Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Mammal Conservation in Brazil

Abstract: Brazil is the fifth largest country in the world and the first of the megadiversity countries, accounting for roughly 14% of the world's biota. It has the largest mammal diversity (more than 530 described species) with many yet to be discovered and cataloged. Very few sites have been adequately surveyed, and local lists are usually incomplete, which makes for knowledge gaps that hamper conservation and management initiatives and regional analyses. According to the Brazilian Institute for the Environment (IBAMA), 66 species are threatened, and the World Conservation Union lists 74. Primates, mostly Atlantic Forest endemics, are the most endangered group (40% of the threatened taxa). Carnivores and rodents are also notable members of the lists. Twenty‐nine percent of listed species are marine, 18% occur in the Atlantic Forest, 13% in the Pampas, 12% in the Cerrado, 11% in the Pantanal, 7% in the Amazon, and 6% in the Caatinga. Human‐induced habitat loss and fragmentation are major threats to land mammals in Brazil, and large‐ and medium‐sized mammals are hunted. The major threat to small mammals is the scarcity of basic scientific knowledge—taxonomy, systematics, distribution, and natural history. Aquatic mammals are threatened by commercial hunting, accidental netting, long‐line fisheries, chemical pollution, habitat degradation, tourism, and boat traffic. Mammal conservation has benefited from a number of recent initiatives by government and nongovernmental organizations, including legislation, nationwide initiatives to define priority areas for conservation, management plans for some threatened species, sustainable landscape planning, and new protected areas. Given the rate of habitat loss, a nationwide program of short‐ and long‐term field surveys and increased support for natural history collections is of particularly urgency. Progress has been made toward conserving Brazilian mammals in recent years, but threats are growing fast, and conservation science must keep growing to provide the wherewithal to minimize and remove these threats.
Distribution of alkylphenol compounds in great lakes sediments, United States and Canada

Alkylphenol polyethoxylates are a major class of nonionic surfactants that are microbially degraded in sewage treatment plants (STPs) and sediments to more toxic and hydrophobic alkylphenols. Recent data on the estrogenic activity of alkylphenols has prompted interest in the distribution of these compounds in the aquatic environment. Sediment samples were collected from several sites (n = 28) at industrialized and pristine regions of Lake Huron, Lake Erie, and Lake Ontario, USA and Canada, and analyzed for concentrations of 4‐nonylphenol (NP) and 4‐(tert)‐octylphenol (OP). Also, sludge samples were taken from a secondary STP in Whitby, Ontario, Canada. Sediment and sludge samples and analytical standards were prepared for analysis by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry in selected ion mode by combined acetylation and supercritical fluid extraction. Concentrations of NP were up to 37 μg/g in sediments and >300 μg/g in the sewage sludge. Concentrations of OP were up to 23 μg/g in sediment and 21 μg/g in the sewage sludge. These data indicate that alkylphenols are distributed widely in sediments in the lower Great Lakes. However, concentrations of NP were present at high (μg/g) levels only in sediments near urban and industrialized centers.
Effects of environmental gradients on the distribution of harpacticoid copepods in an intertidal flat, Portobello Bay, Otago Harbour, New Zealand

Abstract Harpacticoid copepods are often one of the most dominant taxa in marine sediments, but there is limited knowledge of the physicochemical sediment characteristics that affect distribution of native New Zealand copepod species. Environmental gradients and abundance of harpacticoid copepods were therefore surveyed in Portobello Bay, an intertidal sand and mud flat in Otago Harbour, New Zealand. Generalised linear mixed models (GLMMs) were used to determine the relationship between physical factors and species abundance as well as to examine interspecies interactions. Six copepod species were present at the study site: Amphiascoides sp. , Enhydrosoma sp. , Parastenhelia megarostrum, Robertsonia propinqua, and two species of Quinquelaophonte. Distribution of species was found to be significantly correlated to sediment size, organic content, tidal reach, salinity and pH. In addition to these physical factors, species–species interactions also affected copepod abundance. This information is relevant for understanding factors influencing copepod distribution, but also will shape guidelines for use in marine sediment bioassays using harpacticoid copepods.
Growth Response of Immature Brown-Egg Strain Pullets to Varying Nutrient Density and Lysine

Abstract Three trials were conducted to quantify growth of brown-egg strain pullets up to 126 days of age when fed diets of varying energy, protein, or lysine concentration. Birds were grown in 60 × 50 cm cages with 12 birds per cage (0 to 42 days) or six birds per cage (42 to 126 days). Trial 1, using eight replicates per treatment, involved conventional pullet diets or diets formulated to meet methionine and lysine needs only, with no constraint on crude protein formulated at two energy levels. Both white-egg and brown-egg strains were smaller (P In Trial 2, brown-egg pullets were fed diets varying in energy (2,500 or 3,000 kcal ME/kg) and crude protein (15 to 21.5%). Four dietary treatments were each tested with seven replicate groups of 12 caged pullets. Results confirm the apparent refractory feed intake response of the brown-egg bird to varying diet energy density. Only during the 84- to 126-day grower period did birds behave in the classical manner of eating less feed (P
Influence of dietary phosphorus on the performance of lactating dairy cattle

Summary In an experiment, carried out over 3 years, two groups of dairy cows offered ad libitum access to grass silage received 8 kg/day concentrate differing only in phosphorus content (low P concentrate: 4·0–4·5 g/kg dry matter (D.M.); high P concentrate: 6·0–6·5 g/kg D.M. ) during the winter feeding period of approximately 6 months. During the summer period all animals were grazed together on perennial ryegrass pastures. There were no consistent significant effects of P content on any of the variables measured. The mean calving indices were 371 (S.E. = 3·71, n = 122) and 379 (S.E. = 4·28, n = 95) days and overall conception rates were 0·70 and 0·68 for the low and high P treatments, respectively. Mean plasma P concentrations during the winter period were significantly reduced (P > 0·01 or greater) in years 2 and 3 of the study on the low P treatment. In 1 year milk yield was significantly higher (P > 0·01) on the low P treatment although the fat content was significantly reduced (P > 0·05) but these effects were not recorded in the other 2 years.
Effect of thinning on production and mortality of fine roots in a Pinusradiata plantation on a fertile site in New Zealand

The effects of heavy thinning (60% reduction in basal area) on fine (< 1 mm diam.) and small roots (1–5 mm diam.) were evaluated during the 2nd year following treatment by periodic soil core sampling in a 12-year-old plantation of Pinusradiata D. Don. Data from these samples enabled us to estimate monthly standing crops of live and dead fine roots and seasonal rates of fine-root decomposition. We used a compartment-flow model to estimate production and mortality of fine roots with monthly resolution from these data. The general pattern of production and mortality was modal and out of phase with soil temperature. On an area basis, thinning reduced the overall standing crop of live fine roots from 1.38 to 0.55 Mg/ha; the standing crop of dead fine roots remained unchanged at 4.37 Mg/ha. The standing crop of live small roots declined from 1.03 to 0.54 Mg/ha. Annual production of fine roots was estimated at 2.2 and 1.9 Mg•ha−1•year−1 in the control and thinned treatment, respectively, and mortality was estima.
Smoothed Dual Embedding Control

We revisit the Bellman optimality equation with Nesterov's smoothing technique and provide a unique saddle-point optimization perspective of the policy optimization problem in reinforcement learning based on Fenchel duality. A new reinforcement learning algorithm, called Smoothed Dual Embedding Control or SDEC, is derived to solve the saddle-point reformulation with arbitrary learnable function approximator. The algorithm bypasses the policy evaluation step in the policy optimization from a principled scheme and is extensible to integrate with multi-step bootstrapping and eligibility traces. We provide a PAC-learning bound on the number of samples needed from one single off-policy sample path, and also characterize the convergence of the algorithm. Finally, we show the algorithm compares favorably to the state-of-the-art baselines on several benchmark control problems.
Word meaning in minds and machines

Machines have achieved a broad and growing set of linguistic competencies, thanks to recent progress in Natural Language Processing (NLP). Psychologists have shown increasing interest in such models, comparing their output to psychological judgments such as similarity, association, priming, and comprehension, raising the question of whether the models could serve as psychological theories. In this article, we compare how humans and machines represent the meaning of words. We argue that contemporary NLP systems are fairly successful models of human word similarity, but they fall short in many other respects. Current models are too strongly linked to the text-based patterns in large corpora, and too weakly linked to the desires, goals, and beliefs that people express through words. Word meanings must also be grounded in perception and action and be capable of flexible combinations in ways that current systems are not. We discuss promising approaches to grounding NLP systems and argue that they will be more successful, with a more human-like, conceptual basis for word meaning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
The Potential of Using Solar Energy to Process Full-Fat Soybeans (Glycine max) to Reduce Urease Activity

The objective of this study was to investigate the efficacy of panel solar cookers in reducing urease activity in full-fat soybeans (Glycine max). Changes in urease activity of soaked (SM), coarse-milled (CM) and whole dry (WM) full fat soybeans were investigated by roasting for 0, 30, 60, 90, 120, 150 and 180 min in multiple reflector panel solar cookers, in a 3 3 3 factorial experiment. Soaking soybeans for 14 h reduced (p<0.05) 1 urease activity by 9%, from 6.58 meqNH3/g DM to 5.98 meqNH3/g DM. After 180 min of solar roasting, urease activity levels had declined by 81%, 67% and 23% in soaked, milled and whole dry soybeans respectively. Full fat soybean urease activity can be reduced faster in soaked than in dry soybeans. Findings suggest that there is potential in using multiple reflector panel solar cookers to reduce urease activity in full fat soybeans. 1P < 0.05 means that the probability (p) of falsely concluding significant difference between values obtained after statistical analysis was less than 5% (0.05).
Weather, herbage quality and milk production in pastoral systems. 4. Effects on dairy cattle production.

Prevailing weather conditions are one factor that influences herbage growth and quality, and therefore may have a substantial impact on animal production. The objective of the present study was to quantify the associations between weather, herbage quality and mineral concentration, and animal production. Daily weather data and weekly records of herbage quality and mineral concentration, as well as dairy cattle production, were available from a research farm and nearby weather station across the years 1995 to 2001, inclusive. Animal production variables of interest included individual cow milk production and composition, body condition score, and liveweight, as well as group herbage dry matter intake. Results indicate moderate relationships between some weather- and herbage-related variables and dairy cattle production variables, although most relationships appeared to be an artefact of temporal variation, as evidenced by weakening of correlations following adjustment for animal parity, stage of lactation, and week of the year at calving. Prior to adjustment for the confounding factors, the negative associations between milk yield and all temperature-related variables (r = -0.46 to -0.34) were most notable. Following adjustment for time of year, milk yield became positively associated with sunlight hours (r = 0.14). Negative relationships were demonstrated between temperature-related variables and milk protein concentration (r = -0.08), regardless of time of year. Milk protein concentration was positively associated with herbage metabolisable energy content (r = 0.06), water-soluble carbohydrate (r = 0.11), and organic matter digestibility (r = 0.06) concentrations, and negatively associated with ether extract (r = -0.07), acid detergent fibre (r = -0.06), and neutral detergent fibre (r = -0.05) concentrations. Weather, herbage quality and mineral concentration explained up to 22% more variation in dairy cattle production variables over and above farmlet and time of year, with a greater effect on dry matter intake than the other production parameters. © CSIRO 2009.
Mandibular shape correlates of tooth fracture in extant Carnivora: implications to inferring feeding behaviour of Pleistocene predators

Percentages of tooth fracture and mandible shape are robust predictors of feeding habits in Carnivora. If these parameters co-vary above the species level, more robust palaeobiological inferences could be made on fossil species. A test of association is presented between mandible shape and tooth fracture in a subset of extant carnivorans together with large Pleistocene fossil predators from Rancho La Brea (Canis dirus, Panthera atrox, and Smilodon fatalis). Partial least square (PLS) and comparative methods are employed to validate co-variation of these two parameters in extant carnivorans. Association between mandible shape and percentage of tooth fracture is strongly supported, even if both blocks of data exhibit a phylogenetic signal to a different degree. Dietary adaptations drive shape/fracture co-variation in extant species, although no significant differences occur in the PLS scores between carnivores and bone/hard food consumers. The fossil species project into PLS morphospace as outliers. Their position suggests a unique feeding behaviour. The increase in the size of prey, together with consumption of skin and hair from carcasses in a cold environment, might have generated unusual tooth breakage patterns in large predators from Rancho La Brea. © 2012 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 2012, 106, 70–80.
Placental histomorphology and morphometry in the pregnant mice treated with cell phone radiation

Introduction: The use of cell phones is widespread and there are public concerns regarding its possible deleterious effects on human health especially on the pregnancy outcomes. In this study, structural changes of the placenta after applying the cell phone radiation were examined in the mice model. Materials and methods: For this work, 40 pregnant Balb/C mice were randomly allocated to one control and one experiment groups. The experimental animals were exposed to cell phone fields with a carrier frequency of 915 MHz, for 4 h a day continuously, during 5-17 days of gestation. On the 18 day of pregnancy, the half of each groups were sacrificed and placentas specimens were taken for histological studies. In the rest of animals, the neonates were counted and the offspring’s survival rates were determined. Also, morphometrical aspects of the placentas were studied. Results: There were no morphometric as well as light microscopic changes in the placentas between two groups. Ultrastructural results of the treated group revealed a slight elevation in the number of intra cytoplasmic droplets in the labyrinth interhemal membrane. In addition, in the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) exposed mice, the nucleus of the cytotrophoblast cells occasionally was large in the size and irregular in the shape and also had compact nucleoli. Finally, the survival rate of the neonate was not significantly affected by cell phone exposition. Conclusion: according to the results of the present study, the cell phone radiation at 915 MHz may exert deleterious effects on the placenta in the mice model.
Water regulated effects of photosynthetic substrate supply on soil respiration in a semiarid steppe

Soil respiration is an important part of the global carbon (C) cycle and the largest component of C flux from terrestrial ecosystems to the atmosphere. Here, we investigated possible effects of photosynthetic substrate supply on soil respiration in a semiarid ecosystem. A field experiment combining water addition and shading (low and high shading) treatments was conducted to manipulate photosynthetic substrate supply in a temperate semiarid steppe in two growing seasons. Our result showed that water addition and/or low shading significantly increased net primary productivity (ecosystem‐level photosynthetic substrate supply) and soil respiration in both two growing seasons. However, the effects of high shading on net primary productivity and soil respiration depended on soil water condition, which were negative in wet year (2008) but positive in dry year (2009). On the diel timescale, soil respiration was out of phase with soil temperature and leaf net photosynthesis, but in phase with leaf sugar and starch contents (leaf‐level photosynthetic substrate production). The results indicated that photosynthetic substrate supply was an important factor in regulating soil respiration on both daily and seasonal timescales. Moreover, its effect on soil respiration increased with increasing water availability in this region. The predominant role of C assimilate supply on soil respiration indicates that the predicted positive influence of rising temperature on soil respiration will be simultaneously mediated by substrate supply and water availability in semiarid steppe ecosystems.
Mechanical Stress Elicits Nitric Oxide Formation and DNA Fragmentation in Arabidopsis thaliana

The effect of mechanical stress (centrifugation) on the induction of nitric oxide (NO) formation and DNA fragmentation was investigated in leaf cells of Arabidopsis thaliana. Centrifuged and non-centrifuged leaves from wild-type and nitrate reductase (NR)nia1, nia2 double mutant, defective in the assimilation of nitrate, were labelled with 4,5-diaminofluorescein diacetate (DAF-2 DA) to visualize in vivo NO production. After these treatments, DNA fragmentation was detected by the terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase-mediated dUTP nick end in situ labelling (TUNEL) method. Exposure to an NO-releasing compound, sodium nitroprusside (SNP) mimicked the cell response to centrifugation (20 g). The involvement of endogenous NO as a signal in mechanical stress and in DNA fragmentation was confirmed by inhibition of NO production using a nitric oxide synthase (NOS) inhibitor viz. NG-monomethyl- L -arginine (L -NMMA). These results indicate that NOS-like activity was present in A. thaliana leaves and was increased by mechanical stress. The effect of leaf-wounding on nitric oxide production was identical to that of centrifugation. Experiments with A. thaliana NR mutant also showed that NO bursts were induced by mechanical and wounding stresses and that NO was not a by-product of NR activity. A positive and significant correlation between NO production and DNA fragmentation was recorded for both centrifuged and non-centrifuged cells. Our results suggest that factors other than NO contribute to DNA damage and cell death, and furthermore, that an inducible form of NOS is present in A. thaliana.
Scaling relationships for woody tissue respiration in two tropical rain forests

The relationship between gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity (NPP) is not fully understood. One of the uncertainties relevant to this issue is the magnitude of woody tissue respiration. Although some data exist for temperate and boreal zones, measurements of woody tissue respiration in tropical forests are sparse. We made in situ chamber measurements of woody tissue respiration in two tropical rain forests, one in the Brazilian Amazon (Reserva Jaru) and one in Central Cameroon (Mbalmayo Reserve). We made measurements on a wide range of species at each site and over a range of stem diameters from 0·02 to 1·4 m. The rate of efflux of carbon dioxide (CO2) from bark at 25 °C, Rt, varied from 0·1 to 5·2 µmol m−2 s−1 across the two sites, and the efflux was related to both volume and surface area components of the measured stem sections. The temperature response in Rt was slightly higher at Jaru than at Mbalmayo, with Q10 values of 1·8 (± 0·1 SE) and 1·6 (± 0·1 SE), respectively. A log–log regression showed that Rt was significantly related to stem diameter, D (P < 0·001; r2 = 0·58–0·62) and was significantly higher at Mbalmayo than at Jaru (P < 0·001), but that the rate of increase in Rt with stem diameter, D, was similar between sites. At the Mbalmayo site, tree growth measurements made over a 4 month period were used to make two estimates of the maintenance (Rm) and construction (Rc) components of respiration embedded in Rt. The two methods agreed closely, suggesting that Rm was approximately 80% of Rc at this site. Rm could be strongly related to D using a sigmoidal relationship that described both surface area and volume components as sources of respiratory CO2 (r2 = 0·71). This functional model was combined with inventory, growth and climate data for the Mbalmayo site to make a first estimate of annual above-ground woody tissue respiration, RA, which was 257 (± 18 SE) g C m−2 year−1. This value corresponds to approximately 10% of GPP, slightly lower than that found for another tropical rain forest, but higher than for temperate forests. When combined with data from six other sites in tropical, temperate and boreal settings, a very strong relationship was found between RA and leaf area index (LAI), and between RA/GPP and LAI (P < 0·001, r2 = 0·98). This indicates that RA exerts an appreciable constraint on NPP and that this constraint varies closely with LAI across widely differing types of woody vegetation.
Uncovering, Collecting, and Analyzing Records to Investigate the Ecological Impacts of Climate Change: A Template from Thoreau's Concord

Historical records are an important resource for understanding the biological impacts of climate change. Such records include naturalists' journals, club and field station records, museum specimens, photographs, and scientific research. Finding records and overcoming their limitations are serious challenges to climate change research. In the present article, we describe efforts to locate data from Concord, Massachusetts, and provide a template that can he replicated in other locations. Analyses of diverse data sources, including observations made in the 1850s by Henry David Thoreau, indicate that climate change is affecting the phenology, presence, and abundance of species in Concord. Despite recent work on historical records, many sources of historical data are underutilized. Analyses of these data may provide insights into climate change impacts and techniques to manage them. Moreover, the results are useful for communicating local examples of changing climate conditions to the public.