bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Chasing the metabolism of novel syntrophic acetate-oxidizing bacteria in thermophilic methanogenic chemostats
Authors: Zeng Yan , Zheng Dan , Gou Min , Xia Zi-Yuan , Chen Ya-Ting , Nobu Masaru Konishi , Tang Yue-Qin 
Published: July 2021

AbstractBackgroundAcetate is the major intermediate of anaerobic digestion of organic waste to CH4. In anaerobic methanogenic systems, acetate degradation is carried out by either acetoclastic methanogenesis or a syntrophic degradation by a syntrophy of acetate oxidizers and hydrogenotrophic methanogens. Due to challenges in isolation of syntrophic acetate-oxidizing bacteria (SAOB), the diversity and metabolism of SAOB, as well as the mechanisms of their interactions with methanogenic partners remain poorly understood.ResultsIn this study, we successfully enriched previously unknown SAOB by operating continuous thermophilic anaerobic chemostats fed with acetate, propionate, butyrate, or isovalerate as the sole carbon and energy source. They represent novel clades belonging to Clostridia, Thermoanaerobacteraceae, Anaerolineae, and Gemmatimonadetes. In these SAOB, acetate is degraded through reverse Wood-Ljungdahl pathway or an alternative pathway mediated by the glycine cleavage system, while the SAOB possessing the latter pathway dominated the bacterial community. Moreover, H2 is the major product of the acetate degradation by these SAOB, which is mediated by [FeFe]-type electron-confurcating hydrogenases, formate dehydrogenases, and NADPH reoxidation complexes. We also identified the methanogen partner of these SAOB in acetate-fed chemostat, Methanosarcina thermophila, which highly expressed genes for CO2-reducing methanogenesis and hydrogenases to supportively consuming H2 at transcriptional level. Finally, our bioinformatical analyses further suggested that these previously unknown syntrophic lineages were prevalent and might play critical roles in thermophilic methanogenic reactors.ConclusionThis study expands our understanding on the phylogenetic diversity and in situ biological functions of uncultured syntrophic acetate degraders, and presents novel insights on how they interact with their methanogens partner. These knowledges strengthen our awareness on the important role of SAO in thermophilic methanogenesis and may be applied to manage microbial community to improve the performance and efficiency of anaerobic digestion.
Spontaneous pauses in firing of external pallidum neurons are associated with exploratory behavior
Authors: Kaplan Alexander , Mizrahi-Kliger Aviv D. , Rappel Pnina , Iskhakova Liliya , Fonar Gennadiy , Israel Zvi , Bergman Hagai 
Published: July 2021

AbstractSpontaneous pauses in firing are the hallmark of external pallidum (GPe) neurons. However, their role in the basal ganglia (BG) network remains unknown. Pupil size and saccades have been linked to attention and exploration. Here, we show that pauses are associated with dilated pupils and increased saccade rate. Our results suggest that pauses are a powerful mechanism by which the GPe may influence BG downstream structures and affect behavioral output.
Social experience alters oxytocinergic modulation in the nucleus accumbens of female prairie voles
Authors: Borie Amélie M. , Agezo Sena , Lunsford Parker , Boender Arjen J. , Guo Ji-Dong , Zhu Hong , Berman Gordon J. , Young Larry J. , Liu Robert C. 
Published: July 2021

AbstractSocial relationships are dynamic and evolve with shared and personal experiences. Whether the functional role of social neuromodulators also evolves with experience to shape the trajectory of relationships is unknown. We utilized pair bonding in the socially monogamous prairie voles as an example of socio-sexual experience that dramatically alters behaviors displayed toward other individuals. We investigated oxytocin-dependent modulation of excitatory synaptic transmission in the nucleus accumbens as a function of pair bonding status. We found that an oxytocin receptor agonist decreases the amplitude of spontaneous Excitatory Postsynaptic Currents (EPSCs) in sexually naive virgin, but not pair-bonded, female voles, while it increases the amplitude of electrically evoked EPSCs in paired voles, but not in virgins. This oxytocin-dependent potentiation of synaptic transmission relies on the de novo coupling between oxytocin receptor signaling and endocannabinoid CB1 receptor signaling in pair bonded voles. Blocking CB1 receptors after pair bond formation increases the occurrence of a specific form of social rejection – defensive upright response – that is displayed towards the partner but not towards a novel individual. Altogether, our results demonstrate that oxytocin’s action in the nucleus accumbens is changed through social experience in a way that regulates the trajectory of social interactions as the relationship with the partner unfolds, potentially promoting the maintenance of a pair bond by inhibiting aggressive responses. These results provide a mechanism by which social experience and context shift oxytocinergic signaling to impact neural and behavioral responses to social cues.
Investigating the conformational dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 NSP6 protein with emphasis on non-transmembrane 91-112 & 231-290 regions
Authors: Kumar Amit , Kumar Prateek , Saumya Kumar Udit , Giri Rajanish 
Published: July 2021

AbstractThe NSP6 protein of SARS-CoV-2 is a transmembrane protein, with some regions lying outside the membrane. Besides, a brief role of NSP6 in autophagosome formation, this is not studied significantly. Also, there is no structural information available till date. Based on the prediction by TMHMM server for transmembrane prediction, it is found that the N-terminal residues (1-11), middle region residues (91-112) and C-terminal residues (231-290) lies outside the membrane. Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations showed that NSP6 consisting of helical structures, whereas membrane outside lying region (91-112) showed partial helicity, which further used as model and obtain disordered type conformation after 1.5 microsecond. Whereas, the residues 231-290 has both helical and beta sheet conformations in its structure model. A 200ns simulations resulted in the loss of beta sheet structures, while helical regions remained intact. Further, we have characterized the residue 91-112 by using reductionist approaches. The NSP6 (91-112) was found disordered like in isolation, which gain helical conformation in different biological mimic environmental conditions. These studies can be helpful to study NSP6 (91-112) interactions with host proteins, where different protein conformation might play significant role. The present study adds up more information about NSP6 protein aspect, which could be exploited for its host protein interaction and pathogenesis.Graphical AbstractThe schematic representation of NSP6 membrane topology and conformational dynamics of residue 91-112. The N-terminal and C-terminal are shown in cytoplasmic side based on the experimental evidence on coronaviruses reported by Oostra et al., 2008. The membrane anchoring domain are shown based on the TMHMM server prediction.
Traip Mitotic Function Controls Brain Size
Authors: O’Neill Ryan S. , Rusan Nasser M. 
Published: July 2021

AbstractMicrocephaly is a developmental failure to achieve proper brain size and neuron number. Mutations in diverse genes are linked to microcephaly, including several with DNA damage repair (DDR) functions; however, it is not well understood how these DDR gene mutations limit brain size. One such gene is TRAIP, which has multiple known functions in DDR. We characterized the Drosophila ortholog Traip, finding that loss of Traip causes a brain-specific defect in the Mushroom Body (MB). Traip mutant (traip-) MBs had reduced size and fewer neurons, but no neurodegeneration, consistent with human primary microcephaly disorders. Reduced neuron numbers in traip- were explained by premature caspase-dependent cell death of MB neuroblasts (MB-NBs). Many traip- MB-NBs had prominent chromosome bridges in anaphase, along with polyploidy, aneuploidy, or micronuclei. We found no evidence for an interphase DNA repair role for Traip in MB-NBs; instead, proper MB development requires Traip function during mitosis, where Traip localizes to centrosomes and mitotic spindles. Our results suggest that proper brain size is ensured by the recently described role for TRAIP in unloading stalled replication forks in mitosis, which suppresses DNA bridges and neural stem cell death to promote proper neuron number. Further, the mitotic nature of traip- MB-NB defects and Traip localization suggest a closer etiological link between DDR microcephaly genes like Traip and the centrosome/spindle-related genes more commonly associated with microcephaly.
Robot navigation based on improved A* algorithm in dynamic environment
Authors: Zhang Lin , Zhang Yingjie , Zeng Manni , Li Yangfan 
Published: July 2021

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to put forward a path planning method in complex environments containing dynamic obstacles, which improves the performance of the traditional A* algorithm, this method can plan the optimal path in a short running time.

Design/methodology/approach
To plan an optimal path in a complex environment with dynamic and static obstacles, a novel improved A* algorithm is proposed. First, obstacles are identified by GoogLeNet and classified into static obstacles and dynamic obstacles. Second, the ray tracing algorithm is used for static obstacle avoidance, and a dynamic obstacle avoidance waiting rule based on dilate principle is proposed. Third, the proposed improved A* algorithm includes adaptive step size adjustment, evaluation function improvement and path planning with quadratic B-spline smoothing. Finally, the proposed improved A* algorithm is simulated and validated in real-world environments, and it was compared with traditional A* and improved A* algorithms.

Findings
The experimental results show that the proposed improved A* algorithm is optimal and takes less execution time compared with traditional A* and improved A* algorithms in a complex dynamic environment.

Originality/value
This paper presents a waiting rule for dynamic obstacle avoidance based on dilate principle. In addition, the proposed improved A* algorithm includes adaptive step adjustment, evaluation function improvement and path smoothing operation with quadratic B-spline. The experimental results show that the proposed improved A* algorithm can get a shorter path length and less running time.
Accounting for biosecurity in Italy under COVID-19 lockdown
Authors: Antonelli Valerio , Bigoni Michele , Funnell Warwick , Cafaro Emanuela Mattia 
Published: July 2021

PurposeThe paper examines how accounting and accounting experts provided important contributions to the Italian government's strategy to address the COVID-19 emergency in 2020, especially in terms of implementing new rules of conduct and providing justification for penetrating interventions in the life of individuals.Design/methodology/approachThe paper adopts an interdisciplinary approach by drawing upon Agamben's concepts of the state of exception, bare life and biosecurity to understand the purposes of the decrees issued by the Italian government and data provided to the citizens in the “daily bulletin” on the crisis by the Civil Protection Department.FindingsAccounting data provided essential contributions to the government's strategy that sought to spread disquiet and uncertainty in the population to ensure compliance with the strict rules in place, thereby sustaining the management of the country under a state of exception.Social implicationsThe study draws attention to the way in which accounting provides justification for measures that are promoted as provisional but which have enduring effects, most importantly the ability of governments in the future to suspend the rights of individuals. It shows how accounting can influence people's behaviour and contribute to the development of a permanent state of exception that significantly increases government prerogatives.Originality/valueThe work contributes to the literature on accounting and emergencies by studying the use of accounting information as a subtle means to ensure support for extreme government actions and ultimately as a political tool that promotes biosecurity as a new government paradigm.
Does personality affect the individual's perceptions of organizational justice? The mediating role of organizational politics
Authors: Aggarwal Arun , Nobi Kamrunnisha , Mittal Amit , Rastogi Sanjay 
Published: July 2021

PurposeThe personality of an individual plays a vital role in the way an individual perceives organizational politics and justice in the workplace. However, there is meager research on how an individual's personality affects the perceptions of organizational politics and justice. This study endeavors to fill this gap by analyzing the mediating role of organizational politics perceptions on the relationship between Big Five personality dimensions and organizational justice by controlling various demographic variables. The study also proposes a benchmarking model that the policymakers can use to create positive organizational justice perceptions.Design/methodology/approachIn this cross-sectional research, the data were collected through a multi-stage random sampling technique from 493 faculty members working in four public universities of Punjab, India. Out of 493 employees, 76.9% of the employees were assistant professors, 12.0% were associate professors and 11.2% were assistant professors. 51.5% of the employees were female, and 48.5% of the employees were male. To test the proposed hypothesized relationships, a structural equation modeling technique was used.FindingsResults of the structural equation modeling showed that openness to experience, conscientiousness and extraversion have a negative relationship with perceptions of organizational politics. However, their relationship with perceptions of organizational justice is positive. Neuroticism has a positive relationship with perceptions of organizational politics, whereas it has a negative relationship with perceptions of organizational justice. Results also showed that high perceptions of organizational politics have a negative effect on employee's perceptions regarding organizational justice. The mediation analysis results showed that perceptions of organizational politics mediate the relationship between an individual's personality and perceptions of organizational justice.Originality/valueThere is a scant amount of research available that considers Big Five personality dimensions and organizational politics as the antecedents of organizational justice. Hence, the current study tries to fill this research gap by proposing a research model on antecedents and consequences of perceptions of organizational politics based on the cognitive-affective processing system (CAPS).
Determinants of commercial bank loan and advance disbursement: the case of private Ethiopian commercial banks
Authors: Birhanu Tekeste , Bosho Deressa Sewunet , Azadi Hossein , Viira Ants-Hannes , Van Passel Steven , Witlox Frank 
Published: July 2021

PurposeThis paper aimed to investigate the determinants of loans and advances from commercial banks in the case of Ethiopian private commercial banks.Design/methodology/approachThe study randomly selected seven commercial banks to represent the population stratified on their asset, deposit and paid-up capital amounts. The study utilized an unbalanced panel data model as each bank started operation at a different period of time and considered the period 1995–2016 for secondary details.FindingsThe findings showed that the deposit size, credit risk, portfolio investment, average lending rate, real gross domestic product (GDP) and inflation rate had significant and optimistic effects on the lending and advancement of private commercial banks. On the contrary, liquidity ratio had significant and negative effects on private commercial bank loans and advances. Finally, the study forwarded a feasible recommendation for concerned organs to focus on deposit size, credit risk, portfolio investment, average lending rate, real GDP, inflation rate and liquidity ratio. The results of this study will help banking industry policymakers and planners understand how to minimize inflation and unemployment by improving development and sustainable economic growth.Originality/valueThe findings of this study can also affect the general attitudes of a society by increasing knowledge and improve the quality of life for the general public.
Indigenous knowledge of mud architecture: experiences of surviving against multiple natural hazards
Authors: Chowdhooree Imon , Das Kanu Kumar 
Published: July 2021

Purpose
Mud architecture as one of the expressions of vernacular architecture illustrates the success of indigenous knowledge of traditional communities. Due to the pressure of industrialization, urbanization and globalization, the trend of using non-traditional measures guided by the Western-Euro-centric knowledge and technologies considers the traditional practices as expressions of backward past, under-development and poverty. Though mud as a building material is usually assumed as a fragile and ephemeral material that cannot survive against natural hazards, the surviving traditional mud buildings are needed to be investigated to know their performances during and after different types of natural hazard incidents.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper intends to study the available cases of mud architecture of Chattogram, Bangladesh to trace the history of their survival despite of experiencing multiple natural hazards and to understand their status and prospect of resisting hazards. Three individual homesteads are chosen as cases for conducting physical survey as well as engaging inhabitants and local masons of the locality in semi-structured interviews in a story telling mode to know the construction process and histories of experiencing natural hazards. Available literatures are reviewed, and experts are interviewed to understand the causes of their performances and possible ways to improve the quality.

Findings
Collected information on mud architecture demonstrates their quality of surviving against many natural challenges and this hazard-resilient quality can be enhanced through using contemporary building technologies and materials, promising to co-exist with the global trend.

Originality/value
This study as an attempt to reinvent the vernacular architectural heritage endorses the need of appreciating indigenous knowledge for enhancing community resilience against natural hazards.
Exploring the gendered entrepreneurial identity gap: implications for entrepreneurship education
Authors: Elliott Catherine , Mantler Janet , Huggins Joie 
Published: July 2021

Purpose
Women are underrepresented in most university entrepreneurship education (EE) programmes and less likely than men to pursue business venturing as a career. One reason may be the “entrepreneurial identity gap”, whereby female students do not see themselves as successful entrepreneurs. This paper aims to explore the nature of this identity gap and its relationship to entrepreneurial intent and entrepreneurship education.

Design/methodology/approach
A set of contemporary, gender-inclusive entrepreneurial attributes was developed using entrepreneurial subject matter experts and tested with 591 university students to explore the nature of the gendered entrepreneurial identity gap.

Findings
While masculine stereotypes persist and the entrepreneurial identity gap is larger for female students, results suggest that a more gender-inclusive vocabulary of entrepreneurship is emerging among the student population and an androgynous perception of the idealized entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship education had a positive influence on entrepreneurial intent.

Research limitations/implications
Study findings advance the conversation about entrepreneurial identity, the nature of the gendered identity gap and the role of education in closing that gap. The questionnaire and set of gender-inclusive attributes should continue to be tested beyond student samples.

Practical implications
Based on this study, entrepreneurship education could benefit from more gender-inclusive instructional practices and vocabulary and a broadened definition of what it means to be entrepreneurial. More students – both men and women – will see themselves as entrepreneurs and be inspired to participate in the innovation economy.

Originality/value
This study takes a novel approach to the study of entrepreneurial identity, developing a new set of attributes and contemporary vocabulary around business venturing.
“Unforgotten” informal communities and the COVID-19 pandemic: Sitio San Roque under Metro Manila’s lockdown
Authors: Collantes Christianne France 
Published: July 2021

Purpose
This paper aims to offer Sitio San Roque, an informal settlement in the Philippines as a case study to explore long-term "forgetful" urban development planning in the Philippines, and the renewed visibility of the urban poor under COVID-19 lockdown. It connects scholarship on informality to issues of housing and political rights in Metro Manila to further investigate how vulnerable communities in the Global South are faring in the pandemic.

Design/methodology/approach
This is an exploration of Sitio San Roque, an informal settler community in Metropolitan "Metro" Manila, Philippines. This paper refers to recent journalistic reports pertaining to the community's ongoing evictions and arrests while under Metro Manila's "enhanced community quarantine." Furthermore, it converses with literature from disciplines including health-care policy, urban studies and recent studies on COVID-19 and vulnerable communities to critically discuss the plight of the urban poor in the pandemic-stricken Metro Manila.

Findings
The urban poor and members of informal communities such as Sitio San Roque are especially vulnerable to contracting COVID-19 because of precarious livelihoods and housing instability. The creation of informality in Metro Manila can be traced to political tensions, economic agendas and development planning since the time of Marcos' administration and also to global restructuring during the 1990s. However, also important to note is that under Metro Manila's lockdown, informal settlers are further disenfranchised and stigmatized via ongoing demolitions and evictions, as well as by processes of policing and criminalization by the state. The use of military and police personnel as a way to enforce lockdown in the metropolis further impedes on the rights of informal settlers and the urban poor.

Originality/value
Recent scholarship and reports discuss the challenges for informal communities and the urban poor in navigating the COVID-19 pandemic, mainly due to their housing conditions and loss of economic stability. This paper contributes to a critical understanding of these issues by adding the dimensions of political and housing rights. It refers to the case study of members of Sitio San Roque, who have experienced continuous threats of demolitions and arrests by state police for protesting the lack of government aid under lockdown. Both military approaches of governance and housing informality work in tandem to expose the vulnerabilities of the urban poor in Metro Manila's pandemic. Finally, this paper extends on urban studies scholar Gavin Shatkin's concept of “forgetful planning” (2004) by applying his discussions to the current context. Informal settlers have long been “forgotten” by the state's development plans, but are now remembered and deemed more visible in Metro Manila's ECQ.