Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Environmental impact of geometric earthwork construction in pre-Columbian Amazonia

Significance The discovery of extensive geometric earthworks beneath apparently pristine rainforest across southern Amazonia has fueled debate over the scale of environmental impact caused by ancient human societies. Whereas some claim that these sites are evidence of vast deforestation by populous pre-Columbian (pre-A.D. 1492) societies, others propose a model of small-scale, localized clearance. We tested these contrasting hypotheses by reconstructing environmental change in a region of geometric earthworks in northeast Bolivia over the last 6,000 y. Our unexpected findings reveal a surprising third scenario, in which earthwork builders took advantage of a naturally open savanna landscape, which existed under drier-than-present climatic conditions before ∼2,000 y ago. This finding suggests lower environmental impact, less labor, and possibly a smaller population than previously assumed. There is considerable controversy over whether pre-Columbian (pre-A.D. 1492) Amazonia was largely “pristine” and sparsely populated by slash-and-burn agriculturists, or instead a densely populated, domesticated landscape, heavily altered by extensive deforestation and anthropogenic burning. The discovery of hundreds of large geometric earthworks beneath intact rainforest across southern Amazonia challenges its status as a pristine landscape, and has been assumed to indicate extensive pre-Columbian deforestation by large populations. We tested these assumptions using coupled local- and regional-scale paleoecological records to reconstruct land use on an earthwork site in northeast Bolivia within the context of regional, climate-driven biome changes. This approach revealed evidence for an alternative scenario of Amazonian land use, which did not necessitate labor-intensive rainforest clearance for earthwork construction. Instead, we show that the inhabitants exploited a naturally open savanna landscape that they maintained around their settlement despite the climatically driven rainforest expansion that began ∼2,000 y ago across the region. Earthwork construction and agriculture on terra firme landscapes currently occupied by the seasonal rainforests of southern Amazonia may therefore not have necessitated large-scale deforestation using stone tools. This finding implies far less labor—and potentially lower population density—than previously supposed. Our findings demonstrate that current debates over the magnitude and nature of pre-Columbian Amazonian land use, and its impact on global biogeochemical cycling, are potentially flawed because they do not consider this land use in the context of climate-driven forest–savanna biome shifts through the mid-to-late Holocene.
Mandatory Adoption of IFRS in Emerging Markets: The Case of Turkey

European-listed companies and many emerging countries have been required to present their consolidated financial statements in compliance with the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) since 2005. Having cross-border comparability and transparency with this uniform accounting system is expected to provide higher accounting quality and value relevance. Evaluation of financial performance in terms of value relevance of IFRS is not only vital for existing investors or stakeholders but also for those who want to invest at the international level. Thus, in this study, we examine the value relevance of earnings and book value of equity on share prices through using Ohlson (1995) valuation model. While 2001 to 2004 is conducted as the pre-IFRS period, 2005-2008 is a post-IFRS period to display the change in value relevance in the same number of years. Our sample includes only nonfinancial firms that operate on BIST index. Since financial firms are subject to different regulations, we exclude them from the sample. The results show that the accounting information produced under IFRS is more value relevant. We test the value relevance with both cross-sectional and pooled regression for the periods. In addition, we use panel data analysis (survival analysis) to validate the increase in value relevance between the periods. We also test the firm size and earnings announcement effect on value relevance for robustness.
[Histological and histochemical effects of tribendimidine on Necator americanus].

Tribendimidine (N. N/-bis[4-(l-dimethylamino) ethyliderie aminophenyl]1,4-phenylene-dimethylidyneamine) synthesized by this Institute was more stable than amidantel. To evaluate the mode of action of tribendimidine on Necator americanus. golden hamsters infected with about 500 Necator cimeri.covuts larvae for 55 d were administered a single oral dose of 100 mg/kg. 3,6,12 and 15 h after the administration. worms in hamsters were collected and examined morphologically, histologically and histochemically. The results: 1) The number of inactive worms increased from 14.0 to 98.0% 3-15 h after medication; 2) Worms were stiff with their body walls thickened and the internal structures were indistinct. Some worms were disrupted 12-15 h after treatment: 3) The worms showed cuticle swelling and roughening, muscular vacuolation, microvillus desquamation and epithelial cells degeneration and necrosis. The ova at different developmental stages exhibited vacuolation. necrosis or disintegration; 4) The glycogen content. ACP and ATPase activity of the worms decreased markedly 3-6 h after medication and mostly disappeared 12-15 h after medication. It is suggested that the interference of carbohydrate metabolism of Necator americanus by tribendimidine is one of the factors causing the death of the worms.
Innovation and Logistics Strategies in the Wine Sector: The Role of Proximities

The objective of this paper is to identify how companies of the Burgundian wine sector articulate the proximities to manage their downstream logistics strategy (departure from the enterprise to client) and the innovations they have implemented to solve their logistical problems. An analysis, based on information collected from 36 companies in Burgundy, has allowed us to classify firms into four categories according to the articulation of proximities implemented by companies: geographical and organized proximities but also circulatory proximity that takes into account the quality and reliability of transport.
Larvae from afar colonize deep-sea hydrothermal vents after a catastrophic eruption

The planktonic larval stage is a critical component of life history in marine benthic species because it confers the ability to disperse, potentially connecting remote populations and leading to colonization of new sites. Larval-mediated connectivity is particularly intriguing in deep-sea hydrothermal vent communities, where the habitat is patchy, transient, and often separated by tens or hundreds of kilometers. A recent catastrophic eruption at vents near 9°50′N on the East Pacific Rise created a natural clearance experiment and provided an opportunity to study larval supply in the absence of local source populations. Previous field observations have suggested that established vent populations may retain larvae and be largely self-sustaining. If this hypothesis is correct, the removal of local populations should result in a dramatic change in the flux, and possibly species composition, of settling larvae. Fortuitously, monitoring of larval supply and colonization at the site had been established before the eruption and resumed shortly afterward. We detected a striking change in species composition of larvae and colonists after the eruption, most notably the appearance of the gastropod Ctenopelta porifera, an immigrant from possibly more than 300 km away, and the disappearance of a suite of species that formerly had been prominent. This switch demonstrates that larval supply can change markedly after removal of local source populations, enabling recolonization via immigrants from distant sites with different species composition. Population connectivity at this site appears to be temporally variable, depending not only on stochasticity in larval supply, but also on the presence of resident populations.
Chinese companies' cross-border mergers and acquisitions performance : evidence from inward and outward deals

This dissertation focuses on the Chinese cross-border M&As (mergers and acquisitions) market of public companies’ performance. The study precisely identifies short-term performance surrounding a M&A announcement that a public Chinese company is acquiring an overseas firm or is being targeted. The key words of these three chapters are method of payment, public status, and acquirer industry. This study measures short-term performance by investigating CARs (cumulative average abnormal returns). The windows are approximately 2 days and 5 days before and after a M&A announcement. The time span is 15 years (2002–2016) for Chinese public companies’ cross-border transactions and 23 years (1994-2016) for transactions targeting Chinese public companies. The first chapter demonstrates that cash transactions outperform stock transactions although more public Chinese companies chose stock to finance transactions. The second chapter demonstrates that an acquired public overseas target underperforms compared with targeting private companies. In addition, the transaction volume indicates that most bidder companies made the right decision. The third chapter demonstrates that overseas financial institutions are more likely (over 60% of transactions) to acquire Chinese public companies in all industries. These investors do bring abnormal returns to their target companies.
Two Photobiological Pathways of Phytochrome A Activity, Only One of Which Shows Dominant Negative Suppression by Phytochrome B

Abstract The plant receptor phytochrome A (phyA) mediates responses like hypocotyl growth inhibition and cotyledon unfolding that require continuous far-red (FR) light for maximum expression (high-irradiance responses, HIR), and responses like seed germination that can be induced by a single pulse of FR (very-low-fluence responses, VLFR). It is not known whether this duality results from either phyA interaction with different end-point processes or from the intrinsic properties of phyA activity. Etiolated seedlings of Arabidopsis thaliana were exposed to pulses of FR (3 min) separated by dark intervals of different duration. Hypocotyl-growth inhibition and cotyledon unfolding showed two phases. The first phase (VLFR) between 0.17 and 0.5 pulses·h−1, a plateau between 0.5 and 2 pulses·h−1 and a second phase (HIR) at higher frequencies. Reciprocity between fluence rate and duration of FR was observed within phases, not between phases. The fluence rate for half the maximum effect was 0.1 and 3 μmol·m−2·s−1 for hourly pulses of FR (VLFR) and continuous FR (HIR), respectively. Overexpression of phytochrome B caused dominant negative suppression under continuous but not under hourly FR. We conclude that phyA is intrinsically able to initiate two discrete photoresponses even when a single end-point process is considered.
Resveratrol modulates the proliferation and migration of retinal pigment epithelial cells through TGFβ1-induced EMT signal pathway

Retinal Pigment Epithelial (RPE) cells play important roles in progression of human ophthalmic diseases. Evidences have showed that Resveratrol (RV) presents benefits for the treatment of ophthalmic diseases. In this study, we investigated the potential molecular mechanism mediated by RV in RPE cells. Transforming Growth Factor beta1 (TGFβ1) and Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) signal pathway was analysed in RPE cells determined by Western blot analysis and RT-PCR. Results demonstrated that RV treatment (10 mg/ml) significantly inhibited proliferation and migration of RPE cells. We showed that RV treatment inhibited TGFβ1 and EMT markers Fibronectin (FIB), alphasmooth muscle actin (α-SMA), and Vimentin (VIM) expression in RPE cells. Inhibition of endogenous TGFβ1 decreased FIB, α-SMA and VIM expression levels in RPE cells as well as inhibited proliferation and migration of RPE cells. TGFβ1 overexpression stimulated EMT markers FSP1, E-cadherin and Snail expression levels in RPE cells. Overexpression of TGFβ1 cancelled RV-down-regulated FIB, α- SMA and VIM expression in RPE cells. Overexpression of TGFβ1 also abolished RV-suppressed proliferation and migration of RPE cells. In conclusion, this study describes the RV-regulated molecular mechanism in RPE cells through TGFβ1-induced EMT signaling and suggests that RV would be a potential therapeutic agent for the prevention or treatment of Proliferative Vitreoretinopathy (PRV).
A Novel Method to Research the Performance of Channel Diversity

In the wireless fading environment, channel diversity is an effective method to improve the performance of wireless communication, while there are no uniform criteria to quantify the performance of channel diversity. Generally, channel diversity can achieve the benefits of energy gain and diversity gain, a novel method using energy order and diversity order to quantify the performance of channel diversity is proposed this paper, theory analysis and simulation results testified the validity of this method.
Distributions of two homologous synaptic vesicle proteins, synaptoporin and synaptophysin, in the mammalian retina

Synaptophysin and synaptoporin are homologous proteins that are among the most abundant synaptic vesicle proteins. Despite their high degree of sequence similarity, they are differentially distributed in the brain. The distribution of synaptophysin and synaptoporin was examined in the adult rat and rabbit retina by using single‐ and double‐labeling immunocytochemistry with conventional light microscopy and confocal laser scanning microscopy. In the rat retina, synaptophysin immunoreactivity was found in the outer plexiform layer in terminals of photoreceptors and was homogeneously distributed throughout the inner plexiform layer. Synaptoporin immunoreactivity, however, was restricted to the inner plexiform layer. Labeling was most prominent in three distinct bands of the inner plexiform layer separated by two bands of very low synaptoporin immunoreactivity. In the rabbit retina, synaptophysin and synaptoporin immunoreactivity were found in the inner and outer plexiform layers. In the inner plexiform layer, labeling for both vesicle proteins was homogeneous, with no detectable stratification. In the outer plexiform layer, synaptophysin was present in photoreceptor terminals, and synaptoporin was present in horizontal cells. Staining of isolated rabbit retinal cells confirmed that both the axonless A type and the axon‐bearing B type horizontal cells are immunoreactive for synaptoporin. In addition, electron microscopy of synaptoporin‐immunostained rabbit retinas revealed no labeling of photoreceptor terminals but of putative synaptic sites in horizontal cells in the outer plexiform layer. No functional correlation was found in the expression of either synaptic vesicle protein with the type of neuron or synapse (ribbon or conventional). © 1996 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Bridging the Gap: A Reticulo-Propriospinal Detour Bypassing an Incomplete Spinal Cord Injury

Anatomically incomplete spinal cord injuries are often followed by considerable functional recovery in patients and animal models, largely because of processes of neuronal plasticity. In contrast to the corticospinal system, where sprouting of fibers and rearrangements of circuits in response to lesions have been well studied, structural adaptations within descending brainstem pathways and intraspinal networks are poorly investigated, despite the recognized physiological significance of these systems across species. In the present study, spontaneous neuroanatomical plasticity of severed bulbospinal systems and propriospinal neurons was investigated following unilateral C4 spinal hemisection in adult rats. Injection of retrograde tracer into the ipsilesional segments C3-C4 revealed a specific increase in the projection from the ipsilesional gigantocellular reticular nucleus in response to the injury. Substantial regenerative fiber sprouting of reticulospinal axons above the injury site was demonstrated by anterograde tracing. Regrowing reticulospinal fibers exhibited excitatory, vGLUT2-positive varicosities, indicating their synaptic integration into spinal networks. Reticulospinal fibers formed close appositions onto descending, double-midline crossing C3-C4 propriospinal neurons, which crossed the lesion site in the intact half of the spinal cord and recrossed to the denervated cervical hemicord below the injury. These propriospinal projections around the lesion were significantly enhanced after injury. Our results suggest that severed reticulospinal fibers, which are part of the phylogenetically oldest motor command system, spontaneously arborize and form contacts onto a plastic propriospinal relay, thereby bypassing the lesion. These rearrangements were accompanied by substantial locomotor recovery, implying a potential physiological relevance of the detour in restoration of motor function after spinal injury.
The Effect of Company Characteristics and Corporate Governance on the Practices of Intellectual Capital Disclosure

This study aimed to reveal the effect of company characteristics, company size i.e., profitability, leverage, liquidity, and industry type; and corporate governance structure, consisting of the audit firm size and the independent commissioners’ composition, on the intellectual capital disclosure. This research applied quantitative approach by testing seven independent variables through multiple linear regression analysis. The samples taken were 80 annual reports from companies listed in the LQ-45 index in the year 2012-2013. The method employed to select the samples was purposive sampling. Content analysis was applied to analyze the intellectual capital disclosure. This study revealed that only the company size showed significant positive impact to the disclosure of intellectual capital, while profitability, leverage, liquidity, industry type, the audit firm size, and the independent commissioners composition did not bring significant effect. In addition, based on the results of content analysis it can be concluded that the intellectual capital disclosure is quite low, amounting to 46.9%, with relational capital amounted to 34.74%, 32.54% of structural capital, and human capital reached 32.71%.
High-dose-rate prostate brachytherapy inverse planning on dose-volume criteria by simulated annealing

High-dose-rate brachytherapy is a tumor treatment method where a highly radioactive source is brought in close proximity to the tumor. In this paper we develop a simulated annealing algorithm to optimize the dwell times at preselected dwell positions to maximize tumor coverage under dose-volume constraints on the organs at risk. Compared to existing algorithms, our algorithm has advantages in terms of speed and objective value and does not require an expensive general purpose solver. Its success mainly depends on exploiting the efficiency of matrix multiplication and a careful selection of the neighboring states. In this paper we outline its details and make an in-depth comparison with existing methods using real patient data.
Design of conventional three-stage CMOS comparator in 90-nm CMOS technology and comparative analysis with its counterparts

Comparators, as the name suggests, compare an analog signal with a reference signal, and outputs the signal in form of a binary signal. Dynamic comparators are widely employed, for their high speed. A comparator plays crucial role in the conversion of the analog signals to digital. This paper puts forth the design of the conventional three-stage comparator in 90-nm CMOS technology. The paper also provides a comparative analysis of the conventional comparator with the latch-based and hysteresis-based comparators. The circuit design and analysis has been done using Cadence.
How do you know?

Some thoughts on judging efficacy in treating patients with uveitis How do you know if your patient improves with any particular therapy? In the treatment of patients with vision threatening uveitis, the primary goal of therapy is far from universally accepted. Should the end point be improvement in visual acuity? An obvious choice but flawed since many patients benefit without a discernable change in acuity measurements. Cataract and macular scars can limit the improvement in acuity even as inflammation is controlled. In addition, acuity measurements do not reflect lighting, effort, or the sporadic variability that some patients observe with uveitis. Should the goal be reduced inflammation as judged by examination? How about improved visual function as judged by patient questionnaire or by physician assessment? Can a drug be deemed efficacious if it results solely in the reduction in a potentially toxic medication such as corticosteroid? Is stabilisation of acuity an adequate goal? If judging benefit is so complex, is there a way to use a single instrument to accommodate multiple potential end points? As we enter an era of trying to base medical decision making on evidence, we …
Financial Safety Nets in Emerging Market Economies

Why have financial safety nets in emerging market economies expanded dramatically in recent years? This dissertation argues that emerging market economies have increasingly turned to domestic financial safety nets as the politically viable solution to the puzzle of how to combine international financial integration and domestic credit growth with domestic financial stability. Yet the widespread proliferation of state-level financial safety nets was not an inevitable outcome, but a common response by emerging market economies to the general unwillingness of the large financial powers to provide robust international equivalents. Indeed, despite the many emerging market financial crises in the post-Bretton Woods era, international financial safety nets remained weak, or, at best, supplied as global club goods. Yet despite this common motivation and the widespread expansion in financial safety nets, there is significant variation in their size and scope across countries and across time. Three explanatory variables stand out in this regard. First, the geopolitical closeness and relative degree of financial integration with the United States sets the parameters regarding a state’s relative access to an international financial safety net. A formal model and anecdotal case study evidence suggests that, all else equal, states with greater access to an international financial safety net face fewer incentives to provision an equivalent domestic financial safety net. Second, the relative degree and pace of democratization, as well as the desire for governments to legitimate their rule via high rates of private credit growth, has pushed governments to supply more expansive financial safety nets. Third, the degree of independence the agent in control of the financial safety net has from political authority has tended to boost financial safety nets. This effect was found to be operative with respect to independent central banks and resolution authorities operating with formal independence (Turkey) or with few effective political constraints (Mexico).