Healthy benthic substrates that induce coral larvae to settle are necessary for coral recovery. Yet, the biochemical cues required to induce coral settlement have not been identified for many taxa. Here we tested the ability of the crustose coralline alga (CCA) Porolithon onkodes to induce attachment and metamorphosis, collectively termed settlement, of larvae from 15 ecologically important coral species from the families Acroporidae, Merulinidae, Poritidae, and Diploastreidae. Live CCA fragments, ethanol extracts, and hot aqueous extracts of P. onkodes induced settlement (> 10%) for 11, 7, and 6 coral species, respectively. Live CCA fragments were the most effective inducer, achieving over 50% settlement for nine species. The strongest settlement responses were observed in Acropora spp.; the only non-acroporid species that settled over 50% were Diploastrea heliopora, Goniastrea retiformis, and Dipsastraea pallida. Larval settlement was reduced in treatments with chemical extracts compared with live CCA, although high settlement (> 50%) was reported for six acroporid species in response to ethanol extracts of CCA. All experimental treatments failed ( less then 10%) to induce settlement in Montipora aequituberculata, Mycedium elephantotus, and Porites cylindrica. Individual species responded heterogeneously to all treatments, suggesting that none of the cues represent a universal settlement inducer. These results challenge the commonly-held notion that CCA ubiquitously induces coral settlement, and emphasize the critical need to assess additional cues to identify natural settlement inducers for a broad range of coral taxa.An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.The COVID-19 outbreak is becoming a public health emergency. Data are limited on the clinical characteristics and causes of death. A retrospective analysis of COVID-19 deaths were performed for patients’ clinical characteristics, laboratory results, and causes of death. In total, 56 patients (72.7%) of the decedents (male-female ratio 5126, mean age 71 ± 13, mean survival time 17.4 ± 8.4 days) had comorbidities. Acute respiratory failure (ARF) and sepsis were the main causes of death. Increases in C-reactive protein (CRP), lactate dehydrogenase (LDH), D-dimer and lactic acid and decreases in lymphocytes were common laboratory results. Intergroup analysis showed that (1) most female decedents had cough and diabetes. (2) The proportion of young- and middle-aged deaths was higher than elderly deaths for males, while elderly decedents were more prone to myocardial injury and elevated CRP. (3) CRP and LDH increased and cluster of differentiation (CD) 4+ and CD8+ cells decreased significantly in patients with hypertension. The majority of COVID-19 decedents are male, especially elderly people with comorbidities. The main causes of death are ARF and sepsis. Most female decedents have cough and diabetes. Myocardial injury is common in elderly decedents. Patients with hypertension are prone to an increased inflammatory index, tissue hypoxia and cellular immune injury.Dengue virus (DENV) is a mosquito-borne pathogen that is becoming a serious global threat, owing to its rising incidence in inter-tropical regions that yield over 50 million annual infections. There are currently no approved antiviral agents for the management of dengue, and recent shortcomings in its immunization called for immediate action to develop effective drugs with prophylactic ability to better manage its infection. In an attempt to discover novel antiviral sources, we identified the medicinal herb Polygonum cuspidatum (PC) as a bioactive botanical material against DENV infectivity. Specifically, the methanolic extract from PC rhizomes (PCME) potently inhibited DENV infection without causing significant cytotoxicity. Further examination on the viral life cycle demonstrated that PCME particularly targeted the initial stages of DENV infection, while pre- and post-infection treatments had no effect. More importantly, the PCME could efficiently inactivate DENV free virus particles and block the viral attachment and entry/fusion events without apparently influencing viral replication, egress, and cell-to-cell spread. The antiviral effect of PCME was also recapitulated in infection analysis using DENV pseudoparticles displaying viral structural proteins that mediate DENV particle entry. Besides, PCME treatment also inhibited direct DENV entry into several cell types relevant to its infection and reduced viral infectivity of other members of the Flaviviridae family, including the hepatitis C virus (HCV) and Zika virus (ZIKV). Due to its potency against DENV entry, we suggest that the phytobioactive extract from PC is an excellent starting point as an antiviral source material for further development of therapeutic strategies in the prophylactic management of DENV infection.Anxiety and depression are distinct-albeit overlapping-psychiatric diseases, currently diagnosed by self-reported-symptoms. This research presents a new diagnostic methodology, which tests rigorously for differences in cognitive biases among subclinical anxious and depressed individuals. 125 participants were divided into four groups based on the levels of their anxiety and depression symptoms. A comprehensive behavioral test battery detected and quantified various cognitive-emotional biases. Advanced machine-learning tools, developed for this study, analyzed these results. These tools detect unique patterns that characterize anxiety versus depression to predict group membership. The prediction model for differentiating between symptomatic participants (i.e., high symptoms of depression, anxiety, or both) compared to the non-symptomatic control group revealed a 71.44% prediction accuracy for the former (sensitivity) and 70.78% for the latter (specificity). 68.07% and 74.18% prediction accuracy was obtained for a two-group model with high depression/anxiety, respectively. The analysis also disclosed which specific behavioral measures contributed to the prediction, pointing to key cognitive mechanisms in anxiety versus depression. These results lay the ground for improved diagnostic instruments and more effective and focused individually-based treatment.Effective patient care mandates rapid, yet accurate, diagnosis. With the abundance of non-invasive diagnostic measurements and electronic health records (EHR), manual interpretation for differential diagnosis has become time-consuming and challenging. This has led to wide-spread adoption of AI-powered tools, in pursuit of improving accuracy and efficiency of this process. While the unique challenges presented by each modality and clinical task demand customized tools, the cumbersome process of making problem-specific choices has triggered the critical need for a generic solution to enable rapid development of models in practice. In this spirit, we develop DDxNet, a deep architecture for time-varying clinical data, which we demonstrate to be well-suited for diagnostic tasks involving different modalities (ECG/EEG/EHR), required level of characterization (abnormality detection/phenotyping) and data fidelity (single-lead ECG/22-channel EEG). Using multiple benchmark problems, we show that DDxNet produces high-fidelity predictive models, and sometimes even provides significant performance gains over problem-specific solutions.An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.Since type 2 diabetes (DM) is a life-style related disease, life-style should be considered when association between genetic factors and DM are examined. However, most studies did not examine genetic associations in consideration with lifestyle. Glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor (GLP1R) mediates the insulinotropic action of GLP-1 in β-cells. We here examined the association while taking into consideration of interactions between the gene polymorphism and various nutrient factors. Participants from the population-based Iwaki study of Japanese subjects held in 2014-2017 with information on nutritional intake evaluated by self-administered dietary history questionnaire, and GLP1R genotype (rs3765467 A/G), were included (n = 1,560). Although not significant, insulin secretion indices assessed by homeostasis model assessment of β-cell function (HOMA-β) in subjects with the GG genotype tended to be lower than in those with the AA+AG genotypes in most groups stratified into tertiles based on daily nutrient consumptions (high, middle, and low). Stratification also showed that the GG genotype was a significant risk for decreased insulin secretion (HOMA-β ≤ 30) even after adjustment for multiple factors (age, body mass index, alcohol consumption), but only in the highest tertiles of energy, protein and carbohydrate consumption in men [odds ratios (95% confidence interval) 3.95 (1.03-15.1), 15.83 (1.58-158.9), and 4.23 (1.10-11.2), respectively]. A polymorphism of the GLP1R gene was associated with decreased insulin secretion in a nutrient consumption-dependent manner in Japanese men, indicating an interaction between GLP1R and nutritional factors in the pathophysiology of DM.The hair bundle of cochlear hair cells is the site of auditory mechanoelectrical transduction. It is formed by three rows of stiff microvilli-like protrusions of graduated heights, the short, middle-sized, and tall stereocilia. In developing and mature sensory hair cells, stereocilia are connected to each other by various types of fibrous links. Two unconventional cadherins, protocadherin-15 (PCDH15) and cadherin-23 (CDH23), form the tip-links, whose tension gates the hair cell mechanoelectrical transduction channels. These proteins also form transient lateral links connecting neighboring stereocilia during hair bundle morphogenesis. The proteins involved in anchoring these diverse links to the stereocilia dense actin cytoskeleton remain largely unknown. We show that the long isoform of whirlin (L-whirlin), a PDZ domain-containing submembrane scaffold protein, is present at the tips of the tall stereocilia in mature hair cells, together with PCDH15 isoforms CD1 and CD2; L-whirlin localization to the ankle-link region in developing hair bundles moreover depends on the presence of PCDH15-CD1 also localizing there. We further demonstrate that L-whirlin binds to PCDH15 and CDH23 with moderate-to-high affinities in vitro. From these results, we suggest that L-whirlin is part of the molecular complexes bridging PCDH15-, and possibly CDH23-containing lateral links to the cytoskeleton in immature and mature stereocilia.An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.Pattern recognition and automatic decision support methods provide significant advantages in the area of health protection. The aim of this work is to develop a low-cost tool for monitoring arteriovenous fistula (AVF) with the use of phono-angiography method. This article presents a developed and diagnostic device that implements classification algorithms to identify 38 patients with end stage renal disease, chronically hemodialysed using an AVF, at risk of vascular access stenosis. We report on the design, fabrication, and preliminary testing of a prototype device for non-invasive diagnosis which is very important for hemodialysed patients. The system includes three sub-modules AVF signal acquisition, information processing and classification and a unit for presenting results. This is a non-invasive and inexpensive procedure for evaluating the sound pattern of bruit produced by AVF. With a special kind of head which has a greater sensitivity than conventional stethoscope, a sound signal from fistula was recorded.