Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Análisis económico de proyectos para protección costera y restauración de ecosistemas en el Gran Caribe: métodos, desafíos e innovaciones (Economic Analysis of Coastal Protection and Ecosystem Restoration Projects in the Wider Caribbean: Methods, Challenges and Innovations)

<b>Spanish Abstract:</b> La población costera es una de las más vulnerables a desastres naturales. El reciente reconocimiento del papel de los ecosistemas marino-costeros para reducir su vulnerabilidad ha llevado a ejecutar inversiones directas sobre estos ecosistemas. Sin embargo, la falta de conocimiento y comprensión de sus beneficios económicos ha limitado el desarrollo de estas inversiones, incluida la infraestructura natural. En este documento revisamos las principales herramientas del análisis económico para evaluar proyectos de protección y restauración costera, e identificamos las innovaciones y desafíos asociados. Con esta revisión, desarrollamos un marco analítico para el análisis económico ex ante y ex post de estas inversiones, que facilitará la identificación de los beneficios asociados a las soluciones basadas en la naturaleza para la resiliencia costera. <br><br><b>EnglishAbstract:</b> Coastal population is among the most vulnerable to disasters triggered by natural hazards. Recent recognition of the role of coastal and marine ecosystems for reducing vulnerability in coastal communities has led to incorporate direct investments in these ecosystems. However, there is a lack of knowledge and understanding of their economic benefits, and that has hindered the investments on these ecosystems, including natural infrastructure. In this paper, we analyze the main economic analysis tools for assessing protection and restauration coastal projects, and identify the innovations and challenges associated. Based on this review, we develop an analytical framework for ex ante and ex post economic analyses of these investments, what will allow the identification of benefits of nature-based solutions for coastal resilience.
Molecular evidence for phylogenetic relationships of Jacquemontia reclinata House (Convolvulaceae) – a critically endangered species from south Florida

Jacquemontia reclinata House (Convolvulaceae) is a federally listed endangered species endemic to coastal strand habitat of south-eastern Florida. In order to identify the closest relatives of J. reclinata, a phylogenetic reconstruction was performed based on nucleotide sequence data from the internal transcribed spacer region of nuclear ribosomal DNA and from the trnH-psbA intergenic spacer of chloroplast DNA. The three putative relatives of J. reclinata and the majority of Jacquemontia Choicy species known to occur in the Caribbean Islands were included. The strict consensus tree concurs with previous morphological studies, indicating that J. reclinata is closely related to the Caribbean species J. cayensis Britton, J. curtisii Hallier f. , and J. havanensis (Jacq.) Urb. These three species and J. reclinata form an unresolved clade. Nucleotide divergence within this clade is low, suggesting that the group is recent, perhaps diversifying after the latest glacial period. These taxa need to be studied further using population-level DNA markers. Most species endemic to the Caribbean Basin form a strongly supported clade. Our phylogeny supports Convolvulus nodiflorus Desr. as part of Jacquemontia. In addition, J. ovalifolia (West) Hallier f. ssp. sandwicensis (A. Gray) K.R. Robertson is sister to the Antillean endemic J. solanifolia (L.) Hallier f. © 2007 The Linnean Society of London, Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, 2007, 154, 443–454.
INDUCTION OF CHROMOSOME MOTION IN THE GLYCEROL‐ISOLATED MITOTIC APPARATUS: NUCLEOTIDE SPECIFICITY AND EFFECTS OF ANTIDYNEIN AND MYOSIN SERA ON THE MOTION *

Chromosome motion in glycerol‐isolated mitotic apparatus (MA) of sea urchin and starfish eggs was investigated with respect to nucleotide specificity and the effects of antisera against tryptic fragment (Fragment A) of flagellar dynein and starfish egg myosin. The motion was highly specific for ATP. GTP, ITP, CTP, UTP, and ADP caused no displacement of the chromosomes towards the poles. The anti‐Fragment A serum completely inhibited chromosome motion in the MA of the sea urchin egg, while antiserum against starfish egg myosin as well as its γ‐globulin fraction did not inhibit the motion in the isolated MA of the starfish egg, suggesting that chromosome motion depends upon dynein‐microtubule but not upon myosin‐actin interaction. In addition, colchicine completely suppressed the chromosome motion in vitro.
Assessment of Canadian federal and provincial legislation to conserve native and managed pollinators

Declining pollinator numbers in Canada is an issue of concern requiring active conservation of native, wild, and managed species. Federal and provincial legislation was examined to determine whether Canada has the capacity to manage native pollinators. Hard legislation was chosen based on its potential to contain provisions for pollinator protection. The wording, specific statements within each act, and the context in which they are used, were examined. The legislation was categorized into one of three classes: a) has explicit provisions for pollinator conservation, b) is related to, but no explicit provisions are present, c) has nothing to do with pollinator conservation. Results showed that Canada has inadequate legislative provisions for native pollinator conservation at the federal and provincial level. There are few specific provisions dealing directly with native pollinators, but some legislation alludes to it. Existing legislation pertains to the protection of managed pollinators, especially the western honeybee (Apis mellifera). Therefore, such provincial acts could be amended to include all native bees and other pollinator species to ensure that their ecological and agricultural services continue. The federal National Parks Act and the Species at Risk Act (and their provincial counterparts) could be amended similarly. Effective pollinator conservation requires management, research, education and monitoring, but the enabling legislative provisions should be created for this to happen.
Merriam's Life Zones of North America

Universitv of Idaho O UR present concepts of bioclimatic provinces have had their origin in purely floristic and faunistic studies. With the development of the taxonomy of North American species various distributional patterns appeared, and whenever several of these seemed related they were made the basis of a province. This aspect of biogeography was popular during most of the past century. By I889, when the Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy of the United States Department of Agriculture undertook its important work in this field, over 50 papers had appeared proposing biotic provinces for North America, about half of them based on floristics and the others on faunistics. Although certain of these pioneer classifications are difficult to coordinate with the others, there was sufficient agreement hat in summarizing these papers Merriam (i89z) found that North America had been divided into distributional provinces as follows: Arctic; Boreal (subdivided by Allen into Hudsonian and Canadian); Eastern or Atlantic (variously subdivided into Carolinian, Alleghanian, Southern Florida, Austroriparian, Louisianan, etc.); Central; Western or Pacific; and Sonoran (including the closely related Baja California). Life zone studies by the Division of Ornithology and Mammalogy were begun in the summer of I889. This venture, suggested by Clinton Hart Merriam, who was then chief of the Division, was prompted largely by economic motives. It was held that a knowledge of life zone boundaries would provide a key to agricultural possibilities which otherwise would have to be determined by the trial and error method for every location. The first field work consisted of a biological survey of the San Francisco Peak area in Arizona (Merriam, I890). As a result of observations and collections of the biota with particular emphasis on the altitudinal limits of the species, Merriam, who personally directed the field work, recognized seven major biotic zones: Alpine, Subalpine or Timberline, Hudsonian or Spruce, Canadian or Balsam fir, Neutral or Pine, Pifion, and Desert. Each of these zones was characterized by a group of species not found in the others. Those zones in which the characteristic species were boreal in affinity were grouped into a Boreal Division (including the first 4 zones above), and where the indicators were of southern extraction (the last 3 above) the term Sonoran Division was applied. The fifth zone was called "Neutral" (later referred to as "Transition") because it contained elements of both boreal and austral derivation; however, it was finally classed as Sonoran because of the preponderance of the latter group. Since certain species of the San Francisco Mountain zones also occurred in the zones previously described for North America, Merriam tried to coordinate his regions with those outlined above. Only his Boreal Division seemed to fit in well with the previous classifications. The integration of these new western findings with
A REACTION BETWEEN SOME STREPTOCOCCI AND IgA MYELOMA PROTEINS

A reaction is described between some streptococci and IgA myeloma proteins; most streptococci showed low affinity for IgA myeloma proteins, with the exception of group A, type M 4 and two freshly isolated group A streptococci; they took up 40 to 50 per cent of 1 μg 125I labelled IgA myeloma protein added. Addition of similar amounts of unlabelled IgA and IgG myeloma proteins showed no cross inhibition between uptake of IgG and IgA. Heat- and trypsin treatment of the streptococci did not reveal any differences in IgA and IgG reactivity. The uptake of one 125 I labelled IgA myeloma protein was inhibited uniformely by four randomly selected unlabelled IgA myeloma proteins. Thus, the uptake of 125 I labelled IgA myeloma protein seems to be independent from the specificity of the antibody combining sites.
Residues in carrots treated with linuron

Investigations have been carried out on residues of linuron and its breakdown products in carrots sprayed with Jinuron at 1, 2, or 4 kg a.i./ha, 0, 19, 28, 36 or 60 days after sowing (up to 57 days before harvesting). The extracted residues were separated into three fractions by liquid-liquid partitioning: (a) linuron, (b) 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyi)-l-methoxyurea, 3-(3,4-dichlorophenyl)-l-methylurea, 3,4-di-chlorophenylurea and (c) 3,4-dichloroaniline. The compounds in each fraction were hydrolysed and the iodine derivative 1,2-dichloro-4-iodobenzene was formed by a Sandmeyer reaction between 3,4-dichloroaniline and iodide ion, followed by gas chromatography with electron capture detector. Only 5-13% of the extract-able residues were breakdown products. Most of the detectable residue (87-95%) was identified as linuron. The relative proportions of linuron and breakdown products in carrots at the time of harvest were not affected by the time of spraying or the interval between treatment and harvest.
Easeshop: An Android App Based Autonomous Shopping Cart

In the living world, the technology is advancing day-by-day in different areas like Internet of Things, machine learning, artificial intelligence, automation and so on. The main focus of this paper is to improve the process of shopping for customers and saving their time because people spend more time in the supermarket due to the traditional billing process. For example, customers purchase several items in the supermarket. While purchasing they might face some problems like a long queue in a billing section and overshooting the budget. Sometimes people also find it difficult to locate an item easily and this takes time. To overcome this scenario, we proposed an IoT based Smart Shopping Cart. It consists of three NodeMCU boards, RFID module, Motor driver, Chassis, a centralized Database and an Android app “EaseShop”. The customers can add products into the cart using the app. During shopping, the customer can scan the required products using RFID and the details will be displayed on the LCD and will be updated in the centralized database. The payment can be done through the app. The customer can control the movement of the Trolley using the App.
Metabolically induced pH fluctuations by some coastal calcifiers exceed projected 22nd century ocean acidification: a mechanism for differential susceptibility?

Anthropogenically mediated decreases in pH, termed ocean acidification (OA), may be a major threat to marine organisms and communities. Research has focussed mainly on tropical coral reefs, but temperate reefs play a no less important ecological role in colder waters, where OA effects may first be manifest. Herein, we report that trends in pH at the surface of three ecologically important cold‐water calcifiers (a primary producer and herbivores), under a range of fluid flows, differ substantially from one another, and for two of the three calcifiers, the pH, during darkness, is lower than the mean projected pH due to OA for the surface waters of the global ocean beyond the year 2100. Using micro‐electrodes, we show that each calcifier had a different pH gradient between its surface and mainstream seawater, i.e. within the diffusion boundary layer (DBL) that appears to act as an environmental buffer to mainstream pH. Abalone encountered only mainstream seawater pH, whereas pH at the sea urchins’ surface was reduced by ~0.35 units. For coralline algae, pH was ~0.5 units higher in the light and ~0.35 units lower under darkness than in ambient mainstream seawater. This wide range of pH within the DBL of some calcifiers will probably affect their performance under projected future reductions in pH due to OA. Differing exposure to a range of surface pH may result in differential susceptibility of calcifiers to OA. Such fluctuations are no doubt regulated by the interplay of water movement, morphology and metabolic rates (e.g. respiration, calcification and/or photosynthesis). Our study, by considering physics (flow regime), chemistry (pH gradients vs. OA future projections) and biology (trophic level, physiology and morphology), reveals that predicting species‐specific responses and subsequent ecosystem restructuring to OA is complex and requires a holistic, eco‐mechanical, approach.
The interactions of water hardness and pH with the acute toxicity of zinc to the brown trout, Salmo trutta L.

Exposure of brown trout, Salmo trutta, to zinc under continuous flow conditions over 96 h showed that both water hardness and pH exert major influences on the toxicity of the metal. 96-h LC50 values for total zinc ranged from <0.14mg 1−1 in alkaline soft water (pH 8; lOmg 1−1 as CaCO3) to 3.20 mg 1−1 in acidic hard water (pH 5; 204 mg 1−1 as CaCO3). A variable reduction in zinc toxicity in hard water compared with soft water over the pH range 4–9 was attributed to high external calcium. Zinc toxicity was positively correlated with decreasing acidity over the pH range 5–7, the metal being most toxic at pH 8–9 where metal complexes predominate. Below pH 5 metal toxicity also increased, irrespective of hardness. Water hardness and pH interacted with zinc toxicity in a complex manner, apparently dependent on physical and chemical transformations of the metal, and as changes in uptake. detoxification and excretion by the fish.
The post-natal and breeding dispersal of Welsh Dippers Cinclus cinclus

Between 1978 and 1986, 2500 nestlings and 700 fledged Dippers were ringed on rivers in mid and south Wales. Adults showed strong fidelity to breeding sites, only 3.6% (of 138) moving more than 2.5 km between breeding attempts. By contrast, 30% (of 166) of birds ringed as nestlings moved more than 5 km and up to 32 km from natal sites; post-natal dispersal involved significantly greater distances in females than males, with females significantly more likely to cross watersheds. Dispersal distance showed no correlation with time of fledging in either sex. Actual distances of post-natal dispersal in both sexes were greater than those expected from juveniles replacing likely adult mortality. We discuss our findings in relation to general hypotheses on breeding systems and dispersal patterns.
NITROGEN UTILIZATION AND METABOLISM RELATIVE TO PATTERNS OF N2 FIXATION IN CULTURES OF TRICHODESMIUM NIBB1067

We measured uptake kinetics for four combined N sources, ambient rates of N uptake and N2 fixation, glutamine synthetase activity (transferase and biosynthetic), and concentrations of intracellular pools of glutamate (glu) and glutamine (gln) in cultures of Trichodesmium NIBB1067. N dynamics and metabolism were examined to assess the relative importance of N2 fixation and N uptake to Trichodesmium nutrition. Comparisons were made between cultures grown on medium without added N, with excess NO, or with excess urea. Of the combined N sources tested, Trichodesmium NIBB1067 had the highest affinity for NH; high uptake capacities for NH, urea, and glu; and little capacity for NO uptake. In cultures grown on medium without added N, NH accumulated in the medium during growth, resulting in high NH uptake rates relative to rates of N2 fixation. Glu uptake rates were low but consistent throughout the diel period. In cultures grown on excess NO or urea, uptake of these compounds supplied the majority of the daily N demand, although some N2 fixation occurred during the light period. NO uptake rates were reduced when N2‐fixation rates were high. In all of the cultures, the highest gln/glu ratios and the lowest glutamine synthetase transferase/biosynthetic ratios were observed during the period when rates of total N uptake were highest. In cultures growing exponentially on medium without added N, N2 fixation accounted for 14%– 16% of the total daily N uptake. Uptake of NH and glu, presumably regenerated within the culture vessels, represented 84%–86% of the daily N uptake. Because these systems were closed, net growth was constrained by the rate at which N2 could be fixed into the system. However, total daily N turnover was greater than that necessary to accommodate the observed increase in culture biomass. The rapid N turnover rates observed in these cultures may support gross productivity and balance the high rates of C fixation observed in natural populations of Trichodesmium.
Characterization of proteolytic enzyme activities in macroalgae

Proteases are essential components of cells and participate in processes ranging from photoacclimation and nutrient acquisition to development and stress responses. Virtually nothing is known about this diverse group of enzymes in macroalgae. Methods to measure proteases developed for phytoplankton (caseinolysis, leucine aminopeptidase (LAP) activity and casein zymograms) have been modified to allow use with spectrophotometers as well as spectrofluorometers, so making them accessible to a wider number of users. Applying the methods to a wide range of macroalgae from intertidal zones in south-western Spain and Northern Ireland detected proteases in all species examined. Protease activities differed among species but there was little systematic variation with taxonomic group. Moreover, similar species in Spain and Northern Ireland often showed differences. With the exception of LAP activities in brown algae, protease activities were one to two orders of magnitude greater in macroalgae than those previously measured in phytoplankton, when expressed per unit protein. However, scaling of activities to protein was complicated by significant interferences. Copper-based protein assays gave erroneously high results when applied to the brown algae, and partial purification of proteins by trichloroacetic acid precipitation did not overcome the problem. The higher levels of protease activity suggest that proteolysis plays a more significant role in multicellular than in unicellular algae. Proteases were characterized in terms of activities at different pH and the effect of protease inhibitors. In common with microalgae but in contrast to findings for animals and higher plants, proteases tended to show higher activities in the neutral and alkaline ranges. Many commonly used protease inhibitors (e.g. leupeptin and phenylmethylsulphonyl fluoride) had relatively little effect, which may explain why biochemical work with macroalgal species has traditionally been difficult. Our results suggest that macroalgal proteases are easily measurable but highly variable. A major source of variability that has not been assessed is differing environmental conditions. If this is correct, measurements of proteolytic enzymes may provide a valuable tool for examining biologically relevant changes in environments. Controlled laboratory experiments and seasonal monitoring are the next logical steps towards this goal.
Timed daily injections of neurotransmitter precursors alter the gonad and body weights of spotted munia, Lonchura punctulata, maintained under short daily photoperiods

The present study was designed to examine the role of circadian organization in the control of seasonality in the seasonally breeding spotted munia, Lonchura punctulata, which does not utilize photoperiod to time its reproduction under natural day-length conditions. Daily injections of L-dihydroxyphenylalanine (L-DOPA, precursor of dopamine) given 12 hr and 8 hr after administration of 5-hydroxytryptophan (5-HTP, precursor of serotonin) alter the gonadal and body-weight responses of the spotted munia, when it is maintained under short-day conditions (LD 6:18). The 12-hr interval was stimulatory and the 8-hr interval was inhibitory for both gonadal and body-weight responses while other intervals (0, 4, and 16 hr) had no effect. A 20-hr interval was stimulatory only for gonadal growth and had no effect on body weight. These findings support the suggestion that the endogenous seasonal mechanism is determined by circadian organization (i.e., by changes in the phase relationships of two neural oscillations and their many other circadian expressions). The results also indicate that interaction between these two systems does not produce any pharmacological effect but actually affects the seasonality of the birds, as indicated by the different gonadal and metabolic conditions that followed differently timed daily injections of drugs that influence serotonergic and dopaminergic activities. Furthermore, the mechanism of regulation of seasonality seems to be similar in species that do and do not utilize day length as the primary regulator with which to time their seasonal reproductive and metabolic cycles.
Phenotypic markers of Phytophthora infestans

Abstract Phytophthora infestans is one of the most destructive pathogens of potato and causal agents of notorious disease late blight. Different chemicals are used to control the pathogen of late blight but the most commonly used is metalaxyl; its extensive use of has caused decreased sensitivity in the P. infestans population. The metalaxyl sensitivity of the Pakistani population of P. infestans is investigated in the present study. For this purpose, 178 isolates of P. infestans were obtained from the lesions of diseased potato leaves and stems, and samples were collected from the different potato-growing areas of Pakistan, where late blight is a problem. Sensitivity of the isolates of P. infestans was investigated by metalaxyl sensitivity test and with the help of test isolates were divided into three categories, i.e. sensitive, intermediate and resistant, based on their Co-efficient of mycelial growth inhibition (CMGI) values. During the study, highest percentage (50.17%) of resistant isolates was observed in the population of Punjab (zone 2), whereas the lower percentage (33.33%) was observed in the population of Swat valley (zone 6b). In the present study, it was discovered that P. infestans late blight-causing fungus has adopted more resistance against metalaxyl because of its wide use.