Foliicolous microfungi occurring on Encephalartos

Species of Encephalartos, commonly known as bread trees, bread palms or cycads are native to Africa; the genus encompasses more than 60 species and represents an important component of the indigenous African flora. Recently, a leaf blight disease was noted on several E. altensteinii plants growing at the foot of Table Mountain in the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens of South Africa. Preliminary isolations from dead and dying leaves of E. alten-steinii, E. lebomboensis and E. princeps, collected from South Africa, revealed the presence of several novel microfungi on this host. Novelties include Phaeomoniella capensis, Saccharata kirstenboschensis, Teratosphaeria altensteinii and T. encephalarti. New host records of species previously only known to occur on Proteaceae include Cladophialophora proteae and Catenulostroma microsporum, as well as a hyperparasite, Dactylaria leptosphaeriicola, occurring on ascomata of T. encephalarti

Understanding information security culture: a survey in small and medium sized enterprises

Information security is a relevant fact for current organizations. There are factors inextricably linked to this issue, and one cannot talk about information security in an organization without addressing and understanding the information security culture of that institution. Maximizing the organizational culture within an organization will enable the safeguard of information security. For that, we need to understand which the inhibiting and the enabling factors are. This paper contributes to point out those factors by presenting the results of a survey concerning information security culture in small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs). We discuss the results in the light of related literature, and we identify future works aiming to enhance information security within organizations

Phylogeny and taxonomy of obscure genera of microfungi

The recently generated molecular phylogeny for the kingdom Fungi, on which a new classification scheme is based, still suffers from an under representation of numerous apparently asexual genera of microfungi. In an attempt to populate the Fungal Tree of Life, fresh samples of 10 obscure genera of hyphomycetes were collected. These fungi were subsequently established in culture, and subjected to DNA sequence analysis of the ITS and LSU nrRNA genes to resolve species and generic questions related to these obscure genera. Brycekendrickomyces (Herpotrichiellaceae) is introduced as a new genus similar to, but distinct from Haplographium and Lauriomyces. Chalastospora is shown to be a genus in the Pleosporales, with two new species, C. ellipsoidea and C. obclavata, to which Alternaria malorum is added as an additional taxon under its oldest epithet, C. gossypii. Cyphellophora eugeniae is newly described in Cyphellophora (Herpotrichiellaceae), and distinguished from other taxa in the genus. Dictyosporium is placed in the Pleosporales, with one new species, D. streliziae. The genus Edenia, which was recently introduced for a sterile endophytic fungus isolated in Mexico, is shown to be a hyphomycete (Pleosporales) forming a pyronellea-like synanamorph in culture. Thedgonia is shown not to represent an anamorph of Mycosphaerella, but to belong to the Helotiales. Trochophora, however, clustered basal to the Pseudocercospora complex in the Mycosphaerellaceae, as did Verrucisporota. Vonarxia, a rather forgotten genus of hyphomycetes, is shown to belong to the Herpotrichiellaceae and Xenostigmina is confirmed as synanamorph of Mycopappus, and is shown to be allied to Seifertia in the Pleosporales. Dichotomous keys are provided for species in the various genera treated. Furthermore, several families are shown to be polyphyletic within some orders, especially in the Capnodiales, Chaetothyriales and Pleosporales

Anthocyanin-rich extract decreases indices of lipid peroxidation and DNA damage in vitamin E-depleted rats

Anthocyanins are secondary plant metabolites responsible for the blue, purple, and red color of many plant tissues. The phenolic structure of anthocyanins conveys marked antioxidant activity in model systems via donation of electrons or hydrogen atoms from hydroxyl moieties to free radicals. Dietary intakes of anthocyanins may exceed 200 mg/day, however, little is known about their antioxidant potency in vivo. Consequently, the aim of this study was to establish whether anthocyanins could act as putative antioxidant micronutrients. Rats were maintained on vitamin E-deficient diets for 12 weeks in order to enhance susceptibility to oxidative damage and then repleted with rations containing a highly purified anthocyanin-rich extract at a concentration of 1 g/kg diet. The extract consisted of the 3-glucopyranoside forms of delphinidin, cyanidin, petunidin, peonidin, and malvidin. Consumption of the anthocyanin repleted diet significantly improved (p < 0.01) plasma antioxidant capacity and decreased (p < 0.001) the vitamin E deficiency-enhanced hydroperoxides and 8-Oxo-deoxyguanosine concentrations in liver. These compounds are indices of lipid peroxidation and DNA damage, respectively. Dietary consumption of anthocyanin-rich foods may contribute to overall antioxidant status, particularly in areas of habitually low vitamin E intake.Fundação para Ciência e Tecnologi

Genetic evidence for different adiposity phenotypes and their opposing influence on ectopic fat and risk of cardiometabolic disease

To understand the causal role of adiposity and ectopic fat in type 2 diabetes and cardiometabolic diseases, we aimed to identify two clusters of adiposity genetic variants, one with ‘adverse’ metabolic effects (UFA) and the other with, paradoxically, ‘favourable’ metabolic effects (FA). We performed a multivariate genome-wide association study using body fat percentage and metabolic biomarkers from UK Biobank and identified 38 UFA and 36 FA variants. Adiposity-increasing alleles were associated with an adverse metabolic profile, higher risk of disease, higher CRP, higher fat in subcutaneous and visceral adipose tissue, liver and pancreas for UFA; and a favourable metabolic profile, lower risk of disease, higher CRP, higher subcutaneous adipose tissue but lower liver fat for FA. We detected no sexual dimorphism. The Mendelian randomization studies provided evidence for risk-increasing effect of UFA and protective effect of FA on type 2 diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, stroke, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and polycystic ovary syndrome. FA is distinct from UFA by its association with lower liver fat, and protection from cardiometabolic diseases; it was not associated with visceral or pancreatic fat. Understanding the difference in FA and UFA may lead to new insights in preventing, predicting and treating of cardiometabolic diseases

Nuclear Spin-Isospin Correlations, Parity Violation, and the fπf_\pi Problem

The strong interaction effects of isospin- and spin-dependent nucleon-nucleon correlations observed in many-body calculations are interpreted in terms of a one-pion exchange mechanism. Including such effects in computations of nuclear parity violating effects leads to enhancements of about 10%. A larger effect arises from the one-boson exchange nature of the parity non-conserving nucleon- nucleon interaction, which depends on both weak and strong meson-nucleon coupling constants. Using values of the latter that are constrained by nucleon-nucleon phase shifts leads to enhancements of parity violation by factors close to two. Thus much of previously noticed discrepancies between weak coupling constants extracted from different experiments can be removed.Comment: 8 pages 2 figures there should have been two figures in v

Possible origins of macroscopic left-right asymmetry in organisms

I consider the microscopic mechanisms by which a particular left-right (L/R) asymmetry is generated at the organism level from the microscopic handedness of cytoskeletal molecules. In light of a fundamental symmetry principle, the typical pattern-formation mechanisms of diffusion plus regulation cannot implement the "right-hand rule"; at the microscopic level, the cell's cytoskeleton of chiral filaments seems always to be involved, usually in collective states driven by polymerization forces or molecular motors. It seems particularly easy for handedness to emerge in a shear or rotation in the background of an effectively two-dimensional system, such as the cell membrane or a layer of cells, as this requires no pre-existing axis apart from the layer normal. I detail a scenario involving actin/myosin layers in snails and in C. elegans, and also one about the microtubule layer in plant cells. I also survey the other examples that I am aware of, such as the emergence of handedness such as the emergence of handedness in neurons, in eukaryote cell motility, and in non-flagellated bacteria.Comment: 42 pages, 6 figures, resubmitted to J. Stat. Phys. special issue. Major rewrite, rearranged sections/subsections, new Fig 3 + 6, new physics in Sec 2.4 and 3.4.1, added Sec 5 and subsections of Sec

Differentially expressed genes reflect disease-induced rather than disease-causing changes in the transcriptome.

Comparing transcript levels between healthy and diseased individuals allows the identification of differentially expressed genes, which may be causes, consequences or mere correlates of the disease under scrutiny. We propose a method to decompose the observational correlation between gene expression and phenotypes driven by confounders, forward- and reverse causal effects. The bi-directional causal effects between gene expression and complex traits are obtained by Mendelian Randomization integrating summary-level data from GWAS and whole-blood eQTLs. Applying this approach to complex traits reveals that forward effects have negligible contribution. For example, BMI- and triglycerides-gene expression correlation coefficients robustly correlate with trait-to-expression causal effects (r &lt;sub&gt;BMI &lt;/sub&gt; = 0.11, P &lt;sub&gt;BMI &lt;/sub&gt; = 2.0 × 10 &lt;sup&gt;-51&lt;/sup&gt; and r &lt;sub&gt;TG &lt;/sub&gt; = 0.13, P &lt;sub&gt;TG &lt;/sub&gt; = 1.1 × 10 &lt;sup&gt;-68&lt;/sup&gt; ), but not detectably with expression-to-trait effects. Our results demonstrate that studies comparing the transcriptome of diseased and healthy subjects are more prone to reveal disease-induced gene expression changes rather than disease causing ones