bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Cerebral investigation of healthy siblings of schizophrenics
Authors: Mourot A , d'Amato T , Rochet T , Marie-Cardine M , Artéaga C , Martin JP , Dalery J 
Published: July 2002

SummaryComputed tomography (CT) studies have demonstrated that lateral ventricular size measured by ventricular brain ratio (VBR), as well as third ventricle width, is statistically enlarged in schizophrenics. Moreover, these cerebral abnormalities differ according to symptomatology evaluated with a positive and negative symptom scale. The aim of this study was to investigate, using CT scans, healthy siblings of schizophrenics, and relate the results to their ill siblings. Nineteen healthy siblings of 12 previously studied schizophrenics underwent CT scans, which were compared to those of their related schizophrenic sibling and to 17 unrelated control subjects. The results showed that in ten of 12 families, schizophrenics have larger ventricles (lateral and third ventricles) than their healthy siblings. Ventricular enlargement of healthy siblings was correlated with severity of negative symptoms of their ill sibling. Implications of a familial contribution for ventricular size and negative symptoms are discussed.
Graphene Functionalization for Polymer Nanocomposites
Authors: Salavagione Horacio J , Quiles‐Díaz Susana , Shuttleworth Peter S , Ellis Gary J , Gómez‐Fatou Marián A 
Published: December 2020

AbstractPolymer nanocomposites represent one of the most important application materials of this century, and those based on the incorporation of graphene and related materials are at the forefront. This article describes the salient features of nanomaterials from the graphene family and describes in detail recent advances in the strategies employed to successfully incorporate them into polymer matrices for the development of a new generation of materials with superior and tunable properties.
Kant and Biology
Authors: Spahn Christian 
Published: December 2020

AbstractImmanuel Kant, the most important German philosopher of the era of Enlightenment, participated actively in the discussions within and about the natural sciences of his time. He became a defender of a Newtonian conception of science against Aristotelean Scholasticism that relied upon final causes and essentialist explanation for phenomena in nature. While gaining fame for developing his ‘critical philosophy’, he continued to address contemporary questions of philosophy of biology, such as critically analysing the argument from design, addressing the question of the natural origin of mankind, and searching for a middle ground between preformationism and epigenesis. Kant claims it is necessary for us to conceptualise organisms as ‘ends in nature’ with a purposive (teleonomic) structure that differs from any other Newtonian form of organisation in nature. Kant claims that due to the limits of our human reasoning we may never be able to find a mere Newtonian mechanical explanation of the origin of life and its order.Key ConceptsPreformationism: The view according to which organic growth and adaptability is resulting from a mechanical unfolding of ‘pre‐formed’ germs.Epigenesis (opposed to preformationism) the view that organic forces beyond Newtonian principles are needed to explain the flexible adaptiveness and the growth of organisms.Ends in Nature: Kant's term for the teleonomic (purposive) structure of organism that separate them from all other products of nature.Critical Philosophy: The attempt to deliver an epistemological foundation for philosophy by critically investigating the reach and limits of human reason.Bildungstrieb: The concept of a ‘formative force’ proposed by Blumenbach to explain the special causality responsible for the formation, growth and inner organisation of living organism that could not be explained by Newtonian forces alone.Aristotelean Teleology: The view that some forces in nature have to be understood as ‘final causes’ such that the ‘idea of the whole’ is the cause for the production of something in nature or by human or divine activity.
Evolution of North American Lizards
Authors: Scarpetta Simon G , Ledesma David T , Llauger Francisco O , White Brittney A 
Published: December 2020

AbstractLizards are a diverse reptile group with an ancient and global evolutionary history. Fossil lizards first appeared in North America during the Mesozoic. Many lizard lineages have inhabited North America throughout geologic time, including several lineages that are extinct, others that no longer occur on the continent, and many groups that are still there today. Lizards are currently found in a diverse range of habitats and in regions across the continent, including islands and human‐modified habitats. The modern lizard biota of North America contains diverse biogeographic and phylogenetic components along with the evolution of many distinctive behaviours, morphologies, and ecologies, including the evolution of venom, repeated limb loss, and ecological specialisations. Some lizards have been introduced to North America from elsewhere in the world or the continent, posing a potential problem for native biodiversity.Key ConceptsNorth America contains an astounding diversity of lizards both in the modern biota and through geologic time.Although many fossil lizards are documented, there is still a lot to learn from the fossil record.Historic extirpations and extinctions of lizards are known and conservation efforts are needed to preserve lizard biodiversity.Biogeographic scenarios of lizards in North America are often disputed but are informed by fossil and molecular evidence.North American lizards have a diverse set of behavioural, morphological and ecological characteristics.
Hybridogenesis in Water Frogs
Authors: Dufresnes Christophe , Mazepa Glib 
Published: December 2020

AbstractSeveral water frogs from the genusPelophylaxhave a hybrid origin and perpetuate by hybridogenesis, a peculiar mode of reproduction ruled by complex phenomena such as clonality and polyploidy, and which can constitute a transient stage towards the formation of novel species. Different kinds of hybridogenetic complexes have been documented throughout Europe, and a tremendous diversity of breeding systems allows their maintenance in space and time, each with its own subtilities to bypass the numerous challenges posed by a semi‐sexual life cycle. The other side of the coin is that hybridogenesis can boost the invasive potential of introduced frogs by altering the fragile dynamics of these natural populations, hence illustrating the thin line that separates ephemeral hybrid forms versus perennial reticulate taxa.Key ConceptsHybrids between diverged species can avoid sterility by abandoning sexual reproduction.Hybridogenetic hybrids typically transmit a single, clonal genome to offspring.Clonality promotes genetic decay and the need to breed with a sexual species.Reliance on a sexual host can be bypassed by polyploidy.Clonal genomes have various opportunities to recombine in populations.Genetic integrity, ecomorphological differentiation and sexual independence of hybridogenetic hybrids may represent steps towards hybrid speciation.Hybridogenetic systems can collapse due to invasive parental species.
Darwin's Finches, An Iconic Adaptive Radiation
Authors: Grant Peter R , Grant B Rosemary , Enbody Erik D , Andersson Leif , Lamichhaney Sangeet 
Published: December 2020

AbstractDarwin's finches are a prime example of an adaptive radiation. Eighteen species have diversified ecologically and morphologically from a common ancestor that arrived in the Galápagos archipelago approximately 2 million years ago (Ma). Speciation occurred when populations on different islands diverged, principally in body size and beak characteristics, and continued when populations came together on a single island. Field observations show that natural selection increases the ecological differences during food scarcity caused by droughts. Genomic studies have identified two important transcription factor genes that show genetic variation associated with beak morphology. Species typically do not breed with each other, instead, they recognise and respond to members of their own species by song and appearance. Nevertheless, they do occasionally hybridise and exchange genes because the hybrids are viable and fertile. Hybridisation provides an alternative route to the formation of a new species.Key ConceptsAdaptive radiation is the rapid ecological diversification of species from a common ancestor.Natural selection is the differential survival or reproduction of individuals due to differences in their phenotypic traits, and it leads to evolutionary change in the next generation if the traits are heritable.Beaks are tools for gathering and processing foods and are key functional traits in the ecological diversification of Darwin's finches.Divergence of beaks of coexisting species, known as character displacement, occurs when two species compete for a limited food supply and evolve away from each other in traits that reduce competition.Sexually reproducing species are diagnosably distinct groups that rarely if ever breed with other groups of organisms.Speciation occurs by the formation of barriers to gene exchange that may function either before mating occurs or later after fertilisation of the eggs has taken place.A premating barrier to gene exchange in Darwin's finches is formed by a sexual imprinting process whereby species‐specific song and morphology are learned early in life and used when adults choose a mate.The barrier may break down by accidental disruption of the learning process and then young finches may learn the song of another species and breed with that other species later in life.Hybrids may be viable and fertile, which results in gene flow among closely related species.Introgressive hybridisation is another route to speciation and occurs when the hybrids are sufficiently different from the parental species in song and appearance that they do not breed with them but only breed with members of their own (hybrid) group.
Drosophila
Retinal Patterning
Authors: Spencer Susan A , Johnson Ruth I , Setu Bipul 
Published: December 2020

Abstract

The
Drosophila
eye is an outstanding model system for exploring fundamental mechanisms of growth and development. The adult eye is composed of a perfect hexagonal lattice of ∼750 unit eyes, or ommatidia, each containing precisely 20 well‐characterized cells. The eye develops from the eye/antennal imaginal disc, a flattened epithelial sac. During larval and pupal development, cells in the disc grow and undergo compartmentalisation, cell cycle arrest, differentiation, directed movement, and apoptosis, all utilising gene networks and signalling pathways similar to those in vertebrates. The genetic accessibility of
Drosophila
, together with the precision of eye development, makes the fly retina an extremely useful system with which to investigate the roles of genes and signalling pathways in development.

Key Concepts

Adult
Drosophila
eyes contain ∼750 ommatidia, or unit eyes; each ommatidium is made up of precisely 20 cells, each of which can be identified by its position and protein expression.

Like other adult structures in
Drosophila
, the eye develops from an imaginal disc, a flattened sac of epithelial cells that develops during larval and pupal stages.

Drosophila
retinal development utilises gene regulatory networks similar to those in human eye development.

Photoreceptor differentiation requires passage of the morphogenetic furrow, an invagination in eye disc that moves across the tissue from posterior to anterior during larval development.

Photoreceptors differentiate during larval stages using signals emanating from previously differentiated cells, rather than through lineage restrictions.

During pupal development, accessory cells differentiate and apoptosis reduces the number of cells in each ommatidium to 20.

Cell interactions during pupal development produce the precise hexagonal lattice characteristic of the adult
Drosophila
eye.
Macroscelidea
Authors: Montuire Sophie 
Published: December 2020

Abstract

Macroscelids are known as elephant shrews because of their long and narrow snouts. Living exclusively in Africa, they are small mammals with a head and body length between 95 and 315 mm, and tail length between 80 and 235 mm.

Key Concepts

In spite of their name, elephant shrews (Macroscelidea) are not shrews and despite their appearance and size, they are not rodents either.

Systematics is the study and description of the diversification of both past and present organisms and their classification.

Phylogeny is a part of systematics that reports the inference of the evolutionary history and relationships among or within groups of organisms.

Conservation biology is the management of biodiversity with the objective of esablishing protective measures against the risks of extinction of species, of their habitats and to maintain a balance in ecosystems. This is why the species are classified by the IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of Threatened Species).

Paleontology corresponds to the study of organisms (classification and relationships) that lived prior to, and sometimes including, the beginning of the Holocene (around 11,700 years before present).
Protozoan Ecology
Authors: Anderson O Roger 
Published: December 2020

Abstract

Protozoan ecology is the interaction in space and time of protozoa (flagellates, amoeboid organisms and ciliates) with other living organisms and the physical environment. It encompasses, among other factors, sources of food and energy used to sustain life, food web dynamics, the role of protozoa in maintaining fertility of ecosystems and adaptive strategies for survival in varying habitats. Among the physical environmental (abiotic) factors, temperature, salinity, nutrients and levels of pollutants, when present, are major sources of influence. A complex set of interactions exists among microbial biota, including the role of nutrient regeneration during protozoan predation on bacteria resulting in release of nutrients due to digestion and disruption of the bacteria during feeding. These nutrients, in turn, are reutilised by algae during photosynthesis. This process of cyclical nutrient uptake by algae and subsequent release by protozoan predation is known as ‘the microbial loop’. The use of molecular genetic analyses has substantially improved our identification of protozoan species and their role in ecology including the microbial loop.

Key Concepts

Characteristics of the physical environment (including temperature, available nutrients and salinity) set the boundary conditions for the abundance and diversity of protozoa within a given habitat.

Algae and other photosynthetic organisms are primary producers that fix carbon into organic compounds through photosynthesis and thus provide food sources for all other organisms, including protozoa, within a food web.

Heterotrophic (nonphotosynthetic) microorganisms, particularly the protozoa, prey on algae and other microbes, including bacteria, and are consumers within food webs.

A complex set of interactions exist in microbial communities, including predator–prey relationships, that determine the flow of matter and energy through the food webs.

Competition within and among species partially accounts for the abundance and diversity of species in a microbial community.

The stability of microbial communities depends in part on the diversity of species and available resources needed to support life.

Protozoa, as predators and also as prey for larger organisms, are often key members of microbial communities and sustain the flow of energy and matter through food webs, including the regeneration of nutrients through their significant role in the microbial loop.
Longitudinal association between emotion‐related parenting behavior and child aggression: The moderating role of parent‐child physiological synchrony
Authors: Ahemaitijiang Nigela , Ren Haining , Wang Hui , Han Zhuo Rachel 
Published: December 2020

AbstractConsidering the high prevalence of aggressive problems found in middle childhood and their negative impacts on children's overall adjustment, it is important to explore factors that may give rise to childhood aggression, as well as the underlying mechanisms involved within the family context. Applying a biopsychosocial approach, the aim of our study was to examine the relations between emotion‐related parenting behavior (ERPB, e.g., parental psychological control and parental emotion dysregulation) and childhood aggression with a focus on the potential moderating effects of parent‐child physiological synchrony on these relations. Eighty‐nine parent‐child dyads (total N = 178) participated in the study (child M age = 8.76 years, SD = 1.81 years, 49 boys). At T1, ERPB was observed and coded from dyadic interaction and parent‐child physiological synchrony was assessed using interbeat interval (IBI) calculated from the participant's heart rate (HR) during an interaction task. Parents also reported their child's aggressive behavior at T1 and 9 months later (T2). The results showed that for children demonstrating stronger physiological synchrony with their parents, higher levels of parental psychological control and parental emotion dysregulation predicted their more aggressive behavior. Our findings suggest that for certain negative types of ERPB, parent‐child physiological synchrony seems to be a risk factor for the development of children's aggressive behavior.
Building Relationships With LGBTQ+ Mentees by Sharing Our Vulnerability
Authors: Reneau Clint‐Michael , Brooks Ann K. 
Published: December 2020

AbstractAlthough LGBTQ+ persons are one of the largest minority groups in the workforce, little has been written on the most helpful way to mentor them for leadership. We present a model of relational mentoring based on mentor critical awareness of their own intersected identities and sharing vulnerabilities.
Revealing the Phagosomal pH Regulation and Inflammation of Macrophages after Endocytosing Polyurethane Nanoparticles by A Ratiometric pH Nanosensor
Authors: Wong Chui‐Wei , Pratiwi Feby Wijaya , Chen Peilin , Mou Chung‐Yuan , Hsu Shan‐hui 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThe effect of the intracellular pH of macrophages after taking up biodegradable polymer nanoparticles (NPs) on immunomodulating functions has not been explored so far. Previous studies have demonstrated that biodegradable polyurethane (PU) NPs exhibit immunosuppressive activity. Yet, the intracellular mechanism is not clearly understood. In this study, a uniquely designed pH nanosensor is employed for tracking the intracellular pH value of macrophages to reveal the intracellular journey of PU NPs and to clarify the intracellular pH effect on the corresponding inflammatory response. First, fluorescent mesoporous silica nanoparticles (FRMSNs) is used to detect the pH change in macrophages after endo/phagocytosis of PU NPs. Second, PU is coated on the external surface of FRMSNs to examine the intracellular trafficking process of PU in the macrophages. The results show that the majority of PU‐coated FRMSNs remain to stay at the cytosol‐early endosome/phagosome regions. The intracellular pH value and other supporting results show that the immune response of PU NPs may be correlated to their internalization journey. The retardation in the degradation process of the PU NPs may intervene with the lysosome activity and repress the immunostimulatory effect, which contributes to the low immune response of PU NPs.
Poly‐Cytosine Deoxyribonucleic Acid Strongly Anchoring on Graphene Oxide Due to Flexible Backbone Phosphate Interactions
Authors: Lopez Anand , Zhao Yu , Huang Zhicheng , Guo Yifan , Guan Shaokang , Jia Yu , Liu Juewen 
Published: December 2020

AbstractFinding DNA sequences that can strongly adsorb on various nanomaterials is critically important for preparing bioconjugates, biosensors, and drug delivery. Poly‐cytosine (poly‐C) DNA is found to have stronger affinity compared to other DNA sequences of the same length on various nanomaterials ranging from graphene oxide (GO), MoS2, to many metal oxides and phosphates. In this work, the authors aim to understand the reason for such high affinity by varying pH and DNA sequence along with conducting molecular dynamics (MD) simulations using GO as a model surface. Poly‐C DNA adsorbs stronger only at neutral or basic pH, while its adsorption at acidic pH is weaker than other DNA homopolymers. The DNA sequence is further varied by inserting thymine into poly‐C DNA and by varying thymine/cytosine ratios, all confirming that a folded i‐motif structure is detrimental for adsorption. Using MD simulations, the authors reveal that the stronger adsorption of poly‐C DNA at neutral pH is due to more contributions from the phosphate backbone hydrogen bonding with GO surface relating to the flexibility of the DNA. Poly‐C DNA also uses its phosphate backbone to interact with metal oxide and phosphate nanoparticles, and this phosphate backbone interaction can unify all these observations.
Cation–dipole interaction that creates ordered ion channels in an anion exchange membrane for fastOH−conduction
Authors: Zhang Jianjun , He Yubin , Zhang Kaiyu , Liang Xian , Bance‐Soualhi Rachida , Zhu Yuan , Ge Xiaolin , Shehzad Muhammad A. , Yu Weisheng , Ge Zijuan , Wu Liang , Varcoe John Robert , Xu Tongwen 
Published: December 2020

AbstractPrecise control over polyelectrolyte architecture, engineered for self‐assembly of ion‐conducting channels, is of fundamental and technological importance to many fields, for example, fuel cells and redox flow batteries and electrodialysis. Building on recent advances with the supramolecular chemistry, we introduce inter/intra‐molecular cation–dipole interactions between pendent quaternary ammoniums cations and polar polyethylene glycol grafts in an anion‐exchange membrane (AEM). Such interactions lead to desirable, ordered ion‐conducting pathways when in the membrane form. Comparison of the results of molecular dynamics simulation with1H NMR and nano‐scale microscopy analyses show that the cation–dipole interactions enhance self‐assembly and the formation of interconnected ionic network domains, providing three‐dimensional pathways for both water and ion transport. The resultant AEM exhibits high OH−conductivity (49 mS cm−1at 30°C) and a completive peak power density of 622 mW cm−2at 70°C when tested in a H2/O2single‐cell alkaline membrane fuel cell.
Sensitivity of SARS‐CoV‐2 to different temperatures
Authors: Lv Qi , Liu Mingya , Qi Feifei , Gong Shuran , Zhou Shasha , Zhan Shisheng , Bao Linlin 
Published: December 2020

AbstractThis study was designed to investigate the sensitivity of SARS‐CoV‐2 to different temperatures, to provide basic data and a scientific basis for the control of COVID‐19 epidemic. The virus was dispersed in 1 mL basal DMEM medium at a final concentration of 103.2 TCID50/mL and then incubated at 4, 22, 30, 35, 37, 38, 39 and 40°C for up to 5 days. The infectivity of residual virus was titrated using the Vero E6 cell line. The results showed that the virus remained viable for 5 days at 4°C, and for 1 day only at 22 and 30°C. We found that the infectivity of the virus was completely lost after less than 12 hours at 37, 38 and 39°C, while at 40°C, the inactivation time of the virus was rapidly reduced to 6 hours. We show that SARS‐CoV‐2 is sensitive to heat, is more stable at lower temperatures than higher temperature, remains viable for longer at lower temperatures, and loses viability rapidly at higher temperatures.