The transparent, flexible, and open-source Python library carculator_truck is introduced to perform the life cycle assessment of a series of medium- and heavy-duty trucks across different powertrain ...types, size classes, fuel pathways, and years in a European context. Unsurprisingly, greenhouse gas emissions per ton-km reduce as size and load factor increase. By 2040, battery and fuel cell electric trucks appear to be promising options to reduce greenhouse gas emissions per ton-km on long distance segments, even where the required range autonomy is high. This requires that various conditions are met, such as improvements at the energy storage level and a drastic reduction of the greenhouse gas intensity of the electricity used for battery charging and hydrogen production. Meanwhile, these options may be considered for urban and regional applications, where they have a competitive advantage thanks to their superior engine efficiency. Finally, these alternative options will have to compete against more mature combustion-based technologies which, despite lower drivetrain efficiencies, are expected to reduce their exhaust emissions via engine improvements, hybridization of their powertrain, as well as the use of biomass-based and synthetic fuels.
Recent news coverage on pricing portrays the importance of price fairness. This article conceptually integrates the theoretical foundations of fairness perceptions and summarizes empirical findings ...on price fairness. The authors identify research issues and gaps in existing knowledge on buyers' perceptions of price fairness. The article concludes with guidelines for managerial practice.
Biofluorescence occurs when a living organism absorbs high energy light and reemits it at longer wavelengths. Many species within clades of vertebrates are known to fluoresce including mammals, ...reptiles, birds, and fish. Most, if not all, amphibians exhibit biofluorescence when exposed to either blue (440-460 nm) or ultra-violet (360-380 nm) wavelengths of light. Salamanders (Lissamphibia: Caudata) appear to consistently fluoresce in green wavelengths (520-560 nm) when excited by blue light. Biofluorescence is theorized to have many ecological functions including mate signaling, camouflage, and mimicry. Despite the discovery of their biofluorescence, its role in salamander ecology and behavior remains unresolved. In this study we present the first case of biofluorescent sexual dimorphism within Amphibia and the first documentation of the biofluorescent pattern of a salamander within the Plethodon jordani species complex. This sexually dimorphic trait was discovered in the southern Appalachian endemic species, Southern Gray-Cheeked Salamander (Plethodon metcalfi, Brimley in Proc Biol Soc Wash 25:135-140, 1912), and may extend into other species within the Plethodon jordani and Plethodon glutinosus species complexes. We propose that this sexually dimorphic trait could be related to fluorescence of ventral modified granular glands used in plethodontid chemosensory communication.
Differential expression of mucins has been associated with several cancers including colorectal cancer (CRC). In normal physiological conditions, secretory mucin MUC5AC is not expressed in the ...colonic mucosa, whereas its aberrant expression is observed during development of colon cancer and its precursor lesions. To date, the molecular mechanism of MUC5AC in CRC progression and drug resistance remains obscure.
MUC5AC expression was determined in colon tissue microarray by immunohistochemistry. A RNA interference and CRISPR/Cas9-mediated system was used to knockdown/knockout the MUC5AC in CRC cell lines to delineate its role in CRC tumorigenesis using in vitro functional assays and in vivo (sub-cutaneous and colon orthotopic) mouse models. Finally, CRC cell lines and xenograft models were used to identify the mechanism of action of MUC5AC.
Overexpression of MUC5AC is observed in CRC patient tissues and cell lines. MUC5AC expression resulted in enhanced cell invasion and migration, and decreased apoptosis of CRC cells. MUC5AC interacted with CD44 physically, which was accompanied by the activation of Src signaling. Further, the presence of MUC5AC resulted in enhanced tumorigenesis and appearance of metastatic lesions in orthotopic mouse model. Additionally, up-regulation of MUC5AC resulted in resistance to 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) and oxaliplatin, and its knockout increased sensitivity to these drugs. Finally, we observed that up-regulation of MUC5AC conferred resistance to 5-FU through down-regulation of p53 and its target gene p21 and up-regulation of β-catenin and its target genes CD44 and Lgr5.
Our findings suggest that differential expression of secretory mucin MUC5AC results in enhanced tumorigenesis and also confers chemoresistance via CD44/β-catenin/p53/p21 signaling.
Empirical evidence increasingly supports the hypothesis that patterns of intrinsic functional connectivity (iFC) are sculpted by a history of evoked coactivation within distinct neuronal networks. ...This, together with evidence of strong correspondence among the networks defined by iFC and those delineated using a variety of other neuroimaging techniques, suggests a fundamental brain architecture detectable across multiple functional and structural imaging modalities. Here, we leverage this insight to examine the functional organization of the human insula. We parcellated the insula on the basis of three distinct neuroimaging modalities — task-evoked coactivation, intrinsic (i.e., task-independent) functional connectivity, and gray matter structural covariance. Clustering of these three different covariance-based measures revealed a convergent elemental organization of the insula that likely reflects a fundamental brain architecture governing both brain structure and function at multiple spatial scales. While not constrained to be hierarchical, our parcellation revealed a pseudo-hierarchical, multiscale organization that was consistent with previous clustering and meta-analytic studies of the insula. Finally, meta-analytic examination of the cognitive and behavioral domains associated with each of the insular clusters obtained elucidated the broad functional dissociations likely underlying the topography observed. To facilitate future investigations of insula function across healthy and pathological states, the insular parcels have been made freely available for download via http://fcon_1000.projects.nitrc.org, along with the analytic scripts used to perform the parcellations.
► We parcellated human insula by clustering MRI data comprising three image modalities. ► A convergent multiscale organization of the insula was observed. ► A fundamental architecture governs both brain structure and function. ► Our scheme can inform investigations of insula in healthy and pathological states.
The evolution of sexual dimorphism is predicted to occur through reductions in between-sex genetic correlations (r
mf) for shared traits, but the physiological and genetic mechanisms that facilitate ...these reductions remain largely speculative. Here, we use a paternal half-sibling breeding design in captive brown anole lizards (Anolis sagrei) to show that the development of sexual size dimorphism is mirrored by the ontogenetic breakdown of r
mf for body size and growth rate. Using transcriptome data from the liver (which integrates growth and metabolism), we show that sex-biased gene expression also increases dramatically between ontogenetic stages bracketing this breakdown of r
mf. Ontogenetic increases in sex-biased expression are particularly evident for genes involved in growth, metabolism, and cell proliferation, suggesting that they contribute to both the development of sexual dimorphism and the breakdown of r
mf. Mechanistically, we show that treatment of females with testosterone stimulates the expression of male-biased genes while inhibiting the expression of female-biased genes, thereby inducing male-like phenotypes at both organismal and transcriptomic levels. Collectively, our results suggest that sex-specific modifiers such as testosterone can orchestrate sex-biased gene expression to facilitate the phenotypic development of sexual dimorphism while simultaneously reducing genetic correlations that would otherwise constrain the independent evolution of the sexes.
The Implicit Association Test (IAT) is employed in the domain of social psychology as a measure of implicit evaluation. Participants in this task complete blocks of trials where they are asked to ...respond to categories and attributes (e.g., types of faces and types of words). Reaction times in different blocks sharing certain response combinations are averaged and then subtracted from blocks with other response combinations and then normalized, the result of which is taken as a measure indicating implicit evaluation toward or away from the given categories. One assumption of this approach is stationarity of response time distributions, or at a minimum, that temporal dynamics in response times are not theoretically relevant. Here we test these assumptions, examine the extent to which response times change within the IAT blocks and, if so, how trajectories of change are meaningful in relation to external measures. Using multiple data sets we demonstrate within-session changes in IAT scores. Further, we demonstrate that dissociable components in the trajectories of IAT performance may be linked to theoretically distinct processes of cognitive biases as well as behaviors. The present work presents evidence that IAT performance changes within the task, while future work is needed to fully assess the implications of these temporal dynamics.
Despite the word's common usage by gamers and reviewers alike, it is still not clear what immersion means. This paper explores immersion further by investigating whether immersion can be defined ...quantitatively, describing three experiments in total. The first experiment investigated participants’ abilities to switch from an immersive to a non-immersive task. The second experiment investigated whether there were changes in participants’ eye movements during an immersive task. The third experiment investigated the effect of an externally imposed pace of interaction on immersion and affective measures (state anxiety, positive affect, negative affect). Overall the findings suggest that immersion can be measured subjectively (through questionnaires) as well as objectively (task completion time, eye movements). Furthermore, immersion is not only viewed as a positive experience: negative emotions and uneasiness (i.e. anxiety) also run high.
From the late nineteenth century through World War II, popular culture portrayed the American South as a region ensconced in its antebellum past, draped in moonlight and magnolias, and represented by ...such southern icons as the mammy, the belle, the chivalrous planter, white-columned mansions, and even bolls of cotton.InDreaming of Dixie, Karen Cox shows that the chief purveyors of this constructed nostalgia for the Old South were outsiders of the region, especially advertising agencies, musicians, publishers, radio personalities, writers, and filmmakers playing to consumers' anxiety about modernity by marketing the South as a region still dedicated to America's pastoral traditions. Cox examines how southerners themselves embraced the imaginary romance of the region's past, particularly in the tourist trade as southern states and cities sought to capitalize on popular perceptions by showcasing their Old South heritage. Only when television emerged as the most influential medium of popular culture did views of the South begin to change, as news coverage of the civil rights movement brought images of violence, protest, and conflict in the South into people's living rooms. Until then, Cox argues, most Americans remained content with their romantic vision of Dixie.
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