Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Press–pulse interactions and long‐term community dynamics in a Chihuahuan Desert grassland

Co-ordinating Editor: Enrique Valencia Abstract Questions: Reordering of dominant species is an important mechanism of community response to global environmental change. We asked how wildfire (a pulse event) interacts with directional changes in climate (environmental presses) to affect plant community dynamics in a Chihuahuan Desert grassland. Location: Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, Socorro County, New Mexico, USA. Methods: Vegetation cover by species was measured twice each year from 1989 to 2019 along two permanently located 400-m long line intercept transects, one in Chihuahuan Desert grassland, and the second in the ecotone between Chihuahuan Desert and Great Plains grasslands. Trends in community structure were plotted over time, and climate sensitivity functions were used to predict how changes in the Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) affected vegetation dynamics. Results: Community composition was undergoing gradual change in the absence of disturbance in the ecotone and desert grassland. These changes were related to the reordering of abundances between two foundation grasses, Bouteloua eriopoda and B. gracilis, that together account for >80% of above-ground primary production. However, reordering varied over time in response to wildfire (a pulse) and changes in the PDO (a press). Community dynamics were initially related to the warm and cool phases of the PDO, but in the ecotone these relationships changed following wildfire, which reset the system. Conclusion: Species reordering is an important component of community dynamics in response to ecological presses. However, reordering is a complex, non-linear process in response to ecological presses that may change over time and interact with pulse disturbances.
Compact Wideband Wide-Angle Van Atta Retroreflector With Suppressed Structural Mode

A passive miniaturized wideband, wide-angle, and low structural mode Van Atta retroreflector for copolarized applications is presented. The proposed Van Atta retroreflector is composed of eight radiating elements interconnected in pairs with a planar feeding network of microstrip lines. Furthermore, the radiating element consists of a compact dielectric-filled open-ended waveguide. The dielectric filling is designed with rectangular pyramid trench to ensure the broadband feature of the open-ended waveguide, while minimizing the dimensions. In addition, the microstrip lines are designed on the two side walls of the Van Atta retroreflector, which are parallel to the incident plane, to suppress the structural mode contributed by the feeding network. The designed Van Atta retroreflector is verified by simulations and experiments with 40% fractional bandwidth centered at 10 GHz. The monostatic radar cross section (RCS) shows that the −10 dB beamwidth is about 80<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ $</tex-math></inline-formula> over the frequency range of interest. Meanwhile, the bistatic RCS indicates that the sidelobe level is less than −10 dB for copolarized retroreflection from −25<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ $</tex-math></inline-formula> to 25<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$^\circ $</tex-math></inline-formula> over the frequency range of 9.5–10.5 GHz.
External Threats, Political Turnover, and Fiscal Capacity

In most of the recent literature on state capacity, the significance of wars in state-building assumes that threats from foreign countries generate common interests among domestic groups, leading to larger investments in state capacity. However, many countries that have suffered external conflicts don't experience increased unity. Instead, they face factional politics that often lead to destructive civil wars. This paper develops a theory of the impact of interstate conflicts on fiscal capacity in which fighting an external threat is not always a common-interest public good, and in which interstate conflicts can lead to civil wars. The theory identifies conditions under which an increased risk of external conflict decreases the chance of civil war, which in turn results in a government with a longer political life and with more incentives to invest in fiscal capacity. These conditions depend on the cohesiveness of institutions, but in a non-trivial and novel way: a higher risk of an external conflict that results in lower political turnover, but that also makes a foreign invasion more likely, contributes to state-building only if institutions are sufficiently incohesive.
Monetary Policy of Low Interest Rates and Bank Stability: The Role of Corporate Governance

Using a sample of around 340 banks from 48 countries, we examine whether and how corporate governance moderates the relationship between monetary policy interest rates and bank stability. Our results show that low interest rates reduce bank stability and have an adverse effect on risk-adjusted returns, and risk-adjusted capitalization; however, this effect can be mitigated by a bank’s commitment and effectiveness towards following corporate governance principles. The results also show that high values of corporate governance can completely offset the low rates’ adverse effects. Our findings are robust to the use of bank fixed effects and numerous variables that control for bank-specific and country-specific characteristics.
The role of epithelial cell de-differentiation in the context of improved chemotherapy applied to pancreatic cancer

In cancer, epithelial cell de-differentiation is a feature of rapidly dividing cells under non-controlled growth and it often reflects a change in the gene expression pattern; however, the relationship between proliferation and alterations in cellular differentiation has not yet been identified. This work examined how changes in the characteristics of cells that discriminate their differentiated and proliferative states can be used to improve on current pancreatic cancer chemotherapeutic strategies. PepT1, a high substrate-capacity and low-affinity transporter system, has been suggested as an attractive drug delivery target for pancreatic cancer. Through a combination of immunological assays, PepT1 normally restricted to the apical surfaces in polarised intestinal epithelial cells, was shown to distribute at the cell membrane of non-polarised cancerous ductal cells. Anti-inflammatory or anti-cancer agents, like ibuprofen or gemcitabine, were conjugated to selected amino acids to enhance their uptake via PepT1. Studies with these conjugates demonstrated enhanced uptake into pancreatic cancer cells, AsPc-1 and HPAFII. Subsequent studies investigated how cell polarity that is typically disrupted in cancer can be modulated to affect the balance of epithelial differentiation versus proliferation. Pharmacological attenuation of YAP (c-Yes associated protein) using a β adrenergic agonist, dobutamine, increased functional tight junction (TJ) structures and diminished proliferation rates of two pancreatic cancer cells, AsPc-1 and HPAFII. Dobutamine also primed an apoptotic cell response. When given in combination with gemcitabine, dobutamine further reduced cell proliferation. Overall, these studies have provided support for using PepT1 as a method to target pancreatic cancer cells for the delivery of anti-cancer agents. Additionally, dobutamine was identified as a potential pharmacological agent to suppress the proliferation of pancreatic cancer cells by altering increasing cell programming that drives epithelial cell differentiation.
A Study of Hospital Acquired Bacterial Infections and its Antimicrobial Susceptibility Pattern in a Teaching Hospital of Gujarat

Nosocomial infections also known as hospital-acquired infections are those infections acquired in hospital or healthcare service unit that first appear 48 hours or more after hospital admission within 30 days after discharge following in patient care. They are unrelated to the original illness that brings patients to the hospital and neither present nor incubating at the time of admission. There are some reasons why these infections are even International Journal of Current Microbiology and Applied Sciences ISSN: 2319-7706 Volume 9 Number 2 (2020) Journal homepage: http://www.ijcmas. com
Rothamsted Repository Download

As the demand for livestock products continues to increase in China, so too does the challenge of managing increasing quantities of manure. Urgent action is needed to control point source (housing, storage and processing) and diffuse ( ﬁ eld application) pollution and improve the utilization of manure nutrients and organic matter. Here, we review strategies to improve management at each stage of the manure management chain and at different scales. Many strategies require infrastructure investment, e.g., for containment of all manure fractions. Engineering solutions are needed to develop advanced composting systems with lower environmental footprints and design more ef ﬁ cient nutrient stripping technologies. At the ﬁ eld-scale, there is an urgent need to develop a manure nutrient recommendation system that accounts for the range of manure types, cropping systems, soils and climates throughout China. At the regional scale, coordinated planning is necessary to promote recoupling of livestock and cropping systems, and reduce nutrient accumulation in regions with little available landbank, while minimizing the risk of pollution swapping from one region to another. A range of stakeholders are needed to support the step change and innovation required to improve manure management, reduce reliance on inorganic fertilizers, and generate new business opportunities.
Export Performance as a Measurement of Competitiveness

The competitiveness of a particular national economy and its business environment is critical for the country’s economic, political and societal development. Competitiveness can be analyzed using a diapason of single- and multi-factor competitiveness indicators that contribute to quantification as well as and the analysis of internal and external competitiveness determinants. Suitable levels of competitiveness measurements and analyses, be they in terms of a company or a nation, are a matter of continuous debates. The authors of this paper have used econometric equations (models) in order to quantify and qualify the impact of the institutional environment, a factor represented both by the quality of governmental and regulatory measures as well as the corruption perception index. Institutional environment impact was measured in terms of export performance, as this metric represents one of the most important single-factor indicators of competitiveness. For the purposes of our research, the precise quantification of exogenous variables was not a necessity; rather we evaluated the assessment of strength and direction of relations between endogenous and exogenous variables. Our assumption was grounded in the notion that a higher quality of institutional environment is characterized by a higher level of competitiveness and lower transaction costs based on the belief that export performance is a reliable measure of competitiveness. Our research demonstrated, however, that the export performance is not a universal indicator of competitiveness, a finding that signals the need to apply other indicators, most notably, multi-factor ones.
Do Compulsory Schooling Laws Always Work? A Study of Youth Crime in Brazilian Municipalities

We examine if compulsory schooling laws (CSL) necessarily lower crimes. We focus on violent youth crime (homicides by assault and guns) among 15-19 years age group in all Brazilian municipalities over 2000-13, taking advantage of the 2009 Brazilian Constitutional Amendment that required introduction of compulsory high schooling of 15-17-year-olds by 2016. Only about 53% municipalities adopted the Amendment by 2013. Difference-in-difference estimates with municipality fixed effects to account for the endogenous adoption of the Amendment by municipalities show small treatment effects for homicides, but insignificant effects for homicide rates in the full sample. In the absence of any significant increase in income/employment among this age group, we attribute this to the incapacitation effect of CSL, which was, however, weakened by overcrowding in day and night schools in treated municipalities after 2009. In contrast, poorer treated municipalities witnessed increased class size, worse school performance and increased crime too. The crime reduction effects of CSL thus crucially depend on whether/how it affects class size and school quality especially in less promising jurisdictions.
Biomechanics of Thunniform Swimming: Electromyography, Kinematics, and Caudal Tendon Function in the yellowfin tuna Thunnus albacares and the skipjack tuna Katsuwonus pelamis

Author(s): Knower, Andrea T. | Abstract: This research project was undertaken on two species of tropical tuna: the yellowfin Thunnus albacares and the skipjack Katsuwonus pelamis, to explore the dynamic physiological design features of tunas which underly the highly-developed thunniform propulsion mechanism. To achieve an integrated understanding of tuna swimming mechanics, a combination of electromyography, kinematics, and direct force measurements was used to probe the dynamic function of the myotomal red muscle as fish swam over a range of sustained, aerobic swimming speeds in a large water tunnel.In both species, onset of red muscle activation proceeds sequentially in a rostra-caudal direction, while deactivation is nearly simultaneous at all sites, coincident with peak force in the caudal tendons. In yellowfin, there is complete segregation of contralateral activity, while in skipjack there is slight overlap. In both species, all red muscle on one side is active simultaneously for part of each cycle. Comparison with other fish species shows that the tuna EMG patterns culminate a spectrum of activation patterns underlying swimming modes from anguilliform to thunniform.Coupling kinematics with EMG data revealed that muscle activation occurs after the midline has reached its maximum convexity at any given axial location; therefore, it was concluded that midline curvature is not an accurate indicator of local strain in the myotomal cone muscle. Activation and curvature waves travel down the body at the same rate, so muscle function is predicted not to vary by axial location. In yellowfin, peak force occurs in the caudal tendons as the tail tip crosses the midpoint of its sweep; in skipjack, when the tip is about three-quarters through its sweep.Internal force measurements were made for the first time in any fish species by fitting a stainless steel buckle force transducer around the pair of deep caudal tendons on one side. At cruising speeds, mean forces were 1.3-3.8 N in yellowfin and 1.6-4.1 N in skipjack. At restrained burst speeds, forces were approximately 10 times higher. The biomaterial properties of the tendons show that they function as inextensible linkages, rather than biological springs, in transferring muscle force to the tail.
The Sensitivity of Joint Inversions of Seismic and Geodynamic Data to Mantle Viscosity

Seismic tomography has revealed the existence of large‐scale velocity heterogeneities in the mantle. The interpretation of seismic velocity anomalies in terms of temperature and chemical composition is nonunique. We use geodynamic observations including gravity, plate motions, dynamic topography, and excess ellipticity of the core‐mantle boundary combined with seismic observations to investigate the thermo‐chemical structure of the mantle through joint inversions. An outstanding issue, however, is the physical connection between mantle density anomalies and the surface geodynamic observations, which requires knowledge of the mantle viscosity structure. Here we perform joint inversions assuming different viscosity profiles and examine the dependence of the results on the viscosity. We first assume that mantle heterogeneity is due to thermal variations, which places a constraint on the relation between seismic velocity and density, and we subsequently relax the constraint to allow for potential nonthermal effects. In all of our joint inversions, a nonthermal origin of density anomalies is required to explain the geodynamic data, though the amount varies with the assumed viscosity structure. A common observation is a high‐density chemical signal in the center of the large low‐shear‐velocity provinces at the base of the mantle resulting in a near neutral or slightly dense overall buoyancy there. Using the derived density models and their corresponding viscosity profiles, we also calculate instantaneous mantle flow fields. The predicted flow fields derived from joint inversions are generally similar but are quite different from flow fields using density models derived from a posteriori scaling of pure seismic tomography models.
Effects of Replacing Pectin with Date Pits Powder
in Strawberry Jam Formulation

The importance of date ( Phoenix dactylifera ) pits as an agricultural waste arise from its large dietary fiber contents despite its limited usage in food processing. For this reason, replacing pectin in jam production with date pits powder (DPP) has been considered as a promising research area. This study aimed at evaluating the effects of pectin replacement in a strawberry jam with Khalas palm dates pits powder (DPP) as a novel source of dietary fiber. The examined treatments were replacing 25% of pectin by DPP (0.1%DPP and 0.3% pectin), 50% (0.2%DPP and 0.2% pectin), 75% (0.3 %DPP and 0.1% pectin), and 100% (0.4% %DPP and 0.0% pectin) compared with control treatment at 0.0% DPP and 0.4% pectin. Prepared strawberry jam samples were evaluated monthly for chemical, textural and sensory for six months storage duration. The results indicated that all treatments of pectin replacement have a positive relationship with color parameters. A slight increase in acidity, dry matter contents, Bostwick (consistency indicator) during storage period was also noticed. Replacement treatments at 50% and 75% varied and showed an increase in viscosity, hardness, cohesiveness, and adhesiveness for the strawberry jam samples during the storage period. There were no significant differences (p>0.05) in the sensory scores for color, taste, and texture. Overall acceptability increased steadily up to the 6th month of storage. The use of DPP as a novel source of dietary fiber may be an alternative to pectin in jam production.
Clonal structure and reproductive biology in the gynodioecious herb Glechoma hederacea L. Lamiaceae

Clonal structure and reproductive biology in the gynodioecious herb Glechoma hederacea L. Lamiaceae The frequencies of females, hermaphrodites and partially male-sterile (PMS) genets of Glechoma hederacea were estimated in natural populations in S Sweden. The frequency of females and PMS genets in natural populations varied from 0 to 100%. The temporal and spatial variation in stamen fertility in PMS genets was studied in the field and in cultivation. Hermaphrodite flowers were self-compatible, seed production was found to be pollen limited and the clonal structure of the species usually caused a reduction in seed set in females. Hermaphrodite and PMS clones were usually larger than female clones and more heterozygous. Disomic inheritance of duplicated loci was found in this tetraploid species, and segregation ratios for allozymes conformed to Mendelian expectation. Allozymes were used to establish multilocus genotypes in seven populations in S Sweden and three populations in the S Czech Republic. Clonal diversity in an area of c. 100 m2 was greatest in an ephemeral population (PD i.e. proportion of distinguished genets = 0.98) and lowest in more stable habitats (PD = 0.01). Little evidence of intermingling of different genets was found. (Less)
Pedestrian Trajectory Prediction Based on Deep Convolutional LSTM Network

Pedestrian trajectory prediction is vital for transportation systems. Generally we can divide pedestrian behavior modeling into two categories, i.e., knowledge-driven and data-driven. The former might bring expert bias, and it sometimes generates unrealistic pedestrian movement due to unnecessary repulsive forces. The latter approach is popular nowadays but most existing neural networks, including fully connected long short-term memory (LSTM) networks, use a 1D vector to model their input and state. The shortcoming is that these works cannot learn spatial information about pedestrians, especially in a dense crowd. To tackle this, we propose to use tensors to represent essential environment features of pedestrians. Accordingly, a convolutional LSTM is designed and deepened to predict spatiotemporal trajectory sequences. As the tensor and convolution can learn better spatiotemporal interactions among pedestrians and environments, experimental results show that the proposed network can estimate more realistic trajectories for a dense crowd in evacuation and counterflow.
Antibacterial Properties of Honey from Different Algerian Regions against Staphylococcus aureus Strains from Wounds

Human beings have used honey for the treatment of several bacterial infections, particularly, in wound infections. The objective of this study is to evaluate the effectiveness of Algerian honey to eradicate Staphylococcus aureus. The antibacterial effect of honey samples was carried out on four strains of S. aureus (two are methicillin-resistant and two are methicillin-sensitive) by using well diffusion assay, dilution assay, and a time-kill curve assay. The results revealed that Algerian honey has measurable antibacterial activity on both resistant and methicillin-sensitive strains. The inhibitory diameters ranged from 34.33 to 52 mm, the MIC values range from 2.5 to 5% (w/v) and the MBC values range from 2.5 to 10% (w/v). Algerian honey has enormous potential as a useful source against S. aureus strains, including MRSA strains. Therefore, it is necessary to characterize the active components of tested honey to investigate the possible use of honey in the treatment of infections caused by MRSA strains.
Acute Toxicity and Erythrocyte Osmotic Fragility Studies of Methanol Leaf Extract of Asystasia vogeliana in Rats

Aim: To investigate the phytoconstituents of methanol and petroleum leaf extracts of Asystasia vogeliana (MLEAV and PLEAV), the median lethal dose (LD50) and the effects of MLEAV on body weight, organosomatic indices in vital organs and erythrocyte membrane of Albino Wistar rats during sub-acute administration. Place and Duration of Study: Department of Veterinary Physiology and Pharmacology, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 2017. Methodology: The crude extracts of MLEAV and PLEAV were used in determining the qualitative and quantitative analyses. The rats were assigned into four groups and dosed orally with distilled water (0.5 ml/100 g) as Group I, 62.5 mg/kg MLEAV (Group II), 125 mg/kg MLEAV (Group III) and 250 mg/kg MLEAV (Group IV) once daily for 28 days. Blood samples were collected from all the rats via the medial canthus into EDTA bottles for erythrocyte osmotic fragility (EOF) study on day 29. Relative organ-body weight indices of vital organs (spleen, heart, liver and kidney) were also evaluated. Original Research Article Ugwuanyi et al.; JALSI, 23(2): 18-28, 2020; Article no.JALSI. 55049 19 Results: MLEAV and PLEAV showed the presence of saponins, flavonoids, phenols, alkaloids, anthraquinones and steroids. The total phenolic contents of MLEAV (3704.30 ± 44.00) significantly increase (P = 0.000) when compared with PLEAV (1349.46 ± 35.25). The LD50 of MLEAV is above 5000 mg/kg. There were significant (P < 0.05) decreases in the body weights of rats in Groups III and IV from 3 rd to 4 th week when compared with their baseline weights. There were significant (P < 0.05) increases in the relative spleen-body weight in Group IV when compared with other groups. There was no significant change (P > 0.05) in the hemolysis of rats in Group II when compared with the control group at 0.9% NaCl concentration. Conclusions: The findings reveal that MLEAV showed better antioxidant capacity than PLEAV, and that 62.5 mg/kg of MLEAV is safe during the sub-acute administration.