Exploring 4D Quantum Hall Physics with a 2D Topological Charge Pump

The discovery of topological states of matter has profoundly augmented our understanding of phase transitions in physical systems. Instead of local order parameters, topological phases are described by global topological invariants and are therefore robust against perturbations. A prominent example thereof is the two-dimensional integer quantum Hall effect. It is characterized by the first Chern number which manifests in the quantized Hall response induced by an external electric field. Generalizing the quantum Hall effect to four-dimensional systems leads to the appearance of a novel non-linear Hall response that is quantized as well, but described by a 4D topological invariant - the second Chern number. Here, we report on the first observation of a bulk response with intrinsic 4D topology and the measurement of the associated second Chern number. By implementing a 2D topological charge pump with ultracold bosonic atoms in an angled optical superlattice, we realize a dynamical version of the 4D integer quantum Hall effect. Using a small atom cloud as a local probe, we fully characterize the non-linear response of the system by in-situ imaging and site-resolved band mapping. Our findings pave the way to experimentally probe higher-dimensional quantum Hall systems, where new topological phases with exotic excitations are predicted

Moderate and heavy metabolic stress interval training improve arterial stiffness and heart rate dynamics in humans

Traditional continuous aerobic exercise training attenuates age-related increases of arterial stiffness, however, training studies have not determined whether metabolic stress impacts these favourable effects. Twenty untrained healthy participants (n = 11 heavy metabolic stress interval training, n = 9 moderate metabolic stress interval training) completed 6 weeks of moderate or heavy intensity interval training matched for total work and exercise duration. Carotid artery stiffness, blood pressure contour analysis, and linear and non-linear heart rate variability were assessed before and following training. Overall, carotid arterial stiffness was reduced (p  0.05). This study demonstrates the effectiveness of interval training at improving arterial stiffness and autonomic function, however, the metabolic stress was not a mediator of this effect. In addition, these changes were also independent of improvements in aerobic capacity, which were only induced by training that involved a high metabolic stress

Implementing The Prison Rape Elimination Act: A Toolkit for Jails

Minor edits. “The goal of this Toolkit is to provide jails of all sizes, political divisions, and geographic locations with a step-by-step guide for preventing, detecting, and eliminating sexual abuse of inmates in their custody – and for responding effectively to abuse when it occurs. Prison rape includes all forms of inmate sexual abuse within a correctional facility, including state and federal prisons, county and municipal jails, police lock-ups, holding facilities, inmate transportation vehicles, juvenile detention facilities, and community corrections facilities. Protecting arrestees, detainees, and inmates from sexual violence is part of a jail’s core mission. This toolkit will help assess your jail’s operations with an eye to improvements.” The Toolkit is divided into folders holding materials related to: introductory information about PREA [Prison Rape Elimination Act] and it Standards; a Self-Assessment Checklist with supporting forms “to provide a step-by-step process for jails to review and assess policies, procedures, and practices in light of the PREA Standards and accepted best practices”; and additional resources to assist you in PREA-readiness

The effects of upper and lower limb exercise on the microvascular reactivity in limited cutaneous systemic sclerosis patients

Background: Aerobic exercise in general and high intensity interval training (HIIT) specifically is known to improve vascular function in a range of clinical conditions. HIIT in particular has demonstrated improvements in clinical outcomes, in conditions that have a strong macroangiopathic component. Nevertheless, the effect of HIIT on microcirculation in systemic sclerosis (SSc) patients is yet to be investigated. Therefore, the purpose of the study was to compare the effects of two HIIT protocols (cycle and arm cranking) on the microcirculation of the digital area in SSc patients. Methods: Thirty four limited cutaneous SSc patients (65.3 ± 11.6 years old) were randomly allocated in three groups (cycling, arm cranking and control group). The exercise groups underwent a twelve-week exercise program twice per week. All patients performed the baseline and post-exercise intervention measurements where physical fitness, functional ability, transcutaneous oxygen tension (ΔtcpO2), body composition and quality of life were assessed. Endothelial-dependent as well as-independent vasodilation were assessed in the middle and index fingers using LDF and incremental doses of acetylcholine (ACh) and sodium nitroprusside (SNP). Cutaneous flux data were expressed as cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC). Results: Peak oxygen uptake increased in both exercise groups (p<0.01, d=1.36). ΔtcpO2 demonstrated an increase in the arm cranking group only, with a large effect, but not found statistically significant,(p=0.59, d=0.93). Endothelial-dependent vasodilation improvement was greater in the arm cranking (p<0.05, d=1.07) in comparison to other groups. Both exercise groups improved life satisfaction (p<0.001) as well as reduced discomfort and pain due to Raynaud's phenomenon (p<0.05). Arm cranking seems to be the preferred mode of exercise for study participants as compared to cycling (p<0.05). No changes were observed in the body composition or the functional ability in both exercise groups. Conclusion: Our results suggest that arm cranking has the potential to improve the microvascular endothelial function in SSc patients. Also notably, our recommended training dose (e.g., a 12-week HIIT program, twice per week), appeared to be sufficient and tolerable for this population. Future research should focus on exploring the feasibility of a combined exercise such as aerobic and resistance training by assessing individual's experience and the quality of life in SSc patients. Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT number): NCT03058887, February 23, 2017, https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT03058887?term=NCT03058887&rank=1 Key words: High intensity interval training, vascular function, quality of lif

TRY plant trait database - enhanced coverage and open access

Plant traits-the morphological, anatomical, physiological, biochemical and phenological characteristics of plants-determine how plants respond to environmental factors, affect other trophic levels, and influence ecosystem properties and their benefits and detriments to people. Plant trait data thus represent the basis for a vast area of research spanning from evolutionary biology, community and functional ecology, to biodiversity conservation, ecosystem and landscape management, restoration, biogeography and earth system modelling. Since its foundation in 2007, the TRY database of plant traits has grown continuously. It now provides unprecedented data coverage under an open access data policy and is the main plant trait database used by the research community worldwide. Increasingly, the TRY database also supports new frontiers of trait-based plant research, including the identification of data gaps and the subsequent mobilization or measurement of new data. To support this development, in this article we evaluate the extent of the trait data compiled in TRY and analyse emerging patterns of data coverage and representativeness. Best species coverage is achieved for categorical traits-almost complete coverage for 'plant growth form'. However, most traits relevant for ecology and vegetation modelling are characterized by continuous intraspecific variation and trait-environmental relationships. These traits have to be measured on individual plants in their respective environment. Despite unprecedented data coverage, we observe a humbling lack of completeness and representativeness of these continuous traits in many aspects. We, therefore, conclude that reducing data gaps and biases in the TRY database remains a key challenge and requires a coordinated approach to data mobilization and trait measurements. This can only be achieved in collaboration with other initiatives

Characterization of an Enantioselective Odorant Receptor in the Yellow Fever Mosquito Aedes aegypti

Enantiomers differ only in the left or right handedness (chirality) of their orientations and exhibit identical chemical and physical properties. In chemical communication systems, enantiomers can be differentially active at the physiological and behavioral levels. Only recently were enantioselective odorant receptors demonstrated in mammals while their existence in insects has remained hypothetical. Using the two-microelectrode voltage clamp of Xenopus oocytes, we show that the yellow fever mosquito, Aedes aegypti, odorant receptor 8 (AaOR8) acts as a chiral selective receptor for the (R)-(—)-enantiomer of 1-octen-3-ol, which in the presence of other kairomones is an attractant used by blood-sucking insects to locate their hosts. In addition to steric constraints, chain length and degree of unsaturation play important roles in this recognition process. This is the first characterization of an enantioselective odorant receptor in insects and the results demonstrate that an OR alone, without helper proteins, can account for chiral specificity exhibited by olfactory sensory neurons (OSNs)

Glutamate, GABA and Acetylcholine Signaling Components in the Lamina of the Drosophila Visual System

Synaptic connections of neurons in the Drosophila lamina, the most peripheral synaptic region of the visual system, have been comprehensively described. Although the lamina has been used extensively as a model for the development and plasticity of synaptic connections, the neurotransmitters in these circuits are still poorly known. Thus, to unravel possible neurotransmitter circuits in the lamina of Drosophila we combined Gal4 driven green fluorescent protein in specific lamina neurons with antisera to γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), glutamic acid decarboxylase, a GABAB type of receptor, L-glutamate, a vesicular glutamate transporter (vGluT), ionotropic and metabotropic glutamate receptors, choline acetyltransferase and a vesicular acetylcholine transporter. We suggest that acetylcholine may be used as a neurotransmitter in both L4 monopolar neurons and a previously unreported type of wide-field tangential neuron (Cha-Tan). GABA is the likely transmitter of centrifugal neurons C2 and C3 and GABAB receptor immunoreactivity is seen on these neurons as well as the Cha-Tan neurons. Based on an rdl-Gal4 line, the ionotropic GABAA receptor subunit RDL may be expressed by L4 neurons and a type of tangential neuron (rdl-Tan). Strong vGluT immunoreactivity was detected in α-processes of amacrine neurons and possibly in the large monopolar neurons L1 and L2. These neurons also express glutamate-like immunoreactivity. However, antisera to ionotropic and metabotropic glutamate receptors did not produce distinct immunosignals in the lamina. In summary, this paper describes novel features of two distinct types of tangential neurons in the Drosophila lamina and assigns putative neurotransmitters and some receptors to a few identified neuron types

Broad Spectrum Antiviral Activity of Favipiravir (T-705): Protection from Highly Lethal Inhalational Rift Valley Fever

Background:Development of antiviral drugs that have broad-spectrum activity against a number of viral infections would be of significant benefit. Due to the evolution of resistance to currently licensed antiviral drugs, development of novel anti-influenza drugs is in progress, including Favipiravir (T-705), which is currently in human clinical trials. T-705 displays broad-spectrum in vitro activity against a number of viruses, including Rift Valley Fever virus (RVFV). RVF is an important neglected tropical disease that causes human, agricultural, and economic losses in endemic regions. RVF has the capacity to emerge in new locations and also presents a potential bioterrorism threat. In the current study, the in vivo efficacy of T-705 was evaluated in Wistar-Furth rats infected with the virulent ZH501 strain of RVFV by the aerosol route.Methodology/Principal Findings:Wistar-Furth rats are highly susceptible to a rapidly lethal disease after parenteral or inhalational exposure to the pathogenic ZH501 strain of RVFV. In the current study, two experiments were performed: a dose-determination study and a delayed-treatment study. In both experiments, all untreated control rats succumbed to disease. Out of 72 total rats infected with RVFV and treated with T-705, only 6 succumbed to disease. The remaining 66 rats (92%) survived lethal infection with no significant weight loss or fever. The 6 treated rats that succumbed survived significantly longer before succumbing to encephalitic disease.Conclusions/Significance:Currently, there are no licensed antiviral drugs for treating RVF. Here, T-705 showed remarkable efficacy in a highly lethal rat model of Rift Valley Fever, even when given up to 48 hours post-infection. This is the first study to show protection of rats infected with the pathogenic ZH501 strain of RVFV. Our data suggest that T-705 has potential to be a broad-spectrum antiviral drug. © 2014 Caroline et al

Improving phylogeny reconstruction at the strain level using peptidome datasets

Typical bacterial strain differentiation methods are often challenged by high genetic similarity between strains. To address this problem, we introduce a novel in silico peptide fingerprinting method based on conventional wet-lab protocols that enables the identification of potential strain-specific peptides. These can be further investigated using in vitro approaches, laying a foundation for the development of biomarker detection and application-specific methods. This novel method aims at reducing large amounts of comparative peptide data to binary matrices while maintaining a high phylogenetic resolution. The underlying case study concerns the Bacillus cereus group, namely the differentiation of Bacillus thuringiensis, Bacillus anthracis and Bacillus cereus strains. Results show that trees based on cytoplasmic and extracellular peptidomes are only marginally in conflict with those based on whole proteomes, as inferred by the established Genome-BLAST Distance Phylogeny (GBDP) method. Hence, these results indicate that the two approaches can most likely be used complementarily even in other organismal groups. The obtained results confirm previous reports about the misclassification of many strains within the B. cereus group. Moreover, our method was able to separate the B. anthracis strains with high resolution, similarly to the GBDP results as benchmarked via Bayesian inference and both Maximum Likelihood and Maximum Parsimony. In addition to the presented phylogenomic applications, whole-peptide fingerprinting might also become a valuable complementary technique to digital DNA-DNA hybridization, notably for bacterial classification at the species and subspecies level in the future.This research was funded by Grant AGL2013-44039-R from the Spanish “Plan Estatal de I+D+I”, and by Grant EM2014/046 from the “Plan Galego de investigación, innovación e crecemento 2011-2015”. BS was recipient of a Ramón y Cajal postdoctoral contractfrom the Spanish Ministry of Economyand Competitiveness. This work was also partially funded by the [14VI05] Contract-Programme from the University of Vigo and the Agrupamento INBIOMED from DXPCTSUG-FEDER unha maneira de facer Europa (2012/273).The research leading to these results has also received funding from the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme FP7/REGPOT-2012-2013.1 under grant agreement n˚ 316265, BIOCAPS. This document reflects only the authors’ views and the European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained herein. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript