Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Organic or Local? Investigating Consumer Preference for Fresh Produce Using a Choice Experiment with Real Economic Incentives

Determining consumers' preferences and willingness to pay (WTP) for organically grown and locally grown fresh produce is very important for stakeholders because it helps them figure out what type of fresh produce to grow and sell, what to emphasize in marketing efforts, and what are reasonable prices to charge. However, the literature that studies and compares consumers' preference and WTP for both organically and locally grown fresh produce is sparse. The objective of this study was to investigate consumers' WTP for organically grown and locally grown fresh produce and the marketing segmentation of these two types of produce. We combined a hypothetical experiment and nonhypothetical choice mechanism to investigate consum- ers' WTP for the attributes organic, local, and organic plus local for fresh produce. We found that when real products were used in the hypothetical experiment, the hypothetical bias (the difference between what people say they will pay and what they would actually pay) was not high. We found that consumers' WTP for the organic attribute was about the same as their WTP for the local attribute. Consumers' sociodemographics affected their choice between organically grown and locally grown produce. Furthermore, we found that consumers patronized different retail venues to purchase fresh produce with different attributes. The findings of the research have great importance for fresh produce stakeholders to make correct production and marketing decisions; the findings also contribute to experimental method choice in consumers' WTP research.
Effects of waterborne mercury on terrestrial wildlife at clear lake: Evaluation and testing of a predictive model

Birds and mammals exposed to waterborne mercury (Hg) and methylmercury (MeHg) were collected and/or sampled at Clear Lake, California, USA, to field test the predictive wildlife criteria model developed for the Great Lakes Water Quality Initiative (GLWQI). Tissue samples collected from sampled animals were analyzed for Hg and organochlorine residues, and for selected physiologic parameters known to be affected by Hg. All mammalian organ tissues analyzed contained less than 12 ppm total Hg, wet weight. All avian tissue samples analyzed contained less than 3 ppm total Hg, wet weight. No evidence of Hg‐associated health effects was found. Tissue Hg residues were compared with water, sediment, and animal food samples to characterize bioaccumulation of mercury in the Clear Lake food web. Total Hg bioaccumulation factors for the Clear Lake site closest to the Hg source were: TL‐2: 11,100; TL‐3: 31,200; TL‐4, 190,000. Our results support the final wildlife criterion (1,300 pg/L) and suggest that the GLWQI model, with site‐specific modifications, is predictive for other Hg‐bearing aquatic systems.
MANNICH BASES OF 7-HYDROXY COUMARINS AND THEIR BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY

A novel series of coumarin Mannich bases (II i-x) have been synthesized by reacting 7-hydroxy-4-methyl-2H-chromen-2-one (I) with various substituted secondary amines (II i-x) in presence of formaldehyde. The structures of the newly synthesized compounds were characterized by IR, 1 H NMR, and MASS data. Title compounds were screened for acute anti-inflammatory activity using the carrageenan-induced rat paw edema assay model. Most active compounds were also tested for their ulcerogenic activity. Among the compounds tested, 7-hydroxy-8-{[(4-methylphenyl)amino]methyl}-4methyl-2H-chromen-2-one (ii), 7-hydroxy-8-{[(4methoxylphenyl)amino]methyl}-4-methyl-2H-chromen-2-one (ix) and 7-hydroxy-8-{[(2-bromo-4,6-dinitrophenyl)amino]methyl}-4-methyl-2H-chromen-2-one (x) showed 71.24 , 62.53% and 62.24% inhibition, respectively after 1hr as compared to the standard drug Indomethacin (54.62%). These potent compounds showed reduction in ulcer. However, Compounds IIii, IIix and IIx, would be good candidates for lead molecules for antiinflammatory activity with a larger margin of safety.
Comparison of the FreeStyle Libre Pro Flash Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) System and Point-of-Care Capillary Glucose Testing in Hospitalized Patients With Type 2 Diabetes Treated With Basal-Bolus Insulin Regimen

OBJECTIVE We compared the performance of the FreeStyle Libre Pro continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) and point-of-care capillary glucose testing (POC) among insulin-treated hospitalized patients with type 2 diabetes (T2D). RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS This was a prospective study in adult patients with T2D admitted to general medicine and surgery wards. Patients were monitored with POC before meals and bedtime and with CGM during the hospital stay. Study end points included differences between POC and CGM in mean daily blood glucose (BG), hypoglycemia <70 and <54 mg/dL, and nocturnal hypoglycemia. We also calculated the mean absolute relative difference (MARD), ±15%/15 mg/dL, ±20%/20 mg/dL, and ±30%/30 mg/dL and error grid analysis between matched glucose pairs. RESULTS Mean daily glucose was significantly higher by POC (188.9 ± 37.3 vs. 176.1 ± 46.9 mg/dL) with an estimated mean difference of 12.8 mg/dL (95% CI 8.3–17.2 mg/dL), and proportions of patients with glucose readings <70 mg/dL (14% vs. 56%) and <54 mg/dL (4.1% vs. 36%) detected by POC BG were significantly lower compared with CGM (all P < 0.001). Nocturnal and prolonged CGM hypoglycemia <54 mg/dL were 26% and 12%, respectively. The overall MARD was 14.8%, ranging between 11.4% and 16.7% for glucose values between 70 and 250 mg/dL and higher for 51–69 mg/dL (MARD 28.0%). The percentages of glucose readings within ±15%/15 mg/dL, ±20%/20 mg/dL, and ±30%/30 mg/dL were 62%, 76%, and 91%, respectively. Error grid analysis showed 98.8% of glucose pairs within zones A and B. CONCLUSIONS Compared with POC, FreeStyle Libre CGM showed lower mean daily glucose and higher detection of hypoglycemic events, particularly nocturnal and prolonged hypoglycemia in hospitalized patients with T2D. CGM’s accuracy was lower in the hypoglycemic range.
Diving behaviour of green turtles: dive depth, dive duration and activity levels

Hochscheid et al. (1999) used time-depth recorders(TDRs) and activity recorders (Hochscheid & Wilson1999) to examine diving behaviour and activity ofgreen turtles during their internesting period atCyprus. Turtles were found to spend a large propor-tion of time undertaking dives with a characteristic‘U-shaped’ profile, i.e. dives where individuals re-mained at a fixed depth for a long period, surfacedbriefly and then descended to the same depth again.Information from the activity sensor suggested thatsome of these U-dives were associated with resting,others with benthic activity.While TDRs have been extensively deployed onmarine mammals and birds, their deployment on seaturtles is still in its infancy. We are only now starting toappreciate the wealth of information that these instru-ments can provide about free-living turtles. Unlikemany marine mammals, shallow diving marine tur-tles—such as the green
PR domaincontaining protein 12 (prdm12) is a downstream target of the transcription factor zic1 during cellular differentiation in the central nervous system

Transcription factor zic1 is an important regulator of neural plate patterning, formation of neural crest and cerebellar development, where its main function is neuronal cell differentiation. Among the genes identified, PR domain‐containing 12 (prdm12) is a member of the prdm family and is expressed in the placode domain in the neurula stage. prdm12 is distinctly expressed in the dorsal part of the midbrain, trigeminal ganglion, and the motor neuron in the spinal cord. prdm12 knockdown results in the ventralization of the neural tube. zic1 knockdown results in the reduction of prdm12 expression in the midbrain, motor neuron and trigeminal ganglion, and overexpression of zic1 results in the expansion of prdm12 expression in the midbrain. zic1‐activated wnt signaling is also a regulator of prdm12 expression in the midbrain. We propose that prdm12 is the downstream of zic1 and a novel player in the gene regulatory network controlling brain cell differentiation, along with some ganglions in Xenopus.
A Few Decades of Habitat Fragmentation has Reduced Population Genetic Diversity: A Case Study of Landscape Genetics of the Large Japanese Field Mouse, Apodemus speciosus

Abstract. The effects of a few decades of habitat fragmentation on the population genetic diversity of the large Japanese field mouse, Apodemus speciosus, in the forest region around Fukuyama University was assessed with approximate 300 bp nucleotide sequences of the mitochondrial D-loop region. Two independently isolated internal populations within the campus showed a smaller number of haplotypes and lower haplotype and nucleotide diversity indices compared to those inhabiting a wide external forest area. Based on the Hst index, significant genetic differentiation was observed between geographically closely residing external and internal populations but not between distantly residing external populations, suggesting the presence of strong physical barriers between the external and internal populations. Fine-scale changes in the landscape configuration recorded in aerial photographs of Fukuyama University revealed plausible physical barriers and a correlation between isolation time and genetic diversity. The results suggest that the population genetic properties of forest dwelling mammals are sensitive to a few decades of short-term forest fragmentation created by artificial construction. Exploitation by humans should be conducted in harmony with wildlife ecology, such as by maintaining corridors, to achieve a wide habitat area for gene flow.
Advances in Quantum-Dot-Based Displays

In terms of their use in displays, quantum dots (QDs) exhibit several advantages, including high illumination efficiency and color rendering, low-cost, and capacity for mass production. Furthermore, they are environmentally friendly. Excellent luminescence and charge transport properties of QDs led to their application in QD-based light-emitting diodes (LEDs), which have attracted considerable attention in display and solid-state lighting applications. In this review, we discuss the applications of QDs which are used on color conversion filter that exhibit high efficiency in white LEDs, full-color micro-LED devices, and liquid-type structure devices, among others. Furthermore, we discuss different QD printing processes and coating methods to achieve the full-color micro-LED. With the rise in popularity of wearable and see-through red, green, and blue (RGB) full-color displays, the flexible substrate is considered as a good potential candidate. The anisotropic conductive film method provides a small controllable linewidth of electrically conductive particles. Finally, we discuss the advanced application for flexible full-color and highly efficient QD micro-LEDs. The general conclusion of this study also involves the demand for a more straightforward QD deposition technique, whose breakthrough is expected.
Sequence Similarities between Viroids and Human MicroRNAs

Viroids are minute unencapsidated non-coding circular RNAs known to be present and to cause diseases only in plants. Infections were associated with the occurrence of specific single-stranded RNAs similar in size to miRNAs and endogenous small interfering RNAs, and viroid pathogenicity is suspected to occur through RNA interference. We looked for sequence similarities between viroids and the seed region of human microRNAs (hsa-miRNAs). Viroid genomes were retrieved from GenBank and mature hsa-miRNAs were retrieved from miRBase. Two hundred 300-nucleotide-long sequences were randomly generated as controls. BLAST searches were performed using viroids as queries and hsa-miRNAs as subjects with relaxed parameters, and matches involving hsa-miRNA seed regions were considered. A total of 81,021 matches were found, and 1,501 that showed 100% identity with whole hsa-miRNA seed regions were selected. The most frequent matches involved Chrysanthemum stunt viroid or Hop stunt viroidspecies with hsa-miR-4286, in 365 and 207 cases, respectively. Three hsa-miRNAs (miR-4286, miR-6808-5p, and miR-3622a-3p) were involved in 47% of all matches between viroids and hsa-miRNAs. Taken together, these findings warrant further investigation on the potential of viroids and their derived small RNAs to cross kingdoms and interact with nucleic acids in humans.
Micronutrient status of a group of soils in Canterbury, New Zealand, as measured by extraction with EDTA, DTPA and HCl, and its relationship with plant response to applied Cu and Zn

The Cu, Zn and Mn status of 44 fields from the Canterbury region of New Zealand under winter wheat was investigated in Spring 1993. Micronutrient status was assessed using EDTA, DTPA and HCl as extractants. The Mn status of soils was generally high and unaffected by soil development. However, when samples were separated according to soil series, it was found that extractable Cu and Zn levels in both the 0–15 and 15–30 cm soil layers generally decreased with increasing soil development (increasing soil age and annual rainfall). Twenty-three percent of fields had EDTA-extractable Cu levels <1 μg g−1 whilst 34% had EDTA-extractable Zn levels <1 μg g−1. Twenty-two of the soils were used in a glasshouse experiment in which wheat was grown in the soils with or without the addition of added Cu and/or Zn. Plant dry matter responses to added Cu were recorded in soils with extractable Cu levels <1·1 μg g−1 EDTA, 0·4 μg g−1 DTPA and 0·9 μg g−1 HCl. Responses to added Zn occurred in soils with extractable Zn levels <0·8 μg g−1 EDTA, 0·25 μg g−1 DTPA and 1·4 μg g−1 HCl. Significant linear correlations were found between EDTA-, DTPA- and HCl-extractable Cu and Zn and Cu and Zn uptake respectively by wheat. Correlation coefficients were closer for Cu than for Zn uptake. It was concluded that many sites on the more strongly developed soils of the Canterbury Plains are potentially deficient in Cu and/or Zn and that these can be identified using conventional micronutrient soil tests.
User Association with Maximizing Sum Energy Efficiency for Massive MIMO Enabled Heterogeneous Cellular Networks

In this paper, we design an association scheme to maximize the sum energy efficiency for massive multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) enabled heterogeneous cellular networks (HCNs). Considering that the final formulated problem is in a sum-of-ratio form, we first need to transform it into a parametric nonfractional form, by which we can achieve its solution through a two-layer iterative algorithm. The outer layer searches the energy efficiency parameters and multipliers associated with signal-interference-plus-noise-ratio (SINR) constraints using Newton-like method, and the inner layer optimizes the association indices using Lagrange multiplier method. In fact, the inner layer doesn't need iterative steps when the SINR constraints are not involved in the original problem, and then the whole algorithm should be a one-layer iterative one. As for the two-layer iterative algorithm, we also give the corresponding convergence proof. Numerical results show that the proposed scheme significantly outperforms the existing one in system throughput and network energy efficiency. In addition, we also investigate the impacts of the number of massive antennas and the transmit power of each pico base station on these association performances.
Digital neighborhoods

With the advent of ‘big data’ there is an increased interest in using social media to describe city dynamics. This paper employs geo-located social media data to identify ‘digital neighborhoods’ – those areas in the city where social media is used more often. Starting with geo-located Twitter and Foursquare data for the New York City region in 2014, we applied spatial clustering techniques to detect significant groupings or ‘neighborhoods’ where social media use is high or low. The results show that beyond the business districts, digital neighborhoods occur in communities undergoing shifting socio-demographics. Neighborhoods that are not digitally oriented tend to have higher proportion of minorities and lower incomes, highlighting a social–economic divide in how social media is used in the city. Understanding the differences in these neighborhoods can help city planners interested in generating economic development proposals, civic engagement strategies, and urban design ideas that target these areas.
Logging Speeds Little Red Fire Ant Invasion of Africa

ABSTRACT Here, we document the invasion of equatorial Africa by the little red fire ant (Wasmannia auropunctata). Commercial logging and other forms of natural resource extraction have catapulted W. auropunctata into the interior of Gabon at a rate 60 times faster than the unassisted rate we measured over 19 years at the Lope Reserve. We also present photographic evidence suggesting that W. auropunctata is negatively affecting the country's exceptionally rich and intact large mammal fauna.
First-winter survival of rainbow trout and brook trout in the Henrys Fork of the Snake River, Idaho

We used caged fish with a cobble – boulder substrate to test the effect of fish size on first-winter survival of rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss, to compare survival of rainbow trout and brook trout, Salvelinus fontinalis, and to test for a temperature effect in each experiment. At the warmer site, over 90% of the rainbow trout in the size experiment survived the winter, and there was no significant difference between >90 and <90 mm fish. At the colder site, survival was 60% and all mortality occurred in fish <90 mm. Survival of brook trout (60%) was significantly less than that of rainbow trout (87%) but did not differ between the warmer and colder sites. Brook trout that survived were significantly larger than those that did not. Results suggest that size-dependent mortality may be more likely to occur when environmental conditions are more severe (e.g., lower temperatures, less suitable habitat). Rainbow trout experienced less mortality than brook trout when using cobble – boulder substrate as cover.
High fidelity to wintering, stop-over and breeding sites shown by a Long-billed Curlew Numenius americanus tracked with satellite telemetry on migratory flights across North America

Capsule We studied the migratory movements and site fidelity of a male Long-billed Curlew using satellite telemetry in North America; the bird completed three migratory cycles and showed strong fidelity to stop-over, breeding, and wintering sites, not only on a geographical scale but also on a local scale across the years.
Detection of regularities in a random environment

Regularity detection, or statistical learning, is regarded as a fundamental component of our cognitive system. To test the ability of human participants to detect regularity in a more ecological situation (i.e., mixed with random information), we used a simple letter-naming paradigm in which participants were instructed to name single letters presented one at a time on a computer screen. The regularity consisted of a triplet of letters that were systematically presented in that order. Participants were not told about the presence of this regularity. A variable number of random letters were presented between two repetitions of the regular triplet, making this paradigm similar to a Hebb repetition task. Hence, in this Hebb-naming task, we predicted that if any learning of the triplet occurred, naming times for the predictable letters in the triplet would decrease as the number of triplet repetitions increased. Surprisingly, across four experiments, detection of the regularity only occurred under very specific experimental conditions and was far from a trivial task. Our study provides new evidence regarding the limits of statistical learning and the critical role of contextual information in the detection (or not) of repeated patterns.
Physiologic consequences of pneumonectomy

Although the incidence of pneumonectomies is decreasing all around the world, it is still required in centrally located tumors and in case of destroyed lung secondary to benign diseases. In a normal person, right lung contributes 55% of lung function due to the presence of three lobes. It is well known that remaining lung tissue expands its alveolar capacity following pneumonectomy. This compensatory growth has been attributed to stimulus by shear stress which leads to pulmonary fibroblast differentiation and neoalveoalization. Pneumonectomy results in progressive deterioration of lung function (around 30%) over the years. This leads to an increase in pulmonary artery pressure and right ventricle workload. Elderly patients with preexisting pulmonary diseases are especially at risk. On the other hand, pediatric pneumonectomies under the age of five lead to a near normal pulmonary function. There are also effects on esophagus and main bronchi due to anatomic changes in the chest cavity. However, most of the pneumonectomized patients do not experience limitations in normal life. Pneumonectomy should be avoided whenever possible if an oncologically correct operation can be performed with a lesser resection.
Genomic insights on the contribution of balancing selection and local adaptation to the long-term survival of a widespread living fossil tree, Cercidiphyllum japonicum.

'Living fossils' are testimonies of long-term sustained ecological success, but how demographic history and natural selection contributed to their survival, resilience and persistence in the face of Quaternary climate fluctuations remains unclear. To better understand the interplay between demographic history and selection in shaping genomic diversity and evolution of such organisms, we assembled the whole genome of Cercidiphyllum japonicum, a widespread East Asian Tertiary relict tree, and re-sequenced 99 individuals of C. japonicum and its sister species, C. magnificum (Central Japan). We dated this speciation event to the mid-Miocene, and the intraspecific lineage divergence of C. japonicum (China vs. Japan) to the Early Pliocene. Throughout climatic upheavals of the Late Tertiary/Quaternary, population bottlenecks greatly reduced the genetic diversity of C. japonicum. However, this polymorphism loss was likely counteracted by (1) long-term balancing selection at multiple chromosomal and heterozygous gene regions, potentially reflecting overdominance; and (2) selective sweeps at stress response and growth-related genes likely involved in local adaptation. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of how living fossils have survived climatic upheaval and maintained an extensive geographic range, i.e. both types of selection could be major factors contributing to the species' survival, resilience and persistence.