Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The biology of an isolated population of American Flamingo Phoenicopterus ruber in the Galapagos Islands

A genetically and morphologically divergent population of c.500 American Flamingos, isolated from the parental Caribbean stock of Phoenicopterus ruber, occurs in the Galapagos archipelago. Based primarily on data from a 3-year study, we provide the first description of the feeding and breeding biology of this population. Galapagos provides a suitable habitat comprising lagoons on a number of islands, among which the flamingos travel in response to food and nest site availability. The occurrence and qualnity of some food species was associated with the chlorosity of lagoon water, as was the distribution of flamingos. They bred opportunistically at five lagoons on four islands, sometimes simultaneously on more than one island. Group display usually involved approx 20 birds and colonies contained as few as three nests. Laying occurred during nine months of the year. We review potential dangers to this unique population and suggest conservation measures.
Contrastive Pragmatics and Corpora

Contrastive pragmatics is closely associated with the use of parallel and comparable corpora for studying the similarities and differences between languages. Parallel corpora have now been extended to more than two languages making them more relevant for typological research, and they can be used to investigate whether there are (discourse) universals across languages. Contrastive pragmatic studies also need to take into account aspects of the communication situation and the social and cultural context. As a result, many contrastive studies nowadays are doubly contrastive in that they compare pragmatic phenomena across both genres and languages. Scholars have also begun to combine contrastive analysis (translations) with the diachronic analysis of pragmatic phenomena in historical corpora, and pragmatic phenomena are studied contrastively with the focus being on sociolinguistic aspects. Illustrating these new uses is a case study which compares English absolutely with Swedish absolut.
A Single-Stage Low-Power AC–DC RGB-LED Driver With Switching Capacitor Control Scheme

This article presents a single-stage ac–dc light-emitting diode (LED) driver to achieve current regulation of red, green, and blue (RGB)-LED strings and ac–dc rectification with high power factor. The advantages of single-stage topology include single inductor, lower component counts, and smaller form factor. To adaptively and accurately regulate RGB-LED strings a switching capacitor control scheme is adopted with the properties of dynamic voltage difference detection and fast bus voltage hopping. The dynamic voltage difference detection precisely detects the voltage difference between the R- and GB-LED strings while the fast bus voltage hopping can immediately adjust the bus voltage level. The experimental results are shown to verify the theoretical analysis of the proposed LED driver, and the transient response time is less than 0.3 μs, which is at least three orders faster than the previous work. The peak efficiency of the proposed LED driver is up to 88.6%.
The nitrogen-to-protein conversion factor of two cricket species - Acheta domesticus and Gryllus bimaculatus

The Kjeldahl method is the most utilized method for total protein content analysis in food. Using the universal nitrogen-to-protein conversion factor of 6.25, the protein content of insects is likely to be overestimated due to their chitin content. We have calculated nitrogen-to-protein conversion factors for two crickets, house cricket (Acheta domesticus) and field cricket (Gryllus bimaculatus), which are used for food and feed in Europe. By analyzing their nitrogen and amino acid content we were able to show that a conversion factor of 5.09 could be used for house cricket and 5.00 for field cricket in protein content calculation. Based on these results with a reservation about slight variation in farming conditions, we suggest a nitrogen conversion factor of 5.0 for both crickets.
Classification-Card Media: Its Effect towards Learning Achievement in Biology Subject

This research aims to determine the effect of the application of classification card media to the learning achievement. This research is a quasi-experimental study. The population of this research is the students of class X Science of SMA Negeri 7 Kerinci. The sample class is students of Class X Science 1 as an experimental class and Class X Science 2 as a control class. The research instrument is a test with objective questions. The final test result data were analyzed using t-test. The results of the t-test analysis showed that the application of the classification card media could improve student learning achievement.
Influence of ethnocentrism on consumer preference patterns: the case of olive oil in Portugal

Consumers are influenced by a multitude of stimuli, which affect their behaviour and guide their pref-erences towards a particular product. Ethnocentric tendencies are one of these stimuli, understood as consumers’ positive attitudes towards goods produced in their own region rather than those from other regions. From this perspective, the current study describes ethnocentric tendencies and identifies olive oil consumer preferences from Lisbon (Portugal). CETSCALE and the conjoint analysis technique have been used for this purpose. Results show that Portuguese olive oil consumers exhibit a strong ethnocentric ten-dency but the price attribute is also key. Nonetheless, there exists a less ethnocentric segment, on which foreign business strategy can be focused. On this segment, consumers attach lower relative importance to the price and higher relative importance to differentiated-quality parameters: oil type (extra virgin), bottle (glass) and production system (organic).
Characterisation of group A streptococcal innate immune resistance and host response mechanisms

Group A Streptococcus (GAS, Streptococcus pyogenes) is a Gram-positive bacterial pathogen responsible for life-threatening, invasive human diseases, including necrotising fasciitis and streptococcal toxic shock syndrome. In the last 30 years, a global increase in the rates of severe and fatal forms of GAS infection has been noted. Coinciding with this epidemiological trend has been a pandemic spread of particularly hypervirulent GAS, notably a clone of the M1T1 serotype. Studies investigating this serotype highlight the unique genetic makeup of M1T1 GAS and its interactions with the host innate immune response as key elements coordinating the virulence of this serotype. Phage-mediated horizontal gene transfer and selective pressure exerted by polymorphonuclear leukocytes (PMNs) for mutations in the control of virulence regulator operon (covRS) bestow M1T1 GAS with enhanced pathogenic capacity. However, isolates of virulent GAS also occur in genetic backgrounds lacking phageencoded factors, such as sda1, and other M1T1-specific core genomic elements necessary for covRS mutation. In this study, high-throughput next-generation sequencing was utilised to generate a draft genome sequence of NS88.2, an emm98.1 GAS isolate exhibiting a hypervirulent and PMN resistant phenotype. The multi-locus sequence type (MLST) was determined from the NS88.2 draft genome sequence, which was compared to fully sequenced GAS strains by whole genome BLAST alignment. NS88.2 was found to have a MLST sequence type of 205, and regions of nucleotide sequence divergence between NS88.2 and other GAS included the multiple gene regulator (MGA) and fibronectin, collagen and T-antigen (FCT) loci. The NS88.2 MGA locus showed low sequence similarity to GAS of other emm-types, and the FCT locus corresponded to an FCT type 3. A ~30 kb region containing putative prophagelike elements constituted the majority of NS88.2 novel sequence data, however
Real-Time Light Field Denoising Using a Novel Linear 4-D Hyperfan Filter

Four-dimensional (4-D) light fields (LFs) enable novel imaging technologies, which are traditionally based on two-dimensional images. In most of these applications, denoising of LFs is required as a preprocessing technique before any subsequent processing. We propose a real-time LF denoising method using a novel 4-D linear and shift-invariant hyperfan filter. The proposed method exploits sparsity of the spectrum of a LF and the 4-D hyperfan filter is implemented in the 4-D mixed-domain (i.e.,two-dimensional space and two-dimensional frequency) leading to significant reductions in computational and memory complexities. A software implementation of the proposed method provides better or comparable denoising performance for grayscale and color LFs with respect to the metrics peak-signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity (SSIM) compared to previously reported linear LF denoising methods, while reducing the processing time approximately by 66% and 31% for grayscale and color LFs, respectively. Furthermore, we propose a semi-systolic hardware architecture for the proposed denoising method, and implement on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA). The FPGA implementation implies a throughput of 25 LFs/s for LFs of size $11\times 11\times 625\times 434$ and provides approximately 13 dB improvement in PSNR and 0.7 improvement in SSIM for grayscale LFs verifying the suitability for real-time processing.
Differential Patterns of Methylation of the IFN-γ Promoter at CpG and Non-CpG Sites Underlie Differences in IFN-γ Gene Expression Between Human Neonatal and Adult CD45RO− T Cells1

IFN-γ is a potent pleiotropic Th1 cytokine, the production of which is tightly regulated during fetal development. Negative control of fetal/neonatal IFN-γ production is generally attributed to the Th1-antagonistic effect of mediators produced by the placenta, but evidence exists of additional and more direct transcriptional regulation. We report that neonatal (cord blood) CD3+/CD45RO− T cells, in particular the CD4+/CD45RO− subset, are hypermethylated at CpG and non-CpG (CpA and CpT) sites within and adjacent to the IFN-γ promoter. In contrast, CpG methylation patterns in cord blood IFN-γ-producing CD8+/CD45RO− T cells and CD56+/CD16+/CD3− NK cells did not differ significantly from those in their adult counterparts. Consistent with this finding, IFN-γ production by stimulated naive cord blood CD4+ T cells is reduced 5- to 10-fold relative to adult CD4+ T cells, whereas production levels in neonatal and adult CD8+ T cells are of a similar order. Evidence of significant CpA and CpT methylation was not discovered in promoter sequence from other cytokines (IL-4, TNF-α, or IFN-γR α-chain). We additionally demonstrate that overexpression of DNA methyltransferase 3a in embryonic kidney carcinoma cells is accompanied by CpA methylation of the IFN-γ promoter.
Osteosarcoma and soft-tissue sarcomas with an immune infiltrate express PD-L1: relation to clinical outcome and Th1 pathway activation

ABSTRACT Immune checkpoint proteins, such as PD-L1 and PD-1, are important in several cancers; however, their role in osteosarcoma (OSA) and soft tissue sarcoma (STS) remains unclear. Our aims were to determine whether subsets of OSA/STS harbor tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and express PD-L1, and how PD-L1 expression is related to clinical outcome. Tissue sections of 25 cases each of untreated undifferentiated pleomorphic sarcoma (UPS), myxofibrosarcoma (MFS), liposarcoma (LPS) and 24 of leiomyosarcoma (LMS) were subjected to immunohistochemistry (IHC) for immune cells, PD-L1 and PD-1. RT-qPCR was utilized to quantify levels of PD-L1 mRNA from 33 UPS, 57 MFS and 79 OSA primary-untreated specimens. PD-L1 mRNA levels were tested for their correlation with overall survival in patients presenting without metastases. Transcriptome analysis evaluated biological pathway differences between high and low PD-L1 expressers. A subset of UPS and MFS contained TILs and expressed PD-L1 and PD-1; LMS and LPS did not. PD-L1 levels by IHC and RT-qPCR were positively correlated. PD-L1 over-expression was associated with better survival for UPS and OSA, but not MFS. The Th1 pathway was significantly activated in UPS with high levels of PD-L1 and improved survival. Some sarcoma subtypes harbor TILs and express PD-L1. Patients with UPS and OSA with high levels of PD-L1 had better overall survival than those with low expression levels. Important biological pathways distinguish PD-L1 high and low groups. The stratification of patients with OSA/STS with respect to potential immune therapies may be improved through investigation of the expression of immune cells and checkpoint proteins.
Tree rubbing by Yellowstone grizzly bears Ursus arctos

Tree rubbing or marking by bears has been observed throughout the northern hemisphere. Even so, this behaviour has rarely been studied. We documented 93 sites where grizzly bears Ursus arctos horribilis rubbed on 116 trees during 1986–1992, in the Yellowstone Ecosystem. We used logistic regression and information-based estimation and selection criteria to specify models that explained selection of sites and individual trees for rubbing by bears in our study area. The probability of rubbing peaked during May and June, the period of mating and moult, and declined thereafter. At the landscape level, grizzly bears selected for gentle south-facing slopes, forest/non-forest ecotones with sparse deadfall, and forest stands dominated by lodgepole pine Pinus contorta or Douglas-fir Pseudotsuga menziesii. Among the trees at sites where bears rubbed, we found strong selection for large diameters but no indication of selection for species. Rubbed trees were highly associated with travel routes likely used by bears, including game trails, recreation trails and forest edges. Rubbing was often oriented towards these likely travel routes. Short trails of entrenched pad-shaped marks leading up to rubbed trees were recorded at 58% of the sites where rubbing occurred. Contrary to reports of black bears Ursus americanus clawing and biting trees, we found shredded or bitten bark at only 9% of sites with rubbed or otherwise marked trees. Circumstantial evidence suggests that bears used trees primarily for rubbing their back and shoulders. Our findings are consistent with previous arguments that rubbing serves as a means of chemical communication.
The effectiveness of multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging in bladder cancer (Vesical Imaging-Reporting and Data System): A systematic review

ABSTRACT Objective To evaluate the role of the Vesical Imaging-Reporting and Data System (VI-RADS) score in the diagnostic pathway of bladder cancer. Methods A systemic search of the contemporary literature was performed in December 2019 using the Medical Literature Analysis and Retrieval System Online (MEDLINE), the Excerpta Medica dataBASE (EMBASE), and Web of Science databases focussing on all available articles on VI-RADS. Results Overall, six of 15 articles were included. All the available articles evaluated the ability of radiologists to use the VI-RADS score for discriminating non-muscle-invasive bladder cancer (NMIBC) from muscle-invasive bladder cancer (MIBC). Considering a cut-off VI-RADS score of >2, the sensitivity, specificity, positive (PPV) and negative predictive value (NPV) were 78–91.9%, 85–91%. 1, 69–78%, and 88–97.1%, respectively. Considering a VI-RADS score cut-off of >3, the sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV were 77–94.6%, 43.9–96.5%, 51.6–86%, and 63.7–93%, respectively. Good interobserver agreement was demonstrated in the evaluated studies with a κ score of 0.73–0.89. Only one study evaluated the utility of VI-RADS in determining the presence of MIBC in patients treated with transurethral resection of the bladder diagnosed with high-grade T1 before the second transurethral resection using a VI-RADS score cut-off of >2; the sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV were 85%, 93.6%, 74.5%, and 96.6%, respectively. Conclusion The VI-RADS score, using multiparametric magnetic resonance imaging, showed excellent results in discriminating MIBC from NMIBC. Preliminary results have been reported for its use in patients with high-grade T1 bladder cancer. These results need to be validated in high-quality real-world settings. Abbreviations DCE: dynamic contrast enhancement; DWI: diffusion-weighted imaging; (N)MIBC: (non-)muscle-invasive bladder cancer; mpMRI: multiparametric MRI; TURBT: transurethral resection of bladder tumour; (N)(P)PV: (negative) (positive) predictive value; SC: structural category; T2W: T2-weighted; VI-RADS: vesical imaging-reporting and data system
Do the Two Seismic Gaps in the Southwestern Section of the Longmen Shan Fault Present the Same Seismic Hazard?

There are two seismic gaps in the southwestern section of the Longmen Shan Fault (LMSF): (1) the gap amid the ruptures of the 2008 Wenchuan and 2013 Lushan earthquakes and (2) the gap in the southwestern‐most section of the LMSF. Conflicting explanations have previously been proposed to estimate the hazards associated with these seismic gaps. In this study, we used a complete earthquake (M ≥ 6.0) catalogue for the past 300 years to re‐evaluate the seismic hazards by calculating the change in the Coulomb stress caused by nearby large earthquakes. When combined with the inter‐seismic tectonic stress loading process, our results suggest that there is a high possibility of a future earthquake in seismic gap 1 because of the enhanced stress caused by the 2008 Wenchuan and 2013 Lushan earthquakes, although the 1970 Dayi earthquake (Ms 6.2) did rupture the center of the gap. However, the risk of an earthquake occurring in seismic gap 2 has decreased due to the unloading stress triggered by 14 large historical earthquakes on the Xianshui He Fault. This indicates that the seismic hazards of the two gaps differ even though they are less than 35 km apart. These findings differ from the results of previous studies, which were obtained using earthquake‐induced stress modeling, inter‐seismic stress modeling, estimates of earthquake moment accumulation and release, and paleoearthquake analysis. Our research sheds new insights on seismic hazard estimates for the southwestern LMSF and might be helpful in determining the disaster relief distribution in Sichuan province, China.
Galhas entomógenas associadas à Leguminosae do entorno do riacho Jatobá, Caetité, Bahia, Brasil

The Leguminosae family stands out as one of the principal host groups of galls in different ecosystems in Brazil. The little information available about galls on species of this family comes from only two studies, and this was the principal motivation for undertaking this study, whose objective was to characterize the insect galls associated with Leguminosae in the vicinity of riacho Jatoba, Caetite, Bahia, Brazil. Fifteen morphotypes of insect galls were observed on eight host plant species. The genus Bauhinia L. stood out, presenting the largest number of morphotypes. Galls occur primarily on leaves and are generally isolated, globoid, unilocular, glabrous, and brown. For the first time, four plant species are recorded as host of galling insects in Brazil. Among gall inducers, Cecidomyiidae (Diptera) was the only identified galling family.
GZKP: A GPU Accelerated Zero-Knowledge Proof System

Zero-knowledge proof (ZKP) is a cryptographic protocol that allows one party to prove the correctness of a statement to another party without revealing any information beyond the correctness of the statement itself. It guarantees computation integrity and confidentiality, and is therefore increasingly adopted in industry for a variety of privacy-preserving applications, such as verifiable outsource computing and digital currency. A significant obstacle in using ZKP for online applications is the performance overhead of its proof generation. We develop GZKP, a GPU accelerated zero-knowledge proof system that supports different levels of security requirements and brings significant speedup toward making ZKP truly usable. For polynomial computation over a large finite field, GZKP promotes a cache-friendly memory access pattern while eliminating the costly external shuffle in existing solutions. For multi-scalar multiplication, GZKP adopts a new parallelization strategy, which aggressively combines integer elliptic curve point operations and exploits fine-grained task parallelism with load balancing for sparse integer distribution. GZKP outperforms the state-of-the-art ZKP systems by an order of magnitude, achieving up to 48.1× and 17.6× speedup with standard cryptographic benchmarks and a real-world application workload, respectively.
Seagrass mollusks as a model group for paleoecological and paleodiversity studies = Weekdieren van het zeegras als modelgroep voor paleomilieu en biodiversiteit studies = Seegrass Mollusken als Modelgruppe für Studien der Paläoökologie und Paläodiversität

Today’s global marine diversity hotspot, or center of maximum biodiversity, is located in the Indo-West Pacific (IWP), namely in the Indo-Malayan region, including Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea (Hoeksma, 2007; Renema et al., 2010). Numerous groups of marine organisms, for instance foraminifera, mollusks, and corals contribute to the high taxonomic richness (e.g., Bellwood et al., 2005; Hoeksema, 2007; Kohn, 1990; Wilson and Rosen, 1998). The exceptional biodiversity in the region is thought to have originated in the Early Neogene with the diversification of scleractinian coral reefs and associated organisms (e.g., Wilson and Rosen, 1998; Chapter 6). Because the available fossil data to document patterns of diversification of marine organisms in the Cenozoic of SE-Asia are comparatively sparse, the collection of new data is needed in order to document the timing and context of diversification. To perform this task, the Marie-Curie Initial Training Network (ITN) Throughflow was formed in 2010, focusing on Miocene fossils and their paleohabitats of East Kalimantan, Indonesia. This thesis represents one of eleven projects of the Throughflow program.
Human Rad51: Regulation of Cellular Localization and Function in Response to DNA Damage: A Dissertation

Repair of DNA double-strand breaks via homologous recombination is an essential pathway for vertebrate cell development and maintenance of genome integrity throughout the organism’s lifetime. The Rad51 enzyme provides the central catalytic function of homologous recombination while many other proteins are involved in regulation and assistance of Rad51 activity, including a group of five proteins referred to as Rad51 paralogs (Rad51B, Rad51C, Rad51D, Xrcc2, Xrcc3). At the start of my work, cellular studies of human Rad51 (HsRad51) had shown only that it forms distinct nuclear foci in response to DNA damage. Additionally, no information regarding the cellular localization, potential DNA damage-induced redistribution or cellular functions for any of the Rad51 paralog proteins was available. Therefore, the goals of this work were to (1) present a more complete description of the cellular localization and DNA damage-induced redistribution of Rad51 and the two paralog proteins known to specifically associate with Rad51, Rad51C and Xrcc3, and (2) to define specific functional roles for Rad51C and Xrcc3 in mediating Rad51 activity. I focused on the use of cellular, RNAi and immunofluorescence methods to study endogenous Rad51, Rad51C and Xrcc3 in human cells. In my initial studies we showed for the first time that Xrcc3 forms distinct foci in both the nucleus and cytoplasm independent of DNA damage, that the distribution of these foci did not change significantly throughout the time course of DNA damage and repair, and that Xrcc3 focus formation is independent of Rad51. Additionally, and unlike most previously published images of v nuclear Rad51, we found that the majority of DNA damage-induced nuclear Rad51 foci do not colocalize with gamma H2AX, a histone marker used to indicate the occurrence of DNA double