Validation of Machine Learning-assisted Screening of PKC Ligands: PKC Binding Affinity and Activation.

Protein kinase C (PKC) is a family of serine/threonine kinases, and PKC ligands have the potential to be therapeutic seeds for cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and human immunodeficiency virus infection. However, in addition to desired therapeutic effects, most PKC ligands also exhibit undesirable pro-inflammatory effects. The discovery of new scaffolds for PKC ligands is important for developing less inflammatory PKC ligands, such as bryostatins.

A Comprehensive Analysis of a Social Intelligence Dataset and Response Tendencies Between Large Language Models (LLMs) and Humans.

In recent years, advancements in the interaction and collaboration between humans and have garnered significant attention. Social intelligence plays a crucial role in facilitating natural interactions and seamless communication between humans and Artificial Intelligence (AI). To assess AI's ability to understand human interactions and the components necessary for such comprehension, datasets like Social-IQ have been developed.

DynamicVLN: Incorporating Dynamics into Vision-and-Language Navigation Scenarios.

Traditional Vision-and-Language Navigation (VLN) tasks require an agent to navigate static environments using natural language instructions. However, real-world road conditions such as vehicle movements, traffic signal fluctuations, pedestrian activity, and weather variations are dynamic and continually changing. These factors significantly impact an agent's decision-making ability, underscoring the limitations of current VLN models, which do not accurately reflect the complexities of real-world navigation.

One-Step Fabrication of Water-Dispersible Calcium Phosphate Nanoparticles with Immobilized Lactoferrin for Intraoral Disinfection.

Lactoferrin is a highly safe antibacterial protein found in the human body and in foods. Calcium phosphate (CaP) nanoparticles with immobilized lactoferrin could therefore be useful as intraoral disinfectants for the prevention and treatment of dental infections because CaP is a mineral component of human teeth. In this study, we fabricated CaP nanoparticles with co-immobilized lactoferrin and heparin using a simple one-step coprecipitation process.

Exposure/Risk Assessment of Employees in Gasoline Refueling Stations with and Without the Efficacy of Vapor Recovery Systems in Mexico.

Concerns regarding the health risks associated with employe exposure to volatile chemicals during gasoline refueling necessitates rigorous investigation and effective countermeasures. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of vapor recovery systems in mitigating exposure risks during gasoline refueling. Employee exposure to volatile organic compounds, aldehydes, carbon monoxide, and fine particulate matter (PM) was assessed at gasoline stations with and without vapor recovery systems.

Comparison of model-averaging and single-distribution approaches to estimating species sensitivity distributions and hazardous concentrations for 5% of species.

Estimation of species sensitivity distributions (SSDs) and hazardous concentrations for 5% of species (HC5s) by fitting a statistical distribution to toxicity data for multiple species is essential in ecological risk assessment of chemicals. Given the challenge of selecting the appropriate statistical distribution in SSD estimation, a model-averaging approach that involves fitting multiple statistical distributions and using weighted estimates to derive HC5s is appealing. However, the effectiveness of this approach compared with SSDs based on a single statistical distribution (i.

Effect of human myoblasts on tenogenic progression in 2D and 3D culture models.

Tendon injuries and disorders associated with mechanical tendon overuse are common musculoskeletal problems. Even though tendons play a central role in human movement, the intrinsic healing process of tendon is very slow. So far, it is known that tendon cell activity is supported by several interstitial cells within the tendon.

'Ship-in-a-Bottle' Integration of pH-Sensitive 3D Proteinaceous Meshes into Microfluidic Channels.

Microfluidic sensors incorporated onto chips allow sensor miniaturization and high-throughput analyses for point-of-care or non-clinical analytical tools. Three-dimensional (3D) printing based on femtosecond laser direct writing (fs-LDW) is useful for creating 3D microstructures with high spatial resolution because the structures are printed in 3D space along a designated laser light path. High-performance biochips can be fabricated using the 'ship-in-a-bottle' integration technique, in which functional microcomponents or biomimetic structures are embedded inside closed microchannels using fs-LDW.

Basic Characteristics of Ionic Liquid-Gated Graphene FET Sensors for Nitrogen Cycle Monitoring in Agricultural Soil.

Nitrogen-based fertilizers are crucial in agriculture for maintaining soil health and increasing crop yields. Soil microorganisms transform nitrogen from fertilizers into NO3--N, which is absorbed by crops. However, some nitrogen is converted to nitrous oxide (NO), a greenhouse gas with a warming potential about 300-times greater than carbon dioxide (CO).

Nestin Forms a Flexible Cytoskeleton by Means of a Huge Tail Domain That Is Reversibly Stretched and Contracted by Weak Forces.

Nestin is a type VI intermediate filament protein and a well-known neural stem cell marker. It is also expressed in high-grade cancer cells, forming copolymerized filaments with vimentin. We previously showed that nestin inhibits the binding of vimentin's tail domain to actin filaments (AFs) by steric hindrance through its large nestin tail domain (NTD), thereby increasing three-dimensional cytoskeleton network mobility, enhancing cell flexibility, and promoting cancer progression.

Defect Migration and Phase Transformations in Two-Dimensional Iron Chloride inside Bilayer Graphene.

The intercalation of metal chlorides, and particularly iron chlorides, into graphitic carbon structures has recently received lots of attention, as it can not only protect this two-dimensional (2D) magnetic system from the effects of the environment but also substantially alter the magnetic, electronic, and optical properties of both the intercalant and host material. At the same time, intercalation can result in the formation of structural defects or defects can appear under external stimuli, which can affect materials performance. These aspects have received so far little attention in dedicated experiments.

Bioinformatic approach to explain how Mg from seawater may be incorporated into coral skeletons.

Corals have been used as geochemical proxies since the 1970s, playing a prominent role in paleoceanography. However, it has not been well elucidated how aqueous ions sourced from seawater are transported and precipitated in coral skeletons. There are limited foundational methods to differentiate and quantify biogenic and abiogenic effects during skeletal formation.

Basic Fibroblast Growth Factor-Releasing Polyglycolic Acid Duras Improve Neurological Function after Cerebral Infarction.

Objective: Regenerative therapy using stem cells to treat cerebral infarction is currently in the research phase. However, this method is costly. It also faces other significant challenges, including optimization of timing, delivery methods, and dosage.

Excited-State Proton Transfer Dynamics of Cyanonaphthol in Protic Ionic Liquids: Concerted Effects of Basicity of Anions and Alkyl Carbons in Cations.

Excited-state proton transfer (ESPT) reactions of 5-cyano-2-naphthol (5CN2) and 5,8-dicyano-2-naphthol (DCN2) were investigated in protic ionic liquids (PILs) composed of quaternary ammonium (NH) ( = 2, 4, or 8) and hexanoate (CHCOO) using time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. The effects of the number of alkyl carbons in the cation and the basicity of the anion on the reaction yield and dynamics were examined. In a series of [NH][CHCOO], fluorescence from the hydrogen-bonding complex (AHBX) of a proton-dissociated form (RO) with a solvent acid in the electronic excited state was observed between the fluorescence bands of an acidic form (ROH) and an anionic form (RO) as in the case of [NH][CFCOO] (Fujii et al.

Significance of birth in the maintenance of quiescent neural stem cells.

Birth is one of the most important life events for animals. However, its significance in the developmental process is not fully understood. Here, we found that birth-induced alteration of glutamine metabolism in radial glia (RG), the embryonic neural stem cells (NSCs), is required for the acquisition of quiescence and long-term maintenance of postnatal NSCs.

Boundaries and cross-linking densities modulate domain sizes of polydomain nematic elastomers.

When nematic liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) crosslinked at their isotropic phase are quenched to the nematic phase, they show polydomain patterns, in which nematic microdomains with different orientations self-organize into a three-dimensional mosaic with characteristic correlation patterns. The orientational correlation length of the domain, which is usually in the micrometer range, is believed to emerge as a result of a competition between liquid crystalline ordering and frozen network inhomogeneity. Although polydomain patterns show potentials as the basic platform for optical, memory, and mechanical devices, no study exists regarding how they are modulated by experimentally accessible parameters.

Metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analyses reveal uncharted microbial constituents responsible for polyhydroxybutyrate biodegradation in coastal waters.

Polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB) has attracted attention as a representative polymer for biodegradable plastics produced by microorganisms. Since information regarding the fate of PHB released into the environment is limited, it is necessary to identify them based on metagenomic information. We estimated the PHB biodegradability in coastal water samples collected from 15 near shore sites around Japan using oxygen consumption as an indicator in laboratory-scale incubation experiments and conducted 16S rRNA gene-based microbial community profiling.

Physiological role of the FDH1 gene in methylotrophic yeast Komagataella phaffii and carbon recovery as formate during methylotrophic growth of the fdh1-deletion strain.

During methylotrophic growth of Komagataella phaffii, a large amount of carbon is lost as CO. In this study, we aimed to construct a recovery system for carbon atoms, which emit as CO along the methanol dissimilation pathway in the form of formate when using strain fdh1Δ, the deletion mutant of formate dehydrogenase gene (FDH1). Strain fdh1Δ showed a severe growth defect when using methanol as the sole carbon source.

Removal of dissolved organic carbon in the West Pacific hadal zones.

The deep oceans are environments of complex carbon dynamics that have the potential to significantly impact the global carbon cycle. However, the role of hadal zones, particularly hadal trenches (water depth > 6 km), in the oceanic dissolved organic carbon (DOC) cycle is not thoroughly investigated. Here we report distinct DOC signatures in the Japan Trench bottom water.

Structure and function of a β-1,2-galactosidase from Bacteroides xylanisolvens, an intestinal bacterium.

Galactosides are major carbohydrates that are found in plant cell walls and various prebiotic oligosaccharides. Studying the detailed biochemical functions of β-galactosidases in degrading these carbohydrates is important. In particular, identifying β-galactosidases with new substrate specificities could help in the production of potentially beneficial oligosaccharides.

The preference for surprise in reinforcement learning underlies the differences in developmental changes in risk preference between autistic and neurotypical youth.

Background: Risk preference changes nonlinearly across development. Although extensive developmental research on the neurotypical (NTP) population has shown that risk preference is highest during adolescence, developmental changes in risk preference in autistic (AUT) people, who tend to prefer predictable behaviors, have not been investigated. Here, we aimed to investigate these changes and underlying computational mechanisms.

Two-layer homolog network approach for PFAS nontarget screening and retrospective data mining.

The rapid increase of novel per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) raises concerns, while their identification remains challenging. Here, we develop a two-layer homolog network approach for PFAS nontarget screening using mass spectrometry. The first layer constructs networks between homologs, with evaluation showing that it filters 94% of false candidates.

A three-dimensional kinematic analysis of bipedal walking in a white-handed gibbon (Hylobates lar) on a horizontal pole and flat surface.

Gibbons, a type of lesser ape, are brachiators but also walk bipedally and without forelimb assistance, not only on the ground but also on tree branches. The arboreal bipedal walking strategy of the gibbons has been studied in previous studies in relation to two-dimensional (2D) kinematic analysis. However, because tree branches and the ground differ greatly in width, leading to a constrained foot contact point on the tree branches, gibbons must adjust their 3D joint motions of trunk and hindlimb on the tree branches.

Pressure-Induced Dehydration and Reversible Recrystallization of Dihydrogen-Bonded Sodium Borohydride Dihydrate NaBH·2HO.

Sodium borohydride dihydrate (NaBH·2HO) forms through dihydrogen bonding between the hydridic hydrogen of the BH ion and the protonic hydrogen of the water molecule. High-pressure structural changes in NaBH·2HO, observed up to 11 GPa through X-ray diffraction and Raman scattering spectroscopy, were analyzed to assess the influence of dihydrogen bonds on its crystal structure. At approximately 4.

Grids designed for tomography: Stereovision transmission electron microscopy makes it easy to determine the winding handedness of helical nanocoils.

Determining the handedness of helical nanocoils using transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has traditionally been challenging due to the deep depth of field and transmission nature of TEM, complementary techniques are considered necessary and have been practiced such as low angle rotary shadowing, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), or atomic force microscopy (AFM). These methods require customized sample preparation, making direct comparison difficult. Inspired by the need to identify the helical winding direction from TEM images alone, we developed a specialized tomography grid to capture stereo-pair images, enabling stereopsis.