Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Tubulin as a sensitive target of nanosecond-scale intense electric field: quantitative insights from molecular dynamics simulations

Intense pulsed electric fields are known to act at the cell membrane level and are already being exploited in biomedical and biotechnological applications. However, it is not clear if intra-cellular components such as cytoskeletal proteins could be directly influenced by electric pulses within biomedically-attainable parameters. If so, a molecular mechanism of action could be uncovered for therapeutic applications of such electric fields. To help clarify this question, we first identified that a tubulin heterodimer is a natural biological target for intense electric fields due to its exceptional electric properties and crucial roles played in cell division. Using molecular dynamics simulations, we then demonstrated that an intense - yet experimentally attainable - electric field of nanosecond duration can affect the β-tubulin’s C-terminus conformations and also influence local electrostatic properties at the GTPase as well as the binding sites of major tubulin drugs site. Our results suggest that intense nanosecond electric pulses could be used for physical modulation of microtubule dynamics. Since a nanosecond pulsed electric field can penetrate the tissues and cellular membranes due to its broadband spectrum, our results are also potentially significant for the development of novel therapeutic protocols. Author summary α/β-tubulin heterodimers are the basic building blocks of microtubules, that form diverse cellular structures responsible for essential cell functions such as cell division and intracellular transport. The ability of tubulin protein to adopt distinct conformations contributes to control the architecture of microtubule networks, microtubule-associated proteins, and motor proteins; moreover, it regulates microtubule growth, shrinkage, and the transitions between these states. Previous recent molecular dynamics simulations demonstrated that the interaction of the tubulin protein macrodipole with external electric field modifies orientation and conformations of key loops involved in lateral contacts: as a result, the stability of microtubules can be modulated by such fields. In this study, we seek to exploit these findings by investigating the possibility of fine-tuning the dipolar properties of binding sites of major drugs, by means of the action of electric fields. This may open the way to control tubulin-drug interactions using electric fields, thus modulating and altering the biological functions relative to the molecular vectors of microtubule assembly or disassembly. The major finding of our study reveals that intense (> 20 MV/m) ultra-short (30 ns) electric fields induce changes in the major residues of selected binding sites in a field strength-dependent manner.
Genetic Diversity of Plasmodium falciparum Isolated from Symptomatic and Asymptomatic Individuals in Parts of Kaduna Metropolis, Kaduna State, Nigeria

Malaria due to Plasmodium falciparum is still a major public health problem and cause of high morbidity and mortality in Nigeria despite many efforts and interventions programmes put in place to control malaria, with transmission occurring throughout the year. Characterization of P. falciparum isolates from different geographical locations of Nigeria could provide the much needed information on the genetic composition of P. falciparum natural populations with regard to three polymorphic genes: Merozoite Surface Protein 1 (MSP 1), Merozoite Surface Protein (MSP 2) and Glutamate-Rich Protein (GLURP) genes, the findings of this study will assist in adopting more strategies and intervention programmes aim at controlling P. falciparum infection in Nigeria. This study was conducted to determine the genetic diversity and elucidate possible genomic variation between isolates of P. falciparum from symptomatic and asymptomatic malaria cases in Kaduna metropolis. Plasmodium falciparum genomic DNA was extracted from 42 positive blood samples collected onto whatmani¯s filter paper using the phenol-chloroform DNA extraction method. Genotyping of P. falciparum was based on the amplification of MSP 1, MSP 2 and glurp genes. Analysis of PCR products of P. falciparum isolates shows the presence of 33 alleles spread across MSP 1, MSP 2 and glurp genes at a frequency of 5, 24 and 4 respectively. Detection of the three genes; (MSP1); MAD20 and KI, (MSP2); FC27 and 3D7/ICI and (glurp) gene and the occurrence of single and multiple genotypic infection recorded showed the diverse genetic composition of P. falciparum population, an indication of the endemicity of malaria. This information is essential for effective malaria control programme.
Mitogenomic features of the citrus leafminer, Phyllocnistis citrella (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) and the related mitogenomic phylogeny

Abstract The complete mitochondrial genome of the citrus leafminer, Phyllocnistis citrella (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) was sequenced for the first time, which was 15,416 bp in length and with an A + T content of 81.9%. The common set of 37 genes (13 PCGs, 22 tRNA genes, and two rRNA genes) were all annotated. Most PCGs had standard ATN start codons and TAN stop codons. Most tRNA genes exhibited typical cloverleaf secondary structures, whereas the dihydrouridine (DHU) arm of trnSer (AGN) was reduced. The mitochondrial phylogenetic analyses consistently recovered the relationships within Gracillariidae.
Learning a unified tracking‐and‐detection framework with distractor‐aware constraint for visual object tracking

Most of the correlation filter (CF)-based trackers utilise the circulant structure of the training samples to learn discriminative filters to identify the tracked target, which has shown excellent performance in terms of both tracking accuracy and speed. However, CF-based trackers possess two potential drawbacks: the search regions are limited to the small local neighbourhood for the high-speed tracking purpose; thus, they usually have very few context information and tend to drift from a target in extreme attributes, e.g. background clutter, large-scale variation, and fast motion. Another is that once the tracking target is lost under large displacement motion, it cannot be re-identified in subsequent frames. In this study, the authors propose a unified tracking-and-detection framework with distractor-aware (UTDF-DA), which involves both context learning and target re-identification with a target-aware detector to solve the drawbacks mentioned above. They first incorporate the distractor constraint as context knowledge into a continuous correlation filter for distractor-aware filter learning. Then a single-shot multibox detector-based target-aware detector is trained by domain-specific meta-training approach for deep detection features and hard-negative samples generation. Moreover, they propose the spatial-scale consistency verification method for the target re-identification task. Compared with existing state-of-the-art trackers, UTDF-DA (the authors’) tracker can achieve improved tracking performance in terms of both accuracy and robustness; they demonstrate its effectiveness and efficiency with comprehensive experiments on OTB-2015, VOT-2016, and VOT-2017 benchmarks .
Antimicrobial activity of Basidiomycetes fungi isolated from a Kenyan tropical forest

Microbial diseases remain to be a major global public health challenge. Their devastating effects have been exacerbated by the development of drug resistant strains. On the other hand, the biodiversity of tropical Basidiomycetes fungi is well recognized as an untapped source of potential bioactive compounds for the development of novel antimicrobials. Thus, in the current study, Basidiomycetes’ fruiting bodies were collected from Mt. Elgon National Park forest in Kenya. The spores were cultured on Yeast Malt Agar media (YMG), leading to the establishment of 12 distinct pure fungal cultures of Basidiomycete strains, which were characterized using ribosomal internal transcribed spacer (ITS) DNA. They generally belonged to genera; Inonotus, Fomitiporia, Ganoderma, Skeletocutis, Perenniporia, Favolaschia, Hexagonia, Polyporus, Antrodia and Echinochaete. Fungal mycelia were further fermented in YMG, Q6½ (cotton-seed) and ZM½ (sugar-malt) liquid media for secondary metabolites’ production. These were extracted using ethyl-acetate and subjected to antimicrobial assays against Bacillus subtilis, Escherichia coli, Mucor plumbeus and Candida albicans. Antimicrobial activity was exhibited in 9 out of the 12 strains cultured, where antibacterial activity was more pronounced than fungal antagonism. Mycelial crude extracts from strains identified as Skeletocutis nivea and Favolaschia calocera demonstrated the highest activities against bacteria (B. subtilis) and fungal pathogen (C. tenuis), respectively with minimum inhibitory concentration (MIC) values of 4.69 µg/ml and <2.34 µg/ml, as compared to ciprofloxacin and nystatin controls which exhibited MIC values of <2.34 µg/ml each. In addition, crude extracts from Hexagonia sp and Inonotus pachyphloeus inhibited growth of E. coli at 300 µg/ml each, while M. plumbeus growth was inhibited by extracts from F. calocera and S. nivea at 37.5 and 300 µg/ml, respectively. These results clearly demonstrate that Basidiomycetes are a reservoir to antimicrobial fungal metabolites, which can be exploited as lead compounds to address drug resistance menace. Key words: Drug resistance, basidiomycetes, antimicrobial, fungal metabolites.
Beyond the decay? Positive patterns in the development of a large housing estate: the case of Olechów-Janów district in Łódź, Poland

ABSTRACT A lot of attention in the academic and policy debate has been given to the process of transformation of large housing estates in Central and Eastern Europe post 1989. This included debate about their decreasing socio-economic status and the gradual deterioration of housing structures. Nevertheless, the transformation processes in various estates have not necessarily followed the same pattern and some districts, instead of decaying, have continued to grow during the capitalist period. This article discusses the case of one such estate in the city of Łódź in Poland, documents the ‘alternative’ format of transformation and discusses its implications for policymaking.
Ecological evaluation of a marine protected area network: a progressive‐change
 BACIPS
 approach

Marine protected area (MPA) networks, with varying degrees of protection and use, can be use ful tools to achieve both conservation and fisheries management benefits. Assessing whether MPA networks meet their objectives requires data from Before the establishment of the network to better discern natural spatiotemporal variation and preexisting differences from the response to protection. Here, we use a Progressive-Change BACIPS approach to assess the ecological effects of a network of five fully and three moderately protected MPAs on fish communities in two coral reef habitats (lagoon and fore reef) based on a time series of data collected five times (over three years) Before and 12 times (over nine years) After the network’s establishment on the island of Moorea, French Polynesia. At the network scale, on the fore reef, density and biomass of harvested fishes increased by 19.3% and 24.8%, respectively, in protected areas relative to control fished areas. Fully protected areas provided greater ecological benefits than moderately protected areas. In the lagoon, density and biomass of harvested fishes increased, but only the 31% increase in biomass in fully protected MPAs was significant. Non-harvested fishes did not respond to protection in any of the habitats. We propose that these responses to protection were small, relative to other MPA assessments, due to limited compliance and weak surveillance, although other factors such as the occurrence of a crownof-thorns starfish outbreak and a cyclone after the network was established may also have impeded the ability of the network to provide benefits. Our results highlight the importance of using fully protected MPAs over moderately protected MPAs to achieve conservation objectives, even in complex social–ecological settings, but also stress the need to monitor effects and adapt management based on ongoing assessments.
Land Suitability Evaluation for Oil Palm (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) in Coastal Plains of Southwest Cameroon

Declining yields in oil palm fresh fruit bunch (FFB) have been recorded over the past years in the coastal lowlands of southwest Cameroon and current actual yields are very low (−1•yr−1) compared to the potential yields (25 t FFB ha−1•yr−1). One of the problems limiting optimum oil palm production is lack of detailed pedological information to guide plantation establishment and management. A land suitability evaluation was carried out for some major oil palm producing areas of southwest Cameroon to identify land qualities limiting optimal production. Thirteen sites (9 with sedimentary parent materials and 4 with volcanic parent material) were evaluated using a parametric method. Results indicate that climate was not a major limiting factor for oil palm production in coastal plains of southwest Cameroon. However, soil physical characteristics (mainly clayey texture and poor drainage) and soil fertility constitute limitations to oil palm production. Specifically, limitations in cation exchange capacity (CEC), base saturation (BS), organic carbon (OC) and pH were slight to moderate while K mole fraction was the most severe and the most limiting in all the sites. The fertility limitations were more pronounced in soils derived from sedimentary parent materials where 33% had limitations caused by soil pH and OC compared to none for volcanic soils. In addition, 77.8% of sedimentary soils had limitations caused by CEC compared to 25% for volcanic soils. Considering the overall suitability, soils derived from volcanic parent materials were potentially more suitable for oil palm cultivation ((S3)—50%, (S2)—50%) compared to sedimentary soils ((N)—11%, (S3)—78% and (S2)—11%). Based on the suitability classes of the different soils derived from dissimilar parent materials, appropriate site-specific soil management is needed to improve oil palm yields, especially with emphasis on K fertilization and improved soil water management. Plantation management in coastal plains of South West Cameroon therefore should factor in differences in soil parent material.
Impact of COVID-19 on otolaryngology in Italy: a commentary from the COVID-19 task force of the Young Otolaryngologists of the Italian Society of Otolaryngology.

OBJECTIVE The ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 is having a dramatic effect on most medical disciplines. Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery is one of the most engaged disciplines, and otolaryngology specialists are facing a radical change of their role and daily activities that will have severe impact on the return to the ordinary. In this paper, the COVID-19 Task Force of the Young Otolaryngologists of the Italian Society of Otolaryngology comment on the changes that occurred for otolaryngology in Italy during the pandemic. Changes include organizational rearrangement of Otolaryngology Units, with merges and closures that affected a significant portion of them; reallocation of otolaryngology personnel, mainly to COVID-19 wards; reduction of elective clinical and surgical activity, that was mainly limited to oncology and emergency procedures; and execution of screening procedures for SARS-CoV-2 among healthcare providers and patients in otolaryngology units in Italy.
Direct and maternal annual genetic changes for selected traits at weaning and yearling in beef cattle

Heritability and direct and maternal genetic changes were estimated in Nellore cattle for the following traits: birth to weaning weight gain (BWG), weaning to yearling weight gain (YWG), weaning conformation (WC), weaning precocity (WP), weaning muscling (WM), yearling conformation (YC), yearling precocity (YP), yearling muscling (YM) and yearling scrotal circumference (SC). Direct and maternal heritability for weaning traits were 0.21±0.03 and 0.13±0.01 (BWG); 0.19±0.03 and 0.07±0.01 (WC); 0.22±0.03 and 0.07±0.01 (WP); 0.20±0.03 and 0.07±0.01 (WM), respectively. For yearling traits, direct heritability were 0.19±0.04 (YWG); 0.32±0.05 (YC); 0.37±0.05 (YP); 0.38±0.05 (YM) and 0.41±0.04 (SC). Positive and significant direct genetic changes (p < 0.05) were found for all traits, except for WC (p = 0.09), equal to 0.138 kg year-1 (BWG), 0.003 units year-1 (WC), 0.011 units year-1 (WP), 0.009 units year-1 (WM), 0.132 kg year-1 (YWG), 0.003 units year-1 (YC), 0.011 units year-1 (YP), 0.011 units year-1 (YM) and 0.020 cm year-1 (SC), indicating favorable genetic gains in the period. For weaning traits, we obtained negative and non-significant (p > 0.05) maternal genetic trends, with values of -0.084 kg year-1 (BWG), -0.004 units year-1 (WC), -0.004 units year-1 (WP) and -0.004 units year-1 (WM). Thus, greater emphasis should be given for maternal genetic merit of weaning traits in this population, if improvements in maternal ability were desirable.
A high throughput deep amplicon sequencing method to show the emergence and spread of Calicophoron daubneyi in United Kingdom cattle herds

The prevalence of C. daubneyi infection in the United Kingdom has increased, but despite the potential for rumen flukes to cause production loss in ruminant livestock, understanding of their emergence and spread is poor. Here we describe the development of a method to explore the multiplicity of C. daubneyi infection and patterns of the parasite’s emergence and spread, based on Illumina MiSeq deep sequencing of meta barcoded amplicons of a fragment of the mt-COX-1 locus. Our results show high levels of genetic diversity per infection and between populations of 10 to 47 of adult C. daubneyi, each from a total of 32 finished prime cattle consigned to slaughter from northern United Kingdom; with 18 unique mt-COX-1 haplotypes. This has implications for the adaptability of environmental and intermediate host stages of the parasite to changing climatic and animal management conditions, or of parasitic stages to exposure to anthelmintic drugs; potentially allowing for greater pathogenicity, or the development of anthelmintic resistance, respectively. Our results illustrate the impact of high levels of animal movements in the United Kingdom, whereby multiple common mt-COX-1 haplotypes were identified in 26 populations in the absence of geographical clustering of clades.
Performance Evaluation of the Developed Solar Powered Poultry Egg Incubator for Chicken

A Solar Powered Poultry Egg Incubator (SPPEI) was developed and tested to evaluate its performance, and it was compared to an existing incubator that can incubate chicken eggs within the temperature range of 35◦C to 40◦C. The main components of the developed incubator are the incubating unit, the temperature device and the photovoltaic (PV) system. The developed incubator had 73% hatchability, 71% vigorous chicks and fewer dead embryos compared to the existing incubator that had 60% hatchability, 58% chick vigor and more embryos. The developed incubator hatched chicks starting on the 18th day until the 21st day of incubation, while the existing incubator hatched chicks on the 18th day until the 22nd day of incubation. The average temperatures in the developed incubator were within the acceptable incubation temperature range: at 37.72◦C (99.89◦F) in the morning, at 37.94◦C in◦ the afternoon (100.29◦F), and at 37.83◦C (100.09◦F) in the evening, while with the existing incubator, it is within 38.67◦C (101.6◦F), 38.74◦C (101.7◦F) and 38.52◦C (101.3◦F). The average relative humidities in the developed incubator are 60% in the morning, 60.3% in the afternoon and also 60.3% in the night while that of the existing incubator are 60%, 57.33% and 59%, respectively. The egg incubator was able to maintain the optimum conditions for the hatching of the chicken eggs, and was capable of incubating and hatching the chicken eggs effectively.
Multivariate Analysis of Genetic Variation in Rapeseed (Brassica Napus L.)

Designing breeding programs for rapeseed ( Brassica napus L.) cultivars with developed seed and oil yields needs information about the genetic variability of characters. In this study, 40 rapeseed genotypes were evaluated for genetic variation and relationships between 12 agro-morphological characters. Brassica species represent a broad range of crops. This redirects the high degree of genetic diversity and allied phenotypic plasticity. Significant differences among the clusters were observed. The first two components with Eigen value were greater than unity contributed a total of 42.77% variation to the divergence. The genotypes were grouped into five clusters. Cluster V contained the maximum number of genotypes (11) and cluster III contained the lowest (4). The highest inter-cluster distance was found between cluster II and cluster V and the lowest between cluster II and cluster IV. The highest intra-cluster distance was noticed for cluster I and the lowest for cluster V. Considering diversity pattern and other agronomic performance lines Nap-0837, Nap-0733-1, Nap-2066, Nap-9901, Nap-108 and BARI-8 could be considered apposite parents. This information is suitable for hybrid breeding and encouraging breeders to exchange their germplasm as to enlarge the genetic diversity of breeding accessions
The Influence of Object-Color Knowledge on Emerging Object Representations in the Brain

The ability to rapidly and accurately recognize complex objects is a crucial function of the human visual system. To recognize an object, we need to bind incoming visual features, such as color and form, together into cohesive neural representations and integrate these with our preexisting knowledge about the world. For some objects, typical color is a central feature for recognition; for example, a banana is typically yellow. Here, we applied multivariate pattern analysis on time-resolved neuroimaging (MEG) data to examine how object-color knowledge affects emerging object representations over time. Our results from 20 participants (11 female) show that the typicality of object-color combinations influences object representations, although not at the initial stages of object and color processing. We find evidence that color decoding peaks later for atypical object-color combinations compared with typical object-color combinations, illustrating the interplay between processing incoming object features and stored object knowledge. Together, these results provide new insights into the integration of incoming visual information with existing conceptual object knowledge. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT To recognize objects, we have to be able to bind object features, such as color and shape, into one coherent representation and compare it with stored object knowledge. The MEG data presented here provide novel insights about the integration of incoming visual information with our knowledge about the world. Using color as a model to understand the interaction between seeing and knowing, we show that there is a unique pattern of brain activity for congruently colored objects (e.g., a yellow banana) relative to incongruently colored objects (e.g., a red banana). This effect of object-color knowledge only occurs after single object features are processed, demonstrating that conceptual knowledge is accessed relatively late in the visual processing hierarchy.