bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Effects of cottonseed hull on intake, digestibility, nitrogen balance, blood metabolites and ingestive behaviour of rams
Authors: Zanine Anderson M. , Castro Wanderson J. R. , Ferreira Daniele J. , Souza Alexandre L. , Ribeiro Marinaldo D. , Parente Henrique N. , Parente Michelle O. M. , Santos Edson M. , Oliveira Juliana S. , Lima Anny Graycy V. O. , Nascimento Thiago V. C. , S. Santos Francisco Naysson , Negrão Fagton M. , Sá Cledson G. 
Published: February 2023

AbstractThe aim of this study was to determine the effect of cottonseed hull (CH) in the diets of rams on intake, digestibility, nitrogen balance, ingestive behaviour, and blood metabolites. Twenty males, uncastrated with an average body weight of 29.08 ± 4.18 kg, were distributed in a completely randomized design with four treatment diets and five replicates. The diet contained a forage to concentrate ratio of 50 : 50 (ground corn, soybean meal, corn silage, and CH), and the experimental treatments were inclusion of 0, 10, 20, and 30% CH (dry matter basis). Inclusion of CH linearly increased water intake, effective intake of ethereal extract and non-fibrous carbohydrates, and crude protein digestibility. Dry matter (DM) and neutral detergent fiber (NDF) digestibility, nitrogen faecal losses, and nitrogen balance reduced linearly with CH inclusion in the diet. Inclusion of CH in rams’ diet reduces intake, nutrient digestibility, and intake and rumination efficiencies. Thus, it is not recommended to add this by-product to the diet of high-performance rams, but for nurture that does not aim at high performance, inclusion of up to 5% of this by-product is recommended.
Diffusion MRI approaches for investigating microstructural complexity in a rat model of traumatic brain injury
Authors: Chary Karthik , Manninen Eppu , Claessens Jade , Ramirez-Manzanares Alonso , Gröhn Olli , Sierra Alejandra 
Published: February 2023

AbstractOur study explores the potential of conventional and advanced diffusion MRI techniques including diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), and single-shell 3-tissue constrained spherical deconvolution (SS3T-CSD) to investigate complex microstructural changes following severe traumatic brain injury in rats at a chronic phase. Rat brains after sham-operation or lateral fluid percussion (LFP) injury were scanned ex vivo in a 9.4 T scanner. Our region-of-interest-based approach of tensor-, and SS3T-CSD derived fixel-, 3-tissue signal fraction maps were sensitive to changes in both white matter (WM) and grey matter (GM) areas. Tensor-based measures, such as fractional anisotropy (FA) and radial diffusivity (RD), detected more changes in WM and GM areas as compared to fixel-based measures including apparent fiber density (AFD), peak FOD amplitude and primary fiber bundle density, while 3-tissue signal fraction maps revealed distinct changes in WM, GM, and phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) fractions highlighting the complex tissue microstructural alterations post-trauma. Track-weighted imaging demonstrated changes in track morphology including reduced curvature and average pathlength distal from the primary lesion in severe TBI rats. In histological analysis, changes in the diffusion MRI measures could be associated to decreased myelin density, loss of myelinated axons, and increased cellularity, revealing progressive microstructural alterations in these brain areas five months after injury. Overall, this study highlights the use of combined conventional and advanced diffusion MRI measures to obtain more precise insights into the complex tissue microstructural alterations in chronic phase of severe brain injury.
Using a global diversity panel of Cannabis sativa L. to develop a near InfraRed-based chemometric application for cannabinoid quantification
Authors: Gloerfelt-Tarp Francine , Hewavitharana Amitha K. , Mieog Jos , Palmer William M. , Fraser Felicity , Ansari Omid , Kretzschmar Tobias 
Published: February 2023

AbstractC. sativa has gained renewed interest as a cash crop for food, fibre and medicinal markets. Irrespective of the final product, rigorous quantitative testing for cannabinoids, the regulated biologically active constituents of C. sativa, is a legal prerequisite across the supply chains. Currently, the medicinal cannabis and industrial hemp industries depend on costly chromatographic analysis for cannabinoid quantification, limiting production, research and development. Combined with chemometrics, Near-InfraRed spectroscopy (NIRS) has potential as a rapid, accurate and economical alternative method for cannabinoid analysis. Using chromatographic data on 12 therapeutically relevant cannabinoids together with spectral output from a diffuse reflectance NIRS device, predictive chemometric models were built for major and minor cannabinoids using dried, homogenised C. sativa inflorescences from a diverse panel of 84 accessions. Coefficients of determination (r2) of the validation models for 10 of the 12 cannabinoids ranged from 0.8 to 0.95, with models for major cannabinoids showing best performance. NIRS was able to discriminate between neutral and acidic forms of cannabinoids as well as between C3-alkyl and C5-alkyl cannabinoids. The results show that NIRS, when used in conjunction with chemometrics, is a promising method to quantify cannabinoids in raw materials with good predictive results.
Consistency of frontal cortex metabolites quantified by magnetic resonance spectroscopy within overlapping small and large voxels
Authors: DeMayo Marilena M. , McGirr Alexander , Selby Ben , MacMaster Frank P. , Debert Chantel T. , Harris Ashley D. 
Published: February 2023

AbstractSingle voxel magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) quantifies metabolites within a specified volume of interest. MRS voxels are constrained to rectangular prism shapes. Therefore, they must define a small voxel contained within the anatomy of interest or include not of interest neighbouring tissue. When studying cortical regions without clearly demarcated boundaries, e.g. the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), it is unclear how representative a larger voxel is of a smaller volume within it. To determine if a large voxel is representative of a small voxel placed within it, this study quantified total N-Acetylaspartate (tNAA), choline, glutamate, Glx (glutamate and glutamine combined),myo-inositol, and creatine in two overlapping MRS voxels in the DLPFC, a large (30×30x30 mm) and small (15×15x15 mm) voxel. Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and tissue type factors were specifically investigated. With water-referencing, onlymyo-inositol was significantly correlated between the two voxels, while all metabolites showed significant correlations with creatine-referencing. SNR had a minimal effect on the correspondence between voxels, while tissue type showed substantial influence. This study demonstrates substantial variability of metabolite estimates within the DLPFC. It suggests that when small anatomical structures are of interest, it may be valuable to spend additional acquisition time to obtain specific, localized data.
Single-shot electron radiography using a laser–plasma accelerator
Authors: Bruhaug G. , Freeman M. S. , Rinderknecht H. G. , Neukirch L. P. , Wilde C. H. , Merrill F. E. , Rygg J. R. , Wei M. S. , Collins G. W. , Shaw J. L. 
Published: February 2023

AbstractContact and projection electron radiography of static targets was demonstrated using a laser–plasma accelerator driven by a kilojoule, picosecond-class laser as a source of relativistic electrons with an average energy of 20 MeV. Objects with areal densities as high as 7.7 g/cm2 were probed in materials ranging from plastic to tungsten, and radiographs with resolution as good as 90 μm were produced. The effects of electric fields produced by the laser ablation of the radiography objects were observed and are well described by an analytic expression relating imaging magnification change to electric-field strength.
Geographic and longitudinal variations of anatomical characteristics and mechanical properties in three bamboo species naturally grown in Lombok Island, Indonesia
Authors: Rini Dwi Sukma , Ishiguri Futoshi , Nezu Ikumi , Ngadianto Agus , Irawati Denny , Otani Naoki , Ohshima Jyunichi , Yokota Shinso 
Published: February 2023

AbstractThe anatomical characteristics (fiber length and fiber area) and mechanical properties (modulus of elasticity, modulus of rupture, compressive strength, tensile Young’s modulus, and tensile strength) of Bambusa vulgaris, Bambusa maculata, and Gigantochloa atter, naturally growing at four different sites in Lombok Island, Indonesia, were examined for evaluating geographic and longitudinal variations by mixed-effects modeling to effectively utilize bamboo culm resources for structural materials. We found geographic and longitudinal variations of bamboo culm properties in these three species. Based on the results, we concluded that, for utilization of bamboo culm as a structural material, variation of individual culm rather than site, and longitudinal variations should be considered for Bambusa species and G. atter, respectively.
A simple soil mass correction for a more accurate determination of soil carbon stock changes
Authors: Fowler Ames F. , Basso Bruno , Millar Neville , Brinton William F. 
Published: February 2023

AbstractAgricultural soils can act as a sink for large quantities of soil organic carbon (SOC) but can also be sources of carbon to the atmosphere. The international standard for assessing SOC stock and measuring stock change stipulates fixed depth sampling to at least 30 cm. The tendency of bulk density (BD) to decrease with decreasing disturbance and increasing SOC concentration and the assumption of constant SOC and BD within this depth profile promotes error in the estimates of SOC stock. A hypothetical but realistic change in BD from 1.5 to 1.1 g cm−3 from successive fixed depth sampling to 30 cm underestimates SOC stock change by 17%. Significant effort has been made to evaluate and reduce this fixed depth error by using the equivalent soil mass (ESM) approach, but with limited adoption. We evaluate the error in SOC stock assessment and change generated from fixed depth measurements over time relative to the ESM approach and propose a correction that can be readily adopted under current sampling and analytical methods. Our approach provides a more accurate estimate of SOC stock accumulation or loss that will help incentivize management practice changes that reduce the environmental impacts of agriculture and further legitimize the accounting practices used by the emerging carbon market and organizations that have pledged to reduce their supply chain greenhouse gas (GHG) footprints.
Pediatric age estimation from thoracic and abdominal CT scout views using deep learning
Authors: Demircioğlu Aydin , Nassenstein Kai , Umutlu Lale 
Published: February 2023

AbstractAge assessment is regularly used in clinical routine by pediatric endocrinologists to determine the physical development or maturity of children and adolescents. Our study investigates whether age assessment can be performed using CT scout views from thoracic and abdominal CT scans using a deep neural network. Hence, we retrospectively collected 1949 CT scout views from pediatric patients (acquired between January 2013 and December 2018) to train a deep neural network to predict the chronological age from CT scout views. The network was then evaluated on an independent test set of 502 CT scout views (acquired between January 2019 and July 2020). The trained model showed a mean absolute error of 1.18 ± 1.14 years on the test data set. A one-sided t-test to determine whether the difference between the predicted and actual chronological age was less than 2.0 years was statistically highly significant (p < 0.001). In addition, the correlation coefficient was very high (R = 0.97). In conclusion, the chronological age of pediatric patients can be assessed with high accuracy from CT scout views using a deep neural network.
A novel technique for large-fragment knock-in animal production without ex vivo handling of zygotes
Authors: Abe Manabu , Nakatsukasa Ena , Natsume Rie , Hamada Shun , Sakimura Kenji , Watabe Ayako M. , Ohtsuka Toshihisa 
Published: February 2023

AbstractCRISPR/Cas-based genome editing has dramatically improved genetic modification technology. In situ electroporation called genome editing via oviductal nucleic acid delivery (GONAD), which eliminates the need for ex vivo embryo handling, is technically the simplest method for gene transfer and can be performed in laboratories without developmental engineering expertise including micromanipulation techniques. However, the use of this method remains challenging in the case of large-fragment knock-in, such as gene expression cassettes. Adeno-associated viruses (AAV) act as donor DNA for homologous recombination in infected cells, including rodent embryos. In this study, we demonstrated simultaneous electroporation of AAV donors and CRISPR/Cas9 components into embryos to create knock-in animals, and successfully generated knock-in rats carrying a gene cassette with a length of 3.0 kb using a small number of animals and in situ electroporation. These findings indicate that this technique is an efficient high-throughput strategy for producing genetically modified rodents and may be applicable to other animal species.
Establishment of a repertoire of fertility associated sperm proteins and their differential abundance in buffalo bulls (Bubalus bubalis) with contrasting fertility
Authors: Kumaresan Arumugam , Sinha Manish Kumar , Paul Nilendu , Nag Pradeep , Ebenezer Samuel King John Peter , Kumar Rakesh , Datta Tirtha Kumar 
Published: February 2023

AbstractSperm harbours a wide range of proteins regulating their functions and fertility. In the present study, we made an effort to characterize and quantify the proteome of buffalo bull spermatozoa, and to identify fertility associated sperm proteins through comparative proteomics. Using high-throughput mass spectrometry platform, we identified 1305 proteins from buffalo spermatozoa and found that these proteins were mostly enriched in glycolytic process, mitochondrial respiratory chain, tricarboxylic acid cycle, protein folding, spermatogenesis, sperm motility and sperm binding to zona pellucida (p < 7.74E−08) besides metabolic (p = 4.42E−31) and reactive oxygen species (p = 1.81E−30) pathways. Differential proteomic analysis revealed that 844 proteins were commonly expressed in spermatozoa from both the groups while 77 and 52 proteins were exclusively expressed in high- and low-fertile bulls, respectively. In low-fertile bulls, 75 proteins were significantly (p < 0.05) upregulated and 176 proteins were significantly (p < 0.05) downregulated; these proteins were highly enriched in mitochondrial respiratory chain complex I assembly (p = 2.63E−07) and flagellated sperm motility (p = 7.02E−05) processes besides oxidative phosphorylation pathway (p = 6.61E−15). The down regulated proteins in low-fertile bulls were involved in sperm motility, metabolism, sperm-egg recognition and fertilization. These variations in the sperm proteome could be used as potential markers for the selection of buffalo bulls for fertility.
Whole-body adipose tissue multi-omic analyses in sheep reveal molecular mechanisms underlying local adaptation to extreme environments
Authors: Xu Ya-Xi , Wang Bo , Jing Jia-Nan , Ma Rui , Luo Yan-Hui , Li Xin , Yan Ze , Liu Ya-Jing , Gao Lei , Ren Yan-Ling , Li Meng-Hua , Lv Feng-Hua 
Published: February 2023

AbstractThe fat tail of sheep is an important organ that has evolved to adapt to extreme environments. However, the genetic mechanisms underlying the fat tail phenotype remain poorly understood. Here, we characterize transcriptome and lipidome profiles and morphological changes in 250 adipose tissues from two thin-tailed and three fat-tailed sheep populations in summer and winter. We implement whole-genome selective sweep tests to identify genetic variants related to fat-tails. We identify a set of functional genes that show differential expression in the tail fat of fat-tailed and thin-tailed sheep in summer and winter. These genes are significantly enriched in pathways, such as lipid metabolism, extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling, molecular transport, and inflammatory response. In contrast to thin-tailed sheep, tail fat from fat-tailed sheep show slighter changes in adipocyte size, ECM remodeling, and lipid metabolism, and had less inflammation in response to seasonal changes, indicating improved homeostasis. Whole-genome selective sweep tests identify genes involved in preadipocyte commitment (e.g., BMP2, PDGFD) and terminal adipogenic differentiation (e.g., VEGFA), which could contribute to enhanced adipocyte hyperplasia. Altogether, we establish a model of regulatory networks regulating adipose homeostasis in sheep tails. These findings improve our understanding of how adipose homeostasis is maintained, in response to extreme environments in animals.
European tree-ring isotopes indicate unusual recent hydroclimate
Authors: Freund Mandy B. , Helle Gerhard , Balting Daniel F. , Ballis Natasha , Schleser Gerhard H. , Cubasch Ulrich 
Published: February 2023

AbstractIn recent decades, Europe has experienced more frequent flood and drought events. However, little is known about the long-term, spatiotemporal hydroclimatic changes across Europe. Here we present a climate field reconstruction spanning the entire European continent based on tree-ring stable isotopes. A pronounced seasonal consistency in climate response across Europe leads to a unique, well-verified spatial field reconstruction of European summer hydroclimate back to AD 1600. We find three distinct phases of European hydroclimate variability as possible fingerprints of solar activity (coinciding with the Maunder Minimum and the end of the Little Ice Age) and pronounced decadal variability superimposed by a long-term drying trend from the mid-20th century. We show that the recent European summer drought (2015–2018) is highly unusual in a multi-century context and unprecedented for large parts of central and western Europe. The reconstruction provides further evidence of European summer droughts potentially being influenced by anthropogenic warming and draws attention to regional differences.
Multi‐view short‐term photovoltaic power prediction combining satellite images feature learning and graph mutual information feature representation
Authors: Dai Yuxing , Lai Jing , Xu Xuexin , Xiahou Jianbing , Lian Jie , Zhang Zhihong 
Published: February 2023

AbstractWith the introduction of national policies, photovoltaic (PV) power forecasting requirements for PV power plants are becoming increasingly stringent. It is particularly critical that PV power predictions are accurate while new energy is being consumed. It is also important to consider the satellite imagery of the location of the PV power plant and the meteorological information of the plant itself. The authors aim to explore the impact of these two elements on PV power prediction to better support PV power prediction. Therefore, this paper explores the cloud information elements of the satellite images from a multi‐view perspective and performs feature extraction and processing of the meteorological information to learn the impact of cloud cover on PV power prediction. Meanwhile, this paper introduces the mutual information mechanism for the influence of meteorological factors on PV power generation. It constructs the mutual information matrix and adopts the graph neural network for representation learning. A time‐series prediction model for short‐term PV power prediction is constructed and more accurate prediction results are obtained. The experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method is effective, has generalisation ability, and improved performance compared with the traditional model. The proposed method can also provide a novel approach and solution for short‐term PV power prediction.
BESRGAN: Boundary equilibrium face super‐resolution generative adversarial networks
Authors: Ren Xinyi , Hui Qiang , Zhao Xingke , Xiong Jianping , Yin Jun 
Published: February 2023

AbstractExisting Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN)‐based face hallucination algorithms are hard to control the face fidelity of the generated samples, and easily generate flawed faces with unfavourable artefacts and distortions. To address this problem, the authors propose a fidelity‐controllable face super‐resolution (FSR) network boundary equilibrium face super‐resolution generative adversarial networks (BESRGAN), a fidelity ratio is introduced in their network to control how much the adversarial effect the discriminator is put on the generator; therefore, the authors’ network better trades off the objective and perceptual quality. Additionally, the authors design an equilibrium perceptual discriminator to match the perception loss distributions. Under the equilibrium constraint, the discriminator pays more attention to learning fine‐grained feature statistics of ground truths, and further guides the generator to produce photo‐realistic faces, especially in terms of facial textures. Moreover, the authors propose a novel channel‐spatial attention module (CSAM) to eliminate local distortions, by further fusing richer information from the facial prior knowledge and global high‐level facial descriptions. Extensive experiments illustrate that the authors’ approach preserves high pixel‐wise accuracy while achieving superior visual performance against state‐of‐the‐art methods. Specifically, the peak signal to noise ratio (PSNR) and structural similarity index (SSIM) of the authors’ proposed BESRGAN rise 0.64 dB and 0.02 for CelebA compared with one of the state‐of‐the‐art face super‐resolution (FSR) methods.
Underwater source localisation utilising interference pattern under low SNR conditions
Authors: Zhu Qixuan , Sun Chao 
Published: February 2023

AbstractUnderwater acoustic source localisation in deep water shadow zone is difficult since the vertical aperture of the array is limited and the received signal‐noise ratio (SNR) is low. This article investigates a novel interference pattern in the first shadow zone. The intensity displays two oscillating striations in the interference pattern, which can be used to estimate the source depth under the restriction of lacking adequate spatial samples and acoustic environmental parameters, and the range of the source can be estimated roughly using the position of which. The method is applicable to multi‐target localisation. In practice, the interference pattern is always corrupted by noise under low SNR conditions, resulting in performance degradation or even failure of the localisation. To address the problem of recovering the corrupted interference pattern, an interference tensor is constructed and analysed, which expands the general two‐dimensional interference pattern into range‐grazing angle‐frequency domain to make use of the multi‐frame interaction coherently. A Tucker decomposition‐based method that adopts a low‐rank representation of the interference tensor is proposed to retrieve the intact interference pattern. Simulated data validate the accuracy of the localisation under low SNR conditions. It is shown that this method significantly improves the estimated performance over conventional matched‐field processing.