bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Synthetic EMG Based on Adversarial Style Transfer can Effectively Attack Biometric-based Personal Identification Models
Authors: Kang Peiqi , Jiang Shuo , Shull Peter B.
Published: October 2022

Biometric-based personal identification models are generally considered to be accurate and secure because biological signals are too complex and person-specific to be fabricated, and EMG signals, in particular, have been used as biological identification tokens due to their high dimension and non-linearity. We investigate the possibility of effectively attacking EMG-based identification models with biological adversarial input via a novel EMG signal individual style transformer based on a generative adversarial network. EMG hand gesture data from eighteen subjects and three well-recognized deep EMG classifiers were used to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed attack methods. The proposed methods achieved an average of 99.41% success rate on confusing identification models and an average of 91.51% success rate on manipulating identification models. These results demonstrate that EMG classifiers based on deep neural networks can be vulnerable to synthetic data attacks. The proof-of-concept results reveal that synthetic EMG biological signals must be considered in biological identification system design across a vast array of relevant biometric systems to ensure personal identification security for individuals and institutions.
A nearly 30-years living collection from the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh is a new species: a case study ofBetula mcallisteriisp. nov. (sect.Acuminatae, Betulaceae) and its little hybridization withBetula luminifera
Authors: Zhang Huayu , Ding Junyi , Wang Nian
Published: October 2022

Species description meets challenges arising from various species concepts. Integrating different sources of information and multiple lines of evidence are important for species recognition and discovery.

Here we use morphology, restriction site-associated DNA sequencing and flow cytometry to study the species status of the unidentifiedBetulasamples collected in this study and to assess the extent of hybridization between the unidentifiedBetulasamples andB. luminiferain natural populations.

Molecular analyses show the unidentifiedBetulasamples as a distinct lineage and reveal very little genetic admixture between the unidentified samples andB. luminifera. Unexpectedly, the unidentified samples formed a well-supported monophyletic clade with the living collection ofB. luminifera19933472 in the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh which was introduced from Southwest China. Flow cytometry shows that the unidentified samples andB. luminifera19933472 are diploid.

Our data indicates thatB. luminifera19933472 and the unidentifiedBetulasamples should be recognized as a new species, namelyB. mcallisterii. The very little introgression betweenB. mcallisteriiandB. luminiferaindicates a strong reproductive barrier. Our research shows the importance of gathering information from wild populations and the value of an integrative approach in species discovery.

Societal Impact Statement

A comprehensive survey of plant species from natural populations can aid greatly in taxonomy and species delimitation. Here, we discovered a new birch species from the wild and unexpectedly found that this species has been introduced to the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh for nearly 30 years. We found very little introgression between the new species and its closely-related species. Our study highlighted the importance in integrating sources of information from natural populations and botanic gardens for species discovery.
ATGL is differentially required for adipocyte FABP4 secretionin vivoandex vivo
Authors: Prentice Kacey J. , Lee Alexandra , Cedillo Paulina , Inouye Karen E. , Ertunc Meric Erikci , Lee Grace Yankun , Hotamışlıgil Gökhan S.
Published: October 2022

Fatty acid binding protein 4 (FABP4) is linked with the pathogenesis of metabolic diseases, including diabetes and cardiovascular disease in both mice and humans. It has also been demonstrated that the levels of hormonal FABP4 are strongly associated with obesity, and secretion is stimulated under conditions of fasting and lipolysis bothin vivoandin vitro. Here, we utilized adipocyte-specific deficiency of adipose triglyceride lipase (ATGL) in a mouse model (ATGLAdpKO) to evaluate the regulation of FABP4 secretion by lipolytic signals in the absence of actual lipolysisin vivo. Previously, lipolysis-induced FABP4 secretion was found to be significantly reduced upon pharmacological inhibition of ATGL, and from adipose tissue explants from ATGLAdpKOmice. Unexpectedly, upon activation beta-adrenergic receptors, ATGLAdpKOmice exhibited significantly higher levels of circulating FABP4 as compared to ATGLfl/flcontrolsin vivo, with no corresponding increase in non-esterified free fatty acids or glycerol, confirming the lack of lipolysis. We also generated an additional model with adipocyte-specific deletion of FABP4 in the background of ATGLAdpKOmice (ATGL/FABP4AdpKOor DKO) to evaluate the cellular source of circulating FABP4. In these animals, there was no evidence of lipolysis-induced FABP4 secretion, indicating that the elevated FABP4 hormone levels in the ATGLAdpKOmice were indeed from the adipocytes. ATGLAdpKOmice did not exhibit an increase in insulin secretion upon stimulation of lipolysis, but had a normal insulin response to glucose injection along with increased FABP4 secretion, suggesting the elevated FABP4 secretion is not due to lack of insulin. Inhibition of sympathetic signaling during lipolysis using hexamethonium significantly reduced FABP4 secretion in ATGLAdpKOmice compared to controls. Therefore, activity of a key enzymatic step of lipolysis mediated by ATGL,per se, is not required for stimulatedin vivoFABP4 secretion from adipocytes, which can be induced through sympathetic signaling.
Sequence aligners can guarantee accuracy in almostO(mlogn) time: a rigorous average-case analysis of the seed-chain-extend heuristic
Authors: Shaw Jim , Yu Yun William
Published: October 2022

Seed-chain-extend with k-mer seeds is a powerful heuristic technique for sequence alignment employed by modern sequence aligners. While effective in practice for both runtime and accuracy, theoretical guarantees on the resulting alignment do not exist for seed-chain-extend. In this work, we give the first rigorous bounds for the efficacy of seed-chain-extend with k-mersin expectation.Assume we are given a random nucleotide sequence of length ~nthat is indexed (or seeded) and a mutated substring of length ~m≤nwith mutation rateθ< 0.206. We prove that we can find ak=Θ(logn) for the k-mer size such that the expected runtime of seed-chain-extend under optimal linear gap cost chaining and quadratic time gap extension isO(mnf(θ)logn) wheref(θ) < 2.43 ·θholds as a loose bound. The alignment also turns out to be good; we prove that more thanfraction of the homologous bases arerecoverableunder an optimal chain. We also show that our bounds work when k-mers aresketched, i.e. only a subset of all k-mers is selected, and that sketching reduces chaining time without increasing alignment time or decreasing accuracy too much, justifying the effectiveness of sketching as a practical speedup in sequence alignment. We verify our results in simulation and on real noisy long-read data and show that our theoretical runtimes can predict real runtimes accurately. We conjecture that our bounds can be improved further, and in particular,f(θ) can be further reduced.
Determinants and Mechanisms of the Low Fusogenicity and Endosomal Entry of Omicron Subvariants
Authors: Qu Panke , Evans John P. , Kurhade Chaitanya , Zeng Cong , Zheng Yi-Min , Xu Kai , Shi Pei-Yong , Xie Xuping , Liu Shan-Lu
Published: October 2022

The rapid spread and strong immune evasion of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants has raised serious concerns for the global COVID-19 pandemic. These new variants exhibit reduced fusogenicity and increased endosomal entry pathway utilization compared to the ancestral D614G variant, the underlying mechanisms of which remain elusive. Here we show that the C-terminal S1 mutations of the BA.1.1 subvariant, H655Y and T547K, critically govern the low fusogenicity of Omicron. Notably, H655Y also dictates the enhanced endosome entry pathway utilization. Mechanistically, T547K and H655Y likely stabilize the spike trimer conformation, as shown by increased molecular interactions in structural modeling as well as reduced S1 shedding. Importantly, the H655Y mutation also determines the low fusogenicity and high dependence on the endosomal entry pathway of other Omicron subvariants, including BA.2, BA.2.12.1, BA.4/5 and BA.2.75. These results uncover mechanisms governing Omicron subvariant entry and provide insights into altered Omicron tissue tropism and pathogenesis.
Carbon nanofibers fabrication, surface modifications, and application as the innovative substrate for electrical stimulation of neural cell differentiation
Authors: Nekounam Houra , Samadian Hadi , Golmohammadi Hossein , Asghari Fatemeh , Shokrgozar Mohammad Ali , Ahadian Samad , Majidi Reza Faridi
Published: October 2022

Engineered nanostructures are innovative and precisely designed, synthesized, and tailored with outstanding physicochemical properties that can be applied as the game-changer in neural tissue engineering. The present study aimed to develop an innovative approach based on electrical stimulation through a conductive scaffold to differentiate neural cells from human adipose mesenchymal stem cells without the use of a specific environment for neural differentiation. Electrospun carbon nanofibers (CNFs) were obtained using heat treatment of polyacrylonitrile nanofibers and treated by nitric acid, ethylenediamine, and oxygen Plasma. SEM imaging revealed that the treated nanofibers have s diameter in the range of 120-200 nm and the treatment did not significantly change the CNFs diameter. The FTIR results showed that the treatments were able to introduce COOH, OH, and NH2 functional groups on the CNFS surface. The XRD and Raman analysis showed that the plasma treatment induced the lowest structural changes in the CNFs microstructure. The biocompatibility assessments showed that the pristine and treated CNFs were non-toxic induced proliferative effect on human adipose-derived mesenchymal stem cells. The electrical stimulation (1.5 mA current with a frequency of 500 Hz and CMOS waveform for 7 days 10 min each day) induced the expression of neural genes and proteins by the cells cultured on the treated CNFs. The Plasma-treated CNFs mediated the highest differentiation outcome. These results indicate that electrospun CNFs can be applied as the innovative interface applicable for neural tissue regeneration under electrical stimulation.

Research highlights

CNFs were fabricated from PAN nanofibers

Different amounts of ZnONPs were incorporated into or sprayed on CNF

increasing in ZnONP amount decreased conductivity, surface wettability was improved by ∼19–33%.

Also, FTIR, XRD, and Raman analyses proved that the presence of ZnONP improved structure formation with lower defect density

Schematic 1.

The applied electrical stimulation setup
Risk assessment of cancer patients based on HLA-I alleles, neobinders and expression of cytokines
Authors: Dhall Anjali , Patiyal Sumeet , Kaur Harpreet , Raghava Gajendra P. S.
Published: October 2022

Advancements in cancer immunotherapy have shown significant outcomes in treating various types of cancers. In order to design effective immunotherapy, it is important to understand immune response of a patient based on its genomic profile. We compute prognostic biomarkers from 8346 cancer patients for twenty types of cancer. These prognostic biomarkers has been computed based on i) presence of 352 human leucocyte antigen class-I (HLA-I), ii) 660959 tumor-specific HLA1 neobinders and iii) expression profile of 153 cytokines. It was observed that survival risk of cancer patients depends on presence of certain type of HLA-I alleles; for example LIHC cancer patients with HLA-A*03:01 are on lower risk. Our analysis indicate that neobinders of HLA-I alleles have high correlation with overall survival of certain type of cancer patients. For example HLA-B*07:02 binders have 0.49 correlation with survival of LUSC and −0.77 with KICH cancer patients. It is clear from above analysis that HLA and their binders have major role in survival of cancer patients suffering from different types of cancer. In addition, we compute prognostic biomarkers for 20 types of cancer based on each type of cytokine expression. Higher expression of few cytokines is survival favourable like IL-2 for BLCA cancer patients whereas IL-5R survival unfavourable for KICH cancer patients. In order to facilitate scientific community we developed a web-based platform CancerHLA1 that maintain raw and analyzed data (https://webs.iiitd.edu.in/raghava/cancerhla1/).
Comparative Mutagenesis of SARS-CoV-2 Nonstructural Proteins (NSPs) Across Variants: The Case for RdRp as a Therapeutic Target
Authors: Lanclos Nathan
Published: October 2022

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) pathogenicity has been studied extensively from the perspective of structural (S, E, M, N) proteins for purposes in vaccine development. The virus’ nonstructural protein (nsp) components are less characterized, and demonstrate significant potential in efforts to develop novel therapeutic agents. NSP 7, 8, and 12, formed from the cleavage of pp1a and pp1ab polyproteins, comprise the viral replicase (RdRp) complex1, the site for the mechanism of action of Remdesivir2. Presented herein is a phylogenetic analysis for the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 replicase components between variant and related coronaviruses with the aim to delineate its current and long-term efficacy as a drug target.
EVMP: Enhancing machine learning models for synthetic promoter strength prediction by Extended Vision Mutant Priority framework
Authors: Yang Weiqin , Li Dexin , Huang Ranran
Published: October 2022

Motivation

In metabolic engineering and synthetic biology applications, promoters with appropriate strengths are critical. However, it is time-consuming and laborious to annotate promoter strength by experiments. Nowadays many machine learning (ML) methods are applied to synthetic promoter strength prediction, but existing models are limited by the excessive proximity between synthetic promoters.

Results

In order to enhance ML models to better predict the synthetic promoter strength, we propose EVMP(Extended Vision Mutant Priority), a universal framework which utilize mutation information more effectively. In EVMP, synthetic promoters are equivalently transformed into base promoter and correspondingk-mer mutations, which are input into BaseEncoder and VarEncoder respectively. In Trc synthetic promoter library, EVMP was applied to multiple ML models and the model effect was enhanced to varying extents, up to 61.30%, while the SOTA(state-of-the-art) record was improved by 15.25%. EVMP also provides optional data augmentation based on multiple base promoters, which further improved the model performance by 17.95% compared with non-EVMP SOTA record. In further study, extended vision is shown to be essential for EVMP. We also found that EVMP can alleviate the over-smoothing phenomenon, which may contributes to its effectiveness. Our work suggests that EVMP can highlight the mutation information of synthetic promoters and significantly improve the prediction accuracy of strength.

Availability and implementation

The source code is publicly available on github:https://github.com/Tiny-Snow/EVMP.

Contact

huangrr@sdu.edu.cn

Supplementary information

Appendix is available atbioRxivonline.
DNA Methylation Signatures in Breast Cancer: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
Authors: Trasierras-Fresco Antonio Manuel , Virués-Morales Alejandro , Gómez-Martínez Helena , Dolader Rabinad Beatriz , del Rey Díez Natalia , Andreu Z , Hidalgo Marta R. , Gómez-Cabañes Borja , Poley Gil Miriam , Malmierca-Merlo Pablo , Romera-Giner Sergio , Crespo Daniel , Serna-Blasco Roberto , Romero Atocha , Lopez-Guerrero Jose A , de la Iglesia-Vaya María , García-García Francisco
Published: October 2022

Epigenetic changes are involved in the onset and progression of cancer, and the detection of DNA methylation signatures may foster the improvement of diagnosis and prognosis. While the emergence of innovative technologies has fostered numerous studies in breast cancer, many lack statistical power due to the small sample sizes generally involved. In this study, we present a novel meta-analysis that identifies a common pattern of DNA methylation in all breast cancer subtypes. We obtained DNA methylation signatures at the gene and biological function level, identifying those significant groups of genes and functional pathways affected. To achieve this, we conducted a thorough systematic review following PRISMA statement guidelines for the selection of studies on DNA methylation in breast cancer. In total, we gathered four studies (GSE52865, GSE141338, GSE59901 and GSE101443) that were split into 13 comparisons comprising a set of 144 individuals. We discovered that most breast cancer subtypes share a significant deregulation in the immune system and alterations to the cell cycle. This integrative approach combines all available information from public data repositories and possesses greater statistical power than any individual study. Further evaluations of the identified differential biological processes and pathways may support the identification of novel biomarkers and therapeutic targets.

Simple summary

The identification of DNA methylation patterns in breast cancer represents a potentially valuable approach in defining more accurate diagnoses and treatment options. In this study, we applied a novel methodology that integrates the DNA methylation profiles of all studies available in public repositories via systematic review and meta-analysis. The results provide evidence of a common DNA methylation signature in distinct breast cancer subtypes, which reflects a significant deregulation of the immune system and alterations to the cell cycle. Overall, these results may support the selection of disease/treatment biomarkers and the identification of therapeutic targets.
Identifying hierarchical cell states and gene signatures with deep exponential families for single-cell transcriptomics
Authors: Ferreira Pedro F. , Kuipers Jack , Beerenwinkel Niko
Published: October 2022

Single-cell gene expression data characterizes the complex heterogeneity of living systems. Tissues are composed of various cells with diverse cell states driven by different sets of genes. Cell states are often related in a hierarchical fashion, for example, in cell differentiation hierarchies. Clustering which respects a hierarchy, therefore, can improve functional interpretation and be leveraged to remove noise and batch effects when inferring gene signatures. For this task, we present single-cell Deep Exponential Families (scDEF), a multi-level Bayesian matrix factorization model for single-cell RNA-sequencing data. The model can identify hierarchies of cell states and be used for dimension reduction, gene signature identification, and batch integration. Additionally, it can be guided by known gene sets to jointly type cells and identify their hierarchical structure, or to find higher resolution states within the provided ones. In simulated and real data, scDEF outperforms alternative methods in finding cell populations across biologically distinct batches. We show that scDEF recovers cell type hierarchies in a whole adult animal, identifies a signature of response to interferon stimulation in peripheral blood mononuclear cells, and finds both patient-specific and shared cell states across nine high-grade serous ovarian cancer patients.
CMOT: Cross Modality Optimal Transport for multimodal inference
Authors: Alatkar Sayali , Wang Daifeng
Published: October 2022

Biological mechanisms are complex spanning multiple facets, each providing a unique view of the underlying mechanism. Recent single-cell technologies such as scRNA-seq and scATAC-seq have facilitated parallel probing into each of these facets, providing multimodal measurements of individual cells. An integrative analysis of these single-cell modalities can therefore provide a comprehensive understanding of specific cellular and molecular mechanisms. Despite the technological advances, simultaneous profiling of multiple modalities of single cells continues to be challenging as opposed to single modality measurements, and therefore, it may not always be feasible to conduct such profiling experiments (e.g., missing modalities). Furthermore, even with the available multimodalities, data integration remains elusive since modalities may not always have paired samples, leaving partial to no correspondence information.

To address those challenges, we developed Cross-Modality Optimal Transport (CMOT), a computational approach to infer missing modalities of single cells based on optimal transport (OT). CMOT first aligns a group of cells (source) within available multi-modal data onto a common latent space. Then, it applies optimal transport to map the cells with a single modality (target) to the aligned cells in source from the same modality by minimizing their cost of transportation using Wasserstein distance. This distance can be regularized by prior knowledge (e.g., cell types) or induced cells clusters to improve mapping, and an entropy of transport to speed up OT computations. Once transported, CMOT uses K-Nearest-Neighbors to infer the missing modality for the cells in target from another modality of mapped cells in source. Furthermore, the alignment of CMOT works for partially corresponding information from multi-modalities, i.e., allowing a fraction of unmatched cells in source. We evaluated CMOT on several emerging multi-modal datasets, e.g., gene and protein expression and chromatin accessibility in developing brain, cancers, and immunology. We found that not only does CMOT outperform existing state-of-art methods, but its inferred gene expression is biologically interpretable such as classifying cell types and cancer types. Finally, CMOT is open source and available on our github:https://github.com/daifengwanglab/CMOT
Immature Myeloid Cell Deposition in Old Bone Marrow Revealed by Single-Cell Transcriptome Analysis
Authors: Kim Woo Jin , Kim Ki-Tae , Moon Jae-I , Park Seung Gwa , Cho Young-Dan , Kim Hyun Jung , Shin Hye-Rim , Yoon Heein , Ryoo Hyun-Mo
Published: October 2022

Aging causes dysfunction of innate immunity, although hematopoietic stem cells of aged bone marrow (BM) show an increased differentiation potential to myeloid lineage cells. The alteration of cellular heterogeneity and intercellular communications between BM immune cells may provide important clues to understanding age-dependent immune dysfunction. Here, we provide a deep single-cell transcriptomic analysis of total immune cell populations of young and old BM. We identified the well-organized differentiation status of 11 myeloid/lymphoid lineage cell populations and age-dependent alterations in the proportions of cells. The neutrophil lineages showed the most prominent alteration by aging, and subclustering of neutrophils indicated that the specific immature neutrophils are increased in old BM. In addition, we identified age-dependent alterations in secretory phenotypes associated with a decline in innate immunity and immune cell differentiation. Among these secretory phenotypes, SPP1 could be suggested as a representative signal that triggers myeloid skewing and immature neutrophil deposition in aged BM. Collectively, these results provide a novel link between the altered immune cell proportions in BM and age-dependent dysregulation of innate immunity.
Deep learning algorithms reveal a new visual-semantic representation of familiar faces in human perception and memory
Authors: Shoham Adva , Grosbard Idan , Patashnik Or , Cohen-Or Daniel , Yovel Galit
Published: October 2022

Recent studies show significant similarities between the representations humans and deep neural networks (DNNs) generate for faces. However, two critical aspects of human face recognition are overlooked by these networks. First, human face recognition is mostly concerned with familiar faces, which are encoded by visual and semantic information, while current DNNs solely rely on visual information. Second, humans represent familiar faces in memory, but representational similarities with DNNs were only investigated for human perception. To address this gap, we combined visual (VGG-16), visual-semantic (CLIP), and natural language processing (NLP) DNNs to predict human representations of familiar faces in perception and memory. The visual-semantic network substantially improved predictions beyond the visual network, revealing a new visual-semantic representation in human perception and memory. The NLP network further improved predictions of human representations in memory. Thus, a complete account of human face recognition should go beyond vision and incorporate visual-semantic, and semantic representations.
Tactile perception of auditory roughness
Authors: Bernard Corentin , Kronland-Martinet Richard , Fery Madeline , Ystad Sølvi , Thoret Etienne
Published: October 2022

Auditory roughness resulting of fast temporal beatings is often studied by summing two pure tones with close frequencies. Interestingly, the tactile counterpart of auditory roughness can be provided through touch with vibrotactile actuators. However, whether auditory roughness could also be perceived through touch, and whether they exhibit similar characteristics is unclear. Here, auditory roughness perception and its tactile counterpart were evaluated using similar two pure tones stimuli. Results revealed similar roughness curves in both modalities suggesting similar sensory processing. This study attests of the relevance of such a paradigm for investing auditory and tactile roughness in a multisensory fashion.
Chromosome-length genome assemblies of cactophilicDrosophilailluminate links between structural and sequence evolution
Authors: Benowitz Kyle M. , Allan Carson W. , Jaworski Coline C. , Sanderson Michael J. , Diaz Fernando , Chen Xingsen , Matzkin Luciano M.
Published: October 2022

A thorough understanding of adaptation and speciation requires model organisms with both a history of ecological and phenotypic study as well as a robust set of genomic resources. For decades, the cactophilicDrosophilaspecies of the southwestern US and northern Mexico have fit this profile, serving as a crucial model system for understanding ecological adaptation, particularly in xeric environments, as well as the evolution of reproductive incompatibilities and speciation. Here, we take a major step towards gaining a complete molecular description of this system by assembling and annotating seven chromosome-lengthde novogenomes across the three speciesD. mojavensis, D. arizonae, andD. navojoa. Using this data, we present the most accurate reconstruction of the phylogenetic history of this clade to date. We further demonstrate a relationship between structural evolution and coding evolution both within and between species in this clade, and use this relationship to generate novel hypotheses for adaptation genes. All of our data are presented in a new public database (cactusflybase.arizona.edu), providing one of the most in-depth resources for the analysis of inter- and intraspecific evolutionary genomic data.
Timing of TORC1 inhibition dictates Pol III involvement in longevity inCaenorhabditis elegans
Authors: Malik Yasir , Silva Isabel Goncalves , Diazgranados Rene Rivera , Selman Colin , Alic Nazif , Tullet Jennifer M. A.
Published: October 2022

Organismal growth and lifespan are inextricably linked. Target of Rapamycin (TOR) signalling regulates protein production for growth and development, but if reduced extends lifespan across species. Reduction of the enzyme RNA polymerase III, which transcribes tRNAs and 5S rRNA, also extends longevity. Here, we identify a temporal genetic relationship between TOR and Pol III inC. elegans, showing that they collaborate to regulate progeny production and lifespan. Interestingly, the lifespan interaction between Pol III and TOR is only revealed when TOR signaling is reduced specifically in adulthood demonstrating the importance of timing to control TOR regulated developmentalvsadult programs. Additionally, we show that Pol III acts inC. elegansmuscle to promote both longevity and healthspan and that reducing Pol III even in late adulthood is sufficient to extend lifespan. This demonstrates the importance of Pol III for lifespan and age-related health in adultC. elegans.
Characterization of the Tau Interactome in Human Brain Reveals Isoform-Dependent Interaction with 14-3-3 Family Proteins
Authors: Betters Ryan K. , Luhmann Emma , Gottschalk Amy C. , Xu Zhen , Ptak Christopher P. , Fiock Kimberly L. , Radoshevich Lilliana C. , Hefti Marco M.
Published: October 2022

Tau phosphorylation and aggregation is the final common pathway for neuronal toxicity across multiple neurodegenerative diseases including Alzheimer disease, progressive supranuclear palsy, and corticobasal degeneration. We have previously shown that the fetal brain expresses high levels of phosphorylated tau, and even tau aggregates, without apparent toxic effects. The mechanisms for this remarkable resilience, however, remain unclear. In order to identify potential mediators of this resilience, we used bead-linked total tau immunoprecipitation in human fetal, adult, and Alzheimer disease brains. We then used heterologous transfection in HEK 293T cells followed by coimmunoprecipitation, mass photometry, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) to further characterize the interaction of tau with one of our top hits, 14-3-3-β. We found significant differences between the tau interactome in fetal and AD brain, with little difference between adult and AD. There were significant differences in tau interaction with 14-3-3 family proteins between fetal and AD brain. We then determined that the 14-3-3 isoform with the highest difference, 14-3-3-β, preferentially interacts with 4R tauin vitro, forming a complex consisting of two 14-3-3-β, and one tau molecule. NMR studies using15N-labeled phosphorylated tau showed that the binding site for 14-3-3 was in the microtubule binding region of tau, which is truncated in 3R tau through the exclusion of exon 10. Our findings suggest that there are marked differences between the phospho-tau interactome in fetal and Alzheimer disease brain, including differences in interaction with the critical 14-3-3 family of protein chaperones, which may explain, in part, the resilience of fetal brain to tau toxicity.
Dopamine receptor 1 on CaMKII-positive neurons within claustrum mediates adolescent cocaine exposure-induced anxiety-like behaviors and electro-acupuncture therapy
Authors: Chen Liying , Liu Zhaoyu , Zhao Ziheng , Du Demin , Pan Weichao , Wei Xiaoyan , Nie Jiaxun , Ge Feifei , Ding Jianhua , Fan Yu , Kim Hee Young , Guan Xiaowei
Published: October 2022

Adolescent cocaine exposure (ACE) increases risk of developing psychiatric problems such as anxiety, which may drive relapse in later life, however, its underlying molecular mechanism remains poorly understood.

Methods:ACE male mice model were established by exposing to cocaine during adolescent period. Elevated plus maze (EPM) were used to assess anxiety-like behaviors in mice. Within claustrum, local injection of SCH-23390, a specific antagonist for dopamine receptor 1 (D1R), or D1R knocking-down virus were used to regulate D1R function or expression on CaMKII-positive neurons (D1RCaMKII)in vivo. Electro-acupuncture (EA) treatment was performed at acupoints of Baihui and Yintang during withdrawal period.

Results:We found that ACE mice exhibited anxiety-like behaviors, along with more activated CaMKII-positive neurons and increased D1RCaMKIIlevels in claustrum during adulthood. Inhibiting D1R function or knocking-down D1RCaMKIIlevels in claustrum efficiently reduced claustrum activation, and ultimately suppressed anxiety-like behaviors in ACE mice during adulthood. EA treatment alleviated ACE-evoked claustrum activation and anxiety-like behaviors by suppressing claustrum D1RCaMKII.

Conclusion:Our findings identified a novel role of claustrum in ACE-induced anxiety-like behaviors, and put new insight into the D1RCaMKIIin the claustrum. The claustrum D1RCaMKIImight be a promising pharmacological target, such as EA treatment, to treat drugs-induced anxiety-like behaviors.

Graphic abstract
A fast and lightweight tool for partially coherent beamline simulations in fourth-generation storage rings based on coherent mode decomposition
Authors: Sanchez del Rio Manuel , Celestre Rafael , Reyes-Herrera Juan , Brumund Philipp , Cammarata Marco
Published: October 2022

A new algorithm to perform coherent mode decomposition of undulator radiation is proposed. It is based on separating the horizontal and vertical directions, reducing the problem by working with one-dimension wavefronts. The validity conditions of this approximation are discussed. Simulations require low computer resources and run interactively on a laptop. The focusing with lenses of the radiation emitted by an undulator in a fourth-generation storage ring (EBS-ESRF) is studied. Results are compared against multiple optics packages implementing a variety of methods for dealing with partial coherence: full two-dimension coherent mode decomposition, Monte Carlo combination of wavefronts from electrons entering the undulator with different initial conditions, and hybrid ray-tracing correcting geometrical optics with wave optics.
Do you know when you are the punchline? Gender-based disparagement humor and target perceptions
Authors: Tabassum Ayesha , Karakowsky Len
Published: October 2022

Purpose

This paper aims to draw upon extant theory and research to delineate the fundamental factors that impact how women evaluate disparaging humor directed at them. The conceptual framework presented outlines the most fundamental organizational-, interpersonal- and individual-level factors that influence the accuracy of such evaluation.

Design/methodology/approach

This is a conceptual paper that offers both a review of extant humor and gender research and theory and the presentation of a theoretical model that classifies sources of influence on evaluations of sexist humor from the perspective of the target.

Findings

Organization-, interpersonal- and individual-level factors are identified as sources of influence on women’s perception and evaluation of sexist humor leveled at them. This classification identifies factors including organizational power dynamics, egalitarian norms, interpersonal trust, target self-esteem and feminist identity.

Research limitations/implications

This paper offers a conceptual framework to guide future studies in more systematically examining the sources of influence on female targets’ capacity to recognize when they are the “punchline” of sexist humor.

Practical implications

The conceptual model developed in this paper offers important implications for managers and leaders in organizations in assisting targets to recognize instances of sexist humor directed at them. The aim is to arm potential victims with the knowledge necessary to foster awareness of their treatment in the workplace and to improve the accuracy of evaluation of workplace attitudes that may often nurture a sense of approval or apathy regarding displays of sexist humor.

Originality/value

This paper presents a novel classification of sources of influence on female targets’ evaluation of sexist humor in the workplace.
Reflections on women’s progress into leadership in the UK and suggested areas for future research
Authors: Vinnicombe Susan , Mavin Sharon
Published: October 2022

Purpose

The paper provides an invited “Viewpoint” from Professor Susan Vinnicombe, along with contributions from Professor Sharon Mavin, on women leaders’ progress on UK company boards and suggests areas for future research.

Design/methodology/approach

Draws on data from the annual UK The Female FTSE Board Report (2021) and The Hidden Truth Report (2022), tracking gender diversity on UK company boards. Professor Vinnicombe outlines reflections on progress, and jointly the authors highlight suggested areas for future women-in-leadership research.

Findings

The authors argue against the continued use of the business case for gender diversity and suggest a research agenda for future women-in-leadership research concerning: gender-aware Chairs of Boards and Chief Executive Officers and men allies; access and appointment to senior board roles; and bias in senior appointments. We suggest a return to examining barriers to women’s progress in middle management, the role of middle managers/leaders and the uptake and impact of established flexible ways of work at executive levels. New research is possible into how women leaders in top positions have a positive influence on gender diversity yet are discriminated against by various publics. The authors recommend further intersectional research as a priority for women-in-leadership research to enable further theorizing and feminist progress.

Originality/value

Professor Sue Vinnicombe has dedicated her academic career to questioning barriers to women’s progress in management/leadership and actively influencing organisational practice. Sue was influential in the field before her first co-authored papers were published in Women in Management Review (our predecessor) in 2001 and 2002. Professor Sharon Mavin is a previous co-editor of Gender in Management: an international journal. Her first papers were published in Women in Management Review in 1999 and 2001. Sharon is co-editor of the Special Issue, women-in-leadership research and feminist futures: new agendas for feminist research and impact on gender equality.
Cash holdings and firm performance: empirical analysis from Shariah-compliant and conventional corporations
Authors: Alnori Faisal , Bugshan Abdullah
Published: October 2022

Purpose

This paper aims to provide a comprehensive investigation into the different roles of cash holding decisions on Shariah-compliant and non-Shariah-compliant firms’ performance. Therefore, the objective of this study is to analyze the significant relationship of liquidity on Shariah- and non-Shariah-compliant corporations.

Design/methodology/approach

This study sample includes non-financial firms listed in six Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) markets between 2005 and 2019. The study uses panel fixed effects and the dynamic generalized method of moments (system-GMM) models to test the relationship between cash holding and firm performance. The firms’ performance is measured using four widely used proxies representing book and market measures of performance including return on assets, return on equity, earnings before interest and tax to total assets and Tobin’s Q.

Findings

The results explore that the nature of the relationship between cash holdings and performance varies across Shariah-compliant and non-Shariah-compliant firms. Specifically, cash holdings are positively and significantly related to Shariah-compliant firms’ performance. However, cash reserves are not significantly related to conventional firms’ performance. These findings indicate that Shariah-compliant firms rely more on their cash holdings to avoid costly and less available external financing, meet everyday business needs and invest in profitable projects. In contrast, the value for cash holding is less important for non-Shariah-compliant firms, as their external financing options are less restricted compared to Shariah-compliant firms.

Research limitations/implications

This study is not free from limitations. More specifically, the sample of this study comprises of firms listed in GCC countries, which share common features. It would be interesting for future research to examine the linkage between cash holdings and Shariah-compliant and conventional firms’ performance by applying a larger sample, such as firms located in countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation.

Practical implications

The findings of this paper provide useful insights for managers and investors on the important role of cash management for Shariah-compliant firms. Policymakers and bankers need to develop Shariah-based financial products to ease Islamic financing sources. Moreover, the findings of this paper call for more research on the importance of liquidity management for Shariah-compliant firms.

Originality/value

This study extends the Islamic finance literature by exploring the key role of cash holdings to Shariah-compliant firms. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first study to investigate cash holdings and performance between Shariah-compliant and non-Shariah-compliant firms.
Experimentation capability for a circular economy: a practical guide
Authors: Bocken Nancy , Konietzko Jan
Published: October 2022

Purpose

To meet their ambitious targets for a circular economy, multinationals need to speed up their innovation efforts. This requires experimentation capability. But it is not clear what this capability entails, and how companies can build it. The purpose of this paper is to give companies guidance on how they might develop experimentation capability for the circular economy.

Design/methodology/approach

We conduct in-depth interviews with innovators in frontrunner multinationals, H&M, IKEA and Philips. We use the Gioia method to analyse our data.

Findings

This article identifies novel institutional, strategic, and operational actions that build experimentation capability for a circular economy.

Practical implications

The identified actions help innovation managers experiment and speed up their innovation efforts for a circular economy.

Social implications

To reverse environmental degradation, multinationals need to transform their dominant linear take-make-waste business models. This research provides actions that help them organize this transformation.

Originality/value

This article is based on extensive research with leading multinationals and reveals novel insights on how to innovate for a circular economy.
The cost of debt and political institutions: the influence of corruption
Authors: Tee Chwee-Ming , Teoh Teng-Tenk Melissa
Published: October 2022

Purpose

This cross-border study’s main purpose is to examine whether there is a significant association between political institutions and the cost of debt. In addition, it also investigates whether this association is moderated by the country’s corruption levels.

Design/methodology/approach

This study uses a unique cross-border data set comprising 45,848 firms from 117 countries from 2002 to 2017 to investigate these research questions. Further, the authors use the two-stage least squares method to mitigate issues of endogeneity.

Findings

This study finds that political institutions are significantly associated with cost of debt. Specifically, the cost of debt is lower in countries with stronger democratic institutions, smaller government bureaucracies and higher adherence to the rule of law. Further, this association is strengthened by low corruption levels.

Originality/value

This study provides new insights into the relationship between political institutions and the cost of debt. Overall, the results reveal that democratic institutions, government bureaucracy and the rule of law are significantly associated with cost of debt. This association is stronger in countries with low levels of corruption and consistent with Transparency’s International notion that accountability and transparency by government political institutions promote sustainable economic growth.
Exploring performance areas and developing performance assessment model for a construction projects in India
Authors: Ingle Prachi Vinod , Mahesh Gangadhar
Published: October 2022

Purpose

The success of construction projects can be indicated by measuring their performance. For effective project performance (PP), the successful execution of a construction projects is very important. A systematic review of the literature on performance areas and performance assessment models was undertaken. The purpose of this paper is to develop a mathematical formulation for construction PP areas to suit the Indian context by modifying the current project quarterback rating (PQR) model.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the literature, the PQR model has not been validated for suitability in the Indian context. To validate the PQR model and modify the same for the Indian context, a survey instrument was used to collect data on performance areas and a multivariate data analysis technique was carried out to develop a modified model. Delphi technique was used to assign the weights for each performance metric in performance areas.

Findings

This study concluded the importance of three additional performance areas, namely, productivity, stakeholder satisfaction and environment for assessing PP for Indian construction projects. It also identified the interrelationship between the performance areas and the PP.

Practical implications

The developed modified PQR model (MPQR) will guide the concerned stakeholders to take corrective actions for improving the performance of construction projects.

Originality/value

The MPQR proposed in this paper covers ten areas and is a comprehensive single score that can be used to benchmark and compare performance over different projects to achieve continuous improvement.
Effects of health misinformation on misbeliefs: understanding the moderating roles of different types of knowledge
Authors: Wang Weirui , Jacobson Susan
Published: October 2022

Purpose

Health misinformation poses severe risks to people’s health decisions and outcomes. A great deal of research in this area has focused on debunking misinformation and found limited effects of correctives after misinformation exposure. The research on prebunking strategies has been inadequate. Most has focused on forewarning and enhancing literacy skills and knowledge to recognize misinformation. Part of the reason for the inadequacy could be due to the challenges in conceptualizing and measuring knowledge. This study intends to fill this gap and examines various types of knowledge, including subjective knowledge, cancer literacy, persuasion knowledge and media literacy. This study aims to understand how knowledge may moderate the effect of misinformation exposure on misbeliefs.

Design/methodology/approach

An online experiment with a basic experimental design (misinformation exposure: health misinformation vs factual health message) was conducted. The authors measured and tested the moderating role of different types of knowledge (subjective knowledge, cancer literacy, persuasion knowledge and media literacy) separately to improve the understanding of their role in combatting online health misinformation.

Findings

This study found that a higher level of cancer literacy and persuasion knowledge helped people identify misinformation and prevented them from being persuaded by it. A higher level of subjective knowledge, however, reduced the recognition of misinformation, thereby increasing the likelihood of being persuaded by it. Media literacy did not moderate the mediation path.

Originality/value

This study differentiates the role different types of knowledge may have played in moderating the influence of health misinformation. It contributes to a strategic development of interventions that better prepare people against the influence of health misinformation.