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Ticks Tick Borne Dis 2021 Mar 23;12(4):101715. Epub 2021 Mar 23.

Department of Parasitology and Zoology, University of Veterinary Medicine, Budapest, Hungary; Department of Parasitology and Parasitic Diseases, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine, Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

Three Palearctic members of the subgenus Pholeoixodes, i.e., Ixodes canisuga, Ixodes hexagonus and Ixodes kaiseri are frequently collected from dogs, cats, red foxes, badgers and other carnivorous/insectivorous hosts in Europe. Read More

iScience 2021 Apr 4;24(4):102271. Epub 2021 Mar 4.

Department of Biology, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA.

Exceptionally preserved fossil sites have allowed specimen-based identification of trophic interactions to which network analyses have been applied. However, network analyses of the fossil record suffer from incomplete and indirect data, time averaging that obscures species coexistence, and biases in preservation. Here, we present a high-resolution fossil data set from Raymond Quarry member of the mid-Cambrian Burgess Shale (7,549 specimens, 61 taxa, ∼510 Mya) and formulate a measure of "preservation bias" that aids identification of assemblage subsets to which network analyses can be reliably applied. Read More

PeerJ Comput Sci 2021 15;7:e360. Epub 2021 Feb 15.

Institute of Mathematics, University of the Philippines Diliman, Quezon City, Metro Manila, Philippines.

In 2018, the Philippine Congress signed House Bill 1022 declaring the Baybayin script as the Philippines' national writing system. In this regard, it is highly probable that the Baybayin and Latin scripts would appear in a single document. In this work, we propose a system that discriminates the characters of both scripts. Read More

Int J Mol Sci 2021 Mar 25;22(7). Epub 2021 Mar 25.

CIIMAR-Interdisciplinary Centre of Marine and Environmental Research, University of Porto, Rua General Norton de Matos s/n, Terminal de Cruzeiros do Porto de Leixões, 4450-208 Matosinhos, Portugal.

We focus on the stalked goose barnacle adhesive system, an opportunistic less selective species for the substrate, found attached to a variety of floating objects at seas. Adhesion is an adaptative character in barnacles, ensuring adequate positioning in the habitat for feeding and reproduction. The protein composition of the cement multicomplex and adhesive gland was quantitatively studied using shotgun proteomic analysis. Read More

Biomolecules 2021 Mar 24;11(4). Epub 2021 Mar 24.

State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy and Cancer Center, West China Hospital, West China Medical School, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China.

Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which are evolutionarily conserved components of the innate immune response, contribute to the first line of defense against microbes in the skin and at mucosal surfaces. Here, we report the identification of a human peptide, encoded by the chromosome 5 open reading frame 46 () gene, as a type of AMP, which we termed antimicrobial peptide with 64 amino acid residues (AP-64). AP-64 is an anionic amphiphilic peptide lacking cysteines (MW = 7. Read More

Appl Clin Inform 2021 03 24;12(2):245-250. Epub 2021 Mar 24.

Department of Medicine, University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, Washington, United States.

Background: Clinicians express concern that they may be unaware of important information contained in voluminous scanned and other outside documents contained in electronic health records (EHRs). An example is "unrecognized EHR risk factor information," defined as risk factors for heritable cancer that exist within a patient's EHR but are not known by current treating providers. In a related study using manual EHR chart review, we found that half of the women whose EHR contained risk factor information meet criteria for further genetic risk evaluation for heritable forms of breast and ovarian cancer. Read More

Mol Cell Proteomics 2021 Mar 20:100074. Epub 2021 Mar 20.

Department of Laboratory Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg,; the Laboratory of Clinical Chemistry, Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Västra Götaland Region, Sweden. Electronic address:

Of all post-translational modifications known, glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) remain one of the most challenging to study, and despite the recent years of advancement in MS technologies and bioinformatics, detailed knowledge about the complete structures of GAGs as part of proteoglycans (PGs) is limited. To address this issue, we have developed a protocol to study PG-derived GAGs. CS/DS conjugates from the rat insulinoma cell line, INS-1 832/13, known to produce primarily the PG chromogranin-A, were enriched by anion-exchange chromatography after pronase digestion. Read More

Zootaxa 2021 Mar 9;4941(3):zootaxa.4941.3.8. Epub 2021 Mar 9.

Department of Agricultural Entomology, Bidhan Chandra Krishi Viswavidyalaya, Mohanpur, Nadia-741252, West Bengal, India..

A new soft scale species (Hemiptera: Coccomorpha: Coccidae), Pulvinaria kalyaniensis Talukder Das, sp. n., is described from specimens collected on twigs of Azadirachta indica A. Read More

Zootaxa 2021 Jan 26;4918(1):zootaxa.4918.1.1. Epub 2021 Jan 26.

Macleay Collections, Chau Chak Wing Museum and School of Life and Environmental Sciences, The University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia. Ichthyology, Australian Museum Research Institute, 1 William Street, Sydney, New South Wales 2010, Australia..

Australian species of the anthiadine genera Plectranthias and Selenanthias are reviewed. Twenty-two species of Plectranthias and two species of Selenanthias are recorded from Australian waters: Plectranthias sp. 1 from a seamount north of Middleton Reef and Norfolk Ridge, Tasman Sea; P. Read More

Zootaxa 2021 Feb 2;4920(4):zootaxa.4920.4.5. Epub 2021 Feb 2.

1National Museums of Kenya, Herpetology Section, Museum Hill Road, P.O. Box 40658-00100 Nairobi, Kenya..

Kenya has a high diversity of agamid lizards and the arid northern frontier area has the highest species richness. Among the Kenyan agama species, Agama lionotus has the widest distribution, occurring from sea level to inland areas in both dry and moist savanna as well as desert areas. This species mostly prefers rocky areas, both in granitic/metamorphic and volcanic rocks, although it also makes use of tree crevices as well as man-made structures. Read More

Zootaxa 2021 Jan 22;4915(3):zootaxa.4915.3.9. Epub 2021 Jan 22.

Museum of Natural History, University of Wrocław, Sienkiewicza 21, 50-335 Wrocław, Poland..

Leptoplectus kijimunaa Jałoszyński Nomura, sp. n. is described, based on a series of specimens collected on Okinawa Island, Japan. Read More

Zootaxa 2021 Jan 22;4915(3):zootaxa.4915.3.2. Epub 2021 Jan 22.

Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo unidad Mazatlán, Av. Sábalo-Cerritos s/n, Estero del Yugo 82100, Mazatlán, Sinaloa, México. Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología, Av. Insurgentes Sur 1582, Col. Crédito Constructor 03940, Ciudad de México, México..

Historically, the taxonomic identification of the two snook species, Centropomus viridis and C. nigrescens, has been challenging due to their morphological similarity and the inconsistency of the characters used for diagnosis. Therefore, this study aimed to evaluate the usefulness of the morphologic, meristic, and morphometric characters currently being used to identify C. Read More

Front Psychol 2021 4;12:634930. Epub 2021 Mar 4.

Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands.

In this paper, we seek to explain the power of perspective taking in narrative discourse by turning to research on the oral foundations of storytelling in human communication and language. We argue that narratives function through a central process of alignment between the viewpoints of narrator, hearer/reader, and character and develop an analytical framework that is capable of generating general claims about the processes and outcomes of narrative discourse while flexibly accounting for the great linguistic variability both across and within stories. The central propositions of this viewpoint alignment framework are that the distance between the viewpoints of participants in the narrative construal - narrator, character, reader - is dynamic and regulated by linguistic choices as well as contextual factors. Read More

BMC Health Serv Res 2021 Mar 17;21(1):239. Epub 2021 Mar 17.

Faculty of Business and Economics, University of Antwerp, Prinsstraat 13, 2000, Antwerp, Belgium.

Background: Out-of-pocket payments have a diverse impact on the burden of those with a higher morbidity or the chronically ill. As the prevalence of chronic diseases increases with age, older adults are a vulnerable group. The paper aims to evaluate the impact of chronic diseases on the out-of-pocket payments burden of the 50+ populations in Belgium, the Czech Republic and Germany. Read More

Braz J Med Biol Res 2021 15;54(5):e10274. Epub 2021 Mar 15.

College of Life Sciences, Qufu Normal University, Qufu, Shandong, China.

Prolactin (PRL) plays critical roles in regulation of biological functions with the binding of specific prolactin receptor (PRLR). Revealing the expression patterns of PRLR at different developmental stages is beneficial to better understand the role of PRL and its mechanism of action in striped hamsters. In this study, the cDNA sequence of PRLR (2866-base-pairs) was harvested from the pituitary of mature female striped hamsters (Cricetulus barabensis) that contains an 834-base-pair 5'-untranslated region (1-834 bp), a 1848-base-pair open reading frame (835-2682 bp), and a 184-base-pair 3'-untranslated region (2683-2866). Read More

Microsc Res Tech 2021 Mar 17. Epub 2021 Mar 17.

Faculty of Science, Department of Biology, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey.

Seed micromorphology of 18 taxa belonging to the genus Reseda (Resedaceae) in Turkey were investigated with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), in order to understand and check its diagnostic significance at subgeneric and sectional level. Seeds of Reseda species were photographed to evaluate different characteristics including appearance of the seed, testa ornamentation and the existence of carunculoid tissue at hilum regions. In addition, cluster analysis and principal component analysis (PCA) were performed to test whether the micromorphological data of the related taxa is compatible with the current classification of the genus. Read More

PLoS One 2021 15;16(3):e0247747. Epub 2021 Mar 15.

Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul, PUCRS, Laboratório de Sistemática de Vertebrados, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil.

We present a combined molecular and morphological phylogenetic analysis of the Loricariinae, with emphasis on the Harttiini (Cteniloricaria, Harttia, and Harttiella) and Farlowellini (Aposturisoma, Farlowella, Lamontichthys, Pterosturisoma, Sturisoma, and Sturisomatichthys). Character sampling comprised seven molecular markers (the mitochondrial Cytb, nd2, 12S and 16S, and the nuclear MyH6, RAG1 and RAG2) and 196 morphological characters. A total of 1,059 specimens, and 159 tissue samples were analized, representing 100 species. Read More

Front Psychol 2021 23;12:611066. Epub 2021 Feb 23.

Department of Psychology, The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Hong Kong.

This study used priming paradigm with lexical decision task to examine the effects of different levels of semantic relatedness on the identification of Chinese phonetic-semantic compound characters. Unlike previous studies that simply classify Chinese compound characters as semantically transparent or opaque, we categorize the semantic relatedness between semantic radicals (i.e. Read More

Commun Biol 2021 Mar 11;4(1):324. Epub 2021 Mar 11.

Department of Parasitology, Institute of Biomedical Sciences, University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.

The etiological agent of Chagas disease, Trypanosoma cruzi, is a complex of seven genetic subdivisions termed discrete typing units (DTUs), TcI-TcVI and Tcbat. The relevance of T. cruzi genetic diversity to the variable clinical course of the disease, virulence, pathogenicity, drug resistance, transmission cycles and ecological distribution requires understanding the parasite origin and population structure. Read More

Front Psychol 2021 22;12:627610. Epub 2021 Feb 22.

Key Laboratory of Urban Land Resources Monitoring and Simulation, MNR, Shenzhen, China.

In advocating gender equality today, we should not only pay attention to women's social status but also call for the women's psychological identification of class equality. What dominates female class identification? To answer this question, based on the data of the Chinese General Social Survey (CGSS) in 2015, this study constructs a female class identity framework from five aspects: the mother's intergenerational influence, female personal characteristics, lifestyle, gender consciousness, and spouse status. In this study, the ordered logit model is used to empirically analyze the impact of various factors on female class identification, and the results show the following: (1) gender consciousness has a significant impact on female class identification. Read More

J Chem Phys 2021 Mar;154(9):094303

Laboratory of Quantum Chemical Modelling of Molecular Systems, Irkutsk State University, Karl Marx Str. 1, 664003 Irkutsk, Russia.

Valence photoelectron spectra and photoelectron angular distributions of trans-dichloroethene have been measured with vibrational resolution at photon energies between 19 eV and 90 eV. Calculations of photoelectron anisotropy parameters, β, and harmonic vibrational modes help provide initial insight into the molecular structure. The photon energy range encompasses the expected position of the atomic Cl 3p Cooper minimum. Read More

PhytoKeys 2021 22;173:1-92. Epub 2021 Feb 22.

Department of Higher Plants, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119234, Moscow, Russia.

is a small genus of Molluginaceae with 8-10 species mostly distributed in the tropics of the World. Its composition and evolutionary relationships were poorly studied. A new molecular phylogeny constructed here using nuclear (ITS) and chloroplast (, ) markers confirmed the monophyly of the genus. Read More

Psychol Health 2021 Mar 6:1-18. Epub 2021 Mar 6.

Department of Communication, University of California, Davis, CA, USA.

Objective: To synthesize experimental research on the impact of narrative point of view (POV) on message processing and persuasion outcomes in health promotion. Moderators examined included characteristics of study design, participants, and experimental stimuli.

Design And Main Outcome Measures: Random effects model meta-analysis of 16 health promotion experiments, using the package in R. Read More

Nanomaterials (Basel) 2021 Feb 11;11(2). Epub 2021 Feb 11.

School of Mechanical Engineering, Shiraz University, Shiraz 71963-16548, Iran.

Efficient application of carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in nano-devices and nano-materials requires comprehensive understanding of their mechanical properties. As observations suggest size dependent behaviour, non-classical theories preserving the memory of body's internal structure via additional material parameters offer great potential when a continuum modelling is to be preferred. In the present study, micropolar theory of elasticity is adopted due to its peculiar character allowing for incorporation of scale effects through additional kinematic descriptors and work-conjugated stress measures. Read More

PhytoKeys 2021 16;172:97-119. Epub 2021 Feb 16.

Department of Botany and Plant Biotechnology, University of Johannesburg, PO Box 524, Auckland Park, 2006, South Africa South African National Biodiversity Institute Pretoria South Africa.

The popularity of electronic identification keys for species identification has increased with the rapid technological advancements of the 21 century. Although electronic identification keys have several advantages over conventional textual identification keys and work well for charismatic species with large and clear morphological characters, they appear to be less feasible and less effective for species with cryptic morphology (i.e. Read More

Bio Protoc 2020 Mar 5;10(5):e3544. Epub 2020 Mar 5.

Section on Membrane Biology, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.

Lipid mixing (redistribution of lipid probes between fusing membranes) has been widely used to study early stages of relatively fast viral and intracellular fusion processes that take seconds to minutes. Lipid mixing assays are especially important for identification of hemifusion intermediates operationally defined as lipid mixing without content mixing. Due to unsynchronized character and the slow rate of the differentiation processes that prime the cells for cell-cell fusion processes in myogenesis, osteoclastogenesis and placentogenesis, these fusions take days. Read More

Environ Sci Technol 2021 Mar 3;55(6):3940-3955. Epub 2021 Mar 3.

Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile e Ambientale (DICA), Politecnico di Milano, 32, Piazza L. da Vinci, 20133 Milan, Italy.

The first objective of this study is to assess the predictive capability of the ALBA (ALgae-BActeria) model for a pilot-scale (3.8 m) high-rate algae-bacteria pond treating agricultural digestate. The model, previously calibrated and validated on a one-year data set from a demonstrative-scale raceway (56 m), successfully predicted data from a six-month monitoring campaign with a different wastewater (urban wastewater) under different climatic conditions. Read More

Zhongguo Zhong Yao Za Zhi 2021 Feb;46(4):931-937

School of Pharmacy,Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine Nanjing 210023,China Collaborative Innovation Center of Chinese Medicinal Resources Industrialization Nanjing 210023,China.

Based on the characteristics and ISSR molecular marker technology, the study is aimed to compare and perform genetic diversity analysis on Sparganium stoloniferum from 7 regions. Molecular identification method was established for S. stoloniferum from Hunan province. Read More

NPJ Digit Med 2021 Feb 26;4(1):37. Epub 2021 Feb 26.

Department of Cardiology, Division of Heart & Lungs, University Medical Centre Utrecht, University of Utrecht, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Standard reference terminology of diagnoses and risk factors is crucial for billing, epidemiological studies, and inter/intranational comparisons of diseases. The International Classification of Disease (ICD) is a standardized and widely used method, but the manual classification is an enormously time-consuming endeavor. Natural language processing together with machine learning allows automated structuring of diagnoses using ICD-10 codes, but the limited performance of machine learning models, the necessity of gigantic datasets, and poor reliability of terminal parts of these codes restricted clinical usability. Read More

JMIR Med Inform 2021 Feb 22;9(2):e25530. Epub 2021 Feb 22.

Division of Infectious Disease, Department of Internal Medicine, Korea University College of Medicine, Seoul, Republic of Korea.

Background: Existing bacterial culture test results for infectious diseases are written in unrefined text, resulting in many problems, including typographical errors and stop words. Effective spelling correction processes are needed to ensure the accuracy and reliability of data for the study of infectious diseases, including medical terminology extraction. If a dictionary is established, spelling algorithms using edit distance are efficient. Read More