Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Innovative hydraulic lime-based finishes with unconventional aggregates and TiO2 for the improvement of indoor air quality

This paper reports a study on 8 unconventional hydraulic lime-based mortars able to improve indoor air quality by acting as passive systems. Mortars have been prepared with commercial sand or highly adsorbent materials as aggregates with/without TiO2 as photocatalytic agent, to test also the decomposition of airborne pollutants. Mechanical properties, hygrometric behavior, inhibition of growth of molds and depollution properties have been tested. Despite using porous materials (zeolite and activated carbon), in mortars with unconventional aggregates, compressive strength is higher than in sand-based ones, with a more than double higher water vapor permeability. Zeolite-based mortars have the highest moisture buffering capacity followed by silica gel- and activated carbon-based mortars (1.5–2 times higher than reference, respectively, because of the high porosity of unconventional aggregates). Sand-based mortars show optimum inhibitory capacity against fungal growth. Concerning unconventional aggregates, silica gel mortars have good inhibitory capacity, whereas zeolite and activated carbon give to mortars an optimum substrate for molds. Mortars with unconventional aggregates as silica gel remove more than 80% of tracer pollutant after 2 h of test, whereas zeolite-based mortars remove the 65% of it after 120 min. TiO2 enhances depollution properties as photocatalytic oxidation agent when the mortar is close to saturation.
The importance of ant‐rich habitats for the persistence of the Wryneck Jynx torquilla on farmland

The frequency of territory occupancy is a good indicator of territory quality. We studied territory occupancy in a Swiss population of the Wryneck Jynx torquilla, a declining farmland woodpecker, with the aim of identifying key habitat features for conservation management. Both static and dynamic approaches were applied using data on nest-site occupancy of 100 territories from six successive years. The static approach models the probability of territory occupancy; the dynamic approach estimates territory colonization and extinction. Frequently occupied territories were settled earlier in the season, suggesting that they may be of better quality, and birds settling in these territories had higher breeding success. Probability of territory occupancy increased with the area of old pear orchards and decreased with the area of vegetable cultivation. Both the area of old pear orchards and the presence of conspecifics within a territory were positively related to territory colonization, whereas territory extinction was negatively related to habitat heterogeneity. Old pear orchards were characterized by having both the highest density of ant nests and the greatest amount of bare ground. The latter is likely to facilitate access to ant prey. To ensure persistence of Wryneck populations in farmland, heterogeneous habitat matrices with high ant nest density and bare ground should be promoted. Finally, provision of artificial nesting cavities is likely to enhance territory occupancy. Providing that these key resources are present, Wrynecks are likely to persist even in intensively farmed areas.
Border Residents’ Perceptions of Crime and Security in El Paso, Texas

Research has continued to show the overall safety of the U.S. border region contrary to the widespread belief about the insecurity of the U.S.-Mexico border and frequent claims for the need to secure the border in order to prevent the spread of violence into the rest of the country. Rarely do we ask how border residents feel about safety and crime, which could shed significant light on the claims that the border is an insecure warzone posing a threat to the entire country. While calls to secure national borders are common, outsiders’ perceptions of an unsafe border are not supported by official crime rates and statistics, Border Patrol apprehensions, or the everyday experiences of people in American cities along the U.S.-Mexico border. This paper investigates the perception of crime and security, as expressed by the residents of El Paso, Texas, a large city located along the U.S.-Mexico border and directly across from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. Data come from a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded survey that asked 919 residents about their perceptions of crime, sense of security and safety in their neighborhood and the city in general. The results show that the overwhelming majority of border city residents feel safe and that those who are undocumented and raised in El Paso are the most likely to report feeling safe or very safe. We also find that the foreign-born population had a statistically significant lower felony conviction rate than those who were U.S.-born, an important qualifier in discussions over immigration and its connection with violence and crime. Contrary to sensationalized claims about border violence, residents of El Paso do not display any of the sense of insecurity experienced in neighboring Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. We present hypotheses about possible causes for these low levels of violence in the U.S.-side of the border and discuss the dissonance between the reality on the border and perception outside of the border region.
Detection of Winding Faults Using Image Features and Binary Tree Support Vector Machine for Autotransformer

Autotransformer (AT) is the most core power supply equipment, and overvoltage and short circuit (SC) fault may lead to winding deformation, which will have a negative impact on its insulation and even affect the operation of a train. The frequency response analysis (FRA) is widely used for detecting winding faults in a transformer. However, the direct measure of FRA for each split winding fails because the split windings are adopted to satisfy the impedance requirement of a high-speed railway, where the windings are connected inside the tank. A novel fault interpretation method based on image features and binary tree support vector machine (SVM) is proposed, which can get the condition of three windings in one measurement. Winding faults caused by different windings are simulated, including SC defect, axial deformation, and series capacitance variation, and the FRA curves are measured under various faults. Then, the features of the gray-level gradient co-occurrence matrix and the gray-level difference statistics are got from the polar plot of FRA. Finally, the image features are used as the inputs to the binary tree SVM for fault type and faulty winding classification. The results show that the proposed method has high accuracy for identifying fault type and faulty winding in AT.
The role of MSK1 in homeostatic plasticity from in vitro to in vivo

Synaptic plasticity is the ability of neuronal synapses to strength and weaken from a set threshold determined by previous 'experience' thus representing a cellular basis for learning and memory. There are different forms of synaptic plasticity including Hebbian, homeostatic synaptic scaling as well as experience-dependent plasticity such as when animals are exposed to environmental enrichment (EE). Small protrusions which receive excitatory inputs known as dendritic spines are able to change morphology which has also been linked to trafficking of glutamate AMPA receptors (AMPAR) in response to neuronal activity. Brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is a neutrophin involved in regulating both transcription and translation during synaptic plasticity. A plasticity-related gene, activity-regulated cytoskeleton-associated protein (Arc) controls the endocytosis of AMPAR nonetheless downstream signalling pathways are still largely unknown. The nuclear kinase, mitogen-and stress-activated protein kinase 1 (MSKI) regulates gene transcription in a BDNF-dependent manner. Thus we wanted to investigate whether MSKI plays a role in regulating Arc expression in response to BDNF-induced synaptic plasticity. In order to test this hypothesis we used MSKI kinase dead (MSK1 KD) transgenic mouse which had an inactivating knock-in mutation in the MSK1 N-terminus kinase domain. Dissociated hippocampal neurones were cultured from MSK1 KD and wild-type (WT) mice and stimulated with BDNF to monitor Arc protein expression. MSKI KD neurones showed a delayed response in BDNF-induced Arc upregulation. Interestingly in the presence of tetrodotoxin (TTX) which reduces BDNF levels, MSKI KD mice failed to show homeostatic scaling of synaptic transmission, Arc expression and spine morphological changes in vitro. After measuring the same parameters, EE-induced plasticity was unaffected in MSK1 KD adult mice but this may be a reflection of the experimental protocol used highlighted in the literature. The link between Arc and the cytoskeleton is unfamiliar and thus our finding of a novel interacting partner associated with clathrin-mediated endocytosis will carve out innovative mechanisms involved in synaptic plasticity. MSK1 acts an important homeostat during TTX-induced up-scaling of Arc protein and may influence structural effects on spine morphology. However MSKI may more of a local homeostat rather than generalised as its role in BDNF or experience-dependent stimulation was not as clear. Arc is an important synaptic mediator and thus linking it to the cytoskeleton could bridge the gap in understanding the mechanisms underlying learning and memory.
Differential Response of Ant Colonies to Intruders: Attack Strategies Correlate With Potential Threat

Animals are often threatened by predators, parasites, or competitors, and attacks against these enemies are a common response, which can help to remove the danger. The costs of defense are complex and involve the risk of injury, the loss of energy ⁄time, and the erroneous identification of a friend as a foe. Our goal was to study the specificity of defense strategies. We analyzed the aggressive responses of ant colonies by confronting them with workers of an unfamiliar congeneric species, a non-nestmate conspecific, a co-occurring congeneric competitor species, and a social parasite—a slave-making ant. As expected, the latter species, which can inflict dramatic fitness losses to the colony, was treated with most aggression. A co-occurring competitor was also attacked, but the ants used different behaviors in their responses to both enemies. While the slavemaker was attacked by biting and stinging and was approached with spread mandibles, the competitor was dragged, a behavioral strategy only possible if the defending ant is similar in size and strength to the opponent. Non-nestmate conspecifics were treated aggressively as well, but less than the slavemaker and the co-occurring competitor, presumably because they are less easily recognized as enemies. An unfamiliar congeneric species was rarely attacked. This first detailed study comparing the aggressive responses of ant colonies toward slave-making ants to other species posing different threats indicates that the responses of ant colonies are adjusted to the risk each opponent poses to the colony.
Phylogenetic relationship and characterization of the complete chloroplast genome of the Coriaria nepalensis Wall. in China, a least concern folk medicine

Abstract Coriaria nepalensis Wall. is a toxic Chinese herbal medicine. In this study, the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of C. nepalensis was first reported. The length of the large single-copy (LSC) region was 158,499 bp, the small single-copy (SSC) region was 18,411 bp, and the inverted repeats (IRs) region were 26,552 bp, with 37.76% overall GC content. There were 132 genes in total, including 86 mRNA, 38 tRNA, and 8 rRNA. Phylogenetic analysis showed that C. nepalensis was closely related to Corynocarpus laevigatus.
Different roughage:concentrate ratios and water supplies to feedlot lambs: carcass characteristics and meat chemical composition

Abstract The current study evaluated the effects of dietary roughage:concentrate (R:C) ratios and water supply on the carcass characteristics and yield of lambs. Forty Santa Inês crossbred lambs with an average body weight (BW) of 19 ± 2.8 kg were evaluated in a completely randomized design with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement consisting of two proportions of roughage and concentrate (30:70 and 70:30) and two levels of water supply (ad libitum and restricted to 0.5). The animals were slaughtered at an average weight of 28 ± 31 kg. Centesimal composition, colour parameters (L*, a* and b*), shear force, cooking losses and pH were determined on the Longissimus lumborum muscle. There was no interaction effect between the R:C ratio and water supply on the evaluated variables. Total BW gain, average daily gain and final BW were affected by water restriction and R:C ratio. Water restriction reduced total BW gain, average daily gain and final BW. No effect of water restriction was detected on slaughter weight, centesimal composition, colour variations, shear force, pH, weight or yield of carcass. No effect of water restriction and diets was observed on the cuts, except for neck weight. Carcass weight and yield were affected by the R:C ratios. Restricting the water supply to 0.5 does not affect the carcass weight or yield of Santa Inês crossbred lambs or their meat quality characteristics (centesimal composition, colour, shear force and pH measurements). A higher proportion of concentrate in the diet results in heavier hot and cold carcass weights.
The mitochondrial genome map of the crinoid, Florometra serratissima

A major portion (approximately 14.5 kb) of the mitochondrial genome of the crinoid, Florometra serratissima, has been sequenced and a complete gene map has been developed. The genome contains the genes for 13 proteins, small and large ribosomal RNAs (12s and 16s rRNAs), and 22 transfer RNAs (tRNAs) as well as a putative control region for initiation of replication (D-loop). The crinoid mitochondrial gene order is: [D-loop]-T-EI 2s-F-LUUR-G-1 6s-Y-N D2-I-ND 1 -COI-R-ND4L-COI I-K-A8-A6-COIII-SUcN-ND3ND4-H-SAGN-ND5-ND6-Cytb-P-Q-N-LcuN-A-W-C---Dl where the single letters indicate tRNA genes. Previous analyses have demonstrated that there has been a mitochondrial gene rearrangement that separates four echinoderm classes into two groups. The classes Asteroidea (sea stars) and Ophiuroidea (brittle stars) contain a 4.6 kb inversion in their mitochondrial genomes in comparison to the Echinoidea (sea urchins) and Holothuroidea (sea cucumbers). This inversion includes most of the tRNA genes, the 16s rRNA gene, and the genes for the NADH dehydrogenase subunits 1 and 2. In the case of brittle stars there has been a subsequent inversion event within this region. The mitochondrial gene order of F. serratissima (class Crinoidea) displays additional inversions within this 4.6 kb region not seen in the other classes. The remaining mitochondrial gene order of the five echinoderm classes is conserved. Both gene order and gene sequencing may be used to examine the relationship of the crinoids to the other echinoderm classes as well as the potential phylogenetic pathways of echinoderm mitochondria1 genome rearrangements.
Microphysical Model Predictions of Fault Restrengthening Under Room‐Humidity and Hydrothermal Conditions: From Logarithmic to Power‐Law Healing

The maximum fault strength and rate of interseismic fault strengthening (“healing”) are of great interest to earthquake hazard assessment studies, as they directly relate to event magnitude and recurrence time. Previous laboratory studies have revealed two distinct frictional healing behaviors, referred to as Dieterich‐type and non‐Dieterich‐type healing. These are characterized by, respectively, log‐linear and power‐law increase in the strength change with time. To date, there is no physical explanation for the frictional behavior of fault gouges that unifies these seemingly inconsistent observations. Using a microphysical friction model previously developed for granular fault gouges, we investigate fault strengthening analytically and numerically under boundary conditions corresponding to laboratory slide‐hold‐slide tests. We find that both types of healing can be explained by considering the difference in grain contact creep rheology at short and long time scales. Under hydrothermal conditions favorable for pressure solution creep, healing exhibits a power‐law evolution with hold time, with an exponent of ~1/3, and an “apparent” cutoff time (α) of hundreds of seconds. Under room‐humidity conditions, where grain contact deformation exhibits only a weak strain‐rate dependence, the predicted healing also exhibits a power‐law dependence on hold time, but it can be approximated by a log‐linear relation with α of a few seconds. We derive analytical expressions for frictional healing parameters (i.e., healing rate, cutoff time, and maximum healing), of which the predictions are consistent with numerical implementation of the model. Finally, we apply the microphysical model to small fault patches on a natural carbonate fault and interpret the restrengthening during seismic cycles.
ChimerDB - Database of Chimeric Sequences in the GenBank

Fusion proteins resulting from chimeric sequences are excellent targets for therapeutic drug development. We developed a database of chimeric sequences by examining the genomic alignment of mRNA and EST sequences in the GenBank. We identified 688 chimeric mRNA and 20,998 chimeric EST sequences. Including EST sequences greatly expands the scope of chimeric sequences even though it inevitably accompanies many artifacts. Chimeric sequences are clustered according to the ECgene ID so that the user can easily find chimeric sequences related to a specific gene. Alignments of chimeric sequences are displayed as custom tracks in the UCSC genome browser. ChimerDB, available at http://genome.ewha. ac.kr/ECgene/ChimerDB/, should be a valuable resource for finding drug targets to treat cancers.
Femtosecond mode‐locked erbium‐doped fibre laser with Alq
 3
 saturable absorber

The authors experimentally demonstrated the generation of mode-locked pulses from all-fibre erbium-doped fibre laser cavity by using organic material, Alq 3 , as a saturable absorber (SA). The SA film was integrated into a ring fibre laser cavity to act as a mode-locker. A mode-locking operation was achieved in three different experiments with pulse width/repetition rate of 1.26 ps/3.36 MHz, 970 fs/3.36 MHz and 820 fs/4.9 MHz by using cavity length/optical coupler (OC) of 61.5 m/80:20 OC, 61.5 m /95:5 OC and 42 m/80:20 OC, respectively. All the experiments produced a soliton and a very stable mode-locking operation at central wavelength of ∼1561 nm. The experiments confirmed that organic material can readily be used as SA for a mode-locked operation in the 1.5 μm region. This demonstration might shed new insights into the potentials and techniques for developing ultrafast fibre lasers by using organic materials as SAs.
Information-Energy Region for SWIPT Networks in Mobility Scenarios

This paper studies the information-energy (<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{I}$</tex-math></inline-formula>-<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{E}$</tex-math></inline-formula>) region for simultaneous wireless information and power transfer (SWIPT) networks in mobility scenarios, where a moving transmitter simultaneously transmits information and power to a fixed receiver, and the receiver adopts power splitting (PS) receiving architecture. In order to characterize the tradeoff between the received information and harvested energy, the <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{I}$</tex-math></inline-formula>-<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{E}$</tex-math></inline-formula> region is defined, and corresponding optimization problems are formulated to explore the system <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{I}$</tex-math></inline-formula>-<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{E}$</tex-math></inline-formula> regions by jointly optimizing the transmit power at the transmitter and the PS ratio at the receiver with three popular energy harvesting (EH) models, i.e., traditional linear EH model, the logistic nonlinear EH model and the piecewise nonlinear EH model. Particularly, to efficiently solve the nonconvex optimization problem with the logistic nonlinear EH model, a successive convex approximate (SCA)-based algorithm is proposed, which is able to characterize the lower bound of the <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{I}$</tex-math></inline-formula>-<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{E}$</tex-math></inline-formula> with low complexity. To solve the optimization problems with the linear and piecewise EH models, as they are convex, some closed and semi-closed solutions are derived by using Lagrange dual method and KKT conditions. Numerical results show that compared with the <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{I}$</tex-math></inline-formula>-<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{E}$</tex-math></inline-formula> regions under the linear and piecewise EH models, that under the logistic nonlinear EH model is smaller due to the limitations of practical EH circuit features. Moreover, with a fixed moving speed, when the transmit power is relatively large, the logistic nonlinear EH model can be replaced with the piecewise one due to the relatively small gap between their achieved <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{I}$</tex-math></inline-formula>-<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{E}$</tex-math></inline-formula> regions. Additionally, for a fixed moving track length, the higher moving speed yields the smaller <inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{I}$</tex-math></inline-formula>-<inline-formula><tex-math notation="LaTeX">$\mathrm{E}$</tex-math></inline-formula> region with all three EH models.
Male mating success is related to body condition and stress-induced leukocyte response in an anuran with scramble competition

Competition among males can be a decisive factor for successful mating in anuran explosive breeders with a male-biased population sex ratio. The Yungas Red-belly Toad (Melanophryniscus rubriventris (Vellard, 1947)) is an explosive breeder where males exhibit a classic scramble competition. We studied the body size, body condition, and stress-induced leukocyte response of M. rubriventris males under natural scenarios of scramble competition. We hand-captured adult males (categorised as single, in pairs, or in mating balls) and determined their body mass and length, body condition, and their leukocyte profile. We found that males in pairs had significantly higher body mass than single males and those in mating balls. We found the highest percentage of individuals with better body condition within the paired males who showed significantly higher body condition index value than singles or those in mating balls. Amplectant males (those collected in pairs or in mating balls) had a significantly lower proportion of lymphocytes and higher neutrophil–lymphocyte ratios than singles. Amplectant males showed significantly higher proportions of neutrophils or eosinophils than singles. Our results suggest that M. rubriventris males with better body condition can be more successful in acquiring mates, although scramble competition among males can trigger a stress response.