Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Efficient protocols for in vitro axillary bud proliferation and somatic embryogenesis of the medicinal plant Anemopsis californica

Anemopsis californica, commonly known as yerba mansa, is an important medicinal plant that has traditionally been used to treat a variety of digestive, respiratory and skin ailments, and has been reported to possess anticancer properties. The increase in demand for this medicinal plant puts wild populations at risk due to over-harvesting; therefore, the development of alternatives such as in vitro propagation may help reduce this pressure on natural plant resources. The aim of this work was to develop protocols for the in vitro propagation of A. californica through axillary bud proliferation and somatic embryogenesis. Shoot bud multiplication was achieved using nodal explants from axenic seedlings, reaching the highest multiplication rate (on average 15 shoots per explant) when the culture medium was supplemented with 4 mg/L kinetin. Propagated shoots produced roots in medium containing 1 mg/L indole-3-butyric acid. Best induction of somatic embryogenesis (on average 19.75 embryos per explant) was obtained from leaf explants cultured on medium supplemented with 4 mg/L naphthalene acetic acid. These protocols may be used either for the commercial mass propagation of the species, studies on the production of secondary metabolites or as a basis for the development of genetic improvement strategies.
Endemic Cyprus Warbler Sylvia melanothorax and colonizing Sardinian Warbler Sylvia melanocephala show different habitat associations

Anthropogenic habitat change and assisted colonization are promoting range expansions of some widespread species with potential consequences for endemic fauna. The recent colonization of Cyprus by breeding Sardinian Warblers Sylvia melanocephala has raised concerns that it might be displacing the closely related and endemic Cyprus Warbler Sylvia melanothorax. Habitat associations of both species were examined using models of abundance within the 95% density kernel of the Sardinian Warbler’s range and also outside this range for Cyprus Warbler. Within the Sardinian Warbler’s range, the two species were associated with subtly different scrub habitats. Outside the Sardinian Warbler’s range, the Cyprus Warbler differed again in its habitat association, but this probably resulted from marked differences in habitat extent and availability in different parts of the island rather than from competitive displacement, as none of the habitat or land-use elements differentially associated with Cyprus Warblers was positively associated with Sardinian Warbler occurrence. This suggests that the Sardinian Warbler has exploited a different niche, rather than displacing the endemic species, and has perhaps benefitted from changing land-use patterns, particularly recent fallows and abandoned agriculture, in contrast to the stronger association of Cyprus Warblers with semi-natural scrub.
Ultra-Short Multivariate Public Key Signatures

In this paper, we study and propose multivariate schemes with “ultra-short” signatures and public keys of degree 2. In order to do so, we consider that signing a message and verifying a signature could require up to 1 minute of computation on a modern personal computer. Of course, times around 1 second can also be considered but at the cost of 6 to 10 additional bits in the signatures; and, more generally, a trade-oﬀ may be found between computation time and signature size, it usually depends on the applications one is targeting. Despite the fact that a time of 1 minute is far bigger than the time required by general purpose multivariate-based signature schemes, such as Rainbow, GeMMS, and Quartz, it enables us to reach ultra-short signature lengths; for instance, around 70 bit-long signatures for a security of 80 bits. The main issue that arises when one wants to build a signature scheme with ultra-short signatures is the need to avoid the birthday paradox attack. Inaﬁrst part, we describe generic and speciﬁc attacks against multivariate public key signature schemes and use them to derive the minimal parameters that an ultra-short signature scheme could have. In a second part, we give explicit examples of such ultra-short signature schemes. We will use “Nude HFE” algorithms (i.e. HFE without perturbation) with public keys of degree 2 for 80, 90 and 100 bit security. We have considered larger security parameters in [1] with public keys in degree 3. Recent progress has been made on attacking the MinRank problem in [3] and attacking HFE v − in [23]. These potential threats against multi-variate signature schemes have been taken into account in this paper.
Quantum Immune One-Time Memories

One-time memories (OTM) are the hardware version of oblivious transfer, and are useful for constructing objects that are impossible with software alone, such as one-time programs. In this work, we consider attacks on OTMs where a quantum adversary can leverage his physical access to the memory to mount quantum “superposition attacks” against the memory. Such attacks result in signiﬁcantly weakened OTMs. For example, in the application to one-time programs, it may appear that such an adversary can always “quantumize” the classical protocol by running it on a superposition of inputs, and therefore learn superpositions of outputs of the protocol. Perhaps surprisingly, we show that this intuition is false: we construct one-time programs from quantum-accessible one-time memories where the view of an adversary, despite making quantum queries, can be simulated by making only classical queries to the ideal functionality. At the heart of our work is a method of immunizing one-time memories against superposition attacks.
Phylogenetic Characterization of Culturable Antibiotic Producing Streptomyces from Rhizospheric Soils

Streptomyces spp. were isolated from rhizospheric soils collected from Ngaka Modiri Molema District, North West Province, South Africa. Ten of these bacterial isolates were found to exhibit broad spectrum antimicrobial activity against test organisms with varying degree of activity. The cultural characteristics of the bacterial isolates were consistent with that of the members of the genus Streptomyces. Molecular identification of the potent bacterial isolates was carried out by amplifying the 16S rDNA gene; this gave the expected size of 1.5 kb and was sequenced. Further computational analysis including BLAST search and phylogenetic analysis were performed to correlate the bacterial isolates with other species of the genera in the database library. The computational analysis of the amplified 16S rDNA gene confirmed that the bacterial isolates are members of the genus Streptomyces with 89-100% sequence similarity. The phylogenetic analysis showed that the 10 bacterial isolates were divided into 3 major clusters with varying bootstrap values. The strain NWU195 formed a distinct phyletic line in the Streptomyces 16S rDNA gene tree suggesting a new strain. The 16S rDNA sequences of the bacterial isolates was submitted to the GenBank under the accession numbers JX284398-JX284407. The 16S rDNA gene sequence analysis is a significant tool for phylogenetic analysis of Streptomyces spp.
Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Auditing - An Exploratory Study

Artificial Intelligence (AI) assisted by the massive processing power and big data, though is poised to influence the auditing profession, empirical evidence is sketchy. This exploratory cross-sectional qualitative field study, using the Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) framework as its broad theoretical lens, and semi-structured interviews as the data collection strategy, investigates the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in auditing and identifies the factors influencing the adoption. Adoption of AI by auditing firms, our study found, would not only result in improvement in audit quality and decision making but also helps them build capabilities to deliver value-adding AI consultancy services that are more profitable than traditional auditing. Apart from improving audit quality, challenges auditing firms face include conservative approach of external regulatory bodies, inability to document the use of technology for verification by regulators and perceived legal and reputational risk of financial auditing work that limits the potential use of AI.
A Semantic Data Lake for Harmonizing Data from Cross-Platform Digital Workspaces using Ontology-Based Data Access

Most organizations provide a portfolio of multiple applications from different vendors (with different data structures) for supporting computer-mediated collaboration among their employees. The heterogeneous format of the activity logs and the content data is challenging for the analysis of cross-platform collaboration and for comparing results from the different systems. To address these issues, we develop and demonstrate a prototype for a semantic data lake. Our prototype is based on Hadoop and ingests data from the source systems in near real-time. Ontology-based data access is implemented based on a mapping between an ontology and the ingested data. Thus, an analyst only needs to be familiar with the ontology and can use identical SPARQL queries to obtain the same information from the source systems. We demonstrate the ontology-database mapping and show how concepts from Web Science can solve practical problems in the Information Systems discipline, specifically for the area of Business Intelligence.
FLCN Regulates HIF2α Nuclear Import and Proliferation of Clear Cell Renal Cell Carcinoma

Aims and Hypothesis: This study aims to explore the specific molecular mechanism of folliculin (FLCN)-induced proliferation, migration, and invasion in clear cell renal cell carcinoma (ccRCC) and to investigate the relationship of FLCN and HIF2α. Folliculin was identified as a tumor suppressor gene. Its deletions and mutations are associated with a potential risk of renal cancer. At present, the specific molecular mechanism of FLCN-induced proliferation, invasion, and migration in ccRCC remains elusive. Methods: Cell proliferation was measured by flow cytometry analysis, while cell migration and invasion were measured by wound healing assay and Matrigel invasion assay. The expression of FLCN, HIF2α, MMP9, and p-AKT was examined by Western blotting. The cells were transfected with plasmids or siRNA to upregulate or downregulate the expression of FLCN. Immunofluorescence microscopy was carried out to display the HIF2α location. We also determined the correlation of FLCN and HIF2α in human renal cancer samples. Results: FLCN was combined with HIF2α in renal tubular epithelial and cancer cells, and it effectively alleviates the deterioration of renal cancer cells by degrading HIF2α. The silencing of FLCN showed a promotion of HIF2α protein expression via PI3K/mTORC2 pathway, which in turn led to an increase in downstream target genes Cyclin D1 and MMP9. Moreover, interfering with siFLCN advanced the time of HIF2α entry into the nucleus. Conclusions: Our study illustrated that FLCN could be a new therapeutic target in ccRCC. FLCN combined with HIF2α and identified a novel PI3K/mTORC2/HIF2α signaling in ccRCC cells.
Diverse Microorganisms in Sediment and Groundwater Are Implicated in Extracellular Redox Processes Based on Genomic Analysis of Bioanode Communities

Extracellular electron transfer (EET) between microbes and iron minerals, and syntrophically between species, is a widespread process affecting biogeochemical cycles and microbial ecology. The distribution of this capacity among microbial taxa, and the thermodynamic controls on EET in complex microbial communities, are not fully known. Microbial electrochemical cells (MXCs), in which electrodes serve as the electron acceptor or donor, provide a powerful approach to enrich for organisms capable of EET and to study their metabolism. We used MXCs coupled with genome-resolved metagenomics to investigate the capacity for EET in microorganisms present in a well-studied aquifer near Rifle, CO. Electroactive biofilms were established and maintained for almost 4 years on anodes poised mostly at −0.2 to −0.25 V vs. SHE, a range that mimics the redox potential of iron-oxide minerals, using acetate as the sole carbon source. Here we report the metagenomic characterization of anode-biofilm and planktonic microbial communities from samples collected at timepoints across the study period. From two biofilm and 26 planktonic samples we reconstructed draft-quality and near-complete genomes for 84 bacteria and 2 archaea that represent the majority of organisms present. A novel Geobacter sp. with at least 72 putative multiheme c-type cytochromes (MHCs) was the dominant electrode-attached organism. However, a diverse range of other electrode-associated organisms also harbored putative MHCs with at least 10 heme-binding motifs, as well as porin-cytochrome complexes and e-pili, including Actinobacteria, Ignavibacteria, Chloroflexi, Acidobacteria, Firmicutes, Beta- and Gammaproteobacteria. Our results identify a small subset of the thousands of organisms previously detected in the Rifle aquifer that may have the potential to mediate mineral redox transformations.
Sewage Sludge Application in Eucalyptus urograndis Plantation: Availability of Phosphorus in Soil and Wood Production

Phosphate fertilizers used in planted forests mainly come from scarce and non-renewable sources, and there is a need for new sources of phosphorus (P). An alternative is the use of sewage sludge (SS), rich in organic matter, nitrogen, and P. The objectives were to evaluate the soil P availability and its effect on wood production in 22-month-old Eucalyptus urograndis plantation treated with SS. A field experiment was set up in a randomized complete block design, four replicates, with the following treatments: control without fertilization; mineral fertilization (MF); 14.5 Mg ha–1 of SS + 22 kg ha–1 of P (S1P1); 29 Mg ha–1 of SS (S2); 29 Mg ha–1 of SS + 17.5 kg ha–1 of P (S2P2); and 43.5 Mg ha–1 of SS (S3), dry base. Of the total P in SS, 65% was in organic form and 42% was in labile + moderately labile forms. S2P2 and S3 positively altered the pattern of soil P distribution, with more P in the labile and moderately labile fractions than in the non-labile fraction, along 0–20 cm depths, than MF and control. There were higher microbial and available P as a function of SS dose. Wood volume and biomass were highly related to soil P availability as a function of SS dose. Within the SS treatments, S2P2 resulted in higher gains of volume and biomass of wood. The SS application at the recommend rate, supplemented with 66% of recommended P fertilizer dose in Eucalyptus plantations, can reduce the use of P fertilizer by 33% and N fertilizer by 100% and maintain comparable soil P availability and wood production.
Efficient plant regeneration system from seed-derived callus of ravenna grass [Erianthus ravennae (L.) Beauv.]

An efficient method of plant regeneration from seed-derived callus was established in ravenna grass [Erianthus ravennae (L.) Beauv. ], which is an ornamental tall grass as well as an important biomass crop. For callus induction, mature seeds were cultured on media containing different concentrations of 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-d) (0.5, 1, 2 and 4 mg l−1) and 6-benzyladenine (BA) (0, 0.1 and 0.2 mg l−1) on callus induction using MS medium (Murashige and Skoog 1962) supplemeted with 1 g l−1 casamino acids, 30 g l−1 maltose and 8 g l−1 agar as a basal medium. The highest callus induction was obtained on medium supplemented with 2 mg l−1 2,4-d and 0.2 mg l−1 BA, where 96% of explants formed callus. During the subculture of the calli on the same medium for 4 months, 3 types of calli showing different growth rate, color and morphology were differentiated. By using these 3 types of calli, effects of different concentrations of BA or 6-furfurylaminopurine (kinetin) (0, 0.1, 0.5, 1, 2 and 4 mg l−1) and naphthaleneacetic acid (NAA) (0, 0.25, 0.5 and 1 mg l−1) as plant growth regulators on shoot regeneration were evaluated using MS medium with 1 g l−1 casamino acids as a basal medium. The highest frequency of shoot formation was obtained in type A callus, which had white and compact nature, on medium containing 30 g l−1 sucrose, 1 mg l−1 BA and 0.1–0.25 mg l−1 NAA, where 89.3% of the calli formed shoots.
Biochemical and functional analysis of innexin2-containing gap junction channels during organogenesis in Drosophila

Diese Dissertation ist auf dem Hochschulschriftenserver der ULB Bonn unter junction communication and paracrine signaling pathways during organogenesis in Drosophila. (2006). DE-cadherin, a core component of the adherens junction complex modifies subcellular localization of the Drosophila gap junction protein innexin2. Intercellular communication: the Drosophila innexin multiprotein family of gap junction proteins.
Targeting Protein Kinase G to Treat Cardiac Proteotoxicity

Impaired or insufficient protein kinase G (PKG) signaling and protein quality control (PQC) are hallmarks of most forms of cardiac disease, including heart failure. Their dysregulation has been shown to contribute to and exacerbate cardiac hypertrophy and remodeling, reduced cell survival and disease pathogenesis. Enhancement of PKG signaling and PQC are associated with improved cardiac function and survival in many pre-clinical models of heart disease. While many clinically used pharmacological approaches exist to stimulate PKG, there are no FDA-approved therapies to safely enhance cardiomyocyte PQC. The latter is predominantly due to our lack of knowledge and identification of proteins regulating cardiomyocyte PQC. Recently, multiple studies have demonstrated that PKG regulates PQC in the heart, both during physiological and pathological states. These studies tested already FDA-approved pharmacological therapies to activate PKG, which enhanced cardiomyocyte PQC and alleviated cardiac disease. This review examines the roles of PKG and PQC during disease pathogenesis and summarizes the experimental and clinical data supporting the utility of stimulating PKG to target cardiac proteotoxicity.
Glucocorticoid Exposure Induces Preeclampsia via DampeningLipoxin A4, an Endogenous Anti-Inflammatory and Proresolving Mediator

The pathogenesis of preeclampsia (PE) involves several pathophysiological processes that may be affected by glucocorticoid (GC). We confirmed previously that GC exposure could result in PE, while PE is linked to a deficiency of lipoxin A4 (LXA4), an endogenous dual anti-inflammatory and proresolving mediator. The present study was to investigate whether GC exposure induces PE via dampening LXA4. In the study, cortisol levels of PE women were higher than those of normal pregnancies, LXA4 levels were downregulated in both PE patients and GC-mediated PE rats, and leukotriene B4 (LTB4) levels were upregulated in both PE patients and GC- mediated PE rats. Moreover, cortisol levels were negatively correlated to LXA4 levels, while positively correlated to LTB4 levels in PE patients. Mechanically, GC downregulated LXA4 via disturbing its biosynthetic enzymes, including ALOX15, ALOX5B and ALOX5, especially activating ALOX5, the key enzyme for class switching between LXA4 and LTB4. Importantly, replenishing LXA4 could ameliorate PE-related symptoms and placental oxidative stress in PE rat model induced by GC. Moreover, LXA4 could inhibit GC-mediated ALOX5 activation and LTB4 increase, and also suppress 11β-HSD2 expression and corticosterone upregulation. The protective actions of LXA4 might be explained by its roles in antagonizing the adverse effects of GC on trophoblast development. Together, our findings indicate that GC exposure could contribute to PE through dampening LXA4, and GC/LXA4 axis may represent a common pathway through which PE occurs.
Cross-Bridges and Sarcomeric Non-cross-bridge Structures Contribute to Increased Work in Stretch-Shortening Cycles

Stretch-shortening cycles (SSCs) refer to the muscle action when an active muscle stretch is immediately followed by active muscle shortening. This combination of eccentric and concentric contractions is the most important type of daily muscle action and plays a significant role in natural locomotion such as walking, running or jumping. SSCs are used in human and animal movements especially when a high movement speed or economy is required. A key feature of SSCs is the increase in muscular force and work during the concentric phase of a SSC by more than 50% compared with concentric muscle actions without prior stretch (SSC-effect). This improved muscle capability is related to various mechanisms, including pre-activation, stretch-reflex responses and elastic recoil from serial elastic tissues. Moreover, it is assumed that a significant contribution to enhanced muscle capability lies in the sarcomeres itself. Thus, we investigated the force output and work produced by single skinned fibers of rat soleus muscles during and after ramp contractions at a constant velocity. Shortening, lengthening, and SSCs were performed under physiological boundary conditions with 85% of the maximum shortening velocity and stretch-shortening magnitudes of 18% of the optimum muscle length. The different contributions of cross-bridge (XB) and non-cross-bridge (non-XB) structures to the total muscle force were identified by using Blebbistatin. The experiments revealed three main results: (i) partial detachment of XBs during the eccentric phase of a SSC, (ii) significantly enhanced forces and mechanical work during the concentric phase of SSCs compared with shortening contractions with and without XB-inhibition, and (iii) no residual force depression after SSCs. The results obtained by administering Blebbistatin propose a titin-actin interaction that depends on XB-binding or active XB-based force production. The findings of this study further suggest that enhanced forces generated during the active lengthening phase of SSCs persist during the subsequent shortening phase, thereby contributing to enhanced work. Accordingly, our data support the hypothesis that sarcomeric mechanisms related to residual force enhancement also contribute to the SSC-effect. The preload of the titin molecule, acting as molecular spring, might be part of that mechanism by increasing the mechanical efficiency of work during physiological SSCs.
Integration of Spatial Information Increases Reproducibility in Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy

As functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is developed as a neuroimaging technique and becomes an option to study a variety of populations and tasks, the reproducibility of the fNIRS signal is still subject of debate. By performing test–retest protocols over different functional tasks, several studies agree that the fNIRS signal is reproducible over group analysis, but the inter-subject and within-subject reproducibility is poor. The high variability at the first statistical level is often attributed to global systemic physiology. In the present work, we revisited the reproducibility of the fNIRS signal during a finger-tapping task across multiple sessions on the same and different days. We expanded on previous studies by hypothesizing that the lack of spatial information of the optodes contributes to the low reproducibility in fNIRS, and we incorporated a real-time neuronavigation protocol to provide accurate cortical localization of the optodes. Our proposed approach was validated in 10 healthy volunteers, and our results suggest that the addition of neuronavigation can increase the within-subject reproducibility of the fNIRS data, particularly in the region of interest. Unlike traditional approaches to positioning the optodes, in which low intra-subject reproducibility has been found, we were able to obtain consistent and robust activation of the contralateral primary motor cortex at the intra-subject level using a neuronavigation protocol. Overall, our findings support the hypothesis that at least part of the variability in fNIRS cannot be only attributed to global systemic physiology. The use of neuronavigation to guide probe positioning, as proposed in this work, has impacts to longitudinal protocols performed with fNIRS.