Miracle-dz/UniFAR-FTUs huggingface dataset:
Structure and Methylation of 35S rDNA in Allopolyploids Anemone multifida (2n = 4x = 32, BBDD) and Anemone baldensis (2n = 6x = 48, AABBDD) and Their Parental Species Show Evidence of Nucleolar Dominance

Transcriptional silencing of 35S rDNA loci inherited from one parental species is occurring relatively frequently in allopolyploids. However, molecular mechanisms by which it is selected for transcriptional silencing remain unclear. We applied NGS, silver staining and bisulfite sequencing to study the structure, expression and methylation landscape of 35S rDNA in two allopolyploids of common origin, allotetraploid Anemone multifida (2n = 4x = 32, genome composition BBDD) and allohexaploid A. baldensis (2n = 6x = 48, AABBDD), and their genome donors, A. sylvestris (2n = 16, AA), A. cylindrica (2n = 16, BB) and A. parviflora (2n = 16, DD). The size of the recovered 35S rDNA units varied from 10,489 bp in A. cylindrica to 12,084 bp in A. sylvestris. Anemone showed an organization typical of most ribosomal 35S rDNA composed of NTS, ETS, rRNA genes, TTS and TIS with structural features of plant IGS sequences and all functional elements needed for rRNA gene activity. The NTS was more variable than the ETS and consisted of SRs which are highly variable among Anemone. Five to six CpG-rich islands were found within the ETS. CpG island located adjacent to the transcription initiation site (TIS) was highly variable regarding the sequence size and methylation level and exhibited in most of the species lower levels of methylation than CpG islands located adjacent to the 18S rRNA gene. Our results uncover hypomethylation of A. sylvestris- and A. parviflora-derived 35S rDNA units in allopolyploids A. multifida and A. baldensis. Hypomethylation of A. parviflora-derived 35S rDNA was more prominent in A. baldensis than in A. multifida. We showed that A. baldensis underwent coupled A. sylvestris-derived 35S rDNA array expansion and A. parviflora-derived 35S rDNA copy number decrease that was accompanied by lower methylation level of A. sylvestris-derived 35S rDNA units in comparison to A. parviflora-derived 35S rDNA units. These observations suggest that in A. baldensis nucleolar dominance is directed toward A. sylvestris-derived chromosomes. This work broadens our current knowledge of the 35S rDNA organization in Anemone and provides evidence of the progenitor-specific 35S rDNA methylation in nucleolar dominance.
Dynamic Computational Theory Construction and Simulation for the Dynamic Relationship Between Challenge Stressors and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors

This study explores the dynamic feature of organizational citizenship behaviors under the condition of challenge stressors, as this has not been addressed by previous research. Combining the cybernetic theory of stress and social exchange theory, this study builds a dynamic computational model regarding the circular causality between challenge stressors and organizational citizenship behaviors. By conducting a series of simulation experiments, we validated and demonstrated important questions regarding organizational citizenship behaviors. Specifically, when both the initial value of challenge stressors and the importance of challenge appraisal are higher, organizational citizenship behaviors tend to show a sharped inverted U shape (i.e., organizational citizenship behaviors increase and decrease rapidly) at the early stage. When both the equilibrium level of job satisfaction and the initial value of challenge stressors are higher, organizational citizenship behaviors will show an inverted N shape over time. The number and frequency of assigned challenge tasks have an interactive effect on the accumulation of organizational citizenship behaviors within a period. Our theory contributes to identifying the dynamic relationship between challenge stressors and organizational citizenship behaviors. Findings from dynamic computational theory can offer suggestions for managers to encourage employees’ engagement in organizational citizenship behaviors.
Evaluation of Availability, Prices, and Affordability of Selected Essential Medicines in Balochistan, Pakistan

Objectives: The study aimed to evaluate the availability, prices, and affordability of selected essential medicines in Balochistan, Pakistan. Methods: Cross-sectional research was conducted in several cities of Balochistan, Pakistan, using the World Health Organization/Health Action International methodology to assess the availability and cost of 50 originator brand (OB) and lowest priced generic (LPG) drugs. The medicine costs were compared to international reference prices (IRPs) to calculate the median price ratio. The daily wage of the lowest paid unskilled government employee was used to determine affordability. Results: The mean availability was low for OBs (9.8%) and fairly high (49.4%) for LPGs. The OBs and LPGs’ mean availability in the private sector were fairly high, 51.8% and 42.6%, respectively. It was surprising to see that Balochistan’s public sector has only 24.3% of the National Essential Medicine List when the medicines on this list are supposed to be adequately available. Conclusion: The standard treatment cost with OBs is steep, exceeding the minimum daily wage. Treatment with LPG medications seems affordable. Furthermore, essential LPG medicines are economical when used solely for medication therapy.
Combining Old and New Tricks: The Study of Genes, Neurons, and Behavior in Crayfish

For over a century the nervous system of decapod crustaceans has been a workhorse for the neurobiology community. Many fundamental discoveries including the identification of electrical and inhibitory synapses, lateral and pre-synaptic inhibition, and the Na+/K+-pump were made using lobsters, crabs, or crayfish. Key among many advantages of crustaceans for neurobiological research is the unique access to large, accessible, and identifiable neurons, and the many distinct and complex behaviors that can be observed in lab settings. Despite these advantages, recent decades have seen work on crustaceans hindered by the lack of molecular and genetic tools required for unveiling the cellular processes contributing to neurophysiology and behavior. In this perspective paper, we argue that the recently sequenced marbled crayfish, Procambarus virginalis, is suited to become a genetic model system for crustacean neuroscience. P. virginalis are parthenogenetic and produce genetically identical offspring, suggesting that germline transformation creates transgenic animal strains that are easy to maintain across generations. Like other decapod crustaceans, marbled crayfish possess large neurons in well-studied circuits such as the giant tail flip neurons and central pattern generating neurons in the stomatogastric ganglion. We provide initial data demonstrating that marbled crayfish neurons are accessible through standard physiological and molecular techniques, including single-cell electrophysiology, gene expression measurements, and RNA-interference. We discuss progress in CRISPR-mediated manipulations of the germline to knock-out target genes using the ‘Receptor-mediated ovary transduction of cargo’ (ReMOT) method. Finally, we consider the impact these approaches will have for neurophysiology research in decapod crustaceans and more broadly across invertebrates.
Pre-Procedural Anxiety and Associated Factors Among Women Seeking for Cervical Cancer Screening Services in Shenzhen, China: Does Past Screening Experience Matter?

Background Research gaps exist in addressing the psychological harm related to the cervical cancer screening. Anxiety is the most common distress driven by the screening procedures, which may be affected by past screening experience (PSE) but with uncertainty. This study aimed to evaluate the pre-procedural anxiety in cervical cancer screening and to identify the influence attributed to PSE. Methods A cross-sectional survey targeted women seeking for cervical cancer screening services was conducted from June 5th to December 31st, 2020 in Shenzhen. The 20-item state anxiety scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI-S) was applied to measure pre-procedural anxiety, in which a score of 40 or higher was regarded with anxiety symptom. Logistic regression models were established to explore potential associated factors of pre-procedural anxiety both for women with and without PSE. Results Overall, 3,651 women were enrolled, in which 36.1% had never been screened and the remaining 63.9% had been screened at least once before. Women without PSE demonstrated more prevalent pre-procedural anxiety (74.5% vs. 67.8%, P <0.001) than their experienced counterparts. Among women without PSE, having heard of cervical cancer screening was associated with a lower likelihood of pre-procedural anxiety (OR: 0.37, 95%CI: 0.25~0.56). Among experienced women, participating three or more times screening was negatively associated with anxiety symptom (OR: 0.67, 95%CI: 0.53~0.84), however, both receiving screening within three years (OR: 1.58, 95%CI: 1.27~1.97) and unknowing previous screening results (OR: 1.42, 95%CI: 1.11~1.82) increased the susceptibility of pre-procedural anxiety. Conclusions Women participating in cervical cancer screening commonly present pre-procedural anxiety. The association between PSE and pre-procedural anxiety may be influenced by past screening times, interval, and results. Psychological counseling according to women’s PSE before cervical cancer screening is warranted of necessity.
Editorial: Sex Hormone Fluctuations Across the Female Lifespan: Mechanisms of Action on Brain Structure, Function, and Behavior

Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, United States, 2 Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium, Phoenix, AZ, United States, 3 Leonard Davis School of Gerontology, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of California, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA, United States, Department of Psychiatric Research, Diakonhjemmet Hospital, Oslo, Norway, Norwegian Centre for Mental Disorders Research, Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, United States
Reply: Does the Death Knell Toll for Phlebotomy in NAFLD?

This study was supported by a Clinical Research Grant from the Raine Medical Research Foundation and the Western Australian Government Department of Health. Resonance Health Ltd (Claremont, Australia) provided support for the magnetic resonance scans. Potential conflict of interest: Dr. St. Pierre is employed by, owns stock in, is on the speakers’ bureau for, and received grants from Resonance Health.
Improving the Estimation ofMealtime Insulin Dose in AdultsWith Type 1 Diabetes The Normal Insulin Demand for Dose Adjustment ( NIDDA ) study

OBJECTIVEdAlthough carbohydrate counting is routine practice in type 1 diabetes, hyperglycemic episodes are common. A food insulin index (FII) has been developed and validated for predicting the normal insulin demand generated by mixed meals in healthy adults. We sought to compare a novel algorithm on the basis of the FII for estimating mealtime insulin dose with carbohydrate counting in adults with type 1 diabetes.
Una modificación del coeficiente alfa de Cronbach por errores correlacionados

Sr. Editor La presente carta se centra en el impacto de los errores correlacionados en la estimacion de la confiabilidad de los puntajes del Indice de Bienestar Personal (PWI–7), reportada en Oyanedel et al.1. En este estudio se hallouna confiabilidad satisfactoria delpuntaje (? = .85), pero en vista de la presencia de estos errores correlacionados, la confiabilidad esta sobrestimada, tal como lo demostraremos mas adelante. Los errores correlacionados estan reportados en la figura 1 (p. 1148) y son de magnitudes moderadas (.47, .50, .53, y .56). El coeficiente ? 2 es el estimador de la confiabilidad de los puntajes que se usa con mayor frecuencia, pero muchas veces se emplea sin considerar sus dos supuestos basicos: tau-equivalencia de los items y ausencia de errores correlacionados. Aunque generalmente estos requisitos son dificiles de lograr en la practica3, la violacion de cada uno de ellos sesga la estimacion de este coeficiente. En cuanto al primero, se refiere a la similaridad de las medias (o cargas factorales) de los items; y el incumpliento de esta condicion trae consigo la subestimacion del ? , es decir, que se obtendran coeficientes bajos. Con relacion a la presencia de errores correlacionados, esta produce una sobrestimacion del coeficiente3-5, pues representa la varianza no relacionada con el constructo que se anade a la estimacion de la confiabilidad. La violacion simultanea de ambos supuestos da como resulta que el ? sea considerado como el limite superior de la confiabilidad (upperbound)6. De acuerdo a la teoria de la medicion, uno de sus presupuestos es que los errores (o varianza no relacionada con el constructo) entre los items son independientes entre si3,6. Leer mas.
Convergence of photonics and electronics for Terahertz wireless communications - the ITN CELTA project

Terahertz wireless communications is expected to offer the required high capacity and low latency performance required from short-range wireless access and control applications. We present an overview of some the activities in this area in the newly started H2020 ITN project CELTA: convergence of electronics and photonics technologies enabling Terahertz applications.
Day geckos ( Phelsuma ) in northern Madagascar: first step to resolve a paradoxical case of mitochondrial paraphyly and morphological differentiation

We describe a new subspecies of day gecko, Phelsuma dorsivittata paradoxa ssp. n. (Squamata: Gekkonidae) from Nosy Be Island and the Sambirano region in northwestern Madagascar. Due to its colouration and small size, Phelsuma d. paradoxa shares at first glance more similarities with P. parva or P. quadriocellata than with P. d. dorsivittata . Yet, phylogenetic analysis of mitochondrial and nuclear-encoded DNA sequences unambiguously shows that P. d. paradoxa is related to the allopatrically distributed P. d. dorsivittata . Due to the substantial and constant morphological divergence and the geographic separation between the two taxa we concluded that assigning them an initial status of subspecies is adequate, although they are not reciprocally monophyletic in mitochondrial DNA. Subsequently we discuss possible scenarios for eyespot convergence and mitochondrial paraphyly within P. dorsi vittata . Furthermore, the molecular data presented here confirm the separate position of P. lineata punctulata within the P. dorsi vittata complex. In order to resolve the paraphyly of the Phelsuma lineata complex, we here elevate this taxon to species rank, as Phelsuma punctulata 1970.
Risk of high depressive symptoms after the final menstrual period: the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN)

Abstract Objective To examine depressive symptoms during postmenopause and the contribution of depressive symptom trajectories before the final menstrual period (FMP) and psychosocial/health factors to postmenopause depressive symptoms. Methods Longitudinal analysis of depressive symptoms (Center for Epidemiologic Studies-Depression scale) collected every 1 to 2 years from 1996 to 2017 from 1,551 midlife women in the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation for a median follow-up of 19.0 years. Latent class growth analysis identified depression trajectories from baseline to FMP. Multivariable random effects (woman as random effect) linear or logistic regression models were conducted. Results Women had higher odds of reporting high depressive symptom score (≥16) during postmenopause than when they were premenopausal (OR = 1.49, 95% CI, 1.09-2.04), but not when perimenopausal. Three pre-FMP trajectories were identified: Group 1 (47.7%), consistently low scores, Group 2 (39.9%), moderate scores below the high depressive symptom threshold, and Group 3 (12.4%), consistently high scores. Both the moderate (OR = 2.62, 95% CI, 1.89-3.66) and high score (OR = 6.88, 95% CI, 4.72-10.02) groups, compared with the consistently low group, had significantly higher postmenopausal depressive symptom scores. Other pre-FMP variables associated with high postmenopausal depressive symptoms were: higher odds of childhood trauma/maltreatment, poor role physical, high anxiety symptoms, sleep problems, high vasomotor symptoms, and lower odds for chronological aging and lower social support. Conclusions Compared with premenopause, postmenopause remains a period of increased risk for higher depressive symptoms, especially for women with pre-FMP depressive symptoms. Pre-FMP depressive symptom trajectories are highly predictive of postmenopause depressive symptoms independent of health and psychosocial factors.
Northern East Asian Monsoon Precipitation Revealed by Airmass Variability and Its Prediction

This work provides a new perspective on the major factors controlling the East Asian summer monsoon (EASM) in July and a promising physical–statistical forecasting of the EASM ahead of summer. Dominant modes of the EASM are revealed from the variability of large-scale air masses discerned by equivalent po- tential temperature, and they are found to be dynamically connected with the anomalous sea surface tem-peratures (SSTs) over the three major oceans of the world and their counterparts of prevailing atmospheric oscillation or teleconnection patterns. Precipitation over northern East Asia (NEA) during July is enhanced by the tropical central Indian Ocean warming and central Paciﬁc El Ni ñ o–related SST warming, the northwestern Paciﬁc cooling off the coast of NEA, and the North Atlantic Ocean warming. Using these factors and data from the preceding spring seasons, the authors build a multiple linear regression model for seasonal forecasting. The cross-validated correlation skill predicted for the period 1994 to 2012 is up to 0.84, which far exceeds the skill level of contemporary climate models.
Effects of Target Words and Their Locations in Prompts

Few and zero-shot learning with prompt-tuned models has recently been shown to be very successful. Prompt-tuned models require prompt engineering where the model is trained on many different prompts. A prompt is some text that is added to an input example in order to convert it into a language modeling task. For example instead of just training on pairs of hypotheses and premises, the prompted input text would be: “Given { premise } , does this follow: { hypothesis } ? ” A challenge is figuring out which prompt wording allows the model to perform best. In this thesis, we experiment with different target words and their locations; either not included in the prompt, at the start, or at the end of the prompt. Target words are the set of possible response to the prompt, for the previous example the target words could be yes and no. We look at two different models, instruction tuned (T0) and not (ALBERT). We also analyze the difference between varying difficulties of prompts in Natural Language Inference (NLI) and across different tasks (NLI, coreference resolution, sentence completion, and multiple choice question and answer). In sum, we find 1) that yes/no and true/false perform best as the target words, 2) the impact of location of the target words on T0 varies by task and results are inconsistent, and 3) that including them as a negative impact on ALBERT.
Career Planning and Employee Retention in Insurance Companies in Nairobi City County

- Changes in the working place and pressures of life and market demands have led to high turnover of talented and highly performing employees. At the same time, the cost of acquisition of new employees is high and thus organizations seek ways of improving their employee retention rates. This study sought to assess how career planning affects employee retention in insurance companies in Nairobi City County. The study is anchored on Herzberg’s two factor theory and employed descriptive research design. The target population was the 61 insurance companies and three respondents were selected from each insurance company. The respondents were senior managers from three departments - human resource, operations and finance. The respondents were grouped as per department, thus stratified sampling technique and census sampling was employed by using all the 61 insurance firms. Primary data was collected using structured questionnaires that were first pilot tested and self-administered to the respondents. Drop and pick later method was employed to increase the response rate and the data was analyzed using SPSS and using descriptive analysis that obtained means, frequencies and standard deviations and multiple regression that showed how variables were related. The regression analysis showed that 78.1% change in employee retention was due to career planning and the career planning had positive and significant effect to employee performance where β =0.637 and p-values
Analysis of strength and resistance parameters of the lumbar spinae erector muscles during isometric exercise at different effort levels

The low-back pain has demonstrated to be a common finding among athletes and particularly the overload in the lumbar column resulting from a strength or isometric resistance involvement of muscles of this segment as result of the muscular fatigue has been considered as important etiological factor for its development. In this context, tests used for the training evaluation of the lumbar spinae erector muscles are emphasized. In the present study, the analysis of the strength and isometric resistance parameters was used with the objective of evaluating responses of these muscles during maximal and sub-maximal voluntary isometric contractions (MVIC) in two situations: with fatigue and without fatigue induced by isometric exercise performed until exhaustion. Nine male healthy volunteers performed MVIC before and after vertebral column extension exercises supporting 5%, 10%, 15% and 20% of the MVIC. In each one of these situations, the electromyographic signal (EMG) of the iliocostalis and multifidus muscles as well as the strength level generated in the MVIC were recorded. Muscular fatigue was identified through the MVIC values decrease verification and median frequency (MF) of the EMG signals obtained after isometric exercise. The results demonstrated that while the strength was able to evidence muscular fatigue, the MF demonstrated in a statistically significant way the iliocostalis and multifidus muscles fatigue, and the multifidus muscles presented a higher muscular fatigue level. Interestingly, loads between 5% and 20% of the MVIC induced the same level of muscular fatigue. Thus, although the strength generated during vertebral column extension after isometric exercise-induced exhaustion remains unchanged, probably due to the action of accessory muscles, the overload on the vertebral column is developed as result of the vertebral column stability involvement resulting from the muscular fatigue identified after isometric exercise.