Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Morphology and Molecular Phylogenetic Analysis of Deep-Sea Purple Gorgonians (Octocorallia: Victorgorgiidae) from Seamounts in the Tropical Western Pacific, with Description of Three New Species

Members of Scleraxonia Studer, 1887 are one of the most dominant megafaunal taxa on seamounts, but their diversity and spatial distribution are poorly known in the tropical Western Pacific. Among this group, the family Victorgorgiidae Moore et al., 2017 is typically characterized by josephinae clubs in their polyp tentacles and a remarkable purple color but remains one of the most poorly known scleraxonian taxa currently. Victorgorgiidae contains only the genus Victorgorgia López-González and Briand, 2002 and six species. Here we describe three new species of Victorgorgia, V. fasciculata sp. nov., V. iocasica sp. nov., V. flabellata sp. nov., and re-describe V. eminens Moore et al., 2017, based on samples collected from four seamounts in the tropical Western Pacific, and evaluate their phylogenetic position using sequence data of mtMutS and COI genes. These new species are distinguished from each other and congeners by the sclerite forms and sizes, colony characters and polyp arrangement, and particularly the sclerites in the polyps and medulla are found to be most informative. Phylogenetic analyses indicate that V. flabellata sp. nov. is the sister group of V. iocasica sp. nov., and V. eminens Moore et al., 2017 showed a close relationship with Victorgorgia sp. GU563313. However, genetic divergence at the species level was found to be inadequate for differentiation of some close species. Each of the four species was found only from a single seamount, suggesting limited biological connectivity among the four seamount gorgoniians. Our study increases our understanding of the species diversity of Victorgorgiidae, and highlights the need for further research on the diversity and zoogeography of the deep-sea gorgonians. V. fasciculata sp. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 6CDEECC5-B96D-4DDF-95D2-32BEC3DBC938. V. iocasica sp. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: BB11D217-C298-401F-8E13-849C33B03905. V. flabellata sp. nov. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 2C0FCCF2-33B1-4C2D-AC8E-6737079422F4. urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub: 39AF43F8-C0C2-4670-BBA0-DC1A7F1FA01B.
Skin coloration and habitat preference of the freshwater Anguilla eels

The genus Anguilla comprises 16 species and three subspecies of freshwater eels, which can be further divided into marbled and plain eels in terms of skin coloration on their backs. Owing to the overlap of geographical distributions between most marbled and plain eels in tropical/subtropical regions, the co-existence of marbled and plain eels in the same river is common. To understand the correlation between eel skin color and its habitat preference in the river, the distribution patterns of all anguillid eels were collected and analyzed. Results showed that all marbled eels distribute in tropical/subtropical areas and preferred the middle/upper reaches. The plain eels distributed both in temporal and tropical/subtropical areas, and preferred to inhabit the middle/lower reaches and estuaries. Plain skin coloration may help them easily remain hidden in a sandy and muddy environment, which is common in estuaries and lower reaches of rivers in tropical/subtropical areas, while mottled skin coloration more easily blends in with substrates such as cobble, gravel, and fallen leaves which are commonly found in the upper reaches of rivers in the tropical/subtropical areas. The different habitat preference between marbled and plain eels in the tropical/subtropical areas are likely a result of adaptive evolution to avoid potential interspecific competition, and this finding is meaningful for developing applicable management plans for eels.
Isolation and molecular characterizations of canine distemper virus from a naturally infected Korean dog using Vero cells

Background: Canine distemper virus (CDV) infection results in high morbidity and mortality in dogs. There has been no report about Isolation of Korean CDV since 1980 in Korea. Objectives: To investigate the biological properties and the genetic characterization of Korean CDV. Methods: Vero cells expressing dog signaling lymphocyte activation molecule (dSLAM) gene named as Vero/dSLAM were used to isolate CDV using 17 samples. Diagnostic methods such as cytopathic effects, immunofluorescence assay, peroxidase linked assay, electron microscopy, rapid immunodiagnostic assay, and reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction were used to confirm the Korean CDV isolate as a CDV. The genetic analysis was performed through cloning and sequencing of hemagglutinin gene of CDV isolate. Results: A virus propagated in Vero/dSLAM cell was confirmed as CDV (CD1901 strain) based on the above methods. The CD1901 strain showed the highest viral titer (105.5 50% tissue culture infectious dose [TCID50]/mL) in the Vero/dSLAM cells at 4 days post inoculation, but did not form a fork on chorioallantoic membrane of 7-day-old egg. Ribavirin, a nucleotide analogue anti-viral agent, inhibits moderately the Korean CDV propagation in the Vero/dSLAM cells. The nucleotide and amino acid sequences of the H gene of CD1901 strain were compared with those of other CDV strains. The CD1901 strain belonged to Asia 1 group and had the highest similarity (99.9%) with the BA134 strain, which was isolated in China in 2008. Conclusions: We constructed successfully Vero/dSLAM and isolated one Korean CDV isolate (CD1901 strain) from a naturally infected dog. The CD1901 strain belonged to Asia 1 genotype.
A Deaf Academic Leader’s Perspective: A Proposed Framework for Decision-Making Process in Higher Education for Deaf Students

How do the intersectional relationships between the dual process, heuristic/bias, and decision-making models manifest in an educational leader’s decision-making framework when the leader possesses a deaf lens? Perceptions that could have an emotional impact on the decision-making process are shared. Research in the field is discussed and supplemented by the author’s own perspectives, experiences, and document analysis to articulate a proposed framework. The goal of implementing the proposed framework is to increase the probability of obtaining better decisions, given that educational leaders with deaf lenses tend to be visually receptive learners who depend on personal and professional philosophy and experience. The selected perceptions and phrases from the intersectional relationship categories forming the proposed framework were based on A) information (sought and processing), B) time (as phase), and C) emotional responses. In this article, the perspective of an educational leader possessing a deaf lens is examined with emphasis on the potential influences that impacts the decision-making processes and validation of a new framework. The result of this was that no single decision model is necessarily the correct model or is responsible for any outcome. More significantly, the work demonstrated that the proposed framework has the potential to help other educational leaders with a deaf lens improve their knowledge, understanding, and perspective on their decisions that impact stakeholders. As a result, this framework and understanding can be seen to benefit prospective educational leaders.
The Meaning of Living in the Time of COVID-19. A Large Sample Narrative Inquiry

The spread of the COVID-19 pandemic has been a sudden, disruptive event that has strained international and local response capacity and distressed local populations. Different studies have focused on potential psychological distress resulting from the rupture of consolidated habits and routines related to the lockdown measures. Nevertheless, the subjective experience of individuals and the variations in the way of interpreting the lockdown measures remain substantially unexplored. Within the frame of Semiotic Cultural Psychosocial Theory, the study pursued two main goals: first, to explore the symbolic universes (SUs) through which Italian people represented the pandemic crisis and its meaning in their life; and second, to examine how the interpretation of the crisis varies over societal segments with different sociodemographic characteristics and specific life challenges. An online survey was available during the Italian lockdown. Respondents were asked to write a passage about the meaning of living in the time of COVID-19. A total of 1,393 questionnaires (mean = 35.47; standard deviation = 14.92; women: 64.8%; North Italy: 33%; Center Italy: 27%; South Italy: 40%) were collected. The Automated Method for Content Analysis procedure was applied to the collected texts to detect the factorial dimensions underpinning (dis)similarities in the respondents’ discourses. Such factors were interpreted as the markers of latent dimensions of meanings defining the SUs active in the sample. A set of χ2 analysis allowed exploring the association between SUs and respondents’ characteristics. Four SUs were identified, labeled “Reconsider social priorities,” “Reconsider personal priorities,” “Live with emergency,” and “Surviving a war,” characterized by the pertinentization of two extremely basic issues: what the pandemic consists of (health emergency versus turning point) and its extent and impact (daily life vs. world scenario). Significant associations were found between SUs and all the respondents’ characteristics considered (sex, age, job status, job situation during lockdown, and place of living). The findings will be discussed in light of the role of the media and institutional scenario and psychosocial conditions in mediating the representation of the pandemic and in favoring or constraining the availability of symbolic resources underpinning people’s capability to address the crisis.
General Mental Health State Indicators in Argentinean Women During Quarantine of up to 80-Day Duration for COVID-19 Pandemic

Introduction: Argentinean quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic is one of the most long-lasting worldwide. We focused on the first 80-days of this quarantine on Argentinean women. Our aims were to analyze differences in general mental health state (MHS) indicators, by the (1) sites of residence with different prevalence of COVID-19 cases, and (2) quarantine duration; (3) to assess multiple relationships between each general MHS indicator and potentially affecting factors. Methods: We used a cross-sectional design with convenience successive sampling (N = 5,013). The online survey included a socio-demographic questionnaire (elaborated ad hoc) with standardized and validated self-reported questionnaires (General Health Questionnaire, Kessler Psychological Distress Scale) measuring the MHS indicators: self-perceived health, psychological discomfort, social functioning and coping, and psychological distress. Results: Worse self-perceived health and higher psychological discomfort affected significantly more women residing in sites with high prevalence of COVID-19 cases, compared to those residing in sites with intermediate prevalence, but effect sizes were small. Mean scores of all general MHS indicators were significantly worse for longer quarantine sub-periods (up to 53, 68, and 80-day duration) than for shorter sub-periods (up to seven, 13, and 25-day duration). Being a younger age, having mental disorder history, and longer quarantine durations were associated to worsening MHS, while the lack of previous suicide attempt has a protective effect. Discussion: Our findings show that a worse MHS during quarantine may not be attributed to the objective risk of contagion (measured greater or less), and under quarantine, women MHS—as indicated by group central tendency measures—got worse as time went by. This strongly suggests that special attention needs to be paid to younger women and to women with history of mental disorder. Along with physical health, mental health must be a priority for the Government during and after quarantine and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ingestive Behavior of Young Lambs on Contrasting Tropical Grass Sward Heights

The efficiency of grazing ruminant production systems is directly associated to the animals' ingestive behavior, and to structural characteristics of the pastures. The objective of this study was to evaluate the ingestive behavior of young lambs grazing three different heights of Capim Aruana (Panicum maximum). The experiment was carried out in two consecutive years, in which 30 tester lambs (4–5 months old) were equally divided into three paddocks (treatments) corresponding to different average sward heights of Aruana grass: (1) Tall-75 cm; (2) Medium-50 cm; and (3) Short-25 cm in a randomized block design. Ingestive behavior assessments were carried out every 28 days through 10-min observations of the main activities of the animals (grazing, ruminating, idling) and biting rate, from sunrise to sunset. In addition, the productive and qualitative characteristics of the pastures were assessed. Despite differences in pasture structure, grazing time (GT) and idling time were similar among treatments (P = 0.4266 and P = 0.2939, respectively). The shortest ruminating time (RT, P = 0.0181) was recorded in the treatment of lowest sward height. Lambs grazing on this treatment also showed 23% more bites per minute (P= < 0.0001) than animals in the Tall and Medium treatments. A Decision Tree analysis was performed for GT, identifying in a hierarchical order that the initial weight of the animals and sward height explained 62% (R2 = 0.621) of the variation, representing the variables with the greatest influence on GT. Initial body weight explained 48% of the model. Thus, our research shows that the different sward heights of Capim Aruana mainly alter the lamb's RT and biting rate, and that the animals' initial body weight is a key factor influencing GT, given that this variable makes lambs more susceptible to changes in sward height.
Assessing Saccadic Eye Movements With Head-Mounted Display Virtual Reality Technology

As our society is ageing globally, neurodegenerative disorders are becoming a relevant issue. Assessment of saccadic eye movement could provide objective values to help to understand the symptoms of disorders. HTC Corporation launched a new virtual reality (VR) headset, VIVE Pro Eye, implementing an infrared-based eye tracking technique together with VR technology. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the device can be used as an assessment tool of saccadic eye movement and to investigate the technical features of eye tracking. We developed a measurement system of saccadic eye movement with a simple VR environment on Unity VR design platform, following an internationally proposed standard saccade measurement protocol. We then measured the saccadic eye movement of seven healthy young adults to analyze the oculo-metrics of latency, peak velocity, and error rate of pro- and anti-saccade tasks: 120 trials in each task. We calculated these parameters based on the saccade detection algorithm that we have developed following previous studies. Consequently, our results revealed latency of 220.40 ± 43.16 ms, peak velocity of 357.90 ± 111.99°/s, and error rate of 0.24 ± 0.41% for the pro-saccade task, and latency of 343.35 ± 76.42 ms, peak velocity of 318.79 ± 116.69°/s, and error rate of 0.66 ± 0.76% for the anti-saccade task. In addition, we observed pupil diameter of 4.30 ± 1.15 mm (left eye) and 4.29 ± 1.08 mm (right eye) for the pro-saccade task, and of 4.21 ± 1.04 mm (left eye) and 4.22 ± 0.97 mm (right eye) for the anti-saccade task. Comparing between the descriptive statistics of previous studies and our results suggests that VIVE Pro Eye can function as an assessment tool of saccadic eye movement since our results are in the range of or close to the results of previous studies. Nonetheless, we found technical limitations especially about time-related measurement parameters. Further improvements in software and hardware of the device and measurement protocol, and more measurements with diverse age-groups and people with different health conditions are warranted to enhance the whole assessment system of saccadic eye movement.
Abnormal Spatial Patterns of Intrinsic Brain Activity in Osteonecrosis of the Femoral Head: A Resting-State Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Objective: Osteonecrosis of the femoral head (ONFH) is a common condition that is encountered in clinical practice, and yet, little is known about its characteristics and manifestations in the brain. Therefore, in this study, we aimed to use resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI) to investigate the spatial patterns of spontaneous brain activity in the brain of ONFH patients. Methods: The study included ONFH patients and healthy controls. The pattern of intrinsic brain activity was measured by examining the amplitude of low-frequency fluctuations (ALFF) of blood oxygen level-dependent signals using rs-fMRI. Meanwhile, we also used Harris hip scores to evaluate the functional performance of ONFH patients and healthy controls. Result: Ten ONFH patients and 10 health controls were investigated. We found global ALFF differences between the two groups throughout the occipital, parietal, frontal, prefrontal, and temporal cortices. In the ONFH patients, altered brain activity was found in the brain regions in the sensorimotor network, pain-related network, and emotion and cognition network. The results of the correlation investigations also demonstrated that the regions with ALFF changes had significant correlations with the functional performance of the patients evaluated by Harris hip scores. Conclusions: Our study has revealed the abnormal pattern of brain activity in ONFH patients, and our findings could be used to aid in understanding the mechanisms behind the gait abnormality and intractable pain associated with ONFH at the central level.
Immunobiotic Lactobacillus jensenii TL2937 Alleviates Dextran Sodium Sulfate-Induced Colitis by Differentially Modulating the Transcriptomic Response of Intestinal Epithelial Cells

Immunobiotics have emerged as a promising intervention to alleviate intestinal damage in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). However, the beneficial properties of immunobiotics are strain dependent and, therefore, each strain has to be evaluated in order to demonstrate its potential application in IBD. Our previous in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrated that Lactobacillus jensenii TL2937 attenuates gut acute inflammatory response triggered by Toll-like receptor 4 activation. However, its effect on colitis has not been evaluated before. In this work, we studied whether the TL2937 strain was able to protect against the development of colitis in a dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced mouse model and we delved into the mechanisms of action by evaluating the effect of the immunobiotic bacteria on the transcriptomic response of DSS-challenged intestinal epithelial cells. L. jensenii TL2937 was administered to adult BALB/c mice before the induction of colitis by the administration of DSS. Colitis and the associated inflammatory response were evaluated for 14 days. Mice fed with L. jensenii TL2937 had lower disease activity index and alterations of colon length when compared to control mice. Reduced myeloperoxidase activity, lower production of pro-inflammatory (TNF-α, IL-1, CXCL1, MCP-1, IL-15, and IL-17), and higher levels of immunoregulatory (IL-10 and IL-27) cytokines were found in the colon of TL2937-treated mice. In addition, the treatment of porcine intestinal epithelial (PIE) cells with L. jensenii TL2937 before the challenge with DSS differentially regulated the activation of the JNK pathway, leading to an increase in epithelial cell integrity and to a differential immunotranscriptomic response. TL2937-treated PIE cells had a significant reduction in the expression of inflammatory cytokines (TNF-α, IL-1α, IL-1β, IL-6, IL-15), chemokines (CCL2, CCL4, CCL8, CXCL4, CXCL5, CXCL9, CXCL10), adhesion molecules (SELE, SELL, EPCAM), and other immune factors (NCF1, NCF2, NOS2, SAA2) when compared to control cells after the challenge with DSS. The findings of this work indicate that (a) L. jensenii TL2937 is able to alleviate DSS-induced colitis suggesting a potential novel application for this immunobiotic strain, (b) the modulation of the transcriptomic response of intestinal epithelial cells would play a key role in the beneficial effects of the TL2937 strain on colitis, and (c) the in vitro PIE cell immunoassay system could be of value for the screening and selection of new immunobiotic strains for their application in IBD.
Cell-extrinsic effects in T cell acute lymphoblastic pre-leukemia stem cells mediated by EphA3

Our recent study of a novel model of T-ALL pre-leukemic stem cells, the NUP98-HOXD13 (NHD13) mouse, showed that the abnormal self-renewal of these stem cells was dependent on Lyl1 yet, when Lyl1 was deleted, the T-ALL still developed. In the present study, we observe that the thymocytes in these mice also overexpress EphA3, and we characterise the thymocytes in NHD13-EphA3−/− mice. NHD13-EphA3−/− thymocytes retain their abnormal self-renewal activity demonstrated by their capacity to engraft following primary and secondary transplants. Strikingly, NHD13-EphA3−/− thymocytes fail to engraft upon the third serial transplant, whereas the NHD13 thymocytes engraft indefinitely. Seeking to explain this, we find that NHD13 DN2 thymocytes are capable of halting the normal differentiation process of incoming WT progenitor cells, and remarkably, this capacity is severely impaired in the absence of EphA3. Therefore EphA3 is not critical for engraftment, but is essential for enabling the halt in differentiation of neighbouring WT cells, which in turn allows the incumbent progenitors to remain longer in the thymus due to an absence of normal cell competition, a property that in itself has been demonstrated to be oncogenic. We suggest that pre-leukemic self-renewal in this model is a complex interplay of cell intrinsic and extrinsic factors, and that multiple redundant pathways to leukemogenesis are active in this model.
From Athens to the Blockchain: Oracles for Digital Democracy

Oracles were trusted sources of knowledge for public deliberation in classical Athens. Very much like expert and technical knowledge, divine advice was embedded in the deliberation and decision-making process of the democratic Assembly. While the idea of religious divination is completely out of place in our contemporary democracies, oracles made a technological comeback with modern computer science and cryptography and, more recently, the emergence of the blockchain as a “trust machine. ” This paper reviews the role of oracles in Athenian democracy and, stemming from the renewed use of the term in computer sciences and cryptography, analyses the case of oracles in the nascent blockchain ecosystem. The paper also proposes a sociotechnical approach to the use of distributed oracles as informational devices to assist deliberative processes in digital democracy settings and considers the limits that such an approach may face.