Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Motivation Analysis of Online Green Users: Evidence From Chinese “Ant Forest”

Environmental protection activities based on digital technology have cultivated many online green users (OGUs) and may become a critical means to combat global climate change. This paper explores individuals’ motivation to participate in online environmental protection activities and whether the activities have significantly increased individuals’ intention to participate in global collaboration on climate change. Taking Ant Forest as an example, this paper first summarized 14 trigger reasons for users’ participation in online environmental protection activities through interviews, then surveyed 600 OGUs through questionnaires, and studied the behavioral motivation from the four dimensions of environmental awareness, social motivation, online immersion, and global cooperation intention by using a structural equation model. The study found that both environmental awareness and social motivation had significant positive promotional effects on OGUs’ online immersion, and environmental awareness was higher than social motivation. Environmental awareness as a long-term motivation is conducive to the achievement of long-term climate goals, and social motivation is focused on short-term entertainment functions. There is a significant positive interactive relationship between environmental awareness and social motivation under the effect of digital technology, which jointly promote the improvement of OGUs’ online immersion, and online immersion is conducive to enhancing OGUs’ global cooperation intention. This study demonstrated that digital technology can effectively improve individuals’ intention to protect the environment and found a means to quickly identify the best OGUs (most willing to participate in global cooperation), which provided a new opportunity to inspire greater public participation in the global action against climate change.
NF‐κB‐dependent Fas ligand expression

Apoptosis of lymphocytes is triggered by different stimuli through the induced expression of Fas and Fas ligand (FasL). Using T cell activation‐induced Fas/FasL expression as a model system, we observed a differential regulation of the induction of Fas and FasL. cAMP inhibited activation‐induced apoptosis by an effective suppression of TCR‐coupled FasL expres sion. In contrast, cAMP weakly interfered with activation‐induced Fas expression, and the remaining Fas molecules on cAMP‐treated T cells still mediated apoptosis. Among the major transcription elements on the FasL promoter, the activation of NF‐κB, but not of NF‐AT and AP‐1, was suppressed by cAMP. The prominent role of NF‐κB was further demonstrated by a better activation of the FasL promoter and an elevated expression of FasL induced by p65 (RelA) overexpression than those induced by AP‐1 or NF‐AT. Our results demonstrate the essential role of NF‐κB for the expression of the death receptor ligand FasL, and suggest a direct link between NF‐κB activation and the expression of FasL. NF‐κB may be the common mediator in the induction of FasL through TCR activation and by various stress stimuli.
Bundlefly: a low-diameter topology for multicore fiber

High-performance computing (HPC) systems keep increasing in size and bandwidth, thus requiring larger and higher-bandwidth interconnection networks. The race to exascale just exacerbated this trend. The resulting longer average distance and more links between modules makes the use of optical fiber mandatory. However, the system meets the challenge of cable packaging complexity, cable tolerance, and cable maintainability. Splitter cable, like multi-core fiber (MCF), is a new and cost-effective approach that has the potential to replace a bundle of fibers between any pairs of modules with a single cable, thus lowering the packaging complexity and enhancing the maintainability. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to formally study the problem of building a cost-effective HPC network topology using multicore fiber. In this paper, a new diameter-3 topology is proposed, namely Bundlefly. It achieves a flexible tradeoff between intra-module radixes and inter-module radixes of routers with merely moderate radix to build a diameter-3 exascale interconnection network. It is suitable for the use of multi-core fiber for the requirement of inter-module bandwidth and cable packaging complexity. We analyze the properties of Bundlefly and present effective routing algorithms. We simulate and analyze the performance of Bundlefly against state-of-the-art topologies. The results show that Bundlefly with flexible configurations can achieve better performance than most existing topologies.
Comparison of the Gut Microbiota Between Pulsatilla Decoction and Levofloxacin Hydrochloride Therapy on Escherichia coli Infection

Gut microbiota serves as a critical indicator for gut health during treatment of pathogenic bacterial infection. Both Pulsatilla Decoction (abbreviated to PD, a traditional Chinese medicine compound) and Levofloxacin Hydrochloride (LVX) were known to have therapeutic effects to intestinal infectious disease. However, the changes of gut microbiota after PD or LVX treatment remain unclear. Herein, this work aimed to investigate the changes of intestinal flora after PD or LVX therapy of Escherichia coli infection in rats. Results revealed that PD exhibited a valid therapeutic approach for E. coli infection via the intestinal protection, as well as the inhibited release of IL-8 and ICAM-1. Besides, PD was beneficial to rebuild the gut microbiota via restoring Bacteroidetes spp in the composition of the gut microbiota. Comparatively, LVX treatment promoted the infection and ravaged gut microbiota by significantly decreasing Bacteroidetes and increasing Firmicutes. These findings not only highlight the mechanism of Chinese herbal formula, but extend the application of PD as veterinary medicine, feed additive and pre-mixing agent for improving the production of animal derived foods.
Recurrent Fulminant Tumefactive Demyelination With Marburg-Like Features and Atypical Presentation: Therapeutic Dilemmas and Review of Literature

Atypical forms of demyelinating diseases with tumor-like lesions and aggressive course represent a diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for neurologists. Herein, we describe a 50-year-old woman presenting with subacute onset of left hemiparesis, memory difficulties and headache. Brain MRI revealed a tumefactive right frontal-parietal lesion with perilesional edema, mass effect and homogenous post-contrast enhancement, along with other small atypical lesions in the white-matter. Brain biopsy of cerebral lesion ruled out lymphoma or any other neoplastic process and patient placed on corticosteroids with complete clinical/radiological remission. Two years after disease initiation, there was disease exacerbation with reappearance of the tumor-like mass. The patient initially responded to high doses of corticosteroids but soon became resistant. Plasma-exchange sessions were not able to limit disease burden. Resistance to therapeutic efforts led to a second biopsy that showed perivascular demyelination, predominantly consisting of macrophages, with a small number of T and B lymphocytes, and the presence of reactive astrocytes, typical of Creutzfeldt-Peters cells. The patient received high doses of cyclophosphamide with substantial clinical/radiological response but relapsed after 7-intensive cycles. She received 4-weekly doses of rituximab with disease exacerbation and brainstem involvement. She eventually died with complicated pneumonia. We present a very rare case of recurrent tumefactive demyelinating lesions, with atypical tumor-like characteristics, with initial response to corticosteroids and cyclophosphamide, but subsequent development of drug-resistance and unexpected exacerbation upon rituximab administration. Our clinical case raises therapeutic dilemmas and points to the need for immediate and appropriate immunosuppression in difficult to treat tumefactive CNS lesions with Marburg-like features.
YIELD LOSSES CAUSED BY SEVERAL ENDEMIC DISEASES IN QUEENSLAND

Only limited sugarcane disease yield loss data have been generated in Queensland, or indeed around the world. This has meant our understanding of the effects, and importance, of diseases on productivity has been partial at best. With disease resistance a major form of disease control, objective data are needed to determine the level of resistance needed to maximise yield while, at the same time, minimising losses resulting from the effects of disease. In the past 18 months, studies were initiated to relate the level of disease yield loss of clones in plant breeding trials to yield. This paper describes research with yellow spot, orange rust and Pachymetra root rot in northern and central Queensland. Losses are shown to be very large (with orange rust in central Queensland causing as much as a 40% yield reduction). This study provides some of the first data on disease-associated yield losses with some diseases. Implications of the results are discussed as well as the potential for extension of the work.
Effects of an APOE Promoter Polymorphism on Fronto-Parietal Functional Connectivity During Nondemented Aging

Background: The rs405509 polymorphism ofthe apolipoprotein E (APOE) promoter is related to Alzheimer’sdisease (AD). The T/T allele of rs405509 is known to decrease the transcription of the APOE gene and lead to impairments in specific brain structural networks with aging; thus, it is an important risk factor for AD. However, it remains unknown whether rs405509 affects brain functional connectivity (FC) in aging. Methods: We investigated the effect of the rs405509 genotype (T/T vs. G-allele) on age-related brain FC using functional magnetic resonance imaging. Forty-five elderly TT carriers and 45 elderly G-allele carriers were scanned during a working memory (WM) task. Results: We found that TT carriers showed an accelerated age-related increase in functional activation in the left postcentral gyrus compared with G-allele carriers. Furthermore, the FC between the left postcentral gyrus and some key regions during WM performance, including the right caudal and superior frontal sulcus (SFS), was differentially modulated by age across rs405509 genotype groups. Conclusions: These results demonstrate that the rs405509 T/T allele of APOE causes an age-related brain functional decline in nondemented elderly people, which may be beneficial for understanding the neural mechanisms of rs405509-related cognitive aging and AD pathogenesis.
Spatial patterns of range contraction in British breeding birds

We use ornithological atlas data to assess evidence for the existence of a number of spatial patterns of range contraction in British breeding birds. For 18 of the 25 species which suffered the greatest range contractions between 1968 and 1991, there wais a greater likelihood of local extinction in areas where the species was initially less widespread, so ranges tended to contract towards their cores. However there was evidence for a number of other patterns, with some species having a greater likelihood of local extinction in the centres of their ranges and others suffering random local extinctions throughout their range. The different spatial patterns identified were largely independent of the overall range contraction suffered by each species nationally. We suggest that range contractions in British birds can generally be explained better by a general decline in habitat quality or other factors than by contagious anthropogenic effects, as might be expected in a country with a long history of human environmental modification.
LncRNA LINC00641 Sponges miR-497-5p to Ameliorate Neural Injury Induced by Anesthesia via Up-Regulating BDNF

Introduction Ketamine, which is widely used in anesthesia, can induce cortical neurotoxicity in patients. This study aims to investigate the effects of long non-coding RNA LINC00641 on the ketamine-induced neural injury. Materials and Methods In this study, rat pheochromocytoma cells (PC12 cells) were used as a cell model and Sprague–Dawley postnatal day 7 rats were used for experiments in vivo. Ketamine-induced aberrant expression levels of LINC00641, miR-497-5p and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) were examined by qRT-PCR. The effects of LINC00641 and miR-497-5p on ketamine-induced neural injury were then examined by MTT assays and TUNEL analysis. In addition, the activity of ROS and caspase-3 was measured. The regulatory relationships between LINC00641 and miR-497-5p, miR-497-5p and BDNF were detected by dual-luciferase reporter assay, respectively. Results Ketamine induced the apoptosis of PC12 cells, accompanied by down-regulation of LINC00641 and BDNF, and up-regulation of miR-497-5p. LINC00641 overexpression enhanced the resistance to the apoptosis of PC12 cells, while transfection of miR-497-5p had opposite effects. Furthermore, LINC00641 could bind to miR-497-5p and reduce its expression, but indirectly increase the BDNF expression, which was considered as a protective factor in neural injury and activated TrkB/PI3K/Akt pathway. Conclusion Collectively, LINC00641/miR-497-5p/BDNF axis was validated to be an important signaling pathway in modulating ketamine-induced neural injury.
Leveraging intra-page update diversity for mitigating write amplification in SSDs

A solid state drive (SSD) receives requests in multiple of sectors from the host system, which are then mapped to logical pages, the basic I/O units of the flash memory. As the SSD receives requests in sector units, the sectors in a logical page tend to exhibit diverse update frequencies. Therefore, frequent updates to some sectors of a page cause other sectors of the same page to be unnecessarily read and written to other free pages, thereby increasing write amplification and harming the flash memory lifetime. To eliminate unnecessary sector movement and to reduce write amplification, we propose a sector-level classification (SLC) technique. SLC considers the diversity in the update frequencies of sectors and merges sectors with similar update frequencies to generate full, homogeneous pages. Thus, multiple update operations can be converged to a single flash page, thereby reducing write amplification and increasing flash memory lifetime. SLC handles the merged sectors using the proposed shared-page mapping table (SMT), whereas pages whose sectors remain unmerged are handled by a conventional page mapping table. Despite the SMT overhead, SLC does not require excessive resources to accommodate SMT. The capability of SLC is evaluated by a series of experiments, which provides highly encouraging results. It is demonstrated that SLC reduces flash writes, flash reads, block erasures, and flash writes execution time by 42%, 23%, 45%, and 37%, respectively.
Adaptively preserving solutions in both feasible and infeasible regions on generalized multiple constraint ranking

In the present work, we propose some new modifications of an existing constraint handling technique (CHT) for single-objective optimization problems. The base CHT is generalized multiple constraint ranking (G-MCR), which is already a modified version of the original CHT, MCR. Despite that G-MCR significantly outperformed the original MCR in the previous study, it is found that G-MCR tends to generate very few feasible individuals on a certain real-world like engineering design problem. In the present work, G-MCR is further modified to strike a better balance between feasible and infeasible individuals on each generation in an adaptive way so that the interaction between feasible and infeasible regions can be maintained, thus providing more efficient search towards constrained global optimum. Based on the investigation on 78 benchmark problems, we obtain that some of the proposed modifications produce more robust convergence performance by obtaining significant superiority on many types of problems. On real-world like engineering design problems, we also observe that the feasibility ratio generated on each generation might have an important role in improving the convergence performance.
Identification and characterisation of the circadian pacemaker of the cockroach Leucophaea maderae

27 INTRODUCTION . 27 MATERIALS AND METHODS . 28 Animals . 28 Conventional light-microscopy . 28 Conventional electron-microscopy . 28 Immunocytochemistry for light microscopy . 29 Immunocytochemistry for electron microscopy . 29 RESULTS . 29 Organisation of the neuropil . 29 Fibre tracts and somata associated with the accessory medulla . 32 Fine structure of the neuropil . 32 Distribution of PDH-immunoreactive fibres in the accessory medulla . 35 Localisation of PDH immunoreactivity in nerve terminals . 36 DISCUSSION . 36 The neuropil of the accessory medulla . 38 Fibre tracts and somata of the accessory medulla . 38 PDH-ir fibres of the accessory medulla . 39 Intracellular localisation of PDH-immunoreactivity . 39 A comparison of the insect accessory medulla with the vertebrate suprachiasmatic nucleus . 39 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS . 39 REFERENCES . 39
Short communication. Harvest time in hedgerow ‘Arbequina’ olive orchards in areas with early frosts

The shortening of harvest time attained in hedgerow olive (Olea europaea L.) orchards represents an advantage for the adoption of this cropping system in areas that are prone to suffer frost during the harvest period. To establish an optimal harvesting window, we carried out a study of the fruit ripening process on a hedgerow orchard of ‘Arbequina’ olive trees, located in Zaragoza (Spain). From 2007 to 2009, oil accumulation on the fruit (% of dry weight) and oil yield (grams of oil per 100 fruits) were monitored, from early September to late November. Over the three years both variables peaked around November 15 th , indicating that Arbequina reached full ripening earlier than has been reported previously for this variety. In two of the three seasons the orchard suffered several frosts during November. Long term climatic data from this area indicated that the risk of early frosts (< –2°C) increases as November progresses with a high risk after November 20 th . In conclusion, the optimal harvesting period for Arbequina in this area should not extend beyond November 20 th . A rapid harvesting before this date is advisable to avoid the risk of damage caused by early frost in Zaragoza. Hedgerow planting provides an additional advantage in frost-prone areas, because mechanization of operations permits a short harvest period, easier to fit into the optimal harvesting window.
Biochar in bioenergy cropping systems: impacts on soil faunal communities and linked ecosystem processes

Biochar amendment of soil and bioenergy cropping are two eco‐engineering strategies at the forefront of attempts to offset anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Both utilize the ability of plants to assimilate atmospheric CO2, and are thus intrinsically linked with soil processes. Research to date has shown that biochar and bioenergy cropping change both aboveground and belowground carbon cycling and soil fertility. Little is known, however, about the form and function of soil food webs in these altered ecosystems, or of the consequences of biodiversity changes at higher trophic levels for soil carbon sequestration. Hitherto studies on this topic have been chiefly observational, and often report contrasting results, thus adding little mechanistic understanding of biochar and bioenergy cropping impacts on soil organisms and linked ecosystem processes. This means it is difficult to predict, or control for, changes in biotic carbon cycling arising from biochar and bioenergy cropping. In this study we explore the potential mechanisms by which soil communities might be affected by biochar, particularly in soils which support bioenergy cropping. We outline the abiotic (soil quality‐mediated) and biotic (plant‐ and microbe‐mediated) shifts in the soil environment, and implications for the abundance, diversity, and composition of soil faunal communities. We offer recommendations for promoting biologically diverse, fertile soil via biochar use in bioenergy crop systems, accompanied by specific future research priorities.
Composition of native crayfish assemblages in southern Ontario rivers affected by rusty crayfish (Orconectes rusticus Girard, 1852) invasions - implications for endangered queensnake recovery

Orconectes rusticus (rusty crayfish) is an aggressive and prolific aquatic invader. Where introduced, it has caused dramatic ecosystem changes, including the replacement of native crayfishes. In Canada, it was first reported in Lake of the Woods in northwestern Ontario and a small number of south-central Ontario lakes during the 1960s. It has subsequently spread to other regions of the province. Its current expansion into southwestern Ontario rivers presents an unknown risk to the endangered queensnake (Regina septemvittata), an obligate feeder on freshly molted crayfish. We sampled 99 river sites across southern Ontario to: (i) describe crayfish assemblages within river reaches currently occupied by Queensnake; and, (ii) characterize the impact of O. rusticus on native crayfish assemblages. O. rusticus was caught at 41% of sites sampled, and was the only species at 24% of sites. The abundance, richness, and within-site distribution of native crayfishes were all significantly lower at sites with O. rusticus. Within the distribution of queensnake, crayfish assemblages were almost entirely dominated by O. propinquus, with O. rusticus being absent. However, O. rusticus was found along the lower Speed River, where only one dam separates it from Grand River queensnake populations. Given its past spread, O. rusticus will likely be introduced into areas used by queensnake and replace O. propinquus (the primary prey of queensnake). The adaptability of queensnake to prey upon non-native crayfish is unknown and requires investigation.
Begging in the absence of parents by nestling tree swallows

Begging by nestling passerine birds has become a model system for studies in animal communication. Although most begging occurs when parents arrive at the nest to feed (here called ‘‘primary begging’’), it also occurs between feeding visits and immediately after parents leave the nest. Begging in these contexts (here called ‘‘secondary begging’’) may have relatively little inﬂuence on the probability of receiving food, but could increase the overall cost of the signal and thus inﬂuence nestling begging strategies. The purpose of our study was to determine how often tree swallow ( Tachycineta bicolor ) nestlings beg in contexts other than to parents with food and to examine what factors inﬂuence the frequency of this begging. Secondary begging ranged from 7% of measured begging responses at day 2 to 30% by day 8 and was more frequent when the interval between parental feeding visits was relatively long and when the time to respond to the arrival of parents with food was short. Increases in both age and intervisit interval were associated with decreases in nestling response times, suggesting that secondary begging may be related to the speed with which nestlings respond to stimuli. We discuss possible functions of secondary begging and raise the possibility that it may, in fact, be an error. Key words: begging, parent-offspring interactions, signaling, tree swallows. [Behav Ecol 12:501–505 (2001)]