Comparing emotion inferences from dogs (Canis familiaris), panins (Pan troglodytes/Pan paniscus), and humans (Homo sapiens) facial displays

Human beings are highly familiar over-learnt social targets, with similar physical facial morphology between perceiver and target. But does experience with or similarity to a social target determine whether we can accurately infer emotions from their facial displays? Here, we test this question across two studies by having human participants infer emotions from facial displays of: dogs, a highly experienced social target but with relatively dissimilar facial morphology; panins (chimpanzees/bonobos), inexperienced social targets, but close genetic relatives with a more similar facial morphology; and humans. We find that people are more accurate inferring emotions from facial displays of dogs compared to panins, though they are most accurate for human faces. However, we also find an effect of emotion, such that people vary in their ability to infer different emotional states from different species' facial displays, with anger more accurately inferred than happiness across species, perhaps hinting at an evolutionary bias towards detecting threat. These results not only compare emotion inferences from human and animal faces but provide initial evidence that experience with a non-human animal affects inferring emotion from facial displays

Cause of microfibers found in the domestic washing process of clothing; focusing on the manufacturing, wearing, and washing processes

To prepare measures for washing synthetic fibers, which cause proliferation of microplastics in the marine ecosystem, a fundamental analysis is required. Therefore, this study established an efficient method for quantitatively analyzing microfibers using artificial neural networks, comparing the amounts of microfibers generated in the manufacturing, wearing, and washing processes of clothing. The proportion of microfiber emitted during the manufacturing process was the largest (49%), followed by that emitted during the washing (28%) and wearing (23%) processes. This suggests that minimizing the amount of microfiber emitted during the manufacturing process is key to solving microfiber issues in the fashion industry. Additionally, during the wearing process, the amount of waterborne microfiber detected in washing was slightly larger than the amount of airborne microfiber. In the washing process, the washing temperature did not significantly affect microfiber emissions. However, when reducing the amount of water used or increasing the number of washings, microfiber emissions increased noticeably due to the greater friction applied to clothes. A common result of all experiments was that the largest proportion of microfibers was released during the first five washing cycles. Therefore, before wearing new items, consumers can minimize microfiber release by pre-washing using a laundry bag that filters microfibers. Furthermore, the most effective way to minimize microfibers is to eliminate them from the manufacturing process before they are distributed to consumers.This study was conducted with the support of LG Electronics (No. 2-2020-1139-001-1)

Patchy Nanoparticle Synthesis and Self-Assembly

Biological building blocks (i.e., proteins) are encoded with the information of target structure into the chemical and morphological patches, guiding their assembly into the levels of functional structures that are crucial for living organisms. Learning from nature, researchers have been attracted to the artificial analogues, “patchy particles,” which have controlled geometries of patches that serve as directional bonding sites. However, unlike the abundant studies of micron-scale patchy particles, which demonstrated complex assembly structures and unique behaviors attributed to the patches, research on patchy nanoparticles (NPs) has remained challenging. In the present chapter, we discuss the recent understandings on patchy NP design and synthesis strategies, and physical principles of their assembly behaviors, which are the main factors to program patchy NP self-assembly into target structures that cannot be achieved by conventional non-patched NPs. We further summarize the self-assembly of patchy NPs under external fields, in simulation, and in kinetically controlled assembly pathways, to show the structural richness patchy NPs bring. The patchy NP assembly is novel by their structures as well as the multicomponent features, and thus exhibits unique optical, chemical, and mechanical properties, potentially aiding applications in catalysts, photonic crystals, and metamaterials as well as fundamental nanoscience

iCSDB: an integrated database of CRISPR screens.

High-throughput screening based on CRISPR-Cas9 libraries has become an attractive and powerful technique to identify target genes for functional studies. However, accessibility of public data is limited due to the lack of user-friendly utilities and up-to-date resources covering experiments from third parties. Here, we describe iCSDB, an integrated database of CRISPR screening experiments using human cell lines. We compiled two major sources of CRISPR-Cas9 screening: the DepMap portal and BioGRID ORCS. DepMap portal itself is an integrated database that includes three large-scale projects of CRISPR screening. We additionally aggregated CRISPR screens from BioGRID ORCS that is a collection of screening results from PubMed articles. Currently, iCSDB contains 1375 genome-wide screens across 976 human cell lines, covering 28 tissues and 70 cancer types. Importantly, the batch effects from different CRISPR libraries were removed and the screening scores were converted into a single metric to estimate the knockout efficiency. Clinical and molecular information were also integrated to help users to select cell lines of interest readily. Furthermore, we have implemented various interactive tools and viewers to facilitate users to choose, examine and compare the screen results both at the gene and guide RNA levels. iCSDB is available at https://www.kobic.re.kr/icsdb/

Genome-scale CRISPR screening identifies cell cycle and protein ubiquitination processes as druggable targets for erlotinib-resistant lung cancer.

Erlotinib is highly effective in lung cancer patients with epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) mutations. However, despite initial favorable responses, most patients rapidly develop resistance to erlotinib soon after the initial treatment. This study aims to identify new genes and pathways associated with erlotinib resistance mechanisms in order to develop novel therapeutic strategies. Here, we induced knockout (KO) mutations in erlotinib-resistant human lung cancer cells (NCI-H820) using a genome-scale CRISPR-Cas9 sgRNA library to screen for genes involved in erlotinib susceptibility. The spectrum of sgRNAs incorporated among erlotinib-treated cells was substantially different to that of the untreated cells. Gene set analyses showed a significant depletion of \u27cell cycle process\u27 and \u27protein ubiquitination pathway\u27 genes among erlotinib-treated cells. Chemical inhibitors targeting genes in these two pathways, such as nutlin-3 and carfilzomib, increased cancer cell death when combined with erlotinib in both in vitro cell line and in vivo patient-derived xenograft experiments. Therefore, we propose that targeting cell cycle processes or protein ubiquitination pathways are promising treatment strategies for overcoming resistance to EGFR inhibitors in lung cancer

Symmetry-breaking in patch formation on triangular gold nanoparticles by asymmetric polymer grafting

Synthesizing patchy particles with predictive control over patch size, shape, placement and number has been highly sought-after for nanoparticle assembly research, but is fraught with challenges. Here we show that polymers can be designed to selectively adsorb onto nanoparticle surfaces already partially coated by other chains to drive the formation of patchy nanoparticles with broken symmetry. In our model system of triangular gold nanoparticles and polystyrene-b-polyacrylic acid patch, single- and double-patch nanoparticles are produced at high yield. These asymmetric single-patch nanoparticles are shown to assemble into self-limited patch‒patch connected bowties exhibiting intriguing plasmonic properties. To unveil the mechanism of symmetry- breaking patch formation, we develop a theory that accurately predicts our experimental observations at all scales—from patch patterning on nano- particles, to the size/shape of the patches, to the particle assemblies driven by patch‒patch interactions. Both the experimental strategy and theoretical prediction extend to nanoparticles of other shapes such as octahedra and bipyramids. Our work provides an approach to leverage polymer interactions with nanoscale curved surfaces for asymmetric grafting in nanomaterials engineering.Synthesis and self-assembly experiments for this work was supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, under Award DE- SC0020723 (A.K. and Q.C.). Experiments were carried out in part in the Materials Research Laboratory Central Research Facilities, University of Illinois. Theory and simulation for this work was supported by the Department of the Navy, Office of Naval Research under ONR award number N00014-18-1-2497 (T.V. and S.C.G). This research utilized computational resources and services supported by Advanced Research Computing at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and provided by the Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Envir- onment (XSEDE), which is supported by National Science Foundation Grant ACI-1053575, XSEDE Award DMR 140129 (T.V. and S.C.G.). LSPR of this work was performed by P.B. at the Center for Nanoscale Mate- rials, a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science User Facility, and was supported by the U.S. DOE, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. D.M. and P.B. acknowledge partial support from the Center for Dynamics and Control of Materials: an NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (NSF MRSEC) under Cooperative Agreement DMR-1720595 and the Welch Founda- tion (F-1848).Center for Dynamics and Control of Material

Chiral Assemblies of Pinwheel Superlattices on Substrates

The unique topology and physics of chiral superlattices make their self-assembly from nanoparticles a holy grail for (meta)materials. Here we show that tetrahedral gold nanoparticles can spontaneously transform from a perovskite-like low-density phase with corner-to-corner connections into pinwheel assemblies with corner-to-edge connections and denser packing. While the corner-sharing assemblies are achiral, pinwheel superlattices become strongly mirror-asymmetric on solid substrates as demonstrated by chirality measures. Liquid-phase transmission electron microscopy and computational models show that van der Waals and electrostatic interactions between nanoparticles control thermodynamic equilibrium. Variable corner-to-edge connections among tetrahedra enable fine-tuning of chirality. The domains of the bilayer superlattices display strong chiroptical activity identified by photon-induced near-field electron microscopy and finite-difference time-domain simulations. The simplicity and versatility of the substrate-supported chiral superlattices facilitate manufacturing of metastructured coatings with unusual optical, mechanical and electronic characteristics

Functional mapping of yeast genomes by saturated transposition

Yeast is a powerful model for systems genetics. We present a versatile, time- and labor-efficient method to functionally explore the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome using saturated transposon mutagenesis coupled to high-throughput sequencing. SAturated Transposon Analysis in Yeast (SATAY) allows one-step mapping of all genetic loci in which transposons can insert without disrupting essential functions. SATAY is particularly suited to discover loci important for growth under various conditions. SATAY (1) reveals positive and negative genetic interactions in single and multiple mutant strains, (2) can identify drug targets, (3) detects not only essential genes, but also essential protein domains, (4) generates both null and other informative alleles. In a SATAY screen for rapamycin-resistant mutants, we identify Pib2 (PhosphoInositide-Binding 2) as a master regulator of TORC1. We describe two antagonistic TORC1-activating and -inhibiting activities located on opposite ends of Pib2. Thus, SATAY allows to easily explore the yeast genome at unprecedented resolution and throughput

Chikungunya seroprevalence, force of infection, and prevalence of chronic disability after infection in endemic and epidemic settings: a systematic review, meta-analysis, and modelling study.

BACKGROUND: Chikungunya is an arboviral disease transmitted by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes with a growing global burden linked to climate change and globalisation. We aimed to estimate chikungunya seroprevalence, force of infection (FOI), and prevalence of related chronic disability and hospital admissions in endemic and epidemic settings. METHODS: In this systematic review, meta-analysis, and modelling study, we searched PubMed, Ovid, and Web of Science for articles published from database inception until Sept 26, 2022, for prospective and retrospective cross-sectional studies that addressed serological chikungunya virus infection in any geographical region, age group, and population subgroup and for longitudinal prospective and retrospective cohort studies with data on chronic chikungunya or hospital admissions in people with chikungunya. We did a systematic review of studies on chikungunya seroprevalence and fitted catalytic models to each survey to estimate location-specific FOI (ie, the rate at which susceptible individuals acquire chikungunya infection). We performed a meta-analysis to estimate the proportion of symptomatic patients with laboratory-confirmed chikungunya who had chronic chikungunya or were admitted to hospital following infection. We used a random-effects model to assess the relationship between chronic sequelae and follow-up length using linear regression. The systematic review protocol is registered online on PROSPERO, CRD42022363102. FINDINGS: We identified 60 studies with data on seroprevalence and chronic chikungunya symptoms done across 76 locations in 38 countries, and classified 17 (22%) of 76 locations as endemic settings and 59 (78%) as epidemic settings. The global long-term median annual FOI was 0·007 (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 0·003-0·010) and varied from 0·0001 (0·00004-0·0002) to 0·113 (0·07-0·20). The highest estimated median seroprevalence at age 10 years was in south Asia (8·0% [95% UI 6·5-9·6]), followed by Latin America and the Caribbean (7·8% [4·9-14·6]), whereas median seroprevalence was lowest in the Middle East (1·0% [0·5-1·9]). We estimated that 51% (95% CI 45-58) of people with laboratory-confirmed symptomatic chikungunya had chronic disability after infection and 4% (3-5) were admitted to hospital following infection. INTERPRETATION: We inferred subnational heterogeneity in long-term average annual FOI and transmission dynamics and identified both endemic and epidemic settings across different countries. Brazil, Ethiopia, Malaysia, and India included both endemic and epidemic settings. Long-term average annual FOI was higher in epidemic settings than endemic settings. However, long-term cumulative incidence of chikungunya can be similar between large outbreaks in epidemic settings with a high FOI and endemic settings with a relatively low FOI. FUNDING: International Vaccine Institute