bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Ventral tegmental area interneurons revisited: GABA and glutamate projection neurons make local synapses
Authors: Oriol Lucie , Chao Melody , Kollman Grace J. , Dowlat Dina S. , Singhal Sarthak M. , Steinkellner Thomas , Hnasko Thomas S. 
Published: June 2024

AbstractThe ventral tegmental area (VTA) contains projection neurons that release the neurotransmitters dopamine, GABA, and/or glutamate from distal synapses. VTA also contains GABA neurons that synapse locally on to dopamine neurons, synapses widely credited to a population of so-called VTA interneurons. Interneurons in cortex, striatum, and elsewhere have well-defined morphological features, physiological properties, and molecular markers, but such features have not been clearly described in VTA. Indeed, there is scant evidence that local and distal synapses originate from separate populations of VTA GABA neurons. In this study we tested whether several markers expressed in non-dopamine VTA neurons are selective markers of interneurons, defined as neurons that synapse locally but not distally. Challenging previous assumptions, we found that VTA neurons genetically defined by expression of parvalbumin, somatostatin, neurotensin, or mu-opioid receptor project to known VTA targets including nucleus accumbens, ventral pallidum, lateral habenula, and prefrontal cortex. Moreover, we provide evidence that VTA GABA and glutamate projection neurons make functional inhibitory or excitatory synapses locally within VTA. These findings suggest that local collaterals of VTA projection neurons could mediate functions prior attributed to VTA interneurons. This study underscores the need for a refined understanding of VTA connectivity to explain how heterogeneous VTA circuits mediate diverse functions related to reward, motivation, or addiction.Significance statementGABA neurons in VTA are key regulators of VTA dopamine neurons and considered central to the mechanisms by which opioids and other drugs of abuse can induce addiction. Conventionally, these VTA GABA neurons are considered interneurons, but GABA projection neurons are also abundant in VTA, and it is unclear if these represent separate populations. We found that several markers enriched in non-dopamine neurons of VTA, including Mu-opioid receptor, are also expressed in projection neurons, and thus are not selective interneuron markers. Moreover, we found that VTA GABA and glutamate projection neurons collateralize within VTA where they make local synapses. These data challenge the notion of a VTA interneuron that synapses only within VTA and suggest that inhibitory projection neurons can serve functions previously attributed to VTA interneurons.
Understanding organism-habitat relationships and critically evaluating reference areas is key to marine protected area assessment
Authors: Jainese Conner , Carlson Peter M. , Seeto Katelin , McNeill Lyndsey , Sivertson Kelly , Caselle Jennifer E. 
Published: June 2024

AbstractMarine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been implemented globally as a conservation tool to improve the health and function of marine ecosystems. Research has focused on assessing MPA effectiveness, however certain habitats and communities are often avoided because they are difficult or expensive to monitor. Mesophotic (30-100m) rocky reef fish communities are a valuable commercial and recreational resource that is highly targeted but often overlooked in monitoring due to depth restricted sampling. We used two MPAs in California’s statewide protection network, along with parried reference sites, to test how protection status along with environmental conditions influenced the abundance and biomass of three highly targeted species with varying life histories and habitat preferences. Depth and habitat were strong predictors for all groups; ocean whitefish (Caulolatilus princeps), California sheephead (Semicossyphus pulcher), and targeted rockfish (Sebastes spp). The pattern of these effects however, differed between the species groups and the influence of protection was mixed. This work highlights how species with high habitat affinities benefit differently from protection, as a function of depth and habitat representation within the MPA/reference pair. To accurately evaluate MPAs, and the network as a whole, researchers must recognize organism-habitat relationships and incorporate them when assessing conservation efforts.
Eyes on the past: Gaze stability differs between temporal expectation and temporal attention
Authors: Duyar Aysun , Carrasco Marisa 
Published: June 2024

AbstractTemporal expectation and temporal attention distinctly improve performance and gaze stability, and interact at the behavioral and neural levels. Foreperiod—the interval between the preparatory signal and stimulus onset—facilitates temporal expectation. Preceding foreperiod—the foreperiod in the previous trial—modulates expectation at behavioral and oculomotor levels. Here, we investigated whether preceding foreperiod guides temporal attention. Regardless of the preceding foreperiod, temporal attention improved performance, particularly at early moments,and consistently accelerated gaze stability onset and offset by shifting microsaccade timing. However, only with preceding expected foreperiods, attention inhibited microsaccade rates. Moreover, preceding late foreperiods weakened expectation effects on microsaccade rates, but such a weakening was overridden by attention. Altogether, these findings reveal that the oculomotor system’s flexibility does not translate to performance, and suggest that although selection history can be utilized as one of the sources of expectation in subsequent trials, it does not necessarily determine, strengthen, or guide attentional deployment.
Mosquito population dynamics is shaped by the interaction among larval density, season, and land use
Authors: Solano Nicole , Herring Emily C. , Hintz Carl W. , Newberry Philip M. , Schatz Annakate M. , Walker Joseph W. , Osenberg Craig W. , Murdock Courtney C. 
Published: June 2024

ABSTRACT (English)Understanding how variation in key abiotic and biotic factors interact at spatial scales relevant for mosquito fitness and population dynamics is crucial for predicting current and future mosquito distributions and abundances, and the transmission potential for human pathogens. However, studies investigating the effects of environmental variation on mosquito traits have investigated environmental factors in isolation or in laboratory experiments that examine constant environmental conditions that often do not occur in the field. To address these limitations, we conducted a semi-field experiment in Athens, Georgia using the invasive Asian tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus). We selected nine sites that spanned natural variation in impervious surface and vegetation cover to explore effects of the microclimate (temperature and humidity) on mosquitoes. On these sites, we manipulated conspecific larval density at each site. We repeated the experiment in the summer and fall. We then evaluated the effects of land cover, larval density, and time of season, as well as interactive effects, on the mean proportion of females emerging, juvenile development time, size upon emergence, and predicted per capita population growth (i.e., fitness). We found significant effects of larval density, land cover, and season on all response variables. Of most note, we saw strong interactive effects of season and intra-specific density on each response variable, including a non-intuitive decrease in development time with increasing intra-specific competition in the fall. Our study demonstrates that ignoring the interaction between variation in biotic and abiotic variables could reduce the accuracy and precision of models used to predict mosquito population and pathogen transmission dynamics, especially those inferring dynamics at finer-spatial scales across which transmission and control occur.
Evaluating regional heritability mapping methods for identifying QTLs in a wild population of Soay sheep
Authors: James Caelinn , Pemberton Josephine M. , Navarro Pau , Knott Sara 
Published: June 2024

AbstractRegional heritability mapping (RHM) is a method that estimates the heritability of genomic segments that may contain both common and rare variants affecting a complex trait. We compared three RHM methods: SNP-RHM, which uses genomic relationship matrices (GRMs) based on SNP genotypes; Hap-RHM, which uses GRMs based on haplotypes; and SNHap-RHM, which uses both SNP-based and haplotype-based GRMs jointly. We applied these methods to data from a wild population of sheep, analysed eleven polygenic morphometric traits and compared the results with previous genome wide association analyses (GWAS). We found that whilst the inclusion of the regional matrix did not explain significant variation for all regions that were associated with trait variation using GWAS, it did for several regions that were not previously associated with trait variation.
Constitutively active receptor ADGRA3 signaling induces adipose thermogenesis
Authors: Zhao Zewei , Hu Longyun , Song Bigui , Jiang Tao , Wu Qian , Lin Jiejing , Li Xiaoxiao , Cai Yi , Li Jin , Qian Bingxiu , Liu Siqi , Lang Jilu , Yang Zhonghan 
Published: June 2024

ABSTRACTThe induction of adipose thermogenesis plays a critical role in maintaining body temperature and improving metabolic homeostasis to combat obesity. β3-adrenoceptor (β3-AR) is widely recognized as a canonical β-adrenergic G protein-coupled receptor (GPCR) that plays a crucial role in mediating adipose thermogenesis in mice. Nonetheless, the limited expression of β3-AR in human adipocytes restricts its clinical application. The objective of this study was to identify a GPCR that is highly expressed in human adipocytes and to explore its potential involvement in adipose thermogenesis. Our research findings have demonstrated that the adhesion G protein-coupled receptor A3 (ADGRA3), an orphan GPCR, plays a significant role in adipose thermogenesis through its constitutively active effects. ADGRA3 exhibited high expression levels in human adipocytes and mouse brown fat. Furthermore, the knockdown ofAdgra3resulted in an exacerbated obese phenotype and a reduction in the expression of thermogenic markers. Conversely,Adgra3overexpression activated the adipose thermogenic program and improved metabolic homeostasis without an exogenous ligand supplementation. We found that ADGRA3 facilitates the biogenesis of beige adipocytes through the Gs-PKA-CREB axis. Moreover, hesperetin was identified as a potential agonist of ADGRA3, capable of inducing adipocyte browning and ameliorating insulin resistance. In conclusion, our study demonstrated that the overexpression of constitutively active ADGRA3 or the activation of ADGRA3 by hesperetin can induce adipocyte browning by Gs-PKA-CREB axis. These findings indicate that the utilization of hesperetin and the selectively overexpression of ADGRA3 in adipose tissue could serve as promising therapeutic strategies in the fight against obesity.
Systematic identification of secondary bile acid production genes in global microbiome
Authors: Yang Yuwei , Gao Wenxing , Zhu Ruixin , Tao Liwen , Chen Wanning , Zhu Xinyue , Shen Mengping , Xu Tingjun , Zhao Tingting , Zhang Xiaobai , Zhu Lixin , Jiao Na 
Published: June 2024

AbstractMicrobial metabolism of bile acids (BAs) is crucial for maintaining homeostasis in vertebrate hosts and environments. Although certain organisms involved in BA metabolism have been identified, a global, comprehensive elucidation of the microbes, metabolic enzymes, and BA remains incomplete. To bridge this gap, we employed hidden Markov models to systematically search in a large-scale and high-quality search library comprising 28,813 RefSeq multi-kingdom microbial complete genomes, which enabled us to construct a secondary bile acid (SBA)-production gene catalog. This catalog greatly expanded the distribution of SBA-production genes across 11 phyla, encompassing bacteria, archaea and fungi, and extended to 14 habitats spanning hosts and environmental contexts. Furthermore, we highlighted the associations between SBAs and gastrointestinal and hepatic disorders, including inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, further elucidating disease-specific alterations in SBA-production genes. Additionally, we proposed the pig as a particularly suitable animal model for investigating SBA production in humans, given its closely aligned SBA-production gene composition. This gene catalog provides a comprehensive and reliable foundation on microbial BA metabolism for future studies, offering new insights into the microbial contributions to health and disease.
Chromosome-level reference genome assembly for the mountain hare (Lepus timidus)
Authors: Fekete Zsófia , Absolon Dominic E. , Michell Craig , Wood Jonathan M. D. , Goffart Steffi , Pohjoismäki Jaakko L. O. 
Published: June 2024

AbstractWe present here a high-quality genome assembly of a male mountain hare (Lepus timidusLinnaeus), from Ilomantsi, Eastern Finland, utilizing an isolated fibroblast cell line as the source for high quality DNA and RNA. Following the previously published brown hare reference genome assembly, the mountain hare is the second Finnish pilot species for the European Reference Genome Atlas (ERGA) initiative, a collaborative effort to generate reference genomes for European biodiversity.The genome was assembled using 21× PacBio HiFi sequencing data and scaffolded using the Hi-C chromosome structure capture approach. After manual curation, the primary assembly length was 2,695,305,354 bp with N50 125,755,317 bp. The largest scaffold was 181 Mbp and the scaffold N50 127 Mbp, contributing to a primary assembly consisting of 85 scaffolds and an alternate assembly with 109 scaffolds. The scaffolds include 23 autosomes, numbered according to their size, as well as X and Y chromosomes, matching the known karyotype. Telomeric regions were present on at least one end of 19 of the chromosomes. The genome has a high degree of completeness based on the BUSCO score (mammalia_odb10 database), Complete: 95.1 % [Single copy: 92.3 %, Duplicated: 2.7 %], Fragmented 0.8 %, and Missing 4.1 %. The mitochondrial genome of the cell line was sequenced and assembled separately. The assembly meets the Earth BioGenome Project criteria for a reference-standard genome assembly.Compared to the previous pseudo-reference genome assembly ofL. timidusssp.hibernicusBell, assembled using the rabbit genome, this new reference genome represents the nominate subspecies and the species-specific chromosomal conformation. The published genome assembly will provide a solid foundation for future genomic research on Lagomorpha, including the insights into the genomic basis of adaptations to snowy and cold environments. Furthermore, it opens opportunities for experimental analysis of mountain hare gene functions.
Nudge research in agricultural economics: two-decade retrospective of empirical evidence
Authors: Čop Tajana , Njavro Mario 
Published: June 2024

PurposeUnderstanding farmer and consumer behavior is essential to the successful implementation of behavior change interventions. The purpose of this study is to summarize existing research, provide a comprehensive overview of nudge interventions, and identify important trends in behavioral agricultural economics. Research on nudge interventions can help policymakers encourage farmers and consumers to change their behavior in desired direction like switching to organic agriculture or eco-labeled products and promote innovation in sustainable agriculture.Design/methodology/approachThe paper contains a bibliometric analysis of nudge research in general and agricultural economics as well as a literature review of the 53 empirical studies on nudge interventions between 2003 and 2023.FindingsThe frequency of nudge research in all research fields and in agricultural economics has increased over the years. This study summarizes nudge interventions that can be used by farmers and consumers on a variety of agricultural economic issues. Information, social norms, and social comparison as nudge interventions are most prominent in the publications, while green nudges have not been researched to a greater extent.Originality/valueThis study provides a comprehensive overview of nudge research in agricultural economics with potential for theoretical and policy implications. It highlights potential nudge interventions among farmers and consumers that can be applied in practices.
The era of artificial intelligence: what implications for the board of directors?
Authors: Agnese Paolo , Arduino Francesca Romana , Di Prisco Domenico 
Published: June 2024

Purpose
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a cutting-edge new reality already having an unprecedented impact on society, the economy and businesses. Its future developments and long-term influence are still largely unknown. This article aims to examine AI’s potential benefits and challenges to corporate governance mechanisms, focusing on the board of directors.

Design/methodology/approach
The paper theoretically explores the influence of artificial intelligence on the board of directors’ capabilities, roles and functions.

Findings
Concerning rethinking board functioning in the era of artificial intelligence, the paper analyzes how artificial intelligence can impact the board of directors. It proposes some recommendations on how directors can more effectively integrate artificial intelligence into the boardroom, including establishing an internal artificial intelligence committee composed of experts with technical knowledge dedicated to managing artificial intelligence-related potential threats and opportunities.

Practical implications
Companies are invited to have some technical knowledge and expertise on artificial intelligence on the boards, fostering directors to upskill themselves in the new artificial intelligence technologies and establishing an ad-hoc internal committee. Policymakers are expected to keep pace with the growing proliferation of artificial intelligence solutions, defining a sharp regulatory framework.

Originality/value
The study advances knowledge in the corporate governance literature by shedding light on the effects of artificial intelligence on boards of directors and suggesting a set of best practices for its effective implementation.
Lorentz force-based assessment of the torque production of TFPM machines
Authors: Masmoudi Ahmed 
Published: June 2024

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to introduce an aid for teaching transverse flux permanent magnet machines (TFPMs) with emphasis on their torque production.

Design/methodology/approach
The Lorentz force law is applied to fictitious current loops emulating the permanent magnets (PMs) mounted on the rotor according to different arrangements; the air gap flux density is created by the armature current.

Findings
Implemented in a master lecture on special AC machines, the proposed approach has revealed a renewed interest in electromagnetic fundamentals for pedagogical purposes. It makes simple the explanation of the principle of operation of a class of AC machines reputed by the complexity of their magnetic circuits. The latter incorporates axially stacked decoupled sub-circuits, one per phase generating alternating magnetic fields. More specifically, there is common air gap, shared by the machine phases, in which a rotating magnetic field is created by the superposition of the PM contribution and the armature one.

Research limitations/implications
Accounting for the complexity of the magnetic circuits and the three-dimensional (3D) flux paths characterizing TFPMs, a 3D finite element analysis (FEA) is required for the validation of the analytical predictions. Nevertheless, such a 3D FEA validation is far from being obvious to be carried on within a master lecture.

Originality/value
While the basis of Lorentz forces resulting from fictitious current loops emulating PMs has been considered in some referenced papers, its simple and pedagogical application to assess the torque production of several TFPM concepts represents the added value of the present paper.
How does career coaching in higher education help graduate employees adjust to the workplace?
Authors: van der Baan Niels , Beausaert Simon , Gijselaers Wim , Gast Inken 
Published: June 2024

PurposeEmployers increasingly require students to possess competences that go beyond theoretical knowledge and academic expertise, such as lifelong learning skills. To equip students with these competences, higher education institutes have introduced coaching as part of their teaching programs. The present study qualitatively evaluates a career coaching practice in higher education.Design/methodology/approachWe conducted semi-structured interviews with graduates who had participated in career coaching activities at a Dutch university (N = 12). The interviews were conducted between February and May 2022. Atlas.ti version 9 was used to analyse the interviews.FindingsResults revealed that graduates believed that career coaching helped them to adjust to the workplace. They indicated that the coaching practice helped them to acquire reflection skills, which was considered the main mechanism for adjustment to the workplace.Research limitations/implicationsThese results add to the transition-related literature by identifying one way that graduates successfully adjust to the workplace. Practical implicationsThe results also provide insight into how higher education can best prepare students for their transition to the workplace.Originality/valueAs the education-to-work transition does not end upon graduation, this research focusses on graduate employees’ work adjustment as an important phase in the transition process.