First foods and gut microbes

The establishment of the human gut microbiota in early life has been associated with later health and disease. During the 1st months after birth, the microbial composition in the gut is known to be affected by the mode of delivery, use of antibiotics, geographical location and type of feeding (breast/formula). Consequently, the neonatal period and early infancy has attracted much attention. However, after this first period the gut microbial composition continues to develop until the age of 3 years, and these 1st years have been designated “a window of opportunity” for microbial modulation. The beginning and end of this window is currently debated, but it likely coincides with the complementary feeding period, marking the gradual transition from milk-based infant feeding to family diet usually occurring between 6 and 24 months. Furthermore, the ‘first 1000 days,’ i.e., the period from conception until age 2 years, are generally recognized to be of particular importance for the healthy development of children. While dietary changes are known to affect the adult gut microbiota, there is a gap in our knowledge on how the introduction of new dietary components into the diet of infants/young children affects the gut microbiota development. This perspective paper summarizes the currently very few studies addressing the effects of complementary diet on gut microbiota, and highlights the recent finding that transition to family foods greatly impacts the development of gut microbial diversity. Further, we discuss potential impacts on child health and the need for further studies on this important topic

Participatory location fingerprinting through stationary crowd in a public or commercial indoor environment

The training phase of indoor location fingerprinting has been traditionally performed by dedicated surveyors in a manner that is time and labour intensive. Crowdsourcing process is more efficient, but is impractical in public or commercial buildings because it requires occasional location fix provided explicitly by the participant, the availability of an indoor map for correlating the traces, and the existence of landmarks throughout the area. Here, we address these issues for the first time in this context by leveraging the existence of stationary crowd that have timetabled roles, such as desk-bound employees, lecturers and students. We propose a scalable and effortless positioning system in the context of a public/commercial building by using Wi-Fi sensor readings from its stationary occupants' smartphones combined with their timetabling information. Most significantly, the entropy concept of information theory is utilised to differentiate between good and spurious measurements in a manner that does not rely on the existence of known trusted users. Our analysis and experimental results show that, regardless of such participants' unpredictable behaviour, including not following their timetabling information, hiding their location or purposefully generating wrong data, our entropy-based filtering approach ensures the creation of a radio-map incrementally from their measurements. Its effectiveness is validated experimentally with two well-known machine learning algorithms

Probing Covalency in the UO3 Polymorphs by U M4 edge HR- XANES

Local atomic and electronic structure investigations of uranium trioxide (UO3) crystalline phases performed by the U M4 edge HR-XANES technique is presented. The experimental U M4 edge HR-XANES spectra of α-UO3, β-UO3 and γ-UO3 polymorphic phases are compared with spectra of uranate (CaU2O7) and uranyl (UO3•1-2(H2O)) compounds. We describe a finger print approach valuable for characterization of variations of U-O axial bond lengths. Theoretical calculations of spectra using full-multiple-scattering theory (FEFF9.6 code) are performed. We have tested and selected input parameters, which provide best agreement between experimental and calculated spectra

Bioenergy: Biofuel production on the margins

Productive agricultural land that could otherwise be used to produce much-needed food crops is being diverted towards grain-based ethanol production in both Europe and the United States, partly in response to government legislation. An alternative is to grow cellulosic crops on so-called marginal lands. An evaluation of the potential of marginal lands in the Midwestern United States to produce biofuel while mitigating direct greenhouse gas emissions now finds that they have the capacity to produce a significant amount of biofuel energy without the initial carbon debt and indirect land-use costs associated with food-based biofuels

Characterization of low pathogenic H5 subtype influenza viruses from Eurasia: Implications for the origin of highly pathogenic H5N1 viruses

Oral Presentations - Genetic and Antigenic EvolutionHighly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 viruses are now endemic in many Asian countries. The immediate precursor of these HPAI viruses was recognized as A/Goose/Guangdong/1/96 (Gs/Gd)-like H5N1 HPAI viruses first detected in Guangdong in 1996. However, precursors of the Gs/GD-like viruses and their subsequent reassortants have not been fully determined. Here we characterize low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) H5 subtype viruses isolated from poultry and migratory birds in southern China and Europe from the 1970s to the 2000s. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that Gs/GD-like virus was likely derived from an LPAI H5 virus in migratory birds. However, its variants arose from multiple reassortments between Gs/GD-like virus and viruses from migratory birds, or with those Eurasian viruses isolated in the 1970s. It is of note that unlike HPAI H5N1 viruses, those recent LPAI H5 viruses have not become established in aquatic or terrestrial poultry. Phylogenetic analyses revealed the dynamic nature of the influenza gene pool in Eurasia with repeated transmissions between the eastern and western extremities of the continent. The data also shows reassortment between influenza viruses from domestic and migratory birds in this region that has contributed to the expanded diversity of the influenza gene pool among poultry in Eurasia ...postprin

Chemico-calorimetric analysis of amorphous granules manufactured via continuous granulation process

The current study explores the first case of the implementation of solution calorimetry (SolCal) in order to determine the amorphous content of crystalline benzoyl-methoxy-methylindol-acetic acid (BMA)—a model poorly soluble drug, in the amorphous granules prepared via single-step continuous twin-screw dry granulations (TSG). Amorphous magnesium aluminometasilicate (Neusilin®) (US2) was used as a novel inorganic carrier via a TwinLab 10 mm twin-screw extruder. The BMA/US2 blends were processed at 180 °C and varying drug: carrier ratios of 1:4, 1:2.5 and 1:1 (w/w). Physico-chemical characterisation conducted via SEM, DSC and XRPD showed amorphous state of the drug in all granulated formulations. Reverse optical microscopy revealed a meso-porous structure of US2 in which the drug particles are adsorbed and/or entrapped within the porous network of the carrier. This phenomenon can be the underlying reason for the increase of the amorphous content in the extruded granules. Solution calorimetry (SolCal) study revealed amorphous content of the drug in all formulations quite precisely, whereas the dynamic vapour sorption (DVS) analysis complemented the results from SolCal. Furthermore, an attempt has been made for the first time to interrelate the findings from the SolCal to that of the release of the drug from the amorphous granules. It can be concluded that SolCal can be used as a novel technique to precisely quantify and interrelate the amorphous content to its physico-chemical performances such as drug release from the granulated formulations processed via TS