Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Ecological effects of marine reserves in Latin America and the Caribbean

In this study we evaluated the performance of marine reserves in Latin America and the Caribbean by examining the results of previously published studies. On average, the total biomass, density and body size of species increased inside marine reserves but species richness did not. The magnitude and direction of the responses in particular reserves varied depending on the species and trophic group considered, suggesting that indirect effects and trophic cascades might be important processes in the community-wide response to protection. Our analysis at the species level showed that most species increased in density inside reserves and that the fish response was greater than that of the invertebrate response, which was more variable. We also found a positive relationship between recovery of particular species and their individual level of exploitation intensity outside the reserve but found no such relationship with species body size, mobility, trophic level or resilience (population doubling time). Moreover, our analysis revealed that the response to protection was unaffected by the size, years of protection or area surveyed of the reserve, but there was a negative relationship with the number of species sampled in the studies. Our results also showed that the number of publications on marine reserve performance in Latin America and the Caribbean is still limited and the distribution is geographically uneven. We suggest that a stronger focus on both target species and the suite of other interacting species will allow better estimates of the community-wide effects of protection.
Deregulation of miRNA in Helicobacter pylori-Induced Gastric MALT Lymphoma: From Mice to Human

Gastric MALT lymphoma (GML) is directly caused by Helicobacter pylori infection but occurs only in a small number of infected subjects. Mechanisms underlying the initiation and progression of GML remain unclear. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-coding RNAs that are now considered as major players in inflammation and carcinogenesis, acting as oncogenes or tumor suppressors. Previous laboratory studies have shown in a GML mouse model that overexpression of a distinct set of five miRNAs (miR-21a, miR-135b, miR-142a, miR-150, miR-155) could play a critical role in the pathogenesis of GML. Our goal was to compare the miRNA expression profile obtained in the GML mouse model to that in human GML (11 cases of GML compared to 17 cases of gastritis control population). RTqPCR on the five dysregulated miRNAs in the GML mouse model and PCR array followed by RTqPCR confirmation showed that four miRNAs were up-regulated (miR-150, miR-155, miR-196a, miR-138) and two miRNAs down-regulated (miR-153, miR-7) in the stomachs of GML patients vs. gastritis control population. The analysis of their validated targets allowed us to postulate that these miRNAs (except miR-138) could act synergistically in a common signaling cascade promoting lymphomagenesis and could be involved in the pathogenesis of GML.
Water table depth affects productivity, water use, and the response to nitrogen addition in a savanna system

We investigated annual aboveground net primary productivity (ANPP) and transpiration (E) of the dominant plant life forms, longleaf pine (Pinus palustris Mill.) trees and wiregrass (Aristida stricta Michx.), in a fire-maintained savanna. Experimental plots spanned a natural hydrologic gradient (xeric and mesic site types) mediated by soil moisture (q) and water table depth (WTD), and received additions of either 0 or 100 kg Nha -1 � year -1 . Low rates of ANPP (1.3- 2.2 Mgha -1 ) and annual E (108-380 mm) were observed in these communities. WTD and N addition explained 95% of the variation in community ANPP, whereas site type and WTD explained 83% of variation in community E. Between tree and grass life forms, longleaf pine ANPP was more coupled to WTD than wiregrass. For any given leaf area sup- ported, ANPP of longleaf pine increased linearly with increasing water use and decreasing WTD. The longleaf pine ANPP response to N addition was greater in sites with high water use compared with those with low water use, indicat- ing that this savanna system is colimited by nutrient and water availability and that water table depth plays a role in reg- ulating savanna productivity. Resume´ : Nous avons etudiela productiviteprimaire nette de la partie aerienne (PPNA) et la transpiration (E) annuelles des especes vegetales dominantes (pin des marais (Pinus palustris Mill.) et aristide des pinedes (Aristida stricta Michx.)) dans une savane maintenue par le feu. Les parcelles experimentales couvraient un gradient hydrique naturel (types de sta- tion xerique et mesique), engendrepar la teneur en eau du sol (q) et la profondeur de la nappe phreatique (PNP), et ont recu des amendements de 0 ou 100 kg Nha -1 � an -1 . Nous avons observede faibles taux annuels de PPNA (1,3 a` 2,2
A 2017 US Reference for Singleton Birth Weight Percentiles Using Obstetric Estimates of Gestation

This study provides an updated birth weight reference by using a more reliable GA estimate and reflects the current sociodemographic composition of the United States. OBJECTIVE: To provide an updated birth weight–for–gestational age (BW-for-GA) reference in the United States by using the most recent, nationally representative birth data with obstetric estimates of gestational age (GA). METHODS: We abstracted 3 285 552 singleton births between 22 and 42 weeks’ gestation with nonmissing race and/or ethnicity, infant sex, parity, birth weight, and obstetric estimate of GA from the 2017 US natality files. We used 2 techniques (nonlinear, resistant smoothing [4253H] and lambda-mu-sigma) to derive smoothed BW-for-GA curves and compared resulting BW-for-GA cut-points at the third, 10th, 90th, and 97th percentiles with US references from 1999 to 2009. RESULTS: The smoothed BW-for-GA curves from both techniques overlapped considerably with each other, with strong agreements seen between the 2 techniques (>99% agreement; κ-statistic >0.9) for BW-for-GA cut-points at the third, 10th, 90th, and 97th percentiles across all GAs. Cut-points from 2017 using the lambda-mu-sigma method captured 9.8% to 10.2% of births <10th and >90th percentiles and 2.6% to 3.3% of births below the third and above the 97th percentile across all GAs. However, cut-points from US references in 1999 and 2009 (when GA was based on last menstrual period) captured a much larger range of proportions of 2017 births at these thresholds, especially among preterm and postterm GA categories. CONCLUSIONS: We have provided an updated BW-for-GA reference in the United States using the most recent births with obstetric estimates of GA and information to calculate continuous measures of birth size that are sex or parity specific.
Acute Effects of Aerobic Exercise and Active Videogames on Cognitive Flexibility, Reaction Time, and Perceived Exertion in Older Adults.

Objective: The aim of this study was to analyze the acute effects of aerobic exercise (AE), active videogames (AVG), and AE+AVG on cognitive flexibility, choice reaction time (CRT), and postexercise rate of perceived exertion (RPE) in a sample composed of 49 older adults, 11 men and 38 women (age M = 67.7 ± 4.7 years). Materials and Methods: An incomplete intrasubject factorial design was followed. Participants were randomly divided into three experimental groups, and each one performed two of three different sessions (A, B, or C). In session A, participants rode on a cycle ergometer for 30 minutes (AE). In session B, they rode on a cycle ergometer for 30 minutes while playing an AVG (AE+AVG). In session C, they only played an AVG. Data were analyzed with a repeated-measures general linear model. Results: Intrasubject pre-post-analysis showed that the three sessions improved CRT, although motor reaction time did not improve significantly with AE. On the contrary, intrasubjects' postanalysis showed better results of AVG compared with AE (lower % of nonperseverative errors) and AE+AVG (less failures to maintain set, although the number of correct responses decreased). AE+AVG showed benefits in RPE compared with AE. Conclusions: The practice of AE and/or AVG acutely improves CRT in older adults, but only AVG improved some variables of cognitive flexibility. Moreover, postexercise RPE was higher after AE in comparison with other conditions (AVG, AE+AVG).
Temporal and spatial dynamics of the pelagic microbial food web in an atoll lagoon

We examined the influence of diurnal cycle, depth, exchange and proximity to land on the dynamics of microbial populations (bacteria, cyanobacteria, nanoplankton, phagotrophic nanoflagellates, ciliates and dinoflagellates) in Tikehau atoll lagoon (French Polynesia). Microbial populations increased over this 15 d study. Their abundances in the lagoon ranged from 1.2 to 2.6 x lo6 bacteria ml-', 1.1 to 4.0 x l o 5 cyanobacteria ml-', 200 to 1090 eukayotic phytoplankton ml-', 380 to 1500 phagotrophic nanoflagellates ml-', 0.3 to . 4.0 ciliates ml-I, . and 11 to 195 nanodinoflagellates ml-'. hlicrobial abundances revealed that the intrusion 01 oceanic water into the lagoon only affected bacterial and cyanobacterial distributions in a narrow band around the lagoon. Grazing rate estimates and population dynamics showed that phagotrophic nanoflagellates were the major grazers of picoplankton (mainly bacteria and cyanobacteria). Cyanobacteria contributed about twice as much as bacteria to this grazed biomass and are therefore supposed to have a higher contribution to the transfer of organic carbon to the upper trophic levels. Heteroand autotrophic nanoflagellate abundance appeared to be regulated primarily by predators. Ciliates, and perhaps heterotrophic dinoflagellates, appeared to be grazing mostly on nanoplankton, both autotrophic and heterotrophic cells. Autotrophic and heterotrophic dinoflagellate populations increased at net rates comparable to, or even more rapidly than, other microbial communities; this suggests that dinoflagellates also play a significant role in the lagoon microbial foodweb. Additional aspects of the spatial and temporal variability of the microbial foodweb in Tikehau lagoon, as well as the role of grazers and dinoflagellates, are anallied. KES WORDS: Atoll lagoon. Microbial food web. Grazing. Bacterioplankton . Cyanobacteria. Protists. Dinoflagellates . Ciliates . Nanoflagellates ,.
THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY AUTOMOTIVE CLIMATE SYSTEMS Investigation of Current Energy Use and Future Energy Saving Measures

Automotive climate systems use energy to achieve thermal comfort for the vehicle passengers. This energy use affects vehicle fuel consumption. The objectives of this thesis are to understand the energy use of automotive climate systems and investigate the effect of different energy saving measures. The research was conducted in several steps. First, comprehensive laboratory measurements of a complete vehicle, a Volvo S60. The main focus of the measurement was on heat flows and electrical and mechanical work of the climate system. Second, the most important climate systems were modelled with a one dimensional commercial software. The modelled systems were the passenger compartment, air-handling unit and air conditioning system, although engine, water jacket, cooling circuit, oil circuit and drivetrain were also included. Third, development of a test cycle representative for real-world conditions. The test cycle was based on hourly ambient conditions around the world weighted with sales distribution of Volvo Cars and departure time. In the last step, the model and developed test cycle were used to investigate different energy saving measures. The measurement demonstrated that the energy use can be reported individually for better understanding of the system. That is, the different heat flows from sources to sinks and the electrical and mechanical work can and should be presented separately. Furthermore, the developed test cycle showed that intermediate conditions, ambient temperatures from 5 to 22°C, were by far the most common. Combining the simulation model and test cycle provided an estimation of current energy use of automotive climate systems. In average the system used 180 W of electrical power, 475 W of mechanical power, a total of 1820 W for heating and 1030 W for cooling. The average heat flow into the passenger compartment was 1190 W for heating and 280 W for cooling. 26 energy saving measures were investigated. Few single energy saving measures could decrease the energy use significantly, however, combinations of measures had a large potential. A reduction of the electrical power with 50% and the mechanical power with 44% were possible with realistic measures. Further, the heat flows into the passenger compartment could be reduced with roughly 20% for both heating and cooling. Measures on the source side, how the heating and cooling was generated, showed most potential. The results show that how the system operates in intermediate conditions determines the energy use. The interaction between the automatic climate control system, the air conditioning system and the requirement of de-humidification have a large influence on the operation of the climate system in these conditions.
A Multidisciplinary Doctoral Research Program in Administrative Sciences: The Economic and Social Impact of Public Administration Europeanization

In the current paper, we aim to formulate the objectives, contents and syllabus of a discipline that will approach the complex issue of evaluating the economic and social impact of public administration Europeanization in a methodological and educational way. The research topic is new on one hand, determined by the behaviour novelty of EU against the Member States, which have a founding status, or new EU adhering countries (2007) and vice versa the behaviour of Member States towards the EU in different development stages, and on the other hand, the topic has outgrown the full age and started the biological maturity process with every EU enlargement stage. The general directions and mechanisms supporting the above activity will be as follows: - Multidisciplinary approach of the Europeanization processes, describing the systemic mechanisms of development, adjustment and self-adjustment, specific for the convergence and dynamics of national public administrations. - Evaluating the economic and social impact of national public administrations Europeanization by substantiating statistic models and relevant socio-economic indicators. - Making operational a theoretical and empirical framework by means of significant analyses, methodologies and case studies for the topic approached. We aim to evaluate the economic and social impact through: - Quantitative and qualitative indicators in view to determine the degree of administrative and economic convergence. - Framework models of organisational analysis for Europeanization of representative institutions in national, central or local governments. - Socio-economic indicators and models aimed at determining the costs of bureaucracy and correlating their trends with the economic performance. - Statistic indicators concerning the influence of the meritocratic criteria in the civil service development on the economic growth and public sector performance
Mutual Information-Assisted Wavelet Function Selection for Enhanced Rolling Bearing Fault Diagnosis

This paper presents an enhanced rolling bearing fault diagnosis approach, based on optimized wavelet packet transform (WPT) assisted with quantitative wavelet function selection. Mutual information is utilized as a quantitative measure to select the most suitable wavelet function for the WPT-based vibration analysis. Energy features from coefficients of an optimal set of orthogonal wavelet subspaces which resulted from the WPT-based vibration analysis are input to different classifiers. The fault states of the rolling bearings can then be identified. Experiment studies conducted on a rolling bearing test system have verified the effectiveness of the proposed approach for rolling bearing fault diagnosis.
Suggestions to Derive Maximum Stocking Densities for Layer Pullets

Simple Summary The housing of farm animals, such as laying hens and broiler chickens, is regulated by the European Union (EU). However, for young laying hens which are not laying eggs yet, i.e., so-called pullets, no regulation for the number of birds per space is available. We exemplarily calculated maximum stocking densities for pullets based on their body size taking into account the European regulations for adult laying hens and broiler chickens. Our approach is mainly considering that a certain proportion of additional space should be provided to enable the birds to perform active behaviour. Abstract Stocking densities for domestic chickens (Gallus gallus domesticus) are regulated by the Council Directives of the European Union for both laying hens and broiler chickens. For layer pullets no regulation of stocking density has been established yet. Based on the existing Council Directives for laying hens (1999/74/EC), broiler chickens (2007/43/EC) and calculations of the floor space that is required for the respective chicken’s body, we exemplarily calculated maximum stocking densities for layer pullets. Based on the calculations we obtained absolute additional spaces for birds of different live body mass classes, i.e., useable floor space that the birds have additionally available to the space covered by their body. This allowed us to calculate the relative additional space per individual. We suggest the relative additional space to be a key parameter to derive requirements for a maximum stocking density in layer pullets. We analysed several scenarios for pullets under consideration of the Council Directives for laying hens and for broiler chickens, coming to the conclusion that layer pullets at the end of their rearing period should be provided ideally with a relative additional space of about 40–60%.
Play Experience Enhancement Using Emotional Feedback

Innovations in computer game interfaces continue to enhance the experience of players. Affective games those that adapt or incorporate a player’s emotional state have shown promise in creating exciting and engaging user experiences. However, a dearth of systematic exploration into what types of game elements should adapt to affective state leaves game designers with little guidance on how to incorporate affect into their games. We created an affective game engine, using it to deploy a design probe into how adapting the player’s abilities, the enemy’s abilities, or variables in the environment affects player performance and experience. Our results suggest that affectively adapting games can increase player arousal. Furthermore, we suggest that reducing challenge by adapting non-player characters is a worse design choice than giving players the tools that they need (through enhancing player abilities or a supportive environment) to master greater challenges.
HMMRATAC: a Hidden Markov ModeleR for ATAC-seq

Abstract ATAC-seq has been widely adopted to identify accessible chromatin regions across the genome. However, current data analysis still utilizes approaches initially designed for ChIP-seq or DNase-seq, without considering the transposase digested DNA fragments that contain additional nucleosome positioning information. We present the first dedicated ATAC-seq analysis tool, a semi-supervised machine learning approach named HMMRATAC. HMMRATAC splits a single ATAC-seq dataset into nucleosome-free and nucleosome-enriched signals, learns the unique chromatin structure around accessible regions, and then predicts accessible regions across the entire genome. We show that HMMRATAC outperforms the popular peak-calling algorithms on published human ATAC-seq datasets. We find that single-end sequenced or size-selected ATAC-seq datasets result in a loss of sensitivity compared to paired-end datasets without size-selection.
Recent Advances in Carbonaceous Photocatalysts with Enhanced Photocatalytic Performances: A Mini Review

Photocatalytic processes based on various semiconductors have been widely utilized in different applications, with great potential for use in environmental pollution remediation and sustainable energy generation. However, critical issues, including low light adsorption capability, wide energy bandgap, and unsatisfactory physicochemical stability still seriously limit the practical applications of photocatalysts. As a solution, the introduction of carbonaceous materials with different structures and properties into a photocatalyst system to further increase the activity has attracted much research attention. This mini review surveys the related literatures and highlights recent progress in the development of carbonaceous photocatalysts, which include various metal semiconductors with activated carbon, carbon dots, carbon nanotubes/nanofibers, graphene, fullerene, and carbon sponges/aerogels. Moreover, graphitic carbon nitride is also discussed as a carbon-rich and metal-free photocatalyst. The recently developed synthesis strategies and proposed mechanisms underlying the photocatalytic activity enhancement for different applications are summarized and discussed. Finally, ongoing challenges and the developmental direction for carbonaceous photocatalysts are proposed.
64Cu PET Imaging of the CXCR4 Chemokine Receptor Using a Cross-Bridged Cyclam Bis-Tetraazamacrocyclic Antagonist

Expression of the chemokine receptor chemokine C-X-C motif receptor 4 (CXCR4) plays an important role in cancer metastasis, in autoimmune diseases, and during stem cell–based repair processes after stroke and myocardial infarction. Previously reported PET imaging agents targeting CXCR4 suffer from either high nonspecific uptake or bind only to the human form of the receptor. The objective of this study was to develop a high-stability 64Cu-labeled small-molecule PET agent for imaging both human and murine CXCR4 chemokine receptors. Methods: Synthesis, radiochemistry, stability and radioligand binding assays were performed for the novel tracer 64Cu-CuCB-bicyclam. In vivo dynamic PET studies were performed on mice bearing U87 (CXCR4 low-expressing) and U87.CXCR4 (human-CXCR4 high-expressing) tumors. Biodistribution and receptor blocking studies were performed on CD1-IGS immunocompetent mice. CXCR4 expression on tumor and liver disaggregates was confirmed using a combination of immunohistochemistry, quantitative polymerase chain reaction, and Western blot. Results: 64Cu-CuCB-bicyclam has a high affinity for both the human and the murine variants of the CXCR4 receptor (half-maximal inhibitory concentration, 8 nM [human]/2 nM [murine]) and can be obtained from the parent chelator that has low affinity. In vitro and in vivo studies demonstrate specific uptake in CXCR4-expressing cells that can be blocked by more than 90% using a higher-affinity antagonist, with limited uptake in non–CXCR4-expressing organs and high in vivo stability. The tracer was also able to selectively displace the CXCR4 antagonists AMD3100 and AMD3465 from the liver. Conclusion: The tetraazamacrocyclic small molecule 64Cu-CuCB-bicyclam has been shown to be an imaging agent for the CXCR4 receptor that is likely to be applicable across a range of species. It has high affinity and stability and is suitable for preclinical research in immunocompetent murine models.