bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Scale‐up of pore‐level relative permeability from micro‐ to macro‐scale
Authors: Bashtani Farzad , Kantzas Apostolos 
Published: March 2020

AbstractScaling up relative permeability curves of wetting and nonwetting phase of drainage and imbibition processes from pore scale to macro scale is a challenge. A new method for scaling up relative permeability from micro‐ to macro‐scale is proposed based on electrical analogy of multiphase fluid flow at pore scale. The method is validated against four synthetic porous media generated using homogeneous and heterogeneous grain size distributions, each of which were cut into eight sub‐segments. Single‐phase and two‐phase flow properties were calculated for the main blocks and the subsequent sub‐segments using random network modelling technique. Then, the subsegments were randomly distributed in space to reconstruct the main blocks and the proposed scale‐up method was employed to calculate the relative permeability curves of the reconstructed blocks. Results were compared to the ones obtained directly from the network model of the original blocks and show good agreement between the calculated and scaled‐up relative permeability curves of primary drainage and secondary imbibition. Furthermore, the model was tested on real media. Eight network models were extracted from pore size distribution of core samples obtained from the Green River basin located in the Mesaverde Formation. Flow properties obtained from the network models were validated against experimental data and good agreement was observed. These network models show a higher level of heterogeneity at micro‐scale. Then, the scale‐up methods were employed in order to reconstruct the macro‐scale sample and predict its properties. Scale‐up methods successfully predict the single‐phase and two‐phase flow properties of the sample.
Predicting the Loading Capability of mPEG‐PDLLA to Hydrophobic Drugs Using Solubility Parameters†
Authors: Sun Jiali , Wei Qi , Shen Na , Tang Zhaohui , Chen Xuesi 
Published: March 2020

Summary of main observation and conclusionPhysical encapsulation of drugs into polymer micelles is a common method of loading hydrophobic drugs. Methoxy polyethylene glycol‐poly(D,L‐lactide) (mPEG‐PDLLA) is one of the most commonly used drug carrier. At present, whether a carrier is suitable for the loading of a certain drug is determined by drug loading experiments. This process costs a lot of time. Therefore, an efficient predicting method to avoid time‐consuming tests is critical. In this study, we prepared mPEG5k‐PDLLA5k and used it to load a series of drugs. Three parameters were used to test the miscibility of mPEG5k‐PDLLA5k with drugs, including absolute difference in Hildebrand solubility parameters (|Δδ|), Flory–Huggins interaction parameter (χ) and the distance (D value) calculated from the two‐dimensional solubility parameters. We found the two‐dimensional solubility parameters obtained from JB2013 group contribution (GC) method was useful. By comparing the drug loading content (DLC) with the D value, we found that when the D value was less than 5.0 (MJ/m3)1/2, the miscibility of drug and mPEG5k‐PDLLA5k was good and drug loading capability was high; when the D value was more than 8.0 (MJ/m3)1/2, the drug was barely loaded. Thus, this work provided a rationale to qualitatively predict the loading capability of mPEG5k‐PDLLA5k for hydrophobic drugs.
Sulfated and Oxygenated Imidazoline Derivatives: Synthesis, Antioxidant Activity and Light‐Mediated Antibacterial Activity
Authors: Faillace Martín S. , Silva Ana P. , Alves Borges Leal Antonio L. , Muratori da Costa Luciana , Barreto Humberto M. , Peláez Walter J. 
Published: March 2020

AbstractImidazoline derivatives with different exocyclic substituents were simply prepared from common starting materials. The procedures were carried out in an eco‐friendly manner. The antioxidant activity of these derivatives was explored by different experimental assays, such as ABTS.+ and DPPH. scavenging assay, as well as reducing power assay. The structural differences are discussed in terms of the results. Sulfur analogs showed higher antioxidant activity than their oxygenated counterparts. The same tendency was observed in microbiological studies, in which the same imidazoline compounds were assayed for light‐mediated activity against of Staphylococcus aureus and Escherichia coli strains. A light‐enhanced activity was observed for almost all the sulfated imidazolines after exposure to UV‐A (400‐320 nm) light.
An iterative transfer learning framework for cross‐domain tongue segmentation
Authors: Li Lei , Luo Zhiming , Zhang Mengting , Cai Yuanzheng , Li Candong , Li Shaozi 
Published: March 2020

SummaryTongue diagnosis is an important clinical examination in Traditional Chinese Medicine. As the first step of the diagnosis, the accuracy of tongue image segmentation directly affects the subsequent diagnosis. Recently, deep learning‐based methods have been applied for tongue image segmentation and achieve promising results. However, these methods usually work well on one dataset and degenerate significantly on different distributed datasets. To deal with this issue, we propose a framework named Iterative cross‐domain tongue segmentation in the study. First, we train a tongue image segmentation U‐Net model on the source dataset. Then, we propose a tongue assessment filter to select satisfying samples based on predictions of the U‐Net model from the target dataset. Following, we fine‐tune the model on the selected samples along with the source domain. Finally, we iterate between the filtering and the fine‐tuning steps until the model is converged. Experimental results on two tongue datasets show that our proposed method can improve the dice score on the target domain from 70.11% to 98.26%, as well as outperform state‐of‐the‐art comparing methods.
Heterogeneous computing with OpenMP and Hydra
Authors: Diener Matthias , Kale Laxmikant V. , Bodony Daniel J. 
Published: March 2020

SummaryHigh‐performance computing relies on accelerators (such as GPGPUs) to achieve fast execution of scientific applications. Traditionally, these accelerators have been programmed with specialized languages, such as CUDA or OpenCL. In recent years, OpenMP emerged as a promising alternative for supporting accelerators, providing advantages such as maintaining a single code base for the host and different accelerator types and providing a simple way to extend support for accelerators to existing application codes. Efficiently using this support requires solving several challenges, related to performance, work partitioning, and concurrent execution on multiple device types. In this article, we discuss our experiences with using OpenMP for accelerators and present performance guidelines. We also introduce a library, Hydra, that addresses several of the challenges of using OpenMP for such devices. We apply Hydra to a scientific application, PlasCom2, that has not previously been able to use accelerators. Experiments on three architectures show that Hydra results in performance gains of up to 10× compared with CPU‐only execution. Concurrent execution on the host and GPU resulted in additional gains of up to 20% compared to running on the GPU
only.
Identification of undescribed Relb expression domains in the murine brain by new Relb:cre‐katushka reporter mice
Authors: Engelmann Christian , Riemann Marc , Carlstedt Swen , Grimlowski Randy , Andreas Nico , Koliesnik Ievgen , Meier Elke , Austerfield Phillip , Haenold Ronny 
Published: March 2020

AbstractBackgroundNoncanonical NF‐κB signaling through activation of the transcription factor RelB acts as key regulator of cell lineage determination and differentiation in various tissues including the immune system. To elucidate temporospatial aspects of Relb expression, we generated a BAC transgenic knock‐in mouse expressing the fluorescent protein Katushka and the enzyme Cre recombinase under control of the murine Relb promoter (RelbCre‐Kat mice).ResultsCo‐expression of Katushka and Relb in fibroblast cultures and tissues of transgenic mice revealed highly specific reporter functions of the transgene. Crossing RelbCre‐Kat mice with ROSA26R reporter mice that allow for Cre‐mediated consecutive β‐galactosidase or YFP synthesis identified various Relb expression domains in perinatal and mature mice. Besides thymus and spleen, highly specific expression patterns were found in different neuronal domains, as well as in other nonimmune organs including skin, skeletal structures and kidney. De novo Relb expression in the mature brain was confirmed in conditional knockout mice with neuro‐ectodermal Relb deletion.ConclusionOur results demonstrate the usability of RelbCre‐Kat reporter mice for the detection of de novo and temporarily restricted Relb expression including cell and lineage tracing of Relb expressing cells. Relb expression during mouse embryogenesis and at adulthood suggests, beyond immunity, important functions of this transcription factor in neurodevelopment and CNS function.
Shifts in species interactions and farming contexts mediate net effects of birds in agroecosystems
Authors: Olimpi E. M. , Garcia K. , Gonthier D. J. , De Master K. T. , Echeverri A. , Kremen C. , Sciligo A. R. , Snyder W. E. , Wilson‐Rankin E. E. , Karp D. S. 
Published: March 2020

AbstractSome birds are viewed as pests and vectors of foodborne pathogens in farmlands, yet birds also benefit growers by consuming pests. While many growers seek to prevent birds from accessing their farms, few studies have attempted to quantify the net effects of bird services and disservices, let alone how net effects shift across farm management strategies. We quantified the net effect of birds on crop production across 20 California strawberry (Fragaria × ananassa) farms that varied in local management practices and landscape context. We surveyed farms for berry damage and bird droppings (as potential sources of pathogens) and implemented a large‐scale exclusion experiment to quantify the impact of birds on production. We found that birds had only a slightly negative overall impact on strawberry production, reducing economic value by 3.6%. Direct bird damage and intraguild predation contributed equally to this net effect, underscoring the importance of indirect trophic interactions that may be less apparent to growers. In simple landscapes (e.g., low proportions of surrounding seminatural habitat), birds provided pest control in the interiors of farm fields, and costs from bird damage to crops peaked at field edges. In complex landscapes (e.g., high proportions of seminatural habitat), birds were more likely to disrupt pest control by feeding as intraguild predators. Nonetheless, seminatural habitat dampened bird services and disservices, and our models predicted that removing habitat around farm fields would increase costs from bird damage to crops by up to 76%. Fecal contamination of crops was extremely rare (0.01%). However, both fecal contamination and bird damage did increase on farms with higher densities of fencing and wires, where birds often perch. Our results demonstrate that maintaining seminatural habitat around farms may enhance bird diversity and mitigate bird damage without increasing food safety risks. We also show that the net effects of birds depend on farming context and vary in complex ways in relation to locations within a farm, local farm attributes, and the surrounding landscape. This context‐specific variation must be considered in order to optimize the management of wild birds in agroecosystems.
Using large‐scale tropical dry forest restoration to test successional theory
Authors: Werden Leland K. , Calderón‐Morales Erick , Alvarado J. Pedro , Gutiérrez L. Milena , Nedveck Derek A. , Powers Jennifer S. 
Published: March 2020

AbstractMicroclimatic conditions change dramatically as forests age and impose strong filters on community assembly during succession. Light availability is the most limiting environmental factor in tropical wet forest succession; by contrast, water availability is predicted to strongly influence tropical dry forest (TDF) successional dynamics. While mechanisms underlying TDF successional trajectories are not well understood, observational studies have demonstrated that TDF communities transition from being dominated by species with conservative traits to species with acquisitive traits, the opposite of tropical wet forest. Determining how functional traits predict TDF tree species’ responses to changing environmental conditions could elucidate mechanisms underlying tree performance during TDF succession. We implemented a 6‐ha restoration experiment on a degraded Vertisol in Costa Rica to determine (1) how TDF tree species with different resource‐use strategies performed along a successional gradient and (2) how ecophysiological functional traits correlated with tree performance in simulated successional stages. We used two management treatments to simulate distinct successional stages including: clearing all remnant vegetation (early‐succession), or interplanting seedlings with no clearing (mid‐succession). We crossed these two management treatments (cleared/interplanted) with two species mixes with different resource‐use strategies (acquisitive/conservative) to examine their interaction. Overall seedling survival after 2 yr was low, 15.1–26.4% in the four resource‐use‐strategy × management‐treatment combinations, and did not differ between the management treatments or resource‐use‐strategy groups. However, seedling growth rates were dramatically higher for all species in the cleared treatment (year 1, 69.1% higher; year 2, 143.3% higher) and defined resource‐use strategies had some capacity to explain seedling performance. Overall, ecophysiological traits were better predictors of species’ growth and survival than resource‐use strategies defined by leaf and stem traits such as specific leaf area. Moreover, ecophysiological traits related to water use had a stronger influence on seedling performance in the cleared, early‐successional treatment, indicating that the influence of microclimatic conditions on tree survival and growth shifts predictably during TDF succession. Our findings suggest that ecophysiological traits should be explicitly considered to understand shifts in TDF functional composition during succession and that using these traits to design species mixes could greatly improve TDF restoration outcomes.
All or nothing: Switch to high current reproductive investment under risk of starvation in male kelp crab
Authors: Pretterebner Katrin , Pardo Luis M. 
Published: March 2020

AbstractOne of the key features in reproduction of polygynous species is seminal recovery after mating. However, it is poorly known how environmental factors affect the recuperation period of seminal material. This study aims to test plasticity in recovery of seminal reserves in response to distinct environmental conditions of the kelp crab Taliepus dentatus. Male crabs were maintained after depletion of seminal reserves in one of eight different treatments in a factorial design of temperature (12 and 16°C), food availability (with alimentation and food deprivation), and time period (15 and 30 days), simulating different environmental situations in the laboratory to which the crab might be exposed to along its distribution. Temperature and food availability modulated the seminal recovery period in T. dentatus. Complete replenishment was reached within 30 days in all treatments (i.e., 12 and 16°C each with alimentation and food deprivation), but the highest recovery index was found in crabs without food provision (16°C). In this condition, the recovery index was twice as high compared with males maintained at a similar temperature but with feeding. Prolonged starvation at 16°C may be extremely stressful conditions for male crabs, during which risk to die probably triggered a concentration of the reproductive effort in favor of immediate reproduction. This suggests that plasticity of energy allocation toward reproduction may be expressed during extremely suboptimal conditions, which might be a similar strategy as proposed by the terminal investment hypothesis. The generally relatively fast seminal recovery regardless of the temperature may explain the kelp crab's continuous mating throughout the year.
Lasting the distance: The survival of alien birds shipped to New Zealand in the 19th century
Authors: Pipek Pavel , Blackburn Tim M. , Delean Steven , Cassey Phillip , Şekercioğlu Çağan H. , Pyšek Petr 
Published: March 2020

AbstractInvasive alien species are a major threat to biodiversity and human activities, providing a strong incentive to understand the processes by which alien invasion occurs. While it is important to understand the determinants of success at each of several invasion stages—transport, introduction, establishment, and spread—few studies have explored the first of these stages. Here, we quantify and analyze variation in the success of individual animals in surviving the transport stage, based on shipping records of European passerines destined for New Zealand. We mined the original documents of Acclimatisation Societies, established in New Zealand for the purpose of introducing supposedly beneficial alien species, in combination with recently digitized newspaper archives, to produce a unique dataset of 122 ships that carried passerines from Europe to New Zealand between 1850 and 1885. For 37 of these shipments, data on the survival of individual species were available. Using generalized linear mixed models, we explored how survival was related to characteristics of the shipments and the species. We show that species differed greatly in their survival, but none of the tested traits accounted for these differences. Yet, survival increased over time, which mirrors the switch from early haphazard shipments to larger organized shipments. Our results imply that it was the quality of care received by the birds that most affected success at this stage of the invasion process.
Allometric escape from acoustic constraints is rare for frog calls
Authors: Tonini João Filipe Riva , Provete Diogo B. , Maciel Natan M. , Morais Alessandro Ribeiro , Goutte Sandra , Toledo Luís Felipe , Pyron Robert Alexander 
Published: March 2020

AbstractAllometric constraint is a product of natural selection and physical laws, particularly with respect to body size and traits constrained by properties thereof, such as metabolism, longevity, and vocal frequency. Allometric relationships are often conserved across lineages, indicating that physical constraints dictate scaling patterns in deep time, despite substantial genetic and ecological divergence among organisms. In particular, acoustic allometry (sound frequency ~ body size) is conserved across frogs, in defiance of massive variation in both body size and frequency. Here, we ask how many instances of allometric escape have occurred across the frog tree of life using a Bayesian framework that estimates the location, number, and magnitude of shifts in the adaptive landscape of acoustic allometry. Moreover, we test whether ecology in terms of calling site could affect these relationships. We find that calling site has a major influence on acoustic allometry. Despite this, we identify only four major instances of allometric escape, potentially deriving from ecomorphological adaptations to new signal modalities. In these instances of allometric escape, the optima and strength of the scaling relationship are different than expected for most other frog species, representing new adaptive regimes of body size ~ call frequency. Allometric constraints on frog calls are highly conserved and have rarely allowed escape, despite frequent invasions of new adaptive regimes and dramatic ecomorphological divergence. Our results highlight the rare instances in which natural and sexual selection combined can overcome physical constraints on sound production.
Habitat transitions alter the adaptive landscape and shape phenotypic evolution in needlefishes (Belonidae)
Authors: Kolmann Matthew A. , Burns Michael D. , Ng Justin Y. K. , Lovejoy Nathan R. , Bloom Devin D. 
Published: March 2020

AbstractHabitat occupancy can have a profound influence on macroevolutionary dynamics, and a switch in major habitat type may alter the evolutionary trajectory of a lineage. In this study, we investigate how evolutionary transitions between marine and freshwater habitats affect macroevolutionary adaptive landscapes, using needlefishes (Belonidae) as a model system. We examined the evolution of body shape and size in marine and freshwater needlefishes and tested for phenotypic change in response to transitions between habitats. Using micro‐computed tomographic (µCT) scanning and geometric morphometrics, we quantified body shape, size, and vertebral counts of 31 belonid species. We then examined the pattern and tempo of body shape and size evolution using phylogenetic comparative methods. Our results show that transitions from marine to freshwater habitats have altered the adaptive landscape for needlefishes and expanded morphospace relative to marine taxa. We provide further evidence that freshwater taxa attain reduced sizes either through dwarfism (as inferred from axial skeletal reduction) or through developmental truncation (as inferred from axial skeletal loss). We propose that transitions to freshwater habitats produce morphological novelty in response to novel prey resources and changes in locomotor demands. We find that repeated invasions of different habitats have prompted predictable changes in morphology.
Transcatheter edge‐to‐edge tricuspid repair for recurrence of valvular regurgitation after left ventricular assist device and tricuspid ring implantation
Authors: Andreas Martin , Russo Marco , Werner Paul , Schneider Matthias , Wittmann Franziska , Scherzer Sabine , Mascherbauer Julia , Kocher Alfred , Laufer Guenther , Wiedemann Dominik , Zimpfer Daniel 
Published: March 2020

AbstractTricuspid regurgitation in patients with left ventricular assist device (LVAD) has a significant impact on prognosis and quality of life, and its effects on liver and renal function could negatively impact planned heart transplantation. The aim of the present case is to report the feasibility and the clinical impact of tricuspid transcatheter edge‐to‐edge repair in LVAD patients as adjunctive bridge to transplantation strategy. A 59‐year‐old female patient previously treated with LVAD implantation (HeartMate III) and tricuspid valve repair with 32 mm rigid ring (Medtronic Contour 3D) as bridge to transplantation developed recurrence of significant tricuspid regurgitation with right ventricular decompensation needing inotropic support. Preoperative echo showed torrential tricuspid valve regurgitation Effective regurgitant orifice area(EROA 1.4 cm2) with suspicious of partial detachment of the prosthetic ring. The patient was successfully treated with transcatheter edge‐to‐edge repair with the MitraClip XTR device. Tricuspid regurgitation was reduced by 50% (postoperative EROA 0.7 cm2). She remained stable under continuous inotropic support with no other episodes of right ventricular decompensation and was successfully transplanted 30 days after the clipping procedure. Transcatheter treatment of tricuspid regurgitation in a patient with LVAD was an effective strategy to gain time and bridge the patient to heart transplantation.