High Human Bocavirus Viral Load Is Associated with Disease Severity in Children under Five Years of Age

Human bocavirus (HBoV) is a parvovirus and detected worldwide in lower respiratory tract infections (LRTIs), but its pathogenic role in respiratory illness is still debatable due to high incidence of co-infection with other respiratory viruses. To determine the prevalence of HBoV infection in patients with LRTI in Shanghai and its correlation with disease severity, we performed a 3-year prospective study of HBoV in healthy controls, outpatients and inpatients under five years of age with X-ray diagnosed LRTIs. Nasopharyngeal aspirates were tested by PCR for common respiratory viruses and by real time PCR for HBoV subtypes 1–4. Nasopharyngeal swabs from healthy controls and serum samples and stools from inpatients were also tested for HBoV1-4 by real time PCR. Viral loads were determined by quantitative real time PCR in all HBoV positive samples. HBoV1 was detected in 7.0% of inpatients, with annual rates of 5.1%, 8.0% and 4.8% in 2010, 2011 and 2012, respectively. Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) subtype A was the most frequent co-infection detected; HBoV1 and RSVA appeared to co-circulate with similar seasonal variations. High HBoV viral loads (>10(6) copies/ml) were significantly more frequent in inpatients and outpatients than in healthy controls. There was a direct correlation of high viral load with increasing disease severity in patients co-infected with HBoV1 and at least one other respiratory virus. In summary, our data suggest that HBoV1 can cause LRTIs, but symptomatic HBoV infection is only observed in the context of high viral load

Investigation of the mechanism of binding of thiacloprid to human serum albumin using spectroscopic techniques and molecular modeling methods

Abstract. Fluorescence spectroscopy, UV absorption, circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy and molecular modeling methods were used to characterize the binding properties of thiacloprid (TL) with human serum albumin (HSA) at molecular level under physiological conditions. The fluorescence intensity of HSA decreased regularly with the gradually increasing concentration of thiacloprid. The binding constant K at three different temperatures (290, 300 and 310 K) were 3.07, 2.74 and 1.35 × 10 4 M −1 , respectively, for TL-HSA interaction have been calculated from the relevant fluorescence data. CD spectroscopic measurements have shown that the secondary structures of the protein have been changed by the interaction of thiacloprid with HSA. Furthermore, the study of molecular modeling indicated that thiacloprid could be located on the surface of the binding pocket of subdomains IIA in HSA. The hydrophobic interaction was the major acting force and there are H-bonds and electrostatic interactions between TL and HSA, which is in good agreement with the results from the experimental thermodynamic parameters (the enthalpy change ΔH 0 and the entropy change ΔS 0 were calculated to be −20.378 kJ/mol and 16.328 J/mol K according to the Van't Hoff equation)

Composite Differential Evolution with Modified Oracle Penalty Method for Constrained Optimization Problems

Motivated by recent advancements in differential evolution and constraints handling methods, this paper presents a novel modified oracle penalty function-based composite differential evolution (MOCoDE) for constrained optimization problems (COPs). More specifically, the original oracle penalty function approach is modified so as to satisfy the optimization criterion of COPs; then the modified oracle penalty function is incorporated in composite DE. Furthermore, in order to solve more complex COPs with discrete, integer, or binary variables, a discrete variable handling technique is introduced into MOCoDE to solve complex COPs with mix variables. This method is assessed on eleven constrained optimization benchmark functions and seven well-studied engineering problems in real life. Experimental results demonstrate that MOCoDE achieves competitive performance with respect to some other state-of-the-art approaches in constrained optimization evolutionary algorithms. Moreover, the strengths of the proposed method include few parameters and its ease of implementation, rendering it applicable to real life. Therefore, MOCoDE can be an efficient alternative to solving constrained optimization problems

Photoelectric Conversion Efficiency Enhanced by Tilting Monocrystalline Silicon Photovoltaic Device

Based on the idea of tilting a photoelectric conversion device,the monocrystalline silicon p-n junction device was tilted to make light incident upon the device at an angle of 45° with the normal of the device surface,resulting in infrared multiple-internal-reflection inside the device.The internal reflection leads to path length increase of infrared light,making the enhancement of infrared absorption of the device.An increase of 11% in energy conversion efficiency has been obtained through tilting the device

Effect of Vinyl-Acetate Moiety Molar Fraction on the Performance of Poly(Octadecyl Acrylate-Vinyl Acetate) Pour Point Depressants: Experiments and Mesoscopic Dynamics Simulation

Polar moieties of the conventional polymeric pour point depressants (PPDs) greatly influence the PPDs’ performance on waxy crude oil. However, the influencing mechanism of the polar moieties on the PPD’s performance is not clear. In this paper, four poly­(octadecyl acrylate-vinyl acetate) (POA-VA) PPDs with different VA molar fractions were first synthesized; then, the performance of the four PPDs on Dingbian waxy crude oil was investigated by experiments and mesoscopic dynamic simulation. The experimental results show that the crystallization ability of the PPDs deteriorates with increasing VA molar fraction, while the performance of the PPDs first increases and then decreases with the increase of VA molar fraction. At a moderate VA fraction 25 mol %, the PPD-3 shows the best performance in decreasing the WAT, pour point, and viscosity of the crude oil. The simulation results correlate well with the experimental data and confirm that (a) the addition of the PPDs inhibits the transformation of wax molecules from the initial amorphous state into the crystalline state and thus decreases the WAT of the crude oil; (b) the VA molar fraction controls the stretching state of the PPDs molecules in wax crystals and the polar attraction among the wax crystals contaminated by the PPDs; (c) the addition of the PPDs favors the formation of a more compact wax crystals’ structure. At moderate VA molar fraction, the PPD-3 not only has good crystallization ability and stretching state, but also strengthens the polar attraction force among wax crystals, all of which trigger the formation of the largest and the most compact wax crystal flocs and thus impart the best performance to PPD-3

The substrate cooling effect of ion beam post treatment on ZAO films properties

ZAO thin films with low surface roughness and low sheet resistance are required in the touch panels and display panels. In this work, we investigated the substrate cooling effect of ion beam post treatment on ZAO films properties, and one new way of obtain low surface roughness and low sheet resistance same time was proposed. The more exciting find of this paper is that, comparing to the samples without cooling during the process of ion beam post treatment, samples with proper cooling voltage show a sheet resistance decrease of 26% (from 11.9 Ω/□ to 8.8 Ω/□) and a roughness decrease of 35.5% (from 13.389 nm to 8.637 nm) without transparency losing. And the viewpoint that substrate cooling has the effect of weakening the crystallization, especially for the sub-face and internal parts of samples is deduced

Engineering Synthetic CopT/A-Based Genetic Biosensors for miRNA Imaging and Functional Gene Regulation

Synthetic genetic biosensors that can operate at the transcriptional and translation levels have been widely applied in the control of cellular behaviors and functions. However, the regulation of genetic circuits is often accompanied by the introduction of exogenous substances or the endogenous generation of inhibitory products, which would bring uncontrollable hazards to biological safety and reduce the efficiency of the system. Here, we described a miRNA-responsive CopT-CopA (miCop) genetic biosensor system to realize real-time monitoring of the intracellular expression of miRNA-124a during neurogenesis or miRNA-122 under the stimulation of extracellular drugs in living cells and animals. Furthermore, to prove the modularity of the system, we engineered this miCop to tune the expression of the DTA (diphtheria toxin A) gene and showed its powerful capacity to kill cancer cells by inducing apoptosis and cell cycle arrest based on miRNA response. This study provides an effective means to couple miRNA sensing with miRNA-responsive gene modulation, which may open up new diagnostic or therapeutic applications