Interactions of Bacillus Mojavensis and Fusarium Verticillioides With a Benzoxazolinone (Boa) and Its Transformation Product, Apo

En:Journal of Chemical Ecology (2007, vol. 33, n. 10, p. 1885-1897)The benzoxazolinones, specifically benzoxazolin-2(3H)-one (BOA), are important transformation products of the benzoxazinones that can serve as allelochemicals providing resistance to maize from pathogenic bacteria, fungi, and insects. However, maize pathogens such as Fusarium verticillioides are capable of detoxifying the benzoxazolinones to 2-aminophenol (AP), which is converted to the less toxic N-(2-hydroxyphenyl) malonamic acid (HPMA) and 2-acetamidophenol (HPAA). As biocontrol strategies that utilize a species of endophytic bacterium, Bacillus mojavensis, are considered efficacious as a control of this Fusarium species, the in vitro transformation and effects of BOA on growth of this bacterium was examined relative to its interaction with strains of F. verticillioides. The results showed that a red pigment was produced and accumulated only on BOA-amended media when wild type and the progeny of genetic crosses of F. verticillioides are cultured in the presence of the bacterium. The pigment was identified as 2-amino-3H-phenoxazin-3-one (APO), which is a stable product. The results indicate that the bacterium interacts with the fungus preventing the usual transformation of AP to the nontoxic HPMA, resulting in the accumulation of higher amounts of APO than when the fungus is cultured alone. APO is highly toxic to F. verticillioides and other organisms. Thus, an enhanced biocontrol is suggested by this in vitro study. =580 $aEn:Journal of Chemical Ecolog

Host-microbiome interactionsin human type 2 diabetes following prebiotic fibre (galactooligosaccharide) intake

Aberrant microbiota composition and function have been linked to several pathologies, including type 2 diabetes. In animal models, prebiotics induce favourable changes in the intestinal microbiota, intestinal permeability (IP) and endotoxaemia, which are linked to concurrent improvement in glucose tolerance. This is the first study to investigate the link between IP, glucose tolerance and intestinal bacteria in human type 2 diabetes. In all, twenty-nine men with well-controlled type 2 diabetes were randomised to a prebiotic (galacto-oligosaccharide mixture) or placebo (maltodextrin) supplement (5·5 g/d for 12 weeks). Intestinal microbial community structure, IP, endotoxaemia, inflammatory markers and glucose tolerance were assessed at baseline and post intervention. IP was estimated by the urinary recovery of oral 51Cr-EDTA and glucose tolerance by insulin-modified intravenous glucose tolerance test. Intestinal microbial community analysis was performed by high-throughput next-generation sequencing of 16S rRNA amplicons and quantitative PCR. Prebiotic fibre supplementation had no significant effects on clinical outcomes or bacterial abundances compared with placebo; however, changes in the bacterial family Veillonellaceae correlated inversely with changes in glucose response and IL-6 levels (r −0·90, P=0·042 for both) following prebiotic intake. The absence of significant changes to the microbial community structure at a prebiotic dosage/length of supplementation shown to be effective in healthy individuals is an important finding. We propose that concurrent metformin treatment and the high heterogeneity of human type 2 diabetes may have played a significant role. The current study does not provide evidence for the role of prebiotics in the treatment of type 2 diabetes

Spirit, mind and body: the archaeology of monastic healing

Archaeology and material culture are used in this chapter to consider how monastic experience responded to illness, ageing and disability. The approach taken is influenced by the material study of religion, which interrogates how bodies and things engage to construct the sensory experience of religion, and by practice-based approaches in archaeology, which examine the active role of space and material culture in shaping religious agency and embodiment. The archaeology of monastic healing focuses on the full spectrum of healing technologies, from managing the body in order to prevent illness, through to the treatment of the sick and preparation of the corpse for burial

The Black Aspergillus Species of Maize and Peanuts and Their Potential for Mycotoxin Production

The black spored fungi of the subgenera Circumdata, the section Nigri (=Aspergillus niger group) is reviewed relative to their production of mycotoxins and their effects on plants as pathogens. Molecular methods have revealed more than 18 cryptic species, of which several have been characterized as potential mycotoxin producers. Others are defined as benign relative to their ability to produce mycotoxins. However, these characterizations are based on in vitro culture and toxins production. Several can produce the ochratoxins that are toxic to livestock, poultry, and humans. The black aspergilli produce rots of grapes, maize, and numerous other fruits and grain and they are generally viewed as post-harvest pathogens. Data are review to suggest that black aspergilli, as so many others, are symptomless endophytes. These fungi and their mycotoxins contaminate several major grains, foodstuffs, and products made from them such as wine, and coffee. Evidence is presented that the black aspergilli are producers of other classes of mycotoxins such as the fumonisins, which are known carcinogenic and known prior investigations as being produced by the Fusarium species. Three species are identified in U.S. maize and peanuts as symptomless endophytes, which suggests the potential for concern as pathogens and as food safety hazards

RNase L Mediated Protection from Virus Induced Demyelination

IFN-α/β plays a critical role in limiting viral spread, restricting viral tropism and protecting mice from neurotropic coronavirus infection. However, the IFN-α/β dependent mechanisms underlying innate anti-viral functions within the CNS are poorly understood. The role of RNase L in viral encephalomyelitis was explored based on its functions in inhibiting translation, inducing apoptosis, and propagating the IFN-α/β pathway through RNA degradation intermediates. Infection of RNase L deficient (RL−/−) mice with a sub-lethal, demyelinating mouse hepatitis virus variant revealed that the majority of mice succumbed to infection by day 12 p.i. However, RNase L deficiency did not affect overall control of infectious virus, or diminish IFN-α/β expression in the CNS. Furthermore, increased morbidity and mortality could not be attributed to altered proinflammatory signals or composition of cells infiltrating the CNS. The unique phenotype of infected RL−/− mice was rather manifested in earlier onset and increased severity of demyelination and axonal damage in brain stem and spinal cord without evidence for enhanced neuronal infection. Increased tissue damage coincided with sustained brain stem infection, foci of microglia infection in grey matter, and increased apoptotic cells. These data demonstrate a novel protective role for RNase L in viral induced CNS encephalomyelitis, which is not reflected in overall viral control or propagation of IFN-α/β mediated signals. Protective function is rather associated with cell type specific and regional restriction of viral replication in grey matter and ameliorated neurodegeneration and demyelination

Population and Australia's future labour force

In the next 20 years, the only potential sources of increases in labour supply are increased labour force participation rates and immigration. While the Australian government is attempting to increase participation, the impacts of this policy, highly desirable as they are where they are the result of improved work choices, are likely to be small compared to labour requirements. Also, those currently projected to be out of the labour force in the future, but who might be induced into the labour force, will not necessarily provide a good match to the required skills. The logical conclusion from the above discussion is that Australia’s future requirements for labour will drive increases in demand for sustained and growing immigration. Australia has already embarked on this pathway. Preliminary net overseas migration for the year ended 30 June 2007 was 177,600 persons, the highest annual level ever recorded. In recent years, employers have reacted to labour shortages in their industries by calling for increased levels of immigration and the government has responded by increasing the official settler program intake and increasing opportunities for temporary entry for employment purposes. To maintain labour force growth at one per cent per annum, net migration would have to rise to 227,000 by 2021. Three particular questions arise from the likelihood of an increased demand for immigrant workers: • What measures need to be taken to ensure that Australian social and economic institutions can adapt to larger numbers of immigrants? • What skill levels and skill types will be required to meet future labour requirements? • Are current immigration policies adequate for the recruitment of larger numbers of immigrants

A two-phase recovery mechanism

Superscalar processors take advantage of speculative execution to improve performance. When the speculation turns out to be incorrect, a recovery procedure is initiated. The back-end of the processor cannot be flushed due to having a mixture of both valid and invalid instructions. A basic solution is to wait for all valid instructions to retire and then purge the invalid instructions. However, if a long latency operation, such as a Last-level Cache (LLC) miss appears before the misspeculation point, the back-end recovery time significantly increases. Many proposed mechanisms selectively flush invalid instructions in order to speed up the back-end recovery. In general, these mechanisms rely on broadcasting some misprediction related tags to remove the instructions from any backend structures, such as ROB, LSQ, RS, etc. The hardware overhead in these mechanisms is nontrivial and can potentially affect the processor clock cycle time if they are on the critical path. Moreover, a checkpointing mechanism or a walker needs to be added to accelerate the recovery of the front-end register alias table (F-RAT). We propose a two-phase recovery mechanism which does not need any walking or broadcasting process and can still match the performance of the state-of-the-art recovery approaches. The first phase works similar to a typical basic recovery mechanism and the second phase is not triggered until the backend is stalled by an LLC miss load. In that case, the second phase treats the load as a misspeculation and recovers from this load. Since the LLC miss response time is usually much longer than the time to fill the entire pipeline with new instructions, in most cases our mechanism can completely overlap the branch misprediction recovery penalty with the cache miss penalty

The influence of rare earth mercaptoacetate on the initiation of corrosion on AA2024-T3 Part I: average statistics of each intermetallic composition

De-alloying of S-phase in AA2024-T3 in the presence chlorides, is well-known. However, it is unclear how rare earth mercaptoacetate inhibitors affect this process when immersed in a 0.1. M NaCl solution. This paper analyses data obtained using EPMA on AA2024-T3 surfaces before and after a 16. min immersion period. Cerium and praseodymium mercaptoacetate inhibited the de-alloying process of S-phase particles. Although no significant change in composition was observed for cathodic intermetallics, each appeared to participate in local corrosion reactions as evidenced by the development of surface oxides. Clustering between S-phase and one of the Cu-containing intermetallic domains was also evident