Niche theory predicts specialists will be more sensitive to environmental perturbation compared to generalists, a hypothesis receiving broad support in free-living species. Based on their niche breadth, parasites can also be classified as specialists and generalists, with specialists infecting only a few and generalists a diverse array of host species. Here, using avian haemosporidian parasites infecting wild bird populations inhabiting the Western Ghats, India as a model system, we elucidate how climate, habitat and human disturbance affects parasite prevalence both directly and indirectly via their effects on host diversity. Our data demonstrates that anthropogenic disturbance acts to reduce the prevalence of specialist parasite lineages, while increasing that of generalist lineages. Thus, as in free-living species, disturbance favors parasite communities dominated by generalist vs. specialist species. Because generalist parasites are more likely to cause emerging infectious diseases, such biotic homogenization of parasite communities could increase disease emergence risk in the Anthropocene

The field of optogenetics is rapidly growing in relevance and number of developed tools. Amongst other things, the optogenetic repertoire includes light-responsive ion channels and methods for gene regulation. This review will be confined to the optogenetic control of gene expression in mammalian cells as suitable models for clinical applications. Here optogenetic gene regulation might offer an excellent method for spatially and timely regulated gene and protein expression in cell therapeutic approaches. Well-known systems for gene regulation, such as the LOV-, CRY2/CIB-, PhyB/PIF-systems, as well as other, in mammalian cells not yet fully established systems will be described. Advantages and disadvantages with regard to clinical applications are outlined in detail. Among the many unanswered questions concerning the application of optogenetics, we discuss items such as the use of exogenous chromophores and their effects on the biology of the cells and methods for a gentle, but effective gene transfection method for optogenetic tools for in vivo applications.

Acne associates with increased sebum production, bacterial colonization, and ongoing inflammation. Fluorescent light energy has reported clinical effect on acne. The complexity of acne often makes combination therapy highly beneficial. We here show that combining FLE with low-dose isotretinoin or tetracycline leads to clearance of acne without significant adverse effects.

Li‐rich layered Mn‐based oxide (LMO) cathode materials, with the formation of Li2MnO3, have attracted much attention due to their potential in various applications with high energy density. However, these cathode materials for Lithium‐ion batteries still suffer from drawbacks such as poor rate capability and voltage decay, which makes further investigation vital and rational. Here, the doping strategy is employed to investigate the effect of TM = Ti, Cu, and Zn on Li2Mn0.5TM0.5O3 cathode materials for improving electrochemical performances of Li2MnO3. Electrochemical properties such as voltage, electrical conductivity, safety, structural stability, and kinetics and mechanism of Li‐ion diffusion are evaluated and compared. All doped cathodes decrease the voltage reduction and improve the electrical conductivity coefficient in comparison with LMO. Doping Cu notably increases the electrical conductivity of LMO by 77%. Ti doping exhibits the potential to increase the maximum voltage of LMO and structural stability. Doping Zn and Cu elements can delay the oxygen loss significantly, which leads to a higher life cycle and safety. In addition, doping Zn is expected to have a higher Li‐ion diffusion coefficient due to its low energy barrier and partial charge of oxygen atoms in its cathode structure. This first‐principle study of doping effects of TM = Ti, Cu, and Zn with α = 0.5 in Li2Mn0.5TMαO3 may be a useful leading study for further investigation into the synthesis of lithium‐rich materials with enhanced electrochemical performance.

Land degradation due to soil erosion presents a challenge for sustainable development. We investigated the impact of land use type and land management practices on runoff and sediment yield dynamics in the northwestern highlands of Ethiopia. The study area included 14 zero-order catchments with a surface area ranging from 324 m2 to 1715 m2. V-notch weirs produced from plastic jars were introduced as measuring alternatives that met local constraints. Runoff depth at the weir was registered at 5-min intervals during two rainy seasons in 2018 and 2019. Rainfall was measured using tipping-bucket rain gauges. Runoff samples were collected in 1-L bottles and suspended sediment concentration (SSC) was determined. The mean event runoff coefficient ranged from 3% for forests to 56% for badlands. Similarly, the mean annual sediment yield (SY) was lowest for forests (0.8 Mg ha-1 yr-1) and highest for badlands (43.4 Mg ha-1 yr-1), with significant differences among land use types (14.8 Mg ha-1 yr-1 in cropland, 5.7 Mg ha-1 yr-1 in grazing land, and 2.9 Mg ha-1 yr-1 in plantations). Soil organic matter (SOM) reduced runoff and SY, necessitating the consideration of agronomic and land management practices that enhance SOM. Annual SY decreased exponentially with the rock fragment cover (RFC). In fields where RFC was less than 20%, collecting rock fragments for installing stone bunds resulted in a net increase in SY. Rehabilitating badlands and enhancing SOM content in croplands can substantially reduce catchment SY and, hence considerably contribute to the sustainability of this type of environment.

Bilge and oily water (BOW) during vessel’s operation are the most large-tonnage type of waste and for their treatment all ships, in accordance with regulatory requirements [14], have to be equipped with special equipment – oily water separators. At sea vessel’s operating conditions three main directions of BOW cleaning are now used: physical, chemical and biological. The analysis of BOW separation methods based on these three directions has shown that it is very difficult to obtain secondary petrochemical products. In the article authors offer a new method for BOW separation which is based on the use of a hydrodynamic process of supercavitation with artificial ventilation of the cavitational cavern. With local origin in the flow of a supercavitating cavern, there will always be saturated water vapor inside of it. The process of permanent water vapor selection from the cavern will ultimately contribute to the production of highly concentrated mixture of secondary petroleum products from initial mixture of BOW. During the study of BOW separation process it was found that decreasing of the working pressure inside the working chamber of the cavitation separator have to be always compensated by an increase in the temperature of the processed multiphase flow.

Sodium glucose co-transporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT-2i’s) significantly improve cardiovascular outcome in both diabetic and non-diabetic patients. Preclinical studies suggest that SGLT-2i’s directly affect endothelial function in a glucose-independent manner. The effects of SGLT-2i’s include reduction of oxidative stress and inflammatory reaction in endothelial cells. Furthermore, SGLT2i’s have been shown to restore endothelial-related vasodilation and to regulate angiogenesis. The favorable cardiovascular effects of SGLT-2i’s might be mediated via multiple pathways: 1) by inhibition of the overactive sodium-hydrogen exchanger; 2) by reduction of nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate oxidases expression; 3) by alleviation of mitochondrial injury; 4) by the suppression of inflammatory-related signaling pathways (e.g. by affecting nuclear factor kappa beta); 5) by modulation of glycolysis, as well as 6) by restoring impaired nitric oxide bioavailability. This review focuses on the most recent progress and existing gaps in preclinical investigations concerning the direct effects of SGLT-2i’s on endothelial dysfunction and their underlying mechanisms.

Background: Multiplex tests allow for measurement of allergen-specific IgE responses to multiple allergen extracts and components and have several advantages for large cohort studies. Due to significant methodological differences, test systems are difficult to integrate in meta-analyses/systematic reviews since there is a lack of datasets with direct comparison. We aimed to create models for statistical integration of allergen-specific IgE to peanut/tree nut allergens from three IgE-test platforms. Methods: Plasma from Canadian and Austrian children with peanut/tree nut sensitization and a cohort of sensitized, high-risk, pre-school asthmatics (total n=166) were measured with three R&D multiplex IgE test platforms: Allergy Explorer, ALEX (Macro Array Dx), MeDALL-chip (Mechanisms of Development of Allergy) (Thermo Fisher), and EUROLINE (EUROIMMUN). Skin prick test (n=51) and ImmunoCAP (n=62) results for extracts were available in a subset. Regression models (Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines, local polynomial regression) were applied if >30% of samples were positive to the allergen. Intra-test correlations between PR-10 and nsLTP allergens were assessed. Results: Using two regression methods, we demonstrated the ability to model allergen-specific relationships with acceptable measures of fit (r2=94-56%) for peanut and tree nut sIgE testing at the extract and component-level, in order from highest to lowest: Ara h 2, Ara h 6, Jug r 1, Ana o 3, Ara h 1, Jug r 2, Cor a 9. Conclusion: Our models support the notion that conversion is reasonably possible between sIgE multiplex platforms for allergen extracts and components and may provide options to aggregate data for future meta-analysis.

In this article, a highly robust antenna is proposed for omnidirectional circular polarized communications in harsh environments at 2.45 GHz industrial, scientific, and medical frequency band. Circular polarization is realized by utilizing a combination of two magnetic and electric dipoles. The proposed antenna is based on a transparent structure and covered by a quarter wavelength thick layer of plexiglass to achieve desired robustness and visible light transparency.Meanwhile, because of the high transparency of the glass, it can integrate with solar cells to simultaneously propagate signals and harvest energy. The average gain and bandwidth of the antenna are 1.7 dBic and 300 MHz, respectively. The antenna’s axial ratio is achieved less than 3 dB within the bandwidth, showing circular polarization behavior. The proposed compact antenna is numerically and experimentally analyzed and the results have a great agreement. In another viewpoint, the structure delivers promising possibilities to improve the propagating and radiating properties, which bring in significant advantages for real-world multifunctional applications.

Aim: The Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) is the most widely distributed Asian pangolin species. It is one of the most trafficked mammals in the world, which not only negatively impacts wild Sunda pangolin populations, but also poses a potential disease risk to other species, including humans and livestock. Despite the imminent threat to the species’ survival and its prevalence in the wildlife trade, the phylogeography and evolution of the Sunda pangolin is not well understood. We aimed to investigate the species’ phylogeography across its distribution to improve our understanding of the species’ evolutionary history, elucidate any taxonomic uncertainties and enhance the species’ conservation genetic management and wildlife forensics applications. Location: Southeast Asia and southern China. Methods: We sequenced mtDNA genomes from 23 wild Sunda pangolins from Borneo and Peninsular Malaysia. We used these data in conjunction with previous generated mtDNA and nuclear datasets from across the species’ range to perform various phylogenetic and population genetic analyses. Results: We identified an evolutionarily distinct mtDNA lineage in north Borneo, which was estimated to be ~1.6 million years divergent from lineages in west/south Borneo and the mainland, comparable to the divergence time of the Palawan pangolin. There appeared to be mitonuclear discordance, with no apparent genetic structure across Borneo based on analysis of nuclear SNPs. Main conclusions: These findings are consistent with the ‘out of Borneo hypothesis’, whereby Sunda pangolins diversified in Borneo before subsequently migrating throughout Sundaland, and/or a secondary contact scenario between mainland and Borneo. We have elucidated possible taxonomic issues in the Sunda/Palawan pangolin complex, and highlight the critical need for additional georeferenced samples to accurately apportion its range-wide genetic variation into appropriate taxonomic and conservation units. Additionally, these data have improved forensic species identification testing involving these species and permit the implementation of geographic provenance testing in some scenarios.

Remdesivir can precipitate fatal acute necrotizing pancreatitis especially in patients who previously suffer from hypertriglyceridemia.

Despite the increasing accessibility of high-throughput sequencing, obtaining high-quality genomic data on non-model organisms without proximate well-assembled and annotated genomes remains challenging. Here we describe a workflow that takes advantage of distant genomic resources and ingroup transcriptomes to select and jointly enrich long open reading frames (ORFs) and ultraconserved elements (UCEs) from genomic samples for integrative studies of microevolutionary and macroevolutionary dynamics. This workflow is applied to samples of the African unionid bivalve tribe Coelaturini (Parreysiinae) at basin and continent-wide scales. Our results indicate that ORFs are efficiently captured without prior identification of intron-exon boundaries. The enrichment of UCEs was less successful, but nevertheless produced substantial datasets. Exploratory continent-wide phylogenetic analyses with ORF supercontigs (>515,000 parsimony informative sites) resulted in a fully resolved phylogeny, the backbone of which was also retrieved with UCEs (>11,000 informative sites). Variant calling on ORFs and UCEs of Coelaturini from the Malawi Basin produced ~2,000 SNPs per population pair. Estimates of nucleotide diversity and population differentiation were similar for ORFs and UCEs. They were low compared to previous estimates in mollusks, but comparable to those in recently diversifying Malawi cichlids and other taxa at an early stage of speciation. Skimming off-target sequence data from the same enriched libraries of Coelaturini from the Malawi Basin, we reconstructed the maternally-inherited mitogenome, which displays the gene order inferred for the most recent common ancestor of Unionidae. Overall, our workflow and results provide exciting perspectives for integrative genomic studies of microevolutionary and macroevolutionary dynamics in non-model organisms.

Infection with African swine fever virus (ASFV) causes a highly lethal hemorrhagic disease in domestic and Eurasian wild pigs. Thus, it is a major threat to pig populations worldwide and a cause of substantial economic losses. Recently, less virulent ASFV strains emerged naturally, which showed higher experimental virulence in wild boar than in domestic pigs. The reason for this difference in disease progression and outcome is unclear but likely involves different immunological responses. Unfortunately, besides the importance of CD8α+ lymphocytes, little is known about the immune responses against ASFV in suids. Against this background, we used a multicolor flow cytometry platform to investigate the T-cell responses in wild boar and domestic pigs after infection with the moderately virulent ASFV strain “Estonia2014” in two independent trials. CD4–/CD8α+ and CD4+/CD8α+ αβ T-cell frequencies increased in both subspecies in various tissues, but CD8α+ γδ T cells differentiated and responded in wild boar only. Proliferation in CD8α+ T cells was found 10 days post infectionem only. Frequencies of T-bet+ T cells increased in wild boar but not in domestic pigs. Of note, we found a considerable loss of perforin expression in cytotoxic T cells, 5 and 7 dpi. Both subspecies established a regulatory T-cell response 10 dpi. In domestic pigs, we show increasing levels of ICOS+ and CD8α+ invariant Natural Killer T cells. These disparities in T-cell responses might explain some of the differences in disease progression in wild boar and domestic pigs and should pave the way for future studies.

Thoracic endovascular aortic repair (TEVAR) has quickly become the mainstay of treatment for acute aortic dissection, in particular cases of acute complicated Stanford Type B dissection (co-TBAD). Necessarily, TEVAR carries with it the risk of postoperative complications, including stroke and renal failure. As a result, the management of patients with uncomplicated type B aortic dissection (un-TBAD), which is generally accepted as being less severe, are safely managed via optimal medical therapy (OMT) alone. However, despite OMT, patients with un-TBAD are at substantial risk of severe disease progression requiring delayed intervention. The cost-benefit ratio associated with TEVAR for un-TBAD is therefore of key interest. Howard and colleagues produced a fascinating systematic review and meta-analysis investigating the clinical outcomes of TEVAR for complicated and uncomplicated TBAD. Their data suggests that there is no significant difference in in-hospital mortality or 5-year survival between TEVAR for un-TBAD and co-TBAD, although the 30-day mortality rate appeared to be higher in the co-TBAD cohort. Patients with co-TBAD appeared to also be at a higher risk of postoperative stroke and TEVAR endoleak, while un-TBAD patients were at a higher risk of postoperative renal failure. Further prospective research into these relationships are recommended to fully elucidate the comparative efficacies of TEVAR for un-TBAD and co-TBAD.

Large studies demonstrated that moderate or severe patient-prosthesis mismatch (PPM) occurs in 44.2% to 65% of patients undergoing aortic valve replacement. If there is general agreement that patients with PPM have worse outcome than patients without, it is difficult to understand how to prevent this dangerous complication. The formula used to calculate the effective orifice area (EOA) of an implanted aortic prosthesis has many weak points that produce inconsistent results using the same prosthetic valve (type and size). The observed EOA (3 to 6 months postoperatively) of a #23 biological prosthesis can range from 0.9 to 3.5 cm², making PPM prevention impossible using projected EOA, where only the mean value is reported (1.83 cm² for the same #23 biological prosthesis). An EACTS-STS-AATS Valve Labelling Task Force has been established to suggest the manufacturers to present essential information on valvular prosthesis characteristics in standardized Valve Charts. For valves used in the aortic position, Valve Charts should include a standardized PPM chart to assess the probability of PPM after implantation. This will not solve completely the conundrum of prevention, but most likely it will be a step ahead.

The distribution ranges and spatio-temporal patterns in the occurrence and activity of boreal bats are yet largely unknown due to their cryptic lifestyle and lack of suitable and efficient study methods. We approached the issue by establishing a permanent passive-acoustic sampling setup spanning the area of Finland to gain an understanding on how latitude affects bat species composition and activity patterns in northern Europe. The recorded bat calls were semi-automatically identified for three target taxa; Myotis spp., Eptesicus nilssonii or Pipistrellus nathusii and the seasonal activity patterns were modeled for each taxa across the seven sampling years (2015–2021). We found an increase in activity since 2015 for E. nilssonii and Myotis spp. For E. nilssonii and Myotis spp. we found significant latitude -dependent seasonal activity patterns, where seasonal variation in patterns appeared stronger in the north. Over the years, activity of P. nathusii increased during activity peak in June and late season but decreased in mid season. We found the passive-acoustic monitoring network to be an effective and cost-efficient method for gathering bat activity data to analyze spatio-temporal patterns. Long-term data on the composition and dynamics of bat communities facilitates better estimates of abundances and population trend directions for conservation purposes and predicting the effects of climate change.

Soil resources in East Africa are being rapidly depleted by erosion, threatening food-, water- and livelihood security in the region. Here we demonstrate how integration of evidence from natural and social sciences has supported community-led change in land management in an agro-pastoral community in northern Tanzania impacted by soil erosion. Drone survey data and geospatial analysis of erosion extent and risk, supported by communication of ‘process’ and ‘structural’ hydrological connectivity, was integrated with local environmental knowledge within participatory community workshops. Rill density data were compared between cultivated plots that had been converted from pastoral land recently and more established plots where slow-forming terrace boundaries were more established. Slope length and connectivity between plots were key factors in development of rill networks. At the two extremes, recently converted land had a rill density ca 14 times greater than equivalent established slow forming terraces. Direction of cultivation, regardless of plot boundary orientation with contours, also enhanced rill development. Evidence of this critical time window of hillslope-scale rill erosion risk during early phases of slow-forming terrace development successfully underpinned and catalysed a community-led tree planting and grass seed sowing programme to mitigate soil erosion by water. This was grounded in an implicit community understanding of the need for effective governance mechanisms at both community and District levels, to enable community-led actions to be implemented effectively. The study demonstrates the wide-reaching impact of integrated and interdisciplinary ‘upslope-downslope’ thinking to tackle global soil erosion challenges.

Background: Acute type A aortic dissection (ATAAD), is a surgical emergency often requiring intervention on the aortic root. There is much controversy regarding root management; aggressively pursuing a root replacement, versus more conservative approaches to preserve native structures. Methods: Electronic database search we performed through PubMed, Embase, SCOPUS, google scholar and Cochrane identifying studies that reported on outcomes of surgical repair of ATAAD through either root preservation or replacement. The identified articles focused on short- and long-term mortalities, and rates of re-operation on the aortic root. Results: There remains controversy on replacing or preserving aortic root in ATAAD. Current evidence supports practice of both trends following an extensive decision-making framework, with conflicting series suggesting favourable results with both procedures as the approach that best defines higher survival rates and lower perioperative complications. Yet, the decision to perform either approach remains surgeon decision and bound to the extent of the dissection and tear entries in strong correlation with status of the aortic valve and involvement of coronaries in the dissection. Conclusions: There exists much controversy regarding fate of the aortic root in ATAAD. There are conflicting studies for impact of root replacement on mortality, whilst some study’s report no significant results at all. There is strong evidence regarding risk of re-operation being greater when root is not replaced. Majority of these studies are limited by the single centred, retrospective nature of these small sample sized cohorts, further hindered by potential of treatment bias.