Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Population structure and introduction history of the pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella, in China

The pink bollworm, Pectinophora gossypiella (Saunders) (Lepidoptera: Gelechiidae), a cotton pest probably native to Indo‐Pakistan, invaded China at the beginning of the 20th century. Chinese P. gossypiella have been assumed to be the result of indiscriminate introductions from Pakistan and America by transport of cotton seed. We tested this long‐held hypothesis and genotyped a total of 527 individuals from 14 sites at 13 microsatellite loci. We analyzed these data with traditional statistics as well as with Bayesian methods. The loci were, for the most part, highly polymorphic. The allelic richness of Chinese populations at six loci was greater than those of the Pakistani and American populations. Significant deficits of heterozygotes were recorded for all 14 populations, and null alleles were the most probable factor contributing to these deficits. Pairwise FST estimates showed that there was significant differentiation among the pooled Chinese, Pakistani, and American populations, and there was structure within most of the Chinese populations. The Bayesian analysis revealed that the combined Chinese, American, and Pakistani populations formed separate clusters, and the nine Chinese populations were divided into two clusters. Allelic frequency distributions showed that private and shared alleles within Chinese P. gossypiella were derived only partly from the Pakistani and American populations. The microsatellite‐based genetic analyses suggested that the Chinese P. gossypiella populations originated from multiple sources.
Reduction of High Nitrate Concentrations in a Central New York State Stream Impounded by Beaver

Abstract The influence of Castor canadensis (North American Beaver) impoundments on the loss of nitrate (NO3-) from stream water was monitored for 14 months at four sites in Homer Gulf Creek in central New York State. A relatively high NO3- concentration of 1.56 (0.14) mg N/L (mean (SEM)) at the upstream site was reduced by a daily average of 35.5% as the water passed through the beaver ponds. There was a significant difference (P < 0.001) in the mean values among the four sites, and significant differences were measured between the upstream site and each of the three downstream sites. The reduction in NO3- within the upstream beaver pond was significantly (P = 0.005) greater during the warmer months (April–September) of the study vs. the October–March period, suggesting biological processes were responsible. Stream water NO3- may have been transformed through biological processes, including the microbial process of denitrification, enhanced in the beaver ponds as a result of anoxic sediments, sufficient supplies of labile organic matter, and increased water residence time.
A semi-supervised learning approach for robust indoor-outdoor detection with smartphones

The environmental context of a mobile device determines how it is used and how the device can optimize operations for greater efficiency and usability. We consider the problem of detecting if a device is indoor or outdoor. Towards this end, we present a general method employing semi-supervised machine learning and using only the lightweight sensors on a smartphone. We find that a particular semi-supervised learning method called co-training, when suitably engineered, is most effective. It is able to automatically learn characteristics of new environments and devices, and thereby provides a detection accuracy exceeding 90% even in unfamiliar circumstances. It can learn and adapt online, in real time, at modest computational costs. Thus the method is suitable for on-device learning. Implementation of the indoor-outdoor detection service based on our method is lightweight in energy use -- it can sleep when not in use and does not need to track the device state continuously. It is shown to outperform existing indoor-outdoor detection techniques that rely on static algorithms or GPS, in terms of both accuracy and energy-efficiency.
Interleukin-21: biology and application to cancer therapy

Background: IL-21, a recently described common γ-chain cytokine, can induce the maturation and enhanced cytotoxicity of natural killer (NK) and CD8+ T cells and proliferation of CD40-stimulated B cells. Exogenous IL-21 has antitumor effects in murine models via immunological mechanisms. In addition, IL-21 can also directly induce apoptosis in chronic lymphocytic leukemia cells and other B cell lymphomas. Objective/methods: We examine preclinical and clinical data regarding anticancer therapy with IL-21. Published original research, abstracts and ongoing clinical trials are reviewed. A brief summary of IL-21 biology is also provided. Conclusion: Three Phase I and II clinical trials with recombinant IL-21 have been completed, providing data on the safety and efficacy in subjects with advanced melanoma, renal cell carcinoma and non-Hodgkin's B cell lymphoma. Numerous additional single-agent and combination therapy clinical trials are ongoing for a variety of human malignancies. B cell malignancies in particular warrant further clinical investigation.
The life cycles of Claassenia sabulosa AND Hesperoperla pacifica (Plecoptera: Perlidae) in two Colorado streams

Abstract We compared the life cycles of Claassenia sabulosa (Banks 1900) and Hesperoperla pacifica (Banks 1900) (Plecoptera: Perlidae) in allopatry and sympatry by studying 4 populations in 3 streams of the South Platte River Watershed, Colorado. We estimated 2-year life cycles for both C. sabulosa and H. pacifica in allopatry and sympatry. Evidence of egg diapausing and extended larval recruitment was noted for both species in allopatry and sympatry. There were no apparent differences in larval growth, larval recruitment, or adult emergence periodicity between allopatric and sympatric populations of C. sabulosa. In contrast, allopatric and sympatric H. pacifica populations exhibited differences in the timing of larval growth, larval recruitment, and adult emergence. We feel that the differences in the life cycles of these populations were likely related to water temperature because a substantial water temperature difference (degree days of 1761 and 2563) occurred between study reaches. In sympatry, H. pacifica adults began emerging 2 weeks earlier than C. sabulosa, when water temperature reached 9°C. The emergence of H. pacifica was synchronous and male biased. The emergence of C. sabulosa was protandrous and male biased and began when water temperature reached 17°C. Claassenia sabulosa emergence was extended and lasted for 6 weeks during July and August. The abundance of C. sabulosa adults during this period corresponded closely to fluctuations in water temperature.
Calcification in cyanobacterial biofilms of alkaline salt lakes

Geomicrobiological analysis of calcifying biofilms of three alkaline salt lakes characterized by moderate to high carbonate alkalinity indicates that microbial carbonate rock formation is not directly linked to cyanobacterial carbon fixation. The present review summarizes results from two published case studies that have been carried out at Pyramid Lake, USA, and Lake Nuoertu, PR China. New observations and data are presented for a current project on Satonda Crater Lake, Indonesia, that revise previous conclusions concerning the relationship between cyanobacteria and biofilm calcification. Extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) in the investigated lakes are mostly produced by cyanobacteria; their properties are discussed as key factors in biofilm calcification. In particular, EPS are capable of binding divalent cations (e.g. Ca2+) from the liquid phase by their carboxylate and sulphate groups. Therefore, despite a high supersaturation of the lake water with respect to calcium carbonate minerals, precipi.
Effects of Cover on Loud Trill-Call and Soft Seet-Call Use in the Crested tit Parus Cristatus

Predation is one of the main factors responsible for winter mortality in small birds. Contact vocalizations of crested tits (Parus cristatus) can be divided into two categories: long- and short-range communication calls. The long-range calls are loud, frequency-modulated trills, which are well suited for acoustic communication over long distances. The short-range calls, in contrast, are soft, high-pitched tones, which are strongly attenuated as they radiate through the environment. As the predation cost in this species is mostly associated with the use of loud calls, we investigated whether crested tits adjust the use of loud trill-calls and of soft seet-calls to changes in habitat safety. We arranged two feeding sites that differed with respect to predicted safety, and observed the utterance of loud trill-calls and soft seet-calls. Calling rates of the loud trill-calls were highest when male crested tits foraged at the safe site. The loud trill-calls were given significantly less often while visiting risky feeders placed just a few metres away from the safe sites. The soft seet-calls were uttered both at risky and safe feeders at similar rates. This study suggests that the long-range part of contact communication in crested tits is strongly affected by the level of perceived predation risk. In accordance with the data on hearing ability of predators, dominant male crested tits decrease their exposure to predation in risky habitats by choosing a less risky type of communication with high-pitched sounds.
Bringing Financial Stability into Monetary Policy

This paper arms central bank policy makers with ways to think about interactions between financial stability and monetary policy. We frame the issue of whether to integrate financial stability into monetary policy operating rules by appealing to the observation that in actual economies financial markets are incomplete. Incomplete markets create financial market frictions that prevent economic agents from perfectly sharing risk; in the absence of frictions, financial (in)stability would be of no concern. Overcoming these frictions to improve risk sharing across economic agents is, in our view, the intent of policies geared toward ensuring financial stability. There are many definitions of financial stability. Although the definitions share the notion that financial stability becomes an issue for policy makers when a breakdown in risk-sharing arrangements in financial markets has a negative effect on real economic activity, we give several examples that show this notion is too general for thinking about the role that monetary policy might have in smoothing shocks to financial stability. Examples include statistical models that seek to separate “good” from “bad” changes in private-sector debt aggregates, new Keynesian policy prescriptions grounded in neo-Wicksellian natural rate rules, and a historical episode involving the 1920s Federal Reserve. These examples raise a cautionary flag for policy attempts to control both the growth and the composition of debt that financial markets produce. We conclude with some advice for revising central banks’ Monetary Policy Reports.
Investigation into the production and conformation traits associated with clinical mastitis using artificial neural networks.

A data set comprising milk-recording and conformation data was used to investigate the usefulness of artificial neural networks in detecting influential variables in the prediction of incidences of clinical mastitis. Specifically, these data contained test-day records from dairy herd analysis, phenotypic cow scores for conformation and genetic conformation proofs for cows and their sires. The data were analysed using the milk-recording data only, the conformation data only, and a combination of the two. Results from sensitivity analyses, performed with trained neural nets, indicated that stage of lactation, milk yield on test day, cumulative milk yield and somatic cell count were the major production factors influencing the ability to detect the occurrence of clinical mastitis. Among the conformation traits, such variables as phenotypic scores for rear-teat placement, dairy character and size, cow proof for dairy character, sire reliability for final score and sire proofs for pin-setting (desirability) an.
Governance of Gene Action and Combining Ability for Certain Grain Quality Traits in Three Diverse Rice (Oryza sativa L.) Growing Ecosystems

ABSTRACT Traditional varieties or land races from diverse rice growing ecosystems serving as repository of desirable gene pools for rice improvement including rice hybrids have been marginalized or are at the verge of perhaps total genetic erosion. Biotechnology patent systems and intellectual property rights intrinsic with genetically engineered rices weigh in at odds, competing with these good grain qualified traditional rices. Genetic analyses have been made to uncover the supremacy of gene action and combining ability for certain grain quality related physicochemical traits in seven diverse ecogeographical genotypes of ‘indica’ rice using a 7 × 7 half-diallel cross following Griffing's Model-1, Method-2. Comparative results obtained from 7 parents + 21 F1s + 21 F2s revealed the involvement of both additive (polygenic) and non-additive (epistasis or interallelic) gene action(s) in the governance of grain quality traits. However, the ratio of σ2 g/σ2 s exhibited greater importance of non-additive genes for all the traits except kernel length in F1. This suggests the plausibility of exploitation of heterosis in rice as a self-pollinated crop. Epistasis gene action (interallelic interaction) was found to be more pronounced for all the traits. The genotypes NS 19 (for grain weight), T 21 and IR 24 (for both kernel length and L/B ratio) and Jal Lahri (for protein content) emerged as good general combiners with high ‘gca’ values. The six specific crosses, viz., Mahsuri/IR 24, NDR 359/Jal Lahri, Sarjoo 52/Jal Lahri, Mahsuri/T 21, Sarjoo 52/NS 19 and Sarjoo 52/T 21, revealed significant ‘sca’ effects suggesting their role in improvising for certain physicochemical grain quality traits. These crosses were found to retain at least one parent with high ‘gca’ value and the other parent having either high, average or low ‘gca’ effects indicating for the occurrence of both additive as well as non-additive genetic interactions. These findings may be of greater relevance in shuffling and combining the genes/traits between traditional and modern rice varieties (e.g., semi-dwarf, good to moderate tillering, medium maturity and good grain quality with high protein content) in almost all rice growing ecosystems.
Exotic fishes of Florida — 1994

Abstract Twenty‐three exotic fishes are reproducing in the freshwater lakes, rivers, and canals of Florida; 18 are established (i.e., have permanent populations), and 5 are possibly established (i.e., reproducing but permanence is questionable). Ten exotic fishes previously reported as reproducing have been eliminated by fisheries managers, habitat alteration, or natural causes, and 42 additional species have been collected without evidence of reproduction. Since 1986, three species have been added to the list of reproducing exotic fishes; two of these, the jaguar guapote (Cichlasoma managuense) and butterfly peacock (Cichla ocellaris), are established, and the yellowbelly cichlid (Cichlasoma salvint) is possibly established. In addition to providing a listing of exotic fishes collected in Florida waters, this article presents (1) the first published report on the establishment of the jaguar guapote and establishment history of the sailfin catfish (Liposarcus multiradiatus), along ‘with the first collecti.
Factors controlling the availability of sediment-bound lead to the estuarine bivalve scrobicularia plana

Concentrations of lead in the soft tissues of the deposit-feeding bivalve Scrobicularia plana have been compared with the physicochemical characteristics of sediments in 20 estuaries in southern and western England and one in north-west France. The results indicate that the biological availability of lead in the sediment is controlled mainly by the concentration of iron, and that the concentration of lead in the bivalve may be predicted from the Pb/Fe ratio in 1 N hydrochloric acid extracts of surface sediments.
RESPONSES OF CAVITY-NESTING BIRDS TO CHANGES IN AVAILABLE HABITAT REVEAL UNDERLYING DETERMINANTS OF NEST SELECTION

Abstract Despite an abundance of studies describing nest selection in cavity-nesting birds, few account for the variation in habitat availability across the geographic range of a species and through time. Changes in the frequency of disturbances such as fires, timber harvests, and insect outbreaks can dramatically alter habitat. Responses by cavity-nesting birds to these changes provide an opportunity to evaluate underlying determinants of nest selection. We compared nest site attributes to available resources for 3 species of cavity-nesting birds: the Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus), Williamson's Sapsucker (Sphyrapicus thyroideus), and Black-backed Woodpecker (Picoides arcticus). Data collected in 2003–2004 were compared to data collected in the 1970s in the same study area to identify changes in patterns of selection. Due to severe insect outbreaks, available resources differed greatly between the 2 time periods. In studies separated by 30 y, Pileated Woodpeckers and Black-backed Woodpeckers exhibited remarkable consistency in patterns of nest site selection. Both species still selected Ponderosa Pine (Pinus ponderosa) snags preferentially for nesting despite their decline in availability. Williamson's Sapsuckers were less selective and nested in the most abundant snag species during both time periods. Selection for factors such as tree size and degree of decay remained consistent regardless of differences in habitat availability for the 3 species. By identifying these general patterns of nest site selection, our conclusions are applicable to a wider variety of habitat conditions.
Molecular Phylogeny of Arthropods and the Significance of the Cambrian “Explosion” for Molecular Systematics

SYNOPSIS. Accurate phylogenetic reconstruction requires character systems that have evolved fast enough to have kept pace with cladogenesis but slowly enough to have conveyed the resulting phylogenetic signal to the present. Because stratigraphic evidence suggests that basal arthropod lineages arose rapidly during an ancient (Cambrian) phylogenetic radiation, the discovery of molecular sequences capable of resolving arthropod phylogeny may be a significant challenge for molecular systematists. This challenge is exemplified by our attempt to resolve arthropod phylogeny using the amino acid sequence of elongation factor-1α (EF-1α). Our fossil-based assessment of evolutionary rates indicates that EF-la should be capable of resolving Cambrian-age divergences. However, phylogenetic analysis using EF-1α fails to establish relationships among most higher-level groups, although it does recover more recently derived clades. Here we propose two models to explain this incongruity. The Rapid Radiation Model maintains that fossil-based estimates of arthropod diversification are essentially accurate and that diversification occurred so rapidly during the Cambrian that few phylogenetically significant changes occurred in the slowly evolving EF-1α sequence. The Enhanced Preservation Model maintains that fossil-based estimates of Cambrian-age divergences reflect enhanced preservation of pre-existing lineages and that arthropod diversification occurred before the Cambrian. This model attributes lack of resolution to degradation of phylogenetic signal within EF-1α by subsequent evolution. Current evidence is more consistent with the Enhanced Preservation Model, which implies that fossil-based methods can be very misleading when attempting to gauge the phylogenetic information content of molecular sequences for Cambrian- and Precambrian-age divergences.
Genetic variation in Polish strains of Gremmeniella abietina

Summary Thirty-nine strains of Gremmeniella abietina were isolated between 1980 and 2005 from diseased or symptomless Pinus sylvestris and Pinus nigra, or sporadically Pinus jeffreyi and Pinus armandii from four regions of Poland with varying climatic conditions. Thirty-five of the strains were genetically similar to the G. abietina A type found in Scandinavia, whereas four were similar to the B type. On the basis of random amplified microsatellite markers, very high intrapopulation and interpopulation genetic variation was detected among the strains. The average value of the Jaccard genetic similarity coefficients among strains was 0.56 for A type and 0.47 for B type, and the monomorphic loci partition was small, at 14% of all analysed loci for the A type. The degree of genetic variation of the fungal strains within each of the four regions was similar, showing no significant differences. The Jaccard coefficient for the strains isolated from P. sylvestris and P. nigra differed significantly, at 0.57 and 0.54 respectively. The genetic distance among A type strains from the investigated regions, expressed using Nei’s coefficient, was not correlated with geographic distance; however, it was highly dependent on elevation (correlation coefficient r = 0.92).
Age-Specific Reproductive Tactics

A simple graphical model for maximization of total lifetime reproductive success is developed using the demographic parameters of current fecundity and residual reproductive value. Trade-offs between present progeny and expectation of future offspring are treated in terms of costs and profits to lifetime reproductive success. Various limitations of the model and some relevant data are presented and discussed. Single-clutched species are distinguished from those that lay multiple clutches each reproductive season, because residual reproductive value in the latter group varies proportionally much more during ontogeny than in the former group. Some difficulties in measuring reproductive effort in a changing environment are pointed out.
DRIP-FERTIGATION – A MEANS FOR REDUCING FERTILIZER NITROGEN TO SUGARCANE

The extent by which fertilizer nitrogen (N) may be reduced by the use of drip-fertigation in sugarcane was determined using 15N-labelled fertilizer in a field experiment in Mauritius. The data showed that, under the soil and climatic conditions that prevailed at the study site, fertilizer N could be reduced by 30%. Indeed, with 80 kg N ha−1 a−1 by drip-fertigation, total or fertilizer N recovered, growth pattern (as reflected by tiller density and leaf area development) and sugarcane yields were not inferior to those obtained with the standard practice of burying 120 kg N ha−1 a−1 along the cane rows. Applying more N than needed by the sugarcane in anticipation of a higher yield with drip irrigation would be wasteful of fertilizer N resources.