Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of gall age, gall size, and rust severity on incidence of the mycoparasite Scytalidium uredinicola

Eighteen lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Dougl. ex Loud.) stands, 19-32 years in age, were surveyed for Scytalidium uredinicola Kuhlman et al. in west-central Alberta. The purpose of the study was to determine how hyperparasite incidence was affected by gall age, gall size, and the occurrence of western gall rust caused by Endocronartium harknessii (J.P. Moore) Y. Hiratsuka (Peridermium harknessii J. P. Moore). Such information was deemed valuable for evaluating the likelihood that S. uredinicola was functioning as a density-dependent constraint in the pathosystem and assessing the potential for using this fungus as a biological control agent. The hyperparasite was present in all stands, albeit at generally lower levels than previously reported, but there was little evidence that its incidence increased with increasing incidence of gall rust. The odds of hyperparasitism increased by a factor of 1.3 for each year of gall growth, following adjustment for gall size effects, and by a factor of 2.1 for each 1 c.
On the impact of clustering for IoT analytics and message broker placement across cloud and edge

With edge computing emerging as a promising solution to cope with the challenges of Internet of Things (IoT) systems, there is an increasing need to automate the deployment of large-scale applications along with the publish/subscribe brokers they communicate over. Such a placement must adjust to the resource requirements of both applications and brokers in the heterogeneous environment of edge, fog, and cloud. In contrast to prior work focusing only on the placement of applications, this paper addresses the problem of jointly placing IoT applications and the pub/sub brokers on a set of network nodes, considering an application provider who aims at minimizing total end-to-end delays of all its subscribers. More specifically, we devise two heuristics for joint deployment of brokers and applications and analyze their performance in comparison to the current cloud-based IoT solutions wherein both the IoT applications and the brokers are located solely in the cloud. As an application provider should consider not only the location of the application users but also how they are distributed across different network components, we use von Mises distributions to model the degree of clustering of the users of an IoT application. Our simulations show that superior performance of our heuristics in comparison to cloud-based IoT operation is most pronounced under a high degree of clustering. When users of an IoT application are in close network proximity of the IoT sensors, cloud-based IoT unnecessarily introduces latency to move the data from the edge to the cloud and vice versa while processing could be performed at the edge or the fog layers.
Variation in performance on two grape cultivars within and among populations of grape Phylloxera from wild and cultivated habitats

When an indigenous insect becomes a pest, comparisons of performance of pest and non‐pest populations on crop plants and of genetic variation in that performance may provide insight into the evolution of pest populations. To measure such genetic variation, 8–15 clones of the grape phylloxera (Daktulosphaira vitifoliae Fitch) were collected from wild grapevines in each of 3 geographically isolated sites (populations) and from commercial vineyards in northern California. A complete life table was made for clonal replicates from populations collected from wild grapevines on each of two commercial grape cultivars, the susceptible Vitis vinifera (L.) cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon, and the phylloxera‐resistant rootstock ‘AxR# 1’. Variation in mean performance on these two hosts was partitioned among clones within collection sites and among sites. Performance measures included an individual analog to the intrinsic rate of increase (r), age at first oviposition, fecundity in the first ten days of reproduction, total fecundity, and longevity. The overall performance of phylloxera from the wild grapevines on the resistant cultivar AxR# 1 was greater than or equal to that on the susceptible cultivar Cabernet Sauvignon. There was significant variation among clones within populations from wild grapes in the rate of increase on ‘AxR# 1’ and marginally significant clonal variation in some of the component parameters. There was no significant variation among clones within populations on ‘Cabernet Sauvignon’ and no significant differences between populations on either crop in any trait.
The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data

Objective To estimate the infection fatality rate of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) from data of seroprevalence studies. Methods Population studies with sample size of at least 500 and published as peer-reviewed papers or preprints as of May 12, 2020 were retrieved from PubMed, preprint servers, and communications with experts. Studies on blood donors were included, but studies on healthcare workers were excluded. The studies were assessed for design features and seroprevalence estimates. Infection fatality rate was estimated from each study dividing the number of COVID-19 deaths at a relevant time point by the number of estimated people infected in each relevant region. Correction was also attempted accounting for the types of antibodies assessed. Results Twelve studies were identified with usable data to enter into calculations. Seroprevalence estimates ranged from 0.113% to 25.9% and adjusted seroprevalence estimates ranged from 0.309% to 33%. Infection fatality rates ranged from 0.03% to 0.50% and corrected values ranged from 0.02% to 0.40%. Conclusions The infection fatality rate of COVID-19 can vary substantially across different locations and this may reflect differences in population age structure and case-mix of infected and deceased patients as well as multiple other factors. Estimates of infection fatality rates inferred from seroprevalence studies tend to be much lower than original speculations made in the early days of the pandemic.
Is there a link between temperatures and COVID-19 contagions? Evidence from Italy

This study analyzes the link between temperatures and COVID-19 contagions in a sample of Italian regions during the period ranging from February 24 to April 15. To that end, Bayesian Model Averaging techniques are used to analyze the relevance of the temperatures together with a set of additional climate, environmental, demographic, social and policy factors. The robustness of individual covariates is measured through posterior inclusion probabilities. The empirical analysis provides conclusive evidence on the role played by the temperatures given that it appears as the most relevant determinant of contagions. This finding is robust to (i) the prior distribution elicitation, (ii) the procedure to assign weights to the regressors, (iii) the presence of measurement errors in official data due to under-reporting, (iv) the employment of different metrics of temperatures or (v) the inclusion of additional correlates. In a second step, relative importance metrics that perform an accurate partitioning of the R2 of the model are calculated. The results of this approach support the evidence of the model averaging analysis, given that temperature is the top driver explaining 45% of regional contagion disparities. The set of policy-related factors appear in a second level of importance, whereas factors related to the degree of social connectedness or the demographic characteristics are less relevant.
Testing, tracing and isolation in compartmental models

Existing compartmental mathematical modelling methods for epidemics, such as SEIR models, cannot accurately represent effects of testing, contact tracing and isolation. This makes them inappropriate for evaluating testing and contact tracing strategies to contain an outbreak. An alternative used in practice is the application of agent- or individual-based models (ABM). However ABMs are complex, less well-understood and much more computationally expensive. This paper presents a new method for accurately including the effects of Testing, contact-Tracing and Isolation (TTI) strategies in standard compartmental models. We derive our method using a careful probabilistic argument to show how contact tracing at the individual level is reflected in aggregate on the population level. We show that the resultant SEIR-TTI model accurately approximates the behaviour of a mechanistic agent-based model at far less computational cost. The computationally efficiency is such that it be easily and cheaply used for exploratory modelling to quantify the required levels of testing and tracing, alone and with other interventions, to assist adaptive planning for managing disease outbreaks.
Cytotoxicity of Metallic Complexes of Furan Oximes in Murine and Human Tissue Cultured Cell Lines

The copper complexes of 2-furaldehyde and furan oximes have previously demonstrated potent cytotoxicity, L1210 DNA synthesis inhibition, DNA topoisomerase II inhibition and DNA fragmentation. Currently a series of cobalt metal complexes of 2-furaldehyde oximes were compared with copper complexes of furan oximes to determine whether the type of metal is important to the cytotoxicity and mode of action of the complexes. The cobalt complexes of furan oximes, like the copper complexes, were shown to be cytotoxic to suspended tumor cell lines, e.g. leukemias, lymphomas, acute monocytic leukemia and HeLa-S3 uterine carcinoma. The cobalt complexes did not demonstrate dramatic cytotoxicity against the growth of tumors derived from solid human tumor lines. The cobalt complexes preferentially inhibited L1210 DNA synthesis, followed by inhibition of RNA and protein synthesis from 25 to 100 µM over 60 min. These agents, like the copper complexes of 2-furaldehyde and furan oximes, were inhibitors of DNA polymerase α activity and de novo purine synthesis with marginal inhibition of ribonucleoside reductase and dihydrofolate reductase activities with DNA fragmentation. Unlike the copper complexes, the cobalt complexes did not inhibit L1210 DNA topoisomerase II activity but did reduce thymidylate synthetase activity. Thus, varying the type of metal within the complexes of 2-furaldehyde and furan oximes produces differences in both cytotoxicity and mode of action. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
Stabilizing Effect of Ascorbic Acid on Green Tea Catechins

Green tea catechins (GTCs) as a mixture of (−)-epicatechin (EC), (−)-epicatechin gallate (ECG), (−)-epigallocatechin (EGC), and (−)-epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) possess a variety of biological activities. We have previously studied the stability of GTCs either as a mixture or as individual epicatechin derivatives in various pH, demonstrating that GTCs as a mixture in alkaline solutions were extremely unstable and degraded almost completely in a few minutes, whereas in acidic solutions (pH < 4) they were very stable. For the pH ranging from 4 to 7, the stability of GTCs was inversely associated with the pH value of the incubation solutions. The present study examined the effect of ascorbic acid and citric acid on the stability of GTCs incubated in sodium phosphate buffer (pH = 7.42). Ascorbic acid added to the incubation mixture significantly increased the stability of GTCs whereas citric acid exhibited no effect. Four epicatechin derivatives examined demonstrated varying stability, with EGCG and EGC be.
Modulation of Inflammation by Extracellular Granzyme A

Granzyme A (GrA) has long been recognized as one of the key players in the induction of cell death of neoplastic, foreign or infected cells after granule delivery by cytotoxic cells. While the cytotoxic potential of GrA is controversial in current literature, accumulating evidence now indicates roles for extracellular GrA in modulating inflammation and inflammatory diseases. This paper aims to explore the literature presenting current knowledge on GrA as an extracellular modulator of inflammation by summarizing (i) the presence and role of extracellular GrA in several inflammatory diseases, and (ii) the potential molecular mechanisms of extracellular GrA in augmenting inflammation.
Shear Bands in Monolithic Metallic Glasses: Experiment, Theory, and Modeling

For applications, metallic glasses need to retain their high strength over enhanced strain ranges. However, many metallic glasses show catastrophic failure, even in or close to the end of the regime that conventionally has been thought to be elastic. Recent observations of irreversible events at low strains shed some doubt on this nomenclature. In fact, these observations indicate that although the macroscopic response indicates elastic behavior, the microscopic processes might at least partially be irreversible and time-dependent. In that respect, shear bands as the result of shear localization and as the cause of shear softening play a decisive role with respect to the performance of metallic glasses under mechanical load. Therefore, in this work, we are aiming at understanding the correlations between glass structure, glass properties and the thermomechanical history of the glass including the shear bands on one hand and the plastic yielding on the other hand. Various attempts have been made to explain or model the response of metallic glasses to externally applied shear stresses. Hypotheses have been put forward concerning the impact of materials parameters or structural aspects that might favor homogeneous plastic flow. Additionally, scenarios have been suggested for the early stages of anelastic and plastic deformation as well as for the transition to localization and shear band formation/activation. In this contribution, we present a focused viewpoint both from theory and modeling as well as an experimental perspective set on the structure and properties of glasses under shear, with a special focus on shear banding. We also discuss the impact of the local structure of glasses (that depend on the synthesis and processing path-way) in terms of their medium range order. The impact of chemical composition (including microalloying effects) on kinetic properties of shear bands and elasto-plastic properties (Poisson's ratio and three-point bending) is evaluated. These aspects have seen relatively sparse coverage, but are of far-reaching consequences concerning the properties of glasses under mechanical stress. Moreover, these aspects can reveal new insight into the underlying dominant mechanisms and, equally important, allow also to infer about the early stages of strain localization and to analyze the impact of structural heterogeneity or processing conditions on plastic yielding.
Describing the Individual Spore Variability and the Parameter Uncertainty in Bacterial Survival Kinetics Model by Using Second-Order Monte Carlo Simulation

The objective of this study was to separately describe the fitting uncertainty and the variability of individual cell in bacterial survival kinetics during isothermal and non-isothermal thermal processing. The model describing bacterial survival behavior and its uncertainties and variabilities during non-isothermal inactivation was developed from survival kinetic data for Bacillus simplex spores under fifteen isothermal conditions. The fitting uncertainties in the parameters used in the primary Weibull model was described by using the bootstrap method. The variability of individual cells in thermotolerance and the true randomness in the number of dead cells were described by using the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method. A second-order Monte Carlo (2DMC) model was developed by combining both the uncertainties and variabilities. The 2DMC model was compared with reduction behavior under three non-isothermal profiles for model validation. The bacterial death estimations were validated using experimentally observed surviving bacterial count data. The fitting uncertainties in the primary Weibull model parameters, the individual thermotolerance heterogeneity, and the true randomness of inactivated spore counts were successfully described under all the iso-thermal conditions. Furthermore, the 2DMC model successfully described the variances in the surviving bacterial counts during thermal inactivation for all three non-isothermal profiles. As a template for risk-based process designs, the proposed 2DMC simulation approach, which considers both uncertainty and variability, can facilitate the selection of appropriate thermal processing conditions ensuring both food safety and quality.
Overwinter distribution of northern pintail populations in North America

Northern pintails (Anas acuta) exist as a single circumpolar breeding population but display weak fidelity to given breeding sites. If fidelity to wintering areas is strong, management on wintering grounds may allow local winter populations to increase. Thus, I delineated reference areas for wintering areas based on recovery data for pintails banded during the winter (Dec-Feb) in the United States. Fidelity to these reference areas varied with the strongest fidelity observed for pintails banded in areas along coastal areas or near large bodies of water such as western Washington-northwestern Oregon, central Calilornia, northwestern Utah, the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast, and the Greater Chesapeake Bay Region
Differential Expression of Acid – Sensing Ion Channels in Mouse Primary Afferents in Naïve and Injured Conditions

Injury and inflammation cause tissue acidosis, which is a common feature of various painful conditions. Acid-Sensing Ion channels (ASICs) are amongst the main excitatory channels activated by extracellular protons and expressed in the nervous system. Six transcripts of ASIC subunits including ASIC1a, ASIC1b, ASIC2a, ASIC2b, ASIC3, and ASIC4 are encoded by four genes (Asic1–4) and have been identified in rodents. Most ASIC subunits are present at substantial levels in primary sensory neurons of dorsal root ganglia (DRG) except for ASIC4. However, their expression pattern in DRG neurons remains largely unclear, mainly due to the lack of antibodies with appropriate specificity. In this study, we examined in detail the expression pattern of ASIC1-3 subunits, including splice variants, in different populations of DRG neurons in adult mice using an in situ hybridization technique (RNAscope) with high sensitivity and specificity. We found that in naïve condition, all five subunits examined were expressed in the majority of myelinated, NF200-immunoreactive, DRG neurons (NF200+). However, ASIC subunits showed a very different expression pattern among non-myelinated DRG neuronal subpopulations: ASIC1 and ASIC3 were only expressed in CGRP-immunoreactive neurons (CGRP+), ASIC2a was mostly expressed in the majority of IB4-binding neurons (IB4+), while ASIC2b was expressed in almost all non-myelinated DRG neurons. We also found that at least half of sensory neurons expressed multiple types of ASIC subunits, indicating prevalence of heteromeric channels. In mice with peripheral nerve injury, the expression level of ASIC1a and ASIC1b in L4 DRG and ASIC3 in L5 DRG were altered in CGRP+ neurons, but not in IB4+ neurons. Furthermore, the pattern of change varied among DRGs depending on their segmental level, which pointed to differential regulatory mechanisms between afferent types and anatomical location. The distinct expression pattern of ASIC transcripts in naïve condition, and the differential regulation of ASIC subunits after peripheral nerve injury, suggest that ASIC subunits are involved in separate sensory modalities.
Resistência ao impacto da madeira de nogueira-pecã em diferentes condições de umidade

The studies of wood impact strength refers to the efficiency of this material in absorb impact energy and dissipate it without structural damages. The present study aimed to evaluate the influence of moisture content on the impact strength of nogueira-peca (Carya illinoinensis) wood. For this, trees from two physiographic regions of state of Rio Grande do Sul were used. The samples, stabilized at 12% of moisture content and in green conditions (saturated), were submitted to impact tests through a CHARPY pendulum, and were evaluated for the resistance to the application of loads in the tangential and radial sections, and in the positions of the log (pith-bark) for the two physiographic regions at each moisture condition. Moreover, the apparent specific gravity at 12% and in green conditions (saturated), the absorbed work, the resilience coefficient and the dynamic quote were determined. The main results showed that the nogueira-peca wood is more resistant to the impact when it is in green conditions.
Sorption isotherms and glass transition temperatures of fish protein hydrolysates with different degrees of hydrolysis

Abstract The objective of this research was the determination of the sorption isotherms and glass transition temperatures of five protein hydrolysates with different degrees of hydrolysis (DH). The hydrolysates were obtained by proteolysis of concentrated myofibrillar proteins obtained from Nile tilapia (Oreochromus niloticus) using the enzyme Flavourzyme™. There was no significant difference between the different isotherms. Agglomeration and/or compactation was observed in all samples stored in atmospheres with relative humidities (RH) of. 57%. The glass transition temperature (Tg) of the hydrolysates, determined by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), diminished with increasing moisture content, showing values between 1° and 55°C for moisture values between 17 and 6 g water/100g solids. Contrary to what has been reported in the literature, the increase in degree of hydrolysis of the hydrolysates was not reflected in a decrease in Tg. It was observed that Tg increased with increasing DH, when the hyd.
miR-223: A Key Regulator in the Innate Immune Response in Asthma and COPD

Asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) are chronic obstructive respiratory diseases characterized by airway obstruction, inflammation, and remodeling. Recent findings indicate the importance of microRNAs (miRNAs) in the regulation of pathological processes involved in both diseases. MiRNAs have been implicated in a wide array of biological processes, such as inflammation, cell proliferation, differentiation, and death. MiR-223 is one of the miRNAs that is thought to play a role in obstructive lung disease as altered expression levels have been observed in both asthma and COPD. MiR-223 is a hematopoietic cell–derived miRNA that plays a role in regulation of monocyte-macrophage differentiation, neutrophil recruitment, and pro-inflammatory responses and that can be transferred to non-myeloid cells via extracellular vesicles or lipoproteins. In this translational review, we highlight the role of miR-223 in obstructive respiratory diseases, focusing on expression data in clinical samples of asthma and COPD, in vivo experiments in mouse models and in vitro functional studies. Furthermore, we provide an overview of the mechanisms by which miR-223 regulates gene expression. We specifically focus on immune cell development and activation and involvement in immune responses, which are important in asthma and COPD. Collectively, this review demonstrates the importance of miR-223 in obstructive respiratory diseases and explores its therapeutic potential in the pathogenesis of asthma and COPD.