Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Soil–climate interactions explain variation in foliar, stem, root and reproductive traits across temperate forests

Aim The individual effects of climate and soil properties on functional trait distributions have become increasingly clear with recent syntheses of large datasets. However, the distribution of traits in a given climate may depend on the fertility of the soil. Our aim was to quantify how soil–climate interactions explain community-level variation in functional traits from every plant organ to improve predictions of plant community responses to environmental change. Location Temperate forests throughout New Zealand. Methods We measured traits of foliar, stem, root and reproductive tissue for 64 species and calculated abundance-weighted mean trait values on 324 forest plots. Multiple linear regression was used to model the variation in each of the traits as functions of mean annual temperature (MAT), vapour pressure deficit (VPD), soil pH, soil total phosphorus (P) and their interactions. Results Soil–climate interactions explained significant variation in functional traits. For example, specific leaf area (SLA) was highest in high-P soil within a wet and warm climate; however, strong interactions indicate that SLA was lowest in wet and warm climates in low-P soil. Root tissue density was lowest in warm climates and high-P soil, but it was high in warm climates and low-P soil and in cold climates and high-P soil. According to model predictions, the largest potential responses of vegetation to warming may occur in fertile and wet environments. Main conclusions Pervasive soil–climate interactions demonstrate that interpreting simple bivariate relationships between traits and climate must be done with caution because the adaptive value of traits in a given climate depends on the fertility of the soil. Predictions of vegetation responses to climate change will improve significantly by incorporating local-scale soil properties into modelling frameworks. Rising global temperatures may shift community-level trait values in opposite directions depending on whether the soil is fertile or infertile.
Comments on the Study of Plumage Succession

PUBLICATION of the A.O. U. Handbook of North American birds, Vol. 1, has stimulated new interest in molts and plumages, particularly with respect to problems of nomenclature. The concepts and terminology adopted by the Handbook were, with minor modifications, those originally proposed by us (1959). Most recently, Professor Erwin Stresemann (1963) has published a stimulating critique of our 1959 paper; his thoughtful analysis provides us with a welcome opportunity to review our own concepts.
Relationship between Action Spectrum and Spectral Sensitivity of Compound Eyes Relating Phototactic Behavior of the Western Flower Thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis

We measured the phototactic behavior of the western flower thrips, Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) under the LED light of various spectral content and intensity. The light intensity required to elicit a 50% behavioral response to the stimulus yielded the action spectrum of the phototactic behavior. The action spectrum peaks at 525 and 355 nm, between 355 to 660 nm. This profile reasonably fits the spectral sensitivity of the compound eye as determined by the electroretinographic method. In a choice experiment where the insects were subjected to select either 355 nm or 525 nm of equal photon flux, they preferred 355 nm to 525 nm, indicating that the insects prefer ultraviolet (UV) radiation under the condition of multiple light sources.
Larval Head Capsules of the Nantucket Pine Tip Moth

In studies of the Nantucket pine tip moth, Rhyacionia frustrana (Comstock), larval head capsule sizes and other parameters were gathered to provide basic information to aid interpretation of phenomena associated with the destructive stages of this insect. Nash and Fox (1969) were able to separate tip moth stadia and generations, with the help of Dyar's (1890) principle modified according to Beck (1950), in control studies by use of a parasitic nematode. However, further evaluation was suggested as a result of variation encountered in lepidopterous larvae, especially in the larval studies of the elm spanworm, Ennomos subsignarius (Hubner), by Drooz (1965).
Postnatal ontogenetic scaling of pampas deer (Ozotoceros bezoarticus celer: Cervidae) cranial morphology

Abstract The pampas deer Ozotoceros bezoarticus is a medium-sized, elegant, and lightly built cervid that was once a characteristic inhabitant of open grasslands across a wide geographical distribution in South America. In Argentina, the subspecies Ozotoceros bezoarticus celer is the most southern and abundant populations and relatively well represented in osteological collections permitting a morphometric study of cranial ontogeny. We measured 17 cranial variables on an ontogenetic series in order to evaluate the multivariate allometry of neurocranial and splanchnocranial components through developmental stages. The cranial ontogenetic pattern in O. b. celer exhibits a conservative plan in which both sexes share most of the allometric trends except in three variables related to the rostrum. Isometry was detected in 9 out of 17 variables, whereas four grows with negative allometry, and only nasal length showed positive allometry. As for most mammals, those variables related to the neurocranial components and sensorial capsules exhibit negative allometry. The growth of the rostrum indicates that both sexes have longer face than younger. However, the lack of allometry in most of the variables seems to be supporting the idea of a younger with the general appearance of an adult but smaller size.
Climate-associated changes in prey availability drive reproductive dynamics of the North Atlantic right whale population

Considered one of the most endangered cetacean species, the North Atlantic right whale Eubalaena glacialis suffered declining abundance during the 1990s due to a high rate of anthropogenic-associated mortality and a low rate of reproduction. Previous studies have sug- gested that the reproductive rate is tightly coupled to the abundance of Calanus finmarchicus in the Gulf of Maine (GOM), which has been shown to respond to ecosystem regime shifts associated with decadal-scale climate forcing from the Arctic. Given the endangered status of the right whale population, it is vital to determine how climate-associated changes in prey availability will affect this species in the future. Here, we investigate a 3-state reproduction model that explores multiple environmental proxies as potential predictors of annual calf production during the period from 1980 to 2007. The model achieves its best fit to observations using temporally and spatially resolved C. finmarchicus abundance data derived from Continuous Plankton Recorder (CPR) sur- veys of the GOM. Building on previous research, this prey-dependent model, which uses bi- monthly and geographically specific abundance anomalies of C. finmarchicus, significantly improves estimates of annual calf production relative to a null model. The temporal and geo- graphic distributions of prey objectively chosen for inclusion in the new version of the model cor- respond well with observed right whale seasonal distribution patterns, providing further evidence that the model captures essential features of right whale reproductive ecology.
Phylogenetic incongruence and the origins of cardenolide-resistant forms of Na+, K+- ATPase in North American Danaus butterflies

Rapid species radiations can obscure phylogenetic relationships between even distantly related species and lead to incorrect evolutionary inferences. For this reason, we examined evolutionary relationships among the three North American milkweed butterflies, Danaus plexippus, D. gilippus and D. eresimus using >400 orthologous gene sequences assembled from transcriptome data. Contrary to previous phylogenetic assessments, our results indicate that D. plexippus and D. eresimus are the sister taxa among these species. This result explains many previously noted phylogenetic incongruences such as an amino acid substitution in the sodium-potassium pump (Na+,K+-ATPase) of D. eresimus and D. plexippus, which increases resistance to the toxins found in these butterflies’ host plants. In accordance with a rapid radiation of Danaus butterflies, we also find evidence that both incomplete lineage sorting and post-speciation genetic exchange have contributed significantly to the evolutionary histories of these species. Furthermore, our findings suggest that D. plexippus is highly derived both morphologically and behaviorally.
Plasticity in Frequency of Reproduction in an Alpine Lizard, Niveoscincus microlepidotus

We report on phenotypic plasticity in the frequency of reproduction in a viviparous, alpine scincid lizard (Niveoscincus microlepidotus) from Tasmania, Australia. After having monitored individually marked females for five years in the wild, we conclude that females never reproduce two years in succession. Instead, female reproduction is biennial to triennial (for those that survive their first reproduction). However, when offered prolonged benign conditions indoors, females may give birth in summer, that is, showing annual reproduction. We have demonstrated elsewhere that full-term females refuse to give birth in autumn when temporarily offered "summer temperatures. " Thus, females seem only to go through with parturition within a "temporal window" in summer but refuse parturition closer to hibernation, through which the full-term young are carried by the female.
2D Surface Passivation in Semi-transparent Perovskite Top Solar Cells with Engineered Bandgap for Tandem Photovoltaics

Wide-bandgap perovskite top solar cells (PSCs) with optimal bandgap (Eg) are key to boost the efficiency of perovskite/Si tandem devices beyond the Shockley-Queisser limit for single-junction solar cells. However, the large open circuit voltage (Voc) deficit in the optimal bandgap range and the poor transmission of the top semi-transparent perovskite solar cells (s-PSCs) restricts the development in this field. Here, we present a novel 2D/3D perovskite heterostructure architecture to reduce the voltage deficit in PSCs. The reduced voltage deficit is a result of the decreased non-radiative recombination losses at the perovskite/hole-transport layer interface. Employing the 2D/3D perovskite heterostructure, efficient four-terminal (4T) perovskite/Si tandem solar cells with a stabilized power conversion efficiency (PCE) of up to 25.7% is demonstrated. In order to improve the PCE further, we present alternative transparent conductive oxide electrodes that reduce the parasitic absorption and reflection losses and enhances the transmission in the near infrared wavelengths, leading to a potential PCE of 27.4% for 4T perovskite/c-Si tandem devices.
Studies on Constitutive and Secretive Expression of Codon-Optimized Recombinant Aflatoxin-Detoxifizyme(rADTZ) in Pichia pastoris

Aflatoxin-detoxifizyme(ADTZ),being from Armillariella tabescens,can effectively decompose aflatoxins.The 5'coding region of its cDNA was optimized according to the codon bias of Pichia pastoris to make it secretively express in Pichia pastoris with higher performance.Two-step DNA synthsis was used to synthesize the cDNA sequence being optimized of ADTZ(OPT-ADTZ). OPT-ADTZ was connected with constitutive plasmid pGAPZaA to construct the recombinant plasmid pNOA.pNOA was linearized and then transformed into Pichia pastoris GS115.Then codon-optimized ADTZ was constitutively and secretively expressed in Pichia pastoris.
Collaboration Strategies for Fog Computing under Heterogeneous Network-bound Scenarios

The success of IoT applications increases the number of online devices and motivates the adoption of a fog computing paradigm to support large and widely distributed infrastructures. However, the heterogeneity of nodes and their connections requires the introduction of load balancing strategies to guarantee efficient operations. This aspect is particularly critical when some nodes are characterized by high communication delays. Some proposals such as the Sequential Forwarding algorithm have been presented in literature to provide load balancing in fog computing systems. However, such algorithms have not been studied for a wide range of working parameters in an heterogeneous infrastructure; furthermore, these algorithms are not designed to take advantage from highly heterogeneous network delays that are common in fog infrastructures. The contribution of this study is twofold: first, we evaluate the performance of the sequential forwarding algorithm for several load and delay conditions; second, we propose and test a delay-aware version of the algorithm that takes into account the presence of highly variable node connectivity in the infrastructure. The results of our experiments, carried out using a realistic network topology, demonstrate that a delay-blind approach to sequential forwarding may determine poor performance in the load balancing when network delay represents a major contribution to the response time. Furthermore, we show that the delay-aware variant of the algorithm may provide a benefit in this case, with a reduction in the response time up to 6%.
Dynamic Multi-Swarm Fractional-best Particle Swarm Optimization for Dynamic Multi-modal Optimization

While many particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithms have been developed to find multiple optima to multimodal optimization problems, very few PSO algorithms exist to both find and track multiple optima in dynamically changing search landscapes. This paper presents a novel multi-swarm PSO algorithm, where the number of sub-swarms change dynamically over time to more efficiently adapt to problems where the number of optima changes over time. In addition, a repelling mechanism is employed to prevent sub-swarms from converging to the same optimum. Instead of designating one particle as the global best position, the global best position is determined by combining the best components from different particles. The new algorithm, called the dynamic multi-swarm fractional-best PSO algorithm, is compared to the best available dynamic multi-modal PSO algorithms on a large set of dynamic optimization problems with varying dynamics. The results show that the dynamic multi-swarm fractional-best PSO performs the best with reference to offline error, and second best with reference to the average number of optima found. The new algorithm’s offline error is also shown to be insensitive to change severity.
Gathering data for decisions: best practice use of primary care electronic records for research

In Australia, there is limited use of primary health care data for research and for data linkage between health care settings. This puts Australia behind many developed countries. In addition, without use of primary health care data for research, knowledge about patients’ journeys through the health care system is limited. There is growing momentum to establish “big data” repositories of primary care clinical data to enable data linkage, primary care and population health research, and quality assurance activities. However, little research has been conducted on the general public's and practitioners’ concerns about secondary use of electronic health records in Australia. International studies have identified barriers to use of general practice patient records for research. These include legal, technical, ethical, social and resource‐related issues. Examples include concerns about privacy protection, data security, data custodians and the motives for collecting data, as well as a lack of incentives for general practitioners to share data. Addressing barriers may help define good practices for appropriate use of health data for research. Any model for general practice data sharing for research should be underpinned by transparency and a strong legal, ethical, governance and data security framework. Mechanisms to collect electronic medical records in ethical, secure and privacy‐controlled ways are available. Before the potential benefits of health‐related data research can be realised, Australians should be well informed of the risks and benefits so that the necessary social licence can be generated to support such endeavours.
CGLER: Laban Effort Framework Analysis with Conducting Gestures Using Neural Networks

Gesture recognition has been a research area of considerable interest for many years. This is due to the many areas it can be applied to, from aiding with sign language recognition to allowing natural interfacing with a computer. With the increase of computing power, new methods of using computational intelligence (CI) algorithms have been explored. One way to improve CI is to test new frameworks for feature extraction and gesture description. One such framework is the Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) which provides functional and expressive descriptors for human gesture. In the past, LMA has been most commonly applied to theatre and dance. This paper attempts to apply LMA to the study of conducting gestures under a computational intelligence framework. In our method, deep learning was employed by using stacked neural networks models. The stacked neural network method allows for more layers of learning, which is anticipated to produce more accurate results. Three datasets of 72 total files was used to train five different neural networks. The results show that we have achieved high accuracy in classifying the various Laban qualities, yielding a maximum accuracy rate of 99.85% in one area. The main outcome of this research is to showing the use of deep learning in understanding and classifying Laban features and descriptors through musical conducting gestures.
Phylogeny of the tribe Abrotrichini (Cricetidae, Sigmodontinae): integrating morphological and molecular evidence into a new classification

The tribe Abrotrichini (five genera and 14 living species) is a small clade within the speciose subfamily Sigmodontinae (Rodentia, Cricetidae), representing one of the extant successful radiations of mammals at southern high latitudes of the Neotropics. Its distribution is mostly Andean, reaching its greatest diversity in southern Argentina and Chile. We evaluate the phylogenetic relationships within this tribe through parsimony and Bayesian approaches based on 99 morphological characters (including 19 integumental characters, 38 skull characters, 31 dental characters, three postcranial skeletal characters, seven from the male accessory glands and phallus and one from the digestive system) and six molecular markers (one mitochondrial and five nuclear). We include representatives of all, except one, of the currently recognized species of living Abrotrichini plus one fossil form. Based on total evidence, we recovered a primary division between the genus Abrothrix and a group including the long‐clawed Abrotrichini, Chelemys, Geoxus, Notiomys and Pearsonomys. Both clades are recognized and named here as subtribes. The large degree of morphological variation observed within Abrothrix suggests that species in the genus fall into four groups, which we recognize as subgenera. In addition, the two known species of Chelemys do not form a monophyletic group, and Geoxus was recovered as paraphyletic with respect to Pearsonomys. To reconcile classification and phylogenetics, we describe a new genus for Chelemys macronyx and include Pearsonomys as a junior synonym of Geoxus. Our results highlight the importance of both morphology and molecules in resolving the phylogenetic relationships within this tribe. Based on biogeographical analyses, we hypothesize that Abrotrichini originated in south‐western South America by vicariance and then diversified mostly by successive dispersal events.
Identification of mitochondrial RNA processing factors in Arabidopsis thaliana

RNA PROCESSING FACTORS 1 and 2 are pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) proteins involved in 5' processing of different mitochondrial mRNAs in Arabidopsis thaliana. Both factors are highly similar to RESTORERS OF FERTILITY (RF), which are part of cytoplasmic male sterility/restoration systems in various plant species. These findings suggest a predominant role of RF-like PPR proteins in posttranscriptional 5' processing. To further explore the functions of this group of proteins we examined a number of T-DNA lines carrying insertions in the corresponding PPR genes. This screening identified a nearly complete absence of mature ccmC transcripts in an At1g62930 T-DNA insertion line, a phenotype that could be restored by the introduction of the intact At1g62930 gene into the mutant. The insertion in this nuclear gene, which we now call RNA PROCESSING FACTOR 3, also leads to a severe reduction of the CcmC protein in mitochondria. The analysis of C24/Col F2 hybrids lacking functional RPF3 genes revealed that this gene has less influence on the generation of mature ccmC 5' transcript end derived from a distinct ccmC 5’ upstream configuration found in mitochondrial DNAs from C24 and other accessions. Our new results further substantiate the fundamental role of RF-like PPR proteins in the posttranscriptional generation of plant mitochondrial 5’ transcript termini. The data further show that particular a function of an RF-like protein is required only in connection with a distinct mtDNA configuration.
Effect Of Dietary Supplementation With Tigernut Tubers On Streptozotocin-Induced Diabetic Rats

This work has been carried out to detect the effect of tigernut tubers as an antidiabetic plant on some biochemical parameters in streptozotocin (STZ)-induced diabetic rats. Diabetes mellitus was induced by a single intraperitoneal injection of 45 mg STZ /kg body weight. The present results indicated an increase in both serum glucose level and liver glucose-6phosphatase (G6P) activity in STZ-diabetic rats. In addition, a significant decrease in serum insulin level and liver glycogen content was recorded in the same rats. Moreover, serum total lipids, total cholesterol, triglycerides and LDL-cholesterol levels revealed a significant increase, while a decrease in the level of HDL-cholesterol was observed in STZ-diabetic rats. The activity of serum aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and alkaline phosphatase (ALP) showed marked increase in STZ-diabetic rats. On the other hand, tigernutsupplemented diet (25% w/w) for two or four weeks recorded a significant improvement in all the above biochemical parameters affected by STZ injection especially after four weeks of treatment. Therefore, it was concluded that tigernut tubers had appreciable hypoglycemic and hypolipidemic effects on STZ-diabetic rats.
Peripheral Inserted Central Catheter Use and Related Infections in Clinical Practice: A Literature Update

Peripherally inserted central catheter (PICC) lines are commonly used by clinicians in daily practice. This strategy has been established the latest years as a common approach in many clinical conditions. Apart from their usefulness, PICC use is related to some complications. Aim of this review is to summarize all relevant publications regarding the PICC-related infection, as sepsis remains a high mortality syndrome. We conducted a PubMed search to identify all relevant publications referring to infective complications after insertion and use of PICC lines in hospitalized adult patients. A great number of publications suggest that PICC lines are widely used in the management of patients. The use of peripheral inserted central lines is related with a few complications, including bloodstream infections. Existing data mainly support their use in specific clinical conditions because of the low infectious rates. Some conflicting data also exist regarding PICC use, due to an unclear benefit from their use compared to other commonly used strategies. Although a number of complications, including bloodstream infections are related with insertion of PICC lines, their use has a promising role and can be used when indicated in a wide variety of clinical conditions, especially in specific categories of patients and prolonged periods.