Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The role of ethylene during flooding of Phaseolus vulgaris

Wilting symptoms in Phaseolus vulgaris L. cv. bruine Noord-Hollandse were observed after a few hours of flooding. They were well correlated with an accumulation of ethylene. The ethylene level in the leaves started to increase after 2 h of flooding and reached a 3–4 fold rise after 4–6 h. From then on throughout the next two days it gradually returned to control values. On the day when plants were flooded, a positive correlation was found between the ethylene concentration and the degree of wilting. During this day the time course of abscisic acid (ABA) level, diffusion resistance and water potential was measured. The effect of ethylene on stomatal aperture was investigated by spraying Ethrel on the leaves. In control plants, Ethrel treatment had no influence on the diffusion resistance. Spraying plants with ABA resulted in a significant, dose-dependent increase in diffusion resistance. When Ethrel was added to the ABA-containing solutions only 62% of this increase was observed. Ethrel (pre-) treatment of plants that were to be flooded had a similar effect; the increase in diffusion resistance was only 70% of what was observed in untreated flooded plants. It is concluded that ethylene may interfere with the regulation of stomatal aperture by abscisic acid.
Migration patterns and diurnal use of shelter in a ranid frog of a West African savannah: a telemetric study

A telemetric study on Hoplobatrachus occipitalis (Anura: Ranidae) was conducted in the Comoe National Park (Ivory Coast, West Africa) from 1993 to 1995 during the beginning of the rainy seasons. Radio transmitters were implanted into 46 frogs. The locations of individual animals were tracked for 2 to 71 days, at least once per day and once per night. By day, the frogs were found in diurnal shelters that offered favorable temperature and humidity conditions as well as protection against predators. At night, with the beginning of the rainy season, both males and females occupied about equally large home ranges of on average 142 m 2 (range: 23-3744 m 2 ) in a partially dried-up river bed. Individuals with home ranges on rocky stretches along the river weighed significantly less (35 ± 9 g) and occupied significantly larger home ranges (median: 944 m 2 ) than did individuals found in places along the river having dense and shady vegetation (median of home range: 45 m 2 , body weight: 66 ± 21 g). Frogs migrated when precipitation was above 15 mm per day (movement >30 m per animal and day). Movement over longer distance (>600 m per animal and day) took place only once a year, when the first heavy rainfall of the season filled the dried-up ponds in the savannah. On these longer migrations, nearly all radio-tracked frogs moved from the river to newly emerged ponds in the savannah, covering linear distances of up to 1.4 km in a single night. The frogs then stayed in the savannah and most of them repeatedly sought new breeding sites during the rainy season. Thus, the total space covered by the frogs, termed "activity area", amounted to up to 2 km 2 , for both sexes, during the observation period.
Catalpol Attenuates Hepatic Steatosis by Regulating Lipid Metabolism via AMP-Activated Protein Kinase Activation

The increased prevalence of nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which develops from hepatic steatosis, represents a public health challenge. Catalpol, a natural component extracted from the roots of Radix Rehmanniae, has several pharmacological activities. The present study is aimed at examining whether catalpol prevents hepatic steatosis in cell and animal experiments and elucidating the possible mechanisms. HepG2 cells were treated with 300 μM palmitate (PA) and/or catalpol for 24 h in vitro, and male C57BL/6J mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) were administered catalpol for 18 weeks in vivo. The results revealed that catalpol significantly decreased lipid accumulation in PA-treated HepG2 cells. Moreover, catalpol drastically reduced body weight and lipid accumulation in the liver, whereas it ameliorated hepatocyte steatosis in HFD-fed mice. Notably, catalpol remarkably promoted the phosphorylation of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and acetyl-CoA carboxylase. Subsequently, catalpol repressed the expressions of lipogenesis-associated genes such as sterol regulatory element-binding protein 1c and fatty acid synthase but promoted the expressions of genes associated with fatty acid β-oxidation such as peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor α together with its target genes carnitine palmitoyltransferase 1 and acyl-CoA oxidase 1 (ACOX1). However, the preincubation of the HepG2 cells with compound C (10 μM), an AMPK inhibitor, prevented catalpol-mediated beneficial effects. These findings suggest that catalpol ameliorates hepatic steatosis by suppressing lipogenesis and enhancing fatty acid β-oxidation in an AMPK-dependent manner. Therefore, catalpol has potential as a novel agent in the treatment of NAFLD.
Population Suppression of Campylomma verbasci (Heteroptera: Miridae) by Atmospheric Permeation with Synthetic Sex Pheromone

Suppression of overwintering populations of Campylomma verbasci (Meyer) by atmospheric permeation with synthetic sex pheromone, 16:1 butyl butyrate: 2( E )-crotyl butyrate, was evaluated in apple orchards in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. Five 1-ha plots were each treated throughout late summer and fall 1993 and 1994 with 1,000 polyurethane dispensers (U8 mg load per dispenser). In 1993, dispensers were deployed singly. In 1994, 4 of 5 orchards were treated with 500 double-dispenser release points per hectare; the 5th orchard was treated as in 1993. Total pheromone applications modeled from laboratory release rates and hourly field temperatures were estimated to be 78.9 g/ha over 84 d and 80.6 g/ha over 75 d in 1993 and 1994, respectively. Compared with control plots, catches of adult males in pheromone-baited traps in treated plots from August to November in both years were reduced on average by 96%. Numbers of overwintering eggs laid in the fall were assessed the following spring by counting nymphs hatching from field-collected prunings and by limbtap samples. In 1994, numbers of 1st-generation nymphs were reduced significantly on average by 71 and 81% in 4 of 5 orchards as assessed by prunings and limb taps, respectively; damage samples at harvest corroborated these results. Switching from 1,000 to 500 release points per hectare in 1994 lessened the impact of treatment on numbers of 1st-generation nymphs in 1995. Despite reductions in numbers of overwintering nymphs, results were not consistent enough to suggest commercialization at this time. Because recent evidence shows that the dispensers may have been deployed after females had begun to lay overwintering eggs, efficacy might be improved by implementing treatments in mid-July. This is the first reported example of atmospheric permeation with synthetic sex pheromone causing a reduction in the population density of a heteropteran.
ALGAL INHIBITION BY YELLOW ULTRAVIOLET-ABSORBING SUBSTANCES FROM FUCUS VESICULOSUS

The yellow extracellular phenolic substances produced by Fucus vesiculosus were found to be toxic to all unicellular algae examined. Concentrations which completely inhibited growth varied from approximately 25 μg/ml for Monochrysis lutheri to more than 150 μg/ml for Porphyridium sp. The toxicity appeared to result from cellular lysis rather than a deficiency of trace metals or vitamins. After fractionation on a charcoal column, only the ethanolic eluate was found to be markedly toxic. Concentrations of 100 μg/ml of the aqueous eluate caused almost no inhibition of growth of Monochrysis. The toxic factor was largely destroyed by autoclaving. It could be passed through an ultrafilter of 24A pore size, and was active both in acidic and alkaline media. It is suggested that this excretory product from Fucus may have ecological significance.
Single-molecule optical spectroscopy of autofluorescent proteins

Several genetically encoded autofluorescent proteins are now available, in which the emission arises from the formation of a fluorophore directly from the amino acids of the protein sequence. These proteins are heavily used in cellular biology to assess gene expression and protein localization. The optical behavior of such proteins has recently been described in vitro at the single-molecule level. These investigations have explored several yellow-emitting mutants of the green fluorescent protein (GFP), the red-emitting DsRed protein, and the dual-GFP cameleon construct designed for fluorescence resonant energy transfer sensing of calcium ion binding. A variety of blinking, switching, and fluctuation effects have been observed, showing that several dark states are accessible after optical excitation, arising from variations in charge state, isomerization state, and photobleaching. The single-molecule spectroscopy of these systems will be surveyed by describing several illustrative examples. Although the au.
The impact of the dry eye syndrome on the quality of life in elderly patients-minireview

Abstract Dry eye syndrome (DES) is a multifactorial surface ocular disease often seen in elderly patients with a high impact on the quality of life. There are a lot of risk factors related to DES such as older age, female gender, postmenopausal estrogen therapy, lack of omega 3-fatty acid in the diet, medication (antihistamines), connective tissue illnesses, radiation therapy, corneal refractive surgery, cataract surgery, hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, vitamin A deficiency, hepatitis C, androgen deficiency, cicatricial pemphigoid. The diagnosis of DES implies classical and emerging examinations. There are several types of DES. It is very important to establish the type because the treatment is according to the cause. The treatment is based on artificial tears, topical steroids, Cyclosporine A, lubricants, punctual plugs and Fatty acids Omega 3.
Hierarchical Multiagent Reinforcement Learning for Maritime Traffic Management

Increasing global maritime traffic coupled with rapid digitization and automation in shipping mandate developing next generation maritime traffic management systems to mitigate congestion, increase safety of navigation, and avoid collisions in busy and geographically constrained ports (such as Singapore’s). To achieve these objectives, we model the maritime traffic as a large multiagent system with individual vessels as agents, and VTS (Vessel Traffic Service) authority as a regulatory agent. We develop a hierarchical reinforcement learning approach where vessels first select a high level action based on the underlying traffic flow, and then select the low level action that determines their future speed. We exploit the nature of collective interactions among agents to develop a policy gradient approach that can scale up to large real world problems. We also develop an effective multiagent credit assignment scheme that significantly improves the convergence of policy gradient. Extensive empirical results on synthetic and real world data from one of the busiest port in the world show that our approach consistently performs significantly better than the previous best approach. ACM Reference Format: Arambam James Singh, Akshat Kumar, and Hoong Chuin Lau. 2020. HierarchicalMultiagent Reinforcement Learning forMaritime TrafficManagement. In Proc. of the 19th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems (AAMAS 2020), Auckland, New Zealand, May 9–13, 2020,
The Future of Smallholder Farming in India: Some Sustainability Considerations

The biodiverse, predominantly crop-livestock mixed-farming in India is key to ensuring resilience to climate change and sustainability of smallholder farming agroecologies. Farmers traditionally grow diverse crops as polyculture, and agriculture is mainly organic/biodynamic with spirituality in food systems deeply ingrained. Job-driven out-migration of rural youths, the family labor force, and globalization of contemporary food choices under corporate industrial agriculture both adversely affect sustainability of traditional farming landscapes and compromise the nutrition and health of rural farming communities. Besides documenting information on general agri-food system policy inputs, our paper presents the results of an exploratory study of four crucial community-level initiatives conducted in four distinct agroecological landscapes of India, aimed at bringing sustainability to traditional farming and food systems. The driving force for fundamental change in agri-food system, and in society, is the question of sustainability. The organic and local food movements are but specific phases of the larger, more fundamental sustainable agri-food movement. While it is very critical to increase farmer livelihood, it is even more important to increase overall rural economy. It was found that four important interventions viz. linking organic agriculture to community-supported agriculture (CSA) initiatives; linking small-holder farming to school meal (MDM) programmes; enhanced market access and value chain development for local agricultural produce; and creation of employment opportunities at community level for rural youths and reducing over-dependence of rural population on agriculture as source of income can make traditional farming more profitable and sustainable. The transition to more sustainable methods of farming by selling the farm produce “locally” helps both consumers and farmers alike and is considered a future strength of smallholder Indian agriculture.
Quantifying the Effect of Social Presence on Online Social Conformity

Social conformity occurs when individuals in group settings change their personal opinion to be in agreement with the majority's position. While recent literature frequently reports on conformity in online group settings, the causes for online conformity are yet to be fully understood. This study aims to understand how social presencei.e. , the sense of being connected to others via mediated communication, influences conformity among individuals placed in online groups while answering subjective and objective questions. Acknowledging its multifaceted nature, we investigate three aspects of online social presence: user representation (generic vs.user-specific avatars), interactivity (discussion vs.no discussion ), and response visibility (public vs.private ). Our results show an overall conformity rate of 30% and main effects from task objectivity, group size difference between the majority and the minority, and self-confidence on personal answer. Furthermore, we observe an interaction effect between interactivity and response visibility, such that conformity is highest in the presence of peer discussion and public responses, and lowest when these two elements are absent. We conclude with a discussion on the implications of our findings in designing online group settings, accounting for the effects of social presence on conformity.
Neural Replicator Dynamics.

Policy gradient and actor-critic algorithms form the basis of many commonly used training techniques in deep reinforcement learning. Using these algorithms in multiagent environments poses problems such as nonstationarity and instability. In this paper, we first demonstrate that standard softmax-based policy gradient can be prone to poor performance in the presence of even the most benign nonstationarity. By contrast, it is known that the replicator dynamics, a well-studied model from evolutionary game theory, eliminates dominated strategies and exhibits convergence of the time-averaged trajectories to interior Nash equilibria in zero-sum games. Thus, using the replicator dynamics as a foundation, we derive an elegant one-line change to policy gradient methods that simply bypasses the gradient step through the softmax, yielding a new algorithm titled Neural Replicator Dynamics (NeuRD). NeuRD reduces to the exponential weights/Hedge algorithm in the single-state all-actions case. Additionally, NeuRD has formal equivalence to softmax counterfactual regret minimization, which guarantees convergence in the sequential tabular case. Importantly, our algorithm provides a straightforward way of extending the replicator dynamics to the function approximation setting. Empirical results show that NeuRD quickly adapts to nonstationarities, outperforming policy gradient significantly in both tabular and function approximation settings, when evaluated on the standard imperfect information benchmarks of Kuhn Poker, Leduc Poker, and Goofspiel.
New Educational Model to Promote Breast CancerYPreventive Behaviors (ASSISTS)

Breast cancer Educational model Preventive behaviors Women Background: The prevalence of breast cancer in Iran has increased. An effective approach to decrease the burden of breast cancer is prevention.Objective: The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate an educational model, called the ASSISTS, for promoting breast cancerYpreventive behaviors in women. Methods: A multiphase method was used to develop the model designed to promote breast cancer prevention behaviors. A conceptual model was generated based on a secondary analysis of qualitative data. Then, a structural equation model technique was used to test the relationships among the model constructs. Results: The analysis revealed that 7 constructs could be extracted, namely, perceived social support, attitude, motivation, self-efficacy, information seeking, stress management, and self-care. Based on these constructs, a conceptual model was built and tested using structural equation modeling. The model fit was good, and the model confirmed significant relationships among the 7 constructs of breast cancer prevention. Conclusion: Findings revealed that self-care behavior and stress management are influenced directly by attitude, motivation, self-efficacy, information seeking, and social support. In addition, women seek more information when they are motivated, have more self-efficacy, have a more positive attitude toward breast cancer prevention, and experience more social support. Implication for Practice: Cancer nurses can be at the forefront of breast cancer prevention. Because they can play a pivotal role in providing information, they can
Community and ecotourist perceptions of forest conservation benefits:a case study of Mabira Central Forest Reserve, Uganda

The different interests in forest resources by various stakeholders may result in differences in perceived value of forest conservation. In order to test this hypothesis, we compared the valuation by international ecotourists and local respondents of the perceived benefits of the Mabira Central Forest Reserve. The factors that influenced respondents’ valuation of forest conservation were also investigated. Describing a hypothetical scenario to elicit respondents’ willingness-to-pay (WTP) for forest conservation was the central part of the questionnaire. The WTP;income ratio was used to estimate respondents’ perceived value of forest conservation. A chi-square (χ 2) test indicated significant association between respondent category (local and tourist) and categories of perceived benefits (p-value = 0.001). The locals were more interested in direct-use values while the tourists showed greater interest in the indirect-use values. A Student's t-test showed that the WTP:income ratios of the locals were much higher than for the ecotourists (p-value < 0.001). This implies that the local communities had a higher valuation of forest conservation than the ecotourists. Regression analysis revealed that all other factors being constant, the WTP of respondents who perceived direct- and indirect-use value as the most important forest benefit was significantly higher (p < 0.05) than those who perceived no value by $5.8693 and $0.02628, respectively. The respondents who rated the contribution of the ecotourism project to community development as moderate had a significantly higher WTP compared to those who rated it as low by $6.6908. Overall, these results indicate that the benefits people derive from the forest either through direct or indirect uses influence valuation of forest conservation. Results also indicate that although ecotourismrelated benefits improved attitudes towards forest conservation, ecotourism alone may not be an adequate conservation tool because of the limited support it can provide to the local community.
Factors affecting the bioconcentration of hexachlorocyclohexanes in early life stages of Oncorhynchus mykiss

A commercial mixture of α-, β-, γ-, and δ-hexachlorocyclohexane (-HCH) isomers has been tested for bioconcentration on early life stages of Oncorhynchus mykiss. Experimental results were elaborated by means of BIOCON, an interactive program for personal computers that provides bioconcentration factors (BCFs) and kinetic uptake and depuration coefficients as well as their standard deviations. The comparisons performed on a statistical basis evidenced few differences among the bioconcentration capability of larval stages, contrary to what was observed in previous studies with other chemicals. In the early juvenile stage, α- and δ-HCH are characterized by higher BCFs than the γ-isomer. The role of lipids is also investigated. The total lipid content seems to play a major role in influencing bioaccumulation parameters but cannot thoroughly explain BCF variability, which must be ascribed to other factors such as life stage and lipid composition.
Sampling method influences the structure of plant–pollinator networks

The search for general properties in the structure of ecological networks is currently a very active area of research. Meta-analyses of published networks are a widely used technique. To have the best chance of discovering common properties though, networks should be constructed using a standardized approach. However, this is rarely the case, and pollination networks are constructed using two main methods: transects and timed observations. To investigate the potential for variation in network structure arising from different construction techniques we constructed plant–pollinator networks using two different methods at a single site, repeating our protocol over three field seasons. Transects and timed observation methods differ in the evenness of observation effort allocated among plant species in the observed community. We show that the uneven allocation of observation effort significantly affects the number of unique interactions in the network, and we reveal a strong trend in effects on web asymmetry and evenness of marginal abundance distributions. However, these effects do not appear to extend to the higher-order properties of connectance and nestedness.