Niche Relationships of Carnivores in a Subtropical Primary Forest in Southern Taiwan

Carnivores are at the higher trophic levels and have garnered much attention in conservation and management efforts. In this study, we attempted to understand resource partitioning among sympatric carnivores existing in a primary forest with minimal human disturbance in southern Taiwan by camera trapping after the disappearance of the top carnivore, the clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa). Niche relationships were studied in terms of habitat, diet, and time dimensions. Six carnivore species were recorded, but the Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus formosanus) was very rare. Canonical correspondence analysis of photographic rates and habitat factors of the other 5 carnivores showed that elevation was the strongest factor explaining the composition of the carnivore community in the habitat dimension. Carnivores could be divided into 3 groups. The low- to mid-elevation group consisted of the gem-faced palm civet (Paguma larvata taivana) and crab-eating mongoose (Herpestes urva formosanus) which had contrasting activity patterns and different diets; the mid- to high-elevation group consisted of yellow-throated marten (Martes flavigula chrysospila) and Siberian weasel (Mustela sibirica taivana). These 2 mustelids had similar diets, but Siberian weasels tended to avoid yellow-throated martens temporally. The Formosan ferret badger (Melogale moschata subaurantiaca) was more widely distributed along the elevational gradient. Ferret badgers partitioned resource use in either diet, activity patterns, or other habitat gradients from the other carnivores. Niche segregation and complementary resource use were observed in these 5 carnivores

A multi-scale, multivariate habitat selection model demonstrates high potential for the reintroduction of the clouded leopard (neofelis nebulosa) to Taiwan

Hunting, habitat loss and fragmentation have driven a rapid decline in the distribution and abundance of the clouded leopard, Neofelis nebulosa, across its range, and in several areas the species is now extirpated, including Taiwan. Taiwan, an historical stronghold of the species, is a candidate for expanding its current range by reintroduction, based on increasing prey abundance and high forest coverage. Such future reintroduction efforts, however, are hampered by the lack of an empirical analysis of clouded leopard habitat potential in the island. To address this knowledge gap, this study explores the species’ habitat suitability in Taiwan. We employed a multi-scale multivariate habitat selection model based on clouded leopard presence-absence data from extensive camera trap surveys across its current range, and extrapolated the result to predict suitable habitats in Taiwan. Our results reveal that 40% of Taiwanese territory represents suitable habitats for clouded leopards and of which 90% is under protection. This demonstrates the robust potential of Taiwan’s habitat for clouded leopard reintroduction

Spatiotemporal analysis of air pollution and asthma patient visits in Taipei, Taiwan

[[abstract]]Background: Buffer analyses have shown that air pollution is associated with an increased incidence of asthma, but little is known about how air pollutants affect health outside a defined buffer. The aim of this study was to better understand how air pollutants affect asthma patient visits in a metropolitan area. The study used an integrated spatial and temporal approach that included the Kriging method and the Generalized Additive Model (GAM). Results: We analyzed daily outpatient and emergency visit data from the Taiwan Bureau of National Health Insurance and air pollution data from the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration during 2000-2002. In general, children (aged 0-15 years) had the highest number of total asthma visits. Seasonal changes of PM10, NO2, O3 and SO2 were evident. However, SO2 showed a positive correlation with the dew point (r = 0.17, p < 0.01) and temperature (r = 0.22, p < 0.01). Among the four pollutants studied, the elevation of NO2 concentration had the highest impact on asthma outpatient visits on the day that a 10% increase of concentration caused the asthma outpatient visit rate to increase by 0.30% (95% CI: 0.16%??.45%) in the four pollutant model. For emergency visits, the elevation of PM10 concentration, which occurred two days before the visits, had the most significant influence on this type of patient visit with an increase of 0.14% (95% CI: 0.01%??.28%) in the four pollutants model. The impact on the emergency visit rate was non-significant two days following exposure to the other three air pollutants. Conclusion: This preliminary study demonstrates the feasibility of an integrated spatial and temporal approach to assess the impact of air pollution on asthma patient visits. The results of this study provide a better understanding of the correlation of air pollution with asthma patient visits and demonstrate that NO2 and PM10 might have a positive impact on outpatient and emergency settings respectively. Future research is required to validate robust spatiotemporal patterns and trends

ADHERE: randomized controlled trial comparing renal function in de novo kidney transplant recipients receiving prolonged-release tacrolimus plus mycophenolate mofetil or sirolimus

ADHERE was a randomized, open-label, Phase IV study comparing renal function at Week 52 postkidney transplant, in patients who received prolongedrelease tacrolimus-based immunosuppressive regimens. On Days 0?27, patients received prolonged-release tacrolimus (initially 0.2 mg/kg/day), corticosteroids, and mycophenolate mofetil (MMF). Patients were randomized on Day 28 to receive either prolonged-release tacrolimus plus MMF (Arm 1) or prolongedrelease tacrolimus (?25% dose reduction on Day 42) plus sirolimus (Arm 2). The primary endpoint was glomerular filtration rate by iohexol clearance (mGFR) at Week 52. Secondary endpoints included eGFR, creatinine clearance (CrCl), efficacy failure (patient withdrawal or graft loss), and patient/graft survival. Tolerability was analyzed. The full-analysis set comprised 569 patients (Arm 1: 287; Arm 2: 282). Week 52 mean mGFR was similar in Arm 1 versus Arm 2 (40.73 vs. 41.75 ml/min/1.73 m2; P = 0.405), as were the secondary endpoints, except composite efficacy failure, which was higher in Arm 2 versus 1 (18.2% vs. 11.5%; P = 0.002) owing to a higher postrandomization withdrawal rate due to adverse events (AEs) (14.4% vs. 5.2%). Results from this study show comparable renal function between arms at Week 52, with fewer AEs leading to study discontinuation with prolonged-release tacrolimus plus MMF (Arm 1) versus lower dose prolonged-release tacrolimus plus sirolimus (Arm 2)

Select and Distill: Selective Dual-Teacher Knowledge Transfer for Continual Learning on Vision-Language Models

Large-scale vision-language models (VLMs) have shown a strong zero-shot generalization capability on unseen-domain data. However, adapting pre-trained VLMs to a sequence of downstream tasks often leads to the forgetting of previously learned knowledge and a reduction in zero-shot classification performance. To tackle this problem, we propose a unique Selective Dual-Teacher Knowledge Transfer framework that leverages the most recent fine-tuned and the original pre-trained VLMs as dual teachers to preserve the previously learned knowledge and zero-shot capabilities, respectively. With only access to an unlabeled reference dataset, our proposed framework performs a selective knowledge distillation mechanism by measuring the feature discrepancy from the dual-teacher VLMs. Consequently, our selective dual-teacher knowledge distillation mitigates catastrophic forgetting of previously learned knowledge while preserving the zero-shot capabilities of pre-trained VLMs. Extensive experiments on benchmark datasets demonstrate that our framework is favorable against state-of-the-art continual learning approaches for preventing catastrophic forgetting and zero-shot degradation. Project page: https://chuyu.org/research/sndAccepted to ECCV 2024. Project page: https://chuyu.org/research/sn

Localized tail state distribution and hopping transport in ultrathin zinc-tin-oxide thin film transistor

Carrier transport properties of solution processed ultra thin (4 nm) zinc-tin oxide (ZTO) thin film transistor are investigated based on its transfer characteristics measured at the temperature ranging from 310K to 77K. As temperature decreases, the transfer curves show a parellel shift toward more postive voltages. The conduction mechanism of ultra-thin ZTO film and its connection to the density of band tail states have been substantiated by two approaches, including fitting logarithm drain current (log ID) to T-1/3 at 310K to 77K according to the two-dimensional Mott variable range hopping theory and the extraction of density of localized tail states through the energy distribution of trapped carrier density. The linear dependency of log ID vs. T-1/3 indicates that the dominant carrier transport mechanism in ZTO is the variable range hopping. The extracted value of density of tail states at the conduction band minimum is 4.75 x 10(20) cm(-3) eV(-1) through the energy distribution of trapped carrier density. The high density of localized tail states in the ultra thin ZTO film is the key factor leading to the room-temperature hopping transport of carriers among localized tail states. Published by AIP Publishing