Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Long-term exposure to particulate matter is associated with elevated blood pressure: Evidence from the Chinese plateau area

Background Ambient air pollution could increase the risk of hypertension; however, evidence regarding the relationship between long-term exposure to particulate matter and elevated blood pressure in plateau areas with lower pollution levels is limited. Methods We assessed the associations of long-term exposure to particulate matter (PM, PM1, PM2.5, and PM10) with hypertension, diastolic blood pressure (DBP), systolic blood pressure (SBP) and pulse pressure (PP) in 4.235 Tibet adults, based on the baseline of the China multi-ethnic cohort study (CMEC) in Lhasa city, Tibet from 2018–19. We used logistic regression and linear regression models to evaluate the associations of ambient PM with hypertension and blood pressure, respectively. Results Long-term exposure to PM1, PM2.5, and PM10 is positively associated with hypertension, DBP, and SBP, while negatively associated with PP. Among these air pollutants, PM10 had the strongest effect on hypertension, DBP, and SBP, while PM2.5 had the strongest effect on PP. The results showed for hypertension odds ratio (OR) = 1.99; 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.58, 2.51 per interquartile range (IQR) μg/m3 increase in PM1, OR = 1.93; 95% CI = 1.55, 2.40 per IQR μg/m3 increase in PM2.5, and OR = 2.12; 95% CI = 1.67, 2.68 per IQR μg/m3 increase in PM10. Conclusions Long-term exposure to ambient air pollution was associated with an increased risk of hypertension, elevated SBP and DBP levels, and decreased PP levels. To reduce the risk of hypertension and PP reduction, attention should be paid to air quality interventions in plateau areas with low pollution levels.
Experimental Study of Large-Scale Flow Structures in an Aneurysm

An aneurysm is an abnormal growth in the wall of a weakened blood vessel, and can often be fatal upon rupture. Studies have shown that aneurysm shape and hemodynamics, in conjunction with other parameters, play an important role in growth and rupture. The objective of this study was to investigate the impact of varying inflow conditions on flow structures in an aneurysm. An idealized rigid sidewall aneurysm model was prepared and the Womersley number (α) and Reynolds number (Re) values were varied from 2 to 5 and 50 to 250, respectively. A ViVitro Labs pump system was used for inflow control and Particle Image Velocimetry was used for conducting velocity measurements. The results showed that the primary vortex path varied with an increase in α, while an increase in Re was correlated to the vortex strength and formation of secondary vortical structures. The evolution and decay of vortical structures were also observed to be dependent on α and Re.
Quantification of Rotavirus Diarrheal Risk Due to Hydroclimatic Extremes Over South Asia: Prospects of Satellite‐Based Observations in Detecting Outbreaks

Rotavirus is the most common cause of diarrheal disease among children under 5. Especially in South Asia, rotavirus remains the leading cause of mortality in children due to diarrhea. As climatic extremes and safe water availability significantly influence diarrheal disease impacts in human populations, hydroclimatic information can be a potential tool for disease preparedness. In this study, we conducted a multivariate temporal and spatial assessment of 34 climate indices calculated from ground and satellite Earth observations to examine the role of temperature and rainfall extremes on the seasonality of rotavirus transmission in Bangladesh. We extracted rainfall data from the Global Precipitation Measurement and temperature data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer sensors to validate the analyses and explore the potential of a satellite‐based seasonal forecasting model. Our analyses found that the number of rainy days and nighttime temperature range from 16°C to 21°C are particularly influential on the winter transmission cycle of rotavirus. The lower number of wet days with suitable cold temperatures for an extended time accelerates the onset and intensity of the outbreaks. Temporal analysis over Dhaka also suggested that water logging during monsoon precipitation influences rotavirus outbreaks during a summer transmission cycle. The proposed model shows lag components, which allowed us to forecast the disease outbreaks 1 to 2 months in advance. The satellite data‐driven forecasts also effectively captured the increased vulnerability of dry‐cold regions of the country, compared to the wet‐warm regions.
Paleomagnetism and Detrital Zircon Geochronology of the Skeena Group, British Columbia

The mid-Cretaceous Skeena Group of British Columbia is a sedimentary continental margin deposit that overlies the lower Jurassic Hazelton Group of the Stikine Terrane. Nine paleomagnetic sites were collected in 2006 and 2007, demagnetized thermally in 50-15° C steps, and high temperature components fit using principal component analysis. A new Ar^'^/Ar^^ age of 93.9 ± 0.6 Ma for a flow of the Rocky Ridge Formation was also collected. Three volcanic sites of the Rocky Ridge Volcanics possess coherent magnetizations, but did not prove useful. Five of six sedimentary sites from the Rocher de Boule and Bulkley Canyon Formations appear more likely to retain a primary magnetization. Curie temperature analysis indicates the primary carrier of magnetic remanence is magnetite. Hysteresis and direct field demagnetization data indicate the magnetite is primarily multi-domain in the volcanic sites and possess a mix of single and multi-domain grains in the sedimentary rocks, which may account for the more likely primary remanence from the sedimentary formations When subjected to a bootstrap fold test, the sedimentary sites have maximum grouping at 40% untilting, but the hypotheses that the magnetization was acquired either before or after tilting cannot be rejected at the 95% confidence level. An inclination-only paleolatitude analysis was used to estimate paleolatitude as different declinations between sites suggest rotation between sites. The resulting paleolatitude for the Skeena Group is -57° ± 21°. This is equivalent to a location -1150 ± 2000 km south of the expected latitude with respect to North America. Uranium-lead ages of detrital zircons from a sample of the Rocher de Boule Formation were obtained using laser ablation inductively coupled mass spectrometry. These ages form several Mesozoic peaks indicating that the majority of zircons came from Stikine ■
Sex-specific viability effects of mutations in Drosophila melanogaster

In populations with separate sexes, genetic load due to deleterious mutations may be expressed differently in males and females. Evidence from insect models suggests that selection against mutations is stronger in males, with a positive intersexual correlation for fitness. This pattern will reduce deleterious allele frequencies at the expense of males, such that female mean fitness is greater than expected, preserving population persistence in the face of high mutation rates. While previous studies focus on reproductive success, mutation load depends on total selection in each sex, including selection for viability. In fruit flies, we might expect minimal sex differences in viability effects, since male and female larvae behave similarly, but many genes show sex-biased expression in larvae. We measured the sex-specific viability effects of nine “marker” mutations and 33 mutagenized chromosomes. We find that both types of mutations generally reduce viability in both sexes. Among marker mutations we detect instances of sex biased selection in both directions, but mutagenized chromosomes show little sign of sex-specific mutational variance. We conclude that some mutations can indeed affect viability in a sex-specific manner, but that the pattern of male-biased mutational effects observed previously for reproductive success is not apparent at the pre-reproductive stage.
Second language learning in older adults modulates Stroop task performance and brain activation

Numerous studies have highlighted cognitive benefits in lifelong bilinguals during aging, manifesting as superior performance on cognitive tasks compared to monolingual counterparts. Yet, the cognitive impacts of acquiring a new language in older adulthood remain unexplored. In this study, we assessed both behavioral and fMRI responses during a Stroop task in older adults, pre- and post language-learning intervention. A group of 41 participants (age:60-80) from a predominantly monolingual environment underwent a four-month online language course, selecting a new language of their preference. This intervention mandated engagement for 90 minutes a day, five days a week. Daily tracking was employed to monitor progress and retention. All participants completed a color-word Stroop task inside the scanner before and after the language instruction period. We found that performance on the Stroop task, as evidenced by accuracy and reaction time, improved following the language learning intervention. With the neuroimaging data, we observed significant differences in activity between congruent and incongruent trials in key regions in the prefrontal and parietal cortex. These results are consistent with previous reports using the Stroop paradigm. We also found that the amount of time participants spent with the language learning program was related to differential activity in these brain areas. Specifically, we found that people who spent more time with the language learning program showed a greater increase in differential activity between congruent and incongruent trials after the intervention relative to before. Future research is needed to determine the optimal parameters for language learning as an effective cognitive intervention for aging populations. We propose that with sufficient engagement, language learning can enhance specific domains of cognition such as the executive functions. These results extend the understanding of cognitive reserve and its augmentation through targeted interventions, setting a foundation for future investigations.
Disentangling the potential factors defining Bacillus subtilis abundance in natural soils

Bacillus subtilis is ubiquitously and broadly distributed in various environments but mostly isolated from soil. Given that species of B. subtilis are known as key plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria in agriculture, we here aimed to describe the natural distribution of this species and uncover how biotic and abiotic factors affect its distribution. When comparing different soils, we discovered that B. subtilis is most abundant in grasslands, but can rarely be isolated from forest soil, even if the sample sites for the two types of soil are situated in proximity. Differential analysis revealed that spore-forming bacteria exhibited enrichments in the grassland, suggesting niche overlap or synergistic interactions leading to the proliferation of certain Bacillus species in grassland environments. Network analysis further revealed that Bacillus and other Bacillota established a densely interconnected hub module in the grassland soil samples, characterized by positive associations indicating co-occurrence, a pattern not observed in the forest soil. Speculating that this difference was driven by abiotic factors, we next combined amplicon sequencing with physio-chemical analysis of soil samples, and found multiple chemical variables, mainly pH, to affect microbial composition. Our study pinpoints the factors that influence B. subtilis abundance in natural soils and, therefore, offers insights for designing B. subtilis-based biocontrol products in agricultural settings.
The heritability and structural correlates of brain entropy

Brain entropy (BEN) quantifies the temporal complexity of spontaneous neural activity, which has been increasingly recognized as providing important insights into cognitive functions and psychiatric disorders. However, its heritability and structural underpinnings are not well understood. Here, we utilize sample entropy to calculate BEN in healthy young adults using resting-state fMRI from the Human Connectome Project. We show that BEN is significantly heritable in broad brain regions. Heritability estimates exhibit regional variability, with lower heritability in the limbic and subcortical networks than in other networks. We further relate BEN to structural features including surface area (SA), cortical myelination (CM), cortical thickness (CT), and subcortical volumes (SV). We find that BEN is negatively correlated with SA in most cortical regions, but is positively correlated with CM in the prefrontal cortex, lateral temporal lobe, precuneus, lateral parietal cortex, and cingulate cortex. Only a few cortical regions show significant correlations between BEN and CT. By decomposing correlations into genetic and environmental components, we observe that most of BEN-SA correlations are associated with shared genetic and environmental effects. BEN-CM correlations are mainly attributed to shared environmental effects. BEN-CT correlations are partly related to shared environmental effects. We find no significant associations between BEN and SV. Collectively, our work establishes the genetic basis and structural correlates of resting-state fMRI-based BEN, supporting its potential application as an endophenotype for psychiatric disorders.
MULTIMODAL GRADIENTS UNIFY LOCAL AND GLOBAL CORTICAL ORGANIZATION

Specialization of brain areas and subregions, as well as their integration into large-scale networks are key principles in neuroscience. Consolidating both local and global cortical organization, however, remains challenging. Our study developed a new approach to map global cortex-wise similarities of microstructure, structural connectivity, and functional interactions, and integrate these patterns with maps of cortical arealization. Our analysis combined repeated high-field in-vivo 7 tesla (7T) Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) data collected in 10 healthy adults with a recently introduced probabilistic post-mortem atlas of cortical cytoarchitecture. We obtained multimodal eigenvectors describing cortex-wide gradients at the level of microstructural covariance, structural connectivity, and intrinsic functional interactions, and then assessed inter- and intra-area differences in cortex-wide embedding based on these multimodal eigenvectors. Inter-area similarities followed a canonical sensory-fugal gradient, with primary sensorimotor cortex being the most distinctive from all other areas, while paralimbic regions were least distinctive. This pattern largely corresponded to functional connectivity variations across different tasks collected in the same participants, suggesting that the degree of global cortical integration mirrors the functional diversity of brain areas across contexts. When studying heterogeneity within areas, we did not observe a similar relationship, despite overall higher heterogeneity in association cortices relative to paralimbic and idiotypic cortices. The results were replicated in a different dataset. Our findings highlight a close coupling between cortical arealization and global cortical motifs in shaping specialized versus integrative human brain function. Significance Our work situates cytoarchitecture-derived cortical areas within multimodal gradients of cortical microstructure, connectivity, and function derived from high-definition multimodal neuroimaging. We demonstrated that primary sensory and motor areas show most distinctive gradient profiles while paralimbic areas were least distinctive, overall recapitulating a sensory-fugal axis. This axis was shown to relate to the diversity of cortical areas across different functional contexts, and findings could be replicated across an independent dataset. Overall, our work shows how frameworks of cortical arealization and macroscale gradients converge in shaping functional specialization versus integration in the human brain.
Growing older, growing more diverse: sea turtles and epibiotic cyanobacteria

Cyanobacteria are known for forming associations with various animals, including sea turtles, yet our understanding of sea turtles associated cyanobacteria remains limited. This study aims to address this knowledge gap by investigating the diversity of cyanobacteria in biofilm samples from loggerhead sea turtle carapaces, utilizing a 16S rDNA amplicon sequencing approach. The predominant cyanobacterial order identified was Nodosilineales, with the genus Rhodoploca having highest relative abundance. Our results suggest that cyanobacterial communities became more diverse as sea turtles age as we had found a positive correlation between community diversity and the length of a sea turtle’s carapace. Since larger and older turtles predominantly utilize neritic habitats, the shift to more diverse cyanobacterial community aligned with a shift in loggerheads habitat. Our research provided detailed insights into the cyanobacterial communities associated with loggerhead sea turtles, establishing a foundation for future studies delving into this fascinating ecological relationship and its potential implications for sea turtle conservation.
Transcriptomic analysis of TGFβ-mediated fibrosis in primary human Tenon’s fibroblasts

Glaucoma filtration surgery (GFS) is performed to slow down disease progression in glaucoma, a leading cause of irreversible blindness worldwide. Following surgery, pathological wound healing may lead to conjunctival fibrosis and filtering failure. Myofibroblasts are the key cells responsible for postoperative conjunctival scarring. This study aims to further understand the molecular mechanisms of conjunctival fibrosis following GFS. We utilised RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) to delineate the TGFβ1 induced changes in the transcriptome of human Tenon’s fibroblasts (HTFs). RNA sequencing was performed on HTFs after 5 days of TGFβ1 treatment. Following quality control, 3,362 differentially expressed genes were identified, of which 1,532 were upregulated and 1,820 were downregulated. We identified signaling pathways associated with the pathogenesis of conjunctival fibrosis. The DEGs (differentially expressed genes) were enriched in pathways including myofibroblast differentiation, TGFβ-signaling, collagen and extracellular matrix organization, epithelial to mesenchymal transition, and cell cycle regulation. The results of this study identified the transition from HTF to myofibroblast is characterised by the upregulation of key genes including LDLRAD4, CDKN2B, FZD8, MYOZ1, and the downregulation of SOD3, LTBP4 and RCAN2. This unprecedented insight into the transcriptional landscape of HTFs and myofibroblast differentiation is essential to understand the pathophysiology of conjunctival scarring and develop new therapeutic agents.
Molecular mechanism for regulating APOBEC3G DNA editing function by the non-catalytic domain

APOBEC3G (A3G) belongs to the AID/APOBEC cytidine deaminase family and is essential for antiviral immunity. It contains two zinc-coordinated cytidine-deaminase (CD) domains. The N-terminal CD1 domain is non-catalytic but has a strong affinity for nucleic acids, whereas the C-terminal CD2 domain catalyzes C-to-U editing in single-stranded DNA. The interplay between the two domains in DNA binding and editing is not fully understood. Here, our studies on rhesus macaque A3G (rA3G) show that the DNA editing function in linear and hairpin loop DNA is greatly enhanced by AA or GA dinucleotide motifs present downstream (in the 3’-direction) but not upstream (in the 5’-direction) of the target-C editing sites. The effective distance between AA/GA and the target-C sites depends on the local DNA secondary structure. We present two co-crystal structures of rA3G bound to ssDNA containing AA and GA, revealing the contribution of the non-catalytic CD1 domain in capturing AA/GA DNA and explaining our biochemical observations. Our structural and biochemical findings elucidate the molecular mechanism underlying the cooperative function between the non-catalytic and the catalytic domains of A3G, which is critical for its antiviral role and its contribution to genome mutations in cancer.
The location of Mn (MnO: 2.0 wt%) in fluorapatite from Lavra da Golconda, near Governador Valadares, Minas Gerais, Brazil

The local structural features around Mn in a transparent pale blue Mn–bearing fluorapatite (MnO: 2.0 wt%) from Lavra da Golconda, Brazil were investigated by a combined analysis of single crystal X–ray diffraction and XAFS. The crystal structure with the optimized formula (Ca4.83Mn 0.15Sr0.02)P3O12F with space group P63/m, a = 9.384(2), c = 6.8842 (6) Å, Z = 2 has been refined to R = 1.92% for the unique 555 reflections (Mo Kα). The structural refinement suggests that Mn almost exclusively occupies the Ca1 site. The EXAFS analysis indicates that Mn at the Ca1 site is surrounded by nine oxygen atoms with six shorter bonds and three longer bonds. BVS calculated for the local environment around Mn shows good agreement with the expected valence state of Mn. The present EXAFS results suggest that the longer bond distances (Ca1–O3) in fluorapatite structures will not be affected by Mn due to weak bonding interactions.
Reduction in activity and abundance of mitochondrial electron transport chain supercomplexes in pulmonary hypertension-induced right ventricular dysfunction

Pulmonary hypertension (PH) results in RV hypertrophy, fibrosis and dysfunction resulting in RV failure which is associated with impaired RV metabolism and mitochondrial respiration. Mitochondrial supercomplexes (mSC) are assemblies of multiple electron transport chain (ETC) complexes that consist of physically associated complex I, III and IV that may enhance respiration and lower ROS generation. The goal of this study was to determine if mSCs are reduced in RV dysfunction associated with PH. We induced PH in Sprague-Dawley rats by Sugen/Hypoxia (3 weeks) followed by normoxia (4 weeks). Control and PH rats were subjected to echocardiography, blue and clear native-PAGE to assess mSC abundance and activity, and cardiomyocyte isolation to assess mitochondrial reactive oxygen species (ROS). mSC formation was also assessed in explanted human hearts with and without RV dysfunction. RV activity of CI and CIV and abundance of CI, CIII and CIV in mitochondrial mSCs was severely reduced in PH rats compared to control. There were no differences in total CI or CIV activity or abundance in smaller ETC assemblies. There were no changes in both RV and LV of expression of representative ETC complex subunits. PAT, TAPSE and RV Wall thickness significantly correlated with CIV and CI activity in mSC, but not total CI and CIV activity in the RV. Consistent with reduced mSC activity, isolated PH RV myocytes had increased mitochondrial ROS generation compared to control. Reduced mSC activity was also demonstrated in explanted human RV tissue from patients undergoing cardiac transplant with RV dysfunction. The right atrial pressure/pulmonary capillary wedge pressure ratio (RAP/PCWP, an indicator of RV dysfunction) negatively correlated with RV mSC activity level. In conclusion, reduced assembly and activity of mitochondrial mSC is correlated with RV dysfunction in PH rats and humans with RV dysfunction.