Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
ESTIMATING THE ADULT SURVIVAL RATE OF CENTRAL NORTH PACIFIC HUMPBACK WHALES (MEGAPTERA NOVAEANGLIAE)

Abstract We used photo-identification records to estimate annual survival of adult humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) for the central North Pacific stock using models within the software application Program MARK. The analysis is based on 10,567 photographs of 2,400 individual whales taken from 1979 to 1996. The central North Pacific stock winters in Hawai'i and migrates to discrete feeding areas in Alaska for the summer and autumn. The Cormack–Jolly–Seber (CJS) estimate of annual survival based on annual sightings in Hawai'i was 0.963 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.944–0.978) and the Pradel estimate was 0.963 (95% CI: 0.944–0.976), with a population rate of increase of 1.10 (95% CI: 1.03–1.16). The best survival estimate for southeastern Alaska whales, based on Barker's model, was 0.957 (95% CI: 0.943–0.967). The best survival estimate for Prince William Sound whales, also based on Barker's model, was 0.984 (95% CI: 0.954–0.995). Whales from the central North Pacific stock mix in Hawai'i; therefore, the best apparent survival estimate for the entire stock is from the pooled Hawai'i data. However, this analysis also demonstrated that we could reduce heterogeneity with Barker's model and obtain more plausible estimates of survival for the whales in discrete feeding areas using semiannual sightings in Hawai'i as opportunistic resightings.
Status of Legislation and Regulatory Drivers for Microplastics in California

Microplastics are pervasive in the environment, with biological communities exposed to microplastics particles on a continuous basis. Although health risks of microplastics exposure are poorly understood, microplastics have the potential to bioaccumulate through food webs, to serve as an exposure pathway for other contaminants that have stuck to them, and – in the case of smaller microplastics – to translocate into tissues and organs. To comprehensively assess exposure risks, scientists first need to build a foundational understanding of their occurrence and fate in the environment. California is at the forefront of international efforts to vet, standardize and implement measurement techniques that will become part of routine management monitoring. A long legacy of regulatory actions on trash pollution of all kinds has optimally positioned California to serve in this leadership role, including development of the nation’s first TMDL (total maximum daily load) regulatory actions to reduce trash in waterways, as well as numerous trash source-control measures. In 2018, the California State Legislature passed a pair of bills that require the State to develop microplastics management strategies for both drinking water and California’s coastal ocean. The legislation has become a call to action for the international scientific community to develop clear, actionable recommendations supporting California’s microplastics management strategy. Already, a yearlong study has been launched to compare and evaluate various methods and instruments for measuring microplastics levels in water, sediment and tissue matrices. The study will pave the way for California to craft comprehensive, science-informed approaches for effectively managing microplastics in diverse aquatic systems.
Species range size distributions for some marine taxa in the Atlantic Ocean. Effect of latitude and depth

The range size distributions of 6643 species in ten different fish and invertebrate taxa dwelling in pelagic (latitudinal range sizes) and benthic (latitudinal and depth range sizes) habitats on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean (80 ∞ N - 70 ∞ S) were studied. The objectives were to analyse: (1) the range size distribution patterns for the various taxa and whether they have right/left skewed or lognormal distributions; (2) the geographical species distributions, to ascertain whether the distribution ranges change with latitude (Rapoport’s rule); and (3) the relationship between the depth ranges of benthic species and their maximum depth of occurrence and how depth range size distributions change with latitude. The pelagic taxa exhibited larger range sizes than did the benthic taxa, continental slope/rise species excepted. On the other hand, the boundaries between geographical provinces for both benthic taxa and pelagic taxa tended to occur in association with major oceanographic processes. The shape of the latitudinal range frequency distributions (LRFDs) of the pelagic organisms were distinctly left-skewed, and the LRFDs for most taxa were significantly different from lognormal. There was no common pattern for the distributions of the benthic organisms, which were lognormal in Cephalopoda, Stomatopoda, and Crustacea Decapoda and tended to be left-skewed and significantly different from lognormal in Pisces. The applicability of Rapoport’s rule was not clearly inferable from the results, and the rule appears to be conditioned by the location of biogeographical boundaries and the endemism rate in the different biogeographical provinces. A clear increase in depth range size with maximum depth range was observable for benthic species, confirming previous studies. Species’ depth range distributions displayed a discernible latitudinal pattern, right-skewed at high latitudes and left-skewed at low latitudes. The location of biogeographical boundaries, and endemism rate by biogeographical province were considered to be the factors most useful in explaining species’ distribution patterns and their conformity or nonconformity to Rapoport’s rule. © 2003 The Linnean Society of London, Biological Journal of the Linnean Society , 2003, 80 , 437‐455.
STF-Energy Efficient Scheduling Algorithm for WSN

: As it is well known that sensors are deployed to perform an important task of gathering sensory information from its surrounding which may be very crucial for monitoring and analysis purpose, thus it should be taken care that sensors remain alive for a long time to sense data. All the sensor nodes have a limited supply of power which keeps them alive. Therefore, it is very necessary to reduce the energy consumed by sensors. This paper aims at increasing the lifetime of sensor nodes by adopting an efficient scheduling algorithm named ShortestTime First (STF). Merging this concept with the existing “intelligent sleeping mechanism” of Low Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy Centralised Sleeping (LEACH CS)[3]protocolhelps to increase the network lifetime as it allows sensor nodes to sleep for some more time that has been saved using our new scheduling mechanism. According to STF, all the cluster heads will be scheduled to send their aggregated data on the basis of time taken for their signal to reach base station, which would help in reducing the waiting time of other cluster heads in a particular round and ultimately conserve energy.Simulation Results show that proposed STF schedule in LEACH CS increases the energy efficiency by approximately 20% more than LEACH CS [3] algorithm.
Participation of Rural Women in Community and Social Development Project in Kogi State, Nigeria

The study investigates the level of participation of women in the Community and Social Development Project in Kogi state, Nigeria. Multi-stage random sampling technique was used to select 313 respondents. The study employs the double – hurdle model with the assumption that, the participation and level of participation of rural women in Community and Social Development Project (CSDP) are two independent decisions. The results of the first tier hurdle model of the maximum likelihood estimates of the probit model indicated that, the Wald statistic estimate was 62.29 and was significant at 1% level of probability, the average partial effects (APE) in the interpretation of the model indicated that household size was positively and significantly related to the decision to participate in CSDP by women at 10% level of probability. The second tier hurdle shows the maximum likelihood estimates of the truncated regression model for the expected level of participation in CSDP by rural women in Kogi State indicated that the level of participation of women will be increased by 0.35 stage which is about 4 stages in the programme out of 10. The study therefore concludes that the decision to participate in CSDP was found to be positively correlated with household size, urban exposure and membership of Community. Based on the findings the study recommends that advocates and awareness campaign programmes for deeper sensitization of rural communities on the need to encourage women to actively participate in social/community development meetings should be encourage at all levels.
Co-infections by malaria parasites decrease feather growth but not feather quality in house martin

During moult, stressors such as malaria and related haemosporidian parasites (e.g. Plasmodium and Haemoproteus) could affect the growth rate and quality of feathers, which in turn may compromise future reproduction and survival. Recent advances in molecular methods to study parasites have revealed that co-infections with multiple parasites are frequent in bird-malaria parasite systems. However, there is no study of the consequences of co-infections on the moult of birds. In house martins Delichon urbica captured and studied at a breeding site in Europe during 11 yr, we measured the quality and the growth rate of tail feathers moulted in the African winter quarters in parallel with the infection status of blood parasites that are also transmitted on the wintering ground. Here we tested if the infection with two haemosporidian parasite lineages has more negative effects than a single lineage infection. We found that birds with haemosporidian infection had lower body condition. We also found that birds co-infected with two haemosporidian lineages had the lowest inferred growth rate of their tail feathers as compared with uninfected and single infected individuals, but co-infections had no effect on feather quality. In addition, feather quality was negatively correlated with feather growth rate, suggesting that these two traits are traded-off against each other. We encourage the study of haemosporidian parasite infection as potential mechanism driving this trade-off in wild populations of birds. (Less)
Wildlife and endocrine disrupters: Requirements for hazard identification

The increasing demands of the global economy and our growing human population exert profound effects on the ecosystem. As a species, we have an essential need for quality air, water, and soil and a diversity of living organisms, so any vision of a sustainable future must be formulated on the basis of their protection. Decisions on the most effective ways to protect ecosystems must be prioritized on the basis of science and our understanding of the most important factors that affect wildlife populations. In the case of endocrine disrupters, it is important that further research be conducted (1) to determine the status and trends of wildlife populations and the evidence for a widespread effect of endocrine disrupters, (2) to determine the extent to which species differences in the mechanisms that control reproduction and development will affect their sensitivity to endocrine disrupters, and (3) to ensure full validation and refinement of new test methods for assessing the effects of endocrine disrupters across diverse species. Premature implementation of testing and assessment methods for endocrine disrupters, without appropriate consideration of the above points, may result in assessment schemes that placate public opinion but neither alleviate the major factors affecting wildlife populations nor protect diverse species with distinctive endocrine systems.
Fast and Robust QEF Minimization using Probabilistic Quadrics

Error quadrics are a fundamental and powerful building block in many geometry processing algorithms. However, finding the minimizer of a given quadric is in many cases not robust and requires a singular value decomposition or some ad‐hoc regularization. While classical error quadrics measure the squared deviation from a set of ground truth planes or polygons, we treat the input data as genuinely uncertain information and embed error quadrics in a probabilistic setting (“probabilistic quadrics”) where the optimal point minimizes the expected squared error. We derive closed form solutions for the popular plane and triangle quadrics subject to (spatially varying, anisotropic) Gaussian noise. Probabilistic quadrics can be minimized robustly by solving a simple linear system — 50× faster than SVD. We show that probabilistic quadrics have superior properties in tasks like decimation and isosurface extraction since they favor more uniform triangulations and are more tolerant to noise while still maintaining feature sensitivity. A broad spectrum of applications can directly benefit from our new quadrics as a drop‐in replacement which we demonstrate with mesh smoothing via filtered quadrics and non‐linear subdivision surfaces.
Tilt based passive optimizations for microfluidics and lab-on-chip devices - A simulation study

Microfluidics-based biochip applications have been increased abruptly in multiple fields because of the advantages in manifolds, which include decreased test sample utilization and reagent consumption with numerous purposes and highly listed benefits. In general, microfluidics involves two different techniques, namely active and passive methods, to enable the fluid flow within the channel that is mounted on the biochip. In this study, we focus on hydrostatic pressure-driven passive pumping methodology as it does not require any external actuators or power source to assist the flow. This technique solely depends on the gravitational pull to enhance fluid flow within the channel. The ultimate aim of this study is to design a microfluidic channel in which the geometrical parameters are optimized, and the respective velocity profile is obtained. The geometrical parameters such as the angle of contact between the channel and the ground (θ), channel dimension, and reservoir dimensions which decide the performance of the microfluidic device. These optimizations in the channels are performed as a theoretical simulation study in 3D modeling software COMSOL Multiphysics 5.0 to analyze the fluid velocity, where θ is varied between 0 degrees and 70 degrees and the channel width (wc) and channel height (hc) are varied between 1 mm to 10 mm and 0.05 mm to 0.5 mm, respectively. Also, the reservoir diameter (dr) and reservoir height (hr) are varied between 6 mm and 10 mm, and 0.5 mm and 3 mm, respectively for analyzing the velocity profiles. From the obtained results, it is observed that the overall flow velocity ranges between 7.27×10-5 – 3.77870×10-2 m/s. Hence an individual can select the best optimizations of the geometrical parameters and their respective velocity for designing a microfluidic chip with specific applications upon following this article.
THE MORPHOLOGY AND LIFE CYCLE OF THE TREMATODE HIMASTHLA QUISSETENSIS (MILLER AND NORTHUP, 1926)

Cercaria quissetensis Miller and Northup, 1926 has been restudied. It is the only echinostome cercaria which has been found in the examination of over 18,000 specimens of Nassa obsolela at Woods Hole. This cercaria encysts in the gills, mantle and foot of various mollusks. Metacercariae were obtained experimentally in Mya arenaria, Modiolus modiolus, Mytilus edulis, Cumingia tellinoides, Pecten irradians, Ensis directus, and Crepidula fornicata. The metacercariae are infective for birds three days after encystment and develop to maturity in the herring gull, Larus argentatus. Sexually mature specimens are identical with certain of those described by Linton (1928) as Himasthla elongata (Mehlis). Since there are important differences between the present specimens and H. elongata, they cannot be referred to that species and the name of the cercaria is adopted for them. Possible synonymy in the genus Himasthla is discussed.
The effect of modifying the glucosinolate content of leaves of oilseed rape (Brassica napus ssp. oleifera) on its interaction with specialist and generalist pests

SUMMARY Twenty eight Brassica napus lines were developed which had contrasting leaf glucosinolate profiles to those found in commercial oilseed rape cultivars. The lines varied both in the total amount of aliphatic glucosinolates and in the ratio of different side chain structures. The lines were used in field experiments to assess the manner by which glucosinolates mediate the interactions between Brasssica and specialist pests (Psylliodes chrysocephala and Pieris rapae) and generalist pests (pigeons and slugs). Increases in the level of glucosinolates resulted in greater damage by adult flea beetles (P. chrysocephala) and a greater incidence of Pieris rapae larvae, but reduced the extent of grazing by pigeons and slugs. Decreasing the side chain length of aliphatic glucosinolates and reducing the extent of hydroxylation of butenyl glucosinolates increased the extent of adult flea beetle feeding. The implications of modifying the glucosinolate content of the leaves of oilseed rape and the role of these secondary metabolites in plant/herbivore interactions are discussed.
Portraits of Success and Resilience in South Carolina, A Qualitative Study

Children’s Trust of South Carolina conducted a qualitative investigation in 2018 to explore the factors that contribute to the definition of success for individuals who experienced as children disadvantage and trauma, also known as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). As the leader of the South Carolina ACE Initiative (Children’s Trust, n.d.), Children’s Trust was interested to learn from individuals who grew up in South Carolina in order to gain a better understanding of the role played by our state’s unique cultural, social, and environmental contexts in their childhoods and how that helped shape their resilience and well-being. The goal was to inform our future efforts within the initiative.
The Role of Taboos in Solving Contemporary Environmental Degradation in Ghana: The Case of Cape Coast Metro

One phenomenon which has gained prominence in recent discussions in Ghana has been the role taboos play in addressing environmental degradation. While one group of researchers believes in the conservationist stance, others are of the view that traditional beliefs and practices could play a significant role in preserving the environment for future generations. In the Cape Coast Metropolis, taboos are part of the daily activities of its indigenes, however, the impact environmental taboos exercise, appears to have lessened in comparison with the traditional beliefs. This is probably due to the influence of science and modernity. This paper seeks to find out why the decline in observing environmental taboos amongst the people of Cape Coast is affecting the environment and leading to degradation. Both quantitative and qualitative approaches were used in the analysis. The targeted population were the people of Cape Coast in Ghana and some selected Non-Governmental Organizations which are involved in environmental protection. The study revealed that the people in the area still hold on to their traditions and culture and would not do anything which will have dire consequences on their lives should they break any taboos concerning their environment. In view of this, it is recommended that the local government laws be looked at again to have a fusion of both traditional norms and cultural laws as part of efforts to preserve the environment.
High-Frequency Transformer Based Grid-Connected Inverter Topology for Photovoltaic Systems

Inverters are required to convert the DC power from photovoltaic (PV) panels to AC. In grid connected inverters, the AC output is directly fed into the electric grid. In this paper, a high-frequency transformer based inverter topology is presented. This leads to a very compact inverter. The closed-loop control and modulation of this inverter with a lossless snubber circuit is proposed. The performance of the inverter is validated using simulation results.
Effects of flooding on germination and establishment of the invasive cordgrass Spartina densiflora

Abbas AM, Rubio-Casal AE, De Cires A, Figueroa ME, Lambert AM & Castillo JM (2012). Effects of flooding on germination and establishment of the invasive cordgrass Spartina densiflora. Weed Research52, 269–276. Summary Flooding has been described as one of the most important environmental factors determining the distribution of salt marsh plants. We studied the impact of five water levels (from well-drained to 8 cm deep) on the germination and establishment of the invasive cordgrass Spartina densiflora under controlled glasshouse conditions. The germination rate was ca. 60%, tending to decrease gradually with depth. There was no seedling emergence from deeper than 4 cm, because every seedling at 8 cm died. Spartina densiflora showed a high physiological plasticity. Seven months after germination, relative water content varied between 69 ± 13% at well-drained conditions and 87 ± 7% at 4 cm, without significant differences between treatments. Plants rooted at 4 cm presented the highest quantum efficiency of photosystem II (PSII) with slightly lower maximum net photosynthesis rate than other treatments, reflecting high photoprotection levels, together with low nitrogen and pigments contents. Water level depth reduced shoot relative growth rate (RGR). Our results could be useful to fight S. densiflora invasion, because artificial inundation of invaded marshes to a water depth of 8 cm would prevent its establishment from the seed bank.
In silico analysis of cysteine cathepsins identified from the transcriptome profile of blunt snout bream (Megalobrama amblycephala)

Cysteine cathepsins are described as lysosomal proteases with housekeeping and highly specialised functions in many organisms. In this study, cysteine cathepsins were identified from the transcriptome profile of blunt snout bream (Megalobrama amblycephala). A total of 41 cysteine cathepsin-like sequences were found and divided into groups of cathepsin (Cts): B, C, F, H, K, L, S, and Z. Twenty-nine of these sequences contained coding sequences, encoding 92-473 amino acids, which exhibited the highest (78%-95%) homology to the counterparts from zebrafish (Danio rerio). Multiple sequence alignment of the amino acids showed highly conserved domains among the cysteine cathepsins of M. amblycephala to its homologs. The putative proteins, including maCtsb1, maCtsc1, maCtsf2, maCtsh1, maCtsk5, maCtsl5, maCtss1, and maCtsz5 were characterised and structured using in silico methods. Additionally, codon usage of full length open reading frame sequences of these cathepsins was analysed. This study provided basic information for further studies on the specific functions of cysteine cathepsins of M. amblycephala in the future.
Effects of hooking damage and hook type on post-release survival of sand flathead (Platycephalus bassensis)

This study examined post-release survival in sand flathead (Platycephalus bassensis) and whether there were survival benefits from the use of circle hooks over conventional hook patterns. Anatomical hooking location was the major factor contributing to mortality, with an almost 100% survival rate for fish hooked in the lip, mouth or eye (shallow-hooked) compared with around 64% for fish hooked in the throat or gut (deep-hooked). Mortality in deep-hooked fish was generally associated with injuries to vital organs (gills, heart, liver) and survival was significantly lower if bleeding was associated with injury (54% compared with 85% for non-bleeders). Circle hooks resulted in significantly lower deep-hooking rates (1%) compared with conventional hook types (4-9%) and, based on catch rates, were at least as effective as conventional hook patterns. Estimated survival rates for line-caught sand flathead were high, over 99% for circle hooks and between 94 and 97% for conventional hooks. These findings support the efficacy of management strategies based on size and bag limits and the practice of catch-and-release fishing for sand flathead, as well as a potential conservation benefit from the use of circle hooks.