Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The relationship between shoreline development and resident fish communities in a southeastern US reservoir

Abstract Many water bodies throughout North America have experienced shoreline development such as armoring with bulkheads or riprap to reduce erosion and protect property. Although research has addressed the influence of such development in systems containing vegetation, systems that experience water-level fluctuations, and thus have limited vegetation, have received little attention. Here we quantify the effects of 4 types of shoreline development (bulkhead, riprap, bulkhead with riprap, and undeveloped) on the aquatic community in Lake Martin, Alabama, a reservoir that experiences large annual water-level fluctuations. We quantified abundance and species composition of larval, juvenile, and adult fishes; abundance and species composition of aquatic macroinvertebrates and zooplankton; and water quality characteristics at each site. Abiotic factors and lower trophic levels (i.e., chlorophyll a, zooplankton, macroinvertebrates) did not differ across shoreline types. In contrast, fish abundance was highest at sites with riprap, and fish species richness and species diversity both tended to be highest at undeveloped sites. While bluegill (Lepomis machrochirus) was the most abundant fish species at all shoreline types, the other commonly collected species showed strong association with particular habitats. Centrarchids, including bluegill, were most abundant at developed sites, and cyprinids were most abundant at undeveloped sites. Based on our findings, an interspersion of different shoreline types may be sufficient for maintaining fish community diversity; if shorelines cannot be interspersed, then some undeveloped shorelines should be maintained in reservoirs with continuing human development, and when shorelines are armored, riprap should be included to provide interstitial spaces and shallow water for fish habitat. [Supplementary materials are available for this article. Go to the publisher's online edition of Lake and Reservoir Management for the following free supplemental resource(s): Supplemental Tables 1–3]
Medieval Masculinities and Violence: Weapon-Related Trauma in Skeletal Assemblages from Two Religious Houses in Iceland and Sweden

Previous research has shown that physical violence had a normative presence in medieval Nordic societies. In this study, weapon-related trauma (WRT) was examined in human skeletal assemblages from two religious houses, Skriðuklaustur in Iceland, and Västerås in Sweden. The aims were to identify patterns of WRT and to relate these to the masculinities of different groups of men. Violence was a prominent component of identity among lay men, especially for men with warrior experience. The use of violence was more problematic among clerics. The hypothesis that these notions of ideal masculine behaviour would affect the ways in which masculinities were enacted and would be reflected in the patterns of WRT was borne out by the results of this study. No WRT was identified among the canons and lay brothers in Skriðuklaustur, but it was present in about thirty per cent of the males interpreted as belonging to the lay elite buried in the northern part of the church at Västerås.
Tire-Wear Control in Aircraft via Active Braking

In ground vehicles, tire consumption is, in general, mainly due to the mileage covered, and in fact, the life span of tires, at least in common situations, is rather long. In the aeronautical context, and for aircraft in particular, instead, tire consumption plays a crucial role in determining the maintenance costs. This is due to the fact that, in aircraft braking, nearly all maneuvers activate the antiskid controller, which remains in use for long time intervals. In ground vehicles, instead, anti-lock braking systems (ABS) are usually active for short time intervals that cover a part of the braking maneuvers only. Thus, tire consumption in the automotive context is usually studied under constant speed assumptions. In this article, we formulate a tire consumption model that encompasses explicitly the wheel acceleration/deceleration dynamics and show that tire wear can be directly related to the antiskid controller parameters. Based on this, a sensitivity analysis of tire consumption versus braking performance is carried out, showing that, using an appropriate antiskid control approach, one may directly formulate the braking problem as a tire consumption regulation one, being sure that the resulting braking performance will have an a priori guaranteed outcome. The tire-wear model is also validated in an experimental setting.
Phytophtho citophthro trunk and branch canker on Clementine mandarins in the Western Cape province of South Africa

Bark and soil samples collected from trunks of Clementine mandarin cv. `Nules’ orchards in the Knysna area of South Africa were used for isolations to determine the cause of a canker on tree trunks. Phytophthora citrophthora was the predominant species isolated from trunks and was identified by its cultural, morphological, physiological and molecular profiles. A PCR study confirmed that the isolates were P. citrophthora. Using the BLASTn algorithm, all strains showed a high percentage sequence similarity (>98%) with significant alignments of E values = 0.0 and bit scores, aligning all South African strains with P. citrophthora ITS sequence data accessiblefrom Genbank and the Phytophthora database. P. citrophthora isolates showed that colonies on PDA had a petaloid growth habit. P. citrophthora was isolated from the bark and soil and was used in stem-inoculation studies. Under cool greenhouse conditions (<25°C), nursery trees inoculated with P. citrophthora, resulted in extensive gumming and eventual death of the nursery trees within two weeks whilst the rootstocks were not affected. P. citrophthora was also successfully re-isolated from the inoculated nursery trees, thereby confirming Koch’s postulates that P. citrophthora is the cause of trunk and branch cankers on Clementine mandarins in South Africa.
Acute Activation of Maxi-K Channels (hSlo) by Estradiol Binding to the β Subunit

Maxi-K channels consist of a pore-forming α subunit and a regulatory β subunit, which confers the channel with a higher Ca2+ sensitivity. Estradiol bound to the β subunit and activated the Maxi-K channel (hSlo) only when both α and β subunits were present. This activation was independent of the generation of intracellular signals and could be triggered by estradiol conjugated to a membrane-impenetrable carrier protein. This study documents the direct interaction of a hormone with a voltage-gated channel subunit and provides the molecular mechanism for the modulation of vascular smooth muscle Maxi-K channels by estrogens.
A framework to assess sustaining continuous improvement in lean healthcare

Many hospitals have achieved high levels of lean performance only to lose it later on. This research develops a theoretical understanding of how organisations can sustain lean in healthcare, through a practical and innovative framework to assess the maturity level of lean in healthcare that can be used by both practitioners and academics. Through the analysis of the literature, it was possible to compile 22 main critical success factors of lean sustainability in hospitals. A comparative case study provides evidence to confirm these 22 theoretical propositions, and also to add other 3 new success factors to the framework. The proposed framework allows hospitals to conduct a structured process of change, with all the foundation needed to succeed and sustain the lean journey in the long-term. New insights are revealed by studying hospitals after minimum 18 months of lean implementation and comparing the ones that have achieved a high level of lean sustainability with those that did not. To the best of our knowledge, this article is the first to attempt to bring together the key factors that influence hospitals to sustain lean improvements in the long term.
Spatial structure of co-occurring anchovy and sardine populations from acoustic data: implications for survey design

A geostatistical analysis has been undertaken on the spatial structure of co-occurring adult and recruit populations of anchovy, Engraulis capensis, and sardine, Sardinops sagax, in the southern Benguela upwelling region, using information from two acoustic surveys. The study was prompted by the need for a more efficient design for surveying sardine abundance, which is increasing in relation to that of anchovy; the current acoustic survey design is based on the distribution of anchovy. Variograms of fish density and density indicator variables were computed, as well as cross-variograms between the indicator variables. The sardine variograms were less structured than the anchovy variograms, with slightly greater nugget effects, indicating greater randomness in space at small scales. The indicator variograms showed progressive loss of structure with increasing density. Anchovy formed high-density schools during the day, breaking into larger, low-density aggregations at night. Sardine, on the other hand, remained in relatively high-density schools throughout the day. The cross-variograms revealed some spatial continuity between low- and high-density areas for anchovy, but no such transitional structures were evident for sardine. It was concluded that sardine are more patchily distributed than anchovy and, unlike anchovy, they may not have a single common way of occupying space at the population level, perhaps partly because of the broader age structure of the population. It is concluded that, while the current acoustic survey design is well suited to the spatial distribution of anchovy, it is not as well suited to that of sardine. Future survey designs should be more tailored to the spatial distribution of sardine, possibly by using sampling methods to cope with the highly patchy distributions expected.
Hyperspectral and Multispectral Image Fusion via Nonlocal Low-Rank Tensor Decomposition and Spectral Unmixing

Hyperspectral (HS) imaging has shown its superiority in many real applications. However, it is usually difficult to obtain high-resolution (HR) HS images through existing imaging techniques due to the hardware limitations. To improve the spatial resolution of HS images, this article proposes an effective HS-multispectral (HS-MS) image fusion method by combining the ideas of nonlocal low-rank tensor modeling and spectral unmixing. To be more precise, instead of unfolding the HS image into a matrix as done in the literature, we directly represent it as a tensor, then a designed nonlocal Tucker decomposition is used to model its underlying spatial–spectral correlation and the spatial self-similarity. The MS image serves mainly as a data constraint to maintain spatial consistency. To further reduce the spectral distortions in spatial enhancement, endmembers, and abundances from the spectral are used for spectral regularization. An efficient algorithm based on the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM) is developed to solve the resulting model. Extensive experiments on four HS image data sets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed method over several state-of-the-art HS-MS image fusion methods.
Fish Oil and Fish Meal Production from Urban Fisheries Biomass in Japan

Finding an alternative feed source for the replacement of fish oil (FO) and fish meal (FM) produced from whole fish has been an important issue for realizing sustainable aquaculture. In this study, fishery by-products generated in the distribution phase, known as urban fisheries biomass (UFB), were focused on. The quality parameter and nutrient components of FO and FM from UFB were analyzed. Although crude FO produced from UFB showed relatively poor quality properties, the refinement process made an improvement of the quality to make it comparable to commercially available FO. There is no big variation in several samples in fatty acid profiles of FO and amino acid profiles of FM, and they seem to be able to replace FO and FM from whole fish in the diet for cultured fish. The utilization of UFB should be promoted in economic and ecologic aspects; however, in use of the FM, there remains a risk of intra-species recycling that might lead to transmissible spongiform encephalopathy. Furthermore, we must take into consideration the possibility of contamination of fishery products from at-risk species and illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fisheries due to the lack of regulations in Japan.
The Shape Solidity of the Glenoid Fossa of the Scapula is Sexually Dimorphic: A New Approach to Understanding the Glenoid Fossa

Sexual dimorphism in the size of the glenoid fossa of the scapula is well‐established; however, there remains little information with regard to differences in glenoid shape between sexes. Therefore, this study assessed 71 glenoid fossae from dry scapula. Three differential equations were utilized to ensure that scapulae were appropriately sexed and, accordingly, included in the study. When all three equations were in agreement with regard to sex, the scapula was included for study. A total of 64 scapulae (45 females and 19 males) met inclusion criteria. Shape parameters that were assessed included circularity (4π*area/perimeter2), roundness (4*area/π*major axis2), aspect ratio of a bet‐fit ellipse (major axis/minor axis), and solidity (area/area of a convex hull). Shape parameters such as circularity, aspect ratio, and roundness were not significantly different between sexes; however, solidity was significantly different between females and males (p=0.0475). The results demonstrate a difference in the concavity of the boundary of the glenoid fossa between sexes. Further study should elucidate the functional differences in glenohumeral joint biomechanics with regard to the solidity of the glenoid fossa while taking sex into consideration.
Broccoli Stunt, a New Disease in Broccoli Plants Associated with Three Distinct Phytoplasma Groups in Brazil

Since 2007, a new disease in broccoli (Brassica oleracea var. italica Plenck) has been observed in the Sao Paulo state, Brazil. The characteristic symptoms of the disease are plant stunting, inflorescence malformation, reddening of the leaves and phloem necrosis. Nested polymerase chain reaction with P1/Tint and F2n/R2 primer pairs revealed the presence of phytoplasmas in diseased broccoli plants. Restriction fragment length polymorphism and phylogenetic analysis of the 16S rDNA gene showed that phytoplasmas belonging to 16SrI, III and XIII groups were associated with the plants. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of phytoplasmas in this Brassica species in Brazil, as well the first time phytoplasmas of 16SrIII and XIII groups have been associated with broccoli plants.
High‐Performance Photo‐Induced Spatial Terahertz Modulator Based on Micropyramid Silicon Array

Reconfigurable conductive pattern created by photoexcitation of high‐resistivity semiconductor provides a powerful approach to realize broadband spatial terahertz modulators (STM), which are highly demanded for constructing cost‐effective and compact terahertz (THz) system. Here a high performance all‐optical STM is proposed and realized based on silicon micropyramid arrays (Si‐MPA), which not only enhances the light harvesting across a broad wavelength range, but also greatly increases the active area for THz modulation. Upon illuminating the Si‐MPA by light with various wavelengths, modulation depth (MD) of four times larger than that of bare silicon is achieved. A maximum MD of 93.8% is obtained under 638 nm laser with a low power density of 1 W cm−2. Reconfigurable THz imaging system based on the Si‐MPA modulator and a single‐element detector is constructed, with which precise THz beam mapping and fast real‐time imaging with 225 pixels are demonstrated. This Si‐MPA‐based STM with large MD at low illumination power density is promising for many THz applications including imaging, beam shaping, holographic projection, etc.
Impact of Multi-Dimensional and Dynamic Distance on China’s Exports of Wooden Forest Products to Countries along the “Belt and Road”

National distance (ND) is the key factor that affects international trade but the traditional trade gravity model only considers spatial distance, which is not enough. This paper therefore constructs a trade gravity model and a Generalized Moment Estimation Model (GMM) based on four dimensions—spatial distance (SD), economic distance (ED), institutional distance (ID) and cultural distance (CD)—comprehensively analyzing the impact of the heterogeneity represented by national distance on exports of wooden forest products (EWFP) from China to countries along the “Belt and Road” using panel data from 2001 to2018. The results show that the impacts of the four types of ND on China’s EWFP are different and that a major change has taken place since the “Belt and Road” initiative was proposed, within which CD has become the key factor that hinders exports, while the traditional SD is not significant. Therefore, using NDs instead of the SD of the traditional trade gravity model is much more reasonable. Finally, this paper proposes some suggestions to reduce the ND between China and the route countries and to promote cooperation among them.
Estimating fine root longevity in a temperate Norway spruce forest using three independent methods.

The importance of root systems for C cycling depends crucially on fine root longevity. We investigated mean values for fine root longevity with root diameter, root C/N ratio and soil depth using radiocarbon (14C) analyses in a temperate Norway spruce [Picea abies (L.) Karst. ] forest. In addition, we applied sequential soil coring and minirhizotron observations to estimate fine root longevity in the organic layer of the same stand. The mean radiocarbon age of C in fine roots increased with depth from 5 years in the organic layer to 13 years in 40-60 cm mineral soil depth. Similarly, the C/N ratios of fine root samples were lowest in the organic layer with a mean value of 24 and increased with soil depth. Roots >0.5 mm in diameter tended to live longer than those being <0.5 mm in diameter. By far the strongest variability in fine root longevity estimates was due to the chosen method of investigation, with radiocarbon analyses yielding much higher estimates (5.4 years) than sequential soil coring (0.9 years) and minirhizotron observations (0.7 years). We conclude that sequential soil coring and minirhizotron observations are likely to underestimate mean fine root longevity, and radiocarbon analyses may lead to an overestimation of mean root longevity.
A Framework for Scalable Bilevel Optimization: Identifying and Utilizing the Interactions Between Upper-Level and Lower-Level Variables

When solving bilevel optimization problems (BOPs) by evolutionary algorithms (EAs), it is necessary to obtain the lower-level optimal solution for each upper-level solution, which gives rise to a large number of lower-level fitness evaluations, especially for large-scale BOPs. It is interesting to note that some upper-level variables may not interact with some lower-level variables. Under this condition, if the value(s) of one/several upper-level variables change(s), we only need to focus on the optimization of the interacting lower-level variables, thus reducing the dimension of the search space and saving the number of lower-level fitness evaluations. This article proposes a new framework (called GO) to identify and utilize the interactions between upper-level and lower-level variables for scalable BOPs. GO includes two phases: 1) the grouping phase and 2) the optimization phase. In the grouping phase, after identifying the interactions between upper-level and lower-level variables, they are divided into three types of subgroups (denoted as types I–III), which contain only upper-level variables, only lower-level variables, and both upper-level and lower-level variables, respectively. In the optimization phase, if type-I and type-II subgroups only include one variable, a multistart sequential quadratic programming is designed; otherwise, a single-level EA is applied. In addition, a criterion is proposed to judge whether a type-II subgroup has multiple optima. If multiple optima exist, by incorporating the information of the upper level, we design new objective function and degree of constraint violation to locate the optimistic solution. As for type-III subgroups, they are optimized by a bilevel EA (BLEA). The effectiveness of GO is demonstrated on a set of scalable test problems by applying it to five representative BLEAs. Moreover, GO is applied to the resource pricing in mobile edge computing.
A factorial experimental design for investigation of effects of dietary lipid content and pro- and antioxidants on lipid composition in Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) tissues and lipoproteins

Sixteen groups of post smolt, Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) (initial weight 148 a 17 g) were fed diets with diAerent lipid content and composition of pro- and antioxidants (vitamin E, vitamin C, astaxanthin, Fe, Cu and Mn). The composition of the experimental diets was based on a multivariate reduced factorial design (RFD) (2 7‐3 ) with either high (+1) or low (‐1) level (within limits of toxicity and requirement) of each of the seven dietary variables. Lipid class and fatty acid (FA) composition was analysed in retina, very low density lipoprotein (VLDL), low density lipoprotein (LDL) and high density lipoprotein (HDL). Further FA composition was analysed in fillet, liver and plasma. High dietary lipid increased growth, feed eAciency, fillet lipid level and the amount of LDL and HDL in plasma, whereas high dietary copper and high dietary vitamin E decreased the amount of plasma LDL. High dietary vitamin E decreased the amount of lipid and protein in LDL, whereas high dietary lipid increased cholesterol and cholesterol ester levels in plasma and HDL and the amount of lipid in LDL. Dietary astaxanthin and manganese aAected retina PE levels. The FA composition did not diAer significantly between the 16 diets. Dietary FA composition was reflected in fillet FA composition and gradually less in VLDL, LDL, HDL, plasma, liver and retina FA composition. Dietary lipid content influenced FA composition to some extent in the analysed tissues, i.e. generally high dietary lipid content led to a decreased relative amount of saturated and monoene fatty acids and an increase of the relative amount of polyene fatty acids.
An overview on cytogenetics of the genus Onobrychis (Fabaceae) with special reference to O. sect. Hymenobrychis from Iran

The present study reports the chromosome number and meiotic behavior of 25 populations belonging to 10 species of Onobrychis sect. Hymenobrychis from Iran. Most populations showed the chromosome number 2n = 2x = 14. However, the chromosome number of two populations belonging to O. michauxii and O. subnitens was 2n = 2x = 16. It seems that the species with x = 7 are derived through aneuploid loss. In addition, intra- and interspecific variations in the chromosome number within O. sect. Hymenobrychis, aneuploidy and polyploidy in Onobrychis with special reference to the section Hymenobrychis and also the evolution of the chromosome number throughout the genus are discussed here. As the result of the present study and by reviewing the chromosome number within the genus, it can be concluded that O. sect. Hymenobrychis includes comparatively highly derived taxa and can be considered as a heterogeneous unit within the genus Onobrychis. Almost all the studied taxa displayed regular bivalent pairing and chromosome segregation at meiosis. However, some meiotic abnormalities observed in different taxa are discussed here.