Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Reduction in recruitment of white bass in Lake Erie after invasion of white perch

Abstract Recruitment to the adult population of white bass Morone chrysops in Lake Erie sharply declined during the early 1980s. To explain this phenomenon, we formulated the following four hypotheses: (1) the biological characteristics of adult spawners changed during the early 1980s, so that the ability to produce eggs decreased; (2) the decrease in phosphorus loadings to Lake Erie during the 1970s resulted in a lower abundance of crustacean zooplankton and thus in reduced survival of age-0 white bass; (3) the increase in the population of adult walleyes Stizostedion vitreum in Lake Erie during the 1970s and 1980s led to reduced survival of age-0 white bass; and (4) establishment of the white perch Morone americana population in Lake Erie during the early 1980s led to reduced survival of the early life stages of white bass. The growth, maturity, and fecundity of adults during the period 1981–1997 were compared with the same characteristics found by earlier studies. The mean length, weight, and condition.
Structural Dependence of Sulfated Polysaccharide for Diabetes Management: Fucoidan From Undaria pinnatifida Inhibiting α-Glucosidase More Strongly Than α-Amylase and Amyloglucosidase

Fucoidan refers to a group of sulfated polysaccharide that is commonly obtained from various species of brown seaweed. Fucoidan has gained increased popularity among researchers in the recent years due to its numerous biological activities, including its inhibitory effects against starch hydrolyzing enzymes such as α-amylase and α-glucosidase. This highlights the potential of fucoidan as an antidiabetic agent in the management and prevention of diabetes mellitus. In this study, the inhibitory effects of fucoidan isolated from the New Zealand Undaria pinnatifida seaweed species against three starch hydrolyzing enzymes—α-amylase, α-glucosidase, and amyloglucosidase—was investigated. It was demonstrated that while the fucoidan exhibited significant inhibitory effects against all the three starch hydrolases, it is an uncompetitive inhibitor of α-amylase and amyloglucosidase, and is a competitive inhibitor of α-glucosidase. Moreover, it exhibited significantly stronger inhibitory effects against α-glucosidase than α-amylase, thus having the desirable characteristics as an antidiabetic agent.
Childhood Physical Neglect Is Associated With Exaggerated Systemic and Intracellular Inflammatory Responses to Repeated Psychosocial Stress in Adulthood

Experiences of child maltreatment are associated with a host of adverse mental and physical health outcomes in adulthood. Altered reactivity to psychosocial stress exposure may partially explain known associations between early experiences of maltreatment and later life health. The present study focuses on examining whether experiences of child maltreatment are associated with physiological reactions to initial and repeated psychosocial stress in adulthood. To this end, 44 healthy adults (52% male, aged 18–65) completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire to provide information about exposure to child maltreatment and completed the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) on 2 consecutive days. Peripheral blood was collected prior to as well as 30 and 120 min following the TSST on each day. Plasma Interleukin-6 (IL-6) and gene expression of IL-6, IL-1β, nuclear factor-kB (NF-kB), and inhibitor of kB (IkB) were measured from each blood sample. Total CTQ scores were unrelated to plasma IL-6 and gene expression (ps > .10) but a history of childhood physical neglect was associated with increased interleukin-1β (β =.35; p =.02; R2 =.19) and nuclear factor-kB (β =.30; p =.046; R2 =.13) expression following initial stress. Following repeated exposure to the TSST, childhood physical neglect was associated with increased plasma IL-6 reactivity (β =.34; p =.02; R2 =.16) and increased expression of nuclear factor-kB (β =.31; p =.04; R2 =.08). Finally, childhood physical neglect was associated with decreased habituation following repeated exposure to the TSST. Other CTQ subscales were not related to plasma IL-6 and gene expression when considered individually. Results from this study are suggestive of a unique effect of childhood physical neglect on the physiological stress response following initial and repeated exposure to a common psychosocial stressor. This provides important directions for future research because the effect of childhood physical neglect on long-term neglect are not well understood and in need of further investigation.
Does Lekking Promote the Evolution of Male-Biased Size Dimorphism in Birds? On the Use of Comparative Approaches

An early study compared the size dimorphism of lekking and nonlekking birds by out-group analysis (i.e., evolutionarily independent clades) and could not find, contrary to common belief, that lekking birds were more size dimorphic than their close relatives. A subsequent study reanalyzed the data using different comparative approaches and did find the postulated relationship This study compared the generic means of sister taxa that differ in mating system (lekking vs. nonlekking) and analyzed concentrations of size dimorphism and lekking in a reconstruction of the bird phylogeny. In the present article we have once again reanalyzed the data and extended the comparative analyses. We find no evidence that lekking birds show more size dimorphism when compared to their close relatives and argue that the result of the second study can be explained mainly by the inclusion or exclusion of taxa and a bias introduced by a few clades in which size dimorphism indeed is larger in the lekking taxa. However, when independent evolutionary events are analyzed, lekking does not seem to promote the evolution of male-biased size dimorphism.
Patient‐reported outcomes as a prognostic marker of survival in patients with advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer treated with immunotherapy

There has been minimal research on the prognostic value of patient‐reported outcomes (PROs) for immune checkpoint inhibitors (ICIs). The relative performance of PROs compared to established markers such as Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group Performance Status (ECOG‐PS) and the Lung Immune Prognostic Index (LIPI) is unknown. In our study, data from the advanced nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) single‐arm atezolizumab trials BIRCH, FIR and randomised‐trials OAK, POPLAR (atezolizumab vs docetaxel) were pooled. The study included 1548 participants who initiated atezolizumab. The associations between pretreatment PROs and overall survival (OS) and progression‐free survival (PFS) were modelled using Cox proportional hazards regression. Prediction performance was assessed using the C‐statistic (c). PROs were recorded via the EORTC QLQ‐C30 and QLQ‐LC13. Patient‐reported physical function, fatigue, global health, appetite, role function, pain, dyspnoea, social function, constipation, nausea‐vomiting, emotional function and coughing were significantly associated with OS and PFS on univariable and adjusted analysis (P < .05). Physical function (c = 0.654), fatigue (c = 0.653) and global health (c = 0.650) were the most predictive variables for OS. Comparatively, the OS prediction performance of physical function (c = 0.65) was superior to ECOG‐PS (c = .59) and LIPI (c = 0.63). On multivariable analysis physical function, ECOG‐PS and LIPI were all significant (P < .001). In conclusion, PROs were identified as independent prognostic factors for OS and PFS in advanced NSCLC patients receiving ICI therapy. Further, patient‐reported physical function was more predictive of OS than ECOG‐PS and LIPI and contained independent information. This highlights the value of PROs as prognostic and stratification factors for clinical use and research trials of ICIs.
Neurofunctional basis underlying audiovisual integration of print and speech sound in Chinese children

Effortless print-sound integration is essential to reading development, and the superior temporal cortex (STC) is the most critical brain region. However, to date, the conclusion is almost restricted to alphabetic orthographies. To examine the neural basis in non-alphabetic languages and its relationship with reading abilities, we conducted a functional magnetic resonance imaging study in typically developing Chinese children. Two neuroimaging-based indicators of audiovisual processing—additive enhancement (higher activation in the congruent than the average activation of unimodal conditions) and neural integration (different activations between the congruent versus incongruent conditions)—were used to investigate character-sounds (opaque) and pinyin-sounds (transparent) processing. We found additive enhancement in bilateral STCs processing both character and pinyin stimulations. Moreover, the neural integrations in the left STC for the two scripts were strongly correlated. In terms of differentiation, first, areas beyond the STCs showed additive enhancement in processing pinyin-sounds. Second, while the bilateral STCs, left inferior/middle frontal and parietal regions manifested a striking neural integration (incongruent > congruent) for character-sounds, no significant clusters were revealed for pinyin-sounds. Finally, the neural integration in the left middle frontal gyrus for characters was specifically associated with silent reading comprehension proficiency, indicating automatic semantic processing during implicit character-sound integration. In contrast, the neural integration in the left STC for pinyin was specifically associated with oral reading fluency that relies on grapho-phonological mapping. To summarize, this study revealed both script-universal and script-specific neurofunctional substrates of print-sound integration as well as their processing- and region-dependent associations with reading abilities in typical Chinese children. Highlights The bilateral superior temporal cortices display additive enhancement in processing print-sound information regardless of orthographies. The location, direction, and strength of the neural audiovisual integration are modulated by orthographic transparency. The neural integration in the left middle frontal gyrus in processing character-sounds is correlated to reading comprehension. The neural integration in the left superior temporal gyrus for pinyin is correlated with oral reading fluency. The neural integrations of character-sounds and pinyin-sounds show spatial overlap and inter-subject correlation in the left superior temporal cortex.
Experimental determination of predation intensity in an intertidal predator guild: dominant versus subordinate prey

Theoretical and empirical ecologists have long acknowledged that information about the intensity or strength of the interaction between species is crucial for an understanding of community dynamics. In communities in which predation is an important structuring process, and some predator species are commercially exploited, quantitative estimates of predation by different predator species within a guild are necessary to make even the simplest recommendations about conservation and resource management. Here, we evaluated per capita and population level components of predation intensity of three intertidal predators that feed on monospecific stands of barnacles and mussels at wave exposed sites in the rocky intertidal zone of central Chile. These prey species represent the two most distinctive stages of the mid-intertidal seascape, with mussels being competitively dominant. Our results showed that the commercially exploited gastropod Concholepas concholepas and the sea star Heliaster helianthus have similarly large per capita and population effects on the competitively dominant mussel Perumytilus purpuratus. Their per capita (by average size individual) and population effects on mussels were more than two orders of magnitude larger than those of Acanthocyclus gayi crabs and likely even larger than the effect of other predator species in this system (other crabs, whelks, birds, fish). The overall pattern of predation on barnacles was similar to that on mussels, but some differences occurred in the way different components of predation intensity were distributed across predator species. Despite the roughly similar pattern of population predation intensity between prey species, the expected consequences for the prey population, and hence the rest of the community, were acutely different for mussels and barnacles.
Karyotype of Araucaria angustifolia and the decondensation/activation mode of its nucleolus organiser region

The chromosomes of the gymnosperm Araucaria angustifolia (Bertol.) Kuntze were analysed with the fluorochromes chromomycin A3 (CMA) and 4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) and with C-banding. This species contains a diploid complement made of 26 chromosomes, with 18 larger metacentric, four smaller metacentric and four submetacentric chromosomes. The only CMA+/DAPI– region observed corresponded to the nucleolus organiser region (NOR) localised at the proximal portion of a large metacentric chromosome pair. C-banding marked the NOR as well as a terminal region of another chromosome pair. In addition, small C-bands were occasionally seen interspersed in many chromosomes. The NOR appeared to condense at approximately the same rate as the rest of the chromosome from prophase throughout metaphase. In interphase nuclei, NOR decondensation and activation was characterised by the formation of CMA+ blocks that resembled a string of beads inside the nucleolus. The number and size of beads was inversely proportional to the size of the nucleolus, suggesting that transcriptional activation of the nucleolar cistrons starts simultaneously at several points of the NOR. The mode of NOR activation in A. angustifolia differs from that observed in most species, providing a unique opportunity to study activation and transcriptional control of rRNA genes.
How the brain negotiates divergent executive processing demands: Evidence of network reorganization during fleeting brain states

During performance in everyday contexts, multiple networks draw from shared executive resources to maintain attention, regulate arousal, and problem solve. At times, requirements for attention and self-regulation appear to be in competition for a “limited pool” of resources. How does the brain attempt to resolve conflicts arising from multiple processing demands? In the present study, participants were exposed to either a stress or control prime, after which electroencephalographic (EEG) activity was recorded as they solved math problems. Phase-locking was examined within four networks implicated in math-solving and evaluative stress: frontopareital (FP), default mode (DM), emotion generation (EG), and emotion regulation (ER) networks. Findings revealed differing strategies, depending on the presence of stress: states dominated by frontopareital and emotion regulation network dynamics supported optimum performance generally, while during stress, states dominated by emotion regulation and default mode networks are more important for performance. Implications for networks’ cooperative dynamics and DMN’s role in coping are considered.
Insecticidal Activities of Commercial Rosemary Oils (Rosmarinus officinalis.) Against Larvae of Pseudaletia unipuncta. and Trichoplusia ni. in Relation to Their Chemical Compositions

Abstract Rosemary [Rosmarinus officinalis. L. (Lamiaceae)] essential oil has insecticidal properties and is the active ingredient in a number of commercial insecticides. Like other plant essential oils, the chemical composition of rosemary oil can vary based on genotype, geography, climate, and method of preparation. This study explored the relationship between chemical composition and insecticidal activity of 10 commercial samples of rosemary oil, based on laboratory bioassays with two agricultural pests, the armyworm Pseudaletia unipuncta. Haworth (Noctuidae) and the cabbage looper Trichoplusia ni. Hübner (Noctuidae). Nine major terpenoid constituents of rosemary oil were quantified in the samples by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The major constituents were 1,8-cineole, α-pinene, β-pinene, and camphor; on average 1,8-cineole made up 52% of the oil by weight. Bioassayed individually, camphor was the most toxic compound to the armyworm (LD50 = 189.4 μ g larva− 1) whereas μ-terpineol was the most toxic to the looper (LD50 = 128.5 μ g larva− 1). LD50 values for the ten rosemary oils ranged from 167.1 to 372.1 μ g larva− 1in the armyworm and from 58.9 to 335.9 μ g larva− 1 in the looper. Correlation analysis comparing rosemary oil toxicity to chemical composition revealed slight but significant correlation for d. -limonene and α-terpineol in bioassays with the looper but no correlations between constituents and toxicity with the armyworm. An “artificial” rosemary oil was prepared by mixing the nine major constituents in proportions reflecting the average proportion of each constituent in the 10 commercial oils. In the armyworm, this “artificial” oil was significantly less toxic than five of the intact oils; in the looper, the artificial oil was less toxic than three of the intact oils. Our results suggest that toxicity of rosemary oil, at least to lepidopteran larvae, is a consequence of the combined (and possibly synergistic) effects of several chemical constituents, with no individual compound making a dominating contribution.
Quantitative 31P NMR Spectroscopy of Lignins from Transgenic Poplars

Summary Milled wood lignins isolated from genetically modified poplar trees were studied by quantitative 31P NMR spectroscopy, in combination with thioacidolysis and mild alkaline hydrolysis. The genetic transformation of the trees included down regulation of CAD and COMT enzyme activities. These analyses confirmed that moderate CAD down-regulation does not substantially alter lignin structure. In contrast, severe CAD deficiency alters the lignin structure more profoundly by decreasing the syringyl/guaiacyl ratio and increasing the degree of condensation of the lignin. The most severe alterations were observed in the lignins from the COMT-transformed lines.
Anopheles Species Composition and Breeding Habitat Characterisation in Chiredzi District, Zimbabwe

Malaria is a public health concern in Zimbabwe and its transmission varies geographically and seasonally, corresponding with the country's rainfall pattern. Information on density and distribution of malaria vectors, species composition, breeding sites and quality assurance of the spray programme is limited for Chiredzi District. This study investigated mosquito species composition and distribution during winter, blood meal sources of adult collections, characteristics of aquatic larval habitats and quality of spraying as well as the insecticide residual activity on sprayed walls. Anopheline larvae were collected from breeding habitats that were subsequently characterised. Adult anophelines were sampled from both inside human dwellings and outdoors. Mosquitoes collected were identified morphologically and further processed to sibling species by polymerase chain reaction (PCR) where necessary. The enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay was used to detect Plasmodium falciparum circumsporozoite proteins and multiplex PCR was used to detect blood meal source. WHO cone bioassays were conducted to monitor spray quality and insecticide residual activity on spayed walls. A total of 21 aquatic habitats were identified from which anopheline larvae were sampled. Of these, 9 (42.9 %) were classified as permanent, 7 (33.3 %) as seasonal and 5 (23.8 %) as temporal. Anopheles mosquitoes from both adult and larval collections totalled to 153, with the former collection method accounting for 69.9 % (107) and the latter for 31.1 % (46). The collected mosquitoes were identified as An. quadriannulatus and An. funestus respectively. Out of the blood-fed An. funestus females, 70 % (n = 10) had fed on human blood. None of the adult collected mosquitoes tested positive for P. falciparum circumsporozoite proteins. The aquatic habitats surveyed indicated that breeding sites were mainly man-made. Anopheles funestus was the only malaria vector recorded during this study. This species is a particularly efficient vector and its detection is a cause for concern. Furthermore, 70 % of the adult-collected An. funestus female specimens had fed on humans confirming this species' strong tendency toward anthropophagy. A more comprehensive and year-round investigation is essential to gather appropriate and relevant entomological indices on malaria transmission in Chiredzi so as to enable effective vector control.
Triatoma brasiliensis species complex: characterization of the external female genitalia

ABSTRACT: The Triatoma brasiliensis complex is composed of six species (Triatoma bahiensis, T. juazerensis, T. lenti, T. melanica, T. petrocchiae, and T. sherlocki) and two subspecies (T. brasiliensis brasiliensis and T. b. macromelasoma). Phylogenetic studies have shown that it is a monophyletic group, but the morphological relationships among the members can be better understood. We applied a tool of high resolution based on morphology to identify details that characterize the female genitals for each member of this group. The external genital structures of five to fifteen females of each taxon were analyzed. Insects had their abdomen transversely cut to separate the last abdominal segments, and representative illustrations obtained via scanning electron microscopy (SEM) are shown. Observations were performed in the dorsal and the ventral views. The morphological characterization of female external genitalia allowed a differentiation of each species/subspecies. The subspecies T. b. brasiliensis and T. b. macromelasoma were the most similar. On the other hand, dorsal view of structures evidenced some unique characteristics for T. petrocchiae and T. sherlocki. Regarding these structures for T. petrocchiae, the differentiation was in accordance with molecular studies, since this species exhibits the highest genetic distances in relation to other species of T. brasiliensis complex.
Plant materials for soil fertility management in subhumid tropical areas

Lantana camara L. , Senna hirsuta (L.) Irwin & Barneby, Tithonia diversifolia (Hemsl.) A. Gray, and Aspilia kotschyi du Petit-Thouars occur naturally in eastern and central Uganda. Trimmings of these species were evaluated for effectiveness in improving soil productivity. The plant trimmings varied for N (13-30 g kg -1 ), P (1.1-1.8 g kg -1 ), lignin (11-16%), and polyphenol (1.3-2.5%) concentration. Decomposition rates were higher for incorporation than for surface placement, but placement did not affect maize (Zea mays L.) and bean (Phaseolus vulgaris L.) yield. Decomposition rates were similar for all species with the same placement method. Potassium and Mg were generally mineralized most and least rapidly, respectively, with intermediate rates for N, P, and Ca. Maize and bean yield increased with application of 4 Mg ha -1 dry wt. trimmings of L. camara, S. hirsuta, and T. diversifolia, but only maize eventually responded to A. kotschyi. Yields per units of N and P applied were more and less, respectively, with inorganic than with organic treatments, but plant trimmings supplied less P than fertilizer. At the end of the trial period, available soil P was more for the full rate of fertilizer than for the mean of the plant materials. Combining L. camara and fertilizer, at 50% rates, resulted in an average of 0.22 Mg ha -1 more yield than expected from mere additive effects of the organic and inorganic resources. The value of plant materials may be enhanced by balancing nutrient supply with inorganic fertilizers.