Changes in intestinal microbiota of Bufo gargarizans and its association with body weight during metamorphosis.

The assembly of intestinal microbial communities can play major roles in animal development. We hypothesized that intestinal microbial communities could mirror the developmental programs of amphibian metamorphosis. Here, we surveyed the morphological parameters of the body and intestine of Bufo gargarizans at varying developmental stages and inventoried the intestinal microbial communities of B.

Transcriptome analysis reveals new microRNAs-mediated pathway involved in anther development in male sterile wheat.

Background: 337S is a novel bi-pole-photo-thermo-sensitive genic male sterile line in wheat, and sensitive to both long day length/high temperature and short day length/low temperature condition. Although the regulatory function of MicroRNAs (miRNAs) in reproductive development has been increasingly studied, their roles in pre-meiotic and meiotic cells formation of plants have not been clearly explored. Here, we explored the roles of miRNAs in regulating male sterility of 337S at short day length/low temperature condition.

A massive core for a cluster of galaxies at a redshift of 4.3.

Massive galaxy clusters have been found that date to times as early as three billion years after the Big Bang, containing stars that formed at even earlier epochs. The high-redshift progenitors of these galaxy clusters-termed 'protoclusters'-can be identified in cosmological simulations that have the highest overdensities (greater-than-average densities) of dark matter. Protoclusters are expected to contain extremely massive galaxies that can be observed as luminous starbursts .

First Measurement of Monoenergetic Muon Neutrino Charged Current Interactions.

We report the first measurement of monoenergetic muon neutrino charged current interactions. MiniBooNE has isolated 236 MeV muon neutrino events originating from charged kaon decay at rest (K^{+}→μ^{+}ν_{μ}) at the NuMI beamline absorber. These signal ν_{μ}-carbon events are distinguished from primarily pion decay in flight ν_{μ} and ν[over ¯]_{μ} backgrounds produced at the target station and decay pipe using their arrival time and reconstructed muon energy.

Is "Latin American" population-specific? Testing sex discriminant functions from the Mexican tibia on a Chilean sample.

Latin American populations are traditionally reported as one ancestral group in the forensic anthropology literature. However, this study illustrates the need for population-specific methodologies for ancestral groups that are considered Latin American. This project evaluated the accuracy of the sex estimation discriminant function created from the tibia of a Mexican population, when applied to a Chilean population.

Evidence for prevalent Z = 6 magic number in neutron-rich carbon isotopes.

The nuclear shell structure, which originates in the nearly independent motion of nucleons in an average potential, provides an important guide for our understanding of nuclear structure and the underlying nuclear forces. Its most remarkable fingerprint is the existence of the so-called magic numbers of protons and neutrons associated with extra stability. Although the introduction of a phenomenological spin-orbit (SO) coupling force in 1949 helped in explaining the magic numbers, its origins are still open questions.

An Electron Density Source-Function Study of DNA Base Pairs in Their Neutral and Ionized Ground States.

The source function (SF) decomposes the electron density at any point into contributions from all other points in the molecule, complex, or crystal. The SF "illuminates" those regions in a molecule that most contribute to the electron density at a point of reference. When this point of reference is the bond critical point (BCP), a commonly used surrogate of chemical bonding, then the SF analysis at an atomic resolution within the framework of Bader's Quantum Theory of Atoms in Molecules returns the contribution of each atom in the system to the electron density at that BCP.

The Impact of Behavioral and Psychological Factors on Physical Fitness in Medical and Nursing Students.

Physical activity improves general health and quality of life. A stressful academic environment can increase both physical and mental health disruptions in medical and nursing students, negatively impacting physical activity and fitness. We explored the relationship between the fitness profiles of 202 medical and graduate nursing students with self-reported levels of general and emotional health to elucidate the role of the psychosocial factors involved in choosing to exercise.

Hitomi X-ray studies of Giant Radio Pulses from the Crab pulsar.

To search for giant X-ray pulses correlated with the giant radio pulses (GRPs) from the Crab pulsar, we performed a simultaneous observation of the Crab pulsar with the X-ray satellite Hitomi in the 2 - 300 keV band and the Kashima NICT radio observatory in the 1.4 - 1.7 GHz band with a net exposure of about 2 ks on 25 March 2016, just before the loss of the Hitomi mission.

Timing and technique impact the effectiveness of road-based, mobile acoustic surveys of bats.

Mobile acoustic surveys are a common method of surveying bat communities. However, there is a paucity of empirical studies exploring different methods for conducting mobile road surveys of bats. During 2013, we conducted acoustic mobile surveys on three routes in north-central Indiana, U.

"In this together": Social identification predicts health outcomes (via self-efficacy) in a chronic disease self-management program.

Rationale: Self-management programs are an established approach to helping people cope with the challenges of chronic disease, but the psychological mechanisms underlying their effectiveness are not fully understood. A key assumption of self-management interventions is that enhancing people's self-efficacy (e.g.

Alterations of complex mismatch negativity (cMMN) elicited by a two-tone pattern paradigm in early-phase psychosis.

The mismatch negativity (MMN) is a component of the event-related potential (ERP) elicited by a change in auditory stimulation (e.g., the occurrence of a deviant sound that violates the rules or regularities of the preceding stimulus sequence) regardless of whether one is attending to the change or not.

Zinc in an ultraoligotrophic lake food web.

Zinc (Zn) bioaccumulation and trophic transfer were analyzed in the food web of Lake Nahuel Huapi, a deep, unpolluted ultraoligotrophic system in North Patagonia. Benthic macroinvertebrates, plankton, and native and introduced fish were collected at three sites. The effect of pyroclastic inputs on Zn levels in lacustrine food webs was assessed by studying the impact of the eruption of Puyehue-Cordón Caulle volcanic complex (PCCVC) in 2011, by performing three sampling campaigns immediately before and after the PCCVC eruption, and after 2 years of recovery of the ecosystem.

In tendons, differing physiological requirements lead to functionally distinct nanostructures.

The collagen-based tissues of animals are hierarchical structures: even tendon, the simplest collagenous tissue, has seven to eight levels of hierarchy. Tailoring tissue structure to match physiological function can occur at many different levels. We wanted to know if the control of tissue architecture to achieve function extends down to the nanoscale level of the individual, cable-like collagen fibrils.

Losing control: Mostly incongruent lists postpone, but do not eliminate, the Stroop effect.

Identifying the color (e.g., red) of a color word that is incongruent (e.

Quantum Crystallography: Current Developments and Future Perspectives.

Crystallography and quantum mechanics have always been tightly connected because reliable quantum mechanical models are needed to determine crystal structures. Due to this natural synergy, nowadays accurate distributions of electrons in space can be obtained from diffraction and scattering experiments. In the original definition of quantum crystallography (QCr) given by Massa, Karle and Huang, direct extraction of wavefunctions or density matrices from measured intensities of reflections or, conversely, ad hoc quantum mechanical calculations to enhance the accuracy of the crystallographic refinement are implicated.

Quasifree (p, 2p) Reactions on Oxygen Isotopes: Observation of Isospin Independence of the Reduced Single-Particle Strength.

Quasifree one-proton knockout reactions have been employed in inverse kinematics for a systematic study of the structure of stable and exotic oxygen isotopes at the R^{3}B/LAND setup with incident beam energies in the range of 300-450  MeV/u. The oxygen isotopic chain offers a large variation of separation energies that allows for a quantitative understanding of single-particle strength with changing isospin asymmetry. Quasifree knockout reactions provide a complementary approach to intermediate-energy one-nucleon removal reactions.

Self-Stigma in Relatives of people with Mental Illness scale: development and validation.

Background: Serious mental illness (SMI) is profoundly stigmatised, such that there is even an impact on relatives of people with SMI. Aims To develop and validate a scale to comprehensively measure self-stigma among first-degree relatives of individuals with SMI.

Method: We conducted group interviews focusing on self-stigma with first-degree relatives (n = 20) of people with SMI, from which 74 representative quotations were reframed as Likert-type items.

What factors shape genetic diversity in cetaceans?

Understanding what factors drive patterns of genetic diversity is a central aspect of many biological questions, ranging from the inference of historical demography to assessing the evolutionary potential of a species. However, as a larger number of datasets have become available, it is becoming clear that the relationship between the characteristics of a species and its genetic diversity is more complex than previously assumed. This may be particularly true for cetaceans, due to their relatively long lifespans, long generation times, complex social structures, and extensive ranges.

The influence of microsporidian pathogens from commercially available lady beetles on larval development of the green lacewing, Chrysoperla carnea, in the absence of infection.

In North America, more than 70 species of natural enemies are available for pest control, including the aphid predators, Adalia bipunctata L. (two-spotted lady beetle) and Hippodamia convergens Guérin-Méneville (convergent lady beetle), and the generalist predator Chrysoperla carnea Stephens (green lacewing). The two lady beetle species are known to host microsporidian pathogens: Nosema adaliae was originally described from Adalia bipunctata and Tubulinosema hippodamiae from H.

Diet assimilation trends and host-parasite relationships in two species of sunfish (Lepomis) revealed by stable isotope analyses of multiple tissues.

White grub flukes, Posthodiplostomum minimum centrarchi (Trematoda), and hookworms Pomphorhynchus bulbocolli (Acanthocephala) are common internal parasites for many North American freshwater fishes. P. minimum are found as cysts in internal organ tissues, while P.

Electrochemical surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (EC-SERS) study of the interaction between protein aggregates and biomimetic membranes.

Human diseases characterized by the uncontrolled deposition of insoluble extracellular protein aggregates are collectively referred to as amyloidoses. Such diseases include Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's, and prion disease. In Alzheimer's disease, it is believed that amyloid-β proteins may be responsible for pore and defect formation within cellular membranes, leading to a breakdown of cellular homeostasis causing eventual neuronal death.

Response to whether the definition of the term "children born of war" and vulnerabilities of children from recent conflict and post-conflict settings should be broadened.

No abstract available.