Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Effects of environmental factors on capture rates of insectivorous bats, 1971–2005

Abstract Understanding how environmental factors affect activity, number, and spatial distribution of bats in an area is necessary for interpreting capture rates and assessing abundance. Over a 34-year period, we examined the relationship between amounts of precipitation and activity of bats along a canyon floor in the San Mateo Mountains of New Mexico in the southwestern United States. For 1 night during each of 19 summers, we used identical sampling techniques to monitor this assemblage of insectivorous bats. Years included droughts with minimal surface water and wet years with abundant surface water in the canyon. Marked differences in available drinking water resulted in striking differences in yearly captures of bats, with a 30.8-fold difference between the fewest and most captures (6 versus 185 adults). Capture rates increased with less precipitation before sampling. In the 3-decadal period, precipitation accounted for 66% of the variation in capture rates, providing support that bats concentrate around accessible water to drink when surface water is scarce. Captures also were influenced by relative humidity on nights of sampling. From 1971 to 2005, we detected no change in species composition in this bat assemblage of 8 species, and after accounting for effects of precipitation, we detected no declines in population size for the 2 most common species, the long-eared myotis (Myotis evotis) and long-legged myotis (M. volans). Our study demonstrates the importance of long-term data sets to help elucidate patterns of variability in capture data and highlights the importance of how yearly variation in climate affects the behavior and ecology of bats.
Chloroplast-encoded Polypeptide PsbT Is Involved in the Repair of Primary Electron Acceptor QA of Photosystem II during Photoinhibition in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii*

PsbT is a small chloroplast-encoded hydrophobic polypeptide associated with the D1/D2 heterodimer of the photosystem II (PSII) reaction center and is required for the efficient post-translational repair of photodamaged PSII. Here we addressed that role in detail in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii wild type and ΔpsbT cells by analyzing the activities of PSII, the assembly of PSII proteins, and the redox components of PSII during photoinhibition and repair. Strong illumination of cells for 15 min decreased the activities of electron transfer through PSII and QA photoreduction by 50%, and it reduced the amount of atomic manganese by 20%, but it did not affect the steady-state level of PSII proteins, photoreduction of pheophytin (pheoD1), and the amount of bound plastoquinone (QA), indicating that the decrease in PSII activity resulted mainly from inhibition of the electron transfer from pheoD1 to QA. In wild type cells, we observed parallel recovery of electron transfer activity through PSII and QA photoreduction, suggesting that the recovery of QA activity is one of the rate-limiting steps of PSII repair. In ΔpsbT cells, the repairs of electron transfer activity through PSII and of QA photoreduction activity were both impaired, but PSII protein turnover was unaffected. Moreover, about half the QA was lost from the PSII core complex during purification. Since PsbT is intimately associated with the QA-binding region on D2, we propose that this polypeptide enhances the efficient recovery of QA photoreduction by stabilizing the structure of the QA-binding region.
MULTI-CRITERIA EVALUATION OF E-LEARNING APPROACHES

E-learning is a type of learning supported by information communication technology that improves the quality of teaching and learning. This paper explores how a group of 95 respondents consisted of administrative and academic staff, and post graduate students evaluated five elearning approaches by using multi-criteria methods. They were asked to assess the relative importance of five e-learning evaluation criteria by using direct point allocation method. Furthermore, they also rated the performance of five identified e-learning approaches under each of the criteria. The overall performance of each e-learning approach was computed by using simple arithmetic average method. The results suggested that flipped classroom is the most suitable e-learning approach, while ‘human resource’ found to be the most important criterion. The paper is suggesting a quantitative evaluation method for decision makers who are strategizing modern technologies in higher educational settings.
Clinical and laboratory investigation of allergy to genetically modified foods.

Technology has improved the food supply since the first cultivation of crops. Genetic engineering facilitates the transfer of genes among organisms. Generally, only minute amounts of a specific protein need to be expressed to obtain the desired trait. Food allergy affects only individuals with an abnormal immunologic response to food--6% of children and 1.5-2% of adults in the United States. Not all diseases caused by food allergy are mediated by IgE. A number of expert committees have advised the U.S. government and international organizations on risk assessment for allergenicity of food proteins. These committees have created decision trees largely based on assessment of IgE-mediated food allergenicity. Difficulties include the limited availability of allergen-specific IgE antisera from allergic persons as validated source material, the utility of specific IgE assays, limited characterization of food proteins, cross-reactivity between food and other allergens, and modifications of food proteins by processing. StarLink was a corn variety modified to produce a (Italic)Bacillus thuringiensis(/Italic) (Bt) endotoxin, Cry9C. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigated 51 reports of possible adverse reactions to corn that occurred after the announcement that StarLink, allowed for animal feed, was found in the human food supply. Allergic reactions were not confirmed, but tools for postmarket assessment were limited. Workers in agricultural and food preparation facilities have potential inhalation exposure to plant dusts and flours. In 1999, researchers found that migrant health workers can become sensitized to certain Bt spore extracts after exposure to Bt spraying.
Interactions of the Striatal Gene Rhes with the Dopaminergic System in Rodents

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Integrating Heterogeneous Data Sources in Flexible and Dynamic Environments

Flexible and dynamic environments are characterized by high independence from connection participants, low control over available services and high tolerance to communication failures. Integrating data sources published on such environments requires an integration strategy that guarantees local data sources autonomy. Multidatabase System (MDBS) has been consolidated as an approach to integrate multiple heterogeneous and distributed data sources. A key property of MDBSs is to guarantee a higher degree of local than the other approaches for integrating heterogeneous data sources. MDBS technology uses a query language as integration mechanism, which is responsible for solving integration conflicts. Thus, the query language must provide constructs to perform queries over several different data sources. Furthermore, it should be capable for solving integration conflicts. This paper proposes an extension to the XQuery language, called MXQuery. The key feature of the proposed language is to provide mechanisms, which support the capability to jointly manipulate data in different data sources based on an XML data model.
Association control in millimeterWave wireless access networks

The resource allocation problem of optimal assignment of the stations to the available access points in 60 GHz millimeterWave wireless access networks is investigated. The problem is posed as a multi-assignment optimization problem. The proposed solution method converts the initial problem to a minimum cost flow problem and allows to design an efficient algorithm by a combination of auction algorithms. The solution algorithm exploits the network optimization structure of the problem, and thus is much more powerful than computationally intensive general-purpose solvers. Theoretical and numerical results evince numerous properties, such as optimality, convergence, and scalability in comparison to existing approaches.
GO annotation in InterPro: why stability does not indicate accuracy in a sea of changing annotations

The removal of annotation from biological databases is often perceived as an indicator of erroneous annotation. As a corollary, annotation stability is considered to be a measure of reliability. However, diverse data-driven events can affect the stability of annotations in both primary protein sequence databases and the protein family databases that are built upon the sequence databases and used to help annotate them. Here, we describe some of these events and their consequences for the InterPro database, and demonstrate that annotation removal or reassignment is not always linked to incorrect annotation by the curator. Database URL: http://www.ebi. ac.uk/interpro
Acclimation to High CO(2) in Bean : Carbonic Anhydrase and Ribulose Bisphosphate Carboxylase.

Young bean plants (Phaseolus vulgaris L. cv Seafarer) grew faster in air enriched with CO(2) (1200 microliters per liter) than in ambient CO(2) (330 microliters per liter). However, by 7 days when increases in overall growth (dry weight, leaf area) were visible, there was a significant decline (about 25%) in the leaf mineral content (N, P, K, Ca, Mg) and a drop in the activity of two enzymes of carbon fixation, carbonic anhydrase and ribulose 1,5-bisphosphate (RuBP) carboxylase under high CO(2). Although the activity of neither enzyme was altered in young, expanding leaves during the acclimation period, in mature leaves the activity of carbonic anhydrase was reduced 95% compared with a decline of 50% in ambient CO(2). The drop in RuBP carboxylase was less extreme with 40% of the initial activity retained in the high CO(2) compared with 50% in the ambient atmosphere. While CO(2) enrichment might alter the flow of carbon into the glycolate pathway by modifying the activities of carbonic anhydrase or RuBP carboxylase, there is no early change in the ability of photosynthetic tissue to oxidize glycolate to CO(2).
Multivariate linear regression of high‐dimensional fMRI data with multiple target variables

Multivariate regression is increasingly used to study the relation between fMRI spatial activation patterns and experimental stimuli or behavioral ratings. With linear models, informative brain locations are identified by mapping the model coefficients. This is a central aspect in neuroimaging, as it provides the sought‐after link between the activity of neuronal populations and subject's perception, cognition or behavior. Here, we show that mapping of informative brain locations using multivariate linear regression (MLR) may lead to incorrect conclusions and interpretations. MLR algorithms for high dimensional data are designed to deal with targets (stimuli or behavioral ratings, in fMRI) separately, and the predictive map of a model integrates information deriving from both neural activity patterns and experimental design. Not accounting explicitly for the presence of other targets whose associated activity spatially overlaps with the one of interest may lead to predictive maps of troublesome interpretation. We propose a new model that can correctly identify the spatial patterns associated with a target while achieving good generalization. For each target, the training is based on an augmented dataset, which includes all remaining targets. The estimation on such datasets produces both maps and interaction coefficients, which are then used to generalize. The proposed formulation is independent of the regression algorithm employed. We validate this model on simulated fMRI data and on a publicly available dataset. Results indicate that our method achieves high spatial sensitivity and good generalization and that it helps disentangle specific neural effects from interaction with predictive maps associated with other targets. Hum Brain Mapp 35:2163–2177, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
GICS: Group-Based Internet Connection Spreading Architecture for Disaster Recovery

Disconnection of Internet access in natural disasters may cause serious obstacles for relief works. Immediately providing Internet connection in disaster stricken regions is still a challenge because infrastructure-based networks may have been drastically destroyed. This paper proposes a Group-based Internet Connection Spreading (GICS) architecture for disaster recovery. This architecture supports groups of Internet-unconnected mobile devices to connect to the Internet through still alive infrastructure access points or groups of Internet-connected mobile devices in an effective way. By the support of the Internet-connected Device Discovery mechanism in the proposed GICS, mobile devices can discover nearby devices that have already reached the Internet connection and can share their Internet connectivity. GICS enables mobile devices within a group to collaborate together to bring reasonable Internet connection to all group members. Moreover, GICS can flexibly adapt with changes in the network condition since GICS groups can rearrange the roles of group members to maintain the suitable the Internet connection. In addition, the quality of connections between devices in GICS is reliable since they are based on the IEEE 802.11 (Wi-Fi) standard.
Multiple Model Adaptive Control for a Class of Linear-Bounded Nonlinear Systems

This study proposes a novel multiple model adaptive control (MMAC) algorithm for a class of nonlinear discrete time systems. The controller consists of a linear indirect adaptive controller, a nonlinear indirect adaptive controller based on neural networks, and a switching mechanism. The control input is generated by the switching mechanism, which selects the candidate controller from the two controllers. The assumption of the nonlinear term is relaxed to linear-bounded when a modified adaptive law is introduced. The restraint that the nonlinear term of the plant should be linear with respect to the control input is removed by resorting to the pole-placement control scheme. The proposed control method can address the properties of non-minimum phase and open-loop instability in the linear part of the plant. The proposed MMAC algorithm can guarantee the bounded-input-bounded-output stability of the proposed closed-loop switching system. A simulation example is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method.
Visuoperceptual impairment in multiple sclerosis patients diagnosed with neuropsychological tasks

A comprehensive set of 31 binocular neuropsychological tasks assessing a series of spatial and non-spatial visuoperceptual abilities was used to study visuoperceptual impairment in a representative group of 49 MS-clinic patients exhibiting neither diagnosed ophthalmological afflictions nor major psychiatric diagnoses. Among these patients, true frequency rate of visuoperceptual impairment, i.e. of subjects failing four or more tasks, was estimated at 26%. The pattern of visuoperceptual impairment was non-uniform, non-selective, restricted and idiosyncratic. Only four tasks yielded significant rates of impairment. They concerned colour discrimination, the perception of the Müller-Lyer illusion and object recognition in two separate conditions. Each of the four factors identified by factor analysis had an important representative (with factor loading 40.35) among these four tasks. Failures on these tasks correlated poorly. Together, the four tasks satisfactorily predicted visuoperceptual impairment as defined by the comprehensive set of tasks (sensitivity 86.7%; specificity 81.3%), but with regard to an uncontaminated criterion, their aggregate sensitivity and specificity was only 75 and 56% respectively. Visuoperceptual neuropsychological task performance related significantly but weakly to cognitive status, physical disability and to pyramidal, cerebellar and brain stem neurological signs, and did not correlate with other clinical neurological signs, disease duration, type of MS, a history of optic neuritis, depression or medication status.
Dental Pulp Tissue Engineering in Full-length Human Root Canals

The clinical translation of stem-cell-based dental pulp regeneration will require the use of injectable scaffolds. Here, we tested the hypothesis that stem cells from exfoliated deciduous teeth (SHED) can generate a functional dental pulp when injected into full-length root canals. SHED survived and began to express putative markers of odontoblastic differentiation after 7 days when mixed with Puramatrix™ (peptide hydrogel), or after 14 days when mixed with recombinant human Collagen (rhCollagen) type I, and injected into the root canals of human premolars in vitro. Roots of human premolars injected with scaffolds (Puramatrix™ or rhCollagen) containing SHED were implanted subcutaneously into immunodeficient mice (CB-17 SCID). We observed pulp-like tissues with odontoblasts capable of generating new tubular dentin throughout the root canals. Notably, the pulp tissue engineered with SHED injected with either Puramatrix™ or rhCollagen type I presented similar cellularity and vascularization when compared with control human dental pulps. Analysis of these data, collectively, demonstrates that SHED injected into full-length human root canals differentiate into functional odontoblasts, and suggests that such a strategy might facilitate the completion of root formation in necrotic immature permanent teeth.
FPGA: what's in it for a database?

While there seems to be a general agreement that next years' systems will include many processing cores, it is often overlooked that these systems will also include an increasing number of different cores (we already see dedicated units for graphics or network processing). Orchestrating the diversity of processing functionality is going to be a major challenge in the upcoming years, be it to optimize for performance or for minimal energy consumption. We expect field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs or "programmable hardware") to soon play the role of yet another processing unit, found in commodity computers. It is clear that the new resource is going to be too precious to be ignored by database systems, but it is unclear how FPGAs could be integrated into a DBMS. With a focus on database use, this tutorial introduces into the emerging technology, demonstrates its potential, but also pinpoints some challenges that need to be addressed before FPGA-accelerated database systems can go mainstream. Attendees will gain an intuition of an FPGA development cycle, receive guidelines for a "good" FPGA design, but also learn the limitations that hardware-implemented database processing faces. Our more high-level ambition is to spur a broader interest in database processing on novel hardware technology.
Modeling the effect of freshwater pulses on the early Holocene climate: the influence of high-frequency climate variability

freshwater (4.67 10 14 m 3 ) into the Labrador Sea at three different constant rates: 1.5 Sv (1 Sv = 1 10 6 m 3 s 1 )i n 10 years, 0.75 Sv in 20 years, and 0.3 Sv in 50 years. For each rate, five ensemble experiments have been performed, varying in initial conditions. The freshwater pulses produce a weakening of the thermohaline circulation. The perturbed state is in agreement with proxy evidence for the 8.2 ka event. Two types of recovery of the thermohaline circulation occurred, differing in time-scale: (1) 200 years and (2) >200 years. In the experiments with 10 year and 20 year pulses, both types of recovery were observed. This suggests that the model response is unpredictable in the range of parameters studied here. It is hypothesized that the unpredictability is associated with annual-to-decadal climate variability. Our results demonstrate that several types of recovery may exist with the same kind of perturbation. The interpretation of events observed in proxy data may be thus more complex than realized until now since the magnitude and duration of climatic events caused by freshwater pulses is likely to depend strongly on nonlinear dynamics inside the coupled atmosphere–sea ice–ocean system. INDEX TERMS: 3344 Meteorology and Atmospheric Dynamics: Paleoclimatology; 4255 Oceanography: General: Numerical modeling; 4532 Oceanography: Physical: General circulation; 4215 Oceanography: General: Climate and interannual variability (3309); 9325 Information Related to Geographic Region: Atlantic Ocean; KEYWORDS: Holocene, thermohaline circulation, predictability, meltwater, coupled climate model
Properties of optical waves in turbid media

Optical measurements represent a valuable tool for in vivo analysis of tissue properties, for example, the average level of oxygenation of perfusing blood. A general problem in turbid medium, such as in the case of most tissues, is distinguishing between phenomena caused by absorption and those due to scattering. These problems can be overcome by using either time- or frequency-domain techniques. Frequency-domain measurements are based on evaluation of the phase and amplitude information of transmitted amplitude-modulated optical beams. These types of measurements might prove to be a valuable tool for in situ evaluation of tissue properties, for example, fluorescence and absorption. Irradiation of turbid media by harmonically-modulated optical beams initiates density waves of diffusely propagating photons. The phase velocity of these waves is quite different from the velocity of light. The velocity, which is strongly dependent on the modulation frequency, can typically vary from the velocity of light as an upper limit down to about 10 of this value in highly scattering, moderately absorbing tissue. This presentation gives a brief discussion of the general properties of these kind of waves in tissues.
Slow Conduction and Reentry in the Ventricular Conducting System: II. SINGLE AND SUSTAINED CIRCUS MOVEMENT IN NETWORKS OF CANINE AND BOVINE PURKINJE FIBERS

Closed loops of fibers of the ventricular conducting system of canine or bovine hearts were used to study circus movement of excitation. Action potentials were recorded at three sites with intracellular microelectrodes. Discrete segments were depressed by application of K+-rich agar or the entire loop was depressed by modified Tyrode's solution containing 15−17 mM K+ and 1 to 5 × 10−6M epinephrine. The loops were 12−35 mm long and the effective conduction velocity was 0.02−0.08 m/sec. Impulses entering some loops traveled in one direction only, circling around the loop and returning to produce a second response at one or more sites (single circus movement). In other loops the impulse traveled around the circuit repeatedly (sustained circus movement). Circus movement around short loops requires a low conduction velocity and must be initiated by an impulse that travels around the loop in only one direction. Single circus movement can cause extrasystoles. Sustained circus movement can cause idioventricular rhythms and ventricular tachycardia.