Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Movements of Echidnas, Tachyglossus aculeatus, Determined by Marking-Recapture and Radio-tracking

Marking-recapture studies have confirmed that echidnas stay within a suitable habitat. Radiotracking studies showed that they have a definite home range with a diameter in the order of 800 m, which may overlap with that of a number of conspecifics. Neither males nor females without young used a specific site during inactive periods, although certain sites offering good cover were re-used during the winter season. Daily activity periods varied throughout the year and correlated more with ambient temperature than with photoperiod.
Effects of land use on water chemistry and macroinvertebrates in two streams of the Piracicaba river basin, south-east Brazil.

SUMMARY 1. Several studies have shown that land use has a strong influence on river chemistry and its biotic components. Most of these studies focused on nitrogen in temperate American and European catchments. Much less is known about the relationship between stream conditions and land use in tropical areas of developing countries. 2. Besides climate, there are three important differences between attributes of temperate and tropical catchments: non-point sources are the dominant contributor of pollution in USA, whereas point source pollution is the most important in our study; use of fertilizer is much smaller in developing countries, and the type of agriculture and management practices are distinct. 3. We test whether the chemical composition of streams and their macroinvertebrate communities can be related to land use. Accordingly, we compared the variability of chemical composition and macroinvertebrate communities in the streams of two catchments (Pisca and Cabras) belonging to the same ecoregion, but having different types of land use. 4. The main land use in the Pisca catchment in 1993 was sugar cane (62%), followed by pasture (22%) and urban centres (10%). In contrast, the main land use in the Cabras catchment was pasture (60%), followed by annual crops (13%) and forest (10%); urban centres occupied only 2% of the catchment. 5. In the Cabras catchment, most of the parameters correlated with a land use index (LUI) (Fig. 2). However, only conductivity, major cations and major anions (with exception of sulfate) had a statistically significant correlation coefficient. More than 90% of the variance was explained for these parameters. DIC, NO3 and richness of invertebrates (RI) also strongly correlated with LUI (R 2 = 0.75), although these correlation coefficients were not significant. Total suspended solids (TSS) had a significant correlation with LUI (R 2 = 0.98), but, the correlation was inverse. In the Pisca catchment, conductivity, major cations (with exception of potassium), major anions, and DIC, DO, and DOC had a strong and statistically significant correlation with LUI. Correlation coefficients were also high for respiration rate, although the correlation was not statistically significant.
Fish Prey Selection by the Common Kingfisher Alcedo atthis in Northern Iberia

Abstract. The Common Kingfisher Alcedo atthis is a fish-eating predatory bird that is reported to prey mainly on pelagic, benthic, or both types of fish prey. It still remains unclear whether the species has the capacity to prey indistinctly on all types of fish, regardless of their position within the water column. The aim of our study was to test if kingfishers are able to select particular fish prey or if, by contrast, they feed on the most abundant and accessible fish. We identified the fish prey consumed by kingfishers at 14 nests in total, and also sampled, using electrofishing surveys, fish prey availability on the river stretches where the nests were located. We used Savage's index in order to check whether there was prey selection. Overall, kingfishers preyed upon eight fish species: Bermejuela Acondrostoma arcasii, Bleak Alburnus alburnus, Pyrenean Stone Loach Barbatula quignardi, Ebro Barbel Luciobarbus graellsii, Pyrenean Gudgeon Gobio lozanoi, Ebro Nase Parachondrostoma miegii, Pyrenean Minnow Phoxinus bigerri, and Brown Trout Salmo trutta. The most consumed prey were pelagic species (Pyrenean Minnow and Brown Trout). These results suggest that the Kingfisher preys on pelagic species because of their accessibility and avoids bottom-dwelling species, which may remain hidden from this predator, kingfishers preyed mostly on fish of 50 to 60 mm in length, but mean size values varied prey-specifically, possibly because of the vertical specific distribution in relation to the fish age and species and, finally, prey availability.
A Metric Learning Approach to Misogyny Categorization

The task of automatic misogyny identification and categorization has not received as much attention as other natural language tasks have, even though it is crucial for identifying hate speech in social Internet interactions. In this work, we address this sentence classification task from a representation learning perspective, using both a bidirectional LSTM and BERT optimized with the following metric learning loss functions: contrastive loss, triplet loss, center loss, congenerous cosine loss and additive angular margin loss. We set new state-of-the-art for the task with our fine-tuned BERT, whose sentence embeddings can be compared with a simple cosine distance, and we release all our code as open source for easy reproducibility. Moreover, we find that almost every loss function performs equally well in this setting, matching the regular cross entropy loss.
Viability of Neotyphodium endophytic fungus and endophyte-infected and noninfected Lolium multiflorum seeds

Neotyphodium endophyte fungi are vertically transmitted symbionts of cool-season grasses. The seed phase of the grass’ life cycle appears to be critical for the persistence of the fungus. Endophyte viability decreases faster than seed viability, but little is known of the effects of this endophyte on seed viability. The endophyte could affect seed viability through changes in water content. Here, we assessed the effects of the endophyte on seed viability, the differential survival of endophyte and seed, and the effects of infection on seed water content. Viability of endophyte-infected and noninfected seeds and endophyte were evaluated over a period of 729 d under 12 controlled environmental conditions. Seed viability was reduced by the infection at high temperature and high relative humidity, but not under other conditions. Moreover, endophyte viability decreased faster than seed viability only under high humidity or high temperature. Seed water content was not affected by endophyte presence. The proport.
Unusual Thermal Stability of Soybean Peroxidase

Soybean peroxidase (SBP) has an extremely high melting temperature of 90.5 °C at pH 8.0 in the presence of 1 mM CaCl2. The enzyme is substantially more thermostable than the peroxidases from horseradish (HRP) and Coprinus cinereus (CIP). SBP denaturation does not precisely fit the two‐state denaturation model due to the formation of the apoenzyme upon initial melting. A pseudo‐two‐state denaturation can be assumed, however, and this gives rise to apparent kinetics for irreversible inactivation. The apparent kinetics indicate that irreversible deactivation is comprised primarily of enthalpic contributions, with ΔH‡deact = 22.4 kcal/mol and TΔS‡deact = 0.2 kcal/mol at 95 °C. Heme transfer studies from the peroxidases to apomyoglobin indicate that SBP holds onto its heme much more tightly than does HRP, and this is consistent with a thermodynamically more stable enzyme.
Net woody vegetation increase confined to seasonally inundated lowlands in an Australian tropical savanna, Victoria River District, Northern Territory

Abstract Georeferenced digital aerial photographs were used to assess changes in overstorey vegetation cover since 1948 in the Victoria River District, Northern Territory, Australia, across a range of lowland tropical savanna habitats and with explicit consideration of known and variable site‐specific grazing and fire management histories. Vegetation surveys at corresponding locations on the ground identified five distinct woody vegetation communities defined primarily by water drainage and secondarily by soil characteristics. Air‐photo analyses revealed that, contrary to popular perceptions and in contrast to results from other habitats, there has been no generalized net increase in overstorey woody vegetation cover across the full range of lowland savanna habitats. Rather, different habitats exhibited distinctly different vegetation change mechanisms: low‐lying seasonally inundated ‘wet’ habitats have experienced woody vegetation increase since 1948, whereas well‐drained ‘dry’ habitats have experienced overstorey vegetation stability or loss. In almost every instance woody vegetation increase could be attributed to the invasion or proliferation of a single species, Melaleuca minutifolia F.Muell. The extent of M. minutifolia increase was unrelated to historical grazing/fire regime. Demographic analyses for this species revealed that recruitment was often episodic and that synchronized recruitment events occurred uniformly across the full range of historical management treatments, most likely as a consequence of favourable climatic conditions in years with an extended wet season. Heavy grazing facilitated juvenile survival and/or recruitment, most likely by reducing grassy fuel loads and eliminating landscape fire. We conclude that while there has been no generalized net increase in overstorey woody vegetation cover in lowland environments, savanna dynamics are complex, and multiple change mechanisms have occurred simultaneously in different habitats, some of which have been significantly transformed since 1948. Where net woody vegetation increase has occurred it is primarily a natural consequence of episodic M. minutifolia establishment in climatically favourable years, but the extent and magnitude of this effect is likely mediated by fire/grazing regime.
Modified starches or stabilizers in preparation of cheese bread

Cheese bread is a Brazilian product which originated in Minas Gerais and which is highly consumed. In industrial production, there is increasing use of additives which enrich and enhance the physical of this product, adding value in the eyes of the consumer. Thus, the purpose of this paper was to study the effect of addition of modified starch and stabilizers on the physical-chemical of cheese bread. For this reason, measures taken so moisture, pH and acidity, volume, density, coefficient of expansion, and compression resistance (texturometer) Results show that the stabilizers used improve these characteristics in the cheese bread, showing better physicochemical characteristics.
The use of natural abundance of nitrogen isotopes in plant physiology and ecology

Nitrogen stable isotope (^^N, ^*N) natural abundance has been much less used than carbon isotopes (^^C, ^^C) in plant physiology and ecology. Analytical problems, the lower fractional abundance of ^^N than of ^^C in the biosphere, the greater complexity of the N cycle relative to the C cycle, and smaller expressed discriminations in nature, are contributing factors- The major N pools, globally, have different isotope signatures: atmospheric N2 is ^^N-depleted relative to organic N (including sedimentary N), a situation resulting from a greater expressed discrimination in the organic N to N2 (via denitrification) reaction than of diazotrophy during accumulation of the reduced N. Essentially ail of the enzymes except nitrogenase which transform N compounds show discrimination against ^^N, although for glutamine synthetase, and the amination of 2oxoglutarate and pyruvate, this is only seen in terms of NH4 rather than the true substrate, NH3. Discrimination is expressed in various N interconversio ns within piants, leading to substantial differences in h^^H (up to 12%o) among N compounds and macroscopic plant parts. N isotope fractionation during assimilation of exogenous combined N is often much lower than that expected from studies of isolated enzymes due to processes which show very little discrimination, such as limitation by transport through aqueous solution and membranes. Application of ^^N/^'^N discrimination studies to plant ecology have concentrated largely on distinguishing diazotrophy from N supplied from combined N, based on the lower ^^N/^'^N in diazotrophs due to the higher ^^N/^'*N of combined N sources not being offset by fractionation during uptake. While potentially very useful, a number of pitfalls are discussed in its ecological use in both terrestrial and aquatic systems. N isotope discrimination is also useful in tracking N through food webs, and hence, back to combined N sources for plants.
Nutritional value and antinutritional factors of foliaceous vegetable Talinum fruticosum

Talinum fruticosum Juss (L.) is an unconventional plant belonging to the family Portulacaceae; it is a her- baceous perennial plant that grows in tropical regions as a foliaceous vegetable. T. fruticosum leaves are a source of fi and minerals and they contribute to assemble the micronutrients for daily nutritional requirements. These plants supply the essential nutrients to the human organism; however, these plants contain antinutritinal factors such as lectins and tannins which may compromise their bioavailability. In the present study, the T. fruticosum leaves samples were investigated on proximate composition and antinutritional factors. Samples were exposed to heat treatment for washing and for cooking for 10 min. These procedures neither signifi cantly changed the carbohydrates and lipids contents, nor eliminated the hemagglutinating activity which is inactivated at 70 °C, although no effective reduction of tannin from the leaves was observed.
A PHYLOGENETIC ASSESSMENT OF BREEDING SYSTEMS AND FLORAL MORPHOLOGY OF NORTH AMERICAN IPOMOEA (CONVOLVULACEAE)

A phylogenetic investigation of 68 species and two varieties of tropical and temperate North American Ipomoea (Convolvulaceae) using sequence data from the internal transcribed spacer region (ITS) with parsimony and Bayesian analyses revealed multiple origins of autogamy. By assessing breeding systems and floral morphological characters in the context of this phylogeny, we estimate 16 independent origins of autogamy and 4 subsequent reversions to xenogamy. Transitions to autogamy are associated with reduced pollen-ovule ratios, decreased anther-stigma distance, and small flower size. Although the relationship between floral traits and breeding systems has been described in previous studies, this is the first investigation to examine this association in Ipomoea.
Períodos de interferência das plantas daninhas na cultura do arroz de terras altas. II - cultivar Caiapó

The experiments were carried out in two growing seasons (2003/04 and 2004/05) in an experimental area at Sao Paulo State University - UNESP, Jaboticabal Campus, to evaluate the weed interference periods on the upland Caiapo rice variety. The experimental design was randomized blocks with 4 replicates and 16 treatments. The treatments consisted of increasing periods of control or coexistence after emergence of the culture: 0-10; 0-20; 0-30; 0-40; 0-50; 0-60; 0-70 days; 0-harvest. The predominant families were Poaceae, Asteraceae, Amaranthaceae and Malvaceae, and the main weeds present were Cyperus rotundus L. , Cenchrus echinatus L. , Digitaria spp Heist. , Echinochloa crus-galli (L.) P. Beauv. , Brachiaria decumbens Stapf. , Eleusine indica Gaertn e Alternanthera tenella Colla for both years. The upland rice cultivar Caiapo is to be kept free of weeds for 30 days after emergence.
Morphology and Texture of Bologna Sausage as Related to Content of Fat, Starch and Egg White

The effects of fat (7.0, 14.0 and 20.0%), starch (0, 5 and 10%) and egg white (0, 1.5 and 3%) on the microstructure and texture of bologna sausages were examined. As levels of fat and starch increased, the microstructure exhibited increasing numbers of holes (P 0.05) in shape. No clear relationship was found between addition of egg white and these morphological variations. Low-fat sausage (7.0%) was less hard and chewy (P<0.05) than high-fat (20.0%) sausage; likewise, a direct relationship was found between starch and egg white content and hardness and chewiness of the bologna.
Influence of Exotic Forest Plantations on Occupancy and Co-Occurrence Patterns in a Mediterranean Carnivore Guild

The Mediterranean basin is a biodiversity hotspot which is being threatened by land abandonment and afforestation, most notably with eucalyptus (Eucalyptus spp.) plantations. We assessed the impact of eucalyptus plantations on niche partitioning in a carnivore community consisting of red fox (Vulpes vulpes), badger (Melesmeles), and stone marten (Martes foina). Based on data from camera trapping, we evaluated the influence of eucalyptus plantations on species occupancy and detection in single-species and co-occurrence models and on temporal activity. Eucalyptus cover negatively influenced detection probability across all species in both single and co-occurrence models. Stone marten detection decreased with the presence of the other carnivores but red fox detection increased in the presence of badgers. Eucalyptus plantations had a negative effect on occupancy of red foxes, which preferred open farmland and evergreen oak forest. Stone marten preferred large patches of oak forest, whereas badger occupancy was positively influenced by patch richness. Occupancy of any one species was not influenced by the presence of any other species. Despite having an effect on the detection and occupancy of all 3 carnivores, eucalyptus plantations had no effect on the interactions within this carnivore community. However, these results have to be interpreted with precaution since the probability of detection for badger and stone marten, in 2011, was below 0.15, making it difficult to make accurate assumptions. The results show the relatively greater importance of habitat preferences compared with interspecific relationships in determining distribution of these carnivores and highlight the importance of using models that can correct for differences in detectability for inferring interspecific competition, especially when species occur at low densities.
Effects of Cd2+ on the calcium metabolism and shell mineralization of bivalve Anodonta cygnea

The survival of freshwater mussels is affected by cadmium ions because they accumulate in tissues and fluids and displace calcium ions in transport and regulation mechanisms. A preliminary study of the freshwater bivalve Anodonta cygnea under enriched Ca2+ (2 mM) water for different periods (3, 4, and 18 days), showed significant increase in calcium levels (p < 0.05) in the ventricular fluid with concentration proportional to time of exposure. Groups of A. cygnea were then exposed to different treatments for 4 days: Group 1 to Ca2+ (2 mM) enriched water as a control; Group 2 to a sub-lethal concentration (10−6 M) of Cd2+; Group 3 to an injection of vitamin D (1340 IU mL−1); Group 4 to an injection of SEA0400 (950 µg mL−1), a sodium/calcium exchanger (NCX) inhibitor. Fluid samples from different compartments of the animals were analyzed for Ca2+ and Cd2+ composition as well as for other ions relevant to the osmoregulation (Na+, Mg2+, K+, and Cl−) and their osmolarity. The treatment groups had significantly higher calcium concentrations in their ventricular fluid (p < 0.05) under Cd2+ and vitamin D, also in pericardium fluid under Cd2+, vitamin D, and SEA0400. We infer a specific transport mechanism from the intestinal to the ventricular fluid that may be induced by vitamin D. A general internal acidosis by Cd2+, releasing calcium from the calcareous concretions and a specific inhibition of calcium resorption, by the SEA0400, from the pericardium towards the ventricle is discussed. Cd2+ incubation significantly augmented (p < 0.05) the cadmium contents of all experimental fluids and tissues. Scanning electron microscope (SEM) imaging of the border regions of the shell showed clear ultrastructural changes in respone to Cd2+ incubation, suggesting a direct influence of this ion on the shell biomineralization mechanisms.
Inhibition kinetic and mechanism of polyphenol oxidase from various sources by diethyldithiocarbamic acid

Summary Inhibition kinetics and mechanism of polyphenol oxidases (PPO) partially purified from various sources such as Thymbra spicata L. var. spicata and Ocimum basilicum L. , and of mushroom PPO bought from Sigma by diethyldithiocarbamic acid have been described using catechol, 4-methylcatechol and pyrogallol as substrates. The inhibition type was competitive for O. basilicum L. PPO using catechol and 4-methylcatechol as substrates, for mushroom PPO using catechol, 4-methylcatechol and pyrogallol as substrates, and for T. spicata L. var. spicata PPO using 4-methylcatechol as a substrate; uncompetitive inhibition for T. spicata L. var. spicata PPO using pyrogallol as a substrate; and non-competitive inhibition for O. basilicum L. and T. spicata L. var. spicata PPO using pyrogallol and catechol as substrates, respectively. The inhibition effect of diethyldithiocarbamic acid on enzymatic browning varied greatly from one phenol to another and from one enzyme to another. Hence, no general rule can easily be established with regard to the type of inhibition observed.