Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Spore wall architecture of Glomus spp

Vesicular–arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal spore walls are of important diagnostic value in identifying a species within a genus. Since ultrastructural descriptions have so far been limited to a few species, the aim of this work was to describe the ultrastructural organization of seven species of Glomus. All these species show a different overall architecture, confirming wall analysis as a good taxonomic criterion. Some features, however, were shared by all spores, chiefly a fibrillar texture given by highly ordered fibrils embedded in an amorphous matrix; the rhythm of the fibrillar deposition seems to be specific for each species. The meaning of such ordered deposition is discussed.
Localized excitons in defective monolayer germanium selenide

Germanium Selenide (GeSe) is a van der Waals-bonded layered material with promising optoelectronic properties, which has been experimentally synthesized for 2D semiconductor applications. In the monolayer, due to reduced dimensionality and, thus, screening environment, perturbations such as the presence of defects have a significant impact on its properties. We apply density functional theory and many-body perturbation theory to understand the electronic and optical properties of GeSe containing a single selenium vacancy in the $-2$ charge state. We predict that the vacancy results in mid-gap "trap states" that strongly localize the electron and hole density and lead to sharp, low-energy optical absorption peaks below the predicted pristine optical gap. Analysis of the exciton wavefunction reveals that the 2D Wannier-Mott exciton of the pristine monolayer is highly localized around the defect, reducing its Bohr radius by a factor of four and producing a dipole moment along the out-of-plane axis due to the defect-induced symmetry breaking. Overall, these results suggest that the vacancy is a strong perturbation to the system, demonstrating the importance of considering defects in the context of material design.
Characteristics of drupes, phenolic content and antioxidant capacity of Italian olive fruits.

ABSTRACT Drupe characteristics, phenolic content and antioxidant capacity of olive fruits were studied for 12 Italian oil cultivars grown in two areas (Cerignola and Torremaggiore) of Daunia district. The effects of plantation place were higher than those exerted by cultivars on drupe characteristics such as weight, pulp/stone ratio, oil content and maturation index. Olive fruits from Cerignola, which is located at a lower altitude than Torremaggiore, showed the highest phenolic content. The highest phenolic content (14 g gallic acid/kg dry olive) was detected on Peranzana and Cellina di Nardo grown in Cerignola groves. The lowest values were registered for FS17 and Cima di Melfi (about 7 g/kg). 1-Acetoxypinoresinol, 3,4-dihydroxyphenylethyl 4-formyl-3-formylmethyl-4-hexenoate, the dialdehydic form of decarboxymethyl elenolic acid linked to hydroxytyrosol (3,4-DHPEA-EDA), hydroxytyrosol and luteolin, were the phenolic compounds detected in a greater amount and in most of the cultivars. Independently on the assay applied, the highest antioxidant activity was detected for Cellina di Nardo (Cerignola). The lowest antioxidant activity values were different depending on the method applied. According to the 2,2′-azino-bis-(3-ethylbenzothiazoline)-6-sulfonic acid (ABTS) assay, the lowest value was detected for Moraiolo from Torremaggiore, whereas Nociara showed the lowest contribution to the inhibition of lipid oxidation (β-carotene beaching assay). A strong positive linear correlation (R = 0.82) existed between total phenolic content and antioxidant activity measured according to the ABTS method, whereas a low linear correlation coefficient (R = 0.36) was obtained when the β-carotene bleaching assay was used. PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS The experimental results obtained with this research could help farmers to increase their knowledge of the minor components of some major and minor Italian olive cultivars. In fact, there are very few works on the characterization of olive fruits destined for oil production. The analytical findings of this study can also provide useful information to the oil industries interested in processing olives having high phenolic content and high antioxidant capacity. Furthermore, the diffusion of these results could help consumers to choose, among monovarietal extra virgin oils available in the market, those derived from the cultivars rich in antioxidant compounds.
Litter Sizes and Mammary Numbers of Naked Mole-Rats: Breaking the One-Half Rule

Among mammals generally and rodents particularly mean litter sizes usually are about one-half the number of mammae, and maximum litter sizes approximate mammary numbers. Naked mole-rats ( Heterocephalus glaber : Bathyergidae) are exceptions to both generalizations. Field-caught litters averaged 11.3 young ± 6.2 SD ( n = 82), and captive-born litters averaged 11.4 ± 5.6 young ( n = 190). Similarly, numbers of mammae on breeding females averaged 11.6 ± 1.1 ( n = 43) in the field and 11.5 ± 2.0 ( n = 29) in captivity. Maximum litter sizes were 28 in the field and 27 in captivity, whereas the maximum number of mammae was 15. More than one-half of field-caught and captive males and females had different numbers of mammae on the two sides of their body. Neither total numbers of mammae nor fluctuating asymmetries in mammary numbers differed significantly between males and females, nor between breeders and nonbreeders. There was no relationship between litter sizes and numbers of mammae or fluctuating asymmetries in mammary numbers. Breeding female naked mole-rats can bear and successfully rear litters that are far more numerous than their mammae because, on a proximate level, young take turns nursing from the same mammary and, on an ultimate level, breeding females are fed and protected by colony mates, enabling them to concentrate their reproductive efforts on gestation and lactation.
Predictor Antenna Systems: Exploiting Channel State Information for Vehicle Communications

Vehicle communication is one of the most important use cases in the fifth generation of wireless networks (5G). The growing demand for quality of service (QoS) characterized by performance metrics, such as spectrum efficiency, peak data rate, and outage probability, is mainly limited by inaccurate prediction/estimation of channel state information (CSI) of the rapidly changing environment around moving vehicles. One way to increase the prediction horizon of CSI in order to improve the QoS is deploying predictor antennas (PAs). A PA system consists of two sets of antennas typically mounted on the roof of a vehicle, where the PAs positioned at the front of the vehicle are used to predict the CSI observed by the receive antennas (RAs) that are aligned behind the PAs. In realistic PA systems, however, the actual benefit is affected by a variety of factors, including spatial mismatch, antenna utilization, temporal correlation of scattering environment, and CSI estimation error. This thesis investigates different resource allocation schemes for the PA systems under practical constraints, with main contributions summarized as follows. First, in Paper A, we study the PA system in the presence of the so-called spatial mismatch problem, i.e., when the channel observed by the PA is not exactly the same as the one experienced by the RA. We derive closed-form expressions for the throughput-optimized rate adaptation, and evaluate the system performance in various temporally-correlated conditions for the scattering environment. Our results indicate that PA-assisted adaptive rate adaptation leads to a considerable performance improvement, compared to the cases with no rate adaptation. Then, to simplify e.g., various integral calculations as well as different operations such as parameter optimization, in Paper B, we propose a semi-linear approximation of the Marcum Q-function, and apply the proposed approximation to the evaluation of the PA system. We also perform deep analysis of the effect of various parameters such as antenna separation as well as CSI estimation error. As we show, our proposed approximation scheme enables us to analyze PA systems with high accuracy. The second part of the thesis focuses on improving the spectral efficiency of the PA system by involving the PA into data transmission. In Paper C, we analyze the outage-limited performance of PA systems using hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ). With our proposed approach, the PA is used not only for improving the CSI in the retransmissions to the RA, but also for data transmission in the initial round. As we show in the analytical and the simulation results, the combination of PA and HARQ protocols makes it possible to improve the spectral efficiency and adapt transmission parameters to mitigate the effect of spatial mismatch.
M2GRL: A Multi-task Multi-view Graph Representation Learning Framework for Web-scale Recommender Systems

Combining graph representation learning with multi-view data (side information) for recommendation is a trend in industry. Most existing methods can be categorized as multi-view representation fusion; they first build one graph and then integrate multi-view data into a single compact representation for each node in the graph. However, these methods are raising concerns in both engineering and algorithm aspects: 1) multi-view data are abundant and informative in industry and may exceed the capacity of one single vector, and 2) inductive bias may be introduced as multi-view data are often from different distributions. In this paper, we use a multi-view representation alignment approach to address this issue. Particularly, we propose a multi-task multi-view graph representation learning framework (M2GRL) to learn node representations from multi-view graphs for web-scale recommender systems. M2GRL constructs one graph for each single-view data, learns multiple separate representations from multiple graphs, and performs alignment to model cross-view relations. M2GRL chooses a multi-task learning paradigm to learn intra-view representations and cross-view relations jointly. Besides, M2GRL applies homoscedastic uncertainty to adaptively tune the loss weights of tasks during training. We deploy M2GRL at Taobao and train it on 57 billion examples. According to offline metrics and online A/B tests, M2GRL significantly outperforms other state-of-the-art algorithms. Further exploration on diversity recommendation in Taobao shows the effectiveness of utilizing multiple representations produced by M2GRL, which we argue is a promising direction for various industrial recommendation tasks of different focus.
Home Range Size and Distance Traveled from Hibernacula in Northern Pinesnakes in the New Jersey Pine Barrens

Abstract: We studied home range size and maximum dispersal distance from hibernacula in Northern Pinesnakes (Pituophis m. melanoleucus) at a 1418-ha preserve in Cumberland County, New Jersey, USA, between 1993 and 2003. We discovered 22 different winter hibernacula that were used by 39 Northern Pinesnakes. Of the 10 snakes monitored in hibernacula for 3–5 yr, shifting was observed by 8 individuals, and 2 females showed hibernacula philopatry for five consecutive years. The average minimum convex polygon home range of 14 radio-tracked Northern Pinesnakes was 105.51 ha (located 30–108 times/snake), whereas the average kernel density estimator home range was 50% isopleth = 38.99 ha and 90% isopleth = 133.15 ha. There were no differences in home range as a function of sex, but the number of years snakes were radio-tracked affected home range size. An adult male had the largest home range of 258 ha. The average distance traveled by radio-tracked Northern Pinesnakes from their winter hibernacula was 1321.05 m, with a maximum distance of 2146.91 m. Of all snakes followed, 27.3% (n = 3) traveled <1000 m, 18.2% (n = 2) traveled 1000–1100 m, 18.2% (n = 2) traveled 1100–1200 m, and 36.4% (n = 4) traveled >1200 m. The average number of hibernacula available per home range was 3.2. Snakes that were monitored for ≥2 yr had larger home ranges than snakes that were only radio-tracked for 1 yr. Thus, radio-tracking several adult snakes over a 3–5-yr period is the most effective method to determine home ranges, locate hibernacula sites of meta-populations, and reveal an understanding of their ecology, behavior, and conservation requirements.
Unveiling the Importance of SIC in NOMA Systems: Part I - State of the Art and Recent Findings

The key idea of non-orthogonal multiple access (NOMA) is to serve multiple users simultaneously at the same time and frequency, which can result in excessive multiple-access interference. As a crucial component of NOMA systems, successive interference cancelation (SIC) is key to combating this multiple-access interference, and is focused on in this letter, where an overview of SIC decoding order selection schemes is provided. In particular, selecting the SIC decoding order based on the users' channel state information (CSI) and the users' quality of service (QoS), respectively, is discussed. The limitations of these two approaches are illustrated, and then a recently proposed scheme, termed hybrid SIC, which dynamically adapts the SIC decoding order is presented and shown to achieve a surprising performance improvement that cannot be realized by the conventional SIC decoding order selection schemes individually.
A Survey for New Stars and Brown Dwarfs in the Ophiuchus Star-forming Complex

We have performed a survey for new members of the Ophiuchus cloud complex using high-precision astrometry from the second data release of Gaia, proper motions measured with multi-epoch images from the Spitzer Space Telescope, and color–magnitude diagrams constructed with photometry from various sources. Through spectroscopy of candidates selected with those data, we have identified 155 new young stars. Based on available measurements of kinematics, we classify 102, 47, and 6 of those stars as members of Ophiuchus, Upper Sco, and other populations in Sco–Cen, respectively. We have also assessed the membership of all other stars in the vicinity of Ophiuchus that have spectroscopic evidence of youth from previous studies, arriving at a catalog of 373 adopted members of the cloud complex. For those adopted members, we have compiled mid-infrared photometry from Spitzer and the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer and have used mid-infrared colors to identify and classify circumstellar disks. We find that 210 of the members show evidence of disks, including 48 disks that are in advanced stages of evolution. Finally, we have estimated the relative median ages of the populations near the Ophiuchus clouds and the surrounding Upper Sco association using absolute K-band magnitudes (MK) based on Gaia parallaxes. If we adopt an age 10 Myr for Upper Sco, then the relative values of MK imply median ages of ∼2 Myr for L1689 and embedded stars in L1688, 3–4 Myr for low-extinction stars near L1688, and ∼6 Myr for the group containing ρ Oph.
Data-driven feedback stabilisation of nonlinear systems: Koopman-based model predictive control

In this work, a predictive control framework is presented for feedback stabilisation of nonlinear systems. To achieve this, we integrate Koopman operator theory with Lyapunov-based model predictive control (LMPC). The main idea is to transform nonlinear dynamics from state-space to function space using Koopman eigenfunctions -- for control affine systems this results in a bilinear model in the (lifted) function space. Then, a predictive controller is formulated in Koopman eigenfunction coordinates which uses an auxiliary Control Lyapunov Function (CLF) based bounded controller as a constraint to ensure stability of the Koopman system. Remarkably, the feedback control design proposed in this work remains completely data-driven and does not require any explicit knowledge of the original system. Furthermore, due to the bilinear structure of the Koopman model, seeking a CLF is no longer a bottleneck for LMPC. Benchmark numerical examples demonstrate the utility of the proposed feedback control design.
The correlation between photometric variability and radial velocity jitter

Context. Characterizing the relation between stellar photometric variability and radial velocity (RV) jitter can help us to better understand the physics behind these phenomena. The current and upcoming high precision photometric surveys such as TESS, CHEOPS, and PLATO will provide the community with thousands of new exoplanet candidates. As a consequence, the presence of such a correlation is crucial in selecting the targets with the lowest RV jitter for efficient RV follow-up of exoplanetary candidates. Studies of this type are also crucial to design optimized observational strategies to mitigate RV jitter when searching for Earth-mass exoplanets. Aims. Our goal is to assess the correlation between high-precision photometric variability measurements and high-precision RV jitter over different time scales. Methods. We analyze 171 G, K, and M stars with available TESS high precision photometric time-series and HARPS precise RVs. We derived the stellar parameters for the stars in our sample and measured the RV jitter and photometric variability. We also estimated chromospheric Ca II H & K activity indicator log(RHK′), v sin i, and the stellar rotational period. Finally, we evaluate how different stellar parameters and an RV sampling subset can have an impact on the potential correlations. Results. We find a varying correlation between the photometric variability and RV jitter as function of time intervals between the TESS photometric observation and HARPS RV. As the time intervals of the observations considered for the analysis increases, the correlation value and significance becomes smaller and weaker, to the point that it becomes negligible. We also find that for stars with a photometric variability above 6.5 ppt the correlation is significantly stronger. We show that such a result can be due to the transition between the spot-dominated and the faculae-dominated regime. We quantified the correlations and updated the relationship between chromospheric Ca II H & K activity indicator log(RHK′) and RV jitter.
Utilization of d‐carnitine by Pseudomonas sp. AK 1

Pseudomonas sp. AK 1 is able to utilize d-carnitine as sole source of carbon and nitrogen under aerobic conditions. During growth on d-carnitine, a carnitine racemase and a NAD+-dependent l-carnitine dehydrogenase are induced. l-Carnitine, glycine betaine, glucose and glycerol prevent the induction of camitine racemase. The ability to transform d-camitine into the l-enantiomer was detected in cell-free extracts but not with intact cells. The highest carnitine racemase activity was obtained with 50 MM d-carnitine at 39°C and pH 8.5. The partly purified l-carnitine dehydrogenase is very similar in its molecular and kinetic properties to l-carnitine dehydrogenases from other bacteria.
Deep learning approaches for neural decoding: from CNNs to LSTMs and spikes to fMRI

Decoding behavior, perception, or cognitive state directly from neural signals has applications in brain-computer interface research as well as implications for systems neuroscience. In the last decade, deep learning has become the state-of-the-art method in many machine learning tasks ranging from speech recognition to image segmentation. The success of deep networks in other domains has led to a new wave of applications in neuroscience. In this article, we review deep learning approaches to neural decoding. We describe the architectures used for extracting useful features from neural recording modalities ranging from spikes to EEG. Furthermore, we explore how deep learning has been leveraged to predict common outputs including movement, speech, and vision, with a focus on how pretrained deep networks can be incorporated as priors for complex decoding targets like acoustic speech or images. Deep learning has been shown to be a useful tool for improving the accuracy and flexibility of neural decoding across a wide range of tasks, and we point out areas for future scientific development.
Growth and development of winter rye at cold‐hardening temperatures results in thylakoid membranes with increased sensitivity to low concentrations of osmoticum

Chloroplasts developed at cold-hardening (5°C) and non-hardening temperatures (20°C) were compared with respect to the stability of photosynthetic electron transport activities, the capacity to produce and maintain a H+ gradient and the capacity fat photophosphorylation as a function of resuspension in the presence or absence of osmoticum. The results for electron transport indicate that whole chain, photosystem I and pfaotosystem II activities in non-hardened chloroplast thyalkoids were unaffected by resuspension in the presence of high or low osmoticum. In contrast, the same electron transport activities in cold-hardened chloroplast thylakoids exhibited a 3- to 4-fold decrease in activity when resuspended in the presence of low osmoticum. Impairment of electron transport through photosystem II of cold-hardened thylakoids resuspended in the presence of low osmoticum was supported by room temperature fluorescence induction kinetics. Since the presence of Mn2+ partially overcame this inhibition, it is concluded that this osmotically-induced inhibition of PSII activity in cold-hardened chloroplast thylakoids may, in part, be due to damage to the H2O-splitting side of photosystem II. Both the initial rate and the maximum capacity for cyclic photophosphorylation were significantly inhibited in cold-hardened as compared to non-hardened thylakoids upon resuspension in the presence of low concentrations of osmoticum. This was correlated with an inability of the cold-hardened chloroplast thylakoids to maintain a significant transrnembrane H+ gradient. The results indicate that cold-hardened thylakoid membranes required an osmotic concentration (0.8 M) twice as high as non-hardened thylakoids (0.4 M) to produce the same initial rate of H+ uptake. In addition, the capacity to produce a proton gradient in cold-hardened thylakoids was less stable than that in non-hardened thylakoids regardless of the osmotic concentration tested. It is concluded that development of rye thylakoid membranes at low temperature results in a differential sensitivity to low osmoticum and thus extreme caution should be exercised when comparing the structure and function of isolated thylakoids developed under contrasting thermal regimes.
Leaf anatomical characteristics associated with shoot hydraulic conductance, stomatal conductance and stomatal sensitivity to changes of leaf water status in temperate deciduous trees

Some anatomical characteristics in leaves relating to hydraulic conductance and stomatal conductance were examined in six temperate deciduous tree species. The fourth power of the radius of the conducting elements in xylem (r4) and the area of mesophyll and epidermal cells per unit length of leaf cross-section (u) were high in leaves with high hydraulic conductance (L). Stomatal conductance (gs) and stomatal sensitivity to an increase in leaf water potential (si) correlated positively with the length of stomatal pore (l), but negatively with the guard cell width (z) and the length of the dorsal side of the guard cells (ld). Stomatal sensitivity to a decrease in leaf water potential (sd) correlated negatively with l and positively with z and ld. The anatomical characteristics associated with hydraulic conductance (r4 and u) and those associated with stomatal conductance and sensitivity to changes of leaf water potential (l, z and ld) were correlated. We conclude that hydraulic conductance may depend on anatomical characteristics of xylem, mesophyll and epidermis, and stomatal conductance and its sensitivity to changing water potential may depend on anatomical characteristics of stomata. The correlation of shoot hydraulic conductance with stomatal conductance and its sensitivity may be based largely on the correlation between the anatomical characteristics of the water conducting system and stomata in these trees.