Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phylogeny and phylogenetic classification of the antbirds, ovenbirds, woodcreepers, and allies (Aves: Passeriformes: infraorder Furnariides)

The infraorder Furnariides is a diverse group of suboscine passerine birds comprising a substantial component of the Neotropical avifauna. The included species encompass a broad array of morphologies and behaviours, making them appealing for evolutionary studies, but the size of the group (ca. 600 species) has limited well‐sampled higher‐level phylogenetic studies. Using DNA sequence data from the nuclear RAG‐1 and RAG‐2 exons, we undertook a phylogenetic analysis of the Furnariides sampling 124 (more than 88%) of the genera. Basal relationships among family‐level taxa differed depending on phylogenetic method, but all topologies had little nodal support, mirroring the results from earlier studies in which discerning relationships at the base of the radiation was also difficult. In contrast, branch support for family‐rank taxa and for many relationships within those clades was generally high. Our results support the Melanopareidae and Grallariidae as distinct from the Rhinocryptidae and Formicariidae, respectively. Within the Furnariides our data contradict some recent phylogenetic hypotheses and suggest that further study is needed to resolve these discrepancies. Of the few genera represented by multiple species, several were not monophyletic, indicating that additional systematic work remains within furnariine families and must include dense taxon sampling. We use this study as a basis for proposing a new phylogenetic classification for the group and in the process erect new family‐group names for clades having high branch support across methods.
Navigating transformations in governance of Chilean marine coastal resources

Marine ecosystems are in decline. New transformational changes in governance are urgently required to cope with overfishing, pollution, global changes, and other drivers of degradation. Here we explore social, political, and ecological aspects of a transformation in governance of Chile's coastal marine resources, from 1980 to today. Critical elements in the initial preparatory phase of the transformation were (i) recognition of the depletion of resource stocks, (ii) scientific knowledge on the ecology and resilience of targeted species and their role in ecosystem dynamics, and (iii) demonstration-scale experimental trials, building on smaller-scale scientific experiments, which identified new management pathways. The trials improved cooperation among scientists and fishers, integrating knowledge and establishing trust. Political turbulence and resource stock collapse provided a window of opportunity that triggered the transformation, supported by new enabling legislation. Essential elements to navigate this transformation were the ability to network knowledge from the local level to influence the decision-making processes at the national level, and a preexisting social network of fishers that provided political leverage through a national confederation of artisanal fishing collectives. The resultant governance scheme includes a revolutionary national system of marine tenure that allocates user rights and responsibilities to fisher collectives. Although fine tuning is necessary to build resilience of this new regime, this transformation has improved the sustainability of the interconnected social–ecological system. Our analysis of how this transformation unfolded provides insights into how the Chilean system could be further developed and identifies generalized pathways for improved governance of marine resources around the world.
Searching Optimal Buyer Coalition Structure by Ant Colony Optimization

— In recent years, several buyer coalition schemes have been proposed by researchers in order to form effective coalitions and achieve the maximum benefit for consumers in an electronic market. However, there are few algorithms applying the ant colony optimization for forming buyer coalition. In this paper, we present the approach based on the Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). The approach called the Ant Colony Optimization for Forming of Buyer Coalition (ACO_FBC) algorithm for the formation of buyer coalition with bundles of items. The algorithm involves searching for the optimal buyer coalition structure by partitioning the whole group of buyers into smaller coalitions so that the aggregate of discount of the whole buyers is maximized. A number of artificial ants search to find the best disjoint subgroups of all buyers based on the total utility functions. The results of the ACO_FBC simulation are compared with the genetic algorithm (GAs) in the terms of the global optimal buyers' benefits. It indicates that in most situations our proposed algorithm significantly improves the utility of the buyer coalition.
FACTORS AFFECTING ONLINE BUYING BEHAVIOR ON G-MARKET SITE AMONG INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS IN BUSAN: A QUALITATIVE RESEARCH

Among the international students in South Korea, shopping activity is one of their favorites outside study. There are so many promotion periods which attract consumer purchasing intention, such as Black Friday, pepero day, year-end sale, etc. The purpose of this study was to explore the factors influencing the online buying behavior of the college students. Qualitative analysis was used for analyzing the data. Beside of offline purchase, online purchasing also have many interests among international students, especially on G-Market site, one of the biggest e-commerce sites in Korea. Based on their experiences, this study reveals that online shopping is cheaper than offline shopping. Moreover, it is also more efficiently for them because they have many class to attend.
Towards Medical Terahertz Sensing of Skin Hydration

Terahertz imaging has shown promise as a tool for noninvasive in-vivo detection of skin abnormalities, including skin cancer, burns, scars, and wounds due to its low non-ionizing photon energy and ability to penetrate clothing and gauze. This study examines whether low-level bulk differences in the water content between hyperhydrated and dehydrated skin can be detected using a scanning, reflective THz imaging system. Our results show an 8.7 x difference in the THz reflectivity between hyperhydrated and dehydrated specimens of chicken skin. The results provide further evidence that water concentration is the primary contrast mechanism in reflective THz biomedical imaging.
Establishment and Maintenance of a Heterochromatin Domain

The higher-order assembly of chromatin imposes structural organization on the genetic information of eukaryotes and is thought to be largely determined by posttranslational modification of histone tails. Here, we study a 20-kilobase silent domain at the mating-type region of fission yeast as a model for heterochromatin formation. We find that, although histone H3 methylated at lysine 9 (H3 Lys9) directly recruits heterochromatin protein Swi6/HP1, the critical determinant for H3 Lys9 methylation to spread in cis and to be inherited through mitosis and meiosis is Swi6 itself. We demonstrate that a centromere-homologous repeat (cenH) present at the silent mating-type region is sufficient for heterochromatin formation at an ectopic site, and that its repressive capacity is mediated by components of the RNA interference (RNAi) machinery. Moreover, cenH and the RNAi machinery cooperate to nucleate heterochromatin assembly at the endogenous matlocus but are dispensable for its subsequent inheritance. This work defines sequential requirements for the initiation and propagation of regional heterochromatic domains.
Examining the Influence of the Social Cognitive Factors and Relative Autonomous Motivations on Employees' Knowledge Sharing Behaviors

By incorporating the perspectives of social cognitive theory and relative autonomous motivations, this study examines a model that depicts the influence of personal and environmental factors on employees’ knowledge sharing behaviors (KSBs). Data that were collected from 294 professionals in the industry were analyzed using component-based structural equation modeling to examine the proposed model. The research results indicate that trust, relationship orientation, knowledge sharing self-efficacy, and relative autonomous motivation regarding KSBs are the key influencing factors of KSBs of professionals. A key implication is that managers must consider the impact of the level of employee-perceived autonomous motivation when they seek to facilitate KSBs. Finally, the theoretical and practical contributions are discussed, followed by the suggestions for future research directions.
Shall we dance or shall we fight? Using DNA sequence data to untangle controversies surrounding sexual selection.

Population and evolutionary genetics studies have largely benefitted from advances in DNA manipulation and sequencing, as well as DNA data analysis techniques. Molecular evolution studies of male reproductive genes show a pattern of rapid evolution shaped, in some cases, by an adaptive selective process. Despite the large body of data on male reproductive genes, the female side of the story has remained unexplored. The few cases of female egg receptors analyzed also show rapid evolution. However, to disentangle between competing hypotheses on how selection operates on male x female molecular interaction leading to fertilization, we need to find male and female molecules that are partners in fertilization. A conflict model of sexual selection (similar to a host-parasite model) assumes a male-driven system where females are being forced under suboptimal conditions. This predicts that the amount of divergence at a female receptor depends on the amount of divergence among the male reproductive proteins that it binds (i.e., males are leading). Under a classical model of runaway sexual selection, female protein receptors might be the key to the rapid molecular changes observed in male reproductive proteins and higher divergence should be expected among female receptors than among their respective male binding proteins.
An investigation into the Effect of Age on Instances and Experiences of Technostress: A Qualitative Study on the Perceptions of Digital Natives and Immigrants in the Sales Industry

While work can be a significant source of security and satisfaction in a person’s life, there is an increasing awareness of its contributory role to instances of stress. The rapid speed in which technology has become a necessity in the workplace and its constant evolution has become a key contributing factor on instances and experiences of work stress (CIPD, 2017). Work stress can manifest in both physical and psychological forms resulting in loss productivity and increased absenteeism (Davies, 2005). As a consequence of this, organisations will incur significant moral and financial burden if these instances continue to occur. The objective of this research was to investigate the different perceptions of technology and its link to work stress among digital native and immigrants participants. This was achieved through analysis of in-depth semi-structured interviews with each participant. Through identifying differences and commonality’s between these two groups it allowed this research to formulate recommendations to manage these occurrences with a better understanding of how age may contribute to experiences of technostress. It was the finding of this research that age does indeed play a role in influencing instances and experiences of technostress. While causes of work stress were similar among digital immigrants and natives, their experience of the outcomes differed as did their perceptions on the benefits of technology use in work and its role in mediating technostress occurrences. Thus, it is suggested by this research that organisations should consider how age is a variable in influencing technostress, and should be given due consideration when seeking to manage such instances.
Interleukin 6 (IL-6) Deficiency Delays Lupus Nephritis in MRL-Faslpr Mice: The IL-6 Pathway as a New Therapeutic Target in Treatment of Autoimmune Kidney Disease in Systemic Lupus Erythematosus

Objective. To investigate the pathophysiological effect of interleukin 6 (IL-6) on lupus nephritis in MRL-Faslpr mice. Methods. We generated IL-6-deficient MRL-Faslpr mice using a backcross/intercross breeding scheme. Renal pathology was evaluated using immunohistochemistry detection for macrophages, lymphocytes, vascular cell adhesion molecule-1 (VCAM-1), and TUNEL (terminal deoxynucleotide transferase-mediated dUTP nick end-labeling) for apoptotic cells, and renal IgG and C3 deposition by immunofluorescence staining. Expression of inflammatory markers in the spleen was analyzed by quantitative real-time reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction. Serum cytokine concentrations were detected by FACS analysis. Results. IL-6 deficiency was highly effective in prolonging survival and ameliorating the clinical, immunological, and histological indicators of murine systemic lupus erythematosus. During the study period of 6 months, MRL-Faslpr IL-6 −/− mice showed delayed onset of proteinuria and hematuria compared to IL-6-intact control mice. Survival rate was 100% in IL-6-deficient MRL-Faslpr mice and 25% in the control group at 6 months of age. The absence of IL-6 resulted in significant reduction of infiltrating macrophages in the kidney (p < 0.05), a decrease in renal IgG and C3 deposition, and a reduction of CD4+ and CD8+ lymphocytes. The parenchymal adhesion molecule VCAM-1 was found to be downregulated in kidneys of MRL-Faslpr IL-6 −/− compared to IL-6-intact mice. We found elevated serum levels of IL-10 and interferon-γ in IL-6-deficient mice, while splenic mRNA showed an overall downregulation of immunoregulatory genes. Conclusion. IL-6 is a strong promoter of lupus nephritis and may be a promising new therapeutic target in the treatment of human lupus nephritis.
SDCI Net : Collaborative Research : An integrated study of datacenter networking and 100 GigE wide-area networking in support of distributed scientific computing

Datacenter and wide-area networking technologies, such as InfiniBand, Fibre Channel, and Ethernet, have seen significant advances, transport protocols have been enhanced, parallel file systems have improved disk access throughput, and applications for parallel transfers of large files have been developed. Nevertheless, scientists still see high variability in end-to-end application-level performance, and often experience low throughput or increased latency. In collaboration with the Community Earth System Model (CESM) project, this proposal seeks to determine the reasons for these end-to-end application level performance problems by gathering and analyzing various measurements as CESM scientists run their applications as part of their daily research. The knowledge gained will be used to create realistic configurations of parallelized Message Passing Interface (MPI) applications and file-transfer applications on a controlled experimental testbed that consists of two datacenters, located at National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), interconnected by an ESnet-run 100 GigE wide-area Advanced Networking Initiative (ANI) prototype network (see letters of support from NERSC and ESnet). Three sets of experiments will be run. The first set consists of CESM MPI applications and a set of benchmark programs that will be run within the NERSC datacenter. The second set will study the feasibility of using wide-area GPFS for MPI I/O. The third set will evaluate two or more file-transfer applications popular in the science community, such as GridFTP and bbFTP, to obtain wide-area throughput as close to 100 Gbps as possible. The emergent Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) over Converged Ethernet (RoCE) technology is interesting as it can be combined with rate-guaranteed (dedicated) Ethernet VLAN based virtual circuits, and it uses the InfiniBand transport protocol rather than TCP. This integrated datacenter/wide-area networking alternative (RoCE with Ethernet VLANs, in which there is no TCP/IP) will be evaluated and compared with a solution that uses Internet Wide Area RDMA Protocol (iWARP) inside the datacenter and IP routed wide-area paths (in which TCP is the transport protocol). The intellectual merit of the proposed project lies in its systematic scientific approach consisting of the following steps:
Potential Link between the NIMA Mitotic Kinase and Nuclear Membrane Fission during Mitotic Exit in Aspergillus nidulans

ABSTRACT We have isolated TINC as a NIMA-interacting protein by using the yeast two-hybrid system and have confirmed that TINC interacts with NIMA in Aspergillus nidulans. The TINC-NIMA interaction is stabilized in the absence of phosphatase inhibitors and in the presence of kinase-inactive NIMA, suggesting that the interaction is enhanced when NIMA is not fully activated. TINC is a cytoplasmic protein. TINC homologues and a TINC-like protein (A. nidulans HETC) are conserved in other filamentous fungi. Neither deletion of tinC nor deletion of both tinC and A. nidulans hetC is lethal, but deletion of tinC does produce cold sensitivity as well as osmotic sensitivity. Expression of an amino-terminal-truncated form of TINC (ΔN-TINC) inhibits colony growth in Aspergillus and localizes to membrane-like structures within the cell. Examination of cell cycle progression in these cells reveals that they progress through multiple defective mitoses. Many cells contain large polyploid single nuclei, while some appear to have separated masses of DNA. Examination of the nuclear envelopes of cells containing more than one DNA mass reveals that both DNA masses are contained within a single nuclear envelope, indicating that nuclear membrane fission is defective. The ability of these cells to separate DNA segregation from nuclear membrane fission suggests that this coordination is normally a regulated process in A. nidulans. Additional experiments demonstrate that expression of ΔN-TINC results in premature NIMA disappearance in mitotic samples. We propose that TINC's interaction with NIMA and the cell cycle defects produced by ΔN-TINC expression suggest possible roles for TINC and NIMA during nuclear membrane fission.
Use of Sex-Specific Clinical and Exercise Risk Scores to Identify Patients at Increased Risk for All-Cause Mortality

Importance Risk assessment tools for exercise treadmill testing may have limited external validity. Cardiovascular mortality has decreased in recent decades, and women have been underrepresented in prior cohorts. Objectives To determine whether exercise and clinical variables are associated with differential mortality outcomes in men and women and to assess whether sex-specific risk scores better estimate all-cause mortality. Design, Setting, and Participants This retrospective cohort study included 59 877 patients seen at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF cohort) from January 1, 2000, through December 31, 2010, and 49 278 patients seen at the Henry Ford Hospital (FIT cohort) from January 1, 1991, through December 31, 2009. All patients were 18 years or older and underwent exercise treadmill testing. Data were analyzed from January 1, 2000, to October 27, 2011, in the CCF cohort and from January 1, 1991, to April 1, 2013, in the FIT cohort. Main Outcomes and Measurements The CCF cohort was divided randomly into derivation and validation samples, and separate risk scores were developed for men and women. Net reclassification, C statistics, and integrated discrimination improvement were used to compare the sex-specific risk scores with other tools that have all-cause mortality as the outcome. Discrimination and calibration were also evaluated with these sex-specific risk scores in the FIT cohort. Results The CCF cohort included 59 877 patients (59.4% men; 40.5% women) with a median (interquartile range [IQR]) age of 54 (45-63) years and 2521 deaths (4.2%) during a median follow-up of 7 (IQR, 4.1-9.6) years. The FIT cohort included 49 278 patients (52.5% men; 47.4% women) with a median (IQR) age of 54 (46-64) years and 6643 deaths (13.5%) during a median (IQR) follow-up of 10.2 (7-13.4) years. C statistics for the sex-specific risk scores in the CCF validation sample were higher (0.79 in women and 0.81 in men) than C statistics using other tools in women (0.70 for Duke Treadmill Score; 0.74 for Lauer nomogram) and men (0.72 for Duke Treadmill Score; 0.75 for Lauer nomogram). Net reclassification and integrated discrimination improvement were superior with the sex-specific risk scores, mostly owing to correct reclassification of events. The sex-specific risk scores in the FIT cohort demonstrated similar discrimination (C statistic, 0.78 for women and 0.79 for men), and calibration was reasonable. Conclusions and Relevance Sex-specific risk scores better estimate mortality in patients undergoing exercise treadmill testing. In particular, these sex-specific risk scores help to identify patients at the highest residual risk in the present era.
Variation in retinitis pigmentosa‐11 (PRPF31 or RP11) gene expression between symptomatic and asymptomatic patients with dominant RP11 mutations

Dominant mutations in the mRNA splicing factor gene PRPF31 (RP11) cause retinitis pigmentosa with reduced penetrance. We studied the expression of RP11 in lymphoblast cell lines from 10 patients, including three who were clinically asymptomatic, with six distinct RP11 mutations. Five of the six mutations were characterized and all five created premature nonsense codons or eliminated the normal initiation codon. Semiquantitative RT‐PCR indicated that an average of only 17% of the RP11 mRNA was derived from the mutant allele, likely because the mutant mRNA transcripts were degraded by nonsense‐mediated decay. Gene expression levels were measured by Affymetrix and CodeLink microarrays and, for RP11 transcripts, also by real‐time PCR. Combined wild‐type‐plus‐mutant RP11 mRNA expression from symptomatic patients was 52 to 77% of that in controls (p≤0.0005). Clinically asymptomatic carriers had levels of RP11 mRNA similar to controls and 29–42% higher than in clinically affected patients (0.0001
Long-term follow-up after first-line bronchoscopic therapy in patients with bronchial carcinoids

Background Carcinoid of the lung is considered to be a low-grade malignancy. A subgroup presents as an endobronchial tumour. Surgical resection is considered the standard approach because of its metastatic potential and the possibility of an iceberg phenomenon for the endobronchial subgroup. Advances in non-invasive and minimally invasive technologies seem to justify a more lung parenchyma-sparing approach. Methods In patients presenting with bronchial carcinoids, initial bronchoscopic treatment (IBT) is first attempted for complete tumour eradication and sufficient tissue sampling for the proper differentiation of typical (TC) versus atypical (AC) histological type. Furthermore in cases with postobstruction problems the desobstruction is aimed at improving the patient's condition and by that alleviate surgery if that is needed. High resolution CT is performed 6 weeks post IBT to determine local tumour growth. Surgical resection follows in case of extraluminal disease, residual carcinoid inaccessible for IBT, or late recurrences not salvaged by repeat IBT. Results Minimum follow-up was 5 years from start of treatment for 112 patients (65 women, 47 men), with a median age of 47 years (range 16–77 years). Eighty-three patients (74%) had TC, and 29 (26%) AC. IBT only was ultimately curative in 42% of the cases (47/112): 42 TC, 5 AC. Disease-specific mortality including surgical mortality has been 2.6% (3/112) in patients with extraluminal carcinoids (3 AC). Conclusions IBT, if with unsuccessful rescue surgery, is justifiable with excellent long-term outcome. IBT made surgery unnecessary in 42% of the cases. Iceberg phenomenon and metastatic potential in this group of patients with bronchial carcinoids are clinically insignificant.