Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Does breeding season variation affect evolution of a sexual signaling trait in a tropical lizard clade?

Sexually selected traits can be expected to increase in importance when the period of sexual behavior is constrained, such as in seasonally restricted breeders. Anolis lizard male dewlaps are classic examples of multifaceted signaling traits, with demonstrated reproductive function reflected in courtship behavior. Fitch and Hillis found a correlation between dewlap size and seasonality in mainland Anolis using traditional statistical methods. Here, we present two tests of the Fitch-Hillis Hypothesis using new phylogenetic and morphological data sets for 44 species of Mexican Anolis. A significant relationship between dewlap size and seasonality is evident in phylogenetically uncorrected analyses but erodes once phylogeny is accounted for. This loss of statistical support for a relationship between a key aspect of dewlap morphology and seasonality also occurs within a species complex (A. sericeus group) that inhabits seasonal and aseasonal environments. Our results fail to support seasonality as a strong driver of evolution of Anolis dewlap size. We discuss the implications of our results and the difficulty of disentangling the strength of single mechanisms on trait evolution when multiple selection pressures are likely at play.
Quantitative Real-Time PCR assays for species-specific detection and quantification of Baltic Sea spring bloom dinoflagellates

In the Baltic Sea, the dinoflagellates Apocalathium malmogiense, Biecheleria baltica, and Gymnodinium corollarium are important contributors to the spring bloom. However, their relative contribution to the bloom community cannot be unambiguously determined by conventional light microscopy due to lack of resolution of distinctive morphological features of the three species. Here, we describe a molecular approach based on a quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qPCR) primer and probe system, targeting the ITS1 and ITS2 regions of the rRNA gene for all three species and enabling their quantification. The specificity of the method was demonstrated using monocultures of A. malmogiense, B. baltica, G. corollarium as well as three other dinoflagellate species co-occurring in the Baltic Sea during spring and validated using field-collected phytoplankton samples.
How do investors react when corporate social responsibility initiatives end?

Although corporate social responsibility (CSR) has significant benefits for firms, firms also regularly make decisions about scaling back or discontinuing CSR initiatives. We conduct a series of experiments to examine whether investors react differently to stopping socially responsible initiatives compared to stopping other business activities. In our first experiment, we find investors react more negatively to stopping a CSR initiative than to stopping a general business initiative, even though reactions to starting the initiatives do not differ. In our second experiment, we find investors react more negatively to stopping a CSR initiative with a higher degree of ethicality than to stopping a CSR initiative with a lower degree of ethicality, supporting our theory that investors’ more negative reactions result from the ethical nature of CSR. Additional experiments provide further evidence of theory and rule out alternative explanations. Although prior research suggests benefits of engaging in CSR, our results suggest such benefits may be undone when initiatives end.
Ultrawideband Circularly Polarized Antenna for Near-Field SAR Imaging Applications

In this article, an ultrawide band circularly polarized crossed dipole antenna is proposed for near-field synthetic aperture radar imaging. The presented antenna comprises two orthogonal dipoles with elliptical arms vacated by rotated elliptical slot. The slots and a modified feeding configuration enhance both impedance and axial ratio bandwidth. The antenna has 4.75:1 impedance bandwidth (1.6–7.6 GHz) and 4.1:1 axial ratio bandwidth (1.8–7.1 GHz). To reduce the coupling in quasi-monostatic imaging scenarios, a planar circularly symmetric structure is used that decreases coupling about 10 dB. Due to importance of antenna time-domain behavior in imaging systems, transient response is evaluated in near-fields and also far-fields, which shows a good fidelity factor. The electric field distribution in a region of near-field area is almost uniform in different frequencies that improve imaging. The far-field features like radiation pattern, gain, and axial ratio are also satisfactory. Finally, an oil well monitoring system using the proposed antenna is simulated and based on the results, existed perforations in the well wall are detected. Compared to previous antennas, this antenna has several advantages such as higher impedance and axial ratio bandwidth, planar structure, low front to side ratio which mitigates mutual coupling, and satisfactory transient response.
Hybrid treatment of the infected carotid-subclavian graft complicated by the septic haemorrhage

The paper presents combined method of treatment to 90-year-old female, admitted with the hemorrhage from the chronic purulent fistula in her left neck in the incision post left carotid to subclavian artery bypass in 1971. In the vascular center where she was operate on (outside of Poland) it was suggested, that she should undergo graft excision because of the possibility of graft blow and subsequent exsanguinations as the most severe complication but finally she gave up. In the new circumstances, in the face of no-indirect threat to life, there was urgent need for surgical treatment. Being aware of multiple risk factors from age, general condition and changes in local, developed the concept of radical, yet more saving, to-step procedure. At first by percutaneous means covered stents were implanted into the places of vascular anastomoses, followed by angioplasty of the narrowed origin of left subclavian artery. In the second phase, after a few days, the infected prosthesis was excised and the cavities in the arterial walls of the two arteries were provided. Before, during and after surgery targeted antibiotics were used with classic antiplatelet therapy regimen. Post-operative course was uneventful. The wound healed properly. Which currently consisting of 93 years, as for her age, she in excellent condition overall. There were no signs of infection recurrence observed.
Squat and gait biomechanics 6 months following hip arthroscopy for femoroacetabular impingement syndrome

Abstract The purpose of this study was to (i) assess whether squat and gait biomechanical measures improve in patients with femoroacetabular impingement syndrome (FAIS) 6 months after surgery compared to pre-operative measures and (ii) compare biomechanical properties to controls without FAIS. In this prospective study, biomechanical data during a double leg squat task and gait for 15 FAIS patients and 9 controls were collected using three-dimensional motion analysis. Data were collected in the FAIS group at two-time points, pre-operatively and 6-month post-operatively following arthroscopic hip surgery, and at a single time point for the healthy controls. Independent sample’s t-test were used to compare the FAIS group to the controls, and paired samples t-test were used to determine within-group differences before and after hip arthroscopy in the FAIS group. The results indicated that there were significant within-group increases for sagittal plane moment rate during the double leg squat task (P = 0.009) between the pre-operative and post-operative time points for the FAIS group. Between-group differences showed that FAIS patients pre-operatively exhibit slower squat velocities during the descent (P = 0.005) and ascent phase (P = 0.012) of a double leg squat when compared healthy controls. Reduced hip external rotation moments during gait (P = 0.02) were also found between FAIS patients pre-operatively and controls. In conclusion, alterations in hip biomechanics are present before surgery for FAIS when compared to healthy controls, and joint mechanics change 6 months after surgery. However, the biomechanical differences during a double leg squat and gait were minimal.
Multiple roles for laccase2 in butterfly wing pigmentation, scale development, and cuticle tanning

Lepidopteran wing scales play important roles in a number of functions including color patterning and thermoregulation. Despite the importance of wing scales, we still have a limited understanding of the genetic mechanisms that underlie scale patterning, development, and coloration. Here we explore the function of the phenoloxidase-encoding gene laccase2 in wing and scale development in the nymphalid butterfly Vanessa cardui. Somatic deletion mosaics of laccase2 generated by CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing presented several distinct mutant phenotypes. Consistent with work in other non-lepidopteran insect groups, we observed reductions in melanin pigmentation and defects in cuticle formation. We were also surprised, however, to see distinct effects on scale development including misorganization and complete loss of wing scales. This work highlights laccase2 as a gene that plays multiple roles in wing and scale development and provides new insight into the evolution of lepidopteran wing coloration.
Spatial genetic variation in South Indian larval populations of legume pod borer, Maruca vitrata Geyer (Lepidoptera: Crambidae)

The Legume pod borer Maruca vitrata (Fabricius) is a serious pest in most common pulses affecting their yield. In the present investigation, genetic diversity among larval population of Maruca vitrata from five locations of India was assessed using 23 RAPD primes and 6 SSR primers. RAPD primers produced 364 (98.9% polymorphism) polymorphic alleles with the mean number of 18.2 alleles/primer while SSR primers produced 45 polymorphic alleles with 68% polymorphism. The mean number of alleles detected per primer ranged from 4 to 46 and 5 to 12 with RAPD and SSR primers, respectively in different larval samples. Dendrogram constructed using similarity index values for RAPD and SSR primers differentiated the larval samples. In all three types of Maruca larval samples, Polymorphism information content (PIC) value observed for RAPD primers ranged from 0.019 (OPC 08) to 0.375 (OPAF 12). Similarly, SSR primers showed PIC value of 0.061 (C32008 E ) to 0.781 (C3393 E,1 ) irrespective of larval samples.
Investigation of Effects of Changing Length Scales of Uniformly Structured Rough Terrain on Hexapedal Locomotion using Simulation

Author(s): Shirpurkar, Rahul | Advisor(s): Gravish, Nicholas G | Abstract: Despite of having higher complexity, in both morphology and control strategies, bioinspired hexapod robots offer advantages such as higher mobility, omni-directional locomotion, ability to climb over obstacles, and greater adaptability to terrain and environment changes. While there have been numerous studies investigating the locomotion of hexapods over rough terrain utilizing exteroceptive sensing for terrain mapping and calculating optimum leg trajectories for unobstructed and fast locomotion, there have been none to study the locomotion over structured terrain, where structured terrain suggests terrain samples where surface features repeat in an alternating pattern in all directions giving rise to a checkerboard of surface structures. This study investigated the locomotion of a hexapod implementing an open-loop alternating tripod gait using a rigid body simulation package – V-REP. Different parameters of the robot locomotion were recorded while it navigated the generated terrain samples with grid sizes ranging from 0.16 times the stride length to 3.33 times the stride length. The results indicate that when the stride length was more than the substrate feature size, the nature of leg-surface interactions governed the speed, while the rate of the leg-surface interactions influenced the locomotion when the stride length was smaller than the surface feature size.
Gender Ideology and Impressions Toward Opposite-Gendered Coworkers

Gender Ideology and Impressions Toward Opposite-Gendered Coworkers by Pamela Singleton Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Organizational Psychology Walden University February 2020 Abstract To achieve organizational effectiveness, leaders must examine what impacts productivity, such as workplace equality for women hindered to the point of exclusion and discrimination. The purpose of this correlational study was to determine if genderTo achieve organizational effectiveness, leaders must examine what impacts productivity, such as workplace equality for women hindered to the point of exclusion and discrimination. The purpose of this correlational study was to determine if gender ideology, as the predictor variable, and male and female impressions toward an oppositegendered coworker, as the criterion variable, predicts an individual’s impressions toward an opposite-gendered coworker, in alignment with gender role theory. The Gender Role Ideology measure was used to assess perceptions about appropriate roles for men and women, and Coworker Resource Scale was used to assess the nature of coworker relationships among 203 middleto upper-level managers. Data collection was conducted via Survey Monkey and SPSS was used to analyze the data. According to study results, there were no statistically significant correlations between the predictor and criterion variables. However, future research is warranted in relation to opposite-gendered coworkers and their gender ideologies. An in-depth examination of how gender ideologies relate to employee interaction has positive social change implications for workplace attitudes through improved employee cohesiveness as opposed to discrimination and exclusion. The proposed implications for positive social change from workplace attitude awareness include knowledge useful to employees in shifting their gender ideologies, increasing levels of employee interaction, and moving toward a more supportive and satisfactory existence in the workplace. Gender Ideology and Impressions Toward Opposite-Gendered Coworkers by
Exosomal miR-1298 and lncRNA-RP11-583F2.2 Expression in Hepato-cellular Carcinoma

Aim The aim of this study was to explore the expression of exosomal non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) in the sera of patients with HCC versus control. Methods Firstly, Bioinformatics analysis was conducted to retrieve ncRNAs specific to HCC (hsa-miRNA-1298 and lncRNA-RP11-583F2.2). Afterwards, extraction and characterization of exosomes were performed. We measured the expression of the chosen exosomal RNAs by reverse transcriptase quantitative real-time PCR in sera of 60 patients with HCC, 42 patients with chronic hepatitis C (CHC) infection and 18 healthy normal volunteers. Results The exosomal ncRNAs [hsa-miRNA-1298, lncRNA-RP11-583F2.2] had better sensitivity and specificity than alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) in HCC diagnosis. Conclusion The exosomal hsa-miRNA-1298, lncRNA-RP11-583F2.2 can be potential biomarkers for HCC diagnosis.
Individual Variation in Immune Function in the Purple-crowned Fairy-wren (Malurus coronatus)

Immune function is essential for survival. However, individuals vary greatly in their immune function. This thesis examines the possible drivers of variation in immunity and the potential consequences for fitness and survival in wild purple-crowned fairy-wrens. By using a long-studied population, detailed information about life histories can be matched to the immune status of individuals. I focus on variation in baseline immune defences, and how it relates to environmental and intrinsic factors. I assess how this affects the reproductive fitness and survival of these individuals. I find evidence that immune flexibility in individuals could be key to maximising fitness.
A highly sensitive laser focus positioning method with sub-micrometre accuracy using coherent Fourier scatterometry

We report a novel method of focus determination with high sensitivity and submicrometre accuracy. The technique relies on the asymmetry in the scattered far field from a nanosphere located at the surface of interest. The out-of-focus displacement of the probing beam manifests itself in imbalance of the signal of the differential detector located at the far field. Up–down scanning of the focussed field renders an error S-curve with a linear region that is slightly bigger than the corresponding vectorial Rayleigh range. We experimentally show that the focus can be determined not only for a surface with high optical contrast, such as a silicon wafer, but also for a weakly reflecting surface, such as fused silica glass. Further, for the probing wavelength of 405 nm, three sizes of polystyrene latex spheres, namely 200, 100, and 50 nm in diameter, are tested. Higher sensitivity was obtained as the sphere diameter became smaller. However, due to the fact that the scattering cross-section decreases as the sixth power of the nanosphere diameter, we envision that further size reduction of the studied sphere would not contribute to a drastic improvement in sensitivity. We believe that the proposed method can find applications in bio/nano detection, micromachining, and optical disk applications.
A Variation-Resilient Microprocessor With a Two-Level Timing Error Detection and Correction System in 28-nm CMOS

This article presents a variation-resilient microprocessor architecture with a two-level timing error detection and correction (EDAC) system. The proposed EDAC system first performs circuit-level error correction through time borrowing when a timing error occurs and subsequently employs a system-level error correction scheme if the timing error is relatively large and cannot be resolved within a cycle. Therefore, compared with the existing EDAC approaches, a processor using the proposed EDAC system can achieve better performance and energy efficiency under different operating conditions without incurring significant implementation effort and overhead. The proposed EDAC system was designed and implemented on an ARM Cortex-M0 microprocessor using a 28-nm CMOS process. The measurement results show that the proposed processor achieves 60.5% reduction in energy by operating under a 0.36-V lower supply voltage and at the same frequency as the baseline processor. In addition, it achieves a 37.1% reduction in minimum energy consumption compared to the baseline design.
Conceptualizing caregiver workload: an exploratory study guided by NASA TLX

Persons with dementia (PwD) are heavily dependent on the support of informal, dementia caregivers to fulfill their day-to-day care needs. Dementia caregivers, often friends and family members of the PwD, are unpaid, non-professional individuals who take on many of the care responsibilities. Due to the lack of formal training, social support, and information resources, among other factors, dementia caregivers are often at risk for negative outcomes such as stress and burden. There have not been any comprehensive assessment tools to predict these negative outcomes. Therefore, we employ the NASA TLX dimensions to conceptualize caregiver workload. This study operationalizes the NASA TLX dimensions in the context of dementia caregiving and illustrates examples for each of the dimensions. The results indicate that the NASA TLX does not include all of the factors necessary to conceptualize caregiver workload and prescribe a need for developing a robust caregiver workload assessment tool.
Relationship of High Work Engagement among Staff Midwives with Their Immediate Superiors’ Burnout on Maternity and Labor Wards in Japan

Introduction: Mental conditions for work among workers are related to clinical performance and influenced by colleagues within the same workplace. The aim of study was to examine the work engagement and burnout of staff midwives working on maternity and labor wards and to determine the factors related to high work engagement of staff midwives, including their immediate superiors’ work engagement and burnout. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire survey was employed in Japan. Questionnaires were distributed to 452 midwives/nurses working on maternity and labor wards of 20 hospitals and responses from 96 staff midwives and 17 of their immediate superiors were analyzed. Work engagement and burnout (exhaustion, cynicism, and professional efficacy) were assessed by the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-General Survey, respectively. To examine the association of work engagement among staff midwives with their ages, marital status and work engagement and burnout of their superiors, logistic regression analysis was conducted. Results: Immediate superiors showed significantly higher level of work engagement than staff midwives, while there was no difference in the burnout. High work engagement of staff midwives was significantly correlated with the professional efficacy (AOR 1.93, 95% CI 1.12 - 3.33) and cynicism (AOR 2.01, 95% CI, 1.04 - 3.90) of their immediate superiors. There was no correlation of work engagement between them. Conclusions: High work engagement of staff midwives was correlated to high professional efficacy and cynicism of their immediate superiors, suggesting that there might be crossover effects on mental conditions for work between staff midwives and their immediate superiors.
Experimental study on bubble parameters for pool scrubbing models under wetwell venting conditions

ABSTRACT Pool scrubbing codes combining bubble dynamics and aerosol transport models are used to determine the pool scrubbing efficiency. However, the effect of bubble parameters, diameter and bubble rising velocity (v b), on retention efficiency was not yet analysed much in detail. In this experimental study, the effects of air content, S/P temperature, submergence, and downcomer diameter on bubble parameters at the pool surface are evaluated under wetwell venting conditions applying the backlit shadowgraphy technique. With increasing air content in the carrier gas, v b decreased while no significant effect was observed on Sauter mean diameter (SMD). Under the deeper submergence, the results of SMD and v b were less scattered. With increasing pool temperature, SMD and v b decreased. The thermal stratification of pool water did not affect bubble parameters. Downcomer diameter did not affect SMD, while slight increase in v b was observed. Measured SMD and the corresponding v b SMD have a fair agreement with the values adopted in the pool scrubbing codes; thus, the deposition velocities of gravitational sedimentation, inertial impaction, and Brownian diffusion demonstrate fair agreement with those based on the measured data. Steam condensation is the dominant retention mechanism except for low subcooling conditions. Therefore, modelling of steam condensation retention mechanism should be further carefully examined.