Urinary Dickkopf-3 as a Potential Marker for Estimated Glomerular Filtration Rate Decline in Patients With Heart Failure.

Background: Patients with chronic heart failure (HF) show an increased risk for the occurrence of chronic kidney disease and cardiorenal syndrome. Urinary Dickkopf-3 (uDKK3), a stress-induced, tubular profibrotic glycoprotein, may be elevated in HF as early as in New York Heart Association class I HF and may indicate subsequent decline in estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR).

Methods And Results: uDKK3 levels in patients with HF and controls were measured by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay.

Climate Response and Radial Growth Dynamics of Pedunculate Oak ( L.) Plus Trees and Their Half-Sib Progeny in Periods of Severe Droughts in the Forest-Steppe Zone of Eastern Europe.

The dendrochronological parameters of 97 pedunculate oak ( L.) trees including 20 plus trees (142-year-old on average) and four half-sib families for four of them were analyzed considering also specifically years of the most severe droughts that were identified using average monthly air temperature and precipitation data. The tree-ring width (TRW) was mostly affected by air temperature that had the largest cross-dating indices (CDI), up to 78% maximum.

Extremophiles and Extremophilic Behaviour-New Insights and Perspectives.

Extremophiles, throughout evolutionary time, have evolved a plethora of unique strategies to overcome hardships associated with the environments they are found in. Modifying their genome, showing a bias towards certain amino acids, redesigning their proteins, and enhancing their membranes and other organelles with specialised chemical compounds are only some of those strategies. Scientists can utilise such attributes of theirs for a plethora of biotechnological and astrobiological applications.

Computational Identification of Milk Trait Regulation Through Transcription Factor Cooperation in Murciano-Granadina Goats.

The Murciano-Granadina goat (MUG) is a renowned dairy breed, known for its adaptability and resilience, as well as for its exceptional milk traits characterized by high protein and fat content, along with low somatic cell counts. These traits are governed by complex biological processes, crucial in shaping phenotypic diversity. Thus, it is imperative to explore the factors regulating milk production and lactation for this breed.

Molecules That Have Rarely Been Studied in Lymphatic Endothelial Cells.

A number of standard molecules are used for the molecular and histological characterization of lymphatic endothelial cells (LECs), including lymphatic vessel endothelial hyaluronan receptor 1 (LYVE1), Podoplanin (D2-40), VEGFR3, Prospero homeobox protein 1 (PROX1), and CD31. The number of molecules whose mutations cause lymphatic malformations or primary congenital lymphedema is considerable, but the majority of these diseases have not yet been characterized at the molecular level. Therefore, there is still considerable scope for molecular and functional studies of the lymphatic vasculature.

Effective Survey Methods for the Elusive Data Deficient Black Flying Squirrel () in Sabah, Malaysia Facilitate First Vocalisation Record.

Flying squirrels are nocturnal, gliding relatives of tree and ground squirrels (order Sciuridae). Despite 49 species existing, literature on Asiatic flying squirrels is scarce, thus they are overlooked in conservation action plans. Recently, three species of giant flying squirrel (, and ) were observed during a nocturnal mammal survey at the Rainforest Discovery Centre (RDC), an Eco centre at the edge of the Kabili-Sepilok forest reserve in Sepilok, Sabah (Malaysia, Borneo).

Dimensions of Job Demands Among New-Generation Employees Based on Online Reviews by Employees.

Based on employees' online reviews, this article analyzes the dimensions of job demand for new-generation employees, using a combination model of Latent Dirichlet Allocation, decision-making trials and evaluation laboratory, interpretative structural modeling, and cross-impact matrix multiplication (LDA-DEMATEL-ISM-MICMAC). The results show that job demand is composed of 10 dimensions, and there is significant interdependence between the dimensions. Changing one dimension will quickly affect the other dimensions.

Comparative Analysis of Host Cell Entry Efficiency and Neutralization Sensitivity of Emerging SARS-CoV-2 Lineages KP.2, KP.2.3, KP.3, and LB.1.

New SARS-CoV-2 lineages continue to evolve and may exhibit new characteristics regarding host cell entry efficiency and potential for antibody evasion. Here, employing pseudotyped particles, we compared the host cell entry efficiency, ACE2 receptor usage, and sensitivity to antibody-mediated neutralization of four emerging SARS-CoV-2 lineages, KP.2, KP.

The genome of the simultaneously hermaphroditic snail Lymnaea stagnalis reveals an evolutionary expansion of FMRFamide-like receptors.

The great pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis has served as a model organism for over a century in diverse disciplines such as neurophysiology, evolution, ecotoxicology and developmental biology. To support both established uses and newly emerging research interests we have performed whole genome sequencing (avg.176 × depth), assembly and annotation of a single individual derived from an inbred line.

Photoregulatory functions drive variation in eye coloration across macaque species.

Primates, the most colorful mammalian radiation, have previously served as an interesting model to test the functions and evolutionary drivers of variation in eye color. We assess the contribution of photo-regulatory and communicative functions to the external eye appearance of nine macaque species representing all the branches of their radiation. Macaques' well described social structure and wide geographical distribution make them interesting to explore.

Bringing Together Two Paradigms of Nonequilibrium: Fragile versus Robust Aging in Driven Glassy Systems.

There are two key paradigms for nonequilibrium dynamics: on the one hand, aging toward an equilibrium state that cannot be reached on reasonable timescales; on the other, external driving that can lead to nonequilibrium steady states. We explore how these two mechanisms interact by studying the behavior of trap models, which are paradigmatic descriptions of slow glassy dynamics, when driven by trajectory bias toward high or low activity. To diagnose whether the driven systems continue to age, we establish a framework for mapping the biased dynamics to a Markovian time evolution with time-dependent transition rates.

Influence of conduction heterogeneities on transient spatiotemporal chaos in cardiac excitable media.

Life-threatening cardiac arrhythmias such as ventricular fibrillation are often based on chaotic spiral or scroll wave dynamics which can be self-terminating. In this work, we investigate the influence of conduction heterogeneities on the duration of such chaotic transients in generic models of excitable cardiac media. We observe that low and medium densities of heterogeneities extend the average transient lifetime, while at high densities very long transients, potentially persistent chaos, and periodic attractors occur.

Meditation expertise influences response bias and prestimulus alpha activity in the somatosensory signal detection task.

This study investigates the proposed mechanism of mindfulness, its impact on body awareness and interoception, and its potential benefits for mental and physical health. Using psychophysical assessments, we compared 31 expert meditators with 33 matched controls (non-meditators who engage in regular reading, more than 5 h per week) in terms of somatosensory accuracy with a somatosensory signal detection task (SSDT) and interoceptive sensibility via self-report measures. We hypothesized that meditators would demonstrate superior somatosensory accuracy, indicative of heightened body awareness, potentially linked to increased alpha modulation in the somatosensory cortex, as observed via electroencephalography (EEG).

Effect of mechanical stirring on sonoluminescence and sonochemiluminescence.

Light emissions from cavitating liquids serve as a diagnostic tool for chemical activity, bubble collapse conditions, or excited species. Here we demonstrate the influence of mechanical stirring on sonoluminescence (SL) and sonochemiluminescence (SCL) emissions emerging in the presence of dissolved sodium salts and luminol in different sonicated liquids. In the systems investigated, driven in the 20-40 kHz range, stirring can change the spatial distribution of blue/white broadband SL emissions and of the orange sodium D-line emission, as well as their relative intensities.

Transcriptional profiling of the M. complexus in naked neck chickens suggest a direct pleiotropic effect of GDF7 on feathering and reduced hatchability.

Background: The locus for naked neck (Na) in chickens reduces feather coverage and leads to increased heat dissipation from the body surface resulting in better adaptability to hot conditions. However, the Na gene is linked to significantly lower hatchability due to an increased late embryonic mortality. It has been argued that the causative gene GDF7 may have a direct pleiotropic effect on hatchability via its effect on muscle development.

Dynamics of switching processes: general results and applications in intermittent active motion.

Systems switching between different dynamical phases is a ubiquitous phenomenon. The general understanding of such a process is limited. To this end, we present a general expression that captures fluctuations of a system exhibiting a switching mechanism.

Cognitive reserve against Alzheimer's pathology is linked to brain activity during memory formation.

The cognitive reserve (CR) hypothesis posits that individuals can differ in how their brain function is disrupted by pathology associated with aging and neurodegeneration. Here, we test this hypothesis in the continuum from cognitively normal to at-risk stages for Alzheimer's Disease (AD) to AD dementia using longitudinal data from 490 participants of the DELCODE multicentric observational study. Brain function is measured using task fMRI of visual memory encoding.

ACE2-independent sarbecovirus cell entry can be supported by TMPRSS2-related enzymes and can reduce sensitivity to antibody-mediated neutralization.

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2, demonstrated that zoonotic transmission of animal sarbecoviruses threatens human health but the determinants of transmission are incompletely understood. Here, we show that most spike (S) proteins of horseshoe bat and Malayan pangolin sarbecoviruses employ ACE2 for entry, with human and raccoon dog ACE2 exhibiting broad receptor activity. The insertion of a multibasic cleavage site into the S proteins increased entry into human lung cells driven by most S proteins tested, suggesting that acquisition of a multibasic cleavage site might increase infectivity of diverse animal sarbecoviruses for the human respiratory tract.

Logistic organ dysfunction system as an early risk stratification tool after aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage.

Aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage (aSAH) not only causes neurological deficits but also influences extracerebral organ functions. The Logistic Organ Dysfunction System (LODS) reliably captures organ dysfunctions and predicts mortality of critically ill patients. This study investigated LODS in the setting of aSAH as a surrogate marker for early brain injury (EBI).

Exploring animal enclosures and parasite interactions in Germany.

In order to gain an initial impression of the current parasite situation in wildlife enclosures across Germany, 17 enclosures of six animal species were examined for parasites in soil and fecal samples in seven facilities. Of particular interest in this context are helminths and protists. Despite the potential risks, however, there are only a few studies on parasites in animal enclosures due to the taboo subject.

Fluorescence from a single-molecule probe directly attached to a plasmonic STM tip.

The scanning tunneling microscope (STM) provides access to atomic-scale properties of a conductive sample. While single-molecule tip functionalization has become a standard procedure, fluorescent molecular probes remained absent from the available tool set. Here, the plasmonic tip of an STM is functionalized with a single fluorescent molecule and is scanned on a plasmonic substrate.

ATP1A3 dysfunction causes motor hyperexcitability and afterhyperpolarization loss in a dystonia model.

Mutations in the gene encoding the alpha3 Na+/K+-ATPase isoform (ATP1A3) lead to movement disorders that manifest with dystonia, a common neurological symptom with many different origins, but for which the underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. We have generated an ATP1A3 mutant mouse that displays motor impairments and a hyperexcitable motor phenotype compatible with dystonia. We show that neurons harboring this mutation are compromised in their ability to extrude raised levels of intracellular sodium, highlighting a profound deficit in neuronal sodium homeostasis.