Optimiranje podloge u proizvodnji bioaktivnih egzopolisaharida submerznim uzgojem gljive Agaricus brasiliensis S. Wasser et al. (=A. blazei Murrill ss. Heinem)

The effects of media components, including carbon source, KH2PO4, and vitamin B1, on the production and quality of Agaricus brasiliensis S. Wasser et al. (=A. blazei Murrill ss. Heinem) exopolysaccharides (ABEP) were studied in submerged culture. The quality of ABEP was characterized on the basis of their stimulation of the release of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) by macrophage cell line RAW 246.7 and their molecular mass distribution. Glucose was the best carbon source for the production of mycelial biomass and ABEP. The medium composition significantly affected both the relative content of β-(1-3)-glucan and the molecular mass (Mr) in the ABEP and, as a consequence, it also affected the biological activity of ABEP. A medium containing 3.0 g/L of KH2PO4 gave an ABEP of the highest biological activity (1440 pg of TNF-α/mL/5x10^4 cells), while a medium containing 10 mg/L of vitamin B1 gave an ABEP with a biological activity of 1080 pg of TNF-α/mL/5x10^4 cells. In a bubble column bioreactor, an optimized medium gave a 1.35-fold increase in ABEP production with a 1.51-fold increase of its biological activity, when compared to the basic medium. This work demonstrates that the relative content of β-(1-3)-glucan in the ABEP is a useful reference indicator of biological activity.Istražen je učinak sastojaka podloge, kao što su izvor ugljika, KH2PO4 i vitamin B1, na proizvodnju egzopolisaharida gljive Agaricus brasiliensis S. Wasser et al. (=A. blazei Murrill ss. Heinem.) submerznim uzgojem i njihovu kvalitetu. Kvaliteta egzopolisaharida gljive A. brasiliensis (ABEP) procijenjena je prema tome koliko potiče otpuštanje tumor nekrozis faktora alfa (TNF-α) stanične linije makrofaga RAW 246.7 i raspodjelu molekularne mase. Glukoza je najbolji izvor ugljika za proizvodnju biomase micelija i egzopolisaharida gljive A. brasiliensis. Sastav podloge značajno je utjecao na relativni udio i molekularnu masu ß-(1-3)-glukana iz egzopolisaharida i time na njihovu biološku aktivnost. Korištenjem podloge s 3,0 g/L KH2PO4 proizvedeni su egzopolisaharidi najveće biološke aktivnosti (1440 pg of TNF-α/mL/5×10^4) stanica), a s podlogom kojoj je dodano 10 mg/L vitamina B1 proizvedeni su egzopolisaharidi s biološkom aktivnošću od 1080 pg of TNF-α/mL/5×10^4) stanica. U usporedbi s osnovnom podlogom, upotrebom optimirane podloge u bioreaktorima s kolonom s barbotirajućim mjehurićima, proizvodnja egzopolisaharida povećala se 1,35 puta, a biološka aktivnost 1,5 puta. U radu je navedeno da je relativni udio ß-(1-3)-glukana u egzopolisaharidima koristan pokazatelj njihove biološke aktivnosti

Real-time Monitoring for the Next Core-Collapse Supernova in JUNO

Core-collapse supernova (CCSN) is one of the most energetic astrophysical events in the Universe. The early and prompt detection of neutrinos before (pre-SN) and during the SN burst is a unique opportunity to realize the multi-messenger observation of the CCSN events. In this work, we describe the monitoring concept and present the sensitivity of the system to the pre-SN and SN neutrinos at the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO), which is a 20 kton liquid scintillator detector under construction in South China. The real-time monitoring system is designed with both the prompt monitors on the electronic board and online monitors at the data acquisition stage, in order to ensure both the alert speed and alert coverage of progenitor stars. By assuming a false alert rate of 1 per year, this monitoring system can be sensitive to the pre-SN neutrinos up to the distance of about 1.6 (0.9) kpc and SN neutrinos up to about 370 (360) kpc for a progenitor mass of 30$M_{\odot}$ for the case of normal (inverted) mass ordering. The pointing ability of the CCSN is evaluated by using the accumulated event anisotropy of the inverse beta decay interactions from pre-SN or SN neutrinos, which, along with the early alert, can play important roles for the followup multi-messenger observations of the next Galactic or nearby extragalactic CCSN.Comment: 24 pages, 9 figure

Large expert-curated database for benchmarking document similarity detection in biomedical literature search

Document recommendation systems for locating relevant literature have mostly relied on methods developed a decade ago. This is largely due to the lack of a large offline gold-standard benchmark of relevant documents that cover a variety of research fields such that newly developed literature search techniques can be compared, improved and translated into practice. To overcome this bottleneck, we have established the RElevant LIterature SearcH consortium consisting of more than 1500 scientists from 84 countries, who have collectively annotated the relevance of over 180 000 PubMed-listed articles with regard to their respective seed (input) article/s. The majority of annotations were contributed by highly experienced, original authors of the seed articles. The collected data cover 76% of all unique PubMed Medical Subject Headings descriptors. No systematic biases were observed across different experience levels, research fields or time spent on annotations. More importantly, annotations of the same document pairs contributed by different scientists were highly concordant. We further show that the three representative baseline methods used to generate recommended articles for evaluation (Okapi Best Matching 25, Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency and PubMed Related Articles) had similar overall performances. Additionally, we found that these methods each tend to produce distinct collections of recommended articles, suggesting that a hybrid method may be required to completely capture all relevant articles. The established database server located at https://relishdb.ict.griffith.edu.au is freely available for the downloading of annotation data and the blind testing of new methods. We expect that this benchmark will be useful for stimulating the development of new powerful techniques for title and title/abstract-based search engines for relevant articles in biomedical research.Peer reviewe

Medium Optimization for Producing Bioactive Exopolysaccharides by Agaricus brasiliensis S. Wasser et al. (=A. blazei Murrill ss. Heinem) in Submerged Culture

The effects of media components, including carbon source, KH2PO4, and vitamin B1, on the production and quality of Agaricus brasiliensis S. Wasser et al. (=A. blazei Murrill ss. Heinem) exopolysaccharides (ABEP) were studied in submerged culture. The quality of ABEP was characterized on the basis of their stimulation of the release of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-α) by macrophage cell line RAW 246.7 and their molecular mass distribution. Glucose was the best carbon source for the production of mycelial biomass and ABEP. The medium composition significantly affected both the relative content of β-(1-3)-glucan and the molecular mass (Mr) in the ABEP and, as a consequence, it also affected the biological activity of ABEP. A medium containing 3.0 g/L of KH2PO4 gave an ABEP of the highest biological activity (1440 pg of TNF-α/mL/5x10^4 cells), while a medium containing 10 mg/L of vitamin B1 gave an ABEP with a biological activity of 1080 pg of TNF-α/mL/5x10^4 cells. In a bubble column bioreactor, an optimized medium gave a 1.35-fold increase in ABEP production with a 1.51-fold increase of its biological activity, when compared to the basic medium. This work demonstrates that the relative content of β-(1-3)-glucan in the ABEP is a useful reference indicator of biological activity

Pediatric Narcolepsy—A Practical Review

Pediatric narcolepsy is a chronic sleep-wakefulness disorder. Its symptoms frequently begin in childhood. This review article examined the literature for research reporting on the effects of treatment of pediatric narcolepsy, as well as proposed etiology and diagnostic tools. Symptoms of pediatric narcolepsy include excessive sleepiness and cataplexy. In addition, rapid-eye-movement-related phenomena such as sleep paralysis, sleep terror, and hypnagogic or hypnapompic hallucinations can also occur. These symptoms impaired children’s function and negatively influenced their social interaction, studying, quality of life, and may further lead to emotional and behavioral problems. Therefore, early diagnosis and intervention are essential for children’s development. Moreover, there are differences in clinical experiences between Asian and Western population. The treatment of pediatric narcolepsy should be comprehensive. In this article, we review pediatric narcolepsy and its treatment approach: medication, behavioral modification, and education/mental support. Pharmacological treatment including some promising newly-developed medication can decrease cataplexy and daytime sleepiness in children with narcolepsy. Other forms of management such as psychosocial interventions involve close cooperation between children, school, family, medical personnel, and can further assist their adjustment

Prediction of the Clinical Severity of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy by Diffusion Tensor Imaging

Progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) is characterized by a rapid and progressive clinical course. A timely and objective image-based evaluation of disease severity before standard clinical assessments might increase the diagnostic confidence of the neurologist. We sought to investigate whether features from diffusion tensor imaging of the entire brain with a machine learning algorithm, rather than a few pathogenically involved regions, may predict the clinical severity of PSP. Fifty-three patients who met the diagnostic criteria for probable PSP were subjected to diffusion tensor imaging. Of them, 15 underwent follow-up imaging. Clinical severity was assessed by the neurological examinations. Mean diffusivity and fractional anisotropy maps were spatially co-registered, normalized, and parcellated into 246 brain regions from the human Brainnetome atlas. The predictors of clinical severity from a stepwise linear regression model were determined after feature reduction by the least absolute shrinkage and selection operator. Performance estimates were obtained using bootstrapping, cross-validation, and through application of the model in the patients who underwent repeated imaging. The algorithm confidently predicts the clinical severity of PSP at the individual level (adjusted R2: 0.739 and 0.892, p < 0.001). The machine learning algorithm for selection of diffusion tensor imaging-based features is accurate in predicting motor subscale of unified Parkinson’s disease rating scale and postural instability and gait disturbance of PSP

Simple Stepwise Approach to Differentiate Cyst-Like Soft-Tissue Masses by Using Time-Resolved Magnetic Resonance Angiography

This retrospective study aimed to differentiate cyst-like musculoskeletal soft-tissue masses by using time-resolved magnetic resonance angiography (MRA). During May 2015 to November 2019, patients with cyst-like soft-tissue masses examined through contrast-enhanced MRI followed by histologic diagnosis were included. The masses were classified into vascular lesions, solid lesions, and true cysts. Size, T1 hyperintensity, T2 composition, perilesional edema, time-resolved MRA, and static internal enhancement were assessed. The time-resolved MRA manifestations were classified into vascular pooling, solid stain, and occult lesion. Imaging predictors for each type of mass were identified through logistic regression and were used to develop a diagnostic flowchart. A total of 80 patients (47 men; median age, 42 years) were included, with 22 vascular lesions, 38 solid lesions, and 20 true cysts. The T2 composition, time-resolved MRA, and static internal enhancement were significantly different among the masses. Vascular pooling on time-resolved MRA was the sole predictor of vascular lesions (odds ratio = 722.0, p < 0.001). Solid stain on time-resolved MRA was the sole predictor of solid lesions (odds ratio = 73.6, p < 0.001). Occult lesion on time-resolved MRA (odds ratio = 7.4, p = 0.001) and absence of static internal enhancement (odds ratio = 80.0, p < 0.001) both predicted true cysts, while the latter was the sole predictor of true cysts after multivariate analysis. A diagnostic flowchart based on time-resolved MRA correctly classified 89% of the masses. In conclusion, time-resolved MRA accurately differentiates cyst-like soft-tissue masses and provides guidance for management