Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Epidemiology and evolution of novel deltacoronaviruses in birds in central China

Abstract The variety and widespread of coronavirus in natural reservoir animals is likely to cause epidemics via interspecific transmission, which has attracted much attention due to frequent coronavirus epidemics in recent decades. Birds are natural reservoir of various viruses, but the existence of coronaviruses in wild birds in central China has been barely studied. Some bird coronaviruses belong to the genus of Deltacoronavirus. To explore the diversity of bird deltacoronaviruses in central China, we tested faecal samples from 415 wild birds in Hunan Province, China. By RT‐PCR detection, we identified eight samples positive for deltacoronaviruses which were all from common magpies, and in four of them, we successfully amplified complete deltacoronavirus genomes distinct from currently known deltacoronavirus, indicating four novel deltacoronavirus stains (HNU1‐1, HNU1‐2, HNU2 and HNU3). Comparative analysis on the four genomic sequences showed that these novel magpie deltacoronaviruses shared three different S genes among which the S genes of HNU1‐1 and HNU1‐2 showed 93.8% amino acid (aa) identity to that of thrush coronavirus HKU12, HNU2 S showed 71.9% aa identity to that of White‐eye coronavirus HKU16, and HNU3 S showed 72.4% aa identity to that of sparrow coronavirus HKU17. Recombination analysis showed that frequent recombination events of the S genes occurred among these deltacoronavirus strains. Two novel putative cleavage sites separating the non‐structural proteins in the HNU coronaviruses were found. Bayesian phylogeographic analysis showed that the south coast of China might be a potential origin of bird deltacoronaviruses existing in inland China. In summary, these results suggest that common magpie in China carries diverse deltacoronaviruses with novel genomic features, indicating an important source of environmental coronaviruses closed to human communities, which may provide key information for prevention and control of future coronavirus epidemics.
Theoretical Determination of the Mass Radii of the Nucleons and Heavier Subatomic Particles

Background: The literature contains numerous values of nucleon charge radii with greater interest in proton. The mean square negative radii are reported for the neutron, the scientific relevance notwithstanding. Only in very few instances was the mass radius of the nucleon investigated. Methods: Theoretical and computational methods. Objectives: The objectives of this research are to derive, based mainly on classical model, the equation of the radii of nucleons and other subatomic particles heavier than the nucleons and determine by calculation based on the equation the radii of such particles, and elucidate why results may be different from literature values. Results and Discussion: The results showed expectedly that the mass radii of nucleons and heavier subatomic particles are longer than what seemed to be the preferred proton charge radius. The lengths of the calculated radii increase with increase in rest mass of the subatomic particles whose mass must be  the mass of any nucleon Conclusion: The equation of the mass radius of any nucleon and heavier subatomic particles was derived. Expectedly, the radii differ on the basis of differences in masses of the particles. The difference in mass radii as calculated in this research and reported charge radii in the literature may be due to electron capture leading to greater number of elastic collision with resulting neutrons. Short Research Article Udema; AJR2P, 3(4): 1-10, 2020; Article no.AJR2P. 60974 2 Two particles of widely different mass possessing different charge must interact attractively or repulsively if they possess similar charges. Otherwise the deflection of beta–rays and similar particles in an electromagnetic field would be impossible.
IFNγ induced apoptosis in the murine hepatocyte

11 1.1 HEPATITIS 13 1.1.1 Hepatitis C 16 1.1.1.1 The immune response to HCV 17 1.1.1.2 Repair and Injury 18 1.1.2 HBV infection 21 1.1.3 Hepatocellular Carcinoma 23 1.2 APOPTOSIS 26 1.2.1 Apoptotic nuclear changes 26 1.2.2 Caspases 29 1.2.2.1 The caspase cascade 29 1.2.2. 2 Caspase activation 33 1.2.2.3 Inhibitor ofApoptosis Proteins 36 1.2.3 Apoptotic pathways 37 1.2.3.1 The role of the mitochondria in apoptosis 37 1.2.3.2 Membrane death receptors 49 1.3 THE ROLE OF IFNy 52 1.3.1 IFNy IN HEPATITIS 52 1.3.1.1 Conconavalin A 52
Performance of Anaerobic Digestion of Acidified Palm Oil Mill Effluent under Various Organic Loading Rates and Temperatures

This study compared the performance of thermophilic and mesophilic digesters of an anaerobic digestion system from palm oil mill effluent (POME), in which temperature is a key parameter that can greatly affect the performance of anaerobic digestion. The digesters were incubated at two distinct temperatures of 55 and 37 °C, and operated with varying organic loading rates (OLRs) of 2.4, 3.2, and 4.0 g COD/L.d by altering the chemical oxygen demand (COD) of acidified POME during feeding. The results indicated that the performance of anaerobic digestion increased as the OLR increased from 2.4 to 4.0 g COD/L.d. At the OLR of 4.0 g COD/L.d, the thermophilic condition showed the highest methane yield of 0.31 ± 0.01 L/g COD, accompanied by the highest COD removal and volatile solid reduction, which were found to be higher than the mesophilic condition. Microbial community analysis via denaturing gradient gel electrophoresis (DGGE) revealed that Methanothermobacter sp. emerges as the dominant microbe, which is known to utilize the carbon dioxide pathway with hydrogen acting as an electron donor for methane formation
“It Does Not Do to Dwell on Teaching Notes and Forget to Live” : Instructor Perspectives on Integrating and Adapting Existing Experiential Exercises in Large Classes

The vast majority of articles describing new experiential exercises are presented from the perspective of the creator(s) of the activity. It is notable, however, that less research has focused on understanding the experiences of instructors who later adopt these exercises in their classrooms. We contribute to the literature on experiential learning in large classes by placing our focus squarely on the user—examining the perceptions, motivations, reflections, and experiences of instructors who integrate existing experiential exercises in large groups. Using a qualitative methodology, we interviewed 12 instructors of a large, multisection undergraduate course at a large Canadian university, in which a common experiential exercise is run across all sections. Two main themes emerged. The first captures the importance of making an exercise one’s own and reflects the variety of strategies that instructors use when preparing to adopt an existing exercise—including active strategies through which the instructors become codesigners of the activity itself. The second reflects different perceptions, ranging from enthusiasm to skepticism, with respect to the value of using experiential exercises. Both themes point to the importance of, as well as strategies designed to enhance, instructor perceptions of self-efficacy in relation to running existing experiential exercises in one’s courses.
Soft Controllable Carbon Fibre-based Piezoresistive Self-Sensing Actuators

Soft robots and devices exploit deformable materials that are capable of changes in shape to allow conformable physical contact for controlled manipulation. While the use of embedded sensors in soft actuation systems is gaining increasing interest, there are limited examples where the body of the actuator or robot is able to act as the sensing element. In addition, the conventional feedforward control method is widely used for the design of a controller, resulting in imprecise position control from a sensory input. In this work, we fabricate a soft self-sensing finger actuator using flexible carbon fibre-based piezoresistive composites to achieve an inherent sensing functionality and design a dual-closed-loop control system for precise actuator position control. The resistance change of the actuator body was used to monitor deformation and fed back to the motion controller. The experimental and simulated results demonstrated the effectiveness, robustness and good controllability of the soft finger actuator. Our work explores the emerging influence of inherently piezoresistive soft actuators to address the challenges of self-sensing, actuation and control, which can benefit the design of next-generation soft robots.
Effects of Secondary Forest Succession on Amphibians and Reptiles: A Review and Meta-analysis

Over the past century, humans have cleared the Earth's forests at an alarming rate and intensity. The majority of global forest cover is categorized as secondary forest, and it is becoming increasingly important to consider secondary forests in addition to old-growth forest in conservation planning for biota. We reviewed the literature to synthesize information on amphibian and reptile communities during secondary forest succession. We summarized literature on mechanisms of community change during forest succession and conducted a meta-analysis to estimate effect sizes for species richness and abundance in human-modified landscapes (agriculture, pasture, and plantation) and old-growth forests compared to regenerating secondary forests. Studies reported strong support for differences in species composition among human-modified landscapes, secondary forest, and old-growth forest as well as species-specific responses to successional forest change. Secondary forest generally had higher species richness and abundance than human-modified landscapes, but lower species richness and abundance than old-growth forests. This result was more pronounced in amphibians than reptiles, and effect size of abundance was more variable than richness among studies. Secondary forests have better conservation value than altered habitats, but they do not necessarily hold the same conservation value for species as old-growth forest.
Effect of fertilization of a biochar and compost amended technosol: Consequence on Ailanthus altissima growth and As‐ and Pb‐specific root sorption

The remediation of metal(loid) polluted soil using plants (i.e. phytoremediation) often requires the application of amendments, as well as chemical fertilizer. However, such fertilizers can have negative effects when applied alone and can thus be applied together with other organic amendments to diminish this negative effect. Finally, plants to be used in phytoremediation should be selected based on their adaptive capacity and tolerance to poor and highly contaminated soils, characteristics that possesses Ailanthus altissima. The objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of osmocote fertilization on the amended mining technosol properties and plant growth parameters, as well as to study the accumulation pattern of As and Pb in plant roots. Results showed that osmocote ameliorated soil conditions, but increased Pb mobility. It also greatly improved plant growth. Finally, different behaviours of metal(loid) accumulation were observed in the roots: As was absorbed mainly in the roots because of its similarity with P, with very low amounts in the leaves, whereas Pb was adsorbed mainly on the root surface, with lesser proportion absorbed inside the root system.
Characterizing optical and morphological properties of Eriochrome Black T doped polyvinyl alcohol film

Eriochrome Black T doped polyvinyl alcohol film was prepared on a glass substrate via the casting method. Optical microscope image of the film was taken by an optical microscope and analyzed by an Image J and origin 2008 software where it was proved that the film was free of defects and holes and uniformly distributed over entire area of the substrate. The optical constants of the film were calculated via the optical absorbance and transmittance in the wavelength range 350–900 nm via the use of a set of known mathematical formulas together with Wemple and DiDomenico model. The optical conductivity and the electrical conductivity of the prepared film in response to external electric filed are obtained using two more equations where it was found that the prepared film have high optical conductivity of the order of 1012 s−1 and an electrical conductivity of the order of 104 (S cm−1).
Optimal Control of SiC Crystal Growth in the RF-TSSG System Using Reinforcement Learning

We have developed a reinforcement learning (RL) model to control the melt flow in the radio frequency (RF) top-seeded solution growth (TSSG) process for growing more uniform SiC crystals with a higher growth rate. In the study, the electromagnetic field (EM) strength is controlled by the RL model to weaken the influence of Marangoni convection. The RL model is trained through a two-dimensional (2D) numerical simulation of the TSSG process. As a result, the growth rate under the control of the RL model is improved significantly. The optimized RF-coil parameters based on the control strategy for the 2D melt flow are used in a three-dimensional (3D) numerical simulation for model validation, which predicts a higher and more uniform growth rate. It is shown that the present RL model can significantly reduce the development cost and offers a useful means of finding the optimal RF-coil parameters.
Social predispositions and underlying neural mechanisms in chicks (Gallus gallus domesticus)

The detection of animate creatures, being social companions, preys or predators, is fundamental for survival and social interaction among vertebrates. Social predispositions are a set of unlearnt rudimental knowledge about animate beings, helping animals to structure sensory experience immediately after birth. An animal can detect the presence of a living being relying on both dynamic as well as static cues. Immediately after hatching visually naive chicks for instance, spontaneously prefer biological motion patterns as well as face-like stimuli. Similar evidence has been collected on human adults and infants. In the present work, we aimed to investigate both dynamic and static cues eliciting spontaneous social attraction in visually naive chicks and the relative neural correlates using an immunohistochemical staining of the immediate early gene product c-Fos as a neuronal activity marker. In a first behavioural study, visually naive chicks demonstrated to have an innate preference for visible speed changes, cues of self-propulsion (implying an internal energy source to the moving object). In a second study, we found an involvement of septum and preoptic area of the hypothalamus in the perception of this predisposed animate motion cues. Septum is an evolutionarily well-conserved part of the limbic system. Together with preoptic area, they are key nodes of the social decision-making network rich in sex-steroid hormone receptors and involved in various adult social behaviours. This is the first evidence of the involvement of these areas in the perception of elementary animate cues in unexperienced newborn animals. In a third study, we successfully replicated a previous work, finding chicks’ spontaneous preference for a naturalistic configuration of features (stuffed fowl) vs. an artificial one (similar fowl cut in pieces and reassembled scrambled on a box). Here we found a differential involvement of intermediate medial mesopallium in the perception of static configuration of features. Intermediate medial mesopallium is a telencephalic region known to be involved in learning the features of the imprinting object. As an interesting by-product of these studies, we found a recurrent asymmetry in c-fos expression in favour of the left hemisphere. Previous literature showed that light exposure of the egg in a critical embryonic time window stimulate selectively the left hemisphere of chicks and influence future brain and behavioural lateralisation. Intriguingly, the asymmetries we observed in our experiments were in chicks hatched from dark incubated eggs. We devised an experiment to understand how the spontaneous level of c-Fos in the two hemispheres could be modulated by embryonic light exposure. Preliminary results suggest a spontaneous higher c-fos expression in the left hemisphere regardless of embryonic light stimulation. These results adds to previous existing knowledge about the organisation of chicks brain immediately after hatching and pave the way for future studies on neural correlates of social predispositions in vertebrates.
Breeding value evaluation in Polish fur animals: Statistical description of fur coat and reproduction traits – relationship and inbreeding

Three data sets were available: records on conformation and coat traits for the arctic fox from one farm (5 540 observations, collected between 1983 and 1997), and the same traits for the silver fox from three farms (8 199 observations, collected between 1984 and 1999). The third set comprised 5 829 observations on reproductive performance of the arctic fox from one farm, collected between 1984 and 1999. The GLM procedure was used to test the significance of fixed effects on the analysed reproduction traits as well as differences between groups. Phenotypic trends as well as relationship and inbreeding across the studied years were computed. Most of the phenotypic trends were positive. Low relationship and inbreeding coefficients in the arctic and silver fox populations under study were estimated. The average relationship coefficients for the silver and arctic fox populations were 0.015 and 0.010, respectively, whereas the average inbreeding coefficients for the same species were 0.0039 and 0.0016, respectively. No inbreeding was found in the arctic fox breeding females.
PYCNIDIA AND CONIDIA QUANTIFICATION OF LASIODIPLODIA USING A CULTURE MEDIUM ENRICHED WITH SUGARCANE BAGASSE

The study of Lasiodiplodia species has been increasing lately due to the importance of this fungus as a pathogen of plants and animals, as well as its ability to produce chemicals ofhuman importance. For morphological and taxonomic study of this fungus in vitro, the growth factor is not a problem as it easily develops in different culture media. However, someimpediments to a sequential and complete morphological characterization of isolates may occur, such as fructification and sporulation. Nevertheless, molecular studies for this group offungi are still inconsistent (Mohali, et al., 2005; Rosado et al., 2016). Taking into consideration that morphological characterization of an isolate must be widely and completely done, we propose in this paper a new culture medium composed of salt and sugarcane bagasse (SC medium) that allows production, quantification and extraction of pycnidia and conidia of Lasiodiplodia. Assays were carried out with isolates from different sources, three of thempathogenic to coconut, cocoa and mango fruits and one endophytic isolate from Restinga. Ourresults show that the proposed medium was more translucent and allowed detection and quantification of all pycnidia produced by the isolates. There was a rapid production of pycnidia that were strongly adhered to sugarcane bagasse fibers after seven days of culture, suggesting that Lasiodiplodia uses sucrose present in the fibers as a carbohydrate source. Inaddition, it was observed significant differences between the means of pycnidia production, allowing to distinguish each isolate. The SC medium proposed here is a practical and efficient way to quantify pycnidia, structures that had been greatly neglected in the characterization and differentiation of Lasiodiplodia isolates to date.
The taxonomic position and breeding range of Golden Nightjar Caprimulgus eximius (Caprimulgidae)

Golden Nightjar Caprimulgus eximius is an apparently sedentary sub-Saharan species with a breeding range extending from Senegal and Mauritania to Sudan. Although genetic studies of nightjars and related Caprimulgiformes have been published previously, none has included Golden Nightjar. In this study, mitochondrial and nuclear DNA of a Golden Nightjar found dead in Western Sahara in April 2016 was sequenced and compared with other species in the genus Caprimulgus. It was concluded with strong support that Golden Nightjar is closely related to Egyptian Nightjar C. aegyptius. It is hypothesised that Golden and Egyptian Nightjars may have arisen by splitting of a single ancestral species into migratory and sedentary populations.
STEM Education in Early Childhood: A Review of Empirical Studies

ABSTRACT Research Findings: Various cross-disciplinary STEM learning activities were implemented in the early childhood context. Young children and their parents had rather positive attitudes towards STEM learning. In addition to educational values, the economic value of STEM learning for their family was perceived by a good number of parents, which believed that learning STEM could pave a path for their children toward future economic prosperity. Early childhood teachers perceived the values of STEM education from the learning and social perspectives while they realized various practical constrains of time, support and resources, worried about teachers’ capacity and subject knowledge, and considered students, developmental differences and safety. They were not confident to implement STEM lessons with their young students. Practice or Policy: It is urgent to present teachers a holistic picture for STEM curriculum in the EC context, covering strengthening discipline-based content learning, enhancing discipline-based integration, and preparing for the innovation-driven integration. The complete process of transferring professional knowledge (including awareness, acquisition, transformation, association, application, and externalization) should be embodied in the design of STEM professional training programs. Parents also needed more training on how to work with their children in STEM activities and scaffold their children’ learning.
The assessment of psychopathological symptoms and the course of schizophrenia depending on gender, duration of the disease, somatic comorbidity and suicide attempts

Objectives. Schizophrenia is a chronic mental disorder with periods of exacerbation and remission. The prevalence during life is estimated at 0.5–1%. The study aims to prove that there are differences in the prevalence of positive and negative symptoms of schizophrenia depending on the gender and duration of the disease, and to confirm that there is a relationship between the factors such as the occurrence of somatic diseases and the risk of suicide attempts, and a specific clinical picture and course of the disease. Material and methods. The study included 76 patients with schizophrenia treated with standard antipsychotic pharmacotherapy. The severity of psychopathological symptoms was assessed after admission to hospital using the scale of positive and negative symptoms and the sociodemographic survey created for the purposes of this study. Results. The first episode of schizophrenia in men occurs earlier than in women. There are no statistically significant differences in the psychopathological picture of the disease in men and women. The severity of negative symptoms increases with the duration of the illness for the entire population of the study. Patients with schizo­phrenia without co-occurring somatic diseases have more severe positive symptoms of illness. There are no statistically significant differences in the group of patients who attempted suicide and who did not. Conclusions. Positive symptoms of the disease are more common in younger patients without somatic diseases while negative symptoms increase with age. Men develop first symptoms of schizophrenia earlier than women. It is not possible to distinguish the dominant group of psychopathological symptoms for women and men in patients who suffer somatic diseases and attempt suicide more often.