Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Exploring Less Invasive Visual Surveys to Assess the Spatial Distribution of Endangered Mediterranean Trout Population in a Small Intermittent Stream

Simple Summary This study explores the use of alternative and non-harmful methods for monitoring endangered Mediterranean trout in small intermittent streams. Specifically, two visual survey techniques were compared: a visual survey from streambanks and an underwater visual survey using underwater cameras. The main objective was to assess the effectiveness of detecting patterns in fish occupancy in relation to a set of environmental factors. The comparison revealed that underwater camera surveys performed similarity to visual surveys from streambanks during low-flow regimes. However, visual surveys from streambanks were less effective during the highest flow regimes. The volume of pools and the percentage cover of submerged macrophytes were found to be significant environmental variables affecting fish detection probability using underwater cameras. On the other hand, the analysis of data from visual observations from streambanks indicated a clear impact of high turbulence rates on pool occupancy. In conclusion, these findings demonstrate the utility of visual methods in describing the occupancy patterns of Mediterranean trout in small streams. Abstract Monitoring the conservation status of endangered freshwater fish using less invasive methods poses challenges for ecologists and conservationists. Visual surveys have been proposed as an alternative to electrofishing, which is a standard methodology that can cause injuries, physiological stress and post-release mortality in organisms. To test the efficacy of visual methods, a study was conducted in an intermittent stream of Sardinia (Italy). Two visual methods were employed: a visual survey from streambanks (VSS) and an underwater visual survey (UVS) using cameras. The aims of this study were (1) to compare the effectiveness of these methods in detecting patch occupancy patterns and (2) to investigate the effect of environmental variables on the detection probability of Mediterranean native trout. Environmental variables characterizing pool habitats were recorded, and generalized linear models (GLMs) were employed to assess the correlation between these variables and trout presence/absence. GLM analysis revealed that UVS had higher detection probability with larger pool volume, whereas submerged macrophytes negatively affected detection probability. Detection from streambanks (VVS) was negatively affected by a high turbulence rate. In conclusion, our study suggests the utility of visual methods to describe patterns of patch occupancy of Mediterranean trout. However, methods can be differently affected by environmental variables. Therefore, monitoring programs using these methods should consider these factors to ensure a reliable description of within-stream trout distribution in intermittent streams.
Chitosan, polyethylene oxide/polycaprolactone electrospun core/shell nanofibrous mat containing rosuvastatin as a novel drug delivery system for enhancing human mesenchymal stem cell osteogenesis

Introduction: Due to the potential positive effects of rosuvastatin (RSV) on human mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) osteogenesis and new bone regeneration, it is crucial to develop a suitable carrier that can effectively control the release profile of RSV. The primary objective of this study was to introduce a novel drug delivery system based on core/shell nanofibrous structures, enabling a sustained release of RSV. Methods: To achieve this, coaxial electrospinning was employed to fabricate chitosan (CS)+polyethylene oxide (PEO)/polycaprolactone (PCL) nanofibrous mats, wherein RSV was incorporated within the core of nanofibers. By optimizing the relevant parameters of the electrospinning process, the mats’ surface was further modified using plasma treatment. The fibers’ shape, structure, and thermal stability were characterized. The wettability, and degradation properties of the fabricated mats were also examined. In vitro studies were conducted to examine the release behavior of RSV. Additionally, the capability of MSCs to survive and differentiate into osteocytes when cultured on nanofibers containing RSV was evaluated. Results: Results demonstrated the successful fabrication of CS + PEO + RSV/PCL core/shell mats with a core diameter of approximately 370 nm and a shell thickness of around 70 nm under optimized conditions. Plasma treatment was found to enhance the wettability and drug-release behavior of the mats. The nanofibrous structure, serving as a carrier for RSV, exhibited increased proliferation of MSCs and enhanced osteogenic differentiation. Conclusion: Therefore, it can be concluded that CS + PEO + RSV/PCL core/shell nanofibrous structure can be utilized as a sustained-release platform for RSV over an extended period, making it a promising candidate for guided bone regeneration.
Pesticides and Bladder Cancer: Mechanisms Leading to Anti-Cancer Drug Chemoresistance and New Chemosensitization Strategies

Multiple risk factors have been associated with bladder cancer. This review focuses on pesticide exposure, as it is not currently known whether agricultural products have a direct or indirect effect on bladder cancer, despite recent reports demonstrating a strong correlation. While it is known that pesticide exposure is associated with an increased risk of bladder cancer in humans and dogs, the mechanism(s) by which specific pesticides cause bladder cancer initiation or progression is unknown. In this narrative review, we discuss what is currently known about pesticide exposure and the link to bladder cancer. This review highlights multiple pathways modulated by pesticide exposure with direct links to bladder cancer oncogenesis/metastasis (MMP-2, TGF-β, STAT3) and chemoresistance (drug efflux, DNA repair, and apoptosis resistance) and potential therapeutic tactics to counter these pesticide-induced affects.
Effects of Leadership Development Program on Self-Efficacy in School Health Promotion, Thailand

Objective: To examine the effects of a health leadership development program on self-efficacy in health screening and life safety in school, among health education major college students. Methods: In this research, 22 health education major college students from the 2nd year of Srinakharinwirot university, Thailand volunteered to join the program. Students worked as a team to create a health promotion program (1 program per team) for the nearby community. Self-efficacy in health screening and life safety was measured using a self-administered questionnaire before and after the program. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics such as mean and standard deviation, as well as Wilcoxon matched-pairs signed-rank test . Results: After program participation, self-efficacy in health screening and life safety increased significantly from baseline (P < 0.05). Conclusion: Health promotion leadership program helps improves knowledge and self-efficacy. The Health Education department should encourage the students to learn and practice from direct experience to become quality health promotion leaders.
Prognostic Value of Chest CT Findings at BOS Diagnosis in Lung Transplant Recipients

Background. Bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) after lung transplantation is characterized by fibrotic small airway remodeling, recognizable on high-resolution computed tomography (HRCT). We studied the prognostic value of key HRCT features at BOS diagnosis after lung transplantation. Methods. The presence and severity of bronchiectasis, mucous plugging, peribronchial thickening, parenchymal anomalies, and air trapping, summarized in a total severity score, were assessed using a simplified Brody II scoring system on HRCT at BOS diagnosis, in a cohort of 106 bilateral lung transplant recipients transplanted between January 2004 and January 2016. Obtained scores were subsequently evaluated regarding post-BOS graft survival, spirometric parameters, and preceding airway infections. Results. A high total Brody II severity score at BOS diagnosis (P = 0.046) and high subscores for mucous plugging (P = 0.0018), peribronchial thickening (P = 0.0004), or parenchymal involvement (P = 0.0121) are related to worse graft survival. A high total Brody II score was associated with a shorter time to BOS onset (P = 0.0058), lower forced expiratory volume in 1 s (P = 0.0006) forced vital capacity (0.0418), more preceding airway infections (P = 0.004), specifically with Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P = 0.002), and increased airway inflammation (P = 0.032). Conclusions. HRCT findings at BOS diagnosis after lung transplantation provide additional information regarding its underlying pathophysiology and for future prognosis of graft survival.
Sgformer: A Local and Global Features Coupling Network for Semantic Segmentation of Land Cover

With the introduction of Earth observation satellites, the classification technology through high-definition remote sensing images appeared. After decades of evolution, the land cover classification method in high-definition satellite maps has been gradually improved. Recently, high-definition remote sensing maps have been applied to land cover classification. Nowadays, classification methods using high-definition maps have these following problems. First, the traditional land cover classification methods cannot process the rich details in high-definition maps. Second, there are different acquisition conditions in the maps of different regions, which leads to distortion, deformation, and illumination blur of remote sensing images. Third, the existing methods are unable to provide a good generalization performance. To address these issues, a dual-branch parallel network structure is proposed, called Sgformer, to improve the performance of the transformer in the context of high-definition remote sensing maps. The network enhances perceptual learning with convolution operators that extract local features and a self-attention module that captures global representations. Local information and global representations with semantic divergence are fused through a feature coupling module. At last, a decoder is designed to maximize the preservation of local features and global representations and to better recover high-definition feature maps. The results of semantic segmentation experiments show that the methodology in this study has higher accuracy than the other methodologies.
A model of the within-population variability of budburst in forest trees

Abstract. Spring phenology is a key indicator of temperate and boreal ecosystems' response to climate change. To date, most phenological studies have analyzed the mean date of budburst in tree populations while overlooking the large variability of budburst among individual trees. The consequences of neglecting the within-population variability (WPV) of budburst when projecting the dynamics of tree communities are unknown. Here, we develop the first model designed to simulate the WPV of budburst in tree populations. We calibrated and evaluated the model on 48 442 budburst observations collected between 2000 and 2022 in three major temperate deciduous trees, namely, hornbeam (Carpinus betulus), oak (Quercus petraea) and chestnut (Castanea sativa). The WPV model received support for all three species, with a root mean square error of 5.7 ± 0.5 d for the prediction of unknown data. Retrospective simulations over 1961–2022 indicated earlier budburst as a consequence of ongoing climate warming. However, simulations revealed no significant change for the duration of budburst (DurBB, i.e., the time interval from BP20 to BP80 (with BP representing budburst percent), which respectively represent the date when 20 % and 80 % of trees in a population have reached budburst), due to a lack of significant temperature increase during DurBB in the past. This work can serve as a basis for the development of models targeting intra-population variability of other functional traits, which is of increasing interest in the context of climate change.
Impact of Regional Revenue and Expenditure Budgets and Economic Growth on the Human Development Index

This study aims to examine and analyze the Influence of Expenditure Budget and Economic Growth on the Human Development Index in Makassar City. The data sources for this research were taken from the Regional Financial and Asset Management Agency (BPKAD) and the Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS) for Makassar City. The data collection technique uses documentation in the form of Budget Realization Reports and Gross Domestic Product based on Current Prices according to Expenditures from 2010-2019. The data that has been collected will be analyzed with several stages of testing, including descriptive statistical tests, classic assumption tests consisting of (normality test, multicollinearity test, heteroscedasticity test, autocorrelation test), and testing of all hypotheses which will be proven through a coefficient of determination test, test partial (t test) and simultaneous test (f test). The results of the research that has been done state that the APBD variable has a very weak effect because it has no real effect and is not significant to the Human Development Index in Makassar City. While the variable Economic Growth has a positive and significant effect on the Human Development Index, which means that if Economic Growth is increased it will increase the value of the Human Development index in Makassar City
ATSS-Driven Surface Flame Detection and Extent Evaluation Using Edge Computing on UAVs

The current approach to flame inspection relies mainly on manual methods, resulting in delayed flame detection and inaccurate evaluation of flame extent. In this paper, we propose a surface flame detection model that can be deployed on edge computing devices. The model is based on the ATSS model and has been fine-tuned for this purpose. By equipping a quadcopter drone with the edge computing device carrying this model, real-time flame inspection can be conducted in various environments such as forests and urban areas. Additionally, we introduce a simple and feasible method for flame extent evaluation, which has been overlooked in previous studies. This method utilizes the flame detection results and the camera on the quadcopter drone to calculate the actual area of the flame, providing valuable data support for rescue teams. Experimental results demonstrate that our proposed method surpasses six comparison models, achieving state-of-the-art performance with mAP, AP_50, and AP_75 scores of 0.685, 0.927, and 0.763, respectively. Moreover, the model achieves an FPS of 20.2, meeting the real-time requirements of flame inspection. The proposed flame extent evaluation method accurately estimates the actual area of the flame.
On Neural Networks Fitting, Compression, and Generalization Behavior via Information-Bottleneck-like Approaches

It is well-known that a neural network learning process—along with its connections to fitting, compression, and generalization—is not yet well understood. In this paper, we propose a novel approach to capturing such neural network dynamics using information-bottleneck-type techniques, involving the replacement of mutual information measures (which are notoriously difficult to estimate in high-dimensional spaces) by other more tractable ones, including (1) the minimum mean-squared error associated with the reconstruction of the network input data from some intermediate network representation and (2) the cross-entropy associated with a certain class label given some network representation. We then conducted an empirical study in order to ascertain how different network models, network learning algorithms, and datasets may affect the learning dynamics. Our experiments show that our proposed approach appears to be more reliable in comparison with classical information bottleneck ones in capturing network dynamics during both the training and testing phases. Our experiments also reveal that the fitting and compression phases exist regardless of the choice of activation function. Additionally, our findings suggest that model architectures, training algorithms, and datasets that lead to better generalization tend to exhibit more pronounced fitting and compression phases.
Assessing Water Sustainability in Northwest China: Analysis of Water Quantity, Water Quality, Socio-Economic Development and Policy Impacts

Northwest China (NWC) is one of the driest areas of the world. Over the past decades, NWC has experienced rapid socio-economic development, further stressing its freshwater quantity and quality. However, there is little knowledge on the long-term status of NWC’s water resources and the anthropogenic impacts—positive (environmental policies) or negative (uncontrolled development). We present a holistic spatiotemporal assessment of NWC’s water quantity, water scarcity, and water quality based on water use intensity (WUI), water scarcity index (WSI), and statistical analyses and tests, combining multiple datasets spanning the past two decades. Moreover, we analyze the impacts of socio-economic development on water resources and mention the relevant governmental efforts and policies to preserve NWC’s water resources. NWC’s water use was found to be unsustainable, having significantly increased by 10% over the past two decades, but without being able to adequately cover the needs of most sectors. Our results also reveal water scarcity inequalities among NWC’s provinces; perennial water scarcity exists in Xinjiang and Ningxia Provinces, and there is no water stress in Qinghai. A remarkable wastewater treatment rate (from 27.3% in 2003 to 97.1% in 2020) and river water quality improvement have been achieved under continuous efforts, huge restoration and water pollution control investments. However, water shortages are a persistent issue. Balancing the water availability and demand will be crucial to achieve a truly sustainable development.
On stability and stabilization of some discrete dynamical systems

The paper formulates effective and nonimprovable stability conditions for a linear difference system involving 2 integer delays. The used technique combines algorithm of the discrete D‐decomposition method with some procedures of the polynomial theory. Contrary to the related existing results, the derived conditions are fully explicit with respect to both delays, which enables their simple applicability in various scientific and engineering areas. As an illustration, we show their importance in delayed feedback controls of discrete dynamical systems, with a particular emphasis put on stabilization of unstable steady states of the discrete logistic map.
Differential interferometry of the Broad Line Region of quasars : innermost structure of quasars using optical interferometry and reverberation mapping

The broad line region (BLR) of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) contains the high velocity gas clouds transporting materialfrom the dust torus to the accretion disk around the central super massive black hole (SMBH). Unveiling BLR structure iscritical to understand the accretion mechanism driving the SMBH evolution and shaping the AGN inflows, outflows and jets.Reverberation Mapping (RM) constrains the BLR geometry, kinematic, mass and equivalent linear size with parameterdegeneracies and fudge factors depending from the source geometry. Optical Interferometry (OI) yields independentconstrains on BLR structure, mass and equivalent angular size. We developed a 3D geometrical model of BLRs to estimateboth RM and OI measures and to show that the combination of these two techniques will very substantially reduce theuncertainty of mass estimates and yield direct distance measurement from “quasar parallax”. We used this model and a MonteCarlo Markov Chain Bayesian parameter fit of simulated data to show that quasar parallax can measure distances withaccuracy better than 15%. We used it on actual data to interpret and explain our first OI observations of the BLR of thebright quasar 3C273 found to have a BLR of about 1750±35 light days (ld) much larger than predicted by RM (450±120 ld)and larger than the inner rim of the dust torus of about 800±270 ld, yielding a SMBH mass of 5±1 108 solar masses. Ourmodel and SNR computations show that the VLTI incoming instruments can observe about 60 BLRs covering more than 4decades of luminosity, enough to try a grand unification of BLRs models and a calibration of RM making QSOs majorcosmological probes.
Body composition as an indicator of metabolic changes in mice obtained by in vitro fertilization

To identify body systems subject to epigenetic transformation during in vitro fertilization (IVF), comparative morphological and functional studies were performed on sexually mature offspring of outbred CD1 mice, specific-pathogen-free (SPF), obtained by IVF (experiment) and natural conception (control). The studies included assessment of age-related changes in body weight and composition, energy intake and expenditure, and glucose homeostasis. To level the effects caused by the different number of newborns in the control and in the experiment, the size of the fed litters was halved in the control females. Males obtained using the IVF procedure were superior in body weight compared to control males in all age groups. As was shown by analysis of variance with experiment/control factors, gender, age (7, 10 and 20 weeks), the IVF procedure had a statistically significant and unidirectional effect on body composition. At the same time, IVF offspring outperformed control individuals in relative fat content, but were behind in terms of lean mass. The effect of the interaction of factors was not statistically significant. IVF offspring of both sexes had higher fat to lean mass ratios (FLR). Since adipose tissue contributes significantly less to total energy intake compared to muscle, the main component of lean mass, it is not surprising that at the same level of IVF locomotor activity offspring consumed less food than controls. When converted to one gram of body weight, this difference reached 19 %. One of the consequences of reduced utilization of IVF energy substrates by offspring is a decrease in their tolerance to glucose loading. The integral criterion for the effectiveness of restoring the initial glucose level is the area under the curve (AUC), the value of which was 2.5 (males) and 3.2 (females) times higher in IVF offspring compared to the corresponding control. Thus, the totality of our original and literature data shows an increase in the risk of metabolic disorders in IVF offspring, which is confirmed by epidemiological studies of a relatively young cohort of people born using assisted reproductive technologies.