bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Addressing structural mentoring barriers in postdoctoral training: A qualitative study
Authors: Lambert W. Marcus , Nana Nanda , Afonja Suwaiba , Saeed Ahsan , Amado Avelino C. , Golightly Linnie M. 
Published: August 2022

AbstractBackgroundStructural mentoring barriers are policies, practices, and cultural norms that collectively disadvantage marginalized groups and perpetuate disparities in mentoring. While these mentoring barriers can be found early in the training pathway, failure to address or overcome these barriers at the postdoctoral training stage has a direct impact on faculty diversity and national efforts to retain underrepresented groups in research careers.MethodsTo better understand the mentoring barriers faced by postdoctoral trainees, and possible ways to address them, a diverse sample of postdoctoral scholars (“postdocs”) from across the United States were asked to participate in focus groups to discuss their training experiences. We conducted five 90-minute focus groups with 32 biomedical postdocs, including 20 (63%) women and 15 (47%) individuals from underrepresented racial/ethnic groups (URG). Participants were well-represented across years of training, and 65% were at least somewhat likely to pursue a research-intensive faculty career, similar to previously reported national averages.ResultsA social ecological framework was used to examine both the upstream and downstream manifestations of structural mentoring barriers, as well as mentor barriers, overall. Themes were categorized on four broad levels: Individual (attitudes, beliefs, knowledge, or behaviors that inform mentoring barriers), Interpersonal (mentoring barriers arising from dyadic, peer, or network relationships), Institutional (departmental, institutional, organizational mentoring barriers), or Systemic (mentoring barriers originating from policies or broad social and cultural norms). Notable structural barriers included (1) academic politics and scientific hierarchy, (2) inequalities resulting from mentor prestige, (3) the (over) reliance on one mentor, (4) the lack of formal training for academic and non-academic careers, and (5) the lack of institutional diversity and institutional mentor training. These structural barriers foster mentoring practices and behaviors that lead to poor work-life balance, poor communication, and research career attrition. To overcome these barriers, postdocs strongly encouraged developing a network or team of mentors and recommended institutional interventions that create more comprehensive professional development, mentorship, and belonging.ConclusionsFor postdoctoral scientists, structural mentoring barriers can permeate down to institutional, interpersonal, and individual levels, impeding a successful transition to an independent research career. It has become clear that large-scale changes in mentoring must come from addressing the policies, practices, and cultural norms that perpetuate poor mentoring. This work provides strong evidence for promoting mentorship networks and cultivating a “mentoring milieu” that fosters a supportive community and a strong culture of mentorship at all levels.
Viral respiratory epidemic modelling of societal segregation based on vaccination status
Authors: Hickey Joseph , Rancourt Denis G. 
Published: August 2022

AbstractBackgroundSocietal segregation of unvaccinated people from public spaces has been a novel and controversial COVID-era public health practice in many countries. Models exploring potential consequences of vaccination-status-based segregation have not considered how segregation influences the contact frequencies in the segregated groups. We systematically investigate implementing effects of segregation on population-specific contact frequencies and show this critically determines the predicted epidemiological outcomes, focusing on the attack rates in the vaccinated and unvaccinated populations and the share of infections among vaccinated people that were due to contacts with infectious unvaccinated people.MethodsWe describe a susceptible-infectious-recovered (SIR) two-population model for vaccinated and unvaccinated groups of individuals that transmit an infectious disease by person-to-person contact. The degree of segregation of the two groups, ranging from zero to complete segregation, is implemented using the like-to-like mixing approach developed for sexually-transmitted diseases, adapted for presumed SARS-CoV-2 transmission. We allow the contact frequencies for individuals in the two groups to be different and depend, with variable strength, on the degree of segregation.ResultsSegregation can either increase or decrease the attack rate among the vaccinated, depending on the type of segregation (isolating or compounding), and the contagiousness of the disease. For diseases with low contagiousness, segregation can cause an attack rate in the vaccinated, which does not occur without segregation.InterpretationThere is no predicted blanket epidemiological advantage to segregation, either for the vaccinated or the unvaccinated. Negative epidemiological consequences can occur for both groups.
Dopamine-Modified Hyaluronic Acid (DA-HA) As A Novel Dopamine-Mimetics With Minimal Autoxidation And Cytotoxicity
Authors: Kim Sunpil , Kim Ye-Ji , Park Kyoung Hwan , Huh Kang Moo , Kang Sun-Woong , Lee C. Justin , Woo Dong Ho 
Published: August 2022

AbstractDopamine-modified hyaluronic acid (DA-HA) has been initially developed as an efficient coating and adhesion material for industrial uses. However, the biological activity and safety of DA-HA in the brain have not been explored yet. Here, we report a series of evidence that DA-HA exhibits similar functionality as dopamine (DA), but with much lower toxicity arising from autoxidation. DA-HA shows very little autoxidation even after 48-hour incubation. This is profoundly different from DA and its derivatives including L-DOPA, which all induce severe neuronal death after pre-autoxidation, indicating that autoxidation is the cause of neuronal death. Furthermore,in vivoinjection of DA-HA induces significantly lower toxicity compared to 6-OHDA, a well-known oxidized and toxic form of DA, and alleviates the apomorphine-induced rotational behavior in the 6-OHDA animal model of Parkinson’s disease. Our study proposes that DA-HA with DA-like functionalities and minimal toxicity can be an effective therapeutic substitute for L-DOPA in Parkinson’s disease.
“Knowledge practice gap of nurses towards COVID-19 patients’ dead body care in a tertiary care hospital”
Authors: Saini Girraj , Singh Mahendra , Panda Prasan Kumar , Sharma Manish Kumar , Punjot Pankaj , Meshram Raviprakash , Gupta Puneet Kumar 
Published: August 2022

AbstractAimTo know the dead body care of COVID-19 patients.ObjectiveTo determine health care professionals, knowledge, attitude, and practice towards Covid-19 dead body care.To find the association of knowledge, attitude, practice with selected demographic variables.BackgroundCOVID-19 was a global pandemic and it was a serious note for health care professionals from many aspects. The virus was infective and causes serious infectionsto patients which were easily transmitted, hence specific dead body care is required for such kinds of patients. To keep this background in mind the study was conducted to identify the knowledge, practice and attitude towards COVID-19 dead body care among nurses.MethodologyA cross sectional survey based study was done on 282 samples.Quantitative research design with purposive sampling technique data was collected for knowledge,attitude, and practice.ResultKnowledge, attitude and practice were assessed and association was done with demographic profile. Hence the good knowledge, attitude and practicewere observed in experienced and trained nurses (p value<0.005. Whereas no significant changes were observed with age, gender and education qualification.ConclusionOverall knowledge, attitude and practice regarding COVID-19 dead body care were moderate to good. But it was important to identify the gap as it was a global pandemic and higher chances of spreading of infection.
UNDERSTANDING ACTIONS TAKEN BY FEMALE FAMILY CAREGIVERS AND CHALLENGES THEY FACED IN CARING FOR OLDER PEOPLE DURING COVID-19 PANDEMIC IN BELU DISTRICT, INDONESIA: A QUALITATIVE STUDY
Authors: Asa Gregorius Abanit , Fauk Nelsensius Klau , Ratu Melkianus , Dent Elsa , Ward Paul Russell 
Published: August 2022

AbstractCOVID-19 has rapidly impacted societies on a global scale, with older people among the most affected. To care for older people living in their own homes, female family caregivers play a pivotal role. The current study aimed to explore the actions of female family caregivers and the challenges they faced in taking care of older people living at homes during the COVID-19 pandemic in Belu district, Indonesia. This qualitative study involved twenty female family caregivers, who were recruited using a combination of purposive and snowball sampling techniques. Findings were grouped into two main categories: (i) actions of female family caregivers in taking care of older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic. These included limiting both visitations of extended family members and older adults’ activities outside homes; explaining the virus to older adults and controlling their access to news, social media and smartphones; providing nutrition, supplement and maintaining daily diets; and (ii) challenges they faced in taking care of older adults included excessive fear of contracting COVID-19 and possibility of transmitting it to older people; feeling stressed; tired and overburdened. The study highlights the significant role family caregivers played to protect older people living at home. The findings can inform government to develop intervention programs that address and support the needs of both family caregivers and older people living at home.
Probing weak lipid-lipid binding domain interactions with a mechanically transduced immunosorbent assay (METRIS)
Authors: Steimel Joshua P. , Sarkis Joe , Capraro Benjamin R. , Kirchhausen Tom , Alexander-Katz Alfredo 
Published: August 2022

AbstractProtein-lipid interactions constitute a very important class of biological interactions critical for multiple cell and tissue functions. It is believed that most lipid-protein interactions are very weak, with affinities in the 1mM-1μM range. Here we study the interactions of multiple protein lipid binding domains with lipid membranes containing signaling lipids known as phosphatidylinositol phosphates (PIPs) using a new mechanically transduced immunosorbent assay (METRIS). We demonstrate that this assay can measure extremely weak interactions at PIP bilayer concentrations below 1%, which is close to the biological lipid concentration regime. In particular, we have studied the interaction of DrrAWT, DrrAK568A, PH-δ, and 2XFYVE as well as previously unexplored lipid binding domains such as Auxilin 1 (PTEN) and Auxilin 2 (GAK) against a wide palette of PIPs. Our results confirm that each of these domains interacts specifically with a PIP partner. In the case of Auxilin 1 and Auxilin 2, both proteins in the Clathrin endocytotic pathway, we find that their PTEN-like domain interacts specifically yet with ultra low affinity with PI3P and PI4P respectively. We have also found a new unknown medium-high affinity interaction between GAK with PI34P2. Our work, thus, provides a direct and robust method to measure and catalog protein lipid interactions which are important in many processes such as signaling and membrane sculpting. Furthermore, this assay can be extended in a straightforward manner to study other interactions such as ligand-receptor or antibody-antigen.
Individual risk attitudes arise from noise in neurocognitive magnitude representations
Authors: Garcia Miguel Barretto , de Hollander Gilles , Grueschow Marcus , Polania Rafael , Woodford Michael , Ruff Christian C. 
Published: August 2022

ABSTRACTHumans are generally risk averse: they prefer options with smaller certain outcomes over those with larger uncertain ones. This risk aversion is classically explained with a concave utility function, meaning that successive increases in monetary payoffs should increase subjective valuations by progressively smaller amounts. Here, we provide neural and behavioural evidence that risk aversion may also arise from a purely perceptual bias: The noisy logarithmic coding of numerical magnitudes can lead individuals tounderestimatethe size of larger monetary payoffs, leading to apparent risk aversion even when subjective valuation increases linearly with the estimated amount. A formal model of this process predicts that risk aversion should systematically increase when individuals represent numerical magnitudes more noisily. We confirmed this prediction by measuring both the mental and neural acuity of magnitude representations during a purely perceptual task and relating these measures to individual risk attitudes during separate financial decisions. Computational model fitting suggested that subjects based both types of choices on similar mental magnitude representations, with correlated precision across the separate perceptual and risky choices. Increased stimulus noise due to the presentation format of risky outcomes led to increased risk aversion, just as predicted by the model. The precision of the underlying neural magnitude representations was estimated with a numerical population receptive field model fitted to the fMRI data of the perceptual task. Subjects with more precise magnitude representations in parietal cortex indeed showed less variable behaviour and less risk-aversion in the separate financial choices. Our results highlight that individual patterns of economic behaviour may, at least partially, be determined by capacity limitations in perceptual processing rather than by processes that assign subjective values to monetary rewards.
Synaptic degeneration in neuronal circuits hinders memory recall, memory rescue, and learning
Authors: Li Kwan Tung , Ji Daoyun , Zhou Changsong 
Published: August 2022

AbstractNeurodegeneration is a characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), but its effect on neural activity dynamics underlying memory deficits is unclear. Here, we studied the effects of synaptic degeneration on neural activities associated with memory recall, memory rescue by slow-gamma stimulation, and learning a new memory, in an integrate-and-fire neuronal network. Our results showed that reducing connectivity decreases the neuronal synchronisation of memory neurons at slow-gamma frequencies and impairs memory recall performance. Although slow-gamma stimulation rescued memory recall and slow-gamma oscillations, the rescue with reduced connectivity caused a side effect of activating mixed memories. During the learning of a new memory, reducing connectivity caused an impairment in storing the new memory, but did not affect previously stored memories. Our results reveal potential computational mechanisms underlying the memory deficits caused by synaptic degeneration in AD.
APE1 assembles biomolecular condensates to promote the ATR-Chk1 DNA damage response in nucleolus
Authors: Li Jia , Zhao Haichao , McMahon Anne , Yan Shan 
Published: August 2022

ABSTRACTMultifunctional protein APE1/APEX1/HAP1/Ref-1 (designated as APE1) plays important roles in nuclease-mediated DNA repair and redox regulation in transcription. However, it is unclear how APE1 regulates the DNA damage response (DDR) pathways and influences genome integrity directly or indirectly. Here we show that siRNA-mediated APE1-knockdown or APE1 inhibitor treatment attenuates the ATR-Chk1 DDR under stress conditions in multiple immortalized cell lines. Congruently, APE1 overexpression (APE1-OE) activates the ATR DDR under unperturbed conditions, which is independent of APE1 nuclease and redox functions. Structural and functional analysis reveals a direct requirement of the extreme N-terminal 33 amino acids (NT33) within APE1 in the assembly of distinct biomolecular condensates in vitro and DNA/RNA-independent activation of the ATR DDR. Overexpressed APE1 co-localizes with nucleolar NPM1 and assembles biomolecular condensates in nucleoli in cancer but not non-malignant cells, which recruits ATR and its direct activator molecules TopBP1 and ETAA1. APE1 W119R mutant is deficient in nucleolar condensation and liquid-liquid phase separation and is incapable of activating nucleolar ATR DDR. Lastly, APE1-OE-induced nucleolar ATR DDR activation leads to compromised ribosomal RNA transcription and reduced cell viability. Taken together, we propose distinct mechanisms by which APE1 regulates ATR DDR pathways and functions in genome integrity maintenance.
Co-fluctuations of neural activity define intra-V1 networks related to perceptual organization
Authors: Valdes-Sosa Mitchell , Ontivero-Ortega Marlis , Iglesias-Fuster Jorge , Lage-Castellanos Agustin , Galan-Garcia Lidice , Valdes-Sosa Pedro 
Published: August 2022

AbstractUsing functional resonance imaging (fMRI), we studied the relationship between perceptual organization and network topology within the primary visual cortex (V1). Twenty-six humans (male and female) were recorded during active observation of two Global and two Local Navon letters. Correlations between fMRI fluctuations from different V1 sites were measured (after removing stimulus-evoked signals) in windows specific to each condition. Intra-V1, like brain-wide networks, presented an overall decrease of correlations during stimulation compared to baseline and increased statistical dimensionality. Massive edgewise testing and network based-statistics (both corrected by FDR) identified differences between conditions of connection strengths that were mapped to the visual field. Global letters elicited long links mainly connecting V1 sites mapping the lower left/right visual quadrants. Shorter links were associated with Local letters, primarily mapped within the lower-left visual quadrant. Frequently link lengths exceeded V1 population receptive field sizes. These connections were not observed in the time-locked (feedforward) responses shared across participants. Thus, these networks reflect activity idiosyncratic to each participant, possibly generated by interactions within or feedback to V1. Perception would sculpt V1 connectivity, with specific increases in link strengths (in a background of decreases). These findings could help shed light on V1 as a “cognitive blackboard”.
Continuous Fish Muscle Cell Line with Capacity for Myogenic and Adipogenic-like Phenotypes
Authors: Saad Michael K , Yuen John SK , Joyce Connor M , Li Xinxin , Lim Taehwan , Wolfson Talia L , Wu Justin , Laird Jason , Vissapragada Sanjana , Calkins Olivia P , Ali Adham , Kaplan David L 
Published: August 2022

AbstractCell-cultivated fish offers the potential for a more ethical, sustainable, and safe seafood system. However, fish cell culture is relatively understudied in comparison to mammalian cells. Here, we established and characterized a continuous Atlantic mackerel (Scomber scombrus) skeletal muscle cell line (“Mack” cells). The cells were isolated from muscle biopsies of fresh-caught fish, with separate isolations performed from two distinct fish. Mack1 cells (cells from the first isolation) were cultured for over a year and subcultured over 130 times. The cells proliferated at initial doubling times of 63.9 hr (± 19.1 SD). After a spontaneous immortalization crisis from passages 37-43, the cells proliferated at doubling times of 24.3 hr (± 4.91 SD). A muscle phenotype was confirmed through characterization of muscle stemness and differentiation via paired-box protein 7 (PAX7) and myosin heavy chain (MHC) immunostaining, respectively. An adipocyte-like phenotype was also demonstrated for the cells through lipid accumulation, confirmed via Oil Red O (ORO) staining and quantification of neutral lipids. New qPCR primers (HPRT, PAX3B, MYOD1, MYOG, TNNT3A, and PPARG) were tailored to the mackerel genome and used to characterize mackerel cell genotypes. This work provides the first spontaneously immortalized fish muscle cell line for research, ideally serving as a reference for subsequent investigation.
An Alzheimer’s disease patient-derived olfactory cell model identifies gene expression changes associated with cognition
Authors: Rantanen Laura M. , Bitar Maina , Lampinen Riikka , Stewart Romal , Quek Hazel , Oikari Lotta E. , Cunί-Lόpez Carla , Sutharsan Ratneswary , Thillaiyampalam Gayathri , Iqbal Jamila , Russell Daniel , Penttilä Elina , Löppönen Heikki , Lehtola Juha-Matti , Saari Toni , Hannonen Sanna , Koivisto Anne M , Haupt Larisa M. , Mackay-Sim Alan , Cristino Alexandre S. , Kanninen Katja M. , White Anthony R. 
Published: August 2022

AbstractAn early symptom of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is an impaired sense of smell, for which the molecular basis remains elusive. Here, we generated human olfactory neurosphere-derived (ONS) cells from people with AD and mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and performed global RNA sequencing to determine gene expression changes. ONS cells expressed markers of neuroglial differentiation, providing a unique cellular model to explore early AD-associated disease pathways. Our transcriptomics data from ONS cells revealed differentially expressed genes (DEGs) associated with cognitive processes in AD cells compared to MCI, or matched healthy controls (HC). A-Kinase Anchoring Protein 6 (AKAP6) was the most significantly altered gene in AD compared to both MCI and HC, and has been linked to cognitive function. The greatest change in gene expression of all DEGs occurred between AD and MCI. Gene pathway analysis revealed defects in multiple cellular processes with aging, intellectual deficiency and alternative splicing being the most significantly dysregulated in AD ONS cells. Our results demonstrate that ONS cells can provide a cellular model for AD that recapitulates disease-associated differences. We have revealed potential novel genes, including AKAP6 that may have a role in AD, particularly MCI to AD transition, and should be further examined.