FL-W3S: Cross-domain federated learning for weakly supervised semantic segmentation of white blood cells.

Background: Segmentation models for clinical data experience severe performance degradation when trained on a single client from one domain and distributed to other clients from different domain. Federated Learning (FL) provides a solution by enabling multi-party collaborative learning without compromising the confidentiality of clients' private data.

Methods: In this paper, we propose a cross-domain FL method for Weakly Supervised Semantic Segmentation (FL-W3S) of white blood cells in microscopic images.

Direct observations of nucleation and early-stage growth of Au-catalyzed GaAs nanowires on Si(111).

Developing a reliable procedure for the growth of III-V nanowires (NW) on silicon (Si) substrates remains a significant challenge, as current methods rely on trial-and-error approaches with varying interpretations of critical process steps such as sample preparation, Au-Si alloy formation in the growth reactor, and nanowire alignment. Addressing these challenges is essential for enabling high-performance electronic and optoelectronic devices that combine the superior properties of III-V NW semiconductors with the well-established Si-based technology. Combining conventional scalable growth methods, such as Metalorganic Chemical Vapor Deposition (MOCVD) with in situ characterization using Environmental Transmission Electron Microscopy (ETEM-MOCVD) enables a deeper understanding of the growth dynamics, if that knowledge is transferable to the scalable processes.

Parental Mental Health and Child Maltreatment in the COVID-19 Pandemic: Importance of Sampling in a Quantitative Statistical Study.

Background: Results on parental burden during the COVID-19 pandemic are predominantly available from nonrepresentative samples. Although sample selection can significantly influence results, the effects of sampling strategies have been largely underexplored.

Objective: This study aimed to investigate how sampling strategy may impact study results.

Effect of Multimodal App-Based Interventions on Glycemic Control in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Background: Digital technologies for type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) care hold great potential to improve patients' health in the long term. Only a subset of telemedicine offerings are digital interventions that meet the criteria for prescribable digitale Gesundheitsanwendung (digital health apps; DiGAs) in Germany. Digital treatments further provide vast amounts of patient data that are important to generate evidence.

Attitudes Toward Psychotherapeutic Treatment and Health Literacy in a Large Sample of the General Population in Germany: Cross-Sectional Study.

Background: Prevalences of mental disorders are increasing worldwide. However, many people with mental health problems do not receive adequate treatment. An important factor preventing individuals from seeking professional help is negative attitudes toward psychotherapeutic treatment.

Preoperative Anemia as a Prognostic Risk Factor for Inferior Oncological Survival Following Resection for Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma.

Objectives: A significant proportion of patients undergoing surgery for pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) are anemic at the time of resection. In these patients, blood transfusions are omitted due to their potential negative impact on oncological outcomes. The aim of the present study was to determine the prognostic value of preoperative anemia in resected PDAC patients, irrespective of blood transfusion status.

Observation of Robust Compressed CuO Octahedra and Exotic Spin Structure in CaCuFeO.

CuO octahedra usually show elongated distortion, leading to active orbitals and planar exchange interactions, while compressed CuO octahedra with active orbitals and unidirectional exchange interactions are exceptionally rare. Here, we design and synthesize a new frustrated antiferromagnet CaCuFeO through a high-pressure and high-temperature approach, in which robust compressed CuO octahedra are realized, separating the FeO sheets that comprise zigzag spin ladders. Magnetic susceptibility and specific heat measurements exhibit a long-range antiferromagnetic order below the Néel temperature of 165 K, which is further confirmed by neutron diffraction.

Significant Impact of a Daytime Halogen Oxidant on Coastal Air Quality.

Chlorine radicals (Cl) are highly reactive and affect the fate of air pollutants. Several field studies in China have revealed elevated levels of daytime molecular chlorine (Cl), which, upon photolysis, release substantial amounts of Cl but are poorly represented in current chemical transport models. Here, we implemented a parametrization for the formation of daytime Cl through the photodissociation of particulate nitrate in acidic environments into a regional model and assessed its impact on coastal air quality during autumn in South China.

Fertility in transgender and gender diverse people: systematic review of the effects of gender-affirming hormones on reproductive organs and fertility.

Background: Transgender and gender diverse (TGD) people seek gender-affirming care at any age to manage gender identities or expressions that differ from their birth gender. Gender-affirming hormone treatment (GAHT) and gender-affirming surgery may alter reproductive function and/or anatomy, limiting future reproductive options to varying degrees, if individuals desire to either give birth or become a biological parent.

Objective And Rationale: TGD people increasingly pursue help for their reproductive questions, including fertility, fertility preservation, active desire for children, and future options.

A Set of Three Gd Spin Labels with Methanethiosulfonyl Groups for Bioconjugation Covering a Wide Range of EPR Line Widths.

Spin labels based on Gd complexes are important tools for the elucidation of the structure, dynamics and interaction of biomolecules by electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy. Their EPR spectroscopic properties line width and relaxation times influence their performance in a particular application. To be able to apply a complex well-suited for a specific application, a set of Gd complexes with different EPR spectroscopic properties ready-made for spin labeling will be highly useful.

Aberrant auditory prediction patterns robustly characterize tinnitus.

Phantom perceptions like tinnitus occur without any identifiable environmental or bodily source. The mechanisms and key drivers behind tinnitus are poorly understood. The dominant framework, suggesting that tinnitus results from neural hyperactivity in the auditory pathway following hearing damage, has been difficult to investigate in humans and has reached explanatory limits.

Physical climate risk: Stock price reactions to the historically most extreme European and United States heat waves since 1979.

Climate change has heightened the need to understand physical climate risks, such as the increasing frequency and severity of heat waves, for informed financial decision-making. This study investigates the financial implications of extreme heat waves on stock returns in Europe and the United States. Accordingly, the study combines meteorological and stock market data by integrating methodologies from both climate science and finance.

Metabolic profiling of endophytic fungi acting as antagonists of the banana pathogen Colletotrichum musae.

Three endophytic strains, Phomopsis sp., Fusarium proliferatum, and Tinctoporellus epimiltinus, isolated from various plants in the rainforest of the Philippines, were investigated regarding their ability to repress growth of the pathogenic fungus Colletotrichum musae on banana fruits causing anthracnose disease. An in vitro plate-to-plate assay and an in vivo sealed box assay were conducted, using commercial versus natural potato dextrose medium (PDA).

Modelling sensory attenuation as Bayesian causal inference across two datasets.

Introduction: To interact with the environment, it is crucial to distinguish between sensory information that is externally generated and inputs that are self-generated. The sensory consequences of one's own movements tend to induce attenuated behavioral- and neural responses compared to externally generated inputs. We propose a computational model of sensory attenuation (SA) based on Bayesian Causal Inference, where SA occurs when an internal cause for sensory information is inferred.

Gender biases and hate speech: Promoters and targets in the Argentinean political context.

Hate speech found in social media a place to flourish. In the Argentinean context, new right-wing parties have disrupted the political arena, winning the elections of 2023. Many of these new right-wing figures grew in popularity due to their use of social media, on a background of increasing political violence.

Coordinated immune networks in leukemia bone marrow microenvironments distinguish response to cellular therapy.

Understanding how intratumoral immune populations coordinate antitumor responses after therapy can guide treatment prioritization. We systematically analyzed an established immunotherapy, donor lymphocyte infusion (DLI), by assessing 348,905 single-cell transcriptomes from 74 longitudinal bone marrow samples of 25 patients with relapsed leukemia; a subset was evaluated by both protein- and transcriptome-based spatial analysis. In acute myeloid leukemia (AML) DLI responders, we identified clonally expanded CD8 cytotoxic T lymphocytes with in vitro specificity for patient-matched AML.

A bi-kinase module sensitizes and potentiates plant immune signaling.

Systemic signaling is an essential hallmark of multicellular life. Pathogen encounter occurs locally but triggers organ-scale and organismic immune responses. In plants, elicitor perception provokes systemically expanding Ca and HO signals conferring immunity.

Functional traits mediate the effect of land use on drivers of community stability within and across trophic levels.

Understanding how land use affects temporal stability is crucial to preserve biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Yet, the mechanistic links between land-use intensity and stability-driving mechanisms remain unclear, with functional traits likely playing a key role. Using 13 years of data from 300 sites in Germany, we tested whether and how trait-based community features mediate the effect of land-use intensity on acknowledged stability drivers (compensatory dynamics, portfolio effect, and dominant species variability), within and across plant and arthropod communities.

Chromosome-scale genome dynamics reveal signatures of independent haplotype evolution in the ancient asexual mite .

Some unique asexual species persist over time and contradict the consensus that sex is a prerequisite for long-term evolutionary survival. How they escape the dead-end fate remains enigmatic. Here, we generated a haplotype-resolved genome assembly on the basis of a single individual and collected genomic data from worldwide populations of the parthenogenetic diploid oribatid mite to identify signatures of persistence without sex.

Nontarget screening of a Siberian ice core reveals changes in the pre-industrial to industrial organic aerosol composition.

Glaciers serve as natural archives for reconstructing past changes of atmospheric aerosol concentration and composition. While most ice-core studies have focused on inorganic species, organic compounds, which can constitute up to 90% of the submicrometer aerosol mass, have been largely overlooked. To our knowledge, this study presents the first nontarget screening record of secondary organic aerosol species preserved in a Belukha ice core (Siberia, Russian Federation), ranging from the pre-industrial to the industrial period (1800-1980 CE).

Correction: Import options for chemical energy carriers from renewable sources to Germany.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

mGBP2 engages Galectin-9 for immunity against Toxoplasma gondii.

Guanylate binding proteins (GBPs) are large interferon-inducible GTPases, executing essential host defense activities against Toxoplasma gondii, an invasive intracellular apicomplexan protozoan parasite of global importance. T. gondii establishes a parasitophorous vacuole (PV) which shields the parasite from the host's intracellular defense mechanisms.

Highly Nucleophilic Pyridinamide Anions in Apolar Organic Solvents due to Asymmetric Ion Pair Association.

Free ions in organic solvents of low polarity would be valuable tools for the activation of low-reactivity substrates. However, the formation of unreactive ion pairs at concentrations relevant for synthesis has prevented the success of this concept so far. On the example of highly nucleophilic pyridinamide phosphonium salts in dichloromethane, we show that asymmetric aggregation offers a solution to this general problem.

Estimating effective population size trajectories from time-series identity-by-descent segments.

Long, identical haplotypes shared between pairs of individuals, known as identity-by-descent (IBD) segments, result from recently shared co-ancestry. Various methods have been developed to utilize IBD sharing for demographic inference in contemporary DNA data. Recent methodological advances have extended the screening for IBD segments to ancient DNA (aDNA) data, making demographic inference based on IBD also possible for aDNA.

An open chat between Prof Asifa Akhtar and Klaudia Jaczynska.

To mark the International Day of Women and Girls in Science 2025, we invited Prof Asifa Akhtar, Vice President of the Max Planck Society's Biology and Medicine section, Director at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology and Epigenetics in Freiburg, Honorary Professor at the Albert Ludwigs University and recipient of the 2025 FEBS | EMBO Women in Science Award to meet and chat with Klaudia Jaczynska, final year PhD student at Jose Rizo's laboratory in UT Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, and 2024 FEBS Open Bio Article Prize winner. We invited them to talk about challenges limiting equal representation in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, initiatives to foster supportive environments as a research institute and the importance of highlighting diverse examples of success.