University of Salzburg

Many common analysis methods for task-based functional MRI rely on detailed information about experiment design and events. Event recording and representation during cognitive experiments deserves more attention, as it forms an essential link between neuroimaging data and the cognition we wish to understand. The use of standardized data structures enables tools to directly use event-based metadata for preprocessing and analysis, allowing for more efficient processing and more standardized results. However, the complex paradigms utilized by cognitive neuroscience often have different requirements for event representation. The process of generating event files from experimental logs and to iteratively restructuring these event files is a time-intensive process. Careful planning and effective tools can reduce the burden on the researcher and create better documented and more shareable datasets. This chapter discusses event representation within the BIDS (Brain Imaging Data Structure) framework. We discuss some of the common pitfalls in event representation and introduce tools to easily transform event files to meet specific analysis requirements. We demonstrate these tools and the corresponding analysis by comparing two BIDS datasets in which participants performed a stop-signal task. We work through the required event restructuring, and use Fitlins to calculate several comparable contrasts across the two datasets.

The seemingly global nature of English-language hashtags often obscures activism from outside the Global North (GN). This systematic review explores geographic representation in this field ( N = 315 articles) through an investigation of case study location, author affiliation, methods of data collection and analysis, and researched social media platforms. The results show a preponderance of GN/Majority cases and non-region-specific social media groupings such as hashtag publics, particularly in research employing digital methods. As such, extant research in the field has disproportionately produced what we term Northern Visibilities—groups and movements based in GN countries (above all the United States) and platforms popular within them. We use the findings of the review to critically interrogate notions of the Global South in digital social research and provide recommendations for rectifying geopolitical underrepresentation and promoting more inclusive research practice.

The term “nondetects” describes observations that are not fully observed because the true value is below a detection threshold—and can therefore not be precisely detected. One may also consider them a special case of left-censored data. Nondetects occur frequently, for instance, in life sciences research in medicine or microbiology. This article examines the use of nonparametric inference methods for multivariate data in factorial designs in situations where nondetects are present, and it evaluates their performance. The focus is on testing hypotheses regarding interaction and main factor effects. The nonparametric centerpiece of the methodology is assuming the nonparametric relative effect (probabilistic index) and its generalizations as the functional on which inference is built, along with the respective invariance properties of the resulting tests. On this basis, we apply and evaluate recently proposed nonparametric analogs to the following types of multivariate test statistics: (1) Wald-type statistic (WTS), (2) ANOVA-type statistic (ATS), (3) Lawley–Hotelling trace, (4) Wilks Lambda (Likelihood ratio), (5) Bartlett–Nanda–Pillai trace. Except for the WTS, all the mentioned methods are available through the R-package nparmd . Extensive simulations and a case study from the field of microbiology demonstrate that the proposed methods can handle commonly occurring rates of nondetects without substantial impairment of specificity and sensitivity.

Steroid hormones are C18‐C21‐sterane derivatives, featuring the typical 6–6–6–5 ring system. Here we report on a novel C18‐steroid ring system named batrachane with a contracted A‐ring resulting in a 5–6–6–5 ring arrangement. The isolation, structural elucidation, and total synthesis of three members of the novel batrachopolyene family occurring in the tropical frog genus Odontobatrachus is reported. The batrachopolyenes represent an entirely new collection of volatile steroidal natural products produced by anuran amphibians. Alongside the contracted A‐ring, each member contains a Δ16‐17 double bond but differs in the central belt of the steroidal structure. To create these atypical structural features, syntheses featuring a combination of Breslow radical chain relay chlorination, Favorskii ring contraction, and Clemmensen reduction proved successful. The occurrence of such compounds in another distal anuran group, the Mantellinae, suggests a more widespread distribution of the batrachane‐type compounds among frogs. The new structural steroid type raises questions concerning steroid biosynthesis and reception, as well as distribution in frogs in general and the structures of their hormones.

Mitochondrial morphology is an important parameter of cellular fitness. Although many approaches are available for assessing mitochondrial morphology in mammalian cells, only a few technically demanding and laborious methods are available for yeast cells. A robust, fully automated and user-friendly approach that would allow (1) segmentation of tubular and spherical mitochondria in the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae from conventional wide-field fluorescence images and (2) quantitative assessment of mitochondrial morphology is lacking. To address this, we compared Global thresholding segmentation with deep learning MitoSegNet segmentation, which we retrained on yeast cells. The deep learning model outperformed the Global thresholding segmentation. We applied it to segment mitochondria in strain lacking the MMI1/TMA19 gene encoding an ortholog of the human TCTP protein. Next, we performed a quantitative evaluation of segmented mitochondria by analyses available in ImageJ/Fiji and by MitoA analysis available in the MitoSegNet toolbox. By monitoring a wide range of morphological parameters, we described a novel mitochondrial phenotype of the mmi1Δ strain after its exposure to oxidative stress compared to that of the wild-type strain. The retrained deep learning model, all macros applied to run the analyses, as well as the detailed procedure are now available at https://github.com/LMCF-IMG/Morphology_Yeast_Mitochondria. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1038/s41598-024-81241-0.

This project employs a geoarchaeological approach to explore human occupation of the highland wetlands (bofedales) and salt flats of the Dry Puna of northern Chile (>2500m above sea level) during the Holocene. Differences in the archaeological record of each ecosystem are tentatively suggested to relate to settlement patterns and the history of the landscape.

HtrA protein is a member of a serine protease family with dual functions as a protease and molecular chaperone. It is a virulence factor in many bacteria, including the food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes (Lm), which induces listeriosis in humans. Hence, inhibitors of LmHtrA protease have great importance in the control of infection. Many natural compounds have been used in the inhibition studies of proteases; here, we have performed the inhibition studies of LmHtrA with 31 compounds from different origins. The spectrophotometric assays revealed that plant compounds are promising inhibitors of LmHtrA protease activity compared to other tested peptides and synthetic compounds. The green tea catechin, EGCG has been identified as an inhibitor of protease activity of LmHtrA with a low IC50 value of 0.754 ± 0.2 μM. The substrate cleavage analysis by SDS-PAGE and SPR experiments corroborates the spectrophotometric results by exhibiting protease inhibition and showing the micromolar affinity of EGCG with LmHtrA, respectively. The interaction between rLmHtrA and EGCG was investigated by fluorescence spectroscopy. The binding constant and the number of binding sites were determined as 1.86 × 10⁽⁵⁾ M⁽⁻¹⁾ and 1.2, respectively. The molecular docking and dynamics results of LmHtrA-inhibitor complexes have provided new insights into the inhibition mechanism of LmHtrA compared with other serine proteases. The findings of this study may open up new avenues for the development of natural compound-based derivatives of LmHtrA inhibitors that might be more potent and less harmful to humans. Graphical abstract

The transcription factors STAT3, STAT5A, and STAT5B steer hematopoiesis and immunity, but their enhanced expression and activation promote acute myeloid leukemia (AML) or natural killer/T cell lymphoma (NKCL). Current therapeutic strategies focus on blocking upstream tyrosine kinases to inhibit STAT3/5, but these kinase blockers are not selective against STAT3/5 activation and frequent resistance causes relapse, emphasizing the need for targeted drugs. We evaluated the efficacy of JPX‐0700 and JPX‐0750 as dual STAT3/5 binding inhibitors promoting protein degradation. JPX‐0700/−0750 decreased the mRNA and protein levels of STAT3/5 targets involved in cancer survival, metabolism, and cell cycle progression, exhibiting nanomolar to low micromolar efficacy. They induced cell death and growth arrest in both AML/NKCL cell lines and primary AML patient blasts. We found that both AML/NKCL cells hijack STAT3/5 signaling through either upstream activating mutations in kinases, activating mutations in STAT3, mutational loss of negative STAT regulators, or genetic gains in anti‐apoptotic, pro‐proliferative, or epigenetic‐modifying STAT3/5 targets. This emphasizes a vicious cycle for proliferation and survival through STAT3/5. Both JPX‐0700/−0750 treatment reduced leukemic cell growth in human AML or NKCL xenograft mouse models significantly, being well tolerated by mice. Synergistic cell death was induced upon combinatorial use with approved chemotherapeutics in AML/NKCL cells.

The teacher shortage is an increasingly urgent challenge for the Austrian education system. Consequently, the Austrian government recruits student teachers who are still in bachelor’s or master’s programmes to fill open positions. This empirical study examined the demands and resources that student teachers experience in their jobs and studies. Based on the job demands-resources model, we investigated the health effects and motivation impacting student teachers’ job and study satisfaction and general well-being. Results from SEM (N = 296) indicated that student teachers’ well-being and satisfaction is significantly impaired by perceived overload, time pressure, and exhaustion resulting from the combination of both job and study contexts. In contrast, the findings showed that psychological health is promoted by resources (i.e. social support, task relevance, and task clarity) and perceived engagement (cumulatively) in both contexts. Moreover, further analyses confirmed buffering effects (but not boosting effects), as postulated in the job demands-resources model.

Steroid hormones are C18‐C21‐sterane derivatives, featuring the typical 6‐6‐6‐5 ring system. Here we report on a novel C18‐steroid ring system named batrachane with a contracted A‐ring resulting in a 5‐6‐6‐5 ring arrangement. The isolation, structural elucidation, and total synthesis of three members of the novel batrachopolyene family occurring in the tropical frog genus Odontobatrachus is reported. The batrachopolyenes represent an entirely new collection of volatile steroidal natural products produced by anuran amphibians. Alongside the contracted A‐ring, each member contains a Δ16‐17 double bond but differs in the central belt of the steroidal structure. To create these atypical structural features, syntheses featuring a combination of Breslow radical chain relay chlorination, Favorskii ring contraction, and Clemmensen reduction proved successful. The occurrence of such compounds in another distal anuran group, the Mantellinae, suggests a more widespread distribution of the batrachane‐type compounds among frogs. The new structural steroid type raises questions concerning steroid biosynthesis and reception, as well as distribution in frogs in general and the structures of their hormones.

Agricultural intensification has led to landscape homogenisation across major parts of Europe and to reduced diversity in flora and fauna. In Central Europe, the species composition of major insect groups is increasingly dominated by a few ecologically generalist and mobile species. So far, however, the degree of stability of population sizes in today's anthropogenic landscapes in comparison to the pre‐Anthropocene has hardly been analysed. Here, we studied large museum records of Lepidoptera from northern Austria spanning the years 1990–2022 to infer trends in the stability of population sizes. On average, population dynamics decreased and stability increased significantly over time. This trend was most pronounced in lowland regions, where agricultural intensification transformed the former heterogeneous landscapes into intensively managed grasslands and fields. Community structures are now dominated by ubiquitous species. Habitat specialist species existing in isolated patches particularly decreased over time. A metapopulation structure appeared to have a stabilising effect on population dynamics. We conclude that reduced diversity and altered community composition might not only stem from selective population decline but also from altered patterns of population stochasticity. Higher population stability was associated with faunal homogenisation. Precise butterfly sensitivity analyses require long‐term data on average population sizes and on community composition.