Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Complete nutrient composition of commercially raised invertebrates used as food for insectivores

A variety of invertebrates are commonly fed to insectivorous animals by both zoos and hobbyists, but information as to the nutrient composition of most commercially raised species is limited. Adult house crickets, house cricket nymphs (Acheta domesticus), superworms (Zophobas morio larvae), giant mealworm larvae, mealworm larvae and adult mealworms (Tenebrio molitor), waxworm larvae (Galleria mellonella), and silkworm larvae (Bombyx mori) were analyzed for moisture, crude protein, crude fat, ash, acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF), minerals, amino acids, fatty acids, and vitamins. Earthworms (Lumbricus terresstris) were analyzed for moisture, crude protein, crude fat, ash, ADF, NDF, minerals, amino acids, and vitamins A and D3. Proximate analyses were variable, with wide ranges found for moisture (57.9–83.6%), crude protein (9.3–23.7%), crude fat (1.6–24.9%), ADF (0.1–7.4%), NDF (0.0–11.5%), and ash (0.6–1.2%). Energy content ranged from a low of 674 kcal/kg for silkworms to 2,741 kcal/kg for waxworms.Using an amino acid scoring pattern for rats, the first limiting amino acid for all invertebrates tested was the total sulfur amino acid methionine+cystine. Deficiencies by nutrient (% of samples deficient vs. NRC requirements for rats on a dry matter (DM) basis) were as follows: calcium (100%), vitamin D3 (100%), vitamin A (89%), vitamin B12 (75%), thiamin (63%), vitamin E (50%), iodine (44%), manganese (22%), methionine-cystine (22%), and sodium (11%). Deficiencies by invertebrate species (number of nutrients deficient vs. the NRC requirements for rats on a DM basis) were as follows: waxworms (9), superworms (8), giant mealworm larvae (7), adult mealworms (6), mealworm larvae (5), adult house crickets (4), house cricket nymphs (4), silkworms (4), and earthworms (4). These data provide a basis for determining nutrient intake of captive insectivores, and will aid in the development of gut-loading diets to provide captive insectivorous animals with appropriate levels of necessary nutrients. Zoo Biol 21:269–285, 2002. © 2002 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
Physiological responses to drought stress of transgenic Chinese cabbage expressing Arabidopsis H+-pyrophosphatase

Plant tolerance to drought is a beneficial trait for stabilizing crop productivity under water deficits. Here we report that genetically engineered Chinese cabbage expressing Arabidopsis H-pyrophosphatase (AVP1) shows enhanced physiological parameters related to drought tolerance. In comparison with wild type plants under soil water deficit stress created by cessation of irrigation, soil water potential in pot with AVP1-expressing plants was more rapidly decreased that might lead to increased relative water content in leaves, while both genotypes had indistinguishable wilting phenotypes. Transgenic plants subjected to drought treatment also exhibited higher photosystem II quantum yield in addition to lower electrolyte leakage and H2O2-3,3’-diaminobenzidine content when compared to wild type plants.
A multilevel growth assessment of the diffusion of management innovation nested in state levels: The case of US local economic development programs

Abstract The practice of local public programs is an interesting topic for the study of the diffusion of management innovation. Based on previous research on the diffusion of innovative policy in state governments, this research employs a panel design to analyse the passage of management innovation related to local economic development programs. Panel data drawn from 1994, 1999, and 2004 USA International City/County Management Association (ICMA) surveys on economic developments of municipal and county governments were used. Using a multilevel growth curve model, the findings indicated that the diffusion of management innovation (e.g., adoption of economic development plans and performance measures) did not spread as expected between and within the localities sampled, even if management innovation has become a widespread practice in federal and state governments. However, our estimates found that the diffusion factors (e.g., internal determinants, learning, and competitiveness) contributed to the adoption of a performance measure and to an economic development plan to retain and attract local businesses and to drive economic growth. Using a panel design (rather than a cross-sectional study) to look at the changes of adoption of management innovation, this research examined the diffusion of policy innovations in local management. State factors are found to have an impact on local practices in the USA.
EFFECT OF DUAL INOCULATION WITH ARBUSCULAR MYCORRHIZAL FUNGI AND BACTERIA ON GROWTH AND MINERAL NUTRITION OF STRAWBERRY

ABSTRACT Micropropagated plants of Fragaria x ananassa (cv. Senga sengana) were post-vitro inoculated in two experiments with the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi Glomus fasciculatum, Glomus etunicatum and or Glomus claroideum and with bacterial isolates obtained from plant rhizosphere, from mycorrhizal mycelium and from root-free substrate. In the first experiment, the inoculation with the bacterial isolate M30 (from mycorrhizal mycelium) and with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi G. fasciculatum and G. etunicatum significantly increased the plant growth. Bacteria frequently stimulated development of mycorrhiza, particularly the growth and dehydrogenase activity of extraradical mycorrhizal mycelium. In the second experiment, the isolate-specific effects of bacteria and mycorrhizal fungi were found at different doses of phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N). The interaction between nutritional regime, bacteria and the fungi may be a determining factor of mycorrhizal symbiosis efficiency as regards possible benefits in stimulation of plant growth.
The limits of the Araneoidea (Arachnida : Araneae)

A comparative morphological study of the following spider families is presented: Anapidae, Microphol-commatidae, Textricellidae, Mimetidae, Malkaridae, Archaeidae and Pararchaeidae. The results provide strong evidence for the placement of Textricellidae and Micropholcommatidae in the Araneoidea. Among others, probably the best autapomorphic character for the Araneoidea, the triad (three spigots together producing the gluey capture thread) could be found in all six species of micropholcommatids and textricellids in both females and males. Within the Araneoidea, these two families share many characters with the Anapidae, thus their assignment to the higher symphytognathoids is most likely to be correct. The presence of a labral spur in the Micropholcommatidae is also verified. Mimetidae and Malkaridae are most probably araneoid. The position and monophyly of the Archaeidae s.l. remains doubtful. The Palpimanoidea, which was considerably enlarged in a revision by Forster and Platnick (1984), is therefore here cut back to its original size.
An Examination of the Business Strategies in the Second Life Virtual Market

Abstract Second Life (SL) is now experiencing its own dystopia. The SL in-world market is crowded with homogenous products and erects few entry barriers. This study thus took a diagnostic approach using real-world business strategies of cost leadership, differentiation, and focus to examine whether the largest businesses are creating a defendable position in the market and what choices they have to obtain competitive advantage. The analysis of the 20 largest SL businesses showed that no businesses pursued a pure strategic thrust, 9 businesses adopted hybrid strategies such as a cost-focus mix, and the rest were stuck in the middle or had unclear strategic actions. The present study suggests that treating hybrid strategies as a stepping stone to strategy purity may be a way to create competitive advantage.
Abundance, species richness and energy availability in the North American avifauna

Aim To determine how species richness, abundance, biomass, energy use and mean number of individuals per species scale with environmental energy availability in wintering and breeding avian assemblages, and to contrast assemblages of (i) common and rare species and (ii) breeding residents and migrants. To assess whether such patterns are compatible with the ‘more individuals hypothesis’ (MIH) that high-energy areas are species-rich because they support larger populations that are buffered against extinction. Location The North American continent (latitudinal range 23.4 °−48.1 °N; longitudinal range 124.2°−68.7° W). Methods Avian species richness, abundance, biomass and energy use were calculated for 295 Resident Bird Count plots. Environmental energy availability was measured using ambient temperature and the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), a close correlate of plant productivity. Analyses took plot area into account, and were conducted (with and without taking habitat type into account) using general linear models and spatial mixed models. Results Positive species–energy relationships were exhibited by both wintering and breeding assemblages, but were stronger in the former. The structure of winter assemblages responded more strongly to temperature than NDVI, while breeding assemblages tended to respond more strongly to NDVI. Breeding residents responded to annual measures of energy availability while breeding migrants and the winter assemblage responded more strongly to seasonal measures. In the winter assemblage, rare and common species exhibited species–energy relationships of a similar strength, but common breeding species exhibited a much stronger relationship than rare breeding species. In both breeding and wintering assemblages, abundance, biomass and energy use increased with energy availability and species richness. Energy availability was a poor predictor of the mean number of individuals per species. Main conclusions The nature of the species–energy relationship varies seasonally and with the manner in which energy availability is measured. Our data suggest that residents are less able to respond to seasonal fluxes in resource availability than long-distance migrants. Increasing species richness and energy availability is associated with increasing numbers of individuals, biomass and energy use. While these observations are compatible with the MIH our data provide only equivocal support for this hypothesis, as the rarest species do not exhibit the strongest species–energy relationships.
A Physio-Morphological Trait-Based Approach for Breeding Drought Tolerant Wheat

In the past, there have been drought events in different parts of the world, which have negatively influenced the productivity and production of various crops including wheat (Triticum aestivum L.), one of the world’s three important cereal crops. Breeding new high yielding drought-tolerant wheat varieties is a research priority specifically in regions where climate change is predicted to result in more drought conditions. Commonly in breeding for drought tolerance, grain yield is the basis for selection, but it is a complex, late-stage trait, affected by many factors aside from drought. A strategy that evaluates genotypes for physiological responses to drought at earlier growth stages may be more targeted to drought and time efficient. Such an approach may be enabled by recent advances in high-throughput phenotyping platforms (HTPPs). In addition, the success of new genomic and molecular approaches rely on the quality of phenotypic data which is utilized to dissect the genetics of complex traits such as drought tolerance. Therefore, the first objective of this review is to describe the growth-stage based physio-morphological traits that could be targeted by breeders to develop drought-tolerant wheat genotypes. The second objective is to describe recent advances in high throughput phenotyping of drought tolerance related physio-morphological traits primarily under field conditions. We discuss how these strategies can be integrated into a comprehensive breeding program to mitigate the impacts of climate change. The review concludes that there is a need for comprehensive high throughput phenotyping of physio-morphological traits that is growth stage-based to improve the efficiency of breeding drought-tolerant wheat.
Effect of soil temperature on growth of seedlings of a few fruit vegetables (a preliminary report)

There occures sometimes growth suppression not only due to low air temperature, but also low soil temperature in the cultivation of fruit vegetables under plastic coverings. In the gravel culture also, the temperature of nutrient solution has an important relation to plant growth.This preliminary investigation was designed to study the effect of soil temperature on the growth of tomato, cucumber and sweet pepper seedlings, using the apparatus maintained with constant soil temperatures under glass.1. Tomato seedlings with 10 expanded leaves were treated for 7 days, with different soil temperatures, viz. 10°, 15°, 20°, 25°, 30°and 35°C. Air temperature was maintained at 20°C constant in every treatment. The optimum range of soil temperature for top growth was found to be 20°-30°C. Beyond this range, the top growth of seedlings decreased.2. Cucumber seedlings with 7 expanded leaves were treated for 10 days with different soil temperatures above mentioned. In this case, air temperature fluctuated between 25°and 15°C. The top growth was the best in the soil temperature range of 25°-35°C, and decreased at the temperatures lower than this range.3. Under the fluctuating air temperature 25°-20°C, the seedlings of sweet pepper and tomato were treated for 10 days with different soil temperatures, 10°, 15°and 25°C. At lower temperatures as 10°-15°C, the growth of sweet pepper was more suppressed than that of tomato.4. It is evident that soil temperature had a pronounced effect on increase of stem and leaf length, fresh and dry weight of the top, especially on leaf length and fresh weight in these fruit vegetables.At lower and higher soil temperatures, their leaf color became darker green than that at the optimum range, and the adventive roots were induced on the base stems. Dry matter percentages of the tops in these temperatures were higher than that in the optimum temperature range.As for tomato, the total amount of increase in leaf length per seedling was parallel to increase of fresh weight, and was found to be a sensitive indicator for the growth rate in these experiments.
Effect of micelles on speciation of ternary complexes of nickel(II) with L-arginine and L-histidine

Abstract A computer assisted investigation has been made pH-metrically on the speciation of mixed ligand complexes in ternary systems consisting of nickel(II), L-arginine and L-histidine in micellar media. The existence of different ternary species is established from modelling studies using the computer program MINIQUAD75. The relative concentrations and stabilities of the ternary species are compared with those of binary species. The extra stability associated with the ternary complexes is attributed to factors such as charge neutralization, chelate effect, stacking interactions and hydrogen bonding.
Role of MSK1 in the signaling pathway leading to VEGF‐mediated PAF synthesis in endothelial cells

Vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) inflammatory effects require acute platelet‐activating factor (PAF) synthesis by endothelial cells (EC). We previously reported that VEGF‐mediated PAF synthesis involves the activation of VEGF receptor‐2/Neuropilin‐1 complex, which is leading to the activation of p38 and p42/44 mitogen‐activated protein kinases (MAPKs) and group V secretory phospholipase A2 (sPLA2‐V). As the mechanisms regulating sPLA2‐V remain unknown, we addressed the role of the mitogen‐ and stress‐activated protein kinase‐1 (MSK1), which can be rapidly and transiently activated by p38 or p42/44 MAPKs. In native bovine aortic endothelial cells (BAEC), we observed a constitutive protein interaction of MSK1 with p38, p42/44 MAPKs, and sPLA2‐V. These protein interactions were maintained in BAEC transfected either with the empty vector pCDNA3.1, wild‐type MSK1 (MSK1‐WT) or N‐terminal dead kinase MSK1 mutant (MSK1‐D195A). However, in BAEC expressing C‐terminal dead kinase MSK1 mutant (MSK1‐D565A), the interaction between MSK1 and sPLA2‐V was reduced by 82% and 90% under basal and VEGF‐treated conditions as compared to native BAEC. Treatment with VEGF for 15 min increased basal PAF synthesis in native BAEC, pCDNA3.1, MSK1‐WT, and MSK1‐D195A by 166%, 139%, 125%, and 82%, respectively. In contrast, PAF synthesis was prevented in cells expressing MSK1‐D565A mutant. These results demonstrate the essential role of the C‐terminal domain of MSK1 for its constitutive interaction with sPLA2‐V, which appears essential to support VEGF‐mediated PAF synthesis. J. Cell. Biochem. 98: 1095–1105, 2006. © 2006 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.
Xenobiotic Effects of Chlorine Dioxide to Escherichia coli O157:H7 on Non-host Tomato Environment Revealed by Transcriptional Network Modeling: Implications to Adaptation and Selection

Escherichia coli serotype O157:H7 is one of the major agents of pathogen outbreaks associated with fresh fruits and vegetables. Gaseous chlorine dioxide (ClO2) has been reported to be an effective intervention to eliminate bacterial contamination on fresh produce. Although remarkable positive effects of low doses of ClO2 have been reported, the genetic regulatory machinery coordinating the mechanisms of xenobiotic effects and the potential bacterial adaptation remained unclear. This study examined the temporal transcriptome profiles of E. coli O157:H7 during exposure to different doses of ClO2 in order to elucidate the genetic mechanisms underlying bacterial survival under such harsh conditions. Dosages of 1 μg, 5 μg, and 10 μg ClO2 per gram of tomato fruits cause different effects with dose-by-time dynamics. The first hour of exposure to 1 μg and 5 μg ClO2 caused only partial killing with significant growth reduction starting at the second hour, and without further significant reduction at the third hour. However, 10 μg ClO2 exposure led to massive bacterial cell death at 1 h with further increase in cell death at 2 and 3 h. The first hour exposure to 1 μg ClO2 caused activation of primary defense and survival mechanisms. However, the defense response was attenuated during the second and third hours. Upon treatment with 5 μg ClO2, the transcriptional networks showed massive downregulation of pathogenesis and stress response genes at the first hour of exposure, with decreasing number of differentially expressed genes at the second and third hours. In contrast, more genes were further downregulated with exposure to 10 μg ClO2 at the first hour, with the number of both upregulated and downregulated genes significantly decreasing at the second hour. A total of 810 genes were uniquely upregulated at the third hour at 10 μg ClO2, suggesting that the potency of xenobiotic effects had led to potential adaptation. This study provides important knowledge on the possible selection of target molecules for eliminating bacterial contamination on fresh produce without overlooking potential risks of adaptation.
The Role of Axillary Meristems in Coppice and Epicormic Bud Initiation in Araucaria cunninghamii

Axillary meristems are formed in all mainstem leaf axils of 2-mo-old hoop pines (Araucaria cunninghamii Aiton ex D Don) not occupied by first order branch buds. They have no bud-like organization or vascular connections and remain in this little differentiated and quiescent state unless stimulated to bud formation by release from apical dominance. With increasing plant age and hence increasing stem diameter, the meristems are not abscised via periderm formation, nor do they differentiate into bud primordia or break into fragments that lose their meristematic potentiality. Instead they maintain their structural integrity by elongating tangentially via infrequent anticlinal divisions within the meristem. Mean tangential dimensions for meristems from the base of 2-mo-old, 2-yr-old, and 4-5-yr-old hoop pines were 100, 200, and 740 μm, respectively. These results indicate why hoop pine, in contrast to the majority of conifers, has a pronounced ability to form coppice shoots.
Deep-Learning-Based Early Detection of Diabetic Retinopathy on Fundus Photography Using EfficientNet

Diabetic retinopathy, which is the leading cause of blindness among working aged adults, is a serious health problem worldwide. As millions of people suffer from diabetic retinopathy, the need for an automated method of diabetic retinopathy detection to prevent lifelong blindness has long been recognized. Therefore, it's a key challenge to build an automated diagnosis system to detect such disease early and efficiently. For that purpose, we propose a deep-learning-based method to early detect diabetic retinopathy on fundus photography in this paper. The dataset of fundus images is provided by Aravind Eye Hospital in India through a featured competition on the Kaggle platform. Deep convolutional neural networks based on EfficientNet-B3 are utilized to simultaneously extract features from fundus images, where the severity level of diabetic retinopathy is subsequently identified through a regression method. The results show that our deep learning model can achieve an expert-level performance on diagnosing the severity level of diabetic retinopathy, with a quadratic weighted kappa score 0.935 on the private dataset. Such performance locates at the top 1% among all teams and can get a gold medal prize in the Kaggle competition.
Computation Offloading Optimization in Mobile Edge Computing Based on Multi-Objective Cuckoo Search Algorithm

In order to reducing the latency time and energy consumption of computation offloading in mobile edge computing, a discrete multi-objective cuckoo search algorithm for computation offloading (DMOCS-CO) is proposed. We consider the average latency time and average energy consumption of user terminals as the two optimization objectives and an approximate Pareto optimal set of the problem is obtained. Simulation studies indicate that the proposed algorithm can effectively achieve the multi-objective optimization of computation offloading in mobile edge computing and perform better than two other classic algorithms.
A Genome-Wide Association Study of Coleoptile Length in Different Chinese Wheat Landraces

From the perspective of wheat yield improvement, the coleoptile is vital for successful crop establishment, and long coleoptile lengths (CLs) are preferred in wheat-growing regions where deep planting is practiced. To determine the genetic basis of CL, we performed a genome-wide association study on a set of 707 Chinese wheat landraces using 18,594 single-nucleotide polymorphisms and 38,678 diversity array technology sequencing markers. We accordingly detected a total of 29 significant markers [−log10(P) > 4.76] distributed on chromosomes 2B, 2D, 3A, 4A, 5A, 6A, 6B, 6D, and 7B. Based on linkage disequilibrium decay distance, we identified a total of 17 quantitative trait loci associated with CL, among which QCl.sicau-6B.2, located at 508.17–509.26 Mb on chromosome 6B, was recognized as a novel major locus. We subsequently developed a high-resolution melt marker for QCl.sicau-6B.2, which was validated in an F2:3 population. Our findings provide important insights into the genetic mechanisms underlying coleoptile growth and could be applied to marker-assisted wheat selection.