Royal Society Open Science最新文献

The molecular and crystal structures of six compounds containing sulfonamide moieties are described. It has been shown that the geometric parameters of the sulfonamide group depend little on the nature of the substituents. Their bond lengths and bond angles remain almost the same and are in good accordance with those known from the literature. In crystals, depending on the type of substituents the molecules exist in the form of either monomers or dimers joined by intermolecular hydrogen bonds involving sulfonamide fragments. Introduction of large substituents into the molecules changes the way of packing of the studied sulfonamides and decreases the number of intermolecular hydrogen bonds in the crystals. The value of this dihedral angle may affect the nature and strength of the intermolecular bonding of the species in crystals. In silico analyses predicted low toxicity and potential enzyme inhibition, along with antiprotozoal properties, suggesting these compounds as candidates against protozoan pathogens. Molecular docking confirmed inhibitory potential against trypanothione reductase, supporting antiprotozoal activity. Consequently, these compounds may serve as promising lead-like molecules for drug development targeting protozoan infections.

Domestication and subsequent human-induced selection has enhanced profound changes in animal morphology. On modern domestic pigs, those transformations encompass not only overall increases in body size but also modifications in skull morphology. While skull morphological differences between modern domestic pigs and wild boar are relatively well-documented, less understood is the variation and underlying mechanisms associated with intensive breeding. In this study, we investigated the rate and direction of phenotypic change of skull morphology using a unique dataset that includes two lineages of German domestic pig that were subjected to similar intensive industrial selection pressures throughout the twentieth century, alongside contemporaneous populations of German wild boar. Size and shape variation of 135 specimens was quantified through geometric morphometrics, with 82 three-dimensional landmarks. We find expected differences in skull shape between wild and domestic pigs, but also convergence between the two domestic lineages through the century of directed breeding, despite population segregation. Our results suggest that cranial morphologies have rapidly responded to selection pressure that is independent of genetic isolation. This also suggests that pig morphotypes quickly reflect human agency and impact upon domestic animal phenotypes, revealing a pathway to investigate early human breeding activity in ancient and historical contexts.

The ways that pigs interact with humans are more flexible than other livestock. This plasticity means that pig behaviour can evidence a tremendous range of cultural phenomena, some of which may not otherwise show up in the archaeological record. We explore how people and pigs interacted in Ireland over 6000 years (4000 BC-AD 1900) from the perspective of isotopic zooarchaeology, using a large sample of pigs from 40 sites. Results demonstrate continuity and dramatic change. While pig diets show an emphasis on pannage throughout much of the period, husbandry was fundamentally reconstructed in the early medieval period. Through prehistory, pigs were herded in areas distant from human settlements, whereas later they were relocated to live near people. We explore potential implications of these patterns at a range of scales, from economics, to perspectives on zoonoses, and animal agency. While syntheses of a similar scope are needed for other areas of Europe, these findings may reflect a uniquely Irish trajectory of human-animal relationships.

Bioaerosols, a subset of aerosols released from the biosphere, can carry pathogens, and include particles with diameters from nanometres to a few micrometres. They can remain suspended indoors and travel significant distances. Bioaerosol studies play a vital role in public health, as bioaerosols are an effective route for human and animal pathogen transmission, especially in animal production and handling facilities, which are considered hotspots for the emergence of zoonotic pathogens. The 'One Health' approach, which interconnects human, animal and environmental health, underscores the need for robust biomonitoring and biosurveillance systems. We introduce the SOLARIS project, a novel bioaerosol sampler manufactured through three-dimensional printing with a biocompatible material. Our sampler is compact, portable and uses a liquid collection medium, increasing bioefficiency. Our sampler's laboratory testing demonstrated the successful separation of viable Escherichia coli bacteria from artificially generated bioaerosols. Collected samples were found suitable for downstream analysis methods such as culturing, mass spectrometry, molecular detection and electron microscopy. A field trial at a swine facility was performed, in which Clostridioides difficile spores were successfully collected from bioaerosols and identified using microbiological and molecular methods, reinforcing our sampler's utility and emphasizing the significance of incorporating aerosol samples in research studies within the One Health approach.

Toxoplasma gondii is one of the world's most prevalent parasites and has significant impacts on the health of humans, domestic animals and wildlife. In New Zealand's rural environments, T. gondii creates economic losses for the farming industry and threatens vulnerable native avifauna and marine mammals. Predator control of rodents and feral cats has potential to reduce or even eliminate transmission of T. gondii on farms; however, the efficacy of such management is uncertain. We apply a mathematical model of T. gondii transmission dynamics in feral cat and rodent populations in New Zealand farmland and simulate varying intensities of predator control to predict changes in T. gondii prevalence and environmental contamination levels over time. The model predicts that predator control is relatively ineffective for reducing transmission in areas with high environmental contamination rates. However, assuming low rates of environmental contamination, local elimination of T. gondii could be achievable, for example, by control that sustains large reductions of 88%, 69% and 59% in feral cat, house mouse and ship rat populations, respectively, over 56 weeks. Predator control is, therefore, a potentially viable approach for managing T. gondii in some rural environments, but only if high levels of population control are sustained.

Formamidinium lead bromide (FAPbBr_₃) perovskites are promising candidates for optoelectronic applications owing to their exceptional semiconducting and photoluminescent properties. However, their high sensitivity to environmental factors like moisture and polar solvents limits their long-term stability, posing a barrier to commercial applications. This study addresses this stability challenge by encapsulating FAPbBr_₃ in poly(3-bromothiophene) (PTBr), a high molecular-weight-conducting polymer, to enhance resistance to aqueous and solvent-based degradation. The PTBr encapsulation was found to significantly improve the thermal and environmental stability of FAPbBr_₃, as evidenced by thermogravimetric analysis, which revealed a reduced and delayed mass loss and an increased residual mass (up to 28.17% in composites with 70% PTBr content). Photoluminescence studies demonstrated that the encapsulated composites exhibited a mean fluorescence lifetime of 87.4 ns, compared with 12.56% fluorescence retention in unencapsulated FAPbBr_₃ after exposure to moisture for 45 days. Moreover, encapsulated FAPbBr_₃ retained over 80% of its green light fluorescence intensity even after 1 year, whereas the unencapsulated sample degraded to less than 5%. Notably, the composites displayed fluorescence recovery upon exposure to polar solvents, further highlighting PTBr's protective role. These findings provide a practical, non-interacting encapsulation strategy that enhances both the environmental and thermal stability of FAPbBr_₃ while preserving its emission characteristics, offering potential to support the further development of perovskite-based optoelectronic devices for practical applications.

Hydrostatic pressure is a global sensory cue exploited by fish to navigate in the vertical dimension. Unlike other navigational cues in the horizontal plane that usually require learning and memory to determine location, hydrostatic pressure signals the absolute position along the vertical axis. Recently, it was shown that fish can use hydrostatic signals to navigate. It remains unclear, however, which brain regions are involved in processing this signal. Here, we tested whether the dorsomedial and lateral parts of the pallium, two regions that were found to be critical in horizontal navigation, are also critical for hydrostatic cue detection in goldfish. The results show that lesions to both these regions cause fish performance to deteriorate to chance values, indicating that both regions play an important role in processing hydrostatic pressure cues. These findings thus contribute to the rapidly growing body of knowledge on teleost navigation in space.

The swift development of artificial intelligence (AI) technology has triggered substantial changes, particularly evident in the emergence of chat-based services driven by large language models. With the increasing number of users utilizing these services, understanding and analysing user satisfaction becomes crucial for service improvement. While previous studies have explored leveraging online reviews as indicators of user satisfaction, efficiently collecting and analysing extensive datasets remain a challenge. This research aims to address this challenge by proposing a framework to handle extensive review datasets from the Google Play Store, employing natural language processing with machine learning techniques for sentiment analysis. Specifically, the authors collect review data of chat-based AI applications and perform filtering through majority voting of multiple unsupervised sentiment analyses. This framework is a proposed methodology for eliminating inconsistencies between ratings and contents. Subsequently, the authors conduct supervised sentiment analysis using various machine learning and deep learning algorithms. The experimental results confirm the effectiveness of the proposed approach showing improvement in prediction accuracy with cost efficiency. In summary, the findings of this study enhance the predictive performance of user satisfaction for improving service quality in chat-based AI applications and provide valuable insights for the advancement of next-generation chat-based AI services.

In mammalian vertebral columns, locomotive ability is expected to be an evolutionary driver of variation in the number of vertebrae; in species evolved to run fast or have a flexible vertebral column, they generally have limited numerical variation and low occurrence of malformed vertebrae to maintain their running performance. Although this hypothesis is supported among species sharing similar locomotive constraints (e.g. dorsomobile versus dorsostable species), whether it applies at the within-species level is unknown. We test this hypothesis using species of Leporidae (rabbits and hares) with different locomotive abilities: we examined the number of presacral vertebrae and the frequency of abnormalities in 504 specimens from 4 species, representing cursorial, saltatorial and generalist modes. Our results show that the cursorial leporids had the lowest numerical variability and fewest abnormalities within species, although this was not statistically different from saltatorial or generalist species. We also identified 11 conditions of vertebral abnormality previously unexplored and theorize that each may pose different degrees of locomotive impairment and effects on species' fitness. The lack of statistical support for the hypothesis at a finer phylogenetic level suggests further research is needed to understand whether numerical variability is under stabilizing selection or a developmental response to locomotive constraints in cursorial animals.

Whether individuals exhibit consistent behavioural variation is a central question in the field of animal behaviour. This question is particularly interesting in the case of social animals, as their behaviour may be strongly modulated by the collective. In this study, we ask whether honeybees exhibit individual differences in stinging behaviour. We demonstrate that bees are relatively stable in their decision to sting-or not-in a specific context and show temporal consistency suggestive of an internal state modulation. We also investigated how social factors such as the alarm pheromone or another bee modulated this behaviour. The presence of alarm pheromone increased the likelihood of a bee to sting but this response decayed over trials, while the presence of a conspecific decreased individual stinging likelihood. These factors, however, did not alter stinging consistency. We therefore propose that social modulation acts by shifting the stinging threshold of individuals. Finally, experimental manipulation of group composition with respect to the ratio of aggressive and gentle bees within a group did not affect the behaviour of focal bees. Overall, our results establish honeybee stinging behaviour as a promising model for studying mechanistically how collective and individual traits interact to regulate individual variability.