Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Selenium Enrichment Enhances the Quality and Shelf Life of Basil Leaves

The biofortification of leafy vegetables with selenium (Se) is a good way to increase human dietary Se intake. In addition, selenium delays plant senescence by enhancing the antioxidant capacity of plant tissues, decreasing postharvest losses. We investigated the effects of selenium addition on the production and quality of sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum) leaves of two harvesting phases, hereafter referred to as cuts, during the crop cycle. Plants were hydroponically grown and treated with 0 (control), 4, 8 and 12 mg Se L−1 as selenate. To evaluate the growth, nutritional value and quality of the basil leaves, selected qualitative parameters were determined at harvest and after five days of storage. Application of Se at varying rates (4, 8 and 12 mg L−1) was associated with an increased leaf selenium concentration in the first, but not the second cut. The application of Se significantly affected the antioxidant capacity as well as the total phenol and rosmarinic acid contents at harvest. The reduction in ethylene production observed in the plants at 4 mg Se L−1 after five days of storage suggests that this Se treatment could be used to prolong and enhance the shelf-life of basil. The daily consumption of 10 g of Se-enriched basil leaves, which, as an example, are contained in a single portion of Italian pesto sauce, would also satisfy the recommended selenium supplementation in humans.
Linguistic, religious, and ethnic identities as pathways to peace: views from eight Lisu, Karen, Kachin, and Chin seminary teachers in Myanmar

Abstract This study examines how the linguistic, religious, and ethnic identities of eight seminary teachers from four ethnolinguistic minority groups in Myanmar informed their views and practices of language use in education and their role in peacebuilding and reconciliation. Data were collected at seminaries as they are rich sites of multilingual education. With the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Charter declaration in 2009 that English is its sole working language, the over 10,000 local languages used in the 10 ASEAN nations are under threat as English replaces local languages in the school curriculum. The author supports the recommendations by Lo Bianco Kosonen, and Kirkpatrick for a multilingual policy in education in Southeast Asia, and based on the accounts of the eight participants in this present study argues that valuing and safeguarding linguistic, religious, and ethnic diversity in Myanmar holds great potential to not only enhance learning but also to foster social cohesion.
Resilient Output Formation Containment of Heterogeneous Multigroup Systems Against Unbounded Attacks

This article studies the attack-resilient output formation containment of general high-order heterogeneous multigroup systems under unknown unbounded attacks. The multigroup systems consist of cooperative heterogeneous leaders and followers, as well as adversarial attackers. Potential attacks on the multigroup systems consist of unknown unbounded signals generated from the attackers and injected distributedly into the actuator, the local state feedback, and communication channels of each agent to destabilize the synchronization dynamics. In contrast to the existing literature dealing with bounded disturbances, noises, and faults, which are caused unintentionally, this article studies the unknown unbounded attacks that are intentionally designed to jeopardize the system. The control objective is to make each follower’s output trajectory reach the uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB) convergence to the time-varying formation reference, that is, the centroid of the multiple leaders’ output trajectories while keeping a predefined time-varying offset with respect to it. Fully distributed attack-resilient control protocols are proposed, without requiring any global information. Lyapunov techniques are used to analyze the stability and UUB synchronization result of the overall closed-loop system. Comparative simulation examples are given to validate the proposed results.
Index of Cancer-Associated Fibroblasts Is Superior to the Epithelial–Mesenchymal Transition Score in Prognosis Prediction

In many solid tumors, tissue of the mesenchymal subtype is frequently associated with epithelial–mesenchymal transition (EMT), strong stromal infiltration, and poor prognosis. Emerging evidence from tumor ecosystem studies has revealed that the two main components of tumor stroma, namely, infiltrated immune cells and cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAFs), also express certain typical EMT genes and are not distinguishable from intrinsic tumor EMT, where bulk tissue is concerned. Transcriptomic analysis of xenograft tissues provides a unique advantage in dissecting genes of tumor (human) or stroma (murine) origins. By transcriptomic analysis of xenograft tissues, we found that oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) tumor cells with a high EMT score, the computed mesenchymal likelihood based on the expression signature of canonical EMT markers, are associated with elevated stromal contents featured with fibronectin 1 (Fn1) and transforming growth factor-β (Tgfβ) axis gene expression. In conjugation with meta-analysis of these genes in clinical OSCC datasets, we further extracted a four-gene index, comprising FN1, TGFB2, TGFBR2, and TGFBI, as an indicator of CAF abundance. The CAF index is more powerful than the EMT score in predicting survival outcomes, not only for oral cancer but also for the cancer genome atlas (TCGA) pan-cancer cohort comprising 9356 patients from 32 cancer subtypes. Collectively, our results suggest that a further distinction and integration of the EMT score with the CAF index will enhance prognosis prediction, thus paving the way for curative medicine in clinical oncology.
Macroecological correlates and spatial patterns of anuran description dates in the Brazilian Cerrado

Aim To quantify the relationship between the description dates of anuran species in the Brazilian Cerrado and some macroecological traits, and to verify the spatial patterns of average description dates and their correlation with human occupation and biodiversity knowledge. Location Brazilian Cerrado (South America). Methods The average date of description of 131 species of anurans found in 181 cells overlaying the Brazilian Cerrado was recorded. Description date was regressed across species on body size and geographical range size. Phylogenetic effects that could bias the significance tests of the multiple regression model of description dates on macroecological traits were taken into account using a phylogenetic subtraction method in which families and genera were classificatory factors in a nested two-way analysis of variance (anova) model. We also conducted a spatial analysis of the average description date that was estimated for each cell. This cell-based metric was regressed on human population size, the year of foundation of the municipalities and the number of inventories undertaken in each cell. The influence of spatial autocorrelation patterns was taken into account by using the geographically effective number of degrees of freedom. Results The number of new species being discovered in the Brazilian Cerrado has been increasing, especially over the last 50 years. Cross-species analyses indicated that description dates were negatively correlated with body size and geographical range size, taking phylogenetic effects into account. Even after controlling for the spatial structures in all variables, average description date was positively correlated with human population in geographical space, but because of multicolinearity structure in the data, it was not possible to quantify the independent influence of human population and number of inventories on description date. Conclusions As found in previous papers, large-bodied and widely distributed species are likely to be described first. Species yet to be discovered are probably small-bodied and with narrow distributions, more restricted to the Cerrado biome. Also, the explicit spatial approach showed that the average description date is spatially correlated with total human population and biodiversity knowledge in the Cerrado region. Our findings suggest that incorporating human population density into the reserve design algorithms, which has usually been done to avoid or minimize conservation conflicts, may also produce good results because this will preserve many places where most of the non-described species will probably be found in the future.
Planned organizational change to transform care to workers exposed to biological material.

OBJECTIVES to describe the evaluation of the service offered in cases of occupational accidents involving exposure to biological material, from the perspective of the exposed workers, before and after an intervention to obtain planned organizational change. METHODS descriptive study with a qualitative approach, carried out with workers exposed to biological material who received care at a reference service that was submitted to an intervention based on planned organizational change. Data were collected by using the critical incident technique and analyzed from the perspective of content analysis. RESULTS twenty exposed workers participated in the study and were split into two groups in the pre- and post-intervention phase. Categories regarding improvement in the guidance they received, reduction in the time they waited once they got to the facility, organization of the process, documentation qualification, and professionalism in carrying out the assistance emerged from the workers' accounts. CONCLUSIONS the present study allowed the exposed workers to visualize the changes that happened in the care management in case of accidents involving biological material. Additionally, there was the recognition of the adopted methodological path, which allowed the active participation of the people involved.
Thirty years of HDAC inhibitors: 2020 hindsight.

It is now thirty years since the first report of a potent zinc-dependent histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor appeared. Since then, five HDAC inhibitors have received regulatory approval for cancer chemotherapy, while many others are in clinical development for oncology as well as other therapeutic indications. This perspective reviews the biological and medicinal chemistry advances over the last three decades with an emphasis on the design of selective inhibitors that discriminate between the eleven human HDAC isoforms.
Structural Basis for Inhibition of Xyloglucan-specific Endo-β-1,4-glucanase (XEG) by XEG-Protein Inhibitor*

Background: Plants produce glycoside hydrolase inhibitor protein to protect cell walls. Results: The inhibition mechanism for a xyloglucanase-inhibitor of a fungal xyloglucanase is revealed by crystal structures. Conclusion: Xyloglucanase inhibitor protein distinguishes specific structural features of a glycosyl hydrolase to protect the plant cell wall from degradation. Significance: Understanding the mechanism of xyloglucanase inhibition is key to comprehending how plants defend themselves against microbes that express glycosyl hydrolases. Microorganisms such as plant pathogens secrete glycoside hydrolases (GHs) to digest the polysaccharide chains of plant cell walls. The degradation of cell walls by these enzymes is a crucial step for nutrition and invasion. To protect the cell wall from these enzymes, plants secrete glycoside hydrolase inhibitor proteins (GHIPs). Xyloglucan-specific endo-β-1,4-glucanase (XEG), a member of GH family 12 (GH12), could be a great threat to many plants because xyloglucan is a major component of the cell wall in most plants. Understanding the inhibition mechanism of XEG by GHIP is therefore of great importance in the field of plant defense, but to date the mechanism and specificity of GHIPs remain unclear. We have determined the crystal structure of XEG in complex with extracellular dermal glycoprotein (EDGP), a carrot GHIP that inhibits XEG. The structure reveals that the conserved arginines of EDGP intrude into the active site of XEG and interact with the catalytic glutamates of the enzyme. We have also determined the crystal structure of the XEG-xyloglucan complex. These structures show that EDGP closely mimics the XEG-xyloglucan interaction. Although EDGP shares structural similarity to a wheat GHIP (Triticum aestivum xylanase inhibitor-IA (TAXI-IA)) that inhibits GH11 family xylanases, the arrangement of GH and GHIP in the XEG-EDGP complex is distinct from that in the xylanase-TAXI-IA complex. Our findings imply that plants have evolved structures of GHIPs to inhibit different GH family members that attack their cell walls.
Disentangling the effects of predator body size and prey density on prey consumption in a lizard

Summary 1. Understanding proximate determinants of predation rates is a central question in ecology. Studies often use functional response (density dependent) or allometric (mass dependent) models but approaches that consider multiple factors are critical to capture the complexity in predator–prey interactions. We present a novel comprehensive approach to understand predation rates based on field data obtained from a vertebrate predator. 2. Estimates of food consumption and prey abundance were obtained from 21 semi-natural populations of the lizard Zootoca vivipara. We identified the most parsimonious feeding rate function exploring allometric, simple functional response and allometric functional response models. Each group included effects of sex and weather conditions. 3. Allometric models reveal the importance of predator mass and sex: larger females have the highest natural feeding rates. Functional response models show that the effect of prey density is best represented by a Holling type II response model with a mass, sex and weather dependent attack rate and a constant handling time. However, the best functional response model only received moderate support compared to simpler allometric models based only on predator mass and sex. 4. Despite this limited effect of prey densities on feeding rates, we detected a significant negative relationship between an index of preferred prey biomass and lizard density. 5. Functional response models that ignore individual variation are likely to misrepresent trophic interactions. However, simpler models based on individual traits may be best supported by some data than complex allometric functional responses. These results illustrate the importance of considering individual, population and environmental effects while also exploring simple models.
Variety of cell cycle patterns in the alga Scenedesmus quadricauda (Chlorophyta) as revealed by application of illumination regimes and inhibitors

In the course of the cell cycles of synchronous cultures of the chlorococcal alga Scenedesmus quadricauda, the following were monitored: total protein and RNA accumulation as a measure of growth processes, the timing of the commitment points at which the cells trigger the sequence of reproductive processes (DNA replication, nuclear and cellular division) and the course of the reproductive processes. The synchronous cultures were grown either under various lighting regimes, or in the temporary presence of specific inhibitors of either proteosynthesis (cycloheximide) or DNA replication (5-fluorodeoxyuridine). By adjusting the length of the light period, the cell cycle could be manipulated. Cell cycle patterns could be altered to give different numbers of sequences of reproductive processes. The extent of their mutual overlap could be influenced and the number of daughter cells produced could be altered. Schematic illustrations of various cell cycle patterns and comparisons with those of higher plants and other algal species are presented.
Full Issue in PDF / Numéro complet enform PDF

In an era when the number of Earth observation satellites is rapidly growing and measurements from satellite sensors are used to address increasingly urgent global issues, often through synergistic and operational combinations of data from multiple sources, it is imperative that scientists and decision-makers are able to rely on the accuracy of Earth observation data products. The characterization and calibration of these sensors, particularly their relative biases, are vital to the success of the developing integrated Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) for coordinated and sustained observations of the Earth. This can only reliably be achieved in the postlaunch environment through the careful use of observations by multiple sensor systems over common, well-characterized terrestrial targets (i.e., on or near the Earth’s surface). Through greater access to and understanding of these vital reference standard sites and their use, the validity and utility of information gained from Earth remote sensing will continue to improve. This paper provides a brief overview of the use of reference standard sites for postlaunch sensor radiometric calibration from historical, current, and future perspectives. Emphasis is placed on optical sensors operating in the visible, near-infrared, and shortwave infrared spectral regions. Résumé. À une époque où le nombre de satellites d’observation de la Terre augmente rapidement et les mesures des capteurs satellitaires sont utilisées pour répondre à des problématiques de plus en plus urgentes à l’échelle du globe, souvent au moyen de combinaisons synergétiques et opérationnelles de données de sources multiples, il est impératif que les scientifiques et les décideurs puissent pouvoir compter sur la précision des produits de données d’observation de la Terre. La caractérisation et l’étalonnage de ces capteurs, en particulier de leurs biais relatifs, sont vitaux pour assurer le succès du Système mondial des systèmes d’observation de la Terre (« Global Earth Observation System of Systems » (GEOSS)) présentement en développement pour des observations coordonnées et régulières de la Terre. Ceci ne peut se faire de façon fiable dans l’environnement post-lancement que par l’utilisation prudente des observations dérivées des systèmes de capteurs multiples au-dessus de cibles terrestres communes et bien caractérisées (c.-à-d. sur ou près de la surface de la Terre). Par l’intermédiaire d’un accès plus grand à ces sites standard de référence essentiels et d’une meilleure connaissance de ceux-ci et de leur utilisation, la validité et l’utilité de l’information acquise par télédétection ne cesseront de s’améliorer. Dans cet article, on présente un bref aperçu de l’utilisation des sites de référence standard pour l’étalonnage radiométrique post-lancement des capteurs à partir de perspectives historiques, actuelles et futures. L’emphase est mise sur les capteurs optiques opérant dans les régions spectrales du visible, du proche infrarouge et de l’infrarouge à ondes courtes. [Traduit par la Rédaction]
Coordinated trials on the protein requirements of sows 2. A comparison of two levels of dietary protein in gestation and four in lactation

1. Gestation diets formulated to contain A, 9 or B, 11 % protein, and lactation diets with C, 13; D, 15; E, 17 and F, 19 % protein provided eight treatment combinations. They were given at 2 kg/day in gestation and approximately 5·7 kg/day in lactation to sows at eight centres, which remained on experiment for 3 to 5 parities and produced in total 529 litters. Mean results for parities 1 to 3 are given in this summary. 2. Sows given more protein during gestation (i.e. diet A v. B) gained more weight in gestation (18·3 v. 22·5 kg net gain) but lost more in lactation (—1·7 v. —5·2 kg). Their offspring were significantly heavier at birth (1·31 v. 1·36 kg) and at 3 weeks old (5·28 v. 5·49 kg), but not at 6 weeks old (weaning). 3. Giving more protein in lactation caused linear increases in piglet weights at 3 and 6 weeks, and a linear reduction in creep feed consumption. From a sample of sows whose milk yields were recorded, extra protein appeared to increase milk yield and its protein content. Extra protein for lactating sows also reduced their live-weight loss in lactation, but this effect was partially counterbalanced by smaller gains in gestation. 4. No treatment had consistent significant effects on litter size or on the interval from weaning to conception. There were no significant interactions between gestation and lactation protein concentrations. 5. The generally large differences between centres were in a few cases associated with centre × treatment interactions, but these were not such as to cast doubt on the general applicability of the main findings of the experiment. 6. From this and an earlier experiment the minimum protein level for diets based on barley was concluded to be 11 % during gestation and 15% during lactation. For lactation diets, however, the economic optimum level may be > 15 %.
Morphological differences between ‘subrugosa’ and ‘gregaria’ morphs of adult Munida (Decapoda: Anomura: Galatheidae) from the Beagle Channel, southern South America

Munida subrugosa and M. gregaria are very abundant in the southern hemisphere, especially off New Zealand and South America. The specific identity of both species is still controversial and accurate identification is needed for conservation or ecological purposes. In this study we used univariate and multivariate methods to determine the morphological differences between both species/morphs. Analyses of covariance of ten morphological variables regressed individually on the carapace length demonstrated that the carapace (including rostrum) and eyestalks (EL) were longer, and the anterior carapace (ACW), the rostrum basis (RBW), and dactylus (DaW) and propodus (PW) of the third maxilliped were wider in M. gregaria than in M. subrugosa. In contrast, the carapace, mandible and eyestalk were wider and the rostrum was longer in M. subrugosa compared to M. gregaria. A stepwise discriminant analysis found that five body measurements namely DaW, EL, PW, RBW and ACW, were useful to discriminate between both species/morphs. The difference between the two discriminant functions provides an objective decision rule for the classification of both species/morphs. We also present the linear relationships of wet and dry masses on size, for use in biomass estimations of Munida spp. as prey.
Systems chemo-biology analysis of DNA damage response and cell cycle effects induced by coal exposure

Abstract Cell cycle alterations are among the principle hallmarks of cancer. Consequently, the study of cell cycle regulators has emerged as an important topic in cancer research, particularly in relation to environmental exposure. Particulate matter and coal dust around coal mines have the potential to induce cell cycle alterations. Therefore, in the present study, we performed chemical analyses to identify the main compounds present in two mineral coal samples from Colombian mines and performed systems chemo-biology analysis to elucidate the interactions between these chemical compounds and proteins associated with the cell cycle. Our results highlight the role of oxidative stress generated by the exposure to the residues of coal extraction, such as major inorganic oxides (MIOs), inorganic elements (IEs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) on DNA damage and alterations in the progression of the cell cycle (blockage and/or delay), as well as structural dysfunction in several proteins. In particular, IEs such as Cr, Ni, and S and PAHs such as benzo[a]pyrene may have influential roles in the regulation of the cell cycle through DNA damage and oxidative stress. In this process, cyclins, cyclin-dependent kinases, zinc finger proteins such as TP53, and protein kinases may play a central role.