Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Quality and storage characteristics of the seeds of important native pasture species in South-West Queensland.

Seeds of native plants can be difficult to germinate reliably. In addition, the useful life of a carefully harvested seed lot needs to be known. This paper reports on the laboratory germination over eight years of seed of 27 native pasture species hand-harvested near Charleville after the 1972-73 summer and stored in a laboratory without special conditions. The legumes had prolonged hard-seededness and high viability. Forb species varied in their degree of hard-seededness and the level of initial dormancy, Most perennial grasses produced high quality seed which attained best germination between one and three years after harvest. The Andropogoneae had much poorer seed fill than most other species. Laboratory germination of annual and small seeded grasses was often low, even after scarification. Thus, the use of freshly harvested or old, untested seed of native rangeland species in - research programmes is very unwise.
Single Channel Far Field Feature Enhancement For Speaker Verification In The Wild

We investigated an enhancement and a domain adaptation approach to make speaker verification systems robust to perturbations of far-field speech. In the enhancement approach, using paired (parallel) reverberant-clean speech, we trained a supervised Generative Adversarial Network (GAN) along with a feature mapping loss. For the domain adaptation approach, we trained a Cycle Consistent Generative Adversarial Network (CycleGAN), which maps features from far-field domain to the speaker embedding training domain. This was trained on unpaired data in an unsupervised manner. Both networks, termed Supervised Enhancement Network (SEN) and Domain Adaptation Network (DAN) respectively, were trained with multi-task objectives in (filter-bank) feature domain. On a simulated test setup, we first note the benefit of using feature mapping (FM) loss along with adversarial loss in SEN. Then, we tested both supervised and unsupervised approaches on several real noisy datasets. We observed relative improvements ranging from 2% to 31% in terms of DCF. Using three training schemes, we also establish the effectiveness of the novel DAN approach.
DAMIA: Leveraging Domain Adaptation as a Defense Against Membership Inference Attacks

Deep Learning (DL) techniques allow ones to train models from a dataset to solve tasks. DL has attracted much interest given its fancy performance and potential market value, while security issues are amongst the most colossal concerns. However, the DL models may be prone to the membership inference attack, where an attacker determines whether a given sample is from the training dataset. Efforts have been made to hinder the attack but unfortunately, they may lead to a major overhead or impaired usability. In this article, we propose and implement DAMIA, leveraging Domain Adaptation (DA) as a defense aginist membership inference attacks. Our observation is that during the training process, DA obfuscates the dataset to be protected using another relate and similar dataset, and derives a model that underlyingly extracts the features from both datasets. Seeing that the model is obfuscated, membership inference fails, while the extracted features provide supports for usability. Extensive experiments have been conducted to validates our intuition. The model trained by DAMIA has a negligible footprint to the usability and introduces slight overhead compared with other defenses. Our experiment also excludes factors that may hinder the performance of DAMIA, and comparisons with other defenses, providing a potential guideline to vendors and researchers to benefit from our solution in a timely manner.
Numerical simulations of a sphere settling in simple shear flows of yield stress fluids

We perform three-dimensional numerical simulations to investigate the sedimentation of a single sphere in the absence and presence of a simple cross-shear flow in a yield stress fluid with weak inertia. In our simulations, the settling flow is considered to be the primary flow, whereas the linear cross-shear flow is a secondary flow with amplitude 10 % of the primary flow. To study the effects of elasticity and plasticity of the carrying fluid on the sphere drag as well as the flow dynamics, the fluid is modelled using the elastoviscoplastic constitutive laws proposed by Saramito (J. Non-Newtonian Fluid Mech., vol. 158 (1–3), 2009, pp. 154–161). The extra non-Newtonian stress tensor is fully coupled with the flow equation and the solid particle is represented by an immersed boundary method. Our results show that the fore–aft asymmetry in the velocity is less pronounced and the negative wake disappears when a linear cross-shear flow is applied. We find that the drag on a sphere settling in a sheared yield stress fluid is reduced significantly compared to an otherwise quiescent fluid. More importantly, the sphere drag in the presence of a secondary cross-shear flow cannot be derived from the pure sedimentation drag law owing to the nonlinear coupling between the simple shear flow and the uniform flow. Finally, we show that the drag on the sphere settling in a sheared yield stress fluid is reduced at higher material elasticity mainly due to the form and viscous drag reduction.
General Quantum Resource Theories: Distillation, Formation and Consistent Resource Measures

Quantum resource theories (QRTs) provide a unified theoretical framework for understanding inherent quantum-mechanical properties that serve as resources in quantum information processing, but resources motivated by physics may possess structure whose analysis is mathematically intractable, such as non-uniqueness of maximally resourceful states, lack of convexity, and infinite dimension. We investigate state conversion and resource measures in general QRTs under minimal assumptions to figure out universal properties of physically motivated quantum resources that may have such mathematical structure whose analysis is intractable. In the general setting, we prove the existence of maximally resourceful states in one-shot state conversion. Also analyzing asymptotic state conversion, we discover catalytic replication of quantum resources, where a resource state is infinitely replicable by free operations. In QRTs without assuming the uniqueness of maximally resourceful states, we formulate the tasks of distillation and formation of quantum resources, and introduce distillable resource and resource cost based on the distillation and the formation, respectively. Furthermore, we introduce consistent resource measures that quantify the amount of quantum resources without contradicting the rate of state conversion even in QRTs with non-unique maximally resourceful states. Progressing beyond the previous work showing a uniqueness theorem for additive resource measures, we prove the corresponding uniqueness inequality for the consistent resource measures; that is, consistent resource measures of a quantum state take values between the distillable resource and the resource cost of the state. These formulations and results establish a foundation of QRTs applicable in a unified way to physically motivated quantum resources whose analysis can be mathematically intractable.
Lyman α absorption beyond the disc of simulated spiral galaxies

We present an analysis of the origin and properties of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) in a suite of 11 cosmological zoom simulations resembling present-day spiral galaxies. On average the galaxies retain about 50 per cent of the cosmic fraction in baryons, almost equally divided into disc (interstellar medium) gas, cool CGM gas and warm-hot CGM gas. At radii smaller than 50 kpc the CGM is dominated by recycled warm-hot gas injected from the central galaxy, while at larger radii it is dominated by cool gas accreted on to the halo. The recycled gas typically accounts for one-third of the CGM mass. We introduce the novel publicly available analysis tool pygad to compute ion abundances and mock absorption spectra. For Lyman α absorption, we find good agreement of the simulated equivalent width (EW) distribution and observations out to large radii. Disc galaxies with quiescent assembly histories show significantly more absorption along the disc major axis. By comparing the EW and H i column densities, we find that CGM Lyman α absorbers are best represented by an effective line width b ≈ 50–70 km s−1 that increases mildly with halo mass, larger than typically assumed.
Multiple Activation States of Integrin α4β1 Detected through Their Different Affinities for a Small Molecule Ligand*

We have used the highly specific α4β1 inhibitor 4-((N′-2-methylphenyl)ureido)-phenylacetyl-leucine-aspartic acid-valine-proline (BIO1211) as a model LDV-containing ligand to study α4β1 integrin-ligand interactions on Jurkat cells under diverse conditions that affect the activation state of α4β1. Observed K D values for BIO1211 binding ranged from a value of 20–40 nmin the non-activated state of the integrin that exists in 1 mm Mg2+, 1 mm Ca2+ to 100 pm in the activated state seen in 2 mmMn2+ to 18 pm when binding was measured after co-activation by 2 mm Mn2+ plus 10 μg/ml of the integrin-activating monoclonal antibody TS2/16. The large range inK D values was governed almost exclusively by differences in the dissociation rates of the integrin-BIO1211 complex, which ranged from 0.17 × 10−4 s−1 to >140 × 10−4 s−1. Association rate constants varied only slightly under the same conditions, all falling in the narrow range from 0.9 to 2.7 × 106 m −1 s−1. The further increase in affinity observed upon co-activation by divalent cations and TS2/16 compared with that observed at saturating concentrations of metal ions or TS2/16 alone indicates that the mechanism by which these factors bring about activation are distinct and identified a previously unrecognized high affinity state on α4β1that had not been detected by conventional assay methods. Similar changes in affinity were observed when the binding properties of vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 and CS1 to α4β1 were studied, indicating that the different affinity states detected with BIO1211 are an inherent property of the integrin.
Enumerative Geometry of Del Pezzo Surfaces

We prove an equivalence between the superpotential defined via tropical geometry and Lagrangian Floer theory for special Lagrangian torus fibres in del Pezzo surfaces constructed by Collins-Jacob-Lin. We also include some explicit calculations for the projective plane, which confirm some folklore conjecture in this case.
Efficient Promotion of the Sprout Growth and Rutin Production of Tartary Buckwheat by Associated Fungal Endophytes

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of endophytic fungi from tartary buckwheat on the host sprout growth and functional metabolite production. Without obvious changes in the appearance of the sprouts, the exogenous fungal mycelia elicitors notably stimulated the sprout growth and rutin accumulation, and the stimulation effect was mainly depended on the mycelia elicitor species along with its treatment dose. Three endophytic fungi Fat6 (Bionectria pityrodes), Fat9 (Fusarium oxysporum) and Fat15 (Alternaria sp.) were screened to be the most effective candidates for promoting F. tataricum sprout growth and rutin production. With application of polysaccharide (PS, 150 mg/l) of endophyte Fat6, PS (200 mg/l) of endophyte Fat9, and PS (150 mg/l) of endophyte Fat15, the rutin yield was effectively increased to 47.89 mg/(100 sprouts), 45.85 mg/(100 sprouts) and 46.83 mg/(100 sprouts), respectively. That was about 1.5- to 1.6-fold compared to the control culture of 29.37 mg/(100 sprouts). Furthermore, the present study revealed that the biosynthesis of the functional flavonoid resulted from the stimulation of the phenylpropanoid pathway by mycelia polysaccharide treatments. Application of specific fungal elicitors could be an efficient strategy for improving the nutritional and functional quality of tartary buckwheat sprouts.
A New Meshless "Fragile Points Method (FPM)" Based on A Galerkin Weak-Form for 2D Flexoelectric Analysis

A meshless Fragile Points Method (FPM) is presented for analyzing 2D flexoelectric problems. Local, simple, polynomial and discontinuous trial and test functions are generated with the help of a local meshless differential quadrature approximation of the first three derivatives. Interior Penalty Numerical Fluxes are employed to ensure the consistency of the method. Based on a Galerkin weak-form formulation, the present FPM leads to symmetric and sparse matrices, and avoids the difficulties of numerical integration in the previous meshfree methods. Numerical examples including isotropic and anisotropic materials with flexoelectric and piezoelectric effects are provided as validations. The present method is much simpler than the Finite Element Method, or the Element-Free Galerkin (EFG) and Meshless Local Petrov-Galerkin (MLPG) methods, and the numerical integration of the weak form is trivially simple.
Structure and production of the benthic macroinvertebrate community in a shallow lagoon of the Po River Delta

Abstract The composition and the secondary production of a benthic macroinvertebrate community in a brackish lake located in the southernmost area of the Po River Delta was investigated. Three stations (N, C., and S) were selected and sampled quarterly for macrofauna and environmental parameters. Data were subjected to multivariate statistical analysis to discriminate between season‐ality and sites on their faunistic attributes, and univariate measures of community stress were determined. Water parameter values were typical of eutrophic areas. A total of 23 species belonging to four phyla were identified. Macrobenthic faunal assemblages of the lake were dominated by deposit‐feeders. At the three sampling sites, polychaetes were the most abundant taxon, accounting respectively for 65.3%, 87.9% and 51.6% of the total number of individuals. Substratum characteristics, together with fluctuations in environmental parameters, played an important role in structuring faunistic assemblages. In terms of biomass, mo.
Bypassing mitochondrial complex III using alternative oxidase inhibits acute pulmonary oxygen sensing

Signaling from the mitochondrial respiratory chain is essential for acute vascular oxygen sensing in the lung. Mitochondria play an important role in sensing both acute and chronic hypoxia in the pulmonary vasculature, but their primary oxygen-sensing mechanism and contribution to stabilization of the hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) remains elusive. Alteration of the mitochondrial electron flux and increased superoxide release from complex III has been proposed as an essential trigger for hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction (HPV). We used mice expressing a tunicate alternative oxidase, AOX, which maintains electron flux when respiratory complexes III and/or IV are inhibited. Respiratory restoration by AOX prevented acute HPV and hypoxic responses of pulmonary arterial smooth muscle cells (PASMC), acute hypoxia-induced redox changes of NADH and cytochrome c, and superoxide production. In contrast, AOX did not affect the development of chronic hypoxia-induced pulmonary hypertension and HIF-1α stabilization. These results indicate that distal inhibition of the mitochondrial electron transport chain in PASMC is an essential initial step for acute but not chronic oxygen sensing.
Prevalence of Albuminuria in Cardiology and Endocrinology Departments and Its Influencing Factors: A Multicenter, Real-World Evidence Study in China

Aims To evaluate the prevalence of albuminuria and compare its risk factors in diabetic and hypertensive patients. Methods This was an observational, cross-sectional, multicenter registry across China. Consecutive patients were registered with the Cardiology and Endocrine departments in 40 centers. Clinical characteristics were collected, and urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (UACR) was measured using the immunochemical method. Results Of the 2510 patients enrolled in the study, 1515 underwent UACR testing and were included in the present analysis. The prevalence of microalbuminuria was 13.0% and 16.1% while that of macroalbuminuria was 2.5% and 5.0%, in the Cardiology and Endocrinology departments, respectively. HbA1c and systolic blood pressure (SBP) were independent risk factors for albuminuria. The relationship of blood pressure (BP) and HbA1c with albuminuria was continuous and graded. Compared with the reference level of SBP 130–139 mm Hg, an SBP level of <130 mmHg was significantly associated with a lower risk of albuminuria in all subjects (OR = 0.60; 95% CI: 0.40–0.89; P < 0.001) and in subjects with concomitant hypertension and diabetes (OR = 0.48; 95% CI: 0.25–0.92; P < 0.001). Conclusions In China, nearly one-fifth of patients in the Cardiology and Endocrinology departments have albuminuria although ACEI/ARB were widely used. More effective therapy is needed in this population.
Nanoparticle elasticity regulates phagocytosis and cancer cell uptake

The deformation of soft nanocapsules during cell binding and endocytosis leads to a lower cellular uptake than the stiff ones. The ability of cells to sense external mechanical cues is essential for their adaptation to the surrounding microenvironment. However, how nanoparticle mechanical properties affect cell-nanoparticle interactions remains largely unknown. Here, we synthesized a library of silica nanocapsules (SNCs) with a wide range of elasticity (Young’s modulus ranging from 560 kPa to 1.18 GPa), demonstrating the impact of SNC elasticity on SNC interactions with cells. Transmission electron microscopy revealed that the stiff SNCs remained spherical during cellular uptake. The soft SNCs, however, were deformed by forces originating from the specific ligand-receptor interaction and membrane wrapping, which reduced their cellular binding and endocytosis rate. This work demonstrates the crucial role of the elasticity of nanoparticles in modulating their macrophage uptake and receptor-mediated cancer cell uptake, which may shed light on the design of drug delivery vectors with higher efficiency.
Galcanezumab in migraine prevention: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Background: Galcanezumab, along with three other monoclonal antibodies targeting the calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP) pathway, represents the latest disease-specific and mechanism-based treatment for the prophylaxis of migraine. Galcanezumab shares data also for the prophylaxis of cluster headache. Objective: To provide a pooled safety and efficacy analysis of all phase III randomized controlled trials of galcanezumab in the preventive therapy of migraine. Methods: A computer-based literature search was conducted on MEDLINE and the US National Institutes of Health Clinical Trials Registry for phase III randomized controlled trials of galcanezumab in migraine prevention. The primary outcome was the mean change in monthly migraine days (MMDs). The proportions of patients who reported at least one adverse event (AE), at least one serious adverse event (SAE) or withdrew from the study were used as safety outcomes. Results: Two trials were included in the efficacy meta-analysis and three in the safety meta-analysis. Migraine preventive treatment with subcutaneous galcanezumab, at both 120 mg and 240 mg dosages, was associated with a significantly greater reduction in the mean number of MMDs versus placebo (120 mg, MD = –1.98, 95% CI = –2.33 to –1.63; p < 0.0001) or (240 mg, MD = –1.86, 95% CI = –2.20 to –1.53; p < 0.0001). Galcanezumab was found to be more efficacious in all key secondary outcomes as well. Regarding safety, most of the adverse events were mild to moderate, while drop-out rates and serious adverse events were low. Conclusions: Galcanezumab is an efficacious and well-tolerated preventive treatment for migraine. Larger clinical trials with longer follow-up periods need to be conducted in order to provide more safety data of the above-mentioned drug.
Effect of the lower lip of Monarda didyma on pollen removal by hummingbirds

We examined the effect of the lower lip of Monarda didyma L. on pollen removal by ruby-throated hummingbirds (Archilochus colubris L.) through comparisons of hummingbird visits to natural, lipped flowers versus those that had their lower lip experimentally removed. Birds missed the openings of lipless flowers more often than lipped flowers and thus spent more time attempting to insert their bills into them. Once their bills entered the floral tube, handling times of hummingbirds were significantly longer at lipped than at lipless flowers. Contact durations with anthers and amounts of pollen removed by hummingbirds were significantly greater at lipped than at lipless flowers. Videotapes indicated that lips enhanced pollen removal by slowing a hummingbird's bill insertion into the floral tube, which increased the amount of time that a bird was positioned under a flower's anthers. Unlike the conventional view of hummingbird-flower evolution, which argues for the loss or reduction of lips, our results suggest.
Healing Status of Meniscal Ramp Lesion Affects Anterior Knee Stability After ACL Reconstruction

Background: Although the biomechanical importance of the ramp lesion in the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL)–deficient knee has been demonstrated, there is no clear consensus on the appropriate treatment for ramp lesions during ACL reconstruction. Purpose: To compare the postoperative outcomes for ramp lesions between patients treated with all-inside repair through the posteromedial portal and those whose ramp lesions were left in situ without repair during ACL reconstruction. We also determined whether ramp lesion healing status affected postoperative knee stability. Study Design: Cohort study; Level of evidence, 3. Methods: A total of 57 patients who underwent anatomic double-bundle ACL reconstruction between August 2011 and December 2017 had attendant ramp lesions. Of these, 25 ramp lesions that were considered stable were left in situ without repair (Nonrepaired group), and 25 ramp lesions, including 21 stable and 4 unstable lesions, were treated using all-inside repair through the posteromedial portal (Repaired group). We evaluated the side-to-side difference (SSD) in anterior tibial translation on stress radiographs and rotational stability by using the pivot-shift test 2 years after surgery, and healing status of the ramp lesions was evaluated on 3.0-T magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans 1 year after surgery. Results: The mean SSDs in anterior translation were 2.4 ± 1.6 mm for the Nonrepaired group and 1.9 ± 1.6 mm for the Repaired group, with no significant differences. The positive ratios on the pivot-shift test were not significantly different between groups. Healing rates of ramp lesions on MRI scans showed a significant difference between the Nonrepaired group (60%) and the Repaired group (100%) (P = .001). The mean SSDs for knees in which the ramp lesion had healed as shown on MRI scans and those in which it had not healed were 1.9 ± 1.6 mm and 3.2 ± 1.1 mm, respectively, which was a significant difference (P = .02). Conclusion: Healing rates of ramp lesions were significantly better in the Repaired group than in the Nonrepaired group, although postoperative knee stability was not significantly different between groups. Anterior laxity in the knees in which the ramp lesion was unhealed was significantly greater compared with the knees in which the ramp lesion healed. All-inside repair through the posteromedial portal was a reliable surgical procedure to heal ramp lesions.