Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Directional trends in species composition over time can lead to a widespread overemphasis of year‐to‐year asynchrony

Questions: Compensatory dynamics are described as one of the main mechanisms that increase community stability, e.g., where decreases of some species on a year-to-year basis are offset by an increase in others. Deviations from perfect synchrony between species (asynchrony) have therefore been advocated as an important mechanism underlying biodiversity effects on stability. However, it is unclear to what extent existing measures of synchrony actually capture the signal of year-to-year species fluctuations in the presence of long-term directional trends in both species abundance and composition (species directional trends hereafter). Such directional trends may lead to a misinterpretation of indices commonly used to reflect year-to-year synchrony. Methods: An approach based on three-term local quadrat variance (T3) which assesses population variability in a three-year moving window, was used to overcome species directional trend effects. This “detrending” approach was applied to common indices of synchrony across a worldwide collection of 77 temporal plant community datasets comprising almost 7,800 individual plots sampled for at least six years. Plots included were either maintained under constant “control” conditions over time or were subjected to different management or disturbance treatments. Results: Accounting for directional trends increased the detection of year-to-year synchronous patterns in all synchrony indices considered. Specifically, synchrony values increased significantly in ~40% of the datasets with the T3 detrending approach while in ~10% synchrony decreased. For the 38 studies with both control and manipulated conditions, the increase in synchrony values was stronger for longer time series, particularly following experimental manipulation. Conclusions: Species’ long-term directional trends can affect synchrony and stability measures potentially masking the ecological mechanism causing year-to-year fluctuations. As such, previous studies on community stability might have overemphasised the role of compensatory dynamics in real-world ecosystems, and particularly in manipulative conditions, when not considering the possible overriding effects of long-term directional trends.
Breeding soundness examination and herd proficiency of local genetic groups of bulls in tropical environment conditions in Veracruz, Mexico

Abstract With the aim of assessing bull fertility before or during its use for reproduction under tropical weather conditions where heat stress is present, and correlating it to herd parameters, BSE was carried out to determine which genetic groups of bulls have better reproductive performance. 223 bulls from different genetic groups, Zebu bulls (N = 72), European bulls (N = 58), and Crossbred Bulls (N = 93), were evaluated in situ over a two-year period, 2018–2019. Bull (age, corporal conditions, libido, and scrotal circumference), semen (concentration, motility and volume), herd (pregnancy rate and calving intervals) and environmental variables (THI, season, sampling month and spermatogenesis month) were analysed with One-Way ANOVA, as well as with factorial, multiple regression, and multivariate analysis. Zebu and European bulls have a higher libido than crossbreed bulls (p < .05), and it decreases with age (p < .05). High-libido bulls (>7) show high correlation (R = 0.70 p < .05) with herd parameters; BCS affects libido (p < .05). Sperm concentration is correlated to herd parameters (R = 0.82 p < .05). European bull sperm concentration and motility showed a decrease in autumn and winter (p < .05) in comparison to other genetic groups. Libido and semen variables are more associated with herd parameters than with other bull characteristics. Environmental variables are not associated with herd parameters (p > .05). Heat stress did not directly affect bull reproductive performance; Zebu bulls and crossbreeds showed better herd parameters (p < .05). Highlights Bull breeding soundness examination and herd proficiency. Herd proficiency of local genetic groups of bulls in tropical conditions. Breeding soundness examination in tropical environment conditions.
Phosphorylation of STEF / Tiam 2 by protein kinase A is critical for Rac 1 activation and neurite outgrowth in dibutyryl cAMP – treated PC 12 D cells

Akihiro Gotoa, Mikio Hoshinob, Michiyuki Matsudaa, and Takeshi Nakamuraa,c aLaboratory of Bioimaging and Cell Signaling, Graduate School of Biostudies, Kyoto University, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, Japan; bDepartment of Biochemistry and Cellular Biology, National Institute of Neuroscience, NCNP, Kodaira, Tokyo, Japan; cDivision of Biosignaling, Research Institute for Biological Sciences, Tokyo University of Science, Noda, Chiba, Japan
Strain Evolution Measurement at the Microscale of a Dual Phase Steel Using Digital Image Correlation

Digital Image Correlation (DIC) together with in-situ tensile testing has been used to measure in DP1000 steel the evolution of plastic strains at the microstructure scale. Interrupted tensile tests were performed on specially designed samples and scanning-electron micrographs were taken at regular applied strain intervals. Patterns defined by the microstructural features of the material have been used for the correlation carried out using LAVision software. The full field strain maps produced by DIC show a progressive localisation of deformation into bands at about 45o with respect to the loading direction. Plastic strains as high as 130% have been measured within the ferrite phase.
The impact of bilingualism on the executive control and orienting networks of attention

The main objective of this article is to provide new evidence regarding the impact of bilingualism on the attentional system. We approach this goal by assessing the effects of bilingualism on the executive and orienting networks of attention. In Experiment 1, we compared young bilingual and monolingual adults in a numerical version of the Stroop task, which allowed the assessment of the executive control network. We observed more efficient performance in the former group, which showed both reduced Stroop Interference and larger Stroop Facilitation Effects relative to the latter. Conversely, Experiment 2, conducted with a visual cueing task in order to assess the orienting network, revealed similar Cueing Facilitation and Inhibition (Inhibition of Return – IOR) Effects for both groups of speakers. The implications of the results of these two experiments for the origin and boundaries of the bilingual impact on the attentional system are discussed.
Police supervisor attitudes toward organizational change

ABSTRACT Organizational change is necessary and inevitable in any organization, and is an important element of police reform. Research has demonstrated that attitudes of officers, supervisors, and administrators influence the longitudinal effectiveness of organizational change initiatives. Supervisors play a critical role in filtering messages and ensuring fidelity of initiatives at the street level. In this way, they are key actors in shaping change outcomes and their overall views of change might serve as a lynchpin for success. This study explores how previous experiences shape the attitudes of the supervisors toward the overall idea of change. Using survey data from a nationwide group of police supervisors attending the FBI National Academy program in 2009–2010, the study explores the effects of change experiences, organizational variables, and respondent demographics on views of organizational change. Results suggest that attitudes toward change align with other aspects of supervisors’ views of policing, as well as their past experiences with change efforts themselves. The findings have implications for efforts to change and reform police organizations and operations.
Comparison of the biocompatibility of grey mineral trioxide aggregate and sealapex plus zinc oxide in rat subcutaneous tissue

ABSTRACT Objectives :The aim of this study was to compare the subcutaneous tissue response to grey mineral trioxide aggregate white Sealapex plus zinc oxide. Methods : Polyethylene tubes filled with tested material were implanted in the connective tissue of rats. Control animals received empty tubes. Tissue samples were collected after 7, 60, and 90 days and stained with h ematoxylin- e osin, picrosirius-fast green, and von Kossa stain for morphological analysis. The connective tissue response to the implanted materials was evaluated descriptively and semi-quantitatively by scoring the degree of inflammation, granulation tissue formation, fibrosis, and calcification. Results: Examinations of the grey mineral trioxide aggregate group over time revealed more intense inflammation at 7 days than at 60 days (p <0.05). In the Sealapex plus zinc oxide group, granulation tissue was more abundant at 7 days than at 60 days (p <0.05). Regarding calcification, von Kossa-positive granules were observed in the grey mineral trioxide aggregate and Sealapex plus zinc oxide groups at all time points studied. In the Sealapex/ZnO group, calcification was more apparent at 60 days than at 7 days (p <0.05). Relevance: This study demonstrates that all tested materials promote similar tissue reactions. Descriptors: Biocompatibility Testing, Endodontics, Dental Materials, Retrograde Obturation.
The Impact of Grid and Spectral Nudging on the Variance of the Near-Surface Wind Speed

AbstractGrid and spectral nudging are effective ways of preventing drift from large-scale weather patterns in regional climate models. However, the effect of nudging on the wind speed variance is unclear. In this study, the impact of grid and spectral nudging on near-surface and upper boundary layer wind variance in the Weather Research and Forecasting Model is analyzed. Simulations are run on nested domains with horizontal grid spacing of 15 and 5 km over the Baltic Sea region. For the 15-km domain, 36-h simulations initialized each day are compared with 11-day simulations with either grid or spectral nudging at and above 1150 m above ground level (AGL). Nested 5-km simulations are not nudged directly but inherit boundary conditions from the 15-km experiments. Spatial and temporal spectra show that grid nudging causes smoothing of the wind in the 15-km domain at all wavenumbers, both at 1150 m AGL and near the surface where nudging is not applied directly, while spectral nudging mainly affects longer wav.
Cell-like decompositions of homogeneous continua

Certain decompositions of homogeneous continua are shown to be cell-like. In particular, the aposyndetic decomposition described by F. B. Jones of a homogeneous, decomposable continuum is cell-like, and we prove that any homogeneous decomposable continuum admits a continuous decomposition into mutually homeomorphic, indecomposable, homogeneous, cell-like terminal continua so that the quotient space is an aposyndetic homogeneous continuum. D. C. Wilson [8] has shown that a monotone, completely regular map f: X -p Z of the n-dimensional continuum X onto the nondegenerate continuum Y has the property that Hn(f-1(z)) = 0, for all z in Z. In particular, if n 1, then the point inverses of f are acyclic continua. More recently, Mason and Wilson [5] have shown that if n = 1, then the point inverses of f are tree-like continua, that is, f is a cell-like map. Since the projection maps of a product space onto the factors are completely regular maps, one cannot, in general, extend the Mason-Wilson result to higher dimensions. The impetus for the Mason-Wilson result, however, was the author's applications [6, 7] of completely regular maps to certain monotone decompositions of homogeneous continua. In this paper, we show that the completely regular, monotone maps arising as quotient maps of these decompositions are cell-like maps. In particular, Jones' aposyndetic decomposition of a homogeneous, decomposable continuum is a decomposition of that continuum into cell-like sets. A continuum X is cell-like if each mapping of X into a compact ANR is inessential. If the map f is inessential, we write f 0 O. A continuum is cell-like if and only if it has trivial shape. A map is cell-like if each of its point inverses is cell-like. The following theorem is classical. WIRECUTTING THEOREM. Let A and B be closed subsets of the compact space M. If no connected subset of M intersects both A and B, then there exist disjoint closed subsets M1 and M2 of M such that A c M1, B c M2, and M = M1 U M2. A subcontinuum Z of the continuum X is said to be terminal if each subcontinuum Y of X such that Y n Z # 0 satisfies either Y c Z or Z c Y. The proof of the next theorem is similar to that of [2, Theorem 2]. Received by the editors September 11, 1981. 1980 Mathematics Subject Classification. Primary 54F20, 54F50.
Faith and Fair Trade: The Moderating Role of Contextual Religious Salience

Normative and historical arguments support the idea that religion potentially shapes decisions to support fair trade products. That said, the question of how religion influences organizational decision-makers to purchase fair trade products in a business-to-business context has remained largely unaddressed. This research examines the interactive effect of individual religious commitment and contextual religious salience on an individual’s willingness to pay a price premium for a fair trade product, when buying on behalf of an organization. Findings from two experimental studies (involving 75 and 87 working individuals, respectively) reveal that the effect of a decision-maker’s religious commitment on his or her willingness to pay a price premium, for the purchase of a fair trade product on behalf of an organization, is moderated by the contextual salience of religion. Specifically, when religion is highly salient in the organizational context, religious commitment is positively related to the decision-maker’s willingness to pay a premium for the fair trade product; when contextual religious salience is low, religious commitment and willingness to pay a premium are unrelated. Implications for theory and practice are presented.
Real time location systems: Is it big brother or a big opportunity for professional practice?

Purpose: Real Time Location Systems (RTLS) is an emerging health care technology with the potential to capture data that can be used to improve professional practice and patient outcomes. However, there is a paucity of literature in this area to guide health professionals and leaders in both the implementation and use of RTLS data. To address this gap in the literature, this qualitative study was designed to explore how staff perceive and experience RTLS, and how health care providers anticipate using RTLS data for professional practice and clinical decision making.Results: Interviews and focus groups were conducted with 31 health care professionals who work in a community hospital in Canada. There was variation between the participants in terms of the experience of being monitored, the intensity of emotions related to RTLS and being monitored, the degree to which RTLS influenced clinical decision making and reflection, and the perceptions of usefulness of RTLS data for professional practice. Three key themes emerged from the data: (1) the experience of being monitored, (2) anticipating using the data and (3) claiming the data for professional practice.Conclusions: Supports are vital to the successful adoption of RTLS and to enable health care professionals to claim and use RTLS data for professional practice and clinical decision making. During the implementation and use of RTLS data, it is crucial to recognize that RTLS data only represent the time spent in a location, and not the professional or knowledge-based practice of health professionals. Further research is required to understand the leadership strategies to guide the use of RTLS data.
RNA: A Reject Neighbors Algorithm for Influence Maximization in Complex Networks

The influence maximization problem (IMP) in complex networks is to address finding a set of key nodes that play vital roles in the information diffusion process, and when these nodes are employed as ”seed nodes”, the diffusion effect is maximized. First, this paper presents a refined network centrality measure, a refined shell (RS) index for node ranking, and then proposes an algorithm for identifying key node sets, namely the reject neighbors algorithm (RNA), which consists of two main sequential parts, i.e., node ranking and node selection. The RNA refuses to select multiple-order neighbors of the seed nodes, scatters the selected nodes from each other, and results in the maximum influence of the identified node set on the whole network. Experimental results on real-world network datasets show that the key node set identified by the RNA exhibits significant propagation capability.
New evidence for atmospheric mercury transformations in the marine boundary layer from stable mercury isotopes

Abstract. The marine boundary layer (MBL) is the largest transport place and reaction vessel of atmospheric mercury (Hg). The transformations of atmospheric Hg in the MBL are crucial for the global transport and deposition of Hg. Herein, Hg isotopic compositions of total gaseous mercury (TGM) and particle-bound Hg (PBM) collected during three cruises to Chinese seas in summer and winter were measured to reveal the transformation processes of atmospheric Hg in the MBL. Unlike the observation results at inland sites, isotopic compositions of TGM in the MBL were affected not only by mixing continental emissions but also largely by the oxidation of Hg0 primarily derived by Br atoms. Δ199Hg values of TGM were significantly positively correlated with air temperature in summer, indicating that processes inducing positive mass-independent fractionation of odd isotopes in TGM could be more active at low temperatures, while the relative processes might be weak in winter. In contrast, the positive Δ199Hg and high ratios of Δ199Hg∕Δ201Hg in PBM indicated that alternative oxidants other than Br or Cl atoms played a major role in the formation of Hg(II) in PBM, likely following the nuclear volume effect. Our results suggest the importance of local Hg environmental behaviors caused by an abundance of highly reactive species and provide new evidence for understanding the complicated transformations of atmospheric Hg in the MBL.
Feasibility study of a nuclear powered blended wing body aircraft for the Cruiser/Feeder concept

This paper describes the conceptual study of a nuclear powered blended wing body aircraft for the cruiser/feeder concept. According to this radically new aviation paradigm, large transport aircraft (cruisers) carry passengers over long distances, while remaining airborne for very long periods. Smaller aircraft (feeders) take off from local airports, intercept the cruiser, dock and enable in-flight exchange of passengers and supplies. Preliminary studies indicated that cruiser concepts based on engines burning kerosene would be too heavy and feeders would need to operate also as tankers. Propelling the cruiser with a nuclear power source would yield very high efficiency parameters, even if the weight of the system would result higher due to the required reactor shielding. The blended wing body configuration was selected both for its potential advantages in terms of aerodynamic and structural efficiency, as well as for the use flexibility of its internal volume, necessary to integrate power plants and shielding, accommodate 1000 passengers and host the loading/unloading station for in-flight payload exchange. The daring nature of the proposed solution is compatible to the foreseen entry into service date, which is set for the last part of this century. The peculiar nature of the aircraft under consideration has required a somehow different conceptual design approach, than generally used for conventional passenger transport aircraft. Apart from the inherent complexity related to the design of such a novel and integrated configuration as a blended wing body, the typical design approach based on the use of simple performance equations and statistics to achieve a first estimation of the main weight contributors was of little use in this case. From one side, the fuel mass used to perform the mission is just negligible; from the other, a method was necessary to account for the weight of the radiation shielding, which is a significant contribution to the overall aircraft weight. Rather than in the numerical results of the sizing process, the value of the design work described in this paper should be found in the very design approach and the preliminary ideas for integrating the passenger docking system and the nuclear power plant.
Optimized VLSI Architecture of HEVC Fractional Pixel Interpolators with Approximate Computing

High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) is the latest video standard developed by the Joint Video Exploration Team. HEVC is able to offer better compression results than preceding standards but it suffers from a high computational complexity. In particular, one of the most time consuming blocks in HEVC is the fractional-sample interpolation filter, which is used in both the encoding and the decoding processes. Integrating different state-of-the-art techniques, this paper presents an architecture for interpolation filters, able to trade quality for energy and power efficiency by exploiting approximate interpolation filters and by halving the amount of required memory with respect to state-of-the-art implementations.
Design and implementation of human driving data–based active lane change control for autonomous vehicles

This article describes the design, implementation, and evaluation of an active lane change control algorithm for autonomous vehicles with human factor considerations. Lane changes need to be performed considering both driver acceptance and safety with surrounding vehicles. Therefore, autonomous driving systems need to be designed based on an analysis of human driving behavior. In this article, manual driving characteristics are investigated using real-world driving test data. In lane change situations, interactions with surrounding vehicles were mainly investigated. And safety indices were developed with kinematic analysis. A safety indices–based lane change decision and control algorithm has been developed. In order to improve safety, stochastic predictions of both the ego vehicle and surrounding vehicles have been conducted with consideration of sensor noise and model uncertainties. The desired driving mode is decided to cope with all lane changes on highway. To obtain desired reference and constraints, motion planning for lane changes has been designed taking stochastic prediction-based safety indices into account. A stochastic model predictive control with constraints has been adopted to determine vehicle control inputs: the steering angle and the longitudinal acceleration. The proposed active lane change algorithm has been successfully implemented on an autonomous vehicle and evaluated via real-world driving tests. Safe and comfortable lane changes in high-speed driving on highways have been demonstrated using our autonomous test vehicle.