Mitigating Electromagnetic Noise When Using Low-Cost Devices in Industry 4.0

Transitioning toward Industry 4.0 requires major investment in devices and mechanisms enabling interconnectivity between people, machines, and processes. In this article, we present a low-cost system based on the Raspberry Pi platform to measure the overall equipment effectiveness (OEE) in real time, and we propose two filtering mechanisms for electromagnetic interferences (EMIs) to measure OEE accurately. The first EMI filtering mechanism is the database filter (DBF), which has been designed to record sealing signals accurately. The DBF works on the database by filtering erroneous signals that have been inserted in it. The second mechanism is the smart coded filter (SCF), which is used to filter erroneous signals associated with machine availability measurements. We have validated our proposal in several production lines in a food industry. The results show that our system works properly, and that it considerably reduces implementation costs compared with proprietary systems offering similar functions. After implementing the proposed system in actual industrial settings, the results show a mean error (ME) of -0.43% and a root mean square error (RMSE) of 4.85 in the sealing signals, and an error of 0% in the availability signal, thus enabling an accurate estimate of OEE

Characterization of the Plasmidic or Chromosomal cpe Gene and Metabolic Activities in Clostridium perfringens Isolates from Food in San Luis - Argentina

Food poisoning and non-food poisoning illnesses due to C. perfringens (by enterotoxin production) have been associated to chromosomal or plasmidic location of the cpe gene, respectively. Clostridial pathogenicity has been correlated to protease and azoreductase production.The aim of this work was: i) to assess the sanitary-hygienic quality of dehydrated soups (100 samples) consumed in San Luis – Argentina; ii) to verify the presence of C. perfringens in these food products using the "Most Probable Number" method (MPN) and plate-counting methods; iii) to characterise enterotoxigenicity in strain isolates by RPLA; iv) to determine the chromosomal or plasmidic location of the cpe gene in enterotoxigenic strains previously isolated from food in our lab, using PCR; v) to correlate chromosomal cpe and spore heat-resistance; vi) to compare protease activity in cpe+ and cpe– strains; and vii) to compare azoreductase activity in cpe+ and cpe– strains. Twenty-six isolates had a count a 3–43 bacteria g-1 count using MPN; 7.7% exceeded the Argentine Food Code (CAA) limit. All isolates showed protease activity: enterotoxigenic isolates had higher protease activity than non-enterotoxigenic isolates. All isolates showed azoreductase activity: enterotoxigenic isolates had higher activity and shorter reducing times. Enterotoxigenic isolates showed chromosomal location for the gene responsible for the enterotoxin.Fil: Corigliano, Mariana Georgina. Universidad Nacional de San Luis; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: de Guzmán, Ana María Stefanini. Universidad Nacional de San Luis; ArgentinaFil: Stagnitta, Patricia Virginia. Universidad Nacional de San Luis; Argentin

Larval development of the pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi Manning, 1993 (Decapoda, Pinnotheridae) using plankton-collected and laboratory-reared specimens: effects of temperature

The aim of this study was to assess the effect of temperature on the survival and duration of larval development in the African pea crab Afropinnotheres monodi, as well as to describe its larval stages. We studied larvae reared in the laboratory and also specimens collected from plankton from the Gulf of Cádiz at two different temperatures. According to the results of this study, larval development of A. monodi involves four zoea stages and one megalopa and lasts around 25 days at 25°C, and longer than 40 days at 19°C. Such a temperature-related duration of this dispersive phase may be causing a higher recruitment to parental populations during the summer, but a higher dispersal to new locations during the rest of the year, a seasonal pattern of dispersion which could favour the successful expansion of this non-native species into European waters. The identification of both larval phases from plankton samples and adult specimens was carried out using morphological characters and molecular techniques. Both the 16S mtDNA sequences of this species, now available in GenBank, and the larval descriptions provided by this study could help to establish an early alert for the detection of this African species in its northward expansion

GenomeChronicler: The Personal Genome Project UK Genomic Report Generator Pipeline

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in whole genome sequencing data of individual genomes produced by research projects as well as direct to consumer service providers. While many of these sources provide their users with an interpretation of the data, there is a lack of free, open tools for generating reports exploring the data in an easy to understand manner. GenomeChronicler was developed as part of the Personal Genome Project UK (PGP-UK) to address this need. PGP-UK provides genomic, transcriptomic, epigenomic and self-reported phenotypic data under an open-access model with full ethical approval. As a result, the reports generated by GenomeChronicler are intended for research purposes only and include information relating to potentially beneficial and potentially harmful variants, but without clinical curation. GenomeChronicler can be used with data from whole genome or whole exome sequencing, producing a genome report containing information on variant statistics, ancestry and known associated phenotypic traits. Example reports are available from the PGP-UK data page (personalgenomes.org.uk/data). The objective of this method is to leverage existing resources to find known phenotypes associated with the genotypes detected in each sample. The provided trait data is based primarily upon information available in SNPedia, but also collates data from ClinVar, GETevidence, and gnomAD to provide additional details on potential health implications, presence of genotype in other PGP participants and population frequency of each genotype. The analysis can be run in a self-contained environment without requiring internet access, making it a good choice for cases where privacy is essential or desired: any third party project can embed GenomeChronicler within their off-line safe-haven environments. GenomeChronicler can be run for one sample at a time, or in parallel making use of the Nextflow workflow manager. The source code is available from GitHub (https://github.com/PGP-UK/GenomeChronicler), container recipes are available for Docker and Singularity, as well as a pre-built container from SingularityHub (https://singularity-hub.org/collections/3664) enabling easy deployment in a variety of settings. Users without access to computational resources to run GenomeChronicler can access the software from the Lifebit CloudOS platform (https://lifebit.ai/cloudos) enabling the production of reports and variant calls from raw sequencing data in a scalable fashion

Generation of a Cancer Testis Antigen Mcherry Reporter Hct116 Colorectal Carcinoma Cell Line

In the context of cancer immunotherapy, agents that target the immune system to cancer cells need to fulfil two criteria: 1) that they are only expressed on the desired target cell and 2) that they can elicit a potent immunological response. Cancer Testis Antigens are a large disparate family of factors ordinarily expressed in the germ-line but aberrantly expressed across multiple types of cancer. The ability to enforce their expression on tumour cells is an attractive strategy that could render such cells potent targets of the immune system, but very little is known about their regulation. We describe the generation of an mCherry reporter cell line using HCT116 colorectal carcinoma cells that we anticipate will be useful for screen-based approaches to identify novel regulators of CTA expression. Discoveries arising from their use could in future be exploited to enhance tumour cell immunogenicity and improve cancer immuno-therapy

Morphology of the megalopa of the mud crab, Rhithropanopeus harrisii (Gould, 1841) (Decapoda, Brachyura, Panopeidae), identified by DNA barcode.

The morphology of the megalopa stage of the panopeid Rhithropanopeus harrisii is redescribed and illustrated in detail from plankton specimens identified by DNA barcode (16S mtDNA) as previous descriptions do not meet the current standard of brachyuran larval description. Several morphological characters vary widely from those of other panopeid species which could cast some doubt on the species’ placement in the same family. Besides, some anomalous megalopae of R. harrisii were found among specimens reared at the laboratory from zoeae collected in the plankton. These anomalous morphological features are discussed in terms of problems associated with laboratory rearing conditions

Epicrania fugax with backward radiation: clinical characteristics of nine new cases

Epicrania fugax (EF) is a novel syndrome, described as a paroxysmal and brief head pain, starting in posterior cranial regions and rapidly spreading forward ipsilateral eye, nose or forehead. Two patients with comparable clinical features stemming from frontal scalp to ipsilateral posterior regions have been recently described and proposed as backward radiation epicrania fugax (BREF). We report a new series of nine BREF and compare their clinical characteristics with 18 forward radiation EF (FREF). Since first description of BREF in February 2010 we have assessed nine patients (four males, five females) with this clinical picture at an outpatient headache office in a Tertiary Hospital. Comparison is established with 18 FREF patients (6 males, 12 females), attended since the publication of first series of EF in March 2008. We found no differences between BREF and FREF, respectively, in age at onset (43.4 ± 13.1 vs. 42.5 ± 17.7 years), female/male ratio (5/4 vs. 12/6), pain intensity (6.9 ± 2.1 vs. 6.8 ± 2.1 in a 0–10 visual analogical scale), duration (7.1 ± 4.9 vs. 5.7 ± 4.3 s) and frequency of episodes per day (7 ± 8.4 vs. 9.9 ± 15.4). Patients in BREF group presented less frequently interictal pain in stemming point (22.2 vs. 55.5%) and accompanying autonomic signs (33.3 vs. 55.5%), but without statistical significance in both the cases. This series reinforces the proposal of EF as a new headache variant or a new headache syndrome. Clinical picture of brief pain paroxysms starting in the anterior scalp and radiating backwards does not fit known headaches or neuralgias and might correspond to a reverse variant of EF, clinical characteristics of which are comparable to FREF