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Summary of tropical cyclones that passed over Taiwan or close to it between 1982 and 2017. Also included are 1) a summary of precipitation and river discharge for 30 days around Super-Typhoon Haitang (2005) and Typhoon Morakot (2009); and, 2) wave data during the same 30-day windows. THIS DATASET IS ARCHIVED AT DANS/EASY, BUT NOT ACCESSIBLE HERE. TO VIEW A LIST OF FILES AND ACCESS THE FILES IN THIS DATASET CLICK ON THE DOI-LINK ABOVE

Abstract Background Parkinson���s disease is a disabling neurodegenerative movement disorder characterized by dopaminergic neuron loss induced by ��-synuclein oligomers. There is an urgent need for disease-modifying therapies for Parkinson���s disease, but drug discovery is challenged by lack of in vivo models that recapitulate early stages of neurodegeneration. Invertebrate organisms, such as the nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, provide in vivo models of human disease processes that can be instrumental for initial pharmacological studies. Methods To identify early motor impairment of animals expressing ��-synuclein in dopaminergic neurons, we first used a custom-built tracking microscope that captures locomotion of single C. elegans with high spatial and temporal resolution. Next, we devised a method for semi-automated and blinded quantification of motor impairment for a population of simultaneously recorded animals with multi-worm tracking and custom image processing. We then used genetic and pharmacological methods to define the features of early motor dysfunction of ��-synuclein-expressing C. elegans. Finally, we applied the C. elegans model to a drug repurposing screen by combining it with an artificial intelligence platform and cell culture system to identify small molecules that inhibit ��-synuclein oligomers. Screen hits were validated using in vitro and in vivo mammalian models. Results We found a previously undescribed motor phenotype in transgenic ��-synuclein C. elegans that correlates with mutant or wild-type ��-synuclein protein levels and results from dopaminergic neuron dysfunction, but precedes neuronal loss. Together with artificial intelligence-driven in silico and in vitro screening, this C. elegans model identified five compounds that reduced motor dysfunction induced by ��-synuclein. Three of these compounds also decreased ��-synuclein oligomers in mammalian neurons, including rifabutin which has not been previously investigated for Parkinson���s disease. We found that treatment with rifabutin reduced nigrostriatal dopaminergic neurodegeneration due to ��-synuclein in a rat model. Conclusions We identified a C. elegans locomotor abnormality due to dopaminergic neuron dysfunction that models early ��-synuclein-mediated neurodegeneration. Our innovative approach applying this in vivo model to a multi-step drug repurposing screen, with artificial intelligence-driven in silico and in vitro methods, resulted in the discovery of at least one drug that may be repurposed as a disease-modifying therapy for Parkinson���s disease.

Peatlands are natural ecosystems that provide archives of the hydrological cycle, ecological processes and terrestrial carbon dynamics. In the north-central region of Quebec (eastern Canada), patterned peatlands developed in topographic depressions of the Precambrian Shield following the Laurentide Ice Sheet retreat. These peatlands display characteristics similar to appa mires and other peatlands that developed at the ecotone between the open (taiga) and closed boreal forest biomes of the Northern Hemisphere, and also correspond to the biogeographic limit between ombrotrophic and minerotrophic peatlands. During the Neoglacial cooling period in northeastern Canada, patterned peatlands, mainly oligotrophic fens, registered a hydrological disequilibrium expressed by an increase in surface wetness as aquatic microforms expanded to the detriment of terrestrial surfaces. Ecohydrological trajectories were reconstructed from a detailed study of two patterned peatlands in order to document their sensitivity to climate variations. To do this, plant macrofossil and testate amoeba data were combined with peat carbon accumulation rates, C:N ratios, 210Pb and 14C chronologies. Data show that peatlands initiated ca 6500 cal. y BP as ombrotrophic or minerotrophic systems depending on site-specific conditions, followed by a general increase in surface wetness during the Neoglacial cooling until the end of the Little Ice Age. A relatively synchronous ecosystem state shift from oligotrophic to more ombrotrophic conditions was registered at the beginning of the 20th century in central and lateral cores of both study sites, evoking the likely influence of recent warming on peat accumulation. These results suggest a potential northward migration of the biogeographic limit of the ombrotrophic peatland distribution during the 20th century, which could have implications for the role of these ecosystems as C sinks at the continental scale. Overall, these peatlands have stored a mean carbon mass of ca 100 kg m− 2.

The invasive freshwater jellyfish Craspedacusta sowerbii (Limnomedusae, Olindiidae) is native to East Asia and since the end of the 19th century, was observed in Europe, then in North America, and across the globe. In recent decades, reports of C. sowerbii have drastically increased in Europe, North and South America, Australia, Asia, and parts of Africa. However, the worldwide distribution of C. sowerbii remains poorly documented due to the lack of information in various aquatic environments. This dataset globalises the occurrences of this species from an extensive literature review and database review. Information extracted from the literature/database were organised and synthesised according to specific criteria, such as geographic area (continent and country), GPS coordinates, habitat types (i.e., closed/open, artificial/natural, rivers, canals, ponds, lakes, etc.). To understand the altitude ranges of C. sowerbii, altitude data were extracted from the elevation layer downloaded from WorldClim (http://www.worldclim.org/; accessed in June 2021) using QGIS version 3.16.3 software.

Supplemental material, sj-png-5-hol-10.1177_0959683620988051 for Long-term and recent ecohydrological dynamics of patterned peatlands in north-central Quebec (Canada) by Mylène Robitaille, Michelle Garneau, Simon van Bellen and Nicole K Sanderson in The Holocene

The Cape Canaveral Peninsula is the largest Holocene coastal sand deposit composed of beach ridges on the Atlantic coast of Florida. It is composed of 16 beach-ridge sets that are separated by erosional surfaces. Despite its prominence as a Holocene coastal depocenter, there are a limited amount of chronological data constraining the timing of its formation. In this study, we apply optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating on sand-sized quartz and radiocarbon dating on individual marine shells to develop a refined chronology of the Cape Canaveral beach-ridge plain with particular focus on constraining the depositional age of the northwesterly-most, and geographically oldest, beach-ridge set on the peninsula. We obtain an average OSL age of 5680 ± 240 years (n = 4) for the initiation of coastal deposition at Cape Canaveral. The new ages, and the organization of beach ridges into 16 distinct sets indicates that the Cape Canaveral beach-ridge plain experienced an ~5700-year history of alternating deposition and erosion, with 75% of present-day Cape Canaveral (Beach-ridge Sets 5–16) deposited over the past 2000 years and Beach-ridge Sets 8–16 comprising 50% of the area over the past 1000 years. Because the minimum swale elevations of the ~5700-year Beach-ridge Set 1, and those of all the younger beach-ridge sets, are within several decimeters of present-day mean higher high water, we hypothesize that all the beach ridges present at Cape Canaveral could have been deposited at or within decimeters of present-day sea level. There is no evidence for Holocene “highstand” events over the past 5700 years in the published sea level curves from northeast and south Florida, which are based on subsurface estuarine foraminifera/leaf litter and mangrove peat data, respectively. This dichotomy illustrates the need to integrate both subaerial and subsurface data to produce a more realistic Holocene sea-level curve for the southeastern United States.

Abstract Background Current text mining tools supporting abstract screening in systematic reviews are not widely used, in part because they lack sensitivity and precision. We set out to develop an accessible, semi-automated “workflow” to conduct abstract screening for systematic reviews and other knowledge synthesis methods. Methods We adopt widely recommended text-mining and machine-learning methods to (1) process title-abstracts into numerical training data; and (2) train a classification model to predict eligible abstracts. The predicted abstracts are screened by human reviewers for (“true”) eligibility, and the newly eligible abstracts are used to identify similar abstracts, using near-neighbor methods, which are also screened. These abstracts, as well as their eligibility results, are used to update the classification model, and the above steps are iterated until no new eligible abstracts are identified. The workflow was implemented in R and evaluated using a systematic review of insulin formulations for type-1 diabetes (14,314 abstracts) and a scoping review of knowledge-synthesis methods (17,200 abstracts). Workflow performance was evaluated against the recommended practice of screening abstracts by 2 reviewers, independently. Standard measures were examined: sensitivity (inclusion of all truly eligible abstracts), specificity (exclusion of all truly ineligible abstracts), precision (inclusion of all truly eligible abstracts among all abstracts screened as eligible), F1-score (harmonic average of sensitivity and precision), and accuracy (correctly predicted eligible or ineligible abstracts). Workload reduction was measured as the hours the workflow saved, given only a subset of abstracts needed human screening. Results With respect to the systematic and scoping reviews respectively, the workflow attained 88%/89% sensitivity, 99%/99% specificity, 71%/72% precision, an F1-score of 79%/79%, 98%/97% accuracy, 63%/55% workload reduction, with 12%/11% fewer abstracts for full-text retrieval and screening, and 0%/1.5% missed studies in the completed reviews. Conclusion The workflow was a sensitive, precise, and efficient alternative to the recommended practice of screening abstracts with 2 reviewers. All eligible studies were identified in the first case, while 6 studies (1.5%) were missed in the second that would likely not impact the review’s conclusions. We have described the workflow in language accessible to reviewers with limited exposure to natural language processing and machine learning, and have made the code available to reviewers.

The Taylor White Collection of paintings from the 1700s, held at the McGill University Library, includes 661 paintings that illustrate 832 birds from around the world comprising 443 species and 30 avian orders, representing a substantial proportion of the bird species known at the time. These paintings represent one of the most comprehensive and accurate collections of coloured bird illustrations made during the eighteenth century, rarely equalled on this global scale for the next two centuries. Most of the paintings were made by Charles Collins and Peter Paillou from live birds or dead specimens in the cabinets and aviaries of White and his contemporaries. We compared a large sample of the paintings to the same birds depicted in modern bird guides to assess quantitatively the accuracy of the illustrations with respect to the colours and patterns of plumages and soft parts. We found that less than 3% of the paintings contained errors, and usually only in one of the 28 body regions that we assessed. Given this high level of accuracy, we identified a small red macaw from the West Indies as likely representing a previously unknown but now extinct subspecies of the Scarlet Macaw, and two other paintings of species that could not be convincingly matched to any known species.