The ALOG family members OsG1L1 and OsG1L2 regulate inflorescence branching in rice

The architecture of the rice inflorescence is an important determinant of crop yield. The length of the inflorescence and the number of branches are among the key factors determining the number of spikelets, and thus grains, that a plant will develop. In particular, the timing of the identity transition from indeterminate branch meristem to determinate spikelet meristem governs the complexity of the inflorescence. In this context, the ALOG gene TAWAWA1 (TAW1) has been shown to delay the transition to determinate spikelet development in Oryza sativa (rice). Recently, by combining precise laser microdissection of inflorescence meristems with RNA-seq, we observed that two ALOG genes, OsG1-like 1 (OsG1L1) and OsG1L2, have expression profiles similar to that of TAW1. Here, we report that osg1l1 and osg1l2 loss-of-function CRISPR mutants have similar phenotypes to the phenotype of the previously published taw1 mutant, suggesting that these genes might act on related pathways during inflorescence development. Transcriptome analysis of the osg1l2 mutant suggested interactions of OsG1L2 with other known inflorescence architecture regulators and the data sets were used for the construction of a gene regulatory network (GRN), proposing interactions among genes potentially involved in controlling inflorescence development in rice. In this GRN, we selected the homeodomain-leucine zipper transcription factor encoding the gene OsHOX14 for further characterization. The spatiotemporal expression profiling and phenotypical analysis of CRISPR loss-of-function mutants of OsHOX14 suggests that the proposed GRN indeed serves as a valuable resource for the identification of new proteins involved in rice inflorescence development

Large-scale unit commitment under uncertainty: an updated literature survey

The Unit Commitment problem in energy management aims at finding the optimal production schedule of a set of generation units, while meeting various system-wide constraints. It has always been a large-scale, non-convex, difficult problem, especially in view of the fact that, due to operational requirements, it has to be solved in an unreasonably small time for its size. Recently, growing renewable energy shares have strongly increased the level of uncertainty in the system, making the (ideal) Unit Commitment model a large-scale, non-convex and uncertain (stochastic, robust, chance-constrained) program. We provide a survey of the literature on methods for the Uncertain Unit Commitment problem, in all its variants. We start with a review of the main contributions on solution methods for the deterministic versions of the problem, focussing on those based on mathematical programming techniques that are more relevant for the uncertain versions of the problem. We then present and categorize the approaches to the latter, while providing entry points to the relevant literature on optimization under uncertainty. This is an updated version of the paper "Large-scale Unit Commitment under uncertainty: a literature survey" that appeared in 4OR 13(2), 115--171 (2015); this version has over 170 more citations, most of which appeared in the last three years, proving how fast the literature on uncertain Unit Commitment evolves, and therefore the interest in this subject

Precision mouse models with expanded tropism for human pathogens

A major limitation of current humanized mouse models is that they primarily enable the analysis of human-specific pathogens that infect hematopoietic cells. However, most human pathogens target other cell types, including epithelial, endothelial and mesenchymal cells. Here, we show that implantation of human lung tissue, which contains up to 40 cell types, including nonhematopoietic cells, into immunodeficient mice (lung-only mice) resulted in the development of a highly vascularized lung implant. We demonstrate that emerging and clinically relevant human pathogens such as Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, Zika virus, respiratory syncytial virus and cytomegalovirus replicate in vivo in these lung implants. When incorporated into bone marrow/liver/thymus humanized mice, lung implants are repopulated with autologous human hematopoietic cells. We show robust antigen-specific humoral and T-cell responses following cytomegalovirus infection that control virus replication. Lung-only mice and bone marrow/liver/thymus-lung humanized mice substantially increase the number of human pathogens that can be studied in vivo, facilitating the in vivo testing of therapeutics

Dimethyl fumarate in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) inhibits inflammasome-mediated inflammation and has been proposed as a treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. This randomised, controlled, open-label platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), is assessing multiple treatments in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 (NCT04381936, ISRCTN50189673). In this assessment of DMF performed at 27 UK hospitals, adults were randomly allocated (1:1) to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus DMF. The primary outcome was clinical status on day 5 measured on a seven-point ordinal scale. Secondary outcomes were time to sustained improvement in clinical status, time to discharge, day 5 peripheral blood oxygenation, day 5 C-reactive protein, and improvement in day 10 clinical status. Between 2 March 2021 and 18 November 2021, 713 patients were enroled in the DMF evaluation, of whom 356 were randomly allocated to receive usual care plus DMF, and 357 to usual care alone. 95% of patients received corticosteroids as part of routine care. There was no evidence of a beneficial effect of DMF on clinical status at day 5 (common odds ratio of unfavourable outcome 1.12; 95% CI 0.86-1.47; p = 0.40). There was no significant effect of DMF on any secondary outcome

Dimethyl fumarate in patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): a randomised, controlled, open-label, platform trial

Dimethyl fumarate (DMF) inhibits inflammasome-mediated inflammation and has been proposed as a treatment for patients hospitalised with COVID-19. This randomised, controlled, open-label platform trial (Randomised Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy [RECOVERY]), is assessing multiple treatments in patients hospitalised for COVID-19 (NCT04381936, ISRCTN50189673). In this assessment of DMF performed at 27 UK hospitals, adults were randomly allocated (1:1) to either usual standard of care alone or usual standard of care plus DMF. The primary outcome was clinical status on day 5 measured on a seven-point ordinal scale. Secondary outcomes were time to sustained improvement in clinical status, time to discharge, day 5 peripheral blood oxygenation, day 5 C-reactive protein, and improvement in day 10 clinical status. Between 2 March 2021 and 18 November 2021, 713 patients were enroled in the DMF evaluation, of whom 356 were randomly allocated to receive usual care plus DMF, and 357 to usual care alone. 95% of patients received corticosteroids as part of routine care. There was no evidence of a beneficial effect of DMF on clinical status at day 5 (common odds ratio of unfavourable outcome 1.12; 95% CI 0.86-1.47; p = 0.40). There was no significant effect of DMF on any secondary outcome

Health care for all: effective, community supported, healthcare with innovative use of telemedicine technology

Abstract Abstract Almost half of the world’s total population reside in rural and remote areas and a large number of these people remain deprived of most basic facilities like healthcare and education. It is deemed impossible for government with scarce resources in developing countries to open and run a health facility in every remote community using conventional means. One increasingly popular unconventional mean is the use of existing technology to improve exchange of medical information for the purpose of improving health of underprivileged communities. Telemedicine implies the use of information and communication technology to provide health care remotely from a distance. With the induction of telemedicine, patients who live in rural and remote areas can have increased access to medical services. In many developing countries, use of telemedicine however has been limited mainly to teleconferencing between primary and secondary/tertiary care facilities for diagnosis and management of patients. This system still requires patients from remote communities to travel, often long and arduous journeys to the centre where telecom and medical facilities are available. Health Care 4 All International, a not for profit registered charity is providing primary care to patients by taking telemedicine into their homes in remote communities, thus obviating the need and hardships of travel for patient

Understanding the adsorption performance of T-G, T-BN, T-AlN, and T-GaN nanosheets toward the thioguanine anticancer drug via DFT calculations

In this study, the sensitivity and reactivity of the T-graphene (T-G), T-boron nitride (T-BN), T-aluminum nitride (T-AlN), and T-gallium nitride (T-GaN) as carriers for thioguanine (Tg) anticancer drug have been explored using DFT simulations. The interactions between nanosheets and Tg have been studied by analyzing adsorption behavior, charge transfer, dipole moment, quantum molecular descriptors, work function, solvation effect, and COSMO surface. Adsorption behavior of T-G is enhanced after modifying it to T-AlN and T-GaN. The adsorption energy of T-G is −23.55 kcal/mol, which is increased to −36.32 and −39.75 kcal/mol when T-G is modified to T-AlN and T-GaN in gas media. In water media, the values of adsorption energy are −26.89 and −27.40 kcal/mol for T-AlN and T-GaN nanosheets. Charge transfer analysis also discloses that a significant amount of charge is transferred during the adsorption process. In addition, energy gaps are reduced by 48.73% and 35.69% for T-AlN and T-GaN after the adsorption of Tg. Moreover, dipole moment, work function, and COSMO analysis suggested that T-AlN and T-GaN nanosheets could be suitable carriers for Tg anticancer drug

The ALOG family members <i>OsG1L1</i> and <i>OsG1L2</i> regulate inflorescence branching in rice

ABSTRACTThe architecture of the rice inflorescence is an important determinant of seed yield. The length of the inflorescence and the number of branches are among the key factors determining the amount of spikelets, and thus seeds, that will develop. Especially the timing of the identity transition from indeterminate branch meristem to determinate spikelet meristem regulates the complexity of the inflorescence. In this context, the ALOG gene TAWAWA1 (TAW1) has been shown to delay the transition to determinate spikelet development in rice. Recently, by combining precise laser microdissection of inflorescence meristems with RNA-seq we observed that two ALOG genes, Oryza sativa OsG1-like 1 (OsG1L1) and OsG1L2, have an expression profile similar to TAW1. Here we report that osg1l1 and osg1l2 loss-of-function CRISPR mutants have similar phenotypes as the taw1 mutant, suggesting that these genes might act on related pathways during inflorescence development. Transcriptome analysis of the osg1l2 mutant suggested interactions of OsG1L2 with other known inflorescence architecture regulators and the datasets were also used for the construction of a gene regulatory network (GRN) proposing interactions between genes potentially involved in controlling inflorescence development in rice.The spatio-temporal expression profiling and phenotypical analysis of CRISPR loss-of-function mutants of the homeodomain-leucine zipper transcription factor gene OsHOX14 suggest that the proposed GRN indeed serves as a valuable resource for the identification of new players involved in rice inflorescence development.One-sentence summaryOsG1L1 and OsG1L2 control panicle architecture through delaying the transition from indeterminate branch- to determinate spikelet-meristem identity.</jats:sec

Candidate Genes, Markers, Signatures of Selection, and Quantitative Trait Loci (QTLs) and Their Association with Economic Traits in Livestock: Genomic Insights and Selection

This review synthesizes advances in livestock genomics by examining the interplay between candidate genes, molecular markers (MMs), signatures of selection (SSs), and quantitative trait loci (QTLs) in shaping economically vital traits across livestock species. By integrating advances in genomics, bioinformatics, and precision breeding, the study elucidates genetic mechanisms underlying productivity, reproduction, meat quality, milk yield, fibre characteristics, disease resistance, and climate resilience traits pivotal to meeting the projected 70% surge in global animal product demand by 2050. A critical synthesis of 1455 peer-reviewed studies reveals that targeted genetic markers (e.g., SNPs, Indels) and QTL regions (e.g., IGF2 for muscle development, DGAT1 for milk composition) enable precise selection for superior phenotypes. SSs, identified through genome-wide scans and haplotype-based analyses, provide insights into domestication history, adaptive evolution, and breed-specific traits, such as heat tolerance in tropical cattle or parasite resistance in sheep. Functional candidate genes, including leptin (LEP) for feed efficiency and myostatin (MSTN) for double-muscling, are highlighted as drivers of genetic gain in breeding programs. The review underscores the transformative role of high-throughput sequencing, genome-wide association studies (GWASs), and CRISPR-based editing in accelerating trait discovery and validation. However, challenges persist, such as gene interactions, genotype&ndash;environment interactions, and ethical concerns over genetic diversity loss. By advocating for a multidisciplinary framework that merges genomic data with phenomics, metabolomics, and advanced biostatistics, this work serves as a guide for researchers, breeders, and policymakers. For example, incorporating DGAT1 markers into dairy cattle programs could elevate milk fat content by 15-20%, directly improving farm profitability. The current analysis underscores the need to harmonize high-yield breeding with ethical practices, such as conserving heat-tolerant cattle breeds, like Sahiwal