Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Origin of Green Turtles, Chelonia mydas, at "Sleeping Rocks" off the Northeast Coast of Nicaragua

The largest foraging population of the Atlantic green turtle, Chelonia mydas, occurs in offshore waters of Caribbean Nicaragua (Carr et al., 1978). Green turtles are primarily herbivorous, and the extensive sea grass beds in Nicaraguan waters are utilized both by adults and juveniles (Nietschmann, 1972; Mortimer, 1981; C. Campbell, unpubl. data). Based on tags recovered from adult females, at least two nesting populations contribute individuals to this feeding aggregate: Tortuguero, Costa Rica; and Aves Island, Venezuela (Carr et al., 1978; Sole, 1994). The largest nesting population of Atlantic green turtles is at Tortuguero, which supports an estimated annual nesting of approximately 14,000 females. The second largest nesting colonies in the Caribbean are the Surinam and
Trimetallic Nanoparticles: Greener Synthesis and Their Applications

Nanoparticles (NPs) and multifunctional nano-sized materials have significant applications in diverse fields, namely catalysis, sensors, optics, solar energy conversion, cancer therapy/diagnosis, and bioimaging. Trimetallic NPs have found unique catalytic, active food packaging, biomedical, antimicrobial, and sensing applications; they preserve an ever-superior level of catalytic activities and selectivity compared to monometallic and bimetallic nanomaterials. Due to these important applications, a variety of preparation routes, including hydrothermal, microemulsion, selective catalytic reduction, co-precipitation, and microwave-assisted methodologies have been reported for the syntheses of these nanomaterials. As the fabrication of nanomaterials using physicochemical methods often have hazardous and toxic impacts on the environment, there is a vital need to design innovative and well-organized eco-friendly, sustainable, and greener synthetic protocols for their assembly, by applying safer, renewable, and inexpensive materials. In this review, noteworthy recent advancements relating to the applications of trimetallic NPs and nanocomposites comprising these NPs are underscored as well as their eco-friendly and sustainable synthetic preparative options.
The Arabidopsis R-SNARE protein YKT61 is essential for gametophyte development.

Gametophyte development is a pre-requisite for plant reproduction and seed yield; therefore, studies of gametophyte development help us understand fundamental biological questions and have potential applications in agriculture. The biogenesis and dynamics of endomembrane compartments are critical for cell survival, and their regulatory mechanisms are just beginning to be revealed. Here, we report that the Arabidopsis thaliana SNARE protein YKT61 is essential for both male and female gametogenesis. By using clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)/CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9)-based genome editing, we demonstrated that male and female gametophytes carrying YKT61 loss-of-function alleles do not survive. Specifically, loss of YKT61 function resulted in the arrest of male gametophytic development at pollen mitosis I and the degeneration of female gametophytes. A three-base-pair deletion in YKT61 in the ykt61-3 mutant resulted in a single-amino acid deletion in the longin domain of YKT61; the resulting mutant protein does not interact with multiple SNAREs and showed substantially reduced membrane association, suggesting that the N-terminal longin domain of YKT61 plays multiple roles in its function. This study demonstrates that Arabidopsis YKT61 is essential for male and female gametogenesis and sets an example for functional characterization of essential genes with the combination of Cas9-mediated editing and expression from a Cas9-resistant transgene. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
A sting affair: A global quantitative exploration of bee, wasp and ant hosts of velvet ants

The vast majority of species of velvet ants (Hymenoptera: Aculeata: Mutillidae) are ectoparasitoids of immature stages of other aculeate Hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants). Due to their cryptic, furtive behaviour at the host nesting sites, however, even basic information on their biology, like host use diversity, is still unknown for entire subfamilies, and the known information, scattered in over two centuries of published studies, is potentially hiding tendencies to host specialization across velvet ant lineages. In this review, based on 305 host associations spanning 132 species in 49 genera and 10 main lineages (tribes/subfamilies), we explored patterns of host use in velvet ants. Overall, 15 families and 29 subfamilies of Aculeata are listed as hosts of mutillids, with a strong predominance of Apoidea (bees and apoid wasps: 19 subfamilies and 82.3% of host records). A series of bipartite networks, multivariate analyses and calculations of different indices suggested possible patterns of specialization. Host taxonomic spectrum (number of subfamilies) of velvet ants was very variable and explained by variation in the number of host records. Instead, we found a great variation of network-based host specialization degree and host taxonomic distinctness that did not depend on the number of host records. Differences in host use patterns seemed apparent across mutillid tribes/subfamilies, among genera within several tribes/subfamilies, and to lesser extent within genera. Taxonomic host use variation seemed not dependent on phylogeny. Instead, it was likely driven by the exploitation of hosts with different ecological traits (nest type, larval diet and sociality). Thus, taxonomically more generalist lineages may use hosts that essentially share the same ecological profile. Interestingly, closely related mutillid lineages often show contrasting combinations of host ecological traits, particularly sociality and larval diet, with a more common preference for ground-nesting hosts across most lineages. This review may serve as a basis to test hypotheses for host use evolution in this fascinating family of parasitoids.
Phytophthora palmivora–Cocoa Interaction

Phytophthora palmivora (Butler) is an hemibiotrophic oomycete capable of infecting over 200 plant species including one of the most economically important crops, Theobroma cacao L. commonly known as cocoa. It infects many parts of the cocoa plant including the pods, causing black pod rot disease. This review will focus on P. palmivora’s ability to infect a plant host to cause disease. We highlight some current findings in other Phytophthora sp. plant model systems demonstrating how the germ tube, the appressorium and the haustorium enable the plant pathogen to penetrate a plant cell and how they contribute to the disease development in planta. This review explores the molecular exchange between the oomycete and the plant host, and the role of plant immunity during the development of such structures, to understand the infection of cocoa pods by P. palmivora isolates from Papua New Guinea.
Bifactor Model Is Not the Best-Fitting Model for Self-Esteem: Investigation With a Novel Technique

In the measurement of self-esteem, previous research assumes that all respondents are qualitatively similar. The assumption has not been adequately tested. The current study examines its validity using factor mixture modeling. Results reveal two qualitatively distinct classes: the first provides more consistent responses to positive self-esteem items than the second. The correlations between positive and negative self-esteem suggest that self-esteem is essentially unidimensional in the first class but bidimensional in the second. Furthermore, those with high self-esteem are more likely to belong to the first class; those with low self-esteem are more likely to belong to the second class. The observed dimensionality of self-esteem depends on a person’s level on the trait. Finally, we found that the two-class solution fits the data much better than a simple one-class, two-factor solution or a bifactor solution. Psychometric researchers should no longer ignore the possible existence of qualitatively distinct groups in an underlying population. We include Mplus syntax together with a detailed explanation for researchers to conduct similar investigations on constructs of interest.
Compositional characteristics of cherry kernel oil as influenced by gamma irradiation and storage periods

This research work was undertaken to evaluate the physicochemical parameters of oil from the cherry kernel non-irradiated and irradiated at 3 and 6 kGy of gamma irradiation for two storage periods (0 and 12 months). The acid value, peroxide value, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances value, iodine value, saponification value refractive index (peroxide value), and the color parameters of cherry kernel oils were determined. The results indicated that the extracted cherry kernel oils were liquid at room temperature with color varying from light yellow to deep red. The physicochemical properties of cherry kernel oils including acid value, peroxide value, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, iodine value, saponification value, and refractive index values were 1.19 mg KOH g−1, 9.01 meq2 kg−1, 0.014 mg MDA kg−1, 99.48 KOH g−1 I2 100 g−1, 194.50 mg KOH g−1, and 1.472, respectively. Generally, gamma irradiation doses and storage time increased acid value, peroxide value, thiobarbituric acid reactive substances, and refractive index value of cherry kernel oils, whereas no significant (p > 0.05) change due to irradiation was recorded in iodine value, saponification value, and in color parameter (L*, a*, b*, and ΔE values) of cherry kernel oils. However, the properties of cherry kernel oils revealed that the cherry kernel is a good source of oil which could be used for industrial purposes.
Self-Collected versus Healthcare Worker-Collected Swabs in the Diagnosis of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2

The aim of this study was to compare the sensitivity of self-collected versus healthcare worker (HCW)-collected swabs for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) testing. Symptomatic individuals referred for SARS-CoV-2 testing were invited to provide mobile-phone video-instructed self-collected oropharyngeal and nasal samples followed by a HCW-collected oropharyngeal sample. All samples were sent for analysis to the same microbiology laboratory, and the number of SARS-CoV-2-positive participants in the two tests was compared. A total of 109 participants were included, and 19 participants had SARS-CoV-2-positive results. The diagnostic sensitivity of the self-collected and HCW-collected swabs was 84.2% and 89.5%, respectively, with an acceptable agreement, Cohens kappa 0.82, p < 0.001. Further, results from a questionnaire answered by the participants found that loss of smell as a self-reported symptom was a strong predictor for a SARS-CoV-2-positive test. In conclusion, we found that self-collected oropharyngeal and nasal swabs for SARS-CoV-2 testing can be reliable compared to HCW-collected oropharyngeal samples.
Transfersomes: A Promising Nanoencapsulation Technique for Transdermal Drug Delivery

Transdermal delivery systems have gained much interest in recent years owing to their advantages compared to conventional oral and parenteral delivery systems. They are noninvasive and self-administered delivery systems that can improve patient compliance and provide a controlled release of the therapeutic agents. The greatest challenge of transdermal delivery systems is the barrier function of the skin’s outermost layer. Molecules with molecular weights greater than 500 Da and ionized compounds generally do not pass through the skin. Therefore, only a limited number of drugs are capable of being administered by this route. Encapsulating the drugs in transfersomes are one of the potential approaches to overcome this problem. They have a bilayered structure that facilitates the encapsulation of lipophilic and hydrophilic, as well as amphiphilic, drug with higher permeation efficiencies compared to conventional liposomes. Transfersomes are elastic in nature, which can deform and squeeze themselves as an intact vesicle through narrow pores that are significantly smaller than its size. This review aims to describe the concept of transfersomes, the mechanism of action, different methods of preparation and characterization and factors affecting the properties of transfersomes, along with their recent applications in the transdermal administration of drugs.
Image Quality Enhancement Using a Deep Neural Network for Plane Wave Medical Ultrasound Imaging

Plane wave imaging (PWI), a typical ultrafast medical ultrasound imaging mode, adopts single plane wave emission without focusing to achieve a high frame rate. However, the imaging quality is severely degraded in comparison with the commonly used focused line scan mode. Conventional adaptive beamformers can improve imaging quality at the cost of additional computation. In this article, we propose to use a deep neural network (DNN) to enhance the performance of PWI while maintaining a high frame rate. In particular, the PWI response from a single point target is used as the network input, while the focused scan response from the same point serves as the desired output, which is the main contribution of this method. To evaluate the performance of the proposed method, simulations, phantom experiments and in vivo studies are conducted. The delay-and-sum (DAS), the coherence factor (CF), a previously proposed deep learning-based method and the DAS with focused scan are used for comparison. Numerical metrics, including the contrast ratio (CR), the contrast-to-noise ratio (CNR), and the speckle signal-to-noise ratio (sSNR), are used to quantify the performance. The results indicate that the proposed method can achieve superior resolution and contrast performance. Specifically, the proposed method performs better than the DAS in all metrics. Although the CF provides a higher CR, its CNR and sSNR are much lower than those of the proposed method. The overall performance is also better than that of the previous deep learning method and at the same level with focused scan performance. Additionally, in comparison with the DAS, the proposed method requires little additional computation, which ensures high temporal resolution. These results validate that the proposed method can achieve a high imaging quality while maintaining the high frame rate associated with PWI.
Involvement of Netrin/Unc-5 Interaction in Ciliary Beating and in Pattern Formation of the Ciliary Band-Associated Strand (CBAS) in the Sea Urchin, Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus

The GABAergic neural circuit is involved in the motile activities of both larval and juvenile sea urchins. Therefore, its function is inherited beyond metamorphosis, despite large scale remodeling of larval organs during that period. However, the initial neural circuit formation mechanism is not well understood, including how glutamate decarboxylase-expressing blastocoelar cells (GADCs) construct the neural circuit along the circumoral ciliary band (a ciliary band-associated strand, CBAS) on the larval body surface. In this study, using whole-mount immunohistochemistry and 3D reconstructed imaging, the ontogenic process of CBAS patterning was studied by focusing on Netrin and the interaction with its receptor, Unc-5. During the early 2-arm pluteus stage, a small number of GADCs egress onto the apical surface of the larval ectoderm. Then, they line up on the circumoral side of the ciliary band, and by being inserted by a further number of GADCs, form longer multicellular strands along the Netrin stripe. Application of a synthetic peptide, CRFNMELYKLSGRKSGGVC of Hp-Netrin, that binds to the immunoglobulin domain of Unc-5 during the prism stage, causes stunted CBAS formation due to inhibition of GADC egression. This also results in reduced ciliary beating. Thus, the Netrin/Unc-5 interaction is involved in the construction and function of the CBAS.
Different losses: different grief

As part of a longitudinal study of bereavement phenomena in three community groups - bereaved spouses, bereaved adult children, and bereaved parents - a detailed Bereavement Questionnaire was administered at four time points over a 13 month period following the loss. Factor analysis produced seven sub-scales, three of which became a single measure labelled Core Bereavement Items. Subjects also completed measures of depression, anxiety, health and personality. The frequency with which core bereavement phenomena were experienced was in the order: bereaved parents > bereaved spouses > adult children. Differences between the three groups are explored. Cluster analysts revealed a pattern of bereavement-related symptoms approximating a syndrome of chronic grief in 11 (9.2%) of the subjects. None of the respondents displayed a pattern consistent with delayed or absent grief. (author abstract)
Crotaline Intergeneric Relationships Based on Mitochondrial DNA Sequence Data

We investigated phylogenetic relationships among 30 species of pit vipers representing all proposed genera except monotypic Ophryacus by comparing DNA sequence data from mitochondrial ND4 genes. Phylogenetic analysis was performed on two conserved subsets of the data. Retrieved topologies are discordant between these analyses, but it is difficult to make a compelling case for the superiority of one or the other data set for phylogenetic inference. Results common to both analyses, which we believe most likely reflect historical reality, include diphyly of Agkistrodon (s.l.); monophyly of (Hypnale + Calloselasma}; polyphyly of Agkistrodontini; monophyly of Protobothrops and of Trimeresurus (s.s.); paraphyly of bothropoid genera; and monophyly of American crotalines. The last suggests an Old World origin of Crotalinae with a single invasion of the New World.
Three-dimensional structure of 22 uncultured ssRNA bacteriophages: Flexibility of the coat protein fold and variations in particle shapes

Capsid structures reveal a remarkable structural diversity among small bacterial RNA viruses. The single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) bacteriophages are among the simplest known viruses with small genomes and exceptionally high mutation rates. The number of ssRNA phage isolates has remained very low, but recent metagenomic studies have uncovered an immense variety of distinct uncultured ssRNA phages. The coat proteins (CPs) in these genomes are particularly diverse, with notable variation in length and often no recognizable similarity to previously known viruses. We recombinantly expressed metagenome-derived ssRNA phage CPs to produce virus-like particles and determined the three-dimensional structure of 22 previously uncharacterized ssRNA phage capsids covering nine distinct CP types. The structures revealed substantial deviations from the previously known ssRNA phage CP fold, uncovered an unusual prolate particle shape, and revealed a previously unseen dsRNA binding mode. These data expand our knowledge of the evolution of viral structural proteins and are of relevance for applications such as ssRNA phage–based vaccine design.
Characterization of Volatile Organic Compounds of Healthy and Huanglongbing-Infected Navel Orange and Pomelo Leaves by HS-GC-IMS

The Asian citrus psyllid (ACP), Diaphorina citri Kuwayama, is the only natural vector of bacteria responsible for Huanglongbing (HLB), a worldwide destructive disease of citrus. ACP reproduces and develops only on the young leaves of its rutaceous host plants. Olfactory stimuli emitted by young leaves may play an important role in ACP control and HLB detection. In this study, volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from healthy and HLB-infected young leaves of navel orange and pomelo were analyzed by headspace-gas chromatography-ion mobility spectrometry (HS-GC-IMS). A total of 36 compounds (including dimers or polymers) were identified and quantified from orange and 10 from pomelo leaves. Some compounds showed significant differences in signal intensity between healthy and HLB-infected leaves and may constitute possible indicators for HLB infection. Principal component analysis (PCA) clearly discriminated healthy and HLB-infected leaves in both orange and pomelo. HS-GC-IMS was an effective method to identify VOCs from leaves. This study may help develop new methods for detection of HLB or find new attractants or repellents of ACP for prevention of HLB.
Molecular Epidemiology of Verticillium Wilt of Olive in Southern and Central Tunisia: Evidence of Host Adaptation Hypothesis

Aims: During the last two decades, verticillium wilt of olive has spread to young olive orchards where highly susceptible crops such as potato, watermelon and tomato are cultivated near to olive orchards. It was therefore hypothesized that there is an adaptation phenomenon that drives the pathogenicity of V. dahliae in order to infect a broad range of hosts. Therefore, it will be useful to identify the factors that increase the severity of the pathogen which helps growers to implement the appropriate crop rotation program. Place and Duration of Study: This work was performed in the Laboratory of Phytopathology at the Original Research Article
DSCAM regulates delamination of neurons in the developing midbrain

DSCAM regulates neuronal delamination from the ventricular surface by suppressing RapGEF2/Rap1 and N-cadherin. For normal neurogenesis and circuit formation, delamination of differentiating neurons from the proliferative zone must be precisely controlled; however, the regulatory mechanisms underlying cell attachment are poorly understood. Here, we show that Down syndrome cell adhesion molecule (DSCAM) controls neuronal delamination by local suppression of the RapGEF2–Rap1–N-cadherin cascade at the apical endfeet in the dorsal midbrain. Dscam transcripts were expressed in differentiating neurons, and DSCAM protein accumulated at the distal part of the apical endfeet. Cre-loxP–based neuronal labeling revealed that Dscam knockdown impaired endfeet detachment from ventricles. DSCAM associated with RapGEF2 to inactivate Rap1, whose activity is required for membrane localization of N-cadherin. Correspondingly, Dscam knockdown increased N-cadherin localization and ventricular attachment area at the endfeet. Furthermore, excessive endfeet attachment by Dscam knockdown was restored by co-knockdown of RapGEF2 or N-cadherin. Our findings shed light on the molecular mechanism that regulates a critical step in early neuronal development.
Establishing the pattern of the vertebrate limb

ABSTRACT The vertebrate limb continues to serve as an influential model of growth, morphogenesis and pattern formation. With this Review, we aim to give an up-to-date picture of how a population of undifferentiated cells develops into the complex pattern of the limb. Focussing largely on mouse and chick studies, we concentrate on the positioning of the limbs, the formation of the limb bud, the establishment of the principal limb axes, the specification of pattern, the integration of pattern formation with growth and the determination of digit number. We also discuss the important, but little understood, topic of how gene expression is interpreted into morphology. Summary: This Review covers several interconnected aspects of limb development, from the positioning of the limb fields, to how gene expression is translated into morphology.