Evaluation of probiotic growth stimulation using prebiotic ingredients to optimize compounds for in ovo delivery

The use of probiotics, prebiotics and synbiotics in poultry diets beneficially stimulates the gut microbiome thus promoting the health and welfare of the animals. In this study, we analyzed 7 poultry probiotics (Lactobacillus plantarum – B1 and B4, Lactobacillus rhamnosus – B3, Bifidobacterium lactis – B2, Carnobacterium divergens – B5, Propionibacterium thoenii – B6, Clostridium butyricum – B7) and 12 prebiotics, differing in chemical composition and source of origin (fungi, algae, animal, etc.). The main goal of our research was to select the most promising candidates to develop synbiotic combinations. We determined the growth kinetics of all probiotics in the presence of prebiotics in a series of in vitro studies to select optimal combinations. Five out of seven investigated probiotics were significantly stimulated by astragalus polysaccharide, and this prebiotic was characterized in our work as the most effective. Moreover, in the case of three probiotics, B2, B3 and B4, significant growth stimulation has been found when beta-glucan, vegetable protein hydrolysate and liquid seaweed extract were supplied. Strain B1 (L. plantarum) was stimulated by 6 out of 12 prebiotics. The growth of B4 (L. plantarum) and B2 (B. lactis) was enhanced by prebiotics after 2 h of incubation. A high growth rate of 3.13% was observed in the case of L. plantarum (B4) and a 3.37% higher rate for B. lactis (B3), compared to the growth of probiotics in the control medium with glucose but no prebiotics. The best candidates for synbiotic combinations based on this in vitro work are the strains belonging to L. plantarum (B4), L. rhamnosus (B3) and B. lactis (B2), consistent with prebiotics such as astragalus polysaccharides and vegetable protein hydrolysate. These combinations will be subject to future in vivo poultry trials involving the in ovo microbiome modulation

ITS2-rDNA fragments of Leishmania species isolated from the great gerbil in Iran, 2021

Background: The great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus), is widely distributed in Asia and is a natural reservoir for zoonotic cutaneous leishmaniasis in many endemic areas, as well as Iran. Materials and Methods: In this study, infection to Leishmania species was investigated by two methods, parasitological and molecular survey, in the small number of R. opimus collected from Jovain, a Zoonotic Cutaneous Leishmaniasis (ZCL) focus located in North East of Iran. Results: Parasitological observation showed infection in only one of five rodents. But, ITS2-Nested-PCR revealed Leishmania infection in three out of 5 gerbils, including the parasitological positive one. Based on the PCR amplified size, two cases of infections were Leishmania major and one Leishmania turanica, their sequences are accessible in GenBank. The results of sequence analysis were consistent with the results obtained based on the size of the PCR. Conclusion: These findings re-confirm the important role of R. opimus in the natural circulation of Leishmania spp and indicate the need to be concerned about the disease in the study area

Mitigating Sentence Comprehension Difficulty in Individuals with Aphasia

Aphasia is a condition resulting from stroke that impairs individuals' communicative abilities. There are currently one million individuals living with aphasia in the US and within this population, many have sentence comprehension impairments. This dissertation aims to investigate (1) approaches with which sentence comprehension impairment can be mitigated in individuals with aphasia, and (2) whether the integrity of connectivity between frontal and temporo-parietal regions is predictive of individuals’ sensitivity to the proposed mitigation approaches. Overall, the data in the current dissertation revealed that reducing the interference level via semantic cues can benefit the real-time sentence processing in individuals with aphasia. Moreover, there is an emerging pattern for the functional role of the anterior segment of the arcuate fasciculus and frontal aslant tract in the left hemisphere regarding real-time sensitivity to semantic cues during sentence comprehension

Auditory sentence processing in bilinguals: The role of cognitive control

A number of research studies have shown that the unique need in bilinguals to manage both of their languages positively impacts their cognitive control processes. Yet, due to a dearth of studies at the sentence level, it is still unclear if this benefit extends to sentence processing. In monolinguals and bilinguals, cognitive control helps in reinterpretation of garden path sentences but it is still unknown how it supports the real-time resolution of interference during parsing, such as the type of interference seen in the processing of object relative (OR) sentences. In this study, we compared monolinguals and bilinguals during online spoken OR sentence processing and examined if both groups used cognitive control to resolve interference. In this eye-tracking visual world (ETL-vw) study, OR sentences were aurally presented to 19 monolingual and 21 English-Spanish bilingual adults while gaze patterns were captured throughout the time course of the sentence. Of particular interest was the post-verb position, where the listener connects the verb to its direct object. In OR constructions (e.g., “The man that the boy pushes__ has a red shirt.”), the verb (‘pushes’) links to its syntactically licensed direct object (‘the man’) at verb offset. During syntactic linking, the parser crosses over an intervening noun phrase (NP, ‘the boy’) and the two NP activations create interference. The nature of this paradigm allows us to measure interference and its resolution between the intervening NP and the displaced object in real-time. By relating sentence processing patterns with cognitive control measures, high- and no- conflict N-Back tasks, we investigated group differences in the use of cognitive control during sentence processing. Overall, bilinguals showed less interference than monolinguals from the intervening NP during the real time processing of OR sentences. This interference effect and its resolution was significantly predicted by cognitive control skills for bilingual, but not monolingual listeners. This enhanced effect in bilinguals extends previous findings of interference resolution to real time spoken sentence processing suggesting that bilinguals are more efficient than monolinguals at managing interference during complex sentence processing

Disfluency production in speech and gesture

The cognitive architecture and function of co-speech gesture has been the subject of a large body of research. We investigate two main questions in this field, namely, whether language and gesture are the same or two inter-related systems, and whether gestures help resolve speech problems, by examining the relationship between gesture and disfluency in neurotypical speakers. Our results support the view of separate, but inter- related systems by showing that speech problems do not necessarily cause gesture problems, and on many occasions, gestures signal an upcoming speech problem even before it surfaces in overt speech. We also show that while gestures are more common on fluent trials, speakers use both iconic and beat gestures on disfluent trials to facilitate communication, although the two gesture types support communication in different ways

Motion event expressions in language and gesture: Evidence from Persian

How do people conceptualize motion events and talk about them? The current study examines how gestural representations of motion events arise from linguistic expressions in Persian, which has characteristics of both Talmy’s satellite- and verb-framed languages. We examined native Persian speakers’ speech and gestures in describing 20 motion events. We focused on two motion event components: path (trajectory of motion like up) and manner (how the action is performed like jumping). Results indicated that when expressing motion, Persian speakers produced path in both speech and gesture, whereas manner was conveyed only through speech (mostly as adverbs). Additionally, dynamic gestures tended to occur in the same order they were uttered. The difference between path and manner findings asks for further research to examine language-gesture interaction in detail among different languages. Results also suggest refinement in gesture theories that argue for one-to-one correspondence between speech and gesture

CFD modeling of a triple‐walled direct absorption evacuated tube solar collector based on hybrid nanofluid/microencapsulated PCM

Abstract Nowadays, direct absorption solar collectors are a new concept of solar collectors which have attracted special attention. The type of heat transfer fluid (HTF) has a significant influence on the efficiency of this kind of collector. Therefore, in this study, a wide range of working fluids including mono nanofluid (Al 2 O 3 and CuO), binary nanofluid, and especially the incorporation of a new hybrid combination of nanofluid and microencapsulated phase change material (MPCM), are used as the working fluids of a triple‐walled direct absorption evacuated tube solar collector. The computational fluid dynamics (CFD) method is used for simulating the collector and investigating the effect of different parameters including volume fraction, base fluid, mass flow rate, and type of absorber tube structure (double‐ and triple‐walled) on collector thermal performance. Results show that binary nanofluids of 0.06% Al 2 O 3/0.002% CuO/water and 0.06% Al 2 O 3/0.002% CuO/ethylene glycol (EG) have the largest working fluid temperature differentials equal to 48.31 and 66.5 K, respectively. It was inferred that, at the mass flow rate of 2.7 kg / h, the efficiency is obtained to be 60.29% employing binary/EG nanofluid, which is 8.68% and 15.31% higher than CuO/EG and Al 2 O 3/EG nanofluids, respectively. Inserting the hybrid CuO nanofluid/MPCM leads to an improvement of 1.14% and 1.22% in the efficiency of triple‐ and double‐walled collectors, respectively, with respect to the individual usage of the nanofluid. The thermal efficiency of the double‐walled structure is higher than triple‐walled considering all HTFs

Comparison of the Native Bacillus subtillis and Bacillus Megaterium Strains Isolated from Soil in Production of Riboflavin

Background and Objectives: Vitamin B2 (riboflavin) is a water-soluble vitamin and yellow. The aim of this study is to identify ‎strains of Bacillus isolated from soil do with the ability to produce riboflavin by PCR. Materials and Methods: Soil samples was mild randomly during 2 consecutive days the air. Sampling was performed of areas far from the sun ‎and from 3 to 10 cm soil depth. The genus Bacillus were identified to species level ‎using standard methods. Also isolates were approved identified using the PCR method. To study the ‎riboflavin production of synthetic culture media were used and HPLC techniques. Result: PCR using gene 16SrRNA test results showed that 32 strains obtained from a strain of Bacillus subtilis ‎and 10 were 2 strain of Bacillus megaterium. The isolated strains of Bacillus megaterium PTCC 1250 with ‎standard strains were positive of riboflavin production in synthetic medium and HPLC. ‎Conclusions: Bacillus subtilis bacteria living in the soil among the most important role in the production of ‎riboflavin and riboflavin-producing strains to confirm the use of molecular methods is necessary

Expression of motion events in Farsi

<p>The current study examines how gestural representations of motion events arise from linguistic expressions in Farsi, as this language offers many unique characteristics; exhibiting characteristics of both Talmy’s satellite- and verb-framed languages. We examined native Farsi speakers’ speech and gestures in describing 20 motion events. We focused on two motion event components: path (trajectory of motion like <i>up</i>) and manner (how the action is performed like <i>jumping</i>). Analyses of syntactic packaging and clause-level correspondence between speech and gesture, as well as parallel ordering of speech and gesture sequences were, for the most part, in support of models that posit a close correspondence between speech-gesture production. However, while Farsi speakers described both path and manner in their speech, gesture was markedly impoverished for manner, suggesting constraints on the one-to-one mapping between linguistic and gestural expressions.</p