Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Specialization and niche overlap across spatial scales: revealing ecological factors shaping species richness and coexistence in Australian songbirds.

1.Ecological specialization enables the partitioning of resources and thus can facilitate the coexistence of species and promote higher species richness. Specialization and niche partitioning are expected to exert a decisive influence on local spatial scales, while species richness at regional scales should be shaped mostly by historical factors and abiotic conditions. Moreover, specialization is expected to be particularly important in communities that are exceptionally species rich for their environmental conditions. Concurrently, niche overlap in these communities should be minimized to enable species coexistence. 2.We tested these hypotheses by studying specialization-richness relationship and niche overlap in assemblages of 298 species of songbirds (Passeriformes) across Australia. We used local (2-6 ha) to regional (bioregions) spatial scales, and detailed data on habitat, diet, and foraging behaviour (method, substrate, and stratum). 3.We expected the richness-specialization relationship to be particularly strong i) on local spatial scales and ii) in communities exceptionally species rich for given environmental conditions (approximated by moisture and vegetation complexity). We also expected iii) low niche overlap in assemblages with specialized species. 4.Only the third prediction was partly supported. First, while the specialization and species richness were often positively related, the strength and the direction of the relationship changed between traits and across spatial scales. The strength of the specialization-richness relationship was consistently positive only in foraging stratum, and it increased towards smaller spatial scales only in case of habitat and diet. Simultaneously, species in local communities demonstrated high overlap in habitat and diet. Second, we did not find particularly strong specialization-richness relationships in exceptionally species rich communities. Third, we found the expected negative relationship between specialization and overlap in foraging stratum and substrate (in local communities), suggesting that species partition ecological space locally in terms of where they find food. 5.Our expectations were only weakly supported. Specialization on foraging stratum was probably important in facilitating species co-existence. Conversely, although species were often specialized on habitat and diet, high overlap in these traits did not preclude their local coexistence. Overall, specialization and overlap in foraging traits were more important for species coexistence than habitat or diet. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
KIF2C exerts an oncogenic role in nonsmall cell lung cancer and is negatively regulated by miR‐325‐3p

Nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is one of the leading causes of cancer‐related death worldwide. Kinesin family member 2C (KIF2C), a modulator in microtubule depolymerization, bipolar spindle formation, and chromosome segregation, has been reported to take roles in cancer biology, but its role in NSCLC remains unclear. This study was intended to investigate the expression and function of KIF2C in NSCLC. Our results demonstrated that KIF2C was up‐regulated in NSCLC tissues and cell lines. The high expression of KIF2C in NSCLC tissues was significantly correlated with higher T stage (0.0078), worse differentiation status (0.0049), and lymph node metastasis (P < .0001). We also proved that the high expression level of KIF2C predicted worse prognosis of the patients. After knockdown of KIF2C, the proliferation and metastasis of NSCLC cells were inhibited. Luciferase reporter assay suggested that KIF2C was a target gene of miR‐325‐3p, which was reported to be a tumour suppressor in NSCLC. In conclusion, this study proved an oncogenic role of KIF2C in NSCLC and partly clarified the mechanism of its high expression. Our findings provided a useful insight into the mechanism of NSCLC progression and offered clues to novel therapy strategies.
Phase Transition of Na3SbS4 Superionic Conductor and Its Impact on Ion Transport

In this work, a comprehensive research coupling experiment and computation has been performed to understand the phase transition of Na3SbS4 and to synthesize cubic Na3SbS4 (c-Na3SbS4), a high temperature phase of Na3SbS4 that is difficult to be preserved from high temperature. The formation of c-Na3SbS4 is verified by Rietveld refinement and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy. Both experiment and theoretical calculation reveal that the ionic conductivity of c-Na3SbS4 is higher than that of t-Na3SbS4, though the values are in the same order of magnitude. Both structures allow fast ion transport.
Nurse-led integration of palliative care for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: An integrative literature review.

AIMS AND OBJECTIVES To uncover what is known about nurse-led models or interventions that have integrated palliative care into the care of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD). BACKGROUND COPD is a highly symptomatic, incurable disease characterised by chronic symptoms that without appropriate palliation, can lead to unnecessary suffering for patients and their caregivers. While palliative care practices can relieve suffering and improve quality of life, most palliative models of care remain cancer-focused. New models, including nurse-led care that integrate palliative care for patients with COPD could address patient suffering and therefore need to be explored. METHOD A mixed-studies integrative review was undertaken. Seven databases were searched for articles published between 2008 and 2018. The PRISMA framework was applied to the search and six studies met the review eligibility criteria. Content analysis of the articles was undertaken and data were compared, looking for different nurse-led models and outcomes related to palliative care in COPD. RESULTS Nurse-led, integrated palliative care models for patients with COPD are rare and just four of the six articles found in this review had published results. Advance Care Planning was found to be the most common focus for nurse-led interventions in COPD and in all cases, results demonstrated an improvement in end of life discussions and completion of advance care directives. Of the reviewed articles, none used a qualitative framework to explore nurse-led models that integrated palliative care in COPD. CONCLUSION While nurse-led Advance Care Planning was one type of palliative care practice associated with positive patient outcomes, there is a need for deeper exploration of nurse-led models that holistically address the bio-psycho-social-spiritual needs of patients with COPD, and their caregivers. RELEVANCE TO CLINICAL PRACTICE Integrating nurse led supportive care clinics into COPD services could be a way forward to address the unmet bio-psycho-social-spiritual needs of patients with COPD, and their caregivers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
Formation of Highly Ordered Platinum Nanowire Arrays on Silicon via Laser-Induced Self-Organization

Laser-induced periodic surface structures (LIPSS) provide an elegant solution for the generation of highly ordered periodic patterns on the surface of solids. In this study, LIPSS are utilized for the formation of periodic platinum nanowire arrays. In a process based on laser-stimulated self-organization, platinum thin films, sputter-deposited onto silicon, are transformed into nanowire arrays with an average periodicity of 538 nm. The width of the platinum nanowires is adjustable in a range from 20 nm to 250 nm by simply adjusting the thickness of the initial platinum thin films in a range from 0.3 nm to 4.3 nm. With increasing width, platinum nanowires show a rising tendency to sink into the surface of the silicon wafer, thus indicating alloying between platinum and silicon upon LIPSS-formation by a nanosecond-pulsed laser. The Pt/silicon wires may be etched away, leaving a complementary nanostructure in the silicon surface.
Self-Assembled Peptide Nanofibers Display Natural Antimicrobial Peptides to Selectively Kill Bacteria without Compromising Cytocompatibility.

One of the major hurdles in the development of antimicrobial peptide (AMP)-based materials is their poor capacity in selectively killing bacteria without harming nearby mammalian cells. Namely, they are antimicrobial but cytotoxic. Current methods of nanoparticle-encapsulated AMPs to target bacteria selectively still have not yet overcome this hurdle. Here we demonstrate a simple yet effective method to address this daunting challenge by associating a natural AMP with a β-sheet-forming synthetic peptide. The integrated peptides self-assembled to form a supramolecular nanofiber, resulting in the presentation of the AMP at the nanofiber-solvent interface in a precisely controlled manner. Using melittin as a model natural AMP, we found that the conformation of melittin changed dramatically when presented on the nanofiber surface, which in turn modulated the induced membrane permeability of the bacterial and mammalian cell membranes. Specifically, the presentation of melittin on the nanofiber restricted its hydrophobic residues, leading to a reduction of the hydrophobic interaction with lipids in the cell membranes. Compellingly, the reduced hydrophobic interaction led to a considerably decrease of melittin's induced permeability of the mammalian cell membrane than that of the bacterial cell membrane. As a result, the AMP-displaying nanofiber preferentially permeabilized and disrupted the membrane of the bacteria without compromising the mammalian cells. Such improved membrane selectivity and cytocompatibility were confirmed in a cell-based membrane localization and live-dead assay. Our new strategy holds great promise for fabricating cytocompatible antimicrobial assemblies that offer safer and more effective administration of therapeutic AMPs. These assemblies, with intrinsic antimicrobial activity and cytocompatibility, can also serve as building blocks for the construction of higher-ordered scaffolds for other biomedical applications such as tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.
Exploratory Hand Movements Enhance the Liking Effect in Haptics

When people choose between two items, they usually look at them alternately before deciding. The frequency and duration of contact are usually determined unconsciously. However, in a previous study, looking at one item for longer than the other increased participants’ preference for the former, but only when they had to move their eyes to look at each item. This result implies that eye movements not only gather information but are also closely related to decision-making. By analogy, this study examines the relation between hand movements and haptic preference. When participants touched two handkerchiefs in a pre-determined order before choosing the one they preferred, the likelihood of choosing the more frequently touched handkerchief was greater than chance. Bias in the choice was greater with increased difference in the frequency of touching between the two handkerchiefs. It was also greater when participants moved their arm to touch the handkerchiefs, compared with when a machine carried the handkerchiefs to their hand. These results indicate that both the reaching movement for touching and the frequency of touching affect the preference judgment using haptics.
Facial skin mapping: from single point bio‐instrumental evaluation to continuous visualization of skin hydration, barrier function, skin surface pH, and sebum in different ethnic skin types

Dry skin is one of the most important concerns of consumers worldwide. Despite huge efforts over several decades, the personal care industry still does not offer a perfect solution to satisfy the unmet needs of consumers for moisturising treatments in different ethnic groups. The paucity of data for the underlying cellular and biochemical problems in, and the effects of moisturisers on photodamaged facial skin may partly explain this. Mainly, single point measurements are used to understand the effects of products on skin physiology even on surrogate skin sites such as the non‐photodamaged volar forearm. Some groups have developed discontinuous facial maps of skin biophysical properties, however, in 2014 a continuous facial analysis of bio‐instrumental evaluations was developed using a heat map approach. These maps enabled a continuous visualization of features that not only revealed an unexpected complexity of facial skin but also indicated that use of surrogate skin sites for facial skin is inappropriate. We have demonstrated that remarkable gradients of skin hydration, TEWL, skin surface pH and sebum exist within short distances across the face and the gradients are distinctive among different ethnic groups. In addition, these studies have demonstrated that darkly‐pigmented individuals do not necessarily have a better skin barrier function than their less‐pigmented counterparts and that Caucasians have a lower facial skin surface pH compared with more pigmented subjects. Overall, there are no correlations between capacitance, TEWL and skin surface pH including individual topology angle values. Novel 3D camera approaches have also been used to facilitate a more precise assignment of measurement sites and visualisation. The 3D facial colour mappings illustrated precisely the local moisturising effects of a moisturising cream. There were subtle ethnic differences in efficacy that may be related to underlying skin biochemistry and/or ethnic differences in product application. A placebo‐controlled study using conductance measurements in Chinese subjects is also reported. Finally, a new whole face statistical approach has been taken to prove differences in skin parameters but also of moisturiser treatment that adds further to our understanding of the ethnic differences in skin physiology and product application. This paper reviews the background of the development and application of this methodology.
Coll2-1 and Coll2-1NO2 as exemplars of collagen extracellular matrix turnover – biomarkers to facilitate the treatment of osteoarthritis?

ABSTRACT Introduction: Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common form of arthritis. However, there are no structure or disease-modifying OA drugs (DMOADs). Introducing personalized healthcare to patients and health-care practitioners is a high priority for the management of arthritic and musculoskeletal diseases. However, there are no biomarker tools that can be used for patient stratification, disease management, and drug development. Biomarkers are capable of diagnosing and prognosing some arthritic and musculoskeletal diseases. Cartilage-based biomarkers have the potential to be used in this context to guide the precision treatment of OA. Areas covered: The aim of this review is to focus on the pre-clinical and clinical utility of the Coll2-1 and Coll2-1NO2 biomarkers as unique cartilage-based biomarkers that can guide the development of new treatments for OA. This expert report will begin with a background to collagens and their important biomechanical roles in the musculoskeletal system, but particularly cartilage, before exploring the data and scientific evidence to support the utility of Coll2-1 and Coll2-1NO2 as unique biomarkers. Expert opinion: This review summarises the authors’ expert view on the pre-clinical and clinical utility of the Coll2-1 and Coll2-1NO2 biomarkers and their potential for use as drug development tools.
Branching structure of uniform recursive trees

AbstractThe branching structure of uniform recursive trees is investigated in this paper. Using the method of sums for a sequence of independent random variables, the distribution law of ηn, the number of branches of the uniform recursive tree of size n are given first. It is shown that the strong law of large numbers, the central limit theorem and the law of iterated logarithm for ηn follow easily from this method. Next it is shown that ηn and ξn, the depth of vertex n, have the same distribution, and the distribution law of ζn,m, the number of branches of size m, is also given, whose asymptotic distribution is the Poisson distribution with parameter $$\lambda = \frac{1}{m}$$ . In addition, the joint distribution and the asymptotic joint distribution of the numbers of various branches are given. Finally, it is proved that the size of the biggest branch tends to infinity almost sure as n → ∞.
Theorem for the beam-splitter entangler

It has been conjectured that the entangled output state from a beam splitter requires nonclassicality in the input state [M. S. Kim, W. Son, V. Buzek, and P. L. Knight, Phys. Rev. A 65, 032323 (2002)]. Here we give a proof for this conjecture.
Living with Family Yet Eating Alone is Associated with Frailty in Community-Dwelling Older Adults: The Kashiwa Study

ObjectivesEating alone is related to depression, nutritional risk, and mortality. These effects are also influenced by living status. However, little is known about the relationship between eating alone despite living with family and frailty. This study explores the relationship of eating alone and living status with frailty in community-dwelling older adults.DesignCross-sectional study.Setting and ParticipantsKashiwa city, Chiba prefecture, Japan; randomly selected community-dwelling older adults (aged 65 years and over). MeasurementsEating status was assessed by the question, “Do you eat meals with anyone, at least once a day: yes or no? ” Frailty was defined by Kihon Checklist (KCL) score 8 or over. Domains of frailty were divided into instrumental activities of daily living (IADL), physical strength, nutrition, eating, socialization, memory, and mood, based on KCL categories. Binary logistic regression analysis was used, adjusting for age, years of education, chronic diseases, number of teeth and cognitive function.ResultsAmong the total of 1,914 participants, 49.8% were male, and the overall mean age was 72.9 ± 5.5 years. Of all participants, 56 (5.9%) of men and 112 (11.7%) of women were frail. Older adults who ate alone despite living with others were more likely to be frail (OR 2.49, 95%CI 1.1–5.5 for men and OR 2.16, 95%CI 1.0–4.5 for women). Of particular note, eating and living status were associated with lower physical strength and mood in men, whereas in women these statuses were associated with lower scores for IADL, socialization, memory, and mood.ConclusionsEating alone despite living with others was associated with high frailty in both genders; however, the pathways were different between genders. These results might help yield a simple, fundamental intervention approach to multifaceted frailty, reflecting gender and associated high-risk domains.
FEM-modellering og analyse av magnetfeltet i endeområdet til store synkrongeneratorer

This master thesis is a continuation of the project written the fall of 2015. During the fall of 2015, a model of a generator was implemented in a simulation software called Ansys Maxwell. Maxwell is a Finite Element Analysis (FEM) tool for electromagnetic field simulation. The implementation was based on a real Statkraft-generator. Both a 2Dand 3D-model was implemented in Maxwell. During the project in the fall of 2015 both the 2D and the 3D-model was verified at no load. The model was verified by comparing the induced voltage, the magnetic field in the machine and the core loss with given values form Statkraft. In the master thesis, the model was tested for different operation conditions. This means that the phase currents in the stator windings needed to be implemented. Two different methods were tested before it was decided to connect the generator to an external grid. During the master thesis, the axial field that penetrates the surface of the stator was analyzed at different loading conditions. These conditions was: no load, underexcited and overexcited operation of the generator. Based on the results of the simulations it was concluded that the highest axial field occurs when the generator operate in underexcited mode. In the simulations, a measuring point was placed 30 mm from the air gap at the surface of the stator. At this point the RMS-value for the axial field was calculated for one period. When the generator was in underexcited mode the field was in the range of 180-190 mT, for overexcited mode the field was 90-100 mT and at no load the field was 80-90 mT. The results obtained during the thesis shows that the axial field is highest when the generator is running at underexcited condition. The reason for this is that when the generator is working at overexcitation the field from the rotor and the stator is in almost opposite direction of each other, resulting in a smaller total field. When the generator is working at an underexcited mode, the angel between the rotorand the stator field is much smaller. A 2D-model of the stator end region was also implemented in Maxwell. The purpose of this simulation was to further study the flux and eddy currents in the end region. Based on these simulations it is clear that the flux only operates in the top layers of the stator. This is because of the laminations layer in the stator. This means that it is only in the top layers that is vulnerable for big eddy current losses, which can lead to thermal damage in the stator.
On Minimum Reporting Requirements and Standard Formatting of Plant Phenotypic Data

www.transplantdb. eu The transPLANT project is funded by the European Commission within its 7th Framework Programme under the thematic area “Infrastructures”. Contract number 283496. To enable, improve and make cheaper: • Data storage • Data exchange between researchers and databases • Data integration and reusing • Supplementary data/material publication • Comparison of experiments • Searching for metadata or data • Statistical analysis steered by metadata/annotation • Data compression Why to standardize? Standardization
Coupling and Isolation for Web Computing Paradigm

Service computing as a high level paradigm of Internet distributed computing is attracting extensive research concerns in recent years. The recognition on the coupling metric of the Web computing is still hovering on the level of dictionary lexical meaning. Researches on isolation for the concurrent process correctness are commonly separated from the coupling metric connotation of service computing. This paper gives the explanation of the coupling metric of computing paradigm,and illustrates the essence of short ability of composing service paradigm for transaction requirements,as well as approaches to guarantee isolation by separating or reducing the concurrent critical sections in service computing scripts. It concludes that do not expect the isolation-guarantee for loosely-coupled service computing environments normally.