Search Results (9,040)

The rapid development and spread of electric vehicles is fundamentally revolutionizing transportation in the European Union and around the world. With the diffusion of electric vehicles, issues related to the batteries that power them have also become more prominent. Given that the production of these components is one of the most environmentally burdensome processes, the need for their secondary use has quickly become evident. Based on the Eurostat database, this article analyzes the indicators that may influence the prospects for the secondary use of batteries. It examines the relationship between the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of European Union member states and the number of electric vehicles, the share of renewable energy, and household electricity consumption. The results show that electric vehicle penetration and the use of renewable energy vary greatly among EU member states. The second part of the article examines battery data from an electric vehicle, the solar panel production of a family home, and electricity consumption using a linear programming model on a monthly basis. The objective function of the model makes it possible to minimize the amount of energy purchased from the grid. The resulting savings can be quantified. The article focuses on providing a foundation for the opportunities offered by the secondary-use battery market. Full article

Feline calicivirus (FCV) is among the few members of the Caliciviridae family that can replicate efficiently in vitro. Our recent studies have found the Transferrin Receptor Protein (TFRC) is an entry receptor that facilitates the internalization of FCV. To explore the potential involvement of additional host factors in conjunction with TFRC during the viral entry process, we identified metabotropic glutamate receptor 2 (mGluR2) as a specific interacting partner for both TFRC and the FCV VP1 protein by Co-IP analysis. Our findings indicate that the downregulation of mGluR2, along with its downstream signaling molecule, Calcium-activated potassium channel subunit alpha-1 (KCa1.1), significantly inhibits FCV replication by impairing viral internalization. Importantly, the knockout of TFRC did not diminish the effects of mGluR2 and KCa1.1 on FCV infection. Furthermore, mGluR2 was found to interact directly with FCV VP1, rather than with TFRC, and the rate of F-actin polymerization induced by FCV infection was reduced solely by the downregulation of mGluR2 protein expression, not by TFRC knockout. These results suggest that mGluR2 may independently mediate FCV internalization, operating independently of TFRC, and plays a critical role in the formation of endocytic vesicles. Overall, the results indicate that multiple host factors, including TFRC and mGluR2, are involved in the internalization of FCV into host cells. Further research is necessary to explore the propagation of other caliciviruses, such as norovirus, in vitro. Full article

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a frequent clinical and pathological condition, often resulting from factors like ischemia, toxins, or infections, which cause a sudden and severe decline in renal function. This, in turn, significantly affects patients’ overall health and quality of life. The Sirtuin family (SIRTs), a group of Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide (NAD+)-dependent deacetylases, is critically involved in key biological processes such as cellular metabolism, stress responses, aging, and DNA repair. Recent research has highlighted the vital role of SIRTs, such as SIRT1, SIRT3, and SIRT6, in the development and progression of AKI. These proteins help mitigate renal injury and facilitate kidney repair through mechanisms like antioxidant activity, anti-inflammatory responses, cellular repair, and energy metabolism. Additionally, the deacetylase activity of the SIRTs confers protection against AKI by modulating mitochondrial function, decreasing oxidative stress, and regulating autophagy. Although the precise mechanisms underlying the role of Sirtuins in AKI are still being explored, their potential as therapeutic targets is increasingly being recognized. This paper will discuss the mechanisms by which the SIRTs influence AKI and examine their potential in a future therapeutic strategy. Full article

Basic helix-loop-helix (bHLH) transcription factors represent one of the largest transcriptional regulator families in cereal crops such as rice, maize, and wheat. They play crucial and diverse roles in regulating key agronomic traits and essential physiological processes. This review provides a systematic synthesis of the functionally characterized bHLH genes across the three major cereals, offering a comparative perspective on their roles in growth, development, and stress responses. We comprehensively summarize their documented functions, highlighting specific regulators such as TaPGS1 for grain size, rice ILI subfamily for leaf angle, OsbHLH004 for seed dormancy and maize “Ms23-Ms32-bHLH122-bHLH51” cascade for the anther development. Their conserved and species-specific functions in iron homeostasis (e.g., IRO2) and in responses to drought, cold, salinity, and pathogens are also detailed. Additionally, we discuss the underlying molecular mechanisms, including specific binding to E-box/G-box cis-elements, protein dimerization, and integration with hormone signaling pathways. By integrating the current knowledge, this review serves as a consolidated and up-to-date reference that highlights the strategic potential of bHLH transcription factors in molecular breeding programs for improving yield, quality, and stress tolerance in cereals. Full article

Broccoli (Brassica oleracea L. var. italica) is a biennial or annual herbaceous plant belonging to the species Brassica oleracea in the genus Brassica of the Cruciferae family. The green flower curd serves as the primary edible organ, with its development and preservation critically determining broccoli yield and quality. Given that these processes are regulated by flowering time, understanding the mechanisms underlying floral transition is essential for enhancing broccoli yield and quality. This study aimed to identify the MADS-box family in broccoli and to investigate the function of the BoAGL8 gene in floral induction. We identified a total of 176 MADS-box genes, of which 54 genes were up-regulated and 50 genes were down-regulated under low-temperature treatment. Notably, the expression of BoAGL8 was up-regulated by 6.70-fold under low-temperature induction, prompting us to select and clone this gene for further analysis. Tissue-specific expression profiling further revealed that BoAGL8 is expressed at relatively high level in both mature and young leaves. After 15 days of low-temperature treatment, BoAGL8 expression in shoot tip was significantly upregulated compared to untreated controls. Subcellular localization analysis showed that BoAGL8 protein was located to the nucleus. Ectopic over-expression of BoAGL8 in Arabidopsis exhibited accelerated bolting and flowering, reduced rosette leaf number, and increased seed yield per plant compared to wild-type plants. Furthermore, compared to wild-type controls, transgenic lines exhibited upregulated expression of AtFT, AtAP1 and AtSEP3, alongside downregulation of SVP expression. The above results indicate that BoAGL8 may play a key regulatory role in the process of floral organ development in broccoli, providing an important theoretical basis for future research on flowering time regulation and breeding in broccoli. Full article

Background: Engaging in physical activity (PA) is especially significant for adolescents, as this is a key developmental stage for establishing lifelong habits. While the physical, mental, and cognitive health benefits of PA are well-documented, less is known about its relationship with adolescents’ life satisfaction (LS). Most existing evidence often involves small sample sizes, focusing particularly on developed regions, and few studies use large-scale comparative data. Methods: This study examines the association between adolescents’ LS and PA using data from the 2022 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the world’s largest comparative education survey of adolescents. Our analysis included 399,794 adolescents from 64 high- and middle-income countries and economies. We used three-level multilevel regressions. Results: We found that, after controlling for individual, family, and school factors, PA is positively and significantly associated with LS. This finding holds for the pooled sample and across the 64 countries analysed. For most countries, we did not find a significant gender moderator effect, suggesting that the positive association between PA and LS did not vary by gender. Conclusions: The findings suggest a global health promotion strategy to promote PA amongst adolescents as a normative developmental process necessary for their well-being and mental health. Full article

Scholars have long shown that post-separation abuse continues through legal channels and that legal institutions often reinforce existing social relations. Nevertheless, little is known about how abused mothers’ legal experiences shape their understanding of legality and how this dynamic may function to perpetuate coercive control. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 32 Israeli mothers co-parenting with abusive ex-partners, this study offers a phenomenological account of how post-separation abused mothers experience family law proceedings, based on a feminist imperative to bring their voices to center stage. The analysis reveals a dialectical legal consciousness comprising three interconnected orientations—characterized by internal contradictions and tensions that paradoxically serve to maintain rather than disrupt existing power relations: Institutional Trust and Disillusionment in the law’s protective promise, Institutional Asymmetry as experienced from the abused mothers’ perspective, and Recognizing Entrapment—the realization that legal processes reproduce the very dynamics they sought to escape. Abused mothers thus describe a paradoxical relationship with the law of both needing and distrusting a system that mandates continued contact with their abusers. Caught in a second-order abusive relationship, they feel compelled to comply with processes they perceive as harmful. We term this Entrapped Legal Consciousness—a form of legal subjectivity shaped by institutional norms that reconfigure resistance and reinscribe coercive control. This study offers empirical and theoretical insight into how legality may become a mechanism for cultivating continued control. Full article

Throughout history, cultural heritage has accumulated, and is often embodied in monuments, structures, and notable figures. Cultural heritage preservation and management also include digitalization, allowing tangible monuments to be managed as digital inventory with “digital twins”. This provides innovative ways to experience and interact with the real world, in particular by using modern mobile devices. The digitalization of monuments opens new ways to produce decorative items based on the shape of the monuments. Usually, decorative items are produced by craft businesses, family-run for generations, with specialized skills in metal and stone processing. We developed and tested a methodological proposal for frugal innovation: how to produce decorative items with minimal costs based on digital twins, which are particularly in demand in tourism-driven countries like Croatia. A micro-business with three employees, specializing in “metal art,” aims to innovate and expand by producing small-scale replicas of cultural heritage objects, such as busts, statues, monuments, or profiles. A method has been developed to create replicas in the desired material and at a desired scale, faithfully reproducing the original—whether based on a physical object, 3D model, or photograph. The results demonstrate that this sustainable frugal innovation can be successfully implemented using affordable tools and licenses. Full article

What does one learn about religion through a study of Syrian Christian family cultures? How do religion and family—both as historically shaped ideological frames and social classifiers—inflect each other in Syrian Christian articulations about their past and present? What do these inflections tell us about being Christian in Kerala and beyond? Does it offer a critique of religion and family as sui generis categories? Based on select examples of Syrian Christian articulations from digital family displays produced by family associations (or kudumbayogam), I will argue that the religion–family node (or more appropriately nexus) hovers over the muddle of social relations. On one hand, the triumph of religion as a state-cushioned, universal category separated from the realm of the social and the historical (or religion with a capital ‘R’) has meant a neat tucking away of Syrian Christian households under the rubric of a reified Christianity. Similarly, the invocation of the patrilineal, patriarchal family as a universal category bereft of specificities works in tandem with this ironed-out Christianity in Syrian Christian family cultures. On the other hand, beyond their function as easy explainers, the religion–family nexus includes particular details which complicate the universality of the categories. These details recover family and religion in their heterogeneous elements expressed in place-sensitive caste idioms. I argue that the ‘universal’ in family and religion is sustained by the ‘particular’. A dialectical process of differentiation and homogenisation is critical to the Syrian Christian embrace of the religion–family nexus. Full article

This study adopts a systems perspective to examine the persistent effects of China’s One-Child Policy (OCP) on the subjective well-being of older adults, emphasizing structural persistence, reinforcing feedback, and path-dependent lock-in in complex socio-technical systems. Using nationally representative data from the China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey (CLASS-2014), we exploit the OCP’s formal rollout at the end of 1979—operationalized with a 1980 cutoff—as a quasi-natural experiment. A Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity (FRD) design identifies the Local Average Treatment Effect of being an only-child parent on late-life well-being, mitigating endogeneity from selection and omitted variables. Theoretically, we integrate three lenses—policy durability and lock-in, intergenerational support, and life course dynamics—to construct a cross-level transmission framework: macro-institutional environments shape substitution capacity and constraint sets; meso-level family restructuring reconfigures support network topology and intergenerational resource flows; micro-level life-course processes accumulate policy-induced adaptations through education, savings, occupation, and residence choices, with effects materializing in old age. Empirically, we find that the OCP significantly reduces subjective well-being among the first generation of affected parents decades later (2SLS estimate ≈ −0.23 on a 1–5 scale). The effects are heterogeneous: rural residents experience large negative impacts, urban effects are muted; men are more adversely affected than women; and individuals without spouses exhibit greater declines than those with spouses. Design validity is supported by a discontinuous shift in fertility at the threshold, smooth density and covariate balance around the cutoff, bandwidth insensitivity, “donut” RD robustness, and a placebo test among ethnic minorities exempt from strict enforcement. These results demonstrate how demographic policies generate lasting impacts on elderly well-being through transforming intergenerational support systems. Policy implications include strengthening rural pension and healthcare systems, expanding community-based eldercare services for spouseless elderly, and developing complementary support programs. Full article

The cluster of differentiation 44 (CD44) is a member of the hyaluronic acid (HA) receptor family of cell adhesion molecules. Besides HA, this transmembrane protein also serves as a receptor for other components of the extracellular matrix (ECM), including fibronectin, collagen, and osteopontin (OPN). The CD44-HA axis is involved in a wide range of physiological and cancer-related processes, particularly in cell adhesion and migration, lymphocyte activation, as well as tumour progression and metastasis. The possibility of modulating the CD44-HA interaction with a pharmacological inhibitor has therefore been recognized as an emerging anti-cancer strategy. With its expression in a wide variety, CD44 has also become the most common surface biomarker of cancer stem cells. Due to the rapid progress of research on this crucial receptor, some published and deposited variants were often poorly described or lacked accession numbers in the available protein databases, which created confusion and hindered relevant research. In this work, we attempted to examine the protein sequences of the known CD44 variants and match them between the two UniProt and the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) Protein databases. The deposited sequences were aligned to the CD44 canonical sequence and grouped based on the observed differences. Analysis of CD44–ligand experimental structures available in the Protein Data Bank (PDB) was also performed to identify the most promising small-molecule inhibitors of the CD44-HA interaction. Full article

Buffer zones are essential for the protection of the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of World Heritage properties. In China, to address the limitations of the prevailing “two-line” delineation system for architectural heritage protection, this study introduces the concept of buffer zone as a new perspective on heritage management. Focusing on the Cao Family Compound—a representative residence of Shanxi Merchants—this research situates the site within a broader cultural network to fully articulate its historical and social values. The methodology unfolds in three phases: (1) comprehensive identification of 47 spatial elements contributing to the compound’s significance, through field investigation, literature review, analysis of historical imagery and architectural drawing, and oral history interview; (2) systematic evaluation of each element’s value contribution to the compound based on six criteria across two dimensions, employing the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and Weighted Sum Method (WSM); (3) spatial visualization and hierarchical buffer zone delineation conducted via ArcGIS-based data modeling and the Natural Breaks classification method. This integrated approach establishes a holistic and structured framework that bridges architectural heritage with its setting, providing practical guidance for policymakers and conservation practitioners. Full article

Vitamin B6 is an essential coenzyme involved in various metabolic processes critical for plant growth and development. However, its biosynthesis and regulatory mechanisms remain poorly understood in the ancient gymnosperm Ginkgo biloba. In this study, we identified two members of the PDX2 gene family (Gb_34755 and Gb_34990) through genome-wide analysis and characterized their molecular and functional properties. Bioinformatic analysis revealed distinct physicochemical traits and subcellular localizations, with Gb_34755 predicted in the cytoplasm and Gb_34990 in both chloroplasts and cytoplasm. Both proteins contain the glutaminase-related PLN02832 domain, indicating involvement in VB6 biosynthesis. Chromosomal mapping placed the genes in transcriptionally active regions on chromosomes 6 and 9. Phylogenetic analysis showed close evolutionary relationships between Ginkgo PDX2 genes and those in ferns and gymnosperms, distinct from angiosperms. Promoter analysis revealed differential enrichment of cis-elements: Gb_34990 harbored low-temperature and salicylic acid-responsive elements, while Gb_34755 showed motifs related to development. Gene expression profiling indicated significant upregulation (p < 0.05) of both genes during the late developmental stages of Ginkgo kernels, coinciding with peak VB6 content. Functional validation via transient overexpression in Nicotiana benthamiana confirmed a positive regulatory role, with VB6 levels increasing from 3.38 μg/g to 12.17 μg/g (p < 0.05). This study provides the first comprehensive functional analysis of the PDX2 gene family in Ginkgo and confirms their critical role in VB6 biosynthesis. These findings enhance our understanding of vitamin metabolism in gymnosperms and present promising targets for metabolic engineering in plants. Full article

Work–family conflicts (WFCs) and family–work conflicts (FWCs) have been found to be important to worker morale and retention as well as family (as defined by the respondents) well-being, with particular importance within the military, as indicated by a number of studies in the United States, Canada, and European countries. However, few studies have focused on the impact of WFC and FWC for high ranking officers and their families. This study involved two samples of officers attending an advanced leadership course at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 2007, featuring a total of 262 Army officers and another 45 officers from other services and countries. The sample of Army officers included 239 men (85.4% of whom were a parent) and 22 women (63.6% of whom were a parent; Fisher’s Exact Test, p < 0.02), with one missing case for sex. Of the men and women, respectively, most were married for the first time (190/11), with some never married (14/5), married but divorced (10/1), married/divorced/remarried (20/4), married/spouse died/remarried (1/0), married/divorced/remarried/divorced/remarried (4/0), and married/divorced/remarried/divorced/remarried (0/1). Measures for cohabitation or same-sex partnerships were not used. Two modified measures of WFC and FWC of four items each were tested and found to represent different factors and to have high internal consistency reliability. In general we found few sex differences, but female officers seemed to be more influenced by family–work conflict than male officers. One of our most substantial findings was that work–family conflict was more prevalent than family–work conflict within our sample. Also, we found that marital satisfaction tended to be higher than parental satisfaction and that officers usually found their own retention intentions to be higher than their perception of that of their spouses. Satisfaction with the military was consistently and strongly related to lower levels of work–family conflict while similar but weaker trends were found for family–work conflict. Most of our results were found to cross-validate with a subsample of non-Army officers in our sample. We found bias from marital social desirability to be lower for our marital process scale and for FWC than for marital satisfaction and WFC. In sum, our results confirm adverse effects of deployments and other stressors on military families and a continuing need for military support for families, even among higher ranking officer families. Full article

Bacteria employ transcriptional regulators, such as those belonging to the Xenobiotic Response Element (XRE) family, to regulate metabolic processes. These regulators often exhibit autoregulatory properties and function as dimers to recognize palindromic DNA motifs. However, the binding motifs of the XRE family transcriptional regulators in bacteria have not yet been well characterized on a large scale. To identify potential XRE transcriptional regulator recognition motifs efficiently, we developed a computational approach combining structural alignment, sequence scanning, and motif clustering. We first identified the potential motifs of XRE regulators using computational methods. Using the helix–turn–helix (HTH) domain of XRE family regulators as a template, we collected 27,732 proteins containing the domain from bacterial databases. By extracting upstream sequences of these proteins and employing bioinformatics tools like MEME and motifStack to search potential motifs, 5622 motifs were identified and subsequently clustered into 223 clusters. These clusters can be classified into 7 main types based on the base conservation patterns observed in motifs. Interaction models between representative proteins and their corresponding motifs were predicted using AlphaFold. Subsequently, we conducted experimental validation via electrophoretic mobility shift assays (EMSAs) and confirmed the feasibility of our approach, as nine out of ten tested interactions showed clear protein–DNA binding. However, due to limitations in experimental conditions, the remaining predicted motifs have not yet undergone experimental validation. Since conserved sequences and well-predicted structures cannot replace real-world scenarios, there are limitations to relying solely on computational predictions, and experimental validation remains necessary. In summary, our study establishes a reliable framework for identifying XRE family transcriptional regulator recognition motifs and provides valuable insights into bacterial regulation. Full article