Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Identification of Root-Associated Bacteria That Influence Plant Physiology, Increase Seed Germination, or Promote Growth of the Christmas Tree Species Abies nordmanniana

Abies nordmanniana is used for Christmas tree production but poor seed germination and slow growth represent challenges for the growers. We addressed the plant growth promoting potential of root-associated bacteria isolated from A. nordmanniana. Laboratory screenings of a bacterial strain collection yielded several Bacillus and Paenibacillus strains that improved seed germination and produced indole-3-acetic acid. The impact of three of these strains on seed germination, plant growth and growth-related physiological parameters was then determined in greenhouse and field trials after seed inoculation, and their persistence was assessed by 16S rRNA gene-targeted bacterial community analysis. Two strains showed distinct and significant effects. Bacillus sp. s50 enhanced seed germination in the greenhouse but did not promote shoot or root growth. In accordance, this strain did not increase the level of soluble hexoses needed for plant growth but increased the level of storage carbohydrates. Moreover, strain s50 increased glutathione reductase and glutathione-S-transferase activities in the plant, which may indicate induction of systemic resistance during the early phase of plant development, as the strain showed poor persistence in the root samples (rhizosphere soil plus root tissue). Paenibacillus sp. s37 increased plant root growth, especially by inducing secondary root formation, under in greenhouse conditions, where it showed high persistence in the root samples. Under these conditions, it further it increased the level of soluble carbohydrates in shoots, and the levels of starch and non-structural carbohydrates in roots, stem and shoots. Moreover, it increased the chlorophyll level in the field trial. These findings indicate that this strain improves plant growth and vigor through effects on photosynthesis and plant carbohydrate reservoirs. The current results show that the two strains s37 and s50 could be considered for growth promotion programs of A. nordmanniana in greenhouse nurseries, and even under field conditions.
The IL-23/IL-17 Pathway in Inflammatory Skin Diseases: From Bench to Bedside

Interleukin-17 (IL-17) is an essential proinflammatory cytokine, which is mainly secreted by the CD4+ helper T cells (Th17 cells) and subsets of innate lymphoid cells. IL-17A is associated with the pathogenesis of inflammatory diseases, including psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, hidradenitis suppurativa, alopecia areata, pityriasis rubra pilaris, pemphigus, and systemic sclerosis. Interleukin-23 (IL-23) plays a pivotal role in stimulating the production of IL-17 by activating the Th17 cells. The IL-23/IL-17 axis is an important pathway for targeted therapy for inflammatory diseases. Emerging evidence from clinical trials has shown that monoclonal antibodies against IL-23, IL-17, and tumor necrosis factor are effective in the treatment of patients with psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, hidradenitis suppurativa, pityriasis rubra pilaris, pemphigus, and systemic sclerosis. Here, we summarize the latest knowledge about the biology, signaling, and pathophysiological functions of the IL-23/IL-17 axis in inflammatory skin diseases. The currently available biologics targeting the axis is also discussed.
Damage in the Thalamocortical Tracts is Associated With Subsequent Thalamus Atrophy in Early Multiple Sclerosis

Background: In early multiple sclerosis (MS), thalamus atrophy and decreased integrity of the thalamocortical white matter (WM) tracts have been observed. Objective: To investigate the temporal association between thalamus volume and WM damage in the thalamocortical tract in subjects with early MS. Methods: At two time points, 72 subjects with early MS underwent T1, FLAIR and diffusion tensor imaging. Thalamocortical tracts were identified with probabilistic tractography using left and right thalamus as seed regions. Regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of annual percentage change in both thalamus volumes and integrity of the connected tracts. Results: Significant atrophy was seen in left and right thalamus (p < 0.001) over the follow-up period (13.7 ± 4.8 months), whereas fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) changes of the left and right thalamus tracts were not significant, although large inter-subject variability was seen. Annual percentage change in left thalamus volume was significantly predicted by baseline FA of the left thalamus tracts F(1.71) = 4.284, p = 0.042; while no such relation was found for the right thalamus. Annual percentage change in FA or MD of the thalamus tracts was not predicted by thalamus volume or any of the demographic parameters. Conclusion: Over a short follow-up time, thalamus atrophy could be predicted by decreased integrity of the thalamic tracts, but changes in the integrity of the thalamic tracts could not be predicted by thalamus volume. This is the first study showing directionality in the association between thalamus atrophy and connected WM tract damage. These results need to be verified over longer follow-up periods.
Prevalence of Internet Gaming Disorder and Its Association With Personality Traits and Gaming Characteristics Among Chinese Adolescent Gamers

Background: Internet gaming is extremely popular in China. However, some players overuse it, with negative outcomes. Knowing the prevalence rate and specific risk factors can provide a better understanding of the etiology of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD). This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of IGD among Chinese adolescents and its association with their personality traits and Internet gaming characteristics. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was utilized in this study. Participants were recruited from 34 provincial administrative districts in China and consisted of 6,379 adolescent game players aged 15–25 (males/females = 3,701/2,678, mean age: 19.35 ± 1.61). A self-report structured questionnaire containing questions regarding demographic information and Internet gaming use characteristics, the Video Gaming Dependency Scale, and the Chinese Big Five Inventory-brief version, was used in the study. Results: The prevalence of IGD among Chinese adolescent game players was 17.0%. All participants were divided into the IGD group (males/females = 751/333, mean age: 19.74 ± 1.85) or the non-IGD group (males/females = 2,950/2,345, mean age: 19.27 ± 1.54). Specifically, twelve factors were significantly associated with IGD (p < 0.001), including neuroticism (β = 0.17), conscientiousness (β = −0.14), Internet gaming time per day (Hour) (β = 0.21), Internet gaming charge per month (Yuan) (β = 0.21), motive: escaping (β = 0.15), motive: sensation seeking (β = 0.13), motive: maintaining (β = 0.08), motive: coping (β = 0.06), having one or two long-term game partners (β = 0.06), male (β = 0.12), undergraduate and above (β = 0.04), and relationship status of couple (β = 0.04). Conclusion: Our findings offer evidence with respect to the prevalence of IGD and its relationships with specific personality traits and Internet gaming characteristics in China. It is necessary for Chinese parents, teachers, and social workers to pay more attention to adolescents' personality traits of high neuroticism and low conscientiousness, long time and high expense they spend on game, as well as their motives.
How Microglia Manages Non-cell Autonomous Vicious Cycling of Aβ Toxicity in the Pathogenesis of AD

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease and a common form of dementia that affects cognition and memory mostly in aged people. AD pathology is characterized by the accumulation of β-amyloid (Aβ) senile plaques and the neurofibrillary tangles of phosphorylated tau, resulting in cell damage and neurodegeneration. The extracellular deposition of Aβ is regarded as an important pathological marker and a principal-agent of neurodegeneration. However, the exact mechanism of Aβ-mediated pathogenesis is not fully understood yet. Recently, a growing body of evidence provides novel insights on the major role of microglia and its non-cell-autonomous cycling of Aβ toxicity. Hence, this article provides a comprehensive overview of microglia as a significant player in uncovering the underlying disease mechanisms of AD.
The Ratio of the Genome Two Functional Parts Activity as the Prime Cause of Aging

The metazoan genome composes of sets of housekeeping genes (HG) for fundamental cellular autonomous processes and integrative genes (IntG) that provide integrative functions and form the body as an integrated whole. The main paradigm for multicellularity development which has been improved in evolution, is the submission of the cellular autonomy to the interests of the integrated whole. Permanent increase of the “functional tax” of IntG-genome (IntG-shift) and epigenetic restriction of autonomy in phylogenesis/ontogenesis is the essence and root cause of aging, inherent in the very nature of highly integrated multicellularity. The regulation of the balance shift toward HG can be managed to eliminate aging and avoid carcinogenesis, which is only due to the irreversibility of this shift. Here we propose the criterion for measuring the functional and biological age of cells and the body as a whole for assessing the effectiveness of any type of palliative geroprotective or radical anti-aging intervention.
Peregrine Solitons on a Periodic Background in the Vector Cubic-Quintic Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation

We present exact explicit Peregrine soliton solutions based on a periodic-wave background caused by the interference in the vector cubic-quintic nonlinear Schrödinger equation involving the self-steepening effect. It is shown that such periodic Peregrine soliton solutions can be expressed as a linear superposition of two fundamental Peregrine solitons of different continuous-wave backgrounds. Because of the self-steepening effect, some interesting Peregrine soliton dynamics such as ultrastrong amplitude enhancement and rogue wave coexistence are still present when they are built on a periodic background. We numerically confirm the stability of these analytical solutions against non-integrable perturbations, i.e., when the coefficient relation that enables the integrability of the vector model is slightly lifted. We also demonstrate the interaction of two Peregrine solitons on the same periodic background under some specific parameter conditions. We expect that these results may shed more light on our understanding of the realistic rogue wave behaviors occurring in either the fiber-optic telecommunication links or the crossing seas.
Multilocus Sequence Typing Reveals Clonality of Fluconazole-Nonsusceptible Candida tropicalis: A Study From Wuhan to the Global

Candida tropicalis is a globally distributed human pathogenic yeast, and its increasing resistance to azoles makes clinical treatment difficult. In this study, we investigated the clinical features, azole resistance and genetic relatedness of 87 C. tropicalis isolates from central China and combined with the global database to explore the relationship between genetic information and fluconazole susceptibility. Of the 55 diploid sequence types (DSTs) identified by multilocus sequence typing (MLST), 27 DSTs were new to the C. tropicalis MLST database. Fluconazole-nonsusceptible (FNS) isolates were genetically closely related. goeBURST analysis showed that DST225, DST376, DST506, and DST546 formed a distinct and unique FNS clonal complex (CC) in Wuhan. The local FNS CC belongs to the large FNS CC (CC2) in China, in which the putative founder DST225 has been reported from the environment. The three most prevalent types (DST506, DST525, and DST546) in Wuhan had high minimum inhibitory concentrations (MICs) for antifungal azoles, and the six possible nosocomial transmissions we captured were all FNS strains, most of which were from CC2. Unique FNS CCs have been found in Singapore (CC8) and India (CC17) and are close to China’s CC2 in the minimum spanning tree. There were no FNS CCs outside Asia. This study is the first to reveal a significant correlation between genetic information and fluconazole susceptibility worldwide and to trace geographical locations, which is of great value for molecular epidemiological surveillance and azole-resistance study of C. tropicalis globally.
Emotional Competence, Entrepreneurial Self-Efficacy, and Entrepreneurial Intention: A Study Based on China College Students’ Social Entrepreneurship Project

Entrepreneurship education has a lot of research on influencing factors of entrepreneurial intention but rarely studies the influence mechanism of emotional competences on entrepreneurial intention from the perspective of social entrepreneurship. This article takes college students’ social entrepreneurs as research objects, drawing on Krueger’s model, theory of planned behavior, social cognitive theory, and triadic reciprocal determinism theory. This paper constructs a conceptual model with emotional ability, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention, to further study their relationship. The 312 students from China College Students’ Social Entrepreneurship Project engaged in early entrepreneurship practice, conducted a questionnaire survey and used the empirical test of the structural equation model to analyze the relationship between college students’ emotional competences, entrepreneurial self-efficacy, and entrepreneurial intention. The result show: First, social–emotional competence had a positive effect on entrepreneurial intention, and the positive effect of personal affective competence on entrepreneurial intention was not supported or only partially supported. Second, all the dimensions of entrepreneurial self-efficacy were significantly and positively correlated with entrepreneurial intention. Third, emotional competence has a significant positive impact on entrepreneurial self-efficacy. Fourth, entrepreneurial self-efficacy mediated the relationship between emotional competence and entrepreneurial intention.
Participation of Endosomes in Toll-Like Receptor 3 Transportation Pathway in Murine Astrocytes

TLR3 provides immediate type I IFN response following entry of stimulatory PAMPs into the CNS, as it is in HSV infection. The receptor plays a vital role in astrocytes, contributing to rapid infection sensing and suppression of viral replication, precluding the spread of virus beyond neurons. The route of TLR3 mobilization culminating in the receptor activation remains unexplained. In this research, we investigated the involvement of various types of endosomes in the regulation of the TLR3 mobility in C8-D1A murine astrocyte cell line. TLR3 was transported rapidly to early EEA1-positive endosomes as well as LAMP1-lysosomes following stimulation with the poly(I:C). Later, TLR3 largely associated with late Rab7-positive endosomes. Twenty-four hours after stimulation, TLR3 co-localized with LAMP1 abundantly in lysosomes of astrocytes. TLR3 interacted with poly(I:C) intracellularly from 1 min to 8 h following cell stimulation. We detected TLR3 on the surface of astrocytes indicating constitutive expression, which increased after poly(I:C) stimulation. Our findings contribute to the understanding of cellular modulation of TLR3 trafficking. Detailed analysis of the TLR3 transportation pathway is an important component in disclosing the fate of the receptor in HSV-infected CNS and may help in the search for rationale therapeutics to control the replication of neuropathic viruses.
Comparison of Soil Water Estimates From Cosmic-Ray Neutron and Capacity Sensors in a Semi-arid Pine Forest: Which Is Able to Better Assess the Role of Environmental Conditions and Thinning?

Water scarcity in semi-arid regions is expected to increase under climate change, which will significantly affect forest ecosystems by increasing fire risk, diminishing productivity and water provisioning. Eco-hydrological forest management is conceived here as an adequate strategy to buffer climate change effects and increase forest resilience. Under this context, soil moisture is a key variable to quantify the impacts of eco-hydrological forest management on forest-water relations. Cosmic-ray neutron and capacitance probes are two different techniques for measuring soil moisture, which differ greatly in the spatial scale of the measurement support (i.e., few centimeters vs. several hectares). This study compares the capability of both methodologies in assessing soil water dynamics as a key variable that reflects the effects of forest management in a semi-arid environment. To this end, two experimental plots were established in Sierra Calderona in the province of Valencia in Spain in a post-fire regeneration Aleppo pine forest with high tree density. One plot was thinned (T) and the other remained as control (C). Nine capacitance probes and one Cosmic Ray Neutron Probe (CRNP) were installed in each plot. First, the CRNP was calibrated and validated, and subsequently, the performance of both techniques was analyzed by comparing soil moisture and its relationship with environmental variables and stand transpiration. The validation results confirmed the general reliability of CRNP to obtain soil moisture under semi-arid conditions, with a Kling-Gupta efficiency coefficient (KGE) between 0.75 and 0.84, although this performance decreased significantly when dealing with extreme soil moisture (KGE: −0.06–0.02). A significant effect of forest biomass and litter layer was also observed on CRNP-derived soil moisture, which produced an overestimation of soil moisture. The performance of both methodologies was analyzed by partial correlations between soil moisture and environmental variables and transpiration, as well as by applying Boosted Regression Trees to reproduce tree transpiration with each soil moisture measurement technique together with the environmental variables. Both methodologies were capable to reproduce tree transpiration affected by soil moisture, environmental variables and thinning, although CRNP always appeared as the most affected by atmospheric driving forces.
Chapter 4 Depositional geometry at selected locations around the basin

Abstract This chapter includes 11 cross-sections and one well log profile to show the depositional geometry and setting in specific areas around the basin: the Saudi Arabia outcrop belt; the Rimthan Arch; and the eastern and central areas of the intrashelf basin in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Abu Dhabi and Oman. These cross-sections are used to demonstrate the similarity and degree of continuity of the upper Dhruma Formation, the Tuwaiq Mountain Formation, the source rock, the Hanifa, Jubaila–Arab and Arab–Hith formations and depositional sequences in these different locations in the basin. They show the manner in which the underlying platform formed, the rim developed, the source rock was deposited and the basin progressively filled. The blanket deposition of the Arab-D anhydrite was followed by the Arab-C to Arab-A and Hith carbonate and evaporite sequences. The cross-sections provide the framework used in subsequent chapters to make a series of facies maps and other interpretative diagrams and cross-sections that summarize and, for some intervals, revise the interpretation of the settings and geological events that formed the Arabian Intrashelf Basin.
School’s Place in Nurturing Students’ Jewish Identity Within a Broader Social and Cultural World: Stakeholders’ Experience

ABSTRACT This article reports on students’ and faculty members’ experience of their pluralistic Jewish day school’s educational mission to nurture students’ Jewish identity exploration within a broader social and cultural world. It articulates these stakeholders’ perceptions of the ways teaching and learning of Jewish values, customs, and knowledge are integrated into the formal and informal educational experiences. Furthermore, it identifies five key features that contribute, mainly positively, to students’ exploration. of a broader Jewish, Australian, and global identity formation. It argues that a close alignment between stakeholders’ personal views and beliefs and their experience of the implemented educational mission, is a major contributing factor in stakeholder satisfaction with Jewish day school education.
Clinical Perspective of FDA Approved Drugs With P-Glycoprotein Inhibition Activities for Potential Cancer Therapeutics

P-glycoprotein (also known as multidrug resistance protein 1 (MDR1) or ATP-binding cassette sub-family B member 1 (ABCB1) plays a crucial role in determining response against medications, including cancer therapeutics. It is now well established that p-glycoprotein acts as an ATP dependent pump that pumps out small molecules from cells. Ample evidence exist that show p-glycoprotein expression levels correlate with drug efficacy, which suggests the rationale for developing p-glycoprotein inhibitors for treatment against cancer. Preclinical and clinical studies have investigated this possibility, but mostly were limited by substantial toxicities. Repurposing FDA-approved drugs that have p-glycoprotein inhibition activities is therefore a potential alternative approach. In this review, we searched the Drugbank Database (https://www.drugbank.ca/drugs) and identified 98 FDA-approved small molecules that possess p-glycoprotein inhibition properties. Focusing on the small molecules approved with indications against non-cancer diseases, we query the scientific literature for studies that specifically investigate these therapeutics as cancer treatment. In light of this analysis, potential development opportunities will then be thoroughly investigated for future efforts in repositioning of non-cancer p-glycoprotein inhibitors in single use or in combination therapy for clinical oncology treatment.
Molecular and Clinical Characterization of PD-1 in Breast Cancer Using Large-Scale Transcriptome Data

Despite the impressive impact of PD-1 (programmed cell death protein 1)-targeted cancer immunotherapy, a great part of patients with cancer fail to respond. PD-1 impact on immune cells in addition to T cells, and the synergistic role of PD-1 with other immune modulators remain largely unknown. To fill this gap, we systematically investigated PD-1-related transcriptome data and relevant clinical information derived from TCGA (The Cancer Genome Atlas) and METABRIC (Molecular Taxonomy of Breast Cancer International Consortium), which involved a total of 2,994 breast cancer patients. Our results revealed the relationship among PD-1 and major molecular and clinical characteristics in breast cancer. More importantly, we depicted the association landscape between PD-1 and other immune cell populations. Gene ontology analyses and gene set variation analysis (GSVA) of genes correlated with PD-1 revealed that PD-1 was mainly involved in immune responses and inflammatory activities. We also elucidated the association of PD-1 with other immune modulators in pan-cancer level, especially the potential synergistic relationship between PD-1 and other immune checkpoints members in breast cancer. In short, the expression level of PD-1 was bound up with breast cancer malignancy, which could be used as a potential biomarker; PD-1 might manipulate the anti-tumor immune response by impacting not just T cells, and this might vary among different tumor types. Furthermore, PD-1 might synergize with other immune checkpoint members to modulate the immune microenvironment in breast cancer.