Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Inheritance of glyphosate resistance in rigid ryegrass (Lolium rigidum) from California

Abstract Glyphosate resistance was found in a rigid ryegrass population in northern California. A sample of the resistant plants were collected and grown under greenhouse conditions. The objective of this study was to evaluate glyphosate resistance in the progeny of the collected plants by recurrent selection, obtain the homozygous resistant and sensitive lines to establish dose-response curves, and to determine the inheritance of glyphosate resistance in rigid ryegrass. Diverse levels of resistance were observed in the first generation with survival of 89, 59, 45, and 9% from glyphosate at 1x, 2x, 4x, and 8x respectively, where x = 1.12 kg ha−1 isopropylamine salt of glyphosate. Clones of plants that died from 1x were allowed to produce seed and were further subjected to recurrent selection to generate the most sensitive plants (S lines), which died from 0.125x glyphosate. The most resistant plants (R lines) were generated from the survivors receiving 8x glyphosate. The ratio between I50 rates for the glyphosate resistant and the glyphosate sensitive plants was > 100-fold. The R and S lines were crossed reciprocally and F1 progeny of both (R × S) and (S × R) showed intermediate resistance. These survived up to 2x glyphosate. The F2 progeny were generated by intercrossing of F1 plants. The ratio of sensitive, intermediate, and resistant plants in the F2 population before the treatment of glyphosate at 0.125x followed by 8x was 1 : 16, 14 : 16, and 1 : 16 respectively, which corresponded to the Mendelian segregation ratio of two genes. The results indicated that the inheritance of glyphosate resistance in rigid ryegrass from California appeared to be nuclear, incompletely dominant, multigenic, and pollen-transmitted with no indication of maternal inheritance. Nomenclature: Glyphosate; rigid ryegrass, Lolium rigidum Gaud. LOLRI.
Carbon to volume relationships for dinoflagellates, diatoms, and other protist plankton

Cellular carbon and nitrogen content and cell volume of nutritionally and morphologically diverse dinoflagellate species were measured to determine carbon to volume (C:vol) and nitrogen to volume (N:vol) relationships. Cellular C and N content ranged from 48 to 3.0 × 104 pgC cell−1 and 11 to 2,656 pgN cell−1 for cells ranging in volume from 180 to 2.8 × 105 µm3. C and N density in dinoflagellates decreased significantly with increasing cell volume. C:N ratios ranged from 3.44 to 6.45. C:vol and N:vol in dinoflagellates are significantly related as expressed by the equations pgC cell−1 = 0.760 × volume0.819 and pgN cell−1 = 0.118 × volume0.849. Previously published data were combined to compare C:vol relationships in different phylogenetic protist groups, including chlorophytes, chrysophytes, prasinophytes, and prymnesiophytes. Our analysis indicated differences between the C:vol relationships available for ciliates. A new C:vol relationship for diatoms was established (pgC cell−1 = 0.288 × volume0.811). Dinoflagellates are significantly more C dense than diatoms. Except for diatoms, we found few significant differences between C:vol relationships of different phylogenetic groups. Consequently, one C:vol relationship for taxonomically diverse protist plankton excluding diatoms was determined (pgC cell−1 = 0.216 × volume0.939). In the combined data set, carbon density was not constant but decreased significantly with increasing cell volume. Using constant C:vol conversion factors for plankton over large size ranges will cause systematic errors in biomass estimates.
The desert at Zait Bay, Egypt: a bird migration bottleneck of global importance

Summary The study area at Zait Bay, Egypt (c. 700 km2) is situated in the middle of the West Asian-East African migration flyway used by very large numbers of soaring migrants. At this site the corridor narrows into a bottleneck. There exist only very few bottlenecks of this magnitude in the world. Observations were performed at all hours between sunrise and sunset at 26 observation sites, situated 5 km apart. The northern part of the area under investigation (19 observation sites) was situated within the Gebel El Zeit IBA (criteria A1 and A4iv), while the southernmost part (8 observation sites) was outside. The overall evaluation has shown that 179,681 soaring birds including 122,454 storks and 36,976 raptors were observed in total. Within a radius of 2.5 km from each observation site 97,143 soaring birds including 59,308 storks and 30,489 raptors were observed during the 604 hours of observation. Eleven species were recorded in numbers that exceed 1% of their flyway populations. Of special concern regarding bird conservation are those birds resting or flying in the first 200 m of elevation. In total 6,624 soaring birds were seen resting (2,252 within a radius of 2.5 km). Thirty-three percent of the storks and 47% of the raptors were observed resting or flying at heights within the lowest 200 m. The median height of flying birds varied between 5 m (harriers) and 500 m (Common Crane Grus grus). According to the raw data, criteria for nomination of the area as an IBA (20,000 raptors and storks in one migration season, globally threatened species) were fully met outside the existing IBA. Also, to the south of the study area, very high numbers of migrants were confirmed by spontaneous, non-systematic observations. Accordingly, a change of the boundaries is suggested. The regional analysis, based on extrapolations, has to be regarded as a preliminary study. The analysis failed to show a geographical trend for any single species. The data from this study establish a high concentration of gliding and soaring birds in the study area, within and adjacent to the already designated IBA.
Efficacy and safety of the starting position during colonoscopy: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Abstract Background and study aims We aimed to assess the efficacy and safety of the starting position during colonoscopy. Patients and methods We searched CENTRAL, MEDLINE, EMBASE, and the WHO International Clinical Trials Registry Platform through February 2019 to identify studies reporting the comparison between the right/supine/prone/tilt-down and left lateral starting position during colonoscopy. The primary outcomes were mean cecal insertion time and adverse events requiring medication. Two reviewers performed study selection and risk of bias assessment. We determined the quality of evidence using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluation method. This study was registered in PROSPERO (CRD42019124360). Results We identified 10 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) (2083 participants), including three trials on right/tilt-down versus left, two trials on supine/prone versus left, respectively. Mean difference in mean cecal insertion time in supine versus left was –41.0 s (95 % confidence interval [CI] –57.3 to –24.7) in one study and in tilt-down versus left was – 37.3 s (95 % CI –72.1 to –2.4; I2 = 58 %) in three studies; however, there were no statistically significant differences in prone/right versus left position (very low certainty of evidence). Four of eight studies noted adverse effects requiring medication (moderate certainty of evidence). One RCT applying the tilt-down position was terminated because of increased occurrence of oxygen desaturation. Conclusion We could not conclusively determine the efficacy and safety of the starting position during colonoscopy because of low certainty of evidence. Further studies are needed to confirm the efficacy and safety of the starting potion during colonoscopy.
Fully Homomorphic Encryption based on Multivariate Polynomial Evaluation.

We propose a multi-bit leveled fully homomorphic encryption scheme using multivariate polynomial evaluations. The security of the scheme depends on the hardness of the Learning with Errors (LWE) problem. For homomorphic multiplication, the scheme uses a polynomial based technique that does not require relinearization (and key switching). The noise associated with the ciphertext increases only linearly with every multiplication.
Adaptive Procedural Task Generation for Hard-Exploration Problems

We introduce Adaptive Procedural Task Generation (APT-Gen), an approach for progressively generating a sequence of tasks as curricula to facilitate reinforcement learning in hard-exploration problems. At the heart of our approach, a task generator learns to create tasks via a black-box procedural generation module by adaptively sampling from the parameterized task space. To enable curriculum learning in the absence of a direct indicator of learning progress, the task generator is trained by balancing the agent's expected return in the generated tasks and their similarities to the target task. Through adversarial training, the similarity between the generated tasks and the target task is adaptively estimated by a task discriminator defined on the agent's behaviors. In this way, our approach can efficiently generate tasks of rich variations for target tasks of unknown parameterization or not covered by the predefined task space. Experiments demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach through quantitative and qualitative analysis in various scenarios.
An eye for a tooth: Thylacosmilus was not a marsupial “saber-tooth predator”

Background Saber-toothed mammals, now all extinct, were cats or “cat-like” forms with enlarged, blade-like upper canines, proposed as specialists in taking large prey. During the last 66 Ma, the saber-tooth ecomorph has evolved convergently at least in five different mammalian lineages across both marsupials and placentals. Indeed, Thylacosmilus atrox, the so-called “marsupial saber-tooth,” is often considered as a classic example of convergence with placental saber-tooth cats such as Smilodon fatalis. However, despite its superficial similarity to saber-toothed placentals, T. atrox lacks many of the critical anatomical features related to their inferred predatory behavior—that of employing their enlarged canines in a killing head strike. Methods Here we follow a multi-proxy approach using canonical correspondence analysis of discrete traits, biomechanical models of skull function using Finite Element Analysis, and 3D dental microwear texture analysis of upper and lower postcanine teeth, to investigate the degree of evolutionary convergence between T. atrox and placental saber-tooths, including S. fatalis. Results Correspondence analysis shows that the craniodental features of T. atrox are divergent from those of placental saber-tooths. Biomechanical analyses indicate a superior ability of T. atrox to placental saber-tooths in pulling back with the canines, with the unique lateral ridge of the canines adding strength to this function. The dental microwear of T. atrox indicates a soft diet, resembling that of the meat-specializing cheetah, but its blunted gross dental wear is not indicative of shearing meat. Conclusions Our results indicate that despite its impressive canines, the “marsupial saber-tooth” was not the ecological analogue of placental saber-tooths, and likely did not use its canines to dispatch its prey. This oft-cited example of convergence requires reconsideration, and T. atrox may have had a unique type of ecology among mammals.
Outer entropy equals Bartnik-Bray inner mass and the gravitational ant conjecture

Entropy and energy are found to be closely tied on our quest for quantum gravity. We point out an interesting connection between the recently proposed outer entropy, a coarse-grained entropy defined for a compact spacetime domain motivated by the holographic duality, and the Bartnik-Bray quasilocal mass long known in the mathematics community. In both scenarios, one seeks an optimal spacetime fill-in of a given closed, connected, spacelike, codimension-two boundary. We show that for an outer-minimizing mean-convex surface, the Bartnik-Bray inner mass matches exactly with the irreducible mass corresponding to the outer entropy. The equivalence implies that the area laws derived from the outer entropy are mathematically equivalent as the monotonicity property of the quasilocal mass. It also gives rise to new bounds between entropy and the gravitational energy, which naturally gives the gravitational counterpart to Wall's ant conjecture. We also observe that the equality can be achieved in a conformal flow of metrics, which is structurally similar to the Ceyhan-Faulkner proof of the ant conjecture. We compute the small sphere limit of the outer entropy and it is proportional to the bulk stress tensor as one would expect for a quasilocal mass. Lastly, we discuss some implications of taking quantum matter into consideration in the semiclassical setting.
New Species of Hydrolaetare (Anura, Leptodactylidae) from Bolivia with Some Notes on Its Natural History

Abstract We describe a new species of Hydrolaetare from the eastern lowlands of Bolivia. The new species differs from the other two congeners in (1) Finger II and III with lateral fringes only on the inner side; (2) relative length of first finger; (3) palmar tubercle distinctly larger than thenar tubercle; (4) toes semiwebbed; and (5) coloration. Moreover, the advertisement call of the new species differs from that of its congeners. Some information about its natural history is given.
Mobile Botnet Detection: A Deep Learning Approach Using Convolutional Neural Networks

Android, being the most widespread mobile operating systems is increasingly becoming a target for malware. Malicious apps designed to turn mobile devices into bots that may form part of a larger botnet have become quite common, thus posing a serious threat. This calls for more effective methods to detect botnets on the Android platform. Hence, in this paper, we present a deep learning approach for Android botnet detection based on Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN). Our proposed botnet detection system is implemented as a CNN-based model that is trained on 342 static app features to distinguish between botnet apps and normal apps. The trained botnet detection model was evaluated on a set of 6,802 real applications containing 1,929 botnets from the publicly available ISCX botnet dataset. The results show that our CNN-based approach had the highest overall prediction accuracy compared to other popular machine learning classifiers. Furthermore, the performance results observed from our model were better than those reported in previous studies on machine learning based Android botnet detection.
Absence of diagonal force constants in cubic Coulomb crystals

The quasi-harmonic model proposes that a crystal can be modelled as atoms connected by springs. We demonstrate how this viewpoint can be misleading: a simple application of Gauss’s law shows that the ion–ion potential for a cubic Coulomb system can have no diagonal harmonic contribution and so cannot necessarily be modelled by springs. We investigate the repercussions of this observation by examining three illustrative regimes: the bare ionic, density tight-binding and density nearly-free electron models. For the bare ionic model, we demonstrate the zero elements in the force constants matrix and explain this phenomenon as a natural consequence of Poisson’s law. In the density tight-binding model, we confirm that the inclusion of localized electrons stabilizes all major crystal structures at harmonic order and we construct a phase diagram of preferred structures with respect to core and valence electron radii. In the density nearly-free electron model, we verify that the inclusion of delocalized electrons, in the form of a background jellium, is enough to counterbalance the diagonal force constants matrix from the ion–ion potential in all cases and we show that a first-order perturbation to the jellium does not have a destabilizing effect. We discuss our results in connection to Wigner crystals in condensed matter, Yukawa crystals in plasma physics, as well as the elemental solids.
A Triple-Difference Approach to Re-Evaluating the Impact of China’s New Cooperative Medical Scheme on Incidences of Chronic Diseases Among Older Adults in Rural Communities

Background This paper re-evaluates the impacts of China’s New Cooperative Medicine Scheme (NCMS), a social health insurance program targeting China’s rural population, on the incidences of chronic diseases among its enrollees. Although coverage under the NCMS expanded rapidly following its implementation in 2003, previous studies have failed to reach a consensus on its health impacts. Existing conflicting results may be due to methodological problems such as implausible identification assumptions and the failure to focus on the most relevant beneficiaries. Methods Drawing on data from a longitudinal sample from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (CHNS), we focus on a subgroup of patients over the age of 55 years to re-estimate the NCMS’s impact on incidences of chronic disease among enrollees. We adopt a triple-difference (difference-in-difference-in-differences) method, relaxing the parallel-trend assumption commonly invoked in the previous double-difference (difference-in-differences) studies. Results Our triple-difference estimates suggest that the NCMS has significantly reduced the incidences of apoplexy and diabetes among rural residents aged 55 years or older. The impacts of the NCMS on chronic disease are underestimated by the commonly adopted double-difference method. The triple-difference method allows evaluations to focus on the most relevant subgroups for detecting program impacts. Conclusion Our findings that the NCMS has significantly positive impacts on elderly enrollees’ incidences of chronic diseases also suggest the need for examining its impacts on other vulnerable groups, such as low-income individuals, young children, and individuals with poor health conditions.
LABORATORY STUDIES OF PREDATION OF GRASSHOPPER EGGS, MELANOPLUS BIVITTATUS (SAY), BY ADULTS OF TWO SPECIES OF PTEROSTICHUS BONELLI (COLEOPTERA: CARABIDAE)

Abstract In two-choice laboratory feeding trials in Petri dishes, adult carabid beetles, Pterostichus corvus (Leconte) and Pterostichus femoralis (Kirby), ate a higher percentage of grasshopper eggs, Melanoplus bivittatus (Say), than of cat food. Pterostichus corvus ate more eggs than did P. femoralis. Grasshopper eggs buried in soil in terraria were eaten by P. corvus adults at more than twice the rate of eggs exposed on the soil surface; predation rates at depths of 2.5 and 5 cm were the same. In plant-propagation trays, predation by P. corvus of buried grasshopper eggs was studied under three types of ground cover: Nicotiana seedlings, with rosette-form growth habit; barley seedlings, which exhibited upright growth; and bare ground. A significantly higher percentage of eggs was eaten under the Nicotiana than beneath the other types of ground cover, and predation rates did not differ between the barley and bare-ground treatments. Pterostichus corvus appears to be a suitable candidate for enhancement of natural biological control of grasshopper eggs, and manipulation of vegetation cover in grasshopper egg beds may be an effective technique for enhancing predation rates. Résumé Des coléoptères carabides adultes, Pterostichus corvus (Leconte) et Pterostichus femoralis (Kirby), ont consommé un pourcentage plus élevé d’oeufs de sauterelles Melanoplus bivittatus (Say) que de la nourriture pour chats dans des récipients Petri, lors d’expériences de laboratoire de double choix d’alimentation. Pterostichus corvus consomma plus d’oeufs que P. femoralis. Les adultes P. corvus ont consommé plus de deux fois les taux d’oeufs de sauterelles enterrés dans du sol en terrasses que ceux exposés à la surface du sol; les taux de prédation en profondeur de 2,5 et 5 cm étaient les mêmes. La prédation par P. corvus des oeufs de sauterelles enterrés dans des plateaux de propagation pour plantes a été étudié sous trois genres de couverts de sol : des jeunes plants de Nicotiana habitués à croître en forme de rosette; des jeunes plants d’orge qui démontraient une croissance droite; ainsi que le sol nu. Un pourcentage considérable d’oeufs ont été mangés sous le couvert de Nicotiana plutôt que sous les autres genres de couverts de sol et il n’y eu aucune différence dans les taux de prédation entre les traitements d’orge et ceux du sol. Il semblerait que P. corvus serait un candidat convenable pour rehaussé le contrôle biologique naturel des oeufs de sauterelles, et la manipulation de la couverture végétale dans les couches d’oeufs de sauterelles pourrait être une technique efficace pour rehausser les taux de prédation.
Online Robust Regression via SGD on the l1 loss

We consider the robust linear regression problem in the online setting where we have access to the data in a streaming manner, one data point after the other. More specifically, for a true parameter $\theta^*$, we consider the corrupted Gaussian linear model $y = \langle x , \ \theta^* \rangle + \varepsilon + b$ where the adversarial noise $b$ can take any value with probability $\eta$ and equals zero otherwise. We consider this adversary to be oblivious (i.e., $b$ independent of the data) since this is the only contamination model under which consistency is possible. Current algorithms rely on having the whole data at hand in order to identify and remove the outliers. In contrast, we show in this work that stochastic gradient descent on the $\ell_1$ loss converges to the true parameter vector at a $\tilde{O}( 1 / (1 - \eta)^2 n )$ rate which is independent of the values of the contaminated measurements. Our proof relies on the elegant smoothing of the non-smooth $\ell_1$ loss by the Gaussian data and a classical non-asymptotic analysis of Polyak-Ruppert averaged SGD. In addition, we provide experimental evidence of the efficiency of this simple and highly scalable algorithm.
The anesthetic efficiency of retromolar infiltrations with two local anesthetic solutions of the same concentration in lower third molar surgery

Background Mandibular third molar removal is the most common surgical procedure encountered in oral and maxillofacial clinics. It also presents the greatest challenges and controversies for surgeons when surgical removal is considered. Furthermore, diverse anesthesia results and success rates are achieved after using the same concentrations of different solutions or the same amounts of local anesthetics. The purpose of this study was to examine the efficiency of using double-cartridge (3.4 ml) 4% lidocaine (high concentration) and 4% articaine with a 1:100000 epinephrine infiltration in the retromolar region for impacted lower third molar surgery. Methods This double-blind study included 30 patients with symmetrically impacted lower third molars. The patients were randomly selected to receive 4% articaine on one side and 4% lidocaine on the other, as a local anesthetic for third molar surgery. The onset, duration of soft-tissue numbness, pulpal sensitivity, amount of additional local anesthetic needed, pain score during the surgical procedure, and duration of the operation were recorded. Results The results of this research indicate that 86.7% of the operations in the 4% articaine group and 83.3% of those in the 4% lidocaine group were successful. Furthermore, the outcomes in both groups were not statistically significant (P > 0.05). Numbness onset occurred faster in the articaine group than it did in the lidocaine group. However, the duration of soft-tissue anesthesia and pain scores recorded immediately postoperatively were similar. Conclusion It is concluded that 4% lidocaine and 4% articaine had a similar infiltration efficacy in the retromolar region and both local anesthetics are adequate for impacted lower third molar surgery. There were no statistically significant differences between the two local anesthetics regarding pain control and the duration of soft-tissue numbness during the procedure.