Diverse Content Research Articles

Salix species and varieties affect the molecular composition and diversity of soil organic matter

Abstract Background and aims Most studies of the relationships between the composition of soil organic matter and plant cover have been carried out at the plant genera level. However, they have largely overlooked the potential effects that plant varieties, belonging to the same genus, can have on soil organic matter. Methods We investigated whether plant varieties belonging to different Salix species (S. dasyclados and S. viminalis) impacted the composition of organic matter using mid-infrared spectroscopy and pyrolysis GC/MS. Top-soils were taken from an 18 year-old long-term field trial where six Salix varieties were grown as short-rotation coppice under two fertilisation regimes. Results Significant differences in the molecular composition and diversity of the soil organic matter were observed in the fertilised plots. The effects were mostly visible at the species level, i.e. the organic matter in soil under S. dasyclados varieties had higher molecular diversity and lignin content than under S. viminalis, potentially due to differences in the amount and composition of their litter inputs. Smaller differences among varieties from the same species were also observed. No significant effects of Salix varieties were observed in the unfertilised plots. The relatively high degree of spatial variability of several soil properties found in these plots may have masked plant variety and/or species effects. Conclusion This study provides evidence that the identity of Salix species or varieties can affect the molecular composition and diversity of soil organic matter. The corresponding traits should be considered in breeding programmes to enhance soil organic C accumulation and persistence.

Evaluation of Instructor-Generated Vs. Student-Generated Content in Online Humanities Courses in South Africa

Purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the evaluation of instructor-generated vs. student-generated content in online humanities courses in South Africa. Methodology: This study adopted a desk methodology. A desk study research design is commonly known as secondary data collection. This is basically collecting data from existing resources preferably because of its low cost advantage as compared to a field research. Our current study looked into already published studies and reports as the data was easily accessed through online journals and libraries. Findings: Studies comparing instructor-generated and student-generated content in online humanities courses in South Africa indicate that instructor-generated content offers structured and consistent learning materials aligned with course objectives. Conversely, student-generated content enhances engagement, critical thinking, and collaborative skills among learners. Effective use of both approaches, tailored to course topics and student demographics, could optimize online humanities education outcomes in South Africa by balancing instructional guidance with student autonomy and creativity. Unique Contribution to Theory, Practice and Policy: Constructivist learning theory, community of inquiry framework & self-determination theory may be used to anchor future studies on the evaluation of instructor-generated vs. student-generated content in online humanities courses in South Africa. Equip educators with pedagogical strategies that leverage both instructor expertise and student autonomy. Inform curriculum design policies that advocate for the integration of diverse content generation methods across humanities disciplines.

Genetic diversity and population structure of wheat landraces in Southern Winter Wheat Region of China

BackgroundWheat landraces are considered a valuable source of genetic diversity for breeding programs. It is useful to evaluate the genetic diversity in breeding studies such as marker-assisted selection (MAS), genome-wide association studies (GWAS), and genomic selection. In addition, constructing a core germplasm set that represents the genetic diversity of the entire variety set is of great significance for the efficient conservation and utilization of wheat landrace germplasms.ResultsTo understand the genetic diversity in wheat landrace, 2,023 accessions in the Jiangsu Provincial Crop Germplasm Resource Bank were used to explore the molecular diversity and population structure using the Illumina 15 K single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) chip. These accessions were divided into five subpopulations based on population structure, principal coordinate and kinship analysis. A significant variation was found within and among the subpopulations based on the molecular variance analysis (AMOVA). Subpopulation 3 showed more genetic variability based on the different allelic patterns (Na, Ne and I). The M strategy as implemented in MStratv 4.1 software was used to construct the representative core collection. A core collection with a total of 311 accessions (15.37%) was selected from the entire landrace germplasm based on genotype and 12 different phenotypic traits. Compared to the initial landrace collections, the core collection displayed higher gene diversity (0.31) and polymorphism information content (PIC) (0.25), and represented almost all phenotypic variation.ConclusionsA core collection comprising 311 accessions containing 100% of the genetic variation in the initial population was developed. This collection provides a germplasm base for effective management, conservation, and utilization of the variation in the original set.

“Will You Buy It If They Recommend It?” Exploring the Antecedents of Intention to Purchase Podcaster-Endorsed Items

The diverse content of and ease of listening to podcasts have made podcasts popular, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. Advertisers have begun to recognize their marketing potential and are now hiring podcasters to recommend their products. This study sought to determine the factors influencing podcast commitment, parasocial interaction (PSI), and the intention to purchase podcaster-endorsed items. It was conducted in Taiwan with a sample size of 578 participants and an online questionnaire. Structural equation modeling and mediation analysis were applied to the collected data from the perspective of uses and gratifications theory. We found that podcast commitment is positively related to edutainment, storytelling transportation, and social engagement. Social engagement is positively related to PSI, while storytelling transportation has a negative relationship with PSI. Additionally, there is a strong positive correlation between podcast commitment and PSI and both factors positively influence the intention to purchase podcaster-endorsed items. PSI also significantly moderates the positive relationship between podcast commitment and the intent to buy podcaster-endorsed items.

Effective Automation of End-to-End Testing for OTT Platforms

The rapid evolution of Over-the-Top (OTT) platforms has reshaped the digital media landscape, necessitating robust testing strategies to ensure seamless user experiences and service reliability. Effective automation of end-to-end testing for OTT platforms emerges as a crucial strategy to address the complexities associated with diverse content delivery, user interactions, and varying device compatibilities. This paper explores the challenges and best practices in automating end-to-end testing processes for OTT platforms, focusing on integrating various testing tools, frameworks, and methodologies to achieve comprehensive coverage and efficiency. OTT platforms deliver content directly over the internet, bypassing traditional broadcast and cable channels. This direct-to-consumer approach introduces unique challenges in testing, such as ensuring consistent performance across different devices, network conditions, and content types. Additionally, the dynamic nature of content libraries and frequent updates necessitate rigorous testing to identify and rectify potential issues proactively. Automation, with its capacity to simulate real-world usage scenarios, streamline repetitive tasks, and enhance testing accuracy, plays a pivotal role in addressing these challenges. The paper first outlines the primary challenges in end-to-end testing for OTT platforms. These challenges include the need for cross-platform compatibility, performance under varying network conditions, and the ability to handle diverse content formats and streaming protocols. The complexities are compounded by the requirement for real-time performance metrics and user experience evaluations, which demand a sophisticated testing infrastructure.

Digital media environment in wartime. Russian invasion coverage in Ukrainian professional and amateur news media

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: The aim of this paper is to compare professional and amateur news media (Telegram) coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and to determine the quality of this coverage. THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The popularity of Tele­gram has been growing since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. To describe the digital media environment in wartime, it is important to observe the activity of both professional and amateur media. Webpages containing news texts were exported with Python programs, and news sources were processed using regular expressions. THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: At the beginning of the digital platform era there were hopes of a symbiotic relationship between professional media and amateur digital platforms, where the latter would provide more diverse content, thus helping some ignored groups to be heard by the media. As for Telegram, it has a growing number of users and channels, but there are almost no restrictions regarding content. Thus, together with some “alternative” and “ignored” voices, production of harmful content on Telegram is observed around the world: hate speech, extremism, racism, conspiracy theories and propaganda. In Ukraine, Telegram is the most popular source of information during the full-scale Russian invasion and Ukrainians trust it, therefore its contribution to informing people should be analysed. RESEARCH RESULTS: The conducted analysis has demonstrated that popular amateur news media mostly fail to provide clear references to news sources in the war period (in March to October 2022, only every third to fifth post contained a clear reference to a news source). On the other hand, the most popular mass media and amateur mass media sources are mostly the same: media resources connected with the president and the government, verified military sources, etc. CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The scarcity of news sources given in Telegram posts confirms previous observations about the low quality of content on Telegram. However, in some cases Telegram channels use reliable official or professional media news sources. Thus, some additional steps are needed to improve the situation: legislative changes for Telegram channels, ownership transparency, further monitoring of content quality, and media literacy campaigns for channels’ audiences.

Quality Evaluation and Flavonoid Content of Honey from Riau Forest, Indonesia

Honey is a naturally sweet liquid produced by bees from flower nectar, which varies in quality and flavonoid content due to the food source, environment and the bees that produce it. This study aims to evaluate the quality and flavonoid content of honey from the Riau Forest of Indonesia. Quality testing was conducted in accordance with SNI 8664:2018 with sensory, physical, chemical and microbiological parameters. Flavonoid testing was carried out qualitatively using HPLC. The test results showed that the sensory profile of honey was in accordance with the standard, sweet taste, distinctive aroma, brown colour and thick shape. Chemical parameters obtained values of moisture content of 21.92%, diastase enzyme 3.13 DN and HMF 4.14 mg/kg have met the requirements. However, the reducing sugar of 54.1% is still below the requirement. Heavy metal parameters (Pb, Cd, As and Hg) were not detected and microbiological ALT 3.0 x 10 and yeast mould <10 colonies/gr that have met. Furthermore, the results of flavonoid qualitative tests detected several types including Luteolin, Mangiferin, Smiglanin, maltol, isoflavones, quercetin, Cnidimol C, Norcimifungin, Apigenin, Methyl ophiopogonanone B, Pectolinarigenin, Kusenol C, 3,5,6-trihydroxy-4',7-dimetoxyflavone and Lupinifoline. The conclusion of this study shows that honey from Riau forests fulfils most of the quality requirements and has a diverse flavonoid content.

El servicio público de abastecimiento de agua: el eterno debate sobre las formas de gestión local en el nuevo contexto de la emergencia climática

The work has by object a reflection on the ways of provision of the service of supplying of water in the current context of water emergency. It treats to do a balance of the two opposing trends that govern the eternal debate. To such object, in the first place, analyses the juridical frame that it can condition the election of the way of management of the service of supplying of water, in particular the regulation contained in the LRSAL on the determination of the legally established procedure for the implantation and modification of the forms of provision of the public services. Next, they expose the peculiarities of each way of management of the service from an administrative juridical perspective take some performances of diverse content that have produced in the last years in Spain. It treats, then, to establish the more deficient and problematic appearances of each way of management, take the urgent need to improve resilience and sustainability of the supply of the water, as well as the paper that corresponds him to the local Administration in the management of the drought.

대한민국임시정부에 대한 일본 학계의 인식과 역사교과서의 서술 분석

In the first half of the twentieth century, during the Japanese colonial period, the Japanese general government in Korea and the Japanese central government did not recognize the Korean Provisional Government, dismissed it as an illegal organization(“shadow government”) and continuously suppressed its activities. As a result, the perception, description and evaluation of the Korean Provisional Government in some Japanese academic research and history textbooks remained very weak and scarce. In addition, many inaccurate and negative accounts have been found. Apart from the works of Sassa Mitsuaki(佐佐充昭), there are few contemporary works by Japanese scholars on the Provisional Government. Among Japanese history textbooks (on Japanese history and world history), those published by Shikkyo Publishing House stand out for giving a brief but relatively accurate account of the Provisional Government. Therefore, it is necessary to raise awareness of the Korean Provisional Government among Japanese scholars, promote comprehensive research and develop better ways to portray the Korean Provisional Government in Japanese textbook narratives. In this context, it is necessary to seek systematic solutions in the short, medium and long term. First, it will be necessary to strengthen and revitalize exchanges with international scholars and educators (especially Japanese scholars), including the promotion of more active joint research and joint publications. Second, it is necessary to promote research on the Provisional Government by Korean and foreign scholars and to internationalize, popularize and promote the results of such work. Third, more efforts should be made to improve the presentation of the activities of the Provisional Government in Japanese academic books, introductory books, humanities books and history textbooks. Fourth, Korean academic, educational and civil society organizations should promote more active and rigorous research and education on the subject. Fifthly, it is necessary to conduct free and honest research on the realities, achievements, successes and limitations of the Korean Provisional Government and the Korean Liberation Army. It will be important to promote discourse and storytelling and to create diverse content that can be consumed in everyday life. Finally, we must be careful not to ideologize under the influence of a particular political ideology or a teleological view of history in the way we perceive, evaluate and describe the Korean Provisional Government. In particular, it is necessary to reject ideologically biased perspectives from the Republic of Korea (South Korea), North Korea, Yanbian, China, Chinese and Japanese academia, Western academia and so on.

Study on Cultural Consumption Characteristics of Museum Short Video Platforms under the Threshold of Identifier Economics

Purpose - This study examines museums’ operations on the Shakeology platform, elucidating the characteristics of museums’ cultural consumption in relation to identity, cultural identity, value identity, and the cluster effect of certified museums. The study explores how short video platforms can serve as effective tools for cultural communication and consumption promotion. Design/Methodology/Approach - The study utilizes qualitative research to investigate how museums utilize the Shakeology platform to create a diverse content ecosystem and improve audience engagement. Data is collected through the analysis of museum activities on the platform, including content types, interaction strategies, and audience engagement. It also examines how short video platforms differ from traditional media in terms of granular information processing and community interaction. Findings - Short video platforms are more effective in communication than traditional media due to their granular information processing and community interaction. Museums that focus on Shakeology can enhance consumers’ connection to cultural heritage, optimize market positioning, and improve audience interaction. Key characteristics of cultural consumption on the platform include enhanced cultural identity, value identity, and a significant cluster effect of certified museums, leading to a richer cultural experience for audiences. Research Implications - The study holds significant implications for museums aiming to utilize modern media for audience engagement and market positioning. By understanding cultural consumption dynamics on short video platforms, museums can customize content and interaction strategies to cultivate stronger audience connections. The study suggests that museums should continue to innovate and adapt to new media trends to enhance their cultural communication efforts.

X-Phishing-Writer: A Framework for Cross-lingual Phishing E-mail Generation

Cybercrime is projected to cause annual business losses of $10.5 trillion by 2025, a significant concern given that a majority of security breaches are due to human errors, especially through phishing attacks. The rapid increase in daily identified phishing sites over the past decade underscores the pressing need to enhance defenses against such attacks. Social Engineering Drills (SEDs) are essential in raising awareness about phishing yet face challenges in creating effective and diverse phishing e-mail content. These challenges are exacerbated by the limited availability of public datasets and concerns over using external language models like ChatGPT for phishing e-mail generation. To address these issues, this article introduces X-Phishing-Writer, a novel cross-lingual Few-shot phishing e-mail generation framework. X-Phishing-Writer allows for the generation of e-mails based on minimal user input, leverages single-language datasets for multilingual e-mail generation, and is designed for internal deployment using a lightweight, open-source language model. Incorporating Adapters into an Encoder–Decoder architecture, X-Phishing-Writer marks a significant advancement in the field, demonstrating superior performance in generating phishing e-mails across 25 languages when compared to baseline models. Experimental results and real-world drills involving 1,682 users showcase a 17.67% e-mail open rate and a 13.33% hyperlink click-through rate, affirming the framework’s effectiveness and practicality in enhancing phishing awareness and defense.

The Role of Extracellular Vesicles in Pandemic Viral Infections.

Extracellular vesicles (EVs), of diverse origin and content, are membranous structures secreted by a broad range of cell types. Recent advances in molecular biology have highlighted the pivotal role of EVs in mediating intercellular communication, facilitated by their ability to transport a diverse range of biomolecules, including proteins, lipids, DNA, RNA and metabolites. A striking feature of EVs is their ability to exert dual effects during viral infections, involving both proviral and antiviral effects. This review explores the dual roles of EVs, particularly in the context of pandemic viruses such as HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2. On the one hand, EVs can enhance viral replication and exacerbate pathogenesis by transferring viral components to susceptible cells. On the other hand, they have intrinsic antiviral properties, including activation of immune responses and direct inhibition of viral infection. By exploring these contrasting functions, our review emphasizes the complexity of EV-mediated interactions in viral pathogenesis and highlights their potential as targets for therapeutic intervention. The insights obtained from investigating EVs in the context of HIV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 provide a deeper understanding of viral mechanisms and pathologies, and offer a new perspective on managing and mitigating the impact of these global health challenges.

Screening the antimicrobial, cytotoxic and hemolytic effects of skin-parotoid gland secretions of 13 taxa from six species and one hybrid population of Anatolian endemic Lycian salamanders (Genus: Lyciasalamandra)

Background and purpose: The diverse bioactive content in the skin and parotoid glands of amphibians makes them unique and highly potential sources for pharmacological developments. The main aim of the study is to determine the total protein amounts, in vitro cytotoxicities, antimicrobial activities and hemolytic effects of skin-parotoid secretions of these endemic Lycian salamanders (Genus: Lyciasalamandra). Materials and methods: Lycian salamander specimens of 13 taxa from six species and one hybrid population are collected from southwestern Anatolia. Skin-parotoid secretions were obtained, clarified, supernatants snapfrozen then lyophilized. Total protein amounts were determined by BCA assay kit. The cytotoxicity was determined on eight different cell lines (one healthy and seven cancerous) using MTT assay. The antimicrobial activity was assesed using 11 different microorganisms (nine bacteria and two yeast) from six genus by MIC method. Hemolytic effects were measured on rabbit red blood cells. Results: Lycian salamanders’ skin-parotoid gland secretions showed variable cytotoxic effects on all cell lines with IC50 values from 5.41 ± 0.17 μg/ml to ineffective. MIC results of antimicrobial activity tests were also variable and from 3.9 μg/mL to non-effective. Studied skin-parotoid secretions have no hemolytic activities on rabbit red blood cells at concentrations of 0.5, 5 and 50 μg/mL. Conclusions: Skin-parotoid gland secretions of Anatolian endemic Lycian salamanders have sufficient and remarkable therapeutic potential to be candidate sources of natural and biologically active substances for novel drug discoveries.

(034) EDI QUALITY IMPROVEMENT IN REPRODUCTIVE MEDICAL EDUCATION: A WORKED MODEL

Abstract Introduction Countless patients face challenges obtaining holistic generalist care and experience health disparities related to race/ethnicity and social structural determinants of health (SSDOH). Revisions to medical curriculum are necessary to ensure that graduates can competently provide care that is socially accountable and aligns with the needs of patients. Evidence supports the inclusion of generalist and equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) content in curriculum to foster such competency. However, a 2022 study conducted at our medical school revealed a lack of generalism and EDI content in the case based learning (CBL) curriculum. An evidence-based process for assessing existing CBL curriculum for generalist content exists, but no process for revision has been described. While a process to revise EDI content in CBL curriculum exists, no studies to date have focused on reproductive medicine and urology content and the unique challenges associated with this area of medicine, such as the additional impact of stigma, trauma and discrimination related to pregnancy-related choice, sexual orientation or gender diversity. Objective To enhance generalist and EDI content within the Reproductive Medicine and Urology Course (RMUC) CBL curriculum. Further, to develop a worked model for enhancing generalist and EDI content in an existing CBL reproductive medicine and urology curriculum. Lastly, to provide medical graduates with the tools to provide care that is socially accountable and aligns with the current needs of patients. Methods We evaluated and revised five CBL cases in our medical school’s RMUC curriculum. We employed the Toronto Generalism Assessment Tool (T-GAT) to assess generalism, and adapted guidelines from Krishnan et al. to assess and implement the necessary changes related to EDI. Upon completion, we re-evaluated the RMUC CBL curriculum to ensure the incorporation of generalism and EDI content. We also used existing revision processes described by Bruner et al. to guide our overall approach. Results RMUC CBL cases were modified and our methods documented. Through this process, several challenges were identified and include difficulties with: (1) obtaining images due to lack of commercially available content that includes members of equity-deserving groups, (2) the time needed to appropriately incorporate SDOH already present in the cases, and (3) detecting content that was subtly paternalistic or missing a trauma-informed approach. Conclusions Generalism and EDI were lacking within the RMUC curriculum. Development of a worked model, accompanied by reflections on navigating encounters challenges, is underway. This will serve as a guide to others wishing to incorporate generalism and EDI into their reproductive medicine education programs. Disclosure No.

Construction of PARI public health education programs for Chinese undergraduates: a Delphi study.

The objective of this study is to develop a consensus among experts on a comprehensive and scientifically sound physical activity-related injuries (PARI) public health education program specifically tailored for undergraduates. This study designed three rounds of expert consultation by using a Delphi method. A panel of 30 experts from the fields of public health education, sports medicine, anesthesia pain, emergency medicine, and emergency nursing participated in the study. This study successfully established a consensus among experts on the goals, content, teaching methods, and time allocation for the PARI Public Health Education Program for undergraduates. The program encompasses 10 objectives divided into 2 main categories: professional knowledge and skill goals. In terms of content, it includes 5 primary indicators, 22 secondary indicators, and 56 detailed tertiary indicators. Six teaching methods were identified as suitable. Additionally, a typical 60-min educational session was segmented into eight parts, with a proposed time arrangement for each, ensuring comprehensive coverage of all topics. The consensus achieved in this study on the PARI Public Health Education Program for undergraduates lays a crucial foundation for the advancement of health literacy and proactive health management within this demographic. We presented a comprehensive framework for PARI public health education, integrating diverse learning methods and content areas. This systematic approach not only enriched the resources available for undergraduate health education, especially of PARI but also had the potential to significantly impact the implementation and effectiveness of health promotion strategies.

예비유아교사들이 유아 과학 활동 장면을 떠올리며 그린 그림(drawings)

Objectives The purpose of this study was to analyze the drawings and interviews of pre-service early childhood teachers on early childhood science activities and to orient them on the educational contents and methods to be taught in early childhood science education. Methods For this purpose, 34 students from the Department of Early Childhood Education at a 4-year university located in City A were asked to draw scenes of early childhood science activities during an early childhood science education class, and then interviews were conducted with 9 of them. The content of the drawings drawn by pre-service early childhood teachers was classified according to the content of early childhood science education to examine trends, and the interview data was read repeatedly and categorized based on major keywords and main content. Results In this study, pre-service early childhood teachers’ drawings were analyzed and found that the most common scenes were ‘growing and observing plants’ and ‘raising and observing animals’. But ‘experimenting with the teacher’, ‘doing science in play’, ‘experiencing plants and animals in outdoor learning’ were relatively rare. Through these research results, it was found that pre-service early childhood teachers have biased ideas about early childhood science activities, topics related to ‘animals and plants’, ‘life and the natural environment’, and the types of science activities that take place indoors. The interviews also revealed that pre-service early childhood teachers have negative experiences and feelings related to science, which makes them feel uncomfortable and have difficulty with science. Conclusions These findings suggest that it is necessary for instructors to reflect more diverse contents of science education in early childhood science education courses and to experience science activities directly with pre-service early childhood teachers. In addition, this suggests that there is a need to reduce pre-service early childhood teachers’ indifference to science and their vague fear of science.

Progressive Adapting and Pruning: Domain-Incremental Learning for Saliency Prediction

Saliency prediction (SAP) plays a crucial role in simulating the visual perception function of human beings. In practical situations, humans can quickly grasp saliency extraction in new image domains. However, current SAP methods mainly concentrate on training models in single domains, which do not effectively handle diverse content and styles present in real-world images. As a result, it would be of great significance if SAP models could efficiently adjust to new image domains. To this end, this article aims to design SAP models that can imitate the incremental learning ability of human beings on multiple image domains and name domain-incremental saliency prediction (DISAP). To make a tradeoff between preventing the forgetting of historical domains and achieving high performance on new domains, we propose a progressively updated domain incremental encoder. This encoder consists of a domain-sharing branch and a domain-specific branch. The domain-sharing branch includes a feature selection mechanism to preserve crucial parameters after fine-tuning the model on each current domain. The remaining parameters are reserved to absorb knowledge from future domains. Furthermore, to capture the unique characteristics of each domain with relatively low computational overhead, we introduce a lightweight design to construct the domain-specific branch, enabling effective adaptation to new domains. Extensive experiments are conducted on multiple domain-incremental learning settings formed by four saliency prediction datasets, including Salicon, MIT1003, the art subset of CAT2000, and WebSal. The results demonstrate that our method outperforms existing methods significantly. The code is available at https://github.com/KaIi-github/DIL4SAP .

Seed Priming with Poly-Gamma-Glutamic Acid (γ-PGA) Improves Rice Germination Performance under Drought Conditions

Drought poses a significant threat to global food security, particularly impacting rice cultivation during the germination stage. In this study, a soil-based system that utilizes soil moisture content was used to simulate optimal and stress conditions to assess the effect of the specific seed priming protocols on germination. Eleven rice varieties, representative of indica and japonica subspecies, grown in different ecosystems and having diverse nutrient contents, were treated with water or solutions of either poly-gamma-glutamic acid (γ-PGA) or denatured γ-PGA. Collected data regarding germinability and stress indices revealed different drought sensitivity between japonica and indica subspecies and genotype-specific responses to priming. Particularly, γ-PGA improved germination of highly susceptible indica varieties whereas water soaking was more effective for the moderately sensitive japonica varieties. Integrative analyses evidenced differences between biofortified and non-biofortified rice under γ-PGA treatment, suggesting a possible correlation between γ-PGA efficacy and Zn/Fe seed content. These findings underline that priming strategies should be tailored based on genotype and therefore this factor should be always taken under consideration for future works. The current study provides relevant information for optimizing seed priming techniques to sustain the development of drought-resilient crops as a sustainable strategy to address agricultural resilience and safeguard food security amidst environmental challenges.

Toward efficient and lightweight sea–land segmentation for remote sensing images

Sea–land segmentation is of great significance for autonomous coastline monitoring, which is fundamental research in the remote sensing community. Due to the diverse contents and easily confused sea–land boundaries contained in remote sensing images, it is always challenging to achieve precise sea–land segmentation for complex scenarios. Although existing deep learning-based methods have exhibited promising performance, excessive computational load and insufficient use of hierarchical features remain unresolved. In this paper, we contribute to addressing the problems by developing an efficient and lightweight convolutional neural network (CNN) termed E-Net. On the one hand, the proposed network adopts a novel E-shaped architecture that reforms the conventional U-codec structure to make full use of hierarchical features at different depths, so that the sea–land segmentation effect can be significantly improved without excessive computational load. On the other hand, a contextual aggregation attention mechanism (CA2M) is designed to further facilitate efficient aggregation and transmission of contextual information, so that the fuzzy and irregular sea–land boundaries can be accurately distinguished. Extensive experiments reveal that our approach not only produces superior sea–land segmentation effect but also demonstrates promising computational efficiency. Specifically, the proposed E-Net achieves state-of-the-art sea–land segmentation performance with 92.78% and 93.62% mean Intersection over Union (mIoU) on the SLSD and HRSC2016 datasets, respectively, while the frames per second (FPS) reaches 108.032 with as low as 52.287G floating point operations per second (FLOPs).

Incorporating Sex-Diverse and Gender-Inclusive Perspectives in Higher Education Biology Courses.

Inclusive teaching is teaching in a way that reaches all students in the classroom; this is beneficial for everyone and particularly for those with minoritized identities. Instructors play a critical role in scaffolding how students are exposed to and learn science content in the classroom. In this manuscript we discuss how biology instructors can make their classrooms more inclusive with regard to sex and gender diversity content. Many topics in biology are based on androcentric, heteronormative, and oppressive framing, even though those lenses are more reflective of our own history and culture than they are of the diversity we see in nature. Here, we summarize information presented in the SICB 2024 workshop titled "Incorporating sex diversity and gender inclusivity in biology undergraduate classrooms" and provide instructors with a) rationale for why inclusive teaching matters, b) guidance on how to challenge unscientific views and make their curricula more sex-diverse and gender inclusive, and c) practical and easy-to-implement strategies for discussing "contentious" topics in the classroom. Incorporation of this material will be beneficial for students, for science and medicine, and for accurately representing the diversity found across the tree of life.