Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Changing ice and changing light: trends in solar heat input to the upper Arctic ocean from 1988 to 2014

Abstract The Arctic sea-ice cover has undergone a significant decline in recent decades. The melt season is starting earlier, ice is thinner and seasonal ice dominates. Here we examine the effects of these changes on the solar heat input to the upper ocean in ice-covered Arctic waters from 1985 to 2014. Satellite observations of ice concentration, onset dates of melt and freeze-up and ice age, are combined with ice thicknesses from the PIOMAS model and incident solar irradiance from reanalysis products to calculate the contributions of open ocean and ice to the solar heat input in the upper ocean. Of the total, 86% of the area has positive trends for solar heat input to the ocean through leads due to decreases in ice concentration. Only 62% of the area shows positive trends of solar heat input to the ocean explicitly through the ice. Positive trends are due to thinning ice, while negative trends occur in regions where the ice-free season has lengthened. The annual total solar heat input to the ocean exhibits positive trends in 82% of the area. The spatial pattern of the cumulative annual total solar heat input is similar to the pattern of solar heat input directly to leads.
FOXP3 in Melanoma with Regression: Between Tumoral Expression and Regulatory T Cell Upregulation

Cutaneous melanoma is a significant immunogenic tumoral model, the most frequently described immune phenomenon being tumor regression, as a result of the interaction of tumoral antigens and stromal microenvironment. We present a retrospective cohort study including 52 cases of melanoma with regression. There were evaluated correlations of the most important prognostic factors (Breslow depth and mitotic index) with FOXP3 expression in tumor cells and with the presence of regulatory T cells and dendritic cells in the tumoral stroma. FOXP3 expression in tumor cells seems an independent factor of poor prognosis in melanoma, while regression areas are characterized by a high number of dendritic cells and a low number of regulatory T cells. FOXP3 is probably a useful therapeutical target in melanoma, since inhibition of FOXP3-positive tumor clones and of regulatory T cells could eliminate the ability of tumor cells to escape the immune defense of the host.
Eco-physiological adaptations of Salsola drummondii to soil salinity: role of reactive oxygen species, ion homeostasis, carbon isotope signatures and anti-oxidant feedback

Abstract Physiological and biochemical traits for Salsola drummondii, a habitat-indifferent xerohalophyte, were compared in plants collected from two habitats differing in soil salinity (saline habitat, SH and non-saline habitat, NSH) to understand possible mechanisms of salt tolerance. Samples from different plant organs and soils were collected from the two habitats to assess average leaf fresh and dry weights, leaf succulence (SWC), chlorophyll pigments (Chl a, b, carotenoids), lipid peroxidation (MDA), H2O2 content, antioxidant enzymes activity (catalase, CAT; ascorbate peroxidase, APX and guaiacol peroxidase, GPX), stable carbon isotope composition (δ13C) and elemental composition. No significant reduction in the leaf biomass and leaf succulence was observed in plants from the two habitat types. We found an increase in activities of antioxidant enzymes (CAT, APX) that would enhance the stress tolerance in plants from the SH. Na+ accumulation in the leaves was significantly greater in plants from SH than in those from NSH. The hyper-accumulation of Na+ didn’t impact the concentrations of other essential nutrients. Hydrogen peroxide accumulation was significantly greater in roots than in shoots of plants from SH than in NSH, but there was no difference in shoots. δ13C was less negative in SH as compared to NSH. We concluded that S. drummondii is a sodium accumulator and this does not disturb much its normal plant growth. For osmotic adjustment, plants of SH rely more on Na+, but those of NSH rely on proline as osmoregulator. Therefore, S. drummondii may be useful for restoring degraded sodium-affected lands.
An Econometric Analysis on Remittance and Economic Growth in Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, migrant worker’s remittances constitute one of the most significant sources of external finance. This paper investigates the existence of relation between remittance inflow and GDP and the causal link between them in Bangladesh by employing the Granger causality test under a VECM framework. Using time series data over a 38 year period, we found that growth in remittances does lead to economic growth in Bangladesh. In addition to the relationship, this paper also points out some issues that are working as impediments in getting remittance and give some recommendations to overcome those impediments.
Research on a Numerical Simulation and Prediction Model of Floor Mining Failure Depth in the Chenghe Mining Area

Ordovician limestone water on the floor is a serious threat to the safety of coal mine production in the Weibei coalfield, and prediction of the floor failure depth is the key for evaluating the mining conditions under pressure. This paper combines the hydrogeological conditions of the no. 5 coal seam and uses the FLAC3D program to determine the floor failure depth under two-factor (mining depth and width) and multifactor (mining depth, width, and height) conditions via numerical calculations and analysis. We obtain the fitting formula for the floor failure depth and analyze the influence of various factors on it. The results show that when the mining width does not exceed 200 m, the mining width has the greatest influence on the floor failure depth, followed by mining depth and mining height. In this paper, the working face floor failure depths measured values of 18 flat seams in China are taken as samples for comparison with the values calculated via empirical formulas and fitting formulas, and the maximum and minimum absolute errors and relative errors are analyzed. The nonlinear fitting regression formulas offered in this paper are found to provide strong predictive value, high accuracy, and a relatively small error range. The reliability and rationality of the models are further verified, thus providing a reference for future mining operations under safe aquifer water pressure conditions in the Weibei coalfield.
Female Top Performers in Higher Education STEM and Humanities: Socio-Emotional Perceptions and Digital Learning-Related Characteristics during COVID-19

In Germany, the 2020 summer semester was substantially influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic. In an empirical study, we focus on female top performing students in STEM and the humanities. Of particular interest was whether the measures associated with the pandemic constitute a risk-factor for a re-traditionalization of gender roles. Before lectures or courses began, students at a full-scale university were invited to participate in an online survey. We investigated four research questions: 1) Are women underrepresented in our sample among the top performers in STEM and the humanities? Are there gender differences among top performers with regard to (2) digital readiness, (3) socio-emotional and (4) learning related variables? The sample of the study consisted of 2,849 higher education STEM and humanities students. The study took place as an online survey. In the week before the start of the official lecture period, all students enrolled at the university were invited to take part via an e-mail correspondence from the Vice President of Education (survey access link). Participation in the survey took place via the Questback platform and was activated for 10 days. The cut-off point for the ability level was set at the 95th percentile of previous university achievements. To test Q1, we performed a hierarchical loglinear analysis with posthoc Chi² tests. In research questions Q2 - Q4 two-way ANOVAs were used to test the effects of gender and subject. Results indicate equal shares of female and male students among the top performers, with women overrepresented in the humanities and men overrepresented in STEM relative to their proportion of the student population. The analysis of socio-emotional and learning-related factors showed risk factors for high performing female students such as lower self-efficacy, but no major emotional vulnerability. Overall, the data suggest that at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, female top performers had still been able to compensate for the risk factors.
LOW-COMPLEXITY ACOUSTIC SCENE CLASSIFICATION USING ONE-BIT-PER-WEIGHT DEEP CONVOLUTIONAL NEURAL NETWORKS Technical

This technical report describes a submission to Task 1b (“Low-Complexity Acoustic Scene Classiﬁcation”) in the DCASE2020 Acoustic Scene Challenge. Solutions for this task were required to be constrained to have parameters totalling no more than 500 KB. The strategy described in this report was to train a deep convolutional neural network applied to spectrograms formed from the acoustic scene ﬁles, such that each convolutional weight was set to one of two values following training, and hence could be stored using a single bit. This strategy allowed a single 36-layer all-convolutional deep neural network to be trained, consisting of a total of 3,987,000 binary weights, totalling 486.69KB. The model achieved a macro-average accuracy (balanced accuracy score) across the three classes of 96.6 ± 0.5% on the 2020 DCASE Task 1b validation set.
Parent of origin gene expression in the bumblebee, Bombus terrestris, supports Haig's kinship theory for the evolution of genomic imprinting

Genomic imprinting is the differential expression of alleles in diploid individuals, with the expression being dependent upon the sex of the parent from which it was inherited. Haig’s kinship theory hypothesizes that genomic imprinting is due to an evolutionary conflict of interest between alleles from the mother and father. In social insects, it has been suggested that genomic imprinting should be widespread. One recent study identified parent-of-origin expression in honeybees and found evidence supporting the kinship theory. However, little is known about genomic imprinting in insects and multiple theoretical predictions must be tested to avoid single-study confirmation bias. We, therefore, tested for parent-of-origin expression in a primitively eusocial bee. We found equal numbers of maternally and paternally biased expressed alleles. The most highly biased alleles were maternally expressed, offering support for the kinship theory. We also found low conservation of potentially imprinted genes with the honeybee, suggesting rapid evolution of genomic imprinting in Hymenoptera. Impact summary Genomic imprinting is the differential expression of alleles in diploid individuals, with the expression being dependent upon the sex of the parent from which it was inherited. Genomic imprinting is an evolutionary paradox. Natural selection is expected to favour expression of both alleles in order to protect against recessive mutations that render a gene ineffective. What then is the benefit of silencing one copy of a gene, making the organism functionally haploid at that locus? Several explanations for the evolution of genomic imprinting have been proposed. Haig’s kinship theory is the most developed and best supported. Haig’s theory is based on the fact that maternally (matrigene) and paternally (patrigene) inherited genes in the same organism can have different interests. For example, in a species with multiple paternity, a patrigene has a lower probability of being present in siblings that are progeny of the same mother than does a matrigene. As a result, a patrigene will be selected to value the survival of the organism it is in more highly, compared to the survival of siblings. This is not the case for a matrigene. Kinship theory is central to our evolutionary understanding of imprinting effects in human health and plant breeding. Despite this, it still lacks a robust, independent test. Colonies of social bees consist of diploid females (queens and workers) and haploid males created from unfertilised eggs. This along with their social structures allows for novel predictions of Haig’s theory. In this paper, we find parent of origin allele specific expression in the important pollinator, the buff-tailed bumblebee. We also find, as predicted by Haig’s theory, a balanced number of genes showing matrigenic or patrigenic bias with the most extreme bias been found in matrigenically biased genes.
Rice straw powder/polylactic acid biocomposites for three-dimensional printing

The research aim of this work was to understand the effects of the soil burial of rice straw on the morphology and properties of 3D-printed rice straw powder (RSP)/polylactic acid (PLA) biocomposites. The rice straw buried in the soil for various days was grounded and sieved into powder at 120 mesh. The RSP was then mixed with PLA at a mass ratio of 15/100 and the mixture was extruded into filament, followed by a fused deposition modeling 3D printing process. The as-prepared products were characterized in terms of morphological, mechanical, thermal, and nonisothermal crystallization properties. The results show that cavities with large holes induced by fused deposition modeling exhibit on the cross section of RSP/PLA biocomposite. The longer the burial duration of rice straw, the more the cavities with large holes could be observed on the surface. Therefore, soil burial of rice straw improved the thermal stability of the biocomposites while depressing their mechanical properties due to the amplification of the cavities. The crystallinity of the biocomposites was maintained at a low level (<9%) before and after the soil burial process.
Functional assessment of myeloid-derived suppressor cells, mesenchymal stromal cells, and regulatory T cells for the control of T-cell funtion : implications for the graft-versus-host disease

Uncontrolled T cell responses cause harm in various diseases, which lead to cell-based therapeutic approaches to dampen T cell activation, including mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs), regulatory T cells (Tregs) and myeloidderived suppressor cells (MDSCs). One major application is graft-versus-host disease (GvHD), a severe complication caused by alloreactive T cells in patients undergoing allogenic stem cell transplantation (alloSCT). Human MSCs are already used for the treatment of GvHD, however, MSCs have to be expanded and their clinical benefit still remains unclear. Therefore, we systematically compared the functional capacity of Tregs, polymorphonuclear myeloid-derived suppressor cells (PMN-MDSCs) and MSCs to suppress alloreactive T cell responses. Freshly isolated PMN-MDSCs showed the strongest inhibition of T cell proliferation compared to MSCs and Tregs, but the available cell number was limited. Thus, we generated cytokine-induced PMN-MDSCs from peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) and from bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMMCs) in vitro. BMMC-derived PMN-MDSCs effectively suppressed T cell proliferation and dampened secretion of Interferon-γ, while PMN-MDSCs generated from PBMCs showed weaker inhibition. The effects of BMMC-derived PMN-MDSCs were partially dependent on cell contact similar to freshly isolated PMN-MDSCs. In conclusion, generated PMN-MDSCs from bone marrow might represent a novel cellular therapeutic to dampen excessive T cell responses for the management of GvHD.
Phenolic composition, antioxidant capacity and inhibitory effects on α-glucosidase and lipase of immature faba bean seeds

ABSTRACT Immature faba bean seeds of five varieties were investigated for changes in phenolic composition, antioxidant capacity and inhibitory effects on α-glucosidase and lipase at three edible stages (S1, S2 and S3). Phenolics and antioxidant capacity in seed coats were significantly higher than those in cotyledons, and the highest was found of FD18 at stage S3. While phenolic content in cotyledons decreased steadily with the harvest time delayed. Eight phenolic compounds were confirmed with epicatechin and catechin prominent and their levels showed a great variability depending on varieties, maturation stages and plant parts of faba bean seeds. Unexpectedly, the inhibitory effects of purified phenolics on α-glucosidase were even stronger than that of the positive control acarbose, and the inhibitory effects on lipase in the cotyledons declined gradually from stage S1 to S3. Significant positive correlations between phenolics from seed coats and antioxidant capacity, and phenolics from cotyledons and the enzyme inhibitory effects were observed. Overall, the immature faba bean seed, especially its seed coat, has great potential as a functional food.
Characterization of oxylipin signaling in the chemical interaction between the endophyte Paraconiothyrium variabile and the phytopathogen Fusarium oxysporum

Endophytic fungi are non-pathogenic microorganisms involved in mutualistic associations with their host. Foliar endophytes, in particular, represent a very diverse group but little is known about their interactions with the host and its associated micro-organisms. In preliminary work, exploring the leaf microbial diversity of the conifer Cephalotaxus harringtonia, our team isolated the fungal strain Paraconiothyrium variabile (Ascomycota), an antagonist of the phytopathogen Fusarium oxysporum. During their interaction, decreased amounts of the F. oxysporum mycotoxin beauvericin, and higher amounts of the two oxylipins, 13-hydroperoxyoctadecadienoic acid (13-HPODE) and 13-oxo-octadecadienoic acid (13-oxo-ODE), were observed in the confrontation zone. The objective of the present work was to understand the mechanisms leading to beauvericin decrease during the interaction and to explore the role of oxylipins in beauvericin regulation. In my thesis work I show the presence of two lox genes in P. variabile (pvlox1 and pvlox2) coding both for manganese lipoxygenases, potentially at the origin of 13-HPODE and 13-oxo-ODE. Pvlox2 is specifically induced during the interaction, which lead to an increased synthesis of 13-HPODE in P. variabile. The endophyte itself, as well as the oxylipin 13-HPODE, up-regulated the beauvericin biosynthesis gene beas, which was paralleled by higher mycotoxin content in the mycelium of F. oxysporum. Finally, we showed that beauvericin inhibited the endophyte’s growth, but the latter was capable to degrade the mycotoxin, which explains the lower amounts of beauvericin found in the competition zone. This work presents pioneer undertaking to elucidate the role of oxylipins in inter-microbial crosstalk.
Morphological matching and phenological overlap promote niche partitioning and shape a mutualistic plant–hawkmoth network

1. Species interact with one another in communities forming complex interaction networks which are shaped by multiple non‐exclusive processes. Although plant–hawkmoth interactions have been studied for over a century, how processes underlying species' specialisation influence community‐level patterns of niche partitioning and contribute to the emergence of network structures remains poorly investigated.
The Impacts of Fear and Uncertainty of COVID-19 on Environmental Concerns, Brand Trust, and Behavioral Intentions toward Green Hotels

This study aimed to investigate the impacts of COVID-19 on the hospitality industry. We examined the interplay between consumers’ fear and uncertainty of COVID-19, their trust in green hotel brands, and their behavioral intentions in relation to staying at green hotels. Analysis of 613 completed responses to a survey instrument revealed that fear and uncertainty of COVID-19 have increased consumers’ environmental concerns and green hotel brand trust, which in turn have promoted their willingness to pay more and willingness to make sacrifices to stay at green hotels. The paper contributes to research on green consumption behavior in the hotel industry during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Preliminary study of ratio of amylose and amylopectin as indicators of glycemic index and in vitro enzymatic hydrolysis of rice and wheat starches

Background: Wheat and rice form the staple food of large majority of the population throughout the world. Starch is a carbohydrate which is a homopolymer consisting of a large number of D-glucose units joined by α- glycosidic bonds. Starch can be separated into two fractions-amylose and amylopectin. Amylose, Amylopectin ratio is an indicator of Glycemic Index. Starches with lower amylose content will have higher glycemic indexes. Invitro digestion of starch provides efficient means of analysing carbohydrate digestibility and hence glycemic properties of foods. Invitro digestion indicates how a given food item is likely to behave in vivo, in terms of rate and extent of sugar release from starch, by stimulating physiological processes occurring in the mouth, stomach and small intestine. The rate of starch hydrolysis which gives rise to sustained release of reducing sugars would be preferred by the diabetics.Methods: In our study, starches of wheat and rice were first isolated. Amylose and Amylopectin ratio was determined to predict the glycemic index of both. Wheat and rice having the same amylose and amylopectin ratio were selected for our study. These isolated starches were subjected to invitro enzymatic hydrolysis by salivary and pancreatic amylases. Reducing sugars released after hydrolysis and incubation of 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 and 30 minutes were estimated by Folin-Wu method. Statistical analysis was carried out in the form of unpaired student’s t-test to find significant difference between means of reducing sugars release by wheat and rice during enzymatic hydrolysis.Results: Having compared the starches of wheat and rice having the same amylose-amylopectin ratio, it was seen that the rice had low digestibility than the wheat starch. Rice starch releases less amount reducing sugars gradually while the wheat starch releases more reducing sugars rapidly in a short period of time. This can be due to amylopectin A which might be present in larger quantities in wheat starch than in rice starch which assists in rapid digestion of wheat starch.Conclusions: Our findings revealed that rice starch released less reducing sugars gradually over a period of time while wheat starch released more reducing sugars rapidly. So, rice is the best option for diabetics for consumption because of its comparatively low release of reducing sugars as compared to wheat.
Generics versus brand-named drugs for glaucoma: the debate continues

There are three options for a given class of drugs, including brand name drugs, generic and branded generic drugs. Brand name drugs are costlier as compared to generic and branded generic drugs because they are innovator molecules developed by a company after many years of research and come into the market with a patent, whereas branded generic drugs are produced by a different company once the patent of innovator company expires. Given that glaucoma is a chronic, largely asymptomatic disease, the choice of drugs is extremely important: the duration of medication is often lifelong, and the cost of drugs, side effects and efficacy affect compliance and adherence to therapy. This review is a brief overview of the available brand name and branded generic drugs for the management of glaucoma, in terms of efficacy and side effect profiles. It also aimed to guide rational and pragmatic drug choices in different clinical scenarios.