Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A quest for the biological sources of the ubiquitous long chain alkyl diols in the marine realm

Abstract. Long chain alkyl diols (LCDs) are widespread in the marine water column and sediments but their biological sources are mostly unknown. Here we combine lipid analyses with 18S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing on suspended particulate matter (SPM) collected in the photic zone of the tropical North Atlantic at 24 stations to infer relationships between LCDs and potential LCD-producers. The C 30 1,15-diol was detected in all SPM samples and accounted for > 95 % of the total LCDs, while minor proportions of C 28 and C 30 1,13-diols, C 28 and C 30 1,14-diols as well as C 32 1,15-diol were found. The concentration of the C 30 and C 32 diols was higher in the mixed layer of the water column compared to the deep chlorophyll maximum (DCM), whereas concentrations of C 28 diols were comparable. Sequencing analyses revealed extremely low contributions (≈ 0.1 % of the 18S rRNA gene reads) of known LCD-producers but the contributions from two taxonomic classes to which known producers are affiliated, i.e. Dictyochophyceae and Chrysophyceae, followed a trend similar to that of the concentrations of C 30 and C 32 diols. Statistical analyses indicated that the abundance of 4 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) of the Chrysophyceae and Dictyochophyceae, along with 23 OTUs falling in other phylogenetic groups, were significantly correlated with C 30 diol concentrations. However, it is not clear whether some of these OTUs might indeed correspond to LCD-producers or whether these correlations are just indirect. Furthermore, based on the average LCD-content measured in cultivated LCD-producing algae, the detected concentrations of LCDs in SPM are too high to be explained by the abundances of the suspected LCD-producing OTUs. This is likely explained by the slower degradation of LCDs compared to DNA in the oxic water column and suggests that some of the LCDs found here were likely to be associated to suspended debris, while the DNA from the related LCD-producers had been already fully degraded. This suggests that care should be taken in constraining biological sources of relatively stable biomarker lipids by quantitative comparisons of DNA and lipid abundances.
Managing Marketing and Pricing Risks in Evolving Agricultural Markets

While local livestock auctions and grain elevators remain important locations of exchange, agricultural producers in many sectors increasingly rely on negotiated contracts. As both sellers in commodity and product markets and buyers in input markets, U.S. agricultural producers negotiate a surprisingly diverse set of complex contracts, stipulating price, quantities and qualities delivered, and other terms of sale. See the Glossary of Economic Terms provided in a box with this article, for further explanation. Examples include forward contract sales of feeder cattle, malt barley production contracts with brewers, feedstock corn contracted to ethanol plants, and fertilizer purchases prior to crop planting. Fresh produce marketing contracts and poultry and pork production contracts often specify a price and quantity delivered as well as details of the production process. While increased contracting offers the chance to forwardprice products and perhaps reduce price volatility, privately negotiating sales may create risks for producers that affect profitability. These risks may include potential costs asso ciated with unsold inventory and related bargaining disadvantages, limited opportunities to match with trading partners, negotiating with a more experienced buyer, and renegotiating incomplete contracts. Such marketing issues that could result in a price negotiation disadvantage for producers receive relatively little attention in agricultural policy and lack relevant funding for risk management education. Contracting and the Evolution of U.S. Agricultural Markets
Bubbles in Titan’s Seas: Nucleation, Growth, and RADAR Signature

In the polar regions of Titan, the main satellite of Saturn, hydrocarbon seas have been discovered by the Cassini–Huygens mission. RADAR observations have revealed surprising and transient bright areas over the Ligeia Mare surface. As suggested by recent research, bubbles could explain these strange features. However, the nucleation and growth of such bubbles, together with their RADAR reflectivity, have never been investigated. All of these aspects are critical to an actual observation. We have thus applied the classical nucleation theory to our context, and we developed a specific radiative transfer model that is appropriate for bubble streams in cryogenic liquids. According to our results, the sea bed appears to be the most plausible place for the generation of bubbles, leading to a signal comparable to observations. This conclusion is supported by thermodynamic arguments and by RADAR properties of a bubbly column. The latter are also valid in the case of bubble plumes, due to gas leaking from the sea floor.
Typology of the Patent Troll Business

Patent trolls have many faces, since the media uses this expression in various ways. The patent troll phenomenon thus seems to be an ambiguous term that is discussed in several directions. This paper reveals that a patent troll as such has no distinct shape or appearance. Our analysis redeems a troll classification solely from firms’ market position, such as being non-practicing, and shows that a patent troll business can only be defined by the respective practice to enforce IPR. Using 10 case studies, of which five are treated in detail, the analysis reveals a distinct typology of IPR enforcement mechanisms and suggests a framework to assess the troll business. This paper is furthermore able to identify the nature of troll behavior to be: a) a best practice to enforce IP rights and b) a strategy that may create costs for affected industries. The differentiated troll analysis further reveals negative but also positive effects of the troll business on incentives to innovate.
Interactive comment on “Technical Note: Determining the size-normalised weight of planktic foraminifera” by C. J. Beer et al

The importance of determining the impact of size on the weight of planktic foraminifera, and therefore the relevance of weight as a proxy for test thickness is crucial in our understanding of the carbonate ion effect. The paper aims to objectively determine if Size Normalized Weight (SNW) of planktic foraminifera based on measuring size (Measurement based weight – MBW) has an greater accuracy than through using a sieve mid-point size (Sieve based weight – SBW). The paper through the use of an automated image capture device uses a novel approach of measuring shape area (referred to as Test area within the paper) and the mean of the diameter’s bisecting the centre of planktic foraminifera to determine test size. There findings indicate that the use of shape area provides a more accurate size measurement upon which to
Egalitarian aid. The impact of aid on Latin American inequality.

Literature on the relationship between aid and inequality is scarce and contradictory. Most studies are based on dynamic panel data using internal instruments to deal with endogeneity. In addition to these techniques, this article introduces the persistency of inequality and a double-censored Gini index. We apply for the first time a dynamic and double-censored panel data estimated applying the Simulated Maximum Likelihood method to a sample of 18 Latin American countries for 1990-2008. The main findings are that public expenditure in consumption and foreign direct investment had a positive effect on inequality whereas aid had a negative (egalitarian) effect. Neither taxes nor public social spending had a significant effect on inequality.
Title Progression of Parkinson ’ s disease pathology is reproduced by intragastric administration of rotenone in mice Authors and Affiliations

In patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD), the associated pathology follows a characteristic pattern involving inter alia the enteric nervous system (ENS), the dorsal motor nucleus of the vagus (DMV), the intermediolateral nucleus of the spinal cord and the substantia nigra, providing the basis for the neuropathological staging of the disease. Here we report that intragastrically administered rotenone, a commonly used pesticide that inhibits Complex I of the mitochondrial respiratory chain, is able to reproduce PD pathological staging as found in patients. Our results show that low doses of chronically and intragastrically administered rotenone induce alpha-synuclein accumulation in all the above-mentioned nervous system structures of wild-type mice. Moreover, we also observed inflammation and alphasynuclein phosphorylation in the ENS and DMV. HPLC analysis showed no rotenone levels in the systemic blood or the central nervous system (detection limit [rotenone]<20nM) and mitochondrial Complex I measurements showed no systemic Complex I inhibition after 1.5 months of treatment. These alterations are sequential, appearing only in synaptically connected nervous structures, treatment timedependent and accompanied by inflammatory signs and motor dysfunctions. These results strongly suggest that the local effect of pesticides on the ENS might be sufficient to induce PD-like progression and to reproduce the neuroanatomical and neurochemical features of PD staging. It provides new insight into how N at ur e P re ce di ng s : h dl :1 01 01 /n pr e. 20 10 . 3 35 2. 3 : P os te d 25 F eb 2 01 0 environmental factors could trigger PD and suggests a transsynaptic mechanism by which PD might spread throughout the central nervous system.
The XXL Survey - VI. The 1000 brightest X-ray point sources

Context. X-ray extragalactic surveys are ideal laboratories for the study of the evolution and clustering of active galactic nuclei (AGN). Usually, a combination of deep and wide surveys is necessary to create a complete picture of the population. Deep X-ray surveys provide the faint population at high redshift, while wide surveys provide the rare bright sources. Nevertheless, very wide area surveys often lack the ancillary information available for modern deep surveys. The XXL survey spans two fields of a combined 50 deg(2) observed for more than 6Ms with XMM-Newton, occupying the parameter space that lies between deep surveys and very wide area surveys; at the same time it benefits from a wealth of ancillary data. Aims. This paper marks the first release of the XXL point source catalogue including four optical photometry bands and redshift estimates. Our sample is selected in the 2-10 keV energy band with the goal of providing a sizable sample useful for AGN studies. The limiting flux is F2-10 keV = 4.8 x 10(14) erg s(-1) cm(-2). Methods. We use both public and proprietary data sets to identify the counterparts of the X-ray point-like sources by means of a likelihood ratio test. We improve upon the photometric redshift determination for AGN by applying a Random Forest classification trained to identify for each object the optimal photometric redshift category (passive, star forming, starburst, AGN, quasi-stellar objects (QSO)). Additionally, we assign a probability to each source that indicates whether it might be a star or an outlier. We apply Bayesian analysis to model the X-ray spectra assuming a power-law model with the presence of an absorbing medium. Results. We find that the average unabsorbed photon index is \textlessGamma \textgreater = 1.85 +/- 0.40 while the average hydrogen column density is log \textless N-H \textgreater i = 21.07 +/- 1.2 cm(-2). We find no trend of Gamma or N-H with redshift and a fraction of 26% absorbed sources (log N-H \textgreater 22) consistent with the literature on bright sources (log L-x \textgreater 44). The counterpart identification rate reaches 96.7% for sources in the northern field, 97.7% for the southern field, and 97.2% in total. The photometric redshift accuracy is 0.095 for the full XMM-XXL with 28% catastrophic outliers estimated on a sample of 339 sources. Conclusions. We show that the XXL-1000-AGN sample number counts extended the number counts of the COSMOS survey to higher fluxes and are fully consistent with the Euclidean expectation. We constrain the intrinsic luminosity function of AGN in the 2-10 keV energy band where the unabsorbed X-ray flux is estimated from the X-ray spectral fit up to z = 3. Finally, we demonstrate the presence of a supercluster size structure at redshift 0.14, identified by means of percolation analysis of the XXL-1000-AGN sample. The XXL survey, reaching a medium flux limit and covering a wide area, is a stepping stone between current deep fields and planned wide area surveys.
Camale~ao: privacidade e seguranc ca na internet por esteganografia em imagens

A esteganografia, arte e ciência das comunicações secretas, inclui um vasto conjunto de métodos para comunicações secretas tais como tintas “invisíveis”, micro-pontos, arranjo de caracteres (character arrangement) entre outras. Os principais objetivos deste trabalho foram pesquisar as principais técnicas de esteganografia em imagens digitais da atualidade e desenvolver um software capaz de permitir a comunicação segura pela internet.
Quaternary Coastal History, Basin Geometry and Assumed Evidence for Hurricane Activity, Northeastern Gulf of Mexico Coastal Plain

Detailed aspects of the mid-to-late Holocene coastal evolution including identification of the transgressive and/or regressive character of shore-oblique estuarine valley-fill and/or shore-parallel lagoonal and lake deposits are important on the northeastern Gulf of Mexico coast. Evaluation of the valley-fill or lagoonal nature of these depositional basins in southeast Alabama and elsewhere is crucial in deciding the nature of multiple sand layers enclosed in such estuarine sequences. Multiple sand laminae, enclosed in organic-rich estuarine-lagoonal and lacustrine clays and muds beneath Gulf coastal lakes have been presented as proxy indicators of cyclically recurring Category 4 and 5 hurricanes, believed to have struck the coast periodically, following subdued hurricane activity before 3.2 ka BP (LIU and FEARN, 1993, 1997). Subsurface data, combined with those of Liu and Fern indicate that most of the sand laminae cited from sediments beneath Shelby Lakes were deposited in an estuarine valley fill, not lagoonal deposits. This occurred well before the original Shelby Lakes formed by prograding late Holocene strandplain ridges that mark the progressively seaward shifting Gulf of Mexico shoreline positions. Marsh islands in western Lake Shelby indicate that erosion of beach ridges around the originally smaller lagoons has gradually expanded them. Distances of probable storm overwash from the Gulf even into these early lagoons thus are not comparable with those that occasionally take place at the present time. In addition to providing important data for coastal evolution, the morphological and stratigraphic evaluation of coastal water bodies illustrate constraints in the reconstruction of prehistoric hurricane activity.
Effects of in ovo administration of L-carnitine on hatchability, subsequent performance, carcass traits and blood cholesterol of turkey poults

SUMMARY The present study aims to investigate the effects of in ovo administration of L-carnitine on hatchability as well as on subsequent performance, carcass traits and cholesterolemia of turkey poults 42 days after hatching. Fertilized eggs (n = 126 per group) were injected into the yolk sac with L-carnitine (10, 20, or 30 mg dissolved in 0.5 mL of deionized water) at the 6th day of incubation. Two control egg groups (not injected and injected with 0.5 mL of deionized water) were also included. Hatchability and subsequent weight growth, performances, carcass traits (carcass weight and relative weights of liver, breast and gizzard) and cholesterolemia on day 42 post-hatching were assessed. The hatchability was slightly but significantly depressed in all injected eggs compared to the not injected ones, but significantly increased in eggs treated with 20 and 30 mg L-carnitine compared to the sham egg controls. Furthermore, the weights at hatching, weight gains and food efficiency were significantly increased in chickens from L-carnitine treated eggs compared to the control chickens. In addition, carcass weights and relative weights of breast and gizzard were also markedly increased in chickens treated in ovo with L-carnitine whereas cholesterolemia was not significantly altered throughout the whole experimental period. These data suggest that the in ovo injection of L-carnitine may improve growth performance in turkey chickens.
Effects of Vocabulary Difficulty, Text Cohesion, and Schema Availability on Reading Comprehension. Technical Report No. 225.

TWO EXPERIMENTS assessed the effects of text cohesion and schema availability on children's comprehension of social studies passages that varied in vocabulary difficulty. Free recall, summarization, and sentence verfication measures were used. In the first experiment, texts were prepared which varied in cohesion. No interactions between cohesion and vocabulary difficulty appeared, although main effects for vocabulary were found. In the second experiment, schema availability was manipulated by varying topic familiarity. Significant main effects for familiarity and vocabulary difficulty were found; however, the two factors did not interact. The results of the two experiments failed to support expectations based on an interactive theory of reading.
Frequency Analysis of Subsequence Time Series Clustering and Evaluation of Phase Alignment Preprocessing

Although Subsequence Time Series (STS) clustering has been one of the most popular techniques to extract typical subsequence patterns from time-series data, previous studies have gave surprising reports that cluster centers obtained using STS clustering closely resemble ``sine waves'' with little relation to input time-series data. This means that STS clustering cannot be used for its original purpose, extraction of typical subsequences. Despite this serious fact, its mathematical structure has seldom been studied. The main contribution of this paper is that we give a theoretical analysis of STS clustering from a frequency-analysis viewpoint and identify that sine waves are generated due to the superposition of time series subsequences, which have the same spectra but different phases. Another contribution is that we propose a clustering algorithm, which uses a phase alignment preprocessing, to avoid sine-wave patterns.
Arthur Lindo Patterson, his function and element preferences in early crystal structures

In 1934, Arthur Lindo Patterson showed that a map of interatomic vectors is obtainable from measured X-ray diffraction data without phase information. Such maps were interpretable for simple crystal structures, but proliferation and overlapping of peaks caused confusion as the number of atoms increased. Since the peak height of a vector between two particular atoms is related to the product of their atomic numbers, a complicated structure could effectively be reduced to a simple one by including just a few ‘heavy’ atoms (of high atomic number) since their interatomic vectors would stand out from the general clutter. Once located, these atoms provide approximate phases for Fourier syntheses that reveal the locations of additional atoms. Surveys of small-molecule structures in the Cambridge Structural Database during the periods 1936–1969, when Patterson methods were commonly used, and 1980–2013, dominated by direct methods, demonstrate large differences in the abundance of certain elements. The ‘moderately heavy’ elements K, Rb, As and Br are the heaviest elements in the structure more than 3 times as often in the early period than in the recent period. Examples are given of three triumphs of the heavy atom method and two initial failures that had to be overcome.
Monocular vision based obstacle detection

Detecting and preventing incidents with obstacles is a challenging problem. Most of the common obstacledetection techniques are currently sensor-based. Mobile robots like Small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles(UAVs) are not able to carry obstacle detection sensors such as radar; therefore, vision-based methods areconsidered, which can be divided into stereo and mono techniques. Mono methods are classified into twogroups: Foreground-background separation, and brain-inspired methods. Brain-inspired methods arehighly efficient in obstacle detection. A recent research in this field has focused on matching the ScaleInvariant Feature Transform (SIFT) points along with SIFT size-ratio factor and area-ratio of convex hullsin two consecutive frames to detect obstacles. However, this method is not able to distinguish betweennear and far obstacles nor the obstacles in a complex environment and, thus, is sensitive to wrong matchedpoints. This paper aims to solve the aforementioned problems through using the distance-ratio of matchedpoints. Then, every point is investigated for distinguishing between far and near obstacles. The resultsdemonstrated the high efficiency of the proposed method in complex environments. The least achievedaccuracy of the algorithm was 60.0%, and the overall accuracy was 79.0%.
Relationship between Leadership Behavior, Quality of Work Life and Human Resources Productivity: Data from Iran

Background and Objectives: Quality of work life is an increasingly important organizational factor in health facilities. Most studies on quality of work life in hospitals have been conducted in developed countries. The few studies performed in developing countries have targeted low- and middle-performance hospitals, and they have not explored the relationship between quality of work life and other organizational factors. The purpose of this study was to gain insight on how Quality of Work Life (QWL), Leadership Behavior (LB), and Human Resources Productivity (HRP) would be inter-related in the high-performance hospitals in developing countries. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out over the period of July to September 2011 in Hasheminejad Kidney Center, which is one of the largest Urology hospitals in Iran. Two scales were developed for measuring LB and QWL based on the literature review, and HRP was measured using a simple questionnaire with single-item questions for each dimension. The scales were distrivuted to 403 healthcare employees and 316 valid questionnaires were returned. The data was analyzed using exploratory factor analysis to examine the similarity of the factor structure between scales and collected data. An iterative model improvement procedure was adopted for improving the LB and QWL measurement models, and the final models were validated against the collected data using confirmatory factor analysis. The reliability of scales and dimensions was determined by calculating Chronbach’s alpha. Correlation analysis was carried out to examine construct validity, and the relationship between constructs was studied by regression analysis. Findings: (1) Employees had high positive perceptions of the LB (73%), QWL (70%) and HRP outcome variables (78%); (2) LB was positively correlated with QWL (β = 0.78, P < 0.001) and HRP (β = 0.74, P < 0.001); (3) QWL was positively correlated with HRP (β = 0.68, P < 0.001). All individual dimensions of LB were found positively and significant correlated with QWL. Conclusions: Our results indicate that satisfactory levels of QWL are achievable in hospitals of developing countries. In addition, higher employee perception of QWL was found to correspond with higher employee perception of LB. Leadership style, treating subordinates with trust and respect, motivating and in-person recognition of subordinates, and promoting organizational values were identified as strong predictors of QWL and HRP.