Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Diversity of mosquitoes (Diptera: Culicidae) collected in different types of larvitraps in an Amazon rural settlement

Anthropogenic environments provide favorable conditions for some species, which are especially suitable for mosquitoes that present eclecticism at the moment of choice for the site of oviposition. The present study, the diversity of mosquitoes in plastic container, bamboo internode, and tire placed in forest, the forest edge, and peridomicile environments in a rural settlement area was assessed. Eighteen sampling points were chosen, delimited by a buffer 200 m, placed in environments: forest, forest edge, and peridomicile. In each environment, larvitraps were installed, separated by a minimum distance of 7 m and 1 m from the ground. A total of 10,131 immature mosquitoes of 20 species were collected. The most abundant species was Culex urichii (29.5%), followed by Trichoprosopom digitatum (27.1%), and Cx. (Melanoconion) sp. (10,4%). There was a difference in the composition of immature mosquito populations between larvitraps (p<0.0005), and the plastic container hosted a greater diversity of species, whereas tires presented a greater abundance of individuals. The forest, forest edge, and peridomicile environments were also significantly different with regard to diversity of immature mosquito populations (p<0.0010). The forest edge was the environment with the greatest diversity of species, followed by the peridomicile and forest environments. In the forest and peridomicile, plastic container larvitraps had the greatest diversity, whereas the forest edge tire presented the largest number of individuals. Further, tire larvitraps collected the largest number of individuals in all environments. We identified 10 species associated with the bamboo internode and tire. We also observed the preference of species for artificial larvitraps, such as the plastic container and tire, even in wild environments. These artificial objects may represent a risk factor for the population living in this region, as all vector species found in the study were present in plastic containers and tires.
Evaluation of Seed or Grain Storage Technologies from Indian Farming Societies Using A Hybrid and Multi-Attribute Approach

Soon after the introduction of green revolution, a parallel increment in percent food grain production and losses has been reported in India, which impedes the mission of achieving food security in India. In parts, among the major causes of these losses are the reluctance among farmers, especially of small holding, towards adoption of scientific storage methods/technologies and inability of the national agencies to meet the challenges imposed by the supply of surplus grains to them by the farmers. Although sets of traditional and improved grain storage technologies exist among Indian farming communities, a controversial account about their effectiveness and performance is available in the literature which negatively impacts the endeavour of bringing rapid developmental in the farming society. In a developing nation like India, a large section of farmers is often either unaware of the modern technologies or cannot logistically access them. They often rely on the traditional or semi-modern technologies without having a comprehensive account of the benefit and economic feasibility of the modern technologies. This impedes the vision of rapid development of the farmers and the process of infusing emerging technologies in the society. In order to develop an informative argument about the performance of the existing technologies, a nearly comprehensive study has been undertaken to compare the different traditional and improved grain storage structures used by Indian farmers. Both qualitative and quantitative parameters were compared individually and simultaneously to achieve their effect on performance individually and in unison. Another objective of the study was to test the applicability of hybrid and multi-attribute approach, based on Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) for the performance evaluation and ranking of the attributes and structures. Finally, based on analysis and ideas borrowed out of literature a set of theoretical and conceptual guidelines to assist improvement in these structures was brought in. The study will help understand the status of grain storage technologies in the developing, resource-poor society and also increase the adoption and access of farmers to better post-harvest seed storage technologies.
Wavefront parallelization of recurrent neural networks on multi-core architectures

Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are widely used for natural language processing, time-series prediction, or text analysis tasks. The internal structure of RNNs inference and training in terms of data or control dependencies across their fundamental numerical kernels complicate the exploitation of model parallelism, which is the reason why just data-parallelism has been traditionally applied to accelerate RNNs. This paper presents W-Par (Wavefront-Parallelization), a comprehensive approach for RNNs inference and training on CPUs that relies on applying model parallelism into RNNs models. We use fine-grained pipeline parallelism in terms of wavefront computations to accelerate multi-layer RNNs running on multi-core CPUs. Wavefront computations have been widely applied in many scientific computing domains like stencil kernels or dynamic programming. W-Par divides RNNs workloads across different parallel tasks by defining input and output dependencies for each RNN cell. Our experiments considering different RNNs models demonstrate that W-Par achieves up to 6.6X speed-up for RNN models inference and training in comparison to current state-of-the-art implementations on modern multi-core CPU architectures. Importantly, W-Par maximizes performance on a wide range of scenarios, including different core counts or memory hierarchy configurations, without requiring any change at the source code level.
Evolutionary distinctness of grayling (Thymallus thymallus) inhabiting the Adriatic river system, as based on mtDNA variation

The northern part of the peri-Adriatic river system is inhabited by a native grayling population. In comparison with the Danubian population most of the Adriatic population is regarded as morphologically distinct and therefore recognized as racially differentiated. DNA sequence analysis of the 394-bp fragment of the mtDNA control region and 363-bp fragment of the cytochrome b gene region from grayling specimens of the Adriatic, Danubian and Atlantic river systems revealed nine composite mtDNA haplotypes. The genetic divergence of the Adriatic and the Danubian-Atlantic haplotypes ranged from 2.52 to 3.10% and from 3.38 to 3.92% in the cytochrome b gene and control region, respectively. On the basis of sequence data an attempt was made to elucidate the phylogeography of the Adriatic population. The molecular data indicate an ancient monophyletic origin and also confirm its distinct position within the Thymallus thymallus species, in spite of the fact that stocking with the Danubian type occurred in the Adriatic river system. Therefore the Adriatic population deserves special attention. As a first step in its preservation, its formal distinction by using the name Adriatic grayling is proposed.
Code building genetic programming

In recent years the field of genetic programming has made significant advances towards automatic programming. Research and development of contemporary program synthesis methods, such as PushGP and Grammar Guided Genetic Programming, can produce programs that solve problems typically assigned in introductory academic settings. These problems focus on a narrow, predetermined set of simple data structures, basic control flow patterns, and primitive, non-overlapping data types (without, for example, inheritance or composite types). Few, if any, genetic programming methods for program synthesis have convincingly demonstrated the capability of synthesizing programs that use arbitrary data types, data structures, and specifications that are drawn from existing codebases. In this paper, we introduce Code Building Genetic Programming (CBGP) as a framework within which this can be done, by leveraging programming language features such as reflection and first-class specifications. CBGP produces a computational graph that can be executed or translated into source code of a host language. To demonstrate the novel capabilities of CBGP, we present results on new benchmarks that use non-primitive, polymorphic data types as well as some standard program synthesis benchmarks.
The value relevance of earnings in the return–earnings relation in the Nigerian Deposit Money Banks

Abstract This study was conceived to investigate the extent of relationship between accounting numbers and market values of listed Deposit Money Banks (DMBs) in Nigeria using the Easton and Harris model. Accounting information data were collected from the published financial statements of the sampled DMBs and the market value data were gathered through official daily list of the Nigerian Stock Exchange over a period of nine years (2004–2012). Multivariate regression was used to test the hypothesis of the study. The study established that accounting information of DMBs in Nigeria is value relevant. Though the result established value relevance of accounting information, however, earnings which is reputed to be the most value-relevant account information for financial services firms was found to be irrelevant as its coefficients and p-value were small and insignificant. The study recommends that the management of DMBs in Nigeria should improve on their earnings as doing so will prevent recurrence of stock market crisis of 2008 and 2009.
Structural determinants within the adenovirus early region 1A protein spacer region necessary for tumourigenesis

It has long been established that group-A adenoviruses (HAdV-A12, -A18 and -A31) can cause tumours in new-born rodents with tumourigenicity related to the presence of a unique spacer region located between conserved regions 2 and 3 within the Ad12E1A protein. Group B adenoviruses are weakly oncogenic whereas most of the remaining human adenoviruses are non-oncogenic. In order to understand better the relationship between the structure of the AdE1A spacer region and oncogenicity of HAdVs the structure of synthetic peptides identical or very similar to the adenovirus12 E1A spacer region have been determined to be α-helical using NMR spectroscopy. This contrasts significantly with some previous suggestions that this region is unstructured. Using available predictive algorithms, the structures of spacer regions from other E1As were also examined and the extent of predicted α-helix was found to correlate reasonably well with the tumorigenicity of the respective viruses. Importance This research analysed small peptides equivalent to a region within the human adenovirus early region 1A protein that confers, in part, tumour inducing properties to varying degrees on several viral strains in rats and mice. The oncogenic spacer region is alpha-helical, which contrasts with previous suggestions that this region is unstructured. The helix is characterised by a stretch of amino acids rich in alanine residues that are organised into a hydrophobic or ‘water-hating’ surface that is considered to form a major site of interaction with cellular protein targets that mediate tumour formation. The extent of alpha-helix in E1A from other adenovirus species can be correlated to a limited degree to the tumourigenicity of that virus. Some serotypes show significant differences in predicted structural propensity suggesting the amino acid type and physicochemical properties are also of importance.
Surviving glacial ages within the Biotic Gap: phylogeography of the New Zealand cicada Maoricicada campbelli

Aim New Zealand is an ideal location in which to investigate the roles of landscape and climate change on speciation and biogeography. An earlier study of the widespread endemic cicada Maoricicada campbelli (Myers) found two phylogeographically distinguishable major clades – northern South Island plus North Island (northern‐SI + NI) and Otago. These two clades appeared to have diverged on either side of an area of the South Island known as the Biotic Gap. We sampled more intensively to test competing theories for this divergence. We aimed to discover if M. campbelli had survived within the Biotic Gap during recent glacial maxima, and if predicted areas of secondary contact between the two major clades existed.
INFLUENCE OF PROCESSING AND COOKING METHODOLOGIES FOR REDUCTION OF PHYTIC ACID CONTENT IN WHEAT (TRITICUM AESTIVUM) VARIETIES

The research was aimed to determine the effectiveness of different cooking and processing methods for reduction of phytic acid (PA) in wheat. Wheat is the staple food in Pakistan, supplying mainly energy, protein and minerals requirements in the average daily diet of rural and urban families. But compounds like PA depreciate its quality. In the first phase of the present study, seven wheat varieties viz. Inqilab-91, Chakwal-97, Margalla-99, Wafaq-2001, G.A-2002, N.R-231 and N.R-234, most commonly grown all over Pakistan, were analyzed for PA without any treatment. PA was within the ranged of 1.503 (Inqalab-91) and 1.223% (N.R-234). In the second phase, different processing methods like soaking, germination and heat treatment were applied to check their effect on the reduction of PA. All treatments resulted in gradual decrease in PA contents. The soaking treatment was applied for 4, 8, 12 and 24 h. Maximum PA loss was observed in Margalla-99 (25.1%) while minimum (22.5%) in Chakwal-97 after 24-h soaking. The germination treatment was applied for 24, 36 and 48 h. The highest loss of PA was observed in Margalla-99 (40%) while the lowest (37%) in N.R-231 after 48-h germination. Similarly, heat treatment was also applied for 10, 30 and 60 min. Maximum PA loss was observed after 60-min heating in Wafaq-2001 (32%) while minimum (27.0%) in N.R-23. Different processing methodologies can be applied for the reduction of PA. Each and every method has its own merits. If one method is beneficial for the reduction of PA content in a wheat variety, it does not necessarily mean that the same method is good for the other.
Improvements in calcined magnesite as a magnesium fertilizer

Summary A laboratory and glasshouse study investigated whether it was possible to improve the availability of magnesium from calcined magnesite (MgO). Samples varying from largely unchanged magnesite (MgCO3) to overburnt MgO were made by calcining small quantities of magnesite ore for up to 6 h at several temperatures between 500 and 1000 °C in the laboratory. The effect of calcining conditions on weight loss on ignition, particle size distribution, total, water-soluble and NH4+ -exchangeable Mg was determined and results compared with the current commercial oxide and kieserite (MgSO4. H2O). The results indicated that an oxide could be produced containing nearly double the amount of readily-exchangeable Mg of the oxide used at present. The analysis showed that the most reactive oxide was produced either by burning for 3 h at 700 °C or about half-an-hour at 800 °C, i.e. the minimum time at each temperature for complete conversion of the carbonate to the oxide. Either of these two oxides increased the Mg in plants of the three crops grown in the glasshouse by 0·3% on average, whereas plants given the commercial oxide increased it by only 0·2%. The three crops removed about 70% of the applied Mg from the most reactive oxides but only 50% of the Mg from the commercial oxide. The results of an incubation experiment suggested that burning at 700 °C for 3 h gave a marginally more reactive oxide than the short burn at 800 °C. However, the most reactive oxide produced supplied magnesium at a slower rate than kieserite. This may not necessarily be a disadvantage since most of the soils where Mg deficiency of sugar beet and similar crops is a potential problem need a Mg fertilizer which maintains or gradually increases soil Mg. Thus the improved oxide may bo suitable and a comparison in field experiments of the effects of kieserite and oxides produced under different calcining conditions is needed.
Phylogeny of the Metazoa Based on Morphological and 18S Ribosomal DNA Evidence

Cladistic analysis of traditional (i.e. morphological, developmental, ultrastructural) and molecular (18S rDNA) data sets (276+501 informative characters) provides a hypothesis about relationships of all meta‐zoan higher taxa. Monophyly of Metazoa, Epith‐eliozoa (= ‐03non‐Porifera), Triploblastica, Mesozoa, Eutriploblastica (=Rhabditophora+Catenulida+“higher triploblasts”=Neotriploblastica, including Xeno‐ turbellida and Gnathostomulida), Rhabditophora, Syndermata (=“Rotifera”+Acanthocephala), Neotrichozoa (=Gastrotricha+Gnathostomulida), Nematozoa (=Nematoda+Nematomorpha), Panarthropoda (=Onychophora+Tardigrada+ Arthropoda), Cephalorhyncha, Deuterostomia, Ambulacralia (=Hemichordata+Echinodermata), Chordata, Phoronozoa (=Phoronida+“Brachiopoda”), Bryozoa, Trochozoa (=Eutrochozoa+Entoprocta+ Cycliophora), Eutrochozoa, and Chaetifera (=Annelida+ Pogonophora+Echiura) is strongly supported. Cnidaria (including Myxozoa), Ecdysozoa (=Cepha‐ lorhyncha + Nematozoa + Chaetognatha + Panarthropoda), Eucoelomata (=Bryozoa+Phoronozoa+Deuterostomia+Trochozoa, possibly including also Xenoturbellida), and Deuterostomia+Phoronozoa probably are monophyletic. Most traditional “phyla” are monophyletic, except for Porifera, Cnidaria (excluding Myxozoa), Platyhelminthes, Brachiopoda, and Rotifera. Three “hot” regions of the tree remain quite unresolved: basal Epitheliozoa, basal Triploblastica, and basal Neotriploblastica. A new phylogenetic classification of the Metazoa including 35 formally recognized phyla (Silicispongea, Calcispongea, Placozoa, Cnidaria, Ctenophora, Acoela, Nemertodermatida, Orthonecta, Rhombozoa, Rhabditophora, Catenulida, Syndermata, Gnathostomulida, Gastrotricha, Cephalorhyncha, Chaetognatha, Nematoda, Nematomorpha, Onychophora, Tardigrada, Arthropoda, Echinodermata, Hemichordata, Chordata, Phoronozoa, Bryozoa s. str., Xenoturbellida, Entoprocta, Cycliophora, Nemertea, Mollusca, Sipuncula, Echiura, Pogonophora, and Annelida) and few i ncertae sedis g roups (e.g. Myzostomida and Lobatocerebromorpha) is proposed.
Morphological and electrophysiological characteristics of the epipharyngeal sensilla of the silkworm, Bombyx mori

One pair of gustatory sensilla was found on the epipharynx of Bombyx mori larvae, and some morphological and electrophysiological characteristics of the epipharyngeal sensilla were investigated. They are sensilla coeloconica composed of a small papilla with a pore at the tip and a swelling of cuticle encircling the papilla. Three bipolar neurons innervate each sensillum. One neuron is an inositol receptor which responds to inositol only. Another cell responds with action potentials of relatively large amplitude to some feeding deterrent substances, such as strychnine nitrate. The thresholds of these cells for inositol and strychnine nitrate are approximately 10−4 M and 10−7 M, respectively. At least two kinds of spikes can be observed when these sensilla are stimulated with some salts and acids. Dose‐response relationships and time courses of responses to inositol and strychnine nitrate were also examined in this study.
Enhanced Kerr nonlinearity and nonlinear figure of merit in silicon nanowires integrated with 2D graphene oxide films.

Layered two-dimensional (2D) GO films are integrated with silicon-on-insulator (SOI) nanowire waveguides to experimentally demonstrate an enhanced Kerr nonlinearity, observed through self-phase modulation (SPM). The GO films are integrated with SOI nanowires using a large-area, transfer-free, layer-by-layer coating method that yields precise control of the film thickness. The film placement and coating length are controlled by opening windows in the silica cladding of the SOI nanowires. Owing to the strong mode overlap between the SOI nanowires and the highly nonlinear GO films, the Kerr nonlinearity of the hybrid waveguides is significantly enhanced. Detailed SPM measurements using picosecond optical pulses show significant spectral broadening enhancement for SOI nanowires coated with 2.2-mm-long films of 1-3 layers of GO, and 0.4-mm-long films with 5-20 layers of GO. By fitting the experimental results with theory, the dependence of GO's Kerr nonlinearity on layer number and pulse energy is obtained, showing interesting physical insights and trends of the layered GO films from 2D monolayers to quasi bulk-like behavior. Finally, we show that by coating SOI nanowires with GO films the effective nonlinear parameter of SOI nanowires is increased 16 folds, with the effective nonlinear figure of merit (FOM) increasing by about 20 times to FOM > 5. These results reveal the strong potential of using layered GO films to improve the Kerr nonlinear optical performance of silicon photonic devices.
EIF2α phosphorylation is regulated in intracellular amastigotes for the generation of infective Trypanosoma cruzi trypomastigote forms

Trypanosomatids regulate gene expression mainly at the post‐transcriptional level through processing, exporting and stabilising mRNA and control of translation. In most eukaryotes, protein synthesis is regulated by phosphorylation of eukaryotic initiation factor 2 (eIF2) at serine 51. Phosphorylation halts overall translation by decreasing availability of initiator tRNAmet to form translating ribosomes. In trypanosomatids, the N‐terminus of eIF2α is extended with threonine 169 the homologous phosphorylated residue. Here, we evaluated whether eIF2α phosphorylation varies during the Trypanosoma cruzi life cycle, the etiological agent of Chagas' disease. Total levels of eIF2α are diminished in infective and non‐replicative trypomastigotes compared with proliferative forms from the intestine of the insect vector or amastigotes from mammalian cells, consistent with decreased protein synthesis reported in infective forms. eIF2α phosphorylation increases in proliferative intracellular forms prior to differentiation into trypomastigotes. Parasites overexpressing eIF2αT169A or with an endogenous CRISPR/Cas9‐generated eIF2αT169A mutation were created and analysis revealed alterations to the proteome, largely unrelated to the presence of μORF in epimastigotes. eIF2αT169A mutant parasites produced fewer trypomastigotes with lower infectivity than wild type, with increased levels of sialylated mucins and oligomannose glycoproteins, and decreased galactofuranose epitopes and the surface protease GP63 on the cell surface. We conclude that eIF2α expression and phosphorylation levels affect proteins relevant for intracellular progression of T. cruzi.