Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Brain structural differences in children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and its subtypes

Introduction The teratogenic effects of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) have been examined in animal models and humans. The current study extends the prior literature by quantifying differences in brain structure for individuals with a fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) compared to typically developing controls, as well as examining FASD subtypes. We hypothesized the FASD group would reveal smaller brain volume, reduced cortical thickness, and reduced surface area compared to controls, with the partial fetal alcohol syndrome (pFAS)/fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) subtypes showing the largest effects and the PAE/alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder (ARND) subtype revealing intermediate effects. Methods The sample consisted of 123 children and adolescents recruited from a single site including children with a diagnosis of FASD/PAE (26 males, 29 females) and controls (34 males, 34 females). Structural T1-weighted MRI scans were obtained on a 3T Trio TIM scanner and FreeSurfer v7.2 was used to quantify brain volume, cortical thickness, and surface area. Analyses examined effects by subgroup: pFAS/FAS (N = 32, Mage = 10.7 years, SEage = 0.79), PAE/ARND (N = 23, Mage = 10.8, SEage = 0.94), and controls (N = 68, Mage = 11.1, SEage = 0.54). Results Total brain volume in children with an FASD was smaller relative to controls, but subtype analysis revealed only the pFAS/FAS group differed significantly from controls. Regional analyses similarly revealed reduced brain volume in frontal and temporal regions for children with pFAS/FAS, yet children diagnosed with PAE/ARND generally had similar volumes as controls. Notable differences to this pattern occurred in the cerebellum, caudate, and pallidum where children with pFAS/FAS and PAE/ARND revealed lower volume relative to controls. In the subset of participants who had neuropsychological testing, correlations between volume and IQ scores were observed. Goodness-of-Fit analysis by age revealed differences in developmental patterns (linear vs. quadratic) between groups in some cases. Discussion This study confirmed prior results indicating decreased brain volume in children with an FASD and extended the results by demonstrating differential effects by structure for FASD subtypes. It provides further evidence for a complex role of PAE in structural brain development that is likely related to the cognitive and behavioral effects experienced by children with an FASD.
Microbial controls of greenhouse gas emissions from boreal lakes

Saarenheimo, Jatta Microbial controls of greenhouse gas emissions from boreal lakes Jyvaskyla: University of Jyvaskyla, 2015, 56 p. (Jyvaskyla Studies in Biological and Environmental Science ISSN 1456-9701; 299) ISBN 978-951-39-6126-8 (nid.) ISBN 978-951-39-6127-5 (PDF) Yhteenveto: Metsajarvien kasvihuonekaasujen mikrobitasoinen saately Diss. Biogeochemical processes in stratified boreal lakes promote or reduce greenhouse gas (GHG; CO2, CH4 and N2O) emissions in distinct compartments. In this thesis environmental and biotic controls of microbially-mediated GHG processes were studied at a multi-lake scale as well as in a whole-lake experiment. Microbial communities, specific microbial groups and functional genes were studied using molecular methods, and data were combined with environmental and gas concentration measurements. Aerobic, microaerobic and anaerobic zones of a small stratified lake were shown to support distinct microbial communities, which were mostly controlled by seasonal succession and oxygen concentration. High biomasses of anaerobic photosynthetic green sulphur bacteria (GSB) of the genus Chlorobium were found where light intensities were sufficient to support their growth in the anoxic zone. During a three year whole-lake experiment, the effect of trophic cascades on the microbial communities and processes was studied by adding fish (European perch, Perca fluviatilis) to one basin of an experimentally divided fishless lake. This removed nearly all zooplankton and released methanotrophic bacteria from grazing by Daphnia sp. , allowing more methane oxidation. These cascading impacts reduced CH4 efflux from the basin to which fish were added to one quarter the efflux from the fishless basin. The genetic potential for denitrification (studied with functional genes nirS, nirK, nosZI and nosZII), whereby N2O is produced as an intermediate product, was wide spread in all studied lakes and was driven by only a few core proteobacterial species. Interlake variation in N2O accumulation was connected to the relative abundance of nitrite versus N2O reductase genes, which co-varied with the nitrate concentration. Thus the abundance of GSB, methanotrophs, and denitrifiers were all found to impact on GHG emissions from boreal lakes, with a strong control by dissolved oxygen concentration.
Chapter 9 - Vegetation succession modeling for the LANDFIRE Prototype Project

One of the main objectives of the Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools Prototype Project, or LANDFIRE Prototype Project, was to determine departure of current vegetation conditions from the range and variation of conditions that existed during the historical era identified in the LANDFIRE guidelines as 1600-1900 A.D. (Keane and Rollins, Ch. 3). In order to approximate this range and variation, we simulated a series of historical vegetation conditions using the landscape succession model LANDSUMv4, the fourth version of the LANDSUM model, developed specifically for the LANDFIRE Project (Keane and Rollins, Ch. 3).
Shortening critical period of weed control at soybean by residual herbicide mixtures

interference in the early stages of soybean development can compromise its yield. The use of herbicides with residual effects at the time of sowing is an alternative to reduce weed density and emergence time, consequently, the damage caused by their interference. Therefore, weed development can be reduced, which can result in easier post-emergence control. The combination of herbicide modes of action extends the spectrum of control and delays herbicide resistance evolution. Objective: This work aimed to determine the onset of the critical period of weed control (CPWC) from the application of residual herbicides mixtures at soybean sowing. Methods: Two experiments were carried out in 2021/2022, the first in a conventional tillage system with increasing periods of soybean/ weeds coexistence (14, 28, 42, and 56 days after crop emergence). The second experiment consisted of a no-tillage system with soybean/weeds coexistence for 30, 45, 60, 75, and 90 days after crop emergence. On the day of soybean sowing, mixtures of the herbicides diclosulam + pyroxasulfone, flumioxazin + pyroxasulfone and diuron + sulfentrazone were applied, in addition to the untreated check. Soybean yield was evaluated evaluated upon harvest and data compared by non-linear regressions to CPWC determination. Results: The application of residual herbicides can allowing reduces losses relative to the untreated control by up to 57%. CPWC beginning can be extended from eight to forty days, depending on mixes and acceptable losses. Conclusions: The use of the mixture of residual herbicides are a good option for weed interference reduction for soybean crop.
An Approach to Binary Classification of Alzheimer’s Disease Using LSTM

In this study, we use LSTM (Long-Short-Term-Memory) networks to evaluate Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data to overcome the shortcomings of conventional Alzheimer’s disease (AD) detection techniques. Our method offers greater reliability and accuracy in predicting the possibility of AD, in contrast to cognitive testing and brain structure analyses. We used an MRI dataset that we downloaded from the Kaggle source to train our LSTM network. Utilizing the temporal memory characteristics of LSTMs, the network was created to efficiently capture and evaluate the sequential patterns inherent in MRI scans. Our model scored a remarkable AUC of 0.97 and an accuracy of 98.62%. During the training process, we used Stratified Shuffle-Split Cross Validation to make sure that our findings were reliable and generalizable. Our study adds significantly to the body of knowledge by demonstrating the potential of LSTM networks in the specific field of AD prediction and extending the variety of methods investigated for image classification in AD research. We have also designed a user-friendly Web-based application to help with the accessibility of our developed model, bridging the gap between research and actual deployment.
Bright NIR-Emitting Styryl Pyridinium Dyes with Large Stokes’ Shift for Sensing Applications

Two NIR-emitting donor-π-acceptor (D-π-A) type regioisomeric styryl pyridinium dyes (1a–1b) were synthesized and studied for their photophysical performance and environment sensitivity. The two regioisomers, 1a and 1b, exhibited interesting photophysical properties including, longer wavelength excitation (λex ≈ 530–560 nm), bright near-infrared emission (λem ≈ 690–720 nm), high-fluorescence quantum yields (ϕfl ≈ 0.24–0.72) large Stokes’ shift (∆λ ≈ 150–240 nm) and high-environmental sensitivity. Probe’s photophysical properties were studied in different environmental conditions such as polarity, viscosity, temperature, and concentration. Probes (1a–1b) exhibited noticeable changes in absorbance, emission and Stokes’ shift while responding to the changes in physical environment. Probe 1b exhibited a significant bathochromic shift in optical spectra (∆λ ≈ 20–40 nm) compared to its isomer 1a, due to the regio-effect. Probes (1a–1b) exhibited an excellent ability to visualize bacteria (Bacillus megaterium, Escherichia coli), and yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) via fluorescence microscopy.
Enhancing the Capacity of Kenya on Climate Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation for Sustainable Agricultural Productivity and Food Security

Résumé Research Application Summary Most vulnerable groups in countries in Sub Saharan Africa including Kenya are the poor who have least capacity for coping with the adverse impacts of the current climate extremes, and adapting to future climate changes. Lack of suitable coping and adaptation strategies coupled with limited institutional, economic, and technological capacity to support the required actions increases the vulnerability of the country to adverse climatic impacts. This project aims at exploring ways of enhancing Kenya’s capacity through training to adequately respond to the devastating climatic extremes such as droughts, floods and other weather related disasters that have impacted negatively to its socio-economic development and community livelihoods. This was addressed through four supervised projects by postgraduate meteorology and agrometeorology students of the university of Nairobi. Both field work and desk top studies involving analysis of secondary data of various project concerns were carried out. Decision on-farm experiments covering potential adaptation strategies targeting both crop (pigeon pea and sugarcane) and livestock (pasture) production systems were conducted in selected study districts of the country. Preliminary results of the project show great potential for using remote sensing data for rainfall estimation and identification of pasture availability and management by ASAL communities as well as policy makers. With regard to sugarcane-based livelihoods, climate variability as determined by rainfall variability during the grand growth stage of sugarcane was identified as exerting greater influence on sugarcane productivity. The study also showed that the use of basal phosphorus fertilizer in pigeon pea growing area of Makueni district resulted into tremendous crop yield increase.
COGNITIVE METAPHOR OF QUEEN ELIZABETH DEATH NEWS ON BBC AND THE GUARDIAN

This study aims to investigate the Queen Elizabeth death metaphors in BBC and The Guardian. As an influential person, the death of Queen Elizabeth plays a significant role in the British public event. Then, it is essential to research how death metaphors are built in two famous online news. This research is a corpus-based study, and the source data obtained from news publishing about the queen's death. The data collected is approximately one month of the news after the queen's death. BBC consisted of 449.573-word tokens, and 519.773-word tokens was contained in The Guardian and the total of word tokens were 969,346. The conceptual metaphor theory by Lakoff and Johnson (1980) is used to identify the death metaphors. The result of this study is that all the death metaphors in BBC and The Guardian show the same concept. It means both online news had a similar cognitive view of the queen's death. The source domain is about spectacle, journey, end, ending of the journey, rest, and departure. The death metaphor is familiar in human life affected by experimental bases. In contrast, funeral metaphors are uncommon and strongly influenced by the social setting when publishing the news.
Drivers and Loci of Big Data Innovation: A Review, Synthesis, and Future Research Directions

Despite a drastic increase in the amount of data collected and stored, the exact role that big data plays in innovation remains a subject of a diverging debate. This paper hence employs a systematic literature review and qualitative analysis techniques to identify, analyze and synthesize extant conceptual contributions on how big data drives the innovation process, where this process takes place, and which theoretical perspectives have shaped the research on big data innovation so far. Our findings reveal that big data innovation primarily takes place cooperatively, in the form of open innovation or within innovation networks, and that it is simultaneously driven by a variety of drivers. However, purposeful applications of big data and analytics for innovating in response to existing but unsatisfied market needs ("market pull") remain comparatively underresearched. Concomitantly, the theoretical lenses of “traditional” innovation management have largely framed the research on big data innovation so far. We coherently integrate these findings within an overarching framework and suggest an extensive future research agenda.
Déformation discontinue et rotations de blocs. Méthodes numériques de restauration. Application à la Galilée

La deformation de la partie fragile de la croute se manifeste dans de nombreux cas par l'apparition de cassures ou failles a grande echelle associees en reseaux (plusieurs familles de failles de directions differentes). Ces derniers individualisent un certain nombre de blocs que l'on peut considerer comme autant d'elements rigides. Pour un reseau de failles quelconque donne, si la geometrie des elements supposes rigides mais aussi leurs deplacements le long des failles (sens et rejets) sont connus, il existe une solution geometrique unique au probleme de restauration c'est-adire la recherche des positions des blocs les uns par rapport aux autres avant la deformation. Les etudes cartographiques et de terrain permettent certes d'obtenir une geometrie des reseaux de failles et le jeu de ces dernieres, mais tres rarement de connaitre l'ensemble des rejets. Cependant, dans un certain nombre de contextes tectoniques les glissements le long des failles s'accompagnent de rotations des blocs autour d'axes: verticaux pour une deformation dans le plan horizontal, ou horizontaux dans le cas de blocs bascules. Dans ce cas, angles de rotation et rejets sont lies geometriquement et les angles peuvent etre connus grâce au paleomagnetisme. Le propos de ce memoire est le developpement d'une methodologie de restauration d'un ensemble de blocs, a partir des donnees structurales et paleomagnetiques. Cette methodologie a permis la mise au point, sur micro-ordinateur, d'un programme automatique, incrementai et iteratif, de calculs des positions relatives des blocs. Ce programme comprend deux principes de calcul (rotation et translation), qui sont appliques a chaque increment, les blocs etant consideres rigides. A la fin d'un increment, quand la stabilite du reseau est atteinte, un principe de calcul de deformation peripherique permet d'accomoder les incompatibilites geometriques locales (vides et recouvrements) persistantes . Pour tester la validite et les limites de la methode, nous l'avons appliquee a un modele analogique en sable deforme par cisaillement simple, dont on connaissait les stades ante et finideformation. Nous avons entrepris ensuite une etude paleomagnetique, dans la Province de Tiberiade, afin de voir sur le terrain s'il existait un gradient de rotation entre le centre d'un domaine et sa bordure, comme il est observe dans les modeles analogiques. Enfin une application de la methode de restauration a l'ensemble de la fracturation du Nord d'Israel et du Sud Liban, a ete effectuee
Distributionally Robust Optimization of Photovoltaic Power With Lifted Linear Decision Rule for Distribution System Voltage Regulation

This article proposes a lifted linear decision rule (LLDR) as a photovoltaic (PV) power control strategy for distribution system voltage regulation. First, the active-reactive power control is designed as a linear function in a lifted space of PV power, which is presented as a piecewise linear function without auxiliary integer variables for benefiting the parameter optimization of control functions. Then, a hierarchical central-local voltage regulation framework is designed. In the central control stage, the constant part of LLDR determines the reactive power of PV units, which is also coordinated with other voltage regulation devices. In the local control stage, the adjustable part of LLDR would control the PV power in real time for reducing voltage deviations. Finally, optimization problems and their solution methods are developed to obtain LLDR parameters. In particular, robust optimization (RO) and distributionally robust optimization (DRO) problems are designed to obtain the affine coefficients of LLDR considering multiple PV power uncertainty models. The tractable formula of RO is derived based on the convex hull of PV power uncertainty sets in the lifted space, and Benders decomposition is combined with a distribution separation method to solve the DRO problem. The proposed method is tested on distribution systems with actual PV power data, and the results are compared with those of other linear and piecewise-linear control methods to validate the effectiveness of the proposed method in diminishing voltage deviations caused by variable PV power.
Nitrogen cycling in a changing world: Response of a California grassland to multiple global change factors

The cycling of nutrients, such as nitrogen (N), is arguably one of the most critical ecosystem services provided by soil. Nitrogen is the limiting nutrient for plant growth in many terrestrial ecosystems and can consequently regulate net primary production, plant diversity, and community composition. Transformations of available N, which are catalyzed by soil microorganisms, can also affect air and water quality, with possible implications for climate change and human health. In an era of global environmental change, it is paramount to gain a mechanistic understanding of how soil N is affected by anthropogenically derived perturbations such as exotic plant invasion and elevated nutrient deposition. Using a multifactor global change experiment, I assessed how three principal global change factors - exotic plant invasion, N deposition (simulated by N fertilization), and aboveground vegetation removal (to simulate cattle grazing or mowing) - affected soil N cycling, namely NH4 + and NO3 - availability and potential rates of nitrification and denitrification, in a California grassland. In order to increase understanding of how soil microbial communities regulate changes in N cycling, I concurrently measured broad-scale community structure of bacteria and archaea and the abundances of ammonia-oxidizing bacteria and archaea. I found that two invasive plants, Aegilops triuncialis and Elymus caput-medusae , reduced soil N availability and nitrification and denitrification potentials compared to perennial-dominated native communities but not naturalized exotic communities. Aboveground vegetation removal, which is often used as a tool to manage invasive plant populations (through cattle grazing or mowing), tended to exacerbate the effects of invasion by further reducing nitrification potential and soil NO3 - availability. Fertilization with NH4NO3 consistently increased nitrification potential and soil NO3 - availability, yet NH4 + remained unaffected and denitrification potential was reduced. When combined, defoliation and N fertilization always produced additive effects. Finally, despite the sometimes dramatic shifts in N availability and potential rates that were observed, microbial community composition remained unaffected by changes in plant composition, N fertilization and defoliation. Overall, these findings provide evidence that N cycling is uniquely affected by each individual global change factor, and that the interactive effects of N fertilization and defoliation can be predicted based on combining single factor studies. These results also suggest that microbial communities composition is insensitive to global change in this system, and that microbial activity - as measured by rates of N cycling - is decoupled from community composition.