Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Accumulation of free proline and glycine betaine in Aster tripolium subjected to a saline shock: A kinetic study related to light period

On transferring three-week-old plants of Aster tripolium L. growing in a half strength Hoagland's medium to the same medium containing 333 mM NaCl a very quick uptake of salt and, after a lag phase of 3 to 5 h, an increase in free proline level was observed. During the time course of imino acid storage, the accumulation rates were higher in the light than in the dark, thereby suggesting some kind of photocontrol on solute metabolism. At zero time, high levels of glycine betaine were present in young plants grown without salt. However, after the application of saline shock, the betaine level also increased significantly. The highest rate of betaine accumulation was detected during the third day of treatment when the rate of proline storage decreased. Glycine betaine storage could also be linked to light dependent processes; whatever its importance in response to salt shock was, the levels observed were lower than those of plants directly grown on 333 mM NaCl for three weeks. When saline stressed plants were transferred to a medium without NaCl, the proline level quickly decreaed while that of glycine betaine remained stable.
Staphylococcus aureus PhoU Homologs Regulate Persister Formation and Virulence

PhoU homologs are one of the determinant factors in the regulation of persister formation and phosphate metabolism in many bacterial species; however, the functions of PhoU homologs exhibit species-specific characteristics. The pathogenesis of Staphylococcus aureus is closely correlated with persister formation and virulence factors. The functions of two PhoU homologs, PhoU1 and PhoU2, in S. aureus are unclear yet. In this study, single- and double-deletion mutants of phoU1 and phoU2 were generated in strain USA500 2395. The ΔphoU1 or ΔphoU2 mutants displayed a change in persister formation and virulence compared to the parent strain; the persisters to vancomycin and levofloxacin were decreased at least 1,000-fold, and the number of intracellular bacteria surviving in the A549 cells for 24 h decreased to 82 or 85%. The α-hemolysin expression and activity were increased in the ΔphoU2 mutants. Transcriptome analysis revealed that 573 or 285 genes were differentially expressed by at least 2.0-fold in the ΔphoU1 or ΔphoU2 mutant vs. the wild type. Genes involved in carbon and pyruvate metabolism were up-regulated, and virulence genes and virulence regulatory genes were down-regulated, including type VII secretion system, serine protease, leukocidin, global regulator (sarA, rot), and the two-component signal transduction system (saeS). Correspondingly, the deletion of the phoU1 or phoU2 resulted in increased levels of intracellular pyruvate and ATP. Deletion of the phoU2, but not the phoU1, resulted in the up-regulation of inorganic phosphate transport genes and increased levels of intracellular inorganic polyphosphate. In conclusion, both PhoU1 and PhoU2 in S. aureus regulate virulence by the down-regulation of multiple virulence factors (type VII secretion system, serine protease, and leucocidin) and the persister generation by hyperactive carbon metabolism accompanied by increasing intracellular ATP. The results in S. aureus are different from what we have previously found in Staphylococcus epidermis, where only PhoU2 regulates biofilm and persister formation. The different functions of PhoU homologs between the two species of Staphylococcus warrant further investigation.
Salt‐Marsh Vegetation of Upper Newport Bay, California

The salt—marsh vegetation of Newport Bay was separated into littoral and maritime zones and was sampled quantitatively for frequency of occurrence and cover. The littoral zone (marsh proper) was divided into a narrow lower belt covered by Spartina foliosa, a broadest middle band dominated by Batis maritima and Salicornia virginica, and a narrowest upper strip influenced by Salicornia virginica and Monanthochloe littoralis. The maritime zone consisted of a bluff community composed of Suaeda californica and Salicornia subterminalis, or a dune associate pioneered by Oenothera cheiranthifolia and Heterotheca grandiflora. Nine species, principally Gramineae and Chenopodiaceae, dominated the marsh. Salicornia virginica accounted for the highest total average frequency and cover. Additional important species were Suaeda californica, Batis maritima, and Spartina foliosa. The plant community was extremely simple in the lowest areas (four species) and graded to a more complex, yet relatively simple plant community in the highest regions of the marsh (15 species). Correspondingly, the lower zones had sparse vegetational cover and the higher zones supported heavier growth, both in size and numbers of individuals. Although the marsh was subjectively divided into zones, individual species could not be readily segregated into zones since the frequency of each species varied along environmental gradients to produce a vegetational continum.
Brain Functional and Structural Signatures in Parkinson’s Disease

The aim of this study is to explore functional and structural properties of abnormal brain networks associated with Parkinson’s disease (PD). 18F-Fluorodeoxyglucose positron emission tomography (18F-FDG PET) and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging from 20 patients with moderate-stage PD and 20 age-matched healthy controls were acquired to identify disease-related patterns in functional and structural networks. Dual-modal images from another prospective subject of 15 PD patients were used as the validation group. Scaled Subprofile Modeling based on principal component analysis method was applied to determine disease-related patterns in both modalities, and brain connectome analysis based on graph theory was applied to verify these patterns. The results showed that the expressions of the metabolic and structural patterns in PD patients were significantly higher than healthy controls (PD1-HC, p = 0.0039, p = 0.0058; PD2-HC, p < 0.001, p = 0.044). The metabolic pattern was characterized by relative increased metabolic activity in pallidothalamic, pons, putamen, and cerebellum, associated with metabolic decreased in parietal–occipital areas. The structural pattern was characterized by relative decreased gray matter (GM) volume in pons, transverse temporal gyrus, left cuneus, right superior occipital gyrus, and right superior parietal lobule, associated with preservation in GM volume in pallidum and putamen. In addition, both patterns were verified in the connectome analysis. The findings suggest that significant overlaps between metabolic and structural patterns provide new evidence for elucidating the neuropathological mechanisms of PD.
POLYMORPHISM IN THE ROTIFER ASPLANCHNA SIEBOLDI: BIOMASS, GROWTH, AND REPRODUCTIVE RATE OF THE SACCATE AND CAMPANULATE MORPHOTYPES'

Saccate and campanulate 9 9 of the 12C1 clone of Asplanchna sieboldi were cultured at 250C, the former on Paramecium aurelia and the latter on Asplanchna brightwelli or A. sieboldi together with 10' M d-a-tocopherol. The dry weights of newborn and gravid, adult saccates were 0.49 and 2.14 jug/ 9; corresponding weights for A. brightwelli-fed cam- panulates were 2.14 and 6.37 ug/ 9. Thus, the campanulates were 4.37 and 2.98 X heavier than saccates as neonates and gravid adults, respectively. The disproportionately great birth size and slight postnatal growth of campanulates may be adaptative in decreasing mortality from cannibalistic adults and in maximizing the ability of young individuals to capture and eat large prey available to adults. Gravid, adult campanulates fed on conspecific saccates were heavier than those fed on the smaller A. brightwelli-7.03 and 6.37 )ug/ 9, respectively. The ability of 9 9 of this and the other morphotypes to alter their size in direct response to the size of their prey may be adaptive in maximizing the efficiency of prey capture and ingestion. In four experiments conducted at 220, 250, and 28? C, the intrinsic rates of natural increase of A. brightwelli-fed campanulates were significantly greater (p = 0.026) and 1.10-1.29 X higher than those of P. aurelia-fed saccates; at these temperatures, the r-values for the cam- panulates were 0.717, 0.854, and 1.058 or 1.216 per day, respectively. The campanulates lived slightly longer and produced more offspring than the saccates; their net reproduction rates varied from 9.08 to 12.18 and were significantly greater (p = 0.023) as well as 1.19 to 2.01 x higher than those of saccates. The mean generation times of the saccate and cam- panulate 9 9 were similar. The productivity of the campanulate 9 9 at 250C was estimated to be about 4 X that of saccate 9 9. Campanulates fed from birth on the rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus had life-table-parameter responses similar to those fed on A. brightwelli. Saccate 9 9 of the 1OC6 clone fed on B. calyciflorus produced about 2 X as many off- spring and lived about 2 x as long as those fed on P. aurelia; the respective r-values were 1.298 and 1.664. The superiority of the rotifer-diet suggests that, in the experiments with the 12C1 clone, the reproductive potential of campanulates was greater than that of saccates primarily because of the diets used to maintain the two morphotypes. The well-known, inverse relationship between the size and the reproductive potential of an organism does not hold for the genetically identical 9 9 of the saccate and campanulate morphotypes. Transformation of saccate 9 9 to campanulate 9 9 is not at a reproductive cost to the population. Both morphotypes appear to be designed for comparably rapid, parthenogenetic reproduction, and in concert they may maximize the ability of a population to utilize a wide variety of prey in a very large size range.
Unsupervised learning in latent space with a fuzzy logic guided modified BA

Abstract In this paper, a modified bat algorithm with fuzzy inference mamdani-type system is applied to the problem of document clustering in a semantic features space induced by SVD decomposition. The algorithm learns the optimal clustering of the documents as well as the optimal number of clusters in a concept space; thus, making it suitable for a large and spare dataset which occur in information retrieval system. a centroid-based solution in multidimensional space is evaluated with a silhouette index. A TF-IDF method is used to represent documents in vector space. The presented algorithm is tested on the 20 newsgroup dataset.
Inferior Colliculus Transcriptome After Status Epilepticus in the Genetically Audiogenic Seizure-Prone Hamster GASH/Sal

The Genetic Audiogenic Seizure Hamster from Salamanca (GASH/Sal), an animal model of reflex epilepsy, exhibits generalized tonic–clonic seizures in response to loud sound with the epileptogenic focus localized in the inferior colliculus (IC). Ictal events in seizure-prone strains cause gene deregulation in the epileptogenic focus, which can provide insights into the epileptogenic mechanisms. Thus, the present study aimed to determine the expression profile of key genes in the IC of the GASH/Sal after the status epilepticus. For such purpose, we used RNA-Seq to perform a comparative study between the IC transcriptome of GASH/Sal and that of control hamsters both subjected to loud sound stimulation. After filtering for normalization and gene selection, a total of 36 genes were declared differentially expressed from the RNA-seq analysis in the IC. A set of differentially expressed genes were validated by RT-qPCR showing significant differentially expression between GASH/Sal hamsters and Syrian control hamsters. The confirmed differentially expressed genes were classified on ontological categories associated with epileptogenic events similar to those produced by generalized tonic seizures in humans. Subsequently, based on the result of metabolomics, we found the interleukin-4 and 13-signaling, and nucleoside transport as presumably altered routes in the GASH/Sal model. This research suggests that seizures in GASH/Sal hamsters are generated by multiple molecular substrates, which activate biological processes, molecular processes, cellular components and metabolic pathways associated with epileptogenic events similar to those produced by tonic seizures in humans. Therefore, our study supports the use of the GASH/Sal as a valuable animal model for epilepsy research, toward establishing correlations with human epilepsy and searching new biomarkers of epileptogenesis.
Innovative Strategies Toward the Disassembly of the EPS Matrix in Bacterial Biofilms

Bacterial biofilms represent a major concern at a worldwide level due to the high demand for implantable medical devices and the rising numbers of bacterial resistance. The complex structure of the extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) matrix plays a major role in this phenomenon, since it protects bacteria from antibiotics, avoiding drug penetration at bactericidal concentrations. Besides, this structure promotes bacterial cells to adopt a dormant lifestyle, becoming less susceptible to antibacterial agents. Currently, the available treatment for biofilm-related infections consists in the administration of conventional antibiotics at high doses for a long-term period. However, this treatment lacks efficiency against mature biofilms and for implant-associated biofilms it may be necessary to remove the medical device. Thus, biofilm-related infections represent an economical burden for the healthcare systems. New strategies focusing on the matrix are being highlighted as alternative therapies to eradicate biofilms. Here, we outline reported matrix disruptive agents, nanocarriers, and technologies, such as application of magnetic fields, photodynamic therapy, and ultrasounds, that have been under investigation to disrupt the EPS matrix of clinically relevant bacterial biofilms. In an ideal therapy, a synergistic effect between antibiotics and the explored innovated strategies is aimed to completely eradicate biofilms and avoid antimicrobial resistance phenomena.
Measuring and Analysing the Chain of Implicit Trust

The web is a tangled mass of interconnected services, whereby websites import a range of external resources from various third-party domains. The latter can also load further resources hosted on other domains. For each website, this creates a dependency chain underpinned by a form of implicit trust between the first-party and transitively connected third parties. The chain can only be loosely controlled as first-party websites often have little, if any, visibility on where these resources are loaded from. This article performs a large-scale study of dependency chains in the web to find that around 50% of first-party websites render content that they do not directly load. Although the majority (84.91%) of websites have short dependency chains (below three levels), we find websites with dependency chains exceeding 30. Using VirusTotal, we show that 1.2% of these third parties are classified as suspicious—although seemingly small, this limited set of suspicious third parties have remarkable reach into the wider ecosystem. We find that 73% of websites under-study load resources from suspicious third parties, and 24.8% of first-party webpages contain at least three third parties classified as suspicious in their dependency chain. By running sandboxed experiments, we observe a range of activities with the majority of suspicious JavaScript codes downloading malware.
Method for Driving High-pixel-density Displays

Universal high-pixel-density displays were introduced to consumers in 2012, including 8K and even 16K displays. Therefore, we propose a new method to design gate driver circuits and micro-scale device mass transfer-printing technologies in order to solve problems related to display border space and electron mobility. In this paper, the conceptual design is composed of mass transfer-printing technologies and a GOA driving circuit. We design a bidirectional low-leakage-current scan circuit that includes a crystalline substrate to provide higher performance and a smaller device (smaller than thin-film amorphous or polycrystalline silicon). We then use the mass transfer-printing technologies to transfer microscale chips onto the glass substrate. Next, we transfer our microscale chip onto the effective area of a panel, and the microscale chip provides gate drive signals for the display. The border becomes slimmer or even disappears. These types of displays are applied in large-screen video monitors, flexible displays, high-pixel-density displays, etc.Our chips were fabricated using the TSMC 180-nm CMOS process; a single chip can include 864 dual-side pins, and has lateral dimensions of 8286 μm × 21 μm.
Inter-Ethnic Dynamics in the Wake of Terrorist Attacks: Evidence from the 2015 Baga Massacre

Abstract This paper investigates the consequences for inter-group conflicts of terrorist attacks. I study the 2015 Baga massacre, a large scale attack conducted by Boko Haram at the far North-East state of Borno, Nigeria, as a quasi-natural experiment and examine a set of attitudes in the aftermath of the event of Christians and Muslims throughout the country. Comparing individuals, outside the region of Borno, interviewed by Afrobarometer immediately after the massacre and those interviewed the days before within same regions and holding fixed a number of individual characteristics, I document that the informational exposure to the event rendered Christians less amiable to neighboring Muslims and Muslims less likely to recognize the legitimacy of the state. Nonetheless, Muslims increased their view of the elections as a device to remove leaders in office, event that took place 2 months later with the election of the challenger, Muhammadu Buhari. My findings indicate that terrorist attacks may generate a relevant and heterogeneous backlash across ethnic groups.
Growth inhibition of the salmon pathogen Vibrio ordalii by a siderophore produced by Vibrio anguillarum strain VL4355

Thirty strains of V. anguillarum were tested for the production of inhibitory substances against closely-related bacteria using the deferred antagonism test. Only one strain, Vibrio anguillarum VL4355, inhibited strains of V. ordalii and this effect was blocked by the addition of iron salts to the culture medium. Siderophore production was investigated for this strain. Results from bioassays suggested that strain VL4355 produced a siderophore related to anguibactin, the plasmid-encoded phenolate siderophore produced by V. anguillarum strain 775. However, when plasmid DNA was compared for strains 775 and VL4355 the BamHI-generated restriction profiles were different, although hybridization experiments indicated some homology. Using the chrome-azurol sulphate assay to measure siderophore production, strain VL4355 yielded significantly higher values than other V. anguillarum strains. Amberlite XAD-2 was used to produce concentrated siderophore preparations from strains VL4355 and 775. Both preparations were inhibitory to the growth of strains of V. ordalii, but not V. anguillarum, as were solutions of the iron chelator ethylenediamine-di(o-hydroxyphenylacetic acid). The difference in sensitivity to iron-limiting conditions for V. ordalii and V. anguillarum, coupled with the inability of V. ordalii to utilize ferric-anguibactin, could reflect different mechanisms of iron uptake for these two organisms.
Remdesivir use in patients with coronavirus COVID-19 disease: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, has led to significant global mortality and morbidity. Until now, no treatment has proven to be effective in COVID-19. To explore whether the use of remdesivir, initially an experimental broad-spectrum antiviral, is effective in the treatment of hospitalized patients with COVID-19, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, placebo-controlled trials investigating its use. Methods A rapid search of the MEDLINE and EMBASE medical databases was conducted for randomized controlled trials. A systematic approach was used to screen, abstract, and critically appraise the studies. Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) method was applied to rate the certainty and quality of the evidence reported per study. Results Two RCTs studies were identified (n=1,299). A fixed-effects meta-analysis revealed reductions in mortality (RR=0.69, 0.49 to 0.99), time to clinical improvement (3.95 less days, from 3.86 days less to 4.05 less days ), serious adverse events (RR=0.77, 0.63 to 0.94) and all adverse events (RR=0.87, 0.79 to 0.96). Conclusion In this rapid systematic review, we present pooled evidence from the 2 included RCT studies that reveal that remdesivir has a modest yet significant reduction in mortality and significantly improves the time to recovery, as well as significantly reduced risk in adverse events and serious adverse events. It is more than likely that as an antiviral, remdesivir is not sufficient on its own and may be suitable in combination with other antivirals or treatments such as convalescent plasma. Research is ongoing to clarify and contextual these promising findings.
Pro-Senescence and Anti-Senescence Mechanisms of Cardiovascular Aging: Cardiac MicroRNA Regulation of Longevity Drug-Induced Autophagy

Chronological aging as well as biological aging accelerated by various pathologies such as diabetes and obesity contribute to cardiovascular aging, and structural and functional tissue damage of the heart and vasculature. Cardiovascular aging in humans is characterized by structural pathologic remodeling including cardiac and vascular fibrosis, hypertrophy, stiffness, micro- and macro-circulatory impairment, left ventricular diastolic dysfunction precipitating heart failure with either reduced or preserved ejection fraction, and cardiovascular cell death. Cellular senescence, an important hallmark of aging, is a critical factor that impairs repair and regeneration of damaged cells in cardiovascular tissues whereas autophagy, an intracellular catabolic process is an essential inherent mechanism that removes senescent cells throughout life time in all tissues. Several recent reviews have highlighted the fact that all longevity treatment paradigms to mitigate progression of aging-related pathologies converge in induction of autophagy, activation of AMP kinase (AMPK) and Sirtuin pathway, and inhibition of mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR). These longevity treatments include health style changes such as caloric restriction, and drug treatments using rapamycin, the first FDA-approved longevity drug, as well as other experimental longevity drugs such as metformin, rapamycin, aspirin, and resveratrol. However, in the heart tissue, autophagy induction has to be tightly regulated since evidence show excessive autophagy results in cardiomyopathy and heart failure. Here we discuss emerging evidence for microRNA-mediated tight regulation of autophagy in the heart in response to treatment with rapamycin, and novel approaches to monitor autophagy progression in a temporal manner to diagnose and regulate autophagy induction by longevity treatments.