Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Relationship of eastern Gulf of Mexico reef-fish communities to the species equilibrium theory of insular biogeography*

A 1971 summer red tide (Gymnodinium breve Davis) and associated stress conditions resulted in mass mortalities and near extirpation of reef biotas from at least 1536 km2 of central West Florida Shelf. An estimated 77% of the resident fish species perished at shallow-water (12-18 m depths) reefs. Reef-fish colonization was monitored irregularly (1-6 month intervals) at two reefs for 3 years after the red tide. In addition, species censuses were taken 4 years after defaunation at one reef and 5 years later at both reefs. Since eastern Gulf of Mexico reefs occur as isolated patches, reef-fish coloniz- ation data were analysed in light of MacArthur and Wilson's species equilibrium model developed for insular biotas. Certain features of reef-fish colonization appeared consistent with the MacArthur-Wilson model: (1) an increasing convex colonization curve, (2) an observed immigration (colonization) rate de- creasing with time, (3) differences between colonization and decolonization (observed extinction) rate decreasing through time, and (4) attainment and maintenance of a rather stable species richness after 15 months colonization similar to the pre-defaunation level. However, other aspects of reef-fish coloniz- ation did not seemingly fulfil basic requirements of the model: (I) an erratic decolonization rate indicating no tendency to increase through time, (2) an observed species turnover rate considerably less than theoretical predictions, and (3) development of a compositionally stable community nearly identical with that existing prior to the red tide. It is proposed that eastern Gulf reef-fish communities develop according to well-defined successional rather than chance colonization processes. The eventual stability in species richness and composition probably represents attainment of a 'climax' community rather than a dynamic equilibrium resulting from continual species turnover. Possible reasons for failure of these communities to conform to the species equilibrium theory are presented.
Remote Digital Monitoring for Medical Product Development

The use of digital health products has gained considerable interest as a new way to improve therapeutic research and development. Although these products are being adopted by various industries and stakeholders, their incorporation in clinical trials has been slow due to a disconnect between the promises of digital products and potential risks in using these new technologies in the absence of regulatory support. The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) Biomarkers Consortium hosted a public workshop to address challenges and opportunities in this field. Important characteristics of tool development were addressed in a series of presentations, case studies, and open panel sessions. The workshop participants endorsed the usefulness of an evidentiary criteria framework, highlighted the importance of early patient engagement, and emphasized the potential impact of digital monitoring tools and precompetitive collaborations. Concerns were expressed about the lack of real‐life validation examples and the limitations of legacy standards used as a benchmark for novel tool development and validation. Participants recognized the need for novel analytical and statistical approaches to accommodate analyses of these novel data types. Future directions are to harmonize definitions to build common methodologies and foster multidisciplinary collaborations; to develop approaches toward integrating digital monitoring data with the totality of the data in clinical trials, and to continue an open dialog in the community. There was a consensus that all these efforts combined may create a paradigm shift of how clinical trials are planned, conducted, and results brought to regulatory reviews.
Feasibility of Nanozinc Oxide as a Wood Preservative

Nanometals have the potential to affect the field of wood preservation through the development of new and improved biocides with unique properties. A preliminary study on nanometals suggested that 1 % nanozinc oxide was leach resistance, caused moderate termite mortality, inhibition of termite feeding and inhibition of decay by Trametes versicolor. In this study, Southern yellow pine and yellow poplar vacuum-treated with 2.5% and 5.0% nanoZnO were evaluated for leaching, mold and decay inhibition, termite resistance, and visible signs of weathering. Virtually no leaching occurred at any treatment concentration of nanozinc oxide. All concentrations of nanoZnO showed inhibition of termite feeding, (i.e. low mass losses) and 31%-35% mortality. Only the highest concentration of nanoZnO resulted in moderate inhibition of mold growth (20-32% coverage). Decay inhibition was variable. NanoZnO did not inhibit brown-rot test fungi as well as soluble ZnSO 4 , Weight loss for the white-rot fungus was inhibited by all concentrations of nanoZnO tested. Specimens treated with nanoZnO demonstrated UV protection after 8 weeks of weathering. Overall, nanoZnO has desirable wood protection properties, namely leach resistance, UV protection and termite resistance, but would not provide adequate protection against decay or mold as a stand alone treatment.
Syntopic Culvert Nesting of Cave and Barn Swallows in Texas

THE Cave Swallow (Petrockelidon fulva) previously has been thought to be isolated ecologically from other hirundinids in Texas, narrowly restricted in its breeding sites to sinkholes and the twilight zones of caves (Selander and Baker 1957, Whitaker 1959, Baker 1962, Reddell 1967, see Wauer and Davis 1972 for isolated exceptions). Recently its spatial relationships have changed: P. fulva has expanded its breeding niche in the United States to include habitats altered by human activity and has entered into more intimate contact with other swallows. Preliminary to a detailed analysis of distribution, reproductive biology, and interspecific relationships in culvert-nesting Cave and Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica), this report details their extensive synchronous and syntopic reproduction in south central Texas.
Role of Parvalbumin in Skeletal Muscle Relaxation

Parvalbumin, a soluble intracellular calcium buffer, is present in high concentrations in fast-contracting skeletal muscles across the animal kingdom. In frog skeletal muscle, pharmacological or low-temperature inhibition of the sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium pump reveals that parvalbumin sequesters calcium and promotes relaxation at a rate determined by magnesium dissociation from parvalbumin.
Two New Species of Centrolenid Frogs of the Genus Hyalinobatrachium from Eastern Honduras

Two new species of Hyalinobatrachium are described from eastern Honduras. The first is distinguished from all other Mexican and Central American species of the genus, except for H. chirripoi, by having extensive webbing between fingers II-III and a clear parietal pericardium. This taxon is most easily distinguished from H. chirripoi by having smooth to weakly granular dorsal surfaces, a faintly in- dicated tympanum, a short loreal region, non-protuberant eyes, and numerous brown flecks on the dorsal surfaces. The second new species is distinguished from all other Mexican and Central American species of the genus by the combination of having a clear parietal pericardium, vestigial webbing between fingers II-III, a faintly indicated tympanum, and by lacking brown flecks on the dorsal surfaces in alcohol pre- served specimens. RESUMEN. -Se describe dos especies nuevas de Hyalinobatrachium del este de Honduras. Se distingue la primera de todas las otras especies del genero de Centroamerica, menos H. chirripoi, por la posesi6n de membranas extensivas entre los dedos del mano II-III y un pericardio parietal claro. Este taxa es distin- guido mas facilmente de H. chirripoi por la posesi6n de superficies dorsales lisas a debilmente granular, un timpano escondido, un regi6n loreal corta, ojos no abultados y puntos de color pardo numerosos en las superficies dorsales. Se distingue la segunda especie nueva de todas las otras especies del genero de Centroamerica por la combinaci6n de poseer un pericardio parietal claro, membranas rudimentarios entre los dedos del mano II-III, un timpano escondido y por no poseer puntos de color pardo en las superficies dorsales en los especimenes preservados.
Capturing Word Order in Averaging Based Sentence Embeddings

One of the most remarkable ﬁndings in the literature on sentence embeddings has been that simple word vector averaging can compete with state-of-the-art models in many tasks. While counter-intuitive, a convincing explanation has been provided by Arora et al., who showed that the bag-of-words representation of a sentence can be recovered from its word vector average with almost perfect accuracy. Beyond word vector averaging, however, most sentence embedding models are essentially black boxes: while there is abundant empirical evidence about their strengths and weaknesses, it is not clear why and how different embedding strategies are able to capture particular properties of sentences. In this paper, we focus in particular on how sentence embedding models are able to capture word order. For instance, it seems intuitively puzzling that simple LSTM autoencoders are able to learn sentence vectors from which the original sentence can be reconstructed almost perfectly. With the aim of elucidating this phenomenon, we show that to capture word order, it is in fact sufﬁcient to supplement standard word vector averages with averages of bigram and trigram vectors. To this end, we ﬁrst study the problem of reconstructing bags-of-bigrams, focusing in particular on how suitable bigram vectors should be encoded. We then show that LSTMs are capable, in principle, of learning our proposed sentence embeddings. Empirically, we ﬁnd that our embeddings outperform those learned by LSTM autoencoders on the task of sentence reconstruction, while needing almost no training data.
Evaluating a transport relationship using agency theory

Uncertainties in the performance of transport operations will drive forth different contract types, such as outcome and behaviour based contracts. This paper use agency-theory to understand which type of contract should be implemented in a transport buyer and service provider relationship. In particular we link the contracts to transport price formats. In order to increase efficiency in transport buyer and service provider relationships, we argue that the contracts need to be developed in a collaborative manner. Our empirical data is taken from a case study of collection of waste in two Norwegian municipalities.
The effects of the participation in producer organisations on the performance of dairy farmers in the Czech Republic and future challenges

This study focuses on milk producer organisations (MPOs) acting in the Czech Republic, examines in counterfactual design economic benefits of MPO members, explores the expectations and satisfaction of farmers with services provided by MPOs and discusses changes in MPO strategies in response to market developments. The economic benefits were evaluated econometrically using a direct matching method, while for the assessment of MPOs services and strategies we designed a survey among the members which was complemented by interviews with managers of the three largest MPOs. The results confirm positive economic benefits for farms and rather high farmers’ expectations and also satisfaction with the MPOs activities. However, while farmers, put most emphasis on common roles as price bargaining and securing sales, the MPO managers show future-looking approaches to strategies referring to consumer environmental and health concerns or vertical collaboration along the value chain.
Automatic Detection and Segmentation of Pulmonary Lesions on CT scans using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks

Early detection of lung cancer has been shown to significantly improve patient survival. Apart from lesion detection, tumour segmentation is critical for developing radiomic signatures. In this work, we propose a novel hybrid approach for lung lesion detection and segmentation on CT scans, where the segmentation task is assisted by prior detection of regions containing lesions. For the detection task, we introduce a 2.5D residual deep convolutional neural network (CNN) working in a sliding-window fashion, whereas segmentation is tackled by a modified residual U-Net with a weighted-dice plus cross-entropy loss. Experimental results on the LIDC-IDRI dataset and on the lung tumour task dataset, within the Medical Segmentation Decathlon, show competitive detection performance of the proposed approach (0.902 recall) and superior segmentation capabilities (0.709 dice score). These results confirm the high potential of simpler models, with lower hardware requirements, thus of more general applicability.
Influence of Tax Administration on Investment Processes

Despite the high losses of the state budget due to tax benefits, the introduced tax investment incentives did not lead to the increase in business investment. A review of the scientific literature indicates conflicting results justifying the effectiveness of tax investment incentives in different countries. Consequently, an objective assessment of the effectiveness of changes in tax legislation, analysis and generalization of the practice of tax benefits are becoming extremely relevant in this situation. The article aims at summarizing world experience and the Russian practice of tax incentives for investment activities and assessing the impact of tax administration on investment processes. Based on the comparative analysis of the tax incentives use, the authors conclude that the tax incentives are completely ineffective in attracting investments in countries with poor investment climate and low quality of public administration. In such conditions, the introduction of tax benefits seems to be of little value, since a correlation-significant relationship between tax benefits and the level of investment has not detected. Low tax rates provide powerful investment incentives only in well-governed countries. Empirical studies of tax incentives for attracting investment today go from developing bold hypotheses about the impact of taxation on investments to implementing their results in investment policy both at the national and sub-national levels around the world.
The Kenyan Garment Industry: Is it able to revive in the economic boom?

After trade liberalization, the Kenyan garment industry did not experience sustained growth despite low income per capita. This chapter explored whether the industry recovered under the economic growth after 2003. We found that garment firms supplying the local market do not take measures to enhance their competitiveness and instead avoid competition by specializing in uniforms. Given the large gap in labor costs, avoidance of competition could be an indispensable strategy, but detaching themselves from competitive pressure further weakened their competitiveness. Despite the strongest growth in demand in last two decades, firms did not improve productivity and firm turnover did not result in the entrance of productive firms and the exit of unproductive ones. The political turmoil occurred in 2008 does not explain such firm dynamics against the competitive market. There will be no prospects for growth until the wages in Asian countries significantly exceed Kenyan wages.
Maximizing education while minimizing COVID risk: priorities and pitfalls for reopening schools

What do we already know? In our July 13​ ​Schools are not islands​ report, we found that with increasing transmission outside of schools, there is limited room to return students to in-person schooling. However, provided sufficient countermeasures are in place within schools and transmission outside of schools is declining, students may return in person without causing exponential epidemic growth. Since then, as parts of the country face rising cases, many school districts, including six of the seven largest in the nation, have announced plans to restart K-12 education fully remotely. These decisions will weigh most heavily on marginalized communities and those already at highest risk of COVID-19. This report explores the health risks associated with alternative reopening strategies.
Association of sex and APOE ε4 with brain tau deposition and atrophy in older adults with Alzheimer's disease

The objective of this study was to assess the association of sex and the apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4 allele with brain tau deposition and atrophy in older adults with Alzheimer's disease (AD) using quantitative 18F-AV-1451 positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Methods: Preprocessed 18F-AV-1451 tau PET, raw T1-weighted structural MR images, demographic information, cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) total tau (t-tau) and phosphorylated tau (p-tau) measurements from 57 elderly individuals with AD were downloaded from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI) database. An iteratively reblurred Van Cittert partial volume correction (PVC) method was applied to all preprocessed PET images. MRI images were used for PET spatial normalization and gray matter volume calculation. 18F-AV-1451 PET standardized uptake value ratio (SUVR) was calculated relative to the cerebellum gray matter. The effect of sex and APOE ε4 status on SUVR and gray matter volume were assessed at both region of interest (ROI) and voxelwise levels. Results: Female APOE ε4 carriers (FACs) had significant higher 18F-AV-1451 SUVRs in the lateral temporal, parietal, posterior cingulate, medial temporal, inferior temporal, entorhinal cortex, amygdala and parahippocampal gyrus regions, and exhibited smaller gray matter volumes in the posterior cingulate, medial temporal, inferior temporal and amygdala regions, as compared to the non-FACs (NFACs) comprised of female APOE ε4 non-carriers, male APOE ε4 carriers and male APOE ε4 non-carriers. Voxelwise analysis revealed forebrain and limbic clusters with greater 18F-AV-1451 SUVRs and lower gray matter volume between FACs compared to the NFACs. Negative correlations between ROI 18F-AV-1451 SUVRs and gray matter volumes were significant after adjusting for age and years of education. Conclusions: Among elderly individuals with AD, sex modified the effects of the APOE ε4 allele on region-specific tau deposition and gray matter volume. FACs had elevated brain region-specific tau PET SUVR and decreased gray matter volume in comparison to NFACs. The study provides a basis for the use of precision medicine in the diagnosis of AD and evaluation of therapeutics using 18F-AV-1451 PET and structural MRI.
Study on the Trends & Usage of Prefabrication and Modularization: Increasing Productivity in the Construction Industry

Climate change has emerged as one of the most pressing environmental issues in recent years. The construction industry contributes to the increase in the level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in many aspects. For example, the cement sector alone accounts for 5 % of global man made CO2 emissions. Manufacturing of raw materials (e.g. cement and steel) and chemicals have considerable impact on CO2 emissions. Prefabrication systems are believed to have the potential for better environmental performance and have been adopted by the construction industry to meet the challenges posed by sustainable development. Prefabrication has been developed since the 1970s. The technologies have been further developed and improved for the past thirty years. The successful implementation of quality control and construction efficiency has been addressed with support from the public sector. The technologies however did not receive attention from the private sector since prefabrication requires dimensional coordination and standardization in the designs. Discussions on effective implementation and increase in productivity of prefabrication have been discussed. The findings provide ameliorated understanding on the best practice of the implementation of prefabrication and provide for further improvement and implementation for the industry
Effect of upregulation of DD3 on early detection and prognosis in prostate cancer

Background Expression of prostate cancer antigen 3 (PCA3 OR DD3) in the blood has been reported to be significantly higher in prostate cancer (PCa) than in benign prostate hyperplasia (BPH). To confirm whether DD3 expression is significantly different between PCa and BPH tissues, DD3 expression was tested in the blood both preoperatively and postoperatively and in the paired tissues of PCa patients. Methods Expression levels of DD3 mRNA in the blood of patients who did not undergo surgery (PCa, n=102; BPH, n=53), those underwent surgery (preoperative, n=35; postoperative, n=35), and in PCa tissue specimens (tumor, n=41; adjacent normal, n=21) were determined by real-time quantitative PCR. Sensitivity and specificity for DD3 in PCa patients were validated by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results Our data suggest that expression level of DD3 in blood samples was significantly higher in PCa patients than in BPH patients (P=0.005). Expression of DD3 mRNA was also significantly elevated in PCa tissues compared with adjacent normal tissues (P=0.013). The increase in DD3 expression in PCa patients was further validated using a dataset from The Cancer Genome Atlas (n=549). Postoperative DD3 expression decreased following surgical intervention (P<0.001). Moreover, low DD3 expression was associated with improved overall survival (OS). Using gene set enrichment analysis, DD3 expression was correlated with specific PCa target genes including carcinogenesis-related and cancer proliferation-related genes. Conclusions This study demonstrated that expression of DD3 was upregulated in blood and PCa tumor tissues and was associated with prognosis. The oncogenic role of DD3 was further validated in the TCGA database, indicating that DD3 is a potential therapeutic target for PCa. Furthermore, this study suggests that DD3 expression could be considered as a prognostic biomarker for PCa.
Coercion for the ages? A thousand years of parallel inchoative histories for the French passé simple and passé composé

This paper investigates the diachronic evolution of so-called aspectual coercion (de Swart 1998, Bary & Egg 2012) in French, with respect to two major tenses, namely the simple past (passe simple) (PS) and compound past (passe compose) (PC); it will more specifically bear on cases of inchoative readings. Throughout a study spanning several diachronic stages and capitalizing on earlier work (Caudal 2015a, Caudal 2015b, Caudal, Burnertt & Troberg 2016), it will be shown that the PC and the PS exhibit striking differences in their acquisition of inchoative coercions, with the PC consistently lagging behind the PS in some respects. Initially, at the Old French period, the PC was totally deprived of any coercive power w.r. t. states, whereas the PS already had a broader and better established inchoative coercive capability. But across subsequent stages of the language, the PS gradually increased its inchoative potential at a steady pace – although it seems to retain some difficulties with certain types of stative utterances, especially those denoting individual-level states, and locative/posture structures. While the PC has often been claimed to have largely replaced the PS, I will here show that even in Modern French, the PC seems to still have a noticeably lesser ‘inchoativizing power’ than the PS. In order words, in spite of nearly a thousand years of parallel evolution and semantic convergence, the initial semantic gap between the two forms still hasn’t been bridged. I will suggest that these consistent differences should lead us to consider so-called inchoative coercion as a distinctly conventionalized type of meaning expansion mechanism – rather than a simple matter of overcoming the violation of some aspectual semantic restriction.