthin groups were significantly different from both control groups. Phagocytic activity was also high in the vitamin-containing β-carotene and astaxanthin groups compared with the controls. For phagocytic index, in addition to the foregoing groups, the vitamin-containing canthaxanthin group gave better results compared with the controls. The vitamin-containing astaxanthin and β-carotene groups also exhibited better nonspecific cytotoxicity for the peripheral blood lymphocytes at all effector-to-target ratios. Thus, among the carotenoids studied, β-carotene and astaxanthin elevated humoral factors such as serum complement and lysozyme activity, as well as cellular factors such as phagocytosis and nonspecific cytotoxicity. In the presence of the vitamins the carotenoids exerted a greater influence on the bio-defense mechanisms of rainbow trout.
Feeding and grazing in Lake George, Uganda

The fauna of Lake George is dominated by herbivores, in particular the fish Tilapia nilotica and Haplochromis nigripinnis, and the cyclopoid copepod Thermocyclops hyalinus. Digestion, and the assimilation of carbon from algae, by these herbivores were studied in detail. It was found that, contrary to previous observations reported in the literature, both fish and zooplankton were able to digest and assimilate blue-green algae. The diurnal feeding patterns of the herbivores were examined, and methods devised for assessing, in terms of carbon, the daily ingestion of algae. Hence, using biomass data, the total amount grazed by the herbivores was calculated. Estimates of carbon requirements at other trophic levels were made, as was an assessment of the required level of net production by the algae for comparison with figures for standing crop and net algal production measured by other means. Food selection by secondary and tertiary producers is discussed, and in several species age correlated changes in selectivity were examined. Both the major herbivorous species of fish adopt phytoplankton feeding after a period of carnivorous or omnivorous feeding as fry. Thermocyclops hyalinus is herbivorous all its life, but the size of particle taken changes with age. There are more species of carnivorous than herbivorous fish and these exploit a wider variety of food sources; the few species studied also show changes in food preference with age.
Trichothecene mycotoxin genotypes of Fusarium graminearum sensu stricto and Fusarium meridionale in wheat from southern Brazil

A total of 82 fungal isolates was obtained from wheat kernel samples affected by fusarium head blight collected from 20 locations in southern Brazil. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) assays were used to characterize trichothecene mycotoxin genotypes [deoxynivalenol (DON), nivalenol (NIV) and two acetylated derivatives of DON]. To identify isolates that producing DON and NIV, portions of the Tri13 gene were amplified. To identify 3-acetyl-deoxynivalenol (3-ADON) and 15-acetyl-deoxynivalenol (15-ADON) genotypes, portions of Tri3 and Tri12 were amplified. Nearly all of the isolates studied (76/82) were of the DON/15-ADON genotype. Six of the isolates were of the NIV genotype. The DON/3-ADON genotype was not observed. Portions of three genes were sequenced from representative isolates of the NIV and DON/15-ADON genotypes and compared with sequences from curated reference isolates of Fusarium in GenBank. blast queries for individual gene sequences and pairwise comparisons of percentage identity and percentage divergence based on 1676 bp of concatenated DNA sequence suggested that the isolates representing the DON/15-ADON genotype were Fusarium graminearum sensu stricto and the isolates representing the NIV genotype were Fusarium meridionale. This is the first detailed report of trichothecene mycotoxin genotypes of F. graminearum and F. meridionale in Brazil.