Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spatial and ontogenetic variability in the microhabitat use of stream-dwelling spined loach (Cobitis taenia) and stone loach (Barbatula barbatula)

Summary Ontogenetic and spatial variability in microhabitat use of spined loach Cobitis taenia (Linnaeus), considered as one species for the purposes of this study, and stone loach Barbatula barbatula (Linnaeus) were examined in the River Great Ouse basin, England, using multivariate and habitat suitability methods, including a technique for handling spatial variation in collections of preference curves. Distinct ordinations of spined age classes and stone loach developmental stages, respectively, in canonical correspondence analysis of species × variables × samples relationships suggest that the two species occupy completely different microhabitats; however, young-of-the-year spined loach occurred more often than expected with all developmental stages of stone loach except young larvae. Water velocity and filamentous algae were the most influential microhabitat variables, the latter decreasing in importance with increasing age of both fish species. Preferred water velocities generally decreased with age in spined loach and increased in stone loach, with substratum size generally increasing with fish age in both species. Spatial variation in microhabitat preferences was great in both species but less so in the spined loach, suggesting that limited plasticity in habitat use could account, at least in part, for the latter species’ limited distribution and abundance in the catchment. Preference curves for a species, if generated and verified for all life intervals and all seasons, could be used as a management tool for a given stream or sector of river basin. But preference curves should be generated for each location to ensure that river management decisions with regard habitat and species conservation consider local-level species requirements. Thus, a multi-(eco)species and multi-scale approach is required in habitat suitability assessments.
Synaptic mechanisms in nociception: emerging targets for centrally-acting analgesics

The lifetime incidence of chronic pain in Western populations is almost 50%, but current pharmacological treatments are poorly tolerated and ineffective against some types of pain, giving rise to a demand for new analgesic drugs. The primary symptoms of chronic pain are allodynia, hyperalgesia and spontaneous pain, all of which indicate a high level of excitability in central pain processing systems. Recent basic research has identified a bewildering number of molecules as actual or putative mediators of spinal hyperexcitability, and the main thrust of the present article is that antagonists for these molecules should provide new antihyperalgesic or analgesic treatments. Ionotropic glutamate receptors (particularly N-methyl-D-aspartate [NMDA], but including other calcium-permeable receptors), in conjunction with voltage-gated calcium channels, permit ingress of calcium ions into spinal dorsal horn neurones. In addition, group I metabotropic glutamate (mGlu) and tachykinin NK1 and NK3 receptors give rise to release of calcium from intracellular stores. In theory, antagonists for any of these receptors ought to be antihyperalgesic, but recent experience in clinical trials with NK1 receptor blockers has been disappointing. More encouragingly, non-selective antagonists for glutamate NMDA receptors are effective in all types of chronic pain in humans, albeit with side effects that are unacceptable. The recognition that NMDA receptors exist in multiple subtypes, and that the NR2B subtype is found (among only a few other sites) in the superficial dorsal horn of the spinal cord in rat, suggests that selective antagonists for these receptors may offer analgesia without the attendant problems of non-selective drugs. Selective antagonists for other calcium-permeable glutamate receptors, mGlu group I, NK3 and CGRP1 receptors may also have a future as antihyperalgesic agents, but all are at a very early stage of development. At present, the best hope for a powerful broad-spectrum antihyperalgesic lies with the NMDA receptor subtypes.
Conjoint Analysis of Angler Evaluations of Atlantic Salmon Restoration on the Penobscot River, Maine

Abstract Traditional approaches used to elicit angler opinions about potential fisheries management programs focus on how preferences are affected by changing one attribute at a time. However, management programs may alter several aspects of a fishery simultaneously. With conjoint analysis, we were able to compare angler opinions regarding several potential management programs for the Penobscot River fishery for Atlantic salmon Salmo salar. By dividing our analysis, we compared opinions from four angler groups. We found that angler preferences for management programs seemed primarily driven by the size of the resulting fish stock and less motivated by whether the fishery was natural or hatchery based.
Prey Size Influences Female Competitive Dominance in Nestling American Kestrels (Falco Sparverius)

Body size differences typically influence sibling competition among nestling birds. In many species hatching order determine nestling size rank; however, sexually dimorphic growth may confound this correlation, giving one sex a consistent competitive advantage and leading to differential survival of the sexes. We found that captive female American Kestrel (Falco sparverius) nestlings were larger than male sibling nestmates from shortly after hatchling through fledging. When food delivered by parents was small enough to be seized and swallowed immediately by a nestling, females showed clear competitive superiority over male sibling nestmates in scramble competition. Females also took larger portions than males of small, yet unmonopolizeable, items. Competitive ability and gender were unrelated when parents delivered large, unmonopolizeable prey. Choice experiments demonstrated that parent feeding preferences did not account for the females' advantage. Based on the above, we expected fledging sex ratio to become increasingly female biased as nestling mortality increased, because nestling mortality increases and prey size decreases when preferred prey (unmonopolizeable rodents) are not available. Data from a wild kestrel population in eastern Pennsylvania supported this prediction, showing a significant positive relationship between fledging brood size and representation of males in the brood, although we note an alternative explanation for this result. Female competitive dominance and its interaction with prey size may influence the evolution of sexual size dimorphism and primary sex ratio in this species and other raptors.
Empowering Urban Governance through Urban Science: Multi-scale Dynamics of Urban Systems Worldwide

Cities are facing many sustainability issues in the context of the current global interdependency characterized by an economic uncertainty coupled to climate changes, which challenge their local policies aiming to better conciliate reasonable growth with livable urban environment. The urban dynamic models developed by the so-called “urban science” can provide a useful foundation for more sustainable urban policies. It implies that their proposals have been validated by correct observations of the diversity of situations in the world. However, international comparisons of the evolution of cities often produce unclear results because national territorial frameworks are not always in strict correspondence with the dynamics of urban systems. We propose to provide various compositions of systems of cities in order to better take into account the dynamic networking of cities that go beyond regional and national territorial boundaries. Different models conceived for explaining city size and urban growth distributions enable the establishing of a correspondence between urban trajectories when observed at the level of cities and systems of cities. We test the validity and representativeness of several dynamic models of complex urban systems and their variations across regions of the world, at the macroscopic scale of systems of cities. The originality of the approach resides in the way it considers spatial interaction and evolutionary path dependence as major features in the general behavior of urban entities. The models studied include diverse and complementary processes, such as economic exchanges, diffusion of innovations, and physical network flows. Complex systems dynamics is in principle unpredictable, but contextualizing it regarding demographic, income, and resource components may help in minimizing the forecasting errors. We use, among others, a new unique source correlating population and built-up footprint at world scale: the Global Human Settlement built-up areas (GHS-BU). Following the methodology and results already obtained in the European GeoDiverCity project, including USA, Europe, and BRICS countries, we complete them with this new dataset at world scale and different models. This research helps in further empirical testing of the hypotheses of the evolutionary theory of urban systems and partially revising them. We also suggest research directions towards the coupling of these models into a multi-scale model of urban growth.
Chirally Improved Quark Pauli Blocking in Nuclear Matter and Applications to Quark Deconfinement in Neutron Stars

The relativistic mean field (RMF) model of the nuclear matter equation of state was modified by including the effect of Pauli-blocking owing to quark exchange between the baryons. Different schemes of a chiral enhancement of the quark Pauli blocking was suggested according to the adopted density dependence of the dynamical quark mass. The resulting equations of state for the pressure are compared to the RMF model DD2 with excluded volume correction. On the basis of this comparison a density-dependent nucleon volume is extracted which parameterizes the quark Pauli blocking effect in the respective scheme of chiral enhancement. The dependence on the isospin asymmetry is investigated and the corresponding density dependent nuclear symmetry energy is obtained in fair accordance with phenomenological constraints. The deconfinement phase transition is obtained by a Maxwell construction with a quark matter phase described within a higher order NJL model. Solutions for rotating and nonrotating (hybrid) compact star sequences are obtained, which show the effect of high-mass twin compact star solutions for the rotating case.
Characterizing brown dwarf companions with IRDIS long-slit spectroscopy: HD 1160 B and HD 19467 B

The determination of the fundamental properties (mass, separation, age, gravity, and atmospheric properties) of brown dwarf companions allows us to infer crucial informations on their formation and evolution mechanisms. Spectroscopy of substellar companions is available to date only for a limited number of objects (and mostly at very low resolution, R < 50) because of technical limitations, i.e. contrast and angular resolution. We present medium resolution (R = 350), coronagraphic long-slit spectroscopic observations with SPHERE of two substellar companions, HD 1160 B and HD 19467 B. We found that HD 1160 B has a peculiar spectrum that cannot be fitted by spectra in current spectral libraries. A good fit is possible only considering separately the Y+J and the H spectral band. The spectral type is between M5 and M7. We also estimated a Teff of 2800–2900 K and a log g of 3.5–4.0 dex. The low surface gravity seems to favour young age (10–20 Myr) and low mass (∼20 MJup ) for this object. HD 19467 B is instead a fully evolved object with a Teff of ∼1000 K and log g of ∼5.0 dex. Its spectral type is T6 ± 1.
Ontogenetic shift from facilitation to competition in a desert shrub

1 Spatiotemporal responses to habitat conditions are important components of plant population and community dynamics. Plant stage or size is a common predictor of plant performance for a range of ecological conditions, including responses to neighbours. Plant response to local conditions varies from seedling establishment through to senescence, with strong implications for population regulation. 2 I investigated size‐dependent responses to near adult neighbours among a uniquely quantitative sample of mapped juvenile and adult bur‐sage (Ambrosia dumosa), a common shrub in the Colorado Desert of California. 3 Analyses of juvenile establishment and survival for two 5‐year census periods from 1984 to 1989 and 1989 to 1994 determined that germination and survival was greater for juveniles located under adults compared with away from adults. However, analyses of neighbour effects on growth of plants from the 1984 cohort showed that near adult neighbours improved juvenile growth over the 10‐year interval from 1984 to 1994, but reduced adult growth. 4 A size‐dependent, ontogenetic shift occurs because neighbouring adult plants significantly improve the demographic performance of juveniles, but diminish that of larger established plants. 5 The ontogenetic niche shift may be a useful framework to describe such differential responses of juvenile and adult plants. The utility of this framework is that responses to spatial and temporal variability in the environment are clearly demonstrated through ontogenetic constraints on plant performance, which provide an alternative mechanism of coexistence within and between species.
Acceptance of e-procurement in organisations

This research is concerned with the development of a realistic model for e-procurement adoption by organisations and groups observing the Rules of Islamic Sharia (RIS). This model is intended to be based on the behavioural control, subjective norms, and the recognition of the benefits and risks of e procurement adoption. The developed model,(E-PAM), combined and extended two existing models previously used for information technology adoption. Central to the design of the E-PAM is the principle that a realistic model should consider all relevant psychological, social, cultural, demography, and religious factors.
Temperature-dependent Thermal Conductivity of a Single Germanium Nanowire Measured by Optothermal Raman Spectroscopy

We investigate temperature dependent thermal conductivity k(T) in a single Ge nanowire (NW) using Optothermal Raman Spectroscopy which utilizes the temperature dependence of Raman lines as a local probe for temperature. The experiment was done from 300 K to above 700 K, a temperature range in which thermal conductivity of single NWs has been explored rarely. The thermal conductivity of Ge NWs (grown by vapor liquid solid mechanism), at around room temperature were observed to lie in the range 1.8 to 4.2 W/m.K for diameters between 50 to 110 nm. The thermal conductivity at a given temperature was found to follow a linear dependence on NW diameter, suggesting that the low magnitude of k(T) is determined by diffused scattering of phonons from the surface of NWs that reduces it severely from its bulk value. k(T) shows approximately 1/T behavior which arises from the Umklapp processes. The quantitative estimation of errors arising from the Optothermal measurement and methods to mitigate them has been discussed. We also suggest a quick way to estimate approximately the thermal conductivity of Ge and Si NWs using the above observations.
The regeneration of highly bioavailable iron by meso‐ and microzooplankton

The micronutrient iron (Fe) is rapidly cycled in surface waters, and regenerated Fe supports much of the phytoplankton growth in open ocean waters. Meso‐ and microzooplankton grazing are both important mechanisms to regenerate Fe, but the chemical conditions in the respective digestive systems are different and might affect the bioavailability of Fe. We conducted radiotracer grazing experiments with the copepod Acartia tonsa or the heterotrophic dinoflagellate Oxyrrhis marina feeding on the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana or the coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi. Uptake of regenerated 55Fe by a separate T. pseudonana culture was compared to the uptake of inorganic Fe. Iron regenerated by A. tonsa was taken up 4‐ to 7‐fold faster than inorganic iron. In contrast, no difference was detected between the uptake rate of inorganic Fe and Fe regenerated by O. marina. Ingestion of different prey by A. tonsa revealed that Fe released during diatom digestion was taken up 1.8‐fold faster than Fe released from coccolithophore digestion. Digestive systems and the chemical makeup of the ingested prey are crucial in determining the bioavailability of regenerated Fe. Differences in pH and oxygen saturation between digestive vacuoles and guts may affect the speciation of regenerated Fe, and the release of ferrous Fe might contribute to the bioavailability of regenerated Fe. The ecological structure determines the importance of regenerated Fe for a particular ecosystem.
Seasonal changes in the time budget of degus, Octodon degus

The activity budget of an individual is the allocation of time to all its activities, and is expected to vary in response to both internal and environmental factors that influence its energy acquisition, breeding success, and survival. We recorded seasonal variation in individual and social behaviour of a natural population of degus (Octodon degus), a diurnal, semi-subterranean and social rodent from central Chile. We related changes in degu activity to differences in sex, seasonality (breeding activity, abundance of high quality food), and abundance of degu predators. On average, degus allocated most of their time while active above ground to foraging (46%) and alertness (32%); activities such as resting (8%), locomotor activity (7%), self-grooming (3%), burrow digging (0.2%), dust-bathing (1%), and social interactions (3%) occupied a relatively small percentage of degus' time budget. Time spent in foraging and total vigilance did not vary seasonally, but they were inversely related, reflecting a trade-off. Degus adjusted bipedal vigilance and locomotor activity partially to the presence of predators. Sex interacted with seasonality to influence degu behaviour. Male degus dust-bathed more and were more aggressive toward conspecifics than females during breeding time. We hypothesize that breeding activity is a more important predictor than abundance of high quality food to account for these interactions.
ReLU Code Space: A Basis for Rating Network Quality Besides Accuracy

We propose a new metric space of ReLU activation codes equipped with a truncated Hamming distance which establishes an isometry between its elements and polyhedral bodies in the input space which have recently been shown to be strongly related to safety, robustness, and confidence. This isometry allows the efficient computation of adjacency relations between the polyhedral bodies. Experiments on MNIST and CIFAR-10 indicate that information besides accuracy might be stored in the code space.
Deep Learning for LiDAR Point Clouds in Autonomous Driving: A Review

Recently, the advancement of deep learning (DL) in discriminative feature learning from 3-D LiDAR data has led to rapid development in the field of autonomous driving. However, automated processing uneven, unstructured, noisy, and massive 3-D point clouds are a challenging and tedious task. In this article, we provide a systematic review of existing compelling DL architectures applied in LiDAR point clouds, detailing for specific tasks in autonomous driving, such as segmentation, detection, and classification. Although several published research articles focus on specific topics in computer vision for autonomous vehicles, to date, no general survey on DL applied in LiDAR point clouds for autonomous vehicles exists. Thus, the goal of this article is to narrow the gap in this topic. More than 140 key contributions in the recent five years are summarized in this survey, including the milestone 3-D deep architectures, the remarkable DL applications in 3-D semantic segmentation, object detection, and classification; specific data sets, evaluation metrics, and the state-of-the-art performance. Finally, we conclude the remaining challenges and future researches.
The Petersson/Kuznetsov trace formula with prescribed local ramifications

In this paper we derive refined Petersson/Kuznetsov trace formulae with prescribed local ramifications. The spectral side of these formulae are much shorter than the standard versions. We use them to study the first moment and the subconvexity bound of certain Rankin-Selberg L-function in a hybrid setting.
Gravitational Fluctuations as an Alternative to Inflation III. Numerical Results

Power spectra play an important role in the theory of inflation, and their ability to reproduce current observational data to high accuracy is often considered a triumph of inflation, largely because of a lack of credible alternatives. In previous work we introduced an alternative picture for the cosmological power spectra based on the nonperturbative features of the quantum version of Einstein’s gravity, instead of currently popular inflation models based on scalar fields. The key ingredients in this new picture are the appearance of a nontrivial gravitational vacuum condensate (directly related to the observed cosmological constant), and a calculable renormalization group running of Newton’s G on cosmological scales. More importantly, one notes the absence of any fundamental scalar fields in this approach. Results obtained previously were largely based on a semi-analytical treatment, and thus, while generally transparent in their implementation, often suffered from the limitations of various approximations and simplifying assumptions. In this work, we extend and refine our previous calculations by laying out an updated and extended analysis, which now utilizes a set of suitably modified state-of-the-art numerical programs (ISiTGR, MGCAMB and MGCLASS) developed for observational cosmology. As a result, we are able to remove some of the approximations employed in our previous studies, leading to a number of novel and detailed physical predictions. These should help in potentially distinguishing the vacuum condensate picture of quantum gravity from that of other models such as scalar field inflation. Here, besides the matter power spectrum P m ( k ) , we work out, in detail, predictions for what are referred to as the TT, TE, EE, BB angular spectra, as well as their closely related lensing spectra. However, the current limited precision of observational data today (especially on large angular scales) does not allow us yet to clearly prove or disprove either set of ideas. Nevertheless, by exploring in more details the relationship between gravity and cosmological matter and radiation both analytically and numerically, together with an expected future influx of increasingly accurate observational data, one can hope that the new quantum gravitational picture can be subjected to further stringent tests in the near future.
Coarse distinguishability of graphs with symmetric growth

Let $X$ be a connected, locally finite graph with symmetric growth. We prove that there is a vertex coloring $\phi\colon X\to\{0,1\}$ and some $R\in\mathbb{N}$ such that every automorphism $f$ preserving $\phi$ is $R$-close to the identity map; this can be seen as a coarse geometric version of symmetry breaking. We also prove that the infinite motion conjecture is true for graphs where at least one vertex stabilizer $S_x$ satisfies the following condition: for every non-identity automorphism $f\in S_x$, there is a sequence $x_n$ such that $\lim d(x_n,f(x_n))=\infty$.