Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Patterns and correlates of movement and site fidelity in individually tagged young-of-the-year Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar)

The literature on stream fish movement offers diverse views on the patterns (restricted vs. nonrestricted), causes (competition vs. habitat use), and consequences (mobile fish of lower vs. equal fitness) of movement. We tagged 320 young-of-the-year Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) (30.1-55.3 mm), using relatively noninvasive tagging (elastomers) and recovery (snorkeling) techniques, to test these alternative views. Most fish (mean = 63.8%) stayed in the study sites (10-120 m) throughout their respective study season (28-74 days). Of the resighted fish, 61.8% moved less than 1 m up- or down-stream and only three fish moved more than 10 m, causing extremely leptokurtic movement curves. Movement and site fidelity were weakly affected by habitat use and competition. Fish originally found in slow water moved farther than fish from fast water, whereas fish found at high population densities were more likely to disappear than fish from low densities. Finally, mobile fish grew as fast or faster than more sedentary fish, supporting the idea that movement can be advantageous and is not just a by-product of density-dependent population regulation. Resume : La litterature scientifique sur les deplacements des poissons en eau courante fournit des perspectives diverses sur les structures (confinement vs. ouverture), les causes (competition vs. utilisation de l'habitat) et les consequences (poissons mobiles de fitness inferieur vs. fitness egal) des deplacements. Nous avons marque 320 saumons de l'Atlantique (Salmo salar) de l'annee et utilise des techniques relativement inoffensives de marquage (elastomeres) et de recapture (plongee en apnee) pour evaluer ces differentes perspectives. La plupart des poissons (moyenne = 63,8 %) sont demeures aux sites d'etude (10-120 m) durant la duree de leur etude respective (28-74 jours). Parmi les poissons retraces, 61,8 % s'etaient deplaces de moins d e1mv ers l'amont ou vers l'aval et seulement trois poissons avaient parcouru plus de 10 m, ce qui a produit des courbes de deplacement a leptocurtose extreme. L'utilisation de l'habitat et la competition affectent peu les deplacements et la fidelite au site. Les poissons trouves au depart en eau lente se deplacent plus loin que les pois- sons provenant d'eau rapide; de meme, les poissons originaires de sites a forte densite de population sont plus suscepti- bles de disparaitre que les poissons de sites a faible densite. Enfin, les poissons mobiles croissent aussi rapidement, sinon plus rapidement, que les poissons sedentaires, ce qui laisse croire que les deplacement peuvent apporter des avantages et qu'ils ne sont pas seulement les resultats indirects d'un controle de la population relie a la densite. (Traduit par la Redaction) Steingrimsson and Grant 202
LACTOFERRIN AND IMMUNOGLOBULIN G CONTENT IN COW MILK IN RELATION TO SOMATIC CELL COUNT AND NUMBER OF LACTATIONS

Dairy cattle vary considerably in their susceptibility to mastitis, perhaps due to innate levels of milk antimicrobial proteins. The aim of the study was to evaluate the amount of chosen antimicrobial proteins, i.e. lactoferrin (LTF) and immunoglobulin G (IgG) in cow milk in relation to somatic cell count (SCC), and number of lactations. Milk samples were collected from individual udder quarters from thirty selected normal lactating cows. Milk samples were obtained from quarters of 1st (n = 32), 2nd (n = 44) and 3rd (n = 44) lactations. The quarters health status was set on the base of SCC in milk. The affected udder quarters showed increased concentration of LTF and IgG by 17 % and 15 % respectively, in compare to healthy quarters (P < 0.05). Evaluation of the influence of the lactations number on the distribution of antimicrobial proteins in the milk showed that the highest concentrations of LTF (0.08 mg/mL) occur in first-calf heifers and IgG (0.3 mg/mL) in second lactation cows. Analysis of the relations between the health status of udder quarters established by SCC in milk and antimicrobial proteins showed a strong positive correlation between LTF and IgG in quarters affected by inflammation (r = 0.817; P < 0.05).
EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS ON FINANCIAL PERFORMANCE OF LISTED FIRMS IN COMMERCIAL AND SERVICE SECTOR IN KENYA: CORPORATE BOARDS, DO THEY MATTER?

Corporate boards are tasked with overall financial performance of firms under commercial and service sector which have for decades been at the centre of driving the economies of the developing nations as evidenced through the tremendous growth in the private sector credit over time. Unfortunately, commercial and service sector in Kenya has been witnessing a slow growth for the last five years topping the list of firms selling off their assets to cater for operational expenses. To realize better and improved financial performance however, it is vital to understand the nature and composition of these boards that have shown great interest in shifting towards asset-light business models to remain afloat. These actions have left shareholders with some of the worst wealth destruction experience ever seen at Nairobi Securities Exchange (NSE). Therefore, this study aimed at establishing the empirical relationship between board characteristics and financial performance of commercial and service sector in Kenya. The study used the base data collected from the NSE reports which has all the annual reports of the listed firms under commercial and service sector as at December 2015. The study employed a panel data estimation technique with application of Hausman specification test which preferred Fixed Effects Regression Model as opposed to Random Effects GLS model in estimation. Significance was tested at 5% level. From the study results, both board size and board diligence were shown to significantly increase firm financial performance while gender diversity led to a significant decline in firm financial performance. Based on the results, the study recommends for considerable proportion of directors in board since these managers have a better appreciation of the business and can therefore make better decisions. Also, there is need for more board meetings undertaken by directors to solve emerging organizational problem as they were associated with increased financial performance and finally, firms need to set up a department which will facilitate affirmative action through research to have appropriate incorporation of both gender as it was associated with improved financial performance.
Speciation of Uranium and Arsenic Sorbed onto Scrap Metallic Iron and Shewanella putrefaciens Surfaces: A XANES Fingerprinting In- vestigation

The effective design, operation, long term maintenance, performance evaluation and troubleshooting of a permeable reactive barrier filled with elemental iron in mitigating uranium and arsenic require sound understanding of both toxins sorption mechanisms and related mass exchange reactions. To date however, both uranium and arsenic sorption onto zero valent iron (ZVI) is described by seemingly contradictory reaction mechanisms. This paper discusses the mechanisms of uranium sorption onto scrap metallic iron and the versatile bacterium Shewanella putrefaciens surfaces in the presence of arsenic based on X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) fingerprinting. Bulk U L3 and As Kedges X-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectra from solid samples of batch sorption experiment were recorded at the INE-Beamline for Actinide Research at the ANKA synchrotron radiation facility.
Detection of SARS‐CoV‐2 in pets living with COVID‐19 owners diagnosed during the COVID‐19 lockdown in Spain: A case of an asymptomatic cat with SARS‐CoV‐2 in Europe

During April-May 2020, the presence of respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in pets living with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) owners was analyzed. From 23 pets, a cat without clinical symptoms showed positive results for SARS-CoV-2 in oropharyngeal swab using three RT-qPCR assays (negative rectal swab). SARS-CoV-2 was not detected in the remaining pets. Our finding suggests that cats may act as asymptomatic dispersers of SARS-CoV-2, although viral transmission from animals to humans seems unlikely.
A new semiselective medium for the isolation of Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris from crucifer seeds

Antibiotics were evaluated for inclusion in a semiselective medium for isolation of Xanthomonas campestris pv. campestris from crucifer seed. Ampicillin, penicillin G, and tetracycline completely inhibited the growth of X. c. campestris B-24 at 6.25 μg/ml or less, whereas carbenicillin, cephalothin, gentamicin, and kanamycin inhibited X. c. campestris at 25−80 μg/ml. Bacitracin, neomycin, and streptomycin were least inhibitory with the minimal inhibitory concentrations at >400, 160, and 640 μg/ml, respectively. CS20ABN medium was developed by incorporation of bacitracin, neomycin, and cycloheximide at 100, 40, and 100 μg/ml, respectively, into CS20A (.)
Mortalité des Lapereaux au Nid

HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access archive for the deposit and dissemination of scientific research documents, whether they are published or not. The documents may come from teaching and research institutions in France or abroad, or from public or private research centers. L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires publics ou privés. Mortalité des Lapereaux au Nid A. Delaveau, G. Lemoine, J. P. Coulmin
Phosphoglucose isomerase genotype affects life‐history traits and cold stress resistance in a Copper butterfly

1. Accumulating evidence suggests that the phosphoglucose isomerase (PGI) locus is under thermal selection. In the Copper butterfly Lycaena tityrus PGI allele frequencies show altitudinal variation, with a single genotype occurring in c. 90% of high-altitude animals. In low-altitude populations variation at this locus is much higher. 2. Here, we investigate variation in life-history traits and temperature stress resistance across PGI genotypes in L. tityrus from different lowland populations reared at two temperatures (19 and 24 °C). 3. PGI genotype significantly affected larval and pupal development time, growth rate, pupal mass and chill-coma recovery time, but had no effect on heat knock-down resistance. The latter suggests that heat and cold stress resistance are based on differential mechanisms. 4. As expected temperature also influenced all traits under investigation, its effect being more pronounced compared to that of PGI genotype (except for pupal mass). 5. Patterns found for the PGI genotype dominating in high-altitude populations were consistent with those found for high-altitude animals. Therefore, and because of the direct link between PGI genotype and cold stress resistance, we conclude that PGI is likely to contribute to thermal adaptation in L. tityrus. 6. Genotypes promoting rapid development and largest body size were rather rare, suggesting weak selection on both traits and/or rather high associated costs.
Implications for seabirds off South Africa of a long-term change in the distribution of sardine

From 1997 to 2005, the distribution of sardine Sardinops sagax, an important prey item for four seabirds off South Africa, shifted 400 km to the south and east, influencing its availability to breeding birds. It became progressively less available to seabirds in the Western Cape Province, where the number of African penguins Spheniscus demersus breeding decreased by 45% between 2004 and 2006, survival of adult penguins decreased and penguins established a new eastern colony in 2003. In that province, the number of Cape gannets Morus capensis breeding decreased by 38% between 2001/2002 and 2005/2006 and the contribution of sardine to the diet of gannets fell from an average of 40% during the period 1987–2003 to 5–7% in 2005 and 2006. The proportions of Cape cormorants Phalacrocorax capensis and swift terns Sterna bergii breeding in the south of the province increased as sardine moved south and east. In the Eastern Cape Province, the number of penguins breeding halved between 2001 and 2003, whereas after 2002 there was an increase in the number of Cape gannets that bred and in the contribution of sardine to their diet. It is likely that in that province sardine became increasingly available to gannets but remained beyond the shorter feeding range of penguins. Management measures that may mitigate the impacts on seabirds of an unfavourable, long-term change in the distribution of their prey include the provision of breeding habitat where prey is abundant, spatial management of fisheries competing for prey, and interventions aimed at limiting mortality.
Enhanced Soybean Plant Growth Resulting from Coinoculation of Bacillus Strains with Bradyrhizobium japonicum

Nodulation and subsequent nitrogen fixation by soybean [Glycine max (L.) Merr. ] plants are inhibited by low root zone temperatures (RZTs). Plant growth promoting bacteria can help overcome these deleterious effects. Three Bacillus strains, B. subtilis NEB4 and NEB5 and B. thuringiensis NEB17, were isolated from inside the nodules of vigorous field-grown soybean plants in 1998, and were shown to have plant growth promoting activity on pouch-grown soybean plants under greenhouse conditions. To test their ability to improve soybean nodulation and growth under low RZTs, these strains were coinoculated onto soybean plants, with Bradyrhizobium japonicum, under greenhouse conditions at RZTs of 25, 17, and 15°C, and under field conditions in a short growing season area. In all cases, the experiments were conducted with soybean cultivar OAC Bayfield. All the three Bacillus strains enhanced soybean nodulation and growth in greenhouse and field experiments. Coinoculation with NEB17 provided the largest and most consistent increases in nodule number, nodule weight, shoot weight, root weight, total biomass, total nitrogen, and grain yield. The other two strains provided positive responses in only 1 of the 2 yr of field-testing. Thus, B. thuringiensis NEB17 would be suitable for use as a plant growth promoting bacterial strain in soybean production systems in short growing season regions.
Unsupervised Quality Estimation for Neural Machine Translation

Abstract Quality Estimation (QE) is an important component in making Machine Translation (MT) useful in real-world applications, as it is aimed to inform the user on the quality of the MT output at test time. Existing approaches require large amounts of expert annotated data, computation, and time for training. As an alternative, we devise an unsupervised approach to QE where no training or access to additional resources besides the MT system itself is required. Different from most of the current work that treats the MT system as a black box, we explore useful information that can be extracted from the MT system as a by-product of translation. By utilizing methods for uncertainty quantification, we achieve very good correlation with human judgments of quality, rivaling state-of-the-art supervised QE models. To evaluate our approach we collect the first dataset that enables work on both black-box and glass-box approaches to QE.
Worse WER, but Better BLEU? Leveraging Word Embedding as Intermediate in Multitask End-to-End Speech Translation

Speech translation (ST) aims to learn transformations from speech in the source language to the text in the target language. Previous works show that multitask learning improves the ST performance, in which the recognition decoder generates the text of the source language, and the translation decoder obtains the final translations based on the output of the recognition decoder. Because whether the output of the recognition decoder has the correct semantics is more critical than its accuracy, we propose to improve the multitask ST model by utilizing word embedding as the intermediate.
Hybrid Melon Development

Summary Melons are an unavoidable item of western dietary. It is an unique crop where in one hand several pollination control mechanism, viz., genic male sterility, monoecy and gynoecy are available and had been exploited successfully for the commercial hybrid seed production, whereas in other hand most of the varieties had been developed through conventional breeding by continuous inbreeding and selection without loosing vigor, which is usually unexpected in cross-pollinated crop. The crop is highly affected with insect pest and diseases. The studies have been made on these aspects and the varieties are released for their commercial exploitation.
An adaptive quantum approximate optimization algorithm for solving combinatorial problems on a quantum computer

The quantum approximate optimization algorithm (QAOA) is a hybrid variational quantum-classical algorithm that solves combinatorial optimization problems. While there is evidence suggesting that the fixed form of the original QAOA ansatz is not optimal, there is no systematic approach for finding better ansatze. We address this problem by developing an iterative version of QAOA that is problem-tailored, and which can also be adapted to specific hardware constraints. We simulate the algorithm on a class of Max-Cut graph problems and show that it converges much faster than the original QAOA, while simultaneously reducing the required number of CNOT gates and optimization parameters.
Cloud structures in M 17 SWex : Possible cloud–cloud collision

Using wide-field $^{13}$CO ($J=1-0$) data taken with the Nobeyama 45-m telescope, we investigate cloud structures of the infrared dark cloud complex in M17 with SCIMES. In total, we identified 118 clouds that contain 11 large clouds with radii larger than 1 pc. The clouds are mainly distributed in the two representative velocity ranges of 10 $-$ 20 km s$^{-1}$ and 30 $-$ 40 km s$^{-1}$. By comparing with the ATLASGAL catalog, we found that the majority of the $^{13}$CO clouds with 10 $-$ 20 km s$^{-1}$ and 30 $-$ 40 km s$^{-1}$ are likely located at distances of 2 kpc (Sagittarius arm) and 3 kpc (Scutum arm), respectively. Analyzing the spatial configuration of the identified clouds and their velocity structures, we attempt to reveal the origin of the cloud structure in this region. Here we discuss three possibilities: (1) overlapping with different velocities, (2) cloud oscillation, and (3) cloud-cloud collision. From the position-velocity diagrams, we found spatially-extended faint emission between $\sim$ 20 km s$^{-1}$ and $\sim$ 35 km s$^{-1}$, which is mainly distributed in the spatially-overlapped areas of the clouds. We also found that in some areas where clouds with different velocities overlapped, the magnetic field orientation changes abruptly. The distribution of the diffuse emission in the position-position-velocity space and the bending magnetic fields appear to favor the cloud-cloud collision scenario compared to other scenarios. In the cloud-cloud collision scenario, we propose that two $\sim$35 km s$^{-1}$ foreground clouds are colliding with clouds at $\sim$20 km s$^{-1}$ with a relative velocity of 15 km s$^{-1}$. These clouds may be substructures of two larger clouds having velocities of $\sim$ 35 km s$^{-1}$ ($\gtrsim 10^3 $ M$_{\odot}$) and $\sim$ 20 km s$^{-1}$ ($\gtrsim 10^4 $ M$_{\odot}$), respectively.
Triple-GAIL: A Multi-Modal Imitation Learning Framework with Generative Adversarial Nets

Generative adversarial imitation learning (GAIL) has shown promising results by taking advantage of generative adversarial nets, especially in the field of robot learning. However, the requirement of isolated single modal demonstrations limits the scalability of the approach to real world scenarios such as autonomous vehicles' demand for a proper understanding of human drivers' behavior. In this paper, we propose a novel multi-modal GAIL framework, named Triple-GAIL, that is able to learn skill selection and imitation jointly from both expert demonstrations and continuously generated experiences with data augmentation purpose by introducing an auxiliary selector. We provide theoretical guarantees on the convergence to optima for both of the generator and the selector respectively. Experiments on real driver trajectories and real-time strategy game datasets demonstrate that Triple-GAIL can better fit multi-modal behaviors close to the demonstrators and outperforms state-of-the-art methods.
Influência da ordem e estádios da lactação no perfil bioquímico sangüíneo de cabras da raça Saanen

The serum biochemical profile of Saanen dairy goat was investigated with the purpose of analyzing the physiological variations and the influence of lactation order and stage in terms of possible biomarkers to monitor the energetic balance and the metabolic adequacy during lactation. Blood samples were taken from lactating goats at first, second and third lactation. They were collected from the jugular vein in a vacutainer tube with separator gel to obtain sera and to determine protein, metabolite, mineral and enzyme concentrations. The lactation order influence was observed on total protein, glucose, triglycerides, total and ionized calcium, aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alkaline phosphatase values and the lactation stages on serum concentrations of total proteins, glucose, triglycerides and magnesium, AST and alkaline phosphatase. It was inferred that glucose, triglycerides, total calcium, ionized calcium, magnesium, AST and alkaline phosphatase are effective biomarkers to detect the energetic and mineral imbalance in Saanen dairy goats.
Wobbly discs – corrugations seen in the dust lanes of edge-on galaxies

We report the detection of small scale bending waves, also known as corrugations, in the dust lanes of five nearby edge-on disc galaxies. This phenomenon, where the disc mid-plane bends to become wavy, just as in warps but on a smaller scale, is seen here for the first time, in the dust lanes running across the discs. Because they are seen in absorption, this feature must be present in the dust disc in the outskirts of these galaxies. We enhance the visibility of these features using unsharp masking, trace the dust mid-plane across the disc, measure the corrugation amplitude by eye and the corrugation wavelength using Fourier analysis. The corrugation amplitude is found to be in the range of 70 - 200 pc and the wavelengths lie between 1 - 5 kpc. In this limited sample, we find that the amplitude of the corrugations tends to be larger for lower mass galaxies, whereas the wavelength of corrugation does not seem to depend on the mass of host galaxies. Linear stability analysis is performed to find out the dynamical state of these dust discs. Based on WKB analysis, we find that the dust corrugations in about half of our sample are stable. Further analysis, on a larger sample would be useful to strengthen the above results.
The explicit formula for Gauss-Jordan elimination and error analysis

The explicit formula for the elements of the successive intermediate matrices of the Gauss-Jordan elimination procedure is used for error analysis in the case that the procedure is applied to systems of linear equations. Stability conditions in terms of relative precision and size of determinants are given, such that the Gauss-Jordan procedure leads to a solution respecting the original imprecisions in the right-hand member. The solution is the same as given by Cramer's Rule. We model imprecisions with the help of non-standard analysis. A direct proof by induction is given of the explicit formula for the intermediate matrices.