• MeSH
• Adenine chemistry   MeSH
• Cytosine chemistry   MeSH
• Research Support as Topic MeSH
• Guanine chemistry   MeSH
• Nucleic Acids chemistry   MeSH
• Models, Theoretical MeSH
• Binding Sites MeSH
• Hydrogen Bonding MeSH

Měření hlasového pole (voice range profile, VRP) patří k základním akustickým metodám vyšetření hlasu, slouží pro hodnocení dynamického a výškového rozsahu hlasu. V studii je uvedený přehled poznatků o měření a parametrizaci hlasového pole a jejich souvislost s poruchami hlasu, hlasovým tréninkem, pohlavím a věkem. Ve studii jsou schematicky znázorněny typické pozorované jevy na hlasových polích hlasových profesionálů a studentů herectví z předchozí studie (10) autora. Studie je zároveň teoretickým úvodem k navazující studii o zjištěných projevech poruchy hlasu u mužů na hlasovém poli. Klíčová slova: hlasové pole, akustické metody, hlasový trénink

The measurement of the voice range profile (VRP) is a basic acoustic method used for the evaluation of dynamic and frequency ranges of the voice. The study provides an overview of knowledge about measurement and parameterization of VRP and their relationship with voice disorders, voice training, gender and age. In the study there are schematically shown typical phenomena observed on VRPs of voice professionals and beginning students of acting from the previous study (10) of the author. The study is also a theoretical introduction to the follow-up study investigating the manifestations of voice disorders on the VRP measurement in men. Keywords: voice range profile, acoustic method, voice training

• MeSH
• Speech Acoustics * MeSH
• Child MeSH
• Adult MeSH
• Voice * physiology   MeSH
• Voice Quality MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Speech Production Measurement MeSH
• Adolescent MeSH
• Voice Disorders diagnosis   MeSH
• Research MeSH
• Check Tag
• Child MeSH
• Adult MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Adolescent MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH

The development of human sexual orientation remains a complex and multifaceted subject. It is often studied but its origins continue to elude us. In this preregistered study, our primary objective was to demonstrate the fraternal birth order effect (FBOE), which assumes a higher prevalence of older brothers in gay men than in their straight counterparts and which has also been recently recorded in lesbian women. Our second aim was to explore any potential impact of the FBOE on anal-erotic role orientation (AERO), both in gay and straight men. Our study sample included 693 gay men, 843 straight men, 265 lesbian women, and 331 straight women from Czechia and Slovakia. Employing a conventionally parameterized logistic regression model, we substantiated the FBOE among both gay men (OR = 1.35 for maternal older brothers) and lesbian women (OR = 1.71). These outcomes were confirmed by a more nuanced parameterization recently proposed by Blanchard (2022). Nonmaternal older brothers did not exhibit a significant influence on their younger brothers' sexual orientation. Contrary to some earlier reports, however, our data did not establish the FBOE as exclusive to gay men with the receptive AERO. Furthermore, our observations indicated a lower offspring count for mothers of gay men compared to mothers of straight men. Emphasizing the positive FBOE outcomes, we acknowledge the need for caution regarding the various options that can be used to estimate the familial influences on sexual orientation.

• MeSH
• Adult MeSH
• Heterosexuality statistics & numerical data   psychology   MeSH
• Homosexuality, Male * statistics & numerical data   psychology   MeSH
• Homosexuality, Female * statistics & numerical data   MeSH
• Middle Aged MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Birth Order * MeSH
• Sexual and Gender Minorities statistics & numerical data   psychology   MeSH
• Sexual Behavior statistics & numerical data   MeSH
• Siblings MeSH
• Check Tag
• Adult MeSH
• Middle Aged MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Young Adult MeSH
• Male MeSH
• Female MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Geographicals
• Czech Republic MeSH
• Slovakia MeSH

Photosystem II (PSII) is a multi-subunit pigment-protein complex and is one of several protein assemblies that function cooperatively in photosynthesis in plants and cyanobacteria. As more structural data on PSII become available, new questions arise concerning the nature of the charge separation in PSII reaction center (RC). The crystal structure of PSII RC from cyanobacteria Thermosynechococcus vulcanus was selected for the computational study of conformational changes in photosystem II associated to the charge separation process. The parameterization of cofactors and lipids for classical MD simulation with Amber force field was performed. The parametrized complex of PSII was embedded in the lipid membrane for MD simulation with Amber in Gromacs. The conformational behavior of protein and the cofactors directly involved in the charge separation were studied by MD simulations and QM/MM calculations. This study identified the most likely mechanism of the proton-coupled reduction of plastoquinone QB. After the charge separation and the first electron transfer to QB, the system undergoes conformational change allowing the first proton transfer to QB- mediated via Ser264. After the second electron transfer to QBH, the system again adopts conformation allowing the second proton transfer to QBH-. The reduced QBH2 would then leave the binding pocket.

• MeSH
• Bacterial Proteins chemistry   MeSH
• Photosystem II Protein Complex chemistry   MeSH
• Lipid Bilayers chemistry   MeSH
• Molecular Dynamics Simulation * MeSH
• Cyanobacteria enzymology   MeSH
• Thermosynechococcus MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

The pancreas, liver and hypothalamus have a regulatory function in the glucose homeostasis. As the blood glucose level changes, these compartments react and the level changes again. Subsequently to this reaction, the interstitial glucose level changes with some delay. In this paper, I propose a hypothesis that the change of the blood glucose level includes information about the estimated rate with which the hypothalamus expects the blood glucose level to return to normal range, by means of regulatory mechanisms of glucose homeostasis. As the interstitial glucose level change reflects the blood glucose level change, I propose a method to estimate the blood-to-interstitial glucose level delay. It is an important factor for glucose level prediction. Once the delay was calculated, it was possible to relate the present blood glucose level and future interstitial glucose level with such coefficients, which do not seem to change over the time of the experiment to a significant extent. Perhaps, it is a parameterization of regulatory processes of glucose homeostasis, which could be possibly encoded within hypothalamus set-points. The delays were constant per subject and ranged from 7 min up to 34 min for hereditary hypertriglyceridemic rats of 230-480 g weight, in experiments with a variable glucose infusion rate.

• MeSH
• Models, Biological MeSH
• Extracellular Fluid metabolism   MeSH
• Homeostasis physiology   MeSH
• Hypertriglyceridemia blood   MeSH
• Hypothalamus metabolism   MeSH
• Liver metabolism   MeSH
• Blood Glucose metabolism   physiology   MeSH
• Rats MeSH
• Monitoring, Physiologic MeSH
• Pancreas metabolism   MeSH
• Reaction Time MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Check Tag
• Rats MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH

We report a powerful method for capturing the time-resolved concentration profiles, liquid swelling and surface phenomena during the absorption of methane (CH4) in still liquid ethanol (C2D6O) and n-decane (n-C10D22) and at high spatial resolution (pixel size 21.07 μm) using neutron imaging. Absorption of supercritical methane was followed at two temperatures and two pressures of methane, namely 7.0, 37.8 °C and 80, 120 bar. Fick's second law, which was used in the liquid-fixed coordinates, enabled for an adequate parameterization of the observed concentration profiles and liquid levels using simple analytical expressions. For both studied liquids, anomalously slow diffusion was observed in the initial stage of the absorption experiment. This was ascribed to the slow formation of the surface excess on the interface, time constant ranged 130-275 s. The axial symmetry of the cell allowed for the tomographic reconstructions of the profiles of the menisci. Based on these profiles, contact angle and surface tension were evaluated using the Young-Laplace equation. Overall, neutron imaging made it possible to capture time- and space-resolved information from which the methane concentration, liquid level and meniscus shape under high-pressure conditions inside a cylindrical titanium vessel were quantitatively derived. Multiple characteristics of ethanol, a methane hydrate inhibitor, and n-decane, a model constituent of crude oil, were thus measured for the first time under industrially relevant conditions in a one-pot experiment.

• MeSH
• Alkanes chemistry   MeSH
• Diffusion MeSH
• Ethanol chemistry   MeSH
• Physical Phenomena MeSH
• Methane chemistry   MeSH
• Neutrons MeSH
• Petroleum MeSH
• Models, Statistical MeSH
• Temperature MeSH
• Water MeSH
• Single Molecule Imaging instrumentation   methods   MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH

• MeSH
• Models, Biological MeSH
• Biology MeSH
• Linear Models MeSH
• Software MeSH

• Conspectus
• Biologické vědy
• NML Fields
• biologie
• statistika, zdravotnická statistika
• knihovnictví, informační věda a muzeologie
• NML Publication type
• kolektivní monografie

BACKGROUND: Environmental DNA and metabarcoding allow the identification of a mixture of species and launch a new era in bio- and eco-assessment. Many steps are required to obtain taxonomically assigned matrices from raw data. For most of these, a plethora of tools are available; each tool's execution parameters need to be tailored to reflect each experiment's idiosyncrasy. Adding to this complexity, the computation capacity of high-performance computing systems is frequently required for such analyses. To address the difficulties, bioinformatic pipelines need to combine state-of-the art technologies and algorithms with an easy to get-set-use framework, allowing researchers to tune each study. Software containerization technologies ease the sharing and running of software packages across operating systems; thus, they strongly facilitate pipeline development and usage. Likewise programming languages specialized for big data pipelines incorporate features like roll-back checkpoints and on-demand partial pipeline execution. FINDINGS: PEMA is a containerized assembly of key metabarcoding analysis tools that requires low effort in setting up, running, and customizing to researchers' needs. Based on third-party tools, PEMA performs read pre-processing, (molecular) operational taxonomic unit clustering, amplicon sequence variant inference, and taxonomy assignment for 16S and 18S ribosomal RNA, as well as ITS and COI marker gene data. Owing to its simplified parameterization and checkpoint support, PEMA allows users to explore alternative algorithms for specific steps of the pipeline without the need of a complete re-execution. PEMA was evaluated against both mock communities and previously published datasets and achieved results of comparable quality. CONCLUSIONS: A high-performance computing-based approach was used to develop PEMA; however, it can be used in personal computers as well. PEMA's time-efficient performance and good results will allow it to be used for accurate environmental DNA metabarcoding analysis, thus enhancing the applicability of next-generation biodiversity assessment studies.

• MeSH
• Archaea MeSH
• Bacteria MeSH
• DNA, Environmental chemistry   genetics   MeSH
• Fungi MeSH
• Metagenomics methods   standards   MeSH
• Reference Standards MeSH
• Electron Transport Complex IV genetics   MeSH
• RNA, Ribosomal, 16S genetics   MeSH
• RNA, Ribosomal, 18S genetics   MeSH
• Plants MeSH
• Sensitivity and Specificity MeSH
• Software MeSH
• DNA Barcoding, Taxonomic methods   standards   MeSH
• Animals MeSH
• Check Tag
• Animals MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH

Fresh produce that is contaminated with viruses may lead to infection and viral gastroenteritis or hepatitis when consumed raw. It is thus important to reduce virus numbers on these foods. Prevention of virus contamination in fresh produce production and processing may be more effective than treatment, as sufficient virus removal or inactivation by post-harvest treatment requires high doses that may adversely affect food quality. To date knowledge of the contribution of various potential contamination routes is lacking. A risk assessment model was developed for human norovirus, hepatitis A virus and human adenovirus in raspberry and salad vegetable supply chains to quantify contributions of potential contamination sources to the contamination of produce at retail. These models were used to estimate public health risks. Model parameterization was based on monitoring data from European supply chains and literature data. No human pathogenic viruses were found in the soft fruit supply chains; human adenovirus (hAdV) was detected, which was additionally monitored as an indicator of fecal pollution to assess the contribution of potential contamination points. Estimated risks per serving of lettuce based on the models were 3×10(-4) (6×10(-6)-5×10(-3)) for NoV infection and 3×10(-8) (7×10(-10)-3×10(-6)) for hepatitis A jaundice. The contribution to virus contamination of hand-contact was larger as compared with the contribution of irrigation, the conveyor belt or the water used for produce rinsing. In conclusion, viral contamination in the lettuce and soft fruit supply chains occurred and estimated health risks were generally low. Nevertheless, the 97.5% upper limit for the estimated NoV contamination of lettuce suggested that infection risks up to 50% per serving might occur. Our study suggests that attention to full compliance for hand hygiene will improve fresh produce safety related to virus risks most as compared to the other examined sources, given the monitoring results. This effect will be further aided by compliance with other hygiene and water quality regulations in production and processing facilities.

• MeSH
• Hepatitis A prevention & control   MeSH
• Risk Assessment MeSH
• Hand Hygiene MeSH
• Caliciviridae Infections prevention & control   MeSH
• Water Quality MeSH
• Humans MeSH
• Adenoviruses, Human isolation & purification   physiology   MeSH
• Norovirus isolation & purification   physiology   MeSH
• Fruit virology   MeSH
• Lactuca virology   MeSH
• Models, Theoretical * MeSH
• Hepatitis A virus isolation & purification   physiology   MeSH
• Check Tag
• Humans MeSH
• Publication type
• Journal Article MeSH
• Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't MeSH