Spatial correlation reverses the compound effect of multiple stressors on rocky shore biofilm

Understanding how multifactorial fluctuating environments affect species and communities remains one of the major challenges in ecology. The spatial configuration of the environment is known to generate complex patterns of correlation among multiple stressors. However, to what extent the spatial correlation between simultaneously fluctuating variables affects ecological assemblages in real-world conditions remains poorly understood. Here, we use field experiments and simulations to assess the influence of spatial correlation of two relevant climate variables - warming and sediment deposition following heavy precipitation - on the biomass and photosynthetic activity of rocky intertidal biofilm. First, we used a response-surface design experiment to establish the relation between biofilm, warming, and sediment deposition in the field. Second, we used the response surface to generate predictions of biofilm performance under different scenarios of warming and sediment correlation. Finally, we tested the predicted outcomes by manipulating the degree of correlation between the two climate variables in a second field experiment. Simulations stemming from the experimentally derived response surface showed how the degree and direction (positive or negative) of spatial correlation between warming and sediment deposition ultimately determined the nonlinear response of biofilm biomass (but not photosynthetic activity) to fluctuating levels of the two climate variables. Experimental results corroborated these predictions, probing the buffering effect of negative spatial correlation against extreme levels of warming and sediment deposition. Together, these results indicate that consideration of nonlinear response functions and local-scale patterns of correlation between climate drivers can improve our understanding and ability to predict ecological responses to multiple processes in heterogeneous environments

Estradiol regulates miR-135b and mismatch repair gene expressions via estrogen receptor-β in colorectal cells.

Estrogen has anti-colorectal cancer effects which are thought to be mediated by mismatch repair gene (MMR) activity. Estrogen receptor (ER) expression is associated with microRNA (miRNA) expression in ER-positive tumors. However, studies of direct link between estrogen (especially estradiol E2), miRNA expression, and MMR in colorectal cancer (CRC) have not been done. In this study, we first evaluated the effects of estradiol (E2) and its antagonist ICI182,780 on the expression of miRNAs (miR-31, miR-155 and miR-135b) using COLO205, SW480 and MCF-7 cell lines, followed by examining the association of tissue miRNA expression and serum E2 levels using samples collected from 18 colorectal cancer patients. E2 inhibited the expressions of miRNAs in COLO205 cells, which could be reversed by E2 antagonist ICI 182.780. The expression of miR-135b was inversely correlated with serum E2 level and ER-β mRNA expression in CRC patients' cancer tissues. There were significant correlations between serum E2 level and expression of ER-β, miR-135b, and MMR in colon cancer tissue. This study suggests that the effects of estrogen on MMR function may be related to regulating miRNA expression via ER-β, which may be the basis for the anti-cancer effect in colorectal cells

Exploring the relationship between teacher growth mindset, grit, mindfulness, and EFL teachers’ well-being

IntroductionThis study examines the relationship between teacher growth mindset, mindfulness, grit, and teacher well-being, with a particular emphasis on the mediating role of grit.MethodsThe study involved 547 Chinese EFL teachers as participants. Data collection utilized validated measures of growth mindset, mindfulness, grit, and occupational well-being. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data and investigate the proposed relationships.ResultsThe findings reveal several important relationships. Firstly, both teacher growth mindset and teacher grit exhibit a direct positive influence on teacher well-being. Secondly, teacher grit acts as a mediator in the connection between teacher mindfulness and teacher occupational well-being. This suggests that the positive impact of mindfulness on well-being is, in part, explained by the presence of grit.DiscussionThese findings significantly contribute to our comprehension of the factors influencing teacher well-being. They underscore the importance of cultivating growth mindset, mindfulness, and grit in educational contexts. Moreover, the implications of these findings for teacher training and support programs are discussed

Understanding Programs by Exploiting (Fuzzing) Test Cases

Semantic understanding of programs has attracted great attention in the community. Inspired by recent successes of large language models (LLMs) in natural language understanding, tremendous progress has been made by treating programming language as another sort of natural language and training LLMs on corpora of program code. However, programs are essentially different from texts after all, in a sense that they are normally heavily structured and syntax-strict. In particular, programs and their basic units (i.e., functions and subroutines) are designed to demonstrate a variety of behaviors and/or provide possible outputs, given different inputs. The relationship between inputs and possible outputs/behaviors represents the functions/subroutines and profiles the program as a whole. Therefore, we propose to incorporate such a relationship into learning, for achieving a deeper semantic understanding of programs. To obtain inputs that are representative enough to trigger the execution of most part of the code, we resort to fuzz testing and propose fuzz tuning to boost the performance of program understanding and code representation learning, given a pre-trained LLM. The effectiveness of the proposed method is verified on two program understanding tasks including code clone detection and code classification, and it outperforms current state-of-the-arts by large margins. Code is available at https://github.com/rabbitjy/FuzzTuning.Comment: Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL 202

Raw frozen Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) as an alternative feed source for cuttlefish Sepiella japonica in artificial breeding systems

The study aims to evaluate the feasibility of completely replacing raw frozen shrimp Palaemon gravieri diets with raw frozen Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba) in the diets of cuttlefish Sepiella japonica. To address the knowledge gap, we conducted a 60‐day feeding trial. At the end of the experiment (day 60), the cuttlefish Sepiella japonica eating Palaemon gravieri (SJP) grew significantly faster than those eating Euphausia superba (SJE), with the specific growth rate (SGR)SJP (7.92%) > (SGR)SJE (7.09%). Approximately 33.3% and 20.0% mortality was observed in the SJE and SJP, during the course of the experiment respectively. Some important fatty acids (i.e. n‐3 and n‐6 PUFAs) were elevated in SJE with respect to SJP. Replacement of Antarctic krill increased the diversity of the gut microbiome composition in the SJE group. Fluoride accumulated in the ink sac and cuttlebone of cuttlefish in SJE. Overall, these findings imply that PUFA‐rich Antarctic krill could replace P. gravieri shrimp for feeding cuttlefish S. japonica

Genetic Variation At 8Q24, Family History Of Cancer, And Upper Gastrointestinal Cancers In A Chinese Population

Genetic variation at 8q24 is associated with prostate, bladder, breast, colorectal, thyroid, lung, ovarian, UADT, liver and stomach cancers. However, a role for variation at 8q24 in familial clustering of upper gastrointestinal cancers has not been studied. In order to explore potential inherited susceptibility, we analyzed epidemiologic data from a population-based case-control study of upper gastrointestinal cancers from Taixing, China. The study population includes 204 liver, 206 stomach, and 218 esophageal cancer cases and 415 controls. Associations between 8q24 rs1447295, rs16901979, rs6983267 and these cancers were stratified by family history of cancer. Odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals were adjusted for potential confounders: age, sex, education, tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, and BMI at interview. We also adjusted for hepatitis B and aflatoxin (liver cancer) and Helicobacter pylori (stomach cancer). In a dominant model, among those with a family history of cancer, rs1447295 was positively associated with liver cancer (ORadj 2.80; 95% CI 1.15–6.80). Heterogeneity was observed (Pheterogeneity=0.029) with rs6983267 and liver cancer, with positive association in the dominant model among those with a family history of cancer and positive association in the recessive model among those without a family history of cancer. When considered in a genetic risk score model, each additional 8q24 risk genotype increased the odds of liver cancer by two-fold among those with a family history of cancer (ORadj 2.00; 95% CI 1.15–3.47). These findings suggest that inherited susceptibility to liver cancer may exist in the Taixing population and that variation at 8q24 might be a genetic component of that inherited susceptibility

Long decay length of magnon-polarons in BiFeO3/La0.67Sr0.33MnO3 heterostructures

Long-distance magnon transport is highly desired for magnonics. Here, the authors demonstrate a millimetre-long magnon decay length in multiferroic heterostructures, which is attributed to magnon-polarons induced by the magnetoelastic coupling. Magnons can transfer information in metals and insulators without Joule heating, and therefore are promising for low-power computation. The on-chip magnonics however suffers from high losses due to limited magnon decay length. In metallic thin films, it is typically on the tens of micrometre length scale. Here, we demonstrate an ultra-long magnon decay length of up to one millimetre in multiferroic/ferromagnetic BiFeO3(BFO)/La0.67Sr0.33MnO3(LSMO) heterostructures at room temperature. This decay length is attributed to a magnon-phonon hybridization and is more than two orders of magnitude longer than that of bare metallic LSMO. The long-distance modes have high group velocities of 2.5 km s(-1) as detected by time-resolved Brillouin light scattering. Numerical simulations suggest that magnetoelastic coupling via the BFO/LSMO interface hybridizes phonons in BFO with magnons in LSMO to form magnon-polarons. Our results provide a solution to the long-standing issue on magnon decay lengths in metallic magnets and advance the bourgeoning field of hybrid magnonics

Effect of dendrobium mixture in alleviating diabetic cognitive impairment associated with regulating gut microbiota

Dendrobium mixture (DM) is a patent Chinese herbal formulation consisting of Dendrobii Caulis, Astragali Radix, Rehmanniae Radix as the main ingredients. DM has been shown to alleviate diabetic related symptoms attributed to its anti-hyperglycaemic and anti-inflammatory activities. However, the effect on diabetic induced cognitive dysfunction has not been investigated. This study aims to investigate the effect of DM in improving diabetic cognitive impairment and associated mechanisms. Our study confirmed the anti-hyperglycaemic effect of DM and showed its capacity to restore the cognitive and memory function in high fat/high glucose and streptozotocin-induced diabetic rats. The neuroprotective effect was manifested as improved learning and memory behaviours, restored blood-brain barrier tight junction, and enhanced expressions of neuronal survival related biomarkers. DM protected the colon tight junction, and effectively lowered the circulated proinflammatory mediators including tumour necrosis factor-α, interleukin-6 and lipopolysaccharides. In the gut microbiota, DM corrected the increase in the abundance of Firmicutes, the increase in the ratio of Firmicutes/Bacteroidetes, and the decrease in the abundance of Bacteroidetes in diabetic rats. It also reversed the abundance of Lactobacillus, Ruminococcus and Allobaculum genera. Short chain fatty acids, isobutyric acid and ethylmethylacetic acid, were negatively and significantly correlated to Ruminococcus and Allobaculum. Isovaleric acid was positively and significantly correlated with Lactobacillus, which all contributing to the improvement in glucose level, systemic inflammation and cognitive function in diabetic rats. Our results demonstrated the potential of DM as a promising therapeutic agent in treating diabetic cognitive impairment and the underlying mechanism may be associated with regulating gut microbiota