Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
A New Phenolic Acid Decarboxylase from the Brown-Rot Fungus Neolentinus lepideus Natively Decarboxylates Biosourced Sinapic Acid into Canolol, a Bioactive Phenolic Compound

Rapeseed meal (RSM) is a cheap, abundant and renewable feedstock, whose biorefinery is a current challenge for the sustainability of the oilseed sector. RSM is rich in sinapic acid (SA), a p-hydroxycinnamic acid that can be decarboxylated into canolol (2,6-dimethoxy-4-vinylphenol), a valuable bioactive compound. Microbial phenolic acid decarboxylases (PADs), mainly described for the non-oxidative decarboxylation of ferulic and p-coumaric acids, remain very poorly documented to date, for SA decarboxylation. The species Neolentinus lepideus has previously been shown to biotransform SA into canolol in vivo, but the enzyme responsible for bioconversion of the acid has never been characterized. In this study, we purified and characterized a new PAD from the canolol-overproducing strain N. lepideus BRFM15. Proteomic analysis highlighted a sole PAD-type protein sequence in the intracellular proteome of the strain. The native enzyme (NlePAD) displayed an unusual outstanding activity for decarboxylating SA (Vmax of 600 U.mg−1, kcat of 6.3 s−1 and kcat/KM of 1.6 s−1.mM−1). We showed that NlePAD (a homodimer of 2 × 22 kDa) is fully active in a pH range of 5.5–7.5 and a temperature range of 30–55 °C, with optima of pH 6–6.5 and 37–45 °C, and is highly stable at 4 °C and pH 6–8. Relative ratios of specific activities on ferulic, sinapic, p-coumaric and caffeic acids, respectively, were 100:24.9:13.4:3.9. The enzyme demonstrated in vitro effectiveness as a biocatalyst for the synthesis of canolol in aqueous medium from commercial SA, with a molar yield of 92%. Then, we developed processes to biotransform naturally-occurring SA from RSM into canolol by combining the complementary potentialities of an Aspergillus niger feruloyl esterase type-A, which is able to release free SA from the raw meal by hydrolyzing its conjugated forms, and NlePAD, in aqueous medium and mild conditions. NlePAD decarboxylation of biobased SA led to an overall yield of 1.6–3.8 mg canolol per gram of initial meal. Besides being the first characterization of a fungal PAD able to decarboxylate SA, this report shows that NlePAD is very promising as new biotechnological tool to generate biobased vinylphenols of industrial interest (especially canolol) as valuable platform chemicals for health, nutrition, cosmetics and green chemistry.
THE WORKING LIVES AND SPATIAL PRACTICE OF DIGITAL MEDIA DEVELOPERS IN SAN FRANCISCO

OF DISSERTATION THE WORKING LIVES AND SPATIAL PRACTICE OF DIGITAL MEDIA DEVELOPERS IN SAN FRANCISCO In this dissertation I examine work practices in the 21st Century, looking in particular at how categories such as labor and value are changing in the context of technological shifts and the valorization of entrepreneurial work. I take the example of digital media workers in San Francisco to show how work is changing in relation to correlative changes in the capitalist mode of production and the devaluation of labor under neoliberal models of reason. This approach interrogates how attachments toward work are produced and reproduced to ask why work has become such a naturalized and unquestionable category in everyday life. Rather than demanding less or better work, entrepreneurs in San Francisco work more and harder, while providing a romanticized ideal of work for others. I ask if standards of precarious, insecure, flexible, and discriminatory work practices are transmitted beyond the confines of digital media work, and become a normative and hegemonic standard for workers in general. By examining these working practices and ethics of software developers in San Francisco’s digital media sector, I address recent calls in cultural economic and critical human geography to pay closer attention to the micro-spatiality of the workplace (rather than the more typical industryor market-scale focus) and to consider issues of embodiment, emotions, affect, gendered performativity, and the production of sexuality at work. This dissertation attends to topics of inter-disciplinary appeal, including the production of software, precarious labor in a cultural industry, and the role of culture and emotions in the workplace. I view the workplace as a site not just for the production of economic forms of value, but also behaviors and attitudes toward work, working subjectivities, and structures of affect and desire. I take up three main topics: (1) entrepreneurs’ and other workers’ personal attachment to their work, (2) users of social media platforms as unremunerated producers (or ‘prosumers’) of value, and (3) the use of the sharing trope to form a justification for flexible and contract work in the on-demand economy. I draw on eighteen months of fieldwork in San Francisco with workers for digital media firms, presenting data collected through interviews, participant observation, and discourse analysis.
Research progress on the mechanism of probiotics regulating cow milk allergy in early childhood and its application in hypoallergenic infant formula

Some infants and young children suffer from cow's milk allergy (CMA), and have always mainly used hypoallergenic infant formula as a substitute for breast milk, but some of these formulas can still cause allergic reactions. In recent years, it has been found that probiotic nutritional interventions can regulate CMA in children. Scientific and reasonable application of probiotics to hypoallergenic infant formula is the key research direction in the future. This paper discusses the mechanism and clinical symptoms of CMA in children. This review critically ex- amines the issue of how probiotics use intestinal flora as the main vector to combine with the immune system to exert physiological functions to intervene CMA in children, with a particular focus on four mechanisms: promoting the early establishment of intestinal microecological balance, regulating the body's immunity and alleviating allergic response, enhancing the intestinal mucosal barrier function, and destroying allergen epitopes. Additionally, it overviews the development process of hypoallergenic infant formula and the research progress of probiotics in hypoallergenic infant formula. The article also offers suggestions and outlines potential future research directions and ideas in this field.
Research into the Personalized Digital Signage Display Contents Information through a Short Distance Indoor Positioning

Digital signage has seen its demand increasing with a mergence between ubiquitous computing technologies getting vigorous, in addition to the distribution of mobile devices and the provision of convenience through various application for their users. Furthermore, it has contributed to the expansion of a cultural event area and the raised attention of people. This study researched into the position determination methods which enable a motion scheduling based on the location of people using position determination technology and provide individualized display contents according to the demands for an 'interaction' through bilateral communication, control, responsiveness, personalization and participation. This research outcome is not only expected to enable the utilization and effective delivery of cultural contents beyond the time and space but to elevate a usefulness value of an individual tourism content.
Joint Principal Component Analysis and Supervised k Means Algorithm via Non-Iterative Analytic Optimization Approach

It is worth noting that the traditional methods for performing both the dimensional reduction and the classification are via the two steps iterative approaches. In this case, performing the dimensional reduction does not consider the classification. On the other hand, the classification is performed in the original feature domain and it does not consider the dimensional reduction. Here, the transform matrix only takes an effect on the dimensional reduction, but not on the classification. The synergy between the dimensional reduction and the classification has been ignored. As a result, the overall performance is not optimal. To address this issue, this paper proposes a joint principal component analysis (PCA) and supervised k means approach for performing the dimensional reduction and the classification simultaneously. In particular, both the reconstruction error due to the dimensional reduction as well as the total distance between the cluster centers and the feature vectors in the transformed domain are minimized subject to the unitary condition of the transform matrix. Here, we have two decision variables. They are the transform matrix and the cluster centers, instead of a single decision variable in each iteration in the traditional iterative method. To find the analytical solution of the optimization problem, the first order derivative condition of the optimization problem is first expressed as the matrix equations. However, there is a structure deficiency on the matrix equation. To address this issue, this paper employs the property of the singular matrices of the symmetric matrix for solving these matrix equations with the guarantee of the satisfaction of the structural deficiency. As a result, the analytical form of the solutions is derived. The proposed method is evaluated via performing the mental arithmetic classification based on the electroencephalograms (EEGs) downloaded from the PhysioNet database. The comparisons to the state of the art algorithms for performing the mental arithmetic classification and the conventional methods for finding the solutions of the constrained optimization problems are conducted. The results demonstrate that our proposed method achieves the higher accuracy and requires the lower execution time. This validates the effectiveness and the efficiency of our proposed method.
Seizing Center Stage: Ecosystem Services, Live, at the Convention on Biological Diversity!

Over the past decade, the concept of ecosystem services has become a central guiding framework for environmental conservation. Techniques of valuation, payments to protect ecosystem services, and efforts to put a price on nature increasingly characterize environmental policy. We analyze the 10th Conference of the Parties (COP-10) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) as a critical moment in the production of ecosystem services as a discourse. Through analysis of specific examples of the rollout, performance, and strategic deployment of ecosystem services, particularly as embodied in The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity project (TEEB) at CBD/COP-10, we illustrate how arguments justifying ecosystem services became persuasive and compelling in the social space of the meeting. We examine the prevalence of a narrative that relies on three successive claims: (1) conservation has failed to conserve biodiversity, which has catalyzed a pending ecological crisis; (2) this crisis is caused by incorrectly priced nature and insufficient financing for conservation; and (3) the economics of ecosystem services provides the means to attract new financial flows, to neutralize political opposition, and to save biodiversity. The CBD/COP-10, we argue, provided a stage for the performance of this narrative, the alignment of actors from the private, public and non-profit sectors around ecosystem services, and the institutionalization of its tenets in policy documents and project financing— all of which worked to constitute the hegemony of ecosystem services. We conclude by asserting that, as conservationists embrace ecosystem services, at the expense of alternative models, they reproduce it as a discourse, thus constituting and reinforcing its hegemony, and the conditions that originally limited their choices.
Involvement of Mitochondria in the Selective Response to Microsecond Pulsed Electric Fields on Healthy and Cancer Stem Cells in the Brain

In the last few years, pulsed electric fields have emerged as promising clinical tools for tumor treatments. This study highlights the distinct impact of a specific pulsed electric field protocol, PEF-5 (0.3 MV/m, 40 μs, 5 pulses), on astrocytes (NHA) and medulloblastoma (D283) and glioblastoma (U87 NS) cancer stem-like cells (CSCs). We pursued this goal by performing ultrastructural analyses corroborated by molecular/omics approaches to understand the vulnerability or resistance mechanisms triggered by PEF-5 exposure in the different cell types. Electron microscopic analyses showed that, independently of exposed cells, the main targets of PEF-5 were the cell membrane and the cytoskeleton, causing membrane filopodium-like protrusion disappearance on the cell surface, here observed for the first time, accompanied by rapid cell swelling. PEF-5 induced different modifications in cell mitochondria. A complete mitochondrial dysfunction was demonstrated in D283, while a mild or negligible perturbation was observed in mitochondria of U87 NS cells and NHAs, respectively, not sufficient to impair their cell functions. Altogether, these results suggest the possibility of using PEF-based technology as a novel strategy to target selectively mitochondria of brain CSCs, preserving healthy cells.
Telemedicine in patients with obsessive–compulsive disorder after deep brain stimulation: a case series

Background Patients suffering from refractory obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) who have undergone deep brain stimulation (DBS) surgery require repeated in-person programming visits. These sessions could be labor-intensive and may not always be feasible, particularly when in-person hospital visits are restricted. Telemedicine is emerging as a potential supplementary tool for post-operative care. However, its reliability and feasibility still require further validation due to the unconventional methods of interaction. Methods A study was conducted on three patients with refractory OCD who had undergone DBS. Most of their programming sessions were completed via a remote programming system. These patients were recruited and monitored for a year. Changes in their clinical symptoms were assessed using the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale–Second Edition (Y-BOCS-II), the Hamilton Anxiety Scale-14 (HAMA), the Hamilton Depression Scale-17 (HAMD), and the Short Form 36 Health Survey Questionnaire (SF-36). The scores from these assessments were reported. Results At the last follow-up, two out of three patients were identified as responders, with their Y-BOCS-II scores improving by more than 35% (P1: 51%, P3: 42%). These patients also experienced some mood benefits. All patients observed a decrease in travel expenses during the study period. No severe adverse events were reported throughout the study. Conclusion The group of patients showed improvement in their OCD symptoms within a 1-year follow-up period after DBS surgery, without compromising safety or benefits. This suggests that telemedicine could be a valuable supplementary tool when in-person visits are limited.
Flow reconstructions in the Upper Missouri River Basin using riparian tree rings

River flow reconstructions are typically developed using tree rings from montane conifers that cannot reflect flow regulation or hydrologic inputs from the lower portions of a watershed. Incorporating lowland riparian trees may improve the accuracy of flow reconstructions when these trees are physically linked to the alluvial water table. We used riparian plains cottonwoods (Populus deltoides ssp. monilifera) to reconstruct discharge for three neighboring rivers in the Upper Missouri River Basin: the Yellowstone (n = 389 tree cores), Powder (n = 408), and Little Missouri Rivers (n = 643). We used the Regional Curve Standardization approach to reconstruct log‐transformed discharge over the 4 months in early summer that most highly correlated to tree ring growth. The reconstructions explained at least 57% of the variance in historical discharge and extended back to 1742, 1729, and 1643. These are the first flow reconstructions for the Lower Yellowstone and Powder Rivers, and they are the furthest downstream among Rocky Mountain rivers in the Missouri River Basin. Although mostly free‐flowing, the Yellowstone and Powder Rivers experienced a shift from early‐summer to late‐summer flows within the last century. This shift is concurrent with increasing irrigation and reservoir storage, and it corresponds to decreased cottonwood growth. Low‐frequency flow patterns revealed wet conditions from 1870 to 1980, a period that includes the majority of the historical record. The 1816–1823 and 1861–1865 droughts were more severe than any recorded, revealing that drought risks are underestimated when using the instrumental record alone.
Cuproptosis-related genes are involved in immunodeficiency following ischemic stroke

Introduction Accumulating studies have shown that copper has a detrimental effect in cells, and the cuproptosis-related gene signatures have been constructed as clinical tools to predict prognosis in tumors. However, the heterogeneity of cuproptosis has not been fully investigated in ischemic stroke. Methods: Here, we combined the bulk RNA-seq and single cell-RNA-seq data for stroke to investigate the role of cuproptosis in stroke. Results We identified the cuproptosis-related differentially expressed genes (CuDEGs) in ischemic stroke. Then, we tried to find the hub genes with the machine learning method and WGCNA. We highlighted four genes identified by these methods and proposed a potential diagnostic model in ischemic stroke. Conclusions Our findings revealed cuproptosis-related hub genes, which could provide useful biomarkers in ischemic stroke.
Chemical Characterization of Wild Growing Origanum vulgare Populations in Montenegro

In order to make chemical characterization of two Origanum vulgare L. subspecies in Montenegro, the essential oils of five wild growing populations were analyzed. Among 67 oil constituents, in O. vulgare subsp. hirtum dominant one was oxygenated monoterpene carvacrol (74.3%), while in O. vulgare subsp. vulgare prevailed sesquiterpene hydrocarbons: germacrene D (15.4–27.9%) and β-caryophyllene (7.7–14.6%), and among oxygenated monoterpenes: α- terpineol (4.8–17.8%), linalyl acetate (0.5–9.6%), linalool (3.0–8.8%), thymol (0.2–8.3), terpinene 4-ol (1.5–8.3%). Several of the main essential oil constituents appeared to be highly intercorrelated. Strong positive correlations (r > 0.70; P < 0.01) were observed between α-terpineol and linalyl acetate, α-terpineol and thymol, linalyl acetate and thymol, γ-terpenene and carvacrol, (E)-β-ocimene and β-bisabolene, while strong negative correlations (r < −0.70; P < 0.01) were evidenced between γ-terpenene and β-caryophyllene, γ-terpenene and germacrene D, p-cymene and germacrene D. Multivariate analyses allowed the grouping of the populations into three distinct chemotypes. Population P5 (Origanum vulgare subsp. hirtum) was distinguished from O. vulgare subsp. vulgare populations by predominance of carvacrol, while within the typical subspecies the population P1 (Boljevići) separated from P2 (Radovče), P3 (Lipovo) and P4 (Grahovo) by high oil levels of α-terpineol, linalyl-acetate and thymol.
Determination of rare earth elements in Indian coastal monazite by ICP-AES and ICP-MS analysis and their geochemical significance

The performance of inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (ICP-AES) for the determination of fourteen lanthanides and yttrium in monazite was evaluated in comparison with inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) analysis. Geochemical reference samples were analysed for checking the precision and reproducibility of the methods. Monazite was separated by gravity and magnetic separations from the mineral black sands that were collected from Manavalakurichi (MK) and Chavara (CH) deposits along the southwest coast of India. Effective dissolution was carried out. The rare earth elements were collectively separated from concomitant matrix elements by ion-exchange chromatographic separation using the resin Dowex 50 X-8. Monazite mineral of the SW coast of India, is a light lanthanide-enriched mineral with negative Europium anomaly. The average value of the ratio (ICP-AES)result/(ICP-MS) result , was 0.933 and 0.897 for MK and CH samples respectively, demonstrating that ICP methods applied under proper working conditions give satisfactory results.
Predictive value of individual serum neurofilament light chain levels in short-term disease activity in relapsing multiple sclerosis

Background The assessment of serum neurofilament light chain (sNFL) has emerged as a diagnostic and prognostic tool in monitoring multiple sclerosis (MS). However, the application of periodic measurement in daily practice remains unclear. Objective To evaluate the predictive value of individual sNFL levels in determining disease activity in patients with relapsing MS (RMS). Methods In this two-year prospective study, 129 RMS patients underwent quarterly sNFL assessments and annual MRI scans. The study analyzed the correlation between individual NFL levels and past, current, and future disease activity. Group-level Z-scores were employed as a comparative measure. Results Among the 37 participants, a total of 61 episodes of disease activity were observed. sNFL levels proved valuable in distinct ways; they were confirmatory of previous and current clinical and/or radiological activity and demonstrated a high negative predictive value for future 90 days activity. Interestingly, Z-scores marginally outperformed sNFL levels in terms of predictive accuracy, indicating the potential for alternative approaches in disease activity assessment. In our cohort, sNFL cut-offs of 10.8 pg. /mL (sensitivity 27%, specificity 90%) and 14.3 pg. /mL (sensitivity 15%, specificity 95%) correctly identified 7 and 4 out of 26 cases of radiological activity within 90 days, respectively, with 14 and 15% false negatives. When using lower cut-off values, individuals with sNFL levels below 5 pg/mL (with a sensitivity of 92%, specificity of 25%, and negative predictive value of 94%) were less likely to experience radiological activity within the next 3 months. Conclusion Individual sNFL levels may potentially confirm prior or current disease activity and predict short-term future radiological activity in RMS. These findings underscore its periodic measurement as a valuable tool in RMS management and decision-making, enhancing the precision of clinical evaluation in routine practice.
Cross-Domain Aspect-Based Sentiment Classification With Tripartite Graph Modeling

Previous studies on cross-domain aspect-based sentiment classification depend on the pivot features or utilize the target data for representation learning, which ignores the correlations between instances and words. In this study, we employ two strategies to connect different domains through tripartite graphs. Firstly, we employ a word-topic-instance tripartite graph to bridge the gap between different domains with the cross-domain topic distribution. The cross-domain topic distribution is learned by a neural topic model on different domains. Secondly, we use a word-pivot-instance tripartite graph to connect instances and words in different domains. The pivot clauses are generated from the instances, and are domain-independent and sentimentally aligned with the original text. Afterward, we employ graph convolutional networks to model over these tripartite graphs for cross-domain sentiment classification respectively. The experimental result shows that our model with tripartite graphs outperforms several competitive models. The result also indicates the effectiveness of the proposed tripartite graphs for cross-domain aspect-based sentiment classification.