Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Phosphorus Availability Promotes Bacterial DOC-Mineralization, but Not Cumulative CO2-Production

The current trend of increasing input of terrestrially derived dissolved organic carbon (DOC) to boreal freshwater systems is causing increased levels of carbon dioxide (CO2) supersaturation and degassing. Phosphorus (P) is often the most limiting nutrient for bacterial growth and would thus be expected to increase overall mineralization rates and CO2 production. However, high carbon (C) to P ratios of terrestrially derived DOC could also cause elevated cell-specific respiration of the excess C in heterotrophic bacteria. Using data from a survey of 75 Scandinavian lakes along an ecosystem gradient of DOC, we estimated in situ CO2 production rates. These rates showed a unimodal response with DOC-specific CO2 production negatively related to DOC:total phosphorus (TP) ratio, and a turning point at 5 mg C L−1, indicating higher DOC turnover rates in productive than in unproductive lakes. To further assess the dependency of bacterial respiration (BR) on DOC and P, we monitored CO2 production in incubations of water with a gradient of DOC crossed with two levels of inorganic P. Finally, we crossed DOC and P with a temperature gradient to test the temperature dependency of respiration rates [as oxygen (O2) consumption]. While total CO2 production seemed to be unaffected by P additions, respiration rates, and growth yields, as estimated by ribosomal gene copy numbers, suggest increased bacterial growth and decreased cell-specific respiration under non-limited P conditions. Respiration rates showed a sigmoid response to increasing DOC availability reaching a plateau at about 20 mg C L−1 of initial DOC concentrations. In addition to these P and DOC level effects, respiration rates responded in a non-monotonic fashion to temperature with an increase in respiration rates by a factor of 2.6 (±0.2) from 15 to 25°C and a decrease above 30°C. The combined results from the survey and experiments highlight DOC as the major determinant of CO2 production in boreal lakes, with P and temperature as significant modulators of respiration kinetics.
Progress and Future Directions of the NCAA-DoD Concussion Assessment, Research, and Education (CARE) Consortium and Mind Matters Challenge at the US Service Academies

Despite the significant impact that concussion has on military service members, significant gaps remain in our understanding of the optimal diagnostic, management, and return to activity/duty criteria to mitigate the consequences of concussion. In response to these significant knowledge gaps, the US Department of Defense (DoD) and the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) partnered to form the NCAA-DoD Grand Alliance in 2014. The NCAA-DoD CARE Consortium was established with the aim of creating a national multisite research network to study the clinical and neurobiological natural history of concussion in NCAA athletes and military Service Academy cadets and midshipmen. In addition to the data collected for the larger CARE Consortium effort, the service academies have pursued military-specific lines of research relevant to operational and medical readiness associated with concussion. The purpose of this article is to describe the structure of the NCAA-DoD Grand Alliance efforts at the service academies, as well as discuss military-specific research objectives and provide an overview of progress to date. A secondary objective is to discuss the challenges associated with conducting large-scale studies in the Service Academy environment and highlight future directions for concussion research endeavors across the CARE Service Academy sites.
Impact of Hypothyroidism on Echocardiographic Characteristics of Patients With Heart Valve Disease: A Single-Center Propensity Score-Based Study

Background: Hypothyroidism is known to be correlated with multiple heart diseases. However, the influence of hypothyroidism on the patients with heart valve disease (HVD) is still unclear. The purpose of our study was to investigate the impact of hypothyroidism on echocardiographic characteristics of patients with heart valve disease. Methods: We conducted a retrospective cohort study which included 2,128 patients with HVD, and they were divided into euthyroid, subclinical hypothyroidism (SCHypoT), and overt hypothyroidism (OHypoT) group. Echocardiographic characteristics before and after valve surgery between groups were compared by using propensity score (PS) analysis. Kaplan–Meier analysis was used to compare the percent of recovery of left atrial (LA) enlargement between groups. Results: Overall, 463 patients had hypothyroidism (404 SCHypoT patients and 59 OHypoT patients), and 1,665 patients were euthyroid. At baseline, hypothyroidism was associated with significantly higher left atrial diameter (LAD), interventricular septum thickness, left ventricular posterior wall thickness, pulmonary artery systolic pressure, and lower left ventricular ejection fraction. After valve surgery, only LAD remained significantly higher in the patients with hypothyroidism. Additionally, patients with hypothyroidism had a significantly lower recovery rate of LA enlargement after valve surgery compared with euthyroid patients. Conclusion: Hypothyroidism was associated with a larger LAD in patients with HVD before and after surgery, which may suggest that hypothyroidism is a risk factor of LA enlargement of HVD. Besides, hypothyroidism was associated with a significantly lower recovery rate of LA enlargement after valve surgery.
Risk Factors for Poor Outcomes of Diabetes Patients With COVID-19: A Single-Center, Retrospective Study in Early Outbreak in China

Background: Diabetes has been found to increase severity and mortality under the current pandemic of coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19). Up to date, the clinical characteristics of diabetes patients with COVID-19 and the risk factors for poor clinical outcomes are not clearly understood. Methods: The study was retrospectively carried out on enrolled diabetes patients with laboratory confirmed COVID-19 infection from a designated medical center for COVID-19 from January 25th, 2020 to February 14th, 2020 in Wuhan, China. The medical record was collected and reviewed. Univariate and multivariate analyses were performed to assess the risk factors associated with the severe events which were defined as a composite endpoint of admission to intensive care unit, the use of mechanical ventilation, or death. Results: A total of 52 diabetes patients with COVID-19 were finally included in the study. 21 (40.4%) patients had developed severe events in 27.50 (IQR 12.25–35.75) days follow-up, 15 (28.8%) patients experienced life-threatening complications and 8 patients died with a recorded mortality rate of 15.4%. Only 13 patients (41.9%) were in optimal glycemic control with HbA1c value of <7.0%. In addition to general clinical characteristics of COVID-19, the severe events diabetes patients showed higher counts of white blood cells and neutrophil, lower lymphocytes (40, 76.9%), high levels of hs-CRP, erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR) and procalcitonin (PCT) as compared to the non-severe diabetes patients. Mild higher level of cardiac troponin I (cTNI) (32.0 pg/ml; IQR 16.80–55.00) and D-dimer (1.70 μg/L, IQR 0.70–2.40) were found in diabetes patients with severe events as compared to the non-severe patients (cTNI:20.00 pg/ml, IQR5.38–30.00, p = 0.019; D-dimer: 0.70 μg/L, IQR 0.30–2.40, p = 0.037). After adjusting age and sex, increased level of cTNI was found to significantly associate with the incidence of severe events (HR: 1.007; 95% CI: 1.000–1.013; p = 0.048), Furthermore, using of α-glucosidase inhibitors was found to be the potential protectant for severe events (HR: 0.227; 95% CI: 0.057–0.904; p = 0.035). Conclusion: Diabetes patients with COVID-19 showed poor clinical outcomes. Vigorous monitoring of cTNI should be recommended for the diabetes patients with COVID-19. Usage of α-glucosidase inhibitors could be a potential protectant for the diabetes patients with COVID-19.
Diverse Macrophage Populations Contribute to the Inflammatory Microenvironment in Premalignant Lesions During Localized Invasion

Myeloid cell heterogeneity remains poorly studied in breast cancer, and particularly in premalignancy. Here, we used single cell RNA sequencing to characterize macrophage diversity in mouse pre-invasive lesions as compared to lesions undergoing localized invasion. Several subpopulations of macrophages with transcriptionally distinct profiles were identified, two of which resembled macrophages in the steady state. While all subpopulations expressed tumor-promoting genes, many of the populations expressed pro-inflammatory genes, differing from reports in tumor-associated macrophages. Gene profiles of the myeloid cells were similar between early and late stages of premalignancy, although expansion of some subpopulations occurred. These results unravel macrophage heterogeneity in early progression and may provide insight into early intervention strategies that target macrophages.
Elucidation of the Signatures of Proteasome-Catalyzed Peptide Splicing

Proteasomes catalyze the degradation of endogenous proteins into oligopeptides, but can concurrently create spliced oligopeptides through ligation of previously non-contiguous peptide fragments. Recent studies have uncovered a formerly unappreciated role for proteasome-catalyzed peptide splicing (PCPS) in the generation of non-genomically templated human leukocyte antigen class I (HLA-I)-bound cis-spliced peptides that can be targeted by CD8+ T cells in cancer and infection. However, the mechanisms defining PCPS reactions are poorly understood. Here, we experimentally define the biochemical constraints of proteasome-catalyzed cis-splicing reactions by examination of in vitro proteasomal digests of a panel of viral- and self-derived polypeptide substrates using a tailored mass-spectrometry-based de novo sequencing workflow. We show that forward and reverse PCPS reactions display unique splicing signatures, defined by preferential fusion of distinct amino acid residues with stringent peptide length distributions, suggesting sequence- and size-dependent accessibility of splice reactants for proteasomal substrate binding pockets. Our data provide the basis for a more informed mechanistic understanding of PCPS that will facilitate future prediction of spliced peptides from protein sequences.
The effects of different cultivars of subterranean clover (T. subterraneum L.) on sheep reproduction in the South-west of Western Australia

The cultivars Dwalganup, Geraldton, Yarloop, Woogenellup, and Mt. Barker were each grazed continuously by Merino and Merino x Border Leicester ewes from April 1963 to November 1967. There was a progressive decline in the proportion of Merino ewes conceiving on the three high oestrogen cultivars Dwalganup, Geraldton, and Yarloop; crossbred ewes showed a decline on Dwalganup and Yarloop. For neither breed of sheep was the decline in conception rate significant on the two low oestrogen cultivars Woogenellup and Mt. Barker. The incidence of uterine prolapse was higher on the high oestrogen cultivars. The percentage lambs marked in 1967 was only 50% for the high oestrogen cultivars (excluding the crossbred ewes on Geraldton), compared with 93% for the low group. Conception rates were significantly related to the concentration of the isoflavone formononetin in the clover leaves.
In vitro Analysis of O-Antigen-Specific Bacteriophage P22 Inactivation by Salmonella Outer Membrane Vesicles

Bacteriophages use a large number of different bacterial cell envelope structures as receptors for surface attachment. As a consequence, bacterial surfaces represent a major control point for the defense against phage attack. One strategy for phage population control is the production of outer membrane vesicles (OMVs). In Gram-negative host bacteria, O-antigen-specific bacteriophages address lipopolysaccharide (LPS) to initiate infection, thus relying on an essential outer membrane glycan building block as receptor that is constantly present also in OMVs. In this work, we have analyzed interactions of Salmonella (S.) bacteriophage P22 with OMVs. For this, we isolated OMVs that were formed in large amounts during mechanical cell lysis of the P22 S. Typhimurium host. In vitro, these OMVs could efficiently reduce the number of infective phage particles. Fluorescence spectroscopy showed that upon interaction with OMVs, bacteriophage P22 released its DNA into the vesicle lumen. However, only about one third of the phage P22 particles actively ejected their genome. For the larger part, no genome release was observed, albeit the majority of phages in the system had lost infectivity towards their host. With OMVs, P22 ejected its DNA more rapidly and could release more DNA against elevated osmotic pressures compared to DNA release triggered with protein-free LPS aggregates. This emphasizes that OMV composition is a key feature for the regulation of infective bacteriophage particles in the system.
Inferring Variation in Southern Elephant Seal At-Sea Mortality by Modelling Tag Failure

Identifying factors influencing survivorship is key to understanding population persistence. Although satellite telemetry is a powerful tool for studying remote animal ecology and behaviour it is rarely used for demographic studies because distinguishing the death of the animal (individual mortality) from failure of the tag (mechanical tag failure) has proven difficult. Southern elephant seals present an opportunity to separate tag failure from animal mortality thanks to the availability of large tracking datasets, broad knowledge of demographic rates, and because for these large animals, satellite tags are known not to influence mortality rates. A key rationale for investigating satellite telemetry to estimate mortality as compared to using traditional Capture-Mark-Recapture methods is the potential for obtaining spatially and temporally specific information, particularly while the animals are at sea and largely unobservable. We used satellite tag data from 182 seals from Isles Kerguelen, deployed between 2004 and 2018. Of these, 76 (42%) tags transmitted for the full post-moult foraging trip (max. 265 days for females and max. 305 days for sub-adult males) with the remaining 107 tags (58%) ceasing transmission at sea. We found that contrary to expectations, behavioural choices seem not to influence tag failure rates by mechanical means, rather the signals we detected seemed to align with previously described variation in mortality between groups. There was evidence, albeit limited, for an increase in tag failure for adult females in years with negative Southern Annular Mode (lower Southern Ocean productivity). We speculate that this increase in failure may suggest higher mortality in these years. Also, males using the Kerguelen Plateau had higher tag failure rates than those in the sea-ice zone, perhaps indicative of higher mortality. We suspect that these differences in tag failure rates between groups reflect variation in predator exposure and foraging success. This suggests satellite telemetry could be used to infer mortality events for southern elephant seals while they are at sea.
Possible Novel Therapeutic Targets in Lymphangioleiomyomatosis Treatment

Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) is a rare systemic neoplastic disease that exclusively happens in women. Studies focusing on LAM and tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC) have made great progress in understanding the pathogenesis and searching for treatment. The inactive mutation of TSC1 or TSC2 is found in patients with LAM to activate the crucial mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling pathway and result in enhanced cell proliferation and migration. However, it does not explain every step of tumorigenesis in LAM. Because cessation of rapamycin would break the stabilization of lung function or improved quality of life and lead to disease recurrent, continued studies on the pathogenesis of LAM are necessary to identify novel targets and new treatment. Researchers have found several aberrant regulations that affect the mTOR pathway such as its upstream or downstream molecules and compensatory pathways in LAM. Some therapeutic targets have been under study in clinical trials. New methods like genome-wide association studies have located a novel gene related to LAM. Herein, we review the current knowledge regarding pathogenesis and treatment of LAM and summarize novel targets of therapeutic potential recently.
Flower Conspicuousness to Bees Across Pollination Systems: A Generalized Test of the Bee-Avoidance Hypothesis

Flower signals of bee- and bird-pollinated plants have converged via pollinator-mediated evolution, driven by the visual system of their respective pollinators. For bird flowers, sensory exclusion of less effective bees is also important and such exclusion is also mediated by floral morphological filters. Likewise, other systems based on pollination by red-sensitive insects are also associated with red flowers displaying lower short-wavelength secondary peaks of reflectance, which decreases detectability to animals that are less sensitive to red, such as bees. These flowers often also present long tubes. Here, we tested a generalization of the bee-avoidance hypothesis in order to assess if it holds only for bird flowers or for other non-bee pollination systems as well. For this, we compared flower contrasts and spectral purity in bee visual systems as proxies for conspicuousness among four kinds of pollination systems: bee-visited flowers, insect-visited flowers (including bees and other insects), non-bee insect flowers (flowers visited by red-sensitive insects such as flies, butterflies and beetles, but not bees), and bird-visited flowers. We also assessed the association between conspicuousness to bees and flower depth, used as a proxy for morphological exclusion of bees. Overall, flower conspicuousness to bees differed only between insect (all three groups) and bird flowers, due to lower visual signals for the latter. This suggests that bee sensory exclusion via color signals is exclusive to bird flowers, while non-bee insect flowers might use other sensory channels to exclude bees, such as olfactory signals. Visual bee avoidance might be a mechanism exclusive to plants pollinated by specific guilds of red-sensitive insects not well represented in our sample. We also found a negative association between flower conspicuousness to bees and flower depth, suggesting an interplay of morphological and spectral traits in discouraging bee visits. Our results support the bee-avoidance hypothesis exclusively for bird flowers and an overall association between lower visual signals to bees and long tubes.
Influence of EGR3 Transfection on Imaging and Behavior in Rats and Therapeutic Effect of Risperidone in Schizophrenia Model

Schizophrenia is a type of neurodevelopmental psychiatric disorder. However, to date, scientists have not discovered the etiology and effective treatment of this condition. We injected the early growth response gene (EGR3) into the bilateral hippocampus to build a schizophrenia rat model. Behavioral phenotyping and resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) were used to analyze the behavioral and cerebral alterations in the schizophrenia rat model. The efficacy of risperidone therapy was also evaluated. We divided 34 rats into four groups: schizophrenia model group (E group), sham-operation group (FE group), healthy control group (H group), and risperidone therapy group (T group). Open field test and Morris water maze were conducted as behavioral experiments. Next, we performed rs-fMRI after four weeks of EGR3 transfection and risperidone treatment and analyzed imaging data using regional homogeneity (ReHo), the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF), and functional connectivity (FC). We examined the difference in behavioral and neural activation among the four groups and considered the correlations between behavior and imaging results. EGR3 gene transfection decreased the total moved distance in the open field test and the duration in the Q5 zone of the Morris water maze. Risperidone treatment reversed the trend and improved the performance of rats in these behavioral tests. Schizophrenia induced several neural alterations in ALFF and ReHo metrics of the rat brain, and risperidone could partly reverse these alterations. The results suggest that similar research is required for schizophrenia and that risperidone may be a novel treatment for dysregulated neural activation in schizophrenia.
Cityscape: Housing Discrimination Today

Fair housing audits or tests, which compare the way housing agents treat equally qualified homeseekers in different racial or ethnic groups, are an important tool both for enforcing fair housing laws and for studying discriminatory behavior in housing markets. This article explains the features of two types of housing audits: in-person paired audits and correspondence audits, which are usually conducted over the Internet. In addition, this article reviews evidence provided by audit studies about the extent of housing discrimination. The studies reviewed include four national studies in the United States based on in-person audits and many studies based on correspondence audits in the United States and in several European countries. This article also reviews audit-based evidence about the causes of discrimination in housing markets. Despite variation in methods, sample sizes, and locations, audit studies consistently find evidence of statistically significant discrimination against homeseekers who belong to a historically disadvantaged racial or ethnic group. The 2012 national audit study found, for example, that the share of audits in which a White homebuyer was shown more available houses than an equally qualified Black homebuyer was 9 percentage points higher than the share in which the Black homebuyer was shown more houses than his or her White counterpart. In the United States, housing discrimination against Black and Hispanic homeseekers appears to have declined in some types of agent behavior, such as whether the advertised unit is shown to a customer, but to have increased in others, such as steering Black and Hispanic homeseekers toward minority neighborhoods. This article also discusses the past use and continued importance of fair housing audits as a fair-housing-enforcement tool.
Accelerated decline in white matter microstructure in subsequently impaired older adults and its relationship with cognitive decline.

INTRODUCTION: Little is known about longitudinal decline in white matter (WM) microstructure and its associations with cognition in preclinical Alzheimers disease (AD). METHODS: Longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging and neuropsychological testing from 50 older adults who subsequently developed mild cognitive impairment or dementia (subsequently impaired, SI) and 200 cognitively normal controls. Rates of WM decline were compared between groups using voxel-wise linear mixed-effects models. Associations between change in WM and cognition were examined. RESULTS: SI had faster decline in fractional anisotropy (FA) in the right inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus (R.IFOF) and bilateral splenium of the corpus callosum. Decline in R.IFOF FA was related to decline in verbal memory, visuospatial ability, processing speed, and MMSE (p[≤] 0.05). Decline in bilateral splenium FA was related to decline in verbal fluency, processing speed, and MMSE (p[≤] 0.05). DISCUSSION: Accelerated regional WM decline is characteristic of preclinical AD and related to domain specific cognitive decline.