Exploring the Diversity of Music Experiences for Deaf and Hard of Hearing People

Sensory substitution or enhancement techniques have been proposed to enable deaf or hard of hearing (DHH) people to listen to and even compose music. However, little is known about how such techniques enhance DHH people's music experience. Since deafness is a spectrum -- as are DHH people's preferences and perceptions of music -- a more situated understanding of their interaction with music is needed. To understand the music experience of this population, we conducted social media analyses, both qualitatively and quantitatively, in the deaf and hard of hearing Reddit communities. Our content analysis revealed that DHH people leveraged sign language and visual/haptic cues to feel the music and preferred familiar, non-lyrical, instrument-heavy, and loud music. In addition, hearing aids were not customized for music, and the visual/haptic techniques developed were not widely adopted by DHH people, leading to their suboptimal music experiences. The DHH community embodied mutual support among music lovers, evidenced by active information sharing and Q&A around music and hearing loss. We reflect on design justice for DHH people's music experience and propose practical design implications to create a more accessible music experience for them

The complete chloroplast genome of Fraxinus hupehensis and phylogenic analysis of Lamiales

Fraxinus hupehensis is a national rare and Endangered tree in the Oleaceae family, that has high commercial value owing to its slow growth, interlaced roots, intricate tree shape, and easy to shape. Here, we determined the complete chloroplast (cp) genome sequence for F. hupehensis using genome skimming sequencing. The cp genome was 155,698 bp and consisted of a large single copy (LSC) region (86,498 bp), a small single copy (SSC) region (17,803 bp) and two inverted repeats (IRs) (25,694 bp). It encodes 131 genes, including 88 protein-coding genes, 8 rRNAs and 35 tRNAs. Phylogenetic analysis indicates that F. hupehensis was relatively closely related to F. chinensis compared to other species in the Oleaceae family

The complete chloroplast genome of the Buddleja alternifolia (Buddleiaceae), an ornamental plant

Buddleja alternifolia is China’s specialty, and scattered in northwest China. Here, we assembled and characterized the complete chloroplast (cp) genome of B. alternifolia using Illumina sequencing data for the first time. The complete cp genome was 154,280 bp in length, consisting of a pair of inverted repeats of 25,440 bp, a large single-copy (LSC) region of 85,330 bp, and a small single-copy (SSC) region of 18,070 bp. The genome encoded 115 unique genes, including 80 protein-coding genes, 31 tRNA genes, and four rRNA genes. Phylogenetic analysis based on 16 complete cp genome sequences indicated that B. alternifolia is closely related to Buddleja colvilei

Exploring the contributions of two glutamate decarboxylase isozymes in Lactobacillus brevis to acid resistance and γ-aminobutyric acid production

Abstract Background The glutamate decarboxylase (GAD) system of Lactobacillus brevis involves two isoforms of GAD, GadA and GadB, which catalyze the conversion of L-glutamate to γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in a proton-consuming reaction contributing to intracellular pH homeostasis. However, direct experimental evidence for detailed contributions of gad genes to acid tolerance and GABA production is lacking. Results Molecular analysis revealed that gadB is cotranscribed in tandem with upstream gadC, and that expression of gadCB is greatly upregulated in response to low ambient pH when cells enter the late exponential growth phase. In contrast, gadA is located away from the other gad genes, and its expression was consistently lower and not induced by mild acid treatment. Analysis of deletion mutations in the gad genes of L. brevis demonstrated a decrease in the level of GAD activity and a concomitant decrease in acid resistance in the order of wild-type> ΔgadA> ΔgadB> ΔgadC> ΔgadAB, indicating that the GAD activity mainly endowed by GadB rather than GadA is an indispensable step in the GadCB mediated acid resistance of this organism. Moreover, engineered strains with higher GAD activities were constructed by overexpressing key GAD system genes. With the proposed two-stage pH and temperature control fed-batch fermentation strategy, GABA production by the engineered strain L. brevis 9530: pNZ8148-gadBC continuously increased reaching a high level of 104.38 ± 3.47 g/L at 72 h. Conclusions This is the first report of the detailed contribution of gad genes to acid tolerance and GABA production in L. brevis. Enhanced production of GABA by engineered L. brevis was achieved, and the resulting GABA level was one of the highest among lactic acid bacterial species grown in batch or fed-batch culture

Systematic genome editing of the genes on zebrafish Chromosome 1 by CRISPR/Cas9

Genome editing by the well-established CRISPR/Cas9 technology has greatly facilitated our understanding of many biological processes. However, a complete whole-genome knockout for any species or model organism has rarely been achieved. Here, we performed a systematic knockout of all the genes (1333) on Chromosome 1 in zebrafish, successfully mutated 1029 genes, and generated 1039 germline-transmissible alleles corresponding to 636 genes. Meanwhile, by high-throughput bioinformatics analysis, we found that sequence features play pivotal roles in effective gRNA targeting at specific genes of interest, while the success rate of gene targeting positively correlates with GC content of the target sites. Moreover, we found that nearly one-fourth of all mutants are related to human diseases, and several representative CRISPR/Cas9-generated mutants are described here. Furthermore, we tried to identify the underlying mechanisms leading to distinct phenotypes between genetic mutants and antisense morpholino-mediated knockdown embryos. Altogether, this work has generated the first chromosome-wide collection of zebrafish genetic mutants by the CRISPR/Cas9 technology, which will serve as a valuable resource for the community, and our bioinformatics analysis also provides some useful guidance to design gene-specific gRNAs for successful gene editing