Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
The sex-specific effects of diet quality versus quantity on morphology in Drosophila melanogaster

Variation in the quality and quantity of nutrition is a major contributor to phenotypic variation in animal populations. Although we know much of how dietary restriction impacts phenotype, and of the molecular-genetic and physiological mechanisms that underlie this response, we know much less of the effects of dietary imbalance. Specifically, although dietary imbalance and restriction both reduce overall body size, it is unclear whether both have the same effect on the size of individual traits. Here, we use the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster to explore the effect of dietary food versus protein-to-carbohydrate ratio on body proportion and trait size. Our results indicate that body proportion and trait size respond differently to changes in diet quantity (food concentration) versus diet quality (protein-to-carbohydrate ratio), and that these effects are sex specific. While these differences suggest that Drosophila use at least partially distinct developmental mechanisms to respond to diet quality versus quantity, further analysis indicates that the responses can be largely explained by the independent and contrasting effects of protein and carbohydrate concentration on trait size. Our data highlight the importance of considering macronutrient composition when elucidating the effect of nutrition on trait size, at the levels of both morphology and developmental physiology.
The Environmental Performance of Polluting Plants: A Spatial Econometric Approach

This paper uses plant-level data from EPA and Census databases to incorporate spatial components in models of the environmental performance (compliance and emissions) of manufacturing plants. The spatial approaches include creating explanatory variables based on information related to the plant’s location and the location of nearby plants, testing for spatial autocorrelation in environmental performance and the explanatory variables, examining whether spatial factors in the explanatory variables explain the spatial factors in environmental performance, and directly modeling the spatial component of environmental performance with spatially lagged dependent variables. Our analysis uses data for 521 manufacturing plants in the compliance analysis and 102 plants in the emissions analysis. Our results indicate a significant, but limited, role for spatial factors in modeling environmental performance. We find positive spatial autocorrelation in the analysis of compliance status, but no such spatial effects are observed for emissions. In fact, very few variables in our model show significant impacts on emissions. The positive spatial autocorrelation of compliance status holds in most cases, whether or not we control for other explanatory variables, though these results depend in part on the way in which the spatial effects are assumed to operate across plants. Some of the models indicate that the spatial autocorrelations in the explanatory variables help explain part of the spatial autocorrelation observed in compliance status, though much of the autocorrelation in compliance usually remains unexplained. Models which directly incorporate spatially-lagged compliance status in the estimation often (but not always) find significant positive effects for those spatial lags. Much of the explanatory power of the compliance models comes from plant-specific characteristics, with larger, older, and more pollution-abatement-intensive plants, and those in single-plant firms, showing less compliance. Neither the local demographic characteristics nor measures of political activity have much impact on compliance. Our measures of inspection activity tend to have the expected signs – having more inspections at the plant, at nearby plants, and at plants in the same state is associated with greater compliance – but these effects aren’t always significant. As expected, inspections at nearby plants in other states don’t seem to increase compliance.
Mergers and Acquisitions: An Efficiency Evaluation

This article sheds light on how synergies arise through mergers and acquisitions (MA however it was noticed that few of the cases investigated were proved to be effective. We presented a new application for multi-objective approach that can be used to assess mergers and acquisitions. The dualapplication of GPDEA provided a greater understanding of efficiency generation in synergy creation by means of M&A.
Determination of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in beverage by low density solvent based-dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction-high performance liquid chromatography-fluorescence detection

A simple and fast dispersive liquid-liquid microextraction (DLLME) technique using organic solvent lighter than water has been developed for the extraction of selected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in green tea, chrysanthemum tea and coffee beverage. The 1-octanol and acetonitrile were pre-mixed and injected into the sample solution. After dispersing, the cloudy solution was subjected to centrifugation to separate the solution into 2 phases, where the micro-droplet of 1-octanol was clearly floated on the top layer. The 1-octanol extract was then diluted and injected into high performance liquid chromatography-fluorescence for the quantitative analysis. The technique offered rapid analysis as the 1-octanol was homogeneously dispersed in the sample solution thus speeding the analytes diffusion. Under the optimized extraction conditions, the technique achieved trace detection limits in the range of 0.001 to 0.3 μgL-1 for the targeted analytes, namely phenanthrene, fluoranthene and benzo[a]pyrene. The method was successfully applied to the spiked green tea, chrysanthemum tea and coffee beverage samples with good average relative recoveries obtained in the range of 86.7 to 103.0%. The utilization of low density organic solvent as extraction solvent has allowed for easier operation and eliminated the use of hazardous halogenated solvent that is commonly applied in DLLME.
Finite Element Computation of Magnetic Vibration Sources in 100 kW Two Fractional-Slot Interior Permanent Magnet Machines for Ship

The design of an interior permanent magnet (IPM) machine, in particular, its pole and slot combination, determines the nature of its magnetic forces, which influences not only the torque but also acoustic noise and vibration characteristics. Vibrations can shorten bearing life and are an especially important parameter in marine applications, which have strict regulations such as on electromagnetic compatibility. In this study, two-dimensional(2D) finite element analysis (FEA) was used to model magnetic vibration sources in two 100-kW marine fractional-slot IPM machines with different pole and slot combinations (8 pole-12 slot and 10 pole-12 slot). The magnetic forces were calculated according to rotor position, current phase angle, and load. The results are validated by experiments.
The Whispering World of Plants: ‘The Wood Wide Web’

The notion that plants can ‘talk’ to one another was, until relatively recently, dismissed as fantasy, but the reality of inter-plant communication is now becoming an accepted part of mainstream science. Although plants, by definition, being ‘planted’ in the ground, cannot move per se, they are able to send signals to one another, by means of volatile organic compounds1,2, and it is thought that not only can a plant communicate with other plants, it may also engage in a ‘soliloquy’ by communicating between different parts of itself 3. Although this fact alone is fascinating, it appears that plants may both send out chemical messengers as airborne species that other plants can receive aboveground, and send messages to one another via a network of connections within the soil, termed ‘common mycorrhizal (mycelial) networks’ (CMN), formed by connections between the mycorrhiza of different plants4–6. This has been described as a kind of below ground ‘internet’ which has been termed appropriately as ‘The Wood Wide Web’7–9.
Effects of lexical status on children’s and adults’ perception of native and non‐native vowels

Monolingual, English‐speaking 5‐year‐olds, 9‐year‐olds, and adults heard stimuli from two ‘‘native,’’ synthetic continua, in which the vowels ranged from English /i/ to /i/ in the context /b—b/ or /b—p/. Thus the endpoints of the first continuum constituted a word and a nonword (‘‘bib’’ vs *‘‘beeb’’); the reverse held for the second continuum (*‘‘bip’’ vs ‘‘beep’’). Other subjects heard stimuli from two ‘‘foreign’’ continua, where the vowels ranged from English /i/ to a foreign vowel /y/ in the contexts described above. Thus the endpoints of the first continuum corresponded to a word and a nonword (‘‘bib’’ vs *‘‘bYb’’); both endpoints of the second continuum corresponded to nonwords (*‘‘bip’’ vs *‘‘bYp’’). After training on endpoints, subjects’ identifications of the nine stimuli of a given continuum were examined to assess whether: children, like adults, exhibit a ‘‘lexical bias’’ effect for familiar vowels (from the ‘‘native’’ continua); vowel categories not bounded by another native vowel (as in the ‘‘.
[Effects of sodium valproate on neutrophils' oxidative metabolism and oxidant status in children with idiopathic epilepsy].

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the influence of VPA treatment on neutrophils' oxidative metabolism and oxidant status in epileptic children. METHOD Twenty-six newly diagnosed epileptic children with idiopathic epilepsy and 30 healthy children were included in the study. The activation rates of neutrophils and stimulation indexes were detected in patients before and 6 months and 12 months after VPA treatment respectively and in all the healthy children by flow cytometry with dihydrorhodamine as fluorochrome. The activities of myeloperoxidase from neutrophils were also detected. Malondialdehyde as an indicator of lipid peroxidation and antioxidant enzymes including superoxide dismutase, catalase, and glutathione peroxidase were measured in plasma respectively. RESULT The activation rates of neutrophils in patients treated with VPA after 6 and 12 months were (11.50 ± 6.52)% and (14.31 ± 5.76)% respectively, which were significantly higher than the data of control group (5.90 ± 3.77)% and pretreatment level (7.42 ± 3.15)%. The stimulation indexes 6 and 12 months after VPA therapy were (474.88 ± 118.98) and (416.31 ± 110.00) respectively, which were lower than the data of control group (544.83 ± 140.83) and pretreatment level (535.23 ± 111.55). The plasma MPO activities and levels of malondialdehyde in VPA treated patients were also higher while the activities of SOD and CAT were significantly lower than the control and untreated groups. GSH-Px levels did not differ between the groups. Multiple linear regression analysis showed that the time of treatment and the activation rates of neutrophils were indicators which had positive correlation with the levels of plasma MDA and that SOD activities were inversely correlated with MDA levels. CONCLUSION VPA which is frequently used in childhood epilepsy may activate the neutrophils of patients and cause oxidative stress and prolonged treatment may aggravate it.
Effects of spectacle intervention on the progression of myopia in children.

The literature on myopigenesis suggests an active emmetropization mechanism regulated by optical defocus. The strongest evidence comes from compensatory ocular growth in response to lens-induced defocus in different species of animals. Based on these results, it has been suggested that, however useful, spectacle intervention for the optical correction of human myopia would lead to its exacerbation. The present study seeks to evaluate the progression of juvenile-onset myopia in children differentiated by their lens wear patterns. Data from 43 myopes from our longitudinal study of refraction were evaluated, with myopia defined as a spherical equivalent of at least -0.50 D. Refractions were obtained in the laboratory by noncycloplegic retinoscopy performed by one experienced optometrist at regular intervals. Information regarding the subjects' prescription lens-wearing history was obtained from the subjects and their eye care providers. Based on their wearing patterns, subjects were divided into four categories: (1) full-time wearers; (2) myopes who switched from distance to full-time wear; (3) distance wearers; and (4) nonwearers. Exponential functions were fit to the individual refraction data. The age of onset of myopia, the mean myopia at onset of spectacle wear, and the refractive shift over a period of at least 3 years were derived from these fits. Results show that the 3-year refractive shifts are not significantly different among the four groups. A comparison of the extreme conditions, i.e., full-time vs. nonwear categories, also revealed no significant difference when the data were corrected for age effects despite the fact that the nonwearers exhibited an age-adjusted 3-year progression approximately one-half that of the full-time wearers. In summary, the present study failed to demonstrate any overall effects of spectacle intervention on the progression of human myopia. Further investigation using a larger sample is warranted.
Evaluating Performance of Rescheduling Strategies in Cloud System

Motived by frequent failures in cloud computing systems, we aim to demystify the underlying rescheduling strategies performed by the scheduler to deal with task failure. In this paper, we comprehensively investigate and compare rescheduling strategies of two large-scale systems, Google cluster and CMU OpenCloud. Moreover, we quantitatively evaluate the performance of different rescheduling strategies and uncover the consequent negative impacts. Based on our analysis, we find that repeated rescheduling a task immediately after every failure without limitation, on one hand could improve the availability of tasks, on the other hand, will bring significant overhead and waste a large amount of resource. Furthermore, migrating failed tasks to different machines could be an effective way to successful execution finally, however with lower availability. Our analysis provides valuable guidance for the design of scheduler to achieve better trade-off between availability and resource saving in cloud system.
A new comparison between conventional indexing (MEDLARS) and automatic text processing (SMART)

A new testing process is described designed to compare conventional retrieval (MEDLARS) and automatic text analysis methods (SMART). The results obtained with a collection of documents chosen independently of either SMART or MEDLARS indicate that a simple automatic extraction of keywords from document abstracts produces a 30 to 40 percent loss compared with MEDLARS indexing. A replacement of the unranked Boolean searches used in MEDLARS by the standard ranked output normally provided by SMART reduces the loss to between 15 and 20 percent. When an automatically generated word control list or a thesaurus is used as part of the SMART analysis, the results are comparable in effectiveness to those obtained by the intellectual MEDLARS indexing. Finally, the incorporation of user feedback procedures into SMART furnishes an improvement over the normal MEDLARS output of 15 to 30 percent. One concludes again that no technical justification exists for maintaining controlled, manual indexing in operational retrieval environments.
Toxicity of Environmental Contaminants

Environmental toxicology is one of the most interdisciplinary subjects and it aims to study the effects of toxic chemicals on living organisms using various toxicological methods. The experiments that examine the deleterious effects of environmental pollutants on animals provide scientific basis for developing environmental standards. Results of such experiments and the techniques and practices used to minimize environmental effects of toxic chemicals will help in formulating sound environmental policies and appropriate decision-making. The special issue addresses various topics, such as biomarkers for environmental pollution monitoring; bioaccumulation of chemicals; bioassays and biomarkers in water monitoring and biomonitoring of water bodies; ecotoxicity of emerging chemicals; biological effects of monitoring; laboratory techniques and field quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSAR); ecosystem health and environmental health risk assessment. This special issue is a compilation of selected peer reviewed papers that range from biomarkers, bioconcentration and toxication, oxidative stress defuse pathways to cytotoxic effects of pesticides, phytoremediation of polluted soil, and so forth. The editors believe that the results presented in these papers are valuable and will stimulate discussion on further development of potential techniques and devices for effective assessment of deleterious effects of environmental pollutants on animals and the environment.
Does Low Quality Audiovisual Content Increase Fatigue of Viewers?

While most quality studies measure purely the subjectively perceived quality of videos, physiological measurements can give more detailed information about the perception of multimedia consumers. Thus, they provide better information about long-term effects as they are difficult to estimate by purely subjective studies. The current study uses electroencephalography (EEG) to measure effects of fatigue during watching low and high quality videos. Therefore, a usual video was chosen, after partly reducing the bit rate of the video subjects watched it and gave subjective ratings accompanied by measuring EEG. With the obtained data we showed that lower video quality produces a higher percentage of alpha waves in the EEG, thus participants got more fatigued. Since these alpha waves are an indicator for the level of fatigue.
Reproductive and maternal performance of rotational three-breed, and inter se crossbred cows in Florida.

Reproductive, calf growth, and cow weight data were collected during a 16-yr period in southern Florida. Data included 1,767 calves at weaning from purebred, F1, backcross, F2, and three-breed crossbred cows of the Angus (A), Brahman (B), and Charolais (C) breeds. The purebred cows primarily produced purebred calves, the F1 and F2 Cows produced inter se crossbred calves, and the backcross cows produced 3/8:5/8 calves. The 1/2 C:1/4 A:1/4 B three-breed crossbred cows were mated to A series, whereas three-breed crossbred dams with breed compositions of 1/2 B:1/4 A:1/4 C, and 1/2 A:1/4 B:1/4 C were mated to C and B sires, respectively. For analysis of additive breed and heterosis effects, pregnancy rate and cow weight were considered to be traits of the dam alone. The A additive breed effect increased (P < .05) pregnancy rate but reduced (P < .001) cow weight. The effects of AB, AC, and BC heterozygosity all increased pregnancy rate, but the advantage was greater for the crosses that involved B. Both AB and BC heterozygosity increased (P < .001) cow weight, whereas AC did not. The additive direct effect of B and C increased birth weight (BWT) and weaning weight (WWT). The additive maternal effect of B reduced BWT. The direct effect of AB heterozygosity increased BWT and WWT, and that of BC increased only WWT (P < .001). A comparable pattern was observed for maternal heterosis on weight traits. A much smaller effect of AC maternal heterosis on WWT was found. Pregnancy rates of F1, backcross, and three-breed dams were similar. (ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
A method of determining acoustical physical constants for piezoelectric materials by line-focus-beam acoustic microscopy

We developed a new method of determining acoustical physical constants (elastic constant, piezoelectric constant, dielectric constant, and density) of piezoelectric materials with high accuracy. This method acquires velocities of leaky surface acoustic waves (LSAWs) excited on the water-loaded specimen surface, measured by line-focus-beam (LFB) acoustic microscopy, and bulk velocities of longitudinal and shear waves, measured with planewave transducers replacing the LFB device in the same system, together with the dielectric constants and density measured independently, for a small number of specimens. For LiNbO/sub 3/ and LiTaO/sub 3/ crystals, we demonstrated that we could accurately determine the constants by choosing proper propagation directions of LSAWs and bulk waves for three principal X-, Y-, and Z-cut specimens and one rotated Y-cut specimen [(104) plate for LiNbO/sub 3/ and (012) plate for LiTaO/sub 3/]. The accuracy is nearly the same as that for the constants determined only from the bulk wave velocities.
Impact des mycotoxines sur le microbiote intestinal humain, cas particulier du déoxynivalénol

Le deoxynivalenol (DON) est une mycotoxine qui contamine la plupart des cultures de cereales dans toutes les regions du monde. Capable de resister aux procedes de transformation subies par les cereales, le DON peut se retrouver alors, a l'etat de contaminants dans les matieres premieres (cereales) ainsi que dans les denrees alimentaires transformees destinees a l'Homme (pâtes, pain, bieres) et a l'animal (granules) a des concentrations superieures aux limites reglementaires. Malgre les efforts de recherche pour caracteriser les multiples aspects de l’impact d’une contamination par le DON, les effets bacteriologiques de cette mycotoxine n’etaient pas encore documentes chez l’Homme. L'Agence Nationale de Securite Sanitaire (Anses), dans le cadre de sa mission de protection du consommateur, a donc souhaite evaluer l'impact d'une contamination au DON sur le microbiote intestinal humain (MIH). Dans cette etude, nous avons d’abord evalue la cinetique du DON chez le porc et chez le rat, puis nous avons utilise un modele de rats a flore humanisee pour evaluer l'impact d'une exposition sub-chronique de la mycotoxine sur la composition du MIH. Le DON est un contaminant rapidement distribue et elimine. Au sein du tractus digestif, il entraine des changements bacteriologiques significatifs chez certains principaux groupes bacteriens composant le MIH. Cette etude apporte des donnees complementaires a l’analyse du risque lie a l’exposition du DON chez l’Homme et montre l’interet des modeles animaux etudies dans des scenarii particuliers d’exposition au DON.
Sequential mutations in the NS genes of influenza virus field strains

The complete nucleotide sequences of the NS genes from three human influenza viruses, A/FM/1/47 (H1N1), A/FW/1/50 (H1N1), and A/USSR/90/77 (H1N1), were determined. Only five single-base differences were found within the sequences of the A/FW/1/50 and A/USSR/90/77 NS genes, thus confirming earlier data suggesting that the 1977 H1N1 viruses are closely related to virus strains that were circulating around 1950. Comparison of all three sequences with those from A/PR/8/34 and A/Udorn/72 viruses illustrates that these genes (with the exception of that of the A/USSR/90/77 strain) evolve through cumulative base changes along a single common lineage. A nucleotide sequence variation of approximately 2.2 to 3.4% per 10 years was determined for the NS gene segments. Extensive size variation was also observed among the NS1 proteins of the various human viruses. The A/FM/1/47 NS1 protein, which consists of 202 amino acids, is 15% shorter than the A/Udorn/72 NS1 protein, which consists of 237 amino acids.
T ESTING PARAMETER INSTABILITY IN THE LINEAR MODEL WITH NON-STATIONARY REGRESSORS

This paper extends the distributional theory for the problem of testing for structural change in the linear model when the timing of the change is unknown, and proposes a simple method of obtaining approximate criti cal values for the mean-Wald test. The results apply for a very wide range of regressor types, including integrated and trending regressors, and regressors that exhibit their own structural break. The proposed modification to the mean-Wald statistic thus provides a simple means of performing the test in a wide class of models. JEL classification: C12, C22, C52