Combined endophytic inoculants enhance nickel phytoextraction from serpentine soil in the hyperaccumulator Noccaea caerulescens

This study assesses the effects of specific bacterial endophytes on the phytoextraction capacity of the Ni-hyperaccumulator Noccaea caerulescens, spontaneously growing in a serpentine soil environment. Five metal-tolerant endophytes had already been selected for their high Ni tolerance (6 mM) and plant growth promoting ability. Here we demonstrate that individual bacterial inoculation is ineffective in enhancing Ni translocation and growth of N. caerulescens in serpentine soil, except for specific strains Ncr-1 and Ncr-8, belonging to the Arthrobacter and Microbacterium genera, which showed the highest indole acetic acid production and 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid-deaminase activity. Ncr-1 and Ncr-8 co-inoculation was even more efficient in promoting plant growth, soil Ni removal, and translocation of Ni, together with that of Fe, Co, and Cu. Bacteria of both strains densely colonized the root surfaces and intercellular spaces of leaf epidermal tissue. These two bacterial strains also turned out to stimulate root length, shoot biomass, and Ni uptake in Arabidopsis thaliana grown in MS agar medium supplemented with Ni. It is concluded that adaptation of N. caerulescens in highly Ni-contaminated serpentine soil can be enhanced by an integrated community of bacterial endophytes rather than by single strains; of the former, Arthrobacter and Microbacterium may be useful candidates for future phytoremediation trials in multiple metal-contaminated sites, with possible extension to non-hyperaccumulator plants

Effects of Gender and Personality on First Impression.

The present study explores whether and to what extent individual differences (i.e., gender and personality traits of perceiver) predict inferences of trustworthiness from emotionally neutral unfamiliar faces and the related confidence in judgment. Four hundred and ten undergraduate students participated in the study. Personality was assessed using the Big Five model (i.e., Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness and Openness to experience) and measures of trait anxiety and aggression. The results suggest that trustworthiness judgments are affected by the gender of the perceiver, although this effect depends on the valence of the face. Women tend to judge trustworthy-looking faces as significantly more trustworthy than men do, and this is particularly pronounced for judgments of female faces. There were no gender differences for judgments of untrustworthy-looking or neutral faces. Gender also seems to affect the confidence in judgment. Specifically, women were generally less confident than men in judging trustworthiness of unfamiliar faces. Personality also affected judgment. Both low agreeable individuals and high trait aggressive individuals tend to perceive unfamiliar faces as less trustworthy. The present findings suggest that both gender and personality traits are relevant for understanding how people evaluate the trustworthiness of others. Whom we decide to trust is a function not only of their facial features but also of gender and individual differences in personality traits

Doctoral supervisor development in Australian universities: Preparing research supervisors to teach writing

In recent years, Australian doctoral education has diversified and expanded, with concomitant shifts in the format and purpose of the PhD. While there is now a considerable body of research into what constitutes good quality, effective supervision of PhD projects within this environment, there is surprisingly little about the training or professional development supervisors receive in or-der to succeed in this demanding task. Even less is reported on how supervisors learn to develop their students’ writing. This paper reports on an Australia-wide study that sought to find out how institutions support their research supervisors through centrally provisioned professional development, with a particular focus on elements of those programs related to doctoral student writing. We mapped the current supervisor development offerings in Australian universities through a study of publicly available websites and interviews with key personnel involved in organising those programs. Our research reveals the enormous diversity of the preparation that research supervisors receive, and points to the opportunities this might afford for Academic Language and Learning specialists to play an important role in the professional development of supervisors.Cally Guerin, Ruth Walker, Claire Aitchison, Madeleine Mattarozzi Laming, Meeta Chatterjee Padmanabhan and Bronwyn Jame

Reduced recognition of facial emotional expressions in global burnout and burnout depersonalization in healthcare providers

The healthcare provider profession strongly relies on the ability to care for others' emotional experiences. To what extent burnout may relate to an actual alteration of this key professional ability has been little investigated. In an experimentally controlled setting, we investigated whether subjective experiences of global burnout or burnout depersonalization (the interpersonal component of burnout) relate to objectively measured alterations in emotion recognition and to what extent such alterations are emotion specific. Healthcare workers (n = 90) completed the Maslach Burnout Inventory and a dynamic emotion recognition task in which faces with neutral emotional expressions gradually changed to display a specific basic emotion (happiness, anger, fear, or sadness). Participants were asked to identify and then classify each displayed emotion. Before the task, a subsample of 46 participants underwent two salivary cortisol assessments. Individuals with global burnout were less accurate at recognizing others' emotional expressions of anger and fear, tending to misclassify these as happiness, compared to individuals without global burnout. Individuals with high burnout depersonalization were more accurate in recognizing happiness and less accurate in recognizing all negative emotions, with a tendency to misclassify the latter as positive ones, compared to healthcare workers with moderate/low depersonalization. Moreover, individuals with high depersonalization-but not participants with global burnout-were characterized by higher cortisol levels. These results suggest that the subjective burnout experience relates to an actual, but selective, reduction in the recognition of facial emotional expressions, characterized by a tendency to misclassify negative emotional expressions as positive ones, perhaps due to an enhanced seeking of positive social cues. This study adds to the understanding of emotional processing in burnout and paves the way for more nuanced studies on the role of altered processing of threat signals in the development and/or persistence of burnout

Facing up to bias in healthcare: The influence of familiarity appearance on hiring decisions

Associations between facial appearance and hiring decisions are well-documented within job literature as a source of decision misjudgment with economic and human costs. Notwithstanding, this aspect is yet to be investigated in healthcare. We collected 90 pictures of new-graduates nurses faces to be judged on different facial appearance-based traits by an independent sample. Six months after graduation, the same new-graduates were interviewed about their job situation. Binomial logistic regression was conducted to examine whether facial appearance ratings would predict the probability to be hired as nurse. Results showed that applicants with a face conveying a feeling of familiarity were more likely to be hired. Considering that people might be inclined to these biases during societal crises and the exceptional need to quickly recruit health professionals during COVID-19 pandemic, our study recommends special attention to prevent the influence of facial appearance-based evaluations not reflecting real skills to limit potentially adverse consequences

FFF-based high-throughput sequence shortlisting to support the development of aptamer-based analytical strategies

Aptamers are biomimetic receptors that are increasingly exploited for the development of optical and electrochemical aptasensors. They are selected in vitro by the SELEX (Systematic Evolution of Ligands by Exponential Enrichment) procedure, but although they are promising recognition elements, for their reliable applicability for analytical purposes, one cannot ignore sample components that cause matrix effects. This particularly applies when different SELEX-selected aptamers and related truncated sequences are available for a certain target, and the choice of the aptamer should be driven by the specific downstream application. In this context, the present work aimed at investigating the potentialities of asymmetrical flow field-flow fractionation (AF4) with UV detection for the development of a screening method of a large number of anti-lysozyme aptamers towards lysozyme, including randomized sequences and an interfering agent (serum albumin). The possibility to work in native conditions and selectively monitor the evolution of untagged aptamer signal as a result of aptamer-protein binding makes the devised method effective as a strategy for shortlisting the most promising aptamers both in terms of affinity and in terms of selectivity, to support subsequent development of aptamer-based analytical devices. Graphical abstract: [Figure not available: see fulltext.

Development and cross-national investigation of a model explaining participation in WHO-recommended and placebo behaviours to prevent COVID-19 infection

To protect themselves from COVID-19, people follow the recommendations of the authorities, but they also resort to placebos. To stop the virus, it is important to understand the factors underlying both types of preventive behaviour. This study examined whether our model (developed based on the Health Belief Model and the Transactional Model of Stress) can explain participation in WHO-recommended and placebo actions during the pandemic. Model was tested on a sample of 3346 participants from Italy, Japan, Poland, Korea, Sweden, and the US. It was broadly supported: objective risk and cues to action showed both direct and indirect (through perceived threat) associations with preventive behaviours. Moreover, locus of control, decision balance, health anxiety and preventive coping moderated these relationships. Numerous differences were also found between countries. We conclude that beliefs about control over health and perceived benefits of actions are critical to the development of interventions to improve adherence to recommendations

Piezoelectric immunosensor based on antibody recognition of immobilized open-tissue transglutaminase: An innovative perspective on diagnostic devices for celiac disease

A piezoelectric immunosensor was developed for the first time for direct detection of anti-tissue transglutaminase antibodies (anti-tTG), very specific biomarkers for reliable and early diagnosis of celiac disease. Since the inflammation processes associated to the pathology's occurrence involve tTG structural changes from closed to open conformation as well the extended structure has been demonstrated to have higher diagnostic accuracy if compared with closed conformation, the new strategy undertaken in this study was based on the immobilization of tTG enzyme in its open conformation as receptor on immunosensor surface. Ten nm-sized gold nanoparticles conjugated with secondary antibodies were exploited for signal amplification. Liquid phase detection conditions using a laminar flow cell were properly selected in order to have a good signal stability both in dynamic and in static modes. Optimization of the operating conditions, by experimental design on mouse anti-tTG antibodies in serum, allowed us to obtain a model for the realization of a reliable piezoelectric immunosensor with high potential as diagnostic device for the determination of human autoantibodies of celiac patients

Liquid chromatography-full scan-high resolution mass spectrometry-based method towards the comprehensive analysis of migration of primary aromatic amines from food packaging

European Union legislation has established that plastic food contact materials shall not release primary aromatic amines (PAAs), which are toxic compounds and suspected human carcinogens. As valid alternative to existing methods for PAA determination, which are based on spectrophotometric test or targeted liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) approaches, in this study a LC-Orbitrap-full scan-high resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS) method was devised and validated for the determination of migration levels of 22 PAAs from food contact materials, thus exploiting the specificity of accurate mass measurement. Direct injection of the simulant (acetic acid 3%, w/v) into the LC-MS system after migration, without any pre-treatment step, makes the developed method of great value for rapid screening analysis of a large number of amines. A very fast and efficient separation (= 0.990) were obtained and satisfying results were achieved in terms of intra-day (RSDs < 10%) and inter-day repeatability (RSDs < 17%). Trueness values in the 70 +/- 1-131 +/- 5% range proved reliability of the developed method for PAAs quantification also at very low concentration levels. Finally, the method was successfully applied to a range of different real plastic multilayer food packaging materials, noticing in all cases levels below the established limits of detection