Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Light Response of Native and Introduced Miscanthus sinensis Seedlings

The Asian grass Miscanthus sinensis (Poaceae) is being considered for use as a bioenergy crop in the U.S. Corn Belt. Originally introduced to the United States for ornamental plantings, it escaped, forming invasive populations. The concern is that naturalized M. sinensis populations have evolved shade tolerance. We tested the hypothesis that seedlings from within the invasive U.S. range of M. sinensis would display traits associated with shade tolerance, namely increased area for light capture and phenotypic plasticity, compared with seedlings from the native Japanese populations. In a common garden experiment, seedlings of 80 half-sib maternal lines were grown from the native range (Japan) and 60 half-sib maternal lines from the invasive range (U.S.) under four light levels. Seedling leaf area, leaf size, growth, and biomass allocation were measured on the resulting seedlings after 12 wk. Seedlings from both regions responded strongly to the light gradient. High light conditions resulted in seedlings with greater leaf area, larger leaves, and a shift to greater belowground biomass investment, compared with shaded seedlings. Japanese seedlings produced more biomass and total leaf area than U.S. seedlings across all light levels. Generally, U.S. and Japanese seedlings allocated a similar amount of biomass to foliage and equal leaf area per leaf mass. Subtle differences in light response by region were observed for total leaf area, mass, growth, and leaf size. U.S. seedlings had slightly higher plasticity for total mass and leaf area but lower plasticity for measures of biomass allocation and leaf traits compared with Japanese seedlings. Our results do not provide general support for the hypothesis of increased M. sinensis shade tolerance within its introduced U.S. range compared with native Japanese populations. Nomenclature: Eulaliagrass; Miscanthus sinensis Anderss. Management Implications: Eulaliagrass (Miscanthus sinensis), an Asian species under consideration for biomass production in the Midwest, has escaped ornamental plantings in the United States to form naturalized populations. Evidence suggests that U.S. populations are able to tolerate relatively shady conditions, but it is unclear whether U.S. populations have greater shade tolerance than the relatively shade-intolerant populations within the species' native range in Asia. Increased shade tolerance could result in a broader range of invaded light environments within the introduced range of M. sinensis. However, results from our common garden experiment do not support the hypothesis of increased shade tolerance in introduced U.S. populations compared with seedlings from native Asian populations. Our results do demonstrate that for both U.S. and Japanese populations under low light conditions, M. sinensis seeds germinate and seedlings gain mass and leaf area; therefore, land managers should carefully monitor or eradicate M. sinensis within these habitats.
Genetic differences in seed longevity of various Arabidopsis mutants

Seeds gradually lose their viability during dry storage. The damage that occurs at the biochemical level can alter the seed physiological status and is affected by the storage conditions of the seeds. Although these environmental conditions controlling loss of viability have been investigated frequently, little information is available on the genetics of seed longevity. Using Arabidopsis mutants in defined developmental or biochemical pathways such as those affected in seed coat composition, seed dormancy, hormone function and control of oxidative stress, we tried to gain insight into the genes and mechanisms controlling viability of stored seeds. Mutations like abscisic acid insensitive3 (abi3) as well as abscisic acid deficient1 (aba1) show reduced longevity, which may be partially related to the seed dormancy phenotype of these mutants. Mutants with seed coat alterations, especially aberrant tests shape (ats), showed a stronger reduction in germination percentage after storage, indicating the importance of a 'functional' seed coat for seed longevity. A specific emphasis was placed on mutants affected in dealing with Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS). Because several pathways are involved in protection against ROS and because gene redundancy is a common feature in Arabidopsis, 'double' mutants were generated. These 'double' mutants and the corresponding single mutants were subjected to a controlled deterioration test (CDT) and a germination assay on hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) after prolonged storage at two relative humidities. CDT and germination on H2O2 affected all genotypes, although it appears that other effects like genetic background are more important than the deficiencies in the ROS scavenging pathway. Explanations for this limited effect of mutations affecting ROS scavenging are discussed
Light and electron microscopic evidence of white spot disease in the giant tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon (Fabricius), and the kuruma shrimp, Penaeus japonicus (Bate), cultured in Taiwan

Since 1992, mass mortalities among cultured giant tiger shrimp, Penaeus monodon (Fabricius), and kuruma shrimp, Penaeus japonicus (Bate), have been observed in Taiwan. The condition is known as ‘white spot disease’ (WSD), based on the characteristic white spots on the cuticle of diseased shrimp. With the scanning electron microscope, two sizes of white spots were observed. Each spot represented a protrusion on the inside surface of the carapace. The composition of white spots was similar to that of the cuticule, most calcium, as determined with an energy dispersive spectrometer. Histological studies of moribund, infected specimens revealed degenerated cells, characterized by hypertrophied nuclei, in various meso- and ectodermal tissues. Infected tissues included cuticular epidermis, connective tissue, lymphoid organ, antennal gland, and haematopoietic, gill and nervous tissue. Nuclei were Feulgen-positive and no occlusion body was found in the necrotic tissue. Transmission electron microscopy revealed the presence of rod-shaped and enveloped virions in the hypertrophied nuclei. The virions measured 298 ± 21 × 107 ± 8 nm in the giant tiger shrimp and 248 ± 12 × 104 ± 8 nm in the kuruma shrimp. In an experimental infection trial, cumulative mortality was 40% within 14 days under stress conditions. No mortality was observed in controls or in non-stressed infected shrimp. Experimental infections show that environmental stressors such as ammonia may enhance the severity of WSD virus infections in cultured shrimp.
Absence of mutagenic and citotoxic potentiality of senna (Cassia angustifolia Vahl.) evaluated by microbiological tests

Sena (Cassia angustifolia Vahl.) e uma especie amplamente empregada como laxativa, mas dados mutagenicos realizados com teste de Ames e estudos animais e/ou em humanos com esse agente tem mostrado uma potencialidade mutagenica e carcinogenica. Usando tres diferentes testes (inativacao de bacterias; ensaio de mutagenese em bacterias - Mutoxitest; teste de inibicao de crescimento), foi investigada a toxidade dessa planta. Nossos dados sugerem uma ausencia da potencialidade mutagenica e citotoxicidade de sena.
¡Fútbol!

This article takes a novel approach to the study of discrimination in sports by looking at minutes played by strikers in the Union of European Football Associations Champions League over 1991-2011. We compare differences in minutes played between five ethnic groups: White Europeans, Black Europeans, Africans, White Latin Americans, and Black Latin Americans. We find evidence that White Latin Americans enjoy significantly less game time than White Europeans, while the opposite is true for Black Latin Americans. However, the inclusion of player fixed effects reveals that, after controlling for player ability, there is no evidence of discrimination in this competition.
Three‐Dimensional architecture of dendritic trees in type‐identified α‐motoneurons

We have studied the spatial distribution of dendrites of type‐identified triceps surae α‐motoneurons, labeled intracellularly with HRP, using a variety of analytical approaches that were designed to quantify the ways in which dendrites occupy three‐dimensional space. All of the methods indicated a strong tendency for motoneuron dendrites to project radially. However, regions dorsal and ventral to the somata contained fewer dendritic elements, and less membrane area, than expected for complete radial symmetry. Individual dendrites projecting into these regions tended to be smaller than those projecting rostrocaudally or mediolaterally. Nevertheless, the center of mass of membrane area for five of six fully analyzed cells was within 100 μm of the soma and, in all six cells, was located in the same dorsoventral plane as the cell soma. Maps of the projection of dendritic branches onto concentric shells at various radial distances from the soma showed that some regions have high concentrations of branches, sometimes with considerable overlap between branches arising from different stem dendrites, while other regions have relatively few branches, or none at all. Each motoneuron exhibited a different pattern of projection and there were no systematic differences between fast‐twitch (type F, including both types FF and FR units) and slow‐twitch (type S) motoneurons evident in the patterns of dendritic concentration. Assessment of the three‐dimensional territories of individual dendrites showed that dendrites with larger numbers of terminal branches tended to have larger spatial territories. Despite considerable scatter, the results suggest that the density of branches tends to be approximately the same in large and small dendrites, and in F and S cell groups. The results are discussed in relation to the spatial location of synaptic input to motoneurons.
New Zealand speech-language therapists’ management of feeding in infants

ABSTRACT Rationale: There has been a rapid growth in research specific to the area of paediatric dysphagia in the last two decades. Little is known about New Zealand speech-language therapists' (SLTs) current management practices with early infant feeding. This study surveyed the practices of SLTs in New Zealand working with bottle-fed infants. Methods: Thirty-six SLTs (60% with more than 10 years clinical experience; 80% dedicated paediatric caseload only) completed a web-based survey consisting of open-response, forced choice, and ordinal scale questions focussed on assessment, management and supervisory support. Results: Access to instrumental assessment was 94% for videofluoroscopy and 16% for endoscopy with instrumental assessment guiding non-oral feeding decisions in 71% of respondents but rarely used to guide positioning (10%), pacing (19%), or teat selection (16%). Managing state and positioning were the most commonly prescribed interventions. The frequency of use of an intervention was positively correlated with respondents’ perception of efficacy of intervention (p < .001) and perceived strength of evidence base for intervention (p < .01). Family adherence was the most frequently reported barrier to choice of intervention. Teat choice was primarily decided by flow rate, family preference and availability. Satisfaction with professional development opportunities was poor (6%) and only two-thirds of respondents had regular supervision. Conclusions: SLTs working with infants are experienced and predominately dedicated to paediatric work. SLTs use a range of interventions but have mixed opinions on the evidence-base and efficacy of the interventions they choose.
WS-Policy4MASC – A WS-Policy Extension Used in the Manageable and Adaptable Service Compositions (MASC) Middleware

WS-Policy4MASC is a new XML language that we have developed for policy specification in the Manageable and Adaptable Service Compositions (MASC) middleware. It can be also used for other Web service middleware. It extends the Web Services Policy Framework (WS-Policy) by defining new types of policy assertions. Goal policy assertions specify requirements and guarantees (e.g., maximal response time) to be met in desired normal operation. They guide monitoring activities in MASC. Action policy assertions specify actions to be taken if certain conditions are met or not met (e.g., some guarantees were not satisfied). They guide adaptation and other control actions. Utility policy assertions specify monetary values assigned to particular situations (e.g., execution of some action). They can be used by MASC for billing and for selection between alternative action policy assertions. Meta-policy assertions can be used to specify which action policy assertions are alternative and which conflict resolution strategy (e.g., profit maximization) should be used. In addition to these 4 new types of policy assertions, WS-Policy4MASC enables specification of additional information that is necessary for run-time policy-driven management. This includes information about conditions when policy assertions are evaluated/ executed, parties performing this evaluation /execution, a party responsible for meeting a goal policy assertion, ontological meaning, monitored data items, states, state transitions, schedules, events, and various expressions. We have evaluated feasibility of the WS-Policy4MASC solutions by implementing a policy repository and other modules in MASC. Further, we have examined their usefulness on a set of realistic stock trading scenarios.
A Versatile Hypergraph Model for Document Collections

Efficiently and effectively representing large collections of text is of central importance to information retrieval tasks such as summarization and search. Since models for these tasks frequently rely on an implicit graph structure of the documents or their contents, graph-based document representations are naturally appealing. For tasks that consider the joint occurrence of words or entities, however, existing document representations often fall short in capturing cooccurrences of higher order, higher multiplicity, or at varying proximity levels. Furthermore, while numerous applications benefit from structured knowledge sources, external data sources are rarely considered as integral parts of existing document models. To address these shortcomings, we introduce heterogeneous hypergraphs as a versatile model for representing annotated document collections. We integrate external metadata, document content, entity and term annotations, and document segmentation at different granularity levels in a joint model that bridges the gap between structured and unstructured data. We discuss selection and transformation operations on the set of hyperedges, which can be chained to support a wide range of query scenarios. To ensure compatibility with established information retrieval methods, we discuss projection operations that transform hyperedges to traditional dyadic cooccurrence graph representations. Using PostgreSQL and Neo4j, we investigate the suitability of existing database systems for implementing the hypergraph document model, and explore the impact of utilizing implicit and materialized hyperedge representations on storage space requirements and query performance.
Retracted: Prevalence of refractive errors and corneal topographic changes in unilateral congenital ptosis vs the fellow eye: a clinical study

The article titled, "Prevalence of refractive errors and corneal topographic changes in unilateral congenital ptosis vs the fellow eye: a clinical study", published in the International Journal of Research in Medical Sciences, Volume 7, Issue 2, 2019, Pages 442-446, DOI: http://dx.doi. org/10.18203/2320-6012.ijrms20190350 is being retracted due to authorship dispute.
Optimal 3D-Trajectory Design and Resource Allocation for Solar-Powered UAV Communication Systems

In this paper, we investigate the resource allocation algorithm design for multicarrier solar-powered unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) communication systems. In particular, the UAV is powered by the solar energy enabling sustainable communication services to multiple ground users. We study the joint design of the 3D aerial trajectory and the wireless resource allocation for maximization of the system sum throughput over a given time period. As a performance benchmark, we first consider an off-line resource allocation design assuming non-causal knowledge of the channel gains. The algorithm design is formulated as a mixed-integer non-convex optimization problem taking into account the aerodynamic power consumption, solar energy harvesting, a finite energy storage capacity, and the quality-of-service requirements of the users. Despite the non-convexity of the optimization problem, we solve it optimally by applying monotonic optimization to obtain the optimal 3D-trajectory and the optimal power and subcarrier allocation policy. Subsequently, we focus on the online algorithm design that only requires real-time and statistical knowledge of the channel gains. The optimal online resource allocation algorithm is motivated by the off-line scheme and entails a high computational complexity. Hence, we also propose a low-complexity iterative suboptimal online scheme based on the successive convex approximation. Our simulation results reveal that both the proposed online schemes closely approach the performance of the benchmark off-line scheme and substantially outperform two baseline schemes. Furthermore, our results unveil the tradeoff between solar energy harvesting and power-efficient communication. In particular, the solar-powered UAV first climbs up to a high altitude to harvest a sufficient amount of solar energy and then descends again to a lower altitude to reduce the path loss of the communication links to the users it serves.
Landscape structure influences tree density patterns in fragmented woodlands in semi‐arid eastern Australia

Landscape and local-scale influences are important drivers of plant community structure. However, their relative contribution and the degree to which they interact remain unclear. We quantified the extent to which landscape structure, within-patch habitat and their confounding effects determine post-clearing tree densities and composition in agricultural landscapes in eastern subtropical Australia. Landscape structure (incorporating habitat fragmentation and loss) and within-patch (site) features were quantified for 60 remnant patches of Eucalyptus populnea (Myrtaceae) woodland. Tree density and species for three ecological maturity classes (regeneration, early maturity, late maturity) and local site features were assessed in one 100 × 10 m plot per patch. All but one landscape characteristic was determined within a 1.3-km radius of plots; Euclidean nearest neighbour distance was measured inside a 5-km radius. Variation in tree density and composition for each maturity class was partitioned into independent landscape, independent site and joint effects of landscape and site features using redundancy analysis. Independent site effects explained more variation in regeneration density and composition than pure landscape effects; significant predictors were the proportion of early and late maturity trees at a site, rainfall and the associated interaction. Conversely, landscape structure explained greater variation in early and late maturity tree density and composition than site predictors. Area of remnant native vegetation within a landscape and patch characteristics (area, shape, edge contrast) were significant predictors of early maturity tree density. However, 31% of the explained variation in early mature tree differences represented confounding influences of landscape and local variables. We suggest that within-patch characteristics are important in influencing semi-arid woodland tree regeneration. However, independent and confounding effects of landscape structure resulting from previous vegetation clearing may have exerted a greater historical influence on older cohorts and should be accounted for when examining woodland dynamics across a broader range of environments.
DAYLENGTH AND LIGHT RESPONSES IN GROWTH AND FERTILITY OF GLOSSOPHORA KUNTHII (PHAEOPHYTA, DICTYOTALES) FROM PACIFIC SOUTH AMERICA 1

Excised ligulae of Glossophora kunthii (C. Ag.) J. Ag. were cultured in photoperiods of 4–24 h and photon fluence rates of 10–75 μmol. m−2.s−1. Daylength interacted with irradiance on the growth of the ligulae. Maximal growth of primary ligulae occurred in long‐day regimens with high irradiances suggesting an effect of irradiance on photosynthesis and growth. In contrast, growth of secondary ligulae was greatest in short‐day regimes. Differences were significant at the highest irradiance tested. Differentiation of tetrasporangia on the ligulae is a short‐day photoperiodic response. Daylengths of 8.5 h or less induced a sharp increase in numbers of fertile ligulae and tetrasporangia attaining maturity. Interruptions of the dark period decreased the development of tetrasporangia; the number of interruptions had a cumulative inhibitory effect. Differentiation of reproductive structures was influenced by interactions of photoperiod and irradiance. Maximum numbers of tetrasporangia were formed at short‐day regimes and low irradiances; differentiation was completely inhibited at long‐day conditions and high irradiance.
Condition-dependent alternative mating tactics in a sexually cannibalistic wolf spider

Condition-dependent male mating tactics often involve high-quality males capitalizing on the outcome of intersexual selection, whereas low-quality males use behaviors that circumvent female choice to achieve copulation. In the wolf spider Rabidosa punctulata, males display 2 distinct mating tactics: 1) "courtship"--consisting of visual and seismic components or 2) "direct mount"--consisting of males grappling/holding females until they assume a copulatory posture. We tested for condition-dependent tactic expression using both field-collected individuals (representing natural variation in body mass and condition) and individuals whose diet we manipulated in the laboratory (representing extreme divergences in body size and condition). Across both natural and diet manipulated individuals, mating tactic was found to be condition dependent; however, the pattern of tactic expression was initially unexpected. Larger males with better body condition primarily adopted a direct mount tactic, whereas smaller males with poorer body condition primarily utilized courtship. Across all males, copulation success tended to be greatest for the direct mount tactic. We suggest that small, poor condition males predominantly utilize the less-successful mating tactic (courtship) in part due to their increased susceptibility to female cannibalism when attempting a direct mount. Copyright 2009, Oxford University Press.