Case Report: Suspected Case of Brucella-Associated Immune Reconstitution Inflammatory Syndrome

Human brucellosis is one of the most prevalent zoonoses. There are many similarities between the pathogenesis of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) infection and that of brucellosis. Immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) may occur during the treatment of MTB infection, but it has not been reported in brucellosis cases thus far. We report the case of a 40-year-old male whose condition initially improved after adequate anti-Brucella therapy. However, 3 weeks later, the patient presented with exacerbation of symptoms and development of a paravertebral abscess. After exclusion of other possible causes of clinical deterioration, immune reconstitution inflammatory syndrome (IRIS) with brucellosis was presumed. After supplementation with anti-Brucella treatment with corticosteroids, the abscess disappeared, and the symptoms completely resolved. Our case suggests that it is necessary to be aware of the possible occurrence of IRIS in patients with brucellosis in clinical practice

The Effect of Raw Soybean on Oxidative Status of Digestive Organs in Mice

The present study was undertaken to specify the effect of raw soybean on oxidative status of digestive organs in mice. For this purpose, thirty male (C57BL/6J) mice were randomly divided into three groups and fed on different diets as follows: Group 1 was fed on control diet, Group 2 was fed on raw soybean diet and Group 3 was fed on raw soybean diet supplemented with 30 mg/kg cysteamine. After two weeks of feeding, duodenum, liver and pancreas samples were collected to measure oxidative and antioxidative parameters. The results show that ingestion of raw soybean markedly increased contents of superoxide anion and malondialdehyde (MDA) and activity of inducible nitric oxide synthase (iNOS), decreased activity of superoxide dismutase (SOD), T-AOC and content of reduced glutathione (GSH) in digestive organs of mice (P < 0.05). In the group fed with raw soybean diet supplemented with cysteamine, oxidative stress was mitigated. However, oxidative parameter levels were still higher than those of control diet-fed group. The present study indicates that ingestion of raw soybean could result in an imbalance between oxidant and antioxidant, and thus induce oxidative stress in digestive organs of mice

Phylotyping and Functional Analysis of Two Ancient Human Microbiomes

Background: The Human Microbiome Project (HMP) is one of the U.S. National Institutes of Health Roadmap for Medical Research. Primary interests of the HMP include the distinctiveness of different gut microbiomes, the factors influencing microbiome diversity, and the functional redundancies of the members of human microbiotas. In this present work, we contribute to these interests by characterizing two extinct human microbiotas. Methodology/Principal Findings: We examine two paleofecal samples originating from cave deposits in Durango Mexico and dating to approximately 1300 years ago. Contamination control is a serious issue in ancient DNA research; we use a novel approach to control contamination. After we determined that each sample originated from a different human, we generated 45 thousand shotgun DNA sequencing reads. The phylotyping and functional analysis of these reads reveals a signature consistent with the modern gut ecology. Interestingly, inter-individual variability for phenotypes but not functional pathways was observed. The two ancient samples have more similar functional profiles to each other than to a recently published profile for modern humans. This similarity could not be explained by a chance sampling of the databases. Conclusions/Significance: We conduct a phylotyping and functional analysis of ancient human microbiomes, while providing novel methods to control for DNA contamination and novel hypotheses about past microbiome biogeography. We postulate that natural selection has more of an influence on microbiome functional profiles than it does on the species represented in the microbial ecology. We propose that human microbiomes were more geographically structured during pre-Columbian times than today

Measurement of Rural Inclusive Financial Development and Analysis of Spatial Effects on Anti-poverty

Based on two dimensions of supply and demand, we use six indicators to establish a rural inclusive financial development index and evaluate the development of China's rural inclusive finance. We use spatial panel data model to examine the relationship between financial inclusion and rural poverty. Results show that: (i) both the rural inclusive finance and rural residents' per capita consumption present spatial clustering feature and show significant spatial correlation; (ii) the development of rural inclusive finance has significant spatial effect on poverty alleviation along time and space dimensions. In this study, the paper puts forward policy recommendations on strengthening the rural financial resources flow and constructing diversified rural inclusive financial system

Isolation and Characterization of 46 Novel Polymorphic EST-Simple Sequence Repeats (SSR) Markers in Two Sinipercine Fishes&lt;em&gt; &lt;/em&gt;(&lt;em&gt;Siniperca&lt;/em&gt;) and Cross-Species Amplification

With the development of next generation sequencing technologies, transcriptome level sequence collections are emerging as prominent resources for the discovery of gene-based molecular markers. In this study, we described the isolation and characterization of 46 novel polymorphic microsatellite loci for &lt;em&gt;Siniperca chuatsi&lt;/em&gt; and &lt;em&gt;Siniperca scherzeri&lt;/em&gt; from the transcriptome of their F&lt;sub&gt;1&lt;/sub&gt; interspecies hybrids. Forty-three of these loci were polymorphic in &lt;em&gt;S. chuatsi&lt;/em&gt;, and 20 were polymorphic in &lt;em&gt;S. scherzeri&lt;/em&gt;. In &lt;em&gt;S. chuatsi&lt;/em&gt;, the number of alleles per locus ranged from 2 to 8, and the observed and expected heterozygosities varied from 0.13 to 1.00 and from 0.33 to 0.85, respectively. In &lt;em&gt;S. scherzeri&lt;/em&gt;, the number of alleles per locus ranged from 3 to 9, and the observed and expected heterozygosities varied from 0.19 to 1.00 and from 0.28 to 0.88, respectively. We also evaluated the cross-amplification of 46 polymorphic loci in four species of sinipercine fishes: &lt;em&gt;Siniperca kneri&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Siniperca undulata&lt;/em&gt;, &lt;em&gt;Siniperca obscura&lt;/em&gt;, and &lt;em&gt;Coreoperca whiteheadi&lt;/em&gt;. The interspecies cross-amplification rate was very high, totaling 94% of the 184 locus/taxon combinations tested. These markers will be a valuable resource for population genetic studies in sinipercine fishes

Experimental Study of Surface Roughness of Pine Wood by High-Speed Milling

The surface roughness of wood has a great influence on its performance and is a very important indicator in processing and manufacturing. In this paper, we use the central composite design experiment (CCD experiment) and artificial neural network (ANN) model to study the changing pattern of surface roughness during the high-speed milling process of pine wood. In the CCD experiments, the spindle speed, feed speed, and depth of cut are used as the influencing factors, and the surface roughness is used as the index to analyze the variation law and fit the surface roughness parameter equation. By measuring the chip size in each group in the CCD experiment, the ANN model is used to predict the surface roughness under this machining parameter by measuring the chip size in each test group. The experimental results showed that the mean error of the surface roughness prediction values in the CCD experiment (12.2%) was larger than that of the ANN model (7.8%), and the mean squared error (MSE) of the ANN model was 0.025, the mean absolute percentage error(MAPE) was 0.01, and the coefficient of determination R2 was 0.95. Compared with the CCD experiment, the ANN model had a higher prediction accuracy. The results of this paper can provide some guidance for the prediction of surface roughness during wood processing