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Abstract Barrier islands are landscape features that protect coastlines by reducing wave energy and erosion. Quantifying vegetation-topographic interactions between adjacent habitats are essential for predicting long-term island response and resilience to sea-level rise and disturbance. To understand the effects of dune dynamics on adjacent interior island ecosystem processes, we quantified how sediment availability and previous disturbance regime interact with vegetation to influence dune building and ease of seawater and sediment movement into the island interior on two US mid-Atlantic coast barrier islands. We conducted field surveys of sediment accretion, vegetative cover, and soil characteristics in dune and swale habitats. Digital elevation models provided assessment of water flow resistance from the mean high water mark into the island interior. We found that geographic location impacted sediment accretion rates and Panicum amarum (a species increasing in abundance over time in the Virginia barrier islands) accreted sediment at a significantly lower rate compared to other dune grasses. Dune elevation impacted the ease of seawater flow into the island interior, altering soil chlorides, annual net primary productivity, and soil carbon and nitrogen. Our work demonstrates the importance of incorporating biological processes and cross-island connectivity into future scenario modeling and predictions of rising sea-levels and increased disturbance.

Abstract Climate change and atmospheric deposition of nitrogen (N) and sulfur (S) impact the health and productivity of forests. Here, we explored the potential impacts of these environmental stressors on ecosystem services provided by future forests in the contiguous U.S. We found that all stand-level services benefitted (+ 2.6 to 8.1%) from reductions in N+S deposition, largely attributable to positive responses to reduced S that offset the net negative effects of lower N levels. Sawtimber responded positively (+ 0.5 to 0.6%) to some climate change, but negatively (− 2.4 to − 3.8%) to the most extreme scenarios. Aboveground carbon (C) sequestration and forest diversity were negatively impacted by all modelled changes in climate. Notably, the most extreme climate scenario eliminated gains in all three services achieved through reduced deposition. As individual tree species responded differently to climate change and atmospheric deposition, associated services unique to each species increased or decreased under future scenarios. Our results suggest that climate change should be considered when evaluating the benefits of N and S air pollution policies on the services provided by U.S. forests.

Abstract The human respiratory syncytial virus (hRSV) and the human metapneumovirus (hMPV) are important human respiratory pathogens from the Pneumoviridae family. Both are responsible for severe respiratory tract infections in infants, young children, elderly individuals, adults with chronic medical conditions, and immunocompromised patients. Despite their large impact on human health, vaccines for hRSV were only recently introduced, and only limited treatment options exist. Here we show that Ginkgolic acid (GA), a natural compound from the extract of Ginkgo biloba, with known antiviral properties for several viruses, efficiently inhibits these viruses’ infectivity and spread in cultures in a dose-dependent manner. We demonstrate that the drug specifically affects the entry step during the early stages on the viruses’ life cycle with no effect on post-entry and late stage events, including viral gene transcription, genome replication, assembly and particles release. We provide evidence that GA acts as an efficient antiviral for members of the Pneumoviridae family and has the potential to be used to treat acute infections.

Abstract Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has emerged as a valuable epidemiologic tool to detect the presence of pathogens and track disease trends within a community. WBE overcomes some limitations of traditional clinical disease surveillance as it uses pooled samples from the entire community, irrespective of health-seeking behaviors and symptomatic status of infected individuals. WBE has the potential to estimate the number of infections within a community by using a mass balance equation, however, it has yet to be assessed for accuracy. We hypothesized that the mass balance equation-based approach using measured SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentrations can generate accurate prevalence estimates of COVID-19 within a community. This study encompassed wastewater sampling over a 53-week period during the COVID-19 pandemic in Gainesville, Florida, to assess the ability of the mass balance equation to generate accurate COVID-19 prevalence estimates. The SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentration showed a significant linear association (Parameter estimate = 39.43, P value

Abstract Episodic long-term memory (eLTM) retrieval involves the reinstatement of neural patterns from the encoding phase. However, recent evidence suggests that comparable cortical activity patterns can also be linked to attentional control processes on the level of memory representations. The current investigation assesses these two processes independently based on alpha-beta-band activity in the electroencephalogram (EEG). During encoding, subjects were presented with an object on a certain position on the screen and had to imagine it on a new position. In each trial, either the task-irrelevant presentation position or the task-relevant imagination position was lateralized. In the retrieval phase, subjects first made an old/new judgement based on centrally presented objects and then reported the imagination position. Pattern reinstatement should be reflected in similar lateralized alpha-beta activity during encoding and retrieval. Conversely, the influence of attentional control processes during retrieval would be associated with the suppression of alpha-beta power contralateral to the to-be-reported imagination position and with the increase of activity contralateral to the irrelevant presentation position. Our results support this latter pattern. This shows that an experimental differentiation between selective attention and pattern reinstatement processes is necessary when studying the neural basis of eLTM retrieval.

Abstract In this paper we propose a phenomenological model for forecasting the numbers of deaths and of hospitalized persons in a pandemic wave, assuming that these numbers linearly depend, with certain delays $$\tau >0$$ τ > 0 for deaths and $$\delta >0$$ δ > 0 for hospitalized, on the number of new cases. We illustrate the application of our method using data from the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Croatia, but the method can be applied to any new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as to any other possible pandemic. We also supply freely available Mathematica modules to implement the method.

Abstract Acute pancreatitis (AP) is one of the most common diseases in gastroenterology. However, neither the etiology nor the pathophysiology of the disease is fully understood and no specific or effective treatment has been developed. Heparanase is an endoglycosidase that cleaves heparan sulfate (HS) side chains of HS sulfate proteoglycans into shorter oligosaccharides, activity that is highly implicated in cellular invasion associated with cancer metastasis and inflammation. Given that AP involves a strong inflammatory aspect, we examined whether heparanase plays a role in AP. Here, we provide evidence that pancreatic heparanase expression and activity are significantly increased following cerulein treatment. Moreover, pancreas edema and inflammation, as well as the induction of cytokines and signaling molecules following cerulein treatment were attenuated markedly by heparanase inhibitors, implying that heparanase plays a significant role in AP. Notably, all the above features appear even more pronounced in transgenic mice over expressing heparanase, suggesting that these mice can be utilized as a sensitive model system to reveal the molecular mechanism by which heparanase functions in AP. Heparanase, therefore, emerges as a potential new target in AP, and heparanase inhibitors, now in phase I/II clinical trials in cancer patients, are hoped to prove beneficial also in AP.