bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Multi-omics integrated analysis reveals a specific phenotype of CD8+ T cell may contribute to immunothromosis via Th17 response in severe and critical COVID-19
Authors: Li Wen-Xing , An San-Qi , Dai Shao-Xing , Zhou Zhao-Ming , Zeng Xin , Deng Guan-Hua , Huang Ying-Ying , Shen Ling-Yu , Xu An-Qi , Lin Yao , Jiang Jun-Jun , Zhou Mei-Juan , Wei Wu , Liang Hao , Guan Dao-Gang , Zhou Cheng 
Published: July 2022

AbstractT lymphocyte reduction and immunosenescence frequently occur in severe and critical coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) patients, which may cause immunothrombosis and numerous sequelae. This study integrated analyzed multi-omics data from healthy donors, pneumonia, COVID-19 patients (mild & moderate, severe, and critical), and convalescences, including clinical, laboratory test, PBMC bulk RNA-seq, PBMC scRNA-seq and TCR-seq, BAL scRNA-seq, and lung proteome. We revealed that there are certain associations among T lymphocyte reduction, CD8+ T cell senescence, Th17 immune activation, and immunothrombosis. A specific phenotype (S. P.) CD8+ T cells were identified in severe and critical COVID-19 patients in both PBMC and BAL scRNA-seq, which showed highly TCR homology with terminal effector CD8+ T cells and senescent CD8+ T cells. Pseudotime analysis showed that the S. P. CD8+ T cells were located in the transition trajectory from mild to severe disease. Which may be activated by terminal effector CD8+ T cells or senescent CD8+ T cells, thereby promoting Th17 cell differentiation. This phenomenon was absent in healthy donors, mild and moderate COVID-19 patients, or convalescences. Our findings are an important reference for avoiding the conversion of patients with mild to severe diseases and provide insight into the future prevention and control of COVID-19 and its variants.
Cell cycle and temporal transcription factors regulate proliferation and neuronal diversity of dedifferentiation-derived neural stem cells
Authors: Veen Kellie , Froldi Francesca , Dong Qian , Alvarez-Ochoa Edel , Nguyen Phuong-Khanh , Harvey Kieran F , McMullen John P D , Marshall Owen , Jusuf Patricia R , Cheng Louise Y 
Published: July 2022

AbstractDedifferentiation is the reversion of differentiated cells to a stem cell like fate, whereby, the gene expression program of mature cells is altered and genes associated with multipotency are expressed. Appropriate terminal differentiation of NSCs is essential for restricting the overall number of neurons produced; in addition, faithful production of neuronal subtypes that populate the brain is important for NSC function. Both characteristics of NSCs are specified through temporal patterning of the NSCs driven by the successive expression of temporal transcription factors (tTFs). In this study, we found that ectopic NSCs induced via bHLH transcription factor Deadpan (Dpn) expression fail to undergo timely expression of temporal transcription factors (tTFs), where they express mid-tTF, Sloppy-paired 1 (Slp-1) and fail to express late-tTF Tailless (Tll); consequently generating an excess of Twin of eyeless (Toy) positive neurons at the expense of Reversed polarity (Repo) positive glial cells. In addition to disrupted production of neuronal/glial progeny, Dpn overexpression also resulted in stalled progression through the cell cycle, and a failure to undergo timely terminal differentiation. Mechanistically, DamID studies demonstrated that Dpn directly binds to both Dichaete (D), a Sox-box transcription factor known to repress Slp-1, as well as a number of cell cycle genes. Promoting cell cycle progression or overexpression of D were able to re-trigger the progression of the temporal series in dedifferentiated NBs, restoring both neuronal diversity and timely NB terminal differentiation.
An intestinal sphingolipid promotes neuronal health across generations
Authors: Wang Wenyue , Sherry Tessa , Cheng Xinran , Fan Qi , Cornell Rebecca , Liu Jie , Xiao Zhicheng , Pocock Roger 
Published: July 2022

AbstractMaternal diet and environment can influence the neuronal health of offspring. Here, we report that diet-induced intestinal sphingolipid biosynthesis reduces adult-onset neurodegeneration intergenerationally inCaenorhabditis elegans. FeedingC. eleganswith ursolic acid (UA), a natural plant product, provides neuroprotection by enhancing maternal provisioning of sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) - a bioactive sphingolipid. S1P promotes neuronal health across generations by upregulating transcription of the acid ceramidase-1 (asah-1) gene in the intestine. Intergenerational intestine-to-oocyte S1P transfer is essential for promoting neuronal health and is dependent on the lipoprotein yolk receptor RME-2 (Receptor-Mediated Endocytosis-2). Spatially regulating sphingolipid biosynthesis is critical, as inappropriateasah-1neuronal expression causes developmental axon outgrowth defects. Our results reveal that sphingolipid homeostasis impacts the development and intergenerational health of the nervous system.One-Sentence SummaryAn intestinal lipid prevents neurodegeneration across generations.
Are known bacterial strains really present?
Authors: Ventolero Minerva , Wang Saidi , Hu Haiyan , Li Xiaoman 
Published: July 2022

AbstractKnown strains are widely used to study bacterial genomes in shotgun metagenomic samples and to understand drug resistance to bacterial infection. However, bacterial genomes constantly evolve, with mutations accumulated in the genomes over time. It is thus unclear whether the previously identified known bacterial strains are still helpful or even valid for understanding a current shotgun metagenomic sample. To address this question, here we revisited the known strains of the bacterial speciesS. aureusandS. epidermisidentified in 68 atopic dermatitis shotgun metagenomic samples. We find that even the same tools cannot predict the previously reported known strains on the same samples, and most known strains identified by different tools are different. Moreover, the coverage in the pooled and individual samples supports none of the inferred known strain. Our study thus indicates the limitation of the known-strain-based studies, especially those on rapidly evolving bacterial species. Our study also called for de novo bacterial strain identification directly from shotgun metagenomic reads.
Evaluating the accuracy of methods for detecting correlated rates of molecular and morphological evolution
Authors: Asar Yasmin , Sauquet Hervé , Ho Simon Y.W. 
Published: July 2022

AbstractDetermining the link between genomic and phenotypic evolution is a fundamental goal in evolutionary biology. Insights into this link can be gained by using a phylogenetic approach to test for correlations between rates of molecular and morphological evolution. However, there has been persistent uncertainty about the relationship between these rates, partly because conflicting results have been obtained using various methods that have not been examined in detail. We carried out a simulation study to evaluate the performance of five statistical methods for detecting correlated rates of evolution. Our simulations explored the evolution of molecular sequences and morphological characters under a range of conditions. Of the methods tested, Bayesian relaxed-clock estimation of branch rates was able to detect correlated rates of evolution correctly in the largest number of cases. This was followed by correlations of root-to-tip distances, Bayesian model selection, independent sister-pairs contrasts, and likelihood-based model selection. As expected, the power to detect correlated rates increased with the amount of data, both in terms of tree size and number of morphological characters. Likewise, the performance of all five methods improved when there was greater rate variation among lineages. We then applied these methods to a data set from flowering plants and did not find evidence of a correlation in evolutionary rates between genomic data and morphological characters. The results of our study have practical implications for phylogenetic analyses of combined molecular and morphological data sets, and highlight the conditions under which the links between genomic and phenotypic rates of evolution can be evaluated quantitatively.
Building artificial plant cell wall on lipid bilayer by assembling polysaccharides and engineered proteins
Authors: Notova Simona , Cannac Nathan , Rabagliati Luca , Touzard Maeva , Mante Josselin , Navon Yotam , Coche-Guérente Liliane , Lerouxel Olivier , Heux Laurent , Imberty Anne 
Published: July 2022

AbstractThe cell wall constitutes a fundamental structural component of plant cells, providing them with mechanical resistance and flexibility. Mimicking that wall is a critical step in the conception of an experimental model of the plant cell. The assembly of cellulose/hemicellulose in the form of cellulose nanocrystals and xyloglucans as a representative model of the plant cell wall has already been mastered, however, those models lacked the pectin component. In this work, we used an engineered chimeric protein designed for bridging pectin to the cellulose/hemicellulose network, therefore achieving the assembly of complete cell wall mimics. We first engineered proteins, i.e. carbohydrate-binding module from Ruminococcus flavefaciens able to bind oligo-galactorunan, resulting in high-affinity polygalacturonan receptors with Kd in the micromolar range. A Janus protein, with cell wall gluing property, was then designed by assembling this CBM with a Ralstonia solanacearum lectin specific for fucosylated xyloglucans. The resulting supramolecular architecture is able to bind fucose-containing xyloglucans and homogalacturonan ensuring high affinity for both. A two-dimension assembly of an artificial plant cell wall was then built first on synthetic polymer and then on supported lipid bilayer. Such artificial cell wall can serve as a basis for the development of plant cell mechanical models and thus deepen the understanding of the principles underlying various aspects of plant cells and tissues.Graphical abstract
Partitioning time series to improve process-based models with machine learning
Authors: Boussange Victor , Aceituno Pau Vilimelis , Schäfer Frank , Pellissier Loïc 
Published: July 2022

AbstractProcess-based community models are required to extrapolate beyond current dynamics and anticipate biodiversity response to global change, but their adoption has been limited in practice because of issues with model parameter estimation and model inaccuracies. While observation data could be used to directly estimate parameters and refine model structures, model nonlinearities, sparse and noisy datasets and the complexity of ecological dynamics complicate this process. Here, we propose an inverse modelling framework designed for addressing these issues, that relies on a segmentation method combined with automatic differentiation, deep learning gradient-based optimizers, minibatching, and a parameter normalization technique. By partitioning the data into time series with a short time horizon, we show that the segmentation method regularizes the inverse problem. Implemented in the Julia packagePiecewiseInference.jl, the resulting framework enables the efficient calibration of realistic dynamical community models and supports the use of neural networks to represent complex ecological processes within the model. We evaluate the performance of the inverse modelling framework on simulated food-web dynamics of increasing complexity, including scenarios with partial observations. Our results demonstrate its performance in inferring model parameters and providing forecasts. We further showcase that the regularization induced by the framework, together with its efficiency, are instrumental for the online training of neural network-based parametrizations, alongside the other model parameters. Neural network-based parametrizations not only mitigate model inaccuracies but can also contribute to the refinement of ecological theory through their offline examination. The proposed inverse modelling framework is data-efficient, interpretable and capable of extrapolating beyond observed dynamics, showing promise in improving our ability to understand and forecast biodiversity dynamics.
Cognitive aging and categorical representations in visual working memory
Authors: Zhou Cherie , Lorist Monicque M. 
Published: July 2022

AbstractA traditional view on cognitive aging is that visual working memory (VWM) capacity declines in older adults. Recent work has shown that visual information can be stored in VWM in different forms of representations. Specifically, VWM becomes more reliant on categorical representations (e.g., a prototypical red) as compared to continuous representations (e.g., a light reddish color) as memory load increases. Here, we replicated these findings and tested whether this holds for older adults. Participants memorized one to four colors; after a delay, an arrow pointed at the location of the color that needed to be reported. We used an extended mixture model (Zhou et al., 2022) to examine the extent to which memory responses were biased in the direction of the category prototypes. Our results showed that for both younger and older adults, VWM became more biased towards category prototypes with increasing memory load. Importantly, we found no difference in the extent to which VWM was biased towards category prototypes between younger and older adults. However, older adults showed an overall lower precision as compared to younger adults. Taken together, our results demonstrated that both younger and older adults became more reliant on categorical representations with increasing memory load; importantly, the extent to which categorical representations were involved in maintaining VWM information was insensitive to age.
Biosynthesis of Silver nanoparticles using Drimia indica and exploring its antibacterial profiling
Authors: Kamble Pratik S. , Nimbalkar Mansingraj S. , Patil Swaroopa A. 
Published: July 2022

AbstractBiological synthesis reflects as an eco-friendly, nontoxic and easy method of nanoparticle preparation. Present investigation deals with biosynthesis of silver nanoparticles using Drimia indica leaf extract. Initially the synthesized silver nanoparticles were characterized and confirmed by UV-Vis spectroscopy, X-ray diffraction (XRD) and SEM. The synthesized nanoparticles when used for determination of antibacterial activity, by Microtitre Broth Dilution method exhibited remarkable activity against Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli.
Sales manager encouragement behavior in value-centered business models
Authors: Hoffmann Clara , Alavi Sascha , Schmitz Christian 
Published: July 2022

Purpose
Seeing past research, sales managers’ encouragement of their salespeople, tailored to the demands of value-creating sales, should constitute a key success factor for implementing value-centered business models. But prior research is largely silent on sales managers’ encouragement behavior for adopting value-centered business models regarding specific sales manager encouragement behaviors. Hence, this paper aims to examine the moderating effect of in-role and extra-role encouragement by sales managers in value-centered business models on financial firm performance.

Design/methodology/approach
The research model was tested empirically on a sample of key informants from 209 firms working in (sales) management positions using regression analysis.

Findings
The findings suggest that in-role encouragement behavior is more effective to achieve financial firm performance in value-centered business models. Sales managers should use in-role encouragement to provide their salespeople with a clear structure as a framework for their tasks and work environment and a strategic alignment along the sales organization.

Research limitations/implications
First, while the study included a variety of industries, it only covered countries from the Dach region (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland), which could limit the generalizability of the findings. To validate the results in additional countries, future research could replicate the research in a cross-country study to test whether the effects differ between countries. Second, the study surveys one key informant per firm on a firm-level leadership tendency. Although leadership culture may promote similar leadership styles or behaviors within one firm, individual leadership behaviors may still vary. Future research should validate the findings using individual sales managers data.

Practical implications
Firm managers must encourage sales managers in value-centered business models to engage in in-role encouragement and avoid extra-role encouragement and thus intensify their micromanagement. Micromanaging the salesforce comprises extensive guidance regarding their expectations and execution toward their salespeople’s work-related tasks and their way of thinking. Furthermore, firms must ask themselves whether their sales managers are capable of micromanaging at all and whether they have the capacity to do so. If not, they must create the appropriate capacities for this. Supplementary, firms should offer regular training for managers on the application of in-role encouragement.

Originality/value
To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study combining the two rather separately considered research streams of encouragement behavior and value-centered business models regarding the effects on firm performance outcomes.
A practical analysis of blended training efficacy on organizational outcomes
Authors: Ma Gang , Yang Rui , Minneyfield Aarren , Gu Xieting , Gan Yinghui , Li Lin , Liu Sixia , Jiang Wenjun , Lai Weiguo , Wu Yihua 
Published: July 2022

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature of blended learning by practically implementing best practices in employee training.

Design/methodology/approach
In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, an organization had modified its training procedures over the course of three years to improve employee and organizational outcomes. Employee candidates who were onboarded into sales positions during the years 2019–2021 were given the opportunity to learn the content in an online format and subsequently evaluated prior to their in-person training and final evaluation to provide them with a self-paced blended learning experience. Both evaluation scores, along with the length it took to complete the trainings, were used to determine the trainings effectiveness and efficiency respectively.

Findings
The findings for the study showed that the organization was successfully able to improve upon the efficiency of the training by reducing training length and the effectiveness by improving employee outcomes.

Research limitations/implications
The study’s design was limited to the probation process, which resulted in issues drawing conclusions for employee outcomes that were relevant to their long-term organizational success. This emphasizes the importance of comprehensive investigations for future practical studies.

Practical implications
The findings allow for the improvement of blended learning models within real-world organizational contexts that provide organizations with the opportunity to improve employee outcomes while reducing time costs.

Originality/value
This study provides data from applied blended learning procedures that were validated using empirical findings, which contributes to the practicality of blended learning in workplace training.
Sightseeing spot satisfaction of inbound tourists: comparative analysis of first-time visitors and repeat visitors in Japan
Authors: Yoo Bosul , Katsumata Sotaro 
Published: July 2022

Purpose
This study aims to enhance knowledge on marketing strategies to increase repeat visitors. Furthermore, the authors suggest using appropriate destination information tailored to first-time visitors and repeat visitors as social capital.

Design/methodology/approach
This study compares the differences in satisfaction between first-time foreign tourists and those repeat visiting. The authors apply a theoretical framework based on optimal distinctiveness theory (ODT) and consumer knowledge to determine which actions maximize the satisfaction of each group. Then, the relationships among assimilation desire, differentiation desire and satisfaction are quantitatively analyzed.

Findings
The results show the difference in the relationship between assimilation and travel satisfaction for first-time visitors and repeat visitors. First-time visitors are satisfied with popular sightseeing spots with higher assimilation level, whereas repeat visitors are satisfied with moderately unpopular sightseeing spots with lower assimilation level. The results clarify that information reflecting only the popularity of destinations is significantly effective for first-time visitors, but unsuitable for repeat visitors. Therefore, it would be possible to propose to repeat visitors a combination of “moderately differentiated” destinations.

Originality/value
The first contribution is that on the basis of Brewer (1991), the quantitative analysis confirmed that the social identity of an individual changes from assimilation to differentiation with the accumulation of experience until the optimal point is found. The second contribution is that we combined several fields such as ODT (Brewer, 1991), familiarity (Alba and Hutchinson, 1987), trial/repeat behavior (Iyengar et al., 2015) and reference groups (Peter & Olson, 2010). The third contribution is that the authors proposed marketing strategies on the basis of the empirical analysis to increase the number of inbound tourists.
The application of hibah al-ʿumra in disbursement of family Takāful benefits: an exploratory study
Authors: Rahman Md. Habibur , Abdullah Md. Faruk , Hoque Muhammad Nazmul , Ahmad Abu Umar Faruq 
Published: July 2022

Purpose
This study aims to investigate and propose the potential practice of hibah al-ʿumra as a Shari‘ah-compliant policy that would encompass the disbursement of death benefits and facilitate their smooth distribution among the projected beneficiaries of the family Takāful.

Design/methodology/approach
This study uses a qualitative approach. It conducts semi-structured interviews with different Takāful practitioners in Malaysia. This study also consulted a few Shari‘ah scholars regarding their opinions on the application of hibah al-ʿumra in disbursing family Takāful benefits. The thematic analysis is carried out to analyse qualitative data.

Findings
From both Shari‘ah and the relevant industry perspectives, the notion of hibah al-ʿumra has a great potential to disburse the family Takāful benefits to the Takāful participants or nominated beneficiaries. Given the conditional nature of hibah in Takāful, it is argued that there is a scope for imposing some conditions to make hibah al-ʿumra a life grant gift. This is expected to play a significant role in resolving the issues relating to the disbursement of family Takāful benefits among the beneficiaries, where it becomes irrevocable.

Practical implications
In the current practice of family Takāful, in the event of the recipient’s death or divorce, the application of absolute hibah results in the disbursement of Takāful benefits among undesirable beneficiaries. In contrast, in hibah al-ʿumra, it is expected that subject to a condition of withdrawal, its practice would help manage any unwanted situation if other potential beneficiaries are nominated upon signing the agreement at the outset.

Originality/value
This study is expected to contribute to help channel the family Takāful benefits into the desired beneficiaries being the proposed hibah al-ʿumra as a form of conditional hibah. Besides, this type of hiba can be treated as a solution in any adverse situation.