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Abstract The global prevalence rate for congenital hydrocephalus (CH) is approximately one out of every five hundred births with multifaceted predisposing factors at play. Genetic influences stand as a major contributor to CH pathogenesis, and epidemiological evidence suggests their involvement in up to 40% of all cases observed globally. Knowledge about an individual’s genetic susceptibility can significantly improve prognostic precision while aiding clinical decision-making processes. However, the precise genetic etiology has only been pinpointed in fewer than 5% of human instances. More occurrences of CH cases are required for comprehensive gene sequencing aimed at uncovering additional potential genetic loci. A deeper comprehension of its underlying genetics may offer invaluable insights into the molecular and cellular basis of this brain disorder. This review provides a summary of pertinent genes identified through gene sequencing technologies in humans, in addition to the 4 genes currently associated with CH (two X-linked genes L1CAM and AP1S2, two autosomal recessive MPDZ and CCDC88C). Others predominantly participate in aqueduct abnormalities, ciliary movement, and nervous system development. The prospective CH-related genes revealed through animal model gene-editing techniques are further outlined, focusing mainly on 4 pathways, namely cilia synthesis and movement, ion channels and transportation, Reissner’s fiber (RF) synthesis, cell apoptosis, and neurogenesis. Notably, the proper functioning of motile cilia provides significant impulsion for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) circulation within the brain ventricles while mutations in cilia-related genes constitute a primary cause underlying this condition. So far, only a limited number of CH-associated genes have been identified in humans. The integration of genotype and phenotype for disease diagnosis represents a new trend in the medical field. Animal models provide insights into the pathogenesis of CH and contribute to our understanding of its association with related complications, such as renal cysts, scoliosis, and cardiomyopathy, as these genes may also play a role in the development of these diseases. Genes discovered in animals present potential targets for new treatments but require further validation through future human studies.

The global prevalence rate for congenital hydrocephalus (CH) is approximately one out of every five hundred births with multifaceted predisposing factors at play. Genetic influences stand as a major contributor to CH pathogenesis, and epidemiological evidence suggests their involvement in up to 40% of all cases observed globally. Knowledge about an individual's genetic susceptibility can significantly improve prognostic precision while aiding clinical decision-making processes. However, the precise genetic etiology has only been pinpointed in fewer than 5% of human instances. More occurrences of CH cases are required for comprehensive gene sequencing aimed at uncovering additional potential genetic loci. A deeper comprehension of its underlying genetics may offer invaluable insights into the molecular and cellular basis of this brain disorder. This review provides a summary of pertinent genes identified through gene sequencing technologies in humans, in addition to the 4 genes currently associated with CH (two X-linked genes L1CAM and AP1S2, two autosomal recessive MPDZ and CCDC88C). Others predominantly participate in aqueduct abnormalities, ciliary movement, and nervous system development. The prospective CH-related genes revealed through animal model gene-editing techniques are further outlined, focusing mainly on 4 pathways, namely cilia synthesis and movement, ion channels and transportation, Reissner's fiber (RF) synthesis, cell apoptosis, and neurogenesis. Notably, the proper functioning of motile cilia provides significant impulsion for cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) circulation within the brain ventricles while mutations in cilia-related genes constitute a primary cause underlying this condition. So far, only a limited number of CH-associated genes have been identified in humans. The integration of genotype and phenotype for disease diagnosis represents a new trend in the medical field. Animal models provide insights into the pathogenesis of CH and contribute to our understanding of its association with related complications, such as renal cysts, scoliosis, and cardiomyopathy, as these genes may also play a role in the development of these diseases. Genes discovered in animals present potential targets for new treatments but require further validation through future human studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Kufa Studies Center Journal is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There has been a controversy as to whether exogenous γ-aminobutyric acid can enter brain regions. The concept of "microbe-gut-brain axis" suggestes that exogenous γ-aminobutyric acid is able to enter the body through oral administration. The γ-aminobutyric acid is subsequently involved in the regulation of gastrointestinal microenvironment, which benefits the central system and provides treatment for neurological diseases. Currently, the γ-aminobutyric acid prepared by microbial method can be used as a new food raw material in certain foods and functional foods rich in γ-aminobutyric acid has been gradually developed. Literature confirms that the intake of a certain amount of γ-aminobutyric could affect nervous system function including improvement of sleep quality, depression-like behavior, behavior and cognitive disorders. This paper is to provide reference for the application of γ-aminobutyric acid in medicine and functional food with the focus on GABA preparation, the relationship between γ-aminobutyric acid and intestinal flora, the effects of exogenous γ-aminobutyric acid on nervous system through intestinal flora and its preparation methods.

After the establishment of the Central System within the "e-Culture -- Digitization of Cultural Heritage" project the archival community in Croatia obtained a system for storage, access, aggregation and search of cultural heritage. For the purpose of storage of digitized archives within the Central System the heritage institutions in Croatia use Goobi web application, the latter being one of the basic tools with such purpose. The paper strives to give an overview of the application and explain in detail how it works. It also aims to present the experience of working with the application, while also delineating the possible problems that occur in practice. Goobi is a software suite for support during the process of digitization that offers accessible settings. The application's interface has been designed to enable users to follow simple steps during the digitization process. Despite the fact this version of the software had been adapted for the needs of the Croatian archival community, current experiences in its usage point out to certain deficiencies. Namely, these concern certain technical limitations which pertain to the network bandwidth and size of the storage area on servers of individual institutions. There is also the problem of insuficient quality of communication between the application and the Central System. Additional software updates will undoubtedly be necessary in due time in order to rectify these shortcomings, which indicates the importance of communication between the archival community and technological partners within the project. The experience so far points out to the necessity of dependable solutions due to the sheer complexity and lengthiness of the digitization process. By changing the previous work methodology digitization also provides numerous new possibilities pertaining to the protection, preservation and usage of archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Central System was developed within the e-Culture project with the purpose of establishing a digital repository of cultural heritage. The advantage of the Central System is that it contains all records in one place. Naturally, each institution can manage only its own digital content. The success of a digitization project above all else depends on the quality training of the employees who manage digital content within the System. The paper strives to outline the System and explain the principle of work within it. It also concerns experiences of the Croatian State Archives in practice, with an overview of potential challenges in everyday work. The Central System comprises of the following basic processes: digitization, long-term digital preservation and permanent storage. It applies various metadata standards, standards for formatting and displaying digital contents that enable easier search and interaction with users. Via its web interface the System offers e-services which enable users to access digitized archives of heritage institutions. This intuitive interface makes it easier to manage digitized content. The interface comprises of the functionalities which are accessible via the menu on the toolbar -- Catalogue, Search, Ingest, Administration and Planning. The System offers the service of viewing digitized records via the Catalogue functionality, the service of searching for records via the Search function, the service of importing the IT packages via the Ingest function, as well as the functionality pertaining to work oversight and administration of packages via the Administration function. The most important advantage of the System is that it enables permanent storage of digitized archives and more efficient implementation of complex digitization projects, such as e-Culture, which features numerous and various users, as well as institutions. Quicker accessibility and easier use of archives are contemporary priorities and this system endeavours to satisfy such needs. With time, systems such as this will become indispensable for the functioning of archives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims: Chionophilous vegetation (i.e. snowbed vegetation and chionophilous grasslands) hosts relict arctic-alpine species, among which snowbed specialists, that find their southernmost limit in the Iberian Peninsula, where they are especially threatened by climate change. Our aims were to identify the main Iberian chionophilous vegetation groups, and analyse their plant diversity patterns and their role as refugia for snowbed glacial relicts, as well as that of Iberian high-mountain regions. Location: Iberian high mountains. Methods: We used the beta-flexible clustering method to classify 1002 vegetation relevés of Iberian chionophilous vegetation, and computed species Indicator Values and frequencies for the resulting groups. We performed a Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA) ordination of the relevés, and fitted six climatic variables to reveal the main ecological gradients. We constructed rarefaction curves to compare species richness between vegetation groups and between mountain regions. Results: We obtained eight vegetation groups, four consisting of snowbed vegetation and four of chionophilous grasslands. All but one group were present in the Pyrenees, where snowbed specialist richness was the highest. In southern and central Iberian ranges, snowbed vegetation was extremely scarce, and the main vegetation group corresponded to cryoromediterranean grasslands, where both species and specialist richness were the lowest. Snowbed and northern Iberian grassland groups accounted for similar high specialist richness, although specialists were infrequent and scarce at relevé level in these grasslands. Conclusions: Despite the set of specialised species that thrive in snowbeds, many of them are also present but scarce in northern Iberian chionophilous grasslands. In a future scenario with a high reduction of snow cover duration, which may entail the disappearance of many snowbed vegetation patches, northern Iberian chionophilous grasslands may act as terminal refugia for snowbed specialists. Nevertheless, specialists are very threatened in central and southern Iberian ranges, where snowbed vegetation is infrequent and chionophilous grasslands provide almost no shelter to them. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Flora Montibérica is the property of Flora Montiberica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Copyright of Flora Montibérica is the property of Flora Montiberica and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Despite the significant increase of bryological studies in Spain during the last decades, some regions remain poorly studied. This is the case of Sierra de Gredos mountain range, in the Iberian Central System, which we visited in several collecting expeditions, with focus in the insufficiently explored high mountain areas. As a result, we highlight 28 taxa either by their importance in bryological conservation or because those populations are the first evidence of the taxa in the Iberian Central System. It is remarkable the presence of Kiaeria falcata, never collected previously in the Iberian Peninsula although reported in error based on K. starkei specimens, and Polytrichastrum sexangulare, known so far in the Iberian Peninsula only from the Pyrenees. Likewise, we highlight the new populations of Andreaea nivalis, Anthoceros caucasiens, Kiaeria blyttii, Meesia triquetra, and Polytrichum longisetum. The first one is reported fertile for the first time in Spain. In addition, we found 13 species listed in different threat categories whose number of populations and/or Area of Occupancy (AOO) is inconsistent with the category to that they have been assigned in Spain. Thus, four endangered species proved to be relatively common in the Central System; consequently, we propose to withdraw these species from the list of threatened bryophytes in Spain. This study highlights the urgent need to deepen into the taxonomic and chorological research of Spanish bryological biodiversity to set a solid basis on which an adequate and efficient conservation management may be performed. Finally, taxonomic and ecological comments are indicated for some species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The evaluation of an effective environmental strategy goes beyond understanding its antecedents and benefits. Identifying and understanding the various mechanisms behind the formulation, design and implementation of environmental strategies is important – yet past studies have not adequately addressed this issue. This paper explores corporate environmentalism, and extends the framework by identifying the internal mechanisms behind the environmental strategies in large Malaysian chemical manufacturing firms. Given the exploratory nature of the study, a case study method using semi-structured interviews was used to ascertain these mechanisms. Interestingly, the results revealed seven important mechanisms of the environmental strategies in large chemical firms. These are a central system, internal system, quantifiable measurement, specific environmental management unit, strategy alignment, collaboration, and collective involvement. The mechanisms are clustered as systems and commitments based on the role that these mechanisms play in the environmental strategy of the firms. Additionally, powerful and influential top management commitments were found to contribute to the initiation of these mechanisms. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Social representations have an important role in the process of knowing the human reality. They represent the collective prism through which the individuals are looking at the surrounding world, they are “grids of reality reading”. In this context, we consider that in the process of exploration of the social phenomena, it is necessary to understand the internal mechanisms of social representation, its structure and organization. Nowadays there are many different approaches of investigation of social representations which allow to study the given subject: experimental investigations of social representations, the research of anticipatory functions of the representation, the research of internal structure and dynamics of the representation, the identification of methods of exploring the content of a certain representation. In the given communication we will try to identify the leading mechanisms of knowing the social representation in order to explore the social phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the phenological parameters of bluethroats Luscinia svecica azuricollis population breeding in high altitude in central Spain. The small percentage of moulting first-year birds compared to all captured in August and September suggests that birds experience post-juvenile moult just after fledging. First-year birds appeared within the population in June. Population of adults in breeding area fell from August to the rest of the year.

Abstract: This paper reports a high-resolution stratal, palaeogeographical and quantitative analysis, of a late Turonian–early Coniacian carbonate ramp (the Northern Iberian Ranges) and its siliciclastic coastal margin (the Central System). The analyzed succession comprises a complete 3rd order depositional sequence with a shelf-margin wedge, a transgressive systems tract and a highstand systems tract. Based on the existence of a) subaerial exposure evidences and early diagenetic overprints; b) stratal relationships (onlap, offlap, toplap) regarding underlying and overlying sequences, and c) changes in the vertical facies evolution, the depositional sequence was bounded by two major sequence boundaries. These indicate that a major fall in relative sea level occurred in these boundaries. The comparative study of the internal stratal surfaces and the vertical facies succession allowed the identification of superimposed, higher-order depositional parasequences sets and parasequences (4th to 5th order), which record short-term changes in the relative sea level. Thus, when vertical facies trends in the parasequences are arranged in the framework of a parasequence set, a clearer palaeogeographic picture is obtained, and palaeogeographic maps can more clearly show the evolutionary trend of the basin. Each parasequence set was composed of a basal lowstand/transgressive systems tract in turn composed of fringing siliciclastic shoreface deposits and offshore muds. Older sequences were partially exposed further landwards. The sedimentation of these sands resulted in the progradation of the coastal systems during times of low relative sea level, during which the basal parasequence set boundary was also generated. Subsequent transgression remobilised underlying lowstand sands. The early highstand was composed of carbonate sediments in platform areas and mixed siliciclastic-carbonate sediments landwards, separated by a narrow fringe of muddy-marl offshore sediments. The late highstand showed a progressive shallowing trend, with carbonate littoral and tidal sediments covering broad areas of the basin, and lagoon facies were restricted to the northern outcrops. During late highstand, underlying transgressive systems tract and older highstand deposits were exposed landwards. Sea-level and accommodation curves have been obtained from paleogeographical, sedimentological and sequence stratigraphical data. The mean sea-level curve for the entire 3rd order sequence shows a rise of the sea-level and then an overall stillstand, but accommodation curve shows a positive trend along the sequence. The 3rd order sea-level cycle has a mean amplitude of 52 m and high-frequency cycles have amplitudes of 20–40 m (4th order) and about 1.5–4 m (5th order). The mean final rise in the sea-level (46.6 m) is quite similar to the total accommodation deduced from Fischer plot (45.75 m). The sea-level cycles are considered to be eustatic in origin and driven by orbital forcing in the Milankovitch band based on the estimated 4th order- (400 kyr) and 5th order-cycle lengths (80 kyr). [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Analyses of pollen, non-pollen microfossils and carbonaceous particles from a valley mire in the Lozoya Valley in the Sierra de Guadarrama, which forms part of the Spanish Central System, are presented. The sedimentary sequence, which covers the last 8500 years, provides one of the oldest records in the central sector of this mountain chain. The core displays evidence of well developed Pinus sylvestris forests coupled with the presence of taxa such as Castanea or Olea in the early Holocene, highlighting the value of near-tree-line montane enclaves in the reconstruction of vegetation dynamics. The results show that the Lozoya Valley was an important refugial area for thermophilous taxa and that taxa like Olea and Castanea were present in pre-Roman times in this part of the Central System. In contrast to other areas of Spain and elsewhere in Europe where Quercus replaces Pinus in the early Holocene, evidence is presented of a natural pine belt in the Iberian continental montane system throughout the Holocene. The first signs of human impact are recorded in the pollen record at about 3740 BP, but major deforestation of the montane forests belts in the Sierra de Guadarrama is not visible until c. 1000 BP. This date is similar to dates for maximum human pressure in other Iberian environments and appears to be synchronous with a flourishing socioculture in Spain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]