Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Genetic Parameters for Milk Yield and Persistency in Carora Dairy Cattle Breed Using Random Regression Model

In tropical environments, lactation curves with lower peaks and higher persistency (PS) might be desirable from both an economical and a physiological point of view. The objective of this study was to obtain genetic parameters for test day (TD) yields, and PS for the tropical breed Carora and to compare these with results from a standard 305-d-milk yield animal model. Four random regression models (RRM) were used on a dataset composed of 95,606 TD records collected in Venezuela and tested to find the best fitting the data. Estimated daily heritabilities for milk yields ranged from 0.21 to 0.30, with the lowest values around the peak of lactation. Lactation repeatabilities ranged from 0.50 to 0.56. Correlations between the breeding values obtained with the RRM and the lactation model currently used in Venezuela [single trait Animal Model (stAM)] are quite high and positive (Pearson correlation=0.71 and Spearman correlation=0.72). Correlations between PS and 305-d-milk yield estimated breeding values (EBV) ranged from -0.18 (PS as the deviation of daily productions in the interval 50-279 days in milk from a point at the end of lactation) to 0.52 (PS as EBV difference between the second and the first stage of lactation). The use of PS indexes accounting for milk yield may allow the selection of individuals able to express their potential genetic values in tropical environment, without incurring in excessive heat stress losses.
Allelic diversity of the human plasma α(1,3)fucosyltransferase gene (FUT6)

The 1080‐bp coding region of the human plasma α(1,3)fucosyltransferase gene (FUT6) was sequenced in a total of 161 individuals (322 chromosomes) drawn from three populations, involving 56 Africans (Xhosa), 52 European‐Africans of South Africa, and 53 Japanese. In addition to six reported base substitutions, eleven new base substitutions and a single base insertion were found in the coding region of the FUT6. Eleven functional and four null alleles were encountered, of which 10 alleles were novel alleles identified in this study. Two null alleles have been identified previously, whereas two novel null alleles, which contained a single base (cytosine) insertion at nucleotide 499, were found in a Xhosa population. The allelic distributions of FUT6 were different among these three populations. The heterozygosity of FUT6 was 0.860, 0.699, and 0.632, in Xhosa, European‐African (South Africa), and in Japanese populations, respectively. The extensive DNA sequence diversity of the FUT6 may be suitable for application as a tool in genetic studies for modern human evolution.
Masse en eau des feuilles : détermination non destructive en milieu naturel

La masse en eau des feuilles peut etre determinee a partir de la cinetique de la temperature apres une modification brutale du bilan d'energie par un eclairement additionnel. Une etude critique de certains aspects techniques d'une methode employee precedemment a conduit a des ameliorations instrumentales (utilisation des fibres optiques et de capteurs thermiques differentiels sans contact). Il en resulte un appareillage portable permettant de travailler tant en conditions controlees que naturelles. Les verifications experimentales effectuees sur plusieurs especes a comportement hydrique contraste ont permis de constater que les mesures de teneur en eau obtenues avec l'appareillage portable conduisent a des resultats proches de ceux determines directement par la methode gravimetrique.
Production Networks in Europe: A Natural Experiment of the European Union Enlargement to the East

This paper focuses on the 2004 enlargement of the European Union to the East and treats it as a natural experiment to investigate two issues: first, whether there has been a trade creation effect in final and intermediate goods and second, to what extent this effect has been more pronounced for final or for intermediate goods. Using difference&#8208;in&#8208;differences analysis, we find that the effect of the 2004 EU enlargement has been positive for both intermediate and final goods trade, and it is in general greater for final goods. Using a generalized gravity model of trade that controls for the multilateral resistance and bilateral time&#8208;invariant factors, we estimate an increase in bilateral trade of 28% for final goods and 24% for intermediates. However, the effects are heterogeneous by sub&#8208;sector and indicate that the main trade gains were for non&#8208;durable consumer goods and food and beverages primary and processed products.
Bovine mastitis: risk factors, therapeutic strategies, and alternative treatments — A review

Bovine mastitis, an inflammation of the mammary gland, is the most common disease of dairy cattle causing economic losses due to reduced yield and poor quality of milk. The etiological agents include a variety of gram-positive and gram-negative bacteria, and can be either contagious (e.g., Staphylococcus aureus, Streptococcus agalactiae, Mycoplasma spp.) or environmental (e.g., Escherichia coli, Enterococcus spp., coagulase-negative Staphylococcus, Streptococcus uberis). Improving sanitation such as enhanced milking hygiene, implementation of post-milking teat disinfection, maintenance of milking machines are general measures to prevent new cases of mastitis, but treatment of active mastitis infection is dependant mainly on antibiotics. However, the extensive use of antibiotics increased concerns about emergence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens and that led the dairy industries to reduce the use of antibiotics. Therefore, alternative therapies for prevention and treatment of bovine mastitis, particularly natural products from plants and animals, have been sought. This review provides an overview of bovine mastitis in the aspects of risk factors, control and treatments, and emerging therapeutic alternatives in the control of bovine mastitis.
Reducing Migration of Sintered Ag for Power Devices Operating at High Temperature

Wide-bandgap power devices are usually operated at a higher temperature or larger electrical bias and the harsh conditions often lead to early failure of the widely used Ag-based die-attach materials due to electrochemical migration (ECM). Common methods to mitigate ECM tend to be quite costly and can only enhance the performance slightly under high-temperature conditions. In this letter, novel nano-Ag-based die-attach materials are designed and prepared by doping with 0.1 wt% Si nanoparticles. The higher affinity of Si to oxygen reduces oxidation of silver and increases the median time to failure at 400 °C by 4.8 times. According to the life prediction model, the materials extend the lifetime for operation at 200 °C from 9.5 to 63 years, while the cost remains unchanged. The sintered nano-Ag-0.1%Si die attachment has long-term reliability rendering them desirable for power devices operating at a high temperature.
Volatile aroma components of Australian port wines

The volatile aroma compositions of a blended port wine, having an equivalent age of 20 years, and a 100-year-old port wine were examined by gas chromatography and gas chromatography-mass spectrometry. The compounds identified were products of yeast fermentation, acetalisation, esterification and oxidation reactions occurring during storage, carbohydrate degradation (of residual grape sugar and wood hemi-celluloses) and wood extraction. High concentrations of ethyl lactate, diethyl succinate and diethyl malate were found relative to quantities present in young wine. 1-Ethoxy-1-(3-methylbutoxy)ethane, 1-ethoxy-1-(2-methylbutoxy)ethane, 1,1-diethoxypropan-2-one, cis-5-hydroxy-2-methyl-1,3-dioxane and cis-4-hydroxymethyl-2-methyl-1,3-dioxolane were identified. The presence of these and other acetals demonstrated that carbonyl compounds were also present. Carbonyl compounds are likely to contribute to the ‘rancio’ flavour of these port wines. Carbohydrate-derived compounds found included furfural, 2-acetylfuran, 5-methylfurfural, ethyl laevulinate, ethyl furoate and 5-ethoxymethyl furfural. Oak lactone, which is a wood extractive, was also identified and is likely to contribute to the woody aroma distinguishable in these port wines.
Quantifying the rate of pH and temperature decline in lamb carcasses at three abattoirs in New South Wales

The aim of this work was to benchmark the rate of pH and temperature decline in lamb carcasses (particularly the temperature at pH 6.0) at 3 commercial abattoirs across New South Wales. In total, 1197 carcasses were monitored over 13 months for pH and temperature decline. The lambs were sourced from a variety of regions, either direct from the paddock or from sale yards. Carcass weight was not significantly (P>0.05) different between abattoirs or seasons. There was a significant (P<0.05) interaction between abattoir and season for carcass fat depth at the 12th rib (GR) when adjusted to the same hot carcass weight, such that as carcass weight increased so did GR with changes in the relationship between seasons and abattoirs. The predicted pH at 3 h was significantly different between abattoirs, with abattoirs A and B having a significantly (P<0.05) higher pH than abattoir C. All abattoirs were different (P<0.05) for predicted temperature at 3 h, with abattoir A having the lowest and C having the highest temperature. Predicted pH at both 25 and 18°C were significantly different (P<0.05) between abattoirs, with abattoir C having the lowest and abattoir A having the highest pH at both temperatures. Abattoir A and B were not different for predicted temperature at pH 6.0, but abattoir C had a significantly higher temperature (P<0.05). Over all abattoirs only 18.8% of sampled carcasses complied with the recommended pH–temperature window of 18–25°C at pH 6.0. Of the carcasses sampled, 79.4% had a slow rate of pH decline and did not reach the onset of rigor (pH 6.0) by 18°C.
Wintertime Photosynthesis of Bristlecone Pine (Pinus Aristata) In the White Mountains of California

Winter rates of photosynthesis and respiration in bristlecone pine were measured at controlled temperatures at 3,094 m elevation. Following the onset of severely cold temperatures in autumn, net photosynthesis declined sharply. By midwinter net photosynthesis became zero and remained there through early spring; during this time only low gross photosynthesis could be measured. Respiration rates remained high until late winter and then dropped significantly in early spring when temperatures increased and the soil thawed. The absence of net photosynthesis and the continued high respiration results in a large negative CO2 balance by the end of the winter. Approximately 117 hr of photosynthesis during summertime at peak rates are needed to equalize the winter loss of 140 mg CO2 per gram dry weight of photosynthetically active tissue. These findings are related to the growth of bristlecone pine at timberline. See full-text article at JSTOR
Importance of adipokines in glucose homeostasis

SUMMARY Obesity increases the risk for metabolic and cardiovascular diseases and, therefore, may contribute to reduced life expectancy. Adipose tissue is an endocrine organ secreting several hundreds of adipokines, which contribute to the crosstalk of adipose tissue with the brain, liver, muscle and other organs. Altered secretion patterns of adipokines are a symptom of adipose tissue dysfunction and may link obesity to an increased risk of insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, hypertension, dyslipidemia, endothelial dysfunction, atherosclerosis, dementia, airway disease and some cancers. Adipokines may become clinically important both as biomarkers and as the substrate or target for pharmacotherapeutic management of obesity and its related diseases in the future. This review focuses on selected adipokines, which play a role in glucose homeostasis.
Global mycorrhizal fungal range sizes vary within and among mycorrhizal guilds but are not correlated with dispersal traits

Mycorrhizal fungi associate with the majority of plant species with large consequences on ecosystem nutrient, carbon and water cycling. Two main types of mycorrhizal fungi, arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi and ectomycorrhizal (EM) fungi, dominate terrestrial ecosystems. Most global distribution modelling of AM and EM associations describe the distribution of AM and EM plants, and not fungi directly. However, significant functional trait variation occurs within AM and EM fungal guilds. Therefore, modelling range sizes and determinants of these ranges of fungi directly is likely to create spatial maps that are a better proxy of ecosystem function than guild‐level lumping of AM and EM plant distributions.
Conformational intermediates in the folding of a coiled‐coil model peptide of the N‐terminus of tropomyosin and αα‐tropomyosin

Circular dichroism was used to study the folding of αα‐tropomyosin and AcTM43, a 43‐residue peptide designed to serve as a model for the N‐terminal domain of tropomyosin. The sequence of the peptide is AcMDAIKKKMQMLKLDVENLLDRLEQLEADLKALEDRYKQLEGGC. The peptide appeared to form a coiled coil at low temperatures (<25 °C) in buffers with physiological ionic strength and pH. The folding and unfolding of the peptide, however, were noncooperative. When CD spectra were examined as a function of temperature, the apparent degree of folding differed when the ellipticity was followed at 222, 208, and 280 nm. Deconvolution of the spectra suggested that at least three component curves contributed to the CD in the far UV. One component curve was similar to the CD spectrum of the coiled‐coil α‐helix of native αα‐tropomyosin. The second curve resembled the spectrum of single‐stranded short α‐helical segments found in globular proteins. The third was similar to that of polypeptides in the random coil conformation. These results suggested that as the peptide folded, the α‐helical content increased before most of the coiled coil was formed.
Automatic Georeferencing of Historical Maps by Geocoding

Summary : Libraries and researchers face a big challenge: sometimes thousands, millions of maps are being conserved in archives to retard deterioration, but this makes it hard to obtain specific knowledge of their content, sometimes even of their existence. In recent years, the efforts have increased to digitise historical documents and maps to preserve them digitally, make them accessible and allow researchers and the general public a less restricted access to their heritage. But maps are more than a cultural artifact: they are data. Data about the past that can very well be important for science and decision-making today. The problem is, the vast amount alone makes it hard to know what to look for. Maps are usually archived and catalogued with limited meta-information, sometimes obscuring their actual content. This makes it impossible to find specific information without expert knowledge on history and cartography. Extracting the content, i.e. data, of scanned historical maps is a necessity to make the content searchable and to use modern digital tools for automatic processing and analyses. To combine data from different maps and compare them with modern geospatial data, georeferencing is paramount. This is usually done by hand and needs a lot of time and specialised training. We explore if and how usable GCP can be found automatically in historical maps with computer vision and document analysis methods of today. In this work-in-progress report, we use OCR on map labels and geocoding of persisting geographical feature designation for successful first experiments. This shows text recognition and vectorisation to be a promising research direction for large-scale automated georeferencing of historical maps.
On the relationship between r/K selection and environmental carrying capacity: a new habitat templet for plant life history strategies.

We propose a revision of the habitat templet approach for modelling the relationship between r/K selection and selection related to the level of resource impoverishment within vegetation. The latter is represented as a continuum on one axis of the templet by the mean annual environmental carrying capacity of the habitat. This is perpendicular to the second axis representing the traditional r/K selection continuum and defined by the mean annual distance below environmental carrying capacity that the vegetation is maintained at, usually as a consequence of different levels of disturbance (.)
Numerical reconstruction of two-dimensional particle size distributions from laser diffraction data

In this paper, we consider the two-dimensional Fredholm integral equation of the first kind. The kernel of this equation models the scattering of a laser beam by spheroids having the same fixed orientation. The unknown function under the integral describes the distribution of spheroids along two semi-axes. The input data are the diffraction pattern corresponding to the scattering of the laser beam by the particles. We show that the Tikhonov regularization method allows one to reconstruct two-dimensional distributions in the case when the diffraction pattern is modulated by white noise with relative amplitude up to 1%. In applications, this means novel possibility of obtaining two-dimensional particle size distributions, rather than one-dimensional ones, as in the classical version of the method. This significantly expands the capabilities of particle sizing via static laser diffraction technique. We show that the solution of the corresponding equation is unique in space and exists when the right-hand-side function is in a set dense in . We provide test experimental results in the framework of laser ektacytometry of red blood cells, which serves as the main application of the proposed approach presently.
Enhancing functional improvement in reablement – a qualitative study

Abstract Background and purpose Reablement is aimed to enable people to remain independent in their lives and is based on users’ own goals. Interventions are described to involve both physical exercises and guidance in everyday activities. However, descriptions of the content of reablement practices are sparse. This study aims to investigate and discuss how physiotherapists (PTs) on reablement teams plan and adapt training interventions to enhance users’ functional abilities. Methods We conducted fieldwork with seven Norwegian reablement teams, including video observations of interventions and interviews with PTs and home trainers. The results were analysed through thematic content analyses in which we used motor learning theory to interpret the results. Results The analyses revealed that reablement practices typically involved either (i) exercise-based training, (ii) activity-based training, or (iii) a combination of both exercise- and activity-based training. Discussion Reablement interventions are described as individually tailored and goal oriented. However, in practice, it is challenging to implement training that emphasises both physical function- and goal-oriented activities. Motor learning and relearning depend on several principles and require both exercise-based and activity-based training. Standardised approaches emphasising physical exercises may neglect a particular activity that is important to the user. On the other hand, exclusively activity-based approaches may omit individual, specific aspects of bodily movement and physical constraints. The use of only one aspect of training may limit the potential for functional improvement, while a combination of the two is more likely to meet the principles of motor learning theories.
Effect of root infection with Pseudomonas fluorescens and Glomus mosseae on severity of lime‐induced chlorosis in Vitis vinifera L. cv. ‘pinot blanc’

Abstract In order to achieve different degrees of tolerance to lime‐induced chlorosis, Vitis vinifera L. cv. ‘Pinot blanc’ was grafted on two hybrid rootstocks: Vitis Berlandieri Planch, x Vitis rupestris Scheele ‘140 Ru’ (tolerant) and Vitis riparia Michx. x Vitis rupestris Scheele ‘101–14’ (susceptible). The vines were grown in pots with an unsterile calcareous soil, and roots infected with a suspension of the siderophore producing bacterium Pseudomonas fluorescens and the VAM fungus Glomus mosseae (Nicol. and Gerd.) Gerd. and Trappe. Leaves were collected at two different times during the growing season and analyzed for ferrous iron, chlorophyll, ash alkalinity, and chlorosis rating. The most significant finding was that the two root treatments reduced the chlorosis symptoms of the vines grafted on the susceptible rootstock ('101–14'), at the second sampling, when the control plants were very chlorotic.
Predators Induce Morphological Changes in Tadpoles of Hyla andersonii

Predators can affect the development, fitness, and behavior of prey species in myriad ways. In response to the threat of predation, tadpoles can alter growth rate, morphology, and foraging behavior. Changes to tadpole development have the potential to alter life history characteristics and are therefore of interest in species of conservation concern. Using experimental mesocosms, we explored how non-lethal predators affected the larval development of the Pine Barrens Treefrog, Hyla andersonii, a near-threatened species in the United States. We found that caged dragonflies (Anax junius) induced darker tail coloration and deeper tail fins in tadpoles of H. andersonii, but the dragonflies did not affect tadpole behavior, survival, or size at metamorphosis. Non-lethal predator presence also induced greater within population variation in the tail color trait compared to populations without predators. This result suggests that there may be underlying genetic variation in the ability to express phenotypically plastic traits, a concept that should be explored further because it has implications for the evolution of inducible defenses. These findings support the existence of an adaptive syndrome among hylid tadpoles, where tadpoles develop conspicuous tail morphology in response to larval dragonfly predators.
Partner Fidelity and Asymmetric Specialization in Ecological Networks

Species are embedded in complex networks of interdependencies that may change across geographic locations. Yet most approaches to investigate the architecture of this entangled web of life have considered exclusively local communities. To quantify to what extent species interactions change at a biogeographic scale, we need to shed light on how among-community variation affects the occurrence of species interactions. Here we quantify the probability for two partners to interact wherever they co-occur (i.e., partner fidelity) by analyzing the most extensive database on species interaction networks worldwide. We found that mutualistic species show more fidelity in their interactions than antagonistic ones when there is asymmetric specialization (i.e., when specialist species interact with generalist partners). Moreover, resources (e.g., plants in plant-pollinator mutualisms or hosts in host-parasite interactions) show a higher partner fidelity in mutualistic interactions than in antagonistic interactions, which can be explained neither by sampling effort nor by phylogenetic constraints developed during their evolutionary histories. In spite of the general belief that mutualistic interactions among free-living species are labile, asymmetric specialization is very much conserved across large geographic areas.