Knowledge processes in virtual teams:consolidating the evidence

This article takes stock of the current state of research on knowledge processes in virtual teams (VTs) and consolidates the extent research findings. Virtual teams, on the one hand, constitute important organisational entities that facilitate the integration of diverse and distributed knowledge resources. On the other hand, collaborating in a virtual environment creates particular challenges for the knowledge processes. The article seeks to consolidate the diverse evidence on knowledge processes in VTs with a specific focus on identifying the factors that influence the effectiveness of these knowledge processes. The article draws on the four basic knowledge processes outlined by Alavi and Leidner (2001) (i.e. creation, transferring, storage/retrieval and application) to frame the investigation and discuss the extent research. The consolidation of the existing research findings allows us to recognise the gaps in the understanding of knowledge processes in VTs and identify the important avenues for future research

The International Conference on Intelligent Biology and Medicine (ICIBM) 2019: bioinformatics methods and applications for human diseases

Between June 9–11, 2019, the International Conference on Intelligent Biology and Medicine (ICIBM 2019) was held in Columbus, Ohio, USA. The conference included 12 scientific sessions, five tutorials or workshops, one poster session, four keynote talks and four eminent scholar talks that covered a wide range of topics in bioinformatics, medical informatics, systems biology and intelligent computing. Here, we describe 13 high quality research articles selected for publishing in BMC Bioinformatics

Correction to: The International Conference on Intelligent Biology and Medicine (ICIBM) 2019: bioinformatics methods and applications for human diseases

After publication of this supplement article [1], it is requested the grant ID in the Funding section should be corrected from NSF grant IIS-7811367 to NSF grant IIS-1902617. Therefore, the correct 'Funding' section in this article should read: We thank the National Science Foundation (NSF grant IIS-1902617) for the financial support of ICIBM 2019. This article has not received sponsorship for publication

Making the Best of Both Worlds: A Domain-Oriented Transformer for Unsupervised Domain Adaptation

Extensive studies on Unsupervised Domain Adaptation (UDA) have propelled the deployment of deep learning from limited experimental datasets into real-world unconstrained domains. Most UDA approaches align features within a common embedding space and apply a shared classifier for target prediction. However, since a perfectly aligned feature space may not exist when the domain discrepancy is large, these methods suffer from two limitations. First, the coercive domain alignment deteriorates target domain discriminability due to lacking target label supervision. Second, the source-supervised classifier is inevitably biased to source data, thus it may underperform in target domain. To alleviate these issues, we propose to simultaneously conduct feature alignment in two individual spaces focusing on different domains, and create for each space a domain-oriented classifier tailored specifically for that domain. Specifically, we design a Domain-Oriented Transformer (DOT) that has two individual classification tokens to learn different domain-oriented representations, and two classifiers to preserve domain-wise discriminability. Theoretical guaranteed contrastive-based alignment and the source-guided pseudo-label refinement strategy are utilized to explore both domain-invariant and specific information. Comprehensive experiments validate that our method achieves state-of-the-art on several benchmarks.Comment: Accepted at ACMMM 202

Long-term network structure evolution investigation for sustainability improvement: an empirical analysis on global top full-service carriers

The continuous and strategic planning of full-service carriers plays a prominent role in transferring and adapting them into resilient full-service carrier network structures. The exploration of full-service carrier network structures using the latest long-term empirical data facilitates enhancing cognitive capabilities in aspects of identifying network development tendencies, readjusting network structures, and supporting determinations of strategic business routes. Aiming at providing sustainable transport network solutions with historical long-term network structure analysis, this paper researches the global top 10 full-service carriers’ air transport networks from 2007 to 2022, applied using social network analysis (SNA). The static metrics from local to path-based perspectives are adopted to explore the global network evolution trend, along with competitiveness characteristics over critical airports. The cascading failure model is applied as a key indicator to analyze the dynamic robustness capability for the network. The similarity changing feature among the selected networks over the past years from 2007 to 2022 is measured using the autocorrelation function (ACF). The results indicate that, from 2011 to 2019, the majority of full-service carrier networks belong to the network types of closed, structural symmetry and two-way transitivity. The critical airports in North America present superiority in terms of network efficiency over those in Europe, Asia, and Oceania. The 10 full-service carriers’ air transport networks all show the trend of being more destruction-resistant. During the COVID-19 pandemic period, the merger with other airlines and the signing of a joint venture agreement led to higher temporal variability in the network structure

MiR-34a Enhances Chondrocyte Apoptosis, Senescence and Facilitates Development of Osteoarthritis by Targeting DLL1 and Regulating PI3K/AKT Pathway

Background/Aims: Osteoarthritis (OA) is the prevalent degenerative disease caused by various factors. MicroRNAs are important regulators in the inflammation and immune response. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of microRNA-34a (MiR-34a) on the death of chondrocytes, senescence, as well as its role in OA progression. Methods: A series of experiments involving CCK-8, flow cytometry, β-galactosidase staining and wound healing assays were conducted to determine the cellular capabilities of proliferation, cell apoptosis, senescence and the ability of cells to recover from injury, respectively. Binding sites between miR-34a and delta-like protein 1 (DLL1) were identified using a luciferase reporter system, whereas mRNA and protein expression of target genes was determined by RT-PCR and immunoblot, respectively. OA model was generated via surgery. Results: We found that miR-34a expression was increased in the cartilage of OA patients. In rat chondrocytes and chondrosarcoma cells, miR-34a transfections noticeably inhibited the expression of DLL1, triggered cell death and senescence, suppressed proliferation, and prevented scratch assay wound closure. However, transfection of a miR-34a inhibitor displayed adverse effects. Additionally, secretion and expression of factors associated with cartilage degeneration were altered via miR-34a. Moreover, miR-34a directly inhibits DLL1 mRNA. Furthermore, concentrations of DLL1, total PI3K, and p-AKT declined in chondrocytes that overexpress miR-34a. DLL1 overexpression elevated PI3K and p-AKT levels, and eliminated cell death triggered by a miR-34a mimic. In vivo, miR-34a remarkably inhibited miR-34a up-regulation, while enhanced the level of DLL1 expression. In the knee joints of surgery-induced OA rats, articular chondrocyte death and loss of cartilage were attenuated via miR-34a antagomir injection. Conclusions: These findings indicate that miR-34a contributes to chondrocyte death, causing OA progression through DLL1 and modulation of the PI3K/AKT pathway

Spatiotemporal dynamic of subtropical forest carbon storage and its resistance and resilience to drought in China

Subtropical forests are rich in vegetation and have high photosynthetic capacity. China is an important area for the distribution of subtropical forests, evergreen broadleaf forests (EBFs) and evergreen needleleaf forests (ENFs) are two typical vegetation types in subtropical China. Forest carbon storage is an important indicator for measuring the basic characteristics of forest ecosystems and is of great significance for maintaining the global carbon balance. Drought can affect forest activity and may even lead to forest death and the stability characteristics of different forest ecosystems varied after drought events. Therefore, this study used meteorological data to simulate the standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index (SPEI) and the Biome-BGC model to simulate two types of forest carbon storage to quantify the resistance and resilience of EBF and ENF to drought in the subtropical region of China. The results show that: 1) from 1952 to 2019, the interannual drought in subtropical China showed an increasing trend, with five extreme droughts recorded, of which 2011 was the most severe one; 2) the simulated average carbon storage of the EBF and ENF during 1985-2019 were 130.58 t·hm-2 and 78.49 t·hm-2, respectively. The regions with higher carbon storage of EBF were mainly concentrated in central and southeastern subtropics, where those of ENF mainly distributed in the western subtropic; 3) The median of resistance of EBF was three times higher than that of ENF, indicating the EBF have stronger resistance to extreme drought than ENF. Moreover, the resilience of two typical forest to 2011 extreme drought and the continuous drought events during 2009 - 2011 were similar. The results provided a scientific basis for the response of subtropical forests to drought, and indicating that improve stand quality or expand the plantation of EBF may enhance the resistance to drought in subtropical China, which provided certain reference for forest protection and management under the increasing frequency of drought events in the future

Molecular characterization, expression pattern and immunologic function of CD82a in large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea)

Visceral white spot disease (VWND) caused by Pseudomonas plecoglossicida poses a major threat to the sustainable development of large yellow croaker (Larimichthys crocea) aquaculture. Genome-wide association analysis (GWAS) and RNA-seq research indicated that LcCD82a play an important role in resistance to visceral white spot disease in L. crocea, but the molecular mechanism of LcCD82a response to P. plecoglossicida infection is still unclear. In this study, we cloned and validated the Open Reading Frame (ORF) sequence of LcCD82a and explored the expression profile of LcCD82a in various tissues of L.crocea. In addition, two different transcript variants (LcCD82a-L and LcCD82a-S) of LcCD82a were identified that exhibit alternative splicing patterns after P. plecoglossicida infection, which may be closely related to the immune regulation during pathogenetic process of VWND. In order to explore the function of LcCD82a, we purified the recombinant protein of LcCD82a-L and LcCD82a-S. The bacterial agglutination and apoptosis function analysis showed that LcCD82a may involve in extracellular bacterial recognition, agglutination, and at the same time participate in the process of antigen presentation and induction of cell apoptosis. Collectively, our studies demonstrate that LcCD82a plays a crucial role in regulating apoptosis and antimicrobial immunity

Demographic analysis of arrhenotokous parthenogenesis and bisexual reproduction of Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) (Thysanoptera: Thripidae)

Abstract Frankliniella occidentalis (Pergande) (Thysanoptera: Thripidae) is a serious pest that is capable of bisexual and arrhenotokous reproduction. In arrhenotokous reproduction, virgin females initially produce male offspring; later, when their sons are sexually mature, the mothers begin bisexual reproduction by carrying out oedipal mating with their sons. Because a virgin female produces many male offspring before oedipal mating occurs, multiple oedipal mating is common. In this study, we investigated the effect of multiple oedipal mating on the population growth of F. occidentalis by using the age-stage, two-sex life table theory. In the arrhenotokous cohorts, all unfertilized eggs developed into males. In the bisexual cohorts, the offspring sex ratio was significantly female biased with the mean number of female offspring and male offspring being 72.68 and 29.00, respectively. These were the same as the net reproductive rate of female offspring and male offspring. In arrhenotokous cohorts, the number of males available for oedipal mating significantly affected the production of female offspring. The number of female offspring increased as the number of sons available for oedipal mating increased. Correctly characterizing this unique type of reproduction will provide important information for predicting the timing of future outbreaks of F. occidentalis, as well as aiding in formulating successful management strategies against the species