Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Muscle Activity, Leg Stiffness, and Kinematics During Unresisted and Resisted Sprinting Conditions

Supplemental Digital Content is Available in the Text. Abstract Zabaloy, S, Carlos-Vivas, J, Freitas, TT, Pareja-Blanco, F, Loturco, I, Comyns, T, Gálvez-González, J, and Alcaraz, PE. Muscle activity, leg stiffness and kinematics during unresisted and resisted sprinting conditions. J Strength Cond Res 36(7): 1839–1846, 2022—This study aimed to compare muscle activity, leg stiffness, and kinematics (contact and flight time [FT], stride length and frequency, and trunk angle [TA]) of unloaded sprinting to resisted sprint (RST) using different loads. Twelve male rugby players (age: 23.5 ± 5.1 years; height: 1.79 ± 0.04 m; body mass 82.5 ± 13.1 kg) performed 30-m sprints using different loading conditions (0, 10, 30 and 50% of velocity loss—Vloss—from the maximum velocity reached under unloaded condition). Muscle activity from 4 muscles (biceps femoris long head, rectus femoris [RF], gluteus medius and gastrocnemius), leg stiffness (Kleg), and kinematics were measured during the acceleration and maximum velocity (Vmax) phases of each sprint. Heavier loads led to significantly lower biceps femoris long head activation and higher rectus femoris activity (p < 0.01–0.05). Significant reductions in Kleg were observed as loading increased (p < 0.001–0.05). Kinematic variables showed substantial changes with higher loads during the acceleration and Vmax phase. In conclusion, the heavier the sled load, the higher the disruptions in muscle activity, Kleg, and kinematics. When coaches and practitioners intend to conduct resisted sprint training sessions without provoking great disruptions in sprint technique, very-heavy sled loads (greater than 30% Vloss) should be avoided. However, heavy sled loads may allow athletes to keep specific positions of the early acceleration phase for longer time intervals (i.e., first 2–3 strides during unresisted sprints).
Inflammatory and Insulinemic Dietary Patterns: Influence on Circulating Biomarkers and Prostate Cancer Risk

Prostate cancer is common in countries with affluent dietary patterns and represents a heterogeneous collection of subtypes with varying behavior. Reductionist strategies focusing on individual nutrients or foods have not clearly defined risk factors. We have developed mechanisms-based dietary patterns focusing upon inflammation and chronic insulin hypersecretion, processes that are hypothesized to impact prostate carcinogenesis. In the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian cancer cohort, we calculated the empirical dietary index for hyperinsulinemia (EDIH) and empirical dietary inflammatory pattern (EDIP) scores from food frequency questionnaire data among 3,517 men and women who provided a blood sample at enrollment. We used these scores in multivariable-adjusted linear regression to validate EDIH and EDIP against relevant circulating biomarkers. In a separate sample of 49,317 men, we used multivariable-adjusted Cox regression to evaluate associations of EDIH and EDIP with prostate cancer (total and subtypes) risk. Participants consuming the most hyperinsulinemic diets (EDIH quintile 5) had significantly higher concentrations of C-peptide, insulin, c-reactive protein, TNFα-R2, and lower adiponectin, than those in quintile 1. Similarly, participants consuming the most proinflammatory diets had significantly higher concentrations of IL6, TNFα-R2, C-peptide, insulin, and lower adiponectin. Men consuming hyperinsulinemic diets were at higher total prostate cancer risk: HRquintile5vs1, 1.11; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.01–1.23; P trend = 0.03, especially high-grade cancer: HRquintile5vs1, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.02–1.37; P trend = 0.06. The EDIP was not associated with prostate cancer risk. In summary, EDIH and EDIP predicted concentrations of known insulinemic and inflammatory biomarkers, and EDIH further predicted risk of future prostate cancer. Interventions to reduce the adverse role of hyperinsulinemic diets may be a means of prostate cancer prevention.
Prevalence, characterization and antimicrobial resistance of Listeria monocytogenes isolated from beef meat in Meknes city, Morocco.

Introduction Listeria monocytogenes is one of the most pathogenic bacteria related to the consumption of contaminated food. This study aims to determine the prevalence of L. monocytogenes in raw beef meat in Meknes city of Morocco, to evaluate its pathogenicity and resistance to antimicrobials. Methods During four seasons, a total of 140 samples were collected from supermarkets, butcheries and Souk (weekly traditional market). The PCR method was used to examine the presence of specific and virulence genes in the isolated strains, and also to identify their serotypes. The antimicrobial resistance was determined. Results The results show a prevalence of 7.14% which depends on retail sites and also on the season's variation. The majority of the strains were detected in butcheries (6 strains), and supermarkets (4 strains). Moreover, the majority of strains were detected during summer (50%). Concerning virulence genes, the seven researched genes were detected in 100% of isolated strains. The majority of strains were of the (1/2a, 1/2c, 3a and 3c) serogroup (70%), while two of them were of the (1/2b, 3b, 4b and 4d) serogroup (20%). All isolates were resistant to at least one antimicrobial, while three strains were resistant to nine tested antimicrobials. However, they were highly susceptible to amikacin, imipenem, gentamicin, sulfamethoxazole and chloramphenicol. Conclusions According to results, isolated L. monocytogenes from analyzed beef meat shows a high level of pathogenicity and resistance to the most used antimicrobials in listeriosis therapy, which calls for the severe application of quality systems at the slaughterhouses and retail sites level.
IMPACT OF CO2 ENHANCEMENT ON PHOTOSYNTHESIS AND PROTEIN PROFILE - RESPONSE STUDIES WITH A CO2 RESPONSIVE BLACK GRAM GENOTYPE

Black gram (Vigna mungo (L.) Hepper) var. IC-282009 - a highly CO2 responsive genotype for biomass and seed yield was grown in Open top chambers (OTCs) under three levels of CO2 i.e. ambient (390 ppm) and two elevated levels 550ppm and 700ppm to assess photosynthetic acclimation to elevated CO2. Net photosynthetic rate (PN), change in leaf soluble protein profile and leaf carbohydrate constituents such as total soluble sugars, reducing sugars and starch content in leaves was quantified at all three CO2 concentrations. Photosynthetic rate was enhanced by 78% and 30% at flowering stage with 550ppm and 700ppm CO2 as compared with ambient control. It was also observed a higher accumulation of starch, total soluble sugars and reducing sugars in leaves at elevated CO2 levels. However, the leaf protein content recorded a decrease and altered the profile of ploy peptides with enhanced CO2 levels. At elevated CO2 concentrations significant differences were observed in ploy peptide profile at vegetative and flowering stages, the intensity of 260 kDa poly peptide increased at vegetative stage, whereas 72 kDa polypeptide increased at flowering stage, while 52 kDa poly peptide decreased at both stages. Enhanced CO2 concentrations improved the PN though certain polypeptides of leaf protein are down regulated and necessitate further experimentation to confirm their involvement in responsiveness of the selected black gram genotype.
Enhanced silk yield in transgenic silkworm (Bombyx mori) via ectopic expression of BmGT1‐L in the posterior silk gland

The silkworm is an economically important insect producing plentiful silk fibre in the silk gland. In this study, we reported a cross‐talk between the fat body, silk gland and midgut through a glycine‐serine biosynthetic pathway in the silkworm. Amino acid sequence and functional domains of glycine transporter gene BmGT1‐L were mapped. Our results indicated that BmGT1‐L was specifically expressed in the midgut microvilli and persistently expressed during the feeding stages. RNA interference of BmGT1‐L activated glycine biosynthesis, and BmGT1‐L overexpression facilitated serine biosynthesis in the BmN4‐SID1 cell. In addition, silkworms after FibH gene knock‐out or silk gland extirpation showed markedly decreased BmGT1‐L transcripts in the midgut and disturbed glycine‐serine biosynthesis as silk yield decreased. Finally, BmGT1‐L ectopic expression in the posterior silk gland promoted glycine biosynthesis, and enhanced silk yield via increasing fibroin synthesis. These results suggested that cross‐talk between tissues can be used for enhancing silk yield in the silkworm.
Epimeria schiaparelli sp. nov., an amphipod crustacean (family Epimeriidae) from the Ross Sea, Antarctica, with molecular characterisation of the species complex

Epimeria schiaparelli sp. nov. from the Ross Sea, Antarctica, is described in detail. The new species occurs on the shelf in 130–350 m depth. Epimeria schiaparelli can be distinguished from the most similar species, E. similis Chevreux, 1912 and E. macrodonta Walker, 1906 by a relatively short rostrum and a short second pereonite amongst other characters. Two distinct colour patterns are reported. Partial gene sequences of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase subunit I (COI) from 11 specimens of E. schiaparelli confirm that this species is new to science and closely related to E. similis , E. macrodonta and E. reoproi. The recent and historical separation of this Antarctic species is discussed. The syntypes of E. macrodonta consist of two species, so a lectotype is here designated.
Prediction of cancer driver genes through network-based moment propagation of mutation scores

Abstract Motivation Gaining a comprehensive understanding of the genetics underlying cancer development and progression is a central goal of biomedical research. Its accomplishment promises key mechanistic, diagnostic and therapeutic insights. One major step in this direction is the identification of genes that drive the emergence of tumors upon mutation. Recent advances in the field of computational biology have shown the potential of combining genetic summary statistics that represent the mutational burden in genes with biological networks, such as protein–protein interaction networks, to identify cancer driver genes. Those approaches superimpose the summary statistics on the nodes in the network, followed by an unsupervised propagation of the node scores through the network. However, this unsupervised setting does not leverage any knowledge on well-established cancer genes, a potentially valuable resource to improve the identification of novel cancer drivers. Results We develop a novel node embedding that enables classification of cancer driver genes in a supervised setting. The embedding combines a representation of the mutation score distribution in a node’s local neighborhood with network propagation. We leverage the knowledge of well-established cancer driver genes to define a positive class, resulting in a partially labeled dataset, and develop a cross-validation scheme to enable supervised prediction. The proposed node embedding followed by a supervised classification improves the predictive performance compared with baseline methods and yields a set of promising genes that constitute candidates for further biological validation. Availability and implementation Code available at https://github.com/BorgwardtLab/MoProEmbeddings. Supplementary information Supplementary data are available at Bioinformatics online.
Paternal origin of Tungusic‐speaking populations: Insights from the updated phylogenetic tree of Y‐chromosome haplogroup C2a‐M86

Haplogroup C2a‐M48 is the predominant paternal lineage of Tungusic‐speaking populations, one of the largest population groups in Siberia. Up until now, the origins and dispersal of Tungusic‐speaking populations have remained unclear. In this study, the demographic history of Tungusic‐speaking populations was explored using the phylogenetic analysis of haplogroup C2a‐M86, the major subbranch of C2a‐M48.
The Impact of Environmental Factors on the Efficacy of Chemical Communication in the Burying Beetle (Coleoptera: Silphidae)

Abstract There is growing evidence that a wide range of insect sex pheromones are condition dependent and play a fundamental role in mate choice. However, the effectiveness of pheromonal communication might not only depend on internal factors of the sender, but also on attributes of the microhabitat, in which the signaler chooses to emit its chemical signal. For example, the degree of anthropogenic land use might affect how successful the signal is transmitted, as land use has been shown to affect animal communities and the complexity of biotic interactions. To test the hypothesis that parameters of the microenvironment determine males’ ability to attract females via their sex pheromone, we used the burying beetle Nicrophorus vespilloides Herbst (Coleoptera: Silphidae) as our model system. We exposed 144 males across differently managed forest stands and analyzed the impact of 29 environmental parameters. Our data revealed that human land use intensity had no effect on a male’s attractiveness. However, the harvested tree biomass positively affected the proportion of competitors attracted. Furthermore, we found that soil characteristics were important factors determining the amount and body size of females a male was able to attract. Consequently, we present evidence that the environmental context of a signaling male influences the effectiveness of chemical signaling either because it affects the transmission process or the prevailing abundance of potential signal receivers. Thus, our results demonstrate that males need to make careful decisions about the location where they emit their pheromone, as this choice of microhabitat has an impact on their fitness.
A MANOVA STATISTIC IS JUST AS POWERFUL AS DISTANCE-BASED STATISTICS, FOR MULTIVARIATE ABUNDANCES

There is now quite an extensive literature based on analysis of multivariate abundances, which have often been collected according to a MANOVA design. Many test statistics have been proposed specifically for this case, yet remarkably the power of these methods has not previously been compared. In this paper, the power of distance-based statistics (e.g., Mantel, analysis of similarities) is compared to variable-based statistics (e.g., redundancy analysis, the sum of ANOVA F statistics), when using permutation tests to assess significance of all statistics. Different choice of transformation, standardization, and distance measure were considered. For 19 data sets taken from the literature, P values for the different statistics were compared. Power simulations were then conducted, where data were generated to mimic the properties of each of the 19 data sets. For transformed data, using different distance measures (Euclidean, Manhattan, Bray-Curtis) and different distance-based statistics had little effect on power. Overall, statistics based on multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) were at least as powerful as others, although particular data sets gave different results. The distance-based statistics most commonly used in the literature do not standardize abundances, so these were more powerful when effects are present in taxa that are more variable (on the transformed scale), and less powerful otherwise. There are several reasons to prefer a statistic based on MANOVA to others (e.g., interpretability, generalization to more complex designs), and so we generally recommend that the MANOVA-based statistics used here be preferred to distance-based statistics.
The effect of cytokinins on in vitro shoot length and multiplication of Hymenocallis littoralis

This study was performed to determine the effects of different cytokinins at various concentrations on the in vitro shoot formation of Hymenocallis littoralis. The bulb scales of H. littoralis were used as explants to establish the cultures. The explants were grown on semi-solid Murashige and Skoog (MS) medium supplemented with 2iP (2-isopentenyladenine), TDZ (thidiazuron) and Zeatin respectively at six different concentrations (2.25, 4.50, 9.00, 13.50, 18.00, and 22.50 μM). Two subcultures were performed at 30 days interval after the initial in vitro culture establishments. It was found that 2iP and concentration 13.50 μM respectively was the best for shoot elongation which was measured in length (cm). However, the three cytokinins and the six tested concentrations were recorded to have no significant difference in terms of shoot multiplication. Highest total chlorophyll content was observed in shoots grown on semi-solid MS medium supplemented with 2.25 μM of Zeatin.
Pathogenic or protective? Neuropeptide Y in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis

Neuropeptide Y (NPY) is an endogenous peptide of the central and enteric nervous systems which has gained significant interest as a potential neuroprotective agent for treatment of neurodegenerative disease. Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an aggressive and fatal neurodegenerative disease characterized by motor deficits and motor neuron loss. In ALS, recent evidence from ALS patients and animal models has indicated that NPY may have a role in the disease pathogenesis. Increased NPY levels were found to correlate with disease progression in ALS patients. Similarly, NPY expression is increased in the motor cortex of ALS mice by end stages of the disease. Although the functional consequence of increased NPY levels in ALS is currently unknown, NPY has been shown to exert a diverse range of neuroprotective roles in other neurodegenerative diseases; through modulation of potassium channel activity, increased production of neurotrophins, inhibition of endoplasmic reticulum stress and autophagy, reduction of excitotoxicity, oxidative stress, neuroinflammation and hyperexcitability. Several of these mechanisms and signalling pathways are heavily implicated in the pathogenesis of ALS. Therefore, in this review, we discuss possible effects of NPY and NPY‐receptor signalling in the ALS disease context, as determining NPY’s contribution to, or impact on, ALS disease mechanisms will be essential for future studies investigating the NPY system as a therapeutic strategy in this devastating disease.
Phytate-degrading activity in lactic acid bacteria.

The phytate-degrading and phosphatase activities of several Lactobacillus strains belonging to different species and isolated from different ecosystems were tested. The specific activities against phytate (InsP6) varied from 0.024 to 0.531 U/mg protein, being the highest for L. casei DSM 20011. The studied strains hydrolysed p-nitrophenylphosphate at higher rates than phytate, except for L. casei DSM 20011 and L. plantarum W42. The ability of the different strains to hydrolyse InsP6 and generate lower myo-inositol phosphates during growth was tested by HPLC. The InsP6 hydrolysis was in the range from 0.0 to 8.83%, being the highest for L. plantarum W42 and L. plantarum 110, followed by L. casei 40W. The optimal pH and temperatures of phytate-degrading activity varied in the range from 5.0 to 7.5 and from 50 to 60°C, respectively. The incorporation of different types of carbon sources or inorganic phosphate to the growth medium modulated the synthesis of phytate-degrading enzymes in the studied strains. Further studies should be carried out to provide progress in the understanding of the potential nutritional and technological roles of the most active strains in the elaboration of whole sour breads.
Transformation génétique efficace de la chicorée sans pression de sélection

Description of the subject. The present study explains an Agrobacterium-mediated transformation method for chicory based on shoot regeneration medium containing no selective compounds (a non selection approach). Objectives. The aim of this experiment was to generate transgenic chicory plants on a shoot induction medium without selective compounds and study the inheritance of the integrated transgene. Method. Leaf explants were collected from in vitro grown seedlings of cultivar 'Melci'. Explants were inoculated with Agrobacterium harboring the pTJK136 plasmid. Callus induction and shoot regeneration were performed on the medium containing no antibiotics. Three separate transformation experiments were carried out. The presence of the transgene in regenerated plants (T0 and T1) was examined by PCR and RT-PCR. Furthermore, the regeneration frequency and transformation efficiency were separately calculated for each experiment. Results. Analytical results indicate that significant numbers of regenerated shoots recovered on a medium containing no selection agent are putative transformants. Screening of the regenerated plants from triplicate experiments revealed a remarkable transformation efficiency (up to 9%). Reverse transcription PCR (RT-PCR) analysis confirmed the correct expression of the transgene in the transformed plants and thus a stable integration in the genome. Additionally, to corroborate this last point, the transgene is successfully transmitted to the next generation (T1). Conclusions. Results confirmed the possibility of generating marker-free genetically modified plants in the form of a non-selection transformation system.
Evaluation of Confounding and Selection Bias in Epidemiological Studies of Populations Exposed to Low-Dose, High-Energy Photon Radiation.

BACKGROUND Low-dose, penetrating photon radiation exposure is ubiquitous, yet our understanding of cancer risk at low doses and dose rates derives mainly from high-dose studies. Although a large number of low-dose cancer studies have been recently published, concern exists about the potential for confounding to distort findings. The aim of this study was to describe and assess the likely impact of confounding and selection bias within the context of a systematic review. METHODS We summarized confounding control methods for 26 studies published from 2006 to 2017 by exposure setting (environmental, medical, or occupational) and identified confounders of potential concern. We used information from these and related studies to assess evidence for confounding and selection bias. For factors in which direct or indirect evidence of confounding was lacking for certain studies, we used a theoretical adjustment to determine whether uncontrolled confounding was likely to have affected the results. RESULTS For medical studies of childhood cancers, confounding by indication (CBI) was the main concern. Lifestyle-related factors were of primary concern for environmental and medical studies of adult cancers and for occupational studies. For occupational studies, other workplace exposures and healthy worker survivor bias were additionally of interest. For most of these factors, however, review of the direct and indirect evidence suggested that confounding was minimal. One study showed evidence of selection bias, and three occupational studies did not adjust for lifestyle or healthy worker survivor bias correlates. Theoretical adjustment for three factors (smoking and asbestos in occupational studies and CBI in childhood cancer studies) demonstrated that these were unlikely to explain positive study findings due to the rarity of exposure (eg, CBI) or the relatively weak association with the outcome (eg, smoking or asbestos and all cancers). CONCLUSION Confounding and selection bias are unlikely to explain the findings from most low-dose radiation epidemiology studies.