The change in the structure of the polar landscape since the termination of the Little Ice Age (ca. 1900) is expressed by widespread retreat of glaciers, progressive exposure of glacial landforms at ice margins and opening ice marginal zones to increasing paraglacial and periglacial processes operating synchronously in adjacent areas. This study provides insights into the rate of post-LIA deglaciation and associated paraglacial transformation in foreland of Gåsbreen, a glacier situated in north-western Sørkapp Land, region characterized by one of fastest deglaciation rates in the entire Svalbard Archipelago. During the investigated period, 1938-2020, Gåsbreen was in a recession that accelerated after 1990 and as a result the area of its marginal zone almost tripled from 2.2 km² to 5.8 km². This process had a significant impact on the development of the relief in glacier foreland. The dynamics of landscape transformation in the glacier marginal zone manifested in degradation in the surface of ice-cored moraines and the forms that are underlain by dead-ice. Mass movements and debris flow on ice-cored moraines and fluvioglacial processes had a great influence on this transformation. Larger volume of proglacial waters intensified denudation, transport and accumulation of sediments, which resulted, in: an increase in the surface of sandurs and proglacial riverbeds, an increase in the area of lakes, extending and changing of the course of rivers in marginal zone.

A document by Hamid Mottaghi Golshan. Click on the document to view its contents.

This Supporting Information includes: _Supplementary text describing Preliminary Status Classifer, segmentation methods, model training and validation details; two supplementary tables, two supplementary figures and one supplementary video._ Corresponding author(s) Email:  _ hoychan@cityu.edu.hk; xinyueli@cityu.edu.hk; wenjli@cityu.edu.hk  _

Soil salinity is one of the major abiotic stressors that seriously affects plant growth and yield. Soluble sugars activated by salt stress serve as the osmoprotectants to improve salt tolerance for plants, and meanwhile they could provide energy sources supporting plant growth and development. However, the molecular mechanism that negatively regulates sugar accumulation under salt stress is not fully understood. Here, we provide evidences that the functions of the ankyrin-repeat kinase gene 2 ( APK2) under salt stress in Arabidopsis. The protein APK2 interacts with and phosphorylates the sugar transporter STP11 during salt stress response. The phosphorylated STP11 is degraded and affects its glucose transport ability. As expected, the apk2 mutant increased salt tolerance. Importantly, salt sensitive phenotype of the stp11 mutant was recovered by the mutation of phosphorylation site Thr 227. These results totally indicate that APK2 regulates salt tolerance by phosphorylating STP11 protein, which then modulates STP11 protein stability and transport activity. Thus, the study reveals a new molecular mechanism underlying salt-induced stress adaptation by balancing the cellular content of soluble sugar via enhanced degradation of sugar transporter.

A document by Carlos Mestres. Click on the document to view its contents.

Objectives: We sought to assess the safety of training in cardiothoracic surgery comparing outcomes of cases performed by trainees versus fully trained surgeons. Methods: EmBase, Scopus, PubMed, and OVID MEDLINE were searched in August 2021 independently by two authors. A third author arbitrated decisions to resolve disagreements. Inclusion criteria were articles on cardiothoracic surgery reporting on outcomes for trainees. Studies were assessed for appropriateness as per CBEM criteria. 892 results were obtained, 27 represented best evidence (2-Meta-analyses, 1-RCT and 24 retrospective cohort studies). Results: 474,160 operative outcomes were assessed for 434,535 CABG (431,329 on-pump vs 3206 off-pump), 3090 AVR, 1740 MVR/repair, 26,433 mixed, 3565 congenital and 4797 thoracic procedures. 398,058 cases were performed by trainees and 75,943 by consultants. 159 cases were indeterminate. There were no statistically significant differences in the patients’ pre-operative risk scores. All studies excluded extreme high-risk patients in emergency setting, patients with poor left ventricular function and re-operation cases that were undertaken by consultants. There were no differences in CPB and clamp times for CABG. Times for valve replacement and repair cases were longer for trainees. There were no differences in the post-operative outcomes including peri-operative myocardial infarction, resternotomy for bleeding, stroke, renal failure, ITU length of stay and total length of stay. One study reported no differences on angiographic graft patency at 1 year. There were no differences in in-hospital or mid-term mortality out to five-years. Discussion: Trainees can perform cardiothoracic surgery in dedicated high-volume units with outcomes comparable to those of fully trained surgeons.

Background: The average living age of the population is constantly increasing and so is the incidence and prevalence of aortic valve disease. Surgical aortic valve replacement (SAVR) is the current gold standard treatment. Nevertheless, the use of prosthetic valves in SAVR is associated with issues that impact patients’ quality of life. Aortic valve neocuspidization (AV Neo) offers a means to solve this dilemma by minimising foreign valve tissue. AV Neo can either be performed using glutaraldehyde-treated autologous pericardium (Ozaki procedure) or bovine pericardium (Batista procedure). Aims: This commentary aims to discuss the recent study by Chan and colleagues which highlighted the surgical approach, clinical outcomes and limitations of the Ozaki procedure, and compare this to the Batista procedure. Methods: A comprehensive literature search was performed using multiple electronic databases including PubMed, Ovid, Embase and Scopus in order to collate the relevant research evidence. Results: Although the Ozaki procedure can achieve favourable results whilst mainly avoiding the need for life-long oral anticoagulation with mechanical valves, it still has several limitations that may hinder results. AV Neo using glutaraldehyde-treated bovine pericardium, developed by pioneer cardiac surgeon Dr. Randas J. Vilela Batista, yields superior clinical outcomes to Ozaki’s, including excellent survival, lower complications and minimal need for reoperation as well as shorter operative times. Conclusion: AV Neo offers a means to perform SAVR whilst escaping the prosthetic valve issues. However, the Batista procedure has shown beyond doubt that it can be considered the superior approach for AV Neo over the Ozaki procedure.

Based on the analysis of morphological characteristics of the beak of the cuttlefish Sepia pharaonic, computer graphics technology and state of art 3-D modeling technology were used to reconstruct the 3-D model of the beak. The light reflection principle of a 45° prism was used to obtain a beak image containing five isometric views from different angles after one shot. Then the software Photoshop CC was applied to extract the external outline of the beak from the image respectively, and the reference gallery was established. The ZBrush 2020 software had been applied to sculpting the beaks as realistic as possible before these digital 3-D assets were printed as an existing object. These printed models were compared with their prototype beaks and that of big fin reef squid to verify their accuracy. It required enough learning cost to manipulate the state-of-art 3-D constructed software like ZBrush. However, once a standardized model of the beak has been built, it’s easy to refine and apply to species of cephalopod from different types of habitat (pelagic, benthic, and demersal). The models can be obtained quickly with lower cost compared with present underwater photogrammetry and/or micro-CT scanning and have sufficient precision for quantitative interspecific morphological analyses. The research can provide new ideas and lay a foundation for the comparative morphology analysis of the beak of different species, and also provides convenience for marine biology visualization, and/or digital multimedia development.

Extracellular production of target proteins simplifies downstream processing due to obsolete cell disruption. However, optimal combinations of a heterologous protein, suitable signal peptide and secretion host can currently not be predicted, resulting in large strain libraries that need to be tested. On the experimental side, this challenge can be tackled by miniaturization, parallelization and automation, which provide high-throughput screening data. These data need to be condensed into a candidate ranking for decision making to focus bioprocess development on the most promising candidates. We screened for Bacillus subtilis signal peptides mediating Sec secretion of two polyethylene terephthalate degrading enzymes (PETases), leaf-branch compost cutinase (LCC) and polyester hydrolase (PE-H) mutants, by Corynebacterium glutamicum. We developed a fully automated screening process and constructed an accompanying Bayesian statistical modeling framework, which we applied in screenings for highest activity in 4-nitrophenyl palmitate degradation. In contrast to classical evaluation methods, batch effects and biological errors are taken into account and their uncertainty is quantified. Within only two rounds of screening, the most suitable signal peptide was identified for each PETase. Results from LCC secretion in microliter-scale cultivation were shown to be scalable to laboratory-scale bioreactors. This work demonstrates an experiment-modeling loop that can accelerate early-stage screening in a way that experimental capacities are focused to the most promising strain candidates. Combined with high-throughput cloning, this paves the way for using large strain libraries of several hundreds of strains in a Design-Build-Test-Learn approach.

We study C*-algebraic versions of following conjectures/theorems: (1) Bieberbach conjecture (de Branges theorem) (2) Robertson conjecture (3) Lebedev-Milin conjecture (4) Zalcman conjecture (5) Krzyz conjecture (6) Corona conjecture (Carleson theorem). We prove that the C*-algebraic Bieberbach Conjecture for invertible coefficients is true for second degree C*-algebraic polynomials.

Parul Shrivastava1, Srimoyee Banerjee1, Sourav Ghosh1*

A document by Longkang Ni. Click on the document to view its contents.

In this paper, we introduce the theory of a generalized Fourier transform in order to solve differential equations with a generalized fractional derivative, and we state its main properties. In particular, we obtain the corresponding convolution, inverse and Plancherel formulas, and Hausdorff-Young inequality. We show that this generalized Fourier transform is useful in the study of fractional partial differential equations, by solving the fractional heat equation on the real line.

In this paper, we study a link between oriented CW complexes (also called configurations) and flexible algebras determining which configurations are associated with those algebras. Some important elements that can be read from the (pseudo)digraph that is associated with a flexible algebra are studied. Moreover, the isomorphism classes of each 2-dimensional configuration associated with these algebras is analyzed, providing a new method to classify them. In order to complement the theoretical study, two algorithmic methods are implemented: the first one checks if a given oriented CW complex is associated or not with a flexible algebra, while the second one constructs and draws the (pseudo)digraph associated with a given flexible algebra.

We prove that the uniform radius of spatial analyticity $\sigma(t)$ of solution at time $t$ to the one-dimensional fourth order nonlinear Schr\”odinger equation $$ i\partial_tu-\partial_x^4u =|u |^2u $$ cannot decay faster than $1/ \sqrt{t}$ for large $t$, given initial data that is analytic with fixed radius $\sigma_0$. The main ingredients in the proof are a modified Gevrey space, a method of approximate conservation law and a Strichartz estimate for free wave associated with the equation.

σ factors are essential parts of bacterial RNA polymerase (RNAP) as they allow to recognize promotor sequences and initiate transcription. Domain 1.1 of vegetative σ factors occupies the primary channel of RNAP and also prevents binding of the σ factor to promoter DNA alone. Here, we show that domain 1.1 of Bacillus subtilis σ A exists in two structurally distinct variants in dynamic equilibrium. The major conformation at room temperature is represented by a previously reported well-folded structure solved by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), but 4% of the protein molecules are present in a less thermodynamically favorable state. We show that this population increases with temperature and may represent as much as 20% at 43.5 ◦ C. We characterized the minor state of the domain 1.1 using specialized methods of NMR. We found that, in contrast to the major state, the detected minor state is partially unfolded. Its propensity to form secondary structure elements is especially decreased for the first and third α helices, while the second α helix and β strand close to the C-terminus are more stable. In summary, this study reveals conformational dynamics of domain 1.1 and provides a basis for studies of its interaction with RNAP and effects on transcription regulation.

Prevalence and Associated Factors of Occupational Injuries among Municipal Solid Waste Collectors in Urban Dire Dawa Administration, Eastern Ethiopia

The nuclear genomes of most animal species include segments of the mitogenome, but the count of these NUMTs varies greatly. This study examines the incidence of NUMTs derived from a 658 bp region of the cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene as a proxy for other coding regions of the mitochondrial genome. Analysis focuses on the most diverse group of terrestrial organisms, insects, because COI-based identification systems play a key role in clarifying their diversity, an essential antecedent to genome sequencing. Nearly 10,000 COI NUMTs ≥ 100 bp were detected in the genomes of 1,002 insect species with a range from 0–443. NUMT counts were similar among congeners, but differences among genera in a family were often large with genome size explaining 56% of the mitogenome-wide variation in counts. While many of these NUMTs possessed an indel or premature stop codon allowing their exclusion, the others could complicate species diagnosis as they averaged 10.1% divergence from their mitochondrial homologue. The count of NUMTs varies widely among insect lineages, peaking in groups that employ direct development or incomplete metamorphosis. They can raise the apparent species count by up to 22% when the 658 bp barcode region is examined while shorter targets (300 bp, 150 bp) elevate exposure (58–111%) to “ghost” species. As a result, NUMTs represent a particular complication for protocols (e.g., eDNA, metabarcoding) which employ short amplicons for biodiversity assessments.

Aeolian desertification is a severe ecological and environmental problem in arid regions. Research on its temporal and spatial distribution, development model, and driving force is necessary to prevent the development of aeolian desertification. In this study, the Moltsog dune field in Mongolia and the Ujimqin dune field in China were selected as the study areas, as both contain dunes with similar natural conditions. Using Landsat data from 1988, 1995, 2002, 2009, 2016, and 2020, the spatial-temporal distribution and degree of development of aeolian desertification in the two dune fields over the past 30 years were compared. Two periods of high-resolution images were then used to compare the surface morphological changes induced by aeolian desertification in the dune fields. Climatic and socio-economic data of the same period were used to compare and analyze the causes of changes in aeolian desertification in these regions. The results show that: (1) Over 30 years, the degree and development rate of aeolian desertification in the Ujimqin dune field were generally higher than those in the Moltsog dune field, and the former had a high degree of fragmented aeolian desertification patches with an expanding range. (2) The main form of aeolian desertification is the reactivation of fixed dunes, which includes the development of blowouts on the flat grassland under the influence of human activities in the Ujimqin dune field. (3) The desertification in Moltsog is mainly affected by climatic factors, while that in Ujimqin is mainly affected by human activities. The latter is specifically affected by the high grazing intensity before 2000 and increased mining activities after 2000. These findings provide a reference for comparing the aeolian desertification process and meaningful information for preventing and managing aeolian desertification and enabling the sustainable development of dune fields in arid regions.

Water shortage is a major problem facing the world. Artificial precipitation enhancement is an effective way to improve precipitation conversion rate, but the selection of artificial precipitation enhancement operation timing is the main difficulty, and the precipitable water vapor(PWV) is a major index. The variation of PWV is nonlinear and unstable due to complex factors, especially in the Qilian mountains in the northeastern part of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, so it is difficult to predict it accurately. Therefore, based on the analysis of the observed data of microwave radiometer in Qilian Mountains, a new combined model is constructed which considers both data decomposition and prediction of several single models in this research. In the data preprocessing stage, the complete ensemble empirical mode decomposition with adaptive noise (CEEMDAN) technique is used to decompose and de-noise the PWV sequence. In the prediction stage, four neural network with unique characteristics, back propagation neural network (BPNN), long short term memroy (LSTM), bidirectional gated recurrent unit (BiGRU) and temporal convolutional network (TCN), are selected to predict the decomposed data respectively. A variant of gray Wolf optimization algorithm (IGWO) is used to determine the optimal weight of the model, and finally the comprehensive predicted value is obtained by weighting calculation. Through the analysis of experimental results, in the longest 15-step prediction, compared with CEEMDAN-BP, CEEMDAN-LSTM, CEEMDAN-BiGRU, CEEMDAN-TCN, the prediction accuracy can be improved by 54.17%, 35.05%, 22.38%, 23.86%, respectively. Other step size prediction also achieves the highest prediction accuracy.

Aims Protein kinase inhibitors (PKI) have revolutionized the prognosis of several types of cancer, justifying the acceleration of their clinical evaluation before they obtain marketing authorization. Pharmacovigilance signals of heart failure (HF) following exposure to PKIs have been detected in recent years. Our objective was to identify the PKIs most frequently associated with the development of HF. Methods Using the French National Healthcare Database, all patients newly exposed to a PKI between January 2011 and June 2014 were followed up for 18 months. Specific hospitalisation diagnosis and long-term disease codes related to HF were used to identify HF patients. HF Incidence Rate Ratios (IRR) were measured and adjusted Hazard Ratios (aHR) were estimated using a Cox model. Results Thirteen PKIs were studied. Among the 49,714 new PKI users during the study period, the mean IRR of HF was 3.38 per 100 person-years, with a median time to onset of 155 days. We found a significant increase in the incidence of HF for 6 drugs: pazopanib (aHR= 2.42, 95% CI: 1.67-3.52), dasatinib (aHR= 2.22, 95% CI: 1.42-3.44), ruxolitinib (aHR= 2.11, 95% CI: 1.69-2.64), crizotinib (aHR= 1.71, 95% CI: 1.07-2.72), everolimus (aHR= 1.45, 95% CI: 1.26-1.67) and vemurafenib (aHR= 1.37, 95% CI: 1.01-1.86). Conclusions Our study provides knowledge on HF following exposure to a PKI. Additional studies could confirm these results for dasatinib, everolimus, pazopanib and ruxolitinib, and particularly for the two drugs with results slightly above the significance threshold, crizotinib and vemurafenib in our sensitivity analyses.

The impetus of this review is to provide an overview of Neurodevelopmental disorder i.e., ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), its complications, and information on ADHD-affected regions in the brain. An attempt was made to understand the hereditary cause of ADHD. Many reviews and research articles were compared and analyzed throughout the study. The concepts include (a) ADHD and its symptoms (b) complexities involved in brain regions for ADHD-affected patients (c) linkage analysis for studying the genetics of ADHD. Results derived from review analysis show that there will be a change in the structure, growth, and function of the brain. Prefrontal and frontal lobes, parietal lobes, and cerebellum are the principal brain regions involved. From the study it is observed that there will be a decrease in the volume of the cerebellum and the front striatal region is majorly affected. There is no strong evidence that ADHD is caused to hereditary however few researchers explain that there is a linkage between genes and the cause of ADHD in siblings. Many more research works need to be done for a clear understanding of the disease. The analysis of this review explains the genetic interaction taking place in ADHD patients, and the effect of ADHD on the brain and its structural and functional changes.

Particle tracers are sometimes used to track sources and sinks of riverine particulate and contaminant transport. A potentially new particle tracer is ~200 nm sized superparamagnetic silica encapsulated DNA (SiDNAFe). The main objective of this research was to understand and quantify the settling and aggregation behaviour of SiDNAFe in river waters. Our results indicated, that in quiescent conditions, more than 60% of SiDNAFe settled within 30 hours, starting with a rapid settling phase followed by an exponential-like slow settling phase in the three river waters we used (Meuse, Merkske, and Strijbeek) plus MilliQ water. From this, we inferred that the rapid SiDNAFe settling was mainly due to homo-aggregation and not due to hetero-aggregation (e.g., with particulate matter present in river water). Incorporating a first-order mass loss term which mimics the exponential phase of the settling in quiescent conditions seems to be an adequate step forward when modelling the transport of SiDNAFe in river injection experiments. Furthermore, we validated the applicability of magnetic separation and up-concentration of SiDNAFe in real river waters, which is an important advantage for carrying out field-scale SiDNAFe tracing experiments.

A document by Mei Jiang. Click on the document to view its contents.