Effects of gender and slaughter age on physicochemical and quality traits of Korean Hanwoo striploin.

Hanwoo beef is in high demand because of its unique flavor, freshness, and high-fat content. However, the longer rearing period required to enhance marbling in Hanwoo cattle has adverse environmental consequences, such as greenhouse gas emissions and overall rearing costs. To address consumer preferences for leaner and healthier meat, the Korean meat industry has recently introduced Hanwoo heifer meat as an alternative source, but its quality traits are still unclear. Nevertheless, there is a limited body of research exploring the impact of Hanwoo gender (steer, heifer, and cow) and their corresponding slaughter ages on meat quality traits. This study looked into how gender affected the physicochemical and qualitative features of Hanwoo striploin at their respective slaughter ages. Results revealed that cow striploin has higher levels of moisture (66.81%) and protein (20.76%), whereas it contains lower levels of fat (10.66%) and cholesterol (34.66 mg/100 g). Regarding the physicochemical properties, cow striploin exhibited significantly lower shear force, color indexes, and soluble collagen (p < 0.05). However, chondroitin (1.19%) and muscle fiber area (1,545.23 µm2) were significantly higher in steer striploin than in heifer and cow (p < 0.05). Cow striploin exhibited significantly higher levels of oleic acid, unsaturated fatty acids (UFAs), and monounsaturated fatty acids (MUFAs) while having lower levels of eicosadienoic acid and atherogenic index compared to the other two groups. Cows and heifers had higher concentrations of amino acid metabolites than striploin from steers. Furthermore, bioactive metabolites such as carnitine and carnosine content were found higher in cow and heifer respectively. Overall, Hanwoo cattle gender influences the qualitative attributes of striploin; nevertheless, compared to steer and heifer striploin, cow striploin is a relatively good source of protein, fatty acid content, and metabolites conducive to a healthy diet.

Sex differences in the association between sleep duration and frailty in older adults: evidence from the KNHANES study.

BACKGROUND: Frailty is a pervasive clinical syndrome among the older population. It is associated with an increased risk of diverse adverse health outcomes including death. The association between sleep duration and frailty remains unclear. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between sleep duration and frailty in community-dwelling Korean older adults and to determine whether this relationship is sex-dependent. METHODS: Data on 3,953 older adults aged ≥ 65 years were obtained from the 7th (2016-2018) Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). Frailty was defined using the Fried phenotype with criteria customized for the KNHANES dataset. Self-reported sleep duration was classified as short sleep duration (≤ 6 h), middle sleep duration (6.1-8.9 h), and long sleep duration (≥ 9 h). Complex samples multivariate logistic regression analysis was conducted to estimate odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs). RESULTS: The percentage of male participants with short, middle, and long sleep durations was 34.9%, 62.1%, and 16.8%, respectively, while that of female participants was 26.1%, 59.2%, and 14.7%. The prevalence of frailty in the middle sleep duration group was lower than that in the short and long sleep duration groups in both men (short, 14.7%; middle, 14.2%; long, 24.5%; p < 0.001) and women (short, 42.9%; middle, 27.6%; long, 48.6%; p < 0.001). Both short (OR = 2.61, 95% CI = 1.91 - 4.83) and long (OR = 2.57, 95% CI = 1.36 - 3.88) sleep duration groups had a significantly higher OR for frailty than the middle sleep duration group even after adjusting for confounding variables among women, but not among men. CONCLUSION: Short and long sleep durations were independently associated with frailty in community-dwelling Korean older adult women. Managing sleep problems among women should be prioritized, and effective interventions to prevent frailty should be developed accordingly.

Nursing students' experiences regarding physical restraint use in long-term care facilities: A qualitative descriptive study.

BACKGROUND: Despite many harmful effects, physical restraints are still used in long-term care facilities. Most existing studies have focused on staff. Nursing students observe staff's use of restraints during gerontological nursing practicums, but there are few studies on nursing students' experiences regarding restraint use in long-term care settings. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to explore nursing students' experiences with physical restraint use in order to enhance nursing education and improve care quality in long-term care facilities. METHODS: Using convenience sampling method, three nursing schools from three provinces were recruited. Twenty-six senior undergraduate nursing students who had taken a gerontological nursing practicum course participated in this study. A qualitative descriptive method was utilized to provide a clear account of the students' experiences. In-depth interviews were conducted using a semi-structured interview guide. Thematic analysis was used for data analysis. RESULTS: Four themes were identified, which included overuse of restraints, ambivalent response to restraints, becoming accustomed to restraints, and lack of education regarding restraints. Students frequently observed the use of various restraints, which elicited both negative and positive responses, ultimately leading to their desensitization to the overuse of restraints. They expressed a lack of knowledge and educational needs regarding restraint reduction. CONCLUSION: Nursing students encountered the overuse of various restraints, exhibited ambivalent responses, and became desensitized to this practice in long-term care facilities. They perceived a lack of education and educational needs regarding restraint reduction. This study adds important new knowledge to existing literature and provides important insights into restraint use in long-term care facilities. Future studies need to develop and evaluate educational programs for restraint-free and person-centered care targeting nursing students. Long-term care facilities should offer organizational support and implement continuous mandatory training to promote restraint-free care.

Pilot study on the distribution of caseous lymphadenitis in Korean native goats and the relationship between sex and age in disease occurrence.

Caseous lymphadenitis (CLA) caused by Corynebacterium pseudotuberculosis is a chronic disease that affects goats. The Korean native goat (KNG) is the most popular goat breed raised in Korea. In this study, the distribution of CLA in the KNG population and the relevance of sex and age in disease development were determined. From March 2020 to February 2021, 1,177 KNGs from 110 farms were assessed. The distribution of CLA in animals was determined by a veterinary inspector who performed gross examinations of goat carcasses and confirmed diagnoses via polymerase chain reaction and bacteriological examination. The CLA detection rate in the KNG population was 19.80%, and more than half of the farms were affected by the disease (56.36%). A statistically significant difference was observed among the sex groups, with castrated males (13.98%) having the lowest detection rate, followed by intact males (22.48%) and females (24.09%), suggesting that castration has a positive effect on reducing the risk of CLA (p < 0.05). In terms of age groups, an increased detection rate of 28.16% was observed in the late adult (>2 years) group. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the RNA polymerase beta subunit-encoding gene can effectively differentiate biovar ovis from biovar equi and can be used for further epidemiological studies of C. pseudotuberculosis. This is the first nationwide surveillance study of CLA distribution to confirm the continuous occurrence of CLA in Korean goat farms. Future studies should include risk factor analyses of CLA based on herd levels to prevent and control this disease in Korea.

Effect of organic mineral supplementation in reducing oxidative stress in Holstein calves during short-term heat stress and recovery conditions.

BACKGROUND: This study investigated the effects of inorganic and organic minerals on physiological responses, oxidative stress reduction, and rumen microbiota in Holstein bull calves (123.81 ± 9.76 kg; 5 months old) during short-term heat stress (HS) and recovery periods. Eight Holstein calves were randomly assigned to four treatment groups: no mineral supplementation (Con), inorganic minerals (IM), organic minerals (OM), and high-concentration organic minerals (HOM) and two thermal environments (HS and recovery) using 4 × 2 factorial arrangement in a crossover design of four periods of 35 d. Calves were maintained in a temperature-controlled barn. The experimental period consisted of 14 d of HS, 14 d of recovery condititon, and a 7-d washing period. RESULTS: Body temperature and respiration rate were higher in HS than in the recovery conditions (P < 0.05). Selenium concentration in serum was high in the HOM-supplemented calves in both HS (90.38 µg/dL) and recovery periods (102.00 µg/dL) (P < 0.05). During the HS period, the serum cortisol was 20.26 ng/mL in the HOM group, which was 5.60 ng/mL lower than in the control group (P < 0.05). The total antioxidant status was the highest in the OM group (2.71 mmol Trolox equivalent/L), followed by the HOM group during HS, whereas it was highest in the HOM group (2.58 mmol Trolox equivalent/L) during the recovery period (P < 0.05). Plasma malondialdehyde and HSP70 levels were decreased by HOM supplementation during the HS and recovery periods, whereas SOD and GPX levels were not significantly affected (P > 0.05). The principal coordinate analysis represented that the overall rumen microbiota was not influenced by mineral supplementation; however, temperature-induced microbial structure shifts were indicated (PERMANOVA: P < 0.05). At the phylum level, Firmicutes and Actinobacteria decreased, whereas Fibrobacteres, Spirochaetes, and Tenericutes increased (P < 0.05), under HS conditions. The genus Treponema increased under HS conditions, while Christensenella was higher in recovery conditions (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: HOM supplementation during HS reduced cortisol concentrations and increased total antioxidant status in Holstein bull calves, suggesting that high organic mineral supplementation may alleviate the adverse effects of HS.

Effects of Italian ryegrass silage-based total mixed ration on rumen fermentation, growth performance, blood metabolites, and bacterial communities of growing Hanwoo heifers.

This study utilized Italian ryegrass silage (IRGS) - based total mixed ration (TMR) as feedstuff and evaluated its effects on rumen fermentation, growth performance, blood parameters, and bacterial community in growing Hanwoo heifers. Twenty-seven Hanwoo heifers (body weight [BW], 225.11 ± 10.57 kg) were randomly allocated to three experimental diets. Heifers were fed 1 of 3 treatments as follows: TMR with oat, timothy, and alfalfa hay (CON), TMR with 19% of IRGS (L-IRGS), and TMR with 36% of IRGS (H-IRGS). Feeding high levels of IRGS (H-IRGS) and CON TMR to heifers resulted in a greater molar proportion of propionate in the rumen. The impact of different TMR diets on the BW, average daily gain, dry matter intake, and feed conversion ratio of Hanwoo heifers during the growing period did not differ (p > 0.05). Furthermore, the blood metabolites, total protein, albumin, aspartate aminotransferase, glucose, and total cholesterol of the heifers were not affected by the different TMR diets (p > 0.05). In terms of rumen bacterial community composition, 264 operational taxonomic units (OTUs) were observed across the three TMR diets with 240, 239, and 220 OTUs in CON, L-IRGS, and H-IRGS, respectively. IRGS-based diets increased the relative abundances of genera belonging to phylum Bacteroidetes but decreased the abundances of genus belonging to phylum Firmicutes compared with the control. Data showed that Bacteroidetes was the most dominant phylum, while Prevotella ruminicola was the dominant species across the three TMR groups. The relative abundance of Ruminococcus bromii in the rumen increased in heifers fed with high inclusion of IRGS in the TMR (H-IRGS TMR). The relative abundance of R. bromii in the rumen significantly increased when heifers were fed H-IRGS TMR while P. ruminicola increased in both L-IRGS and H-IRGS TMR groups. Results from the current study demonstrate that the inclusion of IRGS in the TMR is comparable with the TMR containing high-quality forage (CON). Thus, a high level of IRGS can be used as a replacement forage ingredient in TMR feeding and had a beneficial effect of possibly modulating the rumen bacterial community toward mainly propionate-producing microorganisms.

Ions-Silica Percolated Ionic Dielectric Elastomer Actuator for Soft Robots.

Soft robotics systems are currently under development using ionic electroactive polymers (i-EAP) as soft actuators for the human-machine interface. However, this endeavor has been impeded by the dilemma of reconciling the competing demands of force and strain in i-EAP actuators. Here, the authors present a novel design called "ions-silica percolated ionic dielectric elastomer (i-SPIDER)", which exhibits ionic liquid-confined silica microstructures that effectively resolve the chronic issue of conventional i-EAP actuators. The i-SPIDER actuator demonstrates remarkable electromechanical conversion capacity at low voltage, thanks to improved ion accumulation facilitated by interpreting electrode polarization at the electrolyte-electrode interface. This approach concurrently enhances both strain (by approximately 1.52%) and force (by roughly 1.06 mN) even at low Young's modulus (merely 5.9 MPa). Additionally, by demonstrating arachnid-inspired soft robots endowed with user-desired tasks through control of various form factors, the development of soft robots using the i-SPIDER that can concomitantly enhance strain and force holds promise as a compelling avenue for ushering in the next generation of miniaturized, low-powered soft robotics.

Analysis of Fecal Microbial Changes in Young Calves Following Bovine Rotavirus Infection.

The objective of the present study was to identify changes in fecal microbiota and predict the functional features of healthy calves and those infected with rotavirus over time. Six Holstein calves (average body weight 43.63 ± 1.19 kg, age-matched within 5-7 d) were randomly selected and distributed into two groups which contained three calves each. Fecal samples were taken 3 days before inoculation and on days 1 and 7 post-inoculation. The 16S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing was performed. Bacterial diversity tended to decrease in the rota group, as indicated by the alpha (evenness, p = 0.074 and Shannon, p = 0.055) and beta (Bray-Curtis dissimilarity, p = 0.099) diversity at 1 day post-inoculation. Differences in the bacterial taxa between healthy and rota-infected calves were detected using a linear discriminant analysis effect size (LDA > 2.0, p < 0.05). Rota calves had a higher abundance of certain bacterial taxa, such as Enterococcus, Streptococcus, and Escherichia-Shigella, and a lower abundance of bacteria that contribute to the production of short-chain fatty acids, such as Alistipes, Faecalibacterium, Pseudoflavonifractor, Subdoligranulum, Alloprevotella, Butyricicoccus, and Ruminococcus, compared to the healthy calves. The observed changes in the fecal microbiota of the rota-infected group compared to the healthy group indicated potential dysbiosis. This was further supported by significant differences in the predicted functional metagenomic profiles of these microbial communities. We suggest that calves infected with bovine rotavirus had bacterial dysbiosis, which was characterized by lower diversity and fewer observed genera than the fecal microbiota of healthy calves.

Composition and functional diversity of bacterial communities during swine carcass decomposition.

OBJECTIVE: This study investigated the changes in bacterial communities within decomposing swine microcosms, comparing soil with or without intact microbial communities, and under aerobic and anaerobic conditions. METHODS: The experimental microcosms consisted of four conditions: UA, unsterilized soil-aerobic condition; SA, sterilized soil-aerobic condition; UAn, unsterilized soil-anaerobic condition; and San, sterilized soil-anaerobic condition. The microcosms were prepared by mixing 112.5 g of soil and 37.5 g of ground carcass, which were then placed in sterile containers. The carcass-soil mixture was sampled at day 0, 5, 10, 30, and 60 of decomposition, and the bacterial communities that formed during carcass decomposition were assessed using Illumina MiSeq sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. RESULTS: A total of 1,687 amplicon sequence variants representing 22 phyla and 805 genera were identified in the microcosms. The Chao1 and Shannon diversity indices varied in between microcosms at each period (p<0.05). Metagenomic analysis showed variation in the taxa composition across the burial microcosms during decomposition, with Firmicutes being the dominant phylum, followed by Proteobacteria. At the genus level, Bacillus and Clostridium were the main genera within Firmicutes. Functional prediction revealed that the most abundant Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes metabolic functions were carbohydrate and amino acid metabolisms. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated a higher bacteria diversity in UA and UAn microcosms than in SA and SAn microcosms. In addition, the taxonomic composition of the microbial community also exhibited changes, highlighting the impact of soil sterilization and oxygen on carcass decomposition. Furthermore, this study provided insights into the microbial communities associated with decomposing swine carcasses in microcosm.

Biomedical Relation Extraction Using Dependency Graph and Decoder-Enhanced Transformer Model.

The identification of drug-drug and chemical-protein interactions is essential for understanding unpredictable changes in the pharmacological effects of drugs and mechanisms of diseases and developing therapeutic drugs. In this study, we extract drug-related interactions from the DDI (Drug-Drug Interaction) Extraction-2013 Shared Task dataset and the BioCreative ChemProt (Chemical-Protein) dataset using various transfer transformers. We propose BERTGAT that uses a graph attention network (GAT) to take into account the local structure of sentences and embedding features of nodes under the self-attention scheme and investigate whether incorporating syntactic structure can help relation extraction. In addition, we suggest T5slim_dec, which adapts the autoregressive generation task of the T5 (text-to-text transfer transformer) to the relation classification problem by removing the self-attention layer in the decoder block. Furthermore, we evaluated the potential of biomedical relation extraction of GPT-3 (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) using GPT-3 variant models. As a result, T5slim_dec, which is a model with a tailored decoder designed for classification problems within the T5 architecture, demonstrated very promising performances for both tasks. We achieved an accuracy of 91.15% in the DDI dataset and an accuracy of 94.29% for the CPR (Chemical-Protein Relation) class group in ChemProt dataset. However, BERTGAT did not show a significant performance improvement in the aspect of relation extraction. We demonstrated that transformer-based approaches focused only on relationships between words are implicitly eligible to understand language well without additional knowledge such as structural information.

Influence of dietary organic trace minerals on enteric methane emissions and rumen microbiota of heat-stressed dairy steers.

Ruminants are the main contributors to methane (CH4), a greenhouse gas emitted by livestock, which leads to global warming. In addition, animals experience heat stress (HS) when exposed to high ambient temperatures. Organic trace minerals are commonly used to prevent the adverse effects of HS in ruminants; however, little is known about the role of these minerals in reducing enteric methane emissions. Hence, this study aimed to investigate the influence of dietary organic trace minerals on rumen fermentation characteristics, enteric methane emissions, and the composition of rumen bacteria and methanogens in heat-stressed dairy steers. Holstein (n=3) and Jersey (n=3) steers were kept separately within a 3×3 Latin square design, and the animals were exposed to HS conditions (Temperature-Humidity Index [THI], 82.79 ± 1.10). For each experiment, the treatments included a Control (Con) consisting of only basal total mixed rations (TMR), National Research Council (NRC) recommended mineral supplementation group (NM; TMR + [Se 0.1 ppm + Zn 30 ppm + Cu 10 ppm]/kg dry matter), and higher concentration of mineral supplementation group (HM; basal TMR + [Se 3.5 ppm + Zn 350 ppm + Cu 28 ppm]/kg dry matter). Higher concentrations of trace mineral supplementation had no influence on methane emissions and rumen bacterial and methanogen communities regardless of breed (p > 0.05). Holstein steers had higher ruminal pH and lower total volatile fatty acid (VFA) concentrations than Jersey steers (p < 0.05). Methane production (g/d) and yield (g/kg dry matter intake) were higher in Jersey steers than in Holstein steers (p < 0.05). The relative abundances of Methanosarcina and Methanobrevibacter olleyae were significantly higher in Holstein steers than in Jersey steers (p < 0.05). Overall, dietary organic trace minerals have no influence on enteric methane emissions in heat-stressed dairy steers; however, breed can influence it through selective alteration of the rumen methanogen community.

Effects of Nonpharmacological Interventions on Sleep Quality and Insomnia in Perimenopausal and Postmenopausal Women: A Meta-Analysis.

This study aimed to analyze the effects of nonpharmacological interventions on perimenopausal and postmenopausal women with sleep problems. Eight databases (MEDLINE/PubMed, Cochrane Library, EMBASE, CINAHL, and four Korean databases) were searched, from their inception through to 30 November 2021, for randomized controlled trials (RCTs) evaluating the effects of nonpharmacological interventions versus control conditions on sleep quality and insomnia in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. Sleep quality was assessed using the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI), and the severity of insomnia was assessed using the Insomnia Severity Index (ISI). In the meta-analysis, corrected standardized mean differences (SMDs; Hedges' g) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated as effect measures by applying the random effects model and inverse variant method. Fifteen trials met our inclusion criteria. Nonpharmacological interventions were found to have positive effects on sleep quality, measured with the PSQI (SMD = -1.32; 95% CI = -1.78 to -0.86; p < 0.001), and on the severity of insomnia, measured using the ISI (SMD = -1.11; 95% CI = -1.82 to -0.41; p = 0.002), compared with the control groups. Among perimenopausal and postmenopausal women with sleep problems, nonpharmacological interventions improved sleep quality and reduced the severity of insomnia.

Nursing students' experiences and perceptions of barriers to the implementation of person-centred care in clinical settings: A qualitative study.

AIM: This study aimed to explore the barriers to implementing person-centred care based on nursing students' experiences during clinical practice. DESIGN: This is a descriptive, qualitative study. METHODS: Seventeen nursing students were recruited through purposeful sampling from two universities in South Korea. The semi-structured interviews consisting of open-ended questions were conducted. The collected data were analysed using an inductive content analysis method. RESULTS: Five main categories were identified from nursing students' experiences: busyness, educational challenges, lack of awareness, lack of relationship building and lack of a policy approach.

Geometric-phase intraocular lenses with multifocality.

We demonstrate a new type of multifocal and extended depth of focus (EDOF) intraocular lenses (IOLs) embedding µm-thin geometric phase (GP) lens layers. As an emerging approach for lens phase design, the GP modulated IOLs outperform conventional diffractive IOLs in multifocality while completely avoiding the clinically undesirable demand for additional surface patterns to standard monofocal IOL designs. The number of foci and light splitting ratio of the GP IOLs are adjusted by changing the number of stacked GP layers and the thickness of each layer. Bifocal and trifocal GP IOLs are fabricated by radial alignment of anisotropic orientation in UV-curable liquid crystal polymers. After characterizing the defocus image and modulation transfer function of the GP IOLs, it is expected that GP IOLs will alleviate the most common problems associated with multifocal and EDOF IOLs, blurred vision and photic phenomena caused by light scattering and posterior capsule opacification.

Higher Concentration of Dietary Selenium, Zinc, and Copper Complex Reduces Heat Stress-Associated Oxidative Stress and Metabolic Alteration in the Blood of Holstein and Jersey Steers.

This study investigated the influence of high concentrations of dietary minerals on reducing heat stress (HS)-associated oxidative stress and metabolic alterations in the blood of Holstein and Jersey steers. Holstein steers and Jersey steers were separately maintained under a 3 × 3 Latin square design during the summer conditions. For each trial, the treatments included Control (Con; fed basal TMR without additional mineral supplementation), NM (NRC recommended mineral supplementation group; [basal TMR + (Se 0.1 ppm + Zn 30 ppm + Cu 10 ppm) as DM basis]), and HM (higher than NRC recommended mineral supplementation group; [basal TMR + (Se 3.5 ppm + Zn 350 ppm + Cu 28 ppm) as DM basis]). Blood samples were collected at the end of each 20-day feeding trial. In both breeds, a higher superoxide dismutase concentration (U/mL) along with lower HSP27 (µg/L) and HSP70 (µg/L) concentrations were observed in both mineral-supplemented groups compared to the Con group (p < 0.05). The HM group had significantly higher lactic acid levels in Jersey steers (p < 0.05), and tended to have higher alanine levels in Holstein steers (p = 0.051). Based on star pattern recognition analysis, the levels of succinic acid, malic acid, γ-linolenic acid, 13-methyltetradecanoic acid, and tyrosine decreased, whereas palmitoleic acid increased with increasing mineral concentrations in both breeds. Different treatment groups of both breeds were separated according to the VIP scores of the top 15 metabolites through PLS−DA analysis; however, their metabolic trend was mostly associated with the glucose homeostasis. Overall, the results suggested that supplementation with a higher-than-recommended concentration of dietary minerals rich in organic Se, as was the case in the HM group, would help to prevent HS-associated oxidative stress and metabolic alterations in Holstein and Jersey steers.

Metabolomic and transcriptomic study to understand changes in metabolic and immune responses in steers under heat stress.

Heat stress (HS) damages livestock by adversely affecting physiological and immunological functions. However, fundamental understanding of the metabolic and immunological mechanisms in animals under HS remains elusive, particularly in steers. To understand the changes on metabolic and immune responses in steers under HS condition, we performed RNA-sequencing and proton nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy-based metabolomics on HS-free (THI value: 64.92 ± 0.56) and HS-exposed (THI value: 79.13 ± 0.56) Jersey steer (n = 8, body weight: 559.67 ± 32.72 kg). This study clarifies the metabolic changes in 3 biofluids (rumen fluid, serum, and urine) and the immune responses observed in the peripheral blood mononuclear cells of HS-exposed steers. This integrated approach allowed the discovery of HS-sensitive metabolic and immunological pathways. The metabolomic analysis indicated that HS-exposed steers showed potential HS biomarkers such as isocitrate, formate, creatine, and riboflavin (P < 0.05). Among them, there were several integrative metabolic pathways between rumen fluid and serum. Furthermore, HS altered mRNA expression and immune-related signaling pathways. A meta-analysis revealed that HS decreased riboflavin metabolism and the expression of glyoxylate and dicarboxylate metabolism-related genes. Moreover, metabolic pathways, such as the hypoxia-inducible factor-1 signaling pathway, were downregulated in immune cells by HS (P < 0.05). These findings, along with the datasets of pathways and phenotypic differences as potential biomarkers in steers, can support more in-depth research to elucidate the inter-related metabolic and immunological pathways. This would help suggest new strategies to ameliorate the effects of HS, including disease susceptibility and metabolic disorders, in Jersey steers.

Ion-cluster-mediated ultrafast self-healable ionoconductors for reconfigurable electronics.

Implementing self-healing capabilities in a deformable platform is one of the critical challenges for achieving future wearable electronics with high durability and reliability. Conventional systems are mostly based on polymeric materials, so their self-healing usually proceeds at elevated temperatures to promote chain flexibility and reduce healing time. Here, we propose an ion-cluster-driven self-healable ionoconductor composed of rationally designed copolymers and ionic liquids. After complete cleavage, the ionoconductor can be repaired with high efficiency (∼90.3%) within 1 min even at 25 °C, which is mainly attributed to the dynamic formation of ion clusters between the charged moieties in copolymers and ionic liquids. By taking advantages of the superior self-healing performance, stretchability (∼1130%), non-volatility (over 6 months), and ability to be easily shaped as desired through cutting and re-assembly protocol, reconfigurable, deformable light-emitting electroluminescent displays are successfully demonstrated as promising electronic platforms for future applications.

Decreasing causal impacts of El Niño-Southern Oscillation on future fire activities.

Wildfires alter the composition and structure of ecosystems and result in huge economic costs. While future fires and ecosystems recovery might become increasingly challenging to manage under warming environment, further understanding of the main drivers of wildfires is necessary. The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) is a major climate mode and is expected to affect global wildfires. Nevertheless, there is uncertainty regarding the causal impacts of ENSO on future fire activities at the global scale. Here we use model outputs from the Coupled Modeling Intercomparison Project Phase 6 to systematically evaluate the response of future fire activities (i.e., fire carbon emissions) to ENSO during the period 2015-2100 over different continents. Our results demonstrate that the impacts of ENSO on fires are found in the tropical and subtropical regions of Africa, Asia, Oceania, and America, while ENSO impacts over high latitude regions are very limited over Alaska and far eastern Europe. We showed that the role of ENSO on fire activities over subtropical regions might be more important than previously understood. High consistency between models is observed for the impacted regions. In historical experiment, the areas with significant ENSO effects on wildfires account for approximately 5.85% of land-area and this ratio decreases to approximately 5.39% and 2.92% of land-area in the future scenarios SSP2-4.5 and SSP5-8.5, respectively. These results imply a decrease in ENSO impacts on global fire activities in future projections compared to the historical period 1915-2000. This work might contribute to the ENSO-based forecasts of global fire activities.

Dual Triggered Correspondence Topic (DTCT)model for MeSH annotation.

Accurate Medical Subject Headings (MeSH)annotation is an important issue for researchers in terms of effective information retrieval and knowledge discovery in the biomedical literature. We have developed a powerful dual triggered correspondence topic (DTCT)model for MeSH annotated articles. In our model, two types of data are assumed to be generated by the same latent topic factors and words in abstracts and titles serve as descriptions of the other type, MeSH terms. Our model allows the generation of MeSHs in abstracts to be triggered either by general document topics or by document-specific "special" word distributions in a probabilistic manner, allowing for a trade-off between the benefits of topic-based abstraction and specific word matching. In order to relax the topic influences of non-topical words or domain-frequent words in text description, we integrated the discriminative feature of Okapi BM25 into word sampling probability. This allows the model to choose keywords, which stand out from others, in order to generate MeSH terms. We further incorporate prior knowledge about relations between word and MeSH in DTCT with phi-coefficient to improve topic coherence. We demonstrated the model's usefulness in automatic MeSH annotation. Our model obtained 0.62 F-score 150,00 MEDLINE test set and showed a strength in recall rate. Specially, it yielded competitive performances in an integrated probabilistic environment without additional post-processing for filtering MeSHs.

Impact of Soil Microbes and Oxygen Availability on Bacterial Community Structure of Decomposing Poultry Carcasses.

The impact of soil with an intact microbial community and oxygen availability on moisture content, soil pH, and bacterial communities during decomposition of poultry carcasses was investigated. Poultry carcasses were decomposed in soil with or without a microbial community, under aerobic or anaerobic conditions. The samples collected in each microcosm burial set-up were analyzed by targeted 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and Amplicon sequence variants (ASV) method. Our results showed that moisture was high in the burial set-ups under anaerobic conditions and pH was high in the burial set-ups under aerobic conditions. Meanwhile, the Chao1 and Shannon index significantly differed between the different burial set-ups and across different time points. In addition, bacterial taxa composition during the early period of decomposition differed from that of the late period. A total of 23 phyla, 901 genera, and 1992 species were identified. Firmicutes was the most dominant phyla in all burial set-ups throughout the decomposition. At day 60, Pseudogracilibacillus was dominant in the burial set-ups under aerobic conditions, while Lentibacillus dominated in the burial set-ups under anaerobic conditions. This study demonstrated that the soil microbial community and availability of oxygen significantly affected the changes in moisture content, pH, and bacterial composition during the decomposition process.