Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Menarcheal age in Europe

Recent studies on secular changes, urban-rural differences, and variation of the mean age at menarche with occupation and educational level of parents, and with number of siblings and birth order in European populations are reviewed. For girls from Oslo, London, Brussels, Gorlitz, Szeged, and Zagreb, and for a selected sample of young women from the United Kingdom, a halt in the trend towards an earlier occurrence of the first menstruation has been observed. In Gorlitz girls and in a selected sample from the United Kingdom, the mean age at menarche has even increased. Results of the European investigations on the significance of factors commonly used to describe social stratification indicate the need for studies with a standardized multifactorial design, including as many parameters as possible. Indicators of social stratification may vary in sensitivity from one country to another. Recent geographical variation of mean age at menarche for urban populations is analysed; and the significance of different living conditions (reflected by the Gross Domestic Product), different health care facilities (indicated, by life expectancy for women and infant mortality rate), as well as quantitative and qualitative differences in diet are discussed. It is concluded that the Northwest-Southeast gradient in mean menarcheal age in Europe cannot be explained in terms of these environmental factors, which supports the hypothesis that the observed variation is mainly due to genetic differences.
Book Review

Across the country, classes dedicated to teaching mathematics to future elementary school teachers now include a discussion of systems of numeration. One might reasonably ask why this is. Fourth and fifth grade students do not need to learn Babylonian numerals, nor are they likely to add and subtract in base 8 (though some readers, and some fans of Tom Lehrer’s “New Math,” may remember differently). Why should their teachers, then, study these things? There seem to be two primary explanations for what is, at first glance, a curious inclusion. The first is pedagogical: By struggling to learn a new system of writing numbers, education students are reminded that learning mathematics, even elementary mathematics, is nontrivial. By noticing what helps them understand a new system, our future teachers may gain skills in teaching Hindu-Arabic numerals (the standard system used today) to their own students. The second reason is mathematical, and the first one that may be guessed by most mathematicians: By studying different systems of writing numbers, we come to a deeper understanding of the numbers themselves. By learning different methods of computing sums, differences, and products, we obtain a better grasp on these operations. In a sense, we can use our new vantage point on the landscape of number, and a process not unlike triangulation (a modern astronomer might say interferometry) to see the numbers themselves more clearly.
Endurance swimming of diploid and triploid Atlantic salmon

When groups of diploid (mean ± S.E. fork length, L F ) 33.0 ± 1.4 cm and triploid (35.3 ± 0.5 cm) Atlantic salmon Salmo salar were forced to swim at controlled speeds in a carefully monitored 10m diameter 'annular' tank no significant difference was found between the maximum sustained swimming speeds (U ms , maintainable for 200 min) where the fish swam at the limit of their aerobic capability. Diploids achieved 2.99 body lengths per second (bl s -1 ) (0.96 m s -1 ) and triploids sustained 2.91 bl s -1 (1.02 m s -1 ). The selection of fish for the trials was based on their ability to swim with a moving pattern projected from a gantry rotating at the radius of the tank and the selection procedure did not prove to be significant by ploidy. A significant difference was found between the anaerobic capabilities of the fish measured as endurance times at their prolonged swimming speeds. During the course of the experimentation the voluntary swimming speed selected by the fish increased and the schooling behaviour improved. The effect of the curvature of the tank on the fish speeds was calculated (removing the curved effect of the tank increased the speed in either ploidy by 5.5%). Implications of the endurance times and speeds are discussed with reference to the aquaculture of triploid Atlantic salmon.
Impact

The Massachusetts Voter Table, MassVOTE, the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, and Asian Pacific Islanders’ Civic Action Network identified a need for stronger statewide infrastructure for integrated voter engagement. In 2020, we formed the six regional tables called the Democracy HUBS (Holistically Unifying Blocs of Solidarity), with 38 partner organizations. The six Democracy HUBS across the Commonwealth have an anchor organization, supporting organizations, and emerging organizations. These six Democracy HUBS focus on integrated voter engagement in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, immigrant, and low-income communities.
Application of enzyme electrophoresis for the identification of isolates in Trichoderma harzianum

Soluble enzymes were extracted from 23 geographically diverse isolates of Trichoderma harzianum and compared by electrophoresis. Seven enzyme systems were assayed and the isolates were grouped into five different types according to their isozymic profiles. The results indicate that enzyme electrophoresis can be used to distinguish between T. harzianum isolates. The potential of this system for T. harzianum breeding is discussed.
Modeling the spread of western corn rootworm (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) populations adapting to soybean-corn rotation

A behavioral change in some western corn rootworm, Diabrotica virgifera virgifera LeConte, populations is threatening the effectiveness of crop rotation, a successful management strategy for controlling this pest. We created a simple meteorological and behavioral model that can be used to predict the spread of the beetle infesting soybean, Glycine max (L.), throughout the Midwest. We used data collected in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio to create maps of observations to evaluate the model. We displayed data on the maps using thresholds of 10, 20, and 40 western corn rootworm beetles per 100 sweeps. Counts above a threshold represent populations searching for plants other than corn, Zea mays L. , and adapted to the soybean–corn rotation. According to our model, the population adapted to soybean spreads 10–30 km per year depending on the directions of the prevailing storms and winds. The model underestimates the observed spread to the south. The model fits the Illinois data best when a threshold of 10 adults per 100 sweeps is used to visualize data and test the model. The model fits the Michigan data better with a threshold of 20 beetles, but is insensitive to the visualization and evaluation threshold for other areas. Model results support the hypothesis that the origin of the population of western corn rootworm infesting soybean is Ford County, IL. We predict that populations of western corn rootworm will be infesting soybean in much of Ohio, lower Michigan, and southern Wisconsin during the next 5 yr and eastern Iowa within the next 10 yr.
Facts and Ideas from Anywhere

BUMC PROCEEDINGS 2003;16:131–140 COMPARISON OF THE 9/11/01 TRAGEDY TO THE FREQUENCY OF DEATH FROM OTHER CAUSES The November/December 2002 issue of World-Watch compared the September 11 tragedy with the magnitude of other deaths (1). In the USA, the numbers of persons dying or killed each year on average are as follows: by cigarette smoking, 431,000; by obesity, 300,000; by alcohol abuse, 110,000; by motor vehicle accidents, 43,000; by guns, other than war, 34,000; by adverse reactions to prescription drugs, 32,000; by suicide, 31,000; by accidental falls, 15,000; by accidental poisoning, 9000; by aspirin and nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), 8000; by drowning, 4000; by choking on ingested objects, 3000; and by the September 11 attacks in 2001, 3000. In other countries, the numbers of people dying or killed each year on average are as follows: by ongoing civil war in Sudan, 2,000,000; by the Khmer Rouge massacre in 1975 to 1978 in Cambodia, 1,700,000; by the ongoing war in Congo, 1,700,000; by US secret bombings in 1970 to 1973 in Cambodia, 150,000; by pesticide suicides of despairing farmers in China, 125,000; by 2 atomic bombs dropped by US planes in 1945 in Japan, 103,000; by obesity in the United Kingdom, 30,000; by the Bhopal chemical spill in 1985 and its aftermath in India, 20,000; by venomous snakes in India, 10,000; by malaria in Brazil, 8000; and by Serbian army massacres of Bosnian Muslim prisoners, 7000.
Book Reviews

Children and adolescents growing up in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods are more likely, on average, to drop out of high school, have a baby as a teenager, and become involved in delinquent activities. Does living in a neighborhood affect one’s outcomes above and beyond one’s family and individual-level characteristics, and if so, how? How might governments shape policies in order to alleviate the effects of disadvantaged neighborhoods on their residents? These questions have motivated a veritable cottage industry of research studies since at least the origins of the Chicago School, and in earnest since the publication in 1987 of William Julius Wilson’s The Truly Disadvantaged. Social scientists have examined questions pertaining to neighborhood effects from the vantage points of their disciplines, attempting to unwrap the methodological and conceptual puzzles that lie at the heart of how individuals might be influenced by their immediate surroundings. Van Ham, Manley, Bailey, Simpson, and Maclennan have organized their edited volume into 11 chapters (not including their introductory chapter) that address neighborhood effects research in a comprehensive way, making a solid contribution to this literature. They begin with three thoughtful chapters on conceptual and methodological issues, continue with five chapters that present research on neighborhood effects and two chapters that describe proposed innovative research studies, and conclude with a chapter linking research findings and public policy. The introductory chapter clearly lays out the focus of the volume and provides a foundation for understanding the basic methodological conundrums in neighborhood effects research, including how to control for selection bias. Since individuals ostensibly have some level of choice about which neighborhood they live in, researchers have struggled with how to control this selection shaped by individual characteristics (and of course the structural characteristics of the local housing market) in order to measure the “pure” neighborhood effects on individual outcomes. Other researchers (such as Manley and van Ham in this volume) argue that selection should actually be included in models of neighborhood effects rather than being artificially eliminated from the framework. George Galster, an economist who authored the first of three conceptual chapters, is responsible for a large body of careful neighborhood effects research in the United States and beyond. This chapter is a well-organized discussion about the research on mechanisms through which researchers theorize that neighborhoods affect residents. Galster creatively uses a pharmacological metaphor to consider how neighborhoods may cause certain outcomes: for example, how often does the “dosage” of a neighborhood-level variable (such as social interaction or neighborhood institutions) need to be administered for individual outcomes, and how does that vary across outcomes? In Chapter 3, Mario Luis Small and Jessica Feldman argue that researchers ought
The diets of two high‐flying bats from Africa

The diets of two fast-flying, aerial-hawking bats from north-east Africa (Ethiopia) were investigated by means of faecal analysis. Otomops martiensseni (Molossidae; c. 35 g body mass), which is remarkably specialized morphologically with very long, narrow wings and large ears, and which uses low frequency echolocation (10kHz), feeds almost exclusively (97% by volume) on moths, mostly of large species. The smaller (20 g) Taphozous perforatus (Emballonuridae) also has long, narrow wings but short ears and is less morphologically extreme than Otomops. It feeds on moths (56%), but also on many other insect groups such as Isoptera (14%). Coleoptera (10o%), Orthoptera (8%), as well as Hemiptera, Neuroptera, Hymenoptera and Diptera. Otomops martiensseni, in particular, appears to be a highly specialized moth predator.
Acidic Precipitation in South-Central Ontario: Recent Observations

Precipitation in south-central Ontario, with mean pH between 3.95 and 4.38 and frequent event pH's of < 4.0, is more acidic than that in the Sudbury, Ontario, region and in Scandinavia, and as acidic as that in the northeastern USA. As in New England, a major component of the total acidity is strong mineral acid. Because most lakes in south-central Ontario have very low buffering capacities (10–200 μeq∙L−1), high acid loadings are likely to lead to acidification of many lakes and streams in the forseeable future. Although it is not yet possible to estimate the time required for this to happen, there is already some evidence of declining buffering capacity in a few lakes. Key words: acidic rain, buffering capacity, acidic lakes, precipitation, alkalinity
DEEP‐ETCH ANALYSIS OF ADHESION COMPLEXES BETWEEN GAMETIC FLAGELLAR MEMBRANES OF CHLAMYDOMONAS REINHARDTII (CHLOROPHYCEAE)

The ultrastructure of adhesion complexes between gametic flagellar membranes of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Dangeard was analyzed using the quick‐freeze deep‐etch technique. The sexual agglutinin fibrils interact by forming hybrid fibers that frequently branch, forming extensively cross‐bridged meshworks. This pattern of interaction mimics a prominent mode of cell wall formation in Chlamydomonas, supporting the notion that the agglutinins evolved from cell wall proteins and that sexual adhesion and cell wall assembly are homologous events.
Book Review

What do mathematicians do? In Games and Mathematics, David Wells gives a threepart answer to this perennially absorbing question. Doing mathematics, he suggests, involves three types of activity, the game-like, the scientific, and the perceptual, where each of these terms has a special meaning (see below). The first five chapters of Games and Mathematics set forth these categories. Subsequent groups of chapters (of 5, 5, and 4 chapters, respectively) give many examples, though, as Wells points out, just about any piece of mathematical work requires all three. The final, twentieth chapter returns to the subject of games. Wells’ book is, in part, an elaboration of ideas and themes treated by George Pólya in the classics How To Solve It [1] and Induction and Analogy in Mathematics [2], wherein Pólya describes ways to generate conjectures and accumulate evidence for them short of proof—what Pólya called “plausible reasoning. ” In Wells’ terminology, Pólya treats the scientific and perceptual sides of mathematics, taking the game-like for granted. Games and Mathematics, which aims to describe how mathematics works for a general audience, treats all three equally.
Nuclear Phenomena of Sexual Reproduction in Angiosperms

WHAT constitutes sexual reproduction, fertilization or fecundation is so variously set forth in botanical literature that one naturally approaches a discussion of this subject with some timidity. Having been assigned the group angiosperms, in which a definition of sexual plienomena may be made more specific by concrete illustration, it seemed at the outset that a part of my task, at least, was simpler than that of some of mny colleagues who take part in this section of our program; but a moment's thought convinced me that what might be gained from this limitation of my field was probably much less than the opportunities offered by the scope and diversity of phenomena in groups of lower plants. In the preparation of this paper, the writer has kept clearly in mind the fact that the phenomena of sexual reproduction implies explicitly that a special significance is attached to the nucleus as in a large measure distinct from any function, or ro~le of the cytoplasm; consequently he will deal first chiefly with nuclear behavior, leaving a discussion of the relation of nucleus and cytoplasmn to be dealt with in a later paragraph. Sexual reproduction in phanerogarns implies the union of especially developed cells known as gametes, and the development of an individual plant from such union. While in this process the union of the nuclei is held to be more important, it is not inferred that the part taken by the cytoplasm is unimportant, but the writer does insist that the cytoplasm plays a secondary role in the
Increase in Lipid Peroxidation in Rat Gastric Mucosal Lesions Induced by Water-Immersion Restraint Stress

The role of lipid peroxidation in the pathogenesis of gastric ulcer was investigated in a rat model produced by water-immersion restraint stress. After the immersion of rats in 23°C water with restraint, blood flow of the gastric wall was significantly decreased and hemorrhagic erosions were seen in the body of the stomach. Thiobarbituric acid-reactive substances, an index of lipid peroxidation, in the gastric mucosa were significantly increased after the stress. These results suggest that lipid peroxidation may play a role in the pathogenesis of gastric mucosal lesions induced by stress.
N-acyl Homoserine Lactone-Producing or -Degrading Bacteria Isolated from the Intestinal Microbial Flora of Ayu Fish (Plecoglossus altivelis)

A number of gram-negative fish pathogens have a quorum-sensing system. These bacteria produce N-acyl-L-homoserine lactone (AHL) as a quorum-sensing signal molecule. We isolated AHL-producing and degrading bacteria from the intestinal microbial flora of Ayu fish (Plecoglossus altivelis). AHL-producing and degrading isolates were identified as members of the genus Aeromonas and Shewanella, respectively. Aeromonas sp. strain MIB010 produced at least three kinds of AHLs and it was predicted that the production of extracellular protease in strain MIB010 was regulated through quorum sensing. Shewanella sp. strain MIB015 showed obvious AHL-degrading activity and interrupted the AHL-mediated production of protease by the Aeromonas sp. Intestinal Shewanella strains might be useful as probiotic bacteria effective in the prevention of bacterial infectious diseases controlled by quorum sensing.
Theories and methods on plant nutrition and growth

A theory comprising two basic concepts relating nutrition and growth is presented. The first concept is a nutrient flux model and is based upon studies of plants at constant internal nutrient concentrations, where a formal mathematical derivation shows that the relative uptake rate (RU) and the relative growth rate (RG) are equal. Deviations from equality are results of experimental insufficiencies and errors. The second concept is based on the observation that RG is linearly related to the internal nutrient concentration. The slope represents nutrient productivity (Pn), an important parameter expressing growth rate per unit of nutrient. Light and the plant genome, for example, influence the value of the proportionality factor, Pn, but not the formal relationship between the internal nutrient concentration and RG Not only the theory itself but many results and conclusions are very different from those obtained with traditional methods. In experiments where RU was controlled during the exponential period of growth, the relationships between treatment (the relative addition rate, RA), nutrient uptake (RU) and growth (RG) were reproduced with extremely low variability. In agreement with theory, internal nutrient concentration and RG remained stable over time (steady-state). An extension of the theory is based upon the empirical assumption that after exponential growth, self-shading and ageing reduce Pn in proportion to biomass. This assumption has been successfully applied in predicting growth of forest stands, but the nature of the growth reduction is little understood. The generalized model has few parameters and can easily be rewritten to suit different experimental aims, for example to establish reference values and to model changes in soil fertility. Further extension and understanding of the model and different interpretations of the parameters are discussed.
Six new species of Adenocalymna (Bignoniaceae) from eastern South America

Six new species of Adenocalymna are described from Brazil and French Guiana. Adenocalymna is one of the genera of Bignoniaceae tribe Bignonieae that is most prone to local endemism (Sutherland, 1983). Six new species of the genus are included in recent collections from eastern South America. Adenocalymna dichilum A. Gentry, sp. nov. TYPE: Brazil. Piauhy: Bom Jesus-Sao Raimundo Nonato, caatinga, 11 May 1979 (fl), A. Fernandes s.n. (EAC 6185), (holotype, EAC; isotype, MO). Frutex scandens, ramulis teretibus. Folia 2(-3? )-foliolata, interdum cirrho simplici, foliolis ovatis vel ellipticis, infra valde villosis. Inflorescentia floribus in racemo terminali dispositis. Calyx cupulatus, 5-dentatus, 12-14 mm longus; corolla lutea, valde bilabiata, extus puberula. Capsula ignota. Liana; branchlets terete, longitudinally striate, with scattered small inconspicuous lenticels, finely puberulous with small suberect whitish trichomes; pseudostipules ovate, 3-4 mm long; interpetiolar glandular fields absent. Leaves 2(-3? )-foliolate, the terminal leaflet sometimes replaced by a simple tendril, the leaflets ovate to elliptic, obtuse to emarginate at apex, rounded to distinctly cordate at base, 2-4 cm long, 1.5-3.5 cm wide, above + glabrescently puberulous with short erect trichomes, below persistently villous, coriaceous, drying brownish above, olive below, the tertiary venation prominulous below, finer venation obscured by the indumentum; petiole 1.5-2.5 cm long, petiolules 0.2-0.9 cm long, rather densely tomentose with multicelled trichomes. Inflorescence a terminal raceme, densely tannish tomentose, with pair of caducous obovate coriaceous bracts ca. 1.5 cm long subtending each node, each bract with several large plate-shaped glands, the pedicels 1-1.5 cm long, with pair of ca. 1-cm-long elliptic bracteoles near apex subtending calyx. Flowers with the calyx cupular, shallowly 5-dentate, 1214 mm long, 9-10 mm wide, tannish puberulous, with conspicuous plate-shaped glands near margin; corolla yellow, ? tubular, strongly bilabiately split almost to middle, ca. 3.5 cm long, ca. 1 cm wide at mouth of tube, the tube ca. 1.8 cm to base of split, the lower lobes narrow, ca. 1 cm long, the upper two lobes with free part ca. 3 mm long but basally fused to form 1.5-cm-long upper lip, densely puberulous outside except for base of tube; stamens subexserted, the thecae subparallel, pendulous, ca. 6 mm long; pistil and disk not examined. Fruit not