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This book explores the early years of leftism in Canada through the prism of ethnicity and a dynamic yet divided community in northern Ontario.

A Two-Spirit Journey is Ma-Nee Chacaby's extraordinary account of her life as an Ojibwa-Cree lesbian. Chacaby's story is one of enduring and ultimately overcoming the social, economic, and health legacies of colonialism.

Belief in the Thunder God has been important in China since ancient times. During the Tang Dynasty (618–906), the Thunder God was personified and incorporated into official rituals. Due to the increasing presence of Tantric Buddhism in China during the Tang Dynasty, in Daoism (particularly the Divine Empyrean lineage 神霄派), several Thunder Gods formed a military organization, among which Deng Bowen (鄧伯溫) was considered as a marshal who largely preserved the characteristics of the Thunder God from the Tang Dynasty, featuring traits of a half-human and half-bird. This study focuses on interreligious influences and aims to elucidate the logic that informs the evolution of the Chinese Thunder God’s image through Deng Bowen’s case. Through the analyses of iconography and text analysis, this study discusses how Deng’s image was blended with the image of the Hindu deity Garuda (迦樓羅), which was introduced to China during the Tang Dynasty through Tantric Buddhism. This study will also explore how Deng’s image evolved from before the Tang Dynasty to the period after the Song Dynasty and will indicate that the Tang Dynasty was a significant period for the development of Thunder God worship as well as its iconography.

WRKY transcription factors play a vital role in regulating plant growth, development, and secondary metabolism. Tripterygium wilfordii is a medicinal plant that has been widely utilized in rheumatoid arthritis therapy; it contains triptolide, a prominent bioactive constituent exhibiting potent anti-inflammatory and anti-tumor properties. However, the mechanism underlying the regulatory effects of WRKY on triptolide biosynthesis is poorly understood. In this study, 95 TwWRKY genes were identified in the T. wilfordii genome, which were divided into three groups. Phylogenetic analysis indicated that the TwWRKY were conservative relative to other plants. Collinearity analysis revealed that gene duplications played a crucial role in the evolution of this gene family. Transcriptome data from various plant tissues were integrated by correlation analysis, and a gene-to-metabolite network was successfully mapped; consequently, 32 TwWRKY genes were selected as potential regulators of triptolide biosynthesis. Furthermore, the expression changes in the 32 TwWRKY genes were analyzed following methyl jasmonate (MeJA) induction, and the key candidates likely to regulate the biosynthesis of triptolide were screened. Finally, we performed subcellular localization on the key candidate gene TW23G00056.1 and found that it plays its biological role in the nucleus. Our study provides a valuable resource for further research on TwWRKY in T. wilfordii. The candidate genes reported here lay the foundation for elucidating the regulatory mechanism of triptolide.

The global biosphere is commonly assumed to have been less productive before the rise of complex eukaryotic ecosystems than it is today 1 . However, direct evidence for this assertion is lacking. Here we present triple oxygen isotope measurements (∆ 17 O) from sedimentary sulfates from the Sibley basin (Ontario, Canada) dated to about 1.4 billion years ago, which provide evidence for a less productive biosphere in the middle of the Proterozoic eon. We report what are, to our knowledge, the most-negative ∆ 17 O values (down to −0.88‰) observed in sulfates, except for those from the terminal Cryogenian period 2 . This observation demonstrates that the mid-Proterozoic atmosphere was distinct from what persisted over approximately the past 0.5 billion years, directly reflecting a unique interplay among the atmospheric partial pressures of CO 2 and O 2 and the photosynthetic O 2 flux at this time 3 . Oxygenic gross primary productivity is stoichiometrically related to the photosynthetic O 2 flux to the atmosphere. Under current estimates of mid-Proterozoic atmospheric partial pressure of CO 2 (2–30 times that of pre-anthropogenic levels), our modelling indicates that gross primary productivity was between about 6% and 41% of pre-anthropogenic levels if atmospheric O 2 was between 0.1–1% or 1–10% of pre-anthropogenic levels, respectively. When compared to estimates of Archaean 4 – 6 and Phanerozoic primary production 7 , these model solutions show that an increasingly more productive biosphere accompanied the broad secular pattern of increasing atmospheric O 2 over geologic time 8 . Triple oxygen isotope measurements of 1.4-billion-year-old sedimentary sulfates reveal a unique mid-Proterozoic atmosphere and demonstrate that gross primary productivity in the mid-Proterozoic was between 6% and 41% of pre-anthropogenic levels.

Thunder recognition is of great interest in lightning detection and physics and is widely used in short-range lightning location. However, due to the complexity of thunder, any single filtering method that is used in traditional speech noise reduction technology cannot identify well thunder from complicated background noise. In this study, the impact of four different filters on thunder recognition is compared, including low-pass filtering, least-mean-square adaptive filtering, spectral subtraction filtering, and Wiener filtering. The original acoustic signal and that filtered using different techniques are applied to a convolutional neural network, in which the thunder and background noise are classified. The results indicate that a combination of spectral subtraction and a low-pass filter performs the best in thunder recognition. The signal-to-noise ratio can be significantly improved, and the accuracy of thunder recognition (93.18%) can be improved by 3.8–18.6% after the acoustic signal is filtered using the combined filtering method. In addition, after filtering, the endpoints of a thunder signal can be better identified using the frequency domain sub-band variance algorithm.

Wilforine (WFR) is a monomeric compound of the anti-RA plant Tripterygium wilfordii Hook. f. (TwHF). Whether WFR has anti-RA effect, its molecular mechanism has not been elucidated. Our study aims to clarify how WFR inhibits fibroblast-like synovial cells (FLS) activation and improves RA through Wnt11 action on the Wnt11/[beta]-catenin signaling pathway. The therapeutic effect of WFR on collagen-induced arthritis (CIA) rats was evaluated using methods such as rat arthritis score. The inhibitory effects and signaling pathways of WFR on the proliferation and inflammatory response of CIA FLS and RA FLS were studied using ELISA, CCK-8, RT-qPCR, Western blot, and immunofluorescence methods. WFR could effectively alleviate the arthritis symptoms of CIA rats; reduce the levels of IL-6, IL-1[beta], and TNF-[alpha] in the peripheral blood of CIA rats; and inhibit the expression of MMP3 and fibronectin. The data showed that WFR has a significant inhibitory effect on FLS proliferation. Furthermore, WFR inhibited the activation of Wnt/[beta]-catenin signaling pathway and decreased the expression of Wnt11, [beta]-catenin, CCND1, GSK-3[beta], and c-Myc, while the effects of WFR were reversed after overexpression of Wnt11. WFR improves RA by inhibiting the Wnt11/[beta]-catenin signaling pathway, and Wnt11 is the direct target of WFR. This study provides a new molecular mechanism for WFR to improve RA and contributes to the clinical promotion of WFR.

Background: Tripterygium glycoside (TG) has been reported to have the effect of ameliorating Alzheimer's disease (AD)-like symptoms in mice model. However, the underlying mechanism is largely unknown. This study aimed to investigate the potential mechanism of TG against AD by integrating metabolomics, 16s rRNA sequencing, network pharmacology, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics simulation. Methods: Memory and cognitive functions were assessed in mice via the Morris water maze. The pathological changes were assessed using hematoxylin and Nissl's straining. Pathological changes in p-Tau and [A[beta].sub.1.42] were assessed using immunohistochemistry, immunofluorescence, ELISA, and Western blotting. 16S rRNA sequencing and metabolomics were performed to analyze alterations in the structure of gut microbiota and hippocampus metabolites. Network pharmacology, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics simulation were performed to determine the putative molecular regulatory mechanism of TG in treating AD. Results: TG significantly could inhibit neuron loss, improved cognitive and memory functions, and significantly reduce the expression of p-Tau and [A[beta].sub.1.42]. In addition, 16s rRNA analysis revealed that TG could reverse AD-induced gut microbiota dysbiosis in AD model mice by reducing the abundance of Alistipes. Furthermore, metabolomic analysis revealed that TG may reverse AD-induced metabolic disorders by regulating glycerophospholipid metabolism. And spearman analysis revealed that glycerophospholipids metabolism might closely related to Alistipes. Moreover, network pharmacology, molecular docking, and molecular dynamics simulation analyses indicated that TG might regulate lipid metabolism-related pathways via SRC for the treatment of AD. Conclusion: TG may serve as a potential therapeutic drug for preventing AD via the microbiota-gut-brain axis. Keywords: tripterygium glycoside, Alzheimer's disease, gut microbiota, metabolomic, glycerophospholipids metabolism